UC-NRLF 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 
 BY ANNIE THOMAS, 
 
 AUTHOR OP 
 "DENIS DONNE" AND "THEO LEIGH." 
 
 NEW YOEK: 
 HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 
 
 FBANKLIN SQUABE. 
 1865. 
 
ALUMNUS 
 
 Novels by Miss Annie Thomas. 
 
 DENIS DONNE. A Nowel. By ANNIE THOMAS. 8vo, Paper, 50 cents. 
 
 THEO LEIGH. A Novel. By ANNIE THOMAS, Author of "Denis Donne." 
 8vo, Paper, 50 cents. 
 
 ON GUARD. A Novel. By ANNIE THOMAS, Author of "Theo Leigh" and 
 "Denis Donne." 8vo, Paper, 50 cents. 
 
 Extracts from, English Notices. 
 
 Miss Thomas'B writing is fresh and vigorous. Her sketches of 
 character are full of cleverness, and Theo Leigh confirms the im- 
 pression made by Denii Donne, that the writer may take a fore- 
 most place in modern fiction. Saturday Review. 
 
 Miss Thomas displays an even vigor of diction which few of her 
 sex possess. Strong power of language and clear definition are 
 Miss Thomas's principal resources. Athencevm. 
 
 Its characters ("Denis Donae"), men and women whom every 
 
 body has met, are drawn with wonderful vigor, freedom, and 
 freshness. The Prtit. 
 
 Miss Thomas need not have either doubt or fear as to the place 
 which will be awarded her among our modern novelists. Morn- 
 ing Pott. 
 
 Miss Thomas will, we think, rank high among that class of 
 novelists of whom Miss Evans (George Eliot) is the first. 
 Eeader. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. 
 
 Sent by Mail, postage free, to any part of the United States, on receipt of the Price. 
 
ON GUAED. 
 
 CHAPTEE L 
 LADY VILLARS' KETTLEDRUM. 
 
 THE first scene opens as the last one will close 
 probably, quietly enough ; for this is to be no 
 story of guilt and horror, of murder, mystery, 
 or machinations. The actors ih it will be of 
 the order amon-gst whom we live and move and 
 have our being. Upon these I, their historian, 
 will rely for creating an interest to the full as 
 deep and true as can be obtained by the power- 
 ful pourtrayal of any or all of the cardinal 
 vices. 
 
 The season was June. Time, four in the 
 afternoon. Place, the drawing-room of a house 
 in a certain fashionable street in the May Fair 
 district : a street which shall be nameless, be- 
 cause not a house in it stands empty at present, 
 and the occupants of any given number might 
 feel annoyed, might experience just indignation, 
 at having their residence so plainly indicated. 
 
 Here I will pause for a paragraph or two in 
 my story, to ask whether any teller of tales in 
 print, past, present, or to come, may hope to 
 avoid this cruelest wrong of all, of being ac- 
 cused of maligning places and persons, and dis- 
 torting in recital occurrences which some wise- 
 acre or other in perusal is sure to discover is 
 " meant for so-and-so, and such-and-such." It 
 is a bitter drop in the cup of fame, popularity, 
 or whatever one may be fortunate enough to 
 attain, to hear from a third and candid acquaint- 
 ance that the friend of your heart is cut to that 
 organ by your obvious allusion to him or her at 
 p. 44 ! Or that the feelings of some one whom 
 you deemed too sensible, too quick of compre- 
 hension, to be affected by it for a moment, are 
 wrung because your promptitude of pen, and 
 pride of power in producing copy, has led you 
 into the unwitting error of dubbing lodgings in 
 the locality in which said supposed sensible one 
 once dwelt, "fly-blown." Ah me! since all 
 have faults and follies either on or under the 
 surface, to the one to whom is given the deli- 
 cate tact to avoid mention or allusion to all or 
 any of said faults and follies be all praise and 
 glory ! But not mine the latter, since not mine 
 the gift. 
 
 I have made my plea. I have indicated that 
 I intend to indicate nobody in particular, nor 
 to allude disparagingly to any special place. 
 Should I be so extremely unfortunate as to do 
 other than I intend, I here crave the pardon of 
 the offended, but nevertheless proceed with my 
 story. 
 
 The season was June, and the time four in 
 the afternoon. After this, need it be added 
 it the guests at Lady Villars' kettledrum 
 
 tha 
 
 were rather warm and very sleepy. " Tea and 
 a little music" on a Midsummer afternoon are 
 strangely conducive to the " brother of death" 
 (vide Shelley) obtaining at the least a partial 
 .sway. 
 
 There was a lull in the entertainment. A 
 pretty girl had* just ceased singing ; or, rather, 
 had just ceased listening blushiugly to the 
 gentle "bravas" which some amiable, well- 
 meaning men had bestowed upon her. Silence 
 had fallen over everything, and Lady Villars 
 began to think herself an unwise woman in 
 having thus collected a throng without suffi- 
 cient cause. 
 
 For the brightest luminaries in her circle had 
 refused to grace this afternoon re-union of hers. 
 She had beguiled the many here to-day with 
 the promise of some special shining on the part 
 of some bright particular stars. The bright 
 particular stars having disappointed her, the 
 many were cross, and showed that they were 
 so; albeit, they belonged to the upper ter 
 thousand, and were Lady Villars 1 dear and de- 
 voted friends. 
 
 It was not an unpleasant place in which t< 
 be warm and sleepy, this room of Lady Villars. 
 A double drawing-room, with a conservatory at 
 one end and a bay window draped with rose- 
 coloured silk at the other. A drawing-room, 
 the corners of which, through the skilful ad- 
 justment of furniture, were many. A room 
 that was replete with quiet nooks, though it 
 was at the same time an eminently comfortable 
 and sociable-looking apartment. A room in 
 which it was impossible for any one to hear ail- 
 that was said to everybody by everybody else. 
 A room that looked as though natural taste and 
 careful cultivation had presided over its adorn- 
 ment. Yet, withal, a room that was much like 
 many another one in the neighbourhood. 
 
 As for the people who filled it, they were as 
 void of singularity as the place they filled. 
 Picture to yourselves, you who may read these 
 pages, a group of English gentlemen and ladies 
 of all* ages standing about in a state of idle 
 irresolution, until the carriages which were or- 
 dered at five should be announced for their 
 redemption from this sleepy slavery. 
 
 The pretty girl who had just received mild 
 plaudits from the listless throng was the second 
 daughter of the house, Florence Villars. She 
 is to be one of the heroines of this book : there- 
 fore her charms shall be sung in full. 
 
 Hers was a moulded, not a chiseled face, yet 
 it was an exceedingly delicate, or, rather, per- 
 haps, I should say an exceedingly refined one. 
 Her face was fresh and glowing in hue. Had 
 her hair been black or brown her complexion 
 5Wjjj have appeared fair. As it was, the bright 
 >* ?**: 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 golden locks that were folded smoothly back 
 over her ears, arid arranged in a large loop be- 
 hind her head, caused the skin that knew more 
 of the rose than the lily to appear almost dark. 
 
 For all this violation of the usual laws of Na- 
 ture's colouring, Florry Villars was a very 
 lovely girl The shape of her head the yield- 
 ing lines of her full rounded figure the man- 
 ner of her movements all these were perfect. 
 Her aquiline nose was as utterly devoid of 
 strong-mindedness and severity as the veriest 
 snub could have been. Her hazel eyes were 
 as tender as the deepest blue that ever adorned 
 another woman's face. While as for the gentle 
 retreat her rounded chin made, it was women 
 and women alone who had the heart to suggest 
 that it betrayed "weakness of character." 
 Artists, and, indeed, men generally, held that 
 it was all that a woman's chin should be. 
 
 She had a very sweet smile, this lovely Miss 
 Florry Yillars: a charming smile warm and 
 pure as a sunbeam. All that portion, of the 
 world which came in contact with her knew 
 her smile; for it was rarely absent from the 
 soft ruddy lips and the kind hazel eyes. But 
 at this moment when I introduce her there was 
 more softness on the lips, and more kindness in 
 the eyes, and more sweetness in the smile, than 
 any one present had ever remarked before. 
 
 " I am glad you liked the song," she mur- 
 mured, glancing up towards a man who leant 
 against the wall at the end of the piano. 
 
 " I liked it so well that I want you to sit 
 down and sing it again, Florry." 
 
 " Oh, Claude, don't ask me ! "What would 
 mamma say ?" 
 
 "I don't care what mamma would say; I 
 want the song," he replied authoritatively. " I 
 want to hear it again, Florry. I did not come 
 here to listen to the squalls of that fat woman 
 in green silk ; and as for the little Grey girl, she 
 opens her mouth square, and tacks on a ' ra' to 
 the end of every word that she breathes upon. 
 I came to hear you, and I want to hear you 
 again at once." 
 
 Claude Walsingham infused a strong flavour 
 of flattery into the words he used ; so strong a 
 flavour, in fact, that it robbed the words of all 
 their arbitrariness and selfish unpoliteness to 
 her ears. She moved a little nearer to him, and 
 whispered 
 
 " Don't make me sing again, Claude, just yet. 
 I want to speak to you : I have great news to 
 tell you." 
 
 The man she addressed stood erect in an in- 
 stant. 
 
 "I will get Miss Grey to bewail something 
 being ' So near and yet so far,' as loud as she 
 can she will do anything I ask her then I 
 will hear what you have to tell me, Florry." 
 
 The girl's eyes followed him as he walked 
 away to the other side of the room, where sat 
 Miss Grey, expectant. 
 
 "I hope he won't say that Stanley is foolish, 
 or make hard-hearted speeches, and seem to 
 look down upon the affair altogether." Then 
 she watched him wistfully while he bent over 
 and solicited Miss Grey for her song watched 
 him wistfully, to her mamma's intense chagrin. 
 
 Not that the man was a "detrimental," ac- 
 cording to the usual acceptation of the term, or 
 that Lady Yillars was a heartless, manoeuvring 
 
 parent ; on the contrary, Claude Walsingham, 
 major in a light cavalry regiment, and eldest 
 son of a good old west country house, was a 
 prize that had been deemed worth striving after. 
 in all honour, by the many, for some three or 
 four seasons. 
 
 Still, a mother a widowed mother with 
 two fair daughters on hand, was justified in 
 watching keenly and feeling anxious as Lady 
 Yillars did watch and feel whenever Major 
 Walsingham and Florry held confidential con- 
 verse. For Claude had been in severe action 
 with the other sex before now, and had inva- 
 riably come out scatheless. Lady Yillars knew 
 that when the action is severe one of the con- 
 tending parties must of necessity be wounded. 
 Therefore she now watched Florence's fixed re- 
 gard of Claude's movements with an anxious 
 eye and a perturbed spirit. But for all that her 
 mien was calm and her smile unwavering ; for 
 she was a woman of the world, with her 
 daughter's future dependent on her in a great 
 measure. 
 
 He was a worthy subject of the fixed regard 
 Florence bestowed upon him, from the artistic 
 point of view, for he was one of Nature's finest 
 works a handsome young Englishman, with 
 all the best points of breeding and birth clearly 
 distinguishable about him. 
 
 Stern physiognomists might have objected to 
 a scanty development of temple and fulness of 
 under-lip. Neither mouth nor forehead were 
 deficient in beauty, however ; so but few women 
 thought for an instant of the possibly absent 
 intellect, or probably present sensuousness 
 sensuality would be too strong a word to use 
 about a man whose gay, glancing career had 
 been unmarked by anything positively staining 
 yet. 
 
 At any rate, Florence Yillars had never given 
 a thought to the possible existence of anything 
 that could be considered dimming to the bright- 
 ness of a character which she had elected for 
 some time to firmly believe corresponded in all 
 things to the man's glittering exterior. She 
 had fixed her young faith upon him adorned 
 him with all the good traits and noble qualities 
 a man such as he seemed should have. In 
 short, she had given her heart to the young, 
 good-looking light cavalry officer, and so her 
 imagination had enriched him with all the at- 
 tributes of a hero. 
 
 Despite that before-mentioned narrowness of 
 brow and fulness of under-lip which might pos- 
 sibly betoken attributes the reverse of heroic, 
 he was precisely the style of man whom girls 
 delight in placing upon a pedestal The stumpy, 
 stout man may have the better heart and the 
 broader mind ; but the stumpy stoutness blinds 
 the eyes of very young womanLood to his 
 worthy merits. The proportions of a god (as 
 gods are proportioned in marble), and the air of 
 a man of fashion, are things that appeal far more 
 strongly to the taste, the heart, and eyes of the 
 majority of girls under twenty. 
 
 Claude Walsingham was tall and lithe lithe 
 in a wiry, not a weakly way. There was vast 
 strength in his slight undulating form, and his 
 small, white, delicate hands were of iron, as 
 more than one hard-mouthed horse could testify 
 to its sorrow. He never struck you as being a \ 
 muscular, nowerful man; his appearance, his i 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 supple sliglitness, was as deceptive as was his 
 cold, unemotional manner. 
 
 Add to this supple, slender frame a pale, fair, 
 clean-cut face, the chief features of which were 
 au aquiline nose and a pair of cold blue eyes 
 spotted with reddish brown ; hair of the latter 
 hue, closely cropped, with whiskers and mous- 
 tache of a lighter colour, but otherwise strongly 
 resembling Lord Dundreary's, and the portrait 
 of Claude Walsingham is before you. 
 
 "Now for your great news, Florry," he said, 
 lounging up to Florence when he had planted 
 Miss Grey at the piano, disappointing the latter, 
 truth to tell, most cruelly by leaving her to turn 
 over her own leaves. "Now for your great 
 news, Florry ; is it that you are going to be 
 married?" 
 
 She blushed, not with confusion, but with 
 pure annoyance annoyance that robbed her 
 sweet face of its smile for a minute or two, and 
 rendered her incapable of speech. During the 
 pause she made perforce, he watched her with 
 an admiring gaze and a well-pleased smile ; but 
 Florry marked neither the one nor the other by 
 reason of her head being bent down. 
 
 " My great news relates to Stanley, not to 
 myself at all, Major Walsingham," she said, in 
 a low tone, presently. 
 
 "Why 'Major Walsmgham ?' No, Florry, 
 not another word even about dear old Stanley 
 till you have told me what Claude has done to 
 merit such painful promotion." 
 
 "I can't endure to have such absurd sugges- 
 tions made to me, by you of all people." 
 
 "Florry, I mention such a possibility in sheer 
 idleness, as I should speak of jumping over a 
 precipice or cutting my own throat one would 
 be equally destructive to me as the other." 
 
 The girl looked shyly up at him, blushing 
 hotly ; but no longer with annoyance. 
 
 "Claude! ah! what was I saying? Oh! 
 about Stanley I know now; he is going 
 what should you think Stanley is going to 
 
 " Cut the Church, I hope." 
 
 " No, Claude, no ; I won't have you speak in 
 such a way of Stanley's profession ; he is going 
 to do a much better thing marry Bella Vane." 
 
 "No!" 
 
 "Yes, I tell you: and why not isn't it 
 charming? Do you know her?" 
 
 "Never saw her." 
 
 "Why did you look aghast and say 'No' in 
 that way when I said Stanley was going to 
 marry Bella Vane?" 
 
 "I should have looked and said just the 
 same if you had told me Stanley was going to 
 marry Bella anybody else. I wish some one 
 would make day hideous with her shrieks. I 
 want to hear a full account of Stanley's insan- 
 ity, and your mother's telegraphing you to 
 leave me to my own miserable devices. Who 
 is Bella Vane?" 
 
 " A sweet girl " 
 
 "That of course all girls are. She isn't 
 Stanley's rector's daughter, is she ?" 
 
 " No ; she is that Mr. Vane's niece. Surely 
 you saw her last year ? She was up for a time 
 with the Leicesters. Mr. Leicester is another 
 uncle. Stanley met her there, and she was 
 here once or twice. I suppose he fell in love 
 with her then, for the announcement of the 
 
 engagement followed close upon that of her 
 having arrived at Denham on a visit We are 
 all delighted." 
 
 " I am not delighted." 
 
 " Yet you pretend to be fond of Stanley 
 Claude." 
 
 " It Was a terrible blow to my affection when 
 Stanley went into that perpetual curacy ; this 
 further rush into perpetual poverty is reallv too 
 harrowing." 
 
 " But it won't be poverty I forgot to say 
 that she is an heiress," Florry cried hurriedly. 
 She was distressed at the disapproval Claude 
 was manifesting about his friend her brother's 
 new and important move on the board of life. 
 
 "That alters the case materially I am be- 
 ginning to be delighted too." 
 
 "How calculating you are, Claude," she 
 said, sorrowfully. 
 
 "I think my bitterest foe would tell you that 
 I am so solely for my friends, Florry. I own I 
 am glad that Stanley has secured money, for I 
 should not have liked the woman who had 
 dragged him into obscurity." 
 
 " Why would it have been ' obscurity,' even 
 if Bella had had no money ? You can live on, 
 oh ! ever so little, quite nicely in the country, 
 you know. Besides, Stanley is sure to rise it 
 isn't a perpetual curacy, and he will leave it 
 by-and-by for a living, I hope." 
 
 "I hope so. I will drop him a line to-night, 
 congratulating him, on your authority. Good- 
 bye, Florry." 
 
 He pressed her hand gently as she gave it 
 into his, and looked lazily over her head the 
 while into the eyes of Miss Grey, who was 
 willing, report said, to bestow herself and three 
 thousand a-year upon the light dragoon. 
 
 "You will be there to-night. Good-bye," 
 she replied, hastily. 
 "There! Where?" 
 
 "At Gerald's Lady Villars quite expects 
 you." 
 
 " I shall just look in and make my bow ; I 
 can do no more to-night, unhappily, for I am 
 going with a man at eleven to sup with several 
 Bohemians." 
 
 She looked disappointed. The Dowager 
 Lady Villars never took her daughters to a ball 
 till eleven, therefore the chances of seeing 
 Claude at her sister-in-law's ball were not 
 great. 
 
 " How have you travelled into that country, 
 Claude ? Who has been your guide ? I thought 
 you did not know and could not bear Bohe- 
 mians." 
 
 " Have you a clear notion of what Bohe- 
 mians are ?" he asked, laughingly. 
 
 "No," she said frankly, she had not; she 
 used the phrase as she used many another one, 
 without any very definite idea as to what it 
 applied. 
 
 " It is not a practicable thing to steer clear of 
 them, Florry; they're everywhere Church, 
 army, physic, law, all assist in swelling the 
 list." 
 
 ' Then you simply mean that you are going 
 to-night to a mixed party?" 
 He laughed, " Very mixed." 
 "I thought Bohemians were people who 
 sang and acted, and wrote for all sorts of papers 
 and journals, Claude." 
 
8 
 
 ON GUAIiD. 
 
 "You did not think far wrong." 
 
 ""Well, I thought " She paused for a 
 
 few moments, until he asked her what else she 
 thought 
 
 " Why, that you were rather too fine to know 
 such men." 
 
 " The men are cads," he said thoughtfully. 
 
 " Still, you will give up Carrie's ball for the 
 sake of going amongst them ; now, Claude, I 
 call that inconsistent." 
 
 " Don't attempt to prove anything, Florry ; 
 you're not a bit of a casuist fortunately. I am 
 going to-night to hear a a fellow with a won- 
 derful voice sweetest soprano I ever " 
 
 " ' Fellows ' don't have soprano voices, 
 Claude," she said quickly : " you must mean a 
 tenor." 
 
 "I do of course I do mean a tenor," he 
 replied, colouring slightly. Then he held his 
 hand out a second time, and took hers in fare- 
 well; which proceeding, in conjunction with 
 the long private conversation with Florry, and 
 certain rumours she had heard respecting him, 
 caused Lady Villars no small anxiety. 
 
 Florence drifted aimlessly about the room 
 after his departure, and strove to amuse and be 
 amused by the other guests, until such time as 
 they, too, in mercy vanished. But there was 
 little heart in her striving, and so it failed in its 
 object, which failure was marked by Lady Vil- 
 lars, and her eldest daughter, Georgina. 
 
 "Florry dear," Miss Villars said to her sister 
 a little later, when, ensconced in their mutual 
 dressing-room, they were resting, previous to 
 dressing for the ball, " mamma wishes that you 
 wouldn't let Claude devote himself quite so ex- 
 clusively to you ; there are things said about 
 him that mamma does not like." 
 
 " Who tells them to her, Georgie ?" 
 
 "Mr. Manners amongst others, and he 
 wouldn't malign any one, you know." 
 
 " Ah ! he is such a different man. He may 
 judge Claude harshly, Georgie ; I can't believe 
 anything true of Claude that is not good," Flo- 
 rence pleaded rather wistfully. 
 
 " True or not, they are currently reported, so 
 you must be careful, darling," Georgina cried, 
 blithely. She herself was engaged firmly and 
 securely to the worthiest of men, about whom 
 none but good words had ever been said. It 
 seemed to her but a little thing to discounte- 
 nance a handsome scapegrace of whom " mam- 
 ma had heard things." She did not, in her own 
 well-assured happiness, give a thought to the 
 possible cause of the languid indifference with 
 which Florry went through the business of the 
 ball that night, after Claude had passed along 
 in front of Lady Villars, in acknowledgment of 
 her courtesy in inviting him. 
 
 It was all weariness and vexation of spirit to 
 Florry from the moment Claude's close -cropped 
 fair head was finally borne from the room. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 A GREAT BEAUTY. 
 
 THE first scene opened on a somnorific, sultry 
 summer afternoon in London. The curtain is 
 lifted now upon a widely different one. The 
 
 time is morning, the morning after that kettle- 
 drum at Lady Villars'. But the place is the 
 shady low-roofed drawing-room of a secluded 
 old rectory a dear old sequestered house, with 
 whitewashed walls, over which roses crept and 
 jasmines wandered, and above which rooks caw- 
 ed daily in a way that proved how entirely at 
 home they were and in which, truth to tell, 
 dulness very often dwelt. 
 
 Dulness did not dwell there at this precise 
 period, however; for bright Bella Vane was 
 there on a visit to her uncle and aunt. The 
 whole house, the whole village, was redolent of 
 her, so to say. She was there in the full glow 
 of her beauty and wealth there with the ear- 
 liest bloom of a happiness that was new to her. 
 
 In her character of beauty and heiress, she 
 had always been an interesting study, a never- 
 failing subject of inquiry and interest, to her 
 uncle's parish and the neighbourhood around. 
 Now the interest was deepened, for she had 
 come amongst them but the other day free, and 
 now she was fettered fettered to no less a per- 
 son than the clerical favourite of the locality, 
 Mr. Stanley Villars, Mr. Vane's curate. 
 
 Bella Vane was what Florence Villars, in 
 the enthusiasm of the moment for her pet 
 brother's betrothed, had called her, " charming." 
 She was thoroughly " charming," though it 
 would be difficult to say precisely why she was 
 so. About her beauty there could be no mis- 
 take ; no difference of opinion even. She was 
 not one of those of whom keen-eyed critics can 
 say, " Yes, she's lovely, only rather too " 
 this, that, and the other. She was lovely, and 
 there could in truth be no "only " or " but " 
 raised as to the fact of her being so. Her figure 
 was lovely, tall, and slight, yet, withal, well 
 rounded. Her head, crowned with its dark 
 masses of shining long hair, was shaped like 
 one of Phidias' realised dreams of " fair women." 
 Her oval face was perfect in the delicacy and 
 exquisite proportion of its classical lines. And, 
 in addition to this rare, this almost antique per- 
 fection of form, Bella Vane had expression too. 
 
 Such expression ! Take your most glowing 
 conception of Cleopatra, and refine ifc, and you 
 may come near to having some notion of the 
 warmth and force that dwelt in Bella's wonder- 
 ful steel-blue eyes, and on her full, short, ruddy 
 lips lip I should say, rather, for the under one 
 was not full. There was nothing coarse in her 
 physique ; it was the fair presentment of her 
 mind. Nothing could exceed, few things could 
 equal, the delicacy of her mouth and chin. The 
 short, curled, ruddy upper lip, so quick to 
 quiver, so prompt to thrill, showed that she 
 could feel. The chin, the firm, cleanly-cut, 
 delicately-rounded chin, that did not retreat, 
 after the fashion of gentle Florry Villars', show- 
 ed that she could think. But it was the square 
 forehead, from which the hair was turned back 
 entirely, and suffered to hang in loose curls be- 
 hind, that told you in unmistakable language 
 that the great beauty was likewise a clever girl. 
 
 It has been said that she was a great heiress. 
 That she was such, had been impressed upon 
 her understanding from the time she could 
 understand anything; for she was the only 
 child of an uncommonly unreserved mother, 
 who was a widow. Those surrounding Bella 
 had not omitted the information that she was a 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 great beauty also ; nor had they neglected to 
 inculcate the desirability of her having very 
 great claims socially and matrimonially. They 
 taught her these things to the best of their 
 ability, and they taught her little else. 
 
 The girl had had governesses and masters 
 whose name was legion, but she had learnt little 
 from them. She was idle and impulsive in 
 childhood and very early girlhood, and the idle- 
 ness made her neglect to learn, and the impul- 
 siveness caused her to quarrel with her instruc- 
 tors when they attempted to insist upon her 
 doing so The result was, that she grew up 
 undisciplined and imperfectly educated with a 
 superficial knowledge of many things, and a 
 profound belief in her own right to sway. 
 
 But though thus indifferently cultivated, she 
 was a clever girl quick to catch up the salient 
 points of a subject specially gifted with the 
 dangerous art of " seeming to know all about 
 it." She had wearied of all the things they 
 strove to teach her whilst they had been so 
 striving ; but when she grew up, and was free 
 to follow her own sweet will, she turned of her 
 own accord to several of the neglected accom- 
 plishments, and mastered them. 
 
 She turned to them with understanding arid 
 love, surmounting all the inseparable difficulties 
 in a very different way to that which she would 
 have done had she been driven to surmount 
 them. The regulation drawing and singing 
 lessons had been odious to her. But she took 
 the best she could procure, with industrious 
 avidity., after her first tour on the Continent 
 her first experience of the art-galleries of Italy 
 and Germany. 
 
 Her reasons for surmounting difficulties were 
 not invariably so lofty as were those which in- 
 duced her to strive to give herself, with her 
 own hand, the sensations of delight colour and 
 form, from the pencils of others, had imparted to 
 her. For instance, it was less a desire to enjoy 
 Schiller and Goethe in the original than to 
 please Stanley Villars, which had made her so 
 assiduously study German for the last six 
 months. He had told her " what she lost by 
 reading them in English ;" and forthwith Bella, 
 who had hitherto denounced German as a cross 
 between "snarl and sore throat," found that 
 language full and soft, mellow and expressive, 
 beyond every other. 
 
 Miss Bella had not been wont to trouble the 
 quiet people at Denham Rectory with her pre- 
 sence very often, before the man who had re- 
 commended Schiller and Goethe in the original, 
 became her uncle's curate. After that event 
 she inflicted her charming presence upon them 
 frequently and now she was settled there for a 
 few weeks, at the least, for she was Stanley 
 Villars' affianced bride. 
 
 I say "troubled them with her presence" and 
 " inflicted it upon them " advisedly, for it is a 
 fact that a beauty and heiress in a quiet hum- 
 drum household is a great bore almost invaria- 
 bly. Mr. Vane strove hard to obey her behest 
 " not to put himself out for her." But he could 
 not succeed in retaining the blessed calm that 
 was his when she was not there. As for Mrs. 
 Vane she had been duly impressed by Bella's 
 importance in the latter's infancy, and had 
 never been able to get rid of, or conceal, the 
 feeling. Bella, alone, would have been all 
 
 very well- for a time, despite this wholesome 
 awe which she had unwittingly inspired in 
 their breasts. But Bella's steeds in their stables, 
 and Bella's maid and own man in their house, 
 were overpowering. 
 
 Miss Bella never went anywhere without a 
 couple of saddle-horses and these two personal 
 attendants. Ordinarily this retinue of hers was 
 but a drop in, the ocean of life in the mansions 
 of the great with whom she sojourned. But 
 this Denham Rectory was an exceptional place ; 
 accommodation was limited therein. There 
 was a feeling of oppression over all the resi- 
 dents, and a pervading sensation of tightness 
 during the whole time Miss Vane remained 
 with them. 
 
 She was happily unconscious of what a great 
 bore she was this great beauty, who was gene- 
 rally so prompt to see and feel. She thought 
 that it was their normal condition to be con- 
 strained in manner and uncomfortable in mind 
 to be dull, and decorously depressed, and ad- 
 dicted to habits of silence. That they were so 
 in her presence afforded her no manner of un- 
 easiness, not one pang of the gentlest regret. 
 It pleased her to stay with them now on account 
 of Stanley Villars. Whether it pleased them 
 to have her was a matter of minor importance 
 to the great beauty, who was just a little selfish. 
 
 Miss Vane's engagement was still a very 
 young thing : so young a thing that she treated 
 it still with the sweetest consideration, remain- 
 ing here in the quiet country to enjoy it simply 
 and thoroughly. How it had come about shall 
 be told presently, together with Miss Vane's 
 reasons for feeling astonished that it should 
 have come about at all. 
 
 For three weeks she had been here at Den- 
 ham, taking long rides in the morning, on her 
 brown mare Vengeance, accompanied by her 
 "own man" and her big setter Rock; dressing 
 elaborately for the five o'clock dinner, and then 
 wandering about the rectory grounds all the 
 evening with Stanley Villars. 
 
 For a fortnight these wanderings had been 
 enlivened by a certain doubt, uncertainty, and 
 tremulousness of spirit. She felt persuaded 
 that he loved her ; she was a thorough woman ; 
 she never remained oblivious of a pleasing fact 
 a minute after it became one ; but she was by 
 no means certain that he would tell her so. He 
 was a cool, thoughtful, earnest man. Bella 
 could see that he himself felt that there was a 
 want of wisdom in his love for her, the impas- 
 sioned, wilful beauty. So for a fortnight the 
 young lady, who had never been baffled in one 
 of her smallest desires up to the present time, 
 doubted whether or not he would suffer love to 
 be the lord of all. 
 
 He knew that there was a want of wisdom 
 in this love of his, but battling against it was 
 of no avail ; the girl was with him too often for 
 Prudence to retain her empire in his soul. The 
 girl was with him too often, for the village was 
 very small, society very limited therein, and 
 Mrs. Vane was driven to lay forcible hands 
 upon any one who could assist in entertaining 
 her oppressive niece. She was with him fre- 
 quently, listening to his words as though they 
 were passing sweet to her ; sparing no looks, 
 no lure, no tone that might still further win him ; 
 flattering him with the terrible intensity of 
 
10 
 
 ON GUARD. 
 
 that flattery which only a woman who believes 
 that her spurious enthusiasm, her sham senti- 
 ment, and her evanescent affection are real, 
 true, and lasting, can employ. 
 
 Her belief in herself created in very undue 
 time a corresponding one in him. He soon 
 came to deem the girl all that she seemed all 
 that he could wish her to be. Beauty, heiress, 
 spoilt child, wilful woman as she was, he yet 
 told himself that she was just such a help as 
 would be meet for him. She was a petted dar- 
 ling in the giddiest circles. He was a country 
 clergyman, with no particular prospects of pro- 
 motion in the profession that, for its own sake, 
 was dear to his heart. "What objections could 
 be raised to a union, or a contemplated union, 
 between these two ? None ; not one that could 
 stand for a moment against that resistless charm 
 of hers ; not one that his manly faith in what 
 was so passing fair did not attribute to mere 
 worldly distrust and an unreliant heart. 
 
 It was but for a fortnight, but for fourteen 
 days, that he rode Faith with a curb, and kept 
 steady hand on Desire." At the end of that 
 time it came to him to feel that to win in the 
 race of life he must wait upon circumspection 
 and self-denial no longer. Then he called upon 
 his reliance on What is to be, is best ; and the 
 call was answered. He came in winner he 
 little knew how little ahead of the hand and 
 heart of Bella Vane. 
 
 I like the girl whom I have created, or rather 
 I like the prototype from whom I have drawn 
 her, so well, that I fear there will be pain in 
 telling how little worthy she was of this battle 
 in his heart this victory, which may turn out 
 a defeat, which he had gained. I like her for 
 her deep steel-blue eyes, and her warm, loving 
 smile, and the winsome charm that was diffused 
 through all her being and her bearing. " What 
 moral is in being fair ?" This : that all to whom 
 that which is truth embodied beauty itself, is 
 dear, love it, sympathise with its failings, and 
 screen its frailties. 
 
 She had shown neither failing in aught that 
 might be expected of her, nor frailty of purpose, 
 as yet, this fair young creature. She had broken 
 no troth, blighted no being, betrayed no trust. 
 But for all this internal integrity, she was not 
 quite at peace with herself on this summer 
 morning when I show her to you first. 
 
 She was sitting alone, quite alone, in the 
 quaint old drawing-room of the quainter old 
 house, on this sultry June morning. She was 
 bereft of her usual morning amusements. It 
 had been too hot to take Vengeance for a good, 
 hard, exhilarating trot. Stanley was in the 
 parish. She detested needlework, unless she 
 had some one by to assort her skeins and talk 
 to her. All these things were hard to bear, but 
 harder still was the fact that she had no new 
 books and no morning papers to read. 
 
 Any one who has been accustomed to a full 
 supply of them for years can understand the 
 sudden blank, the awful misery of falling short, 
 or straying away out of the bounds of delivery, 
 of those yellow-ticketed volumes which go to 
 the making up of a considerable portion of 
 nineteenth-century bliss. Bella was wont to 
 have her interest kept on the gui vive for four 
 heroines and as many heroes at one time in 
 divers serials. In addition to this long-dra.wn- 
 
 out excitement she was accustomed to " look 
 1 over" all that everybody was doing in Central 
 Africa, "the House, ' hebdomadal and daily 
 literature, and fashionable life. Now at one fell 
 blow she was cut off from daily intercourse 
 with the library, morning papers, and the people 
 of her own set. In default of these she had 
 fresh air and Stanley Villars. But she had 
 been in the country for three weeks ; had been 
 engaged to the aforesaid seven days ; and was 
 Bella Vane. 
 
 " Ah, well, the women free from faults have 
 beds below the willow." I am never tired of 
 that quotation. To me it has as deep a mean- 
 ing, is as fraught with pathos and plea and 
 profound pity for the weak and wavering, as 
 was "vanity of vanities, all is vanity," to the 
 great preacher, and his great exponent in these 
 our own days. Bella Vane was very far from 
 faultless. She had not yet graduated for a 
 " bed beneath the willow." She sat here in the 
 June sunbeams twisting the week-old engage- 
 ment-ring upon her finger, and wishing, with all 
 the power of wishing within her, that Stanley 
 could give up more time to her that the beauti- 
 ful country was not so dull and that she had 
 not promised her mamma to remain quiescent 
 in it for still a month longer, in order to regain 
 her roses, which a brisk early season in London 
 had slightly faded. 
 
 She had arranged herself on a bay window, 
 with her feet on the sill of the same, and a two- 
 days-old Morning Post in her lap. Its being 
 two days old was no drawback to the delight 
 with which she perused it. Politics did not 
 interest her one whit. Whether the North 
 swamped the South Denmark got its duchies 
 the duchies their independence or the grandest 
 armies were decimated for an idea was of little 
 moment to Bella. Such things had their impor- 
 tance and value she did not doubt, but they 
 never came in her way. Had the men she 
 knew been connected ever so remotely with 
 the state, it would have been different. As it 
 was, the sole diplomatist who had bowed at her 
 shrine was a young unpaid attacfte to the em- 
 bassy at a minute court. He having spelt pro- 
 vidence with a "&" hi his solitary effusion to 
 her, was regarded by her but lightly. 
 
 What made the Morning Post acceptable to 
 her, whether it was old or young, was its full 
 description of the Princess's last new ball-dress, 
 and the list of names of those who saw the 
 Princess wear the same. Miss Bella had run 
 the gauntlet of but one London season, and if 
 she had not striven to enchain a duke, would 
 have won an earl so everybody said. But 
 she had striven to enchain a duke, and the duke 
 has successfully wrestled against a fairer fate 
 than may ever be offered him again. Now 
 that he was pledged to a very different line of 
 life, she remembered the scenes in which she 
 had so striven : the duke's name amongst those 
 of others in the columns of the paper recalled 
 those scenes vividly. The remembrance made 
 her sad she knew not why; only a country 
 village was dull, and she was a spoilt beauty, 
 and very young. 
 
 I like the girl whom I have created. Are we 
 not all apt to be led away into a perhaps not \ 
 too well-founded admiration for the possessors of 
 big, blue, earnest eyes, and finely-curved, ex- 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 11 
 
 pressive lips ? Beauty has a blinding influence ; 
 we cannot see its faults yet awhile "just a 
 little longer," we are always pleading, to be 
 lieve it as perfect as it seems. 
 
 I like this girl yet I do not declare that her 
 speedy wearying of love's young dream was 
 right or amiable. She the betrothed bride of 
 a wek ought not to have sighed over the 
 columns of the Morning Post. Nor was it good 
 of her to debate seriously within herself the 
 question of whether she should break her reso 
 lution, order her mamma suddenly back to 
 town, and go to a grand fete at a villa on the 
 banks of the Thames, which she saw announced, 
 and to which, of course, she would be invited ; 
 and so break up the course of evening wander- 
 ings which she had been taking with Stanley 
 Villars. 
 
 "I am happier here with Stanley, naturally," 
 she said to herself, after a long perusal of the 
 paper, and a longer cogitation over its contents. 
 Then she took out her watch to see what time 
 it was, and yawned wearily when she found 
 that still another hour remained to be passed 
 away before the luncheon bell would ring. 
 " What on earth can Aunt Yane be about ? I'm 
 sick of it all 1" 
 
 She had been alone all the morning, and she 
 was a social creature, who loved to hear the 
 sound of her own and others' voices. Neither 
 the feeling nor the expression were very extra- 
 ordinary under the circumstances. Still she 
 wished that she could have retracted both, for 
 she remembered that the man she had promised 
 to marry had a prominent place in the scenes 
 ' of which she was sick. 
 
 She was just resolving to eschew all mid-day 
 sustenance, and go out for a couple of hours on 
 Vengeance, when she heard a step on the gravel 
 outside the window a step that was familiar 
 to her a step that, despite this sudden acces- 
 sion of petulant weariness, was very dear to 
 her. All traces of discontentment and dulness 
 vanished from her face as she rose up quickly 
 and stepped between the screening roses that 
 fell over the window. She forgot the fete by 
 the river, the triumphs of last year, and the 
 possible chagrin of the duke at having lost her, 
 as she came out into the presence of the man 
 who had won her. 
 
 " Stanley, I am so glad you are come," she 
 began, impetuously ; " I have had nothing to 
 do, and no one to speak to all the morning." 
 Then she went on to tell him of the half-formed 
 determination to go away for a few days, and 
 he listened to it silently never combating it 
 by any of the loving words she had hoped he 
 would use. 
 
 He has been called the pet brother of the girl 
 whose beauty was of the soft and yielding 
 order fit robe of her mind. The pet brothers 
 of soft and yielding sisters are almost sure to 
 possess the opposite qualities in the extreme. 
 Stanley Villars was not a hard man, nor an 
 obstinate one ; but he was not readily impress- 
 ed, and even Florry said that he could be very 
 firm. 
 
 Look at him as he stands now with Bella 
 Vane clasping his arm with both 'her hands, as 
 she tells him, half piteously, half humorously, 
 how the dulness and heat of the day had all 
 but routed her from the village. A tall, well- 
 
 built young man, whose figure graced the garb 
 he wore in a way that made full many a woman 
 sigh that some more graceful garb did not 
 adorn it. A man whose face was perfect in the 
 correct cutting of each feature, and in a certain 
 severe nobility of expression that is nicer on a 
 bronze coin than in real life. His slate-colour- 
 ed eyes were truly the windows of a soul in 
 which nothing mean could dwell, even for an 
 instant ; and his mouth had the lofty beauty of 
 an Apollo's, who had never said a word which 
 could shame him in the utterance. His head 
 was held high, as were his thoughts and aspira- 
 tions, and it was crowned with dark, curling 
 locks, that were, as his sister Georgina said, 
 " rather thrown away on any one so superior to 
 such things as Stanley." He wore but little 
 whiskers, and no beard or moustache ; what 
 whiskers he had were dark and silky, and were 
 long, after the fashion of the day, rather than 
 broad. 
 
 Give the word its widest meaning, Stanley 
 Villars was eminently " good "-looking. Many 
 women had deemed him so, but few had ac- 
 corded him so much as a flutter of the heart. 
 
 He had been struck with surprise himself when 
 the truth came home to him that Bella Vane 
 liked him well. He was conscious himself that 
 extremes would meet should they ever come 
 together, for Bella showed her true colours at 
 once, and the thoughtful man marvelled that so 
 fiery a nature should succumb to his icier sway. 
 He watched her during those few meetings to 
 which Florence had alluded in London, and he 
 marked that she glowed beneath his regard as 
 she never glowed at other times. He watched 
 her more keenly still when she withdrew from 
 frivolity, acd came down to be quiet and good 
 in the country, and he felt that the beautiful 
 girl believed that not alone could she make his 
 happiness, but that he could make hers. Very 
 frequently did he pray that she might not be 
 mistaken, or that he might be given power to 
 wait for awhile till further trial was given her. 
 But she was with him frequently, gently show- 
 ing that she loved him, sweetly chiding him for 
 fearing. So the prudent, Apollo-like clergy- 
 man, whom all women admired, and so few had 
 dared to love, took the plunge, and asked for 
 the promise that she would be his wife, from 
 the great beauty who might have been a 
 duchess. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 CIRCE. 
 
 CLAUDE WALSINGHAM rose late on the morning 
 following that conversation with Florry Villars, 
 with a confused recollection of having been be- 
 trayed into sundry promises under the influence 
 of claret-cup champagne and strains from Ver- 
 di's last opera, on the previous night. Not that 
 he had put an enemy into his mouth who had 
 stolen away all his wits. He was a man of the 
 present day ; one of an order and period who 
 can go very wrong indeed, and still steer clear 
 of aught that borders on excess. But there are 
 other things in this wicked world which are 
 equally intoxicating as wine. There is a cer- 
 
12 
 
 ON GUARD. 
 
 tain incense, compared to the power of which, 
 when it mounts into the brain, the most potent 
 of vintages are weak. This incense had been 
 around him often, but its enervating odorous 
 sweetness had never obtained so full a domi- 
 nion over him as had been obtained last night. 
 Every man must have, at the least, an idea 
 of what this incense, to which no name can be 
 given, since none can fully describe it, was 
 composed. It is the atmosphere that women, 
 who have charms both of body and mind, can 
 create around the man whom, for reasons noble, 
 or the reverse unhappily very often, they are 
 desirous to natter and beguile for the purpose 
 of enslaving. 
 
 He was well endowed by nature and fortune, 
 as I have said. He was well placed ; and he 
 had the art to make the very most and best of 
 his endowments, his place and position. This 
 being the case, the legitimate arrows that had 
 been discharged at him were numerous. Na- 
 turally, then, the ones that were not so legiti- 
 mate were innumerable. 
 
 There was no thought of evil in the hearts of 
 many whose shafts had been deemed wickedly 
 reprehensible by his mother, and others who 
 took a warm, not to say peppery, interest in his 
 welfare. Portionless girls, with no particular 
 pedigree, had been severely denounced for cast- 
 ing upon him eyes of what would, with culture 
 the smallest encouragement have develop- 
 ed into affection. Old Mrs. Walsingham had 
 had bad dreams about dozens of respectable 
 young ladies whose fair faces had made an eva- 
 nescent impression on her impressionable son. 
 Her history of the snares arid delusions that 
 had been spread for him, and that he had es- 
 caped, thank heaven, was voluminous. But 
 they had all been respectable snares and delu- 
 sions, these that Claude had confided to his 
 mother. The list of those that had been spread 
 that were still, alas ! spreading was incom- 
 plete. 
 
 Claude was very precious in the eyes of his 
 whole family. His father almost wished him- 
 self dead at times, in order that the son of 
 whom he was so proud might enjoy the estates 
 and the glory of being the head of the house of 
 "Walsignham. The old gentleman was stopped 
 short of wishing it entirely, by the reflection 
 that when dead he could not see Claude in pos- 
 session. He envied Hamlet's father, to whom 
 it had been given to come back and mark how 
 abjectly Horatio listened when the Prince elect- 
 ed to make a long string of high-minded re- 
 marks, and how readily pretty Ophelia went 
 mad for the estimable orphan. 
 
 His brothers, though they were younger and 
 their lines were cast in less pleasant places, and 
 his married sisters, possessing other and dearer 
 interests of their own, as might be supposed, 
 believed in him as a handsome, generous elder 
 brother, who, a " great swell >: abroad, remains 
 a boy in all but years at home, is sure to be be- 
 lieved in. They vaunted his excellencies to 
 their husbands, they made him godfather to all 
 their children, they gave him the freedom of 
 their homes, they made much of him in every 
 way, loving him above their other brothers in a 
 way that, if he had not been Claude, the other 
 brothers would have been jealous o But he 
 was Claude, therefore no one was jealous of 
 
 aught that was bestowed upon nim even of 
 that by the side of which all else dwindled into 
 insignificance, the great and surpassing love 
 which dwelt in his mother's heart for this glory 
 of her race. 
 
 He was very precious to them all, but to her 
 he was as God's sun utter darkness would be 
 over all the earth for her did a cloud obscure 
 his brightness. She believed from the bottom 
 of her heart that he was as good a man, as true 
 a gentleman and Christian, as she had prayed 
 night and morning from the hour of his birth he 
 might grow up to be, and remain. He knew 
 of-her prayers and her fond belief, and never yet 
 had he been clouded in his mother's eyes. 
 
 But his mother's eyes were not upon him 
 always, or indeed often, for they seldom left 
 their old western county mansion, and Claude's 
 was a London life. "When they did come, he 
 was her own devotional boy the whole time. 
 The happy woman and proud mother dreamt of 
 no vapour more defiling than the cigar smoke 
 she knew of coming over him. He went to the 
 opera, and to theatres, and balls, and breakfasts 
 at two o'clock P.M., as usual, while his mother 
 was in town. But he never talked of supping 
 in Bohemia, nor did he go down to Richmond in 
 a much-talked-about opera-singer's barouche to 
 dinner, while she remained. He returned his 
 mother's love to the best of his ability it was 
 not in him to give back quite all she gave ; but 
 he respected her prejudices amongst which 
 was a colossal one against what she termed 
 " the father of evils, playhouses, and the poor 
 misguided ones who performed in them." The 
 sun would have been darkened cruelly to her, 
 poor woman, could she but have known that a 
 bewitchingly pretty prima donna, who had 
 made a great success by her lifelike exposition 
 of a Traviata's woes, was singing Claude into a 
 state of mad resentment against the world for 
 its idle prejudice relative to marrying a woman 
 of whose antecedents nothing was known. 
 
 They called her " Circe " amongst themselves 
 he and the friends who knew the case, and 
 watched the progress of it. He was not in 
 love with her at least he felt that he could and 
 should love some other woman better in days 
 to come. But her thrilling voice made his heart 
 leap. Her inexhaustible gaiety, her apparently 
 unfailing brilliancy, bewitched and dazzled him 
 when he was with her, and she took care that 
 he should be with her often. Those suppers 
 after the opera were bewildering things to 
 Claude that year; the wines and women were 
 alike sparkling and bright ; and she, the bright- 
 est of them all, sparkled for him alone he 
 thought. 
 
 He had never seen Circe by daylight yet. 
 She was young and beautiful exceedingly on 
 the boards arid at the after banquets. Very 
 young as to the rich dark bloom on her cheek 
 very beautiful in the rare lace, black, full, and 
 loating, which she had a trick of half shroud- 
 'ng herself in, after the fashion of a Spaniard. 
 
 She had been especially young and beautiful 
 and sparkling on the previous night, he remem- 
 oered when he rose. He also remembered that 
 le had invited her and a good many of her 
 Hends to dine with him at the " Star and Gar- , 
 ;er" this day. Additionally, the recollection \ 
 breed itself upon him that he had said words 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 13 
 
 of which Circe might desire an explanation, and 
 that he was very far from being competent to 
 give one that should alike seem good to her and 
 to his family. 
 
 " I wish I could keep clear of her," he mut- 
 tered, "or that Florry Villars was like her in 
 some things. How easily some fellows satisty 
 themselves. Stanley, for instance, who has 
 found what he considers his fate, I suppose, in 
 a fortnight. I own that Adele isn't the ideal 
 Mrs. Claude Walsingham ; but I do wish that 
 some girl, who would meet their views in the 
 "West, had a particle of Adele's charms. It's a 
 shame to wish Florry altered, though, by 
 Jove I" he went on carefully adjusting a 
 cream-coloured rose in its proper position upon 
 the lappel of his coat "I wonder whether the 
 interest would deepen or decrease if I had her 
 with me always. That's the devil of it: a dull 
 wife with every womanly virtue, from whom 
 there would be no escape, would bring me to 
 an untimely grave. There was something emo- 
 tional, though, and pleasantly exciting, in that 
 look she gave me when I asked her if her great 
 news was that she was going to be married." 
 
 So he soliloquised about Florry the while he 
 was adjusting and readjusting the rose, and 
 drawing on gloves that resembled the rose in 
 hue, and ivory in polish. He was going to 
 drive Circe and her friends, and several of his 
 own, down in his drag, and he desired that 
 Circe's first daylight view of him should be aus- 
 picious. 
 
 He had written to Stanley Villars the pre- 
 vious evening. "Written in a congratulatory 
 strain but Stanley detected a half note of dis- 
 approval in it. " I always thought that you 
 would marry a girl as much like your sister 
 Florence as possible," he wrote, from which 
 Stanley deduced that his old friend deemed that 
 he would have been a wiser man had he not 
 linked himself to the very opposite of his sister 
 Florence. 
 
 At his club this morning Claude read that 
 " "We understand that a marriage is arranged to 
 take place between the Eev. Stanley Villars, 
 second son of the late Sir Gerald Villars, Bart., 
 and the only daughter and heiress of the late 
 Philip Vane, Esq." He read it with a laughing 
 light contempt in his eyes. " Fancy old Stan- 
 ley going in for the pomps and vanities in the 
 way of this announcement ! " he remarked, 
 pointing out the paragraph to a mutual friend, 
 who forthwith read it and rejoined 
 
 " "Whew ? Bella Vane going to marry Stan- 
 ley I ' The devil was sick, the devil a saint 
 would be.' What's the matter with her, I won- 
 der?" 
 
 "Do you know her?" 
 
 " My dear fellow, know her ! I should think 
 I did. I adored her during the first part of her 
 season ; then I, in common with the rest of the 
 small deer, was smothered in the strawberry- 
 leaves. She played for the highest stake to be 
 won last year. What has brought her down to 
 this?" 
 
 " Villars is a friend of mine," Claude replied, 
 briefly and coldly. 
 
 " So he is of mine. I think him one of the 
 finest fellows that ever lived ; but I shall never 
 doubt that the stars are fire, or but that truth is 
 a liar, or anything indeed after this. Why, man, 
 
 she turned up her nose at Lord Lexley and his 
 thirty thousand per annum. Shows you were 
 out of town, your not feeling the shock of sur- 
 prise that I am experiencing. I wonder, though, 
 that the noise of her fame didn't penetrate even 
 to Canada. She was the greatest flirt and the 
 greatest beauty we have seen for years." 
 
 " Villars is just the fellow to manage such a 
 woman, that is all I have to say about it, not 
 knowing the lady," Claude replied carelessly ; 
 but for all this assumed carelessness, for all his 
 own light regard of many things, he felt sorry 
 that Stanley should have given his heart into 
 such a woman's hand. "Cold as he seems, he 
 will go to the bad should she ever crush it or 
 throw it away," he thought. " Dear old Stan- 
 ley, I'll go down and see him." 
 
 They went to Richmond. Down along the 
 road that winds through pretty prosperous little 
 Castlenau, and over Barnes Common, Claude 
 drove his team of bays with black points in the 
 drag that was Circe's triumphal car for the 
 nonce. She was scarcely so lovely by daylight 
 as, from having seen her under the lamps alone, 
 a tyro might have expected. But Claude was 
 no tyro, therefore he soon ceased to see her sal- 
 low ; he looked straight ahead at his horses, in 
 fact, and with his eyes averted, found her 
 " devilish fascinating," even by daylight. 
 
 I said that Claude had promised to drive her 
 down, accompanied by some of her friends and 
 his own. Her friends were a pair of women 
 whom she greeted as mother and sister when 
 occasion seemed to call for the possession of 
 such relatives. At other times they fell into 
 position as the merely useful friends they were 
 dependent friends who managed her esta- 
 blishment and dressed her hair, and kept the 
 reckless prima donna's affairs straight, and who 
 were ready to come forward and take up the 
 claims of kindred when a Claude Walsingham 
 appeared to call for such evidence of respect- 
 ability as a mother and sister in the flesh, and 
 resident. 
 
 The elder of these two women gave that air 
 of weight and age to the party that is desirable. 
 Her most marked attributes were a power of 
 holding her peace and adapting herself imme- 
 diately to the rich clothes into which she had to 
 rush whenever Adele required the countenance 
 and support of a maternal parent. The younger 
 woman was an adept in the art of exclamation 
 of admiring, wondering, interested curiosity, 
 excited exclamation ! Now we all like to be 
 admired and wondered at, to be shown that we 
 are interesting, and to be made feel that our 
 smallest remarks whet the edge of the listener's 
 curiosity ! Her mission in life was to amuse 
 the friends of Adele's current favourite, and she 
 fulfilled it thoroughly. The young men who 
 went down on Claude's drag to Richmond that 
 day had plenty of height, but not too much heart, 
 or head, or fancy. They were the right men in 
 the right place, for height is one of the touches 
 an artistic-minded man will always seek to give 
 when filling-in the picture his drag should be 
 when " going," and Victorine, Adele's sister, 
 suited them entirely. 
 
14 
 
 ON GUARD. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 AFTER DINNER. 
 
 THEY reached the " Star and Garter" about 
 seven that evening, and found that in front of 
 the hotel and in the yard an equine confusion, 
 and in the house itself a savoury one, reigned, 
 by reason of there being much company as- 
 sembled for the purpose of enjoying viands that 
 might be improved upon, and the views that 
 cannot be. Claude, a distinguished member of 
 the " four-in-hand," brought his horses up at 
 the door with that suddenly arrested rush, and 
 threw down the unstrapped reins with that ce- 
 lerity which is very beautiful to behold, and 
 looks very easy till you have tried to do it, and 
 failed ignominiously. Then he helped Adele 
 down, and Adele, with much grace and mercy, 
 stood at the door for a few minutes, resettling 
 the Yak mantilla over her shoulders, and gaz-. 
 ing at Claude's horses through the jewelled eye- 
 glass which looked too heavy for her tiny, 
 tightly-gloved hand. Every one has seen this 
 little pantomime gone through by women who 
 have come down in drags. Every one has seen 
 them stand with apparently sublime indiffer- 
 ence, and in reality perhaps with ridiculous in- 
 terest, to be inspected by the common herd who 
 have not come down in like fashion, and who 
 are palpably in admiring awe of it, 
 
 Amongst the many equipages that were 
 around and being led away from and dashing 
 up (as he had done a minute before) to the en- 
 trance, Claude recognised young Lady Yillars' 
 landau. Before he had time to collect his 
 forces, and induce Adele to drop her glass and 
 turn round, and sweep into the house, he saw 
 Lady Villars descend from it, followed by her 
 sister-in-law, Florry. So he went in hurriedly 
 through the door by himself, leaving Adele 
 standing there gazing with her lovely, listless 
 eyes at the new arrivals. 
 
 Went in and looked at the room he had or- 
 dered, and the preparations that were being 
 made for their reception, with more earnestness 
 than the waiters had ever seen him display be- 
 fore. Went in cursing the chance that had 
 brought the Villarses there to-day, and the fate 
 that kept him from joining them, and even 
 Circe herself, for being the Circe that she was. 
 
 He almost loathed her, as he stood there in 
 the room that was so radiant and so exquisitely 
 adorned with flowers that he had ordered but 
 yesterday for her. He felt a repugnance to that 
 beauty of hers which she was now employed in 
 bringing out in bold relief on the door step. 
 He could not bear the idea of Florence his 
 friend Stanley's sister, his own sweet, smiling 
 friend passing close to, and being scrutinized 
 by, the woman he had driven down. Still less 
 could he bear the idea of Florence arriving at a 
 knowledge of his having done so, and of her 
 discovering that he had in consequence shrunk 
 from a meeting with her. He almost loathed 
 the Circe of this period of his life, as he stood 
 there gnawing the ends of his moustache. 
 
 But this was before dinner. 
 
 They all came in presently, Adele herself, 
 with her bonnet off and a tempered bloom on 
 her face, and Victorine ecstatic, and the re- 
 spectable lady, their mamma, still great at hold - 
 
 ing her peace. Claude put away his thoughts oi 
 Florry, and would not harbour the reflection 
 that she might perchance be in the next room. 
 That is to say, he nearly put them away, but a 
 sore feeling would obtain occasionally, after 
 hearing that Sir Gerald Villars had followed his 
 wife in his phaeton, accompanied by Lord Lex- 
 ley. Lord Lexley was a man who was unfetter- 
 ed in every sense of the word. He had neither 
 debts, nor a wife, nor bad habits, to the best of 
 the world's belief. 
 
 It was horrible for Claude to contemplate this 
 little party of fourbefore dinner. 
 
 It grew less horrible gradually under the in- 
 fluence of white Hermitage. He left champagne 
 to the women, and what he left was not wast- 
 ed. After gradually diminishing during the 
 dinner itself, it died out in a burst of song the 
 drinking song of a new opera that Adele 
 gave, and she was all the queen of his soul 
 again, vice Florence Yillars absent, but not 
 " resigned." 
 
 The night was very fair. Those terraced bal- 
 conies leading down from the room in which 
 they sat to the river below, were laden with 
 flowers, and the air was heavy with their 
 sweetness. They leant out of the window he, 
 the giver of this festival of which she was the 
 queen, and Adele and she sang bright bursts 
 of song that the flowers turned to listen to, and 
 the stars wished they were below to hear more 
 clearly still. "What wonder that he saw her fair 
 as the night bright as the stars sweet as the 
 flowers that bloomed before them ? What won- 
 der, being what he was, that he forgot his 
 mother's prejudices and Florry Villars' gentle 
 love for him, and she rang out strains sparkling 
 as the champagne she had imbibed, and he 
 listened to them under the influence of the 
 moon and white Hermitage. 
 
 They went out at last out on to the balcony, 
 and then down the steps, to look into the piece 
 of water over which that willow weeps. Her 
 dress, as she swept along hanging on his arm, 
 brushed against the flowers, and more intoxi- 
 cating odours arose, and she was very fair. He 
 remembered all the warm mentions of her 
 beauty that he had heard made at divers times, 
 and forgot the sallow tinge that he had seen 
 during the drive down, as he stood by her side, 
 and she looked into the water, and suffered her 
 voice to ripple in melody soft and golden as the 
 moonlight ; and he drew her arm more closely 
 within his own, and the fumes of the wine he 
 had drunk mingled with the woman's beauty, 
 and mounted to his brain. 
 
 Her head, shrouded by some lace, from under 
 the folds of which her beauty shone out lustrous- 
 ly, inclined nearer to him as she sang on in a 
 very low tone now. Her scented hair fell in 
 rich curls, from the classical knot into which it 
 was gathered behind, upon his shoulder. Her 
 beauty was very patent to him at that moment, 
 and he suddenly desired to have it for his own. 
 
 " Adele," he said, "could I suffice to you 
 could you live without public applause and the 
 adoration of empty-headed fools " 
 
 " Ah 1 Claude, for you !" 
 
 She said it in a tone that implied that she 
 could be capable of anything for him. The tone 
 said this distinctly, but she purposely made the 
 words devoid of too clear a meaning. She had 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 15 
 
 no intention of committing herself until she 
 clearly understood the nature of the terms 
 Claude proposed. 
 
 44 Then leave them for me, and be mine 
 alone," he cried; but even as he said it, even as 
 he flung his arm round her, and drew her un- 
 resisting beauty closer to his breast, he could not 
 help marvelling how she would look in the 
 quiet, old home in the West; and what he 
 should do with the presents other men had 
 lavished upon her. 
 
 She paused for a minute, apparently in the 
 quietude of very passion, in reality because she 
 could not, for that space of time, decide which 
 would be her wisest course. She was a queen 
 of song now, feted and paid as such, but her 
 voice might give way, or another arise to eclipse 
 her before long. It occurred to her that it would 
 be well to fasten him to his suggestion without 
 further delay, so she remembered her mamma 
 in an instant. 
 
 " Claude, I will leave them all for you even 
 my mother. Ah 1 how shall I tell her and Vic- 
 torine, who will die to leave me ; but I must tell 
 them." 
 
 "There's no immediate hurry, Adele," 
 Claude observed. 
 
 His faith in Adele's mamma was not nearly 
 so perfect a thing as Adele imagined it to be. 
 Moreover, the difficulty of disposing of those 
 articles of jewellery gifts of those who had 
 preceded him was more vividly before him 
 every moment. 
 
 "But I could not leave her in doubt a mo- 
 ! ment after my heart has been assured of that 
 for which it has longed," Adele said. The first 
 part of her speech had the true, genuine (stage) 
 daughter's ring about it, the latter portion was 
 redolent of the sweet inconsequence of love's 
 young dream. 
 
 He relaxed his warm clasp a little. It an- 
 noyed him to think that Adele should be in 
 such a hurry to go and talk about it. It had 
 been due this abrupt proposal of his to the 
 moonlight and the melody in a measure, and he 
 wanted more moonlight and melody; he did 
 not want to go in and read, in the faces of his 
 tall young friends, that he had made a mistake. 
 " Tell me, has your heart longed for this as- 
 surance, Adele," he whispered. He did not 
 quite believe in her warm declaration that it 
 had done so; but the declaration had been 
 uttered in tones that the first soprano had 
 known how to render most seductively soft, and 
 he wanted to hear them again. 
 
 So she uttered them again, with but slight 
 variation of words and no variation of meaning. 
 She wisely, having once worded a phrase tha 
 sounded well, adhered to that phrase, and made 
 no weak attempts to improve upon it. Too 
 much revision is as bad as none at all. 
 
 Once more, therefore, she averred that her 
 heart had longed for this assurance, and once 
 more she asserted that it behoved her to go in 
 and tell her anxious parent that it had been 
 given. Then he, feeling that copious draughts 
 of the wine of the South were needed by him in 
 this hour of his acceptance by the daughter o: 
 the same, went in and saw Adele make manl 
 fest how weak he had been out in the garden 
 It was after dinner now, and the anxious 
 parent was no longer so great at holding her 
 
 eace as she had been. She was naturally re- 
 oiced at what had transpired, and Yictoriue 
 was vivaciously resigned to the loss of her 
 ister, who would leave, "ah! such triumphs 
 or this love of hers." It was after dinner, with 
 lis tall young friends also, and they laughed 
 more than was seemly when they congratulat- 
 ed him on the great conquest he had made over 
 many things. Yes, Claude had full need of the 
 most care-dispelling vintage the cellars of the 
 Star and G-arter " could supply, in order to be 
 able to bear the brunt of that tide of feeling 
 which swept o'er him in this first hour of his 
 engagement to Circe. 
 
 What a glorious gipsy queen she looked, 
 though, when late that night they were about to 
 start from the door. There had been much 
 wishing them happiness in cups of sparkling 
 wine, and hers was the steadiest progress made 
 by that party through the hall, not even except- 
 ing Claude's own. She swept along " like a 
 queen in a play that night," and held her 
 triumph-flushed face aloft in a way none of the 
 others were capable of doing. Claude hung 
 over her as she moved along, fairly enraptured 
 afresh, for she was glorious, in the pomp of her 
 beauty, grand in the management of that fiery 
 thing, her natural manner. She would well 
 adorn the proudest home he could place her in, 
 he told himself. She had the physique of one 
 who might be the mistress of a palace. How 
 men would turn and look when he drove her 
 through the park. How every glass would be 
 turned to the box when she, the former queen 
 of its board, should sit at the opera. How 
 Florry Villars started, and exclaimed, "Oh! 
 Claude Major Walsingham," at this juncture, 
 as they came suddenly in collision with Sir 
 Gerald Villars' party at the door, and Adele, in 
 her scarlet mantle, bore down in proud, pictu- 
 resque beauty upon her gentle, unconscious 
 rival. 
 
 Then he cursed afresh that hour by the water, 
 in the flower-scented garden, and shrank, excit- 
 ed as he was, from the caressing weight that 
 woman laid upon his arm. She, in her pride of 
 Bacchanal beauty, was no fitting mistress for 
 that grand, honourable old home of his fathers 
 for that house whose women had all been 
 pure and unknown. He could take no notice 
 of Florence's exclamation; he dared not meet 
 her eyes ; so he hurried his companion on, and 
 into the drag tumultuously, and suffered his 
 horses to take" the road home, in an eager burst, 
 in which he was not wont to indulge them in 
 that hilly Richmond street. 
 
 "So you went over the brink to-night, old 
 fellow!" one of his companions said, when he 
 had deposited Adele and her relatives at their 
 house in South Audley Street, and the rest 
 were wending their way back rapidly to their 
 respective quarters. 
 
 " I have been a damned fool ; but I'd thank 
 you not to mention it," Claude rejoined ; and 
 the man who had no wish to be other than 
 thanked by Claude, resolved that he wouldn't 
 mention it yet. 
 
 Claude Walsingham was in a hard, cruel 
 humour that night. The excitement was over, 
 and when he had put down the last man at that 
 man's quarters, he drove on alone to his own at 
 a hard, cruel pace The beauty of the woman 
 
1G 
 
 ON GUARD. 
 
 who had stood out under the stars with him was 
 less vividly before him than the aught but tame 
 publicity she had attained. It seemed to him 
 that with Adele for a wife, life to be endurable 
 must be all driving at a rate that would abolish 
 thought, and drinking wine to the exclusion of 
 reflection. As he came to this conclusion, he 
 cursed his folly the folly that would have been 
 blind in a boy even and lashed his horses 
 afresh, and they rattled over the stones in Pic- 
 cadilly at a rate he would not have driven them 
 had he been well with himself just then. 
 
 But he was far from being well with himself; 
 he was so ill with himself, indeed, that he in- 
 dulged in a savage regret that he had not secur- 
 ed oblivion, at least for this night, through the 
 medium of that syren wine which had lured him 
 on to the commission of that of which he now 
 repented. Whatever of intoxication there had 
 been when that subtle crowning spell was 
 thrown round him down in the garden by the 
 river, was gone now. He was thoroughly sober, 
 and his sobriety was a cause of regret, for it ena- 
 bled him to think. 
 
 The road was tolerably clear, for the hour was 
 late now, and the heavy, huge drag loomed out 
 so largely that it gave fair warning of its ap- 
 proach, swift as that approach was, and so en- 
 abled the few foot passengers who were abroad 
 to get out of the way. At the entrance to Gros- 
 venor Place, however, he was compelled to pull 
 up suddenly, in order to avoid a woman who 
 rushed out of the dark shade by the purposeless 
 arch, in order to be run over, or to give him the 
 trouble of sparing her that fate. He saw that 
 she escaped, that she was clear of the possibility 
 of being mangled under his wheels, and with a 
 curse at her carelessness, he was preparing to 
 drive on again at the old pace. But there was 
 a something in the tone of the answering cry 
 she gave to his maledictory caution that made 
 him pull up, and shout to one of his servants to 
 " get out and see what was the matter." 
 
 " It's only her dog you've gone over, sir," his 
 man told him, touching his hat, and preparing to 
 get in again ; but Claude ordered him to " stand 
 at their heads," and jumped down from the box 
 at once, and went back to where the woman 
 stood with a small crowd about her now, look- 
 ing down upon the ground, where a little, heav- 
 ing, bleeding mass lay dying. 
 
 The tall, fair young gentleman with the flower 
 in his coat, and that aroma of good breeding 
 about him which the masses rarely fail to recog- 
 nise, cleft his way through the crowd in an in 
 stant. " "What is the matter ?" he asked very 
 gently of the woman, an elderly dame with one 
 of those broad, rosy faces on which sorrow sits 
 so very sadly ; and she answered him at once, 
 touched by the gentleness of his tone, without 
 an atom of reproach in her own 
 
 " Oh ! yer honour, it's my little dog I killed, 
 sir!" 
 
 " Only a little mangy cur what's better dead 
 than alive, sir," a policeman interposed gruffly. 
 "Now you clear out, and don't be a begging of 
 the gentleman 'carse your dog run under his 
 wheels," he added to the woman. 
 
 " You clear out, and let me see if the poor 
 dog is dead," Claude said haughtily. Then he 
 stooped down, and with the slender hands that 
 were so carefully encased in the cream-coloured 
 
 vory-polished gloves, he picked up the poor 
 ittle mangled animal that had been writhing at 
 his feet. There had been hardness and cruelty 
 in his heart, as he had driven along recklessly ; 
 but now, as he stood looking at the result of 
 that reckless driving, there was nothing but 
 tenderness in it, and he felt inexpressibly 
 shocked and softened. 
 
 " I would have given something not to have 
 done it. My good woman, there is nothing to 
 be done for him, or on my honour I'd do it." 
 Then he laid down the dog again, and put some 
 money in the woman's hand ; and she " blest 
 him for a kind gentleman," and tried to forgive 
 him the death of her dog. 
 
 It was but a poor half-bred black and tan ter- 
 rier, rough and unkempt in appearance, which 
 had come to this evil end. He saw that it was 
 just these things and no more yes, thus much 
 more he saw, that the poor little dog had been 
 palpably that woman's friend, possibly her com- 
 fort. Its dying eyes had turned lovingly to- 
 wards her, and he had marked that last appeal 
 with a keen remorse. The man who made 
 life appointments with dubious people under 
 the influence of wine, and lived in an atmo- 
 sphere which he deemed defiling, when he 
 thought of Florry Villars or his mother, had a 
 tender heart. Claude cursed his folly no more 
 that night ; indeed, he thought of little else save 
 the ruii he had brought upon that humble 
 union, and regretted nothing so much as the 
 death of the little dog. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 BELLA TRIES THE PATH OF DUTY. 
 
 "AND what have you finally decided upon 
 doing? staying on here for awhile or going 
 away ?" Stanley Villars asked of his betrothed, 
 when his betrothed had rapidly recited to him 
 the divers emotions that had chased each other 
 through her mind during the dull solitude of 
 that morning. 
 
 " Oh, Stanley 1 now is it likely that I should 
 come to the decision of ' going away' quite of 
 my own free will ? I shall stay here while I 
 can while mamma can spare me." 
 
 She believed herself to be speaking the en- 
 tire truth. In his presence she forgot the un- 
 controllable desire to be off and away from this 
 place, which had obtained dominion while she 
 was alone. 
 
 " Then Claude "Walsingham won't have his 
 journey for nothing, as I have feared he would 
 a minute ago. I have heard from him this morn- 
 ing, telling me that he means to come down 
 and quarter himself upon me for a few days." 
 
 " Claude "Walsingham! isn't he a " 
 
 "A what?" 
 
 " Well, a very agreeable no, that's not the 
 phrase a very fascinating man, Stanley ; very 
 gay and reckless, and all that sort of thing." 
 
 " Is ' all that sort of thing' so fascinating ? I 
 don't know that he is fascinating, but he is a 
 very good friend of mine, and I shall be glad\ 
 when you know him if you can endorse my 1 v 
 favourable opinion." 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 17 
 
 " What made you say tliat, a minute ago, 
 you half feared Claude Walsingham would have 
 his journey for nothing ?" 
 
 " I half feared that you would be gone." 
 " Oh, Stanley ! you only suffer half fears on 
 my account ; you ought to be miserable at the 
 notion of losing me." The great beaut} r clasped 
 her little hands more closely round his arm 
 this pantomime took place in a leafy alley of a 
 very secluded old garden, be it remembered 
 and looked up into his face with a glow of re- 
 proach on her own as she spoke. 
 
 "I should be miserable enough at the notion 
 of losing you miserable enough to satisfy even 
 you, Bella; but your going away for a time, 
 whether that time be long or short, is not losing 
 you while we love each other." 
 
 His tone was deep, earnest, thoughtful ; she 
 knew that he thoroughly meant what he said. 
 But for all that conviction, a less reasonable 
 speech would have been more taking. 
 
 " Your views are too transcendental for me 
 to share, Stanley. Perhaps you wouldn't call 
 it ' losing me 1 if I went away for ever, provided 
 ' we loved one another still ?' " 
 
 " Unquestionably I should not, darling ! 
 While we both are, what I hope and believe 
 we are, and shall remain, we cannot be lost to 
 each for ever." 
 
 She dropped his arm with a little shiver a 
 little irrepressible revulsion of feeling possessed 
 her for a few moments. He was right, she 
 knew, in the abstract. But this knowledge did 
 not make the enunciation of these right views 
 one bit more palatable to her. 
 
 " Don't talk to me in that way just yet, 
 Stanley!" she pleaded almost wistfully, after a 
 short silence. 
 
 "In what way, Bella?" He was calm, rea- 
 sonable, and superior, and again Bella's spirit 
 revolted. 
 
 " About not caring for my love till we both 
 get to heaven." 
 
 " My dear girl, how shockingly you pervert 
 my words and meaning in your impatience." 
 
 "That's what I understood you to mean, 
 Stanley ; and it does sound cold-blooded, and 
 methodistical besides. If you don't care .for .me 
 in this world, or want me to care for you, it's a 
 pity that you told me you did, and made me 
 tell you the same ; I should have been happier 
 with a .sinner who cared for me, than with a 
 saint who does not." 
 
 The tears were in her big blue eyes, standing 
 on her long straight lashes, rolling over the 
 flushed cheeks. The pious young divine, with 
 the well-regulated mind, was shocked, but he 
 could* not deem her a very miserable sinner. 
 Perhaps this toleration was due to the fact of 
 the unregenerate heart being unruly on his own 
 account. 
 
 " Dearest, I am weak and erring as yourself." 
 " Oh ! don't /" the girl cried passionately. 
 He thought that she was touched and affected 
 by his allusion to himself as a fellow-sinner. 
 Stanley Villars was a clever, good young man, 
 but his talent and goodness left him powerless 
 to fathom the utter weariness, the contemptu- 
 ous weariness, that filled the spirit of the girl at 
 his side as she heard him use phrases that 
 sounded like the commonest cant to her. If 
 good people only knew the mischief they do by 
 2 
 
 putting their goodness before others in set sen- 
 tences, how silent they would be very often. 
 
 He thought that he would take a more 
 sprightly tone with this dispirited penitent a 
 tone that, to his mind, savoured of hilarity. 
 
 " You want something to change the current 
 of your thoughts, Bella ; you are rather down 
 this morning, and you require a little healthy 
 excitement." 
 
 " I know I do," she interrupted ; " let us go 
 for a ride, Stanley a good long ride, that will 
 keep us out until dinner." 
 
 She asked him quite joyously to join her in 
 this pleasure, and all the brightness was back 
 in the tones of her voice ; but the joyousness 
 and brightness were of short duration. 
 
 " I have no time for long rides in the mid- 
 dle of the day, Bella; you know that very 
 well." 
 
 " You never have time for anything I a%k 
 you to do," she answered, impatiently; "what 
 prevents your devoting such an enormous space 
 of time, as from now till dinner would be, to 
 me to-day ?" 
 
 " I thought I had told you that the girls who 
 are preparing for confirmation came to me from 
 three till five." 
 
 "Had you told me? perhaps you had," she 
 replied, wearily. "Well. I suppose it's all 
 proper enough; you undertook to do such 
 things." 
 
 She dropped his arm now, and turned away 
 to gather a flower, humming an opera air, and 
 trying not to get flushed with annoyance. 
 
 " And you have undertaken to aid me in the 
 fulfilment of my duty ; remember that, Bella, 
 dearest." 
 
 " I am a poor aid ; I can only tell you that 
 it's three o'clock now," Bella rejoined. 
 
 " You may be a great aid to me, my darling." 
 He took her hand as he said this, and Bella 
 struggled with herself, and managed to say 
 
 "I will try to be, Stanley really I will ; 
 but is it always to be like this? am I never to 
 be first with you?" 
 
 Then he made her feel sick at heart again by 
 telling her that they each had higher duties to 
 perform towards God than towards each other ; 
 and that it behoved them to attend to these 
 higher duties first. 
 
 " I'll try to ascend to your more perfect air, 
 Stanley," she said to him when he had conclu- 
 ded, " but I must do it by degrees, or the rari- 
 fication of it will kill me. A stone saint, with 
 her hands eternally clasped, would have been 
 a more congenial wife to you than I shall ever 
 be, I fear." 
 
 When she said that, he, despite his calm de- 
 votion to his parish duties, and that theory he 
 held as to the impossibility of the loved and 
 loving being ever lost, wished ardently that he 
 could make her his own congenial wife, never 
 to be torn from his side in either the spirit or 
 the flesh, at once. 
 
 But this ardent desire could not be gratified, 
 so he went off to his confirmation class, and 
 Bella went in and strove to wear the time away 
 by questioning her aunt, good, prosy Mrs. Vane, 
 as to how she had come to like doing "parish 
 work," and perpetually pottering, physically 
 and spiritually, about and amongst her hus- 
 band's flock. "For no human being can bo 
 
IS 
 
 ON GUABD. 
 
 born with a taste for it." argued Bella, " so it 
 
 _ ow upon me in time." 
 Later in the week Miss Vane had a letter 
 from her mamma a judicious letter, informing 
 : every one was wondering why she was 
 going to marry Stanley Yillars, who. 
 younger son, had little besides his curacy. " I 
 
 - myself surprised," Mrs. Yane wrote; ' 
 " had he been a bishop, it would not have been 
 aordinary ; as it is, you must change 
 Vfore you will be fit for a mere clergy - 
 \ 
 
 " Of course, I shall change vastly ; I mean I 
 shall change quite as much as there's any neces- 
 sity for my changing." Bella said to "herself, 
 clinging more closely- to Stanley the instant 
 there was a doubt thrown upon the wisdom of 
 her choice of him. U 0f course, I shall adapt 
 myself to his career ; and no one has any right 
 to. dictate to me. I shall be very hap; 
 a ' mere clergyman,' as mamma calls him! TYho 
 wouldn't be happy with Stanley, I should like 
 to kn. 
 
 She had not seen Stanley for a day or two 
 when she said this. His parochial duties had 
 absorbed him entirely, he had informed her in 
 a brace of brief i. - beginning to 
 
 hunger and thirst for his society again, her 
 
 : .^Id her, because she loved him s 
 But the heart is deceitful above all thi: _ i - 
 it might have been only because she had no 
 
 amuse her. 
 
 On the Saturday, Mr. Stanley Yillars came up 
 to tne rectory, and gladdened the heart of the 
 > niece. He recounted all he had done, 
 all the difficulties he had encountered and sur- 
 mounted (he hoped) in the unregenerate hearts 
 of the candidates for confirmation ; Bella listen- 
 ing, and trying, with all her sweet will, to sym- 
 pathise with him. and failing, failing still ! 
 
 :uade a petition before he.left u I should 
 help you. Stanley. Can I do anything 
 ? copy sermons, or anything?" 
 
 nnons was her only idea of help- 
 ..an. She made the offer warmly, 
 - j.uley rejected it in a way that made her 
 feel she had erred again. 
 
 " I don't want to see my own poor words re- 
 produced, Bella, thank you ; I am not likely to 
 need them a second time ; but you can help" me 
 in another way." 
 "Ho 
 
 " Will you pro if I tell you?" 
 
 -\\s.' she said promptly. She would try 
 anything, no matter how horrid. 
 
 - There is nothing 4 horrid' in what I propose, 
 Bella; take one of my classes off my bands at 
 
 -ohooL" 
 "01 go amongst those children f 
 
 - You will not essay to do them such poor 
 service .as you may do them, Bella!" he said 
 with some severity. 
 
 " If it is sure to be such poor service, why 
 should I put myself out to render it . riM 
 retorted, 
 
 "Simply because it is your d 
 
 " m try to do that indeed I will, Stanley," 
 she said, with a sudden humility that came 
 partly from remembering her mother's sarcasms, 
 and partly from her genuine desire to please 
 him. 
 
 - And if you try earnestly, you wffl succeed, 
 
 in a measure at least," he rejoined ; which was 
 
 -utisfactory to Bella of course, and pre- 
 cisely the sort of "thing to lighten that da: 
 of hers which he lamented. 
 
 >-inday morning found her at the school, 
 diverting the attention of the regular paid 
 teachers, and wearying over the task the per- 
 formance of which was to quality her for a posi- 
 tion on high with Stanley Yillars. ' If only 
 they are good who do these things vfi. 
 how bad I must be!" she thought to herself 
 
 - U in an atmosphere that she thanked 
 the Lor - . familiar one to her. and en- 
 deavoured to concentrate the children's atten- 
 tion on something besides her bonnet and g 
 She could not help feeling that the 
 world of good ventilation and sw 
 
 '.;r preferable place to this corner of the 
 Lord's vineyard, over the door of which 
 my Ian /.ten in me I 
 
 the attempt to decipher which had driven many 
 a child into a state of despondency as to its 
 prospects of ultimately being able to " read off 
 anything." She could but glance ev 
 of "the book she held at Stanley, and feel that 
 he might as well have left such feeding to those 
 who were capable of doing it to the full i 
 as him and herself, and who were not made to 
 feel miserably ill through doing it. Then his 
 patience over that from which his taste must 
 have revolted would occur to her vividly 
 beautiful thing it was ; and she would put away 
 her rebellious thoughts, and pray to feel as she 
 ought to feel about this that he had u 
 was a "duty" for a while. 
 
 I think strong women, with robust consti- 
 tutions, and a deficiency of development in one 
 at least of their senses, must ma 
 clergymen's wives." she thought as she i 
 to church after an improving hour in the school 
 u I feel sick now, and I shall most like/ 
 a headache when I have knelt for nve u. 
 bad air - -:rves me so; and to make 
 
 things better, Stanley will think me a sinner 
 for indulging in such weaknesses. He is so 
 good!" 
 
 -y good, and very dear to her. 
 She kept on telling herself these "things at in- 
 service. She employed the 
 interims in turning the various beautiful phrases 
 in which she would make him absolute lord of 
 all she possessed, and implore him to leave 
 these " duties," the fulfilment of whicl 
 rated him so entirely from her ; for again she 
 told herself, " I cannot breathe in such a per- 
 fect air." 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 cy THE emu. 
 
 "illars, when 
 
 he refused to go out for a ride with her on ac- 
 count of a certain duty intervening, t. 
 ; supposed it was all proper ; he had under- 
 taken to do such things." Now. after : 
 attempt in the Sunday school, she told i 
 that she had not undertaken to do such 
 when she promised to be his wife, and thatj 
 therefore her doing them at all was quite" 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 19 
 
 stretching a point in the endeavour to do right. 
 It had not been in the compact, and still sho 
 had done it once and would do it a^ain, not 
 because she thought that it was her duty, but 
 because it would please Stanley. 
 
 She was very ardently desirous of pleasing 
 Stanley very sweetly anxious to render her 
 omrso of conduct as perfect a thing in his eyes 
 as she might render it at no trifling exercise of 
 self restraint But all the giving way, all the 
 self-abnegation, must not bo on her side. They 
 both had their prejudices. That they had them 
 was very patent, though the days of their en- 
 gagement \vere yet young; and if sho uprooted 
 hers immediately and utterly, and asked no- 
 thing in return, his would flourish more strong- 
 ly than before. 
 
 Mr. Villars came up to the rectory in the 
 evening to dinner; and Bella did her best to 
 listen with understanding and interest to the 
 long, arduous conversation he held with her 
 uncle relative to the approaching confirmation, 
 and the fitness of the various candidates for it. 
 Had she suffered herself to form a decided 
 opinion that was antagonistic to one of Stan- 
 ley's at this period, she (poor sinner) would 
 have felt shocked to hear one human being de- 
 ciding on the exact measure of grace that God 
 had vouchsafed to another. But Stanley was 
 always right in these spiritual matters at least 
 and Stanley seemed to do it. 
 
 " I have a great mind," he said, " not to suf- 
 fer Mary Jones to go up this time. She is far 
 from having a proper appreciation of the awful 
 solemnity of the responsibility sho is about to 
 take upon herself." 
 
 Mr. Vane, by way of answer to this, nodded, 
 shook his head, and looked wise. 
 
 " Do you say that, or anything liko that, to 
 Mary Jones herself, Stanley ?" Bella asked. 
 
 " I endeavour to make her comprehend that 
 same thing in still plainer language," he replied. 
 
 " Then. I wonder at her wanting to go up at 
 all," Bella rejoined quickly. 
 
 " Why? tell me why ?" he said quietly ; and 
 Bella knew from his tone that she would get 
 the worst of it, and be made to endure the mise- 
 rable sinner's sensations freshly. 
 
 " Whyl because, according to your teaching, 
 her sins are her godfather's and godmother's 
 affairs now. If you go and frighten her about 
 the ' awful responsibility' she is incurring by 
 taking them upon herself, I wouldn't be mag- 
 nanimous were I Mary Jones, but I would just 
 let them remain my godfather's and godmother's 
 affairs still." 
 
 " It's a subject that has puzzled graver heads 
 than yours, Bella," Mr. Vane remarked senten- 
 tiously. 
 
 " Bella is so volatile," Mrs. Vane put in with 
 a blithe tone, and a blithe smile. She hoped to 
 a-vert the reproof that sho read in Mr. Villars' 
 face from the head of Mr. Villars' betrothed. 
 
 " I cannot suppose Bella so much puzzled by 
 it as desirous of turning the subject into ridi- 
 cule," Stanley said in a low voice that only 
 readied Bella's ears. Then she felt very sorry 
 for having wounded him, and horribly conscious 
 that it was not in her to avoid wounding him 
 very often, since he was as he was, and since 
 she was only Bella Vane. 
 
 The time in the drawing-room alone with her 
 
 aunt, before he came in, deepened her penitence, 
 It is depressing to sit for an hour on a Sunday 
 evening in a room in which "good" books alone 
 do dwell, with an old lady who is very sleepy. 
 Bella was one whoso heart always grow fonder 
 during an absence that "was not too prolonged. 
 She softened to the follies of others, and hard- 
 ened t<* her own, when she was left to herself. 
 So now she had come to the conclusion that she 
 had been wrong and flippant, and Stanley long- 
 suffering and tenderly discreet, by the time of 
 Stanley's advent. 
 
 She made room for him to come and take his 
 place by her on the little couch sho occupied, 
 and as he seated himself he looked so liko the 
 Stanley Villars of last year's London drawing- 
 rooms, that she forgot Mary Jones and the con- 
 firmation, and relapsed abruptly into her own 
 bright, unclouded self. 
 
 " Stanley, I want your advice about a pair of 
 ponies I'm going to buy." 
 
 " Indeed ! well, Bella, I shall bo very happy 
 to give it." 
 
 " I have promised to be in town three weeks 
 with mamma in August, you know." It was 
 the first mention Stanley Villars had heard of 
 this plan, and Bella blushed rather consciously 
 as she said it. 
 
 "I thought you had done with London for 
 this season, Bella." 
 
 " No, not quite ; and why should I ?" 
 
 " "Why you should is not the point in ques- 
 tion. I understood from you, when you eame 
 down here first, that you had done with it." 
 
 " Something has occurred to alter my plans 
 not so much mine as mamma's, Stanley. You 
 wouldn't have mo object to go back to my own ' 
 mother ?" 
 
 " Certainly not ; but why must your own 
 mother drag you back at the fag-cud of the 
 season?" 
 
 "It suits her to do so, I suppose," Miss Vane 
 returned promptly. 
 
 " And it suits you to go, Bella," he said 
 gravely. The thought was a grave one to him, 
 that his future bride should contemplate a- re- 
 turn to the pomps and vanities with pleasure. 
 
 " And does that seem a reprehensible thing 
 on my part? really, Stanley 1" 
 
 Miss Vane said " Really, Stanley," in the 
 partly aggrieved, partly indignant tone women 
 invariably adopt when they feel a little guilty, 
 and more than a little injured. 
 
 " Not a reprehensible thing ; still it is a 
 thing that I could wish was not going to be." 
 
 "You're not afraid to trust me, Stanley?" 
 she asked tenderly. 
 
 "Honestly, no!" he replied. "No, no, 
 Bella ; were I afraid to trust you, as you call 
 it, I would release you at once." 
 
 " What are you afraid of then ?" 
 
 " Of nothing. I simply do not think it wise 
 on the part of your mother to immerse you 
 again in that vortex ; your lines are to be cast 
 in such widely different places, dear." 
 
 " You don't grudge me three weeks' pleasure, 
 do you ?" she said, with- a warm flush mantling 
 her face as she spoke. 
 
 " God knows I do not ; but if this will be 
 such a. pleasure to you, what will the rest of 
 your life be?" 
 
 "Dull enough," she cried impatiently, "if 
 
20 
 
 ON GUARD. 
 
 these last few days are to be taken as a sample 
 of it." 
 
 She paused for a few moments, and when she 
 resumed it was in a much softer key. 
 
 "Stanley! I didn't mean that I didn't in- 
 deed ! Only why will you try to make me think 
 you saturnine and grimly good ? I will try to 
 come right by degrees." 
 
 "Dull enough! those were bitter words, 
 Bella, if you did mean them if they were the 
 expression of your- genuine sentiments, Heaven 
 help me! for I shall need its help." 
 
 She saw that he was deeply hurt ; and that 
 he loved her, truly loved her, she read it clearly 
 then ; and an uneasy feeling took possession of 
 her on the spot. Supposing that frequent 
 bursts of that grim goodness from which she 
 revolted eventually alienated her love ! what of 
 him then ? would she not have a terrible thing 
 to answer for ? 
 
 " I did not mean it how could I have meant 
 it, Stanley? But I have to defend myself 
 against so many small charges, it seems, now ; 
 you find a little wrong in so many things that 
 I do and want to do." 
 
 "Can you only hear praise?" 
 
 " I would never hear anything else from you, 
 Stanley," she said, recovering her spirits with a 
 little effort; "in fact, to tell the truth, the idea 
 of being blamed until I was married never en- 
 tered into my head. But you haven't advised 
 me as to my ponies. I could get a charming 
 pair greys dark greys, matched to a hair, 
 fourteen hands high, for two hundred pounds, 
 but they have only been driven in the country, 
 and if I took them into the parks I might dis- 
 tinguish myself unpleasantly." 
 
 " You are determined on a pair. Have you 
 heard of any others ?" 
 
 " Yes, a pair of chestnuts, regular park po- 
 nies, with splendid action, that I could have 
 for four hundred pounds. Cheap, isn't it, for 
 they're perfection ?" 
 
 " I should take the greys, I think, wero I 
 you. Country work is what you want to get 
 out of them, therefore they will answer your 
 purpose quite as well as the chestnuts that you 
 would pay two hundred pounds more for." 
 
 "Oh, as for price, I shouldn't consider that; 
 only I like the greys, so I am undecided ; but I 
 shall want them for town work too, Stanley." 
 
 He looked down at her, at the great beauty 
 who had had her own way all her life, and 
 smiled. 
 
 "I should be very sorry to see you driving a t 
 pair of high stepping ponies through the park* 
 after this year, Bella." 
 
 " We shall go to town every year, shall we 
 not?" she cried, eagerly. 
 
 "Probably we shall." 
 
 "Then why shouldn't I drive?" 
 
 " Bella, ask yourself. Would it be consist- 
 ent ; remember I am a minister of God ; would 
 it be consistent ? more than that, would it be 
 right for my wife to make herself conspicuous 
 in such a way ?" 
 
 " Stanley I can't help saying it I think it's 
 accusing God of possessing very petty feeling to 
 fancy He can care what His ministers' wives 
 drive. There, I dare say you are shocked ; so 
 am I at your narrow-mindedness." 
 
 She did not say this crossly at all. She said it 
 
 brightly, but earnestly withal; as though she 
 thoroughly meant it in fact ; and Stanley Vil- 
 lars was shocked. 
 
 The evening the end of it at least was as 
 miserable as that morning in the stuffy school- 
 room had been. She was glad of his presence, 
 for she loved him dearly whenever he came 
 down and was of the earth earthy. But still 
 she had a sense of restraint in that presence ; a 
 feeling of being in the wrong place, that is very 
 antagonistic to love. 
 
 If he would only have been interested in her 
 proposed ponies ; if he would only have seemed 
 to think it in the order of things that she could 
 drive and still be deserving. But he could not ; 
 he did not ; and she felt that he never would. 
 Had he been sympathetic she would have given 
 up so much that was pleasant to -her now right 
 gladly. But she could not give up anything 
 when the sacrifice was evidently expected of 
 her. "With what," she asked herself, "would 
 her driving through the park be inconsistent ? 
 Why should she not go there to see and be 
 seen?" Oh! her engagement began to weight 
 her horribly, spite of her love for the man to 
 whom she was engaged. For she saw him 
 quick to carp at such little faults, prompt to see 
 such tiny specks on her' brightness, and she 
 wearied over the prospect of having to urge 
 something in extenuation of something else' so 
 long as they both should live. 
 
 While he thought that she would require 
 much correction both at God's hand and his 
 own before she would be that perfect help 
 mate to him which he prayed she might be 
 eventually. 
 
 She spoke no more of her ponies that night, 
 She only sat and listened quietly while he re- 
 commended a new style of dress for her adop- 
 tion when she went to the Sunday school. 
 
 "Well, Stanley," she said once, " if my bon- 
 net causes a weak brother to stumble, I'll go in 
 my hat next Sunday, shall I ?" 
 
 "If I believed you serious I would argue 
 with you, and point out your ,bad taste," he 
 replied. 
 
 "It would be bad taste, wouldn't it? It 
 must matter so much above whether you say 
 your prayers in a bonnet or a hat. Don't be 
 frightened though, Stanley; it wouldn't only 
 be fast, but it would be bad style to go to 
 church in a hat." 
 
 " That is the lowest view of it." 
 
 "Indeed, I think you are mistaken, now: 
 there is nothing low in avoiding doing a bad 
 style of thing. Well, Stanley, there's only one 
 weakness I will stipulate to be suffered to carry 
 through; let me take a Rimmel's vaporiser the 
 next time I rush into parochial tuition." 
 
 " If you enter into it in that spirit you had 
 better abstain from it altogether, Bella." 
 
 "Then you would think me a pagan." 
 
 "God forbid that I should ever think the 
 woman I contemplated marrying a pagan !" 
 
 "You wouldn't contemplate marrying me 
 after you once thought it, I'm thinking," she 
 said recklessly, for she was weary of essaying 
 to climb to .praiseworthiness, and of eternally 
 slipping back again into what he regarded as \ 
 perdition. She was sadly, sadly weary of it V 
 already, and she could not help remembering i 
 that it would last so long. 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 21 
 
 " You wouldn't think of marrying rue if the 
 possibility of my being a pagan in reality oc- 
 curred to you?" she repeated; and on his not 
 answering she went on, "would you? would 
 you?" 
 
 ' ' I would not. But why do you utter such 
 idle folly, my own darling? You cannot be 
 conscious of the grief such light speeches cause 
 me, though I know that they are not serious." 
 
 "Then if you know they are not serious, 
 why do you let them cause you grief? Don't 
 be so abominably severe, Stanley. It's my 
 habit, and the habit of my set, to say many 
 things that won't stand being picked to pieces. 
 I have not the slightest doubt but that my flow 
 of spirits will decrease as much as even you can 
 desire, in a year or two." 
 
 "Bella, I hardly understand your humour; 
 you may be merely trying me, or you may be< 
 uncertain of yourself; which it is I do not 
 know ; but, remember, for every idle word you 
 will have -to give account." 
 
 " As you're so fond of scriptural quotations in 
 and out of season, perhaps you'll preface your 
 next reproof with a peculiarly apt one. Would 
 you like to know which I mean?" 
 
 She leant forward, laughing now, but still a 
 little flushed and angry ; and he shook his head, 
 and looked reproachfully at her. 
 
 " ' I speak as a fool ! ' those are the words I 
 would recommend to every self-ordained re- 
 prover;" and when she 'said that. Stanley Vil- 
 lars felt a keen pang of conviction of the error 
 he had made in asking this woman to be his 
 wife. 
 
 " I must see you to-morrow, and speak seri- 
 ously to you for both our sakes," he said, almost 
 sternly. Then Bella shrugged her shoulders, 
 and replied she " hoped not more seriously than 
 he had been speaking to-night." 
 
 He went away shortly after this, leaving her 
 bitterly penitent for having been stung into the 
 utterance of sharp things, but still feeling, de- 
 spite the bitter penitence, that all the fault was 
 not on her side. She declared him to be harsh 
 and unbending, and obstinate in a cool, sensible 
 way, that was infinitely aggravating. It did 
 not mend matters at all that in the commence- 
 ment of the dispute she had been wrong and he 
 had been right. He had gradually shown him- 
 self to be harsh, obstinate, and masterful ; and 
 though Bella was sorry for what she had said, 
 she could not forget that he had deserved it. 
 
 The girl went to her bed thoroughly miserable 
 that night for the first time in her life. She had 
 never been thwarted in the whole course of her 
 career, and here now this man arrogated to 
 himself the right to condemn her pursuance of 
 habits that were harmless in themselves, and 
 that had become essential to her through long 
 indulgence in them. Hitherto her most flagrant 
 derelictions from good sense had been regarded 
 as flashes of something like genius by admiring 
 friends. Now, when her path was one of wis- 
 dom in comparison, she was corrected and 
 checked, and made to feel the bit at every 
 turn. 
 
 "I shall feel constrained and uncomfortable, 
 and aure^that I shall not be free to do as I 
 please in the tiniest matter all my life, if he 
 gees on like this," she said to herself, with hot 
 tears in her eyes, and a tight cord round her 
 
 throat. "I've made a mistake and yet I love 
 him so !" Thus she wailed herself off to sleep 
 long before Stanley Villars thought of retiring 
 to rest that night. He stayed up considering 
 what he ought to do in this difficult case of 
 Bella's, and resolving to be very " gentle and 
 firm with her, and very patient, and very par- 
 ticular." All these things it behoved him to be 
 with her, and all these things he resolved to be. 
 He did not misjudge her as she fancied he did. 
 He neither thought her very, wicked nor very 
 foolish. He only thought her undisciplined ; 
 and he resolved (feeling fully capable of it) to 
 discipline her. In truth, he would have guided 
 her well for he dearly loved her had she but 
 given herself up entirely to his management ; 
 but his hand was so heavy, and she had been 
 accustomed to "have her head." 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ADRIFT IN TILE WORLD. 
 
 THERE are many more agreeable things in life 
 than a row and a reconciliation between a pair 
 of people who, with the proverbially keen vision 
 of jealous love, are quicker to see one another's 
 faults and follies than is the rest of the world. 
 The word " row" may scarcely be used to 
 describe the well, I will call it " the little ex- 
 planatory scene" that took place between the 
 betrothed lovers on the Monday morning. But 
 " the little explanatory scene" was as painful 
 to them both as any row could have been, and 
 the reconciliation that followed was one of 
 those fraught-with-fe'slmg affairs that render 
 one lachrymose. 
 
 They had each been impatient they had 
 each been exacting they had each, in fact, 
 been wrong. They told each other this over 
 and over again. Bella made her recantation of 
 error hearty and complete, but Stanley made a 
 reservation : he " had been impatient and ex- 
 acting, yes; but wrong, no ; his dear Bella must 
 admit, no!" 
 
 His dear Bella admitted " No ;" his dear Bella, 
 indeed, was in that frame of mind when all 
 kinds of admissions can be torn from the breast. 
 She had been very anxious and unhappy of 
 that she was sure ; and she wanted to have her 
 anxiety removed, and to be forgiven, and petted, 
 and made happy again. She was not at all par- 
 ticular as to terms ; she was ready to admit 
 anything, provided moral peace and sunshine 
 were hers immediately on the admission. 
 
 So there was reconciliation full and complete 
 between these young people who had been 
 guilty of the grand mistake of binding them- 
 selves to each other ; and then Mr. Villars re- 
 marked that " while they were on the subject, 
 perhaps he had better mention to Bella somo 
 things of which he could not approve ;" and 
 Bella put her hands up over her ears, and 
 pleaded "not to be told them yet, till she felt 
 stronger." She wished the disagreeable subject 
 to be put away into the background altogether ; 
 while it could be avoided it should be avoided, 
 she was determined. 
 
 " "We have had dreary talk enough for one 
 day, Stanley. No one ever made my eyos s 
 
22 
 
 ON GUARD. 
 
 red before ; and to think that you should have 
 done it, when I haven't been engaged to you a 
 month, sir! I won't hear a word more to make 
 me sorry to-day at any rate. Tell me, when is 
 your friend coming ?" 
 
 " Claude ? Coming to-day, I believe." 
 
 " He will be too tired to come up here with 
 you this evening," Bella said, suggestively. 
 
 " He's not a girl, to be knocked up by a short 
 railway journey ; still we shall not come up to- 
 night : you will have a respite from my society 
 to-night, Bella." 
 
 " That's very considerate of you, upon my 
 word !" she said, sarcastically. " When you get 
 an amusing man down to this place you keep 
 him to yourself, and pretend to make a merit 
 of it." 
 
 He got up and walked to the window, and 
 she took up a local paper and abused it for the 
 badness of its type and the poverty of its in- 
 telligence. Presently he said, without turning 
 round 
 
 " You didn't see Claude in London, did you ?" 
 
 " Never saw him, and never want to see him; 
 don't trouble yourself to bring him here." 
 
 "What a thoroughly feminine speech, Bella!" 
 
 " Well, you know that I hate being here of 
 an evening without you, Stanley, "Bella replied, 
 somewhat irrelevantly ; and when she said that 
 he came away from the window, and relapsed 
 from stoicism for a period. 
 
 " What I was going to say to you just now," 
 he resumed, " was that at one time Claude was 
 supposed to be rather sweet on Florry. I never 
 thought it myself." 
 
 " Brothers very often are blind in such cases. 
 I have heard that, Stanley ; and also that Flo- 
 rence was rather sweet on Claude Walsingham. 
 That is why I am so anxious to see him," she 
 continued animatedly. "And when he's down 
 here, Stanley, if he seems likely to stay, do let 
 me ask your sister to come to me ?" 
 
 "Oh, no !" he replied, shaking his head, "oh, 
 no ! I'll have nothing of that kind." 
 
 " You won't have me ask your sister to stay 
 with me?" she interrupted, and her head went 
 up quickly she was feeling the bit again. 
 
 " Not for the purpose of throwing her in any 
 man's way ; not even in Claude's, whom I love 
 as a brother." 
 
 " You might give a helping hand towards 
 turning him into a brother, then, I think." 
 
 " No, Bella ; you will see what Florry is by- 
 and-by, and then you will understand that she 
 is not to be hawked about." 
 
 " And who on earth would accuse me of be- 
 ing guilty of such a low idea, save you yourself, 
 Stanley ?" she asked, indignantly. She felt ag- 
 grieved in every way. She had fancied that in 
 his refusal to bring this bosom friend of his to 
 see her at once, there had been a tinge, the 
 faintest tinge, of jealousy ; and this she had 
 desired to assuage by professing a warm interest 
 in, and a desire to further, the attachment which 
 might possibly exist between Claude and Florry. 
 This being the case, it was hard to be found guilty 
 on that count too. To be had up and repre- 
 hended for a venial error against good taste, 
 that had been expressly designed to cover a 
 suppositions error against good feeling! It 
 would be a difficult matter to please Stanley 
 when the time came for her "to be with him 
 
 always." Bella acknowledged to herself with 
 a sigh that it would be difficult nay, more 
 than that, impossible. 
 
 The explanatory scene and the complete re- 
 conciliation drifted oft' into mere weariness and 
 dissatisfaction again after this trifling misunder- 
 standing respecting Florry and Claude. Bella 
 affected to be afraid to venture upon any topic 
 for fear of alarming Stanley's sensitive delicacy, 
 and Stanley was very unaffectedly annoyed 
 with her for professing this fear. They were 
 neither of them these people who had been 
 engaged for life for the space of one month 
 very sorry when the hour of parting came, for 
 they felt chary of saying anything more to each 
 other. 
 
 Bella was terribly discomposed for the re- 
 mainder of that day. " Out of sorts," her 
 ftunt called it, and her aunt pitied her accord- 
 ingly " knowing well what it was," she said ; 
 but, ah ! she never could have known the tenth 
 part of "it," with her equable temperament 
 and the Rev. Mr. Vane. 
 
 " I shall have Vengeance, and go out for a 
 long ride, and give Rock a run," Bella said, 
 when the dinner, not any of which she could 
 eat, was nearly over. 
 
 " Mr. Villars does not like you to ride out 
 with only a groom at night, Bella," her aunt 
 protested. 
 
 " Then Mr. Villars might accompany me him- 
 self, aunt." 
 
 " I hardly think it right myself," Mrs. Vane 
 went on, more humbly, for her niece's tone 
 startled her. 
 
 "Oh, nonsense!" that young lady replied, 
 with decision ; " I shall have Rock dear, 
 honest, faithful Rock with me ; and though he 
 may not be quite so prudent as as some people 
 are, he's plucky, and that is more to the purpose." 
 
 It was about half-past six in the evening 
 when Miss Vane started for her ride. The 
 brown mare Vengeance had been idle for seve- 
 ral days, and she consequently was full of corn 
 and courage. She came up champing her bit, 
 and curving her head round, and striking the 
 ground with a quick, impatient foot, in a way 
 that was very pleasant in her mistress's eyes. 
 Bella liked to see her mare full of play, and 
 scarcely able to restrain herself before she was 
 mounted. She always went off in an inspirit- 
 ing burst when that was the case, as soon as 
 her rider was seated, that left dull care behind. 
 
 Dull care commenced retreating as soon as 
 Miss Vane saw her horse this evening. " She'll 
 take all my time to-night," she thought, with 
 some of the triumphant sensations a belief in 
 one's ability to cope with the animal is sure to 
 engender. Rock, too, came up with the evident 
 intention of making things as pleasant as possi- 
 ble by accompanying his mistress. In fact, 
 there was no disappointment no falling short 
 of her hopes of them, in either her horse or dog. 
 
 " If I were you I should ride along the high- 
 road to Burton and back," Mr. Vane suggested, 
 when his niece was settled in her saddle, and 
 had gathered up her reins. The suggestion 
 awakened the spirit of contradiction which 
 Stanley Villars had roused in her in the morn- 
 ing, and she replied 
 
 " The high-road is so uninteresting. I shall ] 
 try some of the by-lanes." 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 23 
 
 So she went off, Vengeance with her head 
 well up, and with that springing quick action 
 that speaks of restrained impatience. 
 
 Bella eschewed the road that led through the 
 village; 'that road would have taken her past 
 Stanley Villars' house, and she did not wish to 
 exhibit herself to him and to that friend of his 
 about whom she had been unable to say right 
 things. She rode away in a contrary direction, 
 and took the first by-lane that she came to, 
 " because it looked like a good riding road," she 
 said to herself, btit in reality because she hoped 
 she might miss her way and become involved 
 in a labyrinth of by-lanes, and so be compelled 
 to take Vengeance home across country. 
 
 The idea of doing this was very gratifying to 
 her to-night. She half-fancied that Stanley 
 would not quite approve of her doing it in this 
 neighbourhood where his quiet clerical reputa- 
 tion was so well assured. He might, perhaps, 
 think it a fast and uncalled-for proceeding on 
 her part, that she should ride in any other than 
 an orderly and sedate manner when only her 
 groom was in attendance. Then, if he expressed 
 this opinion, she could tell him that she had 
 been driven on to this obnoxious course through 
 having nothing to do, and nothing to look for- 
 ward to for the evening, when he, of course, 
 would be penitent both for his neglect and for 
 the censure he had passed, and all would be 
 well between them again. 
 
 The lane she had taken was one of those 
 " flowery conceits" that Nature does occasion- 
 ally indulge in, even in prosaic England. It 
 rambled in zig-zags about the country, it lost 
 itself amongst fields, it embowered itself be- 
 tween lofty overarching hedges, it merged im- 
 perceptibly into other lanes, it completely 
 achieved Miss Vane's object, in fact, for, after 
 riding for an hour, she found herself she knew 
 not where, and on looking back, the entrances 
 to many lanes gaped around her on every side. 
 
 She had attained her object ; she had lost her 
 way, and her groom's powers of observation 
 proved to be of no exceptional order. He 
 could only reiterate her assertion as to the way 
 being lost, and regret that it should be so. He 
 could bring no original ideas to bear upon this 
 subject. 
 
 The other part of her scheme proved imprac- 
 ticable. The part of the country in which she 
 found herself was not to be " crossed" with im- 
 punity or advantage, or at all even. The 
 hedges rose high on all sides, for agriculture 
 was not in the ascendant, and Vengeance and 
 Vengeance's mistress, though they would have 
 flown anything lightly and gaily as birds, were 
 not equal to scrambling through apparently im- 
 penetrable masses of time-honoured thorns. 
 
 " The only thing to be done, Hill," she said, 
 after a few minutes' conversation with her man, 
 whom she had signalled to ride up to her side, 
 " the only thing to be done is to turn round 
 we must b going away from Denham now 
 and ride straight away in the opposite direction ; 
 we must trust to the mare's instinct whenever 
 we are not sure (which I shall never be), and to 
 Rock's." 
 
 Now, both the mare's instinct and Rock's 
 were very good things in their respective ways, 
 but they were scarcely equal to this emergency. 
 The mare was skittish and evinced a desire to 
 
 take every turning to which they came, and on 
 the face of it, it was utterly impossible that 
 every turning could be right. Rock was not 
 skittish, but he was worse, solemnly depressed, 
 in fact, as if he felt sorry for his share in this 
 transaction, and was disposed to regard himself 
 and his mistress as wandering sinners who had 
 strayed from the path of right, and who were 
 not, under the existing aspect of affairs, at all 
 likely to get back again. 
 
 Miss Vane had been excited pleasurably 
 excited, nothing more when she first made the 
 discovery that she was adrift in the world. 
 But presently she began to feel less pleasurably 
 excited, and by degrees, as she rode on and on, 
 and found no landmarks that were familiar to 
 her, and observed the signs of the dissolution 
 of the day that were around and above her, she 
 grew unconditionally uncomfortable. 
 
 After a time she came to an open space, a 
 wild sort of' common, which she had never seen 
 in any of her rides before. It was covered with 
 heath and gorse, and, arguing from analogy, 
 she decided that it must be a certain Welling 
 Heath of which she had heard frequent men- 
 tion made, and which, to the best of her know- 
 ledge, was situated in a north-easterly direction 
 from Denham. 
 
 Once more she summoned her groom up for 
 the purpose of not so much " consulting" him, 
 as I was about to write, as of declaring her 
 conviction aloud that she "knew perfectly well 
 where she was." " If this is Welling Heath we 
 are all right, not more than ten miles from Den- 
 ham Hill, and it is Welling Heath I know." 
 
 Hill, still suffering from a paucity of original 
 ideas on the subject, touched his hat and fell 
 back again, and Rock relapsed into his normal 
 spirits, and" dashed wildly over the common 
 after a rabbit. 
 
 There were two roads on the opposite side of 
 the heath to that on which Bella had come upon 
 it, and she, without much deliberation, took one 
 of them and went along it at a sharp gallop, 
 for, lovely July evening as it was, it was palpa- 
 bly getting late. 
 
 It was a very solitary road ; still it was the 
 turnpike road, and the hedges on either side of 
 it were trimmed down in a way that permitted 
 her a free view over the country on either side, 
 and the hope was father to the thought that it 
 " looked very much like the land about Denham." 
 She made this asseveration to herself several 
 times as she galloped on, and the belief in her 
 own statement grew weak in exact proportion 
 to the increasing determination of her tones. 
 
 A finger-post at last ! She pulled up close- 
 to it as suddenly as she had come upon it 
 pulled up so abruptly that Vengeance nearly set- 
 tled back on her haunches. The girl was get- 
 ting anxious to be home, for the road was very 
 lonely, and the day was dying in the sky. 
 
 By its last grey light she read eagerly the 
 names that were written up on the moss-grown 
 old finger-post. They were names of places of 
 which she had never heard ; they were names 
 of places of which Hill had never heard ; and 
 they were all eight or ten miles off it seemed 
 to her, as well as she could decipher the figures. 
 It was useless, she deemed, to turn down any of 
 the roads that led off from the one she had taken 
 in faith when on the common. It was useless 
 
24 
 
 ON GUARD. 
 
 to pause in deliberation. It was useless to do 
 ai^thing save gallop straight ahead as hard as 
 Vengeance could lay her legs to the ground. 
 
 It was a lonely road. I have said that about 
 Denham agriculture was not in the ascendant, 
 which fact was patent to the most ignorant in 
 such matters who caught sight of the high, lux- 
 uriant hedges. But here they were cut down 
 and kept in order, and were in all respects ut- 
 terly devoid of the characteristics of the hedges 
 around Denham. 
 
 "Surely a strange part of the country!" 
 This thought would obtrude itself upon her 
 mind, but she put it behind her to the best of her 
 ability and galloped on, straight on, with her heart 
 beating rather more quickly than even that pace 
 warranted, and with a profound conviction that 
 she would have done better had she followed 
 her uncle's advice and ridden along the well- 
 known road to Burton. 
 
 No houses yet ; no semblance of a village or 
 inn. or of the merest wayside hovel even. For 
 all she knew, houses full of people, who could 
 have guided her back to Denham with a word, 
 might be lurking a field or two off from 
 this road that was innocent of human habita- 
 tion. But it would have been neither possible 
 nor pleasant to explore unknown corn and pas- 
 ture lands, and the increasing darkness pre- 
 vented her seeing the smoke that might be 
 rising up from the chimneys of the probable 
 houses. 
 
 It was a lonely road ; she thought that she 
 had never seen so lonely a one as she pulled up 
 and walked the mare for awhile, for fear of 
 overheating her. The hedges ran along still un- 
 broken save by the gates that opened into quiet 
 fields full of ripe corn, and the moon arose, and 
 the stars came out, and there was a 'deep peace 
 over all things. 
 
 No danger could come to her, she felt sure of 
 that, let the road be lonely as it would. With 
 her trusty groom behind her, and resolute Rock 
 by her side, she had no fear of midnight marau- 
 ders even should she be so luckless as to be 
 roving about till midnight. But unpleasantness 
 might and surely would arise from this unin- 
 tentional escapade of hers. 
 
 Those who have ever ridden along a road in 
 pleasing uncertainty as to where that road may 
 lead them, and who are accountable to anxious 
 friends for their outgoings and incomings, and 
 those alone, can realise the sensations which 
 crowded through Miss Vane's mind as the night 
 and the road went on, and she was no nearer 
 Denham. Looked at broadly, no harm would 
 be done even were she compelled to ride about 
 all night ; her horse and herself would both be 
 a little fatigued probably, but fatigue is a thing 
 to be got over. But she could not look at it 
 broadly for more than two consecutive minutes. 
 She could not help remembering that there were 
 gome things which could not be got over so 
 speedily as the fatigue ; and amongst these 
 things would be the conventional wonder and 
 reprobation she would cause, and Stanley Vil- 
 lars' annoyance at the same. She thought the 
 subject over from every possible point of view 
 as she went along at a " a ready-for-anything" 
 trot ; and when she had exhausted it she pulled 
 up again, and still the road was lonely. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 FOR THE FIEST TIME. 
 
 IT was not a hopeful state of affairs. The mare 
 was flagging in a way that told Bella, to the 
 full as much as her own fatigue, that she had 
 been on the road for many hours. Vengeance 
 was like a good many ladies' horses her pow- 
 ers of endurance were to be exhausted. With 
 her horse nearly spent, and her mind heavy 
 with thoughts of " what would be said about 
 it," Bella Vane was in rather a pitiable plight. 
 The entrance to a village ; better still, to a 
 town I She came upon it abruptly in the night ; 
 came out suddenly from a lonely country road 
 upon masses of architecture looming high above 
 her; came out at the foot of a hill, which the 
 flagging mare had no sooner climbed, than Bella 
 found herself between rows of houses, even in 
 a paved street. 
 
 A quiet street, with but few signs of life in 
 it. Darkness dwelt in its lower windows al- 
 most without an exception ; but a few of the 
 upper chambers were still illuminated in a sober 
 respectable way that was pleasant to behold 
 it proved to her that all the world was not gone 
 to bed. 
 
 Her groom was riding nearly abreast of her 
 at this time, and noV she told him to keep a 
 sharp look-out for a respectable inn with signs 
 of life in it. Miss Vane had no idea as to what 
 this place might be to which she had drifted ; 
 she only saw that it was a quiet town, and a 
 feeling came over her that it was old and ex- 
 tensive. 
 
 A wild hope, too, shot through her heart, 
 that she might have been riding in circles, and 
 that so, though she had been over much ground, 
 she might still not be so far from Denham, but 
 that the sheltering wall of its rectory might be 
 gained by her that night. The thought of the 
 uproar and dismay that was most surely reign- 
 ing in that-usually quiet old house smote upon 
 her heart painfully, and when she thought about 
 what Stanley must be feeling and thinking of 
 her, she could hardly keep the saddle. 
 
 They came directly upon a busier part of the 
 town, a part that was broader awake than the 
 street through which she had passed. A few 
 fitful and uncertain strains from a brass band, 
 with a want of unity of purpose in it, struck 
 upon her ears. Then she saw a well-lighted 
 house, with a red lion swinging on a post before 
 it, and she turned into the yard of this house 
 with a feeling of relief. 
 
 "Go in, or ask an ostler the name of this 
 place, and how far it is from Denham, and hear 
 if I can hire any one to guide me back there at 
 once," she said to Hill, as she pulled up in a 
 quaint old yard, round three sides and a half of 
 the fourth of which buildings ran, and in which 
 a stagnant pool in the centre reposed beneath a 
 weeping willow. 
 
 In answer to her inquiries, an ostler camo 
 forward, and told her that the town was the 
 cathedral town of the county; that Denham 
 was seven-and-twenty miles distant ; and that 
 the hour was half-past eleven. Thus she learnt\ , 
 that she had been riding five hours, and that it'p 
 was out of the question to expect Vengeance 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 25 
 
 to carry her home to-night. Additionally she 
 heard that her arrival there was inopportune, 
 as the house was full of rifle officers, there hav- 
 ing been a volunteer review at an adjacent park 
 that day. 
 
 The mistress of the house, hearing a rumour 
 of a lady in distress in the yard, came out at 
 this juncture, and Bella dismounted, and went 
 in to rest for a quarter of an hour, and to hear 
 whether she could have a carriage and be taken 
 home. 
 
 The broad entrance, that was more than a 
 passage and less than a hall, became alive with 
 men in grey tunics turned up with red, as she 
 passed through ; for the gallant officers of the 
 Blankshire Rifles had heard the rumour of her 
 advent in distress, as well as the landlady, and 
 forthwith the majority of them made missions 
 across from one to another of the many rooms, 
 in order to see her. There had been a great 
 dinner at the " Red Lion " that night, and the 
 strains of their own baud, together with the 
 military ardour which is apt to fire the breasts 
 of worthy country* gentlemen on such occasions, 
 had been too much for many of them. 
 
 So Bella beautiful Miss Yane was com- 
 pelled to run the gauntlet of what appeared to 
 her most impertinent, presumptuous, admiring 
 observation. She felt indignant with these 
 men, so full of wine and insolence, who came 
 out and gazed at her daringly, as no men had 
 ever gazed at her before. In her well-dut habit, 
 and the hat with the big tulle bow behind, she 
 was an unexpected apparition at that hour of 
 the night unquestionably. With her anger 
 heightening her beauty, she passed through 
 them to a quiet room, leaving them not dumb 
 with amazement at her charms, but chattering 
 loudly in their praise. 
 
 Fate was against her. The " Red Lion " kept 
 neither chariots nor horses, and the two rival 
 hotels, who were the proud possessors of post- 
 horses, demurred about obliging a guest of the 
 " Red Lion's." That is to say, though they 
 made the excuse of their horses having been 
 out all day with " parties " at the review, it 
 " was jealousy of our having the dinner that was 
 at the bottom of the refusal," the hostess of the 
 " Red Lion " told Miss Vane. 
 
 " What am I to do ? What am I to do ? " 
 she said, appealingly, in her despair. " My mare 
 has been going stiff for the last hour. I shall 
 spoil her if I take her out again, poor thing ; 
 and I will get home to-night." 
 
 The landlady having nothing to say herself, 
 replied, that she would go " and hear what 
 could be done." 
 
 Bella sat disconsolately in the dull inn parlour 
 into which she had been brought, and gazed 
 round at all things with a feeling of distaste and 
 loathing. The parlours of old country inns, 
 even though they be dubbed "hotels" to suit 
 the modern ear, are not wont to- be pleasant 
 places. There was a certain hardness and an- 
 gularity about the table, and chairs, and the 
 couch, that was anti-pathetic to her ; and there 
 were thick glasses on stems, without any sparkle 
 about them, on the sideboard, that were odious 
 to behold. 
 
 She was not left to herself long. The land- 
 lady came bad' presently with a proposition. 
 Sho had been mentioning the "young lady's 
 
 little difficulty to some of the gentlemen," she 
 said (Bella winced at the whole county hear- 
 ing of it), " and one of them, a gentleman who 
 didn't belong to our corps, but who had come 
 from the review with a friend of his, and who 
 had his own horses, said he would drive her 
 home if she was bent upon going, and would 
 permit him the honour." 
 
 Bella was not given to calm dispassionate 
 thought. Still it did seem to her that there was 
 something out of the way, and something more 
 than slightly unconventional, in this proposed 
 plan. It was bad enough for her to be at large 
 in the world in the night in this way. To be 
 at large in the night with a strange man, on 
 whom, to say the least of it, she could not have 
 made the impression of being rigid, would be 
 worse still. 
 
 But she wanted to be at home. " Almost 
 anything," she told herself, " would be better 
 than staying here in this horrid, horrid place, 
 that was full of men, free to roam about and 
 look at her, with eyes that were bloodshot from 
 much wine, when she moved from her present 
 seclusion. It was a painful position in which 
 to be placed, and her having placed herself in 
 it unaided, did not make it one whit the less 
 painful. The landlady took a motherly, patron- 
 ising tone towards her, too. Altogether, she 
 could not bear it, it was too much for her. 
 There would be ngthing ' wrong ' in being 
 driven home by this strange gentleman ; and 
 even if there were, the commission of a little 
 further wrong in order to make things right the 
 sooner, would surely be justifiable.'' 
 
 " Ask the gentleman to come here and speak 
 to me ; and you may come with him, please," 
 she added, hastily. 
 
 He came at once, the landlady hovering be- 
 hind him, her voluminous robes and portly per- 
 son making a background of propriety for his 
 figure. There was an element of romance in 
 the affair directly he appeared ; Bella could not 
 resist recognising that there was, despite her 
 dissatisfaction with what had gone before, and 
 her dread of what was to follow. 
 
 " You have been kind enough to say that 
 you will take me home, away from this place at 
 once," she exclaimed, rising and bowing to the 
 tall, fair young man who entered. Then he bent 
 low before her, and declared that he regarded 
 himself as being singularly fortunate in being 
 there, and in being able to assist her. " You 
 may have heard my old friend, Stanley Yillars, 
 mention my name, Miss Yane," he went on ; 
 " I am Claude Walsingham." 
 
 "Oh, dear! then I dare not go homB with 
 you," the girl cried out, candidly; but she 
 quickly made him feel that there was nothing 
 derogatory to him in that fear she had ex- 
 pressed, for she went forward to him with ex- 
 tended hand, and with a smile, bright as one of 
 those sun- gleams that flash upon us in the boy- 
 hood of the year, on her face. 
 
 " What did you think, Major Walsingham, 
 when you heard of me arriving here at this 
 hour?" 
 
 " I thought that it was extremely unfortunate 
 that you, and extremely fortunate that I should 
 be here ; despite that declaration of fear as to 
 going home with me, I think so still." 
 
 He was just what she had expected him to 
 
26 
 
 ON GUARD. 
 
 be tall, and manly, and chivalrously deferen- 
 tial. Bella was not one bit disappointed in 
 Claude Walsingham. 
 
 Nor he in her. She was precisely the great 
 beauty the thoughtless, careless girl utterly 
 unsuited to his friend Stanley, whom he had 
 anticipated meeting. He was not at all disap- 
 pointed in her, and he could not help remark- 
 ing, as she took off her hat, and lent her head 
 against the back of the couch, how far fresher 
 and more brilliant and blooming she was 
 than the woman who had looked down into 
 the water with him the other night at Rich- 
 mond. 
 
 " I hardly know what to do, Major Walsing- 
 ham ; you see, if I stay here there will be talk 
 and anxiety, and if I go home with you there 
 will be the same ; I think you shall decide," she 
 continued : " they will be annoyed at Denham 
 at whatever I may elect to do, but your decision 
 will be more respected." 
 
 She was in the habit of throwing the onus on 
 to another's shoulders whenever she could. She 
 did it now without scruple. 
 
 Claude Walsingham saw in an instant why 
 she had hesitated about accompanying him 
 when first she had heard his name. He read in 
 that hesitation a little fear of Stanley Yillars. 
 " Can he have developed jealousy, or is she act- 
 ing ?" he asked himself. Then he looked at the 
 bright beauty again, and was fain to confess 
 that she acted very prettily. 
 
 " It seems to me that of two evils you will be 
 well justified in choosing the lesser," he said; 
 " I would- not be the cause of your giving a 
 moment's annoyance at Denham." 
 
 " We must come to some conclusion quickly 
 which is the lesser evil," she said. 
 
 He paused thoughtfully for a moment, and 
 during that pause he reflected that his first pro- 
 position was an impracticable one. Miss Vane 
 was right ; she must not be driven home by him 
 that night. 
 
 " I will tell you what I will do," he exclaim- 
 ed, " you must remain here, Miss Vane, and I 
 will go over to Denham and tell them where 
 you are, and assuage their anxiety. It will not 
 be pleasant for you to remain here, but there is 
 nothing else for it." 
 
 She looked up to him and blushed. 
 
 " Let my groom go, or send some one else. 
 Don't you leave me here, Major Walsingham." 
 
 " But, Miss Yane " 
 
 " But, Major Walsingham, I know as well as 
 possible what you are going to say that I 
 ought to go to bed and sleep the sleep of the 
 just while you scour the country in search of 
 my agonised friends. Well, I shouldn't do it. 
 I should sit here all night, and be worn out 
 with sorrow and remorse don't laugh; I 
 should. If you will send to Denham, and let me 
 have the knowledge that I have a friend in the 
 house, I will go off quietly to one of their dor- 
 mitories ; but not else." 
 
 What could he do? She had held out her 
 hand to him when she had asked him to let her 
 have the knowledge that she had a friend in 
 the house. He could but take the hand and 
 promise to stay, and feel her to be .a flirt. 
 
 " I will send off your man at once on one of . 
 my own horses," he said to her; " he will be 
 able to tell them how it came about better than 
 
 a stranger, and I will stay here myself, as you 
 desire it, Miss Yane." 
 
 So he went off and despatched the groom, 
 and lingered about in the stables, looking at her 
 horses and his own, for a few minutes, half 
 hoping that Miss Yane would retire without 
 waiting to bit him a last good-night. 
 
 He told himself while lingering there that, 
 this Bella Yane was a strange kind of girl 
 to be the bride elect of Stanley Yillars ; but at 
 the same time he felt that she was a very sweet 
 kind of girl sweet, and remarkably pretty, and 
 with animation enough about her to keep any 
 man alive. 
 
 She sat meanwhile awaiting his return 
 rather impatiently. There was no occasion for 
 her to remain there till he came back, she knew 
 that very well ; but she argued that it would be 
 more polite to do it, and Bella could not be 
 guilty of an impoliteness. So it came to pass 
 that his lingering was of no avail. When he 
 came back, hoping to find the room vacant, 
 Miss Yane sat there in unclouded brightness, 
 without a trace of fatigue in 'face or manner, 
 ready to receive him. 
 
 "What an extraordinary thing it is that we 
 should have met here ! Why are you not at 
 Denham to-night, Major Walsingham Stanley 
 fully expected you?" 
 
 '' The colonel of our regiment came down to 
 review these volunteer fellows at Rollerscourt 
 Park to-day ; he induced me to see him through 
 it and the dinner that was to follow. I had my 
 trap and horses sent on here, and I meant to 
 drive over to Denham to-morrow morning." 
 
 "How very odd that I should have come 
 here of all places in the world," she said medi- 
 tatively ; " it looks like fate, does it not?" 
 
 She coloured as she asked it, and he grew 
 red on the brow as he laughed and replied 
 
 " It does. Pate has been kind to me for the 
 first time." 
 
 " I ought not to sit up here talking, ought 
 I ?" she asked abruptly. 
 
 " You ought not, indeed," he replied. 
 
 " The thought of going away to one of their 
 wretched rooms makes one shiver," and she 
 shivered accordingly, imparting a rippling mo- 
 tion to her lithe form that was pleasing to look 
 upon, and that was as far as anything well 
 could be from representing either nervousness 
 or cold. 
 
 "Nevertheless, you had better go. Really, 
 Miss Yane, you will be quite knocked up to- 
 morrow. As your self-constituted guardian, 
 for this night only, I will order you off at 
 once." 
 
 " For this night only," she repeated after him, 
 in low soft tones. " Well, it's nice to be plea- 
 santly controlled even for a few hours. Good 
 night, Major Walsingham." 
 
 " Good night," he said ; and then he touched 
 her hand for the second time that night, and 
 touched it .more.coldly than he had done at first. 
 Pier tones were very soft and low and sweet, 
 and her face was very lovely ; but he had 
 been in Canada when she flashed out free, and 
 now she was engaged to his old friend, Stanley 
 Yillars. 
 
 For some reason that it may be as well not \ 
 to analyse too closely, Bella said her prayers 
 very devoutly that night. She felt humble and 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 penitent as soon as she was away from the in- 
 fluence of Claude "Walsingham's presence. She 
 collected all her tenderest memories of Stanley, 
 and in the innermost chamber of her heart felt 
 guilty of having done something that might 
 justly call forth his anger. "What this thing 
 this possible wrong might be, she could not 
 decide. It was not that she had lost her way ; 
 she had been innocent of intending that great 
 offence against decorum. She began to have a 
 glimmering notion that it was because she had 
 come to the "Red Lion" and found Claude 
 Walsingham there. 
 
 " It will be very unjust of Stanley if he is 
 annoyed with me about it," she said to herself, 
 as she went from one end of her room to the 
 other with an impatient step. "I have suffered 
 quite enough; it will be horribly unjust, it will 
 be a shame if Stanley says a word to me about 
 it." Then she stopped in her walk, telling her- 
 self that he had no right to utter words to her 
 that would give her pain, and that she was very 
 foolish to dwell so much on what Stanley might 
 think and say on every occasion. " A woman 
 may so soon subside into a mere slave if she 
 strives to trim her sails to every breath of wind ; 
 he would not cease for an hour from one of his 
 soul-wearying pursuits the other day to please 
 me." 
 
 This she said some little time after the de- 
 voutly-uttered prayers: their humbling in- 
 fluence had begun to wear off already. 
 
 Circe's indescribable charm began to wane in 
 Claude's mind as he recalled the form, the man- 
 ner, and the face of the girl his friend was go- 
 ing to marry. He told himself that Adele and 
 Miss Yane could never, under any circumstan- 
 ces, be friends, and that the impossibility of 
 friendship existing between the women would 
 cause a gulf between Stanley and himself. "I 
 should be sorry for that, I should be devilish 
 sorry for a coolness to come between us," he 
 thought; and then ho, too, busied himself (just 
 as Bella was doing above) in recalling all his 
 kindest, warmest memories of Stanley Yillars. 
 He said to himself that the latter was so true 
 a man, so thorough a gentleman, so worthy in 
 all respects of the best a woman or man could 
 give him of love and regard. In addition, he 
 reminded himself that Stanley was Florence 
 Villars' favourite brother his own old familiar 
 friend. But the end of all his recollections that 
 night was, that Bella Yane would be there with 
 him in the morning, and that Bella Yane was 
 engaged ! His blood leapt through his veins as 
 he thought of her; but "that will pass," he 
 said ; " she is just a woman to strike a man off 
 his balance when he sees her for the first time." 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 WAITING. 
 
 MR. STANLEY YILLARS was not of the impatient 
 order of mankind. He was not one to hear in 
 the rustle of every leaf the footstep of the 
 coming man, or to find the minutes hours after 
 the time had passed when the expected one 
 should have appeared. But for all that patience 
 and perfection of judgment as to time, Mr. Yil- 
 
 lars did wonder more than a little why Clauds 
 Walsingham was so late. 
 
 It has been seen that Mr. Yillars definitely 
 refused the proposal of his affianced bride as to 
 the disposition of his evening hours on this day, 
 with the events of which my story is now deal- 
 ing. He had told Miss Yane distinctly that he 
 should not go up to the rectory that night ; 
 therefore he would not go up ; though Claude's 
 non-appearance by the last train that stopped 
 at Denham the nine o'clock one removed the 
 just cause for that abstinence from her presence 
 against which Miss Yane was girding in, her 
 heart. 
 
 The just cause and impediment which had 
 hitherto existed (in his own mind only, be it 
 remarked) was removed, and still he would 
 not go up to the Yanes, and assist in making 
 the hours pleasant to the Yanes' niece. Still he 
 sat in his own study in his bachelor quarters, 
 and perused reviews with a lax interest, and 
 smoked a cigar in a desultory manner, and 
 waited, not for the " coming man," the time was 
 past for his advent, but for the coming darkness 
 which should oblige him to light his lamp and 
 do something. 
 
 It came at last, and with it his page, who 
 opened the windows wider, and drew the cur- 
 tains over them, and placed the lighted lamp on 
 his writing-table with a quick, deft hand. Then 
 he departed, and Mr. Yillars fell to work at 
 once, covering slips of paper with strong, 
 steady, regular characters, writing with a speed 
 iv which there was no hurry, and with an ab- 
 sence of hesitation in which there was no 
 thoughtlessness: writing, in fact, as one who 
 has ideas of his own on any subject, and words 
 at command to express them in, would write. 
 
 Stanley Yillars was in capital working order 
 that night. He was not one to require adven- 
 titious aids to enable him to pour forth his 
 sentiments on paper. They poured themselves 
 out, unassisted, freely, but not too fast. In- 
 deed, there was no occasion for them to come 
 out with a rush and tumult, for all that Stanley 
 Yillars did was of his own free will, and at his 
 own gentlemanlike leisure. He was an unpaid 
 attache to the staff of two or three journals of 
 too elevated a character to make money a con- 
 sideration with their contributors. His censure, 
 and praise, and summary of the majority of 
 occurrences, were not to be had for filthy 
 lucre. 
 
 Bella had no idea that her lover dabbled 
 even thus delicately in literature. He had been 
 very merciful to her, and had spared her this 
 truth; for he knew that were she once cog- 
 nisant of this fact, she would imagine that it 
 behoved her to read what he wrote a proceed- 
 ing which would surely be puzzling, and most 
 probably be painful to her. He intended that 
 it should dawn upon her by degrees, when cus- 
 tom would render her careless of his printed 
 words of wisdom to the degree of not insisting 
 upon distressing herself by perusing them. 
 
 There was no rush, no hurry, no false excite- 
 ment about the circumstances under which 
 Stanley Yillars' papers (he always called them 
 " papers," not articles) were written. Shall it 
 be added that there was no rush, hurry, false 
 excitement, or "go," about the papers them- 
 selves? They were sombre things "massive, 
 
28 
 
 ON GUARD. 
 
 closely-reasoning" things, his friends said 
 things that their producer felt a respect for him- 
 self, they were so very weighty. He was not 
 the kind of man we are accustomed to conjure 
 up 'before our minds when we speak or are 
 spoken to about a journalist. He prepared his 
 copy in the midst of calmness and comfort, 
 never winding up abruptly because a diminu- 
 tive "devil," with eager eyes and a dirty face, 
 was clamouring vicariously for that which was 
 not ready. The bloom was on literature still 
 to this gentleman, as far as he himself was 
 actually concerned. He knew that bad hours 
 and much brandy, and finally being broken 
 down, made up the life-histories of too many 
 press men, and of too many, alas ! who are not 
 mere press men. But these things had never 
 come near him. He looked upon them from 
 afar with a sorrow that was strongly dashed 
 with contempt. He could not understand how 
 it came to pass that men of a high order of in- 
 tellect could degrade themselves to the degree 
 of pouring out unconsidered, careless, faulty 
 work. Nor could he feel gently towards them 
 for seeking inspiration more than that, even 
 physical power at times from ignoble sources, 
 to enable them to get through with that which 
 was to them existence, and would be vended to 
 the world at a penny on tho following morning. 
 . He was in admirable working order : it came 
 out. that which he had to say, without effort, 
 as it is apt to come ou^ when commercial occa- 
 sion for it is lacking, wad it feels itself to be the 
 offspring of its parent's tree will. Stanley Vil- 
 lars did not live in an atmosphere of gas and 
 excitement, about things that appear to be vital 
 only in the light ot the same. He knew no- 
 thing of the strain, and so rather looked down 
 upon the signs of it when he found them 
 which he did, not infrequently. 
 
 In his prosperity for all things are relative, 
 <uid Stanley Villars had no tastes and no 
 temptations to lead him to exceed that income 
 which made him appear a prosperous man at 
 "Denham and happiness, Mr. Yillars was ra- 
 ther bard in his judgment on those who made 
 literature their trade. It came under the head 
 of fraudulent transactions in his mind that the 
 literate few who represent public opinion should 
 pander to the illiterate many, even in trifles. 
 He was intolerant to long laments over that 
 which was not remarkably lamentable, and to 
 a column and a half of virtuous indignation, 
 meant expressly for the perusal of the people, 
 about the vices of the upper ten thousand. In 
 abort, he was not lenient to those who leant to 
 the times, and strove to make the times sup- 
 port them. He was very hard on the hot 
 phrases about nothing that men penned at 
 night, because they were compelled to pen 
 something. He was very hard on the careers 
 they ran ; and held that the course they pur- 
 sued, when none other was open to them, was 
 damning evidence of their incapacity for that 
 position in journalistic literature which forced 
 them to pursue it. 
 
 So he sat there till eleven o'clock, comfort- 
 ably penning his exalted notions by the light 
 of a paraffin lamp and a brace of wax candles. 
 
 At eleven he was disturbed just as he was 
 glancing over some of his phrases, and uncon- 
 sciously despising those who, with brilliant 
 
 abilities, would not give themselves " time " to 
 do equally well by a message from the recto- 
 ry ""Would Mr. Villars go up at once, for 
 Mrs. Vane was very anxious about Miss 
 Bella?" 
 
 He went up, more enthusiastically than he 
 would have liked any of them, or Bella herself, 
 to suppose he would have gone, even on her 
 account, and found dismay presiding. Mrs. 
 Vane, in her first sentence, pleaded ardently 
 for his opinion as to the cause of Bella's non- 
 appearance, to be given at once, as she had 
 found herself, she declared, unable to form a 
 single one a statement she immediately pro- 
 ceeded to strengthen by avowing her fixed and 
 unalterable conviction that Bella had done 
 divers irreconcilable things, all more or less 
 unpleasant. "I begged her not to go%ut for 
 a ride on a horse at that hour I did, indeed, 
 Mr. Villars." She went on as if the desirability 
 of Bella going out on a horse for something 
 quite the reverse of a ride, or going for a ride 
 on something quite the reverse of a horse, were 
 painfully before her ; " but she would go, and 
 now, of course, something dreadful has hap- 
 pened ; and yet I feel sure that there is nothing 
 serious. I quite believe she is only staying 
 away to alarm us." 
 
 " Bella would not do that, Mrs. Vane ; she 
 may have lost her way, but she would never 
 stay away purposely to distress us." 
 
 " More likely she has been thrown and 
 hurt," Mrs. Vane replied, with the tears start- 
 ing into her eyes; and when she made that 
 enlivening suggestion Stanley Villars winced. 
 The picture of Bella injured Bella mangled 
 Bella suffering and away from him, that Mrs. 
 Vane's words conjured up, was too much for 
 him. 
 
 It was useless to stay up at the rectory, he 
 felt that was useless as well as trying when he 
 had been there about an hour. They did but 
 aggravate his anxiety by starting innumerable 
 theories of evil that might have befallen her, 
 and he was powerless to assuage theirs. Be- 
 sides, theirs was unpleasant to him, as being 
 of what he deemed a spurious order. He could 
 not quite realise that contradictory surmises 
 and fuss could be co-existent with heartfelt 
 suspense. 
 
 It was useless to remain at the rectory. It 
 was useless to mount his horse and scour the 
 country, as Mrs. Vane once urgently requested 
 him to do. Bella had ridden out of Denham 
 by a road that branched off at the distance of 
 half-a-mile in five different directions, and no 
 one could tell which of these she had taken. 
 He was anxious, unhappy, and longing to 
 serve and see her; but scouring the country 
 was not the way to do either more efficaciously 
 than was Mrs. Vane's plan of running to the 
 gate at brief intervals and calling " Bella " in 
 a loud, firm voice that was carried on the night 
 air for at least ten yards. 
 
 He went back to his own house, after charg- 
 ing them to send for him on the first sign of 
 her approach, and instead of finding the house 
 wrapped in slumber, as he had hoped, he found 
 the mistress of it, together with his own boy, 
 up, eagerly awaiting tidings of Miss Vane. It ^ 
 irritated him to be compelled to answer well- 
 meaning inquiries. It outraged him to hear 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 29 
 
 the good woman declare that she should not 
 go to bed till something ' was known. The 
 sound of Vengeance's light hoofs was the sole 
 sound he desired that night the night of his 
 first introduction to his nerves. 
 
 He went into the room where the lamp and 
 candles still burnt brightly, and he turned the 
 former lower, and put the latter out, and sat 
 down miserably to wait and feel to write 
 freely and think forcibly no longer. He was 
 miserably anxious about this beautiful love of 
 his this bright flower who had been so well 
 guarded all her life being out in the dim night 
 unattended, save by her groom. All his love 
 for her welled up in that hour, and he began 
 to understand that the man who goes down 
 under a cruel wrong may be a trifle higher in 
 the scale originally than the beasts that perish. 
 The thought arose to torture him, that even 
 at this moment she might be exposed to insult, 
 injury, danger! and then the well-arranged 
 room in which he had but just now penned 
 exalted notions became a very hell to him, and 
 the distant creak of his landlady's boots, as she 
 vigilantly roamed about, caused him to regard 
 her as a fiend incarnate. There was no dis- 
 traction to be gained from anything, poor fel- 
 low, after that. He sat there maddened nearly 
 by the stillness ; maddened a little more by the 
 smallest break ; pitiably alive to the fact that 
 his great anxiety was capable of aggravation 
 from small causes. 
 
 That creak again? "Who does not know what 
 it is to sit in a room alone, and hear the first 
 sound emanate from the sole that is going to 
 tread one's own soul into an abyss of nervous 
 woe from which there is no rising ? It com- 
 mences in an insinuating way, especially if it 
 be overhead. You hear a pleading, plaintive 
 squeak, that appeals to you piteously to listen 
 to what is to come. It is prolonged, this first 
 sound, and then just as it seems to be dying 
 away, animation seizes it, and it changes into 
 the creak defiant, and the producer of it appears 
 to rock upon that foot, and to have no sense of 
 fatigue. 
 
 Mr. Yillars' landlady, in common with the 
 majority of wearers of creaking boots, was 
 gifted by nature with that order of head fami- 
 liarly described as one that " would never save 
 her heels." She had a habit of making the 
 greatest number of journeys in a given space 
 that arithmetic could calculate. Afterthoughts 
 incessantly arose, especially on this night, 
 which involved a fresh journey of a yard and 
 a half, a fresh plaintive squeak, a fresh defiant 
 creak, and, finally, a fresh continuous rocking, 
 of uncertain duration. She was one of those 
 who always see something that they want to 
 " go and get," and whose hands have the ex- 
 traordinary property of always holding some- 
 thing that they want to " go and put down." 
 And in the stillness of this hour of agony all 
 her evolutions grated distinctly on the ear of 
 the man who was waiting. 
 
 By-and-by she elected to do what was even 
 harder to endure than her habit of rocking on 
 the foot that had the most creak in it: she be- 
 came "humbly anxious," as she phrased it, and 
 opened the door of his room to ask him " if he 
 had heard anything yet." Which inquiry caused 
 him to do what he had broken the little boys of 
 
 the village of doing, in his presence at any rate, 
 namely, to swear in a soul-relieving way. But 
 there was worse to follow ; he felt persuaded 
 that she would close the door with a hand so 
 sympathetically hesitating that he should be un- 
 certain whether or not the latch had fastened 
 itself into its socket. He knew that there 
 would be no decisive reassuring " click" about 
 a door drawn to by that woman's hand that 
 night. As in a dream he saw that it would be 
 gently, deprecatingly, feebly done ; and what 
 he felt, and knew, and dreamt, came to pass. 
 
 It was no use reason telling him that he 
 could promptly remedy the evil by walking up 
 and banging the door firmly. There was no 
 compensation, in this course that was open to 
 him, for those moments which had elapsed from 
 the dawning of the dread that she would do it, 
 to the death of the half-hope that she might 
 not. There was no alleviation, in doing that, 
 for the way his brain had tingled, and something 
 had waltzed rapidly round in his head when he 
 saw it left undone. He made wine his friend 
 that night ; and when it showed him things in 
 a less sombre hue for an instant, even he ac- 
 knowledged that men might get to regard it all 
 too kindly without being by nature bad. De- 
 spairingly he began to make wine his friend at 
 about the same moment that Bella, in her de- 
 solation, began to make Claude Walsingham 
 hers. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 SUNSTROKES. 
 
 THE morning light broke pleasantly through tho 
 diamond-paned window of that chamber in the 
 old inn which had been Miss Vane's resting- 
 place broke in with the sweet, lazy radiance 
 we look for when we wake in sultry June ; 
 and the sleeper on the couch aroused herself to 
 meet it ; and all thoughts of the errors and 
 misgivings of the last night were obliterated 
 from her mind as she sprang up with the elasti- 
 city that was the offspring of complete rest, and 
 a feeling that the day was very young and fair, 
 and all before her too, and that life was the 
 same. 
 
 It was a quaint old yard, that on which her 
 window opened. Time's hand had touched it 
 in every part gently but perceptibly. The dark 
 brown bricks of the building (they had been 
 red long, long ago) the lichen that grew in 
 luxuriant patches about the same the solid, 
 heavy, iron-barred doors of the stables and 
 coach-houses the ivy-covered porches that 
 jutted out from two of the entrances to the 
 side of the house which her window commanded 
 the deep air of quiet, which not even the un- 
 wonted presence of the volunteers could dispel 
 all these made up a picture of antiquity that 
 was pleasant as the bright day itself to look 
 upon. 
 
 It was a quaint old scene. It made the es- 
 sentially modern young lady at the window 
 feel historically romantic as she gazed upon it. 
 This was her first experience of an old English 
 hostelry. It came to her like a page of James 
 or Harrison Ainsworth, and she liked the idea 
 
ON T GUARD. 
 
 of reading more of it in Major Walsingham's 
 company. 
 
 For he was new to her too, though he was a 
 man of her own day and her own class. Still 
 he was new to her, new and very interesting 
 as Stanley's friend, as Florence's possible lover, 
 of course.- How kindly he had come to her 
 rescue last night I How honestly he had told 
 her what she ought to do ! How pleasantly he 
 had coerced her into retiring when it was right 
 she should retire, though by doing so he had 
 defrauded himself of an agreeable hour! How 
 handsome he was, and how manly, and what a 
 charm there was in his voice I 
 
 Her thoughts of him as he had been were 
 interrupted in this juncture by the sight of him 
 as he was. He had come out into the yard 
 with two or three officers, and she heard him 
 for her window was open to admit the warm 
 young morning air order out her mare ; and 
 when that order was obeyed, from her position 
 behind the curtain she perceived him critically 
 inspecting Vengeance, running his hand down 
 her legs, and treating her pasterns as if he dis- 
 trusted them. 
 
 He was ready to receive her in the room in 
 which they had met the previous night, when 
 she went down : and he greeted her with the 
 intelligence that her troubles would be shortly 
 at an end. The carriage had arrived from Den- 
 ham, and was at her service at least, not un- 
 conditionally at her service, for the coachman 
 had orders to wait a couple of hours to rest 
 his horses before starting on the homeward 
 journey. 
 
 " I mean to ride home," she said, in reply to 
 this communication. 
 
 " But that is impossible, Miss Yane " 
 
 " Not at all," she interrupted ; " I am not tired, 
 thanks to your prudence in sending me off to 
 bed last night." She delighted in giving him 
 credit for discretion, even to her own heart and 
 himself alone. It was soothing to praise him. 
 
 " Your mare is tired, though ; and not alone 
 tired, but lame," he replied. 
 
 "Poor Vengeance," she cried earnestly, " she 
 is so good ; what a shame of me to have ridden 
 her so carelessly!" 
 
 " No amount of care would have been of any 
 avail. Vengeance is not suited for these country 
 roads. I cannot echo your declaration that she 
 is ' so good.' She is all very well for a park 
 hack, but she is a terrible screw." 
 
 Bella frowned. The mare was her mare, and 
 she had been wont to declare that Vengeance 
 was the best lady's mount she had ever met 
 with. It was humiliating to be told authorita- 
 tively by a man who seemed to know all about 
 it, that the mare was a " terrible screw." 
 
 "It is of no consequence a lady's horse being 
 screwed behind," she replied carelessly ; "she 
 goes the easier for it." 
 
 He laughed. "Vengeance is more than a 
 little ' screwed behind,' Miss Vane ; she has not 
 a leg left tliis morning ; and I think, when you 
 see her try a little canter (she's free enough, I 
 allow), you will be disposed to accept the car- 
 riage arrangement." 
 
 "What in the world shall I do at Denham 
 without Vengeance?" Bella asked almost pite- 
 ously. "Oh dear! something is always hap- 
 pening to make everything else unpleasant." 
 
 Then she poured herself out a cup of tea, for the 
 breakfast was on the table all this time ; and 
 recovering her spirits abruptly, she asked 
 
 "I like the look out from my window so 
 much, that I want to see more of the town. 
 "We must wait, I mean I must wait, here a 
 couple of hours, you tell me ; can't we go out 
 and walk about?" 
 
 He made one feeble protest against a plan 
 that was very pleasant to him. 
 
 " You won't like to walk about in your habit, 
 will you ?" 
 
 "Why not?" she asked, opening her eyes 
 with a little stare of inquiry. They were such 
 lovely eyes, those of hers they were so very 
 blue! "You don't imagine me to be one of 
 those women who are awkward in a habit on 
 the earth ?" 
 
 " I do not imagine you to be one of those 
 women who are awkward at anything or in 
 anything," he replied. "Yes; let un go out, 
 by all means. You will permit me to be your 
 escort, won't you?" Then he added, in a lower 
 tone, " And you will forgive me for having dis- 
 paraged Vengeance to you ?" 
 
 She smiled brightly, and nodded, and told 
 him " there was her hand on it, if he liked." 
 Then he took the hand in his, and felt that he 
 had better not kiss it, and that the sooner they 
 went out for their stroll through the town, the 
 better. 
 
 They went out, with Rock at their heels, 
 through the yard Time's liand had touched 
 past steady ostlers attending to respectable 
 horses past little groups of not yet disbanded 
 volunteer defenders of their country past a 
 veritable English mastiff, who was chained, and 
 who growled at Rock out into the quiet 
 streets, where the sunbeams lay in mellowed 
 masses of golden light on the one side, and the 
 early dews of morning nourished the ferns and 
 mosses that were about the gratings of old 
 houses on the other. 
 
 What a dear old town Bella Vane thought 
 it ! It looked as if it might have attained to its 
 present position of solid, unostentatious prospe- 
 rity a thousand years ago, and had remained 
 stationary ever since. It was not bustling, 
 thriving, fussily active in a small way about 
 smaller things. It did not look as if it were 
 doing anything for a living, and aspiring to be 
 considered " go-a-head." People did not rush 
 through its narrow streets, but walked calmly 
 along, as if it were not of the slightest conse- 
 quence whether they were " there " wher- 
 ever that might be five minutes sooner or 
 later. The small boys even were not addicted 
 to chaff, but looked as if ever before them loom- 
 ed this great fact " I, too, may be a chorister, 
 and wear a little white surplice, and elevate my 
 little alto in the cathedral diurnally, if I look 
 not sharp." 
 
 'The streets were very narrow through which 
 the lady and her companion wended their way, 
 and from many a window in those beetle-browed 
 old houses on either side did eyes gaze, half- 
 wonderingly, wholly admiringly, upon the fair 
 young pair. She Bella Vane was adjudged 
 to be all sorts of things that she was not by old , 
 ladies of a speculative turn of mind, and young 
 ones too. She must be Lady Moretun, they said, 
 the wife of the Colonel of the West shire 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 31 
 
 Volunteer Corps ; or perhaps she was the wife 
 of the real live soldier, the genuine man of blood 
 and carnage, who had come down to review 
 them. Then they told over their breakfast- 
 tables how Lady Moretun was notoriously care- 
 less of what people thought about her, and 
 afflicted with horsey tastes, and a habit of es- 
 caping from her husband's society whenever 
 she was able to do so. Thus heads were shaken 
 over her, though they knew not that she was 
 Bella Vane. 
 
 She meanwhile was very happy walking 
 along by his side, and talking, not of the life 
 they both knew so well, or of Stanley Villars, 
 but of the quiet scene before them of the tall 
 old houses and their moss-grown bases of the 
 placid age of the town, and the equally placid 
 youth of it in the form of its boys and of how 
 it was altogether like a page from a book, this 
 coming there, and meeting, and walking toge- 
 ther thus. 
 
 She did not tell him that the carol of the 
 song-birds above them sounded more sweetly in 
 her ears than ever similar strains had sounded 
 before. She was unconscious herself of how 
 very deeply the beauty of the day, and the calm 
 in the air, and the song of the birds, was affect- 
 ing her. All she knew was, that emotions the 
 like of which had never thrilled her before were 
 thrilling her now. All she regretted was, that 
 life could not be all walking through old towns 
 in the mellow sunbeams, with one on whom the 
 gloss of novelty still lingered, and not being 
 compelled to analyse why the doing so was 
 sweet. 
 
 There were broad, thick avenues of beeches 
 and of elms in the cathedral close, and walking 
 in the shade of one of these, with the sunbeams 
 flickering down through the leaves upon their 
 j heads, the morning chants came floating by, 
 arid fell upon their ears. They paused there to 
 listen to the sweetly solemn strains, and time 
 went by, and they were very silent. 
 
 It ceased at last the peal of the organ, and 
 the choral strains, and the silence that those 
 who had listened to these things had kept. 
 With a half glance at the sky, as if he expected 
 to see a cloud there, with a half frown on his 
 brow, as if the shadow of the expected cloud 
 had already fallen on it, Claude Walsingham 
 spoke 
 
 " By Jove ! that is one of the things that are 
 over for everl" 
 
 The girl's lips moved nervously for a moment 
 or two, but no sound emanated from them. 
 
 " You are tired, Miss Vane ?" he interro- 
 gated, relapsing abruptly into common-place 
 tones. 
 
 " Not of being here, or of walking," she re- 
 plied, and she looked full into his eyes as she 
 said it. 
 
 " But it is clear that you are tired of some- 
 thing. I shall suppose that something to be my 
 society, if you do not tell me what it is." 
 
 Again there came that little nervous quiver 
 over her lips that he had marked before, but it 
 merged into a smile this time. 
 
 " Would you feel at all sorry if you knew 
 that we should never come here again ?" she 
 asked. 
 
 "I can't say that I should have any very deep 
 feeling on the subject, as I can only suppose 
 
 that our remaining away would be the act of 
 our own free-will." 
 
 "I shall feel that I am leaving, something for 
 ever, perhaps, that I am very sorry to leave, 
 when I drive away this morning."" 
 
 "Will that something be the town? No, no, 
 Miss Vane ; it is a bright morning, and all things 
 look well in its light, and a combination of un- 
 toward circumstances has given birth to some 
 new ideas in both of us. Ask yourself, have 
 you not felt the same before ? and with your 
 temperament, are you not tolerably certain to 
 feel the same again ?" 
 
 She shook her head impatiently. 
 
 " I don't want to build up a romance from 
 the sunbeams, and the green leaves, and the 
 flickering light. You need not fear that I did, 
 Major Walsingham." 
 
 "They were not your sole materials. You 
 have left out the most important ingredient in 
 your catalogue. Let us walk back to the ' Red 
 Lion,' Miss Vane. I think I have got a sun- 
 stroke." 
 
 " Which you will recover from as speedily as 
 I shall from the effects of my sorrow at leaving 
 this pretty day and town behind me," she said, 
 in a low tone. " When I tell Stanley, how he 
 will laugh at the idea of the strains of the organ 
 having made me sentimental for an instant." 
 
 " When you tell Stanley, I have no doubt but 
 that he will laugh as you say. What a power 
 of mischief the su* has to answer for ; it has af- 
 fected my head, I believe : if I verify that be- 
 lief, I shall not go on to Denham." 
 
 She would not look at him when he said this, 
 for she knew that she had the name of a flirt 
 that sho was so dubbed by the idle-tongued 
 majority who knew nothing at all of the matter 
 and it occurred to her that he might be test- 
 ing her "while yet there was time," for Stan- 
 ley's sake. So, though his declaration that this 
 morning's sun had affected his head made her 
 tremble with a feeling that had more joy and 
 hope than pain in it, she would not look at him 
 to read the truth in his eyes. 
 
 She was a flirt. It was the curse of her na- 
 ture to long for love. Bella was not one to care 
 for attention and superficial admiration alone ; 
 she never sighed to be made much of- to be 
 put upon a pedestal before people ; but she had 
 a dangerous yearning for that sort of good will, 
 between which and love it is so extremely dif- 
 ficult to draw the line. Directly a man proved 
 himself capable of interesting her, she desired 
 his friendship ; desired him to feel warmly in- 
 terested in her, tender to her errors of judg- 
 ment, and himself a better man for being under 
 her influence. Miss Vane had a great notion 
 of elevating and improving so much of mankind 
 as came under her influence. But lately a 
 doubt had arisen as to how far her efforts in be- 
 half of the many might be compatible with her 
 duties towards the one she had promised to 
 marry. This morning the doubt assailed her 
 more poignantly than ever, as she walked along 
 by Claude Walsingham's side, and listened to 
 his words, and feared to look in his face. 
 
 He, meanwhile, was thinking her very lovely 
 and very dangerous, alike as a friend for him- 
 self, and a wife for Stanley Villars. He saw 
 how undesigning she was, how terribly addicted 
 to making herself pleasant, how hopelessly in- 
 
32 
 
 ON GUARD. 
 
 capable of being entirely discreet ! There was 
 no evil, there was not the shadow of guile, he 
 did her the justice of discovering, in that win- 
 ning way, which looked so strangely, what it 
 was in fact an earnest attempt to make him 
 think as kindly as he could of her. There was 
 no idle coquetry in her softened tones and looks 
 when she addressed him, in the delicate flattery 
 of her averted eyes, in the quiver of dread 
 which possessed her when she spoke of depart- 
 ing and leaving the scene, the hour, and him- 
 self, behind. There was no bad design, no low, 
 idle coquetry in all this, but it was very danger- 
 ous. Claude "Walsingham felt the full force of 
 the danger, and wished with all his heart, since 
 he had met her, and she was engaged, that it 
 had been to any other than his old friend, 
 Stanley Villars. 
 
 Miss Vane fell a prey to remorse during the 
 latter part of their walk home. It occurred to 
 her that they had long outstayed the specified 
 two hours. "I never thought of asking you 
 to see what time it was, and I never can wear 
 my watch when I ride," she said, as they ap- 
 proached the " Red Lion," and essayed to shake 
 off some of the feelings the calm of the close 
 and the environs of the cathedral had engen- 
 dered. 
 
 " And it will be useless for me to look at 
 mine, for I forgot to wind it up last night," he 
 replied. He could not bring his mind to de- 
 ciding precisely the exact period he had passed 
 under this phase of feeling that was new, and 
 dangerous, and delightful to him. He could not 
 bear to limit it, though the doing so would not 
 shorten its duration by one instant. He rather 
 desired that it should remain a dreamy joy 
 shading off into the Nothing that must surely 
 follow by imperceptible gradations. 
 
 Promptly upon the dread that she had out- 
 stayed the two hours that had been vouchsafed 
 them in mercy to the horses, there dawned an- 
 other. Stanley would surely be annoyed by 
 that forgetfulness of hers which might savour 
 of forgetfulness of him. He would probably 
 say something calm and disagreeable to her 
 when she returned, weary and worn out, to 
 Denham. He would blame her she told her- 
 self for what she could not have helped had 
 she been Discretion herself, and think and say 
 that she might have done sundry things which 
 she had not done, and have left undone several 
 acts which she had committed. He would be 
 hard to her, she feared hard in an affectionate, 
 masterful manner that might not be put aside 
 and he would blame her judiciously, and 
 counsel her wisely, as she hated to be blamed 
 and counselled. 
 
 Her eyes kindled as she pictured to herself 
 the scene that would probably ensue, and her 
 cheeks grew rosy. It was hard for the petted 
 daughter, the autocrat of her own house, to feel 
 that she might be reproved and censured, and 
 that she had no appeal against it. In the inner- 
 most depths of her soul she acknowledged that 
 she was a little in awe of this man, whom she 
 had promised to marry. A little in awe of him, 
 and a great deal in love with him, of course ; 
 but still just a little weary of being in awe of 
 him already. It was a case of rarefied atmo- 
 sphere disagreeing with her, that was all a re- 
 petition of the old Guinevre and Arthur story, a 
 
 new edition of the eternal difficulty of breathing 
 in a " perfect air." 
 
 Miss Vane's heart went very low indeed 
 when she entered the hotel yard, and found her 
 uncle's carriage standing, with the horses put 
 to, already awaiting her. But it went lower 
 still when, from the ivy-covered porch to the 
 right, Stanley Villars advanced to meet her. 
 She almost felt, as he came towards her, that he 
 was her foe, and that the man by her side was 
 her natural protector against him, and involun- f 
 tarily she exclaimed 
 
 " Major Walsingham, what shall we say ?" 
 
 " The truth, I think," he replied, in a low 
 voice ; then he cried aloud, " Villars, I have 
 done my best to make Miss Vane feel the time 
 she was compelled to wait here as little dis- 
 agreeable as possible : she must tell you whe- 
 ther I have succeeded or not." 
 
 " My dear Claude, I am only happy that you 
 were here to take care of he'r, whether the time 
 has been disagreeable or not," Stanley Villars 
 answered heartily ; and Bella Vane felt, as he 
 spoke, that she had prepared her defence 
 against what he might feel and say for nothing, 
 and that he had unbounded confidence in his 
 friend. It was better that it should be so far, 
 far better ; but still she was conscious of a little 
 disappointment. 
 
 " I suppose there was a perfect tumult last 
 night at Denham on my account ?" she asked. 
 
 " You would not be pleased were I to tell 
 you that Denham was indifferent to your non- 
 appearance, Bella." 
 
 "No, of course I shouldn't; but shall I have 
 to explain how it came to pass that I lost my 
 way in tangled roads that I didn't know, and 
 fondly hope I never shall know, because rather 
 than do that I would flee my country. I shall 
 hate to talk about it. I have lamed Vengeance 
 that ought to be held sufficient expiation for 
 all my sins." 
 
 " We will soon replace Vengeance,*" Stanley 
 Villars said, cheerily. He was so rejoiced to 
 find Bella safe and in honourable keeping, that 
 lie would scarcely suffer himself to remark that 
 her tones were querulous, and her manner con- 
 strained. 
 
 "Indeed, we can't soon replace Vengeance!" 
 
 " Clearly, we can't replace her here this day," 
 Claude Walsingham said, "still I think it may 
 be done in time. " Don't you think the sooner 
 we all get away from this place the better 
 Stanley ?" he added, in a low tone, to his friend 
 
 " Decidedly. Are you ready to start, Bella ?" 
 
 " Oh ! quite ready. How did you come over 
 on horseback, Stanley ?" 
 
 "Yes; but I shall leave my horse to be led 
 back with Vengeance." 
 
 " I shall be but a poor companion I'm too 
 tired to talk ; and, in fact, I hate talking when 
 I am driving," she said, wearily. It was not 
 a graceful thing on the part of the beauty to 
 say this to her betrothed, but she was not in a 
 graceful humour just then. 
 
 " Well, I was thinking that as Claude Wal- 
 singham had his horses here, and as the roads 
 are so intricate, that I would get him to drive 
 me over to Denham, and so do away with the 
 possibility of his losing his way," Stanley Vil- \ 
 lurs rejoined hastily. Then Bella fell penitent l 
 oh, those agonizing interludes of penitence 
 
ON" GUARD. 
 
 and said, "Oh, Stanley!" deprecatingly ; and 
 Claude watched the pair attentively to mark 
 whether by word or sign she would strive to 
 make Stanley alter his determination. 
 
 But she did not. She made no further ap- 
 peal than those two word?, "Oh, Stanley!' 1 
 and Stanley took no notice that was visible to 
 Claude of them. Somehow or other, it was al- 
 most a relief to the man who had seen her for the 
 first time on the previous night to find that her 
 future husband was not proposing to go back 
 to Denham in the carriage with her, and even 
 greater relief was it still to mark that she did 
 not desire him to do so. 
 
 They put her into the carriage presently, of- 
 fered her the last services of handing her in, 
 and saving her habit from the wheel, and put- 
 ting one window up and the other down, as 
 seemed good to her. Then she said good-bye 
 to them both, and in reply heard from Stanley 
 that he "should come up to the rectory in the 
 evening to see how she got on," and from Ma- 
 jor Walsingham that he hoped to have the 
 honour of seeing her again shortly. But yester- 
 day she had pleaded so warmly for Stanley to 
 do this very thing he was now pledging him- 
 self to do, and then he had refused. "Well, she 
 could not unlive the past few hours and feel as 
 she had felt yesterday, that was all. She nod- 
 ded assent to his proposition, and drove away 
 with a sense of the tender grace of the day be- 
 ing gone, though the sunbeams still lay in mel- 
 lowed masses around her, and the birds still 
 carolled high and clear above her head. 
 
 Fervently, as tne old town and the events 
 which had happened in it appeared to recede from 
 her, rather than she to move away from them, 
 did she wish that "none of it" had happened. 
 There was no harm done, but her routine had 
 been broken up, and she had a vague sense of 
 discomfort and of doubt, as to whether she 
 should take quite so kindly as was desirable to 
 routine again. It had been a bit of pure ro- 
 mance while it lasted ; but it had been such a 
 tiny bit, and had lasted such a very short time, 
 that she could but wish she had never come 
 upon it at all. She had been fraught with a 
 certain ecstatic feeling as she had walked 
 through those narrow streets, and stood under 
 the sombre beeches. It must have been be- 
 cause she saw them all " for the first time/' she 
 told herself; for something whispered to her 
 that, even could she persuade Stanley to ride 
 over to the picturesque old town with her again, 
 the ecstatic feeling would not return that was 
 over for ever. 
 
 The same indescribable sensations which had 
 caused her on the past night to be extra devout, 
 made her now dwell upon so much of Stanley 
 Villars' magnanimity and general superiority to 
 suspicion and distrust as she could recall. She 
 reflected upon how entirely satisfied he had 
 seemed when he found that his old friend had 
 been guarding her the whole time; how en- 
 tirely satisfied, how warmly reliant, how pleased, 
 that Claude should have been there, since he 
 himself was absent. The reflection made her 
 wince, and move uneasily ; it was very perfect 
 trust that he had evinced in her and in Claude 
 Walsingham ; and from any other man to any 
 other man, about any other woman than herself, 
 she would have regarded it as a very natural 
 
 trust too ; indeed she would have scoffed at the 
 notion of aught else being possible. But it was 
 about herself, and she was exceptional ; and 
 about Claude Walsingham, and he was the 
 same. The loving trust in her faith, the un- 
 questioning reliance on Claude's honour, seemed 
 burthcnsorne to her, she knew not why. Per- 
 haps it was that she was conscious that it 
 would not have been felt and expressed, had 
 every heart-throb of hers been heard by Stan- 
 ley during that morning walk, or had Claudo 
 Walsingham's complaint of the effects of the 
 sun sounded in the ears of his friend as it had 
 in hers. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 CLAUDE'S CONFIDENCES. 
 
 THE two men watched the carriage drive 
 away out of the yard without speaking. When 
 it was no longer in sight Claude turned round, 
 took a cigar from his case, offered one to Stan- 
 ley Villars, and then elaborately lighted his 
 own, and puffed av; ay at it for a few seconds. 
 
 " Come and look at my horses, Stanley," he 
 then said ; and before Stanley could accede to 
 his request, he added, "Come, and I'll introduce 
 you to my colonel." 
 
 "Is he here? Certainly, I'll be introduced 
 to him." 
 
 " Of course he is here. It was his coming 
 brought me down. He came to review Lord 
 Moretun's corps ; and as it sounded like being 
 in your neighbourhood, I thought I might a.s 
 well come with him, and see him through it, 
 and the dinner that they threatened." 
 
 " It is a very fortunate thing that you were 
 here," Stanley rejoined. "Miss Vane would 
 have been unpleasantly situated indeed, if she 
 had not met with you." 
 
 "Oh! you're very good to say so," Claude 
 replied, in a slightly embarrassed tone. "You 
 overrate my services, old boy ; however, I did 
 my best on my soul, I did." 
 
 " You need give no such strong assurance to 
 me as that, Claude," Stanley Villars replied, 
 gravely. 
 
 " Don't drop on to a fellow for forgetting for 
 an instant that you are not as you used to be, 
 Stanley. Come and look at Miss Vane's mare." 
 
 He seemed excited almost agitated. Still, 
 there being no valid cause for either excitement 
 or agitation, Stanley Villars would not permit 
 himself to observe it. 
 
 " Poor Vengeance ! she fell lame, I under- 
 stand. I must find some steady fellow to take 
 her home quietly." 
 
 "My man's here; he shall take her home," 
 Claude interposed, "he is to be relied upon in 
 the first place ; and in the second, he will be 
 well out of the way, as I have several things to 
 say to you that he would overhear if he went 
 with us. I have got a new trap come and 
 look at that." 
 
 "What shall we do?" Stanley Villars asked, 
 laughing. "You are fruitful in propositions; 
 but you don't carry one of them out. What 
 do you want me to do first ?" 
 
34 
 
 ON GUARD. 
 
 " We will order my cattle in at once ; then 
 I can send off ray man with the mare," Claude 
 replied. "You don't care about staying here 
 any longer, do you ?" 
 
 ""Certainly not." 
 
 " Damned" hole. I wish I had never come to 
 it," Claude growled. He, too, was suffering 
 from a revulsion of feeling, and it made him 
 unconditionally ill-tempered. 
 
 " I can't say that, Claude. However, I am 
 willing to get away as soon as you please." 
 
 They walked into the stable now, to look at 
 Vengeance, who was standing in a loose box, 
 with a cloth on, and with pads upon her knees. 
 
 "You will never let Miss Vane ride that 
 beast again, I should hope, Stanley," Major 
 Walsingham said, as he went up to the slender- 
 limbed brown. Then he remembered that 
 Bella had called the mare " Dear Vengeance," 
 and an access of softer feeling set in, and he 
 repented him of that term he had used towards 
 Miss Vane's pet horse. 
 
 " I can supply her with a horse while I am 
 with you," he went on ; " that is to say, if you'll 
 permit me to offer her a mount, I can lend her 
 one of the nicest stepping horses you ever saw. 
 Come and look at them." 
 
 " Unquestionably, I will permit it, and look 
 at them too," Stanley said, as they walked on 
 into another stable, where a pair of iron greys 
 were stalled. Then the pride of ownership in 
 good horseflesh came to Claude Walsingham's 
 aid, and he ceased to be either ill-tempered or 
 embarrassed. 
 
 "That's the best ride of the two," he said, 
 pointing to one of them. " I always put him 
 in on the off-side ; I used him as a break-horse 
 for the others, for he's as mild as he is game. 
 There's strength there, eh ? strength as well as 
 speed?" 
 
 "When Stanley had eulogised the horses to 
 the heart's content of their owner, he was con- 
 veyed by Claude to the coach-house, where the 
 trap stood. 
 
 " But you don't see it to advantage here," he 
 said ; " in fact, it looks nothing till the horses 
 are in ; so we'll have them in at once and go, 
 shall we?" 
 
 He was indeed strangely undecided ; Stanley 
 Villars regretted that the rush and hurry of 
 London life should have set its mark so unmis- 
 takably upon his friend. 
 
 They got away at last without that introduc- 
 tion to the colonel coming off of which Claude 
 had at first made a point. " He's linked in for 
 the time being with a lot of cads, from whom 
 he can't escape," he explained; "it's all very 
 well for him, for he will go off directly, and be 
 out of it ; but you're in the neighbourhood, and 
 you mightn't like it if you met them again." The 
 truth was, that he was afraid ribald jokes might 
 be uttered relative to that damsel in distress, 
 whom he had been so prominently squiring that 
 morning ; and Stanley Villars might take such 
 jests amiss. 
 
 The trap afforded them food for conversation 
 for some distance. It was a new style of thing 
 altogether a combination of double dog-cart 
 and phaeton that went very well together. The 
 one man declared it to be more useful than a 
 mail-phaeton in the country, and the other 
 agreed with him, without knowing why, in the 
 
 most -affable manner; and they both averred 
 that it showed the horses off well that it made 
 less noise than any vehicle they had either of 
 them ever chanced to occupy before, and that 
 it ran lighter than anything the imagination of 
 either had ever conceived. They talked " trap," 
 in fact, as long as it was possible to do so, a 
 little perhaps because they were desirous of 
 staving off other subjects till they had become 
 more accustomed to each other. 
 
 At last, when they had been on the road 
 some time, and the horses had got into their 
 stride, and the hedges were going by them at 
 the rate of fourteen miles an hour, Stanley Vil- 
 lars paved the way to return to the old confi- 
 dential intercourse that had existed between 
 them, by asking 
 
 "Have you seen anything of my people 
 lately?" 
 
 "I was at Lady Villars' (your mother's I 
 mean) one afternoon of last week no, the week 
 before. Your sister told me then about your 
 engagement." 
 
 " Which sister ? Florence ?" 
 
 "Yes, Florence," Claude replied, driving very 
 carefully now, and bestowing vast attention to 
 his reins. 
 
 " Florence and Bella don't know each other 
 yet, but for all that Florry is intensely pleased 
 about it." 
 
 " She expressed herself delighted to me." 
 Then he drew back a little to get his horses to- 
 gether before they came to the brow of a decli- 
 vity, and went on " I congratulate you, old 
 fellow, heartily, heartily!" 
 
 "Thank you; your written congratulations 
 sounded less warmly." 
 
 " Don't be annoyed at that, Stanley. I think 
 you now a devilish lucky fellow, and congratu- 
 late you accordingly. When I wrote I didn't 
 think you a lucky fellow, and so I failed in put- 
 ting the warmth in, I suppose." 
 
 " My dear fellow, annoyed ! I do not believe 
 that the opinion of the whole world would 
 weigh with me on such a question as my mar- 
 riage: that is too entirely to myself for me to 
 care even what you thought about it when once 
 I was assured that I was acting wisely myself." 
 
 " You are assured of it ?" 
 
 "Perfectly!" 
 
 " Thank God ! I wish I could say the same 
 about myself." Then he went on to tell Stanley 
 of what the wine, and the warmth, and the 
 witchery of that woman, and the hour, had 
 done for him at Richmond but the other day. 
 
 " It is out of the question that I marry her, 
 you know that you must perceive ?" 
 
 " Why ?" Stanley Villars asked gravely. 
 
 " Why, if you don't know, I will refrain from 
 telling you more than that it is out of the ques- 
 tion. She is very charming, and deuced pretty 
 by gas-light, and no man, I am assured, can 
 ' breathe a word against her.' " Then he flicked 
 his horses, and as they burst into a faster trot 
 he burst into a laugh, and cried, " Just fancy 
 my marrying a woman about whom I am told 
 'not a detracting word can be breathed!' by 
 Jove! just fancy it!" 
 
 "What do you purpose doing? It seems to 
 me that you must do something, since you have 
 asked her to marry you," Stanley said indig- 
 nantly. He was inexpressibly grieved and 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 35 
 
 shocked that this man, whom he had half-un- 
 consciously designed for his pet sister, Florry, 
 should have been wasting the h'rstfruits of his 
 heart, and offering his first vows on a shady 
 shrine. But for all that he could not bear to 
 hear light mention made of that shrine's claims 
 on its self-ordained devotee. 
 
 "Oh! get out of it some way or other; it is 
 one of those things that can be done. Don't 
 look disgusted, Stanley ; don't you see, old fel- 
 low, the facts are these my breaking that 
 lightly -offered and accepted vow won't cause 
 -ny more than half an hour's annoyance; my 
 keeping it would make my whole family mise- 
 rable, and kill my mother, I believe. I hardly 
 know why I have named it to you at all," he 
 naid, meditatively. 
 
 He did hardly know himself that he men- 
 tioned this, that he meant to be a mere passing 
 folly, to Stanley, only because he desired to 
 make Stanley aware as early as possible that 
 no secret tie of feeling still bound him to Flo- 
 rence. This was his motive, but he barely 
 acknowledged it to his own heart. To plot 
 ever so remotely about Florry seemed too foul 
 a thing for him to deem himself capable of 
 doing it. It was not plotting ! He told himself 
 that it was not plotting! It was precaution 
 precaution pure and simple nothing more. 
 
 Claude Walsingham essayed too determinately 
 to be as he had ever been with his old Eton 
 friend, for the event to repay the effort. The 
 result is almost invariably poor when so much 
 labour is bestowed upon the working of it out. 
 Unlimited confidence, perfect understanding, 
 friendship flawless and unalloyed, are things 
 that are best portrayed by a few bold strokes. 
 Laborious fillings in, and tonings down, and 
 shadings off are apt to destroy the resemblance 
 to the thing to be represented. Stanley Yillars 
 felt, and felt with a sorrowful foreboding, that 
 Claude was more utterly unlike the Claude of 
 old, at the time when he most carefully at- 
 tempted to reproduce himself by countless allu- 
 sions and reminiscences, and spontaneous asser- 
 tions of unaltered feeling, than at any other 
 moment. He was changed! changed much 
 in many things, but in nothing so much as in 
 that peculiar manner, half-boyish, half-brotherly, 
 which had been his of yore to Stanley, and 
 which he now endeavoured to render with 
 photographic accuracy. 
 
 Indeed it was rendered with photographic 
 accuracy, for it was like, and yet odiously dis- 
 similar to the original. It was a hard, dry, 
 material copy of what had- been, and no one 
 could be more conscious of its failures than the 
 man who made it. 
 
 But he was very frank 'with Stanley as to his 
 prospects and plans. Far more frank and out- 
 spoken, indeed, than he would have been had 
 the change that caused the copy of that earlier 
 manner of his to be hard and dry, not come 
 over him. He told Mr. Villars how he had 
 been going ahead for the last two or three years 
 in divers ways keeping unholy hours, and 
 speculative society, and too many horses, and 
 other things that were not good for him. He 
 was sick of his regiment, too, he added, and 
 wanted to buy a commission in that military 
 holiest of holies, the Guards. Furthermore, he 
 confessed that he had not the wherewithal to 
 
 compass this natural ambition, and that if his 
 father supplied him with it, the property would 
 suffer in a way that it would be humiliating to 
 the Walsinghams that their property should 
 suffer, though the suffering came through the 
 hope of the house. "A corner of the estate 
 that we don't want could be sold well enough ; 
 but then it would be devilish unpleasant to 
 have to make open confession of having over- 
 shot the mark in that way, you see," he said 
 in conclusion. And Stanley said, "Yes, it 
 would," and wondered silently why Claude 
 would not avert the necessity of abolishing the 
 unwanted corner of the estate, by taking what 
 he might have for the asking Florence's por- 
 tion, namely, and her own sweetly willing self 
 into the bargain. 
 
 Naturally, Stanley did not say this aloud. It 
 was just one of the things that, though it might 
 possibly do much good, and could possibly do 
 no manner of harm, may not be said aloud. He 
 commenced a brief argument with Claude on 
 the absurdity of the latter, wishing to get out 
 of a regiment that he found to be too expensive 
 for his means into one that was more expensive 
 still. But he shortly saw the folly of arguing 
 with a man who was bent on having his own 
 way, and who was apt to put out the mild light 
 of sober., common sense with sparkling social 
 reasons for doing as he pleased. 
 
 Major Walsingham brought his greys into 
 Denham, to the admiration of the whole village, 
 about an hour after Miss Vane had made her 
 advent, The youth of the day was gone, but 
 it was not anywhere near its decline though ; 
 there were a good many hours to be got over 
 before he could see Miss Vane again, and gain 
 a further insight into the character of the girl 
 who would exercise, in all probability, a large 
 influence over the career of his friend. It was 
 a large, rambling, old farmhouse, the one in 
 which Mr. Villars lodged, and behind it there 
 was a large, rambling, old garden, with a stream- 
 let running through the midst of it, and seats 
 close to the streamlet, and fruit trees "-delight- 
 fully situate " with regard to the seats. There 
 he placed himself, with all that was latest in 
 literature that he could find, and what with a 
 cigar and the happy consciousness of having 
 nothing to do, and nobody being near to see 
 him do it, he managed to get over the afternoon. 
 The hours did not fly precisely, but they were 
 not leaden-winged. A brief period in such a 
 place was all very well renovating to mind, 
 body, and estate in fact. But he caught 
 himself marvelling how Bella Vane could have 
 pledged herself to remain in it, and similar 
 scenes to it, for the term of her natural life. 
 
 Major "Walsingham had altered his mind as 
 to the desirability of speedily recommencing his 
 study of Miss Vane's character when evening 
 came. He felt a repugnance to going up, and 
 being either left to the tender mercies of Miss 
 Vane's relatives, or being an unwilling and un- 
 wanted witness of the manners and customs of 
 the engaged pair. There were sundry things 
 that he compelled himself to take for granted 
 Amongst these was the pleasure Miss Vane 
 would perhaps evince at sight of her betrothed ; 
 and this spectacle, though right and proper 
 enough, Claude Walsingham could well dis- 
 pense wit>. 
 
86 
 
 ON GUARD. 
 
 Mr. Yillars had no special desire for the 
 society of his friend. He wanted to hear an 
 account, before possible collusion, of what had 
 transpired that morning before his own arrival. 
 Not that he was suspicious of Claude or dis- 
 trustful of Bella ; but still he did want to hear 
 about it. So he went up alone, leaving Major 
 Walsingham on the sofa, feigning sleepiness 
 and an indifference to the* duration of Stanley's 
 visit to Miss Vane that he was very far from 
 feeling. It was not a pleasant thought to him, 
 lying there, that the man who had just gone 
 out from his presence had gone up to the girl 
 who had listened to the organ's swell, and the 
 low, mild summer whisper of the trees, with 
 himself that morning gone up armed with 
 legitimate claims on her affection that she might 
 possibly pay. 
 
 How he cursed the fate that had brought 
 him there not there to Denham, so much as 
 to that old town, whose quaint, old, quiet 
 poetry had aided in the creation of this feeling, 
 whatever it was, that began to oppress him. 
 How he cursed that fate, and also that fatal 
 facility for being touched when it was not well 
 to be touched, which he was fully conscious of 
 in himself, and half-fearfully recognised in ano- 
 ther. The man grew half afraid of himself as 
 he sat there alone. " I will be off to-morrow," 
 he said to himself; "if a night's rest, and the 
 knowledge that there's nothing to be done, 
 even were I blackguard enough to wish to do 
 it, doesn't cure me." Then he thought again 
 of that pair up at the rectory, and chafed sorely 
 at the thought of them, and went into a very 
 Inferno, without the faintest hope of a Beatrice 
 guiding him through it. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 MRS. VANE PUTS THINGS IN A PLEASANT LIGHT. 
 
 Ox the- whole it would have been better for 
 them all had Claude Walsingham risked possible 
 neglect or mortification to himself, and gone up 
 to the rectory that night. Had he been there 
 he might have been a distressing diversion to 
 Stanley, and an obstacle to Miss Yane's uncon- 
 ditional return to that path of right from which, 
 in the innermost recesses of her soul, she felt 
 conscious of having strayed. Moreover, he 
 might have been slightly oppressive to Mr. 
 Yane, who always essayed to be hilariously 
 hospitable to young men when first they enter- 
 ed his house, and who speedily relapsed into a 
 low frame of mind on making the disheartening 
 discovery that his hilarity was not contagious, 
 and that they would prefer his hospitality with- 
 out it. Mrs. Yane, too, would have been sub- 
 jected to nervous emotions when the fact of his 
 being dependent on her for social entertain- 
 ment dawned upon her. But these things, one 
 and all. would have been better than that 
 which did happen. He stayed away, and he 
 was talked about. 
 
 Bella had laboriously avoided mention of him 
 as long as she could, when recounting to her 
 aunt on her return that morning, how it came 
 to pass that she had not returned the previous 
 night. But his appearance in her story was 
 
 inevitable, therefore he finally appeared, and 
 was immediately seized upon by Mrs. Yane, 
 with the healthy avidity old ladies do occasion- 
 ally display in grasping hold of what is appa- 
 rently the least important point. " Major 
 Walsingham! you don't say so?" Mrs. Yane 
 had exclaimed when Bella made her hasty 
 mention of him. "Well, it's one of the most 
 extraordinary things I ever heard ! Here, Mr. 
 Yane, do listen; quite a coincidence; tell it 
 again, Bella. Is he tall ? " 
 
 " My dear aunt, I really can't say. Besides, 
 what does it signify? " 
 
 " Oh no, only his coming here makes it seem 
 so strange. Did he seem very much pleased to 
 meet you ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Not pleased ! Well, I am sure all Mr. 
 Yillars' friends might be pleased without any 
 very great exercise of toleration. Did he say 
 anything about the engagement? " 
 
 "Really we did not go into the question," 
 Bella replied, coldly, and for a few minutes 
 Mrs. Yane was shut up. 
 
 Later in the day she started the subject 
 again, for there was a lack of new and original 
 matter in that retired little village, and Mrs. 
 Yane made the most of that which she could 
 get. It did not occur to her that her beauti- 
 ful niece was suspiciously reserved about the 
 stranger. It did not strike her that this reti- 
 cence was an exceptional thing. She always 
 found Bella wanting in the spirit of detail; 
 always regretted that Miss Yane did not dis- 
 burden herself of every word and look that 
 others had given to her, and she to others, on 
 her return home from the tamest excursion. 
 Now her regrets were aggravated, for this had 
 not been a tame excursion. She longed to hear 
 all about it, and Bella, as usual, would not tell 
 her without being questioned. 
 
 " Did they seem nice and respectful at 
 the 'Red Lion,' Bella? In my young days 
 there was no hotel like it in the town. We 
 always stay there now when we go to the 
 festival." 
 
 "Yes. they were very nice and respectful," 
 Bella answered. "I should like to have seen 
 them other, indeed, to me." 
 
 "Did they give you a good breakfast?" 
 
 " I believe it was good. It was hot, and 
 there was an immense lot of it, as there always 
 is at those horrid inns, I suppose ; but I couldn't 
 eat." 
 
 "Not eat! Ah! poor child! thougH how 
 could you, sitting down alone." 
 
 "I didn't sit I mean, how should I, in- 
 deed." 
 
 " You didn't sit ! why not ?" 
 
 "I didn't sit down alone, I mean to say," 
 Bella said, laughing. 
 
 "Who was with you? Mr. Yillars was not 
 over there to breakfast, was he ?" 
 
 "No, aunt, but Major Walsingham was; 
 didn't I tell you ?" 
 
 " No, you have not told me. I want to hear 
 about him. I am quite anxious to see this 
 friend of Mr. Yillars'." \ 
 
 " Pray don't say much about him when Stan- 
 ley comes. I mean, be careful what you say." 
 
 " I will how ?" Mrs. Yane replied, with 
 prompt, but vague acquiescence. 
 
UUAtVU. 
 
 " Don't say that I said much about him." 
 
 " I won't. But you haven't said much about 
 him. Of course, 1 should very carefully avoid 
 saying anything that could make Mr. Villars 
 uneasy." 
 
 "It wouldn't make him 'uneasy;' it isn't 
 that ; only men always hate to have an adven- 
 ture made out of nothing, and a hero out of the 
 same." 
 
 "Oh, I understand," Mrs. Vane replied, 
 "and I'll be very cautious." Then. Bella felt 
 that her aunt overcautioned would be thrice as 
 dangerous as her aunt cautioned not at all 
 
 So it came to pass when Stanley Villars 
 cursorily alluded to the subject in the evening, 
 that Mrs. Vane fell to making palpable mys- 
 teries about portions of it, acd. Bella began to 
 evince nervousness. Now this was not a habit 
 of Miss Vane's, therefore it alone would have 
 caused Mr. Villars to be on the alert ; but, in 
 addition, Bella laboriously tried to conquer her 
 nervousness to hide it from him, and seem as 
 she had been before. 
 
 " I suppose Bella has told you all her adven- 
 tures, Mrs. Va"ne ?" he said ; and Mrs. Vane 
 replied that " Bella had ; but, oh dear I they 
 were not worth speaking about, she could as- 
 sure him." 
 
 " There I differ from you. When a young 
 lady loses her way in a strange country, and 
 then falls in with a stranger who turns out to 
 be the familiar friend of her own familiar friend, 
 it is worth speaking about; it's a prize subject, 
 in fact a thing that you may not hope to 
 have happen to you twice in your life, Bella." 
 
 He was evidently desirous of taking a semi- 
 jocular view of it. He was clearly above suspi- 
 cion. Bella felt better. 
 
 " Ah ! but I'm sure Bella wouldn't wish it to 
 happen again, Mr. Villars; she would much 
 rather have had you there to take care of her 
 than your friend, whatever you may think." 
 
 Mrs. Vane was painfully in earnest in her 
 vindication of her niece, and her niece began to 
 experience sensations of nervous dread of what 
 might possibly follow. 
 
 "I can well believe that still a change is 
 pleasant sometimes ; isn't it, Bella ?" 
 
 "Very. Let us change the subject," Bella 
 replied. 
 
 " I don't see why you need desire to change 
 the subject, my dear," the amiable, well-mean- 
 ing old lady struck in, with charming simplici- 
 ty; "there's no reason for it. You said very 
 little about Major Walsingham, and thought 
 very little about him, I'm sure : it was not your 
 fault that circumstances threw you together in 
 a^pay that of course made you more intimate for 
 the time being than mere casual acquaintances 
 are usually not your fault at all." 
 
 Mrs. Vane positively beamed as she spoke. 
 It_ appeared to her that she was placing the 
 thing in the most agreeable light for all parties 
 concerned. 
 
 "Unquestionably it was not her fault," Stan- 
 ley Villars replied, stiffly. 
 
 "Then why blame her for it?" Mrs. Vane 
 asked, cheerily. 
 
 " Blame her ! You are accusing me of what 
 I should never have presumed to do, even had 
 cause for blame existed," he said, quietly ; but 
 he gave a quick, passionately-interrogatory 
 
 glance at Bella as he spoke, and Bella shudder- 
 ed under it. 
 
 " Pray, Stanley, don't think a moment longer 
 about such nonsense," she whispered. 
 
 " Don't be uncomfortable then ; if you don't 
 blame her, don't make yourself uncomfortable," 
 the good-natured setter to rights of all things 
 that were wrong, interposed, affably. " Bella 
 did tell me not to say a word, especially about 
 Major Walsingham, as she saw you were un 
 easy ; and I wouldn't have said a word, if ] 
 hadn't seen that you could not quite get ovei 
 the little feeling, whatever it might be." 
 
 " Oh, aunt, you make things worse ! " Bella 
 cried, indignantly. 
 
 " Uneasy ! make things worse ! Good God I 
 what is it all about ? " Stanley ejaculated. 
 " What made you request your aunt not to 
 speak of my friend before me, Bella? what 
 reason could you have had for desiring that 
 silence should be maintained when there was 
 no cause for it ? " 
 
 He had risen from his seat on the couch by 
 her side, and was walking up and down the 
 length of the room as he spoke. It seemed to 
 Bella that there was more anger than sorrow 
 in his tone, and her spirit rose. 
 
 "Aunt, you have blundered egregiously, in 
 common with the rest of us," was the sole 
 notice Miss Vane took of his questions. 
 
 " You are right ; we have all blundered egre- 
 giously," Mr. Villars exclaimed. " I believed 
 in you so implicitly " 
 
 "Believe in me still, Stanley," she said, very 
 gently, going up and laying her hand on his 
 arm ; then she went on in low, caressing ac- 
 cents " because I am excused awkwardly 
 before I am accused or guilty, are you going to 
 be unjust to me and to yourself? " 
 
 " What did she mean by that nervous anxi- 
 ety to clear you from the shadow of reproach 
 before it had fallen upon you, Bella ? " 
 
 "I don't know that is, I do know, but " 
 
 "You would rather not tell me ? " 
 
 " Not that, but I hardly know how to tell 
 you in such a way as will make you fully 
 appreciate all the bearings of the case at once." 
 Then she paused reflectively for a minute, and 
 in that minute she arranged her speech, and 
 made herself believe that she meant it. 
 
 " I know so well the dislike you have to 
 hearing things talked up and made much of, 
 and I felt that it couldn't be pleasant for you 
 to feel that I had been roving about late at 
 night with only a groom ; so I asked aunt not 
 to enlarge upon the topic when you came, and 
 as a reason for my request I said that you 
 would not care to hear Major Walsingham's 
 name mentioned in conjunction with mine too 
 often. She has been over anxious to obey me, 
 and has done the very thing I wanted her not 
 to do." 
 
 " Don't plot in a small way against me, 
 Bella. Why should you imagine that I should 
 be annoyed at hearing your name and Claude's 
 coupled in the sole way they can be coupled 
 as far as I know." 
 
 " I didn't think you would care," she whis- 
 pered, " I only said so." 
 
 " Why tell stories ?" 
 
 " Now you are harsh and unjust : besides, I 
 did think it, in a measure I judged by myself; 
 
it would not be pleasant for me to hear your 
 name coupled with any other woman's/' 
 
 "Would you care?" 
 
 " Of course I should," she replied, rather ab- 
 sently. She had made her peace with him, she 
 felt; the excitement was over, and now she 
 was beginning to wonder whether the game 
 was worth the candle whether the prospect of 
 a lasting peace was pleasant enough to pay for 
 the trouble that had been given her to make it. 
 
 One thing, certainly, was pleasant. She was 
 proud of her tact, accustomed to receive con- 
 gratulations upon it, to hear that it was perfect, 
 and to be told that it was of a quality to extri- 
 cate her from any difficulty. She liked to 
 bring 1t into play on the smallest emergency, 
 and was rather addicted to believing that she 
 ?et things right that had never been wrong. 
 But this had been a genuine occasion ; for Mrs. 
 Vane's well-intentioned speeches had clearly 
 rendered Stanley both angry and distrustful. 
 Then, while anger and distrust were young and 
 Justy in his soul, she had aired and exercised 
 her tact, and all was well again ! 
 
 Outwardly, all was well again. He had ap- 
 peared to accept her explanation of those small 
 reserves which were to have been observed ; 
 and she knew him well enough to feel sure that 
 what he appeared to do, he did. But though 
 she had forced herself to believe in her speech 
 while she was uttering it, she began to doubt 
 its perfect -integrity now that it had been made 
 and accepted. So, though all was well out- 
 wardly, all was not well inwardly ; and Bella 
 Vane had a conviction that this " would grow." 
 
 She mooted the subject, after awhile, of Flo- 
 rence's coming to stay with her during the 
 remainder of her visit to Denham. " You 
 would not listen to a proposal I made the other 
 day, Stanley," she said, " but I shall venture to 
 make it again. Let me ask your sister Flo- 
 rence down here ; then, when I go to them in 
 town, I shall not be a stranger to the whole 
 family." 
 
 He was half conscious of a change in his own 
 sentiments since the other day, respecting this 
 proposed visit, and more than half conscious of 
 the cause of such change. 
 
 " If you really wish her to come," he began, 
 dubiously. 
 
 " I do," she interrupted, eagerly ; u I am 
 quite sincere in it. Let her come let her, do ! " 
 
 " Certainly, if she will. "What has made you 
 set your heart on it in this way ? " 
 
 "I hardly know," she replied, with an in- 
 crease of colour. She had one of those faces 
 whose colour is always increasing or decreas- 
 ing. " I hardly know. I am sympathetic with 
 your sister, I suppose." 
 
 He paused in silence for a minute or two ; 
 then he said 
 
 " Come away to the window, where what I 
 tell you won't be overheard." So she went 
 over to the bay-window with him, and stood 
 there, looking out into the night, listening with 
 beating heart and throbbing brow. 
 
 " I am not quite certain that we shall do well 
 in getting Florence down here, Bella. You 
 have seen her, though you don't know her yet ; 
 you must see how sensitive she is." 
 
 "Well," was all the answer she could make ; 
 she was feeling painfully that the identification 
 
 of himself with her contained in that sentence, 
 "not quite certain that we, shall do well," was 
 grating harshly on some newly-strung chords in 
 her soul. 
 
 "Well! She will see more of Claude Wal- 
 singham than will be ' well ' for her, perhaps, 
 if she comes. I should like her to be with 
 you, unquestionably, but it may turn out a 
 dangerous experiment for her." 
 
 " Why ? Let her come, Stanley," she plead- 
 ed, " let her come ; let them meet and love 
 each other if they will." 
 
 She was struggling fiercely with herself at 
 this juncture, and it seemed to her that Flo- 
 rence's presence would materially aid her in 
 her endeavour to do what was right, and 
 honourable, and womanly. 
 
 " She may love him, but he will never care 
 for Florry again, I fear," Stanley said, rather 
 mournfully. He was thinking of his friend's 
 infatuation at Eichmond the other night. Bella 
 immediately fancied that his words referred to 
 Claude's dawning admiration for herself. Yet, 
 if they did, how could Stanley bring himself to 
 utter them ? She was perplexed. 
 
 "At any rate, let her come ; good may come 
 from it good to us all in every way," she mur- 
 mured. "I am so much alone here, you know, 
 Stanley, and I shall have less than ever to do 
 now poor Vengeance has gone lame. Do let 
 me have your sister for the few weeks I shall 
 be here." 
 
 " Write to her to-morrow, if you will ; she 
 will be only too glad to come. As to your 
 riding, though, I forgot to tell you that Wal- 
 singham has commissioned me to offer you a 
 mount, as you would find some difficulty in re- 
 placing Vengeance down here." 
 
 " One of the horses he drives ?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " I shall not take it ; I shall not like to de- 
 prive him of it. You and he will be wanting to 
 drive about while he is with you, and I 
 shouldn't think of using his horse after he has 
 left." 
 
 " The offer only held good for while he was 
 here, my dear child. I do not believe he con- 
 templated, for one instant, leaving the horse 
 with you," Stanley Villars said, laughing. 
 
 Even in the semi-darkness of that bay win- 
 dow he saw the blood surge up to her face. 
 
 " It would not be so much for him to do for 
 me, after after " She stopped abruptly ; she 
 had commenced in a ringing, impetuous tone, 
 and her sudden pause sounded strangely. 
 
 "After what?" 
 
 " Oh, nothing ! After having been your 
 friend for so many, many years, I was going to 
 say," she replied. "There, don't let us speak 
 about horses any longer, Stanley. Vengeance's 
 lameness is too fresh a thing for me to be calm 
 on the subject yet. Let us talk of Florence 
 js she clever?" 
 
 " Clever enough to have made all who know 
 her love her," he replied, fondly. 
 
 " Is she bright, I mean ?" 
 
 " Perhaps hardly, in your sense of the 
 word." 
 
 " What do you take to be ' my sense of the 
 word ?' " 
 
 " She is not brilliant and flashing. There i.s 
 a great deal of repose in her soul ; - consequently 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 there is a great deal in her manner. However, 
 it is useless to attempt to describe her ; you'll 
 lind her out for yourself?" 
 
 " She would be just the right sort of wife 
 for Major Walsingham then, Stanley ; for there 
 is not much repose in either his soul or man- 
 ner." 
 
 " I tell you that it is very improbable she 
 will ever be that now," he replied impatiently. 
 " What has given you that impression of 
 Claude, I wonder? I always regard him as 
 one of the coolest fellows possible." 
 
 " He may be oh I most likely he is," she 
 replied carelessly; "probably he was put out 
 at having to look after me, and guard me from 
 evil till you came. The fact is," she continued, 
 turning away from the window, and burying 
 herself as if she were very weary, in the corner 
 of a couch " the fact is, I felt myself bound to 
 make ' acute observations' about him, as I had 
 heard so much of him. Observations made 
 under supposed compulsion are apt to be rather 
 wide of the mark, you know." 
 
 Soon after this Mr. Villars took his leave, in 
 mercy to Bella, " who must be worn out, and 
 in need of a long night's rest," he said. In 
 Bidding her good-night, he asked her for a rose, 
 i long buff-rose, which she had worn in her 
 aosom all the night. 
 
 "It is not worth giving," she said, placing 
 ler hand on it resolutely " an old, worn, faded 
 lower, indeed ! No ; you shall not have it. I 
 ,vill send you down a lot of them, a bouquet 
 or your table, before breakfast to-morrow 
 norning." 
 
 "Which the gardener will gather? No, 
 ,hank you. I want this one." 
 
 " Not this one ; it is faded. All the leaves 
 svould drop off before you reached home ; and 
 t would look so imbecile to walk in with a 
 jtalk and some withered green leaves in your 
 3utton-hole." 
 
 " In whose eyes would it look imbecile ?" he 
 isked. But Bella would not tell him, so he 
 ivent away unsatisfied. 
 
 Mr. Villars walked home rapidly. He took a 
 short cut through the rectory grounds, and 
 icross a paddock which adjoined that rambling 
 )ld garden through whi^h the streamlet ran. 
 rhere was a wooden door of communication 
 setween garden and paddock, of which he had 
 ;he key in his pocket ; so he admitted himself 
 juietly, and walked along, saying to himself 
 
 " Eleven o'clock ! Claude will have bored 
 limself, and gone to bed." 
 
 He reached the centre of the garden as he 
 said this ; and looking up, preparatory to taking 
 i spring across the water, he saw Major Wal- 
 iingham stretched on a bench on the opposite 
 side. 
 
 " Hallo 1" Stanley cried out: "you are like 
 Praed's troubadour you lay beside a rivulet, 
 ind look beside yourself." 
 
 "I think I am beside myself," Claude an- 
 iwered jumping up, and turning to walk to the 
 louse with his host; "at least I was beside 
 nyself when I said I could stay here for a time, 
 ^'d forgotten that I must be back to-morrow." 
 
 "Nonsense!" 
 
 " Fact regimental duties not to be disre- 
 garded." 
 
 "Look here, old fellow," Stanley said affec- 
 
 tionately; "for heavens don't go if you can 
 possibly remain. I shall feel that there is some 
 cause for your departure that I could ill bear 
 to exist. Don't go if you can stay." 
 
 11 On my honour, it is only service matters 
 that would take me away," Claude replied con- 
 fusedly. Then he suddenly added 
 
 " I will stay, whatever comes of it. One la 
 apt to get false notions when alone under the 
 moon, you know." 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 FLORENCE COMES. 
 
 THE morning after these events occurred, Miss 
 Vane sent off her note of invitation to her fu- 
 ture sister-in-law. She made it very brief and 
 kind. I will leave to the reader to decide 
 whether or not it was graceful. I deem it en- 
 tirely in keeping with her character myself. 
 
 " Thursday, Denham. 
 "My dear Florence" (she wrote), 
 
 " It is your brother's wish, and my great 
 desire, that you should spend a short time with 
 me down here at my uncle's. Will you give us 
 this pleasure ? and will you commence giving 
 it at an early date say by coming the day after 
 to-morrow, if possible? That will give us 
 Sunday always an idle day to learn as much 
 as may be necessary of each other. 
 
 " Yours always affectionately, 
 
 "BELLA VANE." 
 
 She glanced her eye rapidly over the last line 
 or two when she had written it, and said to 
 herself, " I will let that go about Sunday being 
 an idle day. Perhaps she won't like it ; she 
 may be starchy; but I will let it go." 
 
 So she let it go, and Florence, who was far 
 from being starchy, saw no guile in that simple 
 statement of a fact, but nevertheless found that 
 she could not get away from town before the 
 following Monday, " when I will be at Denham 
 by the five P. M. train," she wrote. 
 
 The intervening days passed slowly to Bella, 
 and wearily, wearily to one other sojourner in 
 that village. Stanley left his flock to attend to 
 their own salvation, unaided by his supervision, 
 and devoted himself to the entertainment of his 
 friend. But the entertainment he provided 
 palled upon his friend, and his friend was power- 
 less to conceal from, him that it did so. The 
 days dragged, in fact, and, fatal comparison! 
 the evenings were dangerously delightful. 
 
 Dangerously delightful in a fitful kind of way. 
 The two young men were always with the 
 Vanes in the evening, and the elders of the 
 Vanes went for their due worth, which was but 
 little in the estimation of the visitors. The 
 girl was the fountain-head from whence emanat- 
 ed all that was pleasant, and the girl was en- 
 gaged to one of the men, and it was the other 
 one who felt that there was a danger in the de- 
 light he began to feel in her presence : that sit- 
 ting witli her, as he too often did, in the half- 
 light of the warm, soft July evenings, contrasted 
 with fearful pleasantness with the long opprea- 
 
40 
 
 ON GUARD. 
 
 sive mornings he spent fishing with Stanley ; 
 for Stanley had retained this single sporting 
 taste, ar-d would carry him off to distant streams 
 that had, to Claude's sorrow, a reputation for 
 trout. Now, Claude hated fishing with a line 
 and Qy, from the bottom of his soul. It was to 
 him like going out to tea, or home to a birthday 
 feast, or any other inoffensive and tedious pas- 
 time. But he concealed his feelings as well as 
 he could from every one (even from himself!), 
 and entirely from Stanley; for to the latter 
 something whispered that he owed, or would 
 owe, all of reparation that was in his power to 
 make. 
 
 But the mornings alone, quite alone, with the 
 friend of his youth and the companion of his 
 riper years, were long, and dull, and void ; and 
 the evenings were fleeting, exciting, and full of 
 a feeling that was dear to his heart as his hopes 
 of heaven, and yet he cursed his fate when lie 
 found that it was shared. 
 
 The Sunday, the day that she had termed 
 <: an idle day," came, and Stanley was all the 
 parish priest again, as was meet and well. 
 While, as for Bella, she was all her own rebel- 
 lious, undecided self that was all. Duly she 
 suffered more than people to whom it is given 
 to be wise on all occasions, and alwayf to know 
 what they mean, can readily imagine. 
 
 Once more she went down to the schoolroom, 
 but there was less heart in her effort on this 
 than on the former occasion. " I will try while 
 I can, but I shall never succeed," she said to 
 herself when she came to the door; "but I 
 will try, for his sake." 
 
 She did try : she tried to do what was in the 
 path of what Stanley had declared to be her 
 duty, and what she told herself would be her 
 duty all her life if she married him, and the 
 effort made her faint and weary with a i'aint- 
 ness and weariness that but a short month 
 since she had fancied she could not feel on the 
 treadmill, provided only that Stanley was with 
 her: with a faintness and weariness that she 
 knew must deepen, for she could not battle with 
 it even now that it was so young a thing, and 
 that would, therefore, finally overcome and beat 
 her down. 
 
 She could not battle with it ; and he, sitting 
 there piloting his own class through the intri- 
 cacies of the gospel for the day, saw that she 
 could not battle with it, and that it was mental 
 more than physical. Then a sharp pang assail- 
 ed him at the sight, and he prayed a passionate 
 prayer that a certain bitter cup, now faintly 
 outlined, might be suffered to pass away from 
 him. For he loved this woman well! 
 
 That day passed " much as- usual," Bella 
 would have said had she been asked about it; 
 but no one asked her, therefore she Was spared 
 the utterance of the story. In truth, it did not 
 pass as ordinary Sundays had passed at Den- 
 ham since her advent ; for there was turmoil in 
 the breasts of all three when they came to- 
 gether turmoil that would not be toned down. 
 
 Once more late on that Sunday night 
 Claude made one more attempt to do what was 
 just. 
 
 " Don't take it amiss, old fellow," he said to 
 Stanley, " but really I ought to go away that 
 is, I ought to go back to town to-morrow." 
 
 Then Stanley combated this resolution with 
 
 all the power of eloquence he had in him. He 
 partly fathomed |he motive of it, and even to 
 himself (spasmodically unhappy as he had been 
 this day) he would not allow that there could 
 be danger to any of them in a prolongation of 
 Claude's visit. How should there be, indeed, 
 if Bella were faithful, and Claude honourable, 
 and he himself worthy of being dealt honestly 
 by ? He would not doubt or distrust even them 
 or himself; he would rely on the woman who 
 had vowed to love him, and on the man who 
 had never lied to him, and all would be well. 
 
 So he urged Claude to remain urged him 
 heartily: told him, with apparent unconscious- 
 ness, that Florence was coming to stay with 
 Miss Vane, and that then, as there would be 
 two ladies, they could go for wonderful drives 
 behind those matchless iron-gr-eys. " You will 
 cut off our chief hopes of happiness if you go, 
 Claude. You will indeed. Don't think of go- 
 ing yet: I won't hear of it," he said; and 
 Claude, after one brief protest, succumbed to 
 his fate and his friend, and agreed to stay. 
 
 Florence was to come by the five p. if. train, 
 and Bella proposed that, to obviate aught like 
 embarrassment or ceremony, they should "all 
 walk up to the station in procession to meet 
 her." "It will be a delightful, refreshing, 
 wholesome little bit of exercise after the rail- 
 way journey," she said, " and will show her that 
 her advent is a welcome thing indeed." 
 
 " I suppose Miss Vane's whim must be grati- 
 fied," Claude had said to Stanley when he 
 heard of the plan, "but it strikes me as absurd. 
 Much better send the Vanes' carriage for your 
 sister, Stanley. Florry won't care for this sort 
 of triumphal entry." 
 
 " Oh, I don't know, we may as well walk 
 up," Stanley answered. He was blindly ac- 
 quiescent in all Bella's schemes at this period, 
 and Bella marked the change in him, and knew 
 sorrowfully well the cause of it. He would 
 keep her at any cost to himself, she saw. 
 "Would he keep her at any cost tor her ? 
 
 Four of them set out to meet Florry. Solemn- 
 faced Rock was the fourth, and he was a wel- 
 come addition, for whenever one of the party 
 found a difficulty in either speaking or keeping 
 silence, his or her gloves could be thrown over 
 the hedge for Rock to fetch, and as Rock inva- 
 riably packed away all articles that he retrieved 
 in the back of his throat, these proceedings kept 
 their hands occupied, and their minds too, in a 
 measure. 
 
 They stood upon the little platform, the 
 boarded back of which had no advertisements 
 hung upon it which might amuse the expectant, 
 and waited for the train. "When it came up, 
 and a blooming face, with a radiant smile upon 
 it,, beamed upon them from the window, Bella 
 put her hand hurriedly on Mr. Villars' arm, and 
 then, instead of approaching the carriage, turned 
 to look at Claude, and mark the effect of that 
 blooming, beaming face upon him. 
 
 He had stepped forward to open the door and 
 give her his hand to help her out. Such at 
 least had been his design when he stepped for- 
 ward, but he checked it when Bella turned to 
 look at him. Checked it, and suffered Florry's 
 brother to pass him ; and Florry saw that he so\ ( 
 checked himself, and felt that "but the other ' ( , 
 day Claude would have been first." 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 41 
 
 Before Florence could speak to Claude, or 
 indeed think of him further, Miss Yane had 
 recollected herself, and many other things. She 
 went up to the new arrival with a pretty ges- 
 ture of greeting, in which both her hands and 
 her head, and in fact her whole slender, grace- 
 ful figure, bore a part. ""We met in London 
 without knowing each other, dear," she said ; 
 "but we shall know each other well soon, I 
 hope." Then she kissed Florence, and saw that 
 she was very pretty; after quite a different 
 pattern of beauty, though, to her own. 
 
 "I had no idea that I should find Claude 
 here," Florry said, when she had responded to 
 Miss Vane. "When did you come, Claude?" 
 she continued, turning to him and giving him 
 her hand. 
 
 "I have been here several days. Did they 
 not tell you?" 
 
 She shook her head. " No. Why didn't you 
 mention it, Stanley?" 
 
 "Simply because I have not written to you 
 since he came," Stanley answered. 
 
 " And I did not, simply because when I wrote 
 I forgot it, I suppose," Bella said, lightly. 
 "Come on, Florence, we are going to walk 
 home if you have no objection." 
 
 "Whether she has any objection or not, it 
 seems to me, since there is no carriage here," 
 Claude interposed. 
 
 Then, of course, Florence protested that she 
 should delight in being compelled to walk a 
 mile, and that she was not a. bit tired, and that 
 it was just the very thing that was most pleasant, 
 Ac. All of which they affected to believe, as 
 becomes well-bred hypocrites, and inwardly dis- 
 trusted. 
 
 Rock was not so essential to their well-being 
 on their homeward journey. There were four 
 without Rock now, and four is a very pleasant 
 number under certain conditions. So Rock, 
 being superfluous, and feeling the same, jogged 
 along by the side of the one who was least 
 likely to make manifest to any living thing that 
 it was so (superfluous), and that one was Stan- 
 ley Villars. 
 
 They came out four abreast into the high-road 
 from off the railway-station yard, and for at 
 least a hundred yards they kept up an unbroken 
 stream of talk and an unbroken line. Then it 
 occurred to Bella that to cross the fields would 
 be pleasanter than to keep along the dusty 
 highway, "if Florry didn't mind stiles." 
 
 Florry was amenable ifc mediately to any 
 alteration, whether great or small, in their route. 
 So they stopped at the entrance to a field-path, 
 and looked at it in the dubious way people are 
 apt to look when it is over a tall stile which 
 has but one step, and that one very near its 
 summit. 
 
 As may be supposed, however, they sur- 
 mounted it. Naturally they would do so in the 
 pages of this book, whatever they might do in 
 real life ; I being desirous of getting them into 
 the field, enter it they must. They surmounted 
 it as creditably as women may hope to do in 
 the garb of the present day. They neither 
 fractured their bones on the single step, nor their 
 dresses. But when they walked on again, it 
 was to be perceived that something was 
 fractured, and that something was the line, 
 " four abreast," which they had hitherto kept. 
 
 The field-path was narrow, and they walked 
 along it two and two, and the two that walked 
 first were Stanley Villars and his sister Florry. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 AN OLD STORY. 
 
 " STANLEY, I like her so much." 
 
 " I thought you would like her, Florry. Ah ! 
 but you don't know her yet ; you will like her 
 by-and-by." 
 
 " What does Claude say about it all, Stan- 
 ley ?" She asked this rather hesitatingly, and 
 with a confused expression of countenance. 
 Claude's disapprobation, as manifested that 
 sultry afternoon in her mother's drawing-room, 
 had been a disheartening and a terrible thing. 
 But now she was drifting under Stanley's in- 
 fluence, and it was disheartening to think what 
 he might feel about Claude's disapprobation. 
 
 " Say about it all, my dear child I He ad- 
 mires her very much ; but it is not even for 
 Claude to' say anything about her. I am very 
 glad that } r ou are come, dear," he added, kindly, 
 for he saw that Florry was abashed by the 
 veiled reproof he had administered to her in 
 regard to Claude's possible opinions. 
 
 Florence was looking not so much abashed as 
 low-spirited. She walked along the field-path 
 with a very material decrease of that spring and 
 elasticity which had marked her step when 
 they were walking four abreast. On the faco 
 of it, it was the reverse of what "should have 
 been," this progress home of theirs. The 
 brother and sister were attached to each other, 
 but their attachment was not of that ardent 
 nature which makes other loves and anxieties 
 seem of little worth in comparison. Each knew 
 that the other had a dearer interest in life than 
 him or herself. Each saw that the dearer in- 
 terest elected to remain behind with another on 
 this occasion, which was perplexing. 
 
 They were all going to dine at the rectory 
 that night, and the rectory dinner had been 
 deferred for an hour in order to favour this 
 walking home scheme, which had fallen short of 
 being the gay, enlivening thing it was intended 
 to be. The order of procession which I describ- 
 ed as being theirs when they got over the stile, 
 was religiously observed during the rest of the 
 way, and it was not the order of procession 
 that Stanley Villars had contemplated when he 
 had acceded to Bella's request that they should 
 all walk up to meet Florry. 
 
 There had been, after that brief discussion 
 about Miss Vane, a little family talk between 
 the brother and sister. Georgina's marriage 
 prospects had been alluded to in the calm, dis- 
 passionate way such unexceptionable, but by 
 no means brilliant prospects would be alluded 
 to, and then they spoke of the elder brother, 
 Gerald, and of Gerald's wife. 
 
 " I hear of your being with her frequently in 
 these days," Stanley Villars said, in relation to 
 the reigning Lady Villars. 
 
 " Yes,. we are with her a great deal ; she is 
 very kind, you know, Stanley." 
 
 "By Jove! kind!" 
 
 "Well, I mean that she is much nicer I 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 mean different to what she was at first. 
 Gerald is always the same, you know." 
 
 The younger brother laughed. " Gerald was 
 always a good fellow ; but latterly there has 
 been an air over him of scarcely feeling that he 
 belongs to himself; at least I have remarked it 
 whenever I have seen him. Is he so usually ?" 
 
 "I don't know that it's that," Florence re- 
 plied ; and she looked puzzled. 
 
 " What have you thought ' it ' then, Florry ? 
 You seem to have noticed something." 
 
 " "Why, he is dreadfully afraid of putting 
 Carrie out, you know." 
 
 Stanley laughed, and the colour rose to his 
 forehead. 
 
 "Dear old Gerald! so he is," he said warmly. 
 " I wish with all my heart ' Carrie ' were not 
 put out so readily. Does she bring her nerves 
 to bear upon him as often as ever ?" 
 
 Florence shook her head. "Worse than 
 ever ; and so much depends upon her keeping 
 well, that we can't wonder at Gerald giving 
 way to her in everything." 
 
 "So much, indeed," Stanley replied gravely ; 
 and then they changed the subject, for a little 
 nephew, Sir Gerald's only son, had died but a 
 year before, and there was no successor to him 
 yet. 
 
 The pair behind had no such conversational 
 safetj'-valves, no such neutral ground on which 
 to meet. They had fallen into this line of 
 march unintentionally, and had it not been for 
 a wholesome dread of looking awkward, they 
 would both of them have broken it at once. 
 But the dread of doing aught with design that 
 might be apparent, and so provoke suspicion, 
 was upon them strongly ^-more strongly than 
 the dread of something else which was upon 
 them too. 
 
 For awhile they walked in the wake of Stan- 
 ley and his sister without a word. Presently 
 the silence grew irksome. Naturally the wo- 
 man was the first to break it. 
 
 To break it with a little sentence a few 
 short words a brief series of subdued tones, 
 that would have been as nothing had they 
 sounded on the ears of the great majority. The 
 mischief was that they fell on the ears of the 
 one who could interpret' them aright. 
 
 " It was my wish that Florry should come. 
 Did you know that ?" 
 
 He nodded, and then again for a few yards 
 they walked along without speaking. 
 
 "How heavy the air is," she said, abruptly. 
 " Major Walsingham, do you know that I think 
 we shall have a thunder-storm." 
 
 He looked up at the sky at the cloudless blue 
 sky in which no trace of a coming storm was 
 to be read. Then he glanced down to her and 
 replied, " I think so too. Do you know that I 
 wanted to leave Denham to-day?" 
 
 " No ; did you ? And Stanley said ?" 
 
 "That he wished me to remain, that was 
 
 all," he answered. "Are you "he was 
 
 going to ask was she " glad or sony " that he 
 had waived his resolution, and remained. But 
 good feeling intervened, and he paused. It 
 would have beeu worse than unfair to his 
 friend, he felt, to hold himself up as am object 
 for which gladness or sorrow was to be expe- 
 rienced by this girl who was so prompt with 
 either sentiment. 
 
 " Am I what ?" she asked. 
 
 " Are you tired ? these fields are hard walk- 
 ing." 
 
 " That is not what you were going to say," 
 she retorted with true feminine pertinacity. 
 "Tell me what it was." 
 
 "I really forget, Miss Vane." 
 
 "No, you do not. I see you don't forget. 
 Say it to me ; tell me, won't you ?" 
 
 She said " tell me, won't you ?" in small 
 pleading accents that vibrated to his soul ; but 
 he would not, and his perseverance in keeping 
 back that imagined speech did more harm than 
 the speech itself could possibly have wrought. 
 
 For she clothed it with an importance that it 
 never could have possessed had it been uttered. 
 She deemed that it must be something very 
 touching, very tender, very everything that it 
 ought not to be when made by him to her. So 
 she looked up at him half fearfully, and then 
 gazed away into the bloomy haze that was 
 hanging lovingly over the golden corn in the 
 distance. Gazed away with eyes that, despite 
 their earnestness, saw not that upon which 
 they looked. 
 
 For Bella was thinking thinking seriously 
 of how, after all, she was only one among 
 many who have made mistakes, and who must 
 abide by the mistakes they have made, and 
 seem to be happy in such continuance. For 
 she was determined to abide and continue in 
 hers, if it were one at this period. She wasS 
 not prepared to quit the web and leave the 
 loom, and take those fatal three paces, and com- 
 pass that destruction which the Sir Lancelots. 
 who ride by so gaily dight, are apt to bring to 
 pass. 
 
 But still his uttered, and, worse still, his un- 
 uttered words sank into* her soul, and filled it 
 with a great delight, that she knew it would 
 soon be a sin to experience. 
 
 There was a better division, or rather a far 
 more satisfactory amalgamation, of the party 
 that night. The two men lounged outside the 
 open window and smoked cigars ; and the two 
 girls sang to them till it grew dark. Then 
 they all gathered round the table and took tea, 
 and talked on familiar topics until ease resumed 
 his sway. Florence mentioned having seen 
 Claude down at Eichmond, with a blithe un- 
 concern that robbed the mention of all bitter- 
 ness to him ; and Stanley, marking how fond 
 Claude evidently was of Florry, in a quiet, half- 
 fraternal way, hop^il that much good would 
 ensue from this meeting at dull Denham. ^ 
 
 " What shall we do to-morrow ?" is invariably 
 the question raised by temporary denizens in a 
 country place before separating for the night. 
 It is imperative on those who would not die of 
 the dulness of it (unless one is quite alone, 
 when Time always takes care of himself) to 
 map out a certain plan for the disposition of 
 the next twelve daylight hours. They felt 
 this, and therefore decided that they would go 
 for a long drive in Claude's trap, and look at an 
 old hall, the show-place of the county, by way 
 of getting over the day, and duly fatiguing 
 themselves. 
 
 Then they parted ; and after they were gone 
 up to their rooms, Bella went in and listened to 
 a long exposition from Florence of the pleasure 
 this engagement of her's (Bella's) with Stanley 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 43 
 
 was to the whole Yillara family. At hearing 
 which Bella was very grateful and very sad. 
 
 Claude's trap was just the thing for the 
 country. Of this there could be no doubt. 
 More than that, it was the only thing for two 
 gentlemen and two ladies to go out in. For in 
 a phaeton the ordinary "four-wheel" the 
 ladies are lost to view, and often to memory 
 also, in the seat of honour, deprived of the 
 society of both their cavaliers. In the order of 
 things, when a man coaches his own cattle, his 
 friend sits on the box by his side to see how he 
 does it. 
 
 These dog-carts were well enough when they 
 first came in ; but, after all, a lady's voluminous 
 drapery suffers sadly in one of them. Besides, 
 the occupants of the back seats are in such a 
 precarious position, that their enjoyment of the 
 scenery through which they pass, and of the 
 ideas evoked by that scenery in the minds of 
 those in front, who have not to hold on all the 
 time, is but ghastly. No, mere dog-carts are 
 very well for mere men and dogs, but locomo- 
 tives of the same order as Claude's are the only 
 things for country driving when two ladies are 
 of the party. 
 
 You sat back to back in it, as you do in the 
 ordinary dog-cart ; but the hind seat of this trap 
 was broad arid wide, and the foot-shelf projected 
 afar, in a curve of beauty and comfort that was 
 agreeable to look upon as well as pleasant to 
 use. It was hung low, too, this vehicle, which 
 looked like a phaeton in front, it had such a 
 liberal allowance of seat and dasher, such grace- 
 fully sloping wings, and such an utter absence 
 of anything angular or sporting about it. It 
 showed the horses off wonderfully too, which 
 was not one of its least charms, and its wheels 
 were so close together, that it skimmed over the 
 ground in the wake of the two horses lightly 
 as a swallow. 
 
 There was a momentary hesitation as to how 
 they should dispose of themselves in it, when 
 Claude drove up to the door that morning. 
 "Which of you girls will get up in front with 
 Claude?" Stanley had asked with affected un- 
 concern, and Bella had replied, " Oh ! Florry 
 will," and Florry had mildly hinted, "Won't 
 Bella Stanley ?" But when they had said that, 
 they were no further on than they had been 
 before, and it was left for Claude to make 
 events march. 
 
 " Good morning, Miss Yane," he said, lifting 
 his hat, " good morning, Florry; I always make 
 both my sisters get up behind when I drive 
 them. It's the best arrangement, I think, and 
 it balances the cart better." 
 
 He had never driven either of his sisters in 
 this trap yet, or any other woman for that mat- 
 ter ; but this was a very white lie. He did not 
 care to have Florry up with him, and he did 
 not dare to have Bella. 
 
 The day was fine, and the greys were fresh 
 and the pace fast. There is something in mov- 
 ing very quickly through the air behind horses 
 that imparts a glow to the spirits. Perhaps it 
 is that electricity conveys a something from the 
 inferior animals who neither lie nor plot, nor 
 mingle sordid with the majority of their bet- 
 ter motives to the nobler animal, who do 
 all these things. However that may be, the 
 fact remains that he must be in an evil case in- 
 
 deed whose spirits do not rejoice, if but tempo- 
 rarily, when being whirled along at the rate of 
 twelve or fourteen miles an hour. 
 
 The horses being entirely new to the rest, 
 and nearly new to Claude, were a vast boon, 
 in that they gave them -so much to talk about. 
 They had first to mark how cleverly the greys 
 stepped together, and then to remark upon this 
 fact according to their various lights. Then 
 Bella, from her position behind, would glance 
 at their gallant method of going, between the 
 forms of the two men, and proceed to make 
 brilliant discoveries relative to one or other 
 grey " shirking his work " and not " pulling 
 up," which discoveries resulted in Stanley being 
 compelled to get down and take the offender 
 up a hole or two, and brought condign punish- 
 ment from Claude's hand once or twice on an 
 entirely innocent horse. 
 
 Rollescourt was their bourn this day, and 
 they reached it about one o'clock. Near all 
 notorious show-places there is an inn, in 
 which the weary who come to look upon the 
 beauties of nature or art can take sustenance to 
 keep up their stamina. Accordingly they found 
 one here the " Park Inn," it was called ; and 
 at the " Park Inn " they spent a pleasant hour 
 in having luncheon, and wishing that the show- 
 house was not so roomy, as they learnt from a 
 loquacious waiter that it was. 
 
 A terribly grand old mansion this Rollescourt 
 House was, it seemed to them, as they walked 
 up a wide avenue and came directly out against 
 its frowning massive front a house that might 
 well have been the prison of a monarch of the 
 Titans, but that would never have been selected 
 even by him as his residence in happier mo- 
 ments of freedom. 
 
 Up a broad flight of steps and into a large 
 vaulted hall, in which there was nothing to bo 
 seen but si^e, but which nevertheless had to be 
 looked at with marked interest by all who as- 
 pired to doing the place properly. There they 
 were compelled to wait for a few minutes while 
 the servant who had admitted them made a 
 feint of going away into other regions to learn 
 whether or riot it was the good will of the 
 housekeeper to come forward and graciously 
 guide them. This ceremony lost what would 
 otherwise have been imposing about it, through 
 the fact of the visitors detecting the house- 
 keeper anxiously peering at them through a 
 little door to the left. 
 
 Eventually they were ushered through this 
 same little door into an apartment called the 
 "small prayer room," and the housekeeper's 
 presence. She was not the ideal housekeeper 
 of a grand old castellated building. She did 
 not stalk in rustling black silk and the conscious 
 majesty of being the chief retainer of a lordly 
 house, which she alone had the power to show. 
 On the contrary, she waddled wearily before 
 them, as one who had done this same thing so 
 many times for so many people, and seen the 
 folly of it, would be apt to do in real life. 
 
 " Why the ' little prayer room ?' " Claude 
 asked, when the housekeeper had introduced it 
 by name. It seemed a misnomer certainly. 
 The adornments were not of a devotional cast, 
 unless the house of Rollescourt was in the habit 
 of offering up prayers and thanksgivings to a 
 portrait; of the restorer of the mansion, Sir 
 
44 
 
 ON GUARD. 
 
 George Rolles or to an inefficient representa- 
 tion of the Godolphin Arabian, who was curvet- 
 ing about on a large square of canvas in a mar- 
 vellous manner. 
 
 "There is a chapel, which will be entered 
 from the left when the visitors have passed 
 through the saloon and yellow drawing-room," 
 the housekeeper replied, in a tone that told them 
 the nomenclature of the rooms was not to be 
 idly questioned. 
 
 " They said their little prayers here, and kept 
 the chapel for their big ones, perhaps," Bella 
 whispered, suggestively. " What an old-fashion- 
 ed horse he is!" she added, pointing to the fa- 
 mous Arabian. " We shouldn't think much of 
 him in these days, should we?" 
 
 " No ; we have improved our breed of horses, 
 and our breed of men too, apparently. Look at 
 the great gun, Sir George himself: his features 
 all sit in the middle of his face, huddled up to- 
 gether in a most ignominious manner ; yet he 
 was a prime minister and a great architect." 
 
 The familiar sound of the list of Sir George's 
 greatnesses caught the housekeeper's ear, and 
 she immediately struck in 
 
 "He commenced restoring the mansion in 
 17 , and it was finally completed as now seen 
 by the visitor in 1856, by his great-grandson. 
 Every door in the house is double, and is of 
 mahogany, as are the sashes of all the win- 
 dows." 
 
 They said, "Really now!" and "Ah, indeed!" 
 in answer to this ; and then, having taken their 
 preliminary canter, and warmed to their work, 
 went at full trot through about twenty rooms, 
 till a chaotic mass of ideas gleaned from faded 
 tapestry, colossal velvet beds, gloomy portraits, 
 interminable flights of stairs, gaunt furniture in 
 ghastly shrouds, and marks of royal satisfaction, 
 in the shape of flowered satins and false like- 
 nesses of themselves, that royal gu^ts had left 
 oppressed their minds. 
 
 It was oppressive altogether oppressive from 
 its magnitude oppressive from its wealth of 
 art, from its poverty of life, from its grandeur 
 and its gloom, its beauty and^ its barrenness 
 oppressive from the superbness of that solitude 
 which could not be destroyed by such morsels 
 of humanity as they felt themselves to be in it ; 
 above all, oppressive from its inutility. I am 
 cursed with the modern mind, and I feel with 
 my puppets here. They mov-ed sadly through 
 these long, solitary rooms, and listened sadly to 
 the tale their guide told of how " the family " 
 had never made this grand old place their home 
 how they had not even resided there tempo- 
 rarily for upwards of fifty years. Half a cen- 
 tury's desertion of a temple, on the part of those 
 whose ancestors had lavished all that was their 
 own, and much that was not their own, in its 
 adornment ! Fifty years of total abstinence 
 from that which their founder had designed to 
 be the glory of his race and age ! We may en- 
 tertain feelings of the darkest hatred towards 
 the special white elephant whose requirements 
 are sapping the foundation of our fortunes ; but 
 we experience sensations of tender pity for, and 
 sympathy with, the one who is left quite alone 
 by his prudent owners. Rollescourt would have 
 ruined any resident under a royal personage 
 this was patent ; nevertheless, it was pitiable to 
 see such banquet halls deserted. 
 
 Every old house has its story. Rollescourt 
 had a terribly sad one, and it was illustrated 
 too. They came upon it this party of young 
 people whose fortunes we are following sud- 
 denly ; that is to say, they stepped out of the 
 sombre chapel into a room that was small by 
 comparison, and that had an air of being used, 
 and not merely looked at, that struck home to 
 their hearts at once. 
 
 On the walls of this room there hung four 
 portraits. The first was of a gentleman of the 
 period of billowing coat lappels and multiplicity 
 of waistcoats. To judge from his appearance, 
 as here represented, no one would have sup- 
 posed that romance and himself could ever so 
 remotely have come in contact with one an- 
 other ; yet he was the hero of the story, such 
 as it was.' 
 
 By his side in a more prominent position, in 
 a richer frame, and in a better light hung the 
 full-length figure of a woman a tall, stately 
 woman, whose velvet robe draped her form in 
 most statuesque folds, and whose dark eyes 
 gleamed out at you with a passionate vehemence 
 that contrasted strangely with the firm, thin 
 lips. A matron lady, obviously for hers was 
 a fully matured beauty, all perfect as it was. A 
 matron lady the mother of the boy who oc- 
 cupied the foreground to the left of the same 
 picture, on whose head (the fac- simile of her 
 own in bearing, form, and expression) one of 
 her slender white hands rested lightly. 
 
 Opposite to these portraits hung a third that 
 of a young girl, who lived by the painter's art 
 the sweetest, fairest thing in all this grand 
 old place. It was a bright, almost breathing 
 beauty that dwelt on her parted full lips in 
 her laughing, unclouded eyes on her sunny 
 brow on every feature, every portion of the 
 vigorous young form "that seemed to be leaning 
 forward to look at you. She might have passed 
 for a representation of the spirit of Joy. That 
 delineation of careless, griefless, guileless, per- 
 fect womanhood, brought you up, and compelled 
 you to gaze at it as unfailingly, as admiringly, 
 as lovingly, as did that portrait of the Austrian 
 Empress which we all knew so well in the gal- 
 lery of the Exhibition of 1862. 
 
 This bright creature, who seemed to breathe ; 
 this embodiment of the spirit of Joy ; this girl, 
 whose cloudless brow bore no trace of even so 
 much as a coming grief or care, was the heroine 
 of the story, and the daughter of the stately 
 lady in the velvet robe. 
 
 They knew the story already, but the illustra- 
 tions were new to them ; so they stood looking 
 at them long and earnestly, with a certain sym- 
 pathy in their breasts for the one who had erred 
 most, and, unquestionably, not suffered least. 
 Why they did so shall now be told. 
 
 The man was not a son of the house with 
 whose traditions he was inseparably linked. 
 He had come to Rollescourt in his earliest man- 
 hood, a stranger, to be tutor to the young lord 
 of the house to the boy on whose head the 
 hand of the stately lady rested to the only 
 son of that lady who was the widow of the last 
 lord of Rollescourt. 
 
 This man his name was Ralph Crauford 
 had come there a stranger, but he had brought 
 with him credentials that satisfied even th,a 
 overweening care and pride of the lady, all ofinj 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 45 
 
 whose love and interest at this time were vested 
 in her boy. So it came to pass that his services 
 were accepted, and that he settled there as one 
 of themselves. 
 
 In time the boy's sister shared his studies, 
 and the tutor, who was young and handsome, 
 then began to realise that he was not a mere 
 machine for imparting instruction. She was 
 so brightly, warmly beautiful that she lit up 
 the -dark, old library like a sunbeam, and after 
 awhile the man forgot he was only an upper 
 servant, and got dazzled by her rays. 
 
 "Then she forgot it, tool Forgot the claims 
 she had as daughter of so proud a house ; for- 
 got how coldly her mother looked upon all that 
 was not scholarly in this man how systemati- 
 cally she sank him as a man, as it were, and 
 recognised him alone in his official capacity ; 
 forgot that it would be hopeless, utterly, utterly 
 hopeless, to do so, and like the true woman that 
 she was, loved in the wrong direction. 
 
 About the same time that her fair young 
 daughter let the man see that she had forgotten 
 so much that was wise and well, the mother 
 grew discreet. The stately lady the proud 
 matron, now in her best bloom of woman- 
 hoodswooped down upon them daily, and 
 superintended their studies and many other 
 things, and the sunbeam paled a little for 
 awhile, and the tutor regained a portion of his 
 memory. 
 
 By-and-by, the sunbeam faded still more, and 
 this time it was with a terrible fear. Her 
 brother's tutor began to be wise for her wise 
 in the way that it was an agony for her to 
 watch. He ceased to woo her with the words and 
 eyes and sighs of a love that had become a por- 
 tion of her life, and at the same time her mother 
 ceased to ice him by her bearing. 
 
 The lady and her daughter were, rivals in 
 fact; rivals in the heart of a man who "loved 
 whate'er he looked on" in the shape of a beau- 
 tiful woman, and who was determined to secure 
 one of those women who loved him, at all haz- 
 ards a t any cost to himself and her, and the 
 other who should be left. 
 
 So he bribed the girl with gentle words and 
 tender caresses, and vows of passionate devo- 
 tion, to go away for a time, and leave all to his 
 management. Then she, sorely fearing what 
 might come of it, but hoping, trusting, believ- 
 ing still, went away, with a sort of vague im- 
 pression (that both lover and mother had fos- 
 tered) on her mind, that her mother was but 
 seeming to frown upon her love till she might 
 give way with grace. 
 
 She waited and waited till she wearied of 
 waiting. She was patient till patience would 
 have been mere torpor if longer indulged in. 
 She stayed away, till each thought of what 
 might be happening the while struck like a 
 poisoned dart into her brain, and till the worst 
 of all malarias a feverish jealousy of no one 
 in particular enfeebled her mind. Then she 
 went home and found her lover married to her 
 mother. 
 
 She came home at night, and they could not 
 stay her on her way to the room where the 
 bridal pair sat hearing themselves wished long 
 life and happiness by applauding friends. Her 
 brother, roaming gloomily away from the festive 
 scene, had met and told her the cause of it, so 
 
 she understood it all when she entered, and 
 they turned to her amazed. 
 
 It has been said that the worst of all mala- 
 rias jealousy was at work in her system? 
 All her joyousness, all her softness, all her love 
 died out in the instant she beheld them her 
 tender lover and her tender mother together; 
 and she dealt her blow at him with the first 
 thing she laid her hand upon, which happened 
 to be a carving knife. 
 
 The man died and went, let us hope, to the 
 best heaven a poltroon may know. The girl 
 lived mad and immured till her hair was 
 grey, and the memory of her wrongs and crime 
 faint in the land. The mother lived sane, which 
 was the hardest fate of all, I think. 
 
 That is the story of the four portraits which 
 hang in the cosiest little room in Rollescourt. 
 
 CHAPTER XT. 
 
 BELLA AT HOME. 
 
 THE interest of the place culminated in this 
 room. It had been judiciously ordained that 
 sight-seeing should end here, and the visitor 
 should be let dcPvvn from the heights to which 
 his "imagination had soared, by a flight of back- 
 stairs. 
 
 So they went away fresh from it, and conse- 
 quently full of it ; but somehow or other it was 
 the tenderest of the party, it was Florence 
 alone, who could speak glibly on the subject. 
 
 " Poor little thing ! she looks so very fair and 
 bright after all these years. I can't help think- 
 ing of her, and loving her as if she had lived 
 still. Wasn't it a cruel fate, Claude ? " 
 
 They were descending a narrow stone stair- 
 case as Florence spoke one of those winding, 
 never-ending, brain-bewildering staircases that 
 we do find in the back-regions of old man- 
 sions. Major "Walsingham was just a step in 
 advance of Florence, and- h.e had taken her 
 hand and placed it on his own shoulder, for the 
 purpose of ensuring her safety in the descent. 
 Bella had marked the action, the kind brotherly 
 action, which showed regard for Florry's safety, 
 nothing more, and Miss Yane felt nettled, for 
 she thought she saw more in it. 
 
 " Pray, Florry, keep your love and pity for 
 some more deserving object ; those ' love and 
 revenge ' people are odious to me : she was lit- 
 tle better than a wild beast." 
 
 Bella spoke very warmly, and her whole face 
 was suffused with colour. The cause seemed 
 insufficient for the effects, considering how long 
 past those events of which they spoke were. 
 
 " She was sharply tried, you must remember, 
 Bella," Stanley Villars replied; "the faith that 
 was so basely broken was feigned to the last, 
 remember." 
 
 " Poor Crauford ! he paid a terrible penalty 
 for trying to please her while he could," Bella 
 said, with a hard little laugh. " You none of 
 you seem to think it possible that he may have 
 loved the mother better than the girl," 
 
 " He had given his love voluntarily to the 
 girl." 
 
 "And he changed his mind. How could he 
 help it he was but human ? " she replied, 
 
16 
 
 ON GUARD. 
 
 quickly. "How unsympathetic you all are 
 with the one who erred most humanely, after 
 all. Florry bestows love and pity upon the one 
 who gave way to the lowest, most brutal feel- 
 ings of revenge. But you have not a grain of 
 sympathy for the one who gave way to the feel- 
 ings of his heart when he found that he had 
 been mistaken about his first love." 
 
 " People are not justified in making such 
 mistakes, 1 ' Stanley Villars said, quietly. He 
 had waited for Claude to answer Bella's last 
 tirade, but Claude had walked along, his hands 
 in his pockets, and his eyes bent on the ground, 
 without speaking. 
 
 " Not justified ! No, I don't say they are 
 justified, but it's natural; some people can't 
 help it, and because it's ' their nature to,' they 
 are to be murdered, and told it serves them 
 right ! " 
 
 "Worse than that befalls them sometimes," 
 Stanley said, in a low voice. 
 
 " What ? what can be worse ? " 
 
 " The knowledge may force itself upon them 
 that they have murdered another morally. 
 Bella, why are you defending recreants from a 
 freely-pledged faith ? " 
 
 " Only because I hate injustice," she answer- 
 ed. " I like toleration in all things. One is 
 not deemed worse than the beasts that perish 
 if one finds a friendship a bore when once one 
 thought it a blessing ; but there seems to be no 
 heaven and no hope in the minds of the majo- 
 rity for the man who breaks an engagement 
 because he finds he can't fulfil it honorably 
 with his whole heart." 
 
 "Is it to men alone you are so lenient? 
 Would you not extend such liberty of action to 
 women also, Bella ? " 
 
 " The case in point was a man's ; besides, 
 Stanley, men are more generous than women " 
 she went nearer to him as she said this, and 
 placed her hand within his arm "they release 
 and forgive." 
 
 An almost. perceptible shudder ran through 
 his frame. He loved her so dearly, and she 
 seemed to be lapsing from him, and appealing 
 to his manliness not to hold her back. How 
 had this evil come to pass ? How had Claude 
 for he could not doubt that it was Claude 
 gained this influence over her without an effort 
 that had been apparent to him, Stanley. He 
 had seen every look, had watched every word 
 that had passed between his friend and his love 
 since they had been together at Denham, and 
 there had been nothing with which he could 
 charge either. Yet the thing seemed to be 
 growing, and he could not check its growth. 
 " He was but human," as Bella had said about 
 Ralph Crauford, and he was very miserable. 
 
 He resolved to speak to her to ask her what 
 this change that had come over her, which he 
 felt and could not analyse, meant. Walking 
 there by her side, while it was still impossible 
 that he should do so, he determined on having 
 an explanation with her, and of being magnani- 
 mous even as she would wish him to be, if his 
 fears his heart-subduing fears were well 
 founded. Thus he felt for a minute or two. 
 Then he looked at her again, and saw her so 
 fair, and knew her all his own as yet, and 
 acknowledged that he could not tear her from 
 himself without dying in the struggle. 
 
 They had loitered away many hours in that 
 old house, which gave them another example 
 of the old story of being loved, and left, and 
 lost. It was evening before the " Park Inn " 
 was regained, and the horses put in, and the 
 start homewards made ; and evening seemed to 
 justify silence on the part of all, and smoking 
 on the part of the men. 
 
 Claude was simply taciturn. Fascinated as 
 he knew himself to his cost to be, by Miss Vane, 
 he had felt her special pleading on behalf of 
 faithlessness in general to be ill-timed, weak, 
 and unnecessarily aggravating to Stanley. It 
 had come to this that he saw it to be on the 
 cards that Stanley might suffer largely through 
 Bella and himself. But the loyalty, that was 
 not dead yet, towards his friends, made him 
 averse to small foreshadowings of that suffering 
 being thrown over Stanley by Bella's hand 
 when there was no immediate call for them. 
 Being annoyed, and being " but human," he 
 relapsed into taciturnity for the greater portion 
 of the drive home. Even then, when he had 
 no more cigars to smoke, and there existed, 
 therefore, no longer any just cause and impedi- 
 ment why he should not speak, he chiefly 
 addressed Florry. 
 
 This course of conduct of Major Walsing- 
 ham's, which caused poor, weak, erring Bella 
 much anguish, was dictated partly by prudence, 
 partly by right feeling, and partly by a sore 
 sensation that was something akin to jealousy. 
 Prudential motives taught him that to throw off 
 all disguise and devote nimself to her, as he had 
 it in his heart to devote himself, would be rash in 
 the extreme in the case of a young lady so given 
 lo acting on impulse as was Miss Vane. Good 
 feeling told him that Florry who had loved him 
 so long, and shown, in her sweet, unsuspicious 
 way, that she had done so shown it freely, 
 shown it purely deserved something better at 
 his hands than neglect. But more powerful 
 than either of these motives for chilling Bella 
 was the bastard jealousy that would obtain in 
 his soul, of the authorised intimacy that existed 
 still between the woman he loved and another 
 man. It was not a noble, exalted, legitimate 
 passion jealousy very rarely is but it was as 
 strong as death, and cruel as the grave. He 
 could not check it. Worse than this, he could 
 not check the sights, the sounds, the thousand 
 small causes which brought it into being. It 
 was only right, and fair, and proper that Stan- 
 ley should touch Bella's hand with a touch that 
 told the man who was watching how dear a 
 thing that hand was. " God of heaven ! perhaps 
 he kisses her when I am not by !" he thought; 
 and as this not remarkably improbable contin- 
 gency struck him, he would grind his teeth to- 
 gether, and but just refrain from stamping his 
 foot with the cruel rage it cost him. So, as 
 these feelings obtained more and more dominion 
 over him, as he grew to love her deeper and 
 deeper still, he could not resist the temptation 
 to punish her a little, and make her miserable 
 in a measure, since he was so himself. 
 
 Poor Bella writhed under the torture as soon 
 as it was applied. Those words of Stanley's 
 that report had said " Claude was sweet on 
 Florry" were ever ringing in her ears; so at 
 once, as soon as Claude looked at or spoke to 
 Florry, Bella fancied that he was corroborating 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 report. She ached at the idea, and nearly fell 
 off the back of the trap with emotion, and hated 
 Florry for her blooming unruffled beauty, and 
 the happy freedom with which she was con- 
 versing with their charioteer. 
 
 Matters went on in this way for many days 
 days that seemed like weeks for three of them, 
 they were so fraught with feeling and remorse, 
 but- that were but as hours, and those fairy- 
 footed, to Florry, who took the top of things 
 alone, and if the top chanced to be fine, never 
 bewailed the possibly inferior quality of what 
 was away at the bottom. She was very happy 
 in Claude's presence, and in the receipt of 
 Claude's somewhat fitful attentions. It never 
 occurred to her to distrust them, or to dread a 
 canker at the root of her brother's engage- 
 ment. 
 
 Stanley had put off speaking to Bella indefi- 
 nitely. He was far more chary of his reprehen- 
 sions now, than he had been during the first 
 days of his engagement.. He was bitterly con- 
 scious, in fact, that if he strained this chord 
 whicl^ was more than life to him, she would 
 snap it and cast him adrift; and he clung to 
 the hope of this being a mere fever for Claude, 
 an illness of the soul that would pass away and 
 leave her as she had been before. He had 
 ceased from the folly now of pressing Major 
 Walsirigham to stay on, and he knew that he 
 had erred in having ever done so. But still 
 Major Walsingham did stay on, and the fever 
 palpably continued, and there was no valid ex- 
 cuse for removing the cause of it. 
 
 August came at last, and with it an eager 
 desire on the part of Miss Yane to go up to 
 town to her mamma. " My mother wishes you 
 to be her guest, Bella," Stanley said. " I should 
 like you to go to her." 
 
 _" But mamma wouldn't like it," Bella said, 
 seized with a dutiful fit on the instant; "I 
 couldn't think of leaving mamma for any one, 
 for the little time I shall be a free agent" 
 (there was still a talk of their being married in 
 September). 
 
 Mr. Villars felt chagrined. He had grave 
 doubts of the life Bella would lead under her 
 mother's, roof being the life he would desire his 
 bride-elect to lead. With his mother and two 
 sisters, Bella would have been better placed, 
 according to his notions left less to herself! 
 He had hoped that Florence's companionship 
 would have become sufficiently dear to Bella, 
 during this time they had spent together at 
 Denham, to make Miss Vane covet a continu- 
 ance of it. Miss Vane, however, so far from 
 coveting a continuance of it, never uttered a 
 word which could be construed into the mildest 
 desire for such a thing. There was no help for 
 it. She was resolved to go to her " own mother 
 for three weeks," and on the surface the resolve 
 was all that was correct. 
 
 Soon Mrs. Vane reported herself established 
 in her temporary town residence, and the Den- 
 ham party broke up. The two girls went up to 
 London, escorted by Stanley, and Major Wal- 
 singham started for the west of England, to 
 spend a short time with his own family. 
 
 One of Sir Gerald Villars' carriages' was at 
 the station to meet his sister, with a note, giving 
 them the information that there was an hour- 
 old heir to the title again. You had better 
 
 go and see Lady Villars, Florry," her younger 
 brother remarked. " Give my love to them, 
 and tell them I'm delighted. I shall see Bella 
 safely home." 
 
 Bella got into her mother's brougham after 
 embracing Florence, and saying that she " hoped 
 they would meet again in a day or two," and 
 Stanley followed her, heartily glad to have her 
 to himself again, and blindly deeming that all 
 danger was over, since Claude had certainly had 
 no plans of returning to town almost immediate- 
 ly when they parted. Stanley was only going 
 to stay one night in London, and return to his 
 duties on the following morning. He had, 
 therefore, not too much time in which to say the 
 many things he had to say to her; but he found 
 that he was not to say them yet. 
 
 " My head aches from the train," Bella said 
 softly, as soon as they drove off; "please don't 
 speak to me till we get home, Stanley, or I shall 
 be worse." 
 
 Condemned to silence, the way seemed very 
 long to Mr. Villars ; but he would not disobey 
 her, for she was leaning back in the corner, 
 looking very pale and weary, with her eyes 
 closed, and one of her hands pressed against her 
 forehead. The attitude betokened pain unmis- 
 takeably wearing pain, either mental or 
 bodily. Pie fondly hoped that it might only be 
 the latter. 
 
 He beguiled the time by conjuring up a vision 
 of a Mrs. Vane, for he had never seen Bella's 
 mother yet. By the time he had arranged and 
 draped four or five utterly different figures, the 
 carriage stopped at the door of a house, with 
 an awning stretched over a flower-laden bal- 
 cony, and another over the steps, on which 
 scarlet cloth was spread, and Bella Vane was 
 at home. 
 
 " This must be wrong, Bella," he said, check - 
 ng her on the step ; " there are preparations for 
 a party it's the next house." 
 
 " No, this is right, Stanley. I forgot to tell 
 you mamma has a few friends to-night," she 
 said, hurriedly running up, and through the 
 quickly opened door. " Come up at once, and 
 let me introduce you to mamma before people 
 come." 
 
 He followed her slowly, feeling annoyed and 
 tricked in a small, low way. It was nothing to 
 him, of course, whether Mrs. Vane saw " a few 
 friends" every night or every moment, for that 
 matter of her life. But it was much to him 
 that Bella should make little concealments from 
 him ; it forced the unwilling conviction upon 
 him that she was well inclined that way. 
 
 They found Mrs. Vane sitting in the drawing- 
 room. She was very tall, very fair, very faded, 
 very unlike her daughter in all respects ; but 
 there was something <narvellously pleasing in 
 her perfectly effortless manner. It was repose 
 that sprang from the most thorough laziness 
 naturalism that was too indolent to be anything 
 else. But it was pleasant to behold, and put 
 you at your ease at once, it was so very perfect 
 in its way. As soon as he saw Mrs. Vane, 
 Stanley Villars understood how it came about 
 that Bella was what she was. 
 
 The tall, fair, lymphatic woman rose up as 
 they approached her, and kissed her daughter. 
 Then she gave her hand to Stanley, and said, 
 "You're to be my son-in-law, I find. I am 
 
48 
 
 ON GUARD. 
 
 very happy to see you." "With that she sat 
 down again ; and while Bella made a rapid tour 
 of the room, and buried her face in quick suc- 
 cession in several vases of flowers, inhaling their 
 sweetness with a rapture that was partly real 
 and partly put on to hide a trifling emotion she 
 could not entirely subdue, Mrs. Vane looked at 
 her hands, and smiled gently into space. 
 
 They were long, slender, white hands, that 
 never writhed or contorted themselves. The 
 most violent exercise they ever took, was when 
 they inserted each other into gloves. Generally 
 they sat upon her lap, resting one upon the 
 other, with the taper lingers bent ever so slight- 
 ly. Thus they would remain for hours with 
 rarely a change in their position never a 
 change in their hue. 
 
 It needed but to see one of these hands of 
 hers, and, without a glance at the remainder of 
 the woman, all the weakness of her character 
 might be read by those who ran. 
 
 "You won't dress till after dinner, please," 
 Mrs. Vane said, looking from one to the other, 
 appealingly, when Bella came back, after her 
 inspection of the floral adornments. 
 
 "A great bore to dine in a travelling dress; 
 one feels so dusty," Bella replied. " "When was 
 dinner to be ready, mamma?" 
 
 " Ten minutes after you came in," Mrs. Vane 
 said, settling further back into her chair. 
 " Have it your own way, dear only order it 
 yourself." 
 
 " Dine in your travelling dress for once, Bella, 
 ns your mother wishes it," Stanley whispered ; 
 'you will be obliged to make a wonderful toilet 
 by-and-by, I suppose : but this dress will do to 
 dine in." 
 
 In the Villars family the mother's will was 
 law to her children a law they loved to live 
 under, and that they never thought of question- 
 ing. It pained him to see Bella put Mrs. Vane 
 aside, weak as Mrs. Vane was. 
 
 "Do to dine in! It's not that; but I want 
 to rest and refresh myself after that awful jour- 
 ney." Then she rang and ordered the dinner 
 back half an hour, unceremoniously ; and Mrs. 
 Vane smiled perfect satisfaction at the altera- 
 tion in her plans. 
 
 Stanley was dressed and down in the draw- 
 ing-room again for some short time before the 
 arbitrary queen of his soul. When she saw 
 him come in by himself, Mrs. Vane appeared to 
 feel that he devolved upon her, and forthwith 
 she made conversational efforts. 
 
 " I am afraid the dinner will be spoilt, Mr. 
 Villars ; but it is of no consequence, as Bella 
 wished it." 
 
 " On the contrary," he said, " Bella had no 
 business to spoil your dinner ; you must scold 
 her if she has done so.'*' 
 
 He saw that, even in joke, the idea of scold- 
 ing Bella was a foreign one to Mr. Vane. 
 
 "Scold her!" she repeated; " really I shall 
 not care about the dinner; and even if I did " 
 She paused for a moment, and then added, 
 " Bella has so much energy ; it is a great bless- 
 ing that she has, for my health would never 
 permit me to exert myself, so she has always 
 pleased herself without troubling me, and I am 
 sure no daughter could be a greater comfort to 
 a mother. 1 " 
 
 Mrs. Vane was terribly afraid that Mr. Villars 
 
 would be expecting her to control or direct 
 Bella in some way or other. It was quite worth 
 while verbally exerting herself to avoid such 
 fearful labour as this. " No daughter could be 
 a greater comfort to a mother than she has al- 
 ways been to me," she repeated emphatically ; 
 and then she tried to bribe him to let her suffer 
 Bella to continue unmolested by maternal in- 
 fluence, by saying 
 
 " I assure you, I don't think I could bring 
 myself to resign her to any one but you." 
 
 Broadly speaking, this was sacrificing truth 
 to politeness. Mrs. Vane would have brought 
 herself to resigning Bella to any mortal man to 
 whom Bella gave orders that she should be re- 
 signed. She knew very well that she would 
 have done so ; and, in a lazy kind of way, it 
 occurred to her that most probably Mr. Villars 
 knew it too. But she hoped that her little 
 lapse from perfect veracity would sound pleas- 
 antly in his ears, and induce him to cease from 
 troubling her about Bella's manners and cus- 
 toms, till Bella came down and could undertake 
 the defence of them herself. 
 
 In due time Bella came down, and they 
 dined ; and Mrs. Vane awoke to an immediate 
 sense of expecting people. "Bella has ex 
 plained to you why we have friends to-night, 
 Mr. Villars?" Mrs. Vane said to him about 
 nine o'clock; and when he somewhat sulkily 
 replied, "No, Bella had not," Mrs. Vane re- 
 sponded, " Oh !" in as thoroughly satisfied a 
 tone as if her first suggestion had been founded 
 on fact, o,r. which was more probable, as if it 
 were not of the smallest consequence whether 
 or not Bella had so explained. 
 
 To tell the truth, Stanley was feeling some- 
 what injured and neglected. Bella was taken 
 up with a variety of matters with which she 
 need not have been taken up during the few 
 short hours he would still be with her. She 
 was all the " daughter of the house," truly, but 
 it was in an anticipatory sort of way that was 
 not particularly flattering to him, the present 
 guest. " I have something to say to you, Bella ; 
 come in here for five minutes," he had said to 
 her, when they were journeying back to the 
 drawing-room after dinner. He would not stay 
 below and take wine drearily by himself; he 
 wanted Bella to go with him for five minutes 
 into a little room, through the open door of 
 which he caught a glimpse of gleaming white 
 statuettes backed against crimson velvet, and 
 coloured wax candles cleverly interspersed 
 amidst flowers in full bloom. He w r anted her 
 to go in there and hear the something he un- 
 guardedly confessed to her that he had to say, 
 and Bella would not. 
 
 " I will attend to whatever you have to say 
 directly, Stanley ; but I must see to the guitar 
 first. Mamma will expect me to sing, and of 
 course a)l the strings will fly as soon as I touch 
 them. I'll get that over first." 
 
 He did not relish this promise of attention 
 being paid to him after the guitar's claims had 
 been settled. But Bella,, ensconced in her home 
 duties, was unassailable. There was nothing 
 for him to do but to wait her good pleasure. 
 
 Her good pleasure led her to make a very 
 long and arduous business cf that re-stringing\ ; 
 the guitar, a business that it was irritating toj. 
 him to watch. At the best of times, and under 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 49 
 
 the happiest auspices, a guitar and himself were 
 far from sympathetic. But now he was out of 
 tune, and the guitar was the same; and he 
 hated it, as an excuse, that was not even me- 
 lodious, for lounging attitudes and languishing 
 looks. Bella was employing herself with ap- 
 parently laborious exactness about it now ; but 
 he felt that, when the few friends came, he 
 should have cause to detest it and its blue rib- 
 bon. 
 
 Some of the friends came at ten, some shortly 
 after. By eleven, at all events, Stanley knew 
 the worst : all who were to arrive had arrived. 
 Mrs. Yane was not that awful product of nature, 
 a feminine seeker of celebrities. The class of 
 women of whom Mrs. Leo Hunter may stand as 
 the type are not indolent, let them be faulty in 
 other respects as they will. Mrs. Yane was not 
 one to assiduously look up the last living thing 
 in literature, art, or the drama, and forthwith 
 lure it into her web. But she was something 
 almost equally distressing a woman who took 
 what came first, when it behoved her to take 
 anything at all ; and regarded all men (of her 
 own class) as equal in mind, body, and social 
 qualifications. Inertly amiable, and thoroughly 
 well-disposed, she sat and smiled upon the peo- 
 ple who came to stand about in the draught in 
 her rooms, and eat wafer biscuits and ices ; and 
 never troubled herself to think whether they 
 were amused or amusing. She invited them 
 because, in the second year of her widowhood, 
 the weaker-minded of Bella's two guardians 
 had said to her, "My dear madam, you must 
 keep up with the world. You must see people. 
 Above all, you must see poor Yane's set, for your 
 little girl's sake." She obeyed, because she 
 saw no more reason for not seeing people than 
 for seeing them. What good the vision was to 
 do either herself or her child, or anybody else, 
 she did not distress herself by attempting to 
 discover. " Poor Yane's set" had been an elas- 
 tic, not to say a limitless one. His widow was 
 far from being sure where it began, or where it 
 ended. This was of small consequence. There 
 were plenty of people in the world, and she had 
 no prejudices. 
 
 This being the case, it will readily be under- 
 stood that her gatherings were variable in their 
 nature. When Bella took the management of 
 them into her own resolute young hands, salient 
 points, in the shape of the best she knew, were 
 put in, and their complementary colours provid- 
 ed for them. But when Mrs. Yane (as now) 
 drifted into an evening party without her daugh- 
 ter's protection, the dull drab of inane mediocri- 
 ty was apt to be over all things. 
 
 CHAPTER XYI. 
 
 JESUITICAL PRACTICES. 
 
 THE best and bravest lose their individuality as 
 soon as they find themselves at an evening party. 
 The stoutest heart quails when its owner catches 
 sight of himself in a glass with the remnant of 
 the inane smile he called into being two min- 
 utes ago, when addressing some lady whom he 
 did not want to address, and who did not want 
 him to address her. 
 4 
 
 It is one of the absolute conditions that a 
 portion of the "entertainment" shall be ghastly, 
 even though it be held in one of the best houses 
 in London. If you are in a proper frame of 
 mind, that is to say, if you are honourable 
 enough not to object to occupying a permanent 
 position in the background, and healthy enough 
 to dare to disregard the draughts which there 
 abound, you may derive the finest enjoyment 
 from an evening party; but not under any other 
 circumstances. 
 
 What, for instance, can be pleasanter to wit- 
 ness, than the efforts a pretty girl makes to seem 
 not to be trying to get away from some one who 
 is boring her awfully ? At the short distance of 
 a yard and a half from said pretty girl, is a 
 something else (probably an awful bore also in 
 his generation), who wishes to say something to 
 her which she wishes to hear, or thinks for the 
 hour that she wishes to hear, which comes to 
 the same thing, for all practical purposes. That 
 girl is a victim. Her current shrine is an old 
 lady perhaps, who only speaks to and detains 
 her from bliss, because " it would look odd not 
 to speak to her, having known her mother's 
 uncle." Rest assured that the girl did not adorn 
 for this sacrifice ; but only see food for mirth in 
 it, because it may save her from making a 
 worse. 
 
 How nice it is, too, to witness the liberal 
 manner in which people who give you worse 
 than nothing, press you to take it. People who 
 do this well, are really worth standing in the 
 background in a draught for. They have an 
 air of modest faith in themselves, and of wish- 
 ing you not to over-estimate their little efforts 
 on your behalf, that appeals to you as Genius 
 only can. The hilarious manner is not a lasting 
 one ; it starts on a better foundation than the ' 
 "liberal," but it is apt to break down on the first 
 appearance of gloom amongst the guests. But 
 the liberal manner, being founded upon no- 
 thing, flourishes to the last a vigorous impos- 
 tor. 
 
 Richer and rarer ("rarer" in the sense of 
 "better") than all other spectacles that the 
 evening party affords, is that one of mem- 
 bers of the same family being driven up into a 
 corner by the exigencies of fate, and there being 
 compelled to talk company talk, with company 
 faces and tones. Which is it ? sublime from 
 its blind gallantry, or ridiculous from its fool- 
 hardihood, to hear a brother discussing the 
 merits of " Faust" with his sister, or a husband 
 giving and taking opinions with his wife about 
 the last new novel ? They only subside into 
 these topics when any one approaches, and no 
 one is blinded for an instant. One feels in- 
 stinctively that there has been time enough at 
 home for the question to be settled, and that it 
 is only mooted here to avoid confusion. Per- 
 haps we are all extra quick at this special bit 
 of social detection, since we have all been guilty 
 of the folly. 
 
 Mrs. Yane " saw her friends" in precisely the 
 same way in which other people indulge in that 
 spectacle. They came and stood about, and 
 glanced furtively at the clocks, and addressed 
 each other in vigorous accents whenever they 
 fancied that either the hostess or her daughter, 
 or any one likely to mention to the hostess or 
 her daughter that they looked dull, were look- 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 ing at them. Tn a mass they looked like other 
 well-bred, well-dressed crowds. It was only 
 when you analysed them that you found Mrs. 
 Vane had omitted to secure one that was above 
 mediocrity. 
 
 Bella was very weary of it all ; in that at 
 least and to the ej^e of love it was very appar- 
 ent there was satisfaction. She glanced at 
 the clock to the full as frequently as any one 
 else, and in this there was joy, since she could 
 not glance very often at him. "Do your best 
 to make things go, Stanley," she said to him 
 once. And he replied, "And people, too, if 
 you like." At which she shook her 'head, and 
 whispered, " You see my time in London won't 
 be one of maddening excitement will it? 
 Dear mamma does ask the dullest people." 
 After that she had not spoken to him any more, 
 and he had borne his solitude nobly, partly be- 
 cause he did believe in her last assertion, and 
 partly because he received no aggravation from 
 the guitar. That instrument, after all the ela- 
 borate preparation that had been expended 
 upon it, was left to its own devices in a corner, 
 where it was gazed at fondly by a young man 
 with tiny feet in cloth boots, with a big head, 
 who wished the company to become acquainted 
 with the fact that he warbled in Spanish when- 
 ever he was asked, and who found no good op- 
 portunity for telling them so in words that 
 should induce them to ask him. 
 
 It was all very stupid, and superficial in 
 fact, and no bewildering novelty from being 
 these things. Very many things are stupid in 
 this world ; and the exceptional things, that we 
 dare to like, break through quickly, and show 
 us how hollow they are. There is nothing last- 
 ing save dulness and disappointment. Both 
 Bella and Stanley Villars had come to the 
 knowledge of the truth of this already, though 
 old age was not their portion yet. But for all 
 their knowledge of the truth, the special form 
 then* own dulnesses and disappointments took 
 seemed exceptionally hard. 
 
 People went off as aimlessly, apparently, as 
 they had come, about twelve. The only man 
 who seemed to know what he was going to do 
 with himself, or to have an object in life, was a 
 stranger and a pilgrim amongst them. Stanley 
 had, at an earlier stage, asked this man's name, 
 of one with whom he found himself temporarily 
 isolated, and he had been answered that " it 
 was a man on the 'Extinguisher,' " a daily 
 paper, the delight of millions. This man men- 
 tioned at large when he was about departing, 
 that he was going to " do an article, and smoke 
 with some other fellows at a tavern in the City ;" 
 and Stanley Villars gazed at him over his own 
 white cravat with exalted contempt, and said a 
 little sentence to himself respecting the prosti- 
 tution of intellect, and the degradation of braies. 
 He deemed that .the man ought to have been 
 ashamed of himself, and despised him for daring 
 to be happy. 
 
 When every one was gone Bella portrayed 
 intense sleepiness. " I, who have nothing 
 more to do, feel such pity for myself for being 
 tired," she said, when she had her bed-room 
 candle in her hand. "How clever and wide- 
 awake that man looked, who has been doing 
 to the full as much as I have done all day, 
 and who now has to go away and rack his 
 
 brains to produce something that may be printed 
 for us to read at breakfast." 
 
 Stanley looked down at her, superior as a god. 
 
 " Those poor fellows have a wonderful power 
 of continuous work in them," he said, calmly ; 
 " but you must bear in mind that their produc- 
 tions are not meant to outlive the day. Feeling 
 them to be ephemeral, they do not bestow the 
 care on their composition that would involve 
 much brain work." 
 
 "What is ephemeral in English, Stanley? 
 Never mind explaining now. I am so tired, 
 that I shall go off at once, and congratulate 
 myself to sleep, on not having to write a given 
 quantity in a given .time, that I needn't bestow 
 much brain- work upon." 
 
 "I shall see you before I leave in the morn- 
 ing?" he asked, anxiously. 
 
 "Oh, yes! of course," she replied, arid then 
 Mrs. Vane roused herself a little, and said 
 
 "You won't go to-morrow, surely, Mr. Vil- 
 lars?" 
 
 "I shall leave you to argue the question 
 with mamma," Bella interrupted. "G-ood 
 night, Stanley." 
 
 She gave him her cheek to kiss, and he saw 
 that it grew blood-red under his touch. Eed 
 with a sudden fire, that almost scorched his 
 eyes to witness. Red, with a glow that scared 
 certain hopes which were newly springing in his 
 heart. 
 
 Miss Vane did not see Mr. Villara the follow- 
 ing morning. He had arranged to leave by a 
 certain train, and she knew it, and still did not 
 find it convenient to rise in time to see him be- 
 fore he started to catch it. She sent down two 
 or three delusive messages to the effect that she 
 would make an almost immediate appearance ; 
 so till the last he thought she was coming, and 
 drank his coffee in hope. But \qjien the Han- 
 som that had been sent for to speed the parting 
 guest was announced, hope was extinguished 
 by Miss Vane's maid, who met him in the hall, 
 and told him the truth somewhat tardily: 
 "Miss Vane had risen with one of her very bad 
 headaches, and she (the maid) feared that there 
 was no prospect of her being able to come 
 down for an hour or two at least. Could Mr. 
 Villars wait? Would there not be a later 
 train ?" 
 
 There would be a later train, but Mr. Villars 
 could not wait. Unbelief set in strongly and 
 submerged confiding love. He doubted that 
 headache. It had come on rather too often 
 lately for it to weigh with him as once it would 
 have done. The truth, or rather a portion of 
 the truth, struck him vividly. Bella did not 
 want to see him, and listen to what he had to 
 say, until the memory of Claude Walsingham 
 had retreated further into the background. He 
 thought that she craved time to restore her to 
 her usual tone of mind. He deemed her semi- 
 conscious of certain feelings which he accredited 
 her with a desire to kill and have done with be- 
 fore she saw him again. That such feelings 
 should have obtained at all was extremely un- 
 desirable, of course ; but he was more lenient 
 now than he had been in the first days of his 
 engagement, the days of complete security and 
 absolute faith, so he forgave her in his heart for 
 evading him " for awhile," and went away 
 sorry but not angry. 
 
GUARD. 
 
 51 
 
 There were two flying visits that he believec 
 himself bound to pay before quitting town 
 The one was to his mother, the second to his 
 brother. They were necessarily brief; but 
 during the first he had time to suggest to his 
 mother and sisters that frequent intercourse 
 with Bella would be desirable ; and Sir Geralc 
 found opportunity for telling him that the 
 "affair," meaning the engagement, "was a 
 source of great satisfaction to Carrie." 
 
 " She's very good to take such an interest in 
 me," Stanley replied; and he could not help 
 remembering, and allowing it to be perceived, 
 that he did remember how very little interesi 
 his sister-in-law had hitherto taken in him. He 
 also heard that the new son and heir was a 
 young thing that they hardly dared to hope 
 would live. Altogether, his latest London impres- 
 sions were unpleasant ones ; and still he felt no 
 satisfaction in going back into the country. 
 
 It was now August, and in September the 
 climax was to be brought about so, at least, it 
 had been ordained when this marriage prospect 
 had been first started between them. But when 
 he had been back at Denham a week, there came 
 a letter from Bella pleading for a delay. 
 
 A letter that pained him, even more from its 
 manner than its matter, though that was pain- 
 ful enough, heaven knows, to the man who 
 wanted this woman for his wife ! He had al- 
 ways marked with admiration, always loved to 
 a degree, a certain fearlessness in Bella that led 
 her to take the responsibility of her own opi- 
 nions upon herself, even when she knew them 
 unsound and antagonistic to his views. But 
 now there was a touch less of this fearlessness. 
 She pleaded for the delay in their marriage 
 "not out of the fulness of her own heart," she 
 said, "but because the instincts of her friends 
 were against such a short engagement." 
 
 'Wfho were these friends whose instincts dared 
 to step between happiness and himself? He 
 asked this question fiercely of himself. He asked 
 it little less fiercely of her by letter. He accused 
 them of tampering with her with intent to wean 
 her from him of being false to him, whoever 
 they might be, and untrue to her also, speci- 
 ously as their counsels might be clothed. He 
 told her that love such as he had offered and 
 she had accepted and re-pledged to him, was a 
 sacred thing from its intensity far too sacred a 
 thing for idle hands to play with, or put it aside 
 for a time. He was far less of the good young 
 priest in this letter, in fact, than she had antici- 
 pated; and she realised, with an aching soul, 
 that he had the passions of a man, chilling as 
 ne had been to her sometimes at Denham. 
 
 She made no answer to those strong appeals 
 of his. She wrote to him again after an interval 
 of a few days, but she utterly ignored the sub- 
 ject passed it over as though it had never 
 been mooted. " I did not tell you when I wrote 
 before," she said, "that I have my ponies; they 
 are the chestnuts; and even Florence, who knows 
 so little about horses, declares them to be per- 
 fection. You should see them step ! They are 
 quite equal to Major Walsingham's greys. I 
 suppose Florence has told you that he is in town 
 again ? Mamma is much as usual, and I often 
 wish myself back at Denham." Then she went 
 on to speak of some new novel she had been 
 ru-ding. and new concert singer she had been 
 
 hearing; and the letter drifted off into gene- 
 ralities. 
 
 But his eyes went back, and fastened them- 
 selves upon that passage in which Claude's name 
 appeared in such a suspiciously casual way, 
 before he read the rest that she had written. 
 He gave no thought to the once-prohibited 
 ponies. They were as nothing now. 
 
 His anger rose high against his sister as he 
 read, " I suppose Florence has told you- that he 
 is in town again?" Florence ought to have 
 told him, have warned him ah ! He shrank 
 within himself as he thought of the word 
 "warned" him. Of what should she "warn" 
 him in relation to Claude, his friend, and Bella, 
 his future bride? He killed the suspicion or, 
 rather, smothered it for a time, and finished her 
 letter. 
 
 Then he turned to a heap of other epistles 
 that were lying unopened on the table before 
 him, and found that there was one from Claude. 
 
 " My dear Stanley" (it ran), 
 
 "I came up to town, unexpectedly, the 
 day before yesterday. Curtailed my visit to 
 them at home on account of a change in the 
 regiment. I saw Florry yesterday driving with 
 Miss Vane ; this is the first I had seen of eithei 
 of them since the Denham day. That affair 
 which I spoke to you about is over. Be all 
 your scruples set at rest : the lady wished to 
 back out of it, therefore 1 had no appeal. Lord 
 Lexley is the happy man who has superseded 
 me. You wanted a dog-pup of that breed of 
 red setters of my brother Jack's once I remem- 
 ber. Are you still in the mind for one ? If 
 you are, you will find one at your service any 
 day you like to look in at my quarters and take 
 him. 
 
 " Yours affectionately, 
 
 " CLAUDE WALSINGHAM." 
 
 Stanley Villars read that letter over many 
 times, and, save in one small respect, it was 
 entirely satisfactory. He could but feel that 
 there was no desire on Claude's part to steal 
 a march on him. Claude came back to town, 
 on service, as he said, and immediately signal- 
 ized that return frankly, and as frankly avowed 
 that he had seen Miss Vane. There was no 
 concealment, no evasion, no anything that 
 there ought not to be. He had seen Miss 
 Vane and Florence ; and he mentioned the 
 fact of having seen them, just as any other 
 man writing to a familiar friend, would have 
 mentioned it. So far all was satisfactory. 
 
 It was satisfactory, too, to know that the 
 engagement Claude had entered into so lightly 
 had been broken off in an equally airy manner 
 -^by the lady too! so that no blame could 
 attach to Claude. It gave him great pleasure 
 to read this statement, on the whole, though a 
 portion of the phrasing " the lady wished to 
 back out of it, therefore I had no appeal " 
 grated on him harshly. 
 
 But what was not pleasant about Claude's 
 letter was the manner in which he subscribed 
 himself. The words " always truly " had been 
 written first, but they had been dashed out 
 with a stroke of the pen, and the word " affec- 
 tionately " had been substituted. He asked 
 "limself, had doubts arisen in Claude's mind as 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 to whether he should be " always true " to 
 Stanley, and, with the doubt, some of the old 
 schoolboy warmth of affection dictating the 
 altered expression ? 
 
 He wrote to his sister and questioned her 
 guardedly, and felt like a Jesuit the while. 
 Florence was so thoroughly true, so extremely 
 unreserved, so entirely above suspicion, that he 
 felt mean in. being thus guarded. But then 
 again he knew that whatever he wrote would 
 be passed on to Bella, and this reflection in- 
 duced him to couch the letter, whose mission 
 it was to gain evidence about her, in very 
 guarded terms. 
 
 Florence's reply came in due time. It was 
 on rose-tinted paper and in rose-tinted terms ; 
 it was indited in a palpable tremor of happiness. 
 " Tou ask about Bella's ponies ; they are beau- 
 tiful, and she drives them charmingly. "We go 
 into the park every morning that is, we have 
 been there three mornings and come back here 
 to luncheon, and Claude comes too. He says 
 if you won't come up for that puppy, that I 
 shall have it. Do you consent ?" 
 
 Stanley discovered little, save that Claude 
 was in the ascendant with Florry, and that he 
 had known before. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 A LAST FAYOR. 
 
 HAVE you ever felt a fever or an ague-fit com- 
 ing on, and striven to cheat yourself into the 
 belief that it was "only" a chill, or a heat, or 
 i something which you knew all the while it 
 was not ? To the very last, till you are utterly 
 worsted, till you are completely overthrown, 
 till "keeping up" any longer becomes of no 
 avail even in your own eyes, till Nature will 
 not JDB lied to any longer, you deceive yourself, 
 and say that it is not what you dread it to be. 
 
 As with the bodily ailment, so with the fever 
 or ague-fit of the mind. We may feel miserably 
 sure that by-and-by, in due course of time, we 
 may be compelled to succumb to it altogether ; 
 but until we are so compelled, we affect extra 
 health and security, and, alas! the affectation 
 deceives no one, not even ourselves. 
 
 That August was a period of sultry, soul-sub- 
 duing suspicion, of burning fear, of harassing 
 perplexity and doubt, to Stanley Villars. He 
 was very orthodox up to this date orthodox 
 in social as well as in religious matters. An 
 engagement to enter, at no distant date, into a 
 union for life, was no light thing in his eyes ; 
 and the one with whom he had entered into it 
 seemed to regard it so lightly, so very lightly ! 
 
 It will be well to record the events of fliis 
 period briefly. It will be wise, if I would 
 " hold my readers " the novelist's proudest 
 triumph ! to come quickly to that point from 
 whence the chief interest of my story will flow 
 to pass on, without halting, to that time 
 which passed over my hero's head in agony, 
 and left him broken down. 
 
 During the greater part of that weary month 
 he strove as hardly as man may strive to ab- 
 sorb himself in his. duties, and be a priest of 
 God. He was constant in prayer ; he rang the 
 
 villagers up at unheard-of hours, and caused 
 them to be sleepily devotional at times when 
 nought save their virtuous couches had known 
 them heretofore. He was incessant in sickness ; 
 visiting, attending, relieving, in a way that 
 brought down blessings that were heart-felt on 
 his head. He would not relax in a single 
 thing ! He did all that was to be done in his 
 vocation, and he did it thoroughly ; and still 
 he had time to think time to be all a human 
 being nothing more. 
 
 Time was lightened and life brightened occa- 
 sionally by letters from Bella Vane. He took 
 such comfort as he might in them, marking how 
 kind they strove to be, and how unconstrainedly 
 Claude "Walsingham was mentioned in them, 
 and how regularly they came. The very thing 
 that should have warned him lulled him into 
 greater security ; he had yet to learn that love 
 has no routine that there is no red-tapeism 
 about real passion. 
 
 Time stood still, and life darkened to the 
 darkness of death at last, one day when he 
 received a letter from her, telling him that she 
 could not keep the vow she had made. " He 
 would hate and despise and forget her. For 
 this she was prepared. She only craved his 
 permission to go and bury her fallen head in 
 freedom." 
 
 This was the whole purport of her letter, but 
 he felt that there must be more behind it, and 
 he cursed the cause of such a change in her, his 
 cherished love. He knew that Bella Yane was 
 not a girl to forfeit all that was sweet and 
 warm and thrilling in life for the sake of going 
 away to hide in solitude. What he had lost 
 another had won for Bella's heart was like 
 Nature, in that it could not endure a vacuum. 
 He knew this at once, and the knowledge made 
 his heart stand still with a great rage that 
 nothing could cast out; not even the recollection 
 that he was a minister of that Gospel which 
 inculcates forgiveness of our enemies, to say 
 nothing of good- will towards all men. 
 
 He answered her prayer for release, and her 
 supplication to be ignored by him, from that 
 time forth for evermore, by going up and seeing 
 her. This he did with no weak desire, no faint 
 hope of turning her from her purpose, but simply 
 because he burnt to learn from her own lips 
 how that purpose had been born. 
 
 His going up at this juncture laid bare an- 
 other misery to him ; his life seemed full of 
 gaping wounds, poor fellow ! and he was pow- 
 erless to stop the bleeding of any one of them. 
 
 Miss Yane had nothing to offer in extenua- 
 tion of this change which had come over her. 
 He asked for none indeed ; he was only guilty 
 of the -minor folly of asking her " why she had 
 not told him before ?" She was a great beauty, 
 and was in such a position that no one could 
 say her nay ; but for all that, she knew herself 
 to be a pitiable spectacle as she stood before the 
 man whose heart she had crushed, with so little 
 to say for herself, which he could not read by 
 the light of this new revelation. 
 
 The last few scenes in the first act of this 
 drama shall be placed before you speedily. 
 
 There was a faint touch of ghastly humour 
 over the final one in which he played a part 
 when he went up to town. He was ushered 
 unexpectedly into a room where the girl sai, 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 53 
 
 with her mother the same room in which Mrs. 
 Yane had seen her friend. His* sudden appear- 
 ance startled the quiet lady; she almost be- 
 lieved that he had come to put an end to all 
 further discussion and doubt by insisting upon 
 Bella's marrying him that moment. Almost 
 believed, and quite hoped it; for, as she had 
 plaintively remarked to Bella several times 
 since the latter had told her that it was to 
 be broken off, " "What shall- I say when peo- 
 ple ask me about it ? I would give worlds 
 yes, worlds that this could be avoided, 
 Bella!" 
 
 Thereupon Bella had told her mother some- 
 what peremptorily that it could not be avoided, 
 and that therefore the best had better be made of 
 it. " Besides, mamma, I don't see why you 
 should feel bound to give an account of it ; you 
 were not the one who was going to marry him, 
 and now you're not the one who is not going 
 to marry him." 
 
 " Mrs. Melville has been so very much inter- 
 ested, that she will come to me about it directly 
 it gets abroad ; I know she will!" Mrs. Yane' 
 urged almost tearfully. " "What will your guardi- 
 ans say ? What will people think ?" 
 
 " Really, mamma, I don't care what they 
 think," Bella replied, coldly; " there is no sting 
 to me in public opinion about such a matter as 
 this it is too entirely to ourselves." 
 
 "It's terrible after all your things are made, 
 too !" Mrs. Yane went on, not' heeding her 
 daughters words. 
 
 "That's the least part of it, dear mother," 
 said Bella. " Don't prick me with trifles ! I am 
 sorry enough." 
 
 "Then why break it off?" Mrs. Yane re- 
 sponded; "I hope you won't. I do so dread 
 being questioned and having to tell the whole 
 story, for I'm sure I don't understand it!" 
 
 "Then you can plead ignorance, and save 
 yourself the trouble." 
 
 " That will strike people as being most extra- 
 ordinary," Mrs. Yane replied, gently shrugging 
 her shoulders. If mild advice, that she had not 
 to move to offer, might possibly avert these 
 evils, Mrs. Yane was ready to offer it. 
 
 _" I do not care whether it strikes people as 
 being extraordinary or not," Bella answered, 
 speaking with a passionate energy, that came 
 partly from the conviction that she was acting 
 ill towards another, and partly from a suspicion 
 that others had not always acted well by her. 
 " If they knew," she went on recklessly, " it 
 might strike them as a little extraordinary also, 
 that you have never taken the smallest trouble 
 to find out what I was doing or going to do all 
 my life ; you left me to get new toys for myself 
 when I broke my old ones, when I was a 
 child! let me do the same now!" 
 
 " Really, Bella, I have no desire to interfere 
 with you; but I shall not know what to say 
 when people question me." 
 
 " Refer them to me for an answer, if you 
 like." Then her face softened suddenly, and'she 
 added, " Oh, mother ! I wish that what a pack of 
 idle, curious, gossiping old women may say 
 about it were the worst I had to dread I I do 
 suffer, indeed I do ; but it is about something so 
 widely different. The common cry will never 
 cut me how can you care for it?" 
 
 Mrs. Yane thought she saw a good opening 
 
 for the insertion of the small end of an argu- 
 ment, capable of overturning everything. 
 
 " Because I think it a most shocking thing, 
 as does every one else who thinks properly. 
 Prom the moment I was engaged' to your father, 
 or, at any rate, from the moment my trousseau 
 was commenced, I no more 1 thought it possible 
 to break" it off, than I would have thought it 
 creditable to run away from him after I was 
 married. If you could fulfil your engagement 
 to Mr. Yillars, it would be very much better." 
 
 " It would be very much better, but I can't," 
 Bella replied, curtly ; and she had hardly utter- 
 ed the words before Stanley Yillars came into 
 the room. 
 
 Bella was not surprised to see him. When 
 she wrote and begged him to forget her at once 
 and for ever, she knew that he would not do 
 so ; she felt sure that he would come. She had 
 seen, as in a vision, the very expression that 
 was on his face as he entered. 
 
 They shook hands, and Bella found it so like 
 the ordinary meeting of ordinary mortals who 
 were not about to' cut each other to the quick, 
 that she commenced the conventional "lam 
 very happy to see you." But she checked her- 
 self at the third word, and sat down with a 
 trembling in both her tongue and knees. 
 
 " I was saying to Bella, just before you came 
 in," Mrs. Yane began by way of putting them 
 at then" ease ; " that I am very, very much con- 
 cerned at all this, Mr. Yillars; I hope, now you 
 have come " 
 
 "Mother! mother!" Bella interrupted, plead- 
 ingly, " don't say anything there is nothing tc 
 be said." 
 
 He had seated himself also when Bella broke 
 down in her welcoming phrase, and now he was 
 resting his chin on his hand, leaning on the 
 table, and looking at her fixedly. 
 
 " There is nothing to be said!" he repeated 
 after her. " Yes, there is one thing to say ; I 
 have one last favour to ask of you !" 
 
 She made a deprecating; movement with her 
 hands. This giving-up tone into which he had 
 fallen stabbed her more than reproaches would 
 have done. She felt now how she had wronged 
 him, when she supposed that he would strive 
 to keep her to himself at any cost to her. 
 
 " Don't speak in that, way 1" she almost sob- 
 bed the words out. " Oh ! if you knew if you 
 knew " 
 
 There was nothing cruel or hard in her na- 
 ture. She could stab, and wound, and wrong ; 
 but her heart bled the while she did these 
 things. Her worst fault was instability. 
 
 " I will say it to Claude, then," he answered ; 
 "one of you must hear me." 
 
 At the mention of Claude's name, Bella gave 
 a little, guilty, quickly subdued start, and Mrs. 
 Yane asked, "Who's Claude?" in a tone that, 
 miserable as he was, brought the advertisement 
 "Who's Griffiths?" with which enterprise has 
 adorned the walls of our metropolis, vividly be- 
 fore Mr. Yillars' eyes. 
 
 "It is not his fault," Bella began; "if any 
 one is to blame " 
 
 "There is no one to blame in the matter," 
 Stanley muttered impatiently; "no one is to 
 blame only I am damned unfortunate!" 
 
 She knew how she had wrung him then, 
 when she heard him say that. She dared not 
 
54 
 
 ON GUARD. 
 
 reprove him for the force of that expression: 
 she scarcely dared to look as if she had heard 
 it. She trembled for him, and for herself, and 
 above all, for Claude, should Stanley go to him 
 in this frame of mind. Besides, she would be 
 shamed by his going to Claude, for between 
 Claude and herself there had been no words 
 no shadow of an explanation that could justify 
 his being incriminated with her in this evil. 
 Still, on such light accusation as Stanley had 
 made, would she be justified in attempting to 
 excuse herself? There was but one course for 
 her to pursue; she was a woman, and she 
 threw up her hand. 
 
 ' ' ' Claude does not know what I have done 
 he would never have asked me to do it. Don't 
 hurt him, Stanley. Don't blame him!" 
 
 She called him " Stanley " with all the tender- 
 ness she so well knew how to throw into her 
 tone ; but though his own name was uttered, 
 the tenderness was for his rival now. 
 
 Disloyal as she had been to him, desperately 
 as he had been deceived in her, he could but 
 feel tenderly, pityingly towards her, as the 
 pleading tones fell upon his ears, and the 
 anxious eyes met his own. He forgot in that 
 moment that soon tenderness and pity felt for 
 her would be treading on dangerous ground for 
 himself,, and on treacherous ground as regarded 
 the friend who had been treacherous to him. 
 He forgot everything, even the presence of her 
 mother, as he went up to her and held her in a 
 strong embrace, from which she could not free 
 herself. 
 
 "My lovel I would hold you here against 
 God, and the world, and the devil, if you cared 
 to stay if I could 1" 
 
 The agony he felt in his full consciousness of 
 his powerlessness to do it, came out in the 
 hoarse fervour with which he uttered the last 
 three words. She dared not struggle against 
 that embrace. 
 
 " If I could, if I could !" he repeated hotly ; 
 and, as in a glass, she saw dimly a day in the 
 far future when her heart should be chilled, and 
 should yearn for a particle of that fiery passion- 
 ate heart to which now it could not respond. 
 
 Suddenly he released her, and she staggered 
 and sat down on the chair from which he had 
 raised her, her eyes still fixed on his face appa- 
 rently, but in reality on that visionary future 
 day. By a strong effort he conquered his emo- 
 tion presently conquered it, that is, sufficiently 
 to hear and comprehend Mrs. Yane's mild 
 "Pray be calm, Mr. Yillars!" and to realise 
 that the effect of such an embrace on a woman 
 who no longer loved would be to disgust her 
 with him further. The thought, the possibility, 
 struck him with a new despair; he could not 
 be banished, be hated, be left in every way by 
 this woman who had sunk into his soul ! 
 
 "Forgive me !" he asked it as humbly as if 
 he had injured her. " Bella, let me be your 
 friend and his, and I will never be mad or 
 offend you again!" 
 
 She tried to smile, and the effort broke 
 down her self-control, and caused the tears to 
 flow out freely from the sweet, kind-looking 
 blue ej es, that would always go on seeking, 
 seeking still something more to look fondly 
 upon. Then she gave him her hand, and, as 
 he pressed it, and poured forth some incoherent 
 
 words about being permitted "to watch over 
 and guard her still," the black retriever, faith- 
 ful Rock, came out wagging his tail, and almost 
 smiling, and stood up against him, licking the 
 hands thus linked together. 
 
 "Will you take Rock?" she asked in a 
 whisper; "he's very fond of you." 
 
 He saw that it was some sort of poor salve to 
 her conscience to give him the dog that was 
 dear to her. He felt that she would be the 
 happier for this poor bond still existing between 
 them, and with that curious clinging to what 
 might be left to him of the old with a strange 
 gratitude for such a man to feel he took the 
 crumbs that fell from the rich man's table : he 
 accepted the boon. 
 
 "I will take your last gift; and now, good- 
 bye. I shall not see you again till your wed- 
 ding-day." Then he bent his head down and 
 whispered, " The favour I shall ask of Claude is, 
 that I may marry you to him !" 
 
 CHAPTER XYIII. 
 
 BROKEN OFF. 
 
 THE light was dim, though not remarkably reli- 
 gious, in Claude Walsingham's quarters, when 
 Stanley Yillars entered them that night, some 
 hours after that last scene with Miss Yane. An 
 aromatic haze hung over all things, and through 
 it the forms of three men loomed largely. " A 
 smoking orgie," Stanley thought, with a mo- 
 mentary disgust : " it's neither the time nor the 
 place to speak of her; and yet she must be 
 spoken of before Claude and I part again." 
 
 He went in, and sat down in a low chair, at 
 the end of the couch on which Major "Walsing- 
 ham had been lounging, when he entered, 
 Claude meeting and greeting him as he came 
 along, and noticing the dog Rock, who fol- 
 lowed close at "his heels, with an angry wonder 
 that he (Claude) was unable to conceal from 
 Stanley. 
 
 " Glad to see you, old fellow. Is this meant 
 as a delicate hint that you don't want the set- 
 ter pup?" Major Walsingham asked, patting 
 Rock on the head ; and Stanley answered 
 
 "It is not meant as a delicate hint about 
 anything that you're not well acquainted with 
 already." This he said in so low a voice that 
 the other two men could not hear him. Claude 
 heard him, however, and leant forward tender- 
 ing him a cigar and a light from the end of his 
 own, and asked 
 
 " What is it, Stanley? speak out!" 
 
 Stanley gave two little puff's, and the cigar 
 caught the spark from the end of the one that 
 was a burning and shining light in the mouth 
 of his friend. Then he leant back, saying 
 
 " The dog is all that I'm to have : you won't 
 grudge me that, will you ?" 
 
 "They leave me at ten to see the last act of 
 Fidelio:' wait till they're gone, for God's 
 sake!" Claude replied hurriedly. He saw that 
 Stanley Yillars was in a humour to speak out 
 and say* rash things, perhaps, without a care or 
 a thought of who heard them. Foreseeing the\ 
 nature, in a measure, of those things, he was ' ( ,' 
 desirous to stay the saying of them till such 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 55 
 
 time as they (Stanley and he) should be alone 
 together. 
 
 The two men who were sharing in what 
 Stanley Villars had declared to himself to be a 
 "smoking orgie" when he entered, were two 
 of the same men who had gone down to Rich- 
 mond on the drag that warm July night, and 
 congratulated Claude on his victory over many 
 things. They were not gifted with extraordi- 
 nary perceptive faculties, still they had marked 
 that Claude seemed rather more than a "trifle 
 taken with the girl who was going to throw 
 herself away upon a country parson." They 
 had seen him bring his greys up abreast of her 
 chestnuts several" times in the drive. They had 
 observed him fa-r back in her mother's box at 
 the opera, even when Circe sang. They had 
 seen him riding by her side in the Row, which 
 last sight was conclusive evidence in their eyes 
 that he was "going to try it on with her," 
 his detestation of the Row being an understood 
 thing. Stanley Villars' advent appeared to af- 
 ford promise of a piquant study. They there- 
 fore resolved to forego "Fidelio," and abide the 
 issue of said advent here in Claude's room. 
 
 The hour ten approached, arrived, passed : 
 all four men began to get impatient. The old 
 friends, who felt themselves, and were felt by 
 these comparative strangers, to be rivals, wanted 
 to be alone in order to say those things to each 
 other which the interlopers trusted might leak 
 out under the influence of wine, smoke, and ex- 
 citement. Unfortunately, however, as far as 
 their curiosity was concerned, both Claude and 
 Stanley were gentlemen. No vintage so po- 
 tent as to make them forget the respect due to 
 a lady's name, small cause as one of them had 
 for so respecting her. 
 
 Still their hearts, and heads, and thoughts, 
 were all too hot for cool, sensible converse to 
 be within the bounds of possibility, when they 
 were finally left alone. The " good nights " of 
 Claude's unwanted guests had scarcely ceased 
 echoing in then* ears when Stanley Villars 
 commenced 
 
 "I have seen Miss Vane to-day," and stop- 
 ped abruptly, thinking over how he had sworn 
 to himself not to see her as Miss Vane again till 
 the day when he should unite her to his friend. 
 
 "Well!" Claude answered doggedly. He 
 felt guilty, how guilty! True he had never 
 spoken words to her that should not have fallen 
 on the ears of the betrothed bride of his friend ; 
 but the manner of his refraining from such 
 words had been fraught with- a tender danger 
 that no spoken words could have aggravated, 
 and he knew it. I do not think that he felt 
 repentant at that moment, but unquestionably 
 he felt guilty ; and feeling so, feeling guilty, and 
 grieved for himself and for her, and for this old 
 friend who had made the romance of his boy- 
 hood, he answered, doggedly, "Well!" 
 
 "Well!" Stanley repeated after him; "is it 
 well? You shall hear and judge. She was to 
 have been my wife, you know ; she was to have 
 been my wife this month! I loved her so 
 I loved her so, that I would have given my 
 life, my soul, by God, for her! Don't look at 
 the brandy, Claude; I'm not drunk! I'm not 
 avowing a readiness to go to perdition under 
 any other intoxicating influence than the in- 
 toxication of disappointment. 'Well, 'as you 
 
 said just now, the dog is all that is left to me 
 of the dream. She can't keep her vow now her 
 love has left me. Do you hear me, old fellow ?'' 
 
 He did not look in his friend's face as he 
 asked "did he hear?" He sat down again, 
 and covered his eyes" with his hands, and the 
 dog that she had given him stood up and licked 
 away the tears that were oozing through his 
 fingers. Thus he sat, thus Rock and himself 
 grouped themselves for a few minutes, during 
 which Major Walsingham went through the 
 elementary white bear evolutions up and down 
 the length o the room. 
 
 Claude was horribly perplexed. He did not 
 know what to say ; more, he did not know 
 what to think: worse than this even, he 
 could not decide on what it would sound 
 well to say. The position was an awfully un- 
 pleasant one; for he had loved Stanley as 
 warmly as he had loved any one till this wo- 
 man with the flickering eyelashes and flicker- 
 ing faith had come between them. He could 
 not deem himself wholly blameless in the mat- 
 ter either ; and yet it would be a task of no 
 small difficulty to say in so many set words 
 how he had erred. 
 
 He brought his promenade to a termination at 
 last, and stood close by Stanley's shoulder. 
 
 " I'd give half my life that none of this had 
 occurred!" he said, softly. 
 
 "Too late! it has occurred!" 
 
 "It has, as you say," Claude went on, speak- 
 ing in a firmer tone than the one in which he 
 had uttered his previous words; "it has occur- 
 red; bear it like a man, old fellow!" 
 
 The other dropped the concealing hands 
 dropped them down on the honest head of the 
 tawny dog who was standing close up to him, 
 and raised his pale, pain-lined face. That's 
 devilish easy for you to say, Claude," he said 
 slowly. " In losing her I lose my faith in all 
 I have had faith in hitherto in God and man, 
 and, worse than all, in myself; it has all gone 
 at one blow." 
 
 "It will come back. We have all gone 
 through this sort of thing." 
 
 " Have you ? By heaven, no ! If you had, 
 you would never have put me through it," 
 Stanley interrupted. It was the first allusion 
 either of them had made to Claude's share in 
 this disruption in the established order of things. 
 Major Walsingham said nothing in reply to this 
 immediately. He was feeling that if he noticed 
 it and defended himself, it would have the ap- 
 pearance of casting the reflection upon Bella 
 that she had been over easy to win, and this he 
 scorned to do, though Miss Vane certainly had 
 "had no cunning to be strange," as far as be 
 was concerned. 
 
 After a brief period of silence he spoke 
 
 'VWhy did you keep me at Denham, when I 
 wanted to come away ? " 
 
 "Don't speak about it! " Stanley said, mise- 
 rably. Then he added, in that contradictory 
 spirit which is so symptomatic of the disease 
 under which he was labouring, "You have 
 seen her here in town ; leaving Denham would 
 have been of no avail. Don't explain don't 
 excuse yourself by telling me how it has been 
 done ; why should you ? all is fair in love or 
 war." 
 
 "Stanley! on my honour, there has been 
 
56 
 
 ON GUARD. 
 
 nothing premeditated ! 'All is fair.' What are 
 you thinking of? I would have cut off my 
 right hand sooner than run against you in such 
 a race. It's fate, old fellow blind fortune. 
 Don't you think I suffer as much in winning, if 
 I have won, from you, as I should in losing to 
 any other man ? Can you not believe me ? Is 
 this thing to come between us and blot out the 
 warm feelings and the confidence of years? 
 By God, no woman's worth it ! no, not the 
 sweetest and purest that ever stepped i " 
 
 'Don't undervalue what you have gained. 
 There will be poor comfort to me in the thought 
 that she may possibly be judged less highly by 
 you than she would have been by me if she- 
 could have kept to me." His voice faltered 
 a little as he said this, and Claude turned away 
 impatiently. Had Major Walsingham alone 
 been concerned, he would willingly at that mo- 
 ment have restored Miss Vane to Stanley ; he 
 really did feel that no woman was worthy of 
 this sorrow that could even temporarily subdue 
 such manliness. The game was a pretty one 
 enough, and an interesting one to play, but 
 scarcely worth the candle. 
 
 But he was not alone concerned. Bella had 
 put forth all her strength, and broken the 
 bonds ; or she had exerted all her feminine inge- 
 nuity, and wriggled out of them. It was out 
 of his power to re-adjust them on Stanley's 
 behalf. There was nothing to be done, save to 
 make the best of it. 
 
 " Look here, old fellow, we only torture each 
 other by talking about it ; from the bottom of 
 my soul I regret my share in the business." 
 
 " From the bottom of mine I forgive you," 
 poor Stanley replied ; " we'll have done with 
 the topic for ever, if you will, when you have 
 answered me one question granted me one 
 favour." 
 
 11 Ask it." 
 
 " Let me be the one to join you to her when 
 you do marry her ? " 
 
 Claude moved uneasily ; this request seemed 
 to him romantic in the last degree romantic, 
 foolish, idle everything that was most unlike 
 Stanley Villars. He no more fathomed the 
 motive which had dictated it than did the dog 
 which stood gazing at him while he hesitated 
 to answer it. 
 
 "I don't attach much importance to the 
 ' holy ceremony,' you know," he said at last ; 
 " it's womanly, though, not to be satisfied with 
 a civil contract." 
 
 "The 'holy ceremony,'" Stanley repeated 
 after him ; "at any rate, I may as well perform 
 it as any other man. Do you say ' Yes ? ' " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "Agreed! And now we will never speak 
 of these things again. Good night, Claude ; be 
 happy, old boy, and and don't think that 
 I am not so tool " 
 
 Stanley Villars did not see his sister Florence 
 that night, though he went to his mother's 
 house, scandalising her orderly domestics by 
 arriving at such an unholy hour, and slept 
 through what was left of it. When he came 
 down the following morning, Florence came 
 to meet him as soon as he opened the door ; j 
 and she looked so brightly beautiful, so hap- j 
 py and blooming, that it almost jarred upon ! 
 him 
 
 " Dear Stanley, why didn't you let us know 
 you were coming ? " Florence asked. 
 
 " I dare say Bella knew," Lady Villars said, 
 getting up to give her son a warmer welcome. 
 
 "No, she didn't. Where's Georgie?" he 
 asked, rather absently. He wanted to tell out 
 the truth at once ; he wanted them all to hear 
 it, in order that there might be no repetitions. 
 
 "Georgie is staying with Gerald and his 
 wife." 
 
 " In Scotland, are they not ? " 
 
 " Yes, Mr. planners is with them. They 
 hope that Bella and you will go to them when 
 you come back from wherever you're going on 
 the Continent. When is it to be, Stanley ? " 
 
 "Never!" Stanley said. "Don't express 
 surprise, or anything else, for mercy's sake, 
 mother I " 
 
 Lady Villars controlled all expression, not 
 alone of surprise, but of the horrible disappoint- 
 ment she felt at this downfall of her son's pros- 
 pects. She had sincerely rejoiced in the con- 
 templated alliance, for Stanley was her pet son ; 
 and, alas ! he was the younger one. 
 
 "Broken off," she faintly articulated at last ; 
 " my poor boy! my poor, dear boy !" 
 
 "How, Stanley? why?" Florence asked, 
 going up and clasping her arms over his shoul- 
 der, and leaning her head down upon his chest. 
 " You haven't quarrelled she loves you so ! 
 Can't it be made up ?" 
 
 "Don't be a little fool," he replied, almost 
 roughly ; " it's all over, I tell you. Love me ! 
 that's absurd now. She is going to marry 
 Claude Walsingham!" 
 
 This was the moment when that other misery, 
 to which I have alluded in a former chapter, 
 was laid bare to him. As he spoke in those 
 rough accents, and accents that it went against 
 his heart then, even in the midst of his own 
 anguish, to use to Florence, she shrank away 
 from him with a cry of "No! no! no!" and a 
 shiver that seemed to wither, as it passed over 
 her frame. 
 
 " My God ! my poor darling 1 there's not this 
 in addition to my own wretchedness ?" he cried, 
 taking her in his arms again. "He has not 
 been a scoundrel to us loth f he interrogated, 
 as his mother came up and kissed Florence on 
 her now flame-coloured forehead, and sighed 
 that " she had feared it all along ; that she had 
 always distrusted Major Walsingham, and en- 
 joined caution on Florence." 
 
 " How should caution have availed her when 
 he made her love him, as, to my cost, I know 
 he can make a woman love ?" Stanley said in 
 answer. Then Florence shuddered and drew 
 away from him, and played a portion of that 
 little mock heroic part which custom commands 
 that women shall play on such occasions. 
 
 " I was only the more sorry and surprised 
 because it was Claude," she said, with a gulp 
 over his name. " It wasn't for myself, Stanley. 
 Don't think anything ; don't I don't ! Promise 
 you won't!" 
 
 "The other I might have forgiven, but not 
 this double treachery," he replied. 
 
 "There has been no treachery," Florence 
 said, trying to speak firmly in order to carrjr 
 conviction to her brother's heart. 
 
 " It is a folly that you will soon that you 1 
 must soon conquer, dear," her mother interpoa- 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 57 
 
 ed. Lady Villars was a loving parent, tender 
 and considerate to her children. But for all that 
 tenderness and consideration, she could not 
 suffer Florence to be encouraged to destroy her 
 earliest bloom, and so injure her prospects, by 
 weeping over the defalcation of one who, 
 whether he had loved or not, had undoubtedly 
 ridden away. 
 
 It was almost as if there had been a death in 
 the house that day. The usual order of things 
 was rudely interrupted. There was no future 
 sister-in-law sending round an intimation of her 
 intention to call Florence for a drive, as had been 
 the custom lately. There was no Claude to be 
 hoped for all the morning, and found at the 
 luncheon table. Lady Villars, feeling that she 
 could not assuage the sorrow which had come 
 upon her children, retired to her own room and 
 wrote a long account, or, rather, many pages 
 of conjectures, as to the real cause of Bella 
 Vane's change of faith, to her eldest son, Sir 
 Gerald. It was a bitter grief to her that the 
 girl whose money would have placed Stanley 
 so well, whether he clung to his profession or 
 not, should have turned round at the last and 
 bestowed it on the man whose dallying around 
 Florence had been for many months a source of 
 annoyance to her. But though she lamented on 
 Stanley's account, and censured Bella with a 
 warm censure in which there was no toleration, 
 she refrained from saying a word about either 
 Claude or Florence. The mother remembered 
 that her eldest son was a married man, and 
 that young Lady Villars was one who would 
 not suffer a telling story to die out for want of 
 t frequent repetition, even were it against her 
 nearest. All she said about her daughter, 
 therefore, was "Florry feels this dreadfully, 
 knowing (as I do also) that Stanley will never 
 make another scheme of happiness. Miss Vane 
 has wronged us all' cruelly by being so falsely 
 fond. He will never forget it ; and while he 
 remembers, his life will be barren." 
 
 For many hours after that disclosure Florence 
 strove to avoid her mother, her brother, even 
 the light of day. A sort of ague, that increased 
 directly it was looked upon, seized her ; and so 
 ghe crept away to a corner of her bedroom, be- 
 tween the wall and the heavy masses of curtain 
 that fell from a ring in the ceiling over her bed, 
 the shade of which partially concealed her. She 
 had neither been fickle, heartless, unstable, nor 
 false. But she suffered as much pain and as 
 much shame as though she had been all these 
 things. "When she thought of Claude she could 
 scarcely lift her eyes from the ground. He had 
 been the deceiver, but it was the deceived that 
 was abashed, and suffered bitter woe at the 
 memory of the deception. 
 
 Superadded to her own sorrow at losing the 
 hope that the love which she thought a more 
 glorious thing than God's sun would eventually 
 be pledged openly, as it had been persistently 
 proffered to her mutely for long, was the heart- 
 ache she had for her brother. Hard as her own 
 case was, his she felt to be an infinitely harder 
 one. He was deceived by both friend and love ; 
 she by her heart alone 1 
 
 So she told herself; for even to herself she 
 would strive to vindicate Claude ; even to her 
 own heart she told the white lie that removed 
 the semblance of dishonourable dealing from 
 
 him. He had been kind, gentle, and loving to 
 her in what she ought to have felt to be what 
 it was, a brotherly way only. As she thought 
 of some of his brotherly kindnesses she would 
 break down for a minute or two with the sick- 
 ening consciousness that they had clouded her 
 life in a way brotherly kindnesses should never 
 have done ; and then she would battle with 
 the external display of emotion and do away 
 with the signs of it, remembering that she 
 must see Stanley again at luncheon, when every 
 tear-stain on her face would recall to him that 
 which it behoved her to try and teach him to 
 forget. 
 
 She was very loyal to her brother, but she 
 was loyal to her woman's nature too. She 
 wished to think of Stanley only, but some su- 
 perior behest whether God-given or not, who 
 shall say ? made her think almost entirely of 
 Claude. 
 
 She hardly dared to raise .her eyes to Stan- 
 ley's face when she found herself seated oppo- 
 site to him again. She dreaded what she might 
 see there. It seemed to her a sort of treason 
 to be observant of aught that Stanley himself 
 could wish unseen. When she did at last, in 
 answer to some question he addressed to her, 
 raise her eyes to his and nod assent, she found 
 that he was looking at her very steadily, as 
 though he desired to read all that she desired to 
 conceal. 
 
 " You have been having a hard time of it 
 this morning, Florry," he said compassionately ; 
 " don't try to tell me no, little one!" he added, 
 hastily rising up and going round to her and 
 clasping her to his heart, as a man would clasp 
 the one thing he felt to be true to him when the 
 one to whom he was most true had given that 
 heart a deadening blow. 
 
 " I am so foolish," she murmured ; " only for 
 you though, dear I only for you I" 
 
 He tried to believe her, for he desired to be- 
 lieve her. If he did not credit this statement 
 of herSj he could not ask her to do something 
 for him which he wanted done. He was not 
 that exceptional thing, an entirely unselfish 
 man, therefore he strove to credit his sister's 
 statement of her sorrow being for him alone. 
 
 " Will you do something that I would not 
 ask another woman in the world to do for me, 
 Florry ; that no other woman, save my sister 
 Florry; would be noble enough to do ?" 
 
 "Yes, anything." 
 
 The love that not even perfidy and light re- 
 gard of his mighty claims on her could quell 
 welled up for Bella Vane and cast out his con- 
 sideration for his sister. 
 
 " Be a friend to Bella should she ever need 
 you, Florry. Promise me that you will not 
 avoid her should she seek you. Promise me 
 that you will never let her guess that you have 
 cause for suffering in connection with her, inde- 
 pendent of my share in this affair." 
 
 "You ask me, Stanley? " 
 
 "I entreat you to do this." 
 
 " I will, dear. But how should she want me ? 
 Why should she need a friend ? Why should I 
 trouble her, even ? She will have Claude ! She 
 will be so happy ! " 
 
 Not all her gentle sweetness ; not all her love 
 for her brother ; not all* her modest doubt of 
 Claude's ever having entertained more than a 
 
53 
 
 ON GUARD. 
 
 brotherly fondness for her, could soften or sub- 
 due the sharp, poignant, bitter ring of genuine 
 jealousy with which these words rang out 
 "She will have Claude! She will be so 
 happy 1 " They painted vividly a whole series 
 of pictures of Claude and Bella, happy and to- 
 gether, that were maddening to look upon. 
 They brought with hideous clearness to the 
 inind of the one who listened, Bella's caressing 
 words and ways ; and to the one who spoke, 
 Claude's mighty power of tenderness. 
 
 " She will have Claude ; but make her happi- 
 ness while you may, for it will not last long," 
 he said at last ; and Florry sobbingly rejoined, 
 ' I promise ; I promise." 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 OVER THE PRECIPICE. 
 
 IT can hardly be told how the fair and perfect 
 understanding which it was necessary should 
 subsist came about between Major Walsingham 
 and Bella Yane. Their first meeting after that 
 last scene with Stanley was very 'awkward, for 
 not even to woman is given the exquisite tact 
 to utterly ignore all that has been held most 
 binding and most holy, in an instant. The 
 next interview was less embarrassing, however ; 
 and the next (they were both so young, and 
 were in such perfect health the secret of more 
 than half the joyousness of the world) was all 
 that could be desired in the way of blest obli- 
 vion. 
 
 Bella stood to these newly-cast guns of hers 
 stoutly ; and she had some need for the display 
 of all her strength. A great many wearing 
 obstacles obtruded themselves, in the shape of 
 irrelevant prayers from her guardians, and a 
 lot of people who were loosely connected with 
 her, to " be careful this time, and not to hastily 
 rush into a second error." 
 
 But she was young, and her health wa*s very 
 perfect, so she stood to her guns gallantly, and 
 never fired a shot hi anger. Indeed, this period 
 may be judged to have been far from an un- 
 pleasant one, for Claude was so devoted to her 
 that they both forgot to speak of or to seek 
 Florry Villars. 
 
 Miss Yane decided, on very good solid 
 grounds, that she had chosen the better part, 
 and been wise in throwing over the old love 
 for this new one, who never dictated to her in 
 arbitrary tones, or strove to rule her in right 
 lines harshly. She contrasted Claude's non- 
 exacting spirit with Stanley's slightly domineer- 
 ing one, and the contrast showed Claude off 
 favourably. She began to bless that luckless 
 ride which had brought Major Walsingham and 
 herself together under circumstances that had 
 proved so eminently conducive to feelings that 
 it behooved them both in honour to have 
 check. She sang full many an inward jubilate 
 over that morning stroll under the green trees 
 in the cathedral close, and gave the feelings 
 which she had held in with a tight hand that 
 day full play, now that she dared to do so. 
 
 It was a glorious time of triumph, and she 
 thought scarcely at all of Stanley, and never at 
 all of Florence during it. But they thought of 
 
 her. With a feverish, incessant pertinacity, 
 that would not be quieted, this brother and 
 sister had the memory of this girl, and her 
 pretty, pettish ways, ever before them. He, 
 running the round of duties down at Denham, 
 that had become not alone arduous, but odious 
 to him, would wonder restlessly when he 
 should be summoned to consummate the sacri- 
 fice, and mock his own heart by repeating the 
 formula that he had once held holy ; while 
 Florence strained her eyes daily, when out for 
 a drive with her mother, in order not so much 
 that she might see them, as that she might see 
 to avoid them. 
 
 Clearly Bella had no need of a friend as yet. 
 Florence was not put to the sore test by which 
 her brother had desired to try her. The girls 
 had been very friendly, after the manner of 
 girls; but when, in October, some of Claude's 
 relations, amongst others one of his sisters, 
 came up, and asked Bella, " How did she and 
 the Yillars' meet ? She had had one of the girls 
 staying with her, had she not?" Bella an- 
 swered, with .ever so little of a blush, and with 
 no shadow of contrite embarrassment 
 
 " Oh, yes ! but that was long ago. We 
 should be friendly enough if we met, I dare 
 say, but we never do meet. I wrote to her 
 once after that (you know), and she answered 
 me very kindly. Don't speak about it before 
 Claude, for he doesn't like it !" 
 
 This reputed prejudice of Claude's was re- 
 spected to the letter by his own family ; they 
 none of them offended him by the most distant 
 allusion to his predecessor in the heart of Miss 
 Yane. He marked their reticence, and, half 
 fancying that it sprang from some doubt of the 
 prudence of his choice, he resented it by still 
 greater reserve, which reacted upon them, ren- 
 dering them more reticent still. 
 
 Bella herself would talk cheerily enough to 
 him about Stanley. "He was too good and 
 too hard for me. I never loved him really, 
 I'm ashamed to say. What carried me away 
 to the point of such, forgetfulness of what I 
 knew my needs to bo, as to engage myself to 
 him, I can't think. I wanted 'warmth and 
 colour,' like Queen GuineTre, and that I found 
 in you, Claude." 
 
 "If I have been Launcelot to you hitherto, I 
 warn you I shall be Arthur henceforth," he 
 said; and Bella replied, "Oh, yes! Arthur, 
 without the unpleasantness." 
 
 It was not wholly disagreeable to Claude to 
 hear that Stanley Yillars had ever been cold and 
 hard to Bella, even while betrothed to her. He 
 did not entirely believe it, but still the hearing 
 it was pleasanter than the hearing records of 
 impassioned sympathy would have been. That 
 Stanley had had hot love in his heart for Bella 
 he felt firmly convinced. He also felt firmly 
 convinced that Stanley had never suffered the 
 utmost fervour of that heat to betray itself to 
 her, for Bella sagaciously kept the story of 
 that last meeting and parting embrace to her- 
 self. 
 
 It was in the last ruddy October days that 
 the marriage was to take place, and a brief no- 
 tice of this fact was forwarded to Stanley, ac- 
 cording to promise, by the happy expectant 
 bridegroom. The answer to this notice assured 
 Claude that he (Mr. Yillars) would be there at 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 the time appointed. After it came they forgot, 
 or seemed to forget him again. 
 
 Comparatively speaking, it was to be a very 
 quiet wedding. They had erected this new 
 fabric too quickly on the ashes of the old for it 
 to seem well to those who had the organisation 
 of it to bid many to the opening spectacle. But, 
 quiet as they determined that the wedding 
 should be, and few as were the guests whom 
 they cared to assemble, it gave them a power 
 of trouble. 
 
 In the first place Mrs. Yane, Bella's indolent 
 mamma, unexpectedly roused herself, and de- 
 clared that it would be an indecent exhibition 
 of carelessness of what had gone before to allow 
 Stanley Villars to perform the ceremony. It 
 was in vain that Bella avowed that it was " nice 
 and natural of Stanley to wish to do it, since he 
 desired to be friendly with Claude and herself." 
 Mrs. Vane could not deny her natural maternal 
 instincts. She doubted the desire for future in- 
 tercourse of a merely friendly order, and re- 
 membered that embrace which she had wit- 
 nessed that day when the final blow was struck 
 at the last contemplated alliance. 
 
 " You must argue the question with Claude, 
 mamma," Bella said, at last; "he agreed to 
 Stanley's request. That being the case, I do 
 feel that no one else has any excuse for saying 
 a word against it." 
 
 Even to this extent the extent of arguing 
 with Claude did Mrs. Yane go, in her desire 
 to avert this thing, from which she felt no good 
 could accrue. 
 
 " It will be a needless trial to all your feel- 
 ings," she urged, and Claude answered 
 
 "No trial to mine; and. if Stanley's half as 
 sensible as I take him to be, none to his either, 
 after this lapse of time. At any rate, my dear 
 madam, if we are to-be had up at all, like crimi- 
 nals at the bar, before the altar, for a mob to 
 stare at, it must be under Stanley's auspices. 
 I'd prefer going through some simpler ceremony 
 say jumping over a broomstick, or going to a 
 registrar's office ; but perhaps you would hardly 
 feel satisfied about your daughter." 
 
 On hearing which, Mrs. Yane lifted up the 
 hands of her soul in dumb amaze, and said no 
 further words that were antagonistic to that 
 plan regarding Stanley Yillars. 
 
 After this a second and a mightier annoyance 
 arose. It has been seen that some of Major 
 Walsin ham's relations had come up and 'made 
 the acquaintance of the bride. But they were 
 minor relations sisters and younger brothers, 
 and" such small deer. Claude wanted his pa- 
 rents to come up and do honour to the alliance, 
 and the woman with whom he was going to 
 make it. He had asked both his father and 
 mother to come, but he had been especially 
 urgent that his mother should do so, and his 
 mother steadfastly declined to pleasure him in 
 this. She would not come. Worse than this, 
 she wrote him four pages of reasons why she 
 would not do so, and none of these reasons 
 were soothing to him. She was ill pleased at 
 his choice : a heart so lightly won and lightly 
 lost, as she affected to believe Miss Yane's must 
 have been, was not the heart that should have 
 beaten within the breast of the wife of the hope 
 of her house. She distrusted Miss Yane ; she 
 disliked that complete abnegation of all the old 
 
 ties of friendship with her late lover's family, of 
 which report said Miss Yane was now guilty. 
 All this she said in so many straightforward 
 words to her son, and the reading it was dis- 
 turbing. 
 
 "It's devilish hard that because a girl can't 
 control her affections she is to be regarded in 
 this way! " Claude said to his sister, who had 
 received a corresponding letter. " Bella is im- 
 pressionable a grave offence in my mother's 
 eyes. I shall never take her down there." 
 
 " Oh yes, you will ! take her down and all 
 will be well. Mamma is a little rigid, perhaps ; 
 but it' all comes of her anxiety for your happi- 
 ness, Claude." 
 
 " Bella will be awfully hurt at this definite 
 refusal to come to our marriage," he said, rather 
 sadly. "I thought my mother would have 
 done me so much grace as that." 
 
 However, when he told Bella that his 
 " mother found she could not come," he was 
 surprised (he scarcely knew himself whether 
 agreeably or not) to find that Miss Yane was 
 most unfeignedly indifferent about it. "Oh! 
 can't she, Claude ? Let me see, that's one 
 two, indeed, for we counted your father off 
 the list, for sure ! " 
 
 When her marriage morning came Miss Yane 
 neither was, nor did she feign to be indifferent. 
 She was as nervous, despite her experiences, as 
 an author over a first review. She could but 
 remember vividly she could but feel conscious 
 that others were remembering vividly the 
 widely different conditions under which, but 
 the other day, she had thought to stand at the 
 altar with Stanley Yillars. For the first time 
 she felt that her mother's objections to him as 
 the uniting medium were good, valid, and* 
 reasonable. For the first time it struck her 
 that Claude had been wanting in delicacy of 
 feeling in acceding to a request that had been 
 made under most disordering circumstances. 
 It was all too late to alter things, however, so 
 she kept her just awakened scruples to herself, 
 and resolved to go through it all, as though it 
 all seemed fair and smooth to her, as it did to 
 the majority of the idle, unenlightened lookers- 
 on. 
 
 But it was far from being fair and smooth to 
 her. It was an awful ordeal *to stand there, 
 and hear the words that were binding her to 
 another uttered by the man who had avowed 
 the hottest passion for her when last they met. 
 It was hard to know what he felt for her, and 
 then to hear him asking her to vow, before 
 God, to love, honour, and obey the one who 
 had wrested her from him. It was hard to 
 have him taking her hand and Claude's toge- 
 ther ! Thoughtless as she was, there was not 
 one touch of baseness in her nature her whole 
 soul revolted at this. But harder than all else 
 was it to hear him utter the final blessing, in 
 tones that told her fully that he felt how idle 
 the words Were how weak, after all that had 
 gone before. 
 
 He meanwhile found himself marvelling, 
 with a strange composure, whether custom had 
 so monstrously distorted her naturally bright 
 understanding as to render her oblivious of the 
 ghastly incongruity which was the distinguish- 
 ing characteristic of the occasion. In his pre- 
 sence could she possibly forget that at " the 
 
60 
 
 ON GUARD. 
 
 dreadful day of judgment, when the secrets of 
 all hearts shall be disclosed," an "impediment" 
 to so brisk an alteration as she had made in her 
 scheme of life, should have to be confessed? 
 Or had she thrown the pieces of the broken 
 troth aside, as we do a shattered vase or a frac- 
 tured glove, either of which may be replaced 
 at our earliest opportunity ? 
 
 He decided in favour of deeming her guilty 
 of the utter oblivion. Because she, remembering 
 all too well as she did, dared not permit herself 
 to show that she remembered aught, he fancied 
 her to be just thus much more thoughtless and 
 careless than she was. A woman must always 
 be misjudged in such a case as this: she is 
 arraigned at the bar of individual opinion, and 
 common prudence forbids that she shall attempt 
 to offer evidence in her own defence to that 
 special person. 
 
 It was over at last ! The priest, the bride- 
 groom, and the rest of the nobler sex stalked 
 as majestically as the nineteenth century garb 
 and circumstances would allow, and the bride 
 and bridesmaids billowed like surging waves 
 of tulle; into the vestry, where as many as 
 were requested to do so, signed a something, 
 and all wished the happy pair long life and 
 happiness, hysterically. Then the church was 
 cleared of the curious crowd, and the clergy- 
 man who had officiated of his canonical cos- 
 tume, and it was all over, all over ! 
 
 Stanley Yillars did not intend, nor was he 
 pressed to go back to the nest from which the 
 bird had winged her flight, and eat, and drink, 
 and be merry. The man who had won and 
 the man who had lost said their final say to 
 each other, while the bride was drawing on her 
 gloves (and trying not to look at them), after 
 signing her maiden name for the last time. 
 Major Walsingham put his hand out with a 
 half uncertain air to his old ally, and asked, 
 " It is all well with us, Stanley ? We shall see 
 you when we come back ?" 
 
 " It is all well with us, but you won't see me 
 till one of you need me, sorely enough to make 
 me forget, which, God knows, I trust may be 
 never!" 
 
 "It's been devilish hard on both of us, old 
 boy," the other replied in rather a shaken tone, 
 '" but the worst is over now." 
 
 " Yes, there can be nothing beyond it in 
 point of pain ; but it's over now, as you say." 
 
 Major "Walsingham turned to his wife as his 
 old friend said this, and drew her by the hand 
 towards them. 
 
 " Can you tell him, Bella, how warmly we 
 shall always regard him how cut to the quick 
 we shall be if he can't come to us ?" 
 
 " That I can," she said frankly. " Good bye, 
 dear Stanley," she added suddenly, with evi- 
 dent symptoms of breaking down, and a com- 
 plete confession in her eyes of inability to say 
 that which she had but the instant before 
 avowed her perfect readiness (to utter. Then 
 the newly-made husband and wife turned 
 away, and when Stanley Villars raised his 
 eyes (he had dropped them when the confes- 
 sion gleamed from hers) he was almost alone, 
 and the shouts of the crowd outside told him 
 that the bridal pair were starting on the jour- 
 ney of life. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 "MY WIFE." 
 
 THE first stage m the journey was over. They 
 whom we saw last in the act of starting upon 
 it had been man and wife for some months now 
 when we are about to run up the curtain, and 
 call them forward to the front of the stage 
 again. II was in the ruddy, mellow, latest Oc- 
 tober days that they vanished ; the season of 
 their re-appearance is bright, clear January 
 weather. 
 
 Major and Mrs. "Walsingham had every rea- 
 son to suppose that they had executed a grand 
 success in thus joining forces for the purpose of 
 together fighting the battle of life. They had 
 been excellent travelling companions. Every- 
 thing had gone smoothly with them : none of 
 the wilfulness of old days had cropped up in 
 Bella, She, with her bright, high spirit, was 
 as easy to manage Claude told himself as the 
 meekest woman would have been. Her will 
 never ran counter to his, though she was as far 
 removed from being a slave wife as the north 
 pole is from the south. True, he had never 
 " pulled against her " yet ; but up to the pre- 
 sent time a hair-rein and a finger were all suffi- 
 cient to guide her. 
 
 Major Walsingham had long since forgiven 
 his mother for disregarding his warmly ex- 
 pressed wishes, and refusing to come to his 
 wedding. He had gone on excusing her so 
 assiduously to Bella (not that Bella seemed to 
 think excuses needed), that at last he fully ex- 
 cused her to his own heart. He was not unna- 
 turally desirous of showing his wife to her 
 his wife whom he firmly believed to be as 
 " game as she was mild, and as mild as she was 
 game." His mother's quick appreciation would 
 speedily show her that Bella would never mar 
 the breed. 
 
 This being the case, he felt a little disap- 
 pointed when Bella received the news of an 
 invitation to spend Christmas with them at the 
 Court, his father's place, with a blank look. It 
 might be that she " was a little tired though," 
 he said to himself, for it was the night of their 
 return to town from their tour. Invitations to 
 be off and doing again immediately do not fall 
 refreshingly on the ear when one has just come 
 off a long journey. 
 
 " I thought you would like to go," he said. 
 " However, we will speak about it to-morrow." 
 
 " Go ! of course I shall like to go above all 
 things, Claude. I have been looking forward 
 to going there in March." 
 
 " Why more in March than now ? What has 
 March done to be specially selected for the 
 honour ? " 
 
 "Why, this is the twenty-third, you see, 
 Claude. If we go down to-morrow, I shall 
 absolutely not have a moment to spare for any- 
 thing, and I have so many things to do." 
 
 " Do them when you come back." 
 
 " Of course I shall, if you make if you wish 
 me to start off at once," she replied. 
 
 She was bearing on the bit, but very lightly 
 only just so much as a well-mettled one 
 would do when taken unexpectedly over a little 
 bit of rough ground. 
 
 " Well, we will speak about it to-morrow," 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 61 
 
 Major "Walsingbam said once more, after looking 
 at her for an instant or two in silence. 
 
 " Perhaps it would be better to settle it to- 
 night, dear," she rejoined, brightly. " If we do 
 go, I must sit up and write notes to divers 
 people whom I have promised to see to-morrow ; 
 if we are not to go, I will be off to rest my 
 weary head at once." 
 
 Her weary head looked uncommonly grace- 
 ful and pretty as she spoke. He saw that 
 she was trying to have her own way in this 
 matter; but she was trying for it so good- 
 humouredly, so gracefully, that he determined 
 to give way the more especially as a country 
 Christmas did not recommend itself at all too 
 warmly to his sympathies. 
 
 "Then I will settle that we go down in 
 March," he said, laughing ; on which Bella 
 got up and danced across the room to him, and 
 kissed him. ' 
 
 " You darling boy ! I would do anything in 
 the world to please you," she said; "but I am 
 tired, and writing notes to-night would have 
 been rather hard work." 
 
 So it came to pass that it was not until the 
 bright, clear March weather had set in that the 
 eldest son of the house and his bride made 
 their appearance at the Court. The whole 
 family were then assembled there ; the married 
 sisters and their husbands, and the younger bro- 
 thers and the distant relatives, who remem- 
 bered the ties of affinity annually, had not 
 departed when Major and Mrs. Claude Walsing- 
 ham arrived. There were just precisely the 
 same elements of agreeability present at the 
 Court now as there had been present during the 
 Christmas week. But Mrs. Walsingham could 
 not quite forgive her daughter-in-law for not 
 having clutched at the olive-branch imme- 
 diately it had been, extended. Therefore, she 
 elected to believe that " things would have 
 been pleasanter if they had come at Christmas," 
 and to assert the same, not alone in so many 
 words, but in her manner also. The most deli- 
 cate bloom, in fact, was brushed off the welcome, 
 in consequence of the delay they had made in 
 coming. 
 
 Mrs. Claude was very happy, notwithstand- 
 ing this. Claude had brought down his horses, 
 and the lamented Vengeance had such a suc- 
 cessor that Mrs. Claude marvelled much at her- 
 self for ever having been satisfied with that 
 once prized mare. During the time they had 
 been in London, Bella and her new horse had 
 grown well accustomed to each other, though 
 their only field for the cultivation of this un- 
 derstanding had been Rotten Row. She had 
 found him free, light in hand, and though not 
 a "grand," a remarkably swift and elegant 
 goer. His temper, too, appeared as perfect as 
 was desirable, and Claude declared him to be 
 as safe and strong as a woman's horse should 
 be. 
 
 But he had been found by his mistress to be 
 worthy of a superior sphere of action than the 
 Row, therefore he had come down with 
 Claude's greys, for the purpose of being tried 
 over the neighbouring country, when the 
 hounds met near the Court. This, at least, was 
 Bella's intention, and as yet Claude had said 
 nothing antagonistic to it. 
 
 Major and Mrs. Claude Walsingham arrived 
 
 at an inauspicious hour at the family mansion. 
 There was a minute railway-station for the 
 accommodation of the Court, just half a mile 
 from the park gates. But Claude happened to 
 be asleep when the train stopped there, and 
 Bella did not clearly comprehend what the 
 guard was talking about, as he ran along the 
 platform, asking, " Any passengers for tho 
 Court?" Consequently they were carried on 
 five miles further, and then had to drive over 
 in their own open trap, instead of going up 
 comfortably in admirable time to dress for din- 
 ner, in the Court carriage. This little oversight 
 caused- them to be late for dinner ; there was 
 gloom in the family mansion when they ar- 
 rived. 
 
 Gloom that Bella's bright presence almost 
 dispelled. " How many of you do I know ?" 
 she said, throwing off some of her wraps, as 
 her husband hurriedly led her into the draw- 
 ing-room, where a powerful party awaited her. 
 Then giving a hand on each side to as many 
 brothers and sisters as came across her in her 
 progress, she made a swift descent upon Mrs. 
 Walsingham, and held up her cheek to be 
 kissed by that stately lady, to whom she took 
 an immediate liking, because, as she said after- 
 wards, " She was like Claude, in a bad temper 
 and a cap." 
 
 Old Mrs. Walsingham was very tall and very 
 stately, oppressively so until you got used to 
 her. She had married when she was very 
 young, and nearly the whole of her life had 
 been spent at the Court. It was small wonder, 
 therefore, that she should deem the majority of 
 things that were not done by herself, or some 
 other denizen of the Court, wrong. She had 
 never been guilty of jilting a man, nor had she 
 ever missed the Court railway platform. Bella 
 had done both these things, and Mrs. Walsing- 
 ham remembered them against her, even as she 
 came up blithely, and held up her cheek to be 
 kissed. 
 
 But the offender was Claude's wife, that the 
 mother "could never forget," she told herself, 
 even as the memory of those other things 
 rankled. So the kiss that was expected was 
 given, and given not unkindly. 
 
 " Claude is leaving me to introduce you to 
 his father, my dear," she said, taking Bella's 
 hand, and turning her round to where a hand- 
 some old gentleman, who looked like a king 
 with no thorns in his crown, stood shaking 
 hands with his son. u Having done which," 
 Mrs. Walsingham continued, as the father 
 stooped down with real old chivalresque courte- 
 sy to salute the young wife, "I will suggest 
 that you go to your room and prepare for din- 
 ner." 
 
 Mrs. Walsingham made the suggestion as 
 another woman would have uttered words of 
 the most authoritative command. Mrs. Claude 
 glanced at her mother-in-law with a glance that 
 looked half careless, but that was -in reality 
 very keen, and she saw breakers a-head. 
 
 " Will you ever forgive us for being so awk- 
 ward as to make this mistake on our first visit, 
 Mr. Walsingham?" the new daughter-in-law 
 asked, suddenly turning to her host. She lifted 
 her hat, a fast-looking turban hat, with a ptar- 
 migan's wing in it, from her head, as she spoke, 
 and stood revealed before them all, bright in 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 such beauty as might have been held to excuse 
 worse things than she had ever done. 
 
 " I think I could forgive you anything, my 
 dear." The words were very simple; he could 
 hardly have said less under the circumstances, 
 X)ut his manner pleased both his son and his 
 son's bride. He lifted her little hand up as 
 though it had been the hand of a queen, and 
 pressed his lips upon it as a father should on 
 the hand, of his child. Bella was quite satis- 
 fied. One at least in this house, and that one 
 the head of it, was not slow to recognise her 
 claim to universal consideration and admira- 
 tion. 
 
 " Then forgive me when I say that I would 
 rather stay here and thaw over this big fire, 
 than detain you all while I dressed for dinner. 
 Do let me stay ?" 
 
 Claude saw his mother's lips form the word 
 "whims," and on the instant he ranged him- 
 self on the side of his wife. 
 
 "It would be odd if you couldn't please 
 yourself about it, Bella ; stay here by all means 
 and rest yourself. Here, let me take your hat 
 and shawl." 
 
 He took the hat from her hand ; he lifted the 
 shawl from her shoulders ; he looked down into 
 her face admiringly while he did these things, 
 and his mother felt unqualified annoyance. He 
 had been all her own son to the best of her 
 knowledge before this, and now this girl had 
 him for her loving lackey, and she his mother 
 was nowhere ! 
 
 " Mrs. Claude must do as she pleases," the 
 old lady said, dropping her words out with fatal 
 distinctness ; "the rest of us will go in to din- 
 ner." 
 
 " Come up with me, Jack, while I wash my 
 hands," Claude said, turning to a younger bro- 
 ther ; " in one moment, mother, I will be with 
 you unless my wife would rather I stayed 
 with her?" he added, interrogatively, turning 
 to Bella, who shook her head, and laughed a 
 negative, and assured him that "his wife would 
 rather he went in and enjoyed himself," crouch- 
 ing away into a corner of a couch as she 
 spoke, and looking strangely pretty and defi- 
 ant. 
 
 Shall it be written ? she shed a few scalding 
 tears when they were all gone, and she was left 
 in that room alone. She had come expecting, 
 she hardly knew what ; but certainly not to be 
 scrutinised keenly, and caused to feel that she 
 was to blame in ever so little, on the first mo- 
 ment of her advent amongst them. She had 
 broken through a hedge of moral prickly-pears 
 for Claude, and they were Claude's relatives. 
 They should have remembered that she had 
 done this, and their manner should have accre- 
 dited her with it. Whatever her sins of omis- 
 sion or commission, Claude had been the sole 
 cause of them. Tossing on the sofa there alone, 
 while her husband was dining (hilariously per- 
 haps) with his family, she remembered all things 
 that were past and over amongst others, how 
 the Villars' had prized her. 
 
 How dared his mother glance thus coldly at 
 her ? She asked the question aloud almost, in 
 her young wrath against injustice. To the one 
 in whom old Mrs. Walsingham alone was inter- 
 ested, she (Bella) had been all that was loving, 
 devotional, faithful, and discreet. That she had 
 
 been the reverse of all these things to Stanley 
 Villars, she acknowledged to herself there in 
 her solitude. But it was not for them it was 
 not " for these Walsinghams" to point the barb 
 of truth and dig it into her breast. 
 
 "These Walsinghams," ah! she was one of 
 them now, she remembered one of them for 
 good or ill their glory would be her glory, their 
 interests hers. This was a softening reflection. 
 
 Presently another arose. How kind Claude 
 had been 1 That of course ; he would always 
 be kind, for was he not Claude, and she very 
 dearly fond of him. But how thoughtful he had 
 been, saying he would stay there with her in- 
 stead of going in and being happy and hungry 
 with the rest when she had avowed a want of 
 appetite, and a desire to stay there alone and be 
 quiet ! 
 
 " Unless my wife would rather that I stayed 
 with her!" She recalled those words. She 
 muttered them over to herself. "As if his ' wife' 
 would have kept him from dining for nothing, 
 dear old boy !" she murmured fondly; " but how 
 angry his mother looked at the bare thought 
 that I might possibly do so." Then she thought 
 afresh, how odd it was that they did not all 
 immediately feel her to be the boon she was; 
 and then she felt magnanimous, "they would 
 know better soon," and then a little sleepy. 
 Finally, she curled herself more closely in the 
 corner, and slumbered soundly, in happy forget- 
 fulness of all things that she disliked being re- 
 minded of in her waking moments. 
 
 She awoke to the whiz of voices, and the 
 whirr of garbs feminine. Gathering herself to- 
 gether she sat up and rubbed her eyes, and one 
 of Claude's sisters, a Mrs. Markham, came and 
 sat down by her, and asked her, "Was she 
 rested now, and had she had a nice sleep ? Three 
 times within the last quarter of an hour mamma 
 has crept up to you with a cup of tea in her 
 hand; she- thought you would like it when you 
 awoke." 
 
 " That's very kind of her," Bella answered ; 
 she was softened directly by this attention. She 
 spang up with no signs of her late fatigue in 
 either face or bearing, and went across to Mrs. 
 Walsingham, and told her how much obliged 
 she was, and how grateful for the tea, which she 
 forthwith sipped, and found cold and too sweet ; 
 but it was well meant, so she drank it (and felt 
 slightly sick) with sensations of gratitude. 
 
 She was still in her travelling dress a dark 
 cloth, with a habit top, and a little stand-up 
 collar round her throat. It was an unexcep- 
 tionable dress for the occasion for which it had 
 been donned. But Mrs. Walsingham took ex- 
 ception to it and its horse-shoe sleeve-link 
 accompaniments here at night in her drawing- 
 room. 
 
 The stately old lady, who had adhered with 
 pertinacity to so many of the fashions of her 
 youth as she could do without rendering herself 
 what her daughters called " an object," was no 
 friend to the semi-boyish style of modern female 
 dress. She glanced askance at Bella, not with 
 ill-concealed dislike, as Bella at once imagined, 
 but with more than a half dread that 'her son 
 had married the type of the girl of the day an 
 uncommonly offensive genus in her eyee. 
 
 Mrs. Claude Walsingham rose refreshed, like 
 a young lion, from her sleep. She saw a task 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 63 
 
 before ner, and she felt fully equal to accom- 
 plishing it. Her quick mind thoroughly com- 
 prehended the fact that, desirable acquisition as 
 she was, the mother of the man she had mar- 
 ried did not deem her such; "and though I 
 won't cringe to her a bit, I will win her en- 
 tirely," she said resolutely to herself. 
 
 " She did not sit down before the fortress at 
 once, and attempt patiently to besiege it. She 
 made light skirmishing attacks on the junior 
 members of the family, and left Mrs. Walsing- 
 ham free to think over her iniquities undis- 
 turbed for that evening. When the men came 
 in she whispered to Claude, who came to her 
 at once, to "go and talk to his mother," which 
 Claude did to the best of his ability; but it was 
 uphill work, as Mrs. Walsingham had observed 
 the whisper, and had taken it into her head 
 that her son's wife "was trying to keep him to 
 herself." 
 
 The two members of the family that Bella 
 liked best, as yet, were Mr. Walsingham and 
 Jack, the owner of the remarkable breed of red 
 Betters, of which mention has- been made in a 
 former chapter. To all outward seeming, Mr. 
 Walsingham was as dignified, stately, and de- 
 termined a gentleman as was fitting in the head 
 of the house. But straws show the direction of 
 the current ; and the reader will see in time, as 
 Bella did shortly,, that Mr. "Walsingham's strong- 
 est characteristic was 'a deep reverence for his 
 wife. 
 
 Moreover, though she liked him much, Bella 
 did not care to battle with somnolency for his 
 attention. With a very pretty air of dutiful- 
 ness and gradually developing affection, Mrs. 
 Claude sat on a low stool by the right arm of 
 his chair for a few minutes, toning her speeches 
 to the right family key as far as she could, and 
 giving Claude the place of honour, in the brief 
 tales she told of their tour, in a way that she 
 judged would be as pleasing for his father to 
 hear, as it was to her to speak. Still, though 
 the air of dutifulness sat upon her very natu- 
 rally and pleasingly, she was not sorry when 
 sleep carried the day against her, leaving her 
 free to cultivate one of the younger branches of 
 this tree on which she was grafted. 
 
 The one to whom she turned was the afore- 
 said Jack, Claude's third brother, who was about 
 her own age, as far as years went, and therefore 
 considerably younger in some things. He had 
 been to her wedding, and had then shown him- 
 self shy of her to a slight degree, as he would 
 have been of any woman who was about to be 
 married, and to whom he might be expected to 
 speak respecting such intention. But now all 
 the awkwardness was over there was nothing 
 more to say ; he almost succeeded in answering 
 her with as little embarrassment as he would 
 have answered a genuine sister, when she left 
 his father's side, and went and placed herself on 
 a sofa by_ him. 
 
 " I was so glad to see your face when I came 
 into the room. Claude had frightened me ; he 
 said 'Jack would be safe to be gone,' and I 
 shall want you so much." 
 
 He fought with his youth, and conquered. 
 She was only his sister after all ! 
 
 "I am very glad that you have come now 
 you have. I shall be off.' in a fortnight, and I 
 want to have two or three days with Claude 
 
 with Markham's hounds. We haven't had' a 
 day together for years neyer since I was a 
 boy." 
 
 Jack Walsingham was a handsome, fine, stal- 
 wart young fellow, with bright curly brown 
 hair, and honest blue eyes, full of life and health 
 and pluck and vigour, and with none of these 
 thingr toned down as yet. The ardent-spirited 
 part of her nature sympathised with him at 
 once, so she checked the smile that began to 
 quiver on her lips when he said he had "not 
 ridden with Claude since he was a boy," and 
 answered the boy animatedly. 
 
 "Is Mr. Markham, your brother-in-law, mas- 
 ter of. the hounds ?" 
 
 " He has a pack foxhounds, too. You must 
 go and see them throw off when they next 
 meet." 
 
 " Indeed I will ! Where will they meet ?" 
 
 " At Horsley Hollow, about two miles from 
 here. We always have a good day when the 
 meet is there; sure to find soon in Horsley 
 
 Wood. And but do you care for hunting ? 
 
 Perhaps you don't ; and if so, I shall bore you 
 if I talk about it." 
 
 She shook her head. "Do I not care for it ! 
 You- won't bore me, never fear; you must tell 
 me all* about the manners and customs of your 
 shire hunting-field. Does Mrs. Mark- 
 ham ride ?" 
 
 "What I Ellen?" 
 
 "Yes!" 
 
 u No ; Markham wouldn't let her if she could, 
 and she couldn't if he would. He hates to see 
 a woman in the field." 
 
 Mrs. Claude looked at Mr. Markham as her 
 young brother-in-law said this, and saw a stout, 
 tall, heavy-looking man, with an impassive red 
 face. 
 
 " Hates to see a woman in the field, does he ? 
 I can fancy it; he looks fat and selfish." 
 
 "The fact is," Jack replied, confidentially 
 putting his arm along on the back of the sofa, 
 and leaning nearer to Mrs Claude "the fact 
 is, Markham doesn't hunt them well at all ; 
 he can't ride a bit ; he always keeps along on 
 the roads, and creeps through gates. He's 
 awfully afraid of coming to grief; so, if there's 
 a lady in the field who does take anything, ho 
 is about the only man who dare not follow, 
 and then he gets laughed at. He does all he 
 can to stop it ; says women override the hounds 
 and get in the way. But it is all because it is 
 awkward even for him to shirk what a lady ' 
 goes at." 
 
 "It must be great fun to see him," Bella 
 said, reflectively, looking across at the object 
 of Jack's remarks once more. " Do you know 
 that my riding-horse has come down with me ?'' 
 
 " Claude mentioned it at dinner." 
 
 " Look here, Jack, I will go out on him 
 when the meet is at Horsley Hollow," she said 
 abruptly. 
 
 "You will ride to see them throw off?" 
 
 "Yes, and then follow." 
 
 "By Jove, do!" he exclaimed, delightedly. 
 He had to put a severe restraint upon himself , 
 in order not to risk offending her, by telling her 
 that she was " a brick to think of it !" 
 
 "Hush!" she whispered, laughing, "don't 
 say a word, or Mr. Markham will be raising 
 objections to it, probably, and I could not set 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 him at defiance. I suppose he migat refuse to 
 hunt them while I am down here, if he knew 
 beforehand of my intention ; but I don't think 
 he will be silly enough to call them off when 
 he finds me in the field?" 
 
 "No, humbug as he is, he won't do that. I 
 shall* go out and have a look at your horse pre- 
 sently. What has Claude done with the pup I 
 gave him ?" 
 
 " Kept it." 
 
 " I thought he wanted it for " The boy 
 
 paused suddenly; he was going to say "for 
 Stanley Yillars." The name of Claude's old 
 friend was a household word at the Court ; but 
 he paused, remembering what Claude's old 
 friend had been to Claude's young wife. 
 
 "You were going to say you thought the 
 puppy was for Stanley Yillars," she said very 
 gently, with a tenderness spreading like a film 
 over her face as she spoke, which the incon- 
 siderate Jack found most marvellously touch- 
 ing. "I gave Stanley a dog, and then he did 
 not care to have the setter puppy." 
 
 "I beg your pardon," he began, "I didn't 
 mean " 
 
 " I know you didn't don't say another word 
 about it ; I know you didn't mean it. I feel 
 very sure of you, Jack." 
 
 She rose when she had said that, and went 
 and seated herself by Mrs. Markham's side, 
 leaving Jack uncertain whether she was more 
 of a forgiving angel than he was of a "blunder- 
 ing brute." She was quite the ideal sister to 
 so young a man as Jack Walsingham ; she was 
 interested in his breed of setters, and she pur- 
 posed riding to hounds for the sake of putting 
 " old Markham out !" 
 
 But she was not the ideal sister in Mrs. 
 Markham's eyes. Claude's eldest sister had 
 been mated with, an uncongenial man from 
 very early girlhood, and she had always de- 
 ported herself admirably, and suffered no man 
 to suppose from her manner that the uncon- 
 geniality was in reality a wearing sorrow to 
 her. She was a remarkably undemonstrative 
 woman, one who went on doing her duty in 
 such a perfect way day by day that no one had 
 the shadow of a cause to imagine that the 
 shadow of a doubt ever crossed her mind as to 
 this lot of hers being as blissful as it might be. 
 She was good, just, and true as steel ; but she 
 was not a lenient woman. She would assist 
 the erring, but she could not deal gently with 
 them. She would bind up wounds with a 
 strong hand if they came to her to be bound 
 up ; but she would not pour oil into them. 
 She rather preferred treating them with balsam, 
 which was wholesome, though it made them 
 smart. 
 
 Mrs. Claude opened the conversation. 
 
 "What is that combination of glass and lea- 
 ther and wool to be when it is finished, Ellen ?" 
 she asked, looking at the work on which Mrs. 
 Markham was employing herself assiduously. 
 
 " A sofa cushion." 
 
 "It will be uncomfortable, but pretty. I 
 have not seen anything of the sort before. 
 Leather for the grounding! it's very pretty !" 
 
 " You are very good to. admire it so freely ; 
 I should hardly have supposed that you had 
 much taste for such things." 
 
 "Nor have I, as far as doing them myself 
 
 goes ; but I think some of them very pretty, 
 though scarcely worth the trouble of doing." 
 
 " You are so much better employed now, for 
 instance," Mrs. Markham said quietly. 
 
 Bella laughed. 
 
 " So I am ; I am amusing you, or trying to 
 amuse you, and that is a more praiseworthy oc- 
 cupation than studding a sofa cushion with 
 beads and bright nails. How they'll hurt 
 people 1" 
 
 Mrs. Markham liked the unresentful tone. 
 She had more than half expected that Bella 
 would either have answered her in anger, or 
 not have answered her at all. So she relaxed 
 a trifle, and said 
 
 " While you are staying here, you had better 
 take to some such occupation as this. Days in 
 a country house are very long and very dull 
 very often in the winter, unless you can find 
 pleasure in some such occupation." 
 
 " Oh, I'm never dull in the country there's 
 always so much to do unless it pours with rain 
 and one can't get out." 
 
 " Those are the liveliest days very often, I 
 have found, for then the gentlemen stay in, and 
 we are obliged to exert ourselves to keep dull 
 care away." 
 
 "I was going to say that," Mrs. Claude re- 
 plied ; " even on such days we can act charades 
 and play billiards, and do, oh! all sorts of 
 things. I have a husband now ; it will be his 
 bounden duty to see that I don't stagnate ; but 
 I know " (and she laughed) " that I have never 
 found it the least dull in a country house." 
 
 Mrs. Markham regarded this as an indecorous 
 allusion to former experiences, which she shud- 
 dered in her soul to think her brother's wife 
 should have had. She fancied that Bella was 
 thinking of some of the many whom report 
 said she had smiled upon. Such thoughts Mrs. 
 Markham held to be fraught with danger, so 
 she looked rather sternly at the offender as she 
 said 
 
 "Yes, you have a husband now ; as his sis- 
 ter I must express a hope that you will not for- 
 get that fact when recalling bygone hours in 
 other country houses, either for our benefit or 
 to your own mind." 
 
 "Good gracious! there was no harm in 
 them! What do you mean?" Bella cried. 
 Then the recollection of Stanley Yillars came 
 over her, and she felt humbled and silenced. 
 That episode in her life was known to Mrs. 
 Markham, who, with such knowledge, might 
 well deem her capable of further fickleness and 
 faithlessness. Still it was hard to be distrusted 
 by the friends of the one who had been the 
 cause of that fickleness and faithlessness. Yery 
 hard, after all she had gone through for Claude 
 after all the misery her waning faith had 
 caused her after all those inward struggles to 
 do right after all the agony their failure cost 
 after a lifetime of complete exemption from 
 blame, it was very hard to be condemned and 
 coldly regarded ! 
 
 For a minute or two she sat, a prey to the 
 throes of conscience. Then anger filled her 
 soul. Then the pity for oneself that is born of 
 bodily fatigue, and a consciousness of being 
 just a little wrong and just a little wronged, 
 overwhelmed her, and she dropped her 
 face down upon her convulsively-twitching 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 65 
 
 nands, and began to cry with passionate 
 force. 
 
 In a moment Claude was by her side and the 
 rest were round her, and in another moment 
 she was alive to the full folly of her act. 
 
 " My own darling, what is it ?" Claude asked. 
 "What the devil has any one said to her?" he 
 continued, looking angrily at each one in turn, 
 but especially at Jack, who was looking con- 
 science-smitten on account of that speech he had 
 made about the setter pup and Stanley Villars. 
 
 " No one has said anything," Bella answer- 
 ed, striving to clear up. " Who should ? Don't 
 think it ; I am a goose !" 
 
 " I am the culprit, Claude," Mrs. Markham 
 put in quietly. " In all kindness I made a re- 
 mark to your wife that seems to have offended 
 her very much." . 
 
 " No, it hasn't," Bella said promptly. " I'm 
 not offended I'm tired and a goose, as I said 
 before," 
 
 " I cannot have my wife worried, or suffer 
 remarks to be made to her that make her cry, 
 whether she is a 'goose ' or not," Claude said; 
 and Mrs. Markham turned away to her leather 
 and glass beads and wool again with a feeling 
 that her brother's bride was a mistake, which 
 it behoved her to rectify if possible. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 TOO IMPULSIVE. 
 
 IT has been said that Claude found it up-hill 
 work to carry on a conversation with his mo- 
 ther that evening. Mrs. Walsingham had 
 started on the supposition that her son had 
 Bought her side in opposition to the wishes of 
 his wife ; and this supposition rendered her 
 inaccessible, so to say. She was very curious 
 curious as only a woman can be about this 
 marriage her son had made, and its attendant 
 circumstances. She longed to know how the 
 other affair had been broken off, and how this 
 one had come on. She also wanted to know 
 the exact amount of Mrs. Claude's fortune, 
 report having varied considerably on that last 
 point. 
 
 Curious as she was, however, she would not 
 take the honest and straight road to arriving at 
 a knowledge of what excited her curiosity, by 
 asking him outright the how and why of it all. 
 She was too proud to seek a confidence that 
 was not given. He was her own son, and too 
 proud to offer a confidence that was not sought. 
 
 For the last six or seven years Mrs. Walsing- 
 ham had nourished and cherished a scheme in 
 her heart. It was a fair, bright scheme ; and 
 it was founded upon a fair, bright girl, whom 
 she had designed, when opportunity offered, to 
 marry to her eldest son. The girl was a Miss 
 Harper, the well-portioned daughter of a neigh- 
 bouring country gentleman. She had won upon 
 Mrs. Walsingham when a mere child, and her 
 growth in grace and guilelessness had been 
 watched with loving eyes by the mother who 
 meant her for her son. 
 
 It was the thought of Grace Harper that 
 pointed the gain Mrs. Walsingham felt in this 
 rriage Claude had made. On one or two 
 n 
 
 
 occasions, when Grace had been spending long, 
 dull days with Mrs. Walsingham in the solitude 
 of that old west country house, the hostess had 
 striven to brighten the hours to the young 
 guest by talking about Claude. She had talked 
 about Claude in that wonderful maternal tone 
 which conveys to the listener the flattering 
 conviction that she may not only speak, but 
 may think, with affection affection tempered 
 with awe, of course, but still affection of the 
 spoken about. Worse than this : with even 
 greater, more lamentable indiscretion, she had 
 lately hinted, in unmistakable terms, that it 
 was upon the cards that the glory of being 
 Claude's wife should be Miss Grace's. 
 
 Then a rumour had been heard in the land 
 relative to Florence Villars relative to a "sort 
 of attachment that, there was a sort of report," 
 Claude had formed for the sister of his friend. 
 On this Miss Gracie had gone into gentle melan- 
 choly, and red rims to her eyes ; and Mrs. Wal- 
 singham had gone to her davenport, and de- 
 spatched a searching inquiry into the truth of 
 said statement to Claude. All this had hap- 
 pened about the period of the Richmond din- 
 ner, just previous to Claude's going down to 
 Denham. The amiable nature of the reassuring 
 negative he returned to his mother's question 
 was -due principally to his pleasure at finding 
 her so far off the Circe scent. 
 
 During the few days he had spent at the 
 Court before he went to town, and met Bella 
 driving her chestnuts in the park, he had every 
 opportunity afforded him of falling in love with 
 Miss Harper. She had come, at his mother's 
 special request, to stay in the house while he 
 stayed ; and Mrs. Walsingham sedulously es- 
 chewed other visitors, and went to sleep for a 
 couple of hours every evening. But it was all 
 of no avail. Miss Harper resembled a daughter 
 of the gods, in that she " was divinely tall, and 
 most divinely fair;" but Claude apostrophised 
 Jove about her only when declaring her to be 
 dull. 
 
 He had fully fathomed the plan that had 
 been made for his happiness, but he had ever 
 affected to be innocently unconscious of it, 
 deeming it a pity to spoil the enjoyment his 
 mother derived from perfecting and touching it 
 up. Now, however, that all was at an end, 
 and other 'topics appeared unmanageable be- 
 tween his mother and himself, he reverted to 
 Miss Harper by asking 
 
 " By the way, mother, is Gracie coming here ? 
 I thought she was always at the Court when 
 anything was going on." 
 
 " I really don't know why you should have 
 supposed so. Dear girl ! no ; she is not coming. 
 She is in such great request that she cannot 
 spare a day for us for the next month." 
 
 "I only know what she told me herself. 
 She said, when I asked her when I should see 
 her again, that she ' would probably be here 
 when I came the next time, as she was always 
 with Mrs. Walsingham when anything was 
 going on.' Now there is even more going on 
 than she could possibly have anticipated, seeing 
 I have not come alone." 
 
 "Your wife would hardly care for Grace's 
 society." 
 
 "Probably not; I found her the reverse of 
 enlivening." 
 
66 
 
 ON GUARD. 
 
 " My dear Claude, remember 1 she is a friend 
 of mine!" 
 
 " She made tea very prettily, didn't she ?'' 
 Claude asked, laughingly. "It was quite a 
 study to see her poise her white hand on the 
 teapot cover, and keep it there standing out in 
 bold relief while she debated with me circum- 
 spectly whether or not more water should be 
 ooured in!" 
 
 " She was a thorough lady," Mrs. Walsing- 
 .iam replied slowly; "a pure-minded girl, with 
 nothing volatile in either manner or disposi- 
 tion." 
 
 Claude shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " I hope she will be able to spare you a few 
 days before we leave, mother." 
 
 " Extremely improbable. You will see her 
 though, Claude; for her cousin and his bride 
 are coming to stay with them, and we must ask 
 them to dinner." 
 
 " Which cousin ?" 
 
 "Her mother's nephew, Lord Lexley." 
 
 Claude started inside, not externally. He 
 bad heard of Adele's marriage when he came 
 hack to town, but he had little thought to meet 
 her ladyship as a domesticated animal so soon, 
 down in these pure-minded wilds. 
 
 " Oh ! Lexley and his wife are coming, are 
 they ? Who's the lady, do you know ?" 
 
 "An admirable young creature, an Italian 
 countess, who went on the opera boards in 
 order to support her widowed mother," Mrs. 
 Walsingham replied. Then Claude said, "Ah! 
 really!" and his mother went on to tell him 
 much that was new about Lady Lexley, which 
 did immense credit to her ladyship's powers of 
 invention. 
 
 "I almost wonder you have not heard of 
 her, Claude," Mrs. Walsingham said, when 
 they had thoroughly talked through the topic. 
 " The Harpers say that she regrets it very 
 much, but that she has not been able to avoid 
 publicity." 
 
 "No doubt she was desirous of doing so," 
 he said drily; " opera singers generally are. I 
 have heard of her, of course heard her too 
 often. By Jove ! she will be an acquisition ! 
 I hadn't counted on this when I came down," 
 he continued to himself, his eyes sparkling 
 with excitement. Just then his wife's sobs 
 fell upon his ears, and he speedily forgot the 
 existence of Lady Lexley speedily forgot it 
 for a time. 
 
 The following morning Mrs. Claude heard 
 with satisfaction that the hounds would meet 
 at Horsley Hollow on the 12th. This was 
 Friday, the 7th. Wednesday would shortly be 
 upon them. So she resolved to go out daily 
 on her new horse, and get him well accustomed 
 to her hand and the country before the event- 
 ful day. 
 
 Claude was ready to go for a ride with her 
 "anywhere at any hour," he said. When he 
 said this, however, Bella noticed that his father 
 ooked a little disappointed, and she fathomed 
 the cause of that disappointment at once. 
 
 " Unless Mr. Walsingham wants you to ride 
 round the land with him, Claude." 
 
 "Oh! any day will do for that, my dear," 
 Mr. Walsingham replied politely. 
 
 "Ah, but you would like him to go to-day; 
 of course you would ; how very natural 1" 
 
 "Jack can go with you, Bella," Claude sug 
 gested. 
 
 " Or can't I ride with you and your father? 
 should I be in the way ?" 
 
 "Not in the way," the old gentleman ex- 
 plained with polite anxiety, " but it might be 
 tedious ; for we shall be standing about looking 
 at improvements that don't interest ladies 
 Tour horse is fresh most likely ; he might give 
 you trouble." 
 
 " He is fresh, and no mistake," Jack put in 
 "You had better come out with me, Mrs. 
 Claude, along a good riding road. We wiL 
 give him a breather." 
 
 " I think that will be the best plan. Won't 
 you go with us, Ellen?" 
 
 Mrs. Markham shook her head. 
 
 " Jack and I had your horse out this morning 
 before you were awake, Bella," her husband 
 said to her. " He is too good at his fences for 
 a lady's hack, Markham says." 
 
 "I thought a lady's horse couldn't 'be too 
 good at his fences ?" Bella said, looking at Mr. 
 Markham. 
 
 "A lady's hunter cannot, but you won't 
 hunt?" 
 
 " Why not ?" she asked quickly. 
 
 "Oh ! I know of no reason against it, if your 
 husband does not, Mrs. Claude. He is a nice 
 horse, a very nice horse," Mr. Markham con- 
 tinued, with the air of one who would change 
 the conversation ; "as sound before as he is 
 behind. I see he touches his fences." 
 
 " Yes, he is satisfactory enough as far as he 
 has gone yet," Claude rejoined. Then he gave 
 his wife some cautions about her method of 
 treating him at first starting. " Be very steady 
 with him at first, and don't lose yourself with 
 Jack as you did with Vengeance and Hill." 
 
 " Was Vengeance the name of the horse you 
 were riding on the occasion of your first ro- 
 mantic meeting with Claude?" Mrs. Walsing- 
 ham asked. 
 
 " Yes," Bella replied ; and she blushed a lit- 
 tle as she remembered what that meeting had 
 cost Stanley Villars. 
 
 " What is your new horse's name ?" 
 
 " Devilskin." 
 
 "A horrid name for a lady's horse!" Mrs. 
 Walsingham remarked superciliously, Bella 
 thought. 
 
 " But J have given it to him ; so whether 
 it's ' horrid ' or not, he will have to be known 
 by it, I am afraid," Mrs. Claude rejoined. Then 
 Claude got up rather hastily, and asked 
 
 " When will you have your horse, Bella ? 
 say twelve ?" in a tone that showed his wife 
 that his wishes tended to a subversion of the 
 subject in dispute between herself and his mo- 
 ther. 
 
 Devilskin came round at twelve, Jack fol- 
 lowing on his own horse with that in his man- 
 ner of following that would lead one to suppose 
 that he desired to have it believed that he was 
 there by accident, and was not at all desirous 
 of escorting his sister-in-law. He was but 
 twenty he was very young and his youth 
 was apt to rise up in judgment, as it were, at 
 unforeseen times, and convict him of having 
 acted or spoken as it behoved " a man " not to 
 act or speak. 
 
 He was but twenty ; but he was honest and 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 67 
 
 handsome, frank and fearless, tender (when no 
 one was by to see him thus tripping), and true 
 as steel. These are qualities that tell on a wo- 
 man, let the man to whom they belong be to 
 her what he may a stranger or one of her 
 own kindred. These are qualities that must 
 and do tell, and it is only fitting that they 
 should do so. 
 
 "Take care of her, Jack!" Claude said, as he 
 put his wife up, and Bella looked round laugh- 
 ing at her young escort in a way that caused 
 his blood to seethe and bubble with a variety 
 of emotions. His brother's caution implied a 
 doubt, he fancied, and Bella's laugh seemed to 
 cast a shadow of ridicule over his protectorship 
 of her. He felt very young and very uncom- 
 fortable, but intensely loyal and devoted, as he 
 rode down to the gate by her side. 
 
 Mrs. Claude saw the constraint that had 
 come over him, and Mrs. Claude thoroughly 
 appreciated the cause of it. He had been free 
 and graciously unreserved with her last night, 
 but in broad daylight he remembered that she 
 was a stranger to him, and a young woman, 
 and the freedom and unreserve vanished. The 
 young lady looked at him cautiously now and 
 again as she rode gently along by his side, and 
 she pitied the boy on whose cheek and mind 
 there still dwelt this delicate bloom. 
 
 She tried two or three topics which she 
 trusted might induce him to forget himself 
 the scenery, the family, the Court, &c. and all 
 were of no avail. Then, she thought, " I have 
 reserved my heaviest shot till the last ; if that 
 falls flat, Jack and I will have but a dull ride 
 of it," 
 
 "Could you take me to Horsley Hollow, 
 Jack ?" she asked, in as confidential a tone as 
 his constrained manner would permit her to 
 use. " Could you take me to Horsley Hollow, 
 Jack, and show what the land is like about 
 it?" 
 
 The shot told instantaneously. He turned 
 his head and looked full upon her for the first 
 time since they had started. 
 
 " If I showed you some of the stiffest places 
 you would know the worst Devilskin would 
 have to do when the day comes if Claude lets 
 you ride wouldn't you ?" he replied. 
 
 "Yes. If Claude lets me ridel why, of 
 course, Claude will let me ride." 
 
 " I will show you the way if you like, then," 
 he said. "This old fellow" he patted his 
 horse as he spoke "knows every stick, and 
 stone, and drop of water about here: he's an 
 awfully safe lead." 
 
 u Then I shall follow him: you won't be too 
 rash, I'm sure." 
 
 " That I won't." 
 
 " Did you mean that you'd show me the way 
 to-day ?" 
 
 "I think ." He paused and faltered. 
 
 His judgment told him that Devilskin had bet- 
 ter learn more both of the lady and the locality 
 before he was taken 'cross country. But his 
 inclinations led him to please his brother's wife, 
 and his own horse, and himself, by showing her 
 the way without further delay. 
 
 " What, do you think," she asked, " that Mr. 
 Markham would fathom my intention if he 
 heard of our practising over the ground, and 
 frustrate it ?" 
 
 "Perhaps that: he would if he could." 
 
 "Ahl but he couldn't," she replied with a 
 little decided laugh ; "he couldn't. Who could, 
 indeed, if I would go if Claude did not ob- 
 ject ?" she added hastily. 
 
 " Markham would be making objections, and 
 pointing out things to Claude that might make 
 Claude object if Markham knew of it long be- 
 forehand, that is ; he's so slow that he can do 
 nothing if you don't give him time." 
 
 " He wouldn't know anything about it, Jack," 
 she said suddenly, as they came upon a short 
 bit of road that led them right down to the side 
 of a three-cornered well- wooded dell. " This is 
 Horsley Hollow I'm sure. Now, when the fox 
 breaks cover, which way is he most likely to 
 go ? Show me, and we will ride that way, and 
 we'll say nothing to Mr. Markham about it 
 we won't mention it at home." 
 
 Jack hesitated, and assoiled his conscience, 
 
 "I wouldn't be the one to take you along 
 over anything if I hadn't seen what your horse 
 can do, and if I hadn't heard Claude say that 
 Devilskin was a clipper at his fences," he said 
 slowly. 
 
 " No, of course not !" she replied with anima- 
 tion. She was eager as a child to try whethei 
 crossing the country was as delightful in prac- 
 tice as it was in theory. 
 
 " Then come along," he said, turning round 
 and putting his horse to climb over a bit of a 
 broken bank, with more a gutter than a ditch 
 beyond it. 
 
 She followed on Devilskin. " He will creep 
 over : it is nothing to lift him to," her brother- 
 in-law cried, leaning round to look at her. 
 Mrs. Claude relied on her horse's sagacity to do 
 what was expected and prognosticated of him, 
 and consequently received a slight shock. Devil- 
 skin elected to make a mighty leap of the gut- 
 ter, and his mistress came forward almost on to 
 his neck. 
 
 Mrs. Claude recovered herself in an instant 
 recovered her seat, that is, but not her equani- 
 mity. The leap, even as her horse had taken 
 it, had been a mere nothing a trifle suited to 
 the meapest equestrian capacity had she been 
 prepared for it. But she had not been pre- 
 pared for it. She had, in truth, been prepared 
 for something quite the reverse, and she felt 
 annoyed with herself, her horse, and her com- 
 panion. 
 
 The mighty leap over the tiny ditch the 
 much ado about nothing that Devilskin had 
 been guilty of had landed them in a pasture 
 intersected with ditches. "The last time we 
 drew the Hollow the fox made right away out 
 there ; over that corner, and along the road for 
 a bit, and then across a field to that dark spot, 
 do you see ? Follow the direction of my whip. 
 That's another cover. There we were at fault : 
 and that Markham is such a humbug ; he made 
 such a noise when he was taking the hounds 
 in, that he didn't hear a fellow halloo, or didn't 
 know where the halloo came from, and so he 
 rode a couple of miles the wrong way, and lost 
 the fox." 
 
 This was a tremendous long speech, as the 
 reader will doubtless have observed, to him or 
 herself disparagingly. When he had communi- 
 cated it, they found themselves near to the 
 corner which Jack had indicated as the corner 
 
68 
 
 ON GUARD. 
 
 over which the last fox they 'aad drawn in 
 Horsley Hollow had made his exit from the 
 pasture. 
 
 "Perhaps the next won't go over there," 
 Mrs. Claude observed; "but still we may as 
 well try it, may we not, Jack?" 
 
 "Yes, we may as well," he replied, dubiously. 
 That affair at the other side of the pasture had 
 rather shaken his confidence ; he was not quite 
 sure in what, though whether in Bella's horse, 
 or horse womanship. 
 
 "Yes, we may as well," he repeated; they 
 were n earing the corner now. "Look here. 
 I'll tell you, it isn't much of a jump, only it's 
 rather a drop into the road. Let him have his 
 head when he's rising to it, and mind you have 
 him well in hand when he's landing." 
 
 Bella listened with understanding. "I see," 
 she replied ; " all right; will you go first ?" 
 
 He would go first. His steady old hunter 
 went over like a bird, and as his heels vanished, 
 Devilskin began to fidget, and wheeled half 
 round. 
 
 " Keep him at it come along," Jack cried 
 from the other side ; and Bella having pulled 
 her horse round to it determinately, Devilskin 
 went at it with a rush. 
 
 For a moment or two Jack experienced the 
 sort of elation we are all apt to feel when we 
 fancy that a thing of this sort is about to be 
 done remarkably well. Mrs. Claude was settled 
 well down in her saddle, he marked that. Her 
 figure swayed as the figure only can when you 
 have come down to it tightly, and are vibrating 
 to the horse ; but though she had come down 
 to her saddle well, her seat was too forward a 
 ne, if not for the jump, at least for the way 
 )evilskin was going to do it. 
 
 A moment more 1 Devilskin was over the 
 uedge, and Mrs. Claude Walsingham was over 
 the near pummel, upon the road, under Devil- 
 skin's forefeet, apparently. 
 
 What misery one moment of time is all-suffi- 
 cient for ! I am not about to moralize a long 
 unbroken paragraph of my own; reflections 
 would be as ineffably tedious to myself as to 
 the rest of the enlightened reading public ; still 
 I cannot help marvelling at the muchness of 
 misery which may be endured in a moment. 
 It is so complete, so perfect a thing of its kind, 
 that misery, that it might have occupied the 
 best years of the life of a master in the art of 
 creating wretchedness. There is nothing jagged 
 or unfinished about it ; it appears to be round 
 and never ending. 
 
 Jack "Walsingham had such a moment as 
 Devilskin landed, and his brother's bride came 
 off on the near side. 
 
 He was the cause of the catastrophe. That 
 was the first thought that arose as he heard 
 the dull sound, that, slight as she was, she 
 made when coming down upon the ground 
 with a crash. He was the cause ; on him the 
 blame would rest had aught befallen her. Then 
 he sprang from his own horse and picked her 
 up, and she was not hurt not bruised and 
 marred, as he had feared to find her. 
 
 The horse had not done that which had not 
 been anticipated of him out of viciousness. It 
 had been prophesied of Devilskin by the infal- 
 lible Claude, that he would touch his fences 
 buck them, in fact ; instead of which he had 
 
 flown this, and thrown Bella " out " in her cal- 
 culations, and off her saddle. But there had 
 not been an atom of vice or of malice prepense 
 in Devilskin's mind. He had flown his fence 
 and thrown his rider, but now he stood looking 
 down at the result of his unexpected act with 
 much mildness in his eyes. 
 
 Mrs. Claude Walsingham, when she found 
 herself sloping away down to the earth over 
 Devilskin's near shoulder, did the wisest and 
 only thing to be done under the circumstances 
 freed her foot from the stirrup, and so far 
 ensured a clear fall. But she had held on to 
 the snaffle-rein so firmly, that it was her elbow, 
 instead of her hand and wrist, which came 
 down upon the ground, and the elbow was 
 saved from dislocation through the fact of the 
 snaffle-rein being only just long enough to 
 admit of her elbow coming into the barest con- 
 tact with the ground before her whole body 
 was there also to bear its own weight. But 
 her hands got a cruel jerk. 
 
 Jack picked her up, and looked at her with 
 a big, loving anxiety in his eyes, and a face 
 paler than her own. 
 
 "How on earth did you do it? Are you 
 hurt?" he asked, stammering, in his intense 
 impatience to question and to hear. 
 
 "No, I'm not hurt My arm is grazed, I 
 think. But, oh ! Jack, I wonder that not only 
 my arm, but my neck too, isn't broken !" 
 
 Her hat had fallen off, and had got an inden- 
 tation that might not be rectified by unskilful 
 hands. She looked at it ruefully, as he picked 
 it up, and said 
 
 " I seemed to be falling down miles straight 
 upon my head to the road that was rushing up 
 to meet me. What did he do ?" 
 
 "He did his part of the business all right 
 enough," Jack said, dispassionately, looking at 
 the horse. He had conceived a great love and 
 admiration for his sister-in-law, and a vast pity 
 for her tangled and torn condition filled his 
 heart as he stood there by her side. But, for 
 all that, he could not deem a horse who had 
 flown a fence so cleverly deserving of aught 
 but praise. 
 
 When the hat had been restored to something 
 more like its original shape than had been its 
 portion when first they picked it up, and some 
 of the mud had been brushed from her habit, 
 Jack proposed that they should re-mount and 
 go home very steadily by the road. 
 
 She put her right hand on the pummel, and 
 raised the other to his shoulder, but as soon as 
 she touched him, she suffered her hand to fall 
 away down by her side, with a little cry of 
 pain. 
 
 "What is the matter?" he asked it with a 
 prompt and complete return of the big, loving 
 anxiety in his eyes, with such tenderness in his 
 tones, that the tears glistened up between her 
 lashes in response. 
 
 "lam hurt my wrist " 
 
 He touched her hand, unbuttoning her glove, 
 and baring the delicately-veined wrist with a 
 deft gentleness that was a newly-born thing in 
 Jack. 
 
 "Your wrist is strained! Don't cry, dear 
 Bella ! " he said, half sobbing himself, as she 
 heaved, and panted, and wept, partly with pain, 
 and partly because she was afraid Claude would 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 69 
 
 disapprove of the steps she had taken unknown 
 to him to improve her acquaintance with the 
 locality, and strain her wrist. 
 
 " Don't cry, dear Bella ! " he repeated, with 
 imploring eyes and tones ; and then he was 
 very young, and true as steel, as I have said 
 he put his arm round her, and stooped his 
 honest young head, and kissed her on the 
 mouth, in attempted consolation. It was a ges- 
 ture that was more like the impulsive, awkward, 
 protecting fondness of a big Newfoundland dog 
 than a mere man's salute. She could not help 
 regarding it with the same sort of grateful tole- 
 ration she had experienced in former days when 
 Rock had striven to console her in some sorrow, 
 by nearly knocking her down. 
 
 " You dear, good-natured boy, I'm not hurt 
 much, and I 'won't cry ! " she said, smiling at 
 him ; " give me a hand up, and we'll go home 
 by the road, as you say." 
 
 They mounted and rode along in silence for 
 about half a mile, when she broke it by saying 
 
 " Don't tel" any one about my bungling over 
 that hedge, as I did, Jack, or I shall not be let 
 ride on Wednesday." 
 
 " I won't, as you wish mo not." 
 
 As he answered her, a gentleman and lady 
 rode past, and Bella recognised Lord Lexley. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 LADY LEXLEY. / ^ 
 
 IT must be confessed that Mrs. Claude Walsing- 
 ham took ignominious precautions to gain in- 
 gress to the halls of her husband's fathers unob- 
 served that day, on her return from the unlucky 
 trial trip with Jack and Devilskin. She was 
 shaken and very muddy, and she had a keen 
 desire to keep these two facts from the eyes of 
 the Markhams. " Can we not ride into the 
 yard, and then can't I get into the house through 
 some side door, Jack ? " Bella said to him, in 
 the confidential tone that is frequently adopted 
 by women when designed to fall upon very 
 young masculine ears. " Oh yes ; but why ? " 
 Jack had answered ; and then Bella had ex- 
 plained to him that the most casual glance from 
 the least observant female eyes would be suffi- 
 cient to enable the possessor of said eyes to 
 glean from her (Bella's) appearance all that she 
 most ardently desired should not be gleaned. 
 
 But there is no such thing as gaining quiet 
 ingress to a country house from the stable -yard 
 regions. There were no less than three dogs 
 chained up in the yard, and these all plunged 
 cut of their kennels, and greeted her first with 
 ferocious barks, and presently with servile 
 whines and yells to be let loose. The tramp 
 of the horses, and the rattling of the chains, 
 and Jack's cries of " Down, Rose, old girl ! 
 What, Nep ! do you want to be loosed ? " 
 brought heads, or, at least, a head, to every 
 window from which a glimpse of the most 
 remote portion of the yard could be gained, and 
 while the heads were at the windows Bella 
 would not brave discovery by approaching the 
 house in her mud. spattered habit. So she stood 
 away at the extreme end, playing with Nep- 
 tune and a couple of Jack's red setters, till her 
 
 feet got cold, and it was opined by her patient 
 watchers that she " seemed wonderful fond of 
 Master Jack, that she did, letting them great, 
 big, ugiy dogs of his put their dirty paws on 
 her shoulders." 
 
 Finally she went in through a side door, as 
 she had said she would do, but the splashes of 
 mud did not escape detection. In the hall, just 
 as she was about to flee up stairs, followed by 
 her own^maid, she met Mrs. Markham. 
 
 "Wha't a dreadful state Jack's dogs have 
 made you in, my dear Bella 1 I hear you have 
 been playing with them for the last hour," 
 Claude's eldest sister said. 
 
 "More or less," Bella replied, catching at the 
 excuse for her having such a liberal portion of 
 the soil, about her, eagerly. " I'm so fond of 
 dogs, you know, that I never care a bit what 
 they do to me." 
 
 " Luncheon is still on the table ; won't you 
 come in as you are ?" 
 
 " No, thank you ; I'll go first and take off 
 my habit," Bella replied, colouring vividly. She 
 was annoyed at being detained, and her wrist 
 was paining her. 
 
 " Oh, very well," Mrs. Markham replied, stand- 
 ing aside elaborately to let Mrs. Claude pass. 
 " You will find Miss Harper with us when you 
 come down. Claude has been in a long time." 
 
 It is not a nice thing to have a sprained 
 wrist, and to feel morally certain that unless 
 you keep your sentiments respecting it to your- 
 self, that condemnation, instead of pity, will be 
 your portion from the unsympathetic masses. 
 Bella's perfect love for Claude by no means cast 
 out her fear of Claude's family developing un- 
 pleasant traits towards her on the first opportu- 
 nity. Therefore she resolved upon making a 
 small secret of the dilemma into which she had 
 fallen, through Devilskin's change of purpose, 
 on account of the mighty and most reasonable 
 dread she had of aught being said which she 
 might not like to hear. 
 
 She was pale with the pain when she reached 
 the dining-room at last, after laboriously dress- 
 ing, and striving (ineffectually) to keep back 
 the swelling in her wrist, simultaneously. The 
 ruins of the luncheon were on the table still, 
 and by it was one who had materially conduced 
 to this ruin a great, fair girl, with a wealth of 
 hair, and colour, and flesh, who was introduced 
 to the bride as Miss Harper. 
 
 It only speaks well for the breed, and is by 
 no means derogatory to the individual, when I 
 say that Miss Harper was the very usual type 
 of big, blue-eyed blondes. You will see one or 
 two, at least, resembling her, in every ball-room, 
 Tall, with an immense amount of back ; oval 
 faced, yet inclining to be thick about the jaw ; 
 large limbed, with luxuriant hair that was too 
 dark to be called yellow, and too light for 
 brown to be itd fitting appellation; luxurious 
 rather than loose or even easy in action ; young, 
 healthy, and animal, in a quiet, unobtrusive, 
 voluptuous way that a painter would have 
 loved to look upon, it being entirely harmonious 
 with her beauty, Grace Harper impressed Mrs. 
 Claude Walsingham on the instant as being a 
 well-bred, well-fed nonentity. 
 
 "Where have you been, Bella?" Claude 
 asked. " Jack has made a rambling statement 
 as to where he took you." 
 
70 
 
 ON GUARD. 
 
 "Mine will probably be still more rambling. 
 How should I know the names of your roads ? 
 We tried three different roads ; and oh, Claude, 
 I saw Lord Lexley riding with a lady !" 
 
 Claude leant forward a little more before he 
 replied. He was sitting lounging forward with 
 his arms on his knees, before Miss Harper, in a 
 .emi-devotional manner, that angered his mo- 
 ther to the full as much as it would have 
 pleased her in former days. 
 
 "That's his wife," he said, when he" did an- 
 swer Bella's remark relative to Lord Lexley. 
 
 "I didn't know he was married. How 
 strange ! "Whom did he marry, Claude ?" 
 
 She asked it eagerly. She was naturally in- 
 terested about the man who had fancied him- 
 self and caused her to fancy him in love 
 with her once. 
 
 ' " You had better ask Miss Harper ; he is her 
 cousin ; she can give you full information can't 
 you ?" he added, looking up at Miss Grace with 
 eyes that made her feel Mrs. Claude to be a 
 thorn in her flesh. 
 
 " As full information as any stranger can care 
 to have, I suppose. Lord Lexley married two 
 months ago. Lady Lexley is a delightful per- 
 son ; not an Englishwoman." 
 
 "But Lord Lexley is not a stranger to me by 
 any means, Miss Harper. (No, Jack, I won't 
 have anything more, thank you. I don't like eat- 
 ing by myself.) He's not a stranger to me, as 
 you will find, if you ask him." 
 
 Mrs. Claude was colouring and flashing, and 
 speaking as she was wont to look and speak 
 when angry. Claude felt annoyed ; trifling as 
 the storm might be, it would probably interfere 
 with his massive flirtation with Miss Harper. 
 
 " You shouldn't have let Jack lure you away 
 so far if you dislike eating by yourself, dear," 
 he said quietly. 
 
 " We have not been far." 
 
 " Then what the deuce beg pardon what 
 in the world have you been doing ? You have 
 been out long enough. Was your horse trou- 
 blesome ?" 
 
 "Not a bit was he, Jack?" Bella replied, 
 confidently. 
 
 " Not a bit," Jack answered, with an alacrity 
 he had not displayed before. There was truth, 
 to his mind, in the statement as to the horse 
 not having been troublesome. The horse had 
 done all which may become a horse, all which 
 could be expected of the best known and best 
 conducted animal Jack rather hoped that the 
 conversation would not quit the field of Devil- 
 skin's worthy merits. If it did, and wandered 
 ofif into riding experience generalities, and so 
 provoked further questioning and cross-exami- 
 nation as to what had befallen Mrs. Claude and 
 himself this morning, he would be in a sore 
 strait. His newly-born loyalty towards his 
 brother's wife would rise up in arms against 
 his normal loyalty towards the truth, and may- 
 be conquer the latter, for Bella's charm had 
 worked. 
 
 Mrs. Claude had contented herself with the 
 mildest viands up to this juncture contented 
 herself with viands to which she did not ordi- 
 narily incline, such as sweet soft puddings that 
 permitted themselves to be eaten with a spoon. 
 Just now it occurred to her to try something 
 else something which necessitated the use of 
 
 a fork, and as soon as she took the fork in her 
 hand, she gave a little exclamation and suffer- 
 ed the fork to fall on her plate with a heavy 
 clatter. 
 
 Her strained wrist could be kept a secret no 
 longer ; she was holding it away from her with 
 her other hand, and saying, " Oh, how it's 
 swollen 1 what shall I do ?" when Claude 
 looked at her. He ceased seeking to improve 
 the shining hours with Miss Harper in an in- 
 stant, and went over to his wife's side. - 
 
 "What is it? How did this happen, dar- 
 ling ? You are hurt ?" 
 
 " He was leaning over her with a tenderly- 
 protecting air, that almost made her feel that it 
 would be well to confide the cause of this acci- 
 dent to him. However, second thoughts arose 
 and checked her. It would not be confiding it 
 alone to Claude that she would have done at 
 once but to Claude's family, who might inter- 
 fere, on the strength of this accident, and per- 
 suade him not to let her have a run with the 
 hounds on Wednesday. 
 
 " My wrist got a little jerk," she stammered. 
 " Don't touch it so take care," she cried, as 
 Claude manipulated the swollen wrist. 
 
 " How did it get a little jerk ? the horse has 
 as good a mouth as need be. Did you get it 
 while you were out though, or after you came 
 home ?" 
 
 The husband asked these questions gently, 
 and Bella once more felt disposed to make a 
 clean breast of it. 
 
 ^'Well, it was " she began, and then 
 
 Mrs. Markham interrupted her to say 
 
 "Most probably it was the dogs: they are 
 such rough brutes that no lady should venture 
 near them when they are chained." 
 
 " If it had been Devilskin's doing, you 
 should never have ridden him again," Claude 
 said. "It isn't a sprain, though; it's only a 
 tendon that is strained a little. Did old Nep 
 throw your hand up while you were patting 
 him ?" 
 
 "Yes," Bella answered, colouring vividly; 
 but telling her story without hesitation, never- 
 theless. Then Claude carefully bound the 
 injured wrist with a broad piece of ribbon, and, 
 greatly to Jack's relief, the subject dropped. 
 
 " I got over it well, considering all things. 
 It is impossible for me to avoid blundering, if I 
 prevaricate ever so little," Bella remarked to 
 her brother-in-law that evening. 
 
 "Why did you?" 
 
 " Why did I what ?" 
 
 " Humbug about it. Why didn't you out 
 with it Claude couldn't have said anything 
 instead of laying the fault on the poor innocent 
 dogs?" 
 
 " The poor innocent dogs are and will ever 
 be in happy ignorance of the evil that is laid to 
 their charge !" 
 
 " That doesn't make it one bit the fairer." 
 
 " Jack, I won't be reprimanded by you. I 
 look upon you as my sworn ally; you mustn't 
 turn against me, and go over to the enemy, on 
 account of that tiniest of white lies that I told 
 about your dogs. It would have been too 
 much to have had every one up in arms against 
 my plan of going out next Wednesday." 
 
 "So it would," Jack said frankly. "Well! 
 looked at that way, perhaps ; only " 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 71 
 
 " "What ? give mo the benefit of these pro- 
 found reflections." 
 
 " They are not ' profound' I know that very 
 well," Jack said, rather hotly. " I only mean 
 that it's pluckier to tell the truth: you are 
 plucky enough too." 
 
 "That I am, in big things; but I am a very 
 coward in lacing fuss. They don't like me here, 
 Jack; your mother and Mrs. Markham have 
 mounted a sort of cold, polite guard over me, 
 that I feel, though it's not tangible ; they would 
 be disposed to take a severe view of every 
 little misfortune, horsey or otherwise, that be- 
 fell me." 
 
 " If they found it out, but not if you said all 
 there was to say about it yourself. You will 
 after this, won't you whether Devilskin flies 
 his fences or not ?" 
 
 " Yes, I will after this," she replied "I will 
 indeed, if you will only keep this one first little 
 experience quiet." 
 
 Which Jack promised to do in accents so firm 
 that Bella deemed the matter dead and buried 
 beyond all possibility of resuscitation. 
 
 Miss Grace Harper was endowed by nature 
 with a good memory. She was one of those 
 people who can remember and reproduce for 
 the edification of others what she said to him, 
 and he to her, and what they were both doing 
 at the time, together with what other people 
 appeared to think about it. This last was the 
 wildest conjecture ; but the matter she conjec- 
 tured, taken in conjunction with her manner 
 of giving it forth, imparted that air of truth and 
 reality to what she said which is apt to hover 
 over dull thoughts dully worded. There was 
 a vast appearance of sober reflection in the sen- 
 tences in which she accredited So-and-so with 
 having thought such and such. One forgot that 
 truth is beauty when listening to her surmises, 
 and only felt the improbability of any one hav- 
 ing the bad taste to conceive so plain a fiction. 
 
 Miss Harper went home from her visit to the 
 Court, and her interview with the heir and his 
 bride, not at all indisposed to cry havoc and let 
 loose the dogs of war upon the latter. She had 
 been carefully trained to love and look up to 
 Claude Walsingham, and she had a good me- 
 mory, and could not forget that she had been 
 so trained. She had a great gift of patience, 
 and there had been no suffering to her in that 
 waiting for him which his mother had tacitly 
 enjoined of late years ; but when the waiting 
 was proved inefficacious, she began to bewail 
 herself in her silent soul, and lament her lost 
 time. She felt injured ; she felt that Mrs. Claude 
 had reaped the result for which she (Grace) had 
 not "striven," but waited. Therefore, as was 
 wise and womanly, she hated Mrs. Claude, and 
 marked a mighty mote in Mrs. Claude's eye. 
 
 She had listened attentively to every word to 
 which each member of the Walsingham family 
 had given utterance on Mrs. Claude's return that 
 day after luncheon. She had listened attentively 
 to every word, and she was in her usual position 
 of being able to repeat every word with wordy 
 accuracy should occasion for doing so arise. 
 According to her wont, also, she had not drawn 
 any remarkably clear deductions from what she 
 had heard, but had just suffered it to sink .into 
 her memory for reproduction on the earliest 
 opportunity. 
 
 She found that her cousin, the great relative 
 of her house, whose sins of omission (he had 
 been guileless in act, and was only guilty of 
 forgetting smaller people than himself) had been 
 sedulously blinked by her whole family from his 
 earliest childhood she found, I say, that her 
 great cousin Lord Lexley and his wife had been 
 back from their ride for some time when she 
 reached home. Lady Lexley was in her dress- 
 ing-room. Lady Lexley had made known be- 
 fore retiring thither that she would be glad to 
 see Miss Harper immediately on her return. 
 
 The Harpers had taken Lady Lexley on trust, 
 in a measure more than in a measure, indeed 
 they had taken her completely arid entirely 
 on trust. This they had done, partly because 
 Lord Lexley's social countenance was loved by 
 them as the sun is by its flower, and partly be- 
 cause in their hearts they did believe him to be 
 incapable of folly or vice. Wishing him to con- 
 tinue to shine upon them, they argued warmly 
 against nothing for no one had to them 
 breathed a word in disparagement of the new 
 Lady Lexley argued that "if Lexley were 
 satisfied, it would ill become them to question 
 the antecedents of a lovely Italian countess, 
 whose filial feelings had subjected her to the 
 agonies of publicity." So they took her upon 
 trust, and gave her their best rooms, and were 
 grateful for all the trouble she gave, as became 
 worthy, kind country people, who liked their 
 neighbours to see how well they stood with their 
 grandest connection. 
 
 Lady Lexley was very anxious to hear of 
 Claude, and she was even more anxious to hear 
 of Claude's wife. Lord Lexley was one of 
 those nice-looking, cool, crisp men, who never 
 say clever things, but who never do foolish 
 ones in everyday life; his marriage had not 
 been all that was wise and discreet, perhaps, 
 but it was the exception to an otherwise unva- 
 rying rule. Lord Lexley being this, his wife 
 (sbe was only a woman) did sometimes remem- 
 ber that summer night at Richmond; and re- 
 membering this, she felt anxious to hear more 
 of Mrs. Claude. 
 
 Lady JLexley, clever, designing, well used to 
 conceal and to affect as she was, was a more 
 legible book to the unsophisticated country 
 girl, Miss Harper, than was the unsophisticated 
 country girl to her. She had not found out 
 that the great " what might be " of Grace's life 
 had been her possible union with the son of 
 her father's most important neighbour. But 
 Grace had fathomed that the light which ne'er 
 shall shine again on life's dull stream for Lady 
 Lexley, had been a " something " which she 
 had known, had felt, had looked, had sighed 
 with, and for, and in the company of Claude. 
 
 Grace Harper did not love Lady Lexley the 
 better for this discovery. No woman does 
 feel better disposed 'towards the possibly fa- 
 voured sharer of her feelings than towards the 
 rest of the world. But she liked the idea 
 which suggested itself to her of making 
 Lady Lexley's hand administer a depreciatory 
 pat on the head of Claude Walsingham's 
 wife. 
 
 Miss Harper told the story of Mrs. Claude's 
 ride, and Mrs. Claude's return, to Lady Lexley, 
 while Lady Lexley was being perfected and 
 prepared for the full light of many candles 
 
ON GUAKD. 
 
 below. Miss Harper told the story in the 
 minute, careful, laborious, truthful-upon-the- 
 face-of-it way in which plump, lymphatic, fair 
 women are apt to tell things when a listener 
 is their portion. And Lady Lexley brightened 
 through the deftly-applied rouge as she heard, 
 and her flexible lips quivered ! quivered even 
 under the liberal application of Chinese pink 
 and her form, appeared to expand, and her 
 luscious dark eyes kindled, and she was all the 
 Queen of Song in a lyric rage of excitement, 
 instead of being merely the well- established 
 English lady, earnest only on the one point of 
 refraining from betraying aught that might be 
 used in evidence of her ever having known 
 another calling. 
 
 "And this brother! what is he like?" she 
 asked, with ill-subdued eagerness, when Grace 
 had brought her narration to a conclusion. 
 
 "Oh, Jack? well, I can hardly tell you 
 what Jack is like, really; quite a boy." 
 
 " Quite a boy is he ? too young to be deserv- 
 ing of a description ?" Lady Lexley said with 
 a peculiar little laugh, conjuring up as she 
 spoke a vision of a vaulting horse, and a falling 
 woman, and of a fair, flushed, young, honest 
 face, bent on both these things in anguish. 
 
 " Yes, a mere boy," Grace replied. " If you 
 ask men about him, they will tell you that he 
 is a crack shot, and a first-rate rider (daring 
 and judicious, you know they say no one 
 rides straighter than Jack Walsingham), and 
 a good cricketer; but I don't care for such 
 things. He is not intellectual, like Claude." 
 
 " I can fancy intellect appeals to you more 
 unfailingly," Lady Lexley said, with what 
 would have been a sneer had not Grace glanced 
 at her, but which, as Grace did glance at her, 
 she changed at the birth into a smile. "How 
 good and kind of Major "Walsingham to give 
 his brother, his young guileless brother, such 
 opportunities of improvement in the ways of 
 this wicked world ! No one knows them better 
 than Mrs. Claude, I fancy ; at any rate she has 
 experience." 
 
 "Has she?' Grace asked, pricking up her 
 ears. Lady Lexley laughed. 
 
 "Tolerably extensive experience, I should 
 say, as would any one else who knew that she 
 was so compromised with one of her old lovers, 
 that she was obliged to agree in taking a part 
 in the absurd farce into which he turned her 
 wedding. They say she only submitted to Mr. 
 Yillars' plan of tying the holy knot under fear 
 of exposure." 
 
 As she said this, Lady Lexley grew more 
 bloomingly vicious; and, despite the opaque 
 whiteness of Miss Harper's skin, a shade of 
 green shot across her face. 
 
 " Oh ! ' exposure ?' I should doubt the possi- 
 bility of that," Miss Harper remarked, with that 
 stolid air which is the most wary of all man- 
 ners. " Nothing could ever be said about her, 
 I'm sure ; she's too frank a flirt to be a bad 
 one." 
 
 Lady Lexley was deceived by the stolidity, 
 deceived even to the point of showing her 
 highest trump to the unsophisticated cousin of 
 her husband. 
 
 "Far too frank a flirt, Grace; far too frank 
 to be let ride about with that handsome booby 
 of a boy, even in these secluded country lanes." 
 
 " Oh 1 no ; Jack is quite a boy." 
 
 Lady Lexley laughed out, and threw her 
 head up ; and the full blaze of the lamp that 
 hung over her dressing-table fell down upon 
 the rich yellow efflorescence that bloomed upon 
 her face. 
 
 " Not too much of a boy to neglect tasting 
 what lovely lips are near, whether they may 
 ever be his . legally or not. ' Quite a boy ! ' 
 ' a mere boy ! ' What a child you are to sing 
 to so old a nursery tune as that. / saw them 
 out this morning. I saw her fall from her 
 horse, and then he solaced the pain that strain- 
 ed wrist caused her by the tenderest caresses!" 
 
 " Did he ? how very funny !" Grace said, 
 quietly rising up, and keeping her big blue eye 
 on the rich yellow efflorescence the while. "I 
 must go and dress now, dear; you will bo 
 ready for dinner so long before me." 
 
 Then she went away soberly and slowly, as 
 she was wont to go and come; and Lady 
 Lexley watched, with her head turned with an 
 eager, inquiring straia over her shoulder, the 
 egress from her room of the girl to whom she 
 had told her latest-seasoned secret. " I wish 
 I had held my tongue," Lady Lexley said to 
 herself; "but she will forget it; she is dull, 
 dull, dull, as are the loves of her land." 
 
 It was the old story over again of the sharper- 
 witted woman being deceived and outwitted by 
 the more stupid one, who saw, and said, and 
 suffered too sometimes, and still made no sign. 
 The tortoise is perpetually winning victories 
 over the hare. Let us, who are tortoises, be 
 merry and rejoice, and hymn to the best of our 
 ability the praises of stolidity and sober slow- 
 ness. 
 
 " He shall be sorry yet that he has made me 
 wait all these years for nothing!" Grace Harper 
 said to herself while she was dressing. "I 
 wonder how he will like hearing what Lady 
 Lexley saw, and that, if / don't keep her from 
 speaking of it, his wife will be talked about." 
 
 The wonder imparted an extraordinary zest 
 to her toilet. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 FALSE IMPRESSIONS. 
 
 ON Tuesday morning the morning before that 
 day on which the hounds were to meet at 
 Horsley Hollow Mrs. Claude broached the sub- 
 ject of her design of following them to 
 her husband. " What shall you go down 
 on, Claude?" she asked "your father's old 
 cob ?" 
 
 "I shall not go down 'on' anything; a fel- 
 low is one splash after ten yards of these roads. 
 I shall have my mother's brougham." 
 
 " Then I'll have Devilskin led, and go down 
 in the brougham with you," she said, in as quiet 
 a tone as if she were making the most common- 
 place arrangement. 
 
 He looked up with a quick wonder. " Jack 
 will want to go with me," he said, in a way 
 that reminded her that there were but two 
 seats in the brougham. \ 
 
 "Jack is too young to be a sporting dandy 
 yet, I'm sure, Claude ; he will follow with just 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 as light a heart if he has got splashed before the 
 hounds find, as if he's spotless till then 1" 
 
 "But why have Devilskin led? What the 
 deuce is the good of driving down in your habit 
 to see them throw off?" 
 
 "I want to keep free from splashes, too, 
 Claude. I want Devilskin to be fresh when 
 we start," she said, with a little assumption of 
 defiance dashed with deprecation. 
 
 " Do you want to ride with us ?" he asked, 
 suddenly. 
 
 "Oh, Claude, Idol" 
 
 "Well, I don't see why JOM shouldn't, if you 
 like. You know your horse now, and Jack 
 knows the country, and can look after you." 
 
 " You can look after me yourself, Claude." 
 
 " Certainly, only I am unacquainted with the 
 country comparatively unacquainted, that is 
 however, you'll be all right. Why have 
 you made such a mighty mystery of your in- 
 tention?" 
 
 " I didn't want it talked about." 
 
 " Does Jack know you mean to ride ?" 
 
 "Ye es," Bella said, hesitatingly. 
 
 'And he has kept his tongue between his 
 teeth? That's wonderful for Jack!" Claude re- 
 marked, carelessly. 
 
 " I entreated him to do so ; I felt convinced 
 that my plan would be opposed." 
 
 " Nonsense ! By whom ?" 
 
 " Your mother won't like it or the Mark- 
 hams." 
 
 "Nonsense! Don't affect to be a martyr to 
 old-world prejudices; they interfere with you 
 very little, as far as I can see." 
 
 " Ah ! as far as you can see !" Bella repeated, 
 bitterly. 
 
 "Well, don't I see far enough? My dear 
 Bella, this is childish ! You imagine all sorts 
 of things that have not the smallest foundation 
 in sober fact, and then you fancy yourself in- 
 jured." 
 
 " I'm sure I'm not litigious and quarrelsome." 
 
 " There you go, lovely woman ' litigious and 
 quarrelsome !'* Anything else ? Can't you as- 
 sure me that you are not a murderous mis- 
 creant, and that my mother believes you one ?" 
 
 " Claude, I am not unjust to your mo- 
 ther/' 
 
 " My dear child, I know it ; nor is she to you, 
 only you have taken it into your head that she 
 either is or ought to be. The fact is, you have 
 conceived parts for her and yourself, and you 
 are determined to believe them played." 
 
 Mrs. Claude clasped her hands more firmly as 
 they rested together on her lap, and restrained 
 her desire to speak hard words. 
 
 "Well, never mind, dear," Claude said, pre- 
 sently; "you shall ride to-morrow, whatever 
 my mother and the Markhams say or think 
 about it. "Will that content you?" 
 
 "It must I mean, of course, it will; and I 
 am satisfied and delighted, and all sorts of 
 things." 
 
 " That's a pleasant frame of mind ; I wish I 
 could say the same of myself. Do you know 
 we are to be bored by being carried off in tri- 
 umph to luncheon at the Harpers' to-day, to 
 meet Lexley and his wife ?" 
 
 " It won't be much of a bore ; I shall not in 
 the least mind going," Bella replied, with a 
 prompt amiability that arose from that craving 
 
 for change which is apt to come over the spirit 
 of a temporary denizen in a country house. 
 
 "I thought you would hardly care to go so 
 far for so little as luncheon and Lexley," Major 
 Walsingham observed, rather sulkily. " Odd it 
 is devilish odd to see how eagerly women 
 grab at everything that promises the meagrest 
 excitement!" 
 
 " Are you not going ? would you rather stay 
 at home, Claude?" she asked, bending her 
 brows upon him, and suffering a line that a foe 
 might have termed a frown to come across her 
 forehead. 
 
 " Oh, yes ; I am going I that is, I suppose I 
 shall not be let off if my mother and you go. 
 Curse these country hospitalities ! Why to God 
 can't they let a fellow enjoy the brief peace that 
 might be his when he has time to come down 
 to these places!" 
 
 " Then, if you're going, why should I stay at 
 home ? I may wish to cultivate Miss Harper, 
 for aught you know or to see Lord Lexley 
 under altered circumstances." 
 
 She laughed as she said this, and Claude got 
 a bit of his moustache between his teeth, and 
 gnawed it. 
 
 "I have no doubt but that you do want to 
 see Lord Lexley: you have a sort of yearning 
 to look upon the joys you have lost, I suppose ? 
 Just fancy! you might have been Lady Lex- 
 ley, had you played- your cards properly, instead 
 of being only Mrs. Walsingham 1" 
 
 " Played my cards properly? How can you 
 speak in such a way, Claude? as if I had 
 been hacked, and hawked, and offered about ! 
 You're partly right though in what you said, 
 though you didn't mean it: I might have been 
 Lady Lexley." 
 
 " My dear Bella, really this confidence is 
 most uncalled for ! I thought you held that 
 there was something unseemly, not to say un- 
 womanly, in giving fortji the name of a man 
 who has been refused by you, with a flourish 
 of trumpets." 
 
 " Now, Claude ! but I won't argue with 
 you, for you're cross and unreasonable about 
 something !" 
 
 Major Walsingham knew that the charge 
 was just. He was cross and unreasonable, 
 and he felt that the cause of such crossness 
 and unreasoning ill-temper might not be given 
 publicity. He was annoyed with his wife for 
 her determination (all unconscious as she was) 
 to go and witness the first post-nuptial meeting 
 between Lady Lexley and himself; and he was 
 annoyed with himself for caring to meet Lady. 
 Lexley at all. This latter annoyance, however, 
 was swamped in the former one. 
 
 "Do you care much about seeing more of 
 Gracie Harper ?" he asked, after a time. 
 
 11 Not a bit, in reality ; I think her an unin- 
 teresting noodle." 
 
 " That is a very lady-like expression, upon 
 my soul !" 
 
 "Oh, Claude, do you really correct me for 
 such a trifle ? I wouldn't have said it before 
 any one else, dear, however much I might have 
 thought it." 
 
 " I should hope not, indeed." 
 
 "Don't you agree with the matter, though 
 tho manner may be offensive to you, Claude ?" 
 
 "No; I do not. She is not sharo and she 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 is not that worst of all feminine mistakes a 
 sayer of would-be-sensible things ; she puts out 
 the ideas God has gifted her with, in little, 
 simple words, that you feel you need not listen 
 to unless you like." 
 
 " God has gifted her with uncommonly few, 
 according to my judgment. I wonder if you 
 so prefer a fool, that you didn't marry one, 
 Claude ?" 
 
 " I might say something very invidious, if I 
 pleased now," he replied, lounging up, and 
 leaning his back upon the mantelpiece, and 
 looking down on the flushed face of his young 
 wife. 
 
 "Ah! but it won't please you to say it: 
 don't say it even if you think it," she cried, 
 quickly springing up, and putting her arms 
 round his neck. "Just think, Claude I 
 haven't been your wife six months yet, and 
 I'm alone with you here amongst your friends, 
 who don't like me too well. Don't say it." 
 
 " Nor do I think it, my darling my 
 darling !" he said, with a complete return to the 
 old tones and old winning ways that had ap- 
 pealed to her with such thrilling force when 
 they ought not to have so appealed, at which 
 Mrs. Claude was intensely comforted. 
 
 Comforted to the degree of enlarging to her 
 husband upon her intentions to-morrow. "I 
 shall have the third crutch in, Claude," she 
 said. 
 
 "What for? Doesn't he give you pull 
 enough when he trots? I dislike your using 
 that third crutch." 
 
 " I didn't require it for his trot at all." 
 
 "What do you require it for? It is so un- 
 safe in my opinion ; pins you in completely." 
 
 "It will prevent my being shaken forward 
 when he is going over anything." 
 
 " But you can't go forward ; how should you 
 go forward if you have a commonly decent seat, 
 as I believe you to have ? I am not going to 
 have you attempting a five-barred gate ; and as 
 to fences, he just jumps on to the bank and 
 then jumps down the other side in a way that 
 wouldn't shake an infant in the saddle." 
 
 " He might fly a fence by mistake, Claude." 
 
 "Preposterous nonsense 1 Don't have the 
 third pummel, dear." 
 
 " Very well, I won't," she said ; " I am so 
 glad you see nothing against my having the 
 treat of a run with Markham's hounds, Claude." 
 
 Then he assured her with a big air of magna- 
 nimity that he did not see anything against it, 
 " if she would promise to be careful, and to rely 
 upon Jack." Which Bella promised. 
 
 The luncheon to which the Walsinghams 
 were invited, in the friendly unceremonious 
 way indicated by the manner of Claude's men- 
 tion of it to his wife, was in reality a well- 
 matured plan. Mrs. Harper had inclined kindly 
 to the idea, which she entertained in secret in 
 her own mind for many days, before any one 
 else spoke of it. Suddenly the gates of speech 
 were opened, and both her daughter and Lady 
 Lexley put the thing before her, as to be done. 
 Accordingly, she contemplated it kindly for an- 
 other day or two, and then did it, or, at any 
 rate, put it in training by inviting Mr. and Mrs. 
 Walsingham, and such of their friends then at 
 the Court as liked to come. 
 
 When the day came, Lady Lexley com- 
 
 menced her preparations towards that reception 
 of Claude Walsirigham's young wife which it 
 was well his old friends should offer her. In 
 the first place, she refused to go out for a drive 
 with Grace. Grace's opaque skin could stand 
 the biting March air and wind. Her own sus- 
 ceptible epidermis could not, and she knew it. 
 She had no intention of being spotted crimson 
 and yellowish white in the wrong places, on 
 tho occasion of her first interview with Mrs. 
 Claude Walsingham. 
 
 Lady Lexley had a good surface to work 
 upon, and capital outlines to fill in. As a rough 
 sketch from the hand of nature early in the 
 morning, she was very striking. You would 
 have said so, had she individually permitted 
 you a glimpse. Later in the day (when she 
 had an object in view) she was charming as a 
 work of art. 
 
 What she did to herself she did well. She 
 never looked fluffy ! You had to glance very 
 much athwart her skin in order to detect the 
 bloom that God had had less to do with than 
 Piesse and Lubin. And though (late in the 
 day) her eyes were not so much " put in " as 
 brought out " with a dirty finger," the under 
 lids never looked bruised, as is the habit of arti- 
 ficially darkened eyes usually. 
 
 In fact, she was an artist who had never 
 wasted her powers on any canvas save herself. 
 This being the case, the surface was, at the 
 time of our making her acquaintance, in excel- 
 lent order : it was so thoroughly well mellowed 
 that it would "take" the smallest and most 
 delicate hues and touches. 
 
 Lady Lexley was down in the dining-room 
 at two o'clock that day, standing about waiting 
 for the people from the Court, with the rest of 
 the Harper family and her husband. This lat- 
 ter never looked out of place in the house in 
 the country in the daytime, as the majority of 
 men, Englishmen at least, do in the shooting 
 and hunting seasons. He looked fair, cool, and 
 crisp, as it was usual with him to look exter- 
 nally. Inside, he was in a rose-blush of satis- 
 faction, and a delicate tremor of delight at see- 
 ing how well his wife would look before the 
 woman who had refused him. 
 
 They came : Mrs. Claude a trifle wearied by 
 the drive, but supported wonderfully by the 
 prospect of to-morrow, and Major Walsingham 
 rather curious and rather dubious about the 
 meeting between Lady Lexley and his wife. 
 "I shall tell off that good-natured Gracie to 
 Bella for the day," he thought; " she is stupid, 
 but she has no sting." 
 
 But he was not suffered to carry out his idea, 
 though Lady Lexley was as well inclined to the 
 plan, which would have left her free to fan the 
 flame of the fancy of the man who had liked her 
 once, as was that man himself. Claude was 
 clever, and Lady Lexley was adroit, but Grace 
 Harper's stolidity defeated them both, without 
 either being conscious that she was the defeat- 
 ing cause. 
 
 On their arrival Claude had been somewhat 
 impressive in his manner of introducing his wife 
 to his old acquaintance, Lady Lexley. He had 
 prepared Bella for it in a measure, and had as- 
 signed a mean motive for doing so. " For God's 
 sake, don't be distant or constrained in your 
 manner towards Lexley's wife, or she'll think 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 you are so because you lost him yourself, 
 Bella," he had said; and when Bella had de- 
 fended herself from the imputation of such 
 manner ever being hers, he had made it a par- 
 ticular 'request that it should not be so, at any 
 rate, or any cost of trouble, in this instance. 
 
 Mrs. Claude had promised promptly to com- 
 ply with this request on its being made had 
 promised promptly, and without the faintest 
 tinge of suspicion shadowing her mind. As the 
 carriage rolled on, however, and Claude kept 
 his mother and Mrs. Markham company in a 
 sombre silence, Mrs. Claude began to turn the 
 subject over and over, and look at it in every 
 possible light. After a time she fancied that an 
 elucidatory ray fell upon it. Claude had known 
 Lady Lexley before ! Who could tell but that 
 Claude had loved her before, and had lost her 
 to Lord Lexley, even as Stanley Villars had 
 lost her (Bella) to Claude ! Well, no good could 
 accrue from speaking of it, or from endeavour- 
 ing to find out what had been ; but she would 
 be on guard against Lady Lexley ; on that she 
 was resolved. 
 
 Feeling thus distrustful and jealous of Lady 
 Lexley, it was only natural that Bella should 
 essay to throw observers off the scent of such 
 sentiments being hers, by devoting her atten- 
 tion almost exclusively to her ladyship; thus 
 leaving Claude to fall a prey to dulness "and 
 Miss Grade. Mrs. Claude simulated pleasure 
 at making the acquaintance so prettily, that 
 Lady Lexley, who was good-natured and well- 
 disposed to so much of the world as did not 
 appear likely to become a stumbling-block to 
 her in any way, liked her, and felt almost sorry 
 that the lapse from propriety which she had 
 witnessed when Devilskin flew his fence down 
 by Horsley Hollow, should have been recount- 
 ed by her to Miss Harper. Not that Lady 
 Lexley deemed Grace capable of meanly ani- 
 madverting in an ill-natured spirit on the little 
 occurrence to either friend or foe of Mrs. 
 Claude's. She only felt sorry now that she 
 should have, to one who was- soberly correct 
 and proper in all things as was Grace, said 
 aught derogatory to the more impulsive woman, 
 who was far more fascinating, and far less (pro- 
 bably) proper a^,d correct. 
 
 In fact, since Lady Lexley had achieved such 
 a much more decent destiny than her wildest 
 hopes had ever led her to believe she should 
 attain, she had become tolerant and tender to 
 very many things. She had been dancing on a 
 moral tight-rope for any number of years, and 
 it was jusfc an even chance, till the other day, 
 whether she should remain aloft, or come down 
 with damning violence into the mud. Now 
 danger was over, and she was very safe. With 
 the full knowledge of her own safety, there 
 came upon her a good deal of loving-kindness 
 towards those who might need it, which in former 
 days she would have thought too unremunera- 
 tive a quality to indulge in. She was prepared 
 to be very tolerant indeed to Claude Walsing- 
 ham's wife. Her sole mistake consisted in her 
 belief that Claude's wife stood in need of such 
 toleration. 
 
 So she responded to the advances Bella 
 forced herself to make in a way that gave Mrs. 
 Claude a rare idea of her duplicity. "She 
 doesn't like me of course she does not," Bella 
 
 thought, though why " of course," she would 
 have found it hard to say. Bella had only sur- 
 mised that Lady Lexley had been loved by 
 Claude in the long ago, before he had come to 
 Denham. Out of this surmise grew another, 
 viz., that now Lady Lexley was jealous of and 
 did not like her. And this second surmise 
 strengthened the first; gave it bone and sub- 
 stance, in the usual inconsequent feminine 
 manner. 
 
 After the luncheon was over there was a 
 conservatory to be looked at a conservatory 
 that caused you to stagger with surprise when 
 your vision first fell upon it. God's beautiful 
 flowers may be grouped together inartistically 
 very often, but this generally occurs when they 
 are gathered and put into vases where those 
 blooms droop that should stand erect, and those 
 stand erect which should droop. It is very 
 rarely that they look hopelessly vulgar when 
 they grow, especially in the country. 
 
 But they did look so here. They were about 
 in large pots that wished to be considered ma- 
 jolica, and were not in pots that it was vi- 
 dent were not there for the flowers, but that 
 betrayed an oppressive consciousness that the 
 flowers were there for them. It was an orderly 
 conservatory a conservatory with a pot and a 
 plaster-cast placed around it in odious uniformi- 
 ty ; with a lot of looking-glass in it also, as was 
 meet and right and well, and an unfortunate air 
 of being all ready prepared for the advent of a 
 solemn-faced man, in seedy black and spacious 
 collars, who would favour the company with a 
 comic song, or of a young lady in white, who 
 would warble something dubious, more dubious 
 ly still. It was a small bit of Cremorne by 
 daylight,, in fact, this combination of art and 
 nature which the Harpers' wealth had effected 
 down at their west country family seat. 
 
 Mrs. Claude Walsingham walked through this 
 conservatory, avoiding a votary of Terpsichore 
 who was bounding forward on the extreme tip 
 of a lamentable slender foot, with a candle sup- 
 port in her hand, on the one side, and a bowl 
 of bloated gold fish on the other walked 
 through with an elaborate air of " not wishing 
 for any one's attention, thank you," and being 
 perfectly satisfied that Claude should talk to Lady 
 Lexley. Which manner was not lost upon La- 
 dy Lexley, who pitied the feeling that engender- 
 ed it, and with mistaken mercifulness kept her 
 brilliant self closely to Bella's side, leaving 
 Claude to founder on the big, fair rock on which 
 his mother and himself had nearly split. 
 
 Tho big, fair rock in other words, the usu- 
 ally stolid Miss Harper was happier than the 
 rest of the party, in that she appeared to have 
 something to say to the one with whom her lot 
 was currently cast. She was talking really 
 talking not with animation, or rather not with 
 what would have been called animation in ano- 
 ther woman, but with what almost deserved 
 to be called so in her case, in comparison with 
 her normal manners. She was making a series 
 of coherent remarks apparently, and "what 
 on earth about!" Bella thought, despairingly, 
 as she felt keenly her own inability to originate 
 an idea that should not die and leave her con- 
 versationally weaker than before, the moment 
 it was born. 
 
 Not. only was there a severe physical strain 
 
7(5 
 
 on Mrs. Claude in getting through that con- 
 servatory, but there was a severe mental one 
 also. Not only had she to serpentine, in a 
 graceful but fatiguing way, through the mazes 
 of the pots, and bowls, and statues, but she had 
 to think perpetually of something to say that 
 would not bear, ever so remotely, on what 
 might have been in days of yore between 
 Claude and Lady Lexley. She sought infor- 
 mation laboriously. With the best intention in 
 the world, she bored Lady Lexley to tell her 
 the name of every stick and every leaf that 
 emanated from the mighty pots. And though 
 Lady Lexley was bored at being questioned, 
 not alone about what did not interest her, but 
 what (far more damping reflection!) did not 
 interest the questioner, she strove to respond, 
 strove to be hearty and sympathetic and genial 
 to this young wife, Vho showed so freely to 
 friends and foes what she felt and thought and 
 suffered. 
 
 But they were all very glad when the inves- 
 tigation of the small bit of Cremorne by day- 
 light had come to a conclusion. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 A THORNY PATH. 
 
 STANLEY VILLARS was not the man to go to 
 the dogs decorously in full canonicals. He had 
 lost his hope in all things he had lost his trust 
 and faith in all things, since that day when Bella 
 had stood and listened, passively apparently, to 
 the false words, with a falser meaning, when 
 falling from his lips, which he was tacitly suf- 
 fering people to suppose he held to be uttered 
 through himself "by the grace of God." As 
 soon as he lost his hope and faith, he threw off 
 the cloak which many continue judiciously to 
 wear in order to conceal such loss, and quitted 
 the Church. 
 
 "VVe saw him last on that ruddy October morn, 
 when the friend of his youth took from him the 
 woman he loved. We meet him again on a 
 bright March day, the day after the meet down 
 at Horsley Hollow, of which frequent mention 
 has been made. 
 
 He had given up his calling, he had quitted 
 his profession; in their horrified hearts his 
 family believed that he had abjured his faith. 
 On this latter point he was silent to them; 
 there would have been no pleasure to him, no 
 good gained, in showing them how utterly his 
 rock had crumbled, and so causing them to feel 
 that, as they were but human, so theirs might 
 crumble too. 
 
 In giving up his calling, in drifting out of the 
 executive part of that Church, in the letter or 
 the spirit of whose services he could no longer 
 take a part, he had given up (and he knew it 
 well) everything. The black coat and white 
 cravat cling like a stigma to a man in such a 
 case, honourable as they were formerly. Lite- 
 rally he could cast them off, figuratively they 
 clung to him. and checked the possibility of 
 another professional career. 
 
 On this bright March day on which I reintro- 
 duce him, he was sitting in a room into which 
 its brightness could not penetrate, by reason of 
 
 the heavy curtain of dust which clung to the 
 window. A disconsolate room, though it was 
 neither a small nor a badly furnished one a 
 terribly disconsolate room, with that compound 
 air of utter neglect and laborious work about it 
 which is always depressing. 
 
 The room was the first-floor front of a large 
 lodging-house in a west-central street. "A 
 house that was three minutes walk from Oxford 
 Street, two minutes ditto from the Strand, and 
 within an easy distance from the Bank," accord- 
 ing to the advertisement, which embodied the 
 sentiments of that great majority who regard 
 Oxford Street, the Strand, and the Bank, as the 
 great goals to be gained. There hung over all 
 things a strong odour of smoke, and, littered 
 about on the table, on sundry chairs, and even 
 on the floor at his feet, there were lying a mul- 
 tiplicity of tale-telling slips. 
 
 Stanley Villars sat by the table writing. We 
 saw him writing once before, if you remember ? 
 down in his Denham study, at his gentleman- 
 like scholarly ease, before he had outraged his 
 family by flinging free of what he had come to 
 consider his fetters. Since then he had outrag- 
 ed his family ; and being only a younger son, 
 and too proud a man to take aught that was 
 not freely offered, he was now writing for dear 
 life. 
 
 His losses had come upon him with a despe- 
 rate, unrelenting force and haste. Soon after 
 he had lost Bella Vane, and with her his hope 
 and faith and youth, his mother died, and her 
 death left him poor indeed. 
 
 There was no home for him in his brother'^ 
 house. Gerald himself was kind and brotherl} 
 enough ; but Gerald's wife was as hard as onty 
 a woman can be. She could not forget ho\v 
 sickly her child, the little heir, was. She could 
 but think the worst of the man who stood next 
 in succession. He was a hateful thing in her 
 eyes, now that he was professionless and poor, 
 and to be put upon with impunity. 
 
 There had been anger (this was one of the 
 sharpest stabs that were given him) in his 
 mother's heart when he first renounced all that 
 that high Tory and thorough church-going heart 
 held dear. The son she loved best appeared 
 bent upon going to perdition in the most unor- 
 thodox way. It made her ill and angry when 
 first she knew that he had given up his profes- 
 sion, and the prospect of a fat living that a 
 friend of hers had promised in secrecy " should 
 be Stanley's, when Stanley could take it." 
 
 It made her ill and angry, and, worse still, it 
 caused her to alter her will. 
 
 Great consolation, to be given surviving 
 friends after her demise, in the shape of well- 
 proportioned legacies, it was not in her power 
 to provide, for Lady Yillars had for the last 
 three or four years lived but to marry her 
 daughters an expensive motive which had 
 rewarded itself in Georgina's case. Still she 
 had designed a certain sum for Stanley ; but on 
 Stanley electing to kick over the traces of the 
 harness in which she had willed he should 
 wend his way to heaven, the Christian con- 
 quered the mother, and she made over the sum 
 in equal portions to her two daughters. 
 
 It had been but trifling not enough to 
 make or mar him still it marked sufficiently 
 to pain him what his mother had felt, even if 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 she had felt it but for a brief space. It marked 
 a certain difference in his sisters also. Georgina 
 took hers, or rather Mr. Manners did for her, 
 with an effusive woe for the cause of the change 
 that made him regret, less than he did pre- 
 viously, his scanty prospect of meeting with 
 them in the celestial regions for which Manners 
 and the rest of that ilk regarded themselves as 
 booked 
 
 But Florence had been what he had always 
 known she would be when tried true, and 
 lovingly generous, and gentle to him, and pain- 
 ed far, far more at the preference shown to her 
 than he was himself. 
 
 Florence wanted him to take all she had, and 
 "let her go and live with him" anywhere, any 
 way in which it might please him to live. But 
 his honour negatived this as sternly as did his 
 brother's wife, when she heard of Florence's 
 rash proposition. 
 
 "People don't think the better of you, Stan- 
 ley, for leaving the Church in the way you 
 have ; that's only natural, even you must allow. 
 Where would Florence be, if you took her 
 away ?" Lady Yillars had said to him. 
 
 " Where, indeed !" he replied; "you're quite 
 right, Carrie; my leaving the Church, as 
 you say, is worse than a crime, it's a folly. 
 Now if I had left it for something better, it 
 would have been all right ; but for nothing ! 
 only because I couldn't live a lie ! it must 
 strike the better portion of the world as 
 idiotic." 
 
 "You are quite right, it does," Lady Villars 
 replied, coldly. "Florence is still to be married, 
 remember, and men don't care to invest in a 
 wife with as few religious principles as she has 
 thousands ; you would compromise Florence hi 
 our set now." 
 
 This had been quite enough to determine 
 Stanley Yillars. Hard and cruel as it seemed, 
 awfully as it sounded, he knew that it was true, 
 or at any rate that it would be truth to those 
 whom Lady Villars called " our set." So he 
 wiped off the last bloom that was left to him in 
 life, and drew a broad, hard, black line between 
 himself and the sister who loved him. 
 
 She, Florence, was very miserable at parting 
 with him, and very helpless. The helplessness 
 carried the day, and they were parted. 
 
 Sir Gerald Yillars offered him " his interest " 
 and an income an income larger than Stanley's 
 deserts, perhaps, but smaller than his brother's 
 love for him. Stanley refused both. " Let me 
 go my own way, for God's sake !" he said, after 
 his mother's funeral; "it's no use telling you 
 what I am feeling, but if you don't let me go 
 and feel it out by myself, old boy, I shall go 
 mad! " 
 
 Other careers were closed to him, and " men 
 must work," or, rather, they must live. This is 
 the sole excuse that can be offered for Stanley 
 Yillars casting himself adrift on the wide trea- 
 cherous ocean of daily, hebdomadal, and other 
 literature. 
 
 His early experiences on this ocean were not 
 nice ! Whose are ? Still, bitter as they were, 
 they were better than the necessity of evincing 
 gratitude which he did not feel to outraged 
 relatives and injured friends. His troubles, his 
 disappointments, his time, his normal misery, 
 his chronic excitement, the paltry sums these 
 
 things gained for him they were all his own 
 all, utterly, entirely his own ! 
 
 I have told how back in the old Denham 
 days he wrote grammatical dulnesses fo, 
 journals that had such big names on their 
 respective staffs that remuneration might not 
 be mentioned. Well, those journals- dropped 
 him now that he really wanted them, for which 
 prudential move he admired them immensely, 
 as being on a par with their age a fact their 
 staff of savans, and dulness generally, had in- 
 duced him to doubt before. 
 
 So to him, at last, there came a day in which 
 he, too> bowed to the great galling necessity of 
 sitting down to write what would sell. He was 
 living like a gentleman in chambers in the Tem- 
 ple when he first took to the trade, it was 
 before he had made the discovery that money, 
 like happiness, is a very fleeting thing, and 
 had come down to the grimy room, in the gaunt 
 house, in the grim street, in the west central 
 district. 
 
 He did not fall upon the awful evil of second- 
 rate daily press work all at once. He came 
 upon that by gradations those ruinous, flat- 
 tering, exciting gradations by which men do 
 come to it. The boat in which he placed him- 
 self when first embarking upon the literary 
 ocean was a monthly magazine with a good 
 name. Casual reader, do you care to learn by 
 what muddy paths the unknown, unwanted, 
 walk into a monthly magazine ? 
 
 He, who had never written aught but learned 
 dulnesses before learned dulnesses which- elu- 
 cidated mysteries which no one cared to have 
 cleared up, or made "vulgar," buried and de- 
 composed tongues he wrote a popular article 
 on a popular subject in terse sentences that 
 told. He was very much ashamed of himself, 
 but he could not help itl He went in for the 
 people and general advancement! just as 
 though he had been a stump orator, or a penny- 
 daily-paper man. or a Transpontine stage-mana- 
 ger, or anything else that sold himself to the 
 times in order that the times might pay him in 
 return. 
 
 His article was a very taking thing, even in 
 MS., when he had finished it, a very taking thing 
 indeed, for he had broken it up into the briefest 
 paragraphs, and elaborated all his corrections 
 in a way he would cease to do when the P. 
 D.'s were howling for " copy" on his door-mat. 
 He treated of current literature in this article ; 
 and as he wanted to get it into a magazine that 
 circulated well, he made believe to think ours 
 the golden age of letters especially of fic- 
 tion in the most obliging and popular man- 
 ner. 
 
 When he had written it, the result was reada- 
 ble, and there were about twelve pages of it. 
 It was an immense quantity for an unknown, 
 unwanted man to get into a good, well-esta- 
 blished magazine. But he was living like a 
 gentleman at this period, as I said before.; he 
 was wearing good broad cloth and pearl grey 
 gloves stitched with black. And he was espied 
 by the great man by the editor himself de- 
 scending from a Hansom. 
 
 In short, he did not look like a man who 
 wanted money; therefore, instead of being 
 snubbed, and his article being rejected, the 
 latter was accepted, and he was given twelve 
 
78 
 
 ON GUARD. 
 
 guineas for it, and altogether courteously en- 
 treated. 
 
 This editor was just the man to giye a tyro 
 heart to struggle on. He had a hopeful bearing 
 and a buoyant voice, and the face of a huge, 
 amiable, parboiled baby, or say, of a scalded 
 cherub ife was so large, red, smooth, and hair- 
 less. His suave, considerate, promising man- 
 ner sent shoals of aspiring young creatures 
 away happy, even though they were laden with 
 rejected MSS. He would not take what they 
 offered him, or if he did take it, he paid them 
 more in politeness than in coin of the realm. 
 Still he had a cheery way of prognosticating a 
 "brilliant success" for one of their still-to-be 
 written efforts a brilliant success, and fifteen 
 thousand pounds at least, which was vastly en- 
 couraging. Neither were ever realised, the suc- 
 cess or the fifteen thousand ! Still, who can say 
 that he did no good in his generation, when it 
 is remembered how many hitherto despondent 
 ones he had made wildly happy for a day ? 
 
 When Stanley Villars wended his way the 
 second time into the Presence, things assumed 
 a darker hue. "You must know, Mr. Villars," 
 the mighty man said to him, "that I acted 
 with more generosity than wisdom in giving 
 your article such a prominent place in last 
 month's number." 
 
 " It rested with you entirely to take or refuse 
 it," Stanley replied rather gruffly. The round, 
 red, kind, fat face was rounder, redder, kinder, 
 and fatter than before even; but Mr. Villars 
 began to distrust it. He began to do something 
 else, also which was to detect a certain as- 
 sumption of mental superiority in the manner 
 of the guiding star of that magazine's destinies. 
 It struck him with vivid force at once, that if 
 he remained, and sought to continue the con- 
 nection, that the editor would, in the interests 
 of his employers, cause him to pay a pretty 
 severe penalty for what was averred to have 
 been an editorial lapse of judgment. However, 
 he had another article to sell, and he wanted 
 money ; therefore he remained. 
 
 " It rested entirely with you to take or refuse 
 it," he had said in answer to the great man's 
 soft reproach ; to which Mr. Bacon replied 
 
 " Gently, my dear sir ! I am fully aware that 
 it did rest entirely with me whether that paper, 
 in which, despite its crudeness, I was delighted, 
 delighted to recognise evidences of great power 
 and merit, should go into the Mag. or not. I 
 decided in your favour, wishing to encourage 
 young talent. I decided in your favour ; but 
 the risk was very great, the sum paid unheard 
 of for a beginner. "When you have made the 
 march in literature, which I feel sure you will 
 eventually make, you must remember your first 
 friend!" 
 
 Stanley was externally grateful for the kindly 
 prophecy internally, indifferent as to whether 
 it were ever realised or not. He had no motive 
 for making a name. Bella was lost to him 
 stolen from him by his friend. But men must 
 live, therefore they must work. 
 
 "You will find this better suited to the cha- 
 racter of your Magazine," he said quietly, touch- 
 ing his roll of slips; "it's not written with the 
 almost pedantic care of the last ; it treats of a 
 popular subject, and is a devilish deal more read- 
 able. Will you have it ?" 
 
 Mr. Bacoa took it in his hand, glanced through 
 it hastily, pursed up his lips (they were small 
 lips, that crumpled up into a semblance of the 
 most profound disapprobation on the smalles 
 occasion), and shook his head. " You've work 
 ed it up very well to about the middle of it, 
 but the end is vapid, dull, and flat in the ex- 
 treme." 
 
 Mr. Villars grew red to the roots of his hair. 
 This was free criticism, and no mistake, from a 
 man to whom he had not sold his brains and 
 soul yet. 
 
 "You will be good enough to return it to 
 me," he said coldly, holding out his hand for it. 
 Then Mr. Bacon gently smiled, and softly tapped 
 the table with a large plump forefinger. 
 
 " Impetuosity is fatal to a man in literature, 
 Mr. Villars. I have never before taken BO 
 strong an interest in a young author as I find 
 myself taking in you. I shall not allow your 
 impetuosity to come between us. I see before 
 you a most brilliant future ; you are a rich mine 
 of gold, which only requires to be worked pro- 
 perly to make, not alone your own fortune, but 
 the fortunes of the firm ; and, by God, I will 
 work it too !" 
 
 He seemed very much in earnest. Mr. Vil- 
 lars was conscious for a couple of moments of a 
 thrill that would have been ambition, had he 
 not lost Bella. 
 
 " You think then," he commenced but Mr. 
 Bacon interrupted him. 
 
 " I think I know, indeed, that if you will 
 only exercise patience, you will achieve great 
 things. I am a practical working man, and I 
 know what is to be done if you farm yourself 
 out properly. You must not make yourself too 
 cheap, and you must not diffuse yourself too 
 freely. Now about this little thing," and he 
 looked at Stanley's article ; " it's not worth any- 
 thing scarcely worth the space it will occupy 
 in the Magazine. Still I shall insert it, for the 
 sake of familiarizing the public with your name : 
 writers are like actors, they must be kept con- 
 stantly before their great supporters, or their 
 great supporters will soon cease to support 
 them. ' The world forgetting by the world for- 
 got,' is a natural, inevitable sequence in litera- 
 ture." 
 
 " I am quite willing to be kept before the 
 public, since I have no alternative," Stanley 
 said, moodily. "What will you give me for 
 this ? There are about three pages more than 
 in the last article, but I shall take the same 
 sum 1" 
 
 Mr. Bacon shook his head and crumpled up 
 his lips. "I will speak to my sub-editor," he 
 said, " a man on whose opinion I firmly rely ; 
 you will then hear what we can do, and feel 
 satisfied that we can do no more 1" 
 
 Mr. Bacon awaited the advent of his sub, 
 with a beaming brow. He accredited Stanley 
 Villars with the guileless unsuspiciousness of 
 the babe and suckling ; he thought his new con- 
 tributor had faith, when, alas! he had only 
 despair. Mr. Stanley Villars felt that he was 
 being done but so he would be, go where he 
 would, he told himself. 
 
 The sub-editor arrived, and looked at his 
 great colleague with the inquiring eye a faith- \ 
 ful terrier turns upon you when he is desirous 
 of ascertaining what particular rat is to be 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 79 
 
 worried for your delectation. He was a grimy 
 little man with wild hair, which he tossed with 
 both hands frantically, at such odd moments 
 when his chief was not looking at him. 
 
 "I have been telling Mr. Villars," Mr. Bacon 
 commenced, oratorically, " that in our anxiety 
 to help him, we were guilty of a little error 
 with respect to his last article ; you can bear me 
 out in this statement." 
 
 The sub. evinced the greatest desire to do 
 so, but a trifling inability to comprehend the 
 precise way in which it would be well to do it. 
 
 " Mr. Villars will be shocked to hear, that 
 through the injudicious prominence we gave to 
 a paper that was full of genius, and also full of 
 the faults of a beginner, our circulation has de- 
 creased in a manner that is truly marvellous 1 
 marvellous I" 
 
 Mr. Stanley Villars expressed himself shocked, 
 but unbelieving. 
 
 " This, though, I can show you by our books," 
 the editor went on glibly not offering to pro- 
 duce a single book, by the way, but speaking 
 in a convincing tone that rendered ocular de- 
 monstration unnecessary. "However, this is 
 not to the point ; what I propose to Mr. Villars 
 is, that we give him another chance in the Mag. 
 as an essay writer, but that he does not rely on 
 that chance; in short, that he gives all the 
 powers of one of the most gifted minds" (here 
 he bowed the plump cherub vision gracious- 
 ly towards Stanley) " I have ever been fortu- 
 nate enough to como in contact with, to fic- 
 tion." 
 
 "You will take the article then?" Stanley 
 asked ; the long, pompous speeches were weary- 
 ing things to which to listen, despite their en- 
 couraging flattery. 
 
 " We will take the article/ will take the 
 article, convinced that the firm, in whose inte- 
 rests I am acting, will have cause to extol that 
 foresight on my part, which now they might be 
 disposed to denominate rashness." 
 
 " What will you give me for it?" 
 
 Mr. Bacon glanced at his satellite ; his satel- 
 lite glanced at him in return. 
 
 " It would be impossible," they both began, 
 and both paused, politely ceding the right of 
 speech to the other. 
 
 "Pray proceed," the suave chief said. Ac- 
 cordingly the grimy sub. proceeded. 
 
 "It is against the rule of the magazine to pay 
 anything for casual articles. Authors are too 
 glad to see their names in it at all ; it makes the 
 running for other and more important works, 
 in a way that is invaluable to fresh starters in 
 the great literary race." 
 
 " You see, Mr. Villars?" Mr. Bacon observed. 
 
 " I see that you don't think my wares worth 
 anything, so I must take them elsewhere," 
 Stanley Villars said, in a disappointed tone. He 
 saw that he was being done ; he felt that they 
 were merely trying how far undervaluing him 
 would benefit themselves. Still he had not the 
 aeart to combat . the palpable chicanery he 
 nad not the spirit to risk a failure on the chance 
 f making some better success. He " feared 
 nis fate too much." In fact, he dreaded a dull 
 thumping fall down into utter poverty, utter 
 distress, and despair, all at once. So, though 
 he said '' I must take them elsewhere," he said 
 it in a tone that told plainly as possible how 
 
 dreary their chances of being " accepted else- 
 where" were. 
 
 " You will take them elsewhere ? good," the 
 editor replied, grandiloquently. "Now, my 
 dear sir, before we separate and you go off to 
 certain disappointment, allow me to ask a very 
 delicate question a very delicate question, in 
 deed?" 
 
 " Ask it," Stanley replied. 
 
 " Is the insertion of this article the immedi- 
 ate insertion of monetary importance to you?" 
 
 " What the hell difference does that make to 
 you? " Stanley answered hotly. " I have offer- 
 ed it to you for a sum that's paltry enough, 
 G-od knows if He cares to know aught of my 
 affairs any longer, which I doubt and you 
 have refused it. Let the matter end there. 
 Good morning." 
 
 " The matter shall not end there ! " the edi- 
 tor responded, hastily. He had no intention of 
 permitting this fly to escape his net. "My 
 dear sir, suffer me to speak ; I cannot see such 
 brilliant abilities founder close upon the start- 
 ing shore, for want of a few favouring breezes. 
 We will take your article ; draw upon me for 
 what sum you require, since unfortunately the 
 usual want of money in the world is oppressing 
 you. Draw on me for what sum you may re- 
 quiresay a hundred pounds and work it off, 
 write off the debt as occasion serves. Do you 
 agree ? " 
 
 " If my writings are worth nothing, how may 
 I ever hope to work off the debt?" Stanley 
 asked. 
 
 " Their value will be increased prodigiously 
 after this article has appeared in the place I 
 shall now assign it in the Mag." 
 
 " Then if you can venture to assign it a 
 ' good place,' whatever that may mean all 
 the pages of a magazine seem of equal merit to 
 me why can't you pay me for it ? It must be 
 worth something." 
 
 "In itself, no!" the gigantic cherub replied, 
 decisively ; " but we shall now have a motive in 
 giving it an adventitious importance. You 
 shall be successful, Mr. Villars, and when you 
 are we should like something beyond your 
 mere word to assure us that we shall not be 
 unrewarded. You will not forget first friends ?" 
 
 As Mr. Bacon accompanied this remark with 
 a cheque for one hundred pounds, and as Stan- 
 ley Villars sorely needed the money, the latter 
 answered somewhat effusively that he would 
 not object to giving some pledge more tangible 
 than his mere word as to his readiness to supply 
 "copy" till the debt should be worked out. 
 Accordingly Mr. Bacon daintily prepared a little 
 paper which Stanley daintily signed, which 
 committed him to write for the firm, and the 
 firm alone, under divers heavy penalties, for the 
 term of three years. 
 
 "By that time you will have taken your 
 stand in literature and will see what you are 
 about," Mr. Bacon remarked in a gaudy manner. 
 "You will see what you are about, and we 
 shall see what you are made of. Never before 
 have we taken a young author so enthusiasti- 
 cally by the hand ; do not disappoint us." 
 
 " God of heaven 1" Stanley thought, " has it 
 come to this already ; to be patronised and pro- 
 tected, to be ' taken in hand' by such a cad as 
 this!" - 
 
80 
 
 ON GUARD. 
 
 However, though he thought thus, he pocket- 
 ed the cheque for a hundred pounds, and Mr. 
 Bacon held the " little formula" which bound 
 him to do their bidding for three years ! The 
 business had managed itself marvellously ! 
 
 After this second interview and marvellous 
 management of the business, there were no dif- 
 ficulties intervening between Stanley Yillars 
 and publicity. He was incessant in the maga- 
 zine which had been the receptacle of his first 
 attempt at popular writing ; and not alone in 
 that magazine, but in others which emanated 
 under apparently different supervision from the 
 same source. The initials, " S. V.," came to be 
 well known. More than that, they came to be 
 eagerly looked for. Better still, they were missed 
 when by chance absent. On the whole, in fact, 
 they were liked ! 
 
 The bar between publicity and himself was 
 broken down in fact, and Stanley Yillars had 
 no cause to be ill pleased with the manner in 
 which that " many-headed pig, the public," as he 
 called it, grunted forth its satisfaction at his 
 efforts in its behalf. He was well received. 
 Benighted outsiders, who were happily ignorant 
 of the backstairs work that is going on, regard- 
 ed him as rising, prosperous, wondrously lucky. 
 His sister-in-law heard of him from unconscious 
 friends, who liked to sting her with civility, not 
 so much as a success, but as the success ; and 
 Lady Yillars repeated these sayings to Florence, 
 winding up with a scoff at that perverted state 
 of mind " which kept Stanley in the purlieus of 
 low Bohemianism when he was doing so well 
 ind might escape from them, and live like a 
 gentleman, although (with bitter emphasis) he 
 vrote." She that stern young judge was as 
 gnorant as was poor Florence of that little 
 wond he had signed, which held him closely in 
 the meshes of the enterprising firm who were 
 reaping the benefit of his brains. 
 
 The 100 for which he had gone into this 
 ignominious bondage, were long spent when we 
 meet with him again, on the bright March 
 morning the day after the "meet" at Horsley 
 Hollow. He was going on now, day by day, 
 spinning off yards of slips with the velocity of 
 despair ; writing " to order" generally, and sell- 
 ing his copyrights for the most beggarly sums. 
 He was kept before the public with a vengeance ; 
 but his brain was often likely to burst in the 
 attempt to meet the demands made upon it. 
 He was. writing to live now; he had hired out 
 his mind! he had drawn in advance on the 
 obliging firm who were never "hard upon 
 young authors !" he was the veriest slave in 
 the cursed trade that men drive in the noblest 
 of all professions. 
 
 On this special morning he was very hard at 
 work. He was striving to work himself free of 
 his debt by supplying a novel for one magazine, 
 and a series of articles on the " Early Fathers" 
 in another. The price given for both these per- 
 formances was of such delicate dimensions, that 
 it would be but a drop in the ocean of his debt. 
 But he had no appeal ; he could not carry his 
 wares elsewhere until the term of bondage had 
 expired. 
 
 Have you ever seen this mental hemlock 
 growing up and threatening to overshadow and 
 poison a man's life ? You can only act the part 
 of the Levite ; there is nothing that you can do, 
 
 for rest assured that the man who is in such a 
 plight, and who feels it as Stanley Villars did, 
 will not howl his grievances aloud. There is 
 nothing to be done, so pass by circumspectly 
 on the other side. 
 
 The wild old legends of men who sold them- 
 selves to the devil for gold in olden times, are 
 paralleled in these latter days. Only instead of 
 selling themselves for much gold, they sell them- 
 selves very often for a mess of pottage. The 
 Moloch of the press is insatiable and very 
 mean. 
 
 He had fallen away from the haunts and the 
 friends of his youth. He had cut himself off 
 from all, in his first dull agony of rage against 
 the false love, and the false friend, and the frail 
 faith ; all of which had deserted him, and proved 
 weak when tried. He had cut himself off from 
 these, and had only replaced them by acquain- 
 tances of the hour. As his strait grew sorer 
 and sorer, he felt that there was not one to 
 whom he could apply no, not one ! 
 
 For he would not cloud what might be bright 
 in Florence's life by allowing her to know how 
 utterly his own was blasted. "Let her be 
 happy, if she might and could be," he said to 
 himself, as if the poor loving child could be 
 happy while he maintained this miserable 
 silence. He made no sign to her, and so she 
 could only lament him in uncertainty and dark- 
 ness. 
 
 He was working very hard this morning, 
 and he had been working very hard all night. 
 "They were going to press the following day," 
 an imperative missive from head-quarters had 
 informed him the previous night, and the second 
 of the two chapters of the novel that he was 
 bound to supply was still unwritten ! 
 
 Oh ! the folly of it ! The almost awful folly 
 of sitting there through long weary hours writ- 
 ing what his judgment declared to be twaddle. 
 The miserable littleness of doing a dialogue that 
 was as utterly unlike anything human beings 
 would have said to one another under any cir- 
 cumstances, as were the circumstances under 
 which it was spoken unlike any combination 
 that could possibly have taken place in real 
 life. The awful folly of it ! the ill-paid folly of 
 it! But it was to be done, so he went on 
 doing it. 
 
 I presume that the profound conviction of 
 the game not being worth the candle is apt to 
 oppress the mind of every writer with more or 
 less frequency. That we who are still on the 
 lowest round of the ladder suffer from it acutely 
 very often, I can testify. But in the lives of all 
 there must be many hours of that intense, in- 
 describable anguish of fatigue, which can only 
 be tasted to the full by those who, while worn 
 out mentally and bodily, with a perfect com- 
 pleteness that appears to admit of no increase,, 
 are compelled to still hold a pen, and go on 
 staining the paper with what might be their 
 heart's blood by the hurt it gives them. 
 
 There was a chalky look around his lips, his 
 eyelids were swollen, and his eyes red and 
 sunken at last when he laid the pen down, and 
 commenced gathering up the sheets of copy, 
 taking a note of the MS. when he came to the 
 last, and writing down in his note-book the last I 
 few lines in a way that plainly told its own 
 story. He would go off when the time came to 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 81 
 
 supply his next instalment, with just those 
 few lines as a guide for the future, and a 
 reminder of what had gone before. As he did 
 so, the postman's knock sounded sharply, and 
 before he had time to give a sigh to the times 
 when his work had been conducted in so wide- 
 ly different a way, the servant came into his 
 room with a letter ; and, for the first time since 
 she had sent him his dismissal at Denharn, he 
 saw the handwriting of Bella Vane. 
 
 
 CHAPTER XXY. 
 
 "THAT WOMAN." 
 
 MAJOR WALSINGHAM sat speechless in the cor- 
 ner of the carriage during the whole of the 
 drive home after that pleasant luncheon at the 
 Harpers' at which Lady Lexley had conceived 
 such a vast toleration for Bella. He sat speech- 
 less a bad sign in itself. "Worse than this, 
 he looked what Bella emphatically termed 
 "glum." 
 
 Mrs. Claude left her husband to the undis- 
 turbed enjoyment of his silence and glumness 
 till the carriage drew up at the hall door of the 
 Court. Then, when he was handing her out, 
 she said 
 
 " I'm so cold, Claude ; can't we go for a run 
 before dinner ?" 
 
 " You can go for a run if you please, I sup- 
 pose," he replied grimly. 
 
 " Blessings on you for the gracious permis- 
 sion ; I know I can go, but I want you to go 
 with me." 
 
 "Then I am afraid you will not have what 
 you want in this instance," he said coldly, and 
 Bella saw that the red spots were very visible 
 in his eyes, and that he looked stern and cold. 
 
 "Claude! what is the matter?" she asked, 
 following him into the hall, and laying her 
 hand on his arm. " What is the matter ?" she 
 repeated eagerly. "Come in here;" and she 
 pushed the library door open and went in 
 hastily with him. 
 
 "The matter I the matter* is that I am very 
 much annoyed," he replied, while Bella stirred 
 the dully burning fire fiercely, causing a large 
 blaze to leap up and show how flushed her 
 cheek was, and how brilliant her eyes. 
 
 " What are you annoyed about ?" she asked, 
 standing right in front of him with her hat in 
 her hand, and her face upturned to his gaze 
 frankly. " What are you annoyed about ?" 
 
 "You." 
 
 " What have I done, or left undone ? What 
 is it, Claude ?" 
 
 "Don't speak in that peremptory tone to 
 me !" he said coldly. 
 
 " Ah ! think a little of what / feel at your 
 tone ! What have I done ; tell me ?" 
 
 " Made me a laughing-stock for the neigh- 
 bourhood as well as yourself." 
 
 M Claude I" 
 
 "You have; don't deny it, Bella: were you 
 not thrown from your horse the other day? 
 You may as well tell the truth, for I know it." 
 
 She laughed out. " Is that all ? Yes, I was, 
 only I wouldn't tell for fear of your not letting 
 me ride Devilskin to-morrow." 
 6 
 
 " I shall not let you ride now, you may be 
 very certain ; not because you were awkward 
 enough to come off, but because of what fol- 
 lowed. Really, madam," he began, walking up 
 and down the room with hasty strides, for the 
 purpose of getting his anger up to the proper 
 pitch, "I thin-k you might have a little more 
 respect for your husband than to to hea- 
 vens ! I can hardly express myself about it 
 conduct yourself in the way you did.!" 
 
 "In what way?" she asked, wonderingly. 
 She was pallid with anger. Major Walsingham 
 imagined her to be pallid from fear. She had 
 entirely forgotten Jack's cubbish salute. 
 
 " In what way, Bella ? Don't affect to have 
 forgotten, or to regard the occurrence as one of 
 no consequence. Jack is a young fool ; but I 
 don't choose to have a young fool, simply be- 
 cause he is my brother, treating my wife as he 
 would any woman for whom he'd no respect." 
 
 "Claude! you don't know what you are 
 saying." 
 
 " Don't I, faith ! I know very well. Now I'll 
 have no more of it, Bella ; I'll have no more of 
 it." 
 
 "Of what?" 
 
 " Of this cursed philandering with Jack!" 
 
 "How can you how dare that woman ac- 
 cuse me of it ? I saw her that day that un- 
 fortunate day." 
 
 "What woman? I mean you're quite mis- 
 taken," Claude said confusedly. " I have heard 
 of your conduct, and I'm very much annoyed. 
 Why you should imagine Lady Lexley to be 
 my informant, I don't know." 
 
 *" It was Lady Lexley she passed me after- 
 wards. Let me tell you now how it happened, 
 Claude," and she proceeded to attempt to ex- 
 plain. 
 
 But Major Walsingham would not be a 
 patient listener. He was angry I may almost 
 go so far as to say he was infuriated against 
 his brother and his bride for having placed him 
 in such a position that he might be laughed at. 
 He did not want to hear Bella's explanations, 
 therefore he would not listen. 
 
 " I shall put a stop to these long lonely rides 
 with Jack. Your cursed vanity has led you 
 into the coil. You have nothing to do down 
 here, so I suppose you thought you would get 
 Jack in your train a grand triumph !" he said 
 mockingly. 
 
 Mrs. Claude turned to leave the room. 
 When she reached the door she paused. 
 
 "Will you speak reasonably about it, 
 Claude? Don't accuse me of entertaining 
 such a puerile motive : you know yourself that 
 it is false." 
 
 " I know nothing of the kind. Judging from 
 your antecedents, I should say " 
 
 She was back by his side like a flash of 
 light. 
 
 " Don't say those words, Claude !" 
 
 " That you were not the one to evade a flirta- 
 tion if it came in your way. Now, don't treat 
 me to hysterics or asseverations of innocence. 
 The boy is a booby ; but as he didn't know 
 how to treat you with fitting respect, you ought 
 to have taught him." 
 
 " Fitting respect ! your own brother!" 
 
 " G-ood God, you don't mean to tell me that 
 you would smile and be happy if all my brothers 
 
82 
 
 UJN UUARD. 
 
 took it into their heads to kiss and caress you ! 
 If you don't learn greater prudence and cir- 
 cumspection, we shall both have cause to rue 
 the day we met." 
 
 " I think we shall," she said, sadly, and then she 
 went away with a sober face, and step, and heart. 
 
 She was sure of it I That woman that 
 dark winsome woman, who had been so smil- 
 ing and so suave to her was the one who had 
 given Claude the dagger, and shown him where 
 to strike. Bella saw it all. The old love for 
 Claude, and the animus against herself, Claude's 
 hapless wife. " I must be on guard against 
 her, or she'll poison my life," Bella thought 
 The idea, the wild idea of it's being the fair, 
 placid Miss Harper against whom it would be 
 well to be on guard, never struck her. 
 
 Sitting there, in the solitude of the big, state 
 bed-room of her husband's father's house, she 
 began to feel alone, friendless very, very deso- 
 late I Claude had repulsed her. He had been 
 hard, and cruel, and rude, at the instigation of 
 "that woman 1" It was wonderful the way in 
 which she hated the woman who had done her 
 no ill. It was wonderful that no instinct led 
 her to beware of the one who was ready to 
 strike her down with a stunning force, should 
 opportunity offer. 
 
 Her desolation grew upon her as she reflect- 
 ed that the harmless bond which had existed 
 between Jack and herself was to be snapped. 
 She felt desperately ill-used, and desperately 
 ill-tempered, as one is apt to feel under such 
 circumstances. They were all cold and hard to 
 her down here cold, and hard, and horribly 
 unjust ! Claude was these things to an even 
 stronger degree than the rest of his family ; and 
 that he was so at the instigation of the hand- 
 some, not too well authenticated Lady Lexley, 
 she felt firmly convinced. Bella sat down, and 
 hated Lady Lexley vigorously for a few minutes 
 hated her for her florid manner and those 
 witching ways which had failed in deceiving 
 her, Bella, but had done their work so well 
 upon Claude hated her for being the indirect 
 cause of putting a stop to that run with Mark- 
 ham's hounds, the prospect which had made 
 things endurable for the last few days, hated 
 her, in fact, as only a woman can hate the one 
 whose influence over the man she loves, she 
 fancies to be stronger than her own. After 
 hating Lady Lexley vigorously in inaction for 
 a few minutes, she rose up and bethought her- 
 self of Stanley Villars, and resolved to write 
 to him, telling him how that she wanted a 
 friend and adviser, and entreating him to be 
 the former to her, and give her the latter for 
 the sake of the old days that her heart now 
 ached to recall. 
 
 She wrote her letter, but she did not say 
 quite all she had intended saying when she 
 first thought of writing to him. Her heart 
 yearned for sympathy, and so she sought it 
 from him in a roundabout way, since her hus- 
 band appeared bent on refusing it to her; but 
 she did not tell him this. She only told him 
 that Claude and herself were going back to 
 town early in the following week, and begged 
 that he would come and see her at once. 
 " You have shown yourself capable of so much, 
 that you will give me this great pleasure," she 
 wrote. " Besides, you promised to come to 
 
 me did I ever need you. I need you now; 
 and I know that you are not one to break a 
 promise." 
 
 Her sole motive in applying to Stanley Vil- 
 lars was that he might come to them, and when 
 he had heard a bit, the merest bit of the story 
 of her venial error, and Claude's virulent de- 
 nunciation of it, that he might " speak to 
 Claude," and impress upon him that so long as 
 the guiding hand was heavy she would jiffle. 
 " No one knows that better than Stanley," she 
 thought, " and no one can impress the truth of 
 it so vividly upon Claude. Some one ought to 
 tell Claude that he is going the way to alienate 
 me ; and I'm sure mamma can't." 
 
 However, when she had enclosed her letter 
 and directed it to Mr. Villars, at the office of 
 the magazine in which she had marked, with a 
 very lax interest, for some two or three months 
 past, that he wrote, she thought she would try 
 another plan first. Claude had been rash and 
 rude in not hearing her spoken words, but sure- 
 ly he would read a written appeal. 
 
 Her letter to her husband, the whole of which 
 I shall not transcribe, was a trifle high flown, 
 perhaps, but it was thoroughly meant. She 
 told him how well she knew her own faults, 
 and how she lamented them, and she implored 
 him not to urge her on to any display of wil- 
 fulness by judging her over-harshly, and re- 
 buking her at the instigation of any one. She 
 told him how she had married him, firmly in- 
 tending to be led and directed by him in all 
 things, honestly and sincerely wishing to bow 
 her will to his. "But" the old defiant spirit 
 would crop up, humbly as she strove to write 
 " I must be led and directed, not driven. Dear 
 Claude, say to me kindly that you wish me to 
 give up anything, everything in the world, and 
 I will do it without hesitation ; but do not order 
 me with anger on your brow and in your tones, 
 as though I had been a grievous culprit, and 
 you were a stern judge, instead of a loving 
 husband. Anger is as a blight to me God 
 knows what may wither under it. Let me feel 
 that I may turn to you without the dread of a 
 rebuff, and then I shall turn to you on all 
 occasions." 
 
 There was a little more, but it was all in the 
 same strain. It wag a warm, loving, earnest, 
 illogical plea, and her heart beat high as she 
 carried it into her husband's dressing-room, 
 and placed it on the table before him. " Will 
 you read this, Claude?" she asked, timidly, 
 and he (almost dreading that it might be 
 some rash declaration of an intention to do 
 something the mere thought of which made his 
 heart stand still) said, " Yes, he would." 
 
 He read it. She, standing just inside the 
 door, waiting for him to turn and take her in 
 his arms, and pet and caress, and "make it all 
 up with her," saw him read it through without 
 pausing once. It was so much better, so much 
 more conciliatory than he had anticipated, that 
 he reminded himself that now was the time to 
 teach her to have done with her old rebellious 
 habits that nonsense could be safely put an 
 end to at once and for ever. 
 
 " My dear Bella," he said, tearing the letter 
 in two and throwing the pieces away from him 
 carelessly, " you might just as well have said 
 all this (or rather have left it unsaid) as have 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 83 
 
 written it : it is not a very sensible or pleasing 
 way of taking a reproof that was as mild as 
 any man who cared a rap for his honour could 
 have administered." 
 
 " Is that all you'll say to me ?" 
 
 " That is all I have to say. Perhaps you will 
 be good enough to go and get ready for dinner ; 
 my mother will hardly appreciate the reason of 
 your being late." 
 
 " That I am sure she will not you needn't 
 impress it upon me," Bella said. Then the 
 tears started into her eyes, and she got away 
 out of his presence hastily, with a big strong 
 feeling in her beating heart that he was hard 
 and callous he, the man for whom she had 
 jilted Stanley Villars. The letter should go 
 to Stanley, after all. She needed kindness, she 
 needed a friend, she needed and was justified 
 in seeking one, for her husband had repulsed 
 her. 
 
 So the letter went to Stanley Villars ; and, 
 to Claude's surprise, that night Bella was as 
 glittering and as cold as steel 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 A RUN WITH MARKHAM'S HOUNDS. 
 
 THE following morning was as trying a one to 
 Mrs. Claude "Walsingham as the most deter- 
 mined advocate of her being " kept under," and 
 taught to submit her unruly desires to the 
 wiser ones around, could have wished. Claude 
 and Jack breakfasted with them in pink. Mr. 
 Markham had started off at an earlier hour to 
 interfere with his huntsman as to the hounds 
 which should be drafted off for this day's sport. 
 So all that Bella saw was gallant, dashing, and 
 gay. Mr. Markham might have marred the 
 harmony both of colour and proportion, for his 
 coat was time-worn and faded, and he was 
 heavy and fat. 
 
 Claude was a bit of a dandy the majority of 
 men who have well-balanced souls and a, proper 
 appreciation of the beautiful are. No more dar- 
 ing rider could be found in any hunting-field 
 than Major "Walsingham ; no man had ever seen 
 him swerve or hesitate, no man had ever seen 
 him blunder or blench, no man had ever seen 
 him quit the saddle without good cause. But 
 he always came to the meet neat and trim, 
 spotless, free from travel-soil or splash, unheat- 
 ed, unwearied, in a little brougham and a big 
 grey wrap that covered him from head to foot. 
 
 To see him step from the little brougham, and 
 the next moment settle to the saddle, and the 
 stride of his grand grey hunter, was a sight that 
 women congregated from far and near to wit- 
 ness. He had just that happy mixture of 
 power and refinement that women love; he 
 could button the tiniest glove round the tiniest 
 wrist dexterously in one moment, and dash at 
 the most tremendous fence with equal dexterity 
 in the next. Claude was a man to watch in 
 the field, whether it were of sport or love ; and 
 this morning, as his wife sat at breakfast with 
 him, and saw him for the first time in " pink," 
 she felt that he did not care for her to go and 
 watch him. 
 
 Up to the very last, up to the moment of his 
 
 donning the big grey wrap, up to the moment 
 of the little brougham coming round to convey 
 this dainty Nirnrod to the field, she hoped that 
 he would " make friends " and order Devilskin ; 
 or at least tell her to be happy, and graciously 
 invite her to go and witness the glorious sight 
 he would presently offer. But he did not do 
 so; partly because he thought she had been 
 wrong, and that it behoved him to teach her 
 that she had been wrong, and partly because 
 he did not know how hotly her heart was set 
 upon going. 
 
 When he was gone, when the brougham had 
 rolled out of sight, and she was left alone with 
 the stern matrons, his mother and sister, neither 
 of whom had hunting or any other fast propen- 
 sities, the devil of defiance rose in her breast, 
 and she went and rang the bell resolutely. 
 
 "I want my horse, Devilskin, round directly ; 
 and Hill must take something and go with me," 
 she said when it was answered. 
 
 " Are you going out for a ride already ?" her 
 sister-in-law asked. 
 
 " Yes," Bella replied, somewhat shortly. " I 
 feel like myself when I am out with my own 
 horse and my own man." 
 
 " Terribly wilful ! She must be a fearful trial 
 to poor Claude," his mother remarked, as Bella 
 left the room. 
 
 " Tes. I can't make her out," his sister, Mrs. 
 Markham, replied "I can't make her out at 
 all. I believe she's trying to coquette with that 
 poor boy Jack." 
 
 " I do not believe it." 
 
 " My dear mother! "Well, be happy in your 
 unbelief, for it wouldn't be pleasant; but you 
 know what we have heard of her; you know 
 what a shameful unblushing flirt she has been. 
 For my own part, I would rather Claude had 
 married the most stupid woman in the world, 
 than one whose insatiable love of conquest 
 leads her to pursue it in her husband's family." 
 
 "I think you are a little hard on her, El- 
 len." 
 
 "Hard on her! Hear what your favourite, 
 Gracie Harper, says of her, then, mother, if you 
 doubt me ' I know something about her that I 
 would rather cut my tongue out than repeat, 
 Mrs. Markham,' she said to me, yesterday ; and 
 when a quiet, amiable girl such as Gracie says 
 that, one does feel doubtful." 
 
 Old Mrs. "Walsingham shook her head. 
 
 "Very doubtful indeed; but not of poor 
 Bella," she said, tremulously. "Leave the sub- 
 ject, dear ; I may have done more harm than 
 good in striving to win a fitting wife for my 
 son ; but you do think Gracie amiable and true, 
 don't you ; she would never " 
 
 " Say a word against any one oh, no ! I'm 
 sure of it," Mrs. Markham replied. " She has 
 far too much stability, and is far too well prin- 
 cipled for that ; she would never hint a word 
 in disparagement of any one without good 
 cause." 
 
 " I have hoped that she would not do so, 
 even with good cause," Mrs. "Walsingham said, 
 meditatively ; " but one never knows what peo- 
 ple are never ! does one ?" 
 
 "Oh, mammal I can't agree with you there. 
 Look at Claude's wife, for instance. I read her 
 as I do my alphabet a wilful, thoughtless 
 flirt, who will cause him some awful pangs, 
 
84 
 
 ON GUARD. 
 
 poor boy, unless he asserts himself, and breaks 
 her in at once." 
 
 The wilful, thoughtless flirt, meanwhile, had 
 arrayed herself in hat and habit with trembling 
 fingers, and a heart that was beating in a way 
 it had never beat before. She was going out to 
 do a thing on which her wishes were no longer 
 fixed, in direct defiance of her husband, in open 
 opposition to his will. Let Devilskin carry her 
 gallantly as he might, the bloom would be off 
 the performance. Still she would go now, be- 
 cause Claude had never asked her once kindly 
 to give it up, but had ordered her offensively, at 
 the instigation, she supposed, of " that woman." 
 
 Her horse was very fresh that morning. He 
 seemed to scent sport afar ; and he carried her 
 along to Horsley Hollow in such a short space 
 of time that she had no opportunity of thinking 
 better of it. They were still drawing the cover 
 when she arrived at the scene of action. There 
 was a good field assembled ; and -at a little dis- 
 tance, drawn up on an eminence that command- 
 ed a wide view of the country on all sides, 
 there were a goodly array of carriages. In one 
 of these Grace Harper sat, looking plump and 
 placid as usual, with her mamma; and she 
 nodded in a friendly way to Mrs. Claude nod- 
 ded with a kind smile on her lips that blinded 
 Mrs. Claude to the peculiar nature of the glance 
 that lived in Miss Grace's eyes at the same 
 moment. 
 
 " Lady Lexley was just asking Major Wal- 
 singham if you were coming, and he said 'No,'" 
 Grace said, leaning out of the carriage presently, 
 and addressing Mrs. Claude, who had pulled 
 her horse up in close proximity. 
 
 " Did he ? he was mistaken, you see. Is 
 Lady Lexley here?" 
 
 " Tes ; she means to follow, I believe. Your 
 husband has promised to take care of her." 
 
 Bella shook in her saddle, for the first time 
 n her life, on small provocation, as Miss Harper 
 aid those words. This, then, was the reason 
 Claude had not wanted her out this day ; he 
 intended charging himself with the care of that 
 woman ! 
 
 Grace Harper saw that momentary falter, and 
 the cause of it at the same moment, and plea- 
 sure dawned upon her soul. She had no 
 settled plan of action. She was malicious, that 
 was all ; and if it came to her easily to sting, or 
 even to stab, Mrs. Claude "Walsingham, to whom 
 she for divers reasons had conceived a dislike, 
 well and good ! she would so sting and stab. 
 But she had no deep design in the matter no 
 fixed, unalterable purpose no determination 
 to pursue her unconscious rival to some unplea- 
 sant "inevitable end." She was as guileless 
 of profound plot and elaborate scheme as are 
 the majority of commonplace spiteful women, 
 who will deal a death-blow to a sister as much 
 in ignorance as ill-temper. Grace Harper would 
 do the ill-natured act that came in her way, and 
 that she had to use no exertion to achieve ; but 
 she was no modern Borgia, no female Machia- 
 velli ; she could not look through a long vista 
 of cruel acts to be done by her, and refine upon 
 each with subtlety. Thank God, the women 
 who can do these things live only in novels 
 that we in these latter days look upon as over- 
 romantic ! 
 
 But, though no modern Borgia, no female 
 
 Machiavelli, she was quite dangerous enough, 
 blonde, bland woman that she was, or looked. 
 She was always counting so many years of her 
 life as gone, utterly gone and lost, in conse- 
 quence of her having waited on the chance of 
 Claude "Walsingham making her his wife ; and 
 though no more eager-minded ones had sought 
 her in the interim, she held him responsible for 
 her being Miss Harper still, and entertained 
 feelings of sore spite against the woman who 
 had won the post for which she (Grace) had 
 waited. 
 
 When Mrs. Claude "Walsingham had entirely 
 subdued the sensations which caused her to 
 shake in her saddle, she resumed the conversa- 
 tion, leaning forward a little on the pommel, 
 and switching her whip in a way she would not 
 have done, had she been all herself on the oc- 
 casion. 
 
 " Oh ! she means to follow, does she ? Does 
 Lady Lexley ride V 
 
 Bella asked it in the tone one who believes 
 herself to be a proficient in the art is sure to 
 employ about one of whom a doubt may exist. 
 
 " I believe she does, well," Grace replied. 
 Miss Harper was not too fond of her cousin's 
 flashing wife herself, but she was prepared to 
 extol and exalt her if the doing so could be 
 proved to be disagreeable to Mrs. Claude "Wal- 
 singham. 
 
 " Besides, your husband has promised to take 
 care of her^ and he is so careful. He's such a 
 splendid rider such a judicious rider that she 
 is sure to come out of it well." 
 
 " When did he promise ? " Bella asked 
 sharply. 
 
 "Yesterday," Miss Harper replied languidly. 
 " "What a time they are finding to-day 1 " she 
 continued hurriedly; for as she had asked 
 Claude to " look after Lady Lexley " the day 
 before, she was anxious to change the conver- 
 sation. 
 
 " That accounts for his being so cross, and 
 for his not wanting me to come," poor Bella 
 thought disconsolately. " The reason he gave, 
 his annoyance at my tumble, and his jealousy 
 of Jack, were all assumed as a blind." " 
 
 For a few moments her colour and heart sank 
 very low ; and had it not been for very shame, 
 she would have turned away from this enter- 
 prise, in which her heart no longer was have 
 turned away, and ridden home to the Court, 
 and bewailed Claude's defalcation in secresy 
 and silence all day. 
 
 At the expiration of a few moments, how- 
 ever, her colour rose, and her heart too ; and 
 she told herself that she could not go back, 
 that it would not be compatible with her dig- 
 nity that she should flee the field literally as 
 well as figuratively before that woman. 
 
 "Do you know where Major "Walsingham is 
 planted ? I must go and find him," she said to 
 Miss Harper. " He may look after Lady Lex- 
 ley, but he will also have me to look after 
 now." 
 
 " He's down at the cover side with the rest," 
 Miss Harper said, shortly. 
 
 " I wonder is he with that group ? " Bella 
 said, pointing to a party of men whose heads 
 were just visible over a fence a little to her 
 left. 
 
 "No; he went over there almost into the 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 85 
 
 wood just now, after Lady Lexley, who won't 
 wait quietly, but will keep on riding about in 
 the most irritating way ; at least, it appears to 
 be irritating to the rest." 
 
 Bella touched Devilskin, and went off in the 
 direction indicated. " Irritating to the rest," 
 but not to Claude apparently ; yet who, as a 
 general rule, could be more intolerant to un- 
 sportsman or womanlike conduct than Claude. 
 The glamour must be over him, his wife felt ; 
 and she also felt that ill as she had behaved to 
 another, she had not deserved this " this open 
 neglect," she called it at his hands. 
 
 She came upon the group in the midst of 
 which her husband was, very quietly. Two or 
 three men made way for her, and recognised 
 her at once; but Claude, who was talking to 
 the sole Amazon, Lady Lexley, did not see her 
 till Devilskin's head came in a line with his own 
 hunter's, and her voice said close to his 
 ear, " Claude, I'm come, you see ; will you 
 take care of me too, as well as of Lady Lex- 
 ley?" 
 
 She gave a well-intentioned bow that lacked 
 all graciousness to her imaginary rival, as she 
 spoke, which Lady Lexley acknowledged viva- 
 ciously enough. She had no feeling towards 
 Mrs. Claude. She had never been foolish 
 enough to wait on an uncertainty. 
 
 "I see you are; but that horse won't carry 
 you safely, Bella," Claude answered, as steadi- 
 ly as his anger would admit of his answering. 
 He was very much, very seriously annoyed with 
 his wife. He thought that this freak of hers 
 would tell the whole story to the whole field. 
 The whole story of their conjugal differences 
 of his manly wrath and her womanly weakness. 
 He was very much annoyed. 
 
 " I know my horse's manner now, and I feel 
 sure he will carry me safely enough. Any way, 
 I shall iry him unless you have any particular 
 feeling against my going so." 
 
 She looked at him with her eyes those 
 lovely eyes that he had loved so well when 
 their softest glances belonged of right to Stan- 
 ley Villars, not to him. She looked at him 
 with her eyes sparkling with wrath with 
 wrath that had more love than anger in it, after 
 all. But he could not read the glance aright. 
 He thought that she was defying him, and, 
 "by Jove ! I'll teach her a trick worth two of 
 that," he thought, pulling angrily with one 
 hand at his moustache, and with the other at 
 the grey hunter's curb. 
 
 "I have a particular feeling against it," he 
 replied aloud, coldly, and as he spoke his horse, 
 resenting the heavy hand, plunged, then reared, 
 till he almost settled back on his haunches. 
 
 "Oh, Claude, be careful!" Bella cried, all 
 thoughts of annoyance vanishing in an instant, 
 as she saw him or thought that she saw him 
 in danger. 
 
 Major Walsingham brought the loaded end of 
 his hunting whip down between the grey's ears. 
 He was displeased with his wife. It seemed to 
 him well to let off a little of his displeasure on 
 his horse, since the latter had given him such a 
 fair opportunity. 
 
 " If I were your wife I would not let you ride 
 a horse who looks so viciously out of the corner 
 of his eye for nothing, in that way," Lady Lex- 
 ley remarked, getting herself and the even- 
 
 minded bay mare she was riding well out of 
 the orbit of the grey hunter's heels. 
 
 "The horse is quiet enough. Claude is teas- 
 ing him now because " Bella stopped there. 
 
 She had been about to add, "because he is 
 angry with me," but she saw Claude scowl, and 
 fancied that she heard him swear. 
 
 " Whether the horse be quiet or not, I can get 
 him under," Major Walsingham replied ; "he's 
 spirited, but he is not an obstinate devil, always 
 desirous of doing that which I want him not to 
 do." 
 
 The two ladies, his auditors, heard him dis- 
 tinctly. Some men, who were waiting quietly 
 near, heard him also, and they laughed and 
 looked at one another, for they had heard the 
 words which had passed between husband and 
 wife when Mrs. Claude rode up. Bella marked 
 that they thus looked and laughed, and once 
 again she shook in her saddle. Had it come to 
 this ! that Claude should think her " an obsti- 
 nate devil," and imply before men strange 
 men, and above all, before that woman, that he 
 thought her so ? Was it for this, to be rejected 
 and despised by him, and looked and laughed 
 at by his field friends, whose very names were 
 unknown to her, that she had braved so much 
 for Claude Walsingham ? She could not bear 
 it. She could not be bright and brave any 
 longer. Since he wanted none of her companion- 
 ship, she would go back again. Her heart was 
 bowed down by those last words of his, and she 
 no longer cared to do battle for an idea. She 
 would beat a dignified retreat at once, before he 
 had time to say anything more that could be 
 construed by these people into matter for her 
 present and his future humiliation. 
 
 Some such little phrase as, " Then, Claude, as 
 you would rather I didn't ride I will go home," 
 was rising to her lips, when an energetic man 
 about ten yards to their right gave the view 
 halloo, and presently the hounds came out and 
 swept steadily across the road and over the 
 opposite hedge, and Markham and the whole 
 field followed. The sight was too much for 
 her. She could not say her little phrase. She 
 could not turn from the hunt now that it was 
 fairly up. 
 
 Lady Lexley rode bravely enough up to the 
 fence that had been already taken by a goodly 
 number, but her heart baulked it, and her mare, 
 the even-minded bay, speedily followed the ex- 
 ample of her heart. "Hang these women!" 
 Claude thought, impatiently, as he restrained 
 his own hunter while he addressed encouraging 
 words to the winsome woman with whom he 
 had charged himself on the strength of the vast 
 courage she had displayed in the field while it 
 had been one of imagination only. "You'll find 
 it a mere nothing. Bella, you go over and show 
 Lady Lexley the way ; the mare will follow 
 Devilskin. Sol well done I" he cried out heartily, 
 as Bella triumphantly rose and landed without 
 so much of a swerve as would have spilled a 
 drop of water, had she carried a cupful in her 
 hand. Mrs. Claude was brightly happy, brightly 
 herself again all in an instant, as her husband 
 gave that tacit permission for her to accompany 
 him, even though it was at the cost of rendering 
 herself useful to "that woman," she presently 
 remembered. 
 
 The even-rninded mare saw the folly of hold- 
 
ing back the moment her rider saw the folly of 
 flinching at such a trifle. She clambered up 
 the bank, made a faint, small jump through, 
 rather than over, the fence, and came down 
 safely with a sigh into the field where Bella sat, 
 her hand on Devilskin's back, turned round in 
 her saddle to look at those who were coming. 
 In a moment Claude came thundering over 
 the grey with his legs gathered well up under 
 him, his head stretched out, and his nostrils 
 blood-red from excitement at having been held 
 back in such an unwonted way, the very beau 
 ideal of a flying leaper ; while Claude Claude, 
 who came to the hunt hi a little brougham and 
 a big grey wrap Claude, who indulged in the 
 dandyism of making it an important article in 
 hunting creed that he should start spotless sat 
 with his hands low and his legs grasping the 
 grey hunter's barrel as though they had been 
 of iron ; a sight, as his wife thought, to wonder 
 at and admire with a larger wonder and admi- 
 ration than a centaur could have claimed ! 
 
 It was a magnificent leap, magnificently 
 taken, and Bella's heart bounded with pride, for 
 that he who had taken it was all her own. She 
 forgave him his brief injustice ; she forgot his 
 temporary neglect as she had deemed it. She 
 only remembered that he had gone over his first 
 fence grandly, and that he was her own hus- 
 band, and Lady Lexley's cavalier for this day 
 only. 
 
 The grey hunter had come over gallantly, but 
 the grey hunter had a temper of his own, and 
 it had been sorely tried before he had been suf- 
 fered to come over. He was a horse who would 
 always be first if he were allowed to have his 
 own way, and who, if he were not allowed to 
 have his own way, went straight off into a 
 strong fractiousness that required the subtlest 
 management. Major Walsingham was not in the 
 humour to bestow subtle management upon any- 
 thing this day, for he was put out with his own 
 wife, and with Lord Lexley's wife also. He had 
 not been a free agent precisely in this matter of 
 having her ladyship left upon his hands ; she had 
 been foisted upon him by the judicious Miss 
 Harper. Foisted upon him so cleverly, that he 
 could not say for the life of him how it came 
 about. 
 
 The whole field were ahead of them now. 
 These women ! these women ! what they were 
 costing him ! Through them he might miss the 
 rare felicity of catching sight of the extreme tip 
 of the brush of the fox. " I wish to God you 
 had stayed at home, Bella!" he said, riding 
 close up to her ; "can't you propose to her " (he 
 indicated Lady Lexley by a movement of his 
 head) can't you propose to her, presently, that 
 you two go off back, and see what you can of it 
 by keeping along the roads ?" 
 
 "I hate keeping along the roads," Bella re- 
 plied, shortly, " you needn't lag behind for me, 
 Claude ; don't be afraid for me, I'll not go at 
 anything I'm a bit doubtful of." 
 
 "But I'm doubtful about her," Claude re- 
 plied. 
 
 "Then let her go back," Bella said scorn- 
 folly ; " but I'm not going back with her!" 
 
 " Come along then ; we shall catch them up 
 at the brook half of them will fall away 
 there," Claude said, testily touching his horse 
 with the spur as he spoke, and they all three 
 
 went along accordingly the grey, despite 
 Claude's strenuous endeavours to keep him in, a 
 good length ahead. 
 
 They were riding pretty well, at racing 
 speed, and the pace soon brought them close 
 upon the brook to which Claude had alluded. It 
 was a brook so broad that it would have been 
 called a river in some counties that are not too 
 well watered. "Where the fox had crossed, it 
 was from eighteen to nineteen feet wide. 
 
 Mr. Markham himself had ridden along the 
 bank on the left-hand side to a spot where the 
 brook narrowed itself to a mere ditch for a 
 couple of hundred yards, and thither all the more 
 precautions spirits were following him. But 
 Jack, and two or three others, had gone over 
 without hesitation at the part where the fox 
 had crossed, and Claude, after telling his wife 
 and Lady Lexley to "follow Markham," went 
 at it without hesitation too. 
 
 An ugly spirit had taken possession of the 
 grey. He had tasted freely of the whip and 
 spur this morning, and he had been held back 
 and otherwise maltreated. He was one of 
 those horses with more white corner than pupil 
 to their eyes, who are prone to lose their tem- 
 pers and not recover them again speedily. He 
 had also had a bad example set him just now 
 by the even-minded mare, whose quick sym- 
 pathy with her rider had induced her to baulk 
 her leap. Horses follow a bad example with as 
 fatal a precision, very often, as the most intelli- 
 gent human being can do. The grey hunter 
 did now. Claude rode him straight at that 
 portion of the brook over which the pluckier 
 portion of the field had crossed in the wake of 
 the fox and hounds, and when he seemed to be 
 about to rise to it, he baulked, wheeled round, 
 and burst into a gallop. 
 
 Only for a moment. Claude had him in 
 hand, and he was brought round and put at it 
 again with a deep dig from the spurs on either 
 side, and a swift shower of blows on his near 
 shoulder. He was put at it, and held to it with 
 hands of iron, with hands so firm, and strong, 
 and hard, that though he would have burst his 
 heart to baulk again, he could not. 
 
 Major Walsingham had the satisfaction of 
 feeling during the two or three seconds that he 
 was riding at, and then rising to the leap, that 
 he had conquered the grey's set purpose not to 
 take it. The horse rushed at it with fury, rose 
 at it like the very demon of strength, fell short 
 of the bank on the opposite side, rolled over, 
 and whirr-r-r! there was a wild singing of 
 waters in Major Walsingham's ears a horrible 
 rushing up of mud, and crushing down of horse 
 and saddle upon him a, maddening entangle- 
 ment of his own with a horse's limbs, with a 
 hundred horses' limbs, all kicking and plunging 
 and bruising him most horribly a moment of 
 wild joy as he came out of these difficulties, 
 and breathed, and saw, and realised what had 
 happened a sinking back again, and then a 
 blank. Claude "Walsingham was at the bottom 
 of the brook, held down there, entangled with 
 one leg under the body of the grey hunter, who 
 was writhing in the death agonies caused by a 
 broken back. 
 
 He was lying there, senseless, incapable. 
 The hunt meanwhile was streaming on, uncon \ 
 scious of that which had befallen him. 
 

 ON GUARD. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 LITERARY LIFE. 
 
 MR. STANLEY YILLARS read Mrs. Claude "Wal- 
 singham's letter carefully and thoroughly. He 
 read all that she had written in it, and a great 
 deal more besides. 
 
 So ! it had come then, this hour which he had 
 dreaded in his better moments, and half hoped 
 for in his wilder ones of sorrow and despair. 
 She had found out that old things are best. 
 She had turned from her husband to him her 
 first love her true friend. All the anguish 
 had not been his, as he had thought that it had 
 been when sitting, working wearily hour after 
 hour, with no heart in the work he was en- 
 gaged upon no heart for anything that was 
 not past and gone. The anguish had not been 
 all his. That poor girl, who had been taught 
 by a traitor to wrong him, had had no small 
 share of it before ever she penned a letter bear- 
 ing the faintest semblance of an appeal to him. 
 This he knew of this he felt sure from the 
 bottom of his heart. 
 
 Thus his mind ran on from selfish sorrow to 
 selfish triumph for " that he had known so well 
 how it would be," for a few minutes. Then 
 the better spirit the normal spirit resumed 
 its sway, and he put the dark distrust away 
 from him, and told himself that there was no 
 more in the letter than was down in black and 
 white, and that he was a hound to have hoped 
 that there was for a moment. It was what it 
 purported to be a glad reminder to him that 
 Claude and Bella remembered him, and wished 
 to see him once again. 
 
 He sat twirling it between his fingers that 
 little letter that had been written in such pain 
 picturing the scene to himself in which it had 
 been penned. It was from the country house 
 of Claude's father. Ah! doubtless all the 
 family were about her as she wrote, hearing 
 any phrase that occurred to her as " neat," for 
 Bella was wont to review herself favourably as 
 she indited an epistle, and to make all present 
 sharers, as far as their lights would lead them, 
 in the satisfaction she derived from the turning 
 of any sentence. Probably Claude had been 
 sitting by her, too, in the spoony way young 
 married people have. This was a remarkably 
 pleasant part of the picture. He looked away 
 from it back into the letter. 
 
 No ; the letter had not been penned blithely 
 in family conclave. There were no remem- 
 brances from Claude, and meaningless as re- 
 membrances ever are in epistolary communica- 
 tions, still he knew they would have been sent 
 had Claude been cognizant of her writing. 
 That expression too " You promised to come 
 to me, did I ever need you. I need you now, 
 and you are not one to break a promise !" For 
 what could his lost bride the young wife of 
 his friend " need him," if her husband were 
 the friend and fastness, the succour and support 
 to her, that Stanley had always feared Claude 
 would not be ? 
 
 It was a dangerous subject to think out. 
 fhe man who had lost faith, friends, and 
 love at one fell blow, had not lost a jot or 
 tittle of his honour. Still it was a dangerous 
 subject to dwell upon, for unruly ideas respect- 
 
 ing "what 
 trude. 
 
 87 
 
 might be going on" would ob- 
 
 At first he decided upon not answering her 
 letter in anyway. Situated as he now was, 
 he could not befriend her, and his struggles 
 would only pain her. But this decision lasted 
 only for one day; at the end of which he 
 resolved that, though he would not write, he 
 would call when they came to town. On this 
 resolve he tried to put aside the subject, and 
 work ; but he found that he could not work on 
 it ; so after a while he came to the conclusion 
 that early next week he would write, and then 
 call. Having definitely fixed on a plan of 
 action, he went to work with a will again ; for 
 the conviction smote him that next week 
 would find him very restless, and incapable of 
 running in harness; so he went and ground 
 away at his popular "Early Fathers" series, 
 till he had the satisfaction of feeling that 
 he was at least two weeks in advance of the 
 printers. 
 
 In addition to his serial labours, he had been 
 engaged on a noyel a regular, orthodox, 
 three- volume novel to the last pages of the 
 last volume of which he was putting the finish- 
 ing strokes. As it was to be published with- 
 out his name as "by the author of" some 
 great success could not stand on its title-page 
 as it had no "plot" properly so called as 
 there was no one prominent male or female 
 figure in it above all, as it was uncommonly 
 like real life, and not at all breath-catching 
 his publisher was very despondent about it; 
 and so in the nature of things Stanley Villars 
 was rather despondent too. 
 
 Still it was one of those things which, when 
 commenced, must be concluded. Like Franken- 
 stein, our own creations continually overcome 
 and rule us absolutely with an iron sway, that 
 we cannot rebel against. "We gloat upon them 
 unctuously at first, in joy at having conceived 
 them at all ; and in return they loom upon us 
 at all sorts of unexpected times when we do 
 not want them so to loom, and frighten away 
 all peace, and shadow over every moment of 
 what would otherwise be relaxation. 
 
 Stanley was putting the last strokes to his 
 first novel in the days when we meet him 
 again ; and how he hated his work ! The 
 darkest detestation for it had obtained posses- 
 sion of his soul, and had it not been for the 
 money that he was to get upon it, and for the 
 money that he had had upon it, he would have 
 put every page of it in the fire, and felt him- 
 self the better for having done so. As it was, 
 the unfinished work was another man's pro- 
 perty paid for in coin of the realm ; therefore, 
 Stanley knew that he must finish it. 
 
 He had no particular hero in it, and no par- 
 ticular plot, as I have said. It was more a 
 series of society scenes, strung together on a 
 loose kind of thread, that ran through the 
 volumes, and that might as well have been 
 absent for any intrinsic value that it had, than 
 a novel, as a novel is generally understood. 
 He had been a sharp observer of men and 
 manners, of women and the ways of the world, 
 from his boyhood. His sharp observations were 
 useful to him in a measure now that he was 
 thrown upon his own devices, but the power 
 of stringing incongruous impossibilities toge- 
 
U1N U U AiXJJ. 
 
 ther euphoniously would have been more use- 
 ful still. 
 
 His characters were very unmanageable after 
 reading Mrs. Claude Walsingham's letter. Pre- 
 viously he had been going on without hesita- 
 tion, causing the evil to flourish like a green 
 bay tree, and making virtue its own and sole 
 reward in the gloomiest and most cynical man- 
 ner. But he felt a better man himself after 
 reading that veiled appeal that she whom he 
 had loved so well and so unwisely had made 
 to him. He felt himself to be a better man ; 
 consequently he desired to put better thoughts 
 into it, to attribute better motives to the chil- 
 dren of his brain. 
 
 He desired to do this earnestly he desired 
 it. Trivial as the matter may appear to those 
 who have never sought to give publicity to the 
 creatures of their imagination, the things we 
 create the things to which we endeavour to 
 give form and substance are not trivial to us. 
 We put a considerable portion of our current 
 hopes and fears, sorrows, despairs, aspirations, 
 into them. They ebb and flow very often with 
 our own life-tide in a way that the casual read- 
 er, who knows not who thinks not who cares 
 not how books are "done," no more under- 
 stands or appreciates than does the dog who 
 lies beside me at this moment ; or than Rock 
 did solemn- faced, faithful Rock who had re- 
 mained wkh Stanley Villars through weal and 
 woe, and certainly not suffering in the flesh yet 
 through his fidelity. 
 
 For days after the receipt of that letter on 
 chat bleak March morning, Stanley Villars de- 
 voted himself to literature unceasingly, ex- 
 clusively, with a sore foreboding that disturbing, 
 distracting elements were about to arise and 
 mar the unvarying obnoxious routine of his life. 
 We all or, at least, most of us do conjure up 
 a picture at the sound of those words, "a life 
 devoted to literature." A charming one was 
 mine for years painted in the glowing tints of 
 youth a hero-worshipping temperament, and 
 an imagination unspoilt through being untried. 
 It was gorgeously framed and glazed. It was 
 something like this to look upon: 
 
 He (the litterateurs of ray imagination were 
 always men my mental vision of women "who 
 write " was not a pretty one) was usually in a 
 study ; if he was not in a study, he was away 
 in the country, in a leafy alley of a large forest, 
 where nobody had ever been before, on the 
 back of a tall, black horse, with fiery eyes and 
 flowing tail. I was very particular as to the 
 fiery eyes and flowing tail. Common mortals, 
 to my certain knowledge, rode horses who were 
 not possessed of these luxurious attributes ; but 
 I never mounted an author on anything more 
 possible than a jet black steed, with glowing 
 orbs, and a tail like a pennon, always flying 
 out gallantly, not to say wildly. 
 
 He was pleasanter in my eyes in a study, 
 though a study that contained all the books in 
 the world (which, in those days, meant only all 
 the books of which I had heard the library 
 would not have been extensive by any means). 
 He was rarely reading those books. Ordinarily, 
 I painted him holding a quill pen with an un- 
 sullied broad feather handle, such as Charles 
 Dickens is represented as holding fn one of his 
 earlier portraits ; and he was often giving audi- 
 
 ence, with indifference on his noble brow, and 
 suppressed scorn on his haughty lip, to the 
 grandest of earth's creatures ! 
 
 If he was not giving audience to these kings 
 and queens, and such like, who I always de- 
 picted prostrate before him, and deferentially 
 delighted at being there at all ; if he was not 
 giving audience to these, he was surrounded by 
 the loftier creatures of his own ilk. This last 
 was the most glorious canvas I ever covered 
 a chaos of mighty writers, of books, of statuar}', 
 of pictures, all in the widest frames, and all, I 
 believe, by Leonardo da Vinci. I having read a 
 story of that master in my earliest childhood, 
 which took my fancy much. 
 
 I never imagined such men marrying, and 
 going out to dinner, or doing anything in fact 
 as common mortals do. They were gods to me, 
 and what a world my worship for them made. 
 What a golden land I discovered and peopled 
 how largely I travelled in it, crouching over a 
 fire in the semi-darkness of full many a winter's 
 afternoon lying under the trees in the sun-- 
 beams through many a long summer day in 
 that by-gone time when I bent the knees of my 
 heart in unfeigned homage to those who led " a 
 literary life." 
 
 Idle dreams I Unreal scenes ! A sad wasting 
 of the time God gave me to apply to some bet- 
 ter purpose ! Maybe they were all these things ; 
 but they gave me hours of such joy that not the 
 knowledge of the mad ignorance which gilded 
 them can tarnish now. Nor were the dreams 
 more idle, the scenes more unreal, the wasting 
 of time more reprehensible, than are the dreams, 
 and the scenes, and the time that are paid for 
 and read in post octavo now. 
 
 For days after the receipt of that letter from 
 Bella, Stanley Villars devoted himself to litera- 
 ture unceasingly. The bleak March wind howl- 
 ed melodiously past his windows, and the hot 
 March sun streamed through the same, and still 
 he would not quit the task he had assigned 
 himself, and go out to breathe that air and take 
 that exercise which the habits of his former life 
 rendered a necessity for him. He wrote on and 
 on till deep marks came into his face, till his 
 temples grew pinched, till his mouth took that 
 hard line which speaks more frequently of ill- 
 condition than ill-temper, till his blood-shot 
 eyes almost refused to recognise the faithful 
 dog who, on his part, looked at his master with 
 the trembling of fearful love. 
 
 He had not taken any account of time lately. 
 He had gone on hour after hour, till his fingers 
 had stiffened, and then he had thrown down his 
 pen, and bent his head down upon his arms on 
 the table, till his hand could regain its cunning. 
 He had not taken any account of time. His 
 head and his mind were hot and weary, when 
 at last his landlady came to him and told him 
 that " such goings on she had no patience with ; 
 he had not been to bed for a week, nor eaten 
 sufficient to keep the breath in the body of an 
 infant." 
 
 "I am going to give overwork for a little 
 time for a day or two," he replied ; " and I 
 think I will have something to eat now before 
 I go out." 
 
 There was a singing in his ears, and a pain 
 in the back of his head, to say nothing of a cord 
 of blood behind the ball of each eye. The 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 89 
 
 d appeared to be contained in his brain, 
 and all its business to be transacting there. In 
 a word, the man was nearly broken down. All 
 you who can write can comprehend his sensa- 
 tions. 
 
 His landlady was a kind-hearted woman, 
 blessed with a healthy appetite for animal food. 
 It was about two o'clock in the middle of the 
 day when she came to him, remonstrating with 
 him on his state. At half-past two she brought 
 him viands that she judged would improve the 
 same a large beef-steak that was very red 
 when cut, floating in a red sea of gravy. A 
 fine high-flavoured cabbage, and a couple of 
 smiling potatoes, reposed on another dish. Al- 
 together it was a dinner that her experience of 
 former hungry lodgers taught her to believe 
 would be most acceptable. She smiled as she 
 uncovered it ; and then a certain aching some- 
 thing in his chest sank lower ; more business 
 was transacted in his brain, and he moved away 
 in loathing. Like a worn-out hunter, he was 
 turning his nose up at his corn. 
 
 " I couldn't touch a bit of anything, Mrs. 
 Green, to save my life," he said, deprecatingly ; 
 " it's very nice, I am sure, but do take it away. 
 Rock and I will go out and see what the air 
 will do for us." 
 
 " Going out on an empty stomach is digging 
 your own grave, Mr. Yillars, in your state: it 
 is, sir," she remonstrated. 
 
 He was very weak. He felt miserably that 
 he was very weak indeed, as he rose up and 
 got his hat, and threw a plaid over his shoulders. 
 Still he could not eat. There was something 
 very wrong with him, he feared, for he could 
 not recollect clearly whether or not the time 
 had arrived when he was to call on the Wal- 
 singhams. 
 
 His landlady, watching him with pitying 
 eyes, saw him catch sight of himself in the 
 glass, and start. Small wonder that he started. 
 The face of which he caught a glimpse was so 
 haggard, so altered, that he did not know it for 
 his own. 
 
 " I think if you would give me a little brandy, 
 Mrs. Green, it would string me up for a walk," 
 he said, trying to smile, and failing, as business 
 was transacted faster and more furiously still in 
 his brain. 
 
 Mrs. Green made some shadow of a protest 
 against the brandy being taken on an empty 
 stomach, but he overruled her, and took it, and 
 then went out, Rock at his heels, with the pain 
 in his chest slightly heightened, and the panic 
 in his head increased. 
 
 He was careless as to whither he went. 
 "What matter where, so long as he got air to 
 lighten that oppression which had come over 
 him! He did not want to go to "Oxford 
 Street," "the Bank," or "the Strand;" in 
 vaguely avoiding either of these three places, 
 he got away somewhere near the Regent's Park 
 not into it, but amidst . those pretty Swiss 
 cottages that line some of the streets in the 
 vicinity. 
 
 He became conscious of a great lightness a 
 lightness that seemed to be lifting him from the 
 earth. Trouble and the ground fell away from 
 him at the same moment ; the next, Rock stood 
 whining piteously over the fallen form of his 
 master. 
 
 About the same hour that he fell, crushed by 
 the weight of so many things, Florence rose 
 superior to her surroundings, and fought her 
 way to her brother's lodgings. She found out 
 his address from a clerk at the ofi&ce of the 
 magazine for which he wrote, and then wended 
 her way there to see him, and tell him that she 
 " had stood it long enough ; that the dull void 
 his absence had made in her heart must be 
 filled up ; that he must not cut himself off from 
 her at any rate any longer." She listened to 
 the pitiful tale his landlady told of long hours 
 of unceasing toil, with tears in her eyes. She 
 read the pages of MS., the pages of that novel 
 over which he had broken down, with avidity 
 and pride, tempered with reverence and awe, 
 for it seemed to her a stupendous work of ge- 
 nius a thing to be eulogised in reviews, and 
 read by the world, and to remunerate the writ- 
 er thereof at such a rate as should ensure him 
 silken splendour for the rest of his days. She 
 waited less impatiently after reading these. 
 She imagined the landlady, with the tales of 
 his pallor and weakness, to be merely a croak- 
 ing old woman. She went away even happily 
 at last when it was time for her to go back to 
 dinner, firmly convinced that Stanley was only 
 dwelling in seclusion till he should shine out 
 the star of his family. Went away, leaving a 
 tender little note for him, beseeching him to 
 write to her, and say when she might come 
 again, and that he was not angry with her tor 
 having come once. "Went away home and 
 made her sister-in-law prick up her ears by the 
 rapturous way in which she gave selected sen- 
 tences from those pages which she had read 
 surreptitiously, just about the same time that 
 Rock stood whining over her fallen brother 
 Stanley's body. 
 
 He had staggered and fallen in a secluded 
 spot. That is to say, in comparatively a se- 
 cluded spot, for one that was so near more 
 than that, that was a portion of this, the 
 modern Babylon. It was a raised footpath 
 an unpaved footpath on which the worn-out 
 man of letters had laid him down low in a 
 swoon, from which he might recover if prompt- 
 ly discovered, or out of which he might ebb 
 into eternity without pain, if mercifully left 
 undiscovered by fate and a passer-by. 
 
 It was a pitiful position ! Pitiful, that is, to 
 recount and think about. He had been so 
 petted a son, so worshipped a brother, so once 
 favoured a man, in having the love of Bella 
 Vane. Now he was alone down, half dead, 
 on the cold, dusty ground uncared for, as any 
 tramp might have been, with none near that 
 was dear to him none to whom ho was dear 
 alone in the world, and liable, to all appear- 
 ance, to drift out of it without much further 
 notice. 
 
 Stay I I wrong one grievously in saying 
 that he was utterly alone and deserted, far from 
 every one who was dear to him, and to whom 
 he was dear. Rock was left to him, and there 
 was love love that may not be passed even by 
 the love of woman, in the way in which Rock 
 lifted up his voice and wept. 
 
 With one massive paw laid with the light- 
 ness of love, or a feather, on the chest of the 
 prostrate .man ; with one eye's soft intelligence 
 bent eagerly on Stanley's face, and the other 
 
glancing away earnestly on the road by which 
 succour might perchance arrive ; with his long 
 thoughtful nose elevated, ready to sniff the first 
 arrival; with the deepest notes of which his 
 mighty chest was capable, brought into play 
 for the purpose of arresting any who might pass 
 by. Rock waited, waited, as only a dog or a 
 woman can wait hoping for no praise, expect- 
 ant of no reward, anxious only to serve the 
 one to whom he paid glad tribute of loving 
 duty. There was no motive beyond the pure 
 and simple one of striving to save. He was 
 only a dog ! 
 
 So Rock, in common with several others of 
 the characters of this poor story, was on guard, 
 where we leave him for awhile, to go back to 
 the brook, at the bottom of which his former 
 mistress's husbancfrvas lying when last we saw 
 him in these pages. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVHI. 
 
 VARIOUS TYPES OF MINISTERING ANGELS. 
 
 IT was a mere ditch, and Devilskin had taken 
 it easily in his stride. Mrs. Claude "Walsingham 
 checked him when he was over, in order to look 
 round and see how her companion came off. 
 While pausing, she leant back with her 
 hand on her horse's near flank, which po- 
 sition enabled her to command the brook 
 along to the spot where Claude should have 
 crossed. 
 
 The bay mare got over somehow or other, 
 and Lady Lexley was still in the saddle or 
 rather was still on high, between the crupper 
 and the mane. Bella did not stay to criticise 
 the way in which " that woman had sat it." 
 She had missed Claude. 
 
 " Where can he be ?" she cried, as Lady Lex- 
 ley came up. 
 
 " Whom do you mean ?" Lady Lexley asked, 
 adjusting herself as well as she could to the 
 intricacies of the pummels again, and trying to 
 persuade her habit to fall in classical folds, which 
 it would not. 
 
 " My husband why 1" Bella did not 
 
 stay to finish her sentence ; she was off along 
 the rough bank of the brook, for she had seen 
 something come up to the surface that might be 
 a horse's head, or a man's hat, or anything in 
 fact ; all she knew was, that it was quite enough 
 to alarm her. 
 
 As she galloped down to the spot blessings 
 now on that long stride of Devilskin's that 
 covered so much ground ! she caught sight of 
 a straggler, a man who had been thrown out 
 through his horse falling lame, within hailing 
 distance. She hailed him accordingly, and he 
 knocked out what little wind there still was left 
 in his horse, and reached the place where the 
 broken bank and the turbulent waters told 
 their own tale reached it as soon as Bella her- 
 self. 
 
 It all happened very quickly. Lady Lexley, 
 riding gently in Bella's wake on the even-mind- 
 ed mare, saw Mrs. Claude slide down from her 
 saddle, rush to the brook, and feebly dabble her 
 hands in it in a frantic manner. Poor Bella ! 
 she knew her husband was there, and in some 
 
 wild way she entertained hopes of fishing him 
 out herself. 
 
 Then the straggler, who had been thrown out, 
 came to the aid of the unpractical wife, and at 
 the cost of spoiling his " pink" for ever, and of 
 dimming the polish of his boots for a while, 
 went in, with the greatest gallantry, up to his 
 waist, and after two or three slippery efforts 
 that were failures, succeeded in bringing a very 
 sodden Claude Walsingham to the bank where 
 Bella knelt, with her face white, and her eyes 
 protruding from their sockets, in an agony of ex- 
 citement. 
 
 There was help to be 'had at no great dis- 
 tance, for the brook was not far from that ele- 
 vation of the road where the carriages were, 
 and thither Lady Lexley rode to ask assist- 
 ance of the Harpers. While she was away, 
 Bella knelt very quietly by the motionless form 
 of the man with whom she had been so angry 
 but a short hour before of the man she loved 
 so well of the man who might be dead. 
 
 She knelt by him very quietly, making no 
 moan that sounded beyond the immediate pre- 
 cincts of her heart touching the straggler im- 
 mensely by the intensity of her silent sorrow, 
 as well as by the futility, not to say imprudence 
 of the attempts she was making to resuscitate 
 the man whose place that warm-hearted strag- 
 gler would have taken to spare that lady pain. 
 Wiping his brow, and kissing his hand, and 
 looking down ! down ! upon those closed lids, in 
 wild desire to know whether still a soul was 
 there to animate the eyes those hUte concealed ? 
 
 The time it was very brief during which 
 Lady Lexley was away seeking for help, seem- 
 ed an eternity Jo Bella. When the help came, 
 it was in the person of the placid Miss Harper, 
 whose mamma, having a horror of "corpses, 
 and accidents, and such things," had discreetly 
 vacated her seat in the carriage, and deputed 
 her daughter to do all that was kind to any one 
 who might be hurt. 
 
 Miss Harper's face lost its placidity when the 
 carriage stopped, and she, leaning out to look, 
 saw the face of the man to whom this hurt, 
 that they could not gauge, had come. It lost 
 its placidity then, and it gained another look a 
 spiteful look, that was still dashed slightly with 
 sorrow when she caught sight of that man's 
 wife. So, but for that wife, might she, Grace, 
 have knelt and sobbed and suffered with a right ! 
 She could not pity Bella for her agony ; she 
 could not sympathise in Bella's sorrow; she 
 could only feel sore and partially avenged. Sore, 
 that another woman had the better right to be- 
 tray grief than herself; avenged, by cause for 
 that grief being given. 
 
 They lifted soaked, insensible Claude into 
 the carriage, and the two women, Grace Harper 
 and Claude's wife, stepped in after him, and put 
 themselves into impossible positions in order 
 that he might rest softly and well. Lady Lexley 
 proposed getting in too, and " holding his head 
 steady, poor fellow ! or doing anything you tell 
 me, dear!" she said to Bella. On which Bella 
 roused herself abruptly from her silent grief, 
 and snubbed Lady Lexley ruthlessly ; then 
 turned, with the acumen women are apt to dis- 
 play on such occasions, to the big blonde whom 
 she did not distrust. So Lady Lexley rode be- 
 hind them, sorrowfully and sympathetically; 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 91 
 
 endeavouring not to cry herself, and to make the 
 gentle straggler who had rescued Claude do so, 
 by the way in which she praised Claude's past, 
 and prognosticated all sorts of joys for his young 
 wife and himself, did he but survive "this." 
 Despite the way in which she had looked into 
 the water that night at Richmond -despite the 
 way in which she had thrown over the result 
 of that sagacious look when a brighter star pro- 
 mised to shine upon her despite divers dubious 
 deeds, that some women, who had done ditto in 
 the dark, were very hard upon, she had a heart, 
 and it was larger and more loving than Grace 
 Harper, whose conduct had always been imma- 
 culate, possessed. The woman who had erred and 
 been sorry for her sin, and succeeded brilliantly, 
 as success goes socially, after it all, saw how 
 keenly jealous the hot-hearted young wife of 
 the man who had loved her (Adele) once, was 
 of her. She forgave the jealousy freely, knowing 
 that perhaps, if Bella knew all, still stronger 
 pangs would have assailed her. She forgave it 
 freely, not in an obtrusively magnanimous way 
 that is far harder to endure than outright open 
 antagonism, but with a quiet, hearty thorough- 
 ness that, could it only have been made patent 
 to Bella, would have won that misguided indi- 
 vidual's suffrages at once. 
 
 The fine, fair, generous-looking creature in the 
 carriage the bonnie blonde whom Bell trusted 
 would have been a far more dangerous rival, 
 even in a legitimate field, when once her pale 
 envy, her rancorous spite, was roused. There 
 was something broad and smooth and quiet 
 about her, something fair and fleshy, somnolent 
 and soft, that was very disarming. She was 
 just the woman to whom a tired man would 
 turn on whom a deceived man would rely. 
 You could not look upon her placid, fair face, 
 and fear that she would ever plot and intrigue 
 ever so innocently. " There was such a lot of 
 the animal and so little of that beastly danger- 
 ous intellect about her," as an artist once said, 
 that she lapped all suspicion of everything not 
 being all fair and above-board, to slumber. She 
 would develop into a glorious specimen of Eng- 
 lish motherliness and matronhood, men's eyes 
 and tastes told them. But somehow their in- 
 stincts whispered a different tale, and very few 
 of them had given her the option of so develop- 
 ing yet. 
 
 There was this peculiarity about Grace- 
 about the woman who looked so unimpassioned 
 who seemed, to casual guileless observers of 
 her own sex, so uncommonly hard to move, 
 there was this peculiarity about her she liked 
 this man less now that he was insensible, help- 
 less, incapable of looking hot things hotly, 
 whether he meant them or not, at her. She 
 liked him less ; she was far less moved towards 
 him than she had been inwardly in his hours of 
 strength, albeit in those hours he had over- 
 looked her. She was devoid of that generous 
 womanly instinct which is usually attributed to 
 women. Look in her face, and you would at 
 once imagine a sister of mercy in the widest 
 sense of the phrase. Look in her heart, and 
 you would perceive, equally at once, that the 
 man's powerlessness wiped off all his claim 
 upon her. She had no feeling, no pity, no 
 tenderness for incapacity. She revolted in- 
 wardly from all that was weaker than herself. 
 
 She had none of a woman's pride in being, even 
 for the briefest space, a protecting power. She 
 was not adapted for the part of a ministering 
 angel. 
 
 Still she, being a well-trained, well-brought- 
 up, discreetly - nurtured, nineteenth - century 
 young English lady, said and did all that was 
 becoming, and left unsaid and undone all that 
 might have been construed into unbecoming, on 
 this occasion. She was a large, soft, apparent- 
 ly trustworthy '" something to lean upon." Ac- 
 cordingly misguided Bella leant upon her 
 morally and physically during the sad hours 
 that ensued while Claude's case was still one of 
 doubt. 
 
 Leant upon her, and confided in her in a 
 measure, and utterly scorned Lady Lexley, and 
 turned away resolutely from all poor Circe's 
 efforts at consolation. Lady Lexley sat and 
 shed genuine tears of genuine sorrow for this 
 thing that had come upon the young man 
 around whom she had thrown her spell once. 
 She was heartily in earnest, and she did not 
 care a bit for the tell-tale marks those tears left 
 upon her prepared cheeks. What though the 
 rouge were obvious, and the yellowish powder 
 removed with irregularity? She had tears in 
 her heart, and she would shed them out, little 
 thinking that the truth those tears made mani- 
 fest rendered her more odious still in the eyes 
 of the wife of the man for whom she wept. 
 
 They carried Claude up-stairs, and laid him on 
 the big hearse-like bed the bed of state, and 
 dust, and black velvet, and plumes, and all the 
 other abominations that go to the making up of 
 the couch of importance in the home of anti- 
 quity and stripped him of the gay and dainty 
 clothing that he had carried so spotlessly to 
 the cover-side that morning. Then the doctor, 
 whom they had summoned with a speed that 
 still seemed slow to Bella, came ; and then 
 then her heart, and her horror, and her huge 
 love for her husband, and remorse that she had 
 permitted anger to obtain in her soul for a mo- 
 ment, overcame her, and she went and crouched 
 away and drank water in a corner in order to 
 save herself from fainting, and so distracting an 
 atom of attention from Claude from the one 
 whose state called for all that could be given. 
 
 Went and crouched away in a corner, gasp- 
 ing for breath and gulping down water, with a 
 terrible undefined feeling that all misery was 
 immediately about to crush down upon and 
 destroy her. It was not her nerves or her heart 
 that failed her at this crisis. It was simply 
 that she, not having the muscles of a bison, be- 
 came physically incapable of standing by, now, 
 alas ! when Claude most needed her. But they 
 those others that loved him well also saw 
 all that she did in a distorted mirror. So they 
 cast oblique glances upon her in her uncon- 
 sciousness and corner, and were obtrusively 
 strong-minded and " incapable of considering 
 their own feelings at such a moment," on the 
 spot. 
 
 I wrong his mother, though, in including her 
 in this somewhat sweeping assertion. No ; 
 there was nothing obtrusive in the way in 
 which she came up, without words, and just 
 looked her resolve to stand, close to her sense- 
 less son, and hear the verdict as soon as it 
 might be given, and know the worst as soon as it 
 
might be told. Be it told, too, that though there 
 was all this in her look, there was not a trace 
 of aught that might be construed into censure 
 of her son's wife in it. All her silent eloquence 
 was expended in asking and hoping that all 
 might be well with the hope of her house, and 
 wildly fearing that it would not be so. 
 
 But Mrs. Markham made up amply for her 
 mother's generous abnegation of the bliss of 
 blaming. She was considerably " upset " that 
 was how she phrased it herself for her love for 
 her brother was an honest love, albeit some- 
 what of an exacting one. But she was a wo- 
 man who was never distraught to the point of 
 becoming oblivious of the shortcomings of those 
 around whom she did not like. It is perhaps 
 well for the better ordering of the social state 
 that this type of woman should be lavished 
 upon a miserable and erring section of humanity. 
 I can only say, thank God, that such an one 
 does not dwell in the tents with me 1 
 
 She was an admirable executive power, 
 though especially at such a time as this, when 
 to be prompt was the first condition. No other 
 woman would have had up boiling water and 
 an unlimited supply of the softest blankets, to 
 say nothing of the stomach-pump, and a bottle 
 of the best brandy, into Claude's room, in such 
 a short space of time. Servants never stayed 
 to ask her irrelevant questions, and she had the 
 art of causing them to comprehend, in the few- 
 est words that a woman can bring herself to 
 utter on an emergency. They did not like Mrs. 
 Markham, those obedient domestics, but they 
 did what she told them, which was far more to 
 the purpose. On the whole, then, it will be 
 perceived that she had her good side. Her good 
 side, indeed! the most tedious thing to be en- 
 dured about her was, that even her most aggra- 
 vating side was not " bad " was not a thing 
 to be justly hated, though heartily hated it 
 was. 
 
 On this occasion executive power, and fore- 
 thought, and a knowledge of what " would be 
 wanted next," was much needed, and was, in 
 truth, invaluable. " I shall retire into a corner 
 
 and cry when my brother is better, or " 
 
 She did not finish her sentence, but she jerked 
 its meaning emphatically towards poor Bella, 
 who did not hear her, or anything else, in fact, 
 save the maddening throbs of her heart and 
 the jingle of her teeth against the glass, with 
 which she could not avoid coming in contact 
 through agitation. Mrs. Markham made her 
 speech to Lady Lexley and Miss Harper, both 
 of whom were standing about aimlessly in the 
 dressing-room, and Miss Grace whispered to 
 her companion that Mrs. Markham was always 
 "so collected and so good;" whereat Lady 
 Lexley looked at Mrs. Markham, and thought 
 that it was almost a pity that her well-ordered 
 wits did not impel her to say a kind word, or 
 give a gentle touch, which would not have 
 occupied a moment's more time, to the player 
 of the voluntary on the glass in the corner. 
 Of course Mrs. Markham was doing her duty 
 most perfectly; her conduct was flawless, and 
 her heart was sincerely in her work. But she 
 was not moulded out of soft stuff. She could 
 not deal gently with the erring, and she thought 
 her "brother's wife was erring now. The very 
 atmosphere, which always seemed so hazy 
 
 about her presence, expressed this thought 
 that was all. 
 
 Never having been half-drowned, I feel that 
 failure ignominious and total will be my portion 
 if I attempt to describe the sensations which 
 swept through Claude "Walsingham during 
 those few first poignant moments when the 
 partial restoration is hovering between the 
 black "all being over" and the dim grey of 
 possible recovery. But from the period of the 
 dawning of that dim grey I will venture to 
 take up the theme. 
 
 His heart had given signs, so had his pulse. 
 These signals were responded to speedily by 
 his blood, which proceeded to diffuse itself, and 
 gradually dispel that awful livid look which 
 had reigned all too long in his face. He 
 breathed he opened his eyes he was living. 
 " He will live," his mother said, turning round 
 and sending her voice straight, soft, and low, to 
 the corner in which Bella was crouching. The 
 sound fell upon her ears her heart: it drew 
 her up, and. threw the glass down, and brought 
 her to the side of the bed just as he turned his 
 head and murmured, " My poor girl ! have 
 
 they got the grey home, and " But he 
 
 could say no more just then, on account of a cer- 
 tain looseness of tongue, and difficulty of defi- 
 nitely deciding on an idea to which he desired 
 to give words. But for all this looseness and 
 difficulty they knew that he was safe : he the 
 pride and hope of the house the true English 
 gentleman whose first thought after a mighty 
 danger was for his wife, hiFsecond for his horse. 
 
 There being nothing more to be done, the 
 doctor promised to " look in " at brief intervals, 
 and soon the incidentals removed themselves 
 from the vicinity of his room, leaving Bella and 
 Mrs. Walsingham in possession, subject only to 
 occasional raids from Mrs. Markham. Lady 
 Lexley and Miss Harper had agreed to remain 
 till late in the day, in order to see " how he 
 went on," and to take away the latest intelli- 
 gence for their own dinner-table. They were 
 very cosy and comfortable down in the drawing- 
 room with Mrs. Markham, on three couches 
 drawn up close to the fire. Miss Harper was 
 specially so, for she let off a lot of judicious 
 laments about Mrs. Claude ; laments as to her 
 frivolity, and allusions to her notorious love of 
 flirtation, and she had the satisfaction of seeing 
 that few, if any, of her shots missed fire on the 
 sister of the man about whose wife she was 
 saying insidious words, that might neither be 
 verified nor refuted. 
 
 " I am sure there is not a bit of harm in her 
 but well, Lord Lexley isn't one to say a 
 word about a woman, is he now, Ellen? and 
 even he looked rather queer, and said some- 
 thing, I can't remember what; but that I 
 was very sorry to hear about your brother's 
 wife." 
 
 " I am certain Lexley never said nor looked 
 a word against her," Lady Lexley exclaimed. 
 "More than that, I'm very certain he has 
 nothing to say. I should think I ought to 
 know as much about my own husband as you 
 do, Grace." 
 
 "Oh! of course it's nothing," Miss Harper 
 responded, hurriedly ; " at least, I think nothing 
 of such things ; but then, some people do, you 
 know." 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 93 
 
 " "Well, what is said ? You're making a nice 
 impression on Mrs". Markham. What ' is said ' 
 is better than what you imply." 
 
 " Only that she has flirted. I tell you that 
 1 think nothing of it." 
 
 " Then why do you talk about it ? Let us 
 talk of something else. How jolly this tea is. 
 That poor girl upstairs would like a cup, I 
 have no doubt. Stay ! don't send ; I'll take it 
 to her." 
 
 So Lady Lesley ran upstairs with a cup of 
 tea for Bella, and while she was away Miss 
 Harper generously remarked that 
 
 "Professionals naturally get looser notions, 
 don't they ? Not that I would breathe a word 
 against Adele, as far as she goes herself; but 
 she has lived in a world where there is a good 
 deal of freedom, among people who think no- 
 thing of a kiss on a lady's hand, more or less ; 
 but then we do." 
 
 *Miss Harper said ' f we do " all in capital let- 
 ters, in a way that drew the line at once be- 
 tween that world of which she spoke and the 
 guileless one in which Mrs. Markham. and her- 
 self had been nurtured. Her tone, her voice, 
 her words, all had the true " county persons " 
 ring about them, just rendered a trifle less har- 
 monious than they would otherwise have been, 
 by a dash of spite. 
 
 She hated Mrs. Claude "Walsingham. Hated 
 her not alone for being prettier and wittier 
 than herself, and for that winning for which 
 she (Grace) had waited the winning of Claude, 
 namely ; but also for that nameless something 
 which may not be defined, which we call 
 "charm" and " fascination " for want of bet- 
 ter words, and then, to ourselves even, utterly 
 fail to express our own meaning. Miss Harper 
 would have given much say the peace of mind 
 for a month of her nearest relative in order 
 that she might have seen Bella even tempora- 
 rily abashed, discomfited, or lightly esteemed 
 by one in whose estimation Bella might be sup- 
 posed to desire to stand well. Apparently 
 there was a lack of all motive in this desire to 
 under-rate ; but in reality the motive was pow- 
 erful enough. Another had been preferred 
 before her I 
 
 There was nothing chivalrous in this girl's 
 nature. She would strike from behind, and 
 feel no shame in so doing, provided no one were 
 by to see the blow dealt. She had never in the 
 course of her life been guilty of a single action 
 that could have been stigmatised as " unlady- 
 like " by the most severe of critics. But had 
 she been a man, one could not have applied the 
 title of " gentleman," in its proudest, fullest 
 meaning, to her. 
 
 Now that she was left alone with Claude's 
 rigorous sister, she sat and said a lot of little 
 things that are extremely difficult to set down 
 in black and white, and that nevertheless leave 
 a bad impression on the mind for whose benefit 
 they are uttered. Taken by themselves, look- 
 ed at separately, each sentence that she spoke 
 was harmless and of little consequence. But 
 the dangerous thing about these sentences of 
 hers was, that one could not gaze at them 
 separately with the calm eyes of cool reason. 
 One could but gather them together, so subtly 
 were they linked, and find them uncommonly 
 unpleasant in such union. One could but 
 
 mark, the while these words were being said, 
 how soft was the face of the speaker, and tell 
 oneself that from so genial a soil nought pre- 
 meditatedly evil had ever sprung. It was such 
 a tenderly tinted face ! It was so innocently 
 plump 1 It had such gentle lips and cloudless 
 eyes ! Not of such materials are formed the 
 lagos, male or female, surely ? 
 
 "I like her so much that I am sure you 
 .won't wrong me by thinking I have said a 
 word of this in unkindness," Miss Harper said, 
 in reference to Bella, when they heard Lady 
 Lexley's footfall outside the door. 
 
 "My dear, I know you too well!" Mrs. 
 Markham replied, earnestly. " In unkindness, 
 indeed !" 
 
 " And you must promise me that you won't 
 think about it at all? I have been carried 
 away into telling you little things I have heard, 
 which, very probably, have but small founda- 
 tion in fact." This Miss Harper said in a very 
 low voice almost in a whisper as Lady Lex- 
 ley strove to occupy herself with something 
 else at the extreme end of the room, in the 
 way people do strive to occupy themselves 
 when the discovery dawns upon them that their 
 advent is inopportune. 
 
 "Oh, of course not! of course not!" Mrs. 
 Markham replied, glibly. But she did think 
 about it for all that glibly given promise ; and 
 she resolved that for his good, when he came 
 out of his present danger, her brother should 
 think about it too. 
 
 Jack came home about half-past five, in a 
 terribly cast down condition. He had been 
 very high-hearted all day, for the brown hunter 
 had faced all things that came in his way 
 bravely, and had been in a very good place 
 when they found. "Wearily jogging home- 
 wards, however, he had been met with tidings 
 of Claude's accident, and Mrs. Claude's distress ; 
 and his heart was very sore for these things, 
 though Claude had snubbed him ruthlessly this 
 morning, and Mrs. Claude turned upon him 
 glances of constraint. He had no idea, poor 
 boy ! that he had been the cause of Bella being 
 made to feel that the bit was in her mouth with 
 some severity. 
 
 He went up in his hunting garb to his bro- 
 ther's dressing-room, and poured out poignant in- 
 quiries through the key-hole as to how Claude 
 was progressing. Inquiries that caused Bella's 
 hair to stand aloof from her head, in that they 
 were uttered in accents unmanageable through 
 emotion; commencing in a husky bass and 
 terminating in a shrill treble, that sounded like 
 a whistle in the ears of the dozing invalid. 
 
 "You go to bed, and I'll sit up with him," he 
 suggested, earnestly, but inconsequently, there 
 being no question as yet. in the broad daylight, 
 of any one sitting up with Claude. 
 
 "No, no! hush-h! do!" Bella implored, in a 
 series of gasps that came from her gratitude to 
 Jack for this devotion to her bosom's lord, and 
 her great dread that the expression of such de- 
 votion might awaken said bosom's lord. 
 
 " Then I'll sit here, and you shall call me if 
 you want me ; will you ?" 
 
 Bella went to the door, opened it a tiny bit, 
 and extended her hand to him through the 
 crevice. 
 
 "Yes, I will," she said, looking up with a 
 
94 
 
 OX GUARD 
 
 loving thankfulness, that grew out of her great 
 love for his brother, into his agitated, frank, 
 loving young face. "Yes, I will, Jack." 
 
 She was so pale, so worn, so miserably anx- 
 ious. These hours of watching they had not 
 been many had toned down so much of that 
 brightness that had been so beautiful in his 
 eyes. Much of her vitality had vanished, and 
 there was a sorrowful soberness about her that 
 touched him inexpressibly. He loved his bro- 
 ther well, too. Altogether, the great wish that 
 he could have taken Claude's place and spared 
 her pain made itself manifest in his face, as he 
 stooped it over the little hand he had clasped 
 through the crevice, and kissed it. 
 
 " Jack, you had better go and dress for din- 
 ner ; you're merely detaining Mrs. Claude," a 
 cold voice said behind him; and he looked 
 round, and Bella looked up through the tears 
 his brotherly sympathy had brought into her 
 eyes, to see" Mrs. Markham and Grace Harper 
 standing in the doorway of the dressing-room. 
 
 "Grace has come to hear the latest bulletin. 
 From your not being with him, Bella, I con- 
 clude my brother is better," Mrs. Markham 
 said, reproachfully, as Jack got himself away 
 out of their presence, with a gait to which he 
 could not impart an atom of dignity, or render 
 aught but slinking, for the life of him. He had 
 kissed Bella's hand as reverentially as he would 
 have kissed the hand of the queen. But he had 
 his instincts, and they led him to feel how 
 much better it would have been had that special 
 evidence of his reverence for her not been visi- 
 ble to the eyes of such beholders. So he 
 dressed in discomfort, and ate his dinner with a 
 heart that was heavy for his brother and for 
 something else. 
 
 Bella was troubled with no foreboding un- 
 connected with Claude's physical state. Very 
 frankly did she make a statement of all the 
 symptoms that had intervened since Miss Har- 
 per had been there last, up to the present time, 
 to that young lady. She almost felt sorry that 
 the fair, remarkably womanly-looking girl was 
 going away from the Court. The matrons who 
 remained were so much harder than the maiden 
 who was leaving it appeared to her. In per- 
 fect trust and confidence she would, had oppor- 
 tunity offered, have laid her head down upon 
 the buxom white shoulder, and breathed out a 
 portion of her anguish and anxiety respecting 
 Claude, and her remorse touching that letter 
 she had written, and her defiant determination 
 to ride Devilskin. The opportunity not offer- 
 ing, however, she did not do it, which was, 
 perhaps, just as well. 
 
 Late in the night, or, rather, early in the 
 morning, Claude roused himself a little, and the 
 untiring watcher by his side leant over and 
 heard him speak coherently once more. 
 
 "You poor, little, weary mouse! this is a 
 great deal too much for you," he whispered 
 faintly, putting his hand on her head with a 
 touch that told better even than his loving 
 words how dear her presence was to him. 
 
 "I'm not weary a bit," she said, softly; and 
 then some tears rolled down on his face before 
 she was aware that they were springing from 
 her eyes, as she went on to tell him how tender 
 Jack had been about him, and how anxious to 
 help her in her vigil. Claude lay listening 
 
 thoughtfully to this communication for a minute ; 
 then he smoothed her hair again, calling her 
 "darling "and "pet," and bidding her forget 
 that crossness of his as to Jack and other things 
 which had been so grievous to her. He de- 
 clared that he had been "simply brutal," and 
 this was more grievous still to hear in his pre- 
 sent state. "But you'll never distrust me 
 again, Claude?" 
 
 "Never; not even if you compare me with 
 dear old Stanley, who was an infinitely better 
 fellow than I shall ever be," he replied. And 
 at that reply Bella blushed hotly in spite of her- 
 self, for had she not already compared them ? 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 "ONE MORE UNFORTUNATE." 
 
 THIS life to which Stanley returned was not one 
 with which he was acquainted. The scene upon 
 which his eyes opened had never been gazed 
 upon by him before. It was all strange and 
 disturbing disturbing by reason of its extreme 
 peacefulness. 
 
 It was useless to try and remember where he 
 had been and what he had been prior to this 
 existence. There was warm sunshine around 
 him now ; there were tuay rosebuds or were 
 they fairies' faces? blinking at him from the 
 curtains and the wall. 
 
 The peacefulness of it, and the prettiness of it, 
 the beauty of the rest he was enjoying was it 
 all a dream ? Was it entirely the creation of 
 that burning spirit of inspiration he had begged 
 as a boon of his landlady but an hour ago, as it 
 seemed ? 
 
 He closed his eyes as his reflections reached 
 this point ; the lashes trembled down and light- 
 ed upon his cheeks, and as they touched he 
 went off into blest oblivion again, and a watcher 
 by his side stifled a sigh for that the flicker for 
 which she had wearied so long had been so brief. 
 
 The lamp of life in this stranger this waif 
 and stray, cast up by the tide of human events 
 to her very door had been so faint, so feeble, 
 for many days, that the torch of hope had been 
 sympathetic. But now, for a few minutes, the 
 light of life in his had kindled that of hope in 
 her eyes and heart, and now it had gone out 
 again. 
 
 We saw Stanley Yillars last, prostrate, fallen 
 down upon the raised foothpath, with the tawny 
 setter howling over him. The battle for life 
 had been a little too strong for him ; he had 
 been overtaken and routed; he had broken 
 down while making a late feeble effort to regain 
 that best of all allies on any field health. 
 
 His case was widely different now ; widely 
 different and far better. The scene on which 
 his eyes had closed was all the more unpleasant 
 by contrast with that one on which they opened. 
 
 For they opened again in about an hour after 
 the flickering up and fading away which was 
 alluded to at the commencement of this chapter. 
 The watch had been weary, sad, disheartening; 
 but the watcher was well rewarded at last. 
 
 The peacefulness of that scene, and the pretti- \ 
 ness of it ! These were the influences which ( 
 had been most apparent to him when the light 
 
GUARD. 
 
 95 
 
 of reason first came back to his eyes and 
 to his soul. These were the influences that 
 soothed him more and more, as such light grew 
 stronger. 
 
 The rosebuds that had looked to him like the 
 faces of kind fairies when he gazed upon them 
 first, were on the walls, and on the curtains of 
 the bed. The windows were shrouded with 
 white muslin, and there was delicate feminine 
 craft in the broad blue ribbon bows which 
 held those curtains back. 
 
 It was a pretty room, fresh, sweet, and simple. 
 From his bed in the corner he commanded a 
 good view of the toilet table in diaphanous 
 drapery, with a tall vase of early roses upon it, 
 standing by the side of a large glass, hi which 
 was reflected a face. 
 
 The peacefulness of the room and the pretti- 
 ness of it, these had been sufficient to arouse 
 and enchain his attention before. But now, 
 when he saw that vision in the glass, he looked 
 no more about him. 
 
 It was only the head and a portion of one of 
 the shoulders that he saw. From the position, 
 he judged her to be reading, though he saw no 
 book, and heard no flutter or rustle from the 
 leaves. 
 
 There was a red glory not a golden one, but 
 a dark red glory in the hair that crowned that 
 head. It was massed back from her brow, and 
 arranged behind in two big loose knots, that 
 were kept in place by a net ; and from the depth 
 of its colour, and the massiveness of its arrange- 
 ments, it had the effect of being too rich and 
 too heavy for the head on which it grew. 
 
 He got a three-quarter view of her face in 
 the glass, and it was such a tiny face, and it 
 had such a confiding brow, and such a rosy, 
 dewy mouth, and such a very, very young, in- 
 nocent, almost babyish look altogether, that he 
 began to pity it, he knew not why. 
 
 Do you know that nose that stands out well 
 from the face, and is still straight ? well, she 
 had it. Do you know that mouth that springs 
 like a rosebud with the morning mist upon it 
 from immediately beneath this nose ? she had 
 that too. That style of face to which this nose 
 and mouth belong is far more perfect in expres- 
 sion than in feature. Yet the expression is no 
 more intellectual than the features are perfect. 
 The face is mobile, sympathetic a thing to love 
 and be sorry for to kiss and to leave ! so God 
 help the possessors of such ! 
 
 It was sweetly pretty this face that he saw 
 in the glass. Sweetly pretty by right of its 
 babyishness, of its plaintive sweetness. It 
 stirred him by its drooping beauty ; it made him 
 wish to hear it speak, made him desire to touch 
 it, and see whether or not it would alter under 
 that touch whether it had feeling whether it 
 could sadden into harshness, brighten into 
 broad laughs, as other faces do or whether it 
 was always plaintively sweet, droopingly beau- 
 tiful, and nothing more. 
 
 He tried, lying there, prone and helpless for 
 his had been a fever, and he could not move 
 to recall what he had known last, before this 
 blest oblivion had been his. He forgot the 
 walk he had taken, he forgot the prostration of 
 spirit he had known during it, he forgot the dog 
 who had stood by him to the last he only re- 
 membered that he still had work to do ! 
 
 That uncompleted novel, that unfinished plot, 
 those waiting devils ! He lifted his head from 
 the pillow as he thought of them, and his head 
 was very weak. It fell back again, and the 
 soothing influence of peace and prettiness that 
 were around him kept it there. 
 
 There was a charm he knew it was a charm, 
 because he had heard, or had he read ? of such 
 things in the atmosphere. But suddenly it 
 occurred to him that he might as well break it, 
 as it could not last for ever break it, and get 
 back to that whatever it might be that was 
 waiting for him. So he moved and spoke. 
 Moved with a jerk, and spoke out in a spasm 
 spoke words that had voice, and desperate 
 uncertainty, and desolation in them nothing 
 else. 
 
 Poor fellow ! I declare, that for this semblance 
 of the truth whom I have conjured up, I have 
 such a deep pity, such a sad sympathy ! That 
 horrible dread of wasting the time that was his 
 rock, his anchor, his all, was upon him. He 
 dared not be at peace, even for his own good. 
 
 So he broke the spell by means of which he 
 enjoyed this charmed rest, and spoke. His 
 words rang in their irrelevance deep into the 
 quiet of the room, and the peace fled, and that 
 reflection in the glass broke from its stillness, 
 threw aside its drooping beauty, and was, in the 
 one instant he saw it after its alteration, the 
 young woman of this world once more. 
 
 He would not be at peace, even for his own 
 good. He would test the tangibility of this 
 vision that was fleeing. Even in his present 
 state of semi-unconsciousness, he remembered 
 that illusions might be his at any moment : this 
 was a seeming fact he would dare to stay it. 
 
 It was all very dreamy ; the first stage of a 
 recovery from a bad fever is apt to be so. That 
 unfinished work of his, that thing still to be 
 done within a given time, was running in his 
 head, as he half turned on the pillow and asked 
 vaguely " what it was." 
 
 The vision in the glass had started when he 
 had first moved restlessly, and now he turned 
 his head, half hoping that it might be she on 
 whom his eyes would rest in the flesh. Such 
 hopes were not realised ; and yet I can scarcely 
 say that he was disappointed, as his looks light- 
 ed on a clean old woman with a kind face, who 
 did not look as if a legion of small bills were 
 behind .her, which was what his later experience 
 of old women rather led him to expect. 
 
 There was no fear of losing oneself in 
 shadowy depths in her face. It was a healthy, 
 rosy, round, kind, old face, commonplace, and 
 addicted to smiling without due cause, but not 
 at all to be evaded by one on a bed of pain or 
 weakness. Immediately at sight of her, Stanley 
 Yillars had pleasant thoughts of nice thick ar- 
 rowroot and complete rest of downy idleness, 
 and egg and sherry at eleven ; thoughts, happy 
 thoughts of a period of being ill or convalescent, 
 as the case might be, comfortably, with the con- 
 sciousness of its not behoving him to do any- 
 thing, save take his restoratives regularly. 
 
 He lay there looking at her in perfect peace 
 for a while, wondering, with a gentle wonder, 
 whether she would change into anything else 
 presently ; for he associated that vision in the 
 glass with her, and looked beneath the border 
 of her cap with his weak eyes, marvelling 
 
96 
 
 ON GUAKD. 
 
 curiously whither that red glory had vanished. 
 But she remained an old woman sufficiently 
 long to reassure him an old woman in a dark 
 dress and a mob cap, who might have pursued 
 Mr. Banting's system with advantage for a 
 period an everyday old woman, whose kindly, 
 commonplace, stupid, round, rosy face banished 
 the fairy faces from the bursting rosebuds that 
 were blooming round the room. 
 
 " You feel yourself to be yourself, as one may 
 say, again, sir ; and heartily glad my missus and 
 I are to see it," she said, when he had stared at 
 her for a short time. 
 
 He smiled as graciously as his wanness would 
 admit of his doing in response, and his smile was 
 echoed, as it were, by a relieved sigh from a 
 corner, which he could not command from his 
 position on the pillow. 
 
 " I'm not certain about feeling myself, for I'm 
 not clear who I am," he said, presently, on 
 which the everyday old woman laughed, as if 
 this uncertainty of his were a great joke, and 
 deftly prepared him a draught the while, with 
 which she presently dosed him. 
 
 "It not being for sleeping, speech is not for- 
 bid," she said, solemnly, when he had taken it ; 
 on which encouragement he combated his desire 
 to sleep again and know nothing, and asked her 
 " where he was ? and, if she could tell him, how 
 he came there ?" 
 
 She became terse, not to say uncommunica- 
 tive, at this point. He was "where the Lord 
 Mayor, to say nothing of the Prince of Wales, 
 might be, and no shame to them," she replied; 
 " more than this she would leave for her mistress 
 to tell, if so it pleased her." 
 
 "Then your mistress is " He looked to- 
 wards the glass, and left his question incom- 
 plete. 
 
 " She was sitting there bless her!" the old 
 woman answered. " She has been sitting there 
 more days and nights than I would count to 
 you till you're strong enough to add them up of 
 yourself, sir. But this is not the talk she'd 
 have me hold to you now, nor the talk I'd hold 
 of myself, if I were not that stupid when I think 
 of her." The tears came into the old woman's 
 eyes at this juncture, and she drifted into vague 
 and rambling statements respecting her own 
 weakness on this point, which, in Stanley's 
 current state, were neither amusing nor in- 
 structive. 
 
 He made a great effort to recall himself. 
 " How did I come here ? tell me that first," he 
 said; and then there was a faint whisper of 
 "Rayner, not yet not yet I tell you!" from 
 that same portion of the room from which the 
 sigh had proceeded but just now. Altogether, 
 between his great effort to get at the truth, and 
 that faintly whispered entreaty to retain it, poor 
 Rayner was much bewildered, and not a trifle 
 aggrieved. 
 
 By-and-by, after a short interval of waiting, 
 and wondering what it all meant, he remember- 
 ed Rock. 
 
 " Hadn't I a dog !" he asked "a big dog 
 a setter ?" He was endeavouring to recall 
 Rock to his own mind by this full description, 
 as much as essaying to paint him to Rayner. 
 He was not sure whether he had not dreamt the 
 dog, and the dog having been very pleasant to 
 him he hoped it was no dream. 
 
 "There is a dog; but, bless his heart! ho 
 would be like a mad thing if I was to let him 
 up !" the old woman replied. 
 
 There was a dog ah ! and that dog had been 
 given him by Bella Vane the girl he was 
 going to marry the woman who had jilted him 
 for his old school-friend, Claude Walsingham 1 
 He remembered everything now the woe, and 
 the work, and the walk, and the way those two 
 latter things had grown out of the former. He 
 remembered everything now. "God! what a 
 life to take up again!" he thought bitterly, 
 remembering these things. 
 
 Presently a sound smote upon his ears an 
 impatient scraping afar, then a bounding, 
 scratching footstep a rough scramble up on 
 to the bed, and Rock's great, loving, yellow- 
 brown eyes were looking into his, and Rock's 
 big, feathery tail was wagging its delight at the 
 meeting. It was only a dog that was so joyed 
 to welcome him back to saneness ; it was only 
 a dog that seemed to smile upon the prospect of 
 returning strength; it was only a dog that 
 seemed to say to him, "You would have been 
 missed!" But the dog's sympathy was very 
 sweet to the lonely man, whose soul but a 
 minute before had sunk at the thought of taking 
 up his burden of life again. 
 
 He laid hold, with his weak, thin hands, of 
 the long, silky ears of the setter; he looked 
 into the honest, loving, ^llowish-brown eyes ; 
 and as he thought of how she had often patted 
 and caressed the dog thus, the anguish of his 
 life came back with all its force, and freshly as 
 at first he mourned for the woman, and cursed 
 the perfidy that had wrecked him ! Better to 
 have died, down on the road-side, like a dog, 
 than to have come back to life to the know- 
 ledge of the heart's disgrace to the remem- 
 brance of how faithless had been his friend, 
 how false his love, how frail his faith in all 
 things how utterly they had each and all 
 failed him ! 
 
 The remembrance aroused him stirred him 
 out of his peacefulness, and made him uneasily 
 conscious that his portion was not to lie still 
 when stillness was essential to his well-being, 
 but that he must be up and doing whether he 
 were fit for it or no. There was some poor 
 task to be done some mean goal to be won 
 and, living or dying, he must do and strive to 
 win. This was incumbent upon him he had 
 no appeal against it. Fate was a pitiless mon- 
 ster to him, and she decreed that he should 
 know no rest. 
 
 He would obey, since he could not resist. 
 In pursuance of his plan of obedience, he raised 
 his head from the pillow once more, to Rock's 
 great delight muttering some words to him- 
 selfj which were intended as stimulants, but 
 which, by some curious process, though dictated 
 by his own mind, failed when uttered to reach 
 the same again, but drifted off upon the empty 
 air, and mocked him, as it were. Then his 
 head flattened upon his shoulders, and his eyes 
 appeared to be loose in his head, and his whole 
 form went down many yards, with a thump in 
 the bed, and the flesh came off conqueror in 
 that never-ceasing combat between itself and 
 the spirit. He was entirely broken down. 
 
 It was at this moment that she whose droop- 
 ing beauty whose babyish, innocent beauty 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 97 
 
 had seemed so sweet and touching a thing to 
 him, when he looked upon it in the glass, came 
 before him bodily. She crept up to the side of 
 the bed, by which the old woman still stood, 
 and paused there, a mere girl, with a woman's 
 pity for him beaming from her eyes, and the 
 great tawny dog leaping up at her as at a tried 
 friend. 
 
 She was wonderfully pretty exquisitely 
 pretty and innocent-looking touchingly simple, 
 and youthful in appearance. No child's mouth 
 could be more perfectly pure in colour, outline, 
 and expression than hers. No angel's brow 
 could be more stainless. No woman's eyes 
 more loving than the sweet, full, blue ones that 
 looked down through a tender dew upon 
 him. 
 
 Her tones were very mortal though. Im- 
 pressionable as he was, through his great weak- 
 ness, he could but be aware of this fact, as the 
 childlike mouth opened, and through the parted 
 lips came the words 
 
 "I'm so glad you're better, sir! Is there 
 any one I .can send for? " 
 
 " No one," he replied. He had not spoken 
 so softly to any one for months as he now spoke 
 to her. Then he put his hand out to her over 
 Rock's head, and added, "Have you been my 
 little nurse?" 
 
 " The odd hours, when I was in, and Rayner 
 asleep, I have taken," she replied in a matter- 
 of-fact tone. 
 
 " Then it is to the odd hours I must owe my 
 recovery," he said softly, and a little ungrate- 
 fully to Rayner, it must also be confessed. 
 
 " It was Rayner made you everything and 
 gave you your draughts," the girl answered, in 
 her quaint, matter-of-fact way; "but I fed the 
 dog, and looked in your pockets to try and find 
 out who you were," she went on candidly. 
 
 A return of that uncertainty as to his own 
 identity pervaded his mind dimly for an instant, 
 as he asked 
 
 "And did you find out?" 
 She shook her head in the negative and 
 blushed, as she remembered that in the course 
 of the search she had opened his purse, and 
 found therein the sum of one shilling and six- 
 pence. 
 
 " So we could not let your friends know how 
 ill you were, or where you were," she con- 
 tinued, pursuing her own thought. 
 
 "I have none! no matter!" he answered 
 suddenly. Then observing that the old woman 
 looked curious, and the young one pained, he 
 added, "None with whom you could have com- 
 municated none in London none" (this with 
 a great access of feeling) " who would have 
 been kind to me, as you have been." 
 
 The girl looked pleased. "I have done what 
 I could, and so has Rayner." 
 
 Stanley glanced gratitude at Rayner on the 
 spot, but his eyes quickly went back to the baby 
 face that was so very fair, with its look of inno- 
 cent pleasure upon it. 
 
 " God will bless you for your kindness and 
 your goodness." 
 
 "You are not to agitate yourself," she inter- 
 rupted hastily; "the doctor says you're not to 
 agitate yourself." 
 
 " But you must tell me " he began. 
 
 "No, sir, not now. Rayner, his cooling draught 
 
 quicK ! I must go out now ; when I come in 
 I'll tell you all about yourself." 
 
 "And all about yourself too," he said, with a 
 smile. " Well, meanwhile I shall obey you, and 
 not agitate myself." 
 
 _"Not yet no questions yet," the girl said 
 with a touch of childish imperiousness that was 
 as pleasing to look upon as the rosebuds on the 
 walls and curtains. " Don't leave him, Rayner, 
 I shall take the key and let myself in. Good- 
 bye!" and with that the vision was gone. 
 
 He looked after her lazily as she flitted from 
 the room looked after the slight girlish figure 
 with a languid wonder in his eyes. Then when 
 the door had closed behind her, he drank the 
 cooling draught ; then he looked at the woman 
 those dewy lips had addressed as "Rayner," 
 and observed that Rayner had pursed her own 
 aught but dewy lips up with decision, as one 
 who was resolved that no speech should filter 
 through. 
 
 "Is that your mistress?" he asked. 
 Rayner nodded, and then shook her head at 
 him monotonously, under the impression that 
 such motion on her part would conduce to his 
 quiet, and so to his restoration. 
 
 "And you are Rayner?" he went on. 
 Again she nodded assent. 
 " Who is that young lady ?" 
 "My mistress, sir." 
 
 The conversation ceased here for awhile, anu 
 Stanley was conscious that he had made small 
 not to say no progress. Presently he re- 
 sumed : 
 
 " How long have I been here?" 
 " My mistress's memory is better than mine, 
 and she'll tell you all you want to know when 
 she comes in," Rayner replied, with a dogged 
 nervousness that defeated her own amiable in- 
 tention, and caused him to feel that he must, 
 indeed, have been there a long time, since she 
 dared not affix a date to his advent. 
 
 "Do tell me, my good woman," he said im- 
 ploringly. 
 
 " Now don't you ask till the doctor comes in; 
 he will tell you." 
 
 " When will he come ? the doctor for me /" 
 " He will come to-morrow." 
 " But you must tell me this before to-morrow," 
 he said quietly. " I must know it at 
 once !" 
 
 " Six weeks ; and Miss Marian will never for- 
 give me for telling you yet," Rayner answered 
 in a melancholy tone. 
 
 " Six weeks ! My God, six weeks !" he groan- 
 ed feebly. It was overwhelming to him. Six 
 weeks ! Evil as his case had been before, it was 
 nothing compared to what it would be now. 
 Six hours inactivity at that period, when he left 
 off his life as it were, would have been detri- 
 mental to such miserable prospects as had been 
 his. But six weeks ! It was destruction! 
 
 Wearily he made one more effort when the 
 stunning effect of this blow had worn off a trifle. 
 
 "Tell me all you can all that you think 
 want to know," he said hoarsely. 
 
 Gently, with her toil-hardened hands, sh 
 smoothed the pillow, with a coaxing, tender 
 touch, that soothed him in spite of himself. 
 
 " Not yet, sir," she said, with tears in her 
 voice; "not yet, dearie! "she repeated with a 
 downright assumption of affectionate authority 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 that was very good for him, desolate as he felt 
 himself to be. 
 
 He tried to smile at her. Failing in that, he 
 moved his wasted hand against hers, and 
 seemed to himself to be holding her in a firm 
 grasp. Ah ! how she sorrowed for his weak- 
 ness as the thin fingers went round and held 
 her strong old hand in their feeble clasp. 
 
 "Do tell me in kindness? don't make me 
 ask." 
 
 The piteous appeal for information respecting 
 himself, from the handsome young gentleman 
 over whom she had watched night and day, 
 with unremitting care and attention, for six 
 weeks, overcame her scruples. So after a few 
 more soothing touches had been administered 
 to the pillow and to the coverlid, and after she 
 had wiped her eyes on her apron, and apostro- 
 phised her "goodness," after she had driven 
 him to the brink of insanity, in fact, by her pre- 
 liminaries, she started fairly on the story he 
 wanted to hear. 
 
 She told him that Miss Marian coming home 
 one blustering March evening, "between the 
 lights, as one might say," had been drawn to 
 the spot where he was lying by the howls of 
 the big dog. That Miss Marian had then run 
 into her own house (this abode in which he was 
 at present), screaming out, " Rayner, there's a 
 man dead outside!" That she (Rayner) had 
 forthwith made the "poor, frightened lamb," the 
 aforesaid Miss Marian, lie down while she went 
 out to investigate. That she found he was 
 neither dead, as Miss Marian had feared, nor 
 drunk, as she herself had first fancied, but faint 
 only ; that she half dragged, half carried him in, 
 and placed him on a sofa. And that when he 
 came out of his faint he had gone into a fever, 
 through which Miss Marian and herself had 
 nursed him. That was all. 
 
 That was the extent of her voluntary infor- 
 mation ; and he was too weak, too weary to 
 ask for more, though he longed to hear it. He 
 lay there after she had brought her brief narra- 
 tive to a close, conscious only of two things. 
 The one was that he must be up and at that 
 tale of bricks that were over- due ere long at 
 that odious work over which he had broken 
 down; and the other was a faint desire to 
 know more about "Miss Marian," his baby- 
 faced saviour. 
 
 The consciousness of these two things finally 
 overpowered him, and he fell asleep. When he 
 woke it was night, the curtains were drawn 
 across the window, and by the light of the can- 
 dle that stood on the toilet-table, he saw in the 
 glass the reflection of her face precisely as he 
 had seen it on his first awakening. Saw it, and 
 saw that it was unconscious of his observation 
 marked its expression of purity, and its youth, 
 and (being more himself than he had been be- 
 fore) felt sorrowfully that it was a hard thing 
 that he should have broken down at the feet 
 of this girl a hard, a bad, a bitter thing for 
 some one perhaps for the lonely, baby-faced 
 beauty. 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 " NOT A JOT 1 NOT A JOT I " 
 
 THE fall from his horse, and the period he had 
 passed down among the tadpoles at the bottom 
 of the brook, were insufficient to affect Claude 
 Walsingham unpleasantly after a day or two. 
 But though the effect they had upon his consti- 
 tution was so small, their influence upon the 
 relations between himself and his wife was 
 mighty, and bid fair to be lasting. 
 
 Her alarm about him had taught her how 
 very dear he was to her ; and the ravages that 
 alarm had made upon her, brief as was the time 
 for which she had endured it, appealed to him, 
 and awoke all his slumbering tenderness into a 
 fuller life than it had known before. They 
 were drawn closer together by this danger 
 which he had escaped, and Bella no longer 
 found it dull at the Court. 
 
 All the old joy which she had felt in the old 
 Denham days, when to feel it was treachery to 
 Stanley Yillars, came over her soul once more. 
 She marvelled how she could ever have felt 
 anything else in Claude's presence. She strove 
 to put away the remembrance that she had 
 been feeling quite the reverse rather fervently 
 of late, as she would have put away an ugly 
 dream. 
 
 In her re-awakened tenderness for and trust 
 in her husband, she too? the whole neighbour- 
 hood nearer to her heart, and forgave Lady 
 Lexley's existence a thing that was the more 
 easy to do as Lady Lexley left the Harpers 
 about this time, and crossed her path no more. 
 Still she told herself that she would have been 
 equalty magnanimous had Lady Lexley remain- 
 ed, which proves that she meant well. 
 
 A something called for a celebration at the 
 Court at this epoch. Some one had a birthday, 
 or there was a long list of festivities to be re- 
 quited, or some equally cogent reason for giv- 
 ing a ball arose, and stared Mrs. Walsingham 
 senior in the face. 
 
 It was to be a tremendous affair. I may say 
 that it was to be a serious affair giving the 
 word serious in its two meanings of solemn and 
 important. People were coming to it from 
 either end of the county from the extreme 
 ends, even; and the inns of -the two nearest 
 country towns promised themselves that they 
 " would be crowded to excess, and full to over- 
 flowing," in the columns of their respective 
 journals, for a fortnight previous to the ball. 
 
 Mrs. Claude showed in her brightest colours 
 from the moment it was first mooted up to the 
 night of its realisation. She threw herself 
 heart and soul into the scheme, and made Mrs. 
 Walsingham feel that after all a daughter-in- 
 law who liked gaiety was no bad thing to 
 have near at hand when the promotion of 
 gaiety was the object in view. Bella was 
 ubiquitous and incessant Bella rode and drove 
 about, and gave all the orders for the hundred 
 and one things that were forgotten day by day 
 as the scheme progressed Bella wrote all the 
 notes of invitation, checked off all the accept- 
 ances, organised the order of reception, vigor- 
 ously restrained unhallowed hands from inter- 
 fering with the flowers in the conservatory, by 
 which means she secured a full and plentiful 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 99 
 
 supply of the same ; and, in the intervals of 
 this serious business, taught Jack to waltz 
 without putting his feet through his partner's 
 dress while she was "doing the back steps" 
 a triumph of management Jack had been 
 powerless to attain heretofore in each and all 
 of which good works she was applauded and 
 encouraged, not to say goaded on to greater 
 efforts, by Claude, and jealously watched by 
 Claude's sister. 
 
 She never thought of Stanley Yillars. This 
 relapse into being " in love " with her husband, 
 together with the projected ball, entirely ob- 
 scured her first lover's claims upon her memory. 
 She forgot that semi-plaintive, semi-imprudent 
 appeal she had made to him, by writing to him 
 without obvious end or aim. She forgot the 
 assertion she had made respecting their speedy 
 return to town a return she had blithely 
 assented to deferring for no particular reason ; 
 she forgot the desire she had expressed to see 
 him. In fact, she forgot everything save her 
 present happiness and her husband, which was 
 right from one point of view, and wrong from 
 another. It was her "nature to" forget the 
 past when the present was agreeable at all 
 points. It was constitutional; she may no 
 more be blamed for it with justice than one 
 may be blamed for any other physical defect, 
 or applauded for any physical perfection. She 
 was neither heartless nor undeserving. "When 
 she remembered, she could be as considerate, 
 as tender, as remorseful for her venial errors, 
 as any one only she was very apt to entirely 
 forget. 
 
 So, while the weary weeks dragged on dur- 
 ing which Stanley Villars was wasting under 
 that fever of body and soul of which she was 
 the remote cause, she was making preparations, 
 with that earnestness which comes from intense 
 interest alone, for the greater success of the ball 
 at the Court. 
 
 Grace Harper came into her confidence 
 greatly, by a series of almost imperceptible 
 gradations, in these days. At first Mrs. 
 Markham marvelled, in her own hard, honest 
 soul, at this intimacy between her spotless 
 friend and her brother's wife. But presently 
 Grace explained, and made all things clear in a 
 way that enhanced her own merits in Mrs. 
 Markham's stern eyes, and depreciated Bella's 
 with the most consummate tact. 
 
 " If I stand aloof from her I may have cause 
 to reproach myself by-and-by," Grace said, with 
 that sort of stolid satisfaction in the performance 
 of a meritorious though unpleasant act which it 
 is hard to stand by and see sometimes. " She's 
 not congenial to me, but, at any rate, / can do 
 her no harm," she went on, in a tone that im- 
 plied that Mrs. Claude might do much harm to 
 one who was not encased in such well-tried 
 moral armour as she (Gracie) wore. Mrs. Mark- 
 ham received this sentiment, and endorsed it 
 with a bony kiss on the brow of the " fair 
 brave." Mrs. Markham was one of those 
 women with their mouths full of long teeth 
 whose kisses have the effects of bites on the 
 unprepared recipient. But Grace was never 
 unprepared for any little outburst of the kind, 
 therefore she stood it "like a man," I was about 
 to write, but far more tolerantly than any man 
 would have done Grace was accustomed to 
 
 having Mrs. Markham's fangs gnashed upon 
 her. In the days gone by, she had endured it 
 gallantly because Mrs. Markham was Claude 
 Waisingham's sister ; and a girl on promotion 
 will put up with much from the sister of the 
 probable or possible promoter. Now she en- 
 dured it for custom's sake, and because it was 
 easier to go on enduring chronic unpleasant- 
 nesses from a neighbour than to rebel against 
 them. It may be an uuamiable thing on the 
 part of the portrayer of her character to lay 
 bare the causes which conduced to this out- 
 wardly amiable quiescence on the part of Miss 
 Harper; but, when painting from the life, it is 
 so hard to be pleasant one can but see the 
 reason of many bony kisses being patiently 
 taken, if one will but look. 
 
 Gradually, it came about that Miss Harper 
 spent long hours alone with Mrs. Claude Wal- 
 singham, " seeking to improve her, and give her 
 tone and stability." Mrs. Markham opined, 
 when conversing with her mamma on the sub- 
 ject, " Grace's society could but do Claude's 
 wife good," they both averred, and as Bella took 
 to that society very kindly, they began to think 
 better things of her. 
 
 Gradually, too, it dawned upon Bella that she 
 had, all unconsciously, led on by heaven alone 
 knew what unfortunate combination of circum- 
 stances, laid bare her whole soul, the complete 
 plan of her life, to this plump, placid young 
 lady, who had told her so little in return. The 
 giddinesses of her gushing girlhood, the flighti- 
 nesses before and during her first engagement, 
 her meeting with Claude in that old country inn 
 alone at night, her young conjugal distrust of 
 him when they first came to the Court, her 
 relapse for a few. hours into the ancient kindly 
 feeling towards Stanley, her repentance con- 
 cerning that relapse when Claude was in 
 danger, their restoration to perfect bliss, and 
 love, and trust in one another, which was con- 
 temporaneous with Claude's restoration to 
 health all these and many other things Bella 
 told in full confidence to the admirable young 
 lady who was so ready to see, and deplore, and 
 amend all that was amiss in the young wife of 
 the man whose wife she herself had fully in- 
 tended to be for more years than she now cared 
 to count. 
 
 These friendly confidences rather this friend- 
 ly confidence, for it was one-sided had gone 
 on uninterruptedly for ten days or a fortnight, 
 when one day, and that the very day before the 
 ball, it received a slight shock. The pale devil of 
 jealous hate would not be quieted any longer ; 
 it rose up and forced Grace to say 
 
 " Thank goodness ! when I marry I shall not 
 live in dread of any such old memories being 
 brought to light ! Poor girl I I can understand 
 your being a little nervous sometimes." 
 
 " I'm never a little nervous and when I am, 
 it's not that I'm afraid of any of these ' old 
 memories,' as you call them ? "Why in the 
 world should I be afraid of them ? What non- 
 sense I" The first portion of Bella's disclaimer 
 was slightly contradictory. Grace made Bella 
 feel that she marked its being so, by shaking 
 her head and smiling in melancholy toleration. 
 
 " Old memories ! Why, my husband knows 
 about the worst I mean the most important 
 things I have been telling you of," Bella went 
 
100 
 
 OX GUARD. 
 
 on pettishly, feeling excessively annoyed with 
 herself for having told Miss Harper anything at 
 all. 
 
 " Oh ! does he ?" Grace asked, elevating her 
 faintly marked eyebrows. 
 
 ' ' Does he ? Of course he does ! " 
 
 " Then, at any rate, you have the satisfaction 
 of feeling that you have concealed nothing from 
 him. Take my advice, though 1 have known 
 Claude from a boy don't you be the one to 
 renew the acquaintance with Mr. Villars!" 
 
 Miss Harper spoke in apparently absolute 
 forgetfulness of Mrs. Claude having written to 
 Stanley Villars a fact Mrs. Claude had cursori- 
 ly alluded to three days before. 
 
 " For what reason?" . 
 
 " Well ! for many ; your quick wit will sup- 
 ply you with more in & minute, if you think 
 about it, than my slower tongue." 
 
 "But Claude wishes to meet him again," 
 Bella said energetically. 
 
 " Does he?" Miss Harper asked with a dubi- 
 ous air. 
 
 " Does he? Of course he does I Claude has 
 a generous nature, and he couldn't help feeling 
 
 though he would never allow i " Bella 
 
 stammered and stopped. 
 
 " That's the very reason. I quite feel with 
 you that you could never be the one to bring 
 them together again," Grace said, with a great 
 air of frank sympathy with and appreciation of 
 Bella's motives. 
 
 " But Claude told him the day we were 
 married that he hoped he would soon be with 
 us again." 
 
 "Poor Claude! I can understand how you 
 will always shrink from putting him to the 
 test," Grace said admiringly. Bella felt pro- 
 voked at being so entirely misconstrued ; but, 
 at the same time, she had grave doubts as to 
 whether it would really be well to make her 
 real feelings on the subject patent to Miss 
 Grace. She had no thought of how patent 
 they were already to the unsophisticated Miss 
 Harper. At the same time the influence of this 
 apparently guileless cross-examination was to 
 make her wish that she had never indited that 
 letter, all harmless as it was, to Stanley Villars, 
 or that she had told her husband that she had 
 done so at the time. It was too late now. It 
 was all trifling. A thing that was of no ac- 
 count one way or the other. Still, for all that, 
 a thing that she almost wished she had not 
 done. 
 
 The two ladies had been sitting alone during 
 this conversation ; but soon after it had reached 
 the point of Grace telling Bella that she could 
 " well understand her shrinking from putting 
 her husband to the test of a meeting with Mr. 
 Villars, brought about through her agency," 
 and, while Bella was giving in her adhesion to 
 this noble sentiment, by her silence, Claude 
 himself sauntered hi and sat down by his wife. 
 
 "The conversation has foundered, apparent- 
 ly, can't I start it again ?" he asked. 
 
 " Well, no ; I don't think you can," Bella 
 said, half laughing, and leaning her head on his 
 shoulder as she spoke ; " we had talked the 
 subject out. You can give us a fresh one, if 
 you please." 
 
 " I had rather take up the one you have ex- 
 hausted, and say something new about it," he 
 
 said, merely for the sake of saying some- 
 thing. 
 
 " There is nothing new to be said about it, 
 Claude," Bella exclaimed quickly. 
 
 " Let me try ; what was your theme, Grace ?" 
 he continued, turning to the gentle blonde, who 
 was not greatly softened by the sight of Bella's 
 head burying itself on his shoulder. "What 
 was your theme, Gracie ? Gloves ? " 
 
 Grace Harper shook her head. 
 
 " What then ? Crosbie's chances of getting 
 quit of Lady Alexandrina and going back to 
 Lily Dale ? Bella takes a great interest in 
 Crosbie ; I suppose you do also ?" 
 
 "No, I don't," Grace replied, almost sharply. 
 She was very much afraid the conversation was 
 about to drift into space, just as she had thought 
 it making straight for a rock on which Bella 
 might get broken up. 
 
 " I thought all the women liked Crosbie," 
 Claude went on carelessly ; " they are not quite 
 clear why they like him ; but there is a vein of 
 heartiessness in him that they find pleasant in 
 a book." 
 
 "I certainly am not clear about the heart- 
 iessness," Bella put in. She felt annoyed with 
 Grace for not being interested in the popular 
 current hero, added to which she had a min- 
 gled feeling of tenderness and sympathy for 
 Crosbie as a fellow-sinner, that rendered her 
 sensitive to the smallest slur being cast upon 
 him. 
 
 " He is worse than heartless ; he's unprinci- 
 pled," Miss Harper said quietly. 
 
 "I can only say I don't see it," Bella re- 
 plied. 
 
 "Oh I Mrs. Claude, I'm sure you do," Grace 
 said earnestly ; "you, holding such sentiments 
 as you expressed to me just now, cannot think 
 a man anything but unprincipled who jilts one 
 girl and marries another, and then wrongs his 
 wife by thinking tenderly of the first." 
 
 " Of course, when you put it in bald hard 
 words it sounds very bad," Bella answered 
 warmly. 
 
 " Have you been giving way to noble senti- 
 ments, old lady?" her husband asked, laugh- 
 ingly. 
 
 " I didn't know that I had," Bella replied, 
 " at any rate we'll have no more of them," she 
 continued, hoping to change the conversation. 
 
 " They come so naturally to her, you see," 
 Grace said ; and, if it had not been the plump, 
 placid, good-natured Grace who spoke, Claude 
 could have fancied it was said with a sneer. 
 
 " I hope they do ! but what were the special 
 ones, pet ? " he asked, smoothing the hair away 
 from Bella's forehead. As Grace looked upon 
 them, she could have cut her tongue out, quiet 
 as she seemed, for that it had not already ut- 
 tered words that should have caused him to 
 take that hand away. 
 
 " The special ones," she said slowly, " were 
 a veiy natural and profound contempt for and 
 distrust of any woman who could have a 
 thought of or communication with a former 
 lover, which was not held in common with her 
 husband. I should have thought the same onus 
 of honour was upon a man." The last sentence 
 robbed her speech of all intentional bitter per- 
 sonal meaning. Nevertheless Bella, loyal as 
 she was, blanched in her soul as she listened. 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 101 
 
 " I should think so ! I should rather think 
 so!" Claude said sternly. 
 
 "What, Claude?" Bella ^sked hurriedly. 
 
 " Why, that it behoves a woman to be ten 
 times more careful than a man in such a case," 
 he replied. 
 
 " That was scarcely the meaning of Miss 
 Harper's remark," Bella said scornfully. 
 
 " Wasn't it, by Jove ? it was, though." 
 
 " Oh 1 you mistake me, Major Walsingham, 
 if I seemed to you to judge more rigorously of 
 a woman in such a case than of a man," Grace 
 said softly. 
 
 " You would surely not be more lenient to 
 her?" Claude asked hastily. 
 
 "More lenient? well, I hardly know. It 
 would be so terrible to judge, you know to 
 decide against a woman, you know, however 
 faulty she might be." Grace spoke with such 
 a frankly uplifted faee, such a very ingenuous 
 voice, that these seemed sweet, sober senti- 
 ments, not spiteful snaps. 
 
 Bella began to feel indignant. A suspicion 
 of there being something in the air that would 
 be antagonistic to her happiness, and to her 
 husband, had come over her. But she was not 
 quite clear where or what it was. An unwary 
 woman, is, perforce, at a fearful disadvantage in 
 such a warfare as this. The nobler the animal, 
 the more liable it is to be injured by attacks 
 from curs which it has overlooked. If one 
 would scent out mean foes in time to render 
 them innocuous, one must needs grovel in their 
 level. 
 
 " You take a great interest in faithlessness, 
 and conjugal faultinesses, Miss Harper," Mrs. 
 Claude said, trying to speak in a sweet, un- 
 affected voice, and failing, even in her own 
 ears. 
 
 " Theoretically, yes ; practically, I have had 
 no experience, you know, having no brothers 
 or sisters," Grace replied, with a great air of 
 maiden innocence and virgin purity. Bella felt 
 strongly tempted to throw courtesy to the 
 winds, and the gauntlet down, by saying, " No, 
 and you're not likely to gain it either, in your 
 proper person ;" but she restrained herself. In- 
 stinct sometimes teaches us that that suspicion 
 which is the result of hate and theory is a far 
 subtler foe than the offspring of experience and 
 practice. 
 
 This instinct was strengthened within her the 
 following night, when she was dressing for the 
 ball. Claude came to her then ; and when he 
 had sent her maid away to get him a cup of 
 coffee, he put his arms round her and drew her 
 close to him, and said 
 
 "I'm glad you get on so well with Gracie, 
 Bella dear ; slie's an uncommonly prudent, sen- 
 sible girl." 
 
 "Do I need the companionship of such? 
 Really, Claude L you're going the wrong way 
 to recommend 1 our friend to me." 
 
 " That's rkrj/f ! be off into a rage about the 
 Lord knows; Jiat, for I don't! " 
 
 " But I d' laude. I got over her being 
 hurled at ml your mother's pet ; but as your 
 paragon ! no, ' never ! " 
 
 There was a slight infusion of jealousy in the 
 tone in which she said this just enough to be 
 pleasing to Claude, who was not entirely averse 
 to his pretty wife being a little jealous of him. 
 
 f "My paragon! my darling; as if you be- 
 lieved she was that ! However, she's a sensible, 
 staid, kind-hearted girl ; and she likes you, and 
 she represents the mass of public opinion down 
 here." 
 
 " Does she? " Bella made a face at herself in 
 the glass, but her husband saw it over her 
 shoulder. 
 
 "You doubt it?" he asked. 
 
 " No, I don't ; I simply don't care for it," she 
 replied. 
 
 ^ That's your mistake," he said; and he said 
 it in measured tones that portended wrath to 
 come. 
 
 "Now, Claude, don't be cross, and I will 
 care," she said, turning round hurriedly. " How 
 do I look? Nice!" 
 
 "As you do always," he replied, kissing her. 
 
 " That's a good boy. Now, in return for that 
 charming speech (oh! Claude, what charming 
 speeches you used to make to me!), 'I will de- 
 fer to public opinion,' if you'll tell me what she 
 
 "What 'it 'says; speak correctly, Bella." 
 
 "I was speaking correctly, for I mean Miss 
 Grace Harper. How have I transgressed ?" 
 
 "You have not transgressed." 
 
 " And a word from you will savo me from 
 doing so; say the word, Claude." Then she 
 laughed, and added, " Make yourself the mouth- 
 piece of public opinion." 
 
 He flushed up to his brow when she said this, 
 and she tried to cool down the flush with her 
 kisses. 
 
 "Dear Claude, I was flippant." 
 
 " Well, don't be so again, for I can't stand 
 it," he replied. 
 
 She put a diamond star in her hair, and 
 another on her breast, and hummed a waltz 
 air. 
 
 "Ain't I as 'beautiful as a butterfly?' " she 
 asked, flashing round upon him. 
 
 "Yes, and " He stopped abruptly. 
 
 "Finish your sentence 'and as frivolous,' 
 you meant to say," she cried, with her eyes 
 sparkling. Then she remembered what pangs 
 of doubt she had suffered through him and 
 how he had been in danger and how dearly 
 she loved him, and she held her face and her 
 arms up to him. 
 
 " Claude I what a booby I am to try and 
 make you believe that I wouldn't give up any- 
 thing, or do anything in the world for you," she 
 said, tenderly. 
 
 "Then give up a very little thing to-night, 
 and don't make yourself ill by tearing about in 
 any of their waltzes and gallops ?" 
 
 He asked this veiy affectionately of her, and 
 she desired to please him. But these round 
 dances ! She was very fond of them. Fond of 
 them as she was of peaches, and of rides on 
 Devilskin, and of Anthony Trollope's novels ! 
 Why should he ask her to give up what was so 
 harmless and so sweet ? 
 
 " They don't hurt me," she said soberly. 
 
 "They do hurt me," he replied. 
 
 " Then don't dance them, dear." 
 
 u / dance ! if I do, it will be with certain 
 people " (" So shall I," she laughed) " with 
 whom I have to do it, just as certain other 
 marks of esteem and honour have to be accord- 
 ed them in this house, /dance ! Gad, I should 
 
102 
 
 ON GUARD. 
 
 be devilish glad never to see any more of it!" 
 His tone was almost surly now, and her sweet, 
 smiling visage fell as she listened to him. 
 
 "Very well, Claude; you shall see no more 
 of it from me," she said softly. But she felt 
 that she could have made the concession ten 
 thousand times more blithely, small as it was, 
 had not the firm conviction been hers, that it 
 was required of her at Miss Grace Harper's in- 
 stigation. "While as for Claude, he was not 
 jealous of her, "not a jot, not a jot;" still he 
 was well satisfied that it should be patent to 
 the most discriminating beholder that he had no 
 cause to be. Within the last few days he had 
 felt this remembrance growing upon him that 
 she had deceived another man had lapped a 
 cleverer man than himself into security for 
 awhile. Still remembering this, even he would 
 not be jealous of her, " not a jot, not a jot !" 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 MISTAKES. 
 
 "He will return, I know him well, 
 He will not leave me here to die." 
 
 WHEN Stanley Villars had looked, till his eyes 
 ached, at the reflection of the girl who had 
 enacted the part of good Samaritan towards 
 him, he had a strangely earnest little debate 
 with himself as to whether or not he should get 
 up, and away out of her vicinity at once, before 
 she could discern and arrest his intention. 
 While he was faintly arguing that it would be 
 better that she should go about all her life with 
 a black sense of man's ingratitude weighing on 
 her mind, than that she should ever know him 
 as he really was, or rather as he believed him- 
 self to be, she saw that he was awake, and 
 came up and defeated him. 
 
 The baby face looked down upon him from a 
 background of Rayner, with a very hopeful 
 smile upon it. He was much pleasanter to look 
 upon than he had been during fever and insen- 
 sibility. Besides she had a sort of vested right 
 in him as her own patient, and now he began to 
 do her credit. 
 
 "I have waited till you woke to say good- 
 night. Rayner will sit up with you till you 
 have had your sleeping draught," she explained, 
 taking up his hand, and giving it a gentle 
 friendly shake of extreme satisfaction. It was 
 a very muscular hand which took his in that 
 friendly clasp, but it was warm and womanly 
 notwithstanding. 
 
 "Have I been unfortunate enough to have 
 been the cause of your staying up sometimes ?" 
 he asked. 
 
 She nodded. "I have sat up half the night 
 several times. Don't speak; it was nothing. 
 Why, I'd have done it for any one." 
 
 " How good you are," he murmured, faintly ; 
 he did not feel nattered by the statement of 
 these broadly charitable views, for some reason 
 or other. 
 
 "Good! I'm afraid I'm no better than other 
 people," she replied ; but she laughed a little, 
 low, childlike laugh as she spoke, and her danc- 
 ing eyes arid dewy lips looked far better and 
 mon innocent than any that had come un- 
 
 der his ken since he had parted with Flor- 
 ence. 
 
 "I can tell you what you are, and that's 
 tired," Rayner interposed. "Do go, my dearie! 
 do now, Miss Marian." 
 
 "Do," Stanley urged, warmly seconding the 
 old woman's suggestion, and warmly hating her 
 the while for having made it. '' Pray do, you 
 need rest." 
 
 "Well, I will; but it won't be to rest for 
 three or four hours yet Good night." 
 
 Once more she lifted up his hand, and gave 
 it that muscular clasp which corresponded so 
 ill with her soft baby face. Once more the cloud- 
 less child's eyes looked out at him confidingly 
 from under the clear brow, over which the rich 
 masses of that glorious ruddy hair clustered. 
 Once more he found himself being sorry for her. 
 and irresistibly impelled to curse the hour and 
 the fate which had cast him athwart her path. 
 
 " Where is she going, that she won't have 
 any rest for hours?" he asked of Rayner, as 
 soon as the girl whom Rayner called "Miss^ 
 Marian" had closed the door behind her. 
 
 u ls it Miss Marian, sir?" his nurse interro- 
 gated, in a way that made him feel that he was 
 reproved, he scarcely knew how or for what. 
 
 "Yes; where is Miss Marian " 
 
 " You'd far better not talk to-night, sir ; take 
 my advice, and lie quiet," Rayner replied, ear- 
 nestly, and in simple faith. She was desirous of 
 nothing more than to keep her patient calm. 
 He believed that she was evading his question, 
 and so worried himself fearfully in seeking in 
 his own mind for a reason why she should do 
 so. 
 
 "If you would rather not tell," he began; 
 and then she interrupted him, in her deep 
 anxiety that he should remain entirely undis- 
 turbed, in order that the opiate he had taken 
 might have the due effect, and said that she 
 " certainly would rather not tell to-night." 
 Which decision gave birth to a dread in his 
 mind that grew to be almost a tangible monster 
 oppressing and maddening him, as the soporific 
 worked, and sight and sense were gradually 
 artificially dimmed. 
 
 It seemed to him that the monster dread, 
 whatever it might have been, was being charm- 
 ed away after a time by a strain that welled up 
 to him faint and low from some other sphere. 
 When the notes first fell upon his ears, he 
 started with a throb ; but presently he settled 
 the question of " whence came they ?" satisfac- 
 torily; it was fairy music from the rose-bud 
 faces on the walls. When he had assured him- 
 self of this he left off trying " to be" any more, 
 and went away into nothingness without fur- 
 ther effort. He was a feather floating in an 
 atmosphere of sweet sounds ; he was a rose-leaf, 
 with a nightingale for his private property ; he 
 was Joachim's own favourite violin ; he was a 
 south breeze sweeping o'er a bank of violets ; 
 he was a song without words ; he was the soul 
 of music at large in Tara's halls. In short, he 
 was under the influence of a powerful opiate, 
 and some one was playing the piano in a room 
 at no very great distance from the one he occu- 
 pied. 
 
 Late into the night that indefatigable player 
 went on, practising the same piece a tender, 
 plaintive melody it was, with a wealth of sad 
 
N GUARD. 
 
 103 
 
 meaning in its every chord over and over 
 again, till the piano seemed to be speaking 
 the sad story in the mother tongue of each one 
 who heard it. And while the strain went on, 
 and for hours after, indeed, till the morning light 
 streamed in through the cloudy muslin curtains, 
 Stanley Yillars continued to be all those incon- 
 gruous things mentioned above. 
 
 He woke a better man. Not morally better, 
 but physically better, and found himself alone. 
 Then he thought he would get up and dress 
 himself, and begin to think about going away. 
 But when he set about carrying out this idea, 
 by getting out of bed, the floor made an angry 
 rush at him, and when he grew calmer, he crept 
 humbly into bed again, acknowledging that he 
 must needs wait. 
 
 The monster doubt which had been put to 
 flight by the combined effects of the opiate and 
 the music was about to resume its sway, and 
 make him unhappy, when Rayner came in with 
 his breakfast, and banished it again. He drank 
 *his tea and ate his toast with the feeling one is 
 apt to have after a long illness, that this life, 
 namely, is well worth retaining if it be only 
 for the sake of the tea and toast which may 
 be denied to us in the next. It was a 
 very material reflection; but it was born of 
 returning health. The rose-leaf and soul-of- 
 music notions came of sickness of spirit and 
 drunkenness from opium. The gracious accep- 
 tance of the goods that were going was a very 
 good sign. 
 
 He did not question the old servant further 
 about her young mistress. He spoke of him- 
 self now, telling her that it was essential that 
 he should be up and doing as soon as possible, 
 and that he should relieve them of the burden 
 of his presence before the day was many hours 
 older; which insane idea Rayner was far too 
 deeply versed in the weaknesses of the invalid 
 rnind to attempt to combat, but encouraged, 
 rather as a thing that might be if lie would 
 only make a good breakfast, and not exert him- 
 self to say too much. 
 
 But though she gave such a cordial assent to 
 his plans, they were not carried into execution 
 on that day, nor the next, nor for many a suc- 
 ceeding one. Not only did he feel that it would 
 be well, when he came to see himself in the 
 glass, that he should look less like an attenuated 
 and broken reed before he ventured into the 
 haunts of men, but the floor continued to rush 
 madly up at him whenever he essayed to stand 
 upon it. Therefore, for awhile he gave up the 
 contest, and ceased from his efforts to stand 
 upon it at all. 
 
 When he was able to get out of his room he 
 found that it was a mere doll's-house of a place 
 which had been his haven of refuge. A neat, 
 trim, tiny, fanciful bit of a place, that gave itself 
 up to having one "good" bed-room, which he 
 had occupied, cheaply furnished, but pretty and 
 graceful notwithstanding strangely like the 
 girl, its mistress, in fact. 
 
 He had learnt all that there was to be learnt 
 of the divinity before seeing the rest of the 
 shrine. The " all " was prosaic enough. She 
 was " first-hand" at a second-rate milliner's es- 
 tablishment, and she made enough by her la- 
 bours to keep this diminutive roof over the head 
 of the woman who had nursed her mother in 
 
 her dying illness, and her own. Her ideas on 
 the subject of her paternity were undefined, but 
 exalted. Her mother had kept an inn. There 
 was no romance to be extracted from her sur- 
 roundings. But Marian had heard that her 
 father was a gentleman, and that she resembled 
 him strongly in beauty of person. That was 
 all she knew about him, and all she knew she 
 believed. 
 
 The pretty little milliner, the baby-faced 
 beauty, was a thing to study. She had her 
 ambitions, her hopes, her aspirations, and she 
 confided them all to him. She had a deep gen- 
 uine love of music, and lately she had saved 
 enough from her salary to buy an old piano, and 
 take lessons of a lady who had fired her with 
 the idea of being " professional" in time. " She 
 was no more than me at one time," she said, 
 simply, "and now she's quite the lady, and goes 
 out to play at grand houses, and goes down to 
 supper with, the best." 
 
 Her lovely blue eyes dilated at this glorious 
 prospect in such a bewitching way, and the 
 mouth that uttered these words looked so op- 
 posed in its refinement to the vulgarity of the 
 sentiment enunciated, that he could but study 
 her with interest, and suffer her to perceive that 
 he did so. The race was low, the breed was 
 bad ; the manners and customs by which she had 
 ever been surrounded probably were against 
 her, and still the true artist feeling was there. 
 It was mixed with lower and more paltry ones, 
 unfortunately; but it was there, nevertheless, 
 a vein of fine gold in a coarse soil. 
 
 He was warmly and earnestly interested in 
 her. Who would not have been in such an 
 anomaly as she was? Who would not have 
 been interested in that fragile, tender, childish 
 loveliness, marred as it was by the manner of a 
 self-sufficient little show-girl? Who would not 
 have been interested in that rich vein of artist 
 feeling which was choked and buried beneath 
 so much that was paltry and little ? To hear 
 her one moment playing some piece that was 
 far beyond her executive powers as yet, with a 
 depth and intensity of feeling that blinded one 
 to all mechanical errors ; while in the next she 
 would be raising her voice exultantly at the 
 thought of being fitted in time, through her 
 fingers, for admission into the drawing-rooms 
 of these whose dressing-rooms alone were open 
 to her now ! He was warmly interested in the 
 baby-faced beauty ; but though there was much 
 tenderness, much pity in that interest, there was 
 not a grain of passion. The glorious beauty of 
 her hair, the childlike, delicate loveliness of her 
 face and form, might have won upon his man's 
 heart had she never spoken. But the sweet lips 
 were their own antidote as soon as they parted. 
 What that genuine artist feeling might do for 
 her in time he could not tell. At present, the 
 little beauty was more than a little vulgar. 
 
 His clearness of vision on this point could 
 have been a safeguard to him, even had he not 
 been possessed of another, in his vivid remem- 
 brance of Bella. But the baby -faced beauty had 
 no such safeguard, and, in his gratitude, he was 
 very kind. 
 
 The generous little creature had been ready, 
 a} r , eager, to take care of him> to tend, and 
 succour, and perhaps restore him, when he was 
 nothing to her but a fellow-oreature in distress. 
 
104 
 
 OX GUARD. 
 
 She had denied herself necessaries, and im- 
 poverished herself cheerfully, never thinking for 
 an instant that there was aught out of the way 
 in her doing so during his illness. It would 
 have been just the same to her she would 
 have done as much, with a willing hand and 
 heart had it been an infant or an old wo- 
 man whom she had found by the roadside that 
 night. Her generous charity was pure enough, 
 only, unfortunately, the object of it chanced to 
 be a young, handsome man. 
 
 He was not a selfish man, but his early train- 
 ing had not prepared him for giving much 
 thought to small sordid things. He had no idea 
 of how many sacrifices she had been compelled 
 to make for him, and of how surely she was 
 coming to love, through having thus sacrificed 
 and suffered for him. In his own mind he was 
 quite resolved that the dear little thing, with 
 the honesty of purpose, and the artist feeling, 
 and the unfortunate inability to be a lady, should 
 be well repaid for all she had done for him some 
 day or other. He little knew how impossible 
 it would be for him ever to repay her, save in 
 a way that would be odious to himself. She 
 was as pleasant and as dear to him as a kitten, 
 but he felt no repugnance to the plan when she 
 told him that an artist had begged her to sit to 
 him as a model for " Hetty" in her first meeting 
 with " Arthur Donnithorne." 
 
 By-and-by the day came when he could leave 
 her leave the sanctuary where she had held 
 him secure without fear of the floor playing 
 wild antics. He was much better, he was nearly 
 well, and he found that strength was given him 
 to go back, and take up the burden of life again. 
 at the spot where he had laid it down before 
 going out for that fatal walk. 
 
 So Rock and he removed themselves from the 
 tiny, fanciful, pretty doll's-house, and the doll 
 went to her work with swollen eyes and a heavy 
 heart that day. At night, she came home and 
 sat down, at once playing her saddest strains, 
 till the faithful old woman, who was half-friend, 
 half-servant, and whole blind devotee of hers, 
 took heart of grace to whisper that " he would 
 come again." 
 
 Thus the thin veil of secresy which had been 
 long between them was swept away, and the 
 girl told to the woman, who knew it already 
 told to her own heart, which trembled at hear- 
 ing the truth spoken that she loved the stran- 
 ger whom she had saved. 
 
 The gloomy room in the grim house, that 
 was so conveniently situated, seemed duller 
 and drearier than ever when he went back to 
 it, and his landlady, kind and cordial as she 
 essayed to be, according to her lights, was as 
 harsh and unbending as his fate, when con- 
 trasted with those two women who had been 
 his nurses for more than seven weeks. He had 
 no time to waste in drawing comparisons, how-- 
 ever. There was much work over due, and he 
 put his feeble shoulder to the wheel manfully, 
 and tried to do it. 
 
 The necessity of working hard while the 
 faintest power of work is left in one, is apt to 
 make many a well-meaning man appear ne- 
 glectful and careless of his best friends. The 
 impossibility of concentrating one's whole facul- 
 ties on a wearisome thing that must be done, 
 and at the same time of attending to various 
 
 little conventionalities, to which it behoves 
 civilized man to attend, is an impossibility, that 
 those who neither toil nor spin find it hard to 
 realise. It is a hard thing to be affable when 
 straining every nerve for existence next to. 
 impossible to be polite while purchasing future 
 popularity, prosperity, or the power of living on 
 at all, at the price of all current peace of mind 
 and body. 
 
 Still there are some things which have such 
 a holy claim upon humanity, that we blush for 
 the latter when those claims are overlooked. 
 It was the force of circumstances ; it was the 
 result of that sad war he had been so unwisely 
 wrought upon by disappointment to wage ; it 
 was, for all this, inexcusable on the part of 
 Stanley Yillars to grind on wearily, unremit- 
 tingly, for a fortnight, at his loathsome task, 
 without giving a thought to the brave little 
 beauty whose good Samaritanism was likely to 
 cost her very dear. 
 
 I have said how she went to her work when 
 he was gone, with swollen eyes and a heavy 
 heart, and how, when she came home at night, 
 she played the saddest strains her skill could 
 draw from the keys. She might have indulged 
 plenteously in this last pastime with impunity. 
 Artistically speaking, it did her good indeed, for 
 it ("it" being that sensation about him which 
 was the offspring of her care for him) taught 
 her to play with feeling and expression ! Who 
 cares for the cause when the effect is admira- 
 ble ? 
 
 But though her artist-life was enriched by 
 this experience of the loving arid riding away 
 habits of mankind, her working-life was impo- 
 verished, not to say endangered. Swollen eyes 
 and a heavy heart were matters of small mo- 
 ment when she was sitting, with Rayner for 
 an audience, making the shrill piano discourse 
 most eloquent music ; but swollen eyes and a 
 heavy step in the show-room of the west-cen- 
 tral Mantalini for whom she worked, were grave 
 offences. 
 
 She had other qualities essential to a success 
 in "the millinery," as she called it, in addition 
 to her ingenious fingers and nice taste in the 
 disposition of ribbons, and laces, and flowers. 
 She had a gracefully poised head, and a lissom 
 form, and these two things disposed of many a 
 mantle, wreath, and scarf. There was a limber 
 ease about her manner of putting on and off 
 these things, for their better inspection by pos- 
 sible purchasers, that induced the credulous to 
 believe that the grace was in the garment. 
 But in these days of which I am writing the 
 limber ease deserted her, and the sale grew 
 stagnant in the show-room, and a briny tear 
 had been seen to fall from her clear blue eyes 
 down on to a fragile idea she was carrying out 
 in tulle for a querulous customer. 
 
 The poor baby-faced beauty ! She had no- 
 thing in her home life to distract her thoughts 
 from dwelling all too fondly, all unwisely, on 
 the one who had broken up the calm current of 
 that life, and caused it to seem so miserably 
 wanting without him. She had taken an inno- 
 cent child's innocent pleasure before in playing 
 at keeping a house of her own, and in believing 
 that she was doing it all by herself a belief 
 which Rayner fostered, keeping things straight 
 the while in an earnest matter-of-fact way, that 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 105 
 
 came from her romantic devotion to the loving 
 beauty of the girl who was as dear to her " as 
 her own flesh and blood could have been," she 
 said. Now, alas! that innocent pleasure was 
 a pale memory only a flat, insipid thing, that 
 had been that was all ! 
 
 The home life was insufficient, and the fresh- 
 ness of the beauty was fleeing under the influ- 
 ence of alternate hope and despair. Brightly 
 every morning did she hope that she would see 
 him again before nightfall ; bitterly each night 
 did she bewail the falsity of that hope. There 
 was nothing mean in the hope nothing un- 
 generous in the regretful despair. She never 
 gave one single thought to aught that she had 
 done for him. She never reproached him in 
 her innermost heart with ingratitude or thought- 
 lessness towards one who had thought well for 
 him. She only sighed to see him again, be- 
 cause she loved him. 
 
 When a fortnight or so had passed, the cur- 
 rent of those thoughts of hers, which were un- 
 doubtedly dwelling far too exclusively on him 
 for her own good, was disturbed. A whisper 
 had reached her employer that there was "a 
 cause " for that change in her which was so 
 detrimental to the business. A perverted state- 
 ment in which truth was so entangled with 
 falsehood, that she, in her confusion, hardly 
 knew which was which was abroad respecting 
 her; and as she had been the brightest star in 
 that little firmament, there were many who 
 gloried in her fall. 
 
 It was a rigorously respectable establishment. 
 ] Its mistress hM not always been a milliner, but 
 . she had seen the error of her ways when a good, 
 remunerative opportunity of amending them 
 offered, and so now was unequalled in the 
 promptitude with which she saw the error of 
 other people's. Had the dark whisper respect- 
 ing Marian not been contemporaneous with the 
 swollen eyes, the heavy step, and the loss of 
 limber ease, the estimable woman would not 
 have hearkened thereunto. As it was she felt 
 that it behoved her to hear and to act " like a 
 Christian," she said. Accordingly, after rating 
 Marian Wallis till the poor girl's cheeks tingled 
 with anger, and her soul with a sense of bitter 
 injustice, she dismissed her without a character, 
 on the strength of sundry whispered words. 
 
 Poor baby-faced beauty ! She went back to 
 the little house which she had played at keep- 
 ing, with her cheeks hot with such shame and 
 fury as must bring down God's curse upon the 
 sister woman who can cause it. She went home 
 feeling herself stained by the foul suspicion that 
 had fallen upon her, by the foul words in which 
 that cruel suspicion had been given voice 
 went home and hid herself, as though she had 
 been the thing they said, and would not hear 
 the voice of comfort that her faithful, fond old 
 friend elevated, and would not seek solace in 
 the strains she loved went home and piteously 
 bewailed herself, like the child she was ; but 
 never once, even in her childish wrath,, had 
 other than a softly tender thought for the man 
 through whom this sorrow had come upon her 
 by whom she was forgotten. 
 
 For she told herself, now that she was for- 
 gotten by him and as she deemed him as 
 beautiful and as high above her as a star, she 
 simply thought it in the order of things that she 
 
 should be so, it was no fault of his that he, 
 being a gentleman, should regard her as lightly 
 as the majority of the great, according to her 
 experience, appeared to regard the very small. 
 So she excused him to herself, crouching down 
 under her sorrow, with no thought of that rich 
 gift of loveliness which was hers, and which a 
 queen might have envied. 
 
 She turned a little, burning ear of unbelief to 
 Rayner's tales of startling reappearances after 
 long absences, and longer apparent forgetfulness 
 than this which their late patient was display- 
 ing. Rayner's stories were all of the King 
 Cophetua and Lord of Burleigh order. She was 
 always bringing Stanley Villars back to her 
 young mistress's feet under circumstances more 
 or less gorgeous. Coaches and four to say 
 nothing of an army of servants, in and out of 
 livery played a prominent part in the pro- 
 gramme of procession she constantly insisted 
 upon arranging outside the doll's-house door a 
 procession that was to be formed in honour of 
 Miss Marian, when the man she had nursed 
 should return in the state of splendour that was 
 natural to him to bear that mistress away. But 
 these pictures had no effect upon Marian ; she 
 would not look upon them. Sadly poor old 
 Rayner felt that they were painted in vain. 
 
 One soft May evening, coming home after a 
 weary day passed in seeking employment, and 
 finding none, the big, tawny setter bounded 
 forth from the door to meet her. Going in with 
 a rush, and a cry of such delight as might not 
 be subdued, she found him the bright stranger 
 in their little room, and Rayner standing talk- 
 ing to him, and crying, as was customary with 
 Rayner when she was agitated. 
 
 "My poor little Marian! my dear little 
 nurse! what you have suffered through me! ; ' 
 he said, in a deep, thrilling tone, as, together 
 with Rock, she nearly fell through the door- 
 way into his arms. Suffered ! There was no 
 trace of suffering in her face now. " He had 
 returned he had not left her there to die !" 
 Oh, glorious sun of youth, and love, and hope ! 
 Such intense bliss as the girl felt in that 
 moment repays one for years of sorrow and 
 despair ! 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIL 
 
 WHO WROUGHT THE WRONG? 
 
 A FEW months have passed since that soft May 
 evening which restored happiness and Stanley 
 Villars to poor little Marian Wallis. It is 
 August, and the Claude Walsinghams are 
 thinking of going out of town. 
 
 The sweet peace that was their portion just 
 after Claude's accident that was hanging over 
 them, in fact, like a mantle when we saw them 
 last had been disturbed when we met them 
 again. Mrs. Markham had accompanied them 
 when they left the Court accompanied them 
 sorely against Bella's will and during the 
 whole of her visit she had justified Bella's re- 
 pugnance to having her at all, by being very 
 observant and disagreeable. 
 
 Stanley Villars had called on them once. It 
 was on the occasion of his visit that peace took 
 
106 
 
 ON GUARD. 
 
 the opportunity of fleeing. His visit had been 
 paid shortly after their return to town, as had 
 been originally intended. It was August be- 
 fore he saw them. 
 
 Claude was not with his wife when her old 
 lover was admitted to his presence, but Claude's 
 sister was sitting with Bella, irritating her 
 nerves by cutting the leaves of a new book 
 slowly and methodically, and with a grating 
 sound that was simply intolerable. 
 
 All those confidences which had leaked from 
 Bella during those hours of idleness she had 
 known with' Miss Harper had been zealously 
 passed on by that sweet girl to Mrs. Markham. 
 From the moment she had heard them, Mrs. 
 Markham had been on the alert to catch Bella 
 tripping even so slightly, "for love of Claude." 
 Therefore, now when Stanley Villars came into 
 the room, she mounted guard at once in a 
 palpable way, that would have caused Bella to 
 evince confusion at the entrance of a saint with 
 whom she had never had love passages, or 
 indeed met at all. 
 
 Fondly and fervently did Mrs. Claude hope 
 that oblivion or discretion would keep Stanley 
 from making any mention of that innocent 
 letter which she so bitterly repented having 
 written. But poor Stanley, feeling miserably 
 conscious now that he was in her presence 
 again, that the wound she had made was as 
 fresh as the day it was given feeling moreover 
 that he had taken a step of which she was still 
 ignorant, and so was there in a measure under 
 false pretences mooted the subject of that 
 miserable letter, as a drowning man clutches at 
 a straw. 
 
 ''I had a bad fever just after I heard from 
 you: it laid me up for six or seven weeks," he 
 said, striving hard to speak to her as he would 
 speak to any other woman, and failing. 
 
 Mrs. Claude was not one to grow nervous 
 and excited before the enemy, and she felt that 
 her husband's sister was her enemy now. 
 
 "That was bad Claude will be so sorry 
 when he comes in," she said quickly. 
 
 " Claude will doubtless have wondered why 
 his letter was not answered," Mrs. Markham 
 remarked grimly. 
 
 Mr. Villars looked at the last speaker quietly 
 for a moment or two, and then glanced quickly 
 at Bella's blushing face. He saw that he had 
 made some mistake, but he did not know what 
 his mistake had been. 
 
 Bella's old reverence for his perfect truthful- 
 ness uprose at once as he looked at her, and 
 banished temporarily her dread of Mrs. Mark- 
 ham and mischief. 
 
 " It was of my letter, not Claude's, that Mr- 
 Villars spoke, Ellen," she explained, in such a 
 cool, firm voice that Mrs. Markham was more 
 than half inclined to think well of her. Then 
 Mrs. Markham remembered the relations that 
 had existed between the man who was before 
 her and her brother's wife, and conquered the 
 half-inclination like a woman. 
 
 " Oh, indeed ! your letter ! " she said, in such 
 a tone that Bella felt she was on her trial. 
 
 " And what have you been doing since 
 your illness?" Mrs. Claude asked, with a 
 slight fall in her voice a sympathetic inflex- 
 ion that she could not restrain, as her eyes fell 
 on the altered worn face and habiliments of 
 
 the man whom she had once been going to 
 marry. 
 
 " Since then ! G-od knows, I can hardly tell," 
 he replied drearily. "My life would hardly 
 interest you I mean any of my old friends, I 
 fancy." 
 
 " Is it so changed, Stanley ?" 
 
 The deep, true woman's pity that would well 
 up, as she marked pitifully how changed it was, 
 would make itself heard in her tone. 
 
 She could but remember how different he 
 had been ; she could but remember who had 
 changed him thus. 
 
 He dared not risk a repetition of that pitying 
 tone. He dared not, for his own sake, and for 
 hers, and for the sake of one other whose heart 
 would break to know him moved by it. So he 
 answered carelessly recklessly almost 
 
 "It's a life made up of excitements, of which 
 you fashionable people can have no concep- 
 tion." 
 
 " You were one of us not so long ago," Mrs. 
 Claude exclaimed unguardedly. She could not 
 bear to hear him abjure his class in this way. 
 
 " But I'm not one of you now ; therefore I 
 have no time to be idle," he said hurriedly. 
 Then he rose up and said, " Morning calls were 
 not much in his way, therefore he should like 
 to see Claude, as he might not be able to come 
 again," 
 
 Bella went to look for her husband in order 
 that she might be free from observation for a 
 few moments. He was so horribly altered ! so 
 sadly, so painfully altered! She would have 
 given much not to have seen him at all, since 
 she saw him thus. She would have given 
 much to have been able to drug the conviction 
 to rest that she had caused that change. 
 
 " Stanley Villars is here, Claude," she said 
 abruptly, opening the. door of the room where 
 her husband sat writing ; but not putting her 
 face in, or suffering him to see it. " Come and 
 speak to him, will you ?" 
 
 He got up instantly. "Stanley Villars! 
 I'm coming." 
 
 " You'll hardly know him," she said, turning 
 away and walking along the hall before Claude 
 when he came out. Then they went in toge- 
 ther to the room where Stanley was awaiting 
 them, and attempted to be cordial and uncon- 
 strained, and failed failed miserably ! 
 
 Soon Stanley went away. It was the best 
 thing he could do, considering all things. 
 Claude stood looking out of the window and 
 whistling for a minute or two after his depart- 
 ure. Bella sat with her elbows on the table 
 and her hands supporting her chin, gazing in- 
 tently at vacancy, and not finding the view 
 agreeable. 
 
 " What a change ! " she said impatiently at 
 last. " Claude, ain't you sorry ?'' She asked it 
 eagerly. Stanley Villars seemed so far removed 
 from her now, changed as he was, that she 
 dared to speak of him eagerly and freely to her 
 husbacd. 
 
 " He's a complete wreck," Claude replied, 
 rather mournfully. He was feeling more than 
 he cared to make manifest, for this man whose 
 plan of life lie had spoilt. 
 
 " He looks as if he drank," Mrs. Markham 
 put in quietly. " Your plan of a renewal of 
 intercourse with him won't do, I fear, Bella." 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 107 
 
 "Why not? had Bella any plan?" Claude 
 asked vaguely. 
 
 " I thought at one time it would be pleasant 
 to see and be friendly with him again," Bella 
 replied. " I have given up that idea now." 
 
 " So she wrote to him, as he mentioned just 
 now, when he was telling us about his fever," 
 Mrs. Markham went on, with much simplicity, 
 but keeping a keen watch on her sister-in-law 
 the while. 
 
 " You wrote to him ?" Claude interrogated, 
 turning round and frowning a little ; "when?" 
 
 " Oh ! long ago," Bella replied, crimsoning up 
 to her very brow with anger at his tone and his 
 sister's interference. 
 
 " What did you write to him for ?" 
 
 " To tell him. that we should be glad to see 
 him." 
 
 "I'm not glad to see him as he is now," 
 Claude said, harshly. " Why didn't you tell me 
 that you had written ?" 
 
 Mrs. Markham nodded her head at noth- 
 ing, as though she were saying, " Why not ? 
 Why not, indeed?" The gesture annoyed 
 Bella. 
 
 " It did not occur to me to tell you, Claude," 
 she replied coldly. Had they been alone she 
 would have made free confession have told 
 him why, and how that letter was written, and 
 how penitent, not to say remorseful, she had 
 been about it often since. But not now; not 
 with Mrs. Markham's stony eyes watching, and 
 Mrs. Markham's stony heart judging her. 
 
 " I should have been better pleased then if 
 it had never occurred to you to launch out in 
 condemnation of the very thing you have done 
 writing to a man without your husband's 
 knowledge," he said gloomily. " It was a piece 
 of deceit I should never have believed you 
 would have been guilty of, Bella." 
 
 " Don't believe it now " she began 
 
 eagerly ; but he would not listen to her ; but 
 went away, leaving Bella alone with his sister, 
 who proceeded to improve the occasion, till 
 Bella felt that a brace of murders and a success- 
 ful attempt at arson would have lain more light- 
 ly on her soul than did this letter which had 
 cropped up against her thus unexpectedly. This 
 innocent letter indited without guile, but all- 
 sufficient to wreck her nevertheless. 
 
 She would not stoop to defend herself to Mrs. 
 Markham. She would not attempt to offer any 
 explanation as to the creative cause of that 
 epistle. Mrs. Markham was striving earnestly, 
 according to her light, to arrest the progress of 
 this disease with which she firmly believed her 
 sister-in-law's mind to be infected, and she had 
 not the art to keep her instruments from the 
 eyes of her patient. She believed that it behov- 
 ed her to cut deep to cure, and so she had no 
 false delicacy about letting the one to be cut see 
 the knife ; that was all ! 
 
 " If every tiny thing of this sort that comes 
 up is to create a coldness between Claude and 
 me, well ! the sooner things come to a climax, 
 and I'm 'frozen out' altogether, the better," 
 Bella exclaimed at last, taking up arms abrupt- 
 ly, and breaking off patient endurance with a 
 snap. 
 
 " It being an error on your part, and your 
 being far too sensible not to be fully conscious 
 that it is an error, it would be more becoming, to 
 
 say the least of it, Bella, if you regarded the 
 consequences in a more patient spirit." 
 
 Mrs. Markham cut through the sides and top 
 of a sheet, as she spoke, with a sliding, sure 
 motion, and a grating relentless sound that 
 made Bella's blood run cold. For about the 
 first time in her life, Bella felt that she must 
 not give way to impulse. For about the first 
 time in her life she calculated the effect the 
 speech she was going to make would have on 
 her hearer. While Mrs. Markham continued 
 cool and self-possessed, the power was hers, 
 palpably, of stinging Bella into making the most 
 unwary speeches. To shatter that self-posses- 
 sion by fair means, if possible by foul, if fair 
 failed her was the first task Bella set herself to 
 achieve. 
 
 " ' It being an error on my part ?' Do you 
 really think me in error when I feel hurt at my 
 husband being cold to me ?" she asked, with a 
 simple earnestness, which Mrs. Markham hated 
 her for, feeling sure that it was assumed for her 
 discomfiture. 
 
 "You are wilfully misunderstanding me, 
 Bella," she began angrily. "I did not mean 
 
 that it was an error " 
 
 " I thought you didn't mean it, though you 
 said you did," Bella interrupted. "I'm glad 
 you acknowledge that, Ellen. I have no liking 
 for misunderstandings." 
 
 " If you will attow me to speak," Mrs. Mark- 
 ham resumed nippingly. 
 
 Bella expressed interrogatory astonishment 
 with her eyes and shoulders. 
 "Why not?" she asked. 
 " I was saying when you stopped me," Mrs. 
 Markham said, severely, in a tone that would 
 have been very telling had Bella not seen her 
 fingers nervously working between the leaves 
 of the volume she held on her lap "I was 
 saying, when you stopped me, that it being &\\ 
 
 error " 
 
 " Excuse me, you'd said that before," Bella 
 said, shaking her head and looking intensely 
 interested; "that was where you started. I 
 know how annoying it is to lose one's thread 
 I often do ; but you'll remember what you want 
 to say presently." 
 
 Mrs. Claude Walsingham spoke with pro- 
 voking calmness. She hardly knew herself why 
 she parried the blow her sister-in-law was evi- 
 dently bent upon dealing. In the end she could 
 gain nothing by a brief delay a temporary 
 warding off of that blame from which she 
 shrank. But then women love to fence with 
 fate, and Bella Walsingham was a thorough 
 woman. 
 
 ;( Pardon me I know perfectly well what I 
 am going to say if you will be polite enough 
 to listen to me," Mrs. Markham said, with such 
 severity that Bella rose up saying, "Excuse 
 me, I will listen another time. Claude will be 
 ^oing out almost directly, and I must see him 
 before he goes." Her intention of seeking her 
 tiusband, however, failed her when she got out 
 nto the hall and found the door of his room 
 closed. It seemed to be closed more especially 
 against her, she thought, so she went away 
 moodily to her own chamber to be miserable ; 
 and Mrs. Markham, marching after her unseen, 
 marked the failure of that intention, and put 
 down the swerving from the declared pur- 
 
108 
 
 ON GUARD. 
 
 pose as another proof of Bella's "confirmed 
 duplicity." 
 
 Claude Walsingham, when he found him- 
 self alone, had first asked, in a hot mutter, 
 " "Why the devil Bella shouldn't write to Stan- 
 ley if she liked ? It was like Ellen's malicious 
 spite to think it fishy and to try and make 
 him think it so too. He had perfect confidence 
 
 " Then he paused. Truth to tell, ho 
 
 had not perfect confidence in Bella. It had 
 been his misfortune it would be his misery 
 not to have perfect confidence in any woman. 
 Then he asked himself, "Why the devil she 
 should write to Stanley Villars and be con- 
 foundedly sly and confused about it ? It was 
 fishy and no mistake, and he had been an ass 
 to marry." 
 
 The angry young husband had no pity now 
 for the old friend, the more than brother, who 
 had gone to the dogs before that prowess of his 
 (Claude's), which had never failed him with 
 women. He had no pity for him. On the con- 
 trary, he had a certain feeling of disgust for the 
 man who looked "like a cad," and was at the 
 same time the recipient of a letter from Bella, 
 the contents of which were a sealed book to 
 him, her rightful lord. He had no pity for the 
 changed man; no kindly desire to learn the 
 cause of the change the immediate, common- 
 place cause and ameliorate it if possible. He 
 told himself that Stanley Villars was " turning 
 out very badly (precisely as those fellows who 
 commence by being pious prigs invariably do 
 turn out), and that Bella was as deceitful as 
 was usual with her sex." But, for all these 
 unpleasant convictions respecting both of them, 
 " By God, I'll have none of Ellen's interfe- 
 rence!" he added morosely. "I can guard my 
 own honour better than a dozen old women can 
 do it for me!" Mrs. Markham would have 
 been sorely grieved had she known that her 
 brother included her in the list of those whose 
 assistance he despised, and whose youthful in- 
 telligence and efficacy he doubted. Claude was 
 not wont even to " think " unseemly things of 
 the sex unseemly things relating to their age 
 and appearance, that is. But to-day he was 
 very much aggrieved. He had "shown jea- 
 lous " before his sister, and he could not forgive 
 his sister for having witnessed the sight. 
 
 He determined to put down anything like an 
 approach to former intimacy with Stanley Vil- 
 lars. with the strong hand of common sense and 
 marital authority. On the occasion of his mar- 
 riage he had been "a romantic ass," he called 
 himself now. It had been an unwise an ex- 
 traordinarily generous, but desperately unwise 
 thing on his part to press upon Stanley the 
 office which made Stanley appear so noble and 
 self-sacrificing, so loftily resigned, in Bella's 
 eyes. A sensible woman would have thought 
 Stanley an idiot, under the circumstances, for 
 accepting that office. But he began to fear 
 that Bella, with all her charm, was not a sensible 
 woman not sensible enough, at least, to think 
 Stanley Villars an idiot. 
 
 He was not jealous he assured himself that 
 he was not jealous ; but it behoved him to take 
 care of Bella, and not subject her to the temp- 
 tation of seeing Stanley Villars look woe-begone 
 and blighted on her account. He remembered 
 that women were very weak, very liable to be 
 
 affected by the sight of certain things that were 
 utterly repulsive to a man. In masculine eyes, 
 Stanley's abnegation of -all things, his dolour 
 and despair, were simply imbecile. In Bella's 
 dazzled orbs they would probably appear in- 
 teresting. 
 
 Besides, he had another reason for not caring 
 to see much of Stanley. He had amused him- 
 self to his heart's content with Florence for 
 several months ; and there was a look in Stan- 
 ley's face very often he had remarked it vividly 
 to-day that reminded him of Florence in a 
 way he did not care to be reminded of her. A 
 rumour had reached him that Florence had 
 never been so sweetly, softly glowing and 
 bright, since that time at Denham. His heart 
 told him the reason why; and he wished to 
 banish the remembrance of what she had been, 
 and the reflection of what she might be. She 
 would marry in time, there was no doubt of 
 that ; but till she did marry and exhibit a sur- 
 face happiness, he would rather not see a face 
 that brought hers, in its saddest aspect, to his 
 mind. He was not more subject to remorse 
 than are the majority of men, but he did feel its 
 throes sometimes about Florry Villars. 
 
 In recalling past passages with numberless 
 fair daughters of the land, reprobation, happily 
 for him, mingled largely with his remorse. 
 They had been as ready to take as he to give. 
 They had surrendered without discretion. They 
 had been reliant and kind; and when he left 
 them, he left no blank his place had been 
 filled precipitately. But with Florence it had 
 been different. The welcome she had blushed 
 for him had been blushed for none other. The 
 light that love for him had lit in her eyes had 
 not been rekindled yet. She had been very 
 fond ! so had many another woman. She had 
 been very faithful ! and in that he believed her 
 singular. 
 
 He did not see his wife again till they sat 
 down to dinner at seven ; and then the soup 
 was far from clear, and he was not far from 
 cross. Bella had forgotten her fears of mischief 
 ensuing from Mrs. Markham's active endeavours 
 to keep her straight, and had recovered her ani- 
 mation in a way that was not pleasing to him, 
 since he had not recovered his. She wanted to 
 talk. There was nothing very reprehensible 
 in this. Her subject, however, was ill chosen : 
 out of no bravado, but rather out of a very 
 gentle feeling of good will towards the man 
 who had loved her so much better than she 
 deserved, she selected Stanley Villars as her 
 theme. 
 
 " Have you been riding, Claude ?" she began. 
 
 He shook his head, " No." 
 
 " Where then ? the club ?" 
 
 " I went in there," he replied, in a constrained 
 tone, as if her asking the question were an in- 
 fringement of the liberty of the subject which 
 he scorned to resent, and still could but mark. 
 
 " I didn't go out at all," she said, looking up 
 with a blithe expectation of his being interested, 
 that he would respond to by word or glance. 
 " I didn't go out at all," she repeated. 
 
 " Then I think you were wrong, ; Mrs. Mark- 
 ham put in quickly. 
 
 " Ah ! you often think me wrong," Bella re- 
 plied laughing. " But, Claude ! don't you won- 
 der what kept me in such a bright day?" 
 
TCoallv T 
 
 ON GUAED. 
 
 109 
 
 Really I had not marvelled very much 
 about it," he said, without looking at her. She 
 could but remember how he had looked at her 
 once with what eager love with what pas 
 sionate pleading ! Well I she was his wife now, 
 It was her duty to put up with his altered looks : 
 to win them back to their original softness, if 
 she might. After all, this reserve on his parl 
 might only be the effect of fatigue. He was 
 weak still, perhaps ; may be he had not quite 
 recovered the accident which had threatened to 
 rend him from her. At the thought all her 
 tenderness arose, and she went on making her 
 subtly sweet efforts to win him to a gentler 
 bearing. 
 
 "Well, I didn't go out to-day, because ' 
 
 " You've told us that twice," dear," he inter 
 rupted. 
 
 " Because I sent out for that magazine the 
 Metropolitan. You know, Claude, that Stanley 
 Villars writes for it." 
 
 " I should hope that imbecility that's ' to be 
 continued' isn't Stanley's ?" Claude asked lan- 
 guidly. 
 
 " The story that's running in it is his," Bella 
 replied, trying not to show that the contemptu- 
 ous condemnation of it in anywise affected her, 
 and failing. 
 
 "I'm really astonished at Stanley's conde- 
 scending to write such maudlin rubbish ; the 
 fellow has talent of a certain kind, but he is 
 wasting it and throwing himself away entirely," 
 Claude remarked with an air of superiority, that 
 Bella, remembering certain things, girded at in 
 her soul. 
 
 "Why does he do such things, since it is 
 evidently not his vocation?" said Mrs. Mark- 
 ham. 
 
 " A little because he does it well, and a little 
 because there was nothing else for him to do, I 
 suppose," Bella replied shortly. 
 
 Claude smiled superciliously. " My dear Bella, 
 Stanley Villars ought to thank the Lord that all 
 men who could ' do it well ' don't set about 
 doing it at once ; if they did, he and his com- 
 peers would be in a sorry plight, I'm thinking." 
 " And wasn't there anything else for him to 
 do?" Mrs. Markham asked suspiciously. 
 
 " How should there be when he didn't stay 
 in the Church ?" Bella answered, with a lack of 
 relevancy that was reasonable under the cir- 
 cumstances. 
 
 " The whole thing lies in a nutshell, and is 
 not by any means so gloriously uncommon as 
 you seem to think it," Claude explained. " He 
 got tired of slow promotion dozens of men do 
 that and he fancied that he was a genius, and 
 would make himself, famous by his pen if he 
 cast himself upon literature entirely. The de- 
 lusion is common enough." 
 
 " Foolish young man ! How very unpleasant 
 for his family!" Mrs. Markham remarked. 
 
 " Then why don't his family do something 
 better for him?" Bella said it with warmth, 
 and was instantly made to feel, by the depres- 
 sion of her husband's eyebrows, that she had 
 been unwise to do so. 
 
 " It is unpleasant for his family. However, 
 he'll get tired of the Bohemian brotherhood by- 
 and-by, and then Gerald's interest will set him 
 on his legs again. He's a nice fellow ; but there 
 is an atmosphere of gin and water about the 
 
 band he belongs to at present that it may be as 
 well to avoid." 
 
 Claude strove to speak in a monotone expres- 
 sive of absolute unconcern. He slightly over- 
 did it, unfortunately. His wife saw through 
 the effort he made, and was so sorry for him 
 and for herself that he should think it necessary 
 to make one at all in this matter. " He might 
 trust me, and feel a little as a man should feel 
 for Stanley,'' she thought, and her heart swelled 
 painfully. Now that she had come in contact 
 with Stanley again, now that this contact 
 brought her to her mind once more, she did so 
 fervently desire that Claude should go with her 
 in making what atonement might be made to 
 the man they had both wronged and wrecked. 
 
 "An atmosphere of gin-and- water 1 that's a 
 hard thing to say of Stanley Villars, Claude," 
 she said softly. 
 
 " And I'm sorry to say it ; but it's one of the 
 conditions of the life he is leading those fel- 
 lows all use themselves up, and the more brains 
 they have the faster they go." 
 
 " Then you think he'll ' go,' as you call it ?" 
 she asked, anxiously. 
 
 " His appearance this morning rather favours 
 that supposition," he replied. The conversation 
 was eminently distasteful to him. There were 
 servants in the room, and he felt that they were 
 listening with understanding; still he could not 
 turn it, or stop Bella, or refrain from saying se- 
 vere things. 
 
 " His appearance this morning rather favours 
 that supposition." Bella repeated those words 
 to herself, and she felt that they were very cold 
 words that they were words, indeed, which it 
 ill became Claude to use with reference to Stan- 
 ley Villars. However low the latter might 
 have fallen, it ill became the man who had, in 
 a measure, caused that fall, to condemn or be 
 caustic. She gave a quick sigh, that was half 
 pain and half anger, and asked 
 
 "Do you remember what he was at Den- 
 ham?" 
 
 " An intense bore about matters parochial," 
 Claude replied. 
 
 "I don't know that," Bella rejoined not 
 quite truthfully, it must be admitted, since, as 
 has been seen, the discussion of matters paro- 
 chial had occasionally bored her in those Den- 
 ham days "I don't know that; but he was 
 very earnest." 
 
 "As earnest as he is now in running the 
 orthodox career of a press-man of to-day." 
 
 " As earnest as he was in love," she .said, 
 quietly. " Shall we go into the drawing-room, 
 Ellen ?" Then she marched off in her sister-in- 
 law's wake, witli a heart that was very heavy, 
 and very repentant as to that parting shot. 
 But she could not keep the peace when Claude 
 disparaged Stanley when the victor was un- 
 generous to the victim. 
 
 All through that evening she perused and 
 reperused, with an interest that was intensely 
 aggravating to her husband, those pages of the 
 Metropolitan which Stanley had penned. She 
 tried to trace him through his work, as the 
 weak and the wise alike persist in doing when- 
 ever they chance to know a luckless writer in 
 the flesh. 
 
 Constantly as she read her brow flushed and 
 er lips quivered. The light regard for women, 
 
110 
 
 ON GUARD 
 
 the disbelief in truth, the doubt of honour, the 
 damning dread of being deceived at every turn, 
 good God ! of what had all this been born ? 
 Her conscience answered that question; and 
 still she read and re-read, and asked it again. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 DOMESTIC BLISS. 
 
 WHILE Bella his lost love, the sweet rock on 
 which he had split, the wife of his friend, the 
 one woman in the world to him was wran- 
 gling with her sister-in-law and wrestling with 
 her own spirit, Stanley Yillars was walking 
 slowly home through the dry, dusty streets, 
 with his eye-balls burning and his temples 
 feeling painfully compressed, and a general 
 sensation over him of having been up all the 
 previous night, and of having to be up all 
 through the night to come. 
 
 He was very glad when he got away from 
 the precincts of the Walsinghams' house, which 
 was situated in a region where he might at any 
 moment come upon any member of his old set 
 at Princes Gate, namely. The walk across the 
 park was pleasant enough in itself, but there 
 were -too many people still in town for him to 
 walk there freely now. He sneered at himself 
 for giving a thought to such things; but he 
 was conscious of whiter seams than were well 
 in his coat, and of a certain limpness about his 
 hat that was aught but seemly in that place. 
 He despised himself for doing it ; but still he 
 did avert his eyes, or abstractedly study the 
 ground, whenever a carriage approached whose 
 occupants might possibly know him. 
 
 AVhen he reached the Marble Arch, he heav- 
 ed a sigh of relief for that he was nearing 
 home ; not that home was a pleasant place to 
 him, or, indeed, one from which he would not 
 have abstained for ever could he have done so 
 in honour, but simply because he was physi- 
 cally worn out, and he could not afford a cab. 
 Besides, there was a shady side to the streets 
 through which his way lay, and he could keep 
 on that side, and so be more likely to evade 
 observation. 
 
 There had been no slight courage in that de- 
 termination which carried him over Claude 
 Walsingham's threshold. He was a worn, 
 haggard, shabby man now, and he clearly saw 
 himself to be what he wag. It was no light 
 thing to show himself in such a plight to those 
 t\vo. But he did it because he yearned so to 
 see them again ; and because he hoped that he 
 should see that there was no longer semblance 
 of a cause for that appeal which he had fancied 
 he detected in Bella's letter. 
 
 He had not found the meeting pleasant. He 
 had never anticipated its being that, indeed; 
 but it had been wanting in so much that should 
 have been there. Bella had been what she 
 always must be ; her nature would not admit 
 of her being other than warm and womanly. 
 But Claude's manner had said plainly, " My 
 dear fellow, you've put yourself out of the pale. 
 Can I do anything for you ? If so, mention it ; 
 if not, the sooner we part the pleasanter for 
 both parties." 
 
 He thought over this manner of Claude's; 
 he looked at it in every light as he shambled 
 along Oxford street. I 'use the word shamble 
 advisedly; the gait indicated by it is not 
 uncommon in men who have been utterly 
 worsted, and who still have to keep going, 
 loathing the onus humanity lays upon them of 
 struggling for life, envying the desolate dogs 
 who lie down in the gutter and die at their 
 ease. 
 
 " Perhaps after all Claude was right." He 
 tried to think him right, for their ways of life 
 were so different ; they were so utterly sepa- 
 rated in reality that occasional communion in 
 seeming could only prove painful to both. But 
 after all that had come and gone, by the 
 memory of their boyhood, by the pleasure and 
 the pain they had been to one another, by the 
 love they both had felt for one object, by the 
 doubt and agony, by the thousand nameless 
 things which had been and were not, Claude's 
 manner of showing him this should have had 
 more manliness in it. 
 
 Presently he turned out of Oxford Street to 
 the right, and shortly came to a street near the 
 Strand that had a living pattern of infant 
 Arabs in its centre, and a border of broken 
 windows, in the majority of which there were 
 attractive announcements respecfing accommo- 
 dation for single men. It was a disheartening 
 street ! How vividly, with what frightful force, 
 it contrasted with the surroundings of the house 
 at which he had been calling ! 
 
 The day, bright as it had been beyond, 
 seemed gloomy in this street. The sun did not 
 find it worth his while to smile upon so dolefu 
 a corner of the earth. There were a vast num 
 ber of women moving hither and thither in it 
 in that marvellous manner peculiar to the se: 
 in these shades of appearing to be going fo. 
 something which they are not likely to get. 
 There was a man with a flute and a wry neck 
 walking its length to his own sorrowful strains. 
 There were several dispirited cats, whose case 
 was too sad for them to care to keep their paws 
 clean. Beyond these there were no signs of 
 life in the street down which Stanley Villars 
 walked to his own door. 
 
 When he reached it he gave an impatient 
 knock ; he was eager to get in, and no wonder. 
 The position he occupied while waiting for ad- 
 mission was not an agreeable one for a mode- 
 rately sensitive man. Sundry heads came out 
 of the windows of the houses immediately 
 adjoining his own on either side, and a woman 
 came on to the door-step of the opposite dwell- 
 ing, affording her infant sustenance in the most 
 Arcadian manner, the while she called to him 
 that his "good lady had gone out and left the 
 latch-key with her, and would he excuse her 
 crossing with it, her feet being that swelled 
 with the heat that she could scarce stand, far 
 less walk." 
 
 He crossed over and got his key, and returned 
 with it, cursing his degradation with deep and 
 bitter oaths. His hand trembled to such a de- 
 gree that he had difficulty in getting the key 
 into the door, and a street boy marked his 
 bungling efforts and chaffed him freely on the 
 subject in the street-boy style. 
 
 He opened it at last and got into his own 
 house, to the place that was his sole sanctuary 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 Ill 
 
 his home. A narrow, little, stifling passage 
 led to a low, stifling, little room, in which there 
 was dust and disarray and stuffiness ; and yet 
 despite all these, some trifling evidences of a 
 woman's presence. A long table in the corner 
 covered with papers, books, and slips, with 
 stubby pens and grimy ink-bottles, with uncor- 
 rected proofs, with recent novels to review, 
 with suspicious-looking letters, over which there 
 was that unwholesome shade of blue which 
 bespeaks the bill, with dust and dead flies, with 
 the pitiable litter, in fact, which distinguishes 
 the careless, uncared-for " literary man's" writ- 
 ing-table. A little piano in a recess by the 
 fireplace, a workstand near it, and a low lounge 
 chair and footstool in close proximity to the 
 stand, indicating a woman's presence habitually 
 in that room a round centre-table, with a 
 soiled green cloth very much awry upon it a 
 few despondent chairs that seemed to say, " Sit 
 upon me, do ; but I'm very uncomfortable" 
 pale green chintz curtains to the windows, that 
 looked as though they had been put to that test 
 which Shetland shawls proudly assert they can 
 stand, namely, being passed through a ring a 
 small effort at colour and cleanliness, in the 
 shape of a pink paper cut into a honeycomb pat- 
 tern and draped round a chimney-glass, that 
 gave the rash one who gazed in it one swollen 
 cheek and one oblique eye an abrupt cessation 
 from all such effort immediately the precincts 
 of that paper were passed, this was all Stanley 
 Villars found when he got home that hot Au- 
 gust day. 
 
 Heavily he drew a chair along to the side of 
 that table in the corner, and sat down, trying 
 to fall to his work without further thought. 
 He was a machine for turning out copy now. 
 Every moment of his time every effort of his 
 brain was brought up, and pretty well paid 
 for on the whole. He had a hard day's work 
 before him on the next month's instalment of 
 that novel, the earlier chapters of which Bella, 
 was contemporaneously perusing. By the time 
 that was done he would be due at the office of 
 the daily paper for which he wrote; but the 
 season was dull just then, and there was every 
 chance of his soon being released, instead of the 
 latest telegrams bringing such news as would 
 compel him to sit up half the night writing a 
 leader that should be utterly passed over by 
 many, and superciliously criticised by more, at 
 the breakfast tables of the great majority, on 
 the following morning. 
 
 But he could not work. The horror that 
 crept over him as he felt that the time was 
 stealing away, weighting every minute to come 
 with a ghastly weight of work that he shrank 
 from contemplating the horror he felt at this 
 was really one of those things that must be en- 
 dured to be appreciated. But it was nothing ; 
 it was a weak, poor, puerile horror to that 
 which seized his soul and stultified his brain, as 
 the reflection arose that in his rash wrath at 
 the downfall of his first idol he himself had 
 marred his plan of life had gone wilfully into 
 the groove from which there was no escaping. 
 
 It was a soul- deadening thought. This 
 wrong this bitter wrong which had been done 
 him had been wrought by his own hand. He 
 had given way, just as the veriest fool might 
 have done, to that feeblest passion which in- 
 
 duces a man to revenge some injury, real or 
 fancied, upon himself, if none other be by to 
 bear the blow. He had cast off those ropes and 
 anchors which at the time he had deemed to be 
 fetters, but which now he knew to have been 
 merely saving responsibilities. He had gone to 
 perdition at a slinging trot. He had taken the 
 road from which there was no turning back 
 bound, as he was, hand and foot clogged, as 
 he was, through his own folly ; so the faster he 
 followed it the better. 
 
 As his bitter, distorted thoughts reached this 
 point, he laid his head down upon his arms, and 
 groaned in that bitterness of spirit that weari- 
 ness of body that fainting of the soul that 
 doubting of its God which parents -had better 
 strangle their children in the cradle than let 
 them live to feel, laid his head down and 
 groaned over the felly of that despair which led 
 him to believe that all was lost when a woman 
 jilted him that all was gone when his first 
 scheme for life was proved faulty. 
 
 This knocking under this breaking down and 
 giving way was owing much more to his piti- 
 ful surroundings than to the sight of he)- the 
 lovely rock who had wrecked him. Had he 
 gone back to plenty and peace to nothing to 
 do and iced wine to an earnest groom's doubt 
 of a blood mare's dam to a coachman's groan- 
 ing over the way the carriage " was kept out at 
 night" to any of the multifarious discomforts (!) 
 of wealth, in fact, he might have held a gloomy 
 debate in his soul on the Bella question, but he 
 would not have groaned, and found the cup too 
 bitter for hina even to pray that it might pass 
 away from him. 
 
 Time fleeted on the shadows lengthened on 
 the floor, and did not decrease in his heart ; and 
 at last he raised his head to the sound of a 
 knock at the door, and knew that it was even- 
 ing. He rose wearily to answer that knock, 
 and struggled to throw off so much of the black- 
 ness he was steeped in as was in his eyes and on 
 his brow. Then he went out into the narrow 
 passage, and opened the door, and tried and 
 cursed his own weakness as he felt that he 
 failed to give something like a welcoming smile 
 to the childish beauty wistfully glancing at him 
 from the step, and to the solemn-faced dog, 
 whose loving wisdom had taught him to keep 
 close to his master's wife. 
 
 You will have guessed the secret you will 
 have decided what that step was which he had 
 taken remembering which, he felt himself to 
 be in Bella's presence under false pretences. 
 You will have pierced through the tiny mystery 
 I have made you will have comprehended 
 that the baby-faced beauty and Stanley Villars 
 had cast in their lots together " for better, for 
 worse." 
 
 Even so ! He had gone there, to her quiet 
 little house to the doll's-house, where the doll 
 had tended him so unweariedly on that soft 
 May evening, meaning to repay her with such 
 measure as he had for that which she had done 
 for him. He had found her absent, and all 
 things altered. The peace and the quiet had 
 fled, and in their place had come a doleful 
 dread of what was to follow a bitter sense of 
 things being about to close over and swamp the 
 butterfly-bark that had put out to sea so blithely, 
 disregarding the idea of possible squalls. 
 
112 
 
 ON GUARD. 
 
 He did not come in procession, as she had 
 prognosticated ; nevertheless, he was very eligi- 
 ble in Rayners eyes. Accordingly, that well- 
 meaning woman made the most of Miss Marian's 
 forlorn state. For a while he had no very clear 
 idea of what he ought to do in the case ; but 
 eventually it dawned upon him that he was 
 called upon to refund, not only the actual filthy 
 lucre which Marian had expended upon him, 
 but something else that he had cost her. 
 
 He told himself, sitting there, and listening 
 to Rayner's wails about Marian's woes, that he 
 had nothing more to lose, let him do what he 
 would. He was cut off utterly; truly, it was 
 by his own hand, but still he was utterly cut 
 off from his class and his kindred. If this poor 
 little girl loved him if she had indeed already 
 lost something she could never regain through 
 him why should he not k> all he could to 
 repay and make her happy ? 
 
 Why not ? 
 
 He asked the question idly, and never stayed 
 to hear his instincts answer, as they would have 
 done had he not rushed along recklessly, bid- 
 ding him beware of this worst, last folly of 
 linking himself for the rest of his life with that 
 for which his previous life had entirely unfitted 
 him. He was a man, and he thought of her 
 beauty, and told himself that he could not blight 
 it, and that it behoved him, since he could do 
 so, to lift the load that had come upon her 
 through him. So when she came home he 
 made her poor little heart happy, and let her 
 perceive that she might love him without fear 
 and without reproach. This was enough for 
 her. She gave no thought to the strangeness 
 of that wooing which accepted merely, and 
 offered nothing in return. He let her love him, 
 but he neither loved her, nor lied to her about 
 it. Still, she was satisfied, with a loving wealth 
 of satisfaction that almost refined her for the 
 time, and married him without a doubt as to the 
 glory and grandeur of that fate which had com- 
 menced for her when she found him by the 
 wayside, with his dog howling over him. 
 
 Not that he had deceived her as to his posi- 
 tion. At one fell blow he had demolished the 
 lordly mansions with which Rayner had en- 
 dowed him, and had exploded the King Cophe- 
 tua and Co. theories. He tried to make her 
 understand that he was only a working man 
 a hard-working, ill-paid man. But she looked 
 at his white hands, and her ears so open to 
 soft, sweet sounds drank in the tones of his 
 voice, and she disregarded everything that he 
 said to her in a cautionary strain. 
 
 They were soon married, and he removed her 
 from the doll's-house to a lodging in the heart 
 of London that was more conveniently situated, 
 in relation to his daily haunts. Rayner accom- 
 panied them, nominally as a servant, in reality 
 as Marian's own familiar friend; and though 
 Stanley Yillars' sense told him that this was a 
 natural consequence of former conditions, it 
 was a loathsome arrangement to him. 
 
 It must be admitted that Rayner was a trial. 
 She would take no wages ; she wept when he 
 hinted that such being the case, she had better, 
 in justice to herself, leave them, and left the 
 room in a prominent manner whenever Mr. 
 Villars came into it, in a way that made him 
 feel himself to be a brute, he knew not why. 
 
 Marian, too, had a habit of slinking out meekly 
 after Rayner, evidently with the design of 
 appeasing her aggrieved spirit, and causing her 
 to feel that they were not loth ungrateful. 
 "When he remonstrated with Marian for doing 
 this he having wanted her on one occasion 
 Mrs. Stanley Yillars proved her inability to cope 
 with circumstances, and adopt a medium man- 
 ner, by becoming imperious to her self-sacrific- 
 ing old friend, after the fashion of a " haughty 
 lady," by whom she had been profoundly im- 
 pressed, one blissful and never-to-be-forgotten 
 night long ago on the boards of the Victoria 
 Theatre. Then Rayner was resigned, and re- 
 morseful, and reproachful all at once, in a 
 bewildering way, till Stanley Yillars would 
 have entreated her to take the seat of honour 
 at his board and the upper chamber in his man- 
 sion, had he had either, rather than be sub- 
 jected any longer to poor Marian's laments 
 over the impossibility of her " keeping Rayner 
 in her proper place." At last things came to 
 such a pass that he made another move, and 
 told Rayner he could not afford such a luxury 
 as she was any longer. At which dire decision, 
 Rayner whose love for the girl, to whom she 
 had been as a mother, was strong and true 
 lifted up her voice and wept, and pressed the 
 savings of a lifetime upon him earnestly. 
 
 Stanley Yillars had realised his mistake even 
 while in the act of making it. He had not 
 stood at the altar, and called God to witness 
 that there " was no just cause or impediment " 
 to his marriage, as many better men do when 
 something whispers them to the contrary. He 
 had not forsworn himself before God. In his 
 own heart there existed the impediment which, 
 while it did exist, should have prevented his 
 calling any other woman but Bella wife. He 
 knew this, so he made their union binding and 
 respectable by wedding Marian Wallis at a 
 registrar office. But though there were no 
 words to stay him on the occasion, he fully 
 realised his mistake the whole time he was 
 making it. 
 
 Perhaps you will understand more fully why 
 he did so when you have seen a little more of 
 Marian. A mere dry catalogue of his reasons 
 for doing so from my pen would be worse than 
 wasted. 
 
 " Where have you been, Marian ?" he asked, 
 as he opened the door. He did not ask it 
 sternly or anxiously, as most husbands would 
 of a beautiful young wife. He merely asked it 
 because he felt that she expected him to speak 
 to her, that he ought to speak to her, and he 
 never knew what to say. 
 
 " I've been shopping. I hope you haven't 
 been waiting for me long, Stanley," she replied, 
 walking in before him, and pulling her bonnet 
 off as she preceded him into the sitting-room. 
 
 "Not very long," he answered, returning to 
 his writing, and taking up the pen, in which, 
 truth to tell, the ink had been dry for more than 
 two hours. 
 
 "I left the key with Mrs. Watts, over the 
 way, and " 
 
 " Why the devil did you ?" he interrupted ; 
 " when I found you were not at home, I could 
 have gone on somewhere ; besides, if you were 
 going out, you should have left the girl in." 
 
 " It was her half-holiday," Marian explained, 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 113 
 
 with a tremble in her voice. Though she was 
 always jarring upon his finer feelings, and 
 making him writhe, and feeling, poor thing I 
 that she was doing these things, this man was 
 as a god to her a thing to love and tremble 
 at, to adore and kneel before. 
 
 " Her half-holidays come devilish quick !" he 
 muttered ; and then he made another effort to 
 send the pen over the paper, and found he 
 oould not do it. 
 
 "Can I have something to eat, Marian?" he 
 asked, throwing himself back in his chair, and 
 looking at her, as she stood smoothing her 
 ruddy, glorious hair before the glass. 
 
 She stopped her evolutions suddenly, and 
 glanced round at him. 
 
 "I'll go and get you something, Stanley. 
 Haven't you had any dinner ?" 
 
 He shook his head. "And I don't like you to 
 get it for me in that nice dress," he said; "but 
 I'm quite knocked up." 
 
 She brightened wonderfully; all the soul of 
 the little milliner sparkled up into her soft blue 
 eyes, and irradiated the lovely childish face, at 
 his observation and praise of her dress. 
 
 " I won't hurt it, Stanley ; I'll light this fire 
 and cook you a rasher," she said, with anima- 
 tion ; but he had no appetite for a rasher, and 
 she saw that he had not, in his face. 
 
 "Never mind. Marian; I'll get something to 
 eat as I go down to the office." Then he took 
 out his watch, and said he " must go presently, 
 and she had better not sit up for him, as he 
 might be late, and would have to write again 
 when he came home." 
 
 She looked disappointed for a minute or two ; 
 it might be at the downfall of the rasher plan ; 
 it might be at the hearing that she would not 
 have more of her husband's society that night. 
 Whatever it was, it clouded her brow only for a 
 minute or two. Then she brightened up again, 
 and resumed her occupation before the glass, 
 taking a delicate violet ribbon from her pocket, 
 and passing it through her richly tinted hair with 
 excellent effect. 
 
 She looked so very young, so innocently 
 pretty, standing there, that he could but think 
 of her tenderly and pityingly; could but think 
 of her as she was individually, and not as a clog 
 in relation to himself. In this uncongenial 
 union of theirs, Tie only was unhappy, but she 
 was equally alone. Dangerously, pitiably 
 alone ! 
 
 " "Where did you say you had been, dear ?" 
 he asked, trying to speak as though he cared to 
 know. 
 
 " Shopping," she replied, blushing a little ; 
 " and if you can wait, I'll tell you where, Stan- 
 ley?" 
 
 He had risen and was looking for his hat ; 
 but he ceased his search when she said that, 
 and went up and kissed her, telling her " that, 
 of course, he could wait." He pitied her so 
 profoundly for being so utterly, hopelessly 
 powerless as she was to efface the past from his 
 memory to make the present endurable to 
 shed one ray of warmth into the heart Bella 
 Vane had chilled. 
 
 " I went to the place where I used to work," 
 she began, hesitatingly, feeling her way, as it 
 were. 
 
 " Ah, indeed ! what for, dear ?" 
 8 
 
 "Well, I want a bonnet, you know, so 1 
 thought I'd go there and order it ; and while I 
 
 was there " She stopped again, uneasily 
 
 twisting her wedding-ring upon her finger, and 
 growing full and flushed in the face, as a con- 
 fused child does. She was quite conscious that 
 she had gone to the old place in order to display 
 herself as a married woman and a gentleman's 
 wife to her old companions, and she half feared 
 that he would fathom the motive and despise 
 her, or be angry. 
 
 "And is this the new bonnet?" he asked, 
 laughing, and taking up the one she had pulled 
 off but just now. 
 
 " Oh, dear, no ! the new one isn't home yet ; 
 but, Stanley, I saw some one there;" 
 
 " Whom did you see ?" 
 
 "Your sister, Flor Miss Yillars," she an- 
 swered, hastily correcting herself He had only 
 mentioned his sister Florence once, when she 
 had asked him if he had any sisters. But this 
 brief mention had been all-sufficient to show 
 her that Florence was a very sacred thing in 
 his estimation, one that might not even be 
 looked upon lightly. 
 
 His brow darkened a little. " How did you 
 know that it was my sister ^lorence ?" he 
 asked. 
 
 " I'll tell you; you won't be angry?" 
 
 " Angry with you, child ! God forgive me for 
 having ever made you fear it !" 
 
 " I was in the show-room, and one of the 
 young ladies who was great friends with me 
 while I was there, asked me to show off some 
 mantles to some good customers who were 
 coming up." 
 
 " You didn't do it 1" he exclaimed. 
 
 " Ye es, I did." , 
 
 " And it was Florence," he almost groaned. 
 "Oh, Marian I Well, don't mind me, dear; 
 but don't do it again! How did you know 
 her?" 
 
 " Miss Simpson (that's my friend, and I have 
 asked her here) whispered to me that the young 
 lady, the youngest lady, for they were both 
 young, was Miss Villars, ' the same name as 
 the gentleman you've married,' she said; for 
 I'd told her all about you, and she does wish to 
 see you so much, Stanley." 
 
 "God!" Stanley ejaculated. 
 
 " And then I heard the other lady call her 
 'Florence,' so I knew. Wasn't it funny? I 
 wonder what she would have thought, if she'd 
 known." 
 
 It was very funny, very funny indeed ! So 
 funny, that Stanley Yillars almost staggered 
 under the superb humour of it. His darling 
 sister unconsciously accepting humiliating ser- 
 vice from his wife, and the shop-girls speculat- 
 ing as to the similarity of name ! Yery funny ! 
 
 "Marian," he said gravely, "you must not do 
 that again ; I'm not angry with you, dear, but 
 I wish you not to do that again ; you won't, 
 will you ?" 
 
 In dealing with this girl, whom he did not 
 love, he never made use of the old authoritative 
 tone and manner which had so chafed Bella, 
 whom he had adored. 
 
 ; 'No, I won't," she said, promptly. "I've 
 asked Miss Simpson and and one or two 
 of the others to come here to tea with me, Stan- 
 ley ; you won't mind that ?" 
 
1H 
 
 ON GUARD. 
 
 What could he say? This society for which 
 she sighed, was the society for which she was 
 fitted ; and he saw with unlucky clearness of 
 vision that she would never be fitted for any 
 other. "Not that it mattered, for what other 
 could she have, poor little thing!" he thought. 
 His own acquaintances the men with whom he 
 was thrown in daily contact the men who 
 shared and understood these later interests of 
 his scarcely noticed her at all, or, if they did, 
 plainly regarded her as a pretty toy, which 
 Stanley had been " weak, rather," to tie to him- 
 self so securely. She was nice to look at, but 
 a bore when they had anything to do ; for they 
 often congregated about Stanley, he having a 
 " local habitation and a name," they were good 
 enough to remark ; wrote their articles at his 
 house, and gave themselves the freedom of it 
 generally, in the frankness of that good fellow- 
 ship which would have redeemed more faults 
 than any of which these reckless, harmless, 
 clever young Bohemians were guilty. Sad as 
 Stanley's worldly plight was, when compared 
 with that of his past and his class, it was 
 far better than that in which some of his 
 brethren of the craft were plunged. The days 
 were very dark for some of them; but they 
 were struggling on through the darkness with 
 the light-hearted, plucky determination to win 
 their laurels, which is so frequent a characteris- 
 tic of the bright brotherhood to which they be- 
 longed. 
 
 Stanley Villars felt that Miss Simpson's pre- 
 sence would not impart the flavour that was 
 already wanting to make his wife acceptable to 
 his guests. She was very much alone more 
 alone, perhaps, when he was with her, than at 
 any other time. He had no plan for her im- 
 provement. He had no hopes of amending any- 
 thing connected with himself. As she was, so 
 he would leave her. He had put such a clog 
 round his neck, that no amount of gilding on 
 the padlock that secured it could dazzle the 
 world to the extent of making it oblivious of 
 the crushing weight it was to him. *Jt would 
 crush him down in time the sooner the better ; 
 meanwhile it was useless to try and alter any- 
 thing that was. So he swallowed his repug- 
 nance to the plan, and promised Marian the ex- 
 quisite bliss of seeing her friend whenever it 
 seemed good to her. 
 
 Having made her happy so far, he whistled 
 his dog and went away to dinner, if he could 
 eat to work, if work was to be done. It was 
 a very rare thing for him to get anything to eat 
 in his own house. The "girl" was always 
 alarming her mistress into granting her half- 
 holidays, and Marian always grew down-hearted 
 when the subject of meals at home was mooted. 
 Her share in the organisation of the doll's-house 
 arrangements had obviously been very small, 
 he learnt after Rayner's departure. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 RATHER HARD. 
 
 IT may have occurred to the reader while 
 following this little history through the last few 
 chapters, that Florence, whom I described as 
 
 being singularly fond of and faithful to her 
 brother, has but scantily proved the justice of 
 her claim to these qualities. Naturally, I who 
 know " what she means" do not so misjudge 
 her. Equally naturally the majority will feel 
 that "another of the characters has utterly 
 broken down." 
 
 The fact is, after that one visit to her brother's 
 lodgings that one stolen indulgence in the 
 literary sweets he was preparing for the delicate 
 palate of that many-headed monster, the read- 
 ing public Florence found herself a sort of 
 prisoner on parole. She was living under her 
 brother Gerald's roof at this time, and her bro- 
 ther Gerald's wife was, of course, her guardian 
 and supervisor. Now Lady Villars had a habit 
 of ill health scarcely that, but of most extor- 
 tionate delicacy. She was always in a state of 
 verbal dread of being upset. She went a " lit- 
 tle low" on the smallest provocation. She un- 
 selfishly bewailed these things on account of 
 the effect they might have on her only child, 
 the little heir. Sir Gerald was but a man and 
 a baronet. He shrank from Carrie's being "up- 
 set," for many reasons that will be readily ap- 
 preciated by husbands whose wives are addicted 
 to disorganisations of the sort, and utterly un- 
 intelligible to the untried men who have had 
 no such experience. He shrank from this as a 
 man and a husband. As a baronet and father 
 he was more sensitive still, therefore he cautioned 
 Florence never to "put Carrie out," and Flo- 
 rence promised "not to do so," and forthwith 
 became a white slave. 
 
 " I must entreat you never to go to Stanley's 
 lodgings again, without telling me of your in- 
 tention beforehand, Florence," Lady Villars said 
 to her sister-in-law, shortly after Florry's first 
 raid upon Stanley's premises. 
 
 Florence allowed herself to be entreated with 
 effect; but still, while acquiescing in the de- 
 mand made on her obedience, ventured to ask 
 "why?" 
 
 "I have my reasons, and you must attend to 
 them, believing them to be good, even though 
 I can't explain, dear." Carrie's reply was ac- 
 companied by a kiss ; so the affectionate Florry 
 tried to look her faith, but failed, poor child, in 
 feeling it. 
 
 As time went on, and no answer came to the 
 little imploring note she had left for Stanley on 
 the top of his pile of MS., Florence began to 
 feel cut to the heart, and doubtful of his love 
 for her. At last she wrote to him again she 
 had given Gerald and Carrie no promise as to 
 not writing telling him unconsciously, for she 
 was not given to complaint, how weary she 
 was of this life she was leading ; how willing 
 to change it for one anywhere, anyhow, with 
 him. 
 
 She had given no promise as to not writing, 
 still she said nothing about this letter ; not out 
 of any desire for secresy, but out of a dread of 
 discussing Stanley and Stanley's doings with 
 Carrie. Young Lady Villars was very hard 
 upon her brother-in-law. It is difficult to 
 determine what feeling it was that biased her 
 judgment 'so sternly against him. "Whatever 
 it was the feeling was genuine. She did feel 
 him to be a very faulty man a man whose 
 sufferings were surpassed by his sins a man 
 who deserved all he got, however bad it might 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 116 
 
 be. She believed that he must have been well 
 inclined for evil, to have seized so sharply upon 
 the first excuse for going into it, as he had done. 
 " He made being jilted a mean excuse," she 
 said ; " there had been but little good in him 
 ever, or it would not have fled at the first 
 wrong note that was struck in the melody of 
 his life. Happily the family honour and family 
 name were not entirely in his keeping." Then 
 she would look at her little son, and feel more 
 rigorous still towards Stanley if that little son 
 looked pale or flushed, or anything unbecoming 
 to an infant. 
 
 These things that were said of her favourite 
 brother of that brother who had been all that 
 a man should be till Claude had played him 
 false were very hard for Florence to hear. 
 She was a patient girl, and she gave but few 
 signs of the sorrow that she felt. But her soft, 
 tawny eyes the eyes that were like a setter's 
 in their tender, loving beauty would swim in 
 tears that she would not suffer to fall lest 
 " Carrie should be upset," and her heart ached 
 to be with Stanley again. 
 
 She said nothing about the letter; but she 
 laid it down with the family epistles on the hall 
 table when she was going into luncheon one 
 day. Lady Villars, following her, stopped her. 
 and read the superscription. Florence had been 
 desirous only of evading conversation on the 
 subject. She was careless as to whether Carrie 
 saw the letter or not. 
 
 Lady Villars did not touch that letter the 
 purloining of other people's correspondence is 
 not an attribute of the English ladies but she 
 went hastily back into the drawing-room, where 
 she had left her husband sitting by the fire. It 
 was a cold April day one of the days poor 
 Stanley was passing in dreamy doubt in the 
 doll's-house ; it might, therefore, be the cold 
 which imparted an extra glitter to Lady Villars' 
 eyes, and a heightened flush to her round, fair 
 cheek. 
 
 "Gerald," she began, hurriedly, "here's Flo- 
 rence writing again to Stanley 1 You must 
 
 ; What shall I say? Oh, let her!" he re- 
 plied, in a vexed tone. 
 
 " Say ! you must know what to say. It's for 
 Florence's good I'm anxious, You might give 
 me credit for that." She sat herself down as 
 she spoke, and looked as though she were going 
 to be upset. 
 
 "So I do, dear," he replied, getting up and 
 standing before the fire, and making a feeble 
 effort to twist his moustache unconcernedly. 
 " It's a difficult matter to interfere in. Dear old 
 Stanley ! I wish to God he'd come back and 
 be with us again!" 
 
 "So do I, if he did but see the error of his 
 ways. But to throw up his profession in that 
 wicked way, and go off' and lead a godless life 
 as he is doing; I cannot think of him affec- 
 tionately." 
 
 "A godless life! Come, Carrie, that's rather 
 strong, you know." 
 
 u At all events, the life he leads is not the life 
 you, as her guardian, ought to suffer that child 
 Florence to know anything about." 
 
 Gerald made a faint protest : " "Writing to her 
 brother can't harm her." 
 
 "Writing! yes, as if it would end there. 
 
 Florence has a tinge of romance about her ; and 
 if it gets inflamed, where are her prospects? 
 Being spoken about with Claude Walsingham 
 (another of Stanley's precious friends) did her 
 no good. You must be careful of Florence, 
 Gerald." 
 
 "So I will." 
 
 "Ay, but very careful. Florence is a little 
 unhappy about that Claude still ; and more than 
 a little inclined to believe Stanley a noble mar- 
 tyr. Really the responsibility will be too much 
 for me, if you won't assist me." 
 
 " What shall I do, Carrie? Play the tyrant, 
 and forbid her writing to her brother and mine, 
 because he's gone to the devil for a time about 
 a woman? No, no!" 
 
 Lady Villars rose and went nearer to him, 
 sinking her voice to a whisper nearly, but speak- 
 ing energetically. "I tell you, Gerald, you 
 must. He has formed a low connection." 
 
 " Whew 1 How do you know ?" he asked, 
 quickly. 
 
 " Pollock" (mentioning her maid) "heard of 
 it in the show-room at Mrs. Mitchell's the other 
 day. It's one of her girls. Now fancy, Gerald!" 
 
 Carrie clasped her hands, and stretched them 
 down before her as she spoke. She was one of 
 those pinky-faced women, with short noses, 
 who always look simple and well-meaning, 
 whether they be so or not. ' The attitude 
 matched the face; it was innocent and ap- 
 pealing. 
 
 " I can't fancy it," he replied. He could have 
 believed any amount of downright depravity of 
 Stanley just then, because he felt certain that 
 Stanley's frame of mind was very sore and reck- 
 less. But a liaison with a milliner's girl ! He 
 did his brother the justice of disbelieving it. 
 He could not accredit Stanley with being guilty 
 of such a fatal folly. 
 
 "But I know it, Gerald." How convincing 
 Lady Villars' tones were when she wanted to 
 convince. "I know it. Pollock will talk, you 
 know " 
 
 " Why the devil about my brother ?" Gerald 
 interrogated hastily. But Carrie went on 
 
 " She will talk ; and when I found that she 
 had something to say I listened something 
 concerning Stanley, I mean." 
 
 " Deuced insolent of her !" 
 
 " Well, I confess I asked her, Gerald. She's 
 very right-thinking, and knows her place, and is 
 thoroughly attached to the family; therefore 
 when I found she knew something about Stan- 
 ley, I did ask her. The girl is to be dis- 
 missed." 
 
 " Were there any truth in it she'd have dis- 
 missed herself. But let us go in to luncheon ; 
 Florry will be wondering, as well she may, why 
 we stay." 
 
 Accordingly they went in to luncheon, and 
 after it Gerald took occasion to tell Florry that 
 " Carrie was very anxious about her very 
 much feared she was not happy, and and all 
 that sort of thing." 
 
 "Not exactly unhappy, Gerald." 
 
 " Well, a good imitation of it, dear pining 
 after Stanley, we're afraid." 
 
 " And isn't that natural ?" 
 
 She went up close to him as she asked it. 
 She put both her hands on his shoulders, and 
 bent her head down on his chest, then lifted it 
 
116 
 
 OX GUARD. 
 
 again suddenly, and looked into his face with 
 her soft, loving eyes. 
 
 " And isn't that natural? ?" 
 
 It nearly upset his resolution. The fraternal 
 element is very strong amongst us English, try 
 to hide it as we may. But he remembered his 
 wife, and his heir. Carrie had told him that did 
 he not assist her, "her responsibilities in this 
 matter of Florence would be too much for 
 her." 
 
 " "Well, it is natural, my darling sister. Poor 
 little Florence, don't cry ; it will all be well in 
 time, dear. Meanwhile it's better both for 
 Stanley and for you that you shouldn't try to 
 mix yourself up with him indeed it is." 
 
 " I don't believe it," Florence sobbed. 
 
 " My dear Florry, it is believe me." Then 
 he began to feel weak of purpose before the 
 strength of her love for that absent brother of 
 whom they had hoped such bright things in 
 his youth, and he struck an unfair blow. 
 
 " Doesn't Stanley tell you so himself by his 
 silence ?" 
 
 " No-o." 
 
 " Now, you're blind, Florry," he said gravely. 
 " Had he thought it wise or well for you to see 
 him, wouldn't he have acknowledged your 
 visit and your note ?" 
 
 Florence lifted her hands and her head away 
 from him ; but she was only stung, not con- 
 quered yet. 
 
 " Perhaps not. I know Stanley so well, 
 Gerald : he'd never be the one to come half- 
 way to meet any one who didn't seem to want 
 him very much." 
 
 " You have seemed to want him very much, 
 and he hasn't come." 
 
 " DorUt don't make me doubt Stanley!" she 
 cried, bursting out into a passion o/ tears that 
 made Sir Gerald pity her, and himself, pro- 
 foundly. 
 
 " I don't want to make you doubt him, dear ! 
 There, there, say no more about it ! By Jove ! 
 what is a fellow to do ? Florry, do be reason- 
 able!" 
 
 She heaved and sighed in answer to this ad- 
 juration, but did not sob any more. 
 
 " It's so awkward to explain," he muttered. 
 "The long and the short of it is, Florry, that 
 you'd better not send that letter you've written 
 to Stanley. Don't look at me as if I were your 
 jailer. I'd better out with it, I suppose ! " he 
 continued, confusedly. "Stanley's not leading 
 the sort of life you ought to countenance. 
 There, I've done it now." He almost groaned 
 as Florence turned away and sat down, looking 
 very pale and terribly shocked, but speaking 
 not a word. 
 
 " I'll send Carrie to you, dear," he said hasti- 
 ly, kissing her brow. " Don't think about it : 
 we'll have him back all right by-and-by. Mean- 
 time dont upset Carrie there's a darling 
 girl!" 
 
 "No, Gerald, no; I won't." 
 
 " Shall I send her to you and the boy ? he 
 asked cheerily, walking to the door. u The 
 boy," in his opinion, was an infallible panacea 
 for every ailment, mental or bodily, that could 
 assail humanity. He himself had found much 
 comfort in perusing those infant lineaments at 
 divers times. He offered him to Florence now 
 as a perfect cure, and was rather astonished she 
 
 didn't bound in spirit towards the acceptance 
 of it. 
 
 He was very glad to get himself away out of 
 his sister's presence. He felt that he had de- 
 nied it by aspersing Stanley to her Stanley, 
 with whom she had ever been so much more 
 intimate Stanley, who had always been so 
 much " better a fellow " than himself. Sir 
 Gerald had never made Florence his friend and 
 confidante in his boyish scrapes, and in the di- 
 lemmas of his riper years. To touch upon this 
 topic for the first time with her in relation to 
 Stanley made him feel very unhappy, and 
 ashamed of himself. 
 
 Shortly Lady Yillars came to her, offering 
 her restoratives, and counselling warmth as 
 though the chill she had received had been 
 bodily. And Lady Yillars enlarged upon the 
 theme which her husband had merely broached, 
 till Florence of the yielding spirit felt that Stan- 
 ley was a being bad and dangerous to know 
 a thing to dearly love, 'and shrink from. 
 
 She gave up the letter, and saw it deftly rent 
 into narrow strips, and then curled into match- 
 es between her sister-in-law's plump fingers, 
 and she had to subdue her own sentiments at 
 the sight, for Carrie was quite ready to be agi- 
 tated and upset. In fact, she put herself under 
 Lady Yillars' plump little white thumb that 
 day, and remained there while Lady Yillars 
 saturated her with wise saws and modern in- 
 stances. 
 
 In the nursery in the evening Lady Yillars 
 had it all her own way with Florence more 
 completely still. They sat by the fire, and 
 passed little Gerald backwards and forwards 
 from lap to lap till that unconscious little inno- 
 cent had set the ball of good feeling and con- 
 versation rolling smoothly between them. Then 
 Lady Yillars mooted the matter again, and im- 
 parted additional poignancy to it by introducing 
 Claude Walsingham's name, till Florence, be- 
 tween her agony of dread lest the nursemaids 
 should hear, and her agony of shame of what 
 she had deemed the secret of her heart being 
 known at all, was ready to promise anything. 
 
 "It is kinder in reality to keep entirely apart 
 from Stanley now, Florry : indeed it is. He's 
 more likely to stop on his road to ruin than if 
 we countenanced him as though he were doing 
 something very fine." 
 
 " I hope it may prove kindness, .but it's harsh 
 kindness." 
 
 "I little thought that I should ever have 
 been accused of unjust cruelty by one member 
 of Gerald's family in relation to another!" Lady 
 Yillars said, with touching resignation. 
 
 " I don't mean to accuse you, Carrie ; indeed 
 I don't !" Florence answered in an agony of 
 dread. Lady Yillars had an alarming power of 
 going pale and contracting her nostrils, and 
 these were usually held to be preliminaries to 
 her being upset. 
 
 " It's uncommonly like accusing me, and it 
 does hurt me when it is only your interest that 
 I have at heart. Gerald and I are in such a 
 position that we might venture to do anything 
 of the sort ; but for you to appear to be vindi- 
 cating Stanley now, when he's " 
 
 Florence made a deprecating gesture with 
 her hands ; but Lady Yillars only paused for an 
 instant, and then resumed 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 117 
 
 " Well, it would be simply wrong on our 
 part to see you doing it and not to warn you ; 
 unjust to you and unkind to Stanley. He's far 
 more likely to leave off evil doing if he finds 
 that it cuts him off from us, than if we took no 
 notice ; to seek him would be to encourage him, 
 and, if your love for Stanley is genuine, you 
 won't do it." 
 
 If her love for Stanley were genuine! 
 Florence made no answer in words, but she 
 glanced, with a piteous reproach in her eyes, at 
 her sister-in-law a reproach that was so elo- 
 quent that even Lady Villars was touched by 
 it. " Even Lady Villars," do I say ; this im- 
 plies a doubt of Lady Villars' integrity of pur- 
 pose in this business, which I am far from feel- 
 ing. The motives which influenced her were 
 honest enough, only she was rather hard. 
 
 " There, Florry, I didn't mean to say that 
 quite. I know how genuine your love for Stan- 
 ley is therefore I feel sure that you will not 
 refuse to put a. little temporary restraint on 
 your feelings, for his ultimate good." 
 
 " Ultimate good ! " The phrase was a nice, 
 magnanimous, well-sounding one. Florence 
 was rather impressed by it on the whole. Of 
 course she was quite ready to do anything that 
 might conduce to Stanley's ultimate good. 
 
 So she was induced, through her love for him, 
 to give up seeking for a renewal of intercourse 
 with the brother who was under a cloud. So 
 she was influenced to fall away from him out- 
 wardly for his ultimate good. 
 
 Some few days after this, Lady Villars told 
 her, with a very well conceived casual air, that 
 "the Walsinghams were in town! didn't she 
 think it would be well to call ?" 
 
 " No ; I don't," Florence replied, nervously. 
 
 " Why not? it would look better." 
 
 "I couldn't go!" Florence said, imploringly. 
 
 " My dear child, surely you are not going to 
 bear malice against Bella all your life because 
 she discovered, happily before it was too late 
 (Lady Villars said this with virtuous fervour), 
 that she did not love your brother ? " 
 
 Florence made no answer. She was very 
 truthful, and she knew that Bella's making this 
 discovery had not been the worst offence to- 
 wards herself. Lady Villars had some notion 
 of this kind also ; but she judged it better to 
 ignore what would not be altered by mention. 
 
 "Oh! I'm sure you would not do that, 
 \Florry ; I'm not Stanley : s own sister, but I be- 
 lieve I know him well enough to be sure that 
 he would not wish such a display of petty feel- 
 ing. Of course you will go with me to call on 
 her?" 
 
 "Why must I go, Carrie?" 
 
 "It would look pointed if you didn't; be- 
 sides," Lady Villarrs went on, looking straight 
 between Florence's eyes as she spoke, "people 
 might make mistakes, and attribute your re- 
 maining away to a cause that you wouldn't care 
 to have it attributed to. From every point of 
 view" (Lady Villars, in common with the rest 
 of the world, merely meant her own, when she 
 said this) "from every point of view such a 
 course would be unwise unwise to the last 
 degree." 
 
 Once more Florence permitted herself to be 
 convinced ; but she felt it to be rather hard that 
 'she should be put to the test in this way with- 
 
 out an end or aim, as it seemed. Meek and 
 gentle, timid and soft as \she was, she had that 
 in her which would have carried her over hot 
 ploughshares without shrinking, had the doing 
 so been essential to the well-being of the one 
 she loved. But her heart fainted within her at 
 being thus called upon to perform a painful task, 
 in order that people to whom she was indiffer- 
 ent might not attribute her letting said task 
 alone to some bygone cause, in which, at least, 
 there was no shame. 
 
 However, Lady Villars had set her heart on 
 Florence going to call on Mrs. Claude Walsing- 
 ham. Need it be said, after this statement, that 
 Florence went. 
 
 On the whole, Mrs. Claude would far rather 
 that they had not extended the olive branch in 
 person just yet. She was much disturbed at 
 the sight of them, and desperately uncertain as 
 to what it would be well to talk about. With 
 Lady Villars alone she would have been at her 
 ease, for Lady Villars was great at forgiving 
 other people's injuries. But with Florence she 
 could not be at ease for several reasons. Flo- 
 rence had been down at Denham during the 
 days of doubt and of struggling. Florence had 
 at one time held her own Claude's fickle fancy 
 had dearly loved him, and been wofully de- 
 ceived by them both. With her usual pleasant 
 power of putting away unpleasant thoughts, Mrs. 
 Claude had thrown these facts off her mind 
 while Florence was neither seen by nor men- 
 tioned to her. But now, that Florence was 
 before her in the flesh and, alas ! in less of it 
 than of yore Bella remembered vividly, and 
 felt penitent and uncomfortable. 
 
 It was difficult to know what to speak about. 
 Everything of which she could think had some 
 relation even if remote to the subject which, 
 she was morally certain, was occupying the 
 thoughts of all. She wronged Lady Villars 
 there, though ! Carrie was thinking only of a 
 pair of Venetian glasses, in antique silver 
 frames, and wondering where Claude had got 
 them. 
 
 The same difficulty was oppressing Florence 
 with tenfold force. Say what she would, it was 
 safe to refer to Claude, it seemed to her. In 
 addition, too, the dread was upon her ol 
 Claude's coming in suddenly and finding them 
 there. She began to wonder how he would 
 look if he did come in, and what he would say, 
 and what he would think? These conjectures 
 caused her to miss the thread of a poor little 
 conversation that had been gallantly started a 
 conversation about dogs not living dogs but 
 dogs of Dresden. 
 
 "Have you got Rock still?" she asked, 
 thinking that by thus asking she was proving 
 that she had taken an interest in and followed 
 the subject. 
 
 Bella blushed a little, and one hand that was 
 lying upon a table gave a convulsive twitch. 
 
 "No; I gave him to your brother, Stanle}-," 
 she said, in a low tone, " when I married." 
 
 "How is Major Walsingham ?" Lady Villars 
 asked, quite cheerfully. And then Bella told 
 them of the accident which had befallen him in 
 the hunting field, and tried not to seem to see 
 the tears that gathered in Florence's eyes as she 
 listened. Mrs. Claude addressed herself to 
 Lady Villars, as she told the story ; but when 
 
118 
 
 ON GUARD. 
 
 she had finished it, there was a touch of true 
 womanly feeling in the way she turned to Flo- 
 rence, and said, as one sure of sympathy, " I 
 thought I should have lost my husband then!" 
 
 And that the sympathy she had sought was 
 given, no one could doubt who saw Florence's 
 face. 
 
 "Ah!" Lady Yillars broke in adroitly, com- 
 ing to the rescue with a bit of practicality that 
 was invaluable at the moment. "Ah! I re- 
 member, Gerald was pitched into a ditch half 
 full of water once, and we agreed then that in 
 every field there ought to be a surgeon and a 
 stomach-pump." 
 
 " They should be attached to the kennel, in 
 fact," Bella said, laughing; and then the visit 
 came to an end. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXY. 
 
 A STAB IN THE DARK. 
 
 MRS. MARKHAM brought her visit to a close 
 almost immediately after that call Stanley Vil- 
 lars had designed so well, and executed so 
 badly. She went back to a home that wanted 
 her to a husband that welcomed her to du- 
 ties that she performed with a flawless exacti- 
 tude that may not be excelled ; and when she 
 was gone, Bella raised her arms over her head, 
 and clasped her hands together, with a child's 
 action of relief when its period of behaving 
 with circumspection is over for a term. 
 
 Mrs. Claude breathed more freely when her 
 sister-in-law left. She had never taken things 
 easily never gone her own way, and suffered 
 her guest to do the like as she would have 
 done with any other relation or intimate friend. 
 From first to last she had treated Mrs. Mark- 
 ham with marked consideration ; and the doing 
 so had only been one degree more laborious to 
 her than to Mrs. Markham. 
 
 Mrs. Markham had quickly detected this re- 
 solve of Bella's to be on guard against anything 
 like careless intimacy with her, and to treat 
 her with such grave, unremitting attention as 
 should be shown by a well-bred hostess to a 
 distinguished but not specially dear denizen of 
 her house. There was nothing absolutely sus- 
 picious on the face of it in this. Nevertheless 
 Mrs. Markham, failing to account for it in the 
 right way, namely, by comprehending the sim- 
 ple truth, which was that Bella didn't like her, 
 imagined that Bella feared her consequently 
 had cause for it. 
 
 But it was in vain she watched for a cause 
 which should appear sufficiently strong, even 
 to her .prejudiced mind, to account for such 
 fear. She watched and waited with a patient 
 assiduity that almost ennobled her task, being 
 truly zealous in the good work of detecting 
 something that might make her brother misera- 
 ble for life. 
 
 However, she watched and waited in vain. 
 It might be a folly, but it could hardly be 
 termed a crime, that Bella should have written 
 to Stanley Villars without her husband's know- 
 ledge. It was a misdirected literary taste 
 which led her to peruse that same gentleman's 
 works of fiction; but not a convincing proof 
 
 of unholy affection for said gentleman. Even 
 Mrs. Markham was obliged to admit these 
 things, and that she -had watched and waited 
 in vain. 
 
 Friendship also made her warmly welcome 
 on her return to her own sphere. Grace 
 Harper was unfeignedly rejoiced to see her, 
 and really made her feel that her stony society 
 was a thing to be sought ; and Grace was an 
 attentive listener to all that had transpired in 
 Major Walsingham's house, and to all that 
 had not transpired about Major Walsingham's 
 wife. 
 
 " I am only sure of one thing, and that is, 
 that it would have been a happy thing for my 
 brother if he had never seen her," Mrs. Mark- 
 ham said, with a sort of solemn satisfaction in 
 being able to fall back upon a strong sentiment 
 that shall not be shaken, that is frequently 
 adopted when facts fail. 
 
 Grace Harper looked up stolidly. In reality 
 she was more excited on this subject than on 
 any other that had ever been brought under 
 her notice; for Claude Walsingham was hale 
 and handsome, powerful and passionate again 
 now. She looked up stolidly, and said 
 
 "Even now, if anything were found out, 
 they might be separated, mightn't they ?" 
 
 Eager as Mrs. Markham had been to find 
 Bella unworthy in ever so small degree pati- 
 ently as she had watched and waited for some- 
 thing wrong the result of such finding and 
 waiting had never shaped itself clearly in her 
 mind before. The blood came up into her face, 
 and she looked less hard than usual, as she ask- 
 ed 
 
 "Do you mean divorced?" 
 
 "They would be, I suppose, if anything " 
 
 Grace was commencing phlegmatically, when 
 Mrs. Markham burst in with 
 
 "Pray God there may never be found a 
 cause for it ! Pray God such disgrace may be 
 averted from my brother and our name ! How 
 could you, Grace ? how could you say it ?" 
 
 Miss Grace offering no explanation, Mrs. 
 Markham went on 
 
 " What right have you to judge her in that 
 way to suspect her, and think, because she 
 has been a nighty girl, that there is any tiling 
 
 " She stopped, choked by her anger and 
 
 pride ; and then Grace spoke. 
 
 " I only drew deductions from what you said 
 yourself, and from those reports one can't take 
 hold of and examine, about her way of going 
 on when she was Miss Vane. I should be as 
 shocked as you could be, Ellen, at anything be- 
 falling Claude." 
 
 In spite of this assertion of hers, Miss Har- 
 per's mind dwelt much on the subject of a sepa- 
 ration .between Major "Walsingham and his wife. 
 She found herself planning out a future for him, 
 did such a thing occur, as she drove home after 
 that visit to Mrs. Markham. In time his father 
 would die. Her father had said but yesterday 
 that " Walsingham, who appeared so well pre- 
 served, would probably break down suddenly, 
 and go off, very much to the surprise of those 
 who regarded him as looking so wonderfully 
 well for his years." And when he died, Claude, 
 his son, would reign in his stead. 
 
 Why, it might be very soon ; and he might 
 would probably settle at the Court, and take 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 119 
 
 his place in the county. The Court would be a 
 good place to come to in order to get over the 
 loss of his wife. 
 
 "The loss of his wife! " She started, stolid 
 as she was, as the words formed themselves, 
 and she thought them out. Then she comfort- 
 ed herself, telling herself that she was not wish- 
 ing evil to Bella : separation, a divorce, might 
 ensue from other causes than Bella being 
 proved guilty. 
 
 Her brain was very busy during the rest of 
 the journey. She saw herself mutely consoling 
 a man who had been wronged by others, anc 
 in time rewarded by that man. Her brain was 
 very busy, even when she reached home, anc 
 retailed to her father and mother during dinner 
 the light, idle gossip of the uneventful day. 
 
 About a week after Mrs. Markham's de 
 parture, Claude and Bella had arranged to go 
 out for a ride together, an unusual thing in 
 those days, and one, therefore, for which Bella 
 prepared herself in good time, in order tha 
 Claude might not be put to the trying test of 
 waiting for her. The consequence of this pre- 
 caution was that she was ready long before it 
 had come to him to think about preparing to go 
 out with her. Therefore, being in her habit, 
 she had nothing for it but to hang about be- 
 tween the rooms, and while away the time, 
 while he kept her waiting. 
 
 She walked well and freely in her habit. 
 The clinging cloth makes no manner of differ- 
 ence to the gait of the woman accustomed to 
 it. She takes longer steps than are hers ordi- 
 narily, that is all. So it came about that she 
 beguiled the tiresome time by moving about 
 and altering the position of a few of her favour- 
 ite ornaments, with*whose place in the world 
 she was never quite satisfied, as was natural. 
 "What woman is ever quite satisfied that the 
 situation of the thing dear to her is not to be im- 
 proved upon ? She walked about the drawing- 
 room, therefore, happily enough for a while as 
 happily, that is, as any woman can walk about 
 and waste the time, when she knows that her 
 horse is awaiting her outside the door, and that 
 the flies are teasing him, and making him im- 
 patient to be off. 
 
 At last she had moved all she could move in 
 the room with effect. She had put the Venus 
 de' Medici on a broad crimson-backed bracket, 
 and the life-size Clytie on a pedestal, and the 
 Venus of Milo on a stand, where the glorious 
 figure looked "not out of place" she never 
 can look that ; but sorry for the world that had 
 no better place to offer her ; grandly compassion- 
 ate to its bad taste ; loyally resigned to a false 
 position. 
 
 When she had achieved these ends Bella 
 grew petulant. "Claude might have remem- 
 bered !" she muttered to herself. " Poor Devil- 
 skin I a sweet temper he'll be in when we do 
 start, after waiting so long!" 
 
 She passed before a glass in order to tip her 
 hat a bit more forward over her brow, and see 
 if the stand-up collar set well. Then she pick- 
 ed up her gloves and whip, and walked with 
 that long, sliding step so suitable to a habit, out 
 of the room, and down into the hall, to be 
 ready there "when Claude came." 
 
 The twelve o'clock postman knocked as she 
 set her foot on the last stair, and she watched 
 
 proceedings lazily, as the man who was wait- 
 ing to let Claude and herself out took the let- 
 ters in, and placed them on a salver on the hall 
 table. It was a practice of hers never to open 
 a letter in the middle of the day. The morning 
 and evening were all-sufficient for such toil. 
 Experience had taught her that a letter lost 
 nothing by waiting, and that answers to effu- 
 sions which came in haste at mid-day might 
 always be deferred with safety. 
 
 However, she had nothing better z'.e., plea- 
 santer to do now than to see what that post 
 had brought her. - So she walked idly up to 
 the table, and commenced burrowing with her 
 doe-skin covered hand (she always rode in doe- 
 skin gloves, the reins did not slip through them) 
 amongst the packet of letters that had just 
 arrived. There were a lot for her husband. 
 These she passed over, merely looking at his 
 name without a second glance. She was a 
 very faulty woman, this Bella; apt to forget 
 what she ought to have remembered, and to 
 remember what she ought to have forgotten. 
 But she had no low curiosity. It was one of 
 the articles in her erring creed of faith, that if 
 her husband desired her to see a thing he would 
 show it to her. If not, she would not seek for 
 it. So now she tossed these letters of his over 
 with a careless hand, and searched for any stray 
 ones that might have arrived for herself just to 
 beguile the time. 
 
 Suddenly she came upon one in a long, nar 
 row, cream-laid envelope, which, she turned 
 over leisurely, thinking that the seal or stamped 
 monogram would tell from whom it came, and 
 so save her the trouble of reading it. There 
 was no stamped monogram, however, and the 
 seal was one of those puerile conceits which 
 belong to nobody in particular. With one lit- 
 tle, impatient glance. at the stairs, down which 
 Claude came not, she broke that seal away and 
 read. 
 
 Such a letter ! No civil invitation ; no false 
 form of inquiry; no friendly platitudes; no 
 tradesman's puff! Any or all of these she 
 would have counted tedious ten minutes be- 
 fore. Any or all of these would have been 
 wildly welcomed by her in place of this mise- 
 rable epistle which she held in her hand. 
 
 It commenced, " My dear Mrs. Walsing- 
 ham ;" and seeing this friendly commencement 
 Bella was led on into the weakness of reading 
 it before looking at the signature. Reading a 
 portion of it that is, an all-sufficient porRn, 
 since it made her brain reel, and her foot trip 
 n her habit as she hurried upstairs again, and . 
 nto the drawing-room she had been lounging 
 about so pleasantly just now. 
 
 The letter told her of things that her brow 
 Durnt to read about ; of things that her heart 
 sank to hear ; of deeds which make a woman 
 shrink from their perpetrator when that perpe- 
 trator is the woman's husband. All Claude's 
 wild oats were brought in a sheaf and placed 
 Defore her in this letter ; and the jealousy of 
 Jady Lexley, which she taught herself to con- 
 sider unjust and unmeaning, was cruelly justi- 
 fied. 
 
 She was told of so many things, poor girl, 
 ,hat Claude would rather have blown his brains 
 3ut than that she should have learnt. And she 
 sat almost paralysed till she came to the end 
 
120 
 
 ON GUARD. 
 
 of the letter and found that it was anon} 
 raous. 
 
 So 1 she could not return it to the writer, as 
 she had hazily resolved to do, without a wore 
 of acknowledgment. She could not meet her 
 (Bella intuitively felt that it was penned by a 
 woman), and cut her and scorn her as such a 
 she-devil deserved to be cut and scorned. 
 Agonized as she had been by that reading, 
 paralysed as her faculties were for the moment, 
 it had not occurred to her to take any other 
 notice of this stab. But now she found that it 
 was a stab in the back, and she must forego 
 the taking such notice as that even. 
 
 For a few moments they were only mo- 
 ments, but they were so long the young wife 
 sat uncertain how to act. Then her colour and 
 her heart rose, and she tore it into a hundred 
 fragments, saying to herself, " Thank God, 
 Claude need never know it!" This was her 
 first active impulse. The doubt what to do 
 had been merely born of passive pain of be- 
 wilderment and surprise. 
 
 No ! he should never know it ! She took it 
 all in now. The pain he would feel at her 
 pain. The sore agony that would be his at her 
 doubting him, or thinking that she had cause to 
 doubt him. She shook off the devil of distrust, 
 and, lighting a taper, burnt every scrap of 'the 
 paper that had told the shameful tale to tinder, 
 and was all herself again, bright, unclouded, 
 sunny, and loving, when he came down at last 
 to ride with her. 
 
 She felt so sorry for having read such things 
 about him ! It seemed to her that she had been 
 so far baser than Claude, the exalted in appear- 
 ance, would have been under the same circum- 
 stances. She had read on to the end. Claude 
 would never have gone beyond the first line 
 that aspersed her. The feeling of being so 
 immeasurably beneath him in point of honour 
 and generosity made her bear on the snaffle 
 with a heavier hand than was her wont, and 
 adapt herself less readily to the curvature of 
 the spine with which Devilskin marked his 
 resentment of the change in her. 
 
 "Now, do be careful, Bella, and don't wob- 
 ble," Claude said, somewhat testily. He was 
 dearly fond of his wife, but they were going 
 into the park now, and he desired that she 
 should have a good seat in the eyes of all men. 
 This spirit of exaction was only another form 
 of the same deep love she was showing for him 
 by^her toleration in regard to this matter which 
 had been thrust before her to-day. 
 
 Bella came down to her saddle tighter than 
 before, as he spoke. She was conscious of an 
 uncertainty of seat and hand this morning, that 
 must, she felt, be equally trying to her husband 
 and her horse. She wished so much to please 
 him now to please him entirely, and without 
 reservation, and to make him feel that she was 
 a good thing for a man to have, even though 
 he had hankered after other things before her. 
 She would no more now have suffered his heart 
 to be made sore by a knowledge of that vile 
 letter than she would have stabbed him with 
 her own hand. It almost seemed to her, as she 
 rode along by his side, that she had been in 
 error ; that she had been the faulty one, to have 
 received such a letter. 
 
 Who ^ad dared to write it? Her heart 
 
 swelled, and her small, well-bred hand grasped 
 the reins with such convulsive energy, that the 
 additional intensity of purpose in the rider 
 communicated itself to the fine nerves of Devil- 
 skin's mouth, and caused him to concentrate 
 himself, and break into a canter that was grand, 
 as far as the appearances went, but of little 
 value where progress was concerned : his feet, 
 that is to say, went up very high, and came 
 down almost precisely in the same spot; and he 
 arched his neck, aqd put at least ten pounds on 
 himself by the way he carried his tail ; and, 
 altogether, made a very pretty little performance. 
 "I say, Bella! that won't do, you know!" 
 Claude exclaimed, holding his own horse in with 
 difficulty, and looking with annoyance at the 
 very questionable effect his wife was producing 
 on the minds of some bystanders. " Stop that 
 Astley business, do!" 
 
 " Then I must give him his head, and then 
 he'll bolt," she replied, getting Devilskin well 
 in hand as she spoke, and evidently not regard- 
 ing the possibility of his bolting in a very 
 serious light. 
 
 "No, he won't! steady, boy, steady! wo- 
 ho, old fellow!" Claude answered, under the 
 mistaken impression that his voice would show 
 Devilskin the folly of it, whatever the " it " 
 might be that Devilskin was contemplating. 
 
 " Come on, Claude, then," she said, brightly, 
 " don't stop at the top, but wheel, and give 
 them a breather all the length of the Row." 
 They were nearing the end of the row by Aps- 
 ley House as she spoke, and, when her husband 
 had agreed, they drew nearer to the left hand 
 rails ; she lowered her hands, and the two 
 horses went off at a fleet gallop, that seemed to 
 bring their riders closer to the earth, and 
 slackened the girths, and made the air whizz as 
 they cut through it. 
 
 They reached the end, and wheeled cleverly, 
 the two horses keeping stride for stride, and 
 neither showing signs of taking trouble about it. 
 Suddenly, both horses swerved ; a woman was 
 crossing, in the idiotic, temper-trying way 
 women will cross the Row, regardless alike of 
 the knees of the horses who are sweeping along, 
 of the necks of the riders, who get many an 
 evil jerk through their means, and of their own 
 stupidly-risked lives. As Tom Hood says, it 
 must be "a horrible thing to be groomed by a 
 horse." Nevertheless, innumerable women, all 
 of the readily-confounded, easily-overpowered, 
 and perpetually-surprised order, do apparently 
 endeavour to test the horror of it daily through- 
 out the season. 
 
 With an impatient exclamation, Claude touch 
 ed his horse with the spur directly the swerve 
 was recovered, and the horse responded freely, 
 and went along even as he had been going 
 Defore. As a slight relief to the feelings which 
 .hat swerve had ruffled, he commenced cursing 
 ,he cause of it aloud to Bella, as he thought ; 
 jut he pulled up on finding Bella did not an- 
 swer him, and riding back a few yards, espied 
 ler at the spot where she had paused, appa- 
 rently for no better purpose than to look after 
 ,he ill-timed human interruption to that deli- 
 iiously soul-and-body-freshening breather they 
 md been having. 
 
 "What is it?" Claude asked affably, riding 
 ack. 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 121 
 
 " I'm sure it's Rock!" she replied. 
 
 "Where?" he asked, less affably. He re- 
 membered that she had given Rock to Stanley 
 Villars, and he did not care to see her betray 
 the smallest further interest in him. It was 
 ungenerous, considering all things ; but, on the 
 other hand, he must be forgiven for not con- 
 sidering "all things," since he was ignorant of 
 many of them. 
 
 " There! following that girl see!" 
 
 " That ass, do you mean, who rushed right 
 across us just now ?" 
 
 " Yes," she ceplied, agreeing, in her haste, to 
 the uncomplimentary epithet he bestowed upon 
 her sister-woman, without the expostulation 
 that might have ensued under ordinary circum- 
 \stances. Then she rode hastily up to the rails, 
 Claude keeping by her side, until she was on a 
 line with the woman who had crossed the Row 
 and had now gained the greensward; and 
 close by that woman a red setter was flaunting 
 along. 
 
 " I'm sure it's Rock," Bella said aloud, lean- 
 ing forward over the near pommel as she spoke. 
 At the sound of the name, a pretty, fair young 
 face was turned towards her inquiringly, and 
 the dog came forward in a series of airy curves, 
 and leapt up on to her habit, showing that ho 
 liked to meet her once more, by the shimmer 
 of his tawny eyes, and the waving of his well- 
 fringed tail. 
 
 " Rock, old dog! Poor boy! see how glad 
 he is, Claude !" 
 
 " Yes, wonderfully ! "Will you come on now ?" 
 
 ! Claude replied, coolly. It did not appear to be 
 
 upon the cards that Rock should come into his 
 
 ; own possession, and he had no morbid feeling 
 
 ' in favour of another man's dog, more especially 
 
 since that dog had become that other man's 
 
 under circumstances that were interesting to 
 
 himself, but not agreeable to look back upon. 
 
 "Yes; wait a minute, though. I wonder 
 how he came here I" she continued, in a lower 
 voice, to her husband. "You know that I 
 gave him to Stanley do you think he is sto- 
 len ?" 
 
 Claude felt uncomfortable. Instinctively he 
 perceived that the young woman with the pret- 
 ty, fair face was not a thief. Let her be what 
 she would, there was not that amount of dia- 
 bolical iniquity in her which is essential to the 
 professed dog-stealer. 
 
 "No, come along nonsense!" Major Wal- 
 singham replied, riding on slowly, and wishing 
 that his wife would not make a " spectacle of 
 herself in this way." 
 
 "But, Claude!" she expostulated, riding after 
 him, and still encouraging Rock to follow with 
 her hand " But, Claude ! do stop ! He's such 
 a dog, to be about with anybodjr. I'm sure 
 Stanley would have taken better care of him, 
 because he's valuable, you see. I will ask her 
 how she came by him." 
 
 The owner of the pretty, fair face was saun- 
 tering along just inside the railings all this 
 time, watching Claude and his wife attentively. 
 The baby-faced beauty had taken very kindly 
 to the big, tawny, loving dog; but she had 
 done so in unconsciousness. Stanley had never 
 told her how Rock became his, nor indeed had 
 she ever cared to enquire as to Rock's antece- 
 dents. But now that a beautiful woman ca- 
 
 ressed the dog as an old familiar friend, and 
 alluded to Stanley as though he had been even 
 as the dog (an old familiar friend, namely), 
 Rock's antecedents became of interest to her 
 instantaneously, and her memory went back 
 jealously to every glance, every word, every 
 touch of affection he had ever bestowed in her 
 sight and hearing on the red setter, Rock. 
 
 " Ask her nothing of the kind. Come along, 
 Bella !" Claude exclaimed, impatiently. " What 
 the devil's the difference to you whether .the dog 
 is stolen or not ?" 
 
 But, in such matters, Bella could still be wil- 
 ful when an opportunity for being so arose. It 
 might be a little thing to Claude that there 
 should be doubt and uncertainty as to whom 
 Rock belonged to now ; but it was not a little 
 thing to her. She had been very fond of the 
 dog, and the dog had been very fond of her, while 
 their union lasted. She had been welcomed bois- 
 terously by him a thousand times in a way that 
 showed her that she had been missed. He had 
 been her own he had been very much admired 
 he seemed so unfeignedly rejoiced to meet her' 
 again to-day, though there was no bone in the 
 case. Besides, it was not a little thing to her 
 that Stanley should have so lightly regarded her 
 present as either to have lost or given it away. 
 Accordingly she was wilful, and would not at- 
 tend to Claude's rather decided suggestion that 
 she should " come along." 
 
 Still leaning forward to pat the dog, who kept 
 jumping up at her horse's side every minute, 
 Mrs. Claude Walsingham turned sharply to the 
 railings, and drew up at about three yards from 
 the woman who was sauntering along over the 
 sunny sward. 
 
 The owner of the lovely, simple face paused 
 and looked straight in the bright, brilliant, 
 beautiful one of her rival looked into it with a 
 child's admiration for what is beautiful, with a 
 child's transient feeling of jealousy, dread, and 
 distrust. Bella glanced at the girl a trifle super- 
 ciliously. " Stanley's landlady's daughter, I 
 should say," she thought. "Impertinence! to 
 take Rock out." " I beg your pardon," she said, 
 aloud, " but I used to know this dog. Can you 
 tell me to whom he belongs now?" And the 
 answer was "The dog belongs to my husband, 
 Mr. Stanley Villars." 
 
 Then Bella was silent, and rode on. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXYI. 
 
 DOUBT. 
 
 IT is not in the heart of man to triumph out- 
 wardly over a fallen, or say tottering, foe, in 
 the " I told you so" strain. That form of con- 
 solation is one specially affected by the gentler 
 sex, who lilt these little lays of love lachry- 
 mosely whenever occasion serves. But though 
 it is not in the heart of man to triumph outward- 
 ly, he has still a certain feeling of sore satisfac- 
 tion when an evil, which attention to his counsel 
 would have obviated, conies, through disregard 
 of that counsel, to pass. 
 
 Major Walsingham had counselled his wife to 
 "come along;" had asked her not to mix her- 
 self up with possible dog-stealing and other 
 
122 
 
 OX GUARD. 
 
 matters in which she had no concern, merely 
 out of a manly dislike to betraying active 
 interest in anything that was out of his own 
 orbit. He had no intense desire to be fully 
 acquainted with Eock's present no loosely- 
 packed, but still valuable to the owner, bundle 
 of memories connected with Rock's past. The 
 girl so idly sauntering along, through the noon- 
 tide heat of an August day, was too pretty, too 
 marked, tawdry, and observation-compelling 
 altogether, for intercourse between her and his 
 well-known Bella to be desirable in that place. 
 Therefore, he had not alone wished, but had 
 told his wife to pass on and be silent. And his 
 wife had developed her old infirmity, wilfulness, 
 and had pulled up effusively to speak to a girl 
 whom she didn't know, about a dog for whom 
 she ought no longer to have cared. 
 
 The punishment came quickly after the of- 
 fence. Delicacy of feeling restrained him from 
 looking direct at her, to see how deep the lash, 
 contained in that single sentence the baby-faced 
 beauty had spoken, cut. But that it had cut, 
 end cut deeply too, he knew, through the 
 agency of that animal magnetism which makes 
 us writhe, and wince, and shiver, when the one 
 we love is doing these things in our immediate 
 atmosphere. For two minutes and a half he 
 felt sympathetically tender towards Bella ; she 
 had " got it," he knew, from a quarter whence 
 she had so little anticipated it. Then he re- 
 flected that Bella had no right to care about 
 Stanley Villars having allied himself to what 
 he (Claude) denominated " a queer lot;" and 
 when he thus reflected, the delicacy which had 
 caused him to refrain from looking at the 
 slightly wounded, deserted him, and he glanced 
 askance at his wife, and grew red and re- 
 sentful. 
 
 Bella's feelings, meanwhile, were mixed ; but 
 the worst ingredients in that mixture were of a 
 nobler sort than Claude imagined them to be. 
 Whenever she had thought about Stanley at 
 all (and she had, woman-like, thought about 
 him several times since she had learnt, through 
 the medium of his writings, that be had it in 
 him to rise and distinguish himself), she had 
 been conscious of a half-hope that the wound 
 she had made would be healed in time. She 
 had thought, in a sketchy, undefined way, that 
 Stanley would get over her defalcation and be 
 happy, after an exalted pattern, with an exalted 
 wife a superior woman, with a lofty forehead 
 and a bone in her nose. A woman whom she 
 (Bella) could respect and like, and never feel 
 an atom jealous of, as being one able to sup- 
 plant her. A woman with money and good 
 connections, and a power altogether of making 
 Stanley thoroughly comfortable. A woman of 
 whom she could never, for one instant, enter- 
 tain the idea that Stanley had loved her, with 
 a duplicate of that passion he had felt for her- 
 self. A woman, sensible, good, and discreet, 
 who would keep Stanley straight, and redeem 
 him from the poverty-stricken bondage and 
 slavery he was now in; and who would be 
 wise enough to -accept the fact that she was 
 powerless to efface from his memory his love's 
 young dream. 
 
 Her feelings were very mixed. This girl, 
 with the face that was lovely as an angel's 
 ay, lovelier than any pictured angel's can be, 
 
 for there was human warmth and womaniy 
 love in it ! this girl was wanting, on the sur- 
 face, in all those attributes with which she, 
 Bella, had accredited the one whom it might 
 be well for Stanley to marry. She was young, 
 lovely, love-inspiring ! but she was not a lady. 
 Stanley's marriage with her had been the result 
 of her effect on his heart ; therefore it was not 
 the offspring of judgment only, as Bella would 
 have liked to think of any alliance he formed. 
 Her heart swelled and her colour rose. To 
 have been cast out from Stanley's heart from 
 the heart of any one who had once loved her 
 by such an one as this. 
 
 They had kept the silence so long after that 
 sentence the baby-faced beauty had uttered, that 
 there was something awkward in breaking it. 
 At length, when Bella did so, she was the first 
 to speak naturally. Claude was conscious of 
 feeling suspicious she was unconscious of any- 
 thing of the kind. 
 
 "Do you think she told the truth, Claude?" 
 she asked abruptly, as their horses went up that 
 slight elevation in the Row at a steady gallop, 
 that admitted of no excuse for further silence, 
 as the stirring trot of a few minutes before had 
 done. "Do you think she told the truth, 
 Claude?" * 
 
 " Probably !" 
 
 "I don't think it probable," Mrs. Walsingham 
 exclaimed determinately. She thought it quite 
 the reverse of probable, in fact; and it seemed 
 to her a mean estimate for Claude to have form- 
 ed of Stanley Villars. 
 
 " It's not worth arguing about. Slacken your 
 curb, Bella ; if you go on pulling at him in that 
 way, he'll serve you a trick some fine day, and 
 be off when you don't expect it." 
 
 "But it is worth arguing about, Claude. I'm 
 interested in Stanley's well-being still, whatever 
 you may be ; and I do think, after all, that you 
 might feel a little for him." 
 
 " My feeling for him wouldn't do any good ; 
 he has chosen his own path ; for God's sake let 
 him follow it in peace." 
 
 " How can I how can you expect me to be 
 so indifferent about an old friend?" she asked, 
 almost piteously. 
 
 " I thought the old flame of friendship had 
 died out. If it hasn't, and its ashes are liable 
 to burst out into a blaze at any moment, I can 
 only say that it will be unpleasant for me." 
 
 She shook her head vehemently, and drew 
 Devilskin nearer to his side. 
 
 " Not for you, Claude don't say that ; what- 
 ever you may be, you're not ungenerous." 
 
 He made no reply. To him ii seemed that 
 she was begging the question. He did not re- 
 cognise the truth, which was, that the qualities 
 she most adored, she strove to deck her hus- 
 band in. 
 
 "You're not that," she repeated; "besides, 
 if I may not speak to you about a thing, to 
 whom may I speak?" 
 
 " Couldn't you hold your tongue about it ?" 
 he suggested, quietly. In his heart he was sorry 
 that things should be going so utterly wrong as 
 they appeared to be going with Stanley Villars. 
 But he remembered the past, and it went against 
 his taste to the dictates of which he paid more 
 attention than to those of his heart that his 
 wife should mix herself up, identify herself in 
 
1 
 
 ON GUARD. 
 
 123 
 
 any way, with Stanley's dearer interests. Add- 
 ed to this feeling, which he would have experi- 
 enced under any circumstances, there was the 
 natural shrinking a man would be sure to feel 
 against aught dubious coming in contact with 
 one dear and precious to him. Now Bella was 
 very dear and precious to him, for all his occa- 
 sional lack of judgment in his treatment of her. 
 She was very dear and precious to him, and 
 there was a very dubious air about the baby- 
 faced beauty who was sauntering through the 
 sunbeams. 
 
 Major Walsingham asked, " Couldn't you hold 
 your tongue about it?" in a quiet, amiably 
 superior, tolerant-to-your-weakness way, that it 
 is hard to listen to and maintain repose. He 
 intended his remark to be taken as a definite 
 and satisfactory conclusion to the subject by 
 Bella. He meant it to stop further discus- 
 sion, to wind up the matter gracefully, leaving 
 her in the position of one whose erring judgment 
 had been set straight, and who was silently 
 grateful, as became one conscious of inferiority 
 in experience and mind. But this was Bella's 
 misfortune. She did not think about Claude's 
 larger experience, and had she thought about it 
 at all, she would have been in doubt as to his 
 having the larger mind of the two. Had she 
 felt that he did possess it, sorely as she might 
 have disliked his snubbing her, she would have 
 known through it all that he was to be obeyed, 
 and so would have stood it better. As it was, 
 she fretted under his assumption of power and 
 superiority, even as her horse fretted under the 
 curb, of which she was giving him more than a 
 touch. 
 
 "No, I can't hold my tongue about it, 
 Claude; and why should I? Her 'husband, 
 Mr. Stanley Villars,' indeed ! Couldn't we find 
 out about him ? It will be shocking if he has 
 married in such a way ! Shocking for Florry !" 
 
 He laughed. They were walking their horses 
 now, and on across the grass their eyes would 
 travel after the forms of the woman and the 
 dog who had given rise to the discussion. 
 
 " You were not always so careful of Florry's 
 feelings," he said. 
 
 " It was love for you made me careless then; 
 come, sir! " 
 
 She turned her face to him as she said it, and 
 the softened light in her eyes, the heightened 
 colour on her cheeks, and, above all, that mar- 
 vellous inflection of the voice which cannot be 
 affected, did its rightful work. 
 
 "My dear girl, I know that," he replied; 
 " show your love for me, dear, by not disturbing 
 yourself and bothering me about what is done 
 and can't be helped. Stanley has chosen his 
 own path it mayn't be a pleasant one, but it's 
 one from which you can't turn him ; and it isn't 
 pleasant for me to hear you always going into 
 rhapsodies about him ; the day's gone by for 
 your being his guardian angel." 
 
 She looked at him keenly, in the attempt to 
 discover whether jealousy had a share in the 
 feeling which prompted him to utter these 
 words, or not. He ought not to have been 
 jealous of her of her who had put the paltry 
 feeling so entirely out of court about him. Her 
 love for him was to the full as deep and true as 
 his for her ; and still, poison-fraught as was that 
 letter she had received this morning, it had 
 
 caused her no pang save the one grand one that 
 any person could have deemed her weak and 
 base enough to be influenced against her hus- 
 band for one instant without sufficient cause. 
 Whereas he was jealous now of her openly be- 
 traying that she still felt an interest in whether 
 Stanley Villars sank or swam. He sat hia 
 horse like a centaur, and she had run the gaunt- 
 let of opposition for his dear sake ; yet for all 
 these things (and they were mighty links) she 
 wished that he possessed more magnanimity. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 A HARD CASE. 
 
 WE have probably all heard that the merry, 
 merry sunshine makes the heart so gay. It is 
 an axiom that has been set to music, and har- 
 mony always imparts an appearance of truth to 
 a statement. When the sentiment is trilled out 
 by a songstress in satin under a glaring gase- 
 lier, it naturally strikes us as veracious. The 
 heat of the sun in the open anything, any- 
 where! is sure to be regarded as enviable, 
 even as gaiety-provoking, when our heads are 
 throbbing from artificial heat, strongly impreg- 
 nated with patchouli. 
 
 But there are certain conditions of mind 
 when the merry, merry sunshine stabs rather 
 than soothes. When we are unappreciated, un- 
 successful, uncared for. When the light of love 
 has gleamed over us, and for some reason 
 gleams over us no longer. When the present 
 is very dark and dull, and there seems to be 
 nothing better in store. When all the hopes 
 we ever had, lowly as they may have been, are 
 fading fast. When the sense of our own ina- 
 bility is upon us crushingly, and we perceive 
 the wounding truth that we are powerless of 
 ourselves to help ourselves. When we feel left 
 behind not alone that, but trampled down by 
 Fate, against whom we sulkily acknowledge 
 that it is useless to struggle. When any or all 
 of these things are, how terrible is the sun- 
 shine ! 
 
 I suppose that we have all felt the terror of 
 it all of us, at least, who have temporal hopes, 
 fears, and aspirations beyond the day. The 
 brightness of it mocks, and the warmth of it 
 burns us, and the glory of it irradiates each one 
 but ourselves. We lose sight of the fact, that 
 all these sensations are born of our own sense 
 of defeat, perhaps or of dyspepsia, or disap- 
 pointment therefore we do not look further 
 back for causes, and discern that each one of 
 these things is probably the offspring of incom- 
 petence, unworthiness, or more likely still of 
 a weakness of will, a faltering of purpose, which 
 prevented our grasping and retaining firmly 
 that which we desired to have. All things 
 come to him who knows how to wait. All 
 things are to be had by him who knows how 
 to take. 
 
 " He either fears his fate too much, 
 
 Or his deserts are small, 
 Who dares not put it to the touch. 
 And win or lose it all." 
 
 That which has been done before may be done 
 again; but there are certain phases of feeling 
 
124 
 
 ON GUARD. 
 
 when one loses sight of this fact, be one's de- 
 termination to win eventually what it may. 
 It is while in the state of bodily and mental 
 languor that these phases produce, that the 
 merry, merry sunshine becomes a trifle over- 
 powering, and altogether a thing from which to 
 shrink, as one that places your misery in a 
 stronger light. 
 
 Now, poor Marian Villars had no particular 
 will, and no design of life worth carrying out, 
 even had the will to do so been hers. Had 
 things been bright and well with her, had her 
 home been happy, and her husband loving, and 
 her wardrobe well furnished, she would have 
 been as blithe as a bird even when a fog was 
 hovering over the land. But none of these 
 things were, nor were they likely to be, as far 
 as she could see, and her lights led her tolera- 
 bly correctly. Therefore depression reigned in 
 her soul, and the sunshine could not remove it. 
 There was no gaiety in the heart of the poor 
 pretty little saunterer through the sunbeams ; 
 the latter merely made the fact of her cloak 
 being rusty and her dress shabby more patent 
 to her. 
 
 She had come out this day for a walk, be- 
 cause the monotony of sitting at home, sur- 
 rounded by ugliness, and stifled by the heat, 
 had become almost unbearable. Stanley had 
 asked her to "go out and get a little air," too, 
 partly because he fancied that, like a bird, she 
 was pining for the sunshine, and partly because 
 she had a restless way of moving about in the 
 room, causing his brain to reel 
 
 His brain often reeled now, poor fellow! 
 He told himself that it was the heat, and that 
 when the winter came he should be all right 
 again more especially if he could take that 
 "little rest" which amiable outsiders were 
 always recommending to him in the fervent 
 way people do recommend things which, if 
 accepted, will cost them nothing. But in the 
 meantime that reeling of the brain was a hard 
 thing to bear. 
 
 Day by day the dread grew and strengthened 
 within him that he was missing his chance 
 doing himself an injustice which he could never 
 recall burning his candle at both ends wast- 
 ing material which, if properly managed, might 
 have made such a blaze as should have com- 
 manded observation. Day by day this dread 
 grew and strengthened within him, until it 
 attained such power, that to think of it was 
 to paralyse his hand and numb his faculties, 
 and drive him to seek oblivion in anything 
 that came to hand so hastening the end he 
 feared. 
 
 He was getting irritably alive to sounds; 
 not only to those which render day hideous in 
 the streets, but to such as were partly the 
 conjurations of his own brain. Noise and 
 pressure, that was all he suffered from, he 
 Baid, when any one had time to ask him, 
 "What was the matter?" or "Whether he 
 wasn't quite right ?" Noise and pressure ! 
 that was all. 
 
 Heads editorial heads had been shaken 
 once or twice over the results of several hours 
 of his hardest and most earnest labour, and he 
 had been entreated sharply to write more care- 
 fully more coherently more as if he had 
 something to say and were capable of saying 
 
 it. At last, the day before Bella and Rock 
 met in the park, he was given to understand 
 by the ruling pow.er of a journal to whose 
 staff he was attached, that he might go his 
 ways without let or hindrance from them. 
 " His writings had been ravings merely lately," 
 he was told, "and the public wouldn't stand 
 them." 
 
 Dreamily he accepted his dismissal hazily 
 he held that there was justice in the fiat which, 
 pronounced, left him a more completely ruined 
 man than he had been before. A little sooner 
 or a little later, it was of small consequence. 
 The end that was inevitable that he had felt 
 for some time to be inevitable would come. 
 He would fall and be forgotten, and the place 
 where he fell would be unmarked 1 He went 
 home with his head aching, as the head whose 
 brain is overtasked will ache, and lay down, 
 caring little whether or not he should ever rise 
 up again. 
 
 There had been a little balm brought even 
 to him in the evening. One of his own frater- 
 nity a man who was living a from-hand-to- 
 mouth existence by his pen, and living it in a 
 light-hearted way, as yet came and stirred 
 him up, sacrificing his own leisure to the by no 
 means easy task, and not alone offering to do 
 him good service, but doing it. 
 
 " It will be all right, old boy," he said to 
 Stanley, in reference to that dismissal from the 
 journal, which had left him in a worse plight 
 than before. "It will be all right, old boy; 
 they've put me on in your place for a few 
 
 Stanley looked at him vaguely. It mattered 
 very little to him by whom he was superseded, 
 since he held himself dismissed. He believed 
 the man meant it kindly; but it was a queer 
 form for kindness to take, the promotion being 
 on the occasion of his (Stanley's) downfall. 
 
 " Only for a few days only to keep it open 
 for you," his colleague went on quickly. "I 
 tell you what; it's all settled. I've arranged 
 up there" ("up there" meant the office of the 
 newspaper) " that I'll do your work till you're 
 all right again, on the understanding that you'll 
 do mine by-and-by when I knock up ; do you 
 see?" 
 
 Stanley felt very wooden about the head, but 
 he contrived to nod, and say "Yes." Dimly 
 he felt that "that young fellow Bligh" was 
 being kind and generous to him but only 
 dimly. 
 
 " So that's all arranged then, and don't 
 bother yourself about it any more," Bligh went 
 on, as cheerily as he could, with the conviction 
 oppressing him that "poor Villars would never 
 do any fellow's work, or his own either." He 
 had seen this thing creeping over other men 
 before, but he had never been touched as now, 
 for the men had been older than Stanley Villars, 
 and their breaking down more gradual. 
 
 Very quietly, for a few hours, did Stanley 
 resign himself to the repose which was thrust 
 upon him. But the next day he grew restless, 
 and declared that while he lived he must write. 
 Then the stabbing and the reeling assailed him 
 afresh, and he became agonizingly alive to the 
 lightest sound in the room. Then it was that 
 he begged Marian to go out for a walk. " Do 
 go and leave me to myself, dear, till 1 have 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 125 
 
 done this," he said, letting his pen stray down 
 and then ramble over a slip ; " and take that 
 dog." Rock's regular breathing fell upon some- 
 thing in the top of his head as the incessant 
 droppings of water might have done. When 
 he was left, he drank brandy with laudanum in 
 it till the present passed from him, and he 
 found himself once more in a broad old rose- 
 embowered window, at the feet of Bella Yane. 
 
 He was haggard, wild-eyed, terrible to look 
 upon, when his wife came home. " You have 
 been working till your head aches again, Stan- 
 ley," she said complainingly ; "and so does 
 mine the sun's so hot to-day." 
 
 " Is it ?'' he asked absently. 
 
 "Is it! How can you say that? And oh! 
 how can you bear to sit with it pouring down 
 on your head in that way?" Then she turned 
 to the table on which their dinner was already 
 placed, and asked him, " Would he not come 
 and have some ?" 
 
 " No," he replied peevishly. And I wish, 
 Marian, you would teach that girl not to come 
 in to this room ; her elbows are enough to 
 drive a man mad." 
 
 The girl's the luckless maid-of-all-work's 
 elbows had always been a sore point with 
 Stanley, as obviously they were sore points 
 with their unhappily raw-boned possessor. 
 They protruded themselves into everything 
 they courted observation, it appeared to him. 
 Those elbows, and the way their owner had of 
 charging at the stairs, and then stumbling up 
 or down them, as the case might be, had been 
 colossal tributary streams to the ocean of his 
 woe. He had been ready to beseech the girl, 
 more than once, to pull her sleeves down and 
 pick up her feet to cultivate a higher action, 
 in fact. But he had never done it, and now 
 the sight and the hearing of her had become 
 unendurable. 
 
 " She shall not come near you again, Stanley," 
 the poor little wife half sobbed. " I'd send her 
 away, dear, for I hate her, and her elbows, too 
 but I have no money left." 
 
 Instinctively he put his hand in his pocket 
 and pulled out his purse. " Then pay her get 
 rid of her at once," he said, handing it to his 
 wife. When she opened it her face fell a little, 
 and a few tears came into her eyes. 
 
 " What is it ? " he asked carelessly. 
 
 "It's empty, Stanley," she said, showing it 
 to him. 
 
 " Then I have no money left either, and 
 and" and then he burst into tears. As he 
 wept on a change came over her ; those tears 
 of his touched that " right chord" in her which 
 is, I believe, in every human being ; and the 
 thrill it caused strung her up to do the work 
 that was needed of her. 
 
 Her little idle dreams, her little venial vani- 
 ties, her little childish discontents and repin- 
 ings, vanished into thin air before this woe 
 which she felt to be coming upon him upon 
 them both. She got up, fraught with that feel- 
 ing of concealment, that beautiful deceit which 
 God gives to women in such hours as these 
 got up and went over to him, seeming not to 
 see his grief, not to be affected by it, smiling 
 and being at once brighter and softer than she 
 had ever been before. 
 
 For a time, a brief time, she soothed him 
 
 strangely. He forgot his rapidly-increasing in- 
 capacity, he forgot that he had no money in 
 his purse no prospect in his profession no 
 friends in the world, as she sat on a low stool 
 by the side of the couch on which he had 
 stretched himself, and talked him into the 
 dreamy state he had been in when first he 
 opened his eyes upon her away in the little 
 house by the Regent's Park. 
 
 "Marian, pet!" he said to her at last, "if it 
 were not for what is before you, poor child, I 
 couldn't be thankful enough for having married 
 you." 
 
 Then the change that had come upon her 
 when he shed those hot tears deepened, and 
 she almost coo'd forth a low, murmuring an- 
 swer that was like a song of gratitude and 
 love. 
 
 But their case was very hard ! 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 ENGAGED. 
 
 THERE was much sober satisfaction in Sir 
 Gerald Villars' house. Florence had repaid all 
 Lady Villars' care and anxiety. Florence had 
 approved herself sweet and amenable to good 
 advice, as Lady Villars had always trusted that 
 she would do some day or other. Florence, in 
 a word, was going to be married I 
 
 The bridegroom elect a Mr. Chester was 
 as different as light from darkness, milk from 
 brandy, from her first love, Claude Walsing- 
 ham. He was a handsome young man, tall, 
 with beautiful eyes, and a booby. 
 
 He had been a playmate of Lady Villars' in 
 her childish days, a "great friend" of the im- 
 maculate Carrie's in her girlish unmarried ones. 
 Since her marriage with Sir Gerald, Fred Ches- 
 ter had been given the freedom of her house. 
 He came in and out like a tame dog ; he was so 
 very inoffensive. ^ 
 
 In addition to being inoffensive he was very 
 kind-hearted. Florence had melted towards 
 him because he looked depressed whenever 
 Stanley was spoken of. She thought that it 
 was warm feeling and tender interest for Stan- 
 ley which caused this depression. In reality, 
 it arose from a shadowy notion he had that he 
 ought to say something, and an utter inability 
 to think of anything to say on the subject. 
 However, his looks touched Florence. He 
 would never, she felt sure of that, keep a sister 
 from a dearly-loved brother merely because 
 that brother was under a cloud. He would 
 help her to seek, and redeem (if redemption 
 were necessary, which she doubted), and make 
 Stanley happy and comfortable again! This 
 conviction, and a certain feeling of being an 
 incubus upOn Carrie, of which she could not 
 dispossess herself, swayed her. So when Fred 
 Chester proposed to her she accepted him; 
 Lady Villars having paved the way well for 
 him, by telling her sister-in-law many times 
 during the week previous to said proposal, that 
 " her own sisters wanted to come and stay 
 with her ; but of course, though she wished it 
 very much, she couldn't have them yet." And 
 when Florence asked "Why not?" she had 
 
J26 
 
 ON GUARD. 
 
 gone on to say, " When you are married I shall 
 be able to, but Gerald wouldn't like the house 
 be sistered in that way." 
 
 Florence's heart went out more tenderly than 
 ever to Stanley after it thus being made mani- 
 fest that she was not too highly prized by the 
 brother who was left. She began to feel in the 
 way ; she began to yearn for a stand-point of 
 her own, from whence she should dare to stretch 
 out her hand to Stanley. Here she was ham- 
 pered by a dozen of those heavy chains which, 
 though invisible to the casual visitor, too often 
 eat into the flesh of the denizen on sufferance in 
 a house. Gerald himself was kind and loving 
 to her, but he did not "notice things," and he 
 had a pious horror of Carrie being upset. Flo- 
 rence was a very soft and gentle woman. Had 
 she been other, she could easily have brought 
 her sister-in-law to understand that she gave 
 fair payment by her presence for all favours re- 
 ceived. But she was meek, and with the meek 
 Lady Yillars was apt to be merciless. 
 
 In reality. Lady Villars meant very kindly 
 by her husband's sister. It seemed to her a sad 
 and a sorrowful thing that Florence should be 
 suffered to pursue her path in solitude any 
 longer; therefore any gentle spurrings that 
 might urge her to quit said path, Lady Villars 
 deemed herself perfectly justified in administer- 
 ing. It was for Florence's good she desired to 
 see her with an active, living, present interest 
 once more. "When Florence had this she would 
 leave off mutely raking over those ashes of the 
 past her shattered girlish devotion to her 
 brother and to her brother's friend. 
 
 Moreover, Lady Villars was a woman on 
 whom the claims of her own kindred pressed 
 strongly. She had three sisters three fair un- 
 wedded young beings, all with short noses and 
 plump faces, and a marked disinclination to re- 
 main longer than was absolutely necessary in 
 maiden meditation. 
 
 " It does seem unkind never to have the girls 
 to stay with me," she would say to Florence; 
 " I am sure they would be very much admired." 
 On which poor Florence would feel guiltily that 
 her unmarried presence in her own brother's 
 house was held by her brother's wife to be 
 detrimental to that lady's sisters. 
 
 There was kindness to a certain degree, and 
 vast magnanimity, in Lady Villars ordaining 
 that Fred Chester should marry Florence. He 
 was very tractable, and would have bowed him- 
 self at the feet of one of the short-faced beauties 
 had the word of command been given. But it 
 was not given, for Lady Villars had ideas on 
 the subject of justice ; and it appeared to her 
 only fair that Florence, being the sister of the 
 head of the house, should be given the first 
 chance. 
 
 So Florence was given it, and Florence took 
 it not very gladly it must be admitted, but 
 gratefully nevertheless. She had no ecstatic 
 notions of beatitude resulting to herself from 
 this marriage such notions faded away from 
 her for ever the day she heard Bella was to 
 marry Claude but she did hope great things 
 from it for Stanley. For Fred Chester was 
 wealthy and tractable, and he always, as I have 
 said before, looked depressed when Stanley was 
 spoken about. 
 
 It was now August, and they were to be 
 
 married in the first week in September, then to 
 go off and be happy on the Continent for a 
 month, and then return in October to Fred 
 Chester's place in Suffolk for the partridge shoot- 
 ing. It was a long time to be out of town. 
 They would not be back till January. Florence 
 grew brave as she thought of it, and determined 
 that she would ask Fred to take her to see 
 Stanley. It would be best to obey him in 
 future ; the onus was off her of attending longer 
 to Lady Villars' ideas. 
 
 But Lady Villars had been beforehand with 
 her. "If Florence dear girl! she has some 
 sentimental notions wants you to countenance 
 her intercourse with Stanley, don't do it, Fred," 
 she had said to her favourite vassal. 
 
 " No, I think she'd better not, because there's 
 something wrong, by Jove ! or he'd have turned 
 up before now," Mr. Chester replied. On which 
 Lady Villars nodded her fair little head and 
 threw up her short nose, and said 
 
 " Yes low connection I believe ; misfortune 
 he has been to his family; I never did like 
 him." Hearing which Fred Chester became de- 
 pressed as usual when he had nothing further 
 to say on a topic. 
 
 There were those extant who said that in 
 days gone-by Lady Villars had not disliked the 
 younger brother. But she had always been a 
 prudent girl ; so, when he passed her by heed- 
 lessly, and the elder brother proposed, she took 
 to seeing Stanley's faults, and cured herself, as 
 was wise -and well. 
 
 So when Florence asked her betrothed "if 
 she mightn't go and see her brother now ?" he 
 cast her down into the depths by replying 
 
 " Well, I think not yet, Flo ; it will be bette 
 to wait to wait a little, you know." 
 
 " But waiting only widens the distance be 
 tween us. Just fancy what he'll feel if he hear; 
 from any one else that I am going to be mar- 
 ried!" Florence said, pleadingly. 
 
 "It will be all right by-and-by," Fred said, 
 in a down-hearted way, that belied his words. 
 He could not bear the Stanley Villars question, 
 for the simple reason that it was made a vexed 
 one between his paragon Lady Villars, and his 
 future bride. Had Carrie not put her veto upon 
 it, he would have drifted away amiably into 
 the most distasteful purlieus of our great metro- 
 polis in search of Stanley, had Florence ordered 
 him to do so. As it was, straight sailing ap- 
 peared impossible, and he was not gifted with 
 the tacking mind. 
 
 "That's what Gerald and Carrie always say," 
 Florence replied, mournfully. "All right by- 
 and by ! They have tried to comfort me with 
 that assurance for months!" 
 
 "They know best, you see," Fred Chester 
 said, persuasively, looking at her with the clear, 
 large, well-shaped, blue eyes, that were so per- 
 fect in form and deficient in expression in the 
 expression of that sympathy which she craved. 
 
 "I had so set my heart on seeing him 
 now, and introducing you to him !" Florence 
 said, trying to feel that warmth of interest in 
 Fred which the latter part of his sentence im 
 plied. 
 
 "Oh, you'll see him by-and-by, Flo; but at 
 present they must be careful, you know, and 
 try to guard you from the least thing that isn't 
 quite you know " 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 127 
 
 "That's one of Carrie's sentiments," Florence 
 cried, with a sudden flash of spirit. Patiently 
 had she suffered herself to be dictated to by 
 Carrie the dictatorial ; but she could not suffer 
 it patiently from the man who was to be her 
 husband. " That's one of Carrie's sentiments," 
 she said, almost fiercely. I believe that there 
 is nothing sweeter, softer, more gentle, lovable, 
 and harmonious in humanity, than one of these 
 richly-coloured women, with golden brown hair, 
 and luscious, melting, tawny eyes, like a setter's. 
 But they can develop determination and spirit 
 ay, and even angry resentment, when tried too 
 far. 
 
 It was trying her too far now. Florence felt, 
 that it was, as she reflected on how her husband 
 was to be made the instrument of her more 
 complete separation from her brother. She 
 could not be patient any logger. This was 
 such a low form for rightful authority to take. 
 
 "Carrie is generally right," the lover said, 
 somewhat abjectly. He cared very much for 
 Florence, but he could not forget that Lady 
 Villars had had a habit of ordering him about, 
 and regulating his opinions for many years. 
 
 " But you can judge for yourself, Fred. Say 
 now do you think it right that I should fall off 
 from my own darling brother because other 
 friends fell off from him when his fortunes 
 failed 1" She asked it earnestly of him, laying 
 her white hand on his arm as she spoke, and 
 Fred Chester began to think that there was 
 something in that view of the case, by Jove ! 
 but for all that conviction, to wish that Lady 
 Villars would come in and help him out of this 
 difficulty I 
 
 " Yes ; I can judge for myself," he said, 
 with a small, self-satisfied air, that was too 
 little for his person^ and too big for his mind. 
 "I can judge for myself, Flo any man can do 
 that!" 
 
 " Any man should do it," she said, quickly. 
 " Come now a bargain, Fred ! In every other 
 matter I will be guided entirely by you ; but let 
 my heart guide you in this; let me see my, 
 brother not once or twice, but always freely 
 as a sister should see her brother if you love 
 me?" 
 
 The handsome young man with the beautiful 
 eyes was embarrassed. Willingly, with all his 
 heart and soul, would he have made this com- 
 pact with " Flo" had not Carrie loomed before 
 him an avenging spirit, prone to be down 
 upon any weakness committed by other than 
 herself. He felt like a booby, and he looked 
 like a booby, as he sat silent in his embarrass- 
 ment. I think Florence would have done more 
 wisely had she resolved upon steering her own 
 bark. 
 
 "We'll talk about it another time, Flo," he 
 pleaded presently. " You don't know, you see, 
 and I can't tell you, you see ; but Carrie seems 
 to think that you had better let things rest for 
 a time." 
 
 " And if I let them 'rest ' now, will you do 
 what I ask by-and-by ?" she cried. 
 
 "Yes oh, of course, dear!" and then he 
 kissed Florence, and she shrank and shuddered 
 as his lips touched her brow, and tried to make 
 herself believe that she only did so because 
 these kisses were such very new things. 
 
 Lady Villars got hold of "him before he quit- 
 
 ted the house after that interview with Florence. 
 The gentle Carrie sent for him to her own little 
 sitting-room, with the friendly design of making 
 him feel what a delightful woman she was her- 
 self to have for a confidante, and of strengthen- 
 ing the purpose Florence might have under- 
 mined. 
 
 " You can sit there, Fred," she said, pointing 
 to a low stool, a seat on which brought the oc- 
 cupier to a level with her feet ; " you can sit 
 there, Fred ; and you shall have some tea with 
 me, won't you ?" 
 
 "No; I don't want the tea," he said, taking 
 the seat she indicated, and bringing his beauti- 
 ful eyes to bear upon her without the slightest 
 meaning in them ; " but I want to talk to you 
 you're such a sensible woman, and can tell a 
 fellow what he ought to do. There's Flo got it 
 into her head that she ought to run after her 
 brother Stanley, you know ; and I don't care, 
 you know, only " 
 
 " Only, of course, you wouldn't you couldn't 
 allow her to do it. Oh, no ! I quite see your 
 objections," Lady Villars interrupted, sweetly. 
 
 " No : you see the fact is, I was thinking 
 that you could put it to her, you know, if it had 
 better not be, you see at least, not now." 
 
 " Certainly not now, Fred ; your wife com- 
 promise herself by mixing herself up with that 
 young profligate's low intrigue !" Lady Villars' 
 voice almost fizzed as she said " profligate ;" it 
 was so nice to apply this term to the man who 
 had passed her over. 
 
 " That would be rather out of the way, by 
 Jove ! But I don't think she quite wanted 
 that," Fred Chester remarked, meditatively. 
 
 " Oh, she doesn't know what she wants dear 
 girl !" Carrie said, with a plain snap, the epithet 
 coming in as an ornamental after-thought. 
 "Florence is very young, you know, and we 
 must guard her, since she is incapable ; in fact, 
 it isn't to be desired that she should be alive to 
 all the danger; but then, toe know." 
 
 "To be sure we know!" Fred Chester re- 
 plied, with a sapient air, that was refreshing 
 to behold, if you were not going to be allied 
 to him. 
 
 "If you took my advice," Lady Villars went 
 on, in a sweet, small voice, "it may not be 
 worth much but it's well meant " 
 
 She paused, and Fred took the opportunity 
 of observing that he knew its value as well as 
 any fellow ; that he really would take it (and 
 so would Florence) gladly. 
 
 " Then, if you really care for my poor opi- 
 nion," Lady Villars resumed, sweetly, "I should 
 say, keep our dear Florence away from Stan- 
 ley's influence. It would be ridiculous to affect 
 before you anything but a full knowledge of the 
 brilliant yes, brilliant future that awaits our 
 darling." (Lady Villars grew as tenderly tear- 
 ful at this point as regard for the hue of her 
 short nose, which was apt to become inflamed, 
 would permit.) "It would also be unfair to 
 you not to tell you that Florence's tendency to 
 generosity amounts to weakness positive weak- 
 ness ! and to warn you that it may be played 
 upon to your cost by those who have influence 
 over her." 
 
 Fred Chester felt himself to be a mark for 
 foul designs, all of a mercenary order, on the 
 spot. Of course he was much too sharp to be 
 
128 
 
 ON GUARD. 
 
 taken in he had that satisfactory self-assur- 
 ance! But he would show Florence that he 
 was the master, and that he was not disposed 
 to lavish his red, red gold on unworthy objects ! 
 
 He made this intention clear to Lady Yillars, 
 sitting at that sensible matron's feet, in the soli- 
 tude of her little room, and looking at her with 
 his beautiful eyes, in which was no dangerous 
 meaning. When he had done that, Lady Yil- 
 lars sent him away; he was apt to become 
 tedious after ten minutes, for all his good looks, 
 if the truth be told. 
 
 If the truth be told about all things, too, it 
 must be admitted that Florence had made a 
 mistake a second mistake and a far larger 
 one than that she had made about Claude Wal- 
 singham. It was only her heart that had been 
 deceived in her intercourse with the man who 
 had been in action and come out scatheless 
 dozens of times, only to fall at last before Bella 
 Yane ! It was only her heart that had led her 
 astray then. But now her head, her judgment, 
 her knowledge of a by no means profound cha- 
 racter, were all at fault. The wish the hope 
 that he would go hand in hand with her about 
 Stanley was father to the thought and belief 
 that he would do so ; and now that she had 
 gone too far to recede now that she had 
 pledged herself, and made herself believe that 
 she loved him now that her sister-in-law had 
 lavished sums at Marshall and Snelgrove's, and 
 held countless consultations with Elise, and told 
 everybody " what a delightful match it was 
 quite a marriage of affection " now she disco- 
 vered that, as Mrs. Chester, she would be as far 
 from Stanley as she was at present I There 
 would be a double guard over her to save her 
 from the imaginary harm. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 "THOSE ROSES!" 
 
 "WE left Stanley Yillars, and the poor, pretty, 
 helpless little girl whom he had married, to his 
 own immediate cost and her ultimate sorrow, in 
 a very evil case. Things had come to a very 
 terrible pass with him on that August day when 
 last we looked upon him. Now, a little later in 
 the month, there was a ray of hope lighting up 
 even his dim, dull, dark path. 
 
 It did not radiate from Florence. Had that 
 once cherished sister realised how sadly he sick- 
 ened for her whenever he did think of aught 
 beyond the murky, miserable present, she would 
 surely have burst the rotten chains they loaded 
 her with for safety's sake, and have gone to him, 
 and essayed to offer him such comfort as could 
 still be shed upon that wasted, misused mind of 
 his. Had she known him as he was, lying 
 there, day after day, in poverty, peevishness, 
 and almost solitude, she would she must have 
 got herself together, for the leap that should 
 carry her free of all the prejudices that held her 
 from him. 
 
 Late on the night of that day when we looked 
 upon them last, Stanley Yillars made a solemn 
 request Of his wife. " Promise me one thing, 
 pet," he said he had grown strangely fond of 
 and tender to her since he had begun to fear 
 
 what was coming upon her in her youth through 
 him " Promise me one thing, pet." 
 
 "Anything you ask me, Stanley," she said, 
 with a little tremble. 
 
 " You'll never, let what will come, make any 
 appeal to my family. God ! I couldn't stand 
 that!" He asked it almost fiercely, and she 
 shook as she answered 
 
 "Never!" 
 
 " They I don't blame them, mind but they 
 don't want to have more to do with me ; and I 
 won't have them refuse you anything, poor 
 child," he went on bitterly. 
 
 " Your sister Florence was very fond of you, 
 wasn't she ?" Marian asked, with a little, fever- 
 ish feminine desire to hear something about the 
 mighty family into which she had married the 
 family who utterly scouted her. 
 
 " She was fond of me, poor Florence 1 but 
 that's past evidently." 
 
 " How ? why do you say so ?" 
 
 "I have written to her, and had no answer," 
 he said with a sob. " There, let's have done 
 with the subject. It's the hardest thing of all 
 that they should have turned that loving child 
 from me utterly. Swear to me by your soul, 
 Marian, that you'll make no appeal take no- 
 thing from one of them come what may !" 
 
 He was almost choked by the emotion with 
 which he asked it. She hastened eagerly to 
 give him the assurance he sought. 
 
 This conversation had taken place on the 
 night of that day when Marian had sauntered 
 out with Rock and seen Bella. When we see 
 them again, a week or ten days later, things 
 looked a little brighter. 
 
 Stanley's novel the one he had been run- 
 ning through the magazine had come out, and 
 reviewers had been generous, as it decidedly is 
 the wont of the majority to be when aught like 
 merit can be discerned. He was very weakly, 
 and worn, and weary, in these days ; but Bligh, 
 the kindly, hard-working young fellow, who 
 was stopping the gap, and keeping his place on 
 the paper open for him, used to " look in " daily, 
 if only for a minute or two, and bring him the 
 notices, and tell him how things were going. 
 
 He was very weakly, and worn, and weary, 
 in these days; so weak that the exertion of 
 reading a favourable review, and the flash of 
 hope the same would cause him, would be 
 almost too much for him ; so weak that he put 
 a power of faith in the prospect others seemed 
 to think was in store for him, for the non-com- 
 mittal assertion that his " work was full of 
 great promise " was liberally indulged in. There 
 was plenty in store for the future, he began to 
 tell himself, and not absolute want in the pre- 
 sent ; for his salary came to him as usual from 
 the daily journal for which he did not write, and 
 Marian was always going out brightly to make 
 purchases, and coming in brighter than she 
 went out. 
 
 She was such a loving wife to him, such a 
 patient, tender little nurse, that, he might well 
 feel it to be a cause for thankfulness that he had 
 married her. So the days drew on to the close 
 of August, and that reeling of the brain went 
 on more wildly than before. 
 
 One morning when she had got him up, and 
 helped him down-stairs (the once strong erect 
 man stooped now, and leant heavily on the 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 129 
 
 slight arm and rounded shoulder of the lithe 
 young girl whose slender form had shown off 
 mantles and shawls so well), she knelt down by 
 the side of his couch, and told him she had 
 made a friend such a nice one, and her friend 
 was coming to see him to-day. 
 
 She told him this with dancing eyes and other 
 signs of animation, and he tried so feebly now 
 to respond, because of the deep pity he had for 
 this girl who had none now for herself. Still, 
 with a hazy recollection floating about in his 
 mind of Miss Simpson, the model milliner, who 
 was looming over him, he could not succeed in 
 responding to Marian's communication with 
 anything like the degree of warmth with which 
 it was made. 
 
 " Your friend mustn't mind my keeping my 
 face to the back of the sofa, Marian? I can't 
 he bored I can't manage any talking till Bligh 
 comes at night to tell me how things are going, 
 and hear whether I can get into harness again 
 to-morrow." 
 
 Bligh never omitted this formula, though no 
 one knew better than he that Stanley Villars 
 would never get into harness again that he 
 was one more added to the long list of those 
 who have broken down. 
 
 " Perhaps you'll care to talk when you see 
 her," Marian said, softly. And when she said 
 that, a gnawing desire to ask " Was it Florence ?" 
 seized the failing man. 
 
 But he would not ask it partly because he 
 would not put the idea of its being possible that 
 she should come in Marian's head, and partly 
 because he shrank from hearing an answer in 
 the negative. He knew that he should wince 
 and shrink did such answer smite him. He 
 was so weak, so uncertain of himself, that he 
 dared not risk a blow, though more than half 
 prepared for it. 
 
 So he curbed the gnawing desire, and re- 
 mained quiet with his face to the wall, with a 
 -cold dew of expectation on his brow, and a 
 panting eagerness in his heart. Sternly as he 
 had forbidden Florence to be sought, he was 
 more than rejoiced that at last, though late, she 
 was seeking him. 
 
 Marian busied herself about the room, trying 
 to give it an air of brightness and cheerfulness, 
 and failing by reason of there being nothing 
 bright and cheerful in it. Dusting his books 
 and papers, and fidgeting him wofully by the 
 rustle she made, and the disarray she would be 
 safe to introduce amongst his slips. Endeavour- 
 ing to give the scanty curtains a graceful sweep 
 and fall, which they could not achieve. Polish- 
 ing up the surface of her little work-table till 
 all the reels of cotton danced aloud within it, 
 making Stanley's head stab, and causing him 
 to curse this suddenly-developed domesticity. 
 Flashing hither and thither in the room, and 
 being very energetic and busy altogether. 
 
 By-and-by she went out of the room, and pre- 
 sently returned with a tall vase of roses red 
 and white roses not overblown, and most 
 delicately scented; autumnal roses, that had 
 been born of the late summer sun, and had the 
 fervour of it upon them. 
 
 Weak as he was, languid as he was, heart- 
 sick as, heaven knows, he had good cause to be, 
 he quickened at the sight and scent of them, and 
 his old love for the beautiful sparkled up in the 
 9 
 
 dull eyes that so seldom saw cause for sparkling 
 now. It was the first time Marian had ever 
 brought him flowers; and from him, needing 
 essentials as he so often did, a request for such 
 frail luxuries would have come strangely. 
 
 But now that he had them now, that she 
 of her own free will had brought them to him 
 he let her see how he loved them, and she 
 revelled in the sight. They were such dainty 
 flowers ! deep crimson and creamy white. 
 He would have them on her work-stand, close 
 by his side, where his hand could rest caress- 
 ingly on the vase that held them ; where their 
 perfume could reach him, bathing him in an 
 atmosphere that brought back the vision of 
 that rose- embowered window which had been 
 Bella's shrine in the halcyon days of his adora 
 tion for her. There was something so grace- 
 ful, refined, and elevating about those roses, 
 that he felt more like a gentleman more like 
 his old self than he had done for many 
 months. 
 
 "I feel better already for the flowers," he 
 said, calling her over to him, when she had done 
 all she could do to the room, and was pausing 
 to look at the effect of her labours ; and finding 
 the "all" very insufficient "I feel better 
 already for the flowers. What good taste it 
 was to get all roses, dear." 
 
 She blushed, and smiled, and looked pleased. ' 
 
 "Ain't they lovely and expensive?" she 
 asked, simply. 
 
 "Expensive! are they?" with a sigh of dis- 
 appointment. "Ah! I never thought of that ; 
 poor child, you shouldn't have got them for 
 me!" 
 
 " They were given," she explained, opening 
 her eyes like stars. " Here, Rock ! get up," 
 she called to the dog. " He shall have one in ' 
 his collar, Stanley," she continued. 
 
 "Given, were they? by whom?- No, I 
 won't have one wasted on the dog ! they must 
 last me for so long." 
 
 He spoke peevishly, petulantly, as a sick 
 child might have done. He did not like to 
 hear that the rare flowers had been given to 
 his wife. And yet he could not part with 
 them they were too sweet and dear. ' 
 
 "When they're dead you shall have some 
 more. Do let me put one in Rock's collar !" 
 
 He took hold of her hand in his own almost 
 transparent one. 
 
 " You must not accept presents, Marian, 
 
 from " He stopped, and she asked, " Why 
 
 not ?" 
 
 " Don't bother about the dog. Who gave 
 them to you ?" 
 
 She put the rose she had taken out back into 
 the vase, and replied 
 
 " That's a secret ! You'll know by-and-by, 
 but it's a secret now 1" 
 
 Then he looked at her small, pure face, aud 
 never doubted but that it was a " secret " 
 which she might indulge herself in with per- 
 fect safety to them both. Perchance, even, the 
 flowers that were so sweet to him were from 
 Florence. 
 
 As the hours passed, Marian grew very 
 watchful and uneasy, and he saw that she 
 was getting anxious about her expected visi- 
 tor. She kept on going to the window and 
 looking out eagerly ; and she made Rock stand 
 
130 
 
 ON GUARD. 
 
 up, with his large white paws on the sill, in 
 order that he might sight the arrival at once, 
 and give notice by one of his deep, rolling 
 barks. 
 
 Presently the notice was given. There was 
 a sound of wheels; then an angry bark from 
 Rock, which was quickly changed into a joy- 
 ous one, as" he caught sight of some one com- 
 ing up the steps. The red setter rushed round 
 the room in intense excitement, his white 
 feathered tail flaunting like a pennon; and 
 some of the dog's excitement communicated 
 itself to the master. Poor Stanley Villars was 
 too weak to rise, and too nervous to remain 
 quiescent. He could only flutter, as an old 
 woman or a young girl might have done. 
 
 Marian had rushed out to meet her guest; 
 and he heard them speaking in the passage, 
 but they spoke in whispers, and he could not, 
 therefore, recognise the stranger's tone. "I 
 shall die the happier for having seen Florry," 
 he thought. Then a sob, that he could not 
 check, sent the burning tears, that he would 
 have given all he had not to shed, rushing 
 from his eyes. Involuntarily, as the door 
 opened, he clasped his hands over his face, in 
 order that his sister should not see the change 
 that he knew too well was upon him. There 
 was a quick movement, as of rustling skirts, 
 through the room, and a light hand was laid 
 on his. He uncovered his eyes then, and look- 
 ing up, saw a beautiful face, burning with emo- 
 tion, and trembling with passionate helpless 
 pity, bending over him, and a slight hand try- 
 ing to repulse the rough caresses of the dog. 
 And the face was not that of his sister Florence, 
 but of her who had been Bella Yane. 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 MAKING A BOOK. 
 
 LEAVING Bella to gaze undisturbed with no 
 very enviable feelings on the form of the man 
 whose downfall had dated from the day he 
 learnt that she was false as she was fair ; leav- 
 ing that man in a maze of bewilderment as to 
 how she came near him now how this miracle 
 came to pass, that she, his old love, should be 
 his wife's new friend ; leaving that poor little 
 wife panting, partly with hope and partly with 
 fear, for the result of this combination which 
 she had effected I will go back a few steps, 
 and strive to make clear to my readers the maze 
 through which Mrs. Claude had come to the 
 meeting. 
 
 A day or two after that encounter with Marian 
 and Rock in the park, Major Walsiugham had 
 been summoned to " the Court." His father 
 was very ill, and he, the heir, was needed. Be- 
 fore he went he said to his wife 
 
 "By the way, Lady Lexley has been ill, 
 Bella: I wish you would call and enquire for 
 her." 
 
 " I will, if I am going that way," Bella re- 
 plied coldly. She could not conquer her dislike 
 to Lady Lexley, and she felt annoyed with 
 Claude for thrusting her into communion with 
 that lady, to say nothing of feeling annoyed 
 with herself for entertaining the dislike. 
 
 "Certainly, don't go out of your way to do 
 it," he replied carelessly; "that wouldn't be 
 well, in fact ; but there's no harm in being civil 
 to her, since every one else is." With which 
 rather sketchy rule for her safe conduct, he left 
 his wife and went down to "the Court." 
 
 Two days after his departure she received a 
 letter from Claude, containing a request to which 
 she had no inclination to accede, and which she 
 had no reason for refusing. " My mother tells 
 me that Grace Harper wants to go to town for 
 a week or two ; the aunt with whom she usually 
 stays (old Lady Lexley) is in Wales ; you had 
 better invite her to be your guest. By doing 
 so you'll oblige an old friend of my family's, 
 and please my mother." Having written thus 
 much, he went off into another subject his 
 father's ill-health namely. But later in the 
 epistle the Grace Harper topic came upon the 
 board again. "I shall tell Ellen to arrange for 
 you with Miss Grace, and one of them will drop 
 you a line to-morrow, telling you what time you 
 may expect her." Then he wound up with ex- 
 pressions of his unalterable affection for her ; and 
 Bella, in the pleasure of perusing these, forgot 
 her slight annoyance at Miss Harper's expected 
 advent. 
 
 " Besides, I rather like the girl, and of course 
 Claude's free to ask whomsoever he pleases to 
 the house. Only I had such a time of it with 
 Mrs. Markham, that I would have preferred a 
 longer respite from lady visitors. However, 
 there's no help for it." 
 
 There was no help for it. The day after a 
 kindly-worded letter from Grace arrived, thank- 
 ing Bella for her " kind consideration in wishing 
 to have her (Grace)," and utterly ignoring 
 Claude's share in the arrangement. " Deal 
 Claude! he has made it seem to be entirely my 
 own idea. I suppose he really does want the 
 people down there to like me very much," she 
 said to herself, as she laid the letter down ; 
 "but why didn't she go to Lady Lexley's, I 
 wonder?" 
 
 Miss Harper, and her maid and her man, 
 arrived in the course of the following day. She 
 was far too precious a thing to have been en- 
 trusted to the tender mercies of the railway 
 company without these adjuncts. She arrived, 
 and her young hostess made her frankly wel- 
 come, and even asked after " her friend Mrs. 
 Markham" with something like interest. 
 
 " For, though she's Claude's sister, I always 
 feel that you're much more intimate with her 
 than I am," Bella explained, on Grace making 
 large eyes at the question. 
 
 "Don't you write to each other?" Grace 
 asked. 
 
 "No, never." 
 
 "How odd 1 At least I suppose it's antipa- 
 thy. Do you know," she said, with a well-af- 
 fected effort, " I have the same feeling against 
 my cousin's wife." 
 
 Bella blushed : so had she the same feeling, 
 only she was half-ashamed of it. 
 
 "It all comes, in the case of Lady Lexley," 
 Miss Harper went on, " of her having been pro- 
 fessional. There are sure to be rumours, you 
 know ; but it's unchristian to regard them." 
 
 " Do you know anything against Lady Lex- 
 ley ?" Bella asked eagerly. 
 
 " Oh, no! and don't let us be the ones, deai 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 131 
 
 Mrs. Walsingham, to give rise to scandal," Miss 
 Harper said with emphasis. 
 
 "Give rise to it!" all Bella's generous im- 
 pulses were stirred within her "now do you 
 think I could be so base ?" 
 
 " No, I do not," Miss Harper rejoined ; " but 
 still, dear, you must promise never to hint a 
 word that I have said. I don't believe it (though 
 I'm not fond of her) ; it would be cruel to 
 believe it, to act as if we believed it." 
 
 " Believed what?" Bella was getting bewil- 
 dered. 
 
 " Why, that she is not all that a woman ought 
 to be. Oh, dear, it's so hard to flo right 1 God 
 knows what is in my heart I" Miss Harper went 
 on, piously lowering her yellow eyelashes over 
 her cheeks as she spoke. 
 
 " I don't wish not to think her that," Bella 
 said remorsefully. She felt so sorry now that 
 she had not been to inquire for Lady Lexley. 
 
 " I shall never forgive myself if you ever hint 
 that I have spoken on the subject," Miss Grace 
 exclaimed ; M it was so wrong of me to speak. 
 I believe her to ,be as pure as I am myself. 
 Promise me that you will never, by either word 
 or manner, to any one, let a hint of this escape 
 you." 
 
 Bella promised nervously and hurriedly. "Why 
 should she be supposed to be anxious to run 
 down an innocent woman ? She promised that 
 she would not do so, rather more fervently than 
 was perhaps necessary. There was nothing 
 mean in the girl's nature ; had there been, she 
 would have distrusted this hedging on the part 
 of Miss Harper this late circumspection this 
 pious prudence. 
 
 Almost immediately Mrs. Claude Walsing- 
 ham called to inquire for Lady Lexley. Lady 
 Lexley was not at home. With almost royal 
 celerity Lady Lexley returned the visit, and 
 Bella began to feel that there was something 
 pleasant about the woman something pleasant 
 in the dramatic character of her beauty some- 
 thing pleasant in her openly-expressed admira- 
 tion for Bella herself 
 
 Grace was more than friendly in her de- 
 meanour to her cousin's wife. She was loving 
 and affectionate to a degree that made Bella 
 feel herself to be but a cold sinner in compari- 
 son. She called Lady Lexley "dear," and sat 
 on a little stool at her feet. She offered to do 
 all sorts of things for Lady Lexley, and then 
 disappointed Lady Lexley when the time for 
 fulfilment came, in the most engaging man- 
 ner. 
 
 Lady Lexley knew something as did the 
 majority of people in their world of Mrs. 
 Claude's former engagement. She had heard 
 it spoken of in a hundred ways, as broken en- 
 gagements, to the cost of those who break 
 them, are ever spoken about. In her own often- 
 erring heart she did full justice to all that was 
 good, all that was true, all that was undesign- 
 ing, in Mrs. Claude Walsingham. She knew 
 Bella to be thoughtless, careless, too quick to 
 feel and to act. She also knew Bella to be 
 honest in her impulses, no matter into what 
 evil those impulses led her ; and she believed 
 Mrs. Claude to be endowed with that sort of 
 generosity which risks its possessor very often, 
 and revolts at all meanness. "If she knew 
 what that man was suffering she wouldn't go 
 
 on her way smiling," Lady Lexley said to her- 
 self one day, when she had heard from the in- 
 defatigable Simpson the story of "her (Simp- 
 son's) friend Mrs. Stanley Villars' sorrows." 
 " The man has cut his own throat, of course ; 
 but that child will feel that she put the knife in 
 his way, and will bless any one who'll help her 
 to heal the wound." 
 
 Fraught with this idea, she speedily made an 
 opportunity of telling Mrs. Claude all she knew ; 
 and then Mrs. Claude confided to her in turn 
 how she had " heard Stanley Villars had a wife, 
 and how she had disbelieved it." 
 
 " But it's true for all that," Lady Lexley re- 
 .plied ; " the girl he has married isn't a lady, but 
 she's honest and pure; help to keep her so, 
 Mrs. Walsingham, for they're in horrible dis- 
 tress." 
 
 "I will tell Claude the instant he comes 
 home," Bella replied ; " how he'll feel it, poor 
 boy!" In the midst of her own grief for the 
 evil that had come upon Stanley Yillars, her 
 greatest sorrow was for the grief of the man she 
 loved. " How he'll feel it, poor boy !" she half 
 sobbed. 
 
 " Yes, it's very hard to see one who has been 
 swimming with us go to the bottom," Lady 
 Lexley replied ; " but you may as well see his 
 wife, as you and Major Walsingham were such 
 old friends of her husband's. Nearly every one 
 gets spoken about in this world ; but there's not 
 a breath against that poor child Mr. Villars 
 married. It's pitiable," Lady Lexley continued, 
 waxing warm, "to see her sauntering about in 
 the park by herself, because she's weary of the 
 streets, and needs air. See her, Mrs. Walsing- 
 ham, and see her soon." 
 
 " When Claude comes home," Bella said. 
 
 " When will he come ? The man is dying, 1 
 tell you. Write to your husband about it." 
 
 But from this Bella most unwisely shrank. 
 "I can tell him everything in two minutes 
 how I heard of it and all ; but to write, it is 
 different. Claude is so fastidious ; I should 
 like to see her soon, though ; and to help them, 
 if I could." 
 
 "I tell you how you can manage, then," 
 Lady Lexley replied, eagerly; "come to lun- 
 cheon with me. Ah! there's Grace. Well, 
 bring her, and come to luncheon with me to- 
 morrow ; then we'll go to the shop where she 
 used to be, and Miss Simpson can tell you her 
 address ; something must be done, and done 
 quickly the man is dying." 
 
 Bella blenched. 
 
 "But what can /do?" 
 
 " See them for yourself, and then let his fa 
 mily know. Had / the right of old friendship 
 which you have, wouldn't I do it, think you ! 
 It's hideous, to think about, even to me, who 
 only knew Mr. Villars by name and repute." 
 She stopped, breathless with genuine horror at 
 that fate which had befallen Stanley a fate 
 she, better than Bella, could realise. 
 
 " Then it shall be so. How could I ever 
 have hesitated ?" Bella said, with tears in her 
 eyes. " It's all I can do to go and see him 
 them, I mean and show him that my friend- 
 ship is unaltered." 
 
 " Of course it's all you can do till your 
 husband comes back ; but do it without delay, 
 for heaven's sake !" Lady Lexley cried, ener- 
 
132 
 
 ON GUARD. 
 
 getically. "Come to me to-morrow^ and I'll 
 put you in the way of doing it." 
 
 On the morrow, shortly after Mrs. Claude had 
 mooted the subject of going out to Lady Lex- 
 ley's to her companion, Miss Harper was seized 
 with a violent headache. " Would dear Mrs. 
 Claude go without her, and give her best love 
 and a thousand apologies for her non-appear- 
 ance, to Adele ?" Mrs. Claude would, but still 
 regretted very much that Grace should fail her. 
 
 " I don't like to leave you, as you are so ill, 
 Grace," she said. 
 
 " Oh, my dear, for you not to go would be a 
 dreadful slight to Lady Lexley. Poor thing ! 
 why should you wish to hurt her? Do go, and 
 be kind to her ; you see she lost her old friends 
 by her marriage, and hasn't made many new 
 ones since." 
 
 . "Kind to her; it's no question of kindness or 
 unkindness," Bella exclaimed. She began to 
 fear that she must have a most uncharitable dis- 
 position, and that Miss Harper had detected the 
 same, and was trying to guard her from its ill 
 effects, and to re-mould it as became a Chris- 
 tian. 
 
 " Then, do be careful. Pray, be very care- 
 ful," Miss Harper replied. And Bella, not feel- 
 ing at all sure as to what she was to be careful 
 of, went off with a confusion in her brain. 
 
 "Went off, and partook of the aforesaid lun- 
 cheon with Lady Lexley, and then ordered her 
 carriage round, and asked for the address of the 
 shop at which Mrs.. Stanley Yillars was to be 
 " heard about." 
 
 " But I'll go with you, if you will allow me ; 
 we shall see her there," Lady Lexley said, fix- 
 ing her eyes on Mrs. Claude's. On which Mrs. 
 Claude felt confused as to something, she knew 
 not what, and replied, " Oh, certainly ; most 
 happy." 
 
 But she was not happy, and she taxed her 
 mind to the utmost to supply herself with a 
 valid reason for being otherwise. She had 
 given her jealousy of Lady Lexley to the winds, 
 and Lady Lexley had lately been showing a 
 very womanly and generous desire to put her 
 (Bella) in the way of doing good to one whom 
 she had formerly injured. Lady Lexley had 
 done this, too, in a way at which no one could 
 have taken offence. She had put it on the 
 score of their old friendship for Stanley, not of 
 Bella's old fondness for and falseness to him. 
 Lady Lexley had approved herself a generous- 
 natured, kind-hearted, quick-feeling woman in 
 the business. Yet, for all that, Bella felt that 
 she would rather be elsewhere, when she found 
 herself driving along the " ladies' mile," in an 
 open carriage, with Lady Lexley. 
 
 " Why can't we go straight across the park, 
 and out at the Marble Arch?" Mrs. Claude 
 asked. She had not heard the order that had 
 been given to her own footman to pass on to 
 the coachman. She had taken it for granted 
 that Lady Lexley would have" given the address 
 of the shop, and that they should have driven 
 there at once. 
 
 Lady Lexley blushed. She was not a mali- 
 cious woman. She did not desire to harm any 
 other woman. But she had no intimate female 
 acquaintances, and in the course of transacting 
 the amiable business which was to result in 
 good for the Yillarses, it occurred to her that 
 
 she might as well achieve good for herself, and 
 be "seen" a good deal with young Mrs. Wal- 
 singham. She had no desire to be the cause of 
 a breath of ill-odour passing over Mrs. Claude's 
 bright head; but she could not refrain from 
 risking giving rise to this breath, in the hope 
 that it might temper the breeze that was abroad 
 about herself a breeze that was bitingly sharp 
 sometimes, and not to be lulled even by her 
 present, prudent, open course. Lady Lexley 
 would have been very sorry to overshade Mrs. 
 Claude Walsingham ; she would not do so wit- 
 tingly. But she was far from certain that she 
 should overshflde her, and she was very certain 
 that being seen with Mrs. Claude could not 
 be other than a reassuring thing in the eyes 
 of all men who beheld the sight, about herself. 
 In fact, she did not wish to work evil to her 
 neighbour; she only wished, and wished strong- 
 ly too, that her neighbour might work good for 
 her. It was very natural. None can blame 
 the womanly yearning for good, pure, womanly 
 society. It is a thing to be desired a thing to 
 be striven for a thing to be attained at any 
 price, Lady Lexley felt, especially in the open. 
 
 So now, when Mrs. Claude Walsingham ask- 
 ed rather confusedly why they could not drive 
 straight across the park, and out by the 
 Marble Arch, Lady Lexley answered that " it 
 was too soon to go to the shop yet awhile." 
 " That Miss Simpson told me," she added, " that 
 Mrs. Stanley Villars was coming this afternoon, 
 but it would be too soon to think of seeing her 
 yet If you want to go anywhere else, we can 
 go, of course ; but it's pleasant here, isn't i ' 
 
 "Very pleasant," Bella replied, and there 
 came a blush upon her cheek as she spoke. 
 The air was very soft and balmy; but men 
 gave not "impertinent," but long looks into the 
 carriage as they passed, and Bella began to 
 wish that Lady Lexley had elected to use her 
 own carriage for her morning's drive. 
 
 " Very pleasant ! By-the bye, I must go in- 
 to Kegent Street. Stay ! I'll put you down at 
 the corner, and you can sit there and talk to 
 people till I come back." 
 
 Lady Lexley made no reply for a moment or 
 two. She was well* inclined towards Mrs. 
 Claude Walsingham ; at the cost of pain to her- 
 self, she would have shrunk from doing Mrs. 
 Claude Walsingham harm. But here was no 
 tangible harm to be done, she thought ; on the 
 contrary, here was a very tangible good to her- 
 self. She did not wish to injure Bella ; but sho 
 did desire that Bella should serve her. 
 
 " I don't see any people to whom I care to 
 talk. No, I'll go with you to Eegent Street, if 
 you'll allow me," she said at last, looking Bella 
 straight in the face as she spoke. Then Bella 
 blushed again under her gaze, and said 
 
 " Oh, certainly ! I only thought " and then 
 broke down in her explanation, and condemned 
 herself in her own heart for having suffered 
 Miss Harper's undefined shadowings to cloud 
 over Lady Lexley in her (Bella's) eyes. 
 
 The park had been bad enough, but Regent 
 Street was worse. It was full for the time of 
 year ; full of people who knew her and her com- 
 panion. There were two or three blocks. 
 Everybody was shopping this day; and their 
 p rogress along the street, till they came to the 
 repository for carved oak| at which Mrs. Wai- 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 133 
 
 singham was going to alight, was slow, merci- 
 lessly slow. Mrs. Claude Walsingham grew 
 more and more flushed, and her manner more 
 and more constrained, as they moved along at a 
 foot-pace. And she was conscious of these 
 things, and sorry for them, believing as she did, 
 in her innermost heart, that there was unchari- 
 tableness and narrow-mindedness in her being 
 even inwardly influenced by an idle word, 
 idly spoken. 
 
 For Grace's manner of speaking had been 
 idle, when looked upon in cold blood. True, 
 she had seemed to strive to render it impressive 
 at the time, by calling upon God to witness that 
 she meant well, and was earnestly set upon 
 doing right. But then Bella reflected that some 
 people are very apt to do this on slight grounds, 
 and she argued that had Miss Harper believed 
 that at which she had guardedly hinted in ap- 
 parent agony of spirit, that she would either 
 have said less or more; and that she would 
 have refrained from being effusively affectionate 
 as she had been since to Lady Lexley. 
 
 " At any rate, if it gives her any pleasure to 
 be with me, I don't see that I need grudge 
 her that pleasure," Mrs. Claude Walsingham 
 thought, heaving a sigh, and trying to get rid 
 of a portion of the weight that was upon her. 
 " How wicked I am to think evil on the 
 strength of the actual nothing the mere whis- 
 per Grace said." Then she spoke out quite 
 freely and joyously to Lady Lexley,*spoke in a 
 more intimate tone than she usually assumed 
 towards more intimate friends, out of the ful- 
 ness of that foolish generosity on which Miss 
 Harper had counted when she played the card 
 of the impalpable suspicion. 
 
 She was so foolish, this poor Bella. She had 
 always been so addicted to going from one ex- 
 treme to the other without due consideration ; 
 so apt to forget what was not immediately 
 before her ; so awfully ready to please herself 
 and others at the moment, without counting the 
 cost. Granted that she was all this, still she 
 had such rare ledeeming qualities. She was 
 so ready always to repent and make amends ; 
 so incapable of seeing the bad side of things at 
 the first ; so very sorry to see them ever, in 
 fact. 
 
 I do not mean to imply that she was slow to 
 wrath, or meekly resigned when she fancied she 
 had been injured or deceived. On the contrary, 
 she was very quick to feel slight or injury, and 
 to flame up about either. But till she did so 
 feel, she did not invest her time in looking 
 about for weak places in people's characters, 
 motives, or assertions. She had a habit of just 
 letting them go on. It might have been amia- 
 bility on her part, or it might have been mere 
 idleness ; at all events, whatever it was, it saved 
 her from being a mischief-maker or a busy-body. 
 It also saved her from the misery many more 
 loudly professing Christians declare that they 
 endure the misery, namely, of too clearly dis- 
 cerning other people's faults and follies. 
 
 My heroine was far from perfect, though, it 
 must be confessed ; this day, for example, she 
 had corne out fraught with the determination 
 of doing all that might be done for poor Stanley 
 Villars and his wife, without an instant's unne- 
 cessary delay. Yet now, not a couple of hours 
 after that determination had been in full bloom. 
 
 it faded away, leaving her blithely regardless 
 of the old friend's sad strait, as soon as she 
 found herself in the midst of the carved oak. 
 Her face flushed with a widely different glow 
 to that which had been upon it as she drove 
 along Regent Street, and her eyes sparkled 
 with a natural, but, perhaps, less praiseworthy 
 excitement, than the one which had blazed in 
 them when she had first listened to the tale of 
 the trials of the baby-faced beauty who had 
 been with Rock in the park. 
 
 Mrs. Claude Walsingham had come out with 
 her purse well filled ; and the contents had all 
 been devoted, in her mind, to the holy purpose 
 of making things pleasanter for Stanley and his 
 wife. She knew well that he would rather die 
 than suffer her to relieve his need. But from 
 his wife from the girl who was beautiful, but 
 who was not a lady no such delicacy of feeling 
 was to be expected ; at any rate, Bella did not 
 expect it. Mrs. Stanley Villars should be drill- 
 ed into silence for her own good, as to favours 
 received that, of course; equally of course 
 would it be that she should receive them. 
 
 Now, however, that she found herself amongst 
 things that were very dear to her taste, the lat- 
 ter came to the fore, and would be obeyed. Its 
 government over Bella was an absolute monar- 
 chy : it always would give the law. So now 
 she forgot what was not immediately before her. 
 as was her wont, and the purse began to empty 
 itself with fatal rapidity. 
 
 "I'm going to fit up a study for myself," she 
 explained to Lady Lexley, when Lady Lexley 
 commenced a series of impatient movements, 
 all tending towards the door. " Oh dear ! how 
 I wish I could get a Robinson Crusoe writing- 
 table, like that lovely sideboard that was in the 
 '62 Exhibition 1 Do you remember it ?" 
 
 Lady Lexley nodded. She did not remember 
 anything about it; but it was easier to nod than 
 to listen to a description of it. 
 
 u If you furnish your own design any de- 
 sign madam, we could carry it out for you as 
 cheaply as any house in the trade," the man 
 who was waiting on her here ventured to sug- 
 
 Ah ! but I like to get what I see, you see," 
 Mrs. Claude replied; " it might be all very well 
 in my imagination, and a dead failure when 
 carved ; but a writing-table, like that Robinson 
 Crusoe sideboard," she went on lingeringly, 
 " would be charming." 
 
 The shopman, with the fell rapidity of his 
 tribe, had his order-book out at once. " Tou 
 will allow us to make a memorandum of it for 
 you, madam?" 
 
 Bella shook her head despondingly. Their 
 house was very fully and completely furnished, 
 she knew. The writing-table that had been 
 appropriated to her own special use was of oak, 
 well carved ; but it was not a " Robinson Cru- 
 soe" writing-table and for this she pined. 
 
 " I think we had better be going on, or we 
 shall miss her to-day ?" Lady Lexley whispered ; 
 " that is, if you are ready ?" 
 
 ' Oh ! I'm ready to be sure I'm ready ! Just 
 wait one moment, though those candlesticks; 
 did you ever see anything so exquisite ?" 
 
 Lady Lexley affirmed that she never had 
 seen '! anything so exquisite ; but would Mrs. 
 Claude come now ?" 
 
134 
 
 ON GUARD. 
 
 " In one moment. I'll have those candle- 
 sticks. No I won't I'll have the taller ones 
 with the gnomes' heads peeping out through 
 the flowers. And just let me see that inkstand. 
 Oh, charming! Of course I must have that; 
 wood sprites, and such wonderful leaves: it 
 might be Gibbons' carving, mightn't it ?" 
 
 Again Lady Lexley nodded. She had never 
 "aeard of the individual referred to; but it 
 occured to her that, if his carving was so supe- 
 rior, Mrs. Claude might as well have gone to 
 him direct, instead of purchasing what, after 
 all, was to his work as " cowslip unto oxslip 
 is." 
 
 " I have a piece of furniture that will please 
 madam," the man here remarked, with that 
 subtle air of seeming to detect an artistically 
 appreciative power in the purchaser, which 
 sellers acquire by sharp practice. "A table, a 
 square table, carved by Gibbons himself; it is 
 very old." 
 
 " "Wouldn't you rather have Gibbons do you 
 a new one ?" Lady Lexley asked aloud. 
 
 " We mean the eighteenth century Gibbons," 
 Bella replied quietly. " There is such a lot of 
 his charming works in Holland House. I won- 
 der whether that is owed to the Countess of 
 Warwick's taste or to Addison's ?" 
 
 " This table I was speaking of belonged to 
 Addison," the man struck in gravely. He had 
 been casting about in his own mind for a fitting 
 person on whom to fix the former ownership of 
 this excellent article. Addison was as good for 
 the purpose as any other man ; therefore with- 
 out hesitation he asserted that it had belonged 
 to Addison, and so made Mrs. Claude Walsing- 
 ham happy. 
 
 Her happiness was so patent to him, how- 
 ever, that he could but charge her a few pounds 
 extra for it a proceeding which made no man- 
 ner of difference to her, since she was uncon- 
 scious of it. He smiled in gentle pity for her 
 inexperience when he was bowing her into her 
 carriage. But I, for one, think that pity mis- 
 placed. It is so nice to think that you have in 
 your possession a table on which some of those 
 wonderful Tatter and Spectator papers might 
 have been written. 
 
 " Perhaps he did some of his 'Sir Eoger de 
 Coverley' at it!" Bella cried in a burst of en- 
 thusiasm when they were driving off. 
 
 "Who? Gibbons?" Lady Lexley replied ab- 
 sently. " I do hope we shan't miss her." 
 
 Which remark brought Bella's mind back 
 from thoughts of that golden age that time 
 when Addison had lived and loved, and drank 
 and written to these degenerate modern days, 
 when one gifted even as she believed Stanley 
 Villars to be, could not live by his pen. She 
 thought about these things sadly till they came 
 to the shop where they were to see the girl 
 who was asserted to be Stanley Yillars' wife. 
 My judgment may be faulty on the subject, but 
 I confess to a feeling of preference for Bella, 
 the woman who never doubted that assertion, 
 though appearances might be said to be against 
 its truth, over the always-correct-in-conduct 
 Lady Yillars, whose Christian horror of evil- 
 doing led her to detect it frequently before it 
 was. 
 
 The poor little milliner, who had deemed it 
 such a golden thing that she should marry a 
 
 gentleman, was, as has been seen, in the habit 
 of drifting back here to the society that was 
 most congenial to her. She was rather at a 
 premium in the show-room. She served as a 
 subject for conversation amongst the "young 
 ladies " in their hours of idleness. She could 
 be let off as a successful fact a genuine case 
 of "risen from the ranks" at the heads of 
 languid lady customers, who were willing to 
 linger over garments of divers shapes in weary- 
 ing uncertainty. When expatiating on the 
 "elegance" and "perfect style" of an opera 
 cloak, for example, the adroit Miss Simpson 
 would tell in touching tones how sure said 
 opera cloak would have been to win the hearts 
 of all beholders, had it but been seen over 
 the shoulders of the late Miss Wallis, pro- 
 moted. "This grew," till half the habitual 
 customers of the place knew that, in some way 
 or other, " the man that Bella Vane had jilted 
 had made a mess of it." 
 
 CHAPTER XLL 
 
 A PRACTICAL CHRISTIAN. 
 
 IT need not be told how, even at this their first 
 meeting, the kindly lady who was " the cause," 
 she felt, ina measure, of the sorrow that had 
 come upon the girl, and the gentle, unpretend- 
 ing girl on whom the sorrow had fallen, under- 
 stood one another, and came together as it 
 were. There was something inexpressibly 
 winning to Marian, who had never met with it 
 before, in the rich, fearless warmth of Mrs. 
 Walsingham's manner towards her. Bella 
 turned to her at once when she came into the 
 room, and found her there already installed, 
 and, it must be confessed, gratingly familiar 
 with her not too refined former companions. 
 Turned to her at once with no crushing con- 
 descension with no mock " I am as thou art " 
 demeanour with no false superiority no de- 
 grading to one as to the other patronage but 
 with a great big hearty kindness, that proved 
 she took the girl at once for what she stated 
 herself to be, and looked. Turned to her as 
 Bella would have turned to a duchess in dis- 
 tress in a way that made Lady Lexley's eyes 
 dilate with womanly sympathy, as belladonna 
 had never caused them to do. 
 
 Their interview was not very long. When 
 a few facts had been stated by the young wife, 
 and listened to by Bella, they both found that 
 they had little left to say. " I should like to 
 come and see you, and him; we are such old 
 friends," Mrs. Walsingham said with a little 
 gasp, when Marian said "she must go now, or 
 Stanley would be cross." On the statement of 
 which desire Marian shook her head dubiously, 
 and replied that she " was sure Stanley wouldn't 
 bear to see any of bis old friends," and let her 
 lip quiver as she said it, and suffered a round, 
 quickly-dried tear to fall. 
 
 "But I must see you both," Bella urged, 
 " now we have met again, and he is ill." 
 
 " He has made me promise never to go near 
 any of his family, or let them" come near him," 
 Marian said sorrowfully. And at that even 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 135 
 
 kind-hearted Lady Lexley shook her head, and 
 said to herself, " That looks bad." 
 
 But Bella was above suspicion as regarded 
 Stanley Villars. It was all very well, or rather 
 it was perhaps natural, that others should dis- 
 trust him, and think that, because his first guard 
 had been broken down, that evil should have 
 entered in to the once well-defenced citadel, 
 and have its own way entirely. It was perhaps 
 natural that others should think this. But it 
 would have been unnatural for her to think it, 
 knowing the man as she did. The wrong he 
 had wrought, whatever it might be, that had 
 made him desire to cut himself off from his 
 family, had not been a wrong to this innocent, 
 fond, trusting girl. 
 
 " At any rate let me come and see him," Mrs. 
 Walsingham urged. "As to his own family, 
 between him and them I can't interfere, of 
 course ; but my husband was like his brother ; 
 why should he wish to cut us ?" 
 
 "I never heard him name you" Marian said 
 wonder in gly. 
 
 Bella blushed. "How wrong of him," she 
 said quickly; "he should have brought us 
 together, and made us friends. Are you fond 
 of Rock?" 
 
 The brief pang that had been Marian's portion 
 that day in the park, when Rock had leapt with 
 a dog's enthusiasm about his old mistress, 
 assailed her (Marian) again now. 
 
 " Did you give him to Stanley ?" she asked in 
 a low tone. 
 
 " Yes, I gave him Rock ; and now Rock has 
 rewarded me by first making you known to 
 me," Bella replied heartily. She understood 
 perfectly well the nature of that pang which 
 caused the baby-faced beauty to speak in a 
 lower voice. 
 
 The interview ended satisfactorily. Marian 
 was persuaded to give up her address. She was 
 also induced to " try and think" whether there 
 was anything Stanley might possibly like. But 
 she shook her head in resolute refusal to "think" 
 even that he might possibly care for anything 
 save some flowers. On being put to the test, 
 she^howed herself in fact to be far from deficient 
 in that special phase of delicacy which Mrs. 
 Walsingham had felt sure would not be a con- 
 spicuous attribute in one " of her class." 
 
 So the roses were procured from the sacred 
 recesses of a damp drawer in a shop in Covent 
 Garden market. Lovely roses not cut off, and 
 wired-up, and gummed, and otherwise manufac- 
 turedbut fresh, fair, natural flowers, with long 
 stalks and lots of leaves, and fragrance unim- 
 paired. Lovely roses ! that brought back the 
 memory of bygone summer-days to Bella, even 
 as they brought them back the following morn- 
 ing to poor, sick, suffering Stanley. 
 
 Before they parted, Marian acceded to Mrs. 
 Walsingham' s proposition of calling to see Stan- 
 ley on the following day ; and, as is the habit 
 of women, she had no sooner acceded to it, than 
 she began to entertain it enthusiastically, press- 
 ing Bella to "make it early," with a half-shy 
 familiarity, that Bella would have watched with 
 a feeling of semi-amusement in any woman save 
 Stanley's wife. 
 
 When they were driving back to Eaton Square, 
 in order that Lady Lexley might be deposited 
 before Mrs. Walsingham proceeded home, the 
 
 evil spirit of over-caution seized the usually 
 unguarded Circe. 
 
 " If I were you, as those poor people want to 
 keep close for reasons best known to themselves, 
 my dear, I woulcfn't say a word of the matter 
 to Grace Harper ; she has a way of telling things 
 that makes them change colour." 
 
 Bella winced. It is always unpleasant when 
 two people take it into their well-meaning- 
 heads to put you the luckless third on guard 
 against each other. 
 
 "Well, I won't, till Claude thinks I may." 
 
 " Oh, of course, you'll do as you please in the 
 matter; I have no motive for concealment," 
 Lady Lexley replied, carelessly; "but I have 
 seen a good deal of Miss Grace, you know, and, 
 as I said before, she has a way of telling things 
 that makes them change colour." 
 
 "Do you mean that she tells stories?" Bella 
 asked quickly. 
 
 " That's such an angular way of putting it. 
 No ; you'll never catch her out in a story, if you 
 lie in wait for her till the day of judgment ; 
 she really does stick to the letter excuse the 
 idiom." 
 
 "Then how does she change the colour of 
 things?" Bella inquired. 
 
 " Mother of God ! how should I know ?" Lady 
 Lexley cried, almost passionately. " She does it, 
 she does it but how ? What does it matter, 
 though?" she continued, with a sudden change 
 of manner. 
 
 " Only that some time or other harm may 
 come of her peculiar talent," Bella said, hesi- 
 tatingly. 
 
 " Harm come of it 1" Lady Lexley replied, 
 laughing. Then the slumbering southerti fire 
 in her blood blazed up, and she added, " If harm 
 came through it to me, I would tear her thick 
 white skin off her face in strips, and have her 
 hissed at the church door ; that would sting her 
 more than anything!" she continued, with a 
 bright laugh, that made Bella's blood curdle, 
 coming as it did immediately after the enuncia- 
 tion of such sanguinary sentiments. 
 
 Miss Harper's head was quite well when Mrs. 
 Walsingham got home. Grace looked so cool, 
 so good, and unemotional, as she raised her 
 head to greet her hostess, that Bella felt her 
 to be almost a relief, after turbulent Lady 
 Lexley. 
 
 " I am sorry you could not go " " with 
 
 me," Bella was going to say, but she paused on 
 the brink of the polite perfidy, and substituted 
 " out for a drive." 
 
 "Oh, thank you; but I have been very well 
 amused, dear Mrs. Walsingham," Grace replied, 
 indicating, as she spoke, the book she held in 
 her hand as the source of her amusement. 
 
 " What is it?" Mrs. Walsingham asked. Then 
 she looked again, and added, "Oh! Stanley 
 Villars' novel!" 
 
 Miss Harper nodded. " Perhaps the worst 
 thing about such works," she said in a sort of 
 humble and contrite tone, " is that they absorb 
 you against your convictions." 
 
 "You mean they amuse you, I suppose, 
 whether you want to go on reading just at the 
 time or not; that's my idea of what a novel 
 should do," Bella replied, hardily. 
 
 Grace shook her head. '"Jhe novelist 
 has so much in 'his power, if he only uses 
 
136 
 
 ON GUARD. 
 
 his gifts aright," she said, in the same tone as 
 before. 
 
 " If he gets good prices, he has as much and 
 no more in his power than other men with 
 money," Bella replied, wilfully misunderstand- 
 ing the fair critic, and trusting fondly that by 
 so doing, she should avert the bolt of censure 
 which she perceived was in readiness to be let 
 fly at her. 
 
 " I can only say that I am glad the man who 
 wrote that book is no friend of mine," Grace 
 went on, with the faintest tinge of colour coming 
 upon her cheeks. That is one of the great ad- 
 vantages fair women have over duskier ones ; 
 they can get into a terrible passion without at 
 the same time getting red in the face. 
 
 " I dare say you wouldn't care for literary 
 society." Bella spoke coolly; but her heart 
 was hot within her. It was hard to hear the 
 man who had nearly burst his brain over the 
 work that was daily bread to him who had 
 broken down as Stanley Villars had ! it was 
 hard to hear him thus lightly judged by a medio- 
 cre woman with yellow eyelashes 
 
 But she would not have put in this plea 
 that he had striven while strength was his to 
 strive, and failed in agony for all the goods 
 the. gods had ever given her. She would not 
 have done it. She could not have done it. 
 There are some people whom even their friends 
 dare not attempt to excuse. 
 
 The battle is not always to the strong, nor is 
 the race invariably to the swift. Miss Harper 
 was mentally a far weaker woman than the 
 one with whom she was combating. That she 
 was " slow," no man could be found to deny. 
 But for all these things she was likely to come 
 in winner in this contest upon which she had 
 entered. For her blood ran coldly in her veins 
 about all things that did not immediately con- 
 cern herself, and when the circulation is thus 
 well-regulated, success in all matters of feeling 
 is inevitable. 
 
 "I can only say," Miss Harper repeated, 
 dogmatically, "that I am very glad that the 
 man who wrote that book is no friend of mine." 
 
 Mrs. Claude Walsingham heaved, but held 
 her peace. 
 
 "It must be very painful to you, dear Mrs. 
 Claude, to peruse such sentiments as I find 
 here," Grace persisted, tapping the book with 
 her soft, white finger as she spoke. It was a 
 peculiarity of those fingers of hers, that, soft, 
 white, and well rounded as they were, they yet 
 had a lazy, cruel look. Mrs. Claude "Walsing- 
 ham was fascinated into glancing wistfully at 
 them, as though they were things that must be 
 watched and warded off, as she answered 
 
 " The author being a friend of mine, maybe 
 I have lost judgment about his work." 
 
 "Then the book is likely to be more perni- 
 cious to you than to me," Grace replied, calmly; 
 " you ought not to read it." 
 
 " I am greatly obliged to you for the caution ; 
 but on such a point you must allow me to judge 
 for myself," Bella answered, speaking with that 
 fatal coolness which is the sure precursor of a 
 storm. 
 
 Grace Harper smiled inwardly. Inwardly, 
 too, she told herself that she was really only 
 doing her duty in striving to irritate Bella, and 
 depreciate the work of the man whose views 
 
 differed from her own. "What those views were 
 is very immaterial to my story. They are 
 simply alluded to in order that Bella's motive 
 for acting as she is going to act may be made 
 manifest. 
 
 " I should be false to myself, and to every- 
 thing that I have ever been taught," Miss Harper 
 said in her stolid way, " if I did not tell you 
 what I think about Mr. Stanley Villars' ideas." 
 
 " You have told me." (Then the servant came 
 in, and announced dinner.) " Yery well, Hill. 
 Now, Grace, we must escort ourselves in to the 
 dining-room. "Oh dear!" she continued, as 
 they were coming down stairs, " how I wish my 
 husband were back 1" 
 
 Miss Harper did not echo the wish. She only 
 smiled, and thought " I hope he won't be back 
 yet. What a nuisance that ' dinner ' should 
 have come in the way just then ! She was ready 
 to say anything." 
 
 Later in the evening the subject was renew- 
 ed in this way. Mrs. Claude rang the bell, and 
 ordered Hill, when he came, to " take back the 
 two volume% that are lying on that table to 
 Mudie's, to-morrow morning, and ask for the 
 third." 
 
 <: Is it 'Never a Chance,' that you're sending 
 back ?" Miss Harper asked, mentioning the title 
 of that work of poor Stanley's which was indeed 
 but a reflex of his life. 
 
 "Yes," Bella replied, briefly. 
 
 " Oh, I'm sorry ! I haven't done with it." 
 
 "Put it down, Hill don't take it 1" his mis- 
 tress exclaimed, sharply, to the hesitating ser- 
 vant. As soon as he was out of the room, she 
 continued, "I beg your pardon but I could 
 not imagine, after what you said, that you were 
 going on with the book ; otherwise, of course, I 
 should not have thought of sending it away." 
 
 " Oh, yes I I confess to being interested in it; 
 and that's just where I feel the book will work 
 evil the trail of the serpent is there, covered 
 with flowers." 
 
 Grace came forward as she spoke, and seated 
 herself on a low stool near the feet of her hos- 
 tess, with her own back to the light, and her 
 yellow lashes lowered. Bella was facing what 
 light there was left in the sky, and her eyes 
 were open wide open and filled with an hon- 
 est anger. 
 
 " Once more I must remind you, Grace, that 
 Stanley Yillars is my husband's friend and 
 mine; I cannot hear him spoken of in this 
 way." 
 
 " I should be untrue to the principles the 
 holy principles in which I have been reared if 
 I did not tell you what I think about it if I 
 did not lift up my voice in warning," Miss 
 Harper said, humbly, just glancing through the 
 pale lashes at the flushed, excited enemy. 
 
 " Having told me, let there be an end of it. 
 I am not responsible for a line that may be in 
 that book. I neither care to uphold nor to de- 
 fend it. I simply want not to talk to you 
 about it." 
 
 A sudden fear seized Bella that this girl, 
 whom she had liked and trusted as a nice, soft, 
 womtmly creature, would be too many for her 
 were warfare declared. Miss Harper was 
 forcing the subject into a serious light ; she was 
 being solemn in her severity, and seeming to 
 threaten darkly. Bella grew very nervous. 
 
ON GUAKD. 
 
 137 
 
 Was there anything so bad in the book that 
 first holy principles principles Bella revered 
 to the full as much as did the fair Pharisee at 
 her side were assailed by it ? Bella grew very 
 nervous ; but nervous as she was, it was farther 
 than before from her mind to desert Stanley 
 Villars. 
 
 " We should not shrink from a subject simply 
 because it's unpleasant to us," Miss Harper re- 
 joined. 
 
 "Now, Grace, that is all very well; but we 
 all do shrink from an unpleasant subject. You'd 
 shrink from it if it were unpleasant to you." 
 
 " Can it be pleasant to me to run the risk of 
 offending you, dear ?" Miss Harper asked, more 
 effusively than was her wont. 
 
 " I don't know ; but it's certainly pleasant to 
 you#to censure Stanley Villars." 
 
 "I want to spare you pain in the future, 
 ^od knows what is in my heart!" 
 
 " Well, I don't !" Bella cried, almost writhing 
 away from Grace's side. There was something 
 terrible something horrible in this mixture 
 of worldly animus with piety. 
 
 "Don't use a tone of levity about such 
 things, dear I" Grace pleaded, with an earnest- 
 ness that would have been very effective, had 
 not Bella caught the quick glance that was 
 levelled simulfaneously through the yellow 
 lashes. 
 
 " I am not going to use a tone of levity, or 
 any other tone, about it any more!" Mrs. 
 Claude replied, firmly. " You will please to 
 recall two things to your mind that you appear 
 to have forgotten : I am neither a child to be 
 reprimanded, nor a heathen to be converted !" 
 
 " A word spoken in season " Miss Grace 
 
 was commencing, when Bella interrupted her. 
 
 " This is really too much, Miss Harper!" she 
 cried indignantly. " Once for all I will not 
 hear another word, in season or out of season, 
 on the subject !" 
 
 " Only this oh, do, for your own sake!" 
 Grace said, with a mild persistence, that was 
 hard very hard to endure. "I know the 
 Walsinghams so well perhaps even better than 
 you do though you've married into the family. 
 Forgive me it's all interest for you, and desire 
 to see you keep straight with them. They'd 
 one and all think there was pollution in coming 
 in contact with one who could sympathise with 
 the man who wrote that book I" 
 
 With that, she rose from her little stool at 
 Bella's side, and Bella her heart swelling with 
 a dozen conflicting feelings registered a vow 
 on the spot to seek that man and his poor little 
 wife on the morrow, and give them such com- 
 fort as it was in her poor power to bestow. 
 
 " It has been a thankless office, but I shall 
 have my reward," Grace said modestly to her- 
 self, after saying her prayers that night ; and 
 deceitful as she was, she really meant it. In 
 fact, her deceit was of so fine a kind, that it 
 imposed upon herself. She really believed that 
 she had been actuated by some higher motive 
 than a desire to irritate Bella into too warm a 
 partisanship for Stanley Yillars. She really 
 fancied at some moments that there had been 
 more sincerity than spite in her endeavours. 
 She really imagined that she had been a practi- 
 cal as well as a professing Christian this night ! 
 And so she told herself, with a sort of humble 
 
 unction, "that she would have her reward" 
 which I sincerely hope she will. 
 
 CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 " THAT WAS EATHER STRANGE." 
 
 I 
 
 ALL this time, while I have been tracing out, 
 link by link, the chain of events which led her 
 there, Bella has been waiting by the side of 
 Stanley Yillars' couch. She had come to the 
 meeting this morning with a sort of defiant 
 secresy. Openly at breakfast had she ordered 
 her carriage. Openly had she declared to Miss 
 Harper that she was bent on a mission on 
 which it did not suit her to be accompanied, to 
 which declaration Miss Harper had listened 
 calmly, with an unsuspicious air. It did not 
 seem well to Grace to make Mrs. Claude con- 
 fide. The withholding of confidence did not 
 look so well; and, somehow or other, Miss 
 Harper was not averse to seeing things that did 
 not look well about Bella. 
 
 Bella had received a letter from her husband 
 again this morning. " Ellen has been reading 
 ' Never a Chance,' " he told her; " and she has 
 done nothing but shudder ever since. I sup- 
 pose he has run his head against a stone wall ; 
 but it's of no use saying a syllable about him 
 here that can be considered justificatory. As 
 we have drifted apart now, it's just as well that 
 you never mention him, as you're apt to do, in 
 your warm, honest way." 
 
 So her husband even, Claude the magnifi- 
 cent, on whose generosity she would far sooner 
 have relied than on her own, thought that as 
 the man was down as he had fallen in the 
 struggle it would be quite as well to leave 
 him there I Her blood curdled as she thought 
 of what Stanley had been in those Denham 
 days, and all his life before them. Her blood 
 curdled; for when she remembered things at 
 all, she remembered them with a terrible vivid- 
 ness that makes each recalled moment one of 
 vital agony. " What they do, the cold-blooded 
 wretches" (by "they" she meant her husband's 
 family, and their own familiar friend, Miss 
 Grace), "is nothing; but Claude should be 
 different Claude should remember my part in 
 the business, and be merciful, or at least just. 
 
 She could not answer her husband's letter at 
 once. She thought she would go and see Stan- 
 ley first, and then, with the sight of him fresh 
 in her mind, would come back and write 
 such a letter to Claude as should at once bring 
 him over triumphantly to her side. She had no 
 design, when she started, of keeping aught she 
 had done or was going to do from her husband. 
 She meant to tell him all, the hour he returned. 
 She had done no wrong ; she was neither doing 
 nor contemplating wrong. She was merely 
 obeying the dictates of humanity; yet she took 
 the first step into danger when she went off to 
 see Stanley Yillars without first writing to tell 
 her husband that she was going to do so. 
 
 All hard feeling, all anger and indignation, 
 against those who trampled on his name, and 
 passed him by, vanished from her heart when 
 she stood by the side of the man she had once 
 loved, and marked as the stranger who sees him 
 
138 
 
 ON GUARD. 
 
 not daily is quick to mark, .that he was dying. 
 It might be a little sooner or a little later. He 
 might linger here and there, could any stage be 
 made easy and pleasant for him ; but the last 
 journey was entered upon he was dying 1 
 
 He opened his eyes, expecting, as I have said, 
 to see his sister Florence ; but he gave no start 
 when he saw Bella, only his heart thumped 
 audibly, as he aiked 
 
 " Ah ! how did you find us out ?" 
 
 He said "us," holding out a hand towards 
 the wife, who stood in the background. There 
 was something very touching to Bella in that 
 gesture, which identified the poor girl he had 
 married at once and entirely with himself. He 
 was such a thorough gentleman, you see ! Bella 
 proudly and promptly recognised the old trait 
 a thorough gentleman ! quick to spare the feel- 
 ings of any one who was weaker than himself. 
 
 His old love, his former friend's wife, gave 
 her hand into his with the willing warmth a 
 sister might have shown. 
 
 " I found you out through your wife, Stanley," 
 she said simply. "God forgive us all," she 
 added passionately, " for not having found you 
 out before!" 
 
 Her thought showed itself clearly to him. 
 She saw that it was too late, that he was a 
 dying man. He had felt this sorrowful truth 
 strongly within himself once or twice of late ; 
 but it oppressed him with a new horror, now 
 that it was illustrated, as it were, by the man- 
 ner of another. 
 
 "Wearily he turned his head round on the sofa 
 pillow till only his profile was seen by the two 
 women who stood over him, the one weeping 
 with a wounding pain, the other wondering why 
 this meeting, towards which she had decked 
 the room, should be turning out so dismally. 
 " I thought you would cheer him," she whisper- 
 ed presently to Bella; "he only wants rousing. 
 He gets so dull when none of the men he knows 
 are with him." 
 
 '' They come often, I hope ?" Bella asked, 
 half hoping that "they" might be some of his 
 old friends. 
 
 " Oh, yes ! often ; but then they smoke, and 
 that makes him cough. "When he gets rid of 
 that cough, and needn't work so hard, he'll be 
 all right, won't he ? "Won't you, Stanley ?" 
 
 Marian asked this as we sometimes ask that 
 which, in our own hearts, we dare not hope to 
 have truly answered. For the first time it had 
 struck her this day this very hour, indeed 
 that there was a huge sorrow in store for her. 
 For the first time she had come to the knowledge 
 of the wounding truth that her husband's was 
 no mere ordinary illness. 
 
 He managed to bring his head round to face 
 them again, as his wife's words died away. 
 
 " Marian, my pet!" he said ; and Bella loved 
 him so dearly then, in her own pure, honest 
 heart, for thus addressing the woman who had 
 superseded her " Marian, my pet, you must 
 tell Mrs. "Walsingham how we met first. You 
 must tell her what an angel you have been to 
 me ; and then, dear, she will love you, and un- 
 derstand how I love you too ! Come, cheer up, 
 pet!" 
 
 He smiled his old, sweet, protecting smile 
 upon Marian ; but the poor " pet" could not 
 " cheer up." The dread that had seized her 
 
 was so heavy and so strange : she could not 
 cheer up under it. 
 
 "You shall tell me yourself, Stanley," Bella 
 said, softly, drawing the lovely young face, 
 down which the scalding tears were now pouring, 
 on to her own shoulders. " You shall tell me, 
 yourself; and first tell me were you married 
 when you came to see Claude and me ?" 
 
 " Yes," he said. 
 
 " And you did not tell us. Oh ! Stanley, that 
 was not fair to me !" 
 
 " And he's been so ill since, and not one of 
 his old friends has been near him ; and I know 
 that it's all because he married me-e-e," Marian 
 sobbed out, miserably. 
 
 "Not a bit; his old friends will come, now 
 they know where to find him, you silly child ! 
 Oh! I wish Claude were here," Bella cited 
 impetuously ; " he's away now with his father, 
 who's ill, you know ; but as soon as he comes 
 back I shall bring him." 
 
 Stanley's face fell. 
 
 " I shall not ask you many more favours, Mrs. 
 "Walsingham," he began, in a low voice. " "Will 
 you grant me one ? " 
 
 " One, Stanley ! a thousand if you will ! " He 
 looked at her very kindly. 
 
 "Rash, as of old, I see. "Well," with a 
 slight movement of his head, *as though he 
 would have thrown off the very memory of it 
 " that's past. This is my favour I can't ask 
 you not to come near us, now I see you, and 
 
 find you " He gulped, and could not finish 
 
 his sentence, and Bella did what women are 
 sure to do when they feel perplexed wept 
 copiously. 
 
 " Marian, go and get me a glass of lemonade, 
 dear," he said, suddenly; and when Marian 
 was gone on his mission, he went on, hur- 
 riedly 
 
 "I couldn't say it before her, poor darling; 
 but I'm dying, Bella, you know that." 
 
 " Don't, don't! " she implored ; " don't say it, 
 Stanley!" 
 
 " It's true 'I know it and as I have little 
 enough to live for, it's as well. Don't let me 
 think, though, that you press Claude to see me 
 against his will, or that he refuses to grant your 
 request, as I shall think, whether he comes or 
 does not come, if you go away intending to ask 
 him. Don't let me think that." 
 
 " He will come ; you don't know Claude." 
 
 " I do know him," he cried, starting up on 
 his elbow. " Bella ! by the old love that was 
 between us once, don't subject me to such a 
 cursed humiliation. It's nearly all over with 
 me ; don't you be the one to stab me at the 
 last." 
 
 Her voice went up almost with a wail as she 
 replied 
 
 " It is too hard, too hard ! " 
 
 " It is too hard don't you make it harder." 
 
 "Stanley, I can't argue, but how you wrong 
 ray husband ! " 
 
 Ho sank back again, flushed and breathless. 
 
 " Do you see what I am now ? " he asked. 
 " Do you see that it must be over soon ? Bella ! 
 it's the last thing I ask of you. You have 
 found me out God knows, through no will of 
 mine respect the secret you have surprised ; 
 let no one hear, through you, of me, and of my 
 misery ! " 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 139 
 
 He spoke bitterly and sternly, and Bella's 
 heart throbbed to each accent of his, in fear, as 
 it had never done in love. 
 
 "You are mistaken," she was .beginning to 
 plead; but he checked her, and repeated his 
 charge, that through her no one should know 
 of him and of his misery. " Unless you will 
 promise me this, I will cut off the only pleasure 
 left to me from the past. I will never see you 
 again, and thus my poor little wife may lose a 
 friend." 
 
 " But, unless I let it be known that she is 
 your wife, how can I be her friend ? as I will 
 be, heaven help me, if I am permitted ! '' 
 
 But, with a man's perverseness, he would not 
 see the force of this. 
 
 "You maybe a friend to her when I am 
 gone, but, while I live, I will live out of sight 
 of the sneers that are given about me." 
 
 4i Oh, Stanley ! what a distorted view to take," 
 she said ; and then Marian came back with the 
 lemonade, and th^subject was dropped. 
 
 Mrs. Claude Walsingham sat there for an 
 hour, after Marian came back with the lemonade, 
 listening to the story of " how she (Marian) had 
 met with Stanley." It was not such a very 
 long story in itself, as the reader already knows ; 
 but it took a long time Ijp tell, nevertheless, for 
 Marian had not the art of telling things con- 
 cisely. She interlarded her account with dis- 
 cursive passages bringing in, without sufficient 
 cause, the suggestions and suppositions Rayner, 
 Miss Simpson, and others of that ilk, had in- 
 dulged in. She told very artlessly how differ- 
 ent her wedding had been to what she had 
 always felt sure it would be if she married a 
 gentleman. She did not say how different her 
 after-married life had been ! Poor girl 1 there 
 was not the faintest shadow of complaint in 
 the story that she told. It might have been 
 bravery, or it might have been love, which kept 
 her silent on this point. But whatever it was, 
 Bella respected her for it. 
 
 I am not by any means sure that Mrs. Claude 
 Walsingham listened attentively throughout the 
 recital. Anxious, as she was, to know all 
 about it to hear how he had come down to the 
 depths he was in now she could not avoid let- 
 ting her mind wander. Her attention would 
 lapse perpetually, and she would find herself 
 thinking of the life of love and comparative 
 leisure and literary ease he had led down at 
 the little village when her first engagement had 
 been made. She could but think of this, and 
 compare it with this dismal room, which even 
 the rich roses could not brighten this room, 
 rife with evidences of his penury this room, 
 in which his life seemed doomed to ebb away. 
 The contrast would have been saddening to any 
 woman ; to one of Bella's temperament, it was 
 nearly maddening. 
 
 When the story of how he had met with and 
 married Marian had been told, they spoke of 
 his book of that "Never a Chance" which 
 she had read with a sickening interest, feeling 
 it to be partly a reflection of its author's life. 
 He mentioned it in a tone that strove to be 
 slighting at first; but, with a woman's quick- 
 ness, she discovered that he had a little pleasure 
 in it still, and she fanned that pleasure as only 
 a woman can. 
 
 " Everybody is speaking of it," she said, with 
 
 the polite and surely pardonable deception that 
 living-kindness is apt to attempt to practise 
 upon tyros in the craft sometimes " everybody 
 is speaking about it, and I see it so well men- 
 tioned by the reviews." 
 
 " Yes, it's gone into a third edition ; but that 
 means nothing; and several of the dailies have 
 gone into raptures over it, which means less," 
 he replied, with assumed indifference. " I 
 shall do better than 'Never a Chance' by- 
 and-by." 
 
 An eager look came over his pallid face as 
 he said it, and his eyes kindled with such a 
 terribly bright fire that the blinding tears came 
 into Bella's eyes. It was hard for her to hear 
 him say that, and to see him wasting away so 
 surely and so fast. Whatever her sins towards 
 him, grant that she was sufficiently punished 
 for them now. 
 
 "And directly he makes a great deal of 
 money by his books, we are going away to live 
 in the country ain't we, Stanley?" Marian 
 asked. 
 
 " Somewhere near us, I hope," Bella sug- 
 gested. And then the idleness of her hope, 
 the bitter mockery of it, the futility of it, struck 
 her with a hard, stunning force: it is so bad 
 when pain ceases to be sharp and stinging, and 
 becomes crushingly weighty and dull ! Bella 
 could not sit under hers any longer, so she rose 
 abruptly, saying 
 
 " May I come again to-morrow with more 
 roses ?" 
 
 They both said " Yes," in a tone that told 
 her what a gleam of sunshine in the darkness 
 of their lives her presence was to them. Then 
 she bade them adieu, and drove home, bitterly 
 lamenting that she had been surprised into giv- 
 ing a promise of keeping Claude in the dark as 
 to Stanley's state and Stanley's straits. 
 
 Perhaps it would place poor Stanley Yillars 
 in a more noble and exalted light before the 
 reader if I said, on Bella's departure he dis- 
 burdened himself to his wife of the secret of 
 that engagement the rupture of which had 
 ruined him. But I cannot say that he did, 
 since, in fact, he did nothing of the kind ; and 
 I hold him to be right in thus maintaining 
 reserve on a point which it could do no manner 
 of good to make public. 
 
 There is probably a closed closet in every 
 man's heart a little cell that may not be dark 
 as the suspicious are apt to think it, but that is 
 simply closed reverently in order to keep out 
 prying eyes. Why should that closet be un- 
 locked and ransacked for the benefit of one 
 who is occupying or about to occupy the rest 
 of the heart of which this cell is now but an 
 unimportant corner? Whether the one who 
 filled it once be dead or "only" gone away, she 
 should at least be nameless to the new love, 
 who will be wise if she never search for the 
 little key that may open the door of the closet 
 a man seems disposed to keep closed. 
 
 At any rate, Stanley Yillars was not the 
 style of man who opens his closet needlessly. 
 Had the girl he married been of his own rank 
 in life, she would probably have heard about 
 the Bella Yane episode heard of it as one 
 hears of such things every day, carelessly. 
 But since she had known nothing of it before, 
 his tenderness for her a tenderness that was 
 
HO 
 
 ON GUARD. 
 
 less than love, perhaps, but more than friend- 
 ship determined him on keeping it from her 
 still, on keeping silence and the closet closed. 
 
 I said that Bella went home bitterly lament- 
 ing having been surprised into giving a pro- 
 mise to Stanley of keeping Claude in the dark. 
 She bitterly lamented something else also, 
 which was the loss of that belief in the good 
 that is in all men, which Stanley had once pos- 
 sessed. It was gone from him now. It was 
 patent to her in everything he wrote, and said, 
 and looked, that a mighty distrust had come in 
 its place a distrust that was so hard, bitter, 
 and deep, that it poisoned all it dwelt upon. 
 Remorsefully she thought about it, for his eyes 
 had silently questioned her when she was 
 reproaching him with it once, during her 
 visit. 
 
 " How could it different be? 
 Since thou hast been pouring poison 
 O'er the bloom of life for me I" 
 
 Grace had had a pleasant morning's shop- 
 ping, and was very satisfied with the result of 
 her labours, when Bella met her, before dinner. 
 Miss Harper appeared to have quite got over 
 the little difference of the day before. She had 
 that great art of being able to seem as if she 
 had not only entirely forgiven, but entirely for- 
 gotten a thing which renders lymphatic wo- 
 men dangerous to deal with. Bella, on the 
 contrary, was one of those unfortunates who 
 cannot forget being intentionally offended im- 
 mediately, however it may be about forgiving. 
 So now she met Miss Harper a little more coldly 
 than a wary woman would have done, and 
 suffered Miss Harper to perceive that silence 
 would be agreeable to her. She only addressed 
 one question to Grace during dinner, in fact, 
 which was 
 
 " You went out with Lady Lexley this morn- 
 ing, I suppose ?" To which Grace replied " No, 
 dear Mrs. Walsingham ; by myself I preferred 
 it." 
 
 "That was rather strange, I think." Bella 
 rejoined. Then she forgot the subject, and 
 began wondering how she could at the same 
 time be true to Stanley and to Claude. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIII. 
 
 VERY SORROWFUL. 
 
 EITHER the new novel, "Never a Chance," was 
 having a tremendous run, or Mr. Mudie had 
 taken a very insufficient number of copies. 
 Whatever the cause, the result was that the 
 subscriber who was, perhaps, most interested 
 in the work, could not get the third volume the 
 day she wanted it. 
 
 "It's really very annoying," Bella said, when 
 they were back in the drawing-room after din- 
 ner ; " too annoying! You're sure you've been 
 more than once for it, Hill?" 
 
 Hill, standing at ease in the doorway, was 
 very sure he had been more than once. 
 
 "Very annoying indeed," his mistress re- 
 peated in a thoroughly vexed tone; "a perfect 
 nuisance! I wanted it particularly to-night. 
 However!" 
 
 This "however" was intended, as the word 
 
 at the end of a touchy sentence is usually in- 
 tended, to terminate discussion, namely, and to 
 be taken as a declaration of the speaker's feel- 
 ing the futility of saying more about it. 
 
 But Hill had been in the disappointed lady's 
 service many years, and he took an old servant's 
 interest in whatever interested her. He never, 
 by any chance, omitted to look for that special 
 paragraph in the advertisement-sheet of the 
 Times " Notice. The new novel, ' Never a 
 Chance,' at all the libraries" in these days. 
 He almost took a personal pride in it, pointing 
 it out to the select in the servants' hall, and 
 dwelling upon it as upon a work in which, 
 some way or other, he had a share. Many had 
 been the surreptitious glances he had given to 
 the contents of the two first volumes at odd 
 moments, while his mistress had kept them near 
 her favourite couch, to be at hand the instant 
 she was seated. And the fact of the third 
 volume being unattainable mst now was to the 
 full as distressing to him as n was to her. For 
 a very tender heart beat beneath that plush, 
 and the plight in which the heroine was left at 
 the end of the second volume was sorely harass- 
 ing to his feelings. So now, when his mistress 
 said "however," in a very dejected, disap- 
 pointed tone, he conceived an idea, and deli- 
 vered himself of it with surprising rapidity 
 
 " There's the large library at Knightsbridge, 
 Ma'am. No doubt it might be got there." 
 
 " Yqu can't get it from Westerton's any more 
 than from Mudie's, at night." 
 
 " It might be tried. Shall I go, ma'am ?" 
 
 "Yes; I'm very anxious for it. Manage it 
 if you can, Hill," Bella replied, looking stead- 
 fastly at Miss Harper, who was trying to look 
 grieved at such a perverted taste, and failing. 
 On which Hill departed, leaving his mistress 
 hopeful about getting the book, but rather in- 
 clined to think she had been rash in bringing it 
 to the front as she had done before this calm 
 enemy. 
 
 As soon as the man was gone the calm enemy 
 arrayed herself for battle ; in other words, took 
 up some netting, which she always had on 
 hand, and placed herself with her back to the 
 light. 
 
 " You seem tired, dear," she commenced. 
 
 " I am tired," Bella replied, briefly ; then she 
 felt aggrieved at her fatigue, which was purely 
 mental, being noticed, and added, " What makes 
 you think me so?" 
 
 "You look so pale and harassed; besides, 
 your craving for the book is a sign that you're 
 not up to doing anything better than reading 
 it." 
 
 Bella gave a little gasping sigh. She was 
 beginning to hate Miss Harper. 
 
 " Do let the book alone ! " she said, almost 
 angrily. 
 
 " Don't be afraid that I am going to reiterate 
 what I said about it last night, dear ! " she said 
 gently. "I have made my protest. I have 
 spoke'n once." 
 
 " Well, well, I know ; don't, don't say any 
 more about it, please." 
 
 " Not about the book, certainly," Grace re- 
 plied, blithely, " since you can't listen to a dis- 
 passionate critique on anything that's written 
 by any one you have known, but about the 
 author or, rather, about his sister." 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 141 
 
 In spite of herself Bella made a small move- 
 ment indicative of curiosity. She turned her 
 head round slightly towards Miss Harper, and 
 evidently listened. Miss Harper marked that 
 she did this, and, therefore, kept silence and 
 bided her time. 
 
 " "Well ? " Bella said, interrogatively, after a 
 minute. 
 
 "Two, three* that's right," Grace said, 
 counting her stitches aloud. " I thought I had 
 got into a mess. What did you say? " 
 
 " I didn't say anything I mean, I asked you 
 what you said," Bella replied, giving a glance 
 of deadly hatred at the netting, 
 
 " I ! I didn't speak, dear." 
 
 "I beg your pardon; you did just now," 
 Bella said, with difficulty restraining her incli- 
 nation to tell Miss Harper not to call her 
 "dear" any more, but to borne into an open 
 field and fight it out. 
 
 " What did I say ? " Grace asked, artlessly. 
 How odious a frank manner is when we see 
 behind it, and discern the treachery it seeks to 
 mask. Bella saw behind the artlessness now; 
 but the clearness of vision would do her small 
 service, she began to fear. 
 
 " What did you say ? as if you had forgotten 
 already. Why, something about Mr. Stanley 
 Villars' sister that you want to tell me, and I 
 want to hear." 
 
 " Oh-o ! Oh-o ! " Grace said, with a prolonged 
 sound on the " o ' that was meant to express 
 how very unimportant the whole thing was to 
 her. " Oh-o ! yes, to be sure ; she's going to 
 be married." 
 
 " Florence ? " She asked it with a blending 
 of relief and amazement. There was balm in 
 this at least, that the sister should be able to 
 bury her dead and be happy, though the bro- 
 ther had been unable to so. Memories of Den- 
 ham days of the days when Florence had 
 loved Claude, and let her love be seen came 
 back to Claude's wife now, as she uttered the 
 single word " Florence." 
 
 " Yes, Florence is her name ; a very pretty 
 girl, but not too clever, I understand. That's 
 rather well though, as the man she's going to 
 marry is not too clever either." 
 
 " Her brother doesn't know it ! " Bella said 
 hastily, and then Grace glanced sharply at her, 
 and she felt that she had made a mistake, and 
 faltered. 
 
 " I mean, does her brother know of it? " she 
 said, blushing, and trying to keep the colour 
 down by speaking very distinctly ; as if any- 
 thing would keep the colour down in a woman's 
 face when she has made a false step, and is lia- 
 ble to be found out. " I mean, does her bro- 
 ther know of it ? " 
 
 " Of course you meant that, for how should 
 you know that he didn't know of it, not having 
 seen him," Miss Grace replied, letting each 
 word fall steadily on her listener's ear. "No, 
 I don't suppose Mr. Chester has thought it 
 necessary to have an official communication 
 made to Mr. Stanley Villars.". 
 
 " Who's Mr. Chester ?" Bella asked. She felt 
 that there was animus against Stanley in these 
 speeches which Grace Harper let fall. She felt 
 that there was animus ; but after all she was 
 moving in the dark, being utterly at a loss to 
 account for it in any way. 
 
 "Mr. Chester is the man Miss Villars is going 
 to marry." 
 
 "Do you know him?" 
 
 " I have met him two or three times. Lord 
 Lesley knows him very well. He's such a 
 booby." 
 
 " Poor Florence !" Bella cried, warmly. " You 
 don't mean that, do you, Grace ?" 
 
 " Well, I do mean it. Funny, isn't it, my 
 giving you news of the Villarses ? Oh ! and 
 I'll tell you something else, too. Don't picture 
 your pet author pining in solitude. He's doing 
 nothing of the kind." 
 
 She laughed as she said it. Laughed with a 
 wicked meaning, that shot like a bolt of ice 
 through Bella's frame. Yet Mrs. Claude fancied 
 that the promise he had extorted from her 
 bound her to keep his secret and sit silent when 
 he was aspersed. A sentence or two of the 
 truth would have stopped the persecution she 
 was enduring from innuendo, and left her nothing . 
 to fear. But, like a woman, she was over hon- 
 ourable in the wrong place, and so harm came 
 of it. 
 
 As Grace's wicked laugh died away, Hill 
 came in, radiant with success, and with the 
 book, the coveted third volume, in his hand. 
 Then Bella took it, and with a faint hope that 
 she might stop the conversation, and put an end 
 to what would have sounded to her like insult- 
 ing hints, had she been able to fix a motive for 
 them on Grace, said 
 
 " You must excuse my talking any more, now 
 I have got my book. I am tired, and I want 
 to read. After tea I'll play." 
 
 ' ' Certainly, I'll excuse you, dear. Just wait 
 one moment though. Of course I couldn't tell 
 you before Hill, but Mr. Stanley Villars has 
 gone down indeed ! He's leading an awful life, 
 awful ! Isn't it shocking ?" 
 
 "I don't believe it," Bella said, with a sick 
 qualm at her heart. " Who's your informant ?" 
 
 "Lady Villars herself," Grace said, quietly. 
 "I forgot to tell you I met her this morning." 
 
 " I thought you didn't know her." 
 
 "No more I did before to-day, but Fred 
 Chester was with her, and he introduced me. 
 You see he hunts down about us, so he intro- 
 duced me to Lady Villars and his fair betrothed. 
 It's always pleasant, if people are likely to 
 meet in the country, to have met first in town, 
 isn't it?" 
 
 Grace was relapsing into the old stolid sim- 
 plicity, but Bella's belief in this quality was 
 shaken now. 
 
 "It's strange you shouldn't have mentioned 
 all this to me before, as you are staying with 
 me," Mrs. Claude said, with a slight air of the 
 injured hostess about her. 
 
 "Yes, it always does seem so mean not to 
 say where one has been, and whom one has 
 seen, doesn't it?" Grace asked, innocently. 
 
 " It also sounds strangely that Lady Villars 
 should have reposed a confidence in you im- 
 mediately. What did Florence say when Lady 
 Villars told that that falsehood about Stan'tey ?" 
 
 ;< Miss Villars. and Mr. Chester had moved to 
 another counter they didn't hear it ; after all," 
 race continued, in an explanatory tone, " it 
 wasn't a confidence. I said I was staying with 
 you, and then we spoke of other things." 
 
 "Suppose we speak of other things now," 
 
142 
 
 ON GUARD. 
 
 Bella rejoined, with a lightness she was far from 
 feeling. She scented danger, or, if not danger, 
 at least difficult}', of some sort or other, but she 
 did not know from which quarter to expect it ; 
 she was far from sure as to whether she feared 
 it for herself entirely, even. 
 
 "I wish I had written to dear Claude before 
 I went there yesterday," she thought; " I should 
 have told him, and then there would have been 
 an end of it; now I don't know what to do." 
 
 After this she was suffered to peruse her 
 hardly-gained volume in peace, but there was 
 no pleasure in the perusal. She was haunted 
 the whole time by an uneasy feeling of having 
 been indiscreet, and of therefore being on the 
 high road to mischief a feeling that very for- 
 tunately pervades the breast of every conscien- 
 tious woman whenever she is guilty of that 
 which, if less than a crime, is unquestionably 
 more than a folly concealment and secresy. 
 
 Mrs. Claude Walsingham had a burning de- 
 sire the following morning to ask Miss Harper 
 when she was going, and to hint that she need 
 not stand upon the order of her departure, but 
 take it at once. However, hospitality is a 
 sacred thing. This well-reputed young woman, 
 with the colossal power of making herself un- 
 pleasant faultlessly, had been entrusted to her 
 charge; therefore she must keep the precious 
 deposit until time, or chance, or something 
 equally kind, relieved her of it. 
 
 " "When Claude comes back, I'll confess to 
 him that I hate her, and her thick white skin," 
 Bella thought to herself. " Oh ! good gracious ! 
 the Markham was bad enough, but she was 
 better than this!" 
 
 Miss Harper really was like a huge white 
 elephant upon her hands. Grace was just one 
 of those "fine" creatures that when hated at 
 all, are hated with a tall, fat hatred that cor- 
 responds with their bulk, and is a wearisome 
 burden to the feeler of it. Miss Harper was 
 ponderous, mentally and bodily, when once you 
 regarded her as other than a vast expanse of 
 harmless, well-meaning white flesh. 
 
 For two hours and a half after breakfast, Mrs. 
 Claude "Walsingham sat and loathed her guest 
 and her guest's netting. The round, well- 
 covered white fingers caught her eyes and 
 chained them, turn which way she would. Had 
 the girl been awkward with these fingers, or 
 quick with them had they been other than the 
 subtly slow, unvarying-in-purpose things they 
 were, Bella could have borne them better. As 
 it was, they acted on her nerves as organ-grind- 
 ing or street ballad-singing does on mine and 
 yours, fellow-sufferer from metropolitan har- 
 mony. They made her feel that she couldn't 
 sit still, and that there was no relief to be gain- 
 ed by motion, and that anything on earth would 
 be preferable to that combination of white cot- 
 ton and whiter hands. They made her wish 
 that Miss Harper ended at her throat like a 
 cherub. They wrought her up into a highly 
 nervous frame of mind, in fact, in which she 
 went forth once more to see Stanley Villars. 
 
 She found Mrs. Stanley in tears in the passage 
 when she arrived, and she took the poor little 
 baby-faced beauty, who was learning this world's 
 sharp lesson of sorrow so early, to her warm, 
 womanly heart, literally as well as figuratively. 
 She put her arms round the girl and held her 
 
 within them closely, never thinking of Mnriau 
 as other than of one to whom Stanley was dear, 
 and who, she trusted, was dear to Stanley. 
 
 " I'm so glad you're come !" Marian sobbed. 
 "Oh 1" I'm so glad you're come!" 
 
 " "What is it tell me ?" Bella asked sooth- 
 ingly. " How is your husband ? See ! I have 
 brought him grapes with the roses to-day !" 
 
 Marian looked at the basket the basket 
 Bella had arranged with her own hands of 
 grapes, and mosses, and roses. It was very 
 pretty very pretty, indeed ; but the sight of 
 it evidently brought no comfort to Marian 
 to-day. 
 
 " Shall we go in to him ?" Bella suggested, 
 trying to edge her way out of the passage, 
 which, by reason of being partially blocked up 
 with all the rubbish that had accumulated dur- 
 ing the whole term of their residence, was not 
 a pleasant place to stand in. 
 
 "It's no use," Marian said, rocking her head 
 backwards and forwards on her shoulders, dole- 
 fully. 
 
 "Why no use?" Bella asked, in a whisper. 
 
 "He's gone o out!" Marian said, getting on 
 her feet, and relapsing into the manner of her 
 sex and time of life, by trying to smoothe her 
 hair and adjust her belt and collar simulta- 
 neously. 
 
 " Gone out !" Bella repeated after her. Then 
 Mrs. Walsingham walked in and sat down on 
 the couch where Stanley had been lying the 
 day before. " Gone out in the state he is in 1" 
 
 " He's ever so much worse to-day !" Marian 
 said, piteously; "he was ever so much worse 
 after you left yesterday. He would sit up, all ] 
 coudl say; and then it was nothing but drink and 
 write, drink and write, all day, and all night, 
 till he's half mad, I think!" 
 
 "Do you know where he is gone?" Bella 
 asked not, in truth, with any real desire for in- 
 formation respecting his destination, but simply 
 because she felt that it would be better for them 
 both that there should be speech, than that 
 silence should reign. 
 
 "I don't know perhaps down to the office, 
 or up to Mr. Bligh's; shall we go and see?" 
 Marian said eagerly. It seemed to her quite in 
 the order of things that the pair of them should 
 forthwith form an expedition, and start in search 
 of Stanley, and bring him back bodily when 
 found ; but it did not seem in the order of 
 things to Mrs. Claude Walsingham. 
 
 " We can send my man with a note, that 
 you shall write, to either of those places you 
 speak of," Bella said, "and I will wait here 
 with you till he comes back. What's the 
 office ?" 
 
 " His newspaper place. He would be sure 
 to go there, if he could get as far ; but he lost 
 so much blood last night I" 
 
 " Lost so much what V Bella asked, with a 
 tremble in her tone that told of the pain she 
 felt. " Lost so much what ?" 
 
 "Blood! Oh, I didn't tell you that he 
 broke a blood-vessel ! It is all so miserable, 
 Mrs. Walsingham ; there is such a lot of it to 
 tell," Marian said, putting up her hands, and 
 hiding the light of day from her pale-worn 
 young face. 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 143 
 
 CHAPTER XLIY. 
 
 A TRIO OP MATRONS. 
 
 POOR BELL'A ! She wanted so much to be 
 '"good," very, very good now, and to make 
 everything pleasant for all in whom she was 
 interested. But the time seemed past for doing 
 this. It was " too late " to make amends. 
 
 Her heart ached with a gnawing anguish 
 that is only known to those who feel they have 
 been guilty, as she sat there in that dingy room, 
 and thought of Stanley Yillars, and, shudder- 
 ingly, of the broken blood-vessel. She knew 
 so well for she was a quick-feeling, sympathe- 
 tic woman how this last evil had been caused. 
 Mental exertion and mental pain had strained 
 some delicate fibre; and the tide of life had 
 rushed out, and would be liable to rush out at 
 any moment. 
 
 To say that she was very sorry, very misera- 
 ble, for all this, would not express to you a 
 tithe of what such a woman as Bella suffers 
 under such circumstances. The wages of her 
 fault were not paid to herself; they were paid, 
 seemingly, to the one against whom the fault 
 had been committed. She, the sinner, was in 
 purple and fine linen, while he, the sinned 
 against, was in sackcloth and ashes. 
 
 The sense of her own helplessness in the 
 matter depressed her, and made her appear so 
 far less bright a woman than Marian had 
 hitherto deemed her new friend to be. There 
 had been previously an amount of warmth, 
 earnestness, force, and brilliancy, about Mrs. 
 Claude Walsingham : and these things are cal- 
 culated to give the casual observer the idea 
 of carrying all things before them. Marian 
 had imagined all manner of good resulting from 
 the dawning of Bella. But now Bella looked 
 overcast overcast as any common mortal, who 
 wasn't full of beauty and vigour, might have 
 looked. Marian stood looking at her with a 
 vague sense of disappointment, as she sat on 
 the couch, doing no more, and making things 
 no better, than any other woman. 
 
 At last the wife spoke, and her words were 
 wise, with the wonderful wisdom of love. 
 
 " Mrs. "Walsingham. could you help me to 
 find out his sister? Never mind what they 
 say of me, or think of me. I ought, as he 
 won't do it, to find out his sister, and tell how 
 ill he is." 
 
 " I can take you to her," Bella replied, start- 
 ing up ; "I will take you at once." 
 
 " Is it very far ? should we be long away?" 
 
 " We could go there and tell Florence all she 
 need know, and be back in an hour," Mrs. 
 "Walsingham replied. "It is Stanley's doing, 
 you know. He has cut himself off from his 
 family. They would never have left him in 
 the lurch." 
 
 " He had some good reason for it, I think," 
 Marian answered, putting on a shawl that was 
 lying on the table as she spoke. " He has not 
 turned to what he is now for. any little thing, 
 I'm sure. Sometimes, when he is quite himself, 
 I seem to see what he must have been before 
 he had his grief. You've known him a long 
 time ; do you know what changed him ?" 
 
 The question was asked in perfect simplicity 
 and good faith, but the questioned shrank 
 
 within herself as she heard it. She did know, 
 God help her 1 The knowledge of it was the 
 cross she had to bear. She did know ; and, as 
 she hoped and prayed to serve, she dared not 
 tell his wife. 
 
 "H# has not got on well; I suppose that's 
 it." She tried to say it steadily, but her voice 
 shook. 
 
 " And his marriage has kept him back more, 
 hasn't it?" Marian asked mournfully. "But he 
 did tell me once that he was glad he married 
 me. I wish he hadn't, if it has harmed him ; I 
 wouldn't have harmed him for the world." 
 
 The girl was weeping wearily before her sen- 
 tence closed ; and wearily the lady, who knew 
 the truth so well, answered 
 
 " You are not the one who has harmed him ; 
 the harm was done before he knew you." 
 
 " How do you know ?" 
 
 The sudden cessation of Marian Yillars' tears, 
 the quick glance she flashed out through her 
 wet eyelashes, put Claude Walsiugham's wife on 
 her guard at once. She remembered that she 
 was Claude Walsingham's wife, and that to re- 
 proach or point to herself as unworthy would 
 be to reproach and ask for condemnation for 
 him. She gulped down the desire to make a 
 clean breast of it, which had almost overcome 
 her when Marian so piteously bewailed her own 
 supposed share in Stanley's downfall ; and re- 
 plied quietly 
 
 "Didn't you tell me yourself how you found 
 him first ? His grief and his restlessness had 
 come before then, evidently." 
 
 "I suppose they had," Marian said softly. 
 " I'm ready now. Do you think I shall do 
 good ?" 
 
 " You can do no harm," Bella replied ; but 
 though she said this, she was rather nervous as 
 to the result of their mission. That her nervous- 
 ness was fully shared she was well aware ; for 
 more than once on their way to Sir Gerald Yil- 
 lars', Marian broke the silence with a gasping 
 sigh, and the words 
 
 "I won't care what they say, or look, or 
 think of me, if they'll only remember that he is 
 their brother." The unaccredited ambassador 
 was unmistakably quailing. 
 
 As for Bella, the only way in which she sup- 
 ported her courage was by reminding herself 
 constantly that she "was in for it now." She 
 had undertaken it, and must perforce go through 
 with it ; but she felt morally sure that, both by 
 Claude and Stanley, she would be made to pay 
 for having mixed herself up in the business. 
 
 Yet she had done no more than humanity 
 had a right to expect from her. She had found 
 a man in dark despair, in penury, in ill health ; 
 and the certain conviction was hers that she 
 had been the cause of his fall into these things. 
 However weak and erring he had been how- 
 ever blindly perverse, and wickedly wasteful of 
 the good gifts God had given him, which no 
 woman could destroy she could but feel herself 
 to have been the first cause of the weakness 
 and error, of the blind perversity and reckless 
 wastfulness. "What amends she could it was 
 her bounden duty to make. This she knew. 
 She also knew that she had set aboht making it 
 in the wrong way. " Why didn't I write and 
 tell Claude about it yesterday, before it grew ?" 
 she thought, as she found herself walking alone 
 
144 
 
 ON GUARD. 
 
 into Lady Yillars' room, having thought it well 
 that Marian should wait in the carriage till the 
 ice was broken. 
 
 There were three of Lady Yillars' sisters in 
 the room when Bella entered. She saw at once 
 that they were sisters, and shrewdly guessed 
 that they had come up for the wedding. 
 
 " I think Florence is taking off her habit," 
 Lady Yillars said, "or else she's trying on some 
 dresses ; would you hear ?" addressing one of 
 her sisters ; " she'd so like to see Mrs. Walsing- 
 ham." 
 
 "And I want to see her very much," Bella 
 commenced in an agitated tone. " The fact is 
 
 I hope you won't think " She broke 
 
 down, and Lady Yillars began to smile, and 
 continued the same till her little short nose was 
 almost lost in the plumpness of her cheeks. 
 
 "Think you late in your congratulations? 
 Oh, dear, no ! It's a very recently arranged 
 affair a brilliant match for the dear girl if 
 she were my own sister I couldn't have desired 
 a better." 
 
 " I suppose not," Bella replied, looking at the 
 aforesaid sisters. She did not mean to look 
 sarcastic or anything else antagonistic to the 
 " Carrie" interest just now ; but she could not 
 help feeling and showing that she felt that Lady 
 Yillars' fraternal toleration would not have been 
 very severely taxed. The marriage that was 
 pronounced fitting for Miss Yillars, might surely 
 have been held suitable for one who owed all 
 of social consideration that she enjoyed to the 
 Yillars alliance. 
 
 "I suppose not. No, it was not congratula- 
 tions I came to offer." Then she rose from the 
 seat she had taken on first entering the room, 
 and said hurriedly, " I had better not go round 
 the subject. Stanley is dying and his wife has 
 come here with me (she's in my carriage) to tell 
 you so." 
 
 Lady Yillars shook her well -arranged little 
 head resolutely. 
 
 " I'm sorry you've permitted yourself to be 
 made a tool of," she said. Then she turned her 
 head slightly over her shoulder, fixed an obe- 
 dient sister with her cool blue eyes, and whis- 
 pered in a tone that was not intended to reach, 
 and that did not reach Bella's ear " Stop 
 Florry from coming." 
 
 "A tool of!" Bella repeated the words warm- 
 ly. She had anticipated its all being such easy 
 work, as far as the Yillarses were concerned. 
 The sole difficulties she had foreseen had been 
 with Stanley and her husband. 
 
 " A tool of I you don't understand " 
 
 Lady Yillars stopped her with an ejaculation. 
 " Good gracious ! how cruelly you have been 
 imposed on !" she cried. " We know all about 
 it the whole story." 
 
 " And you're leaving him to live if he can, 
 and die if he must?" Bella asked it with a 
 biting scorn, that made Lady Yillars tingle. 
 "You can't know the whole story: your 
 brother has struggled till he can struggle no 
 longer; don't stay to think whether he has 
 been to blame or not, but help him up again." 
 
 "I am sure you mean well," Lady Yillars 
 replied, in the tone evil-disposed people use to 
 little children when wrath is in possession of 
 the latter; " but you are so dreadfully mistaken. 
 It's shameful of Stanley it's the worst thing I 
 
 have heard of him yet to have let you mix 
 yourself up with the matter!" 
 " Won't you see his wife ?" 
 " His wife, Mrs. Walsingham 1" 
 ""Won't you send his brother to him? 
 there's his address;" she forced a card, on 
 which she had written down the name and 
 number of the street in which Stanley lived, 
 into Lady Yillars' unwilling hand. 
 
 " Sir Gerald will please himself about going, " 
 Lady Yillars replied, adjusting her fair plump 
 face and insignificant features as severely as she 
 could; "but as a married man, I should hope 
 he'd have the good taste to keep clear of a den 
 of profligacy 1" 
 
 " You do not believe what you are saying, 
 Lady Yillars ! You are trying to harden your 
 own heart with phrases." * 
 
 " I am striving to save myself from being in- 
 fluenced by unhealthy sham emotions," Lady 
 Yillars replied, spitefully. 
 
 "Let me see Florence!" Bella urged, not 
 heeding the insinuation. 
 
 The third sister, who had remained quiescent 
 during the interview, now rose, and said she 
 would "go and look for Florry." Presently 
 she came back. "Florence is not come home," 
 she said. 
 
 Bella gave vent to an impatient exclamation. 
 "She is out, you tell me, now; but will you 
 tell her what 1 came about when she comes 
 home?" 
 
 Lady Villars paused for an instant or two 
 before she answered ; then she said 
 
 "You can hardly be serious, Mrs. Walsing- 
 ham, in wishing to bring Miss Yillars into com- 
 munication with her brother's mistress ; if you 
 choose to risk your own reputation so reck- 
 lessly, I must ask you to consider Miss Yil- 
 lars'." 
 
 " No woman's reputation will be endangered 
 by intercourse with the poor young girl Stanley 
 
 has married, to their mutual cost " 
 
 " Married!" Lady Yillars struck in scoffingly. 
 "Really, Mrs. Walsingham, if you persist in 
 showing yourself all over London with her, I 
 must beg that you will not again subject me to 
 the insultwof having that creature seen at my 
 door. I wonder Major Walsmgham permits it 
 if he knows anything about it!" 
 
 She added this last clause suddenly, on seeing 
 Bella wince when surprise at her husband's 
 "permitting it" was expressed. It was a very 
 telling volley. It routed the already nearly ex- 
 hausted enemy. 
 
 "My husband will judge for himself, Lady 
 Yillars." 
 
 " And I will judge for myself in this matter," 
 Lady Yillars replied. She was very much 
 afraid that Florence might perchance escape 
 from her guileless detainers, and come down 
 and find Bella, when the whole thing would 
 explode in an explanation. 
 
 Mrs. Claude Walsingham felt that she was 
 vanquished, and it was very hard for her to feel 
 this, with her love of ordering things according 
 to her own inclination. It was very hard to go 
 out of that room, and that little, plump, short- 
 nosed woman's presence, with a sense of defeat 
 upon her. It was harder still to feel that the \ 
 defeat must be made known at once to that \ 
 anxious young watcher in the carriage. 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 145 
 
 She made no pretence of offering her hand to 
 Villars. There was hostility in her heart 
 against that admirable matron, whose course 
 of' conduct was so correct that all men's tongues 
 wagged in praise of "it," but never of " her." 
 Bella felt that, on the surface, right was with 
 Lady Villars. The latter was cold-blooded, 
 cold-hearted, calculating, cruel, but she was 
 very correct. The diabolical ingenuity with 
 which she brought her virtuous scruples to the 
 aid of her aid spite against Stanley, staggered 
 the woman in whose breast resentment and 
 malice never obtained. 
 
 As Mrs. Claude Walsingham walked away 
 through the hall, after bidding her hostess fare- 
 well with a cold bow, Lady Yillars asked her 
 sister 
 
 " How did you keep Florence away?" 
 "I told her there was a bore calling that 
 was enough." Then the truthful, honest, 
 young creature got behind the curtain, and 
 peeped out at Mrs. Walsingham's carriage and 
 contents. 
 
 "Don't look! "What's she like?" Lady 
 Yillars asked in a breath. 
 
 "An impudent-looking thing." 
 "Don't let them see you on any account! 
 Golden hair, hasn't she ?" 
 
 " Yellow 1" the sister answered, scornfully. 
 "Ah! Piesse and Lubin are universal bene- 
 factors in these days. I hope Mrs. Walsingham 
 will get it from her husband," Lady Yillars 
 continued, letting her words out in a series of 
 snaps. 
 
 "So wrong of her," the sisters chimed in. 
 The sisters had a habit of chiming in with any 
 sentiment, and of chorussing any remark the 
 wealthy married one of their band elected to 
 make. They too, young innocents, saw visions 
 and dreamt dreams ; and the dreams were all 
 of days of delight at Gerald's shooting-box, in 
 the autumn ; and the visions were more glori- 
 ous still, of a season in town, next year, under 
 Carrie's wing. 
 
 "Wrong! it's idiotic!" Lady Yillars said, 
 sharply. 
 
 "Yes; what has she to do with it?" the 
 obliging sister went on. "How violent she 
 was, Carrie ; I expected to see ever so much 
 prettier a woman. There was such a fuss about 
 her." 
 
 " There was only a fuss about her because 
 there was no one else to make a fuss about. 
 Florence is much better looking." 
 
 Lady Yillars knew that Florence's beauty 
 was not precisely the theme which would be 
 most pleasant to her present auditors. But she 
 was thoroughly sisterly in her treatment of the 
 three young beings whose hopes for the future 
 she held in her own plump hand. She kept 
 them under by allusions to Florence's manifold 
 superiorities over them, just as she kept Flo- 
 rence under by allusions to the many losses 
 they sustained through her. 
 
 " Well, I don't so over-much admire Florence 
 either ; she has but one expression." 
 
 "Ah! but that's such a sweet one," Lady 
 Yillars replied, laughing. " She never troubles 
 herself to be envious and jealous, and so her 
 face keeps fair and smooth." 
 
 Mr. Chester was coming to Sir G-erald's to 
 dinner this day, and whenever he was asked to 
 10 
 
 dinner he had a habit of coming an hour-and-a- 
 half too soon in order, as he expressed, that he 
 "might have a little talk with them." As the 
 whole family were generally engaged in their 
 dressing-rooms at these times, he ordinarily 
 spent this hour-and-a-half in standing about 
 desolately, and wishing he "hadn't come so 
 soon." This day, however, Lady Villars left 
 word that when he came he should be shown 
 into the library, and she herself told at once 
 that he had arrived. 
 
 She was down upon him before he had had 
 time to offer up one regret on the shrine of his 
 self-importance, for that he had come to soli- 
 tude. She was cool and crisp, and entirely 
 herself again, now; indeed it was an attribute 
 of hers to be neither readily nor long ruffled by 
 anything. 
 
 Extending both hands to him as she entered 
 (how he wished that Florence would learn that 
 "little way" of Carrie's!), she commenced 
 
 " My dear Fred, I have something very im- 
 portant to say to you ; how good of you to have 
 come in such nice time." 
 
 He thought that it was very good of himself, 
 considering how often he had done it before, 
 and how invariably melancholy had claimed 
 him for her own in consequence. 
 
 " I haven't even told my husband yet. I feel 
 that it's so essential that you should know it at 
 once." 
 
 "Nothing gone amiss, eh?" he asked, ner- 
 vously. He knew very little of Florence's 
 character. It occurred to him as just within 
 the bounds of possibility, that she might have 
 gone away through a back window, with a 
 little bundle, to the arms of some young Lochin- 
 var of whom he had never heard. 
 
 " No ; nothing gone wrong yet" Lady Yillars 
 replied, with an emphasis that made him feel 
 that something had intervened to stop the flight 
 say a nail, on which Florence's dress had 
 caught, or an accident on the railway along 
 which she was speeding. 
 
 " No ; nothing gone wrong yet, and I do hope 
 that your sound sense will step in and save us 
 from anything going wrong at all. You know 
 about Stanley ? " 
 
 She asked it with a very well done look of 
 pity for the sinner, and detestation for the sin. 
 Fred Chester nodded assent. 
 
 "I positively shudder," Lady Yillars con- 
 tinued, with a little shake that was not nearly 
 as well done as the look ; ' I positively shudder 
 to think of it ! " 
 
 "So would any one," Fred Chester said, 
 nobly forgetting, in the pleasure of being the 
 chosen witness of the shudder! ngs of such a 
 "charming woman" as Lady Villars, even to 
 attempt the smallest bit of " business" on his 
 own account. 
 
 " The woman ! the creature ! forced her way 
 here to-day." Lady Villars spoke in a low tone, 
 as though she were afraid of polluting the silky 
 ears of a King Charles spaniel, who was lying 
 on the rug, with the infamous tidings. 
 
 " By Jove I you don't mean to say so?" 
 
 "I do. Oh! it's shocking! Mrs. Claude 
 Walsingham came with her." 
 
 " Hulloa ! if Mrs. Claude Walsingham came 
 with her, that looks rather eh ? doesn't it ? 
 eh?" 
 
146 
 
 ON GUARD. 
 
 "Doesn't it look what?" she replied sharply. 
 
 " Why, rather as if there were some truth in 
 what Flo thinks that he's married 1 " 
 
 "Flo thinks!" she repeated, sarcastically. 
 "You must know so much better." 
 
 "But Mrs. Walsingham is " 
 
 " A very foolish, rash, impetuous person," she 
 interrupted, " and I fear, I very much fear, not 
 at all too strait-laced herself. "We shall hear 
 more of Mrs. Claude "Walsingham one day, I'm 
 afraid. That's not the point, however. "What 
 do you wish about Florry ? " 
 
 She asked him " what he wished ?" as a mat- 
 ter of form, in order that she might tell her 
 husband afterwards " what Fred Chester said." 
 
 "I hardly know." 
 
 " Of course one hardly does know," she said, 
 encouragingly. " I suppose you'll never suffer 
 Florence to see her." 
 
 "Oh! never!" he answered with as much 
 decision as an imperfect comprehension of what 
 she had said could supply him with. 
 
 "And till Stanley gives up the connection 
 you'll never suffer Florry to see him either ?" 
 
 To this he replied, " Certainly not! " and then 
 Lady Villars, having got all she wanted out of 
 him, left him to his own devices and desolation, 
 and went up to her husband's dressing-room, 
 and told him of the raid that had been made 
 upon her respectability that day, and of Fred 
 Chester's firm, and " certainly proper," determi- 
 nation "never to let one of the lot come in con- 
 tact with Flo while Stanley had that creature 
 with him." 
 
 "What I have gone through to-day no one 
 can tell ! " Carrie said, as she saw her husband 
 look black. 
 
 " It's an astonishing thing that you women 
 will always be deuced hard just where you 
 should be lenient," he said angrily. u I have 
 known you so uncommonly gentle in your 
 judgment of other men, and so wonderfully 
 ready with the argument that if you examine 
 the private characters of all your male acquain- 
 tances, with a view to purging your list, you'd 
 soon not have a name left upon it, that I can't 
 quite understand your animosity against Stan- 
 ley." 
 
 " Then I must be content to do my duty and 
 be misjudged, Gerald," she said, meekly. " I 
 will only say that dear Florry has been a great 
 anxiety thank God, I shall soon be relieved 
 of it !" 
 
 " Thank God that you will since you're al- 
 ways hurling it at my head," he replied without 
 looking at her. 
 
 Mrs. Claude Walsingham had gone back to 
 her carriage with a sense of her defeat upon 
 her strongly. How should she tell the hard 
 truth that they had no pity for and no faith 
 in her to the poor, worn-out young wife, who 
 was waiting? How should she do it? How 
 could she have the heart to do it? She asked 
 herself this question, sadly, and she could give 
 herself no answer. 
 
 She was saved the trouble of telling -it in 
 words. Marian lent forward eagerly as Bella 
 came through the doorway and down the steps, 
 and saw that in the face of her beautiful friend 
 there was sorrow and rage, and little else. 
 
 " They don't care for him any more," the girl 
 said, in a low harsh voice, as Bella seated her- 
 
 self in the carriage. " I can see they don't care 
 they'll let him die, and I'm the one " 
 
 She stopped and burst into tears, and Bella 
 said 
 
 "I did not see his own brother or sister I 
 only saw his sister-in-law. She's cold and 
 heartless ; but the others are different don't 
 despair." 
 
 But the girl only shrank more closely into 
 the corner of the carriage, sobbing. 
 
 " Oh, Mrs. Walsingham ! if I could only be 
 unmarried from him, I'd leave him at once, and 
 then they'd come to him ; and I'd do it 
 though I love him so." 
 
 The words came out from the bursting heart 
 with such a mighty power of truth, that they 
 forced from Bella the inward prayer 
 
 " God forgive those who are trying to fix the 
 stigma on her of not being his wife I can ; t." 
 
 Stanley had not returned when they went 
 back. 
 
 "I shall come again to-morrow," Bella said, 
 and then she kissed Marian, and tried to force 
 something into the girl's hand. But Marian 
 started,, and shook her head, and put the prof- 
 fered gift back. 
 
 "No, Mrs. Walsingham; not that," she said, 
 shaking her head. "It may come, but not yet." 
 
 "Oh, Marian! and I have so much, "Bella 
 pleaded. 
 
 " And I have nothing, but the hope that Stan- 
 ley will never be brought so low as to live on 
 charity through me. Don't be angry, Mrs. Wai 
 singham, it's all I have." 
 
 CHAPTER XLY. 
 
 A THUNDERSTORM. 
 
 THE servant who opened the door to Mrs. Claude 
 Walsingham on her return home from her mis- 
 sion of mercy, looked so pleasurably excited 
 that Bella naturally felt convinced that some- 
 thing horrible had happened. " Master's home, 
 m'm," he said, as his mistress stepped into the 
 hall. 
 
 " Home is he ? where ?" she asked hastily. 
 
 " And master's father is dead, m'm," the man 
 replied, with the proud resolve to be the one to 
 break the bad news, which is a strong passion 
 in the breasts of the lower ten thousand The 
 man had no ill or any other feeling connected 
 with Mr. Walsiugham deceased, but he told of 
 that gentleman's death with an unctuous satis- 
 faction, slightly and but slightly dashed with 
 sorrow, that was refreshing to behold. 
 
 Mrs. Walsingham started. So the kindly, 
 polite old gentleman, her father-in-law, was 
 dead I Well, she would have felt it very muck 
 had she been down at the Court at the time. 
 She had been away from his atmosphere for 
 some months now, however; so, though she 
 started, it was neither with great sorrow nor 
 great horror. It was merely with surprise. 
 
 " Dead is he ! Where's your master ?" 
 
 11 Gone out, m'm. Mrs. Markham came back 
 with master." 
 
 " Oh, did she !" Bella said, walking on. She 
 did not ask " where Mrs. Markham was ?" It 
 occurred to her that she would know that soon 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 147 
 
 enough. " I wish Claude had waited in till I 
 came home," she thought, as she went into her 
 dressing-room, " then I could have told him 
 about poor Stanley at once." 
 
 It came upon her strongly now, as she re- 
 flected how much she had to tell " about Stan- 
 ley," that she had been unwise in that she had 
 not written some of it to her husband. It was 
 rather a long story. Not so much a long story, 
 perhaps, as a difficult story to tell with the con- 
 viction upon her that a portion of it should 
 have been told before. 
 
 It lengthened and grew more intricate as she 
 sat there thinking about it. Lady Yillars' re- 
 marks would have to be repeated; and Lady 
 Villars' remarks and Lady Villars' manner had 
 not been pleasant to Bella, even in the midst of 
 the fervour and heat of her philanthropic mis- 
 sion. But now, when that fervour had toned 
 down a bit, and that heat had cooled by reason 
 of her having come out of the presence of the 
 creators of it, Lady Villars' manners and 
 remarks seemed more unpleasant still, and she 
 felt that Claude would be righteously angry at 
 his wife having subjected herself to them. 
 
 There was an element in Claude's nature 
 which his wife had always been conscious of, 
 without ever having called upon herself to de- 
 fine. It was an element which he kept under 
 greatly, but still it was there. It was that 
 which brought the red spots to his eyes when 
 anger seized his soul. It was a strong, hot, 
 furious fierceness, in fact, which could be very 
 cruel. He had given vent to a little of it on 
 the occasion of that fall she had had from De- 
 vilskin under Jack's auspices. " Ah ! it doesn't 
 do to sit and think when one's nervous," she 
 said, abruptly starting to her feet, after dwell- 
 ing for a minute or two on that incident. " I'll 
 go and see the Markham, and apologise for 
 not having been in to receive her, when I 
 didn't know she was coming." 
 
 Accordingly, Bella having heard from her 
 own maid that Mrs. Markham had installed 
 herself in a suite of rooms that seemed good to 
 her, went off to welcome and condole with her 
 guest. Went prepared to fulfil all the rites of 
 hospitality, and avert with kindly words any 
 wrath, the seeds of which might have been 
 sown during her inopportune absence. 
 
 Her tap at the door was answered by a 
 lachrymose " come in " from Grace Harper, and 
 entering, she found that young lady installed 
 on the little couch at the foot of the bed, with 
 a brace of pearly tears on her nose, and a list 
 of mourning habiliments to be procured in her 
 hand all for the deceased Mr. Walsingham. 
 Mrs. Markham was seated opposite to her 
 friend, recruiting herselF after her journey with 
 sherry and biscuits, and enlivening the repast 
 by giving details connected with the "late 
 mournful event." 
 
 " I am so grieved to hear," Bella was com- 
 mencing as she hastily advanced towards her 
 sister-in-law; and, to do her justice, she was 
 grieved the instant she saw Mrs. Markham, for 
 Mrs. Markham's face was care-worn and pain- 
 lined. "I am so grieved, Ellen; and that I 
 should have been out too!" 
 
 She had given out her hand frankly towards 
 Claude's sister, and now she bent her face for- 
 ward to greet Mrs. Markham with a kiss. It 
 
 was such a sweet, glowing, lovely face that was 
 extended, that no man or woman on earth 
 could have resisted giving it the salute it asked 
 for. Mrs. Markham bent her stiff neck with a 
 jerk,, and- brought her mouth down with a 
 bony kiss a kiss in which Bella felt nothing so 
 much as the teeth on Mrs. Claude's bright 
 cheek. 
 
 ""We must submit to the Lord's decrees," 
 she said, as she brought her kiss to a conclu- 
 sion, snapping it off suddenly in a way that 
 seemed to show that she inwardly protested 
 against the weakness of which she had been 
 guilty. The remark not being one that was 
 exactly calculated to set the ball of conversa- 
 tion rolling, Bella held her peace .for an instant 
 or two, and then said 
 
 "Yes; I'm so sorry I was not at home. I 
 wish Claude had waited for me." 
 
 Mrs. Markham reseated herself, and then 
 assumed that most terrific of all feminine ex- 
 pressions the mysterious. When a woman 
 puts on this, a home in the howling wilderness 
 would be preferable to a boudoir, all silk tabo- 
 ret and Sevres china, in her vicinity. 
 
 " It certainly would have been better had 
 you been at home on Claude's arrival," Mrs. 
 Markham said presently, and her tones were a 
 degree and a half more mysterious than her 
 looks. The stranger on whose ear they might 
 have fallen might have been forgiven for ima- 
 gining that murder, arson, and general unplea- 
 santness had been the result caused by Bella's 
 absence. " It would have been better much 
 better," she repeated, emphatically. 
 
 "I hope you've been made quite comfort- 
 able?" Bella asked, trying to ignore all the 
 disagreeable meaning in her sister-in-law's 
 voice. 
 
 " Thank you, I have," Mrs. Markham replied, 
 icily. 
 
 " The woman won't let me like her, however 
 well inclined I am," Bella thought. Then she 
 asked aloud 
 
 " Mind you command me absolutely, Ellen. 
 Let me save you all trouble about the about 
 the mourning, I mean," she added in a lower 
 key, touched to solemnity by her subject. 
 
 " You are very kind." Mrs. Markham spoke 
 in a rigid tone. Intuitively Bella felt that 
 something had gone wrong. 
 
 "Did Claude say where he was going? and 
 what have you been about while I have been 
 out, Grace ? " Bella asked in a breath. 
 
 Miss Harper's lips parted, but before she 
 could utter a word Mrs. Markham said 
 
 "Claude did not say where he was going. 
 He was met on his return home, in grief for the 
 loss of a parent, by news which upset him con- 
 siderably." 
 
 " What was that news ? and who gave it to 
 him ? " Mrs. Claude asked quickly. 
 
 Mrs. Markham sipped her wine and crumbled 
 her biscuit, not "nervously" she was not the 
 sort of woman to relapse into nervousness on 
 slight provocation but tremulously. Her tre- 
 mulousness usually arose from anger, Bella 
 knew; and, knowing this, Bella watched it 
 somewhat anxiously. 
 
 " What was that news ? and who gave it to 
 him ? " Mrs. Claude repeated her question with 
 that slight additional emphasis which betokens 
 
148 
 
 ON GUARD. 
 
 the birth of an intention not to be trifled with 
 in the speaker. It was very slight in her case, 
 but she, not being a gusty or showy-mannered 
 woman, marked all these fluctuations of feeling 
 very delicately, though clearly. 
 
 "What the news was you will hear soon 
 enough. I cannot tell you who told it to him." 
 Mrs. Markham spoke in a monotone. She 
 had told herself that it behoved her to betray 
 neither anger nor excitement; therefore she 
 adopted that tone which is of all others most 
 calculated to drive the one who hears it into 
 angry despair. Turbulent violence may be 
 endured and baffled; but calm virulence is 
 simply maddening in its effects. 
 
 " Don't torture me by speaking in that way," 
 Bella said quickly. " Do you know anything 
 of this, Grace ? " she continued, looking Miss 
 Harper fixedly in the face. 
 
 ' Nothing more than you've heard from dear 
 Mrs. Markham," Grace replied, meekly. 
 
 Bella's heart swelled. It seemed to her that 
 her husband had been wanting in certain attri- 
 butes with which she had loved to endow him, 
 in having left her to the mercy of these discreet 
 women, who knew, and looked, and thought all 
 manner of things which they were too guarded 
 to say. Her heart swelled, and the angry tears 
 started into her eyes. She had no intention of 
 suffering them to fall in such company, how- 
 ever, so she walked to the door, saying 
 
 " Since I can be of no assistance to you now, 
 I'll leave you till Claude comes home." 
 
 "You dine at the old hour, I suppose ?" Mrs. 
 Markham asked, coldly. 
 
 " Yes, the same. I shall go and rest now." 
 Then she went off to her own dressing-room 
 again, and coiled herself up on a couch, and 
 tried to care for the last pages of " Never a 
 Chance," and forget the shadowy doubts that 
 had been created in her mind. But she could 
 do nothing but move about restlessly, and wish 
 that Claude would come and say out the news 
 that he had heard when he came home. 
 
 He came at last. She, starting up and 
 throwing down her book at the sound of his 
 foot in the passage which led down to her 
 dressing-room, went forward to the door to 
 meet him. Even as she went forward hastily, 
 her quick ear detected in the sound of his step 
 that there was something wrong. 
 
 His gaze met hers the instant the door was 
 opened, and the red spots that came into his eyes 
 when he was angry were in them now, as they 
 met his wife's. He kept his hand on the door- 
 handle still, too, instead of putting it round 
 Bella, as tie was wont to put it when she had 
 her arms round his neck and her face on his 
 breast, as she had them now. 
 
 She had seen in the momentary glance she 
 had given that his face looked pale and hard. 
 Perhaps he was grief-stricken only, for he had 
 loved his father well, though with none of the 
 warm, affection his father had lavished upon 
 him. " Dear Claude ! " she said, and her voice 
 was very soothing and sympathetic, "I am 
 BO sorry, dear ! and that I shouldn't have been 
 in to hear it from you first when you came." 
 
 He just brushed her brow with his lips in 
 reply, and then he moved her away from him 
 and said 
 
 " Here ! let me get into the room ! " 
 
 She stood back then, feeling rebuffed and 
 discomfited, and let him get into the room. 
 "When he was in, he flung himself on the couch, 
 irst flinging the volume that she had been read- 
 ng into the corner of the room. 
 
 His doing that reminded her of the Stanley 
 Villarses, and of all she had to tell him. "He 
 s worn out with his journey and his loss, poor 
 >oy," she thought. "It will take his mind from 
 lis own sorrows a little if I tell him about poor 
 Stanley." 
 
 " Claude, dear, I have something to say to 
 rou," she began, sitting down by his side, and 
 aying her hand on his shoulder. She gave a 
 wistful, pleading look into his face as she spoke, 
 and somehow the expression recalled the one 
 she had worn the first night of their meeting in 
 :hat old cathedral town, when she had implor- 
 ed him to remain at the inn, " in order that she 
 might feel that she had a friend in the house." 
 
 'And I've something to say to you," he re- 
 plied, banishing the remembrance of that ex- 
 pression, with all its softening influences, as he 
 spoke. At the same time he took a letter from 
 tiis pocket, and half opened it, glancing down 
 at its contents in a way that seemed to imply 
 that it had some connection with that matter on 
 which he was going to speak to her. 
 
 "What is it, Claude?" she asked; and her 
 breath failed her as she asked it, for she, too, 
 had glanced at the half-opened letter, and re- 
 cognised the characters in which it was written 
 as being identical with that anonymous letter 
 of which mention has been already made. 
 
 " Is it true that you have been by Jove I I 
 won't give you an opportunity of deceiving me 
 further," he interrupted himself, savagely "it 
 is true that you have been flaunting about town 
 with a couple of of women with whom it's not 
 too creditable to be seen, and picking up with 
 nice associates I" 
 
 "Claude, stop " 
 
 " When I have done," he went on, ruthlessly. 
 " It's true I see it in your face. Why the 
 devil didn't you attend to what Miss Harper 
 said?" 
 
 "Attend to what Miss Harper said?" she 
 repeated wonderingly. 
 
 "Yes. When I read this letter here's a 
 pleasant epistle to greet a fellow the first thing 
 after such an absence from home as mine has 
 been." He picked the letter from his pocket 
 again as he spoke, and flung it into her lap. 
 
 "What is it ?" she asked. " Who's it from ?" 
 
 " It's anonymous " 
 
 Before the word was well out of his mouth, 
 she had flung the letter from her with a gesture 
 of loathing and contempt that was so genuine 
 and so strong that he paused to look at her. 
 Presently he resumed 
 
 "If you'll read it you'll see " 
 
 "If I'll read it?" she repeated, sorrowfully. 
 " Claude ! Can you ask me to do it can you 
 believe I would do it ?" 
 
 " Then I must speak to you about its con- 
 tents," he said, sternly; "which may be more 
 unpleasant to you still. It was to save you the 
 pain of hearing the truth in so many hard words 
 that I gave you the option of reading the letter 
 which made me acquainted with it." 
 "With what?" 
 "The truth." 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 149 
 
 She bowed her head. "I will hear it from 
 you, Claude," she said, quietly. She was re- 
 membering very vividly now how remorse had 
 oppressed her for having read an anonymous 
 slander of him, 
 
 " You will not deny, I suppose, that you have 
 been exhibiting yourself about with Lady Lex- 
 ley in the park, and in Regent Street, and G-od 
 knows where else ?" 
 
 " Of course I have I 1 ' she replied, wonder- 
 ingly. 
 
 " "Why on earth did you do it? Why select 
 her from every other woman under heaven to 
 help you in carrying out your sentimental, half- 
 philanthropic, imbecile intrigue ?" 
 
 "I do not understand you," she said, firmly; 
 but, though she spoke firmly, her heart was 
 very low. She saw herself- entangled in the 
 web that had been partially woven by her own 
 absurd reticence. 
 
 He rose up and began to pace about the room, 
 by way of keeping his anger active. 
 
 "Not understand me ! you do. If it's true 
 that you have been day after day in some low 
 purlieu to see Stanley Villars, and the girl he 
 has picked up and you'll scarcely deny that 
 you must understand me." 
 
 " Claude, don't be hard arid hasty. I will tell 
 you all everything," she cried, starting up and 
 clinging to his arm. 
 
 " By Jove ! I have heard enough already to 
 turn a fellow sick," he said, hotly. "Here this 
 letter meets me on my return " 
 
 "And you regard it for an instant? Oh, 
 Claude !" She thought again of the one she 
 had received ; but she was not made of the stuff 
 that strives to make others display generosity 
 by vaunting its own. 
 
 " Regard it 1 Well, it annoyed me preciously, 
 I confess, to learn that you should be spoken 
 about at all; and then to hear what I have 
 heard since." 
 
 " "Will you tell me all you have heard ? then I 
 will defend myself," she said; " but before you 
 tell me anything, I want to say that I have been 
 to Stanley Villars and his wife ; and you must 
 go too, for, Claude, he's dying." 
 
 Her voice broke down as she said that; it 
 seemed so unnatural a thing that Claude should 
 be hard on the subject of Stanley now. 
 
 "Dying! what nonsense you women talk!" 
 Major "Walsingham said, angrily. Then he looked 
 at her, and softened a little "Poor girl!" he 
 said, kissing her, "I really think you believe it." 
 
 "Believe it! Oh, Claude!" and then she 
 poured out a portion of her story. 
 
 " The broken blood-vessel is bosh ! simply a 
 fabrication of the ingenious young lady who 
 induced you to compromise yourself by taking 
 her to Lady Villars'. I was coming through the 
 Strand just now, and I saw Mr. Stanley reel out 
 of some tavern. It's disgusting actually dis- 
 gusting!" 
 
 "He must have reeled from some other cause 
 than intoxication," she said, sorrowfully. 
 
 " He's gone to the bad entirely, I tell you, 
 Bella. It's absurd of you to affect to disbelieve 
 what every one knows ; he's lost to every decent 
 feeling," he continued, angrily, "or he would 
 never have made the parade he has of being 
 driven to despair by your your throwing him 
 over " 
 
 She blenched. "Don't speak of it in that 
 way, Claude," she said, quickly. "God knows 
 I am telling you what I firmly believe to be the 
 truth, when I tell you that Stanley Villars is 
 dying now. His poor wife was broken-hearted 
 to-day that's why I took her to Lady Villars ; 
 I wanted to see Florence." 
 
 " His wife ! Well, I'll say nothing of that 
 part of it; only I won't have you mixing your- 
 self up with her. How on earth did you ferret 
 her out?" 
 
 She told him "how kind Lady Lexley had 
 been." 
 
 "Very imprudent of you," he said, with a 
 scowl "very imprudent, indeed ! you couldn't 
 have made a more injudicious selection of a 
 companion into a romantic scrape if you had 
 tried." 
 
 " You told me yourself to call on her, Claude." 
 
 " To call on her, but not to career about all 
 over town with her. Grace Harper says she 
 told you to be careful didn't she ?" 
 
 " Sketchily." 
 
 "In what other way could a girl tell you?" 
 he asked. 
 
 "So she has been improving the aspect of 
 things in your eyes, while I was absent and un- 
 defended, Claude ?" 
 
 He hesitated. 
 
 " I was so annoyed that I let Ellen see that 
 cursed letter, warning me of 'your impru- 
 dence!'" he said at last; " and then she told 
 Grace." 
 
 "But excuse me, Claude, for speaking in 
 such a way of your friend it seems to me thai 
 she had no right to discuss my conduct." 
 
 " She tried to make the best of it," he began. 
 " She said she felt sure you hadn't done any of 
 these things, as she had cautioned you against 
 doing anything that might annoy my family. 
 Now, Bella, you must feel conscious that this 
 picking up with Stanley Villars and that girl is 
 not at all the sort of thing which my wife may 
 do with credit." 
 
 "Claude, I didn't believe that Stanley has 
 forfeited his claim to our friendship when Lady 
 Villars said it, and I don't believe it now. He 
 has been unhappy, and in his unhappiness he 
 has been reckless, to the injury of his health." 
 
 "He's a dissipated drunkard," Claude said 
 sternly. 
 
 "Claude! those are cruel words! Oh! my 
 dear husband, don't use them about Stanley; 
 he's failing so fast!" 
 
 " And no wonder, when he drinks at the rate 
 he must to have been in the state I saw him in, 
 in the Strand, to-day. ' Failing fast ' is a shal- 
 low euphemism ; he's softening his brain with 
 gin and water." 
 
 Major Walsingham believed that what he was 
 saying was true, otherwise he wouldn't have 
 said it. But there was little sorrow in his heart 
 for this truth. He forgot his old friendship for 
 Stanley now. He could only remember that 
 Stanley, through what Claude termed "his 
 cursed maudlin sentimentality," had kept the 
 fact of having been jilted by Bella fresher in 
 the minds of men than was desirable. 
 
 Bella shuddered. " How you have changed 
 to him !" she said presently. " He knew you 
 better than I did !" 
 
 " What did he say about me ?" he asked. 
 
150 
 
 ON GUARD. 
 
 " He asked me not to humiliate him by beg- 
 ging you to go and see him, as he felt sure you 
 wouldn't." 
 
 " I wish he had had the decent feeling not to 
 try and link your name with his again. He's 
 had the good taste to keep clear of his own 
 family; I wish to God he had extended his 
 consideration to mine !" 
 
 So they talked the subject over, neither con- 
 vincing the other, nor being shaken for an instant 
 in their respective beliefs and opinions. But 
 Bella was a woman ; and it is the woman's part 
 to give up, whether convinced or not. She 
 played her part very gracefully. 
 
 " I grieve for everything connected with the 
 business, dearest Claude; but I hope you'll 
 believe me when I say that I grieve for nothing 
 so much as for having acted in a way you 
 don't approve of. "Will you forgive me?" 
 She looked at him very lovingly as she spoke ; 
 so lovingly that he bitterly repented him of his 
 harshness. She was not the type of woman 
 to need it. 
 
 "Forgive you! I should think so! but 
 you mustn't perform romantic exploits again, 
 dear." 
 
 " I won't," she said ; " but I wish " 
 
 " There 1 not another word !" he interrupted. 
 " I wish, too, all sorts of things. If Stanley 
 doesn't drink himself to death, the time will 
 come when he'll shake himself clear of all this 
 mire, and be ashamed of it. Then I'll hold out 
 my hand to him, not before; and mind you, 
 Bella, I'll not have you do it either !" 
 
 lie was all the lord and master, the man to 
 ^obeyed, without question or demur, as he 
 said this. 
 
 "So be it, Claude," she said quite meekly; 
 love had thoroughly tamed her. 
 
 They separated to dress then ; but when she 
 was ready, she went and knocked at his door, 
 and asked him, " might she come in ?" On his 
 giving her permission, she went in and talked 
 to him of his father's death, and of their own 
 -altered condition. 
 
 "Shall you live much at the Court?" she 
 asked. 
 
 "Oh, yes! a good deal "We'll go to the 
 Highlands for a few weeks after the funeral ? 
 And I tell you what, Bella you may as well 
 ask your mother to meet us at the Court on our 
 return, and stay a short time with us." 
 
 " Thank you, dear; that will be very nice," 
 she replied absently. 
 
 " And when Mrs. Vane goes, it may be as 
 well to give my mother to understand very 
 delicately, you know, but clearly that it per- 
 haps will be well for all parties that there 
 shouldn't be two mistresses at the Court, and 
 that it would be better for her to live in the 
 village ; you must do that, dear." 
 
 "Very well; as you please, Claude," she 
 said slowly. 
 
 ' f Is there anything the matter ?" he asked, 
 advancing towards her as he was tying his 
 cravat. " Don't think any more of our differ- 
 ence, dear. I have told you what I think 
 and what I feel, and now it's over. Be a 
 sensible little woman, and don't dwell gloomily 
 upon it." 
 
 She got up and utterly spoilt the symmetry 
 of the bow of the carefully tied crajat. 
 
 " Oh ! Claude ! " she moaned sorrowfully, 
 clinging to him, " I feel as if a boat were going 
 down before my eyes ! I wish so to do right ! 
 I wish so to do right ! and it is right to obey 
 you ; but my heart is torn !" 
 
 "I should rather think it was right to obey 
 me!" he said good-humouredly. "You silly 
 girl ! to go into heroics for nothing !" 
 
 ""Well, I won't again, Claude; but grant me 
 one favour." 
 
 " What is it ?" 
 
 " Don't let either Mrs. Markham or Miss 
 Harper" and her eyes flashed as she named 
 them "feel that I am in the pitiable position 
 of a distrusted or an indiscreet wife." 
 
 " What an absurd girl you are !" 
 
 " Not so absurd 1 Your sister is your sister, 
 and means well by you, I'm sure. Remember- 
 ing this, I can forgive, and but just forgive, the 
 insultingly suspicious guard she has attempted 
 to mount over me from the moment of my first 
 meeting with her. But that white-faced hyno- 
 crite has no such claim on me ; and when she 
 leaves my house this time, she shall never 
 darken my doors again." 
 
 "This is absurd prejudice, dear," he said 
 carelessly; "you'll think better of it by-and- 
 by." Then they went down to dinner, and 
 rather puzzled their guests by their demeanour 
 to one another. 
 
 CHAPTER XLVI. 
 
 DEAL GENTLY WITH THE ERRING. 
 
 THE majority of us have seen a boat go down. 
 I do not mean that we have, most of us, stood 
 on a shingly beach, and looked over the leaping 
 waves at the terrible sight of a slight thing of 
 planks and spars battling with the awful, angry 
 element! Some of us have witnessed that 
 spectacle, and sickened at it, and prayed ear- 
 nestly enough to the great God of Mercy to 
 save us from a repetition of it. But there is 
 another and a sadder wrecking the wrecking 
 of a human bark on the ocean of life, and that, 
 the most of us who have looked at life with 
 open eyes must have seen ! 
 
 It is almost invariably the most gallant barks 
 that fall to pieces in this way. They go out so 
 bravely ! with such a gay disregard of danger, 
 and the first rock they strike upon bruises them 
 just sufficiently to admit of the waters of bitter- 
 ness welling in, and then they fill with fell 
 rapidity, and go to the bottom. 
 
 The barks that rigour, and routine, and re- 
 spectability all these such good things in their 
 wa y have wrecked ! How many " hopes of 
 the family" have been court-martialed out of all 
 care for the future for some ward-room joke or 
 mess-table excess that rigour would not, or rou- 
 tine dared not overlook. The boyish escapade 
 may be no very dark thing in itself: just a 
 vinous defiance of a superior officer ; just a bac- 
 chanalian boast ; just a few idle words said out 
 of the lavishness of high spirits ; nothing very 
 desperate, nothing very dark, but sufficient, very 
 often, God knows, to cause a man to be given 
 over to all manner of devilries and despair, by 
 reason of the crushing punishment it calls forth. 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 151 
 
 Take from a man all hope in his career, or, as 
 is frequently done, dismiss him from it with 
 disgrace, and he is in the position of a woman 
 whose fair fame has been dimmed. All is 
 over for him in this world, however it may be 
 in the next. We should deal very gently with 
 the erring, they deal so hardly with themselves. 
 
 Those, and those alone who have known a 
 man who is under a cloud in the flesh, as well 
 as in books ; who have seen the one who went 
 from his home a star, return to it a fallen one ; 
 who have marked a father grow stern to a fa- 
 vourite son, because that sou and a profession 
 that was as dear to him as a son had parted 
 ignominiously ; who have witnessed the agony 
 of late repentance in the severely punished 
 man ; the shrinking from former friends ; the 
 withdrawal of former friends from him; the 
 gloomy turning away from those who show 
 affection for him still, and who wound him by 
 showing it pityingly ; the morose doubts as to 
 that justice and mercy which have not been 
 extended to himself, existing at all ; those who 
 have sorrowed for the blackness that is his sole 
 portion now, for whom all had been brightness 
 formerly ; those and those alone will understand 
 this chapter and the feelings which dictate it. 
 
 Stanley Villars had not been wrecked by 
 rigour, or routine, or respectability. On the 
 contrary, his ruin had been wrought by his own 
 hand entirely. He owed his destruction to no 
 stingingly sharp, horribly public reprimand ; to 
 no over severity; to no official animus. He 
 had " gone to the bad," as Claude Walsingham 
 called it, simply because he had not been able 
 to brook disappointment, and the downfall of all 
 those mere tender hopes which made up, despite 
 his outward sternness, a larger portion of his 
 than most men's lives. Love was to him more 
 than it is to most men ; he was chary of it, he 
 gave it with hesitation. When it got rudely 
 treated, and thrown back to him as a thing of 
 no worth, there seemed to be nothing left to 
 him. So he suffered himself to drift into un- 
 seemly paths, and took no heed as to what he 
 did with himself. 
 
 He did all things that he was compelled to 
 do, or was led into doing, without the smallest 
 particle of heart, the smallest atom of interest, 
 the smallest semblance of feeling. He wrote 
 carelessly, not with the carelessness of joyous- 
 ness and thoughtlessness, but with the careless- 
 ness of black, dogged indifference ; and that he 
 did so was marked, and marked to his detri- 
 ment. He married lovelessly, and quickly came 
 to feel that his wife's lot was as black and hard 
 and arid as his own a sorrowful conclusion for 
 a sensitive man to arrive at. He ceased to take 
 an interest in all that he had hitherto been 
 interested in ; and when he had done so, and 
 found that all ceased to take an interest in him, 
 aa was natural, the stultifying sense of utter 
 stagnation came down and utterly crushed him. 
 Worst of all, he felt himself to be an erring man, 
 and also felt that the time for retracing his steps, 
 for redeeming his error, was gone by. There 
 was no opportunity for amending, for death was 
 staring him in the face. For it was quite true, 
 that statement which Claude Walsingham had 
 declared to be but " an ingenious fabrication of 
 that girl's." Stanley Villars had broken a 
 blood-vessel, and there was now upon his brow 
 
 the pallor of fast-approaching dissolution. He 
 looked such a haggard, pallid man, that the 
 stranger turnedjx) look upon him as he passed 
 along the street, and the casual acquaintance 
 passed by on the other side, because life is too 
 short and too brisk in London to admit of any 
 dallying on the road. 
 
 Two or three men whom he knew well, who 
 had been employed with him on the same jour- 
 nal, who had thought rather good things of him 
 when he came among them first, met him this 
 day, and looked upon him with the eyes of men 
 whose judgment he had disappointed, and whose 
 verdict he had made faulty. They told him 
 "distinctly," as they afterwards said, that "if 
 he didn't put a stop to this sort of thing, and go 
 away somewhere for a rest, he'd be sorry for 
 it." He thanked them for their advice, and 
 said, "he'd think about it," as he did, truth to 
 tell, somewhat bitterly. 
 
 You see he had no very intimate associates 
 among these men. The majority, though run- 
 ning a career of work equally hard, and of dissi- 
 pation far harder than his own, were running it 
 unencumbered. They had had the wit not to 
 hamper themselves with wives without money. 
 If they lived in dingy lodgings, they dined at 
 good clubs, and it was at their clubs that other 
 men saw them. Moreover, it was very few of 
 them who did live in dingy lodgings, and these 
 only the youngest and most unassuming of the 
 band. The older men had neat little sets of 
 chambers, and some of them possessed a fine 
 taste in books and pictures, and engraved glass, 
 which they gratified. The most of them, too, 
 dressed well, and in consequence fought shy 
 of a man whose new clothes were worse than 
 his old threadbare ones, in that they were so^ 
 execrably cut. 
 
 Had he been " alone in his hole," as they said, 
 there were many who would have sought him 
 out and striven to urge him forward, with hand 
 and voice, ay, and pen too. But it was not 
 congenial to them to go and sit in a dull room, 
 with a downcast man and a little girl who had 
 nothing in common with them who was " left 
 behind " invariably, when they did try to talk 
 to her. Bad as such a position was, a lady 
 would have been better placed in it ; that is to 
 say, she would have made it better to his 
 friends, and through them to her husband. It 
 was not the fault of his fellow-labourers that 
 he slipped away from them entirely, save just 
 when they chanced to meet him at the office. 
 The man whose home will not stand inspection 
 must do this eventually, no matter how warm 
 the original feeling towards him. He was care- 
 worn, downcast, and badly dressed ! With the 
 best intentions in the world, other men could 
 not invite him to make these facts more public 
 still, by "joining them anywhere." 
 
 Bligh, the man who had taken his work for 
 him, held on to him with the resolute staunch- 
 ness of youth and strength; also with the 
 tenacity which comes of having a certain amount 
 of spare time in which to display such tenacious- 
 ness. Bligh went to him daily, writing what 
 he couldn't write, and revising what he wrote, 
 and bidding him cheer up, with an earnest 
 hopefulness of better things being in store for 
 Stanley, which proved that he was looking upon 
 the spectacle of a boat going down for the first 
 
152 
 
 ON GUARD. 
 
 time. Went to him daily, feeling the whole 
 time that Stanley's wife was not quite sure of 
 what her manner should have been to him, she 
 being palpably in doubt as to whether he was 
 really a friend or only a portion of the printing 
 machine with which Stanley had to do, in a way 
 that was likewise not clear to her. 
 
 This day, however, on which he had gone 
 out, leaving Marian crying in the passage, he 
 had not met with Bligh. He had only fallen 
 in with. those men who tendered him advice 
 which was admirable, but difficult to act upon 
 under existing circumstances ; it was not upon 
 the cards that he should " cut work for a time 
 and go to the sea-side," which was what his 
 advisers recommended, in the liberal manner 
 in which people are wont to recommend plea- 
 sant extravagances to their impoverished 
 friends. 
 
 He had come to the stage of pitying himself 
 profoundly before this juncture, of pitying him- 
 self almost as if he were another man ; he could 
 stand aside, as it were, in his cooler moments, 
 and watch the creature he had become, and feel 
 sure of what the end would be, almost as 
 clearly as the most circumspect among his ac- 
 quaintances could have done. He knew that 
 his bark was stove in and rapidly filling; and 
 he felt a pity for that it was so. But he never 
 thought of attempting to bale out the water 
 that was swamping him. He was wrecked, and 
 it seemed to him too late to avoid going down. 
 
 I do not think, after all, that the sight of 
 Bella the day before, in all the bravery of her 
 beauty, and with her beauty set off by all those 
 little toilet elegancies which money alone can 
 deck a woman in, no matter how good her taste 
 may be, I do not think that the sight of Bella 
 had been good for him. It was like the spirit 
 of the past he had known, coming to mock him 
 in his present dark poverty. There was about 
 her such refinement, brightness, beauty, and 
 wealth; and all these things were gone from 
 his life. 
 
 The meagreness of the room, the meanness 
 of his own avid his wife's habiliments, the 
 miserable lack of all that was graceful and re- 
 fined in their surroundings, the poverty and 
 barrenness, the arid nature of the soil on which 
 he was stranded for ever, had never struck him 
 so vividly before. He thought bitterly of the 
 contrast between now and then very, very 
 bitterly of it ! 
 
 He had drifted away into this dismal swamp, 
 this slough of despond, and no man had put 
 out a hand to hold him back. They had, one 
 and all, let him drift. Had he been wealthy, 
 or at any rate independent, his gloomy despair 
 would have rendered him interesting perhaps, 
 and society might have set itself the pleasing 
 task of comforting him taking him to its 
 bosom as it has taken other "stricken deer," 
 however mad, bad, and dangerous to know, 
 they have been. But he was not wealthy, or 
 even independent, and gloomy despair in a poor 
 man is a bore in a drawing-room. He had no 
 club of his own, and he was not convivial 
 enough to be carried away perforce by other 
 men to expensive little club dinners which he 
 could never return. He was a literary man, 
 out at elbows, in a barefaced, pinched, despica- 
 ble way, and, as such, was no credit to the fra- 
 
 ternity. Consequently, without meaning it 
 exactly wishing him well, but being unable to 
 serve him the fraternity felt that the whirl of 
 London life was separating him from them, car- 
 rying him out of their orbit, and didn't precisely 
 see why, and how, and where ! 
 
 It was no one's fault, but he was a very 
 friendless man. The knowledge that he had a 
 poor, patient little wife at home, had kept him 
 at first from accepting invitations to enter into 
 that masculine society which all men need, and 
 which would have braced him up. This know- 
 ledge kept him from accepting their invitations 
 at first; and by-and-by the same knowledge 
 kept the men from inviting him. It was no 
 one's fault, but he was a very friendless man. 
 The full knowledge that he was so, the full 
 horror of being so, had seized upon him after 
 Bella had left that day. He had endeavoured 
 to dispel it by that course of drinking and writ- 
 ing and smoking which Marian had recounted 
 to Mrs Claude "Walsingham. He had failed in 
 his endeavour, and broken a blood-vessel into 
 the bargain, and then he had risen up, swearing 
 that he "would not lie there and die like a dog ! " 
 
 The yearning to see his family again his 
 brother and sisters, especially Florence came 
 upon him as he went along the streets alone. 
 It was hard, very hard, that the gulf which he 
 had created between them and himself, in his 
 first rash wrath, should be between them till 
 the end. The end ! yes, it was coming. Men 
 in his state did not live long, he knew, when 
 the strain that reduced them to such a state 
 was kept up. He was told off for death surely 
 enough. It was hard, very hard, to think that 
 those who had been little children with him but 
 the other day as it seemed, he was still so 
 young, should go on their way rejoicing, indif- 
 ferent to or unconscious of the fiat that had 
 gone forth. 
 
 They were his brother and his sister still. 
 Such a little thing would bring them together 
 again for the short time that was left to him 
 such a little thing would do it, if only the op- 
 portunity were given. The days were not so 
 very long past in which Gerald had looked up 
 to him, and his sisters had relied upon him be- 
 yond all others, and even Carrie herself had 
 given in to his decree. 
 
 Those days were not so long past in reality, 
 but they were a long way off in seeming, as he 
 turned round the corner of the square and came 
 in sight of Gerald's house. He had wandered 
 on and on, never intending to go so far, never 
 owning to himself that it was towards Gerald's 
 house that his steps were tending. When he 
 found himself close upon it he started, and 
 stopped! and his heart began to thump omi- 
 nously, and the dew to gather on his brow. 
 They were " so near, and yet so far." It would 
 have been such a little thing to have gone for- 
 ward and lifted the knocker that he had lifted a 
 thousand times before, in the days when he was 
 a son of that house, and as free to pss its thres- 
 hold as Gerald himself. It would have been 
 such a little thing ! But he did not do it. He 
 thought of the stare the man who opened the 
 door would give ; he thought of the signs of 
 decay that were about him ; he thought of how 
 they all even Florence had let him go; and 
 as he thought of these things, he told himself 
 
OX GUARD. 
 
 153 
 
 that the time " was gone by." And yet he was 
 dying ! and the desire in his heart to see them 
 once more was such a big one ! 
 
 While he was standing there, too weak to go 
 on, too weak to go back, too weak to conquer 
 his desire or give way to it, a carriage drew up 
 at the door of the house at which he stood gaz- 
 ing, and with a dreamy wonder he recognised 
 in the occupants of it Bella Vane and the baby- 
 faced beauty. Then he remembered that Bella 
 Vane was Mrs. Claude Walsingham, and that 
 the baby-faced beauty was his wife. And then 
 he saw it all ! His wife had been brought there 
 to seek for him, or to sue for him 1 He leant 
 against the corner shuddering. It was too late to 
 interfere. That which he had shrunk from doing 
 was being done for him, and he was conscious of 
 a sick wild hope that it might end well that his 
 wife would win admission for herself and re-ad- 
 mission for him, and that they would see and 
 forgive and love him at the last. You see his 
 pride was pretty well broken, poor fellow ! He 
 was, in truth, humbled and softened in a way 
 that it is very sad to see. 
 
 It has already been told how that visit ended. 
 By and-by he saw Bella come out again and 
 enter her carriage ; and as he saw the expres- 
 sion of the women's faces as they drove past 
 him (for he never thought of attempting to hide 
 himself), he saw that it was all over that his 
 sick, wild hope had been born to perish. Then 
 he turned himself away resolutely, thinking, as 
 we are apt to think when we only see one side 
 of the shield, that " his own" had been more 
 bitter and harder to him than was the case in 
 reality. As he so thought, he swore a solemn 
 oath never to hold communion with one of them 
 again. They " had cast him off utterly, evident- 
 ly ; repudiated his wife, perhaps ; made him a 
 by-word, a thing of scorn, in the eyes and 
 mouths of their blackguard flunkies! Come 
 what would now, he would never nurse a soft 
 thought of one of them again." Those of whom 
 he thought and muttered had been little child- 
 ren with him, and had at the same mother's 
 knees lisped their little prayers ! 
 
 There can be no worse hell than was in this 
 man's heart as he walked away. Whatever his 
 faults had been, whatever his sin had been, he 
 was being punished for it in the flesh in a way 
 that must have purified his spirit ; he was hav- 
 ing it here in a way that entitled him to the 
 brightest hereafter. How horrible it is, that the 
 actions of others, erring, weak, and faulty as 
 himself, can make a human being so hopelessly 
 wretqjjed. 
 
 lie did not go straight home. Miserable as 
 he was himself, he shrank from seeing the 
 misery and disappointment that he fancied 
 would be upon the pretty face of the poor little 
 log he had tied to him. She was not very 
 deep, still he did not fathom her. He knew no 
 more of what she was capable when put to the 
 test, than a man can know of a woman he does 
 not love. He went to a house in the Strand, and 
 smoked and drank brandy till the pain within 
 him was dulled a trifle. Then, as the shadows 
 grew long, and the house began to fill with 
 men, the majority of whom seemed unpleasantly 
 happy and well-pleased with life, he got himself 
 away <5ut into the street once more, where he 
 was seen by Claude, who shrank out of his way 
 
 quickly, as a thing who staggered in the day- 
 light, and was otherwise disreputable. 
 
 Stanley had marked little this day save that 
 door which was barred to him, and the occu- 
 pant of the carriage that had waited at it ; but 
 he marked his old friend now, and his old 
 friend's avoidance of him. He had borne a 
 good deal, but this was the last drop in the 
 cup. He turned away down one of those little 
 streets that lead to the river. 
 
 CHAPTER XLVIL 
 
 FOUND OUT. 
 
 BEFORE Mrs. Markham went down to dinner 
 on the day of her arrival at her brother's house, 
 she made a progress into Mrs. Claude's dressing- 
 room, expecting to find her sister-in-law there. 
 But her sister-in-law was not there ; accordingly 
 Mrs. Markham looked round the room in order 
 to see what additions had been made to its 
 decorations since she last saw it. 
 
 She found out one or two new ornaments, 
 and disapproved of them, as beccime a woman 
 who had no taste for such things herself, and 
 no indulgence for those who had, and gratified 
 it. "Absurdly he indulges her, to be sure," 
 she thought severely, as though every one of 
 the frivolities she censured had been wrung 
 from the sweat of Claude's brow. Then she 
 saw something else a letter lying in the cor- 
 ner and pounced upon it in all honour, not 
 intending for an instant to read it, but meaning 
 to deliver it up to Bella with a reprimand for 
 being "so careless." 
 
 She did not intend for an instant to read it ; 
 but as soon as she got it into her hand she saw 
 that it was that letter which Claude had found 
 awaiting him on his return that special letter 
 which he had given her to read. " I see how 
 it is," she thought; "she's explained every- 
 thing, and there's been a reconciliation. Thank 
 God I" 
 
 She meant this thoroughly. Hard and stern 
 as she was, she was also just, and her soul re- 
 coiled from the means that had been used to 
 bring Bella to justice. She was very glad that 
 those means had failed very glad indeed 
 though she was still ready and willing to 
 swoop down upon any of her sister-in-law's 
 shortcomings in fair fight. 
 
 She put the letter away in her pocket, mean- 
 ing to return it to Bella with a reprimand, as I 
 said before, on the first fitting opportunity. 
 Then she walked grimly down-stairs, revolving 
 many things in her mind; amongst others, 
 whether " Jay " or " Marshall and Snellgrove " 
 should execute the large order she had to give 
 on the morrow. 
 
 Mrs. Markham was, as I have said, a very 
 just woman. When she came down and found 
 that all was fair and smooth between the hus- 
 band and wife, she felt that Bella must have 
 explained very satisfactorily all that had not 
 looked well, and that therefore it behoved her, 
 Claude's sister, to say something apologetic 
 about her manner previously. She felt that 
 it would only be just to Bella to say this, and 
 
154 
 
 ON GUARD. 
 
 she would be just though she could not be 
 gracious. 
 
 Now Mrs. Markham's justice was a harder 
 thing to bear than most women's injustice 
 would have been. It was so very hard, that 
 even when it commended, you thought more 
 of how it would be down upon you did it ever 
 catch you tripping, than of its present com- 
 mendation. There was a certain wintry bright- 
 ness in her manner to Bella during dinner 
 which was not pleasant, but which said plainly 
 that Bella was not so bad as she (Mrs. Mark- 
 ham) had imagined, and that she was glad 
 of it. 
 
 Mrs. Markham had resolved upon not saying 
 her say, upon not speaking her words of justice,' 
 until they should all have re-assembled in the 
 drawing-room after dinner. Her manner, how- 
 ever, made manifest to Bella that some such 
 recantation of error was looming, and Bella 
 forthwith tried to strengthen herself for the 
 reception of one of the most unpleasant things 
 in the world a grim apology. 
 
 "I wish she'd drop it, but I see she won't," 
 Bella thought, as she was walking up-stairs 
 behind her sister-in-law after dinner. "I wish 
 I'd made Claude come up with us ; this eternal 
 talkee talkee is tedious ! " she mentally added, 
 as she thought of what Mrs. Markham would 
 say, and what she would have to say in return, 
 and what Mrs. Markham would then reply, 
 occurred to her. 
 
 She was spared the infliction yet awhile. " I 
 shall go to my own room till Claude comes up, 
 and you have tea, Bella," Mrs. Markham said, 
 when they reached the top of the stairs. "I'm 
 by no means sure that that list is complete, and 
 as we've no time to lose, I'll just look over it 
 again." 
 
 "Very well," Bella replied; "as you like, 
 Ellen. I will help you to-morrow, of course ; 
 we shall only have the morning, remember. 
 Claude means to take us off by the 3.40 train." 
 " Quite right too ; we ought to get back to 
 my poor mother as speedily as possible," Mrs. 
 Markham replied, as grimly as if Bella were 
 responsible for the desolation that had come 
 upon Mrs. Walsingham. With that they sepa- 
 rated, Mrs. Markham going on to her own 
 room, and Bella and Grace Harper into the 
 drawing-room. 
 
 Bella had been civil, scrupulously civil, to 
 Miss Harper ; but she had felt very savage with 
 the fair Grace since that explanation with 
 Claude. " What right has she what right has 
 any woman to speak about me, to censure 
 me, by word or implication to my husband?" 
 Bella thought. " I can forgive Claude, dear 
 Claude, for having listened ; but I'll never for- 
 give her for having spoken." 
 
 Accordingly, now when they found them- 
 selves alone, they found themselves uncomfort- 
 ably placed, for Bella was not the sort of 
 woman to conceive a deep antipathy, and 
 conceal it. While Miss Harper was her guest, 
 she would treat her as such; but there was 
 that in her manner which assured Grace that 
 she would never be Mrs. Claude Walsingham's 
 guest again. 
 
 Miss Harper dried her eyes as soon as she 
 found herself alone with Mrs. Claude. She 
 had kept them damp during the whole day, 
 
 and Mrs. Markham had been considerably 
 touched thereby. The latter was not one of 
 the weeping order of womankind herself, but 
 the two tears which Grace had established as 
 soon as she heard the tidings of Mr. Walsing- 
 ham's death, had been accepted rather above 
 their due worth as a just and proper tribute, 
 by Mr. Walsingham's daughter. Miss Graco 
 perceived this, and as her grief was not a dis- 
 figuring thing, she kept up the soft semblance, 
 and gratified Mrs. Markham. 
 
 But now that she was alone with Bella, the 
 tears were abolished at once. She felt that 
 Bella saw through her. For this she cared 
 little as matters were going; but she would 
 not give Mrs. Claude Walsingham the satisfac- 
 tion of seeing a transparent deception practised 
 without an end or aim. So she dried her eyes, 
 and subsided (it being after dinner, and she 
 feeling a little sleepy) into tearless composure 
 on a couch. 
 
 " She shall not infest ' the Court ' when I'm 
 the mistress of it," Bella thought, as she 
 glanced towards her calm guest ; "if my being 
 cool to her huffs the Markham I can't help it. 
 She must be huifed, for I won't have that girl 
 about my house any more." 
 
 The evening was warm, quiet, conducive to 
 thought, and Mrs. Claude Walsingham had 
 much to think about, even though she would 
 not permit her mind to dwell upon the Stanley 
 Villarses. The whole plan of her life would 
 be altered by Mr. Walsingham's death. Claude 
 would, of course, have to go down and take 
 up his part of big man in the county. Hence- 
 forth all her interests would centre in that 
 neighbourhood which had seemed so dull to 
 her when she was in it as a guest. She had no 
 fears, however, of its seeming dull to her in 
 future ; the pleasure of possession was upon 
 her already. She would be the queen of that 
 little world; she would no longer be the 
 jealously watched wife of the heir-apparent 
 merely. 
 
 She would not permit her mind to dwell 
 upon the Stanley Yillarses any more, and this 
 not out of heartless forgetfulness, but because 
 she had promised her husband not to go near 
 them again, and she felt that it was upon the 
 cards that she might break her promise did she 
 think about them. The hope that she might 
 be permitted to alleviate, in a measure, in the 
 present, the woe of which she had been the 
 cause in the past, was dead. The only thing 
 left to her was to bury it, and all appertaining 
 to it, as speedily as possible, to bury tt en- 
 tirely out of sight, and so fulfil, to the uwiost, 
 the compact she had made with her husband. 
 
 Love had thoroughly tamed her. She did 
 not rebel, even in her innermost heart, against 
 this decree of Claude's, to cease from all com- 
 munion with the man they had both aided in 
 blighting. Claude willed it, and that was 
 enough for her. Like Tennyson's May Queen, 
 she "had been wild and wayward; but she 
 was not wayward now." 
 
 It was late in the evening before Claude and 
 his sister came in to tea. When they did come, 
 they came together a fact that requires a brief 
 explanation. 
 
 Mrs. Markham had gone back to her bedroom, 
 to look over the list of articles required for the 
 
Otf GUAED. 
 
 155 
 
 mourning, in which the whole establishment 
 down at the Court had to be placed. After 
 doing this, and jotting a few after-thoughts, in 
 the way of handkerchiefs with broad hems, &c., 
 she went over to the couch Grace had occupied 
 during the greater portion of the day, and pen- 
 sively placed herself upon it. 
 
 Then she, too, fell to thinking about the same 
 subject that Bella was dwelling upon below 
 viz., the difference that her father's death would 
 make in life at the Court. Mrs. Markham did 
 not like Bella, therefore she adjudged her capa- 
 ble of actions that were iniquitous in her eyes. 
 "I shouldn't wonder if she gets Claude to turn 
 his mother out, and, after all, won't care to live 
 there much herself," she thought, which, con- 
 sidering that she had warmly protested against 
 the aged Mrs. Markham dwelling in the same 
 tent with herself on the occasion of her own 
 nuptials, was a little inconsistent. But then, 
 people whose important actions are always 
 marked by a perfect propriety, may be granted 
 the liberty of being inconsistent about such tri- 
 fling matters as their fellow-creatures, and the 
 motives that rule the same. 
 
 "I wish they would have tea at a decent 
 hour in this house," Mrs. Markham said to her- 
 self, petulantly, after about an hour had elapsed, 
 and no summons had come to her from the 
 region where the tea was to be consumed. 
 " What must Grace Harper think of the manage- 
 ment here? Everything so shockingly irregu- 
 lar!" 
 
 She turned round impatiently as she thought 
 this. It had been very unpleasant to her that 
 Grace Harper, than whom she firmly believed 
 there was not a better regulated young woman 
 in civilization it had been very unpleasant to 
 her that Grace Harper should have been cogni- 
 sant of the fact of misunderstandings having 
 arisen between Claude and his wife. The mis- 
 chief was done, however, and nothing was left 
 but to pray that Bella, the erring, might deport 
 herself for the future with becoming solemnity, 
 and so erase from Miss Harper's mind the im- 
 pression former levity had made on it. 
 
 As the thought of the various irregularities 
 of the house struck her, she turned round impa- 
 tiently, and her eye lighted on an envelope that 
 had fallen down between the cushion and the 
 head of the couch. In a moment, her hand was 
 upon it. It was addressed to Miss Harper, and 
 it contained no letter, therefore she turned it 
 round idly. 
 
 Turned it round idly, with the half design of 
 looking at the monogram or seal, and then 
 started up erect, with an exclamation of " Good 
 heavens V' and commenced rapidly searching in 
 her own pocket for the letter she had found in 
 Bella's dressing-room, for the inside of the en- 
 velope, that evidently belonged to Miss Harper, 
 was covered with duplicate words in duplicate 
 handwriting to those which the anonymous 
 epistle had contained. 
 
 She saw it all in an instant saw the whole 
 of the perfidy and the treachery that had been 
 planned and partly carried out. She did not 
 like her brother's wife, and she knew that her 
 brother's wife did not like her. But for all that, 
 the perfidy was very painful, and the treachery 
 very terrible to her, of which it had been in- 
 tended that Bella should be the victim. 
 
 She kept the two the envelope that had 
 been practised upon, and the letter, the result 
 of that diabolical practice in her hands for 
 some few minutes, comparing them, and decid- 
 ing "what she ought to do next." She was a 
 very just woman, and she knew that obnoxious 
 as anything like an open detection, and the 
 bringing to justice of the offender, would be, 
 that it behoved her to put her brother on guard 
 against the real enemy, and to say to her brother's 
 wife, ""We have all wronged you." 
 
 But it would be hard, very hard to do this. 
 They her mother and herself had a little to 
 answer for in the matter, for they had both not 
 only taught Grace in the old days to regard 
 Claude as specially her own, but they had also 
 suffered her to feel when Claude married that 
 they regarded Bella as her special foe. They 
 had been to blame in the matter; but then, 
 "Who could have supposed her such a ser- 
 pent?" Mrs. Markham said to herself, angrily. 
 
 I think Mrs. Markham hated her smooth-sur- 
 faced, well-ordered young friend in that hour of 
 detection, debate, and uncertainty. "When 
 she finds I know it, she ought to be ashamed to 
 look one of the family in the face again," she 
 thought. " How ever she'll dare to show her- 
 self in society, or take the sacrament, I can't 
 think 1 " and Mrs. Markham shuddered^ 
 
 But though she shuddered, and f^M; that 
 much shame would be upon her old friend and 
 favourite, did she not hold her peace, Mrs. 
 Markham never dreamt of holding it. She was 
 a just woman, essentially a just woman, and 
 though she would have no sensation scene, no 
 idle conversation on the subject, there was 
 something to be done, and something to be said, 
 in justice to Claude's wife. 
 
 She went out of her room, and down the 
 stairs, with the envelope and letter gathered 
 together closely in one hand, looking as hard, 
 firm, and cold as usual. But she was not hard 
 and cold now, however firm she might be. She 
 was thinking rather softly of the girl whom she 
 didn't like, and who might have been wrecked 
 by the girl she had liked till now. 
 
 She found her brother looking at the evening 
 papers, and smoking a cigar. It had pleased 
 him to remain longer by himself than was usual 
 with him this night. He, too, had had much 
 to think about. Despite of all those hard 
 things he had said about Stanley Villars, the 
 sight of his old friend staggering in the Strand 
 had been a cruel one to him. 
 
 Mrs. Markham came in with no idle apologies 
 for interrupting him. She had something to 
 say ; she had no scruples about the manner of 
 saying it. 
 
 "I think you know that I don't like your 
 wife, Claude," she began; to which Claude re- 
 plied 
 
 " I think you might select some one to impart 
 that fact to who'd care a damn for it / dou't!' 
 
 "Hush ! " she said, as though he had been a 
 small boy still. "I was going to say that 
 though I don't like her, I owe her some repa- 
 ration and so do you, for she has been very 
 badly treated ? " 
 
 He looked up from his paper, and asked, 
 quickly, " By whom ? " 
 
 "By all of us I Just look here!" and then 
 she unfolded the letter and the envelope, and 
 
156 
 
 ON GUARD. 
 
 handed them to Claude, who said " Pooh I " and 
 could make nothing fresh of the combination. 
 
 " But, Claude," she expostulated, " you 
 must ! " 
 
 " Oh, botheration ! What's the good of it ? 
 that's all done with now ! Bella has told me 
 the truth, and explained away the malice, and 
 there's nothing more to be said." 
 
 " But there is much more to be said, Claude 
 the malice comes from a quarter where we 
 least expect to find it." 
 
 " Answer for yourself! I expect to find 
 malice in every quarter ! " 
 
 Mrs. Markham moved her shoulders, and 
 passed over the cynical remark. She was as 
 cynical as her brother in her heart, but she put 
 her cynicism on another score as is the habit 
 of professing Christians ! 
 
 " There is this much more to be said about 
 this, Claude I am very much afraid that your 
 wife has been very much wronged ! " 
 
 "Why to God do you harp on that?" he 
 asked. "She told me how it came about, and 
 I'm quite satisfied. What more do you want ?" 
 
 " I want to tell you that I'm very sorry for 
 my share in the business." 
 
 " Your share in the business has been small 
 enough, as far as I can see," Claude replied. 
 He felt some of the younger brother sensations 
 come^^er him as Mrs. Markham denounced 
 herselP 
 
 " My share in the business has been, that I 
 have made the writer of that letter my friend," 
 she said " that I've believed in her, and 
 come, I will out with it all now allowed her to 
 see that I thought less of Bella than I had any 
 right to do. Bella has told you the truth, and 
 you are satisfied; but that doesn't do away 
 with the obligation that is on me to tell you 
 that I have found out that it's Grace Harper 
 who put the truth before you first in an unplea- 
 sant way and and I'm disgusted with her!" 
 
 " Grace Harper ! the devil it is ! " he said ; 
 and then he began to look at the letter and en- 
 velope. "What reason could she have for try- 
 ing on that little game ? " he asked, after a 
 minute or two ; and then he looked curiously 
 at his sister, and his sister looked curiously at 
 him. 
 
 "Never mind her motive the way she has 
 acted is plain enough. Claude, I'm sorry and 
 ashamed that I should ever have thought her 
 fit to hold a candle to Bella she is not!" 
 
 " I always knew that," he replied, briefly. 
 
 " Whatever Bella's faults may be," Mrs. Mark- 
 ham went on for even now she could not for- 
 get that Bella had faults "whatever Bella's 
 faults may be, she's neither cowardly, mean, 
 nor sly. She doesn't like me, but I will say 
 that for her." 
 
 "She likes you as well as you like her," 
 Claude replied. "As for Miss Grace, and her 
 small attempts to part us, you may as well give 
 her to understand that my wife is dearer to me 
 than ever. The devil might whisper to me now 
 about her, and I should turn a deaf ear!" 
 
 He said this very warmly. He knew how 
 the hearing of it would sting Grace Harper, and 
 he desired nothing so much as that Grace Har- 
 per should be stung. 
 
 Mrs. Markham bowed her head. "After 
 what I have told you, Claude, it will be better 
 
 that Grace should go down with me alone, I 
 think. Bella and you can follow say the day 
 after to-morrow. I shall say nothing till we get 
 back to the Court, but I don't suppose your 
 wife will care to keep Miss Harper's name on 
 her visiting list." 
 
 "I suppose not." he replied "that is, if you 
 tell her." 
 
 With all his hot love for his wife, his sister 
 was not only juster, but more generous, to 
 Bella in that moment. 
 
 "She could not, after what has transpired," 
 Mrs. Markham said "she could not, Claude; 
 there shall be no fuss, if you fear that. I can't 
 forget that the families have been friendly for 
 years before either of us was born I can't 
 forget," she continued, waxing a little warmer, 
 "that I once hoped to see them united; but 
 above all, -I can't forget that Grace is not wor- 
 thy to touch your wife's hand !" 
 
 " I don't think that she is myself," Claude 
 replied. "It was devilish mean, and no mis- 
 take ! but you women are queer animals when 
 you get a jealous fit on!" By the light of 
 which speech Mrs. Markham read that her 
 brother was more lenient to Miss Grace's perfidy 
 than she (Mrs. Markham) herself; more lenient 
 also than he would have been had that perfidy 
 not been the offspring of an unhealthy passion 
 for himself. He detested and despised Miss 
 Harper; but he remembered, through all that 
 detestation and contempt, that Grace Harper 
 loved him. A woman never forgives and never 
 likes a man who acts, meanly and basely, even 
 for love of her, to th<ypan she loves ; but a man 
 placed in similar circumstances with relation to 
 a brace of women, feels differently, and is more 
 merciful. He forgets the base meanness, re- 
 members the love alone, and is lenient. In 
 fact, he is a little more selfish and a little nobler 
 than a woman can possibly be. 
 
 "We won't talk about what her reason might 
 have been for having acted as she has acted, 
 Claude. All I say is, that she shall never be 
 thrust upon your wife again through me," Mrs. 
 Markham replied. 
 
 CHAPTER XLYIII. 
 A HUSBAND'S FIRST GIFT. 
 
 FLORENCE was married I She was Mrs. Chester 
 now ; and that proud destiny being achieved, 
 far more toleration was shown to her weakness 
 respecting Stanley than had been shown for- 
 merly. More toleration was shown to her 
 weakness; but for all that Lady Villars took an 
 early opportunity of suggesting to the happy 
 bridegroom that he kept a tight hand on his 
 oride in the matter, and made no rash promises 
 under the influence of pardonable emotion. 
 
 The toleration that was shown to Florence 
 was shown in this way. When Mrs. Chester 
 went up to change her wedding dress for a tra- 
 velling one, Carrie accompanied her out of the 
 fulness of sisterly affection. Carrie was uncom- 
 monly well pleased with her own share in this 
 business which had come to a climax to-day. 
 There had been no forcing of a girl's inclination 
 in the matter, she told herself and Gerald ; she 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 15? 
 
 had only trained and pruned Florry's affections 
 in a suitable direction, and taught Florry the 
 tractable to feel that there was sin in suffering 
 the thought of " what might have been " with 
 Claude Walsingham to stand in the way of a 
 very good thing. 
 
 Florry was loving, gentle, womanly, and 
 good ; she was also much given to seeing the 
 things that were shown to her. Now, some 
 women, equally well-endowed with her in other 
 respects, are not blessed with that safest gift 
 for their sex of seeing selected sights, and find- 
 ing them good. But Florence having found 
 brambles and stumbling-blocks in the path she 
 had elected to follow of her own accord, when 
 starting in life having been sorely torn and 
 bruised thereby came back repentant, and 
 ready to be guided by Carrie for the fu- 
 ture. 
 
 It must be confessed that Carrie guided her 
 well, all things considered. Lady Yillars was 
 well acquainted with the materials which Fate 
 placed in her plump hands to mould according 
 to her will. The path to the entrance of which 
 she led Florry, and along which she gave Florry 
 a gentle impetus when the ground seemed 
 heavy, was an open, moderately pleasant, tho- 
 roughly safe one. It was the best, perhaps, that 
 Florry could have travelled, after having "made 
 tracks" in the wrong direction formerly. It 
 was moderately pleasant and thoroughly safe, 
 and the man who was to be her companion 
 along it was as lovable, in his love for her and 
 pride in her, as any man could have been com- 
 ing after Claude. 
 
 " You have made me so happy, dear 1" Lady 
 Villars said, giving Florry a discreet little hug 
 that expressed affection for the bride, and con- 
 sideration for the bride's veil. "You have 
 made me so happy, dear ! and you look 50 
 nice !" 
 
 " I am glad of that, Carrie : you've been so 
 kind to me." 
 
 In her natural emotion at the thought of the 
 quickly coming parting, Florence remembered 
 nothing but the kind, sweet little speeches 
 Lady Villars had been in the habit of making at 
 divers times to her. She forgot the hard mean- 
 ing those speeches had sometimes hidden. So 
 she said now, "you've been so kind to me," 
 with a certain sudden swelling and reddening 
 of the eyelids that betokened the approach of 
 rain. 
 
 " And you've made Gerald very happy too, 
 my darling," Lady Yillars continued. " Oh ! 
 gracious! how tight that dress is round the 
 waist ! You've made Gerald so happy !" 
 
 "Dear Gerald!" Florence replied, hurriedly; 
 "he's always so good! But then he has so 
 much to make him happy ! Now, there's dear 
 Stanley i'f he could only " She stop- 
 ped, for the rain had come. 
 
 "Don't, don't cry, dear!" Lady Villars said, 
 soothingly ; " it's very natural for you to feel so, 
 though, very natural indeed. "Who could have 
 believed that Stanley would ever have so heart- 
 lessly lost sight of us all?" 
 
 " Oh, Carrie! you don't know Stanley!" 
 
 "You must remember you are a married 
 
 woman now, dear," Lady Villars resumed, pa- 
 
 tronisingly; "you must be very careful not to 
 
 give way to any false sentimentality, not alone 
 
 on your own account, but on Mr. Chester's. 
 You will be more on your guard though, I'm 
 sure, than Mrs. Claude Walsingham is." 
 
 ""What is she doing?" 
 
 "I can't tell you now. "What I was going to 
 say is, don't try to work on Fred about Stanley, 
 because that wouldn't be fair, and he would feel 
 that it wasn't fair. I need not caution you 
 though, dear; your own good heart will pre- 
 serve you." 
 
 As Lady Villars did not state from what 
 Florence's own good heart would preserve her, 
 Florence went down with that sensation of 
 elastic merit which is apt to come over the re- 
 cipient of sketchy "honourable mentions." 
 
 Her good heart was touched to tears of grate- 
 ful loving joy when she found herself alone in 
 the carriage with her husband at last. He took 
 up a black leather case that was lying by his 
 side, and after handling it in apparent uncer- 
 tainty for a few moments, he said 
 
 "Flo, my darling, I thought this should be 
 your first present from your husband." 
 
 As he spoke, he put a splendidly bound copy 
 of Stanley's novel into her lap, and won his wife 
 to himself entirely, and for ever. 
 
 It was no stroke of genius, it was no subtle 
 plan, it was no pre-arranged sensational effect. 
 It was simply a bit of pure good feeling for the 
 girl he loved, designed to show her that 'he was 
 not utterly regardless of her feelings at not hav- 
 ing been suffered to ask her pet brother to her 
 marriage. As such, it was accepted : as such, 
 it was repaid. 
 
 It may easily be imagined how Florence leant 
 upon his shoulder and cried then copiously, 
 thanking him for what he had done, and, like 
 a woman, asking him to do more. That en- 
 treaty of Carrie's that Fred might not be worked 
 upon was utterly disregarded now ; and Fred 
 showed himself to be very ready to be worked 
 upon, rather to like it, in fact. 
 
 " He shall be a great deal with us as soon as 
 ever we come back shan't he, Fred?" 
 
 " Eather ! I should think so !" Mr. Chester 
 replied. Then there came an interruption ; they 
 were compelled to get out at the terminus ; but 
 as soon as they were seated in the railway car- 
 riage, and the train was moving on, the conver- 
 sation was resumed. 
 
 " I don't want you to think either Gerald or 
 Carrie unkind to him at all, Fred, but Carrie 
 has prejudices ; she is very good herself, and 
 she has no patience with other people who are 
 not equally good." 
 
 Mr. Chester looked rather keenly for him at 
 his wife. 
 
 " "What prejudiced her against Stanley in tli 
 first place, Flo?" 
 
 " I don't know ; she'll get over it. You dear 
 boy" (taking up her books with effusion), " I'm 
 so 'happy." 
 
 There was nothing more said about any per 
 son not present for a time ; the brother was 
 forgotten in the book, and the happiness the gift 
 of the book had greatly enhanced. But at last 
 Mr. Chester said, with an amount of decision 
 he was almost surprised at himself for display- 
 in * 
 
 "And, Flo, dear, give Lady Villars to under- 
 stand clearly that you're mistress in your own 
 house. I'll have no interference." 
 
158 
 
 ON GUARD. 
 
 "She will never try to interfere, I think," 
 Florence replied. 
 
 " That's right ; but let her see from the first 
 that you're mistress in your own house, Flo 
 it will save trouble." 
 
 "We are seeing the last of Florence now. She 
 has started on the journey of life fairly enough. 
 Her life looked bright before her on that wed- 
 ding morning all the brighter that the prospect 
 was hers of making Stanley's life happier on 
 her return from the inevitable tour she was 
 about to take. Her life looked bright before 
 her; and bright it will probably be. She 
 was not one to indulge in vain regrets for 
 having declined on " a range of lower feelings 
 and a narrower heart" than she had thought 
 to rest upon once. The feelings were warm to- 
 wards her, and the heart was broad enough to 
 hold her well, and to honour her highly. She will 
 be a happy woman, and when she looks upon 
 her children, the very memory will be dead 
 within her that she ever loved another than 
 their father. 
 
 When Mrs. Markham had talked over the 
 subject of that letter, and the cause of it, and 
 the writer of it, with her brother, she came to 
 the conclusion that it would be better to keep 
 silence as to her discovery, both to Bella and 
 Grace Harper, till the latter was back with her 
 own people. 
 
 " She shall travel back with me," Mrs. Mark- 
 ham said to Claude ; " you and Bella can fol- 
 low." 
 
 "Very well," he replied. 
 
 " When I get down there I shall give her to 
 understand that I have found her out, the mean, 
 malicious monkey ! and that she had better 
 never attempt to show her face at the Court. I 
 shall not say a word to Bella while Miss Harper 
 is her guest ; but it will only be fair to Bella to 
 suffer Miss Harper to be her guest as short a 
 time as possible." 
 
 " As you like, Ellen. There's no harm done, 
 though, remember: so hold your punishing 
 hand ; don't make it too heavy." Claude could 
 not be quite oblivious that the wrong had been 
 wrought for love of him. He was scarcely the 
 man to have sent Stanley Villars to destruction 
 for, after all. 
 
 "It can't be made too heavy. The base 
 wickedness of the girl we all thought so good 
 frightens me." 
 
 "There's no harm done, as I said before," 
 Claude replied. "Mine was the worst fault 
 after all. I was a fool to pay the slightest at- 
 tention to what any one said of a woman I 
 know as well as I do Bella. She deserved bet- 
 ter of me." 
 
 " She deserved better of us all," Mrs. Mark- 
 ham replied. She did not like her sister-in-law, 
 nevertheless she would be just. Bella had de- 
 served better of them all. Mrs. Markham 
 would be the first to acknowledge it. 
 
 " She deserved better of us all, Claude," she 
 said emphatically. 
 
 " Well, render her the ' better ' now it's not 
 too late. As I said before, there is no harm 
 done," Claude replied, rising up. " Come," he 
 continued, " having settled that business, let us 
 go in and see if Bella has a cup of tea for 
 us." 
 
 So it came to pass that they walked into 
 
 the drawing-room together, rather to Bella's 
 amazement. 
 
 The evening passed rather heavily. Claude 
 talked to his wife for a short time talked to 
 her in a lover-like, devotional way, that is very 
 delightful to a woman ; but he got tired of talk- 
 ing to her in this way, long, long before she 
 got tired of listening to him ; and then he went 
 to sleep over a Quarterly Review in a fat arm- 
 chair, and the evening commenced being very 
 dreary. 
 
 How could the evening pass other than 
 heavily indeed? Claude was asleep. Bella 
 aggrieved. Mrs. Markham engaged in uproot- 
 ing one of the traditions of her youth, which 
 was, that a being whom she had elected to 
 honour, and who belonged, moreover, to one of 
 the county families, couldn't err. And Miss 
 Grace Harper was uneasy in a semi-conscious 
 manner, having a conviction that she had been 
 found out, and not being sure by whom she had 
 been so. The evening passed heavily, very 
 heavily indeed. They were all glad when 
 Claude roused himself from the depths of the 
 fat chair and exclaimed, "By Jove! how late 
 it is, Bella! Had you any idea of it?" 
 
 He drew his wife's hand down on to the arm 
 of the fat chair as he spoke, and patted it, look- 
 ing into her face the while, as he had been 
 wont to look when he was " Major Walsing- 
 ham " to her, and she only " Bella Vane." And 
 Grace Harper saw that he did this, and felt that 
 after all there were some things that might as 
 well have been left undone, as this was the end 
 of it. 
 
 The two ladies, Mrs. Markham and Mis 
 Harper, journeyed down together to the Corn- 
 on the following day, leaving Claude and hi 
 wife to follow. The widowed Mrs. Walsing 
 ham met her old favourite with a warmth 0- 
 affection that it rather grated on Mrs. Mark- 
 ham's nerves to witness, and that contrasted 
 harshly with the tone in which the mother 
 said 
 
 "So my son's wife has not thought fit to 
 come to me in my trouble. Ah, well ! I might 
 have expected it." 
 
 " Claude and his wife will be here to-morrow, 
 
 " Claude at kast might have escorted Grace 
 and you, I think." 
 
 "And left his wife to follow by herself? No, 
 indeed ; Claude values Bella too highly to neg- 
 lect her in such a way," Mrs. Markham replied, 
 decisively. 
 
 " My dear child, you will stay with me to- 
 night, will you not?" Mrs. Walsingham asked 
 of Grace " your dear mother will spare you to 
 me to-night?" 
 
 "I have no doubt that her dear mother 
 would do so," Mrs. Markham interposed; "but 
 I believe it is arranged that Grace goes home 
 to-night." 
 
 " That arrangement might be broken through," 
 Mrs. Walsingham said; and then Mrs. Markham 
 spoke rather sternly, and Grace Harper knew 
 that her days of favour at the Court were 
 over. 
 
 " That arrangement had better not be broken 
 through, mother. Grace will agree with me 
 that it will be well that she should not remain 
 to meet my brother and his wife." 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 159 
 
 " Oh ! I can go home, of course," Grace said, 
 hurriedly. "I really never thought of staying 
 only dear Mrs. Walsinghanj seemed to wish 
 me to stay." 
 
 Mrs. Walsingham looked from her daughter 
 to her guest. " What is all this ?" she ask- 
 ed. 
 
 " You had better not ask now, mamma." 
 
 "It means that Mrs. Markham my own 
 old friend, has been influenced by your daugh- 
 ter-in law into conceiving an unfounded dislike 
 to me," Grace exclaimed, "I have known all 
 along that Mrs. Claude Walsingham did not like 
 me, but I never thought she would have been 
 so mean " 
 
 "Perhaps the less said about 'jneanness' 
 the better," Mrs. Markham said, in her most 
 commonplace, resolute tones. " I certainly have 
 no desire to make things worse by talking about 
 them ; but I think Grace will tell you, mam- 
 ma," she continued, fixing her eyes steadily on 
 Grace "I think Grace will tell you, mamma, 
 that she can never be Mrs. Claude Walsing- 
 ham's guest again; and you must know," she 
 added, quietly, ''painful as the knowledge may 
 be to you, that when Mrs. Claude arrives at the 
 Court, it will be as the mistress of it." 
 
 Then old Mrs. Walsingham bewailed herself 
 afresh, and in the sadder access of sorrow 
 caused by this reminder which her intensely 
 just daughter had given her, she suffered the 
 vexed question of Grace's staying or leaving to 
 be settled without further intervention on her 
 part. 
 
 Miss Harper recovered her equanimity her 
 stolidity, rather very soon. " If the carriage 
 is ready to take me on, I'll go home now. It 
 isn't nice arriving so very late at night, and it 
 will be very late if I stay any longer," she said, 
 after the expiration of a few minutes. 
 
 She kissed Mrs. Walsingham, who was still 
 plunged in grief at the thought of her son's 
 wife reigning in her stead, and then she held 
 out a hand that was rather tremulous to Mrs. 
 Markham in farewell. 
 
 "I'll see you out into the hall," the latter re- 
 plied, stalking away to the door in a grim way 
 that told Grace she was to hear the truth at 
 length. 
 
 As soon as they reached the hall, Mrs. Mark- 
 ham put her hand on Grace's arm, and sank 
 her voice to a whisper 
 
 " I never was more shocked and sorry in my 
 life than I was by the finding of that piece of 
 paper," she said, handing the envelope to Grace. 
 "Don't say a word either in deprecation or 
 denial, for I shouldn't believe you. You will 
 never come here again, of course ? " 
 
 "I shall never care to come here again," 
 Grace replied, in a very hard tone. "You 
 needn't trouble yourself to put Mrs. Claude on 
 her guard against me," she continued, crum- 
 pling up the envelope. "Let us leave each 
 other off without a scene, please." 
 
 "It's the last favour I can ever do you I 
 will." 
 
 " You don't mean to be friendly with me, 
 then, any more?" 
 
 "No I" Mrs. Markham replied, sharply ; " 
 think you're the basest woman I know: but 
 I'll not betray you to my mother ; if you really 
 care about her friendship, you shall not bo de- 
 
 prived of it, if you'll promise not to attempt to 
 poison her mind against Claude's wife." 
 
 "I don't care about keeping it you needn't 
 suppose I valued any of you on your own ac- 
 counts it was all for Claude ! " the girl said, 
 sullenly ; then she passed on without another 
 word to the carriage that was awaiting her. 
 Thus ended her connection with the Walsing- 
 ham family, and with my story. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIX. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 WHEN Claude Walsingham and his wife arrived 
 at the Court, Bella found herself very delicately 
 situated. Everything that was to be said to 
 Mrs. Walsingham, Claude told Bella to say. 
 " It was her duty," he said to her, "and there- 
 fore she must fulfil it." She was most anxious 
 to fulfil her duty and please her husband, but 
 she did find it rather hard to be compelled to 
 make "what was to be" manifest to Mrs. Wal- 
 singham, who would have learnt the lesson 
 much more readily from her son. 
 
 After the funeral, Claude said to his wife, " I 
 wish you would get my mother down to the 
 village, Bella, to look over the house; she 
 could point out to you what she would like to 
 have done before she goes to it, better than she 
 could to me." 
 
 "Very well, Claude," Bella rejoined ; "will 
 you ask her to go ? " 
 
 " No ; it will be much more gracious of you 
 to ask her to go." 
 
 " She won't walk, of course ? " 
 
 " It would do her good an immense deal of 
 good if she would walk," Claude replied ; " dear 
 old lady, she wants rousing ! " 
 
 "I really think we had better wait till we 
 come back from Scotland, Claude," Bella plead- 
 ed. " I'm sure your mother will hate me for 
 hinting a word about the house yet." 
 
 " And have the business hanging over our 
 heads the whole time we're away 1 That's just 
 like a woman avoid an unpleasantness, at any 
 cost, as long as you can ! No, it will bo much 
 better to get the thing over. I didn't think 
 you were so weak, Bella, as to shrink from it. 
 I don't." 
 
 " Ah ! I feel so for her," Bella replied. When 
 she commenced her speech she had intended 
 saying, " Ah i but you don't do it yourself, you 
 put it off upon me." But she waived that in- 
 tention. 
 
 " So do I, dear old mother 1 but as the thing 
 must be done (for she'd be wretched after a 
 time in a house of which she wasn't both real 
 and nominal mistress), it had better be dono 
 quickly. Find out how she'd like the place 
 furnished, and show yourself interested, there's 
 a dear girl." 
 
 Bella promised, and Bella tried to perform; 
 but she merely won wrath to herself during the 
 whole course of the transaction. " It is clearly 
 not my own dear boy who wishes to get rid of 
 me," the widowed mother observed to Mrs. 
 Markham ; " it's his wife. She is hurrying me 
 away with the most indecent haste ; she has 
 
160 
 
 ON GUARD. 
 
 just asked me to go to the village with her, and 
 see if I can't suggest some alterations in the 
 Vale House. I know what that means !" 
 
 Of course they knew what it meant. Mrs. 
 Claude knew what it meant herself namely, 
 that her mother-in-law was to be made as com- 
 fortable as possible, and that she (Bella) was to 
 bear the brunt of bringing those comforts into 
 working order. It was horribly unpleasant to 
 her to be regarded as one who was unduly im- 
 patient to reign, simply because she obeyed her 
 husband, and strove to make things as pleasant 
 as possible to the one who was dethroned. It 
 was horribly unpleasant ; but Bella was wiser 
 in her generation than she had been in the days 
 when we first made her acquaintance, and she 
 bore the unpleasantness meekly, as being a por- 
 tion of a young wife's lot at least, the lot of 
 all young wives whose lives are cast in the 
 vicinity of their husbands' mothers. 
 
 Mrs. Walsingham, senior, hated the Vale 
 House vehemently from the moment she looked 
 upon it with the eyes of its future occupant. 
 " I'm confident that I saw a black beetle in the 
 kitchen," she said to Bella, as they were going 
 up-stairs to look at the bed-rooms. " However, 
 the place is good enough for me!" She said 
 that the place was good enough for her in a 
 tone that made Bella long to cry out, " And for 
 me too, if I'm only permitted to inhabit it alone; 
 you go back to the Court and be happy." But 
 though she longed to say this with the longing 
 that comes upon one after having been com- 
 pelled to listen to the plaints of a discontented 
 one for a time, she held her peace, remembering 
 that the Court was not hers to give away mag- 
 nanimously, and that she would only rule in it 
 herself through the grace of Claude the great. 
 
 But she would be sorely harassed before she 
 assumed the robes of queen-regnant, of that she 
 felt very certain; the sovereign to be deposed was 
 so very sensitive, not to say litigious, and the 
 black beetles were so numerous, and the whole 
 atmosphere of the Vale House so charged with 
 quarrelling matter. " If Claude would only 
 speak out to his mother, and have done with 
 it," Bella thought wearily, when Mrs. Walsing- 
 ham pointed out the tenth draught, and de- 
 clared herself for the fortieth time ready and 
 willing to submit to anything, no matter how 
 unendurable " If Claude would only speak out 
 to his mother and have done with it, instead of 
 making me 'imply,' and 'hint,' and do all sorts 
 of things that she hates me for doing." 
 
 But Claude would not speak out. Things 
 were going very well, according to his mind. 
 His mother had been given to know that there 
 could not be two queens at the Court, and that 
 it would be well, therefore, that she should take 
 up her abode at the Vale House. To the best 
 of his belief, his mother had acquiesced very 
 calmly and affably in this arrangement. He 
 had heard nothing of the draughts and the 
 black beetles. Bella to the best of her ability 
 kept disagreeables, which he could not remedy, 
 from his knowledge. 
 
 The day of their departure for the Highlands 
 arrived, and they started, leaving all things in 
 good order. It was clearly understood now 
 that old Mrs. Walsingham should be found in- 
 stalled at the Vale House on their return. " I 
 suppose your wife will not let you stay much 
 
 at the Court. Claude, with her tastes and her 
 habits," Mrs. Walsingham observed to her son. 
 " However, though she may not be here much, 
 I'm better out of the way, and I know it." 
 
 "That's nonsense, mother," Claude replied. 
 " But what makes you think we shall not be 
 here much ? we mean to be here altogether." 
 
 " Oh, do you! then I'm very much mistaken, 
 Claude. Those who live longest will see 
 most!" 
 
 To which unanswerable argument Claude re- 
 plied nothing. His mother was in the injured 
 frame of mind, and his experience of women 
 led him to avoid them at such times and in 
 such conditions. 
 
 Mrs. Markham, too, had a few words with 
 her brother before he left for Scotland. 
 
 "You know, Claude, that though I don't 
 profess much love for Bella, I always do her 
 justice?" she began. 
 
 He nodded. " I'm not going to interfere in 
 any feminine squabbles," he said. " If you 
 can't hit it off with Bella, you had better not 
 come in her way, Ellen." 
 
 " But I can ' hit it off,' as you call it, with 
 Bella ; there is no reason existing why I should 
 not hit it off with her in other words, behave 
 in a very friendly way towards her, as a sister 
 should ; but I want to warn you " 
 
 "What the devil about now ?" 
 
 " Don't let her mix herself up with that man 
 she was engaged to that Mr. Villars ; I don't 
 say that harm would come of it " 
 
 "Well, I should rather hope you don't say 
 so, indeed!" 
 
 " No, I don't, Claude ; but harm may come 
 of it. I don't like his ideas, and he might graft 
 them upon Bella, eventually. His ideas strike 
 me as being shocking." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 Then Mrs. Markham said something about 
 Stanley Villars being " evidently a free-thinker 
 and an atheist," in the vilely inhuman way 
 people are apt to denounce others whose faith 
 they cannot gauge, and whose belief is broader, 
 deeper, nobler than their own, in that it be- 
 lieves in the " good that is in all men," and in 
 the mercy of God towards all his creatures. 
 Mrs. Markham had gathered that Stanley Vil- 
 lars was not travelling along the road to eter- 
 nity in the same class carriage as herself; there- 
 fore, she declared him to be a lost sheep, and 
 settled the question as to his ultimate destina- 
 tion definitely in her own mind, after the man- 
 ner of bitter Christians. 
 
 "That's all nonsense; but I don't fancy 
 Bella will care to see any more of them. She 
 believed him to be dying, or some stuff of the 
 kind ; it cured her when I told her I had seen 
 him drunk in the Strand. Good God! how 
 low the fellow's fallen !" 
 
 So Claude Walsingham spoke of his old 
 friend, as he strapped one of the rugs that were 
 going with him to Scotland a little tighter. 
 And then he went to see if his wife was ready 
 to start, and presently they were off. 
 
 But I must gather the scattered threads of 
 my story together, before I tell you how the 
 Claude Walsinghams enjoyed their trip into 
 Scotland, and what they heard there. 
 
 When Stanley Villars turned down that nar- 
 row street that led from the Strand to the 
 
ON GUAED. 
 
 161 
 
 river, there was but one thought in his mind, 
 and that one was, " how he should get out of 
 it all most speedily. " You see it was < ' all up " 
 with him (how lightly we use and hear the 
 phrase occasionally, never thinking of its deep, 
 its terrible meaning) it was "all up" with 
 him. " "Was it not pitiful, near a whole city- 
 full, friends he had none 1" 
 
 Morosely he went along down to a pier, 
 where a river boat was waiting to discharge 
 and take in passengers. There was a band on 
 board the boat, pouring out blithe strains ; and 
 he stood and listened, only because he could 
 not go down and drown himself before that 
 gay company. The old habit of courtesy was 
 upon the man still, even in this hour of blackest 
 despair. He could not mar the festivity that 
 appeared to be reigning amongst the crowd on 
 board that boat, by a splash, and a sinking 
 under, by causing that horrible sound, " Man 
 overboard !" to arise. 
 
 _ So he waited there, leaning against the 
 ticket-vendor's shed upon the pier. He was 
 too weak to stand, almost; and as he leant 
 there, fatigue, and the music, and the glare on 
 the water (for the sun was on it still), made 
 him sleepy, and caused him to shrink from the 
 exertion of drowning himself at once. 
 
 "If I could only have a sleep first," he 
 thought. "My God! when did I sleep last ? 
 not for weeks!" 
 
 It was true, this, or partially true. He had 
 not entirely forgotten himself and his misery 
 for weeks. The power of sleep was gone from 
 him. He was awfully open-eyed, shockingly 
 conscious of a continual dull pain in the back 
 of the head. Ah ! that dull pain that comes 
 on after many hours' continuous brain-labour ! 
 You who know what it is, "make no deep 
 scrutiny into his mutiny," for he had suffered 
 from it long 
 
 By-and-by that boat, with its band, telling 
 how happy it could be in the Strand for ever- 
 more with Naucy, passed on, and another 
 bumped against the pier in its stead, shaking 
 him from his resting pi-ace as it bumped, and 
 making him feel that he must take a little rest 
 before he could get to the water's edge, and 
 take the final plunge. So he sat down, making 
 a pillow of his arm upon a stout post, that was 
 used to fasten the boats' ropes to sometimes, 
 and prepared to take the requisite rest. 
 
 He was very weak entirely worn out by 
 grief, despair, and hunger, for he had been fast- 
 ing, from sheer forgetfulness, the whole day. 
 Soon he slept, lying there, pillowing his head 
 on a rude plank, like the outcast he felt himself 
 to be he who, but a year ago, had had so 
 bright a fate before him !* 
 
 The piermen, passing and re passing him, 
 looked down upon him with the sort of good- 
 natured contempt that is showt to mangy dogs, 
 beggars, and the like. 
 
 " He's a rum'un to choose this place of all 
 others for his afternoon nap,'' one of them said 
 to a comrade. And the comrade replied, "Ay, 
 poor fellow! just heave that sack over him; 
 we'll lay it across him ; the river breeze is a 
 sharp'un this evening." 
 
 So, there, with an old coal-sack over his shoul- 
 ders, Stanley Villars lay sleeping, at about the 
 same hour that Claude Walsingham was wring- 
 11 
 
 ing the promise from Bella to " have no more to 
 do with him." 
 
 For at least a couple of hours that sleep of his 
 lasted. Then a man, in passing from one of the 
 boats to the steps, paused to look at the re- 
 cumbent form, and with a cry of 
 
 " Good God, Villars 1 how came you here!" 
 roused him. 
 
 "Ah, Bligh! is that you?" Stanley asked, 
 rising up. 
 
 "Yes, I have been to Gravesend with a 
 party; they're gone on now, and I must be 
 after them." 
 
 "All right!" Stanley replied. 
 
 Suddenly, Bligh stopped. "What are you 
 doing here?" he asked. 
 
 "Nothing." 
 
 " What are you going to do ?" 
 
 "Nothing." 
 
 " Why don't you go home, then ?" Bligh con- 
 tinued. His party had gone on now, but he 
 did not care for that ; he was determined not to 
 lose sight of Stanley until Stanley had rejoined 
 his wife. 
 
 " Why don't you go home then?" he said. 
 
 " Home ! I have none," Stanley replied, think- 
 ing only of Gerald's house. 
 
 "Nonsense! come along." Then Bligh put 
 his arm tnrough Stanley's, and led him up the 
 steps, and took him home in a cab, and never 
 left him till poor, crying, frightened Marian was 
 hanging over him, blessing him for having 
 " come back to her." 
 
 The record of the days, of the weeks, that en 
 sued would be mere weariness. A portion of 
 his mind had given way on that day when he 
 turned down the street that led to th river, and 
 that portion was never restored. It was miser- 
 able for the only two who were with him his 
 wife and Bligh to see what was left of that 
 mind grow daily weaker and weaker ; to hear 
 him talking in a way that they kmw he would 
 have utterly scorned himself for talking in, had 
 he been conscious of it ; to know that reason 
 had deserted her throne, and that he could 
 never now be " himself again." 
 
 Sad, miserably sad, to see him writing, with 
 a shaking hand, words that could never be 
 printed; to see him making these up and 
 counting the lines, and calculating the iiumbe 
 of columns they would make. 
 
 It was very sad to see all this, and to feel 
 themselves called upon to deceive him by pre- 
 tending that his "copy " was sent, and inserted, 
 and paid for, in order to give ever so small a 
 gleam of satisfaction to his poor mind. But 
 through all the sadness, all the sorrow, all the 
 biting, horrible despair of that time, the baby- 
 faced beauty nursed him with a loving, untiring 
 devotion, that at last won him to know her. 
 
 She knew now that he had wrecked himself 
 for another woman than herself. She knew 
 that he had loved that other woman as he 
 never could have loved her even had he lived- 
 for he wandered much in his mind, and told the 
 truth in his ravings. But this knowledge never 
 embittered her never rendered her one atom 
 less tender in her devotion, less prompt in her 
 service, less lovingly grateful to him for calling 
 her to him constantly as he did with the words 
 " Marian, pet." 
 They were often on the brink of bankruptcy, 
 
162 
 
 ON GUARD. 
 
 but Marian kept the fact of their being so from 
 Stanley. She had corne to feel that she was a 
 sort of protecting power over this man that 
 she was stronger in many ways than he, and 
 that it behoved her to guard him. The sense 
 of being needful to him the sight of his abso- 
 lute reliance upon her in all things the sad 
 knowledge that he had none other upon whom 
 to rely, and the almost equally sad knowledge 
 that he had lost his friends in gaining her all 
 these things strung her up to bear and to for- 
 bear such evils as none but those who have 
 nursed the sick unto death in poverty can com- 
 prehend. 
 
 It was such a poor small bankruptcy, that 
 upon the brink of which they were perpetually. 
 They failed and fell short of such inglorious, 
 such essential things. The great dread grew 
 up in her heart that, brief as might be the time 
 he had yet to live, he might be made to feel 
 the want that was upon them in a physical 
 way, that it was a terror to her to contemplate. 
 But she kept up a bright air before him inva- 
 riably, though generally he was not in a state 
 to see anything with understanding she kept 
 up a bright air before him, and never suffered 
 a tone of her voice to fall flat on his ear. It 
 was only Bligh who saw the girlishness fading 
 from her day by day who heard the heart- 
 wrung tones in which day after day she met 
 him at the door, with the same weary tale of 
 "Stanley being no better" who knew that 
 the baby-faced beauty was as true a heroine as 
 any of the gallant women of ancient or modern 
 times whose deeds have been sung melodious- 
 
 1 7 
 
 Now that she knew that nothing could avert 
 the doom that was upon her husband the 
 doom of early death she grew very proud for 
 him, and resolved to suffer anything, no matter 
 how bad, herself, rather than make another 
 appeal on his behalf to his family. She re- 
 solved upon something else too resolved upon 
 it with no flourish of trumpets with no loudly- 
 spoken oaths with no callings of any one to 
 regard with admiration the magnitude of the 
 sacrifice she was determined upon making. 
 She came to her decision with no outward sign, 
 save an additional tightening of her lips, as she 
 leant over him, bathing the poor head that had 
 so little in it besides ache now. But she was 
 very firmly set upon carrying out her decision, 
 for all she made it so very, very quietly. The 
 guard against possible communion with this 
 girl which his brother's wife had wrought upon 
 his family to erect was destined to be never 
 tried. 
 
 Once and once only did Stanley Villars refer 
 to the bright beautiful bane of his life after 
 that visit of hers. "She never sent me those 
 roses, you see ?" he said, one morning, abrupt- 
 ly, to his wife. To which she replied, very 
 sweetly, despite the sore feeling that would 
 obtain at hearing another woman mentioned in 
 a way that proved " she " alone had occupied 
 his thoughts. 
 
 " But she will send them by-and-by, Stanley, 
 dear. I'm sure she won't forget them, you 
 see!" 
 
 In order that he might be made to see that 
 she had not forgotten them, a journey was 
 made to Covent Garden as soon as Stanley 
 
 could be left with Mr. Bligh. A journey made 
 in despair, almost by a heart-sick little 'wife 
 a weary little nurse; and though the roses 
 were dear that day, Stanley's eyes were cheered 
 shortly by a group of them as freshly white, as 
 richly crimson, as the bunch "Mrs. Claude 
 "Walsingham had sent to him first," Marian 
 said, simply. From that day forth Stanley had 
 no reason to complain that " she never sent the 
 roses." The roses were always there, though 
 Mrs. Claude Walsingham was in the Highlands 
 enjoying herself very much ; and poor Marian 
 was often on the brink of bankruptcy. He 
 hungered and thirsted for the flowers, in a way 
 that made Marian lie awake frequently, during 
 the few short hours of the night in which he 
 did not need her to attend upon him, when she 
 was free to take repose in a way that made 
 her lie awake marvelling half fearfully as to 
 how the supply should be kept up to the end 
 the woeful end that would come. 
 
 Claude Walsiugham and his wife were having 
 a very pleasant time of it in Scotland. The 
 grouse were plentiful this year, and the dog 
 Jack had lent Claude for the season was as good 
 a pointer as had ever hooked his leg in the air, 
 or done a field off into huge diamond squares 
 with an equally intelligent fellow. The lodge 
 Claude had taken was tolerably replete with 
 creature comforts too. It was airily furnished, 
 but there was no lack of soft seats in it, and 
 now that Bella had Claude with her constantly, 
 she did not care so much for books from 
 Mudie's. 
 
 They were leading what Major Walsingham 
 called a thoroughly "jolly " life. Bella did not 
 knock up, and afflict him by a display of fine- 
 ladyism, as to fatigue, on or without the small- 
 est provocation. She approved herself capable 
 of taking a great deal of pedestrian e xercise 
 without being a mere sleepy nuisance in the 
 evening in consequence of the same. They got 
 on so well alone in the wilds, up in their High- 
 land shooting-box, in fact, that the receipt of 
 letters and papers became a mere bore to them, 
 and consequently they did not open the latter 
 very often until they were three or four days 
 old. 
 
 There were certain letters which they felt it 
 to be their bounden duty to open and peruse, to 
 read and inwardly digest, unpleasant as that 
 duty was sometimes; and these were letters 
 from the dowager Mrs. Walsingham. Claude's 
 mother was desperately affectionate and discon- 
 tented in her epistles. 
 
 "She calls me her 'dearest child,' and makes 
 me feel like a criminal for being her ehild-in-law 
 even," Bella said to her husband one morning, 
 after reading a cross-barred letter in the palest 
 ink, and with the deepest border of black that 
 mortal eyes had ever beheld. 
 
 "Why?" Claude asked. "No. thank you" 
 (as Bella made a feint of handing him the letter), 
 "I never read plaid effusions." 
 
 " Oh ! it's hard to say ; the whole tone of the 
 letter is calculated to depress the recipient ; one 
 has a vague sense of being guilty of some un- 
 discovered crime while reading it." 
 
 " You may tell me the letter in brief bits- 
 but mind, Bella, make them very brief I" 
 
 So cautioned, Bella commenced 
 
 " Well, now, here she says, ' I went down to 
 
ON GUARD. 
 
 163 
 
 the Vale House yesterday, to see about things ; 
 it is time that at least my bed-room and own 
 sitting-room (humble as they are) should be 
 ready. I know it to be Claude's wish that, 
 though very differently, I shall be comfortably 
 'lodged, so I did venture to tell Thompson to 
 mend the bell in the sitting-room.' Now, 
 Claude, fancy ! as if your mother didn't know 
 that she was free to have a whole peal of bells 
 in every room in her house, if she liked. 
 
 " And free to ring her servants out of their 
 minds, into the bargain," Claude replied, with a 
 laugh. " What a lark, to be sure 1" 
 
 " Ah ! but a lot of it isn't a lark. Just listen 
 to this : ' I remembered, when Farmer Hopkins 
 and his wife (good worthy people) lived there, 
 they were always complaining of the damp, and 
 I took the precaution of wrapping myself up in 
 my sable cloak, and putting on goloshes, before 
 I went into the house. Something must have 
 struck a chill to me, however, for I have a tick- 
 ling in my throat to-day, that warns me of the 
 approach of bronchitis, and a stabbing pain in 
 my left temple, that bids me beware of neural- 
 gia.' There! I feel that these preliminary 
 symptoms of your mother's will make my life 
 miserable, Claude." 
 
 " You had better get to disregard them, my 
 dear, that is all I can say." 
 
 "Do you really think the Yale House is 
 damp?" 
 
 " Nonsense ! damp no !" 
 
 "Then why should Mrs. Walsingham go 
 down to it ' in a sable cloak and goloshes ?' " 
 
 Claude roared. "The damp is her pet 
 grievance at present, my child ; don't you want 
 to deprive her of it until you're ready to give 
 her another." Then he added more gravely, 
 " You must know, Bell, that it is only to us 
 that my mother Avill talk of the black beetles 
 and the draught, and the damp, and the missing 
 bells ; to every one else the Vale House will be 
 a little palace of delight" 
 
 "Bat hearing of all those disagreeables does 
 exactly what she intends it to do makes me 
 feel guilty," Bella replied. 
 
 " Well, I hope to God you will never have 
 greater reason to feel guilty about anything, my 
 darling," her husbaud replied, opening the 
 Times (that was several days old) as he spoke. 
 
 It is in the columns of this world-renowned 
 institution that we come upon our greatest 
 shocks in real life. There is nothing inartistic, 
 therefore, in making the most severe shocks 
 emanate from thence, in the mimic life with 
 which it is the novelist's province to deal. 
 
 Claude Walsingham opened the Times, and 
 after glancing over it for a couple of minutes or 
 so, he let it fall with his hands on the table, and 
 uttered an exclamation, a short one " God 1" 
 
 " What's the matter," Bella said. Then find- 
 ing that he did not answer her, that he looked 
 shocked into such pallor as she had never seen 
 on Claude's face before, she jumped up and went 
 over to him, and attempted to take the paper 
 ont of his hand. 
 
 "What is it, say ? What is it, Claude ?'' 
 
 "Keep off for an instant!" he said; but he 
 did not say it at all roughly. Her soul began , 
 to shake within her. 
 
 "Claude, Claude, tell me!" 
 
 "He's dead then!" Claude began in a loud ! 
 
 voice, that ended in a big choking sob as hia 
 head fell upon his arms, and tears oozed from 
 his eyes. Then Bella checked the utterence 
 of the wail that was in her own heart, as she 
 bent over and attempted to soothe her husband 
 in his agony. 
 
 He remembered all things with such a dread- 
 ful distinctness now. His boyish days with 
 Stanley, and the friendship that had been be- 
 tween them in their riper years. He remem- 
 bered how love had battled with doubt in their 
 hearts. How Stanley had believed their com- 
 pact to be too sacred a thing to be foully soiled ; 
 and how he (Claude) had falsified that belief. 
 He remembered all these things well ; but bet- 
 ter than them all, he remembered that he had 
 loved this man who was dead, and that this 
 man was dead. 
 
 It was a crushing conviction. Do what he 
 would now, the late hardness, the worse than 
 indifference that he had shown, could never be 
 altered. He was utterly bowed bowed and 
 subdued, as entirely as any woman could have 
 been, by the stunning weight of a most over- 
 powering remorse. His superior scruples; his 
 false fears as to future intercourse ; his careful 
 avoidance of contamination, were all shown to 
 be uncalled for, unneeded, in such a solemn 
 way, that the sight of that futility nearly burst 
 his heart. 
 
 As for what Bella felt when she read the 
 paragraph that had bent her husband's head, 
 that may not be told too clearly. She had 
 known, she had felt sure of ''that" for some 
 time which had come upon Claude as a shock. 
 She was more than sorry, she was more than 
 grieved! But there was just this unction 
 which she could lay to her soul she had parted 
 from the dead man in kindness. Claude knew 
 now that he had turned from Stanley in scorn, 
 when, for his manhood, he should have gone to 
 Stanley in humanity. Her husband's remorse 
 took Bella away from too much thought of her 
 lost lover's evil fate. 
 
 During the whole of that day Claude could 
 do nothing but regret. He was as inefficient in 
 his first sorrow as any woman could have been, 
 as nervously uncertain " what to do at all " at 
 first, and then " what to do for the best." The 
 following day he vainly essayed to try and act 
 as if this "had never been," to go out shooting 
 as usual, to "shake off" the thought of that 
 which had unmanned him. But he failed ! He 
 failed entirely. His better nature triumphed, 
 and in the evening he said to his wife 
 
 "Bella, dear! we'll go to London to-morrow. 
 I'll go to his funeral, and you shall see after 
 his poor little wife." 
 
 They talked freely of the miserable business 
 after that. Claude was all the loving old friend 
 again, instead of being the successful, but, not- 
 withstanding that success, the needlessly em- 
 bittered rival. They made plans to assuage so 
 much of Marian's woe as might be assuaged, 
 aud in speaking of her Claude lapsed for a 
 minute into injustice. 
 
 " Poor little thing! I pity her very much of 
 course; but as she must have been utterly in- 
 capable of appreciating Stanley, I have not the 
 least doubt that the consideration she'll receive 
 as his widow will quite reconcile her to having 
 been his wife for so short a time." 
 
164 
 
 ON GUARD. 
 
 "I don't suppose she did appreciate him," 
 Bella rejoined. She was conscious that she her- 
 self had riot appreciated him, and she did not 
 accredit Marian with higher powers than she 
 had possessed in that respect. 
 
 The Times in which they had read of his 
 death was five or six days old. Two mor.- 
 days were wasted in coming to a decision as to 
 " what they should do." The result was that 
 Stanley Villarg had been dead nine days when 
 they came at length to the door of his house to 
 inquire for his widow. 
 
 The little house looked very gloomy and deso- 
 late when the door was opened by an old wo- 
 man, and they stepped in. 
 
 "Is Mrs. Stanley Villars within?" Claude 
 asked, while Bella began to cry. 
 
 " Are you any relatives of the late yonng 
 gentleman's what's gone ?" the woman asked, 
 dubiously, by way of answer. 
 
 Claude felt like a brother towards Stanley 
 now ; in addition to which feeling, he thought 
 that it would save trouble to say " Yes." 
 
 " Then I am to tell you," the woman replied, 
 slowly, ''that the young woman who lived 
 here is gone away, and don't want to trouble 
 you ever no " (correcting herself) "I wasn't to 
 say that this is it, the young woman is gone 
 away, and she wished it to be known to her 
 gentleman's relatives, if they ever did chance 
 to come nigh to inquire, while I was here, that 
 the young gentleman never disgraced him- 
 self by marrying her poor lamb !" the woman 
 wound up with, heartily. 
 
 It was a staggering surprise to them both. 
 They could only ask a few incoherent questions, 
 and then go away discomfited. As they were 
 leaving the door, Bella said 
 
 "Claude, she's a noble little creature, mis- 
 taken as she is." 
 
 " How do you mean ? Poor girl ! God knows 
 I would have judged her leniently enough, and 
 done anything for her," he replied. 
 
 'You don't quite see what I do, yet," she 
 answered. "I feel as sure as that I'm your 
 wife, that she was Stanley Villars' ; it's all of a 
 piece with her wishing one day that she could 
 have been unmarried to him. She has sacri- 
 ficed her reputation in order that his family 
 may not think he disgraced himself by a low 
 marriage." 
 
 As she was saying this, Lady Villars' car- 
 riage drew up ; and her ladyship, robed in the 
 deepest mourning, leant out of it to speak to 
 them. 
 
 ' ; Have you heard of our gnef ?" sh * asked, 
 with a little quiver in h r voice, that told its 
 < wn tale of the tears that had been shed, and 
 Bella saw that Carrie's fair face was almost 
 seamed by sorrow. 
 
 ''We have just been there," Bella answered. 
 
 " Of that too ; but ours is a double grief, 
 Mrs. Walsingham ; my little boy is dead," the 
 poor bereaved mother cried. 
 
 Then Bella told her how her visit was well- 
 intentioned, but too late. " Stanley's widow 
 was gone," she said ; and then she gave the 
 message Stanley's widow had left, as it had 
 been given to her. 
 
 "Who could have foreseen this ?" Lady Villars 
 cried bitterly. " It will half kill Gerald to find 
 that he can't make any amends." 
 
 " She meant well, I have no doubt ; but it 
 was a very imbecile precaution to take, to cut 
 herself off from her husband's family just now, 
 for Bella says there is no doubt about the mar- 
 riage. A very imbecile precaution indeed," 
 Claude said sorrowfully. 
 
 " Very !" Bella said emphatically, " as all the 
 precautions have been that we have all taken 
 about each other ; even those dear Stanley took 
 himself, from the ver/first. We have all been 
 on guard against the wrong thing." 
 
 " He is dead now, and the acknowledgment 
 of it can't help him," Lady Villars said; " but we 
 have all been horribly hard to him." 
 
 " Let his memory make us softer to those who 
 are left," Bella replied; and then they went 
 their several ways. 
 
 But for all the toleration expressed in Mrs. 
 Claude Walsingham's speech, she could not for- 
 bear saying to her husband, when they reached 
 their own house, and found Rock awaiting them 
 (" a dog that had been left for missus by a lady 
 in black," the servant said) 
 
 " Claude ! she is the only one who has be- 
 haved unselfishly in the business how much 
 better she is than any of us!" 
 
 In addition, too, it must be said, that the black 
 beetles and the draughts and the damp some- 
 times bore hard upon her. 
 
 END. 
 
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