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+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75404 ***
+
+
+                          [Cover Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+                               AUNT ANNE.
+
+                       _By Mrs. W. K. Clifford_,
+
+                 _Author of “Mrs. Keith’s Crime,” etc._
+
+
+              “As less the olden glow abides,
+                 And less the chillier heart aspires,
+               With driftwood beached in past spring-tides
+                 We light our sullen fires.”
+                      JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
+
+                            In Two Volumes.
+                                Vol. II.
+
+
+
+                                London:
+                         Richard Bentley & Son,
+            Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen.
+                                 1892.
+
+                         (All rights reserved.)
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+                               AUNT ANNE.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER I.
+
+
+Portsea Place, Connaught Square, is composed of very small houses, most
+of which are let out in apartments. It was to one of these that Mrs.
+Baines drove on her arrival in town. Her two canvas-covered boxes,
+carefully corded, were on the top of the cab, her many small packages
+piled up inside. Mr. Wimple was not with her. He had left her at
+Waterloo, but it had been arranged that he was to see her later on in
+Portsea Place, and that if she failed to take rooms there, she was to
+leave a message where she was to be found.
+
+“Well, Mrs. Hooper,” she said to the landlady, smilingly, but with the
+condescending air of a patroness, “you see I have not forgotten you, and
+if your rooms are still at liberty I should like to inspect them again.”
+
+“Yes, ma’am, certainly they are at liberty,” said Mrs. Hooper, who felt
+convinced that, in spite of the shabby cloak with the clasp, the spare
+old lady must be some grand personage in disguise. “I shall be only too
+glad if they please you.”
+
+Mrs. Baines inspected them carefully, two little rooms on the
+drawing-room floor, a bedroom and a sitting-room. She looked at the
+pictures, she winked at herself in the looking-glass, she gently shook
+the side-table to see if it was rickety. She tried the springs of the
+easy-chair, and the softness of the sofa cushions. She asked if the
+chimney had been properly swept, and whether there was a draught from
+the windows.
+
+“I think a guinea a week is an ample rent, Mrs. Hooper, considering that
+it is not the season,” she said. “However, I will take the rooms for a
+week.”
+
+“I don’t usually let them for so short a time,” the landlady began
+meekly.
+
+“I might not require them for longer,” answered Mrs. Baines distantly,
+“but I can make them suit my purpose for a week.”
+
+“Very well, ma’am,” and Mrs. Hooper gave way, overawed by Aunt Anne’s
+unflinching manner. “Would you like a fire lighted?”
+
+“Certainly, and at once; but first will you be good enough to have the
+luggage carried in? And tell the cabman to wait; he can drive me to
+Portman Square. There will be a gentleman here to dinner to-night.”
+
+“I didn’t think you would want late dinner, ma’am; ladies so often have
+tea and something with it—and company the first night——” but the
+landlady stopped with a little dismay in her voice, for Mrs. Baines
+looked displeased.
+
+“I am accustomed to dining late,” she said haughtily, feeling acutely
+the superiority of her own class, “and I have frequent visitors. Cabman,
+will you put those boxes into the bedroom?—and be careful not to knock
+the walls. They are so often careless,” she said, with a smile to the
+landlady that completely subjugated her, “and it is so very annoying to
+have one’s place injured.”
+
+“Yes, ma’am, it is,” Mrs. Hooper replied gratefully. “If you will give
+your orders we will get in what you want for this evening while you are
+gone to Portman Square.” The address had evidently impressed her.
+
+“I must consider for a moment,” and Aunt Anne sat down and was silent.
+Then she ordered a little dinner that she thought would be after the
+heart of Mr. Wimple, and gave many domestic directions; and with “I
+trust to you to make everything exceedingly comfortable, Mrs. Hooper,”
+departed in a four-wheeled cab.
+
+Sir William Rammage lived in a big house in Portman Square. The windows
+looked dull, the blinds dingy, the door-step deserted. Half the square
+seemed to hear the knock which Mrs. Baines gave at the double door. A
+servant in an old-fashioned black suit appeared with an air of surprise.
+
+“Is Sir William Rammage at home?” Mrs. Baines asked. The man looked her
+swiftly up and down.
+
+“Yes, ma’am.”
+
+“I wish to see him,” she said, and walked into the wide stone hall,
+before the servant could prevent her.
+
+“It’s quite impossible, ma’am,” he said firmly; “Sir William keeps his
+room, and is too ill to see any one.”
+
+“You will be good enough to take him my card,” Mrs. Baines said. “If he
+is able to do so, you will find that he will see me.”
+
+“I’ll take it to Mr. Boughton, ma’am,” said the man hesitatingly, for he
+was overcome by the visitor’s imperious manner; “he has been with Sir
+William just now, and will know if it is possible for any one to see
+him.”
+
+“Who is Mr. Boughton?” she asked, almost contemptuously.
+
+“He is Sir William’s solicitor.”
+
+“Very well, that will do,” said Mrs. Baines, and she was shown into a
+large empty dining-room, that looked as grim and gloomy as the outside
+of the house had promised that all should be within. In a few minutes he
+returned.
+
+“Mr. Boughton will be with you directly, ma’am,” he said respectfully.
+
+In five minutes’ time there appeared a little dried-up man, bald and
+shrewd-looking, but with a kindly expression in his pinky face.
+
+“Mr. Boughton,” Mrs. Baines said, “I am most glad to make your
+acquaintance;” and she shook hands. “Is it possible to see Sir William
+Rammage? He is my cousin, and we have known each other since we were
+children together.”
+
+“Quite impossible, my dear madam, quite impossible,” the lawyer answered
+briskly.
+
+“Is he very ill?”
+
+“Very seriously ill.”
+
+“Dear William,” the old lady said tearfully, “I feared it was so. I knew
+him too well to suppose that he would leave my letters unanswered had it
+been otherwise.”
+
+“If it is any business matter, madam, I am his confidential lawyer, and
+have been for thirty years.”
+
+“Mr. Boughton, I am Sir William’s own first cousin; our mothers were
+sisters,” Mrs. Baines said with deep emotion.
+
+“Dear me, dear me,” answered the lawyer thoughtfully.
+
+“When we were children we were rocked in the same cradle.”
+
+“Most touching, I am sure;” and still he appeared to be turning
+something over in his mind.
+
+“I know that he has a sincere affection for me, but of late years he has
+been so frequently indisposed that he has not been able to show it as he
+wished.”
+
+“Frequently the case, my dear lady, frequently the case,” Mr. Boughton
+said soothingly. “May I ask you to tell me what other members of his
+family survive? I am a little uncertain in the matter.”
+
+“Mr. Boughton, I am his mother’s sister’s child, and the nearest
+relation he has in the world. The others have been dead and gone these
+many years. There may be some distant cousins left, but we have never
+recognized them.”
+
+“I understand,” he said; “most interesting. And you wish to see him on
+family business, I presume?”
+
+“I did.”
+
+“I am sorry to refuse you, my dear lady, but I am afraid he is too ill
+to see you.”
+
+“I am not rich,” Aunt Anne began, and her voice faltered a little; “and
+he promised to make me an allowance.”
+
+“He has never done so yet?”
+
+“No,” she said sadly, “he has had it under consideration. Perhaps he was
+reflecting what would be an adequate sum to defray my necessary
+expenses.”
+
+“Perhaps so,” Mr. Boughton said thoughtfully. “If you will excuse me one
+moment, I will inquire if by any possibility my client can see you;” and
+he left the room.
+
+But in a few minutes he returned.
+
+“It is quite out of the question,” he explained, “quite. I don’t wish to
+distress you, but I fear that our friend is much too ill to attend for
+some time to his worldly affairs.”
+
+“I have been waiting many months for his decision,” the old lady said,
+with a world of pain in her voice; “it has been most difficult to
+maintain my position.”
+
+“Quite so, quite so, my dear lady, and I feel sure that Sir William
+would wish this matter to be attended to without delay. I think I
+understand you to be the daughter of his mother’s sister——”
+
+“His dear mother’s sister Harriet.”
+
+“Quite so,” and Mr. Boughton nodded approvingly. “Well, my dear lady,
+suppose I take it upon myself, having the management of his affairs for
+the present, to allow you just a hundred a year, say, till he is able to
+settle matters himself. Would that enable you to await his recovery,
+or——”
+
+A little lump came into Aunt Anne’s throat, a slow movement of
+satisfaction to her left eye; her voice was unsteady when she spoke.
+
+“Mr. Boughton,” she said, “I know Sir William will be most grateful to
+you. My circumstances must have been the cause of much anxiety to him.”
+
+“Then we will consider the matter arranged until he is in a condition to
+attend to it himself or—by the way, would you like to have a cheque at
+once?”
+
+“Perhaps it would be advisable,” Aunt Anne said, but she seemed unable
+to go on. Try to conceal it as she would, the sudden turn in her fortune
+was too much for her.
+
+“You must forgive me,” she said gently, sitting down, “I have had a
+journey from the country, and I am not so young as I was years ago;” she
+looked up with a little smile, as if to belie her words.
+
+“Of course,” answered Mr. Boughton, feelingly. “Age is a malady we all
+inherit if we live long enough. Let me get you a glass of wine; there is
+some excellent port in the sideboard;” and in a moment he found a
+decanter and, having filled a glass, handed it to her. But she shook her
+head while she looked up at him gratefully.
+
+“You must forgive me,” she said, “port wine is always pernicious to me.”
+But he persuaded her to take a little sip, and then the glass was set
+down beside her while he wrote the cheque.
+
+“You will tell dear William,” she said, “when he is well enough, with
+what solicitude I think of him. And, Mr. Boughton, you must permit me to
+say how much indebted I feel to your courtesy, and to the consideration
+with which you have treated me.”
+
+Five minutes later Mrs. Baines was walking along Portman Square, feeling
+like a woman in a dream, or a millionaire carrying his entire capital.
+She bought some flowers, on her way back, to put on the little dinner
+table in Portsea Place, and two little red candle-shades, for with
+characteristic quickness she had noticed the old-fashioned plated
+candlesticks on the mantelpiece, and remembered that gas above the table
+was unbecoming; and then she bought a yard or two of lace to wear round
+her throat, feeling a little ashamed and yet happy while she did so. She
+thought of her lover, and looked longingly round the shop; but there was
+nothing that even she could imagine would be an acceptable present to a
+man.
+
+“Welcome, my darling,” she said to him, when he arrived an hour or two
+later; “this is the first time I have had the happiness of receiving you
+in a place of my own. I trust our repast will be ready punctually.”
+
+“How is Sir William Rammage?” he asked.
+
+“In a most precarious condition.”
+
+“No better?”
+
+“From what I could gather, Alfred, he must be worse,” and she spoke
+solemnly.
+
+“Whom did you see?”
+
+“I saw a solicitor, Mr. Boughton.”
+
+“That is my uncle; and he said he was worse?”
+
+“He was so ill, Alfred, that Mr. Boughton even paid me my quarter’s
+income out of his own pocket.” A little smile hovered on Mr. Wimple’s
+face.
+
+“You didn’t say anything about me?”
+
+“No, my darling; you had desired me not to mention your name and that
+was sufficient.”
+
+“And he paid you out of his own pocket?”
+
+“Yes, my love, he was most anxious that I should not be inconvenienced;
+but our repast is ready. Come,” and she motioned him to the place
+opposite her, and with happy dignity went to the head of the table. “I
+hope you will do it justice.”
+
+Mr. Wimple ate his dinner with much solemnity. He always accepted his
+food as if it was a responsibility that demanded his most serious
+attention. Presently he looked at her across the dinner-table, at the
+lace about her throat, at the little crinkly gold brooch, which Florence
+had seen first years before at Rottingdean, at the lines and wrinkles
+that marked the tender old face, at the thin white hands with the loose
+skin and the blue veins; but no expression came into his dull full eyes.
+When the meal was over he got up and stood by the fireplace.
+
+“My dear one,” she said, “are you tired with the journey?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Did you find your rooms quite comfortable and ready for you?” she
+asked, and went over to his side.
+
+“Yes,” he answered with the little gulp peculiar to him. He seemed to be
+considering something of which he was uncertain whether to speak or be
+silent. But he kept his eyes fixed full upon her.
+
+“Are they in the Gray’s Inn Road, dear Alfred?”
+
+“Near there,” he said, and his lips closed. For a minute he was silent.
+Her eyes dropped beneath his gaze, she seemed to be trembling, and
+fragile—oh, so fragile, a little gust of wind might have swept the
+slight thin form away. He opened his lips to speak, but no sound came
+from them.
+
+“You are so thoughtful,” she asked gently; “I have not vexed you?”
+
+“No;” and there was a long pause. Then he spoke again.
+
+“Anne,” he said, and went a little further from her, “I think perhaps it
+would be as well if we were married at once.” The tears came into her
+eyes, her mouth twitched, there was a pause before she found words to
+speak.
+
+“My dear one,” she said, “is it really true that all your heart is mine;
+you are sure, dear Alfred?”
+
+“Yes,” he answered, in a voice he tried to make gentle, but that, oddly
+enough, sounded half defiant, “I told you so last night.”
+
+“I know,” she answered; “only I have not deserved such happiness,” and
+the tears stole down her cheeks. “I have lived so long alone, my dear
+one; but all my life is yours, Alfred, all my life, and the truest love
+that woman can give I will give you,” and she clasped her hands while
+she spoke—she seemed to be making the promise before some unseen
+witness to whom she owed account of all her doings.
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+A week later Alfred Wimple and Mrs. Baines were married from the little
+lodging in Portsea Place. It was a sensation in Mrs. Hooper’s monotonous
+life. She would have laughed and made fun of the wedding, but that Aunt
+Anne’s dignity forbade almost a smile. The old lady seemed to be in a
+dream, the beginning of which she hardly remembered—to be living
+through the end of a poem, the first part of which she had learned in
+her youth. Her poor weak eyes looked soft and loving, and the smile that
+came and went about her mouth had something in it that was pathetic
+rather than ridiculous. She had conjured a grey wedding-dress from
+somewhere, and a grey bonnet to match, but the cold caused her to wrap
+herself round in the big cloak she always wore. She pulled on her
+gloves, which were large and ill-fitting, and stood before the glass
+looking at herself, but all the time her thoughts were straying back to
+forty years and more ago. If only time could be conquered, and its cruel
+hand held back—if flesh and blood could change as little as sometimes
+do the souls they clothe, how different would be the lives of men and
+women! The woman who went down the stairs was old and wrinkled
+outwardly, but within she was as full of tenderness as any girl of
+twenty going forth to meet her lover. She stepped into the four-wheel
+cab alone, the biting wind swept maliciously over her face, and quickly
+she pulled up the window. It was but a little way to the church. It
+stood in the middle of an open space; she started when she caught sight
+of it, then turned away her head for a moment with a strange dread: and
+her courage almost gave way as she stopped before the deserted doorway.
+Alfred Wimple heard her arrive, and came to meet her with the
+hesitating, half-doubtful look that his face always wore when he was
+with her. There was no tenderness in his manner, there was something
+almost like shame. But he seemed to be impelled by fate and unable to
+turn back. The old lady’s heart was full; the tears came into her eyes.
+She took his arm, and together they walked up the empty aisle. The two
+odd people who had been pressed into service as witnesses came forward,
+the clergyman appeared, he looked for a moment at the couple before him,
+but it was no business of his to interfere, and slowly he began the
+service.
+
+A quarter of an hour later Aunt Anne and Alfred Wimple were man and
+wife.
+
+“I think we had better walk back,” were the first words he said when
+they were outside. His manner was almost cowering, little enough like a
+bridegroom.
+
+“My darling, don’t you think people would guess?” she whispered.
+
+“You need not be afraid. We don’t look much like a wedding-party,” he
+answered grimly.
+
+“No, my love, I fear not. But you do not mind?”
+
+“No,” and they walked on in silence. Then she spoke again, her voice
+tremulous with emotion—
+
+“I feel, my darling, as if I could not have borne it if there had been
+more signs of our joyousness. It is too sacred; it is the day of my
+life,” she whispered to herself.
+
+“I hope there will be some sunshine at Hastings,” he said, as if he did
+not in the least understand what she was talking about. He had hardly
+listened to her.
+
+“I hope so, my darling,” she answered gently; “and in your life too. I
+will try to put it there, Alfred.”
+
+He turned and looked at her with an expression that seemed half shame
+and half shrinking.
+
+“It will be warmer at Hastings,” he said, as if at a loss for words.
+
+Aunt Anne had arranged a honeymoon trip. It was she who made all the
+arrangements, and he who reluctantly consented to them. They were to go
+to Hastings by a late afternoon train, stay there a few days, and then
+return to town; but everything was vague beyond.
+
+“It will be better to wait,” Mr. Wimple said, when she wanted to settle
+some sort of home. “I must consider my work, Anne. I cannot be tied
+down: you must understand that.”
+
+There was a little wedding-breakfast set out in the drawing-room. A cold
+chicken and a shape of jelly, and a very small wedding-cake with some
+white sugar over it, put almost shyly on one side. In the middle of the
+table was a pint bottle of champagne. The gold foil over the cork made
+the one bright spot in the room, and gave it an air of festivity. A
+cheerless meal enough on a winter’s day, but not for worlds would Aunt
+Anne have had an ordinary one on such an occasion. And so they sat down
+to their cold chicken and the cheap stiff jelly; and Alfred Wimple
+opened the champagne, and Aunt Anne, quick to see, noticed that he gave
+her three quarters of a glass and drank the rest himself, and she felt
+that she was married indeed.
+
+“Bless you, my dear one, bless you,” she said, as she always did, when
+she raised her glass to her lips. “And may our life be a happy one.”
+
+“Thank you,” he answered solemnly—and then, as if he remembered what
+was expected of him, he drank back to her.
+
+“Good health, Anne, and good luck to us,” he said.
+
+The meal ended, the things were taken away by Mrs. Hooper herself, and
+they were left alone.
+
+Mr. Wimple loitered uneasily round the room.
+
+“I think we must go to Hastings by a later train,” he said; “I shall
+have to get to my chambers presently.”
+
+“Must you go to your chambers again to-day?” she asked meekly.
+
+“Yes,” he answered. “I shan’t be long, but there are some things I must
+see to.”
+
+“Couldn’t I go with you, Alfred, in a cab?”
+
+“No;” and his lips locked.
+
+“Are the rooms in the Gray’s Inn Road?” she asked again.
+
+“They are near there,” he said once more; he looked at her steadfastly,
+and something in his eyes told her that he did not mean to give her the
+address. For a few moments there was silence between them. He stood on
+the hearth-rug by the fire. She sat a few paces from him, seemingly lost
+in thought. Suddenly she looked up.
+
+“Alfred, my darling,” she cried sadly, “you do love me, do you not? You
+seem so cold to me to-day, so reserved and different. I have taken this
+great step for you, and you have not said a tender word to me since we
+returned from the church, yet this is our wedding-day,” and she stopped.
+
+“I am not well, and it’s so cold, and I am worried about money matters,
+Anne.”
+
+“I will take care of you,” she said, and stood up beside him, “and nurse
+you, and make you strong; I will study your every wish. If I had
+millions of money, they should all be yours, my darling; I should like
+to spread out gold for your feet to walk on.”
+
+“I believe you would,” he said, with something like gratitude in his
+voice, and he stooped and kissed her forehead.
+
+Even this meagre sign of affection overcame her, she put her head
+thankfully down on his shoulder and let it rest there a minute from
+sheer weariness and longing. He put his arm round her and his face
+touched her head, but it was as a man caresses his mother. Still, for a
+moment the weary old heart found rest.
+
+“You are all my world,” she whispered.
+
+“I’m not good enough for you, Anne,” he said uneasily. “You are a fool
+to care about me.” Then she raised her head and the bright smile came
+back.
+
+“Oh yes,” she said joyfully, “you are much too good. It shall be the
+study of my life to be good enough for you.” The enthusiasm of youth
+seemed to flash back upon her for a moment. “I am not a fool to care for
+you. I am the wisest woman on earth. My darling Alfred,” she went on
+after a pause, “I have a wedding-present for you; you must have thought
+me very remiss in not giving you one already.”
+
+“I have nothing for you,” he answered. But she did not hear him. She was
+fumbling in a travelling-bag at the end of the room. Presently she came
+back with a large old-fashioned gold watch.
+
+“This belonged to my brother John, who died,” she said. “I want you to
+wear it in memory of to-day.”
+
+“It’s a very handsome watch,” he said. “I never saw it before. Where has
+it been?”
+
+She was silent for a moment and her left eye winked.
+
+“My love,” she said, “I had it kept in a place of safety till I required
+it,” and he asked no more questions.
+
+He put on his great coat to go out; but he hesitated by the door and
+half reluctantly came back. “Anne,” he said, “even if we have no money,
+we ought to be prudent and business like; I meant to have told you so
+yesterday.”
+
+“Yes, my darling,” she said, half wonderingly.
+
+“People usually sign their wills on their wedding-day. You see I am not
+strong and might die.” And he looked at her keenly.
+
+“Yes, my love, or I might die, which would be far more natural.”
+
+“I have made a will leaving you all I have. How do you wish to leave
+anything that you possess?”
+
+“To you, of course, Alfred—everything I have in the world.”
+
+“I don’t wish to influence you,” he said, “but I thought you might wish
+to make your will in substance the same as mine. So after I left you
+yesterday I had them both drawn up. They are in my great coat pocket
+now, we might as well get them signed and done with. The landlady and
+the servant will witness them.” He produced two long envelopes from his
+pocket, and Mrs. Hooper and the servant were called.
+
+“Alfred,” Aunt Anne said, when they were alone again, and she read over
+the documents, “your name is in my will, but in yours you only say you
+‘leave everything to my wife.’”
+
+“Surely that is sufficient?” he said shortly.
+
+“Of course, dear, for I am”—the voice dropped, as almost a blush came
+upon the withered cheek—“your wife now.” Mr. Wimple put his lips
+together again after his favourite manner and said nothing. She watched
+him curiously, a little fear seemed to overtake her, her hands, half
+trembling, sought each other. “Have I displeased you, Alfred,” she asked
+gently; “my darling, have I displeased you?”
+
+“No,” he answered drily; “but I am not very sentimental, Anne. Perhaps
+you had better remember that,” and he put the wills carefully into his
+pocket. “We will go by the 5.35 train. By the way, you might meet me at
+the station,” and he looked at her steadfastly.
+
+“If you do not come back for me I shall not go at all,” and something
+like an angry flash came from her eyes. He hesitated a moment.
+
+“Very well,” he answered, “I will come back for you.” She watched him go
+down the stairs, she listened while he opened the street door and closed
+it—to his footsteps growing fainter along the pavement outside; then
+she went back into the little drawing-room and shut herself in, and put
+her head down on the lumpy sofa-cushion and sobbed with the bitter
+disappointment and hopelessness that had suddenly opened itself out
+before her.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER II.
+
+
+Six months later. Walter was back in England, better in health, brown
+and handsome. Florence was in a seventh heaven of happiness. Her husband
+was her very devoted lover; the children were as good as gold; the
+little house near Regent’s Park was decorated with all manner of Indian
+draperies and _bric-à-brac_—what more could the heart of woman desire?
+
+“Really,” she said, “it was worth your going away to know the delight of
+getting you back again.”
+
+“Yes, darling; shall I go away again?”
+
+“No, you dear stupid! Walter, why doesn’t Mr. Fisher come and see us? He
+has only been once since you returned, and then he seemed most anxious
+to go away again.”
+
+“I suppose he was afraid Ethel Dunlop would come in.”
+
+“I wish he hadn’t fallen in love with her,” Florence said; “I shall
+always reproach myself about it. But, really, he was so good and kind
+that I half hoped she would like him.”
+
+“A woman under thirty doesn’t marry a man merely because he is good and
+kind, unless matrimony is her profession.”
+
+“I can’t help thinking it might have been different if he had spoken to
+her,” Florence said; “it is so absurd of a man to write. I wouldn’t have
+accepted you if you had proposed in a letter.”
+
+“Oh, wouldn’t you?” he laughed; “that was a matter in which you wouldn’t
+have been allowed to decide for yourself. One must draw the line
+somewhere. It is all very well to let women do as they like in little
+things; but in a big one like marrying you, why——”
+
+“Don’t talk nonsense,” Florence laughed, putting her hand over his
+mouth. He kissed it, and jerked back his head.
+
+“I wonder what Fisher said in his letter, Floggie?”
+
+“I should think it was very proper and respectful.”
+
+“The sort of letter a churchwarden or an archbishop would write. Poor
+chap, I expect he feels a little sore about it. He hadn’t a very good
+time with his first wife, I fancy. Probably he wanted to make a little
+sunshine for his sober middle-age. I dare say he would have been awfully
+good to her if she had taken him.”
+
+“I wish she had, and I wish he would come here again,” Florence said;
+“he was so very kind about taking the house, and I always liked him.”
+
+“I am afraid,” Walter said, with a sigh, “he hasn’t quite forgiven me
+for putting Wimple on to him. It really was a ghastly thing for _The
+Centre_ to get reviews from other papers palmed off on it as fresh ones.
+I can’t think, setting aside the lowness of cheating, how Wimple could
+be such a fool as to suppose that Fisher wouldn’t find out that they had
+been prigged.”
+
+“He was quite taken in at first. I remember his telling me that Mr.
+Wimple wrote very well.”
+
+“You see, those Scotch papers are uncommonly clever. How Wimple expected
+not to be found out I can’t imagine. If he had prigged from the
+_Timbuctoo Journal_, of course he might have escaped. Fisher must have
+sworn freely. It made him look such an ass”—and Walter laughed, in
+spite of himself.
+
+“Is there a _Timbuctoo Journal_?” Florence asked innocently.
+
+“No, you sweet idiot—perhaps there is, though. Should think it would be
+interesting. Probably gives an account of a roast-missionary feast now
+and then.”
+
+“You horrid thing!” said Florence. “I wish Mr. Wimple were in Timbuctoo,
+and that I knew how poor Aunt Anne was getting on.”
+
+“Poor, dear old fool!—we never dreamed what would come of that
+introduction, either, did we?”
+
+“Oh, Walter, I shall never forget what I suffered about her at the
+cottage when she told me she was going to marry Mr. Wimple. And then,
+after she had vanished, there were the bills at Witley and Guildford. I
+can’t imagine what she did with all the things she bought, for she was
+only at the cottage a week or so without me.”
+
+“Probably sent them to Wimple at Liphook.”
+
+“She couldn’t send him chickens and claret, and cakes and chocolate, and
+a dozen other things.”
+
+“Oh yes, she could—trust her,” laughed Walter. “It is very odd,” he
+went on, “but I have always had an idea, somehow, that there was a
+feminine attraction at Liphook. If it was the young lady we saw with him
+that morning at Waterloo Station, I don’t think much of her. How did you
+manage to pay all the bills, Floggie dear? You didn’t owe a penny when I
+came back, and had saved something too—I never knew such a frugal
+little woman.”
+
+“Steggall’s bill was the worst,” Florence said; “there were endless
+waggonettes.”
+
+“Probably she spent her time in showing Wimple the beauties of the
+country. How did you manage to pay them all, Floggie?”
+
+“Lived on an egg one day, and nothing the next.”
+
+“That’s what a woman always does. A man would have robbed Peter to pay
+Paul. You ought to have a reward. It is too cold at Easter, but if I
+could get away for a fortnight this Whitsuntide we might take a run to
+Monte Carlo.”
+
+“Monte Carlo makes me think of Mrs. North. I should like to see her
+again; she was very fascinating.”
+
+“Why didn’t you go and see her?”
+
+“I was not sure that you would like it. There was evidently something
+wrong.”
+
+He was silent for a few minutes. “Do you know,” he said presently, “when
+there is something wrong with a woman I think it is a reason for going,
+and not for staying away. It’s the only chance for setting it right.
+What is the use of goodness if it isn’t used for the benefit of other
+people?”
+
+“Walter,” Florence said, and she stood up and clasped her hands—“she
+said nearly the same thing to me that evening she was here. There was
+something almost desperate in her manner; it has haunted me ever since;
+and I should have gone to see her but that I was afraid of your being
+angry.”
+
+“What, at your going to see a woman who perhaps needed your help? If she
+were up a moral tree, you might have done her some good.”
+
+“I can’t bear to think I missed a chance of doing that. Walter,” she
+added, with a sigh, “sometimes I fear that I am very narrow.”
+
+“No, dear, you are only a little prim Puritan, and I love you for it as
+I love you for everything; so please, Floggie, will you take me to Monte
+Carlo this Whitsuntide, or may I take you?”
+
+“You are a wicked spendthrift, as bad as Aunt Anne; I believe it runs in
+the family. What is to be done with the children while we go to Monte
+Carlo?”
+
+“We’ll leave them with the mother-in-law.”
+
+“I wish you wouldn’t call my mother that horrid name.”
+
+“I thought it would make you cross. I say, I really do wish we knew what
+had become of the Wimples.”
+
+“I think they must be all right, somehow,” Florence said, “or else——”
+
+“Or else she would have arrived to borrow a five-pound note. I wonder
+how Wimple likes it. Well, darling, I must be off to the office. It’s
+all agreed about Whitsuntide, then, Fisher permitting.”
+
+“Go away,” Florence laughed; “go to the office, you bad person.”
+
+“Very well, I will,” he said, in a patient voice; “but I really do wish
+Aunt Anne would turn up. I want some more scissors; I lost all those she
+gave me, and some one stole the case.”
+
+“And Catty broke my velvet pincushion. It is, clearly, time that she
+turned up.”
+
+When Walter had gone, Florence thought of Mrs. North again. “It was
+rather unkind of me not to be nice to her, for she was generous to Aunt
+Anne,” she said to herself. “I wonder whether I could go and call upon
+her now. I might explain that I never dared to mention Madame
+Celestine’s bills.”
+
+But she had no more time in which to think of Mrs. North, for there were
+the inevitable domestic matters to arrange; and then Ethel Dunlop came
+in, full of her engagement to George Dighton.
+
+“I always imagined it was merely friendship,” Florence said, thinking
+regretfully of the editor.
+
+“Did you?” said Ethel, brightly. “We thought so ourselves for a long
+time, I believe; but we found out that we were mistaken. By the way,
+Florence, you can’t think how good Mr. Fisher has been to us.”
+
+“Mr. Fisher? Well, you don’t deserve anything from him.”
+
+“No, I don’t. Still, it wasn’t my fault that he proposed; I never
+encouraged him. How droll it was of him to come and pour out his
+troubles to you.”
+
+“I think it was manly and dignified,” Florence said; “it proved that he
+wasn’t ashamed of wanting to marry you. Did he write a nice letter,
+Ethel?”
+
+“Yes, very, I think.”
+
+“How did he begin?”
+
+“He began, ‘My dear Miss Ethel,’ and ended up, ‘Yours very faithfully.’”
+
+“I am afraid you did lead him on a little bit.”
+
+“Indeed I did not. He asked me to come and see his mother when she had
+this house, and he was always here.”
+
+“That was very nice of him,” Florence said; “it shows that he is very
+fond of his mother.”
+
+“Oh yes, it was very nice of him,” Ethel answered, “and he is very fond
+of his mother; but I found that he generally came a little before I did,
+and he always saw me home. I couldn’t refuse to let him do so, because
+he evidently thought it a matter of duty to see that I arrived safely at
+my own street door. Middle-aged men always seem to think that a girl
+must get into mischief the moment she is left to her own devices.”
+
+“How did he know of your engagement?”
+
+“I wrote and told him. He had been so kind that I felt it was due to
+him. I told him we should be as poor as church mice, as George would be
+in a government office all his life, with little to do and less to
+spend, after the manner of those officials; and he wrote back such a
+nice letter, inquiring into all our affairs and prospects—you would
+have thought he was our godfather, at least.”
+
+“He does that sort of thing to everybody,” Florence said; “he is
+astonishingly kind. He always seems to think he ought to do something
+for the good of every one he knows.”
+
+“Perhaps he mistakes himself for a minor providence, and goes about
+living up to it.”
+
+“Oh, Ethel!”
+
+“And then,” Ethel went on, altogether ignoring the slightly shocked look
+on her friend’s face, “he said that, perhaps, a word might be put in
+somewhere and something done for George. He didn’t say any more, but I
+gathered that cabinet ministers occasionally range themselves round a
+newspaper office, seeking whom they may oblige.”
+
+“Oh, Ethel!” exclaimed Florence again, “that is just your little
+exaggerated way.”
+
+“Well, at any rate, he thinks he can do something, and he evidently
+wants to be good to us.”
+
+“He seems to delight in doing kind things,” Florence answered; “you know
+how good he was about Walter.”
+
+“He ought to have married Mrs. Baines. He would have been much better
+than Alfred Wimple”—with which wise remark Ethel went away, full of her
+own happiness, and Florence sat down and thought over Mr. Fisher’s
+generosity.
+
+“He is always doing kind things,” she said to herself. “It was he who
+sent Walter to India, and perhaps set him up for the rest of his life;
+and he who gave that horrid Mr. Wimple work, only to find himself
+cheated and insulted in return. I can’t think what I shall do whenever I
+meet Mr. Wimple.” But she swiftly dismissed that disagreeable person
+from her mind, and returned to the consideration of Mr. Fisher’s
+virtues. “He is so unselfish,” she thought. “It isn’t every one who
+would try to help on the man for whom he had been refused. Yet it is
+very odd that, with all his goodness, Mr. Fisher is not a bit
+fascinating; I quite understand Ethel’s refusing him. I have an idea
+that few go out of their way to be good to him. Some people seem to live
+in the world to give out kindness, and others only to take it in.” The
+reflection felt like a self-reproach. She did so little for others
+herself, and yet she was always longing to do more in life than merely
+to take her own share of its enjoyment. She wanted most to help Aunt
+Anne; she longed to see her, to comfort and soothe her, and perhaps to
+lend her a little money. She felt convinced that Aunt Anne must want
+some money by this time, and that she was miserable with Mr. Wimple. “I
+am so afraid he isn’t kind to her,” she said to herself; “I am certain
+he hasn’t married her for love—there is some horrid reason that we are
+not clever enough to guess. I only wish she had never left Mrs. North;
+she was so happy there, and looked so grand driving about and giving
+presents; and perhaps if she had stayed she might, eventually, have been
+able to pay for them.” Then, almost against her will, Mrs. North’s face
+was before her again. She could see it quite plainly, lovely and
+restless, but with a sad look in the blue eyes that was like an appeal
+for kindness. “I feel as if there were an aching in her heart for
+something she has missed in life. But perhaps that is nonsense, or it is
+only that I don’t understand her—we are so different. I have half a
+mind to go and call on her. I wonder if she would care to see me?”
+
+Some more hesitation, some curiosity and kindly feeling, and then
+Florence put on her prim little bonnet and her best furs, for she
+remembered Mrs. North’s magnificent array and felt that it would not do
+to look shabby. She took the train from Portland Road to South
+Kensington, and walked slowly to Cornwall Gardens.
+
+“I won’t leave Walter’s card,” she thought, “or any cards at all if she
+is out; for, though I am glad to go and see her, I don’t want to be on
+visiting terms.”
+
+But Mrs. North was at home, and Florence was shown into a gorgeous
+drawing-room, all over draperies, and bits of colour, and tall palms,
+and pots of lovely flowers. In the midst of them sat Mrs. North, a
+little lonely figure by a piled-up wood fire, for the early spring day
+was cold and dreary. She rose as her visitor entered, and came just a
+step forward. She was lovelier than ever. With a cry of joyful surprise,
+she held out her hands to Florence.
+
+“_You!_” she exclaimed. “Oh, Mrs. Hibbert, I never thought you would
+come and see me at all; but now—oh, it is good of you! Did you think
+how glad I should be?”
+
+“I didn’t know whether you would care to see me or not,” Florence said,
+surprised at her delight.
+
+“Care?” Mrs. North almost gasped, and Florence fancied that her lip
+quivered; “indeed I do, only no one—won’t you sit down?”—and she made
+a cosy corner on a low couch, with a pile of soft, silk-covered
+cushions.
+
+“I was so sorry not to be able to come and see you last year——”
+
+“I quite understand,” Mrs. North said, and the colour rushed to her
+face. “I did not expect it.”
+
+“You were so kind about Madame Celestine”—Florence went on, thinking
+that she, too, would have a heap of down cushions in her drawing-room,
+and not noticing Mrs. North’s confusion—“and about all those dreadful
+bills.”
+
+“Yes, I remember. Then you did not stay away on purpose?” Mrs. North
+leaned forward while she spoke, and waited breathlessly for the answer.
+
+“Why, of course not.” A happy look came over the girlish face.
+
+“And did you come now to tell me about Mrs. Baines? I should love to
+hear about her. Of course I knew she would not write. Was she very angry
+at my paying the bill?”
+
+“Well, no——” and Florence hesitated.
+
+“Do tell me. I don’t in the least mind if she was. How furious she would
+be with me now, and how she would gather her scanty skirts and pass me
+by in scornful silence.” Mrs. North laughed, an almost shrill laugh that
+seemed to be born of sorrow and pain. She was very strange, Florence
+thought, and her manner was oddly altered. “Do tell me,” she asked
+again—“was she very angry?”
+
+“I am ashamed to say that she never knew you had paid it.”
+
+“You were afraid to tell her?”
+
+“I never had a good opportunity.”
+
+“It doesn’t matter a bit. It saved her from being worried, poor
+thing,—that was the chief point. So long as a thing is done, it doesn’t
+matter who does it—unless it’s a bad thing. It matters then very
+much—especially to the person who does it,” Mrs. North added, with a
+little bitter laugh. “The pain of it”—she stopped again, and went on
+suddenly, “Tell me more about Mrs. Baines. Where is she?”
+
+“I don’t know.”
+
+“Have you not seen her lately?”
+
+“Not for a long time.”
+
+“But what has become of her?”
+
+Florence hesitated again. “I cannot tell you.”
+
+“Dear lady!” said Mrs. North, her face merry with sudden fun. “You have
+not quarrelled with her? A Madonna doesn’t quarrel, surely? Oh, how rude
+I am—but you will forgive me, won’t you?” She got up from the other end
+of the couch and rang the bell. “Bring some tea,” she said to the
+servant, “and quickly.”
+
+“Don’t have tea for me, please——” Florence began.
+
+“Oh yes, yes,” Mrs. North said entreatingly. “I feel, dear Mrs. Hibbert,
+that we are going to talk scandal—therefore we must have tea. I have
+had enough scandal lately,” she added, with a sigh, “but still when it
+isn’t about one’s self it is so exhilarating, as Mrs. Baines would have
+said; now, please, go on.”
+
+“Go on with what?”
+
+Mrs. North pulled out a little scented lace handkerchief and twirled it
+into a ball in her excitement.
+
+“About Mrs. Baines. There is some exciting news—I know it; I feel it in
+the air. Ah, here’s the tea. I will pour it out first, and then, while
+we drink it, you must tell me all about her. Some sugar and
+cream?—there, now we look more cosy. Where is the old lady? What have
+you done with her? You have not locked her up?” she asked quickly.
+
+“No,” laughed Florence, thinking how good the tea was, and how pretty
+were the cups and the little twisted silver spoons. “I have not locked
+her up.”
+
+“And you have really not quarrelled with her?”
+
+“No,” answered Florence, a little doubtfully. “Though I sometimes fear
+that she is angry with me for what she called my lack of sympathy.
+Really, Mrs. North, I don’t know how to tell you; but the fact is,—she
+is married again.”
+
+“No, no?” cried Mrs. North. “Oh, it’s too lovely! And who is the dear
+old gentleman?”
+
+“It’s a young one,” and Florence laughed, for she could not help being
+amused. “I don’t know if you ever saw him—Mr. Wimple?” Mrs. North
+rocked to and fro, with wicked delight, till the last words came; then
+she grew quite grave.
+
+“Oh, but I am sorry,” she said, “for I have seen him; and he didn’t look
+nice; he looked—rather horrid.”
+
+“I am afraid he did,” Florence answered regretfully.
+
+“Do tell me all about it”—but the only account that Florence was able
+to give did not satisfy Mrs. North. “You must have seen something of the
+love-making beforehand?” she said.
+
+“I am afraid I saw nothing of that either,” Florence explained, “for I
+was in London, and she was at the cottage.”
+
+“I thought she liked him when she was here,” Mrs. North said; “but, of
+course, I never dreamed of her being in love with him. She used to meet
+him and go to contemplate the Albert Memorial. Sometimes, when I was out
+alone, I drove by them; but I pretended to be blind, for I did not want
+to invite him here—he was so unattractive. He called once, but I did
+not encourage him to come again. I would give anything to see them
+together. If I knew where she lived, I would brave everything, and call
+upon her, though she probably wouldn’t let me in.”
+
+Then Florence began to be a little puzzled. What did Mrs. North mean?
+Had she done anything—anything bad? Almost without knowing it she
+looked up and asked, “Is Mr. North quite well?” The colour flew to Mrs.
+North’s face again.
+
+“Oh yes, I suppose so,” she answered coldly. “Naturally I don’t inquire
+after his health.”
+
+“You had had a telegram last time I saw you——”
+
+“I remember”—it was said bitterly. “I wondered why he was coming back
+so suddenly.”
+
+“I thought perhaps he was at home still.”
+
+“At home! He may be. I don’t know where he is. I have not the least
+idea. It is no concern of mine.”
+
+“Then he did not return after all?” Florence said, bewildered. Mrs.
+North looked at her for a moment in silence. Then she got up and stood
+leaning against the mantelpiece, which was covered with flowers and
+_bric-à-brac_.
+
+“Mrs. Hibbert,” she said, and it seemed as if her lips moved
+reluctantly, but she showed no other sign of emotion—“you know—what
+has happened to me, don’t you?”
+
+“No,” answered Florence, breathlessly, and she stood up too. Mrs. North
+glanced quickly at the door, almost as if she expected to see her
+visitor flee towards it.
+
+“Mr. North divorced me,” she said, very slowly.
+
+“I didn’t know,” Florence answered, and began to put on her glove.
+
+“I thought you didn’t,” and there came a bitter little laugh. “I knew
+you didn’t; and yet, deep down in the bottommost corner of my heart, I
+hoped you did.”
+
+“You must forgive me for saying that, if I had, I should not have come,
+though I am very, very sorry for you.”
+
+“As a judge is when he sends a prisoner into solitary confinement, or to
+be hanged, and turns away to his own comfortable life?” Florence
+buttoned her glove. “And you will never come and see me again, of
+course?” she added, with another little burst.
+
+“I do not think I can,” Florence said gently.
+
+“I don’t want you,” Mrs. North answered quickly, while her cheeks burned
+a deeper and deeper red. “It was only a test question.”
+
+“I am very sorry for you,” Florence said again, “very, very. You are so
+young; and you seem to have no one belonging to you. But there are some
+things that are impossible, if——”
+
+“Oh, I know,” burst out Mrs. North again; “I know. My God! and this is a
+Christian country—yes, wait,” she said, for she fancied Florence was
+going. “I know you are kind and gentle, and you are—good,” she added,
+almost as an afterthought; “and you and the women like you try very hard
+to keep your goodness close among yourselves, and never to let one scrap
+of it touch women like me. Tell me,” she asked—“did you marry the man
+you loved best in the world?”
+
+“Yes,” Florence answered unwillingly, afraid of being dragged into an
+argument.
+
+“Then you have never known any temptation to do wrong. Where does the
+merit of doing right come in?”
+
+“I would rather not discuss it,” Florence said, gently but coldly.
+
+“Oh, let me speak—not for my own sake, for I shall be strong enough to
+make some sort of life for myself after a time; but for the sake of
+other women who may be in my position and judged as you judge me. When I
+was eighteen I was persuaded to marry a man old enough to be my father.”
+
+“But if you didn’t care for him——”
+
+“So many of us think that love is half a myth till our own turn comes.
+They said I should be happy, and I wanted to be. Of course I wasn’t:
+human nature is not so easily satisfied. He was rather kind at first.
+But after a time he grew tired of me. I suppose I wasn’t much of a
+companion to him. He went abroad and left me alone, again and again. At
+first my sister was with me; she married and went away. Mrs. Baines came
+a little while before that——” She stopped, as if unable to go on
+without some encouragement.
+
+“Yes?” Florence said, listening almost against her will.
+
+“And I was young and inexperienced. How could I know the danger in so
+many things that amused me? At last I fell in love; I had been so
+lonely, I was so tired, and I had never cared for any one in my whole
+life before.”
+
+“But you knew that it was wrong. You were married.”
+
+“Oh yes, but the paths of virtue had been deadly dull, and trodden with
+a man I did not love and whom I had been made to marry. The man I did
+love was young and handsome,—he is a soldier. The rest of the story was
+natural, even if it was wicked.”
+
+“And then?” asked Florence, wonderingly.
+
+“Then my husband came back, and there were the usual details. He heard
+something that sent him flying home to look after his honour. He had
+forgotten to look after mine—or my happiness.”
+
+“And the man?”
+
+“He had gone to India with his regiment. He telegraphed over, ‘No
+defence,’ and that was the end of it.”
+
+“I hope he will come back and make you reparation.”
+
+“He has not written me a line,” Mrs. North said, and the tears came into
+her eyes for a moment—“not a word, not a sign. Perhaps he is
+dead—India is a country that swallows up many histories; or, perhaps,”
+she added desperately, “he, too, despises me now. People flee from me as
+if I had the plague,” she added, with the bitter laugh again. “Oh, there
+are no people in the world who encourage wickedness as do the strictly
+virtuous.”
+
+“Don’t say that,” Florence answered, “for, indeed, it is not true.”
+
+“But it is,” Mrs. North said eagerly. “I have proved it: once do wrong,
+and men and women seem to combine to prevent you from ever doing right
+again. You can’t make a Magdalen of me”—and she held out her hands. “I
+am young; I am a girl still; you can’t expect me to go in sackcloth and
+ashes all my life—and that in solitude. I want to be happy; I am
+hungry—and aching for happiness.”
+
+“I hope you will get some still, but——”
+
+“How can I? Men shun me, unless they want to make me worse; and women
+fly from me, as if they feared their own respectability would vanish at
+the mere sight of me. It seems to be made of brittle stuff.”
+
+“It is not that,” Florence interrupted—“but a difference must be made;
+there must be some punishment—something done to prevent——”
+
+“That is why so many women go on doing wrong,” Mrs. North continued, as
+if she had not heard the interruption; “they cannot bear the treatment
+of that portion of the world which has remained unspotted or
+unfound-out. Oh, the cruelty of good women! I sometimes think it is only
+the people who have sinned or who have suffered who really know how to
+feel.”
+
+“That is not true——” Florence began, but still Mrs. North did not heed
+her.
+
+“Do you know,” she said, speaking under her breath, “I am so sorry for
+women now that I believe I could kneel down beside a wicked, drunken
+creature in a gutter, and kiss her, and bring her back, and be tender to
+her in the hope of making her better. For I understand not only the sin,
+but the pain and the misery, and the good people, and all else that have
+driven her there.”
+
+“But some difference must be made—you cannot expect to be received as
+if people thought you now what they thought you once?”
+
+“I know that,” Mrs. North said scornfully. “People can’t ask me to their
+parties. I don’t want to go to them. They may not want me for the friend
+of their daughters, though I should not harm them——” and she burst
+into tears.
+
+“It isn’t possible,” Florence said helplessly.
+
+“But need men and women flee from me as if I were a leper? People who
+have known me for years, and might make me better, women especially, who
+might make me a little happier and ashamed of having done wrong. But
+no—no; they gather their skirts, and do not see me as they pass, though
+a year ago they crowded here. They are waiting to hear that I am dead,
+or have grown wickeder still. They would feel a sort of pleasure in
+hearing it, and be glad they did not risk their spotless reputations by
+trying to prevent it.”
+
+“I think you must let me go away,” Florence said gently, determined to
+end the interview.
+
+“Oh yes, you had better go!”—and Mrs. North put the backs of her hands
+against her flushed cheeks to cool them. “My tea has not poisoned you,
+and I have not ‘contaminated you,’ as Mrs. Baines would say. If you ever
+think of me in the midst of your own successful life, believe this, that
+if I had had all that you have had, I might have been as good as
+you—who knows? As it is, I have my choice between isolation, with a few
+breaths of occasional scorn, or the going farther along a road on which,
+no doubt, you think I am well started.”
+
+“Please let me go,” Florence said gently, almost carried away by Mrs.
+North’s beauty when she looked up at her face, but feeling that she
+ought to stand by the principles that had been a part of her religion.
+“This has been so painful, I am sure you must want to be alone.”
+
+“Oh yes, it has been painful enough, but it has been instructive also,”
+Mrs. North said; and then she added gently, “I think I would rather you
+go now. Yes, please go,” she entreated suddenly, while a sob choked her,
+and she dabbed her tears with her little lace handkerchief, vainly
+struggling to laugh again.
+
+“I think it would be better,” Florence said; “but perhaps some day, if I
+may—I will——” She stopped, for she felt that she ought to consult her
+husband before she promised to come again.
+
+“Oh yes, I understand,” Mrs. North said. “You will come again if you
+can; but if you don’t, it will only increase my respect for goodness. I
+shall think how precious it is, how valuable—it has to be guarded like
+the Koh-i-noor. Good-bye, Mrs. Hibbert, good-bye.” She rang the bell and
+bowed almost haughtily, so that Florence felt herself dismissed.
+
+“Good-bye,” the latter said, and slowly turned from the room. Somehow
+she knew that Mrs. North watched her until the door had half closed, and
+then threw herself, a little miserable heap, among the silk cushions.
+But she was halfway down the stairs before she realized it, and the
+servant was waiting to show her out.
+
+“Oh, I was cold and cruel,” she thought, when the street door had closed
+behind her, “but I could not help it; there is no sin in the world so
+awful as that one.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER III.
+
+
+“I CAN understand what you felt,” Walter said, when he heard of
+Florence’s interview with Mrs. North; “still, I wish we could do
+something for her.”
+
+“It has made me miserable; but I don’t quite see what we can do. We
+can’t invite her here—who would come to meet her? As for my going to
+see her again, I would go willingly if I thought I should do her any
+good; but I don’t think she would care about seeing me. She imagines I
+am good and disagreeable.”
+
+“Poor Floggie! Perhaps you might write her a little letter, and then let
+it drop.”
+
+“I’ll wait till I hear some news about Aunt Anne; then I will write, and
+try to make my letter rather nice.”
+
+This excuse was soon given her.
+
+Mrs. Burnett, Mr. Fisher’s Whitley friend, called to see Florence one
+afternoon.
+
+“I thought perhaps you would come for a drive with me,” she said; “it is
+lovely in the Park to-day—such beautiful sunshine.”
+
+“It would be delightful,” Florence answered, for she always liked Mrs.
+Burnett; “but I am afraid I must go to tea with a cousin in Kensington
+Gore. I promised to meet Walter there, and go for a walk afterwards.”
+
+“Let me drive you there, at any rate.”
+
+“That would be very kind,” Florence said, and in five minutes they were
+on their way.
+
+“Have you seen Mr. Fisher lately?” Mrs. Burnett asked, as they went
+across the Park.
+
+“I saw him two or three weeks ago.”
+
+“He has grown very grave and silent. I have an idea that he fell in love
+with a rather handsome girl who used to come and see his mother. I think
+she was a friend of yours, Mrs. Hibbert.”
+
+“He doesn’t look like a man to fall in love,” Florence said, trying not
+to betray Mr. Fisher’s confidence.
+
+“Oh, but you never know what is going on inside people—their feelings
+are so often at variance with their appearance. My husband said once
+that he sometimes thought people drew lots for their souls, because they
+are so seldom matched with their bodies.”
+
+“Perhaps they do, and for their hearts as well. It would account for the
+strange capacity some people have for loving, though you have only to
+look at them to see it is hopeless that they should be loved back
+again.”
+
+“I know, and it is terrible that love should so often depend, as it
+does, on the chance arrangement of a little flesh and blood—for that is
+what beauty amounts to.”
+
+“Oh, but we don’t always love beauty.”
+
+“No, not always,” Mrs. Burnett answered; “but the shape of a face, for
+instance, will sometimes prevent our love going to a very beautiful
+soul.”
+
+“And a few years and wrinkles will make love ridiculous or impossible,”
+Florence said, thinking of Aunt Anne. Oddly enough, Mrs. Burnett
+evidently thought of her too, for she asked—
+
+“Has your aunt been at the cottage at Witley lately?”
+
+“No,” answered Florence; but she did not want to discuss Aunt Anne. “My
+children so often remember the donkey-cart,” she said; “it was a great
+joy to them.”
+
+“Oh, I’m very glad. When you go to Witley again, I hope you will use the
+pony.”
+
+“What has become of the donkey?”
+
+“We were obliged to sell it. It would not go at all at last. We are not
+going to Witley ourselves till July; so, meanwhile, I hope you will use
+the pony. Only, dear Mrs. Hibbert, you won’t let him go too fast uphill,
+for it spoils his breath; and we never let him gallop downhill, for fear
+of his precious knees.”
+
+“I will be very careful,” Florence said, rather amused.
+
+“I’m afraid we don’t let him go too fast, even on level ground,” Mrs.
+Burnett added; “for he’s a dear little pony, and we should be so grieved
+if he came to any harm.”
+
+“Perhaps he would be safer always standing still,” Florence suggested.
+
+“Oh, but he might catch cold then; but do remember, dear Mrs. Hibbert,
+when you are going to Witley, that you have only to send a card the
+night before to the gardener, and he will meet you at the station.”
+
+“Thank you, only I should be rather afraid to use him for fear of
+accidents.”
+
+“Oh, but you needn’t be; and we are so glad to have him exercised.
+Perhaps Mrs. Baines would like to drive him? Why, we are at Kensington
+Gore already. It has been delightful to have you for this little drive.
+Good-by, dear Mrs. Hibbert.”
+
+Walter was waiting for Florence at her cousin’s. He gave her a sign not
+to stay too long.
+
+“We so seldom get a walk together,” he said, when they were outside,
+“that it seemed a pity to waste our time under a roof. Let us get into
+the Park;” and they crossed over.
+
+“How lovely it is,” Florence said, “with the tender green coming out on
+the trees. The brown boughs look as if they were sprinkled with it. And
+what a number of people are out. The Park is beginning to have quite a
+season-like look.”
+
+“Do you remember how Aunt Anne used to come here and contemplate the
+Albert Memorial?” Walter asked. “By the way, Fisher was talking of
+Wimple to-day; he is very sore about him.”
+
+“It was very vexing; I wish we had never seen him, don’t you?”
+
+“What, Wimple? I should think so. I asked Fisher if he knew the fellow’s
+address; he says the last time he heard of him he was somewhere near
+Gray’s Inn Road. I wonder if she was with him?”
+
+“Walter!” exclaimed Florence, and she almost clutched his arm, “I
+believe she is over there. Perhaps that is why she has been running in
+our thoughts all day.”
+
+A little distance off, on a bench under a tree, sat a spare black
+figure, with what looked like a cashmere shawl pulled round the slight
+shoulders. Limp and sad the figure looked: there was an expression of
+loneliness in every line of it.
+
+“It is very like her,” Walter said. They went a little nearer; they were
+almost beside her; but they could not see her face, which was turned
+away from them.
+
+“Oh, it must be she,” Florence said, in a whisper. Perhaps she heard
+their footsteps, for the black bonnet turned slowly round, and, sure
+enough, there was the face of Aunt Anne. It looked thin and woebegone.
+
+“Aunt Anne! Dear Aunt Anne! Why have you left us all this time without a
+sign?” and Florence put her arms round the slender shoulders.
+
+“Aunt Anne! Why, this is real good luck!” Walter exclaimed.
+
+“My dear Florence, my dear Walter,” the old lady said, looking at them
+with a half-dazed manner; “bless you, dear children; it does me good to
+see you.”
+
+“You don’t deserve it, you know,” he said tenderly, “for cutting us.”
+
+“It wasn’t my fault, dear Walter,” she answered; “you and Florence and
+the dear children have been constantly in my thoughts; but we have had
+many unavoidable anxieties since our marriage; besides, I was not sure
+that you desired to see me again.”
+
+“Why, of course we did. But you don’t deserve to see us again after
+leaving us alone all this long time. Where is Wimple?”
+
+“He is at Liphook,” she answered. “He is not strong, and finds the air
+beneficial to him.”
+
+“It was always beneficial to him,” Walter said dryly, as he sat down
+beside her.
+
+“He ought not to leave you alone, dear Aunt Anne; you don’t look well,”
+Florence said.
+
+“I am very frail, my love, but that is all. London air is never
+detrimental to me, as it is to Alfred. He finds that Liphook invigorates
+him, and he frequently goes there for two or three days; but, as our
+means are not adequate to defray the expenses of much travelling, I
+remain in town. Walter,” she asked, looking up with a touch of her old
+manner, “did you enjoy your visit to India? I hope you have most
+pleasant recollections of your journey.”
+
+“I’ll tell you what, Floggie dear,” Walter said, not answering Aunt
+Anne’s question, “we’ll take her back with us at once.”
+
+“Oh no, my love,” the old lady began; “it is impossible——”
+
+“How can it be impossible?” Florence said gaily; “you are evidently all
+alone in London; so we’ll run away with you. The children are longing to
+see you, and I want to show you all the things Walter brought from
+India. There is a little ivory elephant for you.”
+
+“It was just like him to think of me,” the old lady said, with a flicker
+of her former brightness; but in a moment her sadness returned, and
+Walter noticed that there was almost a cowed expression on her face. It
+went to his heart, and gave him a mighty longing to thrash Wimple.
+
+“You must come at once,” he said, putting on an authoritative manner;
+“then you can tell us all your news, and we will tell you all ours.
+There, put your arm in mine, and Florence shall go the other side to see
+you don’t escape.”
+
+“He is just the same. He makes me think of his dear father,” she said,
+as she walked between them; “and of that happy day at Brighton, years
+and years ago now, when I met you both on the pier. Do you remember, my
+dear ones?”
+
+“Of course we do!” said Walter; “and how victoriously you carried us off
+then, just as we are carrying you off now.”
+
+“Oh, he’s just the same,” the old lady repeated.
+
+“Here’s a four-wheeler,” he said, when they reached the Bayswater Road.
+“This is quite an adventure; only,” he added gently, “you don’t look up
+to much.”
+
+“I shall be better soon,” she said, and dropped into silence again. She
+looked, almost vacantly, out of the cab window as they went along, and
+they were afraid to ask her questions, for, instinctively, they felt
+that things had not gone well with her. Presently she turned to
+Florence. “Did you say the children were at home, my love?”
+
+“Yes, dear.” The old lady looked out again at the green trees in the
+Park, and almost furtively at the shops in Oxford Street. Then she
+turned to Florence.
+
+“My love,” she said, “I must take those dear children a little present.
+Would you permit the cabman to stop at a sweetmeat-shop? We shall reach
+one in a moment.”
+
+“Oh, please don’t trouble about them, dear Aunt Anne.”
+
+“I shouldn’t like them to think I had forgotten them, my love,” she
+pleaded.
+
+“No, and they shan’t think it,” Walter said, patting her hand. “Hi!
+stop, cabby. Stay in the cab; I’ll go and get something for them.” In a
+few minutes he reappeared with two boxes of chocolates. “I think that’s
+the sort of thing,” he said. She looked at them carefully, opened them,
+and examined the name of the maker.
+
+“You have selected them most judiciously, dear Walter,” she answered.
+
+“That’s all right. Now we’ll go on.” She looked at the boxes once more,
+and put them down, satisfied.
+
+“It was just like you, to save me the fatigue of getting out of the
+cab,” she said to her nephew. “I hope the children will like them; they
+were always most partial to chocolates. You must remind me to reimburse
+you for them presently, my dear.” And once more she turned to the
+window.
+
+“Aunt Anne, are you looking for any one?” Walter asked presently.
+
+“No, my love, but I thought the cabman was going through Portman Square,
+and that he would pass Sir William Rammage’s house.”
+
+“That worthy was at Cannes the other day, I saw.”
+
+“He stays there till next month,” she explained, and then they were all
+silent until they reached the end of their journey. It was impossible to
+talk much to Aunt Anne; it seemed to interrupt her thoughts. Silence
+seemed to have become a habit to her, just as it had to Alfred Wimple.
+She was a little excited when they stopped at the house, and lingered
+before the entrance for a moment. Almost sadly she looked up at the
+balcony on which she had sat with Alfred Wimple, and slowly her left eye
+winked, as if many things had happened since that happy night of which
+only she had a knowledge.
+
+They sat her down in an easy-chair, and gave her tea, and made much of
+her, and asked no questions—only showed their delight at having her
+with them again. Gradually the tender old face looked happier, the sad
+lines about the mouth softened, and once there was quite a merry note in
+her voice, as she laughed and said, “You dear children, you are just the
+same.” Then Catty and Monty were brought in, and she kissed them, and
+patronized them, and gave them their chocolates, and duly sent them away
+again, just as she always used to do.
+
+“I began to work a little hood for Catty,” she said, “but I never
+finished it; it was not that I was dilatory, but that my eyes are not as
+good as they were.” She said the last words sadly, and Florence, looking
+up quickly, wondered if they were dimmed from weeping.
+
+“Poor Aunt Anne,” she said soothingly; “but you are not as lonely as
+formerly?”
+
+“No, my love, only Alfred has a great deal of work to do. It keeps him
+constantly at his chambers; and his health not being good, he is obliged
+to go out of town very often, so that, unwillingly”—and she winked
+sadly—“he is much away from me.”
+
+“What work is he doing?” Walter asked.
+
+“My dear,” she said, with gentle dignity, “you must forgive me for not
+answering that question, but I feel that he would not approve of my
+discussing his private affairs.”
+
+“Have you comfortable rooms in town?” Florence asked, in order to change
+the subject.
+
+“No, my love, they are not very comfortable, but we are not in a
+pecuniary position to pay a large rent.” She paused for a moment, and
+her face became grave and set. Florence, watching her, fancied that
+there was a little quiver to the upper lip.
+
+“Aunt Anne, dear Aunt Anne, I am certain you are not very happy—tell us
+what it is. We love you. Do tell us—is anything the matter? Is Mr.
+Wimple kind to you? Are you poor?”
+
+“Yes, do tell us!” Walter said, and put his arm round her shoulder, and
+gave it a little affectionate caress.
+
+She hesitated for a moment. “My dears,” she said gratefully, but a
+little distantly, “Alfred is very kind to me, but he is very much tried
+by our circumstances. He is not strong, and he is obliged to be
+separated from me very often. It causes him much regret, although he is
+too unselfish to show it.”
+
+“But you ought not to be very poor, if Wimple has lots of work,” Walter
+said.
+
+“I fear it is not very profitable work, dear Walter, and though I have
+an allowance from Sir William Rammage, it does not defray all our
+expenses”—and she was silent. Walter and Florence were silent too. They
+could not help it, for Aunt Anne had grown so grave, and she seemed to
+lose herself in her thoughts. Only once did she refer to the past.
+
+“Walter, dear,” she asked, “did you find my little gifts useful when you
+were away?” Aunt Anne always used to inquire after the wear and tear of
+her presents.
+
+“Indeed I did,” he answered heartily. “I was speaking of them only
+to-day—wasn’t I, Floggie?” But he concealed the fact that all the
+scissors were lost, lest she should want to give him some more.
+
+“Aunt Anne,” Florence asked, “isn’t there anything we could do for you?
+You don’t look very well.”
+
+“The spring is so trying, my love,” the old lady said gently.
+
+“I expect you want a change quite as much as Mr. Wimple.”
+
+“Oh no, my love. I have been a little annoyed by my landlady, who was
+impertinent to me this morning. It depresses me to have a liberty taken
+with me.” Perhaps the rent was not paid, Florence thought, but she did
+not dare to ask. Aunt Anne shivered and pulled her shawl round her
+again, and explained that she had not put on her warm cloak, as it was
+so sunny and bright, and the people in the Park might have observed that
+it was shabby; and while she was talking a really brilliant idea came to
+Walter.
+
+“Aunt Anne,” he exclaimed, “why should not you and Wimple go to our
+cottage at Witley for a bit? Oh! but I forgot—he stays with friends at
+Liphook, doesn’t he?”
+
+“No, my love, he lodges with an old retainer.”
+
+“Oh,” said Walter, shortly, remembering a different account that Wimple
+had given him the year before, on the memorable morning when they met in
+the Strand. “Well, I think it would be an excellent thing if you and he
+went to our cottage. It is standing empty; we don’t want it just yet,
+and there you could be together.” Aunt Anne looked up with keen
+interest.
+
+“Yes, why not?” exclaimed Florence. “I wish you would. You would be
+quite happy there.”
+
+“My love,” said the old lady, eagerly, “it would be delightful. But I’m
+afraid there are reasons that render it impossible for me to accept your
+kindness.”
+
+“What reasons?—do speak out,” they said entreatingly, “because,
+perhaps, we can smooth them away.”
+
+“My dears,” said the old lady, “I must be frank with you. I am indebted
+to some of the tradespeople there, and I am not in a position to pay
+their bills.”
+
+“They are all paid,” Walter said joyfully, “so don’t trouble about them;
+and, moreover, we told them that they were never to give us any credit,
+so I am afraid they won’t give you any next time, any more than they
+will us, but you won’t mind that.”
+
+“And then, my love,” the old lady went on, to Florence, “I have no
+servants.”
+
+“I can arrange that,” said Florence. “I can telegraph to Jane Mitchell,
+the postman’s sister, who always comes in and does for us when we go
+alone, from Saturday to Monday, and take no servant. Do go, Aunt Anne;
+it will do you a world of good. I shall take you back to your lodgings,
+and get you ready, and send you off to-morrow morning.”
+
+Aunt Anne stood up excitedly. “My dears,” she said, “I will bless you
+for sending me. I can’t bear this separation. I want to be with him, and
+he wants me—I know he does; it makes him cross and irritable to be away
+from me.” There was almost a wild look in her eyes. They were astonished
+at her vehemence. But suddenly she seemed to remember something, and all
+her excitement subsided. “I cannot go until Sir William Rammage returns
+to town, or his solicitor does. My quarter’s allowance is not due for
+some weeks, and unfortunately——”
+
+“We’ll make that all right, Aunt Anne; leave it to us,” said Walter.
+“Florence will come round in the morning and carry you off, and Wimple
+will be quite astonished when you send for him.”
+
+Aunt Anne looked up almost gaily. “Yes, my love, he will be quite
+astonished. You have made me happy,” she added, with something like a
+sob; “bless you for all your goodness. Now, my dear ones, you must
+permit me to depart; I shall have so many arrangements to make this
+evening. Bless you for all your kindness.”
+
+“I am going to take you back in a hansom,” said Walter. And in a few
+minutes they were driving to the address she had given, a florist’s shop
+in a street off the Edgware Road.
+
+“I think her rooms were on the top floor,” he told Florence, when he
+returned, “for she looked up at the windows with a mournful air when we
+arrived. The house seemed neglected, and the shop had a dead-and-gone
+air; nothing in it but some decayed plants and a few stray slugs. It is
+my opinion that she is left in a garret all by herself, poor dear; and
+that Wimple takes himself off to his chambers, or to his Liphook
+friends, and has a better time.”
+
+“He’s a horrid thing!”
+
+“Floggie, do you know that he is our uncle Alfred?” her husband asked
+wickedly. She looked at him for a moment in bewilderment, then she
+understood.
+
+“Walter,” she said, “if you ever say that again I will run away from
+you. I shall go and write a line to Mrs. Burnett’s gardener,” she added,
+“and tell him to meet us with the pony to-morrow; she said I was to use
+it, and I think it would be good for Aunt Anne not to be excited by the
+sight of Steggall’s waggonette. I am certain she is very unhappy.”
+
+“I don’t know how she could expect to be anything else,” he answered.
+“Poor thing, what the deuce did he marry her for? There is some mystery
+at the bottom of it.”
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+Walter had divined rightly. Aunt Anne’s lodging was at the top of the
+house. When he left her she went slowly up the dark staircase that led
+to it. On the landing outside her door were her two canvas-covered
+boxes, one on top of the other. She looked at them for a moment, half
+hesitatingly, as if she were thinking of the journey they would take
+to-morrow, and of the things she must not forget to put into them. She
+turned the handle of the front-room door and walked in. Alfred Wimple
+was sitting by a cinder fire, over which he was trying to make some
+water boil. He looked up as she entered, but did not rise from the
+broken cane-bottomed chair.
+
+“Why did you go out, Anne?” he asked severely, without giving her any
+sort of greeting.
+
+“My dear one,” she said excitedly, going forward, “I did not dream of
+your being here; it is, indeed, a joyful surprise.” She put her hands on
+his shoulder and leaned down. He turned his head away with a quick
+movement, and her kiss brushed his cheek near the ear; but she pretended
+not to see it. “When did you come, my darling?”
+
+“Two hours ago,” he said solemnly; “and I wanted some tea.”
+
+“I am so sorry, but I did not dream of your coming. Are you better, my
+dear one?” She tried to pull the fire together with the little poker.
+
+“I am a little better,” he answered. “You will never make the water boil
+over that fire.”
+
+“Yes, I will”—and she looked into the coal-scuttle. “Have you come up
+to town for good, dear Alfred?” The scuttle was empty, but she found
+some little bits of wood and tried to make a blaze.
+
+“I don’t know; I am going back to my chambers presently to do a night’s
+work.”
+
+“And to-morrow?” she asked anxiously.
+
+“Perhaps you will see me to-morrow,” he answered. “Can you give me
+something to eat? I wish you would make a decent fire.”
+
+“I will, my dear one. If you will rest here patiently for a few minutes,
+I will go downstairs and ask the landlady to let me have some coals.”
+
+“I have no money,” he said sullenly; “understand that.”
+
+“But I have, my darling,” she answered joyfully; “and I am quite sure
+you require nourishment. Will you let me go out and buy you a chop?”
+
+“Give me some tea. I can get dinner on my way back.”
+
+“Won’t you stay with me this evening, Alfred? I have some news for you,
+and I have been so lonely.” She looked round the shabby room, as if to
+prove to him how impossible it was to find comfort in it.
+
+“No, I can’t stay,” he answered shortly. “How much money have you got?”
+
+“I have a sovereign. Walter slipped it into my glove just now. I have
+been to see them both, Alfred.”
+
+“What did they say about me?”
+
+“They spoke of you most kindly, my darling,” she answered, and winked
+very timidly.
+
+“Why couldn’t he give you more? A sovereign isn’t much,” Wimple said
+discontentedly. “I see Rammage is not coming back from Cannes just yet,”
+he added.
+
+“My dear,” she said gravely, “you are fatigued with your journey, and
+hungry, and I know you are anxious. If you will excuse me a moment, I
+will make some little preparations for your comfort.” And, with the
+dignity that always sat so quaintly upon her, she rose from the rug and
+left the room. She returned in a few minutes, followed by the landlady
+with a scuttleful of coals. Then she made some tea, and cut some bread
+and butter, and set it before Alfred Wimple, all the time putting off,
+nervously, the telling of her great bit of news. She looked at him while
+he ate and drank, and her face showed that she was not looking at the
+actual man before her, but at some one she had endowed with a dozen
+beauties of heart and soul: she wished he could realize that he
+possessed them; they might have given him patience and made him happier.
+
+“Did you enjoy the country?” she asked gently.
+
+“Yes”—he coughed uneasily—“but I was not well. I shall go there again
+soon.”
+
+“What do you do all day?” she asked. “Have you any society?”
+
+He was silent for a moment, as if struggling with the destitution of
+speech that always beset him. “I can’t give you an account of all my
+days, Anne,” he said, and turned to the fire.
+
+“I did not ask it, Alfred; you know that I never intrude upon your
+privacy. I had some news,” she went on, with a pathetic note in her
+voice, “and hoped it would be pleasing to you.”
+
+“What is it?” The expression of his face had not changed for a moment
+from the one of sulky displeasure it had worn when she entered, and her
+manner betrayed a certain nervousness, as if she felt that he was with
+her against his will, and only by gentle propitiation could she keep him
+at all.
+
+“Walter and Florence have offered to lend us their cottage at Witley. We
+can go to it to-morrow—if it is convenient to you, dear Alfred,” she
+added meekly.
+
+“I shall not go there,” he said sullenly; and for a moment he looked her
+full in the face with his dull eyes.
+
+“I thought the air of that locality was always beneficial to you,” she
+said, in the same tone in which she had last spoken.
+
+“Thank you, I don’t wish to go to that ‘locality,’ and be laughed at.”
+He half mocked her as he spoke.
+
+“Why should you be laughed at?” she asked, with almost a cry of pain in
+her voice, for she knew what the answer would be, beforehand; but the
+words were forced from her, she could not help them. He coughed and
+looked at her again.
+
+“People generally laugh at a young man who marries an old woman, Anne.”
+She got up and went to the end of the room, and came back again, and put
+her hand upon his shoulder.
+
+“No one is there to laugh,” she said. “There is no one there to know. We
+need not keep any society.” She did not see the absurdity of the last
+remark, and made it quite gravely. “There are only a few people in the
+neighbourhood at all, and those of an inferior class. It does not matter
+what they think.”
+
+“It matters to me what every one thinks.”
+
+“We cannot remain here much longer,” she went on. “The landlady was most
+impertinent to-day. I think Florence and Walter would help to pay her if
+we went to the cottage to-morrow. They said they would arrange
+everything.”
+
+“It is a long way from Liphook,” he said, almost to himself; “if any one
+saw us, they wouldn’t suspect that we were married. They would think you
+were my aunt, perhaps.”
+
+“They may think what they please, Alfred,” she answered, “if you are
+only with me.” Then her voice changed. “My dear one, I cannot bear life
+unless you are gentle to me,” she pleaded; “and I cannot bear it here
+alone any longer, always away from you, day after day. I am your wife,
+Alfred, and, if I am an old woman, I love you with all the years I
+remember, and all the love that has been stored up in me since my youth.
+I want to be near you, to take care of you, to see that you have
+comforts. You can say that I am your aunt, if it pleases you. I never
+feel that I am your wife, only that it is my great privilege to be near
+you and to serve you.” She stopped, as if unable to go on, and he was
+silent a moment or two before he answered.
+
+“It might be a good idea; as you say, there is no one about there to
+know.”
+
+“Are you ashamed of me?”
+
+“I don’t want to look ridiculous.” Then a flash came into her eyes, and
+the old spirit asserted itself.
+
+“Alfred,” she said, “if you do not love me, I think at least you should
+learn to treat me with respect. If I am so distasteful to you we had
+better separate. I cannot go on bearing all that I have borne patiently
+for months. Let me go to Florence and Walter; they will be kind to me,
+and I will never be a burden upon you. The allowance that Sir William
+Rammage gives me would keep me in comfort alone, and it struck me the
+other day that, when he dies, perhaps he will leave me something.”
+
+He looked at her with sudden alarm. The cowed look seemed to have gone
+from her face to his, and as she saw it she gathered strength, and went
+on, “I cannot be insulted, Alfred; I cannot and will not.”
+
+“Don’t be foolish, Anne; I am irritable sometimes, and I am not
+strong——”
+
+“That is why I have borne so much from you.”
+
+“I will go to Witley with you,” he said, ignoring her remark altogether;
+“that is, if you like, and can raise the money to go. I have none.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+“Fisher was quite pleased when I asked him if we could get off to Monte
+Carlo at Whitsuntide for a fortnight,” Walter told Florence a few weeks
+later.
+
+“Wasn’t he shocked at your gambling propensities?”
+
+“Not a bit. He looked as if he would like to go too; said, in rather a
+pompous manner”—and Walter imitated his editor exactly—“‘Certainly,
+certainly; I think, Hibbert, your wife deserves a little treat of some
+sort after your long absence in the winter, and I am very glad if it is
+in my power to help you to give it to her.’ He looked like the King of
+the Cannibal Islands making an Act of Parliament all by himself.”
+
+“You are a ridiculous dear.”
+
+“Thank you, Floggie. Fisher’s a nice old chap, and I am very fond of
+him.”
+
+“Do you know,” she said, in rather a shocked tone, “Ethel Dunlop said
+one day that she believed he looked upon himself as a sort of minor
+providence?”
+
+“Well, he does go about minor-providencing a good deal—which reminds me
+that he said he was coming, in a day or two, to ask you to take him out
+to buy a wedding-present for Ethel.”
+
+“He’ll buy her a Crown Derby tea-set, or a sugar-basin with a very large
+pair of tongs, see if he doesn’t. Ethel said he ought to have married
+Aunt Anne.”
+
+“He would have been a thousand times better than Wimple. I wonder how
+those gay young people are getting on at Witley, and whether they want
+anything more before we start.”
+
+“I think they must be all right at present,” Florence said. “We sent
+them a good big box of stores when they went to the cottage; and I know
+you gave her a little money, dear Walter, and we paid up her debts, so
+that she cannot be worried. Then, of course, she has her hundred a year
+from Sir William to fall back upon, and Mr. Wimple probably has
+something.”
+
+“Oh yes, I suppose they are all right; besides, I don’t feel too
+generous towards that beggar Wimple.”
+
+“I should think not,” Florence said virtuously. “Do you know, Walter,
+once or twice it has struck me that perhaps he won’t live; he doesn’t
+look strong, and he is always complaining. Aunt Anne said that he wanted
+constant change of air.”
+
+“Oh yes, I remember she said Liphook was ‘beneficial’ to him.”
+
+“If he died she would have her allowance, and be free.”
+
+“No such luck,” said Walter. “Besides, if he died, there would be
+nowhere for him to go to—he’d have to come back again. Heaven wouldn’t
+have him, and, after all, he isn’t quite bad enough for the devil to use
+his coals upon.”
+
+“Walter, you mustn’t talk in that way—you mustn’t, indeed;” and she put
+her hand over his mouth.
+
+“All right,” he said, struggling to get free; “I won’t do it again.”
+
+Mr. Fisher duly arrived the next afternoon. He was a little breathless,
+though he carefully tried to conceal it, and wore the air of deference,
+but decision, which he always thought the right one to assume to women.
+With much gravity he and Florence set out to buy the wedding-present. It
+resolved itself into a silver butter-dish with a silver cow on the lid,
+though Florence tried hard to make him choose a set of apostle spoons.
+
+“A butter-dish will be much more useful, my dear lady.”
+
+“It will be very useful,” Florence echoed, though she feared that Ethel
+would be a little disappointed when she saw the cow.
+
+“And now,” said Mr. Fisher, in a benevolent voice, as they left the
+silversmith’s in Bond Street, “we are close to Gunters—if you would do
+me the honour to eat an ice?”
+
+“I will do you the honour with great pleasure.” And she thought to
+herself, “His manner really is like Aunt Anne’s this afternoon. If she
+had only married him instead of that horrid Mr. Wimple, we would have
+called him uncle with pleasure.”
+
+She sat eating her very large strawberry ice, while he tasted his at
+intervals, as if he were rather afraid of it. “Did the white cockatoo
+die?” she asked.
+
+He almost started, he was so surprised at the question. “The white
+cockatoo?”
+
+“You spoke of it last year—that night when Mrs. Baines dined with us.”
+
+“I remember now,” he said solemnly. “Yes; it died, Mrs. Hibbert. For
+five years it was perhaps my most intimate friend, and the companion of
+my solitude.”
+
+“Why did it die?”
+
+“It pulled a door-mat to pieces, and we fear it swallowed some of the
+fibre. My housekeeper, who is a severe woman, beat it with her gloves,
+and it did not recover.” He spoke as if he were recounting a tragedy,
+and became so silent that Florence felt she had ventured on an unlucky
+topic. But it was always rather difficult to make conversation with Mr.
+Fisher when she was alone with him; there were so few things he cared to
+discuss with a woman. Politics he considered beyond her, on literary
+matters he thought she could form no opinion, and society was a
+frivolity, it was as well not to encourage her to consider too much.
+Suddenly a happy thought struck her.
+
+“I am so happy about our holiday,” she said; “it is a long time since
+Walter and I had a real one together.”
+
+“I am delighted that it has been arranged. I feel sure that Walter will
+enjoy it with so charming a companion,” he answered, with an effort at
+gallantry that touched her.
+
+“Are you going away this Whitsuntide?” she asked.
+
+“No. I seldom go away from London, or my work.”
+
+“I wish you were going to have a holiday, with some one you liked,” she
+said.
+
+“My dear lady,” and he gave a little sigh as he spoke, “I fear the only
+society I am fitted for is my own.”
+
+“Oh no, you are much too modest”—and she tried to laugh. “Some day I
+hope to buy you a butter-dish. I shall like going to get it so much,
+dear Mr. Fisher.”
+
+“I think not,” he answered almost sadly.
+
+“Ethel says you have been very kind to her about George,” Florence said
+in a low voice, for she was almost afraid to refer to it; “but you are
+kind to everybody.”
+
+Mr. Fisher turned and looked at her with a grateful expression in his
+clear blue eyes; but she knew that he did not want to make any other
+answer. Gradually he put on his editorial manner, as if to ward off more
+intimate conversation, and when he left her at the door of her house,
+for he refused to come in, she felt, while she looked after him, as if
+she had been present at the ending of the last little bit of romance in
+his life.
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+The Hibberts were in high spirits when they started for their holiday.
+
+“Two days in Paris,” he said, as they drove to the hotel; “and then
+we’ll crawl down France towards the south, and I will introduce you to
+the Mediterranean Sea. It’s a pity we can only eat one dinner a night,
+considering the number of good ones there are to be had here. To be
+sure, if we manage carefully, we can do a little supper on the Boulevard
+afterwards; still, that hardly counts. But I don’t think we can stay any
+longer, dear Floggie, even to turn you into a Parisian.”
+
+Forty-eight hours later saw them in the express for Marseille, where
+they stayed a night, in order to get the coast scenery by daylight, as
+they went on to Monte Carlo.
+
+“It’s a wonderful city,” Walter said, with a sigh, as they strolled
+under the trees on the Prado. “The Jew, and the Turk, and the Infidel,
+and every other manner of man, has passed through it in his turn.
+Doesn’t it suggest all sorts of pictures to you, darling?”
+
+“Yes,” she answered, a little absently; “only I was thinking of Monty
+and Catty.”
+
+“We ought to wait a day, and go to see Monte Christo’s prison.”
+
+“Yes”—but she was not very eager. Her thoughts were with her children.
+Walter was able to enjoy things, and to garnish them with the right
+memories. “I wonder if we shall find letters from home when we get to
+Monte Carlo?” she said.
+
+“I hope so,” he answered gently, but he said no more about the
+associations of Marseille.
+
+As they were leaving the big hotel on the Cannebière, the next morning,
+a lady entered it. She had evidently just arrived—her luggage was being
+carried in.
+
+“I shall be here three nights,” they heard her say to the manageress. “I
+leave for England on Thursday morning.”
+
+At the sound of her voice Florence turned round, but she had gone
+towards the staircase. The Hibberts had to catch their train, and could
+not wait.
+
+“It was Mrs. North, Walter,” Florence said, as they drove to the
+station; “I wish I could have spoken to her. She looked so lonely
+entering that big hotel.”
+
+“But there was no time,” he answered; “if we lost our train we should
+virtually lose a day.”
+
+“I wonder why she has come here?”
+
+“The ways of women are inscrutable.”
+
+“I meant to have written and told her about Aunt Anne, but I had so much
+to do before we left London that I really forgot it.”
+
+“You might send her a line from Monte Carlo; you heard her say that she
+was to be at Marseille three days: and then, perhaps, it would be better
+to leave her alone.”
+
+“I should like to write to her just once, for I am afraid I was not very
+kind that day; but she took me by surprise.”
+
+“Very well, then; write to her from Monte Carlo. It will give her an
+idea that we are not such terrible patterns of virtue ourselves, and
+perhaps she’ll find that a consolation; but I don’t see what more we can
+do for her. It is very difficult to help a woman in her position. She
+has put out to sea in an open boat, and, even if she doesn’t get
+wrecked, every craft she runs against is sure to hurt her.”
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+The letter was duly written and sent to the hotel at Marseille. It found
+Mrs. North sitting alone, in her big room on the first floor. She was
+beside the open window, watching the great lighted _cafés_ and the happy
+people gathered in little groups round the tables on the pavement.
+
+“Oh, what a pity it is,” she said to herself, “that we cannot remember.
+I always feel as if we had lived since the beginning and shall go on
+till the end—if end there is; but if one only had a memory to match,
+how wonderful it would be. If I could but see this place just once as it
+was hundreds of years ago, with the Greek people walking about and the
+city rising up about them. Now it looks so thoroughly awake, with its
+great new buildings and horrible improvements; but if it ever sleeps,
+how wonderful its dreams must be. If one could get inside them and see
+it all as it once was.” . . . She turned her face longingly towards the
+port, at the far end of the Cannebière. “I am so hungry to see
+everything, and to know everything,” she said to herself—“so hungry for
+all the things I have never had.—I wonder if I shall die soon—I can’t
+go on living like this, longing and waiting and hoping and grasping
+nothing.—I wish I could see the water. If I had courage I would drive
+down and look at it—or walk past those people sitting out on the
+pavement, and go down to the sea. There might be a ship sailing by
+towards England, and I should know how his ship will look if it, too,
+ever sails by. Or a ship going on towards India, and I could look after
+it, knowing that every moment it was getting nearer and nearer to him.
+To-morrow I will find out precisely where the P. & O.’s sail from for
+Bombay; then I shall be able to guess what it all looked like when he
+set his foot on board, a year ago. Oh, thank God, I may think of him a
+little—that I am free—that it is not wickedness to think of him—or to
+love him,” she added, with almost a sob.
+
+She got up and looked round the room. It was nearly dark. She could see
+the outline of the furniture and of her own figure dimly reflected in
+the long glass of the wardrobe.
+
+“The place is so full of shadows they frighten me; but I am frightened
+at everything.” She flung herself down again on the couch at the foot of
+the bed. “I wonder if the people who have always done right ever for a
+moment imagine that the people who have done wrong can suffer as
+much—oh, a thousand times more than themselves. They seem to imagine
+that sin is a sort of armour against suffering, and it does not matter
+how many blows are administered to those who have gone off the beaten
+track.” She pillowed her head on her arms and watched the moving
+reflection of the light from the street. In imagination she stared
+through it at the long years before her, wondering, almost in terror,
+how they would be filled. “I am so young, and I may live so long.” There
+was a knock at her bedroom door.
+
+“Come in,” she cried, thankful for any interruption.
+
+“A letter for Madame.”
+
+“For me!” She seized it with feverish haste and looked at the direction
+by the window while the candles were being lighted. “I declare,” she
+said, when the door was closed behind the _garçon_, “it is from the
+immaculate Mrs. Hibbert. May the saints have guarded her from
+contamination while she wrote it to me.” Her happy spirits flashed back,
+and the weary woman of five minutes ago was almost a light-hearted girl
+again.
+
+“It is rather a nice letter,” she said, and propped up the wicks of the
+flickering candles with the corner of the envelope. “I believe she wrote
+merely out of kindness; it proves that there is some generosity in even
+the most virtuous heart. I’ll write to Mrs. Wimple——” She stopped and
+reflected for a minute or two. “Poor old lady, she was very good to me;
+she was like a mother—no woman has called me ‘my love’ since she went
+away.” She walked up and down the room for a moment, and looked out
+again at the wide street and the flashing lights. Suddenly she turned,
+seized her blotting-book, and knelt down by the table in the impulsive
+manner that characterized her. “I’ll write at once,” she said. “Of
+course it will shock her sweet old nerves; but I know she’ll be glad to
+hear from me, though she won’t own it even to herself.”
+
+    “DEAREST OLD LADY—
+
+    “I have been longing to know what had become of you. I only
+    heard a little while ago that you were a happy bride, and I have
+    just succeeded in getting your address. A thousand
+    congratulations. I hope you are very much in love, and that Mr.
+    Wimple is truly charming. He is, indeed, a most fortunate man
+    and to be greatly envied by the rest of his sex.
+
+    “I fear you will be shocked to hear that Mr. North has divorced
+    me. I never loved him, you know. I told you that when you were
+    so angry with me that day in Cornwall Gardens, and it was not my
+    fault that I married him. I have been very miserable, and I
+    don’t suppose I shall ever be happy again. But the world is a
+    large place, and I am going to wander about; I have always
+    longed to see the whole of it: now I shall go to the east and
+    west, and the north and the south, like a Wandering Jewess. But
+    before I start on these expeditions I shall be in England for a
+    few weeks and should like to see you. Would you see me? But I
+    don’t suppose you would come near me or let me go near you,
+    though I should like to put my head down on your shoulder and
+    feel your kind old arms round me again.
+
+    “I am afraid you have eaten up all your wedding-cake, dear old
+    lady, and even if you have any left you would, no doubt, think
+    it far too good for the likes of me. I wonder if you would
+    accept a very little wedding-present from me, for I should so
+    much like to send you one? My love to you, and many
+    felicitations to both you and Mr. Wimple.
+
+                                                 “Yours always,
+                                                       “E. NORTH.”
+
+When it was finished, her excitement gave way; her spirits ran down; she
+went, wearily, back to the sofa and pillowed her head on her arms once
+more. “I wonder what the next incident will be, and how many days and
+nights it is off.” She shut her eyes, and in thought hurried down the
+street to the old port. She saw the masts of ships, and the moving
+water, and the passing lights in the distance. “O God!” she said to
+herself, “how terrible it is to think that the land is empty for me from
+end to end. Though I walked over every mile of it, I should never see
+his face or hear his voice, and there is not a soul in the whole of it
+that cares one single jot for me. And the great sea is there, and the
+ships going on and on, and not a soul on board one of them who knows
+that I live or cares if I die. It frightens me and stuns me, and
+frightens me again. I am so hungry, and longing, and eager for the utter
+impossibilities. Oh, my darling, if you had only trusted me; if you
+could have believed that the sin was outside me and not in my heart; if
+you had written me just one little line to tell me that some day, even
+though it were years and years ahead, you would come to me and take me
+into your life for ever, I would have been so good—I would have made
+myself the best woman on earth, so that I might give you the best love
+that ever Heaven sent into a human heart.” There was another knock at
+the door, and something like a cry escaped from her lips.
+
+“Come in”—and again the _garçon_ entered with a letter. This time it
+was a thick packet.
+
+“This is also for Madame,” he said; “it is from England.” She waited
+until the door had closed behind him before she opened it.
+
+The envelope contained a dozen enclosures. They looked like bills and
+circulars sent on from her London address. Among them was a telegram.
+
+“I suppose it is nothing,” she said, as, with trembling hands, she
+opened it. It was from Bombay, and contained five words—
+
+“Sailing next month in _Deccan_.”
+
+She fell down on her knees by the table and, putting her face on her
+hands, burst into passionate weeping.
+
+“O dear God,” she prayed, “forgive me and be merciful to me. I have not
+meant to do wrong, I have only longed to be happy—let me be so. I will
+try to do right all my life long, and to make him do right, too—only
+let him love me still. I have never been happy, and I have suffered so.
+O dear God, is it not enough? Forgive me and let me be happy.”
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER V.
+
+
+It was chilly as only an English spring knows how to be. The fir-woods
+were deserted—the pathways through them wet and slippery. But overhead
+there was fitful sunshine and patches of blue sky, though the Surrey
+hills were misty and the fields were sodden with many rains. The leaves
+were beginning to unfold, fresh and green; the primroses were thick in
+the hedges; and here and there the little white stitchwort showed
+itself, tearful and triumphant. The thrushes and blackbirds were making
+ready for summer, though as yet there was not a sign of it.
+
+Alfred Wimple and Aunt Anne had been more than a month at the cottage.
+The latter pottered about the garden, looking at every up-coming plant
+with absent recognition; but that was all. She was too sad to care any
+more for the delights of the country. She had grown feeble, too, and
+could not walk very far—even the garden tired her. Mrs. Burnett’s
+governess-cart had been her great comfort. She had no fear of doing the
+pampered pony, as she called it, any harm, and had driven herself for
+hours along the lonely roads between the fir-trees, and the hedges of
+awakening gorse and heather. The straggling population for three miles
+round knew her well—the lonely old lady, with the black bonnet and the
+long black cloak fastened with the steel clasp. Alfred Wimple never went
+with her; he had refused from the very first. But he had a way of
+disappearing by himself for long hours together. Where he went she could
+never divine; and to ask him questions, she told herself once, was like
+trying to look at the bottom of the sea by pushing away the water with
+her two hands. Still it was a mystery she was determined to unravel
+sooner or later: she felt that the solution lay at Liphook, and dreaded
+to think what it might be. Into her heart, against her will, lately
+there had sometimes crept a suspicion that was shame and agony; but she
+would not own, even in the lowest, most secret whisper, that it was
+possible. She never went to Liphook, though it would have been easy
+enough to drive there; she never dared: something seemed to hold her
+back from that which she felt to be only a few miles away, on the other
+side of Hindhead. She would not try to put into any shape at all what
+her dread was: least of all would her pride let her for a single moment
+imagine that it was the one thing of which the humiliation would kill
+her. But, silently, she watched, and hour after hour she sat wondering
+what was in the heart of that strange, inscrutable young man, who spoke
+so few words, and seemed to be always watching and waiting for the
+accomplishment of some mysterious plan he revolved again and again in
+his mind, but to which he had no intention of giving a clue.
+
+He could hire no more waggonettes at Steggall’s without paying for them,
+or without her knowledge; but once or twice she had seen him going along
+a by-path towards the station, so that he would arrive there just about
+the time there was a train to Liphook. She remembered that on the first
+occasion, he had pulled a shilling out of his pocket an hour or two
+before he started and looked at it, as if wondering whether it would be
+enough for a return ticket.
+
+“Alfred,” she asked one day, “will you take me to see your country
+quarters, my love? I should like to visit the place which has been of so
+much benefit to you?”
+
+“No,” he answered, looking at her steadfastly, as he always did; “I
+don’t wish you to go there.”
+
+“May I ask your reason?”
+
+“My wish should be sufficient.”
+
+“It is,” she said gently; “for I know, dear Alfred, that you always have
+a reason for what you wish, and you would not prevent me from seeing a
+place for which you have such a preference if you had not a good one.”
+
+He was soothed by her conciliatory manner.
+
+“I owe some money there,” he said, “and if you went they might expect
+you to pay it”—an answer which satisfied her for a time on account of
+its obvious probability. But still his disappearances tormented her, and
+his silence stifled all questions she longed to ask.
+
+She liked being at the cottage; she liked being the virtual mistress of
+a certain number of rooms and of a servant of her own; and, on the
+whole, the first month had gone smoothly. Florence and Walter had been
+generous, and made many provisions for their comfort, and she had been
+separated less from Alfred than when she was in town. And here, too, she
+was better able to keep some account of his movements. Moreover, if he
+disappeared for hours together now, it had been for days together then.
+He always went off silently, without warning or hint, and as silently
+reappeared.
+
+“Have you been for a walk, my love?” she asked him one evening. He
+turned and looked at her: there was no anger in his dull eyes, but he
+made her quail inwardly, though outwardly she showed no sign.
+
+“Yes”—and she knew, perfectly, he would tell her no more. Still,
+hopelessly, she persevered.
+
+“In what direction did you bend your steps, dear Alfred?”
+
+“I dislike being asked to give an account of my movements, Anne,” he
+said, and locked his lips in the manner that was so peculiar to him.
+
+“I quite understand, my love,” she answered gently; “it is also
+extremely repugnant to me to be questioned. I merely asked, hoping that
+you felt invigorated by your walk.” He looked at her again, and said
+nothing.
+
+It was nine o’clock. Jane Mitchell, the postman’s sister, who acted as
+their daily servant, came in to say she was going home till the morning.
+Aunt Anne followed her, as she always did, to see that the outer door
+was made fast. She looked out at the night for a moment, with a haunting
+feeling of mistrust—of what, she did not know—and listened to the
+silence. Not a sound—not even a footstep passing along the road. The
+fir-trees stood up, dark and straight, like voiceless sentinels. She
+looked at the stars and thought how far they were away. They gave her a
+sense of helplessness. She was almost afraid of the soft patter of her
+own feet as she went back to the drawing-room. She winked nervously, and
+looked quickly and suspiciously round, then sat down uneasily before the
+fire and watched Alfred Wimple. She knew that again and again his eyes
+were fixed upon her, though his lips said no word.
+
+“Are you sleepy, my love?” she asked.
+
+“I am very tired, Anne; good-night”—and, taking up a candlestick, he
+went slowly upstairs while she stayed below, looking at the deadening
+fire, knowing that one night, suddenly, everything would be changed; but
+how and when it would be changed she could not guess. She did not dare
+look forward a single day or hour. She extinguished the lamp and shut
+the drawing-room door and locked it, remembering for a moment the
+unknown people, in the bygone years, who had gone out of the room never
+to enter it more.
+
+Gradually the money in their possession was coming to a sure and certain
+end. She knew it, and her recklessness and extravagance vanished. She
+guarded every penny as if it were her heart’s blood, though she still
+did her spending with an air of willingness that concealed her
+reluctance. Hour after hour she racked her brains to think of some new
+source of help; but no suggestion presented itself, and he and she
+together faced, in silence, the bankruptcy that was overtaking them. He
+went less often towards the station now; he stayed discontentedly in the
+drawing-room, sitting uneasily by the fire on one of the easy-chairs
+with the peacock screen beside it. Sometimes, after he had brooded for a
+while in silence, he would get up and write a letter, but he always
+carefully gave it himself to the postman, and no letters at all ever
+arrived for him to Aunt Anne’s knowledge.
+
+“Alfred,” she asked one day, “what has become of your work in town?—the
+work you used to go to your chambers to do?”
+
+“I am resting now, and do not wish to be questioned about it. I require
+rest,” he said: and that was all.
+
+Then a time came when he took to walking in the garden, and she knew
+that while he did so he kept a watch on the house, and especially on the
+window of the room in which she was sitting. When he thought she did not
+see him he disappeared down the dip behind and along the pathway between
+the fir-trees and larches towards the short cut to Hindhead. She
+remembered that the way to Hindhead was also the way to Liphook. It was,
+of course, too far to walk there, but perhaps there were some means of
+obviating that necessity. She said nothing, but she waited. It seemed to
+her as if Alfred Wimple waited too. For what? Was it for her to die? she
+sometimes asked herself, though she reproached herself for her
+suspicions. Then all her tenderness would come back, and she hovered
+round him lovingly, or stole away to commune with herself.
+
+“I am sure he loves me,” she would think, as she sat vainly trying to
+comfort herself—“or why should he have married me? His love must be the
+meaning of mine for him, and the forgiveness of the past, after all the
+long years of waiting. It is different from what it was then; he is
+changed, and I am changed too. I am old with waiting, and he does not
+yet understand the reason of his own youth. I wonder which it is,” she
+said one day, almost in a dream, as she rocked to and fro over the
+fire—“is he disguised with youth of which he does not know the meaning;
+or am I disguised with years, so that he does not know that under them
+my youth is hidden?”
+
+Closer and closer came the ills of poverty. The tradespeople trusted
+them to some extent, in spite of the warning they had received from the
+Hibberts, but at last they refused to do so any longer. The stores that
+Florence had sent in, too—Aunt Anne had said, “you must allow me to
+remain in your debt for them, my dear”—had gradually run out. Dinner
+became more and more of a difficulty, and at the scanty meal it was
+Alfred Wimple who ate, and Aunt Anne who looked on, pretending she liked
+the food she hardly dared to taste. He knew that she was starving
+herself for his sake, but he said nothing. It gave him a dull
+gratification to see her doing it. In his heart there was a resentment
+that death had not sooner achieved for his benefit that which from the
+first he had meant it to accomplish. Not that it was within his scheme
+to let Aunt Anne die yet; but when he married her he had not realized
+the awful shrinking that would daily grow upon him—the physical
+shrinking that youth sometimes feels from old age. In his nature there
+was no idealism, no sentiment. He could not give her the reverence that
+even mere age usually provokes, or the affection, as of a son, that some
+young men in his position might possibly have bestowed. He saw
+everything concerning her years with ghastly plainness—the little lines
+and the deep wrinkles on her face, the tremulous eyelids, the scanty
+hair brushed forward from places the cap covered. Even the soft folds of
+muslin round her withered throat made him shiver. He thought once, in
+one mad moment, how swiftly he could strangle the lingering life out of
+her. Her hands with the loose dry skin and the bloodless fingers and
+wrists that were always cold, as if the fire in them were going out,
+sent a thrill of horror through his frame when she touched him. The mere
+sound of her footstep, the touch of her black dress as she passed him
+by, insensibly made him draw back. He had played a daring game, but he
+had an awful punishment. He lived a brooding secret life, full of dread
+and alertness lest shame should overtake him, and his heart was not less
+miserable because it was incapable of generosity or goodness.
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+At last it became a matter of shillings.
+
+“You had better go to London, Anne,” he said, “and borrow some money.”
+
+“Of whom am I to borrow it?” she asked. “Florence and Walter are at
+Monte Carlo.”
+
+“Walter is very selfish,” he answered; “I nursed him through an illness,
+years ago, at the risk of my own life.”
+
+“I know how tender your heart is, dear Alfred.”
+
+“I believe he resents my having borrowed some money from him once or
+twice. He forgets that if he were not in a much better position than I
+am he couldn’t have lent it.”
+
+“Of course he could not, my love,” she said, agreeing with him, as a
+matter not merely of course but of loyalty and affection.
+
+He gave one of his little gulps. “We can’t go on staying here, unless we
+have enough to eat; I cannot, at any rate. You must get some money. You
+had better go to London.” He looked at her fixedly, and she knew that he
+wanted to get rid of her for a space.
+
+“Go to London, my love?” she echoed, almost humbly.
+
+“Yes, to get money.”
+
+“Alfred,” she asked, “how am I to get money? We disposed of everything
+that was available before we came here.”
+
+“You must borrow it; perhaps you can go and persuade my uncle to let you
+have some.”
+
+“If you would let me tell him that I am your wife,” she pleaded.
+
+“I forbid you telling him,” he said shortly. “But you might ask him to
+advance your quarter’s allowance.”
+
+“I might write and request him to do that, without going to town.”
+
+“No. It is easy to refuse in a letter, and he must not refuse.”
+
+“But if he will not listen to me, Alfred?” she asked, watching him
+curiously.
+
+“Tell him that Sir William Rammage is your cousin, and that he has no
+right to refuse.”
+
+“But if he does?” she persisted.
+
+“Then you must get it elsewhere. There are those people you stayed with
+in Cornwall Gardens.”
+
+She looked up quickly. “I cannot go to Mrs. North,” she said firmly.
+“There are some things due to my own self-respect: I cannot forget them
+even for you.”
+
+“You can do as you like,” he answered. “If you cannot get money, I must
+go away.”
+
+“Go away!” she echoed, with alarm; he saw his advantage and followed it
+up.
+
+“I shall not stay here to be starved,” he repeated.
+
+“I should starve, too,” she said sadly; “are you altogether oblivious of
+that fact, Alfred?”
+
+“If you choose to do so it is your own business, and no reason why I
+should. I have friends who will receive me, and I shall go to them.”
+
+“Would they not extend a helping hand to us both?”
+
+“No,” he said doggedly.
+
+“They cannot love you as I do,” she pleaded.
+
+“I cannot help that. I shall go to them.”
+
+“I give you all I have.”
+
+“I want more—more than you give me now,” he answered; “and if you don’t
+give it me, I shall not stay here. You had better go to London
+to-morrow, and look for some money. My uncle will let you have some if
+you are persistent.”
+
+“I think I will go to-day,” she said, with an odd tone in her voice. “I
+should be in time for the twelve o’clock train.”
+
+“You will go to-morrow,” he replied decisively.
+
+“Very well, my love”—and she winked quickly to herself. “I will go
+to-morrow.”
+
+“Unless you bring back some money, I shall not stay here any longer. You
+must clearly understand that, Anne. I am tired of this business,” he
+said, in his hard, determined voice.
+
+“It’s not worse for you than it is for me, Alfred. I can bear it with
+you; cannot you bear it with me?”
+
+He looked at her—at her black dress, her white handkerchief, at the
+poverty-stricken age of which she seemed to be the symbol; and he
+shuddered perceptibly as he turned away and answered, “No, I cannot, and
+I want to go.”
+
+“Alfred!” she said, with a cry of pain, and going to his side she put
+her hand on his arm; but he shook her off, and went a step farther away.
+
+“Stay there,” he said sternly.
+
+“Why do you recoil from me?” she asked; “am I so distasteful to you?”
+
+But he only shuddered again, and looked at her with almost terror in his
+eyes, as though he dumbly loathed her.
+
+“Have I forfeited your love, Alfred?” she asked humbly.
+
+“I dislike being touched.”
+
+“You will break my heart,” she cried, with a dry sob in her throat. “My
+dear one, I have given you all—all I possess; I have braved everything
+for you. Has all your love for me gone?”
+
+“I don’t want to talk sentiment,” he said, drawing back still a little
+farther from her, as though he shrank from being within her reach.
+
+“Do you remember that night when we walked along the road by the
+fir-trees, and you told me you would always love me and take care of me?
+What have I done to make you change? I never cease thinking of you, day
+or night, but it is months since you gave me a loving word. What have I
+done to change you so?”
+
+He looked down at her; for a moment there was an expression of hatred on
+his face.
+
+“You are old—and I am young.”
+
+“My heart is young,” she said piteously. Still he was merciless.
+
+“It is your face I see,” he said, “not your heart.”
+
+She let her hands fall by her side. “I cannot bear it any more,” she
+said quickly; “perhaps we had better separate; these constant scenes
+will kill me. You must permit me to retire; I cannot bear any more”—and
+she walked slowly away into the little drawing-room, and shut the door.
+She went up to the glass, and looked at her own face, long and sadly;
+she put her wrists together, and looked at them hopelessly.
+
+“Oh, I am old!” she cried, with a shiver; “I am old!”—and she sat down
+on the gaunt chair by the fireplace, still and silent, till cold and
+misery numbed her, and all things were alike.
+
+Presently, she heard his footsteps; he had left the dining-room, and
+seemed to be going towards the front door; she raised her head and
+listened. He hesitated, turned back, and entered the drawing-room. He
+stood for a moment on the threshold and looked round the little room—at
+the hard, old-fashioned sofa, at the corner cupboard with the pot-pourri
+on it, the jingling piano, the chair on which she sat. He remembered the
+day of his interview with Florence, and afterwards with Aunt Anne, and
+he looked at the latter now half doubtfully. She did not move an inch as
+he entered, or raise her eyes.
+
+“Anne!” There was no answer. She turned a little more directly away from
+him. “Anne,” he said, “we had better make it up. It is no good
+quarrelling.”
+
+“You were very cruel to me, Alfred,” she said, with gentle indignation;
+“you forgot everything that was due to me. You frequently do.”
+
+“I cannot always be remembering what is due to you, Anne. It irritates
+me.”
+
+“But you cut me to the quick. I sometimes wonder whether you have any
+affection at all for me.”
+
+“Don’t be foolish,” he said, with an effort that was rather obvious;
+“and don’t let us quarrel. I dislike poverty—it makes me cross.”
+
+“I can understand that,” she said, “but I cannot understand your being
+cruel to me.”
+
+“I didn’t mean to be cruel,” he answered; “we had better forget it.” She
+stood up and faced him, timidly, but with a slight flush in her face.
+
+“You said I was old; you taunted me with it; you often taunt me,” she
+said indignantly.
+
+“Well, but I knew it before we were married.”
+
+“Yes, you knew it before we were married,” she repeated.
+
+“Then I couldn’t have minded it so much, could I?” he said, with a
+softer tone in his voice, though it grated still.
+
+“No, my love”—and she tried to smile, but it was a sad attempt.
+
+“Well, is it all right?” he asked. “We won’t quarrel any more.”
+
+“Yes, my love, it is all right,” she said lovingly, and, half
+doubtfully, she put up her face to his.
+
+Involuntarily he drew back again, but he recovered in an instant and
+forced himself to stoop and kiss her forehead.
+
+“There,” he said, “it’s all right. To-morrow you shall go to London, and
+we will be more sensible in future.” He touched her hand, and went out
+into the garden. When she had watched him out of sight, she sat down
+once more on the chair by the fire.
+
+“I am old!” she cried; “I am old, I am old”—and, with a quick movement,
+as if she felt a horror of herself, she hid her thin hands out of sight.
+“I cannot bear it—I am old.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+Before nine the next morning, Aunt Anne was ready to set out on her
+journey to London. Mrs. Burnett’s governess-cart was at the gate with
+Lucas, the gardener, to drive her to the station. Alfred Wimple looked
+on at her preparations to go with an anxiety that was almost eagerness;
+and, stealthily, the old lady watched his every movement.
+
+“Jane can prepare the dinner after my return. I shall bring back some
+little dainty with me, hoping that it may tempt you, my love.”
+
+“I am very tired of the food we have had lately,” he said ungraciously.
+“What train are you coming back by?”
+
+“That will depend on my occupations in town,” she answered, after a
+moment’s consideration.
+
+“I will go to the station at half-past six. You can leave Waterloo
+Station at five fifteen.” Aunt Anne winked slowly.
+
+“I will try to come by an earlier train, my darling, if you will be
+there to relieve me of the packages with which I hope to be burdened.”
+
+“No. Come by the five fifteen,” he said decisively. “I have some letters
+to write.”
+
+“Very well, my love,” she answered, with tender courtesy. “It is always
+a pleasure to study your wishes, even in trifles. Would you assist me
+with my cloak, dear Alfred?”
+
+“It isn’t cold, and you have your shawl. Why are you taking this heavy
+cloak?”
+
+“I have my reasons.”
+
+He understood perfectly. He felt a gleam of almost fiendish triumph as,
+one by one, she divested herself of her belongings to buy him food and
+comfort. As she was going out of the doorway an idea seemed to strike
+him.
+
+“Anne,” he said, “remember it is no good bringing back a few
+shillings—you must bring back a few pounds at least.”
+
+“Have you any anxieties?—any payment it is imperative that you should
+make?” she asked anxiously.
+
+“Yes,” he answered, with a little smile to himself, as if an idea had
+been suggested to him. “I have a payment to make.”
+
+“I will do all I can—more for your sake than my own, dear Alfred,” and
+she turned to go. They were in the drawing-room.
+
+She hesitated for a moment by the door. “My love,” she said, going up to
+him doubtfully, “will you kiss me? You will never know how much I love
+you—you are all I have in the world.” The cashmere shawl clung to her
+and the heavy cloak swung back from her arms as she put them up round
+his neck and kissed him, first on one side of his face and then on the
+other; but even as she did so, and though for once he strove to hide it,
+she felt that, inwardly, he was shrinking.
+
+“I will be back by half-past six o’clock,” she said, with a hopeless
+tone in her voice, and, slowly letting go her hold, she went out of the
+house.
+
+On her way to the cart she stopped for a moment to look at a pile of
+faggots that were stacked in a partly concealed corner inside the garden
+gate.
+
+“Jane,” she said, “I think there have been some depredations among the
+wood lately.”
+
+“I saw two lads stealing a bit the other morning,” Jane answered.
+
+“We must take steps to prevent it occurring again.”
+
+“There’s plenty of wood, too, about here,” said Jane; “I don’t see why
+they should take ours; but I think they were tramps and wanted to make a
+fire. I thought I’d speak to the policeman—but I couldn’t catch him
+when he went by on his beat last night.”
+
+“I should like to speak to him myself: at what time does he pass?”
+
+“Well, ma’am, he is generally pretty punctual at about half-past eight.”
+
+“If you see him this evening you can tell me”—and she got into the
+governess-cart. “Jane,” she said, looking back, “I forgot to tell you
+that your master and I will dine at half-past seven. I shall probably
+bring back a chicken.” She said the last words almost recklessly as she
+set off to the station.
+
+She looked back towards the cottage, but though Alfred Wimple had
+strolled down to the gate after she had left it, his face was turned
+towards Liphook. There was something almost fierce in her voice as she
+spoke to the gardener, who was driving.
+
+“The pony seems inclined to procrastinate—you had better chastise him.”
+
+“They have spoiled him up at the house,” said Lucas, “till he won’t go
+nohow unless he gets a bit of the whip.”
+
+“He goes very well with me,” she snapped.
+
+“He knows your hand, most likely—they do get to know hands; do you find
+him shy much?”
+
+She made no answer, but looked at the holes of the sand martens in the
+cutting on one side of the road—they always fascinated her—and at the
+bell heather, which was just beginning to show a tinge of colour. “He’s
+a bad ’un to shy, he is,” Lucas went on; “and he’s not particular what
+it’s at—wheel-barrows, and umbrellas, and perambulators, and covered
+carts, and tramps—he don’t like tramps, he don’t—and bicycles, and
+children if there’s a few of ’em together, and bits of paper on the
+road—he’s ready to be afraid of anything. There’s Tom Mitchell coming
+along with the letters—would you like to stop?”
+
+“I do not expect any, but I may as well put the question to him,” the
+old lady said, very distantly, for she was of opinion that Lucas talked
+too much for his station. But he was not to be abashed easily.
+
+“Them beeches is coming on,” he said. Aunt Anne looked up, but made no
+answer. “Everything is so late this year on account of the cold. Tom,
+have you got any letters for Mrs. Wimple at the cottage?”
+
+“There’s one, I know, with a foreign postmark.” The man stopped and took
+a packet out of the leather wallet by his side.
+
+Aunt Anne, leaning over the cart, saw, as he pulled out the letter with
+the French stamps on it for her, that there was another beneath,
+directed, in an illiterate-looking hand, to “A. Wimple, Esq.,” but it
+was a woman’s writing and it had the Liphook postmark. Her eyes flashed;
+she could hardly make her voice steady as she said—
+
+“I see you have one there for Mr. Wimple; you will find him at the
+cottage.” Then she drove on. She looked at her own letter, a little
+bewildered. “It is not from Walter or Florence,” she said, “yet I know
+the handwriting.” She gazed vacantly at the hedges again, while Peter
+the pony, urged by arguments from the whip, went on more swiftly towards
+the station. Lucas’s remarks fell unheeded on her ears. Something was
+tightening round her heart that made her cheeks burn with a fire they
+had not felt for long years past.
+
+“I think we’ll have more rain—them clouds over there seem like it,” the
+man said, wondering why she was so silent, for she generally liked a
+chat with him. “Maybe she wanted to drive him herself,” he thought; “I
+forgot to offer her the reins, and it’s no good changing now, we are so
+near the station. The train’s signalled,” he said, as they pulled up;
+“but you are in plenty of time.”
+
+“I calculated that I should have sufficient time,” she answered.
+
+“Would you like me to meet you this afternoon? I will, if you tell me
+what train you are coming down by.” She was silent for a minute, then,
+suddenly, she seemed to find courage.
+
+“I shall leave London by the four thirty train,” she said. “It is due at
+Witley at a quarter to six, and I shall expect to find you there.” She
+walked into the station, with almost a hunted look.
+
+She managed to get into an empty carriage, shut the door, and stood up
+by the window, winking sternly at the passengers who, in passing,
+hesitated whether or not to enter. As the train moved off she shut the
+window, and, sitting down with a sigh, stared out at the fir-woods and
+the picturesque Surrey cottages. She did not see them; she saw nothing
+and heard nothing but the rattle of the train, that gradually shaped
+itself into the word Liphook—Liphook—Liphook—till she was maddened.
+“It might have been some one writing to importune him for money,” she
+said, thinking of the letter. But if the difficulty at Liphook were only
+a debt, she felt certain that Alfred Wimple would not have spared her
+the annoyance of knowing it. It was a mystery of which her indomitable
+pride refused her even the suggestion of one solution, which yet seemed
+gradually, and from without, to be getting burned upon her brain. A
+despair that was half dread was taking possession of her. A desperate
+knowledge was bearing down upon her that the only chance she had of
+keeping the man to whom she had bound herself was by giving him money.
+He was evidently at his wit’s end for it, and had no resource of his
+own, for whatever was the attraction at Liphook it did not seem to
+include money. Her one chance was to give it him, and to let him see
+that she would not fail to give it him—then, perhaps, he would stay
+with her. She stretched out her arms for a moment as if she were
+drowning, and trying to save herself by holding on to him, but she
+stretched them only into space, and clutched nothing. “Perhaps he thinks
+because I am old I cannot love properly. Oh, my dear one, if you would
+only speak to me out of your own heart, or if you could only look into
+my heart—for that is not old; it is young. Age makes no difference if
+he did but know it—I feel the same as when I was twenty, and we walked
+between the chestnuts to the farm. It is only the years that have marked
+me.” And then anger and pride chased away her misery and tenderness. “I
+will have it settled,” she said; “I will know what it means; and if he
+has not treated me properly he shall be called to account. If Walter and
+Florence were only in England, I should not be in this sad dilemma.” The
+mention of their names made her remember the letter in her pocket. She
+pulled it out and opened it; it was the one Mrs. North had written from
+Marseille. At another time she would have liked the congratulations, or
+have been indignant at the divorce. Now she passed the news by with
+little more than a scornful wink. “It is most presumptuous of her to
+have written to me; she has taken a great liberty; she has committed a
+solecism,” she said, almost mechanically. As she put the letter back
+into her pocket her hand touched something she did not remember to have
+placed there. She looked puzzled for a moment, then drew it out. It was
+a little necktie of Alfred Wimple’s, blue with white spots on it. She
+understood—it was faded and frayed; she had put it into her pocket to
+mend. She looked at it wonderingly for a moment, then kissed it with a
+vehemence that was almost passion.
+
+“He thinks I cannot love,” she said; “I am convinced that is it. If he
+did but know—if he did but know.”
+
+The servant who opened the door at Portman Square instantly recognized
+her, and was disposed to treat her with more respect than on a former
+occasion.
+
+“Mr. Boughton is not here, ma’am,” he said, in answer to her inquiry.
+
+“Would you give me the address of his office?”
+
+“I can give you the address, but he is away in Scotland, and not
+expected back for another fortnight.” Aunt Anne stood dumbfounded for a
+moment, then slowly she looked up at the servant, with a little smile
+that had its effect.
+
+“It is very unfortunate,” she said; “my business with him is most
+pressing. Have you good accounts of Sir William?”
+
+“Sir William is back, ma’am. He returned last week, but he is confined
+to his room with another attack.”
+
+“Does he keep his bed?”
+
+“Well, he is sitting by the fire just now, ma’am, writing some letters.”
+In a moment Aunt Anne had whisked into the house; she felt quite
+exhilarated.
+
+“Be good enough to take my name to him, and ask if he is sufficiently
+well to see his cousin, Mrs.—Mrs. Baines”—she hesitated over the last
+word; “say that I am extremely solicitous to have a few minutes’
+conversation with him.”
+
+“I am afraid he won’t be able to see you——” the servant began.
+
+“Have the goodness to take up my name.”
+
+“I am afraid——” the servant began again.
+
+“And say I wish to see him on a matter of great importance,” she went on
+imperiously, not heeding the interruption. She walked towards the
+dining-room door, as if she had a right to the entire house, but
+suddenly turned round.
+
+“I feel certain Sir William will see me,” she said, “and I will follow
+you upstairs.”
+
+Helplessly the servant obeyed her, and unfalteringly the soft footstep
+pattered after him up to the second floor. Then he entered the front
+bedroom, while she remained on the landing.
+
+“Mrs. Baines wishes to know if she can speak to you, sir,” she heard him
+say.
+
+“Tell her I am too ill to see any one,” a thin, distinct voice answered.
+
+“She says it is a matter of extreme importance, sir.”
+
+“I am writing letters, and don’t wish to be disturbed: bring my
+chicken-broth in twenty minutes.”
+
+But a moment later, and Aunt Anne had whisked also into the room,
+passing the servant who was leaving it.
+
+“William,” she said, “you must not refuse to let me see you once again.
+I cannot believe that you are too ill to shake hands with your cousin
+Anne.” As she spoke she looked round the room, and took in all its
+details at a glance. It had three windows, a writing-table and a
+book-case between them, facing them, a big four-post bedstead with dark
+hangings. To the left was a tall wardrobe of rosewood that had no
+looking-glass let into its panelled doors. By the fireplace was a roomy
+easy-chair, in which sat Sir William Rammage. He was dressed in a puce
+woollen dressing-gown, and half rolled up in a coloured blanket. By his
+side was an invalid table, with writing materials on it, and a flap at
+the side that stretched over his knees. In the large fireplace blazed a
+cheerful fire, and on the other side of the fireplace, and facing Sir
+William, there was a second easy-chair. He was evidently a tall
+man—thin, nervous, and irritable. His manner was cold and disagreeable,
+but it conveyed a sense of loneliness, a remembrance of long, cheerless
+years, that in a manner excused it. He looked like a man who had
+probably deserved respect, but had made few friendships. He was not
+nearly as old as he appeared at the first glance; illness, and work, and
+lack of human interests had aged him more than actual years.
+
+“How do you do?” he said dryly.
+
+“I have been so grieved to hear of your illness, William. I hope you
+received my letters—I wrote three or four times to tender you my
+sympathy.” She looked at the servant in a manner that said, “Go
+away”—and he went, carefully shutting the door.
+
+“I am not well enough to receive visitors,” Sir William said, in the
+same dry voice.
+
+“My dear William, you must let me stay with you five minutes; I will not
+intrude longer on your privacy”—and she seated herself on the chair
+facing him.
+
+“If what you have to say is of a business nature, I am not well enough
+to enter upon it now.”
+
+“Did you derive benefit from your stay at Cannes?—you were constantly
+in my thoughts.”
+
+“Thank you, thank you.”
+
+“I fear you have had to abandon many of your city occupations,” she went
+on, in a sympathetic voice; “it must be a great regret to the
+corporation. I was speaking of your mayoralty some months ago to Mr.
+Fisher, the editor of _The Centre_.” Aunt Anne was talking to gain time.
+Her throat was choking; her mouth twitched with restrained excitement.
+
+“Where did you meet him?” Sir William asked, in a judicial manner,
+tapping the arm of his chair with his thin fingers.
+
+“I met him at Walter Hibbert’s.”
+
+He was silent, and seemed to be waiting for her to go. For a few moments
+she could not gather courage to speak again. He looked up at her.
+
+“I am much obliged for this visit,” he said coldly, “but I cannot ask
+you to prolong it.”
+
+“William,” she said, “I came to see you on a matter of necessity. I
+would not have intruded had it been otherwise. On the occasion of my
+last visit I saw Mr. Boughton, but I understand that he is now away.”
+
+“He will be back in two or three weeks: you will then be able to see
+him.”
+
+She hesitated for a moment, and then went on doubtfully, “I have been
+deeply touched by your kindness.”
+
+“Yes?” he said inquiringly.
+
+“That it has been the greatest help to me I need hardly say; but I have
+had so many expenses this winter, it was inadequate to meet them all.”
+
+“I don’t quite understand?” He was becoming interested.
+
+“There are some weeks yet before the next quarter is due. I am staying
+in a country-house, and the expenses I have to meet——”
+
+“What country-house?”
+
+“Walter and Florence Hibbert’s. It is a cottage most charmingly situated
+in Surrey.”
+
+“I suppose it costs you nothing to stay there?”
+
+“They have been most kind. But they are now abroad, and, naturally, I
+have appearances to maintain and the necessities of the table to
+provide.”
+
+“For whom? Only for yourself, I suppose? You have not a large
+establishment.” His thin fingers wandered beneath the papers on the
+table, as if they were seeking for something. They found it, and drew it
+a little forward. Aunt Anne, following the movement with her eyes, saw
+the corner of a cheque-book peep out from beneath the blotting-paper.
+“You have not a dozen servants?” he asked ironically.
+
+“I have only one servant”—she was getting a little agitated.
+
+“And yourself?”
+
+“And some one who is with me.”
+
+“And doesn’t the some one who is with you keep you? or do you keep her?”
+and he pushed back the cheque-book. Aunt Anne was silent for a moment.
+“I suppose it doesn’t cost you anything to live. What do you want money
+for?” He put his hands on the arms of his chair and looked at her.
+
+“William,” she said, “I cannot discuss all my expenditures, or enter
+into every detail of my household”—and there was as much pride in her
+tone as she dared put into it. “I came to ask you if you would have the
+great kindness to advance the quarter’s allowance you are so kind as to
+give me. It will be due——”
+
+“Quarter’s allowance I give you? I don’t understand. I told you some
+time ago that I was not in the habit of giving away money. I believe you
+had some of your own when you started in life, and if you made away with
+it that is your own business.”
+
+“But, William, I am speaking of the hundred a year you have allowed me
+lately through Mr. Boughton.”
+
+He was fairly roused now, and turned his face full upon her. There were
+cruel, pitiless lines upon it, though she fought against them bravely.
+
+“I have allowed you no hundred a year,” he said angrily, “and I intend
+to allow you none. Do you mean to tell me that Boughton has paid you a
+hundred a year on my account?”
+
+“I understood so,” she gasped, shaking with fright.
+
+“I suppose he had some reason for it. If he has done it out of his own
+money, it is his own business. If he has done it out of mine, I shall
+have a reckoning up with him, and probably you will have one, too.”
+
+“But, William, have you been under the impression that I was left to
+starve?”
+
+“I was under no impression at all concerning you. Once for all, Anne,
+you must understand that it is not my intention to give away the money
+for which I have worked to people who have been idle.”
+
+“I have not been idle,” she said; “and you forget that I am your cousin,
+that our mothers——”
+
+“I know all that,” he said, interrupting her; “your people and you had
+your own way to make in life, and so had I and my people.”
+
+“But if you do not help me”—she burst out, for she could bear it no
+longer—“if you do not help me, I shall starve.”
+
+“I really don’t see what claim you have upon me.”
+
+“I am your cousin, and I am old, and I shall starve,” she repeated. “I
+must have money to-day. If I don’t take back money this afternoon my
+heart will break.” Again his fingers went for a moment in the direction
+of the cheque-book and tantalized her. She stood up and looked at him
+entreatingly. “I am not speaking only for myself,” she pleaded, “but for
+another——” and she broke down.
+
+“For whom else are you speaking?” he asked, withdrawing his fingers.
+
+“I do not wish to tell you, William.”
+
+“For whom else?” he repeated, glaring at her.
+
+“For one who is very dear to me, and who will starve, too, unless you
+help us. William, I entreat you to remember——”
+
+“But who is this pauper you are helping, and why should I help her,
+too?”
+
+“It is not a pauper,” she said indignantly. “It is some one who is
+dearer than all the world to me; and, once more, I entreat you to help
+us.”
+
+“Well, but who is it?—is it a child?”
+
+“No,” she answered, in a low voice, full of infinite tenderness, and she
+clasped her hands and let her chin fall on her breast.
+
+“Who is it?” he asked sternly.
+
+“It is my husband”—and almost a sob broke from her.
+
+“Your husband!—I thought he was dead?”
+
+“Mr. Baines is dead—long ago; but—I have married again.”
+
+“Married again?” he repeated, as if he could hardly believe his ears.
+
+“Yes, married again, and that is why I implore you to help me, so that I
+may give the young, tender life that is joined to mine the comforts that
+are necessary to him,” she said, with supplicating misery.
+
+“Do you mean to say”—and he looked at her as if he thought she was
+mad—“that some young man has married you?”
+
+“Yes,” she answered, in a low voice; “we have been married nearly eight
+months.”
+
+“And has he got any money?—or does he do anything for a living?”
+
+“He is a most brilliant writer, and has given the greatest satisfaction
+to Mr. Fisher; but he has been ill, and he requires country air and
+nourishment and luxuries—and I implore you to help me to preserve this
+young and beautiful life that has been confided to me.”
+
+“Is he a cripple or mad?”
+
+She looked up in astonishment.
+
+“He is a fine, tall young man!” she said, with proud indignation. “I
+should not have married a cripple, William, and I have already told you
+that he is a writer on _The Centre_, though he is not able at present to
+do his talents justice.”
+
+“So you have to keep him?”
+
+“He kept me when he had money; he gave me himself, and all he possessed
+in the world.”
+
+“What did he marry you for?” Sir William asked, gazing at her in wonder,
+and almost clutching the arms of his chair.
+
+“He married me”—her voice trembled and she drooped her head again—“he
+married me because—because he loved me.”
+
+“Loved you! What should he love you for?”
+
+“William, do you wish to insult me? I do not see why he should not love
+me, or why he should pretend to do so if he did not.”
+
+“And I suppose you love him?” he said, pulling the blanket farther up
+over his knees and speaking in a scornful, incredulous voice.
+
+“Yes, William, I do—I love him more than all the world; and unless you
+will help me so that I may give him those things that he requires and
+make our little home worthy of his residence in it, you will break my
+heart—you will kill him, and you will break my heart,” she repeated
+passionately. “I will conceal nothing from you—we are starving. We have
+not got a pound in the world—we have not even food to eat. He is young,
+and requires plenty of nourishment; he is not strong, and wants
+luxuries.”
+
+“And you want me to pay for them?”
+
+But she did not seem to hear him, and swept on—
+
+“He must have them or he will die. We have spent every penny we had—I
+have even borrowed money on my possessions. I can conceal things from
+strangers, but you and I belong to the same family, and what I say to
+you I know is sacred—we are starving, William, we are starving, and I
+implore you to help me. He says he cannot stay unless I take back
+money—that he will go and leave me.” Something seemed to gather in her
+throat—there was a ring of fright and despair in her voice as she said
+the last words. “He will leave me, and it will break my heart, for he is
+all the world to me. It will break my heart if he goes, and unless I
+take back money he will leave me!”
+
+“And let you starve by yourself?—a nice man to marry.”
+
+“William,” she said, “he must remember what is due to himself. He cannot
+stay if he has not even food to eat.”
+
+“And, pray, who is this gentleman?”
+
+“I have told you that he is a brilliant writer.”
+
+“What is his name?”
+
+“I don’t think I am justified in telling you—he does not wish our
+marriage to be known.”
+
+“I can quite understand that,” Sir William answered ironically. “Did he
+tell you to come to me for money?”
+
+“Yes, he told me to do so,” she said, tragically; “he knew your good
+heart.”
+
+“Knew my good heart, did he?” There was a deadly pallor spreading over
+Sir William’s face that frightened her. For a moment his lips moved
+without making a sound, then he recovered his voice, “Tell me his
+name—what is it?”
+
+“William——” she began.
+
+“What is it?” he cried, and his breath came short and quick.
+
+She was too scared to demur any longer.
+
+“It is Alfred Wimple”—and her heart stood still.
+
+He gazed at her for a moment in silence.
+
+“Wimple,” he said—“what, Boughton’s nephew? That skunk he had to turn
+out of his office?”
+
+“He is Mr. Boughton’s nephew; and he left his uncle’s office because the
+duties were too arduous for his health.”
+
+“He left his uncle’s office because he was kicked out of it. Do you mean
+to tell me that you have married him—a man who never did a day’s work
+in his life, or paid a bill that he owed? And as for writing, I don’t
+believe one word of it. It’s not a month ago that his uncle told me of
+some old woman, his landlady, forsooth! who had been to him with a long
+bill——”
+
+“It was for his professional chambers. A man in his position requires
+them.”
+
+“Yes; and he’d been sponging on the woman’s mother, too, in the country.
+Were you with him?”
+
+“No, William, I was not”—and, suddenly, a load was lifted from Aunt
+Anne’s heart. The mystery of Liphook appeared to be solved, and Alfred
+Wimple’s account of his debts to be verified. A world of tenderness
+rushed back into her heart and gave her strength and courage to fight
+her battle to the end. “No, I was not with him,” she repeated; and as
+she looked up a smile, a look of almost happiness, was on her face, that
+made her cousin more wonder-struck than ever. “He required country air
+to invigorate him, and our means would not admit of——”
+
+“Boughton has been allowing you a hundred a year,” said Sir William;
+“and this Wimple has married you,” he went on, a light seeming to break
+upon him. “I am beginning to understand it. I presume he knows that you
+are my cousin?”
+
+“Yes, I told him that you were—he spoke of you with admiration,” Aunt
+Anne added, always more anxious to say something gratifying to her
+listener than to be strictly veracious.
+
+“I have no doubt he did. Pray, when did this fine love-making begin?”
+Sir William asked scornfully.
+
+“Nearly a year ago,” she answered, in a faltering voice, for she was
+almost beaten, in spite of the relief that had been given her a minute
+or two ago.
+
+“And when did Boughton begin to allow you this hundred a year?”
+
+“About the time of my marriage.”
+
+“I perfectly understand. I’ll tell you the reason of your marriage and
+of his love for you in a moment.” With an effort he stretched out his
+hand and touched the bell. “Charles,” he said, when the servant entered,
+“unlock my safe.”
+
+The man pulled back a curtain that had been drawn across a recess to
+hide an iron door. “On the top of the shelf to the left you will see a
+blue envelope labelled ‘Last Will and Testament.’ Give it to me,” Sir
+William said.
+
+A scared look broke over Aunt Anne’s face; and she watched the
+proceedings breathlessly.
+
+“Lock the safe and go—no, stop—give me some brandy first.”
+
+The servant poured a little into a glass from a bottle which stood on
+the writing-table between the windows. The old man’s hand shook while he
+took it. Aunt Anne, looking at him like a culprit waiting for
+punishment, noticed a blackness round his mouth, and that the lines in
+his face were rigid.
+
+“Shall I bring you some chicken-broth, Sir William?” the servant asked.
+
+“When I ring. Go.” Then he turned to Aunt Anne. “Now I will tell you why
+this young man loved you.” He said the last words with an almost
+fiendish chuckle. “He loved you because, being a clerk in his uncle’s
+office, the office from which he had to be kicked, he probably knew—in
+fact, I am certain that he knew, for he came to ask me your Christian
+name when the instructions were being given—that I had provided for you
+in my will. I do not choose to pauperize people while I live, but I
+considered it my duty to leave some portion of my wealth to my
+relations, no matter how small a claim they had upon me. He knew that
+you would get a fourth share of my money—probably he reckoned it up and
+calculated that it would amount to a good many thousand pounds, so he
+and Boughton concocted a scheme to get hold of it together.”
+
+“Mr. Boughton knew nothing of our marriage.”
+
+“I tell you it was all a scheme. What should Boughton allow you a
+hundred a year for?” He was grasping the will while he spoke.
+
+“He knew nothing about it, William—neither did Alfred.”
+
+“Well, we’ll put his disinterestedness to the test”—and he tried to
+tear the will in half, but his fingers were too weak.
+
+“Oh no,” she cried; “no—no——”
+
+“Do you suppose a young man would marry an old woman like you for any
+reason but gain? That you should have been such a fool! and for that
+unwholesome-looking cur, with his long, rickety legs and red hair—why,
+he looks like a stale prawn,” the old man said derisively, and made
+another effort to tear the will.
+
+“I cannot bear it—William, I implore you”—and she clasped her hands
+with terror.
+
+He leaned forward with an effort, and put the will on the fire.
+
+“Oh no, no—” she cried again, and, dropping on her knees, she almost
+snatched it from the flames.
+
+He took the poker between his two white hands, and held the paper down
+with it.
+
+“It is cruel—cruel——” she began, as she watched it disappear from her
+sight.
+
+“I think I have made the case clear,” he said; “and you will see that
+there is nothing to be gained by staying. My money was not made to
+benefit Mr. Alfred Wimple. I shall make another will, and it will not
+contain your name.” He rang the bell again.
+
+“You have treated me cruelly—cruelly—but Heaven will frustrate you
+yet——” she said tremblingly, as she rose from her knees. Anguish and
+dignity were strangely blended in her voice, but after a moment it
+seemed as if the latter had gained the victory, “You and I will probably
+never meet again, William; you have insulted me cruelly, and you will
+remember it when it is too late to ask my forgiveness. You have insulted
+me and treated me heartlessly, yet it was beside us when we were
+children that our mothers——” the servant entered with a cup of
+chicken-broth.
+
+“Good-bye, Mrs. Alfred Wimple,” Sir William said politely. “Charles,
+show Mrs. Wimple downstairs.”
+
+The man was bewildered at the strange name, and looked at Aunt Anne
+doubtfully. Sir William clutched at the arms of his chair again, and his
+head sank back upon the pillow.
+
+“William—” she began.
+
+“Go!” he said hoarsely. For a moment she hesitated, a red spot had
+burned itself on her cheek, and then slowly she followed the servant
+down.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+AUNT ANNE went slowly along Portman Square. She felt, and it was a cruel
+moment to do so, that she was growing very old. Her feet almost gave way
+beneath her; her hands had barely strength to hold her cloak together
+over her chest. There was a little cold breeze passing by; as it swept
+over her face she realized that she was half stunned and sad and sick at
+heart. But she dragged on, step by step, stopping once, to hold by the
+iron railings of a house, before she could find strength enough to turn
+into a side-street.
+
+“I won’t believe it,” she said; “it was not for the money. He could not
+have known; his uncle would not have told him—it is not likely that he
+would have betrayed the confidence of a client.” And then she remembered
+what Sir William had said about the debt to the landlady in the Gray’s
+Inn Road and to the mother in the country. Of course that meant Liphook.
+It gave her a world of comfort, had lifted a terrible dread from her
+heart, so that, even in spite of the insults of the last hour, she felt
+that her morning’s visit had not been wholly thrown away. She had not
+the faculty of looking forward very far, and it did not occur to her as
+yet that, by revealing her marriage, she had ruined her prospects with
+her cousin. It was the insults that had enraged her; the going back to
+Witley, the day’s dinner, and the very near future, that perplexed her.
+A month, even a week hence, might take care of itself, provided to-day
+were made easy; it had always been so with her.
+
+She was bewildered, staggered, for want of money; she had just two
+shillings in the world. Florence and Walter were still away; she could
+think of no one of whom to borrow. She came to a confectioner’s shop,
+and looked at it hesitatingly, for she was tired and exhausted. Even
+though Alfred Wimple waited at the other end, mercilessly ready to count
+the coins with which she returned, she felt that she must buy a few
+minutes’ rest for herself. She wanted to sit down and think. She
+tottered into the shop, and having asked for a cup of tea, waited for
+it, with a sigh of relief, in a dark corner. But she was too much
+stupefied and beaten to think clearly. When the tea came, hot and
+smoking, in a thick white cup, to which her lips clung gratefully, she
+felt better. She began to burn with indignation, which was an excellent
+sign; she crushed Sir William Rammage out of her thoughts, and winked
+almost savagely, as though she had felt him under her foot. She told
+herself again that Alfred could not have known about the will, and had
+not deceived her about Liphook. She even tried to think of him
+affectionately, though that was difficult, with the dread of his face
+before her if she returned empty-handed. But she did not think of the
+money question as despairingly now as she had done a few minutes since;
+she had a firm belief in her own power of resource. She felt certain
+that when she had reflected calmly, something would suggest itself. She
+remembered Mrs. North; but it was not possible to borrow of her, for she
+had forfeited all consideration to the regard Aunt Anne thought it
+necessary to feel for any one from whom she could accept a loan.
+
+“I cannot do that, even for Alfred,” she said. “I have always held my
+head so high; I cannot lower it to Mrs. North, even for him.” But she
+took the letter from her pocket and read it over again. “She does not
+seem to comprehend the difference in our positions,” she said, as she
+put it back into the envelope, though not before she had noticed, with a
+keen eye, that Mrs. North had said she would be back in England very
+soon, and calculated that that could not mean just yet. “If Walter and
+Florence were in London, I should be relieved of this anxiety
+immediately,” she thought. Then a good idea occurred to her. She
+considered it from every point of view, and felt at last that it was
+feasible. “I am quite sure,” she told herself, “that Florence would say
+I was justified in going to her mother in her absence. I will explain to
+her that there are some things her daughter would wish me to buy, and
+ask her to let me have sufficient money to defray their cost. Besides,”
+she added, as an afterthought, “I must see those dear children;
+Florence, I know, would wish me to do so; and it is an attention I ought
+not to omit, after all the regard and kindness that she and dear Walter
+have always shown me.” She got up and looked longingly at the buns and
+tarts in the window; though she had only one unbroken shilling left, she
+could not wholly curb her generosity.
+
+“Would you put me a couple of sponge-cakes into a bag?” she said to the
+young woman, “I hope they are quite fresh; I prefer them a little
+brown.” She walked away, justified and refreshed, holding the paper bag
+by the corner.
+
+But when she arrived at the house near Regent’s Park, it was only to be
+told that Florence’s mother had gone out for the day, and that the
+children had not yet returned from their morning walk. The servant,
+seeing how disappointed she looked, begged her to come in and wait for a
+little while. “I don’t think they’ll be long, ma’am,” she said almost
+gently. “For,” as she explained to her fellow-servants afterwards, “I
+could not help being sorry for an old lady who had made a stupid of
+herself like that.” Aunt Anne hesitated a moment. “There’s a nice fire
+in the dining-room,” the servant continued, and having persuaded her to
+enter, she turned the easy-chair round, and asked if she should make a
+cup of tea.
+
+“Thank you, no,” said Aunt Anne, in a tone that showed she was sensible
+of the desire to please her, but was, nevertheless, aware of her own
+position in society. “I do not require any refreshment; I have just
+partaken of an early lunch.” She turned, gratefully, to the fire when
+she was alone, and, putting her feet on the fender, faced her
+difficulties once more. She could not remember any human being in London
+from whom, under any pretext whatever, she could borrow. She was baffled
+and at bay. The memory of Sir William’s taunts vanished altogether as,
+with a fright that was gradually becoming feverish, she went over in her
+mind every possible means of raising even a few shillings—though a few
+shillings, she knew, would be virtually useless against the tide she had
+to stem. Of a very small sum she was already certain, for she had
+devised a means of raising it, but she feared it would only be
+sufficient to provide food for the evening, and perhaps for
+to-morrow—and then? She folded her hands and looked into the fire,
+shaking her head once or twice, as if various schemes were presenting
+themselves, only to be rejected. The clock on the mantelpiece struck
+half-past one; at half-past four her train left Waterloo Station. There
+was little time to lose. She got up, took off her cloak, and examined it
+carefully, then put it round her once more, fingering the clasp, while
+she fastened it, as if it were a thing she treasured. As she did so, her
+eye caught a little pile on the mantelpiece; it consisted of seven
+shillings in silver, with a half-sovereign on the top. She looked at it
+as if fascinated, and calculated precisely all it would buy. She
+remembered, with dismay, that Jane Mitchell’s weekly wages were due that
+evening, that Jane’s mother was ill, and the money was necessary. She
+heard again the hard voice in which Alfred had said, “Unless you bring
+back money, I shall not stay here any longer.” She could see his eyes,
+dull and unrelenting.
+
+“I know they would give it to me; I know that Walter and Florence would
+deny me nothing that was really for my happiness,” she thought, and rang
+the bell. “I fear I shall not be able to stay and see the children,” she
+said haughtily to the servant, but with a little excitement she could
+not keep out of her voice; “my train is, unfortunately, an early one.
+And would you tell their grandmother that I have ventured to borrow this
+seventeen shillings on the mantelpiece? I came up to town with less
+money than I find I require; I will write to her in a day or two, and
+return it.”
+
+“It’s the children’s money, ma’am; I heard their grandmother say they
+were to save it up for Christmas.”
+
+“Dear children,” said the old lady, with a little smile; “they will be
+delighted to hear that I have borrowed it. Tell them that Aunt Anne is
+their debtor. Give them these two sponge-cakes, they will think of me
+while they eat them.” She snapped her purse as she put the money into
+it, and left the house with a light footstep.
+
+She walked on towards Portland Road. There was only one thing more to
+do, and that must be done quickly. It would add perhaps ten shillings to
+her purse, but even that would be a precious sum. She hesitated a
+moment. A threat of rain was in the air, but she did not feel it. The
+chilly wind touched her face, but it did not make her shiver, now that
+her courage had returned. She looked up and down Great Portland Street
+doubtfully, then went slowly, but with decision, towards a street she
+knew well.
+
+A quarter of an hour later she was in an omnibus, going to Waterloo
+Station. The cloak with the steel clasp had disappeared; on her face was
+an expression that betrayed she had gone through an experience that
+depressed her. She watched the people hurrying by in hansoms, and
+remembered the day she had driven in one herself to see Alfred Wimple
+off to the country—the day on which Florence had given her the
+five-pound note. She was very weary, and beginning to long for home. She
+planned the evening dinner, and got out a little before she reached
+Waterloo, in order to buy it at the shops near the station. There had
+been concealed beneath her cloak all the morning a square bag, made of
+black stuff, which now she carried on her arm. When she stood on the
+platform waiting for her train it was no longer flat and empty, but
+bulged into strange shapes that were oddly suggestive. In her hand she
+carried three bunches of primroses, and a smaller one of violets; under
+her arm were some evening papers. She looked satisfied, and almost
+happy, for she felt that a few hours at least of contentment were before
+her. She entered her third-class carriage, thinking of the day she had
+seen Alfred Wimple off to Liphook; she remembered, with a little
+triumph, how she had exchanged his ticket. “I am sure the papers will be
+a solace to him,” she said; “writing for the press must give him a deep
+interest in public affairs—it must have been a great deprivation to him
+not to know all that was going on. My dear Alfred! these violets shall
+be my offering to him as soon as I arrive; I cannot do enough to
+compensate him for William’s cruel aspersions on his character. My
+darling, if I only had thousands, I would give them to you; I would make
+them into a carpet for you to walk upon.”
+
+She was alone in the carriage; she put her bag carefully down beside her
+on the seat, and shut the windows, for the drizzling rain was coming in
+aslant, and chilled her. Once or twice a sharp pang of pain darted
+through her shoulders, but she did not mind; she was dreaming among
+illusions, and found a passing spell of happiness that brought a smile
+to her lips and a wink of almost merry anticipation to her eye, as she
+saw the little dinner she had devised set out, and Alfred facing her at
+table. She imagined him saying, in the solemn manner in which he said
+everything, “I feel better, Anne,” when he had finished, and she knew
+that in those few words she would find a balm for all the insults and
+misery of the last few hours. She repented now that she was returning by
+the early train; it seemed like treachery to him. It had been almost
+noble of him to conceal from her the embarrassing debt he had at
+Liphook. “He has evidently been reticent,” she thought, “from a desire
+to save me pain. My dear one,—I have wronged him lately, but I will
+make it up to him this evening. I will tell him that there is no poverty
+or sorrow I should not think it a privilege to share with him.” She
+peered out of the window at the landscape dulling with the rain. “I hope
+he is not in the garden,” she thought. “He will catch cold, and his
+cough was so bad last week. I am glad I remembered to bring some
+lozenges for him.”
+
+The train sped on past Woking and the fir-woods beyond; they reminded
+her of the trees round the cottage at Witley. When it was dark to-night,
+she would look up at them before she bolted the door after Jane
+Mitchell. And then she and Alfred would sit over the fire and talk; he
+would feel so much better after his dinner, she was sure he would be
+kind to her. He had been worried lately with poverty, but just for a
+little while he should forget it. With the future she did not concern
+herself, for she had already devised a plan that would make it easy. She
+would go and see Mr. Boughton, and of course he would help them when he
+heard that Alfred was her husband. He would continue the allowance he
+had given them, and when Sir William Rammage made a new will he would
+take care that it was not an iniquitous one. It had never seriously
+occurred to her that William would leave her money, though, once or
+twice, the possibility had crossed her mind. But she had never been able
+to look forward at all for herself. “Now,” she thought, “I must give the
+future my consideration. I must think of it for my dear Alfred. Luxuries
+are necessary to him; he cannot divest himself of his longing for them.
+Perhaps when Mr. Boughton returns he will make William ashamed of his
+conduct to me to-day, and he will do something for us before he dies; it
+would be very detrimental to his pride that we should starve, and I did
+not mince words to-day.” The train passed Milford Station; in a few
+minutes she would be at Witley. “I hope Alfred won’t be angry with me
+for coming by the earlier train,” she thought, with some misgiving. “I
+will explain to him that I had finished my commissions in town sooner
+than I had anticipated, and, seeing that the weather was not likely to
+improve, I thought it better to return, even at the risk of his
+displeasure.”
+
+The governess-cart was waiting for her.
+
+“I brought an umbrella,” Lucas said, “as it was raining. I noticed you
+went without one this morning, and the weather has come on that
+unexpected bad, I was afraid you would get wet through.”
+
+“I am most grateful for your thoughtfulness,” Aunt Anne said, with
+distant graciousness. She put her bag out of reach of the rain, and
+cared little for herself. She was too full of other matters to trouble
+about the weather. As she went along the straight road, of which by this
+time she knew every yard, she mentally counted up the shillings in her
+pocket, and considered that she ought to give one of them to Lucas. “He
+has been most attentive,” she said, and she managed to extract the coin
+from her pocket, and put it into her black silk glove, ready for the end
+of the journey, which she considered would be the right moment to
+present it. The rain came down steadily. It was no longer aslant or
+fitful, and in the sky overhead there were no changing clouds. “I fear
+you have had an unfavourable day,” she said to Lucas.
+
+“It has rained mostly all the time. I hope you won’t catch cold, ma’am.
+I thought I saw you with a cloak this morning; have you left it behind?”
+
+Aunt Anne resented the question; she thought it was unduly familiar, and
+she answered coldly,
+
+“I have left it behind—for a purpose. It required renovating,” she
+added.
+
+“I might have brought you a shawl, or something, if I had known. I
+called at the house as I passed to see if Mr. Wimple would like to come
+and meet you. But he wasn’t in.”
+
+“I hope he is not out in the rain,” she thought. “Did the servant say if
+he had been out long?” she asked.
+
+“She said he had been gone about an hour. It’s a pity I missed him.”
+
+“He probably had an engagement,” she said, and a little uneasiness stole
+over her. Another mile. She could scarcely conceal her impatience.
+“Couldn’t the pony run up this little hill?” she asked.
+
+“It could,” said Lucas, rather contemptuously; “but Mrs. Burnett don’t
+like him to run uphill, she don’t—she thinks it’s bad for him.” Aunt
+Anne was too much engrossed in her own thoughts to answer. “He goes
+faster than the donkey did last year, anyhow, ma’am; do you mind the
+donkey?”
+
+“I frequently drove him.”
+
+“He was a deal of trouble, he was,” Lucas went on; “and they didn’t do
+well by him—gave four pound ten for him, and when they come to sell him
+a year later they only got two pound five.”
+
+“So that they were mulcted of just half the sum for which they had
+purchased him,” she said absently, having quickly reckoned up the loss
+in her head. “Was there any reason for that?”
+
+“Well, you see, this was it,” said Lucas—“when gentry first come to
+live about here they took to keeping donkeys, so donkeys went up; then
+after a bit they found they wouldn’t go, and they took to selling them
+and buying ponies, so donkeys went down. I am afraid you are getting
+very wet, ma’am. I wish I had thought to bring a rug to cover you. But
+here we are at the house, and you’ll be able to dry yourself by the
+fire.”
+
+“Thank you, Lucas, thank you,” and she slipped the shilling into his
+hand, and, taking her bulging bag from under the seat, walked into the
+house by the back door.
+
+“Jane,” she asked, the moment she crossed the threshold, “where is Mr.
+Wimple?”
+
+“He went out an hour and a half ago, ma’am, or a little more perhaps.”
+
+“Do you know in what direction he went?”
+
+“Well, last time I saw him he was in the garden; then I see him going
+down the dip.”
+
+She was silent for a moment, then she asked gently—
+
+“Was he at home all the morning?” and received an answer in the
+affirmative. She was silent, and seemed to turn something over in her
+mind.
+
+“You are quite sure he went down the dip, and not much more than an hour
+and a half ago?” She stood by the kitchen fire, and she spoke absently.
+“I have brought a sole for dinner,” she said. “I must ask you to cook it
+more carefully than you did the last one, Jane. Mr. Wimple is most
+particular about fish—he cannot eat it unless it is quite dry. After
+the sole there is a chicken and some asparagus. Give me my bag—there
+are some other things in it, and a bottle of claret at the bottom, which
+I wish put on the dining-room mantelshelf for an hour. I trust you have
+made a good fire, Jane?”
+
+“Yes, ma’am; but I had to do it of wood, for the coals are nearly out.”
+
+“I prefer wood; it is not my intention to have in more coal just yet,”
+said Aunt Anne, firmly. “Where have you put the primroses I brought? I
+wish to arrange them in a bowl for the centre of the table.”
+
+“Hadn’t you better take off your shawl first, ma’am—it’s wringing
+wet—and let me make you a cup of tea?”
+
+“No, thank you, I will not trouble you to do that,” Aunt Anne said
+gently. “But put Mr. Wimple’s slippers by the fire in the dining-room.”
+She went into the drawing-room and held a match to the grate, and stood
+beside it while the paper blazed and the wood crackled, thinking that
+she and Alfred would sit over the fire cosily that evening after dinner.
+
+“I am sure he is worried about money,” she said to herself, “and that he
+is in debt; but he shall not have these anxieties long—it is much
+better that his uncle should know about our marriage.” Her eyes turned
+towards the window and the garden and the trees with the rain falling on
+them. “I wonder if he has gone far; I hope he is not depressed. I fear
+he worries himself unduly,” she said, and went into the dining-room. The
+slippers were toasting in the fender; she turned the easy-chair towards
+the fire and put beside it a little table from the corner of the room.
+Then she went for the papers she had brought from London, and arranged
+them on the table, and put the bunch of violets in a glass and set it by
+the papers. She drew back and looked at the cosy arrangement with
+satisfaction. “My darling Alfred!” she said to herself; and then,
+softly, as if she were afraid of Jane hearing her, she crept out of the
+front door and under the verandah that went round the house, and looked
+out at the weather. The rain had nearly stopped, but the sky was grey
+and the air was cold. She pulled her shawl closer, and, trying to shake
+off the chill that was overtaking her, went swiftly down the garden
+pathway. At the far end the grass was long and wet; the drops fell from
+the beeches and larches above. She found the narrow pathway that led to
+the dip, and went along it. She looked anxiously ahead, but there was no
+sign of Alfred. “I know he will be glad to see me,” she thought. “I know
+the silent tenderness of his heart—my darling—my darling, you are all
+I have in the world!”
+
+On she went among the gorse, between the firs, and over the clumps of
+budding heather, a limp black figure in the misty twilight. She had no
+definite reason for supposing he would return that way; but she knew it
+to be a short cut from the Liphook direction, and some strange instinct
+seemed to be sending her on: she did not hesitate or falter, but just
+obeyed it. The pathway was very narrow, the wet growth on either side
+brushed her skirts as she passed by—down and down—lower and
+lower—towards the valley. On the other side, a quarter of a mile away,
+she could see the little thatched shed the children called their
+“house,” where perhaps in past days a cow had been tethered. There was
+not a sign of Alfred. “Perhaps he is a little farther on, over the
+ridge,” she said, and sped on. A miserable aching was upon her; she had
+been out of doors many hours; she was wet and cold through and through.
+Every moment the long grasses and the dead bracken of a past year swept
+over her feet. The mist stole up to her closer and closer. The drops
+fell from the leaves above on to her shoulders. “He must be so cold and
+wet,” she thought; “I know he will make his cough worse; I am glad I
+kept the lozenges in my pocket.” She hesitated at the bottom of the
+valley for a moment, and then began the upward path. “I know he wants
+me,” she said aloud, with an almost passionate note in her feeble voice;
+“I can feel that he wants me.” She looked through the straggling firs
+that dotted the ground over which she was now making her way. Still,
+there was not a sign of Alfred. Only the trees and the undergrowth,
+sodden with the long day’s rain.
+
+Suddenly there was the sound of a woman’s laughter. She stopped,
+petrified. It came from the little thatched shed twenty yards away. The
+side of the shed was towards her and only the front of it was open, so
+that she could not see who was within it. But she knew that two people
+were there. One was a woman, and something told her that the other was
+Alfred Wimple. For a minute she could not stir. Then, as if it had been
+waiting for a signal, the rain began to fall, with a soft, swishing
+sound, upon the thatched roof of the shed, upon Aunt Anne’s thin
+cashmere shawl, upon all the drooping vegetation. The mistiness grew
+deeper, and from the distances the night began to gather. The black
+figure standing in the mist knew that a few yards off there was hidden
+from her that which meant life or death. She went a little nearer to the
+shed, but her feet almost failed her, her heart stood still, a sickening
+dread had laid hold of her. “I will go round and face them,” she
+thought, and dragged herself up to the shed. But as she reached the
+corner she heard Alfred Wimple’s voice—
+
+“You know it’s only for her money that I stay with the old woman,
+Caroline.” She stopped, and rested her head and hands against the back
+and sides of the shed, from sheer fright at what was coming next.
+
+“Well, but you don’t give me any of it,” the woman answered.
+
+“I don’t get any myself now.”
+
+“Then what do you stay with her for?”
+
+“Because it won’t do to let her slip.”
+
+“It’s mother that makes such a fuss—it’s not me; though, of course,
+it’s hard, you always being away like this.”
+
+“Tell her she won’t gain anything by making a fuss,” Alfred Wimple said,
+in the hard voice Aunt Anne knew so well.
+
+“She says all the four years we have been married you have not kept me
+decently three months together.”
+
+Aunt Anne held on to the shed for dear life, and her heart stood still.
+
+“I shall keep you decently by-and-by, Caroline.”
+
+“And then she’s always going on about what you owe her. I daren’t go up
+to London any more, she leads me such a life.”
+
+“Tell her I’ll pay her by-and-by,” Alfred Wimple said.
+
+“I’m sure if it wasn’t for grandmother being at Liphook, I don’t know
+what I’d do. Sometimes I think I’d better get a place of some sort—then
+I’d be able to help you.”
+
+“But your grandmother doesn’t lead you a life, Caroline, does she?”
+
+“Well, you see, it was she made us get married, so she can’t well, and
+she has kept mother quiet on that account; but couldn’t you come to us
+again, Alfred? I don’t believe grandmother would mind. She thinks you
+are very wise to stay with your aunt if you’re going to get her money,
+and often tells me I am impatient, but I can’t bear being parted like
+this.”
+
+“And I can’t bear it either”—something that was equivalent to
+tenderness came into his voice. Aunt Anne drew her breath as she heard
+it. “You know I am fond of you; I never was fond of anybody else.”
+
+“Mother says when you first had her rooms in the Gray’s Inn Road, there
+was some girl you used to go out with?”
+
+“She was fond of me,” he said; “I didn’t care about her.”
+
+“My goodness! look at the rain,” said the woman, as it came pouring
+down; “we must stay here till it’s over a bit. Alfred, you are sure you
+are as fond of me as ever?”
+
+“I am just as fond of you; I am fonder. You don’t suppose I stay with an
+old woman from choice, do you? I do it just as much for your sake as
+mine, Caroline.”
+
+“Call me your wife again—you haven’t said it lately—and kiss me, do
+kiss me.”
+
+“You are my wife,” he said, “and you know I am fond of you, and——”
+Aunt Anne heard the sound of his kisses. “I like holding you again,” he
+went on; “it’s awful being always with that old woman.”
+
+“Well, you don’t have to kiss her, as she’s your aunt,” she said with a
+laugh.
+
+“I have to kiss her night and morning,” he answered; “but I get out of
+her way as much as possible—you can bet that.”
+
+“Mother and grandmother are always saying, perhaps she will give you the
+slip and leave her money to somebody else.”
+
+“I don’t think she’ll do that,” he said; “but that’s one reason why I
+keep a sharp look-out.”
+
+“Hasn’t she got anything now? You don’t seem to get much out of her, if
+she has.”
+
+“She’s a close-fisted old woman. Come up closer on my shoulder—I like
+feeling your face there.”
+
+“Suppose she died to-morrow,” the woman said—“where would you be then?”
+
+“Of course there’s that danger. One must risk something.”
+
+“And is she sure to get money when this—what is it—her cousin—dies?”
+
+“She’ll get five and twenty thousand pounds. I have seen his will, so I
+know it’s true.”
+
+“Does she know herself?”
+
+“No”—and he laughed a little short laugh.
+
+Aunt Anne, listening and shuddering, remembered, oddly, that she had
+hardly ever heard him laugh in her life before.
+
+“But how did you manage to see the will?”
+
+“I told you before, Caroline, I saw it in my uncle’s office; so there is
+no mistake about it, if that is what you mean.”
+
+Aunt Anne nodded her weary head to herself. “William Rammage is right,”
+she thought; “he is justified. I might have known that at least he would
+not deceive me.”
+
+“And has she left it all to you, Alfred?” the girl’s voice—for it was a
+girl’s voice—asked.
+
+“Every penny. I took good care of that; and I’ll take good care she
+doesn’t alter it, too.”
+
+“But when do you think she’ll get it?”
+
+“As soon as this cousin of hers dies. He has been dying these ever so
+many months,” Alfred Wimple said discontentedly; “only he’s so long
+about it.”
+
+“But she won’t give it to you right away when she has got it herself.
+You’ll have to wait till she dies.”
+
+“I don’t think she’ll live long,” he said grimly; “I’m half afraid,
+sometimes, that she won’t last as long as he will, unless he makes
+haste.”
+
+“We’ll have good times, Alfred, once we’ve got our money?”
+
+“Yes, we will,” he answered with determination.
+
+“You mustn’t think that I care only for the money,” the girl went on;
+“it’s your being away that I care about most.”
+
+“I care about money; I want money, Caroline. I don’t like being poor.”
+
+“You see, I have always been poor, and don’t mind so much.”
+
+“You won’t be poor by-and-by, when the old woman is dead. I hope she’ll
+be quicker than her cousin over it, for I can’t stand it much longer.”
+
+“Isn’t she kind to you?”
+
+“I suppose she means to be kind,” he said gratingly. “But she whines
+about me so, and is always wanting to kiss me”—and he made a harsh
+sound in his throat. “I can’t bear being kissed by an old woman.”
+
+“It doesn’t matter when she is your aunt; it isn’t as if you were
+married to her. Wouldn’t it be awful to be married to an old woman?”
+
+“Ugh! I think I should kill her, Caroline. Let’s talk about something
+else.”
+
+“Let’s say all we’ll do when we get our money, Alfred dear,” the girl
+said in a wheedling voice. “I am glad of this rain, for we can’t go back
+till it leaves off a bit; let’s say all we’ll do when we get her money.”
+
+“I believe you care more about her money than you do about me,” he said,
+in the grumbling voice Aunt Anne knew well.
+
+“No, you don’t”—and she laughed a little; “you don’t think that a bit.
+I am fonder of you than the day I was married.”
+
+“You were fond enough then,” he said almost tenderly; “I remember seeing
+you kiss your wedding-gown as you sat and stitched at it the night
+before.”
+
+“I thought I’d never get it done in time.”
+
+“You were determined to have a new one, weren’t you?”
+
+“I thought it would be unlucky if I didn’t, though there wasn’t anybody
+but you to see it. It isn’t that I care for money, Alfred,” she went
+on—“don’t think it. It’s only mother that makes the fuss. We’ll pay her
+up quick when we’ve got it, and we’ll be awfully good to grandmother;
+but, as for me, I wouldn’t care if you hadn’t a penny. It’s only you I
+want.”
+
+“And it’s only you I want,” he said, with a little cough that belied his
+words.
+
+“What is that rustling, Alfred—is there any one about?”
+
+“It’s only the rain among the grass and leaves; I wish it’d leave off—I
+ought to be getting in.”
+
+“What time is she coming from London?”
+
+“I expect she’ll be here soon now. You had better give me that money,
+Caroline.”
+
+“It’s hidden in my dress—wait till I get it out. I hope mother won’t
+hear I was paid, or she’ll wonder what I’ve done with it.”
+
+“I can’t do without a little money,” he said, in the tone Aunt Anne had
+often heard; “and the old woman is so close-fisted she expects me to
+account for everything she gives me.”
+
+“Well, there it is—twenty-two shillings and sixpence. I don’t want
+grandmother to know, for she said last time she wondered you liked
+taking it.”
+
+“A man has a right to his wife’s earnings,” he said firmly.
+
+“Well, I’ve got three dresses in the house to do; they’ll come to a good
+bit. It isn’t that I mind giving it. Alfred! there’s some one against
+the back of the shed.”
+
+“It’s only the branches of the trees brushing against it,” he said. “I
+must go back—the old woman will be coming home.”
+
+“Don’t go till it stops raining a bit,” she pleaded; “and put your arms
+tighter round me, I am not with you so often now. Aren’t you glad I am
+not an old woman?”
+
+“Ugh!”—and he made a sound of disgust again. “Old women make me sick.”
+
+“Well, you’ll be old long before I am,” she said, with a triumphant
+laugh. “My goodness! look at the rain.”
+
+Aunt Anne went slowly along the narrow pathway, down into the valley,
+and up towards the larch and fir-trees again. Her strength was almost
+spent when she reached the garden. She bent her head beneath the
+downpour, and dragged herself, in such frightened haste as she could
+manage, to the house. She stopped for a moment beneath the verandah, as
+if to be sure that she was awake. She looked, half incredulously down at
+her wet and clinging clothes, and then into the darkness and distance.
+Beyond the trees and across the valley she knew that two people were
+saying their good-byes. She imagined their looks and words, and their
+caresses. It seemed as if the whole world were theirs—it had been
+pulled from under her feet to make a heaven for them. She was trembling
+with cold and fear, but she told herself that there was one thing left
+at which she must clutch a little longer—her self-control and dignity.
+
+“I thought,” she said bewildered, and with the strange hunted look on
+her face, as she entered the cottage—“I thought God had forgiven me and
+sent him back, but it is all a mistake. Perhaps it is part of my
+punishment.” Everything looked strange to her; as if years had passed
+since she had gone out only an hour ago. She stood by the drawing-room
+door for a moment, looking in at the fire that had burned up and made a
+cheerful blaze, but she was afraid to go nearer to it. She felt like an
+outcast from everywhere; there was no place for her in the world, no one
+who wanted her, nothing left to do. And there was no love for her, and
+no forgetfulness; she had to bear pain—that alone was her portion. She
+wanted most of all to lie down and die, but death and love alike are
+often strangely difficult to those who need them most. She meandered
+into the kitchen, without any settled plan of what she was going to do.
+
+“Jane,” she said, “the moment you have finished taking in the dinner, I
+want you to go upstairs and follow the directions I will give you.”
+
+“Yes, ma’am,” Jane answered, with some astonishment when she had
+listened to them; “but do you mean to-night?”
+
+“Yes, I mean to-night,” Aunt Anne said, and turned away.
+
+“Let me take your shawl, ma’am; it is wringing wet.”
+
+“I shall be glad if you will divest me of it,” the old lady said gently,
+“and if you will bring me my cap and slippers; I am fatigued, and cannot
+ascend the stairs.” She sat down for a minute, and listened to Jane’s
+footsteps going and returning. It seemed as if the whole house were full
+of shame and agony; a single step in any direction might take her into
+its midst—she did not dare venture there till she had finished the task
+that was before her. She went into the dining-room, with a strange,
+bewildered air still upon her, as if she were doubtful whether it was
+the room that she had known so well, or if it had, somehow, been changed
+in the last hour. The cloth was laid; the primroses were in their place;
+the candles were lighted, for it was nearly dinner-time; the blinds were
+down, and the curtains drawn. She looked at the easy-chair she had put
+ready for Alfred, with the little table beside it, and the papers and
+the violets. Then she went up to the mantelpiece and rang a hand-bell
+that stood on it.
+
+“Jane,” she said, “take away Mr. Wimple’s slippers—he will not require
+them; put them with the other things as I told you.” She pushed the
+easy-chair to its place, away from the fire, put the little table back
+into the corner, and hid the papers and the violets out of sight, for
+she could not bear to see them. She looked at the cloth again, and
+taking up the things that had been laid for her carried them to the
+sideboard.
+
+“You need not set a place for me,” she said to Jane, who still lingered,
+half wonderingly. “I dined early in town; it is only for Mr.
+Wimple”—and she went back to the drawing-room. She hesitated for a
+moment by the door; she felt as if the dead people who had known it in
+bygone years were softly crowding into it now, as if they would witness
+the scene that was before her, and look on at all she had to bear, just
+for a little while, before she became one of them. She gathered courage
+to walk to one of the chairs; she put the peacock screen beside her and
+waited. A quarter of an hour went by, while she stared at the fire with
+her hands clasped and her head drooping, or at the darkness outside the
+windows that looked towards the garden. But she could scarcely bear to
+turn her head in that direction. All the time she was listening,
+curiously and with a shrinking dread, for the sound of footsteps. Jane
+came to her.
+
+“The dinner is ready,” she said; “it’s a pity Mr. Wimple don’t come—I
+wanted to get home to mother a bit early to-night. Her cough was worse
+this morning.”
+
+“You can go as soon as you have finished your duties,” Aunt Anne said;
+“and remind me to pay you your wages, for I am often oblivious——”
+
+The words died away on her lips. She heard the handle of the hall-door
+turn.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+The rain showed no signs of abating, but Alfred Wimple was chilly and
+hungry. Moreover, he was tired of the _tête-à-tête_ in the shed, and he
+had a dull curiosity to hear the result of Aunt Anne’s visit to town. It
+was certain to provide some sort of excitement for the evening. If she
+had brought back money he would reap the benefit of it; if she had not,
+he could at least make her suffer, and to watch her suffer would provide
+him a satisfaction over which he gloated more and more with every
+experience of it. He buttoned his coat, turned up the bottoms of his
+trousers, and looked for his umbrella; then he hesitated a moment and
+looked out at the weather. He hated rain.
+
+“I wish I had thought to bring myself an umbrella,” his companion said;
+“it’s a long way across. Joe Pook is over at the King’s Head with his
+cart, and he’ll drive me back; but it’s a good bit to there.”
+
+Alfred Wimple coughed.
+
+“I can’t let you have mine”—and he held it firmly; “my chest is not
+strong.”
+
+“I wasn’t saying it for that,” she answered; “I was only thinking it was
+a pity I didn’t bring one. Good-bye; you’ll take care of yourself, won’t
+you?”
+
+“I will try,” he said, in his most sombre manner, as though he felt it
+to be an important undertaking. “Good-bye, Caroline.”
+
+Before they were many yards apart she turned and went after him. Her
+jacket was already wet with rain; her black straw hat was shining. There
+was an anxious excitement in her manner.
+
+“Alfred”—she put her hand on his shoulder and looked at his face while
+she spoke—“you care about me really, don’t you?”
+
+“Why do you ask that now?” he asked severely.
+
+“I don’t know. Mother said once that you had love for nothing but
+yourself. It isn’t true, is it? Sometimes I think I would have done
+better if I had married Albert Spark. I believe he’s fonder of me now
+than you are.”
+
+He looked impatient and at a loss what to do. He could not understand
+unselfish love; self-protection was his own strongest feeling;
+everything else was merely a means, a weapon to be used in attaining it.
+
+“You mustn’t keep me in the rain,” he said; “the old woman will be back
+by this time. Why do you think I don’t care for you?”
+
+“I don’t know,” and as she spoke the tears came into her eyes; “I think
+it was because you just let me go in the rain and didn’t see that I’d
+get wet through. It doesn’t matter, but I’d like you to have seen it.”
+
+“You are stronger than I am. It is dangerous for me to get wet: I came
+out in the rain to meet you.”
+
+“And then, perhaps I oughtn’t to say it, but you took the money and
+didn’t offer me a shilling to keep for myself.”
+
+“I didn’t know you wanted it. You can’t expect me to go without anything
+in my pocket?”
+
+“No,” and she burst into tears; “it’s only sometimes I get
+dissatisfied,” she added apologetically.
+
+“You should have done it in the shed. You ought not to keep me here in
+the rain. You know that.”
+
+“No, I oughtn’t; you go on, dear”—there was sudden repentance in her
+voice. “Just kiss me and say you are fond of me again.” He leaned over
+her, and for a moment his eyes flashed, as he kissed her with a
+loathsome eagerness that left the woman’s heart more hungry than before.
+
+“I am fond of you,” he said; “you know I am fond of you—when I see you.
+But I can’t come to Liphook to be dunned for money.”
+
+“I always do the best I can to get things for you; and if I have plenty
+of work I’ll take care it’s more comfortable, if you’ll only come.
+There, go now, Alfred dear. I don’t want to keep you in the wet. It’s
+only that we have been married these four years, and, somehow, we never
+seem to have got any good of it yet.” She put her arms round his neck
+for a moment “I am awful fond of you,” she said, and turned away.
+
+Something in her voice touched him; or it might have been that he was
+fonder of her than he supposed, for as he went by the pathway that poor
+Aunt Anne had hurried along, bowed down with insult and despair, only
+twenty minutes before, there was a less sullen expression than usual on
+his face. He thought of the clinging hands and tearful eyes, and the
+undisguised love written on her face, with something like satisfaction.
+He would settle down with her, once he possessed the money. He liked the
+idea of it; it would be good to be waited upon by her, to go abroad with
+her perhaps, to buy comfort and luxury, and to feel her hanging about
+him. He lingered in thought over her caresses; he remembered Aunt Anne’s
+and shuddered. He had said truly enough that he could not bear the
+latter much longer; toleration had grown to endurance, endurance to
+dislike, and dislike to loathing. He was sensible of even being beneath
+the same roof with her; her voice irritated him, her touch produced a
+feeling that was almost fear. Every step he made now towards the house
+that contained her was reluctant and almost shrinking. He could just
+bear life with her if she gave him good food and comfort and money he
+could not obtain elsewhere; but unless she gave him these things, which
+he counted worth any price that could be paid, he felt it would be
+impossible to stay with her longer. Warmth and idleness and comfort were
+gods to him; but his loathing for the poor soul who had struggled for
+months to give them to him was developing into horror. He waited,
+doggedly, day after day for Sir William Rammage’s death. When that
+happened he would seize the money that would be hers and, without mercy,
+leave her to her fate; he and Caroline could easily keep out of her
+reach. If she would not give him the money he would make life impossible
+for her to bear. He had not the least intention of murdering her, but in
+imagination he often put his hands round her throat, and all his fingers
+felt her life growing still beneath them. He resented everything she
+did: her voice, her footstep, her tender, wrinkled face; he felt as if
+her winking left eye were driving him mad—as if there were poison in
+her breath. He considered her life an offence against him, except as a
+means of giving him money. When once she had done that, when she had
+given him the thousands for which he had married her, he wanted her for
+ever out of his sight, and underground; he gloated in imagination over
+the deepness of the grave into which he would have her put, and the
+silence and darkness that would surround her.
+
+He was at the bottom of the dip. He reflected, with triumph, that it was
+too late for any question of going to the station to meet the half-past
+six o’clock train. He thought of the rain that would fall upon her as
+she drove to the cottage. He wondered if she had left her cloak behind,
+and imagined the cold and pain she would suffer without it. He could see
+her in the open cart, bending her head and shoulders beneath the grey
+storm, carrying the bag that contained the dinner for him, and he
+imagined the bulging condition in which the bag would return. If she had
+not brought back all he considered necessary for his comfort, she would
+tremble to see him, and he would not spare her one single pang. He was
+among the firs and larches, within sight of the cottage windows. He
+hated to think that she was behind them—that almost immediately he
+would be in the same room with her, sitting opposite to her at table. He
+thought of himself as a martyr, and of her as a loathsome burden, a
+presence that had no right to be inflicted on him; one that he would be
+justified in using any means within his power to remove. His feeling for
+her had grown in intensity till it threatened to burst the bonds of
+reserve and silence in which he had wrapped himself. It was only with an
+effort that he could keep in all the lashing words that hatred could
+suggest. He went up the pathway, as slowly as she herself had done, and
+walked round the house under the verandah. Unknowingly, in putting the
+easy-chair back into its place, Aunt Anne had pushed aside a little bit
+of the dining-room curtain. He looked in and saw the table laid, the
+candles burning, and the bowl of primroses; they were a sign that she
+had returned, and had not returned empty-handed. He noticed that only
+one place was laid, and he wondered vaguely what it meant. He thought of
+Aunt Anne’s face, and a sickening feeling came over him. If it had only
+been a girl’s face to which he was going in, a young woman who would
+come to meet him, and put her arms round his neck, and call him
+endearing names, instead of the old woman, shrivelled and wrinkled, to
+whom in a moment or two he would have to submit himself? He went towards
+the front door, vaguely determining that he would make her miserable
+that night. He had a right to everything she could give, but she had no
+right to intrude herself upon his sight, and he would make her feel it.
+
+There was a click at the gate. Some one had entered the garden from the
+road. He stopped. A boy came up to him through the darkness.
+
+“Wimple? A telegram, sir. There is sixpence for porterage.” He felt in
+his pocket among the silver the woman had given him in the shed; he
+found a sixpence, and the boy departed. He opened the yellow envelope,
+and stood still for a moment, with the telegram in his hand. He guessed
+what it meant. He took a match from his pocket, struck a light, and,
+protecting it from the wind with his hat, read:
+
+               “Died at five o’clock from sudden attack.”
+
+He screwed it up into a ball and put it carefully into his pocket. His
+feeling for Aunt Anne changed in a moment: he felt that for this one
+evening, at any rate, he would endure her—he would even be civil—since
+it was through her that he was about to gain all he wanted. He looked up
+at the cottage before he entered it with the almost pleasant feeling
+with which a prisoner sometimes looks at his cell before he departs into
+freedom. Aunt Anne was sitting by the drawing-room fire; he lingered by
+the doorway.
+
+“You are home, then?” he said. There was something exalted in his voice,
+that at another time would have made her look up at him lovingly, as he
+expected to see her do now. But, instead, she answered coldly and
+without any words of greeting—
+
+“Yes, Alfred, I am home.”
+
+“What did you do in town?” She winked haughtily and did not speak. “What
+did you do?” he repeated.
+
+“I did a great deal, and learned many things of which I will tell you
+when you have finished your dinner. It is quite ready—you will be good
+enough to go to it, Alfred.”
+
+He looked at her searchingly, and felt a little uneasiness.
+
+“Are you coming?” he asked, seeing that she did not move.
+
+“No, I have dined; but I trust you will be satisfied with what I have
+provided for you,” she said coldly. Something in her manner forced him
+reluctantly to obey. He went into the dining-room; she shut the door
+that led into it and waited in the drawing-room. Jane came in after she
+had served the sole, and drew down the blinds and arranged the curtains
+and threw some wood on the fire.
+
+“There is only one candle left,” she said, “till the two in the
+dining-room are done with.”
+
+“It is quite sufficient; you can light it and put it on the table. As
+soon as you have finished waiting upon Mr. Wimple you will go upstairs
+and do what I have told you”—and she was left alone again. While she
+looked at the fire she could almost imagine Alfred Wimple eating his
+sole; she knew when it was finished; she listened while Jane entered and
+pushed his plate through the buttery-hatch; she heard the chicken
+arrive, and imagined Alfred Wimple solemnly carving it. Her heart beat
+faster as he went on towards the end of his feast; she was impatient for
+the crisis to begin. At last he rose from the table, opened the door,
+and stood looking at her curiously. She rose too and waited, facing him,
+on the rug.
+
+“Did you bring a paper from town, Anne?” he asked, without a word of
+gratitude for his dainty dinner.
+
+“Yes, I brought some papers; but you will not require them.” She
+hesitated a moment, and then went on firmly, “I wish you to know,
+Alfred, that you are about to leave this house never to enter it again.”
+
+“What do you mean?” he asked, and fastened his eyes on her with only a
+little more expression in them than usual.
+
+“I mean that I know everything.”
+
+“Have you seen my uncle?” he asked, betraying no surprise and not moving
+from the doorway.
+
+“He is in Scotland for a fortnight—but I know everything. I know that
+you have insulted and defamed me.” She spoke in a low voice and so
+calmly that he looked at her as if he thought she did not understand the
+meaning of her own words. “Till I met you,” she went on, “I bore an
+unsullied name and reputation.”
+
+“What have I done to your name and reputation?” he asked, and closed his
+lips as though he were almost stupefied with silence. But he went a step
+towards her, with a shrinking, defensive movement. She retreated towards
+the table on which the candle stood, a flickering witness of the scene
+between them—a scene full of shame and suffering and unconfessed fear
+for her, and of cruelty and loathing and bewilderment for him; but for
+both strangely destitute of fire and passion.
+
+“You have ruined both,” she said. “You have dared to make a pretence of
+marriage with me, though you were married already to an inferior person
+whom you had known at your lodgings.”
+
+“Who told you this?”
+
+“I shall not tell you my informant, but I know everything. You will
+retire from my presence this evening and never enter it again.”
+
+“It is not true,” he said shortly, and made another step towards her,
+and again she retreated.
+
+“It is true. To-morrow I shall go to Liphook and expose your infamous
+behaviour.”
+
+“If you dare,” he said, almost fiercely, and then, suddenly, he changed
+his note. “I was obliged to do it, Anne,” he added, as if he had
+suddenly seen that the game was up, and lying would serve him nothing.
+“But I was fond of you; I told you there were many difficulties the
+night I asked you to marry me.”
+
+“No, Alfred”—and for the first time her lips quivered—“you were not
+fond of me, even then. You were under the impression that you would get
+the money Sir William Rammage had left me in his will.”
+
+“What should I know about his will?”
+
+“You were aware of its contents. You went to him in regard to the
+instructions. I have heard everything from his own lips.” He was silent
+for a moment, and still there was no expression in his dull eyes.
+
+“Rammage could not tell you that I was married,” he said presently.
+“Where did you get that ridiculous story from?”
+
+“It is not a ridiculous story. You have married a common dressmaker, and
+you presumed after that to insult and impose on me.”
+
+“What are you going to do—what do you want me to do?” he asked, almost
+curiously.
+
+“I shall not treat you with the severity you deserve, but you will leave
+this house to-night and never enter it again.”
+
+“I should go to Liphook. You would not like that, Anne.”
+
+“Alfred,” she said indignantly, “I could not accept shame and
+degradation, even from a man I love. Besides, I have no longer any love
+for you. You will not dare to offer me that. Every moment that you stay
+in my presence is an insult. I must insist on your leaving this house at
+once.”
+
+“Where am I to go?” he asked, still curiously.
+
+“That is for your consideration. You and I are apart.”
+
+“I have no money,” he said, too much astonished, though he made no sign
+of it, to fight her fairly.
+
+“You have sufficient money for your present necessities, Alfred. You
+must not think that you can deceive me any longer. I know everything
+about you.”
+
+Suddenly an idea occurred to him, and he asked, in a manner that was
+almost a threat, though it had no effect upon her—
+
+“Have you been to Liphook?”
+
+“I shall not tell you where I have been, Alfred; I have discovered your
+baseness, and that is sufficient. I know that our marriage was a
+mockery, that you dared to offer me what you had already given to
+another woman. You will go back to her, and at once. You came to me
+solely for my money, and of that you will not have one penny piece.”
+
+Still he stood looking at her speechlessly, while with each word she
+said his loathing for her increased and his anger grew more difficult to
+control. His lips parted and showed his teeth, white and clenched
+together.
+
+“I will have the money yet; and you shall suffer,” he said.
+
+“You will not,” she answered, with a determined wink. “I have taken care
+of that.”
+
+“You have left it to me.”
+
+For a moment she was silent; then a light broke upon her, and she spoke
+quickly.
+
+“Alfred,” she said, “I know now why you put your name in my will without
+mentioning the relationship in which I supposed you stood to me, and why
+you did not put my name in yours, but only said that you left everything
+to your wife. You were deliberately insulting me, and deceiving me most
+cruelly even then, on the day I thought most sacred.”
+
+“I thought you were fond of me,” he said, as if he had not heard her
+last speech. For a moment she could not answer him. Only a few hours
+before, and the deceptions of which she had known him then to be guilty
+had but made him dearer to her. She had loved him with all her own
+strength, and supposed him to possess it. She had idealized him with her
+own goodness, till she had mistaken it for his. It had never occurred to
+her that any comfort she gathered in through him was but her own feeling
+returning to soothe her a little with its beauty. Now all the glamour
+had vanished, she loathed and shrank from him, just as he had done from
+her. It was like a death agony.
+
+“I was fond of you,” she said. “I loved you more than all the world, and
+I would have given you my life, I would have worked for your daily
+bread. I wanted nothing in the world but you, Alfred; but I am
+undeceived. You must go; you must leave me, and at once. I have desired
+Jane to pack your things——”
+
+“I shall stay,” he said, in a tone that made her look up quickly. “I do
+not mean to go until I have the money that old Rammage has left you.”
+
+“You will not have one penny piece of it,” she answered.
+
+“I will,” he said, with a quiet, determined look she knew well in his
+dull eyes. “He has left it to you, and you have left it to me. I mean to
+have it.”
+
+“It is no use trying to intimidate me, Alfred,” she said; “it is too
+late. To-morrow I shall make another disposition of my property.”
+
+“No, you will not,” he said; “for I shall not let you out of my sight
+till you are dead, and you will be dead soon.”
+
+“You will gain nothing by that, Alfred. William Rammage also will make
+another disposition of his property to-morrow, for I told him of our
+marriage.”
+
+“No, he will not, Anne” and he looked at her with awful triumph—“for he
+is dead already.”
+
+“Dead already? You are trying to hoodwink me, Alfred; and if it is true
+it will not alter my intention or prevent me from carrying it out,” she
+answered, determined not to let him know that her promised wealth had
+vanished. There was a sound of footsteps, and then the back door closed.
+Aunt Anne quaked when she heard it, for she knew that Jane had gone home
+without coming to say the usual good-night. He heard it, too, and his
+tone altered in a moment.
+
+“You will have no chance of altering your intention, Anne,” he said, and
+went another step towards her.
+
+“Why?” she asked, with a fearless wink.
+
+“Because you shall not live to do it”—and he went still a little
+nearer; but she did not quail for a moment. “Do you hear?” and he showed
+his teeth while he spoke, “you shall not live to do it.”
+
+“And you think when I am dead that you will go and spend my money with
+the woman at Liphook?”
+
+“Yes,” he said; “I like her, and I loathe you.” He drew the word out as
+if he gloated over the sound of it, and an awful look came into his eyes
+again.
+
+“Heaven has frustrated your design,” she said. “Alfred, if you kill me
+you will gain nothing by it, and the law will punish you. William
+Rammage has burnt his will. He burnt it to-day before my eyes, when he
+heard that I had disgraced my family and my name by a marriage with
+you.”
+
+“Burnt it!” He clenched his hands, and struggled to control himself.
+“Then I shall go; I shall go—when it suits me. I only wanted your
+money. A young man does not marry an old woman for anything but money,
+Anne. You are loathsome—loathsome and unwholesome,” he repeated,
+watching the effect of every word upon her—“and I have loathed being
+with you. I shall go to the other woman. She is my wife; I like her—she
+is young, not old and loathsome like you. I only married you for the
+sake of your money.” Aunt Anne never moved an inch; she only watched him
+steadily, as slowly he brought out his sentences, pausing between each
+one. “You have kept me from her all these months,” he went on,
+concentrating himself on every word he said; “and now you have taken
+from me the money I deserved for being with you—for being with a
+wrinkled, withered old woman.”
+
+She did not move or speak. For a moment he showed his teeth again, then
+slowly lifted his hands.
+
+“Anne,” he said, with a fiendish look in his eyes, but with the calm
+gravity of a just avenger, “I am going to strangle you”—and he went
+nearer and bent over her. He had no intention of carrying out his
+threat, it was a luxury he dared not afford himself, but he wanted to
+torture and frighten her till she quailed before him. For only one
+moment was his desire satisfied.
+
+“If you dare to touch me——” she said, and a shriek burst from her.
+There was the sound of a door opening and of footsteps entering.
+
+“Jane!” shouted Aunt Anne, “Jane!”
+
+Jane opened the door and looked in.
+
+“If you please, ma’am, I heard Mr. Knox, the policeman, go by, and you
+said you wanted him.”
+
+Alfred Wimple stared at her in astonishment, and his face blanched. Aunt
+Anne recovered her self-possession in a moment, though she trembled from
+head to foot.
+
+“If you will ask him to stay in the kitchen, I will speak to him,” she
+said. Then she turned to Alfred Wimple again.
+
+“You will only get yourself laughed at,” he said.
+
+She was silent a moment; she saw what was in his thoughts and took
+advantage of it.
+
+“You do not deserve my clemency,” she said, “but I will extend it to
+you, provided you go from the house this minute. If you do not I shall
+take measures to punish you.”
+
+He was trembling, and could not speak.
+
+She opened the door. “Jane,” she called, “get Mr. Wimple’s portmanteau;
+have you put everything into it?”
+
+“Everything but the slippers. It’s raining, ma’am,” Jane added, not in
+the least understanding what was going on. But Aunt Anne had shut the
+door, and turned to Alfred Wimple again.
+
+“Now you will go,” she said.
+
+“I cannot go in the rain,” he answered, and made a sound in his throat;
+“you know how bad my cough is. You cannot turn me out in this weather. I
+was angry just now; but I did not mean it. I was only trying to frighten
+you.”
+
+“You will go immediately,” she said; “you shall not remain another hour
+under my roof.”
+
+“It will kill me to go in this rain,” he said doggedly.
+
+“You would have killed me when you thought you would get William
+Rammage’s money by it; and just now you threatened me, Alfred. You are
+not fit to remain another hour in the same house with the woman you have
+wronged, and you shall not. Your coat is in the hall, ready for
+you”—and she went towards the door. “You will go this very moment, and
+you will never venture to come near me again.”
+
+“I have been coughing all day,” he almost pleaded, utterly confounded by
+the turn things had taken.
+
+“I brought you some lozenges from London, before I knew all your
+baseness”—and she fumbled in her pocket. “Here they are, and you can
+take them with you.” She put them down before him on the table, and went
+slowly out to the kitchen. “Officer,” she said, “I will not detain you
+about the wood this evening. I want you to walk with Mr. Wimple as far
+as Steggall’s, and see him into a waggonette; and there,” she added, in
+a low voice, “is a half-crown to recompense you for your trouble.”
+
+“It’s very wet, ma’am; is the gentleman obliged to go to-night?”
+
+“Yes”—and, winking sternly, she opened the street door wide. “Yes, he
+is obliged to go to-night.” With a puzzled air Jane picked up the
+portmanteau. Alfred Wimple took it from her with sulky reluctance. For a
+moment they all stood looking out at the blackness of the fir-trees and
+listened to the falling rain. Aunt Anne turned to the little hat-stand
+in the hall. “Here is an umbrella, Alfred,” she said, “and you have your
+lozenges. Good-night, officer”—and she did not say another word. Alfred
+Wimple gave her a long look of cowed and baffled hatred, as he went out,
+followed by the policeman. She shut the door, double-locked it, and drew
+the bolts at the top and bottom—it was the last sound that Wimple heard
+as he left the cottage.
+
+For a moment she stood still, listening to his footsteps; she waited to
+hear the click of the gate as it shut behind them. Then, with a strange,
+dazed manner, as if she were not quite sure that she was awake, she went
+back to the drawing-room.
+
+“If you please, ma’am,” asked the servant, “isn’t Mr. Wimple coming back
+to-night?—for you won’t like being left alone, and I don’t know what to
+do about mother.”
+
+“You can go to her,” Aunt Anne answered. A desperate longing to be alone
+was upon her; she wanted to think quietly, and it seemed impossible to
+do so while any one remained beneath the same roof with her. She was
+impatient for a spell of loneliness before she died. She felt that she
+was going to die, that she had heard her death-sentence in the shed
+beyond the valley. There was no gainsaying it—shame and agony were
+going to kill her. But first she wanted to be alone, to realize all that
+had happened, and how it had come about. She remembered suddenly, but
+only for a moment, that Alfred had stated that Sir William Rammage was
+dead. It was untrue, of course—Alfred could not have known. Besides,
+William Rammage’s life or death concerned her no longer; in his money
+she took no further interest. She only wanted to be alone and to think.
+“You can go to your mother, Jane,” she repeated; “I wish to be left
+alone; I have a predilection for solitude.”
+
+“Yes, ma’am,” the girl answered hesitatingly—“and you said I was to
+remind you about the wages; I wouldn’t, only mother’s bad.”
+
+“I will pay them.” She opened her purse and counted out the few silver
+coins left in it. “I must remain a sixpence in your debt; this is all
+the change I have for the moment.” She put her empty purse down on the
+table, and knew that she had not a penny left in the world. For a moment
+she was silent; she looked puzzled, as if she were doing a mental sum.
+Then she looked up. “Jane,” she said, “you can take the remains of the
+chicken and the sole to your mother, and anything else that was left
+from dinner. I shall not require it.” She dreaded seeing the things that
+Alfred Wimple had touched. She felt that, even down to the smallest
+detail, she must rid herself of all that had had to do with her life of
+shame and disgrace, and there was not much time left her in which to do
+it. She must begin at once: when she had made her life clean and
+spotless again she would look up and meet death unabashed.
+
+“I am ready, ma’am,” Jane said presently, and looked in, with her basket
+on her arm. Aunt Anne got up and followed her to the back door, in order
+to see that it was made fast. She shook with fear when she beheld the
+night. Under that sky and through the darkness Alfred Wimple was making
+his way to Liphook. The very air seemed to have pollution in it. She
+retreated thankfully to the covering of the cottage; but the stillness
+appalled her, once she was wholly alone in it. She stood in the hall for
+a moment and listened: there was not a sound. She waited for a moment at
+the foot of the stairs and remembered Alfred’s room above, from which
+every trace of him had been removed, but she had not courage to mount
+the stairs. She went back into the little drawing-room and shut the
+door, and taking up her empty purse from beside the candlestick put it
+into her pocket. As in the morning, her hand touched something that
+should not be there; but she knew what it was this time, and pulled it
+out quickly. It was the blue tie that she had kissed in the train. With
+almost a cry of horror, as if it were a deadly snake, she threw it on
+the fire and held it down with the poker, as William Rammage had held
+down his burning will. As she did so her eyes caught the wedding-ring on
+her left hand; in a moment she had pulled it off her trembling finger
+and put it in the fire too. The flame blazed and smouldered and died
+away, and her excitement with it. But she had not strength to rise from
+the floor on which she had been kneeling; she pulled the cushion down
+from the back of the easy-chair, and sank, a miserable heap, upon the
+rug.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+During the days that followed she was shut up in the cottage alone; and
+no one entered save Jane Mitchell, who came in the morning to light the
+fire while the remnant of coal lasted, and then was sent away.
+
+“I shall not require you any more,” she said to Lucas, when he came to
+ask if she wanted the pony. She was covered with shame, and could never
+drive along the roads again.
+
+“No, I do not need any provisions,” she said to Jane Mitchell, who
+offered to do some shopping for her; “I have sufficient in the house,
+and I will not trouble you to come again, Jane, until this day
+week”—and, having securely fastened the outer doors, she went to the
+drawing-room.
+
+“I shall be dead by then,” she thought, “and Jane will find me.”
+
+She was terribly ill, but she did not know it. The cold and the damp of
+that long day in London and afterwards had laid hold on her. She
+coughed, and knew that swift pains went through her, and a load was on
+her chest, but she had no time to notice these things. She had had no
+food for days. Save a little milk in a cup, and some bread, there was
+nothing left when Jane Mitchell took her departure. She was being slowly
+starved; she knew it, and did not care. The awful shame, the misery, the
+agony, that had overtaken her, stifled all other feelings, and were
+killing her; she knew that, too, and waited for death. Everything had
+gone out of her life; there was nothing to come into it more. She had
+been proud of her memories, her unsullied past, her own
+spotlessness—“Now it is all gone,” she said to herself. Every memory
+was a reproach or was hideous. She sat on one of the chairs before the
+drawing-room fireplace, and thought and thought and thought, till she
+could bear it no longer. It seemed as if pain were stamping the life out
+of her, as if she must be dying; she could feel that she was dying; but
+life remained by a little, and grew keen, and tortured her again. The
+key was turned in the lock of Alfred Wimple’s room, but his touch was on
+everything in the house; and a shrinking from it was her strongest
+feeling concerning him. Even the sight of a cup from which he had drunk
+made her shudder more than the bitter cold. “The place is contaminated,”
+she said to herself; “it is poisoned.” Sometimes for a few minutes a
+little tenderness would try to push its way into her heart again, but
+she shrank from that most of all, and with horror and loathing of
+herself. She was bowed down with disgrace. She felt as if by even living
+she was committing an offence against the whole world. There was no one
+she was fit to see; she had no right of any sort left, no business to be
+in the light; and there was no place in which she could hide. The nights
+were worst of all, they were so long and still; and when she had used
+the two candles left in the dining-room she had no means of shortening
+them even by an hour. Then, quaking, she lay on the hard sofa in the
+drawing-room, while the darkness gathered round, and the cold fastened
+its sharpest fangs into her. In those long hours she suffered not only
+her own reproaches, but the reproaches of the dead—of the dear ones she
+had loved in bygone years. From every corner they seemed to
+come—through the closed door and in at the curtained windows; troops of
+them—till she could bear it no longer, and dared not see the darkness
+that seemed to be growing white with their faces. But when she closed
+her eyes it was no better: they came a little closer and touched her
+with their hands, as if they would push her a little farther into space;
+she was not fit to be among them. The friends of her girlhood, with whom
+she had played and shared her little secrets, came from the strange
+world into which they had carried the memory of their own blameless
+lives. They looked at her reproachfully, and went away; she would never
+be one of them now, even in eternity. And there was one more; she could
+see him coming softly through the shadows. He stood beside her, and she
+cowered and hid her face. Then she knew that he was sorry and understood
+that, in some grotesque manner, it had been done half for love of him.
+It comforted her a little to think this, while she turned her face down
+to the cushion, and sobbed, “Forgive me, I am so ashamed—so ashamed.”
+At last, perhaps, she would ache with fever and cold, and the sharp
+pains went through her again. She welcomed these almost lovingly,
+thinking that perhaps they meant the coming of the end; and gradually,
+as the morning broke, she would doze off into a weary sleep.
+
+Sometimes a ghastly fear would seize her that Alfred Wimple was coming
+back. She could hear his footsteps going round the house; she fancied he
+was creeping beneath the verandah, that he was trying the window. He
+wanted to come in and strangle her. She could feel his long hands
+closing round her throat, and put up her own to draw them, finger by
+finger, away. It was not the killing she would mind, but the pollution
+of his touch.
+
+Through the day she wandered from room to room—now looking at the table
+at which he had sat the last night of all; or seeing him, with his back
+to the buttery-hatch, eating the sole and the chicken she had brought
+from London; or standing in the doorway, when he came afterwards and
+asked her for the evening paper. She went to the window and looked at
+the garden, and the pathway down to the dip; but this was more than she
+could bear, and she would turn away and sit down by the empty fireplace
+again. She grew hungry once; a terrible craving for food came over her.
+She gathered some sticks together, and made a fire, all the time seeing
+strange visions and grinning fiends that mocked her. She took them to be
+the punishment of her sin—for sin she counted all that she had
+done—but in reality they were but signs of the illness and starvation
+that were contending for the mastery of her. She put a little water on
+to boil over the blazing sticks, and watched it greedily. She made some
+tea, with trembling eagerness, and found a new excitement in the
+strength it gave her; but when the fire had died away, and an hour had
+passed, she was prostrate again. Gradually she became so ill that she
+could scarcely drag herself from the drawing-room to the kitchen; the
+sense of being unfit to stay in the world grew upon her—a dread of
+seeing people, a haunting fear of some one coming to the door. But no
+one came through all those terrible days except, once or twice, Jane
+Mitchell, only to be told that “her services were not required.”
+
+She thought of Walter and Florence sometimes, and was afraid of their
+coming back. She could never look them in the face again, or dare to
+speak to them, or see the children. Just as before she had exaggerated
+her own importance in the world and her own virtue, now she exaggerated
+her own disgrace. She knew what the women she had once despised felt
+like—“I was never lenient,” she said to herself. “I was very harsh, as
+if they had gone out of their way to do wrong. I ought to have shown
+them more clemency”—and as she said this, there came before her the
+face of Mrs. North. She sat and looked at it. “She was young, and there
+was excuse for her; and I am old, yet could not forgive her. I will make
+atonement now. I will write and tell her.” Her fingers were so weak she
+could hardly hold the pen, but she managed to put down a little entreaty
+for forgiveness. “I ought to have been more gentle to you,” she wrote.
+“I know that now, for I have been as frail”—she stopped and gave a sad
+little wink at the word—“as you. I know what your sufferings have been
+by my own, and can pity your humiliation.” The letter remained on the
+table—she almost forgot it; fever and blackness filled her life—she
+could scarcely walk across the room.
+
+The morning brought the postman, with a letter from Walter and Florence.
+“Would you put a postage-stamp on this for me?” she said, giving him the
+one for Mrs. North. “I will repay you the next time you come; I have no
+change for the moment.”
+
+She put the letter with the Monte Carlo postmark on the mantelpiece, and
+stood looking at the familiar handwriting, and imagining them together
+beneath the blue sky, Walter in high spirits, and Florence with her
+pretty hair plaited round her head. “Dear children,” she said. “He is
+growing more and more like his father.” She closed her eyes for a
+moment; her limbs swayed and gave way beneath her; and she fell from
+sheer weakness, and could make no effort to rise. Presently she pulled
+the cushion down, and lay on the rug again as she had on the night of
+Alfred Wimple’s departure. She did not know how the day passed—probably
+most of it went in forgetfulness. The next afternoon came, and she had
+not noticed the hours.
+
+The click of the gate, and footsteps coming towards the house—Aunt Anne
+struggled up, panting, and listened—a quick knock at the door. She
+hesitated, raised herself to her feet by the armchair, and went out, but
+could not gather courage to undo the lock.
+
+“Who is it?” she asked.
+
+“Let me in,” cried a voice that was familiar enough, though she could
+not identify it. She bowed her head—she was about to be looked at in
+all her humiliation—and, with trembling hands, opened the door.
+
+Mrs. North walked in, with a happy laugh. She was perfectly dressed, as
+usual, and carried a white basket.
+
+“My dear old lady,” she said, “what is the matter? Your letter
+frightened me out of my senses. I came off the moment it arrived. You
+poor old darling, what is the matter? Why, you can’t stand—I must carry
+you.” She supported the old lady back into the drawing-room—cheerless
+and cold enough it looked; that was the first impression Mrs. North had
+of it—and sat down beside her on the sofa.
+
+“My love,” the old lady said, “I wrote to ask your forgiveness; it was
+due to you that I should, for I am worse than you. If I was harsh to you
+once, you may be harsh to me now.”
+
+Mrs. North pressed her hand.
+
+“But you are ill, dear Mrs. Wimple,” she said.
+
+Aunt Anne looked up, with a start of horror.
+
+“I must ask you never to call me by that name again; it is not mine. It
+is the symbol of my disgrace. It is my greatest punishment to remember
+that I ever for a single moment bore it.” And then she broke down, and,
+dropping her head on Mrs. North’s shoulder, sobbed as if her heart would
+break.
+
+“You dear—you poor old dear,” Mrs. North said, stroking the scanty gray
+hair; “I can’t bear to see you cry—you mustn’t do it; you are ill. Who
+is here with you?”
+
+“There is no one here. I am not fit to have any one with me. I am all
+alone.”
+
+“All alone!”
+
+“Yes”—and she shook her head.
+
+“Then I shall stay and take care of you, and nurse you, and make you
+quite well again. You know I always cared for you, dear old lady”—and
+Mrs. North kissed her tenderly.
+
+“And I treated you with so much severity,” Aunt Anne said ruefully.
+
+“It was very good for me. And now,” Mrs. North said, in her sweet,
+coaxing voice, “put your feet up on the sofa; you are trembling and
+shaking with cold. Why, you have no fire; let us go into another room
+where there is one.”
+
+“There is no fire in the house,” Aunt Anne answered. “The weather is
+very mild; moreover, the coal-cellar needs replenishing. I have not been
+sufficiently well to do it.”
+
+“No fire!—and you evidently suffering from bronchitis. Oh, you do
+indeed need to be looked after. Have you no servant here?” Mrs. North
+was rapidly taking in the whole situation.
+
+“No, my dear. I wished to be alone.”
+
+“But this is terrible. We must set everything to rights. You appear to
+be killing yourself. I don’t believe you have anything to eat and drink
+in the house.”
+
+“No. I have been too ill to require nourishment; I regret that I cannot
+ask you to stay——”
+
+“Oh, but I am going to stay——”
+
+“No, my love, I cannot allow it——” Aunt Anne began tremblingly.
+
+Mrs. North looked at her, almost in despair. Then she took off her hat
+and gloves, and stood for a moment, a lovely picture in the middle of
+the dreary room, before she knelt down by Aunt Anne.
+
+“Let me stay with you,” she pleaded, taking the two thin hands in hers;
+“you were always so good to me. I know that something terrible has
+happened to you; you shall tell me what it is by-and-by, when you are
+better. Now I want to take care of you; and you will let me, won’t you?”
+
+“You shall do anything you like, my dear,” Aunt Anne gasped, too weak to
+offer resistance.
+
+Then Mrs. North went out to the fly, which was still waiting at the
+gate, and found Jane Mitchell, who, attracted by the unusual sight, was
+talking to the driver.
+
+“I want some coals sent at once, and a servant.”
+
+“I was the servant, if you please, ma’am; only Mrs. Wimple said she
+didn’t want me,” remarked Jane.
+
+“Then go in immediately and make a fire,” answered Mrs. North,
+imperiously; “and if there are no coals get some, from a shop or your
+mother’s cottage or anywhere else. There must be shops in the village.
+Order tea and sugar, and everything else you can think of. I will send
+to London for my maid and cook, to come and help you. Make haste and
+light a fire in the drawing-room. Where is my shawl? Here, driver, take
+this telegram; and order these things from the village, and say they are
+wanted instantly”—she had written the list on the leaf of a note-book;
+“and this is for your trouble,” she added.
+
+“Now, you dear old lady,” she said, going back to her, “let me put this
+shawl over your feet first, for we must make you warm. Consider that I
+have adopted you.” In a moment she ran upstairs, and searched for a soft
+pillow to put under Aunt Anne’s head, and then produced some grapes and
+jelly from the basket which, with a certain foresight, she had brought
+with her. Aunt Anne sucked in a little of the jelly almost eagerly, and
+as she did so Mrs. North realized that she had only just come in time.
+“We must send for a doctor,” she thought; “but I am afraid that
+everything is too late.”
+
+In twenty-four hours the cottage looked like another place. Mrs. North’s
+cook had taken possession of the kitchen; a comfortable-looking,
+middle-aged maid went up and down the stairs; the windows were open,
+though there were fires burning in all the grates. There were good
+things in the larder, and an atmosphere of home was everywhere. Aunt
+Anne was bewildered, but Mrs. North looked quite happy.
+
+“I have taken possession of you,” she explained, the second morning
+after she came. “You ought to have sent for me sooner. In fact, you
+ought never to have left me. You only got into mischief, and so did I.”
+
+“Yes, my dear,” said Aunt Anne, feebly, “we both did.”
+
+Mrs. North’s lips quivered for a moment.
+
+“It shows that we ought to have stayed together,” she said, half crying.
+“Perhaps I should have been better if you had not gone. Oh, I shall
+never forget all you told me this morning.”
+
+For Aunt Anne, in sheer desperation, as well as in penitent love and
+gratitude, had poured out the whole history of her life since she left
+Cornwall Gardens, and Mrs. North’s keen perception and quick sympathy
+had filled in any outlines that had been left a little vague.
+
+“We know each other so well now, I don’t think I ought to call you Mrs.
+Baines any longer. I want to call you something else.”
+
+“Let it be anything you like, my dear.”
+
+“What does the Madon—Mrs. Hibbert, call you? But I know; she calls you
+‘Aunt Anne.’ Let me do the same?”
+
+“Yes, dear, you shall call me Aunt Anne.”
+
+“Oh, I am so glad to be with you,” Mrs. North went on. “I have longed
+sometimes to put down my head on your lap and cry. I have been just as
+miserable as you have—more, a thousand times more; for my shame”—she
+liked indulging Aunt Anne in her estimate of her own conduct—“has been
+all my own wicked doing, but yours was only a sad mistake. I don’t think
+we ought to be separated any more, Aunt Anne; we ought to live together,
+and take care of each other.”
+
+“My dear,” said the old lady, still lying on the sofa, “there will be no
+living for me; I am going to die.”
+
+“Oh no,” Mrs. North answered, with a little gasp, “you are going to live
+and be taken care of, and loved properly. I wish the doctor would come
+again. Then I should speak on medical authority. Go to sleep a little
+while; I will sit by you.”
+
+An hour passed. Aunt Anne opened her eyes.
+
+“Could you put me by the fire, my dear? I am very cold.”
+
+“Yes, of course I can; but wait a moment. Clarke will come and help me.
+Clarke,” she called, “I want you to come and help me to move Mrs.
+Baines.
+
+“Now you look more comfortable,” she said, when it was done. “There is a
+footstool for your feet, and the peacock beside you to keep you
+company.”
+
+Aunt Anne sat still for a moment, looking at the fire.
+
+“My dear,” she said presently, “I have been thinking of what you said;
+we have both suffered very much; we ought to be together. Only now you
+have the hope of a new life before you. But we have both suffered,” she
+repeated.
+
+Mrs. North knelt down beside her with a long sigh. “Suffered,” she said.
+“Oh, dear old lady, if you only knew what I have suffered; the
+loneliness of my girlhood, the misery of my marriage, the perpetual
+hunger for happiness, the struggle to get it. And oh! the longing to be
+loved, and the madness when love came, and then—then—but you know,”
+she whispered, passionately—“I need not go over it; the shame, and the
+publicity, and the relief I dared not to acknowledge even to myself,
+when I was set free. And then the awful dread that even he, the man for
+whom I did it all, would perhaps despise me as the rest of the world
+did. I am not wicked naturally, I am not, indeed; I don’t think any
+woman on this green earth has loved beautiful things and longed to do
+righteous things, more than I have, or felt the misery of failure more
+bitterly.”
+
+“It will come right now, my love,” Aunt Anne said gently. “You are
+young; it will all come right. You said you had a telegram, and that he
+was coming back?”
+
+“Yes, he is coming back,” Mrs. North answered, in a low voice; “but I do
+not want him to set it right because I did the wrong for him, or just to
+make reparation from a sense of honour. I do not want to spoil his life;
+for some people will cut him if he marries me; it is only—only—if he
+loves me still, and more than all the world, as I do him—that is the
+only chance of it all coming right. It is time I had a letter. But here
+is your beef-tea. Let us try and forget all our troubles, and get a
+little peace together.” She looked up with an April-day smile, took the
+beef-tea from Clarke, and, holding it before Aunt Anne, watched with
+satisfaction every mouthful she took.
+
+“I fear I give you a great deal of trouble,” the old lady said
+gratefully.
+
+“It isn’t trouble”—and the tears came to her eyes; “it is blessedness.
+I never had any one before to serve and wait on whom I loved; even my
+hands are sensible of the happiness of everything they do for you. It is
+new life. But now we have talked too much, and you must go to sleep.”
+
+“Yes, my love,” and Aunt Anne put her head back on the pillow; “I will
+do as you desire, but you are very autocratic.”
+
+“Of course.” Mrs. North laughed at hearing the familiar word, and then
+went to the dining-room for a little spell of quietness.
+
+“Clarke,” she said to the maid who had been waiting there, “go in and
+watch by Mrs. Baines; she must not be left alone.”
+
+Mrs. North sat down on the chair that Aunt Anne had pulled out for
+Alfred Wimple after her return from London.
+
+“Oh, I wonder if it will come right?” she said to herself. “If it
+does—if it does—if it does! But I ought to have had a letter by this
+time; it is long enough since the telegram from Bombay. Something tells
+me that it will come right; I think that is the meaning of the happiness
+that has forced itself upon me lately. It is no use trying to be
+miserable any longer. Happiness seems to be coming near and nearer. I
+have a sense of forgiveness in my heart; surely I know what it means?
+Perhaps, as Aunt Anne says, all I have suffered has been an atonement
+for the wrong. One little letter, and I shall be content. The dear old
+lady shall never go away from me; she shall just be made as happy as
+possible.” She got up and went to the window, and leaned out towards the
+garden. “Those trees at the end,” she said to herself, “surely must hide
+the way down to the dip, where she listened. It is very lovely
+to-day”—and she looked up at the sky; “but I wish the doctor would
+come, I should feel more satisfied.” There was a footstep. “Yes, Clarke;
+is anything the matter? Why have you come? You look quite pale.”
+
+“Mrs. Baines is going to die, ma’am; I am certain of it.”
+
+“Going to die?” Mrs. North’s face turned white, and she went towards the
+door.
+
+“I don’t mean this minute, ma’am; but just now she opened her eyes and
+looked round as if she didn’t see, and then she picked at her dress as
+dying people do at the sheet—it’s a sure sign. Besides, she is black
+round the mouth. I don’t believe she will live three days.”
+
+Mrs. North clasped her hands, with fear.
+
+“I wish she would stay in bed; the doctor said she ought to do so
+yesterday; but she seemed better, and begged so hard to come down this
+morning that I gave way.”
+
+“It’s another sign,” said the maid; “they always want to get up towards
+the last.”
+
+“The doctor promised he would be here by twelve, and now it is nearly
+two.”
+
+He came an hour later. “She must be taken upstairs at once,” he said; so
+they carried her up, Clarke and the doctor between them, while Mrs.
+North followed anxiously; and all of them knew that Aunt Anne would
+never walk down the stairs again.
+
+Then a telegram was sent to Florence and Walter at Monte Carlo.
+
+But she was a little better in the evening, and Mrs. North brightened up
+as she saw it. Perhaps Clarke was a foolish croaker, and signs were
+foolish things to trouble one’s self about. The old lady might live,
+after all, and there would be some happiness yet.
+
+“No, Aunt Anne, you are not going to get up yet,” she said next morning,
+in answer to an inquiring look; “you must wait until the doctor has
+been; remember it is my turn to be autocratic.”
+
+“Yes, my love,” and she dozed off. Half her time was spent in sleep.
+Since Mrs. North’s arrival there had stolen over her a gradual
+contentment, as if a crisis had occurred, and the blackness of the past
+grown dim. Perhaps it was giving place to all that was in her heart, or
+to the sound of Mrs. North’s fresh young voice, and the loving touch of
+her hand. Be it what it might, Alfred Wimple and the misery that he had
+caused seemed to have gone farther and farther away, while peacefulness
+was stealing over her. “It is like being with my dear Florence and
+Walter,” she said to Mrs. North once—“only perhaps you understand even
+better than they could, for you have gone through the pain.”
+
+“Yes, dear Aunt Anne, I have gone through the pain”—and Mrs. North sat
+waiting for the doctor again, not that she was very uneasy to-day, for
+the old lady was a little better, and hope grows up quickly when youth
+passes by.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER X.
+
+
+The sound of the door-bell, and of some one being shown into the
+drawing-room.
+
+“The doctor has come, Aunt Anne,” Mrs. North said. “I will invigorate
+myself with a talk before I bring him to you, and tell him that you are
+much better.” But instead of the doctor she found a little,
+dried-up-looking old gentleman standing in the middle of the room,
+holding his hat and umbrella in one hand. She looked at him inquiringly.
+
+“I understood that Mrs. Baines was here,” he said. Mrs. North looked up,
+with expectation. “I have come from London expressly to see her on
+important business. I was solicitor to the late Sir William Rammage,” he
+added. Mrs. North’s spirits revived. This looked like a new and exciting
+phase of the story.
+
+“Are you Mr. Boughton?”
+
+“I am Mr. Boughton,” and he made her a formal little bow. “I see you
+understand——”
+
+“Oh yes,” she said eagerly; “and the ex-Lord Mayor was the old lady’s
+cousin. I regret to say that she is very ill in bed, and cannot possibly
+see you, but I should be happy to deliver any message.” Mr. Boughton
+looked at her, with benevolent criticism, and thought her a most
+beautiful young woman. She meanwhile grasped the whole situation to her
+own satisfaction. That horrid Lord Mayor, as she mentally called Sir
+William, had probably told his solicitor all about Alfred Wimple; and
+the little dried-up gentleman before her, who was (as she had instantly
+remembered) the uncle, had come to see how the land lay. Mrs. North felt
+as convinced as Sir William had done that the whole affair was a
+conspiracy between the uncle and nephew, and she promptly determined to
+make Mr. Boughton as uncomfortable as possible.
+
+“I quite understand the business on which you have come to see Mrs.
+Baines,” she said, with decision, but with a twinkle of mischief she
+could not help in her eyes. “You have heard, of course, that the conduct
+of your delightful nephew, Mr. Alfred Wimple, is entirely found out.”
+
+“God bless my soul!” said Mr. Boughton, astonished out of his senses.
+“What has he to do with Mrs. Baines?”
+
+“You perhaps approved of his romantic marriage?” Mrs. North inquired
+politely. She was enjoying herself enormously.
+
+“His romantic marriage!” exclaimed the lawyer. “I know nothing about it.
+My dear madam, what do you mean? Is that scoundrel married?”
+
+“Most certainly he is married,” Mrs. North went on; “and, as far as I
+can gather particulars from Mrs. Baines, your charming niece is a
+dressmaker at Liphook.”
+
+“At Liphook!” exclaimed Mr. Boughton, more and more astonished;
+“why—why——”
+
+“Where she lives with her grandmother,” continued Mrs. North, in the
+most amiable voice. “Her mother, I understand, lets lodgings in the
+Gray’s Inn Road, and it was Mr. Wimple’s kind intention to pay the
+amount he owes her out of Mrs. Baines’s fortune.”
+
+“Good gracious!—that was the woman who came to me the other day. I
+never heard of such a thing in my life. How did he get hold of Mrs.
+Baines?” There was something so genuine in his bewilderment that Mrs.
+North began to believe in his honesty, but she was determined not to be
+taken in too easily.
+
+“The details are most exciting, and will be exceedingly edifying in a
+court of justice. Now may I inquire why you so particularly wish to see
+the old lady?”
+
+“I came to see her about the late Sir William Rammage,” Mr. Boughton
+said, finding it difficult to collect his scattered wits after Mrs.
+North’s information.
+
+“Is he really dead, then?” she asked politely.
+
+“Most certainly; he died on the fifth, and Mrs. Baines——”
+
+“She is much too ill to see anybody; and as I understand he burnt his
+will, and has not left her any money, it is hardly worth while to worry
+her with particulars of his unlamented death.”
+
+“Burnt his will? Yes, for some extraordinary reason he did—so Charles,
+the man-servant, tells me—he did it in her presence. He had no time to
+make another, for the agitation caused by her visit killed him.”
+
+“Or perhaps it was the mercy of Providence,” remarked Mrs. North.
+
+Mr. Boughton did not heed the remark, but asked—
+
+“May I inquire if you are in Mrs. Baines’s confidence?”
+
+“Entirely,” she answered decisively.
+
+“Then I may tell you that no former will has been found, and she is
+next-of-kin. There are no other relations at all, I believe, and she
+will therefore inherit about three times as much as if the burnt will
+had remained in existence.”
+
+“Really!”—and Mrs. North clapped her hands for joy. And then the tears
+came into her eyes. “Oh, but it is too late, for she is dying; nothing
+can save her; she is dying. I have telegraphed to her nephew and niece
+to come back from Monte Carlo. She has had a terrible shock, from which
+she will never recover; and besides that she has virtually starved
+herself and taken a hundred colds. She has not the strength of a fly
+left. I know she is dying,” Mrs. North added, with almost a sob.
+
+“Don’t you think that the good news I bring might save her life?”
+
+“No; and I am not sure that it would be good to save her life, she has
+suffered so cruelly. What a wicked old man Sir William Rammage was!” she
+burst out, and looked up sympathetically at Mr. Boughton.
+
+“He was my client,” the lawyer urged.
+
+“He allowed the poor old lady to starve for want of money, and now that
+he is dead and she is dying it comes to her.”
+
+“Yes, it is very unfortunate—very unfortunate.”
+
+“Everything seems to be a point of view,” Mrs. North went on, in the
+eager manner which so often characterized her. “Poverty is the point of
+view from which we look at the riches we cannot get; from vice we look
+at virtue which we cannot attain; from hell we look at the heaven we
+cannot reach. Perhaps Sir William Rammage would appreciate the latter
+part of the remark now”—she said the last words between laughter and
+tears.
+
+“My dear madam,” Mr. Boughton exclaimed, in rather a shocked voice,
+“pray don’t let us begin a discussion. To go back to Mrs. Baines, I
+think if I could see her——”
+
+“It is quite impossible; you would remind her of your horrible nephew,
+and that would kill her.”
+
+“What on earth has she got to do with my nephew?”—and this time his
+manner convinced Mrs. North that he was not an impostor.
+
+“Mr. Boughton,” she said gravely, “the old lady is very, very ill. The
+doctor says she cannot live, and I fear that the sight of you would kill
+her straight off; but, if you like, I will go and sound her, and find
+out if she is strong enough to bear a visit from you”—and, the lawyer
+having agreed to this, Mrs. North went upstairs.
+
+“Dearest old lady”—her girlish voice had always a tender note in it
+when she spoke to Aunt Anne—“I have some good news for you—very good
+news. Do you think you could bear to hear it?”
+
+“Yes, my love,” Aunt Anne answered wheezily, “but you must forgive me if
+I am sceptical as to its goodness.”
+
+Mrs. North knelt down by the bedside, and stroked the thin hands. “Mr.
+Boughton is downstairs; he has come to tell you that Sir William Rammage
+is dead.”
+
+“Then it is true,” Mrs. Baines said sadly. “Poor William! My dear, we
+once lay in the same cradle together, while our mothers watched beside
+it—what does Mr. Boughton say about Alfred?”
+
+“He doesn’t appear to know anything about his wickedness.”
+
+“I felt sure he did not; I never believed in the depravity of human
+nature.”
+
+“Then how would you account for Mr. Wimple?” she asked, with much
+interest.
+
+The old lady considered for a moment.
+
+“Perhaps he was my punishment for all I did in the past. I have thought
+that lately, and tried to bear it—only it is more than I can bear. It
+has humiliated me too much. Tell me why Mr. Boughton has come; is it
+anything about Alfred?”
+
+“Nothing,” was the emphatic answer; “and if you see him I advise you not
+to mention Mr. Wimple’s name.”
+
+“My dear,” Aunt Anne said impressively, “except to yourself, his name
+will never pass my lips again. I feel that it is desecration to my dear
+Walter and Florence to mention it in their house. I shall never forgive
+myself for having brought him into it. But perhaps all I have suffered
+is some expiation; you and I have both felt that about our frailty”—and
+she shook her head. “What is the good news?”
+
+“Mr. Boughton brought it, and it is about Sir William’s money.”
+
+Mrs. Baines was silent for a moment; then she looked up, with a little
+wink, and a smile came to her lips. “I should like to see him,” she
+said. “But will you help me to get up first? I think if I could sit by
+the open window I should be better.”
+
+“Perhaps you would, you dear; it’s warm enough for summer. Let me help
+you into your dressing-gown. Stay, you shall wear mine. It is very
+smart, with lavender bows; quite proper half-mourning for a cousin.
+There—now—gently”—and she helped the old lady into the easy-chair by
+the window. It was a long business, but at last she was safely there,
+with the sunshine falling on her, and the soft lace and lavender ribbons
+of Mrs. North’s dressing-gown about her poor old neck.
+
+“And are you sure it’s good news, my love?” she asked Mrs. North.
+
+“I am quite sure,” Mrs. North answered, as she tucked an eider-down
+quilt round Aunt Anne. “He has come from London on purpose to bring it
+to you.”
+
+“Has he partaken of any refreshment since he arrived?”
+
+“No; but I will have some ready for him when he comes down from his talk
+with you. Now you shall have your _tête-à-tête_”—and Mrs. North went
+back to the lawyer.
+
+“You must break it to her very, very gently, and you mustn’t be more
+than five or ten minutes with her,” she said, as she took him up to the
+bedroom door.
+
+Aunt Anne was so much fatigued with the exertion of getting up that she
+found it a hard matter to receive Mr. Boughton with all the courtesy she
+desired to show him. She took the news of her fortune very quietly; it
+did not even excite her.
+
+“It is too late,” she said. “Nothing can solace me for what I have lost;
+but it will enable me to make provision for my dear Walter and
+Florence.” Her eyes closed; her head sank on her breast; she put out her
+hand towards the window, as if to clutch at something that was not
+there.
+
+Mr. Boughton saw it, and understood.
+
+“I cannot repay you for your kindness and consideration,” she went on
+presently. “Even when I have discharged my pecuniary obligation I shall
+still remain your debtor. But there are some things I should like to do.
+I wish Mrs. North to have a sum of money; I will tell her my wishes in
+regard to it.”
+
+“Perhaps I had better return in a day or two. You must forgive me for
+saying, my dear madam, that, with the vast sum that is now at your
+disposal, you ought to make a will immediately. I could take
+instructions now if you like.”
+
+“Instructions?” she repeated, with a puzzled air; “I will give them all
+to Mrs. North, and you can take them from her. You will not think me
+inhospitable if I ask you to leave me now, Mr. Boughton? I am very
+tired. Tell me, did they send for you when William Rammage died?”
+
+“They telegraphed for me immediately, and when I got to the office I
+found your letter waiting for me—the one you wrote before you left
+London, giving me your address here.” She did not hear him; her eyes had
+closed again, and her chin rested down on the lavender ribbons; the
+sunshine came in and lighted up her face, and that which Mr. Boughton
+saw written on it was unmistakable.
+
+“You are quite right, my dear madam,” he said to Mrs. North, as he sat
+partaking of the refreshment Aunt Anne had devised for him; “it has come
+too late.”
+
+He looked at his watch when he had finished. “I have only a quarter of
+an hour to stay,” he said. “Before I go, would you give me some
+explanation of the extraordinary statements you made on my arrival?”
+
+“You shall have it,” Mrs. North answered eagerly; “but wait one moment,
+till I have taken this egg and wine to Mrs. Baines and seen that the
+maid is with her.”
+
+“That’s a remarkably handsome girl,” the lawyer thought, when she had
+disappeared; “I wonder where I have heard her name before, and who she
+is?” But this speculation was entirely forgotten when he heard the story
+of his nephew’s doings of the last few months. “God bless my soul!” he
+exclaimed; “why, he might be sent to prison with hard labour—and serve
+him right, the scoundrel.”
+
+“I am delighted to hear you say it,” Mrs. North answered impulsively.
+“Please shake hands with me. I am ashamed to say I thought it all a
+conspiracy, even after you came, and that is why I was so disagreeable.”
+
+“Conspiracy, my dear madam?—why, the last thing I did to Wimple was to
+kick him out of my office; and I have been worried by his duns ever
+since. As for the will she made in his favour, get it destroyed at once,
+or he may give us no end of trouble yet. She has virtually given me
+instructions for a new one. I told her I would come in a day or two, but
+I think it would be safer to come to-morrow. It will have to be rather
+late in the day, I am afraid, but I can sleep at the inn. In the
+meantime get the other will destroyed. Why, bless me! if she died
+to-night it might make an awful scandal; I would not have it happen for
+all I am worth.”
+
+Mr. Boughton departed; and the doctor came, and gave so bad a report
+that Mrs. North sent off yet another telegram to Walter and
+Florence—this time in London—asking them not to waste a moment on
+their arrival, but to come straight to Witley. And then the second post
+brought her the morning’s letters which had been sent on. Among them was
+one with the Naples postmark, which she tore open with feverish haste
+and could scarcely read for tears of joy.
+
+“I could not write before,” it said. “I am detained here by a friend’s
+illness; but now that I am thus far I send you just a line to say I
+shall be with you soon, and I shall never leave you again. I hate to
+think of it all. The fault was mine, and the suffering has been yours.
+But I love you, and only live to make you reparation.”
+
+“It is too much happiness to bear,” she said, with a sob. “It is all I
+wanted, that he should love me—I must write this minute, or he will
+wonder”—and she got out her blotting-case, just as she did at the hotel
+at Marseille—it seemed as if that scene had been a suggestion of
+this—and, kneeling down by the table, wrote—
+
+“I am here with Mrs. Baines, and she is dying. I have just—just had
+your letter. Oh, the joy of it! What can I say or do?—you know
+everything that is in my heart better than words can write it down.”
+
+She sealed it up; and, seizing her hat, went once round the garden, for
+the cottage seemed too small a house to hold so great a happiness as
+that which had come upon her. She looked up to the sky, and thought how
+blessed it was to be beneath it, and away at the larches and fir-trees,
+and wondered if he and she would ever walk between them. Something told
+her that they would if—if all came right, if she found that he loved
+her so much that he could not live without her. They would lead such
+ideal lives; they would do their very best for every one, and make so
+many people happy, and cover up the past with all the good that love
+would surely put it into their hearts to do. “It would be too much to
+bear,” she said to herself; “it is too much to think of yet. I will go
+back to my dear old lady, and comfort her.”
+
+Aunt Anne was much better for her interview with Mr. Boughton. The
+excitement had done her good, and some of her little consequential ways
+had returned with the knowledge of her wealth.
+
+“I am glad to see you, my love,” she said to Mrs. North; “I have many
+things to discuss with you if you will permit me to encroach on your
+good nature. Would you mind sitting down on the footstool again beside
+me, as you did yesterday?” The maid had lifted her on to the
+old-fashioned sofa at the foot of the bed. She was propped up with
+pillows, and looked so well and comfortable it seemed almost possible
+that she might live.
+
+“I will,” Mrs. North answered, still overcome with her own thoughts—“I
+will sit at your feet, and receive your royal commands. But first permit
+me to say that you are looking irresistible—my lavender ribbons give
+you a most ravishing appearance.”
+
+“You are in excellent spirits,” Aunt Anne said, with a pleased smile;
+“and so am I,” she added. “It has done me a world of good to hear that
+William Rammage’s iniquitous intentions have been frustrated.”
+
+“I trust he is aware of it,” Mrs. North answered, “and that his soul is
+delightfully vexed by the enterprising Satan.”
+
+“My love,” said the old lady, with a shocked wink, “you hardly
+understand the purport of your own words.”
+
+“Yes, I do,” Mrs. North said emphatically; “but now I want to speak
+about something much more important. I hope you are going to get
+well—yes, in spite of all the shakes of your dear old head; and that
+you are going to live to be a hundred and one, in order to scold me with
+very long words when I offend you.”
+
+“I will endeavour to do so, my love; but I hope that some one else will
+do it better”—she stopped and closed her eyes.
+
+“I believe you are a witch, and you know about my letter. It has just
+come, and has made me so happy,” Mrs. North said, between laughing and
+crying.
+
+“What does he say?” the old lady asked, without opening her eyes.
+
+“He says he is coming,” Mrs. North answered, almost in a whisper. “It’s
+almost more than I can bear. I think it will all come right. The other
+was never a marriage—it was cruel to call it one; it was a girl’s body
+and soul made ready for ruin by those who persuaded her——” and she put
+her face down.
+
+“My dear, I understand now; I think I was very unsympathetic. But purity
+counts before all things”—and Aunt Anne’s lips quivered. “Tell me, my
+love, have you heard—I know it is painful to you to hear his name, but
+have you heard anything of Mr. North lately?” Mrs. North looked up with
+a mischievous twinkle in her eyes, which a moment before had been full
+of tears, and answered demurely—
+
+“I am told that he is casting his eyes on an amiable lady of forty-five.
+She is the sister of an eminent Q.C., has read Buckle’s ‘History of
+Civilization,’ and her favourite fad is the abolition of capital
+punishment. But I don’t want to talk of my affairs, Aunt Anne; I want to
+talk of yours—they are more momentous.” Mrs. North prided herself on
+picking up Aunt Anne’s words, and using them with great discretion.
+
+“Yes, my love, I am most grateful to you.”
+
+“I am certain—as I tell you—that you are going to live and get well.”
+Mrs. North meant her words at the moment, for, with the sweet insolence
+of youth, she was incredulous of death until it was absolutely before
+her eyes. “But at the same time,” she went on, “now that you are
+enormously rich, you ought to take precautions in case of an accident.
+If the cottage were burned down to-night, and we were burned with it,
+who would inherit your money?”
+
+“I told Mr. Boughton that I would give my instructions to you, and he is
+coming the day after to-morrow.”
+
+“But have you destroyed the will you made in favour of Alfred Wimple?”
+
+“I have not got it; he took it away with him.” Mrs. North looked quite
+alarmed.
+
+“We must make another, this minute,” she said; “if the conflagration
+took place this evening he would get every penny. Let me make it this
+minute. I can do it on a sheet of note-paper. Don’t agitate your dear
+old self, I shall be back directly”—and in a moment she had fled
+downstairs and returned with her blotting-book, and once more she knelt
+down by a table to write. “You want to leave everything to the Hibberts,
+don’t you?”
+
+“Yes; but if you would permit me, my love, I should like to leave you
+something.”
+
+“Then I couldn’t make the will, for it would not be legal; besides, I am
+rich enough, you kind old lady. Shall I begin?”
+
+“Stop one moment, my dear; will you give me a little _sal volatile_
+first, and let me rest for five minutes?”
+
+She closed her eyes, but it was not to sleep; she appeared to be
+thinking of something that disturbed her. When she looked up again she
+was almost panting with excitement as well as weakness, and there was
+the fierce, yet frightened, look in her eyes that had been in them when
+she opened the front door to turn Alfred Wimple out of the house.
+
+“I want you to do something for me,” she said, almost in a whisper—“I
+want you to have a sum of money, and to get it to him”—she could not
+make herself utter his name—“on condition that he goes out of the
+country with it. Let him go to Australia with the woman——”
+
+“Yes,” Mrs. North said, seeing she hesitated.
+
+“She is not in his position, and could never be received in society.”
+
+“No, dear,” Mrs. North said, reflecting that Mr. Wimple’s own position
+was not particularly exalted.
+
+“I want him to go out of the country,” Aunt Anne went on—“as far away
+as possible; I cannot breathe the same air with him, or bear to think
+that he is beneath the same sky. It is pollution; it is hurrying me out
+of life; it is most repugnant to me to think that when I am dead he will
+frequently be within only a few miles of this cottage and of my dear
+Walter and Florence”—she stopped for a moment, and shuddered, and put
+her thin hands, one over the other, under her chin. “When I am dead and
+buried,” she went on, “I believe I should know if his body were put
+underground, too, in the same country with me, and feel the desecration.
+It has killed me; it has made me eager to die. But I want to know that
+he will go away—that none of those I care for will ever see his face
+again; it will be a sacrilege if he even passes them in the street. I
+want him to have a sum of money, and to go away.”
+
+“I will take care that he has it,” Mrs. North said gently, “I will speak
+to the Hibberts. But, Aunt Anne,” she asked, “don’t you think you might
+forgive him? He shall go away, but you would not like to die without
+forgiving him?” Mrs. North did not for a moment expect her to do it, or
+even wish it, but she felt it almost a duty to say what she did from a
+little notion, as old-fashioned as one of Aunt Anne’s perhaps, about
+dying in charity with all men.
+
+“No, you must not ask me to do that”—and her voice was determined. “I
+cannot; it was too terrible.”
+
+“And I am very glad,” Mrs. North said, having eased her conscience with
+the previous remark—“a slightly revengeful spirit comforts one so
+much.”
+
+“Don’t let us ever speak of him again, even you and I. I want to shut
+him out of the little bit of life I have left.”
+
+“We never will,” Mrs. North said. “Let this be the Amen of him. Now I
+will make the will. Here is a sheet of note-paper and a singularly bad
+quill pen.”
+
+“This is the last Will and Testament of me, Anne Baines (sometime called
+Wimple). I revoke all other wills and codicils, and give and bequeath
+everything that is mine or may be mine to my dear nephew and niece,
+Walter and Florence Hibbert.”
+
+The maid came and stood on one side and Mrs. North on the other, while
+Aunt Anne gave a little wink to herself, and pushed aside the end of the
+lavender ribbon lest it should smudge the paper, and signed “Anne
+Baines,” looking at every letter as she made it with intense interest.
+
+“I am glad to write that name once more,” she said, and fell back, with
+a sigh.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+It was a long night that followed. A telegram had arrived from the
+Hibberts. They were on their way, and coming as fast as possible, they
+said; but through the dark hours, as Mrs. North sat beside Aunt Anne,
+she feared that death would come still faster.
+
+Her bronchitis was worse at times; she could hardly breathe; it was only
+the almost summer-like warmth that saved her. She talked of strange
+people when she could find voice to do so—people of whom Mrs. North had
+never heard before; but it seemed somehow as if they had silently
+entered—as if they filled the house, and were waiting. At midnight and
+in the still small hours of the morning she could fancy that they were
+going softly up and down the stairs; that they peered into the room in
+which Aunt Anne lay—the one to the front that looked down on the long
+white road stretching from the city to the sea. “Oh, if the Hibberts
+would come,” Mrs. North said, a dozen times. “I want her to die with her
+own people. I love her, but I am a stranger.”
+
+So the night passed.
+
+“My dear,” Aunt Anne asked, opening her eyes, “is it morning yet?”
+
+“Yes,” Mrs. North answered tenderly, “and a lovely morning. The sun is
+shining, and a thrush is singing on the tree outside. We will open the
+window presently, and let the summer in.” An hour passed, and the
+postman came, but he brought no news of those who were expected. Later
+on the doctor looked in, and said her pulse was weaker.
+
+“She must live a little longer,” Mrs. North said, in despair; “she must,
+indeed.”
+
+“I will come again this afternoon,” he said; “perhaps she may have a
+little rally.”
+
+While Aunt Anne dozed and the maid watched, Mrs. North, unable to sit
+quietly any longer, wandered up and down the house, and round the little
+drawing-room, bending her face over the pot-pourri on the corner
+cupboard, opening the piano and looking at the yellow keys she did not
+venture to touch. And then, restlessly, she went into the garden, and
+gathered some oak and beech boughs, with the fresh young leaves upon
+them, and put them in pots, as Aunt Anne had once done for the
+home-coming of Florence.
+
+“I cannot feel that she is going to die,” she thought, “but rather as if
+she were going to meet the people she knew long ago; it will be a
+festival for them.” She looked down the road, and strained her ears, but
+there was no sound of a carriage, no sign of Walter and Florence. She
+could hardly realize that she was watching for the Hibberts and that
+Aunt Anne upstairs lay dying. “It is all such a tangle,” she said to
+herself, “life and death, and joy and sorrow, and which is best it is
+difficult to say.” Aunt Anne’s little breakfast was ready, and she
+carried it up herself, and lovingly watched the old lady trying to
+swallow a spoonful.
+
+“You look a little better again, Aunt Anne.”
+
+“Yes, love; and I shall be much better when I have seen those dear
+children. I am not quite happy about my will. I wanted you to have some
+remembrance of me.”
+
+“Give me something,” Mrs. North said, “something you have worn; I shall
+like that better than a legacy, because I shall have it from your own
+two living hands.”
+
+“I have parted with all my possessions, but Florence and Walter shall be
+commissioned to get you something.”
+
+“The thing I should have liked,” Mrs. North answered, “was a little
+brooch you used to wear. It had hair in the middle, and a crinkly gold
+setting around it.”
+
+“My dear,” said Aunt Anne, dreamily, “it is in a little box in my
+left-hand drawer; but it needs renovating—the pin is broken, and the
+glass and the hair have come out. It belonged to my mother.”
+
+“Give it to me,” Mrs. North said eagerly. “I will have it done up, and
+wear it till you are better, and then you shall have it back; let me get
+it at once”—and in her eager manner she went to the drawer. “Here it
+is,” she said. “It will make a little gold buckle. I have a
+canary-coloured ribbon in the next room; I will put it through, and wear
+it round my neck. Aunt Anne, you have made me a present.”
+
+“I am delighted that it meets with your approval, my dear”—and there
+was a long silence. The morning dragged on—a happy spring morning, on
+which, as Mrs. North said to herself, you could almost hear the summer
+walking to you over the little flowers. Presently Aunt Anne called her.
+
+“I was thinking,” she said, “of a canary-coloured dress I had when I was
+a girl. I wore it at my first ball—it was a military ball, my dear, and
+the officers were all in uniform. As soon as I entered the room, Captain
+Maxwell asked me to dance; but I felt quite afraid, and said, ‘You must
+take off your sword, if you please, and put it on one side.’ Think of my
+audacity in asking him to do such a thing; but he did it. Your ribbon
+made me remember it”—and again she dropped off to sleep.
+
+Mrs. North went to the window, and looked out once more. “I feel like
+sister Anne on the watch-tower,” she said to herself. “If they would
+only come.” Suddenly a dread overcame her. Florence and Walter knew
+nothing of Alfred Wimple’s conduct. They might arrive, and, before she
+had time to tell them, by some chance word cause Aunt Anne infinite
+pain. The shame and humiliation seemed to have gone out of the old
+lady’s life during the last day or two. It would be a cruel thing to
+remind her of it. She had made herself ready to meet death. It was
+coming to her gently and surely, with thoughts of those she loved, and a
+remembrance of the days that had been before the maddening shame of the
+past year. Mrs. North went downstairs. Jane Mitchell was in the kitchen.
+
+“Is there any way of sending a note to the station?” she asked.
+
+“Why, yes, ma’am; Lucas would take it with the pony-cart.”
+
+“Go to him, ask him to get ready at once, and come to me for the
+letter.” As shortly as possible she wrote an account of all that had
+taken place at the cottage, and explained her own presence there.
+
+“Take this at once to the station-master, and ask him to give it to Mr.
+and Mrs. Hibbert the moment they arrive, and to see that they come here
+by the fastest fly that is there.” And once more she went up to the
+front bedroom. Aunt Anne was sleeping peacefully; a little smile was on
+her lips. Mrs. North went to the window, and looked up and down the long
+straight road, and over at the fir-trees. Presently Lucas came by with
+the pony-cart; he touched his hat, pulled the note out of his pocket to
+show that he had it safely, and drove on in the sunshine. The birds were
+twittering everywhere. A clump of broom was nearly topped with yellow;
+some spots of gold were on the gorse. Half an hour. Aunt Anne still
+slept. Mrs. North put her arms on the window-sill, and rested her head
+down on them with her face turned to the road that led to the station.
+“If only the Hibberts would come,” she said. “Oh, if they would come.”
+
+The long morning went into afternoon. A change came over Aunt Anne. It
+was plain enough this time. She spoke once, very gently and so
+indistinctly that Mrs. North could hardly make out the words, though she
+bent over her, trying to understand.
+
+“Aunt Anne, dear, do you know me?” A smile came over the old lady’s
+face. She was thinking of something that pleased her.
+
+“Yes, dear Walter,” she said, “you must get some chocolates for those
+dear children, and I will reimburse you.” Then the little woman, who had
+watched so bravely, broke down, and, kneeling by the bedside, sobbed
+softly to herself.
+
+“Oh, they must come; oh, they must come,” she whispered. “Perhaps I had
+better rouse her a little,” she thought after a little while, and
+slipped her arm under the old lady’s shoulder.
+
+“Aunt Anne—Aunt Anne, dear,” she said, “Walter and Florence are coming;
+they are hurrying to you, do you hear me?”
+
+“Yes, my love,” the old lady said, recovering a little, and recognizing
+her. “You said it was morning time, and a thrush was singing on the tree
+outside. I think I hear it.”
+
+“You do; listen, dear, listen!” and Mrs. North turned her face towards
+the window, as though she were listening, and looked at Aunt Anne’s
+face, as if to put life into her. And as she did so there came upon her
+ears a joyful sound, the one she most longed to hear in the world—the
+sound of carriage wheels.
+
+“They have come,” she said; “thank God! they have come.”
+
+Aunt Anne seemed to understand; an expression of restfulness came over
+her face; she closed her eyes, as if satisfied. Mrs. North was in
+despair; it seemed as if they would be a moment too late.
+
+“Dearest old lady, they have come! they are in the garden! Wake up—wake
+up, to see them. Stay, let me prop you up a little bit more.” She could
+scarcely say the words, her heart was so full. “There, now you can see
+the fir-trees and the sunshine. Kiss me once, dear Aunt Anne; I am going
+to fetch your children”—and she gently drew her arms away. The Hibberts
+were in the house—they were on the stairs already. Mrs. North met them.
+“You are just in time,” she whispered to Florence—“she has waited.”
+
+Mrs. Hibbert could not speak, but she stopped one moment to put her arms
+round Mrs. North’s neck, and then went on.
+
+“Come with us,” Walter said.
+
+“No,” Mrs. North answered chokingly, while the tears ran down her face.
+“She is waiting for you. Go in to her. I have no business there.”
+
+Without a word they went to Aunt Anne. Like a flash there came over
+Florence the remembrance of the day when she had first entered the room,
+and had thought that it looked like a room to die in. The old lady did
+not make a sign. For a moment they stood by her silently. Florence
+stooped, and kissed the coverlet.
+
+“Dear Aunt Anne,” they said tenderly, “we have come.” Then a look of joy
+spread over the old lady’s face. She made one last struggle to speak.
+
+“My dear Walter and Florence,” she said, and stopped for a moment. “I
+have not been able—to make any preparation for your arrival—but Mrs.
+North——” She stopped again, and her eyes closed. They went a little
+nearer to each other, and stood watching.
+
+The scent of the fresh spring air filled the room. The sunshine was
+passing over the house. But all was still—so still that Florence looked
+up, with a questioning look of fear upon her face. Walter bent over the
+bed for a moment, then gently put his arm round his wife’s shoulder.
+Aunt Anne had journeyed on.
+
+                                THE END
+
+              PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
+                          LONDON AND BECCLES.
+
+
+
+
+                           TRANSCRIBER NOTES
+
+    Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where
+    multiple spellings occur, majority use has been employed.
+
+    Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer
+    errors occur.
+
+    New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to
+    the public domain.
+
+    [The end of _Aunt Anne, Vol. 2_, by Mrs. W. K. Clifford.]
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75404 ***
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+    <meta name="DC.Created" content="1892"/>
+    <meta name="DC.Subject" content="fiction"/>
+    <meta name="DC.date.issued" content="1892"/>
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+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75404 ***</div>
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+
+<hr class='pbk'/>
+
+<div class='lgc' style='margin-top:3em;margin-bottom:1em;'> <!-- rend=';' -->
+<p class='line' style='margin-bottom:1em;font-size:3em;'><span class='sc'>Aunt Anne.</span></p>
+<p class='line'>&#160;</p>
+<p class='line' style='font-size:2em;'><span class='it'>By Mrs. W. K. Clifford</span>,</p>
+<p class='line'>&#160;</p>
+<p class='line'><span style='font-size:smaller'><span class='it'>Author of “Mrs. Keith’s Crime,” etc.</span></span></p>
+<p class='line'>&#160;</p>
+<p class='line'>&#160;</p>
+</div> <!-- end rend -->
+
+
+          <div class='poetry-container' style=''>
+          <div class='lgp'> <!-- rend=';' -->
+<div class='stanza-outer'>
+<div class='stanza-inner'>
+<p class='line0'>“As less the olden glow abides,</p>
+<p class='line0'>&ensp;&ensp;&ensp;And less the chillier heart aspires,</p>
+<p class='line0'>&ensp;With driftwood beached in past spring-tides</p>
+<p class='line0'>&ensp;&ensp;&ensp;We light our sullen fires.”</p>
+<p class='line0' style='text-align:right;margin-right:0em;'><span class='sc'>James Russell Lowell.</span></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+</div></div> <!-- end poetry block --><!-- end rend -->
+
+<div class='lgc' style='margin-top:3em;margin-bottom:3em;'> <!-- rend=';' -->
+<p class='line'>In Two Volumes.</p>
+<p class='line'>Vol. II.</p>
+<p class='line'>&#160;</p>
+<p class='line'>&#160;</p>
+<p class='line'>&#160;</p>
+<p class='line'>London:</p>
+<p class='line'><span style='font-size:larger'>Richard Bentley &amp; Son,</span></p>
+<p class='line'>Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen.</p>
+<p class='line'>1892.</p>
+<p class='line'>&#160;</p>
+<p class='line'><span style='font-size:smaller'>(All rights reserved.)</span></p>
+</div> <!-- end rend -->
+
+<hr class='pbk'/>
+
+<div class='figcenter'>
+<img src='images/chap01.jpg' alt='sea coast scene with a fence running into the water' id='iid-0001' style='width:80%;height:auto;'/>
+</div>
+
+<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-bottom:2em;font-size:2.5em;'>AUNT ANNE.</p>
+
+<div><h1>CHAPTER I.</h1></div>
+
+<p class='noindent'><span class='lead-in'><img class='dropcap' src='images/capp.jpg' style='float:left;width:5%;' alt='P'/>ortsea Place, Connaught Square,</span>
+is composed of very small houses,
+most of which are let out in apartments. It
+was to one of these that Mrs. Baines drove
+on her arrival in town. Her two canvas-covered
+boxes, carefully corded, were on the
+top of the cab, her many small packages
+piled up inside. Mr. Wimple was not with
+her. He had left her at Waterloo, but it
+had been arranged that he was to see her
+later on in Portsea Place, and that if she
+failed to take rooms there, she was to leave
+a message where she was to be found.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, Mrs. Hooper,” she said to the
+landlady, smilingly, but with the condescending
+air of a patroness, “you see I have not
+forgotten you, and if your rooms are still at
+liberty I should like to inspect them again.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, ma’am, certainly they are at liberty,”
+said Mrs. Hooper, who felt convinced that,
+in spite of the shabby cloak with the clasp,
+the spare old lady must be some grand
+personage in disguise. “I shall be only too
+glad if they please you.”</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Baines inspected them carefully, two
+little rooms on the drawing-room floor, a bedroom
+and a sitting-room. She looked at the
+pictures, she winked at herself in the looking-glass,
+she gently shook the side-table to see
+if it was rickety. She tried the springs of
+the easy-chair, and the softness of the sofa
+cushions. She asked if the chimney had
+been properly swept, and whether there was
+a draught from the windows.</p>
+
+<p>“I think a guinea a week is an ample
+rent, Mrs. Hooper, considering that it is not
+the season,” she said. “However, I will
+take the rooms for a week.”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t usually let them for so short a
+time,” the landlady began meekly.</p>
+
+<p>“I might not require them for longer,”
+answered Mrs. Baines distantly, “but I can
+make them suit my purpose for a week.”</p>
+
+<p>“Very well, ma’am,” and Mrs. Hooper
+gave way, overawed by Aunt Anne’s unflinching
+manner. “Would you like a fire
+lighted?”</p>
+
+<p>“Certainly, and at once; but first will you
+be good enough to have the luggage carried
+in? And tell the cabman to wait; he can
+drive me to Portman Square. There will be
+a gentleman here to dinner to-night.”</p>
+
+<p>“I didn’t think you would want late
+dinner, ma’am; ladies so often have tea and
+something with it—and company the first
+night——” but the landlady stopped with a
+little dismay in her voice, for Mrs. Baines
+looked displeased.</p>
+
+<p>“I am accustomed to dining late,” she
+said haughtily, feeling acutely the superiority
+of her own class, “and I have frequent
+visitors. Cabman, will you put those boxes
+into the bedroom?—and be careful not to
+knock the walls. They are so often careless,”
+she said, with a smile to the landlady
+that completely subjugated her, “and it is so
+very annoying to have one’s place injured.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, ma’am, it is,” Mrs. Hooper replied
+gratefully. “If you will give your orders
+we will get in what you want for this evening
+while you are gone to Portman Square.”
+The address had evidently impressed her.</p>
+
+<p>“I must consider for a moment,” and Aunt
+Anne sat down and was silent. Then she
+ordered a little dinner that she thought
+would be after the heart of Mr. Wimple, and
+gave many domestic directions; and with
+“I trust to you to make everything exceedingly
+comfortable, Mrs. Hooper,” departed
+in a four-wheeled cab.</p>
+
+<p>Sir William Rammage lived in a big
+house in Portman Square. The windows
+looked dull, the blinds dingy, the door-step
+deserted. Half the square seemed to hear
+the knock which Mrs. Baines gave at the
+double door. A servant in an old-fashioned
+black suit appeared with an air of surprise.</p>
+
+<p>“Is Sir William Rammage at home?”
+Mrs. Baines asked. The man looked her
+swiftly up and down.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, ma’am.”</p>
+
+<p>“I wish to see him,” she said, and walked
+into the wide stone hall, before the servant
+could prevent her.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s quite impossible, ma’am,” he said
+firmly; “Sir William keeps his room, and
+is too ill to see any one.”</p>
+
+<p>“You will be good enough to take him
+my card,” Mrs. Baines said. “If he is able
+to do so, you will find that he will see
+me.”</p>
+
+<p>“I’ll take it to Mr. Boughton, ma’am,”
+said the man hesitatingly, for he was overcome
+by the visitor’s imperious manner;
+“he has been with Sir William just now, and
+will know if it is possible for any one to see
+him.”</p>
+
+<p>“Who is Mr. Boughton?” she asked,
+almost contemptuously.</p>
+
+<p>“He is Sir William’s solicitor.”</p>
+
+<p>“Very well, that will do,” said Mrs. Baines,
+and she was shown into a large empty
+dining-room, that looked as grim and gloomy
+as the outside of the house had promised
+that all should be within. In a few minutes
+he returned.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Boughton will be with you directly,
+ma’am,” he said respectfully.</p>
+
+<p>In five minutes’ time there appeared a
+little dried-up man, bald and shrewd-looking,
+but with a kindly expression in his pinky
+face.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Boughton,” Mrs. Baines said, “I
+am most glad to make your acquaintance;”
+and she shook hands. “Is it possible to see
+Sir William Rammage? He is my cousin,
+and we have known each other since we
+were children together.”</p>
+
+<p>“Quite impossible, my dear madam, quite
+impossible,” the lawyer answered briskly.</p>
+
+<p>“Is he very ill?”</p>
+
+<p>“Very seriously ill.”</p>
+
+<p>“Dear William,” the old lady said tearfully,
+“I feared it was so. I knew him too
+well to suppose that he would leave my
+letters unanswered had it been otherwise.”</p>
+
+<p>“If it is any business matter, madam, I
+am his confidential lawyer, and have been
+for thirty years.”</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Boughton, I am Sir William’s own
+first cousin; our mothers were sisters,” Mrs.
+Baines said with deep emotion.</p>
+
+<p>“Dear me, dear me,” answered the lawyer
+thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>“When we were children we were rocked
+in the same cradle.”</p>
+
+<p>“Most touching, I am sure;” and still he
+appeared to be turning something over in
+his mind.</p>
+
+<p>“I know that he has a sincere affection
+for me, but of late years he has been so
+frequently indisposed that he has not been
+able to show it as he wished.”</p>
+
+<p>“Frequently the case, my dear lady,
+frequently the case,” Mr. Boughton said
+soothingly. “May I ask you to tell me
+what other members of his family survive?
+I am a little uncertain in the matter.”</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Boughton, I am his mother’s sister’s
+child, and the nearest relation he has in the
+world. The others have been dead and
+gone these many years. There may be
+some distant cousins left, but we have never
+recognized them.”</p>
+
+<p>“I understand,” he said; “most interesting.
+And you wish to see him on family business,
+I presume?”</p>
+
+<p>“I did.”</p>
+
+<p>“I am sorry to refuse you, my dear lady,
+but I am afraid he is too ill to see you.”</p>
+
+<p>“I am not rich,” Aunt Anne began, and
+her voice faltered a little; “and he promised
+to make me an allowance.”</p>
+
+<p>“He has never done so yet?”</p>
+
+<p>“No,” she said sadly, “he has had it under
+consideration. Perhaps he was reflecting
+what would be an adequate sum to defray
+my necessary expenses.”</p>
+
+<p>“Perhaps so,” Mr. Boughton said thoughtfully.
+“If you will excuse me one moment,
+I will inquire if by any possibility my client
+can see you;” and he left the room.</p>
+
+<p>But in a few minutes he returned.</p>
+
+<p>“It is quite out of the question,” he
+explained, “quite. I don’t wish to distress
+you, but I fear that our friend is much too
+ill to attend for some time to his worldly
+affairs.”</p>
+
+<p>“I have been waiting many months for his
+decision,” the old lady said, with a world of
+pain in her voice; “it has been most difficult
+to maintain my position.”</p>
+
+<p>“Quite so, quite so, my dear lady, and I
+feel sure that Sir William would wish this
+matter to be attended to without delay. I
+think I understand you to be the daughter of
+his mother’s sister——”</p>
+
+<p>“His dear mother’s sister Harriet.”</p>
+
+<p>“Quite so,” and Mr. Boughton nodded
+approvingly. “Well, my dear lady, suppose
+I take it upon myself, having the management
+of his affairs for the present, to allow
+you just a hundred a year, say, till he is able
+to settle matters himself. Would that enable
+you to await his recovery, or——”</p>
+
+<p>A little lump came into Aunt Anne’s
+throat, a slow movement of satisfaction to
+her left eye; her voice was unsteady when
+she spoke.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Boughton,” she said, “I know Sir
+William will be most grateful to you. My
+circumstances must have been the cause of
+much anxiety to him.”</p>
+
+<p>“Then we will consider the matter arranged
+until he is in a condition to attend to it himself
+or—by the way, would you like to have
+a cheque at once?”</p>
+
+<p>“Perhaps it would be advisable,” Aunt
+Anne said, but she seemed unable to go
+on. Try to conceal it as she would, the
+sudden turn in her fortune was too much
+for her.</p>
+
+<p>“You must forgive me,” she said gently,
+sitting down, “I have had a journey from
+the country, and I am not so young as I was
+years ago;” she looked up with a little smile,
+as if to belie her words.</p>
+
+<p>“Of course,” answered Mr. Boughton,
+feelingly. “Age is a malady we all inherit
+if we live long enough. Let me get you a
+glass of wine; there is some excellent port in
+the sideboard;” and in a moment he found a
+decanter and, having filled a glass, handed it
+to her. But she shook her head while she
+looked up at him gratefully.</p>
+
+<p>“You must forgive me,” she said, “port
+wine is always pernicious to me.” But he
+persuaded her to take a little sip, and then
+the glass was set down beside her while he
+wrote the cheque.</p>
+
+<p>“You will tell dear William,” she said,
+“when he is well enough, with what solicitude
+I think of him. And, Mr. Boughton, you
+must permit me to say how much indebted
+I feel to your courtesy, and to the consideration
+with which you have treated me.”</p>
+
+<p>Five minutes later Mrs. Baines was walking
+along Portman Square, feeling like a
+woman in a dream, or a millionaire carrying
+his entire capital. She bought some flowers,
+on her way back, to put on the little dinner
+table in Portsea Place, and two little red
+candle-shades, for with characteristic quickness
+she had noticed the old-fashioned plated
+candlesticks on the mantelpiece, and remembered
+that gas above the table was unbecoming;
+and then she bought a yard or two of
+lace to wear round her throat, feeling a little
+ashamed and yet happy while she did so.
+She thought of her lover, and looked longingly
+round the shop; but there was nothing
+that even she could imagine would be an
+acceptable present to a man.</p>
+
+<p>“Welcome, my darling,” she said to him,
+when he arrived an hour or two later; “this
+is the first time I have had the happiness of
+receiving you in a place of my own. I trust
+our repast will be ready punctually.”</p>
+
+<p>“How is Sir William Rammage?” he
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>“In a most precarious condition.”</p>
+
+<p>“No better?”</p>
+
+<p>“From what I could gather, Alfred, he
+must be worse,” and she spoke solemnly.</p>
+
+<p>“Whom did you see?”</p>
+
+<p>“I saw a solicitor, Mr. Boughton.”</p>
+
+<p>“That is my uncle; and he said he was
+worse?”</p>
+
+<p>“He was so ill, Alfred, that Mr. Boughton
+even paid me my quarter’s income out of his
+own pocket.” A little smile hovered on Mr.
+Wimple’s face.</p>
+
+<p>“You didn’t say anything about me?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, my darling; you had desired me
+not to mention your name and that was
+sufficient.”</p>
+
+<p>“And he paid you out of his own pocket?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, my love, he was most anxious that
+I should not be inconvenienced; but our
+repast is ready. Come,” and she motioned
+him to the place opposite her, and with
+happy dignity went to the head of the table.
+“I hope you will do it justice.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Wimple ate his dinner with much
+solemnity. He always accepted his food as
+if it was a responsibility that demanded his
+most serious attention. Presently he looked
+at her across the dinner-table, at the lace
+about her throat, at the little crinkly gold
+brooch, which Florence had seen first years
+before at Rottingdean, at the lines and
+wrinkles that marked the tender old face,
+at the thin white hands with the loose skin
+and the blue veins; but no expression came
+into his dull full eyes. When the meal was
+over he got up and stood by the fireplace.</p>
+
+<p>“My dear one,” she said, “are you tired
+with the journey?”</p>
+
+<p>“No.”</p>
+
+<p>“Did you find your rooms quite comfortable
+and ready for you?” she asked,
+and went over to his side.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” he answered with the little gulp
+peculiar to him. He seemed to be considering
+something of which he was uncertain
+whether to speak or be silent. But he kept
+his eyes fixed full upon her.</p>
+
+<p>“Are they in the Gray’s Inn Road, dear
+Alfred?”</p>
+
+<p>“Near there,” he said, and his lips closed.
+For a minute he was silent. Her eyes
+dropped beneath his gaze, she seemed to be
+trembling, and fragile—oh, so fragile, a little
+gust of wind might have swept the slight
+thin form away. He opened his lips to
+speak, but no sound came from them.</p>
+
+<p>“You are so thoughtful,” she asked gently;
+“I have not vexed you?”</p>
+
+<p>“No;” and there was a long pause.
+Then he spoke again.</p>
+
+<p>“Anne,” he said, and went a little further
+from her, “I think perhaps it would be as
+well if we were married at once.” The tears
+came into her eyes, her mouth twitched, there
+was a pause before she found words to speak.</p>
+
+<p>“My dear one,” she said, “is it really true
+that all your heart is mine; you are sure,
+dear Alfred?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” he answered, in a voice he tried
+to make gentle, but that, oddly enough,
+sounded half defiant, “I told you so last
+night.”</p>
+
+<p>“I know,” she answered; “only I have
+not deserved such happiness,” and the tears
+stole down her cheeks. “I have lived so
+long alone, my dear one; but all my life is
+yours, Alfred, all my life, and the truest love
+that woman can give I will give you,” and
+she clasped her hands while she spoke—she
+seemed to be making the promise before
+some unseen witness to whom she owed
+account of all her doings.</p>
+
+<hr class='tbk'/>
+
+<p>A week later Alfred Wimple and Mrs.
+Baines were married from the little lodging
+in Portsea Place. It was a sensation in
+Mrs. Hooper’s monotonous life. She would
+have laughed and made fun of the wedding,
+but that Aunt Anne’s dignity forbade almost
+a smile. The old lady seemed to be in a
+dream, the beginning of which she hardly
+remembered—to be living through the end
+of a poem, the first part of which she had
+learned in her youth. Her poor weak eyes
+looked soft and loving, and the smile that
+came and went about her mouth had something
+in it that was pathetic rather than
+ridiculous. She had conjured a grey wedding-dress
+from somewhere, and a grey bonnet
+to match, but the cold caused her to wrap
+herself round in the big cloak she always
+wore. She pulled on her gloves, which were
+large and ill-fitting, and stood before the
+glass looking at herself, but all the time her
+thoughts were straying back to forty years
+and more ago. If only time could be conquered,
+and its cruel hand held back—if
+flesh and blood could change as little as
+sometimes do the souls they clothe, how
+different would be the lives of men and
+women! The woman who went down the
+stairs was old and wrinkled outwardly, but
+within she was as full of tenderness as any
+girl of twenty going forth to meet her lover.
+She stepped into the four-wheel cab alone,
+the biting wind swept maliciously over her
+face, and quickly she pulled up the window.
+It was but a little way to the church. It
+stood in the middle of an open space; she
+started when she caught sight of it, then
+turned away her head for a moment with a
+strange dread: and her courage almost gave
+way as she stopped before the deserted doorway.
+Alfred Wimple heard her arrive, and
+came to meet her with the hesitating, half-doubtful
+look that his face always wore when
+he was with her. There was no tenderness
+in his manner, there was something almost
+like shame. But he seemed to be impelled
+by fate and unable to turn back. The old
+lady’s heart was full; the tears came into
+her eyes. She took his arm, and together
+they walked up the empty aisle. The two
+odd people who had been pressed into
+service as witnesses came forward, the clergyman
+appeared, he looked for a moment at
+the couple before him, but it was no business
+of his to interfere, and slowly he began the
+service.</p>
+
+<p>A quarter of an hour later Aunt Anne and
+Alfred Wimple were man and wife.</p>
+
+<p>“I think we had better walk back,” were
+the first words he said when they were outside.
+His manner was almost cowering,
+little enough like a bridegroom.</p>
+
+<p>“My darling, don’t you think people would
+guess?” she whispered.</p>
+
+<p>“You need not be afraid. We don’t look
+much like a wedding-party,” he answered
+grimly.</p>
+
+<p>“No, my love, I fear not. But you do
+not mind?”</p>
+
+<p>“No,” and they walked on in silence. Then
+she spoke again, her voice tremulous with
+emotion—</p>
+
+<p>“I feel, my darling, as if I could not have
+borne it if there had been more signs of our
+joyousness. It is too sacred; it is the day
+of my life,” she whispered to herself.</p>
+
+<p>“I hope there will be some sunshine at
+Hastings,” he said, as if he did not in the
+least understand what she was talking about.
+He had hardly listened to her.</p>
+
+<p>“I hope so, my darling,” she answered
+gently; “and in your life too. I will try to
+put it there, Alfred.”</p>
+
+<p>He turned and looked at her with an
+expression that seemed half shame and half
+shrinking.</p>
+
+<p>“It will be warmer at Hastings,” he said,
+as if at a loss for words.</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Anne had arranged a honeymoon
+trip. It was she who made all the arrangements,
+and he who reluctantly consented to
+them. They were to go to Hastings by a
+late afternoon train, stay there a few days,
+and then return to town; but everything was
+vague beyond.</p>
+
+<p>“It will be better to wait,” Mr. Wimple
+said, when she wanted to settle some sort of
+home. “I must consider my work, Anne.
+I cannot be tied down: you must understand
+that.”</p>
+
+<p>There was a little wedding-breakfast set
+out in the drawing-room. A cold chicken
+and a shape of jelly, and a very small
+wedding-cake with some white sugar over it,
+put almost shyly on one side. In the middle
+of the table was a pint bottle of champagne.
+The gold foil over the cork made the one
+bright spot in the room, and gave it an air of
+festivity. A cheerless meal enough on a
+winter’s day, but not for worlds would Aunt
+Anne have had an ordinary one on such an
+occasion. And so they sat down to their
+cold chicken and the cheap stiff jelly; and
+Alfred Wimple opened the champagne, and
+Aunt Anne, quick to see, noticed that he
+gave her three quarters of a glass and drank
+the rest himself, and she felt that she was
+married indeed.</p>
+
+<p>“Bless you, my dear one, bless you,” she
+said, as she always did, when she raised her
+glass to her lips. “And may our life be a
+happy one.”</p>
+
+<p>“Thank you,” he answered solemnly—and
+then, as if he remembered what was
+expected of him, he drank back to her.</p>
+
+<p>“Good health, Anne, and good luck to
+us,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>The meal ended, the things were taken
+away by Mrs. Hooper herself, and they were
+left alone.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Wimple loitered uneasily round the
+room.</p>
+
+<p>“I think we must go to Hastings by a
+later train,” he said; “I shall have to get
+to my chambers presently.”</p>
+
+<p>“Must you go to your chambers again
+to-day?” she asked meekly.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” he answered. “I shan’t be long,
+but there are some things I must see to.”</p>
+
+<p>“Couldn’t I go with you, Alfred, in a cab?”</p>
+
+<p>“No;” and his lips locked.</p>
+
+<p>“Are the rooms in the Gray’s Inn Road?”
+she asked again.</p>
+
+<p>“They are near there,” he said once more;
+he looked at her steadfastly, and something
+in his eyes told her that he did not mean to
+give her the address. For a few moments
+there was silence between them. He stood
+on the hearth-rug by the fire. She sat a few
+paces from him, seemingly lost in thought.
+Suddenly she looked up.</p>
+
+<p>“Alfred, my darling,” she cried sadly,
+“you do love me, do you not? You seem
+so cold to me to-day, so reserved and
+different. I have taken this great step for
+you, and you have not said a tender word
+to me since we returned from the church,
+yet this is our wedding-day,” and she
+stopped.</p>
+
+<p>“I am not well, and it’s so cold, and I am
+worried about money matters, Anne.”</p>
+
+<p>“I will take care of you,” she said, and
+stood up beside him, “and nurse you, and
+make you strong; I will study your every
+wish. If I had millions of money, they
+should all be yours, my darling; I should
+like to spread out gold for your feet to walk
+on.”</p>
+
+<p>“I believe you would,” he said, with something
+like gratitude in his voice, and he
+stooped and kissed her forehead.</p>
+
+<p>Even this meagre sign of affection overcame
+her, she put her head thankfully down
+on his shoulder and let it rest there a minute
+from sheer weariness and longing. He put
+his arm round her and his face touched her
+head, but it was as a man caresses his
+mother. Still, for a moment the weary old
+heart found rest.</p>
+
+<p>“You are all my world,” she whispered.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m not good enough for you, Anne,”
+he said uneasily. “You are a fool to care
+about me.” Then she raised her head and
+the bright smile came back.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh yes,” she said joyfully, “you are
+much too good. It shall be the study of my
+life to be good enough for you.” The enthusiasm
+of youth seemed to flash back upon
+her for a moment. “I am not a fool to
+care for you. I am the wisest woman on
+earth. My darling Alfred,” she went on
+after a pause, “I have a wedding-present
+for you; you must have thought me very
+remiss in not giving you one already.”</p>
+
+<p>“I have nothing for you,” he answered.
+But she did not hear him. She was fumbling
+in a travelling-bag at the end of the room.
+Presently she came back with a large old-fashioned
+gold watch.</p>
+
+<p>“This belonged to my brother John, who
+died,” she said. “I want you to wear it in
+memory of to-day.”</p>
+
+<p>“It’s a very handsome watch,” he said.
+“I never saw it before. Where has it been?”</p>
+
+<p>She was silent for a moment and her left
+eye winked.</p>
+
+<p>“My love,” she said, “I had it kept in a
+place of safety till I required it,” and he
+asked no more questions.</p>
+
+<p>He put on his great coat to go out; but
+he hesitated by the door and half reluctantly
+came back. “Anne,” he said, “even if we
+have no money, we ought to be prudent and
+business like; I meant to have told you so
+yesterday.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, my darling,” she said, half wonderingly.</p>
+
+<p>“People usually sign their wills on their
+wedding-day. You see I am not strong
+and might die.” And he looked at her
+keenly.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, my love, or I might die, which
+would be far more natural.”</p>
+
+<p>“I have made a will leaving you all I
+have. How do you wish to leave anything
+that you possess?”</p>
+
+<p>“To you, of course, Alfred—everything I
+have in the world.”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t wish to influence you,” he said,
+“but I thought you might wish to make
+your will in substance the same as mine. So
+after I left you yesterday I had them both
+drawn up. They are in my great coat
+pocket now, we might as well get them
+signed and done with. The landlady and
+the servant will witness them.” He produced
+two long envelopes from his pocket,
+and Mrs. Hooper and the servant were called.</p>
+
+<p>“Alfred,” Aunt Anne said, when they
+were alone again, and she read over the
+documents, “your name is in my will, but
+in yours you only say you ‘leave everything
+to my wife.’ ”</p>
+
+<p>“Surely that is sufficient?” he said
+shortly.</p>
+
+<p>“Of course, dear, for I am”—the voice
+dropped, as almost a blush came upon the
+withered cheek—“your wife now.” Mr.
+Wimple put his lips together again after his
+favourite manner and said nothing. She
+watched him curiously, a little fear seemed
+to overtake her, her hands, half trembling,
+sought each other. “Have I displeased you,
+Alfred,” she asked gently; “my darling,
+have I displeased you?”</p>
+
+<p>“No,” he answered drily; “but I am not
+very sentimental, Anne. Perhaps you had
+better remember that,” and he put the wills
+carefully into his pocket. “We will go by
+the 5.35 train. By the way, you might
+meet me at the station,” and he looked at
+her steadfastly.</p>
+
+<p>“If you do not come back for me I shall
+not go at all,” and something like an angry
+flash came from her eyes. He hesitated a
+moment.</p>
+
+<p>“Very well,” he answered, “I will come
+back for you.” She watched him go down
+the stairs, she listened while he opened the
+street door and closed it—to his footsteps
+growing fainter along the pavement outside;
+then she went back into the little drawing-room
+and shut herself in, and put her head
+down on the lumpy sofa-cushion and sobbed
+with the bitter disappointment and hopelessness
+that had suddenly opened itself out
+before her.</p>
+
+<div class='figcenter' style='width:30%'>
+<img src='images/tail1.jpg' alt='flowers' id='iid-0002' style='width:80%;height:auto;'/>
+</div>
+
+<hr class='pbk'/>
+
+<div class='figcenter'>
+<img src='images/chap7.jpg' alt='sea scene with rocks and a sailboat' id='iid-0003' style='width:80%;height:auto;'/>
+</div>
+
+<div><h1>CHAPTER II.</h1></div>
+
+<p class='noindent'><span class='lead-in'><img class='dropcap' src='images/caps.jpg' style='float:left;width:5%;' alt='S'/>ix</span> months later. Walter was back in
+England, better in health, brown and
+handsome. Florence was in a seventh
+heaven of happiness. Her husband was her
+very devoted lover; the children were as
+good as gold; the little house near Regent’s
+Park was decorated with all manner of Indian
+draperies and <span class='it'>bric-à-brac</span>—what more could
+the heart of woman desire?</p>
+
+<p>“Really,” she said, “it was worth your
+going away to know the delight of getting
+you back again.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, darling; shall I go away again?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, you dear stupid! Walter, why
+doesn’t Mr. Fisher come and see us? He
+has only been once since you returned, and
+then he seemed most anxious to go away
+again.”</p>
+
+<p>“I suppose he was afraid Ethel Dunlop
+would come in.”</p>
+
+<p>“I wish he hadn’t fallen in love with her,”
+Florence said; “I shall always reproach
+myself about it. But, really, he was so good
+and kind that I half hoped she would like him.”</p>
+
+<p>“A woman under thirty doesn’t marry a
+man merely because he is good and kind,
+unless matrimony is her profession.”</p>
+
+<p>“I can’t help thinking it might have been
+different if he had spoken to her,” Florence
+said; “it is so absurd of a man to write. I
+wouldn’t have accepted you if you had proposed
+in a letter.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, wouldn’t you?” he laughed; “that
+was a matter in which you wouldn’t have
+been allowed to decide for yourself. One
+must draw the line somewhere. It is all
+very well to let women do as they like in
+little things; but in a big one like marrying
+you, why——”</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t talk nonsense,” Florence laughed,
+putting her hand over his mouth. He
+kissed it, and jerked back his head.</p>
+
+<p>“I wonder what Fisher said in his letter,
+Floggie?”</p>
+
+<p>“I should think it was very proper and
+respectful.”</p>
+
+<p>“The sort of letter a churchwarden or
+an archbishop would write. Poor chap, I
+expect he feels a little sore about it. He
+hadn’t a very good time with his first wife,
+I fancy. Probably he wanted to make a
+little sunshine for his sober middle-age. I
+dare say he would have been awfully good
+to her if she had taken him.”</p>
+
+<p>“I wish she had, and I wish he would
+come here again,” Florence said; “he was
+so very kind about taking the house, and I
+always liked him.”</p>
+
+<p>“I am afraid,” Walter said, with a sigh,
+“he hasn’t quite forgiven me for putting
+Wimple on to him. It really was a ghastly
+thing for <span class='it'>The Centre</span> to get reviews from
+other papers palmed off on it as fresh ones.
+I can’t think, setting aside the lowness of
+cheating, how Wimple could be such a fool
+as to suppose that Fisher wouldn’t find out
+that they had been prigged.”</p>
+
+<p>“He was quite taken in at first. I remember
+his telling me that Mr. Wimple
+wrote very well.”</p>
+
+<p>“You see, those Scotch papers are uncommonly
+clever. How Wimple expected
+not to be found out I can’t imagine. If he
+had prigged from the <span class='it'>Timbuctoo Journal</span>,
+of course he might have escaped. Fisher
+must have sworn freely. It made him look
+such an ass”—and Walter laughed, in spite
+of himself.</p>
+
+<p>“Is there a <span class='it'>Timbuctoo Journal</span>?” Florence
+asked innocently.</p>
+
+<p>“No, you sweet idiot—perhaps there is,
+though. Should think it would be interesting.
+Probably gives an account of a roast-missionary
+feast now and then.”</p>
+
+<p>“You horrid thing!” said Florence. “I
+wish Mr. Wimple were in Timbuctoo, and
+that I knew how poor Aunt Anne was
+getting on.”</p>
+
+<p>“Poor, dear old fool!—we never dreamed
+what would come of that introduction, either,
+did we?”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, Walter, I shall never forget what I
+suffered about her at the cottage when she
+told me she was going to marry Mr. Wimple.
+And then, after she had vanished, there were
+the bills at Witley and Guildford. I can’t
+imagine what she did with all the things
+she bought, for she was only at the cottage
+a week or so without me.”</p>
+
+<p>“Probably sent them to Wimple at Liphook.”</p>
+
+<p>“She couldn’t send him chickens and
+claret, and cakes and chocolate, and a dozen
+other things.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh yes, she could—trust her,” laughed
+Walter. “It is very odd,” he went on, “but
+I have always had an idea, somehow, that
+there was a feminine attraction at Liphook.
+If it was the young lady we saw with him
+that morning at Waterloo Station, I don’t
+think much of her. How did you manage
+to pay all the bills, Floggie dear? You
+didn’t owe a penny when I came back, and
+had saved something too—I never knew
+such a frugal little woman.”</p>
+
+<p>“Steggall’s bill was the worst,” Florence
+said; “there were endless waggonettes.”</p>
+
+<p>“Probably she spent her time in showing
+Wimple the beauties of the country. How
+did you manage to pay them all, Floggie?”</p>
+
+<p>“Lived on an egg one day, and nothing
+the next.”</p>
+
+<p>“That’s what a woman always does. A
+man would have robbed Peter to pay Paul.
+You ought to have a reward. It is too cold
+at Easter, but if I could get away for a
+fortnight this Whitsuntide we might take a
+run to Monte Carlo.”</p>
+
+<p>“Monte Carlo makes me think of Mrs.
+North. I should like to see her again; she
+was very fascinating.”</p>
+
+<p>“Why didn’t you go and see her?”</p>
+
+<p>“I was not sure that you would like it.
+There was evidently something wrong.”</p>
+
+<p>He was silent for a few minutes. “Do
+you know,” he said presently, “when there
+is something wrong with a woman I think it
+is a reason for going, and not for staying
+away. It’s the only chance for setting it
+right. What is the use of goodness if it isn’t
+used for the benefit of other people?”</p>
+
+<p>“Walter,” Florence said, and she stood up
+and clasped her hands—“she said nearly the
+same thing to me that evening she was here.
+There was something almost desperate in
+her manner; it has haunted me ever since;
+and I should have gone to see her but that
+I was afraid of your being angry.”</p>
+
+<p>“What, at your going to see a woman
+who perhaps needed your help? If she were
+up a moral tree, you might have done her
+some good.”</p>
+
+<p>“I can’t bear to think I missed a chance
+of doing that. Walter,” she added, with a
+sigh, “sometimes I fear that I am very
+narrow.”</p>
+
+<p>“No, dear, you are only a little prim
+Puritan, and I love you for it as I love you
+for everything; so please, Floggie, will you
+take me to Monte Carlo this Whitsuntide,
+or may I take you?”</p>
+
+<p>“You are a wicked spendthrift, as bad
+as Aunt Anne; I believe it runs in the
+family. What is to be done with the
+children while we go to Monte Carlo?”</p>
+
+<p>“We’ll leave them with the mother-in-law.”</p>
+
+<p>“I wish you wouldn’t call my mother that
+horrid name.”</p>
+
+<p>“I thought it would make you cross. I
+say, I really do wish we knew what had
+become of the Wimples.”</p>
+
+<p>“I think they must be all right, somehow,”
+Florence said, “or else——”</p>
+
+<p>“Or else she would have arrived to borrow
+a five-pound note. I wonder how Wimple
+likes it. Well, darling, I must be off to the
+office. It’s all agreed about Whitsuntide,
+then, Fisher permitting.”</p>
+
+<p>“Go away,” Florence laughed; “go to
+the office, you bad person.”</p>
+
+<p>“Very well, I will,” he said, in a patient
+voice; “but I really do wish Aunt Anne
+would turn up. I want some more scissors;
+I lost all those she gave me, and some one
+stole the case.”</p>
+
+<p>“And Catty broke my velvet pincushion.
+It is, clearly, time that she turned up.”</p>
+
+<p>When Walter had gone, Florence thought
+of Mrs. North again. “It was rather unkind
+of me not to be nice to her, for she was
+generous to Aunt Anne,” she said to herself.
+“I wonder whether I could go and call upon
+her now. I might explain that I never
+dared to mention Madame Celestine’s bills.”</p>
+
+<p>But she had no more time in which to
+think of Mrs. North, for there were the inevitable
+domestic matters to arrange; and
+then Ethel Dunlop came in, full of her
+engagement to George Dighton.</p>
+
+<p>“I always imagined it was merely friendship,”
+Florence said, thinking regretfully of
+the editor.</p>
+
+<p>“Did you?” said Ethel, brightly. “We
+thought so ourselves for a long time, I
+believe; but we found out that we were mistaken.
+By the way, Florence, you can’t
+think how good Mr. Fisher has been to
+us.”</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Fisher? Well, you don’t deserve
+anything from him.”</p>
+
+<p>“No, I don’t. Still, it wasn’t my fault
+that he proposed; I never encouraged him.
+How droll it was of him to come and pour
+out his troubles to you.”</p>
+
+<p>“I think it was manly and dignified,”
+Florence said; “it proved that he wasn’t
+ashamed of wanting to marry you. Did he
+write a nice letter, Ethel?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, very, I think.”</p>
+
+<p>“How did he begin?”</p>
+
+<p>“He began, ‘My dear Miss Ethel,’ and
+ended up, ‘Yours very faithfully.’ ”</p>
+
+<p>“I am afraid you did lead him on a little
+bit.”</p>
+
+<p>“Indeed I did not. He asked me to come
+and see his mother when she had this house,
+and he was always here.”</p>
+
+<p>“That was very nice of him,” Florence
+said; “it shows that he is very fond of his
+mother.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh yes, it was very nice of him,” Ethel
+answered, “and he is very fond of his
+mother; but I found that he generally came
+a little before I did, and he always saw me
+home. I couldn’t refuse to let him do so,
+because he evidently thought it a matter of
+duty to see that I arrived safely at my own
+street door. Middle-aged men always seem
+to think that a girl must get into mischief
+the moment she is left to her own devices.”</p>
+
+<p>“How did he know of your engagement?”</p>
+
+<p>“I wrote and told him. He had been so
+kind that I felt it was due to him. I told
+him we should be as poor as church mice, as
+George would be in a government office all
+his life, with little to do and less to spend,
+after the manner of those officials; and he
+wrote back such a nice letter, inquiring into
+all our affairs and prospects—you would have
+thought he was our godfather, at least.”</p>
+
+<p>“He does that sort of thing to everybody,”
+Florence said; “he is astonishingly kind.
+He always seems to think he ought to do
+something for the good of every one he
+knows.”</p>
+
+<p>“Perhaps he mistakes himself for a minor
+providence, and goes about living up to it.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, Ethel!”</p>
+
+<p>“And then,” Ethel went on, altogether
+ignoring the slightly shocked look on her
+friend’s face, “he said that, perhaps, a word
+might be put in somewhere and something
+done for George. He didn’t say any more,
+but I gathered that cabinet ministers occasionally
+range themselves round a newspaper
+office, seeking whom they may oblige.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, Ethel!” exclaimed Florence again,
+“that is just your little exaggerated way.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, at any rate, he thinks he can do
+something, and he evidently wants to be
+good to us.”</p>
+
+<p>“He seems to delight in doing kind
+things,” Florence answered; “you know how
+good he was about Walter.”</p>
+
+<p>“He ought to have married Mrs. Baines.
+He would have been much better than
+Alfred Wimple”—with which wise remark
+Ethel went away, full of her own happiness,
+and Florence sat down and thought over
+Mr. Fisher’s generosity.</p>
+
+<p>“He is always doing kind things,” she
+said to herself. “It was he who sent Walter
+to India, and perhaps set him up for the
+rest of his life; and he who gave that horrid
+Mr. Wimple work, only to find himself
+cheated and insulted in return. I can’t think
+what I shall do whenever I meet Mr.
+Wimple.” But she swiftly dismissed that
+disagreeable person from her mind, and
+returned to the consideration of Mr. Fisher’s
+virtues. “He is so unselfish,” she thought.
+“It isn’t every one who would try to help
+on the man for whom he had been refused.
+Yet it is very odd that, with all his goodness,
+Mr. Fisher is not a bit fascinating; I quite
+understand Ethel’s refusing him. I have
+an idea that few go out of their way to be
+good to him. Some people seem to live in
+the world to give out kindness, and others
+only to take it in.” The reflection felt like
+a self-reproach. She did so little for others
+herself, and yet she was always longing to
+do more in life than merely to take her own
+share of its enjoyment. She wanted most
+to help Aunt Anne; she longed to see her,
+to comfort and soothe her, and perhaps to
+lend her a little money. She felt convinced
+that Aunt Anne must want some money by
+this time, and that she was miserable with
+Mr. Wimple. “I am so afraid he isn’t kind
+to her,” she said to herself; “I am certain
+he hasn’t married her for love—there is some
+horrid reason that we are not clever enough
+to guess. I only wish she had never left
+Mrs. North; she was so happy there, and
+looked so grand driving about and giving
+presents; and perhaps if she had stayed she
+might, eventually, have been able to pay for
+them.” Then, almost against her will, Mrs.
+North’s face was before her again. She
+could see it quite plainly, lovely and restless,
+but with a sad look in the blue eyes that
+was like an appeal for kindness. “I feel
+as if there were an aching in her heart for
+something she has missed in life. But
+perhaps that is nonsense, or it is only that
+I don’t understand her—we are so different.
+I have half a mind to go and call on her. I
+wonder if she would care to see me?”</p>
+
+<p>Some more hesitation, some curiosity and
+kindly feeling, and then Florence put on
+her prim little bonnet and her best furs, for
+she remembered Mrs. North’s magnificent
+array and felt that it would not do to look
+shabby. She took the train from Portland
+Road to South Kensington, and walked
+slowly to Cornwall Gardens.</p>
+
+<p>“I won’t leave Walter’s card,” she thought,
+“or any cards at all if she is out; for, though
+I am glad to go and see her, I don’t want
+to be on visiting terms.”</p>
+
+<p>But Mrs. North was at home, and Florence
+was shown into a gorgeous drawing-room,
+all over draperies, and bits of colour, and
+tall palms, and pots of lovely flowers. In
+the midst of them sat Mrs. North, a little
+lonely figure by a piled-up wood fire, for the
+early spring day was cold and dreary. She
+rose as her visitor entered, and came just
+a step forward. She was lovelier than ever.
+With a cry of joyful surprise, she held out
+her hands to Florence.</p>
+
+<p>“<span class='it'>You!</span>” she exclaimed. “Oh, Mrs.
+Hibbert, I never thought you would come
+and see me at all; but now—oh, it is good
+of you! Did you think how glad I should
+be?”</p>
+
+<p>“I didn’t know whether you would care
+to see me or not,” Florence said, surprised
+at her delight.</p>
+
+<p>“Care?” Mrs. North almost gasped, and
+Florence fancied that her lip quivered;
+“indeed I do, only no one—won’t you sit
+down?”—and she made a cosy corner on
+a low couch, with a pile of soft, silk-covered
+cushions.</p>
+
+<p>“I was so sorry not to be able to come
+and see you last year——”</p>
+
+<p>“I quite understand,” Mrs. North said,
+and the colour rushed to her face. “I did
+not expect it.”</p>
+
+<p>“You were so kind about Madame
+Celestine”—Florence went on, thinking that
+she, too, would have a heap of down cushions
+in her drawing-room, and not noticing Mrs.
+North’s confusion—“and about all those
+dreadful bills.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, I remember. Then you did not
+stay away on purpose?” Mrs. North leaned
+forward while she spoke, and waited breathlessly
+for the answer.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, of course not.” A happy look
+came over the girlish face.</p>
+
+<p>“And did you come now to tell me about
+Mrs. Baines? I should love to hear about
+her. Of course I knew she would not write.
+Was she very angry at my paying the
+bill?”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, no——” and Florence hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>“Do tell me. I don’t in the least mind
+if she was. How furious she would be with
+me now, and how she would gather her
+scanty skirts and pass me by in scornful
+silence.” Mrs. North laughed, an almost
+shrill laugh that seemed to be born of sorrow
+and pain. She was very strange, Florence
+thought, and her manner was oddly altered.
+“Do tell me,” she asked again—“was she
+very angry?”</p>
+
+<p>“I am ashamed to say that she never
+knew you had paid it.”</p>
+
+<p>“You were afraid to tell her?”</p>
+
+<p>“I never had a good opportunity.”</p>
+
+<p>“It doesn’t matter a bit. It saved her
+from being worried, poor thing,—that was
+the chief point. So long as a thing is done,
+it doesn’t matter who does it—unless it’s a
+bad thing. It matters then very much—especially
+to the person who does it,” Mrs.
+North added, with a little bitter laugh.
+“The pain of it”—she stopped again, and
+went on suddenly, “Tell me more about
+Mrs. Baines. Where is she?”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know.”</p>
+
+<p>“Have you not seen her lately?”</p>
+
+<p>“Not for a long time.”</p>
+
+<p>“But what has become of her?”</p>
+
+<p>Florence hesitated again. “I cannot tell
+you.”</p>
+
+<p>“Dear lady!” said Mrs. North, her face
+merry with sudden fun. “You have not
+quarrelled with her? A Madonna doesn’t
+quarrel, surely? Oh, how rude I am—but
+you will forgive me, won’t you?” She got
+up from the other end of the couch and rang
+the bell. “Bring some tea,” she said to the
+servant, “and quickly.”</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t have tea for me, please——”
+Florence began.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh yes, yes,” Mrs. North said entreatingly.
+“I feel, dear Mrs. Hibbert, that we
+are going to talk scandal—therefore we must
+have tea. I have had enough scandal
+lately,” she added, with a sigh, “but still
+when it isn’t about one’s self it is so exhilarating,
+as Mrs. Baines would have said;
+now, please, go on.”</p>
+
+<p>“Go on with what?”</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. North pulled out a little scented
+lace handkerchief and twirled it into a ball in
+her excitement.</p>
+
+<p>“About Mrs. Baines. There is some
+exciting news—I know it; I feel it in the
+air. Ah, here’s the tea. I will pour it out
+first, and then, while we drink it, you must
+tell me all about her. Some sugar and
+cream?—there, now we look more cosy.
+Where is the old lady? What have you
+done with her? You have not locked her
+up?” she asked quickly.</p>
+
+<p>“No,” laughed Florence, thinking how
+good the tea was, and how pretty were the
+cups and the little twisted silver spoons.
+“I have not locked her up.”</p>
+
+<p>“And you have really not quarrelled with
+her?”</p>
+
+<p>“No,” answered Florence, a little doubtfully.
+“Though I sometimes fear that she
+is angry with me for what she called my
+lack of sympathy. Really, Mrs. North, I
+don’t know how to tell you; but the fact is,—she
+is married again.”</p>
+
+<p>“No, no?” cried Mrs. North. “Oh, it’s too
+lovely! And who is the dear old gentleman?”</p>
+
+<p>“It’s a young one,” and Florence laughed,
+for she could not help being amused. “I
+don’t know if you ever saw him—Mr.
+Wimple?” Mrs. North rocked to and fro,
+with wicked delight, till the last words came;
+then she grew quite grave.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, but I am sorry,” she said, “for I
+have seen him; and he didn’t look nice; he
+looked—rather horrid.”</p>
+
+<p>“I am afraid he did,” Florence answered
+regretfully.</p>
+
+<p>“Do tell me all about it”—but the only
+account that Florence was able to give did
+not satisfy Mrs. North. “You must have
+seen something of the love-making beforehand?”
+she said.</p>
+
+<p>“I am afraid I saw nothing of that either,”
+Florence explained, “for I was in London,
+and she was at the cottage.”</p>
+
+<p>“I thought she liked him when she was
+here,” Mrs. North said; “but, of course, I
+never dreamed of her being in love with
+him. She used to meet him and go to contemplate
+the Albert Memorial. Sometimes,
+when I was out alone, I drove by them; but
+I pretended to be blind, for I did not want
+to invite him here—he was so unattractive.
+He called once, but I did not encourage
+him to come again. I would give anything
+to see them together. If I knew where she
+lived, I would brave everything, and call
+upon her, though she probably wouldn’t let
+me in.”</p>
+
+<p>Then Florence began to be a little puzzled.
+What did Mrs. North mean? Had she
+done anything—anything bad? Almost
+without knowing it she looked up and asked,
+“Is Mr. North quite well?” The colour
+flew to Mrs. North’s face again.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh yes, I suppose so,” she answered
+coldly. “Naturally I don’t inquire after his
+health.”</p>
+
+<p>“You had had a telegram last time I saw
+you——”</p>
+
+<p>“I remember”—it was said bitterly. “I
+wondered why he was coming back so
+suddenly.”</p>
+
+<p>“I thought perhaps he was at home still.”</p>
+
+<p>“At home! He may be. I don’t know
+where he is. I have not the least idea. It
+is no concern of mine.”</p>
+
+<p>“Then he did not return after all?”
+Florence said, bewildered. Mrs. North
+looked at her for a moment in silence. Then
+she got up and stood leaning against the
+mantelpiece, which was covered with flowers
+and <span class='it'>bric-à-brac</span>.</p>
+
+<p>“Mrs. Hibbert,” she said, and it seemed
+as if her lips moved reluctantly, but she
+showed no other sign of emotion—“you
+know—what has happened to me, don’t
+you?”</p>
+
+<p>“No,” answered Florence, breathlessly,
+and she stood up too. Mrs. North glanced
+quickly at the door, almost as if she expected
+to see her visitor flee towards it.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. North divorced me,” she said, very
+slowly.</p>
+
+<p>“I didn’t know,” Florence answered, and
+began to put on her glove.</p>
+
+<p>“I thought you didn’t,” and there came
+a bitter little laugh. “I knew you didn’t;
+and yet, deep down in the bottommost corner
+of my heart, I hoped you did.”</p>
+
+<p>“You must forgive me for saying that, if
+I had, I should not have come, though I am
+very, very sorry for you.”</p>
+
+<p>“As a judge is when he sends a prisoner
+into solitary confinement, or to be hanged,
+and turns away to his own comfortable
+life?” Florence buttoned her glove. “And
+you will never come and see me again, of
+course?” she added, with another little
+burst.</p>
+
+<p>“I do not think I can,” Florence said
+gently.</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t want you,” Mrs. North answered
+quickly, while her cheeks burned a deeper
+and deeper red. “It was only a test question.”</p>
+
+<p>“I am very sorry for you,” Florence said
+again, “very, very. You are so young; and
+you seem to have no one belonging to you.
+But there are some things that are impossible,
+if——”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, I know,” burst out Mrs. North
+again; “I know. My God! and this is a
+Christian country—yes, wait,” she said, for
+she fancied Florence was going. “I know
+you are kind and gentle, and you are—good,”
+she added, almost as an afterthought;
+“and you and the women like you try very
+hard to keep your goodness close among
+yourselves, and never to let one scrap of it
+touch women like me. Tell me,” she asked—“did
+you marry the man you loved best
+in the world?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” Florence answered unwillingly,
+afraid of being dragged into an argument.</p>
+
+<p>“Then you have never known any temptation
+to do wrong. Where does the merit
+of doing right come in?”</p>
+
+<p>“I would rather not discuss it,” Florence
+said, gently but coldly.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, let me speak—not for my own sake,
+for I shall be strong enough to make some
+sort of life for myself after a time; but for
+the sake of other women who may be in my
+position and judged as you judge me. When
+I was eighteen I was persuaded to marry a
+man old enough to be my father.”</p>
+
+<p>“But if you didn’t care for him——”</p>
+
+<p>“So many of us think that love is half a
+myth till our own turn comes. They said
+I should be happy, and I wanted to be. Of
+course I wasn’t: human nature is not so
+easily satisfied. He was rather kind at first.
+But after a time he grew tired of me. I
+suppose I wasn’t much of a companion to
+him. He went abroad and left me alone,
+again and again. At first my sister was with
+me; she married and went away. Mrs.
+Baines came a little while before that——”
+She stopped, as if unable to go on without
+some encouragement.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes?” Florence said, listening almost
+against her will.</p>
+
+<p>“And I was young and inexperienced.
+How could I know the danger in so many
+things that amused me? At last I fell in
+love; I had been so lonely, I was so tired,
+and I had never cared for any one in my
+whole life before.”</p>
+
+<p>“But you knew that it was wrong. You
+were married.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh yes, but the paths of virtue had been
+deadly dull, and trodden with a man I did
+not love and whom I had been made to
+marry. The man I did love was young and
+handsome,—he is a soldier. The rest of the
+story was natural, even if it was wicked.”</p>
+
+<p>“And then?” asked Florence, wonderingly.</p>
+
+<p>“Then my husband came back, and there
+were the usual details. He heard something
+that sent him flying home to look after his
+honour. He had forgotten to look after
+mine—or my happiness.”</p>
+
+<p>“And the man?”</p>
+
+<p>“He had gone to India with his regiment.
+He telegraphed over, ‘No defence,’ and that
+was the end of it.”</p>
+
+<p>“I hope he will come back and make you
+reparation.”</p>
+
+<p>“He has not written me a line,” Mrs.
+North said, and the tears came into her eyes
+for a moment—“not a word, not a sign.
+Perhaps he is dead—India is a country that
+swallows up many histories; or, perhaps,”
+she added desperately, “he, too, despises
+me now. People flee from me as if I had
+the plague,” she added, with the bitter laugh
+again. “Oh, there are no people in the
+world who encourage wickedness as do the
+strictly virtuous.”</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t say that,” Florence answered, “for,
+indeed, it is not true.”</p>
+
+<p>“But it is,” Mrs. North said eagerly. “I
+have proved it: once do wrong, and men
+and women seem to combine to prevent you
+from ever doing right again. You can’t
+make a Magdalen of me”—and she held out
+her hands. “I am young; I am a girl still;
+you can’t expect me to go in sackcloth and
+ashes all my life—and that in solitude. I
+want to be happy; I am hungry—and aching
+for happiness.”</p>
+
+<p>“I hope you will get some still, but——”</p>
+
+<p>“How can I? Men shun me, unless they
+want to make me worse; and women fly
+from me, as if they feared their own respectability
+would vanish at the mere sight
+of me. It seems to be made of brittle
+stuff.”</p>
+
+<p>“It is not that,” Florence interrupted—“but
+a difference must be made; there must
+be some punishment—something done to
+prevent——”</p>
+
+<p>“That is why so many women go on
+doing wrong,” Mrs. North continued, as if
+she had not heard the interruption; “they
+cannot bear the treatment of that portion of
+the world which has remained unspotted
+or unfound-out. Oh, the cruelty of good
+women! I sometimes think it is only the
+people who have sinned or who have suffered
+who really know how to feel.”</p>
+
+<p>“That is not true——” Florence began,
+but still Mrs. North did not heed her.</p>
+
+<p>“Do you know,” she said, speaking under
+her breath, “I am so sorry for women now
+that I believe I could kneel down beside a
+wicked, drunken creature in a gutter, and
+kiss her, and bring her back, and be tender
+to her in the hope of making her better.
+For I understand not only the sin, but the
+pain and the misery, and the good people,
+and all else that have driven her there.”</p>
+
+<p>“But some difference must be made—you
+cannot expect to be received as if people
+thought you now what they thought you
+once?”</p>
+
+<p>“I know that,” Mrs. North said scornfully.
+“People can’t ask me to their parties.
+I don’t want to go to them. They may not
+want me for the friend of their daughters,
+though I should not harm them——” and
+she burst into tears.</p>
+
+<p>“It isn’t possible,” Florence said helplessly.</p>
+
+<p>“But need men and women flee from me
+as if I were a leper? People who have
+known me for years, and might make me
+better, women especially, who might make
+me a little happier and ashamed of having
+done wrong. But no—no; they gather
+their skirts, and do not see me as they pass,
+though a year ago they crowded here. They
+are waiting to hear that I am dead, or have
+grown wickeder still. They would feel a
+sort of pleasure in hearing it, and be glad
+they did not risk their spotless reputations
+by trying to prevent it.”</p>
+
+<p>“I think you must let me go away,”
+Florence said gently, determined to end the
+interview.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh yes, you had better go!”—and Mrs.
+North put the backs of her hands against
+her flushed cheeks to cool them. “My tea
+has not poisoned you, and I have not ‘contaminated
+you,’ as Mrs. Baines would say.
+If you ever think of me in the midst of your
+own successful life, believe this, that if I had
+had all that you have had, I might have
+been as good as you—who knows? As it
+is, I have my choice between isolation, with
+a few breaths of occasional scorn, or the
+going farther along a road on which, no
+doubt, you think I am well started.”</p>
+
+<p>“Please let me go,” Florence said gently,
+almost carried away by Mrs. North’s beauty
+when she looked up at her face, but feeling
+that she ought to stand by the principles
+that had been a part of her religion. “This
+has been so painful, I am sure you must want
+to be alone.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh yes, it has been painful enough, but
+it has been instructive also,” Mrs. North
+said; and then she added gently, “I think I
+would rather you go now. Yes, please go,”
+she entreated suddenly, while a sob choked
+her, and she dabbed her tears with her little
+lace handkerchief, vainly struggling to laugh
+again.</p>
+
+<p>“I think it would be better,” Florence
+said; “but perhaps some day, if I may—I
+will——” She stopped, for she felt that
+she ought to consult her husband before she
+promised to come again.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh yes, I understand,” Mrs. North said.
+“You will come again if you can; but if you
+don’t, it will only increase my respect for
+goodness. I shall think how precious it is,
+how valuable—it has to be guarded like the
+Koh-i-noor. Good-bye, Mrs. Hibbert, good-bye.”
+She rang the bell and bowed almost
+haughtily, so that Florence felt herself dismissed.</p>
+
+<p>“Good-bye,” the latter said, and slowly
+turned from the room. Somehow she knew
+that Mrs. North watched her until the door
+had half closed, and then threw herself, a
+little miserable heap, among the silk cushions.
+But she was halfway down the stairs before
+she realized it, and the servant was waiting
+to show her out.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, I was cold and cruel,” she thought,
+when the street door had closed behind her,
+“but I could not help it; there is no sin in
+the world so awful as that one.”</p>
+
+<div class='figcenter' style='width:30%'>
+<img src='images/tail2.jpg' alt='owl' id='iid-0004' style='width:80%;height:auto;'/>
+</div>
+
+<hr class='pbk'/>
+
+<div class='figcenter'>
+<img src='images/chap1.jpg' alt='' id='iid-0005' style='width:80%;height:auto;'/>
+</div>
+
+<div><h1>CHAPTER III.</h1></div>
+
+<p class='noindent'><span class='lead-in'><img class='dropcap' src='images/capi2.jpg' style='float:left;width:8%;' alt=' “I'/> CAN</span> understand what you felt,”
+Walter said, when he heard of
+Florence’s interview with Mrs. North; “still,
+I wish we could do something for her.”</p>
+
+<p>“It has made me miserable; but I don’t
+quite see what we can do. We can’t invite
+her here—who would come to meet her?
+As for my going to see her again, I would
+go willingly if I thought I should do her any
+good; but I don’t think she would care
+about seeing me. She imagines I am good
+and disagreeable.”</p>
+
+<p>“Poor Floggie! Perhaps you might write
+her a little letter, and then let it drop.”</p>
+
+<p>“I’ll wait till I hear some news about
+Aunt Anne; then I will write, and try to
+make my letter rather nice.”</p>
+
+<p>This excuse was soon given her.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Burnett, Mr. Fisher’s Whitley friend,
+called to see Florence one afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>“I thought perhaps you would come for a
+drive with me,” she said; “it is lovely in the
+Park to-day—such beautiful sunshine.”</p>
+
+<p>“It would be delightful,” Florence
+answered, for she always liked Mrs. Burnett;
+“but I am afraid I must go to tea with a
+cousin in Kensington Gore. I promised to
+meet Walter there, and go for a walk afterwards.”</p>
+
+<p>“Let me drive you there, at any rate.”</p>
+
+<p>“That would be very kind,” Florence
+said, and in five minutes they were on their
+way.</p>
+
+<p>“Have you seen Mr. Fisher lately?” Mrs.
+Burnett asked, as they went across the
+Park.</p>
+
+<p>“I saw him two or three weeks ago.”</p>
+
+<p>“He has grown very grave and silent. I
+have an idea that he fell in love with a
+rather handsome girl who used to come and
+see his mother. I think she was a friend
+of yours, Mrs. Hibbert.”</p>
+
+<p>“He doesn’t look like a man to fall in
+love,” Florence said, trying not to betray Mr.
+Fisher’s confidence.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, but you never know what is going
+on inside people—their feelings are so often
+at variance with their appearance. My
+husband said once that he sometimes thought
+people drew lots for their souls, because
+they are so seldom matched with their
+bodies.”</p>
+
+<p>“Perhaps they do, and for their hearts
+as well. It would account for the strange
+capacity some people have for loving, though
+you have only to look at them to see it is
+hopeless that they should be loved back
+again.”</p>
+
+<p>“I know, and it is terrible that love
+should so often depend, as it does, on the
+chance arrangement of a little flesh and
+blood—for that is what beauty amounts to.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, but we don’t always love beauty.”</p>
+
+<p>“No, not always,” Mrs. Burnett answered;
+“but the shape of a face, for instance, will
+sometimes prevent our love going to a very
+beautiful soul.”</p>
+
+<p>“And a few years and wrinkles will make
+love ridiculous or impossible,” Florence said,
+thinking of Aunt Anne. Oddly enough,
+Mrs. Burnett evidently thought of her too,
+for she asked—</p>
+
+<p>“Has your aunt been at the cottage at
+Witley lately?”</p>
+
+<p>“No,” answered Florence; but she did
+not want to discuss Aunt Anne. “My
+children so often remember the donkey-cart,”
+she said; “it was a great joy to them.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, I’m very glad. When you go to
+Witley again, I hope you will use the
+pony.”</p>
+
+<p>“What has become of the donkey?”</p>
+
+<p>“We were obliged to sell it. It would not
+go at all at last. We are not going to
+Witley ourselves till July; so, meanwhile,
+I hope you will use the pony. Only, dear
+Mrs. Hibbert, you won’t let him go too fast
+uphill, for it spoils his breath; and we never
+let him gallop downhill, for fear of his
+precious knees.”</p>
+
+<p>“I will be very careful,” Florence said,
+rather amused.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m afraid we don’t let him go too fast,
+even on level ground,” Mrs. Burnett added;
+“for he’s a dear little pony, and we should be
+so grieved if he came to any harm.”</p>
+
+<p>“Perhaps he would be safer always standing
+still,” Florence suggested.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, but he might catch cold then; but
+do remember, dear Mrs. Hibbert, when you
+are going to Witley, that you have only to
+send a card the night before to the gardener,
+and he will meet you at the station.”</p>
+
+<p>“Thank you, only I should be rather afraid
+to use him for fear of accidents.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, but you needn’t be; and we are so
+glad to have him exercised. Perhaps Mrs.
+Baines would like to drive him? Why, we
+are at Kensington Gore already. It has
+been delightful to have you for this little
+drive. Good-by, dear Mrs. Hibbert.”</p>
+
+<p>Walter was waiting for Florence at her
+cousin’s. He gave her a sign not to stay
+too long.</p>
+
+<p>“We so seldom get a walk together,” he
+said, when they were outside, “that it seemed
+a pity to waste our time under a roof. Let
+us get into the Park;” and they crossed
+over.</p>
+
+<p>“How lovely it is,” Florence said, “with
+the tender green coming out on the trees.
+The brown boughs look as if they were
+sprinkled with it. And what a number of
+people are out. The Park is beginning to
+have quite a season-like look.”</p>
+
+<p>“Do you remember how Aunt Anne used
+to come here and contemplate the Albert
+Memorial?” Walter asked. “By the way,
+Fisher was talking of Wimple to-day; he is
+very sore about him.”</p>
+
+<p>“It was very vexing; I wish we had never
+seen him, don’t you?”</p>
+
+<p>“What, Wimple? I should think so. I
+asked Fisher if he knew the fellow’s address;
+he says the last time he heard of him he
+was somewhere near Gray’s Inn Road. I
+wonder if she was with him?”</p>
+
+<p>“Walter!” exclaimed Florence, and she
+almost clutched his arm, “I believe she is
+over there. Perhaps that is why she has
+been running in our thoughts all day.”</p>
+
+<p>A little distance off, on a bench under a
+tree, sat a spare black figure, with what
+looked like a cashmere shawl pulled round
+the slight shoulders. Limp and sad the
+figure looked: there was an expression of
+loneliness in every line of it.</p>
+
+<p>“It is very like her,” Walter said. They
+went a little nearer; they were almost beside
+her; but they could not see her face, which
+was turned away from them.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, it must be she,” Florence said, in
+a whisper. Perhaps she heard their footsteps,
+for the black bonnet turned slowly
+round, and, sure enough, there was the
+face of Aunt Anne. It looked thin and woebegone.</p>
+
+<p>“Aunt Anne! Dear Aunt Anne! Why
+have you left us all this time without a
+sign?” and Florence put her arms round the
+slender shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>“Aunt Anne! Why, this is real good
+luck!” Walter exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>“My dear Florence, my dear Walter,” the
+old lady said, looking at them with a half-dazed
+manner; “bless you, dear children; it
+does me good to see you.”</p>
+
+<p>“You don’t deserve it, you know,” he said
+tenderly, “for cutting us.”</p>
+
+<p>“It wasn’t my fault, dear Walter,” she
+answered; “you and Florence and the
+dear children have been constantly in my
+thoughts; but we have had many unavoidable
+anxieties since our marriage; besides, I
+was not sure that you desired to see me again.”</p>
+
+<p>“Why, of course we did. But you don’t
+deserve to see us again after leaving us alone
+all this long time. Where is Wimple?”</p>
+
+<p>“He is at Liphook,” she answered. “He
+is not strong, and finds the air beneficial to
+him.”</p>
+
+<p>“It was always beneficial to him,” Walter
+said dryly, as he sat down beside her.</p>
+
+<p>“He ought not to leave you alone, dear
+Aunt Anne; you don’t look well,” Florence
+said.</p>
+
+<p>“I am very frail, my love, but that is all.
+London air is never detrimental to me, as it
+is to Alfred. He finds that Liphook invigorates
+him, and he frequently goes there
+for two or three days; but, as our means are
+not adequate to defray the expenses of much
+travelling, I remain in town. Walter,” she
+asked, looking up with a touch of her old
+manner, “did you enjoy your visit to India?
+I hope you have most pleasant recollections
+of your journey.”</p>
+
+<p>“I’ll tell you what, Floggie dear,” Walter
+said, not answering Aunt Anne’s question,
+“we’ll take her back with us at once.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh no, my love,” the old lady began; “it
+is impossible——”</p>
+
+<p>“How can it be impossible?” Florence
+said gaily; “you are evidently all alone in
+London; so we’ll run away with you. The
+children are longing to see you, and I want
+to show you all the things Walter brought
+from India. There is a little ivory elephant
+for you.”</p>
+
+<p>“It was just like him to think of me,” the
+old lady said, with a flicker of her former
+brightness; but in a moment her sadness
+returned, and Walter noticed that there was
+almost a cowed expression on her face. It
+went to his heart, and gave him a mighty
+longing to thrash Wimple.</p>
+
+<p>“You must come at once,” he said, putting
+on an authoritative manner; “then you can
+tell us all your news, and we will tell you all
+ours. There, put your arm in mine, and
+Florence shall go the other side to see you
+don’t escape.”</p>
+
+<p>“He is just the same. He makes me
+think of his dear father,” she said, as she
+walked between them; “and of that happy
+day at Brighton, years and years ago now,
+when I met you both on the pier. Do you
+remember, my dear ones?”</p>
+
+<p>“Of course we do!” said Walter; “and
+how victoriously you carried us off then, just
+as we are carrying you off now.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, he’s just the same,” the old lady
+repeated.</p>
+
+<p>“Here’s a four-wheeler,” he said, when
+they reached the Bayswater Road. “This is
+quite an adventure; only,” he added gently,
+“you don’t look up to much.”</p>
+
+<p>“I shall be better soon,” she said, and
+dropped into silence again. She looked,
+almost vacantly, out of the cab window as
+they went along, and they were afraid to ask
+her questions, for, instinctively, they felt
+that things had not gone well with her.
+Presently she turned to Florence. “Did
+you say the children were at home, my
+love?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, dear.” The old lady looked out
+again at the green trees in the Park, and
+almost furtively at the shops in Oxford
+Street. Then she turned to Florence.</p>
+
+<p>“My love,” she said, “I must take those
+dear children a little present. Would you
+permit the cabman to stop at a sweetmeat-shop?
+We shall reach one in a moment.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, please don’t trouble about them, dear
+Aunt Anne.”</p>
+
+<p>“I shouldn’t like them to think I had forgotten
+them, my love,” she pleaded.</p>
+
+<p>“No, and they shan’t think it,” Walter
+said, patting her hand. “Hi! stop, cabby.
+Stay in the cab; I’ll go and get something
+for them.” In a few minutes he reappeared
+with two boxes of chocolates. “I think that’s
+the sort of thing,” he said. She looked at
+them carefully, opened them, and examined
+the name of the maker.</p>
+
+<p>“You have selected them most judiciously,
+dear Walter,” she answered.</p>
+
+<p>“That’s all right. Now we’ll go on.” She
+looked at the boxes once more, and put them
+down, satisfied.</p>
+
+<p>“It was just like you, to save me the
+fatigue of getting out of the cab,” she said
+to her nephew. “I hope the children will
+like them; they were always most partial to
+chocolates. You must remind me to reimburse
+you for them presently, my dear.”
+And once more she turned to the window.</p>
+
+<p>“Aunt Anne, are you looking for any
+one?” Walter asked presently.</p>
+
+<p>“No, my love, but I thought the cabman
+was going through Portman Square, and
+that he would pass Sir William Rammage’s
+house.”</p>
+
+<p>“That worthy was at Cannes the other
+day, I saw.”</p>
+
+<p>“He stays there till next month,” she explained,
+and then they were all silent until
+they reached the end of their journey. It
+was impossible to talk much to Aunt Anne;
+it seemed to interrupt her thoughts. Silence
+seemed to have become a habit to her, just
+as it had to Alfred Wimple. She was a little
+excited when they stopped at the house, and
+lingered before the entrance for a moment.
+Almost sadly she looked up at the balcony
+on which she had sat with Alfred Wimple,
+and slowly her left eye winked, as if many
+things had happened since that happy night
+of which only she had a knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>They sat her down in an easy-chair, and
+gave her tea, and made much of her, and
+asked no questions—only showed their delight
+at having her with them again. Gradually
+the tender old face looked happier, the sad
+lines about the mouth softened, and once
+there was quite a merry note in her voice,
+as she laughed and said, “You dear children,
+you are just the same.” Then Catty and
+Monty were brought in, and she kissed them,
+and patronized them, and gave them their
+chocolates, and duly sent them away again,
+just as she always used to do.</p>
+
+<p>“I began to work a little hood for Catty,”
+she said, “but I never finished it; it was not
+that I was dilatory, but that my eyes are
+not as good as they were.” She said the
+last words sadly, and Florence, looking up
+quickly, wondered if they were dimmed from
+weeping.</p>
+
+<p>“Poor Aunt Anne,” she said soothingly;
+“but you are not as lonely as formerly?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, my love, only Alfred has a great
+deal of work to do. It keeps him constantly
+at his chambers; and his health not being
+good, he is obliged to go out of town very
+often, so that, unwillingly”—and she winked
+sadly—“he is much away from me.”</p>
+
+<p>“What work is he doing?” Walter asked.</p>
+
+<p>“My dear,” she said, with gentle dignity,
+“you must forgive me for not answering that
+question, but I feel that he would not approve
+of my discussing his private affairs.”</p>
+
+<p>“Have you comfortable rooms in town?”
+Florence asked, in order to change the
+subject.</p>
+
+<p>“No, my love, they are not very comfortable,
+but we are not in a pecuniary position
+to pay a large rent.” She paused for a
+moment, and her face became grave and set.
+Florence, watching her, fancied that there
+was a little quiver to the upper lip.</p>
+
+<p>“Aunt Anne, dear Aunt Anne, I am
+certain you are not very happy—tell us what
+it is. We love you. Do tell us—is anything
+the matter? Is Mr. Wimple kind to you?
+Are you poor?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, do tell us!” Walter said, and put
+his arm round her shoulder, and gave it a
+little affectionate caress.</p>
+
+<p>She hesitated for a moment. “My dears,”
+she said gratefully, but a little distantly,
+“Alfred is very kind to me, but he is very
+much tried by our circumstances. He is
+not strong, and he is obliged to be separated
+from me very often. It causes him
+much regret, although he is too unselfish to
+show it.”</p>
+
+<p>“But you ought not to be very poor, if
+Wimple has lots of work,” Walter said.</p>
+
+<p>“I fear it is not very profitable work, dear
+Walter, and though I have an allowance from
+Sir William Rammage, it does not defray all
+our expenses”—and she was silent. Walter
+and Florence were silent too. They could
+not help it, for Aunt Anne had grown so
+grave, and she seemed to lose herself in her
+thoughts. Only once did she refer to the
+past.</p>
+
+<p>“Walter, dear,” she asked, “did you find
+my little gifts useful when you were away?”
+Aunt Anne always used to inquire after the
+wear and tear of her presents.</p>
+
+<p>“Indeed I did,” he answered heartily. “I
+was speaking of them only to-day—wasn’t I,
+Floggie?” But he concealed the fact that
+all the scissors were lost, lest she should
+want to give him some more.</p>
+
+<p>“Aunt Anne,” Florence asked, “isn’t there
+anything we could do for you? You don’t
+look very well.”</p>
+
+<p>“The spring is so trying, my love,” the
+old lady said gently.</p>
+
+<p>“I expect you want a change quite as
+much as Mr. Wimple.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh no, my love. I have been a little
+annoyed by my landlady, who was impertinent
+to me this morning. It depresses me
+to have a liberty taken with me.” Perhaps
+the rent was not paid, Florence thought, but
+she did not dare to ask. Aunt Anne shivered
+and pulled her shawl round her again, and
+explained that she had not put on her warm
+cloak, as it was so sunny and bright, and
+the people in the Park might have observed
+that it was shabby; and while she
+was talking a really brilliant idea came to
+Walter.</p>
+
+<p>“Aunt Anne,” he exclaimed, “why should
+not you and Wimple go to our cottage at
+Witley for a bit? Oh! but I forgot—he
+stays with friends at Liphook, doesn’t
+he?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, my love, he lodges with an old
+retainer.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh,” said Walter, shortly, remembering
+a different account that Wimple had given
+him the year before, on the memorable morning
+when they met in the Strand. “Well, I
+think it would be an excellent thing if
+you and he went to our cottage. It is standing
+empty; we don’t want it just yet, and
+there you could be together.” Aunt Anne
+looked up with keen interest.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, why not?” exclaimed Florence.
+“I wish you would. You would be quite
+happy there.”</p>
+
+<p>“My love,” said the old lady, eagerly, “it
+would be delightful. But I’m afraid there
+are reasons that render it impossible for me
+to accept your kindness.”</p>
+
+<p>“What reasons?—do speak out,” they
+said entreatingly, “because, perhaps, we can
+smooth them away.”</p>
+
+<p>“My dears,” said the old lady, “I must be
+frank with you. I am indebted to some of
+the tradespeople there, and I am not in a
+position to pay their bills.”</p>
+
+<p>“They are all paid,” Walter said joyfully,
+“so don’t trouble about them; and, moreover,
+we told them that they were never to
+give us any credit, so I am afraid they won’t
+give you any next time, any more than they
+will us, but you won’t mind that.”</p>
+
+<p>“And then, my love,” the old lady went
+on, to Florence, “I have no servants.”</p>
+
+<p>“I can arrange that,” said Florence. “I
+can telegraph to Jane Mitchell, the postman’s
+sister, who always comes in and does for us
+when we go alone, from Saturday to Monday,
+and take no servant. Do go, Aunt Anne;
+it will do you a world of good. I shall take
+you back to your lodgings, and get you
+ready, and send you off to-morrow morning.”</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Anne stood up excitedly. “My
+dears,” she said, “I will bless you for sending
+me. I can’t bear this separation. I
+want to be with him, and he wants me—I
+know he does; it makes him cross and irritable
+to be away from me.” There was
+almost a wild look in her eyes. They were
+astonished at her vehemence. But suddenly
+she seemed to remember something, and all
+her excitement subsided. “I cannot go until
+Sir William Rammage returns to town, or
+his solicitor does. My quarter’s allowance
+is not due for some weeks, and unfortunately——”</p>
+
+<p>“We’ll make that all right, Aunt Anne;
+leave it to us,” said Walter. “Florence will
+come round in the morning and carry you
+off, and Wimple will be quite astonished
+when you send for him.”</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Anne looked up almost gaily.
+“Yes, my love, he will be quite astonished.
+You have made me happy,” she added, with
+something like a sob; “bless you for all
+your goodness. Now, my dear ones, you
+must permit me to depart; I shall have so
+many arrangements to make this evening.
+Bless you for all your kindness.”</p>
+
+<p>“I am going to take you back in a
+hansom,” said Walter. And in a few minutes
+they were driving to the address she had
+given, a florist’s shop in a street off the
+Edgware Road.</p>
+
+<p>“I think her rooms were on the top
+floor,” he told Florence, when he returned,
+“for she looked up at the windows with a
+mournful air when we arrived. The house
+seemed neglected, and the shop had a dead-and-gone
+air; nothing in it but some decayed
+plants and a few stray slugs. It is my
+opinion that she is left in a garret all by
+herself, poor dear; and that Wimple takes
+himself off to his chambers, or to his Liphook
+friends, and has a better time.”</p>
+
+<p>“He’s a horrid thing!”</p>
+
+<p>“Floggie, do you know that he is our
+uncle Alfred?” her husband asked wickedly.
+She looked at him for a moment in bewilderment,
+then she understood.</p>
+
+<p>“Walter,” she said, “if you ever say that
+again I will run away from you. I shall go
+and write a line to Mrs. Burnett’s gardener,”
+she added, “and tell him to meet us with the
+pony to-morrow; she said I was to use it,
+and I think it would be good for Aunt Anne
+not to be excited by the sight of Steggall’s
+waggonette. I am certain she is very unhappy.”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know how she could expect to
+be anything else,” he answered. “Poor
+thing, what the deuce did he marry her
+for? There is some mystery at the bottom
+of it.”</p>
+
+<hr class='tbk'/>
+
+<p>Walter had divined rightly. Aunt Anne’s
+lodging was at the top of the house. When
+he left her she went slowly up the dark
+staircase that led to it. On the landing outside
+her door were her two canvas-covered
+boxes, one on top of the other. She looked
+at them for a moment, half hesitatingly, as if
+she were thinking of the journey they would
+take to-morrow, and of the things she must
+not forget to put into them. She turned the
+handle of the front-room door and walked in.
+Alfred Wimple was sitting by a cinder fire,
+over which he was trying to make some
+water boil. He looked up as she entered,
+but did not rise from the broken cane-bottomed
+chair.</p>
+
+<p>“Why did you go out, Anne?” he asked
+severely, without giving her any sort of
+greeting.</p>
+
+<p>“My dear one,” she said excitedly, going
+forward, “I did not dream of your being
+here; it is, indeed, a joyful surprise.” She
+put her hands on his shoulder and leaned
+down. He turned his head away with a
+quick movement, and her kiss brushed his
+cheek near the ear; but she pretended not
+to see it. “When did you come, my
+darling?”</p>
+
+<p>“Two hours ago,” he said solemnly; “and
+I wanted some tea.”</p>
+
+<p>“I am so sorry, but I did not dream of
+your coming. Are you better, my dear
+one?” She tried to pull the fire together
+with the little poker.</p>
+
+<p>“I am a little better,” he answered. “You
+will never make the water boil over that
+fire.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, I will”—and she looked into the
+coal-scuttle. “Have you come up to town
+for good, dear Alfred?” The scuttle was
+empty, but she found some little bits of wood
+and tried to make a blaze.</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know; I am going back to my
+chambers presently to do a night’s work.”</p>
+
+<p>“And to-morrow?” she asked anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>“Perhaps you will see me to-morrow,” he
+answered. “Can you give me something to
+eat? I wish you would make a decent fire.”</p>
+
+<p>“I will, my dear one. If you will rest
+here patiently for a few minutes, I will go
+downstairs and ask the landlady to let me
+have some coals.”</p>
+
+<p>“I have no money,” he said sullenly;
+“understand that.”</p>
+
+<p>“But I have, my darling,” she answered
+joyfully; “and I am quite sure you require
+nourishment. Will you let me go out and
+buy you a chop?”</p>
+
+<p>“Give me some tea. I can get dinner on
+my way back.”</p>
+
+<p>“Won’t you stay with me this evening,
+Alfred? I have some news for you, and
+I have been so lonely.” She looked round
+the shabby room, as if to prove to him how
+impossible it was to find comfort in it.</p>
+
+<p>“No, I can’t stay,” he answered shortly.
+“How much money have you got?”</p>
+
+<p>“I have a sovereign. Walter slipped it
+into my glove just now. I have been to see
+them both, Alfred.”</p>
+
+<p>“What did they say about me?”</p>
+
+<p>“They spoke of you most kindly, my
+darling,” she answered, and winked very
+timidly.</p>
+
+<p>“Why couldn’t he give you more? A
+sovereign isn’t much,” Wimple said discontentedly.
+“I see Rammage is not coming
+back from Cannes just yet,” he added.</p>
+
+<p>“My dear,” she said gravely, “you are
+fatigued with your journey, and hungry, and
+I know you are anxious. If you will excuse
+me a moment, I will make some little
+preparations for your comfort.” And, with
+the dignity that always sat so quaintly upon
+her, she rose from the rug and left the room.
+She returned in a few minutes, followed by
+the landlady with a scuttleful of coals. Then
+she made some tea, and cut some bread and
+butter, and set it before Alfred Wimple, all
+the time putting off, nervously, the telling of
+her great bit of news. She looked at him
+while he ate and drank, and her face showed
+that she was not looking at the actual man
+before her, but at some one she had endowed
+with a dozen beauties of heart and soul: she
+wished he could realize that he possessed
+them; they might have given him patience
+and made him happier.</p>
+
+<p>“Did you enjoy the country?” she asked
+gently.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes”—he coughed uneasily—“but I was
+not well. I shall go there again soon.”</p>
+
+<p>“What do you do all day?” she asked.
+“Have you any society?”</p>
+
+<p>He was silent for a moment, as if
+struggling with the destitution of speech that
+always beset him. “I can’t give you an
+account of all my days, Anne,” he said, and
+turned to the fire.</p>
+
+<p>“I did not ask it, Alfred; you know that
+I never intrude upon your privacy. I had
+some news,” she went on, with a pathetic
+note in her voice, “and hoped it would be
+pleasing to you.”</p>
+
+<p>“What is it?” The expression of his
+face had not changed for a moment from the
+one of sulky displeasure it had worn when
+she entered, and her manner betrayed a
+certain nervousness, as if she felt that he
+was with her against his will, and only by
+gentle propitiation could she keep him at all.</p>
+
+<p>“Walter and Florence have offered to
+lend us their cottage at Witley. We can go
+to it to-morrow—if it is convenient to you,
+dear Alfred,” she added meekly.</p>
+
+<p>“I shall not go there,” he said sullenly;
+and for a moment he looked her full in the
+face with his dull eyes.</p>
+
+<p>“I thought the air of that locality was
+always beneficial to you,” she said, in the
+same tone in which she had last spoken.</p>
+
+<p>“Thank you, I don’t wish to go to that
+‘locality,’ and be laughed at.” He half
+mocked her as he spoke.</p>
+
+<p>“Why should you be laughed at?” she
+asked, with almost a cry of pain in her voice,
+for she knew what the answer would be,
+beforehand; but the words were forced from
+her, she could not help them. He coughed
+and looked at her again.</p>
+
+<p>“People generally laugh at a young man
+who marries an old woman, Anne.” She
+got up and went to the end of the room,
+and came back again, and put her hand upon
+his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>“No one is there to laugh,” she said.
+“There is no one there to know. We need
+not keep any society.” She did not see the
+absurdity of the last remark, and made it
+quite gravely. “There are only a few
+people in the neighbourhood at all, and those
+of an inferior class. It does not matter what
+they think.”</p>
+
+<p>“It matters to me what every one thinks.”</p>
+
+<p>“We cannot remain here much longer,”
+she went on. “The landlady was most
+impertinent to-day. I think Florence and
+Walter would help to pay her if we went
+to the cottage to-morrow. They said they
+would arrange everything.”</p>
+
+<p>“It is a long way from Liphook,” he said,
+almost to himself; “if any one saw us, they
+wouldn’t suspect that we were married.
+They would think you were my aunt,
+perhaps.”</p>
+
+<p>“They may think what they please,
+Alfred,” she answered, “if you are only
+with me.” Then her voice changed. “My
+dear one, I cannot bear life unless you are
+gentle to me,” she pleaded; “and I cannot
+bear it here alone any longer, always away
+from you, day after day. I am your wife,
+Alfred, and, if I am an old woman, I love
+you with all the years I remember, and all
+the love that has been stored up in me since
+my youth. I want to be near you, to take
+care of you, to see that you have comforts.
+You can say that I am your aunt, if it pleases
+you. I never feel that I am your wife, only
+that it is my great privilege to be near you
+and to serve you.” She stopped, as if unable
+to go on, and he was silent a moment or two
+before he answered.</p>
+
+<p>“It might be a good idea; as you say,
+there is no one about there to know.”</p>
+
+<p>“Are you ashamed of me?”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t want to look ridiculous.” Then
+a flash came into her eyes, and the old spirit
+asserted itself.</p>
+
+<p>“Alfred,” she said, “if you do not love
+me, I think at least you should learn to treat
+me with respect. If I am so distasteful to
+you we had better separate. I cannot go
+on bearing all that I have borne patiently
+for months. Let me go to Florence and
+Walter; they will be kind to me, and I will
+never be a burden upon you. The allowance
+that Sir William Rammage gives me
+would keep me in comfort alone, and it
+struck me the other day that, when he dies,
+perhaps he will leave me something.”</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her with sudden alarm.
+The cowed look seemed to have gone from
+her face to his, and as she saw it she
+gathered strength, and went on, “I cannot
+be insulted, Alfred; I cannot and will not.”</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t be foolish, Anne; I am irritable
+sometimes, and I am not strong——”</p>
+
+<p>“That is why I have borne so much from
+you.”</p>
+
+<p>“I will go to Witley with you,” he said,
+ignoring her remark altogether; “that is,
+if you like, and can raise the money to go.
+I have none.”</p>
+
+<div class='figcenter' style='width:30%'>
+<img src='images/tail3.jpg' alt='flowers in a triangle' id='iid-0006' style='width:80%;height:auto;'/>
+</div>
+
+<hr class='pbk'/>
+
+<div class='figcenter'>
+<img src='images/chap11.jpg' alt='rabbits on a path along a fence' id='iid-0007' style='width:80%;height:auto;'/>
+</div>
+
+<div><h1>CHAPTER IV.</h1></div>
+
+<p class='noindent'><span class='lead-in'><img class='dropcap' src='images/capf2.jpg' style='float:left;width:8%;' alt=' “F'/>isher</span> was quite pleased when I
+asked him if we could get off to
+Monte Carlo at Whitsuntide for a fortnight,”
+Walter told Florence a few weeks
+later.</p>
+
+<p>“Wasn’t he shocked at your gambling
+propensities?”</p>
+
+<p>“Not a bit. He looked as if he would
+like to go too; said, in rather a pompous
+manner”—and Walter imitated his editor
+exactly—“ ‘Certainly, certainly; I think,
+Hibbert, your wife deserves a little treat
+of some sort after your long absence in the
+winter, and I am very glad if it is in my
+power to help you to give it to her.’ He
+looked like the King of the Cannibal
+Islands making an Act of Parliament all
+by himself.”</p>
+
+<p>“You are a ridiculous dear.”</p>
+
+<p>“Thank you, Floggie. Fisher’s a nice
+old chap, and I am very fond of him.”</p>
+
+<p>“Do you know,” she said, in rather a
+shocked tone, “Ethel Dunlop said one day
+that she believed he looked upon himself
+as a sort of minor providence?”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, he does go about minor-providencing
+a good deal—which reminds me
+that he said he was coming, in a day or
+two, to ask you to take him out to buy a
+wedding-present for Ethel.”</p>
+
+<p>“He’ll buy her a Crown Derby tea-set,
+or a sugar-basin with a very large pair of
+tongs, see if he doesn’t. Ethel said he ought
+to have married Aunt Anne.”</p>
+
+<p>“He would have been a thousand times
+better than Wimple. I wonder how those
+gay young people are getting on at Witley,
+and whether they want anything more before
+we start.”</p>
+
+<p>“I think they must be all right at present,”
+Florence said. “We sent them a good big
+box of stores when they went to the cottage;
+and I know you gave her a little money,
+dear Walter, and we paid up her debts, so
+that she cannot be worried. Then, of course,
+she has her hundred a year from Sir William
+to fall back upon, and Mr. Wimple probably
+has something.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh yes, I suppose they are all right;
+besides, I don’t feel too generous towards
+that beggar Wimple.”</p>
+
+<p>“I should think not,” Florence said virtuously.
+“Do you know, Walter, once or
+twice it has struck me that perhaps he won’t
+live; he doesn’t look strong, and he is always
+complaining. Aunt Anne said that he wanted
+constant change of air.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh yes, I remember she said Liphook
+was ‘beneficial’ to him.”</p>
+
+<p>“If he died she would have her allowance,
+and be free.”</p>
+
+<p>“No such luck,” said Walter. “Besides,
+if he died, there would be nowhere for him
+to go to—he’d have to come back again.
+Heaven wouldn’t have him, and, after all,
+he isn’t quite bad enough for the devil to
+use his coals upon.”</p>
+
+<p>“Walter, you mustn’t talk in that way—you
+mustn’t, indeed;” and she put her hand
+over his mouth.</p>
+
+<p>“All right,” he said, struggling to get free;
+“I won’t do it again.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Fisher duly arrived the next afternoon.
+He was a little breathless, though he
+carefully tried to conceal it, and wore the
+air of deference, but decision, which he
+always thought the right one to assume to
+women. With much gravity he and Florence
+set out to buy the wedding-present. It
+resolved itself into a silver butter-dish with
+a silver cow on the lid, though Florence
+tried hard to make him choose a set of
+apostle spoons.</p>
+
+<p>“A butter-dish will be much more useful,
+my dear lady.”</p>
+
+<p>“It will be very useful,” Florence echoed,
+though she feared that Ethel would be a
+little disappointed when she saw the cow.</p>
+
+<p>“And now,” said Mr. Fisher, in a benevolent
+voice, as they left the silversmith’s in
+Bond Street, “we are close to Gunters—if
+you would do me the honour to eat an ice?”</p>
+
+<p>“I will do you the honour with great
+pleasure.” And she thought to herself, “His
+manner really is like Aunt Anne’s this afternoon.
+If she had only married him instead
+of that horrid Mr. Wimple, we would have
+called him uncle with pleasure.”</p>
+
+<p>She sat eating her very large strawberry
+ice, while he tasted his at intervals, as if
+he were rather afraid of it. “Did the
+white cockatoo die?” she asked.</p>
+
+<p>He almost started, he was so surprised at
+the question. “The white cockatoo?”</p>
+
+<p>“You spoke of it last year—that night
+when Mrs. Baines dined with us.”</p>
+
+<p>“I remember now,” he said solemnly.
+“Yes; it died, Mrs. Hibbert. For five years
+it was perhaps my most intimate friend, and
+the companion of my solitude.”</p>
+
+<p>“Why did it die?”</p>
+
+<p>“It pulled a door-mat to pieces, and we
+fear it swallowed some of the fibre. My
+housekeeper, who is a severe woman, beat
+it with her gloves, and it did not recover.”
+He spoke as if he were recounting a tragedy,
+and became so silent that Florence felt she
+had ventured on an unlucky topic. But it
+was always rather difficult to make conversation
+with Mr. Fisher when she was alone
+with him; there were so few things he cared
+to discuss with a woman. Politics he considered
+beyond her, on literary matters he
+thought she could form no opinion, and
+society was a frivolity, it was as well not
+to encourage her to consider too much.
+Suddenly a happy thought struck her.</p>
+
+<p>“I am so happy about our holiday,” she
+said; “it is a long time since Walter and
+I had a real one together.”</p>
+
+<p>“I am delighted that it has been arranged.
+I feel sure that Walter will enjoy it with so
+charming a companion,” he answered, with
+an effort at gallantry that touched her.</p>
+
+<p>“Are you going away this Whitsuntide?”
+she asked.</p>
+
+<p>“No. I seldom go away from London, or
+my work.”</p>
+
+<p>“I wish you were going to have a holiday,
+with some one you liked,” she said.</p>
+
+<p>“My dear lady,” and he gave a little
+sigh as he spoke, “I fear the only society I
+am fitted for is my own.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh no, you are much too modest”—and
+she tried to laugh. “Some day I hope to
+buy you a butter-dish. I shall like going to
+get it so much, dear Mr. Fisher.”</p>
+
+<p>“I think not,” he answered almost sadly.</p>
+
+<p>“Ethel says you have been very kind to
+her about George,” Florence said in a low
+voice, for she was almost afraid to refer to it;
+“but you are kind to everybody.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Fisher turned and looked at her with
+a grateful expression in his clear blue eyes;
+but she knew that he did not want to make
+any other answer. Gradually he put on his
+editorial manner, as if to ward off more intimate
+conversation, and when he left her at
+the door of her house, for he refused to come
+in, she felt, while she looked after him, as if
+she had been present at the ending of the
+last little bit of romance in his life.</p>
+
+<hr class='tbk'/>
+
+<p>The Hibberts were in high spirits when
+they started for their holiday.</p>
+
+<p>“Two days in Paris,” he said, as they
+drove to the hotel; “and then we’ll crawl
+down France towards the south, and I will
+introduce you to the Mediterranean Sea.
+It’s a pity we can only eat one dinner a
+night, considering the number of good ones
+there are to be had here. To be sure, if we
+manage carefully, we can do a little supper
+on the Boulevard afterwards; still, that
+hardly counts. But I don’t think we can
+stay any longer, dear Floggie, even to turn
+you into a Parisian.”</p>
+
+<p>Forty-eight hours later saw them in the
+express for Marseille, where they stayed
+a night, in order to get the coast scenery
+by daylight, as they went on to Monte
+Carlo.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s a wonderful city,” Walter said, with
+a sigh, as they strolled under the trees on
+the Prado. “The Jew, and the Turk, and
+the Infidel, and every other manner of man,
+has passed through it in his turn. Doesn’t
+it suggest all sorts of pictures to you, darling?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” she answered, a little absently;
+“only I was thinking of Monty and Catty.”</p>
+
+<p>“We ought to wait a day, and go to see
+Monte Christo’s prison.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes”—but she was not very eager.
+Her thoughts were with her children.
+Walter was able to enjoy things, and to
+garnish them with the right memories. “I
+wonder if we shall find letters from home
+when we get to Monte Carlo?” she said.</p>
+
+<p>“I hope so,” he answered gently, but he
+said no more about the associations of Marseille.</p>
+
+<p>As they were leaving the big hotel on the
+Cannebière, the next morning, a lady entered
+it. She had evidently just arrived—her
+luggage was being carried in.</p>
+
+<p>“I shall be here three nights,” they heard
+her say to the manageress. “I leave for
+England on Thursday morning.”</p>
+
+<p>At the sound of her voice Florence turned
+round, but she had gone towards the staircase.
+The Hibberts had to catch their
+train, and could not wait.</p>
+
+<p>“It was Mrs. North, Walter,” Florence
+said, as they drove to the station; “I wish
+I could have spoken to her. She looked
+so lonely entering that big hotel.”</p>
+
+<p>“But there was no time,” he answered;
+“if we lost our train we should virtually lose
+a day.”</p>
+
+<p>“I wonder why she has come here?”</p>
+
+<p>“The ways of women are inscrutable.”</p>
+
+<p>“I meant to have written and told her
+about Aunt Anne, but I had so much to do
+before we left London that I really forgot it.”</p>
+
+<p>“You might send her a line from Monte
+Carlo; you heard her say that she was to
+be at Marseille three days: and then,
+perhaps, it would be better to leave her
+alone.”</p>
+
+<p>“I should like to write to her just once,
+for I am afraid I was not very kind that day;
+but she took me by surprise.”</p>
+
+<p>“Very well, then; write to her from
+Monte Carlo. It will give her an idea that
+we are not such terrible patterns of virtue
+ourselves, and perhaps she’ll find that a
+consolation; but I don’t see what more we
+can do for her. It is very difficult to help a
+woman in her position. She has put out to
+sea in an open boat, and, even if she doesn’t
+get wrecked, every craft she runs against is
+sure to hurt her.”</p>
+
+<hr class='tbk'/>
+
+<p>The letter was duly written and sent to
+the hotel at Marseille. It found Mrs.
+North sitting alone, in her big room on the
+first floor. She was beside the open window,
+watching the great lighted <span class='it'>cafés</span> and the
+happy people gathered in little groups round
+the tables on the pavement.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, what a pity it is,” she said to herself,
+“that we cannot remember. I always feel
+as if we had lived since the beginning and
+shall go on till the end—if end there is;
+but if one only had a memory to match, how
+wonderful it would be. If I could but see
+this place just once as it was hundreds of
+years ago, with the Greek people walking
+about and the city rising up about them.
+Now it looks so thoroughly awake, with its
+great new buildings and horrible improvements;
+but if it ever sleeps, how wonderful
+its dreams must be. If one could get inside
+them and see it all as it once was.” .&nbsp;.&nbsp;.
+She turned her face longingly towards the
+port, at the far end of the Cannebière. “I
+am so hungry to see everything, and to know
+everything,” she said to herself—“so hungry
+for all the things I have never had.—I
+wonder if I shall die soon—I can’t go on
+living like this, longing and waiting and
+hoping and grasping nothing.—I wish I
+could see the water. If I had courage I
+would drive down and look at it—or walk
+past those people sitting out on the pavement,
+and go down to the sea. There might be a
+ship sailing by towards England, and I should
+know how his ship will look if it, too, ever
+sails by. Or a ship going on towards India,
+and I could look after it, knowing that every
+moment it was getting nearer and nearer to
+him. To-morrow I will find out precisely
+where the P. &amp; O.’s sail from for Bombay;
+then I shall be able to guess what it all
+looked like when he set his foot on board, a
+year ago. Oh, thank God, I may think of
+him a little—that I am free—that it is not
+wickedness to think of him—or to love him,”
+she added, with almost a sob.</p>
+
+<p>She got up and looked round the room.
+It was nearly dark. She could see the outline
+of the furniture and of her own figure
+dimly reflected in the long glass of the
+wardrobe.</p>
+
+<p>“The place is so full of shadows they
+frighten me; but I am frightened at everything.”
+She flung herself down again on
+the couch at the foot of the bed. “I wonder
+if the people who have always done right
+ever for a moment imagine that the people
+who have done wrong can suffer as much—oh,
+a thousand times more than themselves.
+They seem to imagine that sin is a sort of
+armour against suffering, and it does not
+matter how many blows are administered
+to those who have gone off the beaten track.”
+She pillowed her head on her arms and
+watched the moving reflection of the light
+from the street. In imagination she stared
+through it at the long years before her,
+wondering, almost in terror, how they would
+be filled. “I am so young, and I may live
+so long.” There was a knock at her bedroom
+door.</p>
+
+<p>“Come in,” she cried, thankful for any
+interruption.</p>
+
+<p>“A letter for Madame.”</p>
+
+<p>“For me!” She seized it with feverish
+haste and looked at the direction by the
+window while the candles were being lighted.
+“I declare,” she said, when the door was
+closed behind the <span class='it'>garçon</span>, “it is from the
+immaculate Mrs. Hibbert. May the saints
+have guarded her from contamination while
+she wrote it to me.” Her happy spirits
+flashed back, and the weary woman of five
+minutes ago was almost a light-hearted girl
+again.</p>
+
+<p>“It is rather a nice letter,” she said, and
+propped up the wicks of the flickering candles
+with the corner of the envelope. “I believe
+she wrote merely out of kindness; it proves
+that there is some generosity in even the
+most virtuous heart. I’ll write to Mrs.
+Wimple——” She stopped and reflected for
+a minute or two. “Poor old lady, she was
+very good to me; she was like a mother—no
+woman has called me ‘my love’ since
+she went away.” She walked up and down
+the room for a moment, and looked out again
+at the wide street and the flashing lights.
+Suddenly she turned, seized her blotting-book,
+and knelt down by the table in the
+impulsive manner that characterized her.
+“I’ll write at once,” she said. “Of course
+it will shock her sweet old nerves; but I
+know she’ll be glad to hear from me, though
+she won’t own it even to herself.”</p>
+
+<div class='blockquote'>
+
+<p>“<span class='sc'>Dearest old Lady</span>—</p>
+
+<p>“I have been longing to know
+what had become of you. I only heard a
+little while ago that you were a happy bride,
+and I have just succeeded in getting your
+address. A thousand congratulations. I
+hope you are very much in love, and that
+Mr. Wimple is truly charming. He is,
+indeed, a most fortunate man and to be
+greatly envied by the rest of his sex.</p>
+
+<p>“I fear you will be shocked to hear that
+Mr. North has divorced me. I never loved
+him, you know. I told you that when you
+were so angry with me that day in Cornwall
+Gardens, and it was not my fault that I
+married him. I have been very miserable,
+and I don’t suppose I shall ever be happy
+again. But the world is a large place, and
+I am going to wander about; I have always
+longed to see the whole of it: now I shall
+go to the east and west, and the north and
+the south, like a Wandering Jewess. But
+before I start on these expeditions I shall
+be in England for a few weeks and should
+like to see you. Would you see me? But
+I don’t suppose you would come near me or
+let me go near you, though I should like to
+put my head down on your shoulder and
+feel your kind old arms round me again.</p>
+
+<p>“I am afraid you have eaten up all your
+wedding-cake, dear old lady, and even if you
+have any left you would, no doubt, think it
+far too good for the likes of me. I wonder
+if you would accept a very little wedding-present
+from me, for I should so much like
+to send you one? My love to you, and
+many felicitations to both you and Mr.
+Wimple.</p>
+
+<p class='line' style='text-align:right;margin-right:5em;'>“Yours always,</p>
+<p class='line' style='text-align:right;margin-right:2em;'>“<span class='sc'>E. North</span>.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>When it was finished, her excitement gave
+way; her spirits ran down; she went, wearily,
+back to the sofa and pillowed her head on
+her arms once more. “I wonder what the
+next incident will be, and how many days
+and nights it is off.” She shut her eyes, and
+in thought hurried down the street to the
+old port. She saw the masts of ships, and
+the moving water, and the passing lights in
+the distance. “O God!” she said to herself,
+“how terrible it is to think that the land
+is empty for me from end to end. Though
+I walked over every mile of it, I should never
+see his face or hear his voice, and there is
+not a soul in the whole of it that cares one
+single jot for me. And the great sea is
+there, and the ships going on and on, and
+not a soul on board one of them who knows
+that I live or cares if I die. It frightens me
+and stuns me, and frightens me again. I
+am so hungry, and longing, and eager for
+the utter impossibilities. Oh, my darling, if
+you had only trusted me; if you could have
+believed that the sin was outside me and not
+in my heart; if you had written me just one
+little line to tell me that some day, even
+though it were years and years ahead, you
+would come to me and take me into your life
+for ever, I would have been so good—I would
+have made myself the best woman on earth,
+so that I might give you the best love that
+ever Heaven sent into a human heart.”
+There was another knock at the door, and
+something like a cry escaped from her lips.</p>
+
+<p>“Come in”—and again the <span class='it'>garçon</span> entered
+with a letter. This time it was a thick
+packet.</p>
+
+<p>“This is also for Madame,” he said; “it
+is from England.” She waited until the
+door had closed behind him before she
+opened it.</p>
+
+<p>The envelope contained a dozen enclosures.
+They looked like bills and circulars sent on
+from her London address. Among them
+was a telegram.</p>
+
+<p>“I suppose it is nothing,” she said, as,
+with trembling hands, she opened it. It was
+from Bombay, and contained five words—</p>
+
+<p>“Sailing next month in <span class='it'>Deccan</span>.”</p>
+
+<p>She fell down on her knees by the table
+and, putting her face on her hands, burst
+into passionate weeping.</p>
+
+<p>“O dear God,” she prayed, “forgive me
+and be merciful to me. I have not meant
+to do wrong, I have only longed to be happy—let
+me be so. I will try to do right all my
+life long, and to make him do right, too—only
+let him love me still. I have never
+been happy, and I have suffered so. O
+dear God, is it not enough? Forgive me
+and let me be happy.”</p>
+
+<hr class='pbk'/>
+
+<div class='figcenter'>
+<img src='images/chap8.jpg' alt='' id='iid-0008' style='width:80%;height:auto;'/>
+</div>
+
+<div><h1>CHAPTER V.</h1></div>
+
+<p class='noindent'><span class='lead-in'><img class='dropcap' src='images/capi.jpg' style='float:left;width:5%;' alt='I'/>t</span> was chilly as only an English spring
+knows how to be. The fir-woods
+were deserted—the pathways through them
+wet and slippery. But overhead there was
+fitful sunshine and patches of blue sky,
+though the Surrey hills were misty and the
+fields were sodden with many rains. The
+leaves were beginning to unfold, fresh and
+green; the primroses were thick in the
+hedges; and here and there the little
+white stitchwort showed itself, tearful and
+triumphant. The thrushes and blackbirds
+were making ready for summer, though as
+yet there was not a sign of it.</p>
+
+<p>Alfred Wimple and Aunt Anne had been
+more than a month at the cottage. The latter
+pottered about the garden, looking at every
+up-coming plant with absent recognition; but
+that was all. She was too sad to care any
+more for the delights of the country. She
+had grown feeble, too, and could not walk
+very far—even the garden tired her. Mrs.
+Burnett’s governess-cart had been her great
+comfort. She had no fear of doing the
+pampered pony, as she called it, any harm, and
+had driven herself for hours along the lonely
+roads between the fir-trees, and the hedges
+of awakening gorse and heather. The
+straggling population for three miles round
+knew her well—the lonely old lady, with the
+black bonnet and the long black cloak
+fastened with the steel clasp. Alfred Wimple
+never went with her; he had refused from the
+very first. But he had a way of disappearing
+by himself for long hours together. Where
+he went she could never divine; and to ask
+him questions, she told herself once, was like
+trying to look at the bottom of the sea by
+pushing away the water with her two hands.
+Still it was a mystery she was determined to
+unravel sooner or later: she felt that the
+solution lay at Liphook, and dreaded to
+think what it might be. Into her heart,
+against her will, lately there had sometimes
+crept a suspicion that was shame and agony;
+but she would not own, even in the lowest,
+most secret whisper, that it was possible.
+She never went to Liphook, though it would
+have been easy enough to drive there; she
+never dared: something seemed to hold her
+back from that which she felt to be only a
+few miles away, on the other side of Hindhead.
+She would not try to put into any
+shape at all what her dread was: least of all
+would her pride let her for a single moment
+imagine that it was the one thing of which the
+humiliation would kill her. But, silently, she
+watched, and hour after hour she sat wondering
+what was in the heart of that strange,
+inscrutable young man, who spoke so few
+words, and seemed to be always watching
+and waiting for the accomplishment of some
+mysterious plan he revolved again and again
+in his mind, but to which he had no intention
+of giving a clue.</p>
+
+<p>He could hire no more waggonettes at
+Steggall’s without paying for them, or without
+her knowledge; but once or twice she
+had seen him going along a by-path towards
+the station, so that he would arrive there just
+about the time there was a train to Liphook.
+She remembered that on the first occasion,
+he had pulled a shilling out of his pocket an
+hour or two before he started and looked at
+it, as if wondering whether it would be
+enough for a return ticket.</p>
+
+<p>“Alfred,” she asked one day, “will you
+take me to see your country quarters, my
+love? I should like to visit the place which
+has been of so much benefit to you?”</p>
+
+<p>“No,” he answered, looking at her steadfastly,
+as he always did; “I don’t wish you
+to go there.”</p>
+
+<p>“May I ask your reason?”</p>
+
+<p>“My wish should be sufficient.”</p>
+
+<p>“It is,” she said gently; “for I know,
+dear Alfred, that you always have a reason
+for what you wish, and you would not prevent
+me from seeing a place for which you have
+such a preference if you had not a good
+one.”</p>
+
+<p>He was soothed by her conciliatory
+manner.</p>
+
+<p>“I owe some money there,” he said, “and
+if you went they might expect you to pay
+it”—an answer which satisfied her for a time
+on account of its obvious probability. But
+still his disappearances tormented her, and
+his silence stifled all questions she longed
+to ask.</p>
+
+<p>She liked being at the cottage; she liked
+being the virtual mistress of a certain number
+of rooms and of a servant of her own; and,
+on the whole, the first month had gone
+smoothly. Florence and Walter had been
+generous, and made many provisions for
+their comfort, and she had been separated
+less from Alfred than when she was in town.
+And here, too, she was better able to keep
+some account of his movements. Moreover,
+if he disappeared for hours together now, it
+had been for days together then. He always
+went off silently, without warning or hint,
+and as silently reappeared.</p>
+
+<p>“Have you been for a walk, my love?”
+she asked him one evening. He turned and
+looked at her: there was no anger in his dull
+eyes, but he made her quail inwardly, though
+outwardly she showed no sign.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes”—and she knew, perfectly, he would
+tell her no more. Still, hopelessly, she persevered.</p>
+
+<p>“In what direction did you bend your
+steps, dear Alfred?”</p>
+
+<p>“I dislike being asked to give an account
+of my movements, Anne,” he said, and locked
+his lips in the manner that was so peculiar
+to him.</p>
+
+<p>“I quite understand, my love,” she
+answered gently; “it is also extremely
+repugnant to me to be questioned. I merely
+asked, hoping that you felt invigorated by
+your walk.” He looked at her again, and
+said nothing.</p>
+
+<p>It was nine o’clock. Jane Mitchell, the
+postman’s sister, who acted as their daily
+servant, came in to say she was going home
+till the morning. Aunt Anne followed her,
+as she always did, to see that the outer door
+was made fast. She looked out at the night
+for a moment, with a haunting feeling of
+mistrust—of what, she did not know—and
+listened to the silence. Not a sound—not
+even a footstep passing along the road. The
+fir-trees stood up, dark and straight, like
+voiceless sentinels. She looked at the stars
+and thought how far they were away. They
+gave her a sense of helplessness. She was
+almost afraid of the soft patter of her own
+feet as she went back to the drawing-room.
+She winked nervously, and looked quickly
+and suspiciously round, then sat down uneasily
+before the fire and watched Alfred
+Wimple. She knew that again and again
+his eyes were fixed upon her, though his lips
+said no word.</p>
+
+<p>“Are you sleepy, my love?” she asked.</p>
+
+<p>“I am very tired, Anne; good-night”—and,
+taking up a candlestick, he went slowly
+upstairs while she stayed below, looking at
+the deadening fire, knowing that one night,
+suddenly, everything would be changed; but
+how and when it would be changed she could
+not guess. She did not dare look forward a
+single day or hour. She extinguished the
+lamp and shut the drawing-room door and
+locked it, remembering for a moment the
+unknown people, in the bygone years, who
+had gone out of the room never to enter it
+more.</p>
+
+<p>Gradually the money in their possession
+was coming to a sure and certain end. She
+knew it, and her recklessness and extravagance
+vanished. She guarded every penny
+as if it were her heart’s blood, though she
+still did her spending with an air of willingness
+that concealed her reluctance. Hour
+after hour she racked her brains to think of
+some new source of help; but no suggestion
+presented itself, and he and she together
+faced, in silence, the bankruptcy that was
+overtaking them. He went less often towards
+the station now; he stayed discontentedly
+in the drawing-room, sitting uneasily by
+the fire on one of the easy-chairs with the
+peacock screen beside it. Sometimes, after
+he had brooded for a while in silence, he
+would get up and write a letter, but he
+always carefully gave it himself to the postman,
+and no letters at all ever arrived for
+him to Aunt Anne’s knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>“Alfred,” she asked one day, “what has
+become of your work in town?—the work
+you used to go to your chambers to do?”</p>
+
+<p>“I am resting now, and do not wish to
+be questioned about it. I require rest,” he
+said: and that was all.</p>
+
+<p>Then a time came when he took to walking
+in the garden, and she knew that while he
+did so he kept a watch on the house, and
+especially on the window of the room in
+which she was sitting. When he thought
+she did not see him he disappeared down
+the dip behind and along the pathway
+between the fir-trees and larches towards
+the short cut to Hindhead. She remembered
+that the way to Hindhead was also the way
+to Liphook. It was, of course, too far to
+walk there, but perhaps there were some
+means of obviating that necessity. She said
+nothing, but she waited. It seemed to her
+as if Alfred Wimple waited too. For what?
+Was it for her to die? she sometimes asked
+herself, though she reproached herself for
+her suspicions. Then all her tenderness
+would come back, and she hovered round
+him lovingly, or stole away to commune
+with herself.</p>
+
+<p>“I am sure he loves me,” she would think,
+as she sat vainly trying to comfort herself—“or
+why should he have married me? His
+love must be the meaning of mine for him,
+and the forgiveness of the past, after all the
+long years of waiting. It is different from
+what it was then; he is changed, and I am
+changed too. I am old with waiting, and he
+does not yet understand the reason of his
+own youth. I wonder which it is,” she said
+one day, almost in a dream, as she rocked to
+and fro over the fire—“is he disguised with
+youth of which he does not know the meaning;
+or am I disguised with years, so that
+he does not know that under them my youth
+is hidden?”</p>
+
+<p>Closer and closer came the ills of poverty.
+The tradespeople trusted them to some
+extent, in spite of the warning they had
+received from the Hibberts, but at last they
+refused to do so any longer. The stores
+that Florence had sent in, too—Aunt Anne
+had said, “you must allow me to remain in
+your debt for them, my dear”—had gradually
+run out. Dinner became more and more
+of a difficulty, and at the scanty meal it
+was Alfred Wimple who ate, and Aunt
+Anne who looked on, pretending she liked
+the food she hardly dared to taste. He
+knew that she was starving herself for his
+sake, but he said nothing. It gave him a
+dull gratification to see her doing it. In his
+heart there was a resentment that death
+had not sooner achieved for his benefit that
+which from the first he had meant it to
+accomplish. Not that it was within his
+scheme to let Aunt Anne die yet; but when
+he married her he had not realized the awful
+shrinking that would daily grow upon him—the
+physical shrinking that youth sometimes
+feels from old age. In his nature there was
+no idealism, no sentiment. He could not
+give her the reverence that even mere age
+usually provokes, or the affection, as of a
+son, that some young men in his position
+might possibly have bestowed. He saw
+everything concerning her years with ghastly
+plainness—the little lines and the deep
+wrinkles on her face, the tremulous eyelids,
+the scanty hair brushed forward from places
+the cap covered. Even the soft folds of
+muslin round her withered throat made him
+shiver. He thought once, in one mad
+moment, how swiftly he could strangle the
+lingering life out of her. Her hands with
+the loose dry skin and the bloodless fingers
+and wrists that were always cold, as if the
+fire in them were going out, sent a thrill
+of horror through his frame when she
+touched him. The mere sound of her
+footstep, the touch of her black dress as
+she passed him by, insensibly made him
+draw back. He had played a daring game,
+but he had an awful punishment. He lived
+a brooding secret life, full of dread and
+alertness lest shame should overtake him,
+and his heart was not less miserable because
+it was incapable of generosity or goodness.</p>
+
+<hr class='tbk'/>
+
+<p>At last it became a matter of shillings.</p>
+
+<p>“You had better go to London, Anne,”
+he said, “and borrow some money.”</p>
+
+<p>“Of whom am I to borrow it?” she asked.
+“Florence and Walter are at Monte Carlo.”</p>
+
+<p>“Walter is very selfish,” he answered;
+“I nursed him through an illness, years ago,
+at the risk of my own life.”</p>
+
+<p>“I know how tender your heart is, dear
+Alfred.”</p>
+
+<p>“I believe he resents my having borrowed
+some money from him once or twice. He
+forgets that if he were not in a much better
+position than I am he couldn’t have lent it.”</p>
+
+<p>“Of course he could not, my love,” she
+said, agreeing with him, as a matter not
+merely of course but of loyalty and affection.</p>
+
+<p>He gave one of his little gulps. “We
+can’t go on staying here, unless we have
+enough to eat; I cannot, at any rate. You
+must get some money. You had better go
+to London.” He looked at her fixedly, and
+she knew that he wanted to get rid of her
+for a space.</p>
+
+<p>“Go to London, my love?” she echoed,
+almost humbly.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, to get money.”</p>
+
+<p>“Alfred,” she asked, “how am I to get
+money? We disposed of everything that
+was available before we came here.”</p>
+
+<p>“You must borrow it; perhaps you can
+go and persuade my uncle to let you have
+some.”</p>
+
+<p>“If you would let me tell him that I am
+your wife,” she pleaded.</p>
+
+<p>“I forbid you telling him,” he said shortly.
+“But you might ask him to advance your
+quarter’s allowance.”</p>
+
+<p>“I might write and request him to do
+that, without going to town.”</p>
+
+<p>“No. It is easy to refuse in a letter, and
+he must not refuse.”</p>
+
+<p>“But if he will not listen to me, Alfred?”
+she asked, watching him curiously.</p>
+
+<p>“Tell him that Sir William Rammage is
+your cousin, and that he has no right to
+refuse.”</p>
+
+<p>“But if he does?” she persisted.</p>
+
+<p>“Then you must get it elsewhere. There
+are those people you stayed with in Cornwall
+Gardens.”</p>
+
+<p>She looked up quickly. “I cannot go to
+Mrs. North,” she said firmly. “There are
+some things due to my own self-respect: I
+cannot forget them even for you.”</p>
+
+<p>“You can do as you like,” he answered.
+“If you cannot get money, I must go
+away.”</p>
+
+<p>“Go away!” she echoed, with alarm; he
+saw his advantage and followed it up.</p>
+
+<p>“I shall not stay here to be starved,” he
+repeated.</p>
+
+<p>“I should starve, too,” she said sadly;
+“are you altogether oblivious of that fact,
+Alfred?”</p>
+
+<p>“If you choose to do so it is your own
+business, and no reason why I should. I
+have friends who will receive me, and I shall
+go to them.”</p>
+
+<p>“Would they not extend a helping hand
+to us both?”</p>
+
+<p>“No,” he said doggedly.</p>
+
+<p>“They cannot love you as I do,” she
+pleaded.</p>
+
+<p>“I cannot help that. I shall go to them.”</p>
+
+<p>“I give you all I have.”</p>
+
+<p>“I want more—more than you give me
+now,” he answered; “and if you don’t give it
+me, I shall not stay here. You had better
+go to London to-morrow, and look for some
+money. My uncle will let you have some if
+you are persistent.”</p>
+
+<p>“I think I will go to-day,” she said, with
+an odd tone in her voice. “I should be in
+time for the twelve o’clock train.”</p>
+
+<p>“You will go to-morrow,” he replied
+decisively.</p>
+
+<p>“Very well, my love”—and she winked
+quickly to herself. “I will go to-morrow.”</p>
+
+<p>“Unless you bring back some money, I
+shall not stay here any longer. You must
+clearly understand that, Anne. I am tired
+of this business,” he said, in his hard, determined
+voice.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s not worse for you than it is for me,
+Alfred. I can bear it with you; cannot you
+bear it with me?”</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her—at her black dress, her
+white handkerchief, at the poverty-stricken
+age of which she seemed to be the symbol;
+and he shuddered perceptibly as he turned
+away and answered, “No, I cannot, and I
+want to go.”</p>
+
+<p>“Alfred!” she said, with a cry of pain,
+and going to his side she put her hand on
+his arm; but he shook her off, and went a
+step farther away.</p>
+
+<p>“Stay there,” he said sternly.</p>
+
+<p>“Why do you recoil from me?” she
+asked; “am I so distasteful to you?”</p>
+
+<p>But he only shuddered again, and looked
+at her with almost terror in his eyes, as
+though he dumbly loathed her.</p>
+
+<p>“Have I forfeited your love, Alfred?”
+she asked humbly.</p>
+
+<p>“I dislike being touched.”</p>
+
+<p>“You will break my heart,” she cried,
+with a dry sob in her throat. “My dear
+one, I have given you all—all I possess; I
+have braved everything for you. Has all
+your love for me gone?”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t want to talk sentiment,” he said,
+drawing back still a little farther from her,
+as though he shrank from being within her
+reach.</p>
+
+<p>“Do you remember that night when we
+walked along the road by the fir-trees, and
+you told me you would always love me and
+take care of me? What have I done to
+make you change? I never cease thinking
+of you, day or night, but it is months since
+you gave me a loving word. What have
+I done to change you so?”</p>
+
+<p>He looked down at her; for a moment
+there was an expression of hatred on his face.</p>
+
+<p>“You are old—and I am young.”</p>
+
+<p>“My heart is young,” she said piteously.
+Still he was merciless.</p>
+
+<p>“It is your face I see,” he said, “not your
+heart.”</p>
+
+<p>She let her hands fall by her side. “I
+cannot bear it any more,” she said quickly;
+“perhaps we had better separate; these
+constant scenes will kill me. You must
+permit me to retire; I cannot bear any
+more”—and she walked slowly away into
+the little drawing-room, and shut the door.
+She went up to the glass, and looked at her
+own face, long and sadly; she put her wrists
+together, and looked at them hopelessly.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, I am old!” she cried, with a shiver;
+“I am old!”—and she sat down on the gaunt
+chair by the fireplace, still and silent, till cold
+and misery numbed her, and all things were
+alike.</p>
+
+<p>Presently, she heard his footsteps; he had
+left the dining-room, and seemed to be going
+towards the front door; she raised her head
+and listened. He hesitated, turned back,
+and entered the drawing-room. He stood
+for a moment on the threshold and looked
+round the little room—at the hard, old-fashioned
+sofa, at the corner cupboard with
+the pot-pourri on it, the jingling piano, the
+chair on which she sat. He remembered
+the day of his interview with Florence,
+and afterwards with Aunt Anne, and he
+looked at the latter now half doubtfully.
+She did not move an inch as he entered, or
+raise her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>“Anne!” There was no answer. She
+turned a little more directly away from him.
+“Anne,” he said, “we had better make it up.
+It is no good quarrelling.”</p>
+
+<p>“You were very cruel to me, Alfred,” she
+said, with gentle indignation; “you forgot
+everything that was due to me. You frequently
+do.”</p>
+
+<p>“I cannot always be remembering what is
+due to you, Anne. It irritates me.”</p>
+
+<p>“But you cut me to the quick. I sometimes
+wonder whether you have any affection
+at all for me.”</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t be foolish,” he said, with an effort
+that was rather obvious; “and don’t let us
+quarrel. I dislike poverty—it makes me
+cross.”</p>
+
+<p>“I can understand that,” she said, “but I
+cannot understand your being cruel to me.”</p>
+
+<p>“I didn’t mean to be cruel,” he answered;
+“we had better forget it.” She stood up and
+faced him, timidly, but with a slight flush in
+her face.</p>
+
+<p>“You said I was old; you taunted me
+with it; you often taunt me,” she said indignantly.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, but I knew it before we were
+married.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, you knew it before we were married,”
+she repeated.</p>
+
+<p>“Then I couldn’t have minded it so much,
+could I?” he said, with a softer tone in his
+voice, though it grated still.</p>
+
+<p>“No, my love”—and she tried to smile,
+but it was a sad attempt.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, is it all right?” he asked. “We
+won’t quarrel any more.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, my love, it is all right,” she said
+lovingly, and, half doubtfully, she put up her
+face to his.</p>
+
+<p>Involuntarily he drew back again, but he
+recovered in an instant and forced himself to
+stoop and kiss her forehead.</p>
+
+<p>“There,” he said, “it’s all right. To-morrow
+you shall go to London, and we will
+be more sensible in future.” He touched
+her hand, and went out into the garden.
+When she had watched him out of sight, she
+sat down once more on the chair by the fire.</p>
+
+<p>“I am old!” she cried; “I am old, I am
+old”—and, with a quick movement, as if she
+felt a horror of herself, she hid her thin
+hands out of sight. “I cannot bear it—I
+am old.”</p>
+
+<div class='figcenter' style='width:30%'>
+<img src='images/tail5.jpg' alt='sprig of flowers' id='iid-0009' style='width:80%;height:auto;'/>
+</div>
+
+<hr class='pbk'/>
+
+<div class='figcenter'>
+<img src='images/chap3.jpg' alt='' id='iid-0010' style='width:80%;height:auto;'/>
+</div>
+
+<div><h1>CHAPTER VI.</h1></div>
+
+<p class='noindent'><span class='lead-in'><img class='dropcap' src='images/capb.jpg' style='float:left;width:5%;' alt='B'/>efore</span> nine the next morning, Aunt
+Anne was ready to set out on her
+journey to London. Mrs. Burnett’s governess-cart
+was at the gate with Lucas, the
+gardener, to drive her to the station. Alfred
+Wimple looked on at her preparations to go
+with an anxiety that was almost eagerness;
+and, stealthily, the old lady watched his
+every movement.</p>
+
+<p>“Jane can prepare the dinner after my
+return. I shall bring back some little dainty
+with me, hoping that it may tempt you, my
+love.”</p>
+
+<p>“I am very tired of the food we have
+had lately,” he said ungraciously. “What
+train are you coming back by?”</p>
+
+<p>“That will depend on my occupations in
+town,” she answered, after a moment’s consideration.</p>
+
+<p>“I will go to the station at half-past six.
+You can leave Waterloo Station at five
+fifteen.” Aunt Anne winked slowly.</p>
+
+<p>“I will try to come by an earlier train, my
+darling, if you will be there to relieve me
+of the packages with which I hope to be
+burdened.”</p>
+
+<p>“No. Come by the five fifteen,” he said
+decisively. “I have some letters to write.”</p>
+
+<p>“Very well, my love,” she answered, with
+tender courtesy. “It is always a pleasure
+to study your wishes, even in trifles. Would
+you assist me with my cloak, dear Alfred?”</p>
+
+<p>“It isn’t cold, and you have your shawl.
+Why are you taking this heavy cloak?”</p>
+
+<p>“I have my reasons.”</p>
+
+<p>He understood perfectly. He felt a gleam
+of almost fiendish triumph as, one by one,
+she divested herself of her belongings to buy
+him food and comfort. As she was going
+out of the doorway an idea seemed to strike
+him.</p>
+
+<p>“Anne,” he said, “remember it is no good
+bringing back a few shillings—you must bring
+back a few pounds at least.”</p>
+
+<p>“Have you any anxieties?—any payment
+it is imperative that you should make?” she
+asked anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” he answered, with a little smile to
+himself, as if an idea had been suggested to
+him. “I have a payment to make.”</p>
+
+<p>“I will do all I can—more for your sake
+than my own, dear Alfred,” and she turned
+to go. They were in the drawing-room.</p>
+
+<p>She hesitated for a moment by the door.
+“My love,” she said, going up to him doubtfully,
+“will you kiss me? You will never
+know how much I love you—you are all I
+have in the world.” The cashmere shawl
+clung to her and the heavy cloak swung
+back from her arms as she put them up round
+his neck and kissed him, first on one side of
+his face and then on the other; but even as
+she did so, and though for once he strove
+to hide it, she felt that, inwardly, he was
+shrinking.</p>
+
+<p>“I will be back by half-past six o’clock,”
+she said, with a hopeless tone in her voice,
+and, slowly letting go her hold, she went out
+of the house.</p>
+
+<p>On her way to the cart she stopped for a
+moment to look at a pile of faggots that were
+stacked in a partly concealed corner inside
+the garden gate.</p>
+
+<p>“Jane,” she said, “I think there have been
+some depredations among the wood lately.”</p>
+
+<p>“I saw two lads stealing a bit the other
+morning,” Jane answered.</p>
+
+<p>“We must take steps to prevent it occurring
+again.”</p>
+
+<p>“There’s plenty of wood, too, about here,”
+said Jane; “I don’t see why they should
+take ours; but I think they were tramps and
+wanted to make a fire. I thought I’d speak
+to the policeman—but I couldn’t catch him
+when he went by on his beat last night.”</p>
+
+<p>“I should like to speak to him myself: at
+what time does he pass?”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, ma’am, he is generally pretty
+punctual at about half-past eight.”</p>
+
+<p>“If you see him this evening you can tell
+me”—and she got into the governess-cart.
+“Jane,” she said, looking back, “I forgot to
+tell you that your master and I will dine
+at half-past seven. I shall probably bring
+back a chicken.” She said the last words
+almost recklessly as she set off to the
+station.</p>
+
+<p>She looked back towards the cottage, but
+though Alfred Wimple had strolled down to
+the gate after she had left it, his face was
+turned towards Liphook. There was something
+almost fierce in her voice as she spoke
+to the gardener, who was driving.</p>
+
+<p>“The pony seems inclined to procrastinate—you
+had better chastise him.”</p>
+
+<p>“They have spoiled him up at the house,”
+said Lucas, “till he won’t go nohow unless
+he gets a bit of the whip.”</p>
+
+<p>“He goes very well with me,” she snapped.</p>
+
+<p>“He knows your hand, most likely—they
+do get to know hands; do you find him shy
+much?”</p>
+
+<p>She made no answer, but looked at the
+holes of the sand martens in the cutting on
+one side of the road—they always fascinated
+her—and at the bell heather, which was just
+beginning to show a tinge of colour. “He’s
+a bad ’un to shy, he is,” Lucas went on;
+“and he’s not particular what it’s at—wheel-barrows,
+and umbrellas, and perambulators,
+and covered carts, and tramps—he don’t like
+tramps, he don’t—and bicycles, and children
+if there’s a few of ’em together, and bits of
+paper on the road—he’s ready to be afraid of
+anything. There’s Tom Mitchell coming along
+with the letters—would you like to stop?”</p>
+
+<p>“I do not expect any, but I may as well
+put the question to him,” the old lady said,
+very distantly, for she was of opinion that
+Lucas talked too much for his station. But
+he was not to be abashed easily.</p>
+
+<p>“Them beeches is coming on,” he said.
+Aunt Anne looked up, but made no answer.
+“Everything is so late this year on account
+of the cold. Tom, have you got any letters
+for Mrs. Wimple at the cottage?”</p>
+
+<p>“There’s one, I know, with a foreign postmark.”
+The man stopped and took a packet
+out of the leather wallet by his side.</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Anne, leaning over the cart, saw, as
+he pulled out the letter with the French
+stamps on it for her, that there was another
+beneath, directed, in an illiterate-looking
+hand, to “A. Wimple, Esq.,” but it was a
+woman’s writing and it had the Liphook
+postmark. Her eyes flashed; she could
+hardly make her voice steady as she said—</p>
+
+<p>“I see you have one there for Mr. Wimple;
+you will find him at the cottage.” Then she
+drove on. She looked at her own letter, a
+little bewildered. “It is not from Walter or
+Florence,” she said, “yet I know the handwriting.”
+She gazed vacantly at the hedges
+again, while Peter the pony, urged by arguments
+from the whip, went on more swiftly
+towards the station. Lucas’s remarks fell
+unheeded on her ears. Something was
+tightening round her heart that made her
+cheeks burn with a fire they had not felt for
+long years past.</p>
+
+<p>“I think we’ll have more rain—them clouds
+over there seem like it,” the man said, wondering
+why she was so silent, for she generally
+liked a chat with him. “Maybe she wanted
+to drive him herself,” he thought; “I forgot
+to offer her the reins, and it’s no good
+changing now, we are so near the station.
+The train’s signalled,” he said, as they pulled
+up; “but you are in plenty of time.”</p>
+
+<p>“I calculated that I should have sufficient
+time,” she answered.</p>
+
+<p>“Would you like me to meet you this
+afternoon? I will, if you tell me what train
+you are coming down by.” She was silent
+for a minute, then, suddenly, she seemed to
+find courage.</p>
+
+<p>“I shall leave London by the four thirty
+train,” she said. “It is due at Witley at a
+quarter to six, and I shall expect to find
+you there.” She walked into the station,
+with almost a hunted look.</p>
+
+<p>She managed to get into an empty carriage,
+shut the door, and stood up by the window,
+winking sternly at the passengers who, in
+passing, hesitated whether or not to enter.
+As the train moved off she shut the window,
+and, sitting down with a sigh, stared out at the
+fir-woods and the picturesque Surrey cottages.
+She did not see them; she saw nothing and
+heard nothing but the rattle of the train, that
+gradually shaped itself into the word Liphook—Liphook—Liphook—till
+she was
+maddened. “It might have been some one
+writing to importune him for money,” she
+said, thinking of the letter. But if the
+difficulty at Liphook were only a debt, she
+felt certain that Alfred Wimple would not
+have spared her the annoyance of knowing it.
+It was a mystery of which her indomitable
+pride refused her even the suggestion of one
+solution, which yet seemed gradually, and
+from without, to be getting burned upon her
+brain. A despair that was half dread was
+taking possession of her. A desperate
+knowledge was bearing down upon her that
+the only chance she had of keeping the man
+to whom she had bound herself was by
+giving him money. He was evidently at
+his wit’s end for it, and had no resource of
+his own, for whatever was the attraction
+at Liphook it did not seem to include money.
+Her one chance was to give it him, and to
+let him see that she would not fail to give it
+him—then, perhaps, he would stay with her.
+She stretched out her arms for a moment as
+if she were drowning, and trying to save
+herself by holding on to him, but she
+stretched them only into space, and clutched
+nothing. “Perhaps he thinks because I am
+old I cannot love properly. Oh, my dear
+one, if you would only speak to me out of
+your own heart, or if you could only look
+into my heart—for that is not old; it is
+young. Age makes no difference if he did
+but know it—I feel the same as when I was
+twenty, and we walked between the chestnuts
+to the farm. It is only the years that have
+marked me.” And then anger and pride
+chased away her misery and tenderness.
+“I will have it settled,” she said; “I will
+know what it means; and if he has not
+treated me properly he shall be called to
+account. If Walter and Florence were only
+in England, I should not be in this sad
+dilemma.” The mention of their names
+made her remember the letter in her pocket.
+She pulled it out and opened it; it was the
+one Mrs. North had written from Marseille.
+At another time she would have liked the
+congratulations, or have been indignant at
+the divorce. Now she passed the news by
+with little more than a scornful wink. “It
+is most presumptuous of her to have written
+to me; she has taken a great liberty; she
+has committed a solecism,” she said, almost
+mechanically. As she put the letter back
+into her pocket her hand touched something
+she did not remember to have placed there.
+She looked puzzled for a moment, then drew
+it out. It was a little necktie of Alfred
+Wimple’s, blue with white spots on it. She
+understood—it was faded and frayed; she
+had put it into her pocket to mend. She
+looked at it wonderingly for a moment,
+then kissed it with a vehemence that was
+almost passion.</p>
+
+<p>“He thinks I cannot love,” she said; “I
+am convinced that is it. If he did but know—if
+he did but know.”</p>
+
+<p>The servant who opened the door at
+Portman Square instantly recognized her,
+and was disposed to treat her with more
+respect than on a former occasion.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Boughton is not here, ma’am,” he
+said, in answer to her inquiry.</p>
+
+<p>“Would you give me the address of his
+office?”</p>
+
+<p>“I can give you the address, but he is
+away in Scotland, and not expected back for
+another fortnight.” Aunt Anne stood dumbfounded
+for a moment, then slowly she
+looked up at the servant, with a little smile
+that had its effect.</p>
+
+<p>“It is very unfortunate,” she said; “my
+business with him is most pressing. Have
+you good accounts of Sir William?”</p>
+
+<p>“Sir William is back, ma’am. He returned
+last week, but he is confined to his room
+with another attack.”</p>
+
+<p>“Does he keep his bed?”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, he is sitting by the fire just now,
+ma’am, writing some letters.” In a moment
+Aunt Anne had whisked into the house; she
+felt quite exhilarated.</p>
+
+<p>“Be good enough to take my name to
+him, and ask if he is sufficiently well to see
+his cousin, Mrs.—Mrs. Baines”—she hesitated
+over the last word; “say that I am
+extremely solicitous to have a few minutes’
+conversation with him.”</p>
+
+<p>“I am afraid he won’t be able to see
+you——” the servant began.</p>
+
+<p>“Have the goodness to take up my
+name.”</p>
+
+<p>“I am afraid——” the servant began
+again.</p>
+
+<p>“And say I wish to see him on a matter
+of great importance,” she went on imperiously,
+not heeding the interruption. She walked
+towards the dining-room door, as if she had
+a right to the entire house, but suddenly
+turned round.</p>
+
+<p>“I feel certain Sir William will see me,”
+she said, “and I will follow you upstairs.”</p>
+
+<p>Helplessly the servant obeyed her, and
+unfalteringly the soft footstep pattered after
+him up to the second floor. Then he entered
+the front bedroom, while she remained on
+the landing.</p>
+
+<p>“Mrs. Baines wishes to know if she can
+speak to you, sir,” she heard him say.</p>
+
+<p>“Tell her I am too ill to see any one,” a
+thin, distinct voice answered.</p>
+
+<p>“She says it is a matter of extreme importance,
+sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“I am writing letters, and don’t wish to
+be disturbed: bring my chicken-broth in
+twenty minutes.”</p>
+
+<p>But a moment later, and Aunt Anne had
+whisked also into the room, passing the
+servant who was leaving it.</p>
+
+<p>“William,” she said, “you must not refuse
+to let me see you once again. I cannot
+believe that you are too ill to shake hands
+with your cousin Anne.” As she spoke she
+looked round the room, and took in all its
+details at a glance. It had three windows, a
+writing-table and a book-case between them,
+facing them, a big four-post bedstead with
+dark hangings. To the left was a tall wardrobe
+of rosewood that had no looking-glass
+let into its panelled doors. By the fireplace
+was a roomy easy-chair, in which sat Sir
+William Rammage. He was dressed in a
+puce woollen dressing-gown, and half rolled
+up in a coloured blanket. By his side was
+an invalid table, with writing materials on it,
+and a flap at the side that stretched over his
+knees. In the large fireplace blazed a
+cheerful fire, and on the other side of the
+fireplace, and facing Sir William, there was
+a second easy-chair. He was evidently a
+tall man—thin, nervous, and irritable. His
+manner was cold and disagreeable, but it
+conveyed a sense of loneliness, a remembrance
+of long, cheerless years, that in a
+manner excused it. He looked like a man
+who had probably deserved respect, but had
+made few friendships. He was not nearly
+as old as he appeared at the first glance;
+illness, and work, and lack of human interests
+had aged him more than actual years.</p>
+
+<p>“How do you do?” he said dryly.</p>
+
+<p>“I have been so grieved to hear of your
+illness, William. I hope you received my
+letters—I wrote three or four times to tender
+you my sympathy.” She looked at the
+servant in a manner that said, “Go away”—and
+he went, carefully shutting the door.</p>
+
+<p>“I am not well enough to receive visitors,”
+Sir William said, in the same dry voice.</p>
+
+<p>“My dear William, you must let me stay
+with you five minutes; I will not intrude
+longer on your privacy”—and she seated
+herself on the chair facing him.</p>
+
+<p>“If what you have to say is of a business
+nature, I am not well enough to enter upon
+it now.”</p>
+
+<p>“Did you derive benefit from your stay
+at Cannes?—you were constantly in my
+thoughts.”</p>
+
+<p>“Thank you, thank you.”</p>
+
+<p>“I fear you have had to abandon many of
+your city occupations,” she went on, in a
+sympathetic voice; “it must be a great
+regret to the corporation. I was speaking
+of your mayoralty some months ago to Mr.
+Fisher, the editor of <span class='it'>The Centre</span>.” Aunt
+Anne was talking to gain time. Her throat
+was choking; her mouth twitched with
+restrained excitement.</p>
+
+<p>“Where did you meet him?” Sir William
+asked, in a judicial manner, tapping the arm
+of his chair with his thin fingers.</p>
+
+<p>“I met him at Walter Hibbert’s.”</p>
+
+<p>He was silent, and seemed to be waiting
+for her to go. For a few moments she could
+not gather courage to speak again. He
+looked up at her.</p>
+
+<p>“I am much obliged for this visit,” he
+said coldly, “but I cannot ask you to prolong
+it.”</p>
+
+<p>“William,” she said, “I came to see you
+on a matter of necessity. I would not have
+intruded had it been otherwise. On the
+occasion of my last visit I saw Mr. Boughton,
+but I understand that he is now away.”</p>
+
+<p>“He will be back in two or three weeks:
+you will then be able to see him.”</p>
+
+<p>She hesitated for a moment, and then went
+on doubtfully, “I have been deeply touched
+by your kindness.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes?” he said inquiringly.</p>
+
+<p>“That it has been the greatest help to me
+I need hardly say; but I have had so many
+expenses this winter, it was inadequate to
+meet them all.”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t quite understand?” He was
+becoming interested.</p>
+
+<p>“There are some weeks yet before the
+next quarter is due. I am staying in a
+country-house, and the expenses I have to
+meet——”</p>
+
+<p>“What country-house?”</p>
+
+<p>“Walter and Florence Hibbert’s. It is a
+cottage most charmingly situated in Surrey.”</p>
+
+<p>“I suppose it costs you nothing to stay
+there?”</p>
+
+<p>“They have been most kind. But they
+are now abroad, and, naturally, I have appearances
+to maintain and the necessities of
+the table to provide.”</p>
+
+<p>“For whom? Only for yourself, I suppose?
+You have not a large establishment.”
+His thin fingers wandered beneath
+the papers on the table, as if they were
+seeking for something. They found it, and
+drew it a little forward. Aunt Anne, following
+the movement with her eyes, saw the
+corner of a cheque-book peep out from
+beneath the blotting-paper. “You have not
+a dozen servants?” he asked ironically.</p>
+
+<p>“I have only one servant”—she was
+getting a little agitated.</p>
+
+<p>“And yourself?”</p>
+
+<p>“And some one who is with me.”</p>
+
+<p>“And doesn’t the some one who is with
+you keep you? or do you keep her?” and
+he pushed back the cheque-book. Aunt
+Anne was silent for a moment. “I suppose
+it doesn’t cost you anything to live. What
+do you want money for?” He put his
+hands on the arms of his chair and looked
+at her.</p>
+
+<p>“William,” she said, “I cannot discuss all
+my expenditures, or enter into every detail
+of my household”—and there was as much
+pride in her tone as she dared put into it.
+“I came to ask you if you would have the
+great kindness to advance the quarter’s
+allowance you are so kind as to give me.
+It will be due——”</p>
+
+<p>“Quarter’s allowance I give you? I don’t
+understand. I told you some time ago that
+I was not in the habit of giving away money.
+I believe you had some of your own when
+you started in life, and if you made away
+with it that is your own business.”</p>
+
+<p>“But, William, I am speaking of the
+hundred a year you have allowed me lately
+through Mr. Boughton.”</p>
+
+<p>He was fairly roused now, and turned his
+face full upon her. There were cruel, pitiless
+lines upon it, though she fought against
+them bravely.</p>
+
+<p>“I have allowed you no hundred a year,”
+he said angrily, “and I intend to allow
+you none. Do you mean to tell me that
+Boughton has paid you a hundred a year on
+my account?”</p>
+
+<p>“I understood so,” she gasped, shaking
+with fright.</p>
+
+<p>“I suppose he had some reason for it. If
+he has done it out of his own money, it
+is his own business. If he has done it
+out of mine, I shall have a reckoning up
+with him, and probably you will have one,
+too.”</p>
+
+<p>“But, William, have you been under the
+impression that I was left to starve?”</p>
+
+<p>“I was under no impression at all concerning
+you. Once for all, Anne, you must
+understand that it is not my intention to
+give away the money for which I have
+worked to people who have been idle.”</p>
+
+<p>“I have not been idle,” she said; “and
+you forget that I am your cousin, that our
+mothers——”</p>
+
+<p>“I know all that,” he said, interrupting
+her; “your people and you had your own
+way to make in life, and so had I and my
+people.”</p>
+
+<p>“But if you do not help me”—she burst
+out, for she could bear it no longer—“if you
+do not help me, I shall starve.”</p>
+
+<p>“I really don’t see what claim you have
+upon me.”</p>
+
+<p>“I am your cousin, and I am old, and I
+shall starve,” she repeated. “I must have
+money to-day. If I don’t take back money
+this afternoon my heart will break.” Again
+his fingers went for a moment in the direction
+of the cheque-book and tantalized her.
+She stood up and looked at him entreatingly.
+“I am not speaking only for myself,”
+she pleaded, “but for another——” and she
+broke down.</p>
+
+<p>“For whom else are you speaking?” he
+asked, withdrawing his fingers.</p>
+
+<p>“I do not wish to tell you, William.”</p>
+
+<p>“For whom else?” he repeated, glaring
+at her.</p>
+
+<p>“For one who is very dear to me, and
+who will starve, too, unless you help us.
+William, I entreat you to remember——”</p>
+
+<p>“But who is this pauper you are helping,
+and why should I help her, too?”</p>
+
+<p>“It is not a pauper,” she said indignantly.
+“It is some one who is dearer than all the
+world to me; and, once more, I entreat you
+to help us.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, but who is it?—is it a child?”</p>
+
+<p>“No,” she answered, in a low voice, full
+of infinite tenderness, and she clasped her
+hands and let her chin fall on her breast.</p>
+
+<p>“Who is it?” he asked sternly.</p>
+
+<p>“It is my husband”—and almost a sob
+broke from her.</p>
+
+<p>“Your husband!—I thought he was dead?”</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Baines is dead—long ago; but—I
+have married again.”</p>
+
+<p>“Married again?” he repeated, as if he
+could hardly believe his ears.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, married again, and that is why I
+implore you to help me, so that I may give
+the young, tender life that is joined to mine
+the comforts that are necessary to him,” she
+said, with supplicating misery.</p>
+
+<p>“Do you mean to say”—and he looked at
+her as if he thought she was mad—“that
+some young man has married you?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” she answered, in a low voice; “we
+have been married nearly eight months.”</p>
+
+<p>“And has he got any money?—or does
+he do anything for a living?”</p>
+
+<p>“He is a most brilliant writer, and has
+given the greatest satisfaction to Mr. Fisher;
+but he has been ill, and he requires country
+air and nourishment and luxuries—and I
+implore you to help me to preserve this
+young and beautiful life that has been confided
+to me.”</p>
+
+<p>“Is he a cripple or mad?”</p>
+
+<p>She looked up in astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>“He is a fine, tall young man!” she said,
+with proud indignation. “I should not have
+married a cripple, William, and I have
+already told you that he is a writer on <span class='it'>The
+Centre</span>, though he is not able at present to
+do his talents justice.”</p>
+
+<p>“So you have to keep him?”</p>
+
+<p>“He kept me when he had money; he
+gave me himself, and all he possessed in the
+world.”</p>
+
+<p>“What did he marry you for?” Sir
+William asked, gazing at her in wonder,
+and almost clutching the arms of his chair.</p>
+
+<p>“He married me”—her voice trembled
+and she drooped her head again—“he
+married me because—because he loved me.”</p>
+
+<p>“Loved you! What should he love you
+for?”</p>
+
+<p>“William, do you wish to insult me? I do
+not see why he should not love me, or why
+he should pretend to do so if he did not.”</p>
+
+<p>“And I suppose you love him?” he said,
+pulling the blanket farther up over his knees
+and speaking in a scornful, incredulous voice.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, William, I do—I love him more
+than all the world; and unless you will help
+me so that I may give him those things that
+he requires and make our little home worthy
+of his residence in it, you will break my
+heart—you will kill him, and you will break
+my heart,” she repeated passionately. “I
+will conceal nothing from you—we are
+starving. We have not got a pound in the
+world—we have not even food to eat. He
+is young, and requires plenty of nourishment;
+he is not strong, and wants luxuries.”</p>
+
+<p>“And you want me to pay for them?”</p>
+
+<p>But she did not seem to hear him, and
+swept on—</p>
+
+<p>“He must have them or he will die. We
+have spent every penny we had—I have
+even borrowed money on my possessions.
+I can conceal things from strangers, but you
+and I belong to the same family, and what
+I say to you I know is sacred—we are
+starving, William, we are starving, and I
+implore you to help me. He says he cannot
+stay unless I take back money—that he will
+go and leave me.” Something seemed to
+gather in her throat—there was a ring of
+fright and despair in her voice as she said
+the last words. “He will leave me, and it
+will break my heart, for he is all the world to
+me. It will break my heart if he goes, and
+unless I take back money he will leave me!”</p>
+
+<p>“And let you starve by yourself?—a nice
+man to marry.”</p>
+
+<p>“William,” she said, “he must remember
+what is due to himself. He cannot stay if
+he has not even food to eat.”</p>
+
+<p>“And, pray, who is this gentleman?”</p>
+
+<p>“I have told you that he is a brilliant
+writer.”</p>
+
+<p>“What is his name?”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t think I am justified in telling you—he
+does not wish our marriage to be known.”</p>
+
+<p>“I can quite understand that,” Sir William
+answered ironically. “Did he tell you to
+come to me for money?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, he told me to do so,” she said,
+tragically; “he knew your good heart.”</p>
+
+<p>“Knew my good heart, did he?” There
+was a deadly pallor spreading over Sir
+William’s face that frightened her. For a
+moment his lips moved without making a
+sound, then he recovered his voice, “Tell me
+his name—what is it?”</p>
+
+<p>“William——” she began.</p>
+
+<p>“What is it?” he cried, and his breath
+came short and quick.</p>
+
+<p>She was too scared to demur any longer.</p>
+
+<p>“It is Alfred Wimple”—and her heart
+stood still.</p>
+
+<p>He gazed at her for a moment in silence.</p>
+
+<p>“Wimple,” he said—“what, Boughton’s
+nephew? That skunk he had to turn out
+of his office?”</p>
+
+<p>“He is Mr. Boughton’s nephew; and he
+left his uncle’s office because the duties were
+too arduous for his health.”</p>
+
+<p>“He left his uncle’s office because he was
+kicked out of it. Do you mean to tell me
+that you have married him—a man who
+never did a day’s work in his life, or paid
+a bill that he owed? And as for writing, I
+don’t believe one word of it. It’s not a
+month ago that his uncle told me of some old
+woman, his landlady, forsooth! who had
+been to him with a long bill——”</p>
+
+<p>“It was for his professional chambers. A
+man in his position requires them.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes; and he’d been sponging on the
+woman’s mother, too, in the country. Were
+you with him?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, William, I was not”—and, suddenly,
+a load was lifted from Aunt Anne’s heart.
+The mystery of Liphook appeared to be
+solved, and Alfred Wimple’s account of his
+debts to be verified. A world of tenderness
+rushed back into her heart and gave her
+strength and courage to fight her battle to
+the end. “No, I was not with him,” she
+repeated; and as she looked up a smile, a
+look of almost happiness, was on her face,
+that made her cousin more wonder-struck
+than ever. “He required country air to
+invigorate him, and our means would not
+admit of——”</p>
+
+<p>“Boughton has been allowing you a
+hundred a year,” said Sir William; “and this
+Wimple has married you,” he went on, a
+light seeming to break upon him. “I am
+beginning to understand it. I presume he
+knows that you are my cousin?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, I told him that you were—he spoke
+of you with admiration,” Aunt Anne added,
+always more anxious to say something gratifying
+to her listener than to be strictly veracious.</p>
+
+<p>“I have no doubt he did. Pray, when did
+this fine love-making begin?” Sir William
+asked scornfully.</p>
+
+<p>“Nearly a year ago,” she answered, in a
+faltering voice, for she was almost beaten, in
+spite of the relief that had been given her a
+minute or two ago.</p>
+
+<p>“And when did Boughton begin to allow
+you this hundred a year?”</p>
+
+<p>“About the time of my marriage.”</p>
+
+<p>“I perfectly understand. I’ll tell you the
+reason of your marriage and of his love for
+you in a moment.” With an effort he
+stretched out his hand and touched the bell.
+“Charles,” he said, when the servant entered,
+“unlock my safe.”</p>
+
+<p>The man pulled back a curtain that had
+been drawn across a recess to hide an iron
+door. “On the top of the shelf to the left
+you will see a blue envelope labelled ‘Last
+Will and Testament.’ Give it to me,” Sir
+William said.</p>
+
+<p>A scared look broke over Aunt Anne’s
+face; and she watched the proceedings
+breathlessly.</p>
+
+<p>“Lock the safe and go—no, stop—give me
+some brandy first.”</p>
+
+<p>The servant poured a little into a glass
+from a bottle which stood on the writing-table
+between the windows. The old man’s
+hand shook while he took it. Aunt Anne,
+looking at him like a culprit waiting for
+punishment, noticed a blackness round his
+mouth, and that the lines in his face were
+rigid.</p>
+
+<p>“Shall I bring you some chicken-broth,
+Sir William?” the servant asked.</p>
+
+<p>“When I ring. Go.” Then he turned to
+Aunt Anne. “Now I will tell you why this
+young man loved you.” He said the last
+words with an almost fiendish chuckle. “He
+loved you because, being a clerk in his uncle’s
+office, the office from which he had to be
+kicked, he probably knew—in fact, I am
+certain that he knew, for he came to ask me
+your Christian name when the instructions
+were being given—that I had provided for
+you in my will. I do not choose to pauperize
+people while I live, but I considered it my
+duty to leave some portion of my wealth to
+my relations, no matter how small a claim
+they had upon me. He knew that you
+would get a fourth share of my money—probably
+he reckoned it up and calculated
+that it would amount to a good many
+thousand pounds, so he and Boughton concocted
+a scheme to get hold of it together.”</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Boughton knew nothing of our
+marriage.”</p>
+
+<p>“I tell you it was all a scheme. What
+should Boughton allow you a hundred a year
+for?” He was grasping the will while he
+spoke.</p>
+
+<p>“He knew nothing about it, William—neither
+did Alfred.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, we’ll put his disinterestedness to
+the test”—and he tried to tear the will in
+half, but his fingers were too weak.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh no,” she cried; “no—no——”</p>
+
+<p>“Do you suppose a young man would
+marry an old woman like you for any reason
+but gain? That you should have been such
+a fool! and for that unwholesome-looking
+cur, with his long, rickety legs and red hair—why,
+he looks like a stale prawn,” the old
+man said derisively, and made another effort
+to tear the will.</p>
+
+<p>“I cannot bear it—William, I implore
+you”—and she clasped her hands with
+terror.</p>
+
+<p>He leaned forward with an effort, and put
+the will on the fire.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh no, no—” she cried again, and,
+dropping on her knees, she almost snatched
+it from the flames.</p>
+
+<p>He took the poker between his two white
+hands, and held the paper down with it.</p>
+
+<p>“It is cruel—cruel——” she began, as she
+watched it disappear from her sight.</p>
+
+<p>“I think I have made the case clear,” he
+said; “and you will see that there is nothing
+to be gained by staying. My money was
+not made to benefit Mr. Alfred Wimple. I
+shall make another will, and it will not contain
+your name.” He rang the bell again.</p>
+
+<p>“You have treated me cruelly—cruelly—but
+Heaven will frustrate you yet——” she
+said tremblingly, as she rose from her knees.
+Anguish and dignity were strangely blended
+in her voice, but after a moment it seemed
+as if the latter had gained the victory,
+“You and I will probably never meet again,
+William; you have insulted me cruelly, and
+you will remember it when it is too late to
+ask my forgiveness. You have insulted
+me and treated me heartlessly, yet it was
+beside us when we were children that our
+mothers——” the servant entered with a
+cup of chicken-broth.</p>
+
+<p>“Good-bye, Mrs. Alfred Wimple,” Sir
+William said politely. “Charles, show Mrs.
+Wimple downstairs.”</p>
+
+<p>The man was bewildered at the strange
+name, and looked at Aunt Anne doubtfully.
+Sir William clutched at the arms of his chair
+again, and his head sank back upon the
+pillow.</p>
+
+<p>“William—” she began.</p>
+
+<p>“Go!” he said hoarsely. For a moment
+she hesitated, a red spot had burned itself
+on her cheek, and then slowly she followed
+the servant down.</p>
+
+<div class='figcenter' style='width:30%'>
+<img src='images/tail6.jpg' alt='insect within a triangle' id='iid-0011' style='width:80%;height:auto;'/>
+</div>
+
+<hr class='pbk'/>
+
+<div class='figcenter'>
+<img src='images/chap3.jpg' alt='' id='iid-0012' style='width:80%;height:auto;'/>
+</div>
+
+<div><h1>CHAPTER VII.</h1></div>
+
+<p class='noindent'><span class='lead-in'><img class='dropcap' src='images/capa.jpg' style='float:left;width:5%;' alt='A'/>UNT ANNE</span> went slowly along Portman
+Square. She felt, and it was a
+cruel moment to do so, that she was growing
+very old. Her feet almost gave way beneath
+her; her hands had barely strength to hold
+her cloak together over her chest. There
+was a little cold breeze passing by; as it
+swept over her face she realized that she
+was half stunned and sad and sick at heart.
+But she dragged on, step by step, stopping
+once, to hold by the iron railings of a house,
+before she could find strength enough to
+turn into a side-street.</p>
+
+<p>“I won’t believe it,” she said; “it was not
+for the money. He could not have known;
+his uncle would not have told him—it is not
+likely that he would have betrayed the confidence
+of a client.” And then she remembered
+what Sir William had said about the
+debt to the landlady in the Gray’s Inn Road
+and to the mother in the country. Of course
+that meant Liphook. It gave her a world of
+comfort, had lifted a terrible dread from her
+heart, so that, even in spite of the insults of
+the last hour, she felt that her morning’s visit
+had not been wholly thrown away. She had
+not the faculty of looking forward very far,
+and it did not occur to her as yet that, by
+revealing her marriage, she had ruined her
+prospects with her cousin. It was the insults
+that had enraged her; the going back to
+Witley, the day’s dinner, and the very near
+future, that perplexed her. A month, even
+a week hence, might take care of itself, provided
+to-day were made easy; it had always
+been so with her.</p>
+
+<p>She was bewildered, staggered, for want
+of money; she had just two shillings in the
+world. Florence and Walter were still away;
+she could think of no one of whom to borrow.
+She came to a confectioner’s shop, and looked
+at it hesitatingly, for she was tired and
+exhausted. Even though Alfred Wimple
+waited at the other end, mercilessly ready
+to count the coins with which she returned,
+she felt that she must buy a few minutes’
+rest for herself. She wanted to sit down
+and think. She tottered into the shop, and
+having asked for a cup of tea, waited for it,
+with a sigh of relief, in a dark corner. But
+she was too much stupefied and beaten to
+think clearly. When the tea came, hot and
+smoking, in a thick white cup, to which her
+lips clung gratefully, she felt better. She
+began to burn with indignation, which was
+an excellent sign; she crushed Sir William
+Rammage out of her thoughts, and winked
+almost savagely, as though she had felt him
+under her foot. She told herself again that
+Alfred could not have known about the will,
+and had not deceived her about Liphook.
+She even tried to think of him affectionately,
+though that was difficult, with the dread of his
+face before her if she returned empty-handed.
+But she did not think of the money question
+as despairingly now as she had done a few
+minutes since; she had a firm belief in her
+own power of resource. She felt certain that
+when she had reflected calmly, something
+would suggest itself. She remembered Mrs.
+North; but it was not possible to borrow of
+her, for she had forfeited all consideration to
+the regard Aunt Anne thought it necessary
+to feel for any one from whom she could
+accept a loan.</p>
+
+<p>“I cannot do that, even for Alfred,” she
+said. “I have always held my head so high;
+I cannot lower it to Mrs. North, even for
+him.” But she took the letter from her
+pocket and read it over again. “She does
+not seem to comprehend the difference in
+our positions,” she said, as she put it back
+into the envelope, though not before she had
+noticed, with a keen eye, that Mrs. North
+had said she would be back in England very
+soon, and calculated that that could not mean
+just yet. “If Walter and Florence were in
+London, I should be relieved of this anxiety
+immediately,” she thought. Then a good
+idea occurred to her. She considered it
+from every point of view, and felt at last
+that it was feasible. “I am quite sure,” she
+told herself, “that Florence would say I was
+justified in going to her mother in her absence.
+I will explain to her that there are some
+things her daughter would wish me to buy,
+and ask her to let me have sufficient money
+to defray their cost. Besides,” she added, as
+an afterthought, “I must see those dear
+children; Florence, I know, would wish me
+to do so; and it is an attention I ought not
+to omit, after all the regard and kindness
+that she and dear Walter have always shown
+me.” She got up and looked longingly at
+the buns and tarts in the window; though
+she had only one unbroken shilling left, she
+could not wholly curb her generosity.</p>
+
+<p>“Would you put me a couple of sponge-cakes
+into a bag?” she said to the young
+woman, “I hope they are quite fresh; I
+prefer them a little brown.” She walked
+away, justified and refreshed, holding the
+paper bag by the corner.</p>
+
+<p>But when she arrived at the house near
+Regent’s Park, it was only to be told that
+Florence’s mother had gone out for the day,
+and that the children had not yet returned
+from their morning walk. The servant,
+seeing how disappointed she looked, begged
+her to come in and wait for a little while.
+“I don’t think they’ll be long, ma’am,” she
+said almost gently. “For,” as she explained
+to her fellow-servants afterwards, “I could
+not help being sorry for an old lady who had
+made a stupid of herself like that.” Aunt
+Anne hesitated a moment. “There’s a nice
+fire in the dining-room,” the servant continued,
+and having persuaded her to enter,
+she turned the easy-chair round, and asked
+if she should make a cup of tea.</p>
+
+<p>“Thank you, no,” said Aunt Anne, in a
+tone that showed she was sensible of the
+desire to please her, but was, nevertheless,
+aware of her own position in society.
+“I do not require any refreshment; I have
+just partaken of an early lunch.” She turned,
+gratefully, to the fire when she was alone,
+and, putting her feet on the fender, faced
+her difficulties once more. She could not
+remember any human being in London from
+whom, under any pretext whatever, she
+could borrow. She was baffled and at bay.
+The memory of Sir William’s taunts vanished
+altogether as, with a fright that was gradually
+becoming feverish, she went over in
+her mind every possible means of raising
+even a few shillings—though a few shillings,
+she knew, would be virtually useless against
+the tide she had to stem. Of a very small
+sum she was already certain, for she had
+devised a means of raising it, but she feared
+it would only be sufficient to provide food
+for the evening, and perhaps for to-morrow—and
+then? She folded her hands and
+looked into the fire, shaking her head once
+or twice, as if various schemes were presenting
+themselves, only to be rejected. The
+clock on the mantelpiece struck half-past
+one; at half-past four her train left Waterloo
+Station. There was little time to lose.
+She got up, took off her cloak, and examined
+it carefully, then put it round her once more,
+fingering the clasp, while she fastened it, as
+if it were a thing she treasured. As she
+did so, her eye caught a little pile on the
+mantelpiece; it consisted of seven shillings
+in silver, with a half-sovereign on the top.
+She looked at it as if fascinated, and calculated
+precisely all it would buy. She remembered,
+with dismay, that Jane Mitchell’s
+weekly wages were due that evening, that
+Jane’s mother was ill, and the money was
+necessary. She heard again the hard voice
+in which Alfred had said, “Unless you
+bring back money, I shall not stay here any
+longer.” She could see his eyes, dull and
+unrelenting.</p>
+
+<p>“I know they would give it to me; I know
+that Walter and Florence would deny me
+nothing that was really for my happiness,”
+she thought, and rang the bell. “I fear I
+shall not be able to stay and see the children,”
+she said haughtily to the servant, but
+with a little excitement she could not keep
+out of her voice; “my train is, unfortunately,
+an early one. And would you tell their
+grandmother that I have ventured to borrow
+this seventeen shillings on the mantelpiece?
+I came up to town with less money than I
+find I require; I will write to her in a day
+or two, and return it.”</p>
+
+<p>“It’s the children’s money, ma’am; I
+heard their grandmother say they were to
+save it up for Christmas.”</p>
+
+<p>“Dear children,” said the old lady, with
+a little smile; “they will be delighted to
+hear that I have borrowed it. Tell them
+that Aunt Anne is their debtor. Give them
+these two sponge-cakes, they will think of
+me while they eat them.” She snapped her
+purse as she put the money into it, and left
+the house with a light footstep.</p>
+
+<p>She walked on towards Portland Road.
+There was only one thing more to do, and
+that must be done quickly. It would add
+perhaps ten shillings to her purse, but even
+that would be a precious sum. She hesitated
+a moment. A threat of rain was in the air,
+but she did not feel it. The chilly wind
+touched her face, but it did not make her
+shiver, now that her courage had returned.
+She looked up and down Great Portland
+Street doubtfully, then went slowly, but with
+decision, towards a street she knew well.</p>
+
+<p>A quarter of an hour later she was in an
+omnibus, going to Waterloo Station. The
+cloak with the steel clasp had disappeared;
+on her face was an expression that betrayed
+she had gone through an experience that
+depressed her. She watched the people
+hurrying by in hansoms, and remembered
+the day she had driven in one herself to see
+Alfred Wimple off to the country—the day
+on which Florence had given her the five-pound
+note. She was very weary, and
+beginning to long for home. She planned
+the evening dinner, and got out a little before
+she reached Waterloo, in order to buy it at
+the shops near the station. There had been
+concealed beneath her cloak all the morning
+a square bag, made of black stuff, which now
+she carried on her arm. When she stood
+on the platform waiting for her train it was
+no longer flat and empty, but bulged into
+strange shapes that were oddly suggestive.
+In her hand she carried three bunches of
+primroses, and a smaller one of violets;
+under her arm were some evening papers.
+She looked satisfied, and almost happy, for
+she felt that a few hours at least of contentment
+were before her. She entered her
+third-class carriage, thinking of the day she
+had seen Alfred Wimple off to Liphook;
+she remembered, with a little triumph, how
+she had exchanged his ticket. “I am sure
+the papers will be a solace to him,” she said;
+“writing for the press must give him a
+deep interest in public affairs—it must have
+been a great deprivation to him not to know
+all that was going on. My dear Alfred!
+these violets shall be my offering to him as
+soon as I arrive; I cannot do enough to
+compensate him for William’s cruel aspersions
+on his character. My darling, if I only
+had thousands, I would give them to you; I
+would make them into a carpet for you to
+walk upon.”</p>
+
+<p>She was alone in the carriage; she put her
+bag carefully down beside her on the seat,
+and shut the windows, for the drizzling rain
+was coming in aslant, and chilled her. Once
+or twice a sharp pang of pain darted through
+her shoulders, but she did not mind; she
+was dreaming among illusions, and found a
+passing spell of happiness that brought a
+smile to her lips and a wink of almost merry
+anticipation to her eye, as she saw the little
+dinner she had devised set out, and Alfred
+facing her at table. She imagined him saying,
+in the solemn manner in which he said
+everything, “I feel better, Anne,” when he
+had finished, and she knew that in those few
+words she would find a balm for all the insults
+and misery of the last few hours. She
+repented now that she was returning by the
+early train; it seemed like treachery to him.
+It had been almost noble of him to conceal
+from her the embarrassing debt he had at
+Liphook. “He has evidently been reticent,”
+she thought, “from a desire to save me pain.
+My dear one,—I have wronged him lately,
+but I will make it up to him this evening.
+I will tell him that there is no poverty or
+sorrow I should not think it a privilege to
+share with him.” She peered out of the
+window at the landscape dulling with the
+rain. “I hope he is not in the garden,” she
+thought. “He will catch cold, and his cough
+was so bad last week. I am glad I remembered
+to bring some lozenges for him.”</p>
+
+<p>The train sped on past Woking and the
+fir-woods beyond; they reminded her of
+the trees round the cottage at Witley.
+When it was dark to-night, she would look
+up at them before she bolted the door after
+Jane Mitchell. And then she and Alfred
+would sit over the fire and talk; he would
+feel so much better after his dinner, she was
+sure he would be kind to her. He had been
+worried lately with poverty, but just for a
+little while he should forget it. With the
+future she did not concern herself, for she
+had already devised a plan that would make
+it easy. She would go and see Mr. Boughton,
+and of course he would help them when he
+heard that Alfred was her husband. He
+would continue the allowance he had given
+them, and when Sir William Rammage made
+a new will he would take care that it was not
+an iniquitous one. It had never seriously
+occurred to her that William would leave her
+money, though, once or twice, the possibility
+had crossed her mind. But she had never
+been able to look forward at all for herself.
+“Now,” she thought, “I must give the future
+my consideration. I must think of it for my
+dear Alfred. Luxuries are necessary to him;
+he cannot divest himself of his longing for
+them. Perhaps when Mr. Boughton returns
+he will make William ashamed of his conduct
+to me to-day, and he will do something for
+us before he dies; it would be very detrimental
+to his pride that we should starve,
+and I did not mince words to-day.” The
+train passed Milford Station; in a few
+minutes she would be at Witley. “I hope
+Alfred won’t be angry with me for coming
+by the earlier train,” she thought, with some
+misgiving. “I will explain to him that I
+had finished my commissions in town sooner
+than I had anticipated, and, seeing that the
+weather was not likely to improve, I thought
+it better to return, even at the risk of his
+displeasure.”</p>
+
+<p>The governess-cart was waiting for her.</p>
+
+<p>“I brought an umbrella,” Lucas said, “as
+it was raining. I noticed you went without
+one this morning, and the weather has come
+on that unexpected bad, I was afraid you
+would get wet through.”</p>
+
+<p>“I am most grateful for your thoughtfulness,”
+Aunt Anne said, with distant graciousness.
+She put her bag out of reach of the
+rain, and cared little for herself. She was
+too full of other matters to trouble about the
+weather. As she went along the straight
+road, of which by this time she knew every
+yard, she mentally counted up the shillings
+in her pocket, and considered that she ought
+to give one of them to Lucas. “He has
+been most attentive,” she said, and she
+managed to extract the coin from her pocket,
+and put it into her black silk glove, ready for
+the end of the journey, which she considered
+would be the right moment to present it.
+The rain came down steadily. It was no
+longer aslant or fitful, and in the sky overhead
+there were no changing clouds. “I
+fear you have had an unfavourable day,” she
+said to Lucas.</p>
+
+<p>“It has rained mostly all the time. I
+hope you won’t catch cold, ma’am. I thought
+I saw you with a cloak this morning; have
+you left it behind?”</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Anne resented the question; she
+thought it was unduly familiar, and she
+answered coldly,</p>
+
+<p>“I have left it behind—for a purpose. It
+required renovating,” she added.</p>
+
+<p>“I might have brought you a shawl, or
+something, if I had known. I called at the
+house as I passed to see if Mr. Wimple
+would like to come and meet you. But he
+wasn’t in.”</p>
+
+<p>“I hope he is not out in the rain,” she
+thought. “Did the servant say if he had
+been out long?” she asked.</p>
+
+<p>“She said he had been gone about an hour.
+It’s a pity I missed him.”</p>
+
+<p>“He probably had an engagement,” she
+said, and a little uneasiness stole over her.
+Another mile. She could scarcely conceal
+her impatience. “Couldn’t the pony run up
+this little hill?” she asked.</p>
+
+<p>“It could,” said Lucas, rather contemptuously;
+“but Mrs. Burnett don’t like him to
+run uphill, she don’t—she thinks it’s bad for
+him.” Aunt Anne was too much engrossed
+in her own thoughts to answer. “He goes
+faster than the donkey did last year, anyhow,
+ma’am; do you mind the donkey?”</p>
+
+<p>“I frequently drove him.”</p>
+
+<p>“He was a deal of trouble, he was,” Lucas
+went on; “and they didn’t do well by him—gave
+four pound ten for him, and when they
+come to sell him a year later they only got
+two pound five.”</p>
+
+<p>“So that they were mulcted of just half
+the sum for which they had purchased him,”
+she said absently, having quickly reckoned
+up the loss in her head. “Was there any
+reason for that?”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, you see, this was it,” said Lucas—“when
+gentry first come to live about here
+they took to keeping donkeys, so donkeys
+went up; then after a bit they found they
+wouldn’t go, and they took to selling them
+and buying ponies, so donkeys went down.
+I am afraid you are getting very wet, ma’am.
+I wish I had thought to bring a rug to cover
+you. But here we are at the house, and
+you’ll be able to dry yourself by the fire.”</p>
+
+<p>“Thank you, Lucas, thank you,” and she
+slipped the shilling into his hand, and, taking
+her bulging bag from under the seat, walked
+into the house by the back door.</p>
+
+<p>“Jane,” she asked, the moment she crossed
+the threshold, “where is Mr. Wimple?”</p>
+
+<p>“He went out an hour and a half ago,
+ma’am, or a little more perhaps.”</p>
+
+<p>“Do you know in what direction he
+went?”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, last time I saw him he was in the
+garden; then I see him going down the dip.”</p>
+
+<p>She was silent for a moment, then she
+asked gently—</p>
+
+<p>“Was he at home all the morning?” and
+received an answer in the affirmative. She
+was silent, and seemed to turn something
+over in her mind.</p>
+
+<p>“You are quite sure he went down the dip,
+and not much more than an hour and a half
+ago?” She stood by the kitchen fire, and
+she spoke absently. “I have brought a sole
+for dinner,” she said. “I must ask you to
+cook it more carefully than you did the last
+one, Jane. Mr. Wimple is most particular
+about fish—he cannot eat it unless it is
+quite dry. After the sole there is a chicken
+and some asparagus. Give me my bag—there
+are some other things in it, and a
+bottle of claret at the bottom, which I wish
+put on the dining-room mantelshelf for an
+hour. I trust you have made a good fire,
+Jane?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, ma’am; but I had to do it of wood,
+for the coals are nearly out.”</p>
+
+<p>“I prefer wood; it is not my intention to
+have in more coal just yet,” said Aunt Anne,
+firmly. “Where have you put the primroses
+I brought? I wish to arrange them in a
+bowl for the centre of the table.”</p>
+
+<p>“Hadn’t you better take off your shawl
+first, ma’am—it’s wringing wet—and let me
+make you a cup of tea?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, thank you, I will not trouble you to
+do that,” Aunt Anne said gently. “But put
+Mr. Wimple’s slippers by the fire in the
+dining-room.” She went into the drawing-room
+and held a match to the grate, and
+stood beside it while the paper blazed and the
+wood crackled, thinking that she and Alfred
+would sit over the fire cosily that evening
+after dinner.</p>
+
+<p>“I am sure he is worried about money,”
+she said to herself, “and that he is in debt;
+but he shall not have these anxieties long—it
+is much better that his uncle should know
+about our marriage.” Her eyes turned towards
+the window and the garden and the
+trees with the rain falling on them. “I
+wonder if he has gone far; I hope he is not
+depressed. I fear he worries himself unduly,”
+she said, and went into the dining-room.
+The slippers were toasting in the
+fender; she turned the easy-chair towards
+the fire and put beside it a little table from
+the corner of the room. Then she went for
+the papers she had brought from London,
+and arranged them on the table, and put the
+bunch of violets in a glass and set it by the
+papers. She drew back and looked at the
+cosy arrangement with satisfaction. “My
+darling Alfred!” she said to herself; and
+then, softly, as if she were afraid of Jane
+hearing her, she crept out of the front door
+and under the verandah that went round the
+house, and looked out at the weather. The
+rain had nearly stopped, but the sky was
+grey and the air was cold. She pulled her
+shawl closer, and, trying to shake off the
+chill that was overtaking her, went swiftly
+down the garden pathway. At the far end
+the grass was long and wet; the drops fell
+from the beeches and larches above. She
+found the narrow pathway that led to the
+dip, and went along it. She looked anxiously
+ahead, but there was no sign of Alfred. “I
+know he will be glad to see me,” she thought.
+“I know the silent tenderness of his heart—my
+darling—my darling, you are all I have
+in the world!”</p>
+
+<p>On she went among the gorse, between
+the firs, and over the clumps of budding
+heather, a limp black figure in the misty twilight.
+She had no definite reason for supposing
+he would return that way; but she
+knew it to be a short cut from the Liphook
+direction, and some strange instinct seemed
+to be sending her on: she did not hesitate
+or falter, but just obeyed it. The pathway
+was very narrow, the wet growth on either
+side brushed her skirts as she passed by—down
+and down—lower and lower—towards
+the valley. On the other side, a quarter of
+a mile away, she could see the little thatched
+shed the children called their “house,” where
+perhaps in past days a cow had been tethered.
+There was not a sign of Alfred. “Perhaps
+he is a little farther on, over the ridge,” she
+said, and sped on. A miserable aching was
+upon her; she had been out of doors many
+hours; she was wet and cold through and
+through. Every moment the long grasses
+and the dead bracken of a past year swept
+over her feet. The mist stole up to her
+closer and closer. The drops fell from the
+leaves above on to her shoulders. “He
+must be so cold and wet,” she thought;
+“I know he will make his cough worse;
+I am glad I kept the lozenges in my
+pocket.” She hesitated at the bottom of the
+valley for a moment, and then began the
+upward path. “I know he wants me,” she
+said aloud, with an almost passionate note
+in her feeble voice; “I can feel that he
+wants me.” She looked through the straggling
+firs that dotted the ground over which
+she was now making her way. Still, there
+was not a sign of Alfred. Only the trees
+and the undergrowth, sodden with the long
+day’s rain.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly there was the sound of a woman’s
+laughter. She stopped, petrified. It came
+from the little thatched shed twenty yards
+away. The side of the shed was towards
+her and only the front of it was open, so
+that she could not see who was within it.
+But she knew that two people were there.
+One was a woman, and something told her
+that the other was Alfred Wimple. For a
+minute she could not stir. Then, as if it had
+been waiting for a signal, the rain began to
+fall, with a soft, swishing sound, upon the
+thatched roof of the shed, upon Aunt
+Anne’s thin cashmere shawl, upon all the
+drooping vegetation. The mistiness grew
+deeper, and from the distances the night
+began to gather. The black figure standing
+in the mist knew that a few yards off there
+was hidden from her that which meant life
+or death. She went a little nearer to the
+shed, but her feet almost failed her, her
+heart stood still, a sickening dread had laid
+hold of her. “I will go round and face
+them,” she thought, and dragged herself up
+to the shed. But as she reached the corner
+she heard Alfred Wimple’s voice—</p>
+
+<p>“You know it’s only for her money that
+I stay with the old woman, Caroline.” She
+stopped, and rested her head and hands
+against the back and sides of the shed, from
+sheer fright at what was coming next.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, but you don’t give me any of it,”
+the woman answered.</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t get any myself now.”</p>
+
+<p>“Then what do you stay with her for?”</p>
+
+<p>“Because it won’t do to let her slip.”</p>
+
+<p>“It’s mother that makes such a fuss—it’s
+not me; though, of course, it’s hard, you
+always being away like this.”</p>
+
+<p>“Tell her she won’t gain anything by
+making a fuss,” Alfred Wimple said, in the
+hard voice Aunt Anne knew so well.</p>
+
+<p>“She says all the four years we have been
+married you have not kept me decently three
+months together.”</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Anne held on to the shed for dear
+life, and her heart stood still.</p>
+
+<p>“I shall keep you decently by-and-by,
+Caroline.”</p>
+
+<p>“And then she’s always going on about
+what you owe her. I daren’t go up to
+London any more, she leads me such a life.”</p>
+
+<p>“Tell her I’ll pay her by-and-by,” Alfred
+Wimple said.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m sure if it wasn’t for grandmother
+being at Liphook, I don’t know what I’d do.
+Sometimes I think I’d better get a place
+of some sort—then I’d be able to help you.”</p>
+
+<p>“But your grandmother doesn’t lead you
+a life, Caroline, does she?”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, you see, it was she made us get
+married, so she can’t well, and she has kept
+mother quiet on that account; but couldn’t
+you come to us again, Alfred? I don’t
+believe grandmother would mind. She
+thinks you are very wise to stay with your
+aunt if you’re going to get her money, and
+often tells me I am impatient, but I can’t
+bear being parted like this.”</p>
+
+<p>“And I can’t bear it either”—something
+that was equivalent to tenderness came into
+his voice. Aunt Anne drew her breath as
+she heard it. “You know I am fond of you;
+I never was fond of anybody else.”</p>
+
+<p>“Mother says when you first had her
+rooms in the Gray’s Inn Road, there was
+some girl you used to go out with?”</p>
+
+<p>“She was fond of me,” he said; “I didn’t
+care about her.”</p>
+
+<p>“My goodness! look at the rain,” said
+the woman, as it came pouring down; “we
+must stay here till it’s over a bit. Alfred,
+you are sure you are as fond of me as
+ever?”</p>
+
+<p>“I am just as fond of you; I am fonder.
+You don’t suppose I stay with an old woman
+from choice, do you? I do it just as much
+for your sake as mine, Caroline.”</p>
+
+<p>“Call me your wife again—you haven’t
+said it lately—and kiss me, do kiss me.”</p>
+
+<p>“You are my wife,” he said, “and you
+know I am fond of you, and——” Aunt
+Anne heard the sound of his kisses. “I like
+holding you again,” he went on; “it’s awful
+being always with that old woman.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, you don’t have to kiss her, as she’s
+your aunt,” she said with a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>“I have to kiss her night and morning,”
+he answered; “but I get out of her way as
+much as possible—you can bet that.”</p>
+
+<p>“Mother and grandmother are always
+saying, perhaps she will give you the slip
+and leave her money to somebody else.”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t think she’ll do that,” he said;
+“but that’s one reason why I keep a sharp
+look-out.”</p>
+
+<p>“Hasn’t she got anything now? You
+don’t seem to get much out of her, if she
+has.”</p>
+
+<p>“She’s a close-fisted old woman. Come
+up closer on my shoulder—I like feeling
+your face there.”</p>
+
+<p>“Suppose she died to-morrow,” the woman
+said—“where would you be then?”</p>
+
+<p>“Of course there’s that danger. One
+must risk something.”</p>
+
+<p>“And is she sure to get money when this—what
+is it—her cousin—dies?”</p>
+
+<p>“She’ll get five and twenty thousand
+pounds. I have seen his will, so I know
+it’s true.”</p>
+
+<p>“Does she know herself?”</p>
+
+<p>“No”—and he laughed a little short laugh.</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Anne, listening and shuddering,
+remembered, oddly, that she had hardly
+ever heard him laugh in her life before.</p>
+
+<p>“But how did you manage to see the
+will?”</p>
+
+<p>“I told you before, Caroline, I saw it in
+my uncle’s office; so there is no mistake
+about it, if that is what you mean.”</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Anne nodded her weary head to
+herself. “William Rammage is right,” she
+thought; “he is justified. I might have
+known that at least he would not deceive me.”</p>
+
+<p>“And has she left it all to you, Alfred?”
+the girl’s voice—for it was a girl’s voice—asked.</p>
+
+<p>“Every penny. I took good care of that;
+and I’ll take good care she doesn’t alter it,
+too.”</p>
+
+<p>“But when do you think she’ll get it?”</p>
+
+<p>“As soon as this cousin of hers dies. He
+has been dying these ever so many months,”
+Alfred Wimple said discontentedly; “only
+he’s so long about it.”</p>
+
+<p>“But she won’t give it to you right away
+when she has got it herself. You’ll have to
+wait till she dies.”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t think she’ll live long,” he said
+grimly; “I’m half afraid, sometimes, that
+she won’t last as long as he will, unless he
+makes haste.”</p>
+
+<p>“We’ll have good times, Alfred, once
+we’ve got our money?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, we will,” he answered with determination.</p>
+
+<p>“You mustn’t think that I care only for
+the money,” the girl went on; “it’s your
+being away that I care about most.”</p>
+
+<p>“I care about money; I want money,
+Caroline. I don’t like being poor.”</p>
+
+<p>“You see, I have always been poor, and
+don’t mind so much.”</p>
+
+<p>“You won’t be poor by-and-by, when the
+old woman is dead. I hope she’ll be quicker
+than her cousin over it, for I can’t stand it
+much longer.”</p>
+
+<p>“Isn’t she kind to you?”</p>
+
+<p>“I suppose she means to be kind,” he
+said gratingly. “But she whines about me
+so, and is always wanting to kiss me”—and
+he made a harsh sound in his throat. “I
+can’t bear being kissed by an old woman.”</p>
+
+<p>“It doesn’t matter when she is your aunt;
+it isn’t as if you were married to her. Wouldn’t
+it be awful to be married to an old woman?”</p>
+
+<p>“Ugh! I think I should kill her, Caroline.
+Let’s talk about something else.”</p>
+
+<p>“Let’s say all we’ll do when we get our
+money, Alfred dear,” the girl said in a
+wheedling voice. “I am glad of this rain,
+for we can’t go back till it leaves off a bit;
+let’s say all we’ll do when we get her money.”</p>
+
+<p>“I believe you care more about her
+money than you do about me,” he said, in
+the grumbling voice Aunt Anne knew well.</p>
+
+<p>“No, you don’t”—and she laughed a
+little; “you don’t think that a bit. I am
+fonder of you than the day I was married.”</p>
+
+<p>“You were fond enough then,” he said
+almost tenderly; “I remember seeing you
+kiss your wedding-gown as you sat and
+stitched at it the night before.”</p>
+
+<p>“I thought I’d never get it done in time.”</p>
+
+<p>“You were determined to have a new
+one, weren’t you?”</p>
+
+<p>“I thought it would be unlucky if I didn’t,
+though there wasn’t anybody but you to see
+it. It isn’t that I care for money, Alfred,”
+she went on—“don’t think it. It’s only
+mother that makes the fuss. We’ll pay her
+up quick when we’ve got it, and we’ll be
+awfully good to grandmother; but, as for
+me, I wouldn’t care if you hadn’t a penny.
+It’s only you I want.”</p>
+
+<p>“And it’s only you I want,” he said, with
+a little cough that belied his words.</p>
+
+<p>“What is that rustling, Alfred—is there
+any one about?”</p>
+
+<p>“It’s only the rain among the grass and
+leaves; I wish it’d leave off—I ought to be
+getting in.”</p>
+
+<p>“What time is she coming from London?”</p>
+
+<p>“I expect she’ll be here soon now. You
+had better give me that money, Caroline.”</p>
+
+<p>“It’s hidden in my dress—wait till I get
+it out. I hope mother won’t hear I was
+paid, or she’ll wonder what I’ve done with
+it.”</p>
+
+<p>“I can’t do without a little money,” he
+said, in the tone Aunt Anne had often
+heard; “and the old woman is so close-fisted
+she expects me to account for everything
+she gives me.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, there it is—twenty-two shillings
+and sixpence. I don’t want grandmother to
+know, for she said last time she wondered
+you liked taking it.”</p>
+
+<p>“A man has a right to his wife’s earnings,”
+he said firmly.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, I’ve got three dresses in the house
+to do; they’ll come to a good bit. It isn’t
+that I mind giving it. Alfred! there’s some
+one against the back of the shed.”</p>
+
+<p>“It’s only the branches of the trees brushing
+against it,” he said. “I must go back—the
+old woman will be coming home.”</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t go till it stops raining a bit,” she
+pleaded; “and put your arms tighter round
+me, I am not with you so often now. Aren’t
+you glad I am not an old woman?”</p>
+
+<p>“Ugh!”—and he made a sound of disgust
+again. “Old women make me sick.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, you’ll be old long before I am,”
+she said, with a triumphant laugh. “My
+goodness! look at the rain.”</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Anne went slowly along the narrow
+pathway, down into the valley, and up towards
+the larch and fir-trees again. Her
+strength was almost spent when she reached
+the garden. She bent her head beneath the
+downpour, and dragged herself, in such
+frightened haste as she could manage, to the
+house. She stopped for a moment beneath
+the verandah, as if to be sure that she was
+awake. She looked, half incredulously down
+at her wet and clinging clothes, and then into
+the darkness and distance. Beyond the trees
+and across the valley she knew that two
+people were saying their good-byes. She
+imagined their looks and words, and their
+caresses. It seemed as if the whole world
+were theirs—it had been pulled from under
+her feet to make a heaven for them. She
+was trembling with cold and fear, but she
+told herself that there was one thing left at
+which she must clutch a little longer—her
+self-control and dignity.</p>
+
+<p>“I thought,” she said bewildered, and
+with the strange hunted look on her face, as
+she entered the cottage—“I thought God
+had forgiven me and sent him back, but it is
+all a mistake. Perhaps it is part of my
+punishment.” Everything looked strange
+to her; as if years had passed since she had
+gone out only an hour ago. She stood by
+the drawing-room door for a moment, looking
+in at the fire that had burned up and made
+a cheerful blaze, but she was afraid to go
+nearer to it. She felt like an outcast from
+everywhere; there was no place for her in
+the world, no one who wanted her, nothing
+left to do. And there was no love for her,
+and no forgetfulness; she had to bear pain—that
+alone was her portion. She wanted most
+of all to lie down and die, but death and love
+alike are often strangely difficult to those who
+need them most. She meandered into the
+kitchen, without any settled plan of what she
+was going to do.</p>
+
+<p>“Jane,” she said, “the moment you have
+finished taking in the dinner, I want you to
+go upstairs and follow the directions I will
+give you.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, ma’am,” Jane answered, with some
+astonishment when she had listened to them;
+“but do you mean to-night?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, I mean to-night,” Aunt Anne said,
+and turned away.</p>
+
+<p>“Let me take your shawl, ma’am; it is
+wringing wet.”</p>
+
+<p>“I shall be glad if you will divest me of
+it,” the old lady said gently, “and if you will
+bring me my cap and slippers; I am fatigued,
+and cannot ascend the stairs.” She sat down
+for a minute, and listened to Jane’s footsteps
+going and returning. It seemed as if the
+whole house were full of shame and agony;
+a single step in any direction might take her
+into its midst—she did not dare venture there
+till she had finished the task that was before
+her. She went into the dining-room, with a
+strange, bewildered air still upon her, as if
+she were doubtful whether it was the room
+that she had known so well, or if it had,
+somehow, been changed in the last hour.
+The cloth was laid; the primroses were in
+their place; the candles were lighted, for it
+was nearly dinner-time; the blinds were down,
+and the curtains drawn. She looked at the
+easy-chair she had put ready for Alfred, with
+the little table beside it, and the papers and
+the violets. Then she went up to the
+mantelpiece and rang a hand-bell that stood
+on it.</p>
+
+<p>“Jane,” she said, “take away Mr. Wimple’s
+slippers—he will not require them; put them
+with the other things as I told you.” She
+pushed the easy-chair to its place, away from
+the fire, put the little table back into the
+corner, and hid the papers and the violets out
+of sight, for she could not bear to see them.
+She looked at the cloth again, and taking up
+the things that had been laid for her carried
+them to the sideboard.</p>
+
+<p>“You need not set a place for me,” she
+said to Jane, who still lingered, half wonderingly.
+“I dined early in town; it is only for
+Mr. Wimple”—and she went back to the
+drawing-room. She hesitated for a moment
+by the door; she felt as if the dead people
+who had known it in bygone years were
+softly crowding into it now, as if they would
+witness the scene that was before her, and
+look on at all she had to bear, just for a little
+while, before she became one of them. She
+gathered courage to walk to one of the chairs;
+she put the peacock screen beside her and
+waited. A quarter of an hour went by, while
+she stared at the fire with her hands clasped
+and her head drooping, or at the darkness
+outside the windows that looked towards the
+garden. But she could scarcely bear to turn
+her head in that direction. All the time she
+was listening, curiously and with a shrinking
+dread, for the sound of footsteps. Jane came
+to her.</p>
+
+<p>“The dinner is ready,” she said; “it’s a
+pity Mr. Wimple don’t come—I wanted to
+get home to mother a bit early to-night.
+Her cough was worse this morning.”</p>
+
+<p>“You can go as soon as you have finished
+your duties,” Aunt Anne said; “and remind
+me to pay you your wages, for I am often
+oblivious——”</p>
+
+<p>The words died away on her lips. She
+heard the handle of the hall-door turn.</p>
+
+<div class='figcenter' style='width:30%'>
+<img src='images/tail7.jpg' alt='flowers' id='iid-0013' style='width:80%;height:auto;'/>
+</div>
+
+<hr class='pbk'/>
+
+<div class='figcenter'>
+<img src='images/chap2.jpg' alt='scene with a castle in the distance' id='iid-0014' style='width:80%;height:auto;'/>
+</div>
+
+<div><h1>CHAPTER VIII.</h1></div>
+
+<p class='noindent'><span class='lead-in'><img class='dropcap' src='images/capt.jpg' style='float:left;width:5%;' alt='T'/>he</span> rain showed no signs of abating,
+but Alfred Wimple was chilly and
+hungry. Moreover, he was tired of the <span class='it'>tête-à-tête</span>
+in the shed, and he had a dull curiosity
+to hear the result of Aunt Anne’s visit to
+town. It was certain to provide some sort
+of excitement for the evening. If she had
+brought back money he would reap the
+benefit of it; if she had not, he could at least
+make her suffer, and to watch her suffer
+would provide him a satisfaction over which
+he gloated more and more with every experience
+of it. He buttoned his coat, turned up
+the bottoms of his trousers, and looked for
+his umbrella; then he hesitated a moment and
+looked out at the weather. He hated rain.</p>
+
+<p>“I wish I had thought to bring myself an
+umbrella,” his companion said; “it’s a long
+way across. Joe Pook is over at the King’s
+Head with his cart, and he’ll drive me back;
+but it’s a good bit to there.”</p>
+
+<p>Alfred Wimple coughed.</p>
+
+<p>“I can’t let you have mine”—and he held
+it firmly; “my chest is not strong.”</p>
+
+<p>“I wasn’t saying it for that,” she answered;
+“I was only thinking it was a pity I didn’t
+bring one. Good-bye; you’ll take care of
+yourself, won’t you?”</p>
+
+<p>“I will try,” he said, in his most sombre
+manner, as though he felt it to be an
+important undertaking. “Good-bye, Caroline.”</p>
+
+<p>Before they were many yards apart she
+turned and went after him. Her jacket was
+already wet with rain; her black straw hat
+was shining. There was an anxious excitement
+in her manner.</p>
+
+<p>“Alfred”—she put her hand on his
+shoulder and looked at his face while she
+spoke—“you care about me really, don’t
+you?”</p>
+
+<p>“Why do you ask that now?” he asked
+severely.</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know. Mother said once that
+you had love for nothing but yourself. It
+isn’t true, is it? Sometimes I think I would
+have done better if I had married Albert
+Spark. I believe he’s fonder of me now
+than you are.”</p>
+
+<p>He looked impatient and at a loss what
+to do. He could not understand unselfish
+love; self-protection was his own strongest
+feeling; everything else was merely a means,
+a weapon to be used in attaining it.</p>
+
+<p>“You mustn’t keep me in the rain,” he
+said; “the old woman will be back by this
+time. Why do you think I don’t care for
+you?”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know,” and as she spoke the
+tears came into her eyes; “I think it was
+because you just let me go in the rain and
+didn’t see that I’d get wet through. It
+doesn’t matter, but I’d like you to have
+seen it.”</p>
+
+<p>“You are stronger than I am. It is
+dangerous for me to get wet: I came out in
+the rain to meet you.”</p>
+
+<p>“And then, perhaps I oughtn’t to say it,
+but you took the money and didn’t offer me
+a shilling to keep for myself.”</p>
+
+<p>“I didn’t know you wanted it. You can’t
+expect me to go without anything in my
+pocket?”</p>
+
+<p>“No,” and she burst into tears; “it’s
+only sometimes I get dissatisfied,” she added
+apologetically.</p>
+
+<p>“You should have done it in the shed.
+You ought not to keep me here in the rain.
+You know that.”</p>
+
+<p>“No, I oughtn’t; you go on, dear”—there
+was sudden repentance in her voice. “Just
+kiss me and say you are fond of me again.”
+He leaned over her, and for a moment his
+eyes flashed, as he kissed her with a loathsome
+eagerness that left the woman’s heart
+more hungry than before.</p>
+
+<p>“I am fond of you,” he said; “you know
+I am fond of you—when I see you. But I
+can’t come to Liphook to be dunned for
+money.”</p>
+
+<p>“I always do the best I can to get things
+for you; and if I have plenty of work I’ll
+take care it’s more comfortable, if you’ll only
+come. There, go now, Alfred dear. I don’t
+want to keep you in the wet. It’s only that
+we have been married these four years, and,
+somehow, we never seem to have got any
+good of it yet.” She put her arms round his
+neck for a moment “I am awful fond of
+you,” she said, and turned away.</p>
+
+<p>Something in her voice touched him; or
+it might have been that he was fonder of her
+than he supposed, for as he went by the
+pathway that poor Aunt Anne had hurried
+along, bowed down with insult and despair,
+only twenty minutes before, there was a less
+sullen expression than usual on his face.
+He thought of the clinging hands and tearful
+eyes, and the undisguised love written on
+her face, with something like satisfaction.
+He would settle down with her, once he
+possessed the money. He liked the idea of
+it; it would be good to be waited upon by
+her, to go abroad with her perhaps, to buy
+comfort and luxury, and to feel her hanging
+about him. He lingered in thought over her
+caresses; he remembered Aunt Anne’s and
+shuddered. He had said truly enough that
+he could not bear the latter much longer;
+toleration had grown to endurance, endurance
+to dislike, and dislike to loathing. He was
+sensible of even being beneath the same roof
+with her; her voice irritated him, her touch
+produced a feeling that was almost fear.
+Every step he made now towards the house
+that contained her was reluctant and almost
+shrinking. He could just bear life with her
+if she gave him good food and comfort and
+money he could not obtain elsewhere; but
+unless she gave him these things, which he
+counted worth any price that could be paid,
+he felt it would be impossible to stay with
+her longer. Warmth and idleness and
+comfort were gods to him; but his loathing
+for the poor soul who had struggled for
+months to give them to him was developing
+into horror. He waited, doggedly, day after
+day for Sir William Rammage’s death.
+When that happened he would seize the
+money that would be hers and, without
+mercy, leave her to her fate; he and Caroline
+could easily keep out of her reach. If she
+would not give him the money he would
+make life impossible for her to bear. He
+had not the least intention of murdering her,
+but in imagination he often put his hands
+round her throat, and all his fingers felt her
+life growing still beneath them. He resented
+everything she did: her voice, her footstep,
+her tender, wrinkled face; he felt as if her
+winking left eye were driving him mad—as
+if there were poison in her breath. He considered
+her life an offence against him, except
+as a means of giving him money. When
+once she had done that, when she had given
+him the thousands for which he had married
+her, he wanted her for ever out of his sight,
+and underground; he gloated in imagination
+over the deepness of the grave into which
+he would have her put, and the silence and
+darkness that would surround her.</p>
+
+<p>He was at the bottom of the dip. He
+reflected, with triumph, that it was too late
+for any question of going to the station to
+meet the half-past six o’clock train. He
+thought of the rain that would fall upon her
+as she drove to the cottage. He wondered
+if she had left her cloak behind, and
+imagined the cold and pain she would suffer
+without it. He could see her in the open
+cart, bending her head and shoulders beneath
+the grey storm, carrying the bag that contained
+the dinner for him, and he imagined
+the bulging condition in which the bag would
+return. If she had not brought back all he
+considered necessary for his comfort, she
+would tremble to see him, and he would not
+spare her one single pang. He was among
+the firs and larches, within sight of the
+cottage windows. He hated to think that
+she was behind them—that almost immediately
+he would be in the same room
+with her, sitting opposite to her at table.
+He thought of himself as a martyr, and of
+her as a loathsome burden, a presence that
+had no right to be inflicted on him; one that
+he would be justified in using any means
+within his power to remove. His feeling for
+her had grown in intensity till it threatened
+to burst the bonds of reserve and silence in
+which he had wrapped himself. It was only
+with an effort that he could keep in all the
+lashing words that hatred could suggest.
+He went up the pathway, as slowly as she
+herself had done, and walked round the
+house under the verandah. Unknowingly, in
+putting the easy-chair back into its place,
+Aunt Anne had pushed aside a little bit of
+the dining-room curtain. He looked in and
+saw the table laid, the candles burning, and the
+bowl of primroses; they were a sign that she
+had returned, and had not returned empty-handed.
+He noticed that only one place
+was laid, and he wondered vaguely what it
+meant. He thought of Aunt Anne’s face, and
+a sickening feeling came over him. If it had
+only been a girl’s face to which he was going
+in, a young woman who would come to meet
+him, and put her arms round his neck, and
+call him endearing names, instead of the old
+woman, shrivelled and wrinkled, to whom in
+a moment or two he would have to submit
+himself? He went towards the front door,
+vaguely determining that he would make her
+miserable that night. He had a right to
+everything she could give, but she had no
+right to intrude herself upon his sight, and
+he would make her feel it.</p>
+
+<p>There was a click at the gate. Some one
+had entered the garden from the road. He
+stopped. A boy came up to him through
+the darkness.</p>
+
+<p>“Wimple? A telegram, sir. There is
+sixpence for porterage.” He felt in his
+pocket among the silver the woman had
+given him in the shed; he found a sixpence,
+and the boy departed. He opened
+the yellow envelope, and stood still for a
+moment, with the telegram in his hand.
+He guessed what it meant. He took a
+match from his pocket, struck a light, and,
+protecting it from the wind with his hat,
+read:</p>
+
+<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:1em;'>“Died at five o’clock from sudden attack.”</p>
+
+<p>He screwed it up into a ball and put it
+carefully into his pocket. His feeling for
+Aunt Anne changed in a moment: he felt
+that for this one evening, at any rate, he
+would endure her—he would even be civil—since
+it was through her that he was about
+to gain all he wanted. He looked up at
+the cottage before he entered it with the
+almost pleasant feeling with which a prisoner
+sometimes looks at his cell before he departs
+into freedom. Aunt Anne was sitting by
+the drawing-room fire; he lingered by the
+doorway.</p>
+
+<p>“You are home, then?” he said. There
+was something exalted in his voice, that at
+another time would have made her look up
+at him lovingly, as he expected to see her
+do now. But, instead, she answered coldly
+and without any words of greeting—</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, Alfred, I am home.”</p>
+
+<p>“What did you do in town?” She
+winked haughtily and did not speak. “What
+did you do?” he repeated.</p>
+
+<p>“I did a great deal, and learned many
+things of which I will tell you when you
+have finished your dinner. It is quite ready—you
+will be good enough to go to it,
+Alfred.”</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her searchingly, and felt a
+little uneasiness.</p>
+
+<p>“Are you coming?” he asked, seeing that
+she did not move.</p>
+
+<p>“No, I have dined; but I trust you will
+be satisfied with what I have provided for
+you,” she said coldly. Something in her
+manner forced him reluctantly to obey. He
+went into the dining-room; she shut the
+door that led into it and waited in the
+drawing-room. Jane came in after she had
+served the sole, and drew down the blinds
+and arranged the curtains and threw some
+wood on the fire.</p>
+
+<p>“There is only one candle left,” she said,
+“till the two in the dining-room are done
+with.”</p>
+
+<p>“It is quite sufficient; you can light it
+and put it on the table. As soon as you
+have finished waiting upon Mr. Wimple
+you will go upstairs and do what I have
+told you”—and she was left alone again.
+While she looked at the fire she could
+almost imagine Alfred Wimple eating his
+sole; she knew when it was finished; she
+listened while Jane entered and pushed his
+plate through the buttery-hatch; she heard
+the chicken arrive, and imagined Alfred
+Wimple solemnly carving it. Her heart
+beat faster as he went on towards the end
+of his feast; she was impatient for the crisis
+to begin. At last he rose from the table,
+opened the door, and stood looking at her
+curiously. She rose too and waited, facing
+him, on the rug.</p>
+
+<p>“Did you bring a paper from town,
+Anne?” he asked, without a word of gratitude
+for his dainty dinner.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, I brought some papers; but you
+will not require them.” She hesitated a
+moment, and then went on firmly, “I wish
+you to know, Alfred, that you are about to
+leave this house never to enter it again.”</p>
+
+<p>“What do you mean?” he asked, and
+fastened his eyes on her with only a little
+more expression in them than usual.</p>
+
+<p>“I mean that I know everything.”</p>
+
+<p>“Have you seen my uncle?” he asked,
+betraying no surprise and not moving from
+the doorway.</p>
+
+<p>“He is in Scotland for a fortnight—but
+I know everything. I know that you have
+insulted and defamed me.” She spoke in
+a low voice and so calmly that he looked at
+her as if he thought she did not understand
+the meaning of her own words. “Till I
+met you,” she went on, “I bore an unsullied
+name and reputation.”</p>
+
+<p>“What have I done to your name and
+reputation?” he asked, and closed his lips
+as though he were almost stupefied with
+silence. But he went a step towards her,
+with a shrinking, defensive movement. She
+retreated towards the table on which the
+candle stood, a flickering witness of the
+scene between them—a scene full of shame
+and suffering and unconfessed fear for her,
+and of cruelty and loathing and bewilderment
+for him; but for both strangely destitute
+of fire and passion.</p>
+
+<p>“You have ruined both,” she said. “You
+have dared to make a pretence of marriage
+with me, though you were married already
+to an inferior person whom you had known
+at your lodgings.”</p>
+
+<p>“Who told you this?”</p>
+
+<p>“I shall not tell you my informant, but I
+know everything. You will retire from my
+presence this evening and never enter it
+again.”</p>
+
+<p>“It is not true,” he said shortly, and
+made another step towards her, and again
+she retreated.</p>
+
+<p>“It is true. To-morrow I shall go to Liphook
+and expose your infamous behaviour.”</p>
+
+<p>“If you dare,” he said, almost fiercely,
+and then, suddenly, he changed his note.
+“I was obliged to do it, Anne,” he added,
+as if he had suddenly seen that the game
+was up, and lying would serve him nothing.
+“But I was fond of you; I told you there
+were many difficulties the night I asked you
+to marry me.”</p>
+
+<p>“No, Alfred”—and for the first time her
+lips quivered—“you were not fond of me,
+even then. You were under the impression
+that you would get the money Sir William
+Rammage had left me in his will.”</p>
+
+<p>“What should I know about his will?”</p>
+
+<p>“You were aware of its contents. You
+went to him in regard to the instructions.
+I have heard everything from his own lips.”
+He was silent for a moment, and still there
+was no expression in his dull eyes.</p>
+
+<p>“Rammage could not tell you that I was
+married,” he said presently. “Where did
+you get that ridiculous story from?”</p>
+
+<p>“It is not a ridiculous story. You have
+married a common dressmaker, and you
+presumed after that to insult and impose
+on me.”</p>
+
+<p>“What are you going to do—what do
+you want me to do?” he asked, almost
+curiously.</p>
+
+<p>“I shall not treat you with the severity
+you deserve, but you will leave this house
+to-night and never enter it again.”</p>
+
+<p>“I should go to Liphook. You would not
+like that, Anne.”</p>
+
+<p>“Alfred,” she said indignantly, “I could
+not accept shame and degradation, even
+from a man I love. Besides, I have no
+longer any love for you. You will not dare
+to offer me that. Every moment that you
+stay in my presence is an insult. I must
+insist on your leaving this house at once.”</p>
+
+<p>“Where am I to go?” he asked, still
+curiously.</p>
+
+<p>“That is for your consideration. You
+and I are apart.”</p>
+
+<p>“I have no money,” he said, too much
+astonished, though he made no sign of it,
+to fight her fairly.</p>
+
+<p>“You have sufficient money for your
+present necessities, Alfred. You must not
+think that you can deceive me any longer.
+I know everything about you.”</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly an idea occurred to him, and he
+asked, in a manner that was almost a threat,
+though it had no effect upon her—</p>
+
+<p>“Have you been to Liphook?”</p>
+
+<p>“I shall not tell you where I have been,
+Alfred; I have discovered your baseness,
+and that is sufficient. I know that our
+marriage was a mockery, that you dared
+to offer me what you had already given to
+another woman. You will go back to her,
+and at once. You came to me solely for
+my money, and of that you will not have
+one penny piece.”</p>
+
+<p>Still he stood looking at her speechlessly,
+while with each word she said his loathing
+for her increased and his anger grew more
+difficult to control. His lips parted and
+showed his teeth, white and clenched together.</p>
+
+<p>“I will have the money yet; and you
+shall suffer,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>“You will not,” she answered, with a
+determined wink. “I have taken care of
+that.”</p>
+
+<p>“You have left it to me.”</p>
+
+<p>For a moment she was silent; then a light
+broke upon her, and she spoke quickly.</p>
+
+<p>“Alfred,” she said, “I know now why you
+put your name in my will without mentioning
+the relationship in which I supposed you
+stood to me, and why you did not put my
+name in yours, but only said that you left
+everything to your wife. You were deliberately
+insulting me, and deceiving me
+most cruelly even then, on the day I thought
+most sacred.”</p>
+
+<p>“I thought you were fond of me,” he said,
+as if he had not heard her last speech. For
+a moment she could not answer him. Only
+a few hours before, and the deceptions of
+which she had known him then to be guilty
+had but made him dearer to her. She had
+loved him with all her own strength, and
+supposed him to possess it. She had
+idealized him with her own goodness, till
+she had mistaken it for his. It had never
+occurred to her that any comfort she gathered
+in through him was but her own feeling
+returning to soothe her a little with its
+beauty. Now all the glamour had vanished,
+she loathed and shrank from him, just as he
+had done from her. It was like a death
+agony.</p>
+
+<p>“I was fond of you,” she said. “I loved
+you more than all the world, and I would
+have given you my life, I would have worked
+for your daily bread. I wanted nothing in
+the world but you, Alfred; but I am undeceived.
+You must go; you must leave
+me, and at once. I have desired Jane to
+pack your things——”</p>
+
+<p>“I shall stay,” he said, in a tone that made
+her look up quickly. “I do not mean to go
+until I have the money that old Rammage
+has left you.”</p>
+
+<p>“You will not have one penny piece of
+it,” she answered.</p>
+
+<p>“I will,” he said, with a quiet, determined
+look she knew well in his dull eyes. “He
+has left it to you, and you have left it to me.
+I mean to have it.”</p>
+
+<p>“It is no use trying to intimidate me,
+Alfred,” she said; “it is too late. To-morrow
+I shall make another disposition of
+my property.”</p>
+
+<p>“No, you will not,” he said; “for I shall
+not let you out of my sight till you are dead,
+and you will be dead soon.”</p>
+
+<p>“You will gain nothing by that, Alfred.
+William Rammage also will make another
+disposition of his property to-morrow, for I
+told him of our marriage.”</p>
+
+<p>“No, he will not, Anne” and he looked at
+her with awful triumph—“for he is dead
+already.”</p>
+
+<p>“Dead already? You are trying to hoodwink
+me, Alfred; and if it is true it will
+not alter my intention or prevent me from
+carrying it out,” she answered, determined
+not to let him know that her promised wealth
+had vanished. There was a sound of footsteps,
+and then the back door closed. Aunt
+Anne quaked when she heard it, for she
+knew that Jane had gone home without
+coming to say the usual good-night. He
+heard it, too, and his tone altered in a
+moment.</p>
+
+<p>“You will have no chance of altering your
+intention, Anne,” he said, and went another
+step towards her.</p>
+
+<p>“Why?” she asked, with a fearless wink.</p>
+
+<p>“Because you shall not live to do it”—and
+he went still a little nearer; but she did
+not quail for a moment. “Do you hear?”
+and he showed his teeth while he spoke,
+“you shall not live to do it.”</p>
+
+<p>“And you think when I am dead that
+you will go and spend my money with the
+woman at Liphook?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” he said; “I like her, and I loathe
+you.” He drew the word out as if he
+gloated over the sound of it, and an awful
+look came into his eyes again.</p>
+
+<p>“Heaven has frustrated your design,” she
+said. “Alfred, if you kill me you will gain
+nothing by it, and the law will punish you.
+William Rammage has burnt his will. He
+burnt it to-day before my eyes, when he
+heard that I had disgraced my family and
+my name by a marriage with you.”</p>
+
+<p>“Burnt it!” He clenched his hands,
+and struggled to control himself. “Then
+I shall go; I shall go—when it suits me. I
+only wanted your money. A young man
+does not marry an old woman for anything
+but money, Anne. You are loathsome—loathsome
+and unwholesome,” he repeated,
+watching the effect of every word upon her—“and
+I have loathed being with you. I
+shall go to the other woman. She is my
+wife; I like her—she is young, not old and
+loathsome like you. I only married you for
+the sake of your money.” Aunt Anne never
+moved an inch; she only watched him
+steadily, as slowly he brought out his
+sentences, pausing between each one. “You
+have kept me from her all these months,” he
+went on, concentrating himself on every word
+he said; “and now you have taken from me
+the money I deserved for being with you—for
+being with a wrinkled, withered old woman.”</p>
+
+<p>She did not move or speak. For a
+moment he showed his teeth again, then
+slowly lifted his hands.</p>
+
+<p>“Anne,” he said, with a fiendish look in
+his eyes, but with the calm gravity of a just
+avenger, “I am going to strangle you”—and
+he went nearer and bent over her. He had
+no intention of carrying out his threat, it was
+a luxury he dared not afford himself, but he
+wanted to torture and frighten her till she
+quailed before him. For only one moment
+was his desire satisfied.</p>
+
+<p>“If you dare to touch me——” she said,
+and a shriek burst from her. There was the
+sound of a door opening and of footsteps
+entering.</p>
+
+<p>“Jane!” shouted Aunt Anne, “Jane!”</p>
+
+<p>Jane opened the door and looked in.</p>
+
+<p>“If you please, ma’am, I heard Mr. Knox,
+the policeman, go by, and you said you
+wanted him.”</p>
+
+<p>Alfred Wimple stared at her in astonishment,
+and his face blanched. Aunt Anne
+recovered her self-possession in a moment,
+though she trembled from head to foot.</p>
+
+<p>“If you will ask him to stay in the kitchen,
+I will speak to him,” she said. Then she
+turned to Alfred Wimple again.</p>
+
+<p>“You will only get yourself laughed at,”
+he said.</p>
+
+<p>She was silent a moment; she saw what
+was in his thoughts and took advantage of it.</p>
+
+<p>“You do not deserve my clemency,” she
+said, “but I will extend it to you, provided
+you go from the house this minute. If you
+do not I shall take measures to punish you.”</p>
+
+<p>He was trembling, and could not speak.</p>
+
+<p>She opened the door. “Jane,” she called,
+“get Mr. Wimple’s portmanteau; have you
+put everything into it?”</p>
+
+<p>“Everything but the slippers. It’s raining,
+ma’am,” Jane added, not in the least understanding
+what was going on. But Aunt
+Anne had shut the door, and turned to Alfred
+Wimple again.</p>
+
+<p>“Now you will go,” she said.</p>
+
+<p>“I cannot go in the rain,” he answered,
+and made a sound in his throat; “you know
+how bad my cough is. You cannot turn me
+out in this weather. I was angry just now;
+but I did not mean it. I was only trying to
+frighten you.”</p>
+
+<p>“You will go immediately,” she said;
+“you shall not remain another hour under
+my roof.”</p>
+
+<p>“It will kill me to go in this rain,” he said
+doggedly.</p>
+
+<p>“You would have killed me when you
+thought you would get William Rammage’s
+money by it; and just now you threatened
+me, Alfred. You are not fit to remain
+another hour in the same house with the
+woman you have wronged, and you shall not.
+Your coat is in the hall, ready for you”—and
+she went towards the door. “You will
+go this very moment, and you will never
+venture to come near me again.”</p>
+
+<p>“I have been coughing all day,” he almost
+pleaded, utterly confounded by the turn
+things had taken.</p>
+
+<p>“I brought you some lozenges from
+London, before I knew all your baseness”—and
+she fumbled in her pocket. “Here they
+are, and you can take them with you.” She
+put them down before him on the table, and
+went slowly out to the kitchen. “Officer,”
+she said, “I will not detain you about the
+wood this evening. I want you to walk with
+Mr. Wimple as far as Steggall’s, and see him
+into a waggonette; and there,” she added, in
+a low voice, “is a half-crown to recompense
+you for your trouble.”</p>
+
+<p>“It’s very wet, ma’am; is the gentleman
+obliged to go to-night?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes”—and, winking sternly, she opened
+the street door wide. “Yes, he is obliged
+to go to-night.” With a puzzled air Jane
+picked up the portmanteau. Alfred Wimple
+took it from her with sulky reluctance. For
+a moment they all stood looking out at the
+blackness of the fir-trees and listened to the
+falling rain. Aunt Anne turned to the little
+hat-stand in the hall. “Here is an umbrella,
+Alfred,” she said, “and you have your
+lozenges. Good-night, officer”—and she
+did not say another word. Alfred Wimple
+gave her a long look of cowed and baffled
+hatred, as he went out, followed by the
+policeman. She shut the door, double-locked
+it, and drew the bolts at the top and bottom—it
+was the last sound that Wimple heard
+as he left the cottage.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment she stood still, listening to
+his footsteps; she waited to hear the click
+of the gate as it shut behind them. Then,
+with a strange, dazed manner, as if she were
+not quite sure that she was awake, she went
+back to the drawing-room.</p>
+
+<p>“If you please, ma’am,” asked the servant,
+“isn’t Mr. Wimple coming back to-night?—for
+you won’t like being left alone, and I
+don’t know what to do about mother.”</p>
+
+<p>“You can go to her,” Aunt Anne answered.
+A desperate longing to be alone was upon
+her; she wanted to think quietly, and it
+seemed impossible to do so while any one
+remained beneath the same roof with her.
+She was impatient for a spell of loneliness
+before she died. She felt that she was going
+to die, that she had heard her death-sentence
+in the shed beyond the valley. There was
+no gainsaying it—shame and agony were
+going to kill her. But first she wanted to
+be alone, to realize all that had happened,
+and how it had come about. She remembered
+suddenly, but only for a moment, that
+Alfred had stated that Sir William Rammage
+was dead. It was untrue, of course—Alfred
+could not have known. Besides, William
+Rammage’s life or death concerned her no
+longer; in his money she took no further
+interest. She only wanted to be alone and
+to think. “You can go to your mother,
+Jane,” she repeated; “I wish to be left alone;
+I have a predilection for solitude.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, ma’am,” the girl answered hesitatingly—“and
+you said I was to remind
+you about the wages; I wouldn’t, only
+mother’s bad.”</p>
+
+<p>“I will pay them.” She opened her purse
+and counted out the few silver coins left in
+it. “I must remain a sixpence in your debt;
+this is all the change I have for the moment.”
+She put her empty purse down on the table,
+and knew that she had not a penny left in
+the world. For a moment she was silent;
+she looked puzzled, as if she were doing a
+mental sum. Then she looked up. “Jane,”
+she said, “you can take the remains of the
+chicken and the sole to your mother, and
+anything else that was left from dinner. I
+shall not require it.” She dreaded seeing
+the things that Alfred Wimple had touched.
+She felt that, even down to the smallest
+detail, she must rid herself of all that had
+had to do with her life of shame and disgrace,
+and there was not much time left her in which
+to do it. She must begin at once: when
+she had made her life clean and spotless
+again she would look up and meet death
+unabashed.</p>
+
+<p>“I am ready, ma’am,” Jane said presently,
+and looked in, with her basket on her arm.
+Aunt Anne got up and followed her to the
+back door, in order to see that it was made
+fast. She shook with fear when she beheld
+the night. Under that sky and through the
+darkness Alfred Wimple was making his way
+to Liphook. The very air seemed to have
+pollution in it. She retreated thankfully to
+the covering of the cottage; but the stillness
+appalled her, once she was wholly alone in
+it. She stood in the hall for a moment and
+listened: there was not a sound. She waited
+for a moment at the foot of the stairs and
+remembered Alfred’s room above, from which
+every trace of him had been removed, but
+she had not courage to mount the stairs.
+She went back into the little drawing-room
+and shut the door, and taking up her empty
+purse from beside the candlestick put it into
+her pocket. As in the morning, her hand
+touched something that should not be there;
+but she knew what it was this time, and
+pulled it out quickly. It was the blue tie
+that she had kissed in the train. With
+almost a cry of horror, as if it were a deadly
+snake, she threw it on the fire and held it
+down with the poker, as William Rammage
+had held down his burning will. As she did
+so her eyes caught the wedding-ring on her
+left hand; in a moment she had pulled it off
+her trembling finger and put it in the fire too.
+The flame blazed and smouldered and died
+away, and her excitement with it. But she
+had not strength to rise from the floor on
+which she had been kneeling; she pulled the
+cushion down from the back of the easy-chair,
+and sank, a miserable heap, upon the rug.</p>
+
+<div class='figcenter' style='width:30%'>
+<img src='images/tail8.jpg' alt='butterfly within a triangle' id='iid-0015' style='width:80%;height:auto;'/>
+</div>
+
+<hr class='pbk'/>
+
+<div class='figcenter'>
+<img src='images/chap1.jpg' alt='sea scene with a fence going into the sea' id='iid-0016' style='width:80%;height:auto;'/>
+</div>
+
+<div><h1>CHAPTER IX.</h1></div>
+
+<p class='noindent'><span class='lead-in'><img class='dropcap' src='images/capd.jpg' style='float:left;width:5%;' alt='D'/>uring</span> the days that followed she was
+shut up in the cottage alone; and no
+one entered save Jane Mitchell, who came in
+the morning to light the fire while the remnant
+of coal lasted, and then was sent away.</p>
+
+<p>“I shall not require you any more,” she
+said to Lucas, when he came to ask if she
+wanted the pony. She was covered with
+shame, and could never drive along the roads
+again.</p>
+
+<p>“No, I do not need any provisions,” she
+said to Jane Mitchell, who offered to do
+some shopping for her; “I have sufficient in
+the house, and I will not trouble you to come
+again, Jane, until this day week”—and,
+having securely fastened the outer doors, she
+went to the drawing-room.</p>
+
+<p>“I shall be dead by then,” she thought,
+“and Jane will find me.”</p>
+
+<p>She was terribly ill, but she did not know
+it. The cold and the damp of that long day
+in London and afterwards had laid hold on
+her. She coughed, and knew that swift
+pains went through her, and a load was on
+her chest, but she had no time to notice
+these things. She had had no food for days.
+Save a little milk in a cup, and some bread,
+there was nothing left when Jane Mitchell
+took her departure. She was being slowly
+starved; she knew it, and did not care.
+The awful shame, the misery, the agony,
+that had overtaken her, stifled all other feelings,
+and were killing her; she knew that,
+too, and waited for death. Everything had
+gone out of her life; there was nothing to
+come into it more. She had been proud of
+her memories, her unsullied past, her own
+spotlessness—“Now it is all gone,” she said
+to herself. Every memory was a reproach
+or was hideous. She sat on one of the
+chairs before the drawing-room fireplace, and
+thought and thought and thought, till she
+could bear it no longer. It seemed as if
+pain were stamping the life out of her, as if
+she must be dying; she could feel that she
+was dying; but life remained by a little, and
+grew keen, and tortured her again. The key
+was turned in the lock of Alfred Wimple’s
+room, but his touch was on everything in
+the house; and a shrinking from it was her
+strongest feeling concerning him. Even the
+sight of a cup from which he had drunk made
+her shudder more than the bitter cold.
+“The place is contaminated,” she said to
+herself; “it is poisoned.” Sometimes for
+a few minutes a little tenderness would try
+to push its way into her heart again, but she
+shrank from that most of all, and with horror
+and loathing of herself. She was bowed
+down with disgrace. She felt as if by even
+living she was committing an offence against
+the whole world. There was no one she
+was fit to see; she had no right of any sort
+left, no business to be in the light; and there
+was no place in which she could hide. The
+nights were worst of all, they were so long
+and still; and when she had used the two
+candles left in the dining-room she had no
+means of shortening them even by an hour.
+Then, quaking, she lay on the hard sofa
+in the drawing-room, while the darkness
+gathered round, and the cold fastened its
+sharpest fangs into her. In those long hours
+she suffered not only her own reproaches,
+but the reproaches of the dead—of the dear
+ones she had loved in bygone years. From
+every corner they seemed to come—through
+the closed door and in at the curtained windows;
+troops of them—till she could bear it
+no longer, and dared not see the darkness
+that seemed to be growing white with
+their faces. But when she closed her eyes
+it was no better: they came a little closer
+and touched her with their hands, as if
+they would push her a little farther into
+space; she was not fit to be among them.
+The friends of her girlhood, with whom she
+had played and shared her little secrets, came
+from the strange world into which they had
+carried the memory of their own blameless
+lives. They looked at her reproachfully,
+and went away; she would never be one
+of them now, even in eternity. And there
+was one more; she could see him coming
+softly through the shadows. He stood
+beside her, and she cowered and hid her
+face. Then she knew that he was sorry and
+understood that, in some grotesque manner,
+it had been done half for love of him. It
+comforted her a little to think this, while
+she turned her face down to the cushion, and
+sobbed, “Forgive me, I am so ashamed—so
+ashamed.” At last, perhaps, she would ache
+with fever and cold, and the sharp pains
+went through her again. She welcomed
+these almost lovingly, thinking that perhaps
+they meant the coming of the end; and
+gradually, as the morning broke, she would
+doze off into a weary sleep.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes a ghastly fear would seize her
+that Alfred Wimple was coming back. She
+could hear his footsteps going round the
+house; she fancied he was creeping beneath
+the verandah, that he was trying the window.
+He wanted to come in and strangle her.
+She could feel his long hands closing round
+her throat, and put up her own to draw them,
+finger by finger, away. It was not the
+killing she would mind, but the pollution of
+his touch.</p>
+
+<p>Through the day she wandered from room
+to room—now looking at the table at which
+he had sat the last night of all; or seeing
+him, with his back to the buttery-hatch, eating
+the sole and the chicken she had brought
+from London; or standing in the doorway,
+when he came afterwards and asked her for
+the evening paper. She went to the window
+and looked at the garden, and the pathway
+down to the dip; but this was more than she
+could bear, and she would turn away and sit
+down by the empty fireplace again. She
+grew hungry once; a terrible craving for
+food came over her. She gathered some
+sticks together, and made a fire, all the time
+seeing strange visions and grinning fiends
+that mocked her. She took them to be the
+punishment of her sin—for sin she counted
+all that she had done—but in reality they
+were but signs of the illness and starvation
+that were contending for the mastery of her.
+She put a little water on to boil over the
+blazing sticks, and watched it greedily. She
+made some tea, with trembling eagerness,
+and found a new excitement in the strength
+it gave her; but when the fire had died
+away, and an hour had passed, she was
+prostrate again. Gradually she became so
+ill that she could scarcely drag herself from
+the drawing-room to the kitchen; the sense
+of being unfit to stay in the world grew upon
+her—a dread of seeing people, a haunting
+fear of some one coming to the door. But
+no one came through all those terrible days
+except, once or twice, Jane Mitchell, only to
+be told that “her services were not required.”</p>
+
+<p>She thought of Walter and Florence sometimes,
+and was afraid of their coming back.
+She could never look them in the face again,
+or dare to speak to them, or see the children.
+Just as before she had exaggerated her own
+importance in the world and her own virtue,
+now she exaggerated her own disgrace.
+She knew what the women she had once
+despised felt like—“I was never lenient,”
+she said to herself. “I was very harsh, as
+if they had gone out of their way to do wrong.
+I ought to have shown them more clemency”—and
+as she said this, there came before her
+the face of Mrs. North. She sat and looked
+at it. “She was young, and there was excuse
+for her; and I am old, yet could not
+forgive her. I will make atonement now.
+I will write and tell her.” Her fingers were
+so weak she could hardly hold the pen, but
+she managed to put down a little entreaty
+for forgiveness. “I ought to have been more
+gentle to you,” she wrote. “I know that
+now, for I have been as frail”—she stopped
+and gave a sad little wink at the word—“as
+you. I know what your sufferings have
+been by my own, and can pity your humiliation.”
+The letter remained on the table—she
+almost forgot it; fever and blackness
+filled her life—she could scarcely walk across
+the room.</p>
+
+<p>The morning brought the postman, with a
+letter from Walter and Florence. “Would
+you put a postage-stamp on this for me?”
+she said, giving him the one for Mrs. North.
+“I will repay you the next time you come;
+I have no change for the moment.”</p>
+
+<p>She put the letter with the Monte Carlo
+postmark on the mantelpiece, and stood
+looking at the familiar handwriting, and
+imagining them together beneath the blue
+sky, Walter in high spirits, and Florence
+with her pretty hair plaited round her head.
+“Dear children,” she said. “He is growing
+more and more like his father.” She
+closed her eyes for a moment; her limbs
+swayed and gave way beneath her; and she
+fell from sheer weakness, and could make no
+effort to rise. Presently she pulled the
+cushion down, and lay on the rug again as
+she had on the night of Alfred Wimple’s
+departure. She did not know how the day
+passed—probably most of it went in forgetfulness.
+The next afternoon came, and she
+had not noticed the hours.</p>
+
+<p>The click of the gate, and footsteps coming
+towards the house—Aunt Anne struggled
+up, panting, and listened—a quick knock at
+the door. She hesitated, raised herself to
+her feet by the armchair, and went out, but
+could not gather courage to undo the lock.</p>
+
+<p>“Who is it?” she asked.</p>
+
+<p>“Let me in,” cried a voice that was familiar
+enough, though she could not identify it.
+She bowed her head—she was about to be
+looked at in all her humiliation—and, with
+trembling hands, opened the door.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. North walked in, with a happy laugh.
+She was perfectly dressed, as usual, and
+carried a white basket.</p>
+
+<p>“My dear old lady,” she said, “what is
+the matter? Your letter frightened me out
+of my senses. I came off the moment it
+arrived. You poor old darling, what is the
+matter? Why, you can’t stand—I must
+carry you.” She supported the old lady
+back into the drawing-room—cheerless and
+cold enough it looked; that was the first impression
+Mrs. North had of it—and sat down
+beside her on the sofa.</p>
+
+<p>“My love,” the old lady said, “I wrote to
+ask your forgiveness; it was due to you that
+I should, for I am worse than you. If I was
+harsh to you once, you may be harsh to me
+now.”</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. North pressed her hand.</p>
+
+<p>“But you are ill, dear Mrs. Wimple,” she
+said.</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Anne looked up, with a start of
+horror.</p>
+
+<p>“I must ask you never to call me by that
+name again; it is not mine. It is the symbol
+of my disgrace. It is my greatest punishment
+to remember that I ever for a single
+moment bore it.” And then she broke down,
+and, dropping her head on Mrs. North’s
+shoulder, sobbed as if her heart would break.</p>
+
+<p>“You dear—you poor old dear,” Mrs.
+North said, stroking the scanty gray hair;
+“I can’t bear to see you cry—you mustn’t do
+it; you are ill. Who is here with you?”</p>
+
+<p>“There is no one here. I am not fit to
+have any one with me. I am all alone.”</p>
+
+<p>“All alone!”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes”—and she shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>“Then I shall stay and take care of you,
+and nurse you, and make you quite well
+again. You know I always cared for you,
+dear old lady”—and Mrs. North kissed her
+tenderly.</p>
+
+<p>“And I treated you with so much severity,”
+Aunt Anne said ruefully.</p>
+
+<p>“It was very good for me. And now,”
+Mrs. North said, in her sweet, coaxing voice,
+“put your feet up on the sofa; you are
+trembling and shaking with cold. Why, you
+have no fire; let us go into another room
+where there is one.”</p>
+
+<p>“There is no fire in the house,” Aunt
+Anne answered. “The weather is very
+mild; moreover, the coal-cellar needs replenishing.
+I have not been sufficiently well
+to do it.”</p>
+
+<p>“No fire!—and you evidently suffering
+from bronchitis. Oh, you do indeed need
+to be looked after. Have you no servant
+here?” Mrs. North was rapidly taking in
+the whole situation.</p>
+
+<p>“No, my dear. I wished to be alone.”</p>
+
+<p>“But this is terrible. We must set everything
+to rights. You appear to be killing
+yourself. I don’t believe you have anything
+to eat and drink in the house.”</p>
+
+<p>“No. I have been too ill to require
+nourishment; I regret that I cannot ask
+you to stay——”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, but I am going to stay——”</p>
+
+<p>“No, my love, I cannot allow it——”
+Aunt Anne began tremblingly.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. North looked at her, almost in despair.
+Then she took off her hat and gloves,
+and stood for a moment, a lovely picture in
+the middle of the dreary room, before she
+knelt down by Aunt Anne.</p>
+
+<p>“Let me stay with you,” she pleaded,
+taking the two thin hands in hers; “you
+were always so good to me. I know that
+something terrible has happened to you;
+you shall tell me what it is by-and-by,
+when you are better. Now I want to
+take care of you; and you will let me, won’t
+you?”</p>
+
+<p>“You shall do anything you like, my
+dear,” Aunt Anne gasped, too weak to offer
+resistance.</p>
+
+<p>Then Mrs. North went out to the fly,
+which was still waiting at the gate, and
+found Jane Mitchell, who, attracted by the
+unusual sight, was talking to the driver.</p>
+
+<p>“I want some coals sent at once, and a
+servant.”</p>
+
+<p>“I was the servant, if you please, ma’am;
+only Mrs. Wimple said she didn’t want me,”
+remarked Jane.</p>
+
+<p>“Then go in immediately and make a fire,”
+answered Mrs. North, imperiously; “and if
+there are no coals get some, from a shop
+or your mother’s cottage or anywhere else.
+There must be shops in the village. Order
+tea and sugar, and everything else you can
+think of. I will send to London for my
+maid and cook, to come and help you.
+Make haste and light a fire in the drawing-room.
+Where is my shawl? Here, driver,
+take this telegram; and order these things
+from the village, and say they are wanted
+instantly”—she had written the list on the
+leaf of a note-book; “and this is for your
+trouble,” she added.</p>
+
+<p>“Now, you dear old lady,” she said, going
+back to her, “let me put this shawl over
+your feet first, for we must make you warm.
+Consider that I have adopted you.” In a
+moment she ran upstairs, and searched for
+a soft pillow to put under Aunt Anne’s head,
+and then produced some grapes and jelly
+from the basket which, with a certain foresight,
+she had brought with her. Aunt Anne
+sucked in a little of the jelly almost eagerly,
+and as she did so Mrs. North realized that
+she had only just come in time. “We must
+send for a doctor,” she thought; “but I am
+afraid that everything is too late.”</p>
+
+<p>In twenty-four hours the cottage looked
+like another place. Mrs. North’s cook had
+taken possession of the kitchen; a comfortable-looking,
+middle-aged maid went up and
+down the stairs; the windows were open,
+though there were fires burning in all the
+grates. There were good things in the
+larder, and an atmosphere of home was
+everywhere. Aunt Anne was bewildered,
+but Mrs. North looked quite happy.</p>
+
+<p>“I have taken possession of you,” she
+explained, the second morning after she
+came. “You ought to have sent for me
+sooner. In fact, you ought never to have
+left me. You only got into mischief, and
+so did I.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, my dear,” said Aunt Anne, feebly,
+“we both did.”</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. North’s lips quivered for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>“It shows that we ought to have stayed
+together,” she said, half crying. “Perhaps
+I should have been better if you had not
+gone. Oh, I shall never forget all you told
+me this morning.”</p>
+
+<p>For Aunt Anne, in sheer desperation, as
+well as in penitent love and gratitude, had
+poured out the whole history of her life since
+she left Cornwall Gardens, and Mrs. North’s
+keen perception and quick sympathy had
+filled in any outlines that had been left a
+little vague.</p>
+
+<p>“We know each other so well now, I
+don’t think I ought to call you Mrs. Baines
+any longer. I want to call you something
+else.”</p>
+
+<p>“Let it be anything you like, my dear.”</p>
+
+<p>“What does the Madon—Mrs. Hibbert,
+call you? But I know; she calls you
+‘Aunt Anne.’ Let me do the same?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, dear, you shall call me Aunt Anne.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, I am so glad to be with you,” Mrs.
+North went on. “I have longed sometimes
+to put down my head on your lap and cry.
+I have been just as miserable as you have—more,
+a thousand times more; for my
+shame”—she liked indulging Aunt Anne
+in her estimate of her own conduct—“has
+been all my own wicked doing, but yours
+was only a sad mistake. I don’t think we
+ought to be separated any more, Aunt Anne;
+we ought to live together, and take care of
+each other.”</p>
+
+<p>“My dear,” said the old lady, still lying
+on the sofa, “there will be no living for
+me; I am going to die.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh no,” Mrs. North answered, with a
+little gasp, “you are going to live and be
+taken care of, and loved properly. I wish
+the doctor would come again. Then I should
+speak on medical authority. Go to sleep
+a little while; I will sit by you.”</p>
+
+<p>An hour passed. Aunt Anne opened
+her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>“Could you put me by the fire, my dear?
+I am very cold.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, of course I can; but wait a moment.
+Clarke will come and help me. Clarke,”
+she called, “I want you to come and help
+me to move Mrs. Baines.</p>
+
+<p>“Now you look more comfortable,” she
+said, when it was done. “There is a footstool
+for your feet, and the peacock beside
+you to keep you company.”</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Anne sat still for a moment, looking
+at the fire.</p>
+
+<p>“My dear,” she said presently, “I have
+been thinking of what you said; we have
+both suffered very much; we ought to be
+together. Only now you have the hope of
+a new life before you. But we have both
+suffered,” she repeated.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. North knelt down beside her with
+a long sigh. “Suffered,” she said. “Oh,
+dear old lady, if you only knew what I have
+suffered; the loneliness of my girlhood, the
+misery of my marriage, the perpetual hunger
+for happiness, the struggle to get it. And
+oh! the longing to be loved, and the madness
+when love came, and then—then—but
+you know,” she whispered, passionately—“I
+need not go over it; the shame, and the
+publicity, and the relief I dared not to acknowledge
+even to myself, when I was set
+free. And then the awful dread that even
+he, the man for whom I did it all, would
+perhaps despise me as the rest of the world
+did. I am not wicked naturally, I am not,
+indeed; I don’t think any woman on this
+green earth has loved beautiful things and
+longed to do righteous things, more than I
+have, or felt the misery of failure more
+bitterly.”</p>
+
+<p>“It will come right now, my love,” Aunt
+Anne said gently. “You are young; it
+will all come right. You said you had a
+telegram, and that he was coming back?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, he is coming back,” Mrs. North
+answered, in a low voice; “but I do not
+want him to set it right because I did the
+wrong for him, or just to make reparation
+from a sense of honour. I do not want to
+spoil his life; for some people will cut him
+if he marries me; it is only—only—if he
+loves me still, and more than all the world,
+as I do him—that is the only chance of it
+all coming right. It is time I had a
+letter. But here is your beef-tea. Let us
+try and forget all our troubles, and get a
+little peace together.” She looked up with
+an April-day smile, took the beef-tea from
+Clarke, and, holding it before Aunt Anne,
+watched with satisfaction every mouthful
+she took.</p>
+
+<p>“I fear I give you a great deal of trouble,”
+the old lady said gratefully.</p>
+
+<p>“It isn’t trouble”—and the tears came to
+her eyes; “it is blessedness. I never had
+any one before to serve and wait on whom
+I loved; even my hands are sensible of the
+happiness of everything they do for you.
+It is new life. But now we have talked too
+much, and you must go to sleep.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, my love,” and Aunt Anne put her
+head back on the pillow; “I will do as you
+desire, but you are very autocratic.”</p>
+
+<p>“Of course.” Mrs. North laughed at
+hearing the familiar word, and then went
+to the dining-room for a little spell of
+quietness.</p>
+
+<p>“Clarke,” she said to the maid who
+had been waiting there, “go in and watch
+by Mrs. Baines; she must not be left
+alone.”</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. North sat down on the chair that
+Aunt Anne had pulled out for Alfred
+Wimple after her return from London.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, I wonder if it will come right?”
+she said to herself. “If it does—if it does—if
+it does! But I ought to have had a
+letter by this time; it is long enough since
+the telegram from Bombay. Something
+tells me that it will come right; I think that
+is the meaning of the happiness that has
+forced itself upon me lately. It is no use
+trying to be miserable any longer. Happiness
+seems to be coming near and nearer.
+I have a sense of forgiveness in my heart;
+surely I know what it means? Perhaps, as
+Aunt Anne says, all I have suffered has
+been an atonement for the wrong. One
+little letter, and I shall be content. The
+dear old lady shall never go away from me;
+she shall just be made as happy as possible.”
+She got up and went to the window, and
+leaned out towards the garden. “Those
+trees at the end,” she said to herself, “surely
+must hide the way down to the dip, where
+she listened. It is very lovely to-day”—and
+she looked up at the sky; “but I wish
+the doctor would come, I should feel more
+satisfied.” There was a footstep. “Yes,
+Clarke; is anything the matter? Why have
+you come? You look quite pale.”</p>
+
+<p>“Mrs. Baines is going to die, ma’am; I
+am certain of it.”</p>
+
+<p>“Going to die?” Mrs. North’s face turned
+white, and she went towards the door.</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t mean this minute, ma’am; but
+just now she opened her eyes and looked
+round as if she didn’t see, and then she
+picked at her dress as dying people do at
+the sheet—it’s a sure sign. Besides, she is
+black round the mouth. I don’t believe she
+will live three days.”</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. North clasped her hands, with fear.</p>
+
+<p>“I wish she would stay in bed; the
+doctor said she ought to do so yesterday;
+but she seemed better, and begged so hard
+to come down this morning that I gave way.”</p>
+
+<p>“It’s another sign,” said the maid; “they
+always want to get up towards the last.”</p>
+
+<p>“The doctor promised he would be here
+by twelve, and now it is nearly two.”</p>
+
+<p>He came an hour later. “She must be
+taken upstairs at once,” he said; so they
+carried her up, Clarke and the doctor between
+them, while Mrs. North followed
+anxiously; and all of them knew that Aunt
+Anne would never walk down the stairs
+again.</p>
+
+<p>Then a telegram was sent to Florence and
+Walter at Monte Carlo.</p>
+
+<p>But she was a little better in the evening,
+and Mrs. North brightened up as she saw
+it. Perhaps Clarke was a foolish croaker,
+and signs were foolish things to trouble one’s
+self about. The old lady might live, after
+all, and there would be some happiness yet.</p>
+
+<p>“No, Aunt Anne, you are not going to
+get up yet,” she said next morning, in
+answer to an inquiring look; “you must
+wait until the doctor has been; remember it
+is my turn to be autocratic.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, my love,” and she dozed off. Half
+her time was spent in sleep. Since Mrs.
+North’s arrival there had stolen over her
+a gradual contentment, as if a crisis had
+occurred, and the blackness of the past
+grown dim. Perhaps it was giving place
+to all that was in her heart, or to the sound
+of Mrs. North’s fresh young voice, and the
+loving touch of her hand. Be it what it
+might, Alfred Wimple and the misery that
+he had caused seemed to have gone farther
+and farther away, while peacefulness was
+stealing over her. “It is like being with
+my dear Florence and Walter,” she said to
+Mrs. North once—“only perhaps you understand
+even better than they could, for you
+have gone through the pain.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, dear Aunt Anne, I have gone
+through the pain”—and Mrs. North sat
+waiting for the doctor again, not that she
+was very uneasy to-day, for the old lady was
+a little better, and hope grows up quickly
+when youth passes by.</p>
+
+<div class='figcenter' style='width:30%'>
+<img src='images/tail9.jpg' alt='flowers' id='iid-0017' style='width:80%;height:auto;'/>
+</div>
+
+<hr class='pbk'/>
+
+<div class='figcenter'>
+<img src='images/chap2.jpg' alt='scene with a castle in the background' id='iid-0018' style='width:80%;height:auto;'/>
+</div>
+
+<div><h1>CHAPTER X.</h1></div>
+
+<p class='noindent'><span class='lead-in'><img class='dropcap' src='images/capt.jpg' style='float:left;width:5%;' alt='T'/>he</span> sound of the door-bell, and of some
+one being shown into the drawing-room.</p>
+
+<p>“The doctor has come, Aunt Anne,” Mrs.
+North said. “I will invigorate myself with
+a talk before I bring him to you, and tell
+him that you are much better.” But instead
+of the doctor she found a little, dried-up-looking
+old gentleman standing in the
+middle of the room, holding his hat and
+umbrella in one hand. She looked at him
+inquiringly.</p>
+
+<p>“I understood that Mrs. Baines was here,”
+he said. Mrs. North looked up, with expectation.
+“I have come from London
+expressly to see her on important business.
+I was solicitor to the late Sir William Rammage,”
+he added. Mrs. North’s spirits revived.
+This looked like a new and exciting
+phase of the story.</p>
+
+<p>“Are you Mr. Boughton?”</p>
+
+<p>“I am Mr. Boughton,” and he made her
+a formal little bow. “I see you understand——”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh yes,” she said eagerly; “and the
+ex-Lord Mayor was the old lady’s cousin.
+I regret to say that she is very ill in bed,
+and cannot possibly see you, but I should
+be happy to deliver any message.” Mr.
+Boughton looked at her, with benevolent
+criticism, and thought her a most beautiful
+young woman. She meanwhile grasped the
+whole situation to her own satisfaction.
+That horrid Lord Mayor, as she mentally
+called Sir William, had probably told his
+solicitor all about Alfred Wimple; and the
+little dried-up gentleman before her, who
+was (as she had instantly remembered) the
+uncle, had come to see how the land lay.
+Mrs. North felt as convinced as Sir William
+had done that the whole affair was a conspiracy
+between the uncle and nephew, and
+she promptly determined to make Mr.
+Boughton as uncomfortable as possible.</p>
+
+<p>“I quite understand the business on which
+you have come to see Mrs. Baines,” she
+said, with decision, but with a twinkle of
+mischief she could not help in her eyes.
+“You have heard, of course, that the conduct
+of your delightful nephew, Mr. Alfred
+Wimple, is entirely found out.”</p>
+
+<p>“God bless my soul!” said Mr. Boughton,
+astonished out of his senses. “What has
+he to do with Mrs. Baines?”</p>
+
+<p>“You perhaps approved of his romantic
+marriage?” Mrs. North inquired politely.
+She was enjoying herself enormously.</p>
+
+<p>“His romantic marriage!” exclaimed the
+lawyer. “I know nothing about it. My
+dear madam, what do you mean? Is that
+scoundrel married?”</p>
+
+<p>“Most certainly he is married,” Mrs.
+North went on; “and, as far as I can
+gather particulars from Mrs. Baines, your
+charming niece is a dressmaker at Liphook.”</p>
+
+<p>“At Liphook!” exclaimed Mr. Boughton,
+more and more astonished; “why—why——”</p>
+
+<p>“Where she lives with her grandmother,”
+continued Mrs. North, in the most amiable
+voice. “Her mother, I understand, lets
+lodgings in the Gray’s Inn Road, and it was
+Mr. Wimple’s kind intention to pay the
+amount he owes her out of Mrs. Baines’s
+fortune.”</p>
+
+<p>“Good gracious!—that was the woman
+who came to me the other day. I never
+heard of such a thing in my life. How
+did he get hold of Mrs. Baines?” There
+was something so genuine in his bewilderment
+that Mrs. North began to believe in
+his honesty, but she was determined not to
+be taken in too easily.</p>
+
+<p>“The details are most exciting, and will
+be exceedingly edifying in a court of justice.
+Now may I inquire why you so particularly
+wish to see the old lady?”</p>
+
+<p>“I came to see her about the late Sir
+William Rammage,” Mr. Boughton said,
+finding it difficult to collect his scattered wits
+after Mrs. North’s information.</p>
+
+<p>“Is he really dead, then?” she asked
+politely.</p>
+
+<p>“Most certainly; he died on the fifth, and
+Mrs. Baines——”</p>
+
+<p>“She is much too ill to see anybody; and
+as I understand he burnt his will, and has
+not left her any money, it is hardly worth
+while to worry her with particulars of his
+unlamented death.”</p>
+
+<p>“Burnt his will? Yes, for some extraordinary
+reason he did—so Charles, the
+man-servant, tells me—he did it in her
+presence. He had no time to make another,
+for the agitation caused by her visit killed
+him.”</p>
+
+<p>“Or perhaps it was the mercy of Providence,”
+remarked Mrs. North.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Boughton did not heed the remark,
+but asked—</p>
+
+<p>“May I inquire if you are in Mrs. Baines’s
+confidence?”</p>
+
+<p>“Entirely,” she answered decisively.</p>
+
+<p>“Then I may tell you that no former will
+has been found, and she is next-of-kin.
+There are no other relations at all, I believe,
+and she will therefore inherit about three
+times as much as if the burnt will had
+remained in existence.”</p>
+
+<p>“Really!”—and Mrs. North clapped her
+hands for joy. And then the tears came
+into her eyes. “Oh, but it is too late, for
+she is dying; nothing can save her; she is
+dying. I have telegraphed to her nephew
+and niece to come back from Monte Carlo.
+She has had a terrible shock, from which
+she will never recover; and besides that
+she has virtually starved herself and taken
+a hundred colds. She has not the strength
+of a fly left. I know she is dying,” Mrs.
+North added, with almost a sob.</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t you think that the good news I
+bring might save her life?”</p>
+
+<p>“No; and I am not sure that it would be
+good to save her life, she has suffered so
+cruelly. What a wicked old man Sir William
+Rammage was!” she burst out, and looked
+up sympathetically at Mr. Boughton.</p>
+
+<p>“He was my client,” the lawyer urged.</p>
+
+<p>“He allowed the poor old lady to starve
+for want of money, and now that he is dead
+and she is dying it comes to her.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, it is very unfortunate—very unfortunate.”</p>
+
+<p>“Everything seems to be a point of view,”
+Mrs. North went on, in the eager manner
+which so often characterized her. “Poverty
+is the point of view from which we look at
+the riches we cannot get; from vice we look
+at virtue which we cannot attain; from hell we
+look at the heaven we cannot reach. Perhaps
+Sir William Rammage would appreciate the
+latter part of the remark now”—she said
+the last words between laughter and tears.</p>
+
+<p>“My dear madam,” Mr. Boughton exclaimed,
+in rather a shocked voice, “pray
+don’t let us begin a discussion. To go back
+to Mrs. Baines, I think if I could see
+her——”</p>
+
+<p>“It is quite impossible; you would remind
+her of your horrible nephew, and that would
+kill her.”</p>
+
+<p>“What on earth has she got to do with
+my nephew?”—and this time his manner
+convinced Mrs. North that he was not an
+impostor.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Boughton,” she said gravely, “the
+old lady is very, very ill. The doctor says
+she cannot live, and I fear that the sight of
+you would kill her straight off; but, if you
+like, I will go and sound her, and find out if
+she is strong enough to bear a visit from
+you”—and, the lawyer having agreed to
+this, Mrs. North went upstairs.</p>
+
+<p>“Dearest old lady”—her girlish voice had
+always a tender note in it when she spoke
+to Aunt Anne—“I have some good news
+for you—very good news. Do you think
+you could bear to hear it?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, my love,” Aunt Anne answered
+wheezily, “but you must forgive me if I am
+sceptical as to its goodness.”</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. North knelt down by the bedside,
+and stroked the thin hands. “Mr. Boughton
+is downstairs; he has come to tell you that
+Sir William Rammage is dead.”</p>
+
+<p>“Then it is true,” Mrs. Baines said sadly.
+“Poor William! My dear, we once lay in
+the same cradle together, while our mothers
+watched beside it—what does Mr. Boughton
+say about Alfred?”</p>
+
+<p>“He doesn’t appear to know anything
+about his wickedness.”</p>
+
+<p>“I felt sure he did not; I never believed
+in the depravity of human nature.”</p>
+
+<p>“Then how would you account for Mr.
+Wimple?” she asked, with much interest.</p>
+
+<p>The old lady considered for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>“Perhaps he was my punishment for all I
+did in the past. I have thought that lately,
+and tried to bear it—only it is more than I
+can bear. It has humiliated me too much.
+Tell me why Mr. Boughton has come; is it
+anything about Alfred?”</p>
+
+<p>“Nothing,” was the emphatic answer;
+“and if you see him I advise you not to
+mention Mr. Wimple’s name.”</p>
+
+<p>“My dear,” Aunt Anne said impressively,
+“except to yourself, his name will never pass
+my lips again. I feel that it is desecration
+to my dear Walter and Florence to mention
+it in their house. I shall never forgive myself
+for having brought him into it. But
+perhaps all I have suffered is some expiation;
+you and I have both felt that about our
+frailty”—and she shook her head. “What
+is the good news?”</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Boughton brought it, and it is about
+Sir William’s money.”</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Baines was silent for a moment; then
+she looked up, with a little wink, and a smile
+came to her lips. “I should like to see
+him,” she said. “But will you help me to
+get up first? I think if I could sit by the
+open window I should be better.”</p>
+
+<p>“Perhaps you would, you dear; it’s warm
+enough for summer. Let me help you into
+your dressing-gown. Stay, you shall wear
+mine. It is very smart, with lavender bows;
+quite proper half-mourning for a cousin.
+There—now—gently”—and she helped the
+old lady into the easy-chair by the window.
+It was a long business, but at last she was
+safely there, with the sunshine falling on her,
+and the soft lace and lavender ribbons of
+Mrs. North’s dressing-gown about her poor
+old neck.</p>
+
+<p>“And are you sure it’s good news, my
+love?” she asked Mrs. North.</p>
+
+<p>“I am quite sure,” Mrs. North answered,
+as she tucked an eider-down quilt round
+Aunt Anne. “He has come from London
+on purpose to bring it to you.”</p>
+
+<p>“Has he partaken of any refreshment since
+he arrived?”</p>
+
+<p>“No; but I will have some ready for him
+when he comes down from his talk with you.
+Now you shall have your <span class='it'>tête-à-tête</span>”—and
+Mrs. North went back to the lawyer.</p>
+
+<p>“You must break it to her very, very
+gently, and you mustn’t be more than five
+or ten minutes with her,” she said, as she
+took him up to the bedroom door.</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Anne was so much fatigued with the
+exertion of getting up that she found it a
+hard matter to receive Mr. Boughton with
+all the courtesy she desired to show him.
+She took the news of her fortune very
+quietly; it did not even excite her.</p>
+
+<p>“It is too late,” she said. “Nothing can
+solace me for what I have lost; but it will
+enable me to make provision for my dear
+Walter and Florence.” Her eyes closed;
+her head sank on her breast; she put out
+her hand towards the window, as if to clutch
+at something that was not there.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Boughton saw it, and understood.</p>
+
+<p>“I cannot repay you for your kindness
+and consideration,” she went on presently.
+“Even when I have discharged my pecuniary
+obligation I shall still remain your debtor.
+But there are some things I should like to
+do. I wish Mrs. North to have a sum of
+money; I will tell her my wishes in regard
+to it.”</p>
+
+<p>“Perhaps I had better return in a day or
+two. You must forgive me for saying, my
+dear madam, that, with the vast sum that is
+now at your disposal, you ought to make a
+will immediately. I could take instructions
+now if you like.”</p>
+
+<p>“Instructions?” she repeated, with a
+puzzled air; “I will give them all to Mrs.
+North, and you can take them from her.
+You will not think me inhospitable if I ask
+you to leave me now, Mr. Boughton? I am
+very tired. Tell me, did they send for you
+when William Rammage died?”</p>
+
+<p>“They telegraphed for me immediately,
+and when I got to the office I found your
+letter waiting for me—the one you wrote
+before you left London, giving me your
+address here.” She did not hear him; her
+eyes had closed again, and her chin rested
+down on the lavender ribbons; the sunshine
+came in and lighted up her face, and that
+which Mr. Boughton saw written on it was
+unmistakable.</p>
+
+<p>“You are quite right, my dear madam,”
+he said to Mrs. North, as he sat partaking
+of the refreshment Aunt Anne had devised
+for him; “it has come too late.”</p>
+
+<p>He looked at his watch when he had
+finished. “I have only a quarter of an hour
+to stay,” he said. “Before I go, would you
+give me some explanation of the extraordinary
+statements you made on my arrival?”</p>
+
+<p>“You shall have it,” Mrs. North answered
+eagerly; “but wait one moment, till I have
+taken this egg and wine to Mrs. Baines and
+seen that the maid is with her.”</p>
+
+<p>“That’s a remarkably handsome girl,” the
+lawyer thought, when she had disappeared;
+“I wonder where I have heard her name
+before, and who she is?” But this speculation
+was entirely forgotten when he heard
+the story of his nephew’s doings of the last
+few months. “God bless my soul!” he
+exclaimed; “why, he might be sent to
+prison with hard labour—and serve him
+right, the scoundrel.”</p>
+
+<p>“I am delighted to hear you say it,” Mrs.
+North answered impulsively. “Please shake
+hands with me. I am ashamed to say I
+thought it all a conspiracy, even after you
+came, and that is why I was so disagreeable.”</p>
+
+<p>“Conspiracy, my dear madam?—why, the
+last thing I did to Wimple was to kick him
+out of my office; and I have been worried
+by his duns ever since. As for the will she
+made in his favour, get it destroyed at once,
+or he may give us no end of trouble yet.
+She has virtually given me instructions for
+a new one. I told her I would come in a
+day or two, but I think it would be safer to
+come to-morrow. It will have to be rather
+late in the day, I am afraid, but I can sleep
+at the inn. In the meantime get the other
+will destroyed. Why, bless me! if she died
+to-night it might make an awful scandal; I
+would not have it happen for all I am
+worth.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Boughton departed; and the doctor
+came, and gave so bad a report that Mrs.
+North sent off yet another telegram to
+Walter and Florence—this time in London—asking
+them not to waste a moment on
+their arrival, but to come straight to Witley.
+And then the second post brought her the
+morning’s letters which had been sent on.
+Among them was one with the Naples postmark,
+which she tore open with feverish
+haste and could scarcely read for tears of joy.</p>
+
+<p>“I could not write before,” it said. “I
+am detained here by a friend’s illness; but
+now that I am thus far I send you just a
+line to say I shall be with you soon, and I
+shall never leave you again. I hate to think
+of it all. The fault was mine, and the suffering
+has been yours. But I love you, and
+only live to make you reparation.”</p>
+
+<p>“It is too much happiness to bear,” she
+said, with a sob. “It is all I wanted, that
+he should love me—I must write this minute,
+or he will wonder”—and she got out her
+blotting-case, just as she did at the hotel at
+Marseille—it seemed as if that scene had
+been a suggestion of this—and, kneeling
+down by the table, wrote—</p>
+
+<p>“I am here with Mrs. Baines, and she is
+dying. I have just—just had your letter.
+Oh, the joy of it! What can I say or do?—you
+know everything that is in my heart
+better than words can write it down.”</p>
+
+<p>She sealed it up; and, seizing her hat,
+went once round the garden, for the cottage
+seemed too small a house to hold so great
+a happiness as that which had come upon
+her. She looked up to the sky, and thought
+how blessed it was to be beneath it, and
+away at the larches and fir-trees, and wondered
+if he and she would ever walk between
+them. Something told her that they would
+if—if all came right, if she found that he
+loved her so much that he could not live
+without her. They would lead such ideal
+lives; they would do their very best for
+every one, and make so many people happy,
+and cover up the past with all the good that
+love would surely put it into their hearts to
+do. “It would be too much to bear,” she
+said to herself; “it is too much to think of
+yet. I will go back to my dear old lady,
+and comfort her.”</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Anne was much better for her interview
+with Mr. Boughton. The excitement
+had done her good, and some of her little
+consequential ways had returned with the
+knowledge of her wealth.</p>
+
+<p>“I am glad to see you, my love,” she said
+to Mrs. North; “I have many things to
+discuss with you if you will permit me to
+encroach on your good nature. Would you
+mind sitting down on the footstool again
+beside me, as you did yesterday?” The
+maid had lifted her on to the old-fashioned
+sofa at the foot of the bed. She was propped
+up with pillows, and looked so well and
+comfortable it seemed almost possible that
+she might live.</p>
+
+<p>“I will,” Mrs. North answered, still overcome
+with her own thoughts—“I will sit at
+your feet, and receive your royal commands.
+But first permit me to say that you are
+looking irresistible—my lavender ribbons
+give you a most ravishing appearance.”</p>
+
+<p>“You are in excellent spirits,” Aunt Anne
+said, with a pleased smile; “and so am I,”
+she added. “It has done me a world of good
+to hear that William Rammage’s iniquitous
+intentions have been frustrated.”</p>
+
+<p>“I trust he is aware of it,” Mrs. North
+answered, “and that his soul is delightfully
+vexed by the enterprising Satan.”</p>
+
+<p>“My love,” said the old lady, with a
+shocked wink, “you hardly understand the
+purport of your own words.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, I do,” Mrs. North said emphatically;
+“but now I want to speak about something
+much more important. I hope you are going
+to get well—yes, in spite of all the shakes of
+your dear old head; and that you are going
+to live to be a hundred and one, in order to
+scold me with very long words when I offend
+you.”</p>
+
+<p>“I will endeavour to do so, my love; but
+I hope that some one else will do it better”—she
+stopped and closed her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>“I believe you are a witch, and you know
+about my letter. It has just come, and has
+made me so happy,” Mrs. North said, between
+laughing and crying.</p>
+
+<p>“What does he say?” the old lady asked,
+without opening her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>“He says he is coming,” Mrs. North
+answered, almost in a whisper. “It’s almost
+more than I can bear. I think it will all
+come right. The other was never a marriage—it
+was cruel to call it one; it was a girl’s
+body and soul made ready for ruin by those
+who persuaded her——” and she put her
+face down.</p>
+
+<p>“My dear, I understand now; I think I
+was very unsympathetic. But purity counts
+before all things”—and Aunt Anne’s lips
+quivered. “Tell me, my love, have you
+heard—I know it is painful to you to hear
+his name, but have you heard anything of
+Mr. North lately?” Mrs. North looked up
+with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes, which
+a moment before had been full of tears, and
+answered demurely—</p>
+
+<p>“I am told that he is casting his eyes on an
+amiable lady of forty-five. She is the sister
+of an eminent Q.C., has read Buckle’s
+‘History of Civilization,’ and her favourite
+fad is the abolition of capital punishment.
+But I don’t want to talk of my affairs, Aunt
+Anne; I want to talk of yours—they are
+more momentous.” Mrs. North prided herself
+on picking up Aunt Anne’s words, and
+using them with great discretion.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, my love, I am most grateful to
+you.”</p>
+
+<p>“I am certain—as I tell you—that you
+are going to live and get well.” Mrs. North
+meant her words at the moment, for, with
+the sweet insolence of youth, she was incredulous
+of death until it was absolutely
+before her eyes. “But at the same time,”
+she went on, “now that you are enormously
+rich, you ought to take precautions in case
+of an accident. If the cottage were burned
+down to-night, and we were burned with it,
+who would inherit your money?”</p>
+
+<p>“I told Mr. Boughton that I would give
+my instructions to you, and he is coming the
+day after to-morrow.”</p>
+
+<p>“But have you destroyed the will you
+made in favour of Alfred Wimple?”</p>
+
+<p>“I have not got it; he took it away with
+him.” Mrs. North looked quite alarmed.</p>
+
+<p>“We must make another, this minute,” she
+said; “if the conflagration took place this
+evening he would get every penny. Let me
+make it this minute. I can do it on a sheet
+of note-paper. Don’t agitate your dear old
+self, I shall be back directly”—and in a
+moment she had fled downstairs and returned
+with her blotting-book, and once more she
+knelt down by a table to write. “You want
+to leave everything to the Hibberts, don’t
+you?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes; but if you would permit me, my
+love, I should like to leave you something.”</p>
+
+<p>“Then I couldn’t make the will, for it
+would not be legal; besides, I am rich
+enough, you kind old lady. Shall I begin?”</p>
+
+<p>“Stop one moment, my dear; will you
+give me a little <span class='it'>sal volatile</span> first, and let me
+rest for five minutes?”</p>
+
+<p>She closed her eyes, but it was not to
+sleep; she appeared to be thinking of something
+that disturbed her. When she looked
+up again she was almost panting with excitement
+as well as weakness, and there was the
+fierce, yet frightened, look in her eyes that
+had been in them when she opened the front
+door to turn Alfred Wimple out of the house.</p>
+
+<p>“I want you to do something for me,” she
+said, almost in a whisper—“I want you to
+have a sum of money, and to get it to him”—she
+could not make herself utter his name—“on
+condition that he goes out of the country
+with it. Let him go to Australia with the
+woman——”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” Mrs. North said, seeing she hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>“She is not in his position, and could
+never be received in society.”</p>
+
+<p>“No, dear,” Mrs. North said, reflecting
+that Mr. Wimple’s own position was not
+particularly exalted.</p>
+
+<p>“I want him to go out of the country,”
+Aunt Anne went on—“as far away as possible;
+I cannot breathe the same air with
+him, or bear to think that he is beneath the
+same sky. It is pollution; it is hurrying me
+out of life; it is most repugnant to me to
+think that when I am dead he will frequently
+be within only a few miles of this cottage
+and of my dear Walter and Florence”—she
+stopped for a moment, and shuddered, and
+put her thin hands, one over the other, under
+her chin. “When I am dead and buried,”
+she went on, “I believe I should know if his
+body were put underground, too, in the same
+country with me, and feel the desecration.
+It has killed me; it has made me eager to
+die. But I want to know that he will go
+away—that none of those I care for will ever
+see his face again; it will be a sacrilege if
+he even passes them in the street. I want
+him to have a sum of money, and to go
+away.”</p>
+
+<p>“I will take care that he has it,” Mrs.
+North said gently, “I will speak to the
+Hibberts. But, Aunt Anne,” she asked,
+“don’t you think you might forgive him?
+He shall go away, but you would not like to
+die without forgiving him?” Mrs. North
+did not for a moment expect her to do it,
+or even wish it, but she felt it almost
+a duty to say what she did from a little
+notion, as old-fashioned as one of Aunt
+Anne’s perhaps, about dying in charity with
+all men.</p>
+
+<p>“No, you must not ask me to do that”—and
+her voice was determined. “I cannot;
+it was too terrible.”</p>
+
+<p>“And I am very glad,” Mrs. North said,
+having eased her conscience with the previous
+remark—“a slightly revengeful spirit comforts
+one so much.”</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t let us ever speak of him again,
+even you and I. I want to shut him out of
+the little bit of life I have left.”</p>
+
+<p>“We never will,” Mrs. North said. “Let
+this be the Amen of him. Now I will make
+the will. Here is a sheet of note-paper and
+a singularly bad quill pen.”</p>
+
+<p>“This is the last Will and Testament of
+me, Anne Baines (sometime called Wimple).
+I revoke all other wills and codicils, and give
+and bequeath everything that is mine or may
+be mine to my dear nephew and niece, Walter
+and Florence Hibbert.”</p>
+
+<p>The maid came and stood on one side and
+Mrs. North on the other, while Aunt Anne
+gave a little wink to herself, and pushed aside
+the end of the lavender ribbon lest it should
+smudge the paper, and signed “Anne Baines,”
+looking at every letter as she made it with
+intense interest.</p>
+
+<p>“I am glad to write that name once more,”
+she said, and fell back, with a sigh.</p>
+
+<div class='figcenter' style='width:30%'>
+<img src='images/tail10.jpg' alt='butterfly' id='iid-0019' style='width:80%;height:auto;'/>
+</div>
+
+<hr class='pbk'/>
+
+<div class='figcenter'>
+<img src='images/chap4.jpg' alt='' id='iid-0020' style='width:80%;height:auto;'/>
+</div>
+
+<div><h1>CHAPTER XI.</h1></div>
+
+<p class='noindent'><span class='lead-in'><img class='dropcap' src='images/capi.jpg' style='float:left;width:5%;' alt='I'/>t</span> was a long night that followed. A
+telegram had arrived from the Hibberts.
+They were on their way, and coming
+as fast as possible, they said; but through
+the dark hours, as Mrs. North sat beside
+Aunt Anne, she feared that death would
+come still faster.</p>
+
+<p>Her bronchitis was worse at times; she
+could hardly breathe; it was only the almost
+summer-like warmth that saved her. She
+talked of strange people when she could find
+voice to do so—people of whom Mrs. North
+had never heard before; but it seemed somehow
+as if they had silently entered—as if
+they filled the house, and were waiting. At
+midnight and in the still small hours of the
+morning she could fancy that they were going
+softly up and down the stairs; that they
+peered into the room in which Aunt Anne
+lay—the one to the front that looked down
+on the long white road stretching from the
+city to the sea. “Oh, if the Hibberts would
+come,” Mrs. North said, a dozen times.
+“I want her to die with her own people. I
+love her, but I am a stranger.”</p>
+
+<p>So the night passed.</p>
+
+<p>“My dear,” Aunt Anne asked, opening
+her eyes, “is it morning yet?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” Mrs. North answered tenderly,
+“and a lovely morning. The sun is shining,
+and a thrush is singing on the tree outside.
+We will open the window presently, and let
+the summer in.” An hour passed, and the
+postman came, but he brought no news of
+those who were expected. Later on the
+doctor looked in, and said her pulse was
+weaker.</p>
+
+<p>“She must live a little longer,” Mrs. North
+said, in despair; “she must, indeed.”</p>
+
+<p>“I will come again this afternoon,” he
+said; “perhaps she may have a little rally.”</p>
+
+<p>While Aunt Anne dozed and the maid
+watched, Mrs. North, unable to sit quietly
+any longer, wandered up and down the house,
+and round the little drawing-room, bending
+her face over the pot-pourri on the corner
+cupboard, opening the piano and looking at
+the yellow keys she did not venture to touch.
+And then, restlessly, she went into the garden,
+and gathered some oak and beech boughs,
+with the fresh young leaves upon them, and
+put them in pots, as Aunt Anne had once
+done for the home-coming of Florence.</p>
+
+<p>“I cannot feel that she is going to die,”
+she thought, “but rather as if she were going
+to meet the people she knew long ago; it
+will be a festival for them.” She looked
+down the road, and strained her ears, but
+there was no sound of a carriage, no sign
+of Walter and Florence. She could hardly
+realize that she was watching for the
+Hibberts and that Aunt Anne upstairs lay
+dying. “It is all such a tangle,” she said
+to herself, “life and death, and joy and
+sorrow, and which is best it is difficult to
+say.” Aunt Anne’s little breakfast was
+ready, and she carried it up herself, and
+lovingly watched the old lady trying to
+swallow a spoonful.</p>
+
+<p>“You look a little better again, Aunt
+Anne.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, love; and I shall be much better
+when I have seen those dear children. I
+am not quite happy about my will. I
+wanted you to have some remembrance
+of me.”</p>
+
+<p>“Give me something,” Mrs. North said,
+“something you have worn; I shall like that
+better than a legacy, because I shall have it
+from your own two living hands.”</p>
+
+<p>“I have parted with all my possessions,
+but Florence and Walter shall be commissioned
+to get you something.”</p>
+
+<p>“The thing I should have liked,” Mrs.
+North answered, “was a little brooch you
+used to wear. It had hair in the middle,
+and a crinkly gold setting around it.”</p>
+
+<p>“My dear,” said Aunt Anne, dreamily,
+“it is in a little box in my left-hand drawer;
+but it needs renovating—the pin is broken,
+and the glass and the hair have come out.
+It belonged to my mother.”</p>
+
+<p>“Give it to me,” Mrs. North said eagerly.
+“I will have it done up, and wear it till you
+are better, and then you shall have it back;
+let me get it at once”—and in her eager
+manner she went to the drawer. “Here it
+is,” she said. “It will make a little gold
+buckle. I have a canary-coloured ribbon in
+the next room; I will put it through, and
+wear it round my neck. Aunt Anne, you
+have made me a present.”</p>
+
+<p>“I am delighted that it meets with
+your approval, my dear”—and there was
+a long silence. The morning dragged on—a
+happy spring morning, on which, as
+Mrs. North said to herself, you could almost
+hear the summer walking to you over the
+little flowers. Presently Aunt Anne called
+her.</p>
+
+<p>“I was thinking,” she said, “of a canary-coloured
+dress I had when I was a girl. I
+wore it at my first ball—it was a military
+ball, my dear, and the officers were all in
+uniform. As soon as I entered the room,
+Captain Maxwell asked me to dance; but I
+felt quite afraid, and said, ‘You must take
+off your sword, if you please, and put it on
+one side.’ Think of my audacity in asking
+him to do such a thing; but he did it. Your
+ribbon made me remember it”—and again
+she dropped off to sleep.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. North went to the window, and looked
+out once more. “I feel like sister Anne on
+the watch-tower,” she said to herself. “If
+they would only come.” Suddenly a dread
+overcame her. Florence and Walter knew
+nothing of Alfred Wimple’s conduct. They
+might arrive, and, before she had time to tell
+them, by some chance word cause Aunt Anne
+infinite pain. The shame and humiliation
+seemed to have gone out of the old lady’s
+life during the last day or two. It would be
+a cruel thing to remind her of it. She had
+made herself ready to meet death. It was
+coming to her gently and surely, with thoughts
+of those she loved, and a remembrance of
+the days that had been before the maddening
+shame of the past year. Mrs. North
+went downstairs. Jane Mitchell was in the
+kitchen.</p>
+
+<p>“Is there any way of sending a note to
+the station?” she asked.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, yes, ma’am; Lucas would take it
+with the pony-cart.”</p>
+
+<p>“Go to him, ask him to get ready at once,
+and come to me for the letter.” As shortly
+as possible she wrote an account of all that
+had taken place at the cottage, and explained
+her own presence there.</p>
+
+<p>“Take this at once to the station-master,
+and ask him to give it to Mr. and Mrs.
+Hibbert the moment they arrive, and to see
+that they come here by the fastest fly that is
+there.” And once more she went up to the
+front bedroom. Aunt Anne was sleeping
+peacefully; a little smile was on her lips.
+Mrs. North went to the window, and looked
+up and down the long straight road, and over
+at the fir-trees. Presently Lucas came by
+with the pony-cart; he touched his hat, pulled
+the note out of his pocket to show that he had
+it safely, and drove on in the sunshine. The
+birds were twittering everywhere. A clump
+of broom was nearly topped with yellow;
+some spots of gold were on the gorse. Half
+an hour. Aunt Anne still slept. Mrs. North
+put her arms on the window-sill, and rested
+her head down on them with her face turned
+to the road that led to the station. “If only
+the Hibberts would come,” she said. “Oh,
+if they would come.”</p>
+
+<p>The long morning went into afternoon.
+A change came over Aunt Anne. It was
+plain enough this time. She spoke once,
+very gently and so indistinctly that Mrs.
+North could hardly make out the words,
+though she bent over her, trying to understand.</p>
+
+<p>“Aunt Anne, dear, do you know me?”
+A smile came over the old lady’s face. She
+was thinking of something that pleased her.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, dear Walter,” she said, “you must
+get some chocolates for those dear children,
+and I will reimburse you.” Then the little
+woman, who had watched so bravely, broke
+down, and, kneeling by the bedside, sobbed
+softly to herself.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, they must come; oh, they must
+come,” she whispered. “Perhaps I had
+better rouse her a little,” she thought after a
+little while, and slipped her arm under the
+old lady’s shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>“Aunt Anne—Aunt Anne, dear,” she said,
+“Walter and Florence are coming; they are
+hurrying to you, do you hear me?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, my love,” the old lady said, recovering
+a little, and recognizing her. “You said
+it was morning time, and a thrush was singing
+on the tree outside. I think I hear it.”</p>
+
+<p>“You do; listen, dear, listen!” and Mrs.
+North turned her face towards the window,
+as though she were listening, and looked at
+Aunt Anne’s face, as if to put life into her.
+And as she did so there came upon her ears
+a joyful sound, the one she most longed to
+hear in the world—the sound of carriage
+wheels.</p>
+
+<p>“They have come,” she said; “thank
+God! they have come.”</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Anne seemed to understand; an expression
+of restfulness came over her face;
+she closed her eyes, as if satisfied. Mrs.
+North was in despair; it seemed as if they
+would be a moment too late.</p>
+
+<p>“Dearest old lady, they have come! they
+are in the garden! Wake up—wake up, to
+see them. Stay, let me prop you up a little
+bit more.” She could scarcely say the words,
+her heart was so full. “There, now you can
+see the fir-trees and the sunshine. Kiss me
+once, dear Aunt Anne; I am going to fetch
+your children”—and she gently drew her
+arms away. The Hibberts were in the
+house—they were on the stairs already.
+Mrs. North met them. “You are just in
+time,” she whispered to Florence—“she has
+waited.”</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Hibbert could not speak, but she
+stopped one moment to put her arms round
+Mrs. North’s neck, and then went on.</p>
+
+<p>“Come with us,” Walter said.</p>
+
+<p>“No,” Mrs. North answered chokingly,
+while the tears ran down her face. “She is
+waiting for you. Go in to her. I have no
+business there.”</p>
+
+<p>Without a word they went to Aunt Anne.
+Like a flash there came over Florence
+the remembrance of the day when she had
+first entered the room, and had thought that
+it looked like a room to die in. The old
+lady did not make a sign. For a moment
+they stood by her silently. Florence stooped,
+and kissed the coverlet.</p>
+
+<p>“Dear Aunt Anne,” they said tenderly,
+“we have come.” Then a look of joy spread
+over the old lady’s face. She made one last
+struggle to speak.</p>
+
+<p>“My dear Walter and Florence,” she said,
+and stopped for a moment. “I have not
+been able—to make any preparation for your
+arrival—but Mrs. North——” She stopped
+again, and her eyes closed. They went
+a little nearer to each other, and stood
+watching.</p>
+
+<p>The scent of the fresh spring air filled
+the room. The sunshine was passing over
+the house. But all was still—so still that
+Florence looked up, with a questioning look
+of fear upon her face. Walter bent over
+the bed for a moment, then gently put his
+arm round his wife’s shoulder. Aunt Anne
+had journeyed on.</p>
+
+<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:2em;font-size:1.5em;'>THE END</p>
+
+<div class='lgc' style='margin-top:2em;margin-bottom:2em;'> <!-- rend=';fs:.8em;' -->
+<p class='line' style='font-size:.8em;'>PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,</p>
+<p class='line' style='font-size:.8em;'>LONDON AND BECCLES.</p>
+</div> <!-- end rend -->
+
+<hr class='pbk'/>
+
+<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:4em;margin-bottom:2em;font-size:1.2em;'>TRANSCRIBER NOTES</p>
+
+<div class='blockquote'>
+
+<p class='noindent'>Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected.
+Where multiple spellings occur, majority use has been
+employed.</p>
+
+<p class='line'>&#160;</p>
+
+<p class='noindent'>Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious
+printer errors occur.</p>
+
+<p class='line'>&#160;</p>
+
+<p class='noindent'>New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.</p>
+
+<p class='line'>&#160;</p>
+
+<p class='noindent'>[The end of <span class='it'>Aunt Anne, Vol. 2</span>, by Mrs. W. K. Clifford.]</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75404 ***</div>
+  </body>
+  <!-- created with fpgen.py 4.65 on 2025-02-18 19:17:16 GMT -->
+</html>
+
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+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #75404 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/75404)