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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Desperate Remedies, by Thomas Hardy
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Desperate Remedies
+
+Author: Thomas Hardy
+
+Release Date: November 2000 [EBook #3044]
+Posting Date: May 25, 2009 
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DESPERATE REMEDIES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Les Bowler
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+DESPERATE REMEDIES
+
+
+By Thomas Hardy
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+PREFATORY NOTE
+
+     I.     THE EVENTS OF THIRTY YEARS
+     II.    THE EVENTS OF A FORTNIGHT
+     III.   THE EVENTS OF EIGHT DAYS
+     IV.    THE EVENTS OF ONE DAY
+     V.     THE EVENTS OF ONE DAY
+     VI.    THE EVENTS OF TWELVE HOURS
+     VII.   THE EVENTS OF EIGHTEEN DAYS
+     VIII.  THE EVENTS OF EIGHTEEN DAYS
+     IX.    THE EVENTS OF TEN WEEKS
+     X.     THE EVENTS OF A DAY AND NIGHT
+     XI.    THE EVENTS OF FIVE DAYS
+     XII.   THE EVENTS OF TEN MONTHS
+     XIII.  THE EVENTS OF ONE DAY
+     XIV.   THE EVENTS OF FIVE WEEKS
+     XV.    THE EVENTS OF THREE WEEKS
+     XVI.   THE EVENTS OF ONE WEEK
+     XVII.  THE EVENTS OF ONE DAY
+     XVIII. THE EVENTS OF THREE DAYS
+     XIX.   THE EVENTS OF A DAY AND NIGHT
+     XX.    THE EVENTS OF THREE HOURS
+     XXI.   THE EVENTS OF EIGHTEEN HOURS
+            SEQUEL
+
+
+
+
+PREFATORY NOTE
+
+The following story, the first published by the author, was written
+nineteen years ago, at a time when he was feeling his way to a
+method. The principles observed in its composition are, no doubt, too
+exclusively those in which mystery, entanglement, surprise, and moral
+obliquity are depended on for exciting interest; but some of the scenes,
+and at least one of the characters, have been deemed not unworthy of a
+little longer preservation; and as they could hardly be reproduced in a
+fragmentary form the novel is reissued complete--the more readily that
+it has for some considerable time been reprinted and widely circulated
+in America. January 1889.
+
+To the foregoing note I have only to add that, in the present edition of
+'Desperate Remedies,' some Wessex towns and other places that are common
+to the scenes of several of these stories have been called for the
+first time by the names under which they appear elsewhere, for the
+satisfaction of any reader who may care for consistency in such matters.
+
+This is the only material change; for, as it happened that certain
+characteristics which provoked most discussion in my latest story were
+present in this my first--published in 1871, when there was no French
+name for them it has seemed best to let them stand unaltered.
+
+T.H. February 1896.
+
+
+
+
+I. THE EVENTS OF THIRTY YEARS
+
+1. DECEMBER AND JANUARY, 1835-36
+
+In the long and intricately inwrought chain of circumstance which
+renders worthy of record some experiences of Cytherea Graye, Edward
+Springrove, and others, the first event directly influencing the issue
+was a Christmas visit.
+
+In the above-mentioned year, 1835, Ambrose Graye, a young architect who
+had just begun the practice of his profession in the midland town of
+Hocbridge, to the north of Christminster, went to London to spend the
+Christmas holidays with a friend who lived in Bloomsbury. They had
+gone up to Cambridge in the same year, and, after graduating together,
+Huntway, the friend, had taken orders.
+
+Graye was handsome, frank, and gentle. He had a quality of thought
+which, exercised on homeliness, was humour; on nature, picturesqueness;
+on abstractions, poetry. Being, as a rule, broadcast, it was all three.
+
+Of the wickedness of the world he was too forgetful. To discover evil in
+a new friend is to most people only an additional experience: to him it
+was ever a surprise.
+
+While in London he became acquainted with a retired officer in the
+Navy named Bradleigh, who, with his wife and their daughter, lived in
+a street not far from Russell Square. Though they were in no more than
+comfortable circumstances, the captain's wife came of an ancient family
+whose genealogical tree was interlaced with some of the most illustrious
+and well-known in the kingdom.
+
+The young lady, their daughter, seemed to Graye by far the most
+beautiful and queenly being he had ever beheld. She was about nineteen
+or twenty, and her name was Cytherea. In truth she was not so very
+unlike country girls of that type of beauty, except in one respect.
+She was perfect in her manner and bearing, and they were not. A mere
+distinguishing peculiarity, by catching the eye, is often read as
+the pervading characteristic, and she appeared to him no less than
+perfection throughout--transcending her rural rivals in very nature.
+Graye did a thing the blissfulness of which was only eclipsed by its
+hazardousness. He loved her at first sight.
+
+His introductions had led him into contact with Cytherea and her parents
+two or three times on the first week of his arrival in London, and
+accident and a lover's contrivance brought them together as frequently
+the week following. The parents liked young Graye, and having few
+friends (for their equals in blood were their superiors in position), he
+was received on very generous terms. His passion for Cytherea grew not
+only strong, but ineffably exalted: she, without positively encouraging
+him, tacitly assented to his schemes for being near her. Her father and
+mother seemed to have lost all confidence in nobility of birth, without
+money to give effect to its presence, and looked upon the budding
+consequence of the young people's reciprocal glances with placidity, if
+not actual favour.
+
+Graye's whole impassioned dream terminated in a sad and unaccountable
+episode. After passing through three weeks of sweet experience, he had
+arrived at the last stage--a kind of moral Gaza--before plunging into an
+emotional desert. The second week in January had come round, and it was
+necessary for the young architect to leave town.
+
+Throughout his acquaintanceship with the lady of his heart there had
+been this marked peculiarity in her love: she had delighted in his
+presence as a sweetheart should do, yet from first to last she had
+repressed all recognition of the true nature of the thread which
+drew them together, blinding herself to its meaning and only natural
+tendency, and appearing to dread his announcement of them. The present
+seemed enough for her without cumulative hope: usually, even if love is
+in itself an end, it must be regarded as a beginning to be enjoyed.
+
+In spite of evasions as an obstacle, and in consequence of them as a
+spur, he would put the matter off no longer. It was evening. He took
+her into a little conservatory on the landing, and there among the
+evergreens, by the light of a few tiny lamps, infinitely enhancing the
+freshness and beauty of the leaves, he made the declaration of a love as
+fresh and beautiful as they.
+
+'My love--my darling, be my wife!'
+
+She seemed like one just awakened. 'Ah--we must part now!' she faltered,
+in a voice of anguish. 'I will write to you.' She loosened her hand and
+rushed away.
+
+In a wild fever Graye went home and watched for the next morning. Who
+shall express his misery and wonder when a note containing these words
+was put into his hand?
+
+'Good-bye; good-bye for ever. As recognized lovers something divides us
+eternally. Forgive me--I should have told you before; but your love was
+sweet! Never mention me.'
+
+That very day, and as it seemed, to put an end to a painful condition of
+things, daughter and parents left London to pay off a promised visit to
+a relative in a western county. No message or letter of entreaty could
+wring from her any explanation. She begged him not to follow her, and
+the most bewildering point was that her father and mother appeared, from
+the tone of a letter Graye received from them, as vexed and sad as he
+at this sudden renunciation. One thing was plain: without admitting her
+reason as valid, they knew what that reason was, and did not intend to
+reveal it.
+
+A week from that day Ambrose Graye left his friend Huntway's house
+and saw no more of the Love he mourned. From time to time his friend
+answered any inquiry Graye made by letter respecting her. But very poor
+food to a lover is intelligence of a mistress filtered through a friend.
+Huntway could tell nothing definitely. He said he believed there had
+been some prior flirtation between Cytherea and her cousin, an officer
+of the line, two or three years before Graye met her, which had suddenly
+been terminated by the cousin's departure for India, and the young
+lady's travelling on the Continent with her parents the whole of the
+ensuing summer, on account of delicate health. Eventually Huntway said
+that circumstances had rendered Graye's attachment more hopeless still.
+Cytherea's mother had unexpectedly inherited a large fortune and estates
+in the west of England by the rapid fall of some intervening lives. This
+had caused their removal from the small house in Bloomsbury, and, as it
+appeared, a renunciation of their old friends in that quarter.
+
+Young Graye concluded that his Cytherea had forgotten him and his love.
+But he could not forget her.
+
+2. FROM 1843 TO 1861
+
+Eight years later, feeling lonely and depressed--a man without
+relatives, with many acquaintances but no friends--Ambrose Graye met
+a young lady of a different kind, fairly endowed with money and good
+gifts. As to caring very deeply for another woman after the loss of
+Cytherea, it was an absolute impossibility with him. With all, the
+beautiful things of the earth become more dear as they elude pursuit;
+but with some natures utter elusion is the one special event which will
+make a passing love permanent for ever.
+
+This second young lady and Graye were married. That he did not, first
+or last, love his wife as he should have done, was known to all; but
+few knew that his unmanageable heart could never be weaned from useless
+repining at the loss of its first idol.
+
+His character to some extent deteriorated, as emotional constitutions
+will under the long sense of disappointment at having missed their
+imagined destiny. And thus, though naturally of a gentle and pleasant
+disposition, he grew to be not so tenderly regarded by his acquaintances
+as it is the lot of some of those persons to be. The winning and
+sanguine receptivity of his early life developed by degrees a moody
+nervousness, and when not picturing prospects drawn from baseless hope
+he was the victim of indescribable depression. The practical issue of
+such a condition was improvidence, originally almost an unconscious
+improvidence, for every debt incurred had been mentally paid off with a
+religious exactness from the treasures of expectation before mentioned.
+But as years revolved, the same course was continued from the lack of
+spirit sufficient for shifting out of an old groove when it has been
+found to lead to disaster.
+
+In the year 1861 his wife died, leaving him a widower with two children.
+The elder, a son named Owen, now just turned seventeen, was taken from
+school, and initiated as pupil to the profession of architect in his
+father's office. The remaining child was a daughter, and Owen's junior
+by a year.
+
+Her christian name was Cytherea, and it is easy to guess why.
+
+3. OCTOBER THE TWELFTH, 1863
+
+We pass over two years in order to reach the next cardinal event of
+these persons' lives. The scene is still the Grayes' native town of
+Hocbridge, but as it appeared on a Monday afternoon in the month of
+October.
+
+The weather was sunny and dry, but the ancient borough was to be seen
+wearing one of its least attractive aspects. First on account of the
+time. It was that stagnant hour of the twenty-four when the practical
+garishness of Day, having escaped from the fresh long shadows and
+enlivening newness of the morning, has not yet made any perceptible
+advance towards acquiring those mellow and soothing tones which grace
+its decline. Next, it was that stage in the progress of the week when
+business--which, carried on under the gables of an old country place,
+is not devoid of a romantic sparkle--was well-nigh extinguished. Lastly,
+the town was intentionally bent upon being attractive by exhibiting
+to an influx of visitors the local talent for dramatic recitation, and
+provincial towns trying to be lively are the dullest of dull things.
+
+Little towns are like little children in this respect, that they
+interest most when they are enacting native peculiarities unconscious
+of beholders. Discovering themselves to be watched they attempt to
+be entertaining by putting on an antic, and produce disagreeable
+caricatures which spoil them.
+
+The weather-stained clock-face in the low church tower standing at the
+intersection of the three chief streets was expressing half-past two
+to the Town Hall opposite, where the much talked-of reading from
+Shakespeare was about to begin. The doors were open, and those persons
+who had already assembled within the building were noticing the entrance
+of the new-comers--silently criticizing their dress--questioning the
+genuineness of their teeth and hair--estimating their private means.
+
+Among these later ones came an exceptional young maiden who glowed amid
+the dulness like a single bright-red poppy in a field of brown stubble.
+She wore an elegant dark jacket, lavender dress, hat with grey strings
+and trimmings, and gloves of a colour to harmonize. She lightly walked
+up the side passage of the room, cast a slight glance around, and
+entered the seat pointed out to her.
+
+The young girl was Cytherea Graye; her age was now about eighteen.
+During her entry, and at various times whilst sitting in her seat and
+listening to the reader on the platform, her personal appearance formed
+an interesting subject of study for several neighbouring eyes.
+
+Her face was exceedingly attractive, though artistically less perfect
+than her figure, which approached unusually near to the standard of
+faultlessness. But even this feature of hers yielded the palm to the
+gracefulness of her movement, which was fascinating and delightful to an
+extreme degree.
+
+Indeed, motion was her speciality, whether shown on its most extended
+scale of bodily progression, or minutely, as in the uplifting of
+her eyelids, the bending of her fingers, the pouting of her lip. The
+carriage of her head--motion within motion--a glide upon a glide--was
+as delicate as that of a magnetic needle. And this flexibility and
+elasticity had never been taught her by rule, nor even been acquired by
+observation, but, nullo cultu, had naturally developed itself with her
+years. In childhood, a stone or stalk in the way, which had been the
+inevitable occasion of a fall to her playmates, had usually left her
+safe and upright on her feet after the narrowest escape by oscillations
+and whirls for the preservation of her balance. At mixed Christmas
+parties, when she numbered but twelve or thirteen years, and was
+heartily despised on that account by lads who deemed themselves men, her
+apt lightness in the dance covered this incompleteness in her womanhood,
+and compelled the self-same youths in spite of resolutions to seize upon
+her childish figure as a partner whom they could not afford to contemn.
+And in later years, when the instincts of her sex had shown her this
+point as the best and rarest feature in her external self, she was not
+found wanting in attention to the cultivation of finish in its details.
+
+Her hair rested gaily upon her shoulders in curls and was of a shining
+corn yellow in the high lights, deepening to a definite nut-brown as
+each curl wound round into the shade. She had eyes of a sapphire hue,
+though rather darker than the gem ordinarily appears; they possessed
+the affectionate and liquid sparkle of loyalty and good faith as
+distinguishable from that harder brightness which seems to express
+faithfulness only to the object confronting them.
+
+But to attempt to gain a view of her--or indeed of any fascinating
+woman--from a measured category, is as difficult as to appreciate the
+effect of a landscape by exploring it at night with a lantern--or of a
+full chord of music by piping the notes in succession. Nevertheless it
+may readily be believed from the description here ventured, that
+among the many winning phases of her aspect, these were particularly
+striking:--
+
+  During pleasant doubt, when her eyes brightened stealthily and
+  smiled (as eyes will smile) as distinctly as her lips, and in the
+  space of a single instant expressed clearly the whole round of
+  degrees of expectancy which lie over the wide expanse between Yea
+  and Nay.
+
+  During the telling of a secret, which was involuntarily
+  accompanied by a sudden minute start, and ecstatic pressure of
+  the listener's arm, side, or neck, as the position and degree
+  of intimacy dictated.
+
+  When anxiously regarding one who possessed her affections.
+
+She suddenly assumed the last-mentioned bearing in the progress of the
+present entertainment. Her glance was directed out of the window.
+
+Why the particulars of a young lady's presence at a very mediocre
+performance were prevented from dropping into the oblivion which their
+intrinsic insignificance would naturally have involved--why they were
+remembered and individualized by herself and others through after
+years--was simply that she unknowingly stood, as it were, upon the
+extreme posterior edge of a tract in her life, in which the real
+meaning of Taking Thought had never been known. It was the last hour of
+experience she ever enjoyed with a mind entirely free from a knowledge
+of that labyrinth into which she stepped immediately afterwards--to
+continue a perplexed course along its mazes for the greater portion of
+twenty-nine subsequent months.
+
+The Town Hall, in which Cytherea sat, was a building of brown stone, and
+through one of the windows could be seen from the interior of the room
+the housetops and chimneys of the adjacent street, and also the upper
+part of a neighbouring church spire, now in course of completion under
+the superintendence of Miss Graye's father, the architect to the work.
+
+That the top of this spire should be visible from her position in the
+room was a fact which Cytherea's idling eyes had discovered with some
+interest, and she was now engaged in watching the scene that was being
+enacted about its airy summit. Round the conical stonework rose a cage
+of scaffolding against the blue sky, and upon this stood five men--four
+in clothes as white as the new erection close beneath their hands, the
+fifth in the ordinary dark suit of a gentleman.
+
+The four working-men in white were three masons and a mason's labourer.
+The fifth man was the architect, Mr. Graye. He had been giving
+directions as it seemed, and retiring as far as the narrow footway
+allowed, stood perfectly still.
+
+The picture thus presented to a spectator in the Town Hall was curious
+and striking. It was an illuminated miniature, framed in by the dark
+margin of the window, the keen-edged shadiness of which emphasized by
+contrast the softness of the objects enclosed.
+
+The height of the spire was about one hundred and twenty feet, and the
+five men engaged thereon seemed entirely removed from the sphere and
+experiences of ordinary human beings. They appeared little larger
+than pigeons, and made their tiny movements with a soft, spirit-like
+silentness. One idea above all others was conveyed to the mind of a
+person on the ground by their aspect, namely, concentration of purpose:
+that they were indifferent to--even unconscious of--the distracted world
+beneath them, and all that moved upon it. They never looked off the
+scaffolding.
+
+Then one of them turned; it was Mr. Graye. Again he stood motionless,
+with attention to the operations of the others. He appeared to be lost
+in reflection, and had directed his face towards a new stone they were
+lifting.
+
+'Why does he stand like that?' the young lady thought at length--up to
+that moment as listless and careless as one of the ancient Tarentines,
+who, on such an afternoon as this, watched from the Theatre the entry
+into their Harbour of a power that overturned the State.
+
+She moved herself uneasily. 'I wish he would come down,' she whispered,
+still gazing at the skybacked picture. 'It is so dangerous to be
+absent-minded up there.'
+
+When she had done murmuring the words her father indecisively laid hold
+of one of the scaffold-poles, as if to test its strength, then let it go
+and stepped back. In stepping, his foot slipped. An instant of doubling
+forward and sideways, and he reeled off into the air, immediately
+disappearing downwards.
+
+His agonized daughter rose to her feet by a convulsive movement. Her
+lips parted, and she gasped for breath. She could utter no sound. One by
+one the people about her, unconscious of what had happened, turned their
+heads, and inquiry and alarm became visible upon their faces at the
+sight of the poor child. A moment longer, and she fell to the floor.
+
+The next impression of which Cytherea had any consciousness was of being
+carried from a strange vehicle across the pavement to the steps of her
+own house by her brother and an older man. Recollection of what had
+passed evolved itself an instant later, and just as they entered the
+door--through which another and sadder burden had been carried but a few
+instants before--her eyes caught sight of the south-western sky, and,
+without heeding, saw white sunlight shining in shaft-like lines from a
+rift in a slaty cloud. Emotions will attach themselves to scenes that
+are simultaneous--however foreign in essence these scenes may be--as
+chemical waters will crystallize on twigs and wires. Even after that
+time any mental agony brought less vividly to Cytherea's mind the scene
+from the Town Hall windows than sunlight streaming in shaft-like lines.
+
+4. OCTOBER THE NINETEENTH
+
+When death enters a house, an element of sadness and an element of
+horror accompany it. Sadness, from the death itself: horror, from the
+clouds of blackness we designedly labour to introduce.
+
+The funeral had taken place. Depressed, yet resolved in his demeanour,
+Owen Graye sat before his father's private escritoire, engaged
+in turning out and unfolding a heterogeneous collection of
+papers--forbidding and inharmonious to the eye at all times--most of all
+to one under the influence of a great grief. Laminae of white paper
+tied with twine were indiscriminately intermixed with other white papers
+bounded by black edges--these with blue foolscap wrapped round with
+crude red tape.
+
+The bulk of these letters, bills, and other documents were submitted
+to a careful examination, by which the appended particulars were
+ascertained:--
+
+  First, that their father's income from professional sources had
+  been very small, amounting to not more than half their expenditure;
+  and that his own and his wife's property, upon which he had relied
+  for the balance, had been sunk and lost in unwise loans to
+  unscrupulous men, who had traded upon their father's too
+  open-hearted trustfulness.
+
+  Second, that finding his mistake, he had endeavoured to regain
+  his standing by the illusory path of speculation. The most notable
+  instance of this was the following. He had been induced, when at
+  Plymouth in the autumn of the previous year, to venture all his
+  spare capital on the bottomry security of an Italian brig which
+  had put into the harbour in distress. The profit was to be
+  considerable, so was the risk. There turned out to be no security
+  whatever. The circumstances of the case tendered it the most
+  unfortunate speculation that a man like himself--ignorant of all
+  such matters--could possibly engage in. The vessel went down, and
+  all Mr. Graye's money with it.
+
+  Third, that these failures had left him burdened with debts he
+  knew not how to meet; so that at the time of his death even the few
+  pounds lying to his account at the bank were his only in name.
+
+  Fourth, that the loss of his wife two years earlier had
+  awakened him to a keen sense of his blindness, and of his duty by
+  his children. He had then resolved to reinstate by unflagging zeal
+  in the pursuit of his profession, and by no speculation, at least a
+  portion of the little fortune he had let go.
+
+Cytherea was frequently at her brother's elbow during these
+examinations. She often remarked sadly--
+
+'Poor papa failed to fulfil his good intention for want of time, didn't
+he, Owen? And there was an excuse for his past, though he never would
+claim it. I never forget that original disheartening blow, and how that
+from it sprang all the ills of his life--everything connected with his
+gloom, and the lassitude in business we used so often to see about him.'
+
+'I remember what he said once,' returned the brother, 'when I sat up
+late with him. He said, "Owen, don't love too blindly: blindly you
+will love if you love at all, but a little care is still possible to
+a well-disciplined heart. May that heart be yours as it was not mine,"
+father said. "Cultivate the art of renunciation." And I am going to,
+Cytherea.'
+
+'And once mamma said that an excellent woman was papa's ruin, because he
+did not know the way to give her up when he had lost her. I wonder where
+she is now, Owen? We were told not to try to find out anything about
+her. Papa never told us her name, did he?'
+
+'That was by her own request, I believe. But never mind her; she was not
+our mother.'
+
+The love affair which had been Ambrose Graye's disheartening blow was
+precisely of that nature which lads take little account of, but girls
+ponder in their hearts.
+
+5. FROM OCTOBER THE NINETEENTH TO JULY THE NINTH
+
+Thus Ambrose Graye's good intentions with regard to the reintegration of
+his property had scarcely taken tangible form when his sudden death put
+them for ever out of his power.
+
+Heavy bills, showing the extent of his obligations, tumbled in
+immediately upon the heels of the funeral from quarters previously
+unheard and unthought of. Thus pressed, a bill was filed in Chancery to
+have the assets, such as they were, administered by the Court.
+
+'What will become of us now?' thought Owen continually.
+
+There is in us an unquenchable expectation, which at the gloomiest time
+persists in inferring that because we are _ourselves_, there must be a
+special future in store for us, though our nature and antecedents to the
+remotest particular have been common to thousands. Thus to Cytherea and
+Owen Graye the question how their lives would end seemed the deepest of
+possible enigmas. To others who knew their position equally well with
+themselves the question was the easiest that could be asked--'Like those
+of other people similarly circumstanced.'
+
+Then Owen held a consultation with his sister to come to some decision
+on their future course, and a month was passed in waiting for answers to
+letters, and in the examination of schemes more or less futile. Sudden
+hopes that were rainbows to the sight proved but mists to the touch.
+In the meantime, unpleasant remarks, disguise them as some well-meaning
+people might, were floating around them every day. The undoubted
+truth, that they were the children of a dreamer who let slip away every
+farthing of his money and ran into debt with his neighbours--that the
+daughter had been brought up to no profession--that the son who had, had
+made no progress in it, and might come to the dogs--could not from the
+nature of things be wrapped up in silence in order that it might not
+hurt their feelings; and as a matter of fact, it greeted their ears in
+some form or other wherever they went. Their few acquaintances passed
+them hurriedly. Ancient pot-wallopers, and thriving shopkeepers, in
+their intervals of leisure, stood at their shop-doors--their toes
+hanging over the edge of the step, and their obese waists hanging over
+their toes--and in discourses with friends on the pavement, formulated
+the course of the improvident, and reduced the children's prospects to a
+shadow-like attenuation. The sons of these men (who wore breastpins of
+a sarcastic kind, and smoked humorous pipes) stared at Cytherea with a
+stare unmitigated by any of the respect that had formerly softened it.
+
+Now it is a noticeable fact that we do not much mind what men think of
+us, or what humiliating secret they discover of our means, parentage, or
+object, provided that each thinks and acts thereupon in isolation. It is
+the exchange of ideas about us that we dread most; and the possession
+by a hundred acquaintances, severally insulated, of the knowledge of our
+skeleton-closet's whereabouts, is not so distressing to the nerves as a
+chat over it by a party of half-a-dozen--exclusive depositaries though
+these may be.
+
+Perhaps, though Hocbridge watched and whispered, its animus would have
+been little more than a trifle to persons in thriving circumstances. But
+unfortunately, poverty, whilst it is new, and before the skin has
+had time to thicken, makes people susceptible inversely to their
+opportunities for shielding themselves. In Owen was found, in place of
+his father's impressibility, a larger share of his father's pride, and a
+squareness of idea which, if coupled with a little more blindness, would
+have amounted to positive prejudice. To him humanity, so far as he had
+thought of it at all, was rather divided into distinct classes than
+blended from extreme to extreme. Hence by a sequence of ideas which
+might be traced if it were worth while, he either detested or respected
+opinion, and instinctively sought to escape a cold shade that mere
+sensitiveness would have endured. He could have submitted to separation,
+sickness, exile, drudgery, hunger and thirst, with stoical indifference,
+but superciliousness was too incisive.
+
+After living on for nine months in attempts to make an income as his
+father's successor in the profession--attempts which were utterly
+fruitless by reason of his inexperience--Graye came to a simple and
+sweeping resolution. They would privately leave that part of England,
+drop from the sight of acquaintances, gossips, harsh critics, and bitter
+creditors of whose misfortune he was not the cause, and escape the
+position which galled him by the only road their great poverty left open
+to them--that of his obtaining some employment in a distant place by
+following his profession as a humble under-draughtsman.
+
+He thought over his capabilities with the sensations of a soldier
+grinding his sword at the opening of a campaign. What with lack of
+employment, owing to the decrease of his late father's practice, and the
+absence of direct and uncompromising pressure towards monetary results
+from a pupil's labour (which seems to be always the case when a
+professional man's pupil is also his son), Owen's progress in the art
+and science of architecture had been very insignificant indeed. Though
+anything but an idle young man, he had hardly reached the age at which
+industrious men who lack an external whip to send them on in the world,
+are induced by their own common sense to whip on themselves. Hence his
+knowledge of plans, elevations, sections, and specifications, was not
+greater at the end of two years of probation than might easily have
+been acquired in six months by a youth of average ability--himself, for
+instance--amid a bustling London practice.
+
+But at any rate he could make himself handy to one of the
+profession--some man in a remote town--and there fulfil his indentures.
+A tangible inducement lay in this direction of survey. He had a slight
+conception of such a man--a Mr. Gradfield--who was in practice in
+Budmouth Regis, a seaport town and watering-place in the south of
+England.
+
+After some doubts, Graye ventured to write to this gentleman, asking the
+necessary question, shortly alluding to his father's death, and stating
+that his term of apprenticeship had only half expired. He would be glad
+to complete his articles at a very low salary for the whole remaining
+two years, provided payment could begin at once.
+
+The answer from Mr. Gradfield stated that he was not in want of a
+pupil who would serve the remainder of his time on the terms Mr. Graye
+mentioned. But he would just add one remark. He chanced to be in want of
+some young man in his office--for a short time only, probably about two
+months--to trace drawings, and attend to other subsidiary work of the
+kind. If Mr. Graye did not object to occupy such an inferior position as
+these duties would entail, and to accept weekly wages which to one with
+his expectations would be considered merely nominal, the post would give
+him an opportunity for learning a few more details of the profession.
+
+'It is a beginning, and, above all, an abiding-place, away from the
+shadow of the cloud which hangs over us here--I will go,' said Owen.
+
+Cytherea's plan for her future, an intensely simple one, owing to the
+even greater narrowness of her resources, was already marked out. One
+advantage had accrued to her through her mother's possession of a fair
+share of personal property, and perhaps only one. She had been carefully
+educated. Upon this consideration her plan was based. She was to take
+up her abode in her brother's lodging at Budmouth, when she would
+immediately advertise for a situation as governess, having obtained
+the consent of a lawyer at Aldbrickham who was winding up her father's
+affairs, and who knew the history of her position, to allow himself to
+be referred to in the matter of her past life and respectability.
+
+Early one morning they departed from their native town, leaving behind
+them scarcely a trace of their footsteps.
+
+Then the town pitied their want of wisdom in taking such a step.
+'Rashness; they would have made a better income in Hocbridge, where they
+are known! There is no doubt that they would.'
+
+But what is Wisdom really? A steady handling of any means to bring about
+any end necessary to happiness.
+
+Yet whether one's end be the usual end--a wealthy position in life--or
+no, the name of wisdom is seldom applied but to the means to that usual
+end.
+
+
+
+
+II. THE EVENTS OF A FORTNIGHT
+
+1. THE NINTH OF JULY
+
+The day of their departure was one of the most glowing that the climax
+of a long series of summer heats could evolve. The wide expanse of
+landscape quivered up and down like the flame of a taper, as they
+steamed along through the midst of it. Placid flocks of sheep reclining
+under trees a little way off appeared of a pale blue colour. Clover
+fields were livid with the brightness of the sun upon their deep red
+flowers. All waggons and carts were moved to the shade by their careful
+owners, rain-water butts fell to pieces; well-buckets were lowered
+inside the covers of the well-hole, to preserve them from the fate of
+the butts, and generally, water seemed scarcer in the country than the
+beer and cider of the peasantry who toiled or idled there.
+
+To see persons looking with children's eyes at any ordinary scenery, is
+a proof that they possess the charming faculty of drawing new sensations
+from an old experience--a healthy sign, rare in these feverish days--the
+mark of an imperishable brightness of nature.
+
+Both brother and sister could do this; Cytherea more noticeably. They
+watched the undulating corn-lands, monotonous to all their companions;
+the stony and clayey prospect succeeding those, with its angular and
+abrupt hills. Boggy moors came next, now withered and dry--the spots
+upon which pools usually spread their waters showing themselves as
+circles of smooth bare soil, over-run by a net-work of innumerable
+little fissures. Then arose plantations of firs, abruptly terminating
+beside meadows cleanly mown, in which high-hipped, rich-coloured cows,
+with backs horizontal and straight as the ridge of a house, stood
+motionless or lazily fed. Glimpses of the sea now interested them, which
+became more and more frequent till the train finally drew up beside the
+platform at Budmouth.
+
+'The whole town is looking out for us,' had been Graye's impression
+throughout the day. He called upon Mr. Gradfield--the only man who had
+been directly informed of his coming--and found that Mr. Gradfield had
+forgotten it.
+
+However, arrangements were made with this gentleman--a stout, active,
+grey-bearded burgher of sixty--by which Owen was to commence work in his
+office the following week.
+
+The same day Cytherea drew up and sent off the advertisement appended:--
+
+
+  'A YOUNG LADY is desirous of meeting with an _engagement_ as
+  _governess_ or _companion_. She is competent to teach English,
+  French, and Music. Satisfactory references--Address, C. G.,
+  Post-Office, Budmouth.'
+
+
+It seemed a more material existence than her own that she saw thus
+delineated on the paper. 'That can't be myself; how odd I look!' she
+said, and smiled.
+
+2. JULY THE ELEVENTH
+
+On the Monday subsequent to their arrival in Budmouth, Owen Graye
+attended at Mr. Gradfield's office to enter upon his duties, and his
+sister was left in their lodgings alone for the first time.
+
+Despite the sad occurrences of the preceding autumn, an unwonted
+cheerfulness pervaded her spirit throughout the day. Change of
+scene--and that to untravelled eyes--conjoined with the sensation of
+freedom from supervision, revived the sparkle of a warm young nature
+ready enough to take advantage of any adventitious restoratives.
+Point-blank grief tends rather to seal up happiness for a time than to
+produce that attrition which results from griefs of anticipation that
+move onward with the days: these may be said to furrow away the capacity
+for pleasure.
+
+Her expectations from the advertisement began to be extravagant. A
+thriving family, who had always sadly needed her, was already definitely
+pictured in her fancy, which, in its exuberance, led her on to picturing
+its individual members, their possible peculiarities, virtues, and
+vices, and obliterated for a time the recollection that she would be
+separated from her brother.
+
+Thus musing, as she waited for his return in the evening, her eyes fell
+on her left hand. The contemplation of her own left fourth finger by
+symbol-loving girlhood of this age is, it seems, very frequently, if
+not always, followed by a peculiar train of romantic ideas. Cytherea's
+thoughts, still playing about her future, became directed into this
+romantic groove. She leant back in her chair, and taking hold of the
+fourth finger, which had attracted her attention, she lifted it with the
+tips of the others, and looked at the smooth and tapering member for a
+long time.
+
+She whispered idly, 'I wonder who and what he will be?
+
+'If he's a gentleman of fashion, he will take my finger so, just with
+the tips of his own, and with some fluttering of the heart, and the
+least trembling of his lip, slip the ring so lightly on that I shall
+hardly know it is there--looking delightfully into my eyes all the time.
+
+'If he's a bold, dashing soldier, I expect he will proudly turn round,
+take the ring as if it equalled her Majesty's crown in value, and
+desperately set it on my finger thus. He will fix his eyes unflinchingly
+upon what he is doing--just as if he stood in battle before the enemy
+(though, in reality, very fond of me, of course), and blush as much as I
+shall.
+
+'If he's a sailor, he will take my finger and the ring in this way,
+and deck it out with a housewifely touch and a tenderness of expression
+about his mouth, as sailors do: kiss it, perhaps, with a simple air, as
+if we were children playing an idle game, and not at the very height of
+observation and envy by a great crowd saying, "Ah! they are happy now!"
+
+'If he should be rather a poor man--noble-minded and affectionate, but
+still poor--'
+
+Owen's footsteps rapidly ascending the stairs, interrupted this
+fancy-free meditation. Reproaching herself, even angry with herself
+for allowing her mind to stray upon such subjects in the face of their
+present desperate condition, she rose to meet him, and make tea.
+
+Cytherea's interest to know how her brother had been received at Mr.
+Gradfield's broke forth into words at once. Almost before they had sat
+down to table, she began cross-examining him in the regular sisterly
+way.
+
+'Well, Owen, how has it been with you to-day? What is the place like--do
+you think you will like Mr. Gradfield?'
+
+'O yes. But he has not been there to-day; I have only had the head
+draughtsman with me.'
+
+Young women have a habit, not noticeable in men, of putting on at a
+moment's notice the drama of whosoever's life they choose. Cytherea's
+interest was transferred from Mr. Gradfield to his representative.
+
+'What sort of a man is he?'
+
+'He seems a very nice fellow indeed; though of course I can hardly tell
+to a certainty as yet. But I think he's a very worthy fellow; there's
+no nonsense in him, and though he is not a public school man he has read
+widely, and has a sharp appreciation of what's good in books and art.
+In fact, his knowledge isn't nearly so exclusive as most professional
+men's.'
+
+'That's a great deal to say of an architect, for of all professional men
+they are, as a rule, the most professional.'
+
+'Yes; perhaps they are. This man is rather of a melancholy turn of mind,
+I think.'
+
+'Has the managing clerk any family?' she mildly asked, after a while,
+pouring out some more tea.
+
+'Family; no!'
+
+'Well, dear Owen, how should I know?'
+
+'Why, of course he isn't married. But there happened to be a
+conversation about women going on in the office, and I heard him say
+what he should wish his wife to be like.'
+
+'What would he wish his wife to be like?' she said, with great apparent
+lack of interest.
+
+'O, he says she must be girlish and artless: yet he would be loth to do
+without a dash of womanly subtlety, 'tis so piquant. Yes, he said, that
+must be in her; she must have womanly cleverness. "And yet I should like
+her to blush if only a cock-sparrow were to look at her hard," he said,
+"which brings me back to the girl again: and so I flit backwards and
+forwards. I must have what comes, I suppose," he said, "and whatever she
+may be, thank God she's no worse. However, if he might give a final hint
+to Providence," he said, "a child among pleasures, and a woman among
+pains was the rough outline of his requirement."'
+
+'Did he say that? What a musing creature he must be.'
+
+'He did, indeed.'
+
+3. FROM THE TWELFTH TO THE FIFTEENTH OF JULY
+
+As is well known, ideas are so elastic in a human brain, that they have
+no constant measure which may be called their actual bulk. Any important
+idea may be compressed to a molecule by an unwonted crowding of others;
+and any small idea will expand to whatever length and breadth of vacuum
+the mind may be able to make over to it. Cytherea's world was tolerably
+vacant at this time, and the young architectural designer's image became
+very pervasive. The next evening this subject was again renewed.
+
+'His name is Springrove,' said Owen, in reply to her. 'He is a thorough
+artist, but a man of rather humble origin, it seems, who has made
+himself so far. I think he is the son of a farmer, or something of the
+kind.'
+
+'Well, he's none the worse for that, I suppose.'
+
+'None the worse. As we come down the hill, we shall be continually
+meeting people going up.' But Owen had felt that Springrove was a little
+the worse nevertheless.
+
+'Of course he's rather old by this time.'
+
+'O no. He's about six-and-twenty--not more.'
+
+'Ah, I see.... What is he like, Owen?'
+
+'I can't exactly tell you his appearance: 'tis always such a difficult
+thing to do.'
+
+'A man you would describe as short? Most men are those we should
+describe as short, I fancy.'
+
+'I should call him, I think, of the middle height; but as I only see
+him sitting in the office, of course I am not certain about his form and
+figure.'
+
+'I wish you were, then.'
+
+'Perhaps you do. But I am not, you see.'
+
+'Of course not, you are always so provoking. Owen, I saw a man in the
+street to-day whom I fancied was he--and yet, I don't see how it could
+be, either. He had light brown hair, a snub nose, very round face, and
+a peculiar habit of reducing his eyes to straight lines when he looked
+narrowly at anything.'
+
+'O no. That was not he, Cytherea.'
+
+'Not a bit like him in all probability.'
+
+'Not a bit. He has dark hair--almost a Grecian nose, regular teeth, and
+an intellectual face, as nearly as I can recall to mind.'
+
+'Ah, there now, Owen, you _have_ described him! But I suppose he's not
+generally called pleasing, or--'
+
+'Handsome?'
+
+'I scarcely meant that. But since you have said it, is he handsome?'
+
+'Rather.'
+
+'His tout ensemble is striking?'
+
+'Yes--O no, no--I forgot: it is not. He is rather untidy in his
+waistcoat, and neck-ties, and hair.'
+
+'How vexing!... it must be to himself, poor thing.'
+
+'He's a thorough bookworm--despises the pap-and-daisy school of
+verse--knows Shakespeare to the very dregs of the foot-notes. Indeed,
+he's a poet himself in a small way.'
+
+'How delicious!' she said. 'I have never known a poet.'
+
+'And you don't know him,' said Owen dryly.
+
+She reddened. 'Of course I don't. I know that.'
+
+'Have you received any answer to your advertisement?' he inquired.
+
+'Ah--no!' she said, and the forgotten disappointment which had showed
+itself in her face at different times during the day, became visible
+again.
+
+Another day passed away. On Thursday, without inquiry, she learnt more
+of the head draughtsman. He and Graye had become very friendly, and he
+had been tempted to show her brother a copy of some poems of his--some
+serious and sad--some humorous--which had appeared in the poets' corner
+of a magazine from time to time. Owen showed them now to Cytherea, who
+instantly began to read them carefully and to think them very beautiful.
+
+'Yes--Springrove's no fool,' said Owen sententiously.
+
+'No fool!--I should think he isn't, indeed,' said Cytherea, looking up
+from the paper in quite an excitement: 'to write such verses as these!'
+
+'What logic are you chopping, Cytherea? Well, I don't mean on account of
+the verses, because I haven't read them; but for what he said when the
+fellows were talking about falling in love.'
+
+'Which you will tell me?'
+
+'He says that your true lover breathlessly finds himself engaged to a
+sweetheart, like a man who has caught something in the dark. He doesn't
+know whether it is a bat or a bird, and takes it to the light when he is
+cool to learn what it is. He looks to see if she is the right age, but
+right age or wrong age, he must consider her a prize. Sometime later he
+ponders whether she is the right kind of prize for him. Right kind or
+wrong kind--he has called her his, and must abide by it. After a time he
+asks himself, "Has she the temper, hair, and eyes I meant to have, and
+was firmly resolved not to do without?" He finds it is all wrong, and
+then comes the tussle--'
+
+'Do they marry and live happily?'
+
+'Who? O, the supposed pair. I think he said--well, I really forget what
+he said.'
+
+'That _is_ stupid of you!' said the young lady with dismay.
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'But he's a satirist--I don't think I care about him now.'
+
+'There you are just wrong. He is not. He is, as I believe, an impulsive
+fellow who has been made to pay the penalty of his rashness in some love
+affair.'
+
+Thus ended the dialogue of Thursday, but Cytherea read the verses again
+in private. On Friday her brother remarked that Springrove had informed
+him he was going to leave Mr. Gradfield's in a fortnight to push his
+fortunes in London.
+
+An indescribable feeling of sadness shot through Cytherea's heart.
+Why should she be sad at such an announcement as that, she thought,
+concerning a man she had never seen, when her spirits were elastic
+enough to rebound after hard blows from deep and real troubles as if she
+had scarcely known them? Though she could not answer this question, she
+knew one thing, she was saddened by Owen's news.
+
+4. JULY THE TWENTY-FIRST
+
+A very popular local excursion by steamboat to Lulstead Cove was
+announced through the streets of Budmouth one Thursday morning by
+the weak-voiced town-crier, to start at six o'clock the same day. The
+weather was lovely, and the opportunity being the first of the kind
+offered to them, Owen and Cytherea went with the rest.
+
+They had reached the Cove, and had walked landward for nearly an hour
+over the hill which rose beside the strand, when Graye recollected that
+two or three miles yet further inland from this spot was an interesting
+mediaeval ruin. He was already familiar with its characteristics through
+the medium of an archaeological work, and now finding himself so close
+to the reality, felt inclined to verify some theory he had formed
+respecting it. Concluding that there would be just sufficient time for
+him to go there and return before the boat had left the shore, he parted
+from Cytherea on the hill, struck downwards, and then up a heathery
+valley.
+
+She remained on the summit where he had left her till the time of his
+expected return, scanning the details of the prospect around. Placidly
+spread out before her on the south was the open Channel, reflecting a
+blue intenser by many shades than that of the sky overhead, and dotted
+in the foreground by half-a-dozen small craft of contrasting rig, their
+sails graduating in hue from extreme whiteness to reddish brown, the
+varying actual colours varied again in a double degree by the rays of
+the declining sun.
+
+Presently the distant bell from the boat was heard, warning the
+passengers to embark. This was followed by a lively air from the harps
+and violins on board, their tones, as they arose, becoming intermingled
+with, though not marred by, the brush of the waves when their crests
+rolled over--at the point where the check of the shallows was first
+felt--and then thinned away up the slope of pebbles and sand.
+
+She turned her face landward and strained her eyes to discern, if
+possible, some sign of Owen's return. Nothing was visible save the
+strikingly brilliant, still landscape. The wide concave which lay at the
+back of the hill in this direction was blazing with the western light,
+adding an orange tint to the vivid purple of the heather, now at the
+very climax of bloom, and free from the slightest touch of the invidious
+brown that so soon creeps into its shades. The light so intensified the
+colours that they seemed to stand above the surface of the earth and
+float in mid-air like an exhalation of red. In the minor valleys,
+between the hillocks and ridges which diversified the contour of the
+basin, but did not disturb its general sweep, she marked brakes of tall,
+heavy-stemmed ferns, five or six feet high, in a brilliant light-green
+dress--a broad riband of them with the path in their midst winding like
+a stream along the little ravine that reached to the foot of the hill,
+and delivered up the path to its grassy area. Among the ferns grew
+holly bushes deeper in tint than any shadow about them, whilst the whole
+surface of the scene was dimpled with small conical pits, and here and
+there were round ponds, now dry, and half overgrown with rushes.
+
+The last bell of the steamer rang. Cytherea had forgotten herself, and
+what she was looking for. In a fever of distress lest Owen should
+be left behind, she gathered up in her hand the corners of her
+handkerchief, containing specimens of the shells, plants, and fossils
+which the locality produced, started off to the sands, and mingled with
+the knots of visitors there congregated from other interesting points
+around; from the inn, the cottages, and hired conveyances that had
+returned from short drives inland. They all went aboard by the primitive
+plan of a narrow plank on two wheels--the women being assisted by a
+rope. Cytherea lingered till the very last, reluctant to follow,
+and looking alternately at the boat and the valley behind. Her delay
+provoked a remark from Captain Jacobs, a thickset man of hybrid stains,
+resulting from the mixed effects of fire and water, peculiar to sailors
+where engines are the propelling power.
+
+'Now then, missy, if you please. I am sorry to tell 'ee our time's up.
+Who are you looking for, miss?'
+
+'My brother--he has walked a short distance inland; he must be here
+directly. Could you wait for him--just a minute?'
+
+'Really, I am afraid not, m'm.' Cytherea looked at the stout,
+round-faced man, and at the vessel, with a light in her eyes so
+expressive of her own opinion being the same, on reflection, as his, and
+with such resignation, too, that, from an instinctive feeling of pride
+at being able to prove himself more humane than he was thought to
+be--works of supererogation are the only sacrifices that entice in this
+way--and that at a very small cost, he delayed the boat till some among
+the passengers began to murmur.
+
+'There, never mind,' said Cytherea decisively. 'Go on without me--I
+shall wait for him.'
+
+'Well, 'tis a very awkward thing to leave you here all alone,' said the
+captain. 'I certainly advise you not to wait.'
+
+'He's gone across to the railway station, for certain,' said another
+passenger.
+
+'No--here he is!' Cytherea said, regarding, as she spoke, the half
+hidden figure of a man who was seen advancing at a headlong pace down
+the ravine which lay between the heath and the shore.
+
+'He can't get here in less than five minutes,' a passenger said. 'People
+should know what they are about, and keep time. Really, if--'
+
+'You see, sir,' said the captain, in an apologetic undertone, 'since
+'tis her brother, and she's all alone, 'tis only nater to wait a minute,
+now he's in sight. Suppose, now, you were a young woman, as might be,
+and had a brother, like this one, and you stood of an evening upon
+this here wild lonely shore, like her, why you'd want us to wait, too,
+wouldn't you, sir? I think you would.'
+
+The person so hastily approaching had been lost to view during this
+remark by reason of a hollow in the ground, and the projecting cliff
+immediately at hand covered the path in its rise. His footsteps were
+now heard striking sharply upon the flinty road at a distance of about
+twenty or thirty yards, but still behind the escarpment. To save time,
+Cytherea prepared to ascend the plank.
+
+'Let me give you my hand, miss,' said Captain Jacobs.
+
+'No--please don't touch me,' said she, ascending cautiously by sliding
+one foot forward two or three inches, bringing up the other behind it,
+and so on alternately--her lips compressed by concentration on the feat,
+her eyes glued to the plank, her hand to the rope, and her immediate
+thought to the fact of the distressing narrowness of her footing. Steps
+now shook the lower end of the board, and in an instant were up to her
+heels with a bound.
+
+'O, Owen, I am so glad you are come!' she said without turning. 'Don't,
+don't shake the plank or touch me, whatever you do.... There, I am up.
+Where have you been so long?' she continued, in a lower tone, turning
+round to him as she reached the top.
+
+Raising her eyes from her feet, which, standing on the firm deck,
+demanded her attention no longer, she acquired perceptions of the
+new-comer in the following order: unknown trousers; unknown waistcoat;
+unknown face. The man was not her brother, but a total stranger.
+
+Off went the plank; the paddles started, stopped, backed, pattered in
+confusion, then revolved decisively, and the boat passed out into deep
+water.
+
+One or two persons had said, 'How d'ye do, Mr. Springrove?' and looked
+at Cytherea, to see how she bore her disappointment. Her ears had but
+just caught the name of the head draughtsman, when she saw him advancing
+directly to address her.
+
+'Miss Graye, I believe?' he said, lifting his hat.
+
+'Yes,' said Cytherea, colouring, and trying not to look guilty of a
+surreptitious knowledge of him.
+
+'I am Mr. Springrove. I passed Corvsgate Castle about an hour ago, and
+soon afterwards met your brother going that way. He had been deceived in
+the distance, and was about to turn without seeing the ruin, on account
+of a lameness that had come on in his leg or foot. I proposed that
+he should go on, since he had got so near; and afterwards, instead of
+walking back to the boat, get across to Anglebury Station--a shorter
+walk for him--where he could catch the late train, and go directly home.
+I could let you know what he had done, and allay any uneasiness.'
+
+'Is the lameness serious, do you know?'
+
+'O no; simply from over-walking himself. Still, it was just as well to
+ride home.'
+
+Relieved from her apprehensions on Owen's score, she was able slightly
+to examine the appearance of her informant--Edward Springrove--who now
+removed his hat for a while, to cool himself. He was rather above her
+brother's height. Although the upper part of his face and head was
+handsomely formed, and bounded by lines of sufficiently masculine
+regularity, his brows were somewhat too softly arched, and finely
+pencilled for one of his sex; without prejudice, however, to the belief
+which the sum total of his features inspired--that though they did not
+prove that the man who thought inside them would do much in the
+world, men who had done most of all had had no better ones. Across his
+forehead, otherwise perfectly smooth, ran one thin line, the healthy
+freshness of his remaining features expressing that it had come there
+prematurely.
+
+Though some years short of the age at which the clear spirit bids
+good-bye to the last infirmity of noble mind, and takes to house-hunting
+and investments, he had reached the period in a young man's life when
+episodic periods, with a hopeful birth and a disappointing death, have
+begun to accumulate, and to bear a fruit of generalities; his glance
+sometimes seeming to state, 'I have already thought out the issue of
+such conditions as these we are experiencing.' At other times he wore an
+abstracted look: 'I seem to have lived through this moment before.'
+
+He was carelessly dressed in dark grey, wearing a rolled-up black
+kerchief as a neck-cloth; the knot of which was disarranged, and stood
+obliquely--a deposit of white dust having lodged in the creases.
+
+'I am sorry for your disappointment,' he continued, glancing into
+her face. Their eyes having met, became, as it were, mutually locked
+together, and the single instant only which good breeding allows as
+the length of such a look, became trebled: a clear penetrating ray of
+intelligence had shot from each into each, giving birth to one of those
+unaccountable sensations which carry home to the heart before the hand
+has been touched or the merest compliment passed, by something stronger
+than mathematical proof, the conviction, 'A tie has begun to unite us.'
+
+Both faces also unconsciously stated that their owners had been much in
+each other's thoughts of late. Owen had talked to the young architect of
+his sister as freely as to Cytherea of the young architect.
+
+A conversation began, which was none the less interesting to the parties
+engaged because it consisted only of the most trivial and commonplace
+remarks. Then the band of harps and violins struck up a lively melody,
+and the deck was cleared for dancing; the sun dipping beneath the
+horizon during the proceeding, and the moon showing herself at their
+stern. The sea was so calm, that the soft hiss produced by the
+bursting of the innumerable bubbles of foam behind the paddles could be
+distinctly heard. The passengers who did not dance, including Cytherea
+and Springrove, lapsed into silence, leaning against the paddle-boxes,
+or standing aloof--noticing the trembling of the deck to the steps of
+the dance--watching the waves from the paddles as they slid thinly and
+easily under each other's edges.
+
+Night had quite closed in by the time they reached Budmouth harbour,
+sparkling with its white, red, and green lights in opposition to the
+shimmering path of the moon's reflection on the other side, which
+reached away to the horizon till the flecked ripples reduced themselves
+to sparkles as fine as gold dust.
+
+'I will walk to the station and find out the exact time the train
+arrives,' said Springrove, rather eagerly, when they had landed.
+
+She thanked him much.
+
+'Perhaps we might walk together,' he suggested hesitatingly. She looked
+as if she did not quite know, and he settled the question by showing the
+way.
+
+They found, on arriving there, that on the first day of that month
+the particular train selected for Graye's return had ceased to stop at
+Anglebury station.
+
+'I am very sorry I misled him,' said Springrove.
+
+'O, I am not alarmed at all,' replied Cytherea.
+
+'Well, it's sure to be all right--he will sleep there, and come by the
+first in the morning. But what will you do, alone?'
+
+'I am quite easy on that point; the landlady is very friendly. I must go
+indoors now. Good-night, Mr. Springrove.'
+
+'Let me go round to your door with you?' he pleaded.
+
+'No, thank you; we live close by.'
+
+He looked at her as a waiter looks at the change he brings back. But she
+was inexorable.
+
+'Don't--forget me,' he murmured. She did not answer.
+
+'Let me see you sometimes,' he said.
+
+'Perhaps you never will again--I am going away,' she replied in
+lingering tones; and turning into Cross Street, ran indoors and
+upstairs.
+
+The sudden withdrawal of what was superfluous at first, is often felt as
+an essential loss. It was felt now with regard to the maiden. More, too,
+after a meeting so pleasant and so enkindling, she had seemed to imply
+that they would never come together again.
+
+The young man softly followed her, stood opposite the house and watched
+her come into the upper room with the light. Presently his gaze was cut
+short by her approaching the window and pulling down the blind--Edward
+dwelling upon her vanishing figure with a hopeless sense of loss akin to
+that which Adam is said by logicians to have felt when he first saw the
+sun set, and thought, in his inexperience, that it would return no more.
+
+He waited till her shadow had twice crossed the window, when, finding
+the charming outline was not to be expected again, he left the street,
+crossed the harbour-bridge, and entered his own solitary chamber on the
+other side, vaguely thinking as he went (for undefined reasons),
+
+   'One hope is too like despair
+   For prudence to smother.'
+
+
+
+
+III. THE EVENTS OF EIGHT DAYS
+
+1. FROM THE TWENTY-SECOND TO THE TWENTY-SEVENTH OF JULY
+
+But things are not what they seem. A responsive love for Edward
+Springrove had made its appearance in Cytherea's bosom with all the
+fascinating attributes of a first experience, not succeeding to or
+displacing other emotions, as in older hearts, but taking up entirely
+new ground; as when gazing just after sunset at the pale blue sky we see
+a star come into existence where nothing was before.
+
+His parting words, 'Don't forget me,' she repeated to herself a hundred
+times, and though she thought their import was probably commonplace, she
+could not help toying with them,--looking at them from all points,
+and investing them with meanings of love and faithfulness,--ostensibly
+entertaining such meanings only as fables wherewith to pass the time,
+yet in her heart admitting, for detached instants, a possibility of
+their deeper truth. And thus, for hours after he had left her, her
+reason flirted with her fancy as a kitten will sport with a dove,
+pleasantly and smoothly through easy attitudes, but disclosing its cruel
+and unyielding nature at crises.
+
+To turn now to the more material media through which this story moves,
+it so happened that the very next morning brought round a circumstance
+which, slight in itself, took up a relevant and important position
+between the past and the future of the persons herein concerned.
+
+At breakfast time, just as Cytherea had again seen the postman pass
+without bringing her an answer to the advertisement, as she had fully
+expected he would do, Owen entered the room.
+
+'Well,' he said, kissing her, 'you have not been alarmed, of course.
+Springrove told you what I had done, and you found there was no train?'
+
+'Yes, it was all clear. But what is the lameness owing to?'
+
+'I don't know--nothing. It has quite gone off now... Cytherea, I hope
+you like Springrove. Springrove's a nice fellow, you know.'
+
+'Yes. I think he is, except that--'
+
+'It happened just to the purpose that I should meet him there, didn't
+it? And when I reached the station and learnt that I could not get on by
+train my foot seemed better. I started off to walk home, and went about
+five miles along a path beside the railway. It then struck me that I
+might not be fit for anything to-day if I walked and aggravated the
+bothering foot, so I looked for a place to sleep at. There was
+no available village or inn, and I eventually got the keeper of a
+gate-house, where a lane crossed the line, to take me in.'
+
+They proceeded with their breakfast. Owen yawned.
+
+'You didn't get much sleep at the gate-house last night, I'm afraid,
+Owen,' said his sister.
+
+'To tell the truth, I didn't. I was in such very close and narrow
+quarters. Those gate-houses are such small places, and the man had
+only his own bed to offer me. Ah, by-the-bye, Cythie, I have such an
+extraordinary thing to tell you in connection with this man!--by Jove,
+I had nearly forgotten it! But I'll go straight on. As I was saying,
+he had only his own bed to offer me, but I could not afford to be
+fastidious, and as he had a hearty manner, though a very queer one, I
+agreed to accept it, and he made a rough pallet for himself on the floor
+close beside me. Well, I could not sleep for my life, and I wished I had
+not stayed there, though I was so tired. For one thing, there were the
+luggage trains rattling by at my elbow the early part of the night. But
+worse than this, he talked continually in his sleep, and occasionally
+struck out with his limbs at something or another, knocking against the
+post of the bedstead and making it tremble. My condition was altogether
+so unsatisfactory that at last I awoke him, and asked him what he had
+been dreaming about for the previous hour, for I could get no sleep at
+all. He begged my pardon for disturbing me, but a name I had casually
+let fall that evening had led him to think of another stranger he had
+once had visit him, who had also accidentally mentioned the same name,
+and some very strange incidents connected with that meeting. The affair
+had occurred years and years ago; but what I had said had made him think
+and dream about it as if it were but yesterday. What was the word? I
+said. "Cytherea," he said. What was the story? I asked then. He then
+told me that when he was a young man in London he borrowed a few pounds
+to add to a few he had saved up, and opened a little inn at Hammersmith.
+One evening, after the inn had been open about a couple of months,
+every idler in the neighbourhood ran off to Westminster. The Houses of
+Parliament were on fire.
+
+'Not a soul remained in his parlour besides himself, and he began
+picking up the pipes and glasses his customers had hastily relinquished.
+At length a young lady about seventeen or eighteen came in. She asked
+if a woman was there waiting for herself--Miss Jane Taylor. He said no;
+asked the young lady if she would wait, and showed her into the small
+inner room. There was a glass-pane in the partition dividing this room
+from the bar to enable the landlord to see if his visitors, who sat
+there, wanted anything. A curious awkwardness and melancholy about the
+behaviour of the girl who called, caused my informant to look frequently
+at her through the partition. She seemed weary of her life, and sat with
+her face buried in her hands, evidently quite out of her element in
+such a house. Then a woman much older came in and greeted Miss Taylor by
+name. The man distinctly heard the following words pass between them:--
+
+'"Why have you not brought him?"
+
+'"He is ill; he is not likely to live through the night."
+
+'At this announcement from the elderly woman, the young lady fell to the
+floor in a swoon, apparently overcome by the news. The landlord ran in
+and lifted her up. Well, do what they would they could not for a long
+time bring her back to consciousness, and began to be much alarmed. "Who
+is she?" the innkeeper said to the other woman. "I know her," the other
+said, with deep meaning in her tone. The elderly and young woman seemed
+allied, and yet strangers.
+
+'She now showed signs of life, and it struck him (he was plainly of an
+inquisitive turn), that in her half-bewildered state he might get some
+information from her. He stooped over her, put his mouth to her ear,
+and said sharply, "What's your name?" "To catch a woman napping
+is difficult, even when she's half dead; but I did it," says the
+gatekeeper. When he asked her her name, she said immediately--
+
+'"Cytherea"--and stopped suddenly.'
+
+'My own name!' said Cytherea.
+
+'Yes--your name. Well, the gateman thought at the time it might be
+equally with Jane a name she had invented for the occasion, that they
+might not trace her; but I think it was truth unconsciously uttered,
+for she added directly afterwards: "O, what have I said!" and was quite
+overcome again--this time with fright. Her vexation that the woman now
+doubted the genuineness of her other name was very much greater than
+that the innkeeper did, and it is evident that to blind the woman was
+her main object. He also learnt from words the elderly woman casually
+dropped, that meetings of the same kind had been held before, and that
+the falseness of the soi-disant Miss Jane Taylor's name had never been
+suspected by this dependent or confederate till then.
+
+'She recovered, rested there for an hour, and first sending off her
+companion peremptorily (which was another odd thing), she left the
+house, offering the landlord all the money she had to say nothing about
+the circumstance. He has never seen her since, according to his
+own account. I said to him again and again, "Did you find any more
+particulars afterwards?" "Not a syllable," he said. O, he should never
+hear any more of that! too many years had passed since it happened. "At
+any rate, you found out her surname?" I said. "Well, well, that's my
+secret," he went on. "Perhaps I should never have been in this part of
+the world if it hadn't been for that. I failed as a publican, you know."
+I imagine the situation of gateman was given him and his debts paid off
+as a bribe to silence; but I can't say. "Ah, yes!" he said, with a long
+breath. "I have never heard that name mentioned since that time till
+to-night, and then there instantly rose to my eyes the vision of that
+young lady lying in a fainting fit." He then stopped talking and fell
+asleep. Telling the story must have relieved him as it did the Ancient
+Mariner, for he did not move a muscle or make another sound for the
+remainder of the night. Now isn't that an odd story?'
+
+'It is indeed,' Cytherea murmured. 'Very, very strange.'
+
+'Why should she have said your most uncommon name?' continued Owen. 'The
+man was evidently truthful, for there was not motive sufficient for his
+invention of such a tale, and he could not have done it either.'
+
+Cytherea looked long at her brother. 'Don't you recognize anything else
+in connection with the story?' she said.
+
+'What?' he asked.
+
+'Do you remember what poor papa once let drop--that Cytherea was
+the name of his first sweetheart in Bloomsbury, who so mysteriously
+renounced him? A sort of intuition tells me that this was the same
+woman.'
+
+'O no--not likely,' said her brother sceptically.
+
+'How not likely, Owen? There's not another woman of the name in England.
+In what year used papa to say the event took place?'
+
+'Eighteen hundred and thirty-five.'
+
+'And when were the Houses of Parliament burnt?--stop, I can tell you.'
+She searched their little stock of books for a list of dates, and found
+one in an old school history.
+
+'The Houses of Parliament were burnt down in the evening of the
+sixteenth of October, eighteen hundred and thirty-four.'
+
+'Nearly a year and a quarter before she met father,' remarked Owen.
+
+They were silent. 'If papa had been alive, what a wonderful absorbing
+interest this story would have had for him,' said Cytherea by-and-by.
+'And how strangely knowledge comes to us. We might have searched for a
+clue to her secret half the world over, and never found one. If we had
+really had any motive for trying to discover more of the sad history
+than papa told us, we should have gone to Bloomsbury; but not caring to
+do so, we go two hundred miles in the opposite direction, and there
+find information waiting to be told us. What could have been the secret,
+Owen?'
+
+'Heaven knows. But our having heard a little more of her in this way (if
+she is the same woman) is a mere coincidence after all--a family story
+to tell our friends if we ever have any. But we shall never know any
+more of the episode now--trust our fates for that.'
+
+Cytherea sat silently thinking.
+
+'There was no answer this morning to your advertisement, Cytherea?' he
+continued.
+
+'None.'
+
+'I could see that by your looks when I came in.'
+
+'Fancy not getting a single one,' she said sadly. 'Surely there must be
+people somewhere who want governesses?'
+
+'Yes; but those who want them, and can afford to have them, get them
+mostly by friends' recommendations; whilst those who want them, and
+can't afford to have them, make use of their poor relations.'
+
+'What shall I do?'
+
+'Never mind it. Go on living with me. Don't let the difficulty trouble
+your mind so; you think about it all day. I can keep you, Cythie, in a
+plain way of living. Twenty-five shillings a week do not amount to
+much truly; but then many mechanics have no more, and we live quite as
+sparingly as journeymen mechanics... It is a meagre narrow life we are
+drifting into,' he added gloomily, 'but it is a degree more tolerable
+than the worrying sensation of all the world being ashamed of you, which
+we experienced at Hocbridge.'
+
+'I couldn't go back there again,' she said.
+
+'Nor I. O, I don't regret our course for a moment. We did quite right in
+dropping out of the world.' The sneering tones of the remark were almost
+too laboured to be real. 'Besides,' he continued, 'something better for
+me is sure to turn up soon. I wish my engagement here was a permanent
+one instead of for only two months. It may, certainly, be for a longer
+time, but all is uncertain.'
+
+'I wish I could get something to do; and I must too,' she said firmly.
+'Suppose, as is very probable, you are not wanted after the beginning of
+October--the time Mr. Gradfield mentioned--what should we do if I were
+dependent on you only throughout the winter?'
+
+They pondered on numerous schemes by which a young lady might be
+supposed to earn a decent livelihood--more or less convenient and
+feasible in imagination, but relinquished them all until advertising had
+been once more tried, this time taking lower ground. Cytherea was vexed
+at her temerity in having represented to the world that so inexperienced
+a being as herself was a qualified governess; and had a fancy that this
+presumption of hers might be one reason why no ladies applied. The new
+and humbler attempt appeared in the following form:--
+
+
+  'NURSERY GOVERNESS OR USEFUL COMPANION. A young person wishes to
+  hear of a situation in either of the above capacities. Salary very
+  moderate. She is a good needle-woman--Address G., 3 Cross Street,
+  Budmouth.'
+
+
+In the evening they went to post the letter, and then walked up and down
+the Parade for a while. Soon they met Springrove, said a few words
+to him, and passed on. Owen noticed that his sister's face had become
+crimson. Rather oddly they met Springrove again in a few minutes. This
+time the three walked a little way together, Edward ostensibly talking
+to Owen, though with a single thought to the reception of his words by
+the maiden at the farther side, upon whom his gaze was mostly resting,
+and who was attentively listening--looking fixedly upon the pavement the
+while. It has been said that men love with their eyes; women with their
+ears.
+
+As Owen and himself were little more than acquaintances as yet, and as
+Springrove was wanting in the assurance of many men of his age, it now
+became necessary to wish his friends good-evening, or to find a reason
+for continuing near Cytherea by saying some nice new thing. He thought
+of a new thing; he proposed a pull across the bay. This was assented
+to. They went to the pier; stepped into one of the gaily painted boats
+moored alongside and sheered off. Cytherea sat in the stern steering.
+
+They rowed that evening; the next came, and with it the necessity of
+rowing again. Then the next, and the next, Cytherea always sitting in
+the stern with the tiller ropes in her hand. The curves of her figure
+welded with those of the fragile boat in perfect continuation, as she
+girlishly yielded herself to its heaving and sinking, seeming to form
+with it an organic whole.
+
+Then Owen was inclined to test his skill in paddling a canoe. Edward
+did not like canoes, and the issue was, that, having seen Owen on board,
+Springrove proposed to pull off after him with a pair of sculls; but
+not considering himself sufficiently accomplished to do finished rowing
+before a parade full of promenaders when there was a little swell on,
+and with the rudder unshipped in addition, he begged that Cytherea might
+come with him and steer as before. She stepped in, and they floated
+along in the wake of her brother. Thus passed the fifth evening on the
+water.
+
+But the sympathetic pair were thrown into still closer companionship,
+and much more exclusive connection.
+
+2. JULY THE TWENTY-NINTH
+
+It was a sad time for Cytherea--the last day of Springrove's management
+at Gradfield's, and the last evening before his return from Budmouth to
+his father's house, previous to his departure for London.
+
+Graye had been requested by the architect to survey a plot of land
+nearly twenty miles off, which, with the journey to and fro, would
+occupy him the whole day, and prevent his returning till late in the
+evening. Cytherea made a companion of her landlady to the extent of
+sharing meals and sitting with her during the morning of her
+brother's absence. Mid-day found her restless and miserable under this
+arrangement. All the afternoon she sat alone, looking out of the window
+for she scarcely knew whom, and hoping she scarcely knew what. Half-past
+five o'clock came--the end of Springrove's official day. Two minutes
+later Springrove walked by.
+
+She endured her solitude for another half-hour, and then could endure no
+longer. She had hoped--while affecting to fear--that Edward would have
+found some reason or other for calling, but it seemed that he had not.
+Hastily dressing herself she went out, when the farce of an accidental
+meeting was repeated. Edward came upon her in the street at the first
+turning, and, like the Great Duke Ferdinand in 'The Statue and the
+Bust'--
+
+   'He looked at her as a lover can;
+   She looked at him as one who awakes--
+   The past was a sleep, and her life began.'
+
+'Shall we have a boat?' he said impulsively.
+
+How blissful it all is at first. Perhaps, indeed, the only bliss in
+the course of love which can truly be called Eden-like is that which
+prevails immediately after doubt has ended and before reflection has set
+in--at the dawn of the emotion, when it is not recognized by name, and
+before the consideration of what this love is, has given birth to the
+consideration of what difficulties it tends to create; when on the man's
+part, the mistress appears to the mind's eye in picturesque, hazy, and
+fresh morning lights, and soft morning shadows; when, as yet, she is
+known only as the wearer of one dress, which shares her own personality;
+as the stander in one special position, the giver of one bright
+particular glance, and the speaker of one tender sentence; when, on
+her part, she is timidly careful over what she says and does, lest she
+should be misconstrued or under-rated to the breadth of a shadow of a
+hair.
+
+'Shall we have a boat?' he said again, more softly, seeing that to
+his first question she had not answered, but looked uncertainly at the
+ground, then almost, but not quite, in his face, blushed a series of
+minute blushes, left off in the midst of them, and showed the usual
+signs of perplexity in a matter of the emotions.
+
+Owen had always been with her before, but there was now a force of habit
+in the proceeding, and with Arcadian innocence she assumed that a row on
+the water was, under any circumstances, a natural thing. Without another
+word being spoken on either side, they went down the steps. He carefully
+handed her in, took his seat, slid noiselessly off the sand, and away
+from the shore.
+
+They thus sat facing each other in the graceful yellow cockle-shell,
+and his eyes frequently found a resting-place in the depths of hers. The
+boat was so small that at each return of the sculls, when his hands came
+forward to begin the pull, they approached so near to her that her vivid
+imagination began to thrill her with a fancy that he was going to clasp
+his arms round her. The sensation grew so strong that she could not run
+the risk of again meeting his eyes at those critical moments, and turned
+aside to inspect the distant horizon; then she grew weary of looking
+sideways, and was driven to return to her natural position again. At
+this instant he again leant forward to begin, and met her glance by
+an ardent fixed gaze. An involuntary impulse of girlish embarrassment
+caused her to give a vehement pull at the tiller-rope, which brought the
+boat's head round till they stood directly for shore.
+
+His eyes, which had dwelt upon her form during the whole time of her
+look askance, now left her; he perceived the direction in which they
+were going.
+
+'Why, you have completely turned the boat, Miss Graye?' he said, looking
+over his shoulder. 'Look at our track on the water--a great semicircle,
+preceded by a series of zigzags as far as we can see.'
+
+She looked attentively. 'Is it my fault or yours?' she inquired. 'Mine,
+I suppose?'
+
+'I can't help saying that it is yours.'
+
+She dropped the ropes decisively, feeling the slightest twinge of
+vexation at the answer.
+
+'Why do you let go?'
+
+'I do it so badly.'
+
+'O no; you turned about for shore in a masterly way. Do you wish to
+return?'
+
+'Yes, if you please.'
+
+'Of course, then, I will at once.'
+
+'I fear what the people will think of us--going in such absurd
+directions, and all through my wretched steering.'
+
+'Never mind what the people think.' A pause. 'You surely are not so weak
+as to mind what the people think on such a matter as that?'
+
+Those words might almost be called too firm and hard to be given by him
+to her; but never mind. For almost the first time in her life she felt
+the charming sensation, although on such an insignificant subject, of
+being compelled into an opinion by a man she loved. Owen, though
+less yielding physically, and more practical, would not have had the
+intellectual independence to answer a woman thus. She replied quietly
+and honestly--as honestly as when she had stated the contrary fact a
+minute earlier--
+
+'I don't mind.'
+
+'I'll unship the tiller that you may have nothing to do going back but
+to hold your parasol,' he continued, and arose to perform the operation,
+necessarily leaning closely against her, to guard against the risk
+of capsizing the boat as he reached his hands astern. His warm breath
+touched and crept round her face like a caress; but he was apparently
+only concerned with his task. She looked guilty of something when he
+seated himself. He read in her face what that something was--she had
+experienced a pleasure from his touch. But he flung a practical glance
+over his shoulder, seized the oars, and they sped in a straight line
+towards the shore.
+
+Cytherea saw that he noted in her face what had passed in her heart,
+and that noting it, he continued as decided as before. She was inwardly
+distressed. She had not meant him to translate her words about returning
+home so literally at the first; she had not intended him to learn her
+secret; but more than all she was not able to endure the perception of
+his learning it and continuing unmoved.
+
+There was nothing but misery to come now. They would step ashore; he
+would say good-night, go to London to-morrow, and the miserable She
+would lose him for ever. She did not quite suppose what was the fact,
+that a parallel thought was simultaneously passing through his mind.
+
+They were now within ten yards, now within five; he was only now waiting
+for a 'smooth' to bring the boat in. Sweet, sweet Love must not be
+slain thus, was the fair maid's reasoning. She was equal to the
+occasion--ladies are--and delivered the god--
+
+'Do you want very much to land, Mr. Springrove?' she said, letting her
+young violet eyes pine at him a very, very little.
+
+'I? Not at all,' said he, looking an astonishment at her inquiry which a
+slight twinkle of his eye half belied. 'But you do?'
+
+'I think that now we have come out, and it is such a pleasant evening,'
+she said gently and sweetly, 'I should like a little longer row if you
+don't mind? I'll try to steer better than before if it makes it easier
+for you. I'll try very hard.'
+
+It was the turn of his face to tell a tale now. He looked, 'We
+understand each other--ah, we do, darling!' turned the boat, and pulled
+back into the Bay once more.
+
+'Now steer wherever you will,' he said, in a low voice. 'Never mind the
+directness of the course--wherever you will.'
+
+'Shall it be Creston Shore?' she said, pointing to a stretch of beach
+northward from Budmouth Esplanade.
+
+'Creston Shore certainly,' he responded, grasping the sculls. She took
+the strings daintily, and they wound away to the left.
+
+For a long time nothing was audible in the boat but the regular dip
+of the oars, and their movement in the rowlocks. Springrove at length
+spoke.
+
+'I must go away to-morrow,' he said tentatively.
+
+'Yes,' she replied faintly.
+
+'To endeavour to advance a little in my profession in London.'
+
+'Yes,' she said again, with the same preoccupied softness.
+
+'But I shan't advance.'
+
+'Why not? Architecture is a bewitching profession. They say that an
+architect's work is another man's play.'
+
+'Yes. But worldly advantage from an art doesn't depend upon mastering
+it. I used to think it did; but it doesn't. Those who get rich need have
+no skill at all as artists.'
+
+'What need they have?'
+
+'A certain kind of energy which men with any fondness for art possess
+very seldom indeed--an earnestness in making acquaintances, and a love
+for using them. They give their whole attention to the art of
+dining out, after mastering a few rudimentary facts to serve up in
+conversation. Now after saying that, do I seem a man likely to make a
+name?'
+
+'You seem a man likely to make a mistake.'
+
+'What's that?'
+
+'To give too much room to the latent feeling which is rather common
+in these days among the unappreciated, that because some remarkably
+successful men are fools, all remarkably unsuccessful men are geniuses.'
+
+'Pretty subtle for a young lady,' he said slowly. 'From that remark I
+should fancy you had bought experience.'
+
+She passed over the idea. 'Do try to succeed,' she said, with wistful
+thoughtfulness, leaving her eyes on him.
+
+Springrove flushed a little at the earnestness of her words, and mused.
+'Then, like Cato the Censor, I shall do what I despise, to be in the
+fashion,' he said at last... 'Well, when I found all this out that I
+was speaking of, what ever do you think I did? From having already
+loved verse passionately, I went on to read it continually; then I went
+rhyming myself. If anything on earth ruins a man for useful occupation,
+and for content with reasonable success in a profession or trade, it is
+the habit of writing verses on emotional subjects, which had much better
+be left to die from want of nourishment.'
+
+'Do you write poems now?' she said.
+
+'None. Poetical days are getting past with me, according to the usual
+rule. Writing rhymes is a stage people of my sort pass through, as they
+pass through the stage of shaving for a beard, or thinking they are
+ill-used, or saying there's nothing in the world worth living for.'
+
+'Then the difference between a common man and a recognized poet is, that
+one has been deluded, and cured of his delusion, and the other continues
+deluded all his days.'
+
+'Well, there's just enough truth in what you say, to make the remark
+unbearable. However, it doesn't matter to me now that I "meditate the
+thankless Muse" no longer, but....' He paused, as if endeavouring to
+think what better thing he did.
+
+Cytherea's mind ran on to the succeeding lines of the poem, and their
+startling harmony with the present situation suggested the fancy that he
+was 'sporting' with her, and brought an awkward contemplativeness to her
+face.
+
+Springrove guessed her thoughts, and in answer to them simply said
+'Yes.' Then they were silent again.
+
+'If I had known an Amaryllis was coming here, I should not have made
+arrangements for leaving,' he resumed.
+
+Such levity, superimposed on the notion of 'sport', was intolerable to
+Cytherea; for a woman seems never to see any but the serious side of her
+attachment, though the most devoted lover has all the time a vague and
+dim perception that he is losing his old dignity and frittering away his
+time.
+
+'But will you not try again to get on in your profession? Try once
+more; do try once more,' she murmured. 'I am going to try again. I have
+advertised for something to do.'
+
+'Of course I will,' he said, with an eager gesture and smile. 'But we
+must remember that the fame of Christopher Wren himself depended upon
+the accident of a fire in Pudding Lane. My successes seem to come very
+slowly. I often think, that before I am ready to live, it will be time
+for me to die. However, I am trying--not for fame now, but for an easy
+life of reasonable comfort.'
+
+It is a melancholy truth for the middle classes, that in proportion
+as they develop, by the study of poetry and art, their capacity for
+conjugal love of the highest and purest kind, they limit the possibility
+of their being able to exercise it--the very act putting out of their
+power the attainment of means sufficient for marriage. The man who works
+up a good income has had no time to learn love to its solemn extreme;
+the man who has learnt that has had no time to get rich.
+
+'And if you should fail--utterly fail to get that reasonable wealth,'
+she said earnestly, 'don't be perturbed. The truly great stand upon no
+middle ledge; they are either famous or unknown.'
+
+'Unknown,' he said, 'if their ideas have been allowed to flow with
+a sympathetic breadth. Famous only if they have been convergent and
+exclusive.'
+
+'Yes; and I am afraid from that, that my remark was but discouragement,
+wearing the dress of comfort. Perhaps I was not quite right in--'
+
+'It depends entirely upon what is meant by being truly great. But the
+long and the short of the matter is, that men must stick to a thing if
+they want to succeed in it--not giving way to over-much admiration
+for the flowers they see growing in other people's borders; which I am
+afraid has been my case.' He looked into the far distance and paused.
+
+Adherence to a course with persistence sufficient to ensure success is
+possible to widely appreciative minds only when there is also found
+in them a power--commonplace in its nature, but rare in such
+combination--the power of assuming to conviction that in the outlying
+paths which appear so much more brilliant than their own, there are
+bitternesses equally great--unperceived simply on account of their
+remoteness.
+
+They were opposite Ringsworth Shore. The cliffs here were formed of
+strata completely contrasting with those of the further side of the Bay,
+whilst in and beneath the water hard boulders had taken the place of
+sand and shingle, between which, however, the sea glided noiselessly,
+without breaking the crest of a single wave, so strikingly calm was the
+air. The breeze had entirely died away, leaving the water of that rare
+glassy smoothness which is unmarked even by the small dimples of the
+least aerial movement. Purples and blues of divers shades were reflected
+from this mirror accordingly as each undulation sloped east or west.
+They could see the rocky bottom some twenty feet beneath them,
+luxuriant with weeds of various growths, and dotted with pulpy creatures
+reflecting a silvery and spangled radiance upwards to their eyes.
+
+At length she looked at him to learn the effect of her words of
+encouragement. He had let the oars drift alongside, and the boat had
+come to a standstill. Everything on earth seemed taking a contemplative
+rest, as if waiting to hear the avowal of something from his lips. At
+that instant he appeared to break a resolution hitherto zealously kept.
+Leaving his seat amidships he came and gently edged himself down beside
+her upon the narrow seat at the stern.
+
+She breathed more quickly and warmly: he took her right hand in his own
+right: it was not withdrawn. He put his left hand behind her neck till
+it came round upon her left cheek: it was not thrust away. Lightly
+pressing her, he brought her face and mouth towards his own; when, at
+this the very brink, some unaccountable thought or spell within him
+suddenly made him halt--even now, and as it seemed as much to himself as
+to her, he timidly whispered 'May I?'
+
+Her endeavour was to say No, so denuded of its flesh and sinews that its
+nature would hardly be recognized, or in other words a No from so near
+the affirmative frontier as to be affected with the Yes accent. It was
+thus a whispered No, drawn out to nearly a quarter of a minute's length,
+the O making itself audible as a sound like the spring coo of a pigeon
+on unusually friendly terms with its mate. Though conscious of her
+success in producing the kind of word she had wished to produce, she at
+the same time trembled in suspense as to how it would be taken. But the
+time available for doubt was so short as to admit of scarcely more than
+half a pulsation: pressing closer he kissed her. Then he kissed her
+again with a longer kiss.
+
+It was the supremely happy moment of their experience. The 'bloom' and
+the 'purple light' were strong on the lineaments of both. Their hearts
+could hardly believe the evidence of their lips.
+
+'I love you, and you love me, Cytherea!' he whispered.
+
+She did not deny it; and all seemed well. The gentle sounds around them
+from the hills, the plains, the distant town, the adjacent shore, the
+water heaving at their side, the kiss, and the long kiss, were all 'many
+a voice of one delight,' and in unison with each other.
+
+But his mind flew back to the same unpleasant thought which had been
+connected with the resolution he had broken a minute or two earlier. 'I
+could be a slave at my profession to win you, Cytherea; I would work at
+the meanest, honest trade to be near you--much less claim you as mine; I
+would--anything. But I have not told you all; it is not this; you don't
+know what there is yet to tell. Could you forgive as you can love?' She
+was alarmed to see that he had become pale with the question.
+
+'No--do not speak,' he said. 'I have kept something from you, which has
+now become the cause of a great uneasiness. I had no right--to love you;
+but I did it. Something forbade--'
+
+'What?' she exclaimed.
+
+'Something forbade me--till the kiss--yes, till the kiss came; and now
+nothing shall forbid it! We'll hope in spite of all... I must, however,
+speak of this love of ours to your brother. Dearest, you had better go
+indoors whilst I meet him at the station, and explain everything.'
+
+Cytherea's short-lived bliss was dead and gone. O, if she had known of
+this sequel would she have allowed him to break down the barrier of mere
+acquaintanceship--never, never!
+
+'Will you not explain to me?' she faintly urged. Doubt--indefinite,
+carking doubt had taken possession of her.
+
+'Not now. You alarm yourself unnecessarily,' he said tenderly. 'My only
+reason for keeping silence is that with my present knowledge I may tell
+an untrue story. It may be that there is nothing to tell. I am to blame
+for haste in alluding to any such thing. Forgive me, sweet--forgive me.'
+Her heart was ready to burst, and she could not answer him. He returned
+to his place and took to the oars.
+
+They again made for the distant Esplanade, now, with its line of houses,
+lying like a dark grey band against the light western sky. The sun
+had set, and a star or two began to peep out. They drew nearer their
+destination, Edward as he pulled tracing listlessly with his eyes the
+red stripes upon her scarf, which grew to appear as black ones in the
+increasing dusk of evening. She surveyed the long line of lamps on the
+sea-wall of the town, now looking small and yellow, and seeming to send
+long tap-roots of fire quivering down deep into the sea. By-and-by they
+reached the landing-steps. He took her hand as before, and found it as
+cold as the water about them. It was not relinquished till he reached
+her door. His assurance had not removed the constraint of her manner:
+he saw that she blamed him mutely and with her eyes, like a captured
+sparrow. Left alone, he went and seated himself in a chair on the
+Esplanade.
+
+Neither could she go indoors to her solitary room, feeling as she did
+in such a state of desperate heaviness. When Springrove was out of sight
+she turned back, and arrived at the corner just in time to see him
+sit down. Then she glided pensively along the pavement behind him,
+forgetting herself to marble like Melancholy herself as she mused in his
+neighbourhood unseen. She heard, without heeding, the notes of pianos
+and singing voices from the fashionable houses at her back, from the
+open windows of which the lamp-light streamed to join that of the
+orange-hued full moon, newly risen over the Bay in front. Then Edward
+began to pace up and down, and Cytherea, fearing that he would notice
+her, hastened homeward, flinging him a last look as she passed out of
+sight. No promise from him to write: no request that she herself would
+do so--nothing but an indefinite expression of hope in the face of some
+fear unknown to her. Alas, alas!
+
+When Owen returned he found she was not in the small sitting-room, and
+creeping upstairs into her bedroom with a light, he discovered her there
+lying asleep upon the coverlet of the bed, still with her hat and
+jacket on. She had flung herself down on entering, and succumbed to
+the unwonted oppressiveness that ever attends full-blown love. The wet
+traces of tears were yet visible upon her long drooping lashes.
+
+     'Love is a sowre delight, and sugred griefe,
+     A living death, and ever-dying life.'
+
+'Cytherea,' he whispered, kissing her. She awoke with a start, and
+vented an exclamation before recovering her judgment. 'He's gone!' she
+said.
+
+'He has told me all,' said Graye soothingly. 'He is going off early
+to-morrow morning. 'Twas a shame of him to win you away from me, and
+cruel of you to keep the growth of this attachment a secret.'
+
+'We couldn't help it,' she said, and then jumping up--'Owen, has he told
+you _all_?'
+
+'All of your love from beginning to end,' he said simply.
+
+Edward then had not told more--as he ought to have done: yet she could
+not convict him. But she would struggle against his fetters. She tingled
+to the very soles of her feet at the very possibility that he might be
+deluding her.
+
+'Owen,' she continued, with dignity, 'what is he to me? Nothing. I must
+dismiss such weakness as this--believe me, I will. Something far more
+pressing must drive it away. I have been looking my position steadily
+in the face, and I must get a living somehow. I mean to advertise once
+more.'
+
+'Advertising is no use.'
+
+'This one will be.' He looked surprised at the sanguine tone of her
+answer, till she took a piece of paper from the table and showed it him.
+'See what I am going to do,' she said sadly, almost bitterly. This was
+her third effort:--
+
+
+  'LADY'S-MAID. Inexperienced. Age eighteen.--G., 3 Cross Street,
+  Budmouth.'
+
+
+Owen--Owen the respectable--looked blank astonishment. He repeated in a
+nameless, varying tone, the two words--
+
+'Lady's-maid!'
+
+'Yes; lady's-maid. 'Tis an honest profession,' said Cytherea bravely.
+
+'But _you_, Cytherea?'
+
+'Yes, I--who am I?'
+
+'You will never be a lady's-maid--never, I am quite sure.'
+
+'I shall try to be, at any rate.'
+
+'Such a disgrace--'
+
+'Nonsense! I maintain that it is no disgrace!' she said, rather warmly.
+'You know very well--'
+
+'Well, since you will, you must,' he interrupted. 'Why do you put
+"inexperienced?"'
+
+'Because I am.'
+
+'Never mind that--scratch out "inexperienced." We are poor, Cytherea,
+aren't we?' he murmured, after a silence, 'and it seems that the two
+months will close my engagement here.'
+
+'We can put up with being poor,' she said, 'if they only give us work
+to do.... Yes, we desire as a blessing what was given us as a curse, and
+even that is denied. However, be cheerful, Owen, and never mind!'
+
+In justice to desponding men, it is as well to remember that the
+brighter endurance of women at these epochs--invaluable, sweet, angelic,
+as it is--owes more of its origin to a narrower vision that shuts out
+many of the leaden-eyed despairs in the van, than to a hopefulness
+intense enough to quell them.
+
+
+
+
+IV. THE EVENTS OF ONE DAY
+
+1. AUGUST THE FOURTH. TILL FOUR O'CLOCK
+
+The early part of the next week brought an answer to Cytherea's last
+note of hope in the way of advertisement--not from a distance of
+hundreds of miles, London, Scotland, Ireland, the Continent--as Cytherea
+seemed to think it must, to be in keeping with the means adopted for
+obtaining it, but from a place in the neighbourhood of that in which
+she was living--a country mansion not twenty miles off. The reply ran
+thus:--
+
+
+                      KNAPWATER HOUSE,
+                         August 3, 1864.
+
+'Miss Aldclyffe is in want of a young person as lady's-maid. The duties
+of the place are light. Miss Aldclyffe will be in Budmouth on Thursday,
+when (should G. still not have heard of a place) she would like to see
+her at the Belvedere Hotel, Esplanade, at four o'clock. No answer need
+be returned to this note.'
+
+
+A little earlier than the time named, Cytherea, clothed in a modest
+bonnet, and a black silk jacket, turned down to the hotel. Expectation,
+the fresh air from the water, the bright, far-extending outlook, raised
+the most delicate of pink colours to her cheeks, and restored to her
+tread a portion of that elasticity which her past troubles, and thoughts
+of Edward, had well-nigh taken away.
+
+She entered the vestibule, and went to the window of the bar.
+
+'Is Miss Aldclyffe here?' she said to a nicely-dressed barmaid in the
+foreground, who was talking to a landlady covered with chains, knobs,
+and clamps of gold, in the background.
+
+'No, she isn't,' said the barmaid, not very civilly. Cytherea looked a
+shade too pretty for a plain dresser.
+
+'Miss Aldclyffe is expected here,' the landlady said to a third person,
+out of sight, in the tone of one who had known for several days the fact
+newly discovered from Cytherea. 'Get ready her room--be quick.' From the
+alacrity with which the order was given and taken, it seemed to Cytherea
+that Miss Aldclyffe must be a woman of considerable importance.
+
+'You are to have an interview with Miss Aldclyffe here?' the landlady
+inquired.
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'The young person had better wait,' continued the landlady. With a
+money-taker's intuition she had rightly divined that Cytherea would
+bring no profit to the house.
+
+Cytherea was shown into a nondescript chamber, on the shady side of the
+building, which appeared to be either bedroom or dayroom, as occasion
+necessitated, and was one of a suite at the end of the first-floor
+corridor. The prevailing colour of the walls, curtains, carpet, and
+coverings of furniture, was more or less blue, to which the cold light
+coming from the north easterly sky, and falling on a wide roof of new
+slates--the only object the small window commanded--imparted a more
+striking paleness. But underneath the door, communicating with the next
+room of the suite, gleamed an infinitesimally small, yet very powerful,
+fraction of contrast--a very thin line of ruddy light, showing that the
+sun beamed strongly into this room adjoining. The line of radiance was
+the only cheering thing visible in the place.
+
+People give way to very infantine thoughts and actions when they wait;
+the battle-field of life is temporarily fenced off by a hard and fast
+line--the interview. Cytherea fixed her eyes idly upon the streak, and
+began picturing a wonderful paradise on the other side as the source
+of such a beam--reminding her of the well-known good deed in a naughty
+world.
+
+Whilst she watched the particles of dust floating before the brilliant
+chink she heard a carriage and horses stop opposite the front of the
+house. Afterwards came the rustle of a lady's skirts down the corridor,
+and into the room communicating with the one Cytherea occupied.
+
+The golden line vanished in parts like the phosphorescent streak caused
+by the striking of a match; there was the fall of a light footstep
+on the floor just behind it: then a pause. Then the foot tapped
+impatiently, and 'There's no one here!' was spoken imperiously by a
+lady's tongue.
+
+'No, madam; in the next room. I am going to fetch her,' said the
+attendant.
+
+'That will do--or you needn't go in; I will call her.'
+
+Cytherea had risen, and she advanced to the middle door with the chink
+under it as the servant retired. She had just laid her hand on the knob,
+when it slipped round within her fingers, and the door was pulled open
+from the other side.
+
+2. FOUR O'CLOCK
+
+The direct blaze of the afternoon sun, partly refracted through the
+crimson curtains of the window, and heightened by reflections from the
+crimson-flock paper which covered the walls, and a carpet on the floor
+of the same tint, shone with a burning glow round the form of a lady
+standing close to Cytherea's front with the door in her hand. The
+stranger appeared to the maiden's eyes--fresh from the blue gloom, and
+assisted by an imagination fresh from nature--like a tall black figure
+standing in the midst of fire. It was the figure of a finely-built
+woman, of spare though not angular proportions.
+
+Cytherea involuntarily shaded her eyes with her hand, retreated a step
+or two, and then she could for the first time see Miss Aldclyffe's face
+in addition to her outline, lit up by the secondary and softer light
+that was reflected from the varnished panels of the door. She was not
+a very young woman, but could boast of much beauty of the majestic
+autumnal phase.
+
+'O,' said the lady, 'come this way.' Cytherea followed her to the
+embrasure of the window.
+
+Both the women showed off themselves to advantage as they walked forward
+in the orange light; and each showed too in her face that she had
+been struck with her companion's appearance. The warm tint added to
+Cytherea's face a voluptuousness which youth and a simple life had not
+yet allowed to express itself there ordinarily; whilst in the elder
+lady's face it reduced the customary expression, which might have been
+called sternness, if not harshness, to grandeur, and warmed her decaying
+complexion with much of the youthful richness it plainly had once
+possessed.
+
+She appeared now no more than five-and-thirty, though she might easily
+have been ten or a dozen years older. She had clear steady eyes, a Roman
+nose in its purest form, and also the round prominent chin with which
+the Caesars are represented in ancient marbles; a mouth expressing a
+capability for and tendency to strong emotion, habitually controlled by
+pride. There was a severity about the lower outlines of the face which
+gave a masculine cast to this portion of her countenance. Womanly
+weakness was nowhere visible save in one part--the curve of her forehead
+and brows--there it was clear and emphatic. She wore a lace shawl over a
+brown silk dress, and a net bonnet set with a few blue cornflowers.
+
+'You inserted the advertisement for a situation as lady's-maid giving
+the address, G., Cross Street?'
+
+'Yes, madam. Graye.'
+
+'Yes. I have heard your name--Mrs. Morris, my housekeeper, mentioned
+you, and pointed out your advertisement.'
+
+This was puzzling intelligence, but there was not time enough to
+consider it.
+
+'Where did you live last?' continued Miss Aldclyffe.
+
+'I have never been a servant before. I lived at home.'
+
+'Never been out? I thought too at sight of you that you were too
+girlish-looking to have done much. But why did you advertise with such
+assurance? It misleads people.'
+
+'I am very sorry: I put "inexperienced" at first, but my brother said it
+is absurd to trumpet your own weakness to the world, and would not let
+it remain.'
+
+'But your mother knew what was right, I suppose?'
+
+'I have no mother, madam.'
+
+'Your father, then?'
+
+'I have no father.'
+
+'Well,' she said, more softly, 'your sisters, aunts, or cousins.'
+
+'They didn't think anything about it.'
+
+'You didn't ask them, I suppose.'
+
+'No.'
+
+'You should have done so, then. Why didn't you?'
+
+'Because I haven't any of them, either.'
+
+Miss Aldclyffe showed her surprise. 'You deserve forgiveness then at
+any rate, child,' she said, in a sort of drily-kind tone. 'However, I
+am afraid you do not suit me, as I am looking for an elderly person. You
+see, I want an experienced maid who knows all the usual duties of the
+office.' She was going to add, 'Though I like your appearance,' but the
+words seemed offensive to apply to the ladylike girl before her, and she
+modified them to, 'though I like you much.'
+
+'I am sorry I misled you, madam,' said Cytherea.
+
+Miss Aldclyffe stood in a reverie, without replying.
+
+'Good afternoon,' continued Cytherea.
+
+'Good-bye, Miss Graye--I hope you will succeed.'
+
+Cytherea turned away towards the door. The movement chanced to be one
+of her masterpieces. It was precise: it had as much beauty as was
+compatible with precision, and as little coquettishness as was
+compatible with beauty.
+
+And she had in turning looked over her shoulder at the other lady with a
+faint accent of reproach in her face. Those who remember Greuze's 'Head
+of a Girl,' have an idea of Cytherea's look askance at the turning.
+It is not for a man to tell fishers of men how to set out their
+fascinations so as to bring about the highest possible average of takes
+within the year: but the action that tugs the hardest of all at an
+emotional beholder is this sweet method of turning which steals the
+bosom away and leaves the eyes behind.
+
+Now Miss Aldclyffe herself was no tyro at wheeling. When Cytherea had
+closed the door upon her, she remained for some time in her motionless
+attitude, listening to the gradually dying sound of the maiden's
+retreating footsteps. She murmured to herself, 'It is almost worth while
+to be bored with instructing her in order to have a creature who could
+glide round my luxurious indolent body in that manner, and look at me
+in that way--I warrant how light her fingers are upon one's head and
+neck.... What a silly modest young thing she is, to go away so suddenly
+as that!' She rang the bell.
+
+'Ask the young lady who has just left me to step back again,' she said
+to the attendant. 'Quick! or she will be gone.'
+
+Cytherea was now in the vestibule, thinking that if she had told her
+history, Miss Aldclyffe might perhaps have taken her into the household;
+yet her history she particularly wished to conceal from a stranger.
+When she was recalled she turned back without feeling much surprise.
+Something, she knew not what, told her she had not seen the last of Miss
+Aldclyffe.
+
+'You have somebody to refer me to, of course,' the lady said, when
+Cytherea had re-entered the room.
+
+'Yes: Mr. Thorn, a solicitor at Aldbrickham.'
+
+'And are you a clever needlewoman?'
+
+'I am considered to be.'
+
+'Then I think that at any rate I will write to Mr. Thorn,' said Miss
+Aldclyffe, with a little smile. 'It is true, the whole proceeding is
+very irregular; but my present maid leaves next Monday, and neither of
+the five I have already seen seem to do for me.... Well, I will write to
+Mr. Thorn, and if his reply is satisfactory, you shall hear from me. It
+will be as well to set yourself in readiness to come on Monday.'
+
+When Cytherea had again been watched out of the room, Miss Aldclyffe
+asked for writing materials, that she might at once communicate with Mr.
+Thorn. She indecisively played with the pen. 'Suppose Mr. Thorn's reply
+to be in any way disheartening--and even if so from his own imperfect
+acquaintance with the young creature more than from circumstantial
+knowledge--I shall feel obliged to give her up. Then I shall regret that
+I did not give her one trial in spite of other people's prejudices. All
+her account of herself is reliable enough--yes, I can see that by her
+face. I like that face of hers.'
+
+Miss Aldclyffe put down the pen and left the hotel without writing to
+Mr. Thorn.
+
+
+
+
+V. THE EVENTS OF ONE DAY
+
+1. AUGUST THE EIGHTH. MORNING AND AFTERNOON
+
+At post-time on that following Monday morning, Cytherea watched so
+anxiously for the postman, that as the time which must bring him
+narrowed less and less her vivid expectation had only a degree less
+tangibility than his presence itself. In another second his form came
+into view. He brought two letters for Cytherea.
+
+One from Miss Aldclyffe, simply stating that she wished Cytherea to come
+on trial: that she would require her to be at Knapwater House by Monday
+evening.
+
+The other was from Edward Springrove. He told her that she was the
+bright spot of his life: that her existence was far dearer to him than
+his own: that he had never known what it was to love till he had met
+her. True, he had felt passing attachments to other faces from time to
+time; but they all had been weak inclinations towards those faces
+as they then appeared. He loved her past and future, as well as her
+present. He pictured her as a child: he loved her. He pictured her of
+sage years: he loved her. He pictured her in trouble; he loved her.
+Homely friendship entered into his love for her, without which all love
+was evanescent.
+
+He would make one depressing statement. Uncontrollable circumstances (a
+long history, with which it was impossible to acquaint her at present)
+operated to a certain extent as a drag upon his wishes. He had felt this
+more strongly at the time of their parting than he did now--and it was
+the cause of his abrupt behaviour, for which he begged her to forgive
+him. He saw now an honourable way of freeing himself, and the perception
+had prompted him to write. In the meantime might he indulge in the
+hope of possessing her on some bright future day, when by hard labour
+generated from her own encouraging words, he had placed himself in a
+position she would think worthy to be shared with him?
+
+Dear little letter; she huddled it up. So much more important a
+love-letter seems to a girl than to a man. Springrove was unconsciously
+clever in his letters, and a man with a talent of that kind may write
+himself up to a hero in the mind of a young woman who loves him without
+knowing much about him. Springrove already stood a cubit higher in her
+imagination than he did in his shoes.
+
+During the day she flitted about the room in an ecstasy of pleasure,
+packing the things and thinking of an answer which should be worthy
+of the tender tone of the question, her love bubbling from her
+involuntarily, like prophesyings from a prophet.
+
+In the afternoon Owen went with her to the railway-station, and put her
+in the train for Carriford Road, the station nearest to Knapwater House.
+
+Half-an-hour later she stepped out upon the platform, and found nobody
+there to receive her--though a pony-carriage was waiting outside. In two
+minutes she saw a melancholy man in cheerful livery running towards her
+from a public-house close adjoining, who proved to be the servant sent
+to fetch her. There are two ways of getting rid of sorrows: one by
+living them down, the other by drowning them. The coachman drowned his.
+
+He informed her that her luggage would be fetched by a spring-waggon in
+about half-an-hour; then helped her into the chaise and drove off.
+
+Her lover's letter, lying close against her neck, fortified her against
+the restless timidity she had previously felt concerning this new
+undertaking, and completely furnished her with the confident ease of
+mind which is required for the critical observation of surrounding
+objects. It was just that stage in the slow decline of the summer days,
+when the deep, dark, and vacuous hot-weather shadows are beginning to be
+replaced by blue ones that have a surface and substance to the eye. They
+trotted along the turnpike road for a distance of about a mile, which
+brought them just outside the village of Carriford, and then turned
+through large lodge-gates, on the heavy stone piers of which stood a
+pair of bitterns cast in bronze. They then entered the park and wound
+along a drive shaded by old and drooping lime-trees, not arranged in the
+form of an avenue, but standing irregularly, sometimes leaving the track
+completely exposed to the sky, at other times casting a shade over it,
+which almost approached gloom--the under surface of the lowest boughs
+hanging at a uniform level of six feet above the grass--the extreme
+height to which the nibbling mouths of the cattle could reach.
+
+'Is that the house?' said Cytherea expectantly, catching sight of a grey
+gable between the trees, and losing it again.
+
+'No; that's the old manor-house--or rather all that's left of it. The
+Aldycliffes used to let it sometimes, but it was oftener empty. 'Tis
+now divided into three cottages. Respectable people didn't care to live
+there.'
+
+'Why didn't they?'
+
+'Well, 'tis so awkward and unhandy. You see so much of it has been
+pulled down, and the rooms that are left won't do very well for a small
+residence. 'Tis so dismal, too, and like most old houses stands too low
+down in the hollow to be healthy.'
+
+'Do they tell any horrid stories about it?'
+
+'No, not a single one.'
+
+'Ah, that's a pity.'
+
+'Yes, that's what I say. 'Tis jest the house for a nice ghastly
+hair-on-end story, that would make the parish religious. Perhaps it will
+have one some day to make it complete; but there's not a word of
+the kind now. There, I wouldn't live there for all that. In fact, I
+couldn't. O no, I couldn't.'
+
+'Why couldn't you?'
+
+'The sounds.'
+
+'What are they?'
+
+'One is the waterfall, which stands so close by that you can hear that
+there waterfall in every room of the house, night or day, ill or well.
+'Tis enough to drive anybody mad: now hark.'
+
+He stopped the horse. Above the slight common sounds in the air came the
+unvarying steady rush of falling water from some spot unseen on account
+of the thick foliage of the grove.
+
+'There's something awful in the timing o' that sound, ain't there,
+miss?'
+
+'When you say there is, there really seems to be. You said there were
+two--what is the other horrid sound?'
+
+'The pumping-engine. That's close by the Old House, and sends water up
+the hill and all over the Great House. We shall hear that directly....
+There, now hark again.'
+
+From the same direction down the dell they could now hear the whistling
+creak of cranks, repeated at intervals of half-a-minute, with a sousing
+noise between each: a creak, a souse, then another creak, and so on
+continually.
+
+'Now if anybody could make shift to live through the other sounds, these
+would finish him off, don't you think so, miss? That machine goes on
+night and day, summer and winter, and is hardly ever greased or visited.
+Ah, it tries the nerves at night, especially if you are not very well;
+though we don't often hear it at the Great House.'
+
+'That sound is certainly very dismal. They might have the wheel greased.
+Does Miss Aldclyffe take any interest in these things?'
+
+'Well, scarcely; you see her father doesn't attend to that sort of thing
+as he used to. The engine was once quite his hobby. But now he's getten
+old and very seldom goes there.'
+
+'How many are there in family?'
+
+'Only her father and herself. He's a' old man of seventy.'
+
+'I had thought that Miss Aldclyffe was sole mistress of the property,
+and lived here alone.'
+
+'No, m--' The coachman was continually checking himself thus, being
+about to style her miss involuntarily, and then recollecting that he was
+only speaking to the new lady's-maid.
+
+'She will soon be mistress, however, I am afraid,' he continued, as if
+speaking by a spirit of prophecy denied to ordinary humanity. 'The poor
+old gentleman has decayed very fast lately.' The man then drew a long
+breath.
+
+'Why did you breathe sadly like that?' said Cytherea.
+
+'Ah!... When he's dead peace will be all over with us old servants. I
+expect to see the old house turned inside out.'
+
+'She will marry, do you mean?'
+
+'Marry--not she! I wish she would. No, in her soul she's as solitary
+as Robinson Crusoe, though she has acquaintances in plenty, if
+not relations. There's the rector, Mr. Raunham--he's a relation by
+marriage--yet she's quite distant towards him. And people say that if
+she keeps single there will be hardly a life between Mr. Raunham and the
+heirship of the estate. Dang it, she don't care. She's an extraordinary
+picture of womankind--very extraordinary.'
+
+'In what way besides?'
+
+'You'll know soon enough, miss. She has had seven lady's-maids this last
+twelvemonth. I assure you 'tis one body's work to fetch 'em from the
+station and take 'em back again. The Lord must be a neglectful party at
+heart, or he'd never permit such overbearen goings on!'
+
+'Does she dismiss them directly they come!'
+
+'Not at all--she never dismisses them--they go theirselves. Ye see 'tis
+like this. She's got a very quick temper; she flees in a passion with
+them for nothing at all; next mornen they come up and say they are
+going; she's sorry for it and wishes they'd stay, but she's as proud as
+a lucifer, and her pride won't let her say, "Stay," and away they go.
+'Tis like this in fact. If you say to her about anybody, "Ah, poor
+thing!" she says, "Pooh! indeed!" If you say, "Pooh, indeed!" "Ah, poor
+thing!" she says directly. She hangs the chief baker, as mid be, and
+restores the chief butler, as mid be, though the devil but Pharaoh
+herself can see the difference between 'em.'
+
+Cytherea was silent. She feared she might be again a burden to her
+brother.
+
+'However, you stand a very good chance,' the man went on, 'for I
+think she likes you more than common. I have never known her send the
+pony-carriage to meet one before; 'tis always the trap, but this time
+she said, in a very particular ladylike tone, "Roobert, gaow with the
+pony-kerriage."... There, 'tis true, pony and carriage too are getten
+rather shabby now,' he added, looking round upon the vehicle as if to
+keep Cytherea's pride within reasonable limits.
+
+''Tis to be hoped you'll please in dressen her to-night.'
+
+'Why to-night?'
+
+'There's a dinner-party of seventeen; 'tis her father's birthday, and
+she's very particular about her looks at such times. Now see; this is
+the house. Livelier up here, isn't it, miss?'
+
+They were now on rising ground, and had just emerged from a clump of
+trees. Still a little higher than where they stood was situated the
+mansion, called Knapwater House, the offices gradually losing themselves
+among the trees behind.
+
+2. EVENING
+
+The house was regularly and substantially built of clean grey freestone
+throughout, in that plainer fashion of Greek classicism which prevailed
+at the latter end of the last century, when the copyists called
+designers had grown weary of fantastic variations in the Roman orders.
+The main block approximated to a square on the ground plan, having a
+projection in the centre of each side, surmounted by a pediment. From
+each angle of the inferior side ran a line of buildings lower than the
+rest, turning inwards again at their further end, and forming
+within them a spacious open court, within which resounded an echo of
+astonishing clearness. These erections were in their turn backed by
+ivy-covered ice-houses, laundries, and stables, the whole mass of
+subsidiary buildings being half buried beneath close-set shrubs and
+trees.
+
+There was opening sufficient through the foliage on the right hand to
+enable her on nearer approach to form an idea of the arrangement of the
+remoter or lawn front also. The natural features and contour of this
+quarter of the site had evidently dictated the position of the
+house primarily, and were of the ordinary, and upon the whole, most
+satisfactory kind, namely, a broad, graceful slope running from the
+terrace beneath the walls to the margin of a placid lake lying below,
+upon the surface of which a dozen swans and a green punt floated at
+leisure. An irregular wooded island stood in the midst of the lake;
+beyond this and the further margin of the water were plantations and
+greensward of varied outlines, the trees heightening, by half veiling,
+the softness of the exquisite landscape stretching behind.
+
+The glimpses she had obtained of this portion were now checked by the
+angle of the building. In a minute or two they reached the side door, at
+which Cytherea alighted. She was welcomed by an elderly woman of lengthy
+smiles and general pleasantness, who announced herself to be Mrs.
+Morris, the housekeeper.
+
+'Mrs. Graye, I believe?' she said.
+
+'I am not--O yes, yes, we are all mistresses,' said Cytherea, smiling,
+but forcedly. The title accorded her seemed disagreeably like the first
+slight scar of a brand, and she thought of Owen's prophecy.
+
+Mrs. Morris led her into a comfortable parlour called The Room. Here
+tea was made ready, and Cytherea sat down, looking, whenever occasion
+allowed, at Mrs. Morris with great interest and curiosity, to discover,
+if possible, something in her which should give a clue to the secret
+of her knowledge of herself, and the recommendation based upon it.
+But nothing was to be learnt, at any rate just then. Mrs. Morris was
+perpetually getting up, feeling in her pockets, going to cupboards,
+leaving the room two or three minutes, and trotting back again.
+
+'You'll excuse me, Mrs. Graye,' she said, 'but 'tis the old gentleman's
+birthday, and they always have a lot of people to dinner on that
+day, though he's getting up in years now. However, none of them are
+sleepers--she generally keeps the house pretty clear of lodgers (being a
+lady with no intimate friends, though many acquaintances), which, though
+it gives us less to do, makes it all the duller for the younger maids in
+the house.' Mrs. Morris then proceeded to give in fragmentary speeches
+an outline of the constitution and government of the estate.
+
+'Now, are you sure you have quite done tea? Not a bit or drop more? Why,
+you've eaten nothing, I'm sure.... Well, now, it is rather inconvenient
+that the other maid is not here to show you the ways of the house a
+little, but she left last Saturday, and Miss Aldclyffe has been making
+shift with poor old clumsy me for a maid all yesterday and this morning.
+She is not come in yet. I expect she will ask for you, Mrs. Graye, the
+first thing.... I was going to say that if you have really done tea,
+I will take you upstairs, and show you through the wardrobes--Miss
+Aldclyffe's things are not laid out for to-night yet.'
+
+She preceded Cytherea upstairs, pointed out her own room, and then took
+her into Miss Aldclyffe's dressing-room, on the first-floor; where,
+after explaining the whereabouts of various articles of apparel, the
+housekeeper left her, telling her that she had an hour yet upon her
+hands before dressing-time. Cytherea laid out upon the bed in the next
+room all that she had been told would be required that evening, and then
+went again to the little room which had been appropriated to herself.
+
+Here she sat down by the open window, leant out upon the sill like
+another Blessed Damozel, and listlessly looked down upon the brilliant
+pattern of colours formed by the flower-beds on the lawn--now richly
+crowded with late summer blossom. But the vivacity of spirit which had
+hitherto enlivened her, was fast ebbing under the pressure of prosaic
+realities, and the warm scarlet of the geraniums, glowing most
+conspicuously, and mingling with the vivid cold red and green of the
+verbenas, the rich depth of the dahlia, and the ripe mellowness of the
+calceolaria, backed by the pale hue of a flock of meek sheep feeding in
+the open park, close to the other side of the fence, were, to a great
+extent, lost upon her eyes. She was thinking that nothing seemed worth
+while; that it was possible she might die in a workhouse; and what did
+it matter? The petty, vulgar details of servitude that she had just
+passed through, her dependence upon the whims of a strange woman, the
+necessity of quenching all individuality of character in herself, and
+relinquishing her own peculiar tastes to help on the wheel of this alien
+establishment, made her sick and sad, and she almost longed to pursue
+some free, out-of-doors employment, sleep under trees or a hut, and know
+no enemy but winter and cold weather, like shepherds and cowkeepers, and
+birds and animals--ay, like the sheep she saw there under her window.
+She looked sympathizingly at them for several minutes, imagining their
+enjoyment of the rich grass.
+
+'Yes--like those sheep,' she said aloud; and her face reddened with
+surprise at a discovery she made that very instant.
+
+The flock consisted of some ninety or a hundred young stock ewes: the
+surface of their fleece was as rounded and even as a cushion, and white
+as milk. Now she had just observed that on the left buttock of every one
+of them were marked in distinct red letters the initials 'E. S.'
+
+'E. S.' could bring to Cytherea's mind only one thought; but that
+immediately and for ever--the name of her lover, Edward Springrove.
+
+'O, if it should be--!' She interrupted her words by a resolve. Miss
+Aldclyffe's carriage at the same moment made its appearance in the
+drive; but Miss Aldclyffe was not her object now. It was to ascertain to
+whom the sheep belonged, and to set her surmise at rest one way or the
+other. She flew downstairs to Mrs. Morris.
+
+'Whose sheep are those in the park, Mrs. Morris?'
+
+'Farmer Springrove's.'
+
+'What Farmer Springrove is that?' she said quickly.
+
+'Why, surely you know? Your friend, Farmer Springrove, the cider-maker,
+and who keeps the Three Tranters Inn; who recommended you to me when he
+came in to see me the other day?'
+
+Cytherea's mother-wit suddenly warned her in the midst of her excitement
+that it was necessary not to betray the secret of her love. 'O yes,'
+she said, 'of course.' Her thoughts had run as follows in that short
+interval:--
+
+'Farmer Springrove is Edward's father, and his name is Edward too.
+
+'Edward knew I was going to advertise for a situation of some kind.
+
+'He watched the Times, and saw it, my address being attached.
+
+'He thought it would be excellent for me to be here that we might meet
+whenever he came home.
+
+'He told his father that I might be recommended as a lady's-maid; and he
+knew my brother and myself.
+
+'His father told Mrs. Morris; Mrs. Morris told Miss Aldclyffe.'
+
+The whole chain of incidents that drew her there was plain, and there
+was no such thing as chance in the matter. It was all Edward's doing.
+
+The sound of a bell was heard. Cytherea did not heed it, and still
+continued in her reverie.
+
+'That's Miss Aldclyffe's bell,' said Mrs. Morris.
+
+'I suppose it is,' said the young woman placidly.
+
+'Well, it means that you must go up to her,' the matron continued, in a
+tone of surprise.
+
+Cytherea felt a burning heat come over her, mingled with a sudden
+irritation at Mrs. Morris's hint. But the good sense which had
+recognized stern necessity prevailed over rebellious independence; the
+flush passed, and she said hastily--
+
+'Yes, yes; of course, I must go to her when she pulls the bell--whether
+I want to or no.'
+
+However, in spite of this painful reminder of her new position in life,
+Cytherea left the apartment in a mood far different from the gloomy
+sadness of ten minutes previous. The place felt like home to her
+now; she did not mind the pettiness of her occupation, because Edward
+evidently did not mind it; and this was Edward's own spot. She found
+time on her way to Miss Aldclyffe's dressing-room to hurriedly glide out
+by a side door, and look for a moment at the unconscious sheep bearing
+the friendly initials. She went up to them to try to touch one of the
+flock, and felt vexed that they all stared sceptically at her kind
+advances, and then ran pell-mell down the hill. Then, fearing any one
+should discover her childish movements, she slipped indoors again,
+and ascended the staircase, catching glimpses, as she passed, of
+silver-buttoned footmen, who flashed about the passages like lightning.
+
+Miss Aldclyffe's dressing-room was an apartment which, on a casual
+survey, conveyed an impression that it was available for almost any
+purpose save the adornment of the feminine person. In its hours of
+perfect order nothing pertaining to the toilet was visible; even the
+inevitable mirrors with their accessories were arranged in a roomy
+recess not noticeable from the door, lighted by a window of its own,
+called the dressing-window.
+
+The washing-stand figured as a vast oak chest, carved with grotesque
+Renaissance ornament. The dressing table was in appearance something
+between a high altar and a cabinet piano, the surface being richly
+worked in the same style of semi-classic decoration, but the
+extraordinary outline having been arrived at by an ingenious joiner and
+decorator from the neighbouring town, after months of painful toil in
+cutting and fitting, under Miss Aldclyffe's immediate eye; the materials
+being the remains of two or three old cabinets the lady had found in the
+lumber-room. About two-thirds of the floor was carpeted, the remaining
+portion being laid with parquetry of light and dark woods.
+
+Miss Aldclyffe was standing at the larger window, away from the
+dressing-niche. She bowed, and said pleasantly, 'I am glad you have
+come. We shall get on capitally, I dare say.'
+
+Her bonnet was off. Cytherea did not think her so handsome as on the
+earlier day; the queenliness of her beauty was harder and less warm.
+But a worse discovery than this was that Miss Aldclyffe, with the usual
+obliviousness of rich people to their dependents' specialities, seemed
+to have quite forgotten Cytherea's inexperience, and mechanically
+delivered up her body to her handmaid without a thought of details, and
+with a mild yawn.
+
+Everything went well at first. The dress was removed, stockings and
+black boots were taken off, and silk stockings and white shoes were
+put on. Miss Aldclyffe then retired to bathe her hands and face, and
+Cytherea drew breath. If she could get through this first evening, all
+would be right. She felt that it was unfortunate that such a crucial
+test for her powers as a birthday dinner should have been applied on the
+threshold of her arrival; but set to again.
+
+Miss Aldclyffe was now arrayed in a white dressing-gown, and dropped
+languidly into an easy-chair, pushed up before the glass. The instincts
+of her sex and her own practice told Cytherea the next movement. She let
+Miss Aldclyffe's hair fall about her shoulders, and began to arrange it.
+It proved to be all real; a satisfaction.
+
+Miss Aldclyffe was musingly looking on the floor, and the operation went
+on for some minutes in silence. At length her thoughts seemed to turn to
+the present, and she lifted her eyes to the glass.
+
+'Why, what on earth are you doing with my head?' she exclaimed, with
+widely opened eyes. At the words she felt the back of Cytherea's little
+hand tremble against her neck.
+
+'Perhaps you prefer it done the other fashion, madam?' said the maiden.
+
+'No, no; that's the fashion right enough, but you must make more show of
+my hair than that, or I shall have to buy some, which God forbid!'
+
+'It is how I do my own,' said Cytherea naively, and with a sweetness
+of tone that would have pleased the most acrimonious under favourable
+circumstances; but tyranny was in the ascendant with Miss Aldclyffe
+at this moment, and she was assured of palatable food for her vice by
+having felt the trembling of Cytherea's hand.
+
+'Yours, indeed! _Your_ hair! Come, go on.' Considering that Cytherea
+possessed at least five times as much of that valuable auxiliary to
+woman's beauty as the lady before her, there was at the same time some
+excuse for Miss Aldclyffe's outburst. She remembered herself, however,
+and said more quietly, 'Now then, Graye--By-the-bye, what do they call
+you downstairs?'
+
+'Mrs. Graye,' said the handmaid.
+
+'Then tell them not to do any such absurd thing--not but that it is
+quite according to usage; but you are too young yet.'
+
+This dialogue tided Cytherea safely onward through the hairdressing
+till the flowers and diamonds were to be placed upon the lady's brow.
+Cytherea began arranging them tastefully, and to the very best of her
+judgment.
+
+'That won't do,' said Miss Aldclyffe harshly.
+
+'Why?'
+
+'I look too young--an old dressed doll.'
+
+'Will that, madam?'
+
+'No, I look a fright--a perfect fright!'
+
+'This way, perhaps?'
+
+'Heavens! Don't worry me so.' She shut her lips like a trap.
+
+Having once worked herself up to the belief that her head-dress was to
+be a failure that evening, no cleverness of Cytherea's in arranging
+it could please her. She continued in a smouldering passion during the
+remainder of the performance, keeping her lips firmly closed, and the
+muscles of her body rigid. Finally, snatching up her gloves, and taking
+her handkerchief and fan in her hand, she silently sailed out of the
+room, without betraying the least consciousness of another woman's
+presence behind her.
+
+Cytherea's fears that at the undressing this suppressed anger would find
+a vent, kept her on thorns throughout the evening. She tried to read;
+she could not. She tried to sew; she could not. She tried to muse; she
+could not do that connectedly. 'If this is the beginning, what will
+the end be!' she said in a whisper, and felt many misgivings as to the
+policy of being overhasty in establishing an independence at the expense
+of congruity with a cherished past.
+
+3. MIDNIGHT
+
+The clock struck twelve. The Aldclyffe state dinner was over. The
+company had all gone, and Miss Aldclyffe's bell rang loudly and
+jerkingly.
+
+Cytherea started to her feet at the sound, which broke in upon a fitful
+sleep that had overtaken her. She had been sitting drearily in her chair
+waiting minute after minute for the signal, her brain in that state
+of intentness which takes cognizance of the passage of Time as a real
+motion--motion without matter--the instants throbbing past in the
+company of a feverish pulse. She hastened to the room, to find the
+lady sitting before the dressing shrine, illuminated on both sides, and
+looking so queenly in her attitude of absolute repose, that the younger
+woman felt the awfullest sense of responsibility at her Vandalism in
+having undertaken to demolish so imposing a pile.
+
+The lady's jewelled ornaments were taken off in silence--some by her own
+listless hands, some by Cytherea's. Then followed the outer stratum of
+clothing. The dress being removed, Cytherea took it in her hand and
+went with it into the bedroom adjoining, intending to hang it in the
+wardrobe. But on second thoughts, in order that she might not keep Miss
+Aldclyffe waiting a moment longer than necessary, she flung it down on
+the first resting-place that came to hand, which happened to be the
+bed, and re-entered the dressing-room with the noiseless footfall of a
+kitten. She paused in the middle of the room.
+
+She was unnoticed, and her sudden return had plainly not been expected.
+During the short time of Cytherea's absence, Miss Aldclyffe had pulled
+off a kind of chemisette of Brussels net, drawn high above the throat,
+which she had worn with her evening dress as a semi-opaque covering to
+her shoulders, and in its place had put her night-gown round her.
+Her right hand was lifted to her neck, as if engaged in fastening her
+night-gown.
+
+But on a second glance Miss Aldclyffe's proceeding was clearer to
+Cytherea. She was not fastening her night-gown; it had been carelessly
+thrown round her, and Miss Aldclyffe was really occupied in holding up
+to her eyes some small object that she was keenly scrutinizing. And
+now on suddenly discovering the presence of Cytherea at the back of the
+apartment, instead of naturally continuing or concluding her inspection,
+she desisted hurriedly; the tiny snap of a spring was heard, her hand
+was removed, and she began adjusting her robes.
+
+Modesty might have directed her hasty action of enwrapping her
+shoulders, but it was scarcely likely, considering Miss Aldclyffe's
+temperament, that she had all her life been used to a maid, Cytherea's
+youth, and the elder lady's marked treatment of her as if she were a
+mere child or plaything. The matter was too slight to reason about, and
+yet upon the whole it seemed that Miss Aldclyffe must have a practical
+reason for concealing her neck.
+
+With a timid sense of being an intruder Cytherea was about to step back
+and out of the room; but at the same moment Miss Aldclyffe turned, saw
+the impulse, and told her companion to stay, looking into her eyes as if
+she had half an intention to explain something. Cytherea felt certain
+it was the little mystery of her late movements. The other withdrew her
+eyes; Cytherea went to fetch the dressing-gown, and wheeled round
+again to bring it up to Miss Aldclyffe, who had now partly removed her
+night-dress to put it on the proper way, and still sat with her back
+towards Cytherea.
+
+Her neck was again quite open and uncovered, and though hidden from the
+direct line of Cytherea's vision, she saw it reflected in the glass--the
+fair white surface, and the inimitable combination of curves between
+throat and bosom which artists adore, being brightly lit up by the light
+burning on either side.
+
+And the lady's prior proceedings were now explained in the simplest
+manner. In the midst of her breast, like an island in a sea of pearl,
+reclined an exquisite little gold locket, embellished with arabesque
+work of blue, red, and white enamel. That was undoubtedly what Miss
+Aldclyffe had been contemplating; and, moreover, not having been put
+off with her other ornaments, it was to be retained during the night--a
+slight departure from the custom of ladies which Miss Aldclyffe had at
+first not cared to exhibit to her new assistant, though now, on further
+thought, she seemed to have become indifferent on the matter.
+
+'My dressing-gown,' she said, quietly fastening her night-dress as she
+spoke.
+
+Cytherea came forward with it. Miss Aldclyffe did not turn her head, but
+looked inquiringly at her maid in the glass.
+
+'You saw what I wear on my neck, I suppose?' she said to Cytherea's
+reflected face.
+
+'Yes, madam, I did,' said Cytherea to Miss Aldclyffe's reflected face.
+
+Miss Aldclyffe again looked at Cytherea's reflection as if she were
+on the point of explaining. Again she checked her resolve, and said
+lightly--
+
+'Few of my maids discover that I wear it always. I generally keep it
+a secret--not that it matters much. But I was careless with you, and
+seemed to want to tell you. You win me to make confidences that....'
+
+She ceased, took Cytherea's hand in her own, lifted the locket with the
+other, touched the spring and disclosed a miniature.
+
+'It is a handsome face, is it not?' she whispered mournfully, and even
+timidly.
+
+'It is.'
+
+But the sight had gone through Cytherea like an electric shock, and
+there was an instantaneous awakening of perception in her, so thrilling
+in its presence as to be well-nigh insupportable. The face in the
+miniature was the face of her own father--younger and fresher than she
+had ever known him--but her father!
+
+Was this the woman of his wild and unquenchable early love? And was this
+the woman who had figured in the gate-man's story as answering the name
+of Cytherea before her judgment was awake? Surely it was. And if so,
+here was the tangible outcrop of a romantic and hidden stratum of the
+past hitherto seen only in her imagination; but as far as her scope
+allowed, clearly defined therein by reason of its strangeness.
+
+Miss Aldclyffe's eyes and thoughts were so intent upon the miniature
+that she had not been conscious of Cytherea's start of surprise. She
+went on speaking in a low and abstracted tone.
+
+'Yes, I lost him.' She interrupted her words by a short meditation, and
+went on again. 'I lost him by excess of honesty as regarded my past. But
+it was best that it should be so.... I was led to think rather more
+than usual of the circumstances to-night because of your name. It is
+pronounced the same way, though differently spelt.'
+
+The only means by which Cytherea's surname could have been spelt to
+Miss Aldclyffe must have been by Mrs. Morris or Farmer Springrove. She
+fancied Farmer Springrove would have spelt it properly if Edward was his
+informant, which made Miss Aldclyffe's remark obscure.
+
+Women make confidences and then regret them. The impulsive rush of
+feeling which had led Miss Aldclyffe to indulge in this revelation,
+trifling as it was, died out immediately her words were beyond recall;
+and the turmoil, occasioned in her by dwelling upon that chapter of her
+life, found vent in another kind of emotion--the result of a trivial
+accident.
+
+Cytherea, after letting down Miss Aldclyffe's hair, adopted some plan
+with it to which the lady had not been accustomed. A rapid revulsion
+to irritation ensued. The maiden's mere touch seemed to discharge the
+pent-up regret of the lady as if she had been a jar of electricity.
+
+'How strangely you treat my hair!' she exclaimed.
+
+A silence.
+
+'I have told you what I never tell my maids as a rule; of course
+_nothing_ that I say in this room is to be mentioned outside it.' She
+spoke crossly no less than emphatically.
+
+'It shall not be, madam,' said Cytherea, agitated and vexed that the
+woman of her romantic wonderings should be so disagreeable to her.
+
+'Why on earth did I tell you of my past?' she went on.
+
+Cytherea made no answer.
+
+The lady's vexation with herself, and the accident which had led to the
+disclosure swelled little by little till it knew no bounds. But what was
+done could not be undone, and though Cytherea had shown a most winning
+responsiveness, quarrel Miss Aldclyffe must. She recurred to the subject
+of Cytherea's want of expertness, like a bitter reviewer, who finding
+the sentiments of a poet unimpeachable, quarrels with his rhymes.
+
+'Never, never before did I serve myself such a trick as this in engaging
+a maid!' She waited for an expostulation: none came. Miss Aldclyffe
+tried again.
+
+'The idea of my taking a girl without asking her more than three
+questions, or having a single reference, all because of her good l--,
+the shape of her face and body! It _was_ a fool's trick. There, I am
+served right, quite right--by being deceived in such a way.'
+
+'I didn't deceive you,' said Cytherea. The speech was an unfortunate
+one, and was the very 'fuel to maintain its fires' that the other's
+petulance desired.
+
+'You did,' she said hotly.
+
+'I told you I couldn't promise to be acquainted with every detail of
+routine just at first.'
+
+'Will you contradict me in this way! You are telling untruths, I say.'
+
+Cytherea's lip quivered. 'I would answer the remark if--if--'
+
+'If what?'
+
+'If it were a lady's!'
+
+'You girl of impudence--what do you say? Leave the room this instant, I
+tell you.'
+
+'And I tell you that a person who speaks to a lady as you do to me, is
+no lady herself!'
+
+'To a lady? A lady's-maid speaks in this way. The idea!'
+
+'Don't "lady's-maid" me: nobody is my mistress I won't have it!'
+
+'Good Heavens!'
+
+'I wouldn't have come--no--I wouldn't! if I had known!'
+
+'What?'
+
+'That you were such an ill-tempered, unjust woman!'
+
+'Possest beyond the Muse's painting,' Miss Aldclyffe exclaimed--
+
+'A Woman, am I! I'll teach you if I am a Woman!' and lifted her hand as
+if she would have liked to strike her companion. This stung the maiden
+into absolute defiance.
+
+'I dare you to touch me!' she cried. 'Strike me if you dare, madam! I am
+not afraid of you--what do you mean by such an action as that?'
+
+Miss Aldclyffe was disconcerted at this unexpected show of spirit, and
+ashamed of her unladylike impulse now it was put into words. She sank
+back in the chair. 'I was not going to strike you--go to your room--I
+beg you to go to your room!' she repeated in a husky whisper.
+
+Cytherea, red and panting, took up her candlestick and advanced to
+the table to get a light. As she stood close to them the rays from the
+candles struck sharply on her face. She usually bore a much stronger
+likeness to her mother than to her father, but now, looking with a
+grave, reckless, and angered expression of countenance at the kindling
+wick as she held it slanting into the other flame, her father's features
+were distinct in her. It was the first time Miss Aldclyffe had seen her
+in a passionate mood, and wearing that expression which was invariably
+its concomitant. It was Miss Aldclyffe's turn to start now; and the
+remark she made was an instance of that sudden change of tone from
+high-flown invective to the pettiness of curiosity which so often makes
+women's quarrels ridiculous. Even Miss Aldclyffe's dignity had not
+sufficient power to postpone the absorbing desire she now felt to settle
+the strange suspicion that had entered her head.
+
+'You spell your name the common way, G, R, E, Y, don't you?' she said,
+with assumed indifference.
+
+'No,' said Cytherea, poised on the side of her foot, and still looking
+into the flame.
+
+'Yes, surely? The name was spelt that way on your boxes: I looked and
+saw it myself.'
+
+The enigma of Miss Aldclyffe's mistake was solved. 'O, was it?' said
+Cytherea. 'Ah, I remember Mrs. Jackson, the lodging-house keeper at
+Budmouth, labelled them. We spell our name G, R, A, Y, E.'
+
+'What was your father's trade?'
+
+Cytherea thought it would be useless to attempt to conceal facts any
+longer. 'His was not a trade,' she said. 'He was an architect.'
+
+'The idea of your being an architect's daughter!'
+
+'There's nothing to offend you in that, I hope?'
+
+'O no.'
+
+'Why did you say "the idea"?'
+
+'Leave that alone. Did he ever visit in Gower Street, Bloomsbury, one
+Christmas, many years ago?--but you would not know that.'
+
+'I have heard him say that Mr. Huntway, a curate somewhere in that part
+of London, and who died there, was an old college friend of his.'
+
+'What is your Christian name?'
+
+'Cytherea.'
+
+'No! And is it really? And you knew that face I showed you? Yes, I see
+you did.' Miss Aldclyffe stopped, and closed her lips impassibly. She
+was a little agitated.
+
+'Do you want me any longer?' said Cytherea, standing candle in hand and
+looking quietly in Miss Aldclyffe's face.
+
+'Well--no: no longer,' said the other lingeringly.
+
+'With your permission, I will leave the house to morrow morning, madam.'
+
+'Ah.' Miss Aldclyffe had no notion of what she was saying.
+
+'And I know you will be so good as not to intrude upon me during the
+short remainder of my stay?'
+
+Saying this Cytherea left the room before her companion had answered.
+Miss Aldclyffe, then, had recognized her at last, and had been curious
+about her name from the beginning.
+
+The other members of the household had retired to rest. As Cytherea went
+along the passage leading to her room her skirts rustled against the
+partition. A door on her left opened, and Mrs. Morris looked out.
+
+'I waited out of bed till you came up,' she said, 'it being your first
+night, in case you should be at a loss for anything. How have you got on
+with Miss Aldclyffe?'
+
+'Pretty well--though not so well as I could have wished.'
+
+'Has she been scolding?'
+
+'A little.'
+
+'She's a very odd lady--'tis all one way or the other with her. She's
+not bad at heart, but unbearable in close quarters. Those of us who
+don't have much to do with her personally, stay on for years and years.'
+
+'Has Miss Aldclyffe's family always been rich?' said Cytherea.
+
+'O no. The property, with the name, came from her mother's uncle. Her
+family is a branch of the old Aldclyffe family on the maternal side. Her
+mother married a Bradleigh--a mere nobody at that time--and was on that
+account cut by her relations. But very singularly the other branch of
+the family died out one by one--three of them, and Miss Aldclyffe's
+great-uncle then left all his property, including this estate, to
+Captain Bradleigh and his wife--Miss Aldclyffe's father and mother--on
+condition that they took the old family name as well. There's all about
+it in the "Landed Gentry." 'Tis a thing very often done.'
+
+'O, I see. Thank you. Well, now I am going. Good-night.'
+
+
+
+
+VI. THE EVENTS OF TWELVE HOURS
+
+1. AUGUST THE NINTH. ONE TO TWO O'CLOCK A.M.
+
+Cytherea entered her bedroom, and flung herself on the bed, bewildered
+by a whirl of thought. Only one subject was clear in her mind, and it
+was that, in spite of family discoveries, that day was to be the first
+and last of her experience as a lady's-maid. Starvation itself should
+not compel her to hold such a humiliating post for another instant.
+'Ah,' she thought, with a sigh, at the martyrdom of her last little
+fragment of self-conceit, 'Owen knows everything better than I.'
+
+She jumped up and began making ready for her departure in the morning,
+the tears streaming down when she grieved and wondered what practical
+matter on earth she could turn her hand to next. All these preparations
+completed, she began to undress, her mind unconsciously drifting away
+to the contemplation of her late surprises. To look in the glass for an
+instant at the reflection of her own magnificent resources in face and
+bosom, and to mark their attractiveness unadorned, was perhaps but the
+natural action of a young woman who had so lately been chidden whilst
+passing through the harassing experience of decorating an older beauty
+of Miss Aldclyffe's temper.
+
+But she directly checked her weakness by sympathizing reflections on the
+hidden troubles which must have thronged the past years of the solitary
+lady, to keep her, though so rich and courted, in a mood so repellent
+and gloomy as that in which Cytherea found her; and then the young girl
+marvelled again and again, as she had marvelled before, at the strange
+confluence of circumstances which had brought herself into contact with
+the one woman in the world whose history was so romantically intertwined
+with her own. She almost began to wish she were not obliged to go away
+and leave the lonely being to loneliness still.
+
+In bed and in the dark, Miss Aldclyffe haunted her mind more
+persistently than ever. Instead of sleeping, she called up staring
+visions of the possible past of this queenly lady, her mother's rival.
+Up the long vista of bygone years she saw, behind all, the young girl's
+flirtation, little or much, with the cousin, that seemed to have been
+nipped in the bud, or to have terminated hastily in some way. Then the
+secret meetings between Miss Aldclyffe and the other woman at the little
+inn at Hammersmith and other places: the commonplace name she adopted:
+her swoon at some painful news, and the very slight knowledge the elder
+female had of her partner in mystery. Then, more than a year afterwards,
+the acquaintanceship of her own father with this his first love; the
+awakening of the passion, his acts of devotion, the unreasoning heat of
+his rapture, her tacit acceptance of it, and yet her uneasiness under
+the delight. Then his declaration amid the evergreens: the utter
+change produced in her manner thereby, seemingly the result of a rigid
+determination: and the total concealment of her reason by herself
+and her parents, whatever it was. Then the lady's course dropped into
+darkness, and nothing more was visible till she was discovered here at
+Knapwater, nearly fifty years old, still unmarried and still beautiful,
+but lonely, embittered, and haughty. Cytherea imagined that her father's
+image was still warmly cherished in Miss Aldclyffe's heart, and was
+thankful that she herself had not been betrayed into announcing that
+she knew many particulars of this page of her father's history, and the
+chief one, the lady's unaccountable renunciation of him. It would have
+made her bearing towards the mistress of the mansion more awkward, and
+would have been no benefit to either.
+
+Thus conjuring up the past, and theorizing on the present, she lay
+restless, changing her posture from one side to the other and back
+again. Finally, when courting sleep with all her art, she heard a clock
+strike two. A minute later, and she fancied she could distinguish a soft
+rustle in the passage outside her room.
+
+To bury her head in the sheets was her first impulse; then to uncover
+it, raise herself on her elbow, and stretch her eyes wide open in the
+darkness; her lips being parted with the intentness of her listening.
+Whatever the noise was, it had ceased for the time.
+
+It began again and came close to her door, lightly touching the panels.
+Then there was another stillness; Cytherea made a movement which caused
+a faint rustling of the bed-clothes.
+
+Before she had time to think another thought a light tap was given.
+Cytherea breathed: the person outside was evidently bent upon finding
+her awake, and the rustle she had made had encouraged the hope. The
+maiden's physical condition shifted from one pole to its opposite. The
+cold sweat of terror forsook her, and modesty took the alarm. She became
+hot and red; her door was not locked.
+
+A distinct woman's whisper came to her through the keyhole: 'Cytherea!'
+
+Only one being in the house knew her Christian name, and that was Miss
+Aldclyffe. Cytherea stepped out of bed, went to the door, and whispered
+back, 'Yes?'
+
+'Let me come in, darling.'
+
+The young woman paused in a conflict between judgment and emotion. It
+was now mistress and maid no longer; woman and woman only. Yes; she must
+let her come in, poor thing.
+
+She got a light in an instant, opened the door, and raising her eyes and
+the candle, saw Miss Aldclyffe standing outside in her dressing-gown.
+
+'Now you see that it is really myself; put out the light,' said the
+visitor. 'I want to stay here with you, Cythie. I came to ask you to
+come down into my bed, but it is snugger here. But remember that you are
+mistress in this room, and that I have no business here, and that you
+may send me away if you choose. Shall I go?'
+
+'O no; you shan't indeed if you don't want to,' said Cythie generously.
+
+The instant they were in bed Miss Aldclyffe freed herself from the
+last remnant of restraint. She flung her arms round the young girl, and
+pressed her gently to her heart.
+
+'Now kiss me,' she said.
+
+Cytherea, upon the whole, was rather discomposed at this change of
+treatment; and, discomposed or no, her passions were not so impetuous as
+Miss Aldclyffe's. She could not bring her soul to her lips for a moment,
+try how she would.
+
+'Come, kiss me,' repeated Miss Aldclyffe.
+
+Cytherea gave her a very small one, as soft in touch and in sound as the
+bursting of a bubble.
+
+'More earnestly than that--come.'
+
+She gave another, a little but not much more expressively.
+
+'I don't deserve a more feeling one, I suppose,' said Miss Aldclyffe,
+with an emphasis of sad bitterness in her tone. 'I am an ill-tempered
+woman, you think; half out of my mind. Well, perhaps I am; but I have
+had grief more than you can think or dream of. But I can't help loving
+you--your name is the same as mine--isn't it strange?'
+
+Cytherea was inclined to say no, but remained silent.
+
+'Now, don't you think I must love you?' continued the other.
+
+'Yes,' said Cytherea absently. She was still thinking whether duty to
+Owen and her father, which asked for silence on her knowledge of her
+father's unfortunate love, or duty to the woman embracing her, which
+seemed to ask for confidence, ought to predominate. Here was a solution.
+She would wait till Miss Aldclyffe referred to her acquaintanceship and
+attachment to Cytherea's father in past times: then she would tell her
+all she knew: that would be honour.
+
+'Why can't you kiss me as I can kiss you? Why can't you!' She impressed
+upon Cytherea's lips a warm motherly salute, given as if in the outburst
+of strong feeling, long checked, and yearning for something to love and
+be loved by in return.
+
+'Do you think badly of me for my behaviour this evening, child? I don't
+know why I am so foolish as to speak to you in this way. I am a very
+fool, I believe. Yes. How old are you?'
+
+'Eighteen.'
+
+'Eighteen!... Well, why don't you ask me how old I am?'
+
+'Because I don't want to know.'
+
+'Never mind if you don't. I am forty-six; and it gives me greater
+pleasure to tell you this than it does to you to listen. I have not told
+my age truly for the last twenty years till now.'
+
+'Why haven't you?'
+
+'I have met deceit by deceit, till I am weary of it--weary, weary--and I
+long to be what I shall never be again--artless and innocent, like you.
+But I suppose that you, too, will, prove to be not worth a thought, as
+every new friend does on more intimate knowledge. Come, why don't you
+talk to me, child? Have you said your prayers?'
+
+'Yes--no! I forgot them to-night.'
+
+'I suppose you say them every night as a rule?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Why do you do that?'
+
+'Because I have always done so, and it would seem strange if I were not
+to. Do you?'
+
+'I? A wicked old sinner like me! No, I never do. I have thought all such
+matters humbug for years--thought so so long that I should be glad to
+think otherwise from very weariness; and yet, such is the code of the
+polite world, that I subscribe regularly to Missionary Societies and
+others of the sort.... Well, say your prayers, dear--you won't omit them
+now you recollect it. I should like to hear you very much. Will you?'
+
+'It seems hardly--'
+
+'It would seem so like old times to me--when I was young, and
+nearer--far nearer Heaven than I am now. Do, sweet one,'
+
+Cytherea was embarrassed, and her embarrassment arose from the following
+conjuncture of affairs. Since she had loved Edward Springrove, she had
+linked his name with her brother Owen's in her nightly supplications to
+the Almighty. She wished to keep her love for him a secret, and, above
+all, a secret from a woman like Miss Aldclyffe; yet her conscience and
+the honesty of her love would not for an instant allow her to think of
+omitting his dear name, and so endanger the efficacy of all her previous
+prayers for his success by an unworthy shame now: it would be wicked
+of her, she thought, and a grievous wrong to him. Under any worldly
+circumstances she might have thought the position justified a little
+finesse, and have skipped him for once; but prayer was too solemn a
+thing for such trifling.
+
+'I would rather not say them,' she murmured first. It struck her then
+that this declining altogether was the same cowardice in another dress,
+and was delivering her poor Edward over to Satan just as unceremoniously
+as before. 'Yes; I will say my prayers, and you shall hear me,' she
+added firmly.
+
+She turned her face to the pillow and repeated in low soft tones the
+simple words she had used from childhood on such occasions. Owen's name
+was mentioned without faltering, but in the other case, maidenly shyness
+was too strong even for religion, and that when supported by excellent
+intentions. At the name of Edward she stammered, and her voice sank to
+the faintest whisper in spite of her.
+
+'Thank you, dearest,' said Miss Aldclyffe. 'I have prayed too, I verily
+believe. You are a good girl, I think.' Then the expected question came.
+
+'"Bless Owen," and whom, did you say?'
+
+There was no help for it now, and out it came. 'Owen and Edward,' said
+Cytherea.
+
+'Who are Owen and Edward?'
+
+'Owen is my brother, madam,' faltered the maid.
+
+'Ah, I remember. Who is Edward?'
+
+A silence.
+
+'Your brother, too?' continued Miss Aldclyffe.
+
+'No.'
+
+Miss Aldclyffe reflected a moment. 'Don't you want to tell me who Edward
+is?' she said at last, in a tone of meaning.
+
+'I don't mind telling; only....'
+
+'You would rather not, I suppose?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+Miss Aldclyffe shifted her ground. 'Were you ever in love?' she inquired
+suddenly.
+
+Cytherea was surprised to hear how quickly the voice had altered from
+tenderness to harshness, vexation, and disappointment.
+
+'Yes--I think I was--once,' she murmured.
+
+'Aha! And were you ever kissed by a man?'
+
+A pause.
+
+'Well, were you?' said Miss Aldclyffe, rather sharply.
+
+'Don't press me to tell--I can't--indeed, I won't, madam!'
+
+Miss Aldclyffe removed her arms from Cytherea's neck. ''Tis now with
+you as it is always with all girls,' she said, in jealous and gloomy
+accents. 'You are not, after all, the innocent I took you for. No, no.'
+She then changed her tone with fitful rapidity. 'Cytherea, try to love
+me more than you love him--do. I love you more sincerely than any man
+can. Do, Cythie: don't let any man stand between us. O, I can't bear
+that!' She clasped Cytherea's neck again.
+
+'I must love him now I have begun,' replied the other.
+
+'Must--yes--must,' said the elder lady reproachfully. 'Yes, women are
+all alike. I thought I had at last found an artless woman who had
+not been sullied by a man's lips, and who had not practised or been
+practised upon by the arts which ruin all the truth and sweetness and
+goodness in us. Find a girl, if you can, whose mouth and ears have
+not been made a regular highway of by some man or another! Leave the
+admittedly notorious spots--the drawing-rooms of society--and look in
+the villages--leave the villages and search in the schools--and you can
+hardly find a girl whose heart has not been _had_--is not an old thing
+half worn out by some He or another! If men only knew the staleness of
+the freshest of us! that nine times out of ten the "first love" they
+think they are winning from a woman is but the hulk of an old wrecked
+affection, fitted with new sails and re-used. O Cytherea, can it be that
+you, too, are like the rest?'
+
+'No, no, no,' urged Cytherea, awed by the storm she had raised in the
+impetuous woman's mind. 'He only kissed me once--twice I mean.'
+
+'He might have done it a thousand times if he had cared to, there's no
+doubt about that, whoever his lordship is. You are as bad as I--we are
+all alike; and I--an old fool--have been sipping at your mouth as if
+it were honey, because I fancied no wasting lover knew the spot. But
+a minute ago, and you seemed to me like a fresh spring meadow--now you
+seem a dusty highway.'
+
+'O no, no!' Cytherea was not weak enough to shed tears except on
+extraordinary occasions, but she was fain to begin sobbing now. She
+wished Miss Aldclyffe would go to her own room, and leave her and her
+treasured dreams alone. This vehement imperious affection was in one
+sense soothing, but yet it was not of the kind that Cytherea's instincts
+desired. Though it was generous, it seemed somewhat too rank and
+capricious for endurance.
+
+'Well,' said the lady in continuation, 'who is he?'
+
+Her companion was desperately determined not to tell his name: she too
+much feared a taunt when Miss Aldclyffe's fiery mood again ruled her
+tongue.
+
+'Won't you tell me? not tell me after all the affection I have shown?'
+
+'I will, perhaps, another day.'
+
+'Did you wear a hat and white feather in Budmouth for the week or two
+previous to your coming here?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Then I have seen you and your lover at a distance! He rowed you round
+the bay with your brother.'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'And without your brother--fie! There, there, don't let that little
+heart beat itself to death: throb, throb: it shakes the bed, you silly
+thing. I didn't mean that there was any harm in going alone with him. I
+only saw you from the Esplanade, in common with the rest of the people.
+I often run down to Budmouth. He was a very good figure: now who was
+he?'
+
+'I--I won't tell, madam--I cannot indeed!'
+
+'Won't tell--very well, don't. You are very foolish to treasure up his
+name and image as you do. Why, he has had loves before you, trust him
+for that, whoever he is, and you are but a temporary link in a long
+chain of others like you: who only have your little day as they have had
+theirs.'
+
+''Tisn't true! 'tisn't true! 'tisn't true!' cried Cytherea in an agony
+of torture. 'He has never loved anybody else, I know--I am sure he
+hasn't.'
+
+Miss Aldclyffe was as jealous as any man could have been. She
+continued--
+
+'He sees a beautiful face and thinks he will never forget it, but in a
+few weeks the feeling passes off, and he wonders how he could have cared
+for anybody so absurdly much.'
+
+'No, no, he doesn't--What does he do when he has thought that--Come,
+tell me--tell me!'
+
+'You are as hot as fire, and the throbbing of your heart makes me
+nervous. I can't tell you if you get in that flustered state.'
+
+'Do, do tell--O, it makes me so miserable! but tell--come tell me!'
+
+'Ah--the tables are turned now, dear!' she continued, in a tone which
+mingled pity with derision--
+
+   '"Love's passions shall rock thee
+    As the storm rocks the ravens on high,
+    Bright reason will mock thee
+    Like the sun from a wintry sky."
+
+'What does he do next?--Why, this is what he does next: ruminate on what
+he has heard of women's romantic impulses, and how easily men torture
+them when they have given way to those feelings, and have resigned
+everything for their hero. It may be that though he loves you heartily
+now--that is, as heartily as a man can--and you love him in return, your
+loves may be impracticable and hopeless, and you may be separated for
+ever. You, as the weary, weary years pass by will fade and fade--bright
+eyes _will_ fade--and you will perhaps then die early--true to him to
+your latest breath, and believing him to be true to the latest breath
+also; whilst he, in some gay and busy spot far away from your last quiet
+nook, will have married some dashing lady, and not purely oblivious of
+you, will long have ceased to regret you--will chat about you, as you
+were in long past years--will say, "Ah, little Cytherea used to tie her
+hair like that--poor innocent trusting thing; it was a pleasant useless
+idle dream--that dream of mine for the maid with the bright eyes and
+simple, silly heart; but I was a foolish lad at that time." Then he will
+tell the tale of all your little Wills and Wont's and particular ways,
+and as he speaks, turn to his wife with a placid smile.'
+
+'It is not true! He can't, he c-can't be s-so cruel--and you are cruel
+to me--you are, you are!' She was at last driven to desperation: her
+natural common sense and shrewdness had seen all through the piece how
+imaginary her emotions were--she felt herself to be weak and foolish in
+permitting them to rise; but even then she could not control them: be
+agonized she must. She was only eighteen, and the long day's labour,
+her weariness, her excitement, had completely unnerved her, and worn her
+out: she was bent hither and thither by this tyrannical working upon her
+imagination, as a young rush in the wind. She wept bitterly. 'And now
+think how much I like you,' resumed Miss Aldclyffe, when Cytherea grew
+calmer. 'I shall never forget you for anybody else, as men do--never. I
+will be exactly as a mother to you. Now will you promise to live with me
+always, and always be taken care of, and never deserted?'
+
+'I cannot. I will not be anybody's maid for another day on any
+consideration.'
+
+'No, no, no. You shan't be a lady's-maid. You shall be my companion. I
+will get another maid.'
+
+Companion--that was a new idea. Cytherea could not resist the evidently
+heartfelt desire of the strange-tempered woman for her presence. But she
+could not trust to the moment's impulse.
+
+'I will stay, I think. But do not ask for a final answer to-night.'
+
+'Never mind now, then. Put your hair round your mamma's neck, and give
+me one good long kiss, and I won't talk any more in that way about your
+lover. After all, some young men are not so fickle as others; but even
+if he's the ficklest, there is consolation. The love of an inconstant
+man is ten times more ardent than that of a faithful man--that is, while
+it lasts.'
+
+Cytherea did as she was told, to escape the punishment of further talk;
+flung the twining tresses of her long, rich hair over Miss Aldclyffe's
+shoulders as directed, and the two ceased conversing, making themselves
+up for sleep. Miss Aldclyffe seemed to give herself over to a luxurious
+sense of content and quiet, as if the maiden at her side afforded her a
+protection against dangers which had menaced her for years; she was soon
+sleeping calmly.
+
+2. TWO TO FIVE A.M.
+
+With Cytherea it was otherwise. Unused to the place and circumstances,
+she continued wakeful, ill at ease, and mentally distressed. She
+withdrew herself from her companion's embrace, turned to the other
+side, and endeavoured to relieve her busy brain by looking at the
+window-blind, and noticing the light of the rising moon--now in her last
+quarter--creep round upon it: it was the light of an old waning moon
+which had but a few days longer to live.
+
+The sight led her to think again of what had happened under the rays of
+the same month's moon, a little before its full, the ecstatic
+evening scene with Edward: the kiss, and the shortness of those happy
+moments--maiden imagination bringing about the apotheosis of a status
+quo which had had several unpleasantnesses in its earthly reality.
+
+But sounds were in the ascendant that night. Her ears became aware of a
+strange and gloomy murmur.
+
+She recognized it: it was the gushing of the waterfall, faint and low,
+brought from its source to the unwonted distance of the House by a faint
+breeze which made it distinct and recognizable by reason of the utter
+absence of all disturbing sounds. The groom's melancholy representation
+lent to the sound a more dismal effect than it would have had of its own
+nature. She began to fancy what the waterfall must be like at that hour,
+under the trees in the ghostly moonlight. Black at the head, and over
+the surface of the deep cold hole into which it fell; white and
+frothy at the fall; black and white, like a pall and its border; sad
+everywhere.
+
+She was in the mood for sounds of every kind now, and strained her ears
+to catch the faintest, in wayward enmity to her quiet of mind. Another
+soon came.
+
+The second was quite different from the first--a kind of intermittent
+whistle it seemed primarily: no, a creak, a metallic creak, ever and
+anon, like a plough, or a rusty wheelbarrow, or at least a wheel of some
+kind. Yes, it was, a wheel--the water-wheel in the shrubbery by the old
+manor-house, which the coachman had said would drive him mad.
+
+She determined not to think any more of these gloomy things; but now
+that she had once noticed the sound there was no sealing her ears to it.
+She could not help timing its creaks, and putting on a dread expectancy
+just before the end of each half-minute that brought them. To imagine
+the inside of the engine-house, whence these noises proceeded, was now a
+necessity. No window, but crevices in the door, through which, probably,
+the moonbeams streamed in the most attenuated and skeleton-like rays,
+striking sharply upon portions of wet rusty cranks and chains; a
+glistening wheel, turning incessantly, labouring in the dark like a
+captive starving in a dungeon; and instead of a floor below, gurgling
+water, which on account of the darkness could only be heard; water which
+laboured up dark pipes almost to where she lay.
+
+She shivered. Now she was determined to go to sleep; there could be
+nothing else left to be heard or to imagine--it was horrid that her
+imagination should be so restless. Yet just for an instant before going
+to sleep she would think this--suppose another sound _should_ come--just
+suppose it should! Before the thought had well passed through her brain,
+a third sound came.
+
+The third was a very soft gurgle or rattle--of a strange and abnormal
+kind--yet a sound she had heard before at some past period of her
+life--when, she could not recollect. To make it the more disturbing, it
+seemed to be almost close to her--either close outside the window, close
+under the floor, or close above the ceiling. The accidental fact of
+its coming so immediately upon the heels of her supposition, told so
+powerfully upon her excited nerves that she jumped up in the bed. The
+same instant, a little dog in some room near, having probably heard the
+same noise, set up a low whine. The watch-dog in the yard, hearing
+the moan of his associate, began to howl loudly and distinctly. His
+melancholy notes were taken up directly afterwards by the dogs in the
+kennel a long way off, in every variety of wail.
+
+One logical thought alone was able to enter her flurried brain. The
+little dog that began the whining must have heard the other two sounds
+even better than herself. He had taken no notice of them, but he had
+taken notice of the third. The third, then, was an unusual sound.
+
+It was not like water, it was not like wind; it was not the night-jar,
+it was not a clock, nor a rat, nor a person snoring.
+
+She crept under the clothes, and flung her arms tightly round Miss
+Aldclyffe, as if for protection. Cytherea perceived that the lady's late
+peaceful warmth had given place to a sweat. At the maiden's touch, Miss
+Aldclyffe awoke with a low scream.
+
+She remembered her position instantly. 'O such a terrible dream!' she
+cried, in a hurried whisper, holding to Cytherea in her turn; 'and
+your touch was the end of it. It was dreadful. Time, with his wings,
+hour-glass, and scythe, coming nearer and nearer to me--grinning and
+mocking: then he seized me, took a piece of me only... But I can't tell
+you. I can't bear to think of it. How those dogs howl! People say it
+means death.'
+
+The return of Miss Aldclyffe to consciousness was sufficient to
+dispel the wild fancies which the loneliness of the night had woven in
+Cytherea's mind. She dismissed the third noise as something which in all
+likelihood could easily be explained, if trouble were taken to inquire
+into it: large houses had all kinds of strange sounds floating about
+them. She was ashamed to tell Miss Aldclyffe her terrors.
+
+A silence of five minutes.
+
+'Are you asleep?' said Miss Aldclyffe.
+
+'No,' said Cytherea, in a long-drawn whisper.
+
+'How those dogs howl, don't they?'
+
+'Yes. A little dog in the house began it.'
+
+'Ah, yes: that was Totsy. He sleeps on the mat outside my father's
+bedroom door. A nervous creature.'
+
+There was a silent interval of nearly half-an-hour. A clock on the
+landing struck three.
+
+'Are you asleep, Miss Aldclyffe?' whispered Cytherea.
+
+'No,' said Miss Aldclyffe. 'How wretched it is not to be able to sleep,
+isn't it?'
+
+'Yes,' replied Cytherea, like a docile child.
+
+Another hour passed, and the clock struck four. Miss Aldclyffe was still
+awake.
+
+'Cytherea,' she said, very softly.
+
+Cytherea made no answer. She was sleeping soundly.
+
+The first glimmer of dawn was now visible. Miss Aldclyffe arose, put on
+her dressing-gown, and went softly downstairs to her own room.
+
+'I have not told her who I am after all, or found out the particulars
+of Ambrose's history,' she murmured. 'But her being in love alters
+everything.'
+
+3. HALF-PAST SEVEN TO TEN O'CLOCK A.M.
+
+Cytherea awoke, quiet in mind and refreshed. A conclusion to remain at
+Knapwater was already in possession of her.
+
+Finding Miss Aldclyffe gone, she dressed herself and sat down at the
+window to write an answer to Edward's letter, and an account of her
+arrival at Knapwater to Owen. The dismal and heart-breaking pictures
+that Miss Aldclyffe had placed before her the preceding evening, the
+later terrors of the night, were now but as shadows of shadows, and she
+smiled in derision at her own excitability.
+
+But writing Edward's letter was the great consoler, the effect of each
+word upon him being enacted in her own face as she wrote it. She felt
+how much she would like to share his trouble--how well she could endure
+poverty with him--and wondered what his trouble was. But all would be
+explained at last, she knew.
+
+At the appointed time she went to Miss Aldclyffe's room, intending, with
+the contradictoriness common in people, to perform with pleasure, as a
+work of supererogation, what as a duty was simply intolerable.
+
+Miss Aldclyffe was already out of bed. The bright penetrating light
+of morning made a vast difference in the elder lady's behaviour to her
+dependent; the day, which had restored Cytherea's judgment, had effected
+the same for Miss Aldclyffe. Though practical reasons forbade her
+regretting that she had secured such a companionable creature to read,
+talk, or play to her whenever her whim required, she was inwardly vexed
+at the extent to which she had indulged in the womanly luxury of making
+confidences and giving way to emotions. Few would have supposed that the
+calm lady sitting aristocratically at the toilet table, seeming scarcely
+conscious of Cytherea's presence in the room, even when greeting her,
+was the passionate creature who had asked for kisses a few hours before.
+
+It is both painful and satisfactory to think how often these
+antitheses are to be observed in the individual most open to our
+observation--ourselves. We pass the evening with faces lit up by some
+flaring illumination or other: we get up the next morning--the fiery
+jets have all gone out, and nothing confronts us but a few crinkled
+pipes and sooty wirework, hardly even recalling the outline of the
+blazing picture that arrested our eyes before bedtime.
+
+Emotions would be half starved if there were no candle-light. Probably
+nine-tenths of the gushing letters of indiscreet confession are written
+after nine or ten o'clock in the evening, and sent off before day
+returns to leer invidiously upon them. Few that remain open to catch
+our glance as we rise in the morning, survive the frigid criticism of
+dressing-time.
+
+The subjects uppermost in the minds of the two women who had thus cooled
+from their fires, were not the visionary ones of the later hours,
+but the hard facts of their earlier conversation. After a remark that
+Cytherea need not assist her in dressing unless she wished to, Miss
+Aldclyffe said abruptly--
+
+'I can tell that young man's name.' She looked keenly at Cytherea. 'It
+is Edward Springrove, my tenant's son.'
+
+The inundation of colour upon the younger lady at hearing a name which
+to her was a world, handled as if it were only an atom, told Miss
+Aldclyffe that she had divined the truth at last.
+
+'Ah--it is he, is it?' she continued. 'Well, I wanted to know for
+practical reasons. His example shows that I was not so far wrong in my
+estimate of men after all, though I only generalized, and had no thought
+of him.' This was perfectly true.
+
+'What do you mean?' said Cytherea, visibly alarmed.
+
+'Mean? Why that all the world knows him to be engaged to be married, and
+that the wedding is soon to take place.' She made the remark bluntly and
+superciliously, as if to obtain absolution at the hands of her family
+pride for the weak confidences of the night.
+
+But even the frigidity of Miss Aldclyffe's morning mood was overcome by
+the look of sick and blank despair which the carelessly uttered words
+had produced upon Cytherea's face. She sank back into a chair, and
+buried her face in her hands.
+
+'Don't be so foolish,' said Miss Aldclyffe. 'Come, make the best of it.
+I cannot upset the fact I have told you of, unfortunately. But I believe
+the match can be broken off.'
+
+'O no, no.'
+
+'Nonsense. I liked him much as a youth, and I like him now. I'll help
+you to captivate and chain him down. I have got over my absurd feeling
+of last night in not wanting you ever to go away from me--of course, I
+could not expect such a thing as that. There, now I have said I'll help
+you, and that's enough. He's tired of his first choice now that he's
+been away from home for a while. The love that no outer attack can
+frighten away quails before its idol's own homely ways; it is always
+so.... Come, finish what you are doing if you are going to, and don't be
+a little goose about such a trumpery affair as that.'
+
+'Who--is he engaged to?' Cytherea inquired by a movement of her lips but
+no sound of her voice. But Miss Aldclyffe did not answer. It mattered
+not, Cytherea thought. Another woman--that was enough for her: curiosity
+was stunned.
+
+She applied herself to the work of dressing, scarcely knowing how. Miss
+Aldclyffe went on:--
+
+'You were too easily won. I'd have made him or anybody else speak out
+before he should have kissed my face for his pleasure. But you are one
+of those precipitantly fond things who are yearning to throw away their
+hearts upon the first worthless fellow who says good-morning. In the
+first place, you shouldn't have loved him so quickly: in the next,
+if you must have loved him off-hand, you should have concealed it. It
+tickled his vanity: "By Jove, that girl's in love with me already!" he
+thought.'
+
+To hasten away at the end of the toilet, to tell Mrs. Morris--who
+stood waiting in a little room prepared for her, with tea poured out,
+bread-and-butter cut into diaphanous slices, and eggs arranged--that she
+wanted no breakfast: then to shut herself alone in her bedroom, was her
+only thought. She was followed thither by the well-intentioned
+matron with a cup of tea and one piece of bread-and-butter on a tray,
+cheerfully insisting that she should eat it.
+
+To those who grieve, innocent cheerfulness seems heartless levity. 'No,
+thank you, Mrs. Morris,' she said, keeping the door closed. Despite
+the incivility of the action, Cytherea could not bear to let a pleasant
+person see her face then.
+
+Immediate revocation--even if revocation would be more effective by
+postponement--is the impulse of young wounded natures. Cytherea went
+to her blotting-book, took out the long letter so carefully written, so
+full of gushing remarks and tender hints, and sealed up so neatly with
+a little seal bearing 'Good Faith' as its motto, tore the missive into
+fifty pieces, and threw them into the grate. It was then the bitterest
+of anguishes to look upon some of the words she had so lovingly written,
+and see them existing only in mutilated forms without meaning--to feel
+that his eye would never read them, nobody ever know how ardently she
+had penned them.
+
+Pity for one's self for being wasted is mostly present in these moods of
+abnegation.
+
+The meaning of all his allusions, his abruptness in telling her of his
+love, his constraint at first, then his desperate manner of speaking,
+was clear. They must have been the last flickerings of a conscience not
+quite dead to all sense of perfidiousness and fickleness. Now he had
+gone to London: she would be dismissed from his memory, in the same way
+as Miss Aldclyffe had said. And here she was in Edward's own parish,
+reminded continually of him by what she saw and heard. The landscape,
+yesterday so much and so bright to her, was now but as the banquet-hall
+deserted--all gone but herself.
+
+Miss Aldclyffe had wormed her secret out of her, and would now be
+continually mocking her for her trusting simplicity in believing him. It
+was altogether unbearable: she would not stay there.
+
+She went downstairs and found Miss Aldclyffe had gone into the
+breakfast-room, but that Captain Aldclyffe, who rose later with
+increasing infirmities, had not yet made his appearance. Cytherea
+entered. Miss Aldclyffe was looking out of the window, watching a trail
+of white smoke along the distant landscape--signifying a passing train.
+At Cytherea's entry she turned and looked inquiry.
+
+'I must tell you now,' began Cytherea, in a tremulous voice.
+
+'Well, what?' Miss Aldclyffe said.
+
+'I am not going to stay with you. I must go away--a very long way. I am
+very sorry, but indeed I can't remain!'
+
+'Pooh--what shall we hear next?' Miss Aldclyffe surveyed Cytherea's face
+with leisurely criticism. 'You are breaking your heart again about that
+worthless young Springrove. I knew how it would be. It is as Hallam says
+of Juliet--what little reason you may have possessed originally has all
+been whirled away by this love. I shan't take this notice, mind.'
+
+'Do let me go!'
+
+Miss Aldclyffe took her new pet's hand, and said with severity, 'As to
+hindering you, if you are determined to go, of course that's absurd.
+But you are not now in a state of mind fit for deciding upon any such
+proceeding, and I shall not listen to what you have to say. Now, Cythie,
+come with me; we'll let this volcano burst and spend itself, and after
+that we'll see what had better be done.' She took Cytherea into her
+workroom, opened a drawer, and drew forth a roll of linen.
+
+'This is some embroidery I began one day, and now I should like it
+finished.'
+
+She then preceded the maiden upstairs to Cytherea's own room. 'There,'
+she said, 'now sit down here, go on with this work, and remember one
+thing--that you are not to leave the room on any pretext whatever for
+two hours unless I send for you--I insist kindly, dear. Whilst you
+stitch--you are to stitch, recollect, and not go mooning out of the
+window--think over the whole matter, and get cooled; don't let the
+foolish love-affair prevent your thinking as a woman of the world. If
+at the end of that time you still say you must leave me, you may. I will
+have no more to say in the matter. Come, sit down, and promise to sit
+here the time I name.'
+
+To hearts in a despairing mood, compulsion seems a relief; and docility
+was at all times natural to Cytherea. She promised, and sat down. Miss
+Aldclyffe shut the door upon her and retreated.
+
+She sewed, stopped to think, shed a tear or two, recollected the
+articles of the treaty, and sewed again; and at length fell into a
+reverie which took no account whatever of the lapse of time.
+
+4. TEN TO TWELVE O'CLOCK A.M.
+
+A quarter of an hour might have passed when her thoughts became
+attracted from the past to the present by unwonted movements downstairs.
+She opened the door and listened.
+
+There were hurryings along passages, opening and shutting of doors,
+trampling in the stable-yard. She went across into another bedroom, from
+which a view of the stable-yard could be obtained, and arrived there
+just in time to see the figure of the man who had driven her from the
+station vanishing down the coach-road on a black horse--galloping at the
+top of the animal's speed.
+
+Another man went off in the direction of the village.
+
+Whatever had occurred, it did not seem to be her duty to inquire or
+meddle with it, stranger and dependent as she was, unless she were
+requested to, especially after Miss Aldclyffe's strict charge to her.
+She sat down again, determined to let no idle curiosity influence her
+movements.
+
+Her window commanded the front of the house; and the next thing she saw
+was a clergyman walk up and enter the door.
+
+All was silent again till, a long time after the first man had left,
+he returned again on the same horse, now matted with sweat and trotting
+behind a carriage in which sat an elderly gentleman driven by a lad in
+livery. These came to the house, entered, and all was again the same as
+before.
+
+The whole household--master, mistress, and servants--appeared to have
+forgotten the very existence of such a being as Cytherea. She almost
+wished she had not vowed to have no idle curiosity.
+
+Half-an-hour later, the carriage drove off with the elderly gentleman,
+and two or three messengers left the house, speeding in various
+directions. Rustics in smock-frocks began to hang about the road
+opposite the house, or lean against trees, looking idly at the windows
+and chimneys.
+
+A tap came to Cytherea's door. She opened it to a young maid-servant.
+
+'Miss Aldclyffe wishes to see you, ma'am.' Cytherea hastened down.
+
+Miss Aldclyffe was standing on the hearthrug, her elbow on the mantel,
+her hand to her temples, her eyes on the ground; perfectly calm, but
+very pale.
+
+'Cytherea,' she said in a whisper, 'come here.'
+
+Cytherea went close.
+
+'Something very serious has taken place,' she said again, and then
+paused, with a tremulous movement of her mouth.
+
+'Yes,' said Cytherea.
+
+'My father. He was found dead in his bed this morning.'
+
+'Dead!' echoed the younger woman. It seemed impossible that the
+announcement could be true; that knowledge of so great a fact could be
+contained in a statement so small.
+
+'Yes, dead,' murmured Miss Aldclyffe solemnly. 'He died alone, though
+within a few feet of me. The room we slept in is exactly over his own.'
+
+Cytherea said hurriedly, 'Do they know at what hour?'
+
+'The doctor says it must have been between two and three o'clock this
+morning.'
+
+'Then I heard him!'
+
+'Heard him?'
+
+'Heard him die!'
+
+'You heard him die? What did you hear?'
+
+'A sound I heard once before in my life--at the deathbed of my mother. I
+could not identify it--though I recognized it. Then the dog howled: you
+remarked it. I did not think it worth while to tell you what I had heard
+a little earlier.' She looked agonized.
+
+'It would have been useless,' said Miss Aldclyffe. 'All was over by that
+time.' She addressed herself as much as Cytherea when she continued, 'Is
+it a Providence who sent you here at this juncture that I might not be
+left entirely alone?'
+
+Till this instant Miss Aldclyffe had forgotten the reason of Cytherea's
+seclusion in her own room. So had Cytherea herself. The fact now
+recurred to both in one moment.
+
+'Do you still wish to go?' said Miss Aldclyffe anxiously.
+
+'I don't want to go now,' Cytherea had remarked simultaneously with the
+other's question. She was pondering on the strange likeness which Miss
+Aldclyffe's bereavement bore to her own; it had the appearance of being
+still another call to her not to forsake this woman so linked to her
+life, for the sake of any trivial vexation.
+
+Miss Aldclyffe held her almost as a lover would have held her, and said
+musingly--
+
+'We get more and more into one groove. I now am left fatherless and
+motherless as you were.' Other ties lay behind in her thoughts, but she
+did not mention them.
+
+'You loved your father, Cytherea, and wept for him?'
+
+'Yes, I did. Poor papa!'
+
+'I was always at variance with mine, and can't weep for him now! But you
+must stay here always, and make a better woman of me.'
+
+The compact was thus sealed, and Cytherea, in spite of the failure of
+her advertisements, was installed as a veritable Companion. And,
+once more in the history of human endeavour, a position which it was
+impossible to reach by any direct attempt, was come to by the seeker's
+swerving from the path, and regarding the original object as one of
+secondary importance.
+
+
+
+
+VII. THE EVENTS OF EIGHTEEN DAYS
+
+1. AUGUST THE SEVENTEENTH
+
+The time of day was four o'clock in the afternoon. The place was the
+lady's study or boudoir, Knapwater House. The person was Miss Aldclyffe
+sitting there alone, clothed in deep mourning.
+
+The funeral of the old Captain had taken place, and his will had been
+read. It was very concise, and had been executed about five years
+previous to his death. It was attested by his solicitors, Messrs.
+Nyttleton and Tayling, of Lincoln's Inn Fields. The whole of his estate,
+real and personal, was bequeathed to his daughter Cytherea, for her sole
+and absolute use, subject only to the payment of a legacy to the rector,
+their relative, and a few small amounts to the servants.
+
+Miss Aldclyffe had not chosen the easiest chair of her boudoir to sit
+in, or even a chair of ordinary comfort, but an uncomfortable, high,
+narrow-backed, oak framed and seated chair, which was allowed to
+remain in the room only on the ground of being a companion in artistic
+quaintness to an old coffer beside it, and was never used except to
+stand in to reach for a book from the highest row of shelves. But she
+had sat erect in this chair for more than an hour, for the reason that
+she was utterly unconscious of what her actions and bodily feelings
+were. The chair had stood nearest her path on entering the room, and she
+had gone to it in a dream.
+
+She sat in the attitude which denotes unflagging, intense, concentrated
+thought--as if she were cast in bronze. Her feet were together, her body
+bent a little forward, and quite unsupported by the back of the chair;
+her hands on her knees, her eyes fixed intently on the corner of a
+footstool.
+
+At last she moved and tapped her fingers upon the table at her side.
+Her pent-up ideas had finally found some channel to advance in. Motions
+became more and more frequent as she laboured to carry further and
+further the problem which occupied her brain. She sat back and drew
+a long breath: she sat sideways and leant her forehead upon her
+hand. Later still she arose, walked up and down the room--at first
+abstractedly, with her features as firmly set as ever; but by degrees
+her brow relaxed, her footsteps became lighter and more leisurely; her
+head rode gracefully and was no longer bowed. She plumed herself like a
+swan after exertion.
+
+'Yes,' she said aloud. 'To get _him_ here without letting him know that
+I have any other object than that of getting a useful man--that's the
+difficulty--and that I think I can master.'
+
+She rang for the new maid, a placid woman of forty with a few grey
+hairs.
+
+'Ask Miss Graye if she can come to me.'
+
+Cytherea was not far off, and came in.
+
+'Do you know anything about architects and surveyors?' said Miss
+Aldclyffe abruptly.
+
+'Know anything?' replied Cytherea, poising herself on her toe to
+consider the compass of the question.
+
+'Yes--know anything,' said Miss Aldclyffe.
+
+'Owen is an architect and surveyor's draughtsman,' the maiden said, and
+thought of somebody else who was likewise.
+
+'Yes! that's why I asked you. What are the different kinds of work
+comprised in an architect's practice? They lay out estates, and
+superintend the various works done upon them, I should think, among
+other things?'
+
+'Those are, more properly, a land or building steward's duties--at least
+I have always imagined so. Country architects include those things in
+their practice; city architects don't.'
+
+'I know that, child. But a steward's is an indefinite fast and loose
+profession, it seems to me. Shouldn't you think that a man who had been
+brought up as an architect would do for a steward?'
+
+Cytherea had doubts whether an architect pure would do.
+
+The chief pleasure connected with asking an opinion lies in not adopting
+it. Miss Aldclyffe replied decisively--
+
+'Nonsense; of course he would. Your brother Owen makes plans for country
+buildings--such as cottages, stables, homesteads, and so on?'
+
+'Yes; he does.'
+
+'And superintends the building of them?'
+
+'Yes; he will soon.'
+
+'And he surveys land?'
+
+'O yes.'
+
+'And he knows about hedges and ditches--how wide they ought to be,
+boundaries, levelling, planting trees to keep away the winds, measuring
+timber, houses for ninety-nine years, and such things?'
+
+'I have never heard him say that; but I think Mr. Gradfield does those
+things. Owen, I am afraid, is inexperienced as yet.'
+
+'Yes; your brother is not old enough for such a post yet, of course.
+And then there are rent-days, the audit and winding up of tradesmen's
+accounts. I am afraid, Cytherea, you don't know much more about the
+matter than I do myself.... I am going out just now,' she continued. 'I
+shall not want you to walk with me to-day. Run away till dinner-time.'
+
+Miss Aldclyffe went out of doors, and down the steps to the lawn: then
+turning to the left, through a shrubbery, she opened a wicket and passed
+into a neglected and leafy carriage-drive, leading down the hill. This
+she followed till she reached the point of its greatest depression,
+which was also the lowest ground in the whole grove.
+
+The trees here were so interlaced, and hung their branches so near the
+ground, that a whole summer's day was scarcely long enough to change
+the air pervading the spot from its normal state of coolness to even a
+temporary warmth. The unvarying freshness was helped by the nearness of
+the ground to the level of the springs, and by the presence of a deep,
+sluggish stream close by, equally well shaded by bushes and a high wall.
+Following the road, which now ran along at the margin of the stream,
+she came to an opening in the wall, on the other side of the water,
+revealing a large rectangular nook from which the stream proceeded,
+covered with froth, and accompanied by a dull roar. Two more steps,
+and she was opposite the nook, in full view of the cascade forming its
+further boundary. Over the top could be seen the bright outer sky in the
+form of a crescent, caused by the curve of a bridge across the rapids,
+and the trees above.
+
+Beautiful as was the scene she did not look in that direction. The same
+standing-ground afforded another prospect, straight in the front, less
+sombre than the water on the right or the trees all around. The avenue
+and grove which flanked it abruptly terminated a few yards ahead, where
+the ground began to rise, and on the remote edge of the greensward thus
+laid open, stood all that remained of the original manor-house, to which
+the dark margin-line of the trees in the avenue formed an adequate
+and well-fitting frame. It was the picture thus presented that was
+now interesting Miss Aldclyffe--not artistically or historically,
+but practically--as regarded its fitness for adaptation to modern
+requirements.
+
+In front, detached from everything else, rose the most ancient portion
+of the structure--an old arched gateway, flanked by the bases of two
+small towers, and nearly covered with creepers, which had clambered
+over the eaves of the sinking roof, and up the gable to the crest of the
+Aldclyffe family perched on the apex. Behind this, at a distance of ten
+or twenty yards, came the only portion of the main building that still
+existed--an Elizabethan fragment, consisting of as much as could be
+contained under three gables and a cross roof behind. Against the wall
+could be seen ragged lines indicating the form of other destroyed gables
+which had once joined it there. The mullioned and transomed windows,
+containing five or six lights, were mostly bricked up to the extent
+of two or three, and the remaining portion fitted with cottage
+window-frames carelessly inserted, to suit the purpose to which the
+old place was now applied, it being partitioned out into small rooms
+downstairs to form cottages for two labourers and their families; the
+upper portion was arranged as a storehouse for divers kinds of roots and
+fruit.
+
+The owner of the picturesque spot, after her survey from this
+point, went up to the walls and walked into the old court, where the
+paving-stones were pushed sideways and upwards by the thrust of the
+grasses between them. Two or three little children, with their fingers
+in their mouths, came out to look at her, and then ran in to tell their
+mothers in loud tones of secrecy that Miss Aldclyffe was coming. Miss
+Aldclyffe, however, did not come in. She concluded her survey of the
+exterior by making a complete circuit of the building; then turned into
+a nook a short distance off where round and square timber, a saw-pit,
+planks, grindstones, heaps of building stone and brick, explained that
+the spot was the centre of operations for the building work done on the
+estate.
+
+She paused, and looked around. A man who had seen her from the window of
+the workshops behind, came out and respectfully lifted his hat to her.
+It was the first time she had been seen walking outside the house since
+her father's death.
+
+'Strooden, could the Old House be made a decent residence of, without
+much trouble?' she inquired.
+
+The mechanic considered, and spoke as each consideration completed
+itself.
+
+'You don't forget, ma'am, that two-thirds of the place is already pulled
+down, or gone to ruin?'
+
+'Yes; I know.'
+
+'And that what's left may almost as well be, ma'am.'
+
+'Why may it?'
+
+''Twas so cut up inside when they made it into cottages, that the whole
+carcase is full of cracks.'
+
+'Still by pulling down the inserted partitions, and adding a little
+outside, it could be made to answer the purpose of an ordinary six or
+eight-roomed house?'
+
+'Yes, ma'am.'
+
+'About what would it cost?' was the question which had invariably come
+next in every communication of this kind to which the superintending
+workman had been a party during his whole experience. To his surprise,
+Miss Aldclyffe did not put it. The man thought her object in altering an
+old house must have been an unusually absorbing one not to prompt what
+was so instinctive in owners as hardly to require any prompting at all.
+
+'Thank you: that's sufficient, Strooden,' she said. 'You will understand
+that it is not unlikely some alteration may be made here in a short
+time, with reference to the management of the affairs.'
+
+Strooden said 'Yes,' in a complex voice, and looked uneasy.
+
+'During the life of Captain Aldclyffe, with you as the foreman of works,
+and he himself as his own steward, everything worked well. But now
+it may be necessary to have a steward, whose management will encroach
+further upon things which have hitherto been left in your hands than did
+your late master's. What I mean is, that he will directly and in detail
+superintend all.'
+
+'Then--I shall not be wanted, ma'am?' he faltered.
+
+'O yes; if you like to stay on as foreman in the yard and workshops
+only. I should be sorry to lose you. However, you had better consider. I
+will send for you in a few days.'
+
+Leaving him to suspense, and all the ills that came in its
+train--distracted application to his duties, and an undefined number
+of sleepless nights and untasted dinners, Miss Aldclyffe looked at her
+watch and returned to the House. She was about to keep an appointment
+with her solicitor, Mr. Nyttleton, who had been to Budmouth, and was
+coming to Knapwater on his way back to London.
+
+2. AUGUST THE TWENTIETH
+
+On the Saturday subsequent to Mr. Nyttleton's visit to Knapwater House,
+the subjoined advertisement appeared in the Field and the Builder
+newspapers:--
+
+
+                     'LAND STEWARD.
+
+'A gentleman of integrity and professional skill is required immediately
+for the MANAGEMENT of an ESTATE, containing about 1000 acres, upon
+which agricultural improvements and the erection of buildings are
+contemplated. He must be a man of superior education, unmarried, and not
+more than thirty years of age. Considerable preference will be shown
+for one who possesses an artistic as well as a practical knowledge of
+planning and laying out. The remuneration will consist of a salary of
+220 pounds, with the old manor-house as a residence--Address Messrs.
+Nyttleton and Tayling, solicitors, Lincoln's Inn Fields.'
+
+
+A copy of each paper was sent to Miss Aldclyffe on the day of
+publication. The same evening she told Cytherea that she was advertising
+for a steward, who would live at the old manor-house, showing her the
+papers containing the announcement.
+
+What was the drift of that remark? thought the maiden; or was it merely
+made to her in confidential intercourse, as other arrangements were
+told her daily. Yet it seemed to have more meaning than common. She
+remembered the conversation about architects and surveyors, and her
+brother Owen. Miss Aldclyffe knew that his situation was precarious,
+that he was well educated and practical, and was applying himself heart
+and soul to the details of the profession and all connected with
+it. Miss Aldclyffe might be ready to take him if he could compete
+successfully with others who would reply. She hazarded a question:
+
+'Would it be desirable for Owen to answer it?'
+
+'Not at all,' said Miss Aldclyffe peremptorily.
+
+A flat answer of this kind had ceased to alarm Cytherea. Miss
+Aldclyffe's blunt mood was not her worst. Cytherea thought of another
+man, whose name, in spite of resolves, tears, renunciations and injured
+pride, lingered in her ears like an old familiar strain. That man was
+qualified for a stewardship under a king.
+
+'Would it be of any use if Edward Springrove were to answer it?' she
+said, resolutely enunciating the name.
+
+'None whatever,' replied Miss Aldclyffe, again in the same decided tone.
+
+'You are very unkind to speak in that way.'
+
+'Now don't pout like a goosie, as you are. I don't want men like either
+of them, for, of course, I must look to the good of the estate rather
+than to that of any individual. The man I want must have been more
+specially educated. I have told you that we are going to London next
+week; it is mostly on this account.'
+
+Cytherea found that she had mistaken the drift of Miss Aldclyffe's
+peculiar explicitness on the subject of advertising, and wrote to tell
+her brother that if he saw the notice it would be useless to reply.
+
+3. AUGUST THE TWENTY-FIFTH
+
+Five days after the above-mentioned dialogue took place they went to
+London, and, with scarcely a minute's pause, to the solicitors' offices
+in Lincoln's Inn Fields.
+
+They alighted opposite one of the characteristic entrances about the
+place--a gate which was never, and could never be, closed, flanked by
+lamp-standards carrying no lamp. Rust was the only active agent to be
+seen there at this time of the day and year. The palings along the
+front were rusted away at their base to the thinness of wires, and the
+successive coats of paint, with which they were overlaid in bygone
+days, had been completely undermined by the same insidious canker, which
+lifted off the paint in flakes, leaving the raw surface of the iron on
+palings, standards, and gate hinges, of a staring blood-red.
+
+But once inside the railings the picture changed. The court and offices
+were a complete contrast to the grand ruin of the outwork which enclosed
+them. Well-painted respectability extended over, within, and around the
+doorstep; and in the carefully swept yard not a particle of dust was
+visible.
+
+Mr. Nyttleton, who had just come up from Margate, where he was staying
+with his family, was standing at the top of his own staircase as the
+pair ascended. He politely took them inside.
+
+'Is there a comfortable room in which this young lady can sit during our
+interview?' said Miss Aldclyffe.
+
+It was rather a favourite habit of hers to make much of Cytherea when
+they were out, and snub her for it afterwards when they got home.
+
+'Certainly--Mr. Tayling's.' Cytherea was shown into an inner room.
+
+Social definitions are all made relatively: an absolute datum is only
+imagined. The small gentry about Knapwater seemed unpractised to Miss
+Aldclyffe, Miss Aldclyffe herself seemed unpractised to Mr. Nyttleton's
+experienced old eyes.
+
+'Now then,' the lady said, when she was alone with the lawyer; 'what is
+the result of our advertisement?'
+
+It was late summer; the estate-agency, building, engineering, and
+surveying worlds were dull. There were forty-five replies to the
+advertisement.
+
+Mr. Nyttleton spread them one by one before Miss Aldclyffe. 'You will
+probably like to read some of them yourself, madam?' he said.
+
+'Yes, certainly,' said she.
+
+'I will not trouble you with those which are from persons manifestly
+unfit at first sight,' he continued; and began selecting from the heap
+twos and threes which he had marked, collecting others into his hand.
+
+'The man we want lies among these, if my judgment doesn't deceive me,
+and from them it would be advisable to select a certain number to be
+communicated with.'
+
+'I should like to see every one--only just to glance them over--exactly
+as they came,' she said suasively.
+
+He looked as if he thought this a waste of his time, but dismissing his
+sentiment unfolded each singly and laid it before her. As he laid them
+out, it struck him that she studied them quite as rapidly as he could
+spread them. He slyly glanced up from the outer corner of his eye to
+hers, and noticed that all she did was look at the name at the bottom of
+the letter, and then put the enclosure aside without further ceremony.
+He thought this an odd way of inquiring into the merits of forty-five
+men who at considerable trouble gave in detail reasons why they believed
+themselves well qualified for a certain post. She came to the final one,
+and put it down with the rest.
+
+Then the lady said that in her opinion it would be best to get as many
+replies as they possibly could before selecting--'to give us a wider
+choice. What do you think, Mr. Nyttleton?'
+
+It seemed to him, he said, that a greater number than those they already
+had would scarcely be necessary, and if they waited for more, there
+would be this disadvantage attending it, that some of those they now
+could command would possibly not be available.
+
+'Never mind, we will run that risk,' said Miss Aldclyffe. 'Let the
+advertisement be inserted once more, and then we will certainly settle
+the matter.'
+
+Mr. Nyttleton bowed, and seemed to think Miss Aldclyffe, for a single
+woman, and one who till so very recently had never concerned herself
+with business of any kind, a very meddlesome client. But she was rich,
+and handsome still. 'She's a new broom in estate-management as yet,'
+he thought. 'She will soon get tired of this,' and he parted from her
+without a sentiment which could mar his habitual blandness.
+
+The two ladies then proceeded westward. Dismissing the cab in Waterloo
+Place, they went along Pall Mall on foot, where in place of the usual
+well-dressed clubbists--rubicund with alcohol--were to be seen, in linen
+pinafores, flocks of house-painters pallid from white lead. When they
+had reached the Green Park, Cytherea proposed that they should sit down
+awhile under the young elms at the brow of the hill. This they did--the
+growl of Piccadilly on their left hand--the monastic seclusion of the
+Palace on their right: before them, the clock tower of the Houses
+of Parliament, standing forth with a metallic lustre against a livid
+Lambeth sky.
+
+Miss Aldclyffe still carried in her hand a copy of the newspaper, and
+while Cytherea had been interesting herself in the picture around,
+glanced again at the advertisement.
+
+She heaved a slight sigh, and began to fold it up again. In the action
+her eye caught sight of two consecutive advertisements on the cover,
+one relating to some lecture on Art, and addressed to members of the
+Institute of Architects. The other emanated from the same source, but
+was addressed to the public, and stated that the exhibition of drawings
+at the Institute's rooms would close at the end of that week.
+
+Her eye lighted up. She sent Cytherea back to the hotel in a cab, then
+turned round by Piccadilly into Bond Street, and proceeded to the rooms
+of the Institute. The secretary was sitting in the lobby. After making
+her payment, and looking at a few of the drawings on the walls, in the
+company of three gentlemen, the only other visitors to the exhibition,
+she turned back and asked if she might be allowed to see a list of the
+members. She was a little connected with the architectural world, she
+said, with a smile, and was interested in some of the names.
+
+'Here it is, madam,' he replied, politely handing her a pamphlet
+containing the names.
+
+Miss Aldclyffe turned the leaves till she came to the letter M. The name
+she hoped to find there was there, with the address appended, as was the
+case with all the rest.
+
+The address was at some chambers in a street not far from Charing Cross.
+'Chambers,' as a residence, had always been assumed by the lady to imply
+the condition of a bachelor. She murmured two words, 'There still.'
+
+Another request had yet to be made, but it was of a more noticeable kind
+than the first, and might compromise the secrecy with which she wished
+to act throughout this episode. Her object was to get one of the
+envelopes lying on the secretary's table, stamped with the die of the
+Institute; and in order to get it she was about to ask if she might
+write a note.
+
+But the secretary's back chanced to be turned, and he now went towards
+one of the men at the other end of the room, who had called him to ask
+some question relating to an etching on the wall. Quick as thought, Miss
+Aldclyffe stood before the table, slipped her hand behind her, took one
+of the envelopes and put it in her pocket.
+
+She sauntered round the rooms for two or three minutes longer, then
+withdrew and returned to her hotel.
+
+Here she cut the Knapwater advertisement from the paper, put it into the
+envelope she had stolen, embossed with the society's stamp, and directed
+it in a round clerkly hand to the address she had seen in the list of
+members' names submitted to her:--
+
+     AENEAS MANSTON, ESQ.,
+          WYKEHAM CHAMBERS,
+               SPRING GARDENS.
+
+This ended her first day's work in London.
+
+4. FROM AUGUST THE TWENTY-SIXTH TO SEPTEMBER THE FIRST
+
+The two Cythereas continued at the Westminster Hotel, Miss Aldclyffe
+informing her companion that business would detain them in London
+another week. The days passed as slowly and quietly as days can pass in
+a city at that time of the year, the shuttered windows about the squares
+and terraces confronting their eyes like the white and sightless orbs of
+blind men. On Thursday Mr. Nyttleton called, bringing the whole number
+of replies to the advertisement. Cytherea was present at the interview,
+by Miss Aldclyffe's request--either from whim or design.
+
+Ten additional letters were the result of the second week's insertion,
+making fifty-five in all. Miss Aldclyffe looked them over as before. One
+was signed--
+
+AENEAS MANSTON,     133, TURNGATE STREET,
+          LIVERPOOL.
+
+'Now, then, Mr. Nyttleton, will you make a selection, and I will add one
+or two,' Miss Aldclyffe said.
+
+Mr. Nyttleton scanned the whole heap of letters, testimonials, and
+references, sorting them into two heaps. Manston's missive, after a mere
+glance, was thrown amongst the summarily rejected ones.
+
+Miss Aldclyffe read, or pretended to read after the lawyer. When he had
+finished, five lay in the group he had selected. 'Would you like to add
+to the number?' he said, turning to the lady.
+
+'No,' she said carelessly. 'Well, two or three additional ones rather
+took my fancy,' she added, searching for some in the larger collection.
+
+She drew out three. One was Manston's.
+
+'These eight, then, shall be communicated with,' said the lawyer, taking
+up the eight letters and placing them by themselves.
+
+They stood up. 'If I myself, Miss Aldclyffe, were only concerned
+personally,' he said, in an off-hand way, and holding up a letter
+singly, 'I should choose this man unhesitatingly. He writes honestly,
+is not afraid to name what he does not consider himself well acquainted
+with--a rare thing to find in answers to advertisements; he is well
+recommended, and possesses some qualities rarely found in combination.
+Oddly enough, he is not really a steward. He was bred a farmer, studied
+building affairs, served on an estate for some time, then went with an
+architect, and is now well qualified as architect, estate agent, and
+surveyor. That man is sure to have a fine head for a manor like yours.'
+He tapped the letter as he spoke. 'Yes, I should choose him without
+hesitation--speaking personally.'
+
+'And I think,' she said artificially, 'I should choose this one as a
+matter of mere personal whim, which, of course, can't be given way to
+when practical questions have to be considered.'
+
+Cytherea, after looking out of the window, and then at the newspapers,
+had become interested in the proceedings between the clever Miss
+Aldclyffe and the keen old lawyer, which reminded her of a game
+at cards. She looked inquiringly at the two letters--one in Miss
+Aldclyffe's hand, the other in Mr. Nyttleton's.
+
+'What is the name of your man?' said Miss Aldclyffe.
+
+'His name--' said the lawyer, looking down the page; 'what is his
+name?--it is Edward Springrove.'
+
+Miss Aldclyffe glanced towards Cytherea, who was getting red and pale by
+turns. She looked imploringly at Miss Aldclyffe.
+
+'The name of my man,' said Miss Aldclyffe, looking at her letter in
+turn; 'is, I think--yes--AEneas Manston.'
+
+5. SEPTEMBER THE THIRD
+
+The next morning but one was appointed for the interviews, which were to
+be at the lawyer's offices. Mr. Nyttleton and Mr. Tayling were both in
+town for the day, and the candidates were admitted one by one into a
+private room. In the window recess was seated Miss Aldclyffe, wearing
+her veil down.
+
+The lawyer had, in his letters to the selected number, timed each
+candidate at an interval of ten or fifteen minutes from those preceding
+and following. They were shown in as they arrived, and had short
+conversations with Mr. Nyttleton--terse, and to the point. Miss
+Aldclyffe neither moved nor spoke during this proceeding; it might have
+been supposed that she was quite unmindful of it, had it not been
+for what was revealed by a keen penetration of the veil covering her
+countenance--the rays from two bright black eyes, directed towards the
+lawyer and his interlocutor.
+
+Springrove came fifth; Manston seventh. When the examination of all was
+ended, and the last man had retired, Nyttleton, again as at the former
+time, blandly asked his client which of the eight she personally
+preferred. 'I still think the fifth we spoke to, Springrove, the man
+whose letter I pounced upon at first, to be by far the best qualified,
+in short, most suitable generally.'
+
+'I am sorry to say that I differ from you; I lean to my first notion
+still--that Mr.--Mr. Manston is most desirable in tone and bearing, and
+even specifically; I think he would suit me best in the long-run.'
+
+Mr. Nyttleton looked out of the window at the whitened wall of the
+court.
+
+'Of course, madam, your opinion may be perfectly sound and reliable;
+a sort of instinct, I know, often leads ladies by a short cut to
+conclusions truer than those come to by men after laborious round-about
+calculations, based on long experience. I must say I shouldn't recommend
+him.'
+
+'Why, pray?'
+
+'Well, let us look first at his letter of answer to the advertisement.
+He didn't reply till the last insertion; that's one thing. His letter is
+bold and frank in tone, so bold and frank that the second thought after
+reading it is that not honesty, but unscrupulousness of conscience
+dictated it. It is written in an indifferent mood, as if he felt that he
+was humbugging us in his statement that he was the right man for such
+an office, that he tried hard to get it only as a matter of form which
+required that he should neglect no opportunity that came in his way.'
+
+'You may be right, Mr. Nyttleton, but I don't quite see the grounds of
+your reasoning.'
+
+'He has been, as you perceive, almost entirely used to the office duties
+of a city architect, the experience we don't want. You want a man
+whose acquaintance with rural landed properties is more practical
+and closer--somebody who, if he has not filled exactly such an office
+before, has lived a country life, knows the ins and outs of country
+tenancies, building, farming, and so on.'
+
+'He's by far the most intellectual looking of them all.'
+
+'Yes; he may be--your opinion, Miss Aldclyffe, is worth more than mine
+in that matter. And more than you say, he is a man of parts--his brain
+power would soon enable him to master details and fit him for the post,
+I don't much doubt that. But to speak clearly' (here his words started
+off at a jog-trot) 'I wouldn't run the risk of placing the management
+of an estate of mine in his hands on any account whatever. There, that's
+flat and plain, madam.'
+
+'But, definitely,' she said, with a show of impatience, 'what is your
+reason?'
+
+'He is a voluptuary with activity; which is a very bad form of man--as
+bad as it is rare.'
+
+'Oh. Thank you for your explicit statement, Mr. Nyttleton,' said Miss
+Aldclyffe, starting a little and flushing with displeasure.
+
+Mr. Nyttleton nodded slightly, as a sort of neutral motion, simply
+signifying a receipt of the information, good or bad.
+
+'And I really think it is hardly worth while to trouble you further
+in this,' continued the lady. 'He's quite good enough for a little
+insignificant place like mine at Knapwater; and I know that I could not
+get on with one of the others for a single month. We'll try him.'
+
+'Certainly, Miss Aldclyffe,' said the lawyer. And Mr. Manston was
+written to, to the effect that he was the successful competitor.
+
+'Did you see how unmistakably her temper was getting the better of her,
+that minute you were in the room?' said Nyttleton to Tayling, when their
+client had left the house. Nyttleton was a man who surveyed everybody's
+character in a sunless and shadowless northern light. A culpable
+slyness, which marked him as a boy, had been moulded by Time, the
+Improver, into honourable circumspection.
+
+We frequently find that the quality which, conjoined with the simplicity
+of the child, is vice, is virtue when it pervades the knowledge of the
+man.
+
+'She was as near as damn-it to boiling over when I added up her man,'
+continued Nyttleton. 'His handsome face is his qualification in her
+eyes. They have met before; I saw that.'
+
+'He didn't seem conscious of it,' said the junior.
+
+'He didn't. That was rather puzzling to me. But still, if ever a woman's
+face spoke out plainly that she was in love with a man, hers did that
+she was with him. Poor old maid, she's almost old enough to be his
+mother. If that Manston's a schemer he'll marry her, as sure as I am
+Nyttleton. Let's hope he's honest, however.'
+
+'I don't think she's in love with him,' said Tayling. He had seen but
+little of the pair, and yet he could not reconcile what he had noticed
+in Miss Aldclyffe's behaviour with the idea that it was the bearing of a
+woman towards her lover.
+
+'Well, your experience of the fiery phenomenon is more recent than
+mine,' rejoined Nyttleton carelessly. 'And you may remember the nature
+of it best.'
+
+
+
+
+VIII. THE EVENTS OF EIGHTEEN DAYS
+
+1. FROM THE THIRD TO THE NINETEENTH OF SEPTEMBER
+
+Miss Aldclyffe's tenderness towards Cytherea, between the hours of her
+irascibility, increased till it became no less than doting fondness.
+Like Nature in the tropics, with her hurricanes and the subsequent
+luxuriant vegetation effacing their ravages, Miss Aldclyffe compensated
+for her outbursts by excess of generosity afterwards. She seemed to be
+completely won out of herself by close contact with a young woman whose
+modesty was absolutely unimpaired, and whose artlessness was as perfect
+as was compatible with the complexity necessary to produce the due charm
+of womanhood. Cytherea, on her part, perceived with honest satisfaction
+that her influence for good over Miss Aldclyffe was considerable. Ideas
+and habits peculiar to the younger, which the elder lady had originally
+imitated as a mere whim, she grew in course of time to take a positive
+delight in. Among others were evening and morning prayers, dreaming over
+out-door scenes, learning a verse from some poem whilst dressing.
+
+Yet try to force her sympathies as much as she would, Cytherea could
+feel no more than thankful for this, even if she always felt as much
+as thankful. The mysterious cloud hanging over the past life of her
+companion, of which the uncertain light already thrown upon it only
+seemed to render still darker the unpenetrated remainder, nourished
+in her a feeling which was scarcely too slight to be called dread. She
+would have infinitely preferred to be treated distantly, as the mere
+dependent, by such a changeable nature--like a fountain, always
+herself, yet always another. That a crime of any deep dye had ever been
+perpetrated or participated in by her namesake, she would not believe;
+but the reckless adventuring of the lady's youth seemed connected with
+deeds of darkness rather than of light.
+
+Sometimes Miss Aldclyffe appeared to be on the point of making some
+absorbing confidence, but reflection invariably restrained her. Cytherea
+hoped that such a confidence would come with time, and that she might
+thus be a means of soothing a mind which had obviously known extreme
+suffering.
+
+But Miss Aldclyffe's reticence concerning her past was not imitated by
+Cytherea. Though she never disclosed the one fact of her knowledge
+that the love-suit between Miss Aldclyffe and her father terminated
+abnormally, the maiden's natural ingenuousness on subjects not set down
+for special guard had enabled Miss Aldclyffe to worm from her, fragment
+by fragment, every detail of her father's history. Cytherea saw how
+deeply Miss Aldclyffe sympathized--and it compensated her, to some
+extent, for the hasty resentments of other times.
+
+Thus uncertainly she lived on. It was perceived by the servants of the
+House that some secret bond of connection existed between Miss Aldclyffe
+and her companion. But they were woman and woman, not woman and man, the
+facts were ethereal and refined, and so they could not be worked up
+into a taking story. Whether, as old critics disputed, a supernatural
+machinery be necessary to an epic or no, an ungodly machinery is
+decidedly necessary to a scandal.
+
+Another letter had come to her from Edward--very short, but full of
+entreaty, asking why she would not write just one line--just one line of
+cold friendship at least? She then allowed herself to think, little by
+little, whether she had not perhaps been too harsh with him; and at last
+wondered if he were really much to blame for being engaged to another
+woman. 'Ah, Brain, there is one in me stronger than you!' she said. The
+young maid now continually pulled out his letter, read it and re-read
+it, almost crying with pity the while, to think what wretched suspense
+he must be enduring at her silence, till her heart chid her for her
+cruelty. She felt that she must send him a line--one little line--just a
+wee line to keep him alive, poor thing; sighing like Donna Clara--
+
+
+     'Ah, were he now before me,
+        In spite of injured pride,
+      I fear my eyes would pardon
+        Before my tongue could chide.'
+
+
+2. SEPTEMBER THE TWENTIETH. THREE TO FOUR P.M.
+
+It was the third week in September, about five weeks after Cytherea's
+arrival, when Miss Aldclyffe requested her one day to go through the
+village of Carriford and assist herself in collecting the subscriptions
+made by some of the inhabitants of the parish to a religious society
+she patronized. Miss Aldclyffe formed one of what was called a Ladies'
+Association, each member of which collected tributary streams of
+shillings from her inferiors, to add to her own pound at the end.
+
+Miss Aldclyffe took particular interest in Cytherea's appearance that
+afternoon, and the object of her attention was, indeed, gratifying
+to look at. The sight of the lithe girl, set off by an airy dress,
+coquettish jacket, flexible hat, a ray of starlight in each eye and a
+war of lilies and roses in each cheek, was a palpable pleasure to the
+mistress of the mansion, yet a pleasure which appeared to partake less
+of the nature of affectionate satisfaction than of mental gratification.
+
+Eight names were printed in the report as belonging to Miss Aldclyffe's
+list, with the amount of subscription-money attached to each.
+
+'I will collect the first four, whilst you do the same with the last
+four,' said Miss Aldclyffe.
+
+The names of two tradespeople stood first in Cytherea's share: then came
+a Miss Hinton: last of all in the printed list was Mr. Springrove
+the elder. Underneath his name was pencilled, in Miss Aldclyffe's
+handwriting, 'Mr. Manston.'
+
+Manston had arrived on the estate, in the capacity of steward, three or
+four days previously, and occupied the old manor-house, which had been
+altered and repaired for his reception.
+
+'Call on Mr. Manston,' said the lady impressively, looking at the name
+written under Cytherea's portion of the list.
+
+'But he does not subscribe yet?'
+
+'I know it; but call and leave him a report. Don't forget it.'
+
+'Say you would be pleased if he would subscribe?'
+
+'Yes--say I should be pleased if he would,' repeated Miss Aldclyffe,
+smiling. 'Good-bye. Don't hurry in your walk. If you can't get easily
+through your task to-day put off some of it till to-morrow.'
+
+Each then started on her rounds: Cytherea going in the first place to
+the old manor-house. Mr. Manston was not indoors, which was a relief
+to her. She called then on the two gentleman-farmers' wives, who
+soon transacted their business with her, frigidly indifferent to her
+personality. A person who socially is nothing is thought less of by
+people who are not much than by those who are a great deal.
+
+She then turned towards Peakhill Cottage, the residence of Miss Hinton,
+who lived there happily enough, with an elderly servant and a house-dog
+as companions. Her father, and last remaining parent, had retired
+thither four years before this time, after having filled the post of
+editor to the Casterbridge Chronicle for eighteen or twenty years. There
+he died soon after, and though comparatively a poor man, he left his
+daughter sufficiently well provided for as a modest fundholder and
+claimant of sundry small sums in dividends to maintain herself as
+mistress at Peakhill.
+
+At Cytherea's knock an inner door was heard to open and close, and
+footsteps crossed the passage hesitatingly. The next minute Cytherea
+stood face to face with the lady herself.
+
+Adelaide Hinton was about nine-and-twenty years of age. Her hair
+was plentiful, like Cytherea's own; her teeth equalled Cytherea's in
+regularity and whiteness. But she was much paler, and had features
+too transparent to be in place among household surroundings. Her mouth
+expressed love less forcibly than Cytherea's, and, as a natural result
+of her greater maturity, her tread was less elastic, and she was more
+self-possessed.
+
+She had been a girl of that kind which mothers praise as not forward, by
+way of contrast, when disparaging those warmer ones with whom loving is
+an end and not a means. Men of forty, too, said of her, 'a good sensible
+wife for any man, if she cares to marry,' the caring to marry being
+thrown in as the vaguest hypothesis, because she was so practical.
+Yet it would be singular if, in such cases, the important subject of
+marriage should be excluded from manipulation by hands that are ready
+for practical performance in every domestic concern besides.
+
+Cytherea was an acquisition, and the greeting was hearty.
+
+'Good afternoon! O yes--Miss Graye, from Miss Aldclyffe's. I have seen
+you at church, and I am so glad you have called! Come in. I wonder if I
+have change enough to pay my subscription.' She spoke girlishly.
+
+Adelaide, when in the company of a younger woman, always levelled
+herself down to that younger woman's age from a sense of justice to
+herself--as if, though not her own age at common law, it was in equity.
+
+'It doesn't matter. I'll come again.'
+
+'Yes, do at any time; not only on this errand. But you must step in for
+a minute. Do.'
+
+'I have been wanting to come for several weeks.'
+
+'That's right. Now you must see my house--lonely, isn't it, for a single
+person? People said it was odd for a young woman like me to keep on a
+house; but what did I care? If you knew the pleasure of locking up your
+own door, with the sensation that you reigned supreme inside it, you
+would say it was worth the risk of being called odd. Mr. Springrove
+attends to my gardening, the dog attends to robbers, and whenever there
+is a snake or toad to kill, Jane does it.'
+
+'How nice! It is better than living in a town.'
+
+'Far better. A town makes a cynic of me.'
+
+The remark recalled, somewhat startlingly, to Cytherea's mind, that
+Edward had used those very words to herself one evening at Budmouth.
+
+Miss Hinton opened an interior door and led her visitor into a small
+drawing-room commanding a view of the country for miles.
+
+The missionary business was soon settled; but the chat continued.
+
+'How lonely it must be here at night!' said Cytherea. 'Aren't you
+afraid?'
+
+'At first I was, slightly. But I got used to the solitude. And you know
+a sort of commonsense will creep even into timidity. I say to myself
+sometimes at night, "If I were anybody but a harmless woman, not worth
+the trouble of a worm's ghost to appear to me, I should think that every
+sound I hear was a spirit." But you must see all over my house.'
+
+Cytherea was highly interested in seeing.
+
+'I say you _must_ do this, and you _must_ do that, as if you were a
+child,' remarked Adelaide. 'A privileged friend of mine tells me this
+use of the imperative comes of being so constantly in nobody's society
+but my own.'
+
+'Ah, yes. I suppose she is right.'
+
+Cytherea called the friend 'she' by a rule of ladylike practice; for a
+woman's 'friend' is delicately assumed by another friend to be of their
+own sex in the absence of knowledge to the contrary; just as cats are
+called she's until they prove themselves he's.
+
+Miss Hinton laughed mysteriously.
+
+'I get a humorous reproof for it now and then, I assure you,' she
+continued.
+
+'"Humorous reproof:" that's not from a woman: who can reprove humorously
+but a man?' was the groove of Cytherea's thought at the remark. 'Your
+brother reproves you, I expect,' said that innocent young lady.
+
+'No,' said Miss Hinton, with a candid air. ''Tis only a professional man
+I am acquainted with.' She looked out of the window.
+
+Women are persistently imitative. No sooner did a thought flash
+through Cytherea's mind that the man was a lover than she became a Miss
+Aldclyffe in a mild form.
+
+'I imagine he's a lover,' she said.
+
+Miss Hinton smiled a smile of experience in that line.
+
+Few women, if taxed with having an admirer, are so free from vanity
+as to deny the impeachment, even if it is utterly untrue. When it does
+happen to be true, they look pityingly away from the person who is so
+benighted as to have got no further than suspecting it.
+
+'There now--Miss Hinton; you are engaged to be married!' said Cytherea
+accusingly.
+
+Adelaide nodded her head practically. 'Well, yes, I am,' she said.
+
+The word 'engaged' had no sooner passed Cytherea's lips than the sound
+of it--the mere sound of her own lips--carried her mind to the time and
+circumstances under which Miss Aldclyffe had used it towards herself.
+A sickening thought followed--based but on a mere surmise; yet its
+presence took every other idea away from Cytherea's mind. Miss Hinton
+had used Edward's words about towns; she mentioned Mr. Springrove as
+attending to her garden. It could not be that Edward was the man! that
+Miss Aldclyffe had planned to reveal her rival thus!
+
+'Are you going to be married soon?' she inquired, with a steadiness the
+result of a sort of fascination, but apparently of indifference.
+
+'Not very soon--still, soon.'
+
+'Ah-ha! In less than three months?' said Cytherea.
+
+'Two.'
+
+Now that the subject was well in hand, Adelaide wanted no more
+prompting. 'You won't tell anybody if I show you something?' she said,
+with eager mystery.
+
+'O no, nobody. But does he live in this parish?'
+
+'No.'
+
+Nothing proved yet.
+
+'What's his name?' said Cytherea flatly. Her breath and heart had begun
+their old tricks, and came and went hotly. Miss Hinton could not see her
+face.
+
+'What do you think?' said Miss Hinton.
+
+'George?' said Cytherea, with deceitful agony.
+
+'No,' said Adelaide. 'But now, you shall see him first; come here;'
+and she led the way upstairs into her bedroom. There, standing on the
+dressing table in a little frame, was the unconscious portrait of Edward
+Springrove.
+
+'There he is,' Miss Hinton said, and a silence ensued.
+
+'Are you very fond of him?' continued the miserable Cytherea at length.
+
+'Yes, of course I am,' her companion replied, but in the tone of one who
+'lived in Abraham's bosom all the year,' and was therefore untouched by
+solemn thought at the fact. 'He's my cousin--a native of this village.
+We were engaged before my father's death left me so lonely. I was only
+twenty, and a much greater belle than I am now. We know each other
+thoroughly, as you may imagine. I give him a little sermonizing now and
+then.'
+
+'Why?'
+
+'O, it's only in fun. He's very naughty sometimes--not really, you
+know--but he will look at any pretty face when he sees it.'
+
+Storing up this statement of his susceptibility as another item to
+be miserable upon when she had time, 'How do you know that?' Cytherea
+asked, with a swelling heart.
+
+'Well, you know how things do come to women's ears. He used to live at
+Budmouth as an assistant-architect, and I found out that a young giddy
+thing of a girl who lives there somewhere took his fancy for a day
+or two. But I don't feel jealous at all--our engagement is so
+matter-of-fact that neither of us can be jealous. And it was a mere
+flirtation--she was too silly for him. He's fond of rowing, and kindly
+gave her an airing for an evening or two. I'll warrant they talked the
+most unmitigated rubbish under the sun--all shallowness and pastime,
+just as everything is at watering places--neither of them caring a bit
+for the other--she giggling like a goose all the time--'
+
+Concentrated essence of woman pervaded the room rather than air.
+'She _didn't_! and it _wasn't_ shallowness!' Cytherea burst out, with
+brimming eyes. ''Twas deep deceit on one side, and entire confidence
+on the other--yes, it was!' The pent-up emotion had swollen and swollen
+inside the young thing till the dam could no longer embay it. The
+instant the words were out she would have given worlds to have been able
+to recall them.
+
+'Do you know her--or him?' said Miss Hinton, starting with suspicion at
+the warmth shown.
+
+The two rivals had now lost their personality quite. There was the same
+keen brightness of eye, the same movement of the mouth, the same mind
+in both, as they looked doubtingly and excitedly at each other. As is
+invariably the case with women when a man they care for is the subject
+of an excitement among them, the situation abstracted the differences
+which distinguished them as individuals, and left only the properties
+common to them as atoms of a sex.
+
+Cytherea caught at the chance afforded her of not betraying herself.
+'Yes, I know her,' she said.
+
+'Well,' said Miss Hinton, 'I am really vexed if my speaking so lightly
+of any friend of yours has hurt your feelings, but--'
+
+'O, never mind,' Cytherea returned; 'it doesn't matter, Miss Hinton. I
+think I must leave you now. I have to call at other places. Yes--I must
+go.'
+
+Miss Hinton, in a perplexed state of mind, showed her visitor politely
+downstairs to the door. Here Cytherea bade her a hurried adieu, and
+flitted down the garden into the lane.
+
+She persevered in her duties with a wayward pleasure in giving herself
+misery, as was her wont. Mr. Springrove's name was next on the list, and
+she turned towards his dwelling, the Three Tranters Inn.
+
+3. FOUR TO FIVE P.M.
+
+The cottages along Carriford village street were not so close but that
+on one side or other of the road was always a hedge of hawthorn or
+privet, over or through which could be seen gardens or orchards rich
+with produce. It was about the middle of the early apple-harvest, and
+the laden trees were shaken at intervals by the gatherers; the soft
+pattering of the falling crop upon the grassy ground being diversified
+by the loud rattle of vagrant ones upon a rail, hencoop, basket,
+or lean-to roof, or upon the rounded and stooping backs of the
+collectors--mostly children, who would have cried bitterly at receiving
+such a smart blow from any other quarter, but smilingly assumed it to be
+but fun in apples.
+
+The Three Tranters Inn, a many-gabled, mediaeval building, constructed
+almost entirely of timber, plaster, and thatch, stood close to the line
+of the roadside, almost opposite the churchyard, and was connected
+with a row of cottages on the left by thatched outbuildings. It was an
+uncommonly characteristic and handsome specimen of the genuine roadside
+inn of bygone times; and standing on one of the great highways in this
+part of England, had in its time been the scene of as much of what is
+now looked upon as the romantic and genial experience of stage-coach
+travelling as any halting-place in the country. The railway had absorbed
+the whole stream of traffic which formerly flowed through the village
+and along by the ancient door of the inn, reducing the empty-handed
+landlord, who used only to farm a few fields at the back of the house,
+to the necessity of eking out his attenuated income by increasing the
+extent of his agricultural business if he would still maintain his
+social standing. Next to the general stillness pervading the spot, the
+long line of outbuildings adjoining the house was the most striking and
+saddening witness to the passed-away fortunes of the Three Tranters Inn.
+It was the bulk of the original stabling, and where once the hoofs of
+two-score horses had daily rattled over the stony yard, to and from the
+stalls within, thick grass now grew, whilst the line of roofs--once so
+straight--over the decayed stalls, had sunk into vast hollows till they
+seemed like the cheeks of toothless age.
+
+On a green plot at the other end of the building grew two or
+three large, wide-spreading elm-trees, from which the sign was
+suspended--representing the three men called tranters (irregular
+carriers), standing side by side, and exactly alike to a hair's-breadth,
+the grain of the wood and joints of the boards being visible through the
+thin paint depicting their forms, which were still further disfigured by
+red stains running downwards from the rusty nails above.
+
+Under the trees now stood a cider-mill and press, and upon the spot
+sheltered by the boughs were gathered Mr. Springrove himself, his men,
+the parish clerk, two or three other men, grinders and supernumeraries,
+a woman with an infant in her arms, a flock of pigeons, and some little
+boys with straws in their mouths, endeavouring, whenever the men's backs
+were turned, to get a sip of the sweet juice issuing from the vat.
+
+Edward Springrove the elder, the landlord, now more particularly a
+farmer, and for two months in the year a cider-maker, was an employer of
+labour of the old school, who worked himself among his men. He was now
+engaged in packing the pomace into horsehair bags with a rammer, and
+Gad Weedy, his man, was occupied in shovelling up more from a tub at
+his side. The shovel shone like silver from the action of the juice,
+and ever and anon, in its motion to and fro, caught the rays of the
+declining sun and reflected them in bristling stars of light.
+
+Mr. Springrove had been too young a man when the pristine days of the
+Three Tranters had departed for ever to have much of the host left in
+him now. He was a poet with a rough skin: one whose sturdiness was
+more the result of external circumstances than of intrinsic nature. Too
+kindly constituted to be very provident, he was yet not imprudent.
+He had a quiet humorousness of disposition, not out of keeping with a
+frequent melancholy, the general expression of his countenance being one
+of abstraction. Like Walt Whitman he felt as his years increased--
+
+     'I foresee too much; it means more than I thought.'
+
+On the present occasion he wore gaiters and a leathern apron, and worked
+with his shirt-sleeves rolled up beyond his elbows, disclosing solid and
+fleshy rather than muscular arms. They were stained by the cider, and
+two or three brown apple-pips from the pomace he was handling were to be
+seen sticking on them here and there.
+
+The other prominent figure was that of Richard Crickett, the parish
+clerk, a kind of Bowdlerized rake, who ate only as much as a woman,
+and had the rheumatism in his left hand. The remainder of the group,
+brown-faced peasants, wore smock-frocks embroidered on the shoulders
+with hearts and diamonds, and were girt round their middle with a strap,
+another being worn round the right wrist.
+
+'And have you seen the steward, Mr. Springrove?' said the clerk.
+
+'Just a glimpse of him; but 'twas just enough to show me that he's not
+here for long.'
+
+'Why mid that be?'
+
+'He'll never stand the vagaries of the female figure holden the
+reins--not he.'
+
+'She d' pay en well,' said a grinder; 'and money's money.'
+
+'Ah--'tis: very much so,' the clerk replied.
+
+'Yes, yes, naibour Crickett,' said Springrove, 'but she'll vlee in a
+passion--all the fat will be in the fire--and there's an end o't....
+Yes, she is a one,' continued the farmer, resting, raising his eyes, and
+reading the features of a distant apple.
+
+'She is,' said Gad, resting too (it is wonderful how prompt a journeyman
+is in following his master's initiative to rest) and reflectively
+regarding the ground in front of him.
+
+'True: a one is she,' the clerk chimed in, shaking his head ominously.
+
+'She has such a temper,' said the farmer, 'and is so wilful too. You may
+as well try to stop a footpath as stop her when she has taken anything
+into her head. I'd as soon grind little green crabs all day as live wi'
+her.'
+
+''Tis a temper she hev, 'tis,' the clerk replied, 'though I be a servant
+of the Church that say it. But she isn't goen to flee in a passion this
+time.'
+
+The audience waited for the continuation of the speech, as if they knew
+from experience the exact distance off it lay in the future.
+
+The clerk swallowed nothing as if it were a great deal, and then went
+on, 'There's some'at between 'em: mark my words, naibours--there's
+some'at between 'em.'
+
+'D'ye mean it?'
+
+'I d' know it. He came last Saturday, didn't he?'
+
+''A did, truly,' said Gad Weedy, at the same time taking an apple from
+the hopper of the mill, eating a piece, and flinging back the remainder
+to be ground up for cider.
+
+'He went to church a-Sunday,' said the clerk again.
+
+''A did.'
+
+'And she kept her eye upon en all the service, her face flickeren
+between red and white, but never stoppen at either.'
+
+Mr. Springrove nodded, and went to the press.
+
+'Well,' said the clerk, 'you don't call her the kind o' woman to make
+mistakes in just trotten through the weekly service o' God? Why, as a
+rule she's as right as I be myself.'
+
+Mr. Springrove nodded again, and gave a twist to the screw of the press,
+followed in the movement by Gad at the other side; the two grinders
+expressing by looks of the greatest concern that, if Miss Aldclyffe were
+as right at church as the clerk, she must be right indeed.
+
+'Yes, as right in the service o' God as I be myself,' repeated the
+clerk. 'But last Sunday, when we were in the tenth commandment, says
+she, "Incline our hearts to keep this law," says she, when 'twas "Laws
+in our hearts, we beseech Thee," all the church through. Her eye was
+upon _him_--she was quite lost--"Hearts to keep this law," says she; she
+was no more than a mere shadder at that tenth time--a mere shadder. You
+mi't ha' mouthed across to her "Laws in our hearts we beseech Thee,"
+fifty times over--she'd never ha' noticed ye. She's in love wi' the man,
+that's what she is.'
+
+'Then she's a bigger stunpoll than I took her for,' said Mr. Springrove.
+'Why, she's old enough to be his mother.'
+
+'The row'll be between her and that young Curlywig, you'll see. She
+won't run the risk of that pretty face be-en near.'
+
+'Clerk Crickett, I d' fancy you d' know everything about everybody,'
+said Gad.
+
+'Well so's,' said the clerk modestly. 'I do know a little. It comes to
+me.'
+
+'And I d' know where from.'
+
+'Ah.'
+
+'That wife o' thine. She's an entertainen woman, not to speak
+disrespectful.'
+
+'She is: and a winnen one. Look at the husbands she've had--God bless
+her!'
+
+'I wonder you could stand third in that list, Clerk Crickett,' said Mr.
+Springrove.
+
+'Well, 't has been a power o' marvel to myself oftentimes. Yes,
+matrimony do begin wi' "Dearly beloved," and ends wi' "Amazement," as
+the prayer-book says. But what could I do, naibour Springrove? 'Twas
+ordained to be. Well do I call to mind what your poor lady said to me
+when I had just married. "Ah, Mr. Crickett," says she, "your wife will
+soon settle you as she did her other two: here's a glass o' rum, for
+I shan't see your poor face this time next year." I swallered the rum,
+called again next year, and said, "Mrs. Springrove, you gave me a glass
+o' rum last year because I was going to die--here I be alive still, you
+see." "Well said, clerk! Here's two glasses for you now, then," says
+she. "Thank you, mem," I said, and swallered the rum. Well, dang my old
+sides, next year I thought I'd call again and get three. And call I did.
+But she wouldn't give me a drop o' the commonest. "No, clerk," says
+she, "you be too tough for a woman's pity."... Ah, poor soul, 'twas true
+enough! Here be I, that was expected to die, alive and hard as a nail,
+you see, and there's she moulderen in her grave.'
+
+'I used to think 'twas your wife's fate not to have a liven husband when
+I zid 'em die off so,' said Gad.
+
+'Fate? Bless thy simplicity, so 'twas her fate; but she struggled to
+have one, and would, and did. Fate's nothen beside a woman's schemen!'
+
+'I suppose, then, that Fate is a He, like us, and the Lord, and the rest
+o' 'em up above there,' said Gad, lifting his eyes to the sky.
+
+'Hullo! Here's the young woman comen that we were a-talken about
+by-now,' said a grinder, suddenly interrupting. 'She's comen up here, as
+I be alive!'
+
+The two grinders stood and regarded Cytherea as if she had been a ship
+tacking into a harbour, nearly stopping the mill in their new interest.
+
+'Stylish accoutrements about the head and shoulders, to my thinken,'
+said the clerk. 'Sheenen curls, and plenty o' em.'
+
+'If there's one kind of pride more excusable than another in a young
+woman, 'tis being proud of her hair,' said Mr. Springrove.
+
+'Dear man!--the pride there is only a small piece o' the whole. I
+warrant now, though she can show such a figure, she ha'n't a stick o'
+furniture to call her own.'
+
+'Come, Clerk Crickett, let the maid be a maid while she is a maid,' said
+Farmer Springrove chivalrously.
+
+'O,' replied the servant of the Church; 'I've nothen to say against
+it--O no:
+
+     '"The chimney-sweeper's daughter Sue
+         As I have heard declare, O,
+       Although she's neither sock nor shoe
+         Will curl and deck her hair, O."'
+
+Cytherea was rather disconcerted at finding that the gradual cessation
+of the chopping of the mill was on her account, and still more when she
+saw all the cider-makers' eyes fixed upon her except Mr. Springrove's,
+whose natural delicacy restrained him. She neared the plot of grass, but
+instead of advancing further, hesitated on its border.
+
+Mr. Springrove perceived her embarrassment, which was relieved when she
+saw his old-established figure coming across to her, wiping his hands in
+his apron.
+
+'I know your errand, missie,' he said, 'and am glad to see you, and
+attend to it. I'll step indoors.'
+
+'If you are busy I am in no hurry for a minute or two,' said Cytherea.
+
+'Then if so be you really wouldn't mind, we'll wring down this last
+filling to let it drain all night?'
+
+'Not at all. I like to see you.'
+
+'We are only just grinding down the early pickthongs and griffins,'
+continued the farmer, in a half-apologetic tone for detaining by
+his cider-making any well-dressed woman. 'They rot as black as a
+chimney-crook if we keep 'em till the regulars turn in.' As he spoke he
+went back to the press, Cytherea keeping at his elbow. 'I'm later than
+I should have been by rights,' he continued, taking up a lever for
+propelling the screw, and beckoning to the men to come forward.
+'The truth is, my son Edward had promised to come to-day, and I made
+preparations; but instead of him comes a letter: "London, September the
+eighteenth, Dear Father," says he, and went on to tell me he couldn't.
+It threw me out a bit.'
+
+'Of course,' said Cytherea.
+
+'He's got a place 'a b'lieve?' said the clerk, drawing near.
+
+'No, poor mortal fellow, no. He tried for this one here, you know, but
+couldn't manage to get it. I don't know the rights o' the matter, but
+willy-nilly they wouldn't have him for steward. Now mates, form in
+line.'
+
+Springrove, the clerk, the grinders, and Gad, all ranged themselves
+behind the lever of the screw, and walked round like soldiers wheeling.
+
+'The man that the old quean hev got is a man you can hardly get upon
+your tongue to gainsay, by the look o' en,' rejoined Clerk Crickett.
+
+'One o' them people that can contrive to be thought no worse o' for
+stealen a horse than another man for looken over hedge at en,' said a
+grinder.
+
+'Well, he's all there as steward, and is quite the gentleman--no doubt
+about that.'
+
+'So would my Ted ha' been, for the matter o' that,' the farmer said.
+
+'That's true: 'a would, sir.'
+
+'I said, I'll give Ted a good education if it do cost me my eyes, and I
+would have done it.'
+
+'Ay, that you would so,' said the chorus of assistants solemnly.
+
+'But he took to books and drawing naturally, and cost very little;
+and as a wind-up the womenfolk hatched up a match between him and his
+cousin.'
+
+'When's the wedden to be, Mr. Springrove?'
+
+'Uncertain--but soon, I suppose. Edward, you see, can do anything pretty
+nearly, and yet can't get a straightforward living. I wish sometimes I
+had kept him here, and let professions go. But he was such a one for the
+pencil.'
+
+He dropped the lever in the hedge, and turned to his visitor.
+
+'Now then, missie, if you'll come indoors, please.'
+
+Gad Weedy looked with a placid criticism at Cytherea as she withdrew
+with the farmer.
+
+'I could tell by the tongue o' her that she didn't take her degrees in
+our county,' he said in an undertone.
+
+
+'The railways have left you lonely here,' she observed, when they were
+indoors.
+
+Save the withered old flies, which were quite tame from the solitude,
+not a being was in the house. Nobody seemed to have entered it since the
+last passenger had been called out to mount the last stage-coach that
+had run by.
+
+'Yes, the Inn and I seem almost a pair of fossils,' the farmer replied,
+looking at the room and then at himself.
+
+'O, Mr. Springrove,' said Cytherea, suddenly recollecting herself; 'I am
+much obliged to you for recommending me to Miss Aldclyffe.' She began to
+warm towards the old man; there was in him a gentleness of disposition
+which reminded her of her own father.
+
+'Recommending? Not at all, miss. Ted--that's my son--Ted said a
+fellow-draughtsman of his had a sister who wanted to be doing something
+in the world, and I mentioned it to the housekeeper, that's all. Ay, I
+miss my son very much.'
+
+She kept her back to the window that he might not see her rising colour.
+
+'Yes,' he continued, 'sometimes I can't help feeling uneasy about him.
+You know, he seems not made for a town life exactly: he gets very queer
+over it sometimes, I think. Perhaps he'll be better when he's married to
+Adelaide.'
+
+A half-impatient feeling arose in her, like that which possesses a
+sick person when he hears a recently-struck hour struck again by a slow
+clock. She had lived further on.
+
+'Everything depends upon whether he loves her,' she said tremulously.
+
+'He used to--he doesn't show it so much now; but that's because he's
+older. You see, it was several years ago they first walked together as
+young man and young woman. She's altered too from what she was when he
+first courted her.'
+
+'How, sir?'
+
+'O, she's more sensible by half. When he used to write to her she'd
+creep up the lane and look back over her shoulder, and slide out the
+letter, and read a word and stand in thought looking at the hills and
+seeing none. Then the cuckoo would cry--away the letter would slip, and
+she'd start wi' fright at the mere bird, and have a red skin before the
+quickest man among ye could say, "Blood rush up."'
+
+He came forward with the money and dropped it into her hand. His
+thoughts were still with Edward, and he absently took her little fingers
+in his as he said, earnestly and ingenuously--
+
+''Tis so seldom I get a gentlewoman to speak to that I can't help
+speaking to you, Miss Graye, on my fears for Edward; I sometimes am
+afraid that he'll never get on--that he'll die poor and despised under
+the worst mental conditions, a keen sense of having been passed in the
+race by men whose brains are nothing to his own, all through his seeing
+too far into things--being discontented with make-shifts--thinking o'
+perfection in things, and then sickened that there's no such thing as
+perfection. I shan't be sorry to see him marry, since it may settle him
+down and do him good.... Ay, we'll hope for the best.'
+
+He let go her hand and accompanied her to the door saying, 'If you
+should care to walk this way and talk to an old man once now and then,
+it will be a great delight to him, Miss Graye. Good-evening to ye.... Ah
+look! a thunderstorm is brewing--be quick home. Or shall I step up with
+you?'
+
+'No, thank you, Mr. Springrove. Good evening,' she said in a low voice,
+and hurried away. One thought still possessed her; Edward had trifled
+with her love.
+
+4. FIVE TO SIX P.M.
+
+She followed the road into a bower of trees, overhanging it so densely
+that the pass appeared like a rabbit's burrow, and presently reached a
+side entrance to the park. The clouds rose more rapidly than the
+farmer had anticipated: the sheep moved in a trail, and complained
+incoherently. Livid grey shades, like those of the modern French
+painters, made a mystery of the remote and dark parts of the vista, and
+seemed to insist upon a suspension of breath. Before she was half-way
+across the park the thunder rumbled distinctly.
+
+The direction in which she had to go would take her close by the old
+manor-house. The air was perfectly still, and between each low rumble of
+the thunder behind she could hear the roar of the waterfall before her,
+and the creak of the engine among the bushes hard by it. Hurrying on,
+with a growing dread of the gloom and of the approaching storm, she drew
+near the Old House, now rising before her against the dark foliage and
+sky in tones of strange whiteness.
+
+On the flight of steps, which descended from a terrace in front to the
+level of the park, stood a man. He appeared, partly from the relief the
+position gave to his figure, and partly from fact, to be of towering
+height. He was dark in outline, and was looking at the sky, with his
+hands behind him.
+
+It was necessary for Cytherea to pass directly across the line of his
+front. She felt so reluctant to do this, that she was about to turn
+under the trees out of the path and enter it again at a point beyond
+the Old House; but he had seen her, and she came on mechanically,
+unconsciously averting her face a little, and dropping her glance to the
+ground.
+
+Her eyes unswervingly lingered along the path until they fell upon
+another path branching in a right line from the path she was pursuing.
+It came from the steps of the Old House. 'I am exactly opposite him
+now,' she thought, 'and his eyes are going through me.'
+
+A clear masculine voice said, at the same instant--
+
+'Are you afraid?'
+
+She, interpreting his question by her feelings at the moment, assumed
+himself to be the object of fear, if any. 'I don't think I am,' she
+stammered.
+
+He seemed to know that she thought in that sense.
+
+'Of the thunder, I mean,' he said; 'not of myself.'
+
+She must turn to him now. 'I think it is going to rain,' she remarked
+for the sake of saying something.
+
+He could not conceal his surprise and admiration of her face and
+bearing. He said courteously, 'It may possibly not rain before you reach
+the House, if you are going there?'
+
+'Yes, I am,'
+
+'May I walk up with you? It is lonely under the trees.'
+
+'No.' Fearing his courtesy arose from a belief that he was addressing a
+woman of higher station than was hers, she added, 'I am Miss Aldclyffe's
+companion. I don't mind the loneliness.'
+
+'O, Miss Aldclyffe's companion. Then will you be kind enough to take a
+subscription to her? She sent to me this afternoon to ask me to become
+a subscriber to her Society, and I was out. Of course I'll subscribe if
+she wishes it. I take a great interest in the Society.'
+
+'Miss Aldclyffe will be glad to hear that, I know.'
+
+'Yes; let me see--what Society did she say it was? I am afraid I haven't
+enough money in my pocket, and yet it would be a satisfaction to her to
+have practical proof of my willingness. I'll get it, and be out in one
+minute.'
+
+He entered the house and was at her side again within the time he had
+named. 'This is it,' he said pleasantly.
+
+She held up her hand. The soft tips of his fingers brushed the palm of
+her glove as he placed the money within it. She wondered why his fingers
+should have touched her.
+
+'I think after all,' he continued, 'that the rain is upon us, and will
+drench you before you reach the House. Yes: see there.'
+
+He pointed to a round wet spot as large as a nasturtium leaf, which had
+suddenly appeared upon the white surface of the step.
+
+'You had better come into the porch. It is not nearly night yet. The
+clouds make it seem later than it really is.'
+
+Heavy drops of rain, followed immediately by a forked flash of lightning
+and sharp rattling thunder compelled her, willingly or no, to accept
+his invitation. She ascended the steps, stood beside him just within the
+porch, and for the first time obtained a series of short views of his
+person, as they waited there in silence.
+
+He was an extremely handsome man, well-formed, and well-dressed, of an
+age which seemed to be two or three years less than thirty. The
+most striking point in his appearance was the wonderful, almost
+preternatural, clearness of his complexion. There was not a blemish or
+speck of any kind to mar the smoothness of its surface or the beauty of
+its hue. Next, his forehead was square and broad, his brows straight
+and firm, his eyes penetrating and clear. By collecting the round of
+expressions they gave forth, a person who theorized on such matters
+would have imbibed the notion that their owner was of a nature to kick
+against the pricks; the last man in the world to put up with a position
+because it seemed to be his destiny to do so; one who took upon himself
+to resist fate with the vindictive determination of a Theomachist.
+Eyes and forehead both would have expressed keenness of intellect too
+severely to be pleasing, had their force not been counteracted by the
+lines and tone of the lips. These were full and luscious to a surprising
+degree, possessing a woman-like softness of curve, and a ruby redness
+so intense, as to testify strongly to much susceptibility of heart where
+feminine beauty was concerned--a susceptibility that might require
+all the ballast of brain with which he had previously been credited to
+confine within reasonable channels.
+
+His manner was rather elegant than good: his speech well-finished and
+unconstrained.
+
+The pause in their discourse, which had been caused by the peal of
+thunder was unbroken by either for a minute or two, during which
+the ears of both seemed to be absently following the low roar of the
+waterfall as it became gradually rivalled by the increasing rush of rain
+upon the trees and herbage of the grove. After her short looks at him,
+Cytherea had turned her head towards the avenue for a while, and now,
+glancing back again for an instant, she discovered that his eyes were
+engaged in a steady, though delicate, regard of her face and form.
+
+At this moment, by reason of the narrowness of the porch, their dresses
+touched, and remained in contact.
+
+His clothes are something exterior to every man; but to a woman
+her dress is part of her body. Its motions are all present to her
+intelligence if not to her eyes; no man knows how his coat-tails swing.
+By the slightest hyperbole it may be said that her dress has sensation.
+Crease but the very Ultima Thule of fringe or flounce, and it hurts her
+as much as pinching her. Delicate antennae, or feelers, bristle on every
+outlying frill. Go to the uppermost: she is there; tread on the lowest:
+the fair creature is there almost before you.
+
+Thus the touch of clothes, which was nothing to Manston, sent a thrill
+through Cytherea, seeing, moreover, that he was of the nature of a
+mysterious stranger. She looked out again at the storm, but still felt
+him. At last to escape the sensation she moved away, though by so doing
+it was necessary to advance a little into the rain.
+
+'Look, the rain is coming into the porch upon you,' he said. 'Step
+inside the door.'
+
+Cytherea hesitated.
+
+'Perfectly safe, I assure you,' he added, laughing, and holding the door
+open. 'You shall see what a state of disorganization I am in--boxes on
+boxes, furniture, straw, crockery, in every form of transposition. An
+old woman is in the back quarters somewhere, beginning to put things to
+rights.... You know the inside of the house, I dare say?'
+
+'I have never been in.'
+
+'O well, come along. Here, you see, they have made a door through, here,
+they have put a partition dividing the old hall into two, one part is
+now my parlour; there they have put a plaster ceiling, hiding the old
+chestnut-carved roof because it was too high and would have been chilly
+for me; you see, being the original hall, it was open right up to the
+top, and here the lord of the manor and his retainers used to meet and
+be merry by the light from the monstrous fire which shone out from
+that monstrous fire-place, now narrowed to a mere nothing for my grate,
+though you can see the old outline still. I almost wish I could have had
+it in its original state.'
+
+'With more romance and less comfort.'
+
+'Yes, exactly. Well, perhaps the wish is not deep-seated. You will see
+how the things are tumbled in anyhow, packing-cases and all. The only
+piece of ornamental furniture yet unpacked is this one.'
+
+'An organ?'
+
+'Yes, an organ. I made it myself, except the pipes. I opened the case
+this afternoon to commence soothing myself at once. It is not a very
+large one, but quite big enough for a private house. You play, I dare
+say?'
+
+'The piano. I am not at all used to an organ.'
+
+'You would soon acquire the touch for an organ, though it would spoil
+your touch for the piano. Not that that matters a great deal. A piano
+isn't much as an instrument.'
+
+'It is the fashion to say so now. I think it is quite good enough.'
+
+'That isn't altogether a right sentiment about things being good
+enough.'
+
+'No--no. What I mean is, that the men who despise pianos do it as a rule
+from their teeth, merely for fashion's sake, because cleverer men have
+said it before them--not from the experience of their ears.'
+
+Now Cytherea all at once broke into a blush at the consciousness of a
+great snub she had been guilty of in her eagerness to explain herself.
+He charitably expressed by a look that he did not in the least mind her
+blunder, if it were one; and this attitude forced him into a position of
+mental superiority which vexed her.
+
+'I play for my private amusement only,' he said. 'I have never learned
+scientifically. All I know is what I taught myself.'
+
+The thunder, lightning, and rain had now increased to a terrific
+force. The clouds, from which darts, forks, zigzags, and balls of fire
+continually sprang, did not appear to be more than a hundred yards above
+their heads, and every now and then a flash and a peal made gaps in the
+steward's descriptions. He went towards the organ, in the midst of a
+volley which seemed to shake the aged house from foundations to chimney.
+
+'You are not going to play now, are you?' said Cytherea uneasily.
+
+'O yes. Why not now?' he said. 'You can't go home, and therefore we may
+as well be amused, if you don't mind sitting on this box. The few chairs
+I have unpacked are in the other room.'
+
+Without waiting to see whether she sat down or not, he turned to the
+organ and began extemporizing a harmony which meandered through every
+variety of expression of which the instrument was capable. Presently he
+ceased and began searching for some music-book.
+
+'What a splendid flash!' he said, as the lightning again shone in
+through the mullioned window, which, of a proportion to suit the whole
+extent of the original hall, was much too large for the present room.
+The thunder pealed again. Cytherea, in spite of herself, was frightened,
+not only at the weather, but at the general unearthly weirdness which
+seemed to surround her there.
+
+'I wish I--the lightning wasn't so bright. Do you think it will last
+long?' she said timidly.
+
+'It can't last much longer,' he murmured, without turning, running
+his fingers again over the keys. 'But this is nothing,' he continued,
+suddenly stopping and regarding her. 'It seems brighter because of
+the deep shadow under those trees yonder. Don't mind it; now look at
+me--look in my face--now.'
+
+He had faced the window, looking fixedly at the sky with his dark strong
+eyes. She seemed compelled to do as she was bidden, and looked in the
+too-delicately beautiful face.
+
+The flash came; but he did not turn or blink, keeping his eyes fixed as
+firmly as before. 'There,' he said, turning to her, 'that's the way to
+look at lightning.'
+
+'O, it might have blinded you!' she exclaimed.
+
+'Nonsense--not lightning of this sort--I shouldn't have stared at it
+if there had been danger. It is only sheet-lightning now. Now, will you
+have another piece? Something from an oratorio this time?'
+
+'No, thank you--I don't want to hear it whilst it thunders so.' But he
+had begun without heeding her answer, and she stood motionless again,
+marvelling at the wonderful indifference to all external circumstance
+which was now evinced by his complete absorption in the music before
+him.
+
+'Why do you play such saddening chords?' she said, when he next paused.
+
+'H'm--because I like them, I suppose,' said he lightly. 'Don't you like
+sad impressions sometimes?'
+
+'Yes, sometimes, perhaps.'
+
+'When you are full of trouble.'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Well, why shouldn't I when I am full of trouble?'
+
+'Are you troubled?'
+
+'I am troubled.' He said this thoughtfully and abruptly--so abruptly
+that she did not push the dialogue further.
+
+He now played more powerfully. Cytherea had never heard music in the
+completeness of full orchestral power, and the tones of the organ, which
+reverberated with considerable effect in the comparatively small space
+of the room, heightened by the elemental strife of light and sound
+outside, moved her to a degree out of proportion to the actual power
+of the mere notes, practised as was the hand that produced them.
+The varying strains--now loud, now soft; simple, complicated, weird,
+touching, grand, boisterous, subdued; each phase distinct, yet
+modulating into the next with a graceful and easy flow--shook and bent
+her to themselves, as a gushing brook shakes and bends a shadow cast
+across its surface. The power of the music did not show itself so much
+by attracting her attention to the subject of the piece, as by taking
+up and developing as its libretto the poem of her own life and soul,
+shifting her deeds and intentions from the hands of her judgment and
+holding them in its own.
+
+She was swayed into emotional opinions concerning the strange man before
+her; new impulses of thought came with new harmonies, and entered into
+her with a gnawing thrill. A dreadful flash of lightning then, and the
+thunder close upon it. She found herself involuntarily shrinking up
+beside him, and looking with parted lips at his face.
+
+He turned his eyes and saw her emotion, which greatly increased the
+ideal element in her expressive face. She was in the state in which
+woman's instinct to conceal has lost its power over her impulse to tell;
+and he saw it. Bending his handsome face over her till his lips almost
+touched her ear, he murmured, without breaking the harmonies--
+
+'Do you very much like this piece?'
+
+'Very much indeed,' she said.
+
+'I could see you were affected by it. I will copy it for you.'
+
+'Thank you much.'
+
+'I will bring it to the House to you to-morrow. Who shall I ask for?'
+
+'O, not for me. Don't bring it,' she said hastily. 'I shouldn't like you
+to.'
+
+'Let me see--to-morrow evening at seven or a few minutes past I shall be
+passing the waterfall on my way home. I could conveniently give it you
+there, and I should like you to have it.'
+
+He modulated into the Pastoral Symphony, still looking in her eyes.
+
+'Very well,' she said, to get rid of the look.
+
+The storm had by this time considerably decreased in violence, and in
+seven or ten minutes the sky partially cleared, the clouds around the
+western horizon becoming lighted up with the rays of the sinking sun.
+
+Cytherea drew a long breath of relief, and prepared to go away. She was
+full of a distressing sense that her detention in the old manor-house,
+and the acquaintanceship it had set on foot, was not a thing she wished.
+It was such a foolish thing to have been excited and dragged into
+frankness by the wiles of a stranger.
+
+'Allow me to come with you,' he said, accompanying her to the door, and
+again showing by his behaviour how much he was impressed with her. His
+influence over her had vanished with the musical chords, and she turned
+her back upon him. 'May I come?' he repeated.
+
+'No, no. The distance is not a quarter of a mile--it is really not
+necessary, thank you,' she said quietly. And wishing him good-evening,
+without meeting his eyes, she went down the steps, leaving him standing
+at the door.
+
+'O, how is it that man has so fascinated me?' was all she could think.
+Her own self, as she had sat spell-bound before him, was all she could
+see. Her gait was constrained, from the knowledge that his eyes were
+upon her until she had passed the hollow by the waterfall, and by
+ascending the rise had become hidden from his view by the boughs of the
+overhanging trees.
+
+5. SIX TO SEVEN P.M.
+
+The wet shining road threw the western glare into her eyes with an
+invidious lustre which rendered the restlessness of her mood more
+wearying. Her thoughts flew from idea to idea without asking for the
+slightest link of connection between one and another. One moment she
+was full of the wild music and stirring scene with Manston---the next,
+Edward's image rose before her like a shadowy ghost. Then Manston's
+black eyes seemed piercing her again, and the reckless voluptuous mouth
+appeared bending to the curves of his special words. What could be those
+troubles to which he had alluded? Perhaps Miss Aldclyffe was at the
+bottom of them. Sad at heart she paced on: her life was bewildering her.
+
+On coming into Miss Aldclyffe's presence Cytherea told her of the
+incident, not without a fear that she would burst into one of her
+ungovernable fits of temper at learning Cytherea's slight departure
+from the programme. But, strangely to Cytherea, Miss Aldclyffe looked
+delighted. The usual cross-examination followed.
+
+'And so you were with him all that time?' said the lady, with assumed
+severity.
+
+'Yes, I was.'
+
+'I did not tell you to call at the Old House twice.'
+
+'I didn't call, as I have said. He made me come into the porch.'
+
+'What remarks did he make, do you say?'
+
+'That the lightning was not so bad as I thought.'
+
+'A very important remark, that. Did he--' she turned her glance full
+upon the girl, and eyeing her searchingly, said--
+
+'Did he say anything about _me_?'
+
+'Nothing,' said Cytherea, returning her gaze calmly, 'except that I was
+to give you the subscription.'
+
+'You are quite sure?'
+
+'Quite.'
+
+'I believe you. Did he say anything striking or strange about himself?'
+
+'Only one thing--that he was troubled,'
+
+'Troubled!'
+
+After saying the word, Miss Aldclyffe relapsed into silence. Such
+behaviour as this had ended, on most previous occasions, by her making
+a confession, and Cytherea expected one now. But for once she was
+mistaken, nothing more was said.
+
+When she had returned to her room she sat down and penned a farewell
+letter to Edward Springrove, as little able as any other excitable
+and brimming young woman of nineteen to feel that the wisest and only
+dignified course at that juncture was to do nothing at all. She told
+him that, to her painful surprise, she had learnt that his engagement
+to another woman was a matter of notoriety. She insisted that all honour
+bade him marry his early love--a woman far better than her unworthy
+self, who only deserved to be forgotten, and begged him to remember
+that he was not to see her face again. She upbraided him for levity
+and cruelty in meeting her so frequently at Budmouth, and above all
+in stealing the kiss from her lips on the last evening of the water
+excursions. 'I never, never can forget it!' she said, and then felt a
+sensation of having done her duty, ostensibly persuading herself that
+her reproaches and commands were of such a force that no man to whom
+they were uttered could ever approach her more.
+
+Yet it was all unconsciously said in words which betrayed a lingering
+tenderness of love at every unguarded turn. Like Beatrice accusing
+Dante from the chariot, try as she might to play the superior being
+who contemned such mere eye-sensuousness, she betrayed at every point
+a pretty woman's jealousy of a rival, and covertly gave her old lover
+hints for excusing himself at each fresh indictment.
+
+This done, Cytherea, still in a practical mood, upbraided herself with
+weakness in allowing a stranger like Mr. Manston to influence her as he
+had done that evening. What right on earth had he to suggest so suddenly
+that she might meet him at the waterfall to receive his music? She would
+have given much to be able to annihilate the ascendency he had obtained
+over her during that extraordinary interval of melodious sound. Not
+being able to endure the notion of his living a minute longer in the
+belief he was then holding, she took her pen and wrote to him also:--
+
+
+                      'KNAPWATER HOUSE
+                         September 20th.
+
+  'I find I cannot meet you at seven o'clock by the waterfall as I
+  promised. The emotion I felt made me forgetful of realities.
+
+                          'C. GRAYE.'
+
+
+A great statesman thinks several times, and acts; a young lady acts,
+and thinks several times. When, a few minutes later, she saw the postman
+carry off the bag containing one of the letters, and a messenger with
+the other, she, for the first time, asked herself the question whether
+she had acted very wisely in writing to either of the two men who had so
+influenced her.
+
+
+
+
+IX. THE EVENTS OF TEN WEEKS
+
+1. FROM SEPTEMBER THE TWENTY-FIRST TO THE MIDDLE OF NOVEMBER
+
+The foremost figure within Cytherea's horizon, exclusive of the inmates
+of Knapwater House, was now the steward, Mr. Manston. It was impossible
+that they should live within a quarter of a mile of each other, be
+engaged in the same service, and attend the same church, without meeting
+at some spot or another, twice or thrice a week. On Sundays, in her
+pew, when by chance she turned her head, Cytherea found his eyes waiting
+desirously for a glimpse of hers, and, at first more strangely, the eyes
+of Miss Aldclyffe furtively resting on him. On coming out of church he
+frequently walked beside Cytherea till she reached the gate at
+which residents in the House turned into the shrubbery. By degrees a
+conjecture grew to a certainty. She knew that he loved her.
+
+But a strange fact was connected with the development of his love. He
+was palpably making the strongest efforts to subdue, or at least to
+hide, the weakness, and as it sometimes seemed, rather from his own
+conscience than from surrounding eyes. Hence she found that not one
+of his encounters with her was anything more than the result of pure
+accident. He made no advances whatever: without avoiding her, he never
+sought her: the words he had whispered at their first interview now
+proved themselves to be quite as much the result of unguarded impulse as
+was her answer. Something held him back, bound his impulse down, but
+she saw that it was neither pride of his person, nor fear that she would
+refuse him--a course she unhesitatingly resolved to take should he think
+fit to declare himself. She was interested in him and his marvellous
+beauty, as she might have been in some fascinating panther or
+leopard--for some undefinable reason she shrank from him, even whilst
+she admired. The keynote of her nature, a warm 'precipitance of soul,'
+as Coleridge happily writes it, which Manston had so directly pounced
+upon at their very first interview, gave her now a tremulous sense of
+being in some way in his power.
+
+The state of mind was, on the whole, a dangerous one for a young and
+inexperienced woman; and perhaps the circumstance which, more than any
+other, led her to cherish Edward's image now, was that he had taken no
+notice of the receipt of her letter, stating that she discarded him. It
+was plain then, she said, that he did not care deeply for her, and she
+thereupon could not quite leave off caring deeply for him:--
+
+                  'Ingenium mulierum,
+              Nolunt ubi velis, ubi nolis cupiunt ultro.'
+
+The month of October passed, and November began its course. The
+inhabitants of the village of Carriford grew weary of supposing that
+Miss Aldclyffe was going to marry her steward. New whispers arose and
+became very distinct (though they did not reach Miss Aldclyffe's ears)
+to the effect that the steward was deeply in love with Cytherea Graye.
+Indeed, the fact became so obvious that there was nothing left to
+say about it except that their marriage would be an excellent one for
+both;--for her in point of comfort--and for him in point of love.
+
+As circles in a pond grow wider and wider, the next fact, which at first
+had been patent only to Cytherea herself, in due time spread to her
+neighbours, and they, too, wondered that he made no overt advances. By
+the middle of November, a theory made up of a combination of the other
+two was received with general favour: its substance being that a guilty
+intrigue had been commenced between Manston and Miss Aldclyffe, some
+years before, when he was a very young man, and she still in the
+enjoyment of some womanly beauty, but now that her seniority began
+to grow emphatic she was becoming distasteful to him. His fear of the
+effect of the lady's jealousy would, they said, thus lead him to conceal
+from her his new attachment to Cytherea. Almost the only woman who did
+not believe this was Cytherea herself, on unmistakable grounds, which
+were hidden from all besides. It was not only in public, but even more
+markedly in secluded places, on occasions when gallantry would have been
+safe from all discovery, that this guarded course of action was pursued,
+all the strength of a consuming passion burning in his eyes the while.
+
+2. NOVEMBER THE EIGHTEENTH
+
+It was on a Friday in this month of November that Owen Graye paid a
+visit to his sister.
+
+His zealous integrity still retained for him the situation at Budmouth,
+and in order that there should be as little interruption as possible to
+his duties there, he had decided not to come to Knapwater till late in
+the afternoon, and to return to Budmouth by the first train the next
+morning, Miss Aldclyffe having made a point of frequently offering him
+lodging for an unlimited period, to the great pleasure of Cytherea.
+
+He reached the house about four o'clock, and ringing the bell, asked of
+the page who answered it for Miss Graye.
+
+When Graye spoke the name of his sister, Manston, who was just coming
+out from an interview with Miss Aldclyffe, passed him in the vestibule
+and heard the question. The steward's face grew hot, and he secretly
+clenched his hands. He half crossed the court, then turned his head and
+saw that the lad still stood at the door, though Owen had been shown
+into the house. Manston went back to him.
+
+'Who was that man?' he said.
+
+'I don't know, sir.'
+
+'Has he ever been here before?'
+
+'Yes, sir.'
+
+'How many times?'
+
+'Three.'
+
+'You are sure you don't know him?'
+
+'I think he is Miss Graye's brother, sir.'
+
+'Then, why the devil didn't you say so before!' Manston exclaimed, and
+again went on his way.
+
+'Of course, that was not the man of my dreams--of course, it couldn't
+be!' he said to himself. 'That I should be such a fool--such an utter
+fool. Good God! to allow a girl to influence me like this, day after
+day, till I am jealous of her very brother. A lady's dependent, a waif,
+a helpless thing entirely at the mercy of the world; yes, curse it; that
+is just why it is; that fact of her being so helpless against the blows
+of circumstances which renders her so deliciously sweet!'
+
+He paused opposite his house. Should he get his horse saddled? No.
+
+He went down the drive and out of the park, having started to proceed to
+an outlying spot on the estate concerning some draining, and to call at
+the potter's yard to make an arrangement for the supply of pipes. But a
+remark which Miss Aldclyffe had dropped in relation to Cytherea was
+what still occupied his mind, and had been the immediate cause of his
+excitement at the sight of her brother. Miss Aldclyffe had meaningly
+remarked during their intercourse, that Cytherea was wildly in love with
+Edward Springrove, in spite of his engagement to his cousin Adelaide.
+
+'How I am harassed!' he said aloud, after deep thought for half-an-hour,
+while still continuing his walk with the greatest vehemence. 'How I am
+harassed by these emotions of mine!' He calmed himself by an effort.
+'Well, duty after all it shall be, as nearly as I can effect it.
+"Honesty is the best policy;"' with which vigorously uttered resolve
+he once more attempted to turn his attention to the prosy object of his
+journey.
+
+The evening had closed in to a dark and dreary night when the steward
+came from the potter's door to proceed homewards again. The gloom did
+not tend to raise his spirits, and in the total lack of objects to
+attract his eye, he soon fell to introspection as before. It was along
+the margin of turnip fields that his path lay, and the large leaves of
+the crop struck flatly against his feet at every step, pouring upon them
+the rolling drops of moisture gathered upon their broad surfaces; but
+the annoyance was unheeded. Next reaching a fir plantation, he mounted
+the stile and followed the path into the midst of the darkness produced
+by the overhanging trees.
+
+After walking under the dense shade of the inky boughs for a few
+minutes, he fancied he had mistaken the path, which as yet was scarcely
+familiar to him. This was proved directly afterwards by his coming
+at right angles upon some obstruction, which careful feeling with
+outstretched hands soon told him to be a rail fence. However, as the
+wood was not large, he experienced no alarm about finding the path
+again, and with some sense of pleasure halted awhile against the rails,
+to listen to the intensely melancholy yet musical wail of the fir-tops,
+and as the wind passed on, the prompt moan of an adjacent plantation in
+reply. He could just dimly discern the airy summits of the two or
+three trees nearest him waving restlessly backwards and forwards, and
+stretching out their boughs like hairy arms into the dull sky. The
+scene, from its striking and emphatic loneliness, began to grow
+congenial to his mood; all of human kind seemed at the antipodes.
+
+A sudden rattle on his right hand caused him to start from his reverie,
+and turn in that direction. There, before him, he saw rise up from among
+the trees a fountain of sparks and smoke, then a red glare of light
+coming forward towards him; then a flashing panorama of illuminated
+oblong pictures; then the old darkness, more impressive than ever.
+
+The surprise, which had owed its origin to his imperfect acquaintance
+with the topographical features of that end of the estate, had been but
+momentary; the disturbance, a well-known one to dwellers by a railway,
+being caused by the 6.50 down-train passing along a shallow cutting
+in the midst of the wood immediately below where he stood, the driver
+having the fire-door of the engine open at the minute of going by. The
+train had, when passing him, already considerably slackened speed, and
+now a whistle was heard, announcing that Carriford Road Station was not
+far in its van.
+
+But contrary to the natural order of things, the discovery that it
+was only a commonplace train had not caused Manston to stir from his
+position of facing the railway.
+
+If the 6.50 down-train had been a flash of forked lightning transfixing
+him to the earth, he could scarcely have remained in a more trance-like
+state. He still leant against the railings, his right hand still
+continued pressing on his walking-stick, his weight on one foot, his
+other heel raised, his eyes wide open towards the blackness of the
+cutting. The only movement in him was a slight dropping of the lower
+jaw, separating his previously closed lips a little way, as when a
+strange conviction rushes home suddenly upon a man. A new surprise, not
+nearly so trivial as the first, had taken possession of him.
+
+It was on this account. At one of the illuminated windows of a
+second-class carriage in the series gone by, he had seen a pale face,
+reclining upon one hand, the light from the lamp falling full upon it.
+The face was a woman's.
+
+At last Manston moved; gave a whispering kind of whistle, adjusted his
+hat, and walked on again, cross-questioning himself in every direction
+as to how a piece of knowledge he had carefully concealed had found its
+way to another person's intelligence. 'How can my address have become
+known?' he said at length, audibly. 'Well, it is a blessing I have been
+circumspect and honourable, in relation to that--yes, I will say it, for
+once, even if the words choke me, that darling of mine, Cytherea, never
+to be my own, never. I suppose all will come out now. All!' The great
+sadness of his utterance proved that no mean force had been exercised
+upon himself to sustain the circumspection he had just claimed.
+
+He wheeled to the left, pursued the ditch beside the railway fence, and
+presently emerged from the wood, stepping into a road which crossed the
+railway by a bridge.
+
+As he neared home, the anxiety lately written in his face, merged by
+degrees into a grimly humorous smile, which hung long upon his lips, and
+he quoted aloud a line from the book of Jeremiah--
+
+     'A woman shall compass a man.'
+
+3. NOVEMBER THE NINETEENTH. DAYBREAK
+
+Before it was light the next morning, two little naked feet pattered
+along the passage in Knapwater House, from which Owen Graye's bedroom
+opened, and a tap was given upon his door.
+
+'Owen, Owen, are you awake?' said Cytherea in a whisper through the
+keyhole. 'You must get up directly, or you'll miss the train.'
+
+When he descended to his sister's little room, he found her there
+already waiting with a cup of cocoa and a grilled rasher on the table
+for him. A hasty meal was despatched in the intervals of putting on his
+overcoat and finding his hat, and they then went softly through the long
+deserted passages, the kitchen-maid who had prepared their breakfast
+walking before them with a lamp held high above her head, which cast
+long wheeling shadows down corridors intersecting the one they followed,
+their remoter ends being lost in darkness. The door was unbolted and
+they stepped out.
+
+Owen had preferred walking to the station to accepting the pony-carriage
+which Miss Aldclyffe had placed at his disposal, having a morbid horror
+of giving trouble to people richer than himself, and especially to their
+men-servants, who looked down upon him as a hybrid monster in social
+position. Cytherea proposed to walk a little way with him.
+
+'I want to talk to you as long as I can,' she said tenderly.
+
+Brother and sister then emerged by the heavy door into the drive. The
+feeling and aspect of the hour were precisely similar to those under
+which the steward had left the house the evening previous, excepting
+that apparently unearthly reversal of natural sequence, which is caused
+by the world getting lighter instead of darker. 'The tearful glimmer of
+the languid dawn' was just sufficient to reveal to them the melancholy
+red leaves, lying thickly in the channels by the roadside, ever and anon
+loudly tapped on by heavy drops of water, which the boughs above had
+collected from the foggy air.
+
+They passed the Old House, engaged in a deep conversation, and had
+proceeded about twenty yards by a cross route, in the direction of the
+turnpike road, when the form of a woman emerged from the porch of the
+building.
+
+She was wrapped in a grey waterproof cloak, the hood of which was drawn
+over her head and closely round her face--so closely that her eyes were
+the sole features uncovered.
+
+With this one exception of her appearance there, the most perfect
+stillness and silence pervaded the steward's residence from basement to
+chimney. Not a shutter was open; not a twine of smoke came forth.
+
+Underneath the ivy-covered gateway she stood still and listened for two,
+or possibly three minutes, till she became conscious of others in the
+park. Seeing the pair she stepped back, with the apparent intention
+of letting them pass out of sight, and evidently wishing to avoid
+observation. But looking at her watch, and returning it rapidly to her
+pocket, as if surprised at the lateness of the hour, she hurried out
+again, and across the park by a still more oblique line than that traced
+by Owen and his sister.
+
+These in the meantime had got into the road, and were walking along it
+as the woman came up on the other side of the boundary hedge, looking
+for a gate or stile, by which she, too, might get off the grass upon the
+hard ground.
+
+Their conversation, of which every word was clear and distinct, in the
+still air of the dawn, to the distance of a quarter of a mile, reached
+her ears, and withdrew her attention from all other matters and sights
+whatsoever. Thus arrested she stood for an instant as precisely in the
+attitude of Imogen by the cave of Belarius, as if she had studied the
+position from the play. When they had advanced a few steps, she followed
+them in some doubt, still screened by the hedge.
+
+'Do you believe in such odd coincidences?' said Cytherea.
+
+'How do you mean, believe in them? They occur sometimes.'
+
+'Yes, one will occur often enough--that is, two disconnected events will
+fall strangely together by chance, and people scarcely notice the fact
+beyond saying, "Oddly enough it happened that so and so were the same,"
+and so on. But when three such events coincide without any apparent
+reason for the coincidence, it seems as if there must be invisible means
+at work. You see, three things falling together in that manner are ten
+times as singular as two cases of coincidence which are distinct.'
+
+'Well, of course: what a mathematical head you have, Cytherea! But I
+don't see so much to marvel at in our case. That the man who kept the
+public-house in which Miss Aldclyffe fainted, and who found out her name
+and position, lives in this neighbourhood, is accounted for by the fact
+that she got him the berth to stop his tongue. That you came here was
+simply owing to Springrove.'
+
+'Ah, but look at this. Miss Aldclyffe is the woman our father first
+loved, and I have come to Miss Aldclyffe's; you can't get over that.'
+
+From these premises, she proceeded to argue like an elderly divine on
+the designs of Providence which were apparent in such conjunctures, and
+went into a variety of details connected with Miss Aldclyffe's history.
+
+'Had I better tell Miss Aldclyffe that I know all this?' she inquired at
+last.
+
+'What's the use?' he said. 'Your possessing the knowledge does no harm;
+you are at any rate comfortable here, and a confession to Miss Aldclyffe
+might only irritate her. No, hold your tongue, Cytherea.'
+
+'I fancy I should have been tempted to tell her too,' Cytherea went on,
+'had I not found out that there exists a very odd, almost imperceptible,
+and yet real connection of some kind between her and Mr. Manston, which
+is more than that of a mutual interest in the estate.'
+
+'She is in love with him!' exclaimed Owen; 'fancy that!'
+
+'Ah--that's what everybody says who has been keen enough to notice
+anything. I said so at first. And yet now I cannot persuade myself that
+she is in love with him at all.'
+
+'Why can't you?'
+
+'She doesn't act as if she were. She isn't--you will know I don't say it
+from any vanity, Owen--she isn't the least jealous of me.'
+
+'Perhaps she is in some way in his power.'
+
+'No--she is not. He was openly advertised for, and chosen from forty or
+fifty who answered the advertisement, without knowing whose it was. And
+since he has been here, she has certainly done nothing to compromise
+herself in any way. Besides, why should she have brought an enemy here
+at all?'
+
+'Then she must have fallen in love with him. You know as well as I do,
+Cyth, that with women there's nothing between the two poles of emotion
+towards an interesting male acquaintance. 'Tis either love or aversion.'
+
+They walked for a few minutes in silence, when Cytherea's eyes
+accidentally fell upon her brother's feet.
+
+'Owen,' she said, 'do you know that there is something unusual in your
+manner of walking?'
+
+'What is it like?' he asked.
+
+'I can't quite say, except that you don't walk so regularly as you used
+to.'
+
+The woman behind the hedge, who had still continued to dog their
+footsteps, made an impatient movement at this change in their
+conversation, and looked at her watch again. Yet she seemed reluctant to
+give over listening to them.
+
+'Yes,' Owen returned with assumed carelessness, 'I do know it. I think
+the cause of it is that mysterious pain which comes just above my ankle
+sometimes. You remember the first time I had it? That day we went by
+steam-packet to Lulstead Cove, when it hindered me from coming back to
+you, and compelled me to sleep with the gateman we have been talking
+about.'
+
+'But is it anything serious, dear Owen?' Cytherea exclaimed, with some
+alarm.
+
+'O, nothing at all. It is sure to go off again. I never find a sign of
+it when I sit in the office.'
+
+Again their unperceived companion made a gesture of vexation, and looked
+at her watch as if time were precious. But the dialogue still flowed
+on upon this new subject, and showed no sign of returning to its old
+channel.
+
+Gathering up her skirt decisively she renounced all further hope, and
+hurried along the ditch till she had dropped into a valley, and came to
+a gate which was beyond the view of those coming behind. This she softly
+opened, and came out upon the road, following it in the direction of the
+railway station.
+
+Presently she heard Owen Graye's footsteps in her rear, his quickened
+pace implying that he had parted from his sister. The woman thereupon
+increased her rapid walk to a run, and in a few minutes safely distanced
+her fellow-traveller.
+
+The railway at Carriford Road consisted only of a single line of rails;
+and the short local down-train by which Owen was going to Budmouth was
+shunted on to a siding whilst the first up-train passed. Graye entered
+the waiting-room, and the door being open he listlessly observed the
+movements of a woman wearing a long grey cloak, and closely hooded, who
+had asked for a ticket for London.
+
+He followed her with his eyes on to the platform, saw her waiting there
+and afterwards stepping into the train: his recollection of her ceasing
+with the perception.
+
+4. EIGHT TO TEN O'CLOCK A.M.
+
+Mrs. Crickett, twice a widow, and now the parish clerk's wife, a
+fine-framed, scandal-loving woman, with a peculiar corner to her eye by
+which, without turning her head, she could see what people were doing
+almost behind her, lived in a cottage standing nearer to the old
+manor-house than any other in the village of Carriford, and she had on
+that account been temporarily engaged by the steward, as a respectable
+kind of charwoman and general servant, until a settled arrangement could
+be made with some person as permanent domestic.
+
+Every morning, therefore, Mrs. Crickett, immediately she had lighted
+the fire in her own cottage, and prepared the breakfast for herself and
+husband, paced her way to the Old House to do the same for Mr. Manston.
+Then she went home to breakfast; and when the steward had eaten his, and
+had gone out on his rounds, she returned again to clear away, make his
+bed, and put the house in order for the day.
+
+On the morning of Owen Graye's departure, she went through the
+operations of her first visit as usual--proceeded home to breakfast, and
+went back again, to perform those of the second.
+
+Entering Manston's empty bedroom, with her hands on her hips, she
+indifferently cast her eyes upon the bed, previously to dismantling it.
+
+Whilst she looked, she thought in an inattentive manner, 'What a
+remarkably quiet sleeper Mr. Manston must be!' The upper bed-clothes
+were flung back, certainly, but the bed was scarcely disarranged.
+'Anybody would almost fancy,' she thought, 'that he had made it himself
+after rising.'
+
+But these evanescent thoughts vanished as they had come, and Mrs.
+Crickett set to work; she dragged off the counterpane, blankets and
+sheets, and stooped to lift the pillows. Thus stooping, something
+arrested her attention; she looked closely--more closely--very closely.
+'Well, to be sure!' was all she could say. The clerk's wife stood as if
+the air had suddenly set to amber, and held her fixed like a fly in it.
+
+The object of her wonder was a trailing brown hair, very little less
+than a yard long, which proved it clearly to be a hair from some woman's
+head. She drew it off the pillow, and took it to the window; there
+holding it out she looked fixedly at it, and became utterly lost in
+meditation: her gaze, which had at first actively settled on the hair,
+involuntarily dropped past its object by degrees and was lost on the
+floor, as the inner vision obscured the outer one.
+
+She at length moistened her lips, returned her eyes to the hair, wound
+it round her fingers, put it in some paper, and secreted the whole in
+her pocket. Mrs. Crickett's thoughts were with her work no more that
+morning.
+
+She searched the house from roof-tree to cellar, for some other trace of
+feminine existence or appurtenance; but none was to be found.
+
+She went out into the yard, coal-hole, stable, hay-loft, green-house,
+fowl-house, and piggery, and still there was no sign. Coming in again,
+she saw a bonnet, eagerly pounced upon it; and found it to be her own.
+
+Hastily completing her arrangements in the other rooms, she entered the
+village again, and called at once on the postmistress, Elizabeth Leat,
+an intimate friend of hers, and a female who sported several unique
+diseases and afflictions.
+
+Mrs. Crickett unfolded the paper, took out the hair, and waved it on
+high before the perplexed eyes of Elizabeth, which immediately mooned
+and wandered after it like a cat's.
+
+'What is it?' said Mrs. Leat, contracting her eyelids, and stretching
+out towards the invisible object a narrow bony hand that would have been
+an unmitigated delight to the pencil of Carlo Crivelli.
+
+'You shall hear,' said Mrs. Crickett, complacently gathering up the
+treasure into her own fat hand; and the secret was then solemnly
+imparted, together with the accident of its discovery.
+
+A shaving-glass was taken down from a nail, laid on its back in the
+middle of a table by the window, and the hair spread carefully out upon
+it. The pair then bent over the table from opposite sides, their elbows
+on the edge, their hands supporting their heads, their foreheads nearly
+touching, and their eyes upon the hair.
+
+'He ha' been mad a'ter my lady Cytherea,' said Mrs. Crickett, 'and 'tis
+my very belief the hair is--'
+
+'No 'tidn'. Hers idn' so dark as that,' said Elizabeth.
+
+'Elizabeth, you know that as the faithful wife of a servant of the
+Church, I should be glad to think as you do about the girl. Mind I
+don't wish to say anything against Miss Graye, but this I do say, that I
+believe her to be a nameless thing, and she's no right to stick a moral
+clock in her face, and deceive the country in such a way. If she wasn't
+of a bad stock at the outset she was bad in the planten, and if she
+wasn't bad in the planten, she was bad in the growen, and if not in the
+growen, she's made bad by what she's gone through since.'
+
+'But I have another reason for knowing it idn' hers,' said Mrs. Leat.
+
+'Ah! I know whose it is then--Miss Aldclyffe's, upon my song!'
+
+''Tis the colour of hers, but I don't believe it to be hers either.'
+
+'Don't you believe what they d' say about her and him?'
+
+'I say nothen about that; but you don't know what I know about his
+letters.'
+
+'What about 'em?'
+
+'He d' post all his letters here except those for one person, and they
+he d' take to Budmouth. My son is in Budmouth Post Office, as you know,
+and as he d' sit at desk he can see over the blind of the window all
+the people who d' post letters. Mr. Manston d' unvariably go there wi'
+letters for that person; my boy d' know 'em by sight well enough now.'
+
+'Is it a she?'
+
+''Tis a she.'
+
+'What's her name?'
+
+'The little stunpoll of a fellow couldn't call to mind more than that
+'tis Miss Somebody, of London. However, that's the woman who ha' been
+here, depend upon't--a wicked one--some poor street-wench escaped from
+Sodom, I warrant ye.'
+
+'Only to find herself in Gomorrah, seemingly.'
+
+'That may be.'
+
+'No, no, Mrs. Leat, this is clear to me. 'Tis no miss who came here to
+see our steward last night--whenever she came or wherever she vanished.
+Do you think he would ha' let a miss get here how she could, go away how
+she would, without breakfast or help of any kind?'
+
+Elizabeth shook her head--Mrs. Crickett looked at her solemnly.
+
+'I say I know she had no help of any kind; I know it was so, for the
+grate was quite cold when I touched it this morning with these fingers,
+and he was still in bed. No, he wouldn't take the trouble to write
+letters to a girl and then treat her so off-hand as that. There's a tie
+between 'em stronger than feelen. She's his wife.'
+
+'He married! The Lord so 's, what shall we hear next? Do he look married
+now? His are not the abashed eyes and lips of a married man.'
+
+'Perhaps she's a tame one--but she's his wife still.'
+
+'No, no: he's not a married man.'
+
+'Yes, yes, he is. I've had three, and I ought to know.'
+
+'Well, well,' said Mrs. Leat, giving way. 'Whatever may be the truth
+on't I trust Providence will settle it all for the best, as He always
+do.'
+
+'Ay, ay, Elizabeth,' rejoined Mrs. Crickett with a satirical sigh, as
+she turned on her foot to go home, 'good people like you may say so, but
+I have always found Providence a different sort of feller.'
+
+5. NOVEMBER THE TWENTIETH
+
+It was Miss Aldclyffe's custom, a custom originated by her father, and
+nourished by her own exclusiveness, to unlock the post-bag herself every
+morning, instead of allowing the duty to devolve on the butler, as
+was the case in most of the neighbouring county families. The bag was
+brought upstairs each morning to her dressing-room, where she took out
+the contents, mostly in the presence of her maid and Cytherea, who
+had the entree of the chamber at all hours, and attended there in the
+morning at a kind of reception on a small scale, which was held by Miss
+Aldclyffe of her namesake only.
+
+Here she read her letters before the glass, whilst undergoing the
+operation of being brushed and dressed.
+
+'What woman can this be, I wonder?' she said on the morning succeeding
+that of the last section. '"London, N.!" It is the first time in my
+life I ever had a letter from that outlandish place, the North side of
+London.'
+
+Cytherea had just come into her presence to learn if there was anything
+for herself; and on being thus addressed, walked up to Miss Aldclyffe's
+corner of the room to look at the curiosity which had raised such an
+exclamation. But the lady, having opened the envelope and read a few
+lines, put it quickly in her pocket, before Cytherea could reach her
+side.
+
+'O, 'tis nothing,' she said. She proceeded to make general remarks in
+a noticeably forced tone of sang-froid, from which she soon lapsed into
+silence. Not another word was said about the letter: she seemed very
+anxious to get her dressing done, and the room cleared. Thereupon
+Cytherea went away to the other window, and a few minutes later left the
+room to follow her own pursuits.
+
+It was late when Miss Aldclyffe descended to the breakfast-table and
+then she seemed there to no purpose; tea, coffee, eggs, cutlets, and all
+their accessories, were left absolutely untasted. The next that was seen
+of her was when walking up and down the south terrace, and round the
+flower-beds; her face was pale, and her tread was fitful, and she
+crumpled a letter in her hand.
+
+Dinner-time came round as usual; she did not speak ten words, or indeed
+seem conscious of the meal; for all that Miss Aldclyffe did in the way
+of eating, dinner might have been taken out as intact as it was taken
+in.
+
+In her own private apartment Miss Aldclyffe again pulled out the letter
+of the morning. One passage in it ran thus:--
+
+
+'Of course, being his wife, I could publish the fact, and compel him
+to acknowledge me at any moment, notwithstanding his threats, and
+reasonings that it will be better to wait. I have waited, and waited
+again, and the time for such acknowledgment seems no nearer than at
+first. To show you how patiently I have waited I can tell you that not
+till a fortnight ago, when by stress of circumstances I had been driven
+to new lodgings, have I ever assumed my married name, solely on account
+of its having been his request all along that I should not do it. This
+writing to you, madam, is my first disobedience, and I am justified in
+it. A woman who is driven to visit her husband like a thief in the night
+and then sent away like a street dog--left to get up, unbolt, unbar,
+and find her way out of the house as she best may--is justified in doing
+anything.
+
+'But should I demand of him a restitution of rights, there would be
+involved a publicity which I could not endure, and a noisy scandal
+flinging my name the length and breadth of the country.
+
+'What I still prefer to any such violent means is that you reason with
+him privately, and compel him to bring me home to your parish in a
+decent and careful manner, in the way that would be adopted by any
+respectable man, whose wife had been living away from him for some
+time, by reason, say, of peculiar family circumstances which had caused
+disunion, but not enmity, and who at length was enabled to reinstate her
+in his house.
+
+'You will, I know, oblige me in this, especially as knowledge of a
+peculiar transaction of your own, which took place some years ago, has
+lately come to me in a singular way. I will not at present trouble you
+by describing how. It is enough, that I alone, of all people living,
+know _all the sides of the story_, those from whom I collected it having
+each only a partial knowledge which confuses them and points to nothing.
+One person knows of your early engagement and its sudden termination;
+another, of the reason of those strange meetings at inns and
+coffee-houses; another, of what was sufficient to cause all this, and so
+on. I know what fits one and all the circumstances like a key, and shows
+them to be the natural outcrop of a rational (though rather rash) line
+of conduct for a young lady. You will at once perceive how it was that
+some at least of these things were revealed to me.
+
+'This knowledge then, common to, and secretly treasured by us both, is
+the ground upon which I beg for your friendship and help, with a feeling
+that you will be too generous to refuse it to me.
+
+'I may add that, as yet, my husband knows nothing of this, neither need
+he if you remember my request.'
+
+
+'A threat--a flat stinging threat! as delicately wrapped up in words as
+the woman could do it; a threat from a miserable unknown creature to an
+Aldclyffe, and not the least proud member of the family either! A threat
+on his account--O, O! shall it be?'
+
+Presently this humour of defiance vanished, and the members of her body
+became supple again, her proceedings proving that it was absolutely
+necessary to give way, Aldclyffe as she was. She wrote a short answer
+to Mrs. Manston, saying civilly that Mr. Manston's possession of such
+a near relation was a fact quite new to herself, and that she would see
+what could be done in such an unfortunate affair.
+
+6. NOVEMBER THE TWENTY-FIRST
+
+Manston received a message the next day requesting his attendance at the
+House punctually at eight o'clock the ensuing evening. Miss Aldclyffe
+was brave and imperious, but with the purpose she had in view she could
+not look him in the face whilst daylight shone upon her.
+
+The steward was shown into the library. On entering it, he was
+immediately struck with the unusual gloom which pervaded the apartment.
+The fire was dead and dull, one lamp, and that a comparatively small
+one, was burning at the extreme end, leaving the main proportion of
+the lofty and sombre room in an artificial twilight, scarcely powerful
+enough to render visible the titles of the folio and quarto volumes
+which were jammed into the lower tiers of the bookshelves.
+
+After keeping him waiting for more than twenty minutes (Miss Aldclyffe
+knew that excellent recipe for taking the stiffness out of human flesh,
+and for extracting all pre-arrangement from human speech) she entered
+the room.
+
+Manston sought her eye directly. The hue of her features was not
+discernible, but the calm glance she flung at him, from which all
+attempt at returning his scrutiny was absent, awoke him to the
+perception that probably his secret was by some means or other known to
+her; how it had become known he could not tell.
+
+She drew forth the letter, unfolded it, and held it up to him, letting
+it hang by one corner from between her finger and thumb, so that the
+light from the lamp, though remote, fell directly upon its surface.
+
+'You know whose writing this is?' she said.
+
+He saw the strokes plainly, instantly resolving to burn his ships and
+hazard all on an advance.
+
+'My wife's,' he said calmly.
+
+His quiet answer threw her off her balance. She had no more expected an
+answer than does a preacher when he exclaims from the pulpit, 'Do you
+feel your sin?' She had clearly expected a sudden alarm.
+
+'And why all this concealment?' she said again, her voice rising, as she
+vainly endeavoured to control her feelings, whatever they were.
+
+'It doesn't follow that, because a man is married, he must tell every
+stranger of it, madam,' he answered, just as calmly as before.
+
+'Stranger! well, perhaps not; but, Mr. Manston, why did you choose to
+conceal it, I ask again? I have a perfect right to ask this question, as
+you will perceive, if you consider the terms of my advertisement.'
+
+'I will tell you. There were two simple reasons. The first was this
+practical one; you advertised for an unmarried man, if you remember?'
+
+'Of course I remember.'
+
+'Well, an incident suggested to me that I should try for the situation.
+I was married; but, knowing that in getting an office where there is a
+restriction of this kind, leaving one's wife behind is always accepted
+as a fulfilment of the condition, I left her behind for awhile. The
+other reason is, that these terms of yours afforded me a plausible
+excuse for escaping (for a short time) the company of a woman I had been
+mistaken in marrying.'
+
+'Mistaken! what was she?' the lady inquired.
+
+'A third-rate actress, whom I met with during my stay in Liverpool
+last summer, where I had gone to fulfil a short engagement with an
+architect.'
+
+'Where did she come from?'
+
+'She is an American by birth, and I grew to dislike her when we had been
+married a week.'
+
+'She was ugly, I imagine?'
+
+'She is not an ugly woman by any means.'
+
+'Up to the ordinary standard?'
+
+'Quite up to the ordinary standard--indeed, handsome. After a while we
+quarrelled and separated.'
+
+'You did not ill-use her, of course?' said Miss Aldclyffe, with a little
+sarcasm.
+
+'I did not.'
+
+'But at any rate, you got thoroughly tired of her.'
+
+Manston looked as if he began to think her questions out of place;
+however, he said quietly, 'I did get tired of her. I never told her so,
+but we separated; I to come here, bringing her with me as far as London
+and leaving her there in perfectly comfortable quarters; and though your
+advertisement expressed a single man, I have always intended to tell
+you the whole truth; and this was when I was going to tell it, when
+your satisfaction with my careful management of your affairs should have
+proved the risk to be a safe one to run.'
+
+She bowed.
+
+'Then I saw that you were good enough to be interested in my welfare to
+a greater extent than I could have anticipated or hoped, judging you by
+the frigidity of other employers, and this caused me to hesitate. I was
+vexed at the complication of affairs. So matters stood till three
+nights ago; I was then walking home from the pottery, and came up to the
+railway. The down-train came along close to me, and there, sitting at
+a carriage window, I saw my wife: she had found out my address, and had
+thereupon determined to follow me here. I had not been home many minutes
+before she came in, next morning early she left again--'
+
+'Because you treated her so cavalierly?'
+
+'And as I suppose, wrote to you directly. That's the whole story of her,
+madam.' Whatever were Manston's real feelings towards the lady who had
+received his explanation in these supercilious tones, they remained
+locked within him as within a casket of steel.
+
+'Did your friends know of your marriage, Mr. Manston?' she continued.
+
+'Nobody at all; we kept it a secret for various reasons.'
+
+'It is true then that, as your wife tells me in this letter, she has not
+passed as Mrs. Manston till within these last few days?'
+
+'It is quite true; I was in receipt of a very small and uncertain income
+when we married; and so she continued playing at the theatre as before
+our marriage, and in her maiden name.'
+
+'Has she any friends?'
+
+'I have never heard that she has any in England. She came over here on
+some theatrical speculation, as one of a company who were going to do
+much, but who never did anything; and here she has remained.'
+
+A pause ensued, which was terminated by Miss Aldclyffe.
+
+'I understand,' she said. 'Now, though I have no direct right to concern
+myself with your private affairs (beyond those which arise from your
+misleading me and getting the office you hold)--'
+
+'As to that, madam,' he interrupted, rather hotly, 'as to coming here,
+I am vexed as much as you. Somebody, a member of the Institute of
+Architects--who, I could never tell--sent to my old address in London
+your advertisement cut from the paper; it was forwarded to me; I wanted
+to get away from Liverpool, and it seemed as if this was put in my way
+on purpose, by some old friend or other. I answered the advertisement
+certainly, but I was not particularly anxious to come here, nor am I
+anxious to stay.'
+
+Miss Aldclyffe descended from haughty superiority to womanly persuasion
+with a haste which was almost ludicrous. Indeed, the Quos ego of the
+whole lecture had been less the genuine menace of the imperious ruler of
+Knapwater than an artificial utterance to hide a failing heart.
+
+'Now, now, Mr. Manston, you wrong me; don't suppose I wish to be
+overbearing, or anything of the kind; and you will allow me to say this
+much, at any rate, that I have become interested in your wife, as well
+as in yourself.'
+
+'Certainly, madam,' he said, slowly, like a man feeling his way in the
+dark. Manston was utterly at fault now. His previous experience of the
+effect of his form and features upon womankind en masse, had taught
+him to flatter himself that he could account by the same law of natural
+selection for the extraordinary interest Miss Aldclyffe had hitherto
+taken in him, as an unmarried man; an interest he did not at all object
+to, seeing that it kept him near Cytherea, and enabled him, a man of
+no wealth, to rule on the estate as if he were its lawful owner. Like
+Curius at his Sabine farm, he had counted it his glory not to possess
+gold himself, but to have power over her who did. But at this hint of
+the lady's wish to take his wife under her wing also, he was perplexed:
+could she have any sinister motive in doing so? But he did not allow
+himself to be troubled with these doubts, which only concerned his
+wife's happiness.
+
+'She tells me,' continued Miss Aldclyffe, 'how utterly alone in
+the world she stands, and that is an additional reason why I should
+sympathize with her. Instead, then, of requesting the favour of your
+retirement from the post, and dismissing your interests altogether, I
+will retain you as my steward still, on condition that you bring home
+your wife, and live with her respectably, in short, as if you loved her;
+you understand. I _wish_ you to stay here if you grant that everything
+shall flow smoothly between yourself and her.'
+
+The breast and shoulders of the steward rose, as if an expression
+of defiance was about to be poured forth; before it took form, he
+controlled himself and said, in his natural voice--
+
+'My part of the performance shall be carried out, madam.'
+
+'And her anxiety to obtain a standing in the world ensures that hers
+will,' replied Miss Aldclyffe. 'That will be satisfactory, then.'
+
+After a few additional remarks, she gently signified that she wished to
+put an end to the interview. The steward took the hint and retired.
+
+He felt vexed and mortified; yet in walking homeward he was convinced
+that telling the whole truth as he had done, with the single exception
+of his love for Cytherea (which he tried to hide even from himself), had
+never served him in better stead than it had done that night.
+
+Manston went to his desk and thought of Cytherea's beauty with the
+bitterest, wildest regret. After the lapse of a few minutes he calmed
+himself by a stoical effort, and wrote the subjoined letter to his
+wife:--
+
+
+                                        'KNAPWATER,
+                                         November 21, 1864.
+
+'DEAR EUNICE,--I hope you reached London safely after your flighty visit
+to me.
+
+'As I promised, I have thought over our conversation that night, and
+your wish that your coming here should be no longer delayed. After all,
+it was perfectly natural that you should have spoken unkindly as you
+did, ignorant as you were of the circumstances which bound me.
+
+'So I have made arrangements to fetch you home at once. It is hardly
+worth while for you to attempt to bring with you any luggage you may
+have gathered about you (beyond mere clothing). Dispose of superfluous
+things at a broker's; your bringing them would only make a talk in
+this parish, and lead people to believe we had long been keeping house
+separately.
+
+'Will next Monday suit you for coming? You have nothing to do that can
+occupy you for more than a day or two, as far as I can see, and the
+remainder of this week will afford ample time. I can be in London the
+night before, and we will come down together by the mid-day train--Your
+very affectionate husband,
+
+                                       'AENEAS MANSTON.
+
+'Now, of course, I shall no longer write to you as Mrs. Rondley.'
+
+
+The address on the envelope was--
+
+MRS. MANSTON,   41 CHARLES SQUARE,
+     HOXTON,
+        LONDON, N.
+
+He took the letter to the house, and it being too late for the country
+post, sent one of the stablemen with it to Casterbridge, instead of
+troubling to go to Budmouth with it himself as heretofore. He had no
+longer any necessity to keep his condition a secret.
+
+7. FROM THE TWENTY-SECOND TO THE TWENTY-SEVENTH OF NOVEMBER
+
+But the next morning Manston found that he had been forgetful of another
+matter, in naming the following Monday to his wife for the journey.
+
+The fact was this. A letter had just come, reminding him that he had
+left the whole of the succeeding week open for an important business
+engagement with a neighbouring land-agent, at that gentleman's residence
+thirteen miles off. The particular day he had suggested to his wife,
+had, in the interim, been appropriated by his correspondent. The meeting
+could not now be put off.
+
+So he wrote again to his wife, stating that business, which could not
+be postponed, called him away from home on Monday, and would entirely
+prevent him coming all the way to fetch her on Sunday night as he had
+intended, but that he would meet her at the Carriford Road Station with
+a conveyance when she arrived there in the evening.
+
+The next day came his wife's answer to his first letter, in which she
+said that she would be ready to be fetched at the time named. Having
+already written his second letter, which was by that time in her hands,
+he made no further reply.
+
+The week passed away. The steward had, in the meantime, let it become
+generally known in the village that he was a married man, and by a
+little judicious management, sound family reasons for his past secrecy
+upon the subject, which were floated as adjuncts to the story, were
+placidly received; they seemed so natural and justifiable to the
+unsophisticated minds of nine-tenths of his neighbours, that curiosity
+in the matter, beyond a strong curiosity to see the lady's face, was
+well-nigh extinguished.
+
+
+
+
+X. THE EVENTS OF A DAY AND NIGHT
+
+1. NOVEMBER THE TWENTY-EIGHTH. UNTIL TEN P.M.
+
+Monday came, the day named for Mrs. Manston's journey from London to
+her husband's house; a day of singular and great events, influencing
+the present and future of nearly all the personages whose actions in a
+complex drama form the subject of this record.
+
+The proceedings of the steward demand the first notice. Whilst taking
+his breakfast on this particular morning, the clock pointing to eight,
+the horse-and-gig that was to take him to Chettlewood waiting ready at
+the door, Manston hurriedly cast his eyes down the column of Bradshaw
+which showed the details and duration of the selected train's journey.
+
+The inspection was carelessly made, the leaf being kept open by the aid
+of one hand, whilst the other still held his cup of coffee; much more
+carelessly than would have been the case had the expected new-comer been
+Cytherea Graye, instead of his lawful wife.
+
+He did not perceive, branching from the column down which his finger
+ran, a small twist, called a shunting-line, inserted at a particular
+place, to imply that at that point the train was divided into two. By
+this oversight he understood that the arrival of his wife at Carriford
+Road Station would not be till late in the evening: by the second half
+of the train, containing the third-class passengers, and passing two
+hours and three-quarters later than the previous one, by which the lady,
+as a second-class passenger, would really be brought.
+
+He then considered that there would be plenty of time for him to return
+from his day's engagement to meet this train. He finished his breakfast,
+gave proper and precise directions to his servant on the preparations
+that were to be made for the lady's reception, jumped into his gig, and
+drove off to Lord Claydonfield's, at Chettlewood.
+
+He went along by the front of Knapwater House. He could not help turning
+to look at what he knew to be the window of Cytherea's room. Whilst he
+looked, a hopeless expression of passionate love and sensuous anguish
+came upon his face and lingered there for a few seconds; then, as on
+previous occasions, it was resolutely repressed, and he trotted along
+the smooth white road, again endeavouring to banish all thought of the
+young girl whose beauty and grace had so enslaved him.
+
+Thus it was that when, in the evening of the same day, Mrs. Manston
+reached Carriford Road Station, her husband was still at Chettlewood,
+ignorant of her arrival, and on looking up and down the platform, dreary
+with autumn gloom and wind, she could see no sign that any preparation
+whatever had been made for her reception and conduct home.
+
+The train went on. She waited, fidgeted with the handle of her umbrella,
+walked about, strained her eyes into the gloom of the chilly night,
+listened for wheels, tapped with her foot, and showed all the usual
+signs of annoyance and irritation: she was the more irritated in
+that this seemed a second and culminating instance of her husband's
+neglect--the first having been shown in his not fetching her.
+
+Reflecting awhile upon the course it would be best to take, in order
+to secure a passage to Knapwater, she decided to leave all her luggage,
+except a dressing-bag, in the cloak-room, and walk to her husband's
+house, as she had done on her first visit. She asked one of the porters
+if he could find a lad to go with her and carry her bag: he offered to
+do it himself.
+
+The porter was a good-tempered, shallow-minded, ignorant man. Mrs.
+Manston, being apparently in very gloomy spirits, would probably have
+preferred walking beside him without saying a word: but her companion
+would not allow silence to continue between them for a longer period
+than two or three minutes together.
+
+He had volunteered several remarks upon her arrival, chiefly to the
+effect that it was very unfortunate Mr. Manston had not come to the
+station for her, when she suddenly asked him concerning the inhabitants
+of the parish.
+
+He told her categorically the names of the chief--first the chief
+possessors of property; then of brains; then of good looks. As first
+among the latter he mentioned Miss Cytherea Graye.
+
+After getting him to describe her appearance as completely as lay in
+his power, she wormed out of him the statement that everybody had been
+saying--before Mrs. Manston's existence was heard of--how well the
+handsome Mr. Manston and the beautiful Miss Graye were suited for each
+other as man and wife, and that Miss Aldclyffe was the only one in the
+parish who took no interest in bringing about the match.
+
+'He rather liked her you think?'
+
+The porter began to think he had been too explicit, and hastened to
+correct the error.
+
+'O no, he don't care a bit about her, ma'am,' he said solemnly.
+
+'Not more than he does about me?'
+
+'Not a bit.'
+
+'Then that must be little indeed,' Mrs. Manston murmured. She stood
+still, as if reflecting upon the painful neglect her words had recalled
+to her mind; then, with a sudden impulse, turned round, and walked
+petulantly a few steps back again in the direction of the station.
+
+The porter stood still and looked surprised.
+
+'I'll go back again; yes, indeed, I'll go back again!' she said
+plaintively. Then she paused and looked anxiously up and down the
+deserted road.
+
+'No, I mustn't go back now,' she continued, in a tone of resignation.
+Seeing that the porter was watching her, she turned about and came on as
+before, giving vent to a slight laugh.
+
+It was a laugh full of character; the low forced laugh which seeks to
+hide the painful perception of a humiliating position under the mask of
+indifference.
+
+Altogether her conduct had shown her to be what in fact she was, a weak,
+though a calculating woman, one clever to conceive, weak to execute:
+one whose best-laid schemes were for ever liable to be frustrated by the
+ineradicable blight of vacillation at the critical hour of action.
+
+'O, if I had only known that all this was going to happen!' she murmured
+again, as they paced along upon the rustling leaves.
+
+'What did you say, ma'am?' said the porter.
+
+'O, nothing particular; we are getting near the old manor-house by this
+time, I imagine?'
+
+'Very near now, ma'am.'
+
+They soon reached Manston's residence, round which the wind blew
+mournfully and chill.
+
+Passing under the detached gateway, they entered the porch. The porter
+stepped forward, knocked heavily and waited.
+
+Nobody came.
+
+Mrs. Manston then advanced to the door and gave a different series of
+rappings--less forcible, but more sustained.
+
+There was not a movement of any kind inside, not a ray of light visible;
+nothing but the echo of her own knocks through the passages, and the dry
+scratching of the withered leaves blown about her feet upon the floor of
+the porch.
+
+The steward, of course, was not at home. Mrs. Crickett, not expecting
+that anybody would arrive till the time of the later train, had set the
+place in order, laid the supper-table, and then locked the door, to go
+into the village and converse with her friends.
+
+'Is there an inn in the village?' said Mrs. Manston, after the fourth
+and loudest rapping upon the iron-studded old door had resulted only in
+the fourth and loudest echo from the passages inside.
+
+'Yes, ma'am.'
+
+'Who keeps it?'
+
+'Farmer Springrove.'
+
+'I will go there to-night,' she said decisively. 'It is too cold, and
+altogether too bad, for a woman to wait in the open road on anybody's
+account, gentle or simple.'
+
+They went down the park and through the gate, into the village of
+Carriford. By the time they reached the Three Tranters, it was verging
+upon ten o'clock. There, on the spot where two months earlier in the
+season the sunny and lively group of villagers making cider under the
+trees had greeted Cytherea's eyes, was nothing now intelligible but a
+vast cloak of darkness, from which came the low sough of the elms, and
+the occasional creak of the swinging sign.
+
+They went to the door, Mrs. Manston shivering; but less from the cold,
+than from the dreariness of her emotions. Neglect is the coldest of
+winter winds.
+
+It so happened that Edward Springrove was expected to arrive from London
+either on that evening or the next, and at the sound of voices his
+father came to the door fully expecting to see him. A picture of
+disappointment seldom witnessed in a man's face was visible in old Mr.
+Springrove's, when he saw that the comer was a stranger.
+
+Mrs. Manston asked for a room, and one that had been prepared for Edward
+was immediately named as being ready for her, another being adaptable
+for Edward, should he come in.
+
+Without taking any refreshment, or entering any room downstairs, or even
+lifting her veil, she walked straight along the passage and up to her
+apartment, the chambermaid preceding her.
+
+'If Mr. Manston comes to-night,' she said, sitting on the bed as she had
+come in, and addressing the woman, 'tell him I cannot see him.'
+
+'Yes, ma'am.'
+
+The woman left the room, and Mrs. Manston locked the door. Before
+the servant had gone down more than two or three stairs, Mrs. Manston
+unfastened the door again, and held it ajar.
+
+'Bring me some brandy,' she said.
+
+The chambermaid went down to the bar and brought up the spirit in a
+tumbler. When she came into the room, Mrs. Manston had not removed a
+single article of apparel, and was walking up and down, as if still
+quite undecided upon the course it was best to adopt.
+
+Outside the door, when it was closed upon her, the maid paused to listen
+for an instant. She heard Mrs. Manston talking to herself.
+
+'This is welcome home!' she said.
+
+2. FROM TEN TO HALF-PAST ELEVEN P.M.
+
+A strange concurrence of phenomena now confronts us.
+
+During the autumn in which the past scenes were enacted, Mr. Springrove
+had ploughed, harrowed, and cleaned a narrow and shaded piece of ground,
+lying at the back of his house, which for many years had been looked
+upon as irreclaimable waste.
+
+The couch-grass extracted from the soil had been left to wither in the
+sun; afterwards it was raked together, lighted in the customary way, and
+now lay smouldering in a large heap in the middle of the plot.
+
+It had been kindled three days previous to Mrs. Manston's arrival, and
+one or two villagers, of a more cautious and less sanguine temperament
+than Springrove, had suggested that the fire was almost too near the
+back of the house for its continuance to be unattended with risk; for
+though no danger could be apprehended whilst the air remained moderately
+still, a brisk breeze blowing towards the house might possibly carry a
+spark across.
+
+'Ay, that's true enough,' said Springrove. 'I must look round before
+going to bed and see that everything's safe; but to tell the truth I
+am anxious to get the rubbish burnt up before the rain comes to wash it
+into ground again. As to carrying the couch into the back field to
+burn, and bringing it back again, why, 'tis more than the ashes would be
+worth.'
+
+'Well, that's very true,' said the neighbours, and passed on.
+
+Two or three times during the first evening after the heap was lit, he
+went to the back door to take a survey. Before bolting and barring
+up for the night, he made a final and more careful examination.
+The slowly-smoking pile showed not the slightest signs of activity.
+Springrove's perfectly sound conclusion was, that as long as the heap
+was not stirred, and the wind continued in the quarter it blew from
+then, the couch would not flame, and that there could be no shadow of
+danger to anything, even a combustible substance, though it were no more
+than a yard off.
+
+The next morning the burning couch was discovered in precisely the same
+state as when he had gone to bed the preceding night. The heap smoked
+in the same manner the whole of that day: at bed-time the farmer looked
+towards it, but less carefully than on the first night.
+
+The morning and the whole of the third day still saw the heap in its old
+smouldering condition; indeed, the smoke was less, and there seemed a
+probability that it might have to be re-kindled on the morrow.
+
+After admitting Mrs. Manston to his house in the evening, and hearing
+her retire, Mr. Springrove returned to the front door to listen for a
+sound of his son, and inquired concerning him of the railway-porter,
+who sat for a while in the kitchen. The porter had not noticed young
+Mr. Springrove get out of the train, at which intelligence the old man
+concluded that he would probably not see his son till the next day,
+as Edward had hitherto made a point of coming by the train which had
+brought Mrs. Manston.
+
+Half-an-hour later the porter left the inn, Springrove at the same time
+going to the door to listen again an instant, then he walked round and
+in at the back of the house.
+
+The farmer glanced at the heap casually and indifferently in passing;
+two nights of safety seemed to ensure the third; and he was about to
+bolt and bar as usual, when the idea struck him that there was just a
+possibility of his son's return by the latest train, unlikely as it
+was that he would be so delayed. The old man thereupon left the door
+unfastened, looked to his usual matters indoors, and went to bed, it
+being then half-past ten o'clock.
+
+Farmers and horticulturists well know that it is in the nature of a heap
+of couch-grass, when kindled in calm weather, to smoulder for many days,
+and even weeks, until the whole mass is reduced to a powdery charcoal
+ash, displaying the while scarcely a sign of combustion beyond the
+volcano-like smoke from its summit; but the continuance of this quiet
+process is throughout its length at the mercy of one particular whim
+of Nature: that is, a sudden breeze, by which the heap is liable to be
+fanned into a flame so brisk as to consume the whole in an hour or two.
+
+Had the farmer narrowly watched the pile when he went to close the door,
+he would have seen, besides the familiar twine of smoke from its summit,
+a quivering of the air around the mass, showing that a considerable heat
+had arisen inside.
+
+As the railway-porter turned the corner of the row of houses adjoining
+the Three Tranters, a brisk new wind greeted his face, and spread past
+him into the village. He walked along the high-road till he came to a
+gate, about three hundred yards from the inn. Over the gate could
+be discerned the situation of the building he had just quitted. He
+carelessly turned his head in passing, and saw behind him a clear red
+glow indicating the position of the couch-heap: a glow without a flame,
+increasing and diminishing in brightness as the breeze quickened or
+fell, like the coal of a newly lighted cigar. If those cottages had
+been his, he thought, he should not care to have a fire so near them as
+that--and the wind rising. But the cottages not being his, he went on
+his way to the station, where he was about to resume duty for the night.
+The road was now quite deserted: till four o'clock the next morning,
+when the carters would go by to the stables there was little probability
+of any human being passing the Three Tranters Inn.
+
+By eleven, everybody in the house was asleep. It truly seemed as if
+the treacherous element knew there had arisen a grand opportunity for
+devastation.
+
+At a quarter past eleven a slight stealthy crackle made itself heard
+amid the increasing moans of the night wind; the heap glowed brighter
+still, and burst into a flame; the flame sank, another breeze entered
+it, sustained it, and it grew to be first continuous and weak, then
+continuous and strong.
+
+At twenty minutes past eleven a blast of wind carried an airy bit of
+ignited fern several yards forward, in a direction parallel to the
+houses and inn, and there deposited it on the ground.
+
+Five minutes later another puff of wind carried a similar piece to a
+distance of five-and-twenty yards, where it also was dropped softly on
+the ground.
+
+Still the wind did not blow in the direction of the houses, and even now
+to a casual observer they would have appeared safe. But Nature does few
+things directly. A minute later yet, an ignited fragment fell upon the
+straw covering of a long thatched heap or 'grave' of mangel-wurzel,
+lying in a direction at right angles to the house, and down toward the
+hedge. There the fragment faded to darkness.
+
+A short time subsequent to this, after many intermediate deposits and
+seemingly baffled attempts, another fragment fell on the mangel-wurzel
+grave, and continued to glow; the glow was increased by the wind; the
+straw caught fire and burst into flame. It was inevitable that the flame
+should run along the ridge of the thatch towards a piggery at the end.
+Yet had the piggery been tiled, the time-honoured hostel would even now
+at this last moment have been safe; but it was constructed as piggeries
+are mostly constructed, of wood and thatch. The hurdles and straw roof
+of the frail erection became ignited in their turn, and abutting as the
+shed did on the back of the inn, flamed up to the eaves of the main roof
+in less than thirty seconds.
+
+3. HALF-PAST ELEVEN TO TWELVE P.M.
+
+A hazardous length of time elapsed before the inmates of the Three
+Tranters knew of their danger. When at length the discovery was made,
+the rush was a rush for bare life.
+
+A man's voice calling, then screams, then loud stamping and shouts were
+heard.
+
+Mr. Springrove ran out first. Two minutes later appeared the ostler and
+chambermaid, who were man and wife. The inn, as has been stated, was a
+quaint old building, and as inflammable as a bee-hive; it overhung the
+base at the level of the first floor, and again overhung at the eaves,
+which were finished with heavy oak barge-boards; every atom in its
+substance, every feature in its construction, favoured the fire.
+
+The forked flames, lurid and smoky, became nearly lost to view, bursting
+forth again with a bound and loud crackle, increased tenfold in power
+and brightness. The crackling grew sharper. Long quivering shadows began
+to be flung from the stately trees at the end of the house; the square
+outline of the church tower, on the other side of the way, which had
+hitherto been a dark mass against a sky comparatively light, now began
+to appear as a light object against a sky of darkness; and even the
+narrow surface of the flag-staff at the top could be seen in its dark
+surrounding, brought out from its obscurity by the rays from the dancing
+light.
+
+Shouts and other noises increased in loudness and frequency. The lapse
+of ten minutes brought most of the inhabitants of that end of the
+village into the street, followed in a short time by the rector, Mr.
+Raunham.
+
+Casting a hasty glance up and down, he beckoned to one or two of the
+men, and vanished again. In a short time wheels were heard, and Mr.
+Raunham and the men reappeared, with the garden engine, the only one in
+the village, except that at Knapwater House. After some little trouble
+the hose was connected with a tank in the old stable-yard, and the puny
+instrument began to play.
+
+Several seemed paralyzed at first, and stood transfixed, their rigid
+faces looking like red-hot iron in the glaring light. In the confusion
+a woman cried, 'Ring the bells backwards!' and three or four of the old
+and superstitious entered the belfry and jangled them indescribably.
+Some were only half dressed, and, to add to the horror, among them was
+Clerk Crickett, running up and down with a face streaming with blood,
+ghastly and pitiful to see, his excitement being so great that he had
+not the slightest conception of how, when, or where he came by the
+wound.
+
+The crowd was now busy at work, and tried to save a little of the
+furniture of the inn. The only room they could enter was the parlour,
+from which they managed to bring out the bureau, a few chairs, some old
+silver candlesticks, and half-a-dozen light articles; but these were
+all.
+
+Fiery mats of thatch slid off the roof and fell into the road with a
+deadened thud, whilst white flakes of straw and wood-ash were flying in
+the wind like feathers. At the same time two of the cottages adjoining,
+upon which a little water had been brought to play from the rector's
+engine, were seen to be on fire. The attenuated spirt of water was as
+nothing upon the heated and dry surface of the thatched roof; the
+fire prevailed without a minute's hindrance, and dived through to the
+rafters.
+
+Suddenly arose a cry, 'Where's Mr. Springrove?'
+
+He had vanished from the spot by the churchyard wall, where he had been
+standing a few minutes earlier.
+
+'I fancy he's gone inside,' said a voice.
+
+'Madness and folly! what can he save?' said another. 'Good God, find
+him! Help here!'
+
+A wild rush was made at the door, which had fallen to, and in defiance
+of the scorching flame that burst forth, three men forced themselves
+through it. Immediately inside the threshold they found the object of
+their search lying senseless on the floor of the passage.
+
+To bring him out and lay him on a bank was the work of an instant; a
+basin of cold water was dashed in his face, and he began to recover
+consciousness, but very slowly. He had been saved by a miracle. No
+sooner were his preservers out of the building than the window-frames
+lit up as if by magic with deep and waving fringes of flames.
+Simultaneously, the joints of the boards forming the front door started
+into view as glowing bars of fire: a star of red light penetrated the
+centre, gradually increasing in size till the flames rushed forth.
+
+Then the staircase fell.
+
+'Everybody is out safe,' said a voice.
+
+'Yes, thank God!' said three or four others.
+
+'O, we forgot that a stranger came! I think she is safe.'
+
+'I hope she is,' said the weak voice of some one coming up from behind.
+It was the chambermaid's.
+
+Springrove at that moment aroused himself; he staggered to his feet, and
+threw his hands up wildly.
+
+'Everybody, no! no! The lady who came by train, Mrs. Manston! I tried to
+fetch her out, but I fell.'
+
+An exclamation of horror burst from the crowd; it was caused partly
+by this disclosure of Springrove, more by the added perception which
+followed his words.
+
+An average interval of about three minutes had elapsed between one
+intensely fierce gust of wind and the next, and now another poured over
+them; the roof swayed, and a moment afterwards fell in with a crash,
+pulling the gable after it, and thrusting outwards the front wall of
+wood-work, which fell into the road with a rumbling echo; a cloud of
+black dust, myriads of sparks, and a great outburst of flame followed
+the uproar of the fall.
+
+'Who is she? what is she?' burst from every lip again and again,
+incoherently, and without leaving a sufficient pause for a reply, had a
+reply been volunteered.
+
+The autumn wind, tameless, and swift, and proud, still blew upon the
+dying old house, which was constructed so entirely of combustible
+materials that it burnt almost as fiercely as a corn-rick. The heat
+in the road increased, and now for an instant at the height of the
+conflagration all stood still, and gazed silently, awestruck and
+helpless, in the presence of so irresistible an enemy. Then, with minds
+full of the tragedy unfolded to them, they rushed forward again with
+the obtuse directness of waves, to their labour of saving goods from the
+houses adjoining, which it was evident were all doomed to destruction.
+
+The minutes passed by. The Three Tranters Inn sank into a mere heap of
+red-hot charcoal: the fire pushed its way down the row as the church
+clock opposite slowly struck the hour of midnight, and the bewildered
+chimes, scarcely heard amid the crackling of the flames, wandered
+through the wayward air of the Old Hundred-and-Thirteenth Psalm.
+
+4. NINE TO ELEVEN P.M.
+
+Manston mounted his gig and set out from Chettlewood that evening in no
+very enviable frame of mind. The thought of domestic life in Knapwater
+Old House, with the now eclipsed wife of the past, was more than
+disagreeable, was positively distasteful to him.
+
+Yet he knew that the influential position, which, from whatever
+fortunate cause, he held on Miss Aldclyffe's manor, would never again
+fall to his lot on any other, and he tacitly assented to this dilemma,
+hoping that some consolation or other would soon suggest itself to him;
+married as he was, he was near Cytherea.
+
+He occasionally looked at his watch as he drove along the lanes, timing
+the pace of his horse by the hour, that he might reach Carriford Road
+Station just soon enough to meet the last London train.
+
+He soon began to notice in the sky a slight yellow halo, near the
+horizon. It rapidly increased; it changed colour, and grew redder; then
+the glare visibly brightened and dimmed at intervals, showing that its
+origin was affected by the strong wind prevailing.
+
+Manston reined in his horse on the summit of a hill, and considered.
+
+'It is a rick-yard on fire,' he thought; 'no house could produce such a
+raging flame so suddenly.'
+
+He trotted on again, attempting to particularize the local features in
+the neighbourhood of the fire; but this it was too dark to do, and the
+excessive winding of the roads misled him as to its direction, not being
+an old inhabitant of the district, or a countryman used to forming
+such judgments; whilst the brilliancy of the light shortened its real
+remoteness to an apparent distance of not more than half: it seemed so
+near that he again stopped his horse, this time to listen; but he could
+hear no sound.
+
+Entering now a narrow valley, the sides of which obscured the sky to an
+angle of perhaps thirty or forty degrees above the mathematical horizon,
+he was obliged to suspend his judgment till he was in possession of
+further knowledge, having however assumed in the interim, that the fire
+was somewhere between Carriford Road Station and the village.
+
+The self-same glare had just arrested the eyes of another man. He was
+at that minute gliding along several miles to the east of the steward's
+position, but nearing the same point as that to which Manston tended.
+The younger Edward Springrove was returning from London to his father's
+house by the identical train which the steward was expecting to bring
+his wife, the truth being that Edward's lateness was owing to the
+simplest of all causes, his temporary want of money, which led him to
+make a slow journey for the sake of travelling at third-class fare.
+
+Springrove had received Cytherea's bitter and admonitory letter, and he
+was clearly awakened to a perception of the false position in which
+he had placed himself, by keeping silence at Budmouth on his long
+engagement. An increasing reluctance to put an end to those few days of
+ecstasy with Cytherea had overruled his conscience, and tied his tongue
+till speaking was too late.
+
+'Why did I do it? how could I dream of loving her?' he asked himself as
+he walked by day, as he tossed on his bed by night: 'miserable folly!'
+
+An impressionable heart had for years--perhaps as many as six or seven
+years--been distracting him, by unconsciously setting itself to yearn
+for somebody wanting, he scarcely knew whom. Echoes of himself, though
+rarely, he now and then found. Sometimes they were men, sometimes women,
+his cousin Adelaide being one of these; for in spite of a fashion which
+pervades the whole community at the present day--the habit of exclaiming
+that woman is not undeveloped man, but diverse, the fact remains that,
+after all, women are Mankind, and that in many of the sentiments of life
+the difference of sex is but a difference of degree.
+
+But the indefinable helpmate to the remoter sides of himself still
+continued invisible. He grew older, and concluded that the ideas, or
+rather emotions, which possessed him on the subject, were probably too
+unreal ever to be found embodied in the flesh of a woman. Thereupon,
+he developed a plan of satisfying his dreams by wandering away to the
+heroines of poetical imagination, and took no further thought on the
+earthly realization of his formless desire, in more homely matters
+satisfying himself with his cousin.
+
+Cytherea appeared in the sky: his heart started up and spoke:
+
+     'Tis She, and here
+     Lo! I unclothe and clear
+     My wishes' cloudy character.'
+
+Some women kindle emotion so rapidly in a man's heart that the judgment
+cannot keep pace with its rise, and finds, on comprehending the
+situation, that faithfulness to the old love is already treachery to the
+new. Such women are not necessarily the greatest of their sex, but there
+are very few of them. Cytherea was one.
+
+On receiving the letter from her he had taken to thinking over these
+things, and had not answered it at all. But 'hungry generations' soon
+tread down the muser in a city. At length he thought of the strong
+necessity of living. After a dreary search, the negligence of which was
+ultimately overcome by mere conscientiousness, he obtained a situation
+as assistant to an architect in the neighbourhood of Charing Cross: the
+duties would not begin till after the lapse of a month.
+
+He could not at first decide whither he should go to spend the
+intervening time; but in the midst of his reasonings he found himself
+on the road homeward, impelled by a secret and unowned hope of getting a
+last glimpse of Cytherea there.
+
+5. MIDNIGHT
+
+It was a quarter to twelve when Manston drove into the station-yard.
+The train was punctual, and the bell, announcing its arrival, rang as he
+crossed the booking-office to go out upon the platform.
+
+The porter who had accompanied Mrs. Manston to Carriford, and had
+returned to the station on his night duty, recognized the steward as he
+entered, and immediately came towards him.
+
+'Mrs. Manston came by the nine o'clock train, sir,' he said.
+
+The steward gave vent to an expression of vexation.
+
+'Her luggage is here, sir,' the porter said.
+
+'Put it up behind me in the gig if it is not too much,' said Manston.
+
+'Directly this train is in and gone, sir.'
+
+The man vanished and crossed the line to meet the entering train.
+
+'Where is that fire?' Manston said to the booking-clerk.
+
+Before the clerk could speak, another man ran in and answered the
+question without having heard it.
+
+'Half Carriford is burnt down, or will be!' he exclaimed. 'You can't see
+the flames from this station on account of the trees, but step on the
+bridge--'tis tremendous!'
+
+He also crossed the line to assist at the entry of the train, which came
+in the next minute.
+
+The steward stood in the office. One passenger alighted, gave up his
+ticket, and crossed the room in front of Manston: a young man with a
+black bag and umbrella in his hand. He passed out of the door, down the
+steps, and struck out into the darkness.
+
+'Who was that young man?' said Manston, when the porter had returned.
+The young man, by a kind of magnetism, had drawn the steward's thoughts
+after him.
+
+'He's an architect.'
+
+'My own old profession. I could have sworn it by the cut of him,'
+Manston murmured. 'What's his name?' he said again.
+
+'Springrove--Farmer Springrove's son, Edward.'
+
+'Farmer Springrove's son, Edward,' the steward repeated to himself, and
+considered a matter to which the words had painfully recalled his mind.
+
+The matter was Miss Aldclyffe's mention of the young man as Cytherea's
+lover, which, indeed, had scarcely ever been absent from his thoughts.
+
+'But for the existence of my wife that man might have been my rival,' he
+pondered, following the porter, who had now come back to him, into the
+luggage-room. And whilst the man was carrying out and putting in one
+box, which was sufficiently portable for the gig, Manston still thought,
+as his eyes watched the process--
+
+'But for my wife, Springrove might have been my rival.'
+
+He examined the lamps of his gig, carefully laid out the reins, mounted
+the seat and drove along the turnpike-road towards Knapwater Park.
+
+The exact locality of the fire was plain to him as he neared home.
+He soon could hear the shout of men, the flapping of the flames,
+the crackling of burning wood, and could smell the smoke from the
+conflagration.
+
+Of a sudden, a few yards ahead, within the compass of the rays from the
+right-hand lamp, burst forward the figure of a man. Having been walking
+in darkness the newcomer raised his hands to his eyes, on approaching
+nearer, to screen them from the glare of the reflector.
+
+Manston saw that he was one of the villagers: a small farmer originally,
+who had drunk himself down to a day-labourer and reputed poacher.
+
+'Hoy!' cried Manston, aloud, that the man might step aside out of the
+way.
+
+'Is that Mr. Manston?' said the man.
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Somebody ha' come to Carriford: and the rest of it may concern you,
+sir.'
+
+'Well, well.'
+
+'Did you expect Mrs. Manston to-night, sir?'
+
+'Yes, unfortunately she's come, I know, and asleep long before this
+time, I suppose.'
+
+The labourer leant his elbow upon the shaft of the gig and turned his
+face, pale and sweating from his late work at the fire, up to Manston's.
+
+'Yes, she did come,' he said.... 'I beg pardon, sir, but I should be
+glad of--of--'
+
+'What?'
+
+'Glad of a trifle for bringen ye the news.'
+
+'Not a farthing! I didn't want your news, I knew she was come.'
+
+'Won't you give me a shillen, sir?'
+
+'Certainly not.'
+
+'Then will you lend me a shillen, sir? I be tired out, and don't know
+what to do. If I don't pay you back some day I'll be d--d.'
+
+'The devil is so cheated that perdition isn't worth a penny as a
+security.'
+
+'Oh!'
+
+'Let me go on,' said Manston.
+
+'Thy wife is _dead_; that's the rest o' the news,' said the labourer
+slowly. He waited for a reply; none came.
+
+'She went to the Three Tranters, because she couldn't get into thy
+house, the burnen roof fell in upon her before she could be called up,
+and she's a cinder, as thou'lt be some day.'
+
+'That will do, let me drive on,' said the steward calmly.
+
+Expectation of a concussion may be so intense that its failure strikes
+the brain with more force than its fulfilment. The labourer sank back
+into the ditch. Such a Cushi could not realize the possibility of such
+an unmoved David as this.
+
+Manston drove hastily to the turning of the road, tied his horse, and
+ran on foot to the site of the fire.
+
+The stagnation caused by the awful accident had been passed through,
+and all hands were helping to remove from the remaining cottage what
+furniture they could lay hold of; the thatch of the roofs being already
+on fire. The Knapwater fire-engine had arrived on the spot, but it was
+small, and ineffectual. A group was collected round the rector, who in a
+coat which had become bespattered, scorched, and torn in his exertions,
+was directing on one hand the proceedings relative to the removal of
+goods into the church, and with the other was pointing out the spot
+on which it was most desirable that the puny engines at their disposal
+should be made to play. Every tongue was instantly silent at the sight
+of Manston's pale and clear countenance, which contrasted strangely with
+the grimy and streaming faces of the toiling villagers.
+
+'Was she burnt?' he said in a firm though husky voice, and stepping into
+the illuminated area. The rector came to him, and took him aside. 'Is
+she burnt?' repeated Manston.
+
+'She is dead: but thank God, she was spared the horrid agony of
+burning,' the rector said solemnly; 'the roof and gable fell in upon
+her, and crushed her. Instant death must have followed.'
+
+'Why was she here?' said Manston.
+
+'From what we can hurriedly collect, it seems that she found the door
+of your house locked, and concluded that you had retired, the fact being
+that your servant, Mrs. Crickett, had gone out to supper. She then came
+back to the inn and went to bed.'
+
+'Where's the landlord?' said Manston.
+
+Mr. Springrove came up, walking feebly, and wrapped in a cloak, and
+corroborated the evidence given by the rector.
+
+'Did she look ill, or annoyed, when she came?' said the steward.
+
+'I can't say. I didn't see; but I think--'
+
+'What do you think?'
+
+'She was much put out about something.'
+
+'My not meeting her, naturally,' murmured the other, lost in reverie.
+He turned his back on Springrove and the rector, and retired from the
+shining light.
+
+Everything had been done that could be done with the limited means
+at their disposal. The whole row of houses was destroyed, and each
+presented itself as one stage of a series, progressing from smoking
+ruins at the end where the inn had stood, to a partly flaming
+mass--glowing as none but wood embers will glow--at the other.
+
+A feature in the decline of town fires was noticeably absent
+here--steam. There was present what is not observable in
+towns--incandescence.
+
+The heat, and the smarting effect upon their eyes of the strong smoke
+from the burning oak and deal, had at last driven the villagers back
+from the road in front of the houses, and they now stood in groups
+in the churchyard, the surface of which, raised by the interments of
+generations, stood four or five feet above the level of the road, and
+almost even with the top of the low wall dividing one from the other.
+The headstones stood forth whitely against the dark grass and yews,
+their brightness being repeated on the white smock-frocks of some of the
+labourers, and in a mellower, ruddier form on their faces and hands, on
+those of the grinning gargoyles, and on other salient stonework of the
+weather-beaten church in the background.
+
+The rector had decided that, under the distressing circumstances of
+the case, there would be no sacrilege in placing in the church, for the
+night, the pieces of furniture and utensils which had been saved from
+the several houses. There was no other place of safety for them, and
+they accordingly were gathered there.
+
+6. HALF-PAST TWELVE TO ONE A.M.
+
+Manston, when he retired to meditate, had walked round the churchyard,
+and now entered the opened door of the building.
+
+He mechanically pursued his way round the piers into his own seat in
+the north aisle. The lower atmosphere of this spot was shaded by its own
+wall from the shine which streamed in over the window-sills on the
+same side. The only light burning inside the church was a small tallow
+candle, standing in the font, in the opposite aisle of the building to
+that in which Manston had sat down, and near where the furniture was
+piled. The candle's mild rays were overpowered by the ruddier light from
+the ruins, making the weak flame to appear like the moon by day.
+
+Sitting there he saw Farmer Springrove enter the door, followed by his
+son Edward, still carrying his travelling-bag in his hand. They
+were speaking of the sad death of Mrs. Manston, but the subject was
+relinquished for that of the houses burnt.
+
+This row of houses, running from the inn eastward, had been built under
+the following circumstances:--
+
+Fifty years before this date, the spot upon which the cottages
+afterwards stood was a blank strip, along the side of the village
+street, difficult to cultivate, on account of the outcrop thereon of a
+large bed of flints called locally a 'lanch' or 'lanchet.'
+
+The Aldclyffe then in possession of the estate conceived the idea that
+a row of cottages would be an improvement to the spot, and accordingly
+granted leases of portions to several respectable inhabitants. Each
+lessee was to be subject to the payment of a merely nominal rent for
+the whole term of lives, on condition that he built his own cottage, and
+delivered it up intact at the end of the term.
+
+Those who had built had, one by one, relinquished their indentures,
+either by sale or barter, to Farmer Springrove's father. New lives were
+added in some cases, by payment of a sum to the lord of the manor, etc.,
+and all the leases were now held by the farmer himself, as one of the
+chief provisions for his old age.
+
+The steward had become interested in the following conversation:--
+
+'Try not to be so depressed, father; they are all insured.'
+
+The words came from Edward in an anxious tone.
+
+'You mistake, Edward; they are not insured,' returned the old man
+gloomily.
+
+'Not?' the son asked.
+
+'Not one!' said the farmer.
+
+'In the Helmet Fire Office, surely?'
+
+'They were insured there every one. Six months ago the office, which had
+been raising the premiums on thatched premises higher for some years,
+gave up insuring them altogether, as two or three other fire-offices had
+done previously, on account, they said, of the uncertainty and
+greatness of the risk of thatch undetached. Ever since then I have been
+continually intending to go to another office, but have never gone. Who
+expects a fire?'
+
+'Do you remember the terms of the leases?' said Edward, still more
+uneasily.
+
+'No, not particularly,' said his father absently.
+
+'Where are they?'
+
+'In the bureau there; that's why I tried to save it first, among other
+things.'
+
+'Well, we must see to that at once.'
+
+'What do you want?'
+
+'The key.'
+
+They went into the south aisle, took the candle from the font, and then
+proceeded to open the bureau, which had been placed in a corner under
+the gallery. Both leant over upon the flap; Edward holding the candle,
+whilst his father took the pieces of parchment from one of the drawers,
+and spread the first out before him.
+
+'You read it, Ted. I can't see without my glasses. This one will be
+sufficient. The terms of all are the same.'
+
+Edward took the parchment, and read quickly and indistinctly for some
+time; then aloud and slowly as follows:--
+
+
+'And the said John Springrove for himself his heirs executors and
+administrators doth covenant and agree with the said Gerald Fellcourt
+Aldclyffe his heirs and assigns that he the said John Springrove his
+heirs and assigns during the said term shall pay unto the said Gerald
+Fellcourt Aldclyffe his heirs and assigns the clear yearly rent of ten
+shillings and sixpence.... at the several times hereinbefore appointed
+for the payment thereof respectively. And also shall and at all times
+during the said term well and sufficiently repair and keep the said
+Cottage or Dwelling-house and all other the premises and all houses or
+buildings erected or to be erected thereupon in good and proper repair
+in every respect without exception and the said premises in such good
+repair upon the determination of this demise shall yield up unto the
+said Gerald Fellcourt Aldclyffe his heirs and assigns.'
+
+
+They closed the bureau and turned towards the door of the church without
+speaking.
+
+Manston also had come forward out of the gloom. Notwithstanding the
+farmer's own troubles, an instinctive respect and generous sense of
+sympathy with the steward for his awful loss caused the old man to step
+aside, that Manston might pass out without speaking to them if he chose
+to do so.
+
+'Who is he?' whispered Edward to his father, as Manston approached.
+
+'Mr. Manston, the steward.'
+
+Manston came near, and passed down the aisle on the side of the younger
+man. Their faces came almost close together: one large flame, which
+still lingered upon the ruins outside, threw long dancing shadows of
+each across the nave till they bent upwards against the aisle wall, and
+also illuminated their eyes, as each met those of the other. Edward had
+learnt, by a letter from home, of the steward's passion for Cytherea,
+and his mysterious repression of it, afterwards explained by his
+marriage. That marriage was now nought. Edward realized the man's newly
+acquired freedom, and felt an instinctive enmity towards him--he would
+hardly own to himself why. The steward, too, knew Cytherea's attachment
+to Edward, and looked keenly and inscrutably at him.
+
+7. ONE TO TWO A.M.
+
+Manston went homeward alone, his heart full of strange emotions.
+Entering the house, and dismissing the woman to her own home, he at once
+proceeded upstairs to his bedroom.
+
+Reasoning worldliness, especially when allied with sensuousness, cannot
+repress on some extreme occasions the human instinct to pour out the
+soul to some Being or Personality, who in frigid moments is dismissed
+with the title of Chance, or at most Law. Manston was selfishly and
+inhumanly, but honestly and unutterably, thankful for the recent
+catastrophe. Beside his bed, for that first time during a period
+of nearly twenty years, he fell down upon his knees in a passionate
+outburst of feeling.
+
+Many minutes passed before he arose. He walked to the window, and then
+seemed to remember for the first time that some action on his part was
+necessary in connection with the sad circumstance of the night.
+
+Leaving the house at once, he went to the scene of the fire, arriving
+there in time to hear the rector making an arrangement with a certain
+number of men to watch the spot till morning. The ashes were still
+red-hot and flaming. Manston found that nothing could be done towards
+searching them at that hour of the night. He turned homeward again, in
+the company of the rector, who had considerately persuaded him to retire
+from the scene for a while, and promised that as soon as a man could
+live amid the embers of the Three Tranters Inn, they should be carefully
+searched for the remains of his unfortunate wife.
+
+Manston then went indoors, to wait for morning.
+
+
+
+
+XI. THE EVENTS OF FIVE DAYS
+
+1. NOVEMBER THE TWENTY-NINTH
+
+The search began at dawn, but a quarter past nine o'clock came without
+bringing any result. Manston ate a little breakfast, and crossed
+the hollow of the park which intervened between the old and modern
+manor-houses, to ask for an interview with Miss Aldclyffe.
+
+He met her midway. She was about to pay him a visit of condolence, and
+to place every man on the estate at his disposal, that the search
+for any relic of his dead and destroyed wife might not be delayed an
+instant.
+
+He accompanied her back to the house. At first they conversed as if the
+death of the poor woman was an event which the husband must of necessity
+deeply lament; and when all under this head that social form seemed to
+require had been uttered, they spoke of the material damage done, and of
+the steps which had better be taken to remedy it.
+
+It was not till both were shut inside her private room that she spoke
+to him in her blunt and cynical manner. A certain newness of bearing in
+him, peculiar to the present morning, had hitherto forbidden her this
+tone: the demeanour of the subject of her favouritism had altered, she
+could not tell in what way. He was entirely a changed man.
+
+'Are you really sorry for your poor wife, Mr. Manston?' she said.
+
+'Well, I am,' he answered shortly.
+
+'But only as for any human being who has met with a violent death?'
+
+He confessed it--'For she was not a good woman,' he added.
+
+'I should be sorry to say such a thing now the poor creature is dead,'
+Miss Aldclyffe returned reproachfully.
+
+'Why?' he asked. 'Why should I praise her if she doesn't deserve it? I
+say exactly what I have often admired Sterne for saying in one of his
+letters--that neither reason nor Scripture asks us to speak nothing but
+good of the dead. And now, madam,' he continued, after a short interval
+of thought, 'I may, perhaps, hope that you will assist me, or rather not
+thwart me, in endeavouring to win the love of a young lady living about
+you, one in whom I am much interested already.'
+
+'Cytherea!'
+
+'Yes, Cytherea.'
+
+'You have been loving Cytherea all the while?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+Surprise was a preface to much agitation in her, which caused her
+to rise from her seat, and pace to the side of the room. The steward
+quietly looked on and added, 'I have been loving and still love her.'
+
+She came close up to him, wistfully contemplating his face, one hand
+moving indecisively at her side.
+
+'And your secret marriage was, then, the true and only reason for that
+backwardness regarding the courtship of Cytherea, which, they tell
+me, has been the talk of the village; not your indifference to her
+attractions.' Her voice had a tone of conviction in it, as well as of
+inquiry; but none of jealousy.
+
+'Yes,' he said; 'and not a dishonourable one. What held me back was just
+that one thing--a sense of morality that perhaps, madam, you did not
+give me credit for.' The latter words were spoken with a mien and tone
+of pride.
+
+Miss Aldclyffe preserved silence.
+
+'And now,' he went on, 'I may as well say a word in vindication of my
+conduct lately, at the risk, too, of offending you. My actual motive in
+submitting to your order that I should send for my late wife, and live
+with her, was not the mercenary policy of wishing to retain an office
+which brings me greater comforts than any I have enjoyed before, but
+this unquenchable passion for Cytherea. Though I saw the weakness,
+folly, and even wickedness of it continually, it still forced me to try
+to continue near her, even as the husband of another woman.'
+
+He waited for her to speak: she did not.
+
+'There's a great obstacle to my making any way in winning Miss Graye's
+love,' he went on.
+
+'Yes, Edward Springrove,' she said quietly. 'I know it, I did once want
+to see them married; they have had a slight quarrel, and it will soon be
+made up again, unless--' she spoke as if she had only half attended to
+Manston's last statement.
+
+'He is already engaged to be married to somebody else,' said the
+steward.
+
+'Pooh!' said she, 'you mean to his cousin at Peakhill; that's nothing to
+help us; he's now come home to break it off.'
+
+'He must not break it off,' said Manston, firmly and calmly.
+
+His tone attracted her, startled her. Recovering herself, she said
+haughtily, 'Well, that's your affair, not mine. Though my wish has been
+to see her _your_ wife, I can't do anything dishonourable to bring about
+such a result.'
+
+'But it must be _made_ your affair,' he said in a hard, steady voice,
+looking into her eyes, as if he saw there the whole panorama of her
+past.
+
+One of the most difficult things to portray by written words is that
+peculiar mixture of moods expressed in a woman's countenance when, after
+having been sedulously engaged in establishing another's position, she
+suddenly suspects him of undermining her own. It was thus that Miss
+Aldclyffe looked at the steward.
+
+'You--know--something--of me?' she faltered.
+
+'I know all,' he said.
+
+'Then curse that wife of yours! She wrote and said she wouldn't tell
+you!' she burst out. 'Couldn't she keep her word for a day?' She
+reflected and then said, but no more as to a stranger, 'I will not
+yield. I have committed no crime. I yielded to her threats in a moment
+of weakness, though I felt inclined to defy her at the time: it was
+chiefly because I was mystified as to how she got to know of it. Pooh!
+I will put up with threats no more. O, can _you_ threaten me?' she added
+softly, as if she had for the moment forgotten to whom she had been
+speaking.
+
+'My love must be made your affair,' he repeated, without taking his eyes
+from her.
+
+An agony, which was not the agony of being discovered in a secret,
+obstructed her utterance for a time. 'How can you turn upon me so when I
+schemed to get you here--schemed that you might win her till I found
+you were married. O, how can you! O!... O!' She wept; and the weeping of
+such a nature was as harrowing as the weeping of a man.
+
+'Your getting me here was bad policy as to your secret--the most absurd
+thing in the world,' he said, not heeding her distress. 'I knew all,
+except the identity of the individual, long ago. Directly I found that
+my coming here was a contrived thing, and not a matter of chance, it
+fixed my attention upon you at once. All that was required was the mere
+spark of life, to make of a bundle of perceptions an organic whole.'
+
+'Policy, how can you talk of policy? Think, do think! And how can you
+threaten me when you know--you know--that I would befriend you readily
+without a threat!'
+
+'Yes, yes, I think you would,' he said more kindly; 'but your
+indifference for so many, many years has made me doubt it.'
+
+'No, not indifference--'twas enforced silence. My father lived.'
+
+He took her hand, and held it gently.
+
+              *     *     *     *     *
+
+'Now listen,' he said, more quietly and humanly, when she had become
+calmer: 'Springrove must marry the woman he's engaged to. You may make
+him, but only in one way.'
+
+'Well: but don't speak sternly, AEneas!'
+
+'Do you know that his father has not been particularly thriving for the
+last two or three years?'
+
+'I have heard something of it, once or twice, though his rents have been
+promptly paid, haven't they?'
+
+'O yes; and do you know the terms of the leases of the houses which are
+burnt?' he said, explaining to her that by those terms she might compel
+him even to rebuild every house. 'The case is the clearest case of
+fire by negligence that I have ever known, in addition to that,' he
+continued.
+
+'I don't want them rebuilt; you know it was intended by my father,
+directly they fell in, to clear the site for a new entrance to the
+park?'
+
+'Yes, but that doesn't affect the position, which is that Farmer
+Springrove is in your power to an extent which is very serious for him.'
+
+'I won't do it--'tis a conspiracy.'
+
+'Won't you for me?' he said eagerly.
+
+Miss Aldclyffe changed colour.
+
+'I don't threaten now, I implore,' he said.
+
+'Because you might threaten if you chose,' she mournfully answered. 'But
+why be so--when your marriage with her was my own pet idea long before
+it was yours? What must I do?'
+
+'Scarcely anything: simply this. When I have seen old Mr. Springrove,
+which I shall do in a day or two, and told him that he will be expected
+to rebuild the houses, do you see the young man. See him yourself, in
+order that the proposals made may not appear to be anything more than an
+impulse of your own. You or he will bring up the subject of the houses.
+To rebuild them would be a matter of at least six hundred pounds, and
+he will almost surely say that we are hard in insisting upon the extreme
+letter of the leases. Then tell him that scarcely can you yourself
+think of compelling an old tenant like his father to any such painful
+extreme--there shall be no compulsion to build, simply a surrender of
+the leases. Then speak feelingly of his cousin, as a woman whom you
+respect and love, and whose secret you have learnt to be that she is
+heart-sick with hope deferred. Beg him to marry her, his betrothed and
+your friend, as some return for your consideration towards his father.
+Don't suggest too early a day for their marriage, or he will suspect you
+of some motive beyond womanly sympathy. Coax him to make a promise to
+her that she shall be his wife at the end of a twelvemonth, and get him,
+on assenting to this, to write to Cytherea, entirely renouncing her.'
+
+'She has already asked him to do that.'
+
+'So much the better--and telling her, too, that he is about to fulfil
+his long-standing promise to marry his cousin. If you think it worth
+while, you may say Cytherea was not indisposed to think of me before she
+knew I was married. I have at home a note she wrote me the first evening
+I saw her, which looks rather warm, and which I could show you. Trust
+me, he will give her up. When he is married to Adelaide Hinton, Cytherea
+will be induced to marry me--perhaps before; a woman's pride is soon
+wounded.'
+
+'And hadn't I better write to Mr. Nyttleton, and inquire more
+particularly what's the law upon the houses?'
+
+'O no, there's no hurry for that. We know well enough how the case
+stands--quite well enough to talk in general terms about it. And I want
+the pressure to be put upon young Springrove before he goes away from
+home again.'
+
+She looked at him furtively, long, and sadly, as after speaking he
+became lost in thought, his eyes listlessly tracing the pattern of the
+carpet. 'Yes, yes, she will be mine,' he whispered, careless of Cytherea
+Aldclyffe's presence. At last he raised his eyes inquiringly.
+
+'I will do my best, AEneas,' she answered.
+
+Talibus incusat. Manston then left the house, and again went towards the
+blackened ruins, where men were still raking and probing.
+
+2. FROM NOVEMBER THE TWENTY-NINTH TO DECEMBER THE SECOND
+
+The smouldering remnants of the Three Tranters Inn seemed to promise
+that, even when the searchers should light upon the remains of the
+unfortunate Mrs. Manston, very little would be discoverable.
+
+Consisting so largely of the charcoal and ashes of hard dry oak and
+chestnut, intermingled with thatch, the interior of the heap was one
+glowing mass of embers, which, on being stirred about, emitted sparks
+and flame long after it was dead and black on the outside. It was
+persistently hoped, however, that some traces of the body would survive
+the effect of the hot coals, and after a search pursued uninterruptedly
+for thirty hours, under the direction of Manston himself, enough was
+found to set at rest any doubts of her fate.
+
+The melancholy gleanings consisted of her watch, bunch of keys, a few
+coins, and two charred and blackened bones.
+
+Two days later the official inquiry into the cause of her death was held
+at the Rising Sun Inn, before Mr. Floy, the coroner, and a jury of the
+chief inhabitants of the district. The little tavern--the only remaining
+one in the village--was crowded to excess by the neighbouring peasantry
+as well as their richer employers: all who could by any possibility
+obtain an hour's release from their duties being present as listeners.
+
+The jury viewed the sad and infinitesimal remains, which were folded in
+a white cambric cloth, and laid in the middle of a well-finished coffin
+lined with white silk (by Manston's order), which stood in an adjoining
+room, the bulk of the coffin being completely filled in with carefully
+arranged flowers and evergreens--also the steward's own doing.
+
+Abraham Brown, of Hoxton, London--an old white-headed man, without the
+ruddiness which makes white hairs so pleasing--was sworn, and deposed
+that he kept a lodging-house at an address he named. On a Saturday
+evening less than a month before the fire, a lady came to him, with very
+little luggage, and took the front room on the second floor. He did not
+inquire where she came from, as she paid a week in advance, but she gave
+her name as Mrs. Manston, referring him, if he wished for any guarantee
+of her respectability, to Mr. Manston, Knapwater Park. Here she lived
+for three weeks, rarely going out. She slept away from her lodgings one
+night during the time. At the end of that time, on the twenty-eighth of
+November, she left his house in a four-wheeled cab, about twelve o'clock
+in the day, telling the driver to take her to the Waterloo Station. She
+paid all her lodging expenses, and not having given notice the full week
+previous to her going away, offered to pay for the next, but he only
+took half. She wore a thick black veil, and grey waterproof cloak, when
+she left him, and her luggage was two boxes, one of plain deal, with
+black japanned clamps, the other sewn up in canvas.
+
+Joseph Chinney, porter at the Carriford Road Station, deposed that he
+saw Mrs. Manston, dressed as the last witness had described, get out
+of a second-class carriage on the night of the twenty-eighth. She stood
+beside him whilst her luggage was taken from the van. The luggage,
+consisting of the clamped deal box and another covered with canvas, was
+placed in the cloak-room. She seemed at a loss at finding nobody there
+to meet her. She asked him for some person to accompany her, and carry
+her bag to Mr. Manston's house, Knapwater Park. He was just off duty
+at that time, and offered to go himself. The witness here repeated
+the conversation he had had with Mrs. Manston during their walk, and
+testified to having left her at the door of the Three Tranters Inn, Mr.
+Manston's house being closed.
+
+Next, Farmer Springrove was called. A murmur of surprise and
+commiseration passed round the crowded room when he stepped forward.
+
+The events of the few preceding days had so worked upon his nervously
+thoughtful nature that the blue orbits of his eyes, and the mere spot of
+scarlet to which the ruddiness of his cheeks had contracted, seemed the
+result of a heavy sickness. A perfect silence pervaded the assembly when
+he spoke.
+
+His statement was that he received Mrs. Manston at the threshold, and
+asked her to enter the parlour. She would not do so, and stood in the
+passage whilst the maid went upstairs to see that the room was in order.
+The maid came down to the middle landing of the staircase, when Mrs.
+Manston followed her up to the room. He did not speak ten words with her
+altogether.
+
+Afterwards, whilst he was standing at the door listening for his son
+Edward's return, he saw her light extinguished, having first caught
+sight of her shadow moving about the room.
+
+THE CORONER: 'Did her shadow appear to be that of a woman undressing?'
+
+SPRINGROVE: 'I cannot say, as I didn't take particular notice. It moved
+backwards and forwards; she might have been undressing or merely pacing
+up and down the room.'
+
+Mrs. Fitler, the ostler's wife and chambermaid, said that she preceded
+Mrs. Manston into the room, put down the candle, and went out. Mrs.
+Manston scarcely spoke to her, except to ask her to bring a little
+brandy. Witness went and fetched it from the bar, brought it up, and put
+it on the dressing-table.
+
+THE CORONER: 'Had Mrs. Manston begun to undress, when you came back?'
+
+'No, sir; she was sitting on the bed, with everything on, as when she
+came in.'
+
+'Did she begin to undress before you left?'
+
+'Not exactly before I had left; but when I had closed the door, and was
+on the landing I heard her boot drop on the floor, as it does sometimes
+when pulled off?'
+
+'Had her face appeared worn and sleepy?'
+
+'I cannot say as her bonnet and veil were still on when I left, for she
+seemed rather shy and ashamed to be seen at the Three Tranters at all.'
+
+'And did you hear or see any more of her?'
+
+'No more, sir.'
+
+Mrs. Crickett, temporary servant to Mr. Manston, said that in accordance
+with Mr. Manston's orders, everything had been made comfortable in the
+house for Mrs. Manston's expected return on Monday night. Mr. Manston
+told her that himself and Mrs. Manston would be home late, not till
+between eleven and twelve o'clock, and that supper was to be ready. Not
+expecting Mrs. Manston so early, she had gone out on a very important
+errand to Mrs. Leat the postmistress.
+
+Mr. Manston deposed that in looking down the columns of Bradshaw he
+had mistaken the time of the train's arrival, and hence was not at the
+station when she came. The broken watch produced was his wife's--he knew
+it by a scratch on the inner plate, and by other signs. The bunch of
+keys belonged to her: two of them fitted the locks of her two boxes.
+
+Mr. Flooks, agent to Lord Claydonfield at Chettlewood, said that Mr.
+Manston had pleaded as his excuse for leaving him rather early in the
+evening after their day's business had been settled, that he was going
+to meet his wife at Carriford Road Station, where she was coming by the
+last train that night.
+
+The surgeon said that the remains were those of a human being. The small
+fragment seemed a portion of one of the lumbar vertebrae--the other
+the head of the os femoris--but they were both so far gone that it was
+impossible to say definitely whether they belonged to the body of a male
+or female. There was no moral doubt that they were a woman's. He did
+not believe that death resulted from burning by fire. He thought she was
+crushed by the fall of the west gable, which being of wood, as well as
+the floor, burnt after it had fallen, and consumed the body with it.
+
+Two or three additional witnesses gave unimportant testimony.
+
+The coroner summed up, and the jury without hesitation found that the
+deceased Mrs. Manston came by her death accidentally through the burning
+of the Three Tranters Inn.
+
+3. DECEMBER THE SECOND. AFTERNOON
+
+When Mr. Springrove came from the door of the Rising Sun at the end of
+the inquiry, Manston walked by his side as far as the stile to the park,
+a distance of about a stone's-throw.
+
+'Ah, Mr. Springrove, this is a sad affair for everybody concerned.'
+
+'Everybody,' said the old farmer, with deep sadness, ''tis quite a
+misery to me. I hardly know how I shall live through each day as it
+breaks. I think of the words, "In the morning thou shalt say, Would God
+it were even! and at even thou shalt say, Would God it were morning! for
+the fear of thine heart wherewith thou shalt fear, and for the sight of
+thine eyes which thou shalt see."' His voice became broken.
+
+'Ah--true. I read Deuteronomy myself,' said Manston.
+
+'But my loss is as nothing to yours,' the farmer continued.
+
+'Nothing; but I can commiserate you. I should be worse than unfeeling
+if I didn't, although my own affliction is of so sad and solemn a kind.
+Indeed my own loss makes me more keenly alive to yours, different in
+nature as it is.'
+
+'What sum do you think would be required of me to put the houses in
+place again?'
+
+'I have roughly thought six or seven hundred pounds.'
+
+'If the letter of the law is to be acted up to,' said the old man, with
+more agitation in his voice.
+
+'Yes, exactly.'
+
+'Do you know enough of Miss Aldclyffe's mind to give me an idea of how
+she means to treat me?'
+
+'Well, I am afraid I must tell you that though I know very little of her
+mind as a rule, in this matter I believe she will be rather peremptory;
+she might share to the extent of a sixth or an eighth perhaps, in
+consideration of her getting new lamps for old, but I should hardly
+think more.'
+
+The steward stepped upon the stile, and Mr. Springrove went along the
+road with a bowed head and heavy footsteps towards his niece's cottage,
+in which, rather against the wish of Edward, they had temporarily taken
+refuge.
+
+The additional weight of this knowledge soon made itself perceptible.
+Though indoors with Edward or Adelaide nearly the whole of the
+afternoon, nothing more than monosyllabic replies could be drawn from
+him. Edward continually discovered him looking fixedly at the wall or
+floor, quite unconscious of another's presence. At supper he ate just as
+usual, but quite mechanically, and with the same abstraction.
+
+4. DECEMBER THE THIRD
+
+The next morning he was in no better spirits. Afternoon came: his son
+was alarmed, and managed to draw from him an account of the conversation
+with the steward.
+
+'Nonsense; he knows nothing about it,' said Edward vehemently. 'I'll see
+Miss Aldclyffe myself. Now promise me, father, that you'll not believe
+till I come back, and tell you to believe it, that Miss Aldclyffe will
+do any such unjust thing.'
+
+Edward started at once for Knapwater House. He strode rapidly along the
+high-road, till he reached a wicket where a footpath allowed of a short
+cut to the mansion. Here he leant down upon the bars for a few minutes,
+meditating as to the best manner of opening his speech, and surveying
+the scene before him in that absent mood which takes cognizance of
+little things without being conscious of them at the time, though they
+appear in the eye afterwards as vivid impressions. It was a yellow,
+lustrous, late autumn day, one of those days of the quarter when morning
+and evening seem to meet together without the intervention of a noon.
+The clear yellow sunlight had tempted forth Miss Aldclyffe herself, who
+was at this same time taking a walk in the direction of the village.
+As Springrove lingered he heard behind the plantation a woman's dress
+brushing along amid the prickly husks and leaves which had fallen into
+the path from the boughs of the chestnut trees. In another minute she
+stood in front of him.
+
+He answered her casual greeting respectfully, and was about to request
+a few minutes' conversation with her, when she directly addressed him
+on the subject of the fire. 'It is a sad misfortune for your father' she
+said, 'and I hear that he has lately let his insurances expire?'
+
+'He has, madam, and you are probably aware that either by the general
+terms of his holding, or the same coupled with the origin of the fire,
+the disaster may involve the necessity of his rebuilding the whole row
+of houses, or else of becoming a debtor to the estate, to the extent of
+some hundreds of pounds?'
+
+She assented. 'I have been thinking of it,' she went on, and then
+repeated in substance the words put into her mouth by the steward.
+Some disturbance of thought might have been fancied as taking place in
+Springrove's mind during her statement, but before she had reached the
+end, his eyes were clear, and directed upon her.
+
+'I don't accept your conditions of release,' he said.
+
+'They are not conditions exactly.'
+
+'Well, whatever they are not, they are very uncalled-for remarks.'
+
+'Not at all--the houses have been burnt by your family's negligence.'
+
+'I don't refer to the houses--you have of course the best of all rights
+to speak of that matter; but you, a stranger to me comparatively, have
+no right at all to volunteer opinions and wishes upon a very delicate
+subject, which concerns no living beings but Miss Graye, Miss Hinton,
+and myself.'
+
+Miss Aldclyffe, like a good many others in her position, had plainly
+not realized that a son of her tenant and inferior could have become an
+educated man, who had learnt to feel his individuality, to view society
+from a Bohemian standpoint, far outside the farming grade in Carriford
+parish, and that hence he had all a developed man's unorthodox opinion
+about the subordination of classes. And fully conscious of the labyrinth
+into which he had wandered between his wish to behave honourably in the
+dilemma of his engagement to his cousin Adelaide and the intensity of
+his love for Cytherea, Springrove was additionally sensitive to any
+allusion to the case. He had spoken to Miss Aldclyffe with considerable
+warmth.
+
+And Miss Aldclyffe was not a woman likely to be far behind any second
+person in warming to a mood of defiance. It seemed as if she were
+prepared to put up with a cold refusal, but that her haughtiness
+resented a criticism of her conduct ending in a rebuke. By this,
+Manston's discreditable object, which had been made hers by compulsion
+only, was now adopted by choice. She flung herself into the work.
+
+A fiery man in such a case would have relinquished persuasion and tried
+palpable force. A fiery woman added unscrupulousness and evolved daring
+strategy; and in her obstinacy, and to sustain herself as mistress, she
+descended to an action the meanness of which haunted her conscience to
+her dying hour.
+
+'I don't quite see, Mr. Springrove,' she said, 'that I am altogether
+what you are pleased to call a stranger. I have known your family, at
+any rate, for a good many years, and I know Miss Graye particularly
+well, and her state of mind with regard to this matter.'
+
+Perplexed love makes us credulous and curious as old women. Edward was
+willing, he owned it to himself, to get at Cytherea's state of mind,
+even through so dangerous a medium.
+
+'A letter I received from her' he said, with assumed coldness, 'tells me
+clearly enough what Miss Graye's mind is.'
+
+'You think she still loves you? O yes, of course you do--all men are
+like that.'
+
+'I have reason to.' He could feign no further than the first speech.
+
+'I should be interested in knowing what reason?' she said, with
+sarcastic archness.
+
+Edward felt he was allowing her to do, in fractional parts, what he
+rebelled against when regarding it as a whole; but the fact that his
+antagonist had the presence of a queen, and features only in the early
+evening of their beauty, was not without its influence upon a keenly
+conscious man. Her bearing had charmed him into toleration, as Mary
+Stuart's charmed the indignant Puritan visitors. He again answered her
+honestly.
+
+'The best of reasons--the tone of her letter.'
+
+'Pooh, Mr. Springrove!'
+
+'Not at all, Miss Aldclyffe! Miss Graye desired that we should be
+strangers to each other for the simple practical reason that intimacy
+could only make wretched complications worse, not from lack of
+love--love is only suppressed.'
+
+'Don't you know yet, that in thus putting aside a man, a woman's pity
+for the pain she inflicts gives her a kindness of tone which is
+often mistaken for suppressed love?' said Miss Aldclyffe, with soft
+insidiousness.
+
+This was a translation of the ambiguity of Cytherea's tone which he had
+certainly never thought of; and he was too ingenuous not to own it.
+
+'I had never thought of it,' he said.
+
+'And don't believe it?'
+
+'Not unless there was some other evidence to support the view.'
+
+She paused a minute and then began hesitatingly--
+
+'My intention was--what I did not dream of owning to you--my intention
+was to try to induce you to fulfil your promise to Miss Hinton not
+solely on her account and yours (though partly). I love Cytherea Graye
+with all my soul, and I want to see her happy even more than I do you. I
+did not mean to drag her name into the affair at all, but I am driven
+to say that she wrote that letter of dismissal to you--for it was a
+most pronounced dismissal--not on account of your engagement. She is old
+enough to know that engagements can be broken as easily as they can be
+made. She wrote it because she loved another man; very suddenly, and not
+with any idea or hope of marrying him, but none the less deeply.'
+
+'Who?'
+
+'Mr. Manston.'
+
+'Good--! I can't listen to you for an instant, madam; why, she hadn't
+seen him!'
+
+'She had; he came here the day before she wrote to you; and I could
+prove to you, if it were worth while, that on that day she went
+voluntarily to his house, though not artfully or blamably; stayed for
+two hours playing and singing; that no sooner did she leave him than she
+went straight home, and wrote the letter saying she should not see you
+again, entirely because she had seen him and fallen desperately in love
+with him--a perfectly natural thing for a young girl to do, considering
+that he's the handsomest man in the county. Why else should she not have
+written to you before?'
+
+'Because I was such a--because she did not know of the connection
+between me and my cousin until then.'
+
+'I must think she did.'
+
+'On what ground?'
+
+'On the strong ground of my having told her so, distinctly, the very
+first day she came to live with me.'
+
+'Well, what do you seek to impress upon me after all? This--that the
+day Miss Graye wrote to me, saying it was better that we should part,
+coincided with the day she had seen a certain man--'
+
+'A remarkably handsome and talented man.'
+
+'Yes, I admit that.'
+
+'And that it coincided with the hour just subsequent to her seeing him.'
+
+'Yes, just when she had seen him.'
+
+'And been to his house alone with him.'
+
+'It is nothing.'
+
+'And stayed there playing and singing with him.'
+
+'Admit that, too,' he said; 'an accident might have caused it.'
+
+'And at the same instant that she wrote your dismissal she wrote a
+letter referring to a secret appointment with him.'
+
+'Never, by God, madam! never!'
+
+'What do you say, sir?'
+
+'Never.'
+
+She sneered.
+
+'There's no accounting for beliefs, and the whole history is a very
+trivial matter; but I am resolved to prove that a lady's word is
+truthful, though upon a matter which concerns neither you nor herself.
+You shall learn that she _did_ write him a letter concerning an
+assignation--that is, if Mr. Manston still has it, and will be
+considerate enough to lend it me.'
+
+'But besides,' continued Edward, 'a married man to do what would cause a
+young girl to write a note of the kind you mention!'
+
+She flushed a little.
+
+'That I don't know anything about,' she stammered. 'But Cytherea didn't,
+of course, dream any more than I did, or others in the parish, that he
+was married.'
+
+'Of course she didn't.'
+
+'And I have reason to believe that he told her of the fact directly
+afterwards, that she might not compromise herself, or allow him to.
+It is notorious that he struggled honestly and hard against her
+attractions, and succeeded in hiding his feelings, if not in quenching
+them.'
+
+'We'll hope that he did.'
+
+'But circumstances are changed now.'
+
+'Very greatly changed,' he murmured abstractedly.
+
+'You must remember,' she added more suasively, 'that Miss Graye has a
+perfect right to do what she likes with her own--her heart, that is to
+say.'
+
+Her descent from irritation was caused by perceiving that Edward's faith
+was really disturbed by her strong assertions, and it gratified her.
+
+Edward's thoughts flew to his father, and the object of his interview
+with her. Tongue-fencing was utterly distasteful to him.
+
+'I will not trouble you by remaining longer, madam,' he remarked,
+gloomily; 'our conversation has ended sadly for me.'
+
+'Don't think so,' she said, 'and don't be mistaken. I am older than you
+are, many years older, and I know many things.'
+
+
+Full of miserable doubt, and bitterly regretting that he had raised his
+father's expectations by anticipations impossible of fulfilment, Edward
+slowly went his way into the village, and approached his cousin's house.
+The farmer was at the door looking eagerly for him. He had been waiting
+there for more than half-an-hour. His eye kindled quickly.
+
+'Well, Ted, what does she say?' he asked, in the intensely sanguine
+tones which fall sadly upon a listener's ear, because, antecedently,
+they raise pictures of inevitable disappointment for the speaker, in
+some direction or another.
+
+'Nothing for us to be alarmed at,' said Edward, with a forced
+cheerfulness.
+
+'But must we rebuild?'
+
+'It seems we must, father.'
+
+The old man's eyes swept the horizon, then he turned to go in, without
+making another observation. All light seemed extinguished in him again.
+When Edward went in he found his father with the bureau open, unfolding
+the leases with a shaking hand, folding them up again without reading
+them, then putting them in their niche only to remove them again.
+
+Adelaide was in the room. She said thoughtfully to Edward, as she
+watched the farmer--
+
+'I hope it won't kill poor uncle, Edward. What should we do if anything
+were to happen to him? He is the only near relative you and I have in
+the world.' It was perfectly true, and somehow Edward felt more bound up
+with her after that remark.
+
+She continued: 'And he was only saying so hopefully the day before the
+fire, that he wouldn't for the world let any one else give me away to
+you when we are married.'
+
+For the first time a conscientious doubt arose in Edward's mind as to
+the justice of the course he was pursuing in resolving to refuse the
+alternative offered by Miss Aldclyffe. Could it be selfishness as well
+as independence? How much he had thought of his own heart, how little he
+had thought of his father's peace of mind!
+
+The old man did not speak again till supper-time, when he began asking
+his son an endless number of hypothetical questions on what might induce
+Miss Aldclyffe to listen to kinder terms; speaking of her now not as an
+unfair woman, but as a Lachesis or Fate whose course it behoved nobody
+to condemn. In his earnestness he once turned his eyes on Edward's
+face: their expression was woful: the pupils were dilated and strange in
+aspect.
+
+'If she will only agree to that!' he reiterated for the hundredth time,
+increasing the sadness of his listeners.
+
+An aristocratic knocking came to the door, and Jane entered with a
+letter, addressed--
+
+                'MR. EDWARD SPRINGROVE, Junior.'
+
+'Charles from Knapwater House brought it,' she said.
+
+'Miss Aldclyffe's writing,' said Mr. Springrove, before Edward had
+recognized it himself. 'Now 'tis all right; she's going to make an
+offer; she doesn't want the houses there, not she; they are going to
+make that the way into the park.'
+
+Edward opened the seal and glanced at the inside. He said, with a
+supreme effort of self-command--
+
+'It is only directed by Miss Aldclyffe, and refers to nothing connected
+with the fire. I wonder at her taking the trouble to send it to-night.'
+
+His father looked absently at him and turned away again. Shortly
+afterwards they retired for the night. Alone in his bedroom Edward
+opened and read what he had not dared to refer to in their presence.
+
+The envelope contained another envelope in Cytherea's handwriting,
+addressed to '---- Manston, Esq., Old Manor House.' Inside this was the
+note she had written to the steward after her detention in his house by
+the thunderstorm--
+
+
+                     'KNAPWATER HOUSE,
+                          September 20th.
+
+'I find I cannot meet you at seven o'clock by the waterfall as I
+promised. The emotion I felt made me forgetful of realities.                                             'C. GRAYE.'
+
+
+Miss Aldclyffe had not written a line, and, by the unvarying rule
+observable when words are not an absolute necessity, her silence seemed
+ten times as convincing as any expression of opinion could have been.
+
+He then, step by step, recalled all the conversation on the subject of
+Cytherea's feelings that had passed between himself and Miss Aldclyffe
+in the afternoon, and by a confusion of thought, natural enough under
+the trying experience, concluded that because the lady was truthful
+in her portraiture of effects, she must necessarily be right in her
+assumption of causes. That is, he was convinced that Cytherea--the
+hitherto-believed faithful Cytherea--had, at any rate, looked with
+something more than indifference upon the extremely handsome face and
+form of Manston.
+
+Did he blame her, as guilty of the impropriety of allowing herself to
+love the newcomer in the face of his not being free to return her love?
+No; never for a moment did he doubt that all had occurred in her
+old, innocent, impulsive way; that her heart was gone before she knew
+it--before she knew anything, beyond his existence, of the man to whom
+it had flown. Perhaps the very note enclosed to him was the result
+of first reflection. Manston he would unhesitatingly have called a
+scoundrel, but for one strikingly redeeming fact. It had been patent
+to the whole parish, and had come to Edward's own knowledge by that
+indirect channel, that Manston, as a married man, conscientiously
+avoided Cytherea after those first few days of his arrival during which
+her irresistibly beautiful and fatal glances had rested upon him--his
+upon her.
+
+Taking from his coat a creased and pocket-worn envelope containing
+Cytherea's letter to himself, Springrove opened it and read it through.
+He was upbraided therein, and he was dismissed. It bore the date of the
+letter sent to Manston, and by containing within it the phrase, 'All the
+day long I have been thinking,' afforded justifiable ground for assuming
+that it was written subsequently to the other (and in Edward's sight far
+sweeter one) to the steward.
+
+But though he accused her of fickleness, he would not doubt the
+genuineness, in its kind, of her partiality for him at Budmouth. It was
+a short and shallow feeling--not perfect love:
+
+          'Love is not love
+   Which alters when it alteration finds.'
+
+But it was not flirtation; a feeling had been born in her and had died.
+It would be well for his peace of mind if his love for her could flit
+away so softly, and leave so few traces behind.
+
+Miss Aldclyffe had shown herself desperately concerned in the whole
+matter by the alacrity with which she had obtained the letter from
+Manston, and her labours to induce himself to marry his cousin. Taken in
+connection with her apparent interest in, if not love for, Cytherea, her
+eagerness, too, could only be accounted for on the ground that Cytherea
+indeed loved the steward.
+
+5. DECEMBER THE FOURTH
+
+Edward passed the night he scarcely knew how, tossing feverishly from
+side to side, the blood throbbing in his temples, and singing in his
+ears.
+
+Before the day began to break he dressed himself. On going out upon
+the landing he found his father's bedroom door already open. Edward
+concluded that the old man had risen softly, as was his wont, and gone
+out into the fields to start the labourers. But neither of the outer
+doors was unfastened. He entered the front room, and found it empty.
+Then animated by a new idea, he went round to the little back parlour,
+in which the few wrecks saved from the fire were deposited, and looked
+in at the door. Here, near the window, the shutters of which had been
+opened half way, he saw his father leaning on the bureau, his elbows
+resting on the flap, his body nearly doubled, his hands clasping his
+forehead. Beside him were ghostly-looking square folds of parchment--the
+leases of the houses destroyed.
+
+His father looked up when Edward entered, and wearily spoke to the young
+man as his face came into the faint light.
+
+'Edward, why did you get up so early?'
+
+'I was uneasy, and could not sleep.'
+
+The farmer turned again to the leases on the bureau, and seemed to
+become lost in reflection. In a minute or two, without lifting his eyes,
+he said--
+
+'This is more than we can bear, Ted--more than we can bear! Ted, this
+will kill me. Not the loss only--the sense of my neglect about the
+insurance and everything. Borrow I never will. 'Tis all misery now. God
+help us--all misery now!'
+
+Edward did not answer, continuing to look fixedly at the dreary daylight
+outside.
+
+'Ted,' the farmer went on, 'this upset of be-en burnt out o' home makes
+me very nervous and doubtful about everything. There's this troubles me
+besides--our liven here with your cousin, and fillen up her house. It
+must be very awkward for her. But she says she doesn't mind. Have you
+said anything to her lately about when you are going to marry her?'
+
+'Nothing at all lately.'
+
+'Well, perhaps you may as well, now we are so mixed in together. You
+know, no time has ever been mentioned to her at all, first or last,
+and I think it right that now, since she has waited so patiently and so
+long--you are almost called upon to say you are ready. It would simplify
+matters very much, if you were to walk up to church wi' her one of these
+mornings, get the thing done, and go on liven here as we are. If you
+don't I must get a house all the sooner. It would lighten my mind, too,
+about the two little freeholds over the hill--not a morsel a-piece,
+divided as they were between her mother and me, but a tidy bit tied
+together again. Just think about it, will ye, Ted?'
+
+He stopped from exhaustion produced by the intense concentration of his
+mind upon the weary subject, and looked anxiously at his son.
+
+'Yes, I will,' said Edward.
+
+'But I am going to see her of the Great House this morning,' the farmer
+went on, his thoughts reverting to the old subject. 'I must know the
+rights of the matter, the when and the where. I don't like seeing her,
+but I'd rather talk to her than the steward. I wonder what she'll say to
+me.'
+
+The younger man knew exactly what she would say. If his father asked her
+what he was to do, and when, she would simply refer him to Manston: her
+character was not that of a woman who shrank from a proposition she had
+once laid down. If his father were to say to her that his son had at
+last resolved to marry his cousin within the year, and had given her a
+promise to that effect, she would say, 'Mr. Springrove, the houses are
+burnt: we'll let them go: trouble no more about them.'
+
+His mind was already made up. He said calmly, 'Father, when you are
+talking to Miss Aldclyffe, mention to her that I have asked Adelaide if
+she is willing to marry me next Christmas. She is interested in my union
+with Adelaide, and the news will be welcome to her.'
+
+'And yet she can be iron with reference to me and her property,' the
+farmer murmured. 'Very well, Ted, I'll tell her.'
+
+6. DECEMBER THE FIFTH
+
+Of the many contradictory particulars constituting a woman's heart, two
+had shown their vigorous contrast in Cytherea's bosom just at this time.
+
+It was a dark morning, the morning after old Mr. Springrove's visit
+to Miss Aldclyffe, which had terminated as Edward had intended. Having
+risen an hour earlier than was usual with her, Cytherea sat at the
+window of an elegant little sitting-room on the ground floor, which had
+been appropriated to her by the kindness or whim of Miss Aldclyffe, that
+she might not be driven into that lady's presence against her will. She
+leant with her face on her hand, looking out into the gloomy grey air.
+A yellow glimmer from the flapping flame of the newly-lit fire fluttered
+on one side of her face and neck like a butterfly about to settle there,
+contrasting warmly with the other side of the same fair face, which
+received from the window the faint cold morning light, so weak that her
+shadow from the fire had a distinct outline on the window-shutter in
+spite of it. There the shadow danced like a demon, blue and grim.
+
+The contradiction alluded to was that in spite of the decisive
+mood which two months earlier in the year had caused her to write a
+peremptory and final letter to Edward, she was now hoping for some
+answer other than the only possible one a man who, as she held, did not
+love her wildly, could send to such a communication. For a lover who
+did love wildly, she had left one little loophole in her otherwise
+straightforward epistle. Why she expected the letter on some morning of
+this particular week was, that hearing of his return to Carriford, she
+fondly assumed that he meant to ask for an interview before he left.
+Hence it was, too, that for the last few days, she had not been able to
+keep in bed later than the time of the postman's arrival.
+
+The clock pointed to half-past seven. She saw the postman emerge from
+beneath the bare boughs of the park trees, come through the wicket, dive
+through the shrubbery, reappear on the lawn, stalk across it without
+reference to paths--as country postmen do--and come to the porch. She
+heard him fling the bag down on the seat, and turn away towards the
+village, without hindering himself for a single pace.
+
+Then the butler opened the door, took up the bag, brought it in, and
+carried it up the staircase to place it on the slab by Miss Aldclyffe's
+dressing-room door. The whole proceeding had been depicted by sounds.
+
+She had a presentiment that her letter was in the bag at last. She
+thought then in diminishing pulsations of confidence, 'He asks to see
+me! Perhaps he asks to see me: I hope he asks to see me.'
+
+A quarter to eight: Miss Aldclyffe's bell--rather earlier than usual.
+'She must have heard the post-bag brought,' said the maiden, as,
+tired of the chilly prospect outside, she turned to the fire, and drew
+imaginative pictures of her future therein.
+
+A tap came to the door, and the lady's-maid entered.
+
+'Miss Aldclyffe is awake,' she said; 'and she asked if you were moving
+yet, miss.'
+
+'I'll run up to her,' said Cytherea, and flitted off with the utterance
+of the words. 'Very fortunate this,' she thought; 'I shall see what is
+in the bag this morning all the sooner.'
+
+She took it up from the side table, went into Miss Aldclyffe's bedroom,
+pulled up the blinds, and looked round upon the lady in bed, calculating
+the minutes that must elapse before she looked at her letters.
+
+'Well, darling, how are you? I am glad you have come in to see me,'
+said Miss Aldclyffe. 'You can unlock the bag this morning, child, if you
+like,' she continued, yawning factitiously.
+
+'Strange!' Cytherea thought; 'it seems as if she knew there was likely
+to be a letter for me.'
+
+From her bed Miss Aldclyffe watched the girl's face as she tremblingly
+opened the post-bag and found there an envelope addressed to her in
+Edward's handwriting; one he had written the day before, after the
+decision he had come to on an impartial, and on that account torturing,
+survey of his own, his father's, his cousin Adelaide's, and what he
+believed to be Cytherea's, position.
+
+The haughty mistress's soul sickened remorsefully within her when she
+saw suddenly appear upon the speaking countenance of the young lady
+before her a wan desolate look of agony.
+
+The master-sentences of Edward's letter were these: 'You speak truly.
+That we never meet again is the wisest and only proper course. That I
+regret the past as much as you do yourself, it is hardly necessary for
+me to say.'
+
+
+
+
+XII. THE EVENTS OF TEN MONTHS
+
+1. DECEMBER TO APRIL
+
+Week after week, month after month, the time had flown by. Christmas had
+passed; dreary winter with dark evenings had given place to more dreary
+winter with light evenings. Thaws had ended in rain, rain in wind,
+wind in dust. Showery days had come--the period of pink dawns and white
+sunsets; with the third week in April the cuckoo had appeared, with the
+fourth, the nightingale.
+
+Edward Springrove was in London, attending to the duties of his
+new office, and it had become known throughout the neighbourhood of
+Carriford that the engagement between himself and Miss Adelaide Hinton
+would terminate in marriage at the end of the year.
+
+The only occasion on which her lover of the idle delicious days at
+Budmouth watering-place had been seen by Cytherea after the time of the
+decisive correspondence, was once in church, when he sat in front of
+her, and beside Miss Hinton.
+
+The rencounter was quite an accident. Springrove had come there in the
+full belief that Cytherea was away from home with Miss Aldclyffe; and he
+continued ignorant of her presence throughout the service.
+
+It is at such moments as these, when a sensitive nature writhes under
+the conception that its most cherished emotions have been treated with
+contumely, that the sphere-descended Maid, Music, friend of Pleasure
+at other times, becomes a positive enemy--racking, bewildering,
+unrelenting. The congregation sang the first Psalm and came to the
+verse--
+
+     'Like some fair tree which, fed by streams,
+       With timely fruit doth bend,
+     He still shall flourish, and success
+       All his designs attend.'
+
+Cytherea's lips did not move, nor did any sound escape her; but could
+she help singing the words in the depths of her being, although the man
+to whom she applied them sat at her rival's side?
+
+Perhaps the moral compensation for all a woman's petty cleverness
+under thriving conditions is the real nobility that lies in her extreme
+foolishness at these other times; her sheer inability to be simply
+just, her exercise of an illogical power entirely denied to men in
+general--the power not only of kissing, but of delighting to kiss the
+rod by a punctilious observance of the self-immolating doctrines in the
+Sermon on the Mount.
+
+As for Edward--a little like other men of his temperament, to whom, it
+is somewhat humiliating to think, the aberrancy of a given love is in
+itself a recommendation--his sentiment, as he looked over his cousin's
+book, was of a lower rank, Horatian rather than Psalmodic--
+
+     'O, what hast thou of her, of her
+     Whose every look did love inspire;
+     Whose every breathing fanned my fire,
+     And stole me from myself away!'
+
+Then, without letting him see her, Cytherea slipt out of church early,
+and went home, the tones of the organ still lingering in her ears as she
+tried bravely to kill a jealous thought that would nevertheless live:
+'My nature is one capable of more, far more, intense feeling than hers!
+She can't appreciate all the sides of him--she never will! He is more
+tangible to me even now, as a thought, than his presence itself is to
+her!' She was less noble then.
+
+But she continually repressed her misery and bitterness of heart till
+the effort to do so showed signs of lessening. At length she even tried
+to hope that her lost lover and her rival would love one another very
+dearly.
+
+The scene and the sentiment dropped into the past. Meanwhile, Manston
+continued visibly before her. He, though quiet and subdued in his
+bearing for a long time after the calamity of November, had not
+simulated a grief that he did not feel. At first his loss seemed so
+to absorb him--though as a startling change rather than as a heavy
+sorrow--that he paid Cytherea no attention whatever. His conduct was
+uniformly kind and respectful, but little more. Then, as the date of the
+catastrophe grew remoter, he began to wear a different aspect towards
+her. He always contrived to obliterate by his manner all recollection on
+her side that she was comparatively more dependent than himself--making
+much of her womanhood, nothing of her situation. Prompt to aid her
+whenever occasion offered, and full of delightful petits soins at all
+times, he was not officious. In this way he irresistibly won for himself
+a position as her friend, and the more easily in that he allowed not the
+faintest symptom of the old love to be apparent.
+
+Matters stood thus in the middle of the spring when the next move on his
+behalf was made by Miss Aldclyffe.
+
+2. THE THIRD OF MAY
+
+She led Cytherea to a summer-house called the Fane, built in the private
+grounds about the mansion in the form of a Grecian temple; it overlooked
+the lake, the island on it, the trees, and their undisturbed reflection
+in the smooth still water. Here the old and young maid halted; here they
+stood, side by side, mentally imbibing the scene.
+
+The month was May--the time, morning. Cuckoos, thrushes, blackbirds, and
+sparrows gave forth a perfect confusion of song and twitter. The road
+was spotted white with the fallen leaves of apple-blossoms, and the
+sparkling grey dew still lingered on the grass and flowers. Two swans
+floated into view in front of the women, and then crossed the water
+towards them.
+
+'They seem to come to us without any will of their own--quite
+involuntarily--don't they?' said Cytherea, looking at the birds'
+graceful advance.
+
+'Yes, but if you look narrowly you can see their hips just beneath the
+water, working with the greatest energy.'
+
+'I'd rather not see that, it spoils the idea of proud indifference to
+direction which we associate with a swan.'
+
+'It does; we'll have "involuntarily." Ah, now this reminds me of
+something.'
+
+'Of what?'
+
+'Of a human being who involuntarily comes towards yourself.'
+
+Cytherea looked into Miss Aldclyffe's face; her eyes grew round as
+circles, and lines of wonderment came visibly upon her countenance.
+She had not once regarded Manston as a lover since his wife's sudden
+appearance and subsequent death. The death of a wife, and such a death,
+was an overwhelming matter in her ideas of things.
+
+'Is it a man or woman?' she said, quite innocently.
+
+'Mr. Manston,' said Miss Aldclyffe quietly.
+
+'Mr. Manston attracted by me _now_?' said Cytherea, standing at gaze.
+
+'Didn't you know it?'
+
+'Certainly I did not. Why, his poor wife has only been dead six months.'
+
+'Of course he knows that. But loving is not done by months, or method,
+or rule, or nobody would ever have invented such a phrase as "falling
+in love." He does not want his love to be observed just yet, on the very
+account you mention; but conceal it as he may from himself and us, it
+exists definitely--and very intensely, I assure you.'
+
+'I suppose then, that if he can't help it, it is no harm of him,' said
+Cytherea naively, and beginning to ponder.
+
+'Of course it isn't--you know that well enough. She was a great burden
+and trouble to him. This may become a great good to you both.'
+
+A rush of feeling at remembering that the same woman, before Manston's
+arrival, had just as frankly advocated Edward's claims, checked
+Cytherea's utterance for awhile.
+
+'There, don't look at me like that, for Heaven's sake!' said Miss
+Aldclyffe. 'You could almost kill a person by the force of reproach you
+can put into those eyes of yours, I verily believe.'
+
+Edward once in the young lady's thoughts, there was no getting rid of
+him. She wanted to be alone.
+
+'Do you want me here?' she said.
+
+'Now there, there; you want to be off, and have a good cry,' said Miss
+Aldclyffe, taking her hand. 'But you mustn't, my dear. There's nothing
+in the past for you to regret. Compare Mr. Manston's honourable conduct
+towards his wife and yourself, with Springrove towards his betrothed and
+yourself, and then see which appears the more worthy of your thoughts.'
+
+3. FROM THE FOURTH OF MAY TO THE TWENTY-FIRST OF JUNE
+
+The next stage in Manston's advances towards her hand was a clearly
+defined courtship. She was sadly perplexed, and some contrivance was
+necessary on his part in order to meet with her. But it is next to
+impossible for an appreciative woman to have a positive repugnance
+towards an unusually handsome and gifted man, even though she may not be
+inclined to love him. Hence Cytherea was not so alarmed at the sight of
+him as to render a meeting and conversation with her more than a matter
+of difficulty.
+
+Coming and going from church was his grand opportunity. Manston was very
+religious now. It is commonly said that no man was ever converted by
+argument, but there is a single one which will make any Laodicean in
+England, let him be once love-sick, wear prayer-books and become a
+zealous Episcopalian--the argument that his sweetheart can be seen from
+his pew.
+
+Manston introduced into his method a system of bewitching flattery,
+everywhere pervasive, yet, too, so transitory and intangible, that, as
+in the case of the poet Wordsworth and the Wandering Voice, though she
+felt it present, she could never find it. As a foil to heighten its
+effect, he occasionally spoke philosophically of the evanescence of
+female beauty--the worthlessness of mere appearance. 'Handsome is that
+handsome does' he considered a proverb which should be written on the
+looking-glass of every woman in the land. 'Your form, your motions, your
+heart have won me,' he said, in a tone of playful sadness. 'They are
+beautiful. But I see these things, and it comes into my mind that they
+are doomed, they are gliding to nothing as I look. Poor eyes, poor
+mouth, poor face, poor maiden! "Where will her glories be in twenty
+years?" I say. "Where will all of her be in a hundred?" Then I think
+it is cruel that you should bloom a day, and fade for ever and ever. It
+seems hard and sad that you will die as ordinarily as I, and be buried;
+be food for roots and worms, be forgotten and come to earth, and grow up
+a mere blade of churchyard-grass and an ivy leaf. Then, Miss Graye, when
+I see you are a Lovely Nothing, I pity you, and the love I feel then
+is better and sounder, larger and more lasting than that I felt at the
+beginning.' Again an ardent flash of his handsome eyes.
+
+It was by this route that he ventured on an indirect declaration and
+offer of his hand.
+
+She implied in the same indirect manner that she did not love him enough
+to accept it.
+
+An actual refusal was more than he had expected. Cursing himself for
+what he called his egregious folly in making himself the slave of a mere
+lady's attendant, and for having given the parish, should they know
+of her refusal, a chance of sneering at him--certainly a ground for
+thinking less of his standing than before--he went home to the Old
+House, and walked indecisively up and down his back-yard. Turning aside,
+he leant his arms upon the edge of the rain-water-butt standing in the
+corner, and looked into it. The reflection from the smooth stagnant
+surface tinged his face with the greenish shades of Correggio's nudes.
+Staves of sunlight slanted down through the still pool, lighting it
+up with wonderful distinctness. Hundreds of thousands of minute living
+creatures sported and tumbled in its depth with every contortion that
+gaiety could suggest; perfectly happy, though consisting only of a head,
+or a tail, or at most a head and a tail, and all doomed to die within
+the twenty-four hours.
+
+'Damn my position! Why shouldn't I be happy through my little day too?
+Let the parish sneer at my repulses, let it. I'll get her, if I move
+heaven and earth to do it!'
+
+Indeed, the inexperienced Cytherea had, towards Edward in the first
+place, and Manston afterwards, unconsciously adopted bearings that would
+have been the very tactics of a professional fisher of men who wished
+to have them each successively dangling at her heels. For if any rule
+at all can be laid down in a matter which, for men collectively, is
+notoriously beyond regulation, it is that to snub a petted man, and to
+pet a snubbed man, is the way to win in suits of both kinds. Manston
+with Springrove's encouragement would have become indifferent. Edward
+with Manston's repulses would have sheered off at the outset, as he did
+afterwards. Her supreme indifference added fuel to Manston's ardour--it
+completely disarmed his pride. The invulnerable Nobody seemed greater to
+him than a susceptible Princess.
+
+4. FROM THE TWENTY-FIRST OF JUNE TO THE END OF JULY
+
+Cytherea had in the meantime received the following letter from her
+brother. It was the first definite notification of the enlargement
+of that cloud no bigger than a man's hand which had for nearly a
+twelvemonth hung before them in the distance, and which was soon to give
+a colour to their whole sky from horizon to horizon.
+
+
+                                               'BUDMOUTH REGIS,
+
+Saturday.
+
+'DARLING SIS,--I have delayed telling you for a long time of a
+little matter which, though not one to be seriously alarmed about, is
+sufficiently vexing, and it would be unfair in me to keep it from you
+any longer. It is that for some time past I have again been distressed
+by that lameness which I first distinctly felt when we went to Lulstead
+Cove, and again when I left Knapwater that morning early. It is an
+unusual pain in my left leg, between the knee and the ankle. I had just
+found fresh symptoms of it when you were here for that half-hour about a
+month ago--when you said in fun that I began to move like an old man. I
+had a good mind to tell you then, but fancying it would go off in a
+few days, I thought it was not worth while. Since that time it has
+increased, but I am still able to work in the office, sitting on the
+stool. My great fear is that Mr. G. will have some out-door measuring
+work for me to do soon, and that I shall be obliged to decline it.
+However, we will hope for the best. How it came, what was its origin, or
+what it tends to, I cannot think. You shall hear again in a day or two,
+if it is no better...--Your loving brother, OWEN.'
+
+
+This she answered, begging to know the worst, which she could bear, but
+suspense and anxiety never. In two days came another letter from him, of
+which the subjoined paragraph is a portion:--
+
+
+'I had quite decided to let you know the worst, and to assure you that
+it was the worst, before you wrote to ask it. And again I give you
+my word that I will conceal nothing--so that there will be no excuse
+whatever for your wearing yourself out with fears that I am worse than I
+say. This morning then, for the first time, I have been obliged to stay
+away from the office. Don't be frightened at this, dear Cytherea. Rest
+is all that is wanted, and by nursing myself now for a week, I may avoid
+an illness of six months.'
+
+
+After a visit from her he wrote again:--
+
+
+'Dr. Chestman has seen me. He said that the ailment was some sort of
+rheumatism, and I am now undergoing proper treatment for its cure. My
+leg and foot have been placed in hot bran, liniments have been applied,
+and also severe friction with a pad. He says I shall be as right as ever
+in a very short time. Directly I am I shall run up by the train to see
+you. Don't trouble to come to me if Miss Aldclyffe grumbles again about
+your being away, for I am going on capitally.... You shall hear again at
+the end of the week.'
+
+
+At the time mentioned came the following:--
+
+
+'I am sorry to tell you, because I know it will be so disheartening
+after my last letter, that I am not so well as I was then, and that
+there has been a sort of hitch in the proceedings. After I had been
+treated for rheumatism a few days longer (in which treatment they
+pricked the place with a long needle several times,) I saw that Dr.
+Chestman was in doubt about something, and I requested that he would
+call in a brother professional man to see me as well. They consulted
+together and then told me that rheumatism was not the disease after all,
+but erysipelas. They then began treating it differently, as became a
+different matter. Blisters, flour, and starch, seem to be the order of
+the day now--medicine, of course, besides.
+
+'Mr. Gradfield has been in to inquire about me. He says he has been
+obliged to get a designer in my place, which grieves me very much,
+though, of course, it could not be avoided.'
+
+
+A month passed away; throughout this period, Cytherea visited him
+as often as the limited time at her command would allow, and wore as
+cheerful a countenance as the womanly determination to do nothing which
+might depress him could enable her to wear. Another letter from him then
+told her these additional facts:--
+
+
+'The doctors find they are again on the wrong tack. They cannot make out
+what the disease is. O Cytherea! how I wish they knew! This suspense is
+wearing me out. Could not Miss Aldclyffe spare you for a day? Do come to
+me. We will talk about the best course then. I am sorry to complain, but
+I am worn out.'
+
+
+Cytherea went to Miss Aldclyffe, and told her of the melancholy turn her
+brother's illness had taken. Miss Aldclyffe at once said that Cytherea
+might go, and offered to do anything to assist her which lay in her
+power. Cytherea's eyes beamed gratitude as she turned to leave the room,
+and hasten to the station.
+
+'O, Cytherea,' said Miss Aldclyffe, calling her back; 'just one word.
+Has Mr. Manston spoken to you lately?'
+
+'Yes,' said Cytherea, blushing timorously.
+
+'He proposed?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'And you refused him?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Tut, tut! Now listen to my advice,' said Miss Aldclyffe emphatically,
+'and accept him before he changes his mind. The chance which he offers
+you of settling in life is one that may possibly, probably, not occur
+again. His position is good and secure, and the life of his wife would
+be a happy one. You may not be sure that you love him madly; but suppose
+you are not sure? My father used to say to me as a child when he was
+teaching me whist, "When in doubt win the trick!" That advice is ten
+times as valuable to a woman on the subject of matrimony. In refusing a
+man there is always the risk that you may never get another offer.'
+
+'Why didn't you win the trick when you were a girl?' said Cytherea.
+
+'Come, my lady Pert; I'm not the text,' said Miss Aldclyffe, her face
+glowing like fire.
+
+Cytherea laughed stealthily.
+
+'I was about to say,' resumed Miss Aldclyffe severely, 'that here is
+Mr. Manston waiting with the tenderest solicitude for you, and you
+overlooking it, as if it were altogether beneath you. Think how you
+might benefit your sick brother if you were Mrs. Manston. You will
+please me _very much_ by giving him some encouragement. You understand
+me, Cythie dear?'
+
+Cytherea was silent.
+
+'And,' said Miss Aldclyffe, still more emphatically, 'on your promising
+that you will accept him some time this year, I will take especial care
+of your brother. You are listening, Cytherea?'
+
+'Yes,' she whispered, leaving the room.
+
+She went to Budmouth, passed the day with her brother, and returned to
+Knapwater wretched and full of foreboding. Owen had looked startlingly
+thin and pale--thinner and paler than ever she had seen him before. The
+brother and sister had that day decided that notwithstanding the drain
+upon their slender resources, another surgeon should see him. Time was
+everything.
+
+Owen told her the result in his next letter:--
+
+
+'The three practitioners between them have at last hit the nail on the
+head, I hope. They probed the place, and discovered that the secret lay
+in the bone. I underwent an operation for its removal three days ago
+(after taking chloroform)... Thank God it is over. Though I am so weak,
+my spirits are rather better. I wonder when I shall be at work again?
+I asked the surgeons how long it would be first. I said a month? They
+shook their heads. A year? I said. Not so long, they said. Six months? I
+inquired. They would not, or could not, tell me. But never mind.
+
+'Run down, when you have half a day to spare, for the hours drag on so
+drearily. O Cytherea, you can't think how drearily!'
+
+
+She went. Immediately on her departure Miss Aldclyffe sent a note to the
+Old House, to Manston. On the maiden's return, tired and sick at heart
+as usual, she found Manston at the station awaiting her. He asked
+politely if he might accompany her to Knapwater. She tacitly acquiesced.
+During their walk he inquired the particulars of her brother's illness,
+and with an irresistible desire to pour out her trouble to some one,
+she told him of the length of time which must elapse before he could be
+strong again, and of the lack of comfort in lodgings.
+
+Manston was silent awhile. Then he said impetuously: 'Miss Graye, I will
+not mince matters--I love you--you know it. Stratagem they say is fair
+in love, and I am compelled to adopt it now. Forgive me, for I cannot
+help it. Consent to be my wife at any time that may suit you--any remote
+day you may name will satisfy me--and you shall find him well provided
+for.'
+
+For the first time in her life she truly dreaded the handsome man at
+her side who pleaded thus selfishly, and shrank from the hot voluptuous
+nature of his passion for her, which, disguise it as he might under a
+quiet and polished exterior, at times radiated forth with a scorching
+white heat. She perceived how animal was the love which bargained.
+
+'I do not love you, Mr. Manston,' she replied coldly.
+
+5. FROM THE FIRST TO THE TWENTY-SEVENTH OF AUGUST
+
+The long sunny days of the later summer-time brought only the same
+dreary accounts from Budmouth, and saw Cytherea paying the same sad
+visits.
+
+She grew perceptibly weaker, in body and mind. Manston still persisted
+in his suit, but with more of his former indirectness, now that he saw
+how unexpectedly well she stood an open attack. His was the system of
+Dares at the Sicilian games--
+
+     'He, like a captain who beleaguers round
+      Some strong-built castle on a rising ground,
+      Views all the approaches with observing eyes,
+      This and that other part again he tries,
+      And more on industry than force relies.'
+
+Miss Aldclyffe made it appear more clearly than ever that aid to
+Owen from herself depended entirely upon Cytherea's acceptance of
+her steward. Hemmed in and distressed, Cytherea's answers to his
+importunities grew less uniform; they were firm, or wavering, as Owen's
+malady fluctuated. Had a register of her pitiful oscillations been kept,
+it would have rivalled in pathos the diary wherein De Quincey tabulates
+his combat with Opium--perhaps as noticeable an instance as any in which
+a thrilling dramatic power has been given to mere numerals. Thus she
+wearily and monotonously lived through the month, listening on Sundays
+to the well-known round of chapters narrating the history of Elijah and
+Elisha in famine and drought; on week-days to buzzing flies in hot sunny
+rooms. 'So like, so very like, was day to day.' Extreme lassitude seemed
+all that the world could show her.
+
+Her state was in this wise, when one afternoon, having been with her
+brother, she met the surgeon, and begged him to tell the actual truth
+concerning Owen's condition.
+
+The reply was that he feared that the first operation had not been
+thorough; that although the wound had healed, another attempt might
+still be necessary, unless nature were left to effect her own cure. But
+the time such a self-healing proceeding would occupy might be ruinous.
+
+'How long would it be?' she said.
+
+'It is impossible to say. A year or two, more or less.'
+
+'And suppose he submitted to another artificial extraction?'
+
+'Then he might be well in four or six months.'
+
+Now the remainder of his and her possessions, together with a sum he had
+borrowed, would not provide him with necessary comforts for half
+that time. To combat the misfortune, there were two courses open--her
+becoming betrothed to Manston, or the sending Owen to the County
+Hospital.
+
+Thus terrified, driven into a corner, panting and fluttering about for
+some loophole of escape, yet still shrinking from the idea of being
+Manston's wife, the poor little bird endeavoured to find out from
+Miss Aldclyffe whether it was likely Owen would be well treated in the
+hospital.
+
+'County Hospital!' said Miss Aldclyffe; 'why, it is only another
+name for slaughter-house--in surgical cases at any rate. Certainly if
+anything about your body is snapt in two they do join you together in
+a fashion, but 'tis so askew and ugly, that you may as well be apart
+again.' Then she terrified the inquiring and anxious maiden by relating
+horrid stories of how the legs and arms of poor people were cut off at a
+moment's notice, especially in cases where the restorative treatment was
+likely to be long and tedious.
+
+'You know how willing I am to help you, Cytherea,' she added
+reproachfully. 'You know it. Why are you so obstinate then? Why do you
+selfishly bar the clear, honourable, and only sisterly path which leads
+out of this difficulty? I cannot, on my conscience, countenance you; no,
+I cannot.'
+
+Manston once more repeated his offer; and once more she refused, but
+this time weakly, and with signs of an internal struggle. Manston's eye
+sparkled; he saw for the hundredth time in his life, that perseverance,
+if only systematic, was irresistible by womankind.
+
+6. THE TWENTY-SEVENTH OF AUGUST
+
+On going to Budmouth three days later, she found to her surprise that
+the steward had been there, had introduced himself, and had seen her
+brother. A few delicacies had been brought him also by the same hand.
+Owen spoke in warm terms of Manston and his free and unceremonious call,
+as he could not have refrained from doing of any person, of any kind,
+whose presence had served to help away the tedious hours of a long day,
+and who had, moreover, shown that sort of consideration for him which
+the accompanying basket implied--antecedent consideration, so telling
+upon all invalids--and which he so seldom experienced except from the
+hands of his sister.
+
+How should he perceive, amid this tithe-paying of mint, and anise, and
+cummin, the weightier matters which were left undone?
+
+Again the steward met her at Carriford Road Station on her return
+journey. Instead of being frigid as at the former meeting at the same
+place, she was embarrassed by a strife of thought, and murmured brokenly
+her thanks for what he had done. The same request that he might see her
+home was made.
+
+He had perceived his error in making his kindness to Owen a conditional
+kindness, and had hastened to efface all recollection of it. 'Though I
+let my offer on her brother's--my friend's--behalf, seem dependent on my
+lady's graciousness to me,' he whispered wooingly in the course of their
+walk, 'I could not conscientiously adhere to my statement; it was said
+with all the impulsive selfishness of love. Whether you choose to have
+me, or whether you don't, I love you too devotedly to be anything but
+kind to your brother.... Miss Graye, Cytherea, I will do anything,' he
+continued earnestly, 'to give you pleasure--indeed I will.'
+
+She saw on the one hand her poor and much-loved Owen recovering from
+his illness and troubles by the disinterested kindness of the man
+beside her, on the other she drew him dying, wholly by reason of her
+self-enforced poverty. To marry this man was obviously the course of
+common sense, to refuse him was impolitic temerity. There was reason
+in this. But there was more behind than a hundred reasons--a woman's
+gratitude and her impulse to be kind.
+
+The wavering of her mind was visible in her tell-tale face. He noticed
+it, and caught at the opportunity.
+
+They were standing by the ruinous foundations of an old mill in the
+midst of a meadow. Between grey and half-overgrown stonework--the only
+signs of masonry remaining--the water gurgled down from the old millpond
+to a lower level, under the cloak of rank broad leaves--the sensuous
+natures of the vegetable world. On the right hand the sun, resting on
+the horizon-line, streamed across the ground from below copper-coloured
+and lilac clouds, stretched out in flats beneath a sky of pale soft
+green. All dark objects on the earth that lay towards the sun were
+overspread by a purple haze, against which a swarm of wailing gnats
+shone forth luminously, rising upward and floating away like sparks of
+fire.
+
+The stillness oppressed and reduced her to mere passivity. The only
+wish the humidity of the place left in her was to stand motionless.
+The helpless flatness of the landscape gave her, as it gives all such
+temperaments, a sense of bare equality with, and no superiority to, a
+single entity under the sky.
+
+He came so close that their clothes touched. 'Will you try to love me?
+Do try to love me!' he said, in a whisper, taking her hand. He had never
+taken it before. She could feel his hand trembling exceedingly as it
+held hers in its clasp.
+
+Considering his kindness to her brother, his love for herself, and
+Edward's fickleness, ought she to forbid him to do this? How truly
+pitiful it was to feel his hand tremble so--all for her! Should she
+withdraw her hand? She would think whether she would. Thinking, and
+hesitating, she looked as far as the autumnal haze on the marshy
+ground would allow her to see distinctly. There was the fragment of a
+hedge--all that remained of a 'wet old garden'--standing in the middle
+of the mead, without a definite beginning or ending, purposeless and
+valueless. It was overgrown, and choked with mandrakes, and she could
+almost fancy she heard their shrieks.... Should she withdraw her hand?
+No, she could not withdraw it now; it was too late, the act would not
+imply refusal. She felt as one in a boat without oars, drifting with
+closed eyes down a river--she knew not whither.
+
+He gave her hand a gentle pressure, and relinquished it.
+
+Then it seemed as if he were coming to the point again. No, he was not
+going to urge his suit that evening. Another respite.
+
+7. THE EARLY PART OF SEPTEMBER
+
+Saturday came, and she went on some trivial errand to the village
+post-office. It was a little grey cottage with a luxuriant jasmine
+encircling the doorway, and before going in Cytherea paused to admire
+this pleasing feature of the exterior. Hearing a step on the gravel
+behind the corner of the house, she resigned the jasmine and entered.
+Nobody was in the room. She could hear Mrs. Leat, the widow who acted
+as postmistress, walking about over her head. Cytherea was going to the
+foot of the stairs to call Mrs. Leat, but before she had accomplished
+her object, another form stood at the half-open door. Manston came in.
+
+'Both on the same errand,' he said gracefully.
+
+'I will call her,' said Cytherea, moving in haste to the foot of the
+stairs.
+
+'One moment.' He glided to her side. 'Don't call her for a moment,' he
+repeated.
+
+But she had said, 'Mrs. Leat!'
+
+He seized Cytherea's hand, kissed it tenderly, and carefully replaced it
+by her side.
+
+She had that morning determined to check his further advances, until she
+had thoroughly considered her position. The remonstrance was now on her
+tongue, but as accident would have it, before the word could be
+spoken Mrs. Leat was stepping from the last stair to the floor, and no
+remonstrance came.
+
+With the subtlety which characterized him in all his dealings with her,
+he quickly concluded his own errand, bade her a good-bye, in the tones
+of which love was so garnished with pure politeness that it only showed
+its presence to herself, and left the house--putting it out of her
+power to refuse him her companionship homeward, or to object to his late
+action of kissing her hand.
+
+The Friday of the next week brought another letter from her brother. In
+this he informed her that, in absolute grief lest he should distress her
+unnecessarily, he had some time earlier borrowed a few pounds. A week
+ago, he said, his creditor became importunate, but that on the day
+on which he wrote, the creditor had told him there was no hurry for a
+settlement, that 'his _sister's suitor_ had guaranteed the sum.' 'Is he
+Mr. Manston? tell me, Cytherea,' said Owen.
+
+He also mentioned that a wheeled chair had been anonymously hired
+for his especial use, though as yet he was hardly far enough advanced
+towards convalescence to avail himself of the luxury. 'Is this Mr.
+Manston's doing?' he inquired.
+
+She could dally with her perplexity, evade it, trust to time for
+guidance, no longer. The matter had come to a crisis: she must once and
+for all choose between the dictates of her understanding and those of
+her heart. She longed, till her soul seemed nigh to bursting, for her
+lost mother's return to earth, but for one minute, that she might have
+tender counsel to guide her through this, her great difficulty.
+
+As for her heart, she half fancied that it was not Edward's to quite
+the extent that it once had been; she thought him cruel in conducting
+himself towards her as he did at Budmouth, cruel afterwards in making so
+light of her. She knew he had stifled his love for her--was utterly
+lost to her. But for all that she could not help indulging in a woman's
+pleasure of recreating defunct agonies, and lacerating herself with them
+now and then.
+
+'If I were rich,' she thought, 'I would give way to the luxury of being
+morbidly faithful to him for ever without his knowledge.'
+
+But she considered; in the first place she was a homeless dependent;
+and what did practical wisdom tell her to do under such desperate
+circumstances? To provide herself with some place of refuge from
+poverty, and with means to aid her brother Owen. This was to be Mr.
+Manston's wife.
+
+She did not love him.
+
+But what was love without a home? Misery. What was a home without love?
+Alas, not much; but still a kind of home.
+
+'Yes,' she thought, 'I am urged by my common sense to marry Mr.
+Manston.'
+
+Did anything nobler in her say so too?
+
+With the death (to her) of Edward her heart's occupation was gone. Was
+it necessary or even right for her to tend it and take care of it as she
+used to in the old time, when it was still a capable minister?
+
+By a slight sacrifice here she could give happiness to at least two
+hearts whose emotional activities were still unwounded. She would do
+good to two men whose lives were far more important than hers.
+
+'Yes,' she said again, 'even Christianity urges me to marry Mr.
+Manston.'
+
+Directly Cytherea had persuaded herself that a kind of heroic
+self-abnegation had to do with the matter, she became much more content
+in the consideration of it. A wilful indifference to the future was what
+really prevailed in her, ill and worn out, as she was, by the perpetual
+harassments of her sad fortune, and she regarded this indifference, as
+gushing natures will do under such circumstances, as genuine resignation
+and devotedness.
+
+Manston met her again the following day: indeed, there was no escaping
+him now. At the end of a short conversation between them, which took
+place in the hollow of the park by the waterfall, obscured on the outer
+side by the low hanging branches of the limes, she tacitly assented to
+his assumption of a privilege greater than any that had preceded it. He
+stooped and kissed her brow.
+
+Before going to bed she wrote to Owen explaining the whole matter. It
+was too late in the evening for the postman's visit, and she placed the
+letter on the mantelpiece to send it the next day.
+
+The morning (Sunday) brought a hurried postscript to Owen's letter of
+the day before:--
+
+
+                                              'September 9, 1865.
+
+'DEAR CYTHEREA--I have received a frank and friendly letter from Mr.
+Manston explaining the position in which he stands now, and also that in
+which he hopes to stand towards you. Can't you love him? Why not? Try,
+for he is a good, and not only that, but a cultured man. Think of the
+weary and laborious future that awaits you if you continue for life in
+your present position, and do you see any way of escape from it except
+by marriage? I don't. Don't go against your heart, Cytherea, but be
+wise.--Ever affectionately yours, OWEN.'
+
+
+She thought that probably he had replied to Mr. Manston in the same
+favouring mood. She had a conviction that that day would settle her
+doom. Yet
+
+     'So true a fool is love,'
+
+that even now she nourished a half-hope that something would happen at
+the last moment to thwart her deliberately-formed intentions, and favour
+the old emotion she was using all her strength to thrust down.
+
+8. THE TENTH OF SEPTEMBER
+
+The Sunday was the thirteenth after Trinity, and the afternoon service
+at Carriford was nearly over. The people were singing the Evening Hymn.
+
+Manston was at church as usual in his accustomed place two seats forward
+from the large square pew occupied by Miss Aldclyffe and Cytherea.
+
+The ordinary sadness of an autumnal evening-service seemed, in
+Cytherea's eyes, to be doubled on this particular occasion. She looked
+at all the people as they stood and sang, waving backwards and forwards
+like a forest of pines swayed by a gentle breeze; then at the village
+children singing too, their heads inclined to one side, their eyes
+listlessly tracing some crack in the old walls, or following the
+movement of a distant bough or bird with features petrified almost to
+painfulness. Then she looked at Manston; he was already regarding her
+with some purpose in his glance.
+
+'It is coming this evening,' she said in her mind. A minute later, at
+the end of the hymn, when the congregation began to move out, Manston
+came down the aisle. He was opposite the end of her seat as she stepped
+from it, the remainder of their progress to the door being in contact
+with each other. Miss Aldclyffe had lingered behind.
+
+'Don't let's hurry,' he said, when Cytherea was about to enter the
+private path to the House as usual. 'Would you mind turning down this
+way for a minute till Miss Aldclyffe has passed?'
+
+She could not very well refuse now. They turned into a secluded path on
+their left, leading round through a thicket of laurels to the other gate
+of the church-yard, walking very slowly. By the time the further gate
+was reached, the church was closed. They met the sexton with the keys in
+his hand.
+
+'We are going inside for a minute,' said Manston to him, taking the keys
+unceremoniously. 'I will bring them to you when we return.'
+
+The sexton nodded his assent, and Cytherea and Manston walked into the
+porch, and up the nave.
+
+They did not speak a word during their progress, or in any way interfere
+with the stillness and silence that prevailed everywhere around them.
+Everything in the place was the embodiment of decay: the fading
+red glare from the setting sun, which came in at the west window,
+emphasizing the end of the day and all its cheerful doings, the mildewed
+walls, the uneven paving-stones, the wormy pews, the sense of recent
+occupation, and the dank air of death which had gathered with the
+evening, would have made grave a lighter mood than Cytherea's was then.
+
+'What sensations does the place impress you with?' she said at last,
+very sadly.
+
+'I feel imperatively called upon to be honest, from very despair of
+achieving anything by stratagem in a world where the materials are such
+as these.' He, too, spoke in a depressed voice, purposely or otherwise.
+
+'I feel as if I were almost ashamed to be seen walking such a world,'
+she murmured; 'that's the effect it has upon me; but it does not induce
+me to be honest particularly.'
+
+He took her hand in both his, and looked down upon the lids of her eyes.
+
+'I pity you sometimes,' he said more emphatically.
+
+'I am pitiable, perhaps; so are many people. Why do you pity me?'
+
+'I think that you make yourself needlessly sad.'
+
+'Not needlessly.'
+
+'Yes, needlessly. Why should you be separated from your brother so much,
+when you might have him to stay with you till he is well?'
+
+'That can't be,' she said, turning away.
+
+He went on, 'I think the real and only good thing that can be done for
+him is to get him away from Budmouth awhile; and I have been wondering
+whether it could not be managed for him to come to my house to live for
+a few weeks. Only a quarter of a mile from you. How pleasant it would
+be!'
+
+'It would.'
+
+He moved himself round immediately to the front of her, and held her
+hand more firmly, as he continued, 'Cytherea, why do you say "It would,"
+so entirely in the tone of abstract supposition? I want him there: I
+want him to be my brother, too. Then make him so, and be my wife! I
+cannot live without you. O Cytherea, my darling, my love, come and be my
+wife!'
+
+His face bent closer and closer to hers, and the last words sank to a
+whisper as weak as the emotion inspiring it was strong.
+
+She said firmly and distinctly, 'Yes, I will.'
+
+'Next month?' he said on the instant, before taking breath.
+
+'No; not next month.'
+
+'The next?'
+
+'No.'
+
+'December? Christmas Day, say?'
+
+'I don't mind.'
+
+'O, you darling!' He was about to imprint a kiss upon her pale, cold
+mouth, but she hastily covered it with her hand.
+
+'Don't kiss me--at least where we are now!' she whispered imploringly.
+
+'Why?'
+
+'We are too near God.'
+
+He gave a sudden start, and his face flushed. She had spoken so
+emphatically that the words 'Near God' echoed back again through the
+hollow building from the far end of the chancel.
+
+'What a thing to say!' he exclaimed; 'surely a pure kiss is not
+inappropriate to the place!'
+
+'No,' she replied, with a swelling heart; 'I don't know why I burst out
+so--I can't tell what has come over me! Will you forgive me?'
+
+'How shall I say "Yes" without judging you? How shall I say "No" without
+losing the pleasure of saying "Yes?"' He was himself again.
+
+'I don't know,' she absently murmured.
+
+'I'll say "Yes,"' he answered daintily. 'It is sweeter to fancy we
+are forgiven, than to think we have not sinned; and you shall have the
+sweetness without the need.'
+
+She did not reply, and they moved away. The church was nearly dark now,
+and melancholy in the extreme. She stood beside him while he locked
+the door, then took the arm he gave her, and wound her way out of the
+churchyard with him. Then they walked to the house together, but the
+great matter having been set at rest, she persisted in talking only on
+indifferent subjects.
+
+'Christmas Day, then,' he said, as they were parting at the end of the
+shrubbery.
+
+'I meant Old Christmas Day,' she said evasively.
+
+'H'm, people do not usually attach that meaning to the words.'
+
+'No; but I should like it best if it could not be till then?' It seemed
+to be still her instinct to delay the marriage to the utmost.
+
+'Very well, love,' he said gently. ''Tis a fortnight longer still; but
+never mind. Old Christmas Day.'
+
+9. THE ELEVENTH OF SEPTEMBER
+
+'There. It will be on a Friday!'
+
+She sat upon a little footstool gazing intently into the fire. It was
+the afternoon of the day following that of the steward's successful
+solicitation of her hand.
+
+'I wonder if it would be proper in me to run across the park and tell
+him it is a Friday?' she said to herself, rising to her feet, looking
+at her hat lying near, and then out of the window towards the Old
+House. Proper or not, she felt that she must at all hazards remove the
+disagreeable, though, as she herself owned, unfounded impression the
+coincidence had occasioned. She left the house directly, and went to
+search for him.
+
+Manston was in the timber-yard, looking at the sawyers as they worked.
+Cytherea came up to him hesitatingly. Till within a distance of a few
+yards she had hurried forward with alacrity--now that the practical
+expression of his face became visible she wished almost she had never
+sought him on such an errand; in his business-mood he was perhaps very
+stern.
+
+'It will be on a Friday,' she said confusedly, and without any preface.
+
+'Come this way!' said Manston, in the tone he used for workmen, not
+being able to alter at an instant's notice. He gave her his arm and
+led her back into the avenue, by which time he was lover again. 'On
+a Friday, will it, dearest? You do not mind Fridays, surely? That's
+nonsense.'
+
+'Not seriously mind them, exactly--but if it could be any other day?'
+
+'Well, let us say Old Christmas Eve, then. Shall it be Old Christmas
+Eve?'
+
+'Yes, Old Christmas Eve.'
+
+'Your word is solemn, and irrevocable now?'
+
+'Certainly, I have solemnly pledged my word; I should not have promised
+to marry you if I had not meant it. Don't think I should.' She spoke the
+words with a dignified impressiveness.
+
+'You must not be vexed at my remark, dearest. Can you think the worse of
+an ardent man, Cytherea, for showing some anxiety in love?'
+
+'No, no.' She could not say more. She was always ill at ease when he
+spoke of himself as a piece of human nature in that analytical way, and
+wanted to be out of his presence. The time of day, and the proximity
+of the house, afforded her a means of escape. 'I must be with Miss
+Aldclyffe now--will you excuse my hasty coming and going?' she said
+prettily. Before he had replied she had parted from him.
+
+'Cytherea, was it Mr. Manston I saw you scudding away from in the avenue
+just now?' said Miss Aldclyffe, when Cytherea joined her.
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'"Yes." Come, why don't you say more than that? I hate those taciturn
+"Yesses" of yours. I tell you everything, and yet you are as close as
+wax with me.'
+
+'I parted from him because I wanted to come in.'
+
+'What a novel and important announcement! Well, is the day fixed?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+Miss Aldclyffe's face kindled into intense interest at once. 'Is it
+indeed? When is it to be?'
+
+'On Old Christmas Eve.'
+
+'Old Christmas Eve.' Miss Aldclyffe drew Cytherea round to her front,
+and took a hand in each of her own. 'And then you will be a bride!'
+she said slowly, looking with critical thoughtfulness upon the maiden's
+delicately rounded cheeks.
+
+The normal area of the colour upon each of them decreased perceptibly
+after that slow and emphatic utterance by the elder lady.
+
+Miss Aldclyffe continued impressively, 'You did not say "Old Christmas
+Eve" as a fiancee should have said the words: and you don't receive my
+remark with the warm excitement that foreshadows a bright future.... How
+many weeks are there to the time?'
+
+'I have not reckoned them.'
+
+'Not? Fancy a girl not counting the weeks! I find I must take the
+lead in this matter--you are so childish, or frightened, or stupid, or
+something, about it. Bring me my diary, and we will count them at once.'
+
+Cytherea silently fetched the book.
+
+Miss Aldclyffe opened the diary at the page containing the almanac,
+and counted sixteen weeks, which brought her to the thirty-first of
+December--a Sunday. Cytherea stood by, looking on as if she had no
+appetite for the scene.
+
+'Sixteen to the thirty-first. Then let me see, Monday will be the first
+of January, Tuesday the second, Wednesday third, Thursday fourth, Friday
+fifth--you have chosen a Friday, as I declare!'
+
+'A Thursday, surely?' said Cytherea.
+
+'No: Old Christmas Day comes on a Saturday.'
+
+The perturbed little brain had reckoned wrong. 'Well, it must be a
+Friday,' she murmured in a reverie.
+
+'No: have it altered, of course,' said Miss Aldclyffe cheerfully.
+'There's nothing bad in Friday, but such a creature as you will be
+thinking about its being unlucky--in fact, I wouldn't choose a
+Friday myself to be married on, since all the other days are equally
+available.'
+
+'I shall not have it altered,' said Cytherea firmly; 'it has been
+altered once already: I shall let it be.'
+
+
+
+
+XIII. THE EVENTS OF ONE DAY
+
+1. THE FIFTH OF JANUARY. BEFORE DAWN
+
+We pass over the intervening weeks. The time of the story is thus
+advanced more than a quarter of a year.
+
+On the midnight preceding the morning which would make her the wife of
+a man whose presence fascinated her into involuntariness of bearing,
+and whom in absence she almost dreaded, Cytherea lay in her little bed,
+vainly endeavouring to sleep.
+
+She had been looking back amid the years of her short though varied
+past, and thinking of the threshold upon which she stood. Days and
+months had dimmed the form of Edward Springrove like the gauzes of a
+vanishing stage-scene, but his dying voice could still be heard faintly
+behind. That a soft small chord in her still vibrated true to his
+memory, she would not admit: that she did not approach Manston with
+feelings which could by any stretch of words be called hymeneal, she
+calmly owned.
+
+'Why do I marry him?' she said to herself. 'Because Owen, dear Owen my
+brother, wishes me to marry him. Because Mr. Manston is, and has been,
+uniformly kind to Owen, and to me. "Act in obedience to the dictates
+of common-sense," Owen said, "and dread the sharp sting of poverty. How
+many thousands of women like you marry every year for the same reason,
+to secure a home, and mere ordinary, material comforts, which after all
+go far to make life endurable, even if not supremely happy."
+
+''Tis right, I suppose, for him to say that. O, if people only knew what
+a timidity and melancholy upon the subject of her future grows up in the
+heart of a friendless woman who is blown about like a reed shaken with
+the wind, as I am, they would not call this resignation of one's self
+by the name of scheming to get a husband. Scheme to marry? I'd rather
+scheme to die! I know I am not pleasing my heart; I know that if I only
+were concerned, I should like risking a single future. But why should I
+please my useless self overmuch, when by doing otherwise I please those
+who are more valuable than I?'
+
+In the midst of desultory reflections like these, which alternated
+with surmises as to the inexplicable connection that appeared to exist
+between her intended husband and Miss Aldclyffe, she heard dull noises
+outside the walls of the house, which she could not quite fancy to be
+caused by the wind. She seemed doomed to such disturbances at critical
+periods of her existence. 'It is strange,' she pondered, 'that this my
+last night in Knapwater House should be disturbed precisely as my first
+was, no occurrence of the kind having intervened.'
+
+As the minutes glided by the noise increased, sounding as if some one
+were beating the wall below her window with a bunch of switches. She
+would gladly have left her room and gone to stay with one of the maids,
+but they were without doubt all asleep.
+
+The only person in the house likely to be awake, or who would have
+brains enough to comprehend her nervousness, was Miss Aldclyffe, but
+Cytherea never cared to go to Miss Aldclyffe's room, though she was
+always welcome there, and was often almost compelled to go against her
+will.
+
+The oft-repeated noise of switches grew heavier upon the wall, and was
+now intermingled with creaks, and a rattling like the rattling of dice.
+The wind blew stronger; there came first a snapping, then a crash, and
+some portion of the mystery was revealed. It was the breaking off and
+fall of a branch from one of the large trees outside. The smacking
+against the wall, and the intermediate rattling, ceased from that time.
+
+Well, it was the tree which had caused the noises. The unexplained
+matter was that neither of the trees ever touched the walls of the house
+during the highest wind, and that trees could not rattle like a man
+playing castanets or shaking dice.
+
+She thought, 'Is it the intention of Fate that something connected with
+these noises shall influence my future as in the last case of the kind?'
+
+During the dilemma she fell into a troubled sleep, and dreamt that she
+was being whipped with dry bones suspended on strings, which rattled at
+every blow like those of a malefactor on a gibbet; that she shifted and
+shrank and avoided every blow, and they fell then upon the wall to which
+she was tied. She could not see the face of the executioner for his
+mask, but his form was like Manston's.
+
+'Thank Heaven!' she said, when she awoke and saw a faint light
+struggling through her blind. 'Now what were those noises?' To settle
+that question seemed more to her than the event of the day.
+
+She pulled the blind aside and looked out. All was plain. The evening
+previous had closed in with a grey drizzle, borne upon a piercing air
+from the north, and now its effects were visible. The hoary drizzle
+still continued; but the trees and shrubs were laden with icicles to an
+extent such as she had never before witnessed. A shoot of the diameter
+of a pin's head was iced as thick as her finger; all the boughs in
+the park were bent almost to the earth with the immense weight of the
+glistening incumbrance; the walks were like a looking-glass. Many boughs
+had snapped beneath their burden, and lay in heaps upon the icy grass.
+Opposite her eye, on the nearest tree, was a fresh yellow scar, showing
+where the branch that had terrified her had been splintered from the
+trunk.
+
+'I never could have believed it possible,' she thought, surveying the
+bowed-down branches, 'that trees would bend so far out of their true
+positions without breaking.' By watching a twig she could see a drop
+collect upon it from the hoary fog, sink to the lowest point, and there
+become coagulated as the others had done.
+
+'Or that I could so exactly have imitated them,' she continued. 'On this
+morning I am to be married--unless this is a scheme of the great Mother
+to hinder a union of which she does not approve. Is it possible for my
+wedding to take place in the face of such weather as this?'
+
+2. MORNING
+
+Her brother Owen was staying with Manston at the Old House. Contrary
+to the opinion of the doctors, the wound had healed after the first
+surgical operation, and his leg was gradually acquiring strength, though
+he could only as yet get about on crutches, or ride, or be dragged in a
+chair.
+
+Miss Aldclyffe had arranged that Cytherea should be married from
+Knapwater House, and not from her brother's lodgings at Budmouth, which
+was Cytherea's first idea. Owen, too, seemed to prefer the plan. The
+capricious old maid had latterly taken to the contemplation of the
+wedding with even greater warmth than had at first inspired her, and
+appeared determined to do everything in her power, consistent with her
+dignity, to render the adjuncts of the ceremony pleasing and complete.
+
+But the weather seemed in flat contradiction of the whole proceeding. At
+eight o'clock the coachman crept up to the House almost upon his hands
+and knees, entered the kitchen, and stood with his back to the fire,
+panting from his exertions in pedestrianism.
+
+The kitchen was by far the pleasantest apartment in Knapwater House
+on such a morning as this. The vast fire was the centre of the whole
+system, like a sun, and threw its warm rays upon the figures of the
+domestics, wheeling about it in true planetary style. A nervously-feeble
+imitation of its flicker was continually attempted by a family of
+polished metallic utensils standing in rows and groups against the walls
+opposite, the whole collection of shines nearly annihilating the weak
+daylight from outside. A step further in, and the nostrils were greeted
+by the scent of green herbs just gathered, and the eye by the plump form
+of the cook, wholesome, white-aproned, and floury--looking as edible as
+the food she manipulated--her movements being supported and assisted by
+her satellites, the kitchen and scullery maids. Minute recurrent sounds
+prevailed--the click of the smoke-jack, the flap of the flames, and the
+light touches of the women's slippers upon the stone floor.
+
+The coachman hemmed, spread his feet more firmly upon the hearthstone,
+and looked hard at a small plate in the extreme corner of the dresser.
+
+'No wedden this mornen--that's my opinion. In fact, there can't be,' he
+said abruptly, as if the words were the mere torso of a many-membered
+thought that had existed complete in his head.
+
+The kitchen-maid was toasting a slice of bread at the end of a very long
+toasting-fork, which she held at arm's length towards the unapproachable
+fire, travestying the Flanconnade in fencing.
+
+'Bad out of doors, isn't it?' she said, with a look of commiseration for
+things in general.
+
+'Bad? Not even a liven soul, gentle or simple, can stand on level
+ground. As to getten up hill to the church, 'tis perfect lunacy. And
+I speak of foot-passengers. As to horses and carriage, 'tis murder
+to think of 'em. I am going to send straight as a line into the
+breakfast-room, and say 'tis a closer.... Hullo--here's Clerk Crickett
+and John Day a-comen! Now just look at 'em and picture a wedden if you
+can.'
+
+All eyes were turned to the window, from which the clerk and gardener
+were seen crossing the court, bowed and stooping like Bel and Nebo.
+
+'You'll have to go if it breaks all the horses' legs in the county,'
+said the cook, turning from the spectacle, knocking open the oven-door
+with the tongs, glancing critically in, and slamming it together with a
+clang.
+
+'O, O; why shall I?' asked the coachman, including in his auditory by a
+glance the clerk and gardener who had just entered.
+
+'Because Mr. Manston is in the business. Did you ever know him to give
+up for weather of any kind, or for any other mortal thing in heaven or
+earth?'
+
+'----Mornen so's--such as it is!' interrupted Mr. Crickett cheerily,
+coming forward to the blaze and warming one hand without looking at the
+fire. 'Mr. Manston gie up for anything in heaven or earth, did you say?
+You might ha' cut it short by sayen "to Miss Aldclyffe," and leaven out
+heaven and earth as trifles. But it might be put off; putten off a thing
+isn't getten rid of a thing, if that thing is a woman. O no, no!'
+
+The coachman and gardener now naturally subsided into secondaries. The
+cook went on rather sharply, as she dribbled milk into the exact centre
+of a little crater of flour in a platter--
+
+'It might be in this case; she's so indifferent.'
+
+'Dang my old sides! and so it might be. I have a bit of news--I thought
+there was something upon my tongue; but 'tis a secret; not a word, mind,
+not a word. Why, Miss Hinton took a holiday yesterday.'
+
+'Yes?' inquired the cook, looking up with perplexed curiosity.
+
+'D'ye think that's all?'
+
+'Don't be so three-cunning--if it is all, deliver you from the evil of
+raising a woman's expectations wrongfully; I'll skimmer your pate as
+sure as you cry Amen!'
+
+'Well, it isn't all. When I got home last night my wife said, "Miss
+Adelaide took a holiday this mornen," says she (my wife, that is);
+"walked over to Nether Mynton, met the comen man, and got married!" says
+she.'
+
+'Got married! what, Lord-a-mercy, did Springrove come?'
+
+'Springrove, no--no--Springrove's nothen to do wi' it--'twas Farmer
+Bollens. They've been playing bo-peep for these two or three months
+seemingly. Whilst Master Teddy Springrove has been daddlen, and hawken,
+and spetten about having her, she's quietly left him all forsook. Serve
+him right. I don't blame the little woman a bit.'
+
+'Farmer Bollens is old enough to be her father!'
+
+'Ay, quite; and rich enough to be ten fathers. They say he's so rich
+that he has business in every bank, and measures his money in half-pint
+cups.'
+
+'Lord, I wish it was me, don't I wish 'twas me!' said the scullery-maid.
+
+'Yes, 'twas as neat a bit of stitching as ever I heard of,' continued
+the clerk, with a fixed eye, as if he were watching the process from a
+distance. 'Not a soul knew anything about it, and my wife is the only
+one in our parish who knows it yet. Miss Hinton came back from the
+wedden, went to Mr. Manston, puffed herself out large, and said she was
+Mrs. Bollens, but that if he wished, she had no objection to keep on
+the house till the regular time of giving notice had expired, or till he
+could get another tenant.'
+
+'Just like her independence,' said the cook.
+
+'Well, independent or no, she's Mrs. Bollens now. Ah, I shall
+never forget once when I went by Farmer Bollens's garden--years ago
+now--years, when he was taking up ashleaf taties. A merry feller I was
+at that time, a very merry feller--for 'twas before I took holy orders,
+and it didn't prick my conscience as 'twould now. "Farmer," says I,
+"little taties seem to turn out small this year, don't em?" "O no,
+Crickett," says he, "some be fair-sized." He's a dull man--Farmer
+Bollens is--he always was. However, that's neither here nor there; he's
+a-married to a sharp woman, and if I don't make a mistake she'll bring
+him a pretty good family, gie her time.'
+
+'Well, it don't matter; there's a Providence in it,' said the
+scullery-maid. 'God A'mighty always sends bread as well as children.'
+
+'But 'tis the bread to one house and the children to another very often.
+However, I think I can see my lady Hinton's reason for chosen yesterday
+to sickness-or-health-it. Your young miss, and that one, had crossed one
+another's path in regard to young Master Springrove; and I expect that
+when Addy Hinton found Miss Graye wasn't caren to have en, she thought
+she'd be beforehand with her old enemy in marrying somebody else too.
+That's maids' logic all over, and maids' malice likewise.'
+
+Women who are bad enough to divide against themselves under a man's
+partiality are good enough to instantly unite in a common cause against
+his attack. 'I'll just tell you one thing then,' said the cook,
+shaking out her words to the time of a whisk she was beating eggs with.
+'Whatever maids' logic is and maids' malice too, if Cytherea Graye even
+now knows that young Springrove is free again, she'll fling over the
+steward as soon as look at him.'
+
+'No, no: not now,' the coachman broke in like a moderator. 'There's
+honour in that maid, if ever there was in one. No Miss Hinton's tricks
+in her. She'll stick to Manston.'
+
+'Pifh!'
+
+'Don't let a word be said till the wedden is over, for Heaven's sake,'
+the clerk continued. 'Miss Aldclyffe would fairly hang and quarter me,
+if my news broke off that there wedden at a last minute like this.'
+
+'Then you had better get your wife to bolt you in the closet for an hour
+or two, for you'll chatter it yourself to the whole boiling parish if
+she don't! 'Tis a poor womanly feller!'
+
+'You shouldn't ha' begun it, clerk. I knew how 'twould be,' said the
+gardener soothingly, in a whisper to the clerk's mangled remains.
+
+The clerk turned and smiled at the fire, and warmed his other hand.
+
+3. NOON
+
+The weather gave way. In half-an-hour there began a rapid thaw. By
+ten o'clock the roads, though still dangerous, were practicable to the
+extent of the half-mile required by the people of Knapwater Park. One
+mass of heavy leaden cloud spread over the whole sky; the air began to
+feel damp and mild out of doors, though still cold and frosty within.
+
+They reached the church and passed up the nave, the deep-coloured glass
+of the narrow windows rendering the gloom of the morning almost night
+itself inside the building. Then the ceremony began. The only warmth
+or spirit imported into it came from the bridegroom, who retained a
+vigorous--even Spenserian--bridal-mood throughout the morning.
+
+Cytherea was as firm as he at this critical moment, but as cold as the
+air surrounding her. The few persons forming the wedding-party were
+constrained in movement and tone, and from the nave of the church came
+occasional coughs, emitted by those who, in spite of the weather, had
+assembled to see the termination of Cytherea's existence as a single
+woman. Many poor people loved her. They pitied her success, why, they
+could not tell, except that it was because she seemed to stand more like
+a statue than Cytherea Graye.
+
+Yet she was prettily and carefully dressed; a strange contradiction in
+a man's idea of things--a saddening, perplexing contradiction. Are
+there any points in which a difference of sex amounts to a difference of
+nature? Then this is surely one. Not so much, as it is commonly put, in
+regard to the amount of consideration given, but in the conception of
+the thing considered. A man emasculated by coxcombry may spend more time
+upon the arrangement of his clothes than any woman, but even then there
+is no fetichism in his idea of them--they are still only a covering
+he uses for a time. But here was Cytherea, in the bottom of her heart
+almost indifferent to life, yet possessing an instinct with which her
+heart had nothing to do, the instinct to be particularly regardful of
+those sorry trifles, her robe, her flowers, her veil, and her gloves.
+
+The irrevocable words were soon spoken--the indelible writing soon
+written--and they came out of the vestry. Candles had been necessary
+here to enable them to sign their names, and on their return to the
+church the light from the candles streamed from the small open door,
+and across the chancel to a black chestnut screen on the south side,
+dividing it from a small chapel or chantry, erected for the soul's peace
+of some Aldclyffe of the past. Through the open-work of this screen
+could now be seen illuminated, inside the chantry, the reclining figures
+of cross-legged knights, damp and green with age, and above them a
+huge classic monument, also inscribed to the Aldclyffe family, heavily
+sculptured in cadaverous marble.
+
+Leaning here--almost hanging to the monument--was Edward Springrove, or
+his spirit.
+
+The weak daylight would never have revealed him, shaded as he was by the
+screen; but the unexpected rays of candle-light in the front showed him
+forth in startling relief to any and all of those whose eyes wandered in
+that direction. The sight was a sad one--sad beyond all description. His
+eyes were wild, their orbits leaden. His face was of a sickly paleness,
+his hair dry and disordered, his lips parted as if he could get no
+breath. His figure was spectre-thin. His actions seemed beyond his own
+control.
+
+Manston did not see him; Cytherea did. The healing effect upon her heart
+of a year's silence--a year and a half's separation--was undone in
+an instant. One of those strange revivals of passion by mere
+sight--commoner in women than in men, and in oppressed women commonest
+of all--had taken place in her--so transcendently, that even to herself
+it seemed more like a new creation than a revival.
+
+Marrying for a home--what a mockery it was!
+
+It may be said that the means most potent for rekindling old love in a
+maiden's heart are, to see her lover in laughter and good spirits in her
+despite when the breach has been owing to a slight from herself; when
+owing to a slight from him, to see him suffering for his own fault. If
+he is happy in a clear conscience, she blames him; if he is miserable
+because deeply to blame, she blames herself. The latter was Cytherea's
+case now.
+
+First, an agony of face told of the suppressed misery within her, which
+presently could be suppressed no longer. When they were coming out of
+the porch, there broke from her in a low plaintive scream the words,
+'He's dying--dying! O God, save us!' She began to sink down, and would
+have fallen had not Manston caught her. The chief bridesmaid applied her
+vinaigrette.
+
+'What did she say?' inquired Manston.
+
+Owen was the only one to whom the words were intelligible, and he was
+far too deeply impressed, or rather alarmed, to reply. She did not
+faint, and soon began to recover her self-command. Owen took advantage
+of the hindrance to step back to where the apparition had been seen.
+He was enraged with Springrove for what he considered an unwarrantable
+intrusion.
+
+But Edward was not in the chantry. As he had come, so he had gone,
+nobody could tell how or whither.
+
+4. AFTERNOON
+
+It might almost have been believed that a transmutation had taken place
+in Cytherea's idiosyncrasy, that her moral nature had fled.
+
+The wedding-party returned to the house. As soon as he could find an
+opportunity, Owen took his sister aside to speak privately with her
+on what had happened. The expression of her face was hard, wild, and
+unreal--an expression he had never seen there before, and it disturbed
+him. He spoke to her severely and sadly.
+
+'Cytherea,' he said, 'I know the cause of this emotion of yours. But
+remember this, there was no excuse for it. You should have been woman
+enough to control yourself. Remember whose wife you are, and don't
+think anything more of a mean-spirited fellow like Springrove; he had
+no business to come there as he did. You are altogether wrong, Cytherea,
+and I am vexed with you more than I can say--very vexed.'
+
+'Say ashamed of me at once,' she bitterly answered.
+
+'I am ashamed of you,' he retorted angrily; 'the mood has not left you
+yet, then?'
+
+'Owen,' she said, and paused. Her lip trembled; her eye told of
+sensations too deep for tears. 'No, Owen, it has not left me; and I will
+be honest. I own now to you, without any disguise of words, what last
+night I did not own to myself, because I hardly knew of it. I love
+Edward Springrove with all my strength, and heart, and soul. You call me
+a wanton for it, don't you? I don't care; I have gone beyond caring for
+anything!' She looked stonily into his face and made the speech calmly.
+
+'Well, poor Cytherea, don't talk like that!' he said, alarmed at her
+manner.
+
+'I thought that I did not love him at all,' she went on hysterically. 'A
+year and a half had passed since we met. I could go by the gate of his
+garden without thinking of him--look at his seat in church and not care.
+But I saw him this morning--dying because he loves me so--I know it is
+that! Can I help loving him too? No, I cannot, and I will love him, and
+I don't care! We have been separated somehow by some contrivance--I know
+we have. O, if I could only die!'
+
+He held her in his arms. 'Many a woman has gone to ruin herself,' he
+said, 'and brought those who love her into disgrace, by acting upon such
+impulses as possess you now. I have a reputation to lose as well as you.
+It seems that do what I will by way of remedying the stains which fell
+upon us, it is all doomed to be undone again.' His voice grew husky as
+he made the reply.
+
+The right and only effective chord had been touched. Since she had
+seen Edward, she had thought only of herself and him. Owen--her
+name--position--future--had been as if they did not exist.
+
+'I won't give way and become a disgrace to _you_, at any rate,' she
+said.
+
+'Besides, your duty to society, and those about you, requires that you
+should live with (at any rate) all the appearance of a good wife, and
+try to love your husband.'
+
+'Yes--my duty to society,' she murmured. 'But ah, Owen, it is difficult
+to adjust our outer and inner life with perfect honesty to all! Though
+it may be right to care more for the benefit of the many than for the
+indulgence of your own single self, when you consider that the many, and
+duty to them, only exist to you through your own existence, what can be
+said? What do our own acquaintances care about us? Not much. I think of
+mine. Mine will now (do they learn all the wicked frailty of my heart in
+this affair) look at me, smile sickly, and condemn me. And perhaps, far
+in time to come, when I am dead and gone, some other's accent, or some
+other's song, or thought, like an old one of mine, will carry them back
+to what I used to say, and hurt their hearts a little that they blamed
+me so soon. And they will pause just for an instant, and give a sigh to
+me, and think, "Poor girl!" believing they do great justice to my
+memory by this. But they will never, never realize that it was my single
+opportunity of existence, as well as of doing my duty, which they are
+regarding; they will not feel that what to them is but a thought, easily
+held in those two words of pity, "Poor girl!" was a whole life to me;
+as full of hours, minutes, and peculiar minutes, of hopes and dreads,
+smiles, whisperings, tears, as theirs: that it was my world, what is to
+them their world, and they in that life of mine, however much I cared
+for them, only as the thought I seem to them to be. Nobody can enter
+into another's nature truly, that's what is so grievous.'
+
+'Well, it cannot be helped,' said Owen.
+
+'But we must not stay here,' she continued, starting up and going. 'We
+shall be missed. I'll do my best, Owen--I will, indeed.'
+
+It had been decided that on account of the wretched state of the roads,
+the newly-married pair should not drive to the station till the latest
+hour in the afternoon at which they could get a train to take them to
+Southampton (their destination that night) by a reasonable time in the
+evening. They intended the next morning to cross to Havre, and thence to
+Paris--a place Cytherea had never visited--for their wedding tour.
+
+The afternoon drew on. The packing was done. Cytherea was so restless
+that she could stay still nowhere. Miss Aldclyffe, who, though she took
+little part in the day's proceedings, was, as it were, instinctively
+conscious of all their movements, put down her charge's agitation for
+once as the natural result of the novel event, and Manston himself was
+as indulgent as could be wished.
+
+At length Cytherea wandered alone into the conservatory. When in it,
+she thought she would run across to the hot-house in the outer garden,
+having in her heart a whimsical desire that she should also like to
+take a last look at the familiar flowers and luxuriant leaves collected
+there. She pulled on a pair of overshoes, and thither she went. Not
+a soul was in or around the place. The gardener was making merry on
+Manston's and her account.
+
+The happiness that a generous spirit derives from the belief that it
+exists in others is often greater than the primary happiness itself. The
+gardener thought 'How happy they are!' and the thought made him happier
+than they.
+
+Coming out of the forcing-house again, she was on the point of returning
+indoors, when a feeling that these moments of solitude would be her last
+of freedom induced her to prolong them a little, and she stood
+still, unheeding the wintry aspect of the curly-leaved plants, the
+straw-covered beds, and the bare fruit-trees around her. The garden, no
+part of which was visible from the house, sloped down to a narrow river
+at the foot, dividing it from the meadows without.
+
+A man was lingering along the public path on the other side of the
+river; she fancied she knew the form. Her resolutions, taken in the
+presence of Owen, did not fail her now. She hoped and prayed that it
+might not be one who had stolen her heart away, and still kept it. Why
+should he have reappeared at all, when he had declared that he went out
+of her sight for ever?
+
+She hastily hid herself, in the lowest corner of the garden close to the
+river. A large dead tree, thickly robed in ivy, had been considerably
+depressed by its icy load of the morning, and hung low over the stream,
+which here ran slow and deep. The tree screened her from the eyes of any
+passer on the other side.
+
+She waited timidly, and her timidity increased. She would not allow
+herself to see him--she would hear him pass, and then look to see if it
+had been Edward.
+
+But, before she heard anything, she became aware of an object reflected
+in the water from under the tree which hung over the river in such a way
+that, though hiding the actual path, and objects upon it, it permitted
+their reflected images to pass beneath its boughs. The reflected form
+was that of the man she had seen further off, but being inverted, she
+could not definitely characterize him.
+
+He was looking at the upper windows of the House--at hers--was it
+Edward, indeed? If so, he was probably thinking he would like to say
+one parting word. He came closer, gazed into the stream, and walked very
+slowly. She was almost certain that it was Edward. She kept more safely
+hidden. Conscience told her that she ought not to see him. But she
+suddenly asked herself a question: 'Can it be possible that he sees my
+reflected image, as I see his? Of course he does!'
+
+He was looking at her in the water.
+
+She could not help herself now. She stepped forward just as he emerged
+from the other side of the tree and appeared erect before her. It was
+Edward Springrove--till the inverted vision met his eye, dreaming no
+more of seeing his Cytherea there than of seeing the dead themselves.
+
+'Cytherea!'
+
+'Mr. Springrove,' she returned, in a low voice, across the stream.
+
+He was the first to speak again.
+
+'Since we have met, I want to tell you something, before we become quite
+as strangers to each other.'
+
+'No--not now--I did not mean to speak--it is not right, Edward.' She
+spoke hurriedly and turned away from him, beating the air with her hand.
+
+'Not one common word of explanation?' he implored. 'Don't think I am bad
+enough to try to lead you astray. Well, go--it is better.'
+
+Their eyes met again. She was nearly choked. O, how she longed--and
+dreaded--to hear his explanation!
+
+'What is it?' she said desperately.
+
+'It is that I did not come to the church this morning in order to
+distress you: I did not, Cytherea. It was to try to speak to you before
+you were--married.'
+
+He stepped closer, and went on, 'You know what has taken place? Surely
+you do?--my cousin is married, and I am free.'
+
+'Married--and not to you?' Cytherea faltered, in a weak whisper.
+
+'Yes, she was married yesterday! A rich man had appeared, and she jilted
+me. She said she never would have jilted a stranger, but that by jilting
+me, she only exercised the right everybody has of snubbing their own
+relations. But that's nothing now. I came to you to ask once more if....
+But I was too late.'
+
+'But, Edward, what's that, what's that!' she cried, in an agony of
+reproach. 'Why did you leave me to return to her? Why did you write me
+that cruel, cruel letter that nearly killed me!'
+
+'Cytherea! Why, you had grown to love--like--Mr. Manston, and how could
+you be anything to me--or care for me? Surely I acted naturally?'
+
+'O no--never! I loved you--only you--not him--always you!--till
+lately.... I try to love him now.'
+
+'But that can't be correct! Miss Aldclyffe told me that you wanted to
+hear no more of me--proved it to me!' said Edward.
+
+'Never! she couldn't.'
+
+'She did, Cytherea. And she sent me a letter--a love-letter, you wrote
+to Mr. Manston.'
+
+'A love-letter I wrote?'
+
+'Yes, a love-letter--you could not meet him just then, you said you
+were sorry, but the emotion you had felt with him made you forgetful of
+realities.'
+
+The strife of thought in the unhappy girl who listened to this
+distortion of her meaning could find no vent in words. And then there
+followed the slow revelation in return, bringing with it all the misery
+of an explanation which comes too late. The question whether Miss
+Aldclyffe were schemer or dupe was almost passed over by Cytherea,
+under the immediate oppressiveness of her despair in the sense that her
+position was irretrievable.
+
+Not so Springrove. He saw through all the cunning
+half-misrepresentations--worse than downright lies--which had just been
+sufficient to turn the scale both with him and with her; and from the
+bottom of his soul he cursed the woman and man who had brought all this
+agony upon him and his Love. But he could not add more misery to the
+future of the poor child by revealing too much. The whole scheme she
+should never know.
+
+'I was indifferent to my own future,' Edward said, 'and was urged to
+promise adherence to my engagement with my cousin Adelaide by Miss
+Aldclyffe: now you are married I cannot tell you how, but it was on
+account of my father. Being forbidden to think of you, what did I care
+about anything? My new thought that you still loved me was first raised
+by what my father said in the letter announcing my cousin's marriage. He
+said that although you were to be married on Old Christmas Day--that
+is to-morrow--he had noticed your appearance with pity: he thought
+you loved me still. It was enough for me--I came down by the earliest
+morning train, thinking I could see you some time to-day, the day, as I
+thought, before your marriage, hoping, but hardly daring to hope, that
+you might be induced to marry me. I hurried from the station; when I
+reached the village I saw idlers about the church, and the private gate
+leading to the House open. I ran into the church by the small door and
+saw you come out of the vestry; I was too late. I have now told you.
+I was compelled to tell you. O, my lost darling, now I shall live
+content--or die content!'
+
+'I am to blame, Edward, I am,' she said mournfully; 'I was taught to
+dread pauperism; my nights were made sleepless; there was continually
+reiterated in my ears till I believed it--
+
+     '"The world and its ways have a certain worth,
+       And to press a point where these oppose
+       Were a simple policy."
+
+'But I will say nothing about who influenced--who persuaded. The act
+is mine, after all. Edward, I married to escape dependence for my bread
+upon the whim of Miss Aldclyffe, or others like her. It was clearly
+represented to me that dependence is bearable if we have another place
+which we can call home; but to be a dependent and to have no other spot
+for the heart to anchor upon--O, it is mournful and harassing!... But
+that without which all persuasion would have been as air, was added by
+my miserable conviction that you were false; that did it, that turned
+me! You were to be considered as nobody to me, and Mr. Manston was
+invariably kind. Well, the deed is done--I must abide by it. I shall
+never let him know that I do not love him--never. If things had only
+remained as they seemed to be, if you had really forgotten me and
+married another woman, I could have borne it better. I wish I did not
+know the truth as I know it now! But our life, what is it? Let us be
+brave, Edward, and live out our few remaining years with dignity. They
+will not be long. O, I hope they will not be long!... Now, good-bye,
+good-bye!'
+
+'I wish I could be near and touch you once, just once,' said Springrove,
+in a voice which he vainly endeavoured to keep firm and clear.
+
+They looked at the river, then into it; a shoal of minnows was floating
+over the sandy bottom, like the black dashes on miniver; though narrow,
+the stream was deep, and there was no bridge.
+
+'Cytherea, reach out your hand that I may just touch it with mine.'
+
+She stepped to the brink and stretched out her hand and fingers towards
+his, but not into them. The river was too wide.
+
+'Never mind,' said Cytherea, her voice broken by agitation, 'I must be
+going. God bless and keep you, my Edward! God bless you!'
+
+'I must touch you, I must press your hand,' he said.
+
+They came near--nearer--nearer still--their fingers met. There was
+a long firm clasp, so close and still that each hand could feel the
+other's pulse throbbing beside its own.
+
+'My Cytherea! my stolen pet lamb!'
+
+She glanced a mute farewell from her large perturbed eyes, turned, and
+ran up the garden without looking back. All was over between them.
+The river flowed on as quietly and obtusely as ever, and the minnows
+gathered again in their favourite spot as if they had never been
+disturbed.
+
+Nobody indoors guessed from her countenance and bearing that her heart
+was near to breaking with the intensity of the misery which gnawed
+there. At these times a woman does not faint, or weep, or scream, as she
+will in the moment of sudden shocks. When lanced by a mental agony
+of such refined and special torture that it is indescribable by men's
+words, she moves among her acquaintances much as before, and contrives
+so to cast her actions in the old moulds that she is only considered to
+be rather duller than usual.
+
+5. HALF-PAST TWO TO FIVE O'CLOCK P.M.
+
+Owen accompanied the newly-married couple to the railway-station, and in
+his anxiety to see the last of his sister, left the brougham and stood
+upon his crutches whilst the train was starting.
+
+When the husband and wife were about to enter the railway-carriage they
+saw one of the porters looking frequently and furtively at them. He was
+pale, and apparently very ill.
+
+'Look at that poor sick man,' said Cytherea compassionately, 'surely he
+ought not to be here.'
+
+'He's been very queer to-day, madam, very queer,' another porter
+answered. 'He do hardly hear when he's spoken to, and d' seem giddy, or
+as if something was on his mind. He's been like it for this month past,
+but nothing so bad as he is to-day.'
+
+'Poor thing.'
+
+She could not resist an innate desire to do some just thing on this most
+deceitful and wretched day of her life. Going up to him she gave him
+money, and told him to send to the old manor-house for wine or whatever
+he wanted.
+
+The train moved off as the trembling man was murmuring his incoherent
+thanks. Owen waved his hand; Cytherea smiled back to him as if it were
+unknown to her that she wept all the while.
+
+Owen was driven back to the Old House. But he could not rest in the
+lonely place. His conscience began to reproach him for having forced on
+the marriage of his sister with a little too much peremptoriness. Taking
+up his crutches he went out of doors and wandered about the muddy roads
+with no object in view save that of getting rid of time.
+
+The clouds which had hung so low and densely during the day cleared from
+the west just now as the sun was setting, calling forth a weakly twitter
+from a few small birds. Owen crawled down the path to the waterfall, and
+lingered thereabout till the solitude of the place oppressed him, when
+he turned back and into the road to the village. He was sad; he said to
+himself--
+
+'If there is ever any meaning in those heavy feelings which are called
+presentiments--and I don't believe there is--there will be in mine
+to-day.... Poor little Cytherea!'
+
+At that moment the last low rays of the sun touched the head and
+shoulders of a man who was approaching, and showed him up to Owen's
+view. It was old Mr. Springrove. They had grown familiar with each other
+by reason of Owen's visits to Knapwater during the past year. The farmer
+inquired how Owen's foot was progressing, and was glad to see him so
+nimble again.
+
+'How is your son?' said Owen mechanically.
+
+'He is at home, sitting by the fire,' said the farmer, in a sad voice.
+'This morning he slipped indoors from God knows where, and there he sits
+and mopes, and thinks, and thinks, and presses his head so hard, that I
+can't help feeling for him.'
+
+'Is he married?' said Owen. Cytherea had feared to tell him of the
+interview in the garden.
+
+'No. I can't quite understand how the matter rests.... Ah! Edward, too,
+who started with such promise; that he should now have become such a
+careless fellow--not a month in one place. There, Mr. Graye, I know what
+it is mainly owing to. If it hadn't been for that heart affair, he might
+have done--but the less said about him the better. I don't know what we
+should have done if Miss Aldclyffe had insisted upon the conditions of
+the leases. Your brother-in-law, the steward, had a hand in making
+it light for us, I know, and I heartily thank him for it.' He ceased
+speaking, and looked round at the sky.
+
+'Have you heard o' what's happened?' he said suddenly; 'I was just
+coming out to learn about it.'
+
+'I haven't heard of anything.'
+
+'It is something very serious, though I don't know what. All I know is
+what I heard a man call out bynow--that it very much concerns somebody
+who lives in the parish.'
+
+It seems singular enough, even to minds who have no dim beliefs in
+adumbration and presentiment, that at that moment not the shadow of a
+thought crossed Owen's mind that the somebody whom the matter concerned
+might be himself, or any belonging to him. The event about to transpire
+was as portentous to the woman whose welfare was more dear to him than
+his own, as any, short of death itself, could possibly be; and ever
+afterwards, when he considered the effect of the knowledge the next
+half-hour conveyed to his brain, even his practical good sense could not
+refrain from wonder that he should have walked toward the village after
+hearing those words of the farmer, in so leisurely and unconcerned a
+way. 'How unutterably mean must my intelligence have appeared to the eye
+of a foreseeing God,' he frequently said in after-time. 'Columbus on the
+eve of his discovery of a world was not so contemptibly unaware.'
+
+After a few additional words of common-place the farmer left him, and,
+as has been said, Owen proceeded slowly and indifferently towards the
+village.
+
+The labouring men had just left work, and passed the park gate, which
+opened into the street as Owen came down towards it. They went along in
+a drift, earnestly talking, and were finally about to turn in at their
+respective doorways. But upon seeing him they looked significantly at
+one another, and paused. He came into the road, on that side of the
+village-green which was opposite the row of cottages, and turned round
+to the right. When Owen turned, all eyes turned; one or two men went
+hurriedly indoors, and afterwards appeared at the doorstep with their
+wives, who also contemplated him, talking as they looked. They seemed
+uncertain how to act in some matter.
+
+'If they want me, surely they will call me,' he thought, wondering
+more and more. He could no longer doubt that he was connected with the
+subject of their discourse.
+
+The first who approached him was a boy.
+
+'What has occurred?' said Owen.
+
+'O, a man ha' got crazy-religious, and sent for the pa'son.'
+
+'Is that all?'
+
+'Yes, sir. He wished he was dead, he said, and he's almost out of his
+mind wi' wishen it so much. That was before Mr. Raunham came.'
+
+'Who is he?' said Owen.
+
+'Joseph Chinney, one of the railway-porters; he used to be
+night-porter.'
+
+'Ah--the man who was ill this afternoon; by the way, he was told to come
+to the Old House for something, but he hasn't been. But has anything
+else happened--anything that concerns the wedding to-day?'
+
+'No, sir.'
+
+Concluding that the connection which had seemed to be traced between
+himself and the event must in some way have arisen from Cytherea's
+friendliness towards the man, Owen turned about and went homewards in
+a much quieter frame of mind--yet scarcely satisfied with the solution.
+The route he had chosen led through the dairy-yard, and he opened the
+gate.
+
+Five minutes before this point of time, Edward Springrove was looking
+over one of his father's fields at an outlying hamlet of three or four
+cottages some mile and a half distant. A turnpike-gate was close by the
+gate of the field.
+
+The carrier to Casterbridge came up as Edward stepped into the road, and
+jumped down from the van to pay toll. He recognized Springrove. 'This is
+a pretty set-to in your place, sir,' he said. 'You don't know about it,
+I suppose?'
+
+'What?' said Springrove.
+
+The carrier paid his dues, came up to Edward, and spoke ten words in a
+confidential whisper: then sprang upon the shafts of his vehicle, gave a
+clinching nod of significance to Springrove, and rattled away.
+
+Edward turned pale with the intelligence. His first thought was, 'Bring
+her home!'
+
+The next--did Owen Graye know what had been discovered? He probably
+did by that time, but no risks of probability must be run by a woman
+he loved dearer than all the world besides. He would at any rate make
+perfectly sure that her brother was in possession of the knowledge, by
+telling it him with his own lips.
+
+Off he ran in the direction of the old manor-house.
+
+The path was across arable land, and was ploughed up with the rest of
+the field every autumn, after which it was trodden out afresh. The thaw
+had so loosened the soft earth, that lumps of stiff mud were lifted
+by his feet at every leap he took, and flung against him by his rapid
+motion, as it were doggedly impeding him, and increasing tenfold the
+customary effort of running,
+
+But he ran on--uphill, and downhill, the same pace alike--like the
+shadow of a cloud. His nearest direction, too, like Owen's, was through
+the dairy-barton, and as Owen entered it he saw the figure of Edward
+rapidly descending the opposite hill, at a distance of two or three
+hundred yards. Owen advanced amid the cows.
+
+The dairyman, who had hitherto been talking loudly on some absorbing
+subject to the maids and men milking around him, turned his face towards
+the head of the cow when Owen passed, and ceased speaking.
+
+Owen approached him and said--
+
+'A singular thing has happened, I hear. The man is not insane, I
+suppose?'
+
+'Not he--he's sensible enough,' said the dairyman, and paused. He was a
+man noisy with his associates--stolid and taciturn with strangers.
+
+'Is it true that he is Chinney, the railway-porter?'
+
+'That's the man, sir.' The maids and men sitting under the cows were all
+attentively listening to this discourse, milking irregularly, and softly
+directing the jets against the sides of the pail.
+
+Owen could contain himself no longer, much as his mind dreaded anything
+of the nature of ridicule. 'The people all seem to look at me, as if
+something seriously concerned me; is it this stupid matter, or what is
+it?'
+
+'Surely, sir, you know better than anybody else if such a strange thing
+concerns you.'
+
+'What strange thing?'
+
+'Don't you know! His confessing to Parson Raunham.'
+
+'What did he confess? Tell me.'
+
+'If you really ha'n't heard, 'tis this. He was as usual on duty at the
+station on the night of the fire last year, otherwise he wouldn't ha'
+known it.'
+
+'Known what? For God's sake tell, man!'
+
+But at this instant the two opposite gates of the dairy-yard, one on the
+east, the other on the west side, slammed almost simultaneously.
+
+The rector from one, Springrove from the other, came striding across the
+barton.
+
+Edward was nearest, and spoke first. He said in a low voice: 'Your
+sister is not legally married! His first wife is still living! How it
+comes out I don't know!'
+
+'O, here you are at last, Mr. Graye, thank Heaven!' said the rector
+breathlessly. 'I have been to the Old House, and then to Miss
+Aldclyffe's looking for you--something very extraordinary.' He beckoned
+to Owen, afterwards included Springrove in his glance, and the three
+stepped aside together.
+
+'A porter at the station. He was a curious nervous man. He had been in a
+strange state all day, but he wouldn't go home. Your sister was kind
+to him, it seems, this afternoon. When she and her husband had gone, he
+went on with his work, shifting luggage-vans. Well, he got in the way,
+as if he were quite lost to what was going on, and they sent him home at
+last. Then he wished to see me. I went directly. There was something
+on his mind, he said, and told it. About the time when the fire of last
+November twelvemonth was got under, whilst he was by himself in the
+porter's room, almost asleep, somebody came to the station and tried to
+open the door. He went out and found the person to be the lady he had
+accompanied to Carriford earlier in the evening, Mrs. Manston. She
+asked, when would be another train to London? The first the next
+morning, he told her, was at a quarter-past six o'clock from Budmouth,
+but that it was express, and didn't stop at Carriford Road--it didn't
+stop till it got to Anglebury. "How far is it to Anglebury?" she said.
+He told her, and she thanked him, and went away up the line. In a short
+time she ran back and took out her purse. "Don't on any account say
+a word in the village or anywhere that I have been here, or a single
+breath about me--I'm ashamed ever to have come." He promised; she took
+out two sovereigns. "Swear it on the Testament in the waiting-room," she
+said, "and I'll pay you these." He got the book, took an oath upon it,
+received the money, and she left him. He was off duty at half-past
+five. He has kept silence all through the intervening time till now, but
+lately the knowledge he possessed weighed heavily upon his conscience
+and weak mind. Yet the nearer came the wedding-day, the more he feared
+to tell. The actual marriage filled him with remorse. He says your
+sister's kindness afterwards was like a knife going through his heart.
+He thought he had ruined her.'
+
+'But whatever can be done? Why didn't he speak sooner?' cried Owen.
+
+'He actually called at my house twice yesterday,' the rector continued,
+'resolved, it seems, to unburden his mind. I was out both times--he
+left no message, and, they say, he looked relieved that his object was
+defeated. Then he says he resolved to come to you at the Old House last
+night--started, reached the door, and dreaded to knock--and then went
+home again.'
+
+'Here will be a tale for the newsmongers of the county,' said Owen
+bitterly. 'The idea of his not opening his mouth sooner--the criminality
+of the thing!'
+
+'Ah, that's the inconsistency of a weak nature. But now that it is put
+to us in this way, how much more probable it seems that she should have
+escaped than have been burnt--'
+
+'You will, of course, go straight to Mr. Manston, and ask him what it
+all means?' Edward interrupted.
+
+'Of course I shall! Manston has no right to carry off my sister unless
+he's her husband,' said Owen. 'I shall go and separate them.'
+
+'Certainly you will,' said the rector.
+
+'Where's the man?'
+
+'In his cottage.'
+
+''Tis no use going to him, either. I must go off at once and overtake
+them--lay the case before Manston, and ask him for additional and
+certain proofs of his first wife's death. An up-train passes soon, I
+think.'
+
+'Where have they gone?' said Edward.
+
+'To Paris--as far as Southampton this afternoon, to proceed to-morrow
+morning.'
+
+'Where in Southampton?'
+
+'I really don't know--some hotel. I only have their Paris address. But I
+shall find them by making a few inquiries.'
+
+The rector had in the meantime been taking out his pocket-book, and now
+opened it at the first page, whereon it was his custom every month to
+gum a small railway time-table--cut from the local newspaper.
+
+'The afternoon express is just gone,' he said, holding open the page,
+'and the next train to Southampton passes at ten minutes to six o'clock.
+Now it wants--let me see--five-and-forty minutes to that time. Mr.
+Graye, my advice is that you come with me to the porter's cottage, where
+I will shortly write out the substance of what he has said, and get
+him to sign it. You will then have far better grounds for interfering
+between Mr. and Mrs. Manston than if you went to them with a mere
+hearsay story.'
+
+The suggestion seemed a good one. 'Yes, there will be time before the
+train starts,' said Owen.
+
+Edward had been musing restlessly.
+
+'Let me go to Southampton in your place, on account of your lameness?'
+he said suddenly to Graye.
+
+'I am much obliged to you, but I think I can scarcely accept the offer,'
+returned Owen coldly. 'Mr. Manston is an honourable man, and I had much
+better see him myself.'
+
+'There is no doubt,' said Mr. Raunham, 'that the death of his wife was
+fully believed in by himself.'
+
+'None whatever,' said Owen; 'and the news must be broken to him, and the
+question of other proofs asked, in a friendly way. It would not do for
+Mr. Springrove to appear in the case at all.' He still spoke rather
+coldly; the recollection of the attachment between his sister and Edward
+was not a pleasant one to him.
+
+'You will never find them,' said Edward. 'You have never been to
+Southampton, and I know every house there.'
+
+'That makes little difference,' said the rector; 'he will have a cab.
+Certainly Mr. Graye is the proper man to go on the errand.'
+
+'Stay; I'll telegraph to ask them to meet me when I arrive at the
+terminus,' said Owen; 'that is, if their train has not already arrived.'
+
+Mr. Raunham pulled out his pocket-book again. 'The two-thirty train
+reached Southampton a quarter of an hour ago,' he said.
+
+It was too late to catch them at the station. Nevertheless, the rector
+suggested that it would be worth while to direct a message to 'all the
+respectable hotels in Southampton,' on the chance of its finding them,
+and thus saving a deal of personal labour to Owen in searching about the
+place.
+
+'I'll go and telegraph, whilst you return to the man,' said Edward--an
+offer which was accepted. Graye and the rector then turned off in the
+direction of the porter's cottage.
+
+Edward, to despatch the message at once, hurriedly followed the road
+towards the station, still restlessly thinking. All Owen's proceedings
+were based on the assumption, natural under the circumstances, of
+Manston's good faith, and that he would readily acquiesce in any
+arrangement which should clear up the mystery. 'But,' thought Edward,
+'suppose--and Heaven forgive me, I cannot help supposing it--that
+Manston is not that honourable man, what will a young and inexperienced
+fellow like Owen do? Will he not be hoodwinked by some specious story
+or another, framed to last till Manston gets tired of poor Cytherea?
+And then the disclosure of the truth will ruin and blacken both their
+futures irremediably.'
+
+However, he proceeded to execute his commission. This he put in the form
+of a simple request from Owen to Manston, that Manston would come to
+the Southampton platform, and wait for Owen's arrival, as he valued his
+reputation. The message was directed as the rector had suggested, Edward
+guaranteeing to the clerk who sent it off that every expense connected
+with the search would be paid.
+
+No sooner had the telegram been despatched than his heart sank within
+him at the want of foresight shown in sending it. Had Manston, all the
+time, a knowledge that his first wife lived, the telegram would be a
+forewarning which might enable him to defeat Owen still more signally.
+
+Whilst the machine was still giving off its multitudinous series of
+raps, Edward heard a powerful rush under the shed outside, followed by
+a long sonorous creak. It was a train of some sort, stealing softly into
+the station, and it was an up-train. There was the ring of a bell. It
+was certainly a passenger train.
+
+Yet the booking-office window was closed.
+
+'Ho, ho, John, seventeen minutes after time and only three stations up
+the line. The incline again?' The voice was the stationmaster's, and the
+reply seemed to come from the guard.
+
+'Yes, the other side of the cutting. The thaw has made it all in a
+perfect cloud of fog, and the rails are as slippery as glass. We had to
+bring them through the cutting at twice.'
+
+'Anybody else for the four-forty-five express?' the voice continued. The
+few passengers, having crossed over to the other side long before this
+time, had taken their places at once.
+
+A conviction suddenly broke in upon Edward's mind; then a wish
+overwhelmed him. The conviction--as startling as it was sudden--was that
+Manston was a villain, who at some earlier time had discovered that
+his wife lived, and had bribed her to keep out of sight, that he might
+possess Cytherea. The wish was--to proceed at once by this very train
+that was starting, find Manston before he would expect from the words
+of the telegram (if he got it) that anybody from Carriford could be
+with him--charge him boldly with the crime, and trust to his consequent
+confusion (if he were guilty) for a solution of the extraordinary
+riddle, and the release of Cytherea!
+
+The ticket-office had been locked up at the expiration of the time at
+which the train was due. Rushing out as the guard blew his whistle,
+Edward opened the door of a carriage and leapt in. The train moved
+along, and he was soon out of sight.
+
+Springrove had long since passed that peculiar line which lies across
+the course of falling in love--if, indeed, it may not be called the
+initial itself of the complete passion--a longing to cherish; when the
+woman is shifted in a man's mind from the region of mere admiration to
+the region of warm fellowship. At this assumption of her nature, she
+changes to him in tone, hue, and expression. All about the loved one
+that said 'She' before, says 'We' now. Eyes that were to be subdued
+become eyes to be feared for: a brain that was to be probed by cynicism
+becomes a brain that is to be tenderly assisted; feet that were to
+be tested in the dance become feet that are not to be distressed; the
+once-criticized accent, manner, and dress, become the clients of a
+special pleader.
+
+6. FIVE TO EIGHT O'CLOCK P.M.
+
+Now that he was fairly on the track, and had begun to cool down, Edward
+remembered that he had nothing to show--no legal authority whatever to
+question Manston or interfere between him and Cytherea as husband
+and wife. He now saw the wisdom of the rector in obtaining a signed
+confession from the porter. The document would not be a death-bed
+confession--perhaps not worth anything legally--but it would be held by
+Owen; and he alone, as Cytherea's natural guardian, could separate them
+on the mere ground of an unproved probability, or what might perhaps be
+called the hallucination of an idiot. Edward himself, however, was as
+firmly convinced as the rector had been of the truth of the man's story,
+and paced backward and forward the solitary compartment as the train
+wound through the dark heathery plains, the mazy woods, and moaning
+coppices, as resolved as ever to pounce on Manston, and charge him with
+the crime during the critical interval between the reception of the
+telegram and the hour at which Owen's train would arrive--trusting to
+circumstances for what he should say and do afterwards, but making up
+his mind to be a ready second to Owen in any emergency that might arise.
+
+At thirty-three minutes past seven he stood on the platform of the
+station at Southampton--a clear hour before the train containing Owen
+could possibly arrive.
+
+Making a few inquiries here, but too impatient to pursue his
+investigation carefully and inductively, he went into the town.
+
+At the expiration of another half-hour he had visited seven hotels and
+inns, large and small, asking the same questions at each, and always
+receiving the same reply--nobody of that name, or answering to that
+description, had been there. A boy from the telegraph-office had called,
+asking for the same persons, if they recollected rightly.
+
+He reflected awhile, struck again by a painful thought that they might
+possibly have decided to cross the Channel by the night-boat. Then he
+hastened off to another quarter of the town to pursue his inquiries
+among hotels of the more old-fashioned and quiet class. His stained and
+weary appearance obtained for him but a modicum of civility, wherever he
+went, which made his task yet more difficult. He called at three several
+houses in this neighbourhood, with the same result as before. He entered
+the door of the fourth house whilst the clock of the nearest church was
+striking eight.
+
+'Have a tall gentleman named Manston, and a young wife arrived here this
+evening?' he asked again, in words which had grown odd to his ears from
+very familiarity.
+
+'A new-married couple, did you say?'
+
+'They are, though I didn't say so.'
+
+'They have taken a sitting-room and bedroom, number thirteen.'
+
+'Are they indoors?'
+
+'I don't know. Eliza!'
+
+'Yes, m'm.'
+
+'See if number thirteen is in--that gentleman and his wife.'
+
+'Yes, m'm.'
+
+'Has any telegram come for them?' said Edward, when the maid had gone on
+her errand.
+
+'No--nothing that I know of.'
+
+'Somebody did come and ask if a Mr. and Mrs. Masters, or some such
+name, were here this evening,' said another voice from the back of the
+bar-parlour.
+
+'And did they get the message?'
+
+'Of course they did not--they were not here--they didn't come till
+half-an-hour after that. The man who made inquiries left no message. I
+told them when they came that they, or a name something like theirs, had
+been asked for, but they didn't seem to understand why it should be, and
+so the matter dropped.'
+
+The chambermaid came back. 'The gentleman is not in, but the lady is.
+Who shall I say?'
+
+'Nobody,' said Edward. For it now became necessary to reflect upon his
+method of proceeding. His object in finding their whereabouts--apart
+from the wish to assist Owen--had been to see Manston, ask him flatly
+for an explanation, and confirm the request of the message in the
+presence of Cytherea--so as to prevent the possibility of the steward's
+palming off a story upon Cytherea, or eluding her brother when he came.
+But here were two important modifications of the expected condition of
+affairs. The telegram had not been received, and Cytherea was in the
+house alone.
+
+He hesitated as to the propriety of intruding upon her in Manston's
+absence. Besides, the women at the bottom of the stairs would see
+him--his intrusion would seem odd--and Manston might return at
+any moment. He certainly might call, and wait for Manston with the
+accusation upon his tongue, as he had intended. But it was a doubtful
+course. That idea had been based upon the assumption that Cytherea was
+not married. If the first wife were really dead after all--and he
+felt sick at the thought--Cytherea as the steward's wife might in
+after-years--perhaps, at once--be subjected to indignity and cruelty on
+account of an old lover's interference now.
+
+Yes, perhaps the announcement would come most properly and safely for
+her from her brother Owen, the time of whose arrival had almost expired.
+
+But, on turning round, he saw that the staircase and passage were quite
+deserted. He and his errand had as completely died from the minds of
+the attendants as if they had never been. There was absolutely nothing
+between him and Cytherea's presence. Reason was powerless now; he must
+see her--right or wrong, fair or unfair to Manston--offensive to her
+brother or no. His lips must be the first to tell the alarming story to
+her. Who loved her as he! He went back lightly through the hall, up the
+stairs, two at a time, and followed the corridor till he came to the
+door numbered thirteen.
+
+He knocked softly: nobody answered.
+
+There was no time to lose if he would speak to Cytherea before Manston
+came. He turned the handle of the door and looked in. The lamp on the
+table burned low, and showed writing materials open beside it; the chief
+light came from the fire, the direct rays of which were obscured by a
+sweet familiar outline of head and shoulders--still as precious to him
+as ever.
+
+7. A QUARTER-PAST EIGHT O'CLOCK P.M.
+
+There is an attitude--approximatively called pensive--in which the soul
+of a human being, and especially of a woman, dominates outwardly and
+expresses its presence so strongly, that the intangible essence seems
+more apparent than the body itself. This was Cytherea's expression now.
+What old days and sunny eves at Budmouth Bay was she picturing? Her
+reverie had caused her not to notice his knock.
+
+'Cytherea!' he said softly.
+
+She let drop her hand, and turned her head, evidently thinking that her
+visitor could be no other than Manston, yet puzzled at the voice.
+
+There was no preface on Springrove's tongue; he forgot his
+position--hers--that he had come to ask quietly if Manston had other
+proofs of being a widower--everything--and jumped to a conclusion.
+
+'You are not his wife, Cytherea--come away, he has a wife living!' he
+cried in an agitated whisper. 'Owen will be here directly.'
+
+She started up, recognized the tidings first, the bearer of them
+afterwards. 'Not his wife? O, what is it--what--who is living?' She
+awoke by degrees. 'What must I do? Edward, it is you! Why did you come?
+Where is Owen?'
+
+'What has Manston shown you in proof of the death of his other wife?
+Tell me quick.'
+
+'Nothing--we have never spoken of the subject. Where is my brother Owen?
+I want him, I want him!'
+
+'He is coming by-and-by. Come to the station to meet him--do,' implored
+Springrove. 'If Mr. Manston comes, he will keep you from me: I am
+nobody,' he added bitterly, feeling the reproach her words had faintly
+shadowed forth.
+
+'Mr. Manston is only gone out to post a letter he has just written,' she
+said, and without being distinctly cognizant of the action, she wildly
+looked for her bonnet and cloak, and began putting them on, but in the
+act of fastening them uttered a spasmodic cry.
+
+'No, I'll not go out with you,' she said, flinging the articles
+down again. Running to the door she flitted along the passage, and
+downstairs.
+
+'Give me a private room--quite private,' she said breathlessly to some
+one below.
+
+'Number twelve is a single room, madam, and unoccupied,' said some
+tongue in astonishment.
+
+Without waiting for any person to show her into it, Cytherea hurried
+upstairs again, brushed through the corridor, entered the room
+specified, and closed the door. Edward heard her sob out--
+
+'Nobody but Owen shall speak to me--nobody!'
+
+'He will be here directly,' said Springrove, close against the panel,
+and then went towards the stairs. He had seen her; it was enough.
+
+He descended, stepped into the street, and hastened to meet Owen at the
+railway-station.
+
+As for the poor maiden who had received the news, she knew not what to
+think. She listened till the echo of Edward's footsteps had died away,
+then bowed her face upon the bed. Her sudden impulse had been to escape
+from sight. Her weariness after the unwonted strain, mental and bodily,
+which had been put upon her by the scenes she had passed through during
+the long day, rendered her much more timid and shaken by her position
+than she would naturally have been. She thought and thought of that
+single fact which had been told her--that the first Mrs. Manston was
+still living--till her brain seemed ready to burst its confinement with
+excess of throbbing. It was only natural that she should, by degrees,
+be unable to separate the discovery, which was matter of fact, from the
+suspicion of treachery on her husband's part, which was only matter of
+inference. And thus there arose in her a personal fear of him.
+
+'Suppose he should come in now and seize me!' This at first mere
+frenzied supposition grew by degrees to a definite horror of his
+presence, and especially of his intense gaze. Thus she raised herself to
+a heat of excitement, which was none the less real for being vented
+in no cry of any kind. No; she could not meet Manston's eye alone, she
+would only see him in her brother's company.
+
+Almost delirious with this idea, she ran and locked the door to prevent
+all possibility of her intentions being nullified, or a look or word
+being flung at her by anybody whilst she knew not what she was.
+
+8. HALF-PAST EIGHT O'CLOCK P.M.
+
+Then Cytherea felt her way amid the darkness of the room till she came
+to the head of the bed, where she searched for the bell-rope and gave it
+a pull. Her summons was speedily answered by the landlady herself,
+whose curiosity to know the meaning of these strange proceedings knew no
+bounds. The landlady attempted to turn the handle of the door. Cytherea
+kept the door locked. 'Please tell Mr. Manston when he comes that I am
+ill,' she said from the inside, 'and that I cannot see him.'
+
+'Certainly I will, madam,' said the landlady. 'Won't you have a fire?'
+
+'No, thank you.'
+
+'Nor a light?'
+
+'I don't want one, thank you.'
+
+'Nor anything?'
+
+'Nothing.'
+
+The landlady withdrew, thinking her visitor half insane.
+
+Manston came in about five minutes later, and went at once up to the
+sitting-room, fully expecting to find his wife there. He looked round,
+rang, and was told the words Cytherea had said, that she was too ill to
+be seen.
+
+'She is in number twelve room,' added the maid.
+
+Manston was alarmed, and knocked at the door. 'Cytherea!'
+
+'I am unwell, I cannot see you,' she said.
+
+'Are you seriously ill, dearest? Surely not.'
+
+'No, not seriously.'
+
+'Let me come in; I will get a doctor.'
+
+'No, he can't see me either.'
+
+'She won't open the door, sir, not to nobody at all!' said the
+chambermaid, with wonder-waiting eyes.
+
+'Hold your tongue, and be off!' said Manston with a snap.
+
+The maid vanished.
+
+'Come, Cytherea, this is foolish--indeed it is--not opening the door....
+I cannot comprehend what can be the matter with you. Nor can a doctor
+either, unless he sees you.'
+
+Her voice had trembled more and more at each answer she gave, but
+nothing could induce her to come out and confront him. Hating scenes,
+Manston went back to the sitting-room, greatly irritated and perplexed.
+
+And there Cytherea from the adjoining room could hear him pacing up
+and down. She thought, 'Suppose he insists upon seeing me--he probably
+may--and will burst open the door!' This notion increased, and she sank
+into a corner in a half-somnolent state, but with ears alive to the
+slightest sound. Reason could not overthrow the delirious fancy that
+outside her door stood Manston and all the people in the hotel, waiting
+to laugh her to scorn.
+
+9. HALF-PAST EIGHT TO ELEVEN P.M.
+
+In the meantime, Springrove was pacing up and down the arrival platform
+of the railway-station. Half-past eight o'clock--the time at which
+Owen's train was due--had come, and passed, but no train appeared.
+
+'When will the eight-thirty train be in?' he asked of a man who was
+sweeping the mud from the steps.
+
+'She is not expected yet this hour.'
+
+'How is that?'
+
+'Christmas-time, you see, 'tis always so. People are running about to
+see their friends. The trains have been like it ever since Christmas
+Eve, and will be for another week yet.'
+
+Edward again went on walking and waiting under the draughty roof. He
+found it utterly impossible to leave the spot. His mind was so
+intent upon the importance of meeting with Owen, and informing him of
+Cytherea's whereabouts, that he could not but fancy Owen might leave the
+station unobserved if he turned his back, and become lost to him in the
+streets of the town.
+
+The hour expired. Ten o'clock struck. 'When will the train be in?' said
+Edward to the telegraph clerk.
+
+'In five-and-thirty minutes. She's now at L----. They have extra
+passengers, and the rails are bad to-day.'
+
+At last, at a quarter to eleven, the train came in.
+
+The first to alight from it was Owen, looking pale and cold. He casually
+glanced round upon the nearly deserted platform, and was hurrying to the
+outlet, when his eyes fell upon Edward. At sight of his friend he was
+quite bewildered, and could not speak.
+
+'Here I am, Mr. Graye,' said Edward cheerfully. 'I have seen Cytherea,
+and she has been waiting for you these two or three hours.'
+
+Owen took Edward's hand, pressed it, and looked at him in silence. Such
+was the concentration of his mind, that not till many minutes after did
+he think of inquiring how Springrove had contrived to be there before
+him.
+
+10. ELEVEN O'CLOCK P.M.
+
+On their arrival at the door of the hotel, it was arranged between
+Springrove and Graye that the latter only should enter, Edward waiting
+outside. Owen had remembered continually what his friend had frequently
+overlooked, that there was yet a possibility of his sister being
+Manston's wife, and the recollection taught him to avoid any rashness in
+his proceedings which might lead to bitterness hereafter.
+
+Entering the room, he found Manston sitting in the chair which had been
+occupied by Cytherea on Edward's visit, three hours earlier. Before Owen
+had spoken, Manston arose, and stepping past him closed the door. His
+face appeared harassed--much more troubled than the slight circumstance
+which had as yet come to his knowledge seemed to account for.
+
+Manston could form no reason for Owen's presence, but intuitively linked
+it with Cytherea's seclusion. 'Altogether this is most unseemly,' he
+said, 'whatever it may mean.'
+
+'Don't think there is meant anything unfriendly by my coming here,' said
+Owen earnestly; 'but listen to this, and think if I could do otherwise
+than come.'
+
+He took from his pocket the confession of Chinney the porter, as hastily
+written out by the vicar, and read it aloud. The aspects of Manston's
+face whilst he listened to the opening words were strange, dark, and
+mysterious enough to have justified suspicions that no deceit could
+be too complicated for the possessor of such impulses, had there not
+overridden them all, as the reading went on, a new and irrepressible
+expression--one unmistakably honest. It was that of unqualified
+amazement in the steward's mind at the news he heard. Owen looked up
+and saw it. The sight only confirmed him in the belief he had held
+throughout, in antagonism to Edward's suspicions.
+
+There could no longer be a shadow of doubt that if the first Mrs.
+Manston lived, her husband was ignorant of the fact. What he could have
+feared by his ghastly look at first, and now have ceased to fear, it was
+quite futile to conjecture.
+
+'Now I do not for a moment doubt your complete ignorance of the whole
+matter; you cannot suppose for an instant that I do,' said Owen when he
+had finished reading. 'But is it not best for both that Cytherea should
+come back with me till the matter is cleared up? In fact, under the
+circumstances, no other course is left open to me than to request it.'
+
+Whatever Manston's original feelings had been, all in him now gave way
+to irritation, and irritation to rage. He paced up and down the room
+till he had mastered it; then said in ordinary tones--
+
+'Certainly, I know no more than you and others know--it was a gratuitous
+unpleasantness in you to say you did not doubt me. Why should you, or
+anybody, have doubted me?'
+
+'Well, where is my sister?' said Owen.
+
+'Locked in the next room.'
+
+His own answer reminded Manston that Cytherea must, by some inscrutable
+means, have had an inkling of the event.
+
+Owen had gone to the door of Cytherea's room.
+
+'Cytherea, darling--'tis Owen,' he said, outside the door. A rustling
+of clothes, soft footsteps, and a voice saying from the inside, 'Is it
+really you, Owen,--is it really?'
+
+'It is.'
+
+'O, will you take care of me?'
+
+'Always.'
+
+She unlocked the door, and retreated again. Manston came forward from
+the other room with a candle in his hand, as Owen pushed open the door.
+
+Her frightened eyes were unnaturally large, and shone like stars in the
+darkness of the background, as the light fell upon them. She leapt up to
+Owen in one bound, her small taper fingers extended like the leaves of a
+lupine. Then she clasped her cold and trembling hands round his neck and
+shivered.
+
+The sight of her again kindled all Manston's passions into activity.
+'She shall not go with you,' he said firmly, and stepping a pace or two
+closer, 'unless you prove that she is not my wife; and you can't do it!'
+
+'This is proof,' said Owen, holding up the paper.
+
+'No proof at all,' said Manston hotly. ''Tis not a death-bed confession,
+and those are the only things of the kind held as good evidence.'
+
+'Send for a lawyer,' Owen returned, 'and let him tell us the proper
+course to adopt.'
+
+'Never mind the law--let me go with Owen!' cried Cytherea, still holding
+on to him. 'You will let me go with him, won't you, sir?' she said,
+turning appealingly to Manston.
+
+'We'll have it all right and square,' said Manston, with more quietness.
+'I have no objection to your brother sending for a lawyer, if he wants
+to.'
+
+It was getting on for twelve o'clock, but the proprietor of the hotel
+had not yet gone to bed on account of the mystery on the first floor,
+which was an occurrence unusual in the quiet family lodging. Owen looked
+over the banisters, and saw him standing in the hall. It struck Graye
+that the wisest course would be to take the landlord to a certain extent
+into their confidence, appeal to his honour as a gentleman, and so on,
+in order to acquire the information he wanted, and also to prevent the
+episode of the evening from becoming a public piece of news. He called
+the landlord up to where they stood, and told him the main facts of the
+story.
+
+The landlord was fortunately a quiet, prejudiced man, and a meditative
+smoker.
+
+'I know the very man you want to see--the very man,' he said, looking
+at the general features of the candle-flame. 'Sharp as a needle, and not
+over-rich. Timms will put you all straight in no time--trust Timms for
+that.'
+
+'He's in bed by this time for certain,' said Owen.
+
+'Never mind that--Timms knows me, I know him. He'll oblige me as a
+personal favour. Wait here a bit. Perhaps, too, he's up at some party or
+another--he's a nice, jovial fellow, sharp as a needle, too; mind you,
+sharp as a needle, too.'
+
+He went downstairs, put on his overcoat, and left the house, the three
+persons most concerned entering the room, and standing motionless,
+awkward, and silent in the midst of it. Cytherea pictured to herself the
+long weary minutes she would have to stand there, whilst a sleepy man
+could be prepared for consultation, till the constraint between them
+seemed unendurable to her--she could never last out the time. Owen was
+annoyed that Manston had not quietly arranged with him at once; Manston
+at Owen's homeliness of idea in proposing to send for an attorney, as if
+he would be a touchstone of infallible proof.
+
+Reflection was cut short by the approach of footsteps, and in a few
+moments the proprietor of the hotel entered, introducing his friend.
+'Mr. Timms has not been in bed,' he said; 'he had just returned from
+dining with a few friends, so there's no trouble given. To save time I
+explained the matter as we came along.'
+
+It occurred to Owen and Manston both that they might get a misty
+exposition of the law from Mr. Timms at that moment of concluding dinner
+with a few friends.
+
+'As far as I can see,' said the lawyer, yawning, and turning his vision
+inward by main force, 'it is quite a matter for private arrangement
+between the parties, whoever the parties are--at least at present. I
+speak more as a father than as a lawyer, it is true, but, let the young
+lady stay with her father, or guardian, safe out of shame's way, until
+the mystery is sifted, whatever the mystery is. Should the evidence
+prove to be false, or trumped up by anybody to get her away from you,
+her husband, you may sue them for the damages accruing from the delay.'
+
+'Yes, yes,' said Manston, who had completely recovered his
+self-possession and common-sense; 'let it all be settled by herself.'
+Turning to Cytherea he whispered so softly that Owen did not hear the
+words--
+
+'Do you wish to go back with your brother, dearest, and leave me here
+miserable, and lonely, or will you stay with me, your own husband.'
+
+'I'll go back with Owen.'
+
+'Very well.' He relinquished his coaxing tone, and went on sternly: 'And
+remember this, Cytherea, I am as innocent of deception in this thing as
+you are yourself. Do you believe me?'
+
+'I do,' she said.
+
+'I had no shadow of suspicion that my first wife lived. I don't think
+she does even now. Do you believe me?'
+
+'I believe you,' she said.
+
+'And now, good-evening,' he continued, opening the door and politely
+intimating to the three men standing by that there was no further
+necessity for their remaining in his room. 'In three days I shall claim
+her.'
+
+The lawyer and the hotel-keeper retired first. Owen, gathering up as
+much of his sister's clothing as lay about the room, took her upon his
+arm, and followed them. Edward, to whom she owed everything, who had
+been left standing in the street like a dog without a home, was utterly
+forgotten. Owen paid the landlord and the lawyer for the trouble he had
+occasioned them, looked to the packing, and went to the door.
+
+A fly, which somewhat unaccountably was seen lingering in front of the
+house, was called up, and Cytherea's luggage put upon it.
+
+'Do you know of any hotel near the station that is open for night
+arrivals?' Owen inquired of the driver.
+
+'A place has been bespoke for you, sir, at the White Unicorn--and the
+gentleman wished me to give you this.'
+
+'Bespoken by Springrove, who ordered the fly, of course,' said Owen to
+himself. By the light of the street-lamp he read these lines, hurriedly
+traced in pencil:--
+
+'I have gone home by the mail-train. It is better for all parties that
+I should be out of the way. Tell Cytherea that I apologize for having
+caused her such unnecessary pain, as it seems I did--but it cannot be
+helped now. E.S.'
+
+Owen handed his sister into the vehicle, and told the flyman to drive
+on.
+
+'Poor Springrove--I think we have served him rather badly,' he said to
+Cytherea, repeating the words of the note to her.
+
+A thrill of pleasure passed through her bosom as she listened to them.
+They were the genuine reproach of a lover to his mistress; the trifling
+coldness of her answer to him would have been noticed by no man who
+was only a friend. But, in entertaining that sweet thought, she had
+forgotten herself, and her position for the instant.
+
+Was she still Manston's wife--that was the terrible supposition, and
+her future seemed still a possible misery to her. For, on account of the
+late jarring accident, a life with Manston which would otherwise have
+been only a sadness, must become a burden of unutterable sorrow.
+
+Then she thought of the misrepresentation and scandal that would
+ensue if she were no wife. One cause for thankfulness accompanied the
+reflection; Edward knew the truth.
+
+They soon reached the quiet old inn, which had been selected for them
+by the forethought of the man who loved her well. Here they installed
+themselves for the night, arranging to go to Budmouth by the first train
+the next day.
+
+At this hour Edward Springrove was fast approaching his native county on
+the wheels of the night-mail.
+
+
+
+
+XIV. THE EVENTS OF FIVE WEEKS
+
+1. FROM THE SIXTH TO THE THIRTEENTH OF JANUARY
+
+Manston had evidently resolved to do nothing in a hurry.
+
+This much was plain, that his earnest desire and intention was to
+raise in Cytherea's bosom no feelings of permanent aversion to him. The
+instant after the first burst of disappointment had escaped him in the
+hotel at Southampton, he had seen how far better it would be to lose her
+presence for a week than her respect for ever.
+
+'She shall be mine; I will claim the young thing yet,' he insisted. And
+then he seemed to reason over methods for compassing that object, which,
+to all those who were in any degree acquainted with the recent event,
+appeared the least likely of possible contingencies.
+
+He returned to Knapwater late the next day, and was preparing to call on
+Miss Aldclyffe, when the conclusion forced itself upon him that nothing
+would be gained by such a step. No; every action of his should be done
+openly--even religiously. At least, he called on the rector, and stated
+this to be his resolve.
+
+'Certainly,' said Mr. Raunham, 'it is best to proceed candidly and
+fairly, or undue suspicion may fall on you. You should, in my opinion,
+take active steps at once.'
+
+'I will do the utmost that lies in my power to clear up the mystery, and
+silence the hubbub of gossip that has been set going about me. But what
+can I do? They say that the man who comes first in the chain of inquiry
+is not to be found--I mean the porter.'
+
+'I am sorry to say that he is not. When I returned from the station last
+night, after seeing Owen Graye off, I went again to the cottage where
+he has been lodging, to get more intelligence, as I thought. He was not
+there. He had gone out at dusk, saying he would be back soon. But he has
+not come back yet.'
+
+'I rather doubt if we shall see him again.'
+
+'Had I known of this, I would have done what in my flurry I did not
+think of doing--set a watch upon him. But why not advertise for
+your missing wife as a preliminary, consulting your solicitor in the
+meantime?'
+
+'Advertise. I'll think about it,' said Manston, lingering on the word as
+he pronounced it. 'Yes, that seems a right thing--quite a right thing.'
+
+He went home and remained moodily indoors all the next day and the
+next--for nearly a week, in short. Then, one evening at dusk, he
+went out with an uncertain air as to the direction of his walk, which
+resulted, however, in leading him again to the rectory.
+
+He saw Mr. Raunham. 'Have you done anything yet?' the rector inquired.
+
+'No--I have not,' said Manston absently. 'But I am going to set about
+it.' He hesitated, as if ashamed of some weakness he was about to
+betray. 'My object in calling was to ask if you had heard any tidings
+from Budmouth of my--Cytherea. You used to speak of her as one you were
+interested in.'
+
+There was, at any rate, real sadness in Manston's tone now, and the
+rector paused to weigh his words ere he replied.
+
+'I have not heard directly from her,' he said gently. 'But her brother
+has communicated with some people in the parish--'
+
+'The Springroves, I suppose,' said Manston gloomily.
+
+'Yes; and they tell me that she is very ill, and I am sorry to say,
+likely to be for some days.'
+
+'Surely, surely, I must go and see her!' Manston cried.
+
+'I would advise you not to go,' said Raunham. 'But do this instead--be
+as quick as you can in making a movement towards ascertaining the truth
+as regards the existence of your wife. You see, Mr. Manston, an out-step
+place like this is not like a city, and there is nobody to busy himself
+for the good of the community; whilst poor Cytherea and her brother are
+socially too dependent to be able to make much stir in the matter, which
+is a greater reason still why you should be disinterestedly prompt.'
+
+The steward murmured an assent. Still there was the same
+indecision!--not the indecision of weakness--the indecision of conscious
+perplexity.
+
+On Manston's return from this interview at the rectory, he passed the
+door of the Rising Sun Inn. Finding he had no light for his cigar,
+and it being three-quarters of a mile to his residence in the park, he
+entered the tavern to get one. Nobody was in the outer portion of the
+front room where Manston stood, but a space round the fire was screened
+off from the remainder, and inside the high oak settle, forming a part
+of the screen, he heard voices conversing. The speakers had not noticed
+his footsteps, and continued their discourse.
+
+One of the two he recognized as a well-known night-poacher, the man
+who had met him with tidings of his wife's death on the evening of the
+conflagration. The other seemed to be a stranger following the same
+mode of life. The conversation was carried on in the emphatic and
+confidential tone of men who are slightly intoxicated, its subject being
+an unaccountable experience that one of them had had on the night of the
+fire.
+
+What the steward heard was enough, and more than enough, to lead him to
+forget or to renounce his motive in entering. The effect upon him was
+strange and strong. His first object seemed to be to escape from the
+house again without being seen or heard.
+
+Having accomplished this, he went in at the park gate, and strode off
+under the trees to the Old House. There sitting down by the fire,
+and burying himself in reflection, he allowed the minutes to pass by
+unheeded. First the candle burnt down in its socket and stunk: he did
+not notice it. Then the fire went out: he did not see it. His feet grew
+cold; still he thought on.
+
+It may be remarked that a lady, a year and a quarter before this time,
+had, under the same conditions--an unrestricted mental absorption--shown
+nearly the same peculiarities as this man evinced now. The lady was Miss
+Aldclyffe.
+
+It was half-past twelve when Manston moved, as if he had come to a
+determination.
+
+The first thing he did the next morning was to call at Knapwater House;
+where he found that Miss Aldclyffe was not well enough to see him.
+She had been ailing from slight internal haemorrhage ever since the
+confession of the porter Chinney. Apparently not much aggrieved at the
+denial, he shortly afterwards went to the railway-station and took his
+departure for London, leaving a letter for Miss Aldclyffe, stating the
+reason of his journey thither--to recover traces of his missing wife.
+
+During the remainder of the week paragraphs appeared in the local and
+other newspapers, drawing attention to the facts of this singular case.
+The writers, with scarcely an exception, dwelt forcibly upon a feature
+which had at first escaped the observation of the villagers, including
+Mr. Raunham--that if the announcement of the man Chinney were true,
+it seemed extremely probable that Mrs. Manston left her watch and keys
+behind on purpose to blind people as to her escape; and that therefore
+she would not now let herself be discovered, unless a strong pressure
+were put upon her. The writers added that the police were on the track
+of the porter, who very possibly had absconded in the fear that his
+reticence was criminal, and that Mr. Manston, the husband, was, with
+praiseworthy energy, making every effort to clear the whole matter up.
+
+2. FROM THE EIGHTEENTH TO THE END OF JANUARY
+
+Five days from the time of his departure, Manston returned from London
+and Liverpool, looking very fatigued and thoughtful. He explained to the
+rector and other of his acquaintance that all the inquiries he had
+made at his wife's old lodgings and his own had been totally barren of
+results.
+
+But he seemed inclined to push the affair to a clear conclusion now that
+he had commenced. After the lapse of another day or two he proceeded to
+fulfil his promise to the rector, and advertised for the missing
+woman in three of the London papers. The advertisement was a carefully
+considered and even attractive effusion, calculated to win the heart,
+or at least the understanding, of any woman who had a spark of her own
+nature left in her.
+
+There was no answer.
+
+Three days later he repeated the experiment; with the same result as
+before.
+
+'I cannot try any further,' said Manston speciously to the rector, his
+sole auditor throughout the proceedings. 'Mr. Raunham, I'll tell you the
+truth plainly: I don't love her; I do love Cytherea, and the whole of
+this business of searching for the other woman goes altogether against
+me. I hope to God I shall never see her again.'
+
+'But you will do your duty at least?' said Mr. Raunham.
+
+'I have done it,' said Manston. 'If ever a man on the face of this earth
+has done his duty towards an absent wife, I have towards her--living or
+dead--at least,' he added, correcting himself, 'since I have lived at
+Knapwater. I neglected her before that time--I own that, as I have owned
+it before.'
+
+'I should, if I were you, adopt other means to get tidings of her
+if advertising fails, in spite of my feelings,' said the rector
+emphatically. 'But at any rate, try advertising once more. There's a
+satisfaction in having made any attempt three several times.'
+
+When Manston had left the study, the rector stood looking at the fire
+for a considerable length of time, lost in profound reflection. He went
+to his private diary, and after many pauses, which he varied only by
+dipping his pen, letting it dry, wiping it on his sleeve, and then
+dipping it again, he took the following note of events:--
+
+
+'January 25.--Mr. Manston has just seen me for the third time on the
+subject of his lost wife. There have been these peculiarities attending
+the three interviews:--
+
+'The first. My visitor, whilst expressing by words his great anxiety to
+do everything for her recovery, showed plainly by his bearing that he
+was convinced he should never see her again.
+
+'The second. He had left off feigning anxiety to do rightly by his first
+wife, and honestly asked after Cytherea's welfare.
+
+'The third (and most remarkable). He seemed to have lost all
+consistency. Whilst expressing his love for Cytherea (which certainly is
+strong) and evincing the usual indifference to the first Mrs. Manston's
+fate, he was unable to conceal the intensity of his eagerness for me to
+advise him to _advertise again_ for her.'
+
+
+A week after the second, the third advertisement was inserted. A
+paragraph was attached, which stated that this would be the last time
+the announcement would appear.
+
+3. THE FIRST OF FEBRUARY
+
+At this, the eleventh hour, the postman brought a letter for Manston,
+directed in a woman's hand.
+
+A bachelor friend of the steward's, Mr. Dickson by name, who was
+somewhat of a chatterer--plenus rimarum--and who boasted of an endless
+string of acquaintances, had come over from Casterbridge the preceding
+day by invitation--an invitation which had been a pleasant surprise
+to Dickson himself, insomuch that Manston, as a rule, voted him a bore
+almost to his face. He had stayed over the night, and was sitting at
+breakfast with his host when the important missive arrived.
+
+Manston did not attempt to conceal the subject of the letter, or the
+name of the writer. First glancing the pages through, he read aloud as
+follows:--
+
+
+'"MY HUSBAND,--I implore your forgiveness.
+
+'"During the last thirteen months I have repeated to myself a hundred
+times that you should never discover what I voluntarily tell you now,
+namely, that I am alive and in perfect health.
+
+'"I have seen all your advertisements. Nothing but your persistence
+has won me round. Surely, I thought, he _must_ love me still. Why else
+should he try to win back a woman who, faithful unto death as she will
+be, can, in a social sense, aid him towards acquiring nothing?--rather
+the reverse, indeed.
+
+'"You yourself state my own mind--that the only grounds upon which we
+can meet and live together, with a reasonable hope of happiness, must
+be a mutual consent to bury in oblivion all past differences. I heartily
+and willingly forget everything--and forgive everything. You will do the
+same, as your actions show.
+
+'"There will be plenty of opportunity for me to explain the few facts
+relating to my escape on the night of the fire. I will only give the
+heads in this hurried note. I was grieved at your not coming to fetch
+me, more grieved at your absence from the station, most of all by your
+absence from home. On my journey to the inn I writhed under a passionate
+sense of wrong done me. When I had been shown to my room I waited and
+hoped for you till the landlord had gone upstairs to bed. I still found
+that you did not come, and then I finally made up my mind to leave. I
+had half undressed, but I put on my things again, forgetting my watch
+(and I suppose dropping my keys, though I am not sure where) in my
+hurry, and slipped out of the house. The--"'
+
+
+'Well, that's a rum story,' said Mr. Dickson, interrupting.
+
+'What's a rum story?' said Manston hastily, and flushing in the face.
+
+'Forgetting her watch and dropping her keys in her hurry.'
+
+'I don't see anything particularly wonderful in it. Any woman might do
+such a thing.'
+
+'Any woman might if escaping from fire or shipwreck, or any such
+immediate danger. But it seems incomprehensible to me that any woman
+in her senses, who quietly decides to leave a house, should be so
+forgetful.'
+
+'All that is required to reconcile your seeming with her facts is to
+assume that she was not in her senses, for that's what she did plainly,
+or how could the things have been found there? Besides, she's truthful
+enough.' He spoke eagerly and peremptorily.
+
+'Yes, yes, I know that. I merely meant that it seemed rather odd.'
+
+'O yes.' Manston read on:--
+
+
+'"--and slipped out of the house. The rubbish-heap was burning up
+brightly, but the thought that the house was in danger did not strike
+me; I did not consider that it might be thatched.
+
+'"I idled in the lane behind the wood till the last down-train had come
+in, not being in a mood to face strangers. Whilst I was there the
+fire broke out, and this perplexed me still more. However, I was still
+determined not to stay in the place. I went to the railway-station,
+which was now quiet, and inquired of the solitary man on duty there
+concerning the trains. It was not till I had left the man that I saw the
+effect the fire might have on my history. I considered also, though not
+in any detailed manner, that the event, by attracting the attention of
+the village to my former abode, might set people on my track should
+they doubt my death, and a sudden dread of having to go back again
+to Knapwater--a place which had seemed inimical to me from first to
+last--prompted me to run back and bribe the porter to secrecy. I then
+walked on to Anglebury, lingering about the outskirts of the town till
+the morning train came in, when I proceeded by it to London, and then
+took these lodgings, where I have been supporting myself ever since by
+needlework, endeavouring to save enough money to pay my passage home to
+America, but making melancholy progress in my attempt. However, all that
+is changed--can I be otherwise than happy at it? Of course not. I am
+happy. Tell me what I am to do, and believe me still to be your faithful
+wife, EUNICE.
+
+'"My name here is (as before)
+
+     '"MRS. RONDLEY, and my address,
+          79 ADDINGTON STREET,
+               LAMBETH.'"
+
+
+The name and address were written on a separate slip of paper.
+
+'So it's to be all right at last then,' said Manston's friend. 'But
+after all there's another woman in the case. You don't seem very
+sorry for the little thing who is put to such distress by this turn of
+affairs? I wonder you can let her go so coolly.' The speaker was looking
+out between the mullions of the window--noticing that some of the
+lights were glazed in lozenges, some in squares--as he said the words,
+otherwise he would have seen the passionate expression of agonized
+hopelessness that flitted across the steward's countenance when the
+remark was made. He did not see it, and Manston answered after a short
+interval. The way in which he spoke of the young girl who had believed
+herself his wife, whom, a few short days ago, he had openly idolized,
+and whom, in his secret heart, he idolized still, as far as such a
+form of love was compatible with his nature, showed that from policy or
+otherwise, he meant to act up to the requirements of the position into
+which fate appeared determined to drive him.
+
+'That's neither here nor there,' he said; 'it is a point of honour to do
+as I am doing, and there's an end of it.'
+
+'Yes. Only I thought you used not to care overmuch about your first
+bargain.'
+
+'I certainly did not at one time. One is apt to feel rather weary of
+wives when they are so devilish civil under all aspects, as she used to
+be. But anything for a change--Abigail is lost, but Michal is recovered.
+You would hardly believe it, but she seems in fancy to be quite another
+bride--in fact, almost as if she had really risen from the dead, instead
+of having only done so virtually.'
+
+'You let the young pink one know that the other has come or is coming?'
+
+'Cui bono?' The steward meditated critically, showing a portion of his
+intensely wide and regular teeth within the ruby lips.
+
+'I cannot say anything to her that will do any good,' he resumed. 'It
+would be awkward--either seeing or communicating with her again. The
+best plan to adopt will be to let matters take their course--she'll find
+it all out soon enough.'
+
+Manston found himself alone a few minutes later. He buried his face in
+his hands, and murmured, 'O my lost one! O my Cytherea! That it should
+come to this is hard for me! 'Tis now all darkness--"a land of darkness
+as darkness itself; and of the shadow of death without any order, and
+where the light is as darkness."'
+
+Yes, the artificial bearing which this extraordinary man had adopted
+before strangers ever since he had overheard the conversation at the
+inn, left him now, and he mourned for Cytherea aloud.
+
+4. THE TWELFTH OF FEBRUARY
+
+Knapwater Park is the picture--at eleven o'clock on a muddy, quiet,
+hazy, but bright morning--a morning without any blue sky, and without
+any shadows, the earth being enlivened and lit up rather by the spirit
+of an invisible sun than by its bodily presence.
+
+The local Hunt had met for the day's sport on the open space of ground
+immediately in front of the steward's residence--called in the list of
+appointments, 'Old House, Knapwater'--the meet being here once every
+season, for the pleasure of Miss Aldclyffe and her friends.
+
+Leaning out from one of the first-floor windows, and surveying with
+the keenest interest the lively picture of pink and black coats,
+rich-coloured horses, and sparkling bits and spurs, was the returned and
+long-lost woman, Mrs. Manston.
+
+The eyes of those forming the brilliant group were occasionally turned
+towards her, showing plainly that her adventures were the subject of
+conversation equally with or more than the chances of the coming day.
+She did not flush beneath their scrutiny; on the contrary, she seemed
+rather to enjoy it, her eyes being kindled with a light of contented
+exultation, subdued to square with the circumstances of her matronly
+position.
+
+She was, at the distance from which they surveyed her, an attractive
+woman--comely as the tents of Kedar. But to a close observer it was
+palpable enough that God did not do all the picture. Appearing at least
+seven years older than Cytherea, she was probably her senior by double
+the number, the artificial means employed to heighten the natural good
+appearance of her face being very cleverly applied. Her form was full
+and round, its voluptuous maturity standing out in strong contrast to
+the memory of Cytherea's lissom girlishness.
+
+It seems to be an almost universal rule that a woman who once has
+courted, or who eventually will court, the society of men on terms
+dangerous to her honour cannot refrain from flinging the meaning glance
+whenever the moment arrives in which the glance is strongly asked
+for, even if her life and whole future depended upon that moment's
+abstinence.
+
+Had a cautious, uxorious husband seen in his wife's countenance what
+might now have been seen in this dark-eyed woman's as she caught a
+stray glance of flirtation from one or other of the red-coated gallants
+outside, he would have passed many days in an agony of restless jealousy
+and doubt. But Manston was not such a husband, and he was, moreover,
+calmly attending to his business at the other end of the manor.
+
+The steward had fetched home his wife in the most matter-of-fact way
+a few days earlier, walking round the village with her the very next
+morning--at once putting an end, by this simple solution, to all the
+riddling inquiries and surmises that were rank in the village and its
+neighbourhood. Some men said that this woman was as far inferior to
+Cytherea as earth to heaven; others, older and sager, thought Manston
+better off with such a wife than he would have been with one of
+Cytherea's youthful impulses, and inexperience in household management.
+All felt their curiosity dying out of them. It was the same in Carriford
+as in other parts of the world--immediately circumstantial evidence
+became exchanged for direct, the loungers in court yawned, gave a final
+survey, and turned away to a subject which would afford more scope for
+speculation.
+
+
+
+
+XV. THE EVENTS OF THREE WEEKS
+
+1. FROM THE TWELFTH OF FEBRUARY TO THE SECOND OF MARCH
+
+Owen Graye's recovery from the illness that had incapacitated him for so
+long a time was, professionally, the dawn of a brighter prospect for him
+in every direction, though the change was at first very gradual, and
+his movements and efforts were little more than mechanical. With the
+lengthening of the days, and the revival of building operations for the
+forthcoming season, he saw himself, for the first time, on a road which,
+pursued with care, would probably lead to a comfortable income at some
+future day. But he was still very low down the hill as yet.
+
+The first undertaking entrusted to him in the new year began about a
+month after his return from Southampton. Mr. Gradfield had come back
+to him in the wake of his restored health, and offered him the
+superintendence, as clerk of works, of a church which was to be nearly
+rebuilt at the village of Tolchurch, fifteen or sixteen miles from
+Budmouth, and about half that distance from Carriford.
+
+'I am now being paid at the rate of a hundred and fifty pounds a year,'
+he said to his sister in a burst of thankfulness, 'and you shall never,
+Cytherea, be at any tyrannous lady's beck and call again as long as
+I live. Never pine or think about what has happened, dear; it's no
+disgrace to you. Cheer up; you'll be somebody's happy wife yet.'
+
+He did not say Edward Springrove's, for, greatly to his disappointment,
+a report had reached his ears that the friend to whom Cytherea owed
+so much had been about to pack up his things and sail for Australia.
+However, this was before the uncertainty concerning Mrs. Manston's
+existence had been dispersed by her return, a phenomenon that altered
+the cloudy relationship in which Cytherea had lately been standing
+towards her old lover, to one of distinctness; which result would have
+been delightful but for circumstances about to be mentioned.
+
+Cytherea was still pale from her recent illness, and still greatly
+dejected. Until the news of Mrs. Manston's return had reached them, she
+had kept herself closely shut up during the day-time, never venturing
+forth except at night. Sleeping and waking she had been in perpetual
+dread lest she should still be claimed by a man whom, only a few weeks
+earlier, she had regarded in the light of a future husband with quiet
+assent, not unmixed with cheerfulness.
+
+But the removal of the uneasiness in this direction--by Mrs. Manston's
+arrival, and her own consequent freedom--had been the imposition of pain
+in another. Utterly fictitious details of the finding of Cytherea and
+Manston had been invented and circulated, unavoidably reaching her ears
+in the course of time. Thus the freedom brought no happiness, and it
+seemed well-nigh impossible that she could ever again show herself the
+sparkling creature she once had been--
+
+     'Apt to entice a deity.'
+
+On this account, and for the first time in his life, Owen made a point
+of concealing from her the real state of his feelings with regard to the
+unhappy transaction. He writhed in secret under the humiliation to which
+they had been subjected, till the resentment it gave rise to, and for
+which there was no vent, was sometimes beyond endurance; it induced a
+mood that did serious damage to the material and plodding perseverance
+necessary if he would secure permanently the comforts of a home for
+them.
+
+They gave up their lodgings at Budmouth, and went to Tolchurch as soon
+as the work commenced.
+
+Here they were domiciled in one half of an old farmhouse, standing not
+far from the ivy-covered church tower (which was all that was to remain
+of the original structure). The long steep roof of this picturesque
+dwelling sloped nearly down to the ground, the old tiles that covered
+it being overgrown with rich olive-hued moss. New red tiles in twos and
+threes had been used for patching the holes wrought by decay, lighting
+up the whole harmonious surface with dots of brilliant scarlet.
+
+The chief internal features of this snug abode were a wide fireplace,
+enormous cupboards, a brown settle, and several sketches on the wood
+mantel, done in outline with the point of a hot poker--the subjects
+mainly consisting of old men walking painfully erect, with a
+curly-tailed dog behind.
+
+After a week or two of residence in Tolchurch, and rambles amid the
+quaint scenery circumscribing it, a tranquillity began to spread itself
+through the mind of the maiden, which Graye hoped would be a preface to
+her complete restoration. She felt ready and willing to live the whole
+remainder of her days in the retirement of their present quarters: she
+began to sing about the house in low tremulous snatches--
+
+     '"--I said, if there's peace to be found in the world,
+       A heart that is humble may hope for it here."'
+
+2. THE THIRD OF MARCH
+
+Her convalescence had arrived at this point on a certain evening towards
+the end of the winter, when Owen had come in from the building hard by,
+and was changing his muddy boots for slippers, previously to sitting
+down to toast and tea.
+
+A prolonged though quiet knocking came to the door.
+
+The only person who ever knocked at their door in that way was the new
+vicar, the prime mover in the church-building. But he was that evening
+dining with the Squire.
+
+Cytherea was uneasy at the sound--she did not know why, unless it was
+because her nerves were weakened by the sickness she had undergone.
+Instead of opening the door she ran out of the room, and upstairs.
+
+'What nonsense, Cytherea!' said her brother, going to the door.
+
+Edward Springrove stood in the grey light outside.
+
+'Capital--not gone to Australia, and not going, of course!' cried Owen.
+'What's the use of going to such a place as that?--I never believed that
+you would.'
+
+'I am going back to London again to-morrow,' said Springrove, 'and I
+called to say a word before going. Where is... ?'
+
+'She has just run upstairs. Come in--never mind scraping your shoes--we
+are regular cottagers now; stone floor, yawning chimney-corner, and all,
+you see.'
+
+'Mrs. Manston came,' said Edward awkwardly, when he had sat down in the
+chimney-corner by preference.
+
+'Yes.' At mention of one of his skeletons Owen lost his blitheness at
+once, and fell into a reverie.
+
+'The history of her escape is very simple.'
+
+'Very.'
+
+'You know I always had wondered, when my father was telling any of the
+circumstances of the fire to me, how it could be that a woman could
+sleep so soundly as to be unaware of her horrid position till it was too
+late even to give shout or sound of any kind.'
+
+'Well, I think that would have been possible, considering her long
+wearisome journey. People have often been suffocated in their beds
+before they awoke. But it was hardly likely a body would be completely
+burnt to ashes as this was assumed to be, though nobody seemed to see it
+at the time. And how positive the surgeon was too, about those bits of
+bone! Why he should have been so, nobody can tell. I cannot help saying
+that if it has ever been possible to find pure stupidity incarnate, it
+was in that jury of Carriford. There existed in the mass the stupidity
+of twelve and not the penetration of one.'
+
+'Is she quite well?' said Springrove.
+
+'Who?--O, my sister, Cytherea. Thank you, nearly well, now. I'll call
+her.'
+
+'Wait one minute. I have a word to say to you.'
+
+Owen sat down again.
+
+'You know, without my saying it, that I love Cytherea as dearly as
+ever.... I think she loves me too,--does she really?'
+
+There was in Owen enough of that worldly policy on the subject of
+matchmaking which naturally resides in the breasts of parents and
+guardians, to give him a certain caution in replying, and, younger as he
+was by five years than Edward, it had an odd effect.
+
+'Well, she may possibly love you still,' he said, as if rather in doubt
+as to the truth of his words.
+
+Springrove's countenance instantly saddened; he had expected a simple
+'Yes,' at the very least. He continued in a tone of greater depression--
+
+'Supposing she does love me, would it be fair to you and to her if
+I made her an offer of marriage, with these dreary conditions
+attached--that we lived for a few years on the narrowest system, till
+a great debt, which all honour and duty require me to pay off, shall be
+paid? My father, by reason of the misfortune that befell him, is under
+a great obligation to Miss Aldclyffe. He is getting old, and losing
+his energies. I am attempting to work free of the burden. This makes my
+prospects gloomy enough at present.
+
+'But consider again,' he went on. 'Cytherea has been left in a nameless
+and unsatisfactory, though innocent state, by this unfortunate, and
+now void, marriage with Manston. A marriage with me, though under
+the--materially--untoward conditions I have mentioned, would make us
+happy; it would give her a locus standi. If she wished to be out of
+the sound of her misfortunes we would go to another part of
+England--emigrate--do anything.'
+
+'I'll call Cytherea,' said Owen. 'It is a matter which she alone can
+settle.' He did not speak warmly. His pride could not endure the pity
+which Edward's visit and errand tacitly implied. Yet, in the other
+affair, his heart went with Edward; he was on the same beat for paying
+off old debts himself.
+
+'Cythie, Mr. Springrove is here,' he said, at the foot of the staircase.
+
+His sister descended the creaking old steps with a faltering tread,
+and stood in the firelight from the hearth. She extended her hand
+to Springrove, welcoming him by a mere motion of the lip, her eyes
+averted--a habit which had engendered itself in her since the
+beginning of her illness and defamation. Owen opened the door and went
+out--leaving the lovers alone. It was the first time they had met since
+the memorable night at Southampton.
+
+'I will get a light,' she said, with a little embarrassment.
+
+'No--don't, please, Cytherea,' said Edward softly, 'Come and sit down
+with me.'
+
+'O yes. I ought to have asked _you_ to,' she returned timidly.
+'Everybody sits in the chimney-corner in this parish. You sit on that
+side. I'll sit here.'
+
+Two recesses--one on the right, one on the left hand--were cut in the
+inside of the fireplace, and here they sat down facing each other, on
+benches fitted to the recesses, the fire glowing on the hearth between
+their feet. Its ruddy light shone on the underslopes of their faces, and
+spread out over the floor of the room with the low horizontality of the
+setting sun, giving to every grain of sand and tumour in the paving a
+long shadow towards the door.
+
+Edward looked at his pale love through the thin azure twines of smoke
+that went up like ringlets between them, and invested her, as seen
+through its medium, with the shadowy appearance of a phantom. Nothing
+is so potent for coaxing back the lost eyes of a woman as a discreet
+silence in the man who has so lost them--and thus the patient Edward
+coaxed hers. After lingering on the hearth for half a minute, waiting in
+vain for another word from him, they were lifted into his face.
+
+He was ready primed to receive them. 'Cytherea, will you marry me?' he
+said.
+
+He could not wait in his original position till the answer came.
+Stepping across the front of the fire to her own side of the chimney
+corner, he reclined at her feet, and searched for her hand. She
+continued in silence awhile.
+
+'Edward, I can never be anybody's wife,' she then said sadly, and with
+firmness.
+
+'Think of it in every light,' he pleaded; 'the light of love, first.
+Then, when you have done that, see how wise a step it would be. I can
+only offer you poverty as yet, but I want--I do so long to secure you
+from the intrusion of that unpleasant past, which will often and always
+be thrust before you as long as you live the shrinking solitary life you
+do now--a life which purity chooses, it may be; but to the outside
+world it appears like the enforced loneliness of neglect and scorn--and
+tongues are busy inventing a reason for it which does not exist.'
+
+'I know all about it,' she said hastily; 'and those are the grounds of
+my refusal. You and Owen know the whole truth--the two I love best on
+earth--and I am content. But the scandal will be continually
+repeated, and I can never give any one the opportunity of saying to
+you--that--your wife....' She utterly broke down and wept.
+
+'Don't, my own darling!' he entreated. 'Don't, Cytherea!'
+
+'Please to leave me--we will be friends, Edward--but don't press me--my
+mind is made up--I cannot--I will not marry you or any man under the
+present ambiguous circumstances--never will I--I have said it: never!'
+
+They were both silent. He listlessly regarded the illuminated blackness
+overhead, where long flakes of soot floated from the sides and bars
+of the chimney-throat like tattered banners in ancient aisles; whilst
+through the square opening in the midst one or two bright stars looked
+down upon them from the grey March sky. The sight seemed to cheer him.
+
+'At any rate you will love me?' he murmured to her.
+
+'Yes--always--for ever and for ever!'
+
+He kissed her once, twice, three times, and arose to his feet, slowly
+withdrawing himself from her side towards the door. Cytherea remained
+with her gaze fixed on the fire. Edward went out grieving, but hope was
+not extinguished even now.
+
+He smelt the fragrance of a cigar, and immediately afterwards saw a
+small red star of fire against the darkness of the hedge. Graye was
+pacing up and down the lane, smoking as he walked. Springrove told him
+the result of the interview.
+
+'You are a good fellow, Edward,' he said; 'but I think my sister is
+right.'
+
+'I wish you would believe Manston a villain, as I do,' said Springrove.
+
+'It would be absurd of me to say that I like him now--family feeling
+prevents it, but I cannot in honesty say deliberately that he is a bad
+man.'
+
+Edward could keep the secret of Manston's coercion of Miss Aldclyffe
+in the matter of the houses a secret no longer. He told Owen the whole
+story.
+
+'That's one thing,' he continued, 'but not all. What do you think of
+this--I have discovered that he went to Budmouth post-office for a
+letter the day before the first advertisement for his wife appeared in
+the papers. One was there for him, and it was directed in his wife's
+handwriting, as I can prove. This was not till after the marriage with
+Cytherea, it is true, but if (as it seems to show) the advertising was a
+farce, there is a strong presumption that the rest of the piece was.'
+
+Owen was too astounded to speak. He dropped his cigar, and fixed his
+eyes upon his companion.
+
+'Collusion!'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'With his first wife?'
+
+'Yes--with his wife. I am firmly persuaded of it.'
+
+'What did you discover?'
+
+'That he fetched from the post-office at Budmouth a letter from her the
+day _before_ the first advertisement appeared.'
+
+Graye was lost in a long consideration. 'Ah!' he said, 'it would be
+difficult to prove anything of that sort now. The writing could not be
+sworn to, and if he is guilty the letter is destroyed.'
+
+'I have other suspicions--'
+
+'Yes--as you said' interrupted Owen, who had not till now been able to
+form the complicated set of ideas necessary for picturing the position.
+'Yes, there is this to be remembered--Cytherea had been taken from him
+before that letter came--and his knowledge of his wife's existence
+could not have originated till after the wedding. I could have sworn he
+believed her dead then. His manner was unmistakable.'
+
+'Well, I have other suspicions,' repeated Edward; 'and if I only had
+the right--if I were her husband or brother, he should be convicted of
+bigamy yet.'
+
+'The reproof was not needed,' said Owen, with a little bitterness. 'What
+can I do--a man with neither money nor friends--whilst Manston has Miss
+Aldclyffe and all her fortune to back him up? God only knows what lies
+between the mistress and her steward, but since this has transpired--if
+it is true--I can believe the connection to be even an unworthy one--a
+thing I certainly never so much as owned to myself before.'
+
+3. THE FIFTH OF MARCH
+
+Edward's disclosure had the effect of directing Owen Graye's thoughts
+into an entirely new and uncommon channel.
+
+On the Monday after Springrove's visit, Owen had walked to the top of
+a hill in the neighbourhood of Tolchurch--a wild hill that had no name,
+beside a barren down where it never looked like summer. In the intensity
+of his meditations on the ever-present subject, he sat down on a
+weather-beaten boundary-stone gazing towards the distant valleys--seeing
+only Manston's imagined form.
+
+Had his defenceless sister been trifled with? that was the question
+which affected him. Her refusal of Edward as a husband was, he knew,
+dictated solely by a humiliated sense of inadequacy to him in repute,
+and had not been formed till since the slanderous tale accounting
+for her seclusion had been circulated. Was it not true, as Edward had
+hinted, that he, her brother, was neglecting his duty towards her in
+allowing Manston to thrive unquestioned, whilst she was hiding her head
+for no fault at all?
+
+Was it possible that Manston was sensuous villain enough to have
+contemplated, at any moment before the marriage with Cytherea, the
+return of his first wife, when he should have grown weary of his
+new toy? Had he believed that, by a skilful manipulation of such
+circumstances as chance would throw in his way, he could escape all
+suspicion of having known that she lived? Only one fact within his own
+direct knowledge afforded the least ground for such a supposition.
+It was that, possessed by a woman only in the humble and unprotected
+station of a lady's hired companion, his sister's beauty might scarcely
+have been sufficient to induce a selfish man like Manston to make her
+his wife, unless he had foreseen the possibility of getting rid of her
+again.
+
+'But for that stratagem of Manston's in relation to the Springroves,'
+Owen thought, 'Cythie might now have been the happy wife of Edward.
+True, that he influenced Miss Aldclyffe only rests on Edward's
+suspicions, but the grounds are good--the probability is strong.'
+
+He went indoors and questioned Cytherea.
+
+'On the night of the fire, who first said that Mrs. Manston was burnt?'
+he asked.
+
+'I don't know who started the report.'
+
+'Was it Manston?'
+
+'It was certainly not he. All doubt on the subject was removed before he
+came to the spot--that I am certain of. Everybody knew that she did not
+escape _after_ the house was on fire, and thus all overlooked the fact
+that she might have left before--of course that would have seemed such
+an improbable thing for anybody to do.'
+
+'Yes, until the porter's story of her irritation and doubt as to her
+course made it natural.'
+
+'What settled the matter at the inquest,' said Cytherea, 'was Mr.
+Manston's evidence that the watch was his wife's.'
+
+'He was sure of that, wasn't he?'
+
+'I believe he said he was certain of it.'
+
+'It might have been hers--left behind in her perturbation, as they say
+it was--impossible as that seems at first sight. Yes--on the whole, he
+might have believed in her death.'
+
+'I know by several proofs that then, and at least for some time after,
+he had no other thought than that she was dead. I now think that before
+the porter's confession he knew something about her--though not that she
+lived.'
+
+'Why do you?'
+
+'From what he said to me on the evening of the wedding-day, when I had
+fastened myself in the room at the hotel, after Edward's visit. He must
+have suspected that I knew something, for he was irritated, and in a
+passion of uneasy doubt. He said, "You don't suppose my first wife is
+come to light again, madam, surely?" Directly he had let the remark slip
+out, he seemed anxious to withdraw it.'
+
+'That's odd,' said Owen.
+
+'I thought it very odd.'
+
+'Still we must remember he might only have hit upon the thought by
+accident, in doubt as to your motive. Yes, the great point to discover
+remains the same as ever--did he doubt his first impression of her death
+_before_ he married you. I can't help thinking he did, although he was
+so astounded at our news that night. Edward swears he did.'
+
+'It was perhaps only a short time before,' said Cytherea; 'when he could
+hardly recede from having me.'
+
+'Seasoning justice with mercy as usual, Cytherea. 'Tis unfair to
+yourself to talk like that. If I could only bring him to ruin as a
+bigamist--supposing him to be one--I should die happy. That's what we
+must find out by fair means or foul--was he a wilful bigamist?'
+
+'It is no use trying, Owen. You would have to employ a solicitor, and
+how can you do that?'
+
+'I can't at all--I know that very well. But neither do I altogether wish
+to at present--a lawyer must have a case--facts to go upon, that means.
+Now they are scarce at present--as scarce as money is with us, and till
+we have found more money there is no hurry for a lawyer. Perhaps by the
+time we have the facts we shall have the money. The only thing we lose
+in working alone in this way, is time--not the issue: for the fruit that
+one mind matures in a twelvemonth forms a more perfectly organized whole
+than that of twelve minds in one month, especially if the interests of
+the single one are vitally concerned, and those of the twelve are only
+hired. But there is not only my mind available--you are a shrewd woman,
+Cythie, and Edward is an earnest ally. Then, if we really get a sure
+footing for a criminal prosecution, the Crown will take up the case.'
+
+'I don't much care to press on in the matter,' she murmured. 'What good
+can it do us, Owen, after all?'
+
+'Selfishly speaking, it will do this good--that all the facts of your
+journey to Southampton will become known, and the scandal will die.
+Besides, Manston will have to suffer--it's an act of justice to you and
+to other women, and to Edward Springrove.'
+
+He now thought it necessary to tell her of the real nature of the
+Springroves' obligation to Miss Aldclyffe--and their nearly certain
+knowledge that Manston was the prime mover in effecting their
+embarrassment. Her face flushed as she listened.
+
+'And now,' he said, 'our first undertaking is to find out where Mrs.
+Manston lived during the separation; next, when the first communications
+passed between them after the fire.'
+
+'If we only had Miss Aldclyffe's countenance and assistance as I used to
+have them,' Cytherea returned, 'how strong we should be! O, what power
+is it that he exercises over her, swaying her just as he wishes! She
+loves me now. Mrs. Morris in her letter said that Miss Aldclyffe prayed
+for me--yes, she heard her praying for me, and crying. Miss Aldclyffe
+did not mind an old friend like Mrs. Morris knowing it, either. Yet in
+opposition to this, notice her dead silence and inaction throughout this
+proceeding.'
+
+'It is a mystery; but never mind that now,' said Owen impressively.
+'About where Mrs. Manston has been living. We must get this part of
+it first--learn the place of her stay in the early stage of their
+separation, during the period of Manston's arrival here, and so on, for
+that was where she was first communicated with on the subject of coming
+to Knapwater, before the fire; and that address, too, was her point
+of departure when she came to her husband by stealth in the night--you
+know--the time I visited you in the evening and went home early in the
+morning, and it was found that he had been visited too. Ah! couldn't
+we inquire of Mrs. Leat, who keeps the post-office at Carriford, if she
+remembers where the letters to Mrs. Manston were directed?'
+
+'He never posted his letters to her in the parish--it was remarked at
+the time. I was thinking if something relating to her address might not
+be found in the report of the inquest in the Casterbridge Chronicle of
+the date. Some facts about the inquest were given in the papers to a
+certainty.'
+
+Her brother caught eagerly at the suggestion. 'Who has a file of the
+Chronicles?' he said.
+
+'Mr. Raunham used to file them,' said Cytherea. 'He was rather
+friendly-disposed towards me, too.'
+
+Owen could not, on any consideration, escape from his attendance at the
+church-building till Saturday evening; and thus it became necessary,
+unless they actually wasted time, that Cytherea herself should assist.
+'I act under your orders, Owen,' she said.
+
+
+
+
+XVI. THE EVENTS OF ONE WEEK
+
+1. MARCH THE SIXTH
+
+The next morning the opening move of the game was made. Cytherea, under
+cover of a thick veil, hired a conveyance and drove to within a mile or
+so of Carriford. It was with a renewed sense of depression that she
+saw again the objects which had become familiar to her eye during her
+sojourn under Miss Aldclyffe's roof--the outline of the hills, the
+meadow streams, the old park trees. She hastened by a lonely path to the
+rectory-house, and asked if Mr. Raunham was at home.
+
+Now the rector, though a solitary bachelor, was as gallant and courteous
+to womankind as an ancient Iberian; and, moreover, he was Cytherea's
+friend in particular, to an extent far greater than she had ever
+surmised. Rarely visiting his relative, Miss Aldclyffe, except on parish
+matters, more rarely still being called upon by Miss Aldclyffe, Cytherea
+had learnt very little of him whilst she lived at Knapwater. The
+relationship was on the impecunious paternal side, and for this branch
+of her family the lady of the estate had never evinced much sympathy. In
+looking back upon our line of descent it is an instinct with us to feel
+that all our vitality was drawn from the richer party to any unequal
+marriage in the chain.
+
+Since the death of the old captain, the rector's bearing in Knapwater
+House had been almost that of a stranger, a circumstance which
+he himself was the last man in the world to regret. This polite
+indifference was so frigid on both sides that the rector did not concern
+himself to preach at her, which was a great deal in a rector; and she
+did not take the trouble to think his sermons poor stuff, which in a
+cynical woman was a great deal more.
+
+Though barely fifty years of age, his hair was as white as snow,
+contrasting strangely with the redness of his skin, which was as fresh
+and healthy as a lad's. Cytherea's bright eyes, mutely and demurely
+glancing up at him Sunday after Sunday, had been the means of driving
+away many of the saturnine humours that creep into an empty heart during
+the hours of a solitary life; in this case, however, to supplant them,
+when she left his parish, by those others of a more aching nature
+which accompany an over-full one. In short, he had been on the verge
+of feeling towards her that passion to which his dignified self-respect
+would not give its true name, even in the privacy of his own thought.
+
+He received her kindly; but she was not disposed to be frank with him.
+He saw her wish to be reserved, and with genuine good taste and good
+nature made no comment whatever upon her request to be allowed to see
+the Chronicle for the year before the last. He placed the papers before
+her on his study table, with a timidity as great as her own, and then
+left her entirely to herself.
+
+She turned them over till she came to the first heading connected
+with the subject of her search--'Disastrous Fire and Loss of Life at
+Carriford.'
+
+The sight, and its calamitous bearing upon her own life, made her so
+dizzy that she could, for a while, hardly decipher the letters. Stifling
+recollection by an effort she nerved herself to her work, and carefully
+read the column. The account reminded her of no other fact than was
+remembered already.
+
+She turned on to the following week's report of the inquest. After a
+miserable perusal she could find no more pertaining to Mrs. Manston's
+address than this:--
+
+'ABRAHAM BROWN, of Hoxton, London, at whose house the deceased woman had
+been living, deposed,' etc.
+
+Nobody else from London had attended the inquest. She arose to depart,
+first sending a message of thanks to Mr. Raunham, who was out of doors
+gardening.
+
+He stuck his spade into the ground, and accompanied her to the gate.
+
+'Can I help you in anything, Cytherea?' he said, using her Christian
+name by an intuition that unpleasant memories might be revived if he
+called her Miss Graye after wishing her good-bye as Mrs. Manston at
+the wedding. Cytherea saw the motive and appreciated it, nevertheless
+replying evasively--
+
+'I only guess and fear.'
+
+He earnestly looked at her again.
+
+'Promise me that if you want assistance, and you think I can give it,
+you will come to me.'
+
+'I will,' she said.
+
+The gate closed between them.
+
+'You don't want me to help you in anything now, Cytherea?' he repeated.
+
+If he had spoken what he felt, 'I want very much to help you, Cytherea,
+and have been watching Manston on your account,' she would gladly have
+accepted his offer. As it was, she was perplexed, and raised her eyes to
+his, not so fearlessly as before her trouble, but as modestly, and with
+still enough brightness in them to do fearful execution as she said over
+the gate--
+
+'No, thank you.'
+
+She returned to Tolchurch weary with her day's work. Owen's greeting was
+anxious--
+
+'Well, Cytherea?'
+
+She gave him the words from the report of the inquest, pencilled on a
+slip of paper.
+
+'Now to find out the name of the street and number,' Owen remarked.
+
+'Owen,' she said, 'will you forgive me for what I am going to say? I
+don't think I can--indeed I don't think I can--take any further steps
+towards disentangling the mystery. I still think it a useless task, and
+it does not seem any duty of mine to be revenged upon Mr. Manston in any
+way.' She added more gravely, 'It is beneath my dignity as a woman to
+labour for this; I have felt it so all day.'
+
+'Very well,' he said, somewhat shortly; 'I shall work without you then.
+There's dignity in justice.' He caught sight of her pale tired face, and
+the dilated eye which always appeared in her with weariness. 'Darling,'
+he continued warmly, and kissing her, 'you shall not work so hard
+again--you are worn out quite. But you must let me do as I like.'
+
+2. MARCH THE TENTH
+
+On Saturday evening Graye hurried off to Casterbridge, and called at the
+house of the reporter to the Chronicle. The reporter was at home, and
+came out to Graye in the passage. Owen explained who and what he was,
+and asked the man if he would oblige him by turning to his notes of
+the inquest at Carriford in the December of the year preceding the
+last--just adding that a family entanglement, of which the reporter
+probably knew something, made him anxious to ascertain some additional
+details of the event, if any existed.
+
+'Certainly,' said the other, without hesitation; 'though I am afraid
+I haven't much beyond what we printed at the time. Let me see--my old
+note-books are in my drawer at the office of the paper: if you will
+come with me I can refer to them there.' His wife and family were at tea
+inside the room, and with the timidity of decent poverty everywhere he
+seemed glad to get a stranger out of his domestic groove.
+
+They crossed the street, entered the office, and went thence to an
+inner room. Here, after a short search, was found the book required. The
+precise address, not given in the condensed report that was printed, but
+written down by the reporter, was as follows:--
+
+
+     'ABRAHAM BROWN,
+          LODGING-HOUSE KEEPER,
+              41 CHARLES SQUARE,
+                   HOXTON.'
+
+
+Owen copied it, and gave the reporter a small fee. 'I want to keep
+this inquiry private for the present,' he said hesitatingly. 'You will
+perhaps understand why, and oblige me.'
+
+The reporter promised. 'News is shop with me,' he said, 'and to escape
+from handling it is my greatest social enjoyment.'
+
+It was evening, and the outer room of the publishing-office was lighted
+up with flaring jets of gas. After making the above remark, the reporter
+came out from the inner apartment in Graye's company, answering an
+expression of obligation from Owen with the words that it was no
+trouble. At the moment of his speech, he closed behind him the door
+between the two rooms, still holding his note-book in his hand.
+
+Before the counter of the front room stood a tall man, who was also
+speaking, when they emerged. He said to the youth in attendance, 'I will
+take my paper for this week now I am here, so that you needn't post it
+to me.'
+
+The stranger then slightly turned his head, saw Owen, and recognized
+him. Owen passed out without recognizing the other as Manston.
+
+Manston then looked at the reporter, who, after walking to the door with
+Owen, had come back again to lock up his books. Manston did not need to
+be told that the shabby marble-covered book which he held in his
+hand, opening endways and interleaved with blotting-paper, was an
+old reporting-book. He raised his eyes to the reporter's face, whose
+experience had not so schooled his features but that they betrayed a
+consciousness, to one half initiated as the other was, that his late
+proceeding had been connected with events in the life of the steward.
+Manston said no more, but, taking his newspaper, followed Owen from the
+office, and disappeared in the gloom of the street.
+
+Edward Springrove was now in London again, and on this same evening,
+before leaving Casterbridge, Owen wrote a careful letter to him, stating
+therein all the facts that had come to his knowledge, and begging
+him, as he valued Cytherea, to make cautious inquiries. A tall man
+was standing under the lamp-post, about half-a-dozen yards above the
+post-office, when he dropped the letter into the box.
+
+That same night, too, for a reason connected with the rencounter with
+Owen Graye, the steward entertained the idea of rushing off suddenly to
+London by the mail-train, which left Casterbridge at ten o'clock.
+But remembering that letters posted after the hour at which Owen had
+obtained his information--whatever that was--could not be delivered
+in London till Monday morning, he changed his mind and went home to
+Knapwater. Making a confidential explanation to his wife, arrangements
+were set on foot for his departure by the mail on Sunday night.
+
+3. MARCH THE ELEVENTH
+
+Starting for church the next morning several minutes earlier than was
+usual with him, the steward intentionally loitered along the road from
+the village till old Mr. Springrove overtook him. Manston spoke very
+civilly of the morning, and of the weather, asking how the farmer's
+barometer stood, and when it was probable that the wind might change. It
+was not in Mr. Springrove's nature--going to church as he was, too--to
+return anything but a civil answer to such civil questions, however his
+feelings might have been biassed by late events. The conversation was
+continued on terms of greater friendliness.
+
+'You must be feeling settled again by this time, Mr. Springrove, after
+the rough turn-out you had on that terrible night in November.'
+
+'Ay, but I don't know about feeling settled, either, Mr. Manston. The
+old window in the chimney-corner of the old house I shall never forget.
+No window in the chimney-corner where I am now, and I had been used to
+it for more than fifty years. Ted says 'tis a great loss to me, and he
+knows exactly what I feel.'
+
+'Your son is again in a good situation, I believe?' said Manston,
+imitating that inquisitiveness into the private affairs of the natives
+which passes for high breeding in country villages.
+
+'Yes, sir. I hope he'll keep it, or do something else and stick to it.'
+
+''Tis to be hoped he'll be steady now.'
+
+'He's always been that, I assure 'ee,' said the old man tartly.
+
+'Yes--yes--I mean intellectually steady. Intellectual wild oats will
+thrive in a soil of the strictest morality.'
+
+'Intellectual gingerbread! Ted's steady enough--that's all I know about
+it.'
+
+'Of course--of course. Has he respectable lodgings? My own experience
+has shown me that that's a great thing to a young man living alone in
+London.'
+
+'Warwick Street, Charing Cross--that's where he is.'
+
+'Well, to be sure--strange! A very dear friend of mine used to live at
+number fifty-two in that very same street.'
+
+'Edward lives at number forty-nine--how very near being the same house!'
+said the old farmer, pleased in spite of himself.
+
+'Very,' said Manston. 'Well, I suppose we had better step along a little
+quicker, Mr. Springrove; the parson's bell has just begun.'
+
+'Number forty-nine,' he murmured.
+
+4. MARCH THE TWELFTH
+
+Edward received Owen's letter in due time, but on account of his daily
+engagements he could not attend to any request till the clock had struck
+five in the afternoon. Rushing then from his office in Westminster, he
+called a hansom and proceeded to Hoxton. A few minutes later he knocked
+at the door of number forty-one, Charles Square, the old lodging of Mrs.
+Manston.
+
+A tall man who would have looked extremely handsome had he not been
+clumsily and closely wrapped up in garments that were much too elderly
+in style for his years, stood at the corner of the quiet square at the
+same instant, having, too, alighted from a cab, that had been driven
+along Old Street in Edward's rear. He smiled confidently when Springrove
+knocked.
+
+Nobody came to the door. Springrove knocked again.
+
+This brought out two people--one at the door he had been knocking upon,
+the other from the next on the right.
+
+'Is Mr. Brown at home?' said Springrove.
+
+'No, sir.'
+
+'When will he be in?'
+
+'Quite uncertain.'
+
+'Can you tell me where I may find him?'
+
+'No. O, here he is coming, sir. That's Mr. Brown.'
+
+Edward looked down the pavement in the direction pointed out by the
+woman, and saw a man approaching. He proceeded a few steps to meet him.
+
+Edward was impatient, and to a certain extent still a countryman, who
+had not, after the manner of city men, subdued the natural impulse to
+speak out the ruling thought without preface. He said in a quiet tone to
+the stranger, 'One word with you--do you remember a lady lodger of yours
+of the name of Mrs. Manston?'
+
+Mr. Brown half closed his eyes at Springrove, somewhat as if he were
+looking into a telescope at the wrong end.
+
+'I have never let lodgings in my life,' he said, after his survey.
+
+'Didn't you attend an inquest a year and a half ago, at Carriford?'
+
+'Never knew there was such a place in the world, sir; and as to
+lodgings, I have taken acres first and last during the last thirty
+years, but I have never let an inch.'
+
+'I suppose there is some mistake,' Edward murmured, and turned away. He
+and Mr. Brown were now opposite the door next to the one he had knocked
+at. The woman who was still standing there had heard the inquiry and the
+result of it.
+
+'I expect it is the other Mr. Brown, who used to live there, that you
+want, sir,' she said. 'The Mr. Brown that was inquired for the other
+day?'
+
+'Very likely that is the man,' said Edward, his interest reawakening.
+
+'He couldn't make a do of lodging-letting here, and at last he went to
+Cornwall, where he came from, and where his brother still lived, who
+had often asked him to come home again. But there was little luck in the
+change; for after London they say he couldn't stand the rainy west winds
+they get there, and he died in the December following. Will you step
+into the passage?'
+
+'That's unfortunate,' said Edward, going in. 'But perhaps you remember a
+Mrs. Manston living next door to you?'
+
+'O yes,' said the landlady, closing the door. 'The lady who was supposed
+to have met with such a horrible fate, and was alive all the time. I saw
+her the other day.'
+
+'Since the fire at Carriford?'
+
+'Yes. Her husband came to ask if Mr. Brown was still living here--just
+as you might. He seemed anxious about it; and then one evening, a week
+or fortnight afterwards, when he came again to make further inquiries,
+she was with him. But I did not speak to her--she stood back, as if she
+were shy. I was interested, however, for old Mr. Brown had told me all
+about her when he came back from the inquest.'
+
+'Did you know Mrs. Manston before she called the other day?'
+
+'No. You see she was only Mr. Brown's lodger for two or three weeks,
+and I didn't know she was living there till she was near upon leaving
+again--we don't notice next-door people much here in London. I much
+regretted I had not known her when I heard what had happened. It led
+me and Mr. Brown to talk about her a great deal afterwards. I little
+thought I should see her alive after all.'
+
+'And when do you say they came here together?'
+
+'I don't exactly remember the day--though I remember a very beautiful
+dream I had that same night--ah, I shall never forget it! Shoals of
+lodgers coming along the square with angels' wings and bright golden
+sovereigns in their hands wanting apartments at West End prices. They
+would not give any less; no, not if you--'
+
+'Yes. Did Mrs. Manston leave anything, such as papers, when she left
+these lodgings originally?' said Edward, though his heart sank as he
+asked. He felt that he was outwitted. Manston and his wife had been
+there before him, clearing the ground of all traces.
+
+'I have always said "No" hitherto,' replied the woman, 'considering I
+could say no more if put upon my oath, as I expected to be. But speaking
+in a common everyday way now the occurrence is past, I believe a few
+things of some kind (though I doubt if they were papers) were left in
+a workbox she had, because she talked about it to Mr. Brown, and was
+rather angry at what occurred--you see, she had a temper by all account,
+and so I didn't like to remind the lady of this workbox when she came
+the other day with her husband.'
+
+'And about the workbox?'
+
+'Well, from what was casually dropped, I think Mrs. Manston had a few
+articles of furniture she didn't want, and when she was leaving they
+were put in a sale just by. Amongst her things were two workboxes very
+much alike. One of these she intended to sell, the other she didn't, and
+Mr. Brown, who collected the things together, took the wrong one to the
+sale.'
+
+'What was in it?'
+
+'O, nothing in particular, or of any value--some accounts, and her usual
+sewing materials I think--nothing more. She didn't take much trouble
+to get it back--she said the bills were worth nothing to her or anybody
+else, but that she should have liked to keep the box because her husband
+gave it her when they were first married, and if he found she had parted
+with it, he would be vexed.'
+
+'Did Mrs. Manston, when she called recently with her husband, allude to
+this, or inquire for it, or did Mr. Manston?'
+
+'No--and I rather wondered at it. But she seemed to have forgotten
+it--indeed, she didn't make any inquiry at all, only standing behind
+him, listening to his; and he probably had never been told anything
+about it.'
+
+'Whose sale were these articles of hers taken to?'
+
+'Who was the auctioneer? Mr. Halway. His place is the third turning
+from the end of that street you see there. Anybody will tell you the
+shop--his name is written up.'
+
+Edward went off to follow up his clue with a promptness which was
+dictated more by a dogged will to do his utmost than by a hope of
+doing much. When he was out of sight, the tall and cloaked man, who had
+watched him, came up to the woman's door, with an appearance of being in
+breathless haste.
+
+'Has a gentleman been here inquiring about Mrs. Manston?'
+
+'Yes; he's just gone.'
+
+'Dear me! I want him.'
+
+'He's gone to Mr. Halway's.'
+
+'I think I can give him some information upon the subject. Does he pay
+pretty liberally?'
+
+'He gave me half-a-crown.'
+
+'That scale will do. I'm a poor man, and will see what my little
+contribution to his knowledge will fetch. But, by the way, perhaps you
+told him all I know--where she lived before coming to live here?'
+
+'I didn't know where she lived before coming here. O no--I only said
+what Mr. Brown had told me. He seemed a nice, gentle young man, or I
+shouldn't have been so open as I was.'
+
+'I shall now about catch him at Mr. Halway's,' said the man, and went
+away as hastily as he had come.
+
+Edward in the meantime had reached the auction-room. He found some
+difficulty, on account of the inertness of those whose only inducement
+to an action is a mere wish from another, in getting the information he
+stood in need of, but it was at last accorded him. The auctioneer's book
+gave the name of Mrs. Higgins, 3 Canley Passage, as the purchaser of the
+lot which had included Mrs. Manston's workbox.
+
+Thither Edward went, followed by the man. Four bell pulls, one above the
+other like waistcoat-buttons, appeared on the door-post. Edward seized
+the first he came to.
+
+'Who did you woant?' said a thin voice from somewhere.
+
+Edward looked above and around him; nobody was visible.
+
+'Who did you woant?' said the thin voice again.
+
+He found now that the sound proceeded from below the grating covering
+the basement window. He dropped his glance through the bars, and saw a
+child's white face.
+
+'Who did you woant?' said the voice the third time, with precisely the
+same languid inflection.
+
+'Mrs. Higgins,' said Edward.
+
+'Third bell up,' said the face, and disappeared.
+
+He pulled the third bell from the bottom, and was admitted by another
+child, the daughter of the woman he was in search of. He gave the little
+thing sixpence, and asked for her mamma. The child led him upstairs.
+
+Mrs. Higgins was the wife of a carpenter who from want of employment
+one winter had decided to marry. Afterwards they both took to drink,
+and sank into desperate circumstances. A few chairs and a table were
+the chief articles of furniture in the third-floor back room which they
+occupied. A roll of baby-linen lay on the floor; beside it a pap-clogged
+spoon and an overturned tin pap-cup. Against the wall a Dutch clock was
+fixed out of level, and ticked wildly in longs and shorts, its entrails
+hanging down beneath its white face and wiry hands, like the faeces of a
+Harpy ('foedissima ventris proluvies, uncaeque manus, et pallida semper
+ora'). A baby was crying against every chair-leg, the whole family of
+six or seven being small enough to be covered by a washing-tub. Mrs.
+Higgins sat helpless, clothed in a dress which had hooks and eyes in
+plenty, but never one opposite the other, thereby rendering the
+dress almost useless as a screen to the bosom. No workbox was visible
+anywhere.
+
+It was a depressing picture of married life among the very poor of a
+city. Only for one short hour in the whole twenty-four did husband and
+wife taste genuine happiness. It was in the evening, when, after
+the sale of some necessary article of furniture, they were under the
+influence of a quartern of gin.
+
+Of all the ingenious and cruel satires that from the beginning till now
+have been stuck like knives into womankind, surely there is not one so
+lacerating to them, and to us who love them, as the trite old fact, that
+the most wretched of men can, in the twinkling of an eye, find a wife
+ready to be more wretched still for the sake of his company.
+
+Edward hastened to despatch his errand.
+
+Mrs. Higgins had lately pawned the workbox with other useless articles
+of lumber, she said. Edward bought the duplicate of her, and went
+downstairs to the pawnbroker's.
+
+In the back division of a musty shop, amid the heterogeneous collection
+of articles and odours invariably crowding such places, he produced his
+ticket, and with a sense of satisfaction out of all proportion to the
+probable worth of his acquisition, took the box and carried it off
+under his arm. He attempted to lift the cover as he walked, but found it
+locked.
+
+It was dusk when Springrove reached his lodging. Entering his small
+sitting-room, the front apartment on the ground floor, he struck a
+light, and proceeded to learn if any scrap or mark within or upon his
+purchase rendered it of moment to the business in hand. Breaking open
+the cover with a small chisel, and lifting the tray, he glanced eagerly
+beneath, and found--nothing.
+
+He next discovered that a pocket or portfolio was formed on the
+underside of the cover. This he unfastened, and slipping his hand
+within, found that it really contained some substance. First he pulled
+out about a dozen tangled silk and cotton threads. Under them were
+a short household account, a dry moss-rosebud, and an old pair of
+carte-de-visite photographs. One of these was a likeness of Mrs.
+Manston--'Eunice' being written under it in ink--the other of Manston
+himself.
+
+He sat down dispirited. This was all the fruit of his task--not a single
+letter, date, or address of any kind to help him--and was it likely
+there would be?
+
+However, thinking he would send the fragments, such as they were, to
+Graye, in order to satisfy him that he had done his best so far,
+he scribbled a line, and put all except the silk and cotton into an
+envelope. Looking at his watch, he found it was then twenty minutes to
+seven; by affixing an extra stamp he would be enabled to despatch them
+by that evening's post. He hastily directed the packet, and ran with it
+at once to the post-office at Charing Cross.
+
+On his return he took up the workbox again to examine it more leisurely.
+He then found there was also a small cavity in the tray under the
+pincushion, which was movable by a bit of ribbon. Lifting this he
+uncovered a flattened sprig of myrtle, and a small scrap of crumpled
+paper. The paper contained a verse or two in a man's handwriting. He
+recognized it as Manston's, having seen notes and bills from him at his
+father's house. The stanza was of a complimentary character, descriptive
+of the lady who was now Manston's wife.
+
+
+                        'EUNICE.
+
+          'Whoso for hours or lengthy days
+           Shall catch her aspect's changeful rays,
+           Then turn away, can none recall
+           Beyond a galaxy of all
+               In hazy portraiture;
+           Lit by the light of azure eyes
+           Like summer days by summer skies:
+           Her sweet transitions seem to be
+           A kind of pictured melody,
+               And not a set contour.
+                                      'AE. M.'
+
+
+To shake, pull, and ransack the box till he had almost destroyed it was
+now his natural action. But it contained absolutely nothing more.
+
+'Disappointed again,' he said, flinging down the box, the bit of paper,
+and the withered twig that had lain with it.
+
+Yet valueless as the new acquisition was, on second thoughts he
+considered that it would be worth while to make good the statement in
+his late note to Graye--that he had sent everything the box contained
+except the sewing-thread. Thereupon he enclosed the verse and
+myrtle-twig in another envelope, with a remark that he had overlooked
+them in his first search, and put it on the table for the next day's
+post.
+
+In his hurry and concentration upon the matter that occupied him,
+Springrove, on entering his lodging and obtaining a light, had not
+waited to pull down the blind or close the shutters. Consequently all
+that he had done had been visible from the street. But as on an average
+not one person a minute passed along the quiet pavement at this time
+of the evening, the discovery of the omission did not much concern his
+mind.
+
+But the real state of the case was that a tall man had stood against the
+opposite wall and watched the whole of his proceeding. When Edward came
+out and went to the Charing Cross post-office, the man followed him
+and saw him drop the letter into the box. The stranger did not further
+trouble himself to follow Springrove back to his lodging again.
+
+Manston now knew that there had been photographs of some kind in his
+wife's workbox, and though he had not been near enough to see them, he
+guessed whose they were. The least reflection told him to whom they had
+been sent.
+
+He paused a minute under the portico of the post-office, looking at the
+two or three omnibuses stopping and starting in front of him. Then he
+rushed along the Strand, through Holywell Street, and on to Old Boswell
+Court. Kicking aside the shoeblacks who began to importune him as he
+passed under the colonnade, he turned up the narrow passage to the
+publishing-office of the Post-Office Directory. He begged to be allowed
+to see the Directory of the south-west counties of England for a moment.
+
+The shopman immediately handed down the volume from a shelf, and Manston
+retired with it to the window-bench. He turned to the county, and
+then to the parish of Tolchurch. At the end of the historical and
+topographical description of the village he read:--
+
+'Postmistress--Mrs. Hurston. Letters received at 6.30 A.M. by foot-post
+from Anglebury.'
+
+Returning his thanks, he handed back the book and quitted the office,
+thence pursuing his way to an obscure coffee-house by the Strand, where
+he now partook of a light dinner. But rest seemed impossible with him.
+Some absorbing intention kept his body continually on the move. He
+paid his bill, took his bag in his hand, and went out to idle about the
+streets and over the river till the time should have arrived at which
+the night-mail left the Waterloo Station, by which train he intended to
+return homeward.
+
+There exists, as it were, an outer chamber to the mind, in which, when a
+man is occupied centrally with the most momentous question of his life,
+casual and trifling thoughts are just allowed to wander softly for an
+interval, before being banished altogether. Thus, amid his concentration
+did Manston receive perceptions of the individuals about him in the
+lively thoroughfare of the Strand; tall men looking insignificant;
+little men looking great and profound; lost women of miserable repute
+looking as happy as the days are long; wives, happy by assumption,
+looking careworn and miserable. Each and all were alike in this one
+respect, that they followed a solitary trail like the inwoven threads
+which form a banner, and all were equally unconscious of the significant
+whole they collectively showed forth.
+
+At ten o'clock he turned into Lancaster Place, crossed the river,
+and entered the railway-station, where he took his seat in the down
+mail-train, which bore him, and Edward Springrove's letter to Graye, far
+away from London.
+
+
+
+
+XVII. THE EVENTS OF ONE DAY
+
+1. MARCH THE THIRTEENTH. THREE TO SIX O'CLOCK A.M.
+
+They entered Anglebury Station in the dead, still time of early morning,
+the clock over the booking-office pointing to twenty-five minutes to
+three. Manston lingered on the platform and saw the mail-bags brought
+out, noticing, as a pertinent pastime, the many shabby blotches of wax
+from innumerable seals that had been set upon their mouths. The guard
+took them into a fly, and was driven down the road to the post-office.
+
+It was a raw, damp, uncomfortable morning, though, as yet, little rain
+was falling. Manston drank a mouthful from his flask and walked at once
+away from the station, pursuing his way through the gloom till he stood
+on the side of the town adjoining, at a distance from the last house in
+the street of about two hundred yards.
+
+The station road was also the turnpike-road into the country, the first
+part of its course being across a heath. Having surveyed the highway up
+and down to make sure of its bearing, Manston methodically set himself
+to walk backwards and forwards a stone's throw in each direction.
+Although the spring was temperate, the time of day, and the condition
+of suspense in which the steward found himself, caused a sensation of
+chilliness to pervade his frame in spite of the overcoat he wore. The
+drizzling rain increased, and drops from the trees at the wayside fell
+noisily upon the hard road beneath them, which reflected from its glassy
+surface the faint halo of light hanging over the lamps of the adjacent
+town.
+
+Here he walked and lingered for two hours, without seeing or hearing a
+living soul. Then he heard the market-house clock strike five, and soon
+afterwards, quick hard footsteps smote upon the pavement of the street
+leading towards him. They were those of the postman for the Tolchurch
+beat. He reached the bottom of the street, gave his bags a final
+hitch-up, stepped off the pavement, and struck out for the country with
+a brisk shuffle.
+
+Manston then turned his back upon the town, and walked slowly on. In two
+minutes a flickering light shone upon his form, and the postman overtook
+him.
+
+The new-comer was a short, stooping individual of above five-and-forty,
+laden on both sides with leather bags large and small, and carrying a
+little lantern strapped to his breast, which cast a tiny patch of light
+upon the road ahead.
+
+'A tryen mornen for travellers!' the postman cried, in a cheerful voice,
+without turning his head or slackening his trot.
+
+'It is, indeed,' said Manston, stepping out abreast of him. 'You have a
+long walk every day.'
+
+'Yes--a long walk--for though the distance is only sixteen miles on the
+straight--that is, eight to the furthest place and eight back, what with
+the ins and outs to the gentlemen's houses, it makes two-and-twenty for
+my legs. Two-and-twenty miles a day, how many a year? I used to reckon
+it, but I never do now. I don't care to think o' my wear and tear, now
+it do begin to tell upon me.'
+
+Thus the conversation was begun, and the postman proceeded to narrate
+the different strange events that marked his experience. Manston grew
+very friendly.
+
+'Postman, I don't know what your custom is,' he said, after a while;
+'but between you and me, I always carry a drop of something warm in my
+pocket when I am out on such a morning as this. Try it.' He handed the
+bottle of brandy.
+
+'If you'll excuse me, please. I haven't took no stimmilents these five
+years.'
+
+''Tis never too late to mend.'
+
+'Against the regulations, I be afraid.'
+
+'Who'll know it?'
+
+'That's true--nobody will know it. Still, honesty's the best policy.'
+
+'Ah--it is certainly. But, thank God, I've been able to get on without
+it yet. You'll surely drink with me?'
+
+'Really, 'tis a'most too early for that sort o' thing--however, to
+oblige a friend, I don't object to the faintest shadder of a drop.' The
+postman drank, and Manston did the same to a very slight degree. Five
+minutes later, when they came to a gate, the flask was pulled out again.
+
+'Well done!' said the postman, beginning to feel its effect; 'but guide
+my soul, I be afraid 'twill hardly do!'
+
+'Not unless 'tis well followed, like any other line you take up,' said
+Manston. 'Besides, there's a way of liking a drop of liquor, and of
+being good--even religious--at the same time.'
+
+'Ay, for some thimble-and-button in-an-out fellers; but I could never
+get into the knack o' it; not I.'
+
+'Well, you needn't be troubled; it isn't necessary for the higher class
+of mind to be religious--they have so much common-sense that they can
+risk playing with fire.'
+
+'That hits me exactly.'
+
+'In fact, a man I know, who always had no other god but "Me;" and
+devoutly loved his neighbour's wife, says now that believing is a
+mistake.'
+
+'Well, to be sure! However, believing in God is a mistake made by very
+few people, after all.'
+
+'A true remark.'
+
+'Not one Christian in our parish would walk half a mile in a rain
+like this to know whether the Scripture had concluded him under sin or
+grace.'
+
+'Nor in mine.'
+
+'Ah, you may depend upon it they'll do away wi' Goddymity altogether
+afore long, although we've had him over us so many years.'
+
+'There's no knowing.'
+
+'And I suppose the Queen 'ill be done away wi' then. A pretty concern
+that'll be! Nobody's head to put on your letters; and then your honest
+man who do pay his penny will never be known from your scamp who don't.
+O, 'tis a nation!'
+
+'Warm the cockles of your heart, however. Here's the bottle waiting.'
+
+'I'll oblige you, my friend.'
+
+The drinking was repeated. The postman grew livelier as he went on, and
+at length favoured the steward with a song, Manston himself joining in
+the chorus.
+
+
+          'He flung his mallet against the wall,
+           Said, "The Lord make churches and chapels to fall,
+           And there'll be work for tradesmen all!"
+               When Joan's ale was new,
+                               My boys,
+               When Joan's ale was new.'
+
+
+'You understand, friend,' the postman added, 'I was originally a mason
+by trade: no offence to you if you be a parson?'
+
+'None at all,' said Manston.
+
+The rain now came down heavily, but they pursued their path with
+alacrity, the produce of the several fields between which the lane wound
+its way being indicated by the peculiar character of the sound emitted
+by the falling drops. Sometimes a soaking hiss proclaimed that they were
+passing by a pasture, then a patter would show that the rain fell upon
+some large-leafed root crop, then a paddling plash announced the naked
+arable, the low sound of the wind in their ears rising and falling with
+each pace they took.
+
+Besides the small private bags of the county families, which were all
+locked, the postman bore the large general budget for the remaining
+inhabitants along his beat. At each village or hamlet they came to, the
+postman searched for the packet of letters destined for that place, and
+thrust it into an ordinary letter-hole cut in the door of the receiver's
+cottage--the village post-offices being mostly kept by old women who had
+not yet risen, though lights moving in other cottage windows showed that
+such people as carters, woodmen, and stablemen had long been stirring.
+
+The postman had by this time become markedly unsteady, but he still
+continued to be too conscious of his duties to suffer the steward to
+search the bag. Manston was perplexed, and at lonely points in the road
+cast his eyes keenly upon the short bowed figure of the man trotting
+through the mud by his side, as if he were half inclined to run a very
+great risk indeed.
+
+It frequently happened that the houses of farmers, clergymen, etc., lay
+a short distance up or down a lane or path branching from the direct
+track of the postman's journey. To save time and distance, at the point
+of junction of some of these paths with the main road, the gate-post was
+hollowed out to form a letter-box, in which the postman deposited his
+missives in the morning, looking in the box again in the evening to
+collect those placed there for the return post. Tolchurch Vicarage
+and Farmstead, lying back from the village street, were served on this
+principle. This fact the steward now learnt by conversing with the
+postman, and the discovery relieved Manston greatly, making his
+intentions much clearer to himself than they had been in the earlier
+stages of his journey.
+
+They had reached the outskirts of the village. Manston insisted upon the
+flask being emptied before they proceeded further. This was done, and
+they approached the church, the vicarage, and the farmhouse in which
+Owen and Cytherea were living.
+
+The postman paused, fumbled in his bag, took out by the light of his
+lantern some half-dozen letters, and tried to sort them. He could not
+perform the task.
+
+'We be crippled disciples a b'lieve,' he said, with a sigh and a
+stagger.
+
+'Not drunk, but market-merry,' said Manston cheerfully.
+
+'Well done! If I baint so weak that I can't see the clouds--much
+less letters. Guide my soul, if so be anybody should tell the Queen's
+postmaster-general of me! The whole story will have to go through
+Parliament House, and I shall be high-treasoned--as safe as houses--and
+be fined, and who'll pay for a poor martel! O, 'tis a world!'
+
+'Trust in the Lord--he'll pay.'
+
+'He pay a b'lieve! why should he when he didn't drink the drink? He pay
+a b'lieve! D'ye think the man's a fool?'
+
+'Well, well, I had no intention of hurting your feelings--but how was I
+to know you were so sensitive?'
+
+'True--you were not to know I was so sensitive. Here's a caddle wi'
+these letters! Guide my soul, what will Billy do!'
+
+Manston offered his services.
+
+'They are to be divided,' the man said.
+
+'How?' said Manston.
+
+'These, for the village, to be carried on into it: any for the vicarage
+or vicarage farm must be left in the box of the gate-post just here.
+There's none for the vicarage-house this mornen, but I saw when I
+started there was one for the clerk o' works at the new church. This is
+it, isn't it?'
+
+He held up a large envelope, directed in Edward Springrove's
+handwriting:--
+
+     'MR. O. GRAYE,
+          CLERK OF WORKS,
+               TOLCHURCH,
+                    NEAR ANGLEBURY.'
+
+The letter-box was scooped in an oak gate-post about a foot square.
+There was no slit for inserting the letters, by reason of the
+opportunity such a lonely spot would have afforded mischievous
+peasant-boys of doing damage had such been the case; but at the side was
+a small iron door, kept close by an iron reversible strap locked across
+it. One side of this strap was painted black, the other white, and white
+or black outwards implied respectively that there were letters inside,
+or none.
+
+The postman had taken the key from his pocket and was attempting to
+insert it in the keyhole of the box. He touched one side, the other,
+above, below, but never made a straight hit.
+
+'Let me unlock it,' said Manston, taking the key from the postman. He
+opened the box and reached out with his other hand for Owen's letter.
+
+'No, no. O no--no,' the postman said. 'As one of--Majesty's
+servants--care--Majesty's mails--duty--put letters--own hands.' He
+slowly and solemnly placed the letter in the small cavity.
+
+'Now lock it,' he said, closing the door.
+
+The steward placed the bar across, with the black side outwards,
+signifying 'empty,' and turned the key.
+
+'You've put the wrong side outwards!' said the postman. ''Tisn't empty.'
+
+'And dropped the key in the mud, so that I can't alter it,' said the
+steward, letting something fall.
+
+'What an awkward thing!'
+
+'It is an awkward thing.'
+
+They both went searching in the mud, which their own trampling had
+reduced to the consistency of pap, the postman unstrapping his little
+lantern from his breast, and thrusting it about, close to the ground,
+the rain still drizzling down, and the dawn so tardy on account of the
+heavy clouds that daylight seemed delayed indefinitely. The rays of
+the lantern were rendered individually visible upon the thick mist, and
+seemed almost tangible as they passed off into it, after illuminating
+the faces and knees of the two stooping figures dripping with wet; the
+postman's cape and private bags, and the steward's valise, glistening as
+if they had been varnished.
+
+'It fell on the grass,' said the postman.
+
+'No; it fell in the mud,' said Manston. They searched again.
+
+'I'm afraid we shan't find it by this light,' said the steward at
+length, washing his muddy fingers in the wet grass of the bank.
+
+'I'm afraid we shan't,' said the other, standing up.
+
+'I'll tell you what we had better do,' said Manston. 'I shall be back
+this way in an hour or so, and since it was all my fault, I'll look
+again, and shall be sure to find it in the daylight. And I'll hide the
+key here for you.' He pointed to a spot behind the post. 'It will be too
+late to turn the index then, as the people will have been here, so that
+the box had better stay as it is. The letter will only be delayed a day,
+and that will not be noticed; if it is, you can say you placed the iron
+the wrong way without knowing it, and all will be well.'
+
+This was agreed to by the postman as the best thing to be done under
+the circumstances, and the pair went on. They had passed the village and
+come to a crossroad, when the steward, telling his companion that their
+paths now diverged, turned off to the left towards Carriford.
+
+No sooner was the postman out of sight and hearing than Manston stalked
+back to the vicarage letter-box by keeping inside a fence, and thus
+avoiding the village; arrived here, he took the key from his pocket,
+where it had been concealed all the time, and abstracted Owen's letter.
+This done, he turned towards home, by the help of what he carried in
+his valise adjusting himself to his ordinary appearance as he neared the
+quarter in which he was known.
+
+An hour and half's sharp walking brought him to his own door in
+Knapwater Park.
+
+2. EIGHT O'CLOCK A.M.
+
+Seated in his private office he wetted the flap of the stolen letter,
+and waited patiently till the adhesive gum could be loosened. He took
+out Edward's note, the accounts, the rosebud, and the photographs,
+regarding them with the keenest interest and anxiety.
+
+The note, the accounts, the rosebud, and his own photograph, he restored
+to their places again. The other photograph he took between his finger
+and thumb, and held it towards the bars of the grate. There he held it
+for half-a-minute or more, meditating.
+
+'It is a great risk to run, even for such an end,' he muttered.
+
+Suddenly, impregnated with a bright idea, he jumped up and left the
+office for the front parlour. Taking up an album of portraits, which lay
+on the table, he searched for three or four likenesses of the lady who
+had so lately displaced Cytherea, which were interspersed among the
+rest of the collection, and carefully regarded them. They were taken in
+different attitudes and styles, and he compared each singly with that he
+held in his hand. One of them, the one most resembling that abstracted
+from the letter in general tone, size, and attitude, he selected from
+the rest, and returned with it to his office.
+
+Pouring some water into a plate, he set the two portraits afloat upon
+it, and sitting down tried to read.
+
+At the end of a quarter of an hour, after several ineffectual attempts,
+he found that each photograph would peel from the card on which it was
+mounted. This done, he threw into the fire the original likeness and the
+recent card, stuck upon the original card the recent likeness from the
+album, dried it before the fire, and placed it in the envelope with the
+other scraps.
+
+The result he had obtained, then, was this: in the envelope were now two
+photographs, both having the same photographer's name on the back and
+consecutive numbers attached. At the bottom of the one which showed his
+own likeness, his own name was written down; on the other his wife's
+name was written; whilst the central feature, and whole matter to which
+this latter card and writing referred, the likeness of a lady mounted
+upon it, had been changed.
+
+Mrs. Manston entered the room, and begged him to come to breakfast. He
+followed her and they sat down. During the meal he told her what he had
+done, with scrupulous regard to every detail, and showed her the result.
+
+'It is indeed a great risk to run,' she said, sipping her tea.
+
+'But it would be a greater not to do it.'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+The envelope was again fastened up as before, and Manston put it in
+his pocket and went out. Shortly afterwards he was seen, on horseback,
+riding in a direction towards Tolchurch. Keeping to the fields, as well
+as he could, for the greater part of the way, he dropped into the road
+by the vicarage letter-box, and looking carefully about, to ascertain
+that no person was near, he restored the letter to its nook, placed the
+key in its hiding-place, as he had promised the postman, and again rode
+homewards by a roundabout way.
+
+3. AFTERNOON
+
+The letter was brought to Owen Graye, the same afternoon, by one of the
+vicar's servants who had been to the box with a duplicate key, as usual,
+to leave letters for the evening post. The man found that the index had
+told falsely that morning for the first time within his recollection;
+but no particular attention was paid to the mistake, as it was
+considered. The contents of the envelope were scrutinized by Owen and
+flung aside as useless.
+
+The next morning brought Springrove's second letter, the existence of
+which was unknown to Manston. The sight of Edward's handwriting again
+raised the expectations of brother and sister, till Owen had opened the
+envelope and pulled out the twig and verse.
+
+'Nothing that's of the slightest use, after all,' he said to her; 'we
+are as far as ever from the merest shadow of legal proof that would
+convict him of what I am morally certain he did, marry you, suspecting,
+if not knowing, her to be alive all the time.'
+
+'What has Edward sent?' said Cytherea.
+
+'An old amatory verse in Manston's writing. Fancy,' he said bitterly,
+'this is the strain he addressed her in when they were courting--as he
+did you, I suppose.'
+
+He handed her the verse and she read--
+
+
+                        'EUNICE.
+
+          'Whoso for hours or lengthy days
+           Shall catch her aspect's changeful rays,
+           Then turn away, can none recall
+           Beyond a galaxy of all
+               In hazy portraiture;
+           Lit by the light of azure eyes
+           Like summer days by summer skies:
+           Her sweet transitions seem to be
+           A kind of pictured melody,
+               And not a set contour.
+                                      'AE. M.'
+
+
+A strange expression had overspread Cytherea's countenance. It rapidly
+increased to the most death-like anguish. She flung down the paper,
+seized Owen's hand tremblingly, and covered her face.
+
+'Cytherea! What is it, for Heaven's sake?'
+
+'Owen--suppose--O, you don't know what I think.'
+
+'What?'
+
+'"_The light of azure eyes_,"' she repeated with ashy lips.
+
+'Well, "the light of azure eyes"?' he said, astounded at her manner.
+
+'Mrs. Morris said in her letter to me that her eyes are _black_!'
+
+'H'm. Mrs. Morris must have made a mistake--nothing likelier.'
+
+'She didn't.'
+
+'They might be either in this photograph,' said Owen, looking at the
+card bearing Mrs. Manston's name.
+
+'Blue eyes would scarcely photograph so deep in tone as that,' said
+Cytherea. 'No, they seem black here, certainly.'
+
+'Well, then, Manston must have blundered in writing his verses.'
+
+'But could he? Say a man in love may forget his own name, but not that
+he forgets the colour of his mistress's eyes. Besides she would have
+seen the mistake when she read them, and have had it corrected.'
+
+'That's true, she would,' mused Owen. 'Then, Cytherea, it comes to
+this--you must have been misinformed by Mrs. Morris, since there is no
+other alternative.'
+
+'I suppose I must.'
+
+Her looks belied her words.
+
+'What makes you so strange--ill?' said Owen again.
+
+'I can't believe Mrs. Morris wrong.'
+
+'But look at this, Cytherea. If it is clear to us that the woman had
+blue eyes two years ago, she _must_ have blue eyes now, whatever Mrs.
+Morris or anybody else may fancy. Any one would think that Manston could
+change the colour of a woman's eyes to hear you.'
+
+'Yes,' she said, and paused.
+
+'You say yes, as if he could,' said Owen impatiently.
+
+'By changing the woman herself,' she exclaimed. 'Owen, don't you see
+the horrid--what I dread?--that the woman he lives with is not Mrs.
+Manston--that she was burnt after all--and that I am _his wife_!'
+
+She tried to support a stoicism under the weight of this new trouble,
+but no! The unexpected revulsion of ideas was so overwhelming that she
+crept to him and leant against his breast.
+
+Before reflecting any further upon the subject Graye led her upstairs
+and got her to lie down. Then he went to the window and stared out of
+it up the lane, vainly endeavouring to come to some conclusion upon
+the fantastic enigma that confronted him. Cytherea's new view seemed
+incredible, yet it had such a hold upon her that it would be necessary
+to clear it away by positive proof before contemplation of her fear
+should have preyed too deeply upon her.
+
+'Cytherea,' he said, 'this will not do. You must stay here alone all the
+afternoon whilst I go to Carriford. I shall know all when I return.'
+
+'No, no, don't go!' she implored.
+
+'Soon, then, not directly.' He saw her subtle reasoning--that it was
+folly to be wise.
+
+Reflection still convinced him that good would come of persevering
+in his intention and dispelling his sister's idle fears. Anything was
+better than this absurd doubt in her mind. But he resolved to wait till
+Sunday, the first day on which he might reckon upon seeing Mrs. Manston
+without suspicion. In the meantime he wrote to Edward Springrove,
+requesting him to go again to Mrs. Manston's former lodgings.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII. THE EVENTS OF THREE DAYS
+
+1. MARCH THE EIGHTEENTH
+
+Sunday morning had come, and Owen was trudging over the six miles of
+hill and dale that lay between Tolchurch and Carriford.
+
+Edward Springrove's answer to the last letter, after expressing his
+amazement at the strange contradiction between the verses and Mrs.
+Morris's letter, had been to the effect that he had again visited the
+neighbour of the dead Mr. Brown, and had received as near a description
+of Mrs. Manston as it was possible to get at second-hand, and by
+hearsay. She was a tall woman, wide at the shoulders, and full-chested,
+and she had a straight and rather large nose. The colour of her eyes the
+informant did not know, for she had only seen the lady in the street
+as she went in or out. This confusing remark was added. The woman had
+almost recognized Mrs. Manston when she had called with her husband
+lately, but she had kept her veil down. Her residence, before she came
+to Hoxton, was quite unknown to this next-door neighbour, and Edward
+could get no manner of clue to it from any other source.
+
+Owen reached the church-door a few minutes before the bells began
+chiming. Nobody was yet in the church, and he walked round the aisles.
+From Cytherea's frequent description of how and where herself and others
+used to sit, he knew where to look for Manston's seat; and after two
+or three errors of examination he took up a prayer-book in which was
+written 'Eunice Manston.' The book was nearly new, and the date of the
+writing about a month earlier. One point was at any rate established:
+that the woman living with Manston was presented to the world as no
+other than his lawful wife.
+
+The quiet villagers of Carriford required no pew-opener in their place
+of worship: natives and in-dwellers had their own seats, and strangers
+sat where they could. Graye took a seat in the nave, on the north
+side, close behind a pillar dividing it from the north aisle, which was
+completely allotted to Miss Aldclyffe, her farmers, and her retainers,
+Manston's pew being in the midst of them. Owen's position on the other
+side of the passage was a little in advance of Manston's seat, and so
+situated that by leaning forward he could look directly into the face
+of any person sitting there, though, if he sat upright, he was wholly
+hidden from such a one by the intervening pillar.
+
+Aiming to keep his presence unknown to Manston if possible, Owen sat,
+without once turning his head, during the entrance of the congregation.
+A rustling of silk round by the north passage and into Manston's seat,
+told him that some woman had entered there, and as it seemed from the
+accompaniment of heavier footsteps, Manston was with her.
+
+Immediately upon rising up, he looked intently in that direction, and
+saw a lady standing at the end of the seat nearest himself. Portions of
+Manston's figure appeared on the other side of her. In two glances Graye
+read thus many of her characteristics, and in the following order:--
+
+She was a tall woman.
+
+She was broad at the shoulders.
+
+She was full-bosomed.
+
+She was easily recognizable from the photograph but nothing could be
+discerned of the colour of her eyes.
+
+With a preoccupied mind he withdrew into his nook, and heard the
+service continued--only conscious of the fact that in opposition to the
+suspicion which one odd circumstance had bred in his sister concerning
+this woman, all ostensible and ordinary proofs and probabilities tended
+to the opposite conclusion. There sat the genuine original of the
+portrait--could he wish for more? Cytherea wished for more. Eunice
+Manston's eyes were blue, and it was necessary that this woman's eyes
+should be blue also.
+
+Unskilled labour wastes in beating against the bars ten times the energy
+exerted by the practised hand in the effective direction. Owen felt this
+to be the case in his own and Edward's attempts to follow up the clue
+afforded them. Think as he might, he could not think of a crucial test
+in the matter absorbing him, which should possess the indispensable
+attribute--a capability of being applied privately; that in the event of
+its proving the lady to be the rightful owner of the name she used, he
+might recede without obloquy from an untenable position.
+
+But to see Mrs. Manston's eyes from where he sat was impossible, and he
+could do nothing in the shape of a direct examination at present. Miss
+Aldclyffe had possibly recognized him, but Manston had not, and feeling
+that it was indispensable to keep the purport of his visit a secret from
+the steward, he thought it would be as well, too, to keep his presence
+in the village a secret from him; at any rate, till the day was over.
+
+At the first opening of the doors, Graye left the church and wandered
+away into the fields to ponder on another scheme. He could not call
+on Farmer Springrove, as he had intended, until this matter was set at
+rest. Two hours intervened between the morning and afternoon services.
+
+This time had nearly expired before Owen had struck out any method of
+proceeding, or could decide to run the risk of calling at the Old House
+and asking to see Mrs. Manston point-blank. But he had drawn near the
+place, and was standing still in the public path, from which a partial
+view of the front of the building could be obtained, when the bells
+began chiming for afternoon service. Whilst Graye paused, two persons
+came from the front door of the half-hidden dwelling whom he presently
+saw to be Manston and his wife. Manston was wearing his old garden-hat,
+and carried one of the monthly magazines under his arm. Immediately
+they had passed the gateway he branched off and went over the hill in a
+direction away from the church, evidently intending to ramble along,
+and read as the humour moved him. The lady meanwhile turned in the other
+direction, and went into the church path.
+
+Owen resolved to make something of this opportunity. He hurried along
+towards the church, doubled round a sharp angle, and came back upon the
+other path, by which Mrs. Manston must arrive.
+
+In about three minutes she appeared in sight without a veil. He
+discovered, as she drew nearer, a difficulty which had not struck him
+at first--that it is not an easy matter to particularize the colour of
+a stranger's eyes in a merely casual encounter on a path out of doors.
+That Mrs. Manston must be brought close to him, and not only so, but to
+look closely at him, if his purpose were to be accomplished.
+
+He shaped a plan. It might by chance be effectual; if otherwise, it
+would not reveal his intention to her. When Mrs. Manston was within
+speaking distance, he went up to her and said--
+
+'Will you kindly tell me which turning will take me to Casterbridge?'
+
+'The second on the right,' said Mrs. Manston.
+
+Owen put on a blank look: he held his hand to his ear--conveying to the
+lady the idea that he was deaf.
+
+She came closer and said more distinctly--
+
+'The second turning on the right.'
+
+Owen flushed a little. He fancied he had beheld the revelation he was in
+search of. But had his eyes deceived him?
+
+Once more he used the ruse, still drawing nearer and intimating by a
+glance that the trouble he gave her was very distressing to him.
+
+'How very deaf!' she murmured. She exclaimed loudly--
+
+'_The second turning to the right_.'
+
+She had advanced her face to within a foot of his own, and in speaking
+mouthed very emphatically, fixing her eyes intently upon his. And now
+his first suspicion was indubitably confirmed. Her eyes were as black as
+midnight.
+
+All this feigning was most distasteful to Graye. The riddle having
+been solved, he unconsciously assumed his natural look before she had
+withdrawn her face. She found him to be peering at her as if he would
+read her very soul--expressing with his eyes the notification of which,
+apart from emotion, the eyes are more capable than any other--inquiry.
+
+Her face changed its expression--then its colour. The natural tint of
+the lighter portions sank to an ashy gray; the pink of her cheeks grew
+purpler. It was the precise result which would remain after blood had
+left the face of one whose skin was dark, and artificially coated with
+pearl-powder and carmine.
+
+She turned her head and moved away, murmuring a hasty reply to Owen's
+farewell remark of 'Good-day,' and with a kind of nervous twitch lifting
+her hand and smoothing her hair, which was of a light-brown colour.
+
+'She wears false hair,' he thought, 'or has changed its colour
+artificially. Her true hair matched her eyes.'
+
+And now, in spite of what Mr. Brown's neighbours had said about nearly
+recognizing Mrs. Manston on her recent visit--which might have meant
+anything or nothing; in spite of the photograph, and in spite of his
+previous incredulity; in consequence of the verse, of her silence and
+backwardness at the visit to Hoxton with Manston, and of her appearance
+and distress at the present moment, Graye had a conviction that the
+woman was an impostor.
+
+What could be Manston's reason for such an astounding trick he could by
+no stretch of imagination divine.
+
+He changed his direction as soon as the woman was out of sight, and
+plodded along the lanes homeward to Tolchurch.
+
+One new idea was suggested to him by his desire to allay Cytherea's
+dread of being claimed, and by the difficulty of believing that the
+first Mrs. Manston lost her life as supposed, notwithstanding the
+inquest and verdict. Was it possible that the real Mrs. Manston, who
+was known to be a Philadelphian by birth, had returned by the train
+to London, as the porter had said, and then left the country under an
+assumed name, to escape that worst kind of widowhood--the misery of
+being wedded to a fickle, faithless, and truant husband?
+
+
+In her complicated distress at the news brought by her brother,
+Cytherea's thoughts at length reverted to her friend, the Rector of
+Carriford. She told Owen of Mr. Raunham's warm-hearted behaviour towards
+herself, and of his strongly expressed wish to aid her.
+
+'He is not only a good, but a sensible man. We seem to want an old head
+on our side.'
+
+'And he is a magistrate,' said Owen in a tone of concurrence. He
+thought, too, that no harm could come of confiding in the rector, but
+there was a difficulty in bringing about the confidence. He wished that
+his sister and himself might both be present at an interview with Mr.
+Raunham, yet it would be unwise for them to call on him together, in the
+sight of all the servants and parish of Carriford.
+
+There could be no objection to their writing him a letter.
+
+No sooner was the thought born than it was carried out. They wrote to
+him at once, asking him to have the goodness to give them some advice
+they sadly needed, and begging that he would accept their assurance
+that there was a real justification for the additional request they
+made--that instead of their calling upon him, he would any evening of
+the week come to their cottage at Tolchurch.
+
+2. MARCH THE TWENTIETH. SIX TO NINE O'CLOCK P.M.
+
+Two evenings later, to the total disarrangement of his dinner-hour, Mr.
+Raunham appeared at Owen's door. His arrival was hailed with genuine
+gratitude. The horse was tied to the palings, and the rector ushered
+indoors and put into the easy-chair.
+
+Then Graye told him the whole story, reminding him that their first
+suspicions had been of a totally different nature, and that in
+endeavouring to obtain proof of their truth they had stumbled upon
+marks which had surprised them into these new uncertainties, thrice as
+marvellous as the first, yet more prominent.
+
+Cytherea's heart was so full of anxiety that it superinduced a manner of
+confidence which was a death-blow to all formality. Mr. Raunham took her
+hand pityingly.
+
+'It is a serious charge,' he said, as a sort of original twig on which
+his thoughts might precipitate themselves.
+
+'Assuming for a moment that such a substitution was rendered an easy
+matter by fortuitous events,' he continued, 'there is this consideration
+to be placed beside it--what earthly motive can Mr. Manston have had
+which would be sufficiently powerful to lead him to run such a very
+great risk? The most abandoned roue could not, at that particular
+crisis, have taken such a reckless step for the mere pleasure of a new
+companion.'
+
+Owen had seen that difficulty about the motive; Cytherea had not.
+
+'Unfortunately for us,' the rector resumed, 'no more evidence is to be
+obtained from the porter, Chinney. I suppose you know what became of
+him? He got to Liverpool and embarked, intending to work his way to
+America, but on the passage he fell overboard and was drowned. But there
+is no doubt of the truth of his confession--in fact, his conduct tends
+to prove it true--and no moral doubt of the fact that the real Mrs.
+Manston left here to go back by that morning's train. This being the
+case, then, why, if this woman is not she, did she take no notice of the
+advertisement--I mean not necessarily a friendly notice, but from the
+information it afforded her have rendered it impossible that she should
+be personified without her own connivance?'
+
+'I think that argument is overthrown,' Graye said, 'by my earliest
+assumption of her hatred of him, weariness of the chain which bound her
+to him, and a resolve to begin the world anew. Let's suppose she has
+married another man--somewhere abroad, say; she would be silent for her
+own sake.'
+
+'You've hit the only genuine possibility,' said Mr. Raunham, tapping
+his finger upon his knee. 'That would decidedly dispose of the second
+difficulty. But his motive would be as mysterious as ever.'
+
+Cytherea's pictured dreads would not allow her mind to follow their
+conversation. 'She's burnt,' she said. 'O yes; I fear--I fear she is!'
+
+'I don't think we can seriously believe that now, after what has
+happened,' said the rector.
+
+Still straining her thought towards the worst, 'Then, perhaps, the first
+Mrs. Manston was not his wife,' she returned; 'and then I should be his
+wife just the same, shouldn't I?'
+
+'They were married safely enough,' said Owen. 'There is abundance of
+circumstantial evidence to prove that.'
+
+'Upon the whole,' said Mr. Raunham, 'I should advise your asking in a
+straightforward way for legal proof from the steward that the present
+woman is really his original wife--a thing which, to my mind, you should
+have done at the outset.' He turned to Cytherea kindly, and asked her
+what made her give up her husband so unceremoniously.
+
+She could not tell the rector of her aversion to Manston, and of her
+unquenched love for Edward.
+
+'Your terrified state no doubt,' he said, answering for her, in the
+manner of those accustomed to the pulpit. 'But into such a solemn
+compact as marriage, all-important considerations, both legally and
+morally, enter; it was your duty to have seen everything clearly proved.
+Doubtless Mr. Manston is prepared with proofs, but as it concerns nobody
+but yourself that her identity should be publicly established (and by
+your absenteeism you act as if you were satisfied) he has not troubled
+to exhibit them. Nobody else has taken the trouble to prove what does
+not affect them in the least--that's the way of the world always. You,
+who should have required all things to be made clear, ran away.'
+
+'That was partly my doing,' said Owen.
+
+The same explanation--her want of love for Manston--applied here too,
+but she shunned the revelation.
+
+'But never mind,' added the rector, 'it was all the greater credit to
+your womanhood, perhaps. I say, then, get your brother to write a line
+to Mr. Manston, saying you wish to be satisfied that all is legally
+clear (in case you should want to marry again, for instance), and I have
+no doubt that you will be. Or, if you would rather, I'll write myself?'
+
+'O no, sir, no,' pleaded Cytherea, beginning to blanch, and breathing
+quickly. 'Please don't say anything. Let me live here with Owen. I am so
+afraid it will turn out that I shall have to go to Knapwater and be his
+wife, and I don't want to go. Do conceal what we have told you. Let him
+continue his deception--it is much the best for me.'
+
+Mr. Raunham at length divined that her love for Manston, if it had ever
+existed, had transmuted itself into a very different feeling now.
+
+'At any rate,' he said, as he took his leave and mounted his mare, 'I
+will see about it. Rest content, Miss Graye, and depend upon it that I
+will not lead you into difficulty.'
+
+'Conceal it,' she still pleaded.
+
+'We'll see--but of course I must do my duty.'
+
+'No--don't do your duty!' She looked up at him through the gloom,
+illuminating her own face and eyes with the candle she held.
+
+'I will consider, then,' said Mr. Raunham, sensibly moved. He turned his
+horse's head, bade them a warm adieu, and left the door.
+
+The rector of Carriford trotted homewards under the cold and clear
+March sky, its countless stars fluttering like bright birds. He was
+unconscious of the scene. Recovering from the effect of Cytherea's voice
+and glance of entreaty, he laid the subject of the interview clearly
+before himself.
+
+The suspicions of Cytherea and Owen were honest, and had
+foundation--that he must own. Was he--a clergyman, magistrate, and
+conscientious man--justified in yielding to Cytherea's importunities
+to keep silence, because she dreaded the possibility of a return to
+Manston? Was she wise in her request? Holding her present belief, and
+with no definite evidence either way, she could, for one thing, never
+conscientiously marry any one else. Suppose that Cytherea were Manston's
+wife--i.e., that the first wife was really burnt? The adultery of
+Manston would be proved, and, Mr. Raunham thought, cruelty sufficient to
+bring the case within the meaning of the statute. Suppose the new woman
+was, as stated, Mr. Manston's restored wife? Cytherea was perfectly safe
+as a single woman whose marriage had been void. And if it turned out
+that, though this woman was not Manston's wife, his wife was still
+living, as Owen had suggested, in America or elsewhere, Cytherea was
+safe.
+
+The first supposition opened up the worst contingency. Was she really
+safe as Manston's wife? Doubtful. But, however that might be, the
+gentle, defenceless girl, whom it seemed nobody's business to help or
+defend, should be put in a track to proceed against this man. She had
+but one life, and the superciliousness with which all the world now
+regarded her should be compensated in some measure by the man whose
+carelessness--to set him in the best light--had caused it.
+
+Mr. Raunham felt more and more positively that his duty must be done. An
+inquiry must be made into the matter. Immediately on reaching home,
+he sat down and wrote a plain and friendly letter to Mr. Manston, and
+despatched it at once to him by hand. Then he flung himself back in
+his chair, and went on with his meditation. Was there anything in the
+suspicion? There could be nothing, surely. Nothing is done by a clever
+man without a motive, and what conceivable motive could Manston have for
+such abnormal conduct? Corinthian that he might be, who had preyed on
+virginity like St. George's dragon, he would never have been absurd
+enough to venture on such a course for the possession alone of the
+woman--there was no reason for it--she was inferior to Cytherea in every
+respect, physical and mental.
+
+On the other hand, it seemed rather odd, when he analyzed the action,
+that a woman who deliberately hid herself from her husband for more than
+a twelvemonth should be brought back by a mere advertisement. In fact,
+the whole business had worked almost too smoothly and effectually
+for unpremeditated sequence. It was too much like the indiscriminate
+righting of everything at the end of an old play. And there was that
+curious business of the keys and watch. Her way of accounting for their
+being left behind by forgetfulness had always seemed to him rather
+forced. The only unforced explanation was that suggested by the
+newspaper writers--that she left them behind on purpose to blind people
+as to her escape, a motive which would have clashed with the possibility
+of her being fished back by an advertisement, as the present woman had
+been. Again, there were the two charred bones. He shuffled the books and
+papers in his study, and walked about the room, restlessly musing on the
+same subject. The parlour-maid entered.
+
+'Can young Mr. Springrove from London see you to-night, sir?'
+
+'Young Mr. Springrove?' said the rector, surprised.
+
+'Yes, sir.'
+
+'Yes, of course he can see me. Tell him to come in.'
+
+Edward came so impatiently into the room, as to show that the few short
+moments his announcement had occupied had been irksome to him. He stood
+in the doorway with the same black bag in his hand, and the same old
+gray cloak on his shoulders, that he had worn fifteen months earlier
+when returning on the night of the fire. This appearance of his conveyed
+a true impression; he had become a stagnant man. But he was excited now.
+
+'I have this moment come from London,' he said, as the door was closed
+behind him.
+
+The prophetic insight, which so strangely accompanies critical
+experiences, prompted Mr. Raunham's reply.
+
+'About the Grayes and Manston?'
+
+'Yes. That woman is not Mrs. Manston.'
+
+'Prove it.'
+
+'I can prove that she is somebody else--that her name is Anne Seaway.'
+
+'And are their suspicions true indeed!'
+
+'And I can do what's more to the purpose at present.'
+
+'Suggest Manston's motive?'
+
+'Only suggest it, remember. But my assumption fits so perfectly with the
+facts that have been secretly unearthed and conveyed to me, that I can
+hardly conceive of another.'
+
+There was in Edward's bearing that entire unconsciousness of himself
+which, natural to wild animals, only prevails in a sensitive man at
+moments of extreme intentness. The rector saw that he had no trivial
+story to communicate, whatever the story was.
+
+'Sit down,' said Mr. Raunham. 'My mind has been on the stretch all the
+evening to form the slightest guess at such an object, and all to no
+purpose--entirely to no purpose. Have you said anything to Owen Graye?'
+
+'Nothing--nor to anybody. I could not trust to the effect a letter might
+have upon yourself, either; the intricacy of the case brings me to this
+interview.'
+
+Whilst Springrove had been speaking the two had sat down together. The
+conversation, hitherto distinct to every corner of the room, was carried
+on now in tones so low as to be scarcely audible to the interlocutors,
+and in phrases which hesitated to complete themselves. Three-quarters
+of an hour passed. Then Edward arose, came out of the rector's study and
+again flung his cloak around him. Instead of going thence homeward,
+he went first to the Carriford Road Station with a telegram, having
+despatched which he proceeded to his father's house for the first time
+since his arrival in the village.
+
+3. FROM NINE TO TEN O'CLOCK P.M.
+
+The next presentation is the interior of the Old House on the evening of
+the preceding section. The steward was sitting by his parlour fire, and
+had been reading the letter arrived from the rectory. Opposite to him
+sat the woman known to the village and neighbourhood as Mrs. Manston.
+
+'Things are looking desperate with us,' he said gloomily. His gloom was
+not that of the hypochondriac, but the legitimate gloom which has its
+origin in a syllogism. As he uttered the words he handed the letter to
+her.
+
+'I almost expected some such news as this,' she replied, in a tone of
+much greater indifference. 'I knew suspicion lurked in the eyes of that
+young man who stared at me so in the church path: I could have sworn
+it.'
+
+Manston did not answer for some time. His face was worn and haggard;
+latterly his head had not been carried so uprightly as of old. 'If they
+prove you to be--who you are.... Yes, if they do,' he murmured.
+
+'They must not find that out,' she said, in a positive voice, and
+looking at him. 'But supposing they do, the trick does not seem to me to
+be so serious as to justify that wretched, miserable, horrible look of
+yours. It makes my flesh creep; it is perfectly deathlike.'
+
+He did not reply, and she continued, 'If they say and prove that Eunice
+is indeed living--and dear, you know she is--she is sure to come back.'
+
+This remark seemed to awaken and irritate him to speech. Again, as he
+had done a hundred times during their residence together, he categorized
+the events connected with the fire at the Three Tranters. He dwelt on
+every incident of that night's history, and endeavoured, with an anxiety
+which was extraordinary in the apparent circumstances, to prove that his
+wife must, by the very nature of things, have perished in the flames.
+She arose from her seat, crossed the hearthrug, and set herself to
+soothe him; then she whispered that she was still as unbelieving as
+ever. 'Come, supposing she escaped--just supposing she escaped--where is
+she?' coaxed the lady.
+
+'Why are you so curious continually?' said Manston.
+
+'Because I am a woman and want to know. Now where is she?'
+
+'In the Flying Isle of San Borandan.'
+
+'Witty cruelty is the cruellest of any. Ah, well--if she is in England,
+she will come back.'
+
+'She is not in England.'
+
+'But she will come back?'
+
+'No, she won't.... Come, madam,' he said, arousing himself, 'I shall not
+answer any more questions.'
+
+'Ah--ah--ah--she is not dead,' the woman murmured again poutingly.
+
+'She is, I tell you.'
+
+'I don't think so, love.'
+
+'She was burnt, I tell you!' he exclaimed.
+
+'Now to please me, admit the bare possibility of her being alive--just
+the possibility.'
+
+'O yes--to please you I will admit that,' he said quickly. 'Yes, I admit
+the possibility of her being alive, to please you.'
+
+She looked at him in utter perplexity. The words could only have been
+said in jest, and yet they seemed to savour of a tone the furthest
+remove from jesting. There was his face plain to her eyes, but no
+information of any kind was to be read there.
+
+'It is only natural that I should be curious,' she murmured pettishly,
+'if I resemble her as much as you say I do.'
+
+'You are handsomer,' he said, 'though you are about her own height and
+size. But don't worry yourself. You must know that you are body and soul
+united with me, though you are but my housekeeper.'
+
+She bridled a little at the remark. 'Wife,' she said, 'most certainly
+wife, since you cannot dismiss me without losing your character and
+position, and incurring heavy penalties.'
+
+'I own it--it was well said, though mistakenly--very mistakenly.'
+
+'Don't riddle to me about mistakenly and such dark things. Now what was
+your motive, dearest, in running the risk of having me here?'
+
+'Your beauty,' he said.
+
+'She thanks you much for the compliment, but will not take it. Come,
+what was your motive?'
+
+'Your wit.'
+
+'No, no; not my wit. Wit would have made a wife of me by this time
+instead of what I am.'
+
+'Your virtue.'
+
+'Or virtue either.'
+
+'I tell you it was your beauty--really.'
+
+'But I cannot help seeing and hearing, and if what people say is true, I
+am not nearly so good-looking as Cytherea, and several years older.'
+
+The aspect of Manston's face at these words from her was so confirmatory
+of her hint, that his forced reply of 'O no,' tended to develop her
+chagrin.
+
+'Mere liking or love for me,' she resumed, 'would not have sprung up
+all of a sudden, as your pretended passion did. You had been to London
+several times between the time of the fire and your marriage with
+Cytherea--you had never visited me or thought of my existence or cared
+that I was out of a situation and poor. But the week after you married
+her and were separated from her, off you rush to make love to me--not
+first to me either, for you went to several places--'
+
+'No, not several places.'
+
+'Yes, you told me so yourself--that you went first to the only lodging
+in which your wife had been known as Mrs. Manston, and when you found
+that the lodging-house-keeper had gone away and died, and that nobody
+else in the street had any definite ideas as to your wife's personal
+appearance, and came and proposed the arrangement we carried out--that I
+should personate her. Your taking all this trouble shows that something
+more serious than love had to do with the matter.'
+
+'Humbug--what trouble after all did I take? When I found Cytherea would
+not stay with me after the wedding I was much put out at being left
+alone again. Was that unnatural?'
+
+'No.'
+
+'And those favouring accidents you mention--that nobody knew my first
+wife--seemed an arrangement of Providence for our mutual benefit, and
+merely perfected a half-formed impulse--that I should call you my first
+wife to escape the scandal that would have arisen if you had come here
+as anything else.'
+
+'My love, that story won't do. If Mrs. Manston was burnt, Cytherea, whom
+you love better than me, could have been compelled to live with you as
+your lawful wife. If she was not burnt, why should you run the risk of
+her turning up again at any moment and exposing your substitution of me,
+and ruining your name and prospects?'
+
+'Why--because I might have loved you well enough to run the risk
+(assuming her not to be burnt, which I deny).'
+
+'No--you would have run the risk the other way. You would rather have
+risked her finding you with Cytherea as a second wife, than with me as a
+personator of herself--the first one.'
+
+'You came easiest to hand--remember that.'
+
+'Not so very easy either, considering the labour you took to teach
+me your first wife's history. All about how she was a native of
+Philadelphia. Then making me read up the guide-book to Philadelphia, and
+details of American life and manners, in case the birthplace and
+history of your wife, Eunice, should ever become known in this
+neighbourhood--unlikely as it was. Ah! and then about the handwriting of
+hers that I had to imitate, and the dying my hair, and rouging, to make
+the transformation complete? You mean to say that that was taking less
+trouble than there would have been in arranging events to make Cytherea
+believe herself your wife, and live with you?'
+
+'You were a needy adventuress, who would dare anything for a new
+pleasure and an easy life--and I was fool enough to give in to you--'
+
+'Good heavens above!--did I ask you to insert those advertisements for
+your old wife, and to make me answer it as if I was she? Did I ask you
+to send me the letter for me to copy and send back to you when the third
+advertisement appeared--purporting to come from the long-lost wife, and
+giving a detailed history of her escape and subsequent life--all which
+you had invented yourself? You deluded me into loving you, and then
+enticed me here! Ah, and this is another thing. How did you know the
+real wife wouldn't answer it, and upset all your plans?'
+
+'Because I knew she was burnt.'
+
+'Why didn't you force Cytherea to come back, then? Now, my love, I have
+caught you, and you may just as well tell first as last, _what was your
+motive in having me here as your first wife_?'
+
+'Silence!' he exclaimed.
+
+She was silent for the space of two minutes, and then persisted in going
+on to mutter, 'And why was it that Miss Aldclyffe allowed her favourite
+young lady, Cythie, to be overthrown and supplanted without an
+expostulation or any show of sympathy? Do you know I often think you
+exercise a secret power over Miss Aldclyffe. And she always shuns me as
+if I shared the power. A poor, ill-used creature like me sharing power,
+indeed!'
+
+'She thinks you are Mrs. Manston.'
+
+'That wouldn't make her avoid me.'
+
+'Yes it would,' he exclaimed impatiently. 'I wish I was dead--dead!'
+He had jumped up from his seat in uttering the words, and now walked
+wearily to the end of the room. Coming back more decisively, he looked
+in her face.
+
+'We must leave this place if Raunham suspects what I think he does,'
+he said. 'The request of Cytherea and her brother may simply be for
+a satisfactory proof, to make her feel legally free--but it may mean
+more.'
+
+'What may it mean?'
+
+'How should I know?'
+
+'Well, well, never mind, old boy,' she said, approaching him to make up
+the quarrel. 'Don't be so alarmed--anybody would think that you were the
+woman and I the man. Suppose they do find out what I am--we can go away
+from here and keep house as usual. People will say of you, "His first
+wife was burnt to death" (or "ran away to the Colonies," as the case
+may be); "He married a second, and deserted her for Anne Seaway." A very
+everyday case--nothing so horrible, after all.'
+
+He made an impatient movement. 'Whichever way we do it, _nobody must
+know that you are not my wife Eunice_. And now I must think about
+arranging matters.'
+
+Manston then retired to his office, and shut himself up for the
+remainder of the evening.
+
+
+
+
+XIX. THE EVENTS OF A DAY AND NIGHT
+
+1. MARCH THE TWENTY-FIRST. MORNING
+
+Next morning the steward went out as usual. He shortly told his
+companion, Anne, that he had almost matured their scheme, and that
+they would enter upon the details of it when he came home at night. The
+fortunate fact that the rector's letter did not require an immediate
+answer would give him time to consider.
+
+Anne Seaway then began her duties in the house. Besides daily
+superintending the cook and housemaid one of these duties was, at rare
+intervals, to dust Manston's office with her own hands, a servant being
+supposed to disturb the books and papers unnecessarily. She softly
+wandered from table to shelf with the duster in her hand, afterwards
+standing in the middle of the room, and glancing around to discover if
+any noteworthy collection of dust had still escaped her.
+
+Her eye fell upon a faint layer which rested upon the ledge of an
+old-fashioned chestnut cabinet of French Renaissance workmanship, placed
+in a recess by the fireplace. At a height of about four feet from the
+floor the upper portion of the front receded, forming the ledge alluded
+to, on which opened at each end two small doors, the centre space
+between them being filled out by a panel of similar size, making the
+third of three squares. The dust on the ledge was nearly on a level with
+the woman's eye, and, though insignificant in quantity, showed itself
+distinctly on account of this obliquity of vision. Now opposite the
+central panel, concentric quarter-circles were traced in the deposited
+film, expressing to her that this panel, too, was a door like the
+others; that it had lately been opened, and had skimmed the dust with
+its lower edge.
+
+At last, then, her curiosity was slightly rewarded. For the right of the
+matter was that Anne had been incited to this exploration of Manston's
+office rather by a wish to know the reason of his long seclusion
+here, after the arrival of the rector's letter, and their subsequent
+discourse, than by any immediate desire for cleanliness. Still, there
+would have been nothing remarkable to Anne in this sight but for one
+recollection. Manston had once casually told her that each of the two
+side-lockers included half the middle space, the panel of which did
+not open, and was only put in for symmetry. It was possible that he had
+opened this compartment by candlelight the preceding night, or he would
+have seen the marks in the dust, and effaced them, that he might not
+be proved guilty of telling her an untruth. She balanced herself on one
+foot and stood pondering. She considered that it was very vexing and
+unfair in him to refuse her all knowledge of his remaining secrets,
+under the peculiar circumstances of her connection with him. She went
+close to the cabinet. As there was no keyhole, the door must be capable
+of being opened by the unassisted hand. The circles in the dust told her
+at which edge to apply her force. Here she pulled with the tips of her
+fingers, but the panel would not come forward. She fetched a chair and
+looked over the top of the cabinet, but no bolt, knob, or spring was to
+be seen.
+
+'O, never mind,' she said, with indifference; 'I'll ask him about it,
+and he will tell me.' Down she came and turned away. Then looking back
+again she thought it was absurd such a trifle should puzzle her.
+She retraced her steps, and opened a drawer beneath the ledge of the
+cabinet, pushing in her hand and feeling about on the underside of the
+board.
+
+Here she found a small round sinking, and pressed her finger into it.
+Nothing came of the pressure. She withdrew her hand and looked at the
+tip of her finger: it was marked with the impress of the circle, and, in
+addition, a line ran across it diametrically.
+
+'How stupid of me; it is the head of a screw.' Whatever mysterious
+contrivance had originally existed for opening the puny cupboard of
+the cabinet, it had at some time been broken, and this rough substitute
+provided. Stimulated curiosity would not allow her to recede now. She
+fetched a screwdriver, withdrew the screw, pulled the door open with a
+penknife, and found inside a cavity about ten inches square. The cavity
+contained--
+
+Letters from different women, with unknown signatures, Christian names
+only (surnames being despised in Paphos). Letters from his wife Eunice.
+Letters from Anne herself, including that she wrote in answer to his
+advertisement. A small pocket-book. Sundry scraps of paper.
+
+The letters from the strange women with pet names she glanced carelessly
+through, and then put them aside. They were too similar to her own
+regretted delusion, and curiosity requires contrast to excite it.
+
+The letters from his wife were next examined. They were dated back as
+far as Eunice's first meeting with Manston, and the early ones before
+their marriage contained the usual pretty effusions of women at such a
+period of their existence. Some little time after he had made her his
+wife, and when he had come to Knapwater, the series began again, and
+now their contents arrested her attention more forcibly. She closed the
+cabinet, carried the letters into the parlour, reclined herself on the
+sofa, and carefully perused them in the order of their dates.
+
+
+                                            'JOHN STREET,
+                                                   October 17, 1864.
+
+'MY DEAREST HUSBAND,--I received your hurried line of yesterday, and was
+of course content with it. But why don't you tell me your exact address
+instead of that "Post-Office, Budmouth?" This matter is all a mystery to
+me, and I ought to be told every detail. I cannot fancy it is the same
+kind of occupation you have been used to hitherto. Your command that
+I am to stay here awhile until you can "see how things look" and can
+arrange to send for me, I must necessarily abide by. But if, as you say,
+a married man would have been rejected by the person who engaged you,
+and that hence my existence must be kept a secret until you have secured
+your position, why did you think of going at all?
+
+'The truth is, this keeping our marriage a secret is troublesome,
+vexing, and wearisome to me. I see the poorest woman in the street
+bearing her husband's name openly--living with him in the most
+matter-of-fact ease, and why shouldn't I? I wish I was back again in
+Liverpool.
+
+'To-day I bought a grey waterproof cloak. I think it is a little too
+long for me, but it was cheap for one of such a quality. The weather is
+gusty and dreary, and till this morning I had hardly set foot outside
+the door since you left. Please do tell me when I am to come.--Very
+affectionately yours, EUNICE.'
+
+
+                                             'JOHN STREET,
+                                                    October 25, 1864.
+
+'MY DEAR HUSBAND,--Why don't you write? Do you hate me? I have not had
+the heart to do anything this last week. That I, your wife, should be in
+this strait, and my husband well to do! I have been obliged to leave my
+first lodging for debt--among other things, they charged me for a lot of
+brandy which I am quite sure I did not taste. Then I went to Camberwell
+and was found out by them. I went away privately from thence, and
+changed my name the second time. I am now Mrs. Rondley. But the new
+lodging was the wretchedest and dearest I ever set foot in, and I left
+it after being there only a day. I am now at No. 20 in the same street
+that you left me in originally. All last night the sash of my window
+rattled so dreadfully that I could not sleep, but I had not energy
+enough to get out of bed to stop it. This morning I have been walking--I
+don't know how far--but far enough to make my feet ache. I have been
+looking at the outside of two or three of the theatres, but they seem
+forbidding if I regard them with the eye of an actress in search of
+an engagement. Though you said I was to think no more of the stage,
+I believe you would not care if you found me there. But I am not an
+actress by nature, and art will never make me one. I am too timid and
+retiring; I was intended for a cottager's wife. I certainly shall not
+try to go on the boards again whilst I am in this strange place. The
+idea of being brought on as far as London and then left here alone! Why
+didn't you leave me in Liverpool? Perhaps you thought I might have told
+somebody that my real name was Mrs. Manston. As if I had a living friend
+to whom I could impart it--no such good fortune! In fact, my nearest
+friend is no nearer than what most people would call a stranger. But
+perhaps I ought to tell you that a week before I wrote my last letter to
+you, after wishing that my uncle and aunt in Philadelphia (the only near
+relatives I had) were still alive, I suddenly resolved to send a line to
+my cousin James, who, I believe, is still living in that neighbourhood.
+He has never seen me since we were babies together. I did not tell him
+of my marriage, because I thought you might not like it, and I gave my
+real maiden name, and an address at the post-office here. But God knows
+if the letter will ever reach him.
+
+'Do write me an answer, and send something.--Your affectionate wife,
+EUNICE.'
+
+
+                                                'FRIDAY, October 28.
+
+'MY DEAR HUSBAND,--The order for ten pounds has just come, and I am
+truly glad to get it. But why will you write so bitterly? Ah--well, if
+I had only had the money I should have been on my way to America by this
+time, so don't think I want to bore you of my own free-will. Who can
+you have met with at that new place? Remember I say this in no malignant
+tone, but certainly the facts go to prove that you have deserted me!
+You are inconstant--I know it. O, why are you so? Now I have lost you, I
+love you in spite of your neglect. I am weakly fond--that's my nature.
+I fear that upon the whole my life has been wasted. I know there is
+another woman supplanting me in your heart--yes, I know it. Come to
+me--do come. EUNICE.'
+
+
+                                      '41 CHARLES SQUARE, HOXTON,
+                                                   November 19.
+
+'DEAR AENEAS,--Here I am back again after my visit. Why should you have
+been so enraged at my finding your exact address? Any woman would have
+tried to do it--you know she would have. And no woman would have lived
+under assumed names so long as I did. I repeat that I did not call
+myself Mrs. Manston until I came to this lodging at the beginning of
+this month--what could you expect?
+
+'A helpless creature I, had not fortune favoured me unexpectedly.
+Banished as I was from your house at dawn, I did not suppose the
+indignity was about to lead to important results. But in crossing the
+park I overheard the conversation of a young man and woman who had also
+risen early. I believe her to be the girl who has won you away from
+me. Well, their conversation concerned you and Miss Aldclyffe, _very
+peculiarly_. The remarkable thing is that you yourself, without knowing
+it, told me of what, added to their conversation, completely reveals a
+secret to me that neither of you understand. Two negatives never made
+such a telling positive before. One clue more, and you would see it.
+A single consideration prevents my revealing it--just one doubt as to
+whether your ignorance was real, and was not feigned to deceive me.
+Civility now, please. EUNICE.'
+
+
+                                          '41 CHARLES SQUARE,
+                                               Tuesday, November 22.
+
+'MY DARLING HUSBAND,--Monday will suit me excellently for coming. I have
+acted exactly up to your instructions, and have sold my rubbish at the
+broker's in the next street. All this movement and bustle is delightful
+to me after the weeks of monotony I have endured. It is a relief to wish
+the place good-bye--London always has seemed so much more foreign to
+me than Liverpool The mid-day train on Monday will do nicely for me. I
+shall be anxiously looking out for you on Sunday night.
+
+'I hope so much that you are not angry with me for writing to Miss
+Aldclyffe. You are not, dear, are you? Forgive me.--Your loving wife,
+EUNICE.'
+
+
+This was the last of the letters from the wife to the husband. One
+other, in Mrs. Manston's handwriting, and in the same packet, was
+differently addressed.
+
+
+                                    'THREE TRANTERS INN, CARRIFORD,
+                                                  November 28, 1864.
+
+'DEAR COUSIN JAMES,--Thank you indeed for answering my letter so
+promptly. When I called at the post-office yesterday I did not in the
+least think there would be one. But I must leave this subject. I write
+again at once under the strangest and saddest conditions it is possible
+to conceive.
+
+'I did not tell you in my last that I was a married woman. Don't blame
+me--it was my husband's influence. I hardly know where to begin my
+story. I had been living apart from him for a time--then he sent for me
+(this was last week) and I was glad to go to him. Then this is what he
+did. He promised to fetch me, and did not--leaving me to do the journey
+alone. He promised to meet me at the station here--he did not. I went on
+through the darkness to his house, and found his door locked and himself
+away from home. I have been obliged to come here, and I write to you in
+a strange room in a strange village inn! I choose the present moment to
+write to drive away my misery. Sorrow seems a sort of pleasure when you
+detail it on paper--poor pleasure though.
+
+'But this is what I want to know--and I am ashamed to tell it. I would
+gladly do as you say, and come to you as a housekeeper, but I have
+not the money even for a steerage passage. James, do you want me badly
+enough--do you pity me enough to send it? I could manage to subsist in
+London upon the proceeds of my sale for another month or six weeks. Will
+you send it to the same address at the post-office? But how do I know
+that you...'
+
+Thus the letter ended. From creases in the paper it was plain that the
+writer, having got so far, had become dissatisfied with her production,
+and had crumpled it in her hand. Was it to write another, or not to
+write at all?
+
+The next thing Anne Seaway perceived was that the fragmentary story she
+had coaxed out of Manston, to the effect that his wife had left England
+for America, might be truthful, according to two of these letters,
+corroborated by the evidence of the railway-porter. And yet, at first,
+he had sworn in a passion that his wife was most certainly consumed in
+the fire.
+
+If she had been burnt, this letter, written in her bedroom, and probably
+thrust into her pocket when she relinquished it, would have been burnt
+with her. Nothing was surer than that. Why, then, did he say she was
+burnt, and never show Anne herself this letter?
+
+The question suddenly raised a new and much stranger one--kindling a
+burst of amazement in her. How did Manston become possessed of this
+letter?
+
+That fact of possession was certainly the most remarkable revelation
+of all in connection with this epistle, and perhaps had something to do
+with his reason for never showing it to her.
+
+She knew by several proofs, that before his marriage with Cytherea, and
+up to the time of the porter's confession, Manston believed--honestly
+believed--that Cytherea would be his lawful wife, and hence, of course,
+that his wife Eunice was dead. So that no communication could possibly
+have passed between his wife and himself from the first moment that he
+believed her dead on the night of the fire, to the day of his wedding.
+And yet he had that letter. How soon afterwards could they have
+communicated with each other?
+
+The existence of the letter--as much as, or more than its
+contents--implying that Mrs. Manston was not burnt, his belief in that
+calamity must have terminated at the moment he obtained possession of
+the letter, if no earlier. Was, then, the only solution to the riddle
+that Anne could discern, the true one?--that he had communicated with
+his wife somewhere about the commencement of Anne's residence with him,
+or at any time since?
+
+It was the most unlikely thing on earth that a woman who had forsaken
+her husband should countenance his scheme to personify her--whether she
+were in America, in London, or in the neighbourhood of Knapwater.
+
+Then came the old and harassing question, what was Manston's real motive
+in risking his name on the deception he was practising as regarded Anne.
+It could not be, as he had always pretended, mere passion. Her thoughts
+had reverted to Mr. Raunham's letter, asking for proofs of her identity
+with the original Mrs. Manston. She could see no loophole of escape
+for the man who supported her. True, in her own estimation, his worst
+alternative was not so very bad after all--the getting the name of
+libertine, a possible appearance in the divorce or some other court
+of law, and a question of damages. Such an exposure might hinder
+his worldly progress for some time. Yet to him this alternative was,
+apparently, terrible as death itself.
+
+She restored the letters to their hiding-place, scanned anew the other
+letters and memoranda, from which she could gain no fresh information,
+fastened up the cabinet, and left everything in its former condition.
+
+Her mind was ill at ease. More than ever she wished that she had never
+seen Manston. Where the person suspected of mysterious moral obliquity
+is the possessor of great physical and intellectual attractions, the
+mere sense of incongruity adds an extra shudder to dread. The man's
+strange bearing terrified Anne as it had terrified Cytherea; for with
+all the woman Anne's faults, she had not descended to such depths of
+depravity as to willingly participate in crime. She had not even known
+that a living wife was being displaced till her arrival at Knapwater put
+retreat out of the question, and had looked upon personation simply as
+a mode of subsistence a degree better than toiling in poverty and alone,
+after a bustling and somewhat pampered life as housekeeper in a gay
+mansion.
+
+              'Non illa colo calathisve Minervae
+      Foemineas assueta manus.'
+
+2. AFTERNOON
+
+Mr. Raunham and Edward Springrove had by this time set in motion a
+machinery which they hoped to find working out important results.
+
+The rector was restless and full of meditation all the following
+morning. It was plain, even to the servants about him, that Springrove's
+communication wore a deeper complexion than any that had been made to
+the old magistrate for many months or years past. The fact was that,
+having arrived at the stage of existence in which the difficult
+intellectual feat of suspending one's judgment becomes possible, he was
+now putting it in practice, though not without the penalty of watchful
+effort.
+
+It was not till the afternoon that he determined to call on his
+relative, Miss Aldclyffe, and cautiously probe her knowledge of the
+subject occupying him so thoroughly. Cytherea, he knew, was still
+beloved by this solitary woman. Miss Aldclyffe had made several private
+inquiries concerning her former companion, and there was ever a sadness
+in her tone when the young lady's name was mentioned, which showed that
+from whatever cause the elder Cytherea's renunciation of her favourite
+and namesake proceeded, it was not from indifference to her fate.
+
+'Have you ever had any reason for supposing your steward anything but an
+upright man?' he said to the lady.
+
+'Never the slightest. Have you?' said she reservedly.
+
+'Well--I have.'
+
+'What is it?'
+
+'I can say nothing plainly, because nothing is proved. But my suspicions
+are very strong.'
+
+'Do you mean that he was rather cool towards his wife when they were
+first married, and that it was unfair in him to leave her? I know he
+was; but I think his recent conduct towards her has amply atoned for the
+neglect.'
+
+He looked Miss Aldclyffe full in the face. It was plain that she spoke
+honestly. She had not the slightest notion that the woman who lived with
+the steward might be other than Mrs. Manston--much less that a greater
+matter might be behind.
+
+'That's not it--I wish it was no more. My suspicion is, first, that the
+woman living at the Old House is not Mr. Manston's wife.'
+
+'Not--Mr. Manston's wife?'
+
+'That is it.'
+
+Miss Aldclyffe looked blankly at the rector. 'Not Mr. Manston's
+wife--who else can she be?' she said simply.
+
+'An improper woman of the name of Anne Seaway.'
+
+Mr. Raunham had, in common with other people, noticed the extraordinary
+interest of Miss Aldclyffe in the well-being of her steward, and had
+endeavoured to account for it in various ways. The extent to which she
+was shaken by his information, whilst it proved that the understanding
+between herself and Manston did not make her a sharer of his secrets,
+also showed that the tie which bound her to him was still unbroken. Mr.
+Raunham had lately begun to doubt the latter fact, and now, on finding
+himself mistaken, regretted that he had not kept his own counsel in the
+matter. This it was too late to do, and he pushed on with his proofs. He
+gave Miss Aldclyffe in detail the grounds of his belief.
+
+Before he had done, she recovered the cloak of reserve that she had
+adopted on his opening the subject.
+
+'I might possibly be convinced that you were in the right, after such an
+elaborate argument,' she replied, 'were it not for one fact, which bears
+in the contrary direction so pointedly, that nothing but absolute proof
+can turn it. It is that there is no conceivable motive which
+could induce any sane man--leaving alone a man of Mr. Manston's
+clear-headedness and integrity--to venture upon such an extraordinary
+course of conduct--no motive on earth.'
+
+'That was my own opinion till after the visit of a friend last night--a
+friend of mine and poor little Cytherea's.'
+
+'Ah--and Cytherea,' said Miss Aldclyffe, catching at the idea raised
+by the name. 'That he loved Cytherea--yes and loves her now, wildly and
+devotedly, I am as positive as that I breathe. Cytherea is years younger
+than Mrs. Manston--as I shall call her--twice as sweet in disposition,
+three times as beautiful. Would he have given her up quietly and
+suddenly for a common--Mr. Raunham, your story is monstrous, and I don't
+believe it!' She glowed in her earnestness.
+
+The rector might now have advanced his second proposition--the possible
+motive--but for reasons of his own he did not.
+
+'Very well, madam. I only hope that facts will sustain you in your
+belief. Ask him the question to his face, whether the woman is his wife
+or no, and see how he receives it.'
+
+'I will to-morrow, most certainly,' she said. 'I always let these things
+die of wholesome ventilation, as every fungus does.'
+
+But no sooner had the rector left her presence, than the grain of
+mustard-seed he had sown grew to a tree. Her impatience to set her
+mind at rest could not brook a night's delay. It was with the utmost
+difficulty that she could wait till evening arrived to screen her
+movements. Immediately the sun had dropped behind the horizon, and
+before it was quite dark, she wrapped her cloak around her, softly left
+the house, and walked erect through the gloomy park in the direction of
+the old manor-house.
+
+The same minute saw two persons sit down in the rectory-house to
+share the rector's usually solitary dinner. One was a man of official
+appearance, commonplace in all except his eyes. The other was Edward
+Springrove.
+
+
+The discovery of the carefully-concealed letters rankled in the mind of
+Anne Seaway. Her woman's nature insisted that Manston had no right to
+keep all matters connected with his lost wife a secret from herself.
+Perplexity had bred vexation; vexation, resentment; curiosity had been
+continuous. The whole morning this resentment and curiosity increased.
+
+The steward said very little to his companion during their luncheon
+at mid-day. He seemed reckless of appearances--almost indifferent to
+whatever fate awaited him. All his actions betrayed that something
+portentous was impending, and still he explained nothing. By carefully
+observing every trifling action, as only a woman can observe them,
+the thought at length dawned upon her that he was going to run away
+secretly. She feared for herself; her knowledge of law and justice was
+vague, and she fancied she might in some way be made responsible for
+him.
+
+In the afternoon he went out of the house again, and she watched him
+drive away in the direction of the county-town. She felt a desire to go
+there herself, and, after an interval of half-an-hour, followed him on
+foot notwithstanding the distance--ostensibly to do some shopping.
+
+One among her several trivial errands was to make a small purchase at
+the druggist's. Near the druggist's stood the County Bank. Looking out
+of the shop window, between the coloured bottles, she saw Manston come
+down the steps of the bank, in the act of withdrawing his hand from his
+pocket, and pulling his coat close over its mouth.
+
+It is an almost universal habit with people, when leaving a bank, to be
+carefully adjusting their pockets if they have been receiving money; if
+they have been paying it in, their hands swing laxly. The steward had
+in all likelihood been taking money--possibly on Miss Aldclyffe's
+account--that was continual with him. And he might have been removing
+his own, as a man would do who was intending to leave the country.
+
+3. FROM FIVE TO EIGHT O'CLOCK P.M.
+
+Anne reached home again in time to preside over preparations for dinner.
+Manston came in half-an-hour later. The lamp was lighted, the shutters
+were closed, and they sat down together. He was pale and worn--almost
+haggard.
+
+The meal passed off in almost unbroken silence. When preoccupation
+withstands the influence of a social meal with one pleasant companion,
+the mental scene must be surpassingly vivid. Just as she was rising a
+tap came to the door.
+
+Before a maid could attend to the knock, Manston crossed the room and
+answered it himself. The visitor was Miss Aldclyffe.
+
+Manston instantly came back and spoke to Anne in an undertone. 'I should
+be glad if you could retire to your room for a short time.'
+
+'It is a dry, starlight evening,' she replied. 'I will go for a
+little walk if your object is merely a private conversation with Miss
+Aldclyffe.'
+
+'Very well, do; there's no accounting for tastes,' he said. A few
+commonplaces then passed between her and Miss Aldclyffe, and Anne went
+upstairs to bonnet and cloak herself. She came down, opened the front
+door, and went out.
+
+She looked around to realize the night. It was dark, mournful, and
+quiet. Then she stood still. From the moment that Manston had requested
+her absence, a strong and burning desire had prevailed in her to know
+the subject of Miss Aldclyffe's conversation with him. Simple curiosity
+was not entirely what inspired her. Her suspicions had been thoroughly
+aroused by the discovery of the morning. A conviction that her future
+depended on her power to combat a man who, in desperate circumstances,
+would be far from a friend to her, prompted a strategic movement to
+acquire the important secret that was in handling now. The woman thought
+and thought, and regarded the dull dark trees, anxiously debating how
+the thing could be done.
+
+Stealthily re-opening the front door she entered the hall, and advancing
+and pausing alternately, came close to the door of the room in which
+Miss Aldclyffe and Manston conversed. Nothing could be heard through the
+keyhole or panels. At a great risk she softly turned the knob and
+opened the door to a width of about half-an-inch, performing the act so
+delicately that three minutes, at least, were occupied in completing it.
+At that instant Miss Aldclyffe said--
+
+'There's a draught somewhere. The door is ajar, I think.'
+
+Anne glided back under the staircase. Manston came forward and closed
+the door. This chance was now cut off, and she considered again. The
+parlour, or sitting-room, in which the conference took place, had the
+window-shutters fixed on the outside of the window, as is usual in the
+back portions of old country-houses. The shutters were hinged one
+on each side of the opening, and met in the middle, where they were
+fastened by a bolt passing continuously through them and the wood
+mullion within, the bolt being secured on the inside by a pin, which was
+seldom inserted till Manston and herself were about to retire for the
+night; sometimes not at all.
+
+If she returned to the door of the room she might be discovered at any
+moment, but could she listen at the window, which overlooked a part
+of the garden never visited after nightfall, she would be safe from
+disturbance. The idea was worth a trial.
+
+She glided round to the window, took the head of the bolt between her
+finger and thumb, and softly screwed it round until it was entirely
+withdrawn from its position. The shutters remained as before, whilst,
+where the bolt had come out, was now a shining hole three-quarters of
+an inch in diameter, through which one might see into the middle of the
+room. She applied her eye to the orifice.
+
+Miss Aldclyffe and Manston were both standing; Manston with his back to
+the window, his companion facing it. The lady's demeanour was severe,
+condemnatory, and haughty. No more was to be seen; Anne then turned
+sideways, leant with her shoulder against the shutters and placed her
+ear upon the hole.
+
+'You know where,' said Miss Aldclyffe. 'And how could you, a man, act a
+double deceit like this?'
+
+'Men do strange things sometimes.'
+
+'What was your reason--come?'
+
+'A mere whim.'
+
+'I might even believe that, if the woman were handsomer than Cytherea,
+or if you had been married some time to Cytherea and had grown tired of
+her.'
+
+'And can't you believe it, too, under these conditions; that I married
+Cytherea, gave her up because I heard that my wife was alive, found that
+my wife would not come to live with me, and then, not to let any woman
+I love so well as Cytherea run any risk of being displaced and ruined in
+reputation, should my wife ever think fit to return, induced this woman
+to come to me, as being better than no companion at all?'
+
+'I cannot believe it. Your love for Cytherea was not of such a kind
+as that excuse would imply. It was Cytherea or nobody with you. As an
+object of passion, you did not desire the company of this Anne Seaway
+at all, and certainly not so much as to madly risk your reputation
+by bringing her here in the way you have done. I am sure you didn't,
+AEneas.'
+
+'So am I,' he said bluntly.
+
+Miss Aldclyffe uttered an exclamation of astonishment; the confession
+was like a blow in its suddenness. She began to reproach him bitterly,
+and with tears.
+
+'How could you overthrow my plans, disgrace the only girl I ever had any
+respect for, by such inexplicable doings!... That woman must leave this
+place--the country perhaps. Heavens! the truth will leak out in a day or
+two!'
+
+'She must do no such thing, and the truth must be stifled
+somehow--nobody knows how. If I stay here, or on any spot of the
+civilized globe, as AEneas Manston, this woman must live with me as my
+wife, or I am damned past redemption!'
+
+'I will not countenance your keeping her, whatever your motive may be.'
+
+'You must do something,' he murmured. 'You must. Yes, you must.'
+
+'I never will,' she said. 'It is a criminal act.'
+
+He looked at her earnestly. 'Will you not support me through this
+deception if my very life depends upon it? Will you not?'
+
+'Nonsense! Life! It will be a scandal to you, but she must leave this
+place. It will out sooner or later, and the exposure had better come
+now.'
+
+Manston repeated gloomily the same words. 'My life depends upon your
+supporting me--my very life.'
+
+He then came close to her, and spoke into her ear. Whilst he spoke he
+held her head to his mouth with both his hands. Strange expressions came
+over her face; the workings of her mouth were painful to observe. Still
+he held her and whispered on.
+
+The only words that could be caught by Anne Seaway, confused as her
+hearing frequently was by the moan of the wind and the waterfall in
+her outer ear, were these of Miss Aldclyffe, in tones which absolutely
+quivered: 'They have no money. What can they prove?'
+
+The listener tasked herself to the utmost to catch his answer, but it
+was in vain. Of the remainder of the colloquy one fact alone was plain
+to Anne, and that only inductively--that Miss Aldclyffe, from what he
+had revealed to her, was going to scheme body and soul on Manston's
+behalf.
+
+Miss Aldclyffe seemed now to have no further reason for remaining,
+yet she lingered awhile as if loth to leave him. When, finally, the
+crestfallen and agitated lady made preparations for departure, Anne
+quickly inserted the bolt, ran round to the entrance archway, and down
+the steps into the park. Here she stood close to the trunk of a huge
+lime-tree, which absorbed her dark outline into its own.
+
+In a few minutes she saw Manston, with Miss Aldclyffe leaning on his
+arm, cross the glade before her and proceed in the direction of the
+house. She watched them ascend the rise and advance, as two black spots,
+towards the mansion. The appearance of an oblong space of light in the
+dark mass of walls denoted that the door was opened. Miss Aldclyffe's
+outline became visible upon it; the door shut her in, and all was
+darkness again. The form of Manston returning alone arose from the
+gloom, and passed by Anne in her hiding-place.
+
+Waiting outside a quarter of an hour longer, that no suspicion of any
+kind might be excited, Anne returned to the old manor-house.
+
+4. FROM EIGHT TO ELEVEN O'CLOCK P.M.
+
+Manston was very friendly that evening. It was evident to her, now
+that she was behind the scenes, that he was making desperate efforts to
+disguise the real state of his mind.
+
+Her terror of him did not decrease. They sat down to supper, Manston
+still talking cheerfully. But what is keener than the eye of a
+mistrustful woman? A man's cunning is to it as was the armour of Sisera
+to the thin tent-nail. She found, in spite of his adroitness, that he
+was attempting something more than a disguise of his feeling. He was
+trying to distract her attention, that he might be unobserved in some
+special movement of his hands.
+
+What a moment it was for her then! The whole surface of her body became
+attentive. She allowed him no chance whatever. We know the duplicated
+condition at such times--when the existence divides itself into two, and
+the ostensibly innocent chatterer stands in front, like another person,
+to hide the timorous spy.
+
+Manston played the same game, but more palpably. The meal was nearly
+over when he seemed possessed of a new idea of how his object might be
+accomplished. He tilted back his chair with a reflective air, and looked
+steadily at the clock standing against the wall opposite to him. He said
+sententiously, 'Few faces are capable of expressing more by dumb
+show than the face of a clock. You may see in it every variety of
+incentive--from the softest seductions to negligence to the strongest
+hints for action.'
+
+'Well, in what way?' she inquired. His drift was, as yet, quite
+unintelligible to her.
+
+'Why, for instance: look at the cold, methodical, unromantic,
+business-like air of all the right-angled positions of the hands. They
+make a man set about work in spite of himself. Then look at the piquant
+shyness of its face when the two hands are over each other. Several
+attitudes imply "Make ready." The "make ready" of ten minutes to one
+differs from the "make ready" of ten minutes to twelve, as youth differs
+from age. "Upward and onward" says twenty-five minutes to eleven.
+Mid-day or midnight expresses distinctly "It is done." You surely have
+noticed that?'
+
+'Yes, I have.'
+
+He continued with affected quaintness:--
+
+'The easy dash of ten minutes past seven, the rakish recklessness of a
+quarter past, the drooping weariness of twenty-five minutes past, must
+have been observed by everybody.'
+
+'Whatever amount of truth there may be, there is a good deal of
+imagination in your fancy,' she said.
+
+He still contemplated the clock.
+
+'Then, again, the general finish of the face has a great effect upon the
+eye. This old-fashioned brass-faced one we have here, with its arched
+top, half-moon slit for the day of the month, and ship rocking at the
+upper part, impresses me with the notion of its being an old cynic,
+elevating his brows, whose thoughts can be seen wavering between good
+and evil.'
+
+A thought now enlightened her: the clock was behind her, and he wanted
+to get her back turned. She dreaded turning, yet, not to excite his
+suspicion, she was on her guard; she quickly looked behind her at the
+clock as he spoke, recovering her old position again instantly. The time
+had not been long enough for any action whatever on his part.
+
+'Ah,' he casually remarked, and at the same minute began to pour her
+out a glass of wine. 'Speaking of the clock has reminded me that it must
+nearly want winding up. Remember that it is wound to-night. Suppose you
+do it at once, my dear.'
+
+There was no possible way of evading the act. She resolutely turned to
+perform the operation: anything was better than that he should suspect
+her. It was an old-fashioned eight-day clock, of workmanship suited to
+the rest of the antique furniture that Manston had collected there, and
+ground heavily during winding.
+
+Anne had given up all idea of being able to watch him during the
+interval, and the noise of the wheels prevented her learning anything by
+her ears. But, as she wound, she caught sight of his shadow on the wall
+at her right hand.
+
+What was he doing? He was in the very act of pouring something into her
+glass of wine.
+
+He had completed the manoeuvre before she had done winding. She
+methodically closed the clock-case and turned round again. When she
+faced him he was sitting in his chair as before she had risen.
+
+In a familiar scene which has hitherto been pleasant it is difficult to
+realize that an added condition, which does not alter its aspect, can
+have made it terrible. The woman thought that his action must have been
+prompted by no other intent than that of poisoning her, and yet she
+could not instantly put on a fear of her position.
+
+And before she had grasped these consequences, another supposition
+served to make her regard the first as unlikely, if not absurd. It was
+the act of a madman to take her life in a manner so easy of discovery,
+unless there were far more reason for the crime than any that Manston
+could possibly have.
+
+Was it not merely his intention, in tampering with her wine, to make
+her sleep soundly that night? This was in harmony with her original
+suspicion, that he intended secretly to abscond. At any rate, he was
+going to set about some stealthy proceeding, as to which she was to be
+kept in utter darkness. The difficulty now was to avoid drinking the
+wine.
+
+By means of one pretext and another she put off taking her glass for
+nearly five minutes, but he eyed her too frequently to allow her to
+throw the potion under the grate. It became necessary to take one
+sip. This she did, and found an opportunity of absorbing it in her
+handkerchief.
+
+Plainly he had no idea of her countermoves. The scheme seemed to him in
+proper train, and he turned to poke out the fire. She instantly seized
+the glass, and poured its contents down her bosom. When he faced round
+again she was holding the glass to her lips, empty.
+
+In due course he locked the doors and saw that the shutters were
+fastened. She attended to a few closing details of housewifery, and a
+few minutes later they retired for the night.
+
+5. FROM ELEVEN O'CLOCK TO MIDNIGHT
+
+When Manston was persuaded, by the feigned heaviness of her breathing,
+that Anne Seaway was asleep, he softly arose, and dressed himself in the
+gloom. With ears strained to their utmost she heard him complete this
+operation; then he took something from his pocket, put it in the drawer
+of the dressing-table, went to the door, and down the stairs. She glided
+out of bed and looked in the drawer. He had only restored to its place
+a small phial she had seen there before. It was labelled 'Battley's
+Solution of Opium.' She felt relieved that her life had not been
+attempted. That was to have been her sleeping-draught. No time was to
+be lost if she meant to be a match for him. She followed him in her
+nightdress. When she reached the foot of the staircase he was in the
+office and had closed the door, under which a faint gleam showed that
+he had obtained a light. She crept to the door, but could not venture to
+open it, however slightly. Placing her ear to the panel, she could hear
+him tearing up papers of some sort, and a brighter and quivering ray of
+light coming from the threshold an instant later, implied that he was
+burning them. By the slight noise of his footsteps on the uncarpeted
+floor, she at length imagined that he was approaching the door. She
+flitted upstairs again and crept into bed.
+
+Manston returned to the bedroom close upon her heels, and entered
+it--again without a light. Standing motionless for an instant to assure
+himself that she still slept, he went to the drawer in which their
+ready-money was kept, and removed the casket that contained it. Anne's
+ear distinctly caught the rustle of notes, and the chink of the gold
+as he handled it. Some he placed in his pocket, some he returned to
+its place. He stood thinking, as it were weighing a possibility. While
+lingering thus, he noticed the reflected image of his own face in the
+glass--pale and spectre-like in its indistinctness. The sight seemed to
+be the feather which turned the balance of indecision: he drew a heavy
+breath, retired from the room, and passed downstairs. She heard him
+unbar the back-door, and go out into the yard.
+
+Feeling safe in a conclusion that he did not intend to return to the
+bedroom again, she arose, and hastily dressed herself. On going to the
+door of the apartment she found that he had locked it behind him. 'A
+precaution--it can be no more,' she muttered. Yet she was all the more
+perplexed and excited on this account. Had he been going to leave home
+immediately, he would scarcely have taken the trouble to lock her in,
+holding the belief that she was in a drugged sleep. The lock shot into a
+mortice, so that there was no possibility of her pushing back the bolt.
+How should she follow him? Easily. An inner closet opened from the
+bedroom: it was large, and had some time heretofore been used as a
+dressing or bath room, but had been found inconvenient from having no
+other outlet to the landing. The window of this little room looked out
+upon the roof of the porch, which was flat and covered with lead. Anne
+took a pillow from the bed, gently opened the casement of the inner room
+and stepped forth on the flat. There, leaning over the edge of the
+small parapet that ornamented the porch, she dropped the pillow upon the
+gravel path, and let herself down over the parapet by her hands till
+her toes swung about two feet from the ground. From this position she
+adroitly alighted upon the pillow, and stood in the path.
+
+Since she had come indoors from her walk in the early part of the
+evening the moon had risen. But the thick clouds overspreading the whole
+landscape rendered the dim light pervasive and grey: it appeared as
+an attribute of the air. Anne crept round to the back of the house,
+listening intently. The steward had had at least ten minutes' start of
+her. She had waited here whilst one might count fifty, when she heard a
+movement in the outhouse--a fragment once attached to the main building.
+This outhouse was partitioned into an outer and an inner room, which
+had been a kitchen and a scullery before the connecting erections were
+pulled down, but they were now used respectively as a brewhouse and
+workshop, the only means of access to the latter being through the
+brewhouse. The outer door of this first apartment was usually fastened
+by a padlock on the exterior. It was now closed, but not fastened.
+Manston was evidently in the outhouse.
+
+She slightly moved the door. The interior of the brewhouse was wrapped
+in gloom, but a streak of light fell towards her in a line across the
+floor from the inner or workshop door, which was not quite closed. This
+light was unexpected, none having been visible through hole or crevice.
+Glancing in, the woman found that he had placed cloths and mats at the
+various apertures, and hung a sack at the window to prevent the egress
+of a single ray. She could also perceive from where she stood that the
+bar of light fell across the brewing-copper just outside the inner door,
+and that upon it lay the key of her bedroom. The illuminated interior of
+the workshop was also partly visible from her position through the two
+half-open doors. Manston was engaged in emptying a large cupboard of the
+tools, gallipots, and old iron it contained. When it was quite
+cleared he took a chisel, and with it began to withdraw the hooks
+and shoulder-nails holding the cupboard to the wall. All these being
+loosened, he extended his arms, lifted the cupboard bodily from the
+brackets under it, and deposited it on the floor beside him.
+
+That portion of the wall which had been screened by the cupboard was now
+laid bare. This, it appeared, had been plastered more recently than the
+bulk of the outhouse. Manston loosened the plaster with some kind
+of tool, flinging the pieces into a basket as they fell. Having now
+stripped clear about two feet area of wall, he inserted a crowbar
+between the joints of the bricks beneath, softly wriggling it until
+several were loosened. There was now disclosed the mouth of an old oven,
+which was apparently contrived in the thickness of the wall, and having
+fallen into disuse, had been closed up with bricks in this manner. It
+was formed after the simple old-fashioned plan of oven-building--a mere
+oblate cavity without a flue.
+
+Manston now stretched his arm into the oven, dragged forth a heavy
+weight of great bulk, and let it slide to the ground. The woman who
+watched him could see the object plainly. It was a common corn-sack,
+nearly full, and was tied at the mouth in the usual way.
+
+The steward had once or twice started up, as if he had heard sounds, and
+his motions now became more cat-like still. On a sudden he put out the
+light. Anne had made no noise, yet a foreign noise of some kind had
+certainly been made in the intervening portion of the house. She heard
+it. 'One of the rats,' she thought.
+
+He seemed soon to recover from his alarm, but changed his tactics
+completely. He did not light his candle--going on with his work in the
+dark. She had only sounds to go by now, and, judging as well as she
+could from these, he was piling up the bricks which closed the oven's
+mouth as they had been before he disturbed them. The query that had not
+left her brain all the interval of her inspection--how should she get
+back into her bedroom again?--now received a solution. Whilst he was
+replacing the cupboard, she would glide across the brewhouse, take the
+key from the top of the copper, run upstairs, unlock the door, and bring
+back the key again: if he returned to bed, which was unlikely, he would
+think the lock had failed to catch in the staple. This thought and
+intention, occupying such length of words, flashed upon her in an
+instant, and hardly disturbed her strong curiosity to stay and learn the
+meaning of his actions in the workshop.
+
+Slipping sideways through the first door and closing it behind her, she
+advanced into the darkness towards the second, making every individual
+footfall with the greatest care, lest the fragments of rubbish on the
+floor should crackle beneath her tread. She soon stood close by the
+copper, and not more than a foot from the door of the room occupied
+by Manston himself, from which position she could distinctly hear him
+breathe between each exertion, although it was far too dark to discern
+anything of him.
+
+To secure the key of her chamber was her first anxiety, and accordingly
+she cautiously reached out with her hand to where it lay. Instead of
+touching it, her fingers came in contact with the boot of a human being.
+
+She drooped faint in a cold sweat. It was the foot either of a man or
+woman, standing on the brewing-copper where the key had lain. A warm
+foot, covered with a polished boot.
+
+The startling discovery so terrified her that she could hardly repress a
+sound. She withdrew her hand with a motion like the flight of an arrow.
+Her touch was so light that the leather seemed to have been thick enough
+to keep the owner of the foot in entire ignorance of it, and the noise
+of Manston's scraping might have been quite sufficient to drown the
+slight rustle of her dress.
+
+The person was obviously not the steward: he was still busy. It was
+somebody who, since the light had been extinguished, had taken advantage
+of the gloom, to come from some dark recess in the brewhouse and stand
+upon the brickwork of the copper. The fear which had at first paralyzed
+her lessened with the birth of a sense that fear now was utter failure:
+she was in a desperate position and must abide by the consequences.
+The motionless person on the copper was, equally with Manston, quite
+unconscious of her proximity, and she ventured to advance her hand
+again, feeling behind the feet, till she found the key. On its return to
+her side, her finger-tip skimmed the lower verge of a trousers-leg.
+
+It was a man, then, who stood there. To go to the door just at this time
+was impolitic, and she shrank back into an inner corner to wait. The
+comparative security from discovery that her new position ensured
+resuscitated reason a little, and empowered her to form some logical
+inferences:--
+
+1. The man who stood on the copper had taken advantage of the darkness
+to get there, as she had to enter.
+
+2. The man must have been hidden in the outhouse before she had reached
+the door.
+
+3. He must be watching Manston with much calculation and system, and for
+purposes of his own.
+
+She could now tell by the noises that Manston had completed his
+re-erection of the cupboard. She heard him replacing the articles it had
+contained--bottle by bottle, tool by tool--after which he came into the
+brewhouse, went to the window, and pulled down the cloths covering it;
+but the window being rather small, this unveiling scarcely relieved the
+darkness of the interior. He returned to the workshop, hoisted something
+to his back by a jerk, and felt about the room for some other article.
+Having found it, he emerged from the inner door, crossed the brewhouse,
+and went into the yard. Directly he stepped out she could see his
+outline by the light of the clouded and weakly moon. The sack was slung
+at his back, and in his hand he carried a spade.
+
+Anne now waited in her corner in breathless suspense for the proceedings
+of the other man. In about half-a-minute she heard him descend from the
+copper, and then the square opening of the doorway showed the outline of
+this other watcher passing through it likewise. The form was that of
+a broad-shouldered man enveloped in a long coat. He vanished after the
+steward.
+
+The woman vented a sigh of relief, and moved forward to follow.
+Simultaneously, she discovered that the watcher whose foot she had
+touched was, in his turn, watched and followed also.
+
+It was by one of her own sex. Anne Seaway shrank backward again. The
+unknown woman came forward from the further side of the yard, and
+pondered awhile in hesitation. Tall, dark, and closely wrapped, she
+stood up from the earth like a cypress. She moved, crossed the yard
+without producing the slightest disturbance by her footsteps, and went
+in the direction the others had taken.
+
+Anne waited yet another minute--then in her turn noiselessly followed
+the last woman.
+
+But so impressed was she with the sensation of people in hiding, that
+in coming out of the yard she turned her head to see if any person were
+following her, in the same way. Nobody was visible, but she discerned,
+standing behind the angle of the stable, Manston's horse and gig, ready
+harnessed.
+
+He did intend to fly after all, then, she thought. He must have placed
+the horse in readiness, in the interval between his leaving the house
+and her exit by the window. However, there was not time to weigh this
+branch of the night's events. She turned about again, and continued on
+the trail of the other three.
+
+6. FROM MIDNIGHT TO HALF-PAST ONE A.M.
+
+Intentness pervaded everything; Night herself seemed to have become a
+watcher.
+
+The four persons proceeded across the glade, and into the park
+plantation, at equidistances of about seventy yards. Here the ground,
+completely overhung by the foliage, was coated with a thick moss which
+was as soft as velvet beneath their feet. The first watcher, that
+is, the man walking immediately behind Manston, now fell back,
+when Manston's housekeeper, knowing the ground pretty well, dived
+circuitously among the trees and got directly behind the steward, who,
+encumbered with his load, had proceeded but slowly. The other woman
+seemed now to be about opposite to Anne, or a little in advance, but on
+Manston's other hand.
+
+He reached a pit, midway between the waterfall and the engine-house.
+There he stopped, wiped his face, and listened.
+
+Into this pit had drifted uncounted generations of withered leaves, half
+filling it. Oak, beech, and chestnut, rotten and brown alike, mingled
+themselves in one fibrous mass. Manston descended into the midst of
+them, placed his sack on the ground, and raking the leaves aside into a
+large heap, began digging. Anne softly drew nearer, crept into a bush,
+and turning her head to survey the rest, missed the man who had dropped
+behind, and whom we have called the first watcher. Concluding that he,
+too, had hidden himself, she turned her attention to the second watcher,
+the other woman, who had meanwhile advanced near to where Anne lay
+in hiding, and now seated herself behind a tree, still closer to the
+steward than was Anne Seaway.
+
+Here and thus Anne remained concealed. The crunch of the steward's
+spade, as it cut into the soft vegetable mould, was plainly perceptible
+to her ears when the periodic cessations between the creaks of the
+engine concurred with a lull in the breeze, which otherwise brought
+the subdued roar of the cascade from the further side of the bank
+that screened it. A large hole--some four or five feet deep--had been
+excavated by Manston in about twenty minutes. Into this he immediately
+placed the sack, and then began filling in the earth, and treading it
+down. Lastly he carefully raked the whole mass of dead and dry leaves
+into the middle of the pit, burying the ground with them as they had
+buried it before.
+
+For a hiding-place the spot was unequalled. The thick accumulation
+of leaves, which had not been disturbed for centuries, might not be
+disturbed again for centuries to come, whilst their lower layers still
+decayed and added to the mould beneath.
+
+By the time this work was ended the sky had grown clearer, and Anne
+could now see distinctly the face of the other woman, stretching from
+behind the tree, seemingly forgetful of her position in her intense
+contemplation of the actions of the steward. Her countenance was white
+and motionless.
+
+It was impossible that Manston should not soon notice her. At the
+completion of his labour he turned, and did so.
+
+'Ho--you here!' he exclaimed.
+
+'Don't think I am a spy upon you,' she said, in an imploring whisper.
+Anne recognized the voice as Miss Aldclyffe's.
+
+The trembling lady added hastily another remark, which was drowned in
+the recurring creak of the engine close at hand The first watcher, if he
+had come no nearer than his original position, was too far off to hear
+any part of this dialogue, on account of the roar of the falling water,
+which could reach him unimpeded by the bank.
+
+The remark of Miss Aldclyffe to Manston had plainly been concerning the
+first watcher, for Manston, with his spade in his hand, instantly rushed
+to where the man was concealed, and, before the latter could disengage
+himself from the boughs, the steward struck him on the head with the
+blade of the instrument. The man fell to the ground.
+
+'Fly!' said Miss Aldclyffe to Manston. Manston vanished amidst the
+trees. Miss Aldclyffe went off in a contrary direction.
+
+Anne Seaway was about to run away likewise, when she turned and looked
+at the fallen man. He lay on his face, motionless.
+
+Many of these women who own to no moral code show considerable
+magnanimity when they see people in trouble. To act right simply because
+it is one's duty is proper; but a good action which is the result of no
+law of reflection shines more than any. She went up to him and gently
+turned him over, upon which he began to show signs of life. By her
+assistance he was soon able to stand upright.
+
+He looked about him with a bewildered air, endeavouring to collect his
+ideas. 'Who are you?' he said to the woman, mechanically.
+
+It was bad policy now to attempt disguise. 'I am the supposed Mrs.
+Manston,' she said. 'Who are you?'
+
+'I am the officer employed by Mr. Raunham to sift this mystery--which
+may be criminal.' He stretched his limbs, pressed his head, and
+seemed gradually to awake to a sense of having been incautious in his
+utterance. 'Never you mind who I am,' he continued. 'Well, it doesn't
+matter now, either--it will no longer be a secret.'
+
+He stooped for his hat and ran in the direction the steward had
+taken--coming back again after the lapse of a minute.
+
+'It's only an aggravated assault, after all,' he said hastily, 'until we
+have found out for certain what's buried here. It may be only a bag of
+building rubbish; but it may be more. Come and help me dig.' He seized
+the spade with the awkwardness of a town man, and went into the pit,
+continuing a muttered discourse. 'It's no use my running after him
+single-handed,' he said. 'He's ever so far off by this time. The best
+step is to see what is here.'
+
+It was far easier for the detective to re-open the hole than it had been
+for Manston to form it. The leaves were raked away, the loam thrown out,
+and the sack dragged forth.
+
+'Hold this,' he said to Anne, whose curiosity still kept her standing
+near. He turned on the light of a dark lantern he had brought, and gave
+it into her hand.
+
+The string which bound the mouth of the sack was now cut. The officer
+laid the bag on its side, seized it by the bottom, and jerked forth
+the contents. A large package was disclosed, carefully wrapped up in
+impervious tarpaulin, also well tied. He was on the point of pulling
+open the folds at one end, when a light coloured thread of something,
+hanging on the outside, arrested his eye. He put his hand upon it; it
+felt stringy, and adhered to his fingers. 'Hold the light close,' he
+said.
+
+She held it close. He raised his hand to the glass, and they both peered
+at an almost intangible filament he held between his finger and thumb.
+It was a long hair; the hair of a woman.
+
+'God! I couldn't believe it--no, I couldn't believe it!' the detective
+whispered, horror-struck. 'And I have lost the man for the present
+through my unbelief. Let's get into a sheltered place.... Now wait a
+minute whilst I prove it.'
+
+He thrust his hand into his waistcoat pocket, and withdrew thence a
+minute packet of brown paper. Spreading it out he disclosed, coiled
+in the middle, another long hair. It was the hair the clerk's wife had
+found on Manston's pillow nine days before the Carriford fire. He held
+the two hairs to the light: they were both of a pale-brown hue. He laid
+them parallel and stretched out his arms: they were of the same length
+to a nicety. The detective turned to Anne.
+
+'It is the body of his first wife,' he said quietly. 'He murdered her,
+as Mr. Springrove and the rector suspected--but how and when, God only
+knows.'
+
+'And I!' exclaimed Anne Seaway, a probable and natural sequence of
+events and motives explanatory of the whole crime--events and
+motives shadowed forth by the letter, Manston's possession of it, his
+renunciation of Cytherea, and instalment of herself--flashing upon her
+mind with the rapidity of lightning.
+
+'Ah--I see,' said the detective, standing unusually close to her: and
+a handcuff was on her wrist. 'You must come with me, madam. Knowing as
+much about a secret murder as God knows is a very suspicious thing: it
+doesn't make you a goddess--far from it.' He directed the bull's-eye
+into her face.
+
+'Pooh--lead on,' she said scornfully, 'and don't lose your principal
+actor for the sake of torturing a poor subordinate like me.'
+
+He loosened her hand, gave her his arm, and dragged her out of the
+grove--making her run beside him till they had reached the rectory. A
+light was burning here, and an auxiliary of the detective's awaiting
+him: a horse ready harnessed to a spring-cart was standing outside.
+
+'You have come--I wish I had known that,' the detective said to his
+assistant, hurriedly and angrily. 'Well, we've blundered--he's gone--you
+should have been here, as I said! I was sold by that woman, Miss
+Aldclyffe--she watched me.' He hastily gave directions in an undertone
+to this man. The concluding words were, 'Go in to the rector--he's up.
+Detain Miss Aldclyffe. I, in the meantime, am driving to Casterbridge
+with this one, and for help. We shall be sure to have him when it gets
+light.'
+
+He assisted Anne into the vehicle, and drove off with her. As they went,
+the clear, dry road showed before them, between the grassy quarters at
+each side, like a white riband, and made their progress easy. They came
+to a spot where the highway was overhung by dense firs for some distance
+on both sides. It was totally dark here.
+
+There was a smash; and a rude shock. In the very midst of its length, at
+the point where the road began to drop down a hill, the detective
+drove against something with a jerk which nearly flung them both to the
+ground.
+
+The man recovered himself, placed Anne on the seat, and reached out
+his hand. He found that the off-wheel of his gig was locked in that of
+another conveyance of some kind.
+
+'Hoy!' said the officer.
+
+Nobody answered.
+
+'Hoy, you man asleep there!' he said again.
+
+No reply.
+
+'Well, that's odd--this comes of the folly of travelling without
+gig-lamps because you expect the dawn.' He jumped to the ground and
+turned on his lantern.
+
+There was the gig which had obstructed him, standing in the middle of
+the road; a jaded horse harnessed to it, but no human being in or near
+the vehicle.
+
+'Do you know whose gig this is?' he said to the woman.
+
+'No,' she said sullenly. But she did recognize it as the steward's.
+
+'I'll swear it's Manston's! Come, I can hear it by your tone. However,
+you needn't say anything which may criminate you. What forethought
+the man must have had--how carefully he must have considered possible
+contingencies! Why, he must have got the horse and gig ready before he
+began shifting the body.'
+
+He listened for a sound among the trees. None was to be heard but the
+occasional scamper of a rabbit over the withered leaves. He threw the
+light of his lantern through a gap in the hedge, but could see nothing
+beyond an impenetrable thicket. It was clear that Manston was not many
+yards off, but the question was how to find him. Nothing could be done
+by the detective just then, encumbered as he was by the horse and Anne.
+If he had entered the thicket on a search unaided, Manston might have
+stepped unobserved from behind a bush and murdered him with the
+greatest ease. Indeed, there were such strong reasons for the exploit in
+Manston's circumstances at that moment that without showing cowardice,
+his pursuer felt it hazardous to remain any longer where he stood.
+
+He hastily tied the head of Manston's horse to the back of his own
+vehicle, that the steward might be deprived of the use of any means of
+escape other than his own legs, and drove on thus with his prisoner to
+the county-town. Arrived there, he lodged her in the police-station, and
+then took immediate steps for the capture of Manston.
+
+
+
+
+XX. THE EVENTS OF THREE HOURS
+
+1. MARCH THE TWENTY-THIRD. MIDDAY
+
+Thirty-six hours had elapsed since Manston's escape.
+
+It was market-day at the county-town. The farmers outside and inside
+the corn-exchange looked at their samples of wheat, and poured them
+critically as usual from one palm to another, but they thought and spoke
+of Manston. Grocers serving behind their counters, instead of using
+their constant phrase, 'The next article, please?' substituted, 'Have
+you heard if he's caught?' Dairymen and drovers standing beside the
+sheep and cattle pens, spread their legs firmly, readjusted their hats,
+thrust their hands into the lowest depths of their pockets, regarded the
+animals with the utmost keenness of which the eye was capable, and said,
+'Ay, ay, so's: they'll have him avore night.'
+
+Later in the day Edward Springrove passed along the street hurriedly and
+anxiously. 'Well, have you heard any more?' he said to an acquaintance
+who accosted him.
+
+'They tracked him in this way,' said the other young man. 'A vagrant
+first told them that Manston had passed a rick at daybreak, under
+which this man was lying. They followed the track he pointed out
+and ultimately came to a stile. On the other side was a heap of
+half-hardened mud, scraped from the road. On the surface of the heap,
+where it had been smoothed by the shovel, was distinctly imprinted the
+form of a man's hand, the buttons of his waistcoat, and his watch-chain,
+showing that he had stumbled in hurrying over the stile, and fallen
+there. The pattern of the chain proved the man to have been Manston.
+They followed on till they reached a ford crossed by stepping-stones--on
+the further bank were the same footmarks that had shown themselves
+beside the stile. The whole of this course had been in the direction
+of Budmouth. On they went, and the next clue was furnished them by a
+shepherd. He said that wherever a clear space three or four yards wide
+ran in a line through a flock of sheep lying about a ewe-lease, it was a
+proof that somebody had passed there not more than half-an-hour earlier.
+At twelve o'clock that day he had noticed such a feature in his flock.
+Nothing more could be heard of him, and they got into Budmouth. The
+steam-packet to the Channel Islands was to start at eleven last night,
+and they at once concluded that his hope was to get to France by way
+of Jersey and St. Malo--his only chance, all the railway-stations being
+watched.
+
+'Well, they went to the boat: he was not on board then. They went again
+at half-past ten: he had not come. Two men now placed themselves under
+the lamp immediately beside the gangway. Another stayed by the office
+door, and one or two more up Mary Street--the straight cut to the quay.
+At a quarter to eleven the mail-bags were put on board. Whilst the
+attention of the idlers was directed to the mails, down Mary Street
+came a man as boldly as possible. The gait was Manston's, but not the
+clothes. He passed over to the shaded part of the street: heads were
+turned. I suppose this warned him, for he never emerged from the shadow.
+They watched and waited, but the steward did not reappear. The alarm
+was raised--they searched the town high and low--no Manston. All
+this morning they have been searching, but there's not a sign of him
+anywhere. However, he has lost his last chance of getting across
+the Channel. It is reported that he has since changed clothes with a
+labourer.'
+
+During this narration, Edward, lost in thought, had let his eyes follow
+a shabby man in a smock-frock, but wearing light boots--who was stalking
+down the street under a bundle of straw which overhung and concealed
+his head. It was a very ordinary circumstance for a man with a bundle
+of straw on his shoulders and overhanging his head, to go down the High
+Street. Edward saw him cross the bridge which divided the town from the
+country, place his shaggy encumbrance by the side of the road, and leave
+it there.
+
+Springrove now parted from his acquaintance, and went also in the
+direction of the bridge, and some way beyond it. As far as he could see
+stretched the turnpike road, and, while he was looking, he noticed a man
+to leap from the hedge at a point two hundred, or two hundred and fifty
+yards ahead, cross the road, and go through a wicket on the other side.
+This figure seemed like that of the man who had been carrying the bundle
+of straw. He looked at the straw: it still stood alone.
+
+The subjoined facts sprang, as it were, into juxtaposition in his
+brain:--
+
+Manston had been seen wearing the clothes of a labouring man--a brown
+smock-frock. So had this man, who seemed other than a labourer, on
+second thoughts: and he had concealed his face by his bundle of straw
+with the greatest ease and naturalness.
+
+The path the man had taken led, among other places, to Tolchurch, where
+Cytherea was living.
+
+If Mrs. Manston was murdered, as some said, on the night of the fire,
+Cytherea was the steward's lawful wife. Manston at bay, and reckless of
+results, might rush to his wife and harm her.
+
+It was a horrible supposition for a man who loved Cytherea to entertain;
+but Springrove could not resist its influence. He started off for
+Tolchurch.
+
+2. ONE TO TWO O'CLOCK P.M.
+
+On that self-same mid-day, whilst Edward was proceeding to Tolchurch by
+the footpath across the fields, Owen Graye had left the village and
+was riding along the turnpike road to the county-town, that he might
+ascertain the exact truth of the strange rumour which had reached him
+concerning Manston. Not to disquiet his sister, he had said nothing to
+her of the matter.
+
+She sat by the window reading. From her position she could see up the
+lane for a distance of at least a hundred yards. Passers-by were so rare
+in this retired nook, that the eyes of those who dwelt by the wayside
+were invariably lifted to every one on the road, great and small, as to
+a novelty.
+
+A man in a brown smock-frock turned the corner and came towards the
+house. It being market-day at Casterbridge, the village was nearly
+deserted, and more than this, the old farm-house in which Owen and his
+sister were staying, stood, as has been stated, apart from the body of
+cottages. The man did not look respectable; Cytherea arose and bolted
+the door.
+
+Unfortunately he was near enough to see her cross the room. He advanced
+to the door, knocked, and, receiving no answer, came to the window; he
+next pressed his face against the glass, peering in.
+
+Cytherea's experience at that moment was probably as trying a one as
+ever fell to the lot of a gentlewoman to endure. She recognized in the
+peering face that of the man she had married.
+
+But not a movement was made by her, not a sound escaped her. Her fear
+was great; but had she known the truth--that the man outside, feeling
+he had nothing on earth to lose by any act, was in the last stage of
+recklessness, terrified nature must have given way.
+
+'Cytherea,' he said, 'let me come in: I am your husband.'
+
+'No,' she replied, still not realizing the magnitude of her peril. 'If
+you want to speak to us, wait till my brother comes.'
+
+'O, he's not at home? Cytherea, I can't live without you! All my sin has
+been because I love you so! Will you fly with me? I have money enough
+for us both--only come with me.'
+
+'Not now--not now.'
+
+'I am your husband, I tell you, and I must come in.'
+
+'You cannot,' she said faintly. His words began to terrify her.
+
+'I will, I say!' he exclaimed. 'Will you let me in, I ask once more?'
+
+'No--I will not,' said Cytherea.
+
+'Then I will let myself in!' he answered resolutely. 'I will, if I die
+for it!'
+
+The windows were glazed in lattice panes of leadwork, hung in casements.
+He broke one of the panes with a stone, thrust his hand through the
+hole, unfastened the latch which held the casement close, and began
+opening the window.
+
+Instantly the shutters flew together with a slam, and were barred with
+desperate quickness by Cytherea on the inside.
+
+'Damn you!' he exclaimed.
+
+He ran round to the back of the house. His impatience was greater now:
+he thrust his fist through the pantry window at one blow, and opened
+it in the same way as the former one had been opened, before the
+terror-stricken girl was aware that he had gone round. In an instant
+he stood in the pantry, advanced to the front room where she was, flung
+back the shutters, and held out his arms to embrace her.
+
+In extremely trying moments of bodily or mental pain, Cytherea either
+flushed hot or faded pale, according to the state of her constitution
+at the moment. Now she burned like fire from head to foot, and this
+preserved her consciousness.
+
+Never before had the poor child's natural agility served her in such
+good stead as now. A heavy oblong table stood in the middle of the room.
+Round this table she flew, keeping it between herself and Manston, her
+large eyes wide open with terror, their dilated pupils constantly fixed
+upon Manston's, to read by his expression whether his next intention was
+to dart to the right or the left.
+
+Even he, at that heated moment, could not endure the expression of
+unutterable agony which shone from that extraordinary gaze of hers.
+It had surely been given her by God as a means of defence. Manston
+continued his pursuit with a lowered eye.
+
+The panting and maddened desperado--blind to everything but the capture
+of his wife--went with a rush under the table: she went over it like
+a bird. He went heavily over it: she flew under it, and was out at the
+other side.
+
+     'One on her youth and pliant limbs relies,
+      One on his sinews and his giant size.'
+
+But his superior strength was sure to tire her down in the long-run.
+She felt her weakness increasing with the quickness of her breath; she
+uttered a wild scream, which in its heartrending intensity seemed to
+echo for miles.
+
+At the same juncture her hair became unfastened, and rolled down about
+her shoulders. The least accident at such critical periods is sufficient
+to confuse the overwrought intelligence. She lost sight of his intended
+direction for one instant, and he immediately outmanoeuvred her.
+
+'At last! my Cytherea!' he cried, overturning the table, springing over
+it, seizing one of the long brown tresses, pulling her towards him, and
+clasping her round. She writhed downwards between his arms and breast,
+and fell fainting on the floor. For the first time his action was
+leisurely. He lifted her upon the sofa, exclaiming, 'Rest there for a
+while, my frightened little bird!'
+
+And then there was an end of his triumph. He felt himself clutched by
+the collar, and whizzed backwards with the force of a battering-ram
+against the fireplace. Springrove, wild, red, and breathless, had sprung
+in at the open window, and stood once more between man and wife.
+
+Manston was on his legs again in an instant. A fiery glance on the one
+side, a glance of pitiless justice on the other, passed between them.
+It was again the meeting in the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite: 'Hast
+thou found me, O mine enemy? And he answered, I have found thee: because
+thou hast sold thyself to work evil in the sight of the Lord.'
+
+A desperate wrestle now began between the two men. Manston was the
+taller, but there was in Edward much hard tough muscle which the
+delicate flesh of the steward lacked. They flew together like the jaws
+of a gin. In a minute they were both on the floor, rolling over and
+over, locked in each other's grasp as tightly as if they had been one
+organic being at war with itself--Edward trying to secure Manston's arms
+with a small thong he had drawn from his pocket, Manston trying to reach
+his knife.
+
+Two characteristic noises pervaded the apartment through this momentous
+space of time. One was the sharp panting of the two combatants, so
+similar in each as to be undistinguishable; the other was the stroke
+of their heels and toes, as they smote the floor at every contortion of
+body or limbs.
+
+Cytherea had not lost consciousness for more than half-a-minute. She
+had then leapt up without recognizing that Edward was her deliverer,
+unfastened the door, and rushed out, screaming wildly, 'Come! Help! O,
+help!'
+
+Three men stood not twenty yards off, looking perplexed. They dashed
+forward at her words. 'Have you seen a shabby man with a smock-frock on
+lately?' they inquired. She pointed to the door, and ran on the same as
+before.
+
+Manston, who had just loosened himself from Edward's grasp, seemed
+at this moment to renounce his intention of pushing the conflict to a
+desperate end. 'I give it all up for life--dear life!' he cried, with a
+hoarse laugh. 'A reckless man has a dozen lives--see how I'll baffle you
+all yet!'
+
+He rushed out of the house, but no further. The boast was his last. In
+one half-minute more he was helpless in the hands of his pursuers.
+
+
+Edward staggered to his feet, and paused to recover breath. His thoughts
+had never forsaken Cytherea, and his first act now was to hasten up the
+lane after her. She had not gone far. He found her leaning upon a bank
+by the roadside, where she had flung herself down in sheer exhaustion.
+He ran up and lifted her in his arms, and thus aided she was enabled
+to stand upright--clinging to him. What would Springrove have given to
+imprint a kiss upon her lips then!
+
+They walked slowly towards the house. The distressing sensation of whose
+wife she was could not entirely quench the resuscitated pleasure he felt
+at her grateful recognition of him, and her confiding seizure of his arm
+for support. He conveyed her carefully into the house.
+
+A quarter of an hour later, whilst she was sitting in a partially
+recovered, half-dozing state in an arm-chair, Edward beside her waiting
+anxiously till Graye should arrive, they saw a spring-cart pass the
+door. Old and dry mud-splashes from long-forgotten rains disfigured its
+wheels and sides; the varnish and paint had been scratched and dimmed;
+ornament had long been forgotten in a restless contemplation of use.
+Three men sat on the seat, the middle one being Manston. His hands
+were bound in front of him, his eyes were set directly forward, his
+countenance pallid, hard, and fixed.
+
+Springrove had told Cytherea of Manston's crime in a few short words. He
+now said solemnly, 'He is to die.'
+
+'And I cannot mourn for him,' she replied with a shudder, leaning back
+and covering her face with her hands.
+
+In the silence that followed the two short remarks, Springrove watched
+the cart round the corner, and heard the rattle of its wheels gradually
+dying away as it rolled in the direction of the county-town.
+
+
+
+
+XXI. THE EVENTS OF EIGHTEEN HOURS
+
+1. MARCH THE TWENTY-NINTH. NOON
+
+Exactly seven days after Edward Springrove had seen the man with the
+bundle of straw walking down the streets of Casterbridge, old Farmer
+Springrove was standing on the edge of the same pavement, talking to his
+friend, Farmer Baker.
+
+There was a pause in their discourse. Mr. Springrove was looking down
+the street at some object which had attracted his attention. 'Ah, 'tis
+what we shall all come to!' he murmured.
+
+The other looked in the same direction. 'True, neighbour Springrove;
+true.'
+
+Two men, advancing one behind the other in the middle of the road, were
+what the farmers referred to. They were carpenters, and bore on their
+shoulders an empty coffin, covered by a thin black cloth.
+
+'I always feel a satisfaction at being breasted by such a sight as
+that,' said Springrove, still regarding the men's sad burden. 'I call it
+a sort of medicine.'
+
+'And it is medicine.... I have not heard of any body being ill up this
+way lately? D'seem as if the person died suddenly.'
+
+'May be so. Ah, Baker, we say sudden death, don't we? But there's no
+difference in their nature between sudden death and death of any other
+sort. There's no such thing as a random snapping off of what was laid
+down to last longer. We only suddenly light upon an end--thoughtfully
+formed as any other--which has been existing at that very same point
+from the beginning, though unseen by us to be so soon.'
+
+'It is just a discovery to your own mind, and not an alteration in the
+Lord's.'
+
+'That's it. Unexpected is not as to the thing, but as to our sight.'
+
+'Now you'll hardly believe me, neighbour, but this little scene in front
+of us makes me feel less anxious about pushing on wi' that threshing and
+winnowing next week, that I was speaking about. Why should we not stand
+still, says I to myself, and fling a quiet eye upon the Whys and
+the Wherefores, before the end o' it all, and we go down into the
+mouldering-place, and are forgotten?'
+
+''Tis a feeling that will come. But 'twont bear looking into. There's a
+back'ard current in the world, and we must do our utmost to advance in
+order just to bide where we be. But, Baker, they are turning in here
+with the coffin, look.'
+
+The two carpenters had borne their load into a narrow way close at hand.
+The farmers, in common with others, turned and watched them along the
+way.
+
+''Tis a man's coffin, and a tall man's, too,' continued Farmer
+Springrove. 'His was a fine frame, whoever he was.'
+
+'A very plain box for the poor soul--just the rough elm, you see.' The
+corner of the cloth had blown aside.
+
+'Yes, for a very poor man. Well, death's all the less insult to him. I
+have often thought how much smaller the richer class are made to look
+than the poor at last pinches like this. Perhaps the greatest of all
+the reconcilers of a thoughtful man to poverty--and I speak from
+experience--is the grand quiet it fills him with when the uncertainty of
+his life shows itself more than usual.'
+
+As Springrove finished speaking, the bearers of the coffin went across
+a gravelled square facing the two men and approached a grim and heavy
+archway. They paused beneath it, rang a bell, and waited.
+
+Over the archway was written in Egyptian capitals,
+
+                           'COUNTY GAOL.'
+
+The small rectangular wicket, which was constructed in one of the
+two iron-studded doors, was opened from the inside. The men severally
+stepped over the threshold, the coffin dragged its melancholy length
+through the aperture, and both entered the court, and were covered from
+sight.
+
+'Somebody in the gaol, then?'
+
+'Yes, one of the prisoners,' said a boy, scudding by at the moment, who
+passed on whistling.
+
+'Do you know the name of the man who is dead?' inquired Baker of a third
+bystander.
+
+'Yes, 'tis all over town--surely you know, Mr. Springrove? Why, Manston,
+Miss Aldclyffe's steward. He was found dead the first thing this
+morning. He had hung himself behind the door of his cell, in some way,
+by a handkerchief and some strips of his clothes. The turnkey says his
+features were scarcely changed, as he looked at 'em with the early sun
+a-shining in at the grating upon him. He has left a full account of the
+murder, and all that led to it. So there's an end of him.'
+
+
+It was perfectly true: Manston was dead.
+
+The previous day he had been allowed the use of writing-materials, and
+had occupied himself for nearly seven hours in preparing the following
+confession:--
+
+
+                         'LAST WORDS.
+
+'Having found man's life to be a wretchedly conceived scheme, I renounce
+it, and, to cause no further trouble, I write down the facts connected
+with my past proceedings.
+
+'After thanking God, on first entering my house, on the night of the
+fire at Carriford, for my release from bondage to a woman I detested,
+I went, a second time, to the scene of the disaster, and, finding that
+nothing could be done by remaining there, shortly afterwards I returned
+home again in the company of Mr. Raunham.
+
+'He parted from me at the steps of my porch, and went back towards
+the rectory. Whilst I still stood at the door, musing on my strange
+deliverance, I saw a figure advance from beneath the shadow of the park
+trees. It was the figure of a woman.
+
+'When she came near, the twilight was sufficient to show me her attire:
+it was a cloak reaching to the bottom of her dress, and a thick veil
+covering her face. These features, together with her size and gait,
+aided also by a flash of perception as to the chain of events which had
+saved her life, told me that she was my wife Eunice.
+
+'I gnashed my teeth in a frenzy of despair; I had lost Cytherea; I had
+gained one whose beauty had departed, whose utterance was complaint,
+whose mind was shallow, and who drank brandy every day. The revulsion
+of feeling was terrible. Providence, whom I had just thanked, seemed a
+mocking tormentor laughing at me. I felt like a madman.
+
+'She came close--started at seeing me outside--then spoke to me. Her
+first words were reproof for what I had unintentionally done, and
+sounded as an earnest of what I was to be cursed with as long as we both
+lived. I answered angrily; this tone of mine changed her complaints
+to irritation. She taunted me with a secret she had discovered, which
+concerned Miss Aldclyffe and myself. I was surprised to learn it--more
+surprised that she knew it, but concealed my feeling.
+
+'"How could you serve me so?" she said, her breath smelling of spirits
+even then. "You love another woman--yes, you do. See how you drive me
+about! I have been to the station, intending to leave you for ever, and
+yet I come to try you once more."
+
+'An indescribable exasperation had sprung up in me as she talked--rage
+and regret were all in all. Scarcely knowing what I did, I furiously
+raised my hand and swung it round with my whole force to strike her. She
+turned quickly--and it was the poor creature's end. By her movement my
+hand came edgewise exactly in the nape of the neck--as men strike a hare
+to kill it. The effect staggered me with amazement. The blow must have
+disturbed the vertebrae; she fell at my feet, made a few movements, and
+uttered one low sound.
+
+'I ran indoors for water and some wine, I came out and lanced her arm
+with my penknife. But she lay still, and I found that she was dead.
+
+'It was a long time before I could realize my horrible position. For
+several minutes I had no idea of attempting to escape the consequences
+of my deed. Then a light broke upon me. Had anybody seen her since she
+left the Three Tranters? Had they not, she was already believed by the
+parishioners to be dust and ashes. I should never be found out.
+
+'Upon this I acted.
+
+'The first question was how to dispose of the body. The impulse of the
+moment was to bury her at once in the pit between the engine-house and
+waterfall; but it struck me that I should not have time. It was now four
+o'clock, and the working-men would soon be stirring about the place. I
+would put off burying her till the next night. I carried her indoors.
+
+'In turning the outhouse into a workshop, earlier in the season, I
+found, when driving a nail into the wall for fixing a cupboard, that the
+wall sounded hollow. I examined it, and discovered behind the plaster an
+old oven which had long been disused, and was bricked up when the house
+was prepared for me.
+
+'To unfix this cupboard and pull out the bricks was the work of a few
+minutes. Then, bearing in mind that I should have to remove the body
+again the next night, I placed it in a sack, pushed it into the oven,
+packed in the bricks, and replaced the cupboard.
+
+'I then went to bed. In bed, I thought whether there were any very
+remote possibilities that might lead to the supposition that my wife was
+not consumed by the flames of the burning house. The thing which struck
+me most forcibly was this, that the searchers might think it odd that no
+remains whatever should be found.
+
+'The clinching and triumphant deed would be to take the body and place
+it among the ruins of the destroyed house. But I could not do this, on
+account of the men who were watching against an outbreak of the fire.
+One remedy remained.
+
+'I arose again, dressed myself, and went down to the outhouse. I must
+take down the cupboard again. I did take it down. I pulled out the
+bricks, pulled out the sack, pulled out the corpse, and took her keys
+from her pocket and the watch from her side.
+
+'I then replaced everything as before.
+
+'With these articles in my pocket I went out of the yard, and took my
+way through the withy copse to the churchyard, entering it from the
+back. Here I felt my way carefully along till I came to the nook where
+pieces of bones from newly-dug graves are sometimes piled behind the
+laurel-bushes. I had been earnestly hoping to find a skull among these
+old bones; but though I had frequently seen one or two in the rubbish
+here, there was not one now. I then groped in the other corner with the
+same result--nowhere could I find a skull. Three or four fragments of
+leg and back-bones were all I could collect, and with these I was forced
+to be content.
+
+'Taking them in my hand, I crossed the road, and got round behind the
+inn, where the couch heap was still smouldering. Keeping behind the
+hedge, I could see the heads of the three or four men who watched the
+spot.
+
+'Standing in this place I took the bones, and threw them one by one over
+the hedge and over the men's heads into the smoking embers. When the
+bones had all been thrown, I threw the keys; last of all I threw the
+watch.
+
+'I then returned home as I had gone, and went to bed once more, just as
+the dawn began to break. I exulted--"Cytherea is mine again!"
+
+'At breakfast-time I thought, "Suppose the cupboard should by some
+unlikely chance get moved to-day!"
+
+'I went to the mason's yard hard by, while the men were at breakfast,
+and brought away a shovelful of mortar. I took it into the outhouse,
+again shifted the cupboard, and plastered over the mouth of the oven
+behind. Simply pushing the cupboard back into its place, I waited for
+the next night that I might bury the body, though upon the whole it was
+in a tolerably safe hiding-place.
+
+'When the night came, my nerves were in some way weaker than they had
+been on the previous night. I felt reluctant to touch the body. I went
+to the outhouse, but instead of opening the oven, I firmly drove in
+the shoulder-nails that held the cupboard to the wall. "I will bury her
+to-morrow night, however," I thought.
+
+'But the next night I was still more reluctant to touch her. And my
+reluctance increased, and there the body remained. The oven was, after
+all, never likely to be opened in my time.
+
+'I married Cytherea Graye, and never did a bridegroom leave the church
+with a heart more full of love and happiness, and a brain more fixed on
+good intentions, than I did on that morning.
+
+'When Cytherea's brother made his appearance at the hotel in
+Southampton, bearing his strange evidence of the porter's disclosure, I
+was staggered beyond expression. I thought they had found the body.
+"Am I to be apprehended and to lose her even now?" I mourned. I saw
+my error, and instantly saw, too, that I must act externally like an
+honourable man. So at his request I yielded her up to him, and meditated
+on several schemes for enabling me to claim the woman I had a legal
+right to claim as my wife, without disclosing the reason why I knew
+myself to have it.
+
+'I went home to Knapwater the next day, and for nearly a week lived in
+a state of indecision. I could not hit upon a scheme for proving my wife
+dead without compromising myself.
+
+'Mr. Raunham hinted that I should take steps to discover her whereabouts
+by advertising. I had no energy for the farce. But one evening I chanced
+to enter the Rising Sun Inn. Two notorious poachers were sitting in
+the settle, which screened my entrance. They were half drunk--their
+conversation was carried on in the solemn and emphatic tone common to
+that stage of intoxication, and I myself was the subject of it.
+
+'The following was the substance of their disjointed remarks: On the
+night of the great fire at Carriford, one of them was sent to meet
+me, and break the news of the death of my wife to me. This he did;
+but because I would not pay him for his news, he left me in a mood
+of vindictiveness. When the fire was over, he joined his comrade. The
+favourable hour of the night suggested to them the possibility of some
+unlawful gain before daylight came. My fowlhouse stood in a tempting
+position, and still resenting his repulse during the evening, one of
+them proposed to operate upon my birds. I was believed to have gone to
+the rectory with Mr. Raunham. The other was disinclined to go, and the
+first went off alone.
+
+'It was now about three o'clock. He had advanced as far as the
+shrubbery, which grows near the north wall of the house, when he fancied
+he heard, above the rush of the waterfall, noises on the other side
+of the building. He described them in these words, "Ghostly mouths
+talking--then a fall--then a groan--then the rush of the water and creak
+of the engine as before." Only one explanation occurred to him; the
+house was haunted. And, whether those of the living or the dead, voices
+of any kind were inimical to one who had come on such an errand. He
+stealthily crept home.
+
+'His unlawful purpose in being behind the house led him to conceal
+his adventure. No suspicion of the truth entered his mind till the
+railway-porter had startled everybody by his strange announcement. Then
+he asked himself, had the horrifying sounds of that night been really an
+enactment in the flesh between me and my wife?
+
+'The words of the other man were:
+
+'"Why don't he try to find her if she's alive?"
+
+'"True," said the first. "Well, I don't forget what I heard, and if she
+don't turn up alive my mind will be as sure as a Bible upon her
+murder, and the parson shall know it, though I do get six months on the
+treadmill for being where I was."
+
+'"And if she should turn up alive?"
+
+'"Then I shall know that I am wrong, and believing myself a fool as well
+as a rogue, hold my tongue."
+
+'I glided out of the house in a cold sweat. The only pressure in heaven
+or earth which could have forced me to renounce Cytherea was now put
+upon me--the dread of a death upon the gallows.
+
+'I sat all that night weaving strategy of various kinds. The only
+effectual remedy for my hazardous standing that I could see was a
+simple one. It was to substitute another woman for my wife before the
+suspicions of that one easily-hoodwinked man extended further.
+
+'The only difficulty was to find a practicable substitute.
+
+'The one woman at all available for the purpose was a friendless,
+innocent creature, named Anne Seaway, whom I had known in my youth,
+and who had for some time been the housekeeper of a lady in London. On
+account of this lady's sudden death, Anne stood in rather a precarious
+position, as regarded her future subsistence. She was not the best kind
+of woman for the scheme; but there was no alternative. One quality of
+hers was valuable; she was not a talker. I went to London the very next
+day, called at the Hoxton lodging of my wife (the only place at
+which she had been known as Mrs. Manston), and found that no great
+difficulties stood in the way of a personation. And thus favouring
+circumstances determined my course. I visited Anne Seaway, made love to
+her, and propounded my plan.
+
+              *     *     *     *     *
+
+'We lived quietly enough until the Sunday before my apprehension. Anne
+came home from church that morning, and told me of the suspicious way in
+which a young man had looked at her there. Nothing could be done beyond
+waiting the issue of events. Then the letter came from Raunham. For the
+first time in my life I was half indifferent as to what fate awaited me.
+During the succeeding day I thought once or twice of running away, but
+could not quite make up my mind. At any rate it would be best to bury
+the body of my wife, I thought, for the oven might be opened at any
+time. I went to Casterbridge and made some arrangements. In the evening
+Miss Aldclyffe (who is united to me by a common secret which I have no
+right or wish to disclose) came to my house, and alarmed me still more.
+She said that she could tell by Mr. Raunham's manner that evening, that
+he kept back from her a suspicion of more importance even than the one
+he spoke of, and that strangers were in his house even then.
+
+'I guessed what this further suspicion was, and resolved to enlighten
+her to a certain extent, and so secure her assistance. I said that I
+killed my wife by an accident on the night of the fire, dwelling upon
+the advantage to her of the death of the only woman who knew her secret.
+
+'Her terror, and fears for my fate, led her to watch the rectory
+that evening. She saw the detective leave it, and followed him to my
+residence. This she told me hurriedly when I perceived her after digging
+my wife's grave in the plantation. She did not suspect what the sack
+contained.
+
+'I am now about to enter on my normal condition. For people are almost
+always in their graves. When we survey the long race of men, it is
+strange and still more strange to find that they are mainly dead men,
+who have scarcely ever been otherwise.
+
+                                              'AENEAS MANSTON.'
+
+
+The steward's confession, aided by circumstantial evidence of various
+kinds, was the means of freeing both Anne Seaway and Miss Aldclyffe from
+all suspicion of complicity with the murderer.
+
+2. SIX O'CLOCK P.M.
+
+It was evening--just at sunset--on the day of Manston's death.
+
+In the cottage at Tolchurch was gathered a group consisting of Cytherea,
+her brother, Edward Springrove, and his father. They sat by the
+window conversing of the strange events which had just taken place. In
+Cytherea's eye there beamed a hopeful ray, though her face was as white
+as a lily.
+
+Whilst they talked, looking out at the yellow evening light that coated
+the hedges, trees, and church tower, a brougham rolled round the corner
+of the lane, and came in full view. It reflected the rays of the sun in
+a flash from its polished panels as it turned the angle, the spokes of
+the wheels bristling in the same light like bayonets. The vehicle came
+nearer, and arrived opposite Owen's door, when the driver pulled the
+rein and gave a shout, and the panting and sweating horses stopped.
+
+'Miss Aldclyffe's carriage!' they all exclaimed.
+
+Owen went out. 'Is Miss Graye at home?' said the man. 'A note for her,
+and I am to wait for an answer.'
+
+Cytherea read in the handwriting of the Rector of Carriford:--
+
+
+'DEAR MISS GRAYE,--Miss Aldclyffe is ill, though not dangerously. She
+continually repeats your name, and now wishes very much to see you.
+If you possibly can, come in the carriage.--Very sincerely yours, JOHN
+RAUNHAM.'
+
+
+'How comes she ill?' Owen inquired of the coachman.
+
+'She caught a violent cold by standing out of doors in the damp, on
+the night the steward ran away. Ever since, till this morning, she
+complained of fulness and heat in the chest. This morning the maid ran
+in and told her suddenly that Manston had killed himself in gaol--she
+shrieked--broke a blood-vessel--and fell upon the floor. Severe internal
+haemorrhage continued for some time and then stopped. They say she is
+sure to get over it; but she herself says no. She has suffered from it
+before.'
+
+Cytherea was ready in a few moments, and entered the carriage.
+
+3. SEVEN O'CLOCK P.M.
+
+Soft as was Cytherea's motion along the corridors of Knapwater House,
+the preternaturally keen intelligence of the suffering woman caught
+the maiden's well-known footfall. She entered the sick-chamber with
+suspended breath.
+
+In the room everything was so still, and sensation was as it were so
+rarefied by solicitude, that thinking seemed acting, and the lady's
+weak act of trying to live a silent wrestling with all the powers of the
+universe. Nobody was present but Mr. Raunham, the nurse having left the
+room on Cytherea's entry, and the physician and surgeon being engaged
+in a whispered conversation in a side-chamber. Their patient had been
+pronounced out of danger.
+
+Cytherea went to the bedside, and was instantly recognized. O, what a
+change--Miss Aldclyffe dependent upon pillows! And yet not a forbidding
+change. With weakness had come softness of aspect: the haughtiness was
+extracted from the frail thin countenance, and a sweeter mild placidity
+had taken its place.
+
+Miss Aldclyffe signified to Mr. Raunham that she would like to be alone
+with Cytherea.
+
+'Cytherea?' she faintly whispered the instant the door was closed.
+
+Cytherea clasped the lady's weak hand, and sank beside her.
+
+Miss Aldclyffe whispered again. 'They say I am certain to live; but I
+know that I am certainly going to die.'
+
+'They know, I think, and hope.'
+
+'I know best, but we'll leave that. Cytherea--O Cytherea, can you
+forgive me!'
+
+Her companion pressed her hand.
+
+'But you don't know yet--you don't know yet,' the invalid murmured. 'It
+is forgiveness for that misrepresentation to Edward Springrove that I
+implore, and for putting such force upon him--that which caused all the
+train of your innumerable ills!'
+
+'I know all--all. And I do forgive you. Not in a hasty impulse that is
+revoked when coolness comes, but deliberately and sincerely: as I myself
+hope to be forgiven, I accord you my forgiveness now.'
+
+Tears streamed from Miss Aldclyffe's eyes, and mingled with those of her
+young companion, who could not restrain hers for sympathy. Expressions
+of strong attachment, interrupted by emotion, burst again and again from
+the broken-spirited woman.
+
+'But you don't know my motive. O, if you only knew it, how you would
+pity me then!'
+
+Cytherea did not break the pause which ensued, and the elder woman
+appeared now to nerve herself by a superhuman effort. She spoke on in a
+voice weak as a summer breeze, and full of intermission, and yet there
+pervaded it a steadiness of intention that seemed to demand firm tones
+to bear it out worthily.
+
+'Cytherea,' she said, 'listen to me before I die.
+
+'A long time ago--more than thirty years ago--a young girl of seventeen
+was cruelly betrayed by her cousin, a wild officer of six-and-twenty. He
+went to India, and died.
+
+'One night when that miserable girl had just arrived home with her
+parents from Germany, where her baby had been born, she took all the
+money she possessed, pinned it on her infant's bosom, together with
+a letter, stating, among other things, what she wished the child's
+Christian name to be; wrapped up the little thing, and walked with it to
+Clapham. Here, in a retired street, she selected a house. She placed
+the child on the doorstep and knocked at the door, then ran away and
+watched. They took it up and carried it indoors.
+
+'Now that her poor baby was gone, the girl blamed herself bitterly for
+cruelty towards it, and wished she had adopted her parents' counsel to
+secretly hire a nurse. She longed to see it. She didn't know what to do.
+She wrote in an assumed name to the woman who had taken it in, and asked
+her to meet the writer with the infant at certain places she named.
+These were hotels or coffee-houses in Chelsea, Pimlico, or Hammersmith.
+The woman, being well paid, always came, and asked no questions. At one
+meeting--at an inn in Hammersmith--she made her appearance without the
+child, and told the girl it was so ill that it would not live through
+the night. The news, and fatigue, brought on a fainting-fit....'
+
+Miss Aldclyffe's sobs choked her utterance, and she became painfully
+agitated. Cytherea, pale and amazed at what she heard, wept for her,
+bent over her, and begged her not to go on speaking.
+
+'Yes--I must,' she cried, between her sobs. 'I will--I must go on! And
+I must tell yet more plainly!... you must hear it before I am gone,
+Cytherea.' The sympathizing and astonished girl sat down again.
+
+'The name of the woman who had taken the child was _Manston_. She was
+the widow of a schoolmaster. She said she had adopted the child of a
+relation.
+
+'Only one man ever found out who the mother was. He was the keeper of
+the inn in which she fainted, and his silence she has purchased ever
+since.
+
+'A twelvemonth passed--fifteen months--and the saddened girl met a
+man at her father's house named Graye--your father, Cytherea, then
+unmarried. Ah, such a man! Inexperience now perceived what it was to
+be loved in spirit and in truth! But it was too late. Had he known her
+secret he would have cast her out. She withdrew from him by an effort,
+and pined.
+
+'Years and years afterwards, when she became mistress of a fortune and
+estates by her father's death, she formed the weak scheme of having near
+her the son whom, in her father's life-time, she had been forbidden to
+recognize. Cytherea, you know who that weak woman is.
+
+              *     *     *     *     *
+
+'By such toilsome labour as this I got him here as my steward. And I
+wanted to see him _your husband_, Cytherea!--the husband of my true
+lover's child. It was a sweet dream to me.... Pity me--O, pity me! To
+die unloved is more than I can bear! I loved your father, and I love him
+now.'
+
+
+That was the burden of Cytherea Aldclyffe.
+
+'I suppose you must leave me again--you always leave me,' she said,
+after holding the young woman's hand a long while in silence.
+
+'No--indeed I'll stay always. Do you like me to stay?'
+
+Miss Aldclyffe in the jaws of death was Miss Aldclyffe still, though the
+old fire had degenerated to mere phosphorescence now. 'But you are your
+brother's housekeeper?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Well, of course you cannot stay with me on a sudden like this.... Go
+home, or he will be at a loss for things. And to-morrow morning come
+again, won't you, dearest, come again--we'll fetch you. But you mustn't
+stay now, and put Owen out. O no--it would be absurd.' The absorbing
+concern about trifles of daily routine, which is so often seen in very
+sick people, was present here.
+
+Cytherea promised to go home, and come the next morning to stay
+continuously.
+
+'Stay till I die then, will you not? Yes, till I die--I shan't die till
+to-morrow.'
+
+'We hope for your recovery--all of us.'
+
+'I know best. Come at six o'clock, darling.'
+
+'As soon as ever I can,' returned Cytherea tenderly.
+
+'But six is too early--you will have to think of your brother's
+breakfast. Leave Tolchurch at eight, will you?'
+
+Cytherea consented to this. Miss Aldclyffe would never have known
+had her companion stayed in the house all night; but the honesty of
+Cytherea's nature rebelled against even the friendly deceit which such a
+proceeding would have involved.
+
+An arrangement was come to whereby she was to be taken home in the
+pony-carriage instead of the brougham that fetched her; the carriage
+to put up at Tolchurch farm for the night, and on that account to be in
+readiness to bring her back earlier.
+
+4. MARCH THE THIRTIETH. DAYBREAK
+
+The third and last instance of Cytherea's subjection to those periodic
+terrors of the night which had emphasized her connection with the
+Aldclyffe name and blood occurred at the present date.
+
+It was about four o'clock in the morning when Cytherea, though most
+probably dreaming, seemed to awake--and instantly was transfixed by a
+sort of spell, that had in it more of awe than of affright. At the
+foot of her bed, looking her in the face with an expression of
+entreaty beyond the power of words to portray, was the form of Miss
+Aldclyffe--wan and distinct. No motion was perceptible in her; but
+longing--earnest longing--was written in every feature.
+
+Cytherea believed she exercised her waking judgment as usual in
+thinking, without a shadow of doubt, that Miss Aldclyffe stood before
+her in flesh and blood. Reason was not sufficiently alert to lead
+Cytherea to ask herself how such a thing could have occurred.
+
+'I would have remained with you--why would you not allow me to stay!'
+Cytherea exclaimed. The spell was broken: she became broadly awake; and
+the figure vanished.
+
+It was in the grey time of dawn. She trembled in a sweat of disquiet,
+and not being able to endure the thought of her brother being asleep,
+she went and tapped at his door.
+
+'Owen!'
+
+He was not a heavy sleeper, and it was verging upon his time to rise.
+
+'What do you want, Cytherea?'
+
+'I ought not to have left Knapwater last night. I wish I had not. I
+really think I will start at once. She wants me, I know.'
+
+'What time is it?'
+
+'A few minutes past four.'
+
+'You had better not. Keep to the time agreed upon. Consider, we should
+have such a trouble in rousing the driver, and other things.'
+
+Upon the whole it seemed wiser not to act on a mere fancy. She went to
+bed again.
+
+An hour later, when Owen was thinking of getting up, a knocking came to
+the front door. The next minute something touched the glass of Owen's
+window. He waited--the noise was repeated. A little gravel had been
+thrown against it to arouse him.
+
+He crossed the room, pulled up the blind, and looked out. A solemn white
+face was gazing upwards from the road, expectantly straining to catch
+the first glimpse of a person within the panes. It was the face of a
+Knapwater man sitting on horseback.
+
+Owen saw his errand. There is an unmistakable look in the face of every
+man who brings tidings of death. Graye opened the window.
+
+'Miss Aldclyffe....' said the messenger, and paused.
+
+'Ah--dead?'
+
+'Yes--she is dead.'
+
+'When did she die?'
+
+'At ten minutes past four, after another effusion. She knew best, you
+see, sir. I started directly, by the rector's orders.'
+
+
+
+
+SEQUEL
+
+Fifteen months have passed, and we are brought on to Midsummer Night,
+1867.
+
+The picture presented is the interior of the old belfry of Carriford
+Church, at ten o'clock in the evening.
+
+Six Carriford men and one stranger are gathered there, beneath the light
+of a flaring candle stuck on a piece of wood against the wall. The six
+Carriford men are the well-known ringers of the fine-toned old bells in
+the key of F, which have been music to the ears of Carriford parish and
+the outlying districts for the last four hundred years. The stranger is
+an assistant, who has appeared from nobody knows where.
+
+The six natives--in their shirt-sleeves, and without hats--pull and
+catch frantically at the dancing bellropes, the locks of their hair
+waving in the breeze created by their quick motions; the stranger, who
+has the treble bell, does likewise, but in his right mind and coat.
+Their ever-changing shadows mingle on the wall in an endless variety of
+kaleidoscopic forms, and the eyes of all the seven are religiously fixed
+on a diagram like a large addition sum, which is chalked on the floor.
+
+Vividly contrasting with the yellow light of the candle upon the four
+unplastered walls of the tower, and upon the faces and clothes of the
+men, is the scene discernible through the screen beneath the tower
+archway. At the extremity of the long mysterious avenue of the nave and
+chancel can be seen shafts of moonlight streaming in at the east window
+of the church--blue, phosphoric, and ghostly.
+
+A thorough renovation of the bell-ringing machinery and accessories had
+taken place in anticipation of an interesting event. New ropes had been
+provided; every bell had been carefully shifted from its carriage, and
+the pivots lubricated. Bright red 'sallies' of woollen texture--soft
+to the hands and easily caught--glowed on the ropes in place of the old
+ragged knots, all of which newness in small details only rendered more
+evident the irrepressible aspect of age in the mass surrounding them.
+
+The triple-bob-major was ended, and the ringers wiped their faces and
+rolled down their shirt-sleeves, previously to tucking away the ropes
+and leaving the place for the night.
+
+'Piph--h--h--h! A good forty minutes,' said a man with a streaming face,
+and blowing out his breath--one of the pair who had taken the tenor
+bell.
+
+'Our friend here pulled proper well--that 'a did--seeing he's but a
+stranger,' said Clerk Crickett, who had just resigned the second rope,
+and addressing the man in the black coat.
+
+''A did,' said the rest.
+
+'I enjoyed it much,' said the man modestly.
+
+'What we should ha' done without you words can't tell. The man that
+d'belong by rights to that there bell is ill o' two gallons o' wold
+cider.'
+
+'And now so's,' remarked the fifth ringer, as pertaining to the last
+allusion, 'we'll finish this drop o' metheglin and cider, and every man
+home--along straight as a line.'
+
+'Wi' all my heart,' Clerk Crickett replied. 'And the Lord send if I
+ha'n't done my duty by Master Teddy Springrove--that I have so.'
+
+'And the rest o' us,' they said, as the cup was handed round.
+
+'Ay, ay--in ringen--but I was spaken in a spiritual sense o' this
+mornen's business o' mine up by the chancel rails there. 'Twas very
+convenient to lug her here and marry her instead o' doen it at that
+twopenny-halfpenny town o' Budm'th. Very convenient.'
+
+'Very. There was a little fee for Master Crickett.'
+
+'Ah--well. Money's money--very much so--very--I always have said it. But
+'twas a pretty sight for the nation. He coloured up like any maid, that
+'a did.'
+
+'Well enough 'a mid colour up. 'Tis no small matter for a man to play
+wi' fire.'
+
+'Whatever it may be to a woman,' said the clerk absently.
+
+'Thou'rt thinken o' thy wife, clerk,' said Gad Weedy. 'She'll play wi'it
+again when thou'st got mildewed.'
+
+'Well--let her, God bless her; for I'm but a poor third man, I. The Lord
+have mercy upon the fourth!... Ay, Teddy's got his own at last. What
+little white ears that maid hev, to be sure! choose your wife as you
+choose your pig--a small ear and a small tale--that was always my joke
+when I was a merry feller, ah--years agone now! But Teddy's got her.
+Poor chap, he was getten as thin as a hermit wi' grief--so was she.'
+
+'Maybe she'll pick up now.'
+
+'True--'tis nater's law, which no man shall gainsay. Ah, well do I bear
+in mind what I said to Pa'son Raunham, about thy mother's family o'
+seven, Gad, the very first week of his comen here, when I was just in my
+prime. "And how many daughters has that poor Weedy got, clerk?" he says.
+"Six, sir," says I, "and every one of 'em has a brother!" "Poor woman,"
+says he, "a dozen children!--give her this half-sovereign from me,
+clerk." 'A laughed a good five minutes afterwards, when he found out my
+merry nater--'a did. But there, 'tis over wi' me now. Enteren the Church
+is the ruin of a man's wit for wit's nothen without a faint shadder o'
+sin.'
+
+'If so be Teddy and the lady had been kept apart for life, they'd both
+ha' died,' said Gad emphatically.
+
+'But now instead o' death there'll be increase o' life,' answered the
+clerk.
+
+'It all went proper well,' said the fifth bell-ringer. 'They didn't flee
+off to Babylonish places--not they.' He struck up an attitude--'Here's
+Master Springrove standen so: here's the married woman standen likewise;
+here they d'walk across to Knapwater House; and there they d'bide in the
+chimley corner, hard and fast.'
+
+'Yes, 'twas a pretty wedden, and well attended,' added the clerk. 'Here
+was my lady herself--red as scarlet: here was Master Springrove, looken
+as if he half wished he'd never a-come--ah, poor souls!--the men always
+do! The women do stand it best--the maid was in her glory. Though she
+was so shy the glory shone plain through that shy skin. Ah, it did
+so's.'
+
+'Ay,' said Gad, 'and there was Tim Tankins and his five journeymen
+carpenters, standen on tiptoe and peepen in at the chancel winders.
+There was Dairyman Dodman waiten in his new spring-cart to see 'em come
+out--whip in hand--that 'a was. Then up comes two master tailors.
+Then there was Christopher Runt wi' his pickaxe and shovel. There was
+wimmen-folk and there was men-folk traypsen up and down church'ard till
+they wore a path wi' traypsen so--letten the squallen children slip down
+through their arms and nearly skinnen o' em. And these were all over and
+above the gentry and Sunday-clothes folk inside. Well, I seed Mr. Graye
+at last dressed up quite the dand. "Well, Mr. Graye," says I from the
+top o' church'ard wall, "how's yerself?" Mr. Graye never spoke--he'd
+prided away his hearen. Seize the man, I didn' want en to spak. Teddy
+hears it, and turns round: "All right, Gad!" says he, and laughed like a
+boy. There's more in Teddy.'
+
+'Well,' said Clerk Crickett, turning to the man in black, 'now you've
+been among us so long, and d'know us so well, won't ye tell us what
+ye've come here for, and what your trade is?'
+
+'I am no trade,' said the thin man, smiling, 'and I came to see the
+wickedness of the land.'
+
+'I said thou wast one o' the devil's brood wi' thy black clothes,'
+replied a sturdy ringer, who had not spoken before.
+
+'No, the truth is,' said the thin man, retracting at this horrible
+translation, 'I came for a walk because it is a fine evening.'
+
+'Now let's be off, neighbours,' the clerk interrupted.
+
+The candle was inverted in the socket, and the whole party stepped out
+into the churchyard. The moon was shining within a day or two of full,
+and just overlooked the three or four vast yews that stood on the
+south-east side of the church, and rose in unvaried and flat darkness
+against the illuminated atmosphere behind them.
+
+'Good-night,' the clerk said to his comrades, when the door was locked.
+'My nearest way is through the park.'
+
+'I suppose mine is too?' said the stranger. 'I am going to the
+railway-station.'
+
+'Of course--come on.'
+
+The two men went over a stile to the west, the remainder of the party
+going into the road on the opposite side.
+
+'And so the romance has ended well,' the clerk's companion remarked,
+as they brushed along through the grass. 'But what is the truth of the
+story about the property?'
+
+'Now look here, neighbour,' said Clerk Crickett, 'if so be you'll tell
+me what your line o' life is, and your purpose in comen here to-day,
+I'll tell you the truth about the wedden particulars.'
+
+'Very well--I will when you have done,' said the other man.
+
+''Tis a bargain; and this is the right o' the story. When Miss
+Aldclyffe's will was opened, it was found to have been drawn up on the
+very day that Manston (her love-child) married Miss Cytherea Graye. And
+this is what that deep woman did. Deep? she was as deep as the North
+Star. She bequeathed all her property, real and personal, to "THE WIFE
+OF AENEAS MANSTON" (with one exception): failen her life to her husband:
+failen his life to the heirs of his head--body I would say: failen
+them to her absolutely and her heirs for ever: failen these to Pa'son
+Raunham, and so on to the end o' the human race. Now do you see the
+depth of her scheme? Why, although upon the surface it appeared her
+whole property was for Miss Cytherea, by the word "wife" being used,
+and not Cytherea's name, whoever was the wife o' Manston would come
+in for't. Wasn't that rale depth? It was done, of course, that her
+son AEneas, under any circumstances, should be master o' the property,
+without folk knowen it was her son or suspecting anything, as they would
+if it had been left to en straightway.'
+
+'A clever arrangement! And what was the exception?'
+
+'The payment of a legacy to her relative, Pa'son Raunham.'
+
+'And Miss Cytherea was now Manston's widow and only relative, and
+inherited all absolutely.'
+
+'True, she did. "Well," says she, "I shan't have it" (she didn't like
+the notion o' getten anything through Manston, naturally enough, pretty
+dear). She waived her right in favour o' Mr. Raunham. Now, if there's
+a man in the world that d'care nothen about land--I don't say there is,
+but _if_ there is--'tis our pa'son. He's like a snail. He's a-growed so
+to the shape o' that there rectory that 'a wouldn' think o' leaven it
+even in name. "'Tis yours, Miss Graye," says he. "No, 'tis yours," says
+she. "'Tis'n' mine," says he. The Crown had cast his eyes upon the case,
+thinken o' forfeiture by felony--but 'twas no such thing, and 'a gied
+it up, too. Did you ever hear such a tale?--three people, a man and
+a woman, and a Crown--neither o' em in a madhouse--flingen an estate
+backwards and forwards like an apple or nut? Well, it ended in this way.
+Mr. Raunham took it: young Springrove was had as agent and steward, and
+put to live in Knapwater House, close here at hand--just as if 'twas
+his own. He does just what he'd like--Mr. Raunham never interferen--and
+hither to-day he's brought his new wife, Cytherea. And a settlement ha'
+been drawn up this very day, whereby their children, heirs, and cetrer,
+be to inherit after Mr. Raunham's death. Good fortune came at last. Her
+brother, too, is doen well. He came in first man in some architectural
+competition, and is about to move to London. Here's the house, look.
+Stap out from these bushes, and you'll get a clear sight o't.'
+
+They emerged from the shrubbery, breaking off towards the lake, and down
+the south slope. When they arrived exactly opposite the centre of the
+mansion, they halted.
+
+It was a magnificent picture of the English country-house. The whole of
+the severe regular front, with its columns and cornices, was built of a
+white smoothly-faced freestone, which appeared in the rays of the moon
+as pure as Pentelic marble. The sole objects in the scene rivalling the
+fairness of the facade were a dozen swans floating upon the lake.
+
+At this moment the central door at the top of the steps was opened, and
+two figures advanced into the light. Two contrasting figures were they.
+A young lithe woman in an airy fairy dress--Cytherea Springrove: a young
+man in black stereotype raiment--Edward, her husband.
+
+They stood at the top of the steps together, looking at the moon, the
+water, and the general loveliness of the prospect.
+
+'That's the married man and wife--there, I've illustrated my story by
+rale liven specimens,' the clerk whispered.
+
+'To be sure, how close together they do stand! You couldn' slip a
+penny-piece between 'em--that you couldn'! Beautiful to see it, isn't
+it--beautiful!... But this is a private path, and we won't let 'em see
+us, as all the ringers be goen there to a supper and dance to-morrow
+night.'
+
+The speaker and his companion softly moved on, passed through the
+wicket, and into the coach-road. Arrived at the clerk's house at the
+further boundary of the park, they paused to part.
+
+'Now for your half o' the bargain,' said Clerk Crickett. 'What's your
+line o' life, and what d'ye come here for?'
+
+'I'm the reporter to the Casterbridge Chronicle, and I come to pick up
+the news. Good-night.'
+
+
+Meanwhile Edward and Cytherea, after lingering on the steps for several
+minutes, slowly descended the slope to the lake. The skiff was lying
+alongside.
+
+'O, Edward,' said Cytherea, 'you must do something that has just come
+into my head!'
+
+'Well, dearest--I know.'
+
+'Yes--give me one half-minute's row on the lake here now, just as you
+did on Budmouth Bay three years ago.'
+
+He handed her into the boat, and almost noiselessly pulled off from
+shore. When they were half-way between the two margins of the lake, he
+paused and looked at her.
+
+'Ah, darling, I remember exactly how I kissed you that first time,' said
+Springrove. 'You were there as you are now. I unshipped the sculls in
+this way. Then I turned round and sat beside you--in this way. Then I
+put my hand on the other side of your little neck--'
+
+'I think it was just on my cheek, in this way.'
+
+'Ah, so it was. Then you moved that soft red mouth round to mine--'
+
+'But, dearest--you pressed it round if you remember; and of course I
+couldn't then help letting it come to your mouth without being unkind to
+you, and I wouldn't be that.'
+
+'And then I put my cheek against that cheek, and turned my two lips
+round upon those two lips, and kissed them--so.'
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Desperate Remedies, by Thomas Hardy
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