Mrs. Dorriman, Volume 3 of 3

Spring struggling through smoke and fog, dingy sparrows playing on the grass, and a careworn face looking upon it all.

The lines left by youth deepen and become more conspicuous in age, and one can generally read the story of the three first decades in the faces of older people. Mrs. Dorriman, suffering in her youth from injustice and a want of affection, bore the marks of both; nothing but her real sweetness of temper had saved her from peevishness, for fretfulness is as much the result of perpetual repression in one feeble by nature, as violence and anger is the outcome of an unchecked temper in youth.

But, as Mrs. Dorriman looked upon the smoky sparrows and the grass showing green under difficulties, she noticed that the birds were contending and not playing, they each wanted a long straw, envied it. Alone they could not lift it, and yet they would not combine their efforts, and after all it had to be left there to the mercy of the wind. Their ineffectual single efforts in so hopeless a cause seemed to the poor little lady typical of humanity, wasting their time struggling for the unattainable, and never seeing how perfectly fruitless are their efforts.

She was roused from this common-place reflection by the entrance of the servant.

Mr. Sandford, better, and busy at his writing-table, had much changed since his last attack. He was rough in manner still, and his speech was imperious because the habit of a lifetime is not easily broken, but in various ways he showed his sister how much he had learned to value her. His own consciousness of not being quite the same-which however he never alluded to openly-the various disappointments he met with in business, the failure of some of his most cherished plans-everything combined to make him cling to his sister as the one object in his life who was always the same, and who never disappointed him.

Though between them lay a secret so important to him, that he perpetually strove to forget it, yet seeing her there by him made him often momentarily forget that anything uncomfortable lay between them.

On her side, his harshness in old days, and the various events of her life in which he had played a part, had been first resolutely pushed away from her and latterly forgotten. Indeed the only feeling she had now was in connection with her husband and that perpetual bewilderment as to its being Christian or right to shrink back from the everlasting companionship which every book she read dwelt upon as offering her the deepest consolation. She had grown fond of her brother, he appreciated her household virtues, and a woman forgives much when she meets with appreciation in what she takes pride in. She had watched the sparrows, and with a quick self-reproach at her own idleness she turned to the door and saw that a telegram was in the servant's hand. One telegram! There were two!

Anxious not to excite Mr. Sandford, she tore one open. It was from Mr. Macfarlane.

"Disastrous fire here and great loss-your papers all safe."

The poor little woman, so suddenly reminded of what she had almost forgotten, felt as though some explosive substance had been thrown at her. In her bewilderment she stretched out the telegram to her brother, forgetting, at the moment, everything except the impulse of having his sympathy, then with a quick flash of remembrance she said, "I did not mean to show it," and held out her hand for it.

Too late! Mr. Sandford had read it, and now with angry and indignant eyes was watching her face.

"What papers are those referred to?" he asked in a harsh voice.

"Papers belonging to my husband-to me. I had forgotten them."

"What are they about?" His voice was harsh and reminded her painfully of old days; something, too, of the fear that held her in such a grasp then came to her now.

"I have not read them."

His brow cleared a little, but he was amazed to find that after all she had not forgotten. They had been so much more to each other lately, so he had thought, and all the time she had held this weapon in reserve to strike him with.

There was so much treachery in this that he was thunderstruck. How little he had sounded the depths of her character, if she was capable of this.

"Brother," she said, "you can tell me what I have never had the courage to find out for myself. Will anything in those papers raise my husband in my estimation, or will they lower him in my eyes?"

"How can I tell what your estimation of your husband is?" he asked, roughly; "he was a kind good-hearted fellow, not a man of business, but thoughtful and good about you. You have nothing to complain of."

Nothing to complain of! thoughtful about her! Poor Mrs. Dorriman thought she could not have heard aright. "He left me dependent," she said, with a sob in her voice.

Mr. Sandford shrank, then he said, quickly,

"What have you wanted that you have not had from me?"

"Ah, brother! it is not the same; you do not know how bitter it is to owe everything, to be under an obligation, when it ought not to have been necessary. I should have had my own."

This cry, the outcome of months, and even years, of a perpetual grief to Mrs. Dorriman, was an entirely new light to her brother, whose coarser view of life was that so long as money, food, and clothes were forthcoming it did not matter from whom they came. He was also one of the men who imagine that a woman has no business with money; who conceive that they are not fitted by nature for disposing of any investment or even controlling their income beyond that portion of it allotted to them for the payment of a butcher's bill, or the purchase of some more or less frivolous article of wearing apparel.

He stared at her in silence, conscious that this new phase of her character must be thought over when she was not there. Then he said:

"Write for those papers; there is nothing in them to injure your husband in your eyes. He did think about you."

"Then why did Inchbrae not belong to me? When he told me-at least I think he told me-it was mine, and you sold it, how could he think of me and not leave me independent? If Inchbrae was mine how could you sell it and me never consenting?"

"Anne," said Mr. Sandford, "till the papers come we will drop the subject-when they come you will understand. Read the other telegram." He spoke with difficulty, and Mrs. Dorriman in haste opened the yellow missive on her lap, conscious of neglect in another direction. It was from Grace.

"All sorts of complications here-can you not come or send some one who can help Margaret? Her husband ill."

Then all was forgotten but this new anxiety. Mrs. Dorriman felt as though life just now was a great deal too much for her. Her own affairs were of great interest to her-then the papers, her brother, and now Margaret.

"She does not say what sort of help is wanted, and why did Margaret not telegraph herself?"

This was Mr. Sandford; his sister sat thinking and thinking, not coming any nearer a solution, looking helplessly straight before her.

"She has Jean," she said at length.

Mr. Sandford made no answer. He leaned back in his chair thinking, and it was evident from the expression of his face that his thoughts were very painful to him; then he said, slowly:

"There is a man I dislike, and, for the matter of that, he dislikes me, but he is the only person I can think of who can help Margaret just now. His name is Stevens. He was Drayton's manager, and left him because Drayton would not take his advice about an investment I recommended."

"That does not say much for his wisdom," said Mrs. Dorriman, who had a blind belief as regarded her brother's financial capabilities.

"It showed his wisdom," said Mr. Sandford, shortly.

"The investment was a risky one, if not a bad one."

Mrs. Dorriman looked at her brother with wide-open eyes of astonishment.

Mr. Sandford gave a short laugh, in which there was not any mirth. After a moment or two he said,

"Telegraph to this man and ask him to go to Wandsworth at once."

"In your name or mine?" asked Mrs. Dorriman, as she drew a telegraph-form towards her.

"In Margaret's name. Say, 'Mrs. Drayton implores Mr. Stevens to come to her at once. Her husband is very ill.' Put, 'The Limes, Wandsworth.' I think he will act on that," said Mr. Sandford, as he rang the bell and sent the telegram off.

Mrs. Dorriman wrote to Mr. Macfarlane, going out of the room to do so. Her brother's words about her husband were full of mystery to her, but she clung to his saying that her husband had thought of her, and tried not to think of it at all. Soon now she would be made to understand, and, if understanding it all would make her happier, she longed, all the more, for the explanations to be over.

She finished her letter, wondering whether she had said enough and not too much, and sat with the folded and sealed letter between her hands with something of her usual hesitation when she had taken any step of importance. Then she rose quickly and sent it away. She felt she must go into her brother's presence, having fulfilled his wishes. She had not a moment for reflection then, for the front doorbell, usually so silent, rang loudly, and in a moment a tall, broad-shouldered, middle-aged man came into the room and went straight up to her.

"Mrs. Dorriman, I believe? I am told Mr. Sandford is ill, so I asked for you. My name is Stevens," and he shook hands with her and sat down as though sure of his welcome.

"I-we have just telegraphed to you, Mr. Stevens."

"Hah! What about?"

"Mr. Drayton is very ill, and Margaret-we wanted you to go to her."

"Just what I feared," he said; "I had a letter from Sir Albert Gerald, who has been corresponding with me about some Welsh property, some mines, &c.; he said he felt sure Mr. Drayton was too ill to be looked after only by his wife; that he was convinced, from the way he was behaving, that his mind was affected. I came here because I thought I should get full particulars. I am ready to go at once and see if I can be of use."

"Thank you," said Mrs. Dorriman, warmly; "shall I show you the telegram, and would you like to see my brother?"

"I need not disturb your brother. Yes, show me the telegram."

Mrs. Dorriman left the room, leaving Mr. Stevens pacing up and down the room.

"What a horrible shame it was letting any young girl marry him!" he muttered; "and Sandford knew it, for I myself told him."

He took the telegram from Mrs. Dorriman's hand as she entered, and, crumpling it up, he said, "Good-bye," and, before Mrs. Dorriman had fairly realised he was there, he had gone.

She sat down for a moment or two to recover herself, conscious that a powerful help had suddenly been given her in Mr. Stevens.

There was a quickness and decision in his manner which was inexpressibly comforting to her. Knowing very little about him, there was still a mixture of kindness and shrewdness in his face, and a straightforward honesty that impressed her.

She rose to join her brother with half her trouble gone.

"Who has been here?" he asked, as she entered the room.

"Oh, brother, such a wonderful thing! No sooner had my telegram to Mr. Stevens gone than he himself appeared. He had heard something and came to find out what we knew."

Mrs. Dorriman gave a sigh of relief as she sat down.

"Who wrote to him?" asked Mr. Sandford; "does Grace know him?"

"I do not think so; but Sir Albert Gerald wrote. He was corresponding with him on business."

"Sir Albert Gerald?" exclaimed Mr. Sandford; "isn't he the man who was nearly killed at Lornbay?"

"And that Margaret found? Yes," said Mrs. Dorriman.

"What in the world can he be doing there?" said Mr. Sandford; "he had better have kept away."

"But if he helps Margaret?" said Mrs. Dorriman; "it is a great thing for her to have a friend near her."

"That may or may not be," said Mr. Sandford, gloomily; and then, fixing his eyes on his sister, he said, "You are very innocent, Anne, but do you think a young fellow like Sir Albert Gerald a safe friend for a beautiful young girl like Margaret, who is unhappily married?"

"But her marriage was not your doing, you tried to persuade her against it. I said all I could, she has only herself to blame," said Mrs. Dorriman, severely.

"Do not make me more ashamed of myself than I am already," he said, bitterly. "I liked Margaret, and wished to keep her with me. She is like ... but Grace. I did originally persuade him to come here, I did not care about her; and I should not have minded her unhappiness. Then I was so angry that I made life unbearable for her; and if evil comes of this can I hold myself blameless?"

He spoke with great agitation, and Mrs. Dorriman felt powerless to say a word to comfort him. She knew that there was truth in his way of putting it, and that in this way he was to blame.

"One thing more," he said, turning suddenly towards her, "and there is no reason now why you should not know it. When I asked Drayton here I did not know what I learnt afterwards from Stevens, and when he told me it was too late; I did not know that his mother died insane, and that he himself had been under restraint. I only knew this after that poor child's marriage, and what could I do?"

A cry of horror burst from Mrs. Dorriman.

"Ah, Anne! You may well be horrified, but can you not see that all this makes me absolutely hate myself? I assure you when I lie down at night, and when I unclose my eyes in the morning, this is the first miserable thought that haunts me, and will haunt me to my dying day."

"Can we do nothing?" she sobbed; "it is so dreadful to think of her so far from us and so helpless."

"If I went there, he would probably be worse, and I confess that his virulent hatred of me is the one fact that reconciles me to being unable to go. Now this man Stevens has gone, he will do more than any one, he has very great influence. I have not the health nor the strength," and, as he sank breathless into a chair, Mrs. Dorriman recognised that this was indeed only too true, and that her place was by his side.

For this agitation brought on one of his worst attacks, and when he was again easier he was as usual feeble and completely prostrated; and sitting beside him, once again as often before, the poor little woman had to bear anxiety patiently, and to fold her hands while all her fears and terrors for Margaret urged her to rush to the scene of action.

Grace neither wrote nor telegraphed, and altogether, perhaps, Mrs. Dorriman had never gone through such a time of trial before.

It seemed to her that her duty lay in two opposite directions, or was it that she could not see quite clearly which was her chief duty?

Things were not much mended by a letter from Jean, who had great pride in her powers of language, and who had the habit of wrapping her meaning in many involved sentences.

"My dear and honoured lady," she wrote, "I am in great distress and anxiety, and Miss Grace is much better and well to do with, and we agree wonderful; and the landlady she is not to be mentioned for meanness and using the oil we pay for, and cooks too bad for any lady to eat, much less a young lady with a high stomach and not strong like Miss Grace, but I don't mind, and I just do things myself and she is well content poor thing, but Miss Margaret's husband has taken a bad turn, and mischief will come and is sure to come if the police will not interfere, and they say they will not because of a law no one understands, and as I have explained this to you, my dear lady, I hope you will forgive me, but I wish you were here, or even Mr. Sandford, as he might show some temper and make them do their duty. I hope Mr. Sandford is well and not very troublesome to do with, though well I know that illness makes everyone a trouble. Look at myself, and a man's worse, so no more from your humble servant, Jean."

"We hear this bad news from every side," said Mrs. Dorriman, "and I am very anxious, brother."

"There is cause for anxiety, but now Stevens has gone we need not be afraid."

"If he only manages to get in."

"Trust him; besides, you must remember that after all it is only Grace who has been refused admittance."

"That is all we know of, but how I wish, how I wish, Margaret was safe here with us!"

"There is no use wishing anything," he said, impatiently. Mrs. Dorriman sighed.

"Is it not true that no good comes of doing anything wrong from however good a motive?"

"What do you mean," he said, angrily.

"I mean," she said, hopelessly, "that if Margaret had not wanted to give Grace a home she would not have married Mr. Drayton."

"Do you suppose I do not know that?" he said. "Can you not see that the horror of it all is almost overwhelming me? I have already told you this myself!"

"Oh, brother," said Mrs. Dorriman, remorsefully, "I did not mean ..." Mrs. Dorriman looked ready to cry.

"It is because you do not mean it that it makes it worse. Anne," he said, suddenly raising himself and looking at her, "if any one knew what the word remorse meant, I think there would be less wrong-doing in the world. It is the worm that never dies, and the fire that never is quenched." He spoke in a tone of despair and despondency, and Mrs. Dorriman endeavoured to console him.

"You know nothing of this, brother," she said, "you should not speak so. You never did any grievous wrong." She stopped short as a cruel pang of recollection came to her, the haunting fear that once had possessed her. Her face flushed and she trembled visibly.

He looked at her in silence, unable to reconcile to himself the words she spoke, implying trust in him and the doubt expressed in her face. At length he said in a feeble tone, which betrayed the great prostration he was suffering from-

"We will talk another day, Anne. Perhaps when we do have that conversation then you will feel you are free to leave me, to go to Margaret, or any one else."

"Brother," said Mrs. Dorriman, rising and standing beside him with her hands clasped, "I have learned to care for you now-and if in the past anything exists that may part us-let it alone-unless," she added, hastily, "it may be doing my husband's memory a wrong."

She spoke solemnly, and he gazed at her, earnestly.

"I believe you are a good woman, Anne, but you cannot right the one without--"

He waved her away from him, and she, disturbed and agitated, fearing and hoping at one and the same moment, stooped suddenly and kissed him, an unwonted demonstration on her side, but meant as a seal to the promise she had intended to make, and so he understood it.

Mrs. Dorriman, reserved and reticent, had one great hope in all this. She trusted that the story which was so painful in every detail was not known to outsiders. Nothing would seem so painful to her if only they could keep it to themselves. She was one of those people who like to draw her mantle round her and not show her wounds. It is the misfortune of characters like hers that no event ever happens in connection with their home history of an unhappy nature that they do not begin to reproach themselves either for doing or not doing things, or for saying or not saying something in connection with it. A want of self-confidence often leads to a good deal of self-torment, and when she had left her brother's room she was very unhappy, clinging to this one belief of privacy as the one bright spot.

No one need know, and she said these words to herself, and found that they gave her comfort. How long she had sat thinking she did not know, but the twilight was coming on when the servant came to her and asked her if she would receive Mrs. Wymans.

"I am not out, of course, if any one calls; you can show them in," she said, surprised by his tone.

Mrs. Wymans came in with that prepared expression of sympathy that some people feel right to show on all occasions when sorrow may properly be supposed to be in question.

"This is indeed kind," she said, nestling up to Mrs. Dorriman. "I call it real friendship to allow me to see you at such a moment."

"My brother is so much better," said Mrs. Dorriman, with her little air of gentle dignity, "that there is no reason why I should deny myself to any one."

"Ah, so good of you; but then, dear Mrs. Dorriman, I am so deeply interested in you ever since that day we met in the railway-carriage. I have felt so much sympathy and real interest."

"You are very good."

"Oh no! I am not good at all. But your brother, how does he bear it?"

"He is better and in fair enough spirits, considering all things."

"Ah!" and Mrs. Wymans heaved a sigh that might have almost sent a ship across the sea.

The scene was curious-the one woman burning with curiosity and an intense anxiety to know what would put her in the position (in the society of Renton) of being really intimate with Mrs. Dorriman; and the other alarmed, anxious, yet standing bravely up and concealing by a wonderful exertion that she was at all nervous about anything.

"Will he be tried? Of course he will," and Mrs. Wymans heaved another sigh, which was cut short in the middle by want of breath.

Poor Mrs. Dorriman's heart seemed to stand still. Who was meant? Her brother? Still she showed a composed front to Mrs. Wymans, who was perplexed, annoyed, and began to be half afraid her information might not have been correct in every particular.

"You are talking riddles, Mrs. Wymans," and Mrs. Dorriman was unmistakeably annoyed.

"Such strange, such very strange stories spread, one never knows what to believe," Mrs. Wymans answered, "but I heard it on what seemed to be very good authority."

"Would you be so kind as to tell me what you have heard, and in what way it refers to me?" and Mrs. Dorriman felt the suspense was very terrible to her.

"Be prepared, for you evidently have heard nothing," and Mrs. Wymans felt to the full the importance of being the first to tell important news; "Mrs. Drayton's baby is dead, and, Mrs. Dorriman, the child did not die a natural death!"

Mrs. Dorriman started-for a moment she lost her self-control.

"Take care, Mrs. Wymans! Oh, do you know what you are saying!"

"You know nothing?"

"I know nothing about the child, and," taking sudden courage at the thought, "Jean, my old servant, wrote to me, and Grace-Miss Rivers-telegraphed, 'Mr. Drayton is ill,' that is all. There is nothing more."

"There is a great deal more. But, my dear Mrs. Dorriman, pray compose yourself; pray do not excite yourself. Mr. Drayton is ill, that is true, but has no one told you anything else?"

"What more can any one have to say?" Mrs. Dorriman asked, struggling for self-command, and feeling as though it was beyond her.

Mrs. Wymans paused; she had believed her authority to be good, and she had so completely credited every word she heard-we are all of us so apt to believe the very worst part of a friend's misfortune-that now, finding that Mrs. Dorriman knew nothing, she began to ask herself, when it was too late, if the story could be altogether true; perhaps it had been exaggerated.

"Perhaps," she said slowly, "as you have heard nothing--"

Mrs. Dorriman turned upon her with a fire and vivacity that fairly astonished her.

"Mrs. Wymans, you have said enough to fill me with apprehension; you say the child is dead. It is strange we do not know this, my brother and I; and you add, in a tone of great meaning, it did not die a natural death. What do you mean?"

Thus brought to bay, Mrs. Wymans blurted out suddenly what she had heard.

"It is said Mr. Drayton is mad, and that he killed the child. For goodness sake, Mrs. Dorriman, do not faint!" she exclaimed, noticing the deadly pallor of the poor little woman before her.

"I--am not going to faint," said poor Mrs. Dorriman, in that far-away voice that speaks of the cruellest mental agitation; "but you have told me a horrible story. I do not believe it!" she continued, with a sob; "but it is horrible, and I must go-I must telegraph at once."

"Yes, do telegraph," said Mrs. Wymans, eagerly; "can I not take the telegram with me? It will hardly be a moment out of my way."

"Thank you, no," said Mrs. Dorriman, coldly.

How little we love the bearer of bad tidings!

"What will you do about Mr. Sandford?" continued the obtuse woman, anxious to be in the way of whatever there was, and not seeing that Mrs. Dorriman was dying to get rid of her; "do make me of use. Shall I go to him? A stranger sometimes breaks bad news better than a very near relation."

Mrs. Dorriman's patience was at an end.

"You must prove that your news is true," she said, "before venturing to condole with my brother or with me; and Mrs. Wymans-we know each other very slightly, and I must ask you to be so very kind as to leave me."

Mrs. Wymans, a woman upon whom it was very difficult indeed to make any impression, was, for once in her life, completely taken aback by the sudden assertion of herself in a woman she had looked upon as an amiable fool. Her farewells were uttered with rapidity, and she left the room and the house quite unable to comprehend how her visit had failed, or why it was she was made to feel that her intrusion was an impertinence. Mrs. Dorriman, left alone, tried to collect her thoughts and not to take this story for granted. If it was true, even that the child was dead, why did not Grace or Jean or some one telegraph?

All at once what she had dreaded and expected came to her-once again a telegram was brought to her.

"Poor Margaret in frightful distress-her child is dead-scarlet fever."

The relief of this last information, after all she had dreaded, broke her down. She sobbed for some moments very piteously.

Then she went to Mr. Sandford and astonished him by the way she put the matter before him.

"It is such a relief!" she began, incoherently, and not telling him what the relief was: then she added, the tears rolling over her face, "Poor Margaret's child is dead!"

Mr. Sandford was shocked, but failed to understand why this news, which affected him so slightly, was a relief.

"Was anything wrong about the child?" he asked.

"Wrong with it?"

"Yes; why is its death a relief to you?"

"Oh, brother!" she answered, hysterically, "Not its death-but the way it died."

He understood that some worse fate had been suggested to her, and he tried to console her-

"I have seen copies of all the correspondence that took place when Drayton was under restraint before," he said, "and it distinctly says that he was obstinate and very troublesome, but never violent."

Mrs. Dorriman tried hard to think this was consoling but failed to do so.

The horror of it was almost unbearable, and she left the room unable to face any discussion about it, even with her brother; utterly and entirely wretched, and longing to be able to see any one element of consolation in the position, for Margaret's sake.

* * *

At the Limes the position of affairs became more terrible every day for Margaret. Mr. Drayton was always sullen, silent, and watchful, and the incessant watchfulness broke down her nerves. She had long fits of crying, without herself being aware of it. The women-servants had left, and she could not replace them; the one woman who came by day to clean and cook (and could do neither) was the only one besides her nurse, and Margaret lived in dread of her leaving her.

There came a day when Mr. Drayton had a very terrible outbreak with the man, who up till now had got on with him. And the scene ended in his also going-telling Mrs. Drayton that he had been engaged to look after an inebriate, and not a madman.

"You think him mad?" faltered Margaret, looking anxiously at him, a ray of hope coming to her. If this man who had experience thought so, might he not convince the doctors?

"I think so; at least I know he is mad at times. No man in his senses would go on as he has done," and the man smoothed out his collar regardless of Mrs. Drayton's presence. "You see he is very dangerous and very cunning, and that's where it is. You might have any number of doctors to see him, and before them he controls himself so that no one would believe him to be what he is. I never was treated so before," and he smoothed his hair and prepared to leave her.

"Can you not stop?" whispered Margaret, in greater agitation; "I-I am frightened."

"I cannot stop because now he's took against me," he answered, "and he shouts the moment he sees me. I've lost all control of him, and my staying would do no good to you or to no one else."

Poor Margaret looked despairingly at him, and, a little moved by her expression, he said briskly-

"Don't you be afraid, ma'am. I'll go straight to the doctor; he sent me here, and he knows me, and I'll tell him exactly what it is, and he'll come first thing and see him."

Margaret saw him go, with absolute despair. She had suffered very much lately; her baby who slept with her had been so fretful and so very sleepless.

The poor child herself had no experience, and the nurse she had was a young woman who was good-tempered and kind, but not skilful. For several nights the child had never slept except in Margaret's weary arms, as she walked up and down, and up and down with it. Each time she tried to lay it down it woke and cried, and, like all children accustomed to being much fondled and carried about by its mother, it disliked being handed over to the nurse when it was ill.

The want of sleep, the incessant terror she was in, all she went through with those terrible tireless eyes always upon her, everything combined to make her really ill.

The strain became intolerable, and Margaret recognised that something must be done-some one must interfere in her behalf and take her and her child away.

Only through her nurse could she hear of Grace. Jean went repeatedly to the house, and never succeeded in baffling Mr. Drayton's watchfulness. Now the man-servant had gone he never opened the door, and the bells might ring all day long, he took no notice. More than once Margaret glided to the door trusting to give a message, to hear a voice she knew, only to feel a hard grip upon her shoulder, and to be thrust back.

The stone passage between the gate and the house was too long for her to make herself heard. She could not understand why Grace sent no message and why no letters reached her-and only found out long afterwards that her cook, who not unnaturally found the place anything but what she liked, spent her time in going to London and looking for another situation, and never went near Grace at all.

It was as well that the poor thing did not know then what a broken reed she was trusting to.

She hoped much from the man's statement to the doctor, and as she walked up and down, and up and down through the long and weary night, she tried to think that soon this terrible state of matters would end for her and for her child.

From the nursery window she could look over the trees and shrubs, and over the high wall into the distance, and she envied the people going to and fro. She had committed no crime, and yet she was, to all intents and purposes, a prisoner. She had no society, no friends, no books; and when she made an effort over herself, and met her husband at the ill-served dinner-he never spoke to her; when she encountered him occasionally in the passage-he was equally silent, but the fierce expression of his eyes terrified her, and she avoided those meetings, creeping back sometimes with a fear of him that increased daily.

The warmer weather now kept her almost all day in the garden, where Mr. Drayton never cared to come, and where she felt free.

But each day increased her trouble now about her child. It lay feverish and breathless at times. If she roused it and tried to get it to play with her it cried, and at length even her experienced eyes saw that it was more than a passing indisposition.

Alarmed, she rushed to her husband's sitting-room. He was sitting as usual near the window, and talking, she thought, to some one, but on going up to the window she found he was alone and talking to himself. There was something so terrible to her in the imaginary conversation he was holding, that for one moment she drew back frightened, even more than usual, but her mother's love gave her courage and she went up to him.

"Baby is ill," she said, very earnestly. "Poor baby! I have no experience. Will you let me have the doctor?"

"No," he answered, angrily. "No; it is only a trick, you played me a trick the other day, and I allow no one to come here again. You are my wife and no one shall come to see you."

"It is not to see me," she said, trembling, trying to humour him, "it is baby. Oh! you will let me send for the doctor?"

"No doctor or other man shall come here," he said with fury; "I know you now, you are full of tricks, and if a doctor came you would tell him."

"I would tell him about my baby!" she cried. "Oh, if ever you cared for me, if ever you loved me, you will let me see a doctor for my child!"

He watched her for a moment or two, with half-closed eyes, cunningly, triumphantly, and curiously, and then he pushed her out of the room.

She rushed to the front door and beat helplessly upon it with her hands, and he heard her, and came out and tried to stop her, on her way upstairs.

"If you try and leave the house I will lock you up," he said, maliciously; "and your pretty baby may cry its eyes out, but you shan't see it."

A new terror sent her flying upstairs to its side.

The nurse, frightened and grieved, volunteered to go, whatever happened.

"But he may not let me in when I come back," she added.

To Margaret, watching her child suffer, what did this matter?

"Go!" she exclaimed; "fly, and if you can tell my sister. My God!" she exclaimed, "send some one to help me;" she sank on her knees, her arms still round the child, and the woman vanished.

The moments seemed hours to her, to raise and fan its little face, to try and get it to swallow a few drops to cool its parched mouth, to lull it in her arms and shower kisses on the feet and hands. How long she was with it alone she did not know, but she was startled by the door opening. She had forgotten to lock herself in!

She knew it was her husband! He came and leaned against the wall, looking at her.

"No one can come in," he said. "I am complete master of the situation," and then he gave one of his most terrible laughs.

The baby lying half soothed in a short slumber started violently and convulsions came on. Margaret, driven to frenzy, threw open the window and shrieked till the whole place rang with her despair.

"Help!" she screamed, "for my baby is dying."

Mr. Drayton still stood repeating the same terrible sentence, and then laughing.

Help was hurrying towards her though she did not know it. The little form clasped to her heart became suddenly still, and the wings of angels swept through the room-those angels who come so often as a blessing though they strike terror to our blinded eyes. Suddenly the baby's eyes unclosed-a lovely smile came to the flushed face; stretching out its arms, it said in its childish broken words, "Lovely, mother, lovely!" and then, turning its head aside, went with them.

* * *

Four people, appalled by the stillness of the house, made an entrance. Margaret's cries for help had been heard, but those cries had long ceased, the intense quietness and still was not broken even by Mr. Drayton.

Something had subdued him. Even on his diseased brain the influence of that dread presence was felt; he crouched in a corner, and wondered why Margaret was so quiet, and why she did not speak to the child.

They found him so crouched. Jean and Mr. Stevens were first, Jean's warm heart full of deepest compassion; then came the two medical men Mr. Stevens had brought with him, one of whom had had charge of Mr. Drayton in former days.

Margaret was still insensible when she was carried downstairs. Kindly hands tended to her needs, and when she woke from this prolonged unconsciousness it was to lie still and never speak. The shock had been so appalling that it had apparently numbed her senses. She asked no questions and never spoke even of her dead baby.

She took what was offered to her passively, but nothing elicited a change of expression. They took her to cheerful rooms engaged by Mr. Stevens for her and her sister. Grace, whose health seemed so much better now that there was necessity for her exerting herself, was in despair.

"Will she ever recover?" she asked, in anguish, of the kind and clever man who visited her so regularly. "Will my sister ever know me again?"

"I believe she will. It would be a great matter if she could cry-a good hearty cry might do much for her."

"I don't know how to make her," said Grace, in accents of despair.

"But I do, ma'am," said Jean. "I cut the poor bonny boy's hair off, and we had him photographed. I will show her the picture, and then tears will come."

"Give me the hair," said the doctor, hastily, and he took it quickly out of the room with him.

When they next met Grace asked him about it.

"Why did you carry it off, doctor?"

"Because the poor child died of suppressed scarlet fever," he answered, "and I took it to be disinfected."

"That's a new name for an ill deed," said Jean.

"It's quite true-the child's throat showed what it died of," he said.

"It died of neglect," said Jean, obstinately. "How was the poor young thing to know how to deal with it? Fever or no fever, the man's a cruel-hearted man, and shall never come near her again."

"You say a truthful thing in saying that," said the doctor, in a low voice. "Mr. Drayton died this morning."

"No!" exclaimed Grace. "He seemed such a strong man when I last saw him," and she shuddered, for since the days when she had laid ill and had urged Margaret to marry him for her own selfish ends she had never seen him to speak to, excepting once.

Jean was silent. There was a verse in her heart but she would not say it out just then.

"He was a violent man," said the doctor. "It is quite dreadful to think of that poor child in such a man's power. He had a terrible attack of passion in the asylum-a blood-vessel in the brain gave way, and all was over in a few minutes."

"There are so many things I cannot understand," said Grace, who felt those last days too much to speak about them. "Surely Margaret must have consulted a doctor. Why did he not interfere? He must have seen that that wretched man was insane."

"Ah," said the doctor, rising, and not choosing to say to her what he had said to Doctor Jones, "medical men are not always infallible."

"They are human creatures," said Jean-"poor erring mortals."

To Doctor Jones-the great man from London spoke plainly, albeit with a politeness which was very chilling.

"We cannot understand, sir, your not having recognised the man as a dangerous lunatic, but probably you have not had much experience of this kind."

"I was beginning to be uneasy," stammered Doctor Jones, who had appeared on the scene because the man he had sent there had warned him that there would probably be murder, and that he would get into a scrape if he did not interfere in some way.

"Were you?" said Doctor Plunkett, an Irishman, with all the sense of fun of a typical Irishman of the best class; "were you really? You had begun to think you had made a mistake." Then he added, in a more serious tone, "Doctor Jones, it is a very serious matter."

"I think it is very serious."

"What made you so determined not to see that the unfortunate man was out of his mind?"

"How do you know I was determined, sir?" said Doctor Jones, anxiously.

"Because Miss Rivers, in stating the case, told me you had made up your mind beforehand!"

"I-I thought that Mrs. Drayton was--well, not quite straightforward."

"That has nothing whatever to do with it. If we medical men are to judge of a patient's condition because we like or dislike their relations there is an end of everything," Doctor Plunkett said severely; "surely a case must be judged on its own merits?"

"Of course, sir, of course. My wife, sir--"

Doctor Plunkett looked at him in amazement.

"You do not mean to say, sir," he said, in a tone of cutting contempt, "that you allow your wife to dictate to you upon a subject she can know nothing about?"

Doctor Jones felt utterly crushed.

When Doctor Plunkett was leaving the room the unhappy little man got near him and said, in a tone of abject entreaty,

"I do trust, sir, that, if you have conceived an unfavourable opinion of me in this matter, you-will-perhaps, sir, you will not speak of it anywhere. It would ruin me, sir, in the eyes of my wife."

"Sir," said Mr. Plunkett, "we medical men are supposed to stand by each other, but a man who is in subjection to his wife has no business to be a doctor, in my opinion." He added, "I think a henpecked man is an error in existence. I do not think he has any right to exist at all," and he left Dr. Jones to digest this speech as best he could.

It was getting much warmer, though the spring was not yet far on: That wonderful promise of a coming fulness, which is one of the great charms of spring, made itself felt, but as yet the days were not long, and Grace, impatient and restless, wanted Margaret to know what had passed; she wished her to know she was free.

Now that Mr. Drayton was dead, the sister who had been, for a time, bowed with remorse, tried to shake it off. It had been terrible, and the death of the little one, that perhaps might have been saved, was too sad.

But now it was all over why should not Margaret revive? why could she not speak and break a silence that was becoming so very terrible?

Grace had not much more comprehension now than she had had in old days of the depths of her sister's nature; and she did not know in its entirety what Margaret had suffered in those months of anguish and seclusion.

Perhaps the person who best understood her was Jean, whose own deep warm feelings taught her sympathy.

And Jean in those days was invaluable. She shielded Margaret from every intrusion, she cared for her, tended her, and prayed for her; and she sometimes thought as she stood beside her in the stillness of the night-when with her head bowed and her hands clasped she prayed in the old Bible words so familiar to her, and so strange to the poor prostrate girl-that there was a look of tears in the dim, half-closed eyes, and she had hope.

It was a quiet place where they were, and Margaret's room looked out upon a wide flower-garden. As the trees began to show green, none of the surrounding houses could be seen, and Grace used to bring in every favourite flower she knew her sister had in old days loved.

The window was open, and as Jean sat near it, busy with her knitting, a few birds, accustomed to be fed, came to the window-sill and pecked cheerfully, if a little disdainfully, at food they no longer required.

A slight movement from the bed made her turn quickly, and she saw that Margaret's eyes were more fully opened than they had yet been, and that she was looking curiously and strangely at her.

Jean, with one of her inward and fervent prayers, went to the bed, and laid within reach and sight of her the golden curls she had treasured for her, and the photograph of the little child-then she turned away.

With the feeblest hand and a faint cry Margaret took these things up and passed them through her fingers in an uncertain hesitating way, then she looked at the picture....

The child lay in that stiller rest as though about to awaken, flowers were around it, and on its face was the smile with which it had left her.

In a moment Jean heard the welcome sound of tears and a sob, and rising quietly she shut the window and left the room, knowing just then solitude was best.

* * *

Margaret was saved: day by day she began now to rally, her words were still whispers from the extremity of her weakness, but she began to listen and notice and answered; still, to Grace's impatient eyes, the progress was slow.

They told her of Mr. Drayton's death, but no one could fathom her thoughts about it. Grace worried Jean every hour and every moment of the day. "It seems so hard, Jean, now all is over, why can she not be as she used to be?"

"She never will be that, my bairn," said the old woman, "she will bear a scar all her days in her heart. It will heal, but there will be the mark. A wound like that is not a thing that can be blotted out altogether."

"You know, I never saw the baby," said Grace.

"It is not only the loss of the baby, that's sore, but a sense of having sinned, that's helping to keep her down," said Jean; "she feels that she has done evil that good may come, and we are commanded not to do that. And her nerves are nearly gone. You do not realize, my dear, all that poor thing has suffered. I tremble, myself, when I think of her, month after month, in the power of the poor madman. It's awful, Miss Grace, you must just be patient and pray for her too."

Mrs. Dorriman's letters were now addressed to Margaret, and showed to no one.

But one day she said to Jean, "When the doctor next comes, Jean, we will ask him when I may go to Scotland," and the old woman was delighted, for to her to be so far from Mrs. Dorriman, and not a "kent face" near her, was a trial.

Another subject that amazed Grace a good deal was the apparent desertion of Sir Albert Gerald and Mr. Paul Lyons.

Sir Albert having effected poor Margaret's release was full of remorse because that release had been so late, though he was conscious of not having lost time when he had fully grasped the situation; he still mourned over the death of the poor child, whose life might have been saved under ordinary circumstances. He understood Margaret better than most of those round her, and he knew that if ever, in the future, he hoped to see her, he must keep away now.

Grace was exceedingly amazed when she received a letter from him-from Spain; true he entreated her to write to him, but his having gone so far off was tiresome.

Then Mr. Lyons, he neither came nor wrote, and altogether Grace thought now, as she once had done before, it is always Margaret.

Still there were consolations in her present lot; she appreciated to the full having the command of money, and this was supplied unsparingly by Mrs. Dorriman at her brother's wish.

He was not, in any way, a man who grudged money, and he was one of the men who had a vague idea that most things, even a broken heart, could be mended by a cheque.

He was more relieved by Mr. Drayton's death than any one, and horrified his sister by saying so.

"It is a terrible thing you say, Anne; now I call that humbug; what is the use of pretending to grieve?"

"He might have recovered," she said, gently; "and brother, I do not think it is right to rejoice over any one's death."

"Who says I rejoice?"

"You look as if you did."

"Well, it is a relief; and in this world so seldom the right person seems to die...."

"Oh, hush!" she said, inexpressibly shocked and distressed.

"Anne, I know you try to be honest, but you have a crooked way of looking at things."

"I do not think I have, and," she added, plucking up a little spirit, "you have no right to say so; and the subject is so terribly painful to me, I thought it would be equally painful to you."

"You don't understand the question," he said, with something of his old violence. "I am ready to destroy myself when I think I ever gave that man an opportunity of seeing poor Margaret, and now that he is gone I cannot pretend to regret him. His death has ended a terrible complication."

"I cannot follow your way of thinking," Mrs. Dorriman said, feeling somehow that this did not sound right.

"Well, you had best leave me just now, and when you have quite disentangled your ideas we can renew the subject. I never knew such a brain as yours, it seems to be generally in a hopeless state of muddle about everything." This complimentary speech nearly reduced her to tears, and she hurried from the room only to be immediately called back.

"I am a brute and you must forgive me, Anne," he said; "and there is another thing I want to speak to you about."

His voice sounded strange to her, and looking at him she saw that he was agitated.

"Say nothing just now to distress or worry yourself, brother," she said, quickly.

He took no notice of her, he tapped the table before him with a massive paper-cutter, then he said in an odd tone,

"What were you saying to-day about Margaret's coming to Scotland?"

"The doctor wants her to have sea air and Scotch air, she wishes to come."

"Here?"

"No, not here. Somewhere (she does not care where) she has never seen. Some place, with no recollections clinging to it.

"Lornbay?"

"She has been there. No! not Lornbay."

"How would Inchbrae do?" her brother asked as he watched her face closely.

Her colour came and went, then her eyes filled with tears.

"Alas! that is out of the question."

"Is it?" He seemed to speak with a sudden sense of difficulty.

"Anne," he said at length, "have you really never guessed, never thought, that Inchbrae could not be sold? Do you know so little really of any business matters as not to know that without your consent, without many formalities, the place, which is your place, could not be sold?"

"Not sold! and the place is really mine?" said the poor woman, feeling naturally more bewildered than ever.

"Yes, it is yours," he said, trying to cover his sense of shame by speaking carelessly. His feelings towards his sister were so much altered now, that looking back upon the brutality and roughness with which he had moulded her fate gave him a pang he never would have believed in former days. And there was something else, there was a page in his history which often haunted him now. The burden of knowing it even, could not be anything but painful to him, and the pain grew now each day more and more intolerable.

Mrs. Dorriman was essentially a woman who had no self-confidence, she hesitated over even small matters, and was so afraid of presumption and other sins that she said what she felt right at times, impelled by a directness and a sincere love of truth to say it abruptly, and having done this repented her sharpness with undue humility and apologised for being obliged to say what she thought.

But living in the perpetual companionship of a woman who was so utterly unselfish and so unworldly, a woman whose candour and transparency were those of a child, was an experience that told even upon Mr. Sandford's blunt perceptions.

He had learned to value her, and just as he knew that she had become much to him he had to lower himself probably for ever in her eyes.

Mrs. Dorriman was at this moment perturbed, distressed, and excited beyond conception. To have been peremptorily taken from her own home and her people ... to have been deceived! Then swiftly came the remembrance that she had been led to wrong her husband's memory. Thoughts pressed upon her that were nearly intolerable to her, and she left the room, going to her own, where she tried to bring her thoughts into order.

Why had her brother done this? It was not then that he cared for her, for she knew well that in those days (that now seemed so far away) he had cared for her very little.

Poor woman! her new affection for him seemed suddenly swept away since he could carry out so much deception towards her.

It was so cruel to leave her all this while blaming her husband; and till lately, when he had spoken of his having "taken care" of her, she had seen nothing but unkindness in the way she had been left dependent.

Sudden enlightenment came as a flash to her; those papers she had kept were of real consequence, and opened up the history of her brother's past. She had, as we know, more than once thought of this-or rather nearly thought it out, and pushed the feeling back with a kind of terror.

To be certain that she had no weapons to strike him with he had broken up her home-to have her near him and watch her actions.

She rose suddenly from her chair: she felt suffocating with the pressure upon her mind. How could she forgive him? She walked quickly up and down her room, her hands clasped closely; then she said aloud, "My husband, forgive me," and then cried, poor thing, till she exhausted herself.

The twilight came on; the factories, so grim by day, blazed out with their myriad lights.

Mrs. Dorriman could not go down; she could not yet forgive. She had some food sent to her, and then prepared to go to bed.

Taking up her Bible mechanically she read and took in nothing she saw; she shut it again and tried to say her prayers. Was there not something about forgiving trespasses that she said twice every day?

There was a severe mental struggle, and it was dark when it was over. She went slowly to her brother's room. He was awake.

"Brother," she said, going up to him and laying her hand upon his, "I have come to say that I forgive!"

* * *

Nothing could exceed Grace's disappointment when she found that, though Margaret rallied, got up, moved about, went out, and in all ways seemed to be her old self as far as bodily health went, she remained grave, quiet, and apparently indifferent to the various plans and arrangements proposed by her sister.

Grace began to know what we most of us live to find out, that something we have longed for-perhaps unduly-is given to us in a manner that makes us often regret the time and thoughts we have wasted upon it.

From the time she had been old enough to wish for anything, she had wished to be in or near London to see and be seen. First, she had been very ill herself, and now, here was Margaret, a widow and childless, and her dreams must equally vanish. At the beginning she had been filled with remorse, then she got a little weary of trying to sympathise, knowing that it was only trying, now she got very impatient.

Margaret had heaps of money, why could she not drive a little, or do something more than pace that tiresome little garden, read dull books, and go to a little grave?

Her joy may be conceived when one day Margaret was asked if she would see Lady Lyons. It was, at all events, some one who was neither a doctor or a nurse.

Lady Lyons, unaccustomed to more than a general friendliness on the part of her friends, from being a little deaf and not a little tiresome, was immensely flattered by the excuses Grace made for Margaret, and her evident pleasure at her visit; her one unflattering reflection being that she trusted this open satisfaction had nothing to do with her son and any advances he might have made in this direction.

Margaret had been her desire previously, when her inheritance was only problematical. Imagine what her wishes were now when every one knew that Margaret was a very rich widow.

She endeavoured to meet Grace with a friendliness that committed her to nothing, and her talk was of Margaret, and ever Margaret. Was she getting over the sad, she might say the mysterious, death of the child?

"There was nothing very mysterious about it. It died of suppressed scarlet fever, poor little thing. I never saw it. No, Margaret is not getting over it. She never smiles, and at night she cries often. Lady Lyons, I do wish she would get over it; I do find it so terribly dull."

"I dare say," said Lady Lyons, without any show of sympathy.

"Day after day not a soul, save and except the doctor, and he is always in too great a hurry to be pleasant," and Grace gave a long sigh. "When I heard your name it was such a godsend. Do you know I positively have not spoken to a soul for days and days, except Margaret and that old Scotchwoman, who is stark staring mad on religious subjects."

"But you have the comfort of being with your sister," said Lady Lyons, a little stiffly.

"She does not want me in the very least," said Grace, eagerly, a plan developing itself quite suddenly in her fertile brain; "not in the very least. No, Lady Lyons, what I mean to do is--How long must I wear this?" she said, suddenly touching the crape on her dress.

"Oh, Miss Rivers! You being Scotch makes such a difference; in England mourning is less and less worn as it used to be, and now people take to kilting crape it takes away from the blackness of it somehow. In Scotland you would have to wear it months and months, and as you are Scotch--"

"I am only Scotch on one side of my house," exclaimed Grace, "and I do not intend to shut myself up for months and months. No, Lady Lyons, I have a plan, but I do not see much use in telling it to you, if you think I am going to dress like a mute at a funeral."

"I am sure I do not wish to hear your plan," said Lady Lyons, irritated by Grace's manner and by her words, "I came to call upon your sister; will you be so good as to say that sincere sorrow for her made me lay aside my invalid habits and come out."

"Please don't go," said Grace, "and for goodness sake don't talk about being an invalid. I have not a lung left, so they say, or only a little bit of one, and I will not be ill or anything. Now I will tell you what I mean to do. I mean to go to London, and pay a good deal of money to some great lady, and go about with her as soon as I decently can."

"My dear Miss Rivers, no very great lady would care to do this; they want nothing you can give them."

"Well then a smaller one must do," said Grace calmly; "but she must know everybody, heaps of people and all that-she must be in the swim you know."

"But I do not know," said Lady Lyons. "In the swim! What do you mean? I have not the faintest idea."

"Oh, Paul will know."

(It had already come to this: she called him Paul! Lady Lyons was extremely displeased.)

"My son, whom you call 'Paul,'" she said, stiffly, "what can he do? He is but young."

"Oh, he knows the world a little though he is young; of course I call him Paul."

"He does know the world," said the irritated mother, "I hope he knows the world too well to be a victim to any one who is not ... in a position I should like."

"You are quite wrong, dear Lady Lyons; being a man of the world, and knowing the world a little, are two very different things, and no one can call Paul a man, he is so very young; that was what I said to him only the other day. And about a position you would like, you mean your son must marry for money. Now, I have too good an opinion of Paul to believe it-and no one worth his salt will choose only to please his mother."

"I am so unaccustomed to hear such ... unfeminine sentiments," and the irate Lady Lyons rose to go.

"It is very good for every one to hear several sides to any question," said Grace, rising also; "I hope I have not offended you, Lady Lyons; but you know I am one of the people who never can help speaking the truth upon all occasions-more especially when it suits me," she added to herself.

"You have not offended me at all," answered Lady Lyons, very much ruffled; "the opinion of a young lady who does not know the world has not so much weight as you think."

"Now, you want to be disagreeable," said Grace, laughing, "and you need not try. When I was in a scrape at school, which was very seldom, the good people did not know what to do, because scolding I never minded a bit, and hard sayings never hit me, so you see I am a hopeless character-but for Margaret, perhaps, no one would ever speak to me. She is very different."

"Yes, she is very different. I think she must be curiously different. Do you never vex her, Miss Rivers? Have you never wounded her sensibilities?"

The quick colour, even tears, came suddenly into Grace's usually tearless eyes. She tried hard to hide them, but Lady Lyons saw them, and they melted her a little. "Ah!" she said, "Yes. Well, a sincere and warm affection for your sister may bring out your good qualities."

"Thank you," said Grace, demurely, rapidly regaining her usual spirits. And when Lady Lyons went away she carried with her a most confused impression of the girl who had made fun of her at one moment and shown very bad taste in talking about Paul with so much familiarity, and the next betrayed very deep feeling for her sister.

Lady Lyons was one of the many people in the world who forget that, though the influence of civilization has a levelling effect, underneath are many varieties of character, and that the most ordinary is a complex one, not wholly good or wholly bad, but partaking of both.

In a different way there was another person who had at first given fullest sympathy to Margaret's desolation, and yet who also now felt that she was becoming morbid in her grief, and who wished to see her rousing herself from it.

This was Jean.

With all the depth of a nature both intense and passionate she had felt the death of the little child for her, as she had felt all the horrors she had gone through.

But now she saw that Margaret was nursing and indulging her sorrow, and she was anxious to wean her from its perpetual contemplation, conscious, through the fine natural instinct that belonged to her, that if the habit of solitude, of mourning, and of shrinking from all companionship, was once formed, it would be far more difficult to break through it afterwards.

The visits to the little grave, where each flower was laid and watered with tears, must be used to turn her thoughts to living children in great need of a share of her sympathy and of her help.

With her Bible in her hand, and a hearty prayer in her heart, the faithful old woman accompanied Margaret, as she had often done before, to the little corner, where the poor young mother wept and meditated, recalling every broken lisping word, so dear to her, and losing herself in fond remembrance of her lost darling.

"My bairn," said Jean, when the fresh flowers had been laid down, and Margaret stood like a frail shadow in her long black robes, "have you ever thought how much money you have now in your hands to spend?"

"Oh! do not speak of it here," said Margaret, shocked and distressed.

"Why should I not speak of it here?" said Jean, stoutly; "it is here that I want to show you that you should do something with it."

"I shall never claim it, never spend it!" exclaimed Margaret, twining her thin white fingers round the little marble cross close to her.

"But you must do both," said Jean, emphatically. "You must claim the money, and spend the money. You must spend it, my dear, for the glory of God, and to give help."

"How? Tell me how can I?"

"You never can, if you do not look further than to a few feet of green turf, and allow nothing else to fill your mind. Look round you, my bairn; see where others suffer. You mourn most because you think that if help had come your child might have lived."

"It might," murmured Margaret, in a suffocated voice.

"And, if you think that, there are hundreds and thousands of children who die because they cannot get the help you might give them, having the means."

"What do you mean, Jean?" and Margaret was startled into momentary forgetfulness.

"Oh, my bairn! you have but to walk in the streets of the Great Babylon and see the poor little things; but go out of the streets; go into the byways; leave the highways alone and see for yourself. When I lost my way the day I took a letter from you to the bank I saw a sight that set my heart aching; and, as I saw all the filth and misery, I took comfort to myself, and said, 'My young lady is rich, and she will do something for these little ones.'"

"But anything I could do would be such a drop in the ocean."

"And is the ocean not made up of drops? We can all do but little-but must we not see we do that little?"

"How can I begin?"

"I am a poor ignorant body, but I would go to some doctor and say-'I do not want this money, but I want to help children, for the sake of a little child I loved and lost myself."

Margaret's tears were falling, but they were not tears of bitterness. Jean had touched a right chord. With the possibility of doing something, an incentive for action given, came a glow of warmer feeling for humanity. The selfishness of her sorrow grew less, and, as she once again knelt in prayer beside the flower-covered grave, she did not pray for herself only, for that meeting she longed for, but she prayed also for others, and rose up filled with a sincere hope that she might be a comfort and help to them in the future.

She walked quietly and silently by Jean's side. No more passed between them; but when they reached home she stopped in the hall, and, putting her arms round Jean's ample shoulders, she kissed her heartily.

Full of her new resolve, Grace's mood jarred not a little upon Margaret; but she meant honestly to try for less selfishness. She had owned to herself she was selfish, and she bravely tried to turn her whole attention to her sister's enthusiastic account of no less an important matter than a brown velvet dress, which had completely taken possession of her imagination.

"How long do you want me to wear this, darling?" she asked, with an air as though, however repugnant to her own feelings, she was prepared to make a sacrifice on her sister's account.

A little while ago, only a few hours ago, how poor Margaret would have shrunk from such a question? Now it was with a fond touch on Grace's shoulder that she said, softly,

"I have been selfish, dear. I have expected you to mourn with me; you have no memory of my child. No, do not wear the semblance of a sorrow you cannot feel."

"You are a darling, Margaret. Then I may have the velvet?"

"Is it very costly?" asked Margaret, trying hard to enter entirely into the interests of the moment with Grace.

"Not for you to give me," said Grace, as she twirled round the room, enchanted at this first grand success of her newly-formed resolution.

Margaret looked at her in surprise.

"You talk as though you expected me to use ... his money for you and for myself."

"Good gracious, Margaret, you are surely not going to be ridiculous about it! And I wanted you to do so many things for me. I had set my heart upon going to London and upon having nice things; you are too bad!" and Grace, whose hopes were so suddenly dashed to the ground, burst out crying.

Margaret was infinitely pained. Apart as she was in feeling from Grace, she yet was conscious of a perpetual disappointment in connection with her character that seemed to chill her. And it was very wonderful, she thought, because Grace had been very ill and near the gates of the eternal life, and such an illness must be, in some ways, like a great sorrow, and must surely have made the trivial vanities of life seem trivial indeed. But, as she spoke of wealth, she must make her understand that she could not use any of his money, except in some way to help others in need of help.

"Grace," she said, sitting down and drawing her sister towards her, "I want you to listen to me, and I wish you to understand."

"I will not listen," answered Grace, still sobbing violently, "if you are going to be horrid. You cannot imagine my disappointment! I thought, once you got better and ... forgot, that it would be all right again, and that I should do what I like and go where I liked, and all that, and how can I if you will not give me any money?"

"Nothing will induce me to spend any of my husband's money on myself or upon you, Grace. You do not know my feeling about it. I sinned in marrying him, and I should perpetuate the sin if I spent his wealth upon me and mine. I cannot go through what I once did, and now that I see everything more clearly I cannot act against my conviction."

"Then what is the use of your having sacrificed yourself?" asked Grace, in a tone in which anger and contempt were mingled; "really, Margaret, you are so high-flown and so ridiculous! Of course, taking it in that way, one would not expect you to do the thing again. I never should dream of asking you, but, having done it, what is the use of undoing all the good of it?"

"The good of it! Oh, Grace, do not speak of it; it cuts me to the heart, dear, that you, my own sister, cannot understand me better, that you cannot see that evil, and not good, came of it!"

"Of course," said Grace drying her eyes, "the poor little child's death is an evil to you, and I assure you whenever I think of it I could cry. Don't think, because I don't want to wear black, that I am not as sorry as I can be: but now that dreadful man is dead why should you not be comfortable again?"

Margaret sprang from her seat and stood opposite her sister; her countenance was lit up with a sort of passionate sorrow and regret.

"Do you not understand something-a little of what I feel? Do you know, Grace, that when that little life was given to me I thought nothing signified. I neglected that poor, unhappy man; I kept away from him; I avoided him; I lived but for my child. Then, when the end came, and I had to stand by and see it die-die because the help extended to many other children was withheld from it; then I saw that I had made it my idol, and that in every particular I had failed towards the man I had vowed to...."

"But how could you when he was mad?" asked Grace; "it was quite impossible."

"I also said that to myself, Grace, but I knew that when I stood beside him and took those terrible vows-vows I never realised till I heard them slowly and solemnly pronounced before God's altar-Oh, Grace, you are very dear to me, but, when you talk of my sacrifice being thrown away, I think of my child's life sacrificed. Oh, Grace, can you not see that I sinned? What could I expect? How is it that girls so thoughtlessly take those awful things upon themselves, say those words, and yet do not mean them: and yet I did it!"

"But you did it for me, darling-for me-and it does seem different. You did not do it for yourself."

"God knows I did not," said poor Margaret, upon whose fragile and delicate frame this scene was acting feverishly. "But I did it. We need not argue about it, dear; we need not discuss it any more, we should never think of it alike! We are different, dear, and we see things differently-very very differently."

"Then you have quite-quite made up your mind to remain poor all your life, and to let these things slip away from you?" asked Grace, in a tragical tone.

"I will not use that money," said Margaret firmly, "either for you or myself."

"It is too hard," and Grace again dissolved in tears.

Margaret sat down again. She was not yet very strong, and she felt all this cruelly. She let Grace alone for a few moments, then she said-

"If I knew exactly what you wanted, Grace, I might see if it could not be done in another way."

Her voice was cold, with all her tenderness and kindness. She was deeply wounded by her sister's utter inability to understand something of the past.

"Now you are angry, Margaret, and it is a little unreasonable of you. Because you have done with your life, and cannot think about pleasant things any more, why may I not look forward?"

Margaret started. Had she done with her life? She was not yet twenty; was everything really over for her? As regarded marriage or love, of course there was an end; but in her own way she meant to fill her life with happiness, even though a cloud of regret must ever dim its brightness. Her whole being craved for something to give her a full life-interest in some one thing. All the poetical side of her nature began once more to thrill her. The world had much that was sad in it, but there were yet depths unsounded of which she was vaguely aware, and till she knew them she would not proclaim all was over for her even here. The glow of returning health, the beauty of the noontide of summer, began to assert influences she could not totally disregard. As love invests the most homely personal attributes with indefinite charm, so poetry, in its highest, widest, and largest sense, throws a halo over the common-place phases of existence, touches everything with a golden light, and makes it beautiful.

Nothing was more curious than the swift thoughts which carried the one sister above and beyond the present, and the concentration of the other upon a matter so essentially mundane as a brown velvet dress, for Grace counted it as one of her claims to merit that she had tenacity of purpose-which tenacity, if applied to higher purposes, might have deserved commendation.

She watched Margaret's countenance eagerly, and brought her down to worldly matters very soon by her anxiety to know how Margaret proposed arranging matters.

"What do you think of doing?" she asked, eagerly; "and, if you are going to arrange matters, can you not arrange about my clothes also?"

She leaned forward as she spoke, and watched her sister's face intently.

"Grace, it is very foolish of me to forget that you and I have always thought differently about dress and other things. Of course, if I do manage to carry out my plan, you must have clothes and things; if I can arrange it all I will arrange it quite comfortably for you; but you must be patient, dear."

"I hate the conditional tense," said Grace, and then, as she brightened a little, she said, cheerfully-"I believe you will manage it, and you are really a great darling."

"There is one thing more, one caution I want to give you, Grace. Will you be careful about your health? You are marvellously well just now, but you know yourself, dear, how delicate you are. If you do not take care you will be in a sick room again."

"Oh! please don't croak and be horrid now you are just beginning to be nicer again."

"Poor Grace!" said Margaret, with a little sigh.

She went to her own room, and, drawing her chair near the window, sat down to think over the plan she had made. She was resolved to be indebted to no one. If her sister went to London the necessary money should come from no one but herself.

She opened her despatch-box, and looked through her papers. She wanted to find the address of the publisher who had expressed his appreciation of her writing in so substantial a manner.

She looked in vain. She could find it nowhere. Then she recollected that Sir Albert Gerald had carried out all the arrangements for her, and that she had corresponded through him.

She had no hesitation in writing to him since he was a friend now and only a friend. The tragedy of her child's death had blotted out the remembrance of what had been, and she had passed through so much trial, she was so much changed, that she never for one moment doubted but that the change would be equal as regarded him. Her letter was direct, simple, and free from all allusion to her sorrow. She said she wanted to be put into direct communication with the friendly publisher-then she added, "I want to make some money. This may surprise you, as I believe I am supposed to be very rich, but I think you will understand that money must come in an acceptable way or be rejected. I do not intend using the money which has been left me for myself, and I want, if possible, to owe it to no one but myself."

Then she waited patiently.

In her letters to Mrs. Dorriman she wrote fully about her own plans. "I wish to start certain things, to see and judge for myself, and to use the money, which has come to me, for helping little children and others. When I have arranged everything, may I come to you and Uncle Sandford. I shall not be very poor because I believe I have it in my power to make money. I have already done so, but Grace cannot go to Scotland. As soon as I can arrange it for her, she is going to London to stay there with some one, at any rate, for a time."

Mrs. Dorriman read this letter with the most intense satisfaction.

Margaret had grown very dear to her, and in her letter she gave Mr. Sandford the name he had always wished to hear from her. The fact of her offering to come back must show him how completely she had forgiven him.

Ever since that marvellous revelation about Inchbrae, Mrs. Dorriman's manner to her brother had been both tender and affectionate. She tried to prove that her forgiveness was complete, and she could not understand why, now this burden was off his mind, he still made allusion to a weight there.

Often when he came in and she rose to greet him she caught him watching her as though something was still between them, and that helpless feeling of not being able fully to understand pressed upon her again.

He came in one day, looking tired, and she saw that he sank wearily into his chair.

Tea was there, and she gave him some, and made one of those trivial remarks people are apt to make when wandering thoughts are the order of the day.

"Anne, I do not think Margaret will care to come here," he said suddenly, "and you think so too."

Mrs. Dorriman's delicate face flushed a little. "Margaret offers to come," she said after a little pause.

"I find business tires me more and more," he said, as it seemed to her, irrelevantly.

"I am sorry," she answered, looking a little anxiously in his direction.

"Why should we not all go to your house," he asked, as though putting the plainest and simplest question in the world.

"To Inchbrae! Oh, brother!" This sudden suggestion filled her with such intense happiness that she could get no further.

"I want Margaret to get well and I mean to resign my chairmanship and other things. I shall give up business. I want-rest."

His manner alarmed her, but she tried to compose herself, and to accept this new turn in her affairs quietly, and not to let him see how intensely this affected her.

She subdued her emotion and spoke in a matter-of-fact tone, "It will be a long journey for Margaret and for poor Jean."

"I have thought of that. When Margaret refused to accept the arrangement Drayton had made for her, I heard from Stevens, and have been in correspondence with him ever since. I think he might bring her here; there are a great many things to arrange."

"But if we go to Inchbrae, brother, might she not come there, direct?"

"Yes, you may go there and receive her. I must see Stevens here;" and then he continued in a strange tone, "if you wish me to follow you I will go there."

"If I wish it?"

"You do not know, Anne. You know nothing," he exclaimed, with something of his old very peremptory manner.

She was startled and vexed. Why did he go on like this? why constantly talk as if she had yet much to learn?

"One thing more," he said, in a less excited tone, "I do not want every idiot in the place to gossip, and talk, and wonder; go and see the few neighbours with whom you have made acquaintance and speak of going home, and of receiving Margaret naturally. If you leave suddenly no one knows what may be said."

"And about you, brother?"

"About me? who cares?" he said; "my act in the play is nearly over. What does it all matter to me? But you can say I am ill-that is the truth, I am ill."

"If you are ill, I will not leave you."

"Nonsense! my body is well enough, but there is something that hurts far more than bodily illness."

A commotion in the hall was followed by the servant's entrance.

He announced the arrival of a box for Mrs. Dorriman.

She forgot, at the moment, that she had sent to the Macfarlanes for the famous box which held so much that was important to her, and when she saw it it gave her a little shock. Apparently it gave a greater shock to her brother, for he was white to the very lips.

"Anne," he said, and his voice was full of entreaty, "will you do me one great favour: Will you not look at the contents of this box, will you not break the seals, till you are at Inchbrae?"

Mrs. Dorriman-who had seen it arrive with a curiously mingled feeling, half dreading half anxious to know its contents-said quietly, "It shall be as you wish, brother."

* * *