. r r * V M*^ /. k~r . . 1- A f ~ Vv RARY RSITYOr FORNlA DIEGO I presented to the LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO by FRIENDS OF THE LIBRARY MR. JOHN C. ROSE donor > , THE SITY LIBRARY .S'3 A MATTER - <* - - - OF SENTIMENT A NOVEL By JOHN STRANGE WINTER " Give me a nook and a book, And let the proud world spin round. 1 A. L. BURT COMPANY, * * * * * * * PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK Copyright, 1903, BY A. L. BUET COMPANY. A MATTER OF SENTIMENT. CHAPTER I. LUCK. " WHAT are you going to do with it ? " said one. " Invest it," replied the other. " Out here ? " " No, at home. It isn't wanted out here. I don't want to increase my stake in this country. I shall have to go home in the end, and my old dad writes to me that there is a certain farm ad- joining our place that he has coveted ever since I was a little chap in petticoats. It's for sale I don't mean that there is going to be an auction, but it is for sale to any private bidder. I can get it for a bit less than the five thousand pounds that you and I have each got to play with. 'Twill round off the estate, make my old dad deliriously happy and be a perfectly safe investment for the money. As soon as I can get down to the town I shall cable to the dad to secure it within certain limits. What are you going to do with yours ? " 3 4 A Matter of Sentiment. " Mine ? " said the other man, " mine ? " He cast his eyes over the glowing Californian land- scape, looked slowly round over the familiar scene, and then, fixing his eyes on the distant hills, he apparently fell into deep thought. The younger of the two men looked at him with an expression of curiosity. They had been companions and partners for more than seven years ; from the time that Dick Vincent had given up life in the Service for the sake of wintering in California. They had met by chance, the young fellow of three-and-twenty, the older one of some five or six and forty years of age. So far as worldly possessions went they were at that mo- ment about equal. Dick's father had put a sum of five hundred pounds into an American bank for his son's use ; Roger Meredith had but a few pounds short of that sum, as the result of a ven- ture to which he had given several years of assid- uous toil. What drew the one to the other neither ever knew ; perhaps the fact that both were gentlemen by birth, and that Meredith had been in his youth in the same regiment as Vincent had just left. Anyway, after their first meeting in a small hotel on the way West, they had seemed instinc- tively to chum together, and after a day or two of long talks and mutual inquiries as to the de- tails of the past and hopes of the future, Dick Luck. 5 Vincent suggested that they should put their money together and go into partnership. The older man was nothing loth. " I like you, my lad," he said, in his bluff and outspoken way, " and I am willing to go in with you if you wish it. We are different ages, and we are different tem- peraments. I have had a rough and tumble ex- istence since I came out here. I was unlucky at home. I fancy you will help me to keep square ; I know I shall keep you from being robbed. Here's my hand ; I'm willing, and something more than willing, to go into partnership with you." From that day the pair had been but little apart ; from that day not one single cloud had ever come between them which in any way could mar the simple directness of their friend- ship. Dick, who had great respect for Meredith's opinion in all matters of business, never failed from first to last to give full value for his experi- ence and maturer judgment ; Meredith, on the other hand, never forgot that whatever Dick lacked in experience and judgment he gained in the consciousness of a clean and wholesome life. As Meredith had said in the beginning, the partnership was calculated to keep him straight he should have added " if anything could " but there had been times when he had disappeared from the ranche on some flimsy pretext, and Dick Vincent had scoured the country in search of 6 A Matter of Sentiment. him, generally finding him in the most unlikely spot, in a state bordering on delirium tremens. For that was Roger Meredith's let-down drink. Not the steady, soaking drinking which drags its victim into his grave and out of the road, but wild bursts of furious excess which would have wrecked the constitution of a less magnificent physique years before, and which would probably have brought Roger Meredith's turbulent life to a close long ago had it not been for his marvel- ous power of holding off for months at a time. " Why," Dick said to him over and over again, " can't you be strong-minded enough to keep off it altogether ? You can go for six or seven months at a stretch and never let a drop of liquor pass your lips. Then you break out. And look at you now a wreck ! your nerves smashed, can't sleep, can't eat, can't do anything. You are a strong man, you are a gentleman, you have a strong will ; why don't you swear off it altogether ? " And always the reply was the same. " Yes ; last time, my boy, last time. Never again as long as I live. This has taught me a lesson ; seven- teen days without a wink of sleep. Gad ! it's enough to break down the strongest man that ever God put the breath of life into ! " " But is it really a swear-off? " Dick said to him on one occasion. Luck. 7 " Yes, old fellow ; really a swear-off this time, damn me if it ain't ! " " It will damn you if you don't," said Dick. " I know it I know it I know it, old fellow. You can't tell me anything I don't know. I lie awake at night, and I think of the past, and I think of the present, and I think of the future ; and it's all black and dark. It's as if a devil had got hold of me. I never drink for pleasure I don't take the least pleasure in it ; but I go down on business, and I meet some pal that I have known years ago. It looks so churlish to refuse a drink as a sign of good fellowship, and when I've taken one I forget and take two, and when I've taken two I want three, and when I've had three, I must have a fourth, and when I've had four I don't know what happens ; then, I sup- pose I go on. I don't sleep that night, and the next day I go on again, and again, and you come and find me. It's always the same, but it isn't pleasure. However, I've got off it this time, and it shall be the last, I promise you ; I give you my sacred word of honor. And you must help me, Dick. You are a good lad perhaps you don't understand the temptation but you can help me if you will. Don't let me go down to the town ; don't let me out of your sight. If I begin to wander, come after me." " I always do," said Dick. A Matter of Sentiment. " Yes, I know. You are a good lad ; it will come home to you one of these days." " Besides," Dick went on, " if you have a mind to wander, how am I going to stop you ? You stand five inches taller than I do ; you are like a Hercules compared to me ; I have got no more than a small influence over you, Roger, old fel- low, and when you are determined to go to the bad it's no use preaching to you. If I were you and you me I could take you by the throat and say, c You shan't stir a step !' But what chance should I have against you ? Why, you would just get your finger and thumb on my windpipe, and it would be all U P with me ! " From his long arm-chair Roger Meredith laughed. Compared with the mighty volume of sound which usually constituted a laugh from him it was no more than a feeble and cracked cachin- nation. " It's the last time, my boy. I've sworn off for good and all. 'Pon my word and honor, as I was once a gentleman." a Don't talk rot ! " said Dick. " You are a gentleman still ; you will always be a gentleman. Kings and princes have been befooled with the demon of drink before now." " Yes, I know they have. Don't make any excuse for me ; there isn't any excuse for me. It makes me sick when I think of all I've chucked Luck. 9 away in the past, just because a devil I put into my mouth steals away my brains and my nerve, and makes a besotted beast of me. Don't talk about it's being rot ; 1 tell you drink's the hell upon earth. When we get to a hell afterwards, it will be a hell where we shall drink and drink and drink, and there will be no sleep ; there will be nothing but drink no food. Ugh ! Ugh ! Ugh ! Keep me from it, Dick. We have been pals for seven years now; keep me from it if you have to tie me down to a chair." " All right, old chap ; next time I see you get- ting restless I'll chain a log to your leg, or some- thing of that kind. But you might give me a hint. You see, you always go off with such a deuced amount of secrecy ; and you are so wily that I never know when the fit's coming on. If you would only give me a hint that you are be- ginning to feel like breaking out I could be up- sides with you." "I never feel it," Meredith cried; "it comes on me all of a sudden. I go down town on busi- ness ; I meet some fellow I know ; naturally he says, ' Come and have a drink, old chap ! ' I can't say No ' men out here think you such an ass and then I take a glass, swear to myself I won't take a second, and somehow, I always forget. Then the mischief's done." " Old fellow," said Dick, " I shouldn't like to 10 A Matter of Sentiment. propose this if you hadn't broached the subject to me yourself, but don't trust yourself down in the town without me. When there's business to be done, let's go together and do it." " Right you are, Dick ! I'll not go to town again without you. I can't say fairer than that. I mean it when I say I want to get out of this thraldom. I hate to feel that I am weak-minded and can't trust even myself. I won't go down the town again without you." Now it happened that going down the town meant a road journey, I might more correctly say a land journey, of about forty miles. It was not much of a town even at that ; and consisted of no more than a few wooden huts and sheds, and a corrugated iron drinking saloon. Did the friends want to go further afield and take a trip to San Francisco, or in the direction of New York, they had a still further journey of forty miles before they could get aboard the cars of the Great Pacific Railway. After Roger Meredith had given the promise that he would not go down into the town without Dick, things had gone much more smoothly. For several months he had not shown any signs of wishing to turn his back, even for a moment, on the ranche. Then they went several times down to Freeman's Rock together, and once took a fortnight's holiday in 'Frisco itself. Luck. 11 After that came a great run of luck. Up to that time they had done well enough, but not more than that. Then, one happy day, they made a discovery of oil upon their land not in such quantities as made them or was likely to make them millionaires, but on the evening on which my story opens they had had a great reckon- ing up, and had the pleasure of looking in one another's faces and congratulating each other upon a balance of ten thousand in solid pounds to their credit, over and above their profitable estate. Dick Vincent had already given his friend an idea of how he meant to invest his share of the luck. " And now, old fellow," he said, " what are you going to do with yours ? " Roger Meredith did not reply for a moment, and Dick sat looking at him in interested expec- tation. " I am going to invest mine, too," he said at last. " Here ? " Dick asked. . " No ; not here. Over there ! " jerking his thumb in the direction which to both of them meant the old country. " I have been thinking I have been thinking a lot lately. I want you to do something for me when you go home, old fellow. You will be gone three months ? " " Well, I think I have earned a three months' holiday, haven't I ? " " Yes, you have earned it ; you have earned i* A Matter of Sentiment/ everything that you've got. But, old chap, I wish you weren't going home." " Why don't you come with me ? It's per- fectly safe for us both to go over for three months ; everything is in fettle for the autumn, and Jack Frogg is such a splendid fellow we can safely leave it all to him. Come home, Roger, old fel- low ; come home and see my people, who have heard such a lot about you. They'll give you a welcome, no fear of that ! " " I am not afraid of that," said Meredith. " I'd like to go home for some things ; I've not set foot in old England since I came out here fif- teen years ago." " What are you afraid of ? " " What makes you think I am afraid at all ? " Dick smiled. " I know you pretty well, old chap." " Yes, and you are right. I am afraid of what I might find when I got there. It doesn't do when you've cut yourself adrift to turn up again without knowing what sort of a smash your pres- sence may make." " Old fellow ? " said Dick. " Yes. I never told you that I had a wife and child in the old country, did I ? " " Never breathed it ; never hinted at it." " But I have or I had. I might go home later on, when you come back, for three months. Luck. '3 I don't feel like going this time. Later on. And besides that I don't feel sure, till you've left me for three months by myself, whether I'm safe to be let loose in ordinary cities among ordinary temptations. Dick stretched out a hand and clasped his friend hard upon the shoulder. " Safe as a church, old chap ! Why, you've never had a breakdown for nearly two years ! You will keep it up when I am gone, won't you ? You won't let yourself go?" " No, I'll try not. I intend to live the life of a hermit ; and if I weather, the three months when I've not got you to watchdog me, I shall be pretty safe for the rest of my life !" H A Matter of Sentiment. CHAPTER II. A REVELATION. " DICK," said Roger Meredith, looking out from a great cloud of blue smoke, " were you as- tonished to hear that I am married ? " " Yes, I was a bit," said Dick. " Why have you kept so close about it ? " " Oh, it was one of the things, I couldn't talk about." " Didn't you get on with her ? " Dick asked. "Yes, I always used to. But things went wrong somehow. I came out here determined to make a home for her and to get myself pulled straight again. I had a sort of crazy notion that I should find fewer temptations in a new country than I had done in the old one. Never was a greater fallacy ! All countries are full of tempta- tions, and I drank worse out here than I had done over there. I was a handsome man when I came West " " Oh, well, I don't know that you are exactly ugly now, old chap." " No ; I know exactly what I am like. I was a fine man once. As far as my carcase goes I am A Revelation. *5 a fine man now ; I appear as well as ever I did, but I carry the marks of what's gone down my throat on my face. I shall carry them till I die. When you get like that, and your wife is pretty, and dainty, and fastidious, I tell you, old chap, it makes you shirk going home and showing your- self changed so that she might turn from you in disgust. I want to go home ; I've been wanting to go home ever since I came out here ; but I don't want to go home poor. I came out to make a fortune ; I have made a living, and that's all. If she had come with me, as she wanted to, with the child, I should have made a better living perhaps. I might have kept straighter not since 1 knew you, old chap, but before that. Remember I had been out here eight years when you came across me ; if I hadn't had a constitution like iron, I should have gone under long before you turned your back on the old regiment." " But did your wife want to come out ? " " She wanted to come out when I left her. I gave her all the money I could scrape together she had a few pounds of her own, some fifty pounds a year I gave her what I had, I took what would barely carry me into a likely neigh- borhood for work, and I never wrote home again." " What ? " " I didn't. Oh, I'll make a clean breast of it. 16 A Matter of Sentiment I acted like a brute I did worse, I acted like a fool. I said to her, ' If I don't succeed, you'll hear nothing of me again.' Ah, how well I re- member the tears coming into her eyes, and how she put her little head back and said, * I shall hear of you again, Roger. You are bound to do well.' But, old fellow, it's taken me fifteen years to do it ; and although five thousand pounds is a decent sum of money, it's nothing to swagger about." " Ah, well, we're worth a great deal more than that. We have the ranche to the good ; and where that five thousand pounds came from there will come another five thousand pounds ; and perhaps another, and yet another. Don't be downhearted, Roger, you are in the beginning of better things ; so am I, and it's very pleasant for both of us. Then you are going to invest it in England? " " I am going to send it home to England, I want you to be my instrument ; I want you to go and find my wife I will pay the money into the bank to your order and I want you to see whether she wants it ; to find out how she feels towards me, and if she is just the same ; to tell her the kind of life I've lived ; to give her an idea of what I am like to-day ; to let her know that I've never supplanted her or forgotten her. Find out if there is any chance left for me." A Revelation. 1 7 " You had better get your photograph taken." " My photograph ? " " Yes. Come down with me as far as New York and get a first-rate photograph taken ; that will help you better than anything." " I might ; I'm looking pretty fit yes, I might. It would take me out of the loneliness that I am dreading, for part of the time at all events." " Supposing she wants to come out here ? " " The ranche is wide enough," said Meredith, "the house is big enough. We can add to it, if necessary, only you must make her clearly understand that I've had fifteen years of a rough life, a hard life. I am not the Roger Meredith who went away ; my English tailor wouldn't know me." " Oh, my dear chap, I don't think, married man that you are, that you understand women. I'll tell her what sort of a fellow you are now ; I'll make her understand the exact situation leave it to me ; and perhaps her first thought will be that her complexion is not what it was, her waist less tiny, and all the rest of it. I sup- pose I can satisfy her on that score ? " " Why, yes. There's no fear that she will have altered as I have done. Time works ravages upon us all, but the ravages of time produce one effect, and the ravages of drink another." " Well, never mind, old chap, you don't drink 2 18 A Matter of Sentiment. now, you've quite given it up ; you've not touched a drop for nearly two years, past. You look as fit as a fiddle, you are as hard as iron and as strong as a horse. Don't get brooding too much over yourself, but leave it to me, old fellow leave it to me." " But there's another thing," said Meredith. "Yes?" " I have been away fifteen years." " Yes ; so you say." " I have never written home ; she may think me dead. Supposing when you've traced her out you find that she has taken my death for granted, and she is married again ? " " Well ? What then ? " " I shouldn't feel," Meredith went on in a hard set voice, while his eyes wandered away to the distant hills, " I shouldn't feel justified in dis- closing myself to her. Dick, it cuts me to the very heart to think such a thing ; it makes me sick with fear that it may be so. I have kept silent all these years, even to you, because I'd failed in what I came out to do ; and now that I have done it I can talk more freely. I had bet- ter tell you everything that's in my mind, and then you'll know how to deal with the situation as you find it. If Clara " " So that's why you called the ranche ' Santa Clara' ? " A Revelation. 1 9 " Of course. If Clara is married again she must be left in ignorance, and I shall stay out here for the rest of my life. I shall never go home again. I always thought that chap, Enoch Arden, was a weak fool to come back and dis- turb that wretched woman's peace and happiness. There were two Enoch Ardens, you know, Dick ; there was one who was a man, and one who was a snivelling sort of a chap that was better out of the way better dead. I don't want to be like him." For a moment or two there was silence between the friends. " I don't think, somehow, that I shall find her married," said Dick at last. " You may do, and it's best to be prepared for any contingency, isn't it, Dick ? I've got a photograph of her here. Would youlike to see it ?" " I should." Meredith dived down into an inner pocket and brought to view a small leather case bound with silver. " Hulio ! " said Dick, " I never saw that be- fore." " I know you didn't. I've always had it in my pocket here, so that I could carry it without anyone else being the wiser. There she is. It was taken only a few months before I came away. She was a pretty girl, she must be a pretty woman 20 A Matter of Sentiment. still ; too pretty to have passed unnoticed all these years." Dick Vincent stretched out his hand and took the portrait from his chum. I think when one first sees the portrait of a person who has been very much praised by another, one is always con- scious of a feeling of disappointment. Fora mo- ment Dick's only feeling was to hide from his companion the astonishment and blank dismay that he felt. Before him he saw the picture of a young woman, small and inclined to be plump, very fair, with wide-open blue eyes, a perky little nose, and a round innocent-looking face. Not a young woman whom he would at any time have called even passably pretty, and in marked con- trast to the square, heavy, passionate face of the man sitting opposite to him. " Is she little ? " he asked, more by way of gaining time than from curiosity. " A little tiny thing, barely up to my elbow," said Meredith. " A little soft plump thing with pretty ways. I don't know how I had the heart to leave her ; I have never known ; I was des- perate. It seemed the only thing to do to take my great hulking self out of it and leave her what there was to keep the child alive on." " And you are her lover still ? " " I have never been anything else," said Mer- edith. A Revelation. ** " And I never even guessed." Meredith stretched out his hand to take the picture again. " I am not the kind of man who talks and makes confidences," he said, taking a long satisfied look at the pictured face, " I am a reserved sort of fellow never was one more so. I have tried to tell you all the same, more than once, but until now I never had the heart to speak of her, or the face." " I can't see that. I can't think why you didn't send for her to come out." " Because I had been out here eight years be- fore I made five hundred pounds. I had kept body and soul together, it's true. When I met you I was about five hundred pounds to the good ; we've done fairly well, old chap, but it's been nothing to boast about until now, nothing to write home about with a flourish of trumpets and say, ' See ! I've made a fortune; I am flourishing! ' No, no ; I had kept silent for eight years, and it was best to go on." " Perhaps it wasn't best for her." " Perhaps it wasn't ; perhaps it was. Time will show, and you will know before I shall. Then you will do that for me, old fellow ? You will go and look her up ? " " But you don't expect she is still in the same place where you left her ? " " She might be. I left her in London. Any- 22 A Matter of Sentiment. way, the trustee of her little property is bound to be in the same place, or he'll have left traces be- hind him. I shall give you his address and his name, and you can go and see him and casually find out about her and about the child, without giving me away the least little bit in the world." " 1 don't quite see how." " No, neither do I, but you must." "All right," said Dick, "I'll do my best." " And if you find there's a ' Philip ' in the case, then you just come back as mum as I've been all these years, and I'll go on for the rest of my life at Santa Clara." "All right, old fellow. And if there is a c Philip,' what am I to do with the money ? " " Oh, the money ? Well, you can use your discretion about that. You see, there was a little kid ; she was just three when I came away ; she may want a dot. Use your discretion, old chap, and you'll satisfy me. You know me well enough by this time to know what I should do if I were there in your shoes." " And supposing," said Dick, drawing rather hard at his pipe and speaking in jerks between the puffs, "supposing there's no ' Philip' just supposing, old fellow, on the off chance well, supposing 1 find thatthe little woman has been look- ing for you back all these years more than will- ing to comeout amltouse my discretion then ? " A Revelation. 2 3 For a moment Meredith did not speak. " Bring her out here ? " he said at last, " here ? " and he looked round at the corrugated iron hut, for it was little more, with its broad veranda, its rough chairs, its wholly unadorned bachelor ap- pearance, and then he looked back at Dick. " Don't you think," he said slowly, " that it would scare any woman to come out to this ? " " No, I don't," said Dick, stoutly ; " not any woman that was worth bringing." " But think of this this bare, beggarly place, compared with Frith's place for instance." " Well, the house is just as good as Frith's house, and the veranda is wider ; our chairs are bigger. It isn't got up inside as Frith's house is, but then Frith's wife is with him. When your wife has been with you three months, old fellow, you'll not know this hut, and you and I won't know each other. Remember you have got money enough now to bring up any things that are necessary to make the place habitable and fit for a lady ; and then, of course, don't forget that it was only a supposition. Perhaps I shall find a < Philip.' " Meredith's square face sank ; his great beetling brows bent themselves down over his fierce eyes, and his huge mustache bristled up on either side of his great hook nose. " You are right," he said. " For a minute or 2 4 A Matter of Sentiment. so I let my thoughts run on too fast. I almost fancied that I saw her here already. It only shows," he went on with a reckless kind of laugh, " what havoc a little sentiment can play with a man, even a man as hard, and practical, and commonplace as I am." " You are practical, that is perfectly true ; but I have never known you either hard or common- place," said Dick. " I know when I had that go of fever you nursed me like a woman." " Oh, stop that ! " cried Meredith. " And when Lassie got her foot crushed " " Shut up ! " growled the other. "Yes, I'll shut up, but you know what I mean." A groan from Meredith was the only reply which he vouchsafed to this real Englishman's eulogy. The two puffed away in the gathering darkness for a few minutes. Then Dick Vincent broke the silence. " I have a sort of idea, Roger," he said, " that there is going to be a change. I feel it all round me ; not from what you've told me to-night, but for days past. I feel that you and I are both of us on the brink of a change ; things are going to be better with us, old fellow. If we are not mil- lionaires, we are going to be comfortably off; and 1 don't know that that isn't the happier position ot the two. I have felt ever so many times lately A Revelation. 2 5 that we should be happier and better off if we were both married. Life's a miserable thing for a man without some womenkind. I feel that there are going to be great results from this trip home of mine ; I have conviction of it." " My dear Dick," said the other, " you have put new hope and new life into me to-night ; you have given me a new incentive to keep straight while you are away. If it happens that you are able to bring her back again, well and good. She'll come out here, and afterwards when you see somebody that you fancy, we can build another house on the ranche, for there's plenty of room, and there will be plenty of money." " But supposing I find a f Philip ' ? " " Well, I've told you what will happen to me, therefore you need not let any thoughts of me stop you from bringing a wife out here as soon as you like only in that case let's add to this house. Don't turn out, or turn me out into another ; I couldn't stand living by myself. I shouldn't last three months." " Old fellow," said Dick, stretching out his hand towards the glow of the other's pipe, " I understand you perfectly, and I shall never for- get as long as I live how entirely unselfish you are and always have been to me. I don't know," he went on, in a lighter tone, "that I shall ever avail myself of your generosity, for I have never 26 A Matter of Sentiment. seen the girl yet that I would thank you to put in command over me. Still, there's no knowing ; and a ranche with a woman on it is not half as forlorn a business as one that is run only by men. So, for both our sakes, old fellow, you may rest assured that I shall do my level best to bring a mistress home to Santa Clara." Temptation. CHAPTER III. TEMPTATION. A FEW days later Meredith and Dick Vincent turned their backs upon Santa Clara and set off towards the great cities. Both men had discarded the flannel shirts and moleskin trousers which was their habitual wear on the ranche, both were dressed in the ordinary tweed suits of English- men, and if Meredith had looked a magnificent animal, as he did, in his working clothes, he showed to supreme advantage in a rough brown suit of exellent cut which showed off his massive proportions extremely well. " Old fellow," said Dick, when he first en- countered him dressed for the journey, " I be- lieve it's worth while to wear moleskins and red flannel shirts as a regular habit, if it is only to see the difference that it makes when one gets into regular clothes. You look as fit as a fiddle in that kit. You had better change your mind and go the whole way with me." " No, I can't do that," said Meredith, rather gloomily. 18 A Matter of Sentiment. " You can keep out of sight, you know, whilst I prosecute inquiries. You can stay at my place while I go and find out whether there is a ' Philip ' or there isn't." " No, I am not fit for civilized society," Mere- dith returned, " and I wish I hadn't promised to go down as far as New York with you indeed, I don't know that I shall." " Nonsense, old chap ! You don't know what's good for you. I shan't go down to New York unless you do go. I'm not going to have you brooding alone here. You had much better make up your mind to go all the way, and lie low until I have done all the necessary detective business. " No, no ; second thoughts are never best, it's the greatest fallacy in the world to say that they are put forward by some ass who wanted a good excuse for breaking a promise or indulging him- self in something or other." " But you have not made a promise that you won't go to England." " No, I have not, but I have made up my mind ; and although I don't say my mind is any great shakes as a mind, at the same time, such as it is I am going to stick to it." So the two friends went down to Freeman's Rock together, accompanied so far by Jack Frogg, who had various business to do in the Temptation. 2 9 little town, and who, after parting with them, would bring the wagon and horses back to Santa Clara. " You will be down every week ? " said Mer- edith the last thing to the manager. " Yes, every week ; every Saturday," was the reply. " Then I shall write to you to Ainslie's to let you know what day I shall come back. Then you can either wait for me or come down again, as it suits you." " Right you are, Boss," was the reply. " Better change your mind and go on to England with me," put in Dick at this junc- ture. " Right you are there," was the free and easy remark of the manager. " There's nothing doing here now, and there won't be anything until early fall. The Boss can be spared perfectly well. And he knows me," Jack Frogg went on, " he knows I am a square man who would look after his interests properly." " Yes, I know you are, Jack," rejoined Meredith, promptly," I know you are. You are a good sort, but it don't suit my book to think of going home this trip, so don't either of you say another word about it." The three men spent the rest of the day together in Freeman's Rock, and in the early 3 A Matter of Sentiment. morning Jack Frogg saw his two employers off by the coach which runs from Freeman's Rock down to Midas Creek. Frogg himself was going to start on his homeward journey an hour or two later. It was part of the creed of the manage- ment of Santa Clara that unless absolutely neces- sary the animals on the estate, especially the horses, should never be over-pressed. He would drive half-way home, stop for a couple of hours' rest and feed at a house half-way, and arrive at Santa Clara in the early evening. The ride from Freeman's Rock to Midas Creek was one of a little over forty miles. The roads were bad, and the coach crowded. Dick soon found that Meredith was not inclined for talk, and suffered him to relapse into silence ; and so he sat in his corner, smoking hard and staring gloomily right ahead of him, taking no notice of the rough fun that was bandied from one to another. One or two of the passengers made efforts to draw him out, but when at last, goaded into speech, he replied to their sallies, it was with such savage brevity that their efforts at cheery friendliness soon ceased, and he was left entirely to himself. At last they reached Midas Creek. It was a somewhat larger place than Freeman's Rock, and better worthy of being called a town. The coach drew up at the principal hotel, a long, rambling Temptation. 3 1 building which had begun as a shanty and had been added to as the needs of the place grew. The landlord came out to receive the coach and its freight of passengers, an Englishman, cheery, and smooth of voice. He told them collectively that a good dinner was within, and bade them all a genial welcome. Meredith swung into the house without a word ; Vincent paused to pass the time of day in return to the landlord's greeting. Ten minutes later they were settled at the table along with all the other passengers. " I will take rye whisky," said Meredith. Dick looked up. Meredith carefully avoided his eye. " Blingee whiskly," said the Chinese boy, who was attending to the wants of the various diners. " Blingee d'lectly." " I say, Roger," said Dick in an undertone. Meredith took no notice. Dick gave him a vigorous nudge with his knee. " Roger ! " " What the devil do you want ? " " I say, old chap," he muttered into his ear, " don't start on whisky. You are put out." " What the is that to you ? " " Don't do it, old chap." " D it all ! Can't I do as I like ? Am I to be kept in leading-strings by a little whipper- 3 2 A Matter of Sentiment. snapper like you ? I'll drink what I like and do what I like." " All right. I wasn't thinking of trying to coerce you by physical means. A man of five- foot-ten of my build wouldn't have much of a chance against a giant like you. I speak for your own sake. It won't make much difference to me." " Very well, then ; shut up and hold your row. It's my affair, not yours." Thus rebuffed, Dick turned his attention to his right-hand neighbor, and began talking to him in cool and measured tones. For a minute or two Meredith sat without turning his head. Then he stealthily glanced in Dick's direction, saw that he was absolutely unruffled, so turned his eyes to his plate again ; but when the Chinese boy brought the whisky he helped himself liberally and dashed in a modicum of cold water. Then he pushed the bottle to Dick. " Whisky, Dick ? " " Thanks," said Dick, " thanks," and he, too, helped himself, though much more moderately than Meredith had done. They were all more or less tired after the long drive, and when the dinner had been cleared away, every one of the men dropped out and took up their positions in various parts of what the landlord, with a remembrance of his English coun- Temptation. 33 try home, always spoke of as the " house place." Here Meredith settled himself down in a great rocking-chair. Dick followed him by a sort of protective instinct. Meredith, upon whom the several glasses of rye whisky which he had taken during the course of dinner had begun to tell, looked up suspiciously at him. " Are you afraid I can't be trusted, Dick ? " he asked. " For the matter of that," answered Dick, " I know you can't. Old chap, you are moody and upset at my going away from Santa Clara. Take my advice ; send a line back to Frogg and come on all the way with me. You will be better for it I shall be better for it. But for goodness' sake, don't drink any more whisky to-night." " Look here, young 'un," said Meredith, " it strikes me I have been in leading-strings long enough to you. I am sick of it. I have lived the life of a dog these last few months. I am going to end it now for good and all." "You are not going to quarrel with me, are you ? " asked Dick. " Quarrel with you ? No, I am not going to quarrel with anybody ; but there is too much supervision about you too much superiority." " Oh, Roger ! Why, old fellow " " Yes, I know, I know. You know what's going to happen as well as I do. I've got another 3 34 A Matter of Sentiment. drinking fit coming on. You know it's no good to stop me ; wild horses couldn't do it. I didn't sleep last night. I felt as soon as I got on to that coach that I should start drinking as soon as I got here. Spare your breath. I'm hard on for a regular burst." " What about Santa Clara ? " " Santa Clara ? " "And the mistress that I've got to bring back if I come ? " " Ha ! ha ! You'll find another < Philip,' " Meredith cried with a wild sneer. " At all events, a glass or two to-night won't make much difference. If there isn't a c Philip,' you can send me a cable and I'll put myself into training to re- ceive a lady." One or two other men came up, and Dick turned away. He knew from old experience that it was perfectly useless to argue the point any further ; on the contrary he stepped straight out in search of the landlord. " Look here, landlord," he said, drawing him aside from the rest of the company, " I want you to do me a favor." " Why, yes, if I can, sir, of course I will." " My friend, Mr. Meredith, I am afraid, is going on the drink. I want to stop it. I have the most urgent reasons for wanting him to keep straight just now. He is perfectly unmanageable Temptation. 3$ when he is drinking ; he hasn't touched a thing for nearly two years until to-night. Can't you help me by watering his whisky or something ? " " Yes, I can do that, provided he doesn't help himself to the bottles of any of the others." " I wish you would, you'd be such a good chap. He is one of the sort that drink maddens ; it takes away all chance of sleep, and I shan't be able to go forward on my journey if he gets on the rampage here. Do your best, landlord." " I will that same, sir. Boy, whose orders are you going for now." " Big gen'l'man Meledith," answered the boy. " What has he ordered ? " " Bottle whiskly. Velly quick." " All right, I'll come. I'll make it half-and- half," he added in an undertone to Dick. Dick turned back into the more crowded part of the " house place." What would have happened if Meredith had received the bottle of whisky undoctored it is impossible to say ; as it was, he sat drinking far into the night, and when at last he reeled off to bed, he was as royally drunk as ever he had been in his life. To Dick he was amiability and apology itself. " Old chap," he said, as Dick helped him up from the rocking-chair, " I've broken out to-night. I'm awfully sorry. To tell you the truth, old fellow, 3 6 A Matter of Sentiment. I I feel at least I felt depressed and morose ; and fact was I dreaded your going away fact was, old chap, you are you are a sort of drag on the wheel. See ? " " Yes, I see," said Dick, " but what about Santa Clara and the mistress ? " " Oh, well, she won't mind. Just once, you know. Have a cold pump on my head to-mor- fow morning and we'll get on the cars and be out of this. Fact is, old chap, I'm a poor sort of tool, take me all round. You've got the patience of Job with me." " Don't take any more to-morrow," said Dick, holding him tight by the arm and looking at him anxiously, " don't do it, old fellow. Every burst you make you slip back years. Promise me you won't take any more." " Oh, promise ? Anything anything. Put my name to it if I could see to write." " Give me your word that will be quite enough," returned Dick. " Give you a hundred and fifty words. Gad, I would do that same ! Haven't enjoyed it feel much worse for it be chippy in the morning. Helpa chap to bed." So Dick helped him to bed, and saw him safely asleep. Truth to tell, he was utterly tired him- self. The anxiety and strain of trying to keep his partner straight had taken as much out of him Temptation. 37 as a long day's work would have done. As soon as he had seen Meredith safely asleep, he turned in himself, and slept a sound and dreamless sleep until the day was far advanced. When he awoke he opened his eyes with a start, glanced across to the other bed, and saw that it was empty. He got up and began hastily dress- ing. " By Jove ! " his thoughts ran. " What did I want to sleep like this for ? All because of being so infernally easily knocked up. Now that chap's gone out, and goodness knows what has happened to him." He hustled into his clothes, making a very scanty toilet, and hied him in search of Meredith. Alack, and alas, he found him sitting in the bar, a bottle of rye whisky in front of him, his glass three-parts full. It looked to Dick as if it was neat. As he perceived his friend standing at the door, Meredith caught up the glass and tossed off the contents at a single gulp. Dick strode up to him. " What did you promise me ? " he asked in a furious voice. " I don't know," said Meredith, " and I don't care." " You promised me you wouldn't touch another drop." " Did I ? What a fool I must have been ! 38 A Matter of Sentiment. My dear old boy, I've had nearly a bottle full this morning. It's bad whisky, as I've been tell- ing the landlord ; one has to drink quarts of it before it has any effect." " Roger, you promised." " Was I drunk when I promised ? " " Yes, you were drunk." " Well, my dear fellow, you couldn't expect a drunken man to keep his promise. I know I went off to bed last night in a good temper with everybody, and I'm pretty good-tempered this morning; but if I'm roused " Oh, come, don't give me any of that rot ! You made me a promise, and you've broken it that's the long and the short of it." "Yes," said Meredith, "that's the long and the short of it." He stretched out his hand and poured out nearly a tumblerful of the raw spirit. "I'm d d if you shall drink that," said Dick, snatching at the glass. In an instant Meredith was on his feet, the bottle in his hand. " You think," he cried, flourishing it around, " that you are going to bully over me over me ? Why, I could squeeze your windpipe forever with a twist of my finger and thumb. Put that glass down ! " " No ! " said Dick. " Put that glass down, I tell you." Temptation. 39 " No, not if you brain me ! " said Dick, fixing him with his steady blue eyes. Meredith sat down again. " Very well, then, do the other thing. I don't like drinking out of the bottle, it isn't gentlemanly ; but since you drive me to it, there's no choice." And then he raised the bottle to his lips and took a long drink. 4P A Matter of Sentiment. CHAPTER IV. THE END OF IT. FROM the moment that Roger Meredith raised the bottle to his lips Dick Vincent completely lost control over him. Beyond arranging with the landlord to water the whisky, he was power- less to do more than sit down and wait the issue of events. For one thing Meredith was, as I have said, a man of enormous stature and of im- mensely powerful physique ; it would have been impossible to use force, at all events useless for Dick to do so, and Dick was the only person in the hotel who was deeply interested in keeping Meredith straight. He gave up all idea of proceeding further on his journey, and determined to sit down and wait, with what patience he could, the usual issue of the drinking bout. Meredith's drinking bouts had always gone on the same lines a few days of mad drinking, then a period of sleeplessness with fits of uncontrollable frenzy. Between the inability to sleep, and the inability to eat, even Meredith's magnificent strength would break The End of It. 41 down in time, and with the helplessness of weak- ness would come the chance to knock off drink entirely and start life again with the diet of a little child. Then Dick would get him back to Santa Clara again, and begin anew the task of building him up into a steady-going reputable character. Dick was terribly downcast at the turn which events had taken. He blamed himself for not making some excuses and turning back when he first perceived how gloomy and depressed Mere- dith had become. " He has thrown himself back years ! " his thoughts ran on the second day after they reached Midas Creek, when Meredith was sitting in a corner of the " house place," no longer a man, but a mere whisky-consuming animal. His great frame seemed to have shrunk some- what ; his eyes, fixed on the fire or some part of the room where there were no people, were blood- shot and lack-luster, his hands were shaky, and when he managed to reel from one place to an- other his knees visibly gave under his weight. He was a pitiable object, and Dick determined, as he found that they were strangely enough un- known to any of the people in the hotel, that he would, as far as possible, keep his identity a secret. His friend's name he had already mentioned to the landlord, who was comparatively a newcomer to the neighborhood ; his own he was careful not to tell. 4* A Matter of Sentiment. Life in the Far West is very free and easy. Those who frequented the hotel kept as much as possible out of the way of Meredith, whom they regarded as a dangerous brute, too far gone in drink even to quarrel with. Some of them had no idea that the two were traveling together ; others, with scarce more than a passing thought, wondered that a smart young fellow like Dick could trouble himself to try to keep such a brute straight. And Meredith, mind you, had degen- erated into a mere brute. Those who had known him in his sober days would hardly have recog- nized the sodden, inert mass which he had now become. So three or four days went by. Dick did not keep very closely to the hotel, but prospected the immediate neighborhood thus quite unwit- tingly giving an impression that he was thinking of buying land and establishing himself near by. In truth, Dick was so miserable that he kept as much out of the hotel as possible, in order that he might not see the degrading process which would, he hoped, eventually bring Meredith once more under his control and influence. So four days had gone by. It happened on the evening of the fourth day that Dick returned from a prowl round the little town. He was met at the door by the landlord, who wore an anxious face. The End of It. 43 "We've had a most awful time," he exclaimed. " Your friend has gone clean off his head. Oh, yes, completely. The fact is he came into the bar for another bottle of whisky, and he had gone through the other so fast, and he came upon me so suddenly for it, that I hadn't time to doctor it. In fact, he took it off the shelf him- self." " And of course the raw spirit finished the busi- ness," said Dick, with a groan. " What are you going to do ? " " Do ? " said the landlord. "Well, he is like a dangerous lunatic at present. We look to you to do something." " I can't do anything," said Dick. " I am a mere thread-paper compared to him. Where is he ? " " Oh, he is up in that corner of the * house place ' by the window, jibbering like an ape, and muttering and talking to himself and hurling threats at somebody or other. I wish he was safe out of the place." " So do I," said Dick. " He hasn't had a bout of this kind for over two years. I suppose it's something in the atmosphere of the place that has started him on again. Anyway, there is nothing for it now but doing the best we can for him. I will go and see what he says to me ; sometimes he will let me do as I like with him. Anyhow, 44 A Matter of Sentiment. this sort of thing cannot last long, because he never sleeps and he never eats, and of course his strength gets reduced very quickly. He will be all right when once he gets the turn, you know." " I hope he will ! " said the landlord ; " I don't like having a wild beast in my place at all. I am not used to it." Dick laughed. " You will have to get used to some very queer things if you stay out here long," he returned. " Ay," said the landlord ; " poverty makes us acquainted with strange bedfellows." Dick turned round and looked at him. " You had a better position in the old country ? " " I had that same," said the landlord. " I needn't say that I don't carry the same name here that I did at home. I am doing well enough, I am able to make a living here, and a good one. I was a failure at it over there, but if my people could see me serving out whisky to such fellows as that, well I think those that are dead would turn in their graves, and those that are living would never get their hair to lie straight again." "Ah, well, life's a queer riddle," said Dick, " and that poor chap in there has found it as queer a riddle as most people. He's a good sort at the bottom, when he hasn't got these drinking fits," " Ah, me, that's the case with a good many The End of It. 45 men," said the landlord. " But I do wish you would go in and see what you can make of him." Dick turned on his heel and went into the " house place." It was practically deserted, al- though in a very short time dinner would be spread on the long table which ran from end to end of it. In a huge arm-chair near the fireplace a man sat, half-asleep. He was a stranger, who had arrived a short time before by the coach, and had settled himself down to wait until dinner should be ready. At a table further on two men were playing cards, with pipes in their mouths, and each with a glass of rye whisky at his elbow. In the corner, near to the " big window," as it was called, in contradistinction to two small win- dows on the opposite side of the room, sat Roger Meredith. He had turned his chair so that his back was towards the room, and the bottle of whisky which he had seized from the landlord was standing on the table beside him. Standing ? No, I should say lying in such a way as clearly showed that it was empty. His long legs were stretched out in front of him, his chin was sunk- upon his breast, his glaring eyes were fixed on the window, and his helpless hands hung over the arms of his chair. " Death ! " he was saying, as Dick softly ap- proached him. " Death ! I will be even with him yet. I have owed him a grudge these nine 46 A Matter of Sentiment. years ; I will pay it with interest. Psalm-singing devil ! He thought to come over me with his Bible quotations. Roger Meredith ain't that sort. Roger Meredith never forgets. Roger Meredith never forgives. Roger Meredith pays his debts. So I will pay this debt. Boy ! Boy, more whisky ! " The Chinese boy came running at the sound of his name. " More whiskly ? Blingee d'lectly." He seized the bottle and ran away back to the bar. Meredith went on muttering. " I know what it all meant. He wanted her and that was at the bottom of it. He had seen her ; he thought if I could get her out here that he'd get hold of her. The hound ! So he offered to lend me the money ; and now I've plenty of money heaps of it piles of it. I could run my fingers through it like a miser I could let it fall like a shower of golden rain. Boy ! More whisky ! " At this moment Dick went forward and laid his hand upon Meredith's shoulder. " Old chap," he said, " don't have any more whisky." Meredith looked up. " Who the devil are you ? " he asked with a ludicrous attempt at dig- nity. " What the deuce do you mean by inter- fering with me ? Can't a gentleman staying in an hotel order what hs likes ? I I resent your fir/* The End of It. 47 " Meredith ! Meredith ! Roger ! " " Do you want to borrow money of me ? " Meredith demanded. " Landlord ! Landlord ! " The landlord came hastily across the "house lace." " What is the matter now ? " he asked. " The matter is this counterjumper is inter- ring with me. Put him out. Do you hear ? *ut him out. Send me some more whisky." Dick shrugged his shoulders and turned way. " Am I to give him more whisky ? " said the indlord. " Well, there's no keeping him off it till he ;ets to a certain point, and then it will cure itself, iut for God's sake water it." " Oh, I'll water it," said the landlord. " But ou know the score is running up pretty much." " Oh, I'll come into the bar and settle the core. I'll pay up to to-night, and then you can nake me out a fresh bill in a day or two's time." Thus authorized, the Chinese boy carried yet nother bottle of rye whisky, or what purported o be rye whisky, to Roger Meredith. " I don't think," said Dick to the landlord, : that he'll go on very much longer. When he ;ets to this stage of talking utter rot he always ollapscs a bit, and then he's in for a good howl nd is amenable enough. If I could give him a trong opiate now I should be glad." 4 8 A Matter of Sentiment. time. " And Dick, you'll not be seven years before you come back again ? " " Oh, no, mother. I shall come back every year now, unless very unforeseen things should happen. You see, I didn't want to come back a pauper, and the governor had lent me a good bit of money, so I didn't feel justified until we really began to make. But now there is not likely to be any lack of money, although it is quite true I may not make millions. But I shall never stay seven years again, especially," he added, "with- out poor old Roger." " You will take another partner ? " asked his father from the other end of the table. " I don't think so. It isn't likely I shall meet another man I feel just the same to as I did to A Resolve. I0 3 Meredith. And a partnership is a very close busi- ness ; it is nearly as close as getting married." Mrs. Vincent rose in her place at that moment. " Come, girls," she said, " let us go into the drawing-room." So Dick and his father were left alone to- gether, but the conversation did not happen to be about Santa Clara. Mrs. Vincent reverted to the subject, however, when Dick joined them later in the drawing-room. " I suppose," she said, in an undertone, as Dick settled himself down on the sofa by her side, a very favorite corner of his, " I suppose you are going to look up Mr. Meredith's wife ? " " I am going to try and find her, mother. I am afraid," he added penitently, "that I have neglected it too long." " Oh, well, dear, it can make very little differ- ence to her, poor soul, after all these years of waiting. And it was really necessary that you should relax yourself a little after your long strain." " Well, it's not a pleasant task, anyhow. But still I must go through with it." " You won't be away longer than you can help ? " " No, no ; I don't want to go at all." " Dear boy ! " said Mrs. Vincent in her most caressing tones. I0 4 A Matter of Sentiment. So the following day Dick Vincent set off. He did not go straight to Blankhampton, but stayed the rest of the day and night in London ; and the day after that, by a moderately early train, he continued his journey, and in due course of time otherwise about five hours he found him- self in the well-known cathedral city. He turned his back upon the gaudy Station Hotel, and inquired of the cabman which was the most comfortable hotel in the city itself. The Jehu, who was ancient and well steeped in the traditions of Blankhampton, told him that at the Golden Swan he would find excellent accom- modation for both man and beast. " Well, you see, I haven't got a beast," said Dick, " but the Golden Swan will do me very well. Drive me there." And to the Golden Swan he w^s driven. He thought St. Thomas's Street, in which it lay, seemed rather narrow and antiquated ; he did not realize then that in its narrowness lay its chief charm. He found the Golden Swan an old- fashioned hostelry, where he was given a warm welcome and conducted to a large sleeping apart- ment, the furniture of which was very old and solid. The hangings were very white and spot- less, and the room like the rest of the hotel, had an indescribable air of long-established solidity. " Will you take anything, sir ? " asked the A Resolve. I0 5 chamber-maid, as she stood watching the porter of the hotel unstrap Dick's portmanteau. " Yes, I will have a whisky and soda when I come down-stairs." " Will you dine here to-night, sir ? " " Yes. I suppose there's a table d'hote ? " " Yes, sir, there's dinner at seven to half- past." " Very good. Tell them to keep a place for me." It was then nearly six o'clock in the evening. He washed his hands and brushed off the dusty effects of the journey. Then he went down-stairs and had a whisky and soda. After that, he lighted a cigarette and stood on the steps of the hotel watching the rank and fashion of Blank- hampton go up and down the street. He had heard before that Blankhampton was famous for its pretty girls, but he had not been prepared for the panorama of beauty which spread itself out that evening before his astonished eyes. They came past in twos and threes, and each one seemed to be prettier than the last. " Gad ! this is the placet o come to," he said to himself. He was a singularly uninflammable man ; had he not been so he would certainly never have stayed seven years at Santa Clara with no more than an occasional jaunt down to the western io6 A Matter of Sentiment. towns, in which beautiful women did not as a rule flourish. " Now I come to think of it," his thoughts ran, " St. Aubyn used to say what a jolly billet Blankhampton was. And I remember he raved about the girls. It seems to me that it has kept up its tradition ; these girls are extraordinarily good-looking." Then he looked back into the hotel. " What regiment is quartered here now ? " he asked of the barmaid, who was to be found behind a huge glass screen opposite to the door. " The Black Horse," the girl replied. " The Black Horse ? You don't say so ! By Ji " ove ! " You seem pretty much astonished," said the girl. " Well, I am. It was my old regiment." " Really ? " " Yes. I must go and call to-morrow." Then he turned back and took up his position on the step once more. He did not, however, stay there very long, for just as he was lighting a fresh cigarette, a girl came along the street whose beauty so far outshone all others who had gone before her that Dick was, figuratively speaking, knocked all of a heap. She was very plainly and simply dressed, and she was quite alone. For a moment Dick stood glaring blankly A Resolve. I0 7 after her, the match still in his hand. It was not, indeed, until the flame reached his fingers that he realized how completely he had been as- tounded and dumfounded by this vision of beauty. Then, as quick as thought, he de- scended the steps and gave chase up the street. The girl herself was so unconscious of his pres- ence that Dick instinctively was all carefulness not to attract her attention, but he had a good satisfying stare at her ; noted the simple gray coat and skirt, white sailor hat bound with white ribbon, the neat gray gloves, and firm light foot- step. She was evidently out on business of some kind, for she went into several shops and came out of them, and set off down the street carrying some small parcels and a library book under her arm. He followed her no further than the end of the street ; she was not the kind of girl that a man follows for very long. Then he retraced his steps to the hotel, and once more interviewed the pretty barmaid. "Is there a street in Blankhampton called Ogledal ? " " Oh, yes," she replied. "Is it far from here ? " " Well, you go right up to the top of the street, and then you come to a street which goes straight down to the cathedral. You turn to the right when you get to the bottom of the street, and go 108 A Matter of Sentiment. round the cathedral to the right, and it's the third street you come to leading out of the parish precincts." " Oh, I see ; thank you very much. What sort of a street is it ? " " Oh, a queer little old-fashioned street with a double turning in it." " What sort of people live there ? " " Well, lik call the old streets in Blankhamp- ton," the girl replied, " there are some big houses and some little pokey houses. Some of the best people live in houses that lead out of Ogledal." " Oh, I see ; thank you very much." And Dick turned on his heel and was soon swinging away up the street at a good rapid pace. He found the cathedral easily enough, and by following exactly the directions that had been given to him soon saw the curious name of Ogle- dal put up on a board at the end of a narrow street. So this was where Roger's wife had found a shelter. It was a queer street. At the end at which he entered it there was to the right a low, old-fash- ioned house such as you never find except in the neighborhood of a cathedral ; on the other was a long garden wall. Then another wall on either side, evidently the boundary of private gardens ; then a wide old entrance into a great square, with A Resolve. I0 9 a splendid house, almost like the houses you see in the older parts of French towns, and half-a- dozen small houses on either side. Then a curious house with " St. Giles's Rectory " written on the door-plate ; then another wretched en- trance into a court. Then half-a-dozen common- place houses, and opposite some kind of manu- factory or rather some kind of works ; then a brewer's yard and several tall chimneys ; then some cottages. This was on the right side of the street. As he walked on the left, with its com- monplace modern houses, he came to two semi- mansions. They were respectively numbers twenty-three and twenty-one. So he was close upon number nineteen. Number nineteen was a small, old-fashioned house, with a window full of plants, a framed plate of fashions, and a sheet of blue glass in a gilt frame, on which was written in letters of gold " Miss Beazley, Dress and Mantle Maker." Dick stood still for a moment looking at the fuchsias and geraniums, at the simpering fashion plate, and the blue glass with its gilt letters. " Miss Beazley," he muttered. " Well, she might know something. I may as well ask." Then he stepped to the door and rapped half- a-dozen times with the little tin-pot knocker. At first there was no response. He waited a few minutes, and then knocked again. Then there 110 A Matter of Sentiment. was a scuffling and a scurrying of feet within, and the door was opened by a snub-nosed girl of about fourteen or fifteen years old. " Does Mrs. Meredith live here ? " inquired Dick. The girl looked up in a scared kind of way at the tall soldierly young man. " Mrs. Meredith ? No, I don't know that name," she said. " Miss Beazley lives here." " Yes, I see she does by the plate in the win- dow. Has she lived here long ? " " I don't know, I'm sure. I have not been with her very long." "Is Miss Beazley at home ? " " No, sir, she isn't at home. She's out." " Oh ! When will she be at home ? " " Well, she might be home about nine to-night. She's gone up to Water Muggleston to fit on a lady." " To fit on a lady ? Oh ! You think she'll be at home about nine ? " "Yes, I'm sure she'll be at home about nine, because the train gets in at twenty-five minutes before nine." " I see. If I came back at nine you think she would see me ? " " Oh, yes, she'd see you." " Or could I see her in the morning ? Nine o'clock is rather late to answer inquiries." A Resolve. " Yes, I dare say you could see her in the morn- ing." "Will she be at home at ten o'clock, do you think ? " " Oh, yes,. I should think she'd be at home at ten o'clock." At this juncture another voice, proceeding from the dim recesses of the little house, spoke to the girl. " What does the gentleman want, Mary Ann ? " " He wants Miss Beazley." " Well, Miss Beazley is out. Is there anything I can do ? " The voice came nearer and nearer, and then a stout elderly person, wiping a pair of wet hands upon a not too clean apron, came round the corner and into view. " I am Miss Beazley's mother," she said to Dick Vincent. " May I ask what you want of her ? " " Well, to tell you the truth," answered Dick, " I don't know anything of Miss Beazley at all. I want a Mrs. Meredith who lived here in this house about fifteen years ago. I suppose you haven't been here as long as that ? " " Mrs. Meredith ? Would you please walk in, sir ? Come into the parlor." So Dick strolled in and stood, looking very tall indeed, in the little parlor with its wax flowers and its crochet antimacassars. 112 A Matter of Sentiment. "Thank you very much. I'm afraid I'm troubling you, but the fact is I want to see Mrs. Meredith on most important business, and with as little delay as possible. If you can give me any information about her I should be most grateful to you." " No, I can't," said Mrs. Beazley, still wiping her hands and gazing reflectively through the screen of plants out into the street. " 1 can't. We've been here three years come Michaelmas ; and before us there was a Mr. Johnson used to live here. He was a naturalist ; he used to you know, sir, a naturalist stuff birds, and blow eggs, and mount butterflies and things of that kind. He was here for a many years." " Oh ! And where is he ? " " Well, Mr. Johnson, he's dead," said the old lady. " Mrs. Johnson, his wife, likewise she's dead." " Can't get any information out of them," said Dick. " No, that you can't not in this world, at least. But they had a married daughter, and she used to live in Briergate. She was married to a very clever young fellow that sang in the parish choir. He sang alto ; and then his voice cracked and he got a place as organist out in the country somewhere, and took pupils. Now she would A Resolve. "3 know, if Mrs. Meredith lodged with her father and mother, she would know all about her." " But where does she live ? " asked Dick. " Ah, now, that's slipped my memory. But when my daughter comes home she's got a better memory than I have, and she keeps going with people more ; I think young people do. So if you could make it convenient to call round to- morrow, sometime when my daughter would be likely to be in and that will be all the morning I dare say she could give you the information you want." " I am sure," said Dick, " I am much obliged to you. If I were to come in between ten and eleven, would that suit Miss Beazley, should you think ? " " Well, sir, I should think it would. I've not heard of anything particular that she's got to do at that time. I know she's a lady coming to be fitted at twelve." " Well, I'll come before eleven," said Dick, "and I'm extremely obliged to you." " I haven't done nothing for you yet, sir," said Mrs. Beazley, following him to the door. " Well, you have shown willing," said Dick, taking off his hat with a flourish. 8 IJ 4 A Matter of Sentiment. CHAPTER X. THE FIRST LINK IN THE CHAIN. BETWEEN a very excellent dinner and the feel- ing that he was on the high-road to the discovery of Mrs. Meredith, and the fact that he had seen the most beautiful girl that day that he had ever seen in his life, Dick Vincent passed the evening in a very much happier frame of mind than he had imagined he could possibly be in when he left London that morning. He was up betimes for life in California does not tend to the formation of habits of laziness. He had a regular Blankhampton breakfast too and let me tell you that Blankhampton hotels are famous for their good cheer, especially in the earliest meal of the day and then about half- past ten, feeling very well fortified for carrying on his quest, he sauntered up the street, and once more knocked at the door of number nineteen, Ogledal. The little maid was ready, and answered his knock promptly. " Yes, sir, Miss Beazley is in. Step this way, please, sir." Once more Dick found himself in the little The First Link in the Chain. "5 parlor, and almost immediately the old lady whom he had seen the previous evening came beaming in. " Good morning ! I knew my daughter would know," she remarked. " She has such a much better memory than I have. I can remember anything as happened when I was a little girl, but when you ask me about last week I'm done. Here she is. Now, honey, this is the gentle- man." " My name is Vincent," said Dick, with a very polite bow to the young dressmaker. She was a pale, slim girl some three or four- and-twenty, and she addressed herself directly to the visitor. " You wanted to know about Mr. Johnson's daughter married daughter ? " " Well, I did and I didn't. Your mother was kind enough to tell me last night that she thought the lady would be able to give me the informa- tion I require. I am really looking for a Mrs. Meredith who lived in this house fifteen years ago. Whether she rented the house, or whether she lodged in it I have not the least idea." " Oh, she must have lodged in it," said Miss Beazley, "because the Johnsons lived here for about five-and-twenty years, and we took it of them at least, we took it after they left." " Oh, I see. Then you think she must have lodged with the Johnsons ? " 116 A Matter of Sentiment. " I think she must have done. I don't know anything about it myself, but I'm sure Mrs. Johnson's daughter would know. She married a gentleman called Pilkington. He was in the choir at the parish ; in fact, he lodged with the Johnsons." " Oh, I see. And do you happen to know where they live now ? " " Yes. His voice broke, and he got a place as organist at Bensehill, and he teaches music and so on. I think they do very well." " And where is Bensehill ? " " Well, Bensehill is about three miles from Blankhampton." " How does one get there ? You see, I am quite a stranger to this neighborhood." " Oh, it's easy enough to get there. You can take a cab, or you can walk," smiling at him, " or you can go by train." " Oh, I see. I can go by train. That would be the quickest, wouldn't it ? " "Yes. It's on the Rockferry line, and trains are pretty frequent. Anybody in Bensehill will, of course, tell you where the Pilkingtons live." " Oh, yes. Well, Miss Beazley, I must thank you, and your mother too, very much indeed for your kindness to a perfect stranger. You per- haps would like to know why I am so anxious to find Mrs. Meredith. The truth is I have just The First Link in the Chain. "7 come from California, and some relatives of hers there at least, a relative of hers there asked me to find her out if I could. So you see, I am anxious to find her as quickly as possible." " Well, I'm sure," said Miss Beazley, " if any- body can tell you anything about her it will be Mrs. Pilkington." " And to Mrs. Pilkington I will go by the first train that will convey me. So good morning, and thank you both a thousand times." The old lady stood on the doorstep and watched him go swinging away up the street. " That's a handsome young feller, Jenny," she said. " He's got the same look as the officers have so clean and so smart. Well, I'm sure I hope he'll find his Mrs. Meredith." " So do I," said her daughter. " And I hope he's brought good news to her, whoever she is." " Hey dear," with a sigh, " it's a hard and weary world." " Lor', mother, I wish we had a smart young man coming and inquiring for us." " Well, my dear," said Mrs. Beazley, " there's no knowing what fate won't do for you ; but I'm afraid, though you're so genteel, Jenny, with yer nice pale face and yer slim figure, that if any smart young men came after you, and they saw your poor old mother, it would sort of give 'em the cold shivers." 118 A Matter of Sentiment. " Go along with you, mother," said Miss Beazley. Meantime Dick had gone briskly up the street, across the cathedral precincts, and down St. Thomas's Street to the Golden Swan. A fresh inquiry of the buxom barmaid elicited the fact that there was a train to Bensehill at five minutes to twelve. He determined to go by that. He filled in the time until the train was due by tak- ing a brisk walk round the city walls, and walked into the station with just time to buy a newspaper and take his ticket. He found Bensehill the usual little roadside station, with a pompous little station-master and one antiquated porter. " How far is the village from here ? " he in- quired of the latter as he took his ticket. " The village ? Three-quarters of a mile," was the reply. " Can you tell me whether a Mr. Pilkington lives in the village ? " " Oh, yes. Mr. Pilkington, he lives in the village, to be sure. Plays the music on Sunday, and teaches in the week-day." " Yes, that's the man," said Dick, cheerfully. " Yes, he lives well, I doubt if I could make you understand, sir. You'd better ask at the post-office. You'll find that right in the center of the village." The First Link in the Chain. "9 " All right ; thank you very much. Good morning." So Dick left the station with its oyster shells and its glowing red geraniums behind him, and swung steadily away in the direction of the vil- lage. The post-office was easy enough to find. The postmistress was a garrulous old lady, who at once proceeded to give him the proper direc- tions for reaching the Pilkingtons' house, and also as much of the Pilkington history as she could cram into the two or three minutes that Dick remained in the little shop. " Ah, yes, sir, a clever man what I may say a genius ; thrown away on this little village, I must confess, although I have lived in Bensehill all my life a clever man -and a genius. We've brilliant services on Sundays ; we never had be- fore Mr. Pilkington came. The rector, he said to me time and again, Miss Jenkins,' said he, c you can play the piano, why can't you play the organ ?' Which, as I told the rector more than once, it isn't an organ but a harmonium. * Then,' said he, c the easier for you to play ; because it's the nearest ap- proach to a piano.' But it's one thing playing the piano for your own pleasure and your friends' amusement, and it's quite another thing playing in public and for the service of the Almighty." " That's perfectly true ! " said Dick. " But, still, if one does one's best, you know." 120 A Matter of Sentiment. " Ah, yes, yes ; that was the argument the others used particularly the rector. And then by some merciful chance, as far as I was concerned, Mr. Pilkington came along. A first-class musician ! Been years in the parish choir the parish, that is the cathedral, you know, sir, at Blankhampton. Something had happened to his voice ; I don't know what, but he and his wife wanted a country place where the air would be pure, and where he could play the organ and pick up a living in the neighborhood. Oh, they had a trifle. Mrs. Pil- kington was a Miss Johnson. Her father was a very clever man not to say a learned man and she was an only child. Oh, she has a nice little tidy income of her own, and you know a tidy little income makes people independent." " I'm sure it does. They showed their good sense in coming here," said Dick. " And which is the way to their house ? " " Well, you go down this lane here, and you take the second turning to the right, and you'll find the house like a little bower it is now, all smothered in roses. Mrs. Pilkington is a very ladylike little person, quite genteel." " I see," said Dick, " down the lane, and sec- ond turning to the right ? " " Yes, that's it." " Is there a name on the house ? " " Well, there isn't a name on the house that I The First Link in the Chain. I2T ever saw myself, and their letters are simply ad- dressed f Dead Man's Lane ' or just Bensehill ; but there are only three houses in that part of the lane, and the Pilkingtons' house has a mulberry tree right in the middle of the lawn." " I shall find it," said Dick. " Thank you a thousand times." " Nice pleasant-spoken gentleman. I wonder if he's an old lover of Mrs. Pilkington's come back again ? " said the old romantic old postmis- tress. So Dick went down the lane and took the second turning to the right, speedily coming into sight of a small rose-wreathed house which boast- ed of a mulberry tree in the middle of the little lawn which skirted the road. Here he stopped, satisfied himself that it was the house, thrust open the little gate, and strolled up the graveled path- way to the rose-covered porch. A little maidservant came to the door in answer to his summons. " Does Mrs. Pilkington live here ? " asked Dick. " Mrs. Pilkington she do live here," was the reply. " Would you give her this card and ask her if she would see me for a few minutes on business ? " said Dick. He had been so long in California, and before 122 A. Matter of Sentiment. that his life had run in channels well away from suburban London, that it never occurred to him that had he been living in Clapton or East Croy- don, it was the last message he would have sent in to the unknown mistress of a house. Bense- hill was also, presumably, too far removed from the beaten track of ladies and gentlemen who pay visits of a business kind to take fright at his mes- sage. The little maid left him standing at the door, and then came running back saying with an eager gasp that " Mistress would be pleased if you would walk into the parlor." So into the parlor Dick walked. It was a neat little room, a shade more refined than the similar apartment in the house of Mrs. Beazley. In one corner there stood a piano ; some blooming plants and some nice green ones stood in the window. There was a broad couch covered with immacu- lately clean chintz, and one or two illustrated papers on the table. Dick decided in his own mind that Mr. or Mrs. Pilkington, or both of them, must be distinctly superior in class to Mrs. Pilkington's original status. He had just arrived at this conclusion when the door opened and Mrs. Pilkington came into the room. In her hand she held his card. " You wanted to see me ? " she said. " I wanted to ask you a question," he replied, " Did you ever know a Mrs. Meredith ? " The First Link in the Chain. I2 3 She looked at him with an air of surprise. "Yes, I did." " Is she living ? " " I believe she is." " Is she married again ? " " Oh, no, certainly not. She never had any proof of her husband's death." " Can you give me her address ? " " I think I can." " I don't want it for any unpleasant purpose indeed, rather the contrary," said Dick. " I shall at least have the pleasure of bringing the mystery of her husband's long silence to an end." " You knew him ? " " I knew him very well. We lived together for seven years." "In America?" "In California. We were partners. I never knew until quite recently that Mr. Meredith was married. I am looking for his wife on his be- half." "Then," said Mrs. Pilkington, " I will give you her address. You will find her at Gatehouses." " Gatehouses ? Where is that ? " " It is a village about a mile and a half from Blankhampton. Anybody in the town will tell you in which direction." " I thank you very much," said Dick. She lives there ? " I2 4 A Matter of Sentiment " Yes, she has lived there for some years. Her daughter is the mistress of the infant school." " Oh, I see. Her daughter is not married then ? " " No, she is not married. She is young." " Yes, she must be young from what Meredith told me," said Dick. " Well, Mrs. Pilkington," holding out his hand, " I am extremely obliged to you more than I can say. I expected to have much more trouble in finding my old friend's wife, and you have made the way very easy for me. Good-bye. Thank you again." So he was soon striding away down the lane again. He found when he got to the post-office that he would have to wait an hour and a half for the next train back to Blankhampton, so instead of going straight back to the station, there to cool his heels until the train should arrive, he went across the street to the village inn and asked the apple-cheeked landlady what she could do for him in the way of lunch. Gatehouses. I2 5 CHAPTER XI. GATEHOUSES. WHEN Dick Vincent found himself once more at Blankhampton, he lost no time inquiring the road to Gatehouses ; in fact, he got into a cab at the station and told the man to drive him to Gatehouses. It was then nearly three o'clock. " How far is it ? A mile and a half? " " Thereabouts, sir." To Dick it seemed a very short mile and a half; but then, although he was determined to find Mrs. Meredith, he was not at all anxious for the interview to begin. " Find out," said he to the cabman, when they approached the village, " where Mrs. Meredith lives." " All right, sir." The house of Mrs. Meredith was not difficult to find, and before Dick knew where he was the cabman had drawn up at its door. " You had better wait for me," he said. He felt somehow as if he would not want to walk back into the city again. He knocked at the door. It was opened by a 126 A Matter of Sentiment. lady whom he at once recognized as the original of the portrait which Meredith had shown him. " Are you Mrs. Meredith ? " said Dick, taking off his hat. " Yes, I am." Her tone was one of slight surprise. " May I come in ? " " Oh, certainly." "My name is Vincent Richard Vincent. I have just come from California." Mrs. Meredith, who had preceded him into the dainty little sitting-room, turned with a start and a gasp. " You have come from him ? " she said, sharply. " Yes," said Dick, simply, " I have." " After all these years after all these years ! " said the little woman with a sob in her breath. " And he hasn't forgotten me ! " " He had never forgotten you," said Dick, " although he had not spoken of you until the other day to his best friend." " That was you ? " she said. Dick's nervous face relaxed into a half smile. u Yes," he said. " For seven years Meredith and I were partners. We lived together ; we were everything to each other." " And he spoke of me at last. Sit down, Mr. Vincent. Tell me everything," she entreated in a shaking voice. " This has come upon me very Gatehouses. I2 7 suddenly. I had begun to think that he had forgotten me, perhaps, and that he had formed new ties." " Never ! " said Dick, " never ! I never knew him look at a woman. It was revelation to me when he told me of your existence, when he showed me your picture." " My picture ? " " Which he had carried about with him all these years, and of which I never suspected the exist- ence. I'd better begin at the beginning, Mrs. Meredith ; it will make it easier. Meredith went out to there seek his fortune." " Yes, yes." " He sought, God knows, poor chap, he sought it earnestly enough, but he didn't find it. He had left you in a cock-a-hoop sort of way, pro- phesying that in a few months there would be a palace ready to receive you. There has never been a palace, Mrs. Meredith. There is a cor- rugated iron hut on the ranche which is called Santa Clara but it is no palace." " It would have been a palace to me," said Mrs. Meredith, in a broken voice. " Well," Dick went on, " he took it to heart. He was ashamed to write and own up that he had been a failure out there as he had been a failure over here. And he drank more than was good for him," 128 A Matter of Sentiment. " My poor Roger ! It was his one failing." " Yes, he was his own enemy," said Dick. " So he went on, year after year, and at the end of eight years he had only managed to scrape to- gether, just at the end of that time, a poor little capital, that wouldn't have been of much good to any one unless pure chance had come in and turned it into luck. Then we met. I had been in a cavalry regiment my father is a squire down in Kent my lungs were dickey, the doctors told me if I didn't get into a certain kind of climate I shouldn't live through a second winter. They recommended California, and I was never an idle beggar, and so I left home and went to try a ranche. I was young, I was green. I met your husband. He took a fancy to me, and I took a fancy to him. I put my bit of capital together with his less bit of capital and his experience, and we threw in our lot together. It's very hard work is ranching, Mrs. Meredith, it's a process of disillusionment ; and we only kept body and soul together. I had help once or twice from home, and at last we turned the corner, and we began to think that one day our ranche might be worth having as a ranche, you understand." " Yes, yes," eagerly. " Go on." " Well, that year we made a profit. It wasn't much any farmer at home would have turned up his nose at it. We didn't ; and next year we Gatehouses. I2 9 made a better profit ; and at the end of last year, when we had put six years of hard work into our ranche all the year round work, mind you, not just riding about neatly togged up and giving an order here and an eye there, but hard, laborious, manual, back-breaking labor then Fortune smiled upon us. We discovered oil on our ranche or the oil discovered the ranche, I should say, for it bubbled up one morning, a stink of paraffin, and Meredith knew that our fortunes were made. I don't say that the ranche is worth millions, but at the end of that year we had ten thousand pounds to divide between us." " And then he thought of nie ? " " Then, Mrs. Meredith, I determined to come home. I had been out seven years, I hadn't seen any of my own people, and the way was perfectly clear for one or both of us to come home for a spell. I begged Meredith to come back and stay with my people, and then he told me about you." The little woman shut her eyes and leaned her head back against the chair in which she was sit- ting. " He hadn't forgotten me," she said. " No, he hadn't forgotten you. But I couldn't get him to come back." "But why not?" " I think," said Dick, hesitatingly, " that he felt a certain amount of reluctance or at least, not exactly reluctance, Mrs. Meredith, but a sense 9 X 3 A Matter of Sentiment. that he had no right to come home to claim you. You see, he had been away fifteen years ; he hadn't written to you for the greater part of that time, and it was more than possible that you might have married again." " I ? " she cried. " Oh, surely Roger knew me better than that." " Well, he alternated between hopes and fears. He felt somehow that you would be as he left you, and yet again that you might have been tempted into marrying once more." " And if I had ? " " If you had, I was to find out if you were happy. He had no wish to be a second Enoch Arden, making things unpleasant after so long a silence. If you had married again and you were quite young enough to have married many times over he would have stayed on the other side of the Atlantic forever." " But you see I am not married again," said Mrs. Meredith, looking at him with a triumphant smile. " I am a little older, but then so is he. I have not altered towards him in the very least, and evidently by what you tell me neither has he." " He is older," said Dick. He felt that he was getting very near to a disclosure. His heart beat to suffocation. He did not like to look at her. " He is older, Mrs. Meredith. You see, Gatehouses. I 3 l he has lived a hard wild life out there ; not wild in the way of women, but wild in the way of hav- ing no refinements, no comforts. From time to time he drank pretty hard." " But the life hasn't told upon you, Mr. Vin- cent," she said, deliberately. " No, not much. But then I was only three- and-twenty when I was out there ; Roger was over forty." He thought that she would notice he spoke in the past tense, but she did not do so. " Then again," he went on, finding that she did not take the cue from him as he had intended, " I have always been a very temperate man ; drink was never a temptation to me. Drink leaves its mark on a man ; it left its mark upon him. Not as it would have done if he had been a steady sort, and it was not as apparent to others as it seemed to me. When he began to think of the possibility of your seeing him again " " Then he did think of the possibility ? " "He did. He talked it over with me several times." " He wanted me ? " said the little woman, eagerly. " He always wanted you," said Dick. " Then, Mr. Vincent, since my husband is now on the high-road to wealth, there is no reason why I shouldn't sell up my things here and go out to A Matter of Sentiment. California to join him. I can easily raise the money for the cost of our journey." " So far as that goes, Mrs. Meredith," said Dick, " there's no need for you to think twice about the money. I told you that Roger and I had a sum of ten thousand pounds to divide be- tween us. His half he paid over into a bank for transmission to England in my name ; I have come over here empowered to hand it to you that is to say if I found you under circumstances in which I could ; if you were not married again." " Roger my husband sent me five thousand pounds ? " " He sent you five thousand pounds. I've not got the papers on me, because I don't think it quite safe to carry them about with me ; but I can pay it over into your into any bank you like, in a few hours." " I shall certainly go out to what is the place called ? " " It is called Santa Clara." " Santa Clara ? My name is Clara," she said. " Yes, it was called so after you." " I shall certainly go out," said Mrs. Mere- dith. " Oh, my dear sir," she burst out, " how am I ever to thank you for the trouble you have taken in finding me out, in coming so delicately to break the news of my great joy ? Do you Gatehouses. '33 think you have been so good, I can safely ask you a question I wouldn't put to many others do you think I shall find myself welcome at Santa Clara ? " " Meredith lived on the hope of your coming out to him," said Dick. Again he spoke in the past tense ; again Mrs. Meredith failed to note the fact. By this time Dick began to feel himself in desperate straits. Here was this little woman, and a right pretty little woman she was, too, ready for any scheme which would result in taking her back to the man who had basely no, not basely, but deliberately deserted her. Dick Vincent had not had a very wide expe- rience of women, but he was quite certain that if his own father had abandoned his mother to fifteen years of absolute silence, and had shown himself at the end of that time, his mother would have had none of him. He felt that he might say the same of either of his sisters. This little woman seemed to feel nothing except that she was at one end of a journey and Roger was at the other; that the sooner she could make the two ends meet the better. He had to break it to her somehow or other ; that it was no use her going out to Santa Clara, that the money had come too late, that there was no Meredith at the other end of the journey. J 34 A Matter of Sentiment. " My daughter," Mrs. Meredith said, break- ing in upon his thoughts " I have a daughter, you know ; she is eighteen nearly nineteen, in fact ; she will be in presently. I am perfectly cer- tain that she will be as eager as I am to go out and begin an entirely new life in a new country. We have been very happy here ; I think we have the respect of everybody in Gatehouses. We visit at the vicarage ; we are quite, in a modest way, in society ; but when you have only about three pounds a week, and you have to keep up a decent appearance on that, it is very poor fun being in a kind of society. It's a narrow life a pinching life. I don't say that we haven't been happy together, because my girl is everything that the most exacting mother could desire ; good as gold, and unselfish to a degree. She doesn't remember her father ; she will be so glad to find him almost, I think, as glad as I am." " Mrs. Meredith," said Dick, " I haven't quite told you everything." " But you have told me enough," she rejoined, "more than enough to make me eager and anx- ious to go out and see my husband in his own home, in the home that he has put together, he and you, with years of hard, almost unrewarded toil." " You wouldn't like it," said Dick. " Santa Clara is no place for a lady." Gatehouses. *35 His conscience smote him as the words passed his lips, for he remembered how persistently he had buoyed up Roger Meredith with his pictures of the difference that a lady would make to Santa Clara. " Oh, I should like it," she exclaimed. " So would my girl. You mustn't misunderstand my life here, we are not like two women who have lived in the lap of luxury. And by all accounts Roger will have plenty of money now from this oil well of yours, so that the place, ( even if it is rather rough, can be improved and made more like a home. I am not a useless fine lady, Mr. Vincent. I can do anything. I can cook, I can carpenter, I can house-paint, I can do anything." " I didn't quite mean that," said Dick. " There's money enough and to spare now, but you think it's a wild, free, happy, joyous, devil- may-care sort of life out there. It isn't. It's very sordid ; it's hard work all the time ; even at the best even with an oil well. There's nothing D romantic about California ; it's the grave of all hopes ! " X 3 6 A Matter of Sentiment. CHAPTER XII. TOLD AT LAST. As Dick uttered the words, " It's the grave of all hopes," Mrs. Meredith looked at him fixedly. " The grave of all hopes ! " she repeated. " Why, what do you mean ? I don't say that some of my hopes have not been buried there these fifteen years, it wouldn't be true if I did ; but they are not all buried, Mr. Vincent. Roger is there ; Roger has ( struck ile' ; Roger has sent home a fortune. Don't say that it's the grave of all hopes." " I do say it," said Dick. " 1 know that we shan't want money in the future, whatever else we may want." " You are keeping something back from me. Is you don't want me to take this journey ? " " I don't ! " he said candidly. " Why not ? Didn't you tell me Roger wanted me?" " I did." " Mr. Vincent, did he come with you after all ? Is he in England ? Is he in Blankhampton ? Is he in that cab that is waiting at the door ? " Told at Last. 137 " No, Mrs. Meredith, Roger is not in England. Roger is not in California." " What do you mean ? " " I don't quite know how to tell you," he said, very gravely. " To tell me ? What ? Not that Roger is dead ? " " I am afraid I can't tell you anything else." " Dead ! " she repeated the word like one stunned. " After all these years to find him only to lose him again in the same moment. Oh, oh, how hard life is ! When did he die ? Tell me about it. Don't leave out a single detail ; tell me everything." " Well, I'll begin at the beginning. As I told you, Roger was most anxious that I should trace you out ; that I should find you, alive or dead. If alive, that I should pay over the five thousand pounds of which I told you. I have told you that on his part he cared as much as he had ever done, but that a sense of shame held him back from coming to seek you out himself. He loved you all these years, but was not sure that he would find a welcome now. I assured him to the con- trary " " Oh, you good fellow ! " she cried, stretching out her hand. Dick took the hand and held it within his own. " I assured him. One look at your face was ! 3 8 A Matter of Sentiment. enough when he showed me that portrait of you. I knew that you wouldn't have changed ; you are not the kind of woman that ever changes. I couldn't convince him ; I couldn't persuade him to come home and stay with my people while I made inquiries. And at last I came without him. He saw me part of the way down ; he was very moody, very unlike himself from the time that we left Santa Clara. I thought that he was up- set with the anxiety of not knowing whether you would be the same or not and I believe that I was right. " But when we got down to Freeman's Rock he began drinking. I did everything I could to stop it ; I offered to go back, but no, he came on with me to Midas Creek. He Oh, Mrs. Mere- dith, I did everything I could. I took the land- lord into my confidence ; I coaxed and threatened and persuaded ; 1 did everything possible. It was useless. For two years he hadn't touched anything ; he had been living entirely on the square. It might have been the excitement, it might have been the temptation ; anyway, one evening when I was down at the store getting something, he went off his head. He drew his revolver on those that tried to restrain him, and in the scrimmage that followed he was shot dead." " And he is dead ? " Told at Last. '39 " Mrs. Meredith, he is dead. You you I words cannot express what I feel in having to come and tell you this. I don't know how to break it to you ; I daresay I have bungled it ; we men are such fools." " No, you have been everything that is good and kind." " I have tried to be," said Dick, " and I have succeeded none too well. It's true that I told Ro- ger himself that if you'd only come out to Santa Clara and I felt that I should find you just the same and that I could easily persuade you to come back with me that you would be the mak- ing of the place, that you would be the making of him and me, that it would be a home, that it would be a totally different place. But now don't you understand ? Santa Clara is no place for you. It would be like going to find the husk when the kernel had been taken out of it." He spoke excitedly. The little woman, whose hand he still held, sat like a creature turned to stone, " Dead ! " she murmured, " my Roger dead ! And after all these wasted years, when we might have begun life over again been everything to each other ; when the way had been made clear and easy. Oh, it is hard ! Oh, how hard ! Oh, Mr. Vincent, Mr. Vincent, when a woman loves you, have faith in her ; that's the great thing. A Matter of Sentiment. He hadn't faith enough in me. He thought that I was like the woman of tradition a creature who cared only for the loaves and fishes, for the downy cushion, for the way made smooth and clear. Oh, how mistaken ! Didn't he understand had he lived with me for years not to know how cheerfully I would have baked his bread and cooked his meat, how I would have toiled to make the bare iron hut pretty, how I would have coaxed the flowers to grow, and kept birds, and loved the dogs and the horses and everything that had life in it ? No, he never knew me. You knew me better than he did. And yet he cared." " Oh, he cared," said Dick, " there's no doubt about that ; from first to last you need never doubt that he cared. I think that he cared so much that he was afraid his very love made him afraid ; it seemed too great a thing to him that you should ever consent to go half-across the world to find him." The widow looked at him with tearless eyes, staring out of her white face. " I would have gone ten times round the world. I would have gone through fire and water, to find my husband at the end of the journey." For a moment Dick could not speak. He pressed the hand that he still held within his own, then set it free, and getting up from his chair Told at Last. strode to the window, where he stood looking out over the wide village street, at the shabby cab, the sleepy coachman and still sleepier horse which was awaiting him at the door. At last he turned round. " Mrs. Meredith," he said, " after all, isn't it much better that you should know that all the time poor Roger was thinking about you, that he had never forgotten you, that you had never been supplanted in his heart by any one ? It's hard to find it out only when he is dead, but still, it's better than not knowing, isn't it ? " " Yes, it's better than not knowing." " Oh, yes. And, of course," he went on, " you needn't live such a narrow life now, because the half of Santa Clara is yours, and there will be plenty of money for all of us as time goes on. You can go away from this, you can travel where you will ; everything will be quite different to you now." " I suppose so." She looked round the pretty little room in a scared kind of way. " I wish," she said, " I almost wish that Roger had not sent to me." " Oh, but certainty is better than uncertainty any day." " Not when the certainty means the end of all your hopes. Oh, Mr. Vincent, you were right when you spoke of California as being the grave A Matter of Sentiment. of all hopes. It has proved itself the grave of mine. Oh, think of the wives who go on living year after year, tied to men that they have never cared for, men who have ceased to care for them ; think of the husbands and wives fettered to each other like prisoners chained to a log, while we, who only wanted each other, were kept apart by circumstance by Fate. Oh, it's cruel cruel ! And then, when we might be together, and as happy as ever we had been, to find all one's hopes dashed to the ground ; to find the cup of joy held to one's lips, and dashed away before one could taste the draught it contained. Oh, how hard life is ! " She broke down and began to sob, with tears that wrung Dick Vincent's heart, with sobs that penetrated his very soul. And then she stretched out her poor trembling little hand and laid it up- on his the hand that had brought Roger Mere- dith's life to a close. For a few minutes the little widow sobbed un- restrainedly on, and Dick sat there watching her with fascinated gaze, yet perfectly powerless to say or do anything which would be a comfort to her. Then she sat upright again and began to dab at her eyes fiercely with her handkerchief, which she had made into a ball. " I mustn't let Cynthia find me crying when she comes in," she explained, " No, I mustn't Told at Last. *43 let her find me crying. Cynthia is such a good girl, and she is always tired when she comes in at tea-time. Won't you send that cab away and stay until she comes ? Won't you stop and have tea with us ? It's what is the time ? " " It's nearly four," said he. " She will be home in a few minutes then. She comes immediately the school closes. It closes at four. I should like you to see her. It won't be such a blow to her as it has been to me, be- cause she has never really known her father. But you will stop, won't you ? " " Oh, yes, certainly I will stay. But don't you think, Mrs. Meredith, that if I stay and have a cup of tea with you, you had better come back into the town with me and have some dinner at my hotel ? " " I cannot go out merry-making," said she, shrinking back. " Oh, it wouldn't be merry-making. And whatever one's griefs, one must eat. I have photographs, of a sort, of Santa Clara ; you would like to see them. The change would be good for you. At all events, I'll keep my old cabman, in case you want to go into Blankhampton later on. I'll tell you what I'll do ; I'll tell him to put up for an hour." As soon as said carried into effect. Dick Vin- cent went out and told the old cabman that he *44 A Matter of Sentiment. was to go to the inn and get himself a drink, and a feed, if necessary, for the horse. " Come back at five o'clock," he said. " Come back here. Here's the money for you. At five. Don't be much later." "All right, sir," said the old driver. "I'll give my horse a bit of a feed, and, since your honor is so generous, I'll take a bit of a snack myself." Then Vincent turned and went back into the house again. As he entered the sitting-room, something reminded him of the newspaper which he had in his breast pocket. " You will perhaps like to see this, Mrs. Mere- dith," he said, taking it out and folding it so as to show the account of Meredith's death. " It's the paper that had the account of poor Meredith's end. I thought you would like to see it." " Oh, yes, let me see it." She read it eagerly. " Oh, what a verdict ! How strange ! What curious creatures men are when they get on a jury. And they called a death which was brought about by drink the * Visitation of God ' ! Mr. Vincent, somehow I can't think of Roger like that. I have seen him a little merry, you know, just a little, when he had a little too much, but I never saw him drunk, never. By this account he could not have known what he was doing ; he must have been delirious." Told at Last. H5 " And so he was delirious. He was mad for the moment he was out of his mind for the time." " He must have been. It's dreadful to think of him like that. Do you think, if I had gone out there, that I should have kept him straight ? " " For a time," said Dick. " Anybody who devoted herself to him would and could for a time keep him straight. I did as long as I was with him, as long as I watched him, as long as I kept a tight hand over him. So you would have done. But there is a fate in these matters, Mrs. Meredith. I believe myself that Roger's hour was come ; that it had to be ; and it was the fore- shadowing of the end that made him so strange and so unlike himself from the moment that we turned our backs upon Santa Clara." The little woman was restless and excited. She wandered about the room, put imaginary un- tidiness into order, went several times to the win- dow, and finally, murmuring something about seeing after tea, departed and left him alone. That to Dick was worse than if she had re- mained sobbing and crying ; because alone it sud- denly occurred to him that if Meredith's widow had accepted his story without question, had in- deed put no questions to him beyond the alt-impor- tant one to her of the state of Meredith's heart so far as she was concerned, her daughter might 10 X 4*> A Matter of Sentiment. prove to be a young woman of a very different calibre. What if she were to cross-question him as to the last details of her father's life and the circumstances of his death ? What if she were to put certain point-blank queries to him concerning the fatal scrimmage ? How could he answer ? What could he say ? Would the girl never come ? The church clock he could hear it, although he could not see the church struck the quarter after the hour. She was never so late as this. Stay ! what was that ? A step a lifting of the door-latch and Roger Meredith's daughter stood before him. Cynthia. "47 CHAPTER XIII. CYNTHIA. WHEN the door opened to admit Roger Mere- dith's daughter, Dick Vincent perceived with a great start that she was no other than the girl who had so impressed him the previous day in St. Thomas's Street. " Oh, I beg your pardon," she stammered. She, too, was evidently somewhat taken aback, although Dick could not decide whether she had noticed him the previous day or not. " I beg your pardon. I am afraid I startled you," said he. " Oh, no. Of course I didn't know there was anybody here." She paused, looking at him as if expecting him to say something more. " I came to see your mother," said Dick ; " and to see you, too." "Yes." At this moment the widow came back. As she caught sight of her daughter she rushed up to her, flung her arms,, not about her neck,, because she A Matter of Sentiment. could not reach so high but about her shoulders. " Oh, Cynthia, Cynthia, it has come at last ! " she said, sobbing. " What has come, mother ? The news about my father ? " " Yes, dearest. The best news and the worst news ; the worst news and the best. He is dead, Cynthia dead ! " " My father dead ? " The girl's voice was an echo of her mother's. " Poor little mother ! " she said. " How do you know ? Of course," turning to Dick, " you brought the news. Oh, my mother has waited so long. Why didn't he ? " Not for any fault, Cynthia," cried Mrs. Meredith. " Not for any fault, my dear. Mr. Vincent says I was as much to him, to the last day, as I had ever been. And I don't know how to tell you all, but they lived on in a struggle. Dear Mr. Vincent was his partner. They fought and struggled against against hope ; and then, when the good fortune came and there was money, your father didn't know wasn't sure that J should have waited for him." The girl put her arm protectingly about her mother's shoulders and turned so as to confront Dick. " Of course my mother waited. He ought to have known that," she said, with a curi- ous protective kind of pity. " My mother is Cynthia. *49 one of those women who couldn't forget if she tried fidelity itself. Did he really think that ? " "Your father thought," said Dick, " that it was not impossible that your mother might have mar- ried again. You see, so many years had gone by and he had never written, and life isn't very safe in the wild parts where he was. A man might be killed twenty times over, and his relatives hear nothing except by the purest chance. Nobody could have blamed your mother if she had mar- ried again." " I had my chances," remarked Mrs. Mere- dith, plaintively. " Of course. That was what Meredith felt. He knew you wouldn't be without chances, being what you are." " Still," the girl burst out, " it would have been a horrible thing if mother had married again. Of course, you never thought of such a thing, did you, mother ? " " Never, my dear never. There was only one man in the world for me, and he loved me when I was little more than a girl. And I shall never see him again never ! " The girl held her mother close for a minute or so. " Tell me," she said, turning to Dick ; " how did my father die ? Was he ill long ? " " Your father was not ill," said Dick, ff except in a sense. He was well, he was killed." J 5 A Matter of Sentiment. "How?" " Well I suppose you wish me to tell Miss Meredith everything ? " " Oh, yes, I keep nothing back from Cynthia ; she understands. I told her all that there was to know in the past, and there's no reason why she should not know all that there is to know in the present." " Well, Miss Meredith, your father drank a good deal ; not continuously, you know, but at times. When I came away from Santa Clara " " Santa Clara ? " said the girl, looking at her mother. " Yes. We were partners on a ranche ; it was named after your mother. I fancy that the mere fact of being left alone for a few months, and the fact also that he had commissioned me to make inquiries about your mother and you to find out where you were, if you were living, whether your mother was still Mrs. Meredith, and whether there was any chance of her coming out to join him proved too much for him, for he went in for a fearful bout of heavy drinking, and in spite of everything that we could do Well, he ran amok ; in short, he tried to kill a man staying in the hotel, who, in sheer self-defense, finding him- self overpowered, shot him." " What happened to the man ? " said the girl. " Nothing happened to the man," replied Dick. Cynthia. " Nothing could happen ; he was perfectly blame- less in the matter. It was a question of his life or your father's ; and no man could be expected to give up his life at the mad freak of a man de- lirious with drink." " No, you are quite right. What is his name ? Who is he ? " "He disappeared from the hotel, by the advice of the landlord and several other people. They thought it would be the easiest way out of the difficulty." " Had you ever met him before ? Was he a stranger ? Did you know him ? " " I never met him," said Dick. " I was down the town when the row began ; I only came in for the tail-end of it. It was horrible !" he said, " horrible ! I brought your mother the paper with what I may call the official account of the affair, and I have also with me a large sum which your father entrusted to my care, to make over to your mother if I should find her. I have also in safe keeping your father's will, by which, in the event of my finding you, he leaves the half of the ranche to your mother. To-morrow I shall be able to transfer this money to your account, Mrs. Meredith ; to-day it is, of course, too late." " He has been very kind, Cynthia, most con- siderate. I'm sure if I had known him all his life he could not have broken the news to m A Matter of Sentiment. more gently and more tenderly. I can't help breaking down a little ; it's a blow to me, although I haven't seen Roger for fifteen weary years fifteen weary years." Roger Meredith's daughter made no pretense of being overcome with grief. She held her mother yet closer to her, with the same protec- tive air that had so touched Dick before. Dearest," she said, " I know what this disappoint- ment must be to you, and what a grief; but certainty is better than uncertainty all the world over, and when you have got over it a little you will be comforted to think that all the time, when you thought he had forgotten, he hadn't forgotten at all, that he remembered you to the very last, and that his last reasonable act was to send you part of the good fortune which had come to him." " Not a part of it, Cynthia, all of it," sobbed Mrs. Meredith, hiding her face on the girl's shoulder. " Yes, dear, all of it. That's twice as happy for you as if he had sent you a part. It would have been very different if he had merely sent you word that he had come into luck and that you could go out and share it. But to send it home, for you to do as you liked, to give you all and leave you free, that's proof that he must have loved you just the same all the time." Cynthia. '53 " There was no shadow of doubt about his love, Miss Meredith," said Dick. " It was the fear that your mother wouldn't come out to him that sent him off on that last fatal bout of drinking. Mind you, he didn't drink as a regular thing ; he was a splendid fine man to the end." " I'm sure he was," said Cynthia. " If he hadn't some good qualities, my mother wouldn't have loved him as truly and as faithfully as she has done during all these years of silence." " Well, I am not so sure of that," said Dick. I have known some charming women who pinned their whole faith to wretches in whom I could see no point of good. And the worse they got the more their women stuck to them and clung to them and bolstered them up. You see a good deal of that sort of thing out there, you know." " But my father wasn't like that," said Cynthia, " no, not at all like that." " Cynthia," said Mrs. Meredith, suddenly, " I came in to tell Mr. Vincent that tea was ready. It will be over-drawn." " Never mind, dear, we'll brew a fresh pot." It was perhaps natural that the girl should take the lead in everything. Dick Vincent followed her into the little dining-room, across the passage, with a feeling that she was the dominant power in the house. But he was mistaken. The same '$4 A power and self-control which had enabled a young and pretty woman to remain faithful to the memory of a man who had, to all intents and purposes, deliberately deserted her sufficed to make Mrs. Meredith the most important factor in the little household. At the moment she was overwhelmed, even crushed, by the news of her husband's death, and by the important fact that from that moment her circumstances would be entirely different to what they had been since the beginning of her married life. " Cynthia," said Mrs. Meredith, when she had been somewhat pulled together by a good cup of tea, " we will go out to Santa Clara." Dick's heart went down to zero, and he waited with no small trepidation to hear what the girl would say. " Just as you like, mother. I'd as soon go to Santa Clara as to any other part of the world. We've lived such a quiet life here in Gatehouses," she said, turning to Dick, " that it would be no wrench to us to leave the half-dozen friends who have never been much more than acquaintances." " You won't like it," said Dick to the widow. " Oh, 1 should love it," she cried. " I should feel as if I had gone to join Roger after all." " I don't think you would. It's a ghastly life ; full of hard work, very few recreations, no com- fort." Cynthia. '55 " We shall be able to have comfort," said Mrs. Meredith, confidently. " Yes, but it is not necessary to go to Santa Clara to get it. As a ranche, it isn't worth having ; as an oil well it doesn't need the pres- ence of ladies to run it. You would hate it. I have not any intention, now that Meredith's gone, of going back permanently." " But we should like it," persisted Mrs. Mere- dith. " Cynthia isn't like the ordinary society girl ; she has no society to leave behind here, nothing but a recollection of hard toil, many hu- miliations, and few pleasures. Above all things we should like to go to Santa Clara and carry on the ranche, just as we should have done if my dear Roger had lived and I had gone out there to re- join him." " Mrs. Meredith," said Dick, and by this time he was feeling no less than desperate, " it is abso- lutely impossible for you to continue the ranche as my partner. You are not fit for the life, and the life is not fit for you. As Meredith's wife it would have been a different matter altogether ; as my partner it is an impossibility." " But I should like to go out," she persisted. fc We must leave that for the present," said Dick, " because I am not going back for at least three months. I have left an excellent manager there, a good fellow, who was chosen mainly by T 5 6 A Matter of Sentiment. your husband, and in whom he had the greatest confidence. It is not necessary for me to hurry back, and I have not been home for seven years. My mother would break her heart if I went back immediately. I shall never stay seven years at Santa Clara again. I may not give the ranche up ; I may come to some arrangement with you by which we can continue it as a property an oil property ; but I shall never make Santa Clara my home again indeed, there will be no need." The Voice of Reason. 1 S7 CHAPTER XIV. THE VOICE OF REASON. IT was Cynthia Meredith who brought the dis- cussion concerning the advisability of her mother and herself going to Santa Clara to a close. " One thing is very certain, dear mother," she said. " We cannot go to California now ; we have everything to settle up here ; for in any case you will not care to remain in Gatehouses, or even in Blankhampton. You know, Mr. Vin- cent," she went on, " that I am the mistress at the infant school here. The term comes to an end this week, and then I am free. As, naturally, I shall not continue the post, I shall be very busy getting everything ready to leave, and I shall give in my resignation to the Vicar at once." " Of course ! of course ! " cried Mrs. Mere- dith. " I always hated your doing it, Cynthia, as you know." " There was no reason why you should, dear- est," said Cynthia. " It's not a hard way of mak- ing a decent living at least, darling, not of mak- ing a living, but of supplementing a living." ! 5 8 A Matter of Sentiment " You have been very brave," cried Mrs. Meredith, sobs beginning to rise in her throat. "Well, it's all over now, dear," said Cynthia, hurriedly, " and as we've got the half of an oil well to depend upon, it needn't trouble you that I worked for a few months among a lot of nice little children like these Gatehouses mites. It will never trouble me," she cried, looking from one to another with a ringing laugh. " I should think not," said Dick, half indig- nantly. " But what does trouble me," said the girl, " or at least what does concern me, is that I want to have a long holiday. I want to get used to being well off and to rest myself; to well, I'd like to go to some nice, bright seaside place for a few weeks before I even think about taking a journey half-way across the world." " I think you are most wise," said Dick. " And if you will excuse me saying so, Miss Meredith, your mother must need that kind of relaxation much more than you do. So let us consider the question of your going to Santa Clara as shelved for the present." " I didn't mean to start to-night," said Mrs. Meredith, with some show of spirit. " No, dear, no ; of course we knew that," said Cynthia. She was all tender compunction at having seemed to be unkind to her mother. The Voice of Reason. T 59 " To-night," said Dick, " you are coming to dine with me in Blankhampton. You promised, did you not ? " " I don't think I promised," said Mrs. Mere- dith. "It would be better for you than brooding," said Dick. " Well," put in Cynthia, " dear mother, 1 think it might take you out of yourself a little.' " After any sort of ill news," said Dick, " there's nothing like a thoroughly good meal ; and no meal taken in one's own house has the same effect upon one as a meal which is taken outside. After all, Mrs. Meredith, it will be a very quiet even- ing, and there can be no more in your coming and dining quite quietly with me at the Golden Swan than by taking a cup of tea with you this afternoon. I have kept the cab at least, I told the driver to come back. If you would rather, I will go up to the inn and tell him to keep his horse in the stable for another hour ; otherwise it will be here in a few minutes." " Oh, well, we shall certainly not be ready in a few minutes," said Cynthia. " I con- fess, mother, that I should very much like to dine with Mr. Vincent to-night ; I feel all un- hinged everything turned topsyturvy ; and I am quite sure that it would be the best possible thing for you. And, indeed, I do think it is most kind of Mr. Vincent to ask us." 160 A Matter of Sentiment. " Oh, it isn't kind," said Dick. " On the con- trary, the kindness is yours in giving me the pleasure of your society. You forget, Miss Meredith, your father and I lived together for seven years. We were the greatest possible friends regular pals. To me it is the most natural thing in the world that I should see as much of you now as I should have done if he had lived, dear old fellow." " I am sure," said Cynthia, simply, " that mother and I are delighted to have your friend- ship. Of course, we have not many friends. I think," she went on, with a wise little air, " that when people are poor they do not have many friends, unless unless they belong to the quite poor classes ! I mean unless they belong quite to the working class. Nobody wants struggling poverty." " I don't know," said Dick, " I think it de- pends a good deal on the struggler." As he spoke a sudden qualm shot through his heart, a sudden realization that this young girl, with her limpid blue eyes and calm, self-reliant manner, would be desirable to any man, and under any circumstances. A sort of wonder passed through his mind that she could have walked about the streets of Blankhampton, as he had himself seen her the previous day, and have remained un- wooed, or at least unwon, in the little cottage in The Voice of Reason. Gatehouses in which they were now sitting. Then he shook himself free of the dream, and addressed himself once more to the mother. " Then you will come and dine with me, Mrs. Meredith ? " " Well, since you and Cynthia both wish it, and, as you say, the circumstances are excep- tional," she replied, " I don't mind, but we can- not go just now, can we, Cynthia ? " " Oh, no. We must have time to change our dresses. You had better go up to the inn, as you said." " Shall I say six o'clock ? " said Dick. " Yes, that is nearly an hour. Oh," glancing towards the window, " there he is." Dick Vincent got up. " It doesn't in the least matter. I will send him back to the hotel and tell him to order dinner for us." It was as quickly done as said. Dick went out, and told the old driver to go back to the Golden Swan and tell the people there that he would be bringing two ladies back to dinner with him. " Tell them," said Dick, " to give us a very nice dinner, the sort of dinner ladies like ; and to get good fruit, and so on. Stay, I'll give you a card. Then come back here about half-past six." "Very good, sir," said the cabman. " You won't fail to come back ? " II i62 A Matter of Sentiment. " Lor', no, sir." " Don't you go taking any other job. I'll pay for your time." " Right you are, sir." And away he went, and Dick turned and went into the house again. If he had admired Cynthia in her little gray frock of the previous day, and in the simple black skirt and cotton blouse that she had been wearing that afternoon, his admiration was increased tenfold when she came down into the little sitting-room dressed in a clean white muslin gown. " Mr. Vincent," she said, " I am so glad you have made mother go out to-night. She would only have sat and cried and brooded over the past ; and, after all, what good can it do ? " " No good at all," said Dick. " It's no use my pretending," the girl went on, " that I am overwhelmed with grief. I am aw- fully sorry for mother, but I don't remember my father at all ; and the fact that one's got a father somewhere makes very little difference to one's state of mind. I am sorry for my poor darling, and yet in one way I am so glad that she should know that she should feel that all the time he was just as fond of her as ever. It seems a queer sort of way for a man to treat his wife, doesn't it ? Everybody treat their wives differently." " Or their husbands," said Dick. " I mean The Voice of Reason. l6 3 every one of us looks at every situation of life from a different standpoint to everybody else. If I were married now," he went on, " and I fell upon evil days, I should stick to my wife, and I should expect my wife to stick to me ; and if I were obliged to leave her behind, as your father seems to have done, I should write to her every mail ; and as soon as I had scraped the money together to pay for her passage, I should say, f Come along ; share what I have.' But he was different. He had always that dreadful tempta- tion of strong drink. Before I knew him, seven years ago, he drank frightfully hard ; he drank everything that he made : and I think he was ashamed to let her know just how things were. I am quite sure that at the last he was afraid that he had so indelibly written * Drunkard ' on his face that it would turn your mother against him if they met." " And was he ? did he look ? I mean " " No, he didn't. He was weather-beaten. He was a man who had lived hard. But was a splendid man, and an intensely attractive man to the very last. I don't believe she would have seen a flaw in him, or noticed that he was the least little bit changed not now that I have seen her. I told him so. I went by common-sense. But I couldn't convince him ; no, poor chap, I couldn't convince him," l6 4 A Matter of Sentiment. " Here's mother," said the girl, in an undertone. Mrs. Meredith was dressed in black. For years she had always worn black, as being both economical and in accordance with her uncertainty concerning her husband. She had bathed her eyes, and had made a toilet with care, and it smote Dick to the heart that so fair a little woman should not have had the chance of showing how generous and how forgiving she could be to the man whose heart was filled with her, but to whom the temptation of drink had ever stood as a bar- rier between them. The evening passed quietly and pleasantly. As was but natural, they were very quiet and al- most solemn in their conversation, and when the clock struck ten, Dick's old cabman came round and took the ladies home. Dick did not offer to go with them until the last minute, when it suddenly occurred to him that perhaps if they went without him they would think it necessary to pay the cabman. He there- fore suggested that he should see them as far as their house. Neither Mrs. Meredith nor Cynthia was unwilling, and when they reached the door of the cottage, Mrs. Meredith turned to Dick with quite the air of an old friend. " Shall I see you to-morrow ? " she said. " Yes, you must see me to-morrow, Mrs. Mere- dith," he replied. " I must see you, to hand over The Voice of Reason. l6 5 the money for one thing, and to arrange various little business matters." " Will you come and take lunch with us ? " she inquired, half hesitatingly. " I think not to-morrow," he replied, " because I want to go to the cavalry barracks." " Do you know any one there? " Mrs. Mere- dith asked. " Well, it's my own old regiment, you see ; and I must go and lunch with them, or I am afraid they would be pretty furious with me. Couldn't I come up later in the day ? " Perhaps he had an eye to the fact that later in the day Cynthia would be there. Mrs. Meredith hesitated yet more. "We don't dine late, Mr. Vincent," she said. " We have supper. I don't like to ask you to come to supper with us." " Oh, why not ? " he exclaimed eagerly. " I should be delighted to come to supper with you, if you would put up with me." " Put up with you ! " she exclaimed. And Cynthia laughed softly in a way which set Dick's heart beating at double quick speed. " Then it's settled isn't it ? You'll come and eat a bit of supper with us to-morrow night? It will be very simple, very plain." " But I've not been accustomed to such ban- quets at Santa Clara, Mrs. Meredith, that the sup- 1 66 A Matter of Sentiment. per you will give me will not be all that I could desire. I can perhaps put you up to a wrinkle or two in the way of cooking a supper." " What ? You can cook ? " " Ah, can't I ! I don't say that my pastry would be anything to boast of, but my pancakes and my omelettes are perfect ; my curry's a dream. Mrs. Meredith, before 1 go back, let me come and make you a chicken curry. You can buy the oldest chicken, and I'll back myself to make a good curry out of it." " Well, you shall ; but not to-morrow. I would like you to try my cooking, and then you will see," she said, " what a very desirable person I shall be at Santa Clara." Dick bade the ladies a hurried good-night, and got back into the cab with all his hopes dashed to the ground. That one little sentence of Mrs. Meredith's had served to bring back the events of the immediate past with tenfold force. Here he was already on intimate terms with Meredith's widow and daughter. In all his life he had never known what it was to feel his pulses quicken un- der the touch of a girl's hand as now ; and yet yet it was impossible ; although he had held himself and those on the spot had held him blame- less for the accident of Meredith's death, the cold voice of Reason told him that he must not dare to think of taking Meredith's daughter for his wife. The Old Regiment. 167 CHAPTER XV. THE OLD REGIMENT. IT was just after half-past twelve the following morning when Dick Vincent walked into the cav- alry barracks. He found one or two subalterns gathered in front of the mess rooms, who looked upon him with inquiring eyes in which recogni- tion was wholly lacking. " Is Captain Allison here this morning ? " he asked of the first of these young gentlemen. " Yes," he replied, in easy tones, " he was here a minute or two ago. He will be in to lunch di- rectly. Are you a friend of his ? " " Yes, I am." At that moment an extremely handsome man came along the side of the officers' quarters and turned the corner sharply upon the group. The youngsters instinctively straightened themselves a little. The newcomer uttered an exclamation of sur- prise as his eyes fell upon Dick. " Why, Dick, my dear fellow, how do you do ? What good wind has blown you this way ? I thought you were on the other side of the world." 1 68 A Matter of Sentiment. " California," said Dick. " But I've come home on a few months' leave I mean holiday." " And you are staying in Blankhampton ? How awfully jolly. Symonds, let me introduce you to Mr. Vincent whose name you have heard, of course. And this is Mr. St. Aubyn ; this Mr. Paget. Vincent, my dear fellow, you will have lunch with me, of course ? " " Why, thank you, Brookes, I will," said Dick, as he shook hands with the last of the three sub- alterns, who were now regarding him with very different expressions of countenance to what they had met him with in the first instance. For, let me tell you, Vincent had left a reputation behind him in the Black Horse, a reputation for being the most good-natured daredevil to be found in the length and breadth of the land. Colonel Brookes took him affectionately by the arm. " We missed you very much, Dick," he said ; "far more than you will ever have any idea of. You kept us alive. We've never had any- body to keep us alive as you did." Dick laughed outright. " Well, I dare say that if you had stayed where I left you, which was senior captain, you would have found several among the subs, quite capable of throwing me en- tirely into the shade. You see, you have gone up into that exalted region which knows little or nothing about making practical jokes and such The Old Regiment. l6 9 like amusements. Well, now tell me ; is there any news in the old regiment ? " " News ? Well, I've got the command, of course ; and you know Bethune is senior major, and Cockledon junior to him. Allison comes next. And of those that were here with you well, there's Dawson." " Ah, yes. Good old Dawson ! Is he as seri- ous and as musical as ever? " " Worse, my dear chap ; he's married." " Married ? Worse might happen to a fellow than that. And yourself? " " Oh, I'm not married," said Brookes, shak- ing his head. "I didn't get the right woman; if you can't get the right woman you had better go without." " I'm with you there," said Dick. " And here's Allison," rejoined Lester Brookes. " Hullo, Dick ! " cried Allison. " What good wind has blown you to Blankhampton ? " " I had to come on business," replied Dick. " Business ? Oh, really. Where are you stay- ing?" " At the Golden Swan." " Oh, really. Well, it's a decent hotel. Come and dine to-night, won't you ? It's guest night." " No, not to-night, old fellow. I'm engaged." " Oh, dining out ? Anybody I know ? " " I don't think so." A Matter of Sentiment. " Somebody I don't know in Blankhampton ? That's funny. Where is it ? Who are they ? " " Well, I'm quite sure that it's nobody you know," replied Dick. " The fact is that I came home from California charged with a mission from my partner I took a partner, you know, when I went into ranching, and he died, poor chap ; at least, he was killed. And this is his widow and daughter." " Oh ! What is their name ? " " Their name is Meredith." " Meredith ? Where do they live ? What's the girl like ? " " Oh, so so," said Dick. " Ah, you never had an eye for a woman, Dick. I see you are not altered in that respect," said Allison. " Meredith ? Where do they live ? I never came across them." " Oh, they live at a little village a short way from the town." " I know all the little villages a short way from the town," Allison persisted, " which one do they hang out in ? " " It's called Gatehouses." " Oh ! I thought I knew every girl in Gate- houses." " They live very quietly, and they don't want to see anybody." "Oh, I wasn't fishing," cried Allison. "I The Old Regiment. wasn't fishing, not a bit of it. It seemed curious, that's all. By Jove ! " Allison went on," there's one pretty girl that lives somewhere on the road to Gatehouses. Gad ! she is pretty ! I've fol- lowed her over and over again, but I've never been able to track her home yet. She always goes into some cottage or other, but when I in- quire they tell me that they don't know who she is." " Ah, that wouldn't be Miss Meredith," said Dick, although his heart told him it certainly was. " Well, you'll dine to-morrow night won't ?M j~~ . " Yes, I'll come up and dine to-morrow night with pleasure," Dick replied. It was late in the afternoon before he got away out of the cavalry barracks. He had, of course, to make a sort of tour, to see all the colonel's horses, all Allison's horses, and, in fact, to go right through the officers' stables. Then he in- quired for the good lady who had been accus- tomed to tidy his room and wash his shirts, and finding that she was still following the drum, he went round with Allison to pay her a visit. Then at a little before five there was a rumor of tea and hot cakes soaked in butter and if you don't believe that they eat hot cakes or muffins soaked in butter in a cavalry barracks, you had better go and find out for yourself, and you will A Matter of Sentiment. discover that I am perfectly right. And when the tea and cakes had been disposed of, he and Allison went down the town together, and he looked in at the Club, and was introduced to half-a-dozen Blankhampton celebrities, and then into the Winter Gardens, where the band of one of the cavalry battalions was just playing " God Save the Queen ! " Allison managed to introduce his old friend to several of the prettiest girls in Blankhampton that region where beautiful women flourish. There was not one of them, however, who came anywhere near to Cynthia Meredith in Dick's estimation ; and at last, at about twenty minutes to seven, he succeeded in shaking himself free of his friend, and got into a cab which would carry him once more to Gatehouses. He did not, however, go quite direct. He stopped at a flower shop and bought some lovely cut flowers ; and then he stopped at a book- seller's and purchased three or four of the lead- ing illustrated papers. It was laden with these that he once more found himself in the little sit- ting-room which was stamped with the impress of beautiful Cynthia Meredith. He went away that night more hopelessly in love with Cynthia than ever ; and instead of go- ing straight into the hotel and to bed, he tramped about the narrow deserted streets of the old city The Old Regiment. for more than hour, wondering what would be the best course for him to take, wondering whether if he made a clean breast of the whole circum- stances of Roger Meredith's death, his daughter would ever bring herself to regard the fatal shot which brought that ruined life to a close in the light of a pure accident. No, it was not to be thought of. If Cynthia could be made to see that he had merely acted in self-defense, Cynthia's mother would certainly never hear reason on such a point. No, he had begun a system of silence, he had begun by withholding a certain amount of information, and it was impossible now to do anything which would disclose the truth. He was standing in the very shadow of the grand old cathedral when he came to the con- clusion that, under no circumstances, could Roger Meredith's daughter be anything more to him than a regret. It was hard, he pondered, that he should have grown to be thirty years old without having before met a woman whom he could love, and, having now met her, that she should be forever barred as one of the unattainable joys of life. It would be impossible for him to avoid meet- ing her again ; that was out of the question. He must tread the road to his Gethsemane with un- flinching feet ; he must steel his soul against her. After all, it was early days ; he must school him- *74 A Matter of Sentiment. self to become no more intimate than he had al- ready become ; to avoid those little familiarities, so sweet and so easily taken up, so impossible to cut off when once acquired. After all, he argued, drawing fiercely at his pipe after all, he had got along very comfortably for thirty years without feeling especially in love, and he would have to get along as comfortably for thirty years more. When he had got thus far, he went back through the narrow streets and into his hotel. And then he went to bed and dreamed all night of Cynthia Meredith, waking up in the morning with the conviction that she was everything to him, and that there was very little reason why he should not be everything to her. He had promised that he would go up about eleven o'clock that morning and fetch Mrs. Meredith, and that they should go together to the bank, where he would transfer the money to her which he had brought from her husband. " It's just as well that dear old Roger did give me the money for you," said he, "because if it came to you by inheritance, or by will even, they'd made mulcted you of some of it. As it is, it was made over to me in Roger's life-time, and there- fore not a soul but you and I know anything about it. To tell you the truth, Mrs. Meredith, I am downright glad to get it out of my hands ; because I couldn't tell any one that I had it until The Old Regiment. '75 I found you, for had I done so, and anything had happened to me, it might have frustrated all that Meredith was so anxious to have done. How- ever, now at last, in half an hour, it will be yours to do what you like with." When they had settled their business at the bank, he insisted upon Mrs. Meredith walking down as far as Bonner's with him and having some sort of refreshment. At first she refused ; but when he insisted she was persuaded to take a sponge cake and cream and cura9oa. " Mr. Vincent," she said, " I have made up my mind that we must go to the seaside for a couple of months, so that Cynthia may have a thorough change before we enter upon any business tasks." " I think you are wise," he said promptly. " Oh, yes, it is absolutely necessary. We were talking last night. She wants to go to Brigh- ton." " You can't go to Brighton at this time of the year." " But why ? " " My dear lady, it is impossible. Brighton is awful in hot weather, and very Jewish." " I don't think they would hurt me," said Mrs. Meredith, "since, you see, I shouldn't know a soul." " Well, I wouldn't go to Brighton. Brighton isn't the place for this time of year. Try Folke- T 7 6 A Matter of Sentiment. stone ; Folkestone is gay enough and smart enough ; not Brighton." "You think not?" "I don't think, I'm sure about it. Very good shops at Brighton it's true ; but then if you are so near as Folkestone or Brighton, you could easily run up to town if you want a day's shop- ping." " I don't think," said Mrs. Meredith, " that shopping will be any particular temptation to us at present. We have got to get used to having money to spend. Up to now we've only shopped from necessity ; never as a luxury, never as a pastime. I should be hopelessly lost in London now," she said pathetically. I should walk into the first shop I came to and let them fleece me how they would." " So they would in Brighton just the same." " Well, I don't think so. You see, we have been very dull ; we have led such a retired, I may say such a narrow life, that the more busy and crowded the place, the greater change it would be n to us. " Why don't you go abroad ? " " No, not at present. You won't think us mad if we go to Brighton, will you ? " " No, I shan't think you mad, but I shall think you are very mistaken people." " Well, they've got an old proverb up here, The Old Regiment. *77 Mr. Vincent, which says, f Everybody knows their own know best.' ' Dick drew back instantly. " Oh, Mrs. Meredith, I didn't mean I didn't presume to dictate to you. You know I wouldn't do such a thing." " I know you wouldn't. But without dicta- ting, or wishing to dictate, or anything of the kind, you must see that 1 understand my own tempera- ment and my daughter's better than you do ; and I do believe that as Cynthia has set her heart upon going to Brighton, that it will be the wisest if 1 keep to our original plan go down there, take comfortable rooms on the sea front, and stay there just as long as it amuses us or is beneficial to us." " That, of course," said Dick, " must be ac- cording to your own judgment; and I dare say you are quite right, Mrs. Meredith. Wherever you are I shall find my way to see you. In- deed, there is so much business to be done in the future between us that we must keep in touch with each other." The widow stretched out her little slim hand. " You were Roger's friend," she said softly, " and as long as I live nothing shall ever put you out of touch with me." 12 J 7 8 A Matter of Sentiment CHAPTER XVI. THE VOICE OF THE CHARMER. FOR a whole fortnight Dick Vincent remained at the Golden swan in Blankhampton. He told himself that he must see poor Roger's widow and child through the difficulties of the move. Wo- men, he argued, needed a man to give them ad- vice and show them which way they were going. He forgot that little Mrs. Meredith had proved herself very capable of keeping her boat upright for fifteen years past. He never admitted to him- self that the little lady, in spite of her soft eyes and pleasant tongue, had never taken his advice in any one particular. She made use of him, oh yes, in a thousand ways but they were her ways, not his. " That dear boy ! " she called him to Cynthia. " Oh, if only your father had lived, what a joyful day it would have been for me to go to the place he called after me to take up my broken life to have been a happy, friendly, delightful party. Oh, Cynthia, Cynthia ! It has come too late too late ! " Dick was not by any means idle during the The Voice of the Charmer. two weeks which followed the finding of Mrs. Meredith. He had naturally confided to his great friend, Allison, the bit of luck which had come to him in the shape of an oil well, and Al- lison, being of a genial, talkative disposition, had carefully spread the news throughout the better circles of Blankhampton society. Blankhamp- ton mothers were therefore quite in a flutter over the advent of this extremely handsome young man, who had such a satisfactory piece of property as an oil well at his back. He had not been three days at the Golden Swan when Allison came in one day whilst he was eating his lunch, and sat himself down, a trim figure in undress uniform. " Hullo ! You'll have some lunch, old chap ? " " Yes, thanks ; I will." " How came you to be about, this hour ? " "Why, I came down to see you. Yes, I'll have some soup, please. There's a little woman in town called Manisty. She ain't a bad little sort. She wants you to come to tea this after- noon." " Me ? " exclaimed Dick. " Why, what does she know about me ? " " Oh, she's seen you about, you know. A chap of your distinction cannot go without notice in a place like this. You always did mash all the women." i8o A Matter of Sentiment. " Me ? " repeated Dick. " I never mashed anybody in my life." " Well, you have this time, anyway ; and Mrs. Manisty is giving a tea-fight this afternoon and she gives rather nice tea-fights and she wants me to bring you." "Oh, I'm out of the way of tea-fights. I have been living in the wilds for seven years. I don't think she'll really care for me, you know ; not if she is in her senses." " Oh, I'll answer for her, if not her senses. You'd better come, because I said I'd take you." " My dear chap, you shouldn't make promises for me. You shouldn't make promises for other people at all." * " I know I shouldn't, but I did all the same. You might come. The little woman would be very gratified." " Well, I don't know the little woman," said Dick, cold-bloodedly attacking the beef. " Well, she's a good sort. And you'll come ? I'll call for you about half-past four. Now don't go and say you're engaged. I know there's some charmer up at Gatehouses, but you can't want to be living there." " Oh, no, I'm not living there," said Dick. He went rather red and bent his face down over his plate. The Voice of the Charmer. " You might take me up there," said Allison. " Oh, no ; they are quite out of your line." " Are they ? Are they ugly ? " Oh, no." " Then they are good-looking. I know you, I know you inside out, Dick ; nobody ever knew you better. What are you doing to-night ? Will you come and dine ? " No, I can't." " Why not ? What are you doing ? You are going to Gatehouses." " No, I am not." " Well, they are coming to dine with you." " Yes, they are." " Then you can ask me." " No, I'd rather not." " What ? Are you sweet on the girl ? You don't think I'd go poaching on your preserves, do you ? Don't you know me better than that after all these years ? " " It would be a case of cut me out if you could, old boy, if there was a question of cutting out, which there isn't. But Mrs. Meredith has only just heard of the death of her husband, and she mightn't like to meet a perfect stranger." "Oh! How long has he been in California? Fifteen years, didn't you tell me the other day ? And you were commissioned to go home and find her. I should think she's about got over the 182 A Matter of Sentiment. parting by this time. I shall come. What time are you dining ? " " Never mind." " Oh, that's all right. I shall turn up at about a quarter-past seven ; if you are dining at seven, I shall cut in ; if you are dining at half-past, I shall be in plenty of time." " Well, you can come if you like," said Dick. " I will. Thank you very much. So kind of you to ask me. I am delighted to accept." Dick gave a grunt and a laugh. " What a humbug you are ! Never saw a chap so little changed in my life." " No, I am not changed, my dear fellow. I have got nothing to change me. Life has gone on in one unbroken round of field days and dances, and a few entertainments thrown in. You can't change on a diet like that." " Why do you stick at it ? " " Why do I stick at it ? It suits me well enough. I have not the brains for a more ar- duous profession. And after all, if you come to that, I don't know that there is anything elevat- ing about planting vineyards and growing fruit trees, as you have been doing for seven years." " Oh, it was a question of lungs with me. I wouldn't have jacked up the old regiment to go and bury myself alive out West, even for an oil well. If a chap's lungs give out, what is he to do ? " The Voice of the Charmer. l8 3 " No, true. Yes, waiter, I'll have some more of that salad. It's extremely good. It's the best salad I've eaten for a long time. It's the one thing our cook fails in as I tell the mess presi- dent every day of my life. He mixes a salad as if it were something sour." " 1 didn't notice anything wrong with it the other day when I was lunching," said Dick, in- differently. " But seven years on a ranche with- out a cook of any kind doesn't make a man more fastidious. Well now, look here, old chap ; I don't want to go to this party this afternoon." " Oh, but you must go. I've kind of staked my professional honor on it ; and the little woman will be furiously disappointed if you don't turn up ; she'd take it as an insult. She hasn't any daughters, so that needn't upset your apple-cart. " Oh, all right. Well, I'll go. But since you have been talking about me, I suppose you have thrown in a mention of the oil well in the back- ground. You might spread the information that I'm not by way of being a marrying man." " All right, old chap, I'll warn 'em all off. And I'll come for you about four, eh ? " " Oh, all right." The result of this first plunge into the vortex of Blankhampton society was to make Dick Vin- cent the most sought after young man in the neighborhood ; and this in spite of a frankly l8 4 A Matter of Sentiment. brutal way in which Captain Allison spread the news far and wide that Dick was a " gone coon " in the direction of his old friend's daughter. " My dear Mrs. Manisty," he said to the little lady in question, who, although she had no daughters, was reputed to be the cleverest match- maker in the town, " it isn't a bit of use wasting twopennorth of trouble over Vincent, or his books, or his family, or his oil well, or anything else. He's got a partner in the oil well already in the shape of Meredith's daughter ; and if he doesn't end by making her a partner for life, I'll eat my hat." " And is she presentable ? " " Presentable ! " echoed Allison. " No, Mrs. Manisty, she's not presentable, she's the loveliest thing I ever saw in my life. She's a lady born and bred although she's been poor up to now. Nobody else will have a look in with Vincent, al- though he'd be fit to bite my head off it he could hear me say so. But I tell you, because I know how good-natured you are in arranging these little matters. I am afraid you won't do any business with Vincent." " I should like to meet the young lady," said Mrs. Manisty. " Oh, I don't think you would at least, I don't think she would. They have lived a very retired life, because they hadn't the money for anything The Voice of the Charmer. l8 5 else ; and they are just on the eve of leaving the place. Besides, Mrs. Meredith has only recently heard of her husband's death, and she doesn't want to be visiting or making new acquaintances at present." But the Blankhampton matrons who had heard of the oil well, and who had seen Dick, were not thus to be warned off the chase, and Dick, became the recipient of so many invitations and so many smiles and of so much friendliness that he began to think it would be necessary to fly the country before Mrs. Meredith and Cynthia were ready to go to Brighton. Every moment that he could get away from the claims of Society he spent in the little house at Gatehouses ; and when the mother and daughter left it with their few personal belongings, so that the auction- eer's people might take possession, he seemed to be morning, noon, and night in their pleasant lodgings overlooking St. Thomas's Street. Once or twice he found himself perilously near to telling Cynthia how completely she had taken possession of him, body and soul. One evening, when Mrs. Meredith was suffering from a head- ache, he had taken her up the street and into the Winter Garden at all hours of the day the most pleasant rendezvous in Blankampton. The air of the summer evening was still and warm ; behind them stretched the great glass 1 86 A Matter of Sentiment. houses wherein Blankhampton disported itself during the winter months ; around them lay the lovely lawns, on which Blankhampton took the air during the summer ; above, a golden moon cast its light upon the winding river, which flowed at the end of the terraces. They could hear the sound of a piano floating across the gardens, the sound of a piano and of a girl's fresh voice. It was a night to make the most diffident man speak his mind ; it was a night to make the most difficult girl come like a bird to the hand of the tamer. " It's jolly here, isn't it ? " Cynthia turned her grave gray eyes upon him. " Should you call it jolly ? " she asked. Dick laughed. " It depends on the definition of jolly. Perhaps if I had thought before I spoke, which I didn't I should have put it in another way ; but it's very perfect sitting out here, in this still, tranquil English air." " Is it different to Californian air ? " she asked, turning and looking at him. Again the mention of California, and a certain look in her eyes, suddenly brought Roger Meredith back to his mind not only Roger Meredith but that last look in his eyes, before he had drawn the trigger of his revolver. A cold chill settled down upon Dick, and he shuddered visibly. " There is a great deal of rot The Voice of the Charmer. l8 7 talked about California," he said, almost harshly. " People here have an idea that California is literally teeming with milk and honey. It is the greatest mistake in the world. There is nothing like this over there. And, Miss Cynthia, it's very chilly, after all. I think we had better go in." He went back to his hotel that night with his whole being in a tumult. He told himself savagely, over and over again, that he was a fool that he was playing with edged tools that he he must get this girl out of his mind before the damage was too late to undo. " If she knew," he argued, " if she knew the truth, why, neither she nor her mother would ever bring themselves to look at me. They might in common justice own that I hadn't any choice in the matter, but the fact remains the same, that mine was the hand that sent Roger Meredith out of this world into the next. They are women. They'd never get over it. I must clear out of this, and make up my mind that Roger Meredith's daughter is not for me." 1 88 A Matter of Sentiment. CHAPTER XVII. MRS. VINCENT'S FEARS. FROM the night when Dick Vincent came to the conclusion that under no circumstances could Roger Meredith's daughter ever become his wife, he kept himself most carefully from any special intercourse with her. He proposed no more evenings in the Winter Gardens, he addressed all his conversation, or at least a good deal of his conversation, to the little widow ; he allowed him- self no familiarities, and he permitted himself to be drawn a little further into the vortex of Blankhampton society than he would have have dreamed of doing under ordinary circum- stances. Indeed, during those few days in which he remained at the Golden Swan, more than one mother in Blankhampton had visions of a propri- etorial interest in the oil well at Santa Clara. But eventually Dick went away, leaving behind him no promise of spring. He did not even travel up as far as London with Mrs. Meredith and Cynthia, but told them as an excuse for not doing so that he had promised to dine at the Black Horse mess. Mrs. Vincent's Fears. l8 9 Then he went back to London, where he put in a miserable week so miserable that he more than once caught himself wishing that he were back on the ranche again. After that, he went home to Hollingridge, where his mother once more killed the fatted calf in his honor, although the whole house was in a tumult over the prepa- rations for his sister's wedding. " Now tell me, dear boy," said Mrs. Vincent, when dinner was over the first evening, and the others had wandered away to various amusements or occupations, " you found poor Mr. Meredith's widow ? " " Oh, yes, I found her," said Dick. " Is she nice ? " " Very nice." "A lady?" " Oh, a perfect lady," Dick answered. " Was she upset ? Do tell me about it. I am most interested." " Well, she was a bit knocked over at first, yes she certainly was knocked over, because she has always clung to the hope that he would turn up again." "And the girl?" " Oh, well, the girl doesn't remember him ; she was more philosophic about it." " Well, dear, one could not expect her to be anything else. Most trying, I consider, to go on J 9 A Matter of Sentiment. year after year, never sure from one minute to an- other what might turn up or come out. Poor soul ! I have thought about her so much whilst you have been away. You paid over the money ; and what will become of the ranche ?" " Well, I shall have to prove Meredith's will as soon as I go back," Dick replied. " Wouldn't you like me to ask them here for a little while ? " " Oh, no, mother, thank you. I don't think so ; not at present, at all events. You see well, she's had a great shock, and she's in very new mourning ; and they have gone off for a long holiday for one thing," " Oh, for a long holiday. What sort of cir- cumstances did you find them in ? " " Well, pretty narrow ; what one would call straitened circumstances. And of course Mrs. Meredith's first idea was to give her daughter a complete holiday and change. That was only natural," " Oh, it was natural enough, poor woman ; I can quite see that. Had she money ? " " Mrs. Meredith had a little money." "Yes. And did they live on that exclu- sively ? " Mrs. Vincent was insistent. She meant to get to the bottom of the Meredith story, and Dick knew by long experience that it was useless Mrs. Vincent's Fears. I 9 l for him to try to wriggle out of giving the in- formation which she required. " No. The girl was teaching." " Oh." Mrs. Vincent's tone was comprehen- sion itself. " Teaching, was she ? And you say she's so pretty." " Oh, very pretty." " And nice ? " " Very nice. Charming." " And teaching ? Dear me ! Ah, dear, well I suppose there will be no fear of poverty in the future." " Not the very smallest," said Dick. " She's an heiress now unless the oil well should dry up, which is most unlikely." " Oh, she'll marry, my dear. A pretty girl with half an oil well is sure to marry. Perhaps her mother will marry. " I don't think so. She's absolutely faithful to poor old Roger's memory. The only thing that hurt her much was his notion that she might have married somebody else, believing him to be dead." " Poor thing ! " said Mrs. Vincent, feelingly. " I can imagine nothing more dreadful than to live like that. And all these years, poor soul, really living on the edge of a razor." " Yes, really living on the edge of a razor," said Dick. " Great bore to think yourself free, A Matter of Sentiment. and then all at once find a husband turn up again." " Oh, my dear boy," said Mrs. Vincent, " it was just as well that your poor friend was taken out of it. They would have had a dreadful time together." " Do you think so ? " said Dick. "Yes, dear; sure of it. It doesn't do for people to go away and be parted like that. They are not the same when they come together again." " Oh, I don't know. I have been away seven years ; you don't find me any different, do ? . " Well, I do," said Mrs. Vincent. " You have got some queer, old-fashioned, bachelor ways of your own." " Have I ? " cried Dick. "Well, yes, I must confess that you have." " Not really ? " asked Dick. " Yes, my dear boy, really," persisted his mother. " How horrid ! " was Dick's rejoinder. " Well, dear boy, perhaps you will be doing away with your bachelorism." " I don't think so," said Dick, shortly. " No ? It seems a pity." Mrs. Vincent meant that it would be a pity to let somebody else take possession of the oil well ; Mrs. Vincent's Fears. 1 93 but Dick, who had once been as simple and open as the day, was sufficiently changed for her to hesitate in putting the thought into plain words. " I don't see that there is any particular pity about it," said Dick. " Well, dear, it would be a sad thing if the old name should die out." " It won't die out," said Dick ; " there's Jack Vincent who can keep up the traditions of the old place far better than I should." " Jack Vincent ! " cried his mother, with an air of disgust. " Jack Vincent indeed to rule at Hollingridge ! Why your father would have a fit at the very mention of it." " Don't mention it, dearest," said Dick, easily. " If I want to marry later on, I shall marry. If it pleases Providence to send me an heir, well, that will do away with Jack Vincent's chance. But if I don't want to marry, I certainly shall not do so to keep Jack out of the inheritance, to which he has quite as much right as I have." " No right in the world," cried Mrs. Vincent. " Oh, come, come, you are prejudiced," said Dick. " There's time enough, dear ; and any day the next ten years will do to discuss that contin- gency. I'll bet you the governor never worries his head about it." " More than you think," said Mrs. Vincent. " Does he ? Poor dear ! I am sorry. I wish '3 X 94 A Matter of Sentiment. he wouldn't, and I wish you wouldn't. To tell you the truth, mother, I hate to think of the time when there will have to be a change of ownership. The governor is in his right place as the squire, and you are in your right place as mistress of Hollingridge. Why you should be anxious to bring somebody else in who would eventually turn you out, I can't think." " I hope I am not selfish," cried his mother. " Selfish ! Never anybody less so." " Then you wouldn't like me to ask Mrs. and Miss Meredith down for a few days ? " " No, I don't think so." The very thought of Cynthia at Hollingridge was enough to set his pulse beating at double quick time. With an insurmountable barrier between them, it would indeed, his thoughts ran, be foolish if he allowed his mother to foster any greater intimacy than existed between them at present. Of course, he reminded himself, she, poor darling, did not know why it was better he should see as little of Roger Meredith's daughter as possible. " I can't think," said Mrs. Vincent to Laura a few hours later, " what has come over Dick." " Dick's all right, mother," said Laura. " No, he isn't all right. There's something on his mind. He's quite changed from what he was before he went away." Mrs. Vincent's Fears. 1 9$ " Well, dear, seven years of isolation would change any man." " Yes ; but he has changed since he came back. I don't know what has happened, but something is weighing on Dick's mind. My dear, I do think we might ask the St. John girls over." " The St. John girls ? Why ? " " Because they are bright and pretty and Dick might fall in love with one of them." " But you don't want Dick to fall in love with oneof them, surely ? " "Yes, I do." " But why ? " " Because I think it would be better for him to be married and have a nice wife of his own, who would go to and fro between England and California, and make life altogether different for Dick." " I don't think you had better try interfering with Dick's love affairs," said Laura, wisely. " Not interfere, dear, no not for the world ; that I have never done with any of you. But to put nice girls in his way, that is different. I am not like some mothers," she went on, preening herself complacently, " who can't bear to think of their sons marrying. I want him to marry, I want him to have a nice wife one of our own sort, to be one of ourselves. I like the St. John girls," A Matter of Sentiment. i " Yes. Would you like them as daughters-in- law, do you think ? " " Well, only one at a time, dear," said Mrs. Vincent, with dignity. " I see. I don't think you would like the St. John girls at all. Dad can't bear them." " I never heard him say so," cried Mrs. Vincent. " I have, many a time," said Laura. " Oh, don't worry, dear, about Dick. Dick isn't feel- ing very well ; he's bothered about the Meredith affairs. Don't get fancying things about him ; he has quite enough on his mind, poor dear, with- out you worrying. You know, darling mother, you can't worry without showing it." " My poor boy ! " said Mrs. Vincent, pathet- ically. " I wish he would confide in me." But Dick neither confided in his mother nor in any one else. He passed his time between Hol- lingridge and Foxborough, taking all that was to be had in the way of shooting at either place. Then he received a letter from Mrs. Meredith. " We feel quite hurt," she wrote, " that you have not yet been to see us. This isn't keeping your promise, dear Mr. Vincent. Do find time, when you have killed all the poor birds in your neighborhood, to come and see us in our resting- place here. Cynthia is as happy as a child, and and is looking better every day. For my own part, I particularly want to see you, that I may Mrs. Vincent's Fears. *97 consult you about various business matters which are too much for me to decide alone. Do make an effort and come down for a few days." So she was as happy as a child ; and the little widow could not get on without him any longer. He knew that he had no choice but to go and take up at Brighton the same terms of intimacy that he had been on at Blankhampton. There was no getting out of it ; he had no single excuse that could for a moment hold water with an astute little woman like Cynthia's mother. Yes, he would have to go. He broke the news to his mother, half-expect- ing that she would grudge his absence, but Mrs. Vincent still had an eye to the other half of the oil well, and she was instantly all sweet and friend- ly sympathy." " Wants to consult you on business, does she ? " she said. " Poor little woman ! Yes, you must go, dear boy. You can't leave her in the lurch. I suppose she wants to know how to invest the money brought over or something of that kind. Poor little soul ! I wish you had let me have them here for a bit." " I didn't want them here," said Dick, shortly. " No, no ; so you said, dear. But I wish you had. I think it would have been kinder on our part." " No kindness at all," said Dick. A Matter of Sentiment. " No ? " queried Mrs. Vincent, and dismissed the subject from the conversation. " Oh, how he does dislike that poor girl," she remarked to Laura afterwards. " What poor girl ? " asked Laura. "Why, the girl Meredith's daughter." " I don't think he does." " My dear child, I'm perfectly certain of it. I wanted to have them here it seems only a nat- ural thing when Dick was her father's great friend that well, that the first visit should be to Dick's father and mother. Dick wouldn't hear of it." " Oh, wouldn't he ? I suppose Dick knows. What makes you think he doesn't like her ? " " I don't think about it, my dear child ; I am perfectly certain of it. He shut me up." " Dick shut you up, mother ? " " Yes, shut me up quite short." " Oh, mother, what nonsense ! " " It isn't nonsense, dear child ; it's fact." " I suppose she's rich ? " said Laura. " Rich ? She's got the other half of the oil well," cried Mrs. Vincent, with what was almost a scream. "Ah, and you are thinking of the oil well, are you, darling ? Well, if Dick likes her, he wouldn't like her to think that he had an eye to the oil well." " This is positively silly ! " cried Mrs. Vincent. Something Calling. 1 99 CHAPTER XVIII. SOMETHING CALLING. PROBABLY a less conceited man than Dick Vin- cent has never been born into the world. Never- theless he could not hide from himself, when he walked into the Merediths' lodgings at Brighton, the fact that Cynthia's grave gray eyes lighted up in a radiant blaze of glory as he entered the room. " Now you'll dine with us here to-night ? " said Mrs. Meredith, when they had exchanged greetings and she was pouring out a cup of tea for Dick. " No, no. You'll dine with me at my hotel," said he. " I don't think that's right." " Oh, yes, it is ; most right. I haven't been to Brighton for years ; in fact, I doubt if I have been here more than twice in my life ; and I shall be most hideously disappointed if you don't take me to all the sights and dine with me every night." " Oh, but that is not fair." " Yes, it is quite fair. You give me your society " " And you give us our dinner," laughed Cyn- thia. 200 A Matter of Sentiment " Well, if you like to put it that way, Miss Cynthia. I don't in the least care how you put it, so long as I have my own way." " Well, well," said Mrs. Meredith, making a great s\ow of yielding, " we won't quarrel over a point like that." " We won't quarrel about anything," said Dick. And soinehow, in spite of himself and of his wise resolutions, his eyes sought Cynthia's, and on Cynthia's soft round cheeks there rose a color which turned the faint peach-bloom of her nat- ural tint to a fine roseate hue. In a sense Dick lost his head. He was intoxicated by the charm- ing beauty of her presence, by the charm of her manners, the thrill of her musical voice, the in- effable delight of her presence. Then memory pulled him up with a jerk once more, and with a stifled sigh he turned to the lit- tle widow, who looked most dainty in her becom- ing widow's cap. " You wanted to consult me, Mrs. Meredith ? " he said, with quite a change of tone. " Ah, yes, but that will keep till to-morrow. We won't talk business to-day. To-morrow mor- ning I will show you the papers that I wanted to consult you about, and we will be as business-like as the most business-like man could desire. To- day we will forget ; we will only be friends to-day." " I am only too happy to be your friend," said Something Calling. 201 Dick, " and we will leave all the business affairs until the cold and calculating morn. Meantime I see that the theater is on. Shall we go to- night?" " It would be pleasant," said Mrs. Meredith. " We have seen so little Cynthia and I." " We have seen nothing," put in Cynthia with a gay laugh. " I think, darling mother, that would be nearer the mark. We have seen noth- ing. You see, Mr. Vincent, dear and sweet as our vicar was at home, I think he would have drawn the line at the school-mistress going to the theater. So we never went except sometimes when we were at Rockferry for our summer holi- day. The theater at Rockferry isn't large.'" " The theater here at Brighton is a large one," said Dick. " There is always a good company, and on Thursday afternoons always a piece down from town. I shall take tickets on my way back to the hotel ; or stay I can take them in the hotel itself." It must be confessed that, even to Dick's mas- culine eyes, Mrs. Meredith and Cynthia had done themselves very well in the matter of mourning. It is true that Mrs. Meredith was wearing weeds, but they were of the most pronouncedly fashion- able type. Her Marie Stuart cap was an airy creation, more like an announcement that its wearer was a widow than any symbol of grief. 202 A Matter of Sentiment. Her crape bodice was cut square, and filled into the throat with white pleated lisse. If she had looked to Dick very young at their first interview, she certainly seemed ten years younger now that he saw her well and fashionably dressed. As for Cynthia, she was adorable. Her simple yet ele- gant morning toilet was cut so as to show a little of the softly rounded throat and her round and slender wrists. " She is the image of her mother," Dick's thoughts ran, " but, thank God, not so determined a character." And then he remembered with a pang that he need not thank God that Cynthia Meredith would never be anything to him. He thought about her as he walked along the sea front to his hotel. She would never be any- thing to him yes, always, always the one woman in the world to him ; his heart would ever turn to her as the most fair and perfect of her sex ; nothing could take that away. She could never be his wife because of that secret which lay hidden in his heart. She could never be his wife, but she always could and she always would be his ideal. He felt comforted as he turned into the hotel, and it was with a cheerful heart after all that he ordered a little table to be reserved for dinner, and then went out to the bureau to see what places he could get for the theater. Something Calling. This done, he went up to his room and dressed with quite a light heart, and when the two ladies arrived he met them with a beaming smile of wel- come. Poor Dick ! It was so hard to remember when in Cynthia's sweet presence that he must keep his heart under lock and key, that he must not let himself go, that he must watch every word that fell from his lips, that he must never forget that between them there was a great gulf fixed, a gulf which could never be bridged over on this side the grave. Left to himself, he might have forgotten nay, it is safe to say he would have forgotten but that curious likeness to her father in Cynthia's eyes brought him up every now and again as if he were a bird tied by the leg to a stone. It was curious, because Cynthia was so absurdly like her mother ; it was only now and again, only when Dick felt the most drawn to- wards her, that that strange look of Roger Mere- dith would step in between them, of Roger Mere- dith as he had seen him last. Well, the morning after the dinner and the visit to the theater, Dick went round to the Merediths' pleasant rooms in order to see what was the busi- ness on which Mrs. Meredith desired to consult him. " Ah, it is you," she said, in a tone of satisfac- tion. " How good of you to come so early ! Cynthia has gone out for a blow on the front, so A Matter of Sentiment. we are quite alone. Now, I am going to take you right into my confidence." " I hope so," said Dick. " I dare say you won't be pleased," said the little woman. " Oh, why not ? " " Because I am going to tell you what, some- how, I feel will vex you." "Oh, no, Mrs. Meredith. Why should any- thing you tell me vex me ? " " Well, we like Brighton." " You are thinking of taking a house here ? " " Not at present. You know, all our treasures - heaven knows they are not many ! " she said, with a sigh and a smile, " I have left in safe keep- ing in London." " Yes ? " " By and by we shall settle down somewhere, and we shall make ourselves a home ; but not yet." " No ? You desire to travel ? " " Yes, that's just it. We desire to travel. Now we want to know when you are going back to Santa Clara." " I propose to go back in about six weeks' time," he replied. " Six weeks' time ? Now, I know you will be vexed at what I am going to say." " I will trv not to be, Mrs Meredith." Something Calling. 20 5 " Well, we want to go over with you." Oh, but " " Yes I knew you would say ' but' yes, of course I knew that ; but we want to go, do you see ? And we mean to go." "Of course, if you mean to go, if you have set your minds on going," said Dick, " well, I sup- pose you will go." " I suppose we shall," said the little widow. " I quite understand your wish to see the place, it's a perfectly natural wish ; to you there is something very fine and delightful in the idea, but you won't enjoy it." " No, perhaps not. But I shall have satisfied myself." " Satisfied yourself! " His heart was beating so that he could scarcely pronounce the words. " Satisfied yourself! " he echoed. Mrs. Meredith nodded. " Yes," she said, " I have set my heart on seeing the place where Roger passed the last seven years of his life. I mean to go to his grave. Oh, yes, I mean to go to the place where he died." " You must do as you like," said Dick, in a ready, calm voice. I am bound to confess that his calmness was the calmness of despair. He felt assured that once Mrs. Meredith found herself at Midas Creek, in the very hotel where Roger had died, 206 A Matter of Sentiment. she would spot yes, that was the word he used, remember gentle reader ; do not think that I, his author, am using so unliterary a word, I am but detailing his thoughts at the moment, and that was the phrase as Dick Vincent put it in his mind she would spot the identity of the man who had fled by the advice of the land- lord and Valentine Clegg ; she would root out Valentine Clegg ; she would do a thousand things that would be inconvenient and tiresome. Well, let her do it. Let the worst come to the worst ; he could but own to it all and explain that his only thought in concealment had been to save her pain. After all, nobody could blame him. It was a mere matter of sentiment, it could be but a mere matter of sentiment that his happened to be the hand on the revolver at the critical moment when Meredith's brain gave out ; there was nothing personal about it. Oh, the woman was determined ; she must do as she pleased. If she chose to go to Santa Clara, she must go. " What are you thinking of, Mr. Vincent ? " said Mrs. Meredith, looking at him fixedly. " I was wondering how we could manage the journey so that you would be tolerably comfort- able," he replied. " Oh, as to that we are no feather-bed creatures, sugar and salt, wrapped in cotton wool. You came down ; where you came down we can go up." Something Calling. a 7 " That doesn't follow," said Dick. " Well, it doesn't ; but if we suffer, why, we suffer ; and it will be no fault of yours, for I can honestly say that you genuinely tried to scare me off. But I am not to be scared off. I want to see the place that was called after me. I have never had a yard of earth in my life not so much as the freehold of a grave. I have got a fine estate out there ; I want to see it." " Yes, well, that is possible enough," said Dick. " All that I am afraid of is that you will be hid- eously disappointed when you do see it. Over here one somehow thinks of California as a gar- den. There is precious little of the garden about it, Mrs. Meredith. However, if you have made up your mind to go, perhaps it is better that you should go and get it done with. You won't want to stay there very long, that's certain. You think of the ranche as a fine estate ; as far as money value goes it is a fine estate ; as far as beauty goes, don't have any idea that you are going to find the counterpart there of what you call a fine estate here. If you go out there, if it is only for a month, you will go out to a rough life, to rough work, to a total want of convenience, to disappointment yes, I am certain to disap- pointment but you will be satisfied. I won't say another word against it." " Now I never thought I could bring you 208 A. Matter of Sentiment. round to reason like that," said Mrs. Meredith, looking at him with a quizzical air. " 1 told Cynthia to go out and stop out till one o'clock, because I expected it would be a long time before I should bring you to reason." " But, my dear lady, there's no bringing me to reason. You are free to do as you choose. You have a perfect right to go out if you wish to do so. I only have tried to dissuade you because I have been there, and I know how beastly it all is to an English mind ; but if you have set your heart upon it, why there's nothing more to be said. I can't stop your going. You won't want to go twice." " That's as may be. I am delighted that you have come round, and that you are so sensible. I hate people who are not sensible. Something tells me that I ought to go ; something that's with me by day and most of the night^something that's always about me, says : ( Go to Santa Clara. You will be happy when you have been to Santa Clara.' Now, should I have such a feeling for nothing ? " " I don't know," said Dick. " You might. I don't feel that you will be any happier for going. But then I am not you, and you must do as you like. Do you think he do you wish me to think that I mean, is it that that Meredith himself is calling you," he asked, in a curious Something Calling. strained voice, " that Meredith is influencing you from where he may be, that he wants you to go is urging you to go ? Do you think Mere- dith wants you to clear up anything connected with his death ? " 210 A Matter of Sentiment. CHAPTER XIX. A TIME OF INDECISION. WHEN Dick Vincent put the question straight to Roger Meredith's widow which asked whether she had any feeling that there might be some mys- tery to clear up connected with his death, he felt exactly as if he were signing his own death war- rant. " I don't know," she said. " It might be. I can only tell you that ever since I knew that Roger was dead, I have had the same curious feeling that I must go to Santa Clara, the feeling of somebody calling me. I don't know whether it is Roger, or not. 1 only know that I must go-" "In that case," said Dick, "I think that you are perfectly right to make up your mind and carry it through. So, Mrs. Meredith, we will consider it settled. 1 will do my best to make you feel the journey as little as may be ; it's a very tedious journey, and you will find but little comfort when you get to the end of it; except the comfort of having a mind at ease." "You will stay and have lunch with us?" A Time of Indecision. 2I1 said Mrs. Meredith presently, when they had finished their business talk. " Oh, you are very kind. Yes, I'd like to if it doesn't inconvenience you." " Not the least. And Cynthia will be de- lighted. She wanted to see you ; she has some- thing that she wants to ask you. No, I won't tell you what it is, because I hate having things said for me. Oh, Mr. Vincent, I can't tell you how delighted she will be that you have con- sented to our going out with you." " Consented ? I wish you wouldn't put it in that way. The world is perfectly free to you, to do as you like, and Miss Cynthia also. I had no business to give an opinion even let alone consent. Surely, Mrs. Meredith, you understood that from the beginning ? " " Oh, yes ; but we shouldn't have gone dead against you. We've too much faith in your judgment for that. We quite see now what you meant about Brighton. Mind, I think it was the best place under the circumstances yes, I think it was quite the best place that we could possibly have come to ; but I quite see why you disap- proved, and I think you were perfectly right. J shouldn't like to live here, except in the winter ; I shouldn't like to come here another year another summer. As it is, I fancy that it has served our turn better than any of us know ; and 212 A I think when you see Cynthia you will agree with me." When Dick Vincent did see Cynthia Meredith he was convinced of one thing that she was the loveliest girl he had ever seen in his life, and that if" he should live to be a hundred years old, no other woman would ever have quite the same effect upon him as she. She, on her side, was un- mistakably delighted to see him again, but in truth Dick himself was too overwhelmingly in love to be able to read quite accurately what her face ought to have told him. In his self-abasement o he put down the softly shining eyes, the deli- cately blooming cheeks, the gay insouciant manner to the benefit that she had received from change of air. Without doubt the girl was better for the rest and change and ease which had come into her life ; she was the better for these things, as her mother was indisputably better for being out of anxiety at last ; but it was not change of air or ease of circumstances that had made Cynthia look as she looked at that moment. " Now you see her in the daylight," cried Mrs. Meredith, who was as blind in her way as Dick was in his ; " now you see what change has done for this young lady." " Ah, change is good for everybody," cried Cynthia. " Well, have you two settled all your wonderful business arrangements ? " A Time of Indecision. 2I 3 "Yes, darling, we have settled everything. Mr. Vincent is going to stay to lunch, and I have a great piece of news for you." She looked up quickly at Dick, a sudden pallor overspreading her countenance. " Why, what has happened ? " she asked, in a tone of appre- hension. " Oh, nothing disagreeable, dearest ; nothing but that Mr. Vincent has come round to my way of thinking. He has quite come to see, darling, that it would be better if we go out to Santa Clara when he does." " Oh, really. Why, what magic have you used to make him change his opinion like this ? " " I don't know that I have changed my opinion, Miss Cynthia," said Dick. " As I said in the beginning, you will both be woefully dis- appointed with Santa Clara. You will have a very long and tedious journey, and you will suf- fer many and hideous inconveniences, but your mother will satisfy her mind, and, after all, that is an important item." Cynthia laughed, the color rushing back to her face again. "Mr. Vincent," she said, "to you who have been half the world over, it must seem very foolish that we should so persistently want this one thing. To you a long journey is a bore ; to us it is a novelty and an experience ; and the longer it is and the more fatiguing, the more 2I 4 A Matter of Sentiment. thoroughly we shall enjoy it. Why, don't you remember the man in c Punch,' in a third-class carriage between Edinburgh and London ? He says, f What a ghastly long drive it is ! ' And his fellow-passenger, a canny Scotchman exclaims, f Mon, the ticket cost one pun, twelve-and- sax-pence. Ye need hae something for your money.' ' " Oh, yes, yes," said Dick, " I see your point ; and as long as you are not disappointed, I needn't say that to me the presence of ladies at Santa Clara will be a joy. I told poor Roger, your father, often enough that you would come there and be perfectly happy." He dropped his voice so that Mrs. Meredith, who was speaking to the servant who had just entered, could not hear what he said. Cynthia dropped her voice to the same level. " It is my mother's great wish," she said. " I have never known her so entirely set upon any- thing. She would have been wretched if you hadn't given way. Thank you very much, Mr. Vincent. You have been so good to us." " Don't say that," he said ; " the goodness is all the other way." Then Mrs. Meredith turned her back towards them again, and the conversation passed into other and lighter channels. It is hard adequately to convey the state of Dick A Time of Indecision. Vincent's mind at this juncture. What he suf- fered was not less than torture. With every day, every hour, he became more and more hopelessly and passionately in love with Cynthia Meredith. There were times when he made up his mind that he would risk everything ; that he would ask her to marry him ; others when he felt that there was no help for it but making a clean breast of the whole story once for all ; but, strange to say, so surely as he made up his mind that he would risk all and ask Cynthia to marry him, so did always that curious look come into her eyes which re- minded him of her father. Of course it was a natural thing that the girl should resemble her father in some particular, and her deep, gray eyes were almost the only feature in which there was any likeness to Roger Meredith. Sometimes he would make up his mind that he would tell the mother and daughter that his was the hand which had sent Meredith to his last account ; yet when- ever he drew near to the subject, by some chance Cynthia always contrived to check him. That was pure accident, of course, and perhaps some- thing to do with the fact that it was not, naturally, a very palatable confession for a young man to have to make. At such times he would feel that he had been a fool ever to think of upsetting their minds and their confidence in him by saying a single word of what was not actually necessary to be told. " If I cannot stop her from going to Midas Creek," his thoughts ran, " surely some- thing will happen so that she will not go ferreting everything out there. Perhaps it may not be the same landlord ; perhaps we might go and not a soul recognize me or remember much about Mere- dith's death. It isn't such an uncommon thing for a man to get put out of the way like that. I don't suppose the affair made more than a stir of an hour or two ; and evidently the jury sympa- thized with me, or they never would have brought it in Died by the visitation of God.' It was only their way of acquitting me of blame." Then he tore himself away from Brighton, and went back to Hollingridge. That time he was fully determined that, somehow or another, he must break with the Merediths, Yes, he fully made up his mind that life at this rate was not worth living, and that anything would be better than the anguish of mind to which he was now subject. " Going down to Brighton again ? " said his mother, when eight or ten days had gone by. " Yes, I must go down. I have rather impor- tant business. I shall be back in forty-eight hours." He happened to meet Cynthia on his way from his hotel to the Merediths' lodgings, and at the sight of the speaking gray eyes, the quivering of A Time of Indecision. 2I 7 the tremulous lips, and the heightening of the lovely rose-bloom on the face, it may as well be confessed that all his good resolutions took unto themselves wings and flew away. He stayed two days in Brighton that time, go- ing away more hopelessly in love than ever more convinced that the marriage could not be, and that Cynthia was not for him. " I am sure you are not well," said Mrs. Mere- dith to him on the second day. " No, I am not very well," he replied. " It's nothing ; don't worry about it, I beg." So he went back to Hollingridge, where his mother was much exercised in her mind, and though she did not say a word to him, she several times confided her doubts and fears to Laura. " I cannot tell what is the matter with Dick. I never saw anybody so changed in my life. He's like a person who cannot rest." " I suppose," said Laura, " that he has been doing laborer's work for the last seven years, and now finds a life of ease and idleness almost intol- erable." " I don't think it is that," said Mrs. Vincent, "and yet I don't know what it is. There is something that we do not know anything about." "Then, my dear mother, you may be sure that we shall never know," said Laura, wisely. - l8 A Matter of Sentiment. " He's in love ; that's what's the matter with Dick." " I don't think so," said Laura. " I don't think ; I'm sure of it. Now is it that Meredith girl, or isn't it ? " " He says she's very pretty," was Laura's remark. " Yes, but I begged him to let me ask them here for a few days. 1 think it would be the only proper thing for me to do. He wouldn't hear of it. He says they are ladies. The girl is very pretty. He seems to like them very much, and _and " " Well ? " said Laura. " Well, I'm looking ahead at the future a little." "As how?" " Miss Meredith is the heiress to half the oil well, which last year yielded a little over ten thou- sand pounds. Now it seems a pity to me, as she is young and pretty, and a lady, and Dick is un- / mistakably in love with her, that well, that Dick ' doesn't marry her." " Perhaps she won't have Dick." " So likely ! " said the mother, with dignified scorn. " Where has she had the chance to meet such a man as Dick? " " Well, dear, it isn't quite that. Girls, especially when they are young, have their fancies -just as men have. Perhaps Dick has already asked her. A Time of Indecision. 2I 9 He went down to Brighton and stayed two days." " Well, he told me he should be back in forty- eight hours." " But he wasn't back in forty-eight hours, dearest." " He was only there two days. The question is, did Dick propose ? If so, did she refuse him ? " " I don't know." " I wish I could see the girl, then I should know in a minute." " Well, dearest, perhaps it is just as well that you can't," was Laura's sensible reply. " Look here, mother, take my advice. Don't say a word to Dick." As if I should ! " "You might. Try not to think about it. Leave Dick to manage his own affairs by himself. If he wants the girl, you may be sure that he will do his best to win her. Meantime, it's no use asking other girls over, because Dick will have none of them." " I know that," said Mrs. Vincent, ruefully. And it was quite true. Dick absolutely de- clined to be fascinated by any of the young ladies in the neighborhood of Hollingridge. They might be rich, or well born, or pretty, or charm- ing, or possessed of any other desirable quality A. Matter of Sentiment. that young men look for in their wives ; it was all the same to Dick, and before he had been at home a week he again took flight and his way to Brigh- ton, this time fully determined that come what might he would not let " I dare not" wait upon " I will." He would make the horrid plunge, and put himself face to face with the truth, whether when Cynthia knew that her father had died by his hand, she would scorn him or not. He determined that he would break the news first to Cynthia, that if Cynthia took it in the wrong way he could quietly efface himself without paining her mother by the disclosure. He would leave it to Cynthia whether she chose to tell her or not. It happened that he had some difficulty in find- ing a suitable opportunity. He did not choose to tell her in the lodgings, because they were never free from the chance of being interrupted by her mother. He planned out a long walk to some point of interest which would offer a feas- ible excuse for such an excursion. Yes, he would tell her then ; and if she was upset, they would be on a quiet country road and nobody would be the wiser if she gave way to emotion. But alack and alas ! it poured for the better part of three whole days ; and beyond going to a concert at the pavilion, to the theater, and to one of the hotels to dine, neither Mrs. Meredith nor A Time of Indecision. Cynthia ventured out of doors at all. Then, on the third morning, he received a telegram from his sister Laura : " Father^very ill. Fear hope- less. Come home at once." 222 A Matter of Sentiment. CHAPTER XX. THE OLD SQUIRE AND THE NEW. As fast as rail could take him Dick Vincent sped home to the old house. He was terribly upset by his sister's telegram. He and his father had always been devoted friends, and the news that he was lying ill of what was probably a hope- less malady was very terrible to him. The jour- ney seemed interminable as journeys taken under such circumstances always do. He said to himself, over and over again, that of course in the face of such a message it would have been impo*s- sible for him to continue the confidence which he was about to make to Cynthia Meredith. " Perhaps it is a sign that I ought not to tell her ; that it would be better not to tell her," his confused thoughts ran. " If the dear old gover- nor gets over this, I'll take it as a warning that it would be better not to tell Cynthia a single word of that episode. Perhaps it was only sent to me as a means of getting me away. I had better take it as a sign not to think of her any more." But he did continue to think of her during all the rest of the journey ; and at last the train steamed into Hollinridge station, and he thrust The Old Squire and the New. 22 3 his head out eagerly to see if there was any one who could give him news of his father's state. Almost the first person that he saw his sister Laura, looking anxiously up and down the station. He waved an eager hand to her, and she came swiftly along the platform to meet him. " How is he ? " he asked. " Oh, just the same. Horribly ill." " But with what ? " he asked, as he bent and kissed her. " Oh, a fit of apoplexy. He was all right this morning at breakfast, in fact he had been all round the stables pottering about just as usual. He came into breakfast as brisk as a bee, and just as he was leaving the table he slipped and fell. Mother called out to him she knew in a moment what it was. He just said, ' I am very ill. Send for Dick.' Of course they got him to bed, but he was unconscious then, and the doctor has been with him most of the day since. Dick, dear, he says it's quite hopeless ; there's nothing to be done." Dick turned his head away with a blurred mist in front of his eyes. " Will he know me, do you think ? " " I don't think so," Laura replied. " He hasn't taken any notice of anybody. He just lies there, feeling with his hand all over the bed as if he were searching for something ; and now and 22 4 A Matter of Sentiment. then he'll seem to brush a fly off his face. Oh, it's dreadful, Dick it's dreadful ! " " And mother ? " Dick asked, in a choking voice. " Mother ? Oh, she just sits there holding his hand ; it's heart-breaking." " Do you think he'll know me ? " " I shouldn't think so." It gave Dick a shock as they drove up the avenue to see that the house presented very much its usual appearance. The dogs were lying out on the broad steps, Laura's Persian cat was perched on the balustrade, the flowers all bloomed just as they had been doing for weeks, and the white lace curtains stirred idly in the evening breeze. The old butler met him with a shake of the head. " Eh, it's a sad home-coming, Mr. Dick," he said. " Yes, Charles. Is there any news ? " " No, sir, it's just the same. I was in there just now. If you could persuade the mistress to eat something. Do get her out of the room, Mr. Dick. If it was only a glass of old port and a biscuit, it would be better than nothing. I know cook's made some strong beef-tea. It may be days before the end comes." " All right," said Dick. " He turned and followed Laura into the dining-room, feeling all at once cold and sick. The Old Squire and the New. 22 5 It was horrible to hear Charles speak of the end in that tone of certainty. " I'd advise you, Mr. Dick," said old Charles, following him into the room, " to take a nip ot brandy before you go in to see the mistress ; and then do try and bring her out, Mr. Dick." " All right," said Dick, " I will." He went into his father's room a few minutes later, and although the old man opened his eyes when Dick spoke to him, there was no gleam of any real consciousness in his face. An old woman from the village, who had nursed the young Vincents as children, was stand- ing by the bed. " It's no use, Mr. Dick," she said, " he doesn't know you. He hasn't known any one really since half an hour after he was taken. He'll never know any one again." " How long have you been in this room mother ? " Dick asked, turning to Mrs. Vincent. " I don't know, dear. Ever since " " Come out with me for a few minutes ; you can do no good here. Come, just for ten minutes." With some difficulty she permitted herself to be persuaded, and Dick got her into the dining- room. " I don't really want anything to drink, Dick," she cried. " No, dearest, I know you don't want it, but 15 226 A Matter of Sentiment. you may have a very long strain before you yet. Don't refuse what will sustain and strengthen you. Charles has got some port up for you ; it will do you so much good." " If the mistress would be persuaded to have a cup of strong beef-tea," said Charles. " No, I really can't." " Well, you've had no lunch, have you ? " " Not a mouthful, Mr. Dick," said Charles. " I dare say my mother doesn't feel like it, Charles. But she might take a cup of beef-tea. Come, darling, do. Think of us a little ; think what it will mean to us if you are laid up also." " Oh, I'll do anything you like, Dick," said his mother. " I never was stupid, and I wouldn't hurt poor dear cook's feelings for the world." She took the cup of beef-tea and drained it. " Yes, that is very good," she said. "It doesn't take an effort to get it down. What, Charles ? A little port ? Oh, I don't mind." " Come outside for five minutes," said Dick. "It's such a hot night, scarcely a breath stirring." " No, not outside," said his mother, shrinking back. " Well, just to the door. Let me put you a chair on the drawing-room veranda for ten min- utes. You must think of yourself, dear." " I don't like to leave him," said his mother, weakly. The Old Squire and the New. 22 7 " No, not to leave him. But old Goody is there, and if he wanted you or anything, she would come for you in a minute. It isn't like going out of the house. Just you get a breath of air, dear." Eventually she suffered herself to be coaxed out into the veranda on to which several of the drawing-room windows opened, and there they sat for a few minutes while the soft summer shadows fell gently around them, and late after- noon wore into evening as softly, almost as im- perceptibly, as the good genial life up-stairs was wearing away to eternity. " I must go back," said Mrs. Vincent at last. Dick made no effort to detain her. He knew that she would in any case be the better for the change of air, and in truth time proved that he was right. Mrs. Vincent had need of all her strength, for several days went by, during which the squire lay in exactly the same state, breathing stertorously, but taking no notice of any one or anything. Oh, the wretched time it was. Mrs. Vincent spent most of her time at the bedside ; even she, in the end, suffered herself to be drawn away to lie down and rest under a distinct promise that she should be called at the slightest change. Dick and the two girls wandered in and out of the house, saw visitors who came to make inquir- ies, and killed time as best they could, not liking 228 A Matter of Sentiment. to speak above a whisper, unable to settle to any occupation. And so the weary days dragged on and on, and on the fifth evening the change for which they had been watching came, and soon the squire was at rest. To all it was a relief, although being exces- sively sultry it was terrible to be in a house of which the blinds were closely drawn. Then came four dreadful days ere that of the funeral, and a terrible ordeal in the fact that all sorts and con- ditions of men and women come to pay their last tribute of respect to the dead man. There was a great collation after the ceremony, and Dick sat at the head of the table and realized for the first time that henceforth this was his own place. Then he had to bid adieu to every one, to receive countless messages for his mother, and, most frequently of all, to reply to the question would he ever go back to California, or not ? " Yes, I must go back," he said several times. " I must go back, if it is only to settle things. Oh, there's no fear of my chest now ; that's mended long ago. I shall be obliged to go back for various reasons ; but of course my mother and sisters will be here." " I wonder how long the mother and sisters will be there," said one country gentleman to an- other as they drove away. " He's a fine, likely- looking lad is Dick." The Old Squire and the New. " Oh, yes, a very fine lad. Why, he must be getting on for thirty now." " Thirty or odd, my dear chap. Same age as my Tom. I remember his being born as well as yesterday. And poor old Vincent was sixty-five, so he was thirty-five when Dick was born." " That's about it. Mrs. Vincent was young, you know. I don't believe she's nineteen years- older than Dick. Never thought the old squire would have gone off like that, did you ? " " Oh, I don't know. He was getting very red in the face. He puffed a good bit as he came up the stairs at the Bench. I've noticed it several times." " Horrid thing, apoplexy," said the other one. " Somehow or another it always seems to me as if it was in a measure your own fault. Did it ever strike you so ? " " Well, yes. You see, the poor old squire never was the same after he gave up hunting." " Why did he give up hunting ? " " Why, something to do with the veins of his legs. Couldn't ride ; and after being a hard rider to hounds all his life it didn't pay to take to dod- dering about. I'm sorry he is gone ; he was a good sort, never a better." Well might relations and friends alike regret the passing of the genial old squire of Holling- ridge ; but regrets, no matter how bitter they are, 2 3 A Matter of Sentiment. are impotent to change one iota of the workings of Nature. The squire was gone ; his place would know him no more ; he had pottered round the stables, and the glass-houses, and the grounds, and the place in which he had been born, and which he loved with all his heart, for the last time. " Now, dear boy," said Mrs. Vincent the morning after the funeral, " I want to have a serious talk with you." " No, mother ; it is not necessary." " It's best," said Mrs. Vincent, briefly, " to begin as we intend to go on." " Yes, dearest, but it isn't necessary to discuss that at present," said Dick, firmly. ." You are the master of Hollingridge now ; you are the squire." "I know it," said Dick. " More's the pity it is so ; but you are the mistress. Please let me hear nothing more about it. I don't want to dis- cuss it there's nothing to discuss." " But if you should marry " began his mother, tremulously. " Well, dearest, if I should want to marry, I'll come and tell you, and things will be made as convenient as possible for you and the girls. Be- lieve me, I shall not spring a marriage on you, or anything else. Don't talk about changes ; we've had one change, that's enough more than enough for the present." The Old Squire and the New. 2 3* " I should like to know," began his mother " I must know," she continued, in a desperate voice. " We must have some scale of expendi- ture agreed upon." " Well, dear, I suppose that's necessary. It seems to me that what my father could afford, I can afford. You and the dear Dad have never lived above your income, and there can be no ne- cessity or occasion to make any difference or any radical change now. For the present, what you have been accustomed to spend will be the proper thing to spend. Let everything go on as it has done until some of us want to make a change. Winifred will be getting married by and by ; well, that will be the first change ; possibly Laura." " Possibly yourself," said Mrs. Vincent. " Well, possibly myself; but I think not. At all events, that is a contingency which has not arisen, or any prospect of it ; so we needn't dis- cuss it as yet." " And you will go out to California ? " " I must go back, dearest, for a few months. I must arrange either for the proper working of the place, or for selling it. You must see that for yourself." " Yes, yes, I see plainly enough. But you won't stop there now ? " " No, I shan't stop there. As ranching, it isn't worth it, and an oil well can be worked without A Matter of Sentiment. personal supervision. Or I can sell. I must be guided by circumstances as to which course I take. But you may be assured of one thing that I shall not stay a day longer than is absolutely necessary. I would not go at all unless it were a necessity." " I certainly would not like to feel that you would go out there and remain another seven years." " Oh, no, I should not have done if this trouble had not come upon us. After all, the place has served my turn. I went out with an awfully dickey chest, and now it's as strong as any other part of me. I shall never grudge the years I have spent out there ; constitutionally they made a man of me ; but for my pleasure oh, thank you very much, I have had enough of it." " If I were you, Dick," said Mrs. Vincent, " I would sell. Supposing your oil well dried up ? " " That would be awkward," said Dick. " I don't believe that oil wells ever dry up so soon as this. But I can't settle anything here on this side. I must do what I think is for the best when I get out there, face to face with those who are likely to want to buy." " And in any case you mean to spend the greater part of your life at home ? " " The rest of my life, mother dear," said Dick. The Center of the World. 2 33 CHAPTER XXI. THE CENTER OF THE WORLD. FOR a few days after the squire's funeral Dick Vincent did not set foot outside the estate of which he was now master. On the fourth day his mother came to him in the little room which had been his father's den. " Dick,"she said, " I have had such a nice letter from your Mrs. Meredith." " Oh, have you ? " He looked up and stretched out an arm to draw her down upon the sofa be- side him, as boys who are on very affectionate terms with their mother often do. " She's a nice little woman," he said, " a dear little woman. And, you see, she's been in trouble herself." " Her letter is very sweet," said Mrs. Vincent. " I want you to read it." It was a sweet, sympathetic, womanly letter. "Your son," it said, "will have told you all the circumstances in which I lost my husband. How different to your own ! You, who stayed so many hours by your husband's bedside, holding his hand to the last, cannot perhaps understand how I envy you. Bitter as your grief must be, ^34 A Matter of Sentiment. you were together ; I have always the anguish of remembering that my husband died without know- ing whether I loved him or not even without knowing whether I was faithful or not. Dear lady, we do not know each other, except through your charming son, so good, so kind, so considerate. Indeed, you are blessed in him beyond all things. I hope to meet you one day, that I may tell you just how sweet and good your son has been to me." " And you wouldn't let me ask them here, Dick," said Mrs. Vincent, reproachfully. For a moment or so Dick did not speak. " Sometimes, mother," he said at last, " one is afraid to do what one is most anxious for." "Then," said his mother quickly, and looking away out of the window in order that she might not in any way scare his confidence, " then your old friend's daughter is more to you than an ordinary girl ? " " She is everything to me," said Dick, under his breath. " I should like to see her," said his mother. " I should like to have her here." " No, I would rather you didn't. It is not at all likely, dear mother, that anything more will come will how shall I put it ? will come of our friendship." " Do you mean that she doesn't like you ? " The Center of the World. 2 35 " No, I believe she thinks I am all right. She has never been other than perfectly charming to me." " Ah, well, it's early days," cried his mother. " A pretty girl with a lot of money is not going to give herself away until the man has asked her. You must win her, my dear." " We will see," said Dick. And a vision then of Meredith in his last tumultuous moments came before him. " I would like to explain everything. I don't know how to put it," he said, in a rapid undertone ; " I don't feel, somehow, that Mere- dith would approve. I have a very peculiar feel- ing about Meredith. It isn't her I can't have you blame her for a moment she is too sweet for words but I do not feel that she is for me." " There is something wrong about her ? " said his mother. " No, no. She is everything that is good and beautiful and charming." For a moment his mother did not speak. Then, without looking at him, for she was a very wise woman in her way, she put her hand out and laid it over his. " Have faith in time, dearest boy," she said, " have faith in time. It works wonders." The letter to Mrs. Vincent was not the only one which came from Brighton to Hollingridge. Both Mrs. Meredith and Cynthia wrote to Dick ; A Matter of Sentiment. Cynthia only once, it is true a sweet, tender, girl- ish letter, which 1 may as well confess Dick carried next to his heart for many a long day. Mrs. Meredith, however, wrote several times : frank, friendly letters, such as Dick hailed with intensest satisfaction, because they gave him news of Cyn- thia. During those few days Dick's mother, without seeming to in any way spy upon him, wormed a good deal of information out of him. She her- self sympathized with Mrs. Meredith's feeling about going out to Santa Clara. " Dear boy," she said one day, when they were sitting together on the wide old sofa in the study, " it's a perfectly natural thing she should want to go out, if only for a few weeks." " She cannot possibly stay longer than a few weeks," said Dick. " I have always heard that California is so lovely." " Yes, it is certain parts of it, but not at Santa Clara. It's good enough, interesting enough ; but it's far from civilization, and I think ladies would be very unhappy there. Besides, they couldn't go out there and live with me, and I don't intend to live there any more, and they cannot stop there long. It's ridiculous .and sense- less their going ; I know perfectly well it will be a most dreadful disappointment to both of them." The Center of the World. 2 37 " Well, dear boy, let me ask them to come and stay here for a few days. Of course, just now, I couldn't have anybody excepting some one cir- cumstanced as she is, in such deep mourning and your partner's widow and child. It would seem quite natural that they should come and see me before any of you go away. I might be able to persuade her to stop in England." " Do you think you could ? " " Well, I might. I would try, since you wish it so much ; but, all the same, I do sympathize with her in a way, Dick." " Yes, darling, I sympathize with her, too, in a way, but not 'exactly in the same way. It isn't a place for women. If she had gone out to Mere- dith, Meredith would have spent a lot of money in putting things to rights. He would have got up some Chinese servants and a lot of furniture, and added a wing to the house, and so on ; but it wouldn't be worth doing now, and I am afraid she would be thoroughly disillusioned." " Well, now, listen to me. I will write and ask her to come and spend a few days here, and if I can persuade her off the scheme, I will do it, cause you don't want her to go. I think you raid always be glad that we had done the right thing and invited them ; and you would like to see the girl here before anything definite was settled between you ; of that I am quite sure. See how she strikes you here with your own sisters, in your own home." " She will never strike me any differently, mother," said Dick, " but since you wish it so much and are so kind about it, I will write and beg them to come when you ask them." " Very well, dear, I'll write at once, because your time is getting within a limit now." " Yes, I must start within a month. I ought to go a little sooner than that, if you could spare me." " Dear boy, for business I must spare you," said she, quietly. Mrs. Vincent went away then, thoroughly gratified at having obtained her own way. In her own mind she was perfectly sure, from the tone of Mrs. Meredith's letters, that she was as keen on keeping the oil well to one ownership as Mrs Vin- cent herself. " Is it likely, a pretty girl with all that money, that she wouldn't feel it a perfect sin to let the other half of the splendid property slip? Of course not. Why, it would be no more nor less than a sin," her thoughts ran. So by that evening's post two letters went from Hollingridge to Brighton; one couched in the most kind and friendly terms from Mrs. Vincent to Cynthia's mother. " I am sure you will understand how much I desire to see you," she wrote. "It would be a The Center of the World. 2 39 great comfort to me if you would come and spend a few days with us here. As we are both in deep mourning, neither of us will feel the retirement of the other. My boy has told me a great deal about you and your charming daughter, and my girls are quite as eager to see her as I am to see you." The other letter was from Dick to Cynthia. " I am writing to you because my mother is writ- ing to yours to beg you to come and stay with us for a few days. I need not tell you how much pleasure it will give me if you accept her invita- tion." And as Mrs. Vincent had fully antici- pated, by return of post came back a most pleas- ant letter from the little widow, saying that she and Cynthia would love to pay a visit to Holling- ridge and to make the acquaintance of Dick's people. Dick received the news with a certain pang of apprehension and regret, and yet yet every pulse in his body was stirred with a strange joy. He had quite made up his mind that in any case he must disclose the truth to Cynthia. Yes, it must be done sooner or later. Of course, he could not do it in his own house, that was impossible ; but he would tell her, the evening before the day on which they would depart, that he was coming down to Brighton to see her, because he had a very serious communication to make to her. That A Matter of Sentiment. would prepare her mind for a disclosure ; it would quite prevent his being put offby untoward circum- stances. He would make the appointment to meet Cynthia, say up on the Rottingdean Road, before she left Hollingridge, so that they would not be dependent on any mood or fancy of her mother's. Yes, that was what he would do, and after that would come the deluge. When it was all over he knew that he would be happier, oh, yes. With a firm hand he would have shut down the curtain between himself and happiness ; he would have gained in self-respect. It never oc- curred to him that possibly Cynthia Meredith might take exactly the opposite view to that with which he had accredited her, that she might say, just as the disinterested man who had witnessed the whole affair had said at the time, that he was in reality blameless, because he had only acted from an instinct of self-preservation. To such a con- tingency he never gave the remotest thought, and he drove to the station to meet the mother and daughter very much as a man might have driven to meet his fate upon the scaffold, feeling absolute- ly assured in his mind that the first time they came to visit his ancestral home would be the last. It was naturally not in any sense a gay party that met round the table at dinner that evening, since both hosts and 'guests were in the deepest of deep mourning. To Mrs. Meredith Dick's The Center of the World. mother took at once. She herself was large and fair and commanding, with an inclination to softness which meant that with a little trouble anybody who loved her could easily get round her. She ad- mired with all her soul the tenacity which she rec- ognized in Roger Meredith's widow ; she would really have loved herself to be a soft-voiced, vel- vet-handed woman with a will of iron. There was no iron in Mrs. Vincent's will ; Mrs. Mere- dith's, on the contrary, was cold steel. With Cynthia she was charmed. Even against her own handsome, well-bred, intelligent, interesting daughters Cynthia showed up brilliantly. Her delicate beauty, her sweet, soft, yet direct manner, her dainty little ways, to say nothing of the oil well, all made Mrs. Vincent determined that, if she could help it, Dick should not throw away such an excellent chance of settling himself in life. " The girl is over head and ears in love with him," she explained to Laura, when they were chatting the last thing that night. " What can he be hanging about for ? Says he feels Meredith would not like it. Mrs. Meredith would like it, one can see that with half an eye." " I shouldn't interfere with Dick's affairs if I were you," said Laura. " Oh, I don't mean to interfere, but if a little judicious tact will help it along well, Dick shall not miss a good chance for want of it." A Matter of Sentiment. She was very tactful and very judicious during the few days which followed. She devoted her- self to Mrs. Meredith, and Mrs. Meredith was more than willing that she should be the recipient of so much attention. " I shall call you Cynthia, my dear," Mrs. Vincent said to the girl during the course of the first evening.