a, 
 
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 HER LADYSHIP 
 
 BY 
 
 ROBERT MCDONALD 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 FRANK A. MUNSEY 
 1897
 
 COPYRIGHT, l8g4 
 BY 
 
 FRANK A. MUNSEY
 
 The retail price of this book is twenty five cents. 
 This is the price at which it should be bought from book- 
 sellers ; the price at which it can be bought direct from 
 the publisher. 
 
 FRANK A. MUNSEY.
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 i. 
 
 road which wound along the edge of 
 Lake Michigan was like a baud of silver by 
 the side of the vivid blue of the inland sea, spark- 
 ling under the October sunshine. 
 
 Walking along its edge were just the two 
 figures that a clever landscape painter would 
 have wanted there. Their backs were turned 
 to the sun, which made a halo around the girl's 
 golden brown hair and glorified the edges of her 
 large brown hat. Hair and hat just matched her 
 brown eyes, which always had golden flecks in 
 them, sunshine or not. Her white serge dress 
 was too light for the crisp, cold day, and she had * 
 put around her shoulders a sealskin cape which 
 huddled her neck, and threw out all the brilliant 
 beauty of her sparkling face. She was a typical 
 Yankee maiden, frank and free, full of the joy of 
 life. 
 
 The young man with her was perhaps ten 
 year older, but they were years you were glad 
 he had had, for every one seemed to have printed 
 i
 
 2 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 upon his face a new intelligence. He was slen- 
 der, not with the slenderness of the stripling, but 
 with the slimness of the working man who has 
 cast aside all that is superfluous in his body. At 
 thirty he was fairly started on the great race of 
 life, and he would have impressed even the most 
 casual observer, at the moment, as having left 
 his place in the pushing throng to try to persuade 
 this charming girl to go with him. And she was 
 full of the knowledge of his errand, and, like every 
 real woman before her, was determined to make 
 the task as difficult as possible. It is only when 
 she means to capitulate in the end that a woman 
 takes that trouble. 
 
 ' ' Of course mamma was entirely happy at the 
 success of the ball , ' ' she was saying. 
 
 " And you?" 
 
 "Oh, of course I was, I have an orderly soul ; 
 I like everything to go off well, and mamma ' ' 
 
 "Always mamma's social aspirations ! How 
 about your own ? Are you going to be a society 
 butterfly?" 
 
 " Out of the chrysalis of a Lodge City environ- 
 ment. ?" she asked quickly. "I suppose you 
 think that I am like that girl in Bret Harte's 
 poem, who went from Poverty Flat." 
 
 " And longed to get back to it. I am afraid, 
 
 Alice " his voice lingered on her name. The 
 
 edges of her ears burned at the obviousness of
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 3 
 
 what was coming, and she rushed in to push it 
 aside. 
 
 ' ' If you are going to say that you are afraid I 
 haven't any such gay memories as dancing ' down 
 the middle with the man that shot Sandy Mc- 
 Gee,' you are right. Lodge City, or what we 
 saw of it, was not gay. Mamma kept us beauti- 
 fully and exclusively apart from all that sort of 
 thing. We never knew anybody there but you. ' ' 
 
 ' ' I confess to being far from gay at times, but 
 I did my best. Gaiety never was my strong point, 
 exactly. ' ' 
 
 ' ' It is mine. I love to be gay. I love to have 
 a grand new house, and lots of parties, and tee- 
 to-tum for a while. ' ' 
 
 For an instant Batterman hesitated, and thought 
 himself a selfish brute. He was going to ask her 
 to give up the parties and the tee-to-turnming, 
 and go away with him. He believed that she 
 would do it. He was a clever man, shrewd at 
 reading faces, and he would have been a stick or 
 a stone if he had not seen how this girl's counten- 
 ance changed and glowed at his approach. But 
 he loved her with a tenderness which had grown 
 with the years. He had first known her as a 
 little girl living on the hill above the dump of 
 the Gray Colt mine, while her father was taking 
 out the millions which had made him, for the 
 moment at least, the richest man in Chicago.
 
 4 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 Battermau was the engineer who had developed 
 the mine and had made its working possible. 
 He had lived near by, and had been almost a 
 member of the Sanderson family in those early 
 years. When the ore got richer and richer, Mrs. 
 Sanderson took the two children her own 
 daughter and her husband's daughter to Europe 
 and left them there. She was too wise and clever 
 a woman to stay abroad herself, and lose touch 
 with Mr. Sanderson's daily and hourly life. 
 
 The idea of a European education has a little 
 different appearance to those who have gone 
 through it and to those to whom it is a mere 
 fancy. The life of young girls living with a 
 governess is much the same in whatever part of 
 the world they happen to be. It cannot fail to 
 be quieter and a little more narrowing in a Swiss 
 village than in a Western town. Alice Sanderson 
 had learned to speak French and German, and to 
 restrain much of the exuberance that her step- 
 mother still allowed her ; but gaiety she had never 
 known in her life until now. She spoke truly in 
 saying that she loved it, but there was something 
 she loved a great deal more, and that was the 
 presence of her father's engineer, Christopher 
 Batterman. The happiness of having him near 
 her made her fairly vibrate with the joy of life, 
 but Battermau, being modest, put much of it down 
 to her delight in her new environment.
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 5 
 
 " I wonder if, when I go back, you would sit 
 up after a ball to write me a letter, as that girl 
 in the poem did, and tell me about your proposals 
 on the stairs, and and all the rest of it. ' ' 
 
 She was new enough to Bret Harte's poetry to 
 remember that ' ' all the rest of it " was the assur- 
 ance that her heart was out there, and that he 
 had struck it. She wasn't going to tell him 
 quite that yet. She found this playing about 
 the subject delightful. She had always loved 
 Chris, she thought, and she was going to tell 
 him so after a time. 
 
 She sighed with content as she thought of it. 
 It was so sweet and natural that she should be in 
 love with Chris be going to marry him, some 
 day ; Chris, who had always been her hero, who 
 was bigger and braver and cleverer than anybody 
 else. He was the one ideal she had ever had. 
 She stole a glance at him sidewise, and thought 
 that no man could look the modern girl's hero 
 more completely. There was nothing of the 
 carpet knight about Batterman. 
 
 "Oh, Connie does the letter writing, doesn't 
 she?" 
 
 " And a jolly little correspondent she is. She 
 tells me everything, with comments. I advise 
 your father to buy a society paper for Connie 
 when she gets a little older. She can fill it with 
 entertaining material."
 
 6 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 " I am afraid she will fill a great many that 
 belong to other people. She is a restless soul. ' ' 
 But she spoke a little coolly. Connie was only 
 fifteen, but at fifteen, she remembered, she her- 
 self had been in love with Batterman. She was 
 sorry she had mentioned her sister's name. An- 
 other girl's name had no place just now, and in a 
 way it had broken the spell which the day had 
 cast around them. The subject was being 
 changed, and she did not intend that. She was 
 fairly holding back the great flood of things she 
 meant to say when that little barrier that still lay 
 between them had been crossed. The door had 
 been half open so many times, and she had 
 snapped it shut in her lover's face ; but for all 
 that she wanted him to take it by assault. She 
 wanted him to push his way through. He must 
 know that she, the real, honest, loving Alice San- 
 derson, was waiting for him on the other side. 
 And meanwhile Batterman, conscious that after 
 all he was a selfish man who wanted to take this 
 girl's life for his own, hesitated on the other side, 
 his soul filled with reverence for the pure white 
 sanctuary of a young girl's heart. He felt that 
 out of her very innocence and sweetness she 
 might take him in too soon, before she had seen 
 enough of the world she loved and enjoyed so 
 much. 
 
 But when youth and beauty and love come to-
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 7 
 
 gether, prudence and philosophy are pushed to 
 the wall. Love is an arrogant god, who believes 
 that he alone should rule ; and when he is the 
 real thing, and not one of those chubby imita- 
 tions which belong to fans and tapestry, and to 
 the illustrations of society verse, he generally has 
 his way. He was beginning to assert himself 
 now, when a commotion a little way ahead at- 
 tracted the two young people's attention. 
 
 A horse ran out through the iron gateway of 
 one of the handsomest places, and began plung- 
 ing sidewise, standing on his hind legs until it 
 reared almost backward. A groom followed 
 and tried to get at its head, but the rider, 
 who held a short cane in his hand, called 
 out to the man angrily, and he drew back. Evi- 
 dently the horseman wanted to conquer his own 
 steed. 
 
 "That's that wild horse of Judge Nelson's," 
 Batterman said. "What idiot is trying to ride 
 it in afternoon dress with a cane in his hand ? 
 He ought to have a whip and a pair of spurs, and 
 be on the prairie. ' ' 
 
 " It's Lord Lurgan ! " Miss Sanderson said ex- 
 citedly. "It's Lord Lurgan ! " I heard him 
 tell Judge Nelson that he could ride anything, 
 when he was talking about the horse. They say 
 he is a great sportsman." 
 
 "So he may be, but he ought to have better
 
 8 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 sense than to try to ride like that. Come in 
 here. He can't manage the brute." 
 
 Batterman hurried her across the road and into 
 the nearest gateway. The horse was plainly 
 bolting, but its rider, a rather heavily built, florid 
 faced young man, had a set expression under his 
 tall hat which made it seem likely that he would 
 bring his steed to terms sooner or later, and with- 
 out leaving its back, either. 
 
 "By Jove, he can stick on, eh?" Batterman 
 exclaimed in admiration. He thought the man 
 foolhard}*, too ready to "show off," but he 
 was ready to give him his due. The drive 
 seemed to be almost deserted just here at this 
 hour, and he was going to tire the vicious brute 
 out. Batterman, accustomed to seeing men deal 
 with the wildest horses in the world, thought of 
 the expression, " two of a kind." The English- 
 man and the horse seemed to have pretty much 
 the same disposition. 
 
 Battermau had sought shelter for Alice in the 
 gates of a fine open garden, next to a place called 
 " The Cedars," whose driveway wound about in 
 an eccentric fashion and was dark with the 
 branches of the heavy, close trees. The house 
 belonged to some old ladies who had lived here 
 long before Chicago became the great city it is, 
 and who clung to many of their old fashioned 
 ways. One of these was to allow the needles of
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 9 
 
 the trees to carpet their driveway, making it 
 noiseless. There was no gate, but two old stone 
 posts which guarded the way. As if unconscious 
 of the commotion going on outside, a victoria 
 swung out into the road just as Lord I,urgau 
 dashed along on the infuriated horse. In another 
 second there would have been a collision, but the 
 rider gave a mighty tug to the bridle, and changed 
 the direction in which his steed was going, with 
 safety to the lady in the low victoria but disaster 
 to himself, for the horse did not stop. There 
 were hoarse shouts from the men, a cry from the 
 lady in the carriage, and Alice, sickened, put her 
 hands over her eyes, while Batterman made a 
 dash for the wall, whose sheer side dropped 
 down to the lake. The horse and rider had dis- 
 appeared. 
 
 Men seemed to gather like flies from every- 
 where, all of them either climbing the wall or 
 standing on it. Alice started toward it, when 
 she heard a voice calling her, and turned to see 
 her stepmother, with a white face, still sitting in 
 the victoria. The footman had followed the rest 
 of the men. 
 
 ' ' Did you see it ? What will your father say ? 
 Oh, that brave man ! He fell over the wall to 
 keep from running into me. I thought it was 
 death. That great black brute's eyes were like 
 red coals. He looked like a demon ! ' ' She had
 
 10 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 her handkerchief to her mouth, and her eyes were 
 stained, but her hand was not trembling. " If 
 he is killed I can never forgive myself for coming 
 out today. I shall feel like a murderess. I 
 wonder if he is killed ! " 
 
 A shout answered her. There was a little rise 
 here, and the wall, not very high anywhere, was 
 much lower a few rods down. The footman came 
 back and touched his hat. 
 
 "He's only a bit shook up, ma'am. There 
 was a bit of sand below, and they ain't wet to 
 speak of. ' ' 
 
 In a few minutes Battermau came back sup- 
 porting the rider, his hat not so fresh as it had 
 been, but still on his head. He was liuipiug 
 painfully, with a sprained knee. Mrs. Sander- 
 son's victoria was drawn up beside him. 
 
 ' ' You must come home with me, I^ord Lur- 
 gan," she said quickly, for Judge Nelson, large 
 and pompous, was coming down the road. " Mr. 
 Sanderson must thank you himself for what you 
 
 have done for ' ' She put her handkerchief 
 
 to her lips again. 
 
 4 ' I suspect Judge Nelson ' ' 
 
 4 ' I think we have the first claim to give you 
 the attention you could not have at your hotel." 
 
 Lurgan smiled a little uneasily, and then he 
 looked at the grave, respectful face of Alice 
 Sanderson, who stood by the victoria's side.
 
 HER LADYSHIP. II 
 
 " But I should be taking Miss Sanderson's 
 place in the carriage. ' ' 
 
 "Oh, no, I was walking," she said promptly. 
 
 Judge Nelson came up, loud with self re- 
 proaches, but Lurgan was installed against the 
 high backed seat of the carriage by this time, 
 and in a few minutes was being whirled toward 
 the new Sanderson palace. Batterman watched 
 them drive away with some of the amusement 
 with which he had always regarded Mrs. Sander- 
 son and her "luck," and turned to find Alice 
 with a serious face. 
 
 ' ' That was a brave thing to do, ' ' she said. 
 " He saved mamma's life." 
 
 ' ' By almost riding an unbroken horse over 
 her?" 
 
 " That isn't like you. You are generally more 
 generous. ' ' 
 
 "Am I ungenerous? I would not be that. 
 The man seems to be courageous enough, but a 
 trifle foolhardy. Probably he did not know the 
 real character of the brute he attempted to ride. 
 Nelson was responsible for that. The horse 
 should never be put on a public road like this. ' ' 
 The thread of their old talk was gone. ' ' How 
 long have you known I/)rd Lurgan ? ' ' 
 
 ' ' A month. He brought some letters of in- 
 troduction to papa. We all like him very much. 
 He is rather like a big boy in some ways. His
 
 12 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 people are very great, they say, but he never 
 mentions that." Batterman smiled again at the 
 girlish idea that such reticence was remarkable. 
 ' ' He is so solid and fresh looking, and he has 
 done all sorts of things shot elephants and 
 tigers and grizzly bears." 
 
 "The grizzly bears should not affect a girl 
 from Lodge City. ' ' 
 
 ' ' It sounds great, doesn't it ? " 
 
 She laughed up in his face with the sense of 
 humor that was one of her greatest charms to 
 Batterman. He was on the point of telling her 
 so, but they were almost at the house, and the 
 atmosphere was wanting. It seemed to him that 
 Alice hastened her steps, and he had a vague, 
 undefined jealousy of the man who was then in 
 her home, and who would probably stay for weeks. 
 He would have thought it insulting to doubt 
 Alice. He felt absolutely sure of her love for 
 him a love he so much respected that he wished 
 her to have all that girlhood could give her be- 
 fore she realized the full force of it, and the dom- 
 inating factor that it would be in her life when 
 it was once confessed. But he did not want an- 
 other man to live in the same house with her, and 
 learn to know her sweet ways as he knew them, 
 and perhaps to care for her. He pretended to 
 himself that there had been no meaning in 
 the look he had caught in Lurgan's eye as it
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 13 
 
 rested upon Alice before he accepted Mrs. San- 
 derson's invitation. 
 
 They went up the driveway and through the 
 great front door into the hall, which had been 
 copied after that of some renaissance palace, and 
 contained a number of treasures culled from 
 ruined homes abroad. As they proceeded across 
 it, a clatter of girl and dog was heard coming 
 down the broad staircase and almost into Batter- 
 man's arms. 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Christopher ! " she cried. " We've 
 got the live lord in the house ! Alice, mamma 
 wants to speak to you ; ' ' and then as her sister 
 stepped away, the child put her hand through 
 Batterman's arm with the affectionate familiarity 
 of fifteen. ' ' Do you know, Chris, ' ' she said 
 confidentially, "I think I'm going to belong to 
 the nobility ? ' ' 
 
 "Why, have you designs on L,urgan ? " He 
 lifted his eyebrows and laughed. Connie always 
 amused him. 
 
 " Not I ! But I am sure he's going to marry 
 Alice." 
 
 "Really?" still laughing. 
 
 ' ' Oh, I can tell the signs. He's fairly kow-tow- 
 ing to mamma, and she is kow-towing back. Oh, 
 Chris, just think what it would be to have a 
 countess for a sister ! I always knew that I was 
 meant for better things. Find out if she really
 
 14 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 is going to marry him, Chris, won't you, 
 and give me a quiet tip? If she is, won't I just 
 sit on some of these Chicagoese ! Promise me 
 you will use every effort to find out her state of 
 mind!" 
 
 " I think I can promise that," Batterman said 
 gravely.
 
 II. 
 
 A/TRS. SANDERSON was trembling so that 
 her hands could hardly unclasp the elegant 
 little sable collar which she wore tightly about 
 her throat. Her lips were set in a determined 
 line, and the color on her cheek was high. 
 
 Her husband had turned around in the wheel 
 chair before his desk and thrown his cigar in the 
 fire, which was always a mark of extreme irrita- 
 tion with him. It was hard to realize that Mr. 
 Sanderson had ever been anything but the man 
 of position he now was. There was no sugges- 
 tion of plebeian origin in his face, too delicate a 
 face, his wife sometimes thought, when she had 
 seen brute force conquer him even in some of his 
 most delicately matured plans. He was a hand- 
 some man, tall, dignified, and modish. His gray 
 hair was cut at just the proper length, and care- 
 fully parted in the middle and brushed back. 
 His gray mustache was trimmed sharply across 
 his fine mouth. No one would have guessed 
 that these points were as much due to the care 
 of his wife as the ring on his finger and the pearl 
 in his scarf, or her own careful toilet. She 
 15
 
 1 6 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 dressed him to fit the part she intended he shoirld 
 play, and, quite unconsciously to him, she taught 
 him most of his lines. 
 
 Unfortunately, as the years went by, Mrs. 
 Sanderson had taken on something of the air of 
 a general in command. She had grown a little 
 arrogant. The delicate finesse by which she had 
 been wont to manage her husband in earlier days 
 had been put aside more and more, as he came 
 to depend more and more upon her judgment. 
 She had almost forgotten how to steer away from 
 the danger point of irritation. But as she took 
 time to unfasten her collar, she mentally reviewed 
 the situation, and calmed her outward agitation, 
 although her heart was fairly boiling. She 
 wanted to cry out, to protest ; to tell her husband 
 not only that he should not oppose her, but that 
 at this time he must be a wall of support to her. 
 In her soul she almost despised him that he was 
 not one of those heavy, hard natures which can 
 deal bludgeon blows, instead of the gentleman he 
 was. 
 
 Sanderson, partly conscious of her errand, 
 waited for the demand which he knew was com- 
 ing. Instead of making it at once, she went to 
 the window and looked out over the city. Her 
 husband's office was in one of the tallest of the 
 Chicago buildings, and far away up on the lake 
 side she could see, in the brilliant sun of the
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 17 
 
 morning, the gray stone towers of her new home, 
 which had appeared, only the other day, the pin- 
 nacle of her ambition. Her great ' ' house warm- 
 ing " ball had seemed to open every door to her. 
 She had thought herself perfectly happy ; and 
 yet, as it had always been since she was a country 
 school teacher out in Nebraska, she found her- 
 self, like the fisherman's wife, begging the Genius 
 of Fate every morning for some new honor. 
 There was an inner social kingdom, she dis- 
 covered, of whose gates she had only caught a 
 glimpse. She might stay out of it all her life. 
 But Mrs. Sanderson had no intention of staying 
 out of any place to which wit and money could 
 effect an entrance. 
 
 It was this same wit which taught her that her 
 husband was in no mood to be bullied, and that 
 she must take time to change her tactics. When 
 she turned her face again, it was earnest, but 
 calm and sweet. She walked over and put her 
 hand around his shoulder and sat down on the 
 arm of his chair. Mrs. Sanderson was well under 
 fort3 r , and her figure was as slender as it had 
 been ten years ago. Perhaps she looked younger 
 and prettier in her husband's eyes for the 
 moment, because she so seldom encouraged the 
 girlish attitude in herself. She did not consider 
 it dignified in the mother of a tall girl of fifteen 
 and the stepmother of a beauty of twenty.
 
 1 8 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 "Dick," she said caressingly, and then added 
 rather sadly, " I am worried." 
 
 "What's wrong? Cook out of sorts? New 
 brougham bad style ? " 
 
 His relief was so great over the change in the 
 atmosphere that he jested foolishly, and she paid 
 no attention. 
 
 ' ' I am worried over Alice. ' ' His eyebrows 
 began to lower and his hand relaxed on hers, but 
 she went on before he could speak. ' ' She is in 
 love with Lord Lurgan." 
 
 Mrs. Sanderson grew cold about the heart as 
 she said the words. They had come on the in- 
 spiration of the moment, and while she shivered 
 at her own temerity, she exulted at the audacity 
 of the lie. 
 
 Sanderson pushed her away from him, and 
 stood up before her. 
 
 ' ' What are you saying, Julia ? You are crazy. 
 You have been worrying yourself to death for 
 two months because you said that you were sure 
 Alice had some sort of an understanding with 
 Chris Batterman." 
 
 She stood up, too, and looked at him with an 
 expression he could never resist. Richard Sander- 
 son had thought himself in love with his first 
 wife when he married her ; they had been boy 
 and girl together, and had been engaged 
 when they were sixteen, living on adjoining
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 19 
 
 farms. She had died before he was old enough, 
 or had lived by her side long enough, to realize 
 anything of the depth and strength of the na- 
 ture which she had possessed, and which she had 
 bequeathed to her infant daughter. He had 
 never learned it in his daughter. The second 
 wife was the dominating passion of his life. She 
 obscured his vision. He was a just man, a good 
 man, a kind man, but more and more, as years 
 went by, he allowed his impulses to be strained 
 through her reason. Now, as he looked at her, 
 he found himself thinking that his wife was 
 clever and frank, and that he was unjust and 
 vulgar to think that her first care was not for 
 his daughter's happiness. Women understood 
 women, according to Mr. Sanderson's creed a 
 mistaken one which most men share. 
 
 " But that was before she saw Lurgan. Today 
 " she hesitated "today she saw him save my 
 life at the peril of his own, at the risk of almost 
 certain death." 
 
 Sanderson's face had grown white, and he took 
 her almost roughly by the shoulder. 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 " He was trying that dreadful horse of Judge 
 Nelson's, the one that killed his groom, and I 
 came into the way in my victoria when it was 
 running away. He pulled it over the lake wall 
 to save me, and only escaped death by a miracle.
 
 20 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 I took him home with me, and I shall keep him 
 there. Alice saw it all, and in an instant I knew 
 what was in her mind. Young Batterman was 
 never the man for her. After all, he is of no 
 famih 7 , no position, no anything, but Alice has 
 flirted with him innocently. She does not know 
 what to do. She thinks you want her to marry 
 him, and that you have a contempt for foreign 
 noblemen ' ' 
 
 "Generally I have." 
 
 " But you know Lurgan is not just a fortune 
 hunter. He belongs to one of the oldest and best 
 families in the world, and they have enormous 
 estates. ' ' 
 
 ' ' Which need money. ' ' 
 
 " I tell you Alice is in love with him." 
 
 ' ' If she is, I suppose that settles it, but she 
 doesn't act much like it." 
 
 " That is because she is afraid of you." 
 
 ' ' What must I do ? " he inquired meekly. 
 
 " The first thing might be to send Christopher 
 Batterman to the Sandwich Islands or some place, 
 quite comfortably, so that Alice can have some 
 decent pretext for breaking off with him. Girls 
 have such soft consciences. Poor child ! She 
 would probably sacrifice her life and her happi- 
 ness, and a great future" Mrs. Sanderson had 
 almost added, " for all of us," but she broke off 
 in time " on account of some light word spoken
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 21 
 
 in a flirtation with a boy she has known all of 
 her life." 
 
 "I'd rather see her marry Chris. He is a 
 splendid young fellow. I have had him right 
 under my own eye for ten years. He is as good 
 as gold, and as clever as daylight. I wouldn't 
 ask a better son in law, if the girls must marry." 
 
 ' ' But I tell you she has fallen head over ears 
 in love with Lurgan. Don't you know what it 
 is to fall in love with anybody ? ' ' She laughed 
 up in his face. She had the game in her own 
 hands now, and she truly thought her husband 
 the dearest man in the world. She kept down 
 the subcousciousuess that he was not very clever 
 or quick. 
 
 "Yes, I do," he said. 
 
 A quarter of an hour later, when Mrs. Sander- 
 son stepped into her brougham at the door of the 
 building, her face was flushed and her eyes were 
 bright with a triumph which she only dared show 
 to strangers. The plans were hers to make. She 
 would be a fool indeed if she could not carry the 
 game now. Lord Lurgan's mother in law could 
 do almost anything. She forgot all about Alice. 
 Her stepdaughter was merely a pawn on her 
 chessboard. She dreamed day dreams as the 
 carriage jolted its way toward the North Side, 
 caught here and there in blockades. She looked 
 out on the rushing thousands of the grimy city,
 
 22 HER I/ADYSHIP. 
 
 but she saw only a grand house for herself in 
 London, where she entertained the great of the 
 earth. She saw her own daughter, Constance, 
 being presented at court by her sister, the Coun- 
 tess of Lurgan. Perhaps who knows? she 
 might herself be the grandmother of a prince. 
 She hid away in the corner of her brain the 
 knowledge that Sanderson had heart disease. It 
 was a painful thought ; he was so dear, so good, 
 he let her have her own way entirely, but if 
 there was a black space beyond that "if," and 
 on the other side of it, a vision of herself, Julia 
 Sanderson, who used to teach Nebraska farmers' 
 children to read, wearing a coronet. Stranger 
 things had happened.
 
 III. 
 
 '"PHE next morning, when Batterman went to 
 the office, he found Mr. Sanderson rather 
 nervously walking the floor. As his lieutenant 
 came in, the mine owner looked at him with 
 something like an appeal in his deep set brown 
 eyes. Batterman loved Mr. Sanderson as he 
 would have loved his father if he had lived ; and 
 it is probable that he saw the older man's faults 
 more leniently than he would have looked upon 
 those of a parent. There are no sins that we so 
 entirely condemn, of which we are so impatient, 
 as those we ourselves possess, and a parent's 
 foibles are likely to take on the air of direct and 
 personal insults. 
 
 Batterman was clever enough to see that Mrs. 
 Sanderson's dominion over her husband was but 
 the result of a tenderness of nature which had 
 been used to her own advantage by a very clever 
 and very selfish woman, who still kept his love 
 by appearing to be always gentle and thoughtful. 
 It is only your honest woman who can afford to 
 quarrel and to get into irritating rages. 
 
 Time had taught Batterman to expect some- 
 23
 
 24 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 thing in the way of a change at any moment. 
 Mrs. Sanderson had been making plans, and her 
 husband was hesitating about carrying them out. 
 The young man hung up his coat and hat, and 
 came back to his desk and sat down. He found 
 the whole top of it covered with papers and maps. 
 They appeared to be the prospectus of a mining 
 company in New Mexico. 
 
 "What is this, Mr. Sanderson ? " 
 
 " That ? Oh, yes, Chris. I wanted to ask you 
 about that. Do you think that you could go 
 down to New Mexico and look into that property 
 see if it is worth what they say it is ? " 
 
 " I know the history of this property, sir. It 
 belongs to the Olla Smelter people. It was sold 
 to them by sharp practice. The owner made 
 them think that two other parties wanted it, and 
 traveled about the country on false telegrams, 
 until the Olla people thought that if it was so 
 much in demand it ought to be theirs. Oh, yes, 
 I know the concern. Why should you waste 
 time on it ? You have no other properties down 
 there. The Olla people would have to smelt the 
 ore." 
 
 ' ' I ah thought of enlarging my field. ' ' 
 
 "And you want me to take my time away 
 from the matters that brought me to Chicago to 
 look into this hole in the ground ? ' ' 
 
 " I should like you to report upon this mine."
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 25 
 
 ' ' My report is made. I know its history, and 
 seriously advise against it. It certainly would 
 not be profitable to you if the Olla people give it 
 up." 
 
 Mr. Sanderson hesitated for a moment, and 
 then he said : 
 
 ' ' I am not in the habit of neglecting your 
 advice, Batterman, but I have a reason for 
 sending you to look at the mine. I wish you to 
 go." 
 
 Batterman stood up and looked the older man 
 fairly in the eyes. They were honest, good eyes, 
 and the two men loved each other. 
 
 "When, sir?" 
 
 "Today." 
 
 There was silence for a moment, and then Bat- 
 terman drew a long breath. 
 
 "Mr. Sanderson," he said steadily, "I will 
 be perfectly frank with you, and I ask the same 
 treatment from you. We have been together too 
 long for one to finesse with the other. I only 
 know the direct path, and I am accustomed to 
 the direct word from you. I cannot think that 
 this mine's future is the cause of my being asked 
 to leave Chicago just now." 
 
 ' ' I think I have the right to ask you to go 
 where I choose, at any time. Those have been 
 the relations that have long existed between us 
 hitherto."
 
 26 HER LADYSHIP, 
 
 "The business relations, yes. But I am not 
 sure that it is a business reason that causes you 
 to send me away. Until this moment I did not 
 believe that words were necessary between you 
 and me upon a certain subject, but I fear now 
 that it was a mistake upon my part to neglect to 
 speak them long ago. You knew you have 
 known, or I believed that you knew that I love 
 your daughter, and wish more than anything 
 else in the world to ask her to marry me. ' ' 
 
 "Don't, Chris." 
 
 Sanderson spoke as if it hurt him. 
 
 ' ' I must speak now, sir. I suppose some men in 
 my position might have thought twice before they 
 spoke of marrying the daughter of as rich a man 
 as you are, but I know that you do me the justice 
 to recognize that I never thought of that. I am 
 able to give the woman I marry comforts, and I 
 have every prospect of being able to give her 
 much more. You know me for all I am, and I 
 believe I may say that I am not now mistaken 
 in thinking that you have not wished to dis- 
 courage me." 
 
 ' ' No, Chris, never ! ' ' Sanderson put out his 
 hand. ' ' If Alice were to marry you, I should 
 give her to you with every hope for her happiness 
 and yours. ' ' 
 
 "Then, Mr. Sanderson, what is the matter 
 now?"
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 27 
 
 ' ' I hoped that you would go away without 
 asking. My daughter's happiness must be the 
 first consideration to me. I cannot influence 
 her in such a matter." 
 
 " But surely, Alice " 
 
 ' ' I fear you have taken her too seriously. You 
 have lived out of the world a great deal, and you 
 may have made an ideal of womanhood, of 
 girlhood, which is too high. They sometimes 
 trifle." 
 
 " Not Alice," Batterman said very proudly. 
 " Alice does not trifle." 
 
 "She may not have intended to. I may be 
 mistaken." There was relief in his voice. "Tell 
 me, Chris, has she ever told you that she cared 
 for you in that way ? ' ' 
 
 ' ' No, she has not. She is so young, I have 
 hesitated to ask her. ' ' 
 
 "Has she put you off?" 
 
 "A little, sometimes, yes." 
 
 "It is very seldom that a woman loves the 
 man she cared for in her early girlhood." Mr. 
 Sanderson was repeating his wife's lesson now. 
 "I am led to believe that Alice has learned to 
 care for some one else, and is unhappy because 
 she has encouraged you. I speak with great 
 frankness to you, Chris, because you are both 
 son and friend to me. But the vagaries of a 
 girl cannot be accounted for."
 
 28 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 There was silence in the office for a minute. 
 The coming and going of clerks in the next 
 room, the voices of strangers, and the heavy 
 clang of a safe door came through the glass 
 partition. 
 
 "Mr. Sanderson," Batterman said at last, 
 "this means too much to me to let it go even 
 upon your word. I mean to go to Alice and 
 ask her for the truth. She is your daughter, 
 and she will give it to me." 
 
 "You have my permission to go, and" he 
 held out his hand " you have more than that. 
 You have also my sincere hope that you will 
 succeed. ' ' 
 
 " Is the other man whom Alice is supposed 
 to care for Lord L,urgan ? ' ' 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Batterman set his lips tightly together. He 
 had seen the man on horseback, had seen him 
 unthinking of the beast under him, seen him 
 fight it as one brute would fight another, and he 
 did not mean that this man should marry Alice 
 without a protest from himself. She was his 
 own. What a fool he had been not to speak, and 
 hear from her own lips exactly what she felt ! 
 
 Well, he would know. He put on his coat, 
 and, without saying another word to Mr. San- 
 derson, called a cab and drove out to the North 
 Side.
 
 IV. 
 
 JV/TRS. SANDERSON had kept in touch with 
 her husband's daughter as closely as was 
 possible with two natures that were antagonistic 
 at the core. Finesse was always the older 
 woman's weapon. She was like a solitaire player 
 who worked out the game skilfully and fairly 
 until the point came where not another move can 
 be made, and then she slipped a card and pre- 
 tended to herself that she hadn't seen herself do 
 it. It seemed so foolish to lose a game on ac- 
 count of one card being in the wrong place. 
 
 The morning after Lurgan's installation in the 
 house, she went into Alice's room and sat down 
 on the side of the bed. Alice was a very late 
 riser generally, and this morning she was lying 
 in a day dream ; all the coming days looked 
 beautiful now. Mrs. Sanderson put her white 
 hand caressingly on the girl's long hair, which 
 lay out on the pillow. Alice picked it up and 
 looked at it. 
 
 " Mamma," she said, "where are all of your 
 pretty rings ? ' ' 
 
 " Oh, I have discovered that rings are not good 
 29
 
 30 HER IvADYSHIP. 
 
 style any more. We are too rich to wear them. 
 I am thinking of putting all of my diamonds 
 away. They look ostentatious. There are a 
 great many things people with as much money as 
 we have cannot do." 
 
 "I never think about our money. I do the 
 thing I would do, any way." 
 
 " Oh, no, you do not. People wouldn't let 
 you. There is only one safe rule for people with 
 great fortunes, and that is, to keep as much as 
 possible with the people who have like fortunes 
 or the equivalent in position. They cannot 
 gain anything from us. Money brings us a 
 crowd of followers. I shall be perfectly miser- 
 able, for example, until you and Constance are 
 married to men who I know are not fortune 
 hunters, who can offer you as much or more 
 than you give them. It is a great responsi- 
 bility ; ' ' and Mrs. Sanderson sighed. 
 
 A fine red made the girl's face look like a rose 
 on the white linen, and she threw the veil of her 
 hair across her cheek. 
 
 ' ' I guess Connie and I can relieve you of that 
 responsibility. I mean to marry myself, when I 
 get ready, and I believe Connie is going to do 
 everything for herself. Your office is a sinecure; ' ' 
 and she patted her stepmother's hand. 
 
 "Dear," Mrs. Sanderson said impressively, 
 ' ' do you believe that I love you, that I have your
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 31 
 
 interest at heart just as much as Constance's? I 
 am not your own mother, although I have always 
 tried to take her place to you." 
 
 ' ' You have been as indulgent as any mother 
 could be." 
 
 " Perhaps that is rather evading the question. 
 If f*were your own mother, it would be so easy 
 to say what I must. Perhaps you will think 
 diat your own mother would not have said it. I 
 can only speak with my own limitations." 
 
 Mrs. Sanderson's voice had a pathetic tremble 
 in it. It was very unlike her not to be firm. 
 This attitude had always been reserved for use 
 upon Sanderson himself when everything else 
 failed, and its strangeness made Alice sit up, full 
 of foreboding. 
 
 ' ' Is there anything wrong with papa ? ' ' 
 
 "No, no." She hesitated and looked out of 
 the window for a moment, collecting the best 
 words to speak in. " You are very young, Alice, 
 and I do not want you to spoil your life by to 
 spoil two lives, if having your beautiful young 
 life in his keeping could be anything but a great 
 boon to any man. ' ' 
 
 " What do you mean ? Be plain, be frank with 
 me. I do not understand you." 
 
 "I am speaking of Mr. Batterman." Her 
 voice was low, and she pressed the girl's hand. 
 "We can all see, everybody can see, that you
 
 32 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 have a girlish fancy for him, that you have 
 always had, and most of all he can see it has 
 seen it for a long time. ' ' Alice gave a little gasp 
 that was almost a sob, and fell back among her 
 pillows. ' ' You are the daughter of the man to 
 whom he owes everything, his future as well as 
 his past. He is a man of honor, a gentleman who 
 lives up to the letter of his obligations in the 
 most scrupulous fashion. You know that. If 
 you love him, he is ready to marry you." 
 
 ' ' How can you say such things ? ' ' the girl 
 wailed. 
 
 " Because, my dear, they are true. If you 
 should accept Mr. Batterman and he most 
 assuredly means to ask you to marry him, for 
 there is absolutely no other course left open to 
 him if you do so, both your father and I know 
 that he will be to you what is known as a ' good 
 husband. ' Perhaps, as the years go by, you will 
 be as happy or happier than the woman who is 
 married because she is loved. After all, in most 
 cases, marriage is a mere friendship. ' ' 
 
 Every word dropped on the girl's heart like 
 molten lead, scarring, burning. But Mrs. 
 Sanderson was pitiless. 
 
 " Your father did not wish me to speak to you. 
 He thinks Christopher would never let you dis- 
 cover the difference, but I know that he cannot 
 help it. You would discover it for yourself, and
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 33 
 
 then there would stretch before you a long life 
 of regret. Caring for Mr. Battermau as you do, 
 you might be happy but for the thought, which 
 cannot fail to come, that he married you out of 
 honor and pity, and that you have spoiled his 
 life." 
 
 She still held the girl's hand, which lay limp 
 in hers. Alice was not the saint who could clasp 
 the hand that smote her. Her father was a sort 
 of hero, a creature all sweetness and kindness. 
 His wife had never allowed him to come close 
 enough to his children for them to understand 
 his faults, or to believe for a second that she 
 ruled him. To them he was the wise, dignified 
 ruler of his household. That he had seen her 
 humiliation was the bitterest drop in Alice's mis- 
 ery. His indorsement made any possibility of a 
 mistake out of the question. The idea that her 
 mother could be lying never for one instant 
 crossed her mind, and yet how easy it would have 
 been to prove it ! She had only to speak to her 
 father, and if it were untrue the whole fabric 
 would fall to the ground. She did not know that 
 Mrs. Sanderson was absolutely sure that there 
 would be no confidences between father and 
 child. She had made that out of the question by 
 years of intermediation. They were as far re- 
 moved as the peasant who kneels to a saint and 
 his God.
 
 34 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 "I have thought over this for weeks for 
 months. Once I thought it best to go to Mr. 
 Batterrnan, and ask him to go away and let your 
 girlish fancy die, so that, as time progressed, and 
 you became older, you would laugh at your 
 youthful folly ; and then I thought you would 
 prefer this." 
 
 ' ' Yes, yes, a thousand times yes ; I certainly 
 should. Will you go now, mamma, and leave 
 me alone ? ' ' 
 
 Mrs. Sanderson leaned over and kissed the girl 
 tenderly on the cheek. 
 
 " Forgive me, my daughter," she said. 
 
 "Yes, yes, you are right. It was the only 
 thing to do. But promise me one thing. Do 
 not tell papa. I,et him think, won't you, that I 
 saw it for myself, that I was not so stupid and 
 silly and blind ? Promise me." 
 
 "I promise;" and a moment later, as Mrs. 
 Sanderson closed the door behind her, and stood 
 alone in Alice's sitting room, she smiled at that 
 promise, a smile that was full of satisfaction as 
 well as appreciation of what appeared to her a 
 humorous point. 
 
 Alice lay for moments, stunned with wounded 
 pride, and with something that went deeper than 
 that. Of course she saw it all now. Of course 
 Batterrnan was all that her father and mother 
 thought him. It was for those qualities that
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 35 
 
 she loved him. As she thought of her broken 
 dream, she put her face in the pillow, and al- 
 most choked with sobs that a young girl's throat 
 should never feel. He should never, never 
 know that she had loved him. She turned and 
 touched the button for her maid, and with a 
 woman's instinct asked for the prettiest house 
 gown she owned. 
 
 ' ' Is Lord Lurgan well enough to come down 
 to breakfast, Celeste ? ' ' she asked. 
 
 " Oh, yes, miss. He has been up this hour. 
 His sprain has been so bad that he can do no 
 walking, and they have brought a chair that the 
 men can carry for him. He is in the breakfast 
 room with your mamma now, miss, looking as 
 handsome as a picture. But he is not so hand- 
 some as Mr. Batterman is. ' ' 
 
 Alice winced at the woman's insinuating tone. 
 So even the servants knew her secret, knew that 
 she was only waiting for a man to throw his 
 handkerchief ! Probably they thought of her as 
 the rich man's daughter who would buy a hus- 
 band. 
 
 ' ' I think Lord Lurgan much the handsomer, ' ' 
 she said. "He has had more oh, I suppose 
 you people like Mr. Chris' style," she went on 
 loftily. ' ' Mr. Batterman is so good that every- 
 body thinks him handsome." 
 
 She lingered over her dressing, and had the
 
 36 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 maid bring her her coffee and roll. She ached with 
 misery, and she was trying to hide it away some- 
 where out of sight. Never before had she made 
 so careful a toilet for the morning, and she was 
 still hesitating at the glass when Batterman's 
 card was brought up to her.
 
 V. 
 
 T T seemed to Alice that the name on that little 
 bit of pasteboard was yards high. It was 
 the most dominating thing in the room. She now 
 felt some of Chris" magnetism in its touch. She 
 was young enough and girlish enough, and had 
 sufficient imagination, to remember that it had 
 just left his pocket and his hand, and she felt as 
 a believer in relics might when he touches some- 
 thing that has been the property of one of his 
 saints. Two hours ago, with the assurance in 
 her heart that they two loved each other, she 
 would have t>een calm. Like every woman under 
 such circumstances, she would have been quite 
 mistress of the situation. Now it was altogether 
 changed. 
 
 "Tell Granger to wait a moment," she said 
 indifferently. She was surprised at her own 
 voice, and then her thoughts ran ahead of her. Of 
 course we were all mere machines, she reasoned, 
 if we cared to be. All there was to do was to let 
 your brain sit up there aloft and control your 
 body. It could not but be a willing servant if 
 you insisted upon it. She would show them ! 
 37
 
 38 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 She, Alice Sanderson, let a man marry her out of 
 pity ? She began to say that she disliked him for 
 his presumption, and all the time her heart, that 
 heart whose longings were all to be so rudely re- 
 versed, was beating heavily, sending nervous 
 throbs into her throat. She finished a last detail 
 or two of her toilet and opened the door to pass 
 the man who stood there waiting with his tray. 
 He was one of the old servants they had had in 
 Lodge City. 
 
 "Wait here a moment, Granger," she said, 
 " and then go down and ask Mr. Batterman to 
 come into the breakfast room. Mamma is there, 
 is she not ? ' ' 
 
 ' ' Yes, Miss Alice but Mr. Christopher ' ' 
 
 ' ' Mr. Christopher must take us where he finds 
 us, at this hour of the morning," she answered 
 lightly, and walked to the staircase, which ran 
 from the end of her hall down into the conserva- 
 tory and led her on into the breakfast room. As 
 she removed her hand from its bronze railing, 
 she found that Constance was in one of her 
 erratic flights. 
 
 " Oh, say, Alice," she began, "are you going 
 in to see Chris now ? He's here asking for you. 
 Mother has just sent me back up stairs. I think 
 she wants to impress Lord Lurgan with an idea 
 of the discipline she has over me. It appears to 
 be her fancy that she can make him believe I was
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 39 
 
 brought tip in a pinafore on cold mutton, like 
 those English schoolgirls in the novels." She 
 gave a crowing chuckle which was yet overflow- 
 ing with merriment. "I'll bet a dollar she 
 thinks he thinks I never read a novel, unless it 
 was ' Ivanhoe ' or some dusty old thing ! I love 
 to see mother sit for her picture. But are you 
 going in to see Chris ? ' ' 
 
 "Where is he?" 
 
 ' ' In the library. He has something on his 
 mind. I know from his looks." 
 
 "I sent for him to come into the breakfast 
 room. They are all there, aren't they?" 
 
 " If you mean mother and I^urgan " 
 
 " I/urgan ! Oh, Connie ! You are getting so 
 dreadfully ill bred." 
 
 " Now that's just where you show how little 
 you know ! In all the novels they always call 
 them by their last names. They sign letters that 
 way. You'll be calling him Lurgan all over the 
 place. Now you needn't look like that. I know 
 
 I'm " She set her small mouth, and instead 
 
 of going up stairs, walked straight into the 
 library, where Batterman stood looking out of 
 the window at the lake and its boats gleaming in 
 the morning sun. 
 
 "Say, Chris," she said, "when Alice marries 
 Lord, Lurgan, won't she call him ' L,urgan ' ? 
 Isn't that fashionable ? ' '
 
 40 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 ' ' What are you talking about ? ' ' Batterman 
 asked, with some impatience. 
 
 ' ' I am talking about calling an English lord 
 by his title. I knew that years ago. Alice said 
 it was ill bred, and she wouldn't do it, but I 
 guess she'll find out I am right when she gets 
 over there." 
 
 "If you please, Mr. Batterman," old Granger 
 interrupted, " Miss Alice will see you in the 
 breakfast room." 
 
 "I believe I'll make a sneak back with you, 
 Chris. Mother sent me up stairs to study, but I 
 am dying to stay. I have a thousand questions 
 I want to ask his lordship. ' ' 
 
 "Are they all there?" 
 
 " That's what Alice asked. If you mean is 
 our noble guest there, he is. Mother isn't feed- 
 ing him, but she's doing everything short of it." 
 
 "See here, Connie, I want to see your sister 
 for a few moments. ' ' 
 
 "She knows it, but she can't tear herself 
 away. Come into the breakfast room. They 
 will all be going out of there in a moment, 
 and then you can get your chance. Come 
 along." 
 
 The breakfast room at The Pillars, as Mrs. 
 Sanderson had named her home, was smaller and 
 cozier than the great banqueting hall which 
 might have held the chief of a feudal castle and
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 41 
 
 all his retainers. Lurgan, lying at his ease in a 
 chair, which had been purchased for his use that 
 very morning, thought that his lines had fallen 
 into pleasant places, and that Mrs. Sanderson 
 was a very jolly, clever sort of woman. Up to 
 this, he had thought rather more of her than of 
 the pretty stepdaughter, although Alice had al- 
 ways been in his mind as a possible source of 
 income. He frankly admitted to himself that he 
 had come to America to marry a rich girl. He 
 had been in New York, and he had decided that 
 the mothers and fathers of most of the eligible 
 young women he had met there would expect too 
 much. They were hardly American at all ; they 
 had the ways and habits of thought of people in 
 his own class and yet he could not quite take 
 them upon that footing. Marrying one of those 
 girls, whose fathers had Scotch shooting boxes, 
 and who seemed to know the London season just 
 a trifle more thoroughly as they were a bit 
 sharper in everything than he himself did, was 
 not what he wanted at all. He had the old 
 fashioned theory of marrying an American girl 
 to sail away with her and her fortune, and leave 
 her relatives on their native shore. 
 
 Miss Sanderson appeared to represent the proper 
 type exactly, but he was in no particular hurry. 
 He had unlimited faith in his own power of 
 marrying the American girl. He had a good
 
 42 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 position, and his carelessly sowed wild oats had 
 never grown tall enough to cast a deep shadow 
 over it. He thought that he had mowed down 
 the one stalk which showed any tendency to do 
 so. This morning, however, Mrs. Sanderson had 
 put a new idea into his head. 
 
 ' ' You must forgive me for giving you a bit of 
 a warning," she said laughingly. " But my hus- 
 band has a young follower who is a little trouble- 
 some at times. I cannot tell Mr. Sanderson that 
 young Mr. Batterman is an annoyance, but some- 
 times I wish I were less scrupulous," she went 
 on, with a comically humorous smile. "He is 
 allowed to do pretty much what he likes in the 
 guise of a lifelong friend. The last thing was to 
 annoy my stepdaughter by trying to make love 
 -to her. If the manifestation happens to be ex- 
 hibited to you in any unpleasant fashion, I beg 
 that you will consider this an apology. ' ' 
 
 And lyUrgan had laughed : "I used to have a 
 cousin who was a chap like that. Indeed, I have 
 him yet. He was so good we couldn't turn him 
 out, but we used to wish we could." 
 
 But not long after, when Alice came in to say 
 "Good morning," and Batterman's rather set 
 face and somewhat stiff manner followed her, 
 Lurgan could not prevent putting into his manner 
 a certain empressement for which he assuredly 
 had not planned. It was perhaps as much a sur-
 
 HER IvADYSHIP. 43 
 
 prise to him as to Batterman that she answered 
 him as she did, and came to sit beside him. Her 
 color was brilliant and high, and her tongue ran 
 along in the gayest girlish talk, while Chris' face 
 grew harder every moment, and the point of his 
 chin more determined. When he had declined 
 the coffee Mrs. Sanderson pressed upon him, he 
 arose, and deliberately seated himself within two 
 feet of Alice. 
 
 I^urgan settled himself in his chair. If he was 
 to be shut up in a house, certainly they could 
 not have provided him with a better piece of 
 amusement. When L,urgan was a little boy, he 
 had been found one day, carrying an armful of 
 kittens from their native loft out into the rain. 
 It was discovered, upon investigation, that he had 
 done the same thing three or four times in the 
 course of the morning. It %ad afforded him a 
 complete satisfaction to see the anxious mother 
 cat pick them up one by one and carry them 
 laboriously up ladders until she supposed them 
 safe again. The present worry of Batterman 
 gave him something of the same pleasure. He 
 cynically believed that this pretty girl was merely 
 showing him off, letting her poor Western lover 
 see that she was quite able to have an English 
 peer in her train ; and he was ready to assist her. 
 
 ' ' You Americans are quite too luxurious, ' ' he 
 was saying. " I shall have nothing to offer you
 
 44 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 at my place when you come over next year. It was 
 only the other day that we had steam put into 
 Salby Chase. I can keep you warm, which we 
 consider a luxury ; but all this beautiful lighting 
 and ventilating business we haven't reached." 
 
 1 ' But you will have many other things, ' ' Alice 
 said. ' ' To one who has been unfortunate enough 
 to fill several years' memory space with the ways 
 of a raw mining town, age and moss and tradi- 
 tions are part of heaven. ' ' 
 
 ' ' We can give you all of those, but are you 
 certain, Miss Sanderson, that you would not 
 want your mining camp again ? ' ' 
 
 ' ' Now you are being unpleasant. Must I 
 have my fitness for the wild corners of -the earth 
 thrust upon me ? Do I so surely carry the mark 
 of it? Must I be condemned to remain in an 
 environment like that ? ' ' 
 
 ' ' You might make a ' part of heaven ' of even 
 that," Lurgau said audaciously, conscious of the 
 man's face behind hers. 
 
 ' ' But I do not wish to, ' ' she hastily an- 
 swered. 
 
 ' ' Then it is quite certain that you may have 
 any part of the earth you want. Take mine. 
 Salby Chase is at your disposal. It is old enough, 
 and mossy enough, and crammed full of tra- 
 dition. We have every sort of a story, and a 
 family portrait to authenticate most of them. My
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 45 
 
 people have been tradition makers. They never 
 knew how to die decently in their beds. They 
 were always taken off in the midst of something, 
 leaving a ghost behind to ' finish the job,' as you 
 people say." 
 
 " Do not be too generous," the girl said, con- 
 scious, too, almost hysterically conscious, of the 
 face behind her. ' ' You might repent. ' ' 
 
 Not only was Batterman perplexed, but his 
 good taste was wounded. He recognized the al- 
 most insolent tone of the man who lay there in 
 the chair, and his hand ached to strike him. His 
 was not the peevish nature which could blame 
 Alice. He did not understand her, but the 
 dogged loyalty of years would not let him be- 
 lieve that her words and actions, in this short 
 hour, were a real contradiction of the character 
 of the girl he had known so long and so well. 
 He took himself sharply in hand, and wondered 
 if he were not mistaken, if his sensitive nerves 
 were not exaggerating the light talk of a young 
 girl to a guest in her father's house. He scorned 
 himself for foolish and unmanly jealousy. 
 
 Yet all the reasoning in the world would not 
 make less tight the tension of his heart and 
 brain. Stronger and stronger grew his determi- 
 nation that he must put Alice's heart to the test 
 of words now. His talk with her father had 
 changed everything, since only yesterday. He
 
 46 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 would not take even the evidences of his own 
 senses against her. She must tell him. It was 
 probably just such girlish talk as this that had 
 misled her father into thinking she cared for 
 Lurgan. He would have been more than human 
 had he not blamed her a little, but Batterman 
 was of that best type of American manhood which 
 allows an almost unlimited latitude to the pure, 
 good woman he loves. He did not measure her 
 by anything like his own standard. 
 
 He had an attitude of waiting which delighted 
 Lurgan, which was food for the Englishman's 
 vanity, but which made Mrs. Sanderson uneasy. 
 She had known Batterman a long time, she knew 
 that he was not one who gave up anything easily, 
 and she could see in his face something of which 
 Lurgan, with his thick shell of self admiration, 
 and his belittlement of all mankind not born in 
 his own order, was quite unconscious an ex- 
 pression of distaste and contempt. If Alice once 
 became aware of this attitude of Batterman' s, 
 her mother knew that all hope of marrying her 
 to Lurgan might as well be given up. She might 
 crucify the girl's heart for pride's sake, but she 
 could not take away her belief in Batterman' s 
 judgment. Alice would be likely to cling to that 
 with all of a young girl's romanticism, all the 
 more because she must give him up as a lover. 
 
 Mrs. Sanderson needed every moment of Lur-
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 47 
 
 gan's stay for the furthering of her plans, and 
 she needed an open field. She had never won 
 any of her battles by timid methods. She knew 
 that it is the bold stroke which counts. She had 
 taken a few minutes to get Connie safely out of 
 the way, and then she came back from the con- 
 servatory with a butterfly orchid on her hand- 
 some, round, ringless finger. 
 
 ' ' Are you interested in orchids, I^ord I^ur- 
 gan ? ' ' she asked as she held it out. "It is a 
 new craze with me, and like all late devotees, I 
 am mad on the subject." 
 
 ' ' I know less about them than about anything 
 on earth, but I think they are no end lovely." 
 He took the flower, and dropped it casually on 
 Alice's shoulder after he had admired it for a 
 second. Her dress was cut a little low in the 
 neck, and its purplish pinkness was a delicate 
 contrast to the girl's white skin, on which one of 
 the petals rested. In an instant Batterman was 
 on his feet, and had brushed the flower to the floor. 
 Then he stooped and picked it up, and handed it 
 to Lurgau as if he supposed that he had dropped 
 it accidentally, and was unable through his lame- 
 ness to recover it. 
 
 Mrs. Sanderson spoke hastily. 
 
 ' ' I am going to ask you to come into the con- 
 servatory and see my orchids. I have not many, 
 but I think they look rather well."
 
 48 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 At a signal two men came forward, and half 
 lifted and half rolled the invalid chair out of the 
 room, while Mrs. Sanderson kept up a loud, gay 
 chatter. 
 
 Battennan filled up the doorway, and turned 
 to Alice.
 
 VI. 
 
 A S Batterman thus took possession of her, a 
 ** protest arose in Alice's mind. She dreaded 
 the interview. She did not know what she was 
 going to do or say. She only conned one lesson 
 over and over and over in her mind. She must, 
 she nmst, tell him that it was all a mistake, that 
 she did not love him, that he had entirely mis- 
 taken her. She wished he had seen that she 
 was trying to tell him so, and had gone away 
 without giving her this awful trial and making 
 her tell the awful lie that was before her. But 
 there was nothing left but to tell it, and to put 
 into it all the meaning of which she was capable. 
 
 " I came here this morning with your father's 
 sanction," Batterman began. At the mention of 
 her father all the color died out of Alice's face, 
 and she winced. ' ' I came to say something to 
 you which I tried to say yesterday. You must 
 hear me now, Alice. Will you come into the 
 library ? I think we shall be undisturbed there. ' ' 
 
 "Yes, I will come." 
 
 Determined to believe in her as he was, Batter- 
 man could not fail to notice the great difference 
 49
 
 50 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 in her manner between today and yesterday. It 
 was exactly what he would expect of a woman 
 who had been vulgarly "flirting." He would 
 not let his mind contemplate such a possibility. 
 Her father's words of a few hours ago came back 
 to him. Perhaps he was taking a young girl too 
 seriously ; he was ready to begin to allow as 
 much ; but Alice ! He had seen her grow up in 
 her frank maidenhood ; she was so sincere, so 
 genuine. 
 
 He turned as she preceded him through the 
 library door, and closed it gently behind her. 
 Then, all his fine self showing out of his kind, 
 grave eyes, Batterman stood before her. He did 
 not get a chair for her. They both realized that 
 a great moment had come in their lives, and they 
 stood to meet it. He had intended to say such 
 gentle, tender things to her when the crisis 
 came. He had had plenty of time to think of it. 
 But now he spoke abruptly, and brought out 
 that hackneyed old sentence which has done duty 
 in novels and plays until it is known as well as 
 the marriage service, though it seldom does 
 actual service under natural circumstances. 
 
 "Alice," he said, "I have come here to tell 
 you that I love you with all my heart, more 
 than all the world beside, and to ask you to be 
 my wife." 
 
 Batterman's voice was full of feeling, and to
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 51 
 
 the trembling girl who had put out a hand and 
 picked up some trifle from the table before her, 
 blinded, bewildered by her own emotion, it 
 vibrated like a chord on some great organ. She 
 drew in her breath and swallowed something. 
 What she wanted to do, what she felt that she 
 must do, was to put her head on the front of 
 Chris' coat and tell him all about it. He would 
 understand her and tell her exactly what to do. 
 It W 7 as Chris, whom she knew so well ; Chris, 
 who knew the instant solution to every difficulty ; 
 Chris, who had just told her, although she knew 
 it already, that he loved her more than all the 
 world beside ; Chris, whom she was in the habit 
 of believing implicitly. Here was peace and 
 rest, and the end of every burden, particularly 
 that big black one which had come in her step- 
 mother's hand this morning, and which, was 
 crushing her heart and, it seemed to her, her 
 life. 
 
 She clasped her hands and looked at him with 
 a real appeal, which Chris could hardly resist. 
 Perhaps, if Batterman had been a little less of 
 the chivalrous gentleman he was, had had a grain 
 of coarse assurance, he would have utterly de- 
 molished her point of view, and shattered her 
 determination. If Alice, young, trusting, in her 
 heart half believing that it was all a mistake, 
 could once have reached the haven of his arms,
 
 52 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 she never would have left it. But he stood 
 waiting, and she hesitated. His words, as the 
 form of them was shaped in her mind, sounded 
 perfunctory. Of course they were the lesson he 
 had learned and had come to say. With her 
 vivid imagination she thought of him as being 
 overcome with self pity as he said them. Of 
 course this was a good and honorable man ; a 
 declaration of love he considered her due, and he 
 would not disappoint her. 
 
 " I am very sorry you have told me this," she 
 said in a tone so low that it was with difficulty 
 that he caught her words. " I do not I can- 
 not " Then she caught Batterman's eyes. 
 
 His face was grave to sternness. She held up 
 her head with something like defiance. ' ' I am 
 afraid I have misled you, Mr. Batterman. " Her 
 voice was calm to coldness. ' ' You have taken 
 my friendship for something else. ' ' 
 
 "Yes, I have," Batterman said quite simply. 
 " I believed that you loved me, or I should not 
 have spoken. ' ' 
 
 Again the color flamed in her cheeks, at this 
 seeming corroboration of what she had heard. It 
 hardened her heart. 
 
 " I did not, I do not, I never have. It is all a 
 mistake. I am very sorry I am sorry you ever 
 felt it necessary to speak. ' ' 
 
 Batterman was silent for a moment which
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 53 
 
 seemed like an eternity to Alice. The toy she 
 had picked up from the table claimed her at- 
 tention again, and she looked it over minutely. 
 She never saw it again without a sick remem- 
 brance of that hour. 
 
 " I am sorry too," he said, " but for one thing. 
 It is wrong that any woman as young as you are 
 should have the love of a man she does not care 
 for brought to her. It was all my mistake. I 
 put into your heart, in fancy, something of what 
 was in my own. It has been a fairy tale. Well ' ' 
 he reached over and took her hands into his 
 big, strong ones " I am going away today." 
 
 ' ' Going away ? Where ? ' ' 
 
 There was consternation in her tone. It almost 
 made Batterman laugh in pure bitterness of spirit. 
 She could stand here calmly after he had believed 
 that he had seen the love of a woman in her face, 
 in her tones, and in her eyes, ever since she had 
 been a woman, and tell him that it had all been 
 a mistake ; and then in the next moment she 
 gave him a new proof of her love. What could 
 he think, when her eyes grew dark and her face 
 pale at the mention of his going away ? 
 
 ' ' I am going to New Mexico to look at some 
 mines which your father thinks of buying. I 
 would not have gone had you had a different 
 word for me today, but it is best for both of us 
 that this should be ' good by. ' ' '
 
 54 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 "Yes," she said. Then, because she was 
 young, and because she loved him, and because 
 she could scarcely do without him, and because of 
 a thousand things which culminated in an impulse, 
 she held his hands and said : 
 
 " I do not wish you to go. ' ' 
 
 "Alice," Batterman said, "do not trifle with 
 me. Tell me. Do you love me ? " And as she 
 did not answer, he went on, "You do love me. 
 What does this mean ? ' ' 
 
 " I do not," she said proudly, " but I will not 
 have you go away on my account." She was 
 mistress of herself again, all womanly pride. She 
 must show him that it was all a mistake, that she 
 was not to be pitied, or to be married because 
 she was her father's daughter. Better anything 
 than that. He should stay and see that she did 
 not love him. 
 
 ' ' I will not drive you away into the wilder- 
 ness, and I will not have you change our friend- 
 ship. You must stay." 
 
 ' ' You ask too much of me. ' ' 
 
 ' ' Will it mean so much to you that my father 
 will know that you have supposed I loved you 
 when I did not ? ' ' 
 
 Batterman dropped her hands in astonishment. 
 This was an Alice he did not know, and whom 
 he was beginning to think that he never had 
 known.
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 55 
 
 " Were it to do a service to you, I would stay," 
 he said. ' ' We will try and forget that I have 
 been so foolish." 
 
 He turned away toward the door, and she stood 
 there. A great wave of tenderness for her went 
 through him, and he went back and took her 
 hands. 
 
 " Alice," he said, " I am glad I spoke, for one 
 reason. I want you to know that at any time or 
 in any place where it is possible for me to do you 
 a service, you have only to call me. I will come 
 from any quarter of the earth, and will give you 
 the best that I have to offer. ' ' 
 
 He looked at her for a moment. She did not 
 thank him, for she could not speak. He held 
 her hands tightly, and then let them fall, and a 
 few seconds later Alice heard the lock of the front 
 door close with Batterman outside.
 
 VII. 
 
 *"PHE subject of Batterraan's changed attitude 
 toward Alice was not mentioned by any of 
 the family, though perhaps only Connie was un- 
 conscious of it. Mr. Sanderson looked wistfully 
 at his daughter, and once his wife caught him 
 following her from the dinner table into the draw- 
 ing room. Mrs. Sanderson hastily broke off a con- 
 versation with Lord Lurgan, and went in pursuit. 
 Her husband's attention was always easily di- 
 verted to herself, and she kept the words from 
 being spoken which might have turned aside a 
 stream of events. 
 
 Christopher had gone back to the office and 
 told Mr. Sanderson that he was right so far as 
 Alice's indifference to himself was concerned ; 
 but he could not believe yet that she found in 
 Lurgan the ideal of her girlish fancy. Perhaps 
 it was vanity, and it may have been instinct, 
 which made him reason in this way. 
 
 "I am ready to go to New Mexico, sir," he 
 had said finally ; and that night he saw the lights 
 of the villages which make the outskirts of Chi- 
 cago flash by him. 
 
 56
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 57 
 
 For the first time in his life he knew the real 
 meaning of loneliness. He had become an orphan 
 at sixteen, and had been obliged to leave school 
 then. He had joined an expedition that was sur- 
 veying the route of a new railroad, and by the 
 time he was nineteen was in command of a squad 
 of workmen under the chief engineer. This 
 man, self made himself, liked the clever, well 
 bred boy, and took him to South America. A 
 revolution, and the death of the man who was his 
 friend, threw Batterman on the world at twenty, 
 with the assurance and experience of most men 
 of forty. He had accepted Mr. Sanderson's 
 offer of a place at the Gray Colt mine, and he 
 had been the Chicago capitalist's constructor and 
 adviser ever since. He had known what it was 
 to live for weeks without ever seeing even a printed 
 word in English, to lie out under the stars at 
 night on a high Peruvian mountain, a thousand 
 miles from anywhere, with only Portuguese labor- 
 ers near him. He had been homeless, and with- 
 out a close friend, but life and its good had all 
 been before him. Now that he had lost some- 
 thing which he had discovered to be part of the 
 very fiber of his soul the hope, the ever growing 
 certainty, that Alice Sanderson was to make up 
 to him for all things he felt a gap which it 
 would take years to fill. The air castle to which 
 all his roads led was in ruins, and as he had not
 
 58 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 the strength of mind to make new ones, or to turn 
 back, he could only stand still and look at the 
 wreck of his hopes, and try as best he could to 
 explain to himself why the disaster had been so 
 complete. 
 
 Even yet he clung to his belief in Alice. He 
 even let his mind dwell for a moment upon the 
 sensational theory that she had been hypnotized. 
 How could her whole character seemingly change 
 in one night ? 
 
 Before he left Chicago, however, Batterman 
 had found time to do one thing, for which some 
 people will doubtless condemn him. He cabled 
 to an old friend in London, one of the few close 
 friends he had ever made a quiet, studious man, 
 who had left the wild life of an active mining 
 engineer to become an attach^ of a great London 
 office. His message asked for the fullest par- 
 ticulars of the life of the Earl of Lurgan, and the 
 general estimate of his character. He gave Clayton 
 full liberty to go about making these discoveries 
 in any way he chose. It was not a course he felt 
 like suggesting to Mr. Sanderson, and he saw al- 
 ready that Mrs. Sanderson would keep her hus- 
 band from doing it upon his own account. He 
 directed the answer sent to the post office nearest 
 to the mines in New Mexico. He would stay 
 there for a month, at any rate, within which 
 period he expected a reply to reach him.
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 59 
 
 When he reached his destination, Batterman 
 found a state of affairs he had not expected. He 
 reflected grimly that by her refusal of him, and 
 by his consequent coming down here, he had 
 probably added a million or so to Miss Alice San- 
 derson's fortune. The mine had virtues which 
 neither its first owner nor the Olla Smelter people 
 had discovered, and he immediately telegraphed 
 this fact to Mr. Sanderson, strongly advising 
 him to buy the property and begin work at 
 once. 
 
 The answer he received astonished him. Mr. 
 Sanderson felt that he had mines enough, and he 
 would not touch this one. Batterman wrote the 
 strongest possible letter, still urging the pur- 
 chase. The reply he received was vague and 
 full of kindness, but still declining to take the 
 property, and giving as a reason the fact that 
 Mrs. Sanderson had grown alarmed at so much of 
 her husband's fortune being invested in mines, 
 and had asked him to give her a promise that 
 he would go into no more ventures of this 
 description. 
 
 The situation was embarrassing for Batterman, 
 as he had practically given his word that the 
 property would be taken. For half a dozen years 
 he had been in the habit of closing negotiations 
 of this sort for Sanderson, but the letter ignored 
 this fact entirely. Almost all one moonlight
 
 60 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 night he sat by the door of the little wooden 
 " shack " where he was living, and thought the 
 matter over. Perhaps, after all, it was best that 
 he should let the break come now. His modest 
 savings were sufficient to make a payment on 
 this mine. He had about thirty thousand dollars. 
 If his belief in it were correct, the millions 
 which came out of it would be his own. 
 
 He wrote to Sanderson and told him that he 
 felt in honor bound to take the mine, and as his 
 employer refused to carry out the bargain, he 
 would do so in his own name. A few days later, 
 when a reply came, he felt that he was growing 
 sore and sensitive when Mr. Sanderson's letter 
 read to him almost like the words of a man who 
 was relieved of a responsibility. He could not 
 know how Mrs. Sanderson had used every argu- 
 ment at her command to bring about this state of 
 affairs; how she had made her gentle, kind, 
 yielding husband believe that the happiness of 
 his daughter depended upon it. Mr. Sanderson 
 offered him any help it was in his power to give, 
 and commended him for the desire to take up a 
 business for himself, quite ignoring his often ex- 
 pressed hope of presently making the young man 
 his partner in fact and name, as he had long 
 been in action. But Battermau did not allow one 
 disloyal thought to one who had been his friend 
 so long. Now, as always, he pushed away
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 6 1 
 
 from him the consciousness of the older man's 
 weaknesses, and wrote, thanking him for his kind- 
 ness, but accepting none of his offers. 
 
 It was time for the report to come from Ixm- 
 don, and when the month wore on and it did not 
 appear, Batterman telegraphed again. 
 
 Clayton's answer was prompt: "Mailed full 
 statement twentieth." 
 
 This was now the thirty first, and any day 
 Chris might expect to get information which he 
 felt he might have to send on to Chicago. He 
 set his teeth as he realized that he would prob- 
 ably be called a meddlesome coward in case 
 there was any reason why Lurgan should not be 
 the familiar inmate of the household where Alice 
 lived. The superstition which would allow a 
 man to shield another when they were both 
 lovers of the same woman had no sort of weight 
 with him. Perhaps he was too primitive, but he 
 saw no reason why he should not look out for 
 dangers for the woman he loved, and try to 
 shield her from them even though she were not 
 for him. 
 
 It was a long gallop over the sun baked mesa 
 to the little platform station where the train 
 passed once a day, but Batterman made it him- 
 self, evening after evening, his broad sombrero 
 flapping before his face and cooling the still, hot 
 air of that Southern country.
 
 62 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 At last the letter arrived, and with it came a 
 thick, creamy envelope directed in a schoolgirl's 
 hand which he recognized as Connie's. The 
 latter he put in his pocket. The temptation to 
 read it first was almost irresistible ; it would be 
 full of news of Alice ; but he was going to know 
 the contents of this other letter first. It was 
 written in the precise hand of Clayton, and every 
 word contained therein appeared to be quite to 
 the point : 
 DEAR CHRIS : 
 
 The ISarl of I^urgan belongs to a family which has not 
 done anything, for a hundred years, to publicly disgrace 
 itself ; but some members of it have needed help to keep out 
 of trouble. The earl's mother is an eccentric lady who ap- 
 parently believed that boys were spoiled by being kept in 
 too tight a rein ; consequently, she gave her son none at all. 
 At twenty, he had an establishment which was talked about, 
 but I believe that generally it is supposed to be a thing of 
 the past. It seemed, however, worth looking into. I find 
 that a cottage in the very grounds of Salby Chase is occupied 
 by a young widow who lives there with a companion, does a 
 great deal of charitable work, and is now and then called 
 upon by the rector's wife. The Dowager I^ady Lurgan never 
 pays her any attention, but she must know that Mrs. Welles 
 is the lady who assisted her son to receive his friends ten 
 years ago, as it was she who turned the establishment out of 
 doors. That is about all. He has great estates, but both he 
 .and his mother are in debt. Does he want to buy a mine or 
 marry your chief's daughter ? 
 
 Yours as always, 
 
 CLAYTON. 
 
 ' ' I knew there was something about the brute, ' ' 
 Chris said, and he opened Connie's letter. Inside
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 63 
 
 was another envelope, thick and white, with a 
 few lines scribbled on it : 
 
 DEAR CHRIS : 
 
 I found you had not had your invitation, although we are 
 so stylish that the others have been gone a week. Think of 
 Alice being " her ladyship " ! 
 
 CONNIE. 
 
 His hands trembled so that he could hardly pull 
 out the cards which told him that he was asked 
 to the marriage of "their daughter, Alice, to 
 George John Algernon, Karl of I^urgan, on the 
 loth day of December." 
 
 This was the 5th. It would take him four 
 days to get to Chicago.
 
 VIII. 
 
 TT was on the morning of Alice's wedding day 
 that Batterman sprang out of a cab before 
 the great doors of the Sanderson house. There 
 was an air of festivity throughout the place. 
 Two carriages stood at the side, under the wide 
 porte cochere, with wedding favors at the horses' 
 heads and on the men who stood ready to take 
 them out. It was old Granger who let him in, 
 or he would probably have been told that none 
 of the family could possibly be seen this morning. 
 The ceremony was to be at twelve, and the bride 
 would leave the house in an hour. But Granger 
 let him into the library. 
 
 "It is Mr. Sanderson who will be glad of a 
 minute to say how d'ye do, Mr. Batterman, sir," 
 old Granger said. " I will speak to him." 
 
 But Mr. Sanderson was not allowed to come 
 down for more than a moment alone. As Granger 
 knocked at his dressing room door, it was Mrs. 
 Sanderson who looked out of her own to ask 
 what was wanted. When she heard that it was 
 Batterman, a frown drew itself between her eye- 
 brows for the first time that day. 
 64
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 65 
 
 She had felt almost as if she were walking on 
 air. Her own success bewildered her. She 
 could scarcely believe that she had been able to 
 play with Alice's feelings, and with the paternal 
 anxiety of her husband, until she had brought 
 this to pass. It had been frankness between her 
 and l,urgan after the first two days, and they 
 laid their plans together. In the short space of 
 three weeks, Alice had promised to marry the 
 young Englishman, and had said that she did not 
 care at all how soon it came off. What possible 
 difference did it make to her ? She might as well 
 do what everybody expected of her. I,urgan was 
 pleasant, and ready, and quite unobtrusive. He 
 did not offend her by love making. Of course, 
 her own fancy was caught by the thought of 
 being an English peeress, and her speedy mar- 
 riage would teach Batterman how greatly mis- 
 taken he had been in thinking that she loved him. 
 Never, never, she told herself, could she wipe 
 out the shame of that humiliation. 
 
 Of course, to the wise and elderly, and to those 
 to whom the temptation of salving wounded 
 pride and becoming a countess at the same time 
 has never been given, all these reasons are con- 
 temptible ; but to Alice, a young girl who felt 
 that her heart and her love were dead forever, 
 they were quite sufficient. She had not been 
 allowed time to think Mrs. Sanderson had at-
 
 66 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 tended to that. Now, in this hour before they 
 set out for the church, that lady thought she had 
 earned a moment's respite from vigilance, and 
 here was the tiresome Batterman obtruding him- 
 self. 
 
 "Richard," she called to her husband, "if 
 you are going to see Mr. Batterman, ask him to 
 come up here. I should like to see him, too." 
 
 And when Batteruiau handed out the letter 
 which Clayton had written, it was to see it passed 
 into Mrs. Sanderson's hands. 
 
 " Why do you bring us this vulgar piece of 
 gossip, Mr. Batterman ? ' ' she asked with extreme 
 haughtiness. 
 
 ' ' I cannot call it a vulgar piece of gossip, Mrs. 
 Sanderson. It cannot be too late to save Alice 
 until she is actually married to this man. You 
 know that her happiness is more to me than all 
 the world beside." 
 
 " I can hardly believe that, when you come 
 to bring the blight of a scandal upon her wed- 
 ding day. She is about to marry a young man 
 who is in every way a suitable match for her, 
 who loves her, and whom she loves. It is in- 
 sulting to both of them that a discarded suitor 
 should be allowed to come to her father, at this 
 hour, and carry tales to the discredit of the man 
 she is to marry. Christopher Battermau, I never 
 supposed you were jealous and spiteful."
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 67 
 
 Mrs. Sandersoii would have liked to order 
 Battermaii out of the house, but she had had a 
 glimpse of her husband's face, and saw him more 
 moved than she had ever known him. She could 
 only try to belittle the accuser ; but Sandersoii 
 put his hand on her arm with a silencing gesture. 
 
 " I do not think this an idle thing. If this is 
 true, it should be told to Alice. In any case, 
 Lurgan should be asked to deny it." 
 
 "You know it cannot be true." 
 
 " I know Clayton," her husband said. 
 
 ' ' At least it cannot be true that that person 
 is there now. You cannot oh, Richard ! " Mrs. 
 Sanderson clasped her hands and tears came into 
 her eyes; and even as she cried she thought 
 that tear marks would be expected of her on a 
 day like this. "You cannot ruin the child's 
 happiness, and cover her with humiliation on her 
 wedding day, for a bit of hearsay gossip about 
 an indiscretion of a man's youth. It is im- 
 possible. If 3^ou stopped the marriage now, 
 Alice would never hold up her head again. And 
 Connie ! / can remember that we have more 
 than one child." 
 
 Sanderson looked at her and wavered. 
 
 " She loves Lurgau. You see she loves him, 
 and he loves her. You have seen men who had 
 not been saints in their boyhood turn into strong 
 men and good husbands. ' '
 
 68 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 "She is right, Batterman," Mr. Sanderson 
 said at last. ' ' I have not the heart to go to her 
 now with this story." 
 
 ' ' But you should go to I/urgan with it. ' ' 
 
 "Nor that!" Mrs. Sanderson said, and she 
 threw the paper into the open fire. " Pardon 
 me, Mr. Batterman, but I must ask you to excuse 
 us. You have made us both miserable, but I wiU 
 not consent to your making others unhappy. ' ' 
 
 "The carriages are ready, madam," the man 
 at the door announced. 
 
 "You go up to Alice and bring her down," 
 Mrs. Sanderson said hastily, turning to her hus- 
 band ; and before Batterman quite realized it, he 
 was walking down the hall, was on the staircase, 
 every step seemingly bringing him to his own 
 execution. 
 
 Up stairs Alice was turning about to take a last 
 look into the pretty room she was leaving. It 
 was only the other day she had come here, wild 
 with delight at all the pleasures of life before her, 
 and she felt it with a dull ache which seemed 
 to her as if it would never stop conscious of a 
 strong, deep human love which she told herself 
 was dead forever now. What mattered it. what 
 became of this stupid, unfeeling Alice Sanderson? 
 They called her again, the maids and her mother 
 and Connie and her father surrounded her, telling 
 her of late arrived presents, of a thousand things.
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 69 
 
 She hardly knew how she got through the 
 ceremony. She seemed to be walking in a mist. 
 Voices sounded afar. There were flowers and 
 lights and music ; she said some words, and 
 then she turned away, having exchanged her 
 father's arm for another, which was larger and 
 firmer, but not so familar. She had only one 
 shock of consciousness, and that was at the door, 
 when she looked up and saw Batterniau's white 
 face. He had not gone into the church. Her 
 heart contracted, her step was unsteady for a 
 moment, and then, poor child, she remembered 
 that it was that Chris might see it all that she 
 had come to this place. And then confusion 
 settled about her again, and she was left to 
 think her own thoughts. 
 
 She had a feeling of repulsion when I/urgan 
 put his hand on hers in the carriage, and she 
 gently drew away. She did not dislike him, but 
 he disturbed her. There was the rush of the 
 breakfast, the change of dress, the drive to the 
 private car which was to take them all to New 
 York. It was all so unnatural, that one more 
 touch, in having L,urgan almost always beside 
 her, was hardly noticeable. 
 
 It was only at last, when the steamer left its 
 dock, and she stood on the deck, waving good 
 by to her people on the pier, that a little thrilling 
 consciousness of what she had done possessed her.
 
 70 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 They were rapidly moving down the bay, and 
 New York and America were becoming parts of 
 the landscape, when she turned and looked at the 
 man beside her, and realized that he was her hus- 
 band. For him she had given up home and 
 country and friends, and to her he was a stranger.
 
 IX. 
 
 T^HB demesne of Salby Chase was a large one, 
 but like most properties in the agricultural 
 counties of England, it had suffered from de- 
 pression during the past ten years. Lurgan had 
 done absolutely nothing to improve it by helping 
 his people. His mother had had almost com- 
 plete control of the estate ; all he asked was an 
 income, and he did not receive enough to keep 
 him from contracting debts, against which the 
 dowager had not remonstrated. 
 
 ' ' Boys will be boys, and I^urgan will marry a 
 wife one of these days," she always said com- 
 fortably. There was an ingrained selfishness in 
 him upon which she thoroughly relied, knowing 
 its workings within herself. And now he had 
 done exactly what she had advised and supposed 
 he would do when he went to America brought 
 home a rich wife. 
 
 Lady Lurgan was waiting for their arrival at 
 Salby Chase this February evening, with a house 
 party of guests about her. Steam had been put 
 through the old building, but for all that logs of 
 burning wood sent their pungent odors through
 
 72 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 the house. A more or less talkative group 
 gathered about the tea table when Lady Lurgan 
 poured tea. Most of the people had something 
 of the look of herself and her son, and as a mat- 
 ter of fact they were all more or less distantly 
 related. Their dark skins, eyes a trifle too close 
 together, and narrow foreheads sho\ved people 
 of the same racial characteristics. Lady Lurgan's 
 teeth were large, and a trifle prominent when she 
 talked, and she wore a headdress made of a lace 
 handkerchief which gave her an appearance of 
 being crowned. Her hands, as they moved 
 about over the cups and saucers, were full of 
 nervous force and energy. Unlike Mrs. San- 
 derson, she did not feel that she was too rich to 
 wear rings, for her fingers were covered with 
 them, many of dim old stones in antique settings. 
 They were the hands of a strong woman, with 
 considerable imagination. 
 
 Only a few feet from the dowager sat her niece, 
 Lady Fortescue, who was a curious commentary 
 upon her aunt's appearance, showing as she did 
 what L^dy Lurgau might have looked like long 
 ago, when the flame of youth burned within her. 
 Nobody ever passed Lady Fortescue by without 
 a second look. She was taller by an inch or two 
 than almost any woman she knew. The others 
 said that that last inch, at least, was due to arti- 
 ficial aid, because it was only after giantesses be-
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 73 
 
 came fashionable that she took it on. She was 
 delightfully slender, with the sweet roundness of 
 a very young girl, although she was past thirty. 
 There could be no doubt that the color in her 
 hair and cheeks was genuine, for she threatened 
 to dye her hair black, because its natural bright 
 blonde tint was unfashionable and " vulgar " for 
 the moment ; and besides, her color varied as she 
 moved and spoke. But it was her eyes and 
 mouth that held everybody with a momentary 
 stare of wonder. Her thick brows, darker than 
 her hair, met in a point over her nose, making 
 heavy marks that would have been disproportion- 
 ate to most eyes. But I/ady Fortescue had a 
 pair of lamps which would have asserted them- 
 selves had they been placed under a bushel. 
 Nobody ever knew exactly what color they were 
 only that they were big and very brilliant. 
 They were conspicuous enough when their 
 owner's face was in repose, but when she smiled, 
 with full crimson lips parted over teeth as bril- 
 liant as her eyes, the effect w r as almost startling. 
 A jealous woman once said that Lady Fortescue 
 reminded her of the wolf in the story of Red 
 Ridinghood, but everybody else thought her re- 
 mark stupid as well as unkind. 
 
 Theo Fortescue had not married until com- 
 paratively late. She had no fortune, and people 
 generally thought she would end by marrying
 
 74 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 some susceptible young man years her junior. 
 There was always at least one of them dying of 
 love for her, waiting at her elbows to fetch and 
 carry. People even settled upon Lord Lurgan 
 as her possible husband, but the dowager knew 
 better than that. That worldly mother was in 
 the habit of calling attention to the success with 
 which she had brought up her son, and frankly 
 naming some of her methods for keeping him out 
 of the way of designing ' ' husband hunters. ' ' In 
 her heart she knew that her niece did not care 
 one straw for Lurgau, and did not want to marry 
 him ; but she did not know when Theo might 
 see fit to change her mind. It was a relief to 
 everybody when she finally accepted old Lord 
 Fortescue, who was a new baron, if he was sixty 
 five, and who needed somebody to spend the 
 money which had come in from his Cornish mines. 
 His wife was doing it admirably. 
 
 Standing with his back to the blaze, cutting the 
 heat off from about one third of the room, was a 
 brother in law of Lady Lurgan' s, who was accept- 
 ing his nephew's marriage with all the philosophy 
 that could be expected of a man whose home 
 seemed likely to be broken up. When the late 
 Earl of Lurgan died, his widow brought her hus- 
 band's brother, the Hon. Captain Alfred Innis, 
 to Salby Chase, as her assistant in its manage- 
 ment. Captain Innis had served first in a crack
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 75 
 
 cavalry troop and then in a line regiment, but 
 early in his career, without one word of explana- 
 tion unless it was privately talked over between 
 him and his colonel he had sent in his papers, 
 and come back from India to private life. 
 
 " It seems to me, Cecilia," Captain Innis was 
 saying, ' ' that you might have kept that tea out 
 until the bride came. She's getting a dismal 
 enough welcome as it is no arches, no joy bells, 
 no grateful tenantry, and now cold tea." 
 
 ' ' There will be fresh brought in for her, and 
 since she is inevitably going to upset so many of 
 our ways, I do not see why we should all begin 
 to go thirsty so soon. She can keep us waiting 
 for tea tomorrow if she cares to. ' ' 
 
 " Or give us none at all," Lady Fortescue put 
 in vivaciously. ' ' I hear that Americans do not 
 serve it except upon ' days, ' as they call them. 
 It is not a meal with them, but a function. They 
 dress it up. They only have it once a week or a 
 fortnight, and then they put green vines and ex- 
 pensive roses on a pink satin tablecloth, and dress 
 young girls in ball gowns to pour the tea out, 
 and serve sweets and salted nuts with it. Aunt 
 Cecilia, you should have pretended that this was 
 a ' day,' and have let me wear my yellow tulle 
 and pour the tea for the bride." 
 
 "Why isn't anybody at the station? Why 
 this gathering, as if the new Lady Lurgan was a
 
 76 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 will that was going to be read?" a young man 
 in a golf suit asked. 
 
 "My dear boy, that is the case exactly," 
 Lady Fortescue said. "She's the will. We 
 have read some of the paragraphs, and we are 
 carrying them out. Algernon wrote that they 
 wanted no demonstration of any sort. I believe 
 an American reporter has followed them all the 
 way across the ocean to see their arrival, and to 
 telegraph the meetings and the demonstrations. 
 Probably he belongs to a rival paper to that 
 owned by Lady Lurgan' s papa." 
 
 1 ' Does he own a newspaper ? ' ' 
 
 " My dear ignorant child ! They all do. All 
 those American millionaires own papers, which 
 are kept by them to further their business 
 interests and to report the gowns of their wives 
 and daughters. ' ' 
 
 ' ' Well, I hope Lady Lurgan will have some 
 pretty ones," the blunt young man said tact- 
 lessly. " I hear they can simply knock out our 
 women at dressing." 
 
 " Doubtless," Lady Fortescue said dryly. 
 
 There was no time for anything more, for the 
 opening of the great hall door could be heard, 
 and Lady Lurgan arose with precipitation, and 
 with a little paleness in her cheek. She was a 
 woman who prided herself upon being practical, 
 but it was a great deal to her to have her only
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 77 
 
 son bring home his bride, the woman who had 
 taken her own name and title, who would sit in 
 the seat which had been hers so long, and who 
 would probably be the mother of the Karls of 
 Lurgan to come. Her imagination sent pictures 
 of varying possibilities before her mind's eye. 
 She intended to be all that was possible to this 
 young foreigner. In her heart she despised her 
 a little, as one who had come with money 
 in her hand to buy a title ; but they would have 
 the great common interest of wishing to build up 
 the estate and keep Lurgan within bounds. Lady 
 Lurgan was determined to be friends with the 
 newcomer if possible. 
 
 But she almost stopped short when she saw the 
 bride, so different was the reality from her ex- 
 pectation. Alice had put on a long traveling 
 cloak of dark cloth with a pearl lining, and as she 
 threw it back, her fine, delicate figure in its dark, 
 plain gown was relieved against it. Her eyes 
 looked from a white face into those of Lady 
 Lurgan with almost an appeal. It would have 
 moved most women to take the slender, almost 
 childish creature into their arms and comfort her, 
 to assure her that her troubles were over and that 
 she had a haven at last. But to L,ady L,urgan it 
 meant the strongest repulsion. 
 
 "She looks as if she were trying to tell the 
 world that Algy beats her," she thought bitterly.
 
 78 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 " She has no pluck, uo backbone. She is going 
 to whine." 
 
 A positive feeling of rage possessed her, and 
 the friendliness and concern that had been in her 
 face a moment earlier all died away. 
 
 "I know you are very tired," she said after 
 the introductions had been made, and I^urgan 
 had greeted his relatives and friends, who were 
 saying all sorts of congratulatory things to him ; 
 "but a cup of fresh tea will revive you. For 
 my part I cannot see why you came home now. 
 It would have been far wiser to have remained 
 on the continent until May or the first of June, 
 as you did not come home in November. This 
 is the season when all the clever people who can 
 afford it go to the Riviera." 
 
 Alice's face flushed crimson. She had learned, 
 in the months since her marriage, that there was 
 a bluntness of speech which was quite harmless 
 and meaningless, though she had never been ac- 
 customed to it ; but the reference to " affording " 
 touched her in a tender spot. They had met a 
 great many English people in Rome and Paris 
 and Vienna during their months abroad, 
 and always and everywhere there had been 
 more or less frank allusions to her money, and to 
 Lurgan's good fortune in securing it. She had 
 longed to get to some place she might call 
 " home." It was hardly that she was homesick
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 79 
 
 for Chicago. The great house there had never 
 seemed home-like. It was like some brilliant 
 pavilion upon a road, in which she had stopped 
 to dance and make merry. She had a sense, 
 sometimes, that she had no home. The house 
 out by the mine, where the roses grew over the 
 window, and where Chris came to luncheon and 
 dinner, was home. She put that thought out of 
 her mind, however, ignoring it as quickly as 
 possible. It was something to which she must 
 not let herself hark back for a moment. 
 
 Perhaps she would find home at Salby Chase. 
 She had several photographs of the beautiful old 
 house, with its different orders of architecture so 
 blended and covered over by ivy, and set about 
 with terraces, that any incongruity was forgotten. 
 She had put them out where she could look at 
 them and dream about them as they wandered 
 about the continent. Lurgan was good natured, 
 ready to amuse her, and not very troublesome, 
 and she had the respect for him which any un- 
 spoiled young girl has for the man she marries. 
 She felt that a great happiness could never be 
 hers no, never ! But she could and would have 
 a home. And this was it this house full of 
 people who looked at her curiously as if she were 
 a barbarian from some unknown corner of the 
 earth. She had already acquiesced in I^urgan's 
 wish that his mother should live with them. She
 
 80 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 had no wish to be quite alone with her husband ; 
 but she had not expected to be told that she was 
 a fool for coming home. 
 
 "Perhaps, I,ady Lurgan," Lady Fortescue 
 began, and then hesitated. "Or Alice I may 
 call you Alice, may I not ? I hear that there are 
 no end of Alices in America since that queer 
 song of Mr. Du Maurier's became a fad over 
 there. Are you a genuine Alice, or are you a 
 Sweet Alice of ' Ben Bolt ' creation ? ' ' 
 
 "I was christened Alice, I believe," young 
 Lady Lurgan said, a little stiffly. 
 
 ' ' Now that is another interesting thing that I do 
 want to ask you about. I have heard that there 
 are hundreds and thousands of Americans that 
 were never christened at all. They just give 
 their children names, and if the children choose, 
 they change them when they grow up." 
 
 " Oh, I know a better story than that, Theo," 
 Lurgan put in. "I heard it in Chicago. They 
 have a railroad out there called the ' St. Paul. ' A 
 very religious gentleman, who builds sectarian 
 colleges and all that sort of thing, went down 
 into ' the Street, ' as they call Wall Street in New 
 York, and, as the Americans say, everlastingly 
 squeezed it dry through operating in ' St. Paul. ' 
 So, feeling rich and generous, he put up a big 
 stained glass window in his college chapel, the 
 design of which is ' The Conversion of St. Paul.' "
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 8 1 
 
 In the general laugh Alice stood up. 
 
 "I ain very tired," she said, " and if you will 
 allow me, I will go up for a little while before 
 dinner. ' ' 
 
 "Yes, indeed," Lady Lurgan replied hastily; 
 ' ' I will show you your rooms myself. ' ' 
 
 ' ' Do, mother, ' ' Lurgan said. ' ' I want to run 
 around the stables for half an hour. I bought 
 some horses in Vienna, and I want to see where 
 I am to put them." 
 
 But after he had held the door open for his 
 mother and his wife to pass through, he did not 
 turn toward the stables. Lady Fortescue had 
 seated herself in a great Turkish chair, and put 
 the toes of her satin slippers on the fender. Her 
 big eyes were blazing and her mouth was open. 
 Lurgan looked back at her, and saw a woman he 
 could understand. With a certainty of being in 
 loose and easy mental garments, he went back, 
 sat down beside her on an ottoman, and picked 
 up a plate of cake. One could talk about any- 
 thing to Theo. 
 
 ' ' What brought you back ? ' ' she asked, as if 
 it were a secret. 
 
 " Fact is," he said, nursing his knees, " that 
 Alice wanted to come home. I think she wants 
 to settle down. She's probably full of ideas 
 about being the head of a great estate. Wants 
 to go in for charities and that sort of thing."
 
 82 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 ' ' Ah ! Model cottages, or jelly and blankets? ' ' 
 
 " Not much in the model cottage way, I am 
 afraid," Lurgau laughed. "I never could see 
 the sense in making people uncomfortable at your 
 own expense. They don't want to pay any more 
 rent for clean houses than for dirty ones, and 
 the clean ones are not half so picturesque. ' ' 
 
 " But the jelly and blanket field is pretty well 
 occupied," Lady Fortescue went on pensively. 
 "You already have ladies in the neighborhood 
 who devote a great deal of time to the amelio- 
 ration of the poor. ' ' 
 
 "See here, Theo," Lurgau said hastily, "be 
 a little decent to Alice, can't you? She really 
 is an awfully good sort. She hasn't any of those 
 aggressive Yankeeisms that we are always hear- 
 ing about. She is a credit to this house, and 
 Heaven knows she has put a prop under it. ' ' 
 
 " Oh, I am going to be decent to her quite ! 
 I think she is beautiful, and really looks very 
 ladylike. A great many of those American 
 women do. They say it is their adaptability, 
 that they have a regular trick of apiug every- 
 thing they see. Now I do not doubt myself that 
 your new wife will presently be more British 
 than the queen herself, who, poor old lady, is 
 mostly German after all. Don't you fear. I 
 intend to be nice to the new Lady Lurgan. She 
 is going to have a big house in town, and do a
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 83 
 
 lot of entertaining, and all that sort of thing, of 
 course, eh ? Now our ship has cotne in? " 
 
 ' ' I suppose so. ' ' 
 
 " It isn't poor little me who is likely to disturb 
 her peace." 
 
 ' ' Do not go hinting about in that beastly 
 fashion," I^urgan said impatiently. 
 
 " Hinting about what ? " his cousin asked in- 
 nocently ; but I/urgan only looked into the fire 
 and said nothing. 
 
 As Alice and Lady I^urgan went up stairs, the 
 young girl could only notice with delight the 
 beautiful old tapestries and carvings everywhere. 
 In the turn of the stair was a beautiful Hoppner 
 portrait of some dead and gone I^ady Lurgan sur- 
 rounded by her four children. Just across was a 
 L,awrence of a beautiful curly haired boy. The 
 dowager stopped. 
 
 " These are some pictures which we have just 
 been able to buy back," she said pleasantly. 
 ' ' When Algernon was at Oxford, he was so ex- 
 pensive, and our income was so small, that we 
 sold these pictures when he came of age, with a 
 number of others. Fortunately, these two came 
 into the market again about the time he became 
 engaged to you, and knowing that he would be 
 able to afford to keep the portraits of his ancestors 
 now, and that you, being an American, would 
 attach peculiar value to them, I bought them
 
 84 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 back. I hope we shall be able to get the others 
 as time goes by. ' ' 
 
 "Thank you," Alice said faintly. "They 
 are beautiful. ' ' 
 
 ' ' Particularly the Lawrence. It is my hus- 
 band's grandfather. He was killed at twenty 
 eight in a duel in France, after he had eloped 
 with his friend's wife. The earth was rid of a 
 scoundrel when he left it," Lady Lurgan said 
 pleasantly as she passed on. ' ' I used to think 
 Algernon looked like him when he was a boy, 
 but he is more like my people now." 
 
 Alice gave a little shudder which reached from 
 her shoulders to her heart. There was the same 
 shape of eye and forehead' in the pretty boy, 
 with his curls, as she saw in her husband's face. 
 She tried to wonder what her own great grand- 
 father had been like. She was sure, at any rate, 
 that he had not been killed in a duel. 
 
 "Here are your rooms. I hope you will like 
 them. Lurgan had a man come up from London 
 and do them over for you. Where is your 
 maid?" 
 
 " I told her she could get a cup of tea. She 
 has had a headache all day. ' ' 
 
 "I am afraid you are a little lax, my dear," 
 Lady Lurgan said patronizingly. "Is she an 
 American ? I hear they always have the head- 
 ache. I would advise you to get a good Eng-
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 85 
 
 lish woman at once. I will attend to it for 
 you." 
 
 "Thank you," Alice replied sharply. . "I 
 think I will keep the maid I have. I have had 
 her some time. She is accustomed to my ways, 
 and although she is French, she is welcome to 
 have a headache now and then." 
 
 " My dear, I am afraid you have a temper," 
 L,ady L,urgan said. " Rest a while, and then put 
 on one of your pretty American gowns and come 
 down. We dine at eight. ' ' 
 
 Alice took the long pins from her hat, flung it 
 on the bed, and then, without taking off her 
 coat, dropped into a chair before the fire. 
 
 This was "home" !
 
 X. 
 
 " HTHERE is one thing I plainly see, Algy," 
 Lady Fortescue said, one morning six 
 weeks later. She had been over to the Mediter- 
 ranean, and had been suddenly called back by 
 the illness of her husband. Neither that nor his 
 recovery had dimmed her color. ' ' That is, that 
 your wife is going to settle down into a pony 
 chaise. ' ' 
 
 Lady Fortescue herself had no suggestion of 
 pony chaises about her. She had ridden over, and 
 while her habit had a splash here and there, her 
 shoulders were too broad and her waist too nar- 
 row to give any suggestion of rural lanes. She 
 was sitting on a wooden bench in the window of 
 the harness room at Salby Chase, where Lurgan 
 had a desk in which he kept pipes and French 
 novels. He had been looking at her with the 
 admiration he had always felt for her, which, if 
 it had not been always respectful, was at least 
 quite genuine. 
 
 "She is spending her time, I hear, going 
 about like some new Lady Bountiful with gifts 
 in her hand. I hear that the tenantry stand 
 85
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 87 
 
 with ' God bless you's ' on their lips, their hats 
 in one hand and the other outstretched, when- 
 ever she goes by." 
 
 "What nonsense ! This isn't a comic opera." 
 
 "No?" 
 
 ' ' Alice amuses herself by giving some toys to 
 the children, I believe. It is rather silly, but if 
 it amuses her, I do not see that it is anybody's 
 business. ' ' 
 
 "Certainly none of mine," said Theo cheer- 
 fully. ' ' But I thought that all the children 
 about here had dolls, and that they were all 
 dressed in black, with neat collars and cuffs." 
 
 ' ' Oh, stuff ! ' ' Then, catching her eye, his own 
 grew reckless. ' ' They have had time to wear out. 
 The youngsters probably need a new supply. ' ' 
 
 ' ' And Alice is giving them out this time. But 
 I have " 
 
 ' ' Excuse me, Theo, ' ' I^urgan said with some 
 resentment, ' ' but I do not want to hear any- 
 thing more. The neighborhood must have some- 
 thing to gossip about, I suppose, but I do not 
 believe that it is as full of one subject as you 
 would have me believe. Because a man tells a 
 woman a thing in a fit of weakness, there is no 
 reason why she should never let up on it. That 
 old story is dead and buried. Let me and the 
 rest go in peace. We have both forgotten it." 
 
 " If that is true, what are some of the ' other
 
 88 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 people ' doing here at your very gates, instead 
 of in some other part of the country? " 
 
 " If you are talking about the Chase Cottage, 
 it has been empty these months." 
 
 ' ' Ever since your marriage ? ' ' 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "But " I/ady Theo began to speak, and 
 
 then she laughed. A new idea had struck her. 
 " Forgive my teasing, Algy. You know I never 
 could help it. You are so good never to strike 
 back. Is Alice at home ? I will run in to see 
 her ; ' ' and she turned at the door and gave her 
 cousin a smile which made him smile back with 
 half closed eyes, and wonder what Theo was 
 "up to." 
 
 He knew perfectly well that he need never 
 fear that she would betray his confidence. He 
 had tried her too often for that, and she was not 
 the woman to endanger the order of his house- 
 hold by betraying anything unpleasant to his 
 wife. But he knew that there were things Theo 
 had never forgiven him, and that she might slip a 
 rose leaf here and there under his bed of down, 
 to give him an uneasy half hour. It was al- 
 together probable that she had one in her hand 
 
 now, and had started off to Alice He arose to 
 
 follow her, and then, realizing that that was 
 probably what she wanted him to do, he went 
 back and sat down to his pipe and his novel.
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 89 
 
 It was a day of contentment with him. Just 
 that day he had paid his last debt, and he had 
 no present necessity for making any new ones. 
 He gave the large and pleased sigh of a man 
 whose conscience is at rest. He was going up to 
 I,ondon in a few weeks more, to stay through 
 the season, with a great establishment, with a 
 place in the world which he had never had be- 
 fore. He was married to a lovely young girl, and 
 the whole world knew that she had brought him 
 a large fortune. He would not ruffle his temper 
 by going in there to be made into a shuttlecock 
 for Theo to fling back and forth for her amuse- 
 ment. He could afford to be content. 
 
 L,ady Fortescue had not far to go. Alice was 
 in her own little sitting room, writing letters, 
 and tying up some packages. She looked up, 
 glad to see her visitor, for, while her husband's 
 cousin was not particularly attractive to her, she 
 still kept the girlish nature which made her enjoy 
 a visit, and she found I^ady Theo's ideas of 
 America very amusing. 
 
 " Come in," she said cordially. " I have just 
 finished a letter to my young sister." 
 
 " Is she also 3 r our father's daughter? " 
 
 "Yes. We have different mothers." 
 
 ' ' And your co-heiress ? ' ' 
 
 "We never think of it exactly in that way. 
 You may see them over this year. Mother
 
 90 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 lias just written to ask about a house. She says 
 that father misses rne very much, and wishes to 
 come over for the season." 
 
 "Ah ! " Lady For tescue said with considerable 
 emphasis. ' ' I advise you to speak to Aunt 
 Cecilia upon the subject. Doubtless she could 
 find exactly the house that you want, or that 
 your father wants. Is he very fond of society, 
 going about, and all that ? ' ' 
 
 "Not at all, but mother is," Alice answered 
 innocently. " I think she would enjoy a London 
 season very much." 
 
 Already Alice was beginning to see that she 
 and America were objects of curiosity to these 
 people, that their habits of mind and ways of 
 thought were entirely different from her own ; 
 but she felt a certain security in the thought of 
 her stepmother. Mrs. Sanderson would know 
 how to manage them all. She even had visions' 
 of conflicts between her mother and Lady Lur- 
 gan, and she could see the suave way in which 
 Mrs. Sanderson would inevitably come off victor. 
 
 " Doubtless she would," Lady Fortescue said. 
 ' ' Speak to my aunt about the house. By the 
 way, I hear you are going in for charities and all 
 that sort of thing." 
 
 Alice's face flushed. " Not charities. I feel 
 sorry for some of these poor people. They seem 
 to have so little spirit to do anything for them-
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 91 
 
 selves. They are different from Americans 
 in that way. It is pitiful to see how grateful 
 they are for the least little thing. You know 
 our poor people at least those who live in the 
 
 country " But Lady Fortescue did not let 
 
 her finish her sentence. 
 
 " By the way," she said in off hand fashion, 
 as she whipped a fleck of dust from her skirt. 
 "You have a rival in charities on this estate. 
 All that sort of thing has been supposed to 
 belong to Mrs. Welles." 
 
 " I do not remember her," Alice replied. "Is 
 she somebody I ought to know ? " 
 
 ' ' If you mean is she some one who has called 
 here, no. I believe my aunt has never thought 
 her worth calling upon. She lived until lately in 
 one of the cottages on the estate, but she went 
 away about the time that you were married. I 
 heard today, however, that she had come back to 
 this part of the county, and had taken a place a 
 mile or two away. She had a pony carriage, and 
 used to do a great deal of village visiting. Not 
 exactly of the county families, you know, but 
 interesting. Oh, yes very interesting. She 
 used to wear black always, so I suppose she was a 
 widow. It used to look just a trifle theatrical 
 to me." 
 
 " Black doesn't sound very theatrical." 
 
 ' ' Oh, yes, it does with white collars and
 
 92 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 cuffs. Mrs. Pat Campbell has worn it in some 
 of her characters until you begin to have an un- 
 pleasant association with the costume. But Mrs. 
 Welles did the work you are doing now." 
 
 ' ' I suppose I shall meet her, ' ' Alice said 
 placidly. ' ' The cottages are all huddled to- 
 gether. They are horrible little places. I am 
 going to suggest pulling them down, and putting 
 up some nice, dry, light American houses for the 
 tenants." 
 
 "With bath tubs and all that, I suppose. My 
 dear cousin, if you are going to begin to rip up 
 the traditions of Salby Chase, it is time for me 
 to be going. I might have known that your 
 American enterprise would come out in some 
 fashion ; " and Lady Fortescue went laughing 
 toward her aunt's rooms, highly delighted with 
 her morning's work. 
 
 " I am simply wild to see how they will stop 
 her if she takes a fancy to the charming Mrs. 
 Welles," she said to herself with hilarity. 
 
 On the stairs she ran full into Captain Innis, 
 who was on his way to the rooms of his sister in 
 law, and stopped to speak to him. These two 
 had a decided liking for each other, but often 
 they talked to each other as if they were playing 
 a game in which each might expect a check- 
 mate at any moment. 
 
 "See here, Theo," the captain said, "I hear
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 93 
 
 that that confounded woman is back. What is to 
 be done about it ? " 
 
 ' ' If I were in your place, I should write a letter 
 to the Times and ask what she meant by it," 
 Theo said seriously, and then, smiling brilliantly, 
 went on down stairs. She called back at the 
 next landing : 
 
 " I shouldn't tell the family that, if I were 
 you."
 
 XI. 
 
 T T was only two days after her talk with L,ady 
 Theo that Alice came upon Mrs. Welles. 
 Most of the tenants of the estate lived together 
 in a village about a mile from Salby, which con- 
 sidered itself a town ; but away beyond that, on 
 the other side of what was known as the Home 
 Farm, was a house which had once been a farm 
 house, but which had gradually deteriorated 
 with the decay of the land about it. Money had 
 been needed for drainage and improvements, and 
 the landlords had not been willing to spend it ; 
 but the family which had leased the place for 
 generations had stuck to it with that tenacity 
 which is at once the foundation of England 
 and the origin of some of her great mistakes. 
 They had grown poorer and poorer every year, 
 and the present tenant was a poor wreck of a 
 creature with a houseful of sickly children, who 
 appealed to Alice more than all the others on the 
 estate. She was in a fair way to spoil them by 
 her own pleasure in giving them toys and com- 
 forts of which they had never dreamed. 
 
 She had ridden there through the fields and 
 94
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 95 
 
 lanes, with a groom behind her. There was a 
 road, but the groom was teaching her to leap 
 fences, and she took them on the road by way 
 of practice. When she turned the corner of the 
 tumbledown house, she was surprised to see, 
 standing by the door, a smart little dog cart 
 with a tiny groom at the horse's head. For a 
 moment she hesitated about going in. But the 
 eldest daughter and housekeeper of Jennings 
 came breathlessly to the door. 
 
 "Excuse me, my lady," she said, all in oiie 
 breath, " but Jimmie's took bad with ashma, my 
 lady, and I'm sendin' Mrs. Welles' gentleman 
 for Dr. Sydney, my lady." The child, hardly 
 fourteen, looked in frightened longing at Turner 
 on the big gray horse. Alice, slipping from her 
 saddle, sent him for the doctor in Salby, and 
 went into the house. 
 
 A young woman, who was almost plain of face, 
 except for an expression of habitual good humor, 
 sat by the bed and held up a shriveled little boy 
 on her arm. The noise of the child's painful 
 breathing could be heard all through the room, 
 and his miserable little face was distorted with 
 the pain every respiration caused him. 
 
 ' ' What can I do ? " Alice asked helplessly. 
 
 " There is nothing to do," the young woman 
 answered cheerfully, " except to wait until Dr. 
 Sydney comes. They never keep any medicine
 
 96 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 in the house. I think they all take it after the 
 boy gets over an attack. It isn't as bad as it 
 looks. The) 7 never die." She looked at Alice 
 keenly, with a rather shrewd but not unkind look 
 in her gray eyes. "You are I^ady Lurgan, I 
 suppo.se. I ain Mrs. Welles," she said simply, 
 as if she supposed that Mrs. Welles was as well 
 known as Lady Lurgan. She was not familiar, 
 but she spoke with the perfect assurance of an 
 equal. 
 
 Involuntarily Alice wondered why Theo had 
 said that Mrs. Welles always wore black, with 
 white collars and cuffs. Today her dress was a 
 pretty gray, with a bunch of early violets in her 
 bosom. She had thrown her hat off, and her 
 thick reddish brown hair was piled up in a loose 
 bronze knot on top of her head. 
 
 ' ' Is it true that it is not dangerous ? ' ' Alice 
 asked again. Her cheeks had grown pale at the 
 distressing sounds. The elder sister had gone 
 out. 
 
 "Oh, quite, I believe, at least as an acute 
 disease. He will die eventually, but so will the 
 rest of us. But it hurts the poor little chap. 
 He oughtn't to live in this damp place ; but I 
 suppose it is too much to expect it to be drained 
 on his account. It would be easier to take him 
 away." 
 
 ' ' Would that cure him ? ' '
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 97 
 
 "I am sure I do uot know. Please do not 
 think I am beginning to beg of you already, 
 Lady Lurgan. I am thinking of sending the 
 little fellow off on my own account. It isn't 
 that I am so fond of him, but I hate to see any- 
 body suffer physically. It annoys me. It 
 turns my blood, as they used to say in my part 
 of the country." 
 
 A few minutes later, when the doctor came, he 
 looked at the two women with some curiosity, 
 and all the time he was bending over his little 
 patient a wrinkle of wonder stood between his 
 eyes. He had met Mrs. Welles before, but this 
 was the first time he had come in contact with 
 the young American wife of the earl, and he was 
 astonished to find them there together. He 
 wondered if a London rumor he had heard could 
 be true, and he also wondered at the ways of 
 Americans. 
 
 Alice felt that in some sort Mrs. Welles had 
 been introduced to her by Lady Fortescue's 
 chance remarks, and when they came out of the 
 little house, Mrs. Welles to her dog cart, and 
 Alice to mount her hunter, she said so. 
 
 ' ' Lady Portescue told me that I should find 
 you a rival in my cottages," she remarked. 
 
 There was no sign of a start or change of color 
 in Mrs. Welles' face, but she stared back in 
 friendly fashion into Alice's face. If she was
 
 98 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 surprised at Lady Fortescue's meution of her 
 name, and had any curiosity concerning its in- 
 troduction, she made no sign of any sort, but 
 gathered up her reins with entire calmness. 
 
 ' ' I have not the pleasure of knowing Lady 
 Fortescue," she said in a most matter of fact 
 tone, as if her failure to know that lady was due 
 entirely to the slightest of accidents. "I live 
 very quietly down here. I did not know that 
 she even knew my name. But I assure you, 
 Lady Lurgan, I am no rival of yours. It is you 
 that have been mine. I was first in the field ; ' ' 
 and with a word to her boy, who sprang lightty 
 up behind, and a nod to Alice, she drove rapidly 
 down the muddy road toward the sea. 
 
 After a moment's adjustment of her habit, 
 Alice trotted slowly along the same way. There 
 was a fine beach here. The sun was brilliant on 
 it this spring day, and as Alice looked over the 
 water a pang of remembrance came to her which 
 sent the blood surging into her heart, and made 
 her hold tightlj' to the strap at the side of her 
 saddle. She seemed to see the blue expanse of 
 Lake Michigan before her, and to walk once 
 again along its borders, with Chris Batterman by 
 her side. She never allowed him to come into 
 her mind. She put him resolutely away from 
 her, as one who was buried far out of sight, one 
 whom it would be a crime to remember ; but the
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 99 
 
 sunlit face of the sea was like a picture which 
 had been long turned to the wall, and memory 
 took possession. In that moment she knew that, 
 hide it as she would from her own consciousness, 
 Batterman was always there. The remembrance 
 of him was woven into the very fiber of her 
 being. He was always with her. The little 
 lamp which sometimes illumines our very inmost 
 depths showed her Chris, Chris, always Chris. 
 She measured everything and everybody by his 
 standards, as she knew them, and every act of 
 her life was something that some day he might 
 know. 
 
 She was young, and she longed to be happy. 
 Tears of self pity came up into her eyes and ran 
 down her cheeks. She had never heard from 
 Batterman, nor of him, since that day at the 
 church door. She remembered how pale he 
 had looked. She knew he was not dead, for 
 Connie would have written that. The tempta- 
 tion came to her to write to Connie and ask 
 about him ; but no, she could not let her father 
 and mother know that she still thought of him. 
 She struck her horse a sudden blow, and went 
 rapidly inland towards the Chase. 
 
 It was tea time when she came in, and she 
 found her husband and mother in the hall room, 
 in what appeared to have been an excited dis- 
 cussion. Both faces were flushed ; Lurgan had
 
 TOO HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 his hands in his pockets, and was standing 
 sulkily before the fire. He had just come in 
 from the golf links, and Alice thought with dis- 
 taste that he did not look quite like a gentleman 
 in his rough clothes. His hair was too flat upon 
 his head, and his eyes too near together. 
 
 For the first time since she had been his wife 
 he did not greet her pleasantty, but merely gave 
 her a gruff word and a nod. The whole atmos- 
 phere was one of suspended thunder. Alice sat 
 down by the tea table with a depressed air. A 
 family quarrel seemed such a dreadful thing to 
 her. It was something in which she would not 
 dare to take a wife's part. The dowager Lady 
 Lurgan was still mistress of this house. But she 
 might try to disperse the clouds. 
 
 " I am frightfully hungry after my trot," she 
 said. "I do not believe I am ever going to 
 really enjoy a trotting horse. I was taught to 
 ride on a galloping Mexican pony. ' ' 
 
 Lady Lurgan suddenly took up the tea pot. 
 
 " My dear," she said, in a tone that was dry 
 and hard, " this tea is perfectly cold, and as you 
 are so tired and hungry, I will have a little 
 luncheon and some hot tea sent up to your own 
 room. I am sure you want to get out of that 
 uncomfortable habit." 
 
 And hardly knowing how it had happened, 
 Alice found herself going up the stairs like a
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 101 
 
 child that had been sent out of the way in 
 order that the elders might talk without the em- 
 barrassment of its presence. She heard the 
 echoes of the quarrel before she passed out of 
 hearing. 
 
 " I tell you I won't have that meddlesome old 
 idiot on the place," Lurgan was saying vehe- 
 mently. ' ' My affairs are my own. What right 
 has he here? " 
 
 "No particular right, except that he has 
 saved you from destruction more than once 
 already, and that he is still heir presumptive to 
 this title and estate." 
 
 But the quarrels of even her husband and his 
 mother did not disturb Alice for long. She 
 thought of her day, and of her new acquaintance. 
 She decided that Mrs. Welles was a good deal 
 like an American woman, with less constraint in 
 one way, and not so great a lack of it in others, 
 as some of the English women. She was glad to 
 know her. 
 
 Alice dressed leisurely, and did not go down 
 until almost dinner time. She found her hus- 
 band's mother already in the drawing room. The 
 dowager was generally the first of the family 
 down stairs, and had a neat little pile of books 
 upon the sociological questions which the various 
 physicians of the world's morals and manners 
 attempt to solve. But she was reading none of
 
 102 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 these now. As Alice came in, she arose, and 
 walked the length of the room and back again. 
 She was a domineering and a rather tactless 
 woman, and she had something to say. 
 
 "Alice," she said, "I hear that you met a 
 woman, a Mrs. Welles, in one of the farm houses 
 today. I must ask you never to speak to her or 
 recognize her in any way again." 
 
 The tone brought a flush to the face of her 
 daughter in law, and into her eyes a look which 
 Lady Lurgan had never seen there before. After 
 a second's pause, the girl asked, " Why ? " 
 
 ' ' She is not of our class at all. She does not 
 belong here. She is not recognized. ' ' 
 
 " Pardon me, Lady Lurgan," Alice said, " but 
 I cannot consider that a reason for not speaking 
 to Mrs. Welles. I saw her today, kind hearted, 
 generous, ready to help in an emergency. She 
 may not belong to your social class, but I have 
 known a great many people who did not. I 
 certainly should not refuse to recognize them 
 upon that account." 
 
 ' ' She is a woman with a past with a bad 
 character." 
 
 "Yet I understand that Mrs. Bingham, the 
 rector's wife, visits her and goes about with her." 
 
 "Mrs. Bingham " Lady Lurgan laughed. 
 
 ' ' Mrs. Bingham is half saint and half fool. She 
 never believes anything she does not see. ' '
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 103 
 
 " I am neither one nor the other," Alice said, 
 " but I believe I am a little obstinate. I shall 
 continue to speak to Mrs. Welles when I meet 
 her, and I shall not avoid her. ' ' 
 
 " If you do," Lady Lurgan returned, with 
 something like fury, "you will make a scandal 
 in this county." 
 
 She caught her own words, but Alice had 
 risen to her feet, her face white. 
 
 "Lady Lurgau, what do you mean?" she 
 demanded. 
 
 But her husband's mother had control of her- 
 self. ' ' Only that they will say that we have 
 allowed you to make acquaintances you should 
 never have made." 
 
 ' ' Speaking to this woman, however bad she 
 may once have been, cannot hurt me. She is 
 evidently repentant. ' ' 
 
 ' ' Repentant ! ' ' Lady Lurgan flung the word 
 out with scorn. "Repentant! She? She 
 amuses herself ! She is here to annoy us." 
 
 ' ' What is she to us?" There was pride in 
 Alice's voice. 
 
 ' ' Nothing ! She shall not become so by mak- 
 ing you speak to her. You must not. ' ' 
 
 "I shall ask my husband to tell me why 
 before I answer you, ' ' Alice said.
 
 XII. 
 
 A LICE went up stairs with her mind astir 
 ** with that vague jealousy which has nothing 
 whatever to do with affection. It was merely 
 her sense of dignity that was irritated ; but per- 
 haps the sensation was all the stronger. All the 
 social philosophers and sages to the contrary, it 
 is not the people who are ' ' in love ' ' with each 
 other who are jealous. Their minds are filled 
 up. They have the confidence that comes of per- 
 fect understanding. It is the woman who sees 
 herself in danger of losing something she once 
 owned who is jealous. 
 
 " To annoy us," she said over to herself. " A 
 woman with a past a bad character ; " and her 
 cheeks flamed. She was young, and almost ab- 
 nornially innocent, but there were some things 
 she quite comprehended. A wave of disgust and 
 dislike swept across her at the thought of her 
 husband, and then that, too, left its reaction, and 
 she wondered if she were quite doing him jus- 
 tice. She really knew nothing ; almost intui- 
 tively, and not at all according to facts, she was 
 taking a black view of the man she had married. 
 104
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 105 
 
 As she developed from the care free girl of a 
 few months ago into the woman who felt burdens 
 upon her shoulders, Alice had found herself in 
 possession of that dominating composite Ameri- 
 can conscience which belongs particularly to the 
 women of the mixed blood of her native land. 
 Her husband, she decided, was the one to tell 
 her this story. Then she felt the prick of that 
 unsleeping monitor. Wasn't she asking him be- 
 cause she doubted him? Her thought ran swifter 
 than her control. If it had been Chris, would 
 she have asked him? Wouldn't she have con- 
 sidered it an insult? 
 
 ' ' It would have been, because anything dis- 
 honorable would have been untrue ! " She an- 
 swered herself aloud, and then hid her face in 
 shame. Would she never get this life away from 
 the old one? " I will ask him," she said obsti- 
 nately. ' ' I will ask him, because it is my right 
 to know what his mother meant." 
 
 No opportunity came, however, that evening. 
 L,ife in a great house like Salby Chase had many 
 conventionalities, and Alice found herself carried 
 along in their grasp. A neighbor or two came 
 in to dine, and as Alice entered the drawing 
 room for the second time, she encountered, at 
 the door, a tall, broad shouldered young man 
 with sleek, thick brown hair parted very much on 
 one side, and with everything about him sug-
 
 106 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 gesting blunt strength and strong individuality. 
 He looked at her \vith the frankest interest, and 
 bowing, held open the door for her to pass 
 in. lyUrgan, who was talking to Sir Thomas 
 Creighton at the fireplace, vouchsafed the young 
 man a nod as he entered, and did not stir ; but 
 Captain Innis walked leisurely forward, gave 
 him a limp hand, and murmured his name to 
 Alice, as she passed forward. It sounded to her 
 like Weldon, and supposing its owner to be 
 another of the young men of the neighborhood, 
 or perhaps a relative, she gave him her hand, a 
 pleasant word or two, and walked on to go out to 
 dinner with Sir Thomas. But she presently 
 found that the stranger was beside her at dinner. 
 
 The head of the table had never been given to 
 her, nor had she desired it. L,ady Lurgan still 
 sat there as mistress of the house. 
 
 Sir Thomas was one of the men who mutely 
 beg not to be disturbed at their dinners. Captain 
 Innis, his nephew, and an old squire, who was 
 the third guest, were soon deep in an animated 
 discussion, while the elder Lady L,urgan sat in 
 gloomy silence, full of a disapproval which Alice 
 supposed was directed toward her. It had the 
 simple effect of tightening her lips, adding a 
 color to her face, and bringing a hot indignation 
 to her heart. She was so much occupied with 
 these things that she hardly gave a moment's
 
 HER I^ADYSHIP. Toy 
 
 thought to the young man beside her until he 
 spoke. 
 
 " I believe, Lady I,urgan," he said, "that we 
 have met before." 
 
 "Yes?" she said indifferently. She had met 
 a great many Englishmen, young and old, in the 
 past six months, and they had made generally a 
 short impression on her. 
 
 "In Chicago." 
 
 Alice gave a start which was almost a jump, and 
 a wave of crimson ran over her face. 
 
 "Chicago?" 
 
 ' ' Yes, last year. Your father had me out to 
 build his picture gallery, and see that it was 
 properly lighted and all that. You have prob- 
 ably forgotten me." 
 
 " Oh, you are Mr. Belding. Of course I re- 
 member." She was so glad to hear of her home, 
 to see some one who knew it, that she was on the 
 point of putting out her hand to shake his, but 
 an expression which she saw in the face of her 
 husband's mother killed the impulse. "And 
 how came you here? " Then, realizing that it 
 was her house in name, she grew suddenly em- 
 barrassed. " I mean, it is a surprise to see you 
 here." 
 
 " Is it ? I have been flattering myself I was 
 here because you remembered me, and thought 
 that picture gallery such a good piece of work. ' '
 
 108 HUB. LADYSHIP. 
 
 " We did think it quite wonderful, and so did 
 every one in Chicago," she said a little vaguely, 
 but he went on. 
 
 ' ' I ain rather disappointed. When you wrote 
 me and told me to come down here and look the 
 field over, and see what must be done about the 
 wings, I naturally supposed that I was keeping 
 an old customer, as the shopkeepers say. ' ' 
 
 " I suppose it was your fame generally," Alice 
 said lightly, but a proud pang went through her 
 heart. They were going to build wings to the 
 house ; she put resolutely away from herself the 
 consciousness that it would be done with her 
 money, and that she had to hear the story from 
 the architect merely by chance. 
 
 "What is your idea for this style of house, 
 Lady Lurgan ? if I may talk shop for a moment. 
 I had a photograph and a plan of the house be- 
 fore I came down, and have drawn something 
 that I think will be rather good, to submit to 
 you." 
 
 " I have formed no ideas upon the subject," 
 Alice said bravely. ' ' I shall be very glad to see 
 your designs. Were you in Chicago long ? ' ' 
 
 "Two months. I was at my uncle's New 
 York house when I was called out to attend to 
 the picture gallery. I intend to go over to 
 New York every year. I felt as if England was 
 particularly fortunate when I heard that you
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 109 
 
 were to marry I/>rd lyUrgau. Your father and 
 mother were good enough to send me cards to 
 5 7 our wedding. And what has become of that 
 splendid young foster brother of yours wasn't 
 he Mr. Batterman ? ' ' 
 
 But Alice was fortunately saved the answering 
 of that question by the dowager, who came in 
 promptly and monopolized the conversation for 
 the rest of the dinner. 
 
 When they went into the drawing room again 
 L,ady Lurgan walked directly toward the little 
 table where her books were piled, and sat down 
 to them without a word. There was a dis- 
 agreeable expression on her face, one that aroused 
 all the unpleasant traits of Alice's usually pleas- 
 ant nature. 
 
 She walked through the long rooms once or 
 twice, and sat down near a corner where the hot 
 water pipes were hidden from view by a screen 
 of carving and heavy gilding. 
 
 ' ' You will find no heat there, ' ' I^ady I^urgan 
 said. "I gave orders this morning that the 
 pipes were not to be heated again. The house 
 has been like an oven lately. The open fire is 
 quite sufficient to dry the air." 
 
 " I understand from Mr. Belding that you are 
 contemplating the addition of wings to the house, ' ' 
 Alice replied. There was not a trace of sar- 
 casm in her voice, but Lady Lurgan looked at
 
 HO HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 her suspiciously. "I did not tell him that the 
 letter he received from you was not from me." 
 
 " It is an addition we have contemplated for a 
 long time," the elder lady said very coolly. 
 " Since you have spoken of Belding, I may as 
 well mention that we are not in the habit of 
 making friends of our workmen. He is a man of 
 respectable manners and birth, but not at all one 
 of us. I noticed that Sir Thomas looked at your 
 effusion over him with some amazement this 
 evening, particularly when he said that he had 
 been invited to your wedding. It gives an 
 erroneous idea of your position in America. ' ' 
 
 The last words were spoken with something of 
 an apologetic tone, for Alice had risen to her 
 feet. Her impulse was to say, ' ' You are the 
 most disagreeable and insolent old lady I ever 
 met, and I refuse to speak to you for another 
 moment." Fortunately her good sense came to 
 the rescue, and although her breath came swiftly, 
 she sat down. 
 
 "Perhaps, Lady Ltirgan," she said, "you 
 have an erroneous idea concerning my position 
 both in America and here. We had for our 
 friends there such people as we cared to know. ' ' 
 
 "I am sure I am glad to hear that. Mrs. 
 Leigh- Mayuard, of New York, gave me a little 
 different idea," Lady Lurgau said with great 
 suavity. ' ' She gave me to understand that you
 
 HER LADYSHIP. Ill 
 
 wanted to know a great many people who were 
 unknown to you. But it is needless to prolong 
 this discussion, my dear. Your position now is 
 that of your husband and of this family. You 
 belong to us, and I am sure your good sense will 
 tell you that you must be guided by the rules 
 under which we live. Whenever you are in 
 doubt, I shall be very glad to instruct you;" 
 and Lady Lurgan took up her book. 
 
 Alice, fairly choking, rose and went to the 
 window. She could see the terrace shining out- 
 side in the pleasant moonlight. The picture was 
 so lovely that it soothed her for a moment, and 
 calmed the hot resentment that was stirring 
 ever}' drop of her blood ; but she drew half a 
 dozen long breaths. She was not a child to be 
 browbeaten, and yet she felt like one. She felt that 
 she should know exactly how to take her proper 
 position with that old woman. She had begun 
 all wrong. She should have taken the reins 
 in the beginning, should have asserted herself. 
 She turned once and looked back at her sitting 
 there, calm, self possessed, not even elated over 
 her victory. She was accustomed to victories. 
 
 Indeed, Lady Ltirgan had no sense of victory. 
 She felt such a contempt for her son's wife that 
 she put her aside as she might put aside any 
 other little necessary annoyance of her life. The 
 sweeter and more docile the girl was, the less
 
 112 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 she respected her. She looked upon her as a 
 poor spirited foreigner, ready to give her fortune, 
 her individuality, and herself for a title and a 
 position in the world. 
 
 A sound at Alice's elbow made her turn with 
 a smile of relief. It was good to hear a hearty 
 young voice which was ready to speak of home. 
 
 "It looks pleasant out there, doesn't it?" 
 Belding said. "That distant view of the sea 
 might be Lake Michigan. I wonder if you 
 Americans who come over here are ever home- 
 sick. I beg your pardon, Lady Lurgan," he 
 added in a low tone. ' ' I might have known 
 that oh, please do not. Forgive me!" Alice 
 had given a little sob that was not much more 
 than a sigh, but it had touched the young man 
 with an electrical thrill of understanding which 
 made him see in an instant how much his words 
 had meant to her. . 
 
 ' ' Never mind, ' ' she said. ' ' Let us go out for a 
 moment. ' ' 
 
 To do Alice justice, she had quite forgotten 
 that Lady Lurgan had just asked her not to 
 make a friend of this young man. She forgot 
 everything except that she must not let her 
 mother in law or the rest see her cry. 
 
 Belding softly opened the window, and Lady 
 Lurgan looked up to see the two young people 
 walking down the terrace in the moonlight.
 
 XIII. 
 
 OUT if Alice went out to hide her tears, she 
 was far from successful. She had not 
 cried, really cried, for months, and the pent up 
 emotion was like one of those floods which re- 
 quire only a slight loosening of the wall before 
 them to sweep away every barrier and spend 
 themselves. In a moment after reaching the 
 terrace she found that she must weep, that she was 
 powerless to control herself, and she remembered 
 the little door that led into the library from the 
 garden. She could not stand here with this 
 strange young man, however sympathetic he 
 might be. She must get to her own room. 
 
 Bewildered, full of sympathy, he walked be- 
 side her, dumb, wondering. 
 
 "There is a door," she managed to tell him, 
 ' ' on the other side of the house. Let us go 
 there." 
 
 They walked rapidly along in the sweet white 
 night. The air was full of the thrill of spring, 
 but the fresh smell of the grass, the incoming 
 tide of life that was thrilling the earth, was but 
 a new cause for emotion in Alice. It seemed as 
 "3
 
 114 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 if the earth was the one familiar thing, and she 
 longed to throw herself upon it and ease her 
 heart. All the time she was filled with a hor- 
 rible embarrassment. She knew instinctively 
 that this young man would not betray her, but 
 she could not let her husband or her husband's 
 mother know of her breakdown. 
 
 When they reached the door, she slipped in, 
 and turned to Belding. 
 
 " I will be back in a moment. Wait for me 
 here." 
 
 "Yes come back. I am so sorry," he said. 
 ' ' You will find me here. I will walk along this 
 piece of shrubbery." 
 
 I^ady Lurgan, the elder, sat bolt upright in 
 her chair, the latest of the unpleasant books open 
 before her, but not an argument or a line found 
 comprehension in her brain. She was thinking 
 what she should say to her son when he came in. 
 She would not hasten him at all. In fact, she 
 rather hoped that he would be a little late in 
 coming in from the dining room. Then her op- 
 portunity to say unpleasant things might be 
 strengthened. 
 
 But even I^ady L,urgan grew uneasy before the 
 men came in. She went once to the window 
 and looked out. There was no one in sight. 
 The terrace was empty. It was almost an hour 
 before I/urgan, his uncle, and the two neighbors
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 115 
 
 came in. They had gone into the harness room 
 and looked at some new illustrations of their 
 host's theories upon various equipments for the 
 hunting field, and the time had slipped away 
 rapidly. When it is only a man's wife and 
 mother who are waiting for him, he can usually 
 find excuses for not hastening at least when he 
 happens to be of I^urgan's type. 
 
 When he loafed in at last, in a capital good 
 humor, he looked about for Alice, and asked for 
 her. 
 
 ' ' She has been on the terrace with your archi- 
 tect for the past hour, ' ' his mother said calmly. 
 
 "Oh, I suppose Belding is telling her where he 
 is going to put on his additions, ' ' he said easily. 
 To him Alice was a certainty. He saw no par- 
 ticular harm in her going out on the terrace if 
 she wished. 
 
 ' ' She has nothing around her, and I think it 
 would be just as well if you brought her in," 
 I^ady Lurgan said, in a tone quite as indifferent 
 as his own, but with a cool quality which made 
 her son look at her with something like anger. 
 They had had a discussion during the afternoon, 
 in which the sou had had the one refuge of dis- 
 respect and impertinence. Even with those 
 weapons he felt that he had come off worsted, 
 and he was angry with both his mother and him- 
 self. It did not suit him to be angry. It ruffled
 
 Il6 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 and annoyed him. Long experience had taught 
 him that in the long run it did not pay to vex his 
 mother. 
 
 ' ' Give me a wrap or something and I will go 
 after her," he said. 
 
 But it was not an easy matter to find her. Up 
 and down the terrace and the grounds he went, 
 without seeing a sign of his wife. Once he felt 
 sure he must have missed her, and went back, 
 but his mother's triumphant face sent him out 
 again into the moonlight with a muttered impre- 
 cation. 
 
 "The Americans have a little different manners 
 from ours," he heard her explaining to old Sir 
 Thomas, whose red face was seen in the center of 
 every collection of gossip talkers in the county. 
 
 This time the red gleam of Belding's cigar 
 drew him to the shrubbery by the library, and 
 he crashed down the gravel toward the young 
 architect, to find him alone. 
 
 ' ' Where is Lady Lurgan ? ' ' the earl asked 
 without the least preliminary. 
 
 ' ' Lady Lurgan ? ' ' Belding was a young man 
 of good heart and ardent sympathies, but he had 
 not a very ready tact. "Lady Lurgan left me a 
 moment ago, to go to her apartment, I believe, 
 perhaps for a wrap ' ' seeing the scarf on Lur- 
 gan's arm. " I told her I would wait for her." 
 
 "Thank you very much, but I will relieve
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 117 
 
 you of the duty. I want to speak to my wife 
 for a moment. ' ' 
 
 Lurgan went through, the door, and left Beld- 
 ing with his cigar, feeling that he had made a 
 mess of it somewhere. Angry, and not at all of 
 the disposition to conceal it, he ran up stairs, and 
 with a hurried knock, to which he waited for no 
 answer, went into his wife's dressing room. 
 Alice, her face swollen with weeping, was stand- 
 ing by her dressing table, trying to cover up 
 the traces of tears with powder and making a 
 sorry spectacle of herself. 
 
 The sight exasperated Lurgan to the point of 
 rudeness. She looked plain, and she displeased 
 him. 
 
 " May I ask," he said cuttingly, " if I must 
 remonstrate with my architect for causing you 
 this discomfort? " 
 
 Three hours before Alice might have kept 
 silent, but she had wept all her tears away, 
 and was beginning to think she had been a fool 
 for ever having cried at all. 
 
 " My discomfort was not caused by any 
 guest in this house, but by an accumulation of 
 unpleasant things," she said spiritedly, although 
 her voice caught now and then like a child's 
 when it has cried itself to exhaustion. She 
 turned squarely and looked at her husband, 
 and their eyes met without one ray of under-
 
 Il8 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 standing or sympathy. They were strangers to 
 each other, and they realized it with distaste. 
 ' ' It began early in the evening, ' ' Alice went on 
 calmly, ' ' speaking of my discomfort today. I 
 met a woman in one of the cottages today, a 
 Mrs. Welles. The fact that I had spoken to her 
 appeared to be a sufficiently important piece of 
 news to be carried directly to your mother, who 
 told me that she was a woman with a past ; that 
 it would be a scandal if I recognized her ; that 
 she was here to annoy us. Will you be good 
 enough to explain the situation to me?" 
 
 I^urgan smiled in what he intended to be a cyn- 
 ical, indifferent, man of the world fashion, but 
 to save his life some element of self complacency 
 could not be kept out. 
 
 " And you do me the honor to be jealous," he 
 said. 
 
 Alice started as if she had been stung. 
 
 ' ' Jealous ! I ? Of a woman I must be warned 
 not to speak to ? You have answered my ques- 
 tion. Understand, I^ordLurgan, that " Her 
 
 face grew white, she looked at him for another 
 instant, and walked to the door of her bed room. 
 Then she came back, and said with a calmness 
 which so exasperated him that he wanted to strike 
 her, " I must ask you to leave the room." 
 
 " Alice," he said, " this is infernal nonsense ! 
 I will not have my home broken up by dissen-
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 119 
 
 sions. You are my wife. Suppose I have done 
 a few wild things in my early youth, you did not 
 expect me to be like one of your Christian Asso- 
 ciation young men, did you? You yourself, 
 tonight, have set the county talking by spending 
 the evening on the terrace with a man who 
 
 is ' ' 
 
 " Will you be good enough to leave my room?" 
 "If you put it in that fashion, certainly;" 
 and he went out and gave himself the pleasure of 
 drawing the door softly to its latch, when he 
 might have slammed it, to show how very calm 
 he was. 
 
 Alice's night was miserable. She went over 
 all the arguments which a kind and charitable 
 world has provided for cases like this, and her 
 vivid imagination roamed from a ' ' past ' ' for her 
 husband to the blackest present. As soon as it 
 was early morning, she arose and went out into 
 the beautiful, dewy park. She wondered if she 
 ought to go away. She wondered how much 
 certainty a woman needed before she went 
 away. She would write to her father but how 
 could she ? No, she would settle it for her- 
 self. She did not know how much money she 
 had, but she had always heard that it was a great 
 deal, and now she was glad of it. She made a 
 picture in her mind of going to some quiet place, 
 and living alone, working among the poor, doing
 
 120 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 good, living her own simple life, until the thought 
 of her stepmother came across the horizon. 
 
 They were coming abroad for the summer, to 
 have a house and go about during the London 
 season. She could not disappoint them. She 
 was still under the thrall of Mrs. Sanderson's 
 ambition, and she could not get away from it. 
 She drew a long breath. It might be different 
 when her father and mother came. It must be 
 different. Her mother could settle everything. 
 She supposed that life could go on, outwardly, 
 in conventional fashion. 
 
 She had stopped by the side of an old marble 
 basin, and mechanically stooped to call the gold 
 fish, when she saw a shadow on the water and 
 looked up to see Captain Innis walking toward 
 her. He had been away from the Chase, more 
 or less, ever since her arrival, and she had not 
 grown past first acquaintance with him. There 
 was nothing in Alice's nature which attracted 
 him, or in his to make her look to him for sym- 
 pathy at any time. It was with the greatest 
 distaste that she arose to her feet upon his ap- 
 proach, and she would have moved away with a 
 nod of good morning. But Captain Innis stopped 
 her. He wore all the courtly airs that were 
 esteemed the rightful possession of one of his 
 house upon all occasions of ceremony, and he was 
 grave to solemnity.
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 121 
 
 " My dear I^ady Lurgan," he said, and Alice 
 could feel the theatrical premonitions in his tone, 
 " I must beg your pardon for what you may 
 rightly consider an impertinence." 
 
 Alice waited with an expression of face which 
 certainly did not invite an impertinence, but Cap- 
 tain Innis went on quite undaunted. 
 
 ' ' You must understand that my nephew has 
 always been to me like a son. I have had to 
 take a father's place toward him ever since he was 
 a boy, and when I see him in grief I have some- 
 thing of the right to ask for an explanation. ' ' 
 
 He looked sidewise at Alice, at the mention of 
 grief, to see how it affected her. Captain Innis' 
 eyes were long and black and narrow, and the 
 sidelong expression was easy to them ; but when 
 he caught the straightforward gaze in Alice's 
 eyes, he turned his quickly and went on. 
 
 " This morning I learned, partly from my 
 nephew and partly from his mother, that you 
 had taken a wrong view of a lady who lives in 
 the neighborhood." Captain Innis paused, and 
 an expression that somewhat resembled a look of 
 pain passed over his face. " I can quite exoner- 
 ate my nephew from any responsibility in bring- 
 ing Mrs. Welles down here. In fact, she was 
 not brought at all, but came hear me out, I 
 beg," as Alice made a motion toward the house. 
 1 ' Not because she felt that she had a claim upon
 
 122 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 ray nephew, but upon me. I beg your pardon 
 sincerely for telling you the story. It is an old 
 one, forgotten long ago by both of us. Mrs. 
 Welles likes this neighborhood and stays here in 
 her own house." 
 
 Captain Innis' tone was one of deep shame and 
 contrition, but Alice had lost sight of him in the 
 new and complex emotion that was taking pos- 
 session of her. She had just heard, on the best 
 authority, that she had judged her husband 
 hastily and wrongful!)^ and that there was no 
 necessity for the heroic treatment she had con- 
 templated. She was not overcome with joy. 
 That conscience of hers was standing in its par- 
 ticular pulpit, delivering its own homily, and in- 
 viting her to undo processes of thought which 
 she had quite accepted, telling her to go to I,ur- 
 gan and beg his pardon ; and all the while the 
 obstinate side of her was saying that he had been 
 insulting to her, that this was only one of 
 many things. The little god was not there with 
 his rosy glasses to make all things beautiful in 
 this new light, and Alice was not sure that she 
 had not been welcoming an excuse to get away 
 from the trials of her life. They seemed too 
 heavy to bear. 
 
 But what she must do was quite plain before 
 her. She knew that I/urgan would not be out 
 for two or three hours, and she went up and
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 123 
 
 sent a message to him, asking him to come to her 
 sitting room as soon as he arose ; and then she 
 sat down to look over the letters from home, and 
 to answer them. Here at least were some people 
 whom it was in her power to please. Her step- 
 mother asked that an agent be consulted about 
 finding a house quite near the London house of 
 the Lurgans, and that it be large, and designed 
 for entertaining. 
 
 " Get a duke's house, if you can," she wrote ; 
 ' ' they say that the prestige of a good house is 
 everything. Of course we shall not need any- 
 thing of that sort, but there is no reason for our 
 lacking any of the advantages." 
 
 Alice wrote that she had already spoken to 
 Lady Fortescue, who told her that the dowager 
 Lady Lurgan knew all about houses, and 
 would be sure to select quite the proper thing. 
 
 She had hardly finished, and patted on the 
 stamp, when Lurgan entered. He was in riding 
 costume, and had an air about him which seemed 
 to say that it would be an excellent idea to be as 
 expeditious as possible. His complete ignoring 
 of the semblance of a quarrel of the evening be- 
 fore put Alice out, and for an instant she stood 
 speechless. To a man who loved her there would 
 have been something sweetly pathetic in her 
 slender girlish figure and pale face, but Lurgan 
 looked at her coldly.
 
 124 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 Half an hour earlier his uncle had come into 
 his room and told him what he had done. 
 
 ' ' I have only one thing to say, ' ' I^urgan had 
 said, as he drew the razor down his thin, dark 
 cheek, "and that is that you have made a 
 meddlesome ass of yourself. ' ' 
 
 " I believe she would have left you." 
 
 "Not at all. You don't know the influences 
 on the other side of the world. And beside, 
 where would she go ? She is not likely to give 
 up social life, just when she is entering upon it, 
 for a whim. Oh, no, Alfred, the American 
 woman does not marry over here for the purpose 
 of getting a Chicago divorce. It was just as well 
 to let her gradually accustom herself to the idea 
 that she has not married a saint, nor a man who 
 makes any pretense of being a saint. They all 
 have to learn that lesson sooner or later, and you 
 have done neither of us any sort of a kindness in 
 postponing it." 
 
 ' ' You do not understand the sort of woman 
 you have married." 
 
 " I understand that she is a woman, and she is 
 my wife," Lurgan said grimly. "She must put 
 up with the situation. I know she married me 
 for my position, because she was in love with 
 another man when she did it. A woman who 
 can do that can put up with a few peccadilloes. ' ' 
 
 " If that young girl you have married is a cool,
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 125 
 
 calculating woman of purely commercial instincts, 
 I must revise my study of the sex," Alfred Innis 
 said. 
 
 "You may as well begin, then," his nephew 
 rejoined. "She is a cool hand. Sometimes she 
 almost deceives me. I believe she has an idea of 
 doing her duty by me, or something of that sort. 
 She is pretty young, and innocent in most ways, 
 but she married me to gain the title and the 
 position." 
 
 This was the belief in his heart as he stood 
 and looked at her. To L,urgan's mind, as to that 
 of a great many other men, women are all sly, 
 and what they call ' ' up to tricks. ' ' They ex- 
 pect them to be ready to play upon the feelings. 
 A really honest woman is something they quite 
 fail to understand. 
 
 " I sent for you," Alice said, " to tell you how 
 sorry and ashamed I am for having spoken to you 
 of m}' unpleasant suspicions. I know what an 
 injustice I did you. I beg your pardon." 
 
 L,urgan walked over to her, kissed her lightly 
 on the forehead and laughed. ' ' I thought you 
 would learn, by and by, not to let imagination 
 make you see too many things. It isn't pleasant 
 for anybody." 
 
 ' ' Of course I shall never speak to that Mrs. 
 Welles again. She ought not to be here. Why 
 didn't your uncle marry her? "
 
 126 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 I^urgan's brows drew together in a hard, black 
 line, and his mouth twitched disagreeably. 
 
 "Oh, cut that, Alice," he said. " I^et the 
 poor woman alone. The world is surely big 
 enough for the two of you without ever cross- 
 ing each other. She wouldn't have looked at 
 Alfred." 
 
 " But I thought " 
 
 "Don't think." 
 
 ' ' I am sure I shall be glad not to think about 
 disagreeable things. Where are you going ? ' ' 
 
 " Down to the home farm, and for a gallop. 
 Good by. I may go on over and lunch with 
 Theo ; ' ' and he went out, leaving Alice unsatis- 
 fied, and with an uneasy sensation that after all 
 this was not a pleasant family to belong to. 
 
 The thought of having her own family in Lou- 
 don was an unspeakable relief. She wanted 
 Connie's gay laughter, her father's handsome 
 face, and blessed thought ! her stepmother's 
 talent for straightening out tangles. They were 
 so pleasant, so smooth. I^ife had been so simple 
 and easy at home.
 
 XIV. 
 
 TT isn't exactly pleasant always to hear the 
 truth, I will admit," L,ady Fortescue was 
 saying, ' ' but at any rate you know exactly where 
 you stand. They tell me that in America you 
 habitually say pleasant things to each other, 
 whether they are true or not, just as the Japanese 
 do, and when you come in contact with our habit 
 of always saying what we mean, you find us 
 blunt and rude. Is that true? " 
 
 "Sometimes," Alice admitted, "we cut out a 
 fact which might sound rude, but I think we are 
 habitually honest. We simply do not tell all the 
 truth." 
 
 "Neither do we English, for that matter," 
 L,ady Fortescue admitted; "and for my part I 
 often say a thing simply because it is rude. I 
 like to stir up the animals. You are always so 
 complimentary, when you say anything at all, 
 that I generally doubt you, although I confess I 
 am touched by the compliment of anybody want- 
 ing to flatter me. ' ' 
 
 Alice leaned back against the sofa, and smiled. 
 They were being dined at the Fortescues' enor- 
 127
 
 128 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 mous house, which appeared to have a great 
 many of the startling characteristics of its mis- 
 tress, but Alice was learning to enjoy some of 
 them. Now and then there was a flavor about 
 Lady Fortescue and her belongings which recalled 
 Chicago. Tonight she was entertaining a duke 
 and duchess, and was giving one of those great 
 dinner parties which are commoner in England 
 than they are in America, and which possess, in 
 houses of great and ostentatious wealth like this 
 one, almost the importance of public functions. 
 The duchess had taken a particular fancy to 
 Alice, and as she was not only the owner of a 
 very eld and wealthy title, but a leader in the 
 most conservative social world, as her husband 
 \vas in the political, her notice was considered 
 worth while. To Alice, she looked more like an 
 ancient governess than anything else. Her face 
 had the thin, haggard, and worried lines which 
 are sometimes seen in the manager of a girls' 
 1 Hoarding school. She was said to be kind hearted 
 in some directions, but intensely practical, and 
 taken up with many affairs. She had congratu- 
 lated the elder Lady Lurgan upon having secured 
 such a pretty wife with such a large fortune for 
 her son, and then she let Alice sit beside her 
 while she told her some of the advantages of 
 being a countess. 
 
 ' ' They tell ine you have been able to put the
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 129 
 
 town house in order, aud that you will go up for 
 the season and entertain. Are you accustomed 
 to large entertainments? " Then, without wait- 
 ing for an answer, she went on : " Lady Lurgan 
 will be able to coach you in our ways, however, 
 and you will soon be able to carry on your duties 
 properly. ' ' 
 
 ' ' My mother will be with me a great deal of 
 the time," Alice said. 
 
 Lady Lurgan sat within earshot, and Alice, 
 who had thought of many things in the last 
 week, saw that this might be a good opportunity 
 for letting her mother in law know that she 
 intended being mistress of the town house. 
 
 " Your mother is an American, is she not ? " 
 
 ' ' Yes. She intends taking a house in London. 
 I am to see about it at once. She will probably 
 entertain." 
 
 ' ' They tell me a great many Americans are 
 trying to make their way into society over here," 
 her grace said, but with rather a lack of interest. 
 
 The dowager Lady Lurgan settled back into 
 her chair with an expression which was not pleas- 
 ant, but it contained no look of defeat. It was 
 rather the smile of one whose patience had been 
 pushed to extremities, and who would calmly 
 and judicially mete out punishment. She had 
 arrayed herself in the glory of a velvet gown, 
 with some heavy old Venetian point lace, and a
 
 130 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 rather barbaric display of jewelry, and she had 
 something of the grim stateliness of a Roman 
 emperor. 
 
 The evening had not been a very pleasant one 
 to Alice. Wherever she went, she was conscious 
 always of something like toleration. The women 
 and men had evidently expected to find a very 
 different person in the American heiress that Lur- 
 gan had married. They had heard that Americans 
 were vivacious, high colored, and smartty gowned, 
 with " snap " and wit and "go" ; a little vulgar, 
 perhaps, but quite able to take the reins in their 
 own hands and do what they chose. Instead, 
 they saw a very young, very gentle girl, who 
 seemed to have little spirit, and to take no great 
 amount of interest in life. They confessed that 
 she was remarkably pretty, and very well dressed, 
 but there were plent}' of girls in English society 
 who were both those things. The men said L,ur- 
 gan had a wife vastly too good for him, and 
 wondered at his luck, but moved respectfully 
 away from a young woman who seemed to care 
 very little about them. Their wives and daugh- 
 ters looked at her with an expressed wonder at 
 the reputations Americans somehow managed to 
 get for themselves. As Alice felt herself more 
 and more an object of curiosity, she drew more 
 and more within herself. Her very soul would 
 have burned could she have known that Sir
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 13 1 
 
 Thomas Creighton had already told that she had 
 gone out walking with the architect in the moon- 
 light until her husband had been obliged to go 
 after her. ' ' Hunting an ' ice cream parlor, ' I 
 suppose, ' ' Sir Thomas had said, in deference to 
 that poor old American joke of which the news- 
 papers are so fond. Nor did she dream that the 
 story of her meeting with Mrs. Welles had been 
 laughed at, or received with exclamations of pity, 
 in every house in the county. 
 
 The homeward drive was a long one, and the 
 three occupants of the Chase carriage sat silent 
 most of the way. Alice had nothing to say, and 
 when Lurgan and his mother spoke it was con- 
 cerning the additions that were to be made to the 
 house during the summer. Alice's pride kept 
 her apart from them. She used to have courage 
 enough, she thought, and she made up her mind 
 to settle the question of the town house. She 
 would make a bold stroke ; and then, her heart 
 beating a little faster, she hesitated. It might 
 be unpleasant. She would go and settle the 
 matter with I/urgan, and let him make the 
 arrangements. The possibility that he would not 
 agree to anything she might suggest, if she 
 really took it upon herself to take the initiative, 
 never for one instant entered her mind. He was 
 her husband, and this was her home. She had 
 been indolent and stupid not to have said in the
 
 132 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 beginning that she would take the charge of the 
 house. 
 
 Alice's ideas of the relation between a hus- 
 band and a wife were purely American. She 
 had seen nothing in England to contradict her 
 theories. Lady Fortescue did exactly as she 
 chose in her own house, and the only difference 
 in Salby Chase was that the mother had been 
 left in control instead of the wife. 
 
 It was very late when the carriage drew up to 
 the door. A fire was burning in the hall, and a 
 man was there with a tray, while a jug of some- 
 thing was brewing on the hearth. 
 
 "Come here before you go up, Algernon," 
 his mother said. " I want to speak to you. I 
 shall probably not be down before you go to 
 London in the morning." 
 
 Alice hesitated. ' ' Are you going to London 
 tomorrow? I if you don't mind, I think I will 
 go with you. ' ' 
 
 " I am only going up for the day, a very hasty 
 trip, to see the lawyers," Lurgan said hurriedly, 
 in reply. 
 
 "Oh, very well, but I think I will take 
 Celeste and go up any way. ' ' 
 
 ' ' New gowns ? I thought you had enough to 
 last for a century." 
 
 " No, I want to see the town house." 
 
 "That is all being prepared. You need give
 
 HER LADYvSHIP. 133 
 
 yourself no concern about the town house," 
 I^ady Lurgan said quickly. 
 
 " And then," Alice went on, speaking indiffer- 
 ently, " I want to see if it is necessary for mamma 
 to get a house in London. It seems to me that if 
 ours is so large, there is no reason why papa and 
 mamma and Constance should not stay with us." 
 
 Lurgan had taken the tongs in his hands and 
 was carefully lifting up some pieces of wood and 
 placing them on the logs, but his mother gave a 
 short laugh. 
 
 "Sit down, Alice," she said with great good 
 humor. " I had intended talking this matter of 
 your people coming over here with Algernon 
 tonight ; but since you have brought up the sub- 
 ject, it may as well be finished now. Of course, 
 the idea of entertaining them in our house is 
 preposterous. ' ' 
 
 Alice had grown very pale, but she faced Lady 
 Lurgan unflinchingly. 
 
 " Pardon me, Lady Lurgan," she said, "but I 
 must be the judge of when I shall entertain my 
 family in my own house." 
 
 " In your husband's house, you mean. This 
 is your first season in London. You are under 
 the disadvantage of being a foreigner, of no birth, 
 with no family connections whatever. You have 
 married into this family, and it is its duty, and 
 shall be its care, to see that you make no serious
 
 134 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 mistakes. Yon could do nothing so fatal so 
 absolutely ludicrous as to take a lot of nobodies 
 into your house to foist upon the friends of your 
 husband's family. We cannot allow it. Not 
 only shall we not invite Mr. and Mrs. Sanderson 
 and their daughter to visit us just now, but if 
 they persist in coming to London, I shall write 
 to your parents and tell them what a disadvantage 
 their presence would be to you, and shall ask 
 them to remain in America." Lady Lurgan's 
 voice was perfectly calm and suave. " And after 
 the trouble they have taken to place you in a 
 good position, I believe that when they under- 
 stand the situation they will be the last people to 
 imperil it." 
 
 "I cannot take your decision, cannot allow 
 you to make one for me, Lady Lurgan," Alice 
 said. 
 
 " My son quite agrees with me, I am sure." 
 Lurgan straightened up, and looked bored. 
 " Of course it is all nonsense for you to quarrel, 
 but Alice, you must be sensible, and see that 
 mother is right."
 
 XV. 
 
 COME characters are firm in maturity, after 
 they have gone through a sort of mellowing 
 process, but deserve only the description of ob- 
 stinacy in their youth. 
 
 Alice, Lady I,urgan, had one of these. She 
 said nothing when her husband and her mother 
 in law settled her affairs between them, but set 
 her lips together and walked up stairs ; and the 
 force of her new will was such that she not only 
 did not cry, but she closed her eyes and went to 
 sleep, first setting a tiny Dresden clock by her 
 bedside. Her maid undressed her as usual, giving 
 her the half careless attention which most Ameri- 
 can women allow when they are tired at night. 
 As she started to leave the room, Alice called to 
 her. 
 
 "Celeste," she said, "come in very early in 
 the morning. I am going up to I^ondon during 
 the day, and I shall want you to go with me." 
 
 "Do you go with I/>rd I<urgan, my lady ? " 
 It had taken Celeste only the time of the mar- 
 riage Ceremony to learn to give Alice the title 
 which servants love. 
 
 135
 
 136 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 "I am not sure. He thinks of going rather 
 early, I believe." 
 
 "Yes, my lady. Mr. Merton, his man " 
 
 " That will do. Go down to the offices in the 
 morning and bring me a time table. And, 
 Celeste, you need not speak of my going." 
 
 "No, my lady." 
 
 But how could a poor French girl, who knew 
 nothing whatever of English, find a time table 
 without assistance? Mr. Merton, called upon, 
 gave all the information concerning London 
 trains. 
 
 "I am going to stay at home myself," Mr. 
 Merton volunteered. " I am like her ladyship 
 not wanted at all particularly. I tell you, Mile. 
 Celeste, if you want amusement, just take your 
 mistress up by the 11.42. That's the train for 
 her to go on. ' ' 
 
 " Is his lordship going up by that train ? " 
 
 " Not he. He goes up by the 9.30 ; but you 
 take my lady up on the eleven express. ' ' 
 
 " I think you are too much like your master, 
 and I'll not run the risk of teasing the poor 
 thing, so I'll not do it. And for that, you 
 might tell me why you want it done." 
 
 Merton leaned over and whispered something 
 which made Celeste draw back with her features 
 distorted. 
 
 " You're a mean, disgusting fellow to want to
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 137 
 
 destroy a poor lady's happiness ; and you have 
 come to the wrong person to help you. It is not 
 I that would hurt her in any way. However 
 we get to London, it will not be on that train." 
 
 ' ' I hope she catches him at his tricks, all the 
 same," Merton said spitefully. "I should like 
 to see what he would do then. She looks 
 almighty meek, but I'll wager half a crown she 
 wouldn't be an easy one to let up. Perhaps 
 she's got an inkling and is going up to pry 
 about a bit, eh ? " 
 
 "You don't know her," Celeste said with 
 pride, and walked out. But before she reached 
 Alice's room she had gone over the time table, 
 and when she set down the breakfast tray she 
 had brought in, she folded the card of the trains 
 so that the 1 1 . 42 express was prominent. 
 
 Alice looked the train list over, and said, as 
 she put it down : 
 
 " Order the brougham at eleven o'clock." 
 
 Celeste said nothing, but her excitement loving 
 heart beat a little faster. 
 
 Alice left no message for I^ady I^urgan. She 
 felt that all communication had been broken off, 
 except what was absolutely necessary. She did 
 not even glance back as she took her seat, with 
 Celeste by her side, in the brougham. It might 
 be discourteous, but Alice was entering upon a 
 period, she told herself, where discourtesy was
 
 138 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 going to count for little at least, such dis- 
 courtesy as this. 
 
 The station at Salby was a small one, with a 
 gay little house and a long, sunny platform. As 
 Lady Lurgan's carriage drew up, a pony chaise 
 drove away, leaving a lady in a fresh spring 
 gown standing alone in the full light. As Alice 
 stepped out she recognized her as Mrs. Welles. 
 Her first impulse was to bow, although she 
 could feel the red in her cheeks and brow ; but 
 the older woman looked her calmly and squarely 
 in the face, and made no sign of recognition 
 whatever. 
 
 When the train came along, Alice and her 
 maid went into one compartment and Mrs. 
 Welles into another. But the encounter had 
 taken all of the life out of Alice's morning. She 
 felt that she had been gauche that she had not 
 known how to treat a situation. And then 
 she would not have been a modern American 
 girl if some other thoughts had not crept into her 
 mind. 
 
 She had not cut the acquaintance of Captain 
 Iiinis. To be sure, she looked at him with a sort 
 of disgust. He offended her, but she still spoke 
 to him. He was not even kind hearted, and 
 tender, and charitable, and she had discovered 
 that this woman was all of those things. She 
 told herself that she believed in one law for men
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 139 
 
 and for women, yet here she was, shrinking 
 back, flushing at the sight of this woman with 
 that vague thing they call a "past " a period 
 of life concerning which she was, as a matter of 
 fact, absolutely ignorant while every day she 
 sat down with Captain Innis, who had confessed 
 himself as the majo r cause of Mrs. Welles' 
 disrepute, and treated him as a member of her 
 family. 
 
 The country they were passing through was 
 beautiful Great houses could sometimes be seen 
 back on wooded slopes. They went past pictur- 
 esque little villages and sunken lanes where 
 children in the dim, sweet colors which Birket 
 Foster painted stood waiting for the train to go by. 
 It was all full of the sweet suggestions of homes, 
 and the Countess of L,urgaii felt homeless. 
 
 She hardly knew where she was going when 
 she reached L,oudon, but she knew very well 
 what she intended to accomplish before she left it. 
 Presently the green fields and the villages were 
 left behind, and she was in the brick and mortar 
 wilderness. Celeste was gathering up their 
 wraps and bags. The French girl was so nervous 
 that she was almost in tears, and she fumbled 
 over her straps, and some magazines which they 
 had brought, long after the train had come to a 
 standstill. It was so long that the guard came 
 to the door to help them out.
 
 140 Hi.R LADYSHIP. 
 
 "In one moment, my lady," the girl said. 
 She had taken half a dozen furtive looks out 
 of the window. She had wondered what her 
 mistress would do if and now she feared above 
 all things that she was about to discover. But 
 they could not hesitate all day ; and at last they 
 walked out to see lyord L,urgan putting Mrs. 
 Welles into a cab, to see him follow her, and call 
 a direction to the driver, and drive rapidly away. 
 
 Alice had not been trained in a school which 
 would make her self possessed under a circum- 
 stance like this ; but nature came to her assist- 
 ance. Hardly knowing what she did, numb, 
 almost dizzy, she followed Celeste, who on the 
 instant, and out of her own nervousness, had 
 taken the initiative, to a cab. It was only when 
 the maid asked her the direction that she realized 
 that somewhere in her brain she had lost all of 
 her plans for the day. She sat stupidly looking 
 at Celeste for a moment, and then she went into 
 the tiny silver mounted bag at her waist and 
 brought out one of Beldiug's cards. 
 
 "Go there," she said. 
 
 She wanted to put her hands to her head and 
 think of what she had seen. These people were 
 all deceivers. They had laughed at her. The) 7 
 thought her a fool. She was simply the 
 purse for this family. And then her sense of 
 justice Alice's greatest characteristic, after her
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 141 
 
 impulsiveness came in again. She had no right 
 to judge from purely circumstantial evidence. 
 She wanted to think the least humiliating thing. 
 She could not believe, all in an instant, that her 
 husband was deceiving her in this bold way. She 
 thought of all the instances where people had 
 been condemned unjustly through a chain of 
 circumstances. Captain Innis had told her that 
 her husband had no connection with Mrs. Welles, 
 and had taken that entanglement upon his own 
 shoulders. It might be that L,urgan had brought 
 the woman up to I<ondon to get her away from 
 Salby, that she might no longer be a scandal 
 there. Alice had read in stories of members 
 of families making such arrangements. She 
 would give L,urgan the benefit of the doubt, she 
 said to herself ; but even while she said it, the 
 picture of his face as he stepped into that cab 
 was before her. It was gay not at all the face 
 of a man performing a duty. 
 
 Celeste broke in upon her thoughts. 
 
 " Pardon me, my lady," she said, " but are we 
 going to a hotel anywhere ? ' ' 
 
 " Oh, yes, I suppose we must, some time 
 but first I want to go to the address the driver 
 has. I have some business. ' ' 
 
 " Oh," Celeste said. She had seen the card, 
 and was dying with curiosity; for the story of 
 L,ady I^urgan's evening in the park with Mr.
 
 142 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 Belding had come back to the servants' room at 
 Salby Chase after it had reached the below stairs 
 society of the other houses in the neighborhood. 
 Celeste knew her mistress, she had thought, but 
 since she reached England she was gaining new 
 points of view. There are no such romancers as 
 servants, and they can give to their masters and 
 mistresses only such motives as they themselves 
 possess. 
 
 Mr. Belding happened to be in his office. It 
 was in a new building rather after the American 
 plan, and as Alice went up in the "lift" she 
 seemed to have touched Chicago remotely. She 
 had no idea what Belding might think of her. 
 She only knew that she had no plans, that there 
 was something she must do, and that in all this 
 great world of London, of England, here was 
 the only human being to whom she felt like 
 going. 
 
 Belding, thinking it was something about 
 the new wings of Salby Chase, when he saw the 
 card, came out of his work room rather stiffly. 
 There had been a vagueness concerning his com- 
 mission which had touched his pride ; but when 
 he saw Alice's white face, with its appealing 
 eyes eyes that held an expression of which she 
 was quite unconscious he was read}' to do any- 
 thing she asked, even to building the wings with 
 his own hands.
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 143 
 
 But it was on quite a different errand she had 
 come. 
 
 " Mr. Belding," she said, as she held out her 
 hand to him, " I am commissioned by my father 
 and mother to find a large house for them for 
 the London season, and as you know them, and 
 what they would be likely to want, I came to 
 ask you to help me." 
 
 "Ah," Belding said, " I shall be delighted to 
 be of any service to you, Lady Lurgan, but " 
 
 "But what?" 
 
 "It is a little late in the season to pick up 
 anything really desirable, unless it is so very 
 desirable that it has not been put upon the mar- 
 ket. I think, though, that perhaps that is 
 exactly what Mrs. Sanderson would want." 
 
 ' ' She wants the most desirable house in 
 London. ' ' 
 
 "Would it not " Belding hesitated. 
 
 ' ' Would it not be a good idea to consult the 
 Lurgan family solicitor? He would probably 
 know of all the good places to rent." 
 
 Alice's face flushed. 
 
 " I do not know who he is. ' ' 
 
 ' ' Of course you would not, ' ' the young man 
 said hastily. ' ' Why should you ? Perhaps it 
 would not be the thing, after all. I know an 
 agent who has innumerable houses. He will 
 probably have exactly what you want. ' '
 
 144 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 "Come with me, then, please," Alice said. 
 She was in a feverish hurry to get this done, so 
 that it could not be undone. She could not let 
 anybody disturb the plans of her family, and they 
 might find some way to thwart her if she waited. 
 
 " It is luncheon time, and " Belding looked 
 
 at the wraps and bags the maid carried. 
 
 " We have not been to a hotel yet. Will you 
 come with me, then, and lunch with me, and 
 then we can go to the agent's at once? " 
 
 ' ' I will call for you, or meet you at the 
 agent's/' Belding suggested. 
 
 ' ' I shall insist upon your calling for me if you 
 will be so good," Alice said. " I am in a great 
 hurry. Would it not be possible to go now ? ' ' 
 
 "Certainly." 
 
 ' ' I will send Celeste to the hotel and let her 
 engage rooms for me, I think," Alice said, as they 
 came out of the building. 
 
 "Very well," Belding replied. Lady Lurgan 
 ought to know her own business best. She was 
 an American, and she was the Countess of Lurgaii. 
 The agent was not far away, and they were lost 
 in London, he thought, as he followed her into 
 the cab, after sending the maid away in another. 
 
 They found the agent's chief deputy on duty, 
 with plenty of houses to rent, and a laudable 
 desire to tell them how much business his house 
 was doing.
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 145 
 
 "I think," Belding had said, "that it will 
 hardly be wise to say in the beginning that the 
 house is for wealthy Americans, or that you are 
 the Countess of Lurgan. The price will double 
 itself immediately in that case. I/et me do the 
 bargaining, and you can tell me when you find 
 what you want." 
 
 "Here," the agent said, "is the plan of a 
 house which I let not a half an hour ago to the 
 Karl of Lurgan. He was renting it for a relative. ' ' 
 
 Alice's heart bounded, while Belding looked 
 at her curiously. Of course, she might have 
 known that he would repent, and now he meant 
 to surprise her. 
 
 " It is a small house, very small, but I under- 
 stand it's for a cousin to live alone in, and it 
 certainly is a little gem. We have never had 
 anything more complete on our list. It belongs 
 to a gentleman who has gone to Africa to shoot 
 big game, they say, and his lordship got a 
 bargain. ' ' 
 
 But Alice didn't hear anything more. 
 
 "I think," she said, "Mr. Belding, that I 
 will ask you to take me to the hotel now. You 
 know what my mother will want. Or I am not 
 sure that I want anything just now." Then, 
 recovering herself : ' ' Yes, I do. I want a house 
 for them taken at once." 
 
 '* I will come back and see the plans," Belding
 
 146 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 said, and he took L,ady Lurgau out and put her 
 in the cab. He did uot understand, but evidently 
 she did. 
 
 " I will-leave him ! " Alice was saying to her- 
 self. "I do not care what happens. I will 
 leave these dreadful people. I will see I^ord 
 Lurgan at once, and tell him so. I will write to 
 my father." 
 
 Her mind went quickly back again to the vision 
 she had had before, of taking her money and 
 going away to some quiet place, and living as she 
 liked. She couldn't go back to Chicago. Her 
 father had given her a great deal of money upon 
 her marriage, she knew. She could make plans, 
 for it was only her pride and not her heart which 
 had been hurt and insulted. Her life was 
 \vrecked, but she could think of recuperation. 
 Perhaps she would not have been human had 
 she not thought of I^ady Lurgau's dismay 
 when the money was taken away again. 
 
 She did not speak a word to Belding all the 
 way to the hotel, and he, respecting her silence, 
 looked out at the hurrying crowds, and tried not 
 to wonder what it was all about. When they 
 drove up to the hotel he sprang out and gave 
 L,ady L,urgan his hand, just as her husband came 
 leisurely down the steps.
 
 XVI. 
 
 T T is barely possible that L,urgan would have 
 gone on if he had not met the eyes of his 
 wife. He was astonished and angr3 r , but he 
 wanted a minute to consider exactly how he 
 should express his disapproval of what he con- 
 sidered rank rebellion. She must be made to see 
 what she was doing, how she was outraging the 
 proprieties ; and in the thought, he congratu- 
 lated himself that he had left Mrs. Welles up 
 stairs. Belding was quite harmless of that he 
 felt sure ; and he thought of Alice only as a 
 simpleton all the more so, that she had put 
 herself into his hands in this fashion. 
 
 He walked to his wife's side with an attitude of 
 grave disapproval upon which even his mother 
 could not have improved, and took Alice from 
 Belding' s care. But the woman who looked 
 into his face had something in her own which 
 met his. As he stopped to insist upon paying 
 the cabman, Alice walked by him into the hotel, 
 and when he reached her side again it was at the 
 door of the rooms which Celeste had engaged for 
 her. She stopped, her hand on the knob of
 
 148 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 the door, and looked at him with polite ques- 
 tioning. 
 
 " I am coming in," Lurgan said. "I want to 
 speak to you." 
 
 " Very well," she answered, and led the way 
 into a sitting room, where Celeste stood wait- 
 ing. " You may go," she said to the maid, and 
 watched her until she had closed the door behind 
 her. Then she turned to her husband. 
 
 "I want to see you, too, upon a matter of 
 great importance to both of us." 
 
 ' ' I shall be very glad to listen to anything you 
 have to say," Lurgan said. 
 
 ' ' I can say it in a few words. I am going to 
 leave your house. ' ' 
 
 ' ' Is this the time that a Chicago woman allows 
 for a first marriage ? ' ' Lurgan sneered, and 
 then had the perception to see what a mistake he 
 had made. Alice's face was white, but it grew 
 firmer. There was no sign of weakness in it 
 now. "If it is not that, what has brought you 
 to this decision?" 
 
 "The fact that we are perfectly uncongenial, 
 for one thing, and could never be happy together ; 
 and for another, your disrespect to me as your 
 wife." 
 
 " May I ask you to particularize? " 
 
 " Certainly. This morning, as I left the train, 
 I saw you driving away in a cab" lyurgan
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 149 
 
 made a gesture of derision, but Alice, her eyes 
 on his, went calmly on " with a woman whom 
 your mother and your uncle had both told me 
 was an improper person for me to speak to. ' ' 
 
 ' ' There may be one rule for a man and another 
 for a woman, I hope you will allow." 
 
 " In some cases, but not in this one." 
 
 ' ' If you expect me to make an explanation of 
 every detail of my life to you, you are expecting 
 an impossibility." 
 
 ' ' I expect every detail of your life to be such 
 that it requires no explanation." 
 
 ' ' And because I ride in a cab across London 
 with a lady who lives in my neighborhood, my 
 wife is about to leave me." 
 
 ' ' We went to the office of a house agent, and 
 were told that you had just rented a house for a 
 lady." 
 
 "Oh, this is insufferable ! " Lurgan exclaimed. 
 " You, my wife, know that I am coming to Lon- 
 don, and you follow by the next train to spy 
 upon me ! You get one of my workmen to assist 
 you in hounding my footsteps ! Would it not 
 have been in better taste to have employed a 
 private detective ? At least he would not have 
 gone about gossiping of your folly." 
 
 " You know perfectly well that I was not fol- 
 lowing you. I came up to London upon busi- 
 ness of my own."
 
 150 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 "May I ask what?" 
 
 " I do not choose to tell you." 
 
 " It appears to have been to call upon Belding 
 in his chambers, I presume, sending your maid 
 here out of the way, and then taking him to fol- 
 low me. What are you two looking for ? Grounds 
 for a divorce? Did you make friends so quickly 
 as that in the grounds at Salby Chase, or is he 
 one of your old Chicago acquaintances? " 
 
 " You may insult me now, if you choose," 
 Alice said in a strained voice; "but it will not 
 be for long. I am going to leave you. You are 
 not a fit person for me to live with." 
 
 " May I ask where you purpose going? " 
 
 "That I do not know." 
 
 "To Chicago?" 
 
 "No! No!" 
 
 "I rather think not. Your parents would 
 hardly receive you with great cordiality. You 
 would not greatly augment the social position 
 3 r our stepmother desires to gain by any such 
 conduct." 
 
 " I do not want to go to Chicago. I will live 
 quietly here, somewhere. I only ask that you 
 give me the money I brought you, that my father 
 gave me on my marriage, and let me go away. 
 I ask nothing from you." 
 
 Lurgan put one foot up on the seat of a low 
 chair, before which he had been standing, and
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 151 
 
 calmly inspected his boot. Alice, who had 
 eaten no breakfast and no luncheon, was faint for 
 want of food and from nervous exhaustion, and 
 sank down wearily upon the sofa. 
 
 ' ' Your father gave you no money upon your 
 marriage. ' ' 
 
 "That is untrue. I have heard everywhere 
 that he gave me a large sum. I heard it dis- 
 cussed at home. My mother told me so." 
 
 " He gave me a large sum when I married 
 you. You had a large dowry, but not one penny 
 of it was settled upon you. I confess it surprised 
 me at the time. I thought your father was a 
 closer business man, but I fancy your mother did 
 not want to antagonize me. She did not contem- 
 plate the possibility of your wishing to leave me. ' ' 
 
 ' ' Then I have not a penny ? ' ' 
 
 "Not a penny of your own." I^urgan 
 straightened himself up, and, having finished the 
 inspection of his boot, put his hands in his 
 pockets and rocked on his toes. " But I can 
 assure you that you will always find me ready to 
 give you such an allowance as you require. ' ' 
 
 ' ' Then give me sufficient to go somewhere at 
 once. ' ' 
 
 " I was about to say, so long as you are my 
 wife and under my roof, I am hardly likely to 
 give you an allowance to go away from me, to 
 make a scandal, to destroy my home, to ruin your
 
 152 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 prospects of future happiness and my own. That 
 would hardly be common sense. I am ready to 
 forgive your indiscretion, your horribly vulgar 
 taste, if you will pardon my saying it, in follow- 
 ing me to London and picking up Belding." 
 
 Alice rose to her feet. 
 
 " I do not think we need discuss this matter 
 any further. You may go." 
 
 ' ' Not for another moment or two, if you 
 please," L,urgan returned, with great politeness. 
 ' ' We may as well settle this matter here and now. 
 I am tired of this nonsense. I am not a school- 
 boy to be followed about. I demand that you 
 behave in a manner befitting your position. You 
 do not seem to understand what that is, but I 
 trust you will learn in time. My mother has 
 kindly undertaken to tell you. This must be 
 the last time that you make such a journey as 
 this that I absolutely forbid." 
 
 " You can forbid me to do nothing," Alice 
 said. " I acknowledge your authority not at all. 
 You have forfeited any claim you may have had 
 upon my affections, and I am not your servant, 
 to be ordered. ' ' 
 
 ' ' No, but you are my wife. ' ' 
 
 ' ' Not for another day ! I will not return to 
 your house." 
 
 ' ' That I must ask you to do today, ' ' Lurgan 
 said.
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 153 
 
 Alice did not reply, but she set her face with 
 an expression which meant open revolt. 
 
 L,urgan started toward her once. He had 
 always had a theory, which he had often put 
 into practice, that any woman could be brought 
 out of what he was pleased to term "a fit of the 
 sulks" by a little judicious lightness and affec- 
 tion. But there was something in Alice's face 
 which held him back from an attempt at this 
 now. She looked obstinate, and he had a con- 
 viction that he did not know her ; that here was 
 a woman who was different from the women of 
 his w r orld. He would give her time to think, and 
 Mrs. Welles was waiting for him. With a mutter 
 about women who were always getting men into 
 scrapes, Lurgan turned toward the door. After 
 he had pulled it half open, he spoke to Alice. 
 
 ' ' Are you coming home this evening ? ' ' 
 
 "I shall stay in London," she said in that 
 expressionless voice which seemed to make him 
 as remote as another century, ' ' until I am able 
 to secure a house for my mother, as she re- 
 quested." 
 
 Again he hesitated, and then, with a "Good 
 morning," he walked out. 
 
 Mrs. Welles received a hasty note, saying that 
 Ivord Lurgan had been suddenly called home. 
 
 "You Americans are so excitable," I^ady 
 Fortescue said the next morning, as she sat at the
 
 154 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 breakfast table with Alice. " Here I am, routed 
 out of my bed at daybreak, to come and tell you 
 that Aunt Cecilia is a perfect old war horse, and 
 that you will have to treat her with a little tact. 
 Bear easy on the reins, my dear. ' ' 
 
 " You need not be trying to help, me out with 
 the fiction that I have anything to do with the 
 driving at all," Alice said. "You must know 
 that I am a perfect nobody in that house. ' ' 
 
 ' ' Ah, but my dear, my dear, ' ' Theo remon- 
 strated, "you surely think too highly of your 
 marriage vows to leave your husband for any such 
 trivial reason as that. ' ' 
 
 "You know it is not for that. You know ! " 
 
 ' ' I know what ? ' ' innocentty. ' ' I assure you, 
 my dear child, that I know nothing. I am sure 
 Algy does not understand exactly. He said 
 something about your seeing him in a cab with 
 that Mrs. Welles from down in the country. 
 Now, of course, some women might dislike that, 
 but surely you are too .sensible. You know or 
 perhaps you do not know but Mrs. Welles was 
 once, so I have heard, quite entangled with the 
 family." Theo looked at her narrowly. She 
 con Id hardly believe that Alice had swallowed 
 the story that Captain Innis had told her, and of 
 which L,ady Fortescue had heard. It was a 
 tremendous joke if she had. "Arthur Inuis 
 never was at all straitlaced. ' '
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 155 
 
 " Captain Innis' friends are nothing to me." 
 
 "Oh, no, certainly not ! But poor Algy thought 
 that you were angry because he rode across Lon- 
 don with Mrs. Welles. Perhaps it was not nice, 
 but he had a very ticklish commission on hand. 
 I think myself that he ought to have confided in 
 you, but then you know that is never a man's 
 way. They never can bear to talk a thing over 
 with a woman until they are obliged to. Algy 
 had made up his mind to try and get Mrs. Welles 
 away from Salby, and you ought to know that 
 such cases require some concessions. Now, may 
 heaven forgive me, most of that is true ! " Lady 
 Fortescue added the last sentence in soliloquy. 
 " Don't be hard on Algy," she went on aloud. 
 ' ' You must understand, my dear, that he has a 
 little different way of looking at things. He has 
 been brought up differently. He wouldn't con- 
 sider it quite nice to talk to a young woman like 
 you of some things. ' ' 
 
 ' ' I am his wife. ' ' 
 
 " All the more reason. He was furious with 
 his uncle for telling you anything about Mrs. 
 Welles, and more furious with his mother. After 
 all, I believe, she will not bite. Of course, he 
 never expected you to go about alone and pick 
 up acquaintances. And ' ' Theo drew a long 
 breath " he naturally was angry at your giving 
 people a chance to talk by going to Belding.
 
 156 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 He is not of our class at all. He is a very 
 decent chap, I suppose, but you must under- 
 stand. Now confess you were a little wrong. ' ' 
 
 "I may be." 
 
 "You mean you were. You are coming back 
 with me, and it is all going to be forgotten." 
 
 ' ' I cannot come back now. I am going to 
 stay here, or go somewhere on the coast, until 
 my father and mother come. ' ' 
 
 "Until " 
 
 "Until my father and mother come," Alice 
 repeated. ' ' I am going to take a house for 
 them in London, and I am going to write the 
 whole story to my father. He is the one to 
 decide this matter for me. I need my own 
 people." She was standing by the window, 
 looking out into the busy streets, full of thou- 
 sands of hurrying strangers. " I am very much 
 alone here," she said almost in a whisper. A mist 
 of self pity came over her eyes. 
 
 " Oh, but a woman should not feel at all alone 
 with her husband and her husband's people," 
 Theo said briskly. She did not like Alice, and 
 she was a little contemptuous of her, as one who 
 had no worldly knowledge of her opport unities ; 
 but she said " Poor thing ! " under her breath. 
 Outwardly, she laughed. "Alice, I wouldn't 
 write to my parents if I were you. That is 
 rather a cowardly thing to do, isn't it? All
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 157 
 
 young married people quarrel. It is a sort of 
 honor with them not to bring in anybody else. 
 It makes it ever so much harder in the end. 
 Outside people cannot understand the least little 
 bit. Now if I had a daughter who had married, 
 and who came home telling me her woes, I should 
 pack her back to her husband again and tell her 
 to fight her battles as I fought mine. I wouldn't 
 send for my father and mother if I were in your 
 place." 
 
 " They were coming any way." 
 
 ' ' The)*' would be the last people in the world 
 to want to stir up dissensions between you and 
 your husband." 
 
 ' ' And you think that their coming will do 
 that ? " Alice turned round, two red spots burn- 
 ing in her cheeks. " Haven't my people a right 
 to come to London if they choose? Am I 
 because I happened to marry an English earl to 
 be cut off from any ties of affection ? Am I lost, 
 or are they, to all human feeling? " 
 
 "I am afraid you are a little selfish," Theo 
 murmured. ' ' But you will come home if I will 
 wait for you a day or two ? ' ' 
 
 " No, I am going somewhere on the coast 
 with Celeste." 
 
 Theo hesitated, and then with a grimace she 
 made a proposition which cost her much. "I 
 will come with you, if you care to have me,"
 
 158 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 But her sacrifice was not accepted. 
 
 " I do uot want any one," Alice said. "I 
 want to go off somewhere by myself and thiuk. 
 One thing I have determined upon. I will ask 
 my people here, and engage a house for them. 
 I want them, and I have a right to have them." 
 
 Lady Fortescue felt that she had done enough, 
 and so she told her cousin when she met him in 
 her apartment an hour after she had seen Alice. 
 
 " I said about everything. I brought in her 
 marriage vow, and your career, and nothing 
 seemed to move her. She is going to bring over 
 her brood of Americans, whatever comes. You 
 always were a fool, Algy, and you have been 
 pressing the poor child too hard. And this 
 last escapade ! You told me you had given 
 that " 
 
 " It isn't worth while to discuss that matter," 
 Lurgan hastily interposed. " I cannot let Alice 
 behave like this. She shall not make a scandal. 
 She shall come home. ' ' 
 
 " Sh sh ! It will be you who will make the 
 scandal. Let her have her head for a little while. 
 I have persuaded her that in this last episode she 
 has mistaken you. But there are other things. 
 Let her go to Brighton, or somewhere, for a week 
 or two, and direct your energies to the other 
 side of the Atlantic. What sort of a woman is 
 her stepmother ? "
 
 XVII. 
 
 T N three days Alice was in a lodging house in 
 Brighton, with her maid and a man servant. 
 She had received a note from L,urgan, expressing 
 his disappointment at not seeing her for several 
 days, as business made it necessary for him to 
 run over to Paris. His cousin had told him that 
 she wanted to go to the seaside for a little while. 
 He inclosed some bank notes and some blank 
 checks, and had taken the liberty of sending her 
 a man servant of unusual intelligence. The note 
 was entirely respectful, and there was no hint of 
 a quarrel anywhere. 
 
 She discovered another agent, and from him 
 engaged a house for her father ; and it was with 
 more than a degree of reluctance that she filled 
 out one of I/urgau's checks to pay the sum neces- 
 sary to insure the place being kept for her. Then 
 she went down to Brighton. 
 
 It was warm and balmy here, much more so 
 than at Salby Chase, but she was oblivious to the 
 weather. She was confronting what she felt to 
 be the problem of her life. And yet she had 
 thought the same thing only a few short months
 
 160 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 before, when she gave up Chris. L,ife was grow- 
 ing too full of problems. 
 
 She wandered out on the piers, and sat on the 
 benches for hours at a time, watching the ships 
 and yachts go by, and unutterably lonely. She 
 wanted Connie's hearty laughter, her father's 
 handsome face and courteous gentleness, her 
 stepmother's strong character. More than any- 
 thing else in the world, she wanted Chris ! She 
 did not let herself think his name, but Chris him- 
 self, Chris who had always been her compass, 
 who had always been there, not to advise, but to 
 act the want of him was so bitter that she felt 
 she could not live without him. She never had 
 learned to live without him, and when she tried 
 it, what a wretched failure she was making of it ! 
 
 She had not written of any trouble with Lurgan 
 to her stepmother, but she had written a short 
 letter to her father, in which she had told him 
 that she had discovered that all of her dowry had 
 gone to her husband, and asking him to give 
 her an allowance. Money had been the one 
 thing which Mr. Sanderson had given to her in 
 unlimited fashion. It had no particular value in 
 her eyes. She would not tell him yet ; perhaps 
 she never would tell him, that she had been hurt 
 and insulted by her husband. Everything would 
 be set right when they came over. She had 
 gone through the great rooms of the house she
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 161 
 
 had taken for them, and had seeu, iu fancy, her 
 father's home established there. What a haven 
 it would be ! They would know I,ady Lurgan 
 and her husband, they would learn that she 
 could not be treated like a child. She had 
 always seen the combination of her father's 
 wealth and her stepmother's tact so powerful 
 that nothing seemed impossible to them. 
 
 And then, deep down in her heart, was a 
 lurking thought to which she would not give a 
 place. She would at least hear all about Chris. 
 Her heart was fairly hungry to hear somebody 
 pronounce his name. She might have grown to 
 forget him had she been only passably happy. 
 She tried to remember that he had not loved her, 
 but she felt that although he might not have 
 loved her as a man should love his wife, although 
 he had been glad to know that she was the wife 
 of another, and that all of his responsibility in 
 the matter of her happiness was ended, yet he 
 had loved her like a brother. 
 
 Alice had cabled at once that the house was 
 taken, and had written, begging them to come 
 I immediately. She wanted to see her husband 
 again from her father's side. She felt that she 
 could not bear to go back to the humiliation of 
 the past few weeks. 
 
 Every day she looked for a cable saying when 
 she might expect them. The time for letters
 
 1 62 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 came and passed, and still no message. It was 
 almost three weeks before Celeste came up one 
 morning and brought her the thick American 
 letter with her stepmother's well known hand- 
 writing on the envelope. 
 
 She broke it open, and fairly devoured it with 
 her eyes. As she read on and on, her face grew 
 pale, and lines too old for its delicate outlines 
 seemed to settle about her mouth and eyes. She 
 read it two or three times, as if she could not 
 quite believe in it ; then she turned over on her 
 pillow as she had done another morning when 
 her stepmother had given her words of counsel, 
 and felt that life was hopeless. 
 
 After a long time, she called Celeste, and 
 asked for a telegraph blank. Her pen hesitated 
 over it after it was under her hand, but she 
 finally wrote to her husband in Paris : 
 
 I ain ready to return to Salby Chase when you come 
 for me. 
 
 A. I/URGAN.
 
 XVIII. 
 
 \\T HEN our lives are running along in their 
 accustomed grooves, and we are as fairly 
 happy as the restless leaven of life will allow us 
 to be ; when we are in distress, or when we have 
 for its brief instant the intoxicating wine of life 
 before us at all times we are self centered. 
 The tragedy of another's life may play itself out 
 before us, but we are too busy watching the 
 cues of our own exits and entrances to pay much 
 attention. 
 
 The third year of Alice's married life was 
 wearing itself away, and she was beginning to 
 wonder what sort of a young girl that Alice 
 Sanderson had been who had taken life so 
 tragically. She was somewhere back there in 
 the dusk of time, in the chaotic beginning of 
 things. 
 
 To the people she had left behind in Chicago 
 she was ' ' that pretty Miss Sanderson who 
 married the Karl of I^urgan the other day." 
 No one seemed to wonder why she never came 
 home. They had never expected that she would 
 come back. What could Chicago be, except 
 163
 
 1 64 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 dull and stupid, to one who was accustomed to 
 the glitter of foreign courts, and to great old 
 English country houses, and all the gauds of life 
 among the aristocracy gilded by American mill- 
 ions ? When the Chicago people thought of Alice, 
 it was in a court train with feathers in her hair, 
 making her bow to her sovereign, or as enter- 
 taining princes and potentates. 
 
 She had been at court, not once, but three 
 seasons, since her marriage, and had had her name 
 in the lists of fashionable people in London almost 
 the regulation number of times. Not quite, per- 
 haps ; for the Lurgans were not ultra fashionable. 
 There was a lack on both sides of the family 
 which prevented that. Lurgan had not taken to 
 politics, as his mother had hoped. He had been 
 too easily turned aside, and had found more 
 amusement on the turf and in other like ventures, 
 to take the position of a solid English supporter 
 of the crown. The elder Lady Lurgan was in 
 the habit of laying all his shortcomings to the fact 
 that there was no heir to the house, and some- 
 times expressed her opinion in public as well as 
 in the semi privacy of the family circle. 
 
 It was very seldom that the family circle was 
 not stretched to include half a dozen people, now- 
 adays, and they were always Lurgan' s friends. 
 Alice had made almost none. Now and then she 
 met a compatriot who attracted her, but they
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 165 
 
 generally began talking of people and events in 
 America of which she knew nothing. She had 
 come away so young, her social life had been so 
 short, and she had not seen her family since her 
 marriage. She thought bitterly that she had no 
 home, as other people knew the term. 
 
 L,urgan's latest venture was a theater. He 
 was backing an actress who had made a phenom- 
 enal success, the season before, in one of those 
 plays with long names and short morals. She 
 was a woman who had had something of a story, 
 one that had enlisted the interest of a great many 
 people. Just at the moment she was the fad of 
 one or two women of fashion, one of whom, as a 
 consequence, had been thrown very much with 
 L,urgan, and was just now a guest at Salby Chase. 
 
 Mrs. Henderson was one of those women who 
 are eternally restless, externally looking about 
 for some mental excitement or dissipation, and 
 usually finding it in amore or less original fashion, 
 which puts them momentarily in the eye of the 
 curious public. Her husband was the sou of an 
 ancient family which had transmitted glory and 
 fame, as well as fortune, to its descendants, 
 placing them, in the estimation of the old society 
 in which they lived, far above the titles of most 
 of the people who were their friends. John 
 Henderson Henderson, of Castle Bevin, was a 
 name which shame had never stained, and if, for
 
 1 66 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 a generation or two, it had not shone with 
 especial brilliancy in some ways, it had in others ; 
 for the present Henderson was the best known 
 big game hunter in England. 
 
 When he was very young, he had married one 
 of four sisters famous for their beauty and chic. 
 Their mother, a good natured woman who had 
 been a social success herself, had brought out all 
 four within two short seasons ; and while other 
 mothers looked on in amazement at her temerity, 
 she had married them all off to the most eligible 
 men to be found. They were tall, rather curious 
 looking young women with fine necks, slender 
 waists, and a great deal of hair. They had worn 
 astonishing frocks, and their photographs were 
 sold in the shop windows by the side of those of 
 the royal family, with their names printed in gilt 
 letters beneath. 
 
 Mrs. Henderson had attracted more attention 
 than her sisters, because she had more audacity. 
 At the time of Alice's marriage she was in 
 America, somewhere in the Northwest, with her 
 husband. They had spent eighteen months in 
 a cabin in the mountains, and had shot grizzly 
 bears and all the other wild animals which 
 abounded in that region, bringing home the 
 skins and innumerable photographs. Mrs. Hen- 
 derson had seen her pictures in the London maga- 
 zines and weeklies for months afterward, taken
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 167 
 
 in her buckskin leggings, with her rifle in her 
 hand, or on snow shoes, and in every other 
 fashion known to sporting illustration. 
 
 The new actress, and more particularly the 
 author who wrote her plays, were Mrs. Hender- 
 son's new passport to advertising. She had taken 
 Lord Lurgan into a sort of partnership. She 
 said she found it necessary to have masculine 
 advice, and Mr. Henderson was in Africa. 
 
 An American, seeing Mrs. Henderson loaf 
 across the lawn at Salby Chase, would have 
 failed to observe the beauty which was supposed 
 to have made her famous. She was the farthest 
 remove from the type that is considered most 
 attractive in the United States. Her hands and 
 feet were slender and well shaped but large ; her 
 waist was too short, her legs too long, her black 
 lashed eyes too large, her hair too exuberant. 
 To American eyes she was distinctly bad style, 
 and Alice looked at her with a sense of repulsion 
 which she analyzed as the result of an irritation 
 of her sense of good taste, rather than as any 
 actual dislike or disapproval. 
 
 It was almost tea time, and guests from the 
 house were wandering down to the terrace where 
 Alice had established herself under the trees. 
 Lady Fortescue, in the last stages of mourning 
 for her husband, who had been dead a little more 
 than two years, sat by Alice's side. She had
 
 1 68 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 shaded off from black to violet and whites as 
 artistically as if she had been a basket of pansies 
 made up by a fashionable florist. The delicate 
 colors were not particularly becoming to her, and 
 they made her peevish. They seemed to absorb 
 some of her exuberance. They were not at all the 
 sort of thing she would have chosen to wear of 
 her own accord, but her martyrdom to convention 
 was almost over. It was over altogether, so far 
 as the convention of grief was concerned. 
 
 To Alice the talk was tiresome. It was free 
 and easy, after a fashion, but with a restraint 
 which she was quite conscious they would not 
 feel in the smoking room at night, or even out here 
 after dinner, when she was sitting quietly indoors. 
 It was simply the chitter chatter of a half dozen 
 people who had many of the same pursuits. 
 
 The new wings had been built at the Chase, 
 and the project just now under discussion was 
 the turning of one of the large new rooms into a 
 theater. Alice did not let a ripple of annoyance 
 touch her mind, though nobody thought it worth 
 while to ask her opinion concerning the arrange- 
 ment of the house. That was L,urgau's province. 
 
 " You surely would like to see me act," Mrs. 
 Henderson said, her eyes looking up into Lur- 
 gan's face. 
 
 ' ' What sort of parts do you prefer to play, 
 Mrs. Henderson?" young Tannehill asked.
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 169 
 
 " Oh, the lady who wears the lovely gowns and 
 behaves wickedly. There's no fun in being good 
 on the stage. One is obliged to be good in. real 
 life every day. There is no sense in going into 
 theatricals simply to play over again what one 
 does ever)' day. It is the delight of being really 
 devilish now and then. Did you never notice 
 what a popular character Forget- Me- Not has 
 always been ? Now my favorite character, if I 
 could choose, would be " 
 
 ' ' Rebellious Susan ? ' ' Lady Fortescue asked 
 politely. 
 
 " Not exactly. I think I should enjoy being 
 the young lady who sings in the music halls, and 
 talks back to the audience. She appears to me 
 to have no end of a pleasant time and so excit- 
 ing ! We know pretty generally what people are 
 going to say in our own set, and our powers of 
 repartee get rusted from lying idle. There 
 must be such a sameness in our answers." 
 
 " Now I should never accuse you of anything 
 of that sort," Lurgan said. "It seems to me 
 that you give us variety." 
 
 "I quite agree with my cousin," Lady 
 Fortescue added. 
 
 ' ' How good of you ! ' ' Mrs. Henderson smiled 
 with the expression of receiving a compliment 
 hovering about her mouth. 
 
 Captain Innis, who had taken his tea to the
 
 1 70 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 stone steps which ran down to the Italian garden 
 below, chuckled a little. He liked Lady Fortescue, 
 but he could not resist the temptation to rejoice 
 over her fight for supremacy. She had been the 
 smartest woman in the company for so long that 
 she hardly knew how to treat this new claimant 
 for honors. 
 
 " Why not turn the wing room into a music 
 hall ? ' ' Lurgan suggested. 
 
 " That will be easy enough at any time. First 
 let us have a stage and some scenery. Let us do 
 it now, while I am down here. I want to help to 
 arrange it." 
 
 " There isn't any reason that I can see." 
 
 "Come along and let us look at it," Mrs. 
 Henderson said impulsively, rising to her feet. 
 ' ' Let me see what it is like. I have forgotten 
 the dimensions." 
 
 She started toward the house, only Lurgan 
 following, and then she turned back. The half 
 smile on Lady Fortescue' s lips had nothing what- 
 ever to do with her turning. 
 
 " Won't you come along, Lady Lurgan? " she 
 said affably, and when Alice smiled and shook 
 her head, she went on: "You don't mind my 
 running off with Lurgan for a little while ? I'm 
 awfully anxious to see that room, you know." 
 
 "Not in the least." 
 
 "That woman is the most insufferable creature
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 171 
 
 alive," Lady Fortescue said. "I beg your 
 pardon, Alice, but I really cannot understand 
 why you tolerate her." 
 
 "She simply does not annoy me at all. She 
 is not my guest. ' ' 
 
 "Whose is she, then? Surely not Aunt 
 Cecilia's?" Lady Fortescue knew quite well, 
 but she was in the disagreeable humor that wishes 
 to force unpleasant subjects to the front. 
 
 Alice laughed aloud. 
 
 " You have not been in to see Lady Lurgan, 
 then ? She went to Scotland this morning. ' ' 
 
 " I usually wait for Aunt Cecilia to seek my 
 society, my dear," Lady Fortescue said ; and 
 then a determination took her, and she arose, 
 shook out the frills of her gown, and put up her 
 parasol. 
 
 " Mr. Tannehill," she said to the young man, 
 who had looked disconsolate since Mrs. Hender- 
 son had left them, "let us go and see if that 
 wing room will do for a theater ; ' ' and they 
 walked away together. 
 
 Everybody had gone, and Alice, sitting there 
 alone in her wicker chair, turned again to her 
 book, to whose companionship she was becoming 
 more and more accustomed. It was something 
 of a relief to have her husband's mother away. 
 It had long been a theory of Lady Lurgan's life 
 that anything could be brought about by force of
 
 172 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 will, and she had not yet realized that she had 
 an impossible task in trying to bring her son and 
 his wife together again. Nothing would make 
 her see that she had had anything to do with 
 separating them, and she bitterly upbraided fate 
 for having taken the dominion over the earl out 
 of her hands. The son who had looked to her to 
 manage his estates, to get money out of them 
 for his expenses, and still keep them intact, was 
 a different son from the rich young man whose 
 income was almost princely. He would not 
 quarrel with his mother, but even into the house 
 which she had called hers ever since she had 
 come to it a bride he was bringing guests of 
 whom she disapproved. 
 
 Lady Fortescue and Tannehill went up to the 
 house and over the soft rugs of the great hall 
 leading into the new ball room which was to be 
 made into the theater. The place was large and 
 scantily furnished, with great divans running 
 along the walls. As the two entered, lifting the 
 portieres which hung inside the doors, they could 
 see I/urgan and Mrs. Henderson at the other end 
 of the floor. They were not looking at the 
 dimensions of the room. Lurgan was holding 
 Mrs. Henderson's hand, while she stood with her 
 tall, exaggerated figure silhouetted against the 
 afternoon light streaming through a window out 
 of which she looked indifferently.
 
 XIX. 
 
 URGAN and his wife saw little of each other 
 in these days. He came and went, and she 
 asked no questions ; nor did he ask any when 
 she took her maid and went up to lyondon for a 
 few days. When she went through that first 
 I/ondon season she added nothing to her popu- 
 larity. She had been a cold and a dead woman. 
 She had not even asked, or thought, whether or 
 not Mrs. Welles occupied the little house which 
 Lurgan had rented. She had disappeared from 
 the neighborhood of Salby, but Alice found her- 
 self thinking that she would not have cared much 
 if the woman were still there. It was no particu- 
 lar concern of hers. I^urgan was as nothing to 
 her. 
 
 She had almost ceased, in these three years, to 
 pity herself. It is the bitter, miserable tears of 
 self pity which wear out the heart and the brain ; 
 but Alice had too much character to give way to 
 this indulgence. She began to have that terrible 
 cynicism of the young who have never realized 
 an ideal'. Even her father had failed her. When 
 she had put down that letter from her stepmother 
 173
 
 174 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 which had come in the midst of her rebellion, 
 she had found herself possessed of a calmness 
 which was almost calculating in its coldness. 
 It was as if her heart had been suddenly cased 
 in an armor of ice. She lay there among her 
 pillows as she had lain on that earlier day when 
 her stepmother had come to her, and felt that 
 life held nothing for her. 
 
 The letter told her that her father had had 
 great losses ; that he had thought it best to give 
 Alice's dowry to her husband, as every wife's 
 duty was to her husband, and her husband's 
 home should be hers ; that he was bitterly dis- 
 appointed that she had shown so little self con- 
 trol, so much childishness. He was ill, Mrs. 
 Sanderson wrote, and nothing would do him any 
 good but the assurance that Alice had gone back 
 to her husband. They would not come to Lon- 
 don this year, but go to Alaska. There was a 
 little hint, too, that she hoped that Alice would 
 not ruin Connie's happiness by making a scandal 
 in the family. 
 
 Alice had looked the question squarely in the 
 face, and had gone back. What else was there 
 for her to do ? How could she know that her 
 appeal had never reached her father, that Lurgan 
 had written a long letter to her stepmother, 
 giving her some frank statements, telling her 
 that Alice was unmanageable, and was threaten-
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 175 
 
 ing to leave him when her family came to Lon- 
 don? An earl for a son in law, and then a 
 scandal that would be a downfall of Mrs. Sander- 
 son' s house of cards which she could not tolerate. 
 
 The house at Salby Chase was filling with 
 guests. It was not far from one of the great 
 watering places, and it was the season for the 
 sea shore. I^urgan's new yacht, the " Au 
 Revoir," lay at anchor near by. A great ball, a 
 play in the new theater, to be hastily improvised, 
 and plans for a series of other gaieties, were 
 making the place alive with enthusiasm. Mrs. 
 Henderson, with her insolent face, her deep 
 voice, and her loafing gait, seemed to be direct- 
 ing things everywhere. 
 
 At dinner one night in the midst of the prepara- 
 tions, a servant stood respectfully at Alice's 
 elbow, and, as he offered her a dish, slipped a 
 telegram beside her plate. As she slit it open, 
 and saw that it was a cable, she grew a little 
 paler, but made no comment. There was only 
 one line : 
 
 Papa very ill. Sail at once. 
 
 CONNIE. 
 
 She knew the steamers, and their sailings. 
 Her eye could never slip by that column in the 
 papers. As she sat there answering questions, 
 speaking calmly and evenly and as usual, her 
 mind made calculations. If she started that
 
 176 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 night she could reach Southampton in time for 
 the sailing of one of the fast ships. The train 
 would leave London at nine o'clock in the morn- 
 ing. She finished her dinner, and when the 
 ladies rose from the table she went into the 
 drawing room with her guests, but stopped only 
 a moment. Then she flew up to Celeste. 
 
 " Celeste," she said breathlessly, her heart 
 beating now so that she could hardly speak, 
 "my father is ill. We sail for America to- 
 morrow morning. ' ' 
 
 " But, my lady, the tickets ! I think at this 
 season ' ' 
 
 ' ' There are always some berths. I go if I go 
 in the steerage. Pack at once. ' ' 
 
 Alice began to take off her white dinner gown 
 with shaking fingers. She had had no time 
 for grief. Even death could not take her people 
 farther away from her than they had been ; and 
 of death she could not think. She was numbed. 
 She only knew that there must be action ; that 
 she was going away from here; that she was 
 going back to America, and that somewhere 
 there was her lost girlhood. She drew in a long 
 breath, and in it she felt her native air. 
 
 She had changed her dress, and was moving 
 about putting things into bags, folding, gather- 
 ing together her toilet appliances, when there 
 was a sharp rap at the door.
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 177 
 
 " Come," she said unthinkingly, and her hus- 
 band stood in the doorway. She looked at him 
 startled, and with some embarrassment. It had 
 been months since he had come near the threshold 
 of her apartments, but he walked quickly in and 
 closed the door. 
 
 " What is the matter ? " he asked. " Are you 
 ill, that you are not down stairs? " 
 
 ' ' No, I am preparing to go home. My father 
 is very ill. They have cabled for me. I am 
 going to sail for America tomorrow. I have 
 sent Celeste to telegraph for tickets. ' ' 
 
 ' ' Do you think it necessary ? We have er 
 there is a large party in the house. Would it 
 not be well to cable over and ask for particulars ? 
 Probably it is some slight attack which is not at 
 all serious. It will take you almost ten days 
 to reach Chicago, and in that time he may 
 have " 
 
 " Died," Alice finished calmly. 
 
 ' ' If you care to put it in that way, yes. He 
 will have done that or have recovered. In 
 any case it can hardly be necessary for you to 
 go." 
 
 "I am going." Her lips were compressed, 
 and she did not look at him. 
 
 "You surely cannot expect to leave a house 
 full of guests in this fashion, with people coming 
 every day?"
 
 178 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 " Not my guests yours. They will uot miss 
 me ; ' ' and then she stood up beside the trunk 
 which she had pulled from a closet. " Do you 
 suppose that I would stay away for anybody or 
 anything ? My father is my one close relative 
 the one person in the world to me. ' ' 
 
 " It appears to me that you made a vow once 
 to leave your father and mother." I/urgan 
 spoke almost with flippancy. 
 
 " We will not discuss that now, if you please. 
 I am going to America tomorrow." 
 
 1 ' You surely do not expect me to go with 
 you?" 
 
 " Most certainly not." 
 
 " I suppose I might telegraph for my 
 mother?" 
 
 "Or let Lady Fortescue act as hostess. She 
 will make a better one than I." 
 
 "Perhaps that would be just as well." He 
 arose from the couch where he had been sitting, 
 holding his hands around his knees. " It is hardly 
 necessary to say that your father is dangerously 
 ill. I will simply say that you are called to 
 America on business. Theo can carry on the 
 house party here, at least until mother's return." 
 He got as far as the door, and then he turned 
 again. " What time do you leave ? " 
 
 " On the midnight train." 
 
 " I suppose I might as well say good by now
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 179 
 
 unless you would care to have me go up to I/>n- 
 dou with you ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 ' ' Then good by. I hope you will find you 
 have made a mistake iii going." 
 
 " I shall not do that, in any case." 
 
 L<urgan opened his mouth as if to speak again, 
 and then thought better of it. 
 
 " Give my love to your mother and Con- 
 stance. ' ' 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Suddenly Lurgan took her by the shoulders 
 and held her facing him. 
 
 ' ' What is the use of all this pretense ? You 
 mean to get over there and stay. You never 
 intend to come back." 
 
 "You are quite mistaken. If I find that my 
 father's health has improved, I shall probably 
 come back very soon. ' ' 
 
 " To go through this farce of living ! You are 
 more dead than alive. I have no wife. What 
 can you expect of me ? ' ' 
 
 " It is hardly necessary to discuss that ques- 
 tion now. You have what you married me for, 
 and I suppose I have what I married you for, 
 although Heaven knows I hardly thought what 
 that was at the time. I think we may now say 
 good by." 
 
 walked down the hall with an emotion
 
 l8o HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 in his heart which he knew would make him dis- 
 agreeable to Mrs. Henderson. 
 
 ' ' She will stay if he dies, and I suppose she 
 will get a divorce." He snapped his forefinger 
 and thumb together. " Glad enough shall I 
 be ! " but the expression of his face was not 
 glad.
 
 XX. 
 
 ""PHE journey to London was taken alone but 
 for Celeste and a man from the office of the 
 estate to see that the tickets were properly 
 secured ; and before Alice realized it, she was 
 on the ocean on her way to America. The six 
 days of the voyage left her still in a state of 
 numb expectancy. In New York she was met by 
 an old friend of her father's, a sober business 
 man whom she had never known well, and who 
 seemed to stand in some awe of her as the 
 Countess of I^urgan. He had no hope to offer 
 her. Her father was still alive, but very ill and 
 very weak, he understood. He stroked his thin 
 beard, and evidently wished that some one else 
 had been deputed to meet this daughter of San- 
 derson's. How could he know, poor man, that 
 Mrs. Sanderson had carefully thought how the 
 item in the papers would sound, recording 
 the fact that one of the greatest financiers in the 
 country had left Wall Street to escort L,ady 
 Lurgan to her train ? She was quite shrewd 
 enough to know that it would mean far more in 
 I<ondon than the name of any social dignitary in 
 181
 
 1 82 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 America ; and it was upon London that Mrs. 
 Sanderson had her eye. 
 
 Alice did not stop between ship and train, 
 except for a hasty luncheon at a hotel. As she 
 left the table, and stood for an instant in the 
 hallway, she saw before her a back whose out- 
 line sent a chill through her very soul. It was a 
 conventional back a little broader than ordi- 
 nary, a little more erect, perhaps, but like that 
 of thousands of other well groomed and well set 
 up city men. The hair above it was quite gray, 
 and as Alice saw this in the fleeting glimpse she 
 had, she knew that it could not be Chris. She 
 almost hated herself for the heart throb that the 
 resemblance had given her, but she could not 
 get it out of her mind all the way across the 
 country. 
 
 The long run ended at last in the Chicago 
 station, where old Granger came forward to meet 
 her. There were tears in the old man's eyes, and 
 at first she could not speak to him. She had 
 thought Connie would be there, or her heart 
 had beat between hope and fear ever since 
 she left New York that perhaps it might be 
 Batterman. 
 
 " He is alive, Miss Alice," old Granger said, 
 " but he is very ill. Miss Connie wanted to 
 come to meet you, but Mrs. Sanderson thought it 
 best not. I just would come, myself."
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 183 
 
 The houses along the L,ake Shore drive were 
 no longer the palaces she remembered, but rather 
 dingy dwellings, lacking space and taste. Bveu 
 Lake Michigan seemed less blue. The great San- 
 derson house, which she had felt might be com- 
 pared to any historic home she had seen since she 
 left it, was little better than the rest ; but when 
 she stepped from the carriage into the dusk of 
 the great porte cochere, and felt two warm arms 
 about her, and a fresh satiny young face against 
 her own, something in her heart seemed to give 
 way for a moment. With a cry of " Connie ! " 
 she gathered her young sister into her arms, 
 and the sobs which came into her throat wrenched 
 her very soul. 
 
 When she was calm again, she found Mrs. 
 Sanderson beside her, too, and they were all three 
 together in the library. It was the room where 
 she had told Chris that she did not love him, in 
 that distant past. There was an indefinable 
 change in the room since then. She could not 
 tell exactly what it was, but the newness that 
 she remembered was so far gone that there was 
 no trace of its ever having been there. The 
 prevailing tone was as mellow as time itself. 
 
 Mrs. Sanderson was in a costume which almost 
 suggested widowhood. It was as if she were 
 entering the valley of black and decorous grief 
 as gradually as she expected to come out. of it.
 
 1 84 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 There was about her, too, a change which was 
 greater than the three years would warrant. She 
 was no older in appearance. Her complexion 
 was as smooth and lineless ; but she seemed to 
 bear a new dignity, an assurance, which perhaps 
 had something to do with the consciousness of 
 having a daughter who was the Countess of 
 Lurgan. 
 
 But Alice looked at Connie with amazement. 
 The lanky girl of fifteen that she had left was 
 now the tall, beautiful woman of eighteen. 
 Connie did not belong to the class who are chil- 
 dren until they are twenty. Life was too vivid 
 a thing to her for her not to bloom early. She 
 was like Alice a little, like her father a little, 
 and like her mother in an intangible something 
 which spelled power. She had the genius of 
 personality. Her young face was all warm and 
 full of life, but there was more than a suggestion 
 of coldness in her large eyes. 
 
 "Take Lady Lurgan's wraps up stairs to her 
 old rooms, Celeste," she said to the maid. " Come 
 along, Alice, let me get you up stairs. I know 
 you are tired to death. ' ' 
 
 ' ' But how is father ? When can I see him ? ' ' 
 
 " As soon as you are ready, dear," Mrs. San- 
 derson said. "We have told him that you are 
 coming, and he expects you, but you must no* 
 excite him. He is very weak."
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 185 
 
 " I will go now," Alice replied. 
 
 She unpinned her hat, and started up the stairs 
 toward her father's old room. Her face was 
 drawn with emotion, and her stepmother put her 
 hand on her arm warningly. 
 
 " My dear," she said, " you must be calm, 
 and you must not excite him. He does not know 
 how seriously ill he is. It would be fatal to tell 
 him, the doctor we all think. He likes bright 
 faces about him. Make him think you are per- 
 fectly happy in being here with us again." 
 Even now she would see that there were no con- 
 fidences between father and daughter. 
 
 Alice hesitated again at her father's door, as 
 her stepmother went in to prepare him for her 
 coming. As she opened the door, he lay on the 
 bed, facing her. So white, so thin and weak was 
 he, that his bloodless face was almost the color of 
 the pillow ; but it was animated by a great tender- 
 ness as he saw his daughter, and he put his arms 
 wide for her as if she had been a little child. 
 
 The thinness of the chest against which Alice 
 put her head almost broke her heart. She drew 
 her lip between her teeth and held it there to 
 keep from crying aloud. Everything was so 
 different. Nowhere in the wide world was there 
 anything as she had left it. 
 
 ' ' I have missed you so, ' ' her father said, and 
 " I have missed you so," over again.
 
 1 86 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 Alice put her arms about the slender, emaciated 
 body that had been so big and strong and erect, 
 and said his words over after him. Then her 
 father laughed a little. 
 
 " I had to get sick to bring you home again, 
 eh ? I know how quickly the time ran by. I 
 wanted to come over this last year more than I 
 can say, but there were always so many things 
 to interfere, and, besides, your mother was keep- 
 ing Connie for a surprise. But, tell me, where 
 is I^urgan ? ' ' 
 
 " He could not come. He, too, had so many 
 affairs. ' ' 
 
 Her father smoothed her hair wistfully. 
 
 ' ' I suppose you will want to be going back to 
 him very soon. We cannot hope to keep you 
 long." 
 
 ' ' Longer than you think ! Now that I am 
 here you are not going to lose me again in a 
 hurry." 
 
 She was beginning to be more cheerful, to con- 
 quer her emotion. Although her father was so 
 pale and thin, his voice was natural. It seemed 
 to her only a case of " building him up " to make 
 him himself again. But when Alice started to go 
 out of his reach for a moment, he clutched at her 
 hand weakly and held it in his poor thin one. 
 
 ' ' I cannot let you go yet. You must tell me 
 all about your happy life over there. Booking at
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 187 
 
 you, I cannot imagine how we have let the time go 
 by without going to see you. The months went 
 so fast, and they doubled into years before one 
 fairly knew it. But I knew that you were happy. 
 That meant so much to me." 
 
 He looked at her wistfully, as if he would 
 assure himself. 
 
 "It meant a great deal to all of us," Mrs. 
 Sanderson said sweetly, rubbing his brow, upon 
 which a bead or two of sweat stood, with her 
 delicate handkerchief. " But we knew that a 
 young couple who were just starting life together 
 did not want their plans interrupted by parental 
 claims. ' ' 
 
 Sanderson's eyes left Alice's face for a moment, 
 and looked at his wife, whose dominion over him 
 had never for a moment lessened ; but he still 
 held his daughter's hand. 
 
 The door opened rather abruptly, and Connie 
 came through, excitement on her face, making 
 it anything but the subdued countenance of a 
 sick room. 
 
 " Papa," she said, " Chris Batterman is down 
 stairs. He has just come back from New York, 
 and I told him I was sure you would want to see 
 him. You do, don't you ? " 
 
 Mrs. Sanderson started forward. 
 
 " Oh, Connie, how could you ! " she exclaimed. 
 ' ' Your father is not able to see any one. ' '
 
 1 88 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 ' ' Yes, ' ' Sanderson said eagerly. ' ' Chris ! 
 Bring him in at once, Connie." His voice 
 gasped and almost failed him at the last word. 
 
 ' ' No ! ' ' Mrs. Sanderson said. ' ' No, no, 
 dearest, you know that you are not able to see 
 him ! " 
 
 But Connie had opened the door, and Alice 
 stood there by her father's bed, her heart like ice, 
 and saw Batterman, a new Batterman, broader, 
 sterner, older, with gray hair above his browned 
 face, come through the door. He walked to the 
 other side of her father, and the two men clasped 
 hands. Sanderson half lifted himself from his 
 pillow, tried to speak then gasped and fell 
 back, dead, his hands holding close the hands of 
 his daughter and of the man she loved.
 
 XXI. 
 
 may be lost in grief, but the machinery 
 of our material lives must go on, and the 
 common sense which governs the same must 
 govern our actions and even our thoughts. 
 
 Her father's death, so sudden, within minutes 
 of her return, and the circumstances attending 
 it, made it seem to Alice almost like a terrible 
 dream. In these three years she had grown so 
 much accustomed to living alone, to having no 
 communion with others in her sorrows and heart- 
 aches, that she could think of no earthly comfort 
 now. For one instant she had turned toward 
 Chris, but he was not looking at her. He had 
 put her father's hand down, and leaning forward, 
 had lifted the poor, thin body in his arms, almost 
 before the last sigh had come through the nerve- 
 less lips. 
 
 She hardly knew how she found herself in her 
 own old room, the room in which she had heard 
 the death sentence of her happiness. She was 
 sitting by the window with dry eyes, finding 
 comfort quite unconsciously to herself in the 
 thought that Chris was down stairs taking every- 
 189
 
 190 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 thing into his hands. In all her grief, she had 
 not failed to see that there was a change in Mrs. 
 Sanderson's treatment of Batterman. She had 
 tried to keep him away, but now that he was here 
 she was glad to give everything into his charge. 
 If Alice had not noticed it, Connie would have 
 called her attention to it later in the evening. 
 
 Celeste had come in with a tear stained face, 
 bringing some dinner on a tray, and followed by 
 Connie. The younger girl had thrown herself on 
 the couch beside her father in a passion of sobs, 
 until Chris had lifted her away and almost car- 
 ried her into another room. He said no words of 
 consolation. There were none to say. The 
 hurrying servants, the doctors coming, made a 
 bustle all through the house. Mrs. Sanderson 
 had walked into her bed room and shut the door, 
 pushing even her daughter awa} 1 - from her. What 
 that death meant to her ambitious heart and 
 brain only she could know ; and perhaps, in that 
 first moment, she found the realization a terrible 
 flood which swallowed up her imaginings. 
 
 Connie was comparatively calm, and her first 
 words were directed toward the dinner. It was 
 almost nine o'clock, but the late twilight had not 
 fully left the sky and the lake, although it was 
 the edge of autumn. Celeste had thrown shades 
 over the globes of the electric lights, and the 
 whole was in a cold, white dimness.
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 191 
 
 " Can you eat your dinner, Alice? " Constance 
 asked. " You must try to. For the last month 
 I have been growing accustomed to papa's illness. 
 \felt that he was going to die, but mamma said 
 not. I know, now, that she knew it all the time, 
 but she would not let herself think so. She did 
 not want me to cable to you, but the doctors 
 were talking in the hall, and I overheard them. 
 But oh, Alice, I can't get used to it ! " she 
 wailed. 
 
 Alice put her arm across her shoulders and 
 comforted her, while her own heart felt as if it 
 had been deadened. Presently, when she was 
 calm again, Connie went on : 
 
 "It is such a comfort to have Chris here 
 again. We hardly see him any more." 
 
 " But isn't he hasn't he been with father? " 
 Alice's surprise made her ask. 
 
 " Not since you were married. Didn't you 
 know ? Oh, Chris is a great deal richer than we 
 are ! He has great mines in Mexico, and has 
 built a town somewhere in the Northwest, and 
 owns a lot of things here in Chicago and in New 
 York. He is so busy that we do not see him, I 
 suppose. Mamma was not very pleasant to him 
 at one time. I think they had some sort of a 
 quarrel. Do you know, Alice, I have thought, 
 since I grew up, that it was queer you and Chris 
 never fell in love with each other ? Of course I
 
 IQ2 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 suppose it was lucky you didn't, because you 
 wouldn't have been a countess, and it must be a 
 great thing to be a countess. You never have to 
 snub people then, to show that they aren't quite 
 so good as you are. You are a countess, and 
 that ends it. But I can't imagine anybody being 
 really any grander than Chris. ' ' 
 
 Alice let her arm relax about Connie's shoulder, 
 and then involuntarily she drew it a little tighter 
 again. She would scorn the idea that she was 
 jealous of her own sister. Chris was nothing to 
 her he never had loved her. He was a strong, 
 good, honorable man ; nobody had ever had any- 
 thing else to say of him. Her meddlesome con- 
 science told her that she ought to be very glad, 
 very grateful, if in this hour, when she was 
 losing her father, a noble, good man like this 
 could be near. And yet that seemed the bitter- 
 est thing of all. 
 
 After a while, when Connie had gone away, 
 and Alice had undressed, she turned off the 
 lights, and lay among the very pillows of her 
 girlhood, \vith her curtains put aside so that she 
 could look out on the lake. If Chris were going 
 to marry Connie ! Of course he would. She 
 had grown to expect only disasters for herself. 
 She could not live near them. She knew that 
 her mother would come to London to live. She 
 must do something.
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 193 
 
 Her mind ran on these thoughts for days. 
 She kept her own room, and did not see Chris. 
 She knew that he was there. After the first day, 
 the rooms were filled with women, who came with 
 mourning dresses to try on. Mrs. Sanderson, 
 with a handkerchief always in her hand, called 
 up the servants and gave them their orders, and 
 saw people about the thousand and one arrange- 
 ments. She talked much to Alice of her plans, 
 asked her opinion, and gave her bits of informa- 
 tion. It seemed to Alice, presently, that her 
 father's death was something that had been long 
 thought of and prepared for. 
 
 The night before the funeral she called Celeste 
 to her. 
 
 "Where have they put him?" she asked. 
 It seemed easier to ask a servant than her step- 
 mother or Connie. They might ask her to go 
 with them to see him. 
 
 " In the library, my lady." 
 
 ' ' And who is there ? ' ' 
 
 " There is no one. Granger and James and 
 some others are in the next room." 
 
 It was late that night when Alice, in her soft 
 white gown and slippers, stole through the halls, 
 down the staircase, and into the dimly lighted 
 library. Her father lay almost on the spot where 
 Alice had stood that morning, but she did not 
 recall it now. She only knew that the only
 
 194 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 friend she had in all the world, the only person who 
 truly loved her, was lying there. She forgot, 
 she had no temptation to remember, that when 
 she had called upon him he had failed her. She 
 knew that whatever he had done had been out 
 of love for her, and she was beginning to under- 
 stand that perhaps he never had known ; per- 
 haps the story of her great misery had never 
 come to him. 
 
 The beautiful face was calm and peaceful and 
 gentle, as it had always been. The sight of it 
 unlocked the fountains of Alice's heart, it made 
 her the clinging girl again, the little daughter. 
 She had closed the door into the room where the 
 men sat, and was all alone. A great sob came 
 up into her throat, fairly tearing her as it came, 
 and she fell down on the floor beside her father's 
 body, her hands clasping his, which lay across 
 his placid chest. She knew that she said some 
 words aloud ; she knew that she cried in broken 
 accents, cried out to the still, cold, placid figure 
 all the love, all the longing which had been 
 stored up in her heart, and which she thought 
 was dead. She made the appeals that some 
 shyness, some wall of reserve, built up carefully 
 by her stepmother, had kept her from making to 
 her father in his lifetime, until she slipped 
 from the place where he lay, and fell moaning 
 with long, tired sobs to the floor.
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 195 
 
 Then she felt herself lifted and taken out of the 
 room, in to a little reception room where a great 
 divan bordered the wall. There was no word 
 spoken, and she did not open her eyes, yet she 
 knew that it was Chris. 
 
 "Shall I bring some one to you ? " he asked 
 presently. 
 
 "No, no, I will go." 
 
 ' ' Not yet. " He put her back. ' ' Alice, ' ' he 
 said, " I heard some of the things you said. I 
 could not help it. If you are unhappy, you must 
 let me take your father's place. I have known 
 you ever since you were a little girl. I loved 
 your father more than you can know. He would 
 have given his life to make you happy. I^et me 
 arrange your plans, do anything for you, as he 
 would have done if you had let him know." 
 
 Alice quivered as she lay, and a great longing 
 came over her, as it had come so many times 
 before, to tell it all to Chris. Then she could 
 not. He had not loved her. His very presence 
 was happiness and torture to'her. Why weren't 
 all men like this one ? 
 
 She shook her head slowly. Batterman took 
 her hand, which she had no power to take from 
 his firm, warm grasp. 
 
 ' ' Alice, ' ' he said, and his voice was full of a 
 sweetness which was solemn, " whatever you are 
 or are not to me, you are your father's daughter,
 
 Tg6 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 and I have the right of the man who loved him 
 most to take up the work he left unfinished. It 
 was there where he is lying now that I told you 
 that whatever service I could do for you I was 
 ready to come from the ends of the earth to 
 perform. I meant that then, just as I mean it 
 now. I offer you my allegiance as your father's 
 daughter. You cannot refuse me that." 
 
 "You can do nothing for me," she said. 
 " Nobody can do anything for me. I must live 
 my own life." She had regained her calmness 
 now. She had a terrible fear that he would see 
 below the surface, that he would see and know 
 that she loved him, that the bitterest sting in her 
 unhappy days was to look at him and know that 
 he was out of her life, that he better, greater, 
 growing every year into a fuller and nobler 
 existence was to go away and leave her again, 
 with her bruised, sore heart more than ever 
 needing him, the one balm nature had made for 
 all of her ills. She had married that he might 
 not know it and she must not tell him now ; 
 but she could not stand his tenderness. 
 
 "Alice," he said again, " treat me as your 
 brother. Let me be your brother. ' ' 
 
 " I never had a brother," she replied evasively. 
 
 ' ' I am afraid I should not know ' ' She put 
 
 her handkerchief to her mouth and turned away. 
 She could not speak again, for she had a
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 197 
 
 horrible fear that she would begin to make that 
 appeal to the living Chris that she had made to 
 her dead father, lying there in the other room. 
 
 She gave him her hand for a second, and then 
 he watched her go swiftly up the stairs, her long 
 white gown trailing after her, his own heart 
 almost bursting with a burning indignation and 
 a passionate longing to protect the woman he 
 loved.
 
 XXII. 
 
 days after the funeral were a blank to 
 Alice. The excitement, the grief, and the 
 change had prostrated her, and she. lay in her 
 own room, looking out of the window. Almost 
 every hour in the day Mrs. Sanderson or Connie 
 sat beside her ; and always they talked, and, bit 
 by bit, plans which Alice could see were old 
 plans, well laid, were brought carefully forward. 
 They were to go to Europe at once to the Con- 
 tinent, Mrs. Sanderson thought, until their 
 mourning was lightened, and then it would be 
 well to go to London and take a house there. 
 
 One day Connie, who had been sitting silent a 
 long time, said abruptly : 
 
 " How rich do you suppose we are ? How do 
 you suppose papa has left his fortune equally 
 divided between you and me ? ' ' 
 
 " Hardly that, I think," her mother answered 
 softly. "Alice had a great fortune given her 
 upon her marriage, and your father doubtless 
 expected you to have the same. ' ' 
 
 " I suppose so," Connie said. 
 
 But the idea was a new one to Alice. She 
 198
 
 HER I/ADYSHIP, 199 
 
 would have money, then ? Once again the gates 
 of freedom seemed to open to her. She could go 
 where she pleased and do what she would. She 
 would never, never return to Salby Chase ! She 
 would go somewhere, perhaps here in America, 
 and live the simple life she had once thought of. 
 Perhaps she might go back to the little home 
 they had had in the Western mining town. She 
 had been happy when they lived there ; and then 
 a picture of it as it was now appeared before her, 
 and her face flushed. It seemed to be in the 
 depths of solitude, encompassed by loneliness, 
 and she knew 'that it was because Chris was not 
 there. 
 
 I/urgan was welcome to the money that her 
 father had given him. It had been what he 
 wanted when he married her, and he might have 
 it. Her father was dead and could never know 
 now, could never be pained by the thought that 
 she was unhappy. She was glad that he never 
 had known. Her mother and Connie could take 
 care of themselves. 
 
 But even that dream was to end. There came 
 a day when the will was read, and Alice heard 
 the lawyer reading the words in which her father 
 left her his love and affection, and a thousand 
 dollars as a token of love, her fortune having 
 already been settled upon her at her marriage. 
 He bequeathed a sum to Constance equal to that
 
 200 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 given to Lurgan when Alice married him, and 
 the residue of his great fortune, with all of his 
 personal property, was left to his wife. A most 
 proper and considerate will, everybody said ; and 
 Alice looked at her stepmother and realized that 
 her father never had known, never had had her 
 letter asking his help. He had died thinking her 
 happy in her married life. 
 
 The contents of the will were cabled to I/on- 
 dou, as the Countess of lyUrgan was interested, 
 and in the first mail came a letter from lyUrgan 
 urging Mrs. Sanderson and Connie to come to 
 London. 
 
 ' ' Connie must be getting to be a great girl 
 now," he wrote, " and with her fortune we must 
 marry her off properly. Alice needs somebody 
 to chaperon. ' ' 
 
 After that, the going was almost a matter of 
 days. Mrs. Sanderson had everything packed in 
 the great house, had a caretaker put in, had her 
 announcements in the papers, and was ready to 
 take the steamer before Alice fairly realized that 
 she was going back into the old bondage. She 
 smiled at herself now and then, at her futile 
 dreams and air castles. She seemed to have 
 done nothing else all her life ; but her smiles 
 were not pleasant to think of. 
 
 They reached New York two or three days 
 before the steamer sailed days which Mrs. San-
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 2OI 
 
 derson filled, full. On the afternoon before the 
 sailing they were having their luncheon in their 
 own parlor in the hotel, Connie and her mother 
 in their bonnets, ready to go out again in a few 
 moments, when the waiter put a card before Mrs 
 Sanderson 
 
 " Ah, it is Chris f""she said, as if Chris were 
 the dearest friend she had in the world. " Tell 
 him to come in ; " and she rose to meet him with 
 a pretty gesture. 
 
 Although Mrs. Sanderson's dress was in the 
 plainest depths of woe, it was cut becomingly, 
 and she seemed to have cast off years, so that she 
 looked hardly older than Alice. Her hair, which 
 had been parted so long, was rippled back from 
 her fine, smooth forehead, and while her manner 
 was serious, there was a latent suggestion of 
 coquetry in the way her head moved under her 
 black veil. 
 
 Alice had known that she would see Chris 
 before she went away. He had promised to say 
 good by to them in New York, yet it was with a 
 thrill of pure nervousness that she saw him 
 again. It was as if her secret was fairly pushing 
 its way to the surface, defying her efforts to hold 
 it down. It was too great a thing to have been 
 put in her keeping one of nature's own, which 
 she never intended should be kept. 
 
 As he came in at the door, her eyes took in all
 
 202 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 the manly beauty which had been added to him 
 since three years ago. He was older, graver, 
 larger. The look of boyishness had passed from 
 him, although he had not lost much of his youth- 
 ful slim ness ; but the gray ness of his hair above 
 his bronze cheeks gave him a look of maturity 
 and dignity. He had always been a little finical 
 about his dress, even in the old days, and now 
 he was as elegant as a diplomat, or as any well 
 dressed American. But the look which fasci- 
 nated Alice, as it had fascinated her in the old 
 days, was his look of confidence, of power, of 
 genuine kindliness. It was that which she had 
 missed in her own husband, and in the men she 
 had known abroad. Young Belding had had 
 some of it, after the American fashion. Prob- 
 ably it was as common in England as in the 
 United States, but its expression was not so 
 frank. 
 
 " It is so good of you to come to see us off, ' ' 
 Mrs. Sanderson said cordially. " Come and 
 have some luncheon with us. ' ' 
 
 " I have had my own," Batterman said coolly, 
 and then he turned to smile in Connie's face. 
 
 She took a white carnation from the table and 
 went around and decorated his coat. 
 
 " Chris," she said, " they say I'm done with 
 lessons. So far as I can judge I don't know a 
 thing, except how to read and write, and it has
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 203 
 
 always been amazing to me how I ever learned 
 that. I did it before I was old enough to be con- 
 scious, or I wouldn't." 
 
 ' ' What do you want to know ? ' ' 
 
 "Oh, I'm satisfied, only I had an idea that 
 the world wanted something more. But I am to 
 go abroad and pick up a few pointers, and then 
 mother and Alice are going to marry me off. An 
 earl was good enough for Alice, but you know 
 the family mustn't retrograde. I think they 
 design me for a king." 
 
 To save her life Alice could not keep the 
 quick flush from her face at the mention of her 
 marriage, and Batterman looked up in time to 
 catch it. He was not so quick as Mrs. Sander- 
 son, however, and there came into her eyes an 
 expression which made them ugly for the 
 moment, narrowing them to points of steely 
 light. There was inflammable material here, 
 material she meant to use. 
 
 " Constance talks nonsense," her mother said 
 smilingly, as if the girlish nonsense amused a 
 weary, sorrow sick heart. 
 
 "I know mighty little else to talk," her 
 daughter said dryly, "and I am disinclined to sit 
 silent. Chris, are you coming out with us this 
 afternoon ? Mother is trying to buy a mourning 
 steamer rug. Now have you seen anything of a 
 steamer rug ' '
 
 204 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 " Constance !" 
 
 "I beg your pardon, mother." She went 
 over to her mother's side and took her hand, 
 but Mrs. Sanderson walked by her into her bed 
 room. 
 
 "There, I have done it," Connie said ruefully ; 
 " but how on earth was I to know that it is so 
 much worse to talk about a black steamer rug 
 than it is to buy one? Chris" looking at him 
 solemnly " I fear I am a hard hearted, incon- 
 siderate young person, with a total lack of 
 delicacy. I'll go in and apologize to mother." 
 
 As she knocked on the door, Batterman sat 
 down beside Alice and put his hand under the 
 turn of his cheek. It was an old trick of his, 
 one Alice remembered in the old days when he 
 had lived with them. Then, even though he 
 was always there, and was like a brother to her, 
 he used to set her heart fluttering when he sat 
 down beside her, but not as it was fluttering 
 now. 
 
 " I hope you will pardon me if I am imperti- 
 nent, Alice," he began, " but I want to ask you 
 concerning your affairs." 
 
 Just then the door into Mrs. Sanderson's room 
 opened, and she came out without her bonnet, 
 and with a patient look of sorrow on her face. 
 Alice turned to her at once, to hide her embar- 
 rassment.
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 205 
 
 ' ' Are you not going out ? ' ' 
 
 "No; my head aches a little. Christopher, I 
 wonder if I may ask you to drive down town 
 with Constance? I have an order which she 
 must attend to, and I am almost afraid to let her 
 go alone. Will you do this for me ? " 
 
 Batterman rose at once. 
 
 ' ' I shall be very glad to go, ' ' he said, ' ' but I 
 have something to say to Alice. ' ' 
 
 "She is not going out. She will be here when 
 you come back. ' ' 
 
 After the carriage had driven away, Mrs. 
 Sanderson walked back and forth across the 
 room, and then came and sat down by Alice. 
 
 "Alice," she said, "I believe Chris wants to 
 give you some money." She spoke with perfect 
 calmness, as one stating a commonplace fact, but 
 it brought her stepdaughter to her feet. 
 
 ' ' What do you mean ? ' ' 
 
 " Only this. Pardon me, dear, if I am saying 
 too much, but you are my dear daughter, you 
 are my husband's daughter, and I feel toward 
 you as I feel toward Constance. I think that 
 Chris is like every other man. He fancied that 
 you cared for him once, and he cannot get it out 
 of his mind that you may now. He thinks that 
 you may be unhappy with your husband." 
 
 "Why? Why ?" Alice fairly gasped. "Why 
 do you think so ? "
 
 206 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 "Be calm. Because he showed it when he 
 spoke to me of the provisions of the will. He 
 knows that Lord Lurgan has your money, as 
 your father thought was proper, and he, having 
 the most American ideas concerning the inde- 
 pendence of women, thinks that all wrong. Your 
 father felt that he had amply and properly pro- 
 vided for you, but Chris thinks differently. He 
 fears you are unhappy. Perhaps, good and 
 sweet as he is, it would flatter his vanity to 
 think so." 
 
 ' ' How you mistake him ! ' ' Alice said dis- 
 dainfully. 
 
 " Perhaps, but I have known men a longtime. 
 At any rate, I believe the feeling will prompt 
 him to wish to give you an income. He is 
 enormously wealthy. His income in one year is 
 almost as large as our whole fortune. I tell you 
 this that you may make up your mind." 
 
 ' ' Mr. Battermau cannot give me an income. ' ' 
 
 " Oh, yes, he can, if you will let him. He 
 will tell you of some forgotten investment which 
 your father made for you, and which was put 
 into his hands some old property of your 
 mother's, perhaps which has increased in 
 value. Really, there is no reason why he should 
 not. He has been everything that is good. He 
 might almost be a member of the family." 
 
 Alice was standing at the window looking out
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 207 
 
 into Fifth Avenue at Thirty Fourth Street. It 
 was the high tide of the afternoon procession 
 which takes the air there every day. The 
 crowds of tall, well dressed, handsome women 
 went by on the pavement, and in high backed 
 victorias, or neat broughams, with here and there 
 a hansom threading its irresponsible way in 
 and out. It was a gay, happy looking crowd. 
 The first frost had driven people back to town, 
 glad to see the familiar streets again. Alice 
 wondered if in all that crowd there was one 
 woman who was so humiliated, so miserably 
 unhappy, as she was. 
 
 She did not answer Mrs. Sanderson, but stood 
 watching, thinking, seeing only years of dull 
 unhappiness ahead of her in a long life. Pres- 
 ently she saw the carriage containing Constance 
 and Batterman drive up to the door. She watched 
 him give her his hand, saw them turn to come up 
 the steps together, the most distinguished look- 
 ing pair she had seen all the day, a pair other 
 people turned to look at. They seemed young, 
 just entering upon life, while she was an old 
 woman. 
 
 She turned away and went into her own room. 
 
 " Please make my excuses for this evening," 
 she said, as she passed her stepmother. 
 
 When Connie came in, bringing the atmos- 
 phere of the gay, busy town with her, for all her
 
 208 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 black draperies, and with Chris behind her, Mrs. 
 Sanderson had ready some polite regrets concern- 
 ing Alice's headache. Batterman went down to 
 the waiting room, wrote half a dozen lines on a 
 card, and sent it up to Alice. In a few moments 
 the boy came back with an answer. It was a 
 courteous excuse, and a hope that if she did not 
 see him in the morning she might some time soon 
 have the pleasure of meeting him at Salby 
 Chase, where I^ord Lurgan would be very happy 
 to assist her in entertaining him. 
 
 It was the first time since her marriage that 
 Alice had made an invitation in her husband's 
 name.
 
 XXIII. 
 
 A lylCB went with her stepmother and Connie 
 to a villa they had taken in the south of 
 France, not far from Pau. She was in mourn- 
 ing, she could not have the house parties which 
 were beginning to be customary at Salby Chase, 
 and no objection was made to her going where 
 she would. 
 
 But Alice was not satisfied. Mrs. Sanderson 
 wearied her, and she surprised herself by finding 
 that Salby Chase seemed, as she thought of it 
 now, in its solitude for I^ady l,urgan had gone 
 away to stay with relatives, and I^urgan had 
 taken chambers in I^ondon as a sweet place of 
 retreat. It was pathetic to see this sweet, home 
 loving, home making nature cling to its instincts 
 under the most adverse circumstances. She was 
 not happy with Mrs. Sanderson. She wondered 
 if her stepmother had always been as she was 
 now, or if she herself had changed so much. It 
 displeased her to find that Mrs. Sanderson sub- 
 scribed to a press clipping bureau, and carefully 
 looked at every mention which was made of 
 them. 
 
 209
 
 210 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 "It is perfectly proper that people should 
 know from what point of view the general 
 public sees them," her stepmother said one day, 
 when Alice found her going through an envelope 
 of pasted slips. 
 
 It seemed to Alice, presently, that she was 
 regarded more as the Countess of Lurgan than 
 as a daughter of the house ; and then it was that 
 she grew homesick for the only semblance of 
 home left to her Salby Chase. She planned to 
 go there without telling any one. She would 
 take Celeste, and there were servants enough 
 in the house to look after her simple wants. 
 
 It was December now, not far from Christmas, 
 and Alice thought out plans that she had 
 originally made last year. Her being in mourn- 
 ing would not interfere with her Christmas trees 
 and school feasts. It had been a long time after 
 her encounter with Mrs. Welles before she had 
 taken up her work among the people on the estate 
 again, but she was alone in it now. 
 
 One morning, as she and her stepmother and 
 her sister sat together under the striped awning 
 which covered half the terrace of their pink 
 stucco villa, she told them, quite casually, that 
 she was going back to England. Connie pro- 
 tested, but Mrs. Sanderson made almost no 
 comment, except, " I suppose I,ord I^urgan is 
 growing impatient over your long absence."
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 211 
 
 Mrs. Sanderson planned to take a house in 
 lyondon for the following spring. She and 
 Connie would still be in mourning, but it was 
 something to come into the great city, and learn 
 its ways, before it became necessary to take up 
 the battle for social life there. And Mrs. San- 
 derson wanted to give that clipping bureau some- 
 thing to do. It would take her some months to 
 decorate her great house in lyondon, and to 
 breathe in the atmosphere. Alice left behind 
 her at least one person whose brain was large 
 with plans. 
 
 Connie not only saw her go with loud regret, 
 but insisted upon going with her. Upon that 
 project, however, Mrs. Sanderson used her power 
 of veto. 
 
 "I am sure I do not see why we cannot," 
 Connie said. " There is nothing in this dead 
 and alive place but idiots of Frenchmen and 
 cactus and blue sea." 
 
 " I did not suppose you cared for gaiety just 
 now, and I am sure that is not what your sister 
 is leaving us for." 
 
 "She is leaving us for some sort of life, I will 
 wager," Connie said crossly. "By the way, 
 Alice, do you know these people that the paper 
 says Lurgan has been giving a dinner party for ? 
 Some actors and queer people like that. ' ' 
 
 "I know nothing about them."
 
 212 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 " Well, you may know that when I get mar- 
 ried I am going to find out exactly what is going 
 on. Maybe you'd better go home. When the 
 cat's away, } r ou know ! " 
 
 But it was not of her husband and his theatri- 
 cal dinner parties that Alice thought when she 
 reached I/>ndon. She found its roar refreshing. 
 It was the great city ! After seeing New York 
 and Chicago, the pictures which she had held of 
 these metropolises of her native land dwindled. 
 After all, she decided, if freedom had come to 
 her and now she supposed that it never would 
 or could she would live in England. 
 
 As she thought of freedom, she thought of 
 Batterman's generosity. He would have made 
 it plain to her, if he could, that she was a rich 
 woman in her own right, after all ; but she feared 
 that he knew her secret ; knew that she was 
 lonely, sick, longing for the touch of a sympa- 
 thetic hand. Her face burned at the thought. 
 She was glad, almost, that she was in a different 
 part of the world. How could she go about her 
 daily tasks seeing Chris every day, and never 
 betraying herself ? It was too much to ask of 
 any woman. She would let him do nothing for 
 her, and he would be over there in America. 
 There was a comfort in the thought which made 
 the hot tears spring to her eyes. Taking up her 
 life, now, meant entering upon a long road whose
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 213 
 
 first break must be the shadow of death. There 
 was no destiny for her except the humdrum one 
 of daily life. By and by the dust of every day 
 events would sift into the ugly scars that were 
 left. 
 
 One cannot grieve always, even for one's dead 
 parent or one's dead consciousness.
 
 XXIV. 
 
 TIT" HEN at last the Sandersons were settled in 
 London, their coming made less of a rip- 
 ple in Alice's life than she could have dreamed 
 in that far off time when she had first thought 
 of them there. Mrs. Sanderson's mourning 
 rapidly lightened itself until it was only notice- 
 able in the wa>' of collars of black velvet sewed 
 with pearls around her throat when she wore her 
 evening dress low, and in a reminiscent tone 
 when she spoke of America an attention to her 
 native land which she bestowed less and less 
 whenever the conversation was in her own hands. 
 When her English acquaintances took it in theirs 
 it was generally directed toward America. They 
 appeared to rest under the idea that Americans 
 must be astonished at everything they saw in 
 England, and would delight in lecturing upon 
 their native manners and customs to a civilized 
 audience. Mrs. Sanderson was a woman of in- 
 finite tact, and very clever at warding off danger- 
 ous subjects, but Constance was either less clever 
 or more audacious. 
 
 Lurgan had welcomed them in London with 
 214
 
 HER IvADYSHIP. 215 
 
 something like effusion. He was doing a great 
 many things with a little more manner than was 
 usual with him. His spirits were high and fever- 
 ish, and he was going about more this season 
 than ever before. 
 
 Mrs. Sanderson had waited until all her plans 
 were completed, and then had taken a house in 
 Park Lane, one of which had a coat of arms 
 carved over the doors and the gateways. She 
 had smiled a little as she took it, and Constance, 
 quick to read her thoughts, had turned to Lur- 
 gan, who walked through the picture gallery of 
 their new abode by their side. 
 
 ' ' They talk about Americans caring for money ! 
 When an American has money enough to own a 
 house like this, he does not let it to the first 
 chance comer, ancestors thrown in." 
 
 " He hasn't any ancestors to throw in, gener- 
 ally," Lurgan responded amiably. 
 
 ' ' But he has plenty of respectable bath rooms," 
 Miss Sanderson replied. ' ' Of the two, I believe 
 I prefer the latter for daily use. " 
 
 But they were very comfortable in the ances- 
 tral home of a duke, with its lovely old walled 
 garden, and in the society which flowed in upon 
 them there. Mrs. Sanderson was entirely in her 
 element in an ele*nent which Alice had never 
 known. The pushing she had done with her 
 husband's money in Chicago had left her with
 
 2l6 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 a rather thick skin callous, indeed, here and 
 there ; and instead of shrinking at a blow or a 
 push, she very promptly returned it, if not ex- 
 actly in kind, at least in a way which the recipient 
 remembered. Presently Mrs. Sanderson, " the 
 rich American widow," and her pretty daughter, 
 became something like the fashion. 
 
 Lurgan's marriage was reported to have turned 
 out well. His wife was everything that was 
 desirable, and "good form" in a quiet way; 
 rather ignorant, no doubt, and an alien, but she 
 had brought him a fortune and had not annoyed 
 him. And here was another sister much hand- 
 somer, much richer, for of course she was her 
 mother's heiress. But there were one or two 
 shrewd brains who looked that matter twice in 
 the face. 
 
 " See here, Alice ! " I^ady Fortescue said one 
 afternoon, as she stopped her carriage by Alice's 
 in the park, " who is this good looking American 
 chap your stepmother is leading about ? Is she 
 going to marry him, or is she training him for 
 Connie ? ' ' 
 
 "Whom do you mean ? " 
 
 " Oh, come ! It's all in the family. Is your 
 stepmother thinking of marrying again? I am 
 sure there is no reason why she should not. She 
 is young and pretty. She actually appears to 
 grow younger every day of her life, and she's a
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 217 
 
 rich woman. I met the American there yester- 
 day. It appears he was at the same place when 
 they were abroad. Did you know him in 
 America ? ' ' 
 
 ' ' Do you mean Mr. Batterrnan ? ' ' 
 
 ' ' Of course. He has been everywhere with 
 them for the past week." 
 
 ' ' You know I have had a cold for a week, and 
 Connie has had so many engagements ' ' 
 
 " Of course," I,ady Fortescue said. " I have 
 asked him to my dinner dance next Thursday. I 
 had no idea you had such respectable looking 
 men in America. If you grow them like that 
 over there, I'm sure I don't know why you 
 come to England husband hunting. He's as big 
 and well groomed, and appears to have decidedly 
 better manners than most of the men about. And 
 I suppose he has those beautiful ideas about let- 
 ting a woman have her own way which we hear 
 are so common in America. It is we poor 
 English women who suffer ! " And Theo drew 
 a deep sigh, while Alice smiled faintly. I^ady 
 Fortescue had never allowed the slightest dicta- 
 tion as to her own movements during her mar- 
 ried life. 
 
 The victorias parted, and Alice went on. 
 People bowed to her, and then said to one 
 another that I^ady L,urgan gave herself airs, 
 which was only to be expected of an American.
 
 218 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 But the poor girl, a girl still in heart and con- 
 science, and in that tender sentiment which 
 would never allow her to grow old, was carrying 
 on a war within herself which left her miserable. 
 Chris was here and she had not seen him ! The 
 very mention of his name as it flew to her lips 
 had sent a tremor over her. She fairly ground 
 her teeth together in her vexation with herself, 
 and back in her throat was a lump which she 
 could not put away. 
 
 It was Connie. It must have always been 
 Connie. He was so fond of her as a child. They 
 had always been friends. She would conquer 
 her own feeling ! She would treat him like any- 
 body else. 
 
 On Thursday night her maid wondered what 
 the matter could be. I,ady Lurgan, who never 
 even asked what gown she was to wear, who read 
 a book while her hair was being dressed, had all 
 at once become something more than particular. 
 She had suddenly ordered changes made in her 
 gown. It had been heavy with lace, but she had 
 that taken out and soft frilliugs of white chiffon 
 put over the shoulders. After her hair was 
 dressed in the ugly English fashion made popular 
 by the wigs of the Princess of Wales, she had it 
 all taken down and arranged in the soft bronze 
 knot which she had worn in America. 
 
 "It is lovely," Celeste said, "and quite my
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 219 
 
 lady's style. The other is aging. If that beau- 
 tiful color can only be kept in the cheeks, it will 
 be charming ! ' ' 
 
 But as the carriage drew near Lady Fortescue's 
 house, the " beautiful color " faded completely, 
 and it was a white woman with wistful eyes and 
 a drawn mouth who greeted Batterman when he 
 came to speak to her for the moment before 
 dinner. It was only a word, but it was one to 
 which Alice replied in the stiffest tones. All 
 through the long succession of courses and the 
 gay talk she sat silent and distrait. 
 
 There were two places at the table where in- 
 terest centered, one where Connie was, and one 
 where Mrs. Henderson sat resplendent with Lur- 
 gan on one side of her and Batterman on the 
 other. She wore a black spangled gown which 
 was evidently designed to give a serpentine effect. 
 Alice heard the woman beyond laugh to the man 
 on her left, and say : 
 
 " That gown reminds one of Mrs. Henderson's 
 old desire for the music hall stage, doesn't it? " 
 
 And the reply was not even whispered. ' ' She 
 has made a mistake. That is the dress of the 
 lady contortionist. ' ' 
 
 " Where did she get that tiara ? " was the next 
 question ; and Alice felt rather than saw that 
 the man made a feint of looking at her own, as 
 if to see that it was in its place, before he said :
 
 220 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 "At any rate, they are not the family 
 jewels. ' ' 
 
 Cold to iciness on the outside, in her heart she 
 was sick with anger. Once she thought, " How 
 can I sit here, insulted like this ? What have / 
 done to have such a life ? Is it that I am wrong 
 with the world ? ' ' She sat where she could look 
 at Batterman, but she kept her eyes resolutely 
 turned away. She could not bear to face him. 
 
 When Lady Fortescue arose, after picking up 
 her guests with her eyes, Lurgan, as her cousin, 
 sprang toward the door to hold it open for her 
 to pass through. As Alice went by he smilingly 
 leaned toward her, so that to the room it looked 
 as if he were giving her a friendly word, but 
 what Alice heard was, ' ' You pay Batterman too 
 great a compliment," in the cold, sarcastic voice 
 she had almost ceased to dread. 
 
 After she had gone, Luigan's spirits appeared 
 to grow higher. He sat down near Batterman 
 and began to talk to him in a way which at- 
 tracted the attention of every man at the table. 
 His manner was so jovial that it was almost 
 patronizing. Batterman looked at him with 
 something like toleration for a moment, and fin- 
 ished the cigarette he had taken up when the 
 ladies left the room. 
 
 " If you are so much interested in Mexico and 
 Mexican mines," he said, closing a conversation
 
 HER LADYSHIP. ?2I 
 
 in which he had taken no part, except to answer 
 Lurgan's point blank questions, "I will have 
 my secretary send you some lists of statistics, or 
 you can have them at any time by addressing 
 my offices in New York. ' ' 
 
 The men who had been listening looked at the 
 tips of their cigars, or the table anywhere but 
 at each other or I/urgan's face. As he spoke, 
 Chris arose and passed to the window, out of it, 
 and along the flowery balcony to the drawing 
 room. He did not get near Alice, but sat down 
 by Lady Fortescue. 
 
 If he had looked at Alice he would have seen 
 a woman who had been born anew in the past 
 few moments. After all, a woman is only a 
 woman, and human nature is deep within us all. 
 As she had married I<urgan because she would 
 not be pitied by Chris, so now she could and 
 would sink her sadness when he was here again. 
 Here, too, was Connie, and Connie's happiness 
 must be considered ; and here, too, was her own 
 jealous heart. If I^urgan could see, Batterman 
 might see. He could not, he should not. Again 
 she would show him that it was all a mistake. 
 He should think her happy. She would give 
 him to Connie. Of course, she told herself, she 
 had nothing to do with it, but she would be 
 happy if she knew that Connie was going to 
 marry so old and good a friend as this,
 
 222 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 And as she said it, there was a burning lump 
 in her throat which almost choked her. She 
 wanted to get away somewhere out of sight and 
 fight her battle out. She was a wicked woman 
 to begrudge her young sister her happiness, and 
 yet, deep in her soul, she knew now that she had 
 always thought that Chris would never marry. 
 How could she think of him as there in the fam- 
 ily, as her sister's husband Chris, who belonged 
 to her ? She was ashamed and she was heart 
 sick, and her emotions worked upon her as a 
 fever. The face which had been pale a moment 
 before became brilliant, as if a fire were shining 
 through alabaster. The red lips parted to let 
 the breath through ; the brown eyes, with their 
 flecks of gold, widened and took on a new light, 
 and the woman who sat by Lady Lurgan found 
 that she could talk. All the pluck of her pioneer 
 race rushed to the fore. She was not the girl, 
 now, who had come here ignorant, a little afraid, 
 unconscious of her ground. She was the woman 
 who knew every shade of the manners of her 
 time, all the jargon of the society in which she 
 lived, all the social values. She had kept her 
 cards put away indifferentl}*, but now that the 
 time had come when she felt the impulse to play 
 them, she knew her game ; and she had no mis- 
 takes to live down, except those she had made jn 
 the beginning of her domestic life.
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 223 
 
 She was sitting near Mrs. Henderson, and she 
 turned to her suddenly and asked what her plans 
 were for August. 
 
 ' ' Are you and your husband disengaged for 
 the fortnight after we leave town. Will you 
 come to us both of you ? I hear he is to be 
 back in London again very shortly. ' ' 
 
 Self possessed and ready as Mrs. Henderson 
 habitually was, she could not prevent a slight 
 change in* her face, and she did not answer at 
 once. 
 
 "I shall have to consult my husband," she 
 said finally. "I do not know what plans he 
 may have made." 
 
 " Do so, but try and persuade him to come. 
 You know we shall miss you so much if we have 
 theatricals." 
 
 And Alice, with a smile of kindness which 
 made Mrs. Henderson set her lips together hard, 
 passed on. She sat down by her stepmother and 
 told her that she was arranging an August house 
 party at Salby Chase,, and wanted her to brirjg 
 Constance ; and then, with her head up, and this 
 new light in her eyes, she passed on to Lady 
 Fortescue and Batterman just as Lurgan and the 
 rest of the men came into the room. 
 
 Batterman rose at her approach, and she stood 
 beside him, looking squarely, laughingly into 
 his face, making a picture that Lurgan had
 
 224 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 never seen, showing to Chris the old Alice min- 
 gled with a new Alice, and astonishing Lady 
 Fortescue . 
 
 " Will you come to Salby Chase for the first 
 fortnight in August?" she asked them both. 
 ' ' I am going to make up a house party, and we 
 shall have theatricals." 
 
 " Now you must know I cannot," Theo said, 
 ' ' because I am going to have some people myself, 
 and I have just invited Mr. Batterman to stay 
 with me, and he has accepted. It is on the 
 shore, so you will be fairly comfortable, and the 
 Augusts in our country are not too hot," she 
 explained to Batterman. 
 
 On the other side of the room Mrs. Henderson 
 was talking to Lurgan. 
 
 ' ' What has come over your wife ? Do you 
 know what she did just now? She asked me 
 down to the Chase for the first week in August 
 to have theatricals ! It looks as if our plans 
 were going to be taken out of our hands." 
 
 Lurgan hardly heard her. His eyes w r ere on 
 his wife and Battermau. 
 
 "Oh, well, you are coming." 
 
 " It's rather startling to be asked to make one 
 of a house party in a place where you had sup- 
 posed you had made your own plans for that 
 time. Did j r ou, or did you not, tell me to make 
 up my own party for Salby Chase for August,
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 225 
 
 and didn't you say you would see that the plan 
 was carried through ? ' ' 
 
 ' ' All the simpler, if Lady I^urgan makes 
 it up." 
 
 "Not at all." 
 
 "The worst of a woman is," I,urgan said, 
 " that she likes to come just to the verge of com- 
 promising herself. Isn't it a thousand times 
 better to get what you want if you can have it 
 arranged naturally ? ' ' 
 
 " I do not care to be a puppet in I/ady I,ur- 
 gan's hands." 
 
 "I'll promise you are never that," I,urgan 
 said, and from the tone of his voice it was evident 
 that he had ceased to bow entirely to Mrs. Hen- 
 derson's will.
 
 XXV. 
 
 A I/THOUGH Mrs. Henderson did not have 
 her vanity satisfied by letting the whole of 
 her world understand that she, and she only, had 
 arranged the house party at Salby Chase, it was 
 there, and she was in the midst of it by the 
 early days of August. 
 
 I/)ndon had become a howling wilderness, 
 from which everybody but the tourist and the 
 people who could not get away had fled. At 
 Salby, the breeze from the ocean swept over the 
 great lawns, about the terraces and gardens, and 
 through the wide rooms. It was a pleasant com- 
 pany which Lady Lurgan had gathered together. 
 She laughed at herself bitterly when she saw 
 how easy it had been to carry out her plans when 
 she lost all anxiety as to their success. One 
 human brain can only hold one passion at a time, 
 and her intense desire to take away from herself, 
 as well as from others, all knowledge of her love 
 for Batterman, and of his strong influence over 
 her, caused her to change all her habits in the 
 twinkling of an eye. She went back to Salby 
 Chase with the manners of its mistress. There 
 226
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 227 
 
 was one brief instant in which she met the 
 dowager I^ady Lurgan, but it passed. 
 
 ' ' I am very glad to see that at last you are 
 taking some interest in the house," the elder 
 lady said. ' ' But I hardly call it auspicious that 
 you should begin your invitations to the Chase 
 by bringing that Henderson woman here again." 
 
 " She is a great friend of your son's," Alice 
 responded coolly. ' ' I prefer to invite her here 
 myself. The world might be censorious enough 
 to talk, otherwise." 
 
 Lurgan was at the door as she spoke, and as 
 he came into the room his mother repeated the 
 words to him. 
 
 1 ' Alice says that she is obliged to ask Mrs. 
 Henderson here to prevent your doing so and 
 making a scandal." 
 
 " Very kind and considerate, I am sure," he 
 responded, picking up his morning letters and 
 running them through his hand. 
 
 Alice, without a change of countenance, 
 went on with her breakfast. A few minutes 
 later, when his mother had left the room, L,urgan 
 turned to her. She could see by his face that 
 he was thinking of some retaliation for the 
 blow he had just received. 
 
 ' ' And so your stepmother prevented your 
 marrying Batterman because she cared for him 
 herself ! It is extremely generous of you and
 
 228 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 Theo to throw them together down here. I'm 
 not so everlastingly sure that Theo is not a little 
 fond of him herself. He appears to be just the 
 sort of chap to take the fancy of a woman. I 
 think it altogether likely that neither of them 
 has any particular chance. He is an ambitious, 
 pushing young man. He will probably find 
 some girl of family and social position who will 
 marry him, now that he has money. That is 
 what he is likely to look out for, just as he tried 
 to marry you when he was poor. ' ' 
 
 " Who told you that Mr. Batterman wanted to 
 marry me ? ' ' 
 
 " It was perfectly plain to every one. By 
 Gad, I believe you would have done it, if I 
 hadn't come along and taught you that you had 
 the same ambition that he had to get on in the 
 world and leave the sphere you were born in. ' ' 
 
 " I certainly left the sphere in which I was 
 born when I reached one where a man may insult 
 his wife," Alice said, and she arose and left the 
 room. 
 
 The sun was shining outside, the heads of the 
 roses that grew along the stone terrace were 
 heavy with dew and their own sweetness. She 
 took her garden shears and began cutting them, 
 forgetting, except for a vague, uncomfortable 
 resentment which she had grown never to lack 
 entirely, what her husband had said. He was
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 229 
 
 as nothing to her. His life did not belong to 
 hers at all. She pushed him away as a disagree- 
 able subject. She despised him a little more 
 because he could believe that Chris had wanted 
 to marry her on account of her fortune. 
 
 Lttrgau left his letters and the breakfast table, 
 and came to the window, watching her. There 
 was a line of dissatisfaction between his eyes, a 
 gnawing at the corner of his lip which showed an 
 irritation he seldom allowed to become visible. 
 He felt that he had been in some manner de- 
 ceived. This was not the woman he had so 
 tamely and quietly allowed to put him out of her 
 life. 
 
 The next few days found no new flattery for 
 his vanity. Mrs. Sanderson and Constance were 
 the first of the guests to arrive. If I^ady I,urgan 
 the elder had had any intention of passing them 
 by, she found that she had met with an impos- 
 sibility. If there was any patronage, it came 
 from the other side. It is hard to tell what tack 
 Mrs. Sanderson might have taken before this 
 new development in Alice, but now she pushed 
 her advantage. Her first idea had been to class 
 herself with the dowager as a guardian spirit of 
 the ' ' young people ' ' ; but when every advance 
 was met with stony impertinence, Mrs. Sander- 
 son took a new ground, and blandly informed 
 I^ady I^urgan that she was sure she need never be
 
 230 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 afraid that Alice would find her a trouble ; that 
 the young countess was extremely kind, and 
 would probably make her feel at home at Salby 
 Chase as long as she cared to stay. 
 
 ' ' Old people never seem to annoy the dear 
 child," she added blandly. It was said so 
 sweetly, and with such an evident desire to put 
 her at her ease in the house she had ruled so 
 long with a rod of iron, that L,ady Lurgan found 
 no answer capable of expressing her feelings. 
 
 Connie found herself supremely happy here, 
 and every day, when Alice looked at her sister, 
 she tried to put down within herself the pang of 
 envy with which she saw this buoyant young 
 creature entering upon all those things of which 
 it sometimes seemed to her circumstances had 
 bereft her. Almost every day Batterman drove 
 or rode over from Lady Fortescue's house, and 
 always he was to be found with her stepmother 
 or Constance, walking or sitting on the terrace. 
 
 Alice came up through the park the first day 
 he came down, and saw his back, as he walked 
 along by Constance's side, his riding stick behind 
 him in his gloved hands, his broad shoulders only 
 two or three inches above the fine ones Constance 
 carried so proudly. Alice leaned against the 
 balustrade, a little sick and faint for a moment, 
 and then she walked resolutely forward to meet 
 them, that flame of undying purpose in her face.
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 231 
 
 "Won't you stay to luncheon, Mr. Batter- 
 man? " she called. " We are to have Mr. Field- 
 ing, the great actor. He has kindly consented to 
 give out the parts of the play and set the actors to 
 rehearsing properly." 
 
 ' ' Who's to play ? ' ' Constance asked. 
 
 "Oh, it is a sort of reward of merit, I believe. 
 I do not even know the name of the piece. Mrs. 
 Henderson takes the chief part. She knows Mr. 
 Fielding, and has induced him to come down. 
 Probably you will be asked, and perhaps, if you 
 stay, Mr. Batterman, you may get a chance 
 yourself. ' ' 
 
 " Do stay, Chris," Connie said. " I am going 
 to keep you, in any case. Who knows ? They 
 may cast me for something, and I may need a 
 lover. I couldn't consent to go falling about in 
 anybody's arms but yours." 
 
 ' ' In that case I see nothing left for me to do. 
 Thank you very much, Lady Lurgan." 
 
 Fielding was a very great man indeed in a cer- 
 tain London set, much affected at the moment. 
 He was supposed to act upon some peculiarly 
 arranged principle which was made up of the 
 intuition of genius and the science of a sort of 
 second sight. He talked in a very beautiful way 
 about it, and was most impressive at dinners ; 
 but being at bottom a very shrewd man, he man- 
 aged to do some very excellent work all around,
 
 232 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 and his little fad hurt nobody, made him an 
 object of worship by a number of women, and 
 might in time bring him a knighthood, if the 
 queen lived long enough. 
 
 When the luncheon was over and the play was 
 brought out, he passed over the heads of three 
 or four ladies whose experience in the lately 
 revived fashion of theatricals was as great as 
 time had permitted, and for the second character 
 of the play pitched upon Alice. It was a short 
 part, entirely subordinate to that of the brilliant 
 woman of the world which was to be played by 
 Mrs. Henderson. 
 
 At first Alice refused point blank to take it. 
 The great actor looked at her sadly. 
 
 ' ' But the part is yours, ' ' he said. ' ' No one 
 else would know how to play it instinctively. In 
 these private theaters we must get the real thing. 
 The stage training which would make any 
 woman adapt herself to any part is wanting 
 here. Your husband is to take the part with 
 which you will play. There can be no objection, 
 my dear I/ady I^urgan, I am sure." 
 
 " Oh, take it, Alice," Constance said. 
 
 Lurgan came forward with his hands in his 
 pockets, and said, with an expression and tone 
 which sounded rather humorous to the listeners 
 who were not in the confidence of the family 
 and its domestic relations, "Of course, if Lady
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 233 
 
 Lurgau objects to me, and would prefer another, 
 I will retire." 
 
 Mrs. Henderson, with some additional color 
 in her cheeks, said nothing. She had not 
 expected lyady Lurgau to be included in the cast, 
 but she had no possible objection to her being 
 there. She had absolute belief in her own 
 powers a belief which had been strengthened 
 by Fielding, who had told her that she would 
 probably make a success upon the stage if she 
 were a nobody. 
 
 Ever since that night when Alice, quite uncon- 
 sciously, had invited her toSalby Chase to make 
 one of the party which she had considered of 
 her own arranging, Mrs. Henderson had looked 
 upon Lurgan's wife as in some way a rival. She 
 knew that Alice was nothing to her husband, 
 who was bound hand and foot, seemingly, to her 
 own chariot wheels ; but here was a new Alice, 
 a woman she had never seen before, and in- 
 stinctively there arose in her heart a fear of what 
 she might do next. As with all connections of 
 this character, as I^urgan became more and more 
 necessary to her, as she gave him more and more 
 room in her life, she saw the slenderness of the 
 bond by which she held him, and she saw what 
 an advantage he would gain by going back to his 
 wife. Alice was always L,ady Lurgan. That 
 dignity, and the dignity of her pure, sweet life,
 
 234 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 could not be taken away from her. Mrs. Hen- 
 derson could not conceive of the state of mind of 
 a woman who would repulse the erring husband 
 who came back to his allegiance. 
 
 In this theatrical project, she felt that she 
 could show herself to L,urgan, and to everybody 
 else and she saw that other people's opinions 
 had a tremendous weight with him as infinitely 
 Alice's superior in all those things which men 
 such as he most admired. 
 
 The rehearsals began almost at once, and Mr. 
 Fielding only stayed long enough to give them a 
 fair start, when he went back to London, leav- 
 ing Alice with some advice and a complete copy 
 of the play. She welcomed the diversion gladly. 
 It was growing harder and harder, instead of 
 easier, as she had hoped, to be compelled to meet 
 Chris every day. The play gave her an excuse 
 for wandering off into solitude, and for turning 
 many of her duties over to I^ady L,urgan and her 
 stepmother. 
 
 The rehearsals were like all the rehearsals of 
 private theatricals, everybody trying to be as 
 stiff and unnatural as possible in an effort not to 
 be ludicrous. Batterman was asked to act as 
 stage manager, at the last moment, after the man 
 who had taken that onerous duty was suddenly 
 called away ; but there had grown up a wall of 
 constraint between him and Alice which neither
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 235 
 
 could define. To Batterman came a conscious- 
 ness that he was distressing her, and with it was 
 born a determination to go away. With that 
 determination was mingled the understanding 
 that, between Mrs. Henderson and I^urgan, Alice 
 stood in need of friendship. He was not mis- 
 led by the light heartedness which she was 
 assuming ; and whatever her need was he re- 
 solved to aid her. He would stay in England, 
 and leave his address with her ; and then his 
 own sense told him that, whatever her stress, she 
 would not send for him. 
 
 Mrs. Henderson had gone up to London to 
 arrange her costumes, which were those of a 
 French marquise of the time of I^ouis XV. It is 
 to be feared that Alice was not entirely frank 
 when she said that she had not given hers a 
 thought. In reality, she had intrusted the dress 
 she wore throughout the entire play into the 
 hands of her stepmother and Constance. It was 
 supposed to be that of a young French girl just 
 out of a convent, and when Alice put it on she 
 felt a vague thrill of memory. She wore a wig 
 of the clear blond white of that day, with its curls 
 upon her shoulders. Her gown was of white 
 crepe, and around her shoulders was a frilled 
 cape of fur. 
 
 When she came upon the stage, Mrs. Hender- 
 son, forgetting her own part for the moment,
 
 236 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 looked at Alice critically, and saw in her sim- 
 plicity something disturbing. To Battermau in 
 the wings, and to L,urgan on the stage, the dress 
 and the face above it brought back a late summer 
 evening in Chicago by the lake side, and a 
 young girl, this young girl, fresh from her con- 
 vent, inexperienced, full of the joy of the promise 
 of living, was between them again. To one 
 came the great heart pang of a loss which was 
 ever new, and to the other an exultant sense that 
 he had won. 
 
 Lurgan's part went to pieces, and so did Mrs. 
 Henderson's, but the audience did not discover 
 it. The clever Frenchman who wrote the play 
 had put into the mouth of the young girl lines 
 of infinite simplicity in themselves, but full of 
 the most subtle coquetry, and Alice made every 
 word tell. She realized, as she was saying them, 
 that she never could have originated those lines, 
 for that outer self by which she lived would 
 never have voiced them ; but that inner self, 
 which was her real self, knew the shade of every 
 syllable, and brought it out ; knew the glance of 
 the eye, the turn of the shoulder. It was as if 
 a creature had been brought alive out of the 
 very air. 
 
 Before the play was over, Fielding was half 
 out of his seat, saying, "By Jove! Oh, by 
 Jove ! Isn't that a pity ! " It seemed too dread-
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 237 
 
 ful that the actress he had always been looking 
 for was blooming right here before his eyes, and 
 that she was as far out of his reach as if she had 
 been the shade of Peg Woffiugton. He could 
 not know, nor could any of the others know, 
 that the spirit which was burning, which was 
 lighting up this creature of the moment, was the 
 blazing of half a dozen long buried emotions. 
 
 Mrs. Henderson, in her marquise robes, left 
 the stage, and the curtain came down upon Alice 
 in I^urgan's arms. As it fell between them and 
 the footlights, it left them in semi darkness, and 
 Alice tried to slip away, but I^urgan held her 
 tightly. 
 
 " Why do you go? " he whispered, and then, 
 when she did not answer, he laughed huskily. 
 ' ' It is seldom enough I have ever held my own 
 wife like this." 
 
 " Perhaps " she said, and then she blushed 
 
 at the thing she would have said, but it was not 
 in human nature not to think of giving him the 
 taunt, though she despised herself for its vul- 
 garity. 
 
 "It is all your own fault, ' ' he went on pas- 
 sionately. "You know I love you, and only 
 you. You hate me, you torment me, you drive 
 me away from you." 
 
 For the moment he believed what he said. He 
 saw himself as a man who had always had a
 
 238 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 passion for a wife who drove him out of her 
 sight, and he pitied himself from the bottom 
 of his heart. 
 
 Alice stood with a drooping head. This was 
 something she hardly knew how to meet. A 
 great loathing for the sort of love he would give 
 her filled her soul. She despised herself for the 
 stupid pride and vanity which had made her 
 take this part and act it as she had. It seemed to 
 her impulsive heart that she had become de- 
 graded by this life she had seen about her, this life 
 in which there was nothing except vanity and self 
 seeking, until she was no better than any of them. 
 
 " You resigned all claim to being my husband 
 long ago, ' ' she said at last. 
 
 "You always disliked me, and I knew it. 
 When you married me you loved another man. 
 In what are you better than I have been ? You, 
 with your fine pretense of goodness, so immacu- 
 late that you cannot let your own husband 
 touch you and yet you have your old lover 
 here under my very eyes ! ' ' 
 
 " What are you saying? Stop ! " Alice began, 
 but Lurgan took her hands in his and held them 
 while he put his face above hers. 
 
 "Alice," he said, " come back to me. ]>t 
 our lives be what they ought to be. I love you. 
 You are my wife. I will throw everything else 
 away."
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 239 
 
 "How dare you insult me in one breath, and 
 tell me you love me in the next ? Let me go ! " 
 
 "Oh, well ! Go to the man you love ! ." he 
 said furiously, and threw her fairly into Batter- 
 man's arms threw her with such violence that 
 had Chris not caught her she would have fallen 
 to the floor. Before either of them could recover, 
 L,urgan had walked rapidly away, the velvet 
 cloak of his costume caught back on his tilted 
 sword.
 
 XXVI. 
 
 A S Kurgan went out of the room, Alice drew 
 herself out of Batterman's arms, her face 
 showing an agony of shame. It seemed to her 
 that the very walls were crying out her secret. 
 But Batterman held her by her arms, his hands 
 making her conscious of something besides his 
 physical strength. 
 
 "Alice," he said, "there is no necessity of 
 your living with that man. This is not the first 
 time that he has insulted you. I will not have 
 you subjected to such insults. If your father 
 were alive he would not allow it. I will not 
 allow it. You shall come away from him. ' ' 
 
 She looked into his face with eyes that were 
 wide and feverish. The excitement of the days 
 which had gone had taken out the heart of her 
 endurance, and she wanted to let herself go, to 
 break down in sobbing weakness. It had come 
 to this, then, that Chris was, after all, a member 
 of the family, who spoke with authority. She 
 must be pitied and taken care of by him, after all. 
 
 ' ' But you are not my father and he is my 
 husband. ' ' 
 
 240
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 241 
 
 "A right which he has forfeited." Batter- 
 man spoke calmly, but he was evidently holding 
 himself by a strong effort. " I may not be any- 
 thing to you, but I must always be the man who 
 loves you more than his own soul, more than 
 anything except your own happiness. I am, as 
 I always have been, from the time when you 
 were a little girl, yours to do with as you will." 
 He stopped suddenly, and when he began again 
 it was with a realization of what he saw in 
 Alice's face, something he did not understand. 
 He spoke almost as if he were answering some 
 question she was asking him. " I love you," he 
 said. " I have always loved you, and I would 
 give my life to see you happy. ' ' 
 
 Alice shook, as with a great chill, under his 
 hands. 
 
 " Chris," she said her voice was low, but it 
 was not that she feared to be overheard, for these 
 two were as much alone as every two are under 
 the same circumstances, entirely oblivious to all 
 the world around "Chris, did you really love 
 me back there in Chicago ? Did you ? Tell me, 
 did you ? ' ' 
 
 " What do you mean ? You know I did. You 
 know that all my life, after I knew you, I 
 thought of nothing else. I thought that I saw 
 you growing to care for me. I dreamed day and 
 night of nothing but you. You were the very
 
 242 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 core of my life. You are still. It can do you 
 no harm to know that I love you today with the 
 same heart I gave } T OU when you were a child. 
 Only I think of you more, if that can be, for 
 now I know that you are not happy. I want 
 you to be happy. ' ' 
 
 " Christopher," she said, " I may be a wicked 
 woman to listen to you, and to say this but you 
 have made me happy." She put her hands up 
 until they touched his arms. ' ' They told me 
 they told me that you had asked me to marry 
 you out of pity, that you did not love me, that 
 you pitied me because I had shown my love for 
 you so plainly, and that ) 7 ou only spoke to spare 
 us all mortification. And, Christopher " she 
 was speaking in a perfectly colorless voice, in a 
 voice which was hardly hers "I married so 
 that you would not despise me for a lovesick girl. ' ' 
 
 Suddenly she broke down and began to cry, 
 with a spasm of self pity, as she thought what 
 her life might have been, and how she had suf- 
 fered. Batterman took her gently and put her 
 into a chair, and then he went to a table and 
 brought her a glass of water. 
 
 " Do not cry," he said, as if he were comfort- 
 ing a child, and put his hand gently on the side 
 of her head. " Who told you that? " he asked. 
 
 "My stepmother," Alice answered. "But, 
 oh, Chris, I ought to have known ! ' '
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 243 
 
 "Yes," he said. "You ought to have 
 known." 
 
 He was wondering if there was another man 
 who could have had the strength to hear that 
 the woman he had loved all his life loved him, 
 had always loved him, and yet could go and leave 
 her thus. And yet he could not think of doing 
 anything else. She must be protected. Batter- 
 man belonged to a class of men that is a great 
 deal more numerous in all parts of the world 
 than most people who write novels would have 
 us think, and so common in America that such 
 men may be said to be merely average, whose 
 first idea of love is protection. She must be pro- 
 tected from the brutalities of her husband ; and 
 above all, the miserable suspicion which he had 
 voiced must be killed at once. 
 
 "Alice, listen to me," he said at last. "I 
 must go away, but I shall stay here in Bngland. 
 I shall be where you can always reach me 
 always. If there comes a time when I can do 
 anything for you, promise me that you will allow 
 no false delicacy to stand in the way. It is best 
 that you should stay here under L,urgan's roof 
 for the present. In a little while you may be 
 able to go away, and to stay away." 
 
 Alice put out her hand and held his. 
 
 " Oh, Chris," she said, " you will not go away 
 and leave me? I could let you go when " she
 
 244 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 caught her breath " when I thought 3'ou did 
 not care, but I cannot let you go now. You are 
 all I have in the world. You are all I have. I 
 cannot let you go ! " she repeated. 
 
 ' ' What do you want me to do ? " Batterman 
 asked, and his voice was not steady. 
 
 " That awful man will kill me. He frightens 
 me. I have lived you do not know how I have 
 lived," she said. It was as if the years of re- 
 straint had broken down all this false strength 
 of hers of which she had been so sure and so 
 proud. In her heart and in her fancy she had 
 lived with Chris by her side. She had done 
 those things for which she felt sure he would 
 admire her ; but now that he was here, now that 
 he loved her, her instinct taught her that he was 
 the strong bulwark between her and everything 
 which could hurt her. She was a child again. 
 Chris could take care of her. 
 
 "What do you mean by saying that you are 
 afraid of him, that he will kill you ? " 
 
 " I mean that it has been easy enough to live 
 in this house with Lord Lurgan all these 
 years. He has disliked me as much as I have 
 disliked him, but tonight he told me that he 
 begged me to come back to him. It was when I 
 refused that he said what he did. Oh, Chris, 
 you must not leave me here ! Take me with 
 you. I would be safe with you anywhere. You
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 245 
 
 love me. You would take care of me. I am so 
 tired!" 
 
 "You do not know what you are saying," 
 Batterman said, after a moment's silence. " You 
 cannot know. But you shall not stay here." 
 
 " But where is there anybody on earth, except 
 you, who cares ? These women I live among? 
 What am I to them ? My stepmother parted us. 
 
 She took you from me " Alice stopped, and 
 
 put her hands up to her head. " Do not listen 
 to me, Chris," she said. " It turns my brain. I 
 have always loved you so. I have had nothing 
 else in my life except the thought of you, and 
 uow that I know that it has been the same to 
 you, that you have always cared, nothing else 
 seems of any consequence. What can be of so 
 much consequence? Haven't we a right to our 
 own lives ? They were taken away from us. 
 Haven't we a right to take them back ? Whom 
 would it hurt ? ' ' 
 
 " It would hurt you," Batterman said. " If I 
 were to take you away with me, neither of us 
 would be happy. You would be miserable be- 
 cause I had allowed you, in a moment of excite- 
 ment, to give your good name to the tongues of 
 the world. I-should be miserable because you 
 were, and because you would have lost some- 
 thing. I could never give you back. My love 
 would be a poor thing if it could not take care of
 
 246 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 you now. I am afraid it was a poor thiug that 
 it was not strong enough in the beginning. But 
 now that we understand each other, now that I 
 can speak to you frankly, and have -you know 
 that I have but one object in my life, I shall try 
 to make another thing of your life. It was all 
 a mistake, and we should be children if we 
 did not realize that such mistakes are for all time. 
 Nothing can ever wipe them out." 
 
 " No," Alice said dully. " Nothing could 
 ever wipe this one out. To you I shall always 
 be Lurgan's wife." 
 
 " It is enough for me to know that I must not 
 think of the possibility of your ever being 
 mine," he answered. " But, Alice, look at 
 me." He had lifted her up, so that they stood 
 facing each other again. "All my life long I 
 shall live only for you, and all that I am, and all 
 that I have, is yours. I make a sacrifice which 
 you cannot understand in leaving you here. But 
 here you must stay, for the present, at least. I 
 am going now. I shall not see you again until 
 you send for me. But I want you to tell me that 
 you know that you are not alone, that there is 
 one heart that is always yours." 
 
 " Yes, I know," she said, but her hands hung 
 limp in his. He put them down gently, and 
 turned and left her, while she sat down again and 
 put her face in her arm.
 
 XXVII. 
 
 TT seemed to Alice, in those next days, that 
 she lived in a world of unreality. Batter- 
 man had been "suddenly called" to London, 
 and he had left her a note with his London 
 address at the top, and a few words of good by. 
 That was all. Alice did not even feel the 
 expected remorse at having asked Batterman to 
 take her away with him. It was all right ; Chris 
 understood. A realization of the change which 
 had come to her dimmed everything, even in the 
 atmosphere which was all over the house, an 
 atmosphere made up of suspicion, of cynical 
 amusement, and here and there of a shocked 
 fear of what might be coming. For Lurgan 
 had disappointed his wife's fears, and had not 
 repeated his demonstration of affection, but was 
 devoting himself to Mrs. Henderson in a way 
 which passed far beyond the ordinary bounds of 
 good breeding, and disregarded the rather lax 
 social laws which govern a flirtation between a 
 married man and a married woman, even in the 
 most free and easy set in Kugli 1 i society. Lady 
 Lurgan the elder had evidently been apprised of 
 247
 
 248 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 some of the country talk, for one morning she 
 appeared in her son's room, and the echoes of 
 that interview were a tradition in the servants' 
 hall for months, carried there by I^urgan's man. 
 
 But Alice was living her own life, oblivious to 
 everything. This gentle girl, whose mind and 
 spirit had been formed for all that is good and 
 beautiful, and whose natural expression to the 
 world was all that was womanly, had been so 
 distorted, against her own will, that she was 
 almost unconscious of fine distinctions, was 
 losing her intuitions. She went along in a daze 
 of her own thoughts. The house party dis- 
 persed, and the guests went their separate ways, 
 leaving her to her dreams. lyUrgan went up to 
 town in the same train with Mrs. Henderson, her 
 maid, and an intimate friend. Mr. Henderson 
 was, as usual, away in some other part of the 
 world. 
 
 The sudden beauty, the animation, which had 
 been Alice's for such a little while, faded again, 
 and she was like an alabaster lamp whose flame 
 has gone out. Constance and her mother went 
 on to some friends whom they had made, but not 
 before Mrs. Sanderson had had an interview with 
 Alice. She came to her one afternoon in the 
 hour between tea time and dinner dressing. As 
 she passed through the door, Alice could not 
 help but admire the air of strength and sweet-
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 249 
 
 ness which seemed to surround her as a garment. 
 She had taken off the elaborateafternoondiess 
 Mrs. Sanderson never put so stupid a thing as a 
 tea gown upon her fine figure and was in the 
 white skirt and dressing sack of American un- 
 dress. Her lineless, calm face was to Alice like 
 a beautiful mask. It expressed everything that 
 was good and sweet and loving ; and the younger 
 woman looked at it with wonder. It seemed to 
 contradict everything that she had been told con- 
 cerning the face as a reflex of the mind. And 
 then, as her stepmother picked up the bottles on 
 her toilet table, and selected one to hold in her 
 hand and dabble with the contents while she 
 talked, Alice let her thoughts run along quite 
 irrespective of the light talk, in a way her soli- 
 tary heart had taught her in these years. 
 
 She wondered if everybody were not equally 
 artificial. She stole a look at her own face in a 
 mirror opposite, and she saw its pale, quiet dig- 
 nity, its clear eyed innocence, and she suddenly 
 had a disgusted realization that she belonged to 
 the class of women with what is vaguely named 
 a " history." She was a woman married to one 
 man and in love with another ; the sort of woman 
 she had always supposed to exist only in a certain 
 class of French novel. Probably everybody was 
 only a whited sepulchre even Chris ! And her 
 heart contracted as she thought it, and then in-
 
 250 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 dignantly throw the idea away. At least there 
 was no fault in Chris. He kept sure her faith in 
 the world. And yet she had been made to 
 doubt him once, and her heart hardened toward 
 her stepmother. 
 
 "Alice," Mrs. Sanderson said seriously, 
 " perhaps I should not speak of it, but you need 
 the advice of a woman of experience. ' ' 
 
 ' ' Do I ? " was the indifferent reply. 
 
 Mrs. Sanderson hesitated. She did not want 
 to antagonize Alice, and yet she felt that by 
 neglecting to speak she was running a risk of 
 greater jeopardy than this. 
 
 "Yes, you do. You are treating your hus- 
 band very badly. You are being a bad wife to 
 him. You are breaking the sacredest vows a 
 woman can make. You are breaking up your 
 home and driving your husband to courses which 
 are going to ruin him and you." 
 
 "I have nothing- to do with Lord I/urgan's 
 affairs. What he does is of no consequence to 
 me." 
 
 ' ' It must be of consequence to you. You are 
 his wife. Nothing can alter that. You are his 
 wife. What makes or mars his life makes or 
 mars yours. Do not think that I am coming to 
 you except as a last resort. I went to him, I 
 told him that his conduct was becoming a scan- 
 dal. He told me that you had pushed him out
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 251 
 
 of your life, that lie had offered you love and de- 
 votion, had begged you to come back to him, and 
 had offered to throw everything else " 
 
 ' ' What do you mean what does he mean by 
 everything else ? ' ' 
 
 " Ah er everything except his devotion and 
 consideration for you ; that he told you he loved 
 you, that he said everything a man could say to 
 his wife under such circumstances, and that you 
 repulsed him. He has grown reckless. It is 
 your duty to save him." 
 
 Alice looked out of the window while her step- 
 mother talked, and the red came up on the tops 
 of her cheeks in a feverish streak, but her hands 
 were passive and idle in her lap. Suddenly she 
 turned, and to Mrs. Sanderson's amazement 
 laughed. It was not a particularly joyous laugh, 
 and it was one which went so ill with the face and 
 the character of the girl she knew that Mrs. 
 Sanderson started. 
 
 ' ' I suppose Lord Lurgan did say everything a 
 man could say under the circumstances, but the 
 circumstances are not just as they should be. 
 You say it is my duty to take him back as my 
 husband because he has done me the honor for 
 the moment of giving me the same sort of 
 affection he has given to perhaps a dozen other 
 women in the course of his life. Do you consider 
 it my duty to accept that ? ' '
 
 252 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 ' ' How can you place yourself in such a 
 class ? ' ' Mrs. Sanderson said in a sincerely 
 shocked and disgusted tone. 
 
 " Because I should belong there if I listened 
 to him." 
 
 ' ' He is your husband. ' ' 
 
 " I am afraid I am growing very heterodox, 
 but I cannot see how a marriage ceremony 
 changes the relation of two souls to each other." 
 She waved her hand as she went on, for Mrs. 
 Sanderson's face looked frightened. "You 
 need not be afraid of anything I am going to do. 
 It is only what I am not going to do. I am not 
 going to degrade myself my own mind and 
 heart and soul to save the reputation or even 
 the soul, if such a thing were possible of a 
 man I despise. He may be my husband. I am 
 not the only one bound by ties. He broke the 
 cords that bound us. Could I stay bound while 
 he went free ? Suppose it had been the other 
 way. Suppose it had been I who had insulted 
 him, would anybody have thought that it was 
 his duty to stand and wait for me to come back 
 to him, to be pardoned and forgiven and loved, 
 and my reputation saved ? Suppose that I had 
 said, ' I love you I will throw over everybody 
 else if you will take me back.' What would 
 you have thought of him if he had done it ? " 
 
 ' ' You are foolish. You have been listening
 
 IIKR LADYSHIP. 253 
 
 to the insane cry of those self styled reformers 
 who want to turn the social world upside down. 
 There can't be the same law for men and for 
 women." 
 
 ' ' I am not thinking of any law except that of 
 my own heart. I will not degrade myself by 
 association with such a man as Lord L,urgan. ' ' 
 
 " Why did you marry him, then ? " 
 
 Alice's breath came in short gasps. " Because 
 you were a wicked woman and told me lies. 
 Because, for some reason which I cannot fathom, 
 you deceived me and made me believe that the 
 man I loved did not love me. Because you 
 played upon the hysterical ideas of a child until 
 I was forced into a marriage I did not under- 
 stand. And may Heaven forgive you, for I 
 never will ! ' ' 
 
 " Alice ! " Mrs. Sanderson was standing and 
 trembling violently, but her calmness of tone 
 was as usual. ' ' You do not know what you are 
 saying. Heaven is my witness that I said to 
 you what I would have said to my own daughter 
 under the same circumstances." 
 
 "That is doubtless true, but your own 
 daughter would better have understood your 
 character." 
 
 " I take these insults, because I do not believe 
 that you know what you are saying. You are 
 not yourself. These theories of life which are
 
 254 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 the result of the vulgar middle class imaginings 
 of some women in this country, do not properly 
 belong to you. I beg of you, Alice, to see the 
 rector. ' ' 
 
 ' ' You are mistaken. These ideas, as you call 
 them, I have never heard. I am sorry if other 
 women have them, for they are only born of 
 experience. There is no use in your staying any 
 longer. ' ' 
 
 She rose abruptly, and started toward the 
 door, as if to leave the room, but Celeste came 
 in with a letter in her hand, and a frightened 
 look in her face. It was a look of apology, too, 
 and she held the very neat square envelope 
 between her thumb and forefinger as if it might 
 contaminate her. 
 
 " What is this ? " Alice asked patiently. 
 
 " It is a letter, my lady. I do not know who 
 sent it," she said, holding it all the time in a way 
 that belied her words. ' ' The man brought it 
 up from the inn in the village, and he is waiting 
 for an answer. ' ' 
 
 As she gave the note to Alice she was so over- 
 come with acute curiosity that it seemed to quiver 
 in her very finger tips, and arrested Mrs. Sander- 
 son's attention. But Alice took the letter care- 
 lessly, and, walking to her desk, sat down before 
 it, with her back to her stepmother, and there 
 seemed to be nothing left for the older lady but
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 255 
 
 to walk out, closing the door softly behind her. 
 She walked to Constance's room and told her to 
 pack up at once, so that they might catch the 
 evening train to London. She was suffering from 
 toothache, she said, and must see a dentist at 
 once. 
 
 Alice read the note over half a dozen times, 
 her face pale and then crimson. There were 
 only a few lines of it. 
 
 " Madam," it read, " I am here at the inn in 
 the village, and I have something of the greatest 
 importance to tell you. I will not write it on 
 paper, and I know I cannot come to your house. 
 I beg you, as you value your own happiness, to 
 come to the kiosk by the copper beeches in the 
 park, at nine this evening Mary Welles." 
 
 At first Alice had thrown it from her impa- 
 tiently. She felt that she had contaminated 
 herself indeed when this woman would dare to 
 ask for a meeting ; and then some instinct told 
 her to go. Mrs. Welles probably wanted money. 
 Well, she felt contemptuous enough, now, to give 
 her some. She scribbled ' ' Yes ' ' on the back of 
 the letter, sealed it in a new envelope, and sent it 
 away. 
 
 Celeste showed it to the butler as she passed 
 him, and said exultantly, " Her ladyship knows 
 how to treat her sort. She has sent the whole 
 thing back."
 
 256 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 Mrs. Sanderson and Constance said their good 
 bys. 
 
 " I am going to make you go to the Continent 
 with us, Alice," Constance said with fondness, 
 ' ' for you are looking as miserable as possible. 
 You look as cross as all outdoors. Mother has 
 taken a fancy to have toothache and go up to 
 town. It is ridiculous that you do not come 
 with us, instead of mooning about here alone." 
 
 ' ' I am not lonely. ' ' 
 
 Constance looked back at her as she stood on 
 the steps of the terrace, and even as she looked, 
 and before the carriage wheels had made a dozen 
 revolutions, she saw her sister turn. 
 
 ' ' Alice is queer. She cares nothing for any- 
 body. It seems to me that when I was a little 
 girl she was affectionate and soft hearted. Now 
 she is like a hard, white stone." 
 
 ' ' That is exactly what she is. It must be her 
 mother's blood. Her father was soft hearted 
 enough ; " and then they talked of other things. 
 
 All the afternoon Alice wandered about, sorry 
 that she had promised Mrs. Welles that she 
 would meet her, disliking herself that such a 
 circumstance could arise in her life. She had 
 actually no idea what could have brought this 
 woman to the Chase. The idea that she wanted 
 to make herself disagreeable, that she had stories 
 to tell, never entered Alice's mind.
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 257 
 
 The long dinner was duller than usual to- 
 night. There were only I^ady Lurgan the elder 
 and Alice. Everybody else had gone. The late 
 twilight left it fairly light at half past eight 
 when at last it was possible to walk out into the 
 park. As she started I,ady I/urgan spoke to 
 her. There were lines about the haughty face 
 which spoke of hours when ^the strong coun- 
 tenance was relaxed into an expression the 
 proud woman would not have cared to let the 
 world see. 
 
 " I should like to speak to you a moment, 
 now that we are alone," she said. " My son's 
 life has been ruined by his marriage with you. 
 You are not a child now. You are a woman, 
 and a woman who pretends to have a sense of 
 duty. If for no other reason , can you not try to 
 restore some of the wreck that you have made ? 
 The fate of this house depends upon you." 
 
 Alice hesitated, and then she said coldly : " If 
 you had thought that earlier, we might all have 
 been happier. But at no time would it have 
 been true. I was wrong to marry your son, but 
 had I been allowed I would have been a good 
 wife to him. You did not allow me. I can do 
 nothing now. But " she turned with some 
 curiosity " why do you tell me this at this mo- 
 ment ? In what is the situation different from 
 what it has been?"
 
 258 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 1 ' You are driving Algernon to extremes. You 
 are causing him to ruin himself, to make a 
 scandal." 
 
 ' ' You mean that he is making a scandal, and 
 that you wish me to do what I can to save him 
 from its consequences. When he is making 
 himself notorious before the world is the time 
 when I am expected to call him to me ! " 
 
 Alice spoke with infinite disdain, and went out 
 of the door. She did not know the short way to 
 the kiosk, and it was late before she arrived 
 there. She saw, seated in the dimness inside, a 
 figure which arose as she came near. She recog- 
 nized Mrs. Welles at once, although she had 
 never seen her since that day at the station. She 
 was stouter now, just as well dressed, and with 
 a certain look of tranquility which probably no 
 life she might live would ever entirely destroy. 
 
 "lam very glad that you came," she said, 
 without any greeting or any nervousness of 
 manner. " I have something to tell you which 
 I think you should know. I know that you do 
 not care for your husband, so that it will be no 
 particular shock to you except that it may hurt 
 your pride. It is your pride that I am relying 
 on to save him." 
 
 ' ' Why should you care to save him from any- 
 thing ?" 
 
 " Well, I have known him since he was a boy,
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 259 
 
 and I suppose I am still fond of him in a way, 
 although he has treated me badly enough. Per- 
 haps, if I were to be strictly honest in the mat- 
 ter, I should say that, as he didn't quite throw 
 himself away for me, I can't bear to see him do 
 it for another woman. There may be something 
 in that. At any rate, he has made all his arrange- 
 ments to leave London tomorrow with that Mrs. 
 Henderson. They have been on the point of 
 going several times, I understand, but it hasn't 
 come off. Perhaps you have prevented it. I 
 came to tell you now, so that you could prevent 
 it in this case." 
 
 ' ' I can do nothing. ' ' 
 
 " I suspect that means that you don't care to 
 do any thing. You made him leave me. Retreated 
 me so badly after that quarrel he had with you 
 that I had to give him up. ' ' Mrs. Welles spoke 
 in a quiet tone, as if such an interview were the 
 most natural thing in the world. ' ' And I had 
 known him much longer than you, and had had 
 much more influence over him. He promised 
 me that he would never marry, and I was fool 
 enough to believe him. I never expected him to 
 marry me. I am not sure that I should have 
 been happy if he had. It would have spoiled 
 his life. He liked going about and meeting 
 people, and he would have been miserable when 
 he couldn't do it any more. I used to enjoy
 
 260 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 seeing his name in the papers." She laughed a 
 little in a rather comfortable sort of way. ' ' I 
 believe I came to feel a sort of motherly feeling 
 for him. Of course I hated you, but there is 
 nothing wrong with you except that I can see 
 that you are cold natured. You are not very 
 forgiving. After we parted, I hoped he would 
 make it up with you, and you'll excuse the advice 
 of a woman who knows Lurgan through and 
 through when I tell you that you are going 
 the right way to drive him to the bad. Unless 
 something is done at once he has already gone 
 there." 
 
 " How dare you come here and talk like this 
 to me ? ' ' Alice asked. 
 
 Mrs. Welles drew her cloak about her throat 
 with a jerk, and started to go. 
 
 ' ' I dare because I want you to save Lurgan 
 from making a fool of himself. I know you are 
 not the sort that wants scandals and divorce in 
 the family, and wants to spoil the chances of 
 your sister. I supposed you were the sort that 
 would try to smooth things over, and I fancy, 
 after all, that you will." She turned after she 
 had taken some steps away. " This is straight, 
 because Lurgan's man came and told me. He 
 thought I might stop it ; " and then she went on, 
 leaving Alice with just one word ringing in her 
 ears, and that word was divorce !
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 next morning, at eleven o'clock, Batter- 
 man strode up and down the floor of the 
 parlor which Alice had taken at one of the great 
 Condon hotels. 
 
 Alice was trembling violently, as you could see 
 whenever she lifted her hands for an instant ; 
 but she had been speaking in a rapid, even tone. 
 
 " Where did they go ? " Batterinan asked. 
 
 "I do not know." 
 
 " Do you know that they have gone ? " 
 
 " I know only what she told me, and that I<ord 
 Lurgan is not to be found. I sent Celeste to see 
 this morning. Tell me, Christopher, what must 
 be done ? ' ' 
 
 Batterman had his hat in his hand. 
 
 " I am going after them. I am going to find 
 some way to stop this without a scandal." 
 
 Alice stood before him. 
 
 ' ' Why should you stop it ? It makes neither 
 one nor the other any better that they are 
 brought back and visited by people. Why not 
 let them go, and let me be free / ' ' She brought 
 the last word out like an explosion, and then as 
 261
 
 262 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 Batterman still looked square in her eyes, they 
 faltered and she sat down. 
 
 " And your name and your life dragged in the 
 dust of two continents ! Not if I can help it. 
 There shall be some sort of a separation, but the 
 divorce court is not for women like you. We 
 have to bear the consequences of our mistakes. 
 He shall bear some of the consequences of his ; 
 but if I can arrange this without scandal, I shall 
 do it." 
 
 But finding Lurgan and Mrs. Henderson was 
 not so easy a task. There were not many people 
 in London just now, and they had been seen 
 nowhere. Two days can slip by very readily 
 without two people being missed, at least two 
 people who are in the habit of going about a 
 great deal. At last Batterman discovered that 
 they were known to have crossed over to France. 
 As the little boat rushed through the blue water 
 of the channel, he drew his coat up about his 
 ears, turned his back to the wind, and faced 
 Lurgan's man. 
 
 The man tipped his hat respectfully and 
 walked away, but not before Batterman saw that 
 he wore a look of grave anxiety. Chris went 
 all through the boat in the hope that he might 
 find Lurgan here, but the servant was evidently 
 alone, although he had several handsome pieces 
 of luggage which he was carrying with him.
 
 HER IvADYSHIP. 263 
 
 He made a rush for the Paris train as soon as the 
 boat landed, and Battermau followed. Again, 
 when they reached Paris, Batterman left his 
 trunks, as soon as the man could get his boxes 
 labeled, and went out to see them put into a 
 fiacre. 
 
 It was early evening, and Batterman, in 
 another fiacre, openly followed. They were 
 almost in Passy when the cab ahead stopped. 
 The servant sprang out, and motioned for Batter- 
 man's driver to stop. Pie came close and spoke 
 rapidly. 
 
 " Before Heaven, I hope you are following 
 me, Mr. Batterman," he said. " I want you to 
 tell me what to do. His lordship, that I've been 
 with since he was a boy, discharged me a few 
 days ago, and told me never to come near him 
 again ; but now I get a telegram to come to this 
 address in Paris, that he is very ill, sir. You 
 know all about the trouble, sir, or you wouldn't 
 be here. I was discharged for telling Mrs. 
 Welles. She tried to keep his lordship from 
 going, and when she couldn't she said as how 
 she was going to her ladyship, and seeing you I 
 know she must have, sir. What am I to do, sir ? " 
 
 " My advice is to get to this address as 
 quickly as possible, and I will follow you." 
 
 With a sigh of relief the man climbed into his 
 fiacre again and went on. It was a walled garden
 
 264 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 gate at which they finally stopped, and Batter- 
 nian drove in behind the servant, who was evi- 
 dently expected. The house was one of the 
 apartment houses of this neighborhood. As 
 they entered the court another carriage turned 
 out, and the unmistakable face of a physician 
 looked at them gravely for an instant. 
 
 The two men went np together in the eleva- 
 tor, which they moved themselves. The servant 
 had hesitated, but Batterman had pulled him in. 
 As the jar and hitch of the stoppage came, the 
 curtained door was violently opened in their faces, 
 and Mrs. Henderson started back with a little 
 scream. Batterman was by her in an instant, 
 and had taken her by the arm. She had her hat 
 and veil on, and was evidently dressing for travel- 
 ing. When she saw Batterman, she looked at 
 him insolently for a moment, and then she took 
 the pin from her hat and threw it on a table. 
 
 ' ' If you know it, I suppose it is all over Con- 
 don, and I may as well stay," she said. 
 
 "Suppose you let me speak to you for a few 
 moments," Batterman replied. The man had 
 disappeared. 
 
 " I haven't time for that. Do you know what 
 is happening ? Lord I^urgan is dying in there." 
 A dry sob that may have been sorrow or nervous- 
 ness was in her throat. ' ' I was ready to stay 
 with him, to meet anything with him, but there
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 265 
 
 was no use of my losing him and everything 
 else beside. I thought perhaps people did not 
 know that I could get back to London, and 
 they never would know. It is pneumonia, and 
 the doctors say it is hopeless. There is one of 
 them in there with a nurse now. He is being 
 taken care of. ' ' 
 
 ' ' There is no reason why you should not go 
 back to lyondon," Batterman said. "Nobody 
 except one or two people who will not talk 
 and L,urgan's wife knows that you are here with 
 him. It would be best that you skould go. I 
 shall send for Lurgan's mother if he is dying, 
 and she would hardly care to come here while 
 you remained." 
 
 Batterman did not care to make his words soft. 
 He might have had sympathy for her few men 
 haven't sympathy for a woman who throws away 
 the world for the man she loves, however law- 
 lesslyif he had found her by Lurgan's side ; 
 but this effort to eat her cake and have it too, her 
 selfishness, put her in a class which could only 
 be utterly despicable. 
 
 Mrs. Henderson took up her hat and pinned it 
 on her head again. 
 
 "I am going, then," she said, and without 
 another word she went back into her own life, to 
 wait dutifully until her husband came home, and 
 to be the favorite of other seasons, with only a
 
 266 HER LADYSHIP. 
 
 vague remembrance of an old scandal that might 
 have been. As that sufficed to keep her in the 
 minds of people, it was rather an advantage than 
 otherwise. 
 
 Batterman waited until the doctor came out, 
 and asked if Mrs. Henderson's story was true. 
 
 " He cannot live forty eight hours. He knows 
 he is dying, but he wants nobody sent for. It 
 isn't pneumonia that is killing him, but a com- 
 plication of things brought on by his life. 
 Pneumonia is only the herald that has awakened 
 the other enemies. ' ' 
 
 " He is an only child," Batterman said, " and 
 I am going to send for his mother. ' ' 
 
 Batterman did not expect I/urgan to know that 
 he was there, but an hour after Lady Lurgan's 
 arrival she came and told him that her son 
 wished to speak to him. It was with a pity 
 which Alice could not feel because she was not 
 there in that atmosphere of approaching death, 
 which makes even a condemned murderer a 
 creature to be tenderly considered for a little 
 while, that Batterman went into the room where 
 Lurgau lay. He was fully conscious, but he was 
 so weak that it. was with difficulty that he spoke ; 
 and yet in his pale, terrible face was the expres- 
 sion which belonged to his least pleasant 
 moments. Perhaps it was the bravery of his 
 ancestors showing itself in this way.
 
 HER LADYSHIP. 267 
 
 " I want to thank you for straightening this 
 out as you have," he said, "although I know 
 that it is not exactly on my account that you did 
 it ; and Alice will thank you in her own way." 
 He stopped, and but for the fact that every 
 breath might be his last Batterman would have 
 left him. " She will get what she wants. She 
 is a countess, although I don't believe she cares 
 much for that. And the money what there is 
 of it goes back to her at my death." His face 
 contracted as he said the last word. He didn't 
 want to die. "You'll find her a cold, hard 
 woman, Batterman. I suppose all your Ameri- 
 can women are alike. You have spoiled them. 
 They don't know how to forgive a man when the 
 time conies. But you won't need forgiveness, 
 perhaps. ' ' 
 
 "This is unnecessary," Batterman said 
 quietly. 
 
 " Yes, I know, but I have generally done the 
 unnecessary thing. If I hadn't run away with 
 Flo Henderson I shouldn't be here, and she 
 evidently found that unnecessary, because she 
 has gone, the}' tell me, without a good by. You 
 have a proverb, haven't you. ' Come easy, go 
 easy;'" and he gave a twist to his features 
 which might have been a smile. 
 
 Batterman felt sick, it was all so horrible ; 
 and the sight of that face, the sound of that
 
 268 HKR LADYSHIP. 
 
 voice, were iuhis brain, coming back to him for 
 years. 
 
 ' ' I have been all wrong, of course, but I have 
 lived pretty much according to my nature. I 
 
 should have rubbed along somehow, if " He 
 
 stopped again. "Batterman," he said, "the 
 mistake and the badness weren't all on my side. 
 They oughtn't to have married Alice to me. I 
 couldn't understand her, and she couldn't under- 
 stand me. She's a saint, but she didn't belong 
 in my life. And I've a suspicion that she 
 
 mightn't have been so stony if ' ' He stopped 
 
 again. "You have my blessing," he added 
 drowsily. 
 
 Batterman called the nurse, and went away, to 
 come back in two hours and hear that I/urgan 
 was dead. He and Alice, after conventionalities 
 of mourning were over, would be as free to 
 marry each other as they had been that October 
 afternoon only a few short years ago. He had 
 hesitated to ask her to do so, that she might 
 have a little more life. Now, they had both had 
 so much that the boy and girl of that time were 
 forever dead, and there were only a strong man 
 and a sober woman who looked first at the dark 
 side of life. 
 
 THE END.
 
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