the skin, soothes an<
etc., and produces a
ESSENCE (
EUKONIA.
A
Is
powder. Boxes, 1/-,
20, hatton garden,
READ T
EMORY UNIVERSITY
" bf.ar sir. —i an ______
to thank you, for your lc zen'ges'Eave 'clone wonders"ILfPirfc'iV
Since I had the operation of ' Tracheotomy' (the same as the late Empercrof Germany,
and unlike him, thank God, I am still alive and getting on well) performed at St. Bar-
tholomew's Hospital for abduct, or paralysis of the vocal chords, no one could possibly
have had a more violent cough ; indeed, it was so bad at times that it quite exhausted me.
The mucus also, which was very copious and hard, has been softened, and I have been
able to get rid of it without difficulty. " I am, Sir, yours truly,
" Mr. T. Keating. "J. Hill."
M EDICAL NOT E.
The above speaks ft r itself. From strict inquiry it appears that the benefit from using
Keating's Cough Lozenges is understated. The operation was a specially severe one,
and was performed by the specialist, Dr. H. T. Butlin, of St. Bartholomew's Hospital.
Since the operation, the only means of relief is the use of these Lozenges. So successful
are they that one affords immediate benefit, although from the nature of the case the
throat irritation is intense. Mr. Hill kindly allows any reference to be made to him.
THE UTTERLY UNRBVALLED REMEDY
eok
DOUGHS. HOARSENESS, AND THROAT TROUBLES.
"KEATING'S COUGH LOZENGES " are sold everywhere, in Tins, 1/ii; and 2j9 each.
Free by Post, 75 Stamps.
THOMAS KEATING, Chemist, London.
Tenth]
Routledge's Railway Library Advertiser.
[Issue.
Thoughts, like Snowflakes on some far-off Mountain Side, go on Accumulating tilt
some great Truth is loosened, and Falls like an Avalanche on the Waiting World.
At present our lawgivers do not see that tlio-
responsibilities ol' thoroughly qualified
Plumbers are frequently more important
than a Medical Practitioner's.
Important to all leaving hom«\-
What Health Re-tort, what Watering Place,
what Climate in the World could show results of
Preventible Death like these of the power of
Sanitation ? IGNORANCE OP SANITARY
SCIENCE, direct and iudirect, Costs Threefold
the amount of Pcor-Rate for the Country gene-
rally. " He had given as models of sanitation of
adult life, well constructed and well-kept prisons,
where of those who came in without well- developed
disease, and not good lives either, the death-rate did
not exceed I HREE IN 1,000. In Stafford County
Jail the death-rate had, during the last ten years,
been actually less than one in every thousand—
not a tenth of the death-rate of adult outsiders."
—Inaugural Address by E. CHAD WICK, C.B.,
on the Sanitary Condition of England.
THE KING OF PHYSICIANS, PURE AIR.
JEOPARDY OP LIFE, THE GREAT DANGER OP VITIATED AIR.
" Former generations perished in venial ienoranre of all sanitary laws. When Black Death massacred Hun-
dreds of Thousands, neither the victims nor their ruleis could be accounted responsible for their slaugnter."—
Times.
After breathing impure air for two minutes and a half, everv drop < f blood is more or less poisoned. There
is not a point in the human frame but has been traversed by poisonous blood ; not a point but must have
suffered injury. Finn's "Fruit Salt" i-< the best known remedy; it temoves 'ootid or pooonous matter
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TNFLHENZA.—FEVERISH COLD.—Instructions : When attacked with influenza or
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fire, take ENO'S " FRUIT SALT " freely, and ENO'S " VEGETABLE MOTO " as occasion
may require. After a few days the marked symptoms will pass away. Asa Preservative of
Nervous Force, or a Recuperative Diet, use Scalded Milk ireely. Use the greatest care to
avoid relapse.
TlRAWING AN OVERDRAFT ON TFF. BANK OF LIFF-Late horns, fagged, un-
JU natural excitement, breathing impure air, too rich food, alcoholic drinks, etc.-ENO'S
"FRUIT SALT" is the best known remedy. It removes foetid or poisonous matter—the
groundwork of disease—from the blood by natural means, allays nervous excitement, depres-
sion, headaches, etc., and restores the nervous system to its proper condition. Use ENO'S
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state its great value in keeping the blood pure and free from disease.
PALPITATION OF THE HEART, caused by Liver Derangement and Indigestion, fre-
A quently called (or mistaken for) Hfakt Disease.—" On the 14th of April I purchased a
bottle of your' FRUIT SALT,' not feeling very well at the time, and it had an effect that I
never anticipated when I bought it. I had suffered more or less since the year 1841 from
Palpitation of the Heart, but very badly during the last few years. The least thing would
produce it during the day, and at night my sleep was very much disturbed. Strange to say,
after the first dose of ' FRUIT SALT,' palpitations suddenly ceased, and have not since re-
turned. Out of gratitude for the benefit which. I have received, I have recommended it to
all my friends both in London and Yarmouth ; at the same time I feel it my duty to state the
above facts, of which you can make whatever use you please.
" I am, dear Sir, yours respectfully, TRUTH."
mHE SECRET OF SUCCESS — STERLING HONESTY OF PURPOSE, WITHOUT IT
A LIFE IS A SHAM I—" A new invention is brought before the public, and commands
success. A score of abon inable imitations are immediately introduced by the unscrupulous,
who, in copying the original closely enough to deceive the public, and yet not so exactly as
to infringe upon legal rights, exercise an ingenuity that, employed in an original channel,
could not fail to secure reputation and profit."—Adams.
CAUTION.—-Examine each Bottle, and see that the Capsule is marked UNO'S "FRUIT
SALT." Without it you have been imposed on by worthless imitations. Sold by all Chemists.
Directions m Mxteen Languages how to prevent Disease. Protection in every Country.
Prepared ODly at Eno's " Fruit Salt " Works, London, S.E., by J. C. Eno's Patent.
Tenth]
[Issue.
FOR
INFANTS
AND
INVALIDS.
"31, Harwood Square,
"n.W;
"Mrs. Millars little hoy—
taken the day he was a year eld
—brought up on MELLIN'S
FOOD till then
MELLIN'S FOOD BISCUITS
(Manufactured by Carr if Co., Carlisle, specially for G. 2Ifllin).
For Children after Weaning, the Aged, and Dyspeptic. Digestive, Nourishing, Sustaining.
Price 2/- and 3 6 per Tin.
MELLIX'S LACTO GLYCOSE or MILK FOOD
Simply dissolved in warm water is recommended for nse when fresh cow's milk disagrees or
caiuiot be obtained. Price 2/- and 3 - per Bottle.
SHAKESPEARIAN WISDOM ON THE FEEDING AND REARING OF INFANTS.
A pamphlet of quotations from Shakespeare and portraits of beautiful children, together
with testimonials, which are of the highest interest to all mothers, to be had with samples
free by post, on application to—
G. MELLIN, Marlboro' Works, Peckham, S.E.
80.000.S.&B., 21/1/92
MASTER MILLAR, aged 12 months.
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
J.ONDON :
PRINTED BY J. OGDEN AND
172, ST. JOHN STREET, B.C.
UNSPOTTED FROM
THE WORLD
by
MRS. G. W. GODFREY
author of
"dolly," "my queen," "the beautiful miss roche," etc.
LONDON
GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS
Broadway, Ludgate Hill
NEW YORK : 9 LAFAYETTE PLACE
ROUTLEDGE'S RAILWAY LIBRARY.
Recent Volumes.
JOCK O' HAZELGREEN. By Helen Mathers.
OLIVIA RALEIGH. By the Author of " Tom Singleton."
HERE BELOW. By J. A. Scofield.
BRIDGET. By M. Betham-Edwards.
A WOMAN'S GLORY. By Sarah Doudney.
THE TALE OF A HORSE. By Author of " Blair Athol."
MISS DAISY DIMITY. By May Crommelin.
" CHERRY RIPE ! " By Helen Mathers.
MISS CHEYNE OF ESSILMONT. By James Grant.
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
PART I.
«' Wi' lightsome heart I pull'd a rose
Fu' sweet upon its thorny tree ;
But my fause lover stole the rose,
And ah ! he left the thorn wi' me,"
CHAPTER I.
It is one of the last and loveliest days of the loveliest
month of the young year. Over Cecil Darrell's head, and on
to the gnarled old stile on which he leans, a May-tree sheds
scenty pinky blossoms that fill the air with a subtle perfume
that is a good deal pleasanter than any he has ever smelt in
Bond Street. In the woods the young trees are unfolding
leaves of a thousand different and delicate shades of green and
brown—never so tender, so fresh, as in this their first youth.
Under his feet tiny unexpected blossoms are springing up
among the meadow-grasses; high up above his head among the
topmost branches of the trees, where the young birds have built
their nests—nearest to heaven, and the strong, bright rays of
the spring sun—farthest from earth and marauding boys, they
are singing gladsome songs with voices that are not so shrill
and clear as they will be a month or two hence, but that are
very tuneful for all that.
" Ilka bird sang o' his love,
And fondly so did I o' mine "—
hums Darrell, remembering a song that he used to hear long
ago, and which seems to him a good deal prettier than many
pf those he has heard of late years,
6
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
He does not sing of his love, but he thinks of her a great
deal as he waits there, very impatiently, for her coming.
He is not perhaps quite so sure that she is his love in
the good old-fashioned sense in which the song counts
love.
There have been so many of them—a score or so, more or
less—and of each one he has been so sure that she was the
one.
He laughs a little to himself, and reddens a little too—he
is not too old for that—as he remembers how sure he has been
of each in her turn—and how completely cured !
After all, there is no reason to suppose that the same law,
so well established by precedent, may not hold good with this
one, and every possible reason to hope that it may.
Never was a blinder, madder, more impossible-to-be-grati-
fied fancy!—and never one to which he has more suddenly
and completely yielded.
For in spite of all his cynicism, in spite of all modern care-
for-nothing, strive-for-nothing philosophy—in spite of all the
derision he brings to bear upon himself and which he knows
all his friends, could they understand his plight, would bring
to bear upon him, he is as hotly, insanely, passionately in love
as though he were twenty, instead of thirty, and the only pos-
sible excuse he can find for himself is that nine men out of
ten would have been the same in the same case.
She is so pretty!—so delightfully, irresistibly, maddeningly
pretty !
As he dunks of it he flings away the end of his cigar into
the hedge, where it falls upon a cluster of violets and scorches
some few modest buds to untimely death. It is the second
he has smoked since he has been waiting for her; and his
desire to see her, his impatience for her coming, have certainly
grown with the waiting. At one moment he tells himself there
is not a chance that she will come now, at the next he feels
certain that she must be drawn to him by the very force of his
UA SPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 7
desire. And all the while he is surprised at himself that he
should care so greatly one way or the other.
Up from the little hollow among the trees, where the smoke
from a few score chimneys, curling in little faint wreaths up to
the clear, bright sky, marks where the sleepy hamlet lies, church
bells clang suddenly and merrily through the air. They are
not very musical or very rhythmical bells. Some go laggingly,
some too quickly—some clash all together, as though the
ringers were pulling with more will than judgment. Yet
Darrell has an undefined notion that they add artistic comple-
tion to the quiet scene.
" Some one has been married," he thinks to himself. " Some
poor fool going to share his sixteen or eighteen shillings a week
and his wretched little three-roomed cottage with another poor
fool—going to rise up a little earlier and a little later take his
rest, that he may earn by the sweat of his brow the doubtful
blessing of seeing Phillis's brown eyes and ruddy cheeks oppo-
site to him for the remainder of his life."
But somehow he does not feel that unmitigated pity for this
unknown someone which he might have expected of himself
—which he has indeed so often felt for his own friends when
he has seen them coming out of St. George's.
Down here in this man-forgotten, dead-alive place (he had
called it a dead-alive hole three weeks ago, but he had for-
gotten that), where there is so little to do, except fall in love,
and such an immensity of time to do it in, marriage does not
seem altogether such an unbearable affliction as it has hitherto
seemed to him. And if ever a man had a good excuse for
it here she is !
A break in the trees has given him a glimpse of her white
gown, and in a moment he has leapt over the stile and is
going in hottest haste to meet her.
If blindness be an indispensable characteristic of love, and
love but the natural sequence of blindness, then is he not in
love—for he by no means merges the clear-sightedness of a
8
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
man of the world in the obliquity of a lover. On the con-
trary, he appreciates most thoroughly with his mind, as well as
with his heart, every one of her many beauties.
Would she seem as lovely in a drawing-room under the
glare of artificial light, with all the trappings and.trammels of
fashion about her, as she seems here in her simple white gown
under the open sky, with the green leaves for her background,
and the long grasses for her carpet ? Over and over again he
has asked the question of himself, and always failed to find
the answer.
Indeed it is hard to imagine her under any artificial circum-
stances at all. Her absolute naturalness is, perhaps, her most
prevailing characteristic, and her chiefest charm. There is a
certain audacity of youth, and health, and perfect joyous hope
about her of which it would be difficult to rob her, even in
imagination.
He understands that her gown is of the simplest and cheapest
kind, and that it does nothing to enhance the beauties of her
figure, though it does nothing to hide them—and he is by no
means one of those who think that simplicity and cheapness
are the most desirable attributes in a gown. But, on the
other hand, the cream rose lying among the laces about her
neck is not more exquisitely veined, more delicately tinted than
her fresh young skin; and after all, a gown may be bought, but
such a skin as that cannot be had for all the money in the world.
" I thought you were not coming," he says, going to meet
her with outstretched hands. " I thought that my good luck
had deserted me at last."
" I have been a prey to good resolutions," she answers,
looking up at him with a glance that is at once brilliant and shy,
" or rather," laughing a little, " to a conflict between good
resolutions and bad ones. You see, I could no longer pre-
tend to myself that I did not know you would be here, or,"
hesitating, " knowing that you were here, that I had any right
to come and see you. But at last
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
9
" But at last ? "—he says with a confident smile, looking
down at her with his handsome, laughing eyes.
" But at last," she says, laughing outright, " I grew so unut-
terably, so insufferably tired of my own company, that if I had
known my worst enemy was waiting for me on the other side
of the stile I should have come to meet him."
•'Your worst enemy?" he says, still holding her two slim
hands, still looking into her lovely joyous face. " As if you
could possibly have an enemy in the world ! "
" When I come to think of it, I am not sure that I have.
That is one advantage of a limited circle of acquaintance.
Unless," with a sudden show of seriousness, " unless you are
one."
tl I!" he says, dropping her hands and moving a pace or
two away. (Already she has found that it is not difficult to
ruffle his temper.) " How is it possible that I could be your
enemy ? "
" Are you sure," she says, looking at him with a straightness
and directness that makes him a little uneasy, " that you have
not been misleading me ? Are you sure—quite sure, that in
meeting you and talking to you without anyone knowing any-
thing about it, I have not been doing a very dreadful thing ? "
" Absolutely sure ! " he says hotly. "Ask yourself—what
harm can there possibly be in it ? What have we said or done
that all the world might not have known and been none the
wiser ?"
"But," she persists, with a certain wistful uneasiness, born
more of his look than his words, " if any other girl had done
the same as I have done, what would you have thought of
her?"
He knows very well what he would have thought of any
other girl under the same circumstances, and reddens guiltily
at the knowledge. But then, on the other hand, he knows
that the laws by which he would have judged all the many girls
of his acquaintance would not hold good with this one, and
10
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
that he has never for an instant confounded her with
them.
" I should have thought," he says, a little irritably, " that if
she had happened to find herself in almost solitary confine-
ment on one side of the hedge, while I am in a similar con-
dition on the other, she would have been a prude or a fool if
she had refused to alleviate our mutual misery by exchanging
a few words with me. And you," looking at her, " are neither
the one nor the other—or so I take it."
" And yet," says the girl, with a little sigh, " it seems so
mean to deceive Dolly. Do you know," fixing her clear, lovely
eyes on his face, " that I have never kept a secret from Dolly
in all my life ? "
Something in her look vexes him—he scarcely understands
why—unless it is that it makes him feel himself worse than he
has ever intended to be.
" Then by all means tell Dolly," he says, a good deal more
carelessly than he feels. " After all—what is there to tell ?
That you and I have occasionally come across each other in
the woods and the lanes—living so close together, by-the-bye,
we should have been very clever not to come across each
other, if we ever took our walks abroad at all. That once or
twice you have found me like the fellow in the song who is for
ever
' Sitting on the stile, Mary.'
Is not that about all ? Probably," he goes on still in that
tone of well-assumed indifference, 11 as she will take a purely
conventional view of the subject, she will offer to accompany
you in your walks for the future—and much as I admire and
respect her, I am not sure that we do not get on better with-
out her—you and I."
" Poor Dolly !" says the girl, leaning her elbows, whose
round, young curves the tight cotton sleeves so clearly reveal,
on the rough wooden stile, and looking up—straight up—into
the clear blue of the sky with the undazzled eyes of a child.
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. n
" Does it not strike you that you are a little ungrateful ? But
for her you would never have known me."
" Should I not ? " he asks, coming a little closer, and won-
dering more than a little how he could ever have admired any
other face than this. "Do you think I could have lived for
three weeks within a stone's throw of you and not have found
you out; or having found you out, that I should not have
moved heaven and earth to know you ? "
" I think," she answers gravely, " that we might have lived
for ever, you on that side of the meadow, I on this—that we
might have looked at each other through the hedges, across
the stile, over our park palings, and if we had not been pro-
perly, formally introduced, we should have gone to our graves
without speaking to each other. Are we not English, both
English to the back-bone ? "
He laughs then.
" Speak for yourself! You might not have spoken to me,
but I should most assuredly have spoken to you. And you
—what would you have done ? Would you have turned the
cold shoulder on me ? I do not believe you have a cold
shoulder to turn. It is certainly hard to imagine you fixing
anyone with a stony British stare. And, after all," smiling at
the recollection of the day he had first met her, "I do not
know that I have much to thank Miss Dalrymple for. She
certainly held out to the utmost verge of politeness. I believe
she would never have introduced us, if I had not almost forced
her into it."
" How you stuck to us all down that muddy lane ! " says the
girl, laughing too as she recalls the scene. " How persist-
ently you held your umbrella over Dolly's head ! How polite
you were ! How undaunted by all her frozen little speeches !
But at least you will acknowledge that when she did give in,
she did it very graciously—nothing that Dolly does is ever un-
gracious ! My sister, Psyche ; Psyche, Captain Darrell—
Sir Adrian's nephew !"
12
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
She mimics her sister's voice and manner to the very life.
At one moment her face is alive with mischievous merriment—
at the next it sobers suddenly.
" I am wrong," she says, with swift contrition. " I ought
not to make fun of Dolly, for after all, she is the only friend I
have in the world. There is no doubt," she goes on solemnly,
" that I have a very bad habit of making fun of people, and
that it has made a great many of them hate me. In fact,"
with a heavy sigh, "some of the girls at school, who found
me out in doing it, would not even speak to me."
" No wonder ! " he says mockingly. " It is certainly a most
pernicious habit—and while we are about it, I may as well
point out another bad way you have got into."
"Yes?" she asks anxiously.
" A way," he goes on, edging a little nearer to her, " of
looking at people in the worst possible light. A few minutes
ago you almost told me to my face that you counted me as
your enemy. Now, you say you have but one friend in the
world, and that is Dolly. Do not you think," looking at her
with a tenderness that he finds hard to disguise under a jesting
manner, " that if you ever come to such a pass that you should
need a friend that you might count me as one ? "
" I do not know," she answers very slowly, after a percept-
ible interval, regarding him with the open-eyed, earnest
scrutiny of a child. "You see, I have only known you for
three weeks, and in those three weeks I have only seen the
fair-weather side of you—I cannot tell what the other side
may be like."
"How do you know that I have another side?" he says
jestingly—a little uneasy under the candid appraisal of her
look. " At any rate, let us hope that you may never need to
find it out, that it may always be fair weather with you. You
do not look as if you could stand many storms."
"In fact," she says, casting aside her seriousness as she
would an unaccustomed garment, and thrusting her hands
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 13
through her hair with the careless and unpremeditated gesture
of one who has not yet learned to study her pose, " I am like
my emblem, a butterfly—born to sport in the sunshine, and to
be washed away by the first heavy shower. I am not sure,
after all, that that is not a better fate than to have a longer life
with a good deal of work, and very little play. In all those
endless fables about the bees and the butterflies, the ants and
the grasshoppers, that I learnt at school, I am bound to con-
fess my sympathies were always with the butterflies and the
grasshoppers—were not yours ? "
" Most certainly," says Darrell, laughing. " I always hated
the good boys and loved the bad ones—that is the reactionary
tendency of all stories with a moral. By the way, what were
your godfathers and godmothers thinking of when they gave
you such a name as Psyche ? Psyche"—lingering over it
as if it is not altogether distasteful to him—"it is certainly
horribly heathenish, but at any rate it has the merit of being
uncommon."
" I never had any godfathers or godmothers that I know
of," says the girl—lightly seating herself on the stile, and
swaying one foot backwards and forwards, while he leans
against it so close to her that it is a little difficult to refrain
from touching the hand by which she keeps her balance.
" And as a matter of fact it is not my name at all! I was
baptized out of a tea-cup or a hand-basin or something of the
sort an hour after I was born, and the parson having no one to
tell him any better, made the great, the irretrievable mistake
of giving me my mother's name."
" Good heavens ! " says Darrell, sympathisingly— " was it
such a dreadful one ? "
"On the contrary," she answers with some warmth, for
indeed this is a sore subject with her. " It is Marguerite. It
may not be a very pretty name, or a very grand one,"
looking at him as if she is prepared to combat both these
points, " but no one can deny that for all ordinary work-a-
14 UNSPOTTED PROM THE WORLD.
day, serviceable purposes, it is a thousand times more useful
and less ridiculous than Psyche—and yet, do you know,"
fixing her big dark eyes full on him, " that one might as well
fire off a bomb-shell as let it pass one's lips up there," indi-
eating her home with a little motion of her head, "so that
after all I might just as well have no name at all."
But of this rather unintelligible statement, he, strange to
say—though he is usually by no means devoid of curiosity—
asks no explanation. His eyes, usually so ready to seek hers,
are fixedly regarding a little tuft of daisies that he is industri-
ously digging to pieces with his foot.
"That is hard lines," he says presently, seeing that she
waits for him to say something. " But after all, you know,"
with renewed cheerfulness, "Psyche is not such a bad
name. It is a little outlandish, perhaps, and it would not suit
everyone — but you," looking at her with undisguised ad-
miration—" you are the very image of a Psyche ! "
" Am I ? " she says, a little doubtfully, nearly overbalancing
herself in a sudden perilous effort to reach at a branch of
May-blossom that is a good deal farther off than it seems.
" That is what Dolly says. There is a Psyche among the
pictures at home, and long ago Dolly fancied it was like me—
that was why she gave me the name, and it has stuck to me
for want of a better. But," dubiously, " I do not think she
looks a very nice sort of person. She has a butterfly on
her shoulder, and," reddening a little—" not many clothes
on."
He laughs. He cannot help it.
"I am afraid that most of the classical subjects are not very
nice sort of people regarded from your point of view," he says
gaily.
She has reached the refractory bough of the thorn-tree at
last, but even when she has it well within her hand she finds
it harder to break off than she had imagined.
" Let me do it!" he says suddenly.
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD, 15
And doing it, his hands touch hers, his eyes meet hers, and
there is a silence;—a shy and embarrassed silence on her
part—a pleasant and satisfying one on his- If one is in love,
if one is so close to the woman one loves that one can count
almost the long curled lashes that lie on the warm soft cheeks,
the rise and fall of each breath as it comes, silence is not alto-
gether a bad thing. He, at all events, has no desire to break
it. He is conscious, perhaps, that if he does, he may say in
his haste something that he may have to repent at his
leisure.
For though it is not to be denied that he is in love—love
has not as yet overstepped the bounds of reason.
CHAPTER II.
It is she who speaks first, moving a little away from him
and looking at him with eyes whose absolute innocence of
coquetry recalls him suddenly to himself—not too soon.
If that silence had lasted but a moment longer, heaven
knows what foolish, irrevocable things he might not have said
or done. And he is still sane enough to congratulate himself
that they are left unsaid—undone.
"There is something I want to ask you," she begins,
hesitatingly. " I have wanted to ask some one ever since I
came home from school, and Dolly and Puggeridge (that is
my old nurse, you know) are no good—they will not tell me
the truth. But you," regarding him earnestly—"are only
an outsider. You can have no possible reason for deceiving
me."
"Heaven forbid!" he says, jestingly. "Why should I
deceive you ? Ask me any questions you please, so long as
they are not ' What are the latitude and longitude of Timbuc-
i6 tJNSPOTtED FROM THE WORLD.
too ?' Of ' What is the present population of Kamschatka ? '
Those are the sort of questions that floor me !"
"Be serious, if you can," she says, with gentle reproach,
"for it concerns me very nearly, and I—I think you like
me well enough to help me to the truth."
Then seeing that his face has changed tc a seriousness that
is all, or indeed more, than she can desire—
"I want you to tell me," she goes on, still with the same
wistful earnestness, "if you had loved anyone very much and
she were dead, should you—should you hate anything or
anyone that reminded you of her?—should you dread
them ?—should you avoid them"—her voice trembling a
little—" as—as if they were poison ? "
" Good heavens, no ! Most certainly not!" he answers with
honest conviction, not yet seeing where the question leads
him.
" And if," she goes on, still fixing him with the questioning
of big, deep eyes; "if she had been your nearest and dearest
—your wife—and dying, she had left you a little child, who
by-and-by, growing up, grew in so many ways like her mother,
that, looking at her, you could not help remembering the
woman you had loved, would you"—her voice rising and
faltering so that it goes near to break—" would you so
dislike the sight of her whose only crime was the heritage of
her mother's looks and voice, that you would avoid, as far as
was possible, the look of her eyes, the touch of her hands ?—■
or if one or the other were forced upon you by the necessity to
hide to the world the dislike for which you had no excuse,
would you touch her—would you look at her almost as if
you loathed her ? "
"God forbid!" says Darrell, flushing hotly, for indeed he
sees now where she has led him, and seeing, he says no more.
What, indeed, is there that he can say ?
" Two months ago," says the girl, sadly, after a while look-5
ing not at him but straight up into the fleckless blue of the sky
t/NSPOffED FROM TllF WoRLQ. iy
above her head, and thoughtfully tapping her gown with the
branch of May-blossom which no longer seems to her so sweet-
smelling, so much to be desired now she has possessed herself
of it, " I came home from school—only two months ago, though
I am nineteen. I had been there four years without a break.
Always when the holidays came there was some reason or
another, good or bad, why I could not come back. Father had
gone to this place or that to drink the waters, and Dolly had
gone with him; or father was ill, or too poor to afford the
journey backward and forward. One thing or another," with
a smile that is over-bitter for such fresh lips, " served as an
excuse to keep me out of his sight, as I had been kept out of
it ever since I was born. But at last it was impossible to put
off the evil day any longer, and I came home."
"Yes?"
It is not a very expressive or a very sympathetic word, and
yet Darrell, finding it safer, perhaps, to confine himself to mono-
syllables, contrives to throw such an amount of expression and
sympathy into it as to satisfy her of his interest.
"You cannot think," she goes on presently, with such a
falter in her voice as convinces him, though he dare not look
up, how very near the tears must be to her sweet brown eyes,
" how much I had built upon that home-coming. One changes
so much from fifteen to nineteen, and I had thought—it seems
so foolish now, that I hardly dare tell you—but I had hoped
that he would find me improved, that he would be pleased
with me. I had even," with a poor little attempt at a smile,
" tried to work hard at my few little accomplishments—they
are not many, I confess, but I wanted to make the most of
them. The other girls used to tell me how their fathers and
mothers were so eager and interested about what they had
learnt during the term. Well!"—breaking off with a laugh,
" I might have spared myself the pains, as it turned out."
There is a little pause.
" Do not tell me any more," he says, in a voice that is
£
18 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
strangely moved, and at the same time strangely constrained.
" I would much rather not hear any more."
"Are you so tired of my poor little story?" she asks,
reproachfully. " Do not be afraid—it is nearly done. I was
only going to tell you how I came home."
" I am glad at any rate you did come home," he says, per-
mitting himself to lapse into a tenderness of tone that seems
to him almost excusable under the circumstances. "Think
how different these three weeks would have been to me if you
had not been here."
" I started in the highest spirits," she goes on narratively,
altogether ignoring this compliment, being indeed too full of
her own grievance, too anxious to tell it to someone—to any-
one, to pause by the way. " I have mostly very good spirits,
and though, heaven knows," with a heavy sigh, " I have not
had much cause for them, they have not been altogether
knocked out of me as yet. By the time I got to my journey's
end I could scarcely contain myself—when I saw Dolly stand-
ing on the little platform I hardly waited for the train to stop
before I jumped out. I hugged Dolly in the face of the porters
and station-master—I hugged the ' rats.' Do you know those
little ponies of ours ? They are the only things driveable left
to us. Through all the ups and downs of our fortunes—they
are chiefly downs and no ups by the way—we have stuck to
them, probably because they are such poor little things that no
one would have them. I think I«nearly hugged the groom.
Even Dolly's quietness—she is very quiet, you know," breaking
off and knitting her brows—" terribly quiet, as if all the life
had been knocked out of her—but even that did not damp me
much. She was kind to me, and loving—she is always that,
—and she was honestly glad, I think, to see me back; and so
was nurse, but "
She pauses a moment, but he does not look at her—does not
speak. It is in his heart to tell her again that he would rather
hear no more, but he refrains.
Unspotted from the world. 19
u But," she goes on, with a laugh that has a little tremble in
it, " if I had thought that father was coming to the door with
open arms to receive me like a long-lost child, I was disap-
pointed. I had been three hours in the house before I saw
him at all—and then—and then Well!—let me tell you
just how it was, that you may judge for yourself whether the
greeting he gave me was such as I might fairly have expected.
I had dressed for dinner. I had put on the best gown I pos-
sess—I have one decent one, and though it may not be very
good as gowns go, it is not altogether disfiguring—and I was
standing by the window with my back to the door when he
came in. Dolly was at the other end of the room. It was
half dark and he could not see her. He came straight up to
me and said, ' Dolly, am I late ? " and I turned round and
held out my hands and said, ' It is not Dolly, father, it is
I—Psyche.'"
For the space of a second there is another silence. He has
a horrible idea that the tremble in her voice is getting too much
for her—that she is fighting with it.
"And—and what did he do?" he asks stupidly, feeling
constrained to say something.
" He looked at me for a moment," she answers with suspi-
cious quietness, "as if he were looking at something horrible
or dreadful, and then he turned away without a word, and went
out of the room, slamming the door after him."
" Good heavens !" says Darrell, between his teeth. " What
a brute!"
" Dolly got up and went after him," she goes on, her voice
faltering now beyond concealment, " and she left the door a
little open. I heard her say, ' It is not her fault. Father,
come back and speak to her ! Poor little Psyche !' but I was
so confused, so miserable I could not catch his answer. After
all it does not much matter, does it? One—one can guess
pretty well what it was."
Darrell has a terrible suspicion that the tears which he is
so UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
pretty certain were somewhere near her eyes a minute ago
have by this time brimmed over. If he sees them he is undone.
He looks away from her, kicking viciously at the half-annihilated
daisies, and casting about in his mind for words of friendly—
and yet mot over tender—consolation. But before he can fix
on those that hit the happy medium between the two, she
herself saves him the trouble.
" Dolly did her best to explain it," she goes on, in a voice
that convinces him that he is wrong about the crying—however
near the tears may have been, she has managed to get the
better of them. " She told me that I was so like mother—who
died when I was born, you know—that the sight of me gave
him a shock and overcame his feelings. For my part," with a
little laugh, " I do not think he has any feelings—but that is a
detail."
" She was right," says Darrell quickly, seizing eagerly this
cold scrap of comfort; " no doubt she was right. I—I have
often heard that there are people whose sorrow takes that
peculiar form. They cannot bear to see a thing or hear a
word that reminds them of—of the person they have lost."
"His sorrow certainly takes a peculiar form," says the girl,
drily. " He has banished even my mother's portrait into a
lumber-room."
" It is sure to come right," he goes on, consolingly. " It is
not possible that he could help loving you, when he knows
you."
" Is it not ? " smiling coldly. " He has certainly since that
first evening said ' Good morning' or 1 Good night' to me when
he has been obliged. He has once or twice passed me the
salt or the mustard at breakfast. When I ask him a question
—it is not often, for I am too much afraid of him—he answers
it with the civility he would show to a stranger. Without a
doubt we are on the high-road to becoming better acquainted
with each other."
Then of a sudden—with one of those swift changes which
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
21
he has learned to look for in her—she drops her bitter lightness
of tone, and turns on him with passionate earnest.
" "Why do you try to make excuses for him ? " she asks quickly
and vehemently. " Dolly and nurse put me off like that because
they want to keep me quiet. They are afraid of him; but you
—you can have no object in telling me what is not true. For
it is not true—say what you will," her voice rising, " it is not
natural—it is not even probable that he should hate me just
because he loved my mother, I do not know why I should
have bothered you with my troubles at all," reddening a little
at the thought of the confidence she has bestowed on him
unasked, " except that I have no one," lifting her hands with
a little passionate gesture—literally no one to tell it to, and
I had a sort of foolish thought that you, who know the world
so much better than I, could help me to some solution of the
mystery."
" Do not be sorry that you told me," he says, stretching out
his hand to her with a tenderness he no longer cares to control.
" Do not you know that I would give the world to help you, if
I could?"
" All my life I have felt there was something strange about
me; something unlike other girls," she says, letting him take
the slim, white hand that lies passive in her lap, and looking
at him with a sudden moisture in her lovely, childish eyes.
" But no one will tell me what it is, and—and I think we
will not talk about it any more, if you please."
And in this he does not gainsay her. On the contrary, he
turns the subject with an alacrity that is sufficiently suspicious,
could she understand it. For in truth he has been sitting on
thorns ever since she started it. The knowledge that the
" something strange " about her life is no secret to him—no
secret to anyone in the county but the girl herself—has made
him feel absolutely guilty under the innocent questioning of
her eyes; and a man does not care to feel more guilty than he
needs,
£2 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
CHAPTER III.
The old church clock down in the hollow has struck one a
good many minutes back, and the wedding-bells have long
ago left off their joyous clanging.
Somewhere down in the little village—where they were
born, where they have been married, where they will, in all
probability, die and be burried—the bride and bridegroom,
having called in their friends and neighbours to rejoice with
them, are, without doubt, eating, drinking, and making merry,
with that happy-go-lucky philosophy which belongs only to
the very poor, who, if they be not like the lilies of the field in
purity, almost equal them in absence of thought for the
morrow. Though it is certain that when that morrow comes
they will have to toil a good deal harder and spin a great deal
faster to pay for to-day's hardly-earned holiday, yet it is equally
certain that they enjoy it while it lasts with an unbounded
lightness of spirit, a childish forgetfulness of the care that lies
behind and before them, that they who have never worked and
never suffered cannot even understand.
And under the thorn tree Psyche and Darrell are saying
" Good-bye."
"Good-bye " is a word that may be quickly enough spoken
when one is not only willing but anxious to speed the parting
guest. But it is also a word that admits of a good many
renderings—that may be repeated again and again and yet not
found nauseous. Thes e two are lingering over it still.
Up among the young thick leaves of the trees above their
heads the birds are taking their siestas. They have been sing-
ing all the morning — ever since the sun first showed his
face among the red-grey clouds of dawn—and their little
throats are tired. The lowing of the kine in a distant meadow;
the little quick, sharp bark of a dog in the farm yonder; the
dull, slow buzzing of a bee who is thrusting his golden-brown
head into the flowers that lie unsuspected among the thick,.
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 23
lush grasses of the meadows over the stile, are the only sounds
that break the sleepy stillness of the day. And in the midst of
it these two stand face to face, hand to hand, as utterly alone
as if they were in the garden of Eden.
There is a right of way over the meadow, but there is no one
to use it but a shepherd or two or a labourer going to his work,
and they come only in the early morning or the late evening.
As Darrell thinks of it his heart beats as it has not beat for
ten years or more. If it were indeed the garden of Eden, and
he were Adam and she were Eve, he would not be long in tell-
ing her how much he loves her; how, looking in her soft
brown eyes, he finds heaven there; how, seeing the tremble of
her warm red lips, he longs to touch them with his own. But
it is not Eden, and there are a good many weighty considera-
tions that were unknown in Adam's time to hold him back.
They have been very good friends since that day, three
weeks ago, when he made her acquaintance in a muddy lane
and an April shower—wonderfully good friends considering
how short a time it is. But then they are both young, both
fond of the sound of their own voices, both more partial to any
company than their own, and both, by the chance of circum-
stances, left absolutely to their own devices, and to the finding
of their own amusement.
Yet among all the many words that he has spoken to her,
there has been none, not one, that has overstepped the
boundary line between liking, admiration, friendship—call it
what you will and—love. And he means—has meant all along
—to go away, leaving it unspoken.
The liking, the admiration, the friendship have been very
warm—over-warm perhaps. He has even loved her—as men
count love—but he knows that in his future life she can hold
no serious part at all, and that he is therefore bound in honour
to speak no word of actual love.
For, you see, he belongs to a not unnumerous class who be-
lieve that they can go to the very ut.most verge of love-making
24 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
—can say, do, look, imply anything they please, and so long
as they speak not the irrevocable word that shall pledge them
to a woman for life—their honour is no way involved.
It is a creed that serves them well enough, and does no par-
ticular harm in a society where it is pretty well understood;
and if Darrell's conscience tells him that it is hardly a fair one
with this girl, who knows nothing of society, it is certain those
conscience-pricks are not sharp enough to make him forego
his pleasure.
. There can be no doubt that she is altogether forbidden to
him, and a good deal the more tempting for being forbidden.
If he had been the hero of a romance or a good little story-
book he would have done his duty and gone away from her;
but being not a hero, but only a man who lived and breathed
and had his being in a prosaic and pleasure-seeking age, he
considered his pleasure before his duty, and he had not gone
away from her.
But though he commits himself to no words, the look in his
eyes is warm enough to bring a sudden rose-tint to her cheeks,
and to make her loose her hands from his and clasp them with
a little gesture of determination behind her back.
Considered critically, that faint, soft blush is the prettiest
thing he has seen for a long time. Considered aesthetically,
that attitude leaves nothing to be desired. Personally he might
wish it less uncompromising, and a good deal more tender.
" I must go now—I must really go ! " she says, with a little
quick drawing of her breath. " We have said ' good-bye'
often enough, have we not? — and Dolly will be waiting.
She will .scold me if the mutton-chops are burnt to cinders."
" Do you mean," he asks, with a dismay that is largely
mingled with compassion, " that—that you are going to lunch
off mutton-chops?"
" Not only to lunch off them," she answers, laughing like a
merry child, " but most probably to dine off them also j and
very glad we are to get them. You see we have but one
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
25
butcher in Combe-Avon, and we are such poor customers
compared to you grand folks up there," indicating, with a
bend of her head, the big house where Darrell fares most
sumptuously every day, "that we have to take what he
chooses to give us. Sometimes," she goes on confidentially,
"we vary the menu with a fowl of our own rearing, but as
the hens are laying so well just now, Dolly says it is a pity to
kill them."
"And," says Darrell, regarding her with a profound and
genuine pity which not all her former troubles have evoked
from him, " your father—does he also dine off mutton-
chops ? "
" Father is not so young as we are, and his appetite is bad—
at least," with a small fine smile—" so Dolly says. She and
Puggeridge spend most of their mornings with their heads
over a cookery-book devising something to tempt it. It
generally has some French name, something that was not in
our dictionary at school, but it smells very good."
"Do you mean," asks Darrell, pursuing the theme with an
unassumed interest, "that ^has one dish, and you another? "
"He lunches in his own room, thank heaven !" she an-
swers quickly; "and we are young and healthy and can eat
anything—thank heaven for that also ! If the mutton-chops
are a little bit tough," laughing maliciously, " so much the
better—they go all the further. The very thought of them
makes me hungry ! Good-bye !"
"Stay a moment!" he cries hastily, pursuing her. "Do
not go like that! What are you going to do with yourself all
the rest of the day ? "
" What am I going to do with myself? " she repeats slowly,
glancing at him from under her long lashes with the first trace
of coquetry he had perceived in her. " What I generally do,
I suppose, and that is—nothing."
"And I also am going to do—nothing," he says gaily.
" What a pity we cannot do it together."
26
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
" I might have driven the ponies this afternoon," she goes
on, disregarding this last broad hint, " only Dolly is busy, and
she will not let me go alone. And this evening she and
father are going to dine out—worse luck ! They do not go
out more than once in a month or so, and then it is only to
the vicarage. Father hates most people, but he likes the
vicar—though he is not very nice. He sticks butterflies and
beetles on pins, and smells of camphor."
"And you are not going? "he asks eagerly.
" They have not asked me—no one ever asks me," she
answers ruefully. " I suppose they do not know I am at
home. To be sure," with a little smile "it does not matter
much. There will be no one there but a curate or an old
woman or two, and I do not greatly care for them."
"And you will be all alone," says Darrell, slowly—
" all alone, and with nothing to do. Six hours between this
and dinner-time—ten hours before it can by any possibility be
counted bed-time. Think what a horrible waste of time!
How in the world will you get through it ? "
" As well as I shall get through all the rest of the hours and
days and weeks and years that go to make up the sum of a
woman's life," she says, with a small grave smile, affecting not
to understand the purport of this last question, though indeed
it is not beyond the grasp of the densest imagination. " As
far as I can see, there is no better prospect before me, and one
may as well get used to it at once."
And with that, she turns and leaves him with so determined
and unrelenting an air that, though he takes a step or two in
pursuit of her, he very soon abandons it.
As a matter of fact he is helped to this decision by the
remembrance that it wants but five or six minutes to lunch-
time, and that if anything sours his uncle's already soured
temper beyond repair, it is being kept waiting for his meals.
As he jumps over the stile he casts a look back at Psyche's
retreating figure, pausing a moment to admire the graceful
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 27
carriage of her small head, the free, untrammelled step with
which she moves, mentally comparing it with the mincing and
ambling gait of those women of his acquaintance whose
every movement betrays a consciousness of watching eyes.
Without a doubt she is so perfect a piece of heaven-born,
inartificial beauty, as a man cannot hope to come across more
than once in a lifetime.
Almost he is persuaded that a life of mutton-chops, shared
with her, would be not only bearable, but pleasant. And
certainly, if he were to marry her, he could not hope for
anything better than such plain fare, and might live to be
thankful even for them.
But as he turns his back upon her and goes quickly through
the meadow, her many beauties begin to fade into the back-
ground of his thoughts, while an appreciative prevision, to
which the keen, strong air of the country has given zest, of
'what that most excellent chef\ who lives to minister to the jaded
appetite of one old man, may have in store for him, takes the
foreground.
Certainly, there are degrees of misery as well as of pleasure.
He, for instance, has pitied himself sincerely for the horrible
monotony of the days that he has devoted to dancing attend-
ance on an old man's pleasure. But in each of those days he
has at least had something to break the eternal sameness of the
hours—while Psyche As he thinks of her, admiration
begins to dwindle into pity, and he tells himself again, as he
has told himself a hundred times before, that there has been
enough—too much, perhaps—of this pleasant fooling, and the
sooner he gets back to London the better.
88
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
CHAPTER IV.
Meanwhile Psyche goes with steps as swift as his, though
quickened by an altogether different motive, through the little
greenwood which separates the gardens of her own home from
the meadow beyond.
The meadow and all the outlying lands have long ago been
parted with to anyone who could afford to rent or buy them,
but this little copse, being altogether unprofitable, still remains
in her father's possession. And it would be difficult to find a
prettier place in all the country round. Though some of the
big trees have been cut down and gone—as so much has gone
before them—to make money, the young ones are thick and
strong, and pretty well fill the places of their predecessors.
To Psyche, fresh from the dull and trammelled life of a city
school, the wonders of a wood in spring-time are as yet too
beautiful and strange to be passed over. Before she has got
to the end of it her hands are full of little strange mosses, of
all manner of starry-headed blossoms, and small, curly fern-
fronds—her hat has fallen off and is swinging over her arm,
her hair has caught in a bough and is a good deal dishevelled,
her hands are none the whiter for grubbing in the earth.
" What a figure I must look!" she thinks to herself. " Thank
goodness, there is no one to see me !"
But even as she thinks it she hears voices, and stands a
moment hesitating, and then going softly, peeps through the
gate which divides the wood from the garden.
It is an old green gate—solid half-way up, the other half of
trellis-work—through which a good many straggling creepers
have thrust their branches.
Looking through, she sees a quaint old garden lying on one
side of a big grey house where the sunshine seldom comes,
where the shadow always dwells, and to whose straight paths,
formal borders, and primly-cut trees not even the unbounded
luxuriance of spring has been able to lend much beauty. Even
unspotted prom the world.
zg
on this fair spring morning, with the sun shining so gladly in
the unbroken blue of the sky, with the fresh, free air bending
the tree-tops over Psyche's head, no brightness seems to come
to it.
By a broken moss-grown sun-dial at the end that is farthest
from the house, nearest to the gate, a girl and a man are stand-
ing talking. She has her hands clasped loosely in front of her,
and is looking up at him. He is leaning against the sundial
with his arms crossed, looking down at her. And, indeed,,
standing there, with her neat brown head uncovered, and the
folds of her sad-coloured gown falling straightly around her,
there is a sweet and dainty grace about her that makes her
worth looking at.
She is talking—he is listening. Psyche cannot hear what
she says, her voice is too low and soft; but his, though it is
neither loud nor sharp, has a peculiar clearness that carries
every word distinctly to her.
And in an instant—hearing it—she recognises the man him-
self, though his back is turned to her, and she has not seen his
face nor heard his voice for eight years or more. It is a voice
that being once heard could not be easily forgotten—but above
all and beyond all it is one of the few, the very few, that used
to speak kindly to her in her childhood.
Her face beams with gladness. She lays her hand on the
latch—then stops suddenly, listening.
"Are you going to sacrifice yourself to her as you have
sacrificed yourself to your father, all your life ? " he is saying.
" Do not begin by troubling yourself about her. Have you not
enough worries already ? "
She cannot hear the answer. She only sees that Dolly flushes
a little, and then looks up at him quickly.
What shall she do to let them know that she is there ? Be»
fore she can do anything he speaks again.
" Lovely—is she ? " with a little laugh. " That is your way,
to deify everything that belongs to you, and a very good way
30
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
too—but for all that, I must take leave to doubt the loveliness.
Do you think I do not remember her ? Almost the last time
I saw her was when she tumbled into the brook, and I picked
her up and carried'her home. A nice little child—a dear little
child; but not pretty. A little thing with a white face and red
hair—horribly leggy."
The words are hardly out of his mouth when a peal of
laughter makes them start asunder as though they were shot,
and the gate swinging open discloses Psyche — a flushed,
dishevelled, laughing, and most lovely Psyche !
Her ferns and flowers have fallen on to the ground, thrown
anywhere on the impulse of the moment; her two hands are
outstretched in gladdest greeting.
" Here are the white face and the red hair to speak for them-
selves," she says gaily. " The legs, unfortunately, must go
undefended. You see," breaking into fresh laughter, "I have
taken to long gowns."
She is looking up into his face—much as she used to look
eight years ago, when, though others called him stern and grave
and cold, she was always sure—so sure—of a kind and gentle
smile—looking up with an undisguised, unmistakeable gladness !
Had she not said but a moment ago that she had not a friend
in the world but Dolly ? And here is one whom she had
forgotten—whom she is glad, most glad, to find again.
But the warmth of her look is by no means returned. A
man does not like to be startled; and he has been horribly,
ridiculously startled. He has not had time to get accustomed
to her; to understand that the little child whom he has petted
and kissed and been so sorry for—has turned into this !
His eyes—cold, incisive eyes they seem to Psyche—appear
to be taking her measure from head to foot. But, in truth,
they are more startled than critical.
He has always thought of her, he has just now spoken of
her, and in her own hearing, as a little white-faced, red-haired,
long-legged child, for whose lack of all those things that most
Unspotted fpom tnk would.
31
belong to childhood he had been so sorry. And he finds her
a woman^-a woman who, in her outer aspect, certainly carries
no demand for pity. And for all young women, with the one
exception of Dolly, he has a deeply-routed dislike; for all fast
young women—and it seems to his fastidious taste that this
first speech of Psyche's savours of fastness—a just and lively
abhorrence.
She meets the coldness of his look with wonder and dismay.
Slowly—very slowly—it begins to dawn upon her that the out-
spoken unreticent gladness of her greeting is not returned.
"Are you not going to apologise to me ? " she says, dropping
her hands and laughing a little still, more from nervousness
than from mirth. "Do you know—have you any idea what
rude things you have said of me? "
"Were they rude?" he answers, slowly and very coldly.
" If they were I can hardly blame myself. You see I did not
know you were listening behind the gate."
His look and his tone no less than his words seem to convey
to her that she has been found out in an indiscretion—and an
unladylike one. And of an instant the laughter and the glad-
ness, that had made her face so lovely but a moment before,
die out of it—leaving it very still and suddenly white.
She regards him for a moment in silence, and then she turns
her back upon him, utterly ignoring his presence.
" Do you know, Dolly," she says, laying her hands on her
sister's shoulders, and her face close against hers, " I expected
a lecture. Ten minutes ago I was at the very end of the wood,"
reddening a little as' she remembers what she was doing there,
" and I hurried all the way home, partly because I thought you
would scold me, but chiefly—certainly chiefly—because I am
so hungry. And it seems I might have spared myself the pains.
You do not seem," with reproach, "to be even thinking of
lunch!"
It is a very pretty caress. Any man looking at it uncritically
might well admire the pose of the girl's light figure, the rough
32 UNSPOTTED FROM TlLE WORLD-.
goldembronze head against the sleek brown ond. But thig
man has so warm a regard for Dolly that it makes him almost
angry to see how absolutely the bright and radiant beauty of
the one face pales the other into insignificance.
Apart from her sister, Dolly might be, and indeed has been,
all her life regarded as a very pretty woman. By the side of
her there is just enough likeness between them to make her
appear in the light of a poor pale copy of a most beautiful
picture. Without doubt the caress is nothing but a piece of
rank coquetry!
But Dolly does not see it in that light. " The lunch will be
ready directly," she says, looking into the lovely eyes so near
her own with a grave smile of unqualified admiration. " It is
not so sumptuous that it will not keep, and—we do not see our
friends every day, you know, Psyche. Sir John only came home
yesterday, and I am so glad to have him back."
In her quiet eyes, as she turns them on him, there is the
steady shining of a great and assured regard. In her looks
there is just a suspicion of gentle reproach—or so Psyche takes
it.
"And no doubt you have a dozen things to say to each
other," she says, dropping her hands, " so I will not interrupt
you. I, for my part," laughing, " will go and see after the
mutton-chops!"
The laugh is still on her lips as nodding gaily and brightly
to Sir John, but not again holding out her hand, she goes
lightly and quickly away. But when she is well out of their
sight it fades suddenly, her lips begin to quiver—like the lips
of a child who expecting a caress receives a blow—and quick
hurt tears spring into her eyes. But they cannot see that.
" Well?" says Dolly, looking after her as she goes, and then
up into her companion's face. " Was I not right ? Is she not
just as lovely as I told you ? "
" She is very pretty," he says slowly, looking too, but with
unwilling admiration. " But—do not be vexed with me,
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
33
Dorothy—I am afraid she has something of the boarding-school
taint about her."
" You are wrong," she says quickly, " altogether wrong. In
all the world it would be difficult to find a girl more absolutely
innocent and childish than she is. Indeed," lifting her pretty
sad eyes to his, " I am often troubled—sorely troubled—to
think how it can fare with her in a world of which she knows
so little, and trusts so much."
" She will do well enough ; no doubt but she will get on all
right," he says, kindly and heartily, all the coldness disappear-
ing from his manner as he looks at her. " She has a pretty
face, and, after all, that is the surest passport to most hearts.
Promise me," coming a little nearer and looking at her with
something more than kindness, "that you will not begin by
worrying yourself about her ? "
" How can I help it ? " she answers, with a sort of passionate
earnestness, impelled to confidence not only by his kindly
looks and kindly words, or by the fact that she knows him to
be altogether worthy of confidence, but also by the habit of a
lifetime. Has she not, ever since she was a little child, found
in him her truest counsellor, her surest guide, her kindest
consoler? " How can I help it, when the way seems so dark
before us ? Do you know," lowering her voice and coming
a little nearer to him, " that father will hardly speak to her or
notice her at all ? He resents my having brought her home,
and yet they would not keep her longer at school, and there
was nowhere—literally nowhere," with a little despairing up-
lifting of her hands, " where she could go ? "
" Do you mean," he says, after a moment's pause, during
which he is assailed by a quick pang of self-reproach, " that—
that he is not kind to her ? "
" Do not blame him—you must not blame him !" she
answers quickly. "No doubt it is hard upon him—terribly hard.
He," flushing a little, " cannot forget. But, at the same time,
it is doubly hard on her—for she does not know the reason."
c
34
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
For the space of a second or so he looks at her in grave and
meditative silence.
" And are you sure," he says at length, " that you are right
to keep her in the dark ? Mind—I do not say that you are
not; but have you well considered it ? "
" Sure! How can I be sure ? " she answers, with a despair-
ing intonation that does not escape his notice as being so
'unlike her ordinary quiet composure. " I know so little. I
am so utterly ignorant of what is best and wisest. And I—
who want so badly to serve her—may be all the while doing
my best to injure her."
" You must not think that," he says, very kindly, very gently.
"Whatever happens, you can never think that. My only
doubt was, whether you could keep this secret, such as it is—
for my own part, you know, I attach no importance to it—for
ever, and whether some day, either by accident or by malice,
it might be told to her less kindly than you would tell it."
" I have thought of that," she answers, with an eagerness
which shows him how sorely this question has lain on her
mind; how glad she is of a chance of unburthening herself of
it. " And yet, when I see how happy she is in her ignorance,
how light-hearted and innocent, it goes to my heart to think of
casting such a shadow over her. It might do a good deal of
harm, and it seems as if it could do no good to tell her
now."
" That is true," he answers quietly. " I am afraid," he goes
on after a minute, with a sudden flush on his dark, honest face,
" I was a little hard on her just now. But the fact is I was
startled, and I was more angry with myself than with her. I
felt as if I had been making a fool of myself, and I suppose,"
with a grim smile, " a man does not like to be a fool."
" It is so like you to blame yourself," she says, with a smile
that is as bright and soft as sunshine seen through clouds.
" But she is only a child, full of fun and spirits, and I am sure
she did not mean any harm. Will you promise,"—looking
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 35
straight up at him with soft, trustful eyes,—" you cannot tell
what a relief it will be to me if you will promise me to be her
friend, as you used to be ? "
" Is there anything I would not promise you ? " he asks,
half-jestingly, half-tenderly. " Ask me something harder than
that."
" You see," she goes on quite seriously, " she has no one but
me, and father has no one but me either. I am divided
between them. But if I could know that you would be on her
side, would be kind to her and fond of her as you were when
she was a child, I could be almost happy. She needs a friend
so badly."
Evidently there is nothing strange to her in the idea—and
if a certain incongruity in it presents itself to him, he is cer-
tainly not going to suggest it to her. No doubt she still thinks
of him as they used to be when he was a man, and Psyche but
a little child, to be petted and kissed and stuffed with sweet-
meats; and if he does not feel as old as she evidently thinks
him—that is his fault, not hers.
" Then I will be as fond of her as you can desire," he
answers, gaily, lt and could not you be quite happy while you
are about it? "
A minute or two later they say " Good-bye."
" Then you are sure you will not come in and see father
now," she says regretfully, " nor have some lunch ? "
" I do not dare to venture in on him in the morning. Be
honest, Dorothy, and .confess that he hates to be interrupted
in his studies. Who knows," with a comical smile, " that I
might not be the death of some inspiration which would be for
ever lost to the world ? And as for the lunch, I have a fellow
waiting for me at home who must be anathematising me by
this time."
Then he takes her hand and looks at her with grave and
gentle concern.
" I shall come over in a day or two—indeed, now that I
36
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
have eome back you will see so much of me that you will wish
me away again; and, in the mean time, do not lose courage.
Be brave and strong, as you have always been !"
And so he goes.
Dorothy stands a moment on the old stone steps in front
of the house watching him, the sunlight falling on her brown
head and long grey gown.
Then she turns away, and the darkness and the gloom that
lie inside the house seem to swallow her up.
CHAPTER V.
"There is no good denying it," says Psyche with decision,
lying with her long young limbs stretched out at their ease
in the deep and ample window-seat of Dorothy's bed-room,
one arm uplifted to make a pillow for her bright, bronze head
against the dark shutter. "I am terribly disappointed in
him!"
As a matter of fact, Dorothy has no intention of denying it.
At a rough calculation she has heard the same unqualified
statement a dozen times already, though it is barely six hours
since she and Sir John Heathcote said good-bye by the old
sun-dial. So she is enabled by this time to receive it with
unruffled composure.
She smiles serenely to herself, waiting for what shall come
next, surveying the knot of neat brown hair that she has just
twisted up at the back of her head with an air of calm and
critical approval that is not at all damped by the fact that both
hair and face, as she sees them reflected before her, have a
greenish tinge which nature has not bestowed upon them. She
either accepts it—being so long used tg see them so—<*s their
vmsPotted from the world4 37
original tint, or having seen herself in other mirrors, makes
allowance for the defects of this.
It is quaint of shape, perfect in workmanship, and, indeed,
serves every purpose but the one most to be desired in a mirror;
and it has been, with all the other articles of furniture in the
room, the despair of successive generations of Dalrymples—
Dorothy's grandmothers and great-grandmothers—who could
not foresee, or foreseeing, would probably not have found much
comfort from the fact, that in another hundred years or so the
very antiquity of their furniture would bring it to twice its value
and to the very height of fashion.
It is true that the mirror makes the loveliest face look green
and spotty—that the garderobe, with its one big drawer and
many shelves, has no place where Dolly's long-tailed gowns
can hang; that the bed, with its carved coat-of-arms and em-
broidered hangings, is deep and stuffy, and all that a bed
should not be; that the carven high-backed chairs are so
straight and narrow as to make the youngest bones ache; that
the tapestry on the walls yawns in big rat-gnawed holes that
are the despair of Dorothy's tidy soul; but for all that—ay,
because of all that—they would be counted of priceless value
among the present generation.
The very patch-boxes and powder-pots that have so little use
on Dorothy's simple toilet-table, and only stand there because
they have always stood there, have gained from their very age
a rarity, which, if Dorothy could have understood it, would
have tempted her sorely to turn them into money many a time
in her life.
"I am only nineteen," Psyche goes on reflectively, seeing
Dorothy says nothing, " and I have already outlived most of
my illusions."
And at this Dolly smiles outright, looking across at her much
in the sort of way that an elderly couple, who have a child
born to them late in life, may be seen to look at it with a mix-
t are of wonder, amusement, and unbounded pride.
38
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
She herself was never young, or to speak exactly, she had
but seven years of youth, and they lie so far away in the back-
ground of her memory that they are almost forgotten. At
seven years old came the breaking up of her life—the loss of
her mother, the birth of her sister, and the beginning of her
cares. For from the first, the very first, when no one else
had dared to go near her father, they had thrust her into the
breach.
" Let the child go," they had said, and the child had gone,
and from that time until now had stood between him and the
outside world, learning much that she ought not to have
learned; suffering much that she ought not to have suffered;
understanding almost from the very first that somehow—she
could not tell how or why—the baby, that was her delight
and her plaything, the one sole joy of her poor, little, broken,
motherless life, must be kept out of his sight.
And when it had grown to be seven years old, and she more
its mother than its sister, with all her little soul wrapped up in
it, they had taken it away from her, and her heart had nearly
broken—broken silently, be it understood—all Dorothy's
griefs were silent. But now that she has got her back—this
piece of wonderful, glad, beautiful life—she is never tired of
listening to -her, never tired of looking at her, no more than a
mother is tired of listening to or looking at her child.
"Poor Psyche!" she says with that little fond, amused
smile. " What were the illusions ? "
" There were three of them," says the girl, turning her head
a little, the better to observe her sister. "No doubt there
were others—but there were only three that particularly con-
cern us at the present moment. The first was, that fathers
and mothers loved their children, not because they were very
great or good, or even because they were very loveable, but
just because they were their children. That one," with a little
smile, "died hard. It took a great deal of killing—it even
survived in a sort of way until the other day, and then it was
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 39
knocked on the head. It is dead enough now," with a laugh,
—" goodness knows ! The second," after a moment's pause,
holding up her hands, and counting it off 011 her slim, white
fingers, "was that Sir John Heathcote—Jack Heathcote, as I
used to call him then, for he has changed even his name—was
a hero, a preux chevalier, a Don Quixote, a Bayard of the
nineteenth century, all rolled into one ! I thought"— raising
her head, and speaking with eagerness and animation—■
" that he was a man whose very goodness would make him
lenient to other people's want of it, whose strength would make
him tender to other people's weakness, a man in whom little
children and all frail things would naturally trust, whom big
bullies and successful rogues would as naturally fear. I do
not know," she goes on, with a small smile at her own expense,
"that even the enchantment that my childish memories lent
to him made me picture him to myself as a handsome man—
but I thought," laughing, "that he would be better to look at
than the handsomest man living—that his grey eyes would
have a tenderness that would make one forget their gravity ;
that though his mouth might be stern on occasion, and a trifle
cynical, yet it would be apt to curve into so pleasant a smile
for those he loved that his smiles would be a thousand times
better than another man's laughter. Bah !" throwing her
arms above her head, and resting it upon them; " laugh at
me, jeer at me as much as you will!—That was how he figured
in my imagination ! "
But Dolly neither laughs nor jeers—indeed she looks as if
the last would be impossible to her. She is tying a soft
muslin kerchief—which, with its border of old lace, is the sole
adornment of her straight black gown—with a dainty preci-
sion that is peculiar to her, and a little flush on her pretty,
tender face is the only sign that she has heard.
" You have looked on that picture," Psyche goes on discur-
sively, and indeed when she can get anyone to talk to it is
seldom she misses the chance ; — " now look on this. Grey
40
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
eyes that are grave and critical enough, it is true, but without
the least suspicion of tenderness; a mouth that can sneer
very easily, but cannot afford a smile at his own expense; a
manner that is a mixture of starched propriety and barely
veiled rudeness. In short," laughing, " my hero has turned
out a prig! Illusion number two has gone the way of number
one !"
" You are wrong," says Dorothy, coming and standing
over against the window, and speaking with an earnestness
and an energy that are not usual with her. Her toilet is
completed by this time, and though it is not by any means an
elaborate one, there is a quaintness about it that suits her
gracious tender type of beauty; — " altogether wrong, and it
is a terrible pity that you should start with a prejudice against
him. If," she goes on, clasping her hands loosely in front
of her, " you had known him all your life, instead of only
when you were a little child, you could not have drawn a
truer picture of him than you drew just now. Indeed, I can
hardly tell how a child's intuition could have led you to so
sure a knowledge of his character. He is all that you thought
him," looking up with so bright a light in her serious eyes as
makes them, for the moment, lovelier eyes even than Psyche's,
" and more than that. No woman could find a truer, surer
friend in all the world—and indeed, dear, there have been
times when I have needed one most sorely."
" Poor Dolly! " says Psyche, with a mocking laugh, that
covers a softer inclination that rises in her at sight of her
sister's face. " You must have been hard put to it to fall
back on him ! "
"You see," Dorothy goes on, simply, not heeding this
taunt, "father has quarrelled with everyone of the few rela-
tions we possess, and with most of the people about here, or
if he has not quarrelled with them outright, he has alienated
them by shutting himself up from them; but he has never
quarrelled with Sir John—perhaps because he will not let him
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 41
—and he has more influence with him than anyone in the
world. Sometimes, when no one else, not even I, could get
him to look into his affairs, and to see what money he really
has, Sir John has been able to make him. Sometimes, when he
is away, and," sadly " he is a great deal away, you know, I
have not known who to turn to.
" What makes him go away? " says Psyche, more touched
than she chooses to show, by the idea that Dolly, whom she
has always thought so quiet and strong—Dolly, who has always
seemed so well able to take care of herself and of every-
one else, should have needed help, and should not have been
able to get it. " He ought to stay here—it is his proper place."
But Dorothy does not smile at this little piece of dogmatic
assertion as she might well do. She has turned away, and is
arranging all the little things on her toilet-table in the precise
order in which they are accustomed to stand.
" He has had troubles," she says, after a moment, " worse
troubles, perhaps, than most people, and since his father
has died it is very lonely for him in that big house all by
himself."
" When one has five thousand a year and a country house,
loneliness must be a matter of choice, not of necessity," says
Psyche, laughing. ''No doubt he might find someone who
would be willing to share them with him—someone who, in
consideration of these substantial advantages, would consent
to put up with a little priggishness."
" If you mean," says Dorothy, very quietly and very steadily,
11 that he might marry, I think you are wrong. I do not
imagine," with a sudden flush, " that he is ever likely to think
of that again. He has probably had enough of it. Did you not
know," looking round at her, " that years ago, when you were
a little child, he quarrelled with his father, and exchanged into
a regiment that was stationed in India, because he would not
give up the woman he was in love with?—and then, when he
had been there about two years, trying to get on for her sake,
42
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
she married a friend of his. You see," with a little scorn, " she
did not know then that his elder brother would die, and that
in a few years he would be a rich man. But it is not to be
wondered at, is it, that he should think badly of women—
or at all likely that he should ever trust another, after that ? "
"So that is what has soured him?" says Psyche, opening
her eyes. " I thought he was horribly changed. But,"
mischievously, " I am not at all sure there were no excuses
to be made for her. Is it not possible," laughing, " that
she got tired of so much goodness ? And does it not occur
to you, Dolly, with your fine sense of justice, that it is a little
unfair of him to think badly of all women because of the short-
comings of one ? "
" He does not think badly of all women," says Dorothy
simply. " Did I say so ? If I did—I said what is not true.
He has been always good to me."
Psyche looks round at her, her lips curving into sudden
laughter, but as she looks the laugh dies, and turns into a
smile, so soft, so tender that it is very near to tears.
" I think," she says slowly, " that a man would be very bad
indeed if he were not good to you, Dolly."
Then of a sudden she jumps up, and going over to her, lays
her hands on her shoulders and looks over them into the glass.
" Do you know you look very nice ? " she says, smiling at
her. " But all the same, I could find it in my heart to wish
that you would look a little different. This morning when
you had on that grey gown I thought that you only wanted -a
little cap and apron to make the prettiest little Quakeress in
the world ; this evening—well—just now when you stood
there with the sunset light upon your face, I fancied you only
wanted an aureole round your head to make you a saint—a
very fair saint. Could not you," insinuatingly, " do not
you think you could manage to look a little more of a
sinner? It would be so much pleasanter and more com-
panionablc if you would,"
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
43
"Anything to oblige you," says Dolly, with a touch of that
lightness of humour which is no doubt natural to her, and has
only lain dead within her, slain by the sadness and loneliness
of her life. " But in the mean time be good enough not to
look over me into the glass. A moment ago I had an idea
that I looked rather nice, but now you have put me out of
conceit with myself. If you are a specimen of a sinner
and I of a saint, decidedly I give the preference to sinners."
" By-the-bye," says Psyche, laughing, " that reminds me that
you have never asked me what my last illusion was. It con-
cerned you—and it is the only one that is not yet wholly
destroyed. Have you no curiosity about it ? "
"On the contrary," she answers, smiling, "a most lively
one ! But I must manage to stifle it for the present. It is
time to go ! "
And in fact at that very instant a voice, whose incessant de-
mands she has never denied, makes itself heard, calling her
name. It is not a loud or commanding voice, but rather one
whose querulous impatience shows how unaccustomed it is to
remain unheeded.
Dolly flings on her hat and cloak, and in a moment is out
of the room.
" Stay !" cries Psyche, running after her. " I forgot to give
you my rose, and I picked it on purpose for you. It was the
only one on the tree."
But Dolly does not even turn her head.
" I must not wait," she says hurriedly. " I dare not wait.
He will be vexed."
She goes rapidly—too rapidly for safety—down the polished
wood stairs, her long gown floating behind her. And a little
way after her Psyche, with the rosebud still in her hands
follows in the rear.
The hall doors are thrown wide open, and the light that
comes through them falls full on the man who stands there.
Regarded from a distance, and without the keen critical glance
44
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD,
that might discern the lines of feebleness and temper around
his mouth, the restlessness in his large dark eyes—tokens of
the monotonous brooding on one idea, the insatiable egotism
that goes near to madness—this last descendant of a long
race, whose chief claim to distinction has lain in their good
looks, would still pass without doubt for a remarkably hand-
some man. A man long past his prime, and looking older
than his years by reason of his life—or the manner he has
chosen to take his life—and yet of a picturesqueness—greatly
heightened by the manner of his dress—which many younger
men might find it hard to beat.
Indeed, this vanity and fastidiousness in dress, strange
enough in a man who seldom emerges from his own library,
is one of poor Dorothy's sorest trials.
At the present moment he has managed, in spite of the
overwhelming difficulties presented by the evening dress of a
gentleman in the nineteenth century, to retain some of that
picturesqueness peculiar to himself.
On his head is already placed, ready for departure, a
sombrero hat of the kind that ten years or so ago was
associated with the idea of Italian banditti or stage villains,
but in the present day is not considered altogether out of
place on the head of a country gentleman. In the back-
ground the old servant, who is a great many inches short of
his master's height, is holding out a big red-lined cloak that
would not misbecome a Garibaldi, or any other foreign
general. But he is waiting for orders. Something is still
wanting.
" You are late," says Mr. Dalrymple imperiously, as
Dorothy comes in hot haste. " How is it you are not ready?
And where is my flower? Have you forgotten it ? It was not
in my room."
Dorothy's face falls. Nothing but the unaccustomed dis-
traction of Psyche's companionship could surely have made her
forget this important item of an important toilette.
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 45
"I had forgotten," she stammers shamefacedly — "I
will get you one in a minute."
" Put on my cloak, Andrew," says Mr. Dalrymple angrily,
turning his back upon her. " Wait, indeed ! Do you know
what time it is ? "
In a moment—with a sudden impulse that leaves no time
for thought, no time for remembering all the rebuffs she has
received—Psyche speeds down the stairs, her hand out-
stretched, her small cream rose-bud—daintily prepared for
Dorothy—clasped in it.
"Will you—will you have it?" she says very timidly,
with such a sudden, pitiful yearning for kindness in her lovely
face, in her imploring attitude, as it would seem impossible for
a man to resist. " It is a very pretty one."
He puts out his hand, coldly enough, it is true, but yet
courteously. He has already taken the flower in his hand,
when, of an instant, his face changes—his eyes dilate and fix
themselves on her with horror and dismay. If suddenly she
had taken some terrible and revolting shape, he could look at
her no more cruelly.
" Curse you !" he cries, flinging the flower at her feet.
"Who has taught you these tricks?—Who has dared to
tell you "
" Father !" cries Dorothy, springing forward, and laying
her hand on his mouth. " Stop ! stop ! Think what you are
saying. Come with me—Come ! "
It is all the work of an instant. The cloak is put on his
shoulders, and Dorothy, casting one pitiful, imploring look at
Psyche, has led him down the steps.
And the girl is alone, her flower lying at her feet—even the
old servant has slunk away and left her.
She looks down at it, and then she flings her arms above
her head and cries out aloud,
" I will not bear it! I will not bear it! '
There is no one to hear—no one—not even God, so it seems.
46
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
No one has taught her that there is a God to comfort those
that are unjustly treated; and she cannot see Him—cannot
hear Him. Her passion reigns supreme.
With a gesture that contains all the rage and fury that has
been pent up during the past months and has gained its
climax in the last minute, she beats her foot upon the flower,
tramples it to pieces, and then relenting, gathers up the frag-
ments, and clasping them to her bosom, falls to bitter weep-
ing.
******
And in the housekeeper's room old Andrew is relating the
incident with that dramatic force which is often found among
the poor.
" Do you remember the day the missis died ?—God bless
her! The master was going out—you remember, Mrs. Pug-
gerridge—and she came and stood there on those very steps.
'Twas nineteen years ago, but I see her now as I see her then,
and she held out her little hand—so—with a rose in it; and
she said—I heard her, I did—' Will you have it, Dick? ' says
she—and he took it and fastened it in his coat. Well, I give
you my blessed word, if she'd com'd back—God rest her soul!
if she'd come'd back and stood there this day and said, ' Will
you have it ?'—she couldn't have looked more like Miss
Psyche, or Miss Psyche more like she."
The linen that the old woman who once was Psyche's nurse
—who now is housekeeper, cook, and many things in one—
has been darning, falls on her knee.
"And he—the master—what did he do?" she asks
anxiously, pushing up her spectacles.
" He flung her flower away, and he cursed her. That's
what he did! " says the old man tersely. " And it's my opinion
you had better put that there table-cloth away and go and
look after her, that's what you'd better do, though maybe you'll
find it easier to mend them holes than to mend her feelings,
though your eyes are not what they used to be."
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
47
And with this parting shot he goes, leaving her to take his
advice or not, as she pleases. And though she has no doubt
as to taking it, though her heart is sore and the tears not far
from her eyes—for the girl who was her nursling fills that
softest spot that must be filled in every woman's heart either
by lover or by child—she does it with deliberation. She has
outlived the haste of youth. She folds up her table-cloth, and
does not forget to put her spectacles in their case before she
starts on her search.
It is one that is not to be accomplished in a minute. What
old Andrews said of her eyes, he might with equal truth have
said of her legs. They are not what they used to be. Long
ago rheumatism and hard work have robbed them of that
youthful agility that made the long galleries, the slip-
pery staircases of the big rambling house things to laugh
at.
It is a good while, in fact, before she finds out what room
Psyche is in, and herself outside the closed door of it, and if
she has all the while been picturing her to herself in a passion
of tears or a white heat of anger, she has every reason to
believe herself mistaken.
The voice that answers her knock is -cheerful enough, and
there is nothing in the girl's attitude, with a book in her hand,
or in the small part of her face that is turned round on the old
woman's entrance, to give the smallest opening for the conso-
lation or the sympathy she has come ready primed with. Instead
she finds herself called upon to make some excuse for coming
at all.
" I was wanting to know when you would like to have your
dinner, if you please, miss," she says, taking the one that comes
readiest to her. "And I was thinking that as you was all
alone it would be more cheerful-like to have it in Miss Dorothy's
little room than in the dining-room."
This is a sudden inspiration, but it has all the appearance of
p. well-prepared idea.
48
UNSPOTTED'JROM THE WORLD.
" Wherever you please," says Psyche lightly,." so long as it
comes at once. I am hungry."
This is reassuring. Evidently she has not been crying.
Tears never made anyone hungry yet.
" There's a nice little dish of cutlets—cutlets allay Manty-
nong, Miss Dorothy calls 'em—that the master left," says Mrs.
Puggeridge, casting away her fears and relapsing into her
ordinary homely thoughts. " He wont care to see them again.
And I've made a roley-poley pudding. You used to be fond
of them" looking at her wistfully.
" I not only used to be, but I am—devotedly fond of them,"
she answers, in a voice that leaves no doubt as to her cheerful-
ness. " By all means let me have it, and now that I know that
it is coming I will not eat too many of the cutlets ! "
" Andrew is a fool," thinks the housekeeper to herself as she
goes away more lightly than she came. " She's not fretting—
not a bit of it—not but what she has good cause to, if she
only knew it—poor lamb !
CHAPTER VI.
The day is nearly done.
Of all the many hours that Captain Darrell had counted out,
but one remains. But that one threatens to hang heavily on
Psyche's hands.
The big clock in the stable-yard has only just struck nine
long-drawn strokes; and unless one be sick or sorry, or unless
one has a better excuse for fatigue than she has, one cannot
well count it bed-time, even in the country, before ten.
Inside the house a deadly gloom, more deepened than
relieved by the few dimly-burning lamps that are sparsely scat-
tered here and there, a horrible silence reigns supreme.
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
49
Andrew and Mrs. Puggeridge are hobnobbing somewhere in
the housekeeper's room, and might be a hundred miles away
for all that can be heard of them; the two buxom country girls
who make up the meagre list of servants have gone to bed with
the lark, to rise again with him; and to all intents and pur-
poses Psyche is absolutely, utterly alone.
But if there is gloom inside the house there is certainly none
outside. A full pale-faced moon and an innumerable host of
stars are making the park and the gardens almost as light and
a great deal more beautiful than at mid-day.
The fairness of the night tempts Psyche to open the door and
look out; and looking out, she no longer hesitates. Though
it is certainly over-late for wandering about alone, on the other
hand it will be a far pleasanter way of getting through the hour
that yet remains on her hands than by sitting within doors,
starting nervously at the scuttling of the rats behind the wains-
cot, at the creaking of the doors, at the very rustle of her own
gown.
The house has a thousand nameless terrors for her—terrors
which not all her philosophy can overcome ; but at the first soft
breath of the evening wind, with the first look up into the un-
utterable serenity of the sky above her head, they all vanish as
by magic. There is no room for terror on such an evening as
this.
The flowers are lying drenched in their night-bath of dew;
the trees are shaking their boughs and whispering to each other;
now and again a wakeful bird chirps drowsily to his mate, or
one that has been belated, seeking, perhaps, for food for the
little ones in his nest, flies darkly across the clear, pale sky.
Far away in the pastures, a cow is lowing for her calf. But
there is not a sound or a sign of human life anywhere.
Yet for all that, she is not afraid, as she had been in the house.
The quiet of the night seems to soothe the passionate disquiet
of her heart.
She is in a dangerous mopd, one of those moods in which
p
5o UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
that spirit of evil who figures in our childish imagination in
personal guise finds his best opportunities. It is not easy for
any of us, having stretched out, timidly enough, a right hand of
reconciliation, to find it flung back in our face. Neither is it
easy to endure meekly and patiently a rank and palpable inj us-
tice whence most we have a right to expect justice. Indeed,
of all human wrongs human injustice is perhaps the greatest.
The sense of it rankles in Psyche's heart with a bitterness that
is not to be understood except by those who have suffered it.
" Why should he hate me ? " she says to herself again and
again, lifting a pale passionate face to the untroubled sky.
44 He does not hate Dorothy. I will not bear it!"
But all the while she knows it is but an impotent protest.
She must bear it. In all this wide earth there is no other
home that will shelter her but this one, where she is so little
wanted. " Nowhere to go to!" she cries to herself, with
none but the flowers and the trees to hear her. 44 No one to
love me !"
But even as she says it her cheek flushes, and her head
droops with sudden remembrance—not of Dorothy. It is the
very nature of such a quiet and steady love as Dorothy's that
it should go uncounted—be taken as a matter of course—to
be remembered perhaps when all others fail—but not now,
when—in spite of her anger—in spite of her despair, a
greater and wider possibility lies stretching out before her in
that vague unknown that, if one be very young, seems so
infinitely tempting.
There lies her danger. Rebuffed on the one side, wounded
and mortified beyond telling, her thoughts turn naturally
enough to the one who has never rebuffed—never wounded
her; who has, on the contrary, fed her to her heart's content
with the delicate flattery of eyes and lips.
Again and again she goes over in her heart every word he
has spoken, every look that has told her, as well as look can
tell, how lovely he has found her.
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
5i
Her heart is empty indeed—swept and garnished— ready
for any love, good or bad, to enter in and dwell there.
Not that she counts Captain Darrell as her lover. She has,
indeed, too little vanity to suppose that any man would so
readily fall in love with her. For her unpampered life has
had that one advantage, that it certainly has not fostered any
tendency to suppose herself attractive. But her thoughts turn
to the remembrance of his undisguised admiration, his open
friendliness, with a gladness that is in itself sufficiently
perilous could she understand it.
Her idle, aimless footsteps have led her through winding
paths, through gardens and shrubberies, to whose unkempt,
weed-grown luxuriance the pale moonlight is more friendly
than the unflattering daylight—marking indeed, no wide
difference between weeds and flowers, bramble-bushes and
shrubs—until she has reached a place where the park palings,
broken a good deal short of their normal height and a miracle of
picturesque decay, overlook a pretty grassy lane that leads
straight down to the high-road.
Leaning her elbows on the mossy rotten woodwork, and
her chin on her hand, she looks wistfully across the meadows
at the distant lights that, glimmering among the trees, mark
the big house where Sir Adrian Darrell lives.
" He will be gone soon," she thinks, not of Sir Adrian, but
of the nephew who so seldom throws away his time in the
pursuit of innocent country pleasures; " and I shall never
see him again. Perhaps some day, when Sir Adrian is
dead, he will come and live here—but I shall be an old
maid then, and my hair will be grey and my cheeks all
wrinkled."
She has plenty of time for these cheering reflections, for
there are not many passers-by to interrupt them.
An old woman, bent so low with her bundle of sticks and
her weight of weary years that she cannot see God's sky above
her head nor all the sweet and lovely things around her, but
52 UNSPOTTED PROM 7HE WORLD.
only the ground beneath her tired feet; a labourer, stumbling
homeward, half blind with toil, or with drink—who shall
say ?—a little child toddling by the hedgerow, with its small
fat hands heavily laden with spring flowers, who, paying small
heed to the admonishing of another child of the lateness of
the hour, but catching sudden sight of Psyche's white figure,
is impelled to such sudden quickening of his uncertain foot-
steps that he tumbles head-foremost into the ditch, and is
picked up howling with fear—probably to carry with him to
the grave a firm belief in ghosts.
Psyche has hardly done laughing at this untoward effect of
her white gown—for at nineteen it is, after all, easier to laugh
than to cry—when another footstep, altogether different from
these others—deliberate, yet not tired—firm, yet not heavy,
makes her start erect and listen with palpitating heart and
kindling eyes.
A bend in the road turns suspicion into certainty. By the
clear pale light of the moon she sees the broad square
shoulders, the well-set figure she knows so well. His hands
are in his pockets, his head a little thrown back, and a cigar
in his mouth. A moment ago she would have given the half
of her possessions, which are not many, to be quite sure that
she would ever see him again—she would have counted the
chance of meeting him here a chance so remote as to be past
praying for; but being assured of a sudden that he is within
a few paces of her, that she has only to stretch out her hand
and she may touch him—only to speak his name and his
voice will answer her, an unfathomable and newly-born
timidity makes her shrink back and try to hide herself among
the bushes out of his sight.
Had she remained quiet the chances are that he, turning
his head neither to the right nor to the left, but strolling along
in meditative after-dinner tranquillity, would have passed hei
by as the old woman and the labourer had done—unnoticed;
but the sudden rustle among the bushes makes him look
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD,
53
round, and in a moment he has cast his cigar into a ditch, and
has sprung towards her.
" You !" he cries, in a voice in which surprise and delight
contend for the mastery. " Who would have dreamt of seeing
you here! Is "—with sudden nameless fear—" is anything
the matter ? "
"Nothing," she says, with a small smile, recovering her com-
posure as she sees him on the point of losing his. Indeed,
she is a little surprised, and not a little elated, to find her sud-
den appearance has produced so great an effect upon him.
" Nothing whatever. I only came here to meditate."
"To meditate!" laughing aloud in his relief. "What a
cheerful spot to choose! Have you been studying Young's
' Night Thoughts' or Hervey's * Meditations among the
Tombs'?" Then changing his tone, "What are they think-
ing about—what are they doing to let you come out by your-
self in such a place as this at ten o'clock of night ? "
"As a matter of fact," she answers gaily, "it is not ten
o'clock; it cannot be more than half-past nine. And as for
the rest, did I not tell you—do you not know, that I am abso-
lutely alone—that there is no one to think, much less to care,
where I come or go ? After all," with a smile, " it is a free-
dom that many people might be inclined to envy me—I ought
not to quarrel with it."
Under the light tone there is so evident a soreness—the face
upturned to his, looks in the pallor and softness of the moon-
light, so far more lovely than ever it has looked in the radiance
of daylight, that his heart is drawn to her with so irresistible, so
overmastering a tenderness, that for a moment he dares not
speak—he cannot trust himself. But the look in his eyes
needs indeed no words to interpret it.
" As a matter of fact," she goes on quickly, embarrassed a
little by his silence, but more by his look—" do not laugh at
me—but I was frightened to stay any longer indoors. I am
almost sure," lowering her voice, and coming a little nearer to
54
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
the paling that divides them, " that there are ghosts in the
house. Nurse has told me so many stories about the portraits
of my grandfathers and grandmothers that hang all over the
place", that they seemed to me like real people—I hardly dared
look over my shoulder just now, I was so sure that I should
see some of them behind me. At any rate," laughing, " if
there are no ghosts, there are rats, and they are nearly as bad.
It is not nearly so frightening out here."
" You poor little thing," said Darrell, compassionately ;
" upon my word it is a horrible shame. At any rate," reso-
lutely, " you shall not go back alone. I will see you safe
home."
" Indeed, you will not !" very quickly. " I will not hear
of it! "
"Will you not?" with a twinkle of mischief in his eyes.
" Suppose I do not ask your permission ? "
" You will have to go nearly a quarter of a mile round to
the lodge-gates to get in at all," she cries with a triumphant
conviction of having the better of him. " And by that time
I shall be safe at home."
" Will you ?" laughing. " Stand back ! look out!"
And in a moment, before she understands what he is going
to do, he has leapt over the paling, and is standing by her side,
having manoeuvred adroitly to avoid knocking her over
altogether.
"There!" laughing mockingly and triumphantly. "You
have never asked me within your gates—indeed, now I think
of it, you have shown a terrible lack of the fine virtue of hos-
pitality. Blame yourself that you have driven me to coming
in without an invitation."
For a moment her indignation is lost in an astonishment
that is not unmixed with admiration.
" How did you do it ? " she says slowly, measuring the pal-
ing with her eyes. " If I had been chased by a bull, or a mad
dog, I might—it is just possible," doubtfully—" that I might
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
55
have managed to scramble over, but I could not have jumped
it to save my life."
" Of course not. I never yet saw a woman who could jump
a couple of inches."
" But all the same," quickly recovering from her astonish-
ment, " it was not right of you—and you must go back at
once; indeed you must. Supposing," looking around her
frightenedly, '/father and Dolly were to come home earlier
and find you here ? "
" They will not," he answers coolly. " Not a chance of it.
And if they did," laughingly, " I suppose the worst he could
do to me would be to prosecute me as a trespasser. Come—
let us go on ! "
As he speaks he lays his hand lightly on her, and for the
first time perceives that she has no other covering but her thin
cotton gown, that, damp with the dew, is clinging tightly to
her arms and shoulders.
"You must be mad! " he says quickly and hotly. " Is there
no one to take any care of you ? Do you want to kill your-
self?"
In all the many times that he has seen her he has always
treated her with a reverent and perfect respect, of which the
many women with whom he has flirted in society would not
have believed him capable, and which indeed in their fashion-
ably free-and-easy and unprudishly-familiar company he would
have found a superfluous virtue. Now for the first time
his hand lingers on her a little longer—a trifle more warmly
than the occasion appears to warrant; his eyes look into her
soft moonlit face with a passionate audacity of admiration that
he no longer tries to restrain.
Everything is against him. This unexpected meeting in an
out-of-the-way place, while the genial warmth of Sir Adrian's
good wines still lingers pleasantly in his veins—the very moon-
light that adds the subtle charm of a beauty that is half-revealed,
half-concealed—all combine to his undoing.
56 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WOULD.
So long as they had kept to daylight he had done well
enough—now he flings all his resolutions to the winds, and,
forgetting all the many weighty arguments that lie on the side
of prudence, remembers only that she is very pretty—and that
he is in love with her.
But though she is very innocent, so innocent that a man of
less experience and coarser nature might very well have mis-
taken her innocence for boldness, she is by no me^ns ignorant,
and she is possessed of a finer instinct than often remains to a
woman of larger experience.
Though she does not understand his look, she flushes under
it, and loosing herself resolutely from his touch moves a pace
or two away.
" I never catch cold," she says quietly and steadily, though
in fact her heart is beating so that she can hardly hide the
trembling of her lips. " And I have had enough of wrapping
up at school. We hardly dared show our faces out of doors
without waterproofs, umbrellas, and goloshes. I abjure all
three for the remainder of my life ! "
So saying, she turns away, and, the path being but narrow
and a trifle confused by the tangled brushwood and the thick
weeds, he is obliged to follow her as best he can.
But after a few paces they come to a broader space, where
there being no longer any excuse for her to go ahead of him,
he overtakes her and walks by her side. Out here, in the
open, where the trees grow but sparsely, casting their long,
gaunt shadows on the glistening sward, they can see right up
into such a sky as if one sees but once or twice in the short
length of an English summer one may count oneself fairly
blessed.
" Is it not lovely ? " says Psyche, throwing back her head
to take her fill of its beauty.
"Yes," answers Darrell slowly, looking not at the sky, but
at her soft, milk-white throat, and noting of what a murky
white her gown looks against it. " It is very lovely. I like
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 57
moonlight. It's a pity it can't be laid on in pipes like gas, is
not it ? Four-and-sixpence a thousand feet. Lovers and other
lunatics supplied at a reduction."
" I used to have a fancy about the stars," she goes on softly,
scorning to notice this prosaic suggestion. " I used to think
that the poor dead people came out at night to look down
on those they had loved on earth, and that their shining rai-
ment made little specks of light that we call stars."
"Very pretty," says Darrell, with a slow smile that conveys
an infinity of disbelief; " but hardly likely to conduce to the
dead people's happiness."
" Why not ? " combatively. " Do you suppose that when
you are dead, you will care no more for anyone you have
loved while you were alive ? "
" Did you ever read the story about the poor soul in purga-
tory who prayed so ceaselessly for one hour on earth to
visit and console the man she had loved, that at last her
prayer was granted on the condition that she should pay
for that one hour by countless ages of torment ? "
" And did she go? " asks Psyche, breathlessly.
" She came to earth," says Darrell, with mock solemnity,
" and she found him—how do you suppose? Planting flowers
over her grave? Soaking countless pocket-handherchiefs for
the want of her? Not a bit of it!—She found him with his
arms around another woman, swearing eternal love to her."
" He was a man," says Psyche, brought down suddenly
with a cold shock of disillusionment. " If in your story you
had reversed the cases, and it had been a man who came
to console a woman, he would have found her "
" Vexing her soul over the latest fashion in widows' caps,
or," with a malicious smile, " if he had waited a month or
two, he might have found her dispensing with such trifling
sentimentalities altogether, and married to his dearest iriend."
" I do not like you when you talk like that," she says slowly,
moving a little away from him, and regarding him with cold
58
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
and disapproving eyes. " What have women done to you that
you should think so badly of them all? "
" I do not think badly of them all," dexterously decreasing
the space she has put between them. "On the contrary,"
with a smile that emphasises his words, " there are some
that I think very well of."
But to this she answers nothing. She only walks a little
quicker than she has walked before.
" Can you blame me—can you blame any man," he goes
on with an earnestness that surprises himself, for indeed, like
a good many others, he is so accustomed to think lightly and
to speak lightly of women that it seems hardly necessary to
make an excuse for doing both, " that there are some women
of whom it is impossible to think anything but badly ? On
the other hand, there are others, thank heaven, of whom it
would be equally impossible, even if one encountered them
under the most flagrantly improper circumstances, not to think
well."
She is silent for a moment.
"Do you mean," she asks presently, turning round to him
with that absolute and outspoken candour which he has before
now found not a little embarrassing in her, "that / am one of
those women ? I have an idea, a very small idea, that this
may be one of the improper circumstances for which you are so
good as to make an excuse. If that be so," flashing a sudden
reproachful look at him, " I think that you ought to have told
me before; but at any rate," standing still and holding out a
small cold hand to him, " we will run no more risks of such a
thing—we will say ' Good-bye' now, if you please."
" Is it possible, is it barely possible," he asks fiercely, taking
her hand, but only that he may draw her nearer to him, " that
you are not in jest—that you are in earnest ? Good heavens!
What sort of a brute do you take me for, that I should first
force myself upon you and then suggest that you are doing an
improper thing by walking with me ? "
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
59
" I do not take you for a brute at all!" she answers with a
small fine smile. " But whether it is right or wrong, my con-
science tells me I would much rather no one—not even Dolly—
were to see you here." Then looking at him with a relenting
glance, " Say ' Good-bye' now."
" Promise me that you will come to the old stile to-morrow,
and I will say it," he says, eagerly, holding her hand in a tight
clasp; " I cannot bear to part from you like this without a
chance of making you think less badly of me, when any day,
perhaps to-morrow, I may have to go to town, and heaven
knows when I may see you again ! "
Then stooping lower, and looking. at her with all the
persuasive tenderness of which his handsome and audacious
blue eyes are capable—" Will you come ? Promise that you
will!"
But she only shakes her head slowly and tantalisingly.
"What! You will not promise?" with some anger and a
good deal of heat in his tone. " Do you mean that after being
such friends—for say what you will, we have been friends—
you are willing to let me go away without even caring to see
me once more ? "
But to this last speech she gives no direct answer. Her
face has grown very white—whiter even than the moonlight
has already made it, but she tries bravely enough to loose her
hand from his.
" Since you will not say ' Good-bye,'" she says at length,
trying to smile, though he can see that her lips tremble—and
seeing, loses the small remnant of self-restraint that yet remains
to him—" I must go without."
And so saying turns resolutely away.
"No !" he says in a quick low voice, his handsome face
alight with sudden uncontrollable passion—"I will not say
' Good-bye.' That is a poor cold word. I will say {Good-
night'—Good-night, my darling ! "
And in a moment, before she has power to prevent him, or
6 o
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
can understand what he is doing, he has caught her in his
arms and has pressed his lips to hers.
It is all indeed but a moment's work—but a moment's sweet,
irrestrainable madness. Before he has time even to realise the
pleasure of it she has loosed herself from him, and without a
word, with one brief lightning-look, whether of anger, reproach,
or love he would find it hard to say, she has turned and fled,
swiftly as an arrow, across the grass.
He waits a moment until he has seen her slender white
figure pass out of sight into the house, and then he too turns
and makes his way as quickly as he can, not by the paths
through which he came, but by a straighter and less circuitous
cut across country, with only the lights from Sir Adrian's big
house to guide him to his destination.
CHAPTER VII.
For a little while Cecil Darrell does not repent of what he
has done.
In spite of the world, and in spite of himself, and though
both have done their best to ruin the better capabilities of his
nature, there yet remains to him some of the genuine fervour
and passion of youth.
Though he has frittered away the best part of his heart in a
hundred ignoble flirtations, and still more ignoble intrigues, it
is certain that all that is left of it has been given wholly and
irrevocably to the girl he has just kissed in the moonlight.
He would, indeed, be a worse man than he has as yet made
himself, if he could, in the first tender remembrance of that
unpremeditated embrace, find room for repentance.
For a little while—just a little while out of all his pleasure-
seeking and worldly life—he gives himself up to a genuine
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
61
emotion. He dwells with as passionate a tenderness on the
thought of the pure and tender lips on which he has laid his
own, the sweet girl-form he has held in his arms, as though he
had never before experienced the passion of love, never
mocked at it, never profaned it.
And though, even in the first heat of his passion, it cannot
but occur to him that, in some way or other, he or she will
have to pay for what he has done to-night, he is, for the
moment, as willing to risk that as he has been willing at other
moments to risk his all on the turn of a card.
It is, indeed, in the nature of such a life as he leads to make
a man a gambler, even if he were not a born one; a life that
leaves little room for thought, none for repentance; a life of
incessant tearing, hurry-scurrying from one amusement to
another—the life of a man of the world in the nineteenth
century. He must go always, unless he would be left behind
by his fellows, at this pace that the devil of fashion drives him,
pushing off that evil day when he will have to meet his
liabilities for all those pleasant sins he has been heaping up,
until the last day of all, when, if he be not altogether a heathen,
he has an idea that a man must make some sort of reckoning
with his God, just as he pushes off that inevitable day when,
his more mundane liabilities closing around him, he will be
bound to reckon with his creditors.
It is the same spirit of gambling that prevails throughout.
It is easier to spend than to save, trusting to good luck to
serve him at the last. It is easier to take any pleasure that lies
in his path than to trouble himself about any abstract question
of right or wrong, trusting to good luck to pull him through in
that other world, just as he trusts to it to pull him through in
this.
It is so easy, when one is young and of good courage, to
believe, with vague and happy-go-lucky philosophy, that every-
thing will come right somehow.
It is, indeed, the tendency, well nigh the necessity, of a rapid
62 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
age to live for the present, to ignore the morrow. What
time, indeed, is there to take thought for it ?
Now and again, maybe, when some comrade dies in our
midst—someone whose life was so like ours that we cannot
fail to see the resemblance—a sudden thought, like a ghostly
hand, stretches out from the darkness to warn us that that
" to-morrow" may not be so far off—may, indeed, be as near
to us as it was to him; but we quickly enough shake off the
thought, as we would shake off the hand. Ghosts cannot live
in sunshine and laughter, and though one rose from the dead
we should not believe him.
Cecil Darrell is no worse, is, indeed, a great deal better,
than most of his kind. By a large majority of his acquaint-
ance he is most certainly considered, as he probably con-
siders himself, one of the best fellows going. And if there
are a few exceptions, not only among men but among women
also, who have discovered, to their hurt, that a handsome face
and a winning manner are not always the most to be trusted,
they are but a small and silent minority.
That good-looking face, those open and generous ways of
his, coupled with small means and large expectations, have
been his greatest curse. He has never had occasion to prove
himself trustworthy; he has always been taken on trust. It is
not easy to find fault with a man who borrows freely with the
one hand, that he may fling away lavishly with the other. He
disarms criticism; and if, in the course of such an easy-going,
selfish, pleasure-seeking life, some wrongs are inflicted, they
are, for the most part, silent ones. He is above all, and before
all, a successful man. From his youth up he has had a very
plethora of the good things of this world thrust upon him, and
it is, as we know, " success that colours all in life, makes fools
admired, and villains honest." If the poor weak voice of the
unsuccessful were lifted up against him, there would be none
to listen to it.
It is not until he has got back to his own house, or to the
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 63
house that he has for a long time looked upon very certainly
as to be his own, and is pacing quietly up and down the well-
kept terrace, with a cigar in his mouth, that he begins to look
upon what he has done in the colder light of a more dispas-
sionate judgment.
Glancing in at one of the windows where the shaded lamp-
light reveals such an interior as only art and wealth, when they
combine their forces, can possibly produce, his eyes rest for a
moment on the worn and pallid face of an old man sleeping in
a chair. And in that moment he realises, as he has probably
never realised before, on what a precipice he stands.
All his future, all that the world contains for him hangs on
that old man's whim.
By one sudden caprice, by one stroke of his pen, he can
thrust him out from the possession of all those things that to
him, brought up as he has been, mean life and happiness, into
such an abyss of outer darkness, of debt and difficulty and
social annihilation, as he dares not even contemplate.
For the space of a second or so he, impelled by some sort
of fascination, watches him in his sleep.
Even in that deep rest, that seems so like death, it is not
hard to guess at his naturei And Darrell has no need to
guess; he knows that of all the wicked, whimsical, imperious,
and violent old men the world contains—there lies the worst.
Even he, with all his easy-going careless philosophy, dares not
look ahead for more than a moment or so at the possibility
that still lies within that old man's power, and not only
within his power, but most assuredly within his will also, if he
be thwarted.
His eyes rest for a moment on the thin and nerveless white
hand that hangs by the side of the chair, and then, with a
sort of smile, he turns away, and looks across the rich and
well-kept lands immediately around him, to the tumble-down
ramshackle old house in the hollow, where his pretty little
sweetheart lies, perhaps dreaming of him.
64
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
If he had not smiled, he might have groaned. For he
knows that of all the foolish and impossible things that he
has done in the course of a foolish and thoughtless life, there
has been none perhaps more utterly foolish than that he has
done to-night.
With a sudden pang of conscience, keener than any he has
felt for many years, he thinks of the pure and childish lips he
has just now touched, and knows that never, through all the years
to come, can he possibly claim the right to touch them again.
Given to any other woman, such a caress would certainly
not have troubled him more than a minute or so, if at all.
A kiss more or less, according to the creed of his light-of-love,
easy-going class, never did any woman harm. But by the
light of that higher intuition that is born of love, he for once
in his life is sure—so sure that he could stake his soul upon
it—that his are the first lover's lips that have ever lain on
hers; is sure — as sure as though an angel from heaven
had told him, that he has been the first to rob them of their
simple purity.
For one instant, with the breath of the trees and the
flowers in his face, with the ineffable serenity and peace of the
evening sky above his head, there comes to him a heaven-
born glimpse of such a life of purer love, of higher possibili-
ties, as may lie within a man's grasp before he has altogether
given himself over to the bondage of the world, the flesh, and
the devil.
Could he ever have found content and happiness in the
pure and constant love of one woman's sweet eyes—in the
unambitious tranquillity of such a quiet life as must have been
his, if he had once and for all renounced all pretensions to his
uncle's wealth ?
He cannot tell—he only knows that whatever he might have
done if such a chance had been presented to him at the
outset, he is now too deeply meshed in debt and difficulty to
have any choice left to him.
Unspotted from The World. 65
As a rule he is accustomed to go straight ahead, without
any superfluous and unprofitable thoughts of the possible
retribution which the sins of to-day may bring on the morrow,
being possessed of that cheerful philosophy which serves
many men instead of a conscience; but to-night, having,
with that selfishness which through the long practice of a life-
time has become so much easier than self-denial, considered
the pleasure of the moment before all other things, he is, for
once, forced to consider what way there is out of it.
And, so far as he can see, there are but two. He must
either go away without meeting her again, and leave her to
imagine the worst of him, and, in time, to forget that he ever
existed; or he must stay and abide by what he has done, and
so perhaps drag her still deeper into an entanglement, out of
which he can see no possible good end. Which would be the
best and kindest ? —or rather, which would be the least cruel ?
Over and over again he thinks of it until his head and his
heart ache. All the best of him lies uppermost in this hour.
For the moment the passion of his love is forgotten—the
tenderness remains.
If she were but a little child he could feel no more tender,
no more remorseful, as he thinks of the sadness of her life,
and that he, perhaps, has made it more sad.
" My poor little dear," he thinks, looking across the moon-
lit expanse that separates him from her, " I wish to God I had
never seen you ! "
If he could have seen, or could have subtly divined that
which was passing in the little room toward which his eyes so
longingly tended, he might indeed have been smitten with a
keener shame than his conscience had already brought him.
With her white arms clasped above her head, and all her
pretty hair unbound about her, the girl is lying—with a
smile, and a half-breathed prayer upon her parted lips—
asleep.
£
66 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
She had not prayed for many months ; not once, indeed,
since she came back to her home; for the formula that had
been unlovingly taught her when she went as a little child to
school, "Pray, God, bless dear papa, and dear sister, and all
kind friends," had seemed, in the light of a truer knowledge,
so bitter a mockery that it had seemed but an insult to offer it
to God. But to-night, with unfolded hands, with unbended
knees, with voiceless lips, there had gone up, straight from her
heart, a mute and simple form of thanksgiving, that, if Darreli
could have known of it, he would have found the very anti-
thesis of his own thought. " Thank God for making him
love me. God must be kind to me, after all, since he has
given me some one to love me," had been something the
nature of her voiceless address to that unknown One to whom
we all, in our great emotions, whether of love or of sorrow,
are wont to appeal.
In the first tumult of surprise and shame that followed on
Cecil Darrell's unexpected caress, she had hardly been able
to tell whether she were most glad or most sorry. For a: little
while she had an idea that she ought to be angry with him ;
but when it became clear to her that his kiss was but the sign
and seal of the love which a thousand words and looks had
before conveyed to her, she was only most simply and child-
ishly grateful, most womanfully glad over this unexpected
brightening of a life that a little while ago had seemed so sad
and so loveless.
She had not indeed been over-quick to imagine him in love
with her, having no great faith in her own charm; but since
he was, she was not ashamed to thank God with all her heart
for it.
" I will tell Dolly," had been one of her first thoughts. " I
shall be able to tell Dolly now." For the sin against Dolly
had weighed more heavily on her conscience than she had
cared to acknowledge to herself.
Her undressing had been a far slower process than usual.
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 67
She had looked at herself in the glass with a fond and linger-
ing glance that she had never before bestowed on herself. " I
must be pretty since he loves me," had been the thought that
had seemed to give a new sweetness to her eyes, a brighter
ripple to her hair, a more dazzling fairness to her skin. She
had meant to lie awake till Dolly came—perhaps, if she could
find words, to confess all to her. But the fatigue and the
emotion of the day overcame the resolution, and she had
fallen asleep, for once in her life, absolutely and perfectly
happy.
Dolly, coming in a little later, finds her so—with a shaft of
moonlight streaming through the unshuttered window full on
her face, making it white as a dead face. She has never
looked so beautiful—never so touchingly, childishly innocent.
As Dolly watches her, a pang of love and of pity brings the
tears nearer to her eyes than she often permits them to be
when there is anyone there to see them.
" What can become of her ? " she thinks with a most bitter
anxiety, remembering the manner in which she had left her
that very evening. " What is to come of it ? "
CHAPTER VIII.
The clock has counted out more than twelve hours since
Psyche and Darrell said good-bye in the moonlight. The
moon, who has so much to answer for, has hidden her pale
face, and another royal May sun is shining with all his dazzling
might. It wants but an hour of the time when Darrell had
asked her to meet him by the stile, but as yet, whatever she
may intend, she is making no preparations to go to him. She
is, on the contrary, sitting on the well-scrubbed table of a
small inner kitchen—more often used, and more appropriate
68 UNSPOTTED PROM THE WORLD.
to the present modest dimensions of the household than the
larger one—looking on with a markedly discontented air,
while Dolly, with a big spoon and well tucked-up gown,
bends over a saucepan.
When she had awakened in the morning to find an un-
usual stir and bustle in the house, accounted for by the fact
that Mr. Dalrymple had " one of his attacks," she had not
found it an insupportable affliction.
Breakfasts and dinners were the hardest times of her life.
At all other times, being largely aided by his sincere desire to
avoid her, she could manage to avoid him. But twice in the
day they were forced to come face to face with each other; to
keep up, as best they might, with forced lips and conscious
eyes, such poor affectation of domesticity as constraint made
possible.
For anything in the nature of a reprieve, for anything which
kept her out of his presence while the remembrance of the
previous evening was still strong upon her, she was too sin-
cerely and absolutely grateful to cavil at the means by which
she had obtained it. And, in point of fact, she has a very
shrewd idea that Mr. Dalrymple's illness, attributed by him-
self and a sympathetic doctor to weakness of the heart and a
sensitive disposition, are more fancy than fact; so that she
can afford to indulge in some satisfaction at her freedom, with-
out the drawback of feeling herself hard-hearted.
But her satisfaction is beginning to be largely tempered
with indignation. For two good hours she has been following
Dolly upstairs and downstairs; waiting for her outside the
thick-curtained door that shuts off Mr. Dalrymple's apartments
from the rest of the house ; watching her prepare trays, mea-
sure medicines, fetch papers and books, and do a hundred
and one things, of which the last, but not the least, is the
making of mutton-broth.
Evidently Mr. Dalrymple's "attacks"—not unfrequent
occurrences, by all accounts—only mean a deeper and more
UNSPOTTED PROM THE WORLD.
69
exacting tyranny on his part; a more unquestioning and un-
wearying slavery on Dolly's part.
" Are you never going to be done ? " asks Psyche, finding in
the cooking the last straw that breaks the back of such patience
as she is possessed of. " Is there no one in the house who can
make mutton-broth but you ? "
" I am afraid," says Dolly, lifting a pretty flushed face, to
which the fire has lent a brilliance that does not rightly belong
to it, " that there is no one else who can make it to please
father. Last tiine Puggeridge put too much pepper in; this
time "
" She might put a grain too much salt—or he would say she
did—it comes to the same thing. Do you not think," sarcas-
tically, " that you might as well take a place as general servant
or lady-help ? You might, perhaps, with your talent for cook-
ery, get twenty pounds a year if you threw Christian piety and
early rising into the bargain; whereas now—well, now—"
laughing, " you certainly get more kicks than half-pence !"
But to this Dolly makes no answer—unless a glance in which
mild reproach mingled with a keen anxiety as to the skimming
of the fat on her mutton-broth, be considered as answer.
" It appears to me," Psyche goes on, swinging her legs to
and fro with a growing impatience, " that for an invalid he,"
indicating with a little jerk of her head the direction of Mr.
Dalrymple's rooms, " does pretty well. This is the third meal
that you have prepared in two hours. First, tea and toast and
buttered eggs; secondly, port-wine and chicken-sandwiches ;
thirdly, mutton-broth, and what else, Dolly? He reminds me,"
laughing, " of the man who used to go about with a placard
on his coat—' If I fall down in a fit, raise my head up and give
me brandy.'"
"Psyche!" says Dolly, this time with distinct reproach.
But it fails of its effect.
" Does it never occur to you, Dolly," she goes on defiantly,
having reached that point of irritation when defiance is easier
70
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
than submission; " that you, with your large sense of duty—
you do not talk much about it, but I have an idea that duty
means a good deal to you—take nevertheless a rather one-sided
view of life—that, for instance, I," with an emphasis on the
word, "may have as great a claim on your time and your
charity as father has ? "
At this unexpected attack, Dolly lifts her eyes from her sauce-
pan, to the imminent peril of her broth, and fixes them in un-
bounded astonishment on her sister's face.
" What have I done?" she asks anxiously. "My dear child,
is anything the matter? "
At sight of her expression, Psyche feels her indignation
inclined to subside into half-irritated laughter.
" Nothing much," she admits candidly, "except that it makes
me cross to see you always fussing about when I want to talk
to you."
"Is that all?" with a sigh of relief. "Wait a moment—
wait half a moment," returning to her saucepan, " and you
shall talk to me to your heart's desire. There," setting it on
the hob with a triumphant air, " it must simmer now for a
quarter of an hour, and for that quarter of an hour I am abso-
lutely at your disposal. What shall we talk about ? "
But at this downright and matter-of-fact question, Psyche
instantly feels all desire for conversation die within her.
It is one thing to lie on one's bed in the shimmer of moon-
light, with mind and heart filled with a tender exaltation at the
remembered touch of a lover's hand, with the remembered look
of a lover's eyes, and to make up one's mind to such a confes-
sion as she had contemplated. But it is altogether a different
thing when one finds oneself in a bare-boarded kitchen—whose
prosaic details the full glare of daylight makes painfully plain
—opposite to a young woman with a tucked-up gown and a
scorched face, with a big and greasy spoon in one hand, and a
still more greasy cup in the other.
The sight of these homely implements seems to wither up all
UNSPOTTED PROM THE WORLD.
7i
Psyche's best intentions. It is only by holding fast to them
that she prevents them from deserting her altogether. It is
only by reminding herself that Dolly must be told, and that it
is altogether mean to deceive one who has so innocent a con-
fidence in her, that she keeps herself up to the point at all.
"My dear Dolly," she says laughing, half-vexedly, half-
amusedly—for her sense of the ridiculous, at all times large,
is irresistibly tickled by the situation—" for nipping up senti-
ment, and bringing one down to hard and matter-of-fact prose,
I will back you against any young woman in the United King-
dom. How can I talk to you about anything but mutton-broth
while your eyes are on the kitchen-clock measuring out the
minutes, and your heart in the saucepan ? Cannot you sit
down and look like a reasonable being? I knew that we were
poor," she goes on with some heat, "that father somehow or
another has muddled away most of his money; but are we so
poor that we, who are one of the oldest families in the country,"
drawing up her pretty white,neck, "must turn ourselves into
cooks and housemaids ? "
"I am not a cook, dear," says poor Dolly, apologetically.
" It is only that father is fanciful and likes the things I do.
There !" putting down her spoon and cup and seating herself
near the open window, whence the soft May air fans her heated
face, " will that please you better ? "
" A little better," regarding her with a critical air that is
not entirely approving, " if you could only manage to look
less troubled about many things. Now tell me," hesitating a
little, and casting about in her mind as to the best means of
beginning what she has to say, now she has brought Dolly up
to the point of attention, "tell me how you enjoyed yourself
last night. Do you know that you have hardly spoken a word
to me since we parted in such pleasant fashion in the hall ? "
At this remembrance a deeper flush comes into Dolly's
already flushed face.
"I did not enjoy myself much," she admits, with a little
73
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
sigh. " In fact, to be candid, not at all. Father had taken
one of his manuscripts with him—I think it was his last poem,
and he read it to the vicar after dinner; but I am afraid that
he did not care for it quite so much as he ought. He and
father had a little argument. Perhaps," naively, " that is
why father is ill to-day. He is often ill when he is vexed.
And then, dear," lifting her pretty, tender eyes, " how could
I have enjoyed myself under any circumstances, knowing
how I had left you, and that you were alone, and perhaps
unhappy ? "
It is certainly not a very propitious opening ; but Psyche is
so sick of waiting for an opening of some sort or another, that
such as it is she seizes upon it.
" And supposing," she says, in a voice that is not so
assured as she might wish it to be, and guiltily conscious, on
the other hand, that her face is growing a good deal redder
than she at all desires, " supposing that I was not alone ? "
"Not alone!" repeats Dolly, her attention effectually
gained, her eyes turning from the clock's plain and homely
face to fix themselves, with a good deal of surprise, on the
lovely, living face opposite to her. " Who could possibly
have come to see you so late ? "
For in Combe-Avon there is but one orthodox time of day
for paying visits; and those few, those very few, who have
not allowed the slights, the negligences, nor the pronounced
misanthropy of the father, to deter them from still showing
some civility to the daughter, mostly stick to it.
" Did I say that anyone came to see me ? If I did, I said
wrong. Now I come to think of it," laughing a little, " I
might more rightly have said that I went to see him, though
even that would not have been correct. As a matter of
fact," she goes on, hurriedly, conscious of the dismay which is
growing on Dolly's face, " I went out into the park—it was so
pretty in the moonlight—and he saw me, and walked home
with me."
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
73
"HeJ" repeats Dolly, slowly and bewilderedly, raking
over in her mind the small and meagre list of their ac-
quaintance, while a vague suspicion, a vaguer fear, makes her
face grow paler. '' Who was it, dear ? Who do you know
well enough down here, to —" then breaking off suddenly
and brightening as by magic— " unless it was Could it
have been Sir John ? "
"Sir John!" echoes Psyche, with cold disdain. "My
dear Dolly, do not you remember that you told him you were
going out to dinner? Do you suppose," sarcastically, " that
my red hair and my long legs are so attractive as to bring him
over five miles twice in one day ? "
Then, as Dolly answers nothing, having indeed, as is clearly
expressed by her bewildered face, come to the very end of
her resources, she takes her courage in both hands, feeling that
if she does not it will slip away from her altogether.
" Is there no one else," she goes on, in a more resolute
voice, and with a braver manner, "whom you might have
guessed ? While you have been searching far and wide, you
have overlooked someone close at hand—someone you your-
self introduced to me. Have you forgotten that pour of rain,
and that muddy lane, Dolly, and—and—Captain Darrell ? "
Having got out the name she feels that the worst is over.
She is able to look at Dolly quite quietly and calmly while she
waits for her answer. But she is hardly prepared for the
terrible dismay—the something that is more than dismay—that
she reads on her sister's pale face in the silence that follows.
" Captain Darrell!" she says at last, when she can find
voice. " I thought—I made so sure that he never stayed
down here more than a day or two at the outside. Do you
mean," very slowly, "is it possible that he had the pre-
sumption to come in here and walk about with you alone—at
night ? "
" If you call ten o'clock night—yes," says Psyche, defiantly.
" Why should he not ? "
74
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
And though in truth, the defiance covers a vague fear, for-
gotten for awhile, beginning to grow again at Dolly's strange
manner, she does not allow it to be apparent.
"Because," says "Dolly, with a certain calm authority of
manner that is not usual to her, " if you knew no better—and
indeed I am sure you did not—there is so much the more
blame to him for leading you to do a thing which ho knew was
wrong—which he knew, if it got to be talked about," her
voice trembling, "might irreparably injure you. At least,"
with some bitterness, " he cannot plead ignorance of the
world's ways !"
" Stay a moment!" cries Psyche hotly, anger getting the
better of any vague fears as to the propriety of her conduct.
" A minute ago you looked almost pleased because you thought
I had been walking with Sir John Heathcote. Now, because
it happens to have been Captain Darrell instead, you look as
if I had committed a crime. Will you tell me where lies the
difference? "
"Is there indeed any need that I should tell you?" Dolly
answers in a voice that she tries hard to make as steady and
quiet as it ordinarily is. " Sir John is our friend, father's friend
and mine, and he has known you since you were a little child;
while Captain Darrell knows, as well as I do, that the acquaint-
ance between Sir Adrian and ourselves is of the slightest. In-
deed, it can hardly be said that we know him at all. I was
sufficiently surprised when he almost forced himself on us that
day in the rain; but," her voice rising, " I would not have
believed that even he," with a bitterness of accent that is
altogether new to her, " would have presumed on so slight an
acquaintance to walk with you here in the moonlight, when he
knew that we were out, and that he would not have ventured
to come if we had been at home."
"You are arguing on false premises," says Psyche, with
suppressed passion, her anger at this imputation of duplicity
overcoming her fears—overcoming her shame at making such
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 75
a confession. " Our acquaintance is by no means so slight.
I have seen him a great many times since then. In fact,"
the colour on her face deepening, " we cannot be said to be
acquaintances any longer—we are friends !/'
But as she says it she averts her eyes from Dolly's face.
She has not the courage to see how she takes it.
There is a little silence—a horrible silence, during which the
dull clicking of the loud-voiced clock alone sounds in the room.
Evidently she is taking it badly. Evidently, when she
speaks again, she has a difficulty in speaking at all.
" You have seen him often," she says at length, very slowly,
and with such pained reproach as goes near to touching Psyche's
heart, "—and not told me?"
" Why should I tell you? " she cries, jumping off the table,
and beginning to pace up and down the bare-boarded kitchen,
while all the bitterness and soreness of the past months, all
the cruel slights pent up and surging in her heart, seem to
thrust themselves to the surface and to gain voice. "Are you
not always absorbed with father—or if it is not with father,
is it not with the house? Have you any time, any attention,
to spare for me ? Was it not plain," throwing out her hands with
a little passionate gesture, "from the very first day I came
home, how little I was wanted here ? You and he, you were
enough for each other—you did not want me. I do not blame
you," faltering a little, "no doubt you have done the best
you can—only," with a laugh that covers a sob, "it has
been the best for father, not for me. Ask yourself," turning
round and facing her with bright and flaming eyes, "has
there been such love, such friendship, such happiness in my
home, that I should turn my back on them when they come in
my way ? "
For the space of a second or so she gets no answer, and
when at last Dolly-speaks, she would scarce know the voice
for hers—so pained is it, so broken.
" That is true," she says very slowly, standing with her hands
76 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
clasped tightly in front of her. " It has been my fault—all my
fault. I ought to have known; I ought to have understood
how unhappy you were. I have been blind and foolish," her
voice rising, " I who am so much older than you ; I who ought
to have taken the place of a mother to you; but," faltering
and going near to breaking down altogether, "it has only
been blindness and ignorance—not carelessness, not neglect.
God knows," with sudden, unbidden tears, pitiful enough in so
self-contained a woman, filling her eyes, " it is not that I have
not cared."
Her tone and her manner would touch a harder heart than
Psyche's. At sight of the tears in Dolly's eyes, a good deal of
the bitterness of her anger seems to melt away.
" Do not cry, Dolly!—you must not cry ! " she says, going
over to her, and laying her hands upon her with a contrition
that is as swift as her anger had been. " No doubt it will all
come right somehow. Only, you see," faltering a little, and
looking as if the tears are not very far from her own eyes,
" you have your life, your friends ; and I have so little, so very
little, you must not grudge me my one friend."
"Dear," says Dolly, very gently, very tenderly, "do you
think I would grudge you anyone who would make you happy?
Do you know," with a watery smile, " I think I would give
up a good deal of my life if it would bring any happiness to
yours ? It is only that I am sure, so sure, that Captain Darrell
will never bring you any, and that I fear so sadly, so sorely,
that he may make you a great deal more unhappy than you
have ever been yet."
In an instant Psyche, forgetting her momentary softening,
withdraws her hands and falls back a pace or two.
"What have you to say against him?" she asks, cpldly
enough.
For a space of a second or so Dolly hesitates. Long ago it
had been said of her, justly enough, that she had never any but
a good word, a charitable excuse, for the worst of sipperg,
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. ft
Evidently evil-speaking comes so hardly to her that it is only
with difficulty she can bring herself to it even now.
" I know," she says, flushing and faltering a little, though
she does not permit her courage to desert her, " that in a world
—a very fashionable world, that is reckless enough, heaven
knows—he has the character of being one of the most reckless ;
and that down here, there is little that is good said of him—
much that is bad. Even old Sir Adrian, who, while health and
strength lasted, lived such an evil life that no decent woman has
been within their doors for near half a century, quarrels with
him every time he comes here, because he will not settle
down and marry."
" Petty gossip !" says Psyche, with a fine scorn, and no-
thing but her changing colour and her trembling lips to show
that it has in any way effected her. "Do not we all know
that they have nothing to do in this place but take away each
other's characters ? I wonder at you, Dolly," turning on her,
" that you should make yourself their mouthpiece. I do not
believe a word of it—not a word," with an energy that is too
vehement for conviction; " and if I did, it would not make any
difference to me. I have not so many friends that I can afford
to pick and choose the best amongst them. I like him, and—
he likes me. That is all that matters."
There is not much in the words, but there is much, a great
deal too much, it appears to Dolly, in the manner and the look
with which they are uttered—in the change from anger and
bitterness to a tenderness so passionate and glad that it seems
to light up her lovely childish face with a sudden glory.
" Do you mean," says Dolly, after a moment, pressing her
hand against her breast like one who, fearing evil tidings,
suddenly hears the worst, " that he has told you that he is fond
Of you? "
" Did I say so ? " asks Psyche, feeling driven into a corner
and bound to brazen it out, but all the same avoiding the
eager questioning of her sister's eyes with a sudden shame at
78
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
the remembrance of how, and in what fashion, he had told her.
" I do not think I did. But, on the other hand, is there any-
thing so terrible, so revolting, about me, that you should seem
so amazed at the idea ? "
"Is it possible," the other goes on, still pursuing the cate-
chism in accents in which surprise and dismay have almost
obliterated all other emotions, " that in so little time he can
really have grown so fond of you that—that he has asked you
to marry him ? "
This time Psyche no longer avoids her eyes. Instead, she
looks at her with a dazzled bewilderment like one awakening
from strange dreams into broad daylight.
" To marry him /" she repeats slowly, while a sudden vivid
flush mounts from her pretty white throat to the roots of the
soft loose hair that lies on her forehead. " Do you suppose
that we—that I—have even thought of that yet ? Are you
going to be one of those old women, Dolly, wffio if a man
looks at a woman, must talk directly of marriage ? "
"I have had little to do with-love and marriage, it is true,'1
she answers very steadily, yet with a touch of sadness. " My
life has been far enough away from them. Yet," colouring a
little, " if a man loves a woman honourably, and talks to her
of love, he talks to her of marriage also—so much I know.
Psyche, dear," stretching out her hands to her with a passion-
ate earnestness, "that Captain Darrell admires you—that
he even loves you I do not doubt; indeed, it seems to me it
would be difficult for him to help it; but little as I know of
the world, still less of the men in it, yet I do know that there
are some who, rather than forego the amusement of an hour or
a day, will run the risk of breaking a woman's heart, and will
gain a love they do not care to keep. If he marries against
his uncle's wishes," gaining force as she goes on, "he will
forfeit all those things that make life pleasant to him. Ask
yourself," her voice trembling : " do you think he will give
up everything for you ? "
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
79
But the warmth of her eloquence lights no answering fire in
Psyche's cold face.
" I am sorry," she says slowly, regarding her with disdainful
eyes, " with all my heart I am sorry I ever told you a word
about him ! If I could have foreseen how you would have
taken it," she goes on passionately, " I would sooner have cut
my tongue out than have spoken to you of him ! It seems to
me shameful, almost indecent," flushing furiously, " that you
and I should be discussing the chances of his marriage. And
for the matter of that," turning round on her suddenly, and
altogether changing her ground, " can you tell me any good
reason why I should not please his uncle as well as any other
girl ? "
But to this there is no answer. Dolly's face pales suddenly
and strangely, her eyes drop, and she falls back a pace or two.
" Answer me," cries the girl impatiently, coming a step nearer.
" Are you dumb ?—Is there any reason ? "
But still Dolly does not answer; indeed she cannot.
Something in her look, in her silence, wakes a sudden inex-
plicable, intangible fear in Psyche's mind. Her face pales too,
her eyes widen.
"Dolly," she says in a low passionate voice, and with a face
that seems to try and master her, " you shall speak. Did you
mean anything by what you said ? Answer me, quick ? "
" You know," says Dolly- at last, slowly and hesitatingly,
moving her head uneasily, " all the world knows that father
hates Sir Adrian, and he "
But she gets no farther.
" Bah ! " cries Psyche, with a laugh that rings through the
room. " Is that all? Do you know," laying her hand on
her breast, and speaking quickly and sharply, as though her
breath came unevenly, " that for a moment you—you
absolutely frightened me. I began to have some sort of
ridiculous fear that there was some real reason, some good
reason. And after all," breaking off into fresh laughter^
80 Unspotted prom the world.
"it is only that father hates Sir Adrian. It appears to me that
the only strange thing would have been if he had not hated
him !"
So saying, she turns away. She is already half-way towards
the door, when Dolly springs after her, and lays a hand upon her.
" At least, promise me," she says, with a most implorimg
earnestness, " that you will not see him again alone. There
is nothing I can do to prevent you—there is no one I can
appeal to," she goes on, incoherently "yet, for my
sake "
She breaks down there.
" No ! " cries Psyche, shaking off her hand with an anger
that is now beyond control; " I will not promise. On the
contrary, I am going straight to him now—this minute !"
And without another look or word she opens the door and
goes, slamming it after her.
For the space of a minute or so Dolly stands absolutely still
—mute, despairing. One or two tears steal quietly down her
cheeks on to her clasped hands ; but she does not move, even
to brush them away. The loud striking of the clock rouses her
suddenly, and looking up she sees that the quarter of an hour
that she promised Psyche has long ago gone by, and though
her heart is aching and her eyes are wet, she turns resolutely
back to the task she has, for a little while, forgotten.
And if there are a good many tears mingled with Mr. Dal-
rymple's broth, he does not know it.
CHAPTER IX.
The church-clock down in the valley has just chimed three.
Three hours have gone since Psyche left the kitchen with
the trenchantly expressed determination to go straightway to
her lover. But for all that she has not seen him. They have
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 81
not been goodly hours, made short and sweet by gay and
pleasant words, by pleasanter looks. They might, on the con-
trary, fairly be counted as three of the most miserable that she
has spent in the course of a life which she is apt, not unjustly,
to regard as a not over-happy one.
Her determination to go to him had not indeed been a mere
empty piece of bravado. With her hat flung hastily on her
head, and without one look in the glass, she had gone straight
out, walking as fast as her feet could carry her, with but one
burning and paramount desire—to get to him as quickly as
might be, and to satisfy herself, even though she could not
satisfy Dolly, that all she had said of him, all her doubts of him,
were as false and untrue as she knew them to be.
The heat of her anger and her indignation had indeed carried
her half-way through the wood; but anger, though it may at
some times prove a trusty ally, and may often enough carry us
through scenes and help us to victories which could never have
been achieved in cold blood, is not to be relied upon as a last-
ing support.
Half-way through the wood, when but a few minutes more
of such hasty walking would in all probability bring her into
Darrell's presence, Psyche's anger, which had been at white-
heat when she started, began to fail her; and as its strength
waxed fainter there had crept into her mind a small and sickly
doubt that made her heart to grow weak, her footsteps to
slacken their speed.
It is, without doubt, one of the strongest powers of those
whose words are habitually gentle, who are as slow to speak
evil as to think it, that when they do lift up their voices in
protest or remonstrance their words carry greater weight than
those of others. Dolly's words, Dolly's dismay, come back to
her with ten times the greater force that they were Dolly's.
She had counted so surely on her confession being received
with interest and sympathy—with a little tender remonstrance,
a few vague words of reproach at the outside. Dolly's gentle-
F
82
UNSPOTTED PROM THE WORLD.
ness and docility, Dolly's readiness to be guided and over-ruled
by her, had been things she had so little doubted, that it had
been sufficiently amazing to find them fail her.
Slowly, unwillingly, as her anger weakened, that small, chill
doubt of her own infallibility strengthened. Was it possible,
barely possible, she began to ask herself, that Dolly was
right and she was wrong—terribly wrong ? Had she been un-
maidenly—immodest—indiscreet? And then, not slowly,
but suddenly—striking her with the force of a blow—had
come another and a far more overwhelming remembrance!
—Her confession had been incomplete. If Dolly had been
amazed and indignant at that which she had told, what would
she have thought of that which had been left untold? If
she could have known, if she could have guessed, that he
had not only walked with her in the moonlight, but had
held her in his arms—had called her his darling—and kissed
her ?
And at this thought her feet, so lately hurrying along, had
stood stock-still; the warm fresh blood that exercise and hope
had brought to her cheeks, had fled of a sudden, leaving them
stone white, to return with a flush so furious and painful that
she had hidden her face in her two hands, as if the very trees
could see her.
With a pang of shame, such as she had never felt before in
all her life—for indeed there had been until now no shame in
it, even if there had been little to boast of—she saw her own
conduct and his as- Dolly or any other modest woman might
see it, and of a sudden was deserted by that gay and happy
confidence, that undoubted trust which had made his kiss a
cause of gladness—not of shame.
Was it possible, she had asked herself, lifting her face from
her hands and looking about her with a bewildered glance—
that she who had thought herself so happy, so loved, was
after all only an indiscreet little fool?—that he, of whose
liking, of whose friendship, of whose love even, she had
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 83
within the last few hours been so gladly sure, had been only
laughing at her, amusing himself with her ?—worst, most un-
bearable of all, thinking lightly of her ?
It is three hours—three long most miserable hours—since
she first asked that question of herself, and through all the
weary, dragging minutes that go to make up the sum of them,
she has been asking it ever since, with a hundred different
variations and never a certain answer.
Out of the chaos of perplexity and misery that had assailed
her with the first strong doubt of her lover, on two points
alone had she neither wavered nor doubted. She could not
go to him, could not look into his face nor touch his hand,
while yet the sense of shame and wrong were so strong upon
her: neither could she go back home to Dolly to meet the
question in her eyes, and let her guess that the cautions and
fears that she had so vehemently scorned when she had pre-
sented them to her, had after all got the better of her.
For three hours she holds fast to this resolution; for three
long weary hours hides herself out of sight and sound of
human eyes and voice in the thickest and loneliest tangle in
the wood, sounding the depths of such pain and ahame as she
has never before even guessed at in all her young life.
And at the end of them, though she by no means abandons
her resolution, it abandons her;—driven out, routed and van-
quished by a feeling that is stronger than love, stronger than
fear, stronger even than shame.
It is three o'clock; an hour and a half past lunch-time, six
hours since breakfast-time; and she is horribly, siekeningly,
prosaically hungry. After all it is a poor satisfaction to feel
that she is punishing Dolly, when she is punishing herself so
much more. She will have to give in ; to go home, and let
Dolly guess from her red eyes and her forlorn aspect that her
glad and loudly-expressed belief in her lover has failed her;
that she has lacked even the courage to go to him.
Even to punish her—and in her heart she knows that she
84
unspotted from the world.
wants to punish her—that she bears against her that indefin-
able grudge that we mostly feel to those who open our eyes to
unpleasant truths—she cannot starve.
She rises to her feet—stiff and cramped from long sitting on
the. grass—and, smoothing her tumbled chestnut head and her
crumpled gown, looks about her.
The way by which she came, forcing a path through briars and
brambles, through trees and brushwood, looks an impossible
one now. In her desire to hide herself she had pushed her
way through them with a passionate insistance which had not
allowed any obstacles to stand in her path. It is an altogether
different thing to get back.
Looking about her a little, she sees that it will be a shorter
and easier way to get straight out of the wood into the high-
road, and so round to the lodge gates; and there are so few
who come up the little-used avenue, that once inside them it
will be easy enough to get in unperceived. For the little
piece of high-road that she will have to cross, it will be ill-
luck indeed if she cannot get over that without meeting any-
one. At any rate, it is clear that she must get out somehow—
anyhow. Desperation makes her brave—and so, gathering up
with one hand what remains of her pretty blue cotton gown,
the best that her scanty wardrobe contains, and which with a
reckless disregard of those to-morrows when there might be
no gowns to wear, no lovers to meet, she had put on with so
gay a confidence in the goodly hours stretching out before her
—she fights her way through the jumble of boughs and
branches with the other.
When she finds herself at last out of the thick and shady
wood, in the open scorching sunlight, there are several larger
and more unmendable rents in her gown; a long and disfigur-
ing scratch where a bramble has torn across her hand; her
hair is loose, and her hat is off; *and still between her and the
high-road is that very paling that Darrell had jumped the night
before.
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
85
She remembers, with a small and sickly smile, how she had
wondered at his jump. Well! she wonders no less now. If
it were not for a friendly gap where two palings have altogether
gone to decay, and no one has taken the trouble to replace
them, she might stay for ever on this side of it. But through
that gap, by dint of squeezing and pushing, she manages to
stand at last—not altogether safe and sound, it is true, but a
good deal the worse for wear—on a narrow grassy path that
is raised a little above the high-road, and runs alongside
of it.
The grass is so plentifully powdered with dust that it is
nearer white than green, and the sun is scorching down upon
it with so unblenching a glare that Psyche, coming from the
shade of the wood, stands for a moment dazzled, with one
hand above her eyes, trying to look ahead of her, and make
sure that there is no one to see her in her present dilapidated
condition.
And as she so stands, she hears her name called aloud in a
quick sharp voice of gladdest surprise—sees some one jump
over a gate in the opposite hedge; and in a moment is face to
face with the one person whom of all others she would have
avoided!
" At last!" cries Darrell, springing up the bank, his hand-
some face alight with pleasure, being indeed so pleased at find-
ing her after long searching that he does not for the moment
perceive anything strange in her. " Do you know that I have
been hunting for you high and low ? I waited all the morning
at the stile. I give you my word I was hardly half an hour
over lunch, and I have been looking for you ever since. I
made sure you would be out of doors, and that if you were I
should find you somehow. I have not missed a place. What
have you been doing ?—Where have you been hiding your-
self?"
He stops suddenly, and regards her with a slowly-growing
surprise and dismay,
86
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
"Has anything happened? " he asks quickly. "Tell me
what prevented you from coming? "
And she must speak—must answer him—though her heart
is beating and throbbing to sickness; though her lips are
quivering so that, do what she will, she cannot control them;
though she would give all that she possesses—nay more, would
barter a good many.of the days that a little while ago seemed
so bright, that now seem so little worth the having—to get out
of his presence.
" If you remember," she says, struggling hard for a seemly
composure, but not looking at him—looking anywhere, indeed,
rather than into his face ; " I never said that I would come.
On the contrary," with a brave attempt at a smile, that is
not altogether successful, " I think I said that I would
not."
" If you said it," he answers hotly, " you never meant it—I
will swear that you did not. And besides, that was
before " He halts there. Whatever he has intended to
say, he does not say it. Instead, he comes close to her, re-
garding her with a new and most earnest scrutiny. " Some-
thing is the matter," he says, in quick, changed tones. "You
have been—yes ! I am sure of it—you have been crying! "
And she does not answer him—she cannot. What good is
there in telling him a lie when she knows that the marks of
tears are written on her face so plainly that they who look
cannot fail to see them ?
"What is it?" he goes on eagerly, coming a step nearer
and putting out his hand to try and take hers. " Tell me what
has happened ! What is the matter? "
But she withdraws herself from him, quietly ignoring his
outstretched hand.
" If I have been crying," she answers, with a coldness and
dignity that are altogether new in his experience of her, " that
is my affair—mine alone. I suppose we all have some troubles.
I, for my part," with a small and bitter smile, "am not
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
87
going to deny that I have my full share of them. Will you let
me pass, please."
For a moment he hesitates. He knows that he would do
well to accept her rebuff, and, emulating her pride, take her
at her word and let her go. He knows that all the morning
long he has been casting about in his mind as to the best and
least heartless way of saying " Good-bye " to her for ever; and
though his resolution has grown a good deal weaker, and his
desire to see her a good deal stronger with the long waiting,
yet the necessity remains. He has only to take her at her word
and let her'pass, and he need never see her again. But for the
life of him he cannot do it!
The very fact that she on whose pliancy, on whose tender-
ness, he had so surely counted, is not only willing but anxious
to get away from him makes it the more impossible. Her
resistance gives to the desperate fancy he already feels for her
the one spark of genuine fire it has hitherto lacked.
" Give me your assurance that it is your affair, and not
mine," he says, planting himself in her path, with a look in
his face and a tone in his voice which might convince her, if
she had ever doubted it, how passionate it would be possible
for him to be. "Tell me, on your word of honour, that 1
have had nothing to do with your tears, and I will let you
go !"
And at this question—which, indeed, from the imperious
tone of it, sounds more like a command than a question—her
face, from which the flush of surprise and dismay has long
ago fled, turns yet a great deal paler—her breath comes quick
and hard. For the space of a second or so, she, too, hesitates
—driven into a comer.
" How is it possible," she begins slowly, desperately resolved
to stick fast to her pride and her dignity at any cost, " that
you—that anyone "
But the words, halting and lagging on her lips, die there
unuttered. Her eyes, wandering uneasily to and fro, are
88
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
compelled by some subtle force to meet his, and meeting
them, of a sudden, light into a fire that equals, nay, surpasses,
the fire in his.
"No ! " she cries, with a most passionate anger, no longer
faltering or trembling—" I will not tell you a lie ! Before I
knew you I might have been unhappy—there were times, I
know, when I thought myself miserable—but until to-day,"
clenching her hands in front of her, " until to-day I never
knew what it was to be ashamed ! "
" Ashamed! " he echoes, in accents of profoundest dismay,
while a sudden fear drives the healthy brown colour from his
face, leaving him pale almost as she is.
With a keen remembrance of his imprudence of the night
before, he jumps, not unnaturally, to the conclusion that
someone has overseen them, and that she has been made to
suffer for his folly. That she should herself have betrayed
herself does not enter into his calculations.
"Who has dared to put such an idea into your head?
Tell me," quickly and fiercely, " what you can possibly
mean !"
But to this she needs no entreaty. Her small and ill-
fitting mask of pride and reserve once thrown aside, the words
come quickly enough, following each other so fast that she
can scarcely find voice for them. There is no difficulty in
telling him the truth—the only difficulty has been in keeping
it back from him.
" Do you remember," she says, looking straight at him
with her lovely, angry eyes, "how I asked you only yesterday
morning if you were sure, quite sure, that in meeting you, and
talking to you, I was not doing a very dreadful thing—and
how you answered me ? "
" I told you then, as I will tell you now—a thousand times
over, if you like," he answers, with extraordinary heat, " that
there was no harm in it. That no one," with vehement
emphasis, " but a fool would see any harm in it! "
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
89
" And last night," she goes on with a growing bitterness,
altogether ignoring this assertion, " when you walked with
me—when you would walk with me—for, after all, it was your
doing—you told me much the same thing, and all the while—
all the while," clasping and unclasping her hands with a
passionate gesture, " you knew that I was doing a thing that
no one but a girl who was so ignorant that she knew no
better, or so reckless that she cared nothing what was thought
of her, would have done — a thing," her voice rising with
every word, " that, if it got to be talked about, might irrepar-
ably injure me !"
There is a pause—he does not speak. Still looking straight
into his face, and seeing the change in it, she knows that for
the moment he is too angry to speak. Then he comes a
step nearer.
" Who put those words into your mouth ? " he asks, in a
voice that is so unlike his ordinary voice that it almost
frightens her. " They are not your words, not your thoughts—
that I will swear. Whose are they ? "
But she will not permit herself to be frightened.
"They are not my words, nor my thoughts ; that is true,"
she says, with a courageous aspect, but at the same time
remembering with an inward-dismay that she has used the very
words that she had so vehemently repudiated only a few hours
ago. " If I had known it—if I had thought of it like that, is
it likely I should have done it ? It was not until I told Dolly
that I even knew I had done anything very foolish."
" Do you mean," he asks slowly, astonishment getting the
better of every other feeling, " that you, yourself, told your
sister ? "
" If there was no harm in it, why should I not tell her ? "
she answers, with a little touch of dignity, which being this
time a real dignity and not an assumed one, does not sit
badly on her.
*'You told her everything?" he says, still in intense sur-
go
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
prise, still trying to grasp this new and unexpected view of the
situation, and without thinking how she may take the question.
There is a moment's silence—a horrible and painful silence
on the girl's part. The colour, of which hunger and emotion
have almost completely robbed her, comes back to her face
in a burning flush—a cruel flush, that mounts to her . very
forehead—and for the first time her eyes drop before his.
"Almost everything," she says after a moment, very low—
so low that he can only guess at the words.
Then, before he lias time to speak, or indeed to think what
it shall be best for him to say and do under this new aspect of
affairs, she lifts her eyes and speaks again so eagerly, so hur-
riedly, that he cannot, if he would, stop her.
" I had never meant to tell you—I never intended to say
these things to you," she goes on, still with that painful flush
upon her face. " During all these hours since Dolly told me
— since I have been beginning to understand that she was right
and I was wrong, all wrong, I have been trying to makeup my
mind that I would hide myself away from you, and let you go
away and forget that you ever knew me. Do not think," try-
ing to lift her heavy, shamed eyes to meet his, " that I blame
you—or at least," with that natural honesty of which she finds
it difficult to rid herself, " not altogether. It is my own folly,
my own ignorance, that I ought to blame—not you. No
doubt," with a small and bitter smile, " you have only done
what any other man would have done, if he had encountered a
girl so foolish, so ignorant, as you have found me."
There is a moment's pause.
But a minute ago there had seemed no end to the many
bitter words she might say to him—outcome of the many bitter
thoughts which have been her portion during the last most
wretched hours; but already the passionate force which made
the saying of them possible begins to fail her. Already her
courage, but a little while ago so strong within her, waxes faint
in the face of his resolute silence and stern aspect.
UNSPOi FED FROM THE WORLD. 91
" Go on," he says briefly, standing before her with folded
arms and knitted brows. " Have you any mofe to say ?
When you have said it, then I will answer you."
" There is nothing more that can be said between us," she
answers, faltering a little, and with a sudden childish quiver of
her pretty mouth that goes near to softening his anger, " except
—' Good-bye.' Now that I know what you have thought—
what you must have thought of me all along—I could not bear
to see you again. I should be too ashamed."
Then lifting her heavy eyes, from which the light of passion
has died out, leaving them dull and sad and very weary, she
looks once more into his face.
"There is but one thing I should like to ask you," she
says, in a voice that trembles audibly, in spite of all her efforts
to control it, " that when you have gone right away, you will
think of me, if you ever think of me at all, as a girl who was
ignorant and foolish, and very thoughtless, but who did not
mean," with a sudden sob catching her breath—" who never
meant to be as bad as you thought her."
So saying, she turns away. There is no more to be said be-
tween them, so she thinks ; and the one desire, the only desire
that is for the moment left to her is to get away out of his
presence before the small remnant of self-restraint that yet
remains to her deserts her utterly.
" Stay ! " he cries, springing after her, and laying his hand
upon her so that he compels her to stop. " Did you think I was
going to let you leave me like that ? Good heavens ! " draw-
ing her round, and making her face him, "is it possible—is it
barely possible—that you meant all that you said ?—that even a
woman's ingenuity could so warp and distort the truth ? "
But at the touch of his hands, at the sound of his voice,
the tears with which she has been so bravely struggling get the
better of her, and one or two overflowing run down her cheeks
beyond concealment, and at sight of them all that is left of his
anger—which has been, after all, mostly anger against himself
92 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
and his own exceeding folly in bringing this trouble on her—
dies utterly.
" Do not cry—for God's sake stop crying !" he says, in a
voice that has no longer a suspicion of harshness, that is on
the contrary exceedingly gentle and tender. "If there has
been any blame in the matter, it has been mine, not yours.
Don't you understand," trying to draw her closer to him,
" that I have never thought of you—shall never think of you
—but as the sweetest, most innocent, most loveable "
But the words die on his lips. His eyes, seeking hers with
a passionate tenderness, change slowly to a dismayed and hor-
rifled stare, and he drops her hands and starts away from her
as though he had been shot.
And she, looking up and following the direction of his eyes
with a startled and bewildered gaze, sees quickly enough the
cause of this change.
A large open carriage, bowling swiftly and silently along the
soft dusty road, has turned the corner of the lane, and is, in
fact, almost alongside of them before they, full of their own
thoughts, have been aware of its approach.
She has neither the time nor the presence of mind to school
her face or her attitude into the semblance of a decent conven-
tionality; no time even to wipe away the tears that are wet
upon her cheeks. She is indeed too startled to do anything
but stand stock-still, stupidly staring at it until it is gone.
It is a very well-appointed carriage; but the couple of sleek
and well-fed horses, the couple of equally sleek and well-fed
servants, whose eyes—having no doubt taken in the whole
scene at a glance, are at this moment discreetly averted—
leave no impression on her. She sees only, or is conscious
only, of the one solitary occupant of it.
A little old man, a very little old man he looks to her,
being so burried, even on this summer day, among wraps and
pillows, with a thin, small, vicious-looking face—a face that
appears to her as being exceedingly worn and very old—
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. §3
pitiably old—with the one exception of the eyes. The eyes
give the lie to the rest of the features. They are young eyes,
bright and dark and extraordinarily sharp, and brimful of
malice and wickedness.
They look from Darrell to Psyche and then back again,
resting on her with a glance that conveys to her an infinite
amusement at her expense, and at the same time manages to
combine with it a leer of contemptuous admiration. Not all
the words he could have spoken could make her understand
more clearly what he thinks of her, and how he has inter-
preted the little scene he has had the misfortune to interrupt.
No insult could sting her more cruelly than the insult of his
look; could make her more vividly, ashamedly conscious
of the strangeness of her appearance, and of the whole
situation.
With limbs that tremble with sudden sickness, and dazed,
wide-open eyes, she watches dully until the carriage is well
out of sight; then her look slowly seeks Darrell's.
"That"—she says, with a dangerous calm, raising one
hand and pointing in the direction in which the carriage has
disappeared, " is your uncle ? "
" That," he answers with a little sneer and a face that is
white almost as hers, " is my sweet-tempered, sweet-spoken,
amiable uncle."
" And," she goes on, still in the hard strained voice that is
so unlike her ordinary voice, " he saw me like this," with a
little gesture that seems to indicate and emphasise all the
details of her forlorn appearance, "like this—holding your
hands, and crying in a public road in the middle of the
day !"
"No doubt," he answers, laughing aloud, "but he saw you.
There is not much," with venomous emphasis, " that escapes
his eyes !"
It is, as a matter of fact, a very miserable laugh. There is
little of mirth or jollity in it—or if there is any mirth, it is of
94
unspotted from the world.
that bitter sort that sometimes forces a man, even in the most
critical or tragical crisis of his life, to see the farcical side of it.
But it is chiefly the irrepressible vent of an unbearable vexa-
tion, an uncontrollable irritation. If he had not laughed he
must have cursed himself for the unpardonable folly which had
brought himself and her to such a pass—must have cursed the
old man who had chosen this day out of all days in the year to
take a drive—this road out of all roads in the country for the
direction of it. Since he could not curse, he had laughed.
But she cannot understand that.
His laugh is the crowning point of all the miserable hours
she has endured since morning—the one overflowing drop in
the bitter cup of her wretchedness and shame. She finds in
it an indisputable proof of the heartlessness which she had
not until now, in spite of all doubts, believed possible in him.
She turns on him a look of such pain and reproach and
unspeakable indignation as might well wound a man, eveh-as
heartless as she takes him to be; and then without another
word, good or bad, turns her back upon him : and since it is
not possible to pass him on the narrow path on which they
stand, or without passing him to get home by the way she
intended to go, retraces her steps, and, pushing through the
broken paling which had seemed so difficult to pass a few
minutes ago, but which now forms but a trifling obstacle to her
passionate strength, she forces her way through trees and
brushwood, until she comes to a small open clearing,- and
then—there being no longer any need for her strength, she
allows it to desert her, and throwing herself prone on the
ground, and burying her face in .her out-flung arms, out of
sight even of the quietly waving tree-tops, the glimpse of
tranquil summer sky over-head-^falls to passionate, irrestrain-
able weeping—such weeping as for the moment carries with it
its own consolation, and deadens both thought and feeling,
or, indeed, anything and everything but the sound of her own
sobs.
unspotted from the world. 95
CHAPTER X.
It is Darrell's voice that brings her back to consciousness.
"Do not cry," he says, in tones that are rough and harsh
from excess of feeling. "I want you to listen to me. For
heaven's sake ! " seeing that she still goes on, " stop crying !
Upon my word—upon my soul—there is nothing to cry
about."
She tries to obey him—tries bravely, being not a little
humiliated to think that he has followed her—that all the
while, when she has thought herself alone, he has been listen-
ing to her—but her sobs have by this time reached that stage
when they are well-nigh beyond control.
And his remonstrance having no effect, he stands for a
moment silent, looking down on her.
He has seen a good many women cry in his time, but not
one whose tears have moved him as hers do.
As a matter of fact, when he thinks of her as he saw her first,
so bright and joyous, and full of a certain gladness of life which
not all the sadness and loneliness of her childhood had been
able to touch, and remembers that he has brought her to this,
they move him so greatly that he is for the moment unwilling
to trust himself to speech.
And it is she who breaks the silence, raising herself and
sitting erect, but still so shielding her face with her two hands
that she may hide its disfigurement from him.
"I know," she says in a voice that is still dull, and muffled
with many tears,—"that there is no reason I should cry, or at
least," faltering, " that there is no good in it, and I never was
One to cry much—never. I do not think," with a furtive
glance from the shelter of her fingers to see how he takes this
assertion, " that I ever cried in all my life so much as I have
cried to-day; but to-day," with a sob that is strangled at its
birth, " everything has conspired against me. I am tired and
faint, and oh t" with so sudden, so earnest an appeal, that she
96 unspotted from the World.
forgets even the unlovely marks of tears on her lovely face, and
looks straight up into his—" if you would only leave me—if
you would only leave me to myself! "
" No! " he cries, with a sudden passionate light in his eyes,
and in a voice so clear and strong that it seems to echo through
the silence of the wood. " That is the last thing I mean to do.
On the contrary, I mean"—throwing himself down by her
side, and stretching out his hands to her—"I mean, if you will
let me, to stay with you always."
But she does not answer him—indeed, she cannot. The
change from a terrible heart-sickness, whose cause she has but
dimly comprehended and only instinctively felt, to something
that, though seen as yet only afar off, yet looks so like happi-
ness, is too swift and too strange to be quickly realised. She
falls a-trembling, and her face, white enough before, becomes
white as a dead face.
" You have suffered enough through me," he goes on, with
the strong excitement of a great and desperate resolution, only
finally arrived at during the last few minutes. "Well, now you
shall suffer no more; or at least," with an obtrusive remembrance
of all that lies before them, "it shall be only such suffering as
even my love cannot spare you. There shall be no more
sorrow, no more humiliation, that I shall not share with you."
But even yet she does not speak—not a word; even yet her
small white hands, closely prisoned in his strong brown ones,
tremble in his clasp. But in her big, wide eyes there dawns,
as she looks half-incredulously, half-believingly, at this new,
strange, unrealisable gladness, a light, than which, it seems to
him, he has never seen anything lovelier.
It pays him even for the enormous sacrifice he contemplates.
Though it may cost him dearly enough—how dearly, he does
not at that moment care to consider—he exults in the thought
that he has the power to make her happy. It confirms him in
his desperate resolution—whether it be right or wrong, wise or
foolish—at any and every cost to purchase that power.
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. §7
He does not wait for any answer to his last words, or, indeed,
ask for any. He probably understands her too thoroughly to
need that she should speak.
" I do not mean to tell you," he goes on, full of his own
thoughts, " I do not mean to deny to you that I meant to
leave you. Even last night, when I kissed you," with a sudden
flush, that does not misbecome him, " I had no right to do it,
for even then—even all this morning—I meant to go away
without telling you that I loved you. Well!" with a long-
drawn breath, "it was hard enough then—God knows. It is
impossible now!"
And feeling that at these words, her hands—lying until now
willingly enough in his—make an effort to release themselves,
he only clasps them the tighter, and draws her a little closer
to him.
" My dear," he says, looking with passionate fondness into
hei face, which, in spite of the traces of tears, seems to him
the prettiest he has ever seen, "there is no one in all the
world, no beggar that you may meet in the roads, who has less
right to ask you to be his wife than I have. Even the beggar,"
with a reckless laugh, " is better off than I am, for he has, at
least, no debts. And even if I were rich, I suppose that your
people and mine would be all against me. And yet—and yet,"
his voice rising, his face glowing with passionate fervour,
" in spite of everything and everybody—will you stick to me,
will you take the chances with me—only poor, bare chances,
my darling, that someday, somehow, in the time to come we
may be married ? "
And so saying, he releases her hands, as if he would in no
way constrain her, and drawing back a little, looks at her—
waiting.
And for the first time she lifts her eyes to his, and over her
face there slowly spreads an exquisite smile—a smile of un-
speakable tenderness—of passionate, child-like exultation.
" Ah !" she says with a little cry, and a laugh that is half a
a
g8
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
sob. " You love me after all!"—and stretches back her hands
to him.
But he does not take them. He takes her to his arms in-
stead, and for a moment—one of those moments that go far
to atone for all the evil ones in a lifetime—they are
silent.
It is to her that the first chill doubt creeps in. He, for his
part, has flung doubts to the winds, and being perfectly con-
scious that he has done an exquisitely foolish thing, has at
least the philosophy to enjoy it to the utmost.
" Are you sure ? " she say's after a little, raising her head
from his shoulder, and drawing back a pace or two the better
to see his face—" are you quite sure that you do love me ; that
you are not only saying it because," with a deepening of the
lovely rose-flush that happiness has brought to her cheeks, "I
cried—because you are sorry for me ? "
But as she asks it she looks into his eyes, and sees that in
them which even a woman who did not love him would
scarcely doubt.
Indeed in the exaltation of the moment all the best of him
lies uppermost; all that is most unselfish, most noble, most
genuine.
" Am I sure ? " he answers with a joyous laugh, drawing her
back to him. " I am sure of nothing, except that I love you.
I think," gently touching the little soft curls that lie about her
forehead, with an exquisite pleasure in the sense that his touch
is no longer an indiscretion, " that I must have loved you from
the very first minute I saw you, standing in a puddle, with
the rain dripping off the brim of your hat."
She is not difficult to convince. Indeed, conviction is so
pleasant to her that any doubts of him have but a poor chance.
They can, at best, lift up their voices in feeble protest against
a power that is stronger than they; and if there remains any
lurking sense that she has surrendered to this power over
quickly, over completely for reason or prudence, the fervour
UNSPOTTED PROM THE WORLD.
99
of his ffianner, the undeniable conviction that he does love
her quickly enough gets the better of it.
" Do you know," he says, by-and-by, breaking one of those
silences which lovers never find wearisome, and during which
he has been counting over her many beauties with the first
strong pride of personal possession; "that you, with your
coloured hair, have no right to such dark eyes? Some
women," laughing, " spend half their lives in trying to ape the
colours you have arrived at without any trouble or merit of
your own. By-the-by," gaily, " what colour are your eyes ?
Now I think of it, you have not given me much chance of
seeing them."
" Does anyone know the colour of their own eyes ?" she
answers, laughing too, and trying to lift them, and finding it
not a little difficult.
" Let me look," he demands, briefly. But, looking, he
forgets to think about the colour of them.
"'Sweetest eyes were ever seen,'" he says, gently under
his breath, touching them with his lips.
Then after a minute he goes on still in the same tone.
" And all this while you have never said that you love me.
As a matter of fact," smiling, " I have not much doubt of it.
I have a notion that you would not be sitting with me here—
like this—unless you did ; but all the same, I have a fancy to
hear you say it. Come !" seeing that she hesitates, " will
you not say it to please me?" -
" How can I tell ?" she says presently, moving uneasily,
embarrassed, and a little frightened by the ardour of his look.
" How can I be sure that I know what love is ? After all,"
with some attempt at spirit, " it is no great flattery to say that
I prefer you, for I never knew any other man—any young
man—so that it cannot rightly be called a preference at all."
Then perceiving with the quick sensitiveness of a woman
who is so much in love that she would prefer to be wounded
rather than to wound, that he has drawn back, hurt and angry,
100 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
she swiftly abandons her playfulness for a tenderness that is,
after all, more natural to her.
" What is it," she asks slowly, with a smile that softens, nay,
disperses, his anger, " that people call being in love ? Is it,"
very softly—" is it to feel that your presence, your touch, your
look are so pleasant, so desirable to me, that when I am with
you no danger, no evil, seems possible to me, but all the
world as bright as heaven ? Is it," with the tears springing
unbidden to her eyes, "is it to feel that when I am away from
you the sense of your love can make dull hours bearable, sad
hours sweet?—to count over the minutes that may bring me
back to you, to long for you, to care for you with all my
heart—is that love ? "
Her words and her look give him a pang of reproach so
keen that he feels his own eyes suddenly moist.
" Something so like it," he says briefly, drawing her back to
him, " that it will do for me."
And the moments go by uncounted.. She forgets that she
is tired—forgets that she is hungry. She is, indeed, no longer
either the one or the other. Whatever evils the future may hold
for her, whatever the difficulties that may be ahead of her—
difficulties of which she knows little and* cares less—she is,
for the moment, perfectly and entirely content. Indeed, there
seems little more to be asked of fate than that which she has
already obtained.
It is only the sudden striking of the clock that warns her
that the minutes which have but one measure for the happy
and for the unhappy, for those that laugh and for those that
weep, have lengthened themselves out into hours in a manner
that seems barely credible.
" Five o'clock ! " she cries, starting to her feet, and remem-
bering with an exceeding dismay that since the passing of Sir
Adrian's carriage had turned the balance of her fortunes in a
manner that its owner had certainly not counted on, she had
never given one thought, either good or bad, to Dolly, or what
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. ioi
Dolly might be thinking of her. " Dolly will have given me
up for lost! In a little while," hastily putting on her hat
over her ruffled bronze hair, " she will be looking for my
remains!"
Then she remembers in what different fashion she had pre-
pared to go home two hours ago. Is it possible, barely
possible, that she can be the same girl, who, with heart heavy
as lead, tear-stained eyes and forlorn aspect, left this very
spot so little while back ?
" And to think that after all—after all," she says, with a
smile of radiant exultation, " I shall be able to tell her that I
was right and she was wrong ! "
Darrell has risen too, and up to this moment has been
looking down at her with an expression, which, if he had
discovered it on the face of any of his acquaintance, he would
have /considered one of fatuous and besotted tenderness.
But at her words it changes considerably, and a good deal of
the softness disappears.
" On the contrary," he says, very quickly, and with no lack
of decision either in his look or accent, " you must do nothing
of the kind. Have I not made you understand that you must
tell no one—least of all your sister ? "
Psyche's face falls. He sees or suspects a little quiver at
the corners of her mouth. After all, the greatest happiness in
the world loses part of its charm if one may not share it with
someone else; if one must keep the secret of it absolutely
locked, up in one's own keeping.
" Least of all, Dolly !" she repeats, in tones of undisguised
disappointment. " Surely I must have belied her. I must
somehow have managed to give you a wrong impression of
of her. If she has misjudged you," looking straight at him
with her lovely, candid eyes, " if she has thought badly of
you, it was because she could not understand that you," with a
smile of innocent flattery, "could really love me. I assure
you," most earnestly, " that there is no one—no one in all
102 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
world that will be more ready, more glad to acknowledge her-
self wrong than Dolly will be."
" I am greatly obliged to her," he answers, with a peculiar
smile; " but all the same, we will not try her. For the
present, at all events, I must endeavour to bear her bad
opinion of me."
Then, seeing that she is going to speak, that there are
evidently a dozen entreaties and arguments all ready at the
end of her tongue, he takes her hand and draws her to him.
"My dear," he says, very gently and yet with undeniable
firmness, "if we are to have any chance at all—and, God
knows, I have not deceived you, that it is but a poor one—we
must keep our secret to ourselves. We will not talk about
difficulties and troubles to-day—this one day at least shall be
a pleasant one in our memories; but to-morrow, if you will
come to me at the stile where we have sometimes met —
where we will meet once more at any rate—we will look them
in the face. I have a right to ask you to meet me now, have
I not, Psyche ? "
Then seeing that there is still a little trouble on her lovely,
tell-tale face, he stoops and looks at her with all the tender-
ness of which his handsome blue eyes are capable.
" Is it so difficult," he asks with some reproach, " to choose
between Dolly and me ? "
And when it comes to that he knows before she answers him
that Dolly has not a chance.
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
103
CHAPTER XI.
The day that follows Darrell's rash and unpremeditated
avowal is the first of June, and though all the later days of
May have been fair enough, this one, perhaps, beats them all.
Though the sun has the heat of midsummer, there remains
in the freshness of the air some lingering remembrance of
spring.
It blows softly in at the open casement windows, and gently
ruffles the faded old curtains and the sleek, brown hair of the
girl who is sitting in the window-seat. But it might be the
dullest, murkiest, saddest day of sad November, for all she,
Dorothy Dalrymple, sees of it. For once in her life she is
absolutely idle; for once in her life the sober, steadfast cour-
age with which she has faced more weary, hopeless days than
fall to the lot of most women, has deserted her. Her sad
eyes, fixed on vacancy, are dull with fear and heart-sickness ;
mind and heart are full of a protest that is too despairing to be
passionate.
Even the opening of the door does not rouse her. Old
Andrew, looking in, does not at first perceive her, so still is
she—so silent. Then he catches a glimpse of her grey gown
behind the curtain, and comes a step or two nearer.
. "Sir John Heathcote is in the drawing-room, ma'am. I
showed him in there, as I thought you was with master."
She rises to her feet; she does not spring to them, as
Psyche would do. The impulsiveness of youth has been long
ago knocked out of her, and into her face there comes back
some of the light which had been for a little time lost.
" I will go to him," she says, quietly; and she goes.
He is standing leaning against the window, and looking
out across the weedy terrace, the unkempt flower-beds, the
ill-kept park, where Psyche and Darrell had wandered the
night before—not a cheerful prospect, even on this summer
104 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
day, to a man whose mind inclines to order and regularity—
but he turns as she enters, and comes to meet her.
" I am glad yqu have come," she says simply, giving him
her hand, and her eyes and her whole manner say it no less
than her words. One look into his kindly, honest face seems
to have brought back the confidence and courage which for a
little while had deserted her.
Standing there, with the strong unblenching light of the
summer-day full upon her face, he sees her at her best.
There are women who by no means look their best in day-
light; to whom an artificial light, softening defects, heighten-
ing attractions, lends a charm and a brilliancy of which the
hard, unflattering daylight robs them. But Dorothy is not
one of these. Her fair, colourless skin, her unwrinkled brow
and soft brown hair, though they might pale to insignificance
before the meretricious charms of a ball-room beauty, can
stand the fiercest glare without betraying a flaw or defect.
Looking at her as she stands there, Sir John finds in her
the perfect embodiment of his ideal woman. Of all those
attractive qualities which to his maturer judgment seem most
desirable in a woman, she lacks none. The innocent eyes
the pure and tender mouth, the gentle reticent manner, are,
in his eyes, just what they should be. He understands that
no man living could desire a fairer, sweeter wife, and that he,
who has given the best years of his life and his love to another
woman, has no right to expect half so good an one ; and yet
—such is the perversity of human nature—he can hold her
hand in his with no more quickening of his pulses than if it
were the hand of his mother or his sister.
" I told you 1 should come again soon," he answers to her
greeting; " that you would see so much of me you would be
tired of me. If for nothing else, I should have come to
make my peace with Psyche. Do you know, Dorothy," with
a grim, half-comical smile, " that I have a notion that, after
all, I am only an ill-conditioned sort of fellow; that I have
UNSPOTTED PROM THE WORLD. 105
knocked about the world so long in my own society that I am
fit for no other ? I must have seemed like a brute to her the
other day. Well," with a long breath, as if he has un-
burthened himself by the confession, " I have come to ask her
tof orgive me—to make friends with her, as I promised you."
"You have come too late !" she answers slowly, all the
light dying suddenly out of her face. " Psyche is going
away."
There is a little break between the words. He understands
that they mean so much to her that even the saying of them
is difficult
" Going away! " he echoes, surprisedly. " I thought that
she had come home for good! "
" And it was because I thought so, it was with that one
hope, that I have been able to live without her all these
years," she answers, with a warmth that is altogether foreign
to her. " Always, always, I have said to myself, ' It cannot
be for ever.' Some day she must come back. Some day I
shall have her, and keep her. But," dropping into a chair,
and letting her hands fall into her lap with a small, sad smile,
"it seems that even that is to be denied to me."
It is the nearest approach to a complaint that, through all
the years he has known her, he has heard from her lips.
Coming from her, it carries a greater force than the most
passionate protest of another woman.
It moves him greatly. After all, if he does not love her, he
is not far from it.
"Tell me about it," he says, drawing a chair close to hers,
and with so much concern in his look and his manner as
might convince her of his interest, even if she doubted it.
" How has it happened ? "
" I had hoped that things were going on better with us,"
she says simply. " I thought that father was getting more
used to Psyche. I had even "—with a poor little smile—
" begun to hope that he must in time grow fond of her. It
10(5 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
seems so impossible, does it not, that anyone should live with
her, and not be fond of her ? "
He makes a grave assent to the glance which seems to appeal
for confirmation to this question.
" Well," she goes on, with a heavy sigh, " as it turns out, I
was mistaken, miserably mistaken, for all the while he was
planning to get rid of " her. It is not often he writes a letter
without consulting me, but this time he told me nothing of
what he was doing. He knew," with some bitterness, " that I
should never have consented. But I do not believe—I cannot
believe—that when it came to the point he would really have
had the heart to send her away from me, but for a most un-
fortunate accident."
" An accident ? "
" It was nothing more than an accident; it was neither her
fault nor his," she goes on quickly, and in a voice that shows
how greatly the telling of it moves her. "We were going out
—father and I; and I had forgotten to get him a flower. You
know," looking up with something she means for a smile, " how
much he thinks of these little things. Psyche had one that
she had meant to give me, and she offered it to him."
" Surely," in accents of profound astonishment, " that could
not have offended him ? "
" It seems," dropping her voice and looking around her as
if she were afraid of being overheard, " that on the very day
my mother died she gave him a flower, standing—so far as I
can understand—on the very same spot, and with the very
same words."
" That was unfortunate," he says gravely. " But, after all,"
more lightly, " he can attach no importance to such a trifle."
There is a moment's silence.
" On the contrary," she says presently, controlling her voice
by an apparent effort, " he—cursed her ! He has never seen
her since. I think," very slowly, very sadly, "he will never,
if he can help it, see her again."
UNSPO TTED FROM THE WORLD. 107
" It is impossible ! " he cries, starting up, with a disgust he
does not attempt to conceal. " Good heavens ! it is brutal, it
is incredible, that a man should carry a resentment like that
beyond the grave! "
They are both silent then; he, pacing up and down the room
with his hands thrust in his pockets; she, with one arm resting
on the back of her chair and her hand over her eyes. It is he
who speaks first.
" What does he mean to do with her?" he asks, with the
strong indignation of a man who witnesses an injustice he is
unable to avert. " Poor child ! Where is she to go ? "
" That is the worst of it," says Dolly, dropping her hand and
fixing her miserable eyes upon his. " He has arranged it all.
She is to go—to Grannie." The last two words come slowly,
as though she has a great aversion to them. " I suppose,—-
no doubt," she goes on, seeing the puzzled expression on his
face, " you did not even know we had a grandmother. She is
my mother's mother—Lady Conynghame. Perhaps," regarding
him keenly and doubtfully, " you have heard of her ? "
"Yes," after a moment, "I have heard of her."
" And," with a sudden sharp ring in her voice, "you have
heard no good ? "
For the space of a second he hesitates. Then he comes and
sits down again by her side and looks her bravely in the face.
"At any rate," he answers quietly, "I have not heard much
that is bad. You know that I go little enough into society;
but I fancy she is a woman who is pretty well known. A
woman of the world—a woman of fashion; who has been a
little bit talked about, a little bit laughed at, perhaps, because
she has arrived at an age when folly finds less excuse. Upon
my word, upon my honour," answering the miserable question-
ing of her eyes, "that is the worst I know of her."
" A woman who paints her face and spends her last penny
on her back—at seventy ! " cries Dorothy, with a bitterness
hitherto unknown to her—" who passes her nights at balls and
io8 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
card-tables, her days in amusement—and it is to her I am to
give Psyche!"
Heathcote, looking at her with some amazement, realises for
the first time something of the strength of that affection which
will turn the sweetest woman's nature into gall.
" Do not you think," he says, with a kindly attempt at cheer-
fulness, "that you are looking at the worst side of things?
After all," with a reassuring smile, " what can you, who see so
little of the world, really know of Lady Conynghame? You
can only judge from hearsay, and that is not, as you know,
much to be relied upon."
" I know, at any rate," she answers, with that same half-
subdued passion—the passion that being latent in most women's
hearts, needs but the appearance of danger to one that is loved
and protected, to spring into life—"what father has told me of
her. Until now," with a sorrowful shake of her head, "he has
not had a good word to say of her. When my mother died
they quarrelled outright—he and Grannie—and he has neither
seen her nor written to her until now. I know," dropping her
voice as though she were conscious of some indiscretion in the
confidence, " that he wanted her to take charge of Psyche then,
and she refused. She said," naively, "that she had not enough
money to keep herself."
" One would think," says Heathcote with matter-of-fact
sense, "that the same objection would hold good now."
"Only," says the girl with a bitterness that almost escapes
control as she thinks of the old woman that is to have the
charge of her sister, and the nature of the compact that has
been made with her, " this time he has offered her money."
He looks up quickly. " I did not know that he had "—then
he halts suddenly—"any to offer" he had been going to say,
" I mean that I did not think—I did not suppose," he goes
on stammeringly, " that he had much to spare."
Evidently she finds nothing strange in the suggestion. He
has, indeed, been so long behind the scenes in her life, so
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. log
often consulted in those matters of business of which she has
so little experience and less knowledge, that he knows, almost
as well as she does, the state to which a reckless thoughtless-
ness, and some still more reckless speculations have reduced
Mr. Dairymple's affairs.
"There was a small sum of money that was left to my
mother," she answers him simply and literally. "It was left
to her after her marriage; but father, though he has wanted
money badly enough, as you know, would never touch a penny
of it. He has offered it to Grannie now to pay all Psyche's
expenses, and she has written to-day and accepted, condition-
ally. She will take her for a year; but at the end of the year
if she is not married, she must return home."
There is a moment's pause. Then after a moment, lifting
her sad and anxious eyes to his face,
" We," faltering a little—" we know what that means ! "
It is more a question than an assertion, or so he takes it.
" It means," he says in a cheerful voice, sticking with a
praiseworthy resolution to a rose-coloured view of the subject,
but at the same time feeling an unaccountable disinclination to
meet her eyes; " that she will have every opportunity to marry,
and that with her advantages and good looks she will no
doubt marry well."
" To marry well in Grannie's sense, does not mean to marry
well in yours or mine," she says in quick, shaken tones.
" What chance has she against the schemes of an old woman
like that?"
But to this he makes no answer.
He pushes back his chair, and begins again to pace up and
down the room. He has, in fact, come to the end of his
resources. When a woman is determined not to be consoled
it is difficult enough to offer her consolation. He is horribly
sorry for her. He likes her so well, and has admired so greatly
her simple and unselfish life, that there is nothing, within the
limits of reason, he would not do to serve her; but at the
no Unspotted from the world♦
same time, just because he is so sorry for her, he would give a
good deal to be a hundred miles away at this present moment.
Life presents no harder trial to a man of his temperament than
the looking on at troubles he is unable to avert. When his
restless walk brings him facing her, he sees that she has risen
too and is standing with clasped hands and dilated eyes.
" There is but one chance, one hope left to me," she says in
eager, tremulous tones, " and they rest with you." Then
seeing and understanding the surprise in his face—"You
know," she goes on, so eagerly, so quickly that he cannot, if
he would, say a word, " that you have always had more
influence with father than anyone else.' He has always liked
you; he has often listened to you when he would listen to no
one else. If you would speak to him now—if you would tell
him that Grannie is no fit person to be trusted with a young
girl, he might believe you. I "—faltering—" I hardly like to
ask you, but it is a chance—and," looking at him most
imploringly, "it is my very last one."
He does not immediately answer her.
It is indeed no easy task that she has set him. Though
Mr. Dalrymple has allowed, if not thanked him for his help
in these matters of business, of which he is avowedly ignorant
as a baby, he may well resent his interference in his more
personal affairs. But, after all, there are few tasks, hard or
easy, that he could not attempt for Dorothy's sake. His
hesitation lasts but a moment.
" If indeed you think " he begins.
But she interrupts him.
" I do not think—I do not even hope," she says incoher-
ently ; " only if you will try!"
"Yes," he answers quietly, "I will try." Then, more
lightly, " As a matter of fact, if he sends me out of the room,
and tells me to mind my own business, I should think that he
is in the right of it; but all the same, I will try."
Then, being of opinion that a disagreeable task having to be
unspotted from the world. ill
done, is best done quickly: "Shall I go now? Will he see
me?"
She nods assent, and he goes. At the door he turns.
" I shall be back very soon1," he says with a cheerfulness he
does not altogether feel. " Will you wait for me ? "
And she waits.
She hardly knows how long it is. The minutes go by
uncounted; they might be hours for all she knows. But
whatever she suffers, whatever her impatience, she gives no
outward sign of it. She has long ago learned to control the
visible expressions of her feelings.
She stands against the window, with hands clasped, looking
out—waiting.
It is, in fact, but a quarter of an hour, reckoned by the
clock, when the door opens again and he comes in, shutting it
after him—and looking round sharply, she knows, before he
speaks, how his mission has ended.
He comes over to the window.
" It was no good," shaking his head, " he would not even
listen to me." Then seeing and comprehending the change
in her face—" I wish," he says gently, coming a little closer to
her, "that I could persuade you that, after all, it may be
better for her. I am sure, from what I have seen," hesitating
a little-as he recalls, not pleasantly, the interview that has just
passed, " she has small chance of happiness here. After all,"
cheerfully, " is it not possible that she may get on very well
with Lady Conynghame ? "
For a moment she does not answer—he understands that
for that moment speech is difficult to her—that she has
reckoned on this last chance more than she imagined. Then
she lifts her eyes and looks at him.
" If—you had lived for a great many years—lonely and un-
happy years," she says, with a trembling of her voice she can-
not entirely conceal, " with but one hope, you would under-
stand how hard it is to part with it."
112
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
Then, after a minute's silence, she suddenly stretches out
her hands to him, trying very hard to smile.
" I have troubled and distressed you enough," she says, in
an altogether different voice. " I will trouble you no more !
I will only," with shining eyes, " thank you with all my heart
for trying to serve me."
The smile is so brave and so pitiful that he feels he would
a good deal rather see her cry. It touches him to the heart.
As he holds her soft white hands in his, and looks down into
her sweet and troubled face, he is conscious of a stronger
emotion than any he has felt for a great many years. To look
on at her distress and be impotent to serve her galls him
beyond measure.
He would, at that moment, give all that he possesses to be
able to gain for her her heart's desire.
And in the space of these few seconds, while he silently
holds her hands, a thought, long dormant perhaps in his mind,
and needing but the touch of some strong feeling to quicken it,
springs into life. He has loved a woman once, desperately
and passionately; but with such love—with the folly and the
sweetness of it—he has done for ever, so he thinks. He
knows that a man could trust his happiness to no truer,
sweeter, purer hands than these he holds within his own; and
that in one way—and that way alone—can he help her, can he
protect her, and give her the right to keep her sister with her
always. The thought that he possesses the power to give her
happiness stirs and quickens his heart with something that, if
it is not love, is, at any rate, so like it that he is willing to take
it for it.
Into his grave, quiet face there comes a light, the like of
which she has never seen there before. His hands close on
hers with a grasp that unconsciously grows stronger.
"Dorothy!" he says suddenly—impulsively. "There is
but one way. If you—if I "
But the words, coming quickly and incoherently—for the
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
thought that forms them has indeed but yet barely shaped
itself—die on his lips, and he drops her hands and starts away
from her.
The door has opened slowly and so quietly that they have
not heard it, and old Andrew's grizzly head and burly form
appear in the doorway.
" If you please, ma'am, the master wishes you to come to
him at once. He," with emphasis, " has rung his bell twice."
They all know what that means. It is a bell whose constant
demands on her time and attention she has never denied.
She has no thought of denying it now.
" I must go," she says quickly and nervously. " I must not
keep him waiting."
Glancing at her, he sees that she is very pale—deadly pale
—and that her eyes do not meet his; but he does not know—
he cannot tell—whether she has understood or even guessed
what he had been going to say to her.
He makes no attempt to detain her. He is vaguely irritated
and annoyed at the interruption, but it is not the strong irrita-
tion of a man who is so hotly in love that he grudges a
moment's delay.
He notices that she does not ask him to stay, and that on
the other hand she takes no formal leave of him. But in the
hurry of going to her father she may well have overlooked that.
When she is gone, he takes a few turns up and down the
room, and then, finding the restraint irksome to him, he goes
out on to the terrace. After all, what he has meant to say
to her can be as well said at any time.
As a matter of fact, when he finds himself out in the fresh
air, with plenty of time to think, his first feeling is one of dis-
tinct relief that he has not on the rash impulse of a moment,
pledged himself to the fidelity of a life-time.
It has always been one of his strongest opinions—and his
opinions are by no means weak ones—that a man has no right
to ask a woman to marry him unless he is able to give her of
H
H4 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
his best. For that reason, if for no other, has he, for a great
many years past, put all thoughts of marriage from him.
He has told himself that he has done with love, and love
has done with him—and yet on that summer morning, with the
shining of the sun on all the land, with the voice of the sing-
ing-birds sounding pleasantly in his ears, and the perfume of
the flowers sweet in his nostrils—a great and inexpressible
longing fills his heart and stirs in his veins.
He is a young man yet—and that the passion and glory of
love should be for ever gone from him seems at that moment
horribly hard to him.
He knows then that neither esteem nor respect, tenderness
nor pity can in any way fill the place of that love, which,
whether wise or foolish, good or bad, justifiable or unjustifia-
ble, leaves yet no room for doubt as to its existence, no choice
but to follow withersoever it leads; and that such love as'
that he has never had—never will have—for Dorothy Dal-
rymple.
And yet—on the impulse of the moment, with a rash hot-
headedness which he might well have believed himself to have
outlived—he had been near mistaking pity and sympathy for
it! Before half an hour is gone he is ready to thank heaven
with all his heart that he has been saved from the horrible
mistake into which his own egregious folly had so nearly led
him.
And those interrupted words—he hardly knows himself how
far they would have led him—are destined to remain for ever
among the long list of those whose hindered utterance has
changed the character of so many lives.
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
"5
CHAPTER XII.
And while Sir John paces the weedy terrace, ; the weedier
paths of Mr. Dalrymple's ill-kept garden, there are two
people, not a great way off from him, whom, if he could see
them at that moment, he might find it in his heart to envy.
Theyare both young, both full of health and spirits, and
both as thoroughly and completely in love as any man and
woman on whom the sun of that first June day shines down so
royally.
For one of them, at least, her whole life—not all that is
past of it nor all that is yet to come—will never contain so
glad an hour as this that has just passed.
And if, for the other, there lurks in the background of his
thoughts an uneasy conviction that his happiness is built upon
frail and unsubstantial foundations—is, indeed, but one of
those fair castles of the imagination which the first strong
blast of common sense and worldly wisdom may blow into
thin air—he allows it to remain in the background. He per-
mits himself, for this hour at least, to take his fill of happi-
ness with ,.a reckless abandonment that finds, perhaps, an
added zest in the very knowledge of its insecurity.
Whatever doubts he may have had in the past, whatever
doubts he may have in the future, of the strength and sin-
cerity of his love for Psyche, he at any rate for this hour has
none at all.
Indeed, a man would be less than a man, and more than a
philosopher, if he could—lying at her feet and looking up into
her eyes on this summer day—dole out the measure of his
love for her.
As minute by minute goes by, each one drawing him nearer,
as he knows, to an inevitable parting with her, his heart grows
softer and tenderer over her.
. She is-so happy—so childishly, joyously, ignorantly happy—
1x6 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
that for a long time he cannot find it in his heart to dash her
gladness. He contents himself with telling her—in a hundred
different forms and words, but never in one that she finds
wearisome—how much he loves her. But he is horribly con-
scious that the time is growing very short, and that of all the
many serious words he ought to say to her, he has not as yet
said one. He is silent for a moment, casting about in his
mind as to the best way to begin. He never was a coward
before. To other women he has not found it impossible to
communicate certain hard truths which circumstances made
necessary, but his love for her has some of that unselfishness
which his other passions have lacked.
"Do you know," she says, breaking the silence, and lifting
to his her shy and tender eyes, which with the new love-light
shining in them seem to him ten times lovelier than ever they
seemed before, " that I am almost afraid of being so happy ?
When I think of how miserable I was only yesterday, it seems
as if I must be asleep or dreaming. I have a sort of fear,"
with a low and happy laugh, " that I shall wake up, like the
little woman in the nursery rhyme, and find that ' after all it
is not I'! "
Her words givehim a pang of reproach so keen that he
can hardly endure it. When he thinks of how little happiness
he is likely to bring her, and of how ignorant she is of all the
troubles lying ahead of her—how utterly destitute of that
worldly wisdom with which he had found most of the other
women of his acquaintance so amply provided—he feels in
truth what he has probably seldom in his life felt before—
ashamed of himself.
" And yet, some day," he says, stroking the little soft hand
that lies so confidingly in his with something that is very near
remorse, " you may wish to heaven that you had never seen
me."
Her eyes widen slowly with surprise and dismay—the words
are §o unlike any that she has? hitherto heard from his lips—
Unspotted from The World. 117
but she says nothing. She looks to him like some pretty
dumb creature who, in the midst of itsin nocent gambols, has
received a sudden and unexpected blow.
" When you talk like that,'' he goes on, wincing under her
look, and speaking with uncontrollable irritation, "you make
me feel as if I must have deceived you. You make me almost
wish," passionately, "that I had left you as I found you—a
good little innocent child !"
"Do not wish that," she says, quietly and gently—and
though the happy light is quenched in her eyes, there is in
them a sober and steadiast shining that might convince him,
if he could understand it, how far her love surpasses his own.
" You must never wish that. Even if it should happen,
among the many changes of the world, that something," falter-
ing, " should take you away from me—should separate us and
keep us apart—I should always be glad—most glad—that once
you had loved me. I should always," with a sudden moisture
in her eyes, " be happier, not sorrier for it."
The tender words touch him so nearly, that for the moment
he dares not look up.
" And if," he says slowly, after a while? not looking at her,
and yet divining every change in her face, " the separation is
nearer than you imagine, if—I " Then he breaks off
suddenly, and stretches out his arms to her. " My darling ! "
he says passionately, "it is no good beating about the bush.
I never was one to do that sort of thing well. I have to leave
you now—to-day—almost this very minute; and I have not
had the pluck to tell you before."
He sees the soft flush die suddenly out of her face, leaving
her very pale. Her lips tremble.
" To-day ? " she says slowly. " So soon ? "
"As a matter of fact," he goes on hurriedly, finding it not
so difficult now he has taken the first plunge, " I meant to go
away long ago. At no time," smiling grimly, " in the annals
of our history have I stayed so long with my uncle as I have
n8 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
stayed this time. And though yesterday, when I parted from
you, I certainly intended to stay a day or two longer, yet,"
hesitating and bungling, "he has made it impossible."
" What has he done ? " she asks slowly, after a minute's
silence; and only by her quick and uneven breathing, by the
pallor of her face, can he guess how heavily the blow has
fallen.
" You know," he answers, laughing a little nervously, and
avoiding her eyes, " that we are never the best of friends.
The relations between us can only by the broadest stretch of
imagination be considered even amicable. He tolerates me
because, I suppose, I am the only kith and kin he has left in
the world. I put up with him because—well!—because he is
my bread and butter. To quarrel with him is to cut my own
throat—and yet," with a long-drawn breath, as if he finds in the
thought some relief, " I very often think it will come to that
some day. In fact," with a grim smile, " it very nearly came
to it last night."
She looks up quickly. " You quarrelled last night ? "
" Well," laughing a little, " at any rate we got so near to it
that our only chance of not doing it outright is to remain for a
little while apart. I said a few things to him," smiling with
evident pleasure at the recollection, "which, though they
relieved my mind at the time, were not altogether prudent.
But," reassuringly, "he will be certain to get over it in a little
while. I shall not see him again to-day—I have already sent
on my things to the station—but in a week or two he will be
ready to make it up, if only for the sake of having someone to
quarrel with again."
There is a minute's silence—then she looks at him steadily.
t! Will you tell me," she asks, flushing a little, "whether 1
Pad anything to do with your quarrel ? "
He flashes too. " It can hardly be said that you had any-
thing to do with it, because, so far as I can understand, he
does not even know of your existence ; but "
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 119
" But," she interrupts excitedly, " it was because he saw you
—in the afternoon ? "
"No doubt," he answers, driven into the admission, "it
began with that."
" You mean," she continues, still with that same sharp ring
of suspicion in her voice, " that he said things—of me—that
made you angry ? "
" He said things of—of the person I was talking to (I must
ask you again to remember that it was not of you—that he does
not even know your name) that," with a sudden furious look,
" made me more than angry !"
There is a pause; then she gathers up all her courage.
" If," she says hesitatingly, and with a flush that reaches to
the soft loose curls upon her broad white forehead,—" if you
were to tell him all about it, would he not think less badly of
me ? Is there," earnestly and anxiously, " any good reason
why you should not ? "
" The best of all," he answers with a good deal of vehemence.
"To do it would be to give up our last chance. Do not you
understand—no, I do not suppose you could understand,"—
with venomous emphasis, " the malign nature of a selfish old
tyrant, who having outlived all his pleasures is determined, at
least, that no one else shall enjoy themselves. If," with an
unmirthful laugh, " he could understand that I had set my
heart on one woman more than another he would probably
make it a condition in his will that I should not marry her.
If, on the other hand, he thought that I hated one woman
more than another he would probably leave her to me with the
money."
For a moment she does not answer. She is full of a sudden,
half-uneasy, wholly undefined fear. He, for his part, cannot in
a moment rid himself of the heat and annoyance which an
affectionate retrospect of his uncle's many amiable qualities
usually produces in him.
" Are you sure," she says suddenly, fixing her wide eyes on
120
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
him with a most earnest scrutiny,—" are you quite sure that
there is no reason—no good reason—why he should object to
me?"
He would give a great deal to be able to avoid her eyes, but
he is compelled to meet them.
" My darling ! " he says, smiling uneasily, and horribly con-
scious that some of the colour which has deserted her face is
coming to his—" is there likely to be any reason that you
would not know of? He might certainly," catching eagerly at
the idea, " object that as we have neither of us, so far as I know,
a penny in the world, we were a little imprudent to think of
marrying. Possibly," smiling ironically, " if we were to represent
to him that our best and only chance lay in his death, he might
not see it in quite the same light that we do."
" That is true," she says simply and earnestly, not answer-
ing these last words of his, for indeed she has scarcely heard
them, being altogether occupied with those that came before.
"What reason could there be that I should not know of ? It
is true that we are poor—that father has quarrelled, so far as I
can understand, with most of our neighbours and with all our
relations, but," with a broad smile of relief, " these are ob-
jections that are patent to everyone, and," simply, " everyone
likes Dolly—why should not they like me ? "
" Why not, indeed ? " he cries laughing, unfeignedly glad
to turn the subject. " For my part I think, on the contrary,
there are a good many reasons why they should. At any rate
it is a comfort, is it not," he goes on jestingly, "to think we
know the worst of each other? You," looking at her fondly
and more soberly, " know that I am only a pauper—that I
had no right in the world to ask you to marry me while my
only chance of being able to do it is that poor, mean one
over which I have wasted the best years of my life—the
chance of stepping into a dead man's shoes. But," with a
growing earnestness, " now that you know it all—know that
you will have to wait for me, to believe in me, that I shall
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121
have to be a great deal away from you, that I can't even write
to you lest I bring suspicion upon you—can you bear it ?
Tell me, Psyche—tell me quickly?"
" I can bear anything," she says in a low voice, and with a
passionate tenderness she is too innocent to conceal, " so
long as you love me."
And in the moment's silence that follows her words, the
church clock down in the valley, that has so often told the
hours of their meetings and partings, strikes one.
He starts to his feet.
" I must go," he says hurriedly, drawing her up to him, and
holding her in his arms. " My sweet—my little sweetheart—
we must say good-bye ! "
He sees that her face has grown very pale—deadly pale—
and her lips are trembling. His heart almost fails him.
"Swear to me," he cries passionately, "that you will wait
for me—that you will let no other man have your love until
I come to claim it—that no one—no one in all the world shall
make you give me up ? "
Her white lips move faintly with a sort of smile. She
knows that not all the oaths that man has invented since God
made the world, could bind her more firmly to him than her
own inclinations.
And then he takes the lovely face, which all the pretty
colour has so absolutely deserted, and holds it gently between
his hands; and as he does it he hears the click of the gate
which leads into the little wood.
" Someone is coming !" he says, hurriedly and passionately
—" Kiss me, dear."
And when she has kissed him.—" Give me your rose," he
whispers eagerly. " All the morning long I have been jealous
of it for lying so near your sweet white throat. It shall lie
there no longer. I shall keep it with me ; and on the day
we are married, when I have you instead, I will give it back
to you."
122 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
She tries to unfasten it, but her fingers are white and
trembling, and have altogether lost their deftness; and he at
last is compelled to come to her aid and to take it himself.
There is not another word exchanged between them. He
looks at her mutely—such a look as stirs her heart with a
passionate pain she cannot comprehend—and in the space of
a second or so she is standing alone, clinging with trembling
hands to the rough old stile where she has so often sat with
him, looking after him with eyes that are so dim with love and
pain she scarce can see him.
It is but a moment as measured by the clock—an age as
measured by the pain and trouble in her heart—when she
hears a footstep on the soft green path behind her, and
turning sharply, finds herself face to face with Sir John
Heathcote.
She has no time, and is too little skilled as yet in those
small deceptions which the intricacies of life make necessary
to most women, to assume on an instant an ordinary and
every-day composure—indeed, no power in the world would
compel the colour to come back to her poor pale cheeks. The
emotions of the past hour have written themselves so plainly
on her face that a man would be blind indeed who failed to
see them. And Sir John is by no means blind. His keen
grey eyes glance sharply from her to the figure disappearing
in the distance, whose outlines appear to him vaguely familiar.
" Psyche !"—he says, holding out his hand to her and
regarding her very searchingly—" I never thought of finding
you here ! Do you—often come here alone ? "
She takes the best course that remains open to her. She
tells the truth.
" I was not alone," she falters, glancing up at him with soft,
pained eyes that seem to appeal to his forbearance. "I
was saying good-bye—to a friend who is—going to London
by the next train."
UNSPOTTED PROM THE WORLD.
123
The words mean so much to her that the very saying of
them is difficult, and there is a sound in her voice that is not
far from tears.
For a moment he is silent. Finding her here, under these
circumstances, seems to confirm the suspicions of her which
he had formed on first meeting her, and for whose injustice
and hastiness he had afterwards so gravely condemned him-
self. He is on the point of giving her a lecture—or at any
rate a warning that would approach very nearly to a lecture—
but the pain in her lovely eyes touches and softens him. He
remembers the intention with which he came to seek her out
this very morning—his honest desire to be a friend to her who
so greatly needs one. After all, to scold her again will not be
the best way to set about it.
" Are you going home ? " he asks kindly, after that
moment's hesitation, during which he has averted his eyes and
given her time to regain the composure she was so nearly
losing. " If you are, I will walk a little way with you and,"
with a grave smile, " take care of you."
"Will you?" she says brightly, infinitely grateful to him
for asking no more questions. " That is good of you! "
For a minute or two they walk along in silence. Her heart
is still throbbing too quickly and painfully to the remembered
touch of her lover's hands, the remembered sound of her
lover's words, for conversation to come easy to her. He, being
a man to whom the word duty is not altogether without mean-
ing—who indeed finds in it as strong a motive-power as a good
many other men find in their inclinations—is greatly in doubt
what he ought to do.
The fact that he has found her meeting some man without
the knowledge of her father or sister seems to him one so
pregnant with danger to her that it can hardly be right to let
it pass unnoticed.
In chancing on the knowledge accidentally he seems almost
to have made himself her accomplice.
124
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
And yet in her pallor and trouble she has approached a
good deal nearer to the old place in his affections. Her dead-
white face, her strained and heavy eyes, weighed down with
unshed tears, seem to him far lovelier than the audacious
brilliance of her beauty had seemed two days ago.
" I came over to-day almost on purpose to see you," he
says presently, looking down at her with eyes that, though
they can be hard and cold enough on occasion, are at this
moment both soft and kind. " I have been thinking—I have
been remembering," smiling gravely, " what friends we used to
be, and how you used to come to me with all your little
troubles and confidences. I am afraid," more slowly, " that I
have grown a sour, grim, unsociable sort of fellow since then.
I am apt to look on the worst side of people. I have been so
grossly deceived," he goes on with a sudden confidence in
her that he would not have believed possible ten minutes ago,
"that I find it difficult not to see deception everywhere.
Yet,"—turning round on her with the old look which had
made her think when she was a child that no face could be so
kind and good as his—" if you will trust me, if you will believe
in me, if you will let me be your friend once more as I used
to be, I will promise that to you at least I will never be either
sour or grim."
Her heart is so soft at this present moment that she could
not have refused an overture from her worst enemy—much
less from him.
" With all my heart! " she says warmly. " Do you know,"
laughing, with a suspicion of tears in her eyes, " that next to
Dolly I used to be fonder of you than of anyone else in the
world."
" Then you will promise," he says, with an urgency that is
greater than the occasion seems to warrant, " that if ever you
need a friend—if ever you are in trouble and have no one else
to help you—and," gravely, " there are such times in all our
lives—you will come to me?"
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 125
" I promise." She answers soberly, with a sudden bright
light in her eyes, born not of the thought of him, but of one
who seems to her so far to outpass all other friends that,
having him, she can never in all her life need another.
And having made their compact they go quietly and
sedately, side by side, in silence. It is he who speaks
first.
" I wish," he says suddenly and rather hesitatingly, as if he
were half afraid of what he has to say, " that you would
not go out too much alone. It seems to me," with a depreca-
tory smile, " that you are a great deal too pretty to wander
about by yourself. Why," with some impatience, " does not
Dorothy come out with you ? "
His words, carefully as he has considered them, seem to
convey to her a sort of reproach which she is quick to resent.
" If I waited for Dolly," she answers & little coldly, " I
might stay at home always. You forget that she has plenty of
things to do without following me about. And," with a sort
of challenge, " who is to harm me if I do go out alone ? "
He does not accept the challenge—perhaps he does not
even hear it. A sudden remembrance has occurred to him.
"After all," he says, thinking aloud, "it cannot much
matter. It cannot be for long. Do you know," turning to
her, " that Dolly has some news for you ? "
" News ! " incredulously. "What news are likely to come
to us ? It appears to me," with some scorn, " that we are
about as far off from news as if we were stranded on a desert
island."
But the words have scarcely passed her lips when a sudden
thought flashes across her. After all, is it so impossible?
Has Sir Adrian found her out ? Has he
" Tell me !" she cries breathlessly, excitedly, a sudden
rich red colour chasing the pallor off her cheeks—" tell me
quickly," stopping still, and placing herself in front of him,
" what do you mean ? "
126 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
"I mean," he answers, with a deliberation that exasperates
her, " that you will have no more chance of wandering about
alone. I do not know," hesitatingly, " that I have any right
to anticipate Dorothy—that I ought not to leave her to tell
you herself—but having gone so far," smiling tantalisingly,'
" I suppose you will not be content unless I go on. What
would you think," looking at her curiously, " if I were to tell
you that you are going to London ? "
" To London !" she repeats slowly, calming suddenly;
" that is impossible. You must have made a mistake. We
do not know a soul there."
" At any rate," with an ironical smile, " you know some-
body. In fact," still with the same provoking deliberation,
" I think I may confidently assure you that it is all arranged
that you are to go to London to stay with your grandmother,
Lady Conynghame, to be introduced," satirically, " into the
best society, and make your appearance as a fashionable
young lady."
He is hardly prepared for the effect of his words. Before,
she had been sure that he was only joking; now, for the
first time, she understands that he is in earnest. In a moment
she is transported from sadness and gloom into an almost un-
realisable gladness.
"You can't mean it!" she cries between laughing and cry-
ing, her face absolutely transfigured. " It is too good to be
true ! Is it—is it possible that it can be true ? "
He looks at her gravely. He finds in her gladness an
offence, whose cause he cannot altogether fathom.
" Are you so glad ? " he says coldly. Then, after a pause :
" It is unfortunate that what is sport to some of us is death to
others. If," with some reproach, " you had seen Dolly as I
saw her just now, you would understand that she is not so
glad as you are to think that you are leaving her so soon after
coming home."
If he had meant to sober her, he at any rate succeeds,
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
127
Her face changes suddenly into a gravity that is all that he
can desire.
" Poor Dolly !" she says, regretfully and tenderly, remem-
bering with a good deal of self-reproach how little she has
thought of her during the last twenty-four hours. "I am
sorry for her—I am very sorry. But indeed," lifting to him
her lovely eyes with childish pleading, " if you could understand
how unhappy I have been since I came home—how lonely,
how miserable—you would not think it so strange that I
should be glad to go away—you would not," stretching out
her hands to him appealingly, " be so hard on me."
They have by this time reached the little gate that divides
the wood from the garden, where Psyche had watched him
and Dolly.
" Am I hard on you ?" he says, with a sudden, quick
breath, moved by the look in her lovely eyes, and the touch
of her small, soft hands, to an emotion that is stronger than
he can at all comprehend. " God knows, I never 'meant to
be!"
And as he speaks he looks with a good deal of tenderness
on the slim white hands that are still lying on his rough sleeve.
"You have hurt your hand !" he says suddenly, pointing
to a little speck of blood—a tiny wound in the soft flesh of
one of them.
" It must have been my rose," she says, holding it closer to
examine it. "I think there is a thorn in it."
His eyes glance at one or two withered leaves that alone
mark the place where her rose has been.
" You have no rose now."
" I—I must have lost it," she says, with some embarrass
ment.
" Or," regarding her keenly and gravely, " did someone
steal it from you? At any rate," with some attempt at jest,
"he has left the thorn with you."
"Cannot you take it out? "she asks, looking rather con-
128 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
cernedly at her hand, and then stretching it out to him. " If
they are left in they fester, do they not ? "
He just glances at it, but he does not touch it.
"I am afraid it has gone too deep," he says quietly.
"You will have to do it yourself."
There is a moment's silence, and then he, in his turn,
holds out his hand.
"I must say good-bye to you now," he says, a little
abruptly. " I have already been to the house," flushing a
little as he remembers what so nearly happened there, " and
I have no time to come back."
Then, seeing or fancying that she looks a little hurt, his
heart smites him that, in the first hour of his proffered friend-
ship, he should have begun so badly with doubts, suspicions,
and coldness.
" Who knows," he goes on quickly, his manner changing
and softening, " that I may not see you soon again ? I often
go to London—I shall no doubt have some business there,"
making this explanation to himself rather than to her, "and
I will come and see you, if you will let me."
" Will you ? " she cries, brightening and laughing, for indeed
she is so full of absolute, unbounded joyousness at thought of
this unexpected, unhoped-for change in her fortunes that she
is ready to bubble over into happy laughter at the smallest
excuse. " Be sure you do ! I shall be hurt if you do not. I
shall," with a flattering outspokenness, that is but a result of
that glad content which includes in her unbounded goodwill
not only him, but every living thing on the face of the earth,
" look forward all the time to seeing you."
But he understands her.
" I do not want to throw cold water on you again," he says,
with the old grave smile she knows and likes so well, " but it
is just possible—barely possible—that you may not find
everything quite so rose-coloured as you expect, and in that
case," smiling again, " you may be glad to see me,"
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 129
"Whether I am ill or well, happy or unhappy, I shall
always be glad—most glad—to see you!" she answers with
resolute cordiality.
Aud so they part.
He watches her for a moment, when the gate has closed
behind her.
At first she walks sedately enough—then when she thinks
herself unseen, her steps quicken to a run. He understands
that she is in too great a hurry to make sure that his tidings
are true to go more slowly.
He turns away then with something like a sigh, and with
hands thrust in his pockets, with slow and thoughtful pace,
retraces his steps through the little wood.
And as he so walks there comes into his head—he scarce
knows why, unless his own words have recalled it—a song that
he heard long ago from the lips he then thought the sweetest
and purest the world contained. Over and over again—
monotonously—persistently—the old words, so long unheard,
so nearly forgotten, ring in his ears—
" Wi' lightsome heart I pull'd a rose
Fu' sweet upon its thorny tree;
But my fause lover stole the rose,
And ah ! he left the thorn with me."
I
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
PART II.
" How can ye sing, ye little birds,
When I'm so weary, full o' care ?
Ye'll break my heart, ye little birds,
That wanton through the flow'ring thorn ;
Ye mind me of departed joys,
Departed, never to return."
CHAPTER I.
And so it comes to pass that five days later Psyche finds her-
self outside the door of a very small house not a hundred yards
away from Park Lane.
It is a very tiny house, "and being, with a few others of the
same size, wedged in among a great many portly and imposing
neighbours, gives the impression of being squeezed and flattened
into its present modest dimensions.
Indeed this house of Lady Conynghame's looks as if it might
be taken bodily and put through one of the big and shining
windows or the ample doorway of a marble-pillared mansion
not a great many paces off from it.
The vehicle that has conveyed Psyche to this—the limit of
her journey—is a dusty and battered four-wheeler, on whose
roof are two ancient and dilapidated boxes, which, though they
contain all of Psyche's and a good deal of Dolly's wardrobe,
are so modest in size that they would discredit a fashionable
housemaid.
The tiny door is adorned with big brass knockers of mediaeval
design, and her cabman's loud knock is promptly answered by
a big footman in flesh-coloured silk stockings and powdered
hair. He is so very big, in proportion to the house, that he
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 131
appears to Psyche to fill up the door-way, and to need the
whole of the miniature hall for his own accommodation.
When the door is closed against the bright June sunshine,
she'finds herself, a good deal to her surprise, in utter darkness,
arid has to grope her way up the little staircase, only guided
on her journey by the powdered head and the silken legs, which
seem the only pole-stars in the all-pervading gloom.
Such scanty light • as neighbouring houses and stables,
encroaching on each and every side, have left to the house has
been, indeed, ingeniously destroyed by walls of a dark Pompeian
red with sage-green dado, which reflect no ray of brightness,
and a little fernery with little ferns and a little naked Parian
boy spouting little streams of water out of his little mouth, which
is built in the staircase window.
Outside the drawing-room door, where the footman comes
to a standstill, there is a thick and heavy portiere, of what
material it would be hard to guess in the general darkness. It
is dingy and sagey—that is all that Psyche can see.
When it is drawn aside she hears her own name promptly
announced, arid finds herself in a room that is quite as small
as the rest of the house—with the door shut behind her—but
still in darkness.
It is a very bewildering little room—that is her first impres-
sion—a room that is so crowded from floor to ceiling with china
and nicknacks, with perilous little chairs and still more perilous
little tables, that she does not, for a moment, dare to take a
step. Of all its details, she in this moment discerns none;
she only receives a vague and confused impression of velvet
and lace, very dirty lace it looks to her ignorant eyes, of rugs
on the floor and china on the walls, china on the tables, china
round the door, china round the glasses—china everywhere.
Her eyes, dazed and dim by the sudden transition from bright
sunlight to a gloom that approaches very nearly to darkness,
are fixed speculatively on a figure, whose back is, at this
moment of her entrance, turned to her.
132
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
It is a young back—the waist is small and trim as a young
girl's—the head is round and golden and curly; the dress, of
a fashion that she has never beheld before, is coquettish and
stylish—light and airy as befits this summer's day. Whatever
doubt she may have of the figure, of the dress she has none—
it is most certainly a young woman's dress. When the wearer
of it, having carefully deposited a little china figure that she
had been holding in her hand on the already crowded mantel-
piece, turns her face round, there is nothing, at first sight, to
dispel the impression her back has made. Her hair is piled in
a little nest of fuzzy yellow curls on the top of her head; her
cheeks and her lips are red—very red; and her skin is white.
" I—I beg your pardon," says Psyche, hotly confused, con-
vinced that she has made some terrible blunder, and come to
the wrong house. " I expected my grandmother—Lady
Conynghame."
The red lips, set in an unmistakably hard line, part in a
gracious smile which displays two rows of terribly-even teeth.
Of all the loving and tender speeches which Psyche, in the
innocence of her heart, has been rehearsing during her long
journey, none could have served her half so well as this mistake
of hers.
" I am Lady Conynghame," she says, coming forward and
laying two much-jewelled hands on the girl's arms. " And
you "—holding her at arms'-length and looking at her—" you
are Psyche!"
Face to face with her—in spite of the dim light, and though
Lady Conynghame keeps her back well turned to the window
so that not even the darkened rays that penetrate through the
closed blinds can fall on her—she sees, in a moment, her
mistake.
It is not a young woman at all—it is a ghastly and horrible
parody of one !
The red and white coating on her poor old face cannot, at
a nearer approach, conceal the deep and pitiful furrows that
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 133
lie around her mouth and eyes; the eyebrows are palpably
false, and under the thick yellow wig a little patch of white
hairs reveals itself on either side close to her ears. Regarded
at a couple of yards' distance in a dim light, she might possibly
be taken by eyes less unsophisticated than Psyche's for a well-
preserved woman of forty or thereabouts. Regarded more
closely, if her face did not betray her, her neck and hands
would.
There comes a period in the history of all women, when
make up their faces as they will, persuade themselves as they
will, with the aid of dim eyes, a thick veil, and a flattering
looking-glass, that they, thus far, successfully counterfeit the
youth they so pitifully ape, yet throat and hands present in-
superable difficulties with which all their ingenuity cannot
contend.
Lady Conynghame, being an exceptionally clever woman,
has understood this, and a high ruffle of cream lace hides, as
far as is possible, her wrinkled and withered neck. Yet it
cannot entirely conceal it. It is apt to fall aside and reveal
the deep yellow furrows tinted with nature's own colouring, in
ghastly juxtaposition to the roseate and youthful cheeks. The
figure, which the fashionable dress so perfectly fits, is (what-
ever it may be made of) a young woman's figure; but the
hands that protrude from the tight sleeves are an old woman's
hands—a very old woman's—Psyche thinks. She can hardly
repress a shudder when she feels them lying on her arm—they
are so bony, so withered.
When she recalls the many pictures she has mentally formed
of her unknown grandmother—pictures in which she has
mostly figured with snow-white hair and a black satin dress,
with a respectable cap on her decent head and a handsome
lace kerchief on her decent shoulders—and perhaps a substan-
tial gold-headed stick to support her venerable limbs—and
contrasts the Grannie of her imagination with this Grannie—
this modern and fashionable improvement on the old-fashioned
134 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
recognised type of grandmother—she finds it not a little diffi-
cult to refrain from hysterical laughter.
" You—you cannot be Grannie! " she says at last, in a
voice in which incredulity and disgust, surprise and dismay,
contend for the mastery, and are all, in fact, but ill-concealed.
But Lady Conynghame is not quick to catch the tone of a
voice, or the look on a face. Both her eyes and her ears
are indeed a good deal duller than she is at all willing to
allow.
She only finds in the speech a natural and appropriate ac-
knowledgment of her youthful appearance.
" It does seem strange—does it not ? " she says with a smile
and a simper that would not misbecome a young and pretty
woman. " In fact, when I told my friends that I had a grand-
daughter old enough to bring out they would hardly believe
me—they said," with a smile more complacent than the last,
" that it seemed impossible
She drops her hands as she speaks—and the action is an
immense relief to Psyche. So long as she held her she had
been divided by a fear that her grandmother was going to kiss
her, and an idea—equally strong—equally repugnant—that it
might be expected that she would kiss her grandmother. She
has until this moment been anxiously examining her, trying to
make up her mind as to the spot where she can do it with
least distaste to herself—least damage to Lady Conynghame.
" It seemed so dark when I came in," she begins, faltering
and bungling—foolishly trying to explain her mistake. " No
doubt if I had seen "
But whatever she is going to say, Lady Conynghame, for-
tunately, will never know. The big footman does her, uncon-
sciously, a good turn, and saves her from retracing the one
step she has made in her grandmother's good graces, by
appearing suddenly and quietly in the doorway.
" The cabman is waiting to be paid, my lady," he says,
with the slow and measured utterance peculiar to his class.
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
135
" He says that his fare is three-and-six, and that if he takes up
the boxes it will be another shilling."
Lady Conynghame looks at Psyche.
"I had forgotten," she says nervously, feeling for the small
purse, which Dolly, guessing perhaps the demands that might
be made upon it, has pinched and striven to fill from her own
poor store—" How stupid of me !"
It does not strike her that there is anything strange in the
footman coming to her for the money. She knows too.little
of the manners and customs of well-regulated households to be
able to gauge correctly the customs of this one. It is not,
indeed, until some little time afterwards that she understands
that the man is—with one exception—like the rest of the ser-
vants, the carriages, the horses, and all the grandeur of Lady
Conynghame's establishment—hired for the season, to be
dismissed at the end of it; and that he is far-too well ac-
quainted with the long-standing nature of Lady Conynghame's
small debts to advance even a cab-fare on such poor security.
When he has gone and the cabman is heard labouring up
the narrow stairs with the boxes, Lady Conynghame turns to
her with some little hesitation.
" If you will not mind finding your own room, perhaps you
could just see where he goes. I dare not ask Somers—my
maid—to go with you. " You see," explanatorily, " she has
lived with me a great many years, and though she is a good
creature, I am obliged to give her a great deal of her own
way. I hope," turning round with a good deal of sharpness,
breaking through the affectation of manner, "that you are
accustomed to wait on yourself. If -you are not," with a
shrug of her padded * shoulders, " I do not know what will
become of you, for I am certain that Somers will do nothing
- for you. In fact," sinking with an air of weariness into a lace-
trimmed chair, " she took it very badly when she heard you
were coming. It cannot be denied that it has put us all out
a great deal."
136 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
For a moment the girl stands silent—it is all so different
from what she has expected—the grandmother that she had
figured to herself had a heart somewhere under her black satin
gown; this one evidently has none.
"I am very sorry for that," she says, with a sudden swelling
of her throat that makes speech difficult to her. "But
indeed," more eagerly, " I shall not need anyone to do any-
thing for me. You know," she goes on, doubtful as to
whether Lady Conynghame does know or not, " that I have
but lately come from school, and there," with a little smile,
" they did not keep maids to wait on us."
" Then," says Lady Conynghame, with an air of dismissing
the subject, "you had better go and take off that hat and — "
with a little emphatic pause and something that is akin to a
shudder—" those boots. When you have got rid of them you
will no doubt be glad of a cup of tea. Perhaps," coldly,
taking up a book, " you will be good enough to ring the bell
before you go and Marshall will bring it."
Up to the present moment Psyche has been fairly contented
with both hat and boots. The hat indeed, a big grey felt one,
she has been accustomed to consider as her best and most
becoming one; and though the boots are of country manu-
facture, and leave something to be desired, she had consoled
herself with the idea that they might be a good deal
worse. But she consoles herself no longer. Under Lady
Conynghame's withering glance and more withering accents
her self-complacency vanishes into thin air, and the startling
deficiencies of each article of her attire become miserably
plain to her.
Judging by Lady Conynghame's standard, there can be no
doubt that she falls terribly short. It would be difficult to
imagine a more complete contrast than she in her homely,
grey travelling-gown presents to this fashionable dressmaker's
doll.
She rings the bell and leaves the room without another
Unspotted from the world. r37
word. She cannot, in fact, trust herself to speak. She is so
tired and so dispirited that she feels that tears are too
perilously near.
She goes up the dark little stairs where the odorous London
cabman has already gone before—having been guided, in his
turn, by a smutty middle-aged servant of the charwoman
species who represents the invisible machinery that keeps the
small house going, doing all the work that Lady Conynghame's
servants are far too fine to lay a finger to, and whose one
paramount and all-important duty in life is to keep herself out
of sight.
She performs this duty now. She and the cabman have
both disappeared, and Psyche is left to find her room for
herself.
On the floor above the drawing-room there are two bed-
rooms—both empty—both with doors wide open.
One of these, a bower of rose-coloured satin and cheap
white lace, with a great deal of gilt on the walls and a
glittering heap of china and jewellery on the dressed-up toilet-
table, is without doubt Lady Conynghame's. Evidently
sestheticism, as represented by sage-green walls and dingy
draperies, has ascended no higher than the drawing-room, and
Lady Conynghame's native taste reigns here, unhampered by
fashion. The other room, less gorgeous but quite as comfort-
able, proves by a black silk gown and a fashionable bonnet
lying on the bed to be already occupied, and without doubt
belongs to the maid.
She must go yet higher, up a flight of stairs still narrower,
and—as she distastefully perceives—dirtier than the last.
On the next and top floor there are three rooms. One of
them—empty but for her boxes, but neither conspicuously
swept nor garnished—is evidently her own.
She closes the door and looks around her.
Certainly, if Lady Conynghame has put herself out a great
deal to provide for her accommodation there are few signs
138 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
of it here. She has been accustomed to think her own room
at home poor and shabby enough; but by comparison with
this it seems, to her memory, almost handsome. At least,
there was room to turn round in it, there was air to breathe
in it, it was a room that even in its old age was eminently
respectable. This has never at its best been anything but a
poor little mean London attic.
And it is by no means at its best. Walls and ceiling and
door are calling out for paint and paper. The dimity
hangings on the little bed have long been strangers to the
wash-tub—the wash-stand of common painted deal has -lost a
great deal of its paint and gained in place of it a good deal of
dirt. There is, it is true, a hasty arrangement of pink calico
and muslin on the dressing-table, and a glass that is so far
superior to the rest of the furniture that it is evidently
borrowed for the occasion ; but Psyche is compelled to throw
up the two little grimy windows to their fullest extent to
dissipate the close and stifling atmosphere before she can even
glance at her own dusty and dejected face in it.
When she has accomplished such improvements as are
possible to her—which go little beyond a clean face, clean
hands and smoother hair—and descends the little stairs, she is
more willing to acknowledge that beauty unadorned is of little
value; more distinctly conscious of all the weak points in her
harness than ever she has been before in her life.
It is hardly a consolation to her at that moment to remember
that her face admits of being washed, which fashionable faces
evidently do not.
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
139
CHAPTER II.
She finds Lady Conynghame seated in the darkest corner of
the drawing-room, with a fragile table of plush and lace in
front of her, on which is a small tea-service of old Dresden
china.
"You must be hungry," she says hospitably. "Will you
have some tea ? Help yourself to bread and butter."
The cups are scarce bigger than dolls' cups, and on the
little costly plate are four slices of bread and butter, so thin
and delicate that it is difficult to take them up without dropping
them to fragments.
Psyche is hungry—so hungry that she feels as if she could
almost eat Lady Conynghame herself if she were a more
tempting morsel, and her heart sinks at sight of this unsub-
stantial fare; but she is not brave enough to protest, and she
eats her two wafery slices in silence, feeling more hungry when
she has done than when she began.
When she moves across the room to replace her empty cup,
. Lady Conynghame watches her with eyes of keen and critical
appraisal. It is impossible for Psyche to flatter herself that
the gaze is one either of admiration or affection—it more
nearly resembles the unveiled and rather impertinent scrutiny
she might bestow on a newly-hired servant.
"Let me have a good look at you," she says, suddenly
rising and placing her hands on the girl's shoulders—" It was
impossible to guess what you were like in that hat. What on
earth," in parenthesis, " induced you to wear such an atrocious
thing ?—felt and beaver and plush in winter—nothing heavier
than straw or silk in summer—those are the first principles of
art. Turn your face round to the light!" suiting the action to
the word and twisting her round.
It is a figure of speech to call it light at all, but nevertheless
Psyche obediently turns her face to the windows and allows
140 UNSPOTTED FROM 1 HE WORLD.
Lady Conynghame, with the aid of a pair of gold eye-glasses
perched on her high-bridged nose, to have as good a look at
her as she may desire.
It is, after all, some consolation to be only nineteen and to
be able to bear being looked at.
These eye-glasses of Lady Conynghame's take the place of
the more honest and homely spectacles with which most
women, who have reached the age which she has, presumably,
arrived at, do not disdain to aid their failing sight. It is
probable that her eyes are no clearer, are perhaps a great deal
dimmer, than the eyes of other women of her age—for she has
gone through more wear and tear, more ups and downs of fate
and fortune, more undaunted struggles to keep her head above
the surface, than would have sufficed to kill a dozen ordinary
women, and that without the aid of those strong lenses, though
she may, through the long practice of a life-time, guess the
fashion of a gown, the shape of a hat, she can form but a dim
idea of a face.
Anyhow, it is certain that she now sees Psyche clearly, for
the first time.
Her hands drop from the girl's shoulders, and she staggers
back a pace or two and clutches nervously at the mantelpiece
—and though but a moment before one would have said that
her face could not change, yet now it changes palpably.
" Did—did no one ever tell you how like you are to your
mother ? " she says, trembling visibly. " It—it has given me
quite a shock! It is almost," shuddering and looking at her
with a sort of terror, " like the dead come back to life ! "
It is the first sign of genuine human feeling that Psyche has
perceived in her. She feels that she can forgive her her paint,
forgive her her affectation, forgive her even her cold and ungen-
erous welcome of herself—if only she has a heart somewhere.
She looks at her wistfully, with suddenly moistened eyes. But
if she imagines that her grandmother is going to fall on her
neck weeping, and take her, literally or metaphorically to those
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 141
poor battered remnants of a heart that once perhaps beat with
some real womanly love for her dead mother, she is disap-
pointed. Her very next words effectually dispel any such
illusion.
"You ought to have prepared me," she says, with feeble,
irrational anger, in a shrill and high pitched voice that having
forgot its affectation of tone has become suddenly and undis-
guisedly an old woman's voice. " If—if I had not always
been good to your mother—if I had not always done my best
for her—and no one—no one," with a quaver, " can say that I
did not, I declare that—that I could not bear the sight of
you ! "
Then she appears to recollect herself. Perhaps the surprise
and dismay on the girl's face reminds her how very nearly she
has forgotten her every-day self, and it is almost pitiful to see
the brave struggle she makes to resume her ordinary mask of
unemotional calm.
"Your face is certainly very like," she says, readjusting her
glasses and trying to assume her former air of cold and cautious
criticism, though Psyche notices that both voice and hands
still tremble a little— " most extraordinarily like—but your
figure—well!" with a laugh that is not entirely successful,
" it would be difficult to tell what sort of figure you have in
that gown ! Good heavens ! " sinking gracefully into a chair
of whose support, perhaps, she stands in need, "what can
your father be thinking of to let his daughters go about in such
gowns as that !"
" I think " says Psyche, with a small fine smile, resuming
her seat also since she is no longer wanted for inspection, " that
you cannot know much of father, if you suppose he troubles
himself about his daughters' gowns."
" I expect," answers the old woman sharply, " that I know
a good deal more of him than you do. At any rate" with an
ironical laugh, " I had the pleasure of his acquaintance before
you were born. When he married your mother he was the
I42
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best-dressed man in town, and the handsomest, and, though
you may not believe it, there was no keener critic of a woman's
dress. He would not have looked at a woman in such a gown
as that! "
" For the matter of that," says Psyche, stung into reprisals
by this caustic criticism of her attire, " I think it may safely be
said that he does not look at her now. At any rate," smiling
bitterly, '' he does not look at me, if that is what you mean.
I am told— Dolly tells me," she goes on hurriedly, "that the
resemblance you see to my mother he also sees in me, and it
has the same effect which you seemed to think possible—he
cannot bear the sight of me ! "
But to this Lady Conynghame says nothing.
" I confess it appears strange to me "—the girl goes on with
a wistful look into the painted immovable face. " I think—it
seems to me that if I had loved anyone very much, I should
like to be reminded of her. Should not you ? "
"That depends," drily.
For a moment the girl regards her attentively, but there is
evidently no more to be got out of her, good or bad, and—
not without an effort—she abandons the subject which is so
sore an one to her, a little ashamed of the emotion she has dis-
played about it.
"As to the dress," she says, throwing herself back in her
chair and trying to speak lightly, "we have always done our
best—Dolly and I—and if our best has been very bad, that is
the fault of our poverty rather than our taste—we have had
so little money to spend on it. You know—I suppose you
cannot fail to know that father is very poor."
" Your father is a fool! " says Lady Conynghame trenchantly.
" When he married your mother, though he was not a rich
man as men go in these days, when so much money is made in
trade, and tradesmen take their place in society and vie with
the old landed gentry—yet he was exceedingly well off. It is
incredible," hotly, " how he can have managed to get rid of
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
143
his money. Of course," she goes on retrospectively, speaking
to herself, and forgetting, perhaps, who is her listener, " I always
knew that he was a fool, but I thought in those days that a
fool was more easily managed than a wise man. Well! " with
a short laugh, " that is one of the notions that I have outlived.
There is no one in the world more obstinate than a fool.
When he once takes an idea into his head, he sticks to it.
They tell me," with a laugh that more nearly approaches to
genuine humour than any that Psyche has as yet heard from
her, " that he has taken to writing poetry, and publishes his
poems on parchment paper with white satin bindings, at his
own expense. It seems to me," witheringly, " that he would
do better to spend the money on his daughters' dress !"
Perhaps Psyche shares this opinion, but she is not of a mind
to tell her so.
" After all," says the other after a little pause, spent, perhaps,
in contemptuous contemplation of the egregious folly of her
son-in-law, or on the unaccountable inequality of a fate which
bestows money on those who know so little how to spend it—
" it concerns me very little what he has done with it. It is
certain," with bitter emphasis, " that if he had kept it, I
should never have been any the better for it. I have neither
seen nor heard of him since your mother died, and I suppose,"
Avith a scornful laugh, "that I should have neither seen nor
heard of him to the end of the chapter, if it had not occurred
to him that he could make use of me."
And to all this Psyche answers nothing. What indeed is
there that she can say? She only listens Avith a disgust that
grows and deepens with every word. So keen is the repulsion
with which this old Avoman inspires her that she could almost
find it in her heart to Avish herself back in Combe-Avon
again.
" But all that concerns us is, what is the best that can be
done for you ? " says Lady Conynghame, cutting short her
reflections on Mr. Dalrymple's merits, and bringing that sound
144 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
common-sense, which has carried her more or less successfully
through so many of the battles of life, to bear on the subject.
" I do not pretend to you that it is not a great burden to me
at my time of life to bring out a young girl, but, having under-
taken it, I shall try to do it as I hope I do everything,"-*with
modest self-complacency, " pretty well, and the first thing—
the very first thing—is to get you decently clothed. I do not
suppose," she goes on consideringly, "that it would be pos-
sible for Fridoline to manage it under a week, and during
that week you must not let anyone set eyes on you. I
will take you to her in the brougham with a thick veil
on, and we will get her to promise the things as soon as
possible."
"Surely," says Psyche in a small and doubtful voice,
greatly dismayed at the prospect of a week's invisibility, " she
could make a gown in less time than that."
" A gown !" cries Lady Conynghame, breaking into a shrill
peal of laughter that so disturbs and distorts her face that
Psyche regards her with frightened expectation. " Good
heavens, child ! Where were you brought up ? A gown !—
a dozen gowns at least; and have you forgotten all the other
things—the boots, the gloves, the hats, the bonnets, the para-
sols, the underclothing? I do not mind predicting, from
what I have seen of your clothes, that you have not one of all
these things that could bear to show its face in London. I
think indeed you might save yourself the trouble of unpacking
your boxes, and leave them as they are, in case you might
ever go back to Combe-Avon."
" In case I go back ! " repeats Psyche with suddenly rising
alarm. " Surely—no doubt—I hope " stammering and
bungling between the necessity to leave no doubt in the
matter and her desire not to be discourteous—" that father
has made it clear that I can only stay with you—a short time.
He cannot," with growing fear, " have led you to believe that
I was going to stay always ? Indeed," most earnestly, " much
Unspotted from the world. 143
as 1 should no doubt like it in—in some ways, yet I could not
bear to leave Dolly for very long !"
" Do not be alarmed," says the old woman drily. " I can
assure you that my hopes have not been unduly raised.
Indeed, it is possible," with a chuckle of amusement, "that
the prospect would have no more charms for me than it
appears to have for you. But all the same, if I were you,"
with emphasis, " I confess that I should not altogether look
forward with pleasure to returning home, and," more slowly,
" I think—with good management—there may be no occasion
for you to do so."
Then as the girl answers nothing—not indeed entirely
grasping her meaning—
" There is no good denying that you start with grave draw-
backs," she goes on discursively. " In the first place—
though, Heaven knows, there is little distinction in being pre-
sented at Court in these days, when one meets one's butcher
and baker and candlestick-maker there, and jogs elbows with
one's tailor and carriage-maker—yet there will be plenty of
people to notice and comment on the omission. I dare say,"
reflectively, " in a little while—when these sort of people—the
Manchester and Birmingham people—have quite got the
upper hand, and have pushed us out of all the old places, it
will be considered bad style to go to Court—but it has not
come to that yet."
"And"—asks Psyche, with a sudden colour flaming in her
cheeks, and a sudden spirit firing her voice—" if other people
go—why should not I ? Goodness knows," parenthetically,
" that I do not want to—that I had never thought of it until
now; but if it is a necessary part of one's duty, what is to
prevent it ? "
"Perhaps," says Lady Conynghame caustically, "you had
better ask your father that. It appears to me," with cold dis-
approval, " that you have a greater talent for asking questions
than I have for answering them."
K
146 unspotted from the world.
" And," says Psyche, after a moment's pause during which
her temper, galled beyond endurance, has been getting the
upper hand of her—and leads her altogether to disregard this
last plain hint—" what are the other drawbacks ? Do not you
think that I may as well hear them all while I am about it ? "
But Lady Conynghame, though possessed of a fine temper
of her own, is by no means disposed to make allowance for
other people's.
" They seem to me so apparent that they hardly need
pointing out," she says with marked coldness, rising as she
speaks. " If," slowly, " there were no others—it cannot be
denied that a girl without money has not much chance in
these days when the married women are all to the fore—and
men are not such fools as they try to appear. All our beauties,"
shaking out her skirts and arranging the little nest of golden
curls at a neighbouring glass, "are married women, and they
are most of them," with a little laugh, "not unapproachable.
Men can amuse themselves without paying too heavy a price
for it. But," consolingly, "I do not despair. With good
luck—and good luck only means being cleverer than one's
fellows—I have no doubt we may succeed."
For a moment the girl is speechless—dumb with disgust and
dismay. Yet such is the power of the old woman's dominant
manner that it almost seems to her that unless she lifts up her
voice in protest then and there, she will be taken and married
before she knows where she is.
"Stop, Grannie !" she cries, hurriedly putting out a hand to
detain her as she moves away. "I cannot start under false
pretences. I—you must understand—that—that—I do not
want to be married."
But the words almost die on her lips under the withering
contempt of the look that is turned upon her. It requires all
her courage to give them even such faint and halting utterance.
"Do—not—want—to—be—married!" she repeats, with a
mocking disdain that passes expression. " For heaven's sake
UNSPOTTED EE OA/ THE WORLD. 147
~-if we are to get on with each other at all—let us drop such
poor affectations. For my own part I never could see the
good of being a humbug when there was nothing to be gained
by it. Every woman "—with absolute decision—" wants to be
married—and what is desirable in most cases is necessary in
yours."
There she gathers up her skirts and moves to the door—and
though tight boots and rheumatic limbs have a good deal
impaired the grace of her movements, they are not without
dignity and stateliness.
At the door she turns.
"I am horribly tired," she says, with a yawn which she
strangles at its birth—being dangerous to the nature of her
complexion. "Your father timed your arrival, as he does
everything, so badly that I was compelled to give up my drive,
and there is nothing," with a threatening of another yawn, " so
wearying as staying at home on a warm afternoon. If I do
not have half-an-hour's rest before I dress for dinner, I shall
not be fit to be seen—and I have a couple of balls at which I
must show myself afterwards. You see we are in the thick of
it just now." Then as she opens the door—" I have told them
to get you something to eat at eight o'clock, and," vaguely,
" you will find plenty of books and things about somewhere to
amuse you. Ta-ta ! "
And with a nod of her old head and a wave of her hand,
she is gone.
And Psyche is alone.
She falls back into her chair, and for full five minutes
meditates on her grandmother. Indeed she is of so unexpected
a nature, so altogether out of the ordinary run of grandmothers,
that she presents an almost endless field for speculation.
After five minutes' vain attempt to fathom her, she abandons
her as a bad job, and looks about her with a vague and idle
curiosity, examining the little drawing-room with an attention
which she has not until now been able to bestow upon it.
j48 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
She might, if she could so undertand it, find a clue in it to
Lady Conynghame's nature, for, like a great many other rooms,
it strongly resembles its owner. The velvet and lace and
fringe on the chairs and tables, cover old and worn-out frames;
little heaps of dust and dirt linger behind the curtains, brushed
just out of sight, and about them there hangs a heavy and
uncleanly smell, that is but half-disguised by a strong superfi-
cial odour that was certainly bought at the perfumer's, and was
not born of wholesome habits—of fresh air and soap and
water.
The china, of whose value she can form but an indefinite
guess, has evidently, like Lady Conynghame, once been good
to look at, but is now—also like Lady Conynghame— a great
deal the worse for wear. It is chipped and cracked, and has
been broken and joined up again, but it is liberally displayed
on a great deal of cotton-backed velvet, with its cracks to the
wall and its best side outwards. Everything turns its best
side outwards, and the other side is an unsavoury and un-
sightly one.
The little back-room is worse than the front, being less liable
to criticism and observation. It is a room to receive in—a
room to show off in—but not—most certainly, most em-
phatically—not a room to live in.
The only sign of occupation that Psyche can discover lies
in an open book, thrown face downwards on the couch, and
being fond of novels, and horribly short of something to do,
she takes it up and begins to read at the page where it lies
open.
She has lived too far out of the gossip of the world to learn
from the name that it is a book which, having been condemned
by the critics and those who might reasonably be supposed to
know something about it, as unwholesome and improper read-
ing, and unfit for modest women's eyes, has found its way to
all libraries and most homes, and achieved a greater success
than any novel of the day. To some indeed it goes furtively
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 149
—is hidden under pillows, and read under the rose. But
Lady Conynghame, though she is at a good deal of pains to
conceal the cracks in her china, the shortcomings of the
appointments of her household, is not so particular as to any
small blemishes on her morals.
Here it lies conspicuously open, with its pale blue cover
apparent to all eyes, and its unlovely pages waiting to be
read. But Psyche has not read half-a-dozen of them before
she flings it away from her, with a little red flush on her pretty
white cheeks, and a vague sense of shame and indiscretion a£
having read even so much. Whatever it may become undae
Lady Conynghame's tuition, her taste is not yet sufficiently
educated to appreciate the full flavour of this fashionable
novel.
She looks at it as it lies discarded on the rug, with a
shudder of disgust and aversion, and feels almost as if in
touching it she has received some ineradicable taint. Indeed,
the whole atmosphere of the room, moral and physical,
oppresses and sickens her.
There are none, so the wise men tell us, so liable to the
deadly influence of miasma as they who come to it, fresh from
purer air. And she has come straight from a country life—
spent almost entirely out of doors—to this little unwholesome
London house. Straight from Dorothy to Lady Conynghame.
She tries to shake off the weight that seems to be pressing
so heavily upon her. The craving for freer light, for purer air,
leads her to the window, and she furtively draws up the heavy
blinds—not without some lurking fear that Lady Conynghame
may come in and discover her in the act.
Outside the sun is shining with tempered brightness, the
lovely June day is dying. The carriages are rolling home from
the park.
She looks at them wistfully. There are open barouches,
with pretty and well-dressed girls, and almost equally pretty
and well-dressed mothers ; showy victorias, with showy horses,
15° UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
and showy women in them ; and now and then a showy child,
dressed in worthy imitation of its mother. Psyche regards
them with a genuine admiration, and a lurking mistrust which
might make them smile, if they could understand it.
" Is it possible," she asks herself, sickening and doubting,
''that they ate so fair outside — so black inside?" — that
those mothers are like the mothers in the book she has just
read, and whose plot she has dimly fathomed?
So heavy—so deadly is the taint that is creeping over her,
that almost she is inclined to believe it, when suddenly there
comes to her—straight from God's own heaven—a remem-
brance of one who is altogether different from these—a woman
with pure brow, with modest eyes and untainted heart, and
who, although she bears her part in life, as they must whom
God has put into it, is absolutely and entirely " unspotted from
the world."
And the thought of Dolly saves her. The deadly unbelief
in all things good and all things pure, which is perhaps the
surest forerunner of the loss of all goodness and purity, is
dispelled as unwholesome mists are dispelled by health-giving
sunlight. The world that contains Dolly could not contain
so foul a woman as that whose picture she has just read.
It is all a lie—a sickening and deadly lie—but it deceives
her no longer. She looks out with eyes a little dim with tears,
born of the sudden tender remembrance of Dolly, and yet
with delight and admiration, no longer darkened by doubt and
mistrust. It seems such a wonderful scene, and all the women
are, from this point of view, so good to look at.
She has never thought very much of herself, but she
has never felt so small, or stood so low in her own opinion, as
she stands at this minute, looking out from her hidden corner,
in her old grey gown, at these fashionably-dressed people.
It has always seemed strange and wonderful enough that
Darrell should have admired and loved her, but it seems
doubly strange now. Indeed it requires all her faith in him,
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD,
all her tender memories of his most earnest assurances of
that love, to be able to credit it.
And yet—so strong is its power—stronger even than the
vanity, the ambition, the desire to show off, and be at the
summit of fashion, which appear sometimes to have become
the master-passions which make the world go round—that to
be in the same city with her lover, to know herself nearer to
him, to be sure that some day, sooner or later, she must come
face to face with him, she can endure all the hardships that
surround her, the discomfort of the mean little bed-room, the
stifling confinement of this showy little gim-crack drawing-
room, the hunger, the loneliness—and yes, she can endure
even Lady Conynghame herself!
CHAPTER III.
The week of probation is over, and the first night of Psyche's
entry into the world of pleasure and fashion has arrived.
Which of us who have taken, some may-be but a few, some
a great many paces along life's rough highway cannot recall
some first night or day, when, with a light heart and a fearless
spirit, believing neither in ills nor disappointments, we took
the broad irretraceable step which divides boyhood from man-
hood, girlhood from womanhood ? The path that lay ahead
of us seemed all strewn with rose leaves then—goodly to the
sight, sweet to the smell—and though mayhap they have
grown scentless and withered, and have turned to dead ashes
beneath the heavy tread 01 years—should we have believed
it though an angel .iom heaven had prophesied it to us
then—or believing, have cared? It is the prerogative of
youth to live only for the present. When we are very young
the past has no place in our memories, the future no hold on
our anxieties.
152 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
Psyche, for her part, has for this one night in her life at
least, no thought for the morrow.
All her heart is concentrated in the one most passionate
desire to meet her lover. By frequent dwelling on—by
constant mental reiteration, his words and looks, nay, his very
kisses have become weak and unreal as things that have
happened in a dream.
She is longing—as they only who have suffered absolute
silence and separation can long—for some visible and tangible
proof of her lover's reality, of her lover's love.
She is, moreover, possessed by a not unnatural desire to
show him how well it is possible for her to look.
For the Psyche who ascends the stairs of a certain fashion-
able London house on this night of the 15th of June, 18—,
in Lady Conynghame's wake, is a very different Psyche from
the one who arrived travel-stained and weary, in her ill-
fashioned gown, a week ago.
London dressmakers, hairdressers, bootmakers, and all
their lesser satellites have done their best or their worst for
her, and it may fairly be admitted that up to the present point
they have rather improved her than spoilt her.
The dressmaker, being a clever woman, has had the sense
to let well alone, and to use her art rather to aid nature than
to hide it.
Her gown, of thick ivory-white satin, hanging in straight,
heavy folds that fit so subtly to her lovely figure that they
reveal where they pretend to conceal, has no ornament but a
border of braided pearls at the hem and round the neck, and
is the perfection of audacious simplicity. A less beautiful or
a less youthful woman could not dar£ to wear it, but Psyche's
round young neck and arms, soft-tinted as a cream rose-leaf,
Psyche's small bronze head and deep glowing eyes, in which
the fire of suppressed excitement has lit so bright a light,
come triumphantly out of the ordeal.
It would be difficult indeed to tell where the gown ends and
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
153
the neck begins, but for the tucker of old yellow lace, which
at the last moment she has sewn in with her own fingers,
despite all Lady Conynghame's remonstrances and sneering
assurances that she would not find it over low when she'got
into the room and saw the other women's.
But whether it be due to her gown, or her dress, or her
novelty—perhaps a little to all three, and mostly to the last—
it is certain that she is not allowed to ascend even the stair-
case without experiencing with a good deal of surprise what
broad and unveiled stares men and women—presumably well-
bred—will permit themselves in society.
There is not, it is true, that difficulty in getting up which
may be experienced on a great many staircases in the height
of the season, for the house which Lady Conynghame had
chosen for the first introduction of her grand-daughter is an
exceptionally good one regarded from a ball-giving point of
view.
It may indeed be surmised that the very best houses,
regarded from another and more critical point of view, are no
longer open to her, and that those who are inclined to pride
themselves on a certain moral exclusiveness and who in spite of
usage and fashion stick to their own ideas of what a woman
ought to be, and do not consider that sixty or seventy odd
years are of themselves sufficient to wash out the follies and
scandals of youth, have long ago turned the cold shoulder on
her, and figuratively, if not literally, shut their doors in her
face. But it is certain that these are the exceptions, and that
in most houses she is an accepted, if not an honoured guest.
She is in truth very near being what she considers herself—an
important and almost indispensable adjunct of the London
season. A woman who is seen everywhere, known everywhere,
and almost by everyone.
And from the long list of fashionable and not over-exclusive
houses—which, after all, form the large majority—she has
chosen one of the best.
154
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
The hostess, Mrs. Tremenheere Lawson, possesses all the
most necessary qualifications for her part—a big and well-
appointed house, unlimited wealth, a face and figure that are
presentable without being too good-looking, a taking manner,
and a husband who is all that can be desired in a fashionable
woman's husband, having an infinite capacity for making
money and for effacing himself.
Her rooms, her flowers, her suppers, her musicians, her floor,
are all the very best of their kind, and the only qualifications
necessary to her guests are that they should be neither unattrac-
tive nor unamusing—or at all events, not both unattractive and
unamusing.
These being facts that society had long ago discovered, her
balls were among the most popular in London; and though
they could not be said to possess the exclusiveness of some
more aristocratic houses, neither could they be accused of that
deadly flavour of dulness which pervades some most fashion-
able entertainments.
But though the rooms are large—so large that it is not only
possible to see and be seen in them—but also, which is a good
deal rarer, to be able to dance in them, there is always a certain
contingent in every London ball-room, who hang about the
doorways, and block up the entrances.
And of these Psyche, like all the rest, has to run the
gauntlet.
She is not allowed to pass unnoticed, and indeed her face is
lovely enough in its first freshness and youth to make its mark
anywhere.
" Look at that girl coming up the stairs," says a little sharp-
eyed woman, who forms one of a group who are standing chat-
ting at the chief entrance into the ball-room, with that fine
disregard for other people's convenience which characterises
English crowds. " What a strange gown ! Does not she look
like Iphigenia going to the sacrifice ? "
" A very pretty Iphigenia," says the man whom she addresses,
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 155
—"Who in the world can she be? I am sure," with some
animation, " that I have never seen her before."
" She is with Lady Co.nynghame—look ! she is speaking to
her," says another. " That horrible old woman !—One sees
her dreadful painted face everywhere. For my part," with a
shudder, " I cannot bear the sight of her. She is like a death's-
head at a feast, a sort of memento mori, to remind one of what
one may come to ! I cannot imagine why people ask her."
" Because," says a man with a quiet, cynical face, and who
is a good deal older than these others, " though she has out-
lived her beauty, she has kept her tongue, which is almost as
effective. I am not sure," with a little smile, " that I would
not as soon take her in to dinner as take in the prettiest woman
in London. She is very wicked, I am afraid; but," with another
smile, " she is very amusing."
"Very scandalous, you mean," says the other, sharply,
" which I suppose comes to the same thing. I hear she kills
more reputations in a day than any other woman in a lifetime.
I expect," shrewdly, " that is why they all ask her; they are
afraid if they do not she will say something against them."
" It 'must be Lady Conynghame's grand-daughter," says
the woman who spoke first, still regarding Psyche with a fixed
stare—" the one she has been talking so much about—do not
you know ? She is," with a sneer, " to cut out all our beauties.
There has never been anything seen like her since Lady
Conynghame's time ! "
" Lady Conynghame's grand-daughter ! " says the other,
with a laugh of real humour. " Do you mean that you credit
that old woman with having had a child ! Imagine her," bub-
bling over into irrepressible mirth, " dandling a baby in her
arms."
" Nevertheless, she did have a child," says the man who
spoke before ; " and though you may not believe it, she was
one of the most beautiful women I ever saw in my life. She,"
with a sigh, " was the first Iphigenia. She was offered up as a
i56 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
sacrifice on the altar of her mother's debts—and her mother's
diplomacy."
"Was not there some story about her?" says an older
woman, who has been standing quietly in the background,
listening and looking. " Did not her husband ill-treat her, or
did not she run away, or something ? "
" H—ush ! "
The hush is due to the fact that Lady Conynghame and her
grand-daughter are at this very moment passing through the
doorway where they are standing.
If indeed the one of them had not been really deaf—or so
conveniently deaf that she would never permit herself to hear
anything that might tend to her own disadvantage—and the
other in that state of concentrated excitement which very nearly
approaches to " stage-fright," they could scarcely have failed to
catch the last words.
Once launched in the ball-room, Psyche's success no longer
remains a matter of doubt. For though beauty is in itself no
assured guarantee of success in a ball-room, and the very
prettiest women are often left to look on while others—better
known or more popular—dance, yet in this instance Lady
Conynghame, of whom her worst enemies would not deny that
she is a clever woman, has so paved the way for her grand-
daughter's appearance, that failure is hardly possible to her.
And though maybe there are handsomer women in the room,
women better qualified to hold their own in the long run;
women, who having beauty have by no means desired to hide
it under a bushel; women, who having none have yet so loudly
and persistently laid claim to it that people have at last almost
taken them at their own valuation—yet they all lack the one
most potent charm which Psyche possesses. With their looks
and their attitudes, their words and their doings, all they who
can look into shop-windows or read society-journals, are already
most drearily familiar.
Whatever they may be, good or bad, beautiful or unbeauti-
t/MS POTTED FROM THE WORLD. 137
ful, they are not new. Everyone already knows everything
about them—they have taken care of that. But Psyche is
new.
For this one night, at least, she enjoys a triumph which a
good many women might find it in their hearts to envy her—
but for which some of them, if they could understand how
dearly it is likely to be bought, might with all their hearts pity
her. Before she well knows where she is her card is nearly
full, and it is only by the exercise of the most transparent arti-
fices that she is able to save two of her dances.
For she has not parted with the hope that Darrell may yet
come. Has not Lady Conynghame told her that all the best
men in London were to be met at Mrs. Tremenheere Law-
son's ?—and is she not sure that he is, not only one of the
best, but the very best of all.
For the first two dances she is mainly occupied by the
desire not to disgrace herself, for dancing in a London draw-
ing-room, however large, is a very different thing, as she
discovers to her cost, to doing one's steps in an half-empty
school-room, with a girl for one's partner.
Her first two partners are, as chance will have it, both
young, both active, and both inveterate dancers; and being
neither of them disposed to lose so good an occasion of show-
ing themselves with so pretty a girl, they give her very little
breathing-space, only filling up the pauses between the dances
with those broad and full-flavoured compliments which they
have been accustomed to find acceptable.
The third is very different to these others.
At a first glance Psyche imagines him to be very young
and very foolish, at her second very old and very quizzical.
He is, in fact, neither the one nor the other, but has a way
of using an eye-glass, and assuming at his pleasure a fatuous
or a cynical expression, which has bewildered a good many
people more experienced than she is.
He is an unhappy young man, who, not from any personal
158 UNSPO TTED PR OM THE WORLD.
attractions of his own, but simply because fate made him tlie
heir to a very old name and a very large fortune, has been so
hunted and worried by ambitious mothers and still more
ambitious daughters, that he has been driven into assuming a
misogynistic character which is by no means natural to him.
He is, by nature, as well inclined to admire pretty girls,
and to be friends with them all, as any man in the world, but
the danger of paying any one of them any particular attentions
has driven him into bestowing them on less legitimate objects.
He has thereby obtained a reputation which has rather
increased his value in some women's eyes. And the fact of
his dancing at all, still more of his dancing with a young and
unmarried woman, is sufficient of itself to attract a good deal
of attention and excite a good deal of surprise.
But Psyche is quite unaware of her own good fortune. It
is indeed one of those pieces of good fortune which require
some superior information to enable one to appreciate them at
their due value.
After the first turn, during which she gets more bumps and
bruises than during the whole of the previous dances, he stops
abruptly.
"Do you like dancing?" he says, when he has arranged
himself and his eye-glass and taken a good look at her.
"Ye—s," dubiously,—" I think I do."
A minute ago she would have answered with much more
determination. Now her opinion is a good deal modified by
the fact that there are two distinct scratches on her pretty
white arms.
"Well," with emphasis, "I hate it. In fact I am a good
deal of the opinion that life would be tolerable but for its
diversions. Perhaps," he goes on with candour, "it is<because
I dance so abominably. I do not go through a round dance
once in a year, and I do it vilely—do I not ? "
"I am not sure," says Psyche, hesitatingly, divided between
her natural [honesty and her desire not to hurt his feelings,
UNSPOTTED FkOM THE WORLD.
159
"that you might not. do it worse. At any rate/' with anima-
tion, "we did not look so ridiculous as those two, for instance,"
indicating a couple who are moving slowly in a small circle
under the chandelier, the man with his head thrown well back,
his arm well thrown out sawing the air, the woman with her
blonde head drooping on his shoulder. "No one—not even
our worst enemies—could say that we languished I"
" That is consoling at all events," says he, with a laugh.
" But look around you—look at them all—and tell me hon-
estly if you do not think we are very like barbarians in the
manner of our amusements? It is monstrous," with disgust,
" that a couple of hundred or so of more or less educated
people should meet each other for the sole purpose of gyrating
round a room with their arms round each other's waists in an
atmosphere like this. If we are so sportive, so full of inno-
cent spirits that we must gambol about like a flock of young
lambs, for heaven's sake let us do it in the open air, and with
plenty of room to do it in. For my part," losing his anima-
tion and subsiding into sentiment, "I find that it needs a very
strong inducement to make me dance a round dance in a
London ball-room."
His look and his accent convey to her, as strongly as looks
and accents can, that she is that strong inducement.
But she is too dense, or too little vain to take the compli-
ment as it is intended.
" And I," she answers slowly, her eyes dilating with sudden
tenderness as she thinks of her lover, " can imagine that
under certain conditions dancing would be heavenly. But
all the same," turning to him with cheerful friendliness, "if
you do not like it why do you dance? Would not you rather
sit down ? I assure you," kindly and reassuringly, " that I
would just as soon dance with anyone else." Then perceiv-
ing from his face the back-handed nature of this compliment:
"I mean," flushing and stammering, " that I would not for
the world you should dance if you do not like it."
160 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WdRLD.
" And I would not for the world give you up to anyone
else," he says heartily, more genuinely amused than he has
been for a very long time. " Do not you understand that I
should not have had a chance of knowing you if I had not
danced with you—and that I would dance till doomsday with
you, if you would let me ? Shall we take another turn ? I
dare say," hopefully, " that we shall get on better this
time."
With this cheerful prospect they plunge once more into the
thick and heat of the fray. She is not at all elated by the
nature of her conquest—not indeed aware that half the un-
married women in the room would give their ears for such a
compliment as he, who has learned to be so chary and so
mindful of his words, has just paid her. She is only charitably
afraid of hurting his feelings if she altogether refuses to dance
again. And her charity is so far rewarded that she comes out
of it with fewer knocks and collisions than she could reason-
ably have expected. Their next halt brings them, as chance
has it, full in view of a big red-satin couch where Lady Conyng-
hame is ranged with other wallflowers, looking on, and the
girl perceives with some astonishment that she is nodding her
head and showing her teeth with gestures of approbation and
encouragement.
" Who in the world is that dreadful old woman ? " says her
partner, adjusting his eye-glass, which has gone adrift in the
last encounter. " And whatever is she wagging her head
about ? Does not she look like an old Chinese mandarin—as
if a good crack would knock it off altogether ? "
"That is my grandmother, Lady Conynghame," says
Psyche demurely, regarding him gravely. " Do not you
know her ? "
"Lady Conynghame—your grandmother!" he stammers,
flushing scarlet—both his wit and his fluency abruptly desert-
ing him. " Of course I know her—everyone knows her.
But I assure you," in horrible confusion, " I am as blind as a
DNS POTTED FROM THE WORLD, 161
bat—I cannot see two inches off my nose. I am constantly
cutting my best friends."
" Do not apologise," she says drily, " you had better leave
it alone. In fact," with a suspicion of laughter round the
comers of her mouth and in her eyes, " no amount of
patching up will ever heal my wounded feelings."
" I wish to heaven," he mutters to himself ruefully, " I
could pretend I meant some other old woman; but hang it !
there is not another on the seat."
This being the case, he has the sense to take her at her
word and leave it alone—the sense too, to perceive that he
has not wounded her on a very sensitive point, and after a
moment she takes pity on his discomfited silence.
"Tell me," she says, turning the subject, "about some of
the people here. You need not," with a malicious smile, "be
afraid to tell the truth, for I assure you," laughing, " you have
already found out the only relation or friend I have in the
room. Who, for instance is that pretty woman in the black
gown and water-lilies? I seem to know her face."
" One would have to be blind indeed not to know it," says
he, obeying her with alacrity. " It has been photographed,
sketched, and exhibited, in every conceivable and inconceiv-
able attitude, until one sickens at the sight of it. Two years
ago she was one of our beauties. We used to climb on
chairs and stand on each other's shoulders to get a sight of
her. Well! " drily, " we do not climb on chairs now, we
hardly turn our heads when she passes. Our beauties, like
our fashions, never out-last two seasons."
" She is pretty," says Psyche, regarding her critically with
her head on one side. "Very pretty—and she looks sweet
and pleasant; but I do not—honestly—I do not think she is
a beauty."
"No; that is the mistake of it!" he answers, with that
native good sense which is apt to break through his affectation
of manner. " If we had let her alone, she would have been
L
1.62 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
a pretty woman and a clever woman—very much admired, no
doubt, in her own sphere;—but we would, in one of our
fatuous caprices, elevate her to the pinnacle of fashion. We
made a fool of her, and the result was inevitable. She has
come down with a run to find her own level. If those sort
of people," sagely, " would but understand that they are
only the butterflies of a day, and have the sense to disappear
when their day is over, it would be much better for them."
" Poor things ! " with some pity—born perhaps of a fellow-
feeling.
" Do you see that big young man ? Look, that one who
flounders about like a whale in an aquarium," he goes on, bent
on amusing her, and making her forget his faux-pas. " He
ran away with his sister's governess a week or two ago—and
his mamma ran after him and brought him back. They say,"
chuckling, " that he cried all the way home, and that she gave
him sugar-plums."
"Unhappy young man ! Why did he not stick to his
governess?"
She says it absently enough. His lively prattle goes in at
one ear and out at the other. She indeed, scarce hears it.
Her eyes are roaming hither and thither, seeking the one face
without which the room seems empty—the evening dull and
void to her—seeking it—but not finding it. And the night is
growing late and her heart sick with hope deferred.
But he chatters on in blissful unconsciousness.
" Those big men never have any pluck—they are mostly
fools," he answers disdainfully. "Now. look at that little
woman—the one in the black and red sort of Mephistopheles
gown. She has more courage in her little finger than he in
his whole body. She is the best goer across country, almost
the best shot, and certainly the best card-player I ever met—
and she would beat a bargee at slang. That fat man she is
dancing with is a Jew. He is very sweet on her r he pays all
her card-debts."
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 163
u And," trying to feel some interest, " she is going to marry
him, I suppose ? "
" Going to marry him ! " with a laugh. " Why, she has
been married half-a-dozen years ! I thought everybody knew
that! She is the wife of Langley, theg reat traveller. He is
always away somewhere—he does not much care where—so
long as it is somewhere where no one has ever been before."
" But," she says, turning on him her wide-open, bewildered
eyes, " I thought you said that this man was in love with
her—and she had taken his money ? "
For a moment he looks at her furtively.
" I beg your pardon," he says abruptly. " I ought to have
understood that my stories are beneath your comprehension.
I ought," with some heat, " to be ashamed of myself."
But she does not hear him. His apology and his contrition
are alike thrown away. He might indeed be talking in a dead
language for all she understands of it. For while he is yet
speaking her hand closes on his arm, her eyes dilate, and her
face pales with sudden and strong excitement.
He has come ! He is here ! Far away among the dancers
she has caught sight of his face—the one face that out of all
this strange and unfamiliar crowd belongs to her.
He is close upon her now—so close that the gown of the
woman with whom he is dancing brushes against her feet, so
close that she can hear his voice—could almost, if she dared,
stretch out her hand and touch him, and in another moment
he has passed her without seeing her.
Her lips quiver with a sickening and deadly disappointment
that it is impossible for her altogether to conceal.
" Are you faint ? " says her partner, concernedly. " Come
out of the room, and I will get you a seat. You have no
idea," with some alarm, " how white you look."
"No, no," she says trying to smile. "Wait a moment—
only a moment. Hark ! it is just over."
She cannot for the life of her say more. The music is
164 unspotted from the world.
slackening and dying away. Her eyes strain after those two
figures. Through all the mazes of the dancers, she follows
the woman's gold-coloured gown—never losing sight of it for
a single instant. Even in this supreme moment she perceives
how well, how horribly well, she dances, how close her head
is to Darrell's, how perfectly their steps go in unison.
The music is coming to an end so quickly—so terribly
quickly. Will it last out until it brings them once more close
to her ? She almost holds her breath in her suspense. There
is a clash and a flourish of stringed and brazen instruments—
a few long-drawn, dying notes, and they and the dancers come
to a standstill; and she and Darrell are face to face—and
their eyes meet.
His first expression is one of absolute and uncontrolled
astonishment. His next—or so she could almost fancy—is
something very near dismay. But in a moment—nay, in halt
a moment—both have vanished.
" Miss Dalrymple !" he says, coming forward and stretching
out his hand with the politest and most conventional manner.
If there is any enthusiasm or excitement in it, it is so well
suppressed that she fails to distinguish it. " Who would have
thought of seeing you here ! Have you, by any chance, a
dance left for me ? "
She has no idea how she herself looks—how plainly her
emotions are written on her face, so that they who see cannot
fail to read them. But his look warns her to control herself,
and she becomes dimly aware of the cold and critical stare,
not unmixed with a small and fine disdain, with which the
woman in the gold-coloured gown is regarding her.
" The third dance from this," says Darrell, writing his name
and dropping her card. Then he turns away with a bow, and
she mechanically resumes her partner's arm, and remembers
that all the while she has not spoken a word !
In the doorway there is a block, and she finds herself once
more behind the gold-coloured gown and the close-cropped
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 165
brown head and broad shoulders of her lover, so close, that
the woman's voice—low-pitched and soft though it be—comes
distinctly to her.
"Very pretty, yes!—but the manners of a dairy-maid!
Where in the world did you pick her up ? Do you know,"
archly, "I believe you have been amusing yourself in the
country. Breaking country hearts, eh ? Well! one may
almost forgive you. You must," with a little laugh, "haye
been bored enough for anything."
CHAPTER IV.
Psyche hardly knows how she gets through the two dances
that intervene between this last one and that for which
DarreH's name is written down on her card.
She is divided between a violent and uneasy gaiety and a
deadly depression.
The meeting with her lover had been so unlike anything
that she had imagined. She had indeed figured it to herself
in a great many different forms, but never in one like this.
And the art of talking succinctly when one's mind is
wandering into other and unsuspected channels, being one
that is only acquired after long practice, both her partners
leave her with a strong and not altogether unwarranted im-
pression that her powers of conversation by no means match
her face.
She is possessed by an overwhelming fear that among all
this bewildering crowd Darrell may fail to find her.
But, as it turns out, she has no cause to alarm herself. He
is too accustomed to the ways of London ball-rooms to miss a
partner whom he desires to find. The fiddles have hardly
tuned up when she discovers him close to her elbow, though
she has never perceived his approach'
166
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
"We must take a turn for the look of the thing," he says
coolly, putting his arm round her. " Presently, when they are
all in the thick of it, we will go and find a place where we can
talk."
There is something so quiet, so suppressing in his manner,
that it insensibly influences her. She becomes quiet too—
deadly quiet; but there is a deeper flash on her cheeks, a
brighter light in her eyes, that make her ten times lovelier
than before.
She had told her little partner of three dances ago that she
could imagine that under certain circumstances dancing might
be "heavenly." Well!—now she is inclined to endorse that
opinion.
With her lover's arm around her—held firmly and reliably in"
his strong hold—all her fears, all her' dread of knocks and
collisions disappear. Her timid and uneven steps gain courage
and power—mind and body seem to time themselves to the
rhythm of the music. For whatever other qualities Darrell
may lack, he is eminently possessed of those surface attain-
ments which make the best show in the world. There is no
better dancer in London; it would be difficult indeed to dance
badly with him:
And for the first time in her life Psyche dances really well.
The "turn" which he had intended should be but a short one,
having, to tell the truth, formed no very high opinion of her
powers from what he has observed of her performances, is
prolonged to a considerable length.
When it is over, though his breath comes no whit the
quicker, her pretty white bosom is panting and heaving under
the old yellow lace that makes it look whiter than snow. He
leads her out of the ball-room, through a long corridor, dimly
lighted with shaded lamps, and—being evidently perfectly well
acquainted with his ground—makes straight for a soft-cushioned
lounge at the farthest end of it.
Of all the well-arranged seats in this well-arranged house,
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
167
this is perhaps best adapted for that seclusion which even at a
ball may be sometimes found desirable.
It is well shaded and surrounded by groups of palms and
flowering shrubs, and is so situated that its occupants can
command a good view of those who may approach them.
When he has comfortably settled her and himself he turns
round and takes a good look at her.
"Now," he says, tersely, "tell me how you come to be here?
I left you a little country maiden among your hedges and lanes
—I find you a full-blown drawing-room beauty. The meta-
morphosis requires some explanation."
In his manner there is none of that fervour and gladness
that she had confidently expected of him. There is, on the
contrary, something that almost approaches to dissatisfaction.
It chills her to the heart.
"There is very little to be told," she says quietly, putting a
strong restraint upon herself. " On the very day you left me,
I heard that my father had arranged that I was to go to
London to stay with Lady Conynghame. I had not the power,
if I had had the will, to disobey him, but you may imagine
that in this case," looking at him with a sort of appeal, " I was
too glad to obey."
But he does not respond to it.
" Lady Conynghame ! " he says—this time with distinct
annoyance—"Lady Conynghame !—your father ought to be
ashamed of himself for sending you up to her care. He—of
all people in the world—ought to know best how little she is
fitted to be trusted with you."
His tone and his manner arouse in her some just resent-
ment.
"She is, after all, my grandmother," she replies with some
coldness. " And as I have no mother, I suppose she has the
next best claim to take care of me. Do you know anything
against her ? "
As she asks it, she looks straight at him. But he does not
l63
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
look at her. He looks at the well-polished toe of his own
shoe, at the artistically-muddled colours of the carpet —
anywhere rather than into her face.
" I only know what all the world knows,'" he answers eva-
sively. " I only know that she is the last person in the world
whom I would choose to have paraded before everyone as the
chaperone, and the nearest relation of the woman whom I
hope some day—will be my wife."
There is something in this speech that softens her. She is
after all too fond of him to be really angry with him.
" Do you know—that all this while," she says, after a minute's
silence, with a little tremble in her voice, and about the cor-
ners of her mouth, <£ you have not even said you are pleased to
see me?"
" Pleased to see you ? " he answers, looking up. " Of
course I am pleased—delighted ! No!" breaking off, "1 will
not tell you a lie! Anywhere else, anyhow else, I should have
been more than delighted—it would have been the greatest
pleasure in the world to me. But do you suppose," hotly,
" that when a man has found—hidden away out of the sight of
other men—a treasure that he believes to be all his own, he
can feel any pleasure in seeing it suddenly exposed to the eyes
of all the world—and know that he must share it with all the
world and have no right, no power to assert any prior claim to
it. There is no good disguising the truth from ourselves," he
goes on more gently, yet quite as despondingly; " there could
have been but one motive in sending you to Lady Conynghame.
You are to be paraded and hacked and bartered about like all
the rest of our London beauties; and—as you are a good deal
prettier than the rest of them—I suppose," with a bitter laugh,
"that one may confidently predict that at the end of the
season you will achieve the destiny that your father and Lady
Conynghame have marked out for you."
In spite of the bitterness of his tone, there is in it some-
thing of genuine warjnth and genuine jealousy that touches
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 169
her very nearly ; and yet there is so much that is bitterly dis-
appointing that she can scarce keep the tears from her eyes.
"And all this while/' she says presently, half to herself, half
to him, while a suspicious moisture hangs on her long dark
lashes—" I have had but one thought, one hope—to be near
you. I do not pretend to you," more lightly, " that I have
not had troubles to bear. I do not like Grannie. She is not
nice. She is not even kind to me. But," lifting her lovely
eyes, in which there shines so tender a light, " all these thing
were nothing to me, because I felt I was nearer you—because
I thought," almost breaking down, " that you would be glad
to see me, as I was glad—most glad—to see you."
The tenderness of her look and tone move him greatly, and
yet his soreness lies too deep to be overcome in a moment.
"And as a matter of fact," he says gloomily, "we were never
farther off from each other than we are here. We shall not be
able to exchange a word or a look that will not be noticed and
commented on. If, indeed,"looking at her, "you could learn
to be diplomatic like the rest of your kind, but" laughing bit-
terly, " one might as well teach a baby to hide its feelings as
teach you."
Then as she answers nothing, speech being indeed at this
moment difficult to her.
" God knows," he goes on, lifting his heavy and gloomy
eyes, " that we had not much chance before. Well! now we
have less than ever. That old woman," with a disrespectful
allusion to Lady Conynghame, " has the eyes of a lynx and
the heart of a stone. One may as. well abandon the hope Ot
getting over her. Already they say that Reggie Brooke has
singled you out for his attentions. She is not likely," with a
miserable smile, " to let such a chance as that slip through her
fingers."
" And," she says coldly, being indeed grievously hurt by
his manner, "who may Reggie Brooke be?"
" Do you mean that you do not know ? " looking round at
170
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
her with genuine astonishment. " He is the little man who
was dancing with you when I first saw you. He is," with em.
phasis, " the richest little ass at present in the market. What
chance have I against him ? "
Though both -his tone and his look are distinctly depress-
ing, as they have been all along, she finds in these last words a
convincing proof that he does love her—and being assured of
that, she can forgive him everything else.
She turns to him with an enchanting smile.
" If we are sure of each other," she says softly, " what harm
can anyone do us ? I suppose," with an uncertain laugh, "that
we have outlived the time when people could be forced to marry
against their wills ? Do you think that anyone—even Grannie
— could make me give you up so long as you care for
me?"
" My poor little child !" he answers with a tenderness he
has not shown before, " what do you know of all the pressure
and stratagems that an old woman like that may bring to bear
upon you? What chance have you against her? My darling!"
suddenly stretching out his hands to her, and regarding her
with a jealous fondness, " do you know that I could almost
find it in my heart to wish that you were not so beautiful ?"
And at this very moment when she so nearly approaches the
haven where she has desired to be; where she, not understand-
ing, as older and wiser people understand, that the threads of a
broken intercourse cannot be taken up just where they were
dropped, had thought that she would be at the first moment of
meeting, they are interrupted.
There is a rustle of silken skirts—a sound of many voices.
Evidently the dance, which they had deserted at its outset, is
over, and a great many of the dancers are seeking the coolness
and the comparative seclusion of the corridor. Among them
in the far distance Psyche perceives the golden gown of
Darrell's former partner, conspicuous among the rest.
Perhaps he perceives it too. At any rate he starts up, and
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 171
giving her his arm, they make their way out, passing those who
are coming in.
The wearer of the golden gown gives him a smile that is
half-mocking, half-disdainful.
" Who is she ? " says Psyche.
"She is Mrs. Aylmer—a very old friend of mine," with a
little hesitation. " She is a very nice woman. Some day I
must introduce you to her. I am not sure," with a doubtful
smile, "whether she is very fond of women-friends, but if you
could get her to like you we might have more chances of meet-
ing than under Lady Conynghame's wing."
And though Psyche regards this prospect with a distinct but
unreasonable aversion, she has the sense not to say so.
" Promise me," he whispers, as he parts from her in the ball-
room, " that you will keep a dance for me after supper—they
are sure to put in some extras and get mixed up—and I shall
watch my opportunity. Lady Conynghame," with a grim
smile, " will have had enough of looking on by that time."
* * * * * * *
When one is young—when one is strung up to an unnatural
state of excitement—when one is, above all, in love, supper
presents fewer attractions than it may do at a later and wiser
period of life.
It has been going on for a long time before Psyche can be
induced to have any at , all, and when she yields at last, it is
rather to the importunities of Mr. Brooke than from any real
desire for meat or drink.
Mrs. Tremenheere Lawson's supper-rooms are as perfectly
arranged as the rest of her house.
There is, indeed, a large buffet where those who are in too
great a hurry to sit down may help themselves to what they
please, but the rest of the room is occupied by little tables where
people may sup sociably and pleasantly in twos or in fours as
their taste inclines them.
There is a demand for those tables that only are meant for
173
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
two. And it chances that when Psyche and Mr. Brooke enter
they are all occupied.
He places her on a seat, close by an open window, and in
the shade of a lace curtain, while he goes to look for one.
The soft night air blows in on her face. Outside there are
terraces and gardens rare enough in London. Inside there is
a confused clamour of knives and forks, plates and glasses, and
a very Babel of tongues.
By degrees, as Psyche becomes accustomed to the noise, the
voices of two people at a little table immediately behind her,
and quite unaware o^her proximity, become distinctly audible.
She is considerably amused by their lively gossip, and she gains
a good deal of information about her neighbours.
" The girl in the peacock-gown was in love with young
Brown, who is as handsome as Apollo, but her people have
made her throw him over, and she is going to marry young
Smith, who has red hair and a squint, and lots of money made
in trade. Mrs. Dalton's gown is the same she wore at Lady
Pearson's, only the water-lilies are new. Mrs. Aylmer, on the
contrary, seems to have a new gown every night. She," the
woman, who is the principal speaker, the man appearing to be
better occupied with his supper, " wonders who pays for them.
They say that her little after-theatre suppers are the pleasantest
in London, and," with a giggle, "not the most prudish. She
wonders what Mr. Aylmer thinks of it all."
"Doesn't think at all," says her companion with his mouth
full; "must have some brains to think?
There is at this juncture so great a clamour of popping corks
and mingling voices that Psyche misses the next words.
" Prettiest girl in the room," the woman is saying, when a
lull comes—" such lovely eyes, only they are sad eyes—they
never smile. I have often noticed that is the case when a
child is born in sorrow. Such a sad story—the poor mother—
loveliest woman I ever saw—Yes ! in love with young Luttrell
—but that horrid old mother made her marry "
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD,
tier voice drops here. Psyche listens with a strained and
intense attention—she scarce knows why. This story interests
her as none of the others have done.
There is a long gap between these last words and the next.
Straining her eyes through the net-work of the curtain, she can
just see that the woman is bending her head close to her
companion's, and has evidently dropped her voice.
" Yes; he broke his neck out hunting, and was brought
home to her very house." These words are consecutive, but
of the next she only catches one here and there. "Sad story
—but it may not be true—What do you say?—jealous brute
—oh yes ; no doubt he was horribly jealous of her. But they
say—it is the story told in the county—my people come from
there, you know—that the shock turned her brain, and she
confessed. Anyhow she died—poor soul—and the child "
There is a lull here ; and she, conscious perhaps of the in-
discretion of her revelations, drops her voice still lower.
- The next words that come distinctly to the ears that are so
anxiously listening, are these
" Anyhow—they say that the father cannot bear the sight of
her—it seems a great pity they should have sent her up here
to that dreadful old woman. It has set everyone raking up
the old tale—and one cannot help feeling sorry for her. There
can be no doubt it is a slur on a girl—No ; no more, thank
you ; I have had enough."
The girl, listening behind the curtain, starts to her feet—
her face white as her gown, her breath coming in short, quick
throbs beneath her satins and laces. She puts out her hand
to push aside the small thin barrier that divides her from these
people. In another moment she would be face to face with
them; but at this critical juncture her little partner hurries
breathlessly up.
" Tired of waiting ! " he says cheerily—" so was I ! But I
have managed to get the best table in the room—close to the
window. Come along ! Be quick, or we may lose it."
174 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
" Stay !" she says excitedly; " I must speak to those
people ! I overheard them talking, and I am sure it was of me
—of my mother. I must ask them "
" You must do nothing of the sort," he says, casting a dis-
mayed glance into her white face, and by a sudden, quick
movement hurrying, nay, almost dragging her out of their
reach. "Ten chances to one they were talking of someone
else. I assure you, on my honour," moved to more excite-
ment, and a great deal more vehemence than is at all usual to
him, " they would think you were mad! And besides—is it
likely—ask yourself—is it likely they would talk about you
when they knew you were close beside them ? "
" But they did not know it," she pleads urgently, laying a
constraining hand on his arm. " Indeed, if .you are kind, you
will let me speak to them for one moment."
" It is because I am kind that I will not let you," he answers,
being the more firm from the very knowledge of certain things,
he has himself learned within the last few hours. " You have no
real reason to suppose that it was of you that they were talking ?
No," assuring himself by a quick look at her that he is so far
right; "I thought not, and if they had been—believe me, I
know more of the world than you do—it would never have
done to take any notice of it. We all," with an airy laugh,
" talk against each other. We do not mean anything by it; it
is only a little way we have."
She is not convinced—on the contrary, she is horribly un-
convinced.
Her reason tells her that there may be dozens of other girls
of whom it might be said that their fathers " cannot bear the
sight of them"—dozens of other "dreadful old women"—
dozens of other mothers who died in sorrow and in childbirth,
and that if she had spoken to these people she would in all
probability have made a fool of herself; but her instinct con-
vinces her that she was the one of whom they spoke, and in-
stinct is after all stronger than reason.
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 175
And though she gives up her point and lets herself be led
away, through all the noise and the bustle of that noisy supper-
room, one sentence rings again and again in her memory.
"There can be no doubt it is a slur on a girl. One cannot
help being sorry for her."
She is, however, so far grateful to her companion for his
never-failing liveliness, for his well-intentioned endeavours to
make her forget her annoyance, that she constrains herself, so
much as is possible, to respond to them.
She even tries—though for once her healthy appetite has
completely failed her—to eat some of the dainties with which
he heaps her plate. She drinks, for the first time in her life, a
glass or two of champagne, and it brings back something of
the colour to her cheeks, the light to her eyes.
Altogether, when Darrell, having vainly searched for her in
the ball-room, finds her at the little table by the open window
of the supper-room, she has not exactly the air of one who is
taking her pleasures sadly.
He waylays her as she comes out, and takes possession of
her with an air of such determination that her companion has
no chance to resist.
" Our dance, I think," he says aloud. Then lower and for
her benefit alone, " Lady Conynghame is safe in the card-room.
I thought she would not hold out after supper. We will
have a dance or two whatever it costs. Vogue la galore! "
Whether it be due to supper, or to some small smouldering
jealousy which is, after all, the sauce piquante of love, or to
the fact that Lady Conynghame's sharp old eyes, and Mrs.
Aylmer's sharp young ones are no longer upon him, it is
certain that his manner is a great deal warmer than - it was
before.
He is the old Darrell—the lover of a fortnight ago. His
eyes meet hers, his arm encloses her with an ardour that
convinces her that she has not lost her charm for him, and
being convinced of that she forgets everything else.
*76 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
Two out of the three dances for which she remains are
danced with him ; and when she stands in the hall waiting for
the carriage, with the bright rays of daylight falling full upon
her, he and Mr. Brooke with one or two others are in attend-
ance upon her.
But it is he who wraps her cloak round her pretty white
shoulders, while Mr. Brooke has to content himself with per-
forming the same office for the withered shoulders of Lady
Conynghame, who does not present in the trying ordeal of
daylight, so tempting an appearance as her granddaughter.
She has not probably been so well attended to her carriage
since the days when she herself was young and pretty—when
men exchanged fiery words and fierier glances over her dances
and the privilege of wrapping her up.
Whether it be due to that—or more likely still to the fact
that she has partaken not unstintingly of Mr. Lawson's
excellent champagne, there is an air of exhilaration about her
as she throws herself back in the carriage, which Psyche has
never perceived in her before.
"You have done well—very well on the whole;" she says,
with something that almost approaches to warmth. "You
were certainly the prettiest girl in the room! If you would
only get a little more manner—be a little less natural—I do
not see why you should not beat them all. For heaven's
sake," breaking off and shuddering, " draw down those blinds !
That horrible light," lifting up her hands to shield herself,
" comes right into one's eyes."
The soft young daylight is making the London streets and
the London trees look almost beautiful; the fresh sweet air
o. early morning, untainted as yet by smoke or crowds, is
blowing pleasantly on the girl's flushed face; but she obedi-
ently draws down the blinds and shuts out both light and
air.
" I have never known Reggie Brooke stay to the end of a
ball before," the old woman goes on with a chuckle of com-
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 177
placence. " He generally gets tired after a couple of dances ;
but, after all, every man has his vulnerable point—perhaps,"
with a laugh, "you are his. At any rate we will hope so, for
I do not know that you could do better. He has certainly no
title till his father dies, but he has, what is a great deal better,
more money than he knows what to do with."
But Psyche does not speak. If she has learned nothing
else during the week she has spent with her grandmother,
she has at least learned the discretion of silence.
" Captain Darrell seemed very attentive too," Lady Conyng-
hame goes on discursively, " and he is a man whose attentions
count for something. He credits himself, and is credited by
others, with remarkably good taste. For my own part," with
a malicious little laugh, " I confess I should not be at all sorry
to see you cut out Mrs. Aylmer. She has had her own way
too long."
But discretion has its limits, and at this speech Psyche
reaches the end of hers.
" And," she asks, slowly turning her head round, " what
may Mrs. Aylmer have to do with Captain Darrell ? "
Her grandmother looks at her furtively. Then she turns
away her eyes:
" For heaven's sake ! " she says irritably, " do get out of the
way of asking foolish questions! Keep to your own affairs.
Dance with him, flirt with him, amuse yourself with him, if
you like—but whatever you do, do not fall in love with him.
It is my opinion he will never marry, and if he does he is cer-
tainly," with a smile, " a great deal too wide awake to marry
a girl without a penny. I should not be the least surprised if
that old uncle of his were to play him false after all, and
leave all his money to someone else. By the by," turning
to her sharply, " Adrian Darrell lives down in Creamshire? "
" Yes," says the girl quietly, " I know he does."
Then before Lady Conynghame can speak again she turns
round and regards her wistfully.
M
i78
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
" Grannie! " she says, with a sudden sharp ring in her
voice, " I want you to answer me one more question. Is
there," with a tremble, "is there anything in my history
which could make anyone say, justly, or unjustly that—there is
a slar on me?"
A ray of light piercing through some chink in the blind falls
on the face she is so attentively regarding, and reveals it
clearly to her. Even the unlovely marks that Time's rough
fingers have written there so deeply are not so unlovely as
those poor attempts at patching them up appear in this light,
and at the girl's words it changes suddenly and palpably, and
becomes ten times less lovely than before.
"What are you talking about?" she cries shrilly, shrinking
back in her corner almost as if she had received a blow.
" Have you gone out of your senses ? "
" No," she answers, sadly and quietly, " I have not lost my
senses; but to-night," slowly, "I heard some people talking,
and they talked of a mother who was unhappy—most unhappy
—of a father who cannot bear the sight of his child—of a
child," her voice rising, " who has a slur on her. Grannie!
Grannie ! "—turning with a sudden cry and stretching out her
hands to her—"was it of me they spoke ? "
But Lady Conynghame does not take her hands. She
shrinks back still farther, and looks at her with something that
is very near to positive dislike.
" If you are not mad," she says with a terrible coldness,
" you are, at any rate, so foolish as to be very near to it. A
moment ago I was almost inclined to like you. I was ready,"
with a bitter laugh, "to be proud of you. Now you have done
your best—as you did at the first moment ofour meeting—to
set me against you."
There is a moment's silence.
Her one appeal having failed, the girl has turned away,
and is looking out through the one small chink of day-
light, with the slow tears of bitter mortification gathering
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
179
in her eyes — almost blinding her. But she does not
speak.
" If your mother was unhappy," resumes the old woman in
the same cold, hard voice, "it was because "she married a
selfish and tyrannical fool, and did not understand how to
manage him properly. She would never take* my advice. If
there is any slur on you, it is of your father's making. But if
you will take my advice, you will ask no more questions. At
any rate," with the same terrible laugh, " you will get no
answers."
There is another silence.
The girl does take her advice. She asks no more questions.
"Anyone else but you," says Lady Conynghame, as the
rriage stops at the door, " would have the sense to be satis-
fied with the reception you have met with to-night. I do not
suppose there is a woman in London who would not envy it
to you."
And yet when she—" the prettiest girl in the room "—has
had her smart gown unlaced and is left alone in her bare little
attic, she throws herself on her mean little bed and sheds such
tears as even they who had most admired or most envied her
might well have pitied her.
CHAPTER V.
Three weeks have passed—three of the busiest and gayest
weeks Of the London season—and on one of the first evenings
of July, Lady Conynghame is at home. That is to say, or
this one of the hottest days of the hottest month in the year,
her little rooms are crammed to suffocation, her little doors
are flung hospitably open, and her big footman is bawling out
bigger names as fast as his dignity permits him.
For people do not, as a rule, stay long at Lady Conyng-
frame's "at homes," They come and they go as quickly as
i8o UNSPOTTED FROM TIIE WORLD.
the most transparent semblance of civility will allow them.
For even if she be as popular a woman as she is accustomed
to consider herself, it is certain that her entertainments do not
share in her popularity.
Whether people come to them from love of her, or from fear
of what she may say if they stay away, it would be hard to say.
But they do come. They sit on her untrustworthy chairs;
they listen, or do not listen to her indifferent music; they
eat her ices, and her meagre refreshments; they drink her
most indifferent champagne, and they go away and laugh at
her directly their backs are turned—or, in a good many cases,
do not wait until then, but do it almost openly, and before her
very face.
As a rule, her guests are mainly culled from the ranks of the
young married women and the older matrons—who have some-
thing to fear, or something to gain, from her unsparing tongue
—with a tolerable sprinkling of men old enough to retain some
remembrance of Lady Conynghame in her palmier days, and
to appreciate the full flavour of her spicy conversation in
these present ones. But to-night—the first time that Lady
Conynghame has been " at home" since she became the
chaperone of her pretty granddaughter—there is a very much
stronger contingent of young, unmarried men. They hang
about the doorways, and block up the windows; and, with a
few exceptions, look horribly bored and extremely disagree-
able.
Reggie Brooke, for his part, finds himself rewarded for his
heroic efforts in tearing himself away from a very amusing
bachelor's dinner, by being lodged into a corner between a fat
daughter and a fatter mamma, with a perilous little arrangement
of china and velvet just on the top of his head, and a glimpse
of the hem of Psyche's gown and one of Captain Darrell's boots,
only to be obtained by almost dislocating his neck.
They have managed to get the best place in the room—these
two—if? where all are so bad, any can be called best.
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD> iBi
It is a low seat—just big enough to contain them—wedged
into a little recess at the farthest corner of the back drawing'
room. It is nearest to an open window—it is farthest from
Lady Conynghame of any seat in the room—and it is difficult
to say which they consider the greatest advantage.
To those that are looking on it appears that Captain Darrell
has monopolised this position an unwarrantably long time.
Indeed, a good deal of that discretion which he displayed on
Psyche's first arrival in London has of late conspicuously
deserted him. Whether it may be that he relies too much on
his own powers of keeping Lady Conynghame in the dark, or
that he is in reality too genuinely and deeply in love to com-
placently see others usurping what he has some right to consider
as his own possession, it is certain that he has, by degrees,
abandoned some of that prudence which he had at first
endeavoured to teach her.
She has no longer any reason to complain of his want of
warmth—on the contrary, it is she who has sometimes to
exercise a restraint upon him.
It is probable that a man never values those good things
which fate or chance has bestowed upon him so highly as when
he finds that others endorse his opinion, and are inclined to
rival him in their possession.
Down in the country, where no one had disputed his right
to her, he had thought her a very pretty girl—he had even, in
his own way, fallen very much in love with her. Up here in
London, where others admire her as much as he had done—
where he finds himself in danger of losing her—his passion has
received the strong incentive power of rivalry and jealousy.
But what he has lost in prudence she has gained. Four
weeks of Lady Conynghame's tuition have not been altogether
thrown away upon her.
It is she who reminds him now that their comparative
isolation from the rest of the company has been unduly pro-
longed.
iS2 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
" Do not you think," she says nervously, glancing around her
and dropping her voice very low, for they are so hemmed in on
every side that it is difficult to speak without being overheard—
" that you had better go and talk to someone else ? Grannie
does not seem to be looking at us. She has turned the other
way, but I am certain," laughing, "that she has eyes in the back
of her head. She will be down upon us in a moment."
" Not a bit of it," he answers coolly. " I do not believe she
can see an inch off her nose. No doubt," smiling, "she thinks
you are quite safe with Brooke. By-the-bye, is that why you
want to get rid of me ? Are you anxious to give him his
turn?"
Her face changes. Whatever else she has lost during these
last few weeks—and one who loved her might fancy that she
had lost a good deal—she has not altogether parted with her
honesty.
"On the contrary, I wish," she answers fervently, "that I
might never see him again. I do not think we are dealing
fairly with him—we ought to tell him the truth. We are making
use of him to serve our own ends, and it is not right—say what
you will, it is not right! "
" Do not trouble yourself," he says quietly; " it will do him
a great deal of good. He has been so run after all these years
that it will be the making of him when he finds that one woman
in the world has really the courage .to say ' no7 to him."
" I wish that it was anyone else/' she says, slowly and regret-
fully. " He has been good to me—always good—and I like
him. I cannot bear to do him so ill a turn."
" No doubt he has been good to us—without meaning it,"
he replies with the same coolness—heartlessness she might call
it in anyone else. " If Lady Conynghame were not so sure of
him she would not have been so complacent all these weeks.
I suppose when she finds out her mistake—and mind, you must
not let it come to that yet—there will be the deuce to pay !"
" We are living on the verge of an explosion," she says
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD
183
feverishly, pushing back the soft, loose curls from her white
forehead with a gesture of oppression. "I feel it every day.
I can scarcely sleep or breathe. And when it comes "
" When it comes," he goes on, taking up her words, "there
will be a row—no doubt of that. You will be sent back to the
country in disgrace, and I shall come there and see you."
She does not answer. Perhaps she is not able to regard the
prospect with the same equanimity as he does—perhaps she
understands something of what "going back to the country in
disgrace" may mean for her; and not even the hope of his
coming there to see her can make it palatable to her.
Her look is noLaltogether hard to read.
" My darling," he says tenderly, dropping his voice still
lower, and furtively touching her hand under cover of her fan,
"it will be hard for you, terribly hard; but I will make it up
to you some day—I swear that I will! No doubt," he goes on
presently, still in the same low tone, " you would do a great
deal better if you were to accept Brooke and his riches, and
throw me over altogether—any other girl but you would do it.
He is not a bad little fellow, and I dare say he would make a
good husband. Perhaps," jealously, "in a little while you
would forget all about me and be quite happy."
" Do you think so?" she answers, looking at him—and he
finds in her look such a stedfast and loving faithfulness as not
only perfectly reassures him, but, what is more, gives him a
pang of compunction. For he has not as yet altogether rid
himself of that uneasy burthen which we call conscience.
"Well!" he says presently, laughing a little uneasily—"since
we cannot alter matters, we must make the best of them. Let
us be philosophical and take the goods the gods provide, and
enjoy ourselves while we can. The end cannot be far off. A
week or two will see the London season over. We shall be
more than foolish if we do not make the most of what remains
to us."
" Are not we making the most of it ? " she asks, not without
184
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD,
some shame as she remembers all the little stratagems and
deceptions of which she has been guilty in order to see her
lover. "It seems to me we have done our best."
"I was thinking about the future, not about the past.
Listen !" he whispers hurriedly—" we may be interrupted in a
moment. I have arranged with Mrs. Aylmer. She has
promised to come on Sunday; and I have got Carruthers to
make a fourth. We shall go by an early train—have the whole
day on the river—dine at Skindle's—and Mrs. Aylmer will see
you home."
The girl's face flushes. The prospect of a whole unbroken
day with her lover seems too good to be true.
"Grannie will never let me go," she says despondingly.
" There is not a hope of it."
"Yes, she will!" he answers vehemently. "I have managed
that. Mrs. Aylmer will arrange it with her. Leave all that to
me. Only promise that you will come !"
" I confess it seems strange to me," she answers slowly, and
with a little anxious pucker in her forehead, "that Mrs. Aylmer
should put herself out of the way to serve us. I have always
—rightly or wrongly—had a notion that she does not like me,
or rather," flushing hotly, " that she has divined that you like
me and is jealous of me ! Are you sure—are you quite sure
—that you do well to trust her ? "
" I have not trusted her any more than is necessary," he
answers, flushing a little too. "She knows that I admire you,
and that I think it will be pleasant to have a day on the river
with you. On the other hand, she likes Carruthers, and he
admires her—so," with a laugh, "we shall all be happy."
But she is not satisfied. There are intuitions that baffle the
finest diplomacy. Her intuition tells her that it is not
Carruthers that Mrs. Aylmer likes, but Darrell himself, and
warns her, most strongly, to trust nothing to her kindness.
But, on the other hand, the thought of a day on the river—
away from Lady Conynghame, away from all those trivial and
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
I85
wearisome surroundings of which during these last weeks she
has grown so thoroughly tired—and with her lover—presents
an inducement so strong that she has neither the courage nor
the wisdom to refuse it.
" You know best," she says, hesitatingly. " And if you are
sure "
But she says no more. There is a movement in the crowd
immediately in front of her, and a man, of a presence suffi-
ciently striking to make itself observed even among this well-
dressed, well-looking London assembly, makes his way towards
her.
"Sir John !" she cries, starting to her feet, and holding out
her hand with a look of unmistakable gladness. " How in the
world did you come here ? "
" I have come to see you twice before—did not they tell
you?" he answers, with his grave smile—"but I did not find
you at home. So seeing the lights in your windows I ventured
to come in, and Lady Conynghame was so good as to tell me
where I should find you."
As he speaks he looks at Darrell, who has risen too, and
they exchange nods—not of the warmest kind.
"You must come and sit here," says Psyche nervously,
taking him to the seat which Darrell so lately occupied. " I
want to hear everything—about home."
" And I," says Darrell, accepting the situation with as good
a grace as is possible to him, "will go and talk to Lady
Conynghame about Sunday."
There is a moment's silence when he has gone.
" When did you come ? " asks Psyche. " How long have
you been here ? Tell me all about it."
There is in her manner a conspicuous absence of that well
trained ease which she has, under Lady Conynghame's tuition, so
nearly acquired. There is something in this man's very presence
that seems to make her, in some strange, indefinable way, sud-
denly and ashamedly conscious of her own short-comings.
i86 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
" This is the second time that I have been in town since
you came here," he answers her. " The first time I called
twice. Dolly was so anxious to hear of you from someone who
had seen you. She seemed to find your letters not altogether
satisfying—but I failed to see you. This time, you see,"
smiling at her, "1 have been more successful."
"Dolly?" she says slowly. "Dolly?—I had almost for-
gotten her. She seems," with a long and heavy breath, " so
apart from the world in which I am living now."
" And yet," he says quietly, " she has not forgotten you.
On the contrary, she is always thinking about you—always
looking forward to the time when you will come back to her."
" And at first," she goes on, still in the same dreamy way—
speaking to herself rather than to him—"I was always think-
ing of going back to her. But now, do you know, I think I
could hardly bear it."
"No doubt," he replies, with a short laugh, "you would
find it hard to go back to so quiet a life. I suppose," with
some of that cynicism of which, even in his better moments, he
finds it hard to rid himself, " I must congratulate you. I hear
that you have become a fashionable beauty—a very fashionable
beauty ! They tell me that your portraits are in the shop-
windows—your name in everyone's mouth. Certainly you and
Dolly are far enough apart! "
In his manner, whether he means it or not, there is a dis-
tinct reproach—or so she takes it.
"You are wrong!" she says, flushing hotly, "altogether
wrong. Whoever told you that my portraits are in the shop-
windows told you what is not true. Even Grannie," with a
bitter smile, "would not let me come to that! I believe that
someone did make a sketch of me and put it in some paper.
It was not my fault—I could not help it; but," falteringly,
" you have always been hard on me—always—since the very
first."
" Have I?" he asks, a great deal more gently. " Well! at
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
187
any rate I did not mean it. On the contrary, I may acknow
ledge to you, since you accuse me of unkindness, that I came
to town with the sole and express purpose of serving you, if I
could. It has worried me as it has worried Dolly, to think
that you should be alone here among strangers with no one to
take any care of you."
"Is that true?" she asks, turning to him with so sudden,
so radiant a smile, that it very nearly gets the better of his
sober good sense. " Is that really true ? "
But before he can answer her someone interrupts them.
Those who have held aloof from her while Darrell was with
her, understanding perhaps that she did not desire to be dis-
turbed, have no such compunction with regard to this middle-
aged, almost unknown1 man.
One and another come up to her and exchange words and
greetings with her. Is not she the principal attraction of
this dull little party? And having once come they are by no
means disposed to go. She is surrounded by a little group of
eager and interested men, among whom is Mr. Brooke, who
has with some ingenuity escaped from his corner—and Sir
John has no more chance of exchanging a word with her that
will not be overheard by them all.
And yet those who are watching him and wondering who he
*s, notice that he shows no intention of giving up his place.
The evening is on the wane. People are beginning to
go, and the rooms are already a good deal emptied when
Darrell again makes his way to the little seat in the
corner.
" I have come to say ' good-bye,'" he says bending over
Psyche and speaking low, yet not so low that Sir John cannot
overhear him. "I have arranged it all with Lady Conyng
hame. Mrs. Aylmer is to call for you on Sunday. Remember
—a quarter to eleven, sharp ! "
And with that he goes.
Other people begin to go too. The room is getting almost
188
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
empty, and once more, and for the last time, Sir John and
Psyche are left alone together.
"Well! " he says slowly, and, as it seems, almost regret-
fully, " I suppose I must go. After all, I have not seen much
of you—have I ? What message am I to take to Dolly? Am
I," turning and looking at her, "to tell her that I found you
very happy ? "
" Happy?" she answers, colouring a little under his sted-
fast look. "Yes!—I suppose so. But, indeed, that is a
question that I hardly ask myself. • It seems to me sometimes
that I am living in a dream—it is all so unreal. I suppose,"
laughing, "I shall wake up, like Cinderella, to find myself
back in my rags and my obscurity very soon. But Cinderella
enjoyed herself while she was at the ball—why should not I?"
" Why not indeed ! Enjoy yourself as much as you will—■
only," he says earnestly, " take care of yourself. It seoms to
me there is no one else to take any care of you."
There is a moment's silence—then he says quickly :
" Will you tell me—I am afraid I have no right to ask—but
do you mind telling me where you are going on Sunday—with
Captain Darrell ? "
There is a slight hesitation before these three last words, and
she notices it.
"I am going with Mrs. Aylmer on the river," she says,
laying some emphasis on the name, and speaking with some
coldness, as if indeed she considers it no particular business
of his. "Captain Darrell and Mr. Carruthers are to be of
the party."
"And," he asks quickly, " has Lady Conynghame consented
to this arrangement ? "
" I believe so—Captain Darrell says so."
There is another silence—a longer one than the last.
"Psyche!" he says suddenly, addressing her, as she
observes, for the first time by her name, " I wish that you
would do me a favour. I am afraid that it will be a very
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difficult one for you to grant, and that you will think I have
no right to ask it; yet I want you—for Dolly's sake—to give
up this party."
" Why should I give it up ? What have you to say against
it ? " she replies, with a good deal of warmth. " Surely if
Grannie consents that is all that is necessary."
"I am afraid," he answers quietly, "that Lady Conynghame
is not so careful of you as she ought to be. I know very little
of Mrs. Aylmer, it is true, but that little convinces me that
she is neither so old nor so steady as to be a fit chaperone for
you on such an occasion. Believe me," he goes on earnestly
and very kindly, " trust to me, who am so much older and
know so much more of the world than you do, you will do
better to give it up."
" I cannot. It is all arranged," she says doggedly. " And
indeed," warmly, " I do not see that you have given me any
good reason why I should."
" Then," he answers coldly, rising as he speaks, " there is
no more to be said, except good-bye."
" If you were in my place," she says, looking at him
appealingly as she takes his offered hand, " you would under-
stand how glad I am to get away from Grannie—from all
this " looking around her with a comprehensive glance
that includes all her tawdry surroundings, " even for one day.
You would not be hard on me."
" And some day you will perhaps understand that I never
meant to be hard upon you, and that you might have done
better to take my advice."
And with that he goes.
There is in his manner something of the hurt and offended
dignity of a man who, giving counsel but seldom, yet hardly
expects when he does give it to find it rejected.
She looks after him regretfully. She could almost find it in
her heart to call him back, and promise to do as he had
wished—almost—not quite.
igo UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
"And he could not understand why I knew there was no
harm in it, and I could not tell him," she thinks to herself,
looking after him with eyes full of smarting tears.
Every day—every hour—the secret of her engagement to
Darrell becomes heavier and harder to bear.
" Upon my word—a very presentable man," says Lady
Conynghame, speaking of Sir John, when she and her grand-
daughter are left alone in the little disordered room, so lately
crammed with guests. " There is something of an old-
fashioned air about him, but I am by no means sure that it
does not contrast favourably with the free-and-easy manners
of the present day. By-the-bye," turning to her sharply, "how
was it you never told me anything about him ? "
"Did I not?" Psyche asks weariedly and indifferently—
" I do not know that there was anything to tell."
"At all events," with a little laugh, "he has thought it
worth while to come here twice after you. The Heathcotes,"
she goes on musingly, " are a very old family, and this man
has been very lucky. He has come into the title and the pro-
perty long before he could reasonably have expected it. His
father and his brother died in one year, if I remember rightly."
" What luck !" says the girl, with a bitter laugh, "to lose
one's father and one's brother in one year, and be left all
alone in the world ! "
Lady Conynghame regards her for a moment with cold
surprise, and then turning away to a neighbouring mirror,
begins anxiously to examine the havoc the heat and the wear
and tear of the evening have made in her appearance.
" Captain Darrell has been trying to get me to promise that
you should go to Maidenhead on Sunday," she says, presently
turning away, apparently satisfied with her inspection. " I do
not know that I am wise to let you go, but it appears to be
the right thing to do now-a-days, and if Mrs. Aylmer chooses
to chaperone you, X suppose there cannot be much harm in it.
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 191
For my part," with a shudder, " I hate these boating-parties,
and I shall be only too glad to get a day's rest."
There is a pause. If she has expected that Psyche will
express any great pleasure or eagerness at the prospect, she
finds herself mistaken.
In any case she would probably have had the sense to
disguise her gladness; but, as it happens, there is no need for
disguise. Her heart and her spirits have sunk so low that
there is no room for gladness.
Sir John's kindliness, his ill-accepted advice and warning,
have touched her very nearly. For once—if only for once—
in her unreal and feverish life, she looks ahead at the future,
and its possibilities nearly make her sick with fear.
If only he had known the truth about her; if he could
have understood how she was deceiving everyone — even
Dolly—what would he have thought of her ?
" The fact is," Lady Conynghame goes on, dropping her
voice a little so that she may not be overheard, " the chief
reason that has induced me to consent to this party, which is
probably of Captain Darrell's arrangement, is that he seems
to me, of late, to be very much in earnest about you. 1
confess I did not give him credit for it. I imagined him to
be a confirmed flirt, who would never range himself; but if he
is really in love with you, I do not know that you could do
better than fall back on him—that is, of course, if Mr. Brooke
means nothing. His expectations are not altogether so
assured as one could wish, but certainly if his uncle does leave
him everything he will be a very rich man."
But she has gone too far. The indelicate outspokenness of
this speech proves the last straw that breaks down the girl's
endurance. In any other mood she might have borne it.
She has indeed already borne as much—or more—but to-
night all the excitements that she has endured reach their
culminating point.
" Does it never occur to you, Grannie," she asks, turning
192 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
round on her with flaming eyes and curling lips, " that / may
have some heart, some feeling in the matter; that I may, by
some chance, possess a preference, one way or another ? Am
I only to be put up for sale, like a piece of furniture or one
of your pretty china figures, and knocked down to the highest
bidder ? "
" It occurs to me," says Lady Conynghame, looking at her
with undisguised contempt, " that you are a little fool! You
always were—you always will be, I suppose."
That delicate veneer of polish which society demands is
apt to be knocked off from her speech and her manners at a
rougher contact. Psyche has already learnt that. But to-
night her excitement carries her beyond the fear even of her
grandmother's displeasure.
"To be sold by auction !" she says, making a mocking bow
to her own lovely image reflected full length in a mirror.
" Absolutely without reserve ! Must be disposed of at the end
of the season—a young woman, warranted genuine. Her hair,
her teeth, and her complexion do not come off, and she
is sound of limb and of body. N.B. This is a very cheap lot! "
"You are worse than a fool!" says Lady Conynghame,
with uncontrolled anger—"you are mad ! From the very first
moment I saw you," she goes on, speaking the truth in her
passion, " I knew how it would be—and I repented of my
bargain. Marry, or do not marry," she goes on vehemently,
"just as you please—only remember at the end of the season,
I wash my hands pf you. I have had enough of your whims
and caprices. I must have been out of my mind when I
accepted the charge of you. It is one comfort," with a bitter
laugh, gathering up her skirts, and sweeping out of the room,
" to think that you will have plenty of time to repent when
you get back to the country !"
And with this parting shot she goes. And Psyche is left
standing among the tumbled chairs, the untidy rugs, the
guttering candles, the fading flowers—alone.
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. XQ3
CHAPTER VI.
If fair weather may be taken as a warrantable prognostic of
good-luck, then the day that dawns on the Sunday of the
river-party leaves little room for fear.
Yet Psyche, as she peeps through the blind of her open win-
dow, finds in the brilliance of the sunshine no power to raise
her spirits. For once in her life they are distinctly at low ebb.
Whether it be that the warning of the man who has been
her friend from the time that she was a little child still weighs
upon her, or that she instinctively and unreasonably distrusts,
and still more unreasonably dislikes, the woman who is to be
her companion—she can hardly tell.
She only knows, as she dresses herself in her simplest white
gown, in her plainest and shadiest hat, that not even the pros-
pect of a whole day with her lover can make her wholly glad.
She has chosen her gown out of all the better and costlier
ones that her wardrobe contains, with that natural good taste
which is a heaven-born gift, and which cannot be acquired by
all the art nor all the money in the world.
Women with long purses may go to the best milliners, and
be provided with the best trappings which art, when it is backed
by wealth, can devise—and yet, if they have not the good
sense which may teach them when and where they may appro-
priately wear them, they may fail in their highest ambition—to
seem well-dressed.
It is the compensation of those who have not long purses,
but have good taste, that they may thus beat them on their
own ground.
Psyche has the gift—not an altogether common one—of
becoming her gowns, or making them become her, so that they
seem not so much an addition to her beauty as an appropriate
part of it; and it is a gift that is almost as effective, and as
little to be acquired, as beauty itself.
But at the present moment she knows that her face is over
N
194 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
pale to suit the whiteness of her gown—that her eyes lack
lustre, and that the glad shining of inward content which can
make even dull eyes beautiful, is missing from them.
For even those who have, not unnaturally, envied her for all
those good gifts which nature has bestowed upon her, might at
this time more justly pity her.
Her little day—such a little one it has been—of gladness
and triumph is very nearly over, and there is a heavy debt to
pay for it.
Not all her hopefulness—and she is naturally very hopeful
—can make her regard the prospect lightly. She knows that
when the time of reckoning with her grandmother comes—and
it cannot be far off now—the burden of silence and secrecy
which Darrell has laid upon her will become a burden almost
too heavy to bear.
There are moments of excitement, when it is possible to eat,
drink, and be merry, even though we be perfectly conscious
that to-morrow we die; but there are other moments—chiefly
in the early morning—when the weight of the future lies too
heavy for the enjoyment of the present.
The sun has not reached his height; and though it is not
difficult to predict how hot it will be, there is still some fresh-
ness in the day when Mrs. Aylmer's little brougham drives up
to the door.
If Psyche is looking her worst, Mrs. Alymer, for her part, is
certainly looking her best. Up to the present time the girl
has always found her cold, and proud, and indifferent enough :
and she, never having forgiven the speech that she had over-
heard on the first evening they had met, nor the fact that
Darrell was credited by rumour with having once entertained
a very warm admiration for her, had paid her back coldness
for coldness. She has, moreover, honestly wondered wherein
lay her claims to that beauty with which all the world credited
her.
Well—now she wonders no more ! Before they have traversed
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 195
the short distance from Park Lane to Paddington she under-
stands something of the personal fascination which has given
Mrs. Aylmer all the advantages of beauty without the actual
possession of it.
It must be fairly admitted that a woman who, having no
special qualifications for the part she means to play—being
neither well-born, rich, nor, it must be confessed, very beautiful,
yet manages to secure the advantages of all three—must be
very clever. Indeed, some of those who have encountered
Mrs. Aylmer, and treated her according to the foregone con-
elusion—common to a good many clever men—that women
who lay claim to beauty must necessarily be fools, have en-
larged their experience, and learned their mistake with some
bitterness.
At any rate, she is clever enough to please where she means
to please; and having evidently, for some motive of her own,
determined to undo the unfavourable impression she has made
upon Psyche, she has well nigh succeeded before they reach
the station, where Captain Darrell and Mr. Carruthers are
waiting for them.
It is against her will that Psyche allows herself to be either
flattered or amused—and yet, in spite of herself, she is both
flattered and amused—and when she follows Mrs. Aylmer
out of the carriage, she has gained some colour and brightness.
It is not difficult to decide which is the most beautiful of
the two women.
The young girl in the white gown, with the fair, pure skin,
just now delicately flushed as a wild rose, has in the broad
daylight altogether the advantage of the other, who has lived
a good many years in the wear and tear of the world. Late
hours, and fashionable—i.e., unhealthy—living, must inevitably
leave their marks on the best-preserved face after a little while,
and not even the aid of art, so delicately used as to be imper-
ceptible to men's eyes, can give her back the freshness of un-
sullied youth.
196 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
But on the other hand, Mrs. Aylmer has the far greater
advantage of a ready wit and a readier tongue, a perfect know-
ledge of men's moods and manners, and an absolute absence
of shyness.
It is she who keeps them amused and alert through the
journey by rail which is perhaps the most trying part of such
excursions—it is she, indeed, who is the life and soul of the
party throughout the day. And, after all, though men like to
look at a beautiful face, they like still better to be amused. If
it were her desire to rival Psyche and put her in the shade,
she most certainly succeeds. But it is not apparent that it is
her desire. On the contrary, she manifests towards her
throughout the day such a perfect and unreticent friendliness
as very nearly gets the better of Psyche's preconceived dislike
—very nearly convinces her that she must have judged her
harshly and unfairly.
She is perhaps helped to this conclusion by the fact that
Mrs. Aylmer exhibits no special partiality for Darrell. On the
contrary, her sweetest smiles, her most telling glances, are be-
stowed on Carruthers, who appears to appreciate them to the
utmost.
He is an exceedingly good-looking man, on whom nature
has bestowed more strength of muscles than of brains, but has
added into the bargain such a wonderful good temper and
good nature as to make him the very man of all others for a
river party or a picnic.
There always must be one to do the hard work on these
occasions, and he does it ungrudgingly—ungrumblingly.
He pulls them all up the river, when Darrell, vowing it is
too hot to work, throws himself into the bottom of the boat
and contents himself with looking up into Psyche's eyes, per-
mitting himself at the same time to be lazily amused with Mrs.
Aylmer's lively conversation—and he does not turn a hair in
the process. He neither gets hot, nor wild, nor dishevelled—
nor has he thought it necessary to get himself up for the occa-
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 197
sion like Robinson Crusoe or a settler in the backwoods. He
is, on the contrary, exceedingly pleasant to look at in his white
flannels and Zingari cap, with his well-bronzed muscular arms
pulling strongly at the sculls, and the hot July sun shining
down on his handsome good-natured face.
When they pull up into a little quiet nook in a back-water,
unknown to most river-frequenters, to eat a light little lunch
and drink the champagne-cup, which the heat has made so
desirable, it is he who does all the hard work—washing the
plates, mixing the salad, laying the cloth—while Darrell seizes
the opportunity that he has all the while been longing for, to
speak to Psyche.
They have been very happy all the morning, but they have
been happy in company. There has not, until now, been a
chance of exchanging a word with each other which the others
would not overhear.
" My darling," he whispers very low, glancing under his eyes
to make sure that Mrs. Aylmer's attention is engaged upon her
plate. "Are you sure you are enjoying yourself? You do
not seem like yourself; you are so quiet."
"I am quite happy," she answers just as softly, and answers
truly. Is not she always happy when she is with him ? " And
if I am quiet it is because she," with a little bend of her head
in Mrs. Aylmer's direction, " talks so much better than I
could."
" I wish to heaven," he answers fervently, though still in the
same low voice, " that I had you all to myself. If they would
only take a walk in the woods after lunch, and leave us to
ourselves."
But apparently they have no such intention. When the
lunch is over, they dabble or drift lazily about the river—who
would not be lazy on such a day as this ?—but they do not
part company.
The discreetest chaperone in the world could not more
zealously guard her charge than Mrs. Aylmer guards Psyche.
198 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
Even Sir John, with all his fears, could find no fault with her
in this particular.
They stop at a little river-side inn for their afternoon tea,
and then they go quietly and lazily back again, down the
river.
It is crowded now—too crowded to be altogether pleasant.
The fashion of spending the day of rest (from toil or pleas-
ure) on the water has become of late years—probably from
the necessity to breathe at least on one day out of the seven a
purer and less vitiated air—a fashion so prevalent as to run
the chance of losing its pleasure.
And on this the hottest and the brightest day of all this
bright summer, all the world and his wife—or maybe all the
world and someone else's wife—are apparently disporting
themselves on the river.
Boats of all sorts and sizes—steam launches, gondolas,
wherries of the ricketiest and craziest sort, trim little canoes
and outriggers jostle each other in the locks; and this well-
appointed boat, with its good-looking occupants, are exposed
to the free stares, and not unfrequently to the audible criticisms,
of their fellow-prisoners.
Mrs. Aylmer, for her part, has plenty to say of them, only
she waits until she is out of the lock, and can say it without
danger of being overheard.
" Do you see that woman in the crimson gown and bonnet
of steel glittering like a life-guardsman's- helmet ? " she says,
indicating a passing boat. "Good heavens !—what can pos-
sess her to get herself up like that for the river ? "
" She has probably an ambition to set the Thames on fire,"
says Darrell laughing.
" And look at that other one—there!" directing their atten-
tion to a girl who is reclining with a paper Japanese parasol
behind her fuzzy head—in a gown that seems covered with a
pattern of peacocks'-eyes and puffs as big as half-quartern
loaves on her shoulders. " Is not she like a bit of a dado?
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 199
Is not it," with a grimace, "a hideous get-up? Why, oh,
why is there not a law to make women dress themselves
becomingly?"
" Public supervisors of dress—just as there are school and
sanitary inspectors," suggests Darrell. " By Jove! What a
time they would have of it at some of the women's hands, more
especially the sesthetic ones."
" It seems to me," says Carruthers in his slow and easy way,
" that it is only the ugly ones who wear these grotesque costumes.
I suppose it is their object to attract attention at any price.
Most of the pretty women dress quietly. Look at Mrs. Daltqn,
for instance ; she is nearly always in black."
"Black !" says Mrs. Aylmer, curling up her pretty-little
nose. " That is so like a man. Ask them their idea of the
perfection of a gown, and nine out of ten will tell you black of
some sort or another. As if the world were not gloomy enough
as it is without our all going about like black-beetles! I suppose
—poor souls," with a pitying disdain—" that their women-folk
have so offended their eyes by horrible combinations of colours,
that they fall back on black as their only safeguard."
But to this neither Darrell nor Carruthers says anything.
They have both perhaps a sneaking partiality for a black gown,
but they are not prepared to do combat for their opinions in
the face of such an undoubted authority as Mrs. Aylmer.
They have passed that little bend which lies between Cook-
ham lock and Cliveden, and are now drifting along in the very
prettiest part of the river. The glorious mass of trees that rise
so high and grow so thickly one above another, bending and
intermingling with such a variety of tint and foliage as have been
at once the glory and the despair of some of the greatest living
artists, are throwing their dark shadows all athwart the gleaming
water.
The dying sun lingers yet a little on some of the topmost
boughs, as though he loved best those that grow nearest to
him, and they are blushing redly under his last hot kisses.
200 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
But underneath the darkness and the stillness are already
growing.
The boats are fewer here, and the swift-running stream carries
them along with little help from Carruthers' strong arms.
For Darrell has again abandoned, without much persuasion,
all pretence of helping him, and is lying on a soft Persian rug
at the feet of the two pretty women, smoking, with their consent,
a little cigarette, and conscious of a luxurious sense of most
enjoyable repose. He is indeed at this moment so much in
love that it is a pleasure to be able, furtively, even to touch the
hem of his little sweetheart's gown.
And she, for her part, has not been so happy all day as she
is at this moment.
" It is lovely," she says, looking up into the dark solemn mass
of trees and then down again into her lover's face. " I should
like it to be always twilight on the river. I," with a long breath,
" could stay here for ever."
" Could you ? " says Mrs. Aylmer, laughing shortly. " Well,
I, for my part, should prefer to have some dinner. It is certainly
pretty," casting a glance—which is not nearly so attentive or
so interested as those she has bestowed on each passing dress
—on the scene around her, " but I have seen it so often.
Ah ! " suddenly becoming a great deal more alert as she per-
ceives in an open space where the light still lingers, a little
group sitting by the water's side, "there is the duchess ! What
a handsome woman she still is. It always does me good," she
goes on with real enthusiasm, " when I see a woman a great
deal older than myself who is so well-preserved. It gives one
some hope for that terrible future which lies ahead of one ! "
" I suppose," says Darrell, smiling a trifle scornfully, "that
you are of the opinion of Madame du Barri, who said she would
rather be dead than ugly. But all the same I do not see why
you need be afraid. A handsome woman may be almost equally
charming in every stage of her career, if she will only leave her-
self as nature made her."
Unspotted from the world. 201
11 There is nothing so pretty," says Carruthers, resting on his
sculls a moment to join in the conversation, "as a pretty old
woman."
"Only unfortunately," rejoins Darrell, "there are no old
women now-a-days. They are all "
He halts abruptly.
" Like Grannie," says Psyche, finishing the sentence for him,
and understanding why he has pulled up. " Do not be afraid
of hurting my feelings. I do not think I have any feelings where
she is concerned. I hope," smiling softly, " the fifth command-
ment does not apply to grandmothers, for certainly it would be
difficult to honour Grannie."
But to this he makes no answer. Assent would not perhaps
be altogether polite, but certainly dissent is not possible.
" Sometimes," she goes on, dropping her voice still lower,
"she tells me that I am just like she was at my age. Accord-
ing to all the laws of probability, I shall therefore be exactly
like what she is at her age. It is not altogether a pleasing
prospect—is it ? "
" As if you could possibly be like her," he answers with a fer-
vour which under the circumstances is not altogether discreet.
" Do not you think," says Mrs. Aylmer in such well-accen-
tuated and audible tones as seem to rebuke them for their low
voices, " that we might be pushing on a little ? I do not know
what you may feel, but I am getting horribly hungry."
Carruthers, having no better wish than to obey her, pushes
on with a will; and Darrell, being made to understand in a
moment that he has committed a blunder, does his best to
repair it.
There is one more lock to get through—one more tedious
waiting in not altogether pleasant company—for some of the
other boat-loads have grown with the waning of the day more
festive than agreeable—and then they skim swiftly over the
small stretch of water that intervenes between them and their
hotel.
202 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
" Land at last! " cries Mrs. Aylmer, jumping with a good
deal of agility out of the boat. " I have almost forgotten the
use of my legs."
CHAPTER VII.
The dinner is a success.
Though it is certain that neither the food nor the wines are
any better, nor perhaps so good as ordinarily well-to-do people
are accustomed to partake of in their own homes, yet the fact
of dining under unaccustomed circumstances and in pleasant
company gives to both a 2est and a piquancy which they do not
usually possess. They are all young, all gifted with good
spirits and inclined to be well-pleased with each other; and
there can be no more desirable ingredients for a little dinner-
party than these.
If the small jokes and witticisms that pass between them
are not so profound as to bear re-telling—and indeed few jokes
are—they are at least good enough to keep them all laughing.
It is so easy to laugh under such circumstances ; and that, after
all, is all that is needed.
Even Psyche forgets her fears, forgets her shyness, and ex-
pands into a gaiety that if it is not so pronounced as Mrs.
Aylmer's is at any rate as agreeable.
After dinner they stroll out into the garden, to find, a little
to their disgust but not much to their surprise, that all those
who have dined with them, or before them, have apparently
done so also.
Indeed, no one under seventy could think of staying within
doors on such a night as this. It is as dark as it ever is on a
fair summer's evening, but a young half-moon is shining
through floating cloudlets, and casting a stream of silver light
on the moving water, so that it it cannot rightly be called dark-
ness at all.
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 203
All the benches which the small garden contains and all the
available chairs are apparently already occupied.
Some, indeed, so young that they can afford to laugh at
rheumatism, or so much inclined to each other's company that
they are ready to defy all possible consequences, are sitting on
the dew:soaked grass under the trees.
Evidently there is neither privacy nor freedom to be expected
here.
Mrs. Aylmer goes straight down to the water's edge—the
others following her lead as they have done all day.
" Only a quarter to nine ! " she says gaily, " and a full hour
before we need start to the station. Why should not we go
once more on the water ?—and this time we will not go in one
boat but in two. Four are no company at all."
There is not one of them who has the prudence to gainsay
her. The proposal probably chimes in too well with the in-
clination of each. And if any scruples suggest themselves to
either of the three, Psyche, for her part, lacks the courage,
and the two men the wisdom or the self-denial to give them
voice.
On the contrary, they show a remarkable activity in carry-
ing out the idea. They give Mrs. Aylmer no time to repent
or to change her mind. They lay forcible hands on two small
boats that have just come in, knowing nothing and caring less
of Who their owners may be, or whether they may by any chance
require them again; and in less time than one could imagine
possible, they have, with the aid of a boatman, got them
ready for use.
Even Darrell shows almost as much energy on this occasion
as Carruthers himself.
Mrs. Aylmer is the first to get in. She does net jump this
time. She is too well aware of the precarious nature 01 small
boats, and too honestly averse to an unpremeditated bath to
show any undue haste.
When she has seated herself, she leans forward.
204 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
"Who is coming with me? " she asks, with an enchanting
smile.
Though the words are addressed to both of them yet her
eyes are fixed—with a look that combines invitation and
entreaty—straight on Darrell. She has never, perhaps, looked
more beautiful than she looks at this moment with the moon-
light—which is so much more flattering than the hard, un-
blenching sunlight—shining full on her upturned face.
And Darrell sees it—cannot fail to see it. A man is not
blind to other women's charms even though he be in love, or
at any rate, not so blind as the woman who loves him would
fain believe him.
Yet he draws back.
" I suppose I must not deprive Carruthers of that pleasure,"
he says, with a short and uneasy laugh. " I know he is dying
to go." "
Carruthers needs no second invitation. He seizes on the
opportunity with an avidity which leaves no time for discus-
sion, and pushes off from the bank.
Mrs. Aylmer does not say another word. She is a great
deal too wise to use reproaches when she knows them to be
altogether useless. She does not indeed even look at Darrell
again. She only settles herself in her seat with an air of
ostentatious contentment, and bestows on Carruthers a glance
that expresses such unqualified satisfaction with the present
arrangement that he is convinced he must have been alto-
gether mistaken about that other look which he thought he
had intercepted on its way to Darrell.
And Darrell, seeing and understanding, smiles to himself.
He is, for his part, perfectly satisfied with the way in which
he has—as he imagines—so cleverly managed a rather difficult
matter.
" If we should miss each other on the water," he calls after
them as they go, '' remember we must meet here at twenty
minutes to ten. We must not lose the train ! "
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 205
tl Now," he says, when he has settled Psyche and himsqlf
and carefully adjusted the rudder-lines, " when I have pushed
out a few yards draw sharp round to your left. We will not
follow them; we will go down river, and meet them here
when the time is up."
For a few moments she is engaged in following his direc-
tions. Not until they are in the middle of the stream and
floating quietly downwards does she find time to speak.
" I am afraid you have made her angry," she says nervously,
looking in the direction in which their companions are disap-
pearing. "I am sure that she wanted you to go with
her."
" Not a bit of it! " he answers cheerfully, if not altogether
veraciously. " Why should she ? Carruthers is a much
better-looking fellow than I am, and it can make no difference
to her which of us she has with her—whereas to me,"
laughing, " it makes all the difference."
But Psyche is not altogether assured.
"I am afraid she will be vexed with me," she pursues
regretfully; " and I fancy—do not think I am hard on her—
but I fancy she could be very disagreeable to anyone who
came in her way."
"What does it matter?" he replies, with an indifference,
which if it is not real is very well-assumed. "Do not let us
waste our time in talking about her. What harm can she
do us?"
For though he knows, or ought to know, that a good deal
of harm lies within the power of any woman, it is in his
nature to run all risks in the future for the pleasure of the
moment.
" After all, though I am very willing to please her—have not
I tried my best all day ?—I am still more willing," he goes on
with some honesty, "to please myself andjyou. We have not
had a chance of being alone together until now. Could you
expect me to give it up ? "
206 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
There is so much tenderness in his look and his manner
that she would not be a woman—she would not at any rate be
a woman so natural and loving as she is—if she could any
longer allow herself to regret what he has done.
She casts all her fears to the winds, and smiles on him with a
brightness which altogether reassures him.
"Now you look more like yourself," he says cheerfully.
" Let me tell you, sadness and silence do not suit you at all.
When I saw you first," he goes on, looking into her lovely
moonlit face, " you seemed to me the brightest living thing I
had ever seen. To hold you in one's arms was like embracing
a ray of sunshine."
She laughs outright—she cannot help it; it is so seldom he
allows himself to lapse into a poetical vein, and it is so unlike
his ordinary matter-of-fact, man-of-the-world manner.
" When you saw me first," she says with some of her old
spirit, " you did not embrace me at all. Even you would
hardly have had the audacity to do that; and when you did,"
recalling their first love-scene, " I am afraid I was more
showery than sunshiny."
"Tell me," he says presently, drawing the sculls into the
boat, and leaning forward so that he can touch her hands— (it
is only the untrustworthy' and top-heavy nature of little boats
that prevents him from coming over to her side altogether)—
" have you been quite happy all day ? Upon my word—upon
my soul," appealing in his warmth to a property that he is not
sure he is possessed of, " my chief desire in arranging this
party was that you should have one day at least of real en-
joyment; and all the while I have been fancying that some-
thing—I could not tell what—has been troubling you."
Then, as she does not immediately answer him :
" Has anything gone wrong ?" he asks with real anxiety.
"Has Lady Conynghame been bothering you? It often
worries me terribly to think of you all alone in her hands.
You poor little child ! What chance have you against her ? "
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
207
They are much the same words that had been used, not
long ago, by an altogether different person—but he does not
know that.
His solicitude touches her with a sense of gratitude that is
almost pathetic, could he so understand it.
"No, indeed," she answers quickly, anxious to reassure
him. " She has been wonderfully complacent to me of late.
I suppose," puckering her pretty brows, " it is because I have
such a rooted distrust of her that I am almost more afraid of
her kindness than of her unkindness. I feel that it is only
because she makes so sure of my obedience in the long run,
that she thinks she can afford to let me have my own way
about little things. Well," with a sigh, "she will soon be
undeceived."
"Then, if it is not that," he persists, "what is it that is
troubling you ? I know you well enough by this time to be
sure that there is something."
For a moment she is silent—then she lifts her face and
looks at him.
She has never before seemed to him—will never again seem
to him—so lovely, so lovable. The moonlight, falling full on
her face, makes it seem fairer and whiter than usual, and casts
deep shadows around her dark glowing eyes.
"Do you believe in presentiments?" she asks slowly.
" They are foolish things, are they not ?—and yet, all day I
have had a presentiment that, for this little pleasure of ours,
we shall have somehow, some way—I cannot tell how—to pay
very dearly."
"Nonsense!" he says, laughing lightly, a good deal relieved
to find that her trouble has no more substantial foundation.
" You must be over-wrought—over-worried, my darling, to
take such silly fancies into your head."
"Yes; they are silly—I know that," she answers, a little
aggrieved at the way in which he has received her confidence.
"I suppose," she goes on, anxious to justify herself, "it was
208 unspotted from the world.
because I was so strongly advised not to come; and warnings,
even if one disregards them, are apt to leave some im-
pression."
" And," he asks shortly, " who had the impertinence to
interfere with you ? Was it," jumping suddenly and intuitively
to a conclusion, " that old fellow who took possession of you
the other night ? "
" If you call him an old fellow—yes ! But," smiling, "I do
not think even his worst enemies could accuse him of more
than forty years or so."
" Meddling old fool! " he mutters under his breath, too
angry to pick his words. "Tell him next time he interferes
with you to mind his own business."
"Perhaps, as he has known me since I was a baby," said
Psyche a little drily, " he thought it was his business."
" Does not he suppose—do not you suppose," he continues
hotly, " that I know how to take care of you ? I should
think, under the circumstances, it is a good deal more my
affair than his."
" But you see," she says quietly, " he does not know that."
There is a moment's silence—perhaps in that moment even
he, reckless as he is, realises something of the falseness of the
position in which he has placed himself. There is no one, so
far as the world knows, who has less right to interfere with
her, or to call other men to book for their interference with
her, than he himself; and yet he has, or thinks he has, the
best of all rights.
" Do not let us talk about him any more," says Psyche
gently, too fond of him to bear to see him vexed when he had
looked forward to being happy. " We are wasting our time,
and it is going so quickly—so terribly quickly. In a little
while we shall all be penned up together in a railway-carriage,
wishing each other a hundred miles away, and trying our best
to be amusing and talk nonsense, as we have done all day."
"Speak for yourself," he answers laughing, and trying to
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 209
cast aside his momentary vexation. " I, for my part, flattered
myself that I had been both amusing and sensible !"
And after that Sir John and presentiments are both for-
gotten, to be remembered perhaps at a later date.
The smooth, swift current of the river bears them quickly
and almost imperceptibly along. The many things which
they have to say to each other—for it is not often they find
themselves so absolutely alone—makes the time pass quickly
and almost imperceptibly too.
It is to Psyche that it first occurs that it is going over
quickly.
"Do not you think that we have gone far enough?" she
asks, looking with some dismay at the long stretch of water
that intervenes between them and their hotel. " It will take
us much longer to get back—and I am afraid it must be
getting late."
" Plenty of time," says Darrell; but all the same he takes
out his watch, and tries by the light of the moon to see how
far the hands have travelled. "By Jove!" he says more
quickly, putting it back; "it is later than I thought. We
must get home as fast as we can. We shall do it, but we
must lose no time; keep close to the bank—out of the
current."
He has no mind to lose the train. Reckless though he may
be, he is not so reckless as willingly to get her into trouble.
He pulls with all his power—and he is strong enough when he
chooses to exert himself. Except a few admonitions as to her
steering he scarcely speaks. He bends all his energies—all
his will to his task; and she, understanding him, tries with all
her power to do nothing to distract him—to do all she can to
help him. It is not much. She can only watch, painfully and
silently, the efforts he is making, and do her best to guide the
little boat as near to the bank, without falling foul of boughs
and shallows, as her small experience will permit her. There
is not a sound but the long, regular swish of the sculls through
o
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
the water, broken now and then by the few terse directions he
gives her.
When at last they approach the brightly-lighted hotel, it is
evident enough that he has taxed his strength to the utmost.
"We have done it!"he cries triumphantly; "we are not
more than three minutes late at the outside."
They look anxiously hither and thither—but Mrs. Aylmer
and Carruthers are nowhere to be seen.
The bank is so crowded with boats that the boatmen have
not yet had time to house that some little time is lost in making
their way up to it; and when at last Darrell manages to land
and to hand Psyche out there is not a boatman to be seen.
" Go on to the lawn and look for Mrs. Aylmer—she must
be there," he says hurriedly. "Tell them to get a fly. I will
join you in half a minute, when I have got rid of the boat."
She obeys him without a word; and as she goes hears him
shouting and scolding by turns. There are still some people
lingering in the garden—people who are going to stay the night
at the hotel, or going home by the last train; and by this
uncertain light men and women have a way of looking so much
alike that it is only by going close to each group, and staring
hard at them, while they on their part do not forget to stare at
her, that she convinces herself that those for whom she is
seeking are not amongst them.
In a few minutes Darreil joins her.
" Where are they ? " he asks, anxiously. " Have not you
found them?"
She shakes her head—she cannot speak. She can see that
even he is growing terribly nervous.
" They must be here," he says, vehemently.
But they are not.
Two or three minutes more are lost in a search that proves
that they are neither in the garden nor in the hotel.
They have just abandoned it, When an over-worked, much-
worried waiter turns up with a message that the lady had driven
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
21I
Oil to the station some time ago, and had left word that Captain
Darrell and the other lady were to follow her.
" Good God !" cries Darrell fiercely, almost beside himself,
" why could not you tell us that before ? "
The man has neither the time nor the opportunity to con-
vince them that he has not seen them before. Before he can,
indeed, open his mouth they are out of the hotel, looking for
a fly. More precious minutes are again lost in this task. Most
of them are already on their way to the station, or are engaged
for the later train by those who have had the prudence not to
leave such arrangements until the last moment. They have no
choice—they are compelled to take the only one whose driver
appears either ready or willing to start.
"Drive as hard as you can!" shouts Darrell, "and I will
pay you double your fare."
Under this strong inducement the man urges his worn-out'
horse to his best pace. - But only a few yards convinces them
that his best is very bad- indeed.
There is another stoppage at the turnpike; and the two or
three moments thus lost seem to Psyche the longest she has
ever known. She needs no words now to tell her that every-
thing depends on their speed. Darrell's face, Darrell's manner,
so unlikQ his ordinary easy-going composure, convinces her of
that—but they have not got more than a hundred yards past
the turnpike, and upon the long road that intervenes between
them and the station, before it becomes evident, beyond a doubt,
that the poor worn-out horse, his first small spurt over, is
incapable of further effort. He is lagging helplessly—hope-
lessly.
Psyche looks at Darrell with mute interrogation and entreaty.
He starts to his feet.
"Drive faster!" he shouts co the man. "Whip up your
horse, or I will come and drive myself! Are you going to
sleep?"
He is not going to sleep, but he is, what is worse, half-tipsy
2x2 unspotted from the world.
—not wholly tipsy. He has only reached that stage when
neither threats nor bribes can stir him up to much-continued
effort; neither can whip nor voice induce the poor brute, who
has been to and fro on the road all day, to go a step faster.
After a few more useless adjurations—not altogether gently-
worded—Darrell sinks back into his seat.
" We may do it yet," he says, trying to console her—" the
trains are often late. But we have lost full ten minutes in
looking for them, and it is a near thing."
She does not speak. She knows that neither reproaches nor
lamentations are of any avail. But he sees, as he looks at her,
that she is shivering.
"You are cold—you have no wrap!" he says quickly.
" Good heavens!—what could have possessed them to play
us such a trick ! We were not more than three minutes
late."
"I am not cold," she answers, conscious all the time that
her voice is shaking. "But I am afraid," tremblingly, "that
Mrs. Aylmer has done it on purpose—that she means to go
home without me—and what, oh ! what will Grannie say ? "
" It is impossible ! " he says vehemently, answering his own
doubts rather than hers. " She could not do such a thing !
If she finds that we do not come in time, she will wait until
the next train."
But to this she says nothing—she only shakes her head.
And they sit for a long time in absolute silence, watching in
breathless suspense the feeble efforts of the worn-out horse.
If only by the power of their wills they could put some
strength and spirit in him then indeed he would go a good
deal faster!
Once or twice Darrell pulls out his watch and looks at it j
but Psyche has not the courage to ask him how the time is
going. His silence tells her. Now and then he endeavours
to reassure her and cheer her up; but it is so evident that he
himself has almost lost hope, and is, indeed, more worried and
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 213
nervous than the occasion even seems to warrant that his
well-meant efforts have little success.
" Do not you think," she asks excitedly, as they get nearer
their journey's end, " that we could run faster than the horse
is going ? I am sure that I could—let us get out and try."
He shakes his head.
"You could not do it," he says despondingly; "/might,
but you could not—you would be dead-beat in two minutes.
VVe seem to be going slowly enough, Heaven knows, but we
are going faster than you could run, my poor little darling ! "
Once more, and for the last time, he urges the man to make
an effort, and the poor horse, inspirited, perhaps, by the fact
that he has reached the end of the road he has so often and
patiently traversed, does make a spurt.
They jump out before he has well stopped, and run head-
long into the station—just in time to see a heavily-crowded
train slowly leaving the platform, and a good many people,
who had arrived a great deal earlier than themselves, pushed
back from the over-full carriages and left behind.
But Mrs. Aylmer and Carruthers are not among them.
CHAPTER VIII.
For a moment they look blankly and mutely in each other's
face. Then Darrell breaks out.
" Done !" he cries, with a most passionate anger, his face
white with rage. " By heavens ! I would not have believed
any woman capable of it! I will swear that she has done it
on purpose—out of -some petty spite or jealousy. If they had
waited but three minutes, and not left us to search for them,
yvQ should all have been in ample time for the train,"
214
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
But at this critical juncture, Psyche preserves a better cour-
age than might have been expected of her.
"Perhaps—is it not possible," she suggests falteringly—
though her face, seen in the flickering of the gas-lamps, looks
white as his, "that she may wait for me on the other side?
She may have thought it better to go on."
"Is it likely?" he breaks in, still in the same passionate
tone. " Is she the sort of woman to wait about at a miserable
station when she can be so much more comfortable at home ?
More likely," with a bitter laugh, " she-will be quietly sipping
her iced lemonade, or eating a nice little supper, with Car-
ruthers to keep her company. And to-morrow she will go all
over the town, and tell all her pet friends that she could not
find us anywhere—and was obliged to come home without us.
Do not I know her? "
His temper—never at any time very good—has for the
moment got the better of him. He says it in a fit of uncon-
trollable anger—but he has no sooner said it than he would
give the world to recall his words. It can do her no good—
it can only make ber a great deal more -miserable than, she is
already, to know that the danger of Lady Conynghame's
anger, when she hears that she has been left to come to town
alone with him, is not the only danger she has to fear.
And in fact, at this speech, the girl's sorely-tried endurance
comes to an end.
" If you knew her so well," she says, turning on him with
bitter reproach—as every two people who have got into a diffi-
culty together have, since the days of Adam and Eve, been
apt to turn on each other—" if you knew her to be capable
of treating me like that I wonder you trusted me with her."
But he receives this reproach with a meekness that disarms
her.
"Blame me as much as you will," he says, despondingly—
"you cannot blame me more than I blame myself. It is all my
fault—I ought never to have trusted her out of my sight. But
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
2i5
I did not suppose for a moment she would leave you in
the lurch—nor did I mean to give her a chance of doing
it."
After that there is no more to be said. They pace up and
down a few minutes in dull silence. The first irritation and
anger, natural to everyone who loses a train—more natural
still under these circumstances—being over, they lapse into
dreariness and depression. By-and-by Darrell leaves her on
a seat while he goes to interview a guard.
He comes back with something of renewed energy and
hopefulness.
"They have put on some extra trains!" he says, a good
deal more brightly, taking his place beside her. " One starts
in half-an-hour, and it is sure to be a quick one. After all,
we shall not be so very late, and there is no reason why Lady
Conynghame should ever know you did not come home with
Mrs. Aylmer. She will, in all probability, be gone to bed,
and will not see you come in."
" But if she asks me ? "
He finds in the innocency of this question something dis-
tinctly irritating.
" Are there not a dozen ways in which women can evade
each other's questions ? " he asks with an uneasy laugh. " I am
afraid, when you have lived a little longer in the world, you
will find that there are a good many occasions when it not only
is not necessary, but is altogether impossible, to tell the whole
unvarnished truth."
" I will do my best," she says meekly 3 " but,' rather de-
spondently, " I never was good at telling stories. I always get
red, and—what is worse—I am always found out."
Her words and her look vex him. Though a man may,
by long acquaintance with the ways of the world, have con-
vinced himself of the absolute necessity of an occasional un-
truthfulness, he hardly cares to be the first to teach the woman
whom he means to make his wife such a lesson. For though
216
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
one may expect and forgive untruthfulness in an acquaintance
or a friend—or indeed in most conditions of life—it is not
altogether a desirable quality in a wife.
They are very silent after this. The minutes go by most
laggingly. To both of them it seems the very longest half hour
they ever spent in all their lives. To both of them it seems
hardly credible that they, who have always so counted on the
few minutes they have been able to steal away together, so
treasured and made the best of them, regarding them as the
most precious of all minutes, should find this half-hour not
only wearisome but almost unbearable. Of all the many things
that they have always found to say to each other they cannot
now find one.
Three times Psyche asks him if he is quite sure the clock
has not stopped. Two or three times he makes a creditable,
though not at all successful, effort to start some fresh topic
of conversation; but it always goes back to the old one—what
Mrs. Aylmer will do—what Lady Coriynghame will say—how
soon they may reasonably hope to reach the little house—and
the chances of getting in unobserved.
After going over the same ground a dozen times, they lapse
again into silence—miserable, dispirited silence. She is tired
and cold—even summer nights turn chilly—and very misera-
ble; and though he is neither tired nor cold, he is almost as
miserable, understanding, perhaps, better than she does the
scrape he has got her into.
When at last the train comes they hail it with almost as much
delight as that with which the shipwrecked mariner welcomes
a sail.
" Sit back in the corner, and do not let anyone see you more
than you can help," whispers Darrell as they take their places.
" We shall be all right now."
She does as he tells her, and sits back in her corner, as
silent and as far out of observation as possible. The carriage
is full, and they have very little change of exchanging any
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 217
words that will not be overheard by their fellow-passengers.
Some are gay, some are tired and quiet, but all have their eyes
wide open, and know quite well by sight the pretty girl in the
corner, who has been talked of as one of the beauties of the
season.
When the train draws up at Paddington, Darrell does not
waste much time in looking for Mrs. Aylmer. He has in fact
never hoped that she would be there.
He hails a hansom and tells the man to drive fast to
Street. It is but a short distance, and most of the time he occu-
pies in cheering her up as best he can, and impressing on her
the absolute necessity to keep her own counsel.
"Lady Conynghame will never know if you do not tell her,
and it will be absolutely useless—worse than useless—to let her
know. Why should you bear the blame because that woman
chose to leave you in the lurch ? "
" But," she says at last, rather falteringly, for her courage has
by this time well-nigh deserted her, and the vision of her
grandmother—an angry, raving, terrible grandmother—stand-
ing on the top of the stairs to receive her, is beginning to grow
distinctly in her mind's eye, " I thought you said that Mrs.
Aylmer would be sure to go all over the town and tell every
one. If that is so, would it not be better to tell the truth at
once ? "
" Leave her to me," he says in an altogether different voice,
and with a look which shows her how angry it is possible for
him to be. " I will manage her."
But there is a difficulty lying ahead of them which they have
neither of them dreamt of, and to which that other little diffb
culty of coming home unchaperoned is—in comparison—a very
small one.
When they arrive at the house they find it dark except for a
glimmer of gas in the hall, and tightly shuttered up. Lady
Conynghame has gone to bed; it is evidently ail right.
f< Marshall was to sit up for nje," whispers Psyche, as if she
213
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
were afraid her voice might penetrate through Lady Conyng-
hame's closed windows. " Do not knock—the bell rings
downstairs, and he will hear it."
He rings softly—he rings again and again—three times,
four times—and no answer. They look mutely in each other's
faces.
" Knock ! " says Psyche at last.
He knocks and rings by turns—louder and still louder—his
fear of Lady Conynghame dying in a still greater fear. But
still there is no answer.
"Good God!" he cries, turning to her—"are they all
dead? "
" Grannie and Somers sleep upstairs. You might knock for
ever and they would not hear," she answers, with sick, trem-
bling lips. " There is only Marshall, and—he cannot be there !
Try again—try again ! "
He tries again. He knocks and rings till he wakens echoes
through the silent street, but it is all absolutely useless. They
might, indeed, as well knock at the gate of a grave for all the
answer they get.
They stand perhaps a quarter of an hour in all—and no one
who has not tried it can possibly imagine how long a quarter
of an hour can seem under such circumstances.
One or two men strolling quietly homewards, smoking their
cigars this lovely summer night, pause and look curiously at
them. A little group begins to collect, and then—far worst
of all—a hansom drives up to the next house, and the fashion-
able doctor who lives there, and who is perfectly acquainted
with Lady Conynghame and Lady Conynghame's pretty grand-
daughter—gets out, and after feeling for his latch-key, comes
over to them, and very politely—if not kindly—asks them
what is the matter.
It is the last straw that breaks down Dan-ell's patience. He
explains more, curtly than courteously, and then turns his back
upon him.
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 219
" We must give it up," he says, looking with a terrible com-
passion into the girl's white face. " Come, there is only one
more chance; Mrs. Aylmer must take you in! She shall I I
will make her! "
At any other time she would resist'. She feels even now that
she would rather pace the street all night, or sit on the door-
step till morning than throw herself on the compassion of the
woman who has led her into this strait. But she is so broken
down, so miserable that she gives in after a very faint resist-
ance, and lets him lead her back and put her into the cab.
It is a very short distance from Lady Conynghame's house
to Mrs. Aylmer's, and during the few minutes that it takes
them to get there they do not speak a word. They have
arrived at a pass in which words are no longer possible.
There is a light in the hall, and he jumps out, leaving her
this time in the cab.
There is not much delay in the opening of the door, but
there is a long parley before he is admitted; and then at last
it closes behind him, and she is left alone to wait the result.
Five minutes, ten minutes—she cannot tell how long it is—
but it seems to her an eternity that she stays there, divided
between these two terrible alternatives—of being thrown on
Mrs. Aylmer's unwilling hospitality, or left homeless and
houseless till morning, when the door opens and closes sharply,
and Darrell comes out.
He had looked white enough before, but it had been the
pallor of emotion and fear. Now his face is blazing with an
anger that almost frightens her.
" Drive back to Street," he calls out to the man, and
then takes his place beside her.
For a moment he does not speak—perhaps cannot speak. It
is she who breaks the silence.
''Would not she—have me?" she asks, in a trembling
voice.
" She is a fiend! —a devil in woman's shape ! " he answers
220 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
with a concentrated anger that seems to find no possibility of
expressing itself adequately in mere words. " So long as I
live I will never speak to her again ! I am amazed at myself
that I could ever have believed in her. She almost told me
to my face that she was glad—yes ! glad—that she had paid you
off. When I told her that you might be left in the streets till
morning, she laughed, and told me it was no business of hers
I think," with a terrible smile, "that if you were dying you
need expect no mercy from her."
And after that they say nothing. They make their short
journey in absolute silence—the one being too despairing, the
other too angry, to speak.
Once more the cab stops outside the little fast-closed house.
Once more they get out and stand on the steps, and Darrell
knocks and rings with an energy which might awaken the
seven sleepers.
They have scarcely waited three minutes when they hear
steps inside and the sound of a moving bolt, and then—Psyche's
calmness, which she has up to this moment preserved fairly well,
absolutely deserts her, and she falls to laughing, and from
laughter to hysterical weeping.
" My darling! my darling! " cries Darrell, putting his arm
round her and drawing her to him. " It is all right; keep up
but a minute longer; for God's sake keep up ! "
She hears him dimly, and makes a brave effort to check her
sobs; but in truth all the emotions of the night have been too
much for her; and when the door is at last flung open, and
Marshall—half-dressed, half-sleepy, and a good deal more than
half-tipsy—appears in the doorway, her chest is still heaving,
the tears are still rolling down her cheeks, so that in any other
condition he could scarcely fail to perceive them.
" What do you mean by such behaviour!" cries Darrell,
with a terrible word that makes her shiver. " Do you know
that Miss Dalrymple has been waiting outside this door for
half-an-hour ! Where have you been ? What have you been
Unspotted from the world. 221
doing? I will let Lady Conynghame hear of it—I promise you!
You shall pay for it! "
The man, having arrived at a stage when inequalities of
position are wholly forgotten, mutters something that is not
altogether complimentary to Lady Conynghame, and adds to it
a reflection on ladies who stop out to this time of night.
Darrell's face blazes. For a moment he is divided between
an overwhelming desire to knock him down—not a very diffi-
cult task in his present condition—and a still more powerful
conviction of the impolicy of such a proceeding.
His policy, or rather his desire to shield Psyche, gets the best
of it.
He puts his hand in his pocket and produces the most
potent argument he can bring to bear on such a man.
" Hold your tongue, or it will be the worse for you," he says,
shortly; he cannot bring himself to say more.
Then he turns to Psyche.
" My dear," he says, closely pressing her hands in his, " do
not fret. It is all right now. Keep your own counsel, and
there is no harm done. God knows how I blame myself for
this; do not blame me more than you can help ! "
And with that he goes. And she is left alone to grope her
way up into her little room in the dark.
And this is the end of her day's pleasure.
CHAPTER IX.
Two days later, about four o'clock of the afternoon, Psyche is
waiting, ready dressed for driving, in Lady Conynghame's little
drawing-room.
It is usually her fate to be kept waiting on these occasions.
The task of daily transforming an old woman into a young one
is probably not an altogether easy one. Indeed, some of the
222
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
contempt which is usually bestowed on such efforts might very
well be tempered with admiration. The talent and ingenuity
expended on them might under more favourable development
have produced some lasting work. As it is, they have at least
the merit of perseverance, being compelled, like Penelope,
daily to undo, only that they may do up again.
But Psyche has on this particular day no patience. . She
paces up and down the narrow limits of her little china-decked
cage writh a feverish restlessness.
She is longing with a most miserable longing to see Darrell
—to see Mrs. Aylmer—anyone—and know how things are
going.
Up to the present time she has escaped any serious evil from
her Sunday night's adventure. Lady Conynghame's questions
had not been so searching that she had not been able to evade
them without committing herself to any direct untruthfulness.
She had indeed confessed that they had missed the train by
which they had intended to return ; but her grandmofhePhad
taken for granted that the "they" included the whole party,
and she had learned her lesson too well, and been too greatly
in fear of her, to explain the whole truth.
Yet she knows—cannot fail to know—that there is a
drawn sword hanging over her head, ready at any moment to
fall.
If her own distrust of Mrs. Aylmer were not sufficient to
convince her of that, her lover's words, spoken in the heat of
anger, in the truthfulness of unrestrained passion, would leave
little doubt of it.
She knows that her own reputation—for good or for evil—
lies in the hands of a woman who has never liked her—whom
her instinct tells her, has always disliked her, and that there is
little to be hoped for from her. There remains a chance that
to the end of the season Lady Conynghame may be kept
from the knowledge of her unfortunate misadventure; but it
is a very poor one, and not in any way to be counted on.
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 223
She who had so looked forward to this short time in town, in
her lover's company, hoping she scarce knows what from it,
reckons up the days that remain of it with feverish impatience,
longing to be safely back in the dull quietude of her country
life, in the safety of Dolly's protection, with a longing that she
had never until now believed possible. Even her father's
coldness and unkindpess seem but small evils compared to
those that now surround her.
As she paces restlessly to and fro, she comes face to face
with heir own image, reflected full length in one of the many
mirrors, and pausing, takes a long and steadfast look at
herself.
She has changed—changed greatly during these few weeks
—even she can see that. To one who admired her more than
loved her, the change might seem altogether to her advantage.
She has gained an air of fashion and a grace of carriage that
makes her beauty far more appreciable to those who cannot
admire Nature's best handiwork unless it be placed in a good
setting; but, on the other hand, she has lost much of that
freshness and spontaneous gaiety which had given her in
Darrell's eyes so irresistible a charm—and they are things that
being lost can never be regained. She is pale—over-pale,
perhaps, to please those who might love her well enough to
feel anxious for her; but it is not an unbecoming pallor. It
rather enhances the loveliness of her dark eyes and rich-
coloured hair. On the whole, the reflection that she sees in
the glass is not one with which any woman could reasonably
be discontented. She knows that, and she has arrived at
a stage when she finds it necessary to appraise her own good
looks, knowing that much depends on them.
She has hardly finished her inspection of herself when the
door opens and shuts again, and turning quickly round and
facing Lady Conynghame, she knows without hearing or speak-
ing a word that the worst, the very worst that she has dreaded
has come.
324 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
She was pale before ; but now she turns deadly white. Yet
she preserves a certain courage.
" Are you ready, Grannie ? " she asks, as steadily as she can.
" Shall we go? "
" Stay a moment," Lady Conynghame answers, in a voice
that is terrible through its very repression. " There is some-
thing I have to say to you before we go."
And though one would have said that cheeks that
carried so much colour could not turn pale, yet there is a
certain ghastliness which will protrude itself through the most
artificial bloom ; and it is apparent on her face now.
" There is something that Somers has been telling me," she
goes on, with lips that tremble with anger. " Can you guess
what it is ? "
Always, since the day when she first knew her grandmother,
Psyche has understood that it might be possible for her to be
terribly angry; now she realises it.
There are natures that always possess a certain power,
whether for good or evil, which other natures lack. There are
women who, failing all other claims to respect, can yet manage
to their latest day to make others afraid of them; and Lady
Conynghame is one of these.
Though the girl knows she has done no particular wrong,
she trembles and sickens under her look. Yet she tries hard
not to betray it.
"I know," she says, with as good a courage as she can
maintain, though she is conscious that her voice falters, " that
if Somers could find nothing bad to say against me, she would
invent it. She has always hated me—I cannot tell why."
" Unfortunately," says the old woman, with bitter emphasis,
" I am afraid her truth is more to be relied on than yours.
But," her voice rising, " I can indeed find it hard to believe
what she tells me now. She says that Marshall has told her
that you did not come home on Sunday night until half-past
twelve—long after the last train came in—and that you came
Unspotted from the world. 225
alone with Captain Darrell, and had returned, she believes,
alone to town with him."
There is a moment's pause, then she comes a step nearer.
"Is it true?" she asks in a shrill and terrible voice.
" Answer me ! "
There is another pause—a terrible one ; then the girl bows
her head in mute assent. She cannot speak.
" True !" cries the old woman, her lips quivering with
irrestrainable anger; " and you can dare to stand there and
tell me so ? Do you know what it means ? Do you understand
that you have disgraced me ?—that you are probably by this
time the talk of the town ? "
But at these words the girl lifts her head, and though her
face is white enough still, it regains both courage and pride.
" Stay a moment! " she says, with something that almost
approaches to dignity; " I will not hear you speak to me like
that. I have disgraced no one. I have done nothing—no,
nothing that I can be justly blamed for. Since Somers has
told you part of the truth, she would have done better to tell
you all."
Her voice falters a little ; then she bravely controls it.
" It is true," she goes on hurriedly, yet in tones so clear and
distinct that not one word fails to reach Lady Conynghame,
" that we were so unfortunate as to miss the train—Captain
Darrell and I. Mrs. Aylmer and Mr. Carruthers had gone on
in front, and we lost some time in looking for them. Our
horse was a bad one, and we got to the station just in time to
see the train go. We came by the next, and I do not think
anyone saw us. No harm would have been done; but when
we arrived here Marshall was out—he must have been out.
We knocked and knocked and got no answer. I cannot tell
you how long we stayed at the door before we gave it up."
" And then ? "
" And then," she continues, faltering for the first time, for
indeed she understands that this is the worst part of her story,
p
226 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
" Captain Darrell persuaded me that there was only one thing
to be done. I could not stay in the streets or on the doorstep
all night. He made me drive with him to Mrs. Aylmer's to
ask her to take me in."
"And—she refused?" asks Lady Conynghame, her voice
rising almost to a scream.
" She refused," answers the girl, slowly and reluctantly ; " I
do not know how or why. Captain Darrell went in to her, and
I remained outside; but she refused. After that we came back
again, and Marshall was at home. I do not know where he
had been, but I am sure that he had been drinking ; and,"
vehemently, " it was all his fault—not mine."
But the last part of her tale has been told to deaf ears.
Lady Conynghame has sunk into a chair in an attitude of de-
spair too genuine to be affected.
" Do you know what you have done ? " she asks, in a voice
that is no longer raised nor angry, but is as despairing as her
look. "You have ruined yourself, and not only yourself—
you have ruined me. Two days ago there was not a girl in
London who had a better chance of marrying well than you
had; and as for me—for me," wringing her hands, " who have
all my life, in spite of all disadvantages, managed to hold up
my head so that no one has dared to turn their backs upon
me, there will be nowhere that I can go that I shall not hear
the story of your folly and disgrace."
" Disgrace / " repeats the girl, with a most passionate anger.
" Is there any disgrace in missing a train, or being shut out by
a drunken footman ? "
"Are you a fool or a baby," cries the old woman, jumping
up, her anger breaking through all restraint, " that you do not
understand what you have done? The folly of losing the
train was nothing compared to the folly of letting that woman
know that you had been shut out, and giving her the chance of
refusing to take you in. Do not you see—cannot you under-
stand," her voice rising with every word, "how she will go
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 227
about to everyone, telling them that yoit and Darrell missed
the train on purpose; that she could find you nowhere, and
was compelled to go without you; that you arrived so late that
I shut you out; that he tried to induce her to take you in;
and that she was obliged—very reluctantly," with a bitter
sneering mimicry of Mrs. Aylmer's tones, "for her own
sake to refuse to have anything to do with so foolish an esca-
pade ? "
" No ; I do not see it," she answers, in a voice that begins,
in spite of all her efforts, to tremble and go near to -breaking.
" I cannot understand why she should wish to do me an injury.
What harm have I ever done her ? "
" You have done her the harm of being prettier than she is,"
says Lady Conynghame, with bitter emphasis, " and of letting
Captain Darrell think so. She is a woman who would rather
sacrifice her soul—or her diamonds—which are perhaps of
more value to her—than miss the chance of repeating a scandal.
Do you think she is likely to spare you—and him ? "
" Let her do her worst!" cries Psyche, with passionate
spirit, driven to bay. " Let her say what she pleases. I, too,
have a voice as well as she; and I can tell the truth."
" The truth!" says Lady Conynghame, turning and facing
her j " and what is the truth ? That you and Captain Darrell
were wandering about alone late at night, and by an accident
got shut out. Is not that the best that can be said of it ?
With any other man for your companion it would have been
even in the most lenient eyes, an unfortunate accident—to say
the least of it—but with him—do you suppose he is the sort of
man with whom anyone who thought of marrying you, as Mr.
Brooke most certainly did think two days ago, would care to
hear his future wife's name bandied about in clubs and draw-
ing-rooms ? "
She says it with a sternness and calmness that carry a far
more crushing conviction than her most passionate anger.
The natural spirit,,the sense of injustice which have up to
228 UNSPOTTED FROM THE VTORLd.
this juncture preserved the girl from breaking down go near to
failing her.
" It matters very little what Mr. Brooke or anyone else may
think of me so long as I am innocent," she says, with some
poor remnant of pride, though her voice is choked and dull
with the effort to restrain her rising sobs ; "and I am innocent
—innocent even of intentional folly. It was not my fault that
I missed the train—not my fault that I was shut out. It was
all an accident—a miserable accident from beginning to end."
And so saying, she turns away, and pushing back the blind,
looks out, that she may conceal from her grandmother the
bitter and smarting tears that in spite of all her efforts will
come.
" It is a very good thing to be innocent," says Lady
Conynghame, with a sneer that is horribly cruel, " but it is
still better to appear so."
And after that there is silence.
Psyche, for her part, is for the moment too overwhelmed
by the bitter reproaches that have been heaped upon her—
by the sense of her own impotence to break through the
web of slander and misconstruction that seems to be closing
around her—to find speech possible. And Lady Conynghame
having exhausted the first heat of her anger, is already turning
over in her clever old head the small chances that remain in
their favour. After the first crushing sense of defeat, her
spirit, always strong, is rising to the encounter. If diplomacy
could get the better of untoward circumstances, then indeed
she might hope to overcome them.
" If only you had had the common sense—the common
honesty to tell me the truth at once," she says at last, speaking
out her thoughts, " then we might have got the better of that
woman. As it is, she has had two whole days to the good—
two whole days to tell her tale without the chance of being
contradicted; and let me tell you such tales do not lose in
the repetition. You would probably be considerably as-
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 229
tonished if you could hear to what dimensions the story of
your innocent adventure has grown by this time."
But the girl answers nothing to this taunt. She has arrived
at a pass when it is no longer easy to answer.
"Did anyone see you while you were standing at the
door?" asks the old woman sharply after another minute
spent in thought, " anyone who would be likely to recognise
you ? Answer me ! Cannot you speak ? "
And at this command Psyche turns round.
" No one that I know of—no one that I can remember,"
she answers slowly, for speech is still difficult to her, " except
the doctor next door. I do not know his name. He came
and asked if he could help us."
" Dr. Margrave !" cries her grandmother, with a sort of
scream. " Do you mean that he saw you ? Then indeed we
are done for I Do not you know that he is a fashionable
ladies' doctor, and the greatest gossip in London ? You
unfortunate child ! At any rate, no one can say that when
you wanted to ruin yourself you did not do it effectually !"
But she has gone too far. At this crisis the girl's endurance
breaks utterly down. She has borne as much as she could
fairly be expected to bear; but at the last she gives way.
" Grannie!" she cries, stretching out her hands with a
pitiful gesture; " do not reproach me—do not blame me any
more—I cannot bear it. Indeed, indeed," bursting into
tears, " I cannot bear it! I am most unhappy—God knows
I am most unhappy. All my life—everything that I have
done—has seemed to be wrong. But I do not want to bring
trouble on you. Let me go away, let me go home; and in
a little while—a very little while—they will forget that I ever
existed—they will not," sobbing outright, "think it worth
their while to injure a poor girl who never injured them."
But this appeal, which must have touched the heart of any
woman who was possessed of one, only hardens Lady Conyng-
hame into a more bitter contempt; and it is a cgntempt that
230 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
is not assumed. It is genuine. She, who has all her life faced
the world and weathered its storms with a courage which
under better circumstances must have commanded some
admiration, cannot even understand, much less sympathise
with the weakness which gives way at the first approach of
danger.
"Are you going to cry ?" she says, recoiling from the out-
stretched hands and looking at her with an expression of such
unfeigned disgust as very nearly succeeds in its intention.
" Stop ! stop this instant! Good heavens ! You are a greater
baby than I thought you! Do not you understand that if
people see that you have been crying it will convince them of
the truth of the story as nothing else will ? "
" No one is likely to see me," answers Psyche, sinking into
a chair with an air of such utter despondency, of such hope-
less "giving up" as is sufficient of itself to exasperate a woman
so energetic as Lady Conynghame into absolute frenzy. " Do
you suppose, that after such ja. scene as this I am going
out?"
"You are not only going out," answers the other, standing
over her with a manner so authoritative that she has no chance
but to yield to it, " but you are going to laugh and to talk,
and do your best to give the lie to this story. There is no
time to be lost—we have lost too much already. For heaven's
sake ! " with uncontrolled irritation, " try to look less like an
Ophelia or that kind of ridiculous person, and more like an
ordinary Christian !"
It is only a figure of speech; but it is a figure that the girl,
stung to desperation, seizes upon.
" A Christian !" she cries, springing to her feet and laugh-
ing as those who care for her would be sorry to hear her laugh.
" A Christian would love those that hate her, and do well to
those that use her unjustly; but I—I hate them. I would, if
I had the power, do them all the harm that they have, you
say, done me; but I have no power—none at all! "
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 231
"Now you look more like yourself," says her grandmother,
regarding with a critical approval the returning flush on her
cheeks, the new light in her eyes, and not caring at all from
what source they have sprung, so long as they are there. " Go
up stairs and bathe your face, and arrange your hair, and put a
little rouge on your cheeks, if you have such a thing. I will
give you five minutes—no longer."
She gets her way, as people of determined will do ordinarily
get their way.
In five minutes the girl takes her place by her grandmother's
side in the showy little Victoria; and though she has not
obeyed her as to the colour on her cheeks—though they are,
in fact, still so white that Lady Conyinghame glances at them
with a good deal of disapproval, there are no perceptible signs
of disorder or distress in her appearance.
They drive along in silence, but that is nothing new. They
are mostly very silent when they are alone together, for they
have not much in common—these two. But Psyche perceives,
with a good deal of wonder and some admiration, that Lady
Conynghame's face, so lately distorted with anger and passion,
has already wreathed itself in that markedly pleasant smile,
which she usually puts on with her rouge and other cosmetics
to encounter the world. She sits well forward, glancing to
right and to left, ready to perceive any passing acquaintance ;
and if there is more sharpness than usual in her look that
is probably not apparent to the casual observer.
Only her companion knows and understands it. She, for
her part, shrinks back as much as possible under the shade
of her large parasol, feeling as if every glance that falls upon
her may carry a hidden stab. At the corner of the street
they are arrested by a block of carriages, and she encounters
the looks that are bestowed upon her with a timidity she has
never felt before.
Some of those who are drawn up on the pavement to
watch the passers-by gaze at the pretty girl in her costly
232 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
dress with an admiration to which she is by this time well-
accustomed.
"If they could only know," she thinks to herself, as so
many women have with even better cause thought before
her, " there is not one of them who would change places with
me. I am more unhappy than the unhappiest of them.'
They have not taken more than one turn in the drive—
which is already crowded—before it is apparent to both of
them that their very worst fears have not overstepped the
mark. Lady Conynghame's bows and smiles, bestowed with
unsparing cordiality on every passing acquaintance—are re-
turned, for the most part, with a marked coldness and suspicion
—in some cases are not returned at all; and though it might
be possible under other circumstances to attribute these
omissions to chance or to near sight, no doubt of the real truth
any longer remains possible to them when, in the thick of
the crowd, their carriage is drawn up almost alongside of an
old-fashioned and handsome barouche, whose occupant, a
middle-aged woman, well-known and well-respected in society,
who has up to the present time bestowed a good deal of real
kindness on Lady Conynghame's pretty granddaughter, turns
her head aside, and keeps it turned aside for the whole long
minute that they remain within sight of each other—with a
gesture so marked that it is impossible to mistake it.
" Cut! " says Lady Conynghame through her teeth. " Cut
dead !"
But even while she says it, she never for a moment changes
or relaxes her set smile.
There exist in the annals of history the records of an ordeal
by fire, by which women, suspected of certain crimes, were
mercilessly tried, and even in these days of fashion and plea-
sure and easy-going luxuriance, they may pass through an ordeal
not less terrible—not less merciless.
Before they have gone the length of the drive and turned
round by Knightsbridge Barracks, following the string of other
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
233
carriages, the iron has eaten into the souls of both of these
women : and though they suffer in an altogether different way,
yet each suffers—suffers terribly.
To the girl, who finds herself accused of' an indiscretion
which she has not committed, from which she has no chance
of defending herself, it is a shameful and terrible experience
for which not all the experiences of her life have prepared
her. To the old woman, who has made the world of fashion
her god, and sees that god lying shattered at her feet, more
pity—if less sympathy—might well be accorded.
She bears herself throughout with a heroism worthy of a
better cause, and which Psyche finds it impossible to emulate.
For the art of covering a miserable consciousness by a smiling
exterior is one which can only be acquired after some practice.
The corners of her mouth—the look in her eyes—tell a tale
which they who see might find it not difficult to read.
" Sit up," whispers Lady Conynghame, sotto voce. " Smile,
cannot you ? For heaven's sake have the pluck to look as if
you do not feel it."
When they reach the other end of the drive, she orders the
coachman to draw up under the trees.
There is nothing new in this order. It is only a very ordi-
nary part of the day's programme. They usually end or vary
the monotony of their drive by drawing up by the rails to
exchange greetings with their acquaintances, and they invaria-
bly find themselves surrounded by a little crowd of young men
—among whom Psyche's popularity as one of the prettiest
girls of the season is an established fact.
But though to-day there are many who come up to speak to
them—one at least who has for the last fortnight never been
missing is conspicuous by his absence. Mr. Brooke is not
there.
As the minutes go by—minutes that seem like hours to
Psyche, being compelled to talk as gaily and lightly as she can
while her heart is all the time heavy as lead—she finds herself
234
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
looking and waiting for him with a longing which she would
not at other times have believed possible.
It is not only that she knows—that she feels sure—that his
appearance would set at rest the worst of Lady Conynghame's
fears—but for her own part—for her own sake—she is pos-
sessed by a great desire to see his good-natured, kindly face,
and assure herself that he—who has always been good to her,
always thought well of her—has not heard and believed this
scandal.
But he does not come. The minutes go by—the drive and
the promenade are crowded — but neither Mr. Brooke nor
Darrell appears. She has at first almost dreaded Darrell's
coming, knowing or fearing that Lady Conynghame might
nake him understand how greatly he was to blame for his
•share in her trouble, but as it becomes apparent to her that he
is taking no pains to seek her, her bitterness and her misery
grow almost beyond bearing. She feels that one look in his
face, one touch of his hand, one assurance that he was willing
and ready to bear with her the consequences of their misad"
venture would be an unspeakable relief to her.
Her wandering attention, her wandering eyes, her incon-
secutive answers, must indeed have been sufficiently apparent
to those who surround her—but that Lady Conynghame does
her best to hide them. She sustains the chief part of the
conversation with a liveliness and a spirit which Psyche has
never until now seen her display at their full power. For the
first time in her life she almost feels grateful to her—she almost
wishes that she could emulate her in her powers of dissimula-
tion.
It is not until the carriages and the promenaders are begin-
ning to thin—not until all possible hope is over—that Lady
Conynghame gives the order to drive home. There is a cer-
tain sharp ring in her voice which might warn anyone who
knew her well how nearly her patience is at an end—and she
throws herself back in the carriage with an abandonment of
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 235
any further effort which tells its own tale to the girl sitting by
her side.
But she does not say a word. They make the short drive
homeward—which, by reason of the carriages which still block
the way, occupies a good time—in silence—absolute silence.
It is probable that Psyche's trembling lips and changing
colour warn Lady Conynghame to indulge in no reproaches
until they have reached the safe shelter of the house. Once
arrived there—though she ascends the stairs still in silence—
when she sees that her granddaughter makes an attempt to
pass higher up, she beckons her into the little drawing-room
with an authoritative gesture, and then shuts the door—and
once more they are alone together.
CHAPTER X.
For a moment they stand facing each other, and it is difficult
to say which bears the most evident marks of the ordeal through
which they have just passed.
Lady Conynghame having dropped her conventional smile,
assumed not so much from any real kindness towards her
neighbours as from the idea that it is quite as easy arid a good
deal more politic to look pleasantly at them, appears haggard
and drawn under her artificial colour, and her eyes have the
hunted look of a desperate woman. Psyche is white—whiter
than she has been before, and her face, though it is composed
enough, is set and strained in a way that makes it look a great
many years older than it usually does. It is perfectly evident
that her composure is only on the surface. It is Lady
Conynghame who speaks first.
" Do you understand now," she asks, in a voice that is quiet
rather from despair than from the necessity any longer to restrain
herself, " what you have done ? I suppose it is plain enough
236
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
to you now that I have not exaggerated the consequences of
your folly."
" I understand," answers the girl, in a voice that is strained
and unnatural as her look, "that someone—Mrs. Aylmer,
probably—has told some untruth about me, and that some
people have believed it; but after all—though I do not deny
—I cannot deny," with a momentary falter, " that it is hard
enough to bear—can it matter so much to me? Those who
care for me will hear the truth—and they will believe it."
"Will they? " says the other, with a shrill and terrible laugh.
"Do not you know that it takes a lifetime, and more than a
lifetime, to make the world hear the truth ?—and that it takes
but a day or an hour to spread a lie, and that once spread it
can never be arrested ! You are ruined—absolutely ruined !
I wash my hands of you," she goes on, sinking into a chair and
casting up her hands with a gesture of absolute despair. " I
will have no more to do with you !"
Her look and tone move her granddaughter to something
nearer pity than anger. After all she is old—too old to bear
these troubles.
" Grannie," she says more softly, the tears rushing to her eyes
ior the first time, " I am sorry—with all my heart I am sorry
that I have brought these annoyances upon you. I will go
away—I will do anything that you tell me "
But her words are arrested. Though it might not be hard
to guess what sort of answer they would receive—they never
receive any. The sound of the door-bell, ringing loudly through
the little house, makes Lady Conynghame start to her feet.
"A visitor!" she cries, making a painful effort to resume
some semblance of her ordinary look. " I cannot see anyone
—it is impossible !"
She goes to the window, and looks furtively through the
blind; and in a moment, nay, in half a moment, her whole
aspect undergoes a complete metamorphosis.
" Mr. Brooke !" she cries excitedly. " We are saved—saved
UNSPOTTED PROP! THE WORLD. 237
after all. He has come! He is here! Go upstairs," she
goes on almost incoherently to her granddaughter, who has so
far caught the infection of her excitement that she has followed
her and is looking over her shoulder. " Make yourself fit to
be seen. I will receive him—trust to me," with a laugh that
is nearly hysterical—" it will be all right now."
But though Psyche's eyes assure her that it is indeed Mr.
Brooke's phaeton, and that he himself is driving it, and though
there is little more to be seen of him from this point of view
than the top of his hat, something in his attitude, in the fact
that he never once glances towards the house, convinces her
that Lady Conynghame's hopes have been unduly raised.
" I am afraid," she says, slowly and reluctantly—for indeed
she is sorry for her grandmother's disappointment, and would
have been glad too for her own sake to think that her little
friend had not allowed himself to listen to any slanders of her
—" that I need not take any trouble about my appearance.
I fear—I am almost sure—that he is not coming in."
She turns out to be right. The groom hands some cards to
Lady Conynghame's footman—springs up behind—Mr. Brooke
touches with his whip the horses that are justly considered one
of the handsomest pairs in London, and drives away without
a backward glance.
As Lady Conynghame drops the blind and turns away,
Psyche perceives that her hands are trembling. But she does
not speak—she is past that. She waits in absolute silence for
the few seconds that intervene before Marshall brings up the
cards.
There are two cards, and two small notes, one of which he
hands to Lady Conynghame and the other to Psyche.
But on the corner of the cards the three letters "P.P.C."
are written, and they are sufficient to tell their own tale.
Indeed, Lady Conynghame's hopes, so suddenly and cruelly
dashed to the ground, have hardly left her the power of opening
or reading the letter. She fumbles at the envelope, and holds
238 UNSPOTTED PROM THE WORLD.
up her glasses with hands that quiver and shake with
uncontrollable agitation, and can with difficulty master the few
words it contains.
" Dear Lady Conynghame,—I have heard that my father
is not so well, and would much like me to go and see him.
I therefore leave town to-morrow, and shall not have time to
come and wish you good-bye, and thank you for all your
kindness and hospitality.
" Yours sincerely, Reginald Brooke."
That is all, but it is sufficient.
" Most men would not have taken the trouble to write even
that much," she says, dropping it from her fingers as if it
contained some poison. " They would have gone without a
word; but he is not like most men."
Then she lifts her haggard and miserable eyes, and looks at
her granddaughter—not, however, with any remaining hope.
"I suppose that contains the same pleasant information,"
she says, pointing to the letter which Psyche, having quickly
scanned, is holding crumpled up in her hand.
" Very much the same," she answers, after a moment's hesi-
tation.
Something in her manner arrests Lady Conynghame's atten-
tion} a gleam of light comes back to her face.
" Show it to me," she says, quickly and authoritatively,
stretching out her hand.
But Psyche still hesitates. She knows that it was meant for
her eyes alone, and that the reading of it can only eventually
bring a more bitter disappointment upon her grandmother.
She would refuse outright, only that she understands that in the
long run she will be compelled to obey.
4' Show it to me ! " cries Lady Conynghame again, still more
sharply, and this time she almost snatches it out of her hand.
It is not a long letter, but it takes her some little time to
read it.
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 239
The few simple and straightforward words that it contains,
coming so soon after the bitter humiliation she has suffered,
have touched Psyche more nearly than she would have believed
possible.
" Dear Miss Dalrymple" (so it goes)
" From something I was told last night I am compelled
to abandon certain presumptuous hopes I had entertained with
regard to you. I am led to believe that you have already
given your preference to another. I shall therefore spare you
the pain of saying 'No,' and myself of hearing it, by going
away to-morrow; but I think it is right to make you this
explanation of my abrupt departure. If I have leaped too
quickly to a conclusion, one word, one line will bring me to
you. I shall remain in town until to-morrow evening on the
bare chance of hearing from you.
" Always your friend,
" Reginald Brooke."
And when Lady Conynghame has read these words she does
a terrible and unexpected thing. She bursts into tears.
They are not beautiful tears, "wrung from the depths of some
divine despair." They are only the pitiful and maudlin evi-
dences of the weakness of a poor old woman, whose miserable
pretence of juvenility has broken down beneath contending
emotions.
" Thank heaven !" she cries, with a shaking voice, dabbing
her eyes, conscious of the imprudence of crying with such a
complexion as hers. " Thank heaven !" It is the nearest
approach to a prayer that she has made for a very long time,
but the fervency of the ejaculation almost amounts to one.
" I am afraid," she goes on, with a quavering voice, " that I
have been a little hard on you; but I could not tell—how
could I tell that it would come all right ? and I am not strong.
All this has upset me—it has upset me terribly. But," trem-
blingly, " do not lose any time—write at once, my dear, write
240 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
at once. I always knew," breaking into fresh tears, " that
Reggie Brooke was a good little fellow—a dear little fellow.
I declare," with an attempt at laughter that is more pitiful than
her tears, " I—I am almost fond of him."
Her words, her look, her manner, that almost for the first
time betray the frailty and weakness of old age, give the girl a
bitterer pang than all her reproaches had done. Her lips turn
ashy. pale. She presses her hands tightly together against her
heart; but she does not pretend to misunderstand her.
" I cannot write to him," she says in a slow dull voice, that
not all her efforts can make quite firm. " What would be the
good of it ? "
" The good of it!" echoes Lady Conynghame, dropping her
handkerchief and lifting her face, down which the tears have
made two dreadful furrows. "The good of it? Do not you
understand that he wants to marry you ?—that he has heard
this story, heard it probably with the addition put in by Mrs.
Aylmer for his especial benefit, that you are in love with
Captain Darrell, and that he conveys to you in the most deli-
cate manner possible that it can make no difference to him, so
long as that part of it is not true ? "
" Yes; I understand," answers the girl quietly, and with a
courage that is not natural to her, but is only born of despera-
tion. " I understand that he is more generous than I have
any right to have expected, and I wish—with all my heart I
wish I could tell him how grateful I am to him—but all the
same, I cannot marry him."
And having said it, she knows that she has said her worst,
and waits the result with what courage she can muster.
Lady Conynghame springs to her feet—and as a matter of
fact looks as if she could almost find it in her heart to strike
her. It is presumable that fishwomen and ladies of title are by
nature endowed with the same passions. The fishwoman's
passion finds its natural outlet in a blow, which the decencies
or conventionalities of society have not taught her to restrain
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 241
—the woman to whom chance has given rank and title is
compelled to compass her passion within the limits of a
look.
But looks may strike almost as hardly as blows.
For a moment Lady Conynghame hovers on the verge of a
terrible outbreak.
Then something in the girl's resolute aspect warns her,
perhaps, that reason may have more power over her than
passion.
"You will not marry him, you say," she says, with a calm-
ness which is belied by the trembling of her voice. " Have
you well considered what such a determination means? You
have, by a piece of good fortune which you could not have
counted on, the chance of re-establishing yourself in the eyes
of the world. To-day, there is no one who might not pity you
or sneer at you ; to-morrow, if you so will it, there shall be no
one that will not envy you. But, on the other hand, if you
stick to your determination, I will no longer bear the burden
of your follies. You will go home, and your father shall know
why I have renounced the charge of you."
But to these terrible and pitiless words the girl answers
nothing. She stands mute, with her hands clasped tightly
together, and on her face the look of a dumb and tortured
animal. A more daring woman might, realising the exigencies
of the occasion, break through her promise to her lover and
confess the truth; but she is more faithful than daring.
But in that short and pregnant silence a sudden light breaks
in on Lady Conynghame, an idea that has, perhaps, been un-
consciously conveyed to her by some new look in the girl's
eyes. She comes a step or two nearer.
" Is it possible," she says, in an altogether different voice,
"is it barely possible that you have been a greater fool than
I thought you—that, after all my warnings, you are in love
with Captain Darrell ? "
But to this question she gets no answer, unless the sudden
Q
242 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
red flush which spreads all over the dead-white face opposite
to her be taken as an answer.
" Are not you ashamed of yourself," she continues, with a
most bitter contempt, "to have fallen in love with a man
who has only amused himself with you as he has amused him-
self with a score of others ? Has he not made it pretty plain
to you that, having helped to get you into a scrape, he cares
very little how you get out of it ? "
At this bitter taunt Psyche finds speech.
" No, I am not ashamed," she answers, lifting her head and
looking at her grandmother with flashing eyes; " I have no
cause to be."
The words reveal more perhaps than she has intended.
The look and the tone with which she speaks them stagger
Lady Conynghame.
" Is it possible—is it credible," she asks, in a voice in which
wonder and unbelief contend for the mastery, "that he is
really in love with you?—that he has asked you to marry him? "
The question is delivered so directly that it admits of no
evasion, and it proves indeed the very crisis of the girl's
torture. To admit the truth will be to betray her lover, to
break his command of silence, and to lose, perhaps—as he
has so often impressed on her—their last chance. To deny it—
even if denial were possible—would be to bring upon herself
a more bitter humiliation than any she has yet endured.
The old woman comes yet a step nearer and peers more
closely into her face—her eyes are, perhaps, dim and hazy
with unaccustomed tears, and she can hardly trust them.
" If it is true—if he really cares for you, and wishes to marry
you," she says, in a voice of incredulous scorn, " why, in the
name of goodness, could not you say so before ? Do not you
see—do not you understand— that if you were engaged to him,
and if everyone knew it, it would be the best answer in the
world to the slander that woman has spread about you ? "
Yes; she does see it. She has seen it all along, and seeing,
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 243
has wondered and grown sick of heart to think that her lover
has not seen it too, and has not allowed her to break her
bondage of silence.
The temptation to speak out, to tell the truth and get
anyone—even her grandmother—on her side, becomes a
temptation that is almost more than she can endure.
"Grannie," she cries, holding out her imploring hands,
while sobs, no longer repressible, choke her voice. " Grannie
dear, let me see him—let me see him only once, and I will
answer you. I mast see him ! indeed, indeed I must see
him!"
There is a minute's silence, during which Lady Conyng-
hame turns over in her clever old head all the reasons for and
against such a concession. An ordinary woman would have
refused it point-blank : but she is by ho means an ordinary
woman.
"Yes," she says, after that minute, very slowly : "you shall
see him—you shall see him, because it is probable that no one
in the world will convince you of the folly of believing him in
earnest as he will. I do not mind predicting," she goes on
with a cruel laugh, "that he himself will recommend you to
marry Mr. Brooke."
Then as her granddaughter answers nothing—what answei
is indeed possible to such a speech ?—she goes on—
" Write to him at once, and tell him to come to you at three
o'clock. That will still leave you time to recall Mr. Brooke
He does not go until the evening."
But at these words Psyche's disgust and indignation burst
through all restraint.
" I will not see him under false pretences," she says proudly
and excitedly. "You must understand that, whatever happens,
it can make no difference so far as Mr. Brooke is concerned."
" I understand," says the old woman, turning to go, " that
you will probably have to choose between going home in
disgrace, and marrying Mr, Brooke} and in that case," with a
244 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
laugh, "Mr. Brooke may not seem so disagreeable to you.
Write your letter; only if you will take my advice you will not
say too much. It is possible—just possible—that Captain
Darrell may think discretion the better part of valour, and
may not come at all, and you might live to wish that you had
not committed yourself to paper."
And having sped her last shaft she goes to repair the
damage that has been done both to her complexion and her
nerves.
And Psyche is left to write her letter.
It is not a long one—it contains indeed but few words, but
they carry such an appeal, as a man, if he were on this side
the grave, could scarcely fail to respond to.
CHAPTER XL
Once more and for the last time Psyche is sitting in Lady
Conynghame's little drawing-room.
And on a chair drawn up close to hers, so close that he
could, if he would, touch the little hand that has so often lain
pliantly and confidingly in his, or look into the tender and
lovely eyes that have never failed to respond to his, sits
Darrell.
But he is not touching her, is not looking at her. His eyes
are averted, and are fixed on the carpet, with the marked and
ill-concealed annoyance of a man who finds himself in a
disagreeable and distressing situation, and has neither the good
sense nor the good temper to hide his annoyance.
It is possible, indeed, that the situation is not an altogether
new one to him. A man who has gone through life amusing
himself, without much consideration where his amusements
may lead him so long as he himself has escaped any serious
harm, must before now have found himself exposed both tg
reproaches and persuasions.
Unspotted pkom the ivotld. 245
But it has one element which other and similar situations
have lacked.
For this one girl he has loved, as far as it is possible for a
selfish man to love anything. The sight of her distress causes
him a pang of self-reproach so keen, that he pities and
blames himself sincerely for the folly that has brought it upon
him.
There is nothing he would not do—within the limits of
reason—to make her once more the bright and happy child
with whom, in the sweet spring-time, he had fallen so passion-
ately in love. But what she asks of him is not within the
limits of reason—or so he thinks.
" It is impossible that you can understand the real truth,"
she says to him after a short pause, following on many hot and
passionate words, and in a voice so harsh and strained that he
would scarce know it for hers. " Perhaps—it may be that it
does not seem to you such a very dreadful thing that I should
be thought a foolish and wicked girl, and cut by those who
once thought well of me and liked me, and though it seems
hard enough to me, yet I could bear it \ I would bear it if I
had anyone—anyone to stand by me."
There is a moment's silence. Then as he still avoids her
eyes, she goes on :
" But I have no chance of braving it out. I have but one
alternative—to tell the truth to Grannie—or to be sent home
to my father who has never liked me, and who now," her voice
rising, "will hate me. I dare not go home like that. I dare
not, Cecil—Cecil, dear," turning to him and holding out
quivering, imploring hands, while the tears roll down her
white cheeks. " You could not have understood me—it could
not have been plain to you how much I must suffer if you
refuse to let me tell Grannie. You cannot refuse!—you
cannot!"
" You torture me!" he cries passionately, starting to his
feet. " Good God ! Why will a woman never hear reason ?
246 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
To tell your grandmother is to tell everyone in London, and
it is impossible, absolutely impossible ! Have I ever deceived
you ? " he goes on, turning round and looking at her with
eyes in which anger and mortification have almost obliterated
love. " Have I not made it plain to you from the very first
that our engagement depended on its secrecy? If my uncle
heard of it I am as certain as I am that I live at this moment
that he would leave me without a penny. And though I
might be content to be a beggar myself, would it do you any
good ? We should not, it appears to me," with a bitter laugh*
" be any nearer being married then than we are now."
There is another silence—a terrible silence. Then she rises
too, and coming a step or two nearer, stands facing him. The
tears are dried upon her cheeks now, but they are pale as the
cheeks of one dead, and her hands are pressed tightly against
her breast.
"Tell me," she says, in a voice whose very repression con-
veys the intensity of passion. " I asked you the question
once before; I ask it you again now, and this time I will
have an answer. Is there any reason—any good reason—
why your uncle should be so certain to object to your marrying
me?"
There is a pause—a dreadful pause at least to one of them.
She can count the ticking of Lady Conynghame's pretty little
Dresden clock, the beating of her own heart almost, while she
waits for his answer. And then at last he speaks :
" There is a reason," he says, very slowly and very reluc-
tantly, feeling that the words are dragged from him by the
imperative necessity of the occasion, and yet hating himself
for speaking them—" a very strong reason, or one that he
considers so."
" And—what is it ? "
Her lips are parched and dry. She can scarce frame the
words. Yet he hears them.
" You must ask your grandmother that—or some of your
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 247
people," he says, turning away from the miserable eyes he
has not the courage to face. "They may tell you—I
cannot."
She asks no more questions ; she stands mute, rigid—all her
heart and soul struggling in the death-throes of love and hope.
She knows, even then, that the end has come, and she has
loved him so—has loved him so.
And he is full of a passionate misery he has never experi-
enced before.
She has forced him into an avowal which was, he knows,
little less than brutal; and he, who has always more or less
believed in his own generosity and good nature, does not like
even to himself to seem like a brute. As he sees her standing
there in her wretchedness some of the old passion that he has
called love returns to him.
" My darling," he says, with sudden tenderness, going up to
her and putting his arm round her—" do not you think it is
quite as hard upon me as upon you ? I was mad when I asked
you to marry me, and though it was a madness born of love of
you, you cannot tell how I blame myself for it. We had
small enough chance then, God knows. We have none now."
A moment, during which she still lies passively in his
arms, with her soft lovely face resting for the last time—
the very last time—close against his. Then he goes on
brokenly—
" You must give me up, dear. We must say good-bye, and
try to bear our lives as best we can without each other. I sup-
pose," with a miserable laugh, " there are scores of people who
have loved each other as much as we do, and have got over
it. I have always been an unlucky beggar—always; but I
should be worse than that—I should be a scoundrel—if I kept
you hanging on to my ill-fortunes, and let you lose the best
chance of happiness you may ever get in your life."
And ashe speaks these words, not understanding, perhaps, the
horrible cruelty of them, but imagining, in his egotism and
MS UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
worldly-blindness, that they have in them much of unselfish-
ness and generosity, she looses herself from his arms as quickly
and sharply as though, while holding her there, he had stabbed
her to the heart, and recoiling a few paces—looks at him.
For all the years of his life he will never forget that look. The
mute and incredulous agony of it will haunt him now and again
to his dying day.
" Do you mean," she says after awhile, in a voice that is
cracked and strained like the voice of an old woman; " that
—you—y'ou—advise—me—to—marry Mr. Brooke ? "
The words come very slowly. They are simple and bare
enough. Perhaps his own suggestion thus presented to him
in all its nakedness, and robbed of the fine dress in which he
has tried to clothe it, shames him.
At any rate he turns away, and leaning his arm on
Lady Conynghame's gimcrack little mantelpiece, hides his face
from her.
" It may as well be Brooke as anyone else as far as I am
concerned," he says doggedly. " If I am to lose you, what does
it matter to me who gains what I have lost ? "
There is a minute's silence. Then she breaks out laughing,
a horrible and discordant laugh that rings through the little
room.
" And to think that Grannie was right after all !" she says
to herself rather than to him—" Grannie was right!''
And then she flings herself back into her chair, and throwing
her arms out, buries her face in them, and bursts into bitter
weeping.
It is more than he can bear.
He comes over to her, and kneeling down by her side, tries
to draw away the hands that shield her face from him.
" Dear, do not cry !—for God's sake do not cry and break
my heart," he says hoarsely. " Look up, my darling ! Kiss
me once—only once, and say that you forgive me,"
She does look up. She lifts her poor disfigured face; and
unspotted prom the world. 249
with one last remnant of pride points with a passionate gesture
to the door.
"Go!—go away and leave me!" she says, with bitter
vehemence. " That is all that you can do for me now."
And so saying hides her face again from him.
" I cannot go until you say that you forgive me," he cries
passionately, frantically kissing her gown and the small portion
of bare white arm which alone he can reach. " Say it—only
say it once !"
Once more and for the last time she lifts her head.
"I do not forgive you ! " she says, with most concentrated
passion. " I wish that I had never seen you ! I pray heaven
that I may never see you again !"
Then, indeed, he rises, and with a face white and distorted
with bitter anger turns without a word and goes, as she has
bidden him. At the door he turns once more and casts a look
at her; but neither by word nor gesture does she do any
thing to recall him.
She hears it open and close again, and she is alone. A
moment or two later she hears the slamming of the street-door,
and then she knows that he is indeed gone—gone for ever.
She staggers to her feet, and looks around her vacantly and
bewilderedly at the little room which so lately contained all
that she loved best in the world; and then with a great and
bitter cry, she flings herself down on the ground, and stretch-
ing out her arms over the tawdry, lace-covered chair, buries her
head in them and lies motionless—not crying—tears are for
those who even in their deepest griefs retain some hope either
in the present or in the "future—but stricken by a dull dead
agony which is broken by no ray of light.
unspotted prom the world.
CHAPTER XII.
She does not know how long she stays there. Great griefs
like great joys take no count of time.
The effect of a heavy mental blow resembles indeed in many
respects the effect of a physical one. After the first cruel shock
of it, the senses are dulled and deadened, and even the very
power of suffering greatly, lies abeyant. The acutest pain of
it is the knowledge carried always, even through the first semi-
consciousness that follows a great shock, that the awakening
must come, and that with it will come the full sense of loss
and misery. The strongest realised desire is to put off that
awakening.
She cannot tell how long or how short a time it is before the
drawing-room door opens softly, and Lady Conynghame comes
in.
She knows it is she, though she has neither the power nor
the will to look up.
It seems to her that she treads gently like one who walks in
a death-chamber, as she comes across the room. Perhaps,
indeed, something in the girl's despairing attitude and absolute
silence awes her.
She sits down on the sofa close by her and lays a hand on
her shoulder.
" Has he gone? " she asks, in a sort of whisper.
But Psyche is silent.
"Has he gone?" she asks again, in a more urgent voice.
"Tell me! Cannot you speak ? What has happened ? "
Then indeed the girl lifts her head. Her face has so changed
in this short time that Lady Conynghame, in spite of the
strong assurance of her own wisdom and policy, shrinks from
the first sight of it with a vague fear—a vaguer remorse.
"Yes—he has gone," she says, quite calmly, though slowly,
as if each word were an effort. " Do not ask me to tell you
what he said—indeed I hardly remember. Be content to
UNSPOTTED FkOM THE WORLD. 251
know that you were right—quite right, and I was wrong—most
miserably wrong!"
There is a minute's silence. Then Lady Conynghame's
curiosity gets the better of her discretion. She knows that she
would do better to " let sleeping dogs lie," to refrain from
dragging the cause of the girl's grief into the strong light of
day; yet not only curiosity, but a strong and not unjust indig-
nation compel her to know the reason of it.
"It was only what I expected of him," she says quickly;
"but you—had you a right to expect something better? Had
he ever asked you to marry him?"
" Yes," the girl answers, slowly and dreamily, almost as
though she were speaking without her own knowledge. " He
asked me to marry him—long ago—before I came to town.
But it was a secret—an absolute secret. I suppose," she goes
on, looking at her grandmother vaguely and strangely, " I
ought to have told you—that I have not behaved quite well in
keeping it from you; but you s ee," with a sort of smile, " I
cared for him so much then that I would have done anything
—yes ! anything—that he told me."
"And now?" asks Lady Conynghame, with a sharp ring in
her voice, and a fierce light in her eyes. " Do you mean that
he has broken it off ? "
The words make the girl shiver. They seem to bring her
back to her full senses with a sudden shock. Everything has
been unreal to her until this moment, but in the space of a
second it all becomes real—horribly real.
She hears her own story told as the world, if it knew it,
would tell it in five words, " He has broken it off." And she
knows that the world has neither pity nor sympathy, but only
some laughter and a good many sneers for those who have been
jilted.
"Yes," she says, after a moment, while a painful flush
mounts from her pretty white throat to her forehead, chasing
for a moment the dead pallor of her face; " I suppose that is
252 UNSPOTTED EROM THE WORLD,
the " right way of putting it. He did it as kindly and as gently
as he could, and he gave a great many excellent reasons for
doing it; but all the same it came very much to that—he has
broken it off. He had always said that we had not much
chance," she goes on, with a sudden tremor breaking the un-
natural calm of her voice. " He had always said that, but he
said that now we had none at all; that he was unlucky—
miserably unlucky; and that he should be a scoundrel—yes,
that was the word—a scoundrel, if he stood in the way of the
best chance I might ever have in my life." Then looking up
with quivering lips, " There—there could not be much doubt
about what he meant by that—could there ? "
But to this question she neither waits for, nor desires an
answer. She lets her miserable face drop once more into her
hands, out of her grandmother's sight.
And Lady Conynghame is for a moment silent. It is only
what she had expected, but the fact that her cynical predictions
should be so accurately realised, has given her nevertheless
some surprise and a great deal of indignation. She has never
loved her grand-daughter, but she has taken a sort of spurious
pride in her beauty, and the admiration it has excited.
" Do not cry," she says presently, laying her hand, with
something that approaches to tenderness, on the girl's head.
" Do not cry, my dear. He is not worth a tear. He is a sel-
fish brute !"
This one touch of unexpected sympathy does what nothing
else has done. It breaks through the unnatural and frozen
calm in which the girl's heart has been lying dulled and torpid,
and she bursts into passionate and unrestrained weeping—such
weeping as Lady Conynghame has seldom in her life witnessed
before.
But the possibility of such strong emotion, if she ever
possessed it, lies so far away in the background of her memory,
that the sight of it moves her to indignation rather than to
sympathy.
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. .253
"Why could you not believe me ? Why did not you listen
to me when I told you what sort of man he was ?" she asks
bitterly, her ordinary coldness and harshness altogether getting
the better of her momentary weakness. " There are hundreds
like him—just as good-looking—just as agreeable—and just as
selfish. They will make love to a girl so long as it is pleasant
to them, but at the first approach of difficulty they will leave
her without much regard for her feelings. There is not one of
them," with a bitter smile, " who would give up his park-hack
or any other of his little luxuries for such a poor thing as love I
I have no doubt," she goes on with some eloquence—for
indeed it is a subject on which she feels well qualified to
speak—"that if you had plenty of money, and if he could
have married you without losing his, he would have been just
as fond of you as he would be of any other woman—for a
little while—but believe me,"trenchantly, "if he had been fool
enough to think the world well lost for love, there is no one,
with the exception of himself,\ who would more bitterly have
repented it than you would. You will live to thank heaven
you never married him."
" Do not abuse him just yet—not just yet, Grannie," Psyche
answers, lifting her poor tearful face, while the sobs—so diffi-
cult to restrain when once they have been given their way—
still heave her bosom, and break her voice. " In a little while
I may be able to think of him as harshly as you do; but not
yet—not yet. You see," breaking into fresh tears, " I was so
fond of him—so very fond of him."
Her words and her look might move a heart of stone—so
one would think — but they do not move Lady Conyng-
hame's.
" You ought to be ashamed of yourself," she says with un-
bounded scorn, " to cry for a man who has shown you plainly
enough how little he cares for you. If, when I was your age,
I had been treated as you have been treated, my one desire,
my one thought would have been to find the means to pay the
254
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
man back in his own coin, and let him see how little he had
the power to injure me."
Then after a moment's pause :
" Luckily—most luckily—you have the means at your com-
mand."
"You mean," says Psyche, wearily lifting her heavy head,
and wiping her drenched eyes, her passion and her strength
both well-nigh exhausted, " that I might marry Mr. Brooke?"
" I mean," answers Lady Conynghame, "that you not only
might but will marry Mr. Brooke."
And at this speech, which if determination could carry a
point, might well succeed in its intention, the girl rises to her
feet, staggering a little and looking weak and frail, being spent
and broken by the emotions of the past hour.
"I am afraid," she says slowly, laying her hands on the
back of a chair to steady herself, "that I have but a poor
spirit. Even if I were sure—quite sure—that it would wound
and vex him that I should marry someone else; even," her
voice quivering, " if I were quite sure that I wanted to wound
him—would that do me any good or help me to bear my life
with a man that I do not love ? "
" Love! fiddlesticks !" says Lady Conynghame, with bitter-
est derision. "Reggie Brooke is worth a dozen of Captain
Darrell; and you will be one of the richest women in London
—and the happiest."
" Even if I could think so," she answers, still calmly, con-
trolling herself by a strong effort, " do you wish me to make
him so poor a return for all his goodness and kindness to me
as to marry him? Would not he," her voice rising, "have the
right to think me destitute even of common decency if I could
throw myself straight from the arms of one man into the arms
of another—in one day ? No, Grannie," sadly shaking her
head; " do not ask me. I should be more wicked than I am
yet—if I could do that."
. " One cannot always pick and choose one's opportunities j
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 255
one must take them as they come," says the old woman, with
that wisdom which has served her well on a good many occa-
sions. " This is a case of now or never. Write to Mr. Brooke,
or let me write him one line that will detain him in town—or
go home to-morrow morning. Take your choice."
Then as the girl stands mute and trembling, not indeed
being able to find words as she fully realises that this terrible
alternative is finally presented to her, Lady Conynghame deals
her last and hardest blow.
"You know how much your father has always appreciated
your company at home," she says, with a bitter sneer. "Judge
for yourself how much more he is likely to approve of you
when he knows that I have sent you home because you have
brought such discredit on me that I cannot keep you any
longer."
It is a cruel speech, but if she desires any justification of it
she probably finds it in the excuse which has borne the burden
of many cruelties—that it is for her good.
And as Psyche stands silent there comes back to her the
remembrance of certain words that Darrell had spoken—words
that had been obliterated—well-nigh forgotten, in the more
terrible ones that followed them, but are suddenly recalled by
this speech of Lady Conynghame's.
"Grannie," she says slowly, with dilating eyes, " when I
asked—Captain—Darrell," hesitating a little over the name as
if it were painful to her, " if there was any good reason why
his uncle should object to me more than anyone else, he
admitted that there was one, and he told me that I must get
you or some of my own people to tell me what it is. Well,
now I ask you," her voice shaking with strong excitement;
" tell me what it is !"
Lady Conynghame glances at her sharply, and then avoids
her look.
" It appears to me," Psyche goes on in a voice that rises and
grows in force, " that I have been kept in the dark too long.
256 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
It will not do to tell me now that my father hates me merely
because I resemble my mother. I have always known there
was something strange about my life," pushing the soft loose
hair off her forehead with a gesture of oppression, " always.
Now I will know what it is. Tell me !"
But still Lady Conynghame hesitates. Perhaps even to her
it seems that the girl has already borne as much as she is able
to bear.
" If—if I were to tell you," she says slowly; <e if I were to
convince you that your father will never like you, would that
make you more ready to marry the man who really loves you ? "
" Tell me," says the girl hoarsely.
It is all that she can say.
" It is very hard on me," says the old woman feebly. " I do
not see why I should have all the disagreeable work to do.
Your father ought to have told you—or your sister—but it
appears to me you would do well to realise your situation be-
fore you lose the best chance you may have in your life."
" Go on ! " cries the girl, tortured beyond endurance. " Tell
me—quick."
" It is only the story of another selfish man, and of a woman
who was foolish —very foolish—never anything worse," says
Lady Conynghame at length, in a quavering voice, looking
away, unable to bear the fixed gaze of the girl's miserable eyes.
" Your mother loved a man who was poor, and could not marry
her, and in the end, pressed by debts and difficulties, she
married your father. He was a selfish, tyrannical fool; but she
was always good and gentle—always," with a sudden moisture
in her dim eyes, " and she got on pretty well with him for
seven or eight years."
"And then? " breathlessly.
" It is very hard on me to have to tell you—very," she says
in a broken voice. " Do not look at me like that."
"I will not look at you," says Psyche, quite calmly and gently.
" But you must go on."
UNSPOTTED FROM TRIE WORLD. 257
u Then it appears," she goes on quickly, though her voice
still trembles, " that Luttrell—the man she had loved—went
to stay at a house near by, and she must have met him some-
times—it came out afterwards, that there were people who had
seen them walking and talking together. I suppose that she
must still have been so fond of him she could not resist the
pleasure of seeing him; but she was always weak, and her
husband was jealous and cruel, and she hid the truth from him.
But at last," faltering, " it came out in a terrible way."
She pauses a moment, but Psyche does not speak. She
stands breathless in a horrible suspense.
" The hounds met near Combe-Avon, and Luttrell had a
fearful accident. He was killed on the spot, I believe; but
they thought there was some life in him, and they carried him
to the nearest house—your father's house. Your mother was
standing on the steps, and she was on the eve of her confine-
ment and very weak. When she saw the terrible blood-stained
burden laid down at her feet she lost her senses—and—and
she said some things she would never have said in her senses.
Your father and two or three other men were standing by—and
he—he came up to her and dragged her away from the dead
man with a horrible curse. She died that night; but though
she begged and prayed to see him, he would not see her again,
And—and when they told him of you "
She breaks off—she cannot go on.
" Yes," says Psyche, with white, quivering lips and burning
eyes. " When they told him of me ? "
" He repudiated you," says the old woman in a whisper,
dropping her head on to her hands. " He refused to acknow-
ledge you as his child."
There is a minute's silence.
Then the girl comes a step nearer.
" And—and—was it true ? " she asks in a terrible voice.
" No! it was not true ! as God lives it was not true ! " cries
Lady Conynghame, throwing up her han<js with a passionate
258 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
gesture. "His bitter jealousy construed her poor innocent
expressions of her love into a confession of guilt; but
the men who were standing by swore then—as they will swear
to you now if they are alive—that her words bore no such
meaning."
Then wiping away the tears that are trickling down her
cheeks, she continues —
" But a lie spreads, and this one spread all over the county.
Everyone knows it. And though after the first outburst of
rage your father never again spoke of your mother, but shut
himself up, and became the miserable, selfish recluse that he
is now—he has always hated you, and he always will; and
there can be no doubt that Adrian Darrell, or anyone who has
heard the cruel slander, would look upon it as a drawback to
you."
Then she ceases speaking, and the girl, with a face white as
a dead face, looks around her like one who sees the earth
reel under her feet.
"And I am to go back to him !" she says presently, very
slowly, very painfully—" to him who has always hated me, and
who says that I "
But these last words choke her. She stops, shuddering.
" Or marry Mr. Brooke," says Lady Conynghame.
She does not mean it so much for cruelty as for kindness—
for indeed at this pass she almost pities her grand-daughter.
" Grannie ! Grannie !" cries the girl, suddenly falling on
her knees in front of her, and stretching out her arms, while
the tears rain down her white cheeks, " let me stay with you a
little—and I will love you—I will serve you—I will do any-
thing for you. Have a little pity on me—Grannie-—dear
Grannie! "
But Lady Conynghame turns away.
" Get up ! " she says coldly. " If you will not help yourself,
I cannot help you.
And Psyche gets up, and stands with her poor little hand§
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 259
pressed tight against her breast—her last hope gone. And in
the momentary silence she hears, dimly and half-consciously,
a voice on the stairs.
The door is thrown quickly open. Marshall and his expla-
nations are pushed aside—and someone comes in. Someone
that she knows—Sir John Heathcote.
She gives a great cry—a most bitter cry, that they who hear
it will never forget—and throwing herself in front of him,
seizes his hands, and bursts into passionate sobbing.
" You—you ! a friend ! one friend in all the world ! " she
cries, incoherently. "Take me away—take me away from
her!"
" I have come to take you away," he says quietly. " I have
come to take you home."
" Home !" she says, drawing back and shivering—" I have
110 home. I have no father. I cannot go back where he is. I
will never, if I can help it, see him again "
"Hush ! " he cries sternly, raising his hand. " For God's
sake do not say what you will be sorry for. You never will
see him again. He is dead ! "
"Dead ! " she says slowly, looking at him with her great
wide eyes. " Dead!"
" He died this morning," he goes on quickly, for though in-
deed he had meant to break his tidings more gently, he finds it
impossible now. " Quite suddenly—of heart disease." Then
turning to her more gently, "Dolly has sent me to bring you
home."
" Dead ! " she says again, gasping for breath, and plucking
at the laces about her throat as though they suffocated her.
"And he never said a kind word to me—and he will never. "
But she says no more. She totters suddenly and helplessly,
and before he can stretch out his hands to save her she falls
at his feet—for the first time in her life—absolutely uncon-
gcious.
260 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
PART III.
" Of love that never found his earthly close,
What sequel ? Streaming eyes and breaking hearts ?
Or all the same as if he had not been ? "
CHAPTER I.
Summer has passed and gone.
It has died, this year, not calmly and gently as is sometimes
its way, with slowly-dropping leaves, with softly-fading flowers,
creeping each day a little nearer and a little nearer to its end;
but in a passion of storms and winds that have swept it
swiftly and irretrievably to its ruin.
There was never, so they said, so bright, so short a summer.
By the end of July it was over and gone; and the sun who
had shone so royally through the three bright months of it has
hidden his face for many a long day now.
The rains are having it all their own way, and the world
looks on this, the first of October, a drenched, sodden,
miserable world, so thoroughly soaked through and through
that not all the frosts of winter nor all the strong bright sun-
shine of spring can make it dry again.
The boughs of the great old trees in the desolate park-land
that lies around the house where Dorothy and Psyche were
born are bending their shorn branches beneath strong gusts of
wind and rain, and beneath, their leaves whirl to and fro in
little yellow showers, or lie in sere and. sodden heaps. The
flowers in the neglected garden—long ago dead—lie unswept,
untended, where they have fallen. The sun-dial, loosened by
wind and rain, bends feebly towards the ground.
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD 261
The old legend that Dorothy with her own hands has so
often rubbed bright, is no longer legible.
" Tempus Fugit."
Time has passed, for it and for others. It will never again
count out the fleeting hours that the sun used to reflect upon
its shining face.
The rains had begun—so they had noticed—on the very
day that Sir John had brought Psyche back to the home which
she had left so gladly and gaily; and when, having lain her
on her little bed, and left her with Dorothy's arms once more
around her, he had gone down the old stone steps with eyes a
little dim for sorrow and compassion, he had noticed a white
butterfly lying on the path, with its gay little wings all
draggled, beaten down by the first heavy shower, and picking
it up gently and carefully, had laid it where the rains could no
longer reach it—where the first ray of sunshine might bring it
back to life—for to him it had seemed the emblem of the girl
he had just now brought home.
But the rains had never ceased, and all through August and
September there was little sunshine, and never once again
that year did Sir John see a white butterfly sporting in it.
And for many long and weary days they who best loved the
girl, whose little day of happiness and brightness so quickly
over, had been so sorely and cruelly stricken by the rough
winds of adversity, had hardly dared to hope that she would
ever again come back to life and love.
It seemed indeed as if it was only Dorothy's strong and
tender arms, Dorothy's unwearied care and unceasing prayers,
that dragged her slowly and unwillingly back to the world she
had so nearly quitted.
How is it that we who believe so firmly that heaven is
happiness, who know so sadly that earth is at best but a poor
admixture of joy and sorrow, pray so urgently, so fervently, as
surely in all the days of our prosperity we never prayed before
—for life—bare life—if one we love most dearly lies stricken
262 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
unto death ? If some angel from heaven could show us all
that life might mean for that dear one—all the sorrows, all the
disappointments of it—should we cease our prayers ? I think
not. In that great extremity, it is life, only life, that we ask for.
And yet in the sad and terrible days that followed; in the
long and wearyful hours that attended Psyche's slow struggle
back to health and strength," back to the full knowledge of all
that she had lost in the past and of the little she had to look
forward to in the future, even Dorothy's strong and steadfast
faith must have been sometimes sorely tried by a sad wonder
whether she had done well and wisely to desire so passionately
to keep her darling with her.
Convalescence—the slow return from the pains and torpor
of great illness to the full powers of mind and body—may be
the pleasantest time in a life, if life means love and happiness.
But it may also be the unpleasantest.
For that woman who comes back from the borderlands of
the grave to fill once more the place which she knows—
missing her—would for ever have remained vacant; comes
back to loving eyes weeping for very gladness at her return, to
tender child-touches and words of inarticulate welcome—
surely no time was ever half so glad—so sweet ?
But for that one, who coming back, and looking with dull
and desolate eyes out on the world to which she has unwil-
lingly returned, sees no place in it for her to fill—no place
which missing her would long have remained vacant, comes
back to find those eyes, those hands, whose look, whose touch
had made earth like heaven, gone from her for ever—there is
no time that is half so sad, nor so hard to bear.
The very lassitude and feebleness consequent on a long
illness make the troubles that brought it about the more
unendurable.
For all the days of their lives, be they many or few, Dorothy
and Psyche will probably never suffer any more sorrowful ones
than these.
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 263
And yet Dolly goes through them with an uncomplainir|g
and steadfast courage which never wearies, never flags.
But though the world, which reckons among the long scroll
of its heroines and martyrs they who have been strung up to
some wonderful or noble deed by the strong excitement of a
moment, or the sense of a great and worthy cause, can take
no count of those who, day by day, hour by hour,- fight their
fight alone and unobserved, it is possible that their heroism
surpasses that of others.
The day is waning. The rain beats in fitfuL gusts against
the darkening window-panes of the little, room, which from
among all the other deserted and desolate rooms of the big,
dreary house, Dolly and Psyche have chosen for their chief
habitation.
Dolly is sitting by the window with her head bent over
some sewing.
Psyche is lying on a couch drawn near to the fire, which
casts its gleams upon her.
That bright and brilliant beauty which had for a short time
won her so much admiration appears, among other good gifts,
to have almost deserted her. Her cheeks are drawn and pale,
and though she had never at the best of times been possessed
of much colour, yet that rare and delicate pallor which had
formerly rather enhanced her attractions than detracted from
them, was altogether different from this—the pallor of illness
and of that most subtle of all destroyers of beauty—a settled
and brooding discontent. Her eyes, always large and dark,
are now marked by deep hollows that make them seem over-
large for her small face. Her hair, whose ruddy tints artists
had admired and women had envied, is knotted carelessly
behind her head, with that utter disregard for appearances
which is the surest sign of a woman's hopelessness ; and her
black gown sets loosely on her wasted figure.
" The days are so long, so dark and dreary," she says, rest-
264 UNSPOTTED PROM THE WORLD.
lessly turning to and fro, and tossing her poor thin arms, that
so little while ago had looked so round, and white, and plump
in her sleeveless gown of ivory satin—" I am like Mariana—
* I am aweary, aweary—I would that I were dead !' Dolly,
Dolly, why will you go on sewing? It tires me so to
see you."
" Perhaps," says Dolly, lifting her head with an attempt at
a smile, " if Mariana had had some work to do she would not
have found the days so long."
" Do you mean that /ought to work?" she answers, with
that quick irritability which is one of the most trying phases
of convalescence. "As if I could !—as if I could do anything
while I am so miserable ! "
" No, indeed, dear, I did not mean that," says Dolly,
gently. " You are too weak, too ill. You must do nothing
for a very long time but try and get well and strong again.
But all the same," dropping her work and lifting her sad and
patient eyes, " I want you to believe that God has sent you
no worse troubles than He sends to many others. Think of
the women who are compelled to stitch and stitch for bare
life, for poor and bitter bread, for want of which their little
ones or their husbands are dying. There are many of them,
I believe—and just think how hard and terrible life must seem
to them."
" Not more hard than it seems to me," says the girl, sitting
up and clasping her hands. "I know," she goes on excitedly,
" that you must think me but a poor creature. I think myself
so. I am always complaining, always crying; but, all the
same," with a sudden light in her sunken eyes, "lam sure—
quite sure—that I too could work my fingers to the bone if
there were anyone I cared for who needed it—to whom I
could do any good. But," sinking back again; " what is the
good of our work—yours and mine?—what is the good of
anything ? "
But to this Dolly answers nothing—her needle goes in and
Unspotted from the World. 265
out, ill and out, in silence. How often during the past weeks
has she heard the same words—or words whose burden has
always been the same—always the same ! " What is the good
of anything ? " Even to her it seems perhaps at this moment
a question that it is difficult to answer.
" Dolly !" the other goes on presently, still in the same
nervous, highly-strung tones, " are we to go on for ever—you
and I—living in this desolate house all by ourselves ? We
are so young—so terribly young," with a pitiful shudder.
" Does it not seem strange that our lives should be done
before they have well begun ? "
"I know," says Dolly, slowly and solemnly, folding her
clasped hands on her dropped work, and looking out with
wistful, straining eyes into the gathering twilight, " that the
way seems dark—very dark; but I am sure—quite sure—that
God will send the light soon. It may seem long in coming,
but," with a serene and earnest smile, " it will come ! Be
sure of that."
" It seems to me," says the other most bitterly, " that God
has forgotten us, like everyone else."
Dolly folds her work, and coming over to the fire rests one
arm on the mantelpiece, looking down into it.
" There is one friend who has not forgotten us," she says
gently, not answering the worst part of this speech, for she
knows that the deadly disbelief in the very goodness of God,
which is so apt to follow on the sudden shattering of all belief
in human love and goodness, lies at present beyond her power
to attack—" one at least who has never deserted us, and I am
not sure that one good friend is not worth a dozen acquain-
tances."
"Yes," says Psyche, slowly and grudgingly, " Sir John has
been good—-very good. But I suppose that it is only because
it is his nature to be kind to anything or to anyone that is in
trouble. " Even he," with a bitter smile, " will tire of us soon.
Perhaps he has tired already. He has not been here to-day."
266 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
" He has gone to see the lawyer on our business," answers
Dolly, stooping to stir the fire, which, blazing up and casting
a brighter light on her face, shows how worn and thin it has
grown during these last months. "No doubt he will be here
soon."
There is a minute's silence, and during that minute, Psyche,
watching her sister's face, is assailed by a sudden sharp pang.
"Dolly!" she says quickly, "you are ill ! You look ill.
You are thin and pale, and I," with a tremble in her voice,
"have never even seen it before. All this while you have
been wearing yourself out for me, and /have been thinking of
myself—always of myself—and never even thanked you for it.
You would have done better to let me die," bursting into tears;
"lama selfish wretch, not fit to live !"
" Mydear," says Dolly, kneeling by her side and stroking
her hands, " indeed I am not ill. What can have made you
take such a notion into your head? You know," with a
spirited smile, " I never had much of a complexion at the best
of times, and black gowns always make people look thin."
" You are deceiving me," answers Psyche, regarding her
with an aroused and most earnest scrutiny. " You are ill. No
one ever looked as you look who was well and strong. You
ought to go out; you must go out and get fresh air. You must
take port wine and all those nourishing things you have been
wasting on me—and—and, above all, you must not worry your-
self any more."
" Is not that more than I can promise ? " asks Dolly, look-
ing up with a smile that has this time a suspicion of tears in
it, for this one touch of sympathy goes nearer to breaking down
her courage than all her past trials. " How can I help worry-
ing while you are so unhappy ? "
"Then I will not be unhappy any more," she answers,
excitedly. " I will laugh and sing and go about as usual. I
will do all the work and you shall rest. After all," stretching
out her arms as if she would try their strength, " I am really
UNSPOTTED PROM THE WORLD. 267
quite as strong as ever I was. It is only that I have not had
the courage to take up my life where I dropped it."
" Promise to try and be really happier, and that will do me
all the good in the world," says Dolly with gentle soberness.
" But it will not do me much good that you should pretend to
be."
There is a little silence. Something in these last words has
taken Dolly back to the days, long past, never forgotten, when
the little golden-haired baby's naughtiest fits, most passionate
tears, had always most easily been conquered by the assurance
that " she would make Dolly unhappy if she cried." How
often the little soft face had pillowed itself to sleep in her arms !
She remembers how close she used to hold it to her heart,
thinking it the sweetest, loveliest thing in all the earth; how
passionately and fervently she used to long to keep it from all
danger and trouble, and how impotent all her prayers, all her
longings have been!
And Psyche sits with strained and wistful eyes and clasped
hands, thinking too.
" Dolly," she says presently, hesitating a little, " I want to
explain to you; I want you to understand that—that it is not
only because I know that—that Captain Darrell never cared
for me as I thought he did—that I have been so very unhappy
all this while. I do not mean—I do not pretend to you," she
goes on with feverish earnestness, " that that alone would not
have been hard enough to bear. To care for anyone very
much, with all your heart," with a little sob, "and to know
that all the time he had never cared much for you—not so
much that he would give up anything for you—that alone would
be hard for any woman, would it not ? "
" My dear, my dear," says Dolly, nearly sobbing too; " you
must not talk of it. You will be ill again."
" But," she continues eagerly, not noticing this interruption,
" if that had come alone I could have borne it—I would have
borne it; or at any rate if I had broken my heart over it I
268 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
would never have let anyone know it. To cry always, and
make yourself ill over a man who had never cared for you—
who had only," with sudden crimson spots flaming on her pale
cheeks, " amused himself with you, who had thrown you over—■
that would show but a poor spirit, would it not?—and I—I
never had a poor spirit; had I, Dolly ? "
" Hush, dear, hush ! "
"I think almost Grannie would have got her own way,"
she goes on, with a poor little attempt at a smile, " if she had
had time. I think that I should have been ready to marry
Mr. Brooke or anyone, just to show him that I was not so
weak or so foolish as to break my heart for love, if—" shudder-
ing, " if it had not been for what happened afterwards."
" Psyche, darling!" Dolly entreats, " do not talk of it. Do
not dwell on it."
But she does not listen to her, does not even hear her.
' One blow at a time—that one can bear," she goes on
with a rising voice, and an excitement that grows with every
word ; "but three blows, one after the other—three such heavy
blows—that was more than anyone could bear. When I
knew—when Grannie told me—that I, who had thought so
much of myself, who had held my head so high, was only all
the while a poor girl whose own father had dishonoured her, who
had never any right," breaking into passionate tears, " to even
the name she bore, who had been sneered at and pitied for the
slur upon her—those were the words, Dolly—those were the
very words ! then it broke down all my courage."
There is a moment's silence. Dolly has hidden her face in
her hands. She is crying too.
" It was all my fault," she says, sorrowfully and brokenly,—
" all my fault. I would hide the story from you. I thought
it would make you unhappy to know of it; and to think that
after all—after all," in a despairing voice, "it should have
been told to you so cruelly and at such a time !"
" I do not know that Grannie told it so cruelly," says the
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 269
girl slowly and consideringly. " She tried to make me under-
stand that she had never believed it—that it was all a lie—a
terrible lie; but all the same," with a bitter smile, " she made
jt very clear to me that it was a lie that had found belief, and
that I must think myself very fortunate that any man thought
me good enough to marry."
" Psyche ! Psyche ! " cries Dolly, holding out her hands
imploringly, as if she finds in these words a sting to pierce her
to the heart.
" It may have been cruel of her to tell me so. I think,"
with a shudder, " it was cruel; but all the same there is no
good deceiving ourselves, Dolly—it is true. Do you know,"
sinking her voice to a whisper, "that he told me the same
thing ? When I asked him whether there was any good rea-
son why his uncle should object to me more than to any other
girl, he acknowledged that there was."
" He is a wretch !—a selfish wretch ! " cries Dolly with a
vehemence that is not at all usual to her. " How could he
dare to say such a thing ? "
" Do not abuse him," says Psyche, drawing back a little
coldly. "Not just yet; in a little while perhaps I shall be
able to hate him, but," with a long and quivering breath, "not
yet—not quite yet."
Then after a pause—
"After all," she goes on with a quietude that is more
pathetic than her former emotion, " he only told me the truth.
It is myself that I ought to blame—not him. So long as he
found me pretty and amusing, he amused himself—that is all.
I suppose that any other man would have done the same. It
was only my folly and vanity that made me think that he really
loved me so much as to give up anything for me."
" You are wrong—quite wrong ! " says Dolly vehemently.
"No other man," thinking of the one to whom she mentally
compares all others, " would have behaved so badly—so
cruelly."
270 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
But Psyche allows this statement to pass unquestioned. She
is, in fact, too full of her own story to notice much what her
sister says.
" And when the last blow came—the last and the worst,"
she goes on earnestly—" it seemed as if I had no more power
left; as if I could not bear any more. I hardly know what
happened after that. When one has been saying passionate
and terrible things of a person one believes to be alive and
well—to hear that he is dead—dead and beyond the power of
reconciliation and forgiveness—that is more terrible than any-
thing!"
There is a moment's tremulous silence, then she stretches
out her arms with a loving and tender gesture, and clasps
them round her sister's neck.
"Dolly, dear," she says gently, "you are all that I have
left. There is no one in the world who cares much for me
but you, and I have made you unhappy and sorry. But,"
with a brave smile, " I will make you unhappy no more. I
will "
But she breaks down there; the smile ends in a sob, and for
a moment they are clasped in each other's arms in a silence
neither dares to break.
And before either of them can speak again, the sudden clos-
ing of the hall-door, the sound of quick strong footsteps, makes
them start asunder.
" It is Sir John ! " says Psyche quickly. " And he will see
that I have been crying again. He will think that I am
always crying."
He comes in, bringing into the warm room a fresh atmo-
sphere of wind and rain.
" Are you both here ? " he asks peering about in the semi-
darkness. " I can scarcely see you."
He shakes hands with Dolly first—clasping her hand with
the strength and heartiness of a great and assured friendliness;
but when he turns to Psyche, there is noticeable in his manne?
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
271
a good deal less confidence, and a great deal more tender-
ness.
" Are you better?" he asks anxiously, trying to see her face;
" are you feeling stronger to-day ? "
"Not only better, but quite well," she answers briskly, and
with a smile so bright that she trusts to it to disguise the marks
of her recent tears. " I have been telling Dolly," she goes on
quickly, "that I am tired of being sick and sorry; that I mean
no longer to be either the one or the other. After all," laugh-
ing a little, " it is not a role that suits me—is it? "
But he does not answer her. He stands silent and puzzled
by this new, strange mood which his experience of women's
ways is not large enough to explain; puzzled still more by the
fact that if she had not laughed he could have sworn she had
been crying. But before he is able to adapt himself to it, it
changes again, swiftly and suddenly—a possibility which he
might certainly have looked for in her.
"Sir John !" she says of a sudden, in an altogether different
tone, and coming a step nearer lays her two white hands on
his arms; " I have been thanking Dolly, and I want to thank
you for all you have done for me. You have been so good to
me—so good!" the tears gathering in her great soft eyes;
" always kind and patient; always most gentle and forbearing;
and I—I am afraid," with a struggle to smile, " that I must
have tried you very sorely. But I want to tell you—I want to.
promise you as I have promised Dolly, that I will not trouble
you any more. I am not going to fret any more. I am going
to be quite well—quite happy "
Her voice falters, breaks ; her hands drop from his arms ;
she bursts into tears, and before he can say one word to stop
her, or hold out his hand to detain her, she has fled from the
room, and he hears the door close sharply after her.
And he and Dolly are left alone.
272
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
CHAPTER II.
"What is the matter?" he asks sharply, turning to her.
" What has happened to upset her again ? "
Dolly has turned away, and is busy lighting the lamp which
stands on a side-table.
There are a good many women who seem destined to play
through life the part of the homely and unappreciated Martha,
and she is one of them.
" Leave the light—I do not see that we want it," he says
almost crossly. " I want to know what has vexed her."
Thus commanded, Dolly having finished her work comes
over and takes her seat by the fire. Her back is turned to the
light, and if it were not, he is not quick enough to read the
marks on her face, to see that she, too, has been crying.
"She would talk about—about all that happened before her
illness; I could not help it," she begins almost apologetically.
" I was afraid that it would make her ill again ; but indeed she
would not listen to me."
There is a moment's silence. He is standing leaning against
the mantelpiece, looking into the fire.
" Do you mean," he asks, not lifting his eyes, "that she was
talking of that man again ? "
"Yes; she spoke of him," she answers slowly and consider-
ingly, not at all resenting the question; for indeed, since the
day when he brought Psyche home, when Lady Conynghame,
in the extremity of her position, had been forced to admit so
much of the truth that he had gained a very fair notion of it,
they have had no secrets from him. " But though she would
not blame him as he ought to be blamed, I really hope—I am
almost sure—that she is in a fair way to getting over it. I
think," looking up at him, "that she begins to understand what
sort of man he is."
"Is that true? " he asks, turning to her with a sudden bright
light on his face, and with an excitement which the occasion
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 273
hardly seemed to justify. "Are you sure, Dolly—are you
sure ? "
" As sure as I can be of anything," she answers quietly.
To her there seems nothing strange in this strong interest.
He has, through these last sad and terrible months, so thoroughly
and actively identified himself with all her troubles and trials
that she takes his sympathy as a matter of course.
" She spoke of him as a man who had only amused himself
—who had never cared for her well enough to make any sacri-
fice for her. She said that in a little while, if it had not been
for what happened afterwards, she might almost have been
ready to marry someone else if only to show him that she did
not greatly care. If," hesitatingly, "if she can even think
of marrying someone else, it shows that she cannot really have
loved him—do not you think so ? "
" Thank God! " he says fervently, leaning his face on his
hands so that she cannot see it. Then more to himself than
to her, " I ought to have known it. I ought to have been
sure of it; but I did not hope—I did not dare to hope that it
would be so soon."
But even these words—even the voice in which he says them
do not enlighten her. She makes so sure—has made so sure
all along—that the interest, the deep and kindly sympathy
which he has taken in the troubles of the girl whom he has
known from a little child, are only part of his honest and kindly
nature—a thing to be expected from him—not wondered
at.
"After all," he says, still as if arguing with himself, "it
would be indeed impossible that a woman should go on caring
for a man who has proved himself such a heartless scoundrel,
would not it? That he should have taken her fancy was
rational enough. He is good-looking," making the admission
grudgingly, but with an honesty that is conspicuous in him,
" and he is possessed of all those arts that can win a woman's
liking; but that she should go on caring for him, wasting all
s
274
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
her life for him now that she understands his mean and paltry
nature, that would be impossible, would not it?"
Dolly hesitates. There is a noticeable pause before she
answers.
" I think," she says presently, " that if a woman really cared
very much for a man, she would go on loving him even if he
committed all the crimes in the Calendar, if she were sure that
he loved her; but to know that he never loved her really, that
he had only had but a poor sort of liking for her at the best—
that would cure most women. It will certainly cure Psyche.
She was always proud and high spirited, and I think that in a
little while—not all at once, perhaps—but in a little while her
pride will get the better of her love."
He takes this speech in silence, and stands looking into the
fire with a thoughtful smile; but in his look there is something
of the elation of a man who has received good tidings.
" I fancy," Dolly goes on, taking his sympathy for granted,
" that she has really suffered most from what happened after-
wards. I cannot quite gather from what she says how Lady
Conynghame told her that story, but I am sure that she must
have told it most cruelly, and that it has been a terrible shock
to her. After all," lifting her eyes to his face, "you were
right, and I was wrong. I ought not to have left her to hear
it from anyone else."
" Poor child ! " he says in a low voice. " Poor child ! "
There is another silence; then he raises his face and
resumes something of his ordinary manner.
"I came here to tell you about Gray. I have-seen him,
and we have gone into the whole matter; but," hesitatingly,
" I am afraid I have only bad news for you, and one does not
like to be the bearer of bad news. Shall I tell you now, or
would you rather wait until another time ? "
"Tell me now," she answers quietly, only clasping her hands
a little tighter, like one who steadies herself to receive a shock.
Mr. Gray is the solicitor to whom Mr. Dalrymple's entangled
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 275
affairs have been entrusted, and she knows how much depends
upon his verdict.
"I am afraid," he begins slowly and reluctantly, "from
what he tells me, and even he is hardly able to give a just
opinion yet,—your father's affairs were in such a desperate
muddle—that when everything is paid and realised there will
be very little saved from the wreck. There will be only, he
thinks," averting his eyes as if he hardly dares to see how she
will take these tidings, " about a hundred a year left for you.
The sale of the house and the small portion of land that is
not mortgaged may bring about another hundred, he hopes,
but it is so dilapidated, and there is so little land left with it,
that it might be some time before it found a purchaser, and, in
the mean time "
Then he breaks off. He has delivered himself of his bad
news in the desperate and bungling fashion of a man who is
unaccustomed to disguise the truth. Having got over it, he is
able to face her more bravely.
"It is very bad, I am afraid," he says, looking at her kindly.
" But do not worry over it. It may turn out better than we
think after all."
" The sale of the house !" she repeats slowly, her eyes
wandering round, and taking in all the familiar details of the
room. " Do you mean that we must leave this house? "
" I am afraid," he answers gravely, " that you could not hope
to live here on so little."
" Where can we go ? What can we do ? " she asks with the
hopeless bewilderment of one who suddenly finds life presented
to her under a new and altogether unlooked-for aspect. She
has always, indeed, expected poverty 3 expected to live hardly
and fare frugally, to use her brains and her energies as too
many people are compelled to use them in the desperate en-
deavour to make two ends meet; but the possibility of leaving
the house where she has lived all her life, where her father and
her forefathers have lived all their lives, is one that has not
276 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
yet occurred to her. " I suppose," with a little smile that makes
her lips quiver " that there is not anywhere we can live on a
hundred a year ? "
That smile tries his forbearance sorely. He feels he would
like to curse the folly and the improvidence of the man who
has brought his children to this strait. But he does not. He
seats himself on a chair close to her, and stretches out his hand
to her.
" Will you leave it to me ? " he says very gently, " will
you trust it all to me ? There is no reason you should even
think about it yet. You must go on staying here, and doing
just as you have done, and," hesitating a little, "things are
sure to arrange themselves somehow."
She lets her hand rest in his for a moment, and meets his
eyes gravely and steadily.
" I understand you," she says slowly—then sadly shaking
her head, " but no ! Things cannot arrange themselves like
that. Your kindness, your care, your friendship you shall give
us always if," with a little smile, " you will not be ashamed of
us when we are so poor, but—nothing more. What has to be
done, is best done soon," she goes on, drawing a heavy breath.
"Now I know that we have hardly enough to pay even the
wages of the few poor servants we are compelled to keep, we
must not stay here a day longer than we are obliged."
"And Psyche?" he asks briefly, and almost brusquely.
" Have you thought of her? How is she to bear life on a hun-
dred a year ? "
His words seem to her cruel.
She drops her face on her hands with a little cry—she can-
not answer him. There is a silence, a silence pregnant with
thought. Hers are too bitter for speech. His grow too strong
to refrain from it.
" Dolly," he says after a while, in a voice that seems new
and strange to her, " there is something I want to say to you j I
had not meant to say it yet. I intended to try and keep my
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 277
own counsel a little longer, but now," with a pause, " it seems
necessary that I should speak."
She drops her hands and looks at him, her eyes slowly
widening, her face paling.
" Have you not guessed my secret ? " he goes on, in a voice
that is strangely moved, and with a sudden flush on his dark
face. " It has seemed to me sometimes that you could not fail
to guess it; that I have hidden it so badly that it must be
apparent to everyone—or at any rate to you, who know me so
well—who have always been my best friend."
She begins to tremble, but she clasps her hands the tighter
to hide it, and turns her face a little from him, but still she
does not speak.
" It seems ridiculous, incredible," he continues quickly,
" that I, at my age, with my experience, should fall in love as
hotly, as irrationally as a young man of twenty, does not it?
And yet, I have fallen in love—and love is no light thing when
one is over forty. I have so often tried to gather up courage
to tell you, and I have always failed; but now I may tell you,
Dolly, may I not? You will listen to me ?—tell me whether I
may dare to hope ? "
"Not now, not now !" she says with a strange nervousness,
and a sudden brilliant flush that makes her small pale face
look almost beautiful. "Tell me some other time—not to-
day."
" No ; I must tell you to-day—now! " he answers, with
a firmness that will take no denial. "I could not sleep or
eat until I have told you. I think that I have not slept nor
known any peace for days past. I have gone through all the
tortures and torments of love—all the hot fits and cold fits—all
the hopes and fears. Will you laugh at me for a presumptuous
fool, that sometimes I have dared to hope that when she
understands how dearly I love her, how tenderly I will care
for her, as none of those younger and handsomer men who
would seem to have so much better right to her could ever have
278 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
cared—that in time—not all at once, but in time—she might
grow to like me a little—and to give herself to me ? "
He breaks off, moved by a strong emotion. And she sits
quite still, just as she sat before, only her hands are locked
more tightly together, her face has grown of a deadly pallor,
and her eyes are set and strained like the eyes of one who
looks upon some terrible vision. But she does not speak; though
all her life depended upon it she could not speak just then.
" I hardly know," he goes on presently, " when it was I first
began to care for her. I think," dreamily, " it must have been
on that day when I met her by the stile, when she asked me to
take the thorn out of her poor little hand, but I had a fancy
even then that there was someone she liked better than she
could ever like me ; and though I followed her up to London
once or twice I never dared to think of her, I never acknow-
ledged even to myself that I loved her, until the day when she
lay white and stricken in my arms, just as helplessly as she
had lain there when she was a little child. Then," with a
long and heavy breath, " then I knew that I loved her."
He pauses in his story, but still she does not speak. Even
to him, so engrossed with his own passion, as every man in
love is, that it leaves little room for other thoughts or for
remembrance of the past, there seems something strange in her
continued silence.
" Are you listening to me ? " he asks, turning to her. " Do
you understand me, or does my folly seem too incredible to
you ? "
Then, indeed, she turns her white set face and raises her
dull and heavy eyes to his.
" Yes," she says slowly, and in a voice that is dull and
strange as her look, " I understand. You love—Psyche."
" Yes, I love her," he answers, dwelling on the words with a
passionate tenderness. " I love her so much that if I lose her
life will not seem to be worth having. If she had been happy
and radiant, surrounded by friends and lovers as I have seen
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 279
her but lately, I should never have dared to hope that I, who
have so little to recommend me to a young woman's fancy,
could ever win her; but seeing her desolate, forsaken, unv
happy, and knowing that I can protect her, can save her at
least from those sordid cares that make the world so unbear-
able, I have dared to think it possible. Tell me, Dolly, .tell
me—you who have been my best and truest friend—am X rash,
presumptuous, ridiculous ? or do you think I may venture to
hope ? "
And she must speak—must answer him. A pain that would
stab another woman to fury goes to her heart, and something
of the sharpness of it reveals itself in her voice, yet not so
plainly that he can perceive it.
" How can I tell ? " she asks passionately. " How can one
woman judge for another ? "
His face changes; the hope that a moment ago had made
it almost radiant, falls of an instant to something nearer
despair.
And seeing and understanding, with the quick sympathy of
one who has always all her life thought more of others than of
herself, she forgets her own pain in his.
" If," she says slowly and falteringly—" if she can love you
—and I do not mean to tell you that she will not—I know,
indeed, she is already very fond of you—I am sure—I believe
that there is no one in the world that could make her happier
than you will. If—if my good wishes can do you any good,
you have them."
He lifts his face, and quickly and impulsively stretches out
his hands to her.
"Thank you, Dolly," he says, with a sudden moisture in his
eyes ; " thank you, with all my heart!"
But after a moment she withdraws her hands from his.
" I ought to have known—I ought to have understood," she
says quickly, with a nervous quivering of lips, the only sign of
emotion she is unable altogether to control. " If I had not
280 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
been so absorbed in all our troubles I suppose that I could
not have been so blind—so miserably blind ! But," catching
her breath, "it has come upon me so suddenly."
"Have I spoken too soon?" he asks, gently and humbly.
"I suppose it does seem soon to you ; but you cannot tell how
long these terrible months have seemed to me, while I have
been compelled to watch her suffering, to see her unhappiness,
without the right to comfort her. I did not mean to tell you
yet. I meant to try and keep my secret to myself, and only
do my best to serve you and her; but when you told me that
you believed she was already beginning to be cured of her
liking for that miserable scoundrel; when I knew that you
must be turned out of your home, and that I—I who have so
much, yet had not even the right to ask you to share it with
me, it seemed as if I could not help telling you."
But to this she says nothing. It is hard on a woman, even
brave as she is, to know that she herself has dealt the final
blow to her own happiness.
" Dolly," he says presently, and in a voice that shows how
strongly he is agitated, " if you would only come to me—you
and she—and share my desolate, miserable home, I would ask
so little from her—only her tolerance, only her bare liking. I
am sure that some day, when she knows how greatly I love her,
my love must win hers."
" Are you sure," she asks, suddenly and sharply, turning to
him, "that you do love her? You were always kind and
generous, that I know ; but is it only kindness, only genero-
sity ? "
" Am I sure ? " he answers, with something like a smile;
" am I sure that I live and breathe, that heaven is above us ?
Am I sure that if I lose her, I lose all hope in the world ? "
And after that she asks no more questions. His look and
his tone would convince any woman living of his truth, and she
is not hard to convince. It seems to her so possible to love
Psyche.
unspotted from the world. 28i
It is he who speaks next.
" There is one thing more I have to ask of you, and I am
afraid," hesitatingly, " it will be the hardest for you to grant.
You have given me more hope than I dared to expect. You
have not, at any rate," with a little laugh, " told me that I am
an old fool, though you might, perhaps, have done so. But—
but I want more from you than that. Can you guess what it
is, Dolly?"
She shakes her head mutely. Indeed at this moment she
feels as though her courage were being tried almost beyond
bearing. If he only would go—would leave her to herself and
her misery !
" I want you to speak to her, to break it to her," he says
slowly and diffidently, as if he were almost ashamed of him-
self for asking it. " I was never a coward before; but now I
have become worse than a coward. I feel that I dare not
plead for myself. I want you to plead for me—to say the best
you can of me; to tell her that though I am so much older,
than she is—more than twenty years older, God help me !—
though I am grey-haired and sober, and may seem grim and
hard to her—yet I will love her more passionately, more
fondly than any of those who have all the good gifts of youth
and high spirits to recommend them. I want you to tell her
that I long to protect her, to cherish her, to—Dolly—Dolly!"
breaking down, " Will you plead for me, as you alone can ?
Do it in your own time, your own way. I trust all my hopes
to you."
" How can I do it ?—how can I ? " she cries, with such a
passionate pain breaking through the composure of her voice,
that it must have been apparent to any man less absorbed in
his own thoughts.
" You can do it better than anyone in the world," he urges
hotly. "You have more influence, more power over her than
anyone else in the world. You stand to her in the place of a
mother. Do you think I have not seen, have not blessed you
2§2
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
for all your tenderness and patience to her? If you will tell
her—if you can honestly tell her, that you believe she will do
well to marry me, that will be my best chance. I would not
ask you—on my honour I would not ask you—if I did not
believe that I could make her happy."
" I will do it if you wish it," she says at last in a faint and
weary tone—" if you are sure that it is best."
" I am sure, quite sure," he answers quickly. Then with a
diffidence and humility that seem to sit strangely on him,
being so unlike his ordinary manner—" You—you will say the
best you can for me, Dolly ? You will make the best of my
good points, the least of my bad ones ? "
"After all," she says with a smile, into which she tries to
infuse some spirit, " I am not sure that your worst are so very
bad."
"To some women it might not seem so," he says with the
despondency, the utter lack of confidence, of a man who is
genuinely in love. " But she is so young, and so beautiful.
It seems as if I have so little right to her."
So saying, he rises and takes a turn or two restlessly up and
down the room; and she, with the poor little transient smile
faded from her white lips, watches him under cover of her
hands—watches him with the strained gaze, the unnatural
calm of one who, looking on a dearly-loved dead face, knows
she will never again see it except under some new and
changed aspect.
" Well," he says at last, with a sort of sigh, " I must go. It
is always hard to tear myself away—it is doubly hard to-day.
But it will be better that I should not see her again until you
have spoken to her." Then coming to her and stretching out
his hand to her—" Good-bye, Dolly. Good-bye—and God
bless you for all your goodness to me," he says, with an emo-
tion that betrays itself in his voice and the strong clasp of his
hand. " Send for me when you have anything to tell me,
good or bad, or if you should want me—but until I hear from
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
283
you I shall not come again. I could not bear it while my fate
remains in uncertainty."
So saying, he wrings her cold and passive hand and leaves
her.
And she sits quite still, looking with dull and tearless eyes
into the slowly-sinking fire—not weeping as a less despairing
woman might, not cursing God or fate as a wickeder woman
might, but only dead, and cold, and still.
She knows that the hardest task which has ever been set
her in all her hard life yet remains before her; and until it be
done she dares not even pity herself, lest she should run the
risk of breaking into such weeping as God sends only as
tenderest relief to His most wretched ones.
CHAPTER III.
She does not know how long she sits there with hands rigidly
clasped, looking into the dull fire — not moving, scarcely
thinking, before the door opens slowly and Psyche comes
softly into the room.
"Has he gone?" she asks, with an accent of disappoint-
ment, looking around her. " I thought he would have stayed
until I came back."
Then she comes nearer.
"How cold it is !" she says, stooping to stir the smoking
fire. " Are you asleep, Dolly ? Is anything the matter?"
Dolly rouses herself from the torpor into which she has
fallen, and looks at her with an effort. She sees her in a new
light—as she has never seen her before. She shudders
visibly.
"No; not asleep," she says slowly, like one in a trance.
4 4 But I had forgotten the fire; and I am cold," shivering
again—" very cold."
2§4 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
The newly-stirred fire breaks up into a blaze, and falls on her
white, strained face.
" Something is the matter," says Psyche quickly. " He has
brought you bad news."
" Bad news," she answers, slowly and mechanically. "Yes;
I suppose it is bad news. Wait a little—wait a little, and I
shall be able to tell you."
" Tell me now ! " says the girl impatiently. fC Dolly," she
goes on, taking a seat close by her, and touching her cold,
clasped hands, " are we to have any secrets from each other ?
Whatever troubles we have to bear, are we not to bear
them together — you and I, who are left alone in the
world? "
Dolly smiles faintly, and looks tenderly into the lovely face
close to hers. With that smile, though no one knows it—
though no one will ever know it, she casts aside her own
great trouble, and becomes once more the tender and self-
forgetting protector of the little sister, who has ever since her
babyhood been her chief thought—her best-loved charge.
Unclasping her cold hands, she gently takes the little warm,
soft hand that lies on her lap, overcoming for ever the terrible
instinct of repulsion which she had almost felt on her first
appearance.
" My dear," she says hesitatingly, " I have heard bad news,
and," drawing her breath quickly, " I suppose that I must tell
you—as well now as at any other time."
" What worse thing can happen to us ?" asks Psyche
bitterly. " I thought that we had fallen so low that we need
fear no furthur blows. What have we to lose that we have not
already lost?"
" I always knew," Dolly goes on, scarcely noticing these
questions, " that we must be poor—that we had lost a great
deal of money, and must live sparely, but it seems that we are
a great deal poorer than I thought. We must go away. We
cannot live here."
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 285
At any other time she would have broken the tidings more
gently. But, having undertaken her part, she means to play
it to the uttermost of her ability; and she understands that
nothing can help Sir John's cause more than the full compre-
hension of this necessity.
" Go away !" echoes Psyche blankly, looking around her
with vague bewilderment, much as Dolly herself had done
when she first heard the news. " Where can we go ? What
can we do ? "
" We have only a hundred a year," Dolly goes on tersely ;
" when the house is let—to strangers," unable altogether to
conceal the bitterness of this thought, "we may have a little
more. But we must not depend upon that; and I suppose that
even you, who know so little about money, know that we can-
not live on a hundred a year."
" A hundred a year ! " echoes Psyche again. " That is
about what people give to their cooks. How can we have
come to that ? What are we to do ? Dolly," impatiently, " do
not you care ? Have you thought about it ? "
" I have had so little time to think yet," Dolly answers,
rousing herself with an effort, " but I suppose that we must do
as other people in our case do—earn our own living. I do
not mean that you must do anything," she goes on with more
spirit—"that would be ridiculous—impossible. You could
not, but I must. I am afraid," with a poor little smile, "that
I cannot be a governess. I am not so well educated as any
tradesman's daughter. I have always lived at home, and I
have learned so little, except what I have picked up here and
there, but I could be a companion, or amanuensis, or some-
thing; but you—I should have to leave you all alone, and
how could I do that ? "
She has revealed the truth—and that it is but the absolute
truth she knows—in all its bare nakedness, neither palliating it
nor softening it, and having done it, she watches almost coldly
the first effect of this hard blow, as a physician who adminis-
286
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
ters some cruel shock with the ultimate hope of healing, may
watch the effect on his patient.
" Anything but that!" says the girl, gasping for breath,
being, indeed, not very strong—" anything but that! Dolly,
Dolly, you must not leave me ! I could not bear to be alone.
We will starve together, if we must; but do not, pray do not
let us talk of being separated."
"There is but one other way out of it," says Dolly very
slowly, averting her eyes, not able to bear to look at her;
" only one other way."
" There is a way, then !" cries Psyche with a quick transi-
tion from despair to something near hopefulness. "Oh, Dolly,
you have always found a way out of everything ! I ought to
have been sure—I ought to have trusted to you —— "
" Hush ! " she says quickly, and a little severely; " you are
wrong ; it is not I—it is Sir John."
The name comes from her with an effort. It is hard to
her to speak it, but she goes on quietly enough—■
" When he told me this, he also told me—something else."
There is a moment's pause, and then a radiant smile spreads
over Psyche's face, and stretching out her arms she throws
them round her sister.
" He has told you—something else !" she says, with a voice
so glad that it nearly breaks into a sob. " Oh, my darling, I
am glad—so glad! I knew that it would come, sooner or
later. I was sure that it would! "
But to her dismay Dolly pushes her arms away, and looks
at her with a cold, strange gaze and whitening lips.
"You knew?" she asks slowly, with terrible emphasis.
" You knew it all the while and let me go on in ignorance ? "
The radiance dies out of the girl's face and leaves it cold
and white almost as her sister's. There is something in Dolly's
tone and manner that lies beyond her comprehension, but it is
certain that no woman ever looked as she looks who had just
received the assurance of her lover's love.
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 287
" I knew that he loved you," she answers slowly and falter-
ingly, scarce knowing what she says; " I was certain of it from
the very first. It was apparent in his manner to you. Why
else should he have cared for us so, and spent all his time in
serving us ? But is it possible that you do not love him—that
you have refused him? "
"Stop !" cries Dolly, with a most bitter cry, wrung from the
depths of her misery, a cry that might reveal to anyone who
held the clue to it all the story of her life. " He does not love
me—not me! Do not you see, do not you understand, that
he loves you ? "
There is a moment's silence.
" Loves me J " says Psyche at last, with a look of utter blank
incredulity. " It is impossible ! You are joking."
" Do I look like joking? " asks Dolly, with some bitterness.
"And why is it so impossible that he or anyone should love
you ? The only strange thing appears to me that we should
not have seen it before. I see it all so clearly now—so clearly.
It seems to me," passionately clasping her hands, " that our
eyes must have been blinded that we would not see it before."
" It is impossible—ridiculous!" reiterates Psyche, still
staring with incredulous amazement. " There is some mistake
somewhere—some terrible mistake. I have always been sure
—quite sure—that he cared for you—that he was only waiting
until you were free to tell you so "
"Stop! " cries Dolly suddenly, in a voice that one would
scarce know for hers. "Do not say it!—do not ever say it
again ! I will not bear it!"
* For one second her eyes flash with a furious pain, then it
dies out.
" We have been friends always—very good friends," she goes
on in a strange, repressed voice; " but never anything more.
We have been good comrades, we have been almost," shrinking
a little, "like brother and sister, but never anything more."
"It is impossible!" says Psyche again, and for the third
288 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD,
time. " I cannot believe it even now. Do you mean,"
incredulously, " that he told you so ? "
"Yes," slowly and quietly. "He told me so. He asked me
to tell you."
"And of course you told him it was impossible, absurd!
Poor fellow !" laughing softly to herself. " What could have
put such a ridiculous notion into his head ? "
"On the contrary," Dolly answers, almost vehemently, "I
told him that I believed you were already very fond of him,
and that I could see no surer chance of your happiness than
in marrying him. What," she continues passionately, "can
you find ridiculous in the love of a man of whose devotion any
woman in the world might justly be proud? "
" Do you mean," asks the girl, panting a little and pressing
her hands against her breast, "that you and he—who know all
my story—think it possible that I should marry so soon ? "
"Only an hour ago," answers Dolly, still quietly, "you told
me that if you had been given time to consider, you might
have married Mr. Brooke, or anyone. If that seemed possible
to you, how much better chance of happiness will you have
with a man of whose goodness, of whose devotion no one can
reasonably doubt ? "
It seems to her that it is not she herself who speaks—as if
it were another self pleading against herself, and using all the
powers she possesses to gain for someone else the happiness
that has been denied to her.
There is a silence.
"You—advise—me—to—marry—him? "says Psyche after
awhile, slowly, with a distinct pause between each word. " Do
you mean it? Is it true that you advise me to marry him?"
For a moment they look mutely into each other's eyes.
Dolly does not answer—cannot answer. Her heart seems to
stop beating, a choking sensation in her throat seems to hold
the words and forbid them to come.
"Remember!" says the girl solemnly, "that a good deal
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 289
hangs On your answer. You are the only one left to me—the
only one on whose guidance, on whose judgment I rely. I,
for my part, " casting up her arms with a passionate gesture,
" no longer rely upon my own. I have made a mess of my
life once. Though I am so young, I seem to have done with
it, and I care so little what happens to me. Nothing can do
me much good or much harm. Tell me, Dolly—answer me
—do you mean that you advise me to marry him ? "
There is a moment's pause—a terrible pause. Then Dolly
bows her head.
" Yes," she answers slowly, and with a great earnestness.
" I think that you can find no better hope of happiness than
in marrying him."
Then after a moment, as if she were almost afraid of her own
words, she goes on quickly:
" He asks so little of you—only your tolerance, only your
bare liking; and I am sure, quite sure, that in the long run
when you understand how faithfully, how devotedly he cares
for you, you cannot help loving him—that his great love must
win yours."
Then after a while, receiving no answer, she continues
urgently
" Put the case before you plainly. On the one hand lie
poverty, misery, the striving for a bare living, separation from
all you care for, loneliness and sadness. On the other hand,"
Struggling with something near to a sob, "lie ease and plenty,
the love of a good man—happiness such as few women dare
hope for. Psyche," breaking off, and fighting hard for a
semblance of a seemly composure, " you know that I am not
one to advise you to marry just to secure ease and comfort,
just for those poor bare things the world can give; but it seems
to me—even to me—that you would do well not to cast from
you such a chance of happiness as he offers you without good
and sufficient thought."
She has put all her heart, all her life into these words, and
T
29° UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
having said them she lets her head sink upon her hands, and
breaks down utterly.
Then Psyche speaks.
"Leave me a little while alone, Dolly," she says in a choked
and suffocated voice. " Go away and leave me. I must have
time to think. I want to be quite alone."
Dolly rises, and laying one soft and loving kiss on the girl's
flushed face, leaves her without a word.
And being alone, Psyche looks around her, and stretching
out her arms with an imploring gesture, bursts into passionate
weeping.
" Oh, my love, my love !" she cries aloud to the empty air.
" If you had loved me, only a little, only a little, I could
have lived for you—I could have died for you! But how can
I do this ? How can I do this ? "
And nothing answers her but the despairing echo of her own
impotent cries.
CHAPTER IV.
A week later, after seven days of such suspense and feverish
unrest as he will not, through all the years of his life, be able
to look back upon without shrinking, Sir John receives the
following note:—
" Dear Sir John,—Come and see Psyche. I have done
what I can. The rest remains with you.
" Yours truly, Dorothy."
It is not much. It contains small ground-work for hope.
Read it as he may it is difficult to find much in these few bare
words. And yet he receives it with almost as much gladness
as a prisoner, looking for nothing better than execution, may
receive a reprieve. To a man of his nature action is so much
easier than inaction. To know the worst is almost better than
to fear it.
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 291
He makes the first part of his journey with the greatest pos-
sible speed, riding through the roads as hotly as any young
lover; but as he approaches his destination he slackens his
»"eins and lets his horse fall to a foot-pace.
The rain has ceased at last. There is a touch of crispness,
a foretaste of wintry frost in the keen air; and though chill
October has bronzed the bracken on the hill-sides and stripped
the leaves from the boughs of the trees, the sun, so long a
stranger, is shining through them, and is dancing and gleam-
ing in little patches of light on the autumnal lanes.
He is glad of the sunshine. He takes it as a good omen
that it should have come back to gladden the earth on this
particular day.
Though he is little more than forty years old—the very best
time in a man's life—he feels so much older. The past seems
so long and so dreary. He has suffered so much; enjoyed so
little. Is it possible, barely possible, that the sunshine is
coming back to gladden the rest of his life, as it never glad-
dened the beginning of it ?
" My darling—my poor little darling ! " he thinks, looking
up with a hope so fervent that it approaches to a prayer. " If
you will but come to me—if you will but let me make you
happier I will ask nothing better of God or fate ! "
He rides slowly up the deserted avenue, and gives his horse
to old Andrew's care. Then he makes his way to the house.
The sunlight does not rest there. It looks dreary and deso-
late enough. It might have stood for a picture of the " Moated
Grange."
No face looks from the casement to welcome him, and-even
the little room where he has been accustomed to find them is
empty.
The few minutes that he waits there seem like hours, so
great is his impatience, and then the door-handle turns slowly
and Psyche comes in.
And in a moment, looking at her white and frightened face,
292 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
he forgets that he is her lover—he remembers only that hfe is
her friend \ and with all his old kind heartiness and gentleness
of manner goes to meet her. He takes her two hands, and
drawing her to him looks down at her.
" My dear," he says, very tenderly, " are you going to be
afraid of me? Whatever you have to say to me, remember
that I can bear it—that I mean to bear it. We have been
friends always, ever since you were a little child; have we not,
Psyche ? And now, if we can be nothing more, we will be
friends to the end."
But to this she answers nothing. Her lips are parched and
dry; her voice seems to have deserted her.
" Are you," he goes on with a grave smile, looking at her
wistfully, " going to tell me that you are amazed at my pre-
sumption ? that I am an old fool to dare to hope that I may
win the love of a girl so young—so pretty as you are ? "
Then as she essays to speak:
" Do not tell it me just yet—not until I have told you how
much—or how little I ask of you."
There is a moment's pause—a noticeable hesitation.
" If you had been glad, and joyous, and happy, the incarna-
tion of youth and hope, as you seemed to me on the first day
I saw you in your womanhood," he continues, quickly and
eagerly, " I should never have dared to ask you to share a life
which is already half-done ; but," with a sudden tremor in his
voice, "seeing you sad and lonely and unhappy, threatened
with worse misfortunes still, can you wonder, can you blame
me, my darling, that I have longed with all my heart, with all
my soul, to take you to myself, to keep you from all troubles,
to care for you, to protect you ? "
Involuntarily, almost unconsciously, he stretches out his arms
to her. But she shrinks from them.
" Perhaps," he goes on, a little sadly, " I should have done
better to plead my own cause, and not leave it to Dolly; but,':
flushing, " I felt that I could not bear to see your first surprise
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD,
at such an idea; possibly," hesitatingly, " your repugnance. I
am not generally a coward, but at the thought of that I did
turn coward."
She smiles at him a little. She is on the point of answering
or denying perhaps the idea of a possible repugnance, but he
holds out his hands to stop her.
"My child," he says, drawing her to him and looking most
tenderly, most solemnly into her wide dazed eyes, "lam not
going to ask you to love me yet. I know that you cannot—
that it is impossible; but once or twice lately you have told me,"
hesitatingly and diffidently, " that you liked me, that you were
fond of me. Think me presumptuous, think me fool-hardy if
you will," he goes on in sudden strong tones, " but I am will-
ing to risk all that. I am sure—quite sure—that sooner or
later—sooner or later I will make you love me !"
He pauses, and she must speak—must answer him.
" If," she begins, slowly and falteringly, loosing her hands
from his, and clasping them nervously in and out of each
other—"if there were no other reasons than those you have
spoken of, then indeed I might find it more possible to love
you than to love anyone else. But you forget," with a sudden
scarlet colour mounting and spreading all over her small white
face, '' you forget that there is another reason, greater than
these, standing between us and separating us,"
" You mean," he says, wincing a little, and flushing in his
turn, " that you have loved, or fancied that you loved another
man. No ; I do not forget that. Is it likely," with a grave
and bitter smile, " that I should forget it ? But all the same I
have hoped, I have dared to hope, that now that you know that
he was never worthy of your love you would forget him, you
would learn to think of him as he deserves. We have both a
past, dear," he goes on earnestly—" a past that we shall never,
either of us, perhaps, quite forget; but is that to be a reason
why we should not take such happiness as may be possible to
us in the future ?''
294 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
In his voice and his manner there is a grave and steadfast
tenderness that might touch any woman's heart. It at any
rate touches hers.
" Listen," she says, drawing back and standing a few paces
off from him, while her breath comes quick with strong emotion.
"I want to tell you the truth—the whole truth—so far as I my-
self know it, and then leave you to judge for yourself—and for
me."
There is a moment's intense silence. Then she goes on :
"You see," quickly and nervously, "I cannot be sure of my-
self. I cannot be sure. Sometimes it seems to me that I hate
him—that if he came back to me now, and offered to give up
everything for me, I should remember that once," panting and
laying her hand on her bosom—" he had thought other things
of more value than me ; that once, when a word from him would
have saved me from bitter distress, from bitter humiliation,
he would not speak it, and that thought would turn love into
hate. But at other times," she goes on slowly, with dilating
eyes and quivering lips, " I feel as if one look, one touch, one
word of his would have power to draw me back from the very
gates of heaven."
There is another pause. The passionate intensity of these
last words has pierced him to the heart. He cannot, for the
moment, recover himself.
" You see," she says, sadly and slowly raising her eyes and
looking once more straight at him, " since I cannot be sure of
myself, you could never be sure of me. You must not think
any more of marrying me. But," stretching out her thin
white hand and touching his for the first time, " do not be
angry with me. Do not let it separate us. We have so few
friends—Dolly and I—we cannot," with a poor little smile,
" afford to lose you."
But his one moment of hesitation over—if it could be
called hesitation, being nothing indeed but the strong dislike
to hearing from her own lips of her love for the man he has
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295
learned to hate—the whole strength of his purpose returns.
Having carried this hope so near his heart for so many
months, he is resolved that nothing short of positive denial
shall make him give it up. His love overcomes his fears—
overcomes his reason and his judgment.
" No !" he cries, clasping her hands with a passionate
strength—"we will never be separated. If you cannot be
sure of yourself, I will be sure for you. I know you better
than you know yourself. I know, at any rate, that if you will
but once say that you will marry me—and that is all I ask
from you yet, my darling—all I ask yet—you will turn your
back on the past, and do your best to like me. Promise me,
Psyche; only promise me, and I will trust you with all my
heart. I am sure—quite sure—that some day I will make you
love me !"
In his voice and in his look there is such a passionate
intensity as would need all a woman's strength of resolution to
resist. And she has but little strength left to her. Her hands
tremble in his strong clasp ; her will wavers and falters under
his far stronger one.
" My dear," he says, very tenderly, " I only want to
make you happy, and I think I could. God knows I would try."
" Do you think," she asks, trembling and quivering, while
the tears spring to her eyes, " that I do not want to be happy
—that I am not tired of being unhappy ? If—if I could forget
this past year, and begin all over again, do you think that I
would not do it ? "
" You shall do it," he answers passionately. " You shall
begin all over again with me."
But even yet she holds back.
" I have so little to give you," she says falteringly, looking
up into his kind, good-looking face with something near to
remorse. "You would have done so much better to love
someone else. It is not fair or right that you should give all
when I can give you—nothing,"
296
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
"You shall give me yourself," he says, realising, with a
sudden swelling of the heart that is as near pain as joy, that
he has triumphed, and so saying takes her tenderly and rever-
ently in his arms, and kisses her on her forehead—not on her
lips. He is resolved that he will not frighten her by letting
her understand how much he loves her. He could not bear,
at that supreme moment, for which he has longed and waited
and scarce dared to hope, to see her shrink from him. But in
fact she neither shrinks nor blushes at that first embrace. It
might be better for him if she did both. She has been too
long accustomed to a close intimacy with him to feel it very
strange that he should kiss her; and though between mere
friendliness and actual love there lies a strong and almost im-
passable barrier, he cannot understand that.
" Remember! " she says, drawing back from his arms and
looking at him—"it is your doing—yours and Dolly. If,
after all, I bring you more trouble than happiness—and, God
knows, I hope I may not—remember that I have not deceived
you."
They are not such words as a man might choose for those
he first hears from the woman who has promised to be his
wife; but the fact that she has promised lies so far beyond
his actual hopes that he will not allow them to damp his
happiness.
" Whatever troubles you may bring me, my darling," he
says, with such a passionate tenderness as leaves her no doubt
of his love, " you have brought me such happiness as I never
dared hope for before."
Then there is silence—a long silence.
It is Psyche who breaks it.
" And Dolly ? " she asks anxiously, pursuing her thoughts.
"You will not separate me from her ? "
He answers her with a smile that brings back to her the old
kind friend whom she had seemed almost for awhile to have
lost in the nevY lover,
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 297
"Separate you from Dolly ! " he says, with a warmth that is
all and more than she can desire. " As if Dolly had not been
my first thought after you! Whatever happiness or un-
happiness there may be in store for us—and I am afraid that
at present," with some wistfulness in his smile, " you believe
that it will be more of unhappiness than of happiness—Dolly
shall share it. It often troubles me sorely to think of her
sad and unselfish life—a life that might well put us all to
shame — but," heartily, " it shall be no longer sad if we
can help it, dear. She shall be our first thought—our
chief care. Our home shall be her home; our life—her
life."
"You are good—so good ! " she says, with the tears spring-
ing to her eyes; her hand, once more, of its own accord seek-
ing his. " Surely I shall love you—I must love you ! "
And he is absolutely satisfied.
" Look ! " he says presently, raising his head and pointing
to a ray of sunlight which, glinting through the casement win-
dow, is falling on her golden head and sad black gown.
" The sunshine has come back to us—after long days of dark
and dreariness. It is but a feeble sun at present • but I
believe," with sober and reverent gladness, " that it will grow
brighter and brighter as the days go on."
# # * * # *
"Are you glad, Dolly?—are you satisfied?" asks Psyche
that night when Dolly comes to her bedside to give her her
good-night kiss, as she has done every night that she has been
within her reach, ever since she was a little child.
There is a moment's silence. The light from the candle is
very dim. It does not fall on Dolly's face. Then she answers
soberly and thoughtfully, as one who considers her words,
giving them their due weight:
"Yes ; I am glad," she says slowly. Then after a moment,
more quickly: " Through all this dark and terrible time, when
I knew the poverty and the separation that was threatening
293 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
us, I have hardly dared to think what was to become of you.
Now I know that you are safe—quite safe."
" At any rate, we shall be together ; that is the great thing,"
says Psyche presently, turning restlessly on her pillow, and
tossing her white arms among her long, loose hair. " Of course
it would have been much pleasanter, much nicer,-if we could
have managed it any other way. If he had only been our
uncle, or our cousin, or something, we might have gone to live
with him without—without marrying him. But, after all,"
with a childish wistfulness, '' I shall not be so bad as half the
women who marry men they almost dislike for the sake of their
money or other advantages, shall I, Dolly?—for I do like him
—I like him, really. I am not sure that, in a little while, I
shall not be quite fond of him."
But at this speech Dolly rises suddenly to her feet.
" Is it so hard," she asks, with a terrible pain at her heart,
" to be fond of him ? "
But Psyche does not answer, and when Dolly stoops to kiss
her she fancies her cheek is wet.
Yet the morning sun, dawning brightly, finds Psyche fast
asleep as a little child ; finds Dolly with hands clasped on her
breast, and dull, wide-open eyes.
CHAPTER V.
Winter has passed. Spring has come back. " The rain is
over and gone; the flowers appear again on the earth, and the
time of the singing of birds is come."
It is but early Spring yet. The leaflets on the hedges and
trees are tiny and young, and the primroses, youngest of
Spring's children, are still studding the woods where a year
ago Psyche wandered with her lover ; but in the air there is a
sweet and dainty fragrance of flower-sweet meadows, a pro-
URSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 299
mise of better things that stirs the girl's heart with some new
hope, and seems to awaken in it some fresh upspringing of life
as she wanders to and fro in the neglected garden.
It has been a long and a hard winter.
Through all the days of her life Psyche will not be able to
look back upon it without a shudder of horror and pity for her-
self and for Dolly. For though they have, by some arrange-
ment of Sir John's—into which they have not been permitted
to enquire too closely—been able to remain in their old home,
yet loneliness and poverty, sorrow and sadness, have been
their companions through all these weary months.
But when one is only twenty—when one is strong and
healthy, it is difficult to accept unhappiness as one's portion
for life. To be happy seems to be the prerogative of youth.
As naturally as the trees have burst into leaf, the flowers into
blossom, in the girl's heart has re-awakened the desire for life,
for love, for happiness.
And though it has not been Sir John's fault that the weary
time of sadness and waiting has not been long ago cut short,
though it has sadly tried his patience and forbearance, and has
been only the result of her own instinctive shrinking from
putting the final seal to her own fate, yet—if he could so
understand it—these long unlovely months have been the best
of all preparations for her marriage. They have in some way
obliterated the past. The hope of a future has grown out of
them. Change—change of any sort, whether for better, for
worse, is the most active desire of her mind and her heart at
the present moment.
The new strong life circling in her veins at the return of
spring demands something beyond the monotony of these past
days. Fears are forgotten. Hope springs anew. She is willing
to dare all, to defy all, only to break the weary changelessness
of the dull level of her existence.*
And in a week she is to be married. The time so long
deferred has been fixed at last, with her consent.
300 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
Seven days ! She counts them out, feverishly, restlessly,
not as one who, loving much, forsees in her marriage the
completion of her happiness, but rather as a prisoner who has
suffered long days of weariness and misery may look forward
to the time of release.
She wanders to and fro in the straight, untrimmed paths of
the deserted garden. No hand has tended it; not a penny
has been spent on it since Mr. Dalrymple's death. Pennies
have been scarce, and they have known that even those they
have been compelled to spend might scarcely be called their
own. But for all that, some hardy blossoms, that not all the
frosts of winter nor all the curse of neglect have been able to
stamp to death, are rearing their heads and unfolding their
pale leaves to the first warm kiss of the strong sun.
Psyche, bending over them with a sort of tender sympathy,
seeing in them some likeness to herself, drags away as well as
she can with her small bare hands the weeds that choke them
—gives them a chance of sunlight, of life.
Farther on the old sun-dial lies'prone on the ground, speak-
ing more strongly of the passing of time than ever it did while
it held its brazen head erect and with shining letters told out
the passage of the hours. Passing it, she makes her way to
the old and rickety lattice-gate, where not quite a year ago she
had stood and watched Dolly and Sir John. Not once since
she has been home has she crossed its threshold; not once
has she trodden the paths of the little wood where she had so
often held tryst with her lover. Now for the first time she pulls
it open, and shudderingly and shrinkingly looks ahead of
her.
The path is more moss-grown and tangled than before.
Neither friends, strangers, nor servants have had occasion to
use it for many months past. The birds and the young rabbits,
and the myriad of little creeping things that live in a wood-
land, have had it all their own way, and have grown as fearless
of human presence as ever they were in the garden of Eden,
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 301
She lets the gate swing to behind her, creaking and groaning
as it goes, and once more enters the path she knows so well.
Even as those who, looking forward to a more goodly
future, are impelled by some strong desire to revisit the grave
where their past lies buried, so she once more, and for the last
time, feels drawn to the spot where she used to meet her
lover, and had been in the past spring-time so blindly,
childishly happy.
It is no foolish desire to re-awaken the past that draws her
there; it is rather the necessity to lay a ghost which may
haunt her future life, to look it bravely in the face, and,
realising its unreality, put it behind her for ever.
And yet every tree, every blossom seems so familiar to her,
and each one wakens in her heart such a bitter pang of regret,
that she finds it a harder task than she had reckoned on.
By the old stile she leans once more, looking over the
meadow where her lover used to come with footsteps quicken-
ing at sight of her. She sees once more the look in his eyes,
she feels once more the touch of his hands, she hears even the
tone of his voice; and then she lays her soft warm face on the
rough old wood, and whispering, " Good-bye, good-bye," turns
away without a tear or a sigh, but with such a drawing of her
heart-strings as seems to go near to breaking them.
She has turned her back on the past—so she thinks. She
has done with it—done with over-sweet illusions, with heart-
breaking disillusions. The future lies all before her, pleasantly
secure, with never a doubt about it. Love, riches—as much
happiness as a woman can reasonably expect—they are all to
be hers in a week's time.
With a smile on her lips, with a brave, erect bearing she
walks onward, and if the smile is belied by the dimness of her
eyes, if her footsteps totter here and there, not altogether secure
of their ground, there are none to see it.
The courage with which she means to pursue her life's
journey seems to find some outward and visible token in the
302
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resolute step with which she treads the tangled path, where but
a year ago she had danced and sang for very gladness of heart.
Perhaps her ears are a little dull, as well as her eyes, for she
does not hear the footsteps that are pursuing her, but goes
quietly onwards, until a voice that seems to come to her from
that dead past whose grave she has so lately closed—a voice
calling her name in tones never forgotten, long unheard, makes
her stand suddenly still with a heart that seems to stand still
too.
Then she turns, and with wide, bewildered eyes and whitened
lips stands face to face with Cecil Darrell.
He is flushed and warm; she is cold and still, as one long
dead.
" At last! at last!" he cries breathlessly, incoherently.
" Did you not hear me ? Did you not see me ? At last I
have found you !"
But she stands mute, incredulous. But a moment ago she
had realised his presence so vividly. Now it seems so
impossible.
" You ? " she says at last, panting a little, and leaning for
support against a tree that is hard by.
"Yes, I! " he answers with a happy laugh. " Did you take
me for a ghost ? If you knew, if you only knew how long I
have waited for you, what hours and days I have spent watching
for you, wondering where you had hidden yourself. But I
knew that I must find you at last, and," stretching out his
hands to her, "I have found you."
In his tone, in his look there is an immense and undisguised
exaltation. But it finds no answer in hers. In her mind there
is so keen and unobliterated a remembrance of -their last
parting, that it seems impossible to her that he can have
forgotten it. Over and over again there rings through her ears
the echo of the very last words she had spoken to him—
" I wish that I had never seen you! I pray God that I
may never see you again !"
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303
Even in this supreme moment she could find it in her heart
to repeat them.
She withdraws herself from his outstretched hands with a
coldness and dignity which are altogether new in his experience
of her, but which, real or assumed, do not become her badly.
"I do not understand why you are here," she says slowly
and steadily, for though her hands are trembling and her heart
is quaking she would die rather than betray it. "I cannot
speak to you. Let me pass, if you please."
He looks at her for a moment in unfeigned astonishment.
His face falls as suddenly and undisguisedly as a disappointed
child's.
He has so little doubted his power over her, he has, in fact,
had so little reason to doubt it, that he had thought that he
had only to come back to her, and literally and metaphorically
to stretch out his arms to her, and she would fall into them.
Then, with the quick instinct of love, he altogether changes
his tactics.
"I understand—you cannot forgive me," he says humbly
and dejectedly, dropping a little away from her. " No wonder,
when I have found it so hard to forgive myself. It was only
the surprise and pleasure of seeing you that made me forget
for a moment how we parted. No," raising his voice and
planting himself in her way as she makes a movement to leave
him, "you shall not go until you have heard me!"
The imperiousness of his tone masters her, but she stands,
still holding to the rough stem of the friendly tree with averted
face and dropped eyes, that are in themselves, alone, a distinct
protest against his detention of her.
" I must have seemed to you a brute that day we parted,"
he goes on rapidly and passionately. " But if I was cruel to
you, I was no less cruel to myself. I had been brought up all
my life to count so certainly on the inheritance of my uncle's
money, so utterly dependent upon it, that it seemed to me
impossible to deliberately choose beggary even for your sake,
304 unspotted prom the world.
and that I should be doing you but a poor kindness to let yoil
give up everything for me. Well," drawing a long and heavy
breath, "whether I was right or wrong, God knows—not I!
I only know that I have tried all these months to live without
you—tried—and failed. I only know that it may be possible
to live without money, but that it is impossible to live
without the woman I love better than anything else in the
world."
His handsome face is alight with an excitement that she has
never seen there before; in his voice there is a passionate
tremor that would touch to the heart a woman who still loved
him. It does touch her. She clings more closely to her
support, and the quick heaving of her breast, the trembling of
her limbs, are now beyond disguise.
He perceives them; and perceiving, presses his advantage
with an excitement that grows at every word.
" I have no more chance now than I had then—no better
right to ask you to marry me than I had then. But I have
found out," he continues, in strong and fervent tones, " that
there are feelings which defy both right and reason. Psyche,"
—once more stretching out his hands to her—" I cannot live
without you. If you will marry me now and share poverty with
me I am certain that I shall be happier in my poverty than
ever I have been in my riches. Come back to me, dear—come
back to me, and love me ! "
So saying, he stands with outstretched hands, waiting.
And there is a moment's terrible silence—a moment that
they will never, either of them, forget through all the years of
their after-lives. Not long ago she had said that there were
times when she felt as if one look, one touch, one word of his
would have power to draw her back from the very gates of
heaven. She feels it now—feels it, and for one terrible
moment falters and hesitates, and then—suddenly, vividly,
with the clearness of a lightning-flash, there comes into her
mind the remembrance of the moment in which she had held
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
305
out trembling, imploring hands to him, and he had turned
from them.
The thought saves her. It turns her to ice. She puts her
hands behind her with a gesture of absolute repulsion, and
stands fronting him with cold white face and flashing eyes,
no longer afraid of him—no longer trembling.
" No!" she cries, in a voice so clear and strong that it
rings through the silence of the wood. " You come too late.
A little while ago—when we parted," with a momentary tremor
at the recollection—" there was nothing you could have asked
of me that I would not have done for you. Poverty had no
fears for me. I would have followed you to the world's end
if you had been as faithful to me as I was to you."
Then she comes a step nearer, her face ablaze with unre-
strained passion.
" Do you remember the day on which I implored you, by
the love you professed for me, to speak one word to save me
from shame and humiliation ? Do you remember," her voice
rising with every word, "the advice you gave me then ? Well,"
falling back with a little laugh, " I have taken it. I am going
to be married."
For a moment there is silence. They stand facing each
other, looking directly into each other's eyes; and it is difficult
to say which face is the most pale, which is the most passion-
ate.
" Going to be married !" he repeats at last very slowly, in a
harsh, strained voice, that is altogether unlike the voice in
which he last addressed her.
" Surely," she answers quietly, her passion dying, her bitter,
ness remaining, "though the neighbours do not trouble
themselves greatly about our affairs, they might have told you
that much."
" I heard that Miss Dalrymple—your sister—was going to
marry Heathcote; but you—" Then he stops suddenly.
Something in her face reveals to him the trutli. " You ! " he
y
3o6 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
cries in a loud voice. " No; it is impossible. Speak ! tell
me that it is a lie ! "
She lifts her head. Now that her anger has passed, speech
is difficult to her.
" It is the truth, thank God ! " she says, with an assurance
that is greater than she feels.
He bursts into a bitter and mocking laugh.
" Heathcote ! A man old enough to be your father! A
puritanical prig who was jilted by another woman "
" Stop ! " she cries, her anger blazing out afresh. " Do not
say another word. It will do you no good to abuse him. I
will not listen to you."
So saying, she turns her back upon him and leaves him.
She has not taken many steps when he overtakes her and, lay-
ing his hand roughly on her arm, compels her to stop.
" You shall not marry him—do you hear ? " he says, with a
face livid with anger. u I will move heaven and earth to pre-
vent it."
" Do your worst," she says, disengaging her hand.. " There
is nothing you can tell him that he does not know already.
Thank heaven, we have no secrets from each other."
It is a cruel speech—a speech that carries a sting that will
haunt them both for many a long day. But it is her last. He
makes no more effort to stop her; and with swift steps, that
little by little, as she feels herself farther and farther from
danger, quicken almost to a run, she makes her way through
the tangled path which such a short time ago she had trodden
so quietly and listlessly, until she finds herself in safety at the
gate. There she pauses, trembling and shaking like one in an
ague.
Such a scene as she has just gone through is one that
leaves its mark on a woman's mind and heart until the day of
her death. And though she has come out of it triumphantly,
though she has been true to the man who loves her, and has
repulsed and defied the man whom she is by no means sure
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
307
she does not still love, the sense of triumph is not paramount.
Virtue does not always carry with it its own reward—at any
rate in this world.
She is on the eve of a passionate outbreak of tears ; but she
controls herself, sensible of the indiscretion of such a luxury,
and compelling her face into some semblance of a decent
composure, opens the gate and crosses the garden. Her one
supreme desire is to reach her room unseen, unnoticed; but it
is a desire that is not to be gratified.
Waiting on the door-steps, looking about him with the
serene and not over-anxious expectation of a man who is
perfectly certain to find, sooner or later, that which he seeks,
stands Sir John—holding out his hands with kind and tender
greeting, blissfully unconscious of the danger which has so
lately assailed his happiness.
His serenity, his assurance, stab her with a feeling of almost
unbearable irritation in her over-wrought state. It seems to
her almost that he ought to show some sense of the sacrifice
she has just made for him. She can hardly bring herself to
touch his hand, to answer him with any semblance of her
ordinary manner.
But she has no occasion to cavil at his serenity for long.
He has hardly looked into her face, which bears indeed such
evident marks of the emotions of the past hour that a man
would be blind who did not see them, before his whole man-
ner changes, and the tender assurance of the accepted
husband, who counts only a few days between him and his
happiness, changes to the distrustful doubt of the most
timorous lover.
" What has happened? What is the matter with you ?" he
asks suddenly and hotly, looking into her dull eyes and white
face.
Then a sudden remembrance of a fact heard only that
morning flashes across his mind, and suddenly and irresistibly
connects itself with this alteration in her appearance.
308 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
"Have you been out alone? Have you—is it possible
that you have seen Captain Darrell? "
There is in these last words a change from tenderness to
absolute gravity and sternness.
Courage has never been conspicuous among her better qual-
ities, and she has hardly known up to the present moment
whether she had meant to tell him of the meeting with her
lover or not; but there is something in his look which forbids
her to evade the truth.
"Yes, I have seen him," she admits slowly and reluct-
antly.
He, still holding her hand, leads her into a little inner room
—the very room where she had promised to be his wife—and
then, releasing her, stands facing her.
"Tell me what he has said to you," he demands briefly.
In his manner there is a calmness, a judicial severity that
belies his real tenderness of heart. It is in reality the forced
calmness of a man, who, on the eve of obtaining the happi-
ness on which his whole life depends, sees it in dire jeopardy;
but she cannot understand that. She perceives only a severity
that frightens her.
" It would be better for you—better for me not to tell you
—not yet," she says feebly. " In a little while I shall be able
—but not yet."
He finds in her words a confirmation of his worst fears.
" Tell me now ; I have a right to know," he says curdy.
The brevity and decision of his manner are due to the fact
that he dares not trust himself to any length of speech, lest
his anger or his emotion should get the better of him. She is,
at any rate, awed by it into frightened acquiescence. And so,
with many tears, in broken, half-articulate sentences, she tells
him the reason of her lover's visit—and though she does not
dwell on his words, nor on the tenderness of them, he gathers
their purport.
When she has done he stands for a moment silent, look-
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 309
ing at her with eyes that seem to search into her heart; and
when he speaks again his voice is no longer cold nor harsh,
but is shaken by an excitement he cannot master.
" And you—what did you answer him ? "
She lifts her eyes innocently, amazed and a little awed by
the strength of passionate feeling revealed in his tone.
" I told him that he came too late—that I was going to
marry you—that he could not separate us—that you loved me,
you trusted me, and I "
She breaks down there and bursts into bitter, passionate
weeping; and in a moment he has clasped her in his arms,
and is holding her tight to his breast, with eyes that are a
little dim too.
" God forgive me for having doubted you ! " he says with
strong emotion; " I can never forgive myself," Then stooping
over her and stroking her pretty ruffled head, " My love, my
little love, do not cry any more ! for God's sake, do not cry; I
cannot bear it! Do you know—will you believe that now that
I have had time to master myself, I am glad—yes, absolutely
glad that you have been put to this strong test ? Sometimes
—not always, but sometimes in my dark moments I have
wondered whether, if it were given to you to choose between
him and me, you would still choose me. Sometimes, my dear,"
(gently stroking her white hand as if he would beg her to for-
give him for these poor doubts of her), " I have wondered
whether, if at the very last he came back to you, he would
have power to make you leave me; but now I know," lifting
his head and looking at her with a clear and steadfast light in
his grey eyes, " that you have been compelled to choose be-
tween us, and that you have chosen me, and I thank God for
it !"
There is a long silence—a silence during which she lets him
hold her in his arms, glad perhaps to be in that strong shelter.
Then once more he is assailed by those doubts that make the
torment of lovers.
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
" Are you sure," he asks, holding her a little from him and
looking searchingly into her poor tear-washed face, "that
you will never repent ? He is young and handsome—such a
man as women love—and I am old and grey-headed, and over-
grave to please a woman's fancy. Are you sure, quite sure that
you will never wish you had chosen differently ? "
" I am sure that I want only to be at peace—at rest," she
answers plaintively, her head drooping ; then, after a moment
she lifts it and looks him straight in the face with an eager
puckering of her brows. " Could not we be married sooner ? "
she asks anxiously. " A week is such a long time, and I want
to be safe—quite safe."
He does not laugh at this audacious proposition as he well
might; he only permits himself a grave smile, understanding
thoroughly the meaning of it.
"You are safe," he answers, holding her a little closer.
" He shall never," with a sudden darkening of his face,
"trouble you again."
Another long silence follows. It would be difficult to tell
into what grooves her thoughts run ; the drift of his may be
guessed from his next words.
" There is but one thing I must ask of you," he says in that
masterful manner which has always compelled her to respect
him, and yet, at the same time, made her a little afraid of him.
" You must promise me, swear to me, that when we are
married, when you are my wife, you will never of your own
free will speak to that man again. All other friends and
acquaintances you shall choose according to your own
pleasure; but between him and me there can never be any-
thing but enmity so long as we live."
Then as she hesitates, he goes on with less peremptoriness,
and with some attempt to explain, perhaps to himself as well
as to her, the nature of that enmity which he knows has over-
stepped the bounds of calm reason.
" I do not hate him for having loved you too well," he says,
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
looking at her with a grave smile. " That seems too evident
a possibility to become a crime; but I hate him," his voice
rising, " for having loved you so little as to sacrifice you to his
own selfishness. And it appears to me—whether I am right
or wrong, God knows—but it seems to me that he was never
more selfish, less honourable, than he has been to-day."
Then he pauses, regarding her gravely.
" Psyche, are you not going to promise me ? "
" A promise is such a poor thing," she begins falteringly,
twisting her hands in and out, in and out, but not looking at
him. " To be sure of one's own inclination—that is the great
thing; and if I am sure, quite sure that I do not want to
speak to him ever again, is not that enough?"
There is in her manner, in her look, a pitiful and childish
supplication that might well make a man relent. But he does
not allow himself to be visibly moved by it.
" I want your promise," he says quietly, and yet persist-
ently.
And so at last hesitatingly, falteringly, altogether unwillingly,
the promise is dragged from her. It is not that she hopes or
thinks that she will ever see her lover again; it is rather a
consciousness of her own weakness, a superstitious fear of
binding herself to any vow, that makes her so reluctant to give
it; and when it is given, he draws her once more back to his
arms.
"My darling," he says, with all his usual tenderness, "it is
not chiefly for my own sake that I have made you bind your-
self by this promise. It is because I wanted to place a
barrier between him and you, that neither kindness nor pity
can ever make you overstep; it was because I was so sure
that neither he nor his friendship nor his love can ever bring
you anything but unhappiness."
But even as she lies in his arms she is conscious of a
shudder that she forcibly represses; she is conscious, miser-
ably conscious that his trust in her honour is stronger than her
312 unspotted prom the world.
own, and she prays most fervently (since even an inward,
thought may become a prayer) that she may never indeed see
Darrell again—never be tempted to break the vow she has
just made.
* *: & * *
And so on a fair Spring morning, when the birds are sing-
ing in the trees, when the flowers are blooming in the meadows,
iust as they sang and bloomed a year ago, just as they will
sing and bloom for many years to come—when we who live
and are happy—when we who live and are sorrowful, shall lie
beneath the earth, for ever out of the reach of these joys or
sorrows, John Heathcote takes Marguerite Dalrymple to be his
wedded wife—"for better, for worse, in sickness or in health,
according to God's holy ordinance."
The wedding is a very simple one. For though there are
many who, never having bestowed a kind word or a kind look
on Mr. Dalrymple's penniless, unacknowledged daughter,
would be quite willing to bestow both kind words and looks
on the wife of one of the richest and most influential men in
the county, they have not been bidden to it. They come un«
invited, it is true, and throng the little church, and gaze
curiously at the bride and bridegroom, and at the only brides-
maid, Dorothy Dalrymple, remarking among themselves on
the youthfulness of the bride, on the strange pallor and worn
looks of the solitary bridesmaid. But Cecil Darrell is not
among them. His angry threat "to move heaven and earth to
prevent the marriage," dissolves, as most such threats do, into
thin air. There is no just cause nor impediment, neither hitch
nor dissenting voice to interfere with this quietest of quiet
marriages.
But when the small wedding-party return to the old house
where Richard Dalrymple lived his selfish, miserable life,
where his daughter has lived her miserable and unselfish life,
but will live no more, a letter in a strange writing is put into
Miss Dalrymple's hand.
uhsPotted from the World. 313
And opening it with some tremor, as one who is accustomed
more to evil tidings than to good, she reads thus,—
" Madam,—Your grandmother, Lady Conynghame, was
stricken with paralysis two days ago. She has been robbed
and deserted by her servants, and lies absolutely alone. I
know of no other friend or relation of hers to whom I can
apply. Can you come to her?
"Yours truly, T. Margrave."
The name is unknown to Dolly. But Psyche recognizes it
as that of the doctor who lived next door to Lady Conynghame.
And so when John Heathcote and his wife go out to take
their places in the world, well-mated or ill-mated, as time can
alone show, Dorothy Dalrymple goes to take her place by the
bedside of a stricken and helpless old woman, whom she has
never known or loved, and who yet—being stricken and help-
less—holds a place in her sympathies,
3*4
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
PART IV.
' Yet in these ears till hearing dies,
One set slow bell will seem to toll
The passing of the sweetest soul
That ever look'd with human eyes."
CHAPTER I.
Once more, for the second and the last time in the course of
this my story, it is summer-time. Once more, and for the last
time, those four—two men and two women, with whose joys
and sorrows it has principally dealt—are within reach of each
other, living within a few miles of each other, and liable to
come face to face at a moment's notice.
It has been a hot summer. Those countryfolk who are
compelled to toil from that early morning when we who neither
toil nor spin are comfortably asleep in our comfortable beds,
to that late evening when the sun going down sees the rise of
our spirits and the beginning of our festivities, looking up. at
the lurid sun, the brooding sky, have declared there never was
so hot, so unhealthy a summer—a summer when they who live
in hovels grow paler and paler, when they who are weak and
yet must live by their strength grow weaker and weaker, and,
waxing fainter and fainter, pray with ever a stronger and a
stronger cry as the sun seems hotter and the hours seem longer,
''Would God it were evening ! "
It has in truth been just such a one as breeds drought and
pestilence, and disseminates those fevers which help us so
greatly in getting rid of our surplus population.
But there are mitigations to be found even for this rarest of
calamities—a hot English summer—in the exercise of unlimited
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 315
wealth. Psyche, lying in a soft rocking-chair under a b.ig tree,
whose ample branches cast a deep shadow on the thick sward,
with the background of a pleasant and most luxurious-looking
country house, and all around and about her green grass,
brilliant flower-beds, the scent of roses, the song of birds, the
cool gurgle of dripping water, in the distance as fair an
English landscape as one could wish to look at on a summer's
day, seems in a position to defy discomfort, to enjoy even the
great heat, to laugh at fevers.
In the foreground, close by her, Dolly is sitting with her
sleek brown head bent over a book, a pleasant figure to rest
one's eyes upon, in her neat black gown with spotless collar
and wrist-bands.
It is four years and some months since Psyche was married
—five years almost to a day since she and Lady Conynghame
on a certain broiling afternoon in July took a drive in the
Park, and were cut by their friends and acquaintance.
Five years! The tables have been turned since then.
There are none who are not willing to bow and smile to the
rich and beautiful wife of Sir John Heathcote. There are 110
more cold shoulders, no more slighting looks on those rare
occasions when Psyche visits London, and shows herself to
those whose admiration is a good deal more pronounced than
ever it was in the days of her girlhood; and yet the bitterness
of that hour will never be forgotten; there is never a hot
July afternoon that does not in some way recall it to her.
Even at this moment, sitting, with her hands clasped at the
back of her head, in the easiest, most beautiful, most luxurious
of attitudes, with her half-closed eyes wandering over her
pleasant surroundings, she sees only the dusty, dirty London
drive, the glittering harness, the satin-smooth coats of the horses
the emblazoned carriages, the fluttering parasols and showy
dresses of the women in them, and above all and before all,
the cold eyes and averted looks with which one woman after
another tries her best to stamp an innocent girl with disgrace.
3i6 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
As she thinks of it she laughs softly—a laugh in which
bitterness and triumph are strangely co-mingled.
" Do you know what I was thinking of, Dolly ? " she asks,
as her sister looks up from her book, a little startled by this
unexpected merriment. " Of that drive in the Park—when
we were cut; yes, cut, Grannie and I ! Poor Grannie !"
laughing again, " I think if it be possible to expiate some of
our sins in this world, she must have paid off a good many of
hers in that one hour."
But to this unorthodox suggestion Dolly makes no re-
joinder.
" I could almost forgive her for what she did then, for the
sake of what she must have suffered," Psyche goes on
" but for what she has done since I will never forgive her—
no, never?
"It appears to me," says Dolly, quietly, " that she has not
done much since then."
"Not done much ! Has she not lived four whole years,
when by all the laws of reason and nature she ought to have
died ? Has she not kept you away from me, and deprived me
of the best part of my bargain for four years ? "
" Hush, pray hush ! " says Dolly, looking around her with
a frightened air. " Someone might hear you. They might
not understand—they might think that you meant it."
"If you mean John," answers the other coolly, "he would
be quite sure that I meant it. Do you suppose that he does
not know, better than anyone else in the world, that when I
married him it was on the understanding that you were to be
with me always, and that I consider that you and Grannie
have cheated me out of that part of my bargain ? She by
her perversity in living, you by your perversity in staying with
her."
"Poor soul !" says Dolly gravely. " If you had seen her
you would not have supposed that even she—who was so fond
of life—could have wanted to live so long."
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 317
There is a moment's silence after this speech; Psyche's
thoughts, always erratic, take a new turn.
She drops her hands and lets them fall into her lap, and,
sitting a little forward, fixes her eyes on Dolly with a look in
which horror and curiosity are blended.
"Was she so very dreadful? " she asks almost in a whisper.
" Do you know, that since I heard about it there has been
hardly a night on which I have not tried to picture to myself
Grannie dead—Grannie without her wig, without her teeth,
without her paint; and I cannot do it—for the life of me I
cannot do it! I see her always as I saw her when I knew her
—with her set company smile, her spotted veil, her rose-
coloured parasol. I do not think I should have known her
under any other aspect."
" I do not think you would have known her," says Dolly, with
that gravity which long years of watching by a miserable sick
bed have certainly intensified in her. " When I saw her first
she was very much as I saw her last—helpless, stricken, feeble
in sense as in body, a very, very old woman. From the por-
traits I have seen of her, from the accounts I have heard of
her, altogether and utterly unlike the Lady Conynghame the
world knew. I think," slowly and sadly, " even her worst
enemies might have pitied her."
" And I was her worst enemy," says Psyche quickly ; " or,
at any rate, she was mine. I do not suppose there was anyone
to whom she did more harm than she did to me, and from
the depths of my heart I do pity her! To outlive one's
beauty, one's senses, all human liking, all human sympathy,
(I am certain there was not a soul in all this world that gave
her even a thought but you, Dolly) surely that was a living
purgatory for which not all the poor pleasures of the world she
worshipped could have repaid her. After all," with a heavy
sigh, " I think the good people have the best of it, even in
this world."
Then after a minute's thoughtful pause,
318 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
" Does it not seem strange to you," she continues, as if the
subject has a fascination for her, as indeed it has, " that an
old woman should live on like she did, when life was a curse
and a misery to herself and to everyone near her—an old
woman whom nobody loved, nobody wanted, while every day
some little child, who has made, perhaps, the whole joy of its
mother's heart, whose death will make the whole world dark
to her, dies and is buiied ? "
Her voice is all a-tremble. One could fancy the tears are
not far off from her eyes, as suddenly, emphasising her words,
giving them point and meaning, there comes the sound of a
little joyous child-voice carroling in the flower-garden. She
puts up her finger listening, smiling. It is to her the loveliest
music in all this world, and when it dies away, her face has
grown brighter and softer for hearing it.
" After all," she says slowly, smiling, " I think I will forgive
Grannie. I can afford to—I have got her" with a look in the
direction of the flower-garden, whence the little voice had come;
" and now I have got you back too, and I never mean to let
you go again on any pretence whatever—unless," with a smile
in which some scrutiny is concealed under a good deal of arch-
ness, "you will change your mind and marry Dr. Margrave or
Mr. Blake."
"Had not you better be sure that Dr. Margrave or Mr.
Blake wants to marry me?" asks Dolly jestingly, yet flushing
a little.
"I am sure. You know—do not deny it, Dolly—that you
refused Dr. Margrave; and as for Mr. Blake," bursting out
laughing, as she recalls the curate's last visit, " the poor young
man does not keep his secret so well that it needs much clever-
ness in discovering it. He never looks at you but he sighs
like a furnace."
" Indigestion," says Dolly, smiling in spite of herself, " or a
bad habit."
51 Certainly," Psyche continues, appraising the curate's
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 319
recommendations, "he is not handsome, he is not clever,
nor is he even rich ; but no one can deny that he is good."
"Did I ever deny it?" answers Dolly, lightly; "but yet
do you know, I have the bad taste not to want to be married
at all! I mean," laughing, " to be an old maid ! Perhaps, as
I am already thirty-one, it would be more correct to say I am
an old maid."
And at this speech Psyche laughs outright. Certainly there
is very little in Dolly's appearance to justify the idea. The
four years that have passed over their heads have treated them
both kindly enough; but they have made far the greatest change
in Psyche.
She was never, even in her extreme youth, in those days
when Darrell first saw her, one of those slender and ethereal
women who look as if a bad cold or a disappointment in love
may throw them into a consumption. She is now in the per-
fection and maturity of her beauty.
Four years of constant indulgence, four years in which every
whim and caprice have been gratified, every wish forestalled,
have given an assurance to her manner, a perverse audacity to
her speech, at which they who love her most are not inclined
to cavil, for they have also added to her a new charm which
in their eyes far outweighs all possible defects. The passionate
love and devotion which she has centred on one small fragile
life is to them both a wonderful and beautiful thing. To see
Psyche with her child seems to both husband and sister one
of the prettiest sights in the world.
At the present moment, in her rich cream-white dress of
some thin clinging silk, with soft falls of lace about her full
white throat and arms, and crimson roses, adding richness and
luxuriousness to her ripe beauty, she presents indeed a strong
contrast to Dolly in her plain black gown put on as mourning
for the old woman for whom Psyche has obstinately refused to
make any pretence of mourning at all.
The faint likeness which could once be traced between them
320 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
is untraceable now. Dolly's cheeks are thinner and paler,
and her figure is more slender than ever it was before ; but
there is not a line or a wrinkle on her pure white forehead,
not a silver streak in her smooth brown hair, and her eyes are
beautiful from the soul that shines through them.
Time that has materialised Psyche's beauty has spiritualised
hers, and though most men would not look at one sister while
the other was by, there might be some who would see in Dolly
a beauty no other woman ever possessed.
Looking at her, Psyche's laugh dies. She sobers suddenly.
" You are too pretty to be an old maid, Dolly," she says ten-
derly. " You look as if you were made to be the light and
life of some good man's hearth and home, as the story-books
say. But all the same, I should grudge you to any one of them.
I am glad, with all my heart I am glad, that you are never
going to leave us. I am certain," laughing, "that when it
came to the point I should have forbidden the banns ! "
There is a moment's silence, and when Dolly speaks again
it is evidently with some nervousness.
" And yet I cannot stay with you always, dear," she begins
slowly and hesitatingly. "That would not be natural or
right. You have been so good to me, you and Sir John,"
with a little quiver in her voice, " and I have been so happy
here, so very happy, dear, in seeing your happiness, that I
have hardly been able to find courage to tell you that I must
go away soon."
Then giving Psyche no opportunity to interrupt by excla-
mation or question, she goes on quickly.
"Even if you should never be tired of having me with you^
and I know that you think that you would not—I could not be
content. I should not be even happy being always idle.
This is your life, your home. You have your husband, your
child, and your work is here ; but it is not mine."
Then with a grave, sad smile :
" It is difficult, I know, to tell who wants me, or what I can
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
321
do; but so long as there is wretchedness and misery in the
world, so long as I have hands to help and a heart to feel,
there must be something, however little, that I can do."
" Work ! " cries Psyche, anger, disappointment, and dismay
flushing her face and struggling in her voice. " Who wants to
take you away now ? Even if it was your duty—and you
know that I have always most vehemently denied that it was
—but even if it was your duty to stay by Grannie so long as
she lived, is there any other old woman who has a claim on
you now, for whom you are going to sacrifice the rest of your
life, as you have sacrificed all these years of it ? "
Then as Dolly, hurt and troubled, does not immediately
answer her:
" Was it not a promise, or if not a promise, an understood
thing, that my home should be yours ? " she continues passion-
ately. "You know as well as I do that it was one of my
strongest inducements to marry, and now you are cheating me.
Is it nothing to you that / want you ? "
"You do not want me, dear," Dolly answers, with a quiet
smile, slowly shaking her head. " I know that you think that
you do; but you do not. Already your heart is so full with
love for Daisy that I sometimes think you have hardly room
enough to spare for the one who needs it most."
Then as Psyche flushes a little, understanding the gently-
veiled reproach, she says with an earnestness that makes her
voice tremble,
" He is so good to you, Psyehe, so good, and I know you
must really love him as much as he deserves. God has given
you so much happiness, dear, that I think that I could hardly
live with you, always seeing it, and not grow envious, discon-
tented, that worst thing in the world," with a watery smile, " a
sour old maid."
Her words, her look, the certainty that there are tears near
her eyes, touch Psyche to the quick. In the space of a
moment she contrasts her own life and Dolly's, and is silent.
X
322
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
" Where are you going? What are you going to do?" she
asks at length, no longer reproachfully, but with a sense of
disappointment and injury that prevents her from being sym-
pathetic or even gracious.
But Dolly has been too long waiting for aq opportunity to
disclose her plans to allow anything to deter her.
Envious, discontented she is not—never could be. In that
she has done herself bitter injustice; but she knows—who
better?—that there are heart-sicknesses which only work can
allay. For those terrible moments of utter desolation, in
which it sometimes seems to her as if no living soul wanted
her, or was the better for her, since one old woman died,
there is but one cure. She knows that among those whose sin
and shame and suffering, whose inheritance of want and
disease, make God's world a sore puzzle, that even those of
largest faith find it hard to read, her own troubles will seem
small indeed. Among them, striving for them, helping them,
there will be no time to think of herself; and she is longing
with feverish longing to be up and doing—something, how-
ever little.
" When I was in London—all those four years," she begins
explanatorily—"I was not always in Grannie's sick-room.
There were times when I was no good to her; and then, you
know," deprecatingly, " I could not go into any society, so I
was obliged to find something to do—and it was not hard to
find. I suppose," with a look of sad and tender compassion,
" that in all large cities want, disease, misery, such as you and
I can hardly comprehend, lie near our doors. I loved most
to work among the little children. Oh, Psyche," breaking off,
with the tears gathering in her eyes, " if you, who love your
darling so, could but see them—crippled, suffering, crying for
the bread they cannot get! "
Then she controls herself into an appearance of calm-
ness.
" I must go back to them," she continues, quite quietly
UNSPOTTED FROM THE. WORLD.
323
" I made some friends among those women who spend all
their lives among the very poor; and though I could not live
alone, the money that was saved for us, and which Sir John
has insisted on giving entirely to me, will let me live quite
comfortably with them, and leave some to give away."
And as she ceases speaking it seems to Psyche, looking at
her, that her face shines with a lovely and steadfast light she
has never seen there before. She feels as she looks a sort of
reverence that approaches to awe; and somehow—she cannot
tell how—there comes into her mind a verse from the Bible,
learnt by rote when she was a little child—"Pure religion,
and undefiled before God and the Father, is this : to visit the
fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself
unspotted from the world."
Was that the meaning of Dolly's life ? Was it possible that
in those few childlike words there was contained a simple
code, that might lead straighter to heaven than all the doc-
trines, all the philosophies of religion that all the wise men
have ever preached [or written since the beginning of the
world ?
Unspotted from the World—Nay—who could be that?
Surely some spots must cling even to those who walk with
cleanliest steps through life's uncertain paths.
So, silently thinking, sitting with clasped hands and wide-
open eyes, she, in one of those mental illuminations which
occur only at rare intervals in our experience, sees Dolly's
life—and her own : and seeing—flushes crimson.
" I wish you were not so good," she cries passionately, with
trembling lips. " I never thought I was very wicked before;
but you make me feel wicked. I was tolerably content with
myself. I had a sort of notion," smiling bitterly, " that I. was
pretty good, as women go. I thought I was a good mother—
but after all, who would not be good to such a child ? I never
quarrel with my husband; " but," half-laughing, half-crying,
" he never gives me a chance. How can you quarrel with
324
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
anyone who is always good, always kind to you ? I am not
fast—I am not over-extravagant—I do not care very greatly
for gaiety; but oh, Dolly, Dolly, when I see myself beside
you "
She breaks off. She is silent a moment. Then her face
flushes slowly and painfully—her lips quiver passionately.
" Dolly," she says suddenly, in a sort of eager whisper,
driven by she knows not what impulse, " I want you to listen
to me—I want you to tell me—if—" looking around her, and
dropping her voice still lower—" if you had made a promise—
a very solemn promise—should you—should you believe that
anything could excuse you for breaking it ? "
Then, as Dolly does not immediately answer, being indeed
too startled by this unforeseen question,
" If you knew," she goes on, with vehement eagerness,
" that you had done no harm—no real harm by breaking it—
that you would, on the contrary, have seemed cruel by keeping
it, and that it was a promise that ought never to have been
exacted from you, should you feel it a sin—a crime to have
broken it ? "
The intense earnestness of her face and manner, the un-
mistakable emotion with which she asks the question, frighten
Dolly beyond measure.
" Before I answer," she begins earnestly, " tell me what it
is. There is something "
But while yet the words are on her lips—words that would
perhaps have gained an answer that might have saved them
God knows what misery and shame and anguish, a little clear
treble voice rings joyously in their ears, little hands pull at
Psyche's gown, little feet scramble upon to her lap, a curly
golden head tumbles on to her breast, a warm, flushed,
troubled baby-face is pressed against hers.
" Mamsey ! mamsey ! dolly's broke ! She failed down herself
in the darden, and broked herself. Daisy didn't break her.
Mamsey make her well again !"
UNSPOTTED EROM THE WORLD. 325
From her pinafore tumbles a dilapidated doll—a headless
trunk—a trunkless head—a doll that " not all the king's horses,
nor all the king's men" can ever make altogether "well again."
And Psyche, clasping her child tight to her heart, bursts into a
fit of laughing.
But there is something wrong in the laugh, even to baby
ears.
" Mamsey Tying" she says, lifting her head and looking at
her with wide-open eyes of intense childish awe. " Mamsey
got a tear—look ! "
She puts one little finger on her mother's cheek—it is
wet.
"No, no ! " cries Psyche, kissing the little warm face and
neck, the soft curls of golden hair, and laughing again, more
naturally this time. "Mothers never cry; it is only little
babies who cry—little babies like Daisy."
But Daisy is not convinced. She looks from her mother's
face to her broken doll.
" Nesser mind! " she says, stroking Psyche's cheek. " There's
heaps more dollies. Papa'll get me anoser one. Don't c'y.
Come and p'ay; me tired of p'aying all by mine own self.
Mamsey come ! "
She slips off her mother's lap, and, taking her two hands
with her baby ones, begins to pull with all her tiny might;
and at that moment a big cuckoo-clock in the hall, distinctly
audible through the wide-open door, strikes five. At the
sound Psyche starts to her feet, her face suddenly pale, her
breath coming quickly. For a moment she looks about her in
a frightened, hesitating way.
" I must go," she begins, falteringly. " Mother will come
back presently, darling. She has promised to go somewhere
—she "
" Stay a moment," says Dolly, laying a detaining hand upon
her dress. " I must speak to you." Then lowering her voice,
as if she feared the child might hear and understand—" There
326 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
was something you were going to tell me just now ! Well, do
not tell me; I do not want to hear. But if—if it is a question
of right or wrong, do not ask me—ask Daisy. You do not
understand me ? This is what I mean," she goes on in a strong
and urgent voice, "put your arms round Daisy's neck, look
into Daisy's face, and if you have done any wrong to anyone,
if you are not yet sure yourself what is right and what is wrong
—you will be sure then."
It is a woman's test—a sentimental, a foolish one, if you will,
but, after all, a true one.
For a minute Psyche stands hesitating, palpitating. Then
with a sudden movement she stoops and gathers the child up
into her strong young arms, and holds her to her heart.
" Mamsey not go away," says Daisy, coaxingly. " Mamsey
stay and p'ay with Daisy."
"No, no; Mamsey won't go away—never again!" cries
Psyche, with a sort of sob, in her voice; " she will stay with
her darling. She will never go away—never any more."
Then seeing the child looks half-frightened at this strong
embrace, she lets her down to her feet, and takes her little hand
in hers.
"Come," she says brightly, "we will go and play; we will
make daisy-chains—such long chains for darling to jump over.
We will be so happy; we will forget everything—every one."
And in a little while Dolly, sorely puzzled, hears them
laughing and shouting among the long grasses in a meadow
near by, and it seems to her that Psyche's laugh is as joyous
as the child's.
A few minutes later Sir John, coming out of the house, joins
her.
"All alone, Dolly?" he asks cheerfully, taking the seat
Psyche has vacated. Where are Psyche and the child? "
" Listen !" she answers, putting up her finger.
"Playing, as usual," he says after a moment, during which
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 327
the merry voices have reached his ears. " I think sometimes,"
with a smile, "the mother is the greatest baby of the two.
She did not have much play when she was a child, did she,
Dolly ? Well, she shall have as much as she likes now —
God bless her!"
He takes out a cigarette, and lighting it, leans back in
thoughtful silence. There is between these two one of those
friendships which will permit two people to be perfectly silent
in each other's company without being either bored or morose.
"Dolly," he asks at length, "have I kept my promise?
Have I made her happy !"
An hour ago she would have answered him with perfect
assurance. If now she prevaricates, it is one of those prevari-
cations which even to a good woman may seem justifiable.
"I am sure that she has everything in the world that a
woman could desire," she answers heartily. "How can she
help being happy ? "
" At first," he goes on thoughtfully, holding his cigarette in
the air, and speaking to himself as much as to her, " I could
not be sure that I had succeeded. With all the will in the
world I could not be such a companion to her as you had
been. I knew she missed you; and though she never com-
plained, it went to my heart to see her looking so dull; but "—
his voice clearing, his face brightening, " but when the child
came I had no more fears. She was a changed creature—the
blank in her life seemed filled up. And though I knew, though
I could not fail to know that her greatest love was for her
baby, and not for me, I did not complain; I did not even wish
it otherwise; the great point was gained. She was happy."
And to this Dolly answers nothing; what, indeed, can she
say? Even if she were to perjure herself to please him, and
to assure him that his wife's greatest love was for him, he would
not believe her. But he does not seem to notice her silence.
He is evidently pursuing his own thoughts.
"It seemed a strange thing, did it not," he continues presently
m unspotted Prom The world,
" that Adrian Darrell should die only one month after our
marriage, and that man," with a bitter emphasis, " should so
soon have come into the possession of the money for which he
had sacrificed her ? It was one of those perverse freaks of
fortune which one cannot foresee or calculate upon."
Then the hardness and bitterness, without which he cannot
even yet speak of his rival, change again into tenderness as his
thoughts revert to his wife.
" It was hard on her; yes, it was certainly hard on ker," he
says, with a gentleness that seems to Dolly the perfection of
unselfishness; " but I never saw in her manner a sign of regret.
She was, I think, more gentle, more tender to me just then, as
if she would not have me suppose she was sorry she had married
me. I think—I believe, that when she renounced him that
day, one week before our wedding, she put him out of her life
for ever."
A little while ago Dolly would have answered him with all
the strong and reassuring words at her command. But now—
some terrible doubt holds her speechless.
It must be one of the hardest trials of those good un-
married women, who, being unmarried, and therefore supposed
to have no particular joys or sorrows of their own, they are
invariably made the recipient of other people's. In Dolly's
case it is doubly hard.
" Dolly," he says presently, dropping his voice, " do you
know that Darrell is down here now ? that he has been here
for the last month ? "
She shakes her head. No; she had not known it. But the
fact, thus suddenly revealed, gives to her vague fears a sub-
stantial foundation they had not possessed before.
"He has been here many times before," he goes on quickly,
finding, no doubt, an immense relief in this confidence to one
who is already possessed of all his secrets, "and each time he
has had his house full of visitors. It was impossible to shut
one's ears to all the stories about them; the county was
UNSPOTTED FPOM THE WORLD. 329
ringing with them. I suppose that we all knew pretty well
what to expect from the Darrells. They have never been
conspicuous for their virtues, but this one has out-Heroded
Herod. He and his friends, their gambling, drinking, and
riotous living, have been pleasant themes for country gossip
for many a day, and yet," his voice rising, " this one thing I
will say for him. He has never, so far as I can find out,
attempted to speak to Psyche, or in any way to approach her
since the day of her marriage. I will do him that justice."
"Surely," says Dolly, falteringly, "he would never dare "
" No," he interrupts quickly; " he would not dare, and if
he had, I am sure—quite sure—that if she had been tempted
to break the promise she made me before our marriage, she
would have told me; but all the same, Dolly, I wish, with all
my heart I wish, that he would go away. I cannot help feel-
ing that the knowledge of his presence must be disquieting to
her."
In the silence which follows this last speech of his, Dolly
endures one of those moments of torturing indecision which
seem to comprise the sufferings of a lifetime.
How can she leave him unwarned, when she knows, when
she feels that his assurance is misplaced ? On the other hand,
how can she betray a half-given confidence, which, even if
wholly given, should be wholly sacred, and suggest a doubt
which may become a torture ?
But the necessity to speak becomes too strong to be re-
sisted.
"If—if he will not go away," she begins falteringly, hesi-
tatingly, "why should not you go ? A change would do Psyche
and the child good. They say it has been an unhealthy
summer, and "
" Go away !" he interrupts, in undisguised amazement,
looking at her with a sort of scorn. " Go aivay /—as if I
were afraid of him or of my wife? Then more gently.
"What could possibly make you suggest such a thing, Dolly? "
330
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
She finds it hard to meet his searching look, harder still to
answer. But fortunately, or unfortunately, she is spared any
further questions. The merry voices approach more nearly,
and Psyche, laughing, flushed, dishevelled, bearing her child
in her arms, deposits her on her father's knees, a little heap of
rosy limbs and tumbled garments, and sinks, tired and pant-
ing, on the ground at their feet.
It is a pretty picture—so pretty an one that it seems to
Dolly that it must be "her own bad thoughts that have made it
possible for her to imagine that any serpent could enter what
seems so near to an earthly Paradise.
CHAPTER II.
Seven days have passed—seven burning, sultry, almost un-
bearable days—seven breathless and more unbearable nights.
The grass on the lawns and in the meadows is parched and
withered; the leaves on the trees are already brown and dust-
laden; the flowers are hanging their heads and seem crying
aloud for the rain which does not come. The sun is burning
like a fiery ball in a heavy and cloudless sky; and there is not
a breath of air that is strong enough to stir one of the droop-
ing leaves of the drooping trees.
Yet Psyche is hurrying along a path that is nearly a mile
away from her own pleasant home, and though she chooSes
the shadiest and quietest way it is rather from the instinct to
hide herself, knowing her errand an unworthy one, than from
any desire to spare herself one of the scorching rays of the
afternoon sun.
For of heat and fatigue she is at the present moment alto-
gether unconscious. Whatever their after-effects may be, she
is not even aware of them now. Crumpled up in her pocket
is a letter that is carrying her to a spot she has visited before
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 331
—a letter that had reached her by that morning's post, passing
unseen or unnoticed among her other letters, and whose every
word is engraven deep in her mind.
This is how it runs :
"Why did you not come the other day, as you promised?
Each day I have waited in the same place, hoping against
hope. I will wait once more, and if you do not come to me I
must come to you. I will not go away without seeing you.
After all, why should I be treated worse than any other of
your friends ? If I do not see you this afternoon I will come
and run the chance of a cold reception."
This is what is taking her to a meeting that she swears to
herself, that she swears to her God, shall be the very last with
the man who was once her lover. It is not love, it is fear—
cold, cowardly fear.
A dozen times in the course of the day has she been on the
point of showing the letter to her husband or to Dolly, and
each time has her courage failed her. Certainly it is not
such an one as any woman would willingly show to either
husband or sister. She knows—and it is this knowledge that
has turned her coward—that it is such a letter as no man
would have dared to write to a woman who had been alto-
gether true and honest.
Just seven days ago, with her arms round her little child's
neck, she had vowed to herself that never again, so long as
she lived, would she break the promise she had solemnly
made to her child's father; and now, doubting, sickening,
hesitating, changing her mind a hundred times, she has at last
settled it to this. It it better to go to him, it is better to
feel herself treacherous and wicked than to run the risk of his
keeping his threat, and so destroying the peace which has
existed between herself and her husband for four years.
Whether he would have kept it or not she cannot tell. She
only knows that she cannot live, cannot breathe with such a
fear hanging over her head. There shall be no meeting
332 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
between Darrell and Sir John if any doing of hers—even
though it be wrong-doing—can prevent it.
Flushed, hurrying, trembling, she arrives near the spot where
she expects to see him.
It is the quietest and most sequestered place for miles
round, and—all woods being very much like each other—it
bears a strong resemblance to the one where they used to
meet when they were really lovers.
He is there before her, and being tired of waiting, has thrown
himself on the ground, and is lying as still as though he were
asleep.
But at the first sound of her light footsteps on the soft turf
he starts to his feet, and comes to meet her with the very
smile, the very look, that had once seemed to her the pleas-
antest in all the world. But she no longer feels any gladness
in them.
" How good of you to come! " he cries joyously, stretching
out his hands to her.
She puts her hands behind her back.
" No," she says resolutely. " I will not pretend to be glad
to see you. I have come because you compelled me—for no
other reason."
Then all the anger and the misery that have been growing
and swelling in her heart throughout the livelong day burst
into speech. Four years of alsolute unbounded indulgence
—four years in which every little trouble has been smoothed
from her path, every whim, however foolish, gratified—have
not taught her to think less of herself, nor given her much
practice in the art of self-control.
" How dared you send me such a letter ? " she asks passion-
ately, stamping her foot. " How dared you ? Did you want
to ruin me ? Did you want my husband to see it ? I believe
you did—upon my word I believe you did."
His face darkens ominously.
"Blame yourself," he says, with the old sulkiness she knows
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 333
so well, and which once she dreaded, but dreads no more.
" If you had kept your promise I should not have done it.
You drove me to it."
"My promise!" she repeats with a bitter laugh. "What
right have you to talk about promises ? Have you not made
me break the most sacred one I ever made in all my life ? "
"It was a promise that you should never have given," he
says with bitter anger; "that no one but a fool or a tyrant
would have thought of exacting from you. After all, what
have I asked of you, or what have you given to me ? The
few poor words of common friendliness that you would ex-
change with the most ordinary acquaintance. He must blame
himself if I have been compelled to seek them secretly.
What have I done," he continues passionately, "that I may
not be allowed even to speak to you ? Cannot he who has
everything— all that I most crave for — spare me that
much ? "
His tone, his look, move her greatly. Her anger begins to
die, and with it her firmness and resolution.
" I know," she says wearily, pushing the loose hair from her
flushed face, " that there are times when evil seems like good,
and good like evil. I never was good at arguments—never;
but I am sure, quite sure, that it cannot be right to break a
promise that has been solemnly given—that it cannot be right
to do secretly what I should not dare to do openly."
Then as he does not immediately answer, finding it hard,
perhaps, to upset this simple code of right and wrong :
"How is it," she continues more passionately, "that you
have always, each time you came across my life, brought me
trouble and unhappiness, while he" her thoughts reverting to
her husband with a new tenderness, " has never done anything
but try to make me happy ? And I was happy. Yes ; I was;
but now," clasping her hands and bursting into tears, "I am
wretched—most wretched! Do you remember the day when
I told you that I had not a secret from him ? Well, I shall
334
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
never be able to say that again—never, so long as I live, and
it is you that I have to thank for it."
"You were not happy," he cries fiercely, anger and jealousy
driving him mad. "I will swear that you were not! I will
not believe it. No woman who marries a man she does not
love can be."
They are cruel words, and he knows it; or if he had not
known it before, her look would tell him how surely they have
pierced the weak point in her armour.
" Love!" she repeats vaguely, looking about her, and
trembling; "I do not know what love is; it appears to me
that you find it only an excuse for cruelty."
"No," he says hotly; " you do not know what love is. If
you did you would understand why I wanted to see you, why
I would have risked my soul even to hear your voice, to look
into your face, while you cannot risk even the chance of your
husband's displeasure ; you would understand what it is to live
for four years—four whole years—without seeing the one
person for whose presence, for whose look you have craved
and longed as a man dying of thirst longs for a drop of water.
Good God ! " he cries passionately, folding his arms, and look-
ing at her with a terrible smile on his white lips. " Is there any-
thing in the whole world so pitiless as a really good woman?"
So saying, he turns away, hiding his face from her.
There is a long silence. Then trembling, faltering, she
approaches him, and lays her hand on his arm. Pity—great
and tender pity—which, though it may be near to love, is not
love—has been after all the one feeling that has been strong
enough to make her forget her promise, forget her duty, and
meet him here before. It moves her now to some appearance
of tenderness.
" Why should not you be happy?" she says quite gently,
forgetting herself, forgetting even the risk she is running.
" There is no reason you should not be; you have everything
that a man can want "
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
335
"Everything?" he asks, lifting his haggard face, and looking
straight at her. How changed he is ! She sees it now, as
she has never seen it before. Four years of reckless living,
of feverish dissipation seem to have obliterated all the good
that was once so possible in him, all the brightness and gene-
rosity of nature that had once made even his faults so pardon-
able. There are lines in his forehead and about his eyes, and
a depression at the corners of his lips, that gives even to his
laughter something of the appearance of a sneer. " Ever)'-
thing ! " he repeats with yet stronger emphasis. " After all,"
changing his tone, " why should I wonder at you for saying
what is only what I have so often said to myself? When I
came into the title and the money I told myself that I had
all that a reasonable man could desire. Why should I make
myself wretched because one woman had chosen to forget me ?
There were plenty more in the world—plenty," with a bitter
sneer, " who would be willing enough to love me, so long as
I possessed the most potent of all attractions. Do you think,"
he continues fiercely, " that I wanted to remember you—that
I have not tried to forget you ? "
She does not answer. Her face, from which the colour of
heat and anger has almost entirely fled, turns paler yet—her
eyes are downcast, fixed on the ground—avoiding his.
" I have tried—tried my best," he continues with a dogged
and reckless sincerity that seems real enough. "No one,"
with a hard and bitter laugh that has some shame in it, " can
say that I have not done my best to amuse myself—and after
four years, during which I have spent my time, my health, my
money, in what men call pleasure, I find myself without a
friend who would not forsake me to-morrow if I were to
become a beggar, and no woman in all the world who loves
me for myself alone. I swear to you that there is more
temptation for me in a laudanum-bottle than for the poor
wretch who has not a penny in the world."
It is the reckless speech of a reckless man, yet it cannot fail
336
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
to awake the compassion of the woman who once loved
him.
" Why do I care for you so much ?" he continues with the
outspokenness of unrestrained passion. "I do not know; I
never knew how much I loved you until I lost you."
But there is in these words a certain hard truth that brings
her to herself. She remembers—even though she has been
touched to the heart by his misery and self-abandonment—
that once he had cared more for himself than for her.
" I am sorry for you," she says compassionately, and yet
with a certain coldness that sets compassion far apart from love;
il I wish with all my heart you were happier, and yet "
" And yet," he cries^ catching up her words, " you will not
move a hair's-breadth beyond the hard and fast line, that you
call duty, to show that you are."
There is a silence, during which they stand looking into
each other's pale faces, and it would be difficult to say which
looks the most miserable.
"Psyche," he says suddenly, coming a step nearer, and
speaking in a dull changed tone from which all emotion seems
forcibly suppressed ; " I know that this is the last time we shall
ever see each other. If we meet again, which is unlikely
enough, it will be as strangers who have no right to exchange
more than commonplace words. But before you go—before
we part for ever—I want you to believe, I want you to under-
stand that when I first sought you out—for I did seek you out,
and it was not altogether by accident that I first saw you here
—it was with no hope, no intention of making you forget what
you call your duty."
" What I call my duty," she echoes, stung into self-assertion
by this repetition of the words. " Can there be any doubt
about it ? " Then with the honesty that has always been her
best point: " If I -wext your wife should you like me to meet
in secret a man to whom you had forbidden me to speak,
either openly or in secret ? "
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 337
He flushes a little under this direct question.
" I may question his right to forbid you to speak to me or
to anyone," he answers more warmly. "But that has nothing
to do with it; all that concerns me is your own view of the
matter, and I want you to understand that I never meant to
make you unhappy, and since it does make you unhappy, I
will never attempt to see you or speak to you again."
The struggle, such as it was, is over, the victory hers, and
yet she does not thank him. She looks at him wistfully, with
eyes so full of sympathy that he could not be blamed if he
fancied in them some tinge of regret.
" When first I tried to find you," he continues in the same
repressed tone, avoiding her glance, " I was only conscious of
a strong desire to see you once again, and since," with a bitter
smile, " my wishes have always been to me a stronger power
than my sense of duty—I did see you. If—if I had found
you different, if you had given me any reason to believe
you loved me still, I cannot say what I might have hoped
or dreamt; but, at any rate, even if I had any such dreams,
they died at the first moment of seeing you. You are a good
woman \ and, even though I have lost you for ever, I am able
to thank heaven that you are."
If she were a good woman, as he has called her, she would
perhaps find it necessary to upbraid him for these poor words
of his, which she knows should never have been spoken to her ;
but being neither altogether good nor bad, but only entirely
natural, they touch her to the heart—for once she had loved
him.
" Some day," he goes on in the same quiet tone of absolute
renunciation, " I shall be able to thank heaven with a better
grace than I do now; I shall think of you in your quiet home,
as something absolutely apart from the rest of the world. It
will be a good thing, even for a man like me, to have known
one woman who was different from all the rest."
Then he comes a step nearer.
Y
338 Unspotted from the world.
" We are going our different ways now, Psyche ; I will never
of my own free will speak to you again. Will you say good-
bye?"
She stands faltering, shaken to the depths of her impulsive,
sympathetic nature by the tenderness and sorrow of his look
and voice.
" Say good-bye," he says, in lower tones; " say it kindiy
as you used in the old days. Put your hands in mine—it is
for the last time, dear—and say 1 Good-bye, Cecil.'"
He takes her cold white hands, and holding them draws her
to him; but she cannot speak; Standing there, both hands
in his, she thinks of her husband—her child. If they could
see her now !—Even those two words seem a treachery.
" What!" he cries, suddenly loosening his hold of her;
you grudge me even that much ? Then go—go and leave me."
He turns away as he speaks ; and at the sight of him gone
for ever, that weakness or sympathy of nature which has led
her so often to do what she afterwards repents—leads her once
more to approach him.
" Good-bye," she says almost in a whisper. " Try to be
happier—try "
But whatever she has intended to say, she does not say it.
He turns once more at the sound of her voice, and taking
her outstretched hands kisses them gently, and then drawing
her quickly to him, lays his lips on her forehead.
It is a kiss of absolute renunciation, such a kiss as a man
might press on the dead face of a woman he had once loved.
Such a kiss as no man, even a husband, could find much fault
with.
And yet as she turns away without another word, retracing
her steps, it seems to oppress her with a sense of absolute
guilt.
She is going home—going back to that safe shelter which
seems to her as a very haven of rest after the stormy scene
through which she has just passed.
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
339
She longs to be there, with a longing which only they who
are weary and heavy-laden with a sense of guilt or wrong can
altogether understand.
Vividly, with a sense of actual reality, she pictures the scene
which will greet her—the loving words, the tender looks which
have always welcomed her after ever so short an absence.
If they knew, if they could have been witnesses of that
which has just passed, would they love her still, believe in her
still?
Sickening, faltering, she goes more slowly, with steps that
grow weaker and weaker. The heat of the day—the inevitable
reaction from strong emotion—are beginning to tell upon her.
No woman coming from a guilty tryst with her lover could be
more conscious of her own wrong-doing than she who has
really meant to do no wrong. As a matter of fact no really
guilty woman would feel it half so much.
And though she knows—though her experience cannot fail
to teach her—that retribution does not most often overtake
those who most deserve it, she is sure—quite sure—that some-
how, some way—she cannot tell how—she will have to pay
for the one small step out of the path of absolute right which
she has taken this day.
*****
The scene which greets her as she approaches her home
is in fact very much what she had pictured to herself.
Dolly and Sir John are sitting on the lawn with a little tea-
table, daintily spread with her own pretty Sevres tea-service,
near to them. On the grass at their feet Daisy is playing with
her toys.
For one second, standing there and gazing at them, she
realises what might be the feeling of a woman who had for
ever sacrificed her right to return to her home—a woman who
had placed such a barrier of wrongdoing between herself and
those who loved her and were dependent on her that no re-
pentance could overpass. She thinks of a story she has lately
340 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
heard of one whom she had known and liked, and who one
morning had left the husband with whom she had lived happily
for many years, and her young children; and she knows—
from the depths of her heart she knows—that whatever happi-
ness may come to that woman in her new life, the unhappiness
must so far surpass it that even they who most condemn her
might more rightly pity her—that there must be days and
hours in which she hears her children crying for her—pictures
the empty place in her deserted home
With a sudden sob she presses her hand to her heart, and
thanks God—not that she is better than other women are, but
that He has not let her be tempted above that she was able ;
that between her and those she loves and who believe in her
and love her with all their tender hearts there stands no barrier
of real wrong-doing. And yet, as she stands there with tear-
softened eyes and heaving breast, she suddenly recalls certain
words of Lady Conynghame's—cruel words which she has
never forgotten—never will forget.
" It is a very good thing to be innocent, but it is still better
to appear so/'
And she knows that between her and her husband, who has
so generously trusted her, there lies a secret—a broken confi-
dence—and that even if he would believe the real truth
about it, he would in his own absolute integrity find it difficult
to forgive, impossible to forget.
And a secret, even a small one, is no light thing for a
woman, so honest as she is, to be compelled to carry always.
But she brushes the tears from her eyes, and compelling
herself into an appearance of composure, goes forward ; and
at the first sound of her footsteps on the gravel-path, Daisy
looks up, and catching sight of her mother, throws down
her toys, and with a little shrill cry of joy rushes into her
arms.
For one moment—only one moment—Psyche shrinks from
her • for one moment she feels almost as if she has forfeited
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 341
her entire right to those innocent kisses which her child is
pressing upon her lips 3 then she gathers her up in her arms,
and returns them with a passionate fondness in which all the
emotions of the past hour seem to find expression.
" Mamsey come back! me got Mamsey!" cries Daisy
triumphantly, hugging her tightly with her warm little arms.
But Psyche does not complain of the tightness of the embrace.
"Where have you been, dear?" says Sir John, putting
down his paper and looking at her with a smile of welcome.
Then, not waiting for an answer: " Come and pour out the
tea. We have been waiting for you—have not we, Dolly ? "
The perfect confidence which neither desires nor demands
any excuse for her comings and goings seems the keenest re-
proach for her abuse of it.
She seats herself, and with the child still on her lap begins
with a trembling hand to do as he has bidden her3 and if she
is more silent than usual they do not appear to notice it.
Daisy's prattle fills up all conversational gaps, and gives her
time to overcome the first sense of guiltiness which their very
quietude and confidence seems to make more oppressive.
She hardly knows what they talk about, or how well or how
badly she bears her part either in answering or originating re-
marks 3 but nothing is said that in any way fixes her attention,
until Sir John, drawing out of his pocket a letter that has
been already opened, turns and addresses himself directly to
her. •
" Blake cannot come to dinner this evening, Psyche," he
begins, a little hesitatingly. " The fact is, the fever is so bad
in the village, and he has been visiting so many cases that he
thinks—though there is no real fear of his bringing the infec-
tion here—you might be afraid of him."
There are only two words in this speech which attract
Psyche's notice.
" The fever !" she repeats, looking straight at \\im f jr tl;e
fir§t time—" what fever ?"
342 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
"It seems," he answers slowly, "that they have some sort
of fever very badly among the poorer cottages. It is of a
diphtheric kind—beginning with sore throat, and ending—"
But he does not say how it ends. He lifts his eyes and re-
gards her anxiously. " I have not let anyone tell you before
lest you should alarm yourself about Daisy. I know how
easily you are frightened."
She sits quite still, clutching her child tighter to her heart,
with a face grown suddenly pale.
"Is it a bad fever?" she asks presently. "Has anyone
died of it ? "
"Yes," he admits unwillingly; "there are already some
deaths. You see, the drought and the heat have been all
against them, poor souls, and among those who live in little
rooms, with little air, and small chance of escaping from each
other, it has spread rapidly."
" Have any children died ?" she asks in a sudden shrill
voice of extreme fear.
" Yes."
She looks in her child's face, drawing a long hard breath
that is almost a sob. Then of a sudden she looses her hold
of her, and placing her on the ground, goes over to her hus-
band and lays her hands on his arm.
"John," she says breathlessly, "let us go away; let us go
at once! Whether it seems foolish to you or not, do it, be-
cause it is my wish; because I cannot live or breathe while
there is any danger for Daisy !"
" My dear," he answers kindly, taking her hands and draw-
ing her to him ; "believe me, there is none. Keep the child
within our gates if you will. Do not let her go into the
village, and there cannot be the slightest fear of infection.
We must not run away because others are in trouble. We
must do what we can to help them. Do you think," he con-
tinues urgently with the strong assurance of a man, whose
conscience being good, and whose heart brave, cannot even
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
343
understand these cowardly fears, "that / would let our darling
run any risk ? There are sicknesses everywhere. Ten
chances to one if we ran away we should run into greater
danger."
She does not answer. She tries no more to persuade him.
She withdraws her hands from his and goes back to her child*
Perhaps his perfect confidence has reassured her; perhaps
she understands that it is only her overwrought state of
morbid consciousness that has made any danger seem possible.
At any rate she speaks no more of it.
But all that evening she is very quiet and still.
CHAPTER III.
Four days have passed, and nothing having happened to give
any groundwork for Psyche's fears, they are dying a natural
death.
Though Sir John and Dolly have both been longing to be
personally among those that are suffering, they have been
obliged to content themselves with sending gifts of wine, and
food, and money, abstaining from any actual contact with
them, out of consideration for Psyche's not unnatural nervous-
ness; but from the tidings which constantly reach them they
know that the fever is slackening, and appears to be already
yielding to the active treatment of kindly hands and kindly
hearts. At any rate there are no fresh victims reported.
But the heat of the weather has in no way abated. There is
not a breath of air indoors or out, and at last, having tried all
places and found comfort in none, Dolly and Psyche have
betaken themselves to the shadow of the big cedar-tree on the
lawn, and are sitting with uncovered heads in their coolest
gowns, trying to endure it as b>est they may. Even the child,
whose active little limbs seem so seldom weary, is lying on the
344 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
grass with her picture-books around her, unusually quiet and
still.
Psyche's spirits, naturally good, have regained very much of
their ordinary tone. Her remorse and her fears have already
began to dwindle into infinitesimal proportions, allayed into
security by these four days of unbroken calm, during which
her life has gone back so entirely into its ordinary grooves.
She has almost forgotten Darrell; she has almost persuaded
herself that her fear of the fever was an unnatural and foolish
one.
She has quite cheerfully and contentedly already repeated
six times over, at Daisy's bidding, such homely nursery rhymes
as lie at the command of her memory, and is just about to
begin them for the seventh time when Sir John appears in the
distance.
" Papa! " cries Daisy, instantly discarding her books and
running to meet him.
If there is anything strong and stern about this man, any-
thing that has made it seem possible to Psyche to be afraid of
him, it has certainly never shown itself in his manner to his
child. From the first hour of her birth he has been her tender
and devoted slave.
He picks her up in his arms now and comes over to where
they are sitting, still holding her. But as he seats himself by
them it is apparent both to Psyche and Dolly that he has an
air of gravity and abstraction that has not of late been usual
to him.
" Is anything wrong ? " asks Psyche, looking at him with
some sort of fear.
"Nothing that much concerns us," he answers with an in-
difference which she knows in an instant is a studied and not
a real one.
" What is it?" she asks quickly, her fears growing rapidly—
more at his look than his words.
" I have just seen Dr. Dickenson, and he tells me there is a
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 345
fresh case of fever," he says with some hesitation ; " and as it
proves that it is not confined to the village, I was afraid you
might feel some alarm."
There is a moment's silence.
" Who is it ? "
It is Dolly who asks the question, not Psyche.
" It is Darrell," answers Sir John, looking at her, not at his
wife. " It appears he has been sickening for some days, but
he has only just now sent for Dickenson, who has no doubt
it is the fever."
And in a second, though he is not looking at her, he sees
that his wife has sprung to her feet and is standing with arms
distended, trembling from head to foot, and pale as death
itself.
" Afehas the fever ! " she cries in a voice that has grown
suddenly shrill. "No, no ! you are joking ! It is impossible
—it cannot be true ! Surely, surely," looking around her with
a sort of entreaty, " he, of all people, is most unlikely to have
it!"
Sir John looks at her steadfastly with a face that grows
suddenly hard and cold.
" You need not be alarmed," he says with a most bitter
smile. "It is a very mild case. He is not likely to
die."
But she does not answer him, does not even hear him ; for
at that moment the child, seeing something strange in her
mother's face, and divining that she is in need of comfort,
slips from her father's knees and runs with outstretched arms
towards her.
And Psyche, looking at her with a sort of horror, does a
terrible and unexpected thing. She pushes her from her so
roughly that Daisy falls to the ground, and then, without turn-
ing or waiting to lift her up, without one other word or look
she rushes away from them into the house.
And Sir John, raising the child and holding her tenderly in
346 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
his arms while he wipes away her tears, turns and looks at
Dolly.
But she can find no answer to that look.
And Psyche, having gained her own room, locks the door
and stands breathless, panting, looking wildly around her.
Then she begins with fevered, trembling hands, whose
very haste impedes their progress, to tear off her gown.
It is made of some thin, creamy-coloured material; and it
is, as chance will have it, the very one that she had worn on the
day that she had last seen Darrell. He had touched it—and
coming straight from him she had clasped her child and held
her pressed against it.
That is enough for her. Not all the reasoning—not all the
arguments of all the doctors in the world would in that
moment of supreme maddening fear convince her that through
her folly and guilt her child has not run a chance of infection
that it sickens her even to think of. Reason and judgment
have no power over her at this moment. This one overmaster-
ing fear has taken possession of her.
Having torn off her gown, she looks about her for means of
destroying it. The hearth is swept and garnished, as summer-
hearths are, and ornamented with a pretty screen of peacock's
feathers. In a moment she has dragged this away, bundled
up her gown into a little heap in the empty grate, and set fire
to it.
Not until it blazes up, filling all the room with a stifling
smoke, does she understand what she has done, and how
impossible it will be to accomplish her work of destruction
unobserved. She runs to the windows, and throws them wide
open ; 'but though the air is not strong enough to carry away
the clouds of smoke, there is sufficient to fan the thin material
into a blaze that flares up and threatens to set fire to every-
thing surrounding it.
With a burning face—with trembling weakened hands, she
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 347
tries with all her might to press it down with the shovel; and
she is still bending over it, engaged in a hand-to-hand struggle
with the flames, when she hears a knock at the door. At
first she disregards it, but it is repeated again and again.
" Who is it? " she calls out in a harsh, strange voice.
" It is I—Dolly. Let me in ! Psyche, Psyche, let me in
for pity's sake ! "
Thus adjured, she staggers to her feet, and going to the
door, unlocks it, admits Dolly, and then again locks it after
her.
"Now, what is it?" she asks with wild, angry eyes.
" What do you want ? Cannot you leave me a moment alone ?
Who sent you to come prying after me ? "
They are words which once spoken can never be recalled.
Cruel words, which she will never forget to the end of her
life.
But Dolly puts them aside.
"What is the matter with you? What have you been
doing ? Oh Psyche, how you have frightened me !"
" I have been burning something. What business is it of
yours?" begins Psyche fiercely. Then of a sudden the
blaze leaps up afresh. " Oh Dolly ! " changing her tone to
piteous entreaty, " help me—help me to put it out! "
Without another word, good or bad, Dolly lends herself to
the emergency of the occasion; and having succeeded in re-
ducing the fire to a smouldering heap of ashes, she goes to the
wardrobe, and taking out a thick cloak, she lifts into it the
still hot and smouldering remains of Psyche's pretty gown,
and smothering them down, covers it over and over.
Then when she has, as best she can, swept up the hearth,
replaced the screen, and nothing remains of the fire but a dense
smoke which it will take many hours to disperse, she turns,
and with a scorched face and burning eyes faces her sister.
" What made you do it ? " she asks almost passionately.
" Have you gone mad ? "
348
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
" Yes; I am mad," cries Psyche distractedly, putting her
hands on her hot head. " It could do no good to destroy it
now. It has done all the mischief it could do—it is too late,
too late !"
Then she breaks off into sudden, passionate tears, and in
broken words, with bitter self-reproach, falteringly, miserably,
she tells her sister the whole story.
"Dolly, Dolly !" she winds up feverishly, entreatingly, "teU
me—for God's sake, tell me—that you do not think there is
any fear for Daisy ! "
But, for almost the first time in her experience, Dolly fails
to show that entire sympathy which she has so confidently
expected of her.
"For Daisy—no," she says quickly, and with a look that is
full of reproach. " It appears to me that only your own over-
excited fancy could possibly have conjured up any idea of
danger to her. But do not you see—cannot you understand
that there is a far more real danger lying ahead of you than that ?
How is it possible," she continues urgently, and with a rising
voice, " that Sir John, seeing your emotion—your strange looks
and manner on hearing of that man's illness, could help believ-
ing that your fear—your trouble—were for him ? Oh Psyche,
Psyche !" wringing her hands, " if any woman ever did her
best to ruin her own happiness in one minute, you have done
it. It will take years to make him believe in you again."
And at these strong words Psyche, spent and broken by the
struggle through which she has just passed, stands mute and
trembling, sickening at the thought thus suddenly presented to
her, and at the knowledge of her own folly.
And seeing her thus weak and helpless, Dolly abandons her
reproaches. What good can they do now ?—and tries only, as
she has always done, to help her.
" It seems to me," she goes on more quietly but still most
earnestly, " that the best way—the only way—will be to tell
him all the truth. A broken promise will seem a small thing
UNSPOTTED FROM THE W0RLD> 349
to him compared to the fear that must possess him now. He
will believe you—he will forgive you ; I am sure—quite sure—
that he will. Only tell him ! "
But whether her entreaties might have prevailed she cannot
tell. She will never know; for at that moment they hear strong
footsteps in the corridor, and there is a loud and imperative
knock at the door.
And hearing it, Psyche turns pale with fear.
"It is Sir John !" says Dolly firmly, though her face pales
a little too. 44 Go to him and let him in."
But Psyche hesitates still.
44 Go to him ! " Dolly repeats imperatively. 44 What good
can it do to delay ? If you will not, /must."
And thus impelled by a will stronger than her own, Psyche
unlocks the door and admits her husband. He takes a step
or two forward—then he stops, looks around him at the smoky
room, and turns a sharp glance full of vague suspicion from
one to the other.
44 What is the matter ? " he asks quickly, resting his eyes on
Psyche. 44 What have you been doing ? "
His voice and his look are so stern that they frighten her
out of the small amount of self-possession that yet remains to
her.
For the first time in all her life she tells him an untruth.
441 have been burning something 3 papers—letters," she
says wildly, driven to bay. 44 What a fuss everyone makes I
Cannot I be left a minute alone without everyone pursuing
me?"
For a full minute he looks straight at her with a grave and
terrible scrutiny. Then he turns and walks away.
44 You shall be alone as long as you like as far as I am
concerned," he says with a quietude that frightens her still
more. 441 only came to tell you that Mrs. Grahame and her
daughter are in the drawing-room. Go to them or not as you
please."
350
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
And without another word he shuts the door after him.
And Psyche stands silent, realising in that moment the
absoluteness of her own undoing.
"You must go!" says Dolly, rousing her. "Be quick!
Put on a gown—only be quick."
"I cannot!" she cries passionately. "Go and talk
nonsense to two women while my heart is breaking? I
will not!"
" Do you want to make things worse ?" asks Dolly sternly,
though she pities her from the depths of her heart.
And in less time than it has ever taken her to dress before,
Psyche finds herself bustled into a fresh gown, and hurried
out of the room, while Dolly, left alone, picks up the cloak
which contains the remains of the burned one, and looking
stealthily about her, and going as furtively and silently as if
she were disposing of the evidences of some terrible crime,
carries it up to her own room and there hides it away, to be
got rid of at some future time.
# # =* # * ' # # *
For half an-hour, that seems the very longest in all her life,
Psyche sits with her visitors, and when they have taken their
leave, she goes out of the house and looks about her. There
is not a soul to be seen. The chairs where they usually sit on
the lawn before dinner are empty. Neither husband, child,
nor sister are there; there is no one to prevent her from
accomplishing the last crowning act of her folly.
There seems little indeed that is left her to do towards
completing her own unhappiness, but that little she manages to
effect with the fatal completeness which has attended all her
former doings in that direction.
Finding herself altogether unobserved, she hurries bare,
headed down the avenue towards a gate that overlooks the
high road.
It is near seven o'clock, and she knows that the doctor
whose house is close by, always comes home that way and
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 351
about that time, and she has a question to ask' of him, which,
being answered, may set her mind at rest.
It seems to her that she waits a long time before she hears
the sound of a horse's feet, and knows that she has not waited
in vain.
Seeing her standing there he jumps down, throws the reins
to his groom, and comes towards her with a little surprise and
not a little alarm.
"Nothing wrong, I hope, Lady Heathcote?"
" No, no," she says, hurriedly. "But you see," hesitating,
" hearing so much of this fever makes me nervous; and I
wanted to ask you—I wanted you to tell me—is it very
infectious ? "
"Well, yes," he answers, assuming a little of that reserve
with which professional men always answer questions. " It is
certainly infectious."
"Could anyone who had spoken to a person who was sicken-
ing of the fever"—she goes on with an eagerness she no longer
attempts to disguise—"convey it to another? I mean,"
seeing he looks bewildered, " if I, for instance, had been near
someone who was afterwards proved to have the fever, could
I carry it in my clothes to—to anyone else ? "
He looks at her with grave scrutiny.
" That depends on the circumstances," he says slowly.
"If you had been shut up in a room where the fever was
high—it might be possible."
" But in the open air ? " she asks.
" In the open air there is little danger. Come, come, Lady
Heathcote, do not frighten yourself; I assure you the worst
is over. We have only one more case—Sir Cecil Darrell's;
and though it has certainly appeared in an unexpected quarter,
it is a very light one, and he will soon be all right again.
Good evening; and remember there is no cause to alarm
yourself."
He has' said these last words in a loud and cheery voice
35* UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD<
that he thinks calculated to reassure her, and as she turns
away she knows that hers are not the only ears they have
reached. Sir John is coming up the avenue. She sees with
one look at his face not only that he has heard them but
what construction he has placed upon them.
He turns on her a glance of such reproach and misery as
she finds it hard to encounter.
"You had better go home," he says as he passes her.
" Daisy has been asking for you."
She opens her lips—she makes a little movement as if she
would stretch out her hands and stop him. For a moment
it seems to her that she must speak to him, must tell him all;
and then—he goes quietly on, without seeming to notice her \
and fear—a great and overmastering fear of him that has
grown up during this last hour—prevents her from calling him
back.
And the moment has passed—never to be recalled.
On the steps of the house she finds Dolly waiting for her.
" Daisy is wanting you. She will not go to sleep without
seeing you."
" I cannot go to her 1" she cries wildly, passionate misery
overmastering her; then turning round, " Give her my dear
love—hear her say her prayers, Dolly; tell her—tell her—to
say—God bless mother !"
And for the first time in her life Daisy goes to sleep without
her mother's kiss, refusing to be comforted even in Dolly's
tender arms.
CHAPTER IV.
Three more days pass away, and they are certainly the most
miserable that either Psyche, Sir John, or Dolly have ever yet
passed in their lives.
As each morning breaks, bringing with it the same dulness
and depression, the same coldness and estrangement which
t/NSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 353
had made the former one so unbearable, they long with all
their hearts that it were evening; for night at least makes
silence possible, and to talk to each other—to keep up some
semblance of their usual cheerfulness, to hide from each other
and from the little world around them the heaviness and dis-
quietude that make each hour a torment, is perhaps the
hardest task of all.
For they are none of them well versed in that fine art of
keeping up appearances which, to those whose lives are not
truthful or happy, becomes one of the necessities of existence.
And to Sir John, perhaps, it is the hardest of all.
For though, after the first hours of doubt and misery, that
strong sense of justice which was the most conspicuous part of
his character had told him that he had no right altogether to
blame his wife for still seeming to love the man she had once
loved—for betraying so evident an emotion at the tidings of
his illness ; yet the bitterness and the sorrow for the truth
thus rudely forced upon him were too heavy for him to hide—
too heavy almost for him to bear.
Four years of unbroken happiness, during which he had
so fondly hoped, so surely believed, that Psyche had almost
forgotten, and certainly altogether ceased to love, the man
who once so nearly ruined all her life—nay, more, had im-
agined that his own great love had at last won hers and made
her as happy in her married life as he was in his, have made
this sudden disillusionment a thousand times more difficult
to endure. All his heart cries out against it with a bitterness
of revolt that makes it hard to be even just to her—to
remember that she had warned him that she " could not be
sure of herself," and that he had taken the risk upon himself.
Yes; he had taken the risk, and he had tried as surely no
man ever tried to make his wife happy—and he had failed.
But there are other times when the sense of the cruelty and
injustice to himself are almost swallowed up in pity for Psyche.
He still loves her, so tenderly, so unselfishly that, seeing
z
354
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
her pale cheeks and heavy eyes, which each day seem to grow
a little paler and a little heavier, and thinking he understands
their cause, he could almost find it in his heart to wish that he
had never married her, and left her a chance of such happiness
as she has not found with* him. He might wish it altogether
but for that one strong link that still binds them together.
Husband and wife being divided, each clings with yet a
stronger and a stronger love to the child, who seems the only
source of happiness in their miserable and sundered lives.
And if those two who are most concerned find these days
hard to bear, they are not much lighter to the one who,
looking on, and understanding all they are suffering, yet has no
right to interfere. Sometimes it seems to her as if she must
speak, must at any risk break through that miserable coldness
and enstrangement which is separating these two whom she
loves best in the world.
But always, since the day when she had confessed her own
wrong-doings, Psyche has encased herself behind a. wall of
silence and reserve which it seems impossible to break
through; and she who longs so sorely, so tenderly,To bring
them together again has no power to speak one word that will
help either of them.
And yet it may chance that in the time to come they may
wonder how it was possible for them to have counted these
days wholly miserable, a time when these fancied troubles
and wrongs will seem small indeed in comparison to one over-
whelming and irreparable grief. For slowly and yet surely a
great and terrible calamity is advancing towards them. ■
There are certain fears which seem to bring about their, own
completion; no one who has observed life can deny this-.
Ever since the moment when she had first been conscious
of remorse for her own wrong-doing, for that breach of faith
which she knows can never find much excuse in her husband's
eyes, Psyche's fear of retribution has taken but one form.
And strangely enough as it appears to others, not strangely
Unspotted from the world. 355
to her, the evil which she had instinctively and unconsciously
dreaded takes the very form which she had, in some incompre-
hensible way, foreseen and feared. For the child sickens.
But at first her sickness is so slight and creeps upon her wi th
such slow and stealthy steps that it is apparent to no eyes but
her mother's.
She is tired, that is all. She does not play all day with
unwearied, unflagging limbs as she usually does. She does
not laugh so often or so merrily as she usually does. She
doe's not sing quite so gladly or so gaily as she is wont to do.
She is a little more inclined to rest; she lies more willingly
in her mother's arms, listening to the stories of which she
has never wearied before, but of which she sometimes wearies
now. She sleeps a little oftener and more heavily—that is all.
They blame the heat of the weather. They say it is not
wonderful that she should flag a little, since even grown-up
people have found it hard to move or go about their usual
ways. They look up into the burning sullen skies and say it
will be all right when the weather breaks; that the rain which
has been so long in coming must surely come soon, and
then the child will be herself again.
But it is only Psyche who knows—knows that never before,
even in hottest, sultriest days, has the little head drooped,
the little body wearied till bed-time came, and is sure, with a
horrible, sickening fear, that she dares not look in the face, or
acknowledge even to herself, that there is something amiss
with her darling.
For though she has in some way seen this terror approach-
ing her, though she has in moments of wild excitement
acknowledged its possibility, when she finds it absolutely near
to her she shuts the door in its face; she denies it even to
herself; she cannot, she dares not admit that she is afraid,
since that seems admitting the worst. She tries to blind
herself; to believe them when they talk of the weather.
And indeed at this period the heat seems to have reached
350 Unspotted from The wOrlH.
its culminating point; the sky, that for weeks past has had
scarce a fleck upon it, has grown sullen and lurid, heavy with
the presage of storm. Looking up at the gathering masses of
darkening clouds, they long in truth that the storm may come
—long feverishly, pantingly for any change to break the dull
wearisomeness of these terrible days.
And so it happens that on the third one after the announce-
ment of Darrell's illness they are sitting towards evening on
the dry and parched-up lawn.
The child is lying on her mother's lap—not asleep, but
quite quiet, with her head resting on her breast, her limbs
relaxed; and there is something so unusual in her quietude
that it strikes straight to Psyche's heart.
For once Sir John is with them. He has not been much
with them during these last days, and perhaps it is only some
unacknowledged anxiety about the child that has brought him
here to-day. He has taken long walks, he has made different
excuses for his absence; but still they know that even at such
times when he has been compelled to give them his company,
it has been so hard to keep up an appearance of his usual
cheerfulness that he has avoided them as much as possible.
Psyche is silent—quite silent; but Dolly and Sir John are
keeping up, as best they can, a most flagging conversation,
while his looks keep straying wistfully and anxiously to Daisy
and her mother, when of a sudden, sounding clearly and dis-
tinctly through the heavy breathless air, they hear the toll of
the church-bell.
At first they are not any of them sure that it is not only the
striking of the clock; but when the long dull notes sound
slowly, distinctly, solemnly in their ears, they have no longer
any doubt that it is the knell of death.
And though Psyche's face seemed pale enough before, it
turns now of an ashen pallor, to which its former colour was
almost healthy by comparison. Sir John starts to his feet,
and passing Dolly, signs her to follow him.
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
357
.But when she joins him, it seems difficult to him to speak.
" Go back to her," he says in a strange hoarse voice, " and
tell her that it is Mrs. Barker's child that is dead; I heard of
it just now. Did you see," he goes on bitterly, " how pale
she turned? No doubt she fears—she thinks it is Darrell,
Tell her that he is better; he is already out of the fever, and
will soon be well. I knew that she must want to hear—but I
could not tell her myself."
And with that he leaves her, turning his back upon her, and
walking so hastily that it is difficult for her to overtake him.
But a desperate courage gives her strength.
"Stop !" she cries excitedly, pursuing him, and laying her
hand upon him, feeling that silence is no longer bearable.
"You are wrong—you are altogether wrong! Do not you
see—cannot you understand that she is not frightening herself
about him ; but about the child ? "
But he pushes her gently and yet firmly away.
"You are a good woman, Dolly, and you mean well," he
answers with that coldness in which he seems to have
enwrapped himself in these days. " But you know nothing
about it. Let me go, if you please."
And she has no choice but to obey him.
Her one effort, which had required no small courage from
one so loth to interfere as she is, has failed—failed most
miserably, and in the poignancy of her disappointment she
almost loses heart and faith. There seems no hope, no light
in the great darkness that is encompassing them. She goes
slowly back to her seat, and encounters Psyche's anxious eyes.
" What did he say to you ? " she asks in an eager whisper.
" He imagined that you were frightening yourself because
of that terrible bell," answers Dolly in the same low tone.
" He seemed to think that you might fear it was for Cecil
Darrell. He wished me to tell you that he is better and will
soon be well again." She delivers her message with the
utmost repugnance—and yet faithfully,
358
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
"Is he so blind—so terribly blind? " asks Psyche with dull
despair. "Perhaps it is no wonder; perhaps I ought not to
blame him; and yet," looking down at the child with such
love and such misery as pierce to Dolly's heart, "it seems
so strange that he should not understand—does not it ? "
In the silence that follows they hear once more the long-
drawn note of the dull and muffled bell.
It is at all times, even to the happiest of us, a sound of grave
and solemn import. There is not perhaps one of us, even in our
lightest moments, who can hear it quite unmoved. But to
Psyche's heart, already full of fear, each weird and ghastly
knell seems like the loud footfall of an approaching fate from
which there is no escape.
" Who is it that is dead ? " she asks presently, in the same
hollow whisper.
" It is the child of that poor widow—Mrs. Barker—who
lives in the cottage at the end of the village," answers Dolly,
avoiding her eyes ; "you know," she goes on quickly, "she
was always ill and weakly, poor little soul! She seemed too
pretty, too fragile to belong to this world, and," with a long
and heavy breath, " God has taken her."
" Her child—her only little child !" sitting erect with a
sudden passionate cry. " Has God no mercy—no mercy
upon poor mothers ! "
Her voice, her movement arouse Daisy; with a fretful wail
she turns impatiently, and in a moment Psyche controls her-
self, kissing her, soothing her, and smiling on her as brightly
as if her heart had never known what it was to ache and grow
sick for fear. Not until she is quite quiet does she speak
again.
" I should like you to go to that poor woman, Dolly, and
do your best to comfort her," she says in a voice that is terrible
from its evident repression. " There can be no fear in your
going now. You can do no harm to Daisy that I have not
already done to her; and perhaps," lifting her miserable eyes,
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 359
" if we show some pity to others, God will have more pity on
us when our hour comes."
And at this speech Dolly rises from her chair, and going
over to her sister, kneels by her side.
" My dear," she says gently, stroking her hand, " what is it
that you mean ? "
" I mean," she answers, with a sudden, sharp pain breaking
through the dull quietude of her tone, " that Daisy is ill. Are
you all blind that you cannot see it ? "
There is a moment's silence. Something in her tone and
look move Dolly so greatly that she has some difficulty in
speaking calmly.
" I know," she says slowly, " that she seems a little tired;
but is it wonderful—is it at all surprising she should be?
Psyche, dear," one tear quietly rolling down her cheek, and
falling on her sister's hand, " do not frighten yourself. Indeed
—indeed, I believe she will be all right to-morrow."
But Psyche pushes her away.
"You must not cry, Dolly," she says in the same dull voice.
"You are disturbing her. Go away, and if"— pressing her
hand suddenly upon her breast to strangle a rising sob, " if
God hears anyone, He may hear you."
And at the misery and despair of these words Dolly can no
longer contain herself. She rises swiftly and suddenly, and
seeking her own room there breaks into such passionate tears
as she has not shed for many years.
When the morrow dawns Daisy seems, for a little while,
almost herself again. She runs about, she plays with her toys,
she even sings again one of those baby-songs, whose music,
being mute, has made the whole house seem dull.
And it is terrible and pitiful to see how hope once more
springs up in Psyche's heart.
"Look, look!" she cries, grasping Dolly's arm; "she is
playing. Did you hear her laugh just now? Alter all—after
360 UNSPOTTED EROM THE WORLD.
all, Dolly, I have been frightening myself about nothing!
You were right—and I was wrong !"
But towards mid-day, with one of those sudden changes
which may be looked for in children's illnesses, she droops
again, and at dinner-time she turns from her food, complain-
ing that it hurts her ; and when she cries for water it is evident
to those who are looking on that it is difficult for her to
swallow it.
Then Psyche, who has been kneeling beside her, coaxing
her, entreating her with all the wiles and bribes that lie at her
command, rises suddenly to her feet.
" Send for the doctor," she says, turning to her husband
with a look and a voice that they who see and hear will never
forget. " Send for him at once."
He does not send—he goes himself; and in a little while
Dr. Dickenson comes back with him.
The child is in her mother's arms again. The mother has
not spoken one word, except to her child, since she gave that
order, which seemed to acknowledge as an actual fact that
which before had been but a vague dread. He bends over
her, scrutinizing her, touching her now and then, and only
they who have lived through such times as these can know
what it means to this mother and father to see him looking at
their child, waiting for his verdict. He is a clever man,
whom chance—or rather the want of better chances—has
brought to this country village; and being clever he not
only has the power of forming an opinion of the child's
state as readily as any of those to whom better opportunities
have given bigger reputations—but of keeping it to him-
self.
He gives a few easily-followed directions, speaks a few
reassuring words, and when he leaves the room there is
certainly no air of despondency about him.
Sir John leads the way, and it is not until they have
descended the stairs and entered the library that they hear
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
a step behind them, and turning, see that Psyche has followed
them.
" Tell me the truth," she says, quite quietly; " it is no good
to deceive me. It is the fever."
He does not try to evade her question.
" Yes ; I believe it is the fever," he answers gravely.
She throws her arms up in the air with a loud, sharp cry, as
if he had suddenly stuck a knife into her heart.
And in a moment Sir John forgets his coldness, his es-
trangement, and all his doubts of her; and remembering only
her sore trouble, puts his arm around her and draws her to him.
" My darling—my poor darling ! " he says most tenderly.
For one moment she rests in his arms, then she shivers as
if with sudden cold, looks at him with a sort of horror, and
withdrawing herself from him, pushes him away.
If he knew—if he could only guess that it is she—she who
has brought the fever to his child and hers, how would he
look at her then ? The thought turns her sick. She has gone
beyond the reach of reasonable judgment—of calm con-
sideration of probabilities or improbabilities, and she never
for a moment doubts that it is she who by her folly and guilt
has brought this calamity upon them.
If he knew it he would certainly neither hold her in his
arms nor try to comfort her.
She turns from them without another word or look.
" Pray do not alarm yourself," says the doctor, going
quickly to the door, and holding it open for her. " Remem-
ber that out of a dozen who have taken the fever not more
than one has died of it. With good care and nursing we
shall be sure to pull her through,"
She does not answer; but as she passes him she tries to
smile, and the mute and stricken pain of her Iook goes more
nearly to his heart than all the most passionate complaints he
has ever been compelled to encounter.
362
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
CHAPTER V.
And for many days and nights whose hours go by uncounted,
unnumbered, they who best love the child wrestle with that
great enemy who seems trying to take her from them.
And through each terrible day, each more terrible night,
Psyche bears up with a patient and never-failing courage
which to those who are looking on seems the most wonderful
and pathetic thing in all this world.
She never tires—she never complains. She, who has been
always over-ready with complaints, never chary either of
laughter or of tears, finding it as difficult to conceal either
her joys or her sorrows as any little child, bears this one
supreme trial patiently, mutely, and alone.
" Light cares cry out, great ones are dumb." She under-
stands, perhaps, that one word of sympathy, one expression of
her grief might make her break down, and, while Daisy needs
her, she cannot dare to run the risk of that.
The example of David, who—so long as his child lived—
wept, and fasted, and prayed aloud in his agony, but when he
died, washed and anointed his face, and said quietly and
philosophically, " It is well with the child," is not one that the
natural impulse of her heart inclines her to follow.
On the contrary, so long as Daisy wants her, so long as she
can miss her look, her touch, her smile, she is determined that
they shall never fail her. Grief and fear are pushed into the
background, smothered up in her aching heart, subservient to
her child's necessity. But if—ah! that is an if that she has
not as yet contemplated; for though the little one is ill—very
ill—they have not as yet abandoned hope; they have not even
acknowledged that the time may come when such abandonment
may force itself upon them.
The first days of the illness are the most trying ones. To
see the little flushed face lying on the pillow, the hot limbs
tossing to and fro, to hear the constant hoarse wail of a pain
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 363
that has never before touched the childish life, and which she
cannot explain or comprehend—these are things that wring
the hearts of those that are looking on. But when the day
comes when the flush dies into pallor, when the little fevered
body becomes relaxed and quiet, and the cries grow faint and
quiet, they say with moistened eyes and unutterable gladness :
" The fever is passing; she will soon get well now;" and their
fears begin to centre themselves as much on the mother as on
the child. So long as Daisy had needed her so much, while
her cry had been always for her mother—only for her mother
—when she had refused to rest except in her arms, to take
drink or stimulant from any hand but hers, they had not the
heart to try and tear her from her child.
And through all Psyche has never eaten except when they
forced her, never slept except in fitful snatches with her head
on the child's pillow.
"Try to make her rest," says Sir John one day to Dolly,
driven almost to madness by finding that he has altogether
failed. " Cannot you make her? Do not you see that she is
killing herself!"
But when Dolly pushes her entreaties too far she turns on
her with something of that fierceness which even dumb animals
will show when you try to rob them of their young.
" Will there not be plenty of time to sleep and rest when
she is better? " she says, lifting her eyes for one moment from
the little face which they have scarcely left since the beginning
of the illness. " Leave me alone. What does it matter about
me ? I am strong enough. Look at my hand beside hers,"
pointing to the one which holds the little nefveless white hand
of her child. " If wishes could do any good you should wish
that I could give her half my strength."
And after a while they do leave her alone, understanding
that resistance is useless, and worse than useless. At all other
times she is most reasonable, not even allowing her tenderness
to get the better of her judgment. She lets the trained nurse
whom the doctor has insisted on sending to their aid do al
364
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
that is necessary for the child, understanding that she knows
best how it should be done—only resisting when they try, for
one moment, to take her from the room.
They can only look forward longingly, hopefully, to the
time w hen the assurance of Daisy's safety will give her rest.
For as yet the doctor, who has been most unremitting in
his attendance, stealing all hours both from night and day to
devote to this one little child, has never given them any reason
to suppose that their hopes are ungrounded.
" She is strong, and when the fever has passed she will rally
quickly," he says to them again and again, with a cheerfulness
that is not assumed.
But when the fever has passed, and several days follow each
other, bringing no sign of that recuperative power which he
has so confidently expected, it is evident that he grows a little
uneasy.
Looking each day into his face, waiting each day for his
verdict, they cannot but see that it becomes a little less assured,
less honestly confident.
And at last there comes a day when he confesses that he
would be glad if they would seek another opinion.
They, who are not accustomed to illness, do not understand
all that this wish means—that it is a fact tantamount to a con-
fession that he has come to the end of his own resources—and
that, beginning to fear more than to hope, he not unnaturally
desires to shift some of the responsibility of the case on another
man's shoulders.
And though she does not fully realize this, yet even at the
possibility of fear—actual fear—Psyche's heart turns sick and
dead within her.
The awful suspense—the actual certainty that, one way or
another, soon she will know—must know what the end is to be
—make it difficult to breathe, and life becomes like some
terrible trance, some awful nightmare, in which she yet retains
the consciousness that the awakening cannot be far off.
A man who, by his zeal and industry no less than his talent,
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 3S5
has deservedly earned a great reputation is sent for from town,
and in the interval that necessarily elapses before his coming,
they who are looking on with sick and anxious hearts scarcely
dare speak to Psyche, knowing what this waiting must mean
to her.
Sir John's eyes follow her with a wistful tenderness that can
find no expression in words. He has forgotten—or seems to
have forgotten—that he had ever doubted her—ever been
cold to her. In the hour of her trouble she had gone straight
back to that place in his heart which she had hitherto so
securely occupied; and it is her happiness, her relief he craves
for, rather than his own. And in the one all-mastering fear
that has taken possession of them, Cecil Darrell's very exist-
ence is forgotten.
And at last the great man comes, and is brought up to the
sick-room.
There are records in history of certain tender and delicate
women, who in their days of ease and happiness were perhaps
no more courageous than the rest of us, and who yet went
firmly and unflinchingly—without a word or a tear or any
betrayal of weakness—to a cruel and horrible death.
The supremity of fear gives calmness. In this most awful
crisis of her life Psyche is absolutely calm.
While the man, on whose words seem to hang the issue of
life and death, bends over her child, lifts her heavy eyelids,
feels her feebly beating pulse, examines her poor little wasted
body, Psyche stands by—betraying no sign of feeling, save in
her short-drawn heavy breath, her set teeth and clenched
hands, and in the haggard misery of her eyes.
And then he quietly leaves the room with the other doctor.
They stay together in consultation, perhaps not more than ten
minutes in all, but those minutes compass the agony of a
life-time to one at least of those who are waiting.
When they open the door they see someone whom they
who had known Psyche in other days would scarce recognise
for her, leaning against a wall near by.
366 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
When she beckons them to follow her, they are compelled
to obey—and in a moment Sir John and Dolly, who have
heard the opening of the door, join them also.
It is her own little room into which she has led them—the
room which Sir John had fitted up for her on her marriage,
and where her books and treasures, where Daisy's toys and
dolls, and a hundred little things that are eloquent of past
days of love and happiness are scattered about. She seats
herself on a sofa, conscious perhaps that she cannot stand,
and then she turns to the London doctor.
"I want you to tell me, before you go," she says in a
strange, cracked voice, that trembles at every word, " what
you think of her—how soon she will be better ? "
There is a moment's silence—a terrible silence.
" You see, she goes on, with something she means for a
smile on her poor white lips, " we want to be sure that we
are doing what is best for her. We want," her voice rising,
"to hear you say that you are sure she will be all right soon?"
It is certain that the necessities of life must almost daily
compel this man to encounter such scenes as these; but it is
equally certain that being humane by nature he has not yet
hardened himself to them.
He cannot meet her eyes.
" I am sure," he says slowly and gravely, "that Dr. Dicken-
son has done all that can be done for her. Whatever sug-
gestions I can make he will see carried out."
"But," she cries eagerly, passionately—rising to her feet,
but clutching at the sofa for support—" you will, come again,
doctor ; you will come again soon ? "
For the space of a second he hesitates; then—evidently
with the utmost repugnance—he deals his death-blow.
"I would come again," he says very gravely, very com-
passionately, "if I thought it would be any good—but," raising
his eyes and looking at her, "it would be no good."
She stares wildly about her like one who cannot com-
prehend the blow that has stricken her, and then she throws
UNSPOTTED PROM THE WORLD. 367
up her arms with a great and terrible cry, which they who
hear it will never forget.
"No good! no good!" she demands, clutching his hand.
" What is it that you mean ? You cannot mean—no—no ! it
is impossible, impossible ! Doctor, Doctor," falling at his feet
and breaking into passionate weeping, " you are kind, you are
good—you would not tell me—you would not have the heart
to tell me, that you have no hope ? "
He turns from her—he is silent.
" Doctor—dear Doctor—listen to me—look at me—look ! "
laying her hand on her breast and violently repressing her
sobs. "I will be quiet; I will not distress you—only hear
me. You see," with a break in her voice, " she is my child—
my only little child. There are other mothers who have many
children—I have only one—only this one. You have saved
other lives, save hers, and I will pray for you—I will bless
you." Then breaking off, and looking up into his face with
the tears running down her white cheeks : " Do not give her
up. Do not, for God's sake, give her up !"
He gently disengages his hand and lays it compassionately
on her bowed head.
" Poor soul—poor soul! " he says with the tears not far
from his own eyes. " Try and bear it."
She understands him. She rises suddenly to her feet and
stands mute, with her hands clutched against her breast—and
looking about from one to another, and seeing in each the
same look of silent and terrible pity, she throws herself prone
on the ground, and burying her face in her outstretched arms,
abandons herself to her misery. The pain, the fear, the
suspense of these past days have broken their bounds at last,
and can no longer be held under control.
"Let her be—let her be!" says the doctor as Sir John
tries to raise her, to speak to her; and without another word,
knowing indeed that since he cannot speak the one she desires
of him all others will be useless, he turns away, followed by
Dr. Dickenson. At the door he speaks once more to Sir John.
368
Unspotted from The world.
Remember," he says in a low voice, " I do not say there is
no hope; no one can say that. But it appears to me the child is
sinking and has little strength to rally. I should be wrong to
give you much encouragement."
They touch each other's hands mutely, and the door shuts.
They are alone.
For a little while both Sir John and Dolly do as he bade
them. They leave her to herself—only listening to the terrible
sobs that seem to wring their hearts.
Then he can bear it no longer. He kneels by her side,
gently stroking her poor ruffled hair.
" Dear," he says very tenderly, in a voice broken and
struggling with emotion, "do not cry so; you are breaking
my heart. God gave our darling to us. Perhaps, after all,
He may have pity on us and not take her away."
But she is past all comfort.
"God has no pity," she wails, moaning and writhing like
one in actual bodily pain. " He cannot hear; or, at any rate,
He will not hear meT
To these terrible words he can find no answer. He kneels
by her, caressing her with a touch of which she is no longer
conscious, until at last her passionate weeping having ex-
hausted itself, leaving her spent and broken, he lifts her unre-
sistingly in his arms and carries her to the couch. And as
she lies like one dead, he at last ventures once more to speak
to her.
" I know that I cannot comfort you," he begins, very
sorrowfully. " I know that you must blame me, and God1
only knows how I blame myself, for not letting you send her
away out of danger. Oh, Psyche, Psyche !" breaking down'
altogether, " can you ever forgive me ? "
And of a sudden, before they can understand what she is
doing, she has pushed him roughly away, and stands fronting'
him with a face drawn and disfigured by this last hour of*
agony out of all semblance of its usual beauty.
"Forgive you!" she cries in a harsh and terrible voice.-
UNSPOTTED PROM THE WORLD. 369
" Do not you know—do not you understand that it is I who
have killed her ? "
For a moment he stands bewildered; then seeing that she
staggers from weakness, and believing that pain and grief have
driven her to frenzy, he stretches out his hands to her. But
she thrusts them away.
" Do not touch me ! " she cries, shuddering. " When you
know, you will never touch me, never look at me again. Lis-
ten!" clasping her clenched hands against her throbbing
breast, which seems torn and rent by each gasping breath—
" Do you remember the promise I gave you before I married
you? Well, I broke it—I deceived you—and it is for my
deceit that God is punishing me like this."
He recoils a little, looking at her like one in some strange
and terrible dream; but Dolly, starting' up, comes towards
her and tries to take her in her arms.
"Psyche, dear," she says urgently, " be calm. You do not
know what you are saying."
But Psyche pushes her away.
" I do know," she says quite quietly. " I could not bear it
unless I told him. I never meant to tell you," turning her
haggard and miserable eyes on her husband—" I meant to
deceive you always; but now," her voice rising, " I can bear
it no longer. When you touch me, when you pity me, you
seem to stick a knife into my heart. I cannot bear it."
Then she comes a step or two nearer. " Listen !" she says,
dropping her voice almost to a whisper. " I met Cecil
Darrell; at first it was by chance; but the next time it was
not by chance. I went to see him—and he kissed me—he
.laid his lips here,"—touching her forehead, "and I came
straight back to her and held her in my arms—and she kissed
me too. There can be no doubt—no doubt at all—that I
brought the fever to her."
And the confession being made—told in the barest, plainest
most terrible words, no others being possible to her at this
pass—there is silence. Then he comes a step nearer.
A A
370
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
" You I" he cries in a voice that seems suddenly to have
changed, and become strained and hoarse like the voice of an
old man. " I will not believe it. You have lost your senses.
That you—in whom I trusted as I trusted in God—should
have lived with a lie on your lips and in your heart, false to
me and to your child—nay—even you yourself cannot make
me believe that."
" It is true," she says quietly, though faltering a little for the
first time. " Dolly knows it—I told her."
He looks from one face to another with mute and imploring
inquiry, and seeing only in each an absolute confirmation, he
turns away without a word. He knows, indeed, that if he
should trust himself to speak, they would be such words as he
dare not utter while his child lies dying. And seeing him
about to leave her, "she takes a step towards him, stretching,
out her hands.
" Stay," she cries imploringly; " you will not leave me like
this ? If—if I have been wrong—surely my punishment is
greater than I can bear. John, John!" with a most bitter
cry, the tears running down her white cheeks, " I have no one
but you—no one, you will not go without a word—without one
word to say that you forgive me ? "
At the sound of her voice he turns, his face ablaze with
passionate anger, bitter words of reproach and indignation
leaping to his lips; but as he looks at her; standing there in
her wretchedness and weakness, no fit object indeed for any
man to vent his wrath upon,—they die unuttered.
" God may forgive you," he says hoarsely, turning away, " I
never can." And without another word or look he leaves her.
And as she stands there, mute, stricken—in a torpor of pain
and misery—unable even to comprehend the absoluteness of
her own ruin, she feels those tender and loving arms, that
through all the troubles and sorrows of her life have never once
failed her or turned away from her, clasped about her heck.
" Do not look like that, Psyche dear—do not look like that! "
cries Dolly, sobbing aloud. "He cannot understand—how
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
37i
should he ? Do not you see how unjust you have been to your-
self? Oh, my dear ! my dear ! why did you tell him like that ? "
But she pushes her gently and yet resolutely away.
" Do not touch me," she says in a voice that has grown
suddenly hard and cold. " You see what he thinks of me.
I am not fit for you to touch."
Then steadying herself, with her hand to her head, stagger-
ing a little, as one who can scarcely see, she goes out of the
room—back to her child.
That night the storm, so long expected, but which has as yet
only rumbled and muttered in the distance, breaks with fury
over the house. And each lightning flash that illumines the
darkened room where she sits beside her child, each awful
crash that rends the still night air, and rolling away, rumbles
and mutters over her head, seems to that one poor troubled,
fainting human soul like the direct voice of God's anger.
There is something fearful and. awesome, even to the bravest
of us. in these convulsions of heaven's forces; something that
lies so far beyond the control of human power or human will,
that even to those who lie most securely wrapped in their own
unbelief, God's voice must speak in the storm, though it cannot
be heard in the calm. It seems as if it were telling a world
that takes its pleasure so careless of Him, that though He
cannot be loved, He will be feared.
So long as the storm lasts she sits quivering, trembling,
shaken to the depths of her being; but when it passes, the
tension of grief and pain gives way, and she lies in a sort ot
torpor, unconscious of her misery.
When the faint streaks of the coming dawn are piercing
through the closed blinds, stirred for the first time for many
days by a strong fresh wind, Sir John creeping quietly in sees
her lying there beside her child, and it is difficult to say which
face looks most worn, most pallid.
" She's laid there some time," says the nurse in a whisper.
f' Poor thing !—she's asleep at last."
372
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
He looks at them for a moment—those two whom he loves
best in the world—and then the tears, wrung from the depths
of his agony, gather in his eyes, and he turns away.
The rain still falls—the shaken and quivering trees are
hanging their boughs heavily towards the moistened earth—
and in Daisy's little garden, the flowers which she had planted
with her own little hands lie shattered and broken, their
blossoms scattered and dead.
CHAPTER VI.
A new day has come, and the full, strong light is peeping
through the blinds, when some movement in the room arouses
Psyche from the torpor into which she has fallen. She staggers
to her feet, full consciousness returning to her suddenly, and
the doctor's face bending over her child is the first that she sees.
Daisy is lying asleep ; but her quiet little face and still form
wears so much of the garb of sleep's " twin-brother Death,"
that in the first troubled moment of awakening, a horrible fear
takes possession of Psyche.
" What is the matter ?" she asks, gasping, her breath
coming heavily, her eyes widening in the horror of her sudden
return to the full knowledge of her misery—u she is not—
Oh, my God !—she is not dead f"
" Hush! hush ! " he says, putting his hand on her and
supporting her, seeing that she is hardly able to stand—" she
is asleep. The change in the temperature has already done
her some good. Her pulse is better—she is sleeping quietly."
He leads her to a chair, and then he looks at her for a
moment, hesitating. There is something he would like to say
to her if he dared, but seeing her weak and excited state he
does not dare.
" Remember," he says instead, with impressive calm, " that
her best chance lies in being kept perfectly quiet. I will
come again soon."
Unspotted from the world-. 373
All through the day it seems to those who have no greater
knowledge of the various phases of illness than love can
guide them to, that the child shows visible improvement.
She sleeps more quietly and naturally, her breath is slow and
even; she even takes the nourishment that they force upon
her with less reluctance. But if some small dim hope begins
to grow up in Psyche's heart it is quickly quenched.
" They often change so before the end," she hears the
nurse whisper to Dolly, with a sorrowful shake of the head.
It is a very low whisper, but for all that it reaches her.
The end. Friends, you who read, have you ever known
what it is to wait by the one whose life is dearer to you than
your own—waiting for the end ?—
From that moment Psyche dares hope no more, and each
sign of returning strength, of growing restlessness, seems but
a beginning of that end of which she dares not even think.
And though Dr. Dickenson comes many times, and each
time there might seem some encouragement in his manner
to those whose eyes were not too dim with fear to see it, it
is not until the evening of the second day after the storm
that in leaving the room he asks Psyche to come with him.
She follows him falteringly, reluctantly, for though indeed
she thinks that she knows the worst, she fears instinctively
that some fresh blow is coming upon her, since now it has
grown so much more possible to fear than to hope.
It is to her own little room that he leads her. She has
never crossed its threshold since she had received there the
last and crowning blow of all; she has never exchanged a
word with her husband since she made her confession to
him.; and though she has sometimes encountered his look it
has always seemed to her full of sternness and reproach. Side
by side they have watched by their child's sick-bed, as
absolutely sundered and apart as though there existed between
them no tie of love or of sorrow.
She shudders as she enters now—the sight of the room
recalls so vividly the poignancy of the agony she had suffered
374
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
there. And as the doctor closes the door and comes towards
her, she lifts her miserable eyes to his with a mute appeal
against any more suffering.
But as she looks she sees something in his face which
sets her heart beating wildly. She gives a little cry, and he
takes her hands and regards her steadily and gravely, but
with great kindness.
" I have something to tell you," he says quietly, though
indeed he feels for her so much that it is difficult for him to
control himself altogether; " Will you promise to bear it
bravely? You have borne your troubles very well, but can
you bear to hear there is hope P "
He waits a moment, he sees her face pale to a deathly
pallor, her lips twitching. He holds her hands more tightly.
" Believe me," he says, in a strong, glad voice, and not
without a little moisture in his eyes, " I should not dare
to bid you hope unless I were sure of my ground. Your
child is better; she has already turned the corner, and with
God's help we will pull her through. In a little while we
shall have her well again."
"Well again !" At these homely words, at whose full
meaning none but those who have suffered as she has suffered
can even dimly guess, she throws up her arms with a loud
cry that rings through the room—the strain that grief and
pain have wound round heart and brain seems to snap sud-
denly—and she falls at his feet, for the second time in her
life absolutely unconscious either of pain or happiness.
He lifts her in his arms and lays her on the couch, and
after watching by her for a minute or two, and assuring him-
self that there is nothing dangerous in her faint, he leaves the
room and goes in search of Dolly.
"Go to her," he says, when he has found her; " and when
she comes to herself—it will not be long—let her see you
there beside her, and tell her I have not deceived her. The
child is steadily improving. If I have any knowledge of
illness at all, she will be herself again almost before her
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 375
mother is able to know it. She is worn out," he goes on, his
face full of sympathy; " get her to rest and sleep, and assure
her of the child's safety. That is the great thing."
And when slowly, tremblingly, Psyche once more opens
her eyes on a world that has been of late so full of grief to
her, she sees a tender, loving face bent over her, she feels soft
caressing hands upon her forehead, tear-wet kisses on her
cheek.
"Is it true, Dolly?" she falters. "Oh, Dolly, dear, it
cannot be true—I cannot believe it—not yet—not yet! "
" It is true," answers Dolly, with a sob that she cannot
altogether control; for during these long days she has watched
and suffered as ceaselessly as any of them, and has grown
tired and weak; " and since the doctor believes it there is
no reason that you should not believe it too. Oh, Psyche ! "
clasping her sister's hand, and holding it against her heart,
" your darling is coming back to you ; in a little while she will
be well again."
There is a moment's silence. Then a smile of absolute
peace, of perfect happiness, dawns over Psyche's wasted face,
irradiating it from brow to lip.
" Well again ! " she repeats, as if the words seem yet too
strange to be credible, " my darling—well again. Oh, Dolly,
Dolly, it seems too good to be true ! "
Then after a little pause, during which the quiet tears drop
slowly down her pallid cheeks, she speaks again.
" And I doubted God—I railed against Him—I thought
that He had forgotten us. I do not deserve His goodness ;
but," with a sob, " I am thankful to Him, Dolly—oh, so
thankful!"
They are silent. again; their hearts are too full for many
words; but after a few minutes Psyche turns restlessly.
"Where is John?" she asks, suddenly, sitting up; "does
he know ? Is he not coming to me ? "
But still Dolly is silent.
" Surely, surely," she goes on, with a rising voice, " he will
3UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
come to me now! He will forgve me—he cannot refuse to
forgive me now ? "
But still Dolly is silent.
" He cannot know—I am sure that he cannot know !" she
continues, with growing excitement. " Go to him, Dolly; go
and bring him to me. Tell him," with a sudden sob breaking
her voice, " that our darling is coming back to us ; that what-
ever I have done that is wrong—and God knows I did not
mean to do much wrong—that he must not—he cannot refuse
to forgive me now. Oh, Dolly, Dolly, I want him so !"
bursting into passionate tears, " bring him to me; go and
bring him to me !"
Then Dolly rises to her feet. " I will go," she says, quietly,
" if you will lie down and rest. You shall go to the room
next to Daisy's, and I will promise to wake you if you are
wanted. But you must take some rest—I promised the doctor
that you should." And after a little, being too feeble for
much resistance, she lets Dolly lead her into a room that
adjoins the child's, and there, having covered her up and
darkened the blinds, she leaves her.
" Tell him," are her last words, " that I can neither sleep
nor rest until he comes to me."
But nature, over-spent and over-taxed, is stronger than she,
and her head has scarcely touched the pillow when she falls
into a heavy and dreamless sleep.
And Dolly goes on her errand. It is not an easy one ; on
the contrary, it is a most difficult one to her. She knows too
well the nature of the man with whom she has to deal, to
believe that his trust once broken can be lightly mended; and
above all, she doubts her own power to effect such a mending.
Of all the many emergencies of her life there has been none
that has tried her so sorely as this.
The very intensity of her desire to see these two reconciled,
knowing that even the recovery of their child can give them
no lasting happiness while they are so miserably sundered,
increases the fear lest some false step, some bungling
UNSPOTTED PROM THE WORLD. 377
word of hers, may make the breach yet wider, and render
the task to which she has consented a harder one than
she has ever yet undertaken in all her hard and unselfish
life.
Before the closed door of the library, where she knows she
will most likely find Sir John, she pauses, trembling, her
heart beating to faintness. Then she gathers up her courage,
and turning the handle, enters.
The daylight is fading, but there is still sufficient left to
show that Sir John is sitting by the table, with his head rest-
ing on his folded arms.
He lifts it as she enters, and she goes quickly up to him,
giving her courage no time to ooze out, and touches his arm.
" Has the doctor told you ? " she asks, hurriedly ; " have you
heard that he believes—he hopes that Daisy will get better ? "
He turns his face a little away from her—and she has a
terrible fancy that there are tears in his eyes and on his
cheeks, which, being thus suddenly surprised, he has not had
time to hide from her.
"Yes ; I know," he says, in a voice that is strangely quiet
and suppressed. " And I am thankful—with all my heart I
am thankful. Do not doubt that, Dolly."
There is a moment's silence. The presence of a grief whose
greatness she vaguely comprehends awes her. The instinct of
a natural delicacy prompts her to leave him alone. There are
sorrows on which it seems profanity to intrude. She takes a
step towards the door, and then she stops—she remembers
Psyche. How can she return to her, her mission un-
accomplished ? She comes back, and stands by him timidly.
" I have not told you what I came to ask you," she says,
with a trembling voice ; " I want you to go to Psyche."
He does not answer her. He is resting his face on his hands,
and she cannot see it; but he turns it a little away with a
gesture that is sufficiently significant.
" I am sure," she goes on with more courage, "you cannot
know how much she wants you. When she heard the good
378
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
news, for which we are all so thankful, her first thought, her
first wish, was for you. Surely, surely, you will not let me go
back to her, and tell her that you refuse to come ? "
Then he lifts his face, and it goes to her heart to see how
worn and haggard it has grown in these last few days.
" You are very good, Dolly," he says, in a dull, quiet tone,
that is more disheartening than any show of anger, "you are
always very good; but there are troubles with which no one
can meddle. You must leave this alone."
She feels that nothing but his natural courtesy to a woman
has prevented him from ordering her out of the room. And
if it were her own cause that she were pleading, she would go
and give it up then and for ever; but being not her own, but
another's, she yet stands her ground.
" I would leave it alone," she answers, in a strong and
earnest voice, " if I thought that you knew the truth; but you
do not know it, and if I do not tell you, who will ? I know,"
she continues quickly, giving him no time to interrupt her,
" that she has been very wrong, very weak and foolish—but
not wicked—never wicked."
He turns from her with a shudder of absolute repugnance.
" Listen !" she cries, urgently, laying her hand upon him.
" Be angry with me if you will, but this once I must speak.
You shall hear me—and if then you refuse to forgive her, it
will be your own doing, not mine."
" I will not hear ! " he cries, suddenly and fiercely, and with
such a look in his stern grey eyes as would at any other time
have frightened her into silence. " Have I not heard it once
already ? I forbid you to speak of it."
But it is not the Dolly whom he has always known who
stands beside him—the gentle, pliant, loving woman, whom a
harsh look or a cruel word would seem able to crush—but
someone nobler, greater, more daring than he has ever known
her.
"You were never unjust," she says, with firm and yet gentle
rebuke; "you shall not be unjust now. When she told you
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
3 79
the story she was mad with pain and with misery, and she told
you but half, leaving out all that could excuse her."
There is a moment's pause; then she nerves herself to the
endeavour on which, as she understands, all depends.
" When she first saw Darrell," she goes on quickly, " it was
by chance, or rather he had waylaid her. He worked on her
compassion so far that she promised to see him once more.
He told her that he was going away for ever, and she consented
to meet him to say good-bye—that was her first wrong step—
and," strongly and insistently, "so far as I am a judge, her
only wrong one."
She stops a moment, her breath coming fast and nervously;
but he does not interrupt her—nay, more, he is evidently
listening.
" When the time came for her to keep that appointment,
she, of her own free will, gave it up. Something perhaps that
I said, or rather," faltering, " some look, some touch of her
child's saved her. She did not go."
He is still silent, but something in his attitude convinces her
that he no longer listens reluctantly, but with intense and
breathless interest.
" Then," she goes on, giving herself no time to consider her
words, lest her courage should altogether fail her, "having
waited many days in vain, he wrote her a letter, a cruel, un-
manly letter, threatening to come here if she did not go to him.
She was never very brave, you know," with a little quiver in
her voice that seems to implore his compassion, " and she did
not dare to tell you. She went to him—not because she loved
him, but because she foolishly feared him. I know that she
reproached and upbraided him, and that he, understanding, I
suppose, that he had no longer any place in her heart, bade
her good-bye for ever, and said that he would never see her
again so long as he lived. When she gave him her hands, he
laid his lips on her forehead—that is all."
The telling of the story has been more difficult to her than
she imagined. She pauses, her breath coming painfully through
380
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD,
her drawn, white lips. But he has dropped his face again on
his. hands, and neither by word, nor sign can she guess how he
has taken it. Fear begins to overmaster hope.
" Surely," she cries, her voice trembling beyond control, "if
she has done wrong—and I do not deny that she has—her
punishment has been greater than her sin. It has been impos-
sible to make her believe that she did not bring the fever to
Daisy. You who have suffered so when you saw your child
lying sick—dying, as you thought—think what she must have
felt when she believed herself the cause ? "
Silence—still silence. She thinks he will not—he knows he
cannot speak.
" When you thought she turned pale and was frightened at
Darrell's illness, it was of Daisy—only of Daisy she was think-
ing," she goes on, her voice rising with extreme emotion. " I
am certain—quite certain that she has absolutely forgotten him
—that she has never had one thought but for the child."
He does not speak even yet, but she sees his hands trembling,
his face drops lower—out of sight, and of a sudden she throws
herself on her knees by his side, and laying her hands on his
arm, she breaks into passionate weeping. For a minute she
stays so, then she touches his hand.
" John ! John ! you will believe? you will forgive?"
He lays one hand on hers, and in a moment she understands
that she has succeeded—she has gained the victory!
" If I thought that she did not love him," he says brokenly,
" that she loved me only a little. Oh, Dolly! Dolly!" breaking
down altogether, " you do not understand what it is to have
waited and hoped all these years—and to have failed at last."
"You have not failed," she answers, sobbing outright, for
indeed the fear of failure, the certainty of success, have been
too much for her. " She loves you—you and her child. Have
not you seen—cannot you understand that her heart has nearly
broken during these last terrible days?" Then gently and
most pleadingly—" You will forgive her ? "
"Who am I that I should not forgive?" he answers, lifting
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 381
his head. " My child ! my poor child ! have I been so harsh
to her that you should doubt me ? "
She rises to her feet and stands in front of him.
"And you will go to her?" she asks with a persistency that
admits of no denial.
He also rises, staggering a little, like one long spent with
pain and emotion. " Yes, I will go," he answers quietly.
He takes a few steps towards the door, and then he turns
suddenly, and taking her hands, looks into her face, transfigured
by a glad and tender radiance into more than earthly beauty.
" You are an angel, Dolly," he says almost reverently—" a
messenger of peace and goodwill. If God sent us many such,
this pocr world of ours would not be so bad as it sometimes
seems."
And with that he goes. And she, sinking into the chair
which he has left, falls to crying quietly.
But they are happy tears this time.
And Psyche, waking from a long deep sleep, which has done
her more good than all the medicines of all the wise doctors
in the world, sees her husband sitting by her side, and stretching
out her arms, with a little sobbing cry of utter thankfulness,
finds herself clasped once more to his heart.
"You can forgive me?" she asks, looking into his face.
" You can forgive me, though I have been so foolish ? "
And with many tears, and broken, half-articulate words, she
tells him everything; and so telling, creeps back once more
to the heart that has so tenderly ached for her, no secret, no
deceit of any sort any longer lying between them; and she
knows as she lies there that she was never nearer to loving him
as he desires to be loved than she is at this minute.
And once more, no longer divided, but hand-in hand, they
stand by their child's bed.
And it chances that as the night falls, the long sleep in which
Daisy has been so restfully lying passes away, and opening
her eyes, no longer dim and unconscious with pain and delirium,
382 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.
she once more, and for the first time for many days, calls out
her mother's name.
And at the childish voice—so long unheard, so vainly longed
for—Psyche breaks out into passionate weeping, and falling
on her knees by her side, and throwing her arms around her,
for the first time realises her happiness.
Both child and husband have been given back to her.
CHAPTER VII.
And the days that follow are perhaps the happiest in all their
lives.
Watching the child's slow yet certain recovery to health and
strength, they are so full of joy and thankfulness that they can
scarce credit the danger through which they have so recently
passed, and have no eyes to foresee that which is approaching.
Death is impartial, and though he seems mostly to choose
those who are most wanted, and to pass over those who, being
lost, would not be greatly missed—in this case he is kind.
He takes the one who has no secure place in this world, and
he spares the child so fondly loved, so eagerly and passionately
prayed for.
And this time he lays his hand on his victim swiftly—yet
surely. From the very first there is little doubt as to the end.
One evening Dolly leaves them a little earlier than usual,
saying she is " tired "—so rare a complaint from her patient
lips, and she never comes among them again.
In the morning, towards daybreak, Psyche is called to her
side, to find that she can scarcely breathe, can hardly swallow
—and can only with difficulty smile on her tenderly and
reassuringly as she has always done. She has always been
used to wait on others, but now she gives them but little chance
to show how tenderly they would wait on her. She makes no
long fight with Death. He takes her as readily and as easily
as though she were over-willing to receive him.
UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 383
From the first there is but little hope. The terrible fever
which has robbed so many homes of their dearest and fairest,
to which the doctors give many names and ascribe many causes,
and which has, as is afterwards proved to the satisfaction of
scientists, visited this little village from one sole source—an
impure spring of water—takes a firm grip of her, and she has
but little strength to resist it. Such as she had has been
already spent in the service of others.
This time there are none of those terrible fluctuations
between hope and despair which had wrung their hearts before.
Only, almost from the very first, a certainty of the end. And
though they who love her so—not knowing indeed how much
they loved her until they see her stricken and dying—fight
bravely and resolutely with the great angel who is taking her
from them, they are worsted.
And so it comes to pass that on the morning of the third
day of her illness, when the red clouds of dawn are breaking
through the darkness of night, she goes from them—up " the
golden stairs to heaven."
She has suffered so greatly and yet so bravely, that at first,
seeing the smile of perfect and unutterable peace with which
she stretches out her hands first to one and then to the other
of those two who watch by her, they can hardly grieve for her,
they can almost feel glad that she has gone to her rest; but
when the smile deepens and fades into the awful and eternal
majesty of death, Psyche breaks into bitter wailing and weep-
ing, crying aloud that she has never loved her enough, never
repaid her for all her sweetness and goodness, imploring her
with wild and terrible words to come back to her—to come
back to her if it were only that she might tell her how much
she loves her.
But nothing answers her but the dumb rebuke of the sweet
lips, closed for ever in the silence of death.
And so it comes to pass that, many months later, in the fast-
falling gloom of an autumn afternoon, Psyche stands with her
-384 UNSPOTTED FROM THE, WORLD.
child by a grave in -the-village cnurcn-yara, over wnicft a marble
cross has been newly erected. • '
It bears only the name that has already grown to be spoken
of reverently, and with hushed tones, as one thht has passed '
away from earth and the things of earth—and the little text
which has always seemed to Psyche as in some way belong-
ing to Dolly.
And as they so 'stanc^ hand in hand, Psyche's tears dropping
quietly on the fresh white flowers they have just laid gently and
lovingly on1 the narrow bed that contains all that is left of Dolly,
a few stars appear suddenly in the darkening sky.
And the child, who has seldom been* out so late before,
looks up with awe and wonder.
" Look !" she cries, stretching up one small hand, " look,
mother ! Aunt Dolly is lighting the lamps up in the sky."
It is only a child's speech, a true child's speech, but it seems
to carry to Psyche a surer sense of Dolly's presence, a more
certain reality of that heaven in which we all, as little children,
so firmly believed, than all the consolations, all the arguments
of those wise people who, having explained away the heaven
of our childish imaginations, have given us so little in its
stead.
She lifts her eyes from the cold, damp grave, where it had
seemed but a moment ago as if Dolly were lying so cold, so
unresponsive, careless of her tears and her sorrow, as she had
never been while she was alive—Dolly is not there ! Gazing
up into the sky, she knows, she feels, as she never felt before,
that somewhere, somehow—she cannot tell where or how—
the gentle, loving spirit that had lived but to minister to others,
lives yet; and that though she may already be forgotten by
most, and was never loved by many, she yet leaves behind her
a message that may lead some to follow, even though afar off,
and with weak and faltering footsteps, the example of a sweet
and simple life that seemed almost "unspotted from the
world."
J. OGDEN AND CO., PRINTERS, 172, ST. JOHN STREET, E.C.
Tenth] Routledge's Railway Library Advertiser..^ [Issue'.
For all
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Dresses, he the material Qotton, Linen,
Silk, or Wool, the texture Fine or Coarse.
It cleans admirably' Kid Gloves and Satin
Slippers, Furs, Feathers, Books, Cards, Manu- i
scripts. It may be freely used to rinse and
wash Frail or Gilt Trifles, to which water would
be destructive. ■
At 6d., Is.,
and 2s. 6d.
Parcel Post,
3d. extra.
JACKSON'S
CHINESE
DIAMOND
CEMENT
REGISTERED 1
ui
o
<
QC
1-
PSf
Sold j
in Bottles at
6d. & Is.
Or btj !
Inland Post
Is. 2d. 1
'
FOR MENDING EVERY ARTICLE OF
ORNAMENT OR FURNITURE. CHINA,
GLASS, EARTHENWARE, &c. It surpasses
in neatness, in strength; and cheapness, and
retains its virtues in all ckrra'es. It has
stood the test of time, and in all quarters of
the globe.
WANSBROUGH'S
METALLIC
NIPPLE
SHIELDS
FOR LADIES NURSING.—By wearing the
WANSBROUGH Shields in ordinary, whilst
the nipples are healthy, they screen from all
external sources of irritation. They are easy to
wear, holding on like Limpets. Sore Nipples
heal whilst reposing in the bath of milk secreted |
within the Shields, which give at the same time
both Comfort and Protection. |
livery box in labelled \
Wansbrovgh's £££"»• /
i
At
Is. per Pair, j
or by |
Inland Post, j
j ^ 2d j
JACKSON'S
RDSIA.
For the removal of Hair -without a
Eazor, from the Arnis, Neck, or Face, as
well as Sunburn or Tan.
The activity of this depilatory is notable. It
is easy and sat. It leaves a Whole Skin and
a Clean Complexion.
At Is.
By Inland
Post, Is. 2d. j
1892,
SOLD BY THE PRINCIPAL
DRUGGISTS.
For Abroad 5
j at Foreign J
| Postal Rates. >
so.ooor-s. k. n~ wrrtm.
PEARS' SOAP—SOLD EVERYWHERE
S G A
A SPECIALTY FOR THE COMF1 HION
Recommended by • r Erasmus WlLSON, F.R.S., late P.-endcut
of the R ■■(-.: College of Sngeons of England, as /
Th^ most red -hing and agreeable'1 of balms for the skin."
- '
MDME. AXi^LINA PATTI writes :—" 1 have j|
found Pears' Soap matchless for the hands
and complexion
! MRS. lafg RY writes:—-"Since rising Pears' |j
? Soap for the hands; and eomplexi n, I hare
discarded all other "
MI ME. MARIE ROZ Prima Donna, Her j
Majesty's Theatre) writes:—"For preserving
the complexion, keeping the skin soft, free
from redness and roughness, and the hands in
nice condition, PEARS' .SOAP is the finest
preparation i. ■ the world!'
MISS MAEY AY"' RSON writes :—" I have |
ue. _ PeaiY Soap for two years with the
greatest satisfaction, for I find it the very best!'