A Pair of Blue Eyes.............................................................................................................................................1

Thomas Hardy ..........................................................................................................................................1

PREFACE ................................................................................................................................................2

Chapter I ...................................................................................................................................................3

Chapter II.................................................................................................................................................5

Chapter III ..............................................................................................................................................10

Chapter IV ..............................................................................................................................................14

Chapter V ...............................................................................................................................................20

Chapter VI ..............................................................................................................................................26

Chapter VII............................................................................................................................................30

Chapter VIII ...........................................................................................................................................43

Chapter IX ..............................................................................................................................................50

Chapter X ...............................................................................................................................................56

Chapter XI ..............................................................................................................................................64

Chapter XII............................................................................................................................................72

Chapter XIII ...........................................................................................................................................82

Chapter XIV ...........................................................................................................................................88

Chapter XV............................................................................................................................................94

Chapter XVI ...........................................................................................................................................95

Chapter XVII.........................................................................................................................................99

Chapter XVIII......................................................................................................................................103

Chapter XIX .........................................................................................................................................116

Chapter XX..........................................................................................................................................122

Chapter XXI .........................................................................................................................................132

Chapter XXII.......................................................................................................................................138

Chapter XXIII......................................................................................................................................144

Chapter XXIV ......................................................................................................................................152

Chapter XXV.......................................................................................................................................154

Chapter XXVI ......................................................................................................................................159

Chapter XXVII .....................................................................................................................................162

Chapter XXVIII...................................................................................................................................172

Chapter XXIX ......................................................................................................................................180

Chapter XXX.......................................................................................................................................191

Chapter XXXI ......................................................................................................................................197

Chapter XXXII .....................................................................................................................................203

Chapter XXXIII...................................................................................................................................207

Chapter XXXIV ...................................................................................................................................212

Chapter XXXV....................................................................................................................................218

Chapter XXXVI ...................................................................................................................................221

Chapter XXXVII ..................................................................................................................................224

Chapter XXXVIII................................................................................................................................228

Chapter XXXIX ...................................................................................................................................235

Chapter XL ...........................................................................................................................................241

The following chapters were written at a time when the craze for indiscriminate churchrestoration had just

reached the remotest nooks of western England, where the wild and tragic features of the coast had long

combined in perfect harmony with the crude Gothic Art of the ecclesiastical buildings scattered along it,

throwing into extraordinary discord all architectural attempts at newness there. To restore the grey carcases of

a mediaevalism whose spirit had fled, seemed a not less incongruous act than to set about renovating the

Hence it happened that an imaginary history of three human hearts, whose emotions were not without

correspondence with these material circumstances, found in the ordinary incidents of such church

The shore and country about 'Castle Boterel' is now getting well known, and will be readily recognized. The

spot is, I may add, the furthest westward of all those convenient corners wherein I have ventured to erect my

theatre for these imperfect little dramas of country life and passions; and it lies near to, or no great way

beyond, the vague border of the Wessex kingdom on that side, which, like the westering verge of modern

This, however, is of little importance. The place is pre eminently (for one person at least) the region of

dream and mystery. The ghostly birds, the palllike sea, the frothy wind, the eternal soliloquy of the waters,

the bloom of dark purple cast, that seems to exhale from the shoreward precipices, in themselves lend to the

One enormous seabord cliff in particular figures in the narrative; and for some forgotten reason or other this

cliff was described in the story as being without a name. Accuracy would require the statement to be that a

remarkable cliff which resembles in many points the cliff of the description bears a name that no event has

Elfride Swancourt was a girl whose emotions lay very near the surface. Their nature more precisely, and as

modified by the creeping hours of time, was known only to those who watched the circumstances of her

Personally, she was the combination of very interesting particulars, whose rarity, however, lay in the

combination itself rather than in the individual elements combined. As a matter of fact, you did not see the

form and substance of her features when conversing with her; and this charming power of preventing a

material study of her lineaments by an interlocutor, originated not in the cloaking effect of a wellformed

manner (for her manner was childish and scarcely formed), but in the attractive crudeness of the remarks

themselves. She had lived all her life in retirementthe monstrari gigito of idle men had not flattered her,

and at the age of nineteen or twenty she was no further on in social consciousness than an urban young lady

One point in her, however, you did notice: that was her eyes. In them was seen a sublimation of all of her; it

These eyes were blue; blue as autumn distanceblue as the blue we see between the retreating mouldings of

hills and woody slopes on a sunny September morning. A misty and shady blue, that had no beginning or

As to her presence, it was not powerful; it was weak. Some women can make their personality pervade the

atmosphere of a whole banqueting hall; Elfride's was no more pervasive than that of a kitten.

Elfride had as her own the thoughtfulness which appears in the face of the Madonna della Sedia, without its

rapture: the warmth and spirit of the type of woman's feature most common to the beautiesmortal and

immortalof Rubens, without their insistent fleshiness. The characteristic expression of the female faces of

Correggiothat of the yearning human thoughts that lie too deep for tearswas hers sometimes, but seldom

The point in Elfride Swancourt's life at which a deeper current may be said to have permanently set in, was

one winter afternoon when she found herself standing, in the character of hostess, face to face with a man she

had never seen beforemoreover, looking at him with a Mirandalike curiosity and interest that she had

On this particular day her father, the vicar of a parish on the seaswept outskirts of Lower Wessex, and a

widower, was suffering from an attack of gout. After finishing her household supervisions Elfride became

restless, and several times left the room, ascended the staircase, and knocked at her father's chamber door.

'Papa,' she said on one occasion to the fine, redfaced, handsome man of forty, who, puffing and fizzing like

a bursting bottle, lay on the bed wrapped in a dressinggown, and every now and then enunciating, in spite of

himself, about one letter of some word or words that were almost oaths; 'papa, will you not come downstairs

'Afraid notehhh !very much afraid I shall not, Elfride. Piphphph! I can't bear even a handkerchief

upon this deuced toe of mine, much less a stocking or slipperpiphphph! There 'tis again! No, I shan't get

'Then I hope this London man won't come; for I don't know what I should do, papa.'

'Wind! What ideas you have, Elfride! Who ever heard of wind stopping a man from doing his business? The

idea of this toe of mine coming on so suddenly!...If he should come, you must send him up to me, I suppose,

and then give him some food and put him to bed in some way. Dear me, what a nuisance all this is!'

'High tea, then? There is cold fowl, rabbitpie, some pasties, and things of that kind.'

'What! sit there all the time with a stranger, just as if I knew him, and not anybody to introduce us?'

'Nonsense, child, about introducing; you know better than that. A practical professional man, tired and

hungry, who has been travelling ever since daylight this morning, will hardly be inclined to talk and air

courtesies tonight. He wants food and shelter, and you must see that he has it, simply because I am suddenly

laid up and cannot. There is nothing so dreadful in that, I hope? You get all kinds of stuff into your head from

'Oh no; there is nothing dreadful in it when it becomes plainly a case of necessity like this. But, you see, you

are always there when people come to dinner, even if we know them; and this is some strange London man of

'That I cannot tell. You will find the copy of my letter to Mr. Hewby, and his answer, upon the table in the

study. You may read them, and then you'll know as much as I do about our visitor.'

'Well, what's the use of asking questions, then? They contain all I know. Ughhh!...Od plague you, you

'Oh, I am sorry, papa. I forgot; I thought you might be cold,' she said, hastily removing the rug she had

thrown upon the feet of the sufferer; and waiting till she saw that consciousness of her offence had passed

When two or three additional hours had merged the same afternoon in evening, some moving outlines might

have been observed against the sky on the summit of a wild lone hill in that district. They circumscribed two

men, having at present the aspect of silhouettes, sitting in a dogcart and pushing along in the teeth of the

wind. Scarcely a solitary house or man had been visible along the whole dreary distance of open country they

were traversing; and now that night had begun to fall, the faint twilight, which still gave an idea of the

landscape to their observation, was enlivened by the quiet appearance of the planet Jupiter, momentarily

gleaming in intenser brilliancy in front of them, and by Sirius shedding his rays in rivalry from his position

over their shoulders. The only lights apparent on earth were some spots of dull red, glowing here and there

upon the distant hills, which, as the driver of the vehicle gratuitously remarked to the hirer, were smouldering

fires for the consumption of peat and gorseroots, where the common was being broken up for agricultural

purposes. The wind prevailed with but little abatement from its daytime boisterousness, three or four small

clouds, delicate and pale, creeping along under the sky southward to the Channel.

Fourteen of the sixteen miles intervening between the railway terminus and the end of their journey had been

gone over, when they began to pass along the brink of a valley some miles in extent, wherein the wintry

skeletons of a more luxuriant vegetation than had hitherto surrounded them proclaimed an increased richness

of soil, which showed signs of far more careful enclosure and management than had any slopes they had yet

passed. A little farther, and an opening in the elms stretching up from this fertile valley revealed a mansion.

'Endelstow House, Lord Luxellian's,' repeated the other mechanically. He then turned himself sideways, and

keenly scrutinized the almost invisible house with an interest which the indistinct picture itself seemed far

from adequate to create. 'Yes, that's Lord Luxellian's,' he said yet again after a while, as he still looked in the

'I thought you m't have altered your mind, sir, as ye have stared that way at nothing so long.'

'Hedgers and ditchers by rights. But once in ancient times one of 'em, when he was at work, changed clothes

with King Charles the Second, and saved the king's life. King Charles came up to him like a common man,

and said offhand, "Man in the smockfrock, my name is Charles the Second, and that's the truth on't. Will

you lend me your clothes?" "I don't mind if I do," said Hedger Luxellian; and they changed there and then.

"Now mind ye," King Charles the Second said, like a common man, as he rode away, "if ever I come to the

crown, you come to court, knock at the door, and say out bold, 'Is King Charles the Second at home?' Tell

your name, and they shall let you in, and you shall be made a lord." Now, that was very nice of Master

'Well, as the story is, the king came to the throne; and some years after that, away went Hedger Luxellian,

knocked at the king's door, and asked if King Charles the Second was in. "No, he isn't," they said. "Then, is

Charles the Third?" said Hedger Luxellian. "Yes," said a young feller standing by like a common man, only

'I really fancy that must be a mistake. I don't recollect anything in English history about Charles the Third,'

'Oh, that's right history enough, only 'twasn't prented; he was rather a queertempered man, if you remember.'

'And, by hook or by crook, Hedger Luxellian was made a lord, and everything went on well till some time

'Well, Charleses be as common as Georges. However I'll say no more about it....Ah, well! 'tis the funniest

The dusk had thickened into darkness while they thus conversed, and the outline and surface of the mansion

gradually disappeared. The windows, which had before been as black blots on a lighter expanse of wall,

became illuminated, and were transfigured to squares of light on the general dark body of the night landscape

Not another word was spoken for some time, and they climbed a hill, then another hill piled on the summit of

the first. An additional mile of plateau followed, from which could be discerned two lighthouses on the

coast they were nearing, reposing on the horizon with a calm lustre of benignity. Another oasis was reached;

a little dell lay like a nest at their feet, towards which the driver pulled the horse at a sharp angle, and

descended a steep slope which dived under the trees like a rabbit's burrow. They sank lower and lower.

'Endelstow Vicarage is inside here,' continued the man with the reins. 'This part about here is West

Endelstow; Lord Luxellian's is East Endelstow, and has a church to itself. Pa'son Swancourt is the pa'son of

both, and bobs backward and forward. Ah, well! 'tis a funny world. 'A b'lieve there was once a quarry where

this house stands. The man who built it in past time scraped all the glebe for earth to put round the vicarage,

and laid out a little paradise of flowers and trees in the soil he had got together in this way, whilst the fields

'Maybe about a year, or a year and half: 'tisn't two years; for they don't scandalize him yet; and, as a rule, a

parish begins to scandalize the pa'son at the end of two years among 'em familiar. But he's a very nice party.

Ay, Pa'son Swancourt knows me pretty well from often driving over; and I know Pa'son Swancourt.'

They emerged from the bower, swept round in a curve, and the chimneys and gables of the vicarage became

darkly visible. Not a light showed anywhere. They alighted; the man felt his way into the porch, and rang the

At the end of three or four minutes, spent in patient waiting without hearing any sounds of a response, the

stranger advanced and repeated the call in a more decided manner. He then fancied he heard footsteps in the

'Perhaps they beant at home,' sighed the driver. 'And I promised myself a bit of supper in Pa'son Swancourt's

kitchen. Sich lovely matepize and figged keakes, and cider, and drops o' cordial that they do keep here!'

'All right, naibours! Be ye rich men or be ye poor men, that ye must needs come to the world's end at this

time o' night?' exclaimed a voice at this instant; and, turning their heads, they saw a rickety individual

'Time o' night, 'a b'lieve! and the clock only gone seven of 'em. Show a light, and let us in, William Worm.'

'That 'a is, sir. And would ye mind coming round by the back way? The front door is got stuck wi' the wet, as

he will do sometimes; and the Turk can't open en. I know I am only a poor wambling man that 'ill never pay

The new arrival followed his guide through a little door in a wall, and then promenaded a scullery and a

kitchen, along which he passed with eyes rigidly fixed in advance, an inbred horror of prying forbidding him

to gaze around apartments that formed the back side of the household tapestry. Entering the hall, he was

about to be shown to his room, when from the inner lobby of the front entrance, whither she had gone to learn

the cause of the delay, sailed forth the form of Elfride. Her start of amazement at the sight of the visitor

coming forth from under the stairs proved that she had not been expecting this surprising flank movement,

She appeared in the prettiest of all feminine guises, that is to say, in demitoilette, with plenty of loose curly

hair tumbling down about her shoulders. An expression of uneasiness pervaded her countenance; and

altogether she scarcely appeared woman enough for the situation. The visitor removed his hat, and the first

words were spoken; Elfride prelusively looking with a deal of interest, not unmixed with surprise, at the

Her constraint was over. The great contrast between the reality she beheld before her, and the dark, taciturn,

sharp, elderly man of business who had lurked in her imaginationa man with clothes smelling of city

smoke, skin sallow from want of sun, and talk flavoured with epigramwas such a relief to her that Elfride

Stephen Smith, who has hitherto been hidden from us by the darkness, was at this time of his life but a youth

in appearance, and barely a man in years. Judging from his look, London was the last place in the world that

one would have imagined to be the scene of his activities: such a face surely could not be nourished amid

smoke and mud and fog and dust; such an open countenance could never even have seen anything of 'the

His complexion was as fine as Elfride's own; the pink of his cheeks as delicate. His mouth as perfect as

Cupid's bow in form, and as cherryred in colour as hers. Bright curly hair; bright sparkling bluegray eyes;

a boy's blush and manner; neither whisker nor moustache, unless a little lightbrown fur on his upper lip

deserved the latter title: this composed the London professional man, the prospect of whose advent had so

Elfride hastened to say she was sorry to tell him that Mr. Swancourt was not able to receive him that evening,

and gave the reason why. Mr. Smith replied, in a voice boyish by nature and manly by art, that he was very

sorry to hear this news; but that as far as his reception was concerned, it did not matter in the least.

Stephen was shown up to his room. In his absence Elfride stealthily glided into her father's.

'Well, we shall see that when we know him better. Go down and give the poor fellow something to eat and

drink, for Heaven's sake. And when he has done eating, say I should like to have a few words with him, if he

The young lady glided downstairs again, and whilst she awaits young Smith's entry, the letters referring to his

That first repast in Endelstow Vicarage was a very agreeable one to young Stephen Smith. The table was

spread, as Elfride had suggested to her father, with the materials for the heterogeneous meal called high

teaa class of refection welcome to all when away from men and towns, and particularly attractive to

youthful palates. The table was prettily decked with winter flowers and leaves, amid which the eye was

greeted by chops, chicken, pie, and two huge pasties overhanging the sides of the dish with a cheerful aspect

At the end, towards the fireplace, appeared the teaservice, of oldfashioned Worcester porcelain, and behind

this arose the slight form of Elfride, attempting to add matronly dignity to the movement of pouring out tea,

and to have a weighty and concerned look in matters of marmalade, honey, and clotted cream. Having made

her own meal before he arrived, she found to her embarrassment that there was nothing left for her to do but

talk when not assisting him. She asked him if he would excuse her finishing a letter she had been writing at a

sidetable, and, after sitting down to it, tingled with a sense of being grossly rude. However, seeing that he

noticed nothing personally wrong in her, and that he too was embarrassed when she attentively watched his

cup to refill it, Elfride became better at ease; and when furthermore he accidentally kicked the leg of the

table, and then nearly upset his teacup, just as schoolboys did, she felt herself mistress of the situation, and

could talk very well. In a few minutes ingenuousness and a common term of years obliterated all recollection

that they were strangers just met. Stephen began to wax eloquent on extremely slight experiences connected

with his professional pursuits; and she, having no experiences to fall back upon, recounted with much

animation stories that had been related to her by her father, which would have astonished him had he heard

with what fidelity of action and tone they were rendered. Upon the whole, a very interesting picture of

Ultimately Stephen had to go upstairs and talk loud to the vicar, receiving from him between his puffs a great

many apologies for calling him so unceremoniously to a stranger's bedroom. 'But,' continued Mr. Swancourt,

'I felt that I wanted to say a few words to you before the morning, on the business of your visit. One's

patience gets exhausted by staying a prisoner in bed all day through a sudden freak of one's enemynew to

me, thoughfor I have known very little of gout as yet. However, he's gone to my other toe in a very mild

manner, and I expect he'll slink off altogether by the morning. I hope you have been well attended to

'Perfectly. And though it is unfortunate, and I am sorry to see you laid up, I beg you will not take the slightest

'I will not. But I shall be down tomorrow. My daughter is an excellent doctor. A dose or two of her mild

mixtures will fetch me round quicker than all the drug stuff in the world. Well, now about the church

business. Take a seat, do. We can't afford to stand upon ceremony in these parts as you see, and for this

reason, that a civilized human being seldom stays long with us; and so we cannot waste time in approaching

him, or he will be gone before we have had the pleasure of close acquaintance. This tower of ours is, as you

will notice, entirely gone beyond the possibility of restoration; but the church itself is well enough. You

should see some of the churches in this county. Floors rotten: ivy lining the walls.'

'Oh, that's nothing. The congregation of a neighbour of mine, whenever a storm of rain comes on during

service, open their umbrellas and hold them up till the dripping ceases from the roof. Now, if you will kindly

bring me those papers and letters you see lying on the table, I will show you how far we have got.'

Stephen crossed the room to fetch them, and the vicar seemed to notice more particularly the slim figure of

'By the way,' said Mr. Swancourt, after some conversation, 'you said your whole name was Stephen

Fitzmaurice, and that your grandfather came originally from Caxbury. Since I have been speaking, it has

occurred to me that I know something of you. You belong to a wellknown ancient county familynot

'Nonsense! you must. Hand me the "Landed Gentry." Now, let me see. There, Stephen Fitzmaurice

Smithhe lies in St. Mary's Church, doesn't he? Well, out of that family Sprang the Leaseworthy Smiths,

'Yes; I have seen his monument there,' shouted Stephen. 'But there is no connection between his family and

'There is none, possibly, to your knowledge. But look at this, my dear sir,' said the vicar, striking his fist upon

the bedpost for emphasis. 'Here are you, Stephen Fitzmaurice Smith, living in London, but springing from

Caxbury. Here in this book is a genealogical tree of the Stephen Fitzmaurice Smiths of Caxbury Manor. You

may be only a family of professional men nowI am not inquisitive: I don't ask questions of that kind; it is

not in me to do sobut it is as plain as the nose in your face that there's your origin! And, Mr. Smith, I

congratulate you upon your blood; blue blood, sir; and, upon my life, a very desirable colour, as the world

'I wish you could congratulate me upon some more tangible quality,' said the younger man, sadly no less than

'Nonsense! that will come with time. You are young: all your life is before you. Now looksee how far back

in the mists of antiquity my own family of Swancourt have a root. Here, you see,' he continued, turning to the

page, 'is Geoffrey, the one among my ancestors who lost a barony because he would cut his joke. Ah, it's the

sort of us! But the story is too long to tell now. Ay, I'm a poor mana poor gentleman, in fact: those I would

be friends with, won't be friends with me; those who are willing to be friends with me, I am above being

friends with. Beyond dining with a neighbouring incumbent or two. and an occasional chat sometimes

dinnerwith Lord Luxellian, a connection of mine, I am in absolute solitudeabsolute.'

'Oh yes, yes; and I don't complain of poverty. Canto coram latrone. Well, Mr. Smith, don't let me detain you

any longer in a sick room. Ha! that reminds me of a story I once heard in my younger days.' Here the vicar

began a series of small private laughs, and Stephen looked inquiry. 'Oh, no, no! it is too bad too bad to

tell!' continued Mr. Swancourt in undertones of grim mirth. 'Well, go downstairs; my daughter must do the

best she can with you this evening. Ask her to sing to youshe plays and sings very nicely. Goodnight; I

feel as if I had known you for five or six years. I'll ring for somebody to show you down.'

'Never mind,' said Stephen, 'I can find the way.' And he went downstairs, thinking of the delightful freedom

'I forgot to tell you that my father was rather deaf,' said Elfride anxiously, when Stephen entered the little

'Never mind; I know all about it, and we are great friends,' the man of business replied enthusiastically. 'And,

To Miss Swancourt this request seemed, what in fact it was, exceptionally pointblank; though she guessed

that her father had some hand in framing it, knowing, rather to her cost, of his unceremonious way of

utilizing her for the benefit of dull sojourners. At the same time, as Mr. Smith's manner was too frank to

provoke criticism, and his age too little to inspire fear, she was readynot to say pleasedto accede.

Selecting from the canterbury some old family ditties, that in years gone by had been played and sung by her

mother, Elfride sat down to the pianoforte, and began, "Twas on the evening of a winter's day,' in a pretty

'Yes, I do much,' said Stephenwords he would have uttered, and sincerely, to anything on earth, from glee

'You shall have a little one by De Leyre, that was given me by a young French lady who was staying at

and then I shall want to give you my own favourite for the very last, Shelley's "When the lamp is shattered,"

as set to music by my poor mother. I so much like singing to anybody who REALLY cares to hear me.'

Every woman who makes a permanent impression on a man is usually recalled to his mind's eye as she

appeared in one particular scene, which seems ordained to be her special form of manifestation throughout

the pages of his memory. As the patron Saint has her attitude and accessories in mediaeval illumination, so

the sweetheart may be said to have hers upon the table of her true Love's fancy, without which she is rarely

introduced there except by effort; and this though she may, on further acquaintance, have been observed in

many other phases which one would imagine to be far more appropriate to love's young dream.

Miss Elfride's image chose the form in which she was beheld during these minutes of singing, for her

permanent attitude of visitation to Stephen's eyes during his sleeping and waking hours in after days. The

profile is seen of a young woman in a pale gray silk dress with trimmings of swan'sdown, and opening up

from a point in front, like a waistcoat without a shirt; the cool colour contrasting admirably with the warm

bloom of her neck and face. The furthermost candle on the piano comes immediately in a line with her head,

and half invisible itself, forms the accidentally frizzled hair into a nebulous haze of light, surrounding her

crown like an aureola. Her hands are in their place on the keys, her lips parted, and trilling forth, in a tender

Her head is forward a little, and her eyes directed keenly upward to the top of the page of music confronting

her. Then comes a rapid look into Stephen's face, and a still more rapid look back again to her business, her

face having dropped its sadness, and acquired a certain expression of mischievous archness the while; which

lingered there for some time, but was never developed into a positive smile of flirtation.

Stephen suddenly shifted his position from her right hand to her left, where there was just room enough for a

small ottoman to stand between the piano and the corner of the room. Into this nook he squeezed himself, and

gazed wistfully up into Elfride's face. So long and so earnestly gazed he, that her cheek deepened to a more

and more crimson tint as each line was added to her song. Concluding, and pausing motionless after the last

word for a minute or two, she ventured to look at him again. His features wore an expression of unutterable

'You don't hear many songs, do you, Mr. Smith, to take so much notice of these of mine?'

'Perhaps it was the means and vehicle of the song that I was noticing: I mean yourself,' he answered gently.

'It is perfectly true; I don't hear much singing. You mistake what I am, I fancy. Because I come as a stranger

to a secluded spot, you think I must needs come from a life of bustle, and know the latest movements of the

day. But I don't. My life is as quiet as yours, and more solitary; solitary as death.'

'The death which comes from a plethora of life? But seriously, I can quite see that you are not the least what I

thought you would be before I saw you. You are not critical, or experienced, or much to mind. That's why

I don't mind singing airs to you that I only half know.' Finding that by this confession she had vexed him in a

way she did not intend, she added naively, 'I mean, Mr. Smith, that you are better, not worse, for being only

young and not very experienced. You don't think my life here so very tame and dull, I know.'

'I do not, indeed,' he said with fervour. 'It must be delightfully poetical, and sparkling, and fresh, and'

'There you go, Mr. Smith! Well, men of another kind, when I get them to be honest enough to own the truth,

think just the reverse: that my life must be a dreadful bore in its normal state, though pleasant for the

'I could live here always!' he said, and with such a tone and look of unconscious revelation that Elfride was

startled to find that her harmonies had fired a small Troy, in the shape of Stephen's heart. She said quickly:

Elfride's emotions were sudden as his in kindling, but the least of woman's lesser infirmitieslove of

admirationcaused an inflammable disposition on his part, so exactly similar to her own, to appear as

For reasons of his own, Stephen Smith was stirring a short time after dawn the next morning. From the

window of his room he could see, first, two bold escarpments sloping down together like the letter V.

Towards the bottom, like liquid in a funnel, appeared the sea, gray and small. On the brow of one hill, of

rather greater altitude than its neighbour, stood the church which was to be the scene of his operations. The

lonely edifice was black and bare, cutting up into the sky from the very tip of the hill. It had a square

mouldering tower, owning neither battlement nor pinnacle, and seemed a monolithic termination, of one

substance with the ridge, rather than a structure raised thereon. Round the church ran a low wall;

overtopping the wall in general level was the graveyard; not as a graveyard usually is, a fragment of

landscape with its due variety of chiarooscuro, but a mere profile against the sky, serrated with the outlines

of graves and a very few memorial stones. Not a tree could exist up there: nothing but the monotonous

Five minutes after this casual survey was made his bedroom was empty, and its occupant had vanished

At the end of two hours he was again in the room, looking warm and glowing. He now pursued the artistic

details of dressing, which on his first rising had been entirely omitted. And a very blooming boy he looked,

after that mysterious morning scamper. His mouth was a triumph of its class. It was the cleanlycut,

piquantly pursedup mouth of William Pitt, as represented in the well or little known bust by Nollekensa

mouth which is in itself a young man's fortune, if properly exercised. His round chin, where its upper part

turned inward, still continued its perfect and full curve, seeming to press in to a point the bottom of his nether

Once he murmured the name of Elfride. Ah, there she was! On the lawn in a plain dress, without hat or

bonnet, running with a boy's velocity, superadded to a girl's lightness, after a tame rabbit she was

endeavouring to capture, her strategic intonations of coaxing words alternating with desperate rushes so much

out of keeping with them, that the hollowness of such expressions was but too evident to her pet, who darted

The scene down there was altogether different from that of the hills. A thicket of shrubs and trees enclosed

the favoured spot from the wilderness without; even at this time of the year the grass was luxuriant there. No

wind blew inside the protecting belt of evergreens, wasting its force upon the higher and stronger trees

Then he heard a heavy person shuffling about in slippers, and calling 'Mr. Smith!' Smith proceeded to the

study, and found Mr. Swancourt. The young man expressed his gladness to see his host downstairs.

'Oh yes; I knew I should soon be right again. I have not made the acquaintance of gout for more than two

years, and it generally goes off the second night. Well, where have you been this morning? I saw you come in

'You are different from your kind. Well, I suppose such a wild place is a novelty, and so tempted you out of

'You must, you must; to go cockwatching the morning after a journey of fourteen or sixteen hours. But

there's no accounting for tastes, and I am glad to see that yours are no meaner. After breakfast, but not before,

Certainly there seemed nothing exaggerated in that assertion. Mr. Swancourt by daylight showed himself to

be a man who, in common with the other two people under his roof, had really strong claims to be considered

handsome,handsome, that is, in the sense in which the moon is bright: the ravines and valleys which, on a

close inspection, are seen to diversify its surface being left out of the argument. His face was of a tint that

never deepened upon his cheeks nor lightened upon his forehead, but remained uniform throughout; the usual

neutral salmoncolour of a man who feeds wellnot to say too welland does not think hard; every pore

being in visible working order. His tout ensemble was that of a highly improved class of farmer, dressed up in

the wrong clothes; that of a firmstanding perpendicular man, whose fall would have been backwards

The vicar's background was at present what a vicar's background should be, his study. Here the consistency

ends. All along the chimneypiece were ranged bottles of horse, pig, and cow medicines, and against the wall

was a high table, made up of the fragments of an old oak Iychgate. Upon this stood stuffed specimens of

owls, divers, and gulls, and over them bunches of wheat and barley ears, labelled with the date of the year

that produced them. Some cases and shelves, more or less laden with books, the prominent titles of which

were Dr. Brown's 'Notes on the Romans,' Dr. Smith's 'Notes on the Corinthians,' and Dr. Robinson's 'Notes on

the Galatians, Ephesians, and Philippians,' just saved the character of the place, in spite of a girl's

doll'shouse standing above them, a marine aquarium in the window, and Elfride's hat hanging on its corner.

'Business, business!' said Mr. Swancourt after breakfast. He began to find it necessary to act the part of a

They prepared to go to the church; the vicar, on second thoughts, mounting his coalblack mare to avoid

exerting his foot too much at starting. Stephen said he should want a man to assist him. 'Worm!' the vicar

A minute or two after a voice was heard round the corner of the building, mumbling, 'Ah, I used to be strong

enough, but 'tis altered now! Well, there, I'm as independent as one here and there, even if they do write

'What's the matter?' said the vicar, as William Worm appeared; when the remarks were repeated to him.

'Worm says some very true things sometimes,' Mr. Swancourt said, turning to Stephen. 'Now, as regards that

word "esquire." Why, Mr. Smith, that word "esquire" is gone to the dogs,used on the letters of every

'Yes,' Worm said groaningly to Stephen, 'I've got such a noise in my head that there's no living night nor day.

'Tis just for all the world like people frying fish: fry, fry, fry, all day long in my poor head, till I don't know

whe'r I'm here or yonder. There, God A'mighty will find it out sooner or later, I hope, and relieve me.'

'Now, my deafness,' said Mr. Swancourt impressively, 'is a dead silence; but William Worm's is that of

'I can hear the fryingpan afizzing as naterel as life,' said Worm corroboratively.

'Very peculiar, very peculiar,' echoed the vicar; and they all then followed the path up the hill, bounded on

each side by a little stone wall, from which gleamed fragments of quartz and bloodred marbles, apparently

of inestimable value, in their setting of brown alluvium. Stephen walked with the dignity of a man close to

the horse's head, Worm stumbled along a stone's throw in the rear, and Elfride was nowhere in particular, yet

everywhere; sometimes in front, sometimes behind, sometimes at the sides, hovering about the procession

like a butterfly; not definitely engaged in travelling, yet somehow chiming in at points with the general

The vicar explained things as he went on: 'The fact is, Mr. Smith, I didn't want this bother of church

restoration at all, but it was necessary to do something in selfdefence, on account of those d dissenters:

'How very odd!' said Stephen, with the concern demanded of serious friendliness.

'Odd? That's nothing to how it is in the parish of Twinkley. Both the churchwardens are; there, I won't

'Strange? My dear sir, that's nothing to how it is in the parish of Sinnerton. However, as to our own parish, I

'There are no circumstances to trust to. We may as well trust in Providence if we trust at all. But here we are.

The churchyard was entered on this side by a stone stile, over which having clambered, you remained still on

the wild hill, the within not being so divided from the without as to obliterate the sense of open freedom. A

delightful place to be buried in, postulating that delight can accompany a man to his tomb under any

circumstances. There was nothing horrible in this churchyard, in the shape of tight mounds bonded with

sticks, which shout imprisonment in the ears rather than whisper rest; or trim garden flowers, which only

raise images of people in new black crape and white handkerchiefs coming to tend them; or wheelmarks,

which remind us of hearses and mourning coaches; or cypressbushes, which make a parade of sorrow; or

coffinboards and bones lying behind trees, showing that we are only leaseholders of our graves. No; nothing

but long, wild, untutored grass, diversifying the forms of the mounds it covered,themselves irregularly

shaped, with no eye to effect; the impressive presence of the old mountain that all this was a part of being

nowhere excluded by disguising art. Outside were similar slopes and similar grass; and then the serene

impassive sea, visible to a width of half the horizon, and meeting the eye with the effect of a vast concave,

like the interior of a blue vessel. Detached rocks stood upright afar, a collar of foam girding their bases, and

repeating in its whiteness the plumage of a countless multitude of gulls that restlessly hovered about.

'Now, Worm!' said Mr. Swancourt sharply; and Worm started into an attitude of attention at once to receive

orders. Stephen and himself were then left in possession, and the work went on till early in the afternoon,

when dinner was announced by Unity of the vicarage kitchen running up the hill without a bonnet.

Elfride did not make her appearance inside the building till late in the afternoon, and came then by special

invitation from Stephen during dinner. She looked so intensely LIVING and full of movement as she came

into the old silent place, that young Smith's world began to be lit by 'the purple light' in all its definiteness.

What could she do but come closeso close that a minute arc of her skirt touched his footand asked him

how he was getting on with his sketches, and set herself to learn the principles of practical mensuration as

applied to irregular buildings? Then she must ascend the pulpit to reimagine for the hundredth time how it

'Don't you tell papa, will you, Mr. Smith, if I tell you something?' she said with a sudden impulse to make a

'Well, I write papa's sermons for him very often, and he preaches them better than he does his own; and then

afterwards he talks to people and to me about what he said in his sermon today, and forgets that I wrote it

'How clever you must be!' said Stephen. 'I couldn't write a sermon for the world.'

'Oh, it's easy enough,' she said, descending from the pulpit and coming close to him to explain more vividly.

'You do it like this. Did you ever play a game of forfeits called "When is it? where is it? what is it?"'

'Ah, that's a pity, because writing a sermon is very much like playing that game. You take the text. You think,

why is it? what is it? and so on. You put that down under "Generally." Then you proceed to the First,

Secondly, and Thirdly. Papa won't have Fourthlyssays they are all my eye. Then you have a final

Collectively, several pages of this being put in great black brackets, writing opposite, "LEAVE THIS OUT IF

THE FARMERS ARE FALLING ASLEEP." Then comes your In Conclusion, then A Few Words And I

Have Done. Well, all this time you have put on the back of each page, "KEEP YOUR VOICE DOWN"I

mean,' she added, correcting herself, 'that's how I do in papa's sermonbook, because otherwise he gets

louder and louder, till at last he shouts like a farmer up afield. Oh, papa is so funny in some things!'

Then, after this childish burst of confidence, she was frightened, as if warned by womanly instinct, which for

the moment her ardour had outrun, that she had been too forward to a comparative stranger.

Elfride saw her father then, and went away into the wind, being caught by a gust as she ascended the

churchyard slope, in which gust she had the motions, without the motives, of a hoiden; the grace, without the

selfconsciousness, of a pirouetter. She conversed for a minute or two with her father, and proceeded

homeward, Mr. Swancourt coming on to the church to Stephen. The wind had freshened his warm

complexion as it freshens the glow of a brand. He was in a mood of jollity, and watched Elfride down the hill

'You little flyaway! you look wild enough now,' he said, and turned to Stephen. 'But she's not a wild child at

all, Mr. Smith. As steady as you; and that you are steady I see from your diligence here.'

'Yes, she is; certainly, she is,' said papa, turning his voice as much as possible to the neutral tone of

disinterested criticism. 'Now, Smith, I'll tell you something; but she mustn't know it for the worldnot for

the world, mind, for she insists upon keeping it a dead secret. Why, SHE WRITES MY SERMONS FOR ME

'She can do that. The little rascal has the very trick of the trade. But, mind you, Smith, not a word about it to

'Look there,' said Mr. Swancourt. 'What do you think of my roofing?' He pointed with his walkingstick at

'Yes, I worked in shirtsleeves all the time that was going on. I pulled down the old rafters, fixed the new

ones, put on the battens, slated the roof, all with my own hands, Worm being my assistant. We worked like

'Ay, sure, we did; harder than some here and therehee, hee!' said William Worm, cropping up from

somewhere. 'Like slaves, 'a b'lievehee, hee! And weren't ye foaming mad, sir, when the nails wouldn't go

straight? Mighty I! There, 'tisn't so bad to cuss and keep it in as to cuss and let it out, is it, sir?'

'Because you, sir, when ye were aputting on the roof, only used to cuss in your mind, which is, I suppose, no

'Oh, doan't I, sirhee, hee! Maybe I'm but a poor wambling thing, sir, and can't read much; but I can spell as

well as some here and there. Doan't ye mind, sir, that blustrous night when ye asked me to hold the candle to

'I stood with the candle, and you said you liked company, if 'twas only a dog or catmaning me; and the

''A was very well to look at, but you couldn't sit in the chair nohow. 'Twas all atwist wi' the chair, like the

letter Z, directly you sat down upon the chair. "Get up, Worm," says you, when you seed the chair go all

asway wi' me. Up you took the chair, and flung en like fire and brimstone to t'other end of your shopall in

a passion. "Damn the chair!" says I. "Just what I was thinking," says you, sir. "I could see it in your face, sir,"

says I, "and I hope you and God will forgi'e me for saying what you wouldn't." To save your life you couldn't

help laughing, sir, at a poor wambler reading your thoughts so plain. Ay, I'm as wise as one here and there.'

'I thought you had better have a practical man to go over the church and tower with you,' Mr. Swancourt said

to Stephen the following morning, 'so I got Lord Luxellian's permission to send for a man when you came. I

told him to be there at ten o'clock. He's a very intelligent man, and he will tell you all you want to know about

Elfride did not like to be seen again at the church with Stephen. 'I will watch here for your appearance at the

top of the tower,' she said laughingly. 'I shall see your figure against the sky.'

'And when I am up there I'll wave my handkerchief to you, Miss Swancourt,' said Stephen. 'In twelve minutes

from this present moment,' he added, looking at his watch, 'I'll be at the summit and look out for you.'

She went round to the corner of the sbrubbery, whence she could watch him down the slope leading to the

foot of the hill on which the church stood. There she saw waiting for him a white spota mason in his

To her surprise, instead of their moving on to the churchyard, they both leisurely sat down upon a stone close

by their meeting place, and remained as if in deep conversation. Elfride looked at the time; nine of the

twelve minutes had passed, and Stephen showed no signs of moving. More minutes passedshe grew cold

with waiting, and shivered. It was not till the end of a quarter of an hour that they began to slowly wend up

'Rude and unmannerly!' she said to herself, colouring with pique. 'Anybody would think he was in love with

'Is the man you sent for a lazy, sitstill, donothing kind of man?' she inquired of her father.

'No,' he said surprised; 'quite the reverse. He is Lord Luxellian's mastermason, John Smith.'

'Oh,' said Elfride indifferently, and returned towards her bleak station, and waited and shivered again. It was a

trifle, after alla childish thinglooking out from a tower and waving a handkerchief. But her new friend

had promised, and why should he tease her so? The effect of a blow is as proportionate to the texture of the

object struck as to its own momentum; and she had such a superlative capacity for being wounded that little

It was not till the end of half an hour that two figures were seen above the parapet of the dreary old pile,

motionless as bitterns on a ruined mosque. Even then Stephen was not true enough to perform what he was so

He returned at midday. Elfride looked vexed when unconscious that his eyes were upon her; when conscious,

severe. However, her attitude of coldness had long outlived the coldness itself, and she could no longer utter

'Ah, you weren't kind to keep me waiting in the cold, and break your promise,' she said at last reproachfully,

'Forgive, forgive me!' said Stephen with dismay. 'I had forgottenquite forgotten! Something prevented my

As seen from the vicarage diningroom, which took a warm tone of light from the fire, the weather and scene

outside seemed to have stereotyped themselves in unrelieved shades of gray. The long armed trees and

shrubs of juniper, cedar, and pine varieties, were grayish black; those of the broadleaved sort, together with

the herbage, were grayishgreen; the eternal hills and tower behind them were grayishbrown; the sky,

Yet in spite of this sombre artistic effect, the morning was not one which tended to lower the spirits. It was

even cheering. For it did not rain, nor was rain likely to fall for many days to come.

Elfride had turned from the table towards the fire and was idly elevating a handscreen before her face, when

'Ah, here's the postman!' she said, as a shuffling, active man came through an opening in the shrubbery and

across the lawn. She vanished, and met him in the porch, afterwards coming in with her hands behind her

'How many are there? Three for papa, one for Mr. Smith, none for Miss Swancourt. And, papa, look here, one

of yours is fromwhom do you think?Lord Luxellian. And it has something HARD in ita lump of

something. I've been feeling it through the envelope, and can't think what it is.'

'What does Luxellian write for, I wonder?' Mr. Swancourt had said simultaneously with her words. He

handed Stephen his letter, and took his own, putting on his countenance a higher class of look than was

customary, as became a poor gentleman who was going to read a letter from a peer.

'Dear mevery awkward!' said Stephen, rather en l'air, and confused with the kind of confusion that assails

an understrapper when he has been enlarged by accident to the dimensions of a superior, and is somewhat

Smith by this time recovered his equanimity, and with it the professional dignity of an experienced architect.

'Important business demands my immediate presence in London, I regret to say,' he replied.

'What! Must you go at once?' said Mr. Swancourt, looking over the edge of his letter. 'Important business? A

'The truth is,' said Stephen blushing, and rather ashamed of having pretended even so slightly to a

consequence which did not belong to him,'the truth is, Mr. Hewby has sent to say I am to come home; and

'I see; I see. It is politic to do so, you mean. Now I can see more than you think. You are to be his partner. I

booked you for that directly I read his letter to me the other day, and the way he spoke of you. He thinks a

Unpleasant to Stephen such remarks as these could not sound; to have the expectancy of partnership with one

of the largest practising architects in London thrust upon him was cheering, however untenable he felt the

idea to be. He saw that, whatever Mr. Hewby might think, Mr. Swancourt certainly thought much of him to

entertain such an idea on such slender ground as to be absolutely no ground at all. And then, unaccountably,

his speaking face exhibited a cloud of sadness, which a reflection on the remoteness of any such contingency

'Well,' he said cheerfully, 'never mind that now. You must come again on your own account; not on business.

Come to see me as a visitor, you knowsay, in your holidaysall you town men have holidays like

'Very well; come in August; and then you need not hurry away so. I am glad to get somebody decent to talk

to, or at, in this outlandish ultima Thule. But, by the bye, I have something to sayyou won't go today?'

'No; I need not,' said Stephen hesitatingly. 'I am not obliged to get back before Monday morning.'

'Very well, then, that brings me to what I am going to propose. This is a letter from Lord Luxellian. I think

you heard me speak of him as the resident landowner in this district, and patron of this living?'

'He is in London now. It seems that he has run up on business for a day or two, and taken Lady Luxellian

with him. He has written to ask me to go to his house, and search for a paper among his private memoranda,

'The key of a private desk in which the papers are. He doesn't like to trust such a matter to any body else. I

have done such things for him before. And what I propose is, that we make an afternoon of itall three of

us. Go for a drive to Targan Bay, come home by way of Endelstow House; and whilst I am looking over the

documents you can ramble about the rooms where you like. I have the run of the house at any time, you

know. The building, though nothing but a mass of gables outside, has a splendid hall, staircase, and gallery

'Oh yes; but I was alluding to the interior. And the churchSt. Eval'sis much older than our St. Agnes'

here. I do duty in that and this alternately, you know. The fact is, I ought to have some help; riding across that

park for two miles on a wet morning is not at all the thing. If my constitution were not well seasoned, as

thank God it is,'here Mr. Swancourt looked down his front, as if his constitution were visible there,'I

should be coughing and barking all the year round. And when the family goes away, there are only about

three servants to preach to when I get there. Well, that shall be the arrangement, then. Elfride, you will like to

Elfride assented; and the little breakfastparty separated. Stephen rose to go and take a few final

measurements at the church, the vicar following him to the door with a mysterious expression of inquiry on

'You'll put up with our not having family prayer this morning, I hope?' he whispered.

'To tell you the truth,' he continued in the same undertone, 'we don't make a regular thing of it; but when we

have strangers visiting us, I am strongly of opinion that it is the proper thing to do, and I always do it. I am

very strict on that point. But you, Smith, there is something in your face which makes me feel quite at home;

no nonsense about you, in short. Ah, it reminds me of a splendid story I used to hear when I was a

helterskelter young fellowsuch a story! But'here the vicar shook his head selfforbiddingly, and

Stephen went across the lawn, hearing the vicar chuckling privately at the recollection as he withdrew.

They started at three o'clock. The gray morning had resolved itself into an afternoon bright with a pale

pervasive sunlight, without the sun itself being visible. Lightly they trotted along the wheels nearly silent,

the horse's hoofs clapping, almost ringing, upon the hard, white, turnpike road as it followed the level ridge in

a perfectly straight line, seeming to be absorbed ultimately by the white of the sky.

Targan Baywhich had the merit of being easily got atwas duly visited. They then swept round by

innumerable lanes, in which not twenty consecutive yards were either straight or level, to the domain of Lord

Luxellian. A woman with a double chin and thick neck, like Queen Anne by Dahl, threw open the lodge gate,

'I'll give him something, poor little fellow,' said Elfride, pulling out her purse and hastily opening it. From the

interior of her purse a host of bits of paper, like a flock of white birds, floated into the air, and were blown

'What the dickens is all that?' said Mr. Swancourt. 'Not halves of banknotes, Elfride?'

Elfride looked annoyed and guilty. 'They are only something of mine, papa,' she faltered, whilst Stephen leapt

out, and, assisted by the lodgekeeper's little boy, crept about round the wheels and horse's hoofs till the

papers were all gathered together again. He handed them back to her, and remounted.

'I suppose you are wondering what those scraps were?' she said, as they bowled along up the sycamore

avenue. 'And so I may as well tell you. They are notes for a romance I am writing.'

'A story, do you mean?' said Stephen, Mr. Swancourt half listening, and catching a word of the conversation

'Yes; THE COURT OF KELLYON CASTLE; a romance of the fifteenth century. Such writing is out of date

'A romance carried in a purse! If a highwayman were to rob you, he would be taken in.'

'Yes; that's my way of carrying manuscript. The real reason is, that I mostly write bits of it on scraps of paper

'What are you going to do with your romance when you have written it?' said Stephen.

For by this time they had reached the precincts of Endelstow House. Driving through an ancient gateway of

duncoloured stone, spanned by the highshouldered Tudor arch, they found themselves in a spacious court,

closed by a facade on each of its three sides. The substantial portions of the existing building dated from the

reign of Henry VIII.; but the picturesque and sheltered spot had been the site of an erection of a much earlier

date. A licence to crenellate mansum infra manerium suum was granted by Edward II. to 'Hugo Luxellen

chivaler;' but though the faint outline of the ditch and mound was visible at points, no sign of the original

The windows on all sides were long and manymullioned; the roof lines broken up by dormer lights of the

same pattern. The apex stones of these dormers, together with those of the gables, were surmounted by

grotesque figures in rampant, passant, and couchant variety. Tall octagonal and twisted chimneys thrust

themselves high up into the sky, surpassed in height, however, by some poplars and sycamores at the back,

which showed their gently rocking summits over ridge and parapet. In the corners of the court polygonal

bays, whose surfaces were entirely occupied by buttresses and windows, broke into the squareness of the

enclosure; and a farprojecting oriel, springing from a fantastic series of mouldings, overhung the archway of

As Mr. Swancourt had remarked, he had the freedom of the mansion in the absence of its owner. Upon a

statement of his errand they were all admitted to the library, and left entirely to themselves. Mr. Swancourt

was soon up to his eyes in the examination of a heap of papers he had taken from the cabinet described by his

correspondent. Stephen and Elfride had nothing to do but to wander about till her father was ready.

Elfride entered the gallery, and Stephen followed her without seeming to do so. It was a long sombre

apartment, enriched with fittings a century or so later in style than the walls of the mansion. Pilasters of

Renaissance workmanship supported a cornice from which sprang a curved ceiling, panelled in the awkward

twists and curls of the period. The old Gothic quarries still remained in the upper portion of the large window

at the end, though they had made way for a more modern form of glazing elsewhere.

Stephen was at one end of the gallery looking towards Elfride, who stood in the midst, beginning to feel

somewhat depressed by the society of Luxellian shades of cadaverous complexion fixed by Holbein, Kneller,

and Lely, and seeming to gaze at and through her in a moralizing mood. The silence, which cast almost a

Out bounded a pair of little girls, lightly yet warmly dressed. Their eyes were sparkling; their hair swinging

'Ah, Miss Swancourt: dearest Elfie! we heard you. Are you going to stay here? You are our little mamma, are

'Let me tiss you,' said the other, in appearance very much like the first, but to a smaller pattern.

Their pink cheeks and yellow hair were speedily intermingled with the folds of Elfride's dress; she then

'Such an odd thing,' said Elfride, smiling, and turning to Stephen. 'They have taken it into their heads lately to

call me "little mamma," because I am very fond of them, and wore a dress the other day something like one

These two young creatures were the Honourable Mary and the Honourable Katescarcely appearing large

enough as yet to bear the weight of such ponderous prefixes. They were the only two children of Lord and

Lady Luxellian, and, as it proved, had been left at home during their parents' temporary absence, in the

custody of nurse and governess. Lord Luxellian was dotingly fond of the children; rather indifferent towards

his wife, since she had begun to show an inclination not to please him by giving him a boy.

All children instinctively ran after Elfride, looking upon her more as an unusually nice large specimen of

their own tribe than as a grownup elder. It had now become an established rule, that whenever she met

themindoors or outofdoors, weekdays or Sundaysthey were to be severally pressed against her face

and bosom for the space of a quarter of a minute, and otherwise made much of on the delightful system of

cumulative epithet and caress to which unpractised girls will occasionally abandon themselves.

A look of misgiving by the youngsters towards the door by which they had entered directed attention to a

maidservant appearing from the same quarter, to put an end to this sweet freedom of the poor Honourables

'So do I,' piped the other like a rather more melancholy bullfinch. 'Mamma can't play with us so nicely as you

do. I don't think she ever learnt playing when she was little. When shall we come to see you?'

'And sleep at your house all night? That's what I mean by coming to see you. I don't care to see people with

'As soon as we can get mamma's permission you shall come and stay as long as ever you like. Goodbye!'

The prisoners were then led off, Elfride again turning her attention to her guest, whom she had left standing at

the remote end of the gallery. On looking around for him he was nowhere to be seen. Elfride stepped down to

the library, thinking he might have rejoined her father there. But Mr. Swancourt, now cheerfully illuminated

by a pair of candles, was still alone, untying packets of letters and papers, and tying them up again.

As Elfride did not stand on a sufficiently intimate footing with the object of her interest to justify her, as a

proper young lady, to commence the active search for him that youthful impulsiveness prompted, and as,

nevertheless, for a nascent reason connected with those divinely cut lips of his, she did not like him to be

absent from her side, she wandered desultorily back to the oak staircase, pouting and casting her eyes about

Though daylight still prevailed in the rooms, the corridors were in a depth of shadowchill, sad, and silent;

and it was only by looking along them towards light spaces beyond that anything or anybody could be

discerned therein. One of these light spots she found to be caused by a sidedoor with glass panels in the

upper part. Elfride opened it, and found herself confronting a secondary or inner lawn, separated from the

And now she saw a perplexing sight. At right angles to the face of the wing she had emerged from, and

within a few feet of the door, jutted out another wing of the mansion, lower and with less architectural

character. Immediately opposite to her, in the wall of this wing, was a large broad window, having its blind

On the blind was a shadow from somebody close inside ita person in profile. The profile was unmistakably

that of Stephen. It was just possible to see that his arms were uplifted, and that his hands held an article of

some kind. Then another shadow appeared also in profileand came close to him. This was the shadow

of a woman. She turned her back towards Stephen: he lifted and held out what now proved to be a shawl or

mantleplaced it carefully so carefullyround the lady; disappeared; reappeared in her frontfastened

the mantle. Did he then kiss her? Surely not. Yet the motion might have been a kiss. Then both shadows

'Ah, Miss Swancourt! I am so glad to find you. I was looking for you,' said a voice at her elbowStephen's

Simultaneously with the conclusion of Stephen's remark, the sound of the closing of an external door in their

immediate neighbourhood reached Elfride's ears. It came from the further side of the wing containing the

illuminated room. She then discerned, by the aid of the dusky departing light, a figure, whose sex was

undistinguishable, walking down the gravelled path by the parterre towards the river. The figure grew fainter,

Mr. Swancourt's voice was heard calling out their names from a distant corridor in the body of the building.

They retraced their steps, and found him with his coat buttoned up and his hat on, awaiting their advent in a

mood of selfsatisfaction at having brought his search to a successful close. The carriage was brought round,

and without further delay the trio drove away from the mansion, under the echoing gateway arch, and along

by the leafless sycamores, as the stars began to kindle their trembling lights behind the maze of branches and

No words were spoken either by youth or maiden. Her unpractised mind was completely occupied in

fathoming its recent acquisition. The young man who had inspired her with such novelty of feeling, who had

come directly from London on business to her father, having been brought by chance to Endelstow House

had, by some means or other, acquired the privilege of approaching some lady he had found therein, and of

honouring her by petits soins of a marked kind,all in the space of half an hour.

What room were they standing in? thought Elfride. As nearly as she could guess, it was Lord Luxellian's

businessroom, or office. What people were in the house? None but the governess and servants, as far as she

knew, and of these he had professed a total ignorance. Had the person she had indistinctly seen leaving the

house anything to do with the performance? It was impossible to say without appealing to the culprit himself,

and that she would never do. The more Elfride reflected, the more certain did it appear that the meeting was a

chance rencounter, and not an appointment. On the ultimate inquiry as to the individuality of the woman,

Elfride at once assumed that she could not be an inferior. Stephen Smith was not the man to care about

passages atlove with women beneath him. Though gentle, ambition was visible in his kindling eyes; he

evidently hoped for much; hoped indefinitely, but extensively. Elfride was puzzled, and being puzzled, was,

by a natural sequence of girlish sensations, vexed with him. No more pleasure came in recognizing that from

liking to attract him she was getting on to love him, boyish as he was and innocent as he had seemed.

They reached the bridge which formed a link between the eastern and western halves of the parish. Situated

in a valley that was bounded outwardly by the sea, it formed a point of depression from which the road

ascended with great steepness to West Endelstow and the Vicarage. There was no absolute necessity for

either of them to alight, but as it was the vicar's custom after a long journey to humour the horse in making

this winding ascent, Elfride, moved by an imitative instinct, suddenly jumped out when Pleasant had just

begun to adopt the deliberate stalk he associated with this portion of the road.

The young man seemed glad of any excuse for breaking the silence. 'Why, Miss Swancourt, what a risky

thing to do!' he exclaimed, immediately following her example by jumping down on the other side.

'Oh no, not at all,' replied she coldly; the shadow phenomenon at Endelstow House still paramount within

Stephen walked along by himself for two or three minutes, wrapped in the rigid reserve dictated by her tone.

Then apparently thinking that it was only for girls to pout, he came serenely round to her side, and offered his

arm with Castilian gallantry, to assist her in ascending the remaining threequarters of the steep.

Here was a temptation: it was the first time in her life that Elfride had been treated as a grownup woman in

this wayoffered an arm in a manner implying that she had a right to refuse it. Till tonight she had never

received masculine attentions beyond those which might be contained in such homely remarks as 'Elfride,

give me your hand;' 'Elfride, take hold of my arm,' from her father. Her callow heart made an epoch of the

incident; she considered her array of feelings, for and against. Collectively they were for taking this offered

It was Elfride's first fragile attempt at browbeating a lover. Fearing more the issue of such an undertaking

than what a gentle young man might think of her waywardness, she immediately afterwards determined to

'You don't know: I have a trouble; though some might think it less a trouble than a dilemma.'

Stephen hesitated. 'I might tell,' he said; 'at the same time, perhaps, it is as well'

She let go his arm and imperatively pushed it from her, tossing her head. She had just learnt that a good deal

of dignity is lost by asking a question to which an answer is refused, even ever so politely; for though

politeness does good service in cases of requisition and compromise, it but little helps a direct refusal. 'I don't

wish to know anything of it; I don't wish it,' she went on. 'The carriage is waiting for us at the top of the hill;

we must get in;' and Elfride flitted to the front. 'Papa, here is your Elfride!' she exclaimed to the dusky figure

of the old gentleman, as she sprang up and sank by his side without deigning to accept aid from Stephen.

'Ah, yes!' uttered the vicar in artificially alert tones, awaking from a most profound sleep, and suddenly

'Oh no, no; of course not; we are not at home yet,' Mr. Swancourt said very hastily, endeavouring to dodge

back to his original position with the air of a man who had not moved at all. 'The fact is I was so lost in deep

meditation that I forgot whereabouts we were.' And in a minute the vicar was snoring again.

That evening, being the last, seemed to throw an exceptional shade of sadness over Stephen Smith, and the

repeated injunctions of the vicar, that he was to come and revisit them in the summer, apparently tended less

He left them in the gray light of dawn, whilst the colours of earth were sombre, and the sun was yet hidden in

the east. Elfride had fidgeted all night in her little bed lest none of the household should be awake soon

enough to start him, and also lest she might miss seeing again the bright eyes and curly hair, to which their

owner's possession of a hidden mystery added a deeper tinge of romance. To some extentso soon does

womanly interest take a solicitous turnshe felt herself responsible for his safe conduct. They breakfasted

before daylight; Mr. Swancourt, being more and more taken with his guest's ingenuous appearance, having

determined to rise early and bid him a friendly farewell. It was, however, rather to the vicar's astonishment,

Whilst William Worm performed his toilet (during which performance the inmates of the vicarage were

always in the habit of waiting with exemplary patience), Elfride wandered desultorily to the summer house.

Stephen followed her thither. The copsecovered valley was visible from this position, a mist now lying all

along its length, hiding the stream which trickled through it, though the observers themselves were in clear

They stood close together, leaning over the rustic balustrading which bounded the arbour on the outward side,

and formed the crest of a steep slope beneath Elfride constrainedly pointed out some features of the distant

uplands rising irregularly opposite. But the artistic eye was, either from nature or circumstance, very faint in

Stephen now, and he only half attended to her description, as if he spared time from some other thought going

'Well, goodbye,' he said suddenly; 'I must never see you again, I suppose, Miss Swancourt, in spite of

His genuine tribulation played directly upon the delicate chords of her nature. She could afford to forgive him

for a concealment or two. Moreover, the shyness which would not allow him to look her in the face lent

'Certain circumstances in connection with me make it undesirable. Not on my account; on yours.'

'Goodness! As if anything in connection with you could hurt me,' she said with serene supremacy; but seeing

that this plan of treatment was inappropriate, she tuned a smaller note. 'Ah, I know why you will not come.

You don't want to. You'll go home to London and to all the stirring people there, and will never want to see

'Pooh! an elderly woman who keeps a stationer's shop; and it was to tell her to keep my newspapers till I get

'You needn't have explained: it was not my business at all.' Miss Elfride was rather relieved to hear that

statement, nevertheless. 'And you won't come again to see my father?' she insisted.

'Tell me this,' she importuned with a trembling mouth. 'Does any meeting of yours with a lady at Endelstow

He started a little. 'It does not,' he said emphatically; and looked into the pupils of her eyes with the

The explanation had not come, but a gloom left her. She could not but believe that utterance. Whatever

enigma might lie in the shadow on the blind, it was not an enigma of underhand passion.

She turned towards the house, entering it through the conservatory. Stephen went round to the front door. Mr.

Swancourt was standing on the step in his slippers. Worm was adjusting a buckle in the harness, and

murmuring about his poor head; and everything was ready for Stephen's departure.

'You named August for your visit. August it shall be; that is, if you care for the society of such a fossilized

'You said you would, and you must,' insisted Elfride, coming to the door and speaking under her father's arm.

Whatever reason the youth may have had for not wishing to enter the house as a guest, it no longer

predominated. He promised, and bade them adieu, and got into the ponycarriage, which crept up the slope,

'I never was so much taken with anybody in my life as I am with that young fellownever! I cannot

understand itcan't understand it anyhow,' said Mr. Swancourt quite energetically to himself; and went

Stephen Smith revisited Endelstow Vicarage, agreeably to his promise. He had a genuine artistic reason for

coming, though no such reason seemed to be required. Sixandthirty old seat ends, of exquisite

fifteenthcentury workmanship, were rapidly decaying in an aisle of the church; and it became politic to

make drawings of their wormeaten contours ere they were battered past recognition in the turmoil of the

He entered the house at sunset, and the world was pleasant again to the two fairhaired ones. A momentary

pang of disappointment had, nevertheless, passed through Elfride when she casually discovered that he had

not come that minute posthaste from London, but had reached the neighbourhood the previous evening.

Surprise would have accompanied the feeling, had she not remembered that several tourists were haunting the

They did little besides chat that evening, Mr. Swancourt beginning to question his visitor, closely yet

paternally, and in good part, on his hopes and prospects from the profession he had embraced. Stephen gave

vague answers. The next day it rained. In the evening, when twentyfour hours of Elfride had completely

Elfride soon perceived that her opponent was but a learner. She next noticed that he had a very odd way of

handling the pieces when castling or taking a man. Antecedently she would have supposed that the same

performance must be gone through by all players in the same manner; she was taught by his differing action

that all ordinary players, who learn the game by sight, unconsciously touch the men in a stereotyped way.

This impression of indescribable oddness in Stephen's touch culminated in speech when she saw him, at the

taking of one of her bishops, push it aside with the taking man instead of lifting it as a preliminary to the

'Oh nodon't be sorry; it is not a matter great enough for sorrow. But who taught you to play?'

'Nobody, Miss Swancourt,' he said. 'I learnt from a book lent me by my friend Mr. Knight, the noblest man in

'I have never seen the playing of a single game. This is the first time I ever had the opportunity of playing

with a living opponent. I have worked out many games from books, and studied the reasons of the different

This was a full explanation of his mannerism; but the fact that a man with the desire for chess should have

grown up without being able to see or engage in a game astonished her not a little. She pondered on the

Mr. Swancourt was sitting with his eyes fixed on the board, but apparently thinking of other things. Half to

'Excellentpromptgratifying!' said Mr. Swancourt with feeling, bringing down his hand upon the table,

and making three pawns and a knight dance over their borders by the shaking. 'I was musing on those words

as applicable to a strange course I am steering but enough of that. I am delighted with you, Mr. Smith, for

it is so seldom in this desert that I meet with a man who is gentleman and scholar enough to continue a

'Come,' murmured Elfride poutingly, and insinuating herself between them, 'tell me all about it. Come,

Stephen looked steadfastly into her face, and said slowly, and in a voice full of a faroff meaning that seemed

'Quae finis WHAT WILL BE THE END, aut OR, quod stipendium WHAT FINE, manet me AWAITS ME?

Effare SPEAK OUT; luam I WILL PAY, cum fide WITH FAITH, jussas poenas THE PENALTY

The vicar, who had listened with a critical compression of the lips to this schoolboy recitation, and by

reason of his imperfect hearing had missed the marked realism of Stephen's tone in the English words, now

said hesitatingly: 'By the bye, Mr. Smith (I know you'll excuse my curiosity), though your translation was

unexceptionably correct and close, you have a way of pronouncing your Latin which to me seems most

peculiar. Not that the pronunciation of a dead language is of much importance; yet your accents and

quantities have a grotesque sound to my ears. I thought first that you had acquired your way of breathing the

vowels from some of the northern colleges; but it cannot be so with the quantities. What I was going to ask

was, if your instructor in the classics could possibly have been an Oxford or Cambridge man?'

'The oddest thing ever I heard of!' said Mr. Swancourt, starting with astonishment. 'That the pupil of such a

'That the pupil of such a man should pronounce Latin in the way you pronounce it beats all I ever heard. How

'It is not so strange when I explain,' Stephen hastened to say. 'It was done in this wayby letter. I sent him

exercises and construing twice a week, and twice a week he sent them back to me corrected, with marginal

notes of instruction. That is how I learnt my Latin and Greek, such as it is. He is not responsible for my

'On his part, not on mine. Ah, Henry Knight is one in a thousand! I remember his speaking to me on this very

subject of pronunciation. He says that, much to his regret, he sees a time coming when every man will

pronounce even the common words of his own tongue as seems right in his own ears, and be thought none the

worse for it; that the speaking age is passing away, to make room for the writing age.'

Both Elfride and her father had waited attentively to hear Stephen go on to what would have been the most

interesting part of the story, namely, what circumstances could have necessitated such an unusual method of

education. But no further explanation was volunteered; and they saw, by the young man's manner of

concentrating himself upon the chessboard, that he was anxious to drop the subject.

The game proceeded. Elfride played by rote; Stephen by thought. It was the cruellest thing to checkmate him

after so much labour, she considered. What was she dishonest enough to do in her compassion? To let him

checkmate her. A second game followed; and being herself absolutely indifferent as to the result (her playing

was above the average among women, and she knew it), she allowed him to give checkmate again. A final

game, in which she adopted the Muzio gambit as her opening, was terminated by Elfride's victory at the

Stephen looked up suspiciously. His heart was throbbing even more excitedly than was hers, which itself had

quickened when she seriously set to work on this last occasion. Mr. Swancourt had left the room.

'You have been trifling with me till now!' he exclaimed, his face flushing. 'You did not play your best in the

Elfride's guilt showed in her face. Stephen became the picture of vexation and sadness, which, relishable for a

'Mr. Smith, forgive me!' she said sweetly. 'I see now, though I did not at first, that what I have done seems

like contempt for your skill. But, indeed, I did not mean it in that sense. I could not, upon my conscience, win

a victory in those first and second games over one who fought at such a disadvantage and so manfully.'

He drew a long breath, and murmured bitterly, 'Ah, you are cleverer than I. You can do everythingI can do

nothing! O Miss Swancourt!' he burst out wildly, his heart swelling in his throat, 'I must tell you how I love

He leapt from his seat like the impulsive lad that he was, slid round to her side, and almost before she

suspected it his arm was round her waist, and the two sets of curls intermingled.

So entirely new was fullblown love to Elfride, that she trembled as much from the novelty of the emotion as

from the emotion itself. Then she suddenly withdrew herself and stood upright, vexed that she had submitted

unresistingly even to his momentary pressure. She resolved to consider this demonstration as premature.

'You must not begin such things as those,' she said with coquettish hauteur of a very transparent nature

'Let me kiss youonly a little one,' he said with his usual delicacy, and without reading the factitiousness of

'How can I tell?' she said simply, the simplicity lying merely in the broad outlines of her manner and speech.

There were the semitone of voice and halfhidden expression of eyes which tell the initiated how very fragile

Footsteps were heard. Mr. Swancourt then entered the room, and their private colloquy ended.

The day after this partial revelation, Mr. Swancourt proposed a drive to the cliffs beyond Targan Bay, a

Half an hour before the time of departure a crash was heard in the back yard, and presently Worm came in,

saying partly to the world in general, part]y to himself, and slightly to his auditors:

'Ay, ay, sure! That frying of fish will be the end of William Worm. They be at it again this morningsame

'Your head bad again, Worm?' said Mr. Swancourt. 'What was that noise we heard in the yard?'

'Ay, sir, a weak wambling man am I; and the frying have been going on in my poor head all through the long

night and this morning as usual; and I was so dazed wi' it that down fell a piece of leg wood across the shaft

of the ponyshay, and splintered it off. "Ay," says I, "I feel it as if 'twas my own shay; and though I've done

it, and parish pay is my lot if I go from here, perhaps I am as independent as one here and there."'

'Dear me, the shaft of the carriage broken!' cried Elfride. She was disappointed: Stephen doubly so. The vicar

showed more warmth of temper than the accident seemed to demand, much to Stephen's uneasiness and

rather to his surprise. He had not supposed so much latent sternness could coexist with Mr. Swancourt's

'You shall not be disappointed,' said the vicar at length. 'It is almost too long a distance for you to walk.

Elfride exclaimed triumphantly, 'You have never seen me on horsebackOh, you must!' She looked at

The vicar came to his rescue. 'That's common enough; he has had other lessons to learn. Now, I recommend

The arrangement was welcomed with secret delight by Stephen. It seemed to combine in itself all the

advantages of a long slow ramble with Elfride, without the contingent possibility of the enjoyment being

'Now, Mr. Smith,' said the lady imperatively, coming downstairs, and appearing in her ridinghabit, as she

always did in a change of dress, like a new edition of a delightful volume, 'you have a task to perform today.

These earrings are my very favourite darling ones; but the worst of it is that they have such short hooks that

they are liable to be dropped if I toss my head about much, and when I am riding I can't give my mind to

them. It would be doing me knight service if you keep your eyes fixed upon them, and remember them every

minute of the day, and tell me directly I drop one. They have had such hairbreadth escapes, haven't they,

'Once 'twas in the lane that I found one of them,' pursued Elfride reflectively.

'And then 'twas dangling on the embroidery of your petticoat, miss; and then 'twas down your back, miss,

wasn't it? And oh, what a way you was in, miss, wasn't you? my! until you found it!'

Stephen took Elfride's slight foot upon his hand: 'One, two, three, and up!' she said.

Unfortunately not so. He staggered and lifted, and the horse edged round; and Elfride was ultimately

deposited upon the ground rather more forcibly than was pleasant. Smith looked all contrition.

'Never mind,' said the vicar encouragingly; 'try again! 'Tis a little accomplishment that requires some practice,

'Indeed, I shan't let him try again,' said she with a microscopic look of indignation. 'Worm, come here, and

Then they moved on, going for some distance in silence, the hot air of the valley being occasionally brushed

from their faces by a cool breeze, which wound its way along ravines leading up from the sea.

'I suppose,' said Stephen, 'that a man who can neither sit in a saddle himself nor help another person into one

seems a useless incumbrance; but, Miss Swancourt, I'll learn to do it all for your sake; I will, indeed.'

'What is so unusual in you,' she said, in a didactic tone justifiable in a horsewoman's address to a benighted

walker, 'is that your knowledge of certain things should be combined with your ignorance of certain other

'You know,' he said, 'it is simply because there are so many other things to be learnt in this wide world that I

didn't trouble about that particular bit of knowledge. I thought it would be useless to me; but I don't think so

now. I will learn riding, and all connected with it, because then you would like me better. Do you like me

'Do I seem like LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI?' she began suddenly, without replying to his question.

'Not at all,' she rejoined quickly. 'See how I can gallop. Now, Pansy, off!' And Elfride started; and Stephen

beheld her light figure contracting to the dimensions of a bird as she sank into the distanceher hair flowing.

He walked on in the same direction, and for a considerable time could see no signs of her returning. Dull as a

flower without the sun he sat down upon a stone, and not for fifteen minutes was any sound of horse or rider

'Such a delightful scamper as we have had!' she said, her face flushed and her eyes sparkling. She turned the

'Do you remember a question you could not exactly answer last nightwhether I was more to you than

'Yes, indeed, you are!' he exclaimed in a voice of intensest appreciation, at the same time gliding round and

'Eyes in eyes,' he murmured playfully; and she blushingly obeyed, looking back into his.

'No, certainly not. Anybody might look; and it would be the death of me. You may kiss my hand if you like.'

He expressed by a look that to kiss a hand through a glove, and that a ridingglove, was not a great treat

'There, then; I'll take my glove off. Isn't it a pretty white hand? Ah, you don't want to kiss it, and you shall not

'If I do not, may I never kiss again, you severe Elfride! You know I think more of you than I can tell; that you

A rapid red again filled her cheeks, and she looked at him meditatively. What a proud moment it was for

Elfride then! She was ruling a heart with absolute despotism for the first time in her life.

'No; I won't, I won't!' she said intractably; 'and you shouldn't take me by surprise.'

There ensued a mild form of tussle for absolute possession of the muchcoveted hand, in which the

boisterousness of boy and girl was far more prominent than the dignity of man and woman. Then Pansy

'You make me behave in not a nice way at all!' she exclaimed, in a tone neither of pleasure nor anger, but

partaking of both. 'I ought not to have allowed such a romp! We are too old now for that sort of thing.'

'I hope you don't think me tootoo much of a creepinground sort of man,' said he in a penitent tone,

'You are too familiar; and I can't have it! Considering the shortness of the time we have known each other,

Mr. Smith, you take too much upon you. You think I am a country girl, and it doesn't matter how you behave

'I assure you, Miss Swancourt, that I had no idea of freak in my mind. I wanted to imprint a sweetserious

'Now, that's creeping round again! And you mustn't look into my eyes so,' she said, shaking her head at him,

and trotting on a few paces in advance. Thus she led the way out of the lane and across some fields in the

direction of the cliffs. At the boundary of the fields nearest the sea she expressed a wish to dismount. The

horse was tied to a post. and they both followed an irregular path, which ultimately terminated upon a flat

ledge passing round the face of the huge blueblack rock at a height about midway between the sea and the

topmost verge. There, far beneath and before them, lay the everlasting stretch of ocean; there, upon detached

rocks, were the white screaming gulls, seeming ever intending to settle, and yet always passing on. Right and

left ranked the toothed and zigzag line of stormtorn heights, forming the series which culminated in the one

Behind the youth and maiden was a tempting alcove and seat, formed naturally in the beetling mass, and wide

enough to admit two or three persons. Elfride sat down, and Stephen sat beside her.

'I am afraid it is hardly proper of us to be here, either,' she said half inquiringly. 'We have not known each

'It is not length of time, but the manner in which our minutes beat, that makes enough or not enough in our

'Yes, I see that. But I wish papa suspected or knew what a VERY NEW THING I am doing. He does not

'Darling Elfie, I wish we could be married! It is wrong for me to say itI know it isbefore you know

At this pointblank denial, Stephen turned his face away decisively, and preserved an ominous silence; the

only objects of interest on earth for him being apparently the three or fourscore seabirds circling in the air

'I didn't mean to stop you quite,' she faltered with some alarm; and seeing that he still remained silent, she

added more anxiously, 'If you say that again, perhaps, I will not be quite quite so obstinateifif you

It was Elfride's first kiss. And so awkward and unused was she; full of strivingno relenting. There was

none of those apparent struggles to get out of the trap which only results in getting further in: no final attitude

of receptivity: no easy close of shoulder to shoulder, hand upon hand, face upon face, and, in spite of

coyness, the lips in the right place at the supreme moment. That graceful though apparently accidental falling

into position, which many have noticed as precipitating the end and making sweethearts the sweeter, was not

here. Why? Because experience was absent. A woman must have had many kisses before she kisses well.

In fact, the art of tendering the lips for these amatory salutes follows the principles laid down in treatises on

legerdemain for performing the trick called Forcing a Card. The card is to be shifted nimbly, withdrawn,

edged under, and withal not to be offered till the moment the unsuspecting person's hand reaches the pack;

this forcing to be done so modestly and yet so coaxingly, that the person trifled with imagines he is really

Well, there were no such facilities now; and Stephen was conscious of itfirst with a momentary regret that

his kiss should be spoilt by her confused receipt of it, and then with the pleasant perception that her

'Suppose there is something connected with me which makes it almost impossible for you to agree to be my

'Nothing shall make me cease to love you: no blemish can be found upon your personal nature. That is pure

'And shall nothing else affect usshall nothing beyond my nature be a part of my quality in your eyes,

'Nothing whatever,' she said with a breath of relief. 'Is that all? Some outside circumstance? What do I care?'

'You can hardly judge, dear, till you know what has to be judged. For that, we will stop till we get home. I

'Love is new, and fresh to us as the dew; and we are together. As the lover's world goes, this is a great deal.

Stephen, I fancy I see the difference between me and youbetween men and women generally, perhaps. I

am content to build happiness on any accidental basis that may lie near at hand; you are for making a world to

'Elfride, you sometimes say things which make you seem suddenly to become five years older than you are,

or than I am; and that remark is one. I couldn't think so OLD as that, try how I might....And no lover has ever

'I knew that; you were so unused. You ride well, but you don't kiss nicely at all; and I was told once, by my

'Now, come; I must mount again, or we shall not be home by dinner time.' And they returned to where

Pansy stood tethered. 'Instead of entrusting my weight to a young man's unstable palm,' she continued gaily, 'I

prefer a surer "uppingstock" (as the villagers call it), in the form of a gate. Therenow I am myself again.'

Her blitheness won Stephen out of his thoughtfulness, and each forgot everything but the tone of the moment.

'What did you love me for?' she said, after a long musing look at a flying bird.

'With a pretty pout and sweet lips; but actually, nothing more than what everybody has.'

'Perhaps, 'twas for your neck and hair; though I am not sure: or for your idle blood, that did nothing but

wander away from your cheeks and back again; but I am not sure. Or your hands and arms, that they eclipsed

all other hands and arms; or your feet, that they played about under your dress like little mice; or your tongue,

'Ah, that's pretty to say; but I don't care for your love, if it made a mere flat picture of me in that way, and not

being sure, and such cold reasoning; but what you FELT I was, you know, Stephen' (at this a stealthy laugh

and frisky look into his face), 'when you said to yourself, "I'll certainly love that young lady."'

'Ah, that I don't understand. There's no getting it out of you. And I'll not ask you ever any morenever

'Sweet tantalizer, what's the use? It comes to this sole simple thing: That at one time I had never seen you,

and I didn't love you; that then I saw you, and I did love you. Is that enough?'

'Yes; I will make it do....I know, I think, what I love you for. You are nicelooking, of course; but I didn't

'Those are not quite the correct qualities for a man to be loved for,' said Stephen, in rather a dissatisfied tone

of self criticism. 'Well, never mind. I must ask your father to allow us to be engaged directly we get indoors.

'Because, if he should objectI don't think he will; but if he shouldwe shall have a day longer of

'I was thinking how my dear friend Knight would enjoy this scene. I wish he could come here.'

'You seem very much engrossed with him,' she answered, with a jealous little toss. 'He must be an interesting

'Interesting!' said Stephen, his face glowing with his fervour; 'noble, you ought to say.'

'Oh yes, yes; I forgot,' she said half satirically. 'The noblest man in England, as you told us last night.'

'Because his personality, and that of several others like him, is absorbed into a huge WE, namely, the

'ONLY, Elfie! Why, I can tell you it is a fine thing to be on the staff of the PRESENT. Finer than being a

'No, Elfride,' he whispered; 'I didn't mean that. I mean that he is really a literary man of some eminence, and

not altogether a reviewer. He writes things of a higher class than reviews, though he reviews a book

occasionally. His ordinary productions are social and ethical essaysall that the PRESENT contains which

'I admit he must be talented if he writes for the PRESENT. We have it sent to us irregularly. I want papa to be

a subscriber, but he's so conservative. Now the next point in this Mr. Knight I suppose he is a very good

'No; not so much as that,' replied Stephen, as if such a supposition were extravagant. 'You see, it was in this

wayhe came originally from the same place as I, and taught me things; but I am not intimate with him.

Shan't I be glad when I get richer and better known, and hob and nob with him!' Stephen's eyes sparkled.

A pout began to shape itself upon Elfride's soft lips. 'You think always of him, and like him better than you

'No, indeed, Elfride. The feeling is different quite. But I do like him, and he deserves even more affection

'You are not nice now, and you make me as jealous as possible!' she exclaimed perversely. 'I know you will

'But you don't understand, Elfride,' he said with an anxious movement. 'You shall know him some day. He is

so brilliantno, it isn't exactly brilliant; so thoughtfulnor does thoughtful express himthat it would

charm you to talk to him. He's a most desirable friend, and that isn't half I could say.'

'I don't care how good he is; I don't want to know him, because he comes between me and you. You think of

him night and day, ever so much more than of anybody else; and when you are thinking of him, I am shut out

'And I don't like you to tell me so warmly about him when you are in the middle of loving me. Stephen,

suppose that I and this man Knight of yours were both drowning, and you could only save one of us'

'I cannot say; I don't know. It is disagreeablequite a horrid idea to have to handle.'

'Aha, I know. You would save him, and let me drown, drown, drown; and I don't care about your love!'

She had endeavoured to give a playful tone to her words, but the latter speech was rather forced in its gaiety.

At this point in the discussion she trotted off to turn a corner which was avoided by the footpath, the road and

the path reuniting at a point a little further on. On again making her appearance she continually managed to

look in a direction away from him, and left him in the cool shade of her displeasure. Stephen was soon beaten

at this game of indifference. He went round and entered the range of her vision.

'Save me, then, and let that Mr. Clever of yours drown. I hate him. Now, which would you?'

'Then I won't be alone with you any more. Unkind, to wound me so!' She laughed at her own absurdity but

With a face expressive of wretched misgiving, Elfride's hand flew like an arrow to her ear.

'I quite forgot, indeed. If I had only remembered!' he answered, with a consciencestricken face.

'If you had told me to watch anything, Stephen, I should have religiously done it,' she capriciously went on,

'Well, you will find it, if you want me to respect you and be engaged to you when we have asked papa.' She

considered a moment, and added more seriously, 'I know now where I dropped it, Stephen. It was on the cliff.

I remember a faint sensation of some change about me, but I was too absent to think of it then. And that's

And he strode away up the valley, under a broiling sun and amid the deathlike silence of early afternoon. He

ascended, with giddypaced haste, the windy range of rocks to where they had sat, felt and peered about the

stones and crannies, but Elfride's stray jewel was nowhere to be seen. Next Stephen slowly retraced his steps,

and, pausing at a crossroad to reflect a while, he left the plateau and struck downwards across some fields,

He walked along the path by the river without the slightest hesitation as to its bearing, apparently quite

familiar with every inch of the ground. As the shadows began to lengthen and the sunlight to mellow, he

passed through two wicketgates, and drew near the outskirts of Endelstow Park. The river now ran along

under the park fence, previous to entering the grove itself, a little further on.

Here stood a cottage, between the fence and the stream, on a slightly elevated spot of ground, round which

the river took a turn. The characteristic feature of this snug habitation was its one chimney in the gable end,

its squareness of form disguised by a huge cloak of ivy, which had grown so luxuriantly and extended so far

from its base, as to increase the apparent bulk of the chimney to the dimensions of a tower. Some little

distance from the back of the house rose the park boundary, and over this were to be seen the sycamores of

Stephen crossed the little wood bridge in front, went up to the cottage door, and opened it without knock or

Exclamations of welcome burst from some person or persons when the door was thrust ajar, followed by the

scrape of chairs on a stone floor, as if pushed back by their occupiers in rising from a table. The door was

closed again, and nothing could now be heard from within, save a lively chatter and the rattle of plates.

The mists were creeping out of pools and swamps for their pilgrimages of the night when Stephen came up to

the front door of the vicarage. Elfride was standing on the step illuminated by a lemonhued expanse of

'You never have been all this time looking for that earring?' she said anxiously.

'Never mind. Though I am much vexed; they are my prettiest. But, Stephen, what ever have you been

doingwhere have you been? I have been so uneasy. I feared for you, knowing not an inch of the country. I

thought, suppose he has fallen over the cliff! But now I am inclined to scold you for frightening me so.'

'I must speak to your father now,' he said rather abruptly; 'I have so much to say to himand to you, Elfride.'

'Will what you have to say endanger this nice time of ours, and is it that same shadowy secret you allude to so

'Somewhere in the kitchen garden, I think,' she replied. 'That is his favourite evening retreat. I will leave you

now. Say all that's to be saiddo all there is to be done. Think of me waiting anxiously for the end.' And she

She waited in the drawingroom, watching the lights sink to shadows, the shadows sink to darkness, until her

impatience to know what had occurred in the garden could no longer be controlled. She passed round the

shrubbery, unlatched the garden door, and skimmed with her keen eyes the whole twilighted space that the

four walls enclosed and sheltered: they were not there. She mounted a little ladder, which had been used for

gathering fruit, and looked over the wall into the field. This field extended to the limits of the glebe, which

was enclosed on that side by a privethedge. Under the hedge was Mr. Swancourt, walking up and down, and

talking aloudto himself, as it sounded at first. No: another voice shouted occasional replies ; and this

interlocutor seemed to be on the other side of the hedge. The voice, though soft in quality, was not Stephen's.

The second speaker must have been in the longneglected garden of an old manorhouse hard by, which,

together with a small estate attached, had lately been purchased by a person named Troyton, whom Elfride

had never seen. Her father might have struck up an acquaintanceship with some member of that family

through the privethedge, or a stranger to the neighbourhood might have wandered thither.

And it seemed that, after all, Stephen had not yet made his desired communication to her father. Again she

went indoors, wondering where Stephen could be. For want of something better to do, she went upstairs to

her own little room. Here she sat down at the open window, and, leaning with her elbow on the table and her

It was a hot and still August night. Every disturbance of the silence which rose to the dignity of a noise could

be heard for miles, and the merest sound for a long distance. So she remained, thinking of Stephen, and

wishing he had not deprived her of his company to no purpose, as it appeared. How delicate and sensitive he

was, she reflected; and yet he was man enough to have a private mystery, which considerably elevated him in

her eyes. Thus, looking at things with an inward vision, she lost consciousness of the flight of time.

Strange conjunctions of circumstances, particularly those of a trivial everyday kind, are so frequent in an

ordinary life, that we grow used to their unaccountableness, and forget the question whether the very long

odds against such juxtaposition is not almost a disproof of it being a matter of chance at all. What occurred to

Elfride at this moment was a case in point. She was vividly imagining, for the twentieth time, the kiss of the

morning, and putting her lips together in the position another such a one would demand, when she heard the

Her face flushed and she looked out, but to no purpose. The dark rim of the upland drew a keen sad line

against the pale glow of the sky, unbroken except where a young cedar on the lawn, that had outgrown its

fellow trees, shot its pointed head across the horizon, piercing the firmamental lustre like a sting.

It was just possible that, had any persons been standing on the grassy portions of the lawn, Elfride might have

seen their dusky forms. But the shrubs, which once had merely dotted the glade, had now grown bushy and

large, till they hid at least half the enclosure containing them. The kissing pair might have been behind some

Had no enigma ever been connected with her lover by his hints and absences, Elfride would never have

thought of admitting into her mind a suspicion that he might be concerned in the foregoing enactment. But

the reservations he at present insisted on, while they added to the mystery without which perhaps she would

never have seriously loved him at all, were calculated to nourish doubts of all kinds, and with a slow flush of

Elfride glided downstairs on tiptoe, and out to the precise spot on which she had parted from Stephen to

enable him to speak privately to her father. Thence she wandered into all the nooks around the place from

which the sound seemed to proceedamong the huge laurestines, about the tufts of pampas grasses, amid the

variegated hollies, under the weeping wychelmnobody was there. Returning indoors she called 'Unity!'

'She is gone to her aunt's, to spend the evening,' said Mr. Swancourt, thrusting his head out of his study door,

and letting the light of his candles stream upon Elfride's faceless revealing than, as it seemed to herself,

'I didn't know you were indoors, papa,' she said with surprise. 'Surely no light was shining from the window

when I was on the lawn?' and she looked and saw that the shutters were still open.

'Oh yes, I am in,' he said indifferently. 'What did you want Unity for? I think she laid supper before she went

Elfride scarcely knew, now that a definite reason was required, what that reason was. Her mind for a moment

strayed to another subject, unimportant as it seemed. The red ember of a match was lying inside the fender,

which explained that why she had seen no rays from the window was because the candles had only just been

'I'll come directly,' said the vicar. 'I thought you were out somewhere with Mr. Smith.'

Even the inexperienced Elfride could not help thinking that her father must be wonderfully blind if he failed

to perceive what was the nascent consequence of herself and Stephen being so unceremoniously left together;

wonderfully careless, if he saw it and did not think about it; wonderfully good, if, as seemed to her by far the

most probable supposition, he saw it and thought about it and approved of it. These reflections were cut short

by the appearance of Stephen just outside the porch, silvered about the head and shoulders with touches of

'Has your trouble anything to do with a kiss on the lawn?' she asked abruptly, almost passionately.

'I didn't comprehend your meaning, nor do I now exactly. I certainly have kissed nobody on the lawn, if that

'Don't press me to tell; it is nothing of importance. And, Stephen, you have not yet spoken to papa about our

'No,' he said regretfully, 'I could not find him directly; and then I went on thinking so much of what you said

about objections, refusalsbitter words possiblyending our happiness, that I resolved to put it off till

'Yes; but it would be improper to be silent too long, I think,' she said in a delicate voice, which implied that

her face had grown warm. 'I want him to know we love, Stephen. Why did you adopt as your own my thought

'I will explain; but I want to tell you of my secret firstto tell you now. It is two or three hours yet to

Elfride passively assented, and they went from the lawn by a side wicket, and ascended into the open expanse

of moonlight which streamed around the lonely edifice on the summit of the hill.

The door was locked. They turned from the porch, and walked hand in hand to find a restingplace in the

churchyard. Stephen chose a flat tomb, showing itself to be newer and whiter than those around it, and sitting

'O Stephen, what makes you repeat that so continually and so sadly? You know I will. Yes, indeed,' she said,

drawing closer, 'whatever may be said of youand nothing bad can beI will cling to you just the same.

'Did you ever think what my parents might be, or what society I originally moved in?'

'No, not particularly. I have observed one or two little points in your manners which are rather quaintno

'Only to those! Well, I love you just as much, Stephen, dear Stephen,' she murmured tenderly, 'I do indeed.

And why should you tell me these things so impressively? What do they matter to me?'

'Verythe best mother in the world. Her people had been wellto do yeomen for centuries, but she was

'She continued to attend to a dairy long after my father married her,' pursued Stephen, without further

hesitation. 'And I remember very well how, when I was very young, I used to go to the milking, look on at the

skimming, sleep through the churning, and make believe I helped her. Ah, that was a happy time enough!'

'I don't see how happiness could be where the drudgery of dairy work had to be done for a livingthe

hands red and chapped, and the shoes clogged....Stephen, I do own that it seems odd to regard you in the light

ofofhaving been so rough in your youth, and done menial things of that kind.' (Stephen withdrew an

inch or two from her side.) 'But I DO LOVE YOU just the same,' she continued, getting closer under his

shoulder again, 'and I don't care anything about the past; and I see that you are all the worthier for having

'Yes, and properly so. Now, Elfride, you see the reason of his teaching me by letter. I knew him years before

he went to Oxford, but I had not got far enough in my reading for him to entertain the idea of helping me in

classics till he left home. Then I was sent away from the village, and we very seldom met; but he kept up this

system of tuition by correspondence with the greatest regularity. I will tell you all the story, but not now.

There is nothing more to say now, beyond giving places, persons, and dates.' His voice became timidly slow

'No; don't take trouble to say more. You are a dear honest fellow to say so much as you have; and it is not so

dreadful either. It has become a normal thing that millionaires commence by going up to London with their

tools at their back, and halfacrown in their pockets. That sort of origin is getting so respected,' she

continued cheerfully, 'that it is acquiring some of the odour of Norman ancestry.'

'Ah, if I had MADE my fortune, I shouldn't mind. But I am only a possible maker of it as yet.'

'I thought I was doing wrong in letting you love me without telling you my story; and yet I feared to do so,

'How plain everything about you seems after this explanation! Your peculiarities in chessplaying, the

pronunciation papa noticed in your Latin, your odd mixture of bookknowledge with ignorance of ordinary

social accomplishments, are accounted for in a moment. And has this anything to do with what I saw at Lord

'I saw the shadow of yourself putting a cloak round a lady. I was at the side door; you two were in a room

'Your mother THERE!' She withdrew herself to look at him silently in her interest.

'Elfride,' said Stephen, 'I was going to tell you the remainder tomorrowI have been keeping it backI

must tell it now, after all. The remainder of my revelation refers to where my parents are. Where do you think

'Yes. My father is John Smith, Lord Luxellian's mastermason, who lives under the park wall by the river.'

'He builtor assisted at the building of the house you live in, years ago. He put up those stone gate piers at

the lodge entrance to Lord Luxellian's park. My grandfather planted the trees that belt in your lawn; my

grandmotherwho worked in the fields with himheld each tree upright whilst he filled in the earth: they

told me so when I was a child. He was the sexton, too, and dug many of the graves around us.'

'And was your unaccountable vanishing on the first morning of your arrival, and again this afternoon, a run to

see your father and mother?...I understand now; no wonder you seemed to know your way about the village!'

'No wonder. But remember, I have not lived here since I was nine years old. I then went to live with my

uncle, a blacksmith, near Exonbury, in order to be able to attend a national school as a day scholar; there was

none on this remote coast then. It was there I met with my friend Knight. And when I was fifteen and had

been fairly educated by the schoolmasterand more particularly by KnightI was put as a pupil in an

architect's office in that town, because I was skilful in the use of the pencil. A full premium was paid by the

efforts of my mother and father, rather against the wishes of Lord Luxellian, who likes my father, however,

and thinks a great deal of him. There I stayed till six months ago, when I obtained a situation as improver, as

'To think YOU, the London visitor, the town man, should have been born here, and have known this village

so many years before I did. How strangehow very strange it seems to me!' she murmured.

'My mother curtseyed to you and your father last Sunday,' said Stephen, with a pained smile at the thought of

the incongruity. 'And your papa said to her, "I am glad to see you so regular at church, JANE."'

'I remember it, but I have never spoken to her. We have only been here eighteen months, and the parish is so

'Contrast with this,' said Stephen, with a miserable laugh, 'your father's belief in my "blue blood," which is

still prevalent in his mind. The first night I came, he insisted upon proving my descent from one of the most

ancient westcounty families, on account of my second Christian name; when the truth is, it was given me

because my grandfather was assistant gardener in the FitzmauriceSmith family for thirty years. Having seen

your face, my darling, I had not heart to contradict him, and tell him what would have cut me off from a

She sighed deeply. 'Yes, I see now how this inequality may be made to trouble us,' she murmured, and

continued in a low, sad whisper, 'I wouldn't have minded if they had lived far away. Papa might have

consented to an engagement between us if your connection had been with villagers a hundred miles off;

remoteness softens family contrasts. But he will not likeO Stephen, Stephen! what can I do?'

'Do?' he said tentatively, yet with heaviness. 'Give me up; let me go back to London, and think no more of

'No, no; I cannot give you up! This hopelessness in our affairs makes me care more for you....I see what did

not strike me at first. Stephen, why do we trouble? Why should papa object? An architect in London is an

architect in London. Who inquires there? Nobody. We shall live there, shall we not? Why need we be so

'And Elfie,' said Stephen, his hopes kindling with hers, 'Knight thinks nothing of my being only a cottager's

son; he says I am as worthy of his friendship as if I were a lord's; and if I am worthy of his friendship, I am

'I not only have never loved anybody but you,' she said, instead of giving an answer, 'but I have not even

formed a strong friendship, such as you have for Knight. I wish you hadn't. It diminishes me.'

'Now, Elfride, you know better,' he said wooingly. 'And had you really never any sweetheart at all?'

'I believe he did. But I didn't see anything in him. He was not good enough, even if I had loved him.'

'Elfie,' said the young man, standing up and looking at the tomb, 'how odd and sad that revelation seems! It

'Never by look, word, or sign,' she said solemnly. 'He died of consumption, and was buried the day you first

'Let us go away. I don't like standing by HIM, even if you never loved him. He was BEFORE me.'

'Worries make you unreasonable,' she half pouted, following Stephen at the distance of a few steps. 'Perhaps I

Oppressed, in spite of themselves, by a foresight of impending complications, Elfride and Stephen returned

down the hill hand in hand. At the door they paused wistfully, like children late at school.

Women accept their destiny more readily than men. Elfride had now resigned herself to the overwhelming

idea of her lover's sorry antecedents; Stephen had not forgotten the trifling grievance that Elfride had known

'Stephen, I love only you,' she tremulously whispered. He pressed her fingers, and the trifling shadow passed

The study appeared to be the only room lighted up. They entered, each with a demeanour intended to conceal

the inconcealable fact that reciprocal love was their dominant chord. Elfride perceived a man, sitting with his

back towards herself, talking to her father. She would have retired, but Mr. Swancourt had seen her.

'Come in,' he said; 'it is only Martin Cannister, come for a copy of the register for poor Mrs. Jethway.'

Martin Cannister, the sexton, was rather a favourite with Elfride. He used to absorb her attention by telling

her of his strange experiences in digging up after long years the bodies of persons he had known, and

recognizing them by some little sign (though in reality he had never recognized any). He had shrewd small

eyes and a great wealth of double chin, which compensated in some measure for considerable poverty of

The appearance of a slip of paper in Cannister's hand, and a few shillings lying on the table in front of him,

denoted that the business had been transacted, and the tenor of their conversation went to show that a

summary of village news was now engaging the attention of parishioner and parson.

Mr. Cannister stood up and touched his forehead over his eye with his finger, in respectful salutation of

Elfride, gave half as much salute to Stephen (whom he, in common with other villagers, had never for a

'The pile 'twas. So, as I was saying, Nat was driving the pile in this manner, as I might say.' Here Mr.

Cannister held his walking stick scrupulously vertical with his left hand, and struck a blow with great force

on the knob of the stick with his right. 'John was steadying the pile so, as I might say.' Here he gave the stick

a slight shake, and looked firmly in the various eyes around to see that before proceeding further his listeners

well grasped the subject at that stage. 'Well, when Nat had struck some halfdozen blows more upon the pile,

'a stopped for a second or two. John, thinking he had done striking, put his hand upon the top o' the pile to gie

en a pull, and see if 'a were firm in the ground.' Mr. Cannister spread his hand over the top of the stick,

completely covering it with his palm. 'Well, so to speak, Nat hadn't maned to stop striking, and when John

'The beetle was already coming down, you see, sir. Nat just caught sight of his hand, but couldn't stop the

blow in time. Down came the beetle upon poor John Smith's hand, and squashed en to a pummy.'

'Dear me, dear me! poor fellow!' said the vicar, with an intonation like the groans of the wounded in a

'I have heard,' said Mr. Swancourt, not noticing Stephen, 'that he has a son in London, a very promising

'A beetle couldn't hurt very little. Well, sir, goodnight t'ye; and ye, sir; and you, miss, I'm sure.'

Mr. Cannister had been making unnoticeable motions of withdrawal, and by the time this farewell remark

came from his lips he was just outside the door of the room. He tramped along the hall, stayed more than a

minute endeavouring to close the door properly, and then was lost to their hearing.

A surplus tinge of redness rose from Mr. Swancourt's neck, and came round over his face, the lines of his

features became more firmly defined, and his lips seemed to get thinner. It was evident that a series of little

circumstances, hitherto unheeded, were now fitting themselves together, and forming a lucid picture in Mr.

Swancourt's mind in such a manner as to render useless further explanation on Stephen's part.

This being a word which depends entirely upon its tone for its meaning, Mr. Swancourt's enunciation was

'I have to go now,' said Stephen, with an agitated bearing, and a movement as if he scarcely knew whether he

ought to run off or stay longer. 'On my return, sir, will you kindly grant me a few minutes' private

'Certainly. Though antecedently it does not seem possible that there can be anything of the nature of private

Mr. Swancourt put on his straw hat, crossed the drawingroom, into which the moonlight was shining, and

stepped out of the French window into the verandah. It required no further effort to perceive what, indeed,

reasoning might have foretold as the natural colour of a mind whose pleasures were taken amid genealogies,

good dinners, and patrician reminiscences, that Mr. Swancourt's prejudices were too strong for his generosity,

and that Stephen's moments as his friend and equal were numbered, or had even now ceased.

Stephen moved forward as if he would follow the vicar, then as if he would not, and in absolute perplexity

whither to turn himself, went awkwardly to the door. Elfride followed lingeringly behind him. Before he had

receded two yards from the doorstep, Unity and Ann the housemaid came home from their visit to the village.

'Have you heard anything about John Smith? The accident is not so bad as was reported, is it?' said Elfride

'He says that, although Nat believes he did not check the beetle as it came down, he must have done so

without knowing itchecked it very considerably too; for the full blow would have knocked his hand

'Elfride, do you forgive me?' said Stephen with a faint smile. 'No man is fair in love;' and he took her fingers

With her head thrown sideways in the Greuze attitude, she looked a tender reproach at his doubt and pressed

his hand. Stephen returned the pressure threefold, then hastily went off to his father's cottage by the wall of

'Elfride, what have you to say to this?' inquired her father, coming up immediately Stephen had retired.

With feminine quickness she grasped at any straw that would enable her to plead his cause. 'He had told me

of it,' she faltered; 'so that it is not a discovery in spite of him. He was just coming in to tell you.'

'COMING to tell! Why hadn't he already told? I object as much, if not more, to his underhand concealment of

this, than I do to the fact itself. It looks very much like his making a fool of me, and of you too. You and he

have been about together, and corresponding together, in a way I don't at all approve ofin a most unseemly

way. You should have known how improper such conduct is. A woman can't be too careful not to be seen

'My fault, of course; my fault. What the deuce could I be thinking of! He, a villager's son; and we,

Swancourts, connections of the Luxellians. We have been coming to nothing for centuries, and now I believe

Elfride began to cry at this very unpropitious aspect of affairs. 'O papa, papa, forgive me and him! We care so

much for one another, papaO, so much! And what he was going to ask you is, if you will allow of an

engagement between us till he is a gentleman as good as you. We are not in a hurry, dear papa; we don't want

in the least to marry now; not until he is richer. Only will you let us be engaged, because I love him so, and

Mr. Swancourt's feelings were a little touched by this appeal, and he was annoyed that such should be the

case. 'Certainly not!' he replied. He pronounced the inhibition lengthily and sonorously, so that the 'not'

'Foh! A fine story. It is not enough that I have been deluded and disgraced by having him here,the son of

one of my village peasants,but now I am to make him my soninlaw! Heavens above us, are you mad,

'You have seen his letters come to me ever since his first visit, papa, and you knew they were a sort

ofloveletters; and since he has been here you have let him be alone with me almost entirely; and you

guessed, you must have guessed, what we were thinking of, and doing, and you didn't stop him. Next to

The vicar parried this commonsense thrust. 'I knowsince you press me soI know I did guess some

childish attachment might arise between you; I own I did not take much trouble to prevent it; but I have not

particularly countenanced it; and, Elfride, how can you expect that I should now? It is impossible; no father

'But he is the same man, papa; the same in every particular; and how can he be less fit for me than he was

'He appeared a young man with welltodo friends, and a little property; but having neither, he is another

'I went by Hewby's introduction. He should have told me. So should the young man himself; of course he

should. I consider it a most dishonourable thing to come into a man's house like a treacherous

'But he was afraid to tell you, and so should I have been. He loved me too well to like to run the risk. And as

to speaking of his friends on his first visit, I don't see why he should have done so at all. He came here on

business: it was no affair of ours who his parents were. And then he knew that if he told you he would never

be asked here, and would perhaps never see me again. And he wanted to see me. Who can blame him for

trying, by any means, to stay near methe girl he loves? All is fair in love. I have heard you say so yourself,

'And any man, on discovering what I have discovered, would also do as I do, and mend my mistake; that is,

get shot of him again, as soon as the laws of hospitality will allow.' But Mr. Swancourt then remembered that

he was a Christian. 'I would not, for the world, seem to turn him out of doors,' he added; 'but I think he will

'He will, because he's a gentleman. See how graceful his manners are,' Elfride went on; though perhaps

Stephen's manners, like the feats of Euryalus, owed their attractiveness in her eyes rather to the attractiveness

'Ay; anybody can be what you call graceful, if he lives a little time in a city, and keeps his eyes open. And he

might have picked up his gentlemanliness by going to the galleries of theatres, and watching stage

drawingroom manners. He reminds me of one of the worst stories I ever heard in my life.'

'If his father and mother had lived in the north or east of England,' gallantly persisted Elfride, though her sobs

began to interrupt her articulation, 'anywhere but hereyouwould have only regardedHIM, and not

THEM! His stationwould havebeen whathis profession makes it,and not fixed byhis father's

humble positionat all; whom he never lives withnow. Though John Smith has saved lots of money, and

is better off than we are, they say, or he couldn't have put his son to such an expensive profession. And it is

'Yes. "Let a beast be lord of beasts, and his crib shall stand at the king's mess."'

'You insult me, papa!' she burst out. 'You do, you do! He is my own Stephen, he is!'

'That may or may not be true, Elfride,' returned her father, again uncomfortably agitated in spite of himself

'You confuse future probabilities with present facts,what the young man may be with what he is. We must

look at what he is, not what an improbable degree of success in his profession may make him. The case is

this: the son of a workingman in my parish who may or may not be able to buy me upa youth who has

not yet advanced so far into life as to have any income of his own deserving the name, and therefore of his

father's degree as regards stationwants to be engaged to you. His family are living in precisely the same

spot in England as yours, so throughout this countywhich is the world to usyou would always be known

as the wife of Jack Smith the mason's son, and not under any circumstances as the wife of a London

professional man. It is the drawback, not the compensating fact, that is talked of always. There, say no more.

Elfride looked silently and hopelessly out of the window with large heavy eyes and wet cheeks.

'I call it great temerityand long to call it audacityin Hewby,' resumed her father. 'I never heard such a

thinggiving such a hobbledehoy native of this place such an introduction to me as he did. Naturally you

were deceived as well as I was. I don't blame you at all, so far.' He went and searched for Mr. Hewby's

original letter. 'Here's what he said to me: "Dear Sir, Agreeably to your request of the 18th instant, I have

arranged to survey and make drawings," et cetera. "My assistant, Mr. Stephen Smith"assistant, you see he

called him, and naturally I understood him to mean a sort of partner. Why didn't he say "clerk"?'

'They never call them clerks in that profession, because they do not write. StephenMr. Smithtold me so.

'Let me speak, please, Elfride! "My assistant, Mr. Stephen Smith, will leave London by the early train

MAY PUT EVERY CONFIDENCE IN HIM, and may rely upon his discernment in the matter of church

architecture." Well, I repeat that Hewby ought to be ashamed of himself for making so much of a poor lad of

'Professional men in London,' Elfride argued, 'don't know anything about their clerks' fathers and mothers.

They have assistants who come to their offices and shops for years, and hardly even know where they live.

What they can dowhat profits they can bring the firmthat's all London men care about. And that is

'Uniform pleasantness is rather a defect than a faculty. It shows that a man hasn't sense enough to know

'It shows that he acts by faith and not by sight, as those you claim succession from directed.'

'That's some more of what he's been telling you, I suppose! Yes, I was inclined to suspect him, because he

didn't care about sauces of any kind. I always did doubt a man's being a gentleman if his palate had no

acquired tastes. An unedified palate is the irrepressible cloven foot of the upstart. The idea of my bringing out

a bottle of my '40 Martinezonly eleven of them left nowto a man who didn't know it from

eighteenpenny! Then the Latin line he gave to my quotation; it was very cutanddried, very; or I, who

haven't looked into a classical author for the last eighteen years, shouldn't have remembered it. Well, Elfride,

you had better go to your room; you'll get over this bit of tomfoolery in time.'

'No, no, no, papa,' she moaned. For of all the miseries attaching to miserable love, the worst is the misery of

'Elfride,' said her father with rough friendliness, 'I have an excellent scheme on hand, which I cannot tell you

of now. A scheme to benefit you and me. It has been thrust upon me for some little timeyes, thrust upon

mebut I didn't dream of its value till this afternoon, when the revelation came. I should be most unwise to

'I don't like that word,' she returned wearily. 'You have lost so much already by schemes. Is it those wretched

'Nor railways. It is like those mysterious offers we see advertised, by which any gentleman with no brains at

all may make so much a week without risk, trouble, or soiling his fingers. However, I am intending to say

nothing till it is settled, though I will just say this much, that you soon may have other fish to fry than to think

of Stephen Smith. Remember, I wish, not to be angry, but friendly, to the young man; for your sake I'll regard

him as a friend in a certain sense. But this is enough; in a few days you will be quite my way of thinking.

There, now, go to your bedroom. Unity shall bring you up some supper. I wish you not to be here when he

Stephen retraced his steps towards the cottage he had visited only two or three hours previously. He drew

near and under the rich foliage growing about the outskirts of Endelstow Park, the spotty lights and shades

from the shining moon maintaining a race over his head and down his back in an endless gambol. When he

crossed the plank bridge and entered the gardengate, he saw an illuminated figure coming from the enclosed

plot towards the house on the other side. It was his father, with his hand in a sling, taking a general moonlight

view of the garden, and particularly of a plot of the youngest of young turnips, previous to closing the cottage

He saluted his son with customary force. 'Hallo, Stephen! We should ha' been in bed in another ten minutes.

The doctor had come and gone, and the hand had been pronounced as injured but slightly, though it might

possibly have been considered a far more serious case if Mr. Smith had been a more important man.

Stephen's anxious inquiry drew from his father words of regret at the inconvenience to the world of his doing

nothing for the next two days, rather than of concern for the pain of the accident. Together they entered the

John Smithbrown as autumn as to skin, white as winter as to clotheswas a satisfactory specimen of the

village artificer in stone. In common with most rural mechanics, he had too much individuality to be a typical

'workingman'a resultant of that beachpebble attrition with his kind only to be experienced in large

There was not the speciality in his labour which distinguishes the handicraftsmen of towns. Though only a

mason, strictly speaking, he was not above handling a brick, if bricks were the order of the day; or a slate or

tile, if a roof had to be covered before the wet weather set in, and nobody was near who could do it better.

Indeed, on one or two occasions in the depth of winter, when frost peremptorily forbids all use of the trowel,

making foundations to settle, stones to fly, and mortar to crumble, he had taken to felling and sawing trees.

Moreover, he had practised gardening in his own plot for so many years that, on an emergency, he might

Probably our countryman was not such an accomplished artificer in a particular direction as his town brethren

in the trades. But he was, in truth, like that clumsy pinmaker who made the whole pin, and who was

despised by Adam Smith on that account and respected by Macaulay, much more the artist nevertheless.

Appearing now, indoors, by the light of the candle, his stalwart healthiness was a sight to see. His beard was

close and knotted as that of a chiselled Hercules; his shirt sleeves were partly rolled up, his waistcoat

unbuttoned; the difference in hue between the snowy linen and the ruddy arms and face contrasting like the

white of an egg and its yolk. Mrs. Smith, on hearing them enter, advanced from the pantry.

Mrs. Smith was a matron whose countenance addressed itself to the mind rather than to the eye, though not

exclusively. She retained her personal freshness even now, in the prosy afternoontime of her life; but what

her features were primarily indicative of was a sound common sense behind them; as a whole, appearing to

The details of the accident were then rehearsed by Stephen's father, in the dramatic manner also common to

Martin Cannister, other individuals of the neighbourhood, and the rural world generally. Mrs. Smith threw in

her sentiments between the acts, as Coryphaeus of the tragedy, to make the description complete. The story at

last came to an end, as the longest will, and Stephen directed the conversation into another channel.

'I blame myselfI never shall forgive myselffor not telling them before,' continued the young man.

Mrs. Smith at this point abstracted her mind from the former subject. 'I don't see what you have to grieve

about, Stephen,' she said. 'People who accidentally get friends don't, as a first stroke, tell the history of their

'No; but I should have spoken sooner. There's more in this visit of mine than you thinka good deal more.'

'Not more than I think,' Mrs. Smith replied, looking contemplatively at him. Stephen blushed; and his father

'She's a pretty piece enough,' Mrs. Smith continued, 'and very ladylike and clever too. But though she's very

well fit for you as far as that is, why, mercy 'pon me, what ever do you want any woman at all for yet?'

John made his naturally short mouth a long one, and wrinkled his forehead, 'That's the way the wind d'blow,

'Mother,' exclaimed Stephen, 'how absurdly you speak! Criticizing whether she's fit for me or no, as if there

were room for doubt on the matter! Why, to marry her would be the great blessing of my lifesocially and

practically, as well as in other respects. No such good fortune as that, I'm afraid; she's too far above me. Her

'Then if they don't want you, I'd see them dead corpses before I'd want them, and go to better families who do

'Ah, yes; but I could never put up with the distaste of being welcomed among such people as you mean,

'What crazy twist o' thinking will enter your head next?' said his mother. 'And come to that, she's not a bit too

high for you, or you too low for her. See how careful I be to keep myself up. I'm sure I never stop for more

than a minute together to talk to any journeymen people; and I never invite anybody to our party o'

Christmases who are not in business for themselves. And I talk to several toppermost carriage people that

come to my lord's without saying ma'am or sir to 'em, and they take it as quiet as lambs.'

'But it was before he called me by my Christian name, or he would have got very little curtseying from me!'

said Mrs. Smith, bridling and sparkling with vexation. 'You go on at me, Stephen, as if I were your worst

enemy! What else could I do with the man to get rid of him, banging it into me and your father by side and by

seam, about his greatness, and what happened when he was a young fellow at college, and I don't know

whatall; the tongue o' en flopping round his mouth like a moprag round a dairy. That 'a did, didn't he,

'Every woman nowadays,' resumed Mrs. Smith, 'if she marry at all, must expect a fatherinlaw of a rank

lower than her father. The men have gone up so, and the women have stood still. Every man you meet is

'And I really must say again that you ought not to be in such a hurry, and wait for a few years. You might go

'The fact is, mother,' said Stephen impatiently, 'you don't know anything about it. I shall never go higher,

because I don't want to, nor should I if I lived to be a hundred. As to you saying that she's after me, I don't

like such a remark about her, for it implies a scheming woman, and a man worth scheming for, both of which

are not only untrue, but ludicrously untrue, of this case. Isn't it so, father?'

'I'm afraid I don't understand the matter well enough to gie my opinion,' said his father, in the tone of the fox

'She couldn't have been very backward anyhow, considering the short time you have known her,' said his

mother. 'Well I think that five years hence you'll be plenty young enough to think of such things. And really

she can very well afford to wait, and will too, take my word. Living down in an outstep place like this, I am

sure she ought to be very thankful that you took notice of her. She'd most likely have died an old maid if you

'A nice little thing she is,' Mrs. Smith went on in a more complacent tone now that Stephen had been talked

down; 'there's not a word to say against her, I'll own. I see her sometimes decked out like a horse going to

fair, and I admire her for't. A perfect little lady. But people can't help their thoughts, and if she'd learnt to

make figures instead of letters when she was at school 'twould have been better for her pocket; for as I said,

'But I will!' said his mother with asperity. 'I don't read the papers for nothing, and I know men all move up a

stage by marriage. Men of her class, that is, parsons, marry squires' daughters; squires marry lords' daughters;

lords marry dukes' daughters; dukes marry queens' daughters. All stages of gentlemen mate a stage higher;

and the lowest stage of gentlewomen are left single, or marry out of their class.'

'But you said just now, dear mother' retorted Stephen, unable to resist the temptation of showing his

Stephen, regretting that he had begun, since a volcano might be the consequence, was obliged to go on.

'Yes, there, there! That's you; that's my own flesh and blood. I'll warrant that you'll pick holes in everything

your mother says, if you can, Stephen. You are just like your father for that; take anybody's part but mine.

Whilst I am speaking and talking and trying and slaving away for your good, you are waiting to catch me out

in that way. So you are in her class, but 'tis what HER people would CALL marrying out of her class. Don't

Stephen preserved a discreet silence, in which he was imitated by his father, and for several minutes nothing

'I'm sure,' added Mrs. Smith in a more philosophic tone, and as a terminative speech, 'if there'd been so much

trouble to get a husband in my time as there is in these dayswhen you must make a godalmighty of a man

to get en to hae yeI'd have trod clay for bricks before I'd ever have lowered my dignity to marry, or there's

The discussion now dropped, and as it was getting late, Stephen bade his parents farewell for the evening, his

mother none the less warmly for their sparring; for although Mrs. Smith and Stephen were always

'And possibly,' said Stephen, 'I may leave here altogether to morrow; I don't know. So that if I shouldn't call

'But didn't you come for a fortnight?' said his mother. 'And haven't you a month's holiday altogether? They

'Not at all. I may stay longer; I may go. If I go, you had better say nothing about my having been here, for her

And then he left them. His thoughts were, that should the vicar permit him to become engaged, to hope for an

engagement, or in any way to think of his beloved Elfride, he might stay longer. Should he be forbidden to

think of any such thing, he resolved to go at once. And the latter, even to young hopefulness, seemed the

Stephen walked back to the vicarage through the meadows, as he had come, surrounded by the soft musical

purl of the water through little weirs, the modest light of the moon, the freshening smell of the dews

outspread around. It was a time when mere seeing is meditation, and meditation peace. Stephen was hardly

philosopher enough to avail himself of Nature's offer. His constitution was made up of very simple

particulars; was one which, rare in the springtime of civilizations, seems to grow abundant as a nation gets

older, individuality fades, and education spreads; that is, his brain had extraordinary receptive powers, and no

great creativeness. Quickly acquiring any kind of knowledge he saw around him, and having a plastic

adaptability more common in woman than in man, he changed colour like a chameleon as the society he

found himself in assumed a higher and more artificial tone. He had not many original ideas, and yet there was

scarcely an idea to which, under proper training, he could not have added a respectable coordinate.

He saw nothing outside himself tonight; and what he saw within was a weariness to his flesh. Yet to a

dispassionate observer, his pretensions to Elfride, though rather premature, were far from absurd as marriages

go, unless the accidental proximity of simple but honest parents could be said to make them so.

The clock struck eleven when he entered the house. Elfride had been waiting with scarcely a movement since

he departed. Before he had spoken to her she caught sight of him passing into the study with her father. She

A nervous headache had been growing on the excitable girl during the absence of Stephen, and now she could

do nothing beyond going up again to her room as she had done before. Instead of lying down she sat again in

the darkness without closing the door, and listened with a beating heart to every sound from downstairs. The

servants had gone to bed. She ultimately heard the two men come from the study and cross to the

diningroom, where supper had been lingering for more than an hour. The door was left open, and she found

that the meal, such as it was, passed off between her father and her lover without any remark, save

commonplaces as to cucumbers and melons, their wholesomeness and culture, uttered in a stiff and formal

Shortly afterwards Stephen came upstairs to his bedroom, and was almost immediately followed by her

father, who also retired for the night. Not inclined to get a light, she partly undressed and sat on the bed,

where she remained in pained thought for some time, possibly an hour. Then rising to close her door

previously to fully unrobing, she saw a streak of light shining across the landing. Her father's door was shut,

and he could be heard snoring regularly. The light came from Stephen's room, and the slight sounds also

coming thence emphatically denoted what he was doing. In the perfect silence she could hear the closing of a

lid and the clicking of a lock,he was fastening his hatbox. Then the buckling of straps and the click of

another key,he was securing his portmanteau. With trebled foreboding she opened her door softly, and

went towards his. One sensation pervaded her to distraction. Stephen, her handsome youth and darling, was

going away, and she might never see him again except in secret and in sadnessperhaps never more. At any

rate, she could no longer wait till the morning to hear the result of the interview, as she had intended. She

flung her dressinggown round her, tapped lightly at his door, and whispered 'Stephen!' He came instantly,

He replied in a disturbed whisper, and a tear approached its outlet, though none fell.

'I am not to think of such a preposterous thingthat's what he said. And I am going tomorrow. I should

'Oh, don't, don't go! Do come and let us talk. Let us come down to the drawingroom for a few minutes; he

She preceded him down the staircase with the taper light in her hand, looking unnaturally tall and thin in the

long dovecoloured dressinggown she wore. She did not stop to think of the propriety or otherwise of this

midnight interview under such circumstances. She thought that the tragedy of her life was beginning, and, for

the first time almost, felt that her existence might have a grave side, the shade of which enveloped and

rendered invisible the delicate gradations of custom and punctilio. Elfride softly opened the drawingroom

door and they both went in. When she had placed the candle on the table, he enclosed her with his arms, dried

'Papa will never hear of itnevernever! You don't know him. I do. He is either biassed in favour of a

'No; I won't think of him so,' said Stephen. 'If I appear before him some time hence as a man of established

'No, he is not wicked. But you say "some time hence," as if it were no time. To you, among bustle and

excitement, it will be comparatively a short time, perhaps; oh, to me, it will be its real length trebled! Every

summer will be a yearautumn a year winter a year! O Stephen! and you may forget me!'

Forget: that was, and is, the real sting of waiting to fond hearted woman. The remark awoke in Stephen the

converse fear. 'You, too, may be persuaded to give me up, when time has made me fainter in your memory.

For, remember, your love for me must be nourished in secret; there will be no long visits from me to support

'Stephen,' she said, filled with her own misgivings, and unheeding his last words, 'there are beautiful women

where you liveof course I know there areand they may win you away from me.' Her tears came visibly

as she drew a mental picture of his faithlessness. 'And it won't be your fault,' she continued, looking into the

candle with doleful eyes. 'No! You will think that our family don't want you, and get to include me with

them. And there will be a vacancy in your heart, and some others will be let in.'

'Oh yes, they will,' she replied. 'And you will look at them, not caring at first, and then you will look and be

interested, and after a while you will think, "Ah, they know all about city life, and assemblies, and coteries,

and the manners of the titled, and poor little Elfie, with all the fuss that's made about her having me, doesn't

know about anything but a little house and a few cliffs and a space of sea, far away." And then you'll be more

interested in them, and they'll make you have them instead of me, on purpose to be cruel to me because I am

Her impulsive words had power to impress him at any rate with the recognition of the uncertainty of all that

is not accomplished. And, worse than that general feeling, there of course remained the sadness which arose

from the special features of his own case. However remote a desired issue may be, the mere fact of having

entered the groove which leads to it, cheers to some extent with a sense of accomplishment. Had Mr.

Swancourt consented to an engagement of no less length than ten years, Stephen would have been

comparatively cheerful in waiting; they would have felt that they were somewhere on the road to Cupid's

garden. But, with a possibility of a shorter probation, they had not as yet any prospect of the beginning; the

zero of hope had yet to be reached. Mr. Swancourt would have to revoke his formidable words before the

'So do I,' said she also, as if regarding an idle dream. ''Tis the only thing that ever does sweethearts good!'

'Yes, secretly would do; secretly would indeed be best,' she said, and went on reflectively: 'All we want is to

render it absolutely impossible for any future circumstance to upset our future intention of being happy

'Exactly,' he murmured in a voice and manner the counterpart of hers. 'To marry and part secretly, and live on

as we are living now; merely to put it out of anybody's power to force you away from me, dearest.'

'Or me from you. It is possible to conceive a force of circumstance strong enough to make any woman in the

world marry against her will: no conceivable pressure, up to torture or starvation, can make a woman once

Now up to this point the idea of an immediate secret marriage had been held by both as an untenable

hypothesis, wherewith simply to beguile a miserable moment. During a pause which followed Stephen's last

remark, a fascinating perception, then an alluring conviction, flashed along the brain of both. The perception

was that an immediate marriage COULD be contrived; the conviction that such an act, in spite of its daring,

its fathomless results, its deceptiveness, would be preferred by each to the life they must lead under any other

The youth spoke first, and his voice trembled with the magnitude of the conception he was cherishing. 'How

strong we should feel, Elfride! going on our separate courses as before, without the fear of ultimate

It is certain that the young girl's love for Stephen received a fanning from her father's opposition which made

it blaze with a dozen times the intensity it would have exhibited if left alone. Never were conditions more

favourable for developing a girl's first passing fancy for a handsome boyish facea fancy rooted in

inexperience and nourished by seclusioninto a wild unreflecting passion fervid enough for anything. All

the elements of such a development were there, the chief one being hopelessnessa necessary ingredient

always to perfect the mixture of feelings united under the name of loving to distraction.

'We would tell papa soon, would we not?' she inquired timidly. 'Nobody else need know. He would then be

convinced that hearts cannot be played with; love encouraged be ready to grow, love discouraged be ready to

die, at a moment's notice. Stephen, do you not think that if marriages against a parent's consent are ever

justifiable, they are when young people have been favoured up to a point, as we have, and then have had that

'Yes. It is not as if we had from the beginning acted in opposition to your papa's wishes. Only think, Elfie,

how pleasant he was towards me but six hours ago! He liked me, praised me, never objected to my being

'I believe he MUST like you now,' she cried. 'And if he found that you irremediably belonged to me, he

would own it and help you. 'O Stephen, Stephen,' she burst out again, as the remembrance of his packing

came afresh to her mind, 'I cannot bear your going away like this! It is too dreadful. All I have been expecting

Stephen flushed hot with impulse. 'I will not be a doubt to you thought of you shall not be a misery to me!'

'I did not like to propose it immediately,' continued Stephen. 'It seemed to meit seems to me nowlike

'Not that, indeed! And am I better in worldly station? What's the use of have beens? We may have been

Then they whispered long and earnestly together; Stephen hesitatingly proposing this and that plan, Elfride

modifying them, with quick breathings, and hectic flush, and unnaturally bright eyes. It was two o'clock

She then told him to leave her, giving him his light to go up to his own room. They parted with an agreement

not to meet again in the morning. After his door had been some time closed he heard her softly gliding into

Stephen lay watching the Great Bear; Elfride was regarding a monotonous parallelogram of window blind.

Early the next morningthat is to say, four hours after their stolen interview, and just as the earliest servant

was heard moving aboutStephen Smith went downstairs, portmanteau in hand. Throughout the night he

had intended to see Mr. Swancourt again, but the sharp rebuff of the previous evening rendered such an

interview particularly distasteful. Perhaps there was another and less honest reason. He decided to put it off.

Whatever of moral timidity or obliquity may have lain in such a decision, no perception of it was strong

enough to detain him. He wrote a note in his room, which stated simply that he did not feel happy in the

house after Mr. Swancourt's sudden veto on what he had favoured a few hours before; but that he hoped a

time would come, and that soon, when his original feelings of pleasure as Mr. Swancourt's guest might be

He expected to find the downstairs rooms wearing the gray and cheerless aspect that early morning gives to

everything out of the sun. He found in the dining room a breakfast laid, of which somebody had just partaken.

Stephen gave the maidservant his note of adieu. She stated that Mr. Swancourt had risen early that morning,

Stephen took a cup of coffee, left the house of his love, and turned into the lane. It was so early that the

shaded places still smelt like night time, and the sunny spots had hardly felt the sun. The horizontal rays

made every shallow dip in the ground to show as a wellmarked hollow. Even the channel of the path was

enough to throw shade, and the very stones of the road cast tapering dashes of darkness westward, as long as

At a spot not more than a hundred yards from the vicar's residence the lane leading thence crossed the high

road. Stephen reached the point of intersection, stood still and listened. Nothing could be heard save the

lengthy, murmuring line of the sea upon the adjacent shore. He looked at his watch, and then mounted a gate

upon which he seated himself, to await the arrival of the carrier. Whilst he sat he heard wheels coming in two

The vehicle approaching on his right he soon recognized as the carrier's. There were the accompanying

sounds of the owner's voice and the smack of his whip, distinct in the still morning air, by which he

The other set of wheels sounded from the lane Stephen had just traversed. On closer observation, he

perceived that they were moving from the precincts of the ancient manorhouse adjoining the vicarage

grounds. A carriage then left the entrance gates of the house, and wheeling round came fully in sight. It was a

plain travelling carriage, with a small quantity of luggage, apparently a lady's. The vehicle came to the

junction of the four ways half aminute before the carrier reached the same spot, and crossed directly in his

Inside the carriage Stephen could just discern an elderly lady with a younger woman, who seemed to be her

maid. The road they had taken led to Stratleigh, a small wateringplace sixteen miles north.

He heard the manorhouse gates swing again, and looking up saw another person leaving them, and walking

off in the direction of the parsonage. 'Ah, how much I wish I were moving that way!' felt he parenthetically.

The gentleman was tall, and resembled Mr. Swancourt in outline and attire. He opened the vicarage gate and

went in. Mr. Swancourt, then, it certainly was. Instead of remaining in bed that morning Mr. Swancourt must

have taken it into his head to see his new neighbour off on a journey. He must have been greatly interested in

The carrier's conveyance had pulled up, and Stephen now handed in his portmanteau and mounted the shafts.

'Who is that lady in the carriage?' he inquired indifferently of Lickpan the carrier.

'That, sir, is Mrs. Troyton, a widder wi' a mint o' money. She's the owner of all that part of Endelstow that is

not Lord Luxellian's. Only been here a short time; she came into it by law. The owner formerly was a terrible

mysterious partynever lived herehardly ever was seen here except in the month of September, as I might

The horses were started again, and noise rendered further discourse a matter of too great exertion. Stephen

Three hours and a half of straining up hills and jogging down brought them to St. Launce's, the market town

and railway station nearest to Endelstow, and the place from which Stephen Smith had journeyed over the

downs on the, to him, memorable winter evening at the beginning of the same year. The carrier's van was so

timed as to meet a starting uptrain, which Stephen entered. Two or three hours' railway travel through

vertical cuttings in metamorphic rock, through oak copses rich and green, stretching over slopes and down

delightful valleys, glens, and ravines, sparkling with water like manyrilled Ida, and he plunged amid the

There being some time upon his hands he left his luggage at the cloakroom, and went on foot along Bedford

Street to the nearest church. Here Stephen wandered among the multifarious tombstones and looked in at the

chancel window, dreaming of something that was likely to happen by the altar there in the course of the

coming month. He turned away and ascended the Hoe, viewed the magnificent stretch of sea and massive

promontories of land, but without particularly discerning one feature of the varied perspective. He still saw

that inner prospectthe event he hoped for in yonder church. The wide Sound, the Breakwater, the light

house on faroff Eddystone, the dark steam vessels, brigs, barques, and schooners, either floating stilly, or

gliding with tiniest motion, were as the dream, then; the dreamedof event was as the reality.

Soon Stephen went down from the Hoe, and returned to the railway station. He took his ticket, and entered

That day was an irksome time at Endelstow vicarage. Neither father nor daughter alluded to the departure of

Stephen. Mr. Swancourt's manner towards her partook of the compunctious kindness that arises from a

Either from lack of the capacity to grasp the whole coup d'oeil, or from a natural endowment for certain kinds

of stoicism, women are cooler than men in critical situations of the passive form. Probably, in Elfride's case

at least, it was blindness to the greater contingencies of the future she was preparing for herself, which

enabled her to ask her father in a quiet voice if he could give her a holiday soon, to ride to St. Launce's and go

Now, she had only once before gone alone to Plymouth, and that was in consequence of some unavoidable

difficulty. Being a country girl, and a good, not to say a wild, horsewoman, it had been her delight to canter,

without the ghost of an attendant, over the fourteen or sixteen miles of hard road intervening between their

home and the station at St. Launce's, put up the horse, and go on the remainder of the distance by train,

returning in the same manner in the evening. It was then resolved that, though she had successfully

accomplished this journey once, it was not to be repeated without some attendance.

But Elfride must not be confounded with ordinary young feminine equestrians. The circumstances of her

lonely and narrow life made it imperative that in trotting about the neighbourhood she must trot alone or else

not at all. Usage soon rendered this perfectly natural to herself. Her father, who had had other experiences,

did not much like the idea of a Swancourt, whose pedigree could be as distinctly traced as a thread in a skein

of silk, scampering over the hills like a farmer's daughter, even though he could habitually neglect her. But

what with his not being able to afford her a regular attendant, and his inveterate habit of letting anything be to

save himself trouble, the circumstance grew customary. And so there arose a chronic notion in the villagers'

minds that all ladies rode without an attendant, like Miss Swancourt, except a few who were sometimes

'I don't like your going to Plymouth alone, particularly going to St. Launce's on horseback. Why not drive,

'It is not nice to be so overlooked.' Worm's company would not seriously have interfered with her plans, but it

Only a few days elapsed before she asked again. A letter had reached her from Stephen. It had been timed to

come on that day by special arrangement between them. In it he named the earliest morning on which he

could meet her at Plymouth. Her father had been on a journey to Stratleigh, and returned in unusual buoyancy

of spirit. It was a good opportunity; and since the dismissal of Stephen her father had been generally in a

mood to make small concessions, that he might steer clear of large ones connected with that outcast lover of

'Next Thursday week I am going from home in a different direction,' said her father. 'In fact, I shall leave

home the night before. You might choose the same day, for they wish to take up the carpets, or some such

thing, I think. As I said, I don't like you to be seen in a town on horseback alone; but go if you will.'

Thursday week. Her father had named the very day that Stephen also had named that morning as the earliest

on which it would be of any use to meet her; that was, about fifteen days from the day on which he had left

Endelstow. Fifteen daysthat fragment of duration which has acquired such an interesting individuality

She involuntarily looked at her father so strangely, that on becoming conscious of the look she paled with

There seemed to be a special facility offered her by a power external to herself in the circumstance that Mr.

Swancourt had proposed to leave home the night previous to her wishedfor day. Her father seldom took

long journeys; seldom slept from home except perhaps on the night following a remote Visitation. Well, she

would not inquire too curiously into the reason of the opportunity, nor did he, as would have been natural,

proceed to explain it of his own accord. In matters of fact there had hitherto been no reserve between them,

though they were not usually confidential in its full sense. But the divergence of their emotions on Stephen's

account had produced an estrangement which just at present went even to the extent of reticence on the most

Elfride was almost unconsciously relieved, persuading herself that her father's reserve on his business

justified her in secrecy as regarded her owna secrecy which was necessarily a foregone decision with her.

So anxious is a young conscience to discover a palliative, that the ex post facto nature of a reason is of no

The intervening fortnight was spent by her mostly in walking by herself among the shrubs and trees,

indulging sometimes in sanguine anticipations; more, far more frequently, in misgivings. All her flowers

seemed dull of hue; her pets seemed to look wistfully into her eyes, as if they no longer stood in the same

friendly relation to her as formerly. She wore melancholy jewellery, gazed at sunsets, and talked to old men

and women. It was the first time that she had had an inner and private world apart from the visible one about

her. She wished that her father, instead of neglecting her even more than usual, would make some

advancejust one word; she would then tell all, and risk Stephen's displeasure. Thus brought round to the

youth again, she saw him in her fancy, standing, touching her, his eyes full of sad affection, hopelessly

renouncing his attempt because she had renounced hers; and she could not recede.

On the Wednesday she was to receive another letter. She had resolved to let her father see the arrival of this

one, be the consequences what they might: the dread of losing her lover by this deed of honesty prevented her

acting upon the resolve. Five minutes before the postman's expected arrival she slipped out, and down the

lane to meet him. She met him immediately upon turning a sharp angle, which hid her from view in the

direction of the vicarage. The man smilingly handed one missive, and was going on to hand another, a

'Why, come to this corner, and take a letter of me every morning, all writ in the same handwriting, and letting

No sooner had he turned the corner behind her back than she heard her father meet and address the man. She

had saved her letter by two minutes. Her father audibly went through precisely the same performance as she

Given an impulsive inconsequent girl, neglected as to her inner life by her only parent, and the following

First love acted upon by a deadly fear of separation from its object: inexperience, guiding onward a frantic

wish to prevent the abovenamed issue: misgivings as to propriety, met by hope of ultimate exoneration:

indignation at parental inconsistency in first encouraging, then forbidding: a chilling sense of disobedience,

overpowered by a conscientious inability to brook a breaking of plighted faith with a man who, in essentials,

had remained unaltered from the beginning: a blessed hope that opposition would turn an erroneous

Probably the result would, after all, have been nil, had not the following few remarks been made one day at

Her father was in his old hearty spirits. He smiled to himself at stories too bad to tell, and called Elfride a

little scamp for surreptitiously preserving some blind kittens that ought to have been drowned. After this

If Mr. Smith had been already in the family, you would not have been made wretched by discovering he had

'Do you mean in the family by marriage?' he replied inattentively, and continuing to peel his egg.

The accumulating scarlet told that was her meaning, as much as the affirmative reply.

'So that you would not have been driven into hopeless melancholy, but have made the best of him?'

Elfride's erratic mind had from her youth upwards been constantly in the habit of perplexing her father by

hypothetical questions, based on absurd conditions. The present seemed to be cast so precisely in the mould

of previous ones that, not being given to syntheses of circumstances, he answered it with customary

'If he were allied to us irretrievably, of course I, or any sensible man, should accept conditions that could not

be altered; certainly not be hopelessly melancholy about it. I don't believe anything in the world would make

Certainly Mr. Swancourt must have been far from thinking that the brightness came from an exhilarating

In the evening he drove away towards Stratleigh, quite alone. It was an unusual course for him. At the door

'I will tell you tomorrow when I come back,' he said cheerily; 'not before then, Elfride. Thou wilt not utter

He went away. His jocularity made her intention seem the lighter, as his indifference made her more resolved

It was a familiar September sunset, darkblue fragments of cloud upon an orangeyellow sky. These sunsets

used to tempt her to walk towards them, as any beautiful thing tempts a near approach. She went through the

field to the privet hedge, clambered into the middle of it, and reclined upon the thick boughs. After looking

westward for a considerable time, she blamed herself for not looking eastward to where Stephen was, and

A peculiarity was observable beneath her. A green field spread itself on each side of the hedge, one belonging

to the glebe, the other being a part of the land attached to the manorhouse adjoining. On the vicarage side

she saw a little footpath, the distinctive and altogether exceptional feature of which consisted in its being only

A footpath, suddenly beginning and suddenly ending, coming from nowhere and leading nowhere, she had

Yes, she had, on second thoughts. She had seen exactly such a path trodden in the front of barracks by the

And this recollection explained the origin of the path here. Her father had trodden it by pacing up and down,

Sitting on the hedge as she sat now, her eyes commanded a view of both sides of it. And a few minutes later,

Here was another sentry path. It was like the first in length, and it began and ended exactly opposite the

Two reasons existed for the difference. This one might have been trodden by a similar weight of tread to the

other, exercised a less number of times; or it might have been walked just as frequently, but by lighter feet.

Probably a gentleman from Scotlandyard, had he been passing at the time, might have considered the latter

alternative as the more probable. Elfride thought otherwise, so far as she thought at all. But her own great

ToMorrow was now imminent; all thoughts inspired by casual sights of the eye were only allowed to

exercise themselves in inferior corners of her brain, previously to being banished altogether.

Elfride was at length compelled to reason practically upon her undertaking. All her definite perceptions

thereon, when the emotion accompanying them was abstracted, amounted to no more than these:

No surprise or sense of unwontedness entered the minds of the servants at her early ride. The monotony of

life we associate with people of small incomes in districts out of the sound of the railway whistle, has one

exception, which puts into shade the experience of dwellers about the great centres of populationthat is, in

travelling. Every journey there is more or less an adventure; adventurous hours are necessarily chosen for the

Elfride never went out on horseback but she brought home somethingsomething found, or something

bought. If she trotted to town or village, her burden was books. If to hills, woods, or the seashore, it was

Once, in muddy weather, when Pansy was walking with her down the street of Castle Boterel, on a fairday,

a packet in front of her and a packet under her arm, an accident befell the packets, and they slipped down. On

one side of her, three volumes of fiction lay kissing the mud; on the other numerous skeins of polychromatic

wools lay absorbing it. Unpleasant women smiled through windows at the mishap, the men all looked round,

and a boy, who was minding a gingerbread stall whilst the owner had gone to get drunk, laughed loudly.

After that misadventure she set her wits to work, and was ingenious enough to invent an arrangement of small

straps about the saddle, by which a great deal could be safely carried thereon, in a small compass. Here she

now spread out and fastened a plain dark walkingdress and a few other trifles of apparel. Worm opened the

One of the brightest mornings of late summer shone upon her. The heather was at its purplest, the furze at its

yellowest, the grasshoppers chirped loud enough for birds, the snakes hissed like little engines, and Elfride at

first felt lively. Sitting at ease upon Pansy, in her orthodox ridinghabit and nondescript hat, she looked what

she felt. But the mercury of those days had a trick of falling unexpectedly. First, only for one minute in ten

had she a sense of depression. Then a large cloud, that had been hanging in the north like a black fleece, came

and placed itself between her and the sun. It helped on what was already inevitable, and she sank into a

She turned in the saddle and looked back. They were now on an open tableland, whose altitude still gave her

During this little revulsion of feeling Pansy had been still advancing, and Elfride felt it would be absurd to

turn her little mare's head the other way. 'Still,' she thought, 'if I had a mamma at home I WOULD go back!'

And making one of those stealthy movements by which women let their hearts juggle with their brains, she

did put the horse's head about, as if unconsciously, and went at a handgallop towards home for more than a

mile. By this time, from the inveterate habit of valuing what we have renounced directly the alternative is

chosen, the thought of her forsaken Stephen recalled her, and she turned about, and cantered on to St.

This miserable strife of thought now began to rage in all its wildness. Overwrought and trembling, she

dropped the rein upon Pansy's shoulders, and vowed she would be led whither the horse would take her.

Pansy slackened her pace to a walk, and walked on with her agitated burden for three or four minutes. At the

expiration of this time they had come to a little byway on the right, leading down a slope to a pool of water.

The pony stopped, looked towards the pool, and then advanced and stooped to drink.

Elfride looked at her watch and discovered that if she were going to reach St. Launce's early enough to

change her dress at the Falcon, and get a chance of some early train to Plymouththere were only two

She was impatient. It seemed as if Pansy would never stop drinking; and the repose of the pool, the idle

motions of the insects and flies upon it, the placid waving of the flags, the leafskeletons, like Genoese

filigree, placidly sleeping at the bottom, by their contrast with her own turmoil made her impatience greater.

Pansy did turn at last, and went up the slope again to the high road. The pony came upon it, and stood

crosswise, looking up and down. Elfride's heart throbbed erratically, and she thought, 'Horses, if left to

Pansy at home, during summer, had little but grass to live on. After a run to St. Launce's she always had a

feed of corn to support her on the return journey. Therefore, being now more than half way, she preferred St.

But Elfride did not remember this now. All she cared to recognize was a dreamy fancy that today's rash

action was not her own. She was disabled by her moods, and it seemed indispensable to adhere to the

programme. So strangely involved are motives that, more than by her promise to Stephen, more even than by

her love, she was forced on by a sense of the necessity of keeping faith with herself, as promised in the inane

She hesitated no longer. Pansy went, like the steed of Adonis, as if she told the steps. Presently the quaint

gables and jumbled roofs of St. Launce's were spread beneath her, and going down the hill she entered the

courtyard of the Falcon. Mrs. Buckle, the landlady, came to the door to meet her.

The Swancourts were well known here. The transition from equestrian to the ordinary guise of railway

travellers had been more than once performed by father and daughter in this establishment.

In less than a quarter of an hour Elfride emerged from the door in her walking dress, and went to the railway.

She had not told Mrs. Buckle anything as to her intentions, and was supposed to have gone out shopping.

An hour and forty minutes later, and she was in Stephen's arms at the Plymouth station. Not upon the

'We cannot be married here today, my Elfie! I ought to have known it and stayed here. In my ignorance I

did not. I have the licence, but it can only be used in my parish in London. I only came down last night, as

'Passengers for the 11.5 uptrain take their seats!' said a guard's voice on the platform.

In three minutes the train had moved off, bearing away with it Stephen and Elfride.

The few tattered clouds of the morning enlarged and united, the sun withdrew behind them to emerge no

more that day, and the evening drew to a close in drifts of rain. The waterdrops beat like duck shot against

The journey from Plymouth to Paddington, by even the most headlong express, allows quite enough leisure

for passion of any sort to cool. Elfride's excitement had passed off, and she sat in a kind of stupor during the

latter half of the journey. She was aroused by the clanging of the maze of rails over which they traced their

'Yes, darling,' said Stephen in a tone of assurance he was far from feeling. To him, no less than to her, the

She peered out as well as the window, beaded with drops, would allow her, and saw only the lamps, which

had just been lit, blinking in the wet atmosphere, and rows of hideous zinc chimney pipes in dim relief

against the sky. She writhed uneasily, as when a thought is swelling in the mind which must cause much pain

at its deliverance in words. Elfride had known no more about the stings of evil report than the native

wildfowl knew of the effects of Crusoe's first shot. Now she saw a little further, and a little further still.

The train stopped. Stephen relinquished the soft hand he had held all the day, and proceeded to assist her on

This act of alighting upon strange ground seemed all that was wanted to complete a resolution within her.

'O Stephen,' she exclaimed, 'I am so miserable! I must go home againI mustI must! Forgive my

'Will you allow me to go home?' she implored. 'I won't trouble you to go with me. I will not be any weight

upon you; only say you will agree to my returning; that you will not hate me for it, Stephen! It is better that I

'If you must go, and think it wrong to remain, dearest,' said he sadly, 'you shall. You shall do whatever you

like, my Elfride. But would you in reality rather go now than stay till tomorrow, and go as my wife?'

'We ought to have done one of two things,' he answered gloomily. 'Never to have started, or not to have

returned without being married. I don't like to say it, Elfrideindeed I don't; but you must be told this, that

going back unmarried may compromise your good name in the eyes of people who may hear of it.'

'By a month; and what's that? But never mind that now.' He looked around. 'Is there a train for Plymouth

'Yes, miss; the 8.10leaves in ten minutes. You have come to the wrong platform; it is the other side.

Change at Bristol into the night mail. Down that staircase, and under the line.'

They ran down the staircaseElfride firstto the bookingoffice, and into a carriage with an official

standing beside the door. 'Show your tickets, please.' They are locked inmen about the platform accelerate

their velocities till they fly up and down like shuttles in a looma whistlethe waving of a flaga human

crya steam groanand away they go to Plymouth again, just catching these words as they glide off:

'I shall not leave you till I see you safe at St. Launce's. Do not think worse of me than I am, Elfride.'

And then they rattled along through the night, back again by the way they had come. The weather cleared,

and the stars shone in upon them. Their two or three fellowpassengers sat for most of the time with closed

eyes. Stephen sometimes slept; Elfride alone was wakeful and palpitating hour after hour.

The day began to break, and revealed that they were by the sea. Red rocks overhung them, and, receding into

distance, grew livid in the blue grey atmosphere. The sun rose, and sent penetrating shafts of light in upon

their weary faces. Another hour, and the world began to be busy. They waited yet a little, and the train

'I did not see all the consequences,' she said. 'Appearances are wofully against me. If anybody finds me out, I

'Then appearances will speak falsely; and how can that matter, even if they do? I shall be your husband

'Stephen, once in London I ought to have married you,' she said firmly. 'It was my only safe defence. I see

more things now than I did yesterday. My only remaining chance is not to be discovered; and that we must

A woman with red and scaly eyelids and glistening eyes was sitting on a bench just inside the officedoor.

She fixed her eyes upon Elfride with an expression whose force it was impossible to doubt, but the meaning

of which was not clear; then upon the carriage they had left. She seemed to read a sinister story in the scene.

'Mrs. Jethwaya widow, and mother of that young man whose tomb we sat on the other night. Stephen, she

is my enemy. Would that God had had mercy enough upon me to have hidden this from HER!'

'Do not talk so hopelessly,' he remonstrated. 'I don't think she recognized us.'

'No. I want something that makes people strong and energetic for the present, that borrows the strength of

tomorrow for use to dayleaving tomorrow without any at all for that matter; or even that would take all

life away tomorrow, so long as it enabled me to get home again now. Brandy, that's what I want. That

'I don't know. I have never drunk more than a teaspoonful at once. All I know is that I want it. Don't get it at

He left her in the fields, and went to the nearest inn in that direction. Presently he returned with a small flask

nearly full, and some slices of breadandbutter, thin as wafers, in a paper bag. Elfride took a sip or two.

'It goes into my eyes,' she said wearily. 'I can't take any more. Yes, I will; I will close my eyes. Ah, it goes to

However, she could eat, and did eat. Her chief attention was concentrated upon how to get the horse from the

Falcon stables without suspicion. Stephen was not allowed to accompany her into the town. She acted now

upon conclusions reached without any aid from him: his power over her seemed to have departed.

'You had better not be seen with me, even here where I am so little known. We have begun stealthily as

thieves, and we must end stealthily as thieves, at all hazards. Until papa has been told by me myself, a

Walking and gloomily talking thus they waited till nearly nine o'clock, at which time Elfride thought she

might call at the Falcon without creating much surprise. Behind the railwaystation was the river, spanned by

an old Tudor bridge, whence the road diverged in two directions, one skirting the suburbs of the town, and

winding round again into the highroad to Endelstow. Beside this road Stephen sat, and awaited her return

He sat as one sitting for a portrait, motionless, watching the chequered lights and shades on the treetrunks,

the children playing opposite the school previous to entering for the morning lesson, the reapers in a field afar

off. The certainty of possession had not come, and there was nothing to mitigate the youth's gloom, that

At length she came trotting round to him, in appearance much as on the romantic morning of their visit to the

cliff, but shorn of the radiance which glistened about her then. However, her comparative immunity from

further risk and trouble had considerably composed her. Elfride's capacity for being wounded was only

surpassed by her capacity for healing, which rightly or wrongly is by some considered an index of

'Nothing. Nobody seemed curious about me. They knew I went to Plymouth, and I have stayed there a night

And now parting arose like a death to these children, for it was imperative that she should start at once.

'O Stephen, you ask how! Do you think I could marry another man on earth after having gone thus far with

you? Have I not shown beyond possibility of doubt that I can be nobody else's? Have I not irretrievably

committed myself?pride has stood for nothing in the face of my great love. You misunderstood my turning

back, and I cannot explain it. It was wrong to go with you at all; and though it would have been worse to go

further, it would have been better policy, perhaps. Be assured of this, that whenever you have a home for

mehowever poor and humbleand come and claim me, I am ready.' She added bitterly, 'When my father

'Perhaps he may, then, insist upon our marriage at once!' Stephen answered, seeing a ray of hope in the very

focus of her remorse. 'I hope he may, even if we had still to part till I am ready for you, as we intended.'

'Nor am I. But goodbye. Go back now.' And she reined the horse for parting. 'O Stephen,' she cried, 'I feel so

'No; it will not do. It is my utter foolishness that makes me say such words. But he will send for you.'

'Say to him,' continued Stephen, 'that we did this in the absolute despair of our minds. Tell him we don't wish

him to favour us only to deal justly with us. If he says, marry now, so much the better. If not, say that all

may be put right by his promise to allow me to have you when I am good enough for youwhich may be

soon. Say I have nothing to offer him in exchange for his treasurethe more sorry I; but all the love, and all

the life, and all the labour of an honest man shall be yours. As to when this had better be told, I leave you to

'And if ill report should come, Stephen,' she said smiling, 'why, the orangetree must save me, as it saved

virgins in St. George's time from the poisonous breath of the dragon. There, forgive me for forwardness: I am

And the pony went on, and she spoke to him no more. He saw her figure diminish and her blue veil grow

After thus parting from a man than whom she had known none greater as yet, Elfride rode rapidly onwards, a

tear being occasionally shaken from her eyes into the road. What yesterday had seemed so desirable, so

She saw the rocks and sea in the neighbourhood of Endelstow, and heaved a sigh of relief

When she passed a field behind the vicarage she heard the voices of Unity and William Worm. They were

hanging a carpet upon a line. Unity was uttering a sentence that concluded with 'when Miss Elfride comes.'

Elfride went round to the door. She did not knock or ring; and seeing nobody to take the horse, Elfride led her

round to the yard, slipped off the bridle and saddle, drove her towards the paddock, and turned her in. Then

Elfride crept indoors, and looked into all the groundfloor rooms. Her father was not there.

On the mantelpiece of the drawingroom stood a letter addressed to her in his handwriting. She took it and

After making a quick toilet she felt more revived, though still suffering from a headache. On going out of the

'O Miss Elfride! I said to myself 'tis her sperrit! We didn't dream o' you not coming home last night. You

'I intended to come home the same evening, but altered my plan. I wished I hadn't afterwards. Papa will be

'I do fear to,' she murmured. 'Unity, would you just begin telling him when he comes home?'

'No, indeed, I won't,' said Unity. 'It is not such a mighty matter, Miss Elfride. I says to myself, master's taking

'Is imitating him. Well, do as you like. And will you now bring me some luncheon?'

After satisfying an appetite which the fresh marine air had given her in its victory over an agitated mind, she

put on her hat and went to the garden and summerhouse. She sat down, and leant with her head in a corner.

Halfawake, she hurriedly looked at the time. She had been there three hours. At the same moment she heard

the outer gate swing together, and wheels sweep round the entrance; some prior noise from the same source

having probably been the cause of her awaking. Next her father's voice was heard calling to Worm.

Elfride passed along a walk towards the house behind a belt of shrubs. She heard a tongue holding converse

with her father, which was not that of either of the servants. Her father and the stranger were laughing

together. Then there was a rustling of silk, and Mr. Swancourt and his companion, or companions, to all

seeming entered the door of the house, for nothing more of them was audible. Elfride had turned back to

meditate on what friends these could be, when she heard footsteps, and her father exclaiming behind her:

'Come back to the summerhouse a minute,' continued Mr. Swancourt; 'I have to tell you of that I promised

They entered the summerhouse, and stood leaning over the knotty woodwork of the balustrade.

'Now,' said her father radiantly, 'guess what I have to say.' He seemed to be regarding his own existence so

'You are tired. You look worn. The ride was too much for you. Well, this is what I went away for. I went to

'Married!' she faltered, and could hardly check an involuntary 'So did I.' A moment after and her resolve to

'Yes; to whom do you think? Mrs. Troyton, the new owner of the estate over the hedge, and of the old

manorhouse. It was only finally settled between us when I went to Stratleigh a few days ago.' He lowered

his voice to a sly tone of merriment. 'Now, as to your stepmother, you'll find she is not much to look at,

though a good deal to listen to. She is twenty years older than myself, for one thing.'

'You forget that I know her. She called here once, after we had been, and found her away from home.'

'Of course, of course. Well, whatever her looks are, she's as excellent a woman as ever breathed. She has had

lately left her as absolute property three thousand five hundred a year, besides the devise of this estateand,

by the way, a large legacy came to her in satisfaction of dower, as it is called.'

'And a largewell, a fairsizedmansion in town, and a pedigree as long as my walkingstick; though that

bears evidence of being rather a rakedup affairdone since the family got richpeople do those things

He continued more quietly and impressively. 'Yes, Elfride, she is wealthy in comparison with us, though with

few connections. However, she will introduce you to the world a little. We are going to exchange her house

in Baker Street for one at Kensington, for your sake. Everybody is going there now, she says. At Easters we

shall fly to town for the usual three monthsI shall have a curate of course by that time. Elfride, I am past

love, you know, and I honestly confess that I married her for your sake. Why a woman of her standing should

have thrown herself away upon me, God knows. But I suppose her age and plainness were too pronounced

for a town man. With your good looks, if you now play your cards well, you may marry anybody. Of course,

a little contrivance will be necessary; but there's nothing to stand between you and a husband with a title, that

I can see. Lady Luxellian was only a squire's daughter. Now, don't you see how foolish the old fancy was?

But come, she is indoors waiting to see you. It is as good as a play, too,' continued the vicar, as they walked

towards the house. 'I courted her through the privet hedge yonder: not entirely, you know, but we used to

walk there of an eveningnearly every evening at last. But I needn't tell you details now; everything was

terribly matteroffact, I assure you. At last, that day I saw her at Stratleigh, we determined to settle it

'And you never said a word to me,' replied Elfride, not reproachfully either in tone or thought. Indeed, her

feeling was the very reverse of reproachful. She felt relieved and even thankful. Where confidence had not

Her father mistook her dispassionateness for a veil of politeness over a sense of illusage. 'I am not altogether

to blame,' he said. 'There were two or three reasons for secrecy. One was the recent death of her relative the

testator, though that did not apply to you. But remember, Elfride,' he continued in a stiffer tone, 'you had

mixed yourself up so foolishly with those low people, the Smithsand it was just, too, when Mrs. Troyton

and myself were beginning to understand each otherthat I resolved to say nothing even to you. How did I

know how far you had gone with them and their son? You might have made a point of taking tea with them

Elfride swallowed her feelings as she best could, and languidly though flatly asked a question.

'Did you kiss Mrs. Troyton on the lawn about three weeks ago? That evening I came into the study and found

Mr. Swancourt looked rather red and abashed, as middleaged lovers are apt to do when caught in the tricks

'Well, yes; I think I did,' he stammered; 'just to please her, you know.' And then recovering himself he

They stepped into the drawingroom from the verandah. At that moment Mrs. Swancourt came downstairs,

'Here, Charlotte, is my little Elfride,' said Mr. Swancourt, with the increased affection of tone often adopted

Poor Elfride, not knowing what to do, did nothing at all; but stood receptive of all that came to her by sight,

'Ah, darling!' she exclaimed goodhumouredly, 'you didn't think when you showed a strange old woman over

the conservatory a month or two ago, and explained the flowers to her so prettily, that she would so soon be

The new mother had been truthfully enough described by Mr. Swancourt. She was not physically attractive.

She was darkvery darkin complexion, portly in figure, and with a plentiful residuum of hair in the

proportion of half a dozen white ones to half a dozen black ones, though the latter were black indeed. No

further observed, she was not a woman to like. But there was more to see. To the most superficial critic it was

apparent that she made no attempt to disguise her age. She looked sixty at the first glance, and close

Another and still more winning trait was one attaching to the corners of her mouth. Before she made a remark

these often twitched gently: not backwards and forwards, the index of nervousness; not down upon the jaw,

the sign of determination; but palpably upwards, in precisely the curve adopted to represent mirth in the

broad caricatures of schoolboys. Only this element in her face was expressive of anything within the woman,

but it was unmistakable. It expressed humour subjective as well as objectivewhich could survey the

This is not all of Mrs. Swancourt. She had held out to Elfride hands whose fingers were literally stiff with

rings, signis auroque rigentes, like Helen's robe. These rows of rings were not worn in vanity apparently.

1st. Plainly set oval onyx, representing a devil's head. 2nd. Green jasper intaglio, with red veins. 3rd. Entirely

gold, bearing figure of a hideous griffin. 4th. A seagreen monster diamond, with small diamonds round it.

5th. Antique cornelian intaglio of dancing figure of a satyr. 6th. An angular band chased with dragons' heads.

1st. A reddishyellow toadstone. 2nd. A heavy ring enamelled in colours, and bearing a jacynth. 3rd. An

amethystine sapphire. 4th. A polished ruby, surrounded by diamonds. 5th. The engraved ring of an abbess.

Beyond this rather quaint array of stone and metal Mrs. Swancourt wore no ornament whatever.

Elfride had been favourably impressed with Mrs. Troyton at their meeting about two months earlier; but to be

pleased with a woman as a momentary acquaintance was different from being taken with her as a stepmother.

However, the suspension of feeling was but for a moment. Elfride decided to like her still.

Mrs. Swancourt was a woman of the world as to knowledge, the reverse as to action, as her marriage

suggested. Elfride and the lady were soon inextricably involved in conversation, and Mr. Swancourt left them

'And what do you find to do with yourself here?' Mrs. Swancourt said, after a few remarks about the wedding.

'You should write a novel. The regular resource of people who don't go enough into the world to live a novel

'I have done it,' said Elfride, looking dubiously at Mrs. Swancourt, as if in doubt whether she would meet

'Knowing nothing of the present age, which everybody knows about, for safety you chose an age known

'Well, I have had some opportunities of studying mediaeval art and manners in the library and private

museum at Endelstow House, and I thought I should like to try my hand upon a fiction. I know the time for

'Nonsense, my dear girl. Publish it, by all means. All ladies do that sort of thing now; not for profit, you

'Though I am afraid it rather resembles the melancholy ruse of throwing loaves over castlewalls at

'That remains to be proved. I'll give my word, my dear, that by this time next year it shall be printed.'

'Will you, indeed?' said Elfride, partially brightening with pleasure, though she was sad enough in her depths.

'I thought brains were the indispensable, even if the only, qualification for admission to the republic of letters.

'Oh no; once you are there you'll be like a drop of water in a piece of rockcrystalyour medium will

'It will be a great satisfaction,' Elfride murmured, and thought of Stephen, and wished she could make a great

'And then we'll go to London, and then to Paris,' said Mrs. Swancourt. 'I have been talking to your father

about it. But we have first to move into the manorhouse, and we think of staying at Torquay whilst that is

going on. Meanwhile, instead of going on a honeymoon scamper by ourselves, we have come home to fetch

Elfride assented pleasantly, even gladly; but she saw that, by this marriage, her father and herself had ceased

for ever to be the close relations they had been up to a few weeks ago. It was impossible now to tell him the

He was still snugly housed in her heart. His absence had regained for him much of that aureola of saintship

which had been nearly abstracted during her reproachful mood on that miserable journey from London.

Rapture is often cooled by contact with its cause, especially if under awkward conditions. And that last

experience with Stephen had done anything but make him shine in her eyes. His very kindness in letting her

return was his offence. Elfride had her sex's love of sheer force in a man, however illdirected; and at that

critical juncture in London Stephen's only chance of retaining the ascendancy over her that his face and not

his parts had acquired for him, would have been by doing what, for one thing, he was too youthful to

undertakethat was, dragging her by the wrist to the rails of some altar, and peremptorily marrying her.

Decisive action is seen by appreciative minds to be frequently objectless, and sometimes fatal; but decision,

however suicidal, has more charm for a woman than the most unequivocal Fabian success.

However, some of the unpleasant accessories of that occasion were now out of sight again, and Stephen had

Bede's Inn has this peculiarity, that it faces, receives from, and discharges into a bustling thoroughfare

speaking only of wealth and respectability, whilst its postern abuts on as crowded and povertystricken a

network of alleys as are to be found anywhere in the metropolis. The moral consequences are, first, that those

who occupy chambers in the Inn may see a great deal of shirtless humanity's habits and enjoyments without

doing more than look down from a back window; and second they may hear wholesome though unpleasant

social reminders through the medium of a harsh voice, an unequal footstep, the echo of a blow or a fall,

which originates in the person of some drunkard or wifebeater, as he crosses and interferes with the quiet of

the square. Characters of this kind frequently pass through the Inn from a little foxhole of an alley at the back,

It is hardly necessary to state that all the sights and movements proper to the Inn are most orderly. On the fine

October evening on which we follow Stephen Smith to this place, a placid porter is sitting on a stool under a

sycamoretree in the midst, with a little cane in his hand. We notice the thick coat of soot upon the branches,

hanging underneath them in flakes, as in a chimney. The blackness of these boughs does not at present

improve the treenearly forsaken by its leaves as it isbut in the spring their green fresh beauty is made

doubly beautiful by the contrast. Within the railings is a flowergarden of respectable dahlias and

Stephen selects a doorway, and ascends an old though wide wooden staircase, with moulded balusters and

handrail, which in a country manorhouse would be considered a noteworthy specimen of Renaissance

workmanship. He reaches a door on the first floor, over which is painted, in black letters, 'Mr. Henry

Knight' 'Barristeratlaw' being understood but not expressed. The wall is thick, and there is a door at its

outer and inner face. The outer one happens to be ajar: Stephen goes to the other, and taps.

First was a small anteroom, divided from the inner apartment by a wainscoted archway two or three yards

wide. Across this archway hung a pair of darkgreen curtains, making a mystery of all within the arch except

the spasmodic scratching of a quill pen. Here was grouped a chaotic assemblage of articlesmainly old

framed prints and paintingsleaning edgewise against the wall, like roofing slates in a builder's yard. All the

books visible here were folios too big to be stolensome lying on a heavy oak table in one corner, some on

the floor among the pictures, the whole intermingled with old coats, hats, umbrellas, and walkingsticks.

Stephen pushed aside the curtain, and before him sat a man writing away as if his life depended upon

A man of thirty in a speckled coat, with dark brown hair, curly beard, and crisp moustache: the latter running

into the beard on each side of the mouth, and, as usual, hiding the real expression of that organ under a

'Ah, my dear fellow, I knew 'twas you,' said Knight, looking up with a smile, and holding out his hand.

Knight's mouth and eyes came to view now. Both features were good, and had the peculiarity of appearing

younger and fresher than the brow and face they belonged to, which were getting sicklied o'er by the

unmistakable pale cast. The mouth had not quite relinquished rotundity of curve for the firm angularities of

middle life; and the eyes, though keen, permeated rather than penetrated: what they had lost of their boytime

brightness by a dozen years of hard reading lending a quietness to their gaze which suited them well.

A lady would have said there was a smell of tobacco in the room: a man that there was not.

Knight did not rise. He looked at a timepiece on the mantelshelf, then turned again to his letters, pointing to a

'Well, I am glad you have come. I only returned to town yesterday; now, don't speak, Stephen, for ten

minutes; I have just that time to the late post. At the eleventh minute, I'm your man.'

Stephen sat down as if this kind of reception was by no means new, and away went Knight's pen, beating up

Cicero called the library the soul of the house; here the house was all soul. Portions of the floor, and half the

wallspace, were taken up by bookshelves ordinary and extraordinary; the remaining parts, together with

brackets, sidetables, being occupied by casts, statuettes, medallions, and plaques of various descriptions,

One stream only of evening sunlight came into the room from a window quite in the corner, overlooking a

court. An aquarium stood in the window. It was a dull parallelopipedon enough for living creatures at most

hours of the day; but for a few minutes in the evening, as now, an errant, kindly ray lighted up and warmed

the little world therein, when the manycoloured zoophytes opened and put forth their arms, the weeds

acquired a rich transparency, the shells gleamed of a more golden yellow, and the timid community expressed

Within the prescribed ten minutes Knight flung down his pen, rang for the boy to take the letters to the post,

and at the closing of the door exclaimed, 'There; thank God, that's done. Now, Stephen, pull your chair round,

and tell me what you have been doing all this time. Have you kept up your Greek?'

'Well, I have done a great many things, if not that. And I have done one extraordinary thing.'

Knight turned full upon Stephen. 'Ahha! Now, then, let me look into your face, put two and two together,

'Why, Smith,' said Knight, after holding him rigidly by the shoulders, and keenly scrutinising his countenance

'Now, out with it.' But seeing that Stephen looked rather distressed, he changed to a kindly tone. 'Now Smith,

my lad, you know me well enough by this time, or you ought to; and you know very well that if you choose

to give me a detailed account of the phenomenon within you, I shall listen; if you don't, I am the last man in

'Don't judge me before you have heard more,' cried Stephen anxiously, seeing the change in his friend's

'Come, that's dreadfully ungallant. But perhaps I understand the frame of mind a little, so go on. Your

'And now comes what I want your advice upon. Something has happened at her house which makes it out of

the question for us to ask her father again now. So we are keeping silent. In the meantime an architect in India

has just written to Mr. Hewby to ask whether he can find for him a young assistant willing to go over to

Bombay to prepare drawings for work formerly done by the engineers. The salary he offers is 350 rupees a

month, or about 35 Pounds. Hewby has mentioned it to me, and I have been to Dr. Wray, who says I shall

'Yes; I was thinking I could go over and make a little money, and then come back and ask for her. I have the

Knight leant back in his chair. 'Now, though I know her thoroughly as she exists in your heart, Stephen, I

don't know her in the flesh. All I want to ask is, is this idea of going to India based entirely upon a belief in

'Well, Stephen, you have put me in rather an awkward position. If I give my true sentiments, I shall hurt your

feelings; if I don't, I shall hurt my own judgment. And remember, I don't know much about women.'

Stephen winced at this rap. 'I have never formed a deep attachment,' continued Knight. 'I never have found a

'You write as if you had been engaged a hundred times, if I may be allowed to say so,' said Stephen in an

'Yes, that may be. But, my dear Stephen, it is only those who half know a thing that write about it. Those who

know it thoroughly don't take the trouble. All I know about women, or men either, is a mass of generalities. I

plod along, and occasionally lift my eyes and skim the weltering surface of mankind lying between me and

Knight stopped as if he had fallen into a train of thought, and Stephen looked with affectionate awe at a

master whose mind, he believed, could swallow up at one meal all that his own head contained.

There was affective sympathy, but no great intellectual fellowship, between Knight and Stephen Smith.

Knight had seen his young friend when the latter was a cherrycheeked happy boy, had been interested in

him, had kept his eye upon him, and generously helped the lad to books, till the mere connection of patronage

grew to acquaintance, and that ripened to friendship. And so, though Smith was not at all the man Knight

would have deliberately chosen as a friendor even for one of a group of a dozen friends he somehow

was his friend. Circumstance, as usual, did it all. How many of us can say of our most intimate alter ego,

leaving alone friends of the outer circle, that he is the man we should have chosen, as embodying the net

result after adding up all the points in human nature that we love, and principles we hold, and subtracting all

that we hate? The man is really somebody we got to know by mere physical juxtaposition long maintained,

'Taking her merits on trust from you,' said Knight, 'as we do those of the Roman poets of whom we know

nothing but that they lived, I still think she will not stick to you through, say, three years of absence in India.'

'But she will!' cried Stephen desperately. 'She is a girl all delicacy and honour. And no woman of that kind,

who has committed herself so into a man's hands as she has into mine, could possibly marry another.'

Stephen did not answer. Knight had looked on his love so sceptically that it would not do to say all that he

'Well, don't tell,' said Knight. 'But you are begging the question, which is, I suppose, inevitable in love.'

'And I'll tell you another thing,' the younger man pleaded. 'You remember what you said to me once about

women receiving a kiss. Don't you? Why, that instead of our being charmed by the fascination of their

bearing at such a time, we should immediately doubt them if their confusion has any GRACE in itthat

awkward bungling was the true charm of the occasion, implying that we are the first who has played such a

It often happened that the disciple thus remembered the lessons of the master long after the master himself

'Well, that was like her!' cried Stephen triumphantly. 'She was in such a flurry that she didn't know what she

'Splendid, splendid!' said Knight soothingly. 'So that all I have to say is, that if you see a good opening in

Bombay there's no reason why you should not go without troubling to draw fine distinctions as to reasons. No

'Sleep over itit is the best planand write tomorrow. Meantime, go there to that window and sit down,

and look at my Humanity Show. I am going to dine out this evening, and have to dress here out of my

portmanteau. I bring up my things like this to save the trouble of going down to my place at Richmond and

Knight then went to the middle of the room and flung open his portmanteau, and Stephen drew near the

window. The streak of sunlight had crept upward, edged away, and vanished; the zoophytes slept: a dusky

'There!' said Knight, 'where is there in England a spectacle to equal that? I sit there and watch them every

Beneath them was an alley running up to the wall, and thence turning sideways and passing under an arch, so

that Knight's back window was immediately over the angle, and commanded a view of the alley lengthwise.

Crowdsmostly of womenwere surging, bustling, and pacing up and down. Gaslights glared from

butchers' stalls, illuminating the lumps of flesh to splotches of orange and vermilion, like the wild colouring

of Turner's later pictures, whilst the purl and babble of tongues of every pitch and mood was to this human

'Well, now, I call a cab and vanish down the street in the direction of Berkeley Square,' he said, buttoning his

'What a heap of literature!' remarked the young man, taking a final longing survey round the room, as if to

abide there for ever would be the great pleasure of his life, yet feeling that he had almost outstayed his

welcomewhile. His eyes rested upon an arm chair piled full of newspapers, magazines, and bright new

'Yes,' said Knight, also looking at them and breathing a sigh of weariness; 'something must be done with

several of them soon, I suppose. Stephen, you needn't hurry away for a few minutes, you know, if you want

to stay; I am not quite ready. Overhaul those volumes whilst I put on my coat, and I'll walk a little way with

Stephen sat down beside the armchair and began to tumble the books about. Among the rest he found a

'Are you going to review this?' inquired Stephen with apparent unconcern, and holding up Elfride's effusion.

'Which? Oh, that! I maythough I don't do much light reviewing now. But it is reviewable.'

Knight never liked to be asked what he meant. 'Mean! I mean that the majority of books published are neither

good enough nor bad enough to provoke criticism, and that that book does provoke it.'

'By its goodness or its badness?' Stephen said with some anxiety on poor little Elfride's score.

Stephen said not another word. He did not care to speak plainly of Elfride after that unfortunate slip his

tongue had made in respect of her having committed herself; and, apart from that, Knight's severealmost

dogged and selfwilledhonesty in criticizing was unassailable by the humble wish of a youthful friend like

Knight was now ready. Turning off the gas, and slamming together the door, they went downstairs and into

It has now to be realized that nearly threequarters of a year have passed away. In place of the autumnal

scenery which formed a setting to the previous enactments, we have the culminating blooms of summer in the

Stephen is in India, slaving away at an office in Bombay; occasionally going up the country on professional

errands, and wondering why people who had been there longer than he complained so much of the effect of

the climate upon their constitutions. Never had a young man a finer start than seemed now to present itself to

Stephen. It was just in that exceptional heyday of prosperity which shone over Bombay some few years ago,

that he arrived on the scene. Building and engineering partook of the general impetus. Speculation moved

with an accelerated velocity every successive day, the only disagreeable contingency connected with it being

Elfride had never told her father of the fourandtwentyhours' escapade with Stephen, nor had it, to her

knowledge, come to his ears by any other route. It was a secret trouble and grief to the girl for a short time,

and Stephen's departure was another ingredient in her sorrow. But Elfride possessed special facilities for

getting rid of trouble after a decent interval. Whilst a slow nature was imbibing a misfortune little by little,

she had swallowed the whole agony of it at a draught and was brightening again. She could slough off a

And two such excellent distractions had presented themselves. One was bringing out the romance and

looking for notices in the papers, which, though they had been significantly short so far, had served to divert

her thoughts. The other was migrating from the vicarage to the more commodious old house of Mrs.

Swancourt's, overlooking the same valley. Mr. Swancourt at first disliked the idea of being transplanted to

feminine soil, but the obvious advantages of such an accession of dignity reconciled him to the change. So

there was a radical 'move;' the two ladies staying at Torquay as had been arranged, the vicar going to and fro.

Mrs. Swancourt considerably enlarged Elfride's ideas in an aristocratic direction, and she began to forgive her

father for his politic marriage. Certainly, in a worldly sense, a handsome face at threeandforty had never

The Hyde Park shrubs had been transplanted as usual, the chairs ranked in line, the grass edgings trimmed,

the roads made to look as if they were suffering from a heavy thunderstorm; carriages had been called for by

the easeful, horses by the brisk, and the Drive and Row were again the groove of gaiety for an hour. We gaze

upon the spectacle, at six o'clock on this midsummer afternoon, in a melonframe atmosphere and beneath a

Mrs. Swancourt was a talker of talk of the incisive kind, which her low musical voicethe only beautiful

'Now,' she said to Elfride, who, like AEneas at Carthage, was full of admiration for the brilliant scene, 'you

will find that our companionless state will give us, as it does everybody, an extraordinary power in reading

the features of our fellow creatures here. I always am a listener in such places as these not to the

narratives told by my neighbours' tongues, but by their facesthe advantage of which is, that whether I am

in Row, Boulevard, Rialto, or Prado, they all speak the same language. I may have acquired some skill in this

practice through having been an ugly lonely woman for so many years, with nobody to give me information;

a thing you will not consider strange when the parallel case is borne in mind,how truly people who have no

'Ay, that they will,' said Mr. Swancourt corroboratively. 'I have known labouring men at Endelstow and other

farms who had framed complete systems of observation for that purpose. By means of shadows, winds,

clouds, the movements of sheep and oxen, the singing of birds, the crowing of cocks, and a hundred other

sights and sounds which people with watches in their pockets never know the existence of, they are able to

pronounce within ten minutes of the hour almost at any required instant. That reminds me of an old story

which I'm afraid is too badtoo bad to repeat.' Here the vicar shook his head and laughed inwardly.

'It was only about a man who, by the same careful system of observation, was known to deceive persons for

more than two years into the belief that he kept a barometer by stealth, so exactly did he foretell all changes

'Exactly,' said Mrs. Swancourt. 'And in just the way that those learnt the signs of nature, I have learnt the

language of her illegitimate sisterartificiality; and the fibbing of eyes, the contempt of nosetips, the

indignation of back hair, the laughter of clothes, the cynicism of footsteps, and the various emotions lying in

walkingstick twirls, hatliftings, the elevation of parasols, the carriage of umbrellas, become as A B C to

'Just look at that daughter's sister class of mamma in the carriage across there,' she continued to Elfride,

pointing with merely a turn of her eye. 'The absorbing selfconsciousness of her position that is shown by her

countenance is most humiliating to a lover of one's country. You would hardly believe, would you, that

members of a Fashionable World, whose professed zero is far above the highest degree of the humble, could

'Why, to bear on their faces, as plainly as on a phylactery, the inscription, "Do, pray, look at the coronet on

'Really, Charlotte,' said the vicar, 'you see as much in faces as Mr. Puff saw in Lord Burleigh's nod.'

Elfride could not but admire the beauty of her fellow countrywomen, especially since herself and her own

few acquaintances had always been slightly sunburnt or marked on the back of the hands by a

'Oh yes,' returned Mrs. Swancourt. 'Some of them are even more striking in colour than any real ones. Look

at that beautiful rose worn by the lady inside the rails. Elegant vinetendrils introduced upon the stem as an

improvement upon prickles, and all growing so naturally just over her earI say growing advisedly, for the

pink of the petals and the pink of her handsome cheeks are equally from Nature's hand to the eyes of the most

'Well, I do. See how the Duchess ofwaves to and fro in her seat, utilizing the sway of her landau by

looking around only when her head is swung forward, with a passive pride which forbids a resistance to the

force of circumstance. Look at the pretty pout on the mouths of that family there, retaining no traces of being

arranged beforehand, so well is it done. Look at the demure close of the little fists holding the parasols; the

tiny alert thumb, sticking up erect against the ivory stem as knowing as can be, the satin of the parasol

invariably matching the complexion of the face beneath it, yet seemingly by an accident, which makes the

thing so attractive. There's the red book lying on the opposite seat, bespeaking the vast numbers of their

acquaintance. And I particularly admire the aspect of that abundantly daughtered woman on the other sideI

mean her look of unconsciousness that the girls are stared at by the walkers, and above all the look of the

girls themselveslosing their gaze in the depths of handsome men's eyes without appearing to notice

whether they are observing masculine eyes or the leaves of the trees. There's praise for you. But I am only

'Piphphphhow warm it is, to be sure!' said Mr. Swancourt, as if his mind were a long distance from all

he saw. 'I declare that my watch is so hot that I can scarcely bear to touch it to see what the time is, and all the

'How the men stare at you, Elfride!' said the elder lady. 'You will kill me quite, I am afraid.'

'I have noticed several ladies and gentlemen looking at me,' said Elfride artlessly, showing her pleasure at

'My dear, you mustn't say "gentlemen" nowadays,' her stepmother answered in the tones of arch concern that

so well became her ugliness. 'We have handed over "gentlemen" to the lower middle class, where the word is

still to be heard at tradesmen's balls and provincial teaparties, I believe. It is done with here.'

At this moment appeared in the stream of vehicles moving in the contrary direction a chariot presenting in its

general surface the rich indigo hue of a midnight sky, the wheels and margins being picked out in delicate

lines of ultramarine; the servants' liveries were darkblue coats and silver lace, and breeches of neutral Indian

red. The whole concern formed an organic whole, and moved along behind a pair of dark chestnut geldings,

who advanced in an indifferently zealous trot, very daintily performed, and occasionally shrugged divers

In this sat a gentleman with no decided characteristics more than that he somewhat resembled a goodnatured

commercial traveller of the superior class. Beside him was a lady with skimmilky eyes and complexion,

belonging to the "interesting" class of women, where that class merges in the sickly, her greatest pleasure

being apparently to enjoy nothing. Opposite this pair sat two little girls in white hats and blue feathers.

The lady saw Elfride, smiled and bowed, and touched her husband's elbow, who turned and received Elfride's

movement of recognition with a gallant elevation of his hat. Then the two children held up their arms to

'Why, Lord Luxellian, isn't it?' said Mrs. Swancourt, who with the vicar had been seated with her back

'Yes,' replied Elfride. 'He is the one man of those I have seen here whom I consider handsomer than papa.'

'Yes; but your father is so much older. When Lord Luxellian gets a little further on in life, he won't be half so

'See,' exclaimed Elfride, still looking towards them, 'how those little dears want me! Actually one of them is

'We were talking of bracelets just now. Look at Lady Luxellian's,' said Mrs. Swancourt, as that baroness lifted

up her arm to support one of the children. 'It is slipping up her arm too large by half. I hate to see daylight

'It is not on that account, indeed,' Elfride expostulated. 'It is that her arm has got thin, poor thing. You cannot

The carriages were now nearer together, and there was an exchange of more familiar greetings between the

two families. Then the Luxellians crossed over and drew up under the planetrees, just in the rear of the

It was his attraction as a man. People liked him for those tones, and forgot that he had no talents.

Acquaintances remembered Mr. Swancourt by his manner; they remembered Stephen Smith by his face, Lord

'Yes,' said Lord Luxellian, 'we were driving by a furrier's window this afternoon, and the sight filled us all

with such a sense of suffocation that we were glad to get away. Haha!' He turned to Elfride. 'Miss

Swancourt, I have hardly seen or spoken to you since your literary feat was made public. I had no idea a chiel

was taking notes down at quiet Endelstow, or I should certainly have put myself and friends upon our best

'Well, I think you were rather unfairly treated by the PRESENT, I certainly do. Writing a heavy review like

'No, I never saw it. How sorry I am! What a shame of my publishers! They promised to send me every notice

'Ah, then, I am almost afraid I have been giving you disagreeable information, intentionally withheld out of

courtesy. Depend upon it they thought no good would come of sending it, and so would not pain you

'Oh no; I am indeed glad you have told me, Lord Luxellian. It is quite a mistaken kindness on their part. Is the

'No, no; not that exactlythough I almost forget its exact purport now. It was merelymerely sharp, you

knowungenerous, I might say. But really my memory does not enable me to speak decidedly.'

'And do oblige me in a little matter now, Elfride,' said Lord Luxellian warmly, and looking as if he were sorry

he had brought news that disturbed her. 'I am in reality sent here as a special messenger by my little Polly and

Katie to ask you to come into our carriage with them for a short time. I am just going to walk across into

Piccadilly, and my wife is left alone with them. I am afraid they are rather spoilt children; but I have half

The steps were let down, and Elfride was transferredto the intense delight of the little girls, and to the mild

interest of loungers with red skins and long necks, who cursorily eyed the performance with their

walkingsticks to their lips, occasionally laughing from far down their throats and with their eyes, their

mouths not being concerned in the operation at all. Lord Luxellian then told the coachman to drive on, lifted

his hat, smiled a smile that missed its mark and alighted on a total stranger, who bowed in bewilderment.

The look was a manly, open, and genuine look of admiration; a momentary tribute of a kind which any honest

Englishman might have paid to fairness without being ashamed of the feeling, or permitting it to encroach in

the slightest degree upon his emotional obligations as a husband and head of a family. Then Lord Luxellian

Mr. Swancourt had alighted at the same time with Elfride, crossing over to the Row for a few minutes to

speak to a friend he recognized there; and his wife was thus left sole tenant of the carriage.

Now, whilst this little act had been in course of performance, there stood among the promenading spectators a

man of somewhat different description from the rest. Behind the general throng, in the rear of the chairs, and

leaning against the trunk of a tree, he looked at Elfride with quiet and critical interest.

Three points about this unobtrusive person showed promptly to the exercised eye that he was not a Row man

pur sang. First, an irrepressible wrinkle or two in the waist of his frockcoat denoting that he had not

damned his tailor sufficiently to drive that tradesman up to the orthodox high pressure of cunning

workmanship. Second, a slight slovenliness of umbrella, occasioned by its owner's habit of resting heavily

upon it, and using it as a veritable walkingstick, instead of letting its point touch the ground in the most

coquettish of kisses, as is the proper Row manner to do. Third, and chief reason, that try how you might, you

could scarcely help supposing, on looking at his face, that your eyes were not far from a wellfinished mind,

instead of the wellfinished skin et praeterea nihil, which is by rights the Mark of the Row.

The probability is that, had not Mrs. Swancourt been left alone in her carriage under the tree, this man would

have remained in his unobserved seclusion. But seeing her thus, he came round to the front, stooped under the

Mrs. Swancourt looked reflectively at him for a quarter of a minute, then held out her hand laughingly:

'Why, Henry Knightof course it is! Mysecondthirdfourth cousinwhat shall I say? At any rate,

'Yes, one of a remnant not yet cut off. I scarcely was certain of you, either, from where I was standing.'

'I have not seen you since you first went to Oxford; consider the number of years! You know, I suppose, of

And there sprang up a dialogue concerning family matters of birth, death, and marriage, which it is not

'The young lady who changed into the other carriage is, then, your stepdaughter?'

'And who was the lady in the carriage Elfride entered; who had an illdefined and watery look, as if she were

'Lady Luxellian; very weakly, Elfride says. My husband is remotely connected with them; but there is not

much intimacy on account of. However, Henry, you'll come and see us, of course. 24 Chevron Square.

'Let me see. I've got to run up to Oxford tomorrow, where I shall be for several days; so that I must, I fear,

'I am afraid if I were to come before August I should have to leave again in a day or two. I should be

delighted to be with you at the beginning of that month; and I could stay a nice long time. I have thought of

'Very well. Now remember that's a compact. And won't you wait now and see Mr. Swancourt? He will not be

'No; I'll beg to be excused; for I must get to my chambers again this evening before I go home; indeed, I

ought to have been there nowI have such a press of matters to attend to just at present. You will explain to

Though sheer and intelligible griefs are not charmed away by being confided to mere acquaintances, the

process is a palliative to certain illhumours. Among these, perplexed vexation is onea species of trouble

which, like a stream, gets shallower by the simple operation of widening it in any quarter.

On the evening of the day succeeding that of the meeting in the Park, Elfride and Mrs. Swancourt were

engaged in conversation in the dressingroom of the latter. Such a treatment of such a case was in course of

Elfride had just before received an affectionate letter from Stephen Smith in Bombay, which had been

forwarded to her from Endelstow. But since this is not the case referred to, it is not worth while to pry further

into the contents of the letter than to discover that, with rash though pardonable confidence in coming times,

he addressed her in high spirits as his darling future wife. Probably there cannot be instanced a briefer and

surer rule ofthumb test of a man's temperamentsanguine or cautiousthan this: did he or does he

She had taken this epistle into her own room, read a little of it, then SAVED the rest for tomorrow, not

wishing to be so extravagant as to consume the pleasure all at once. Nevertheless, she could not resist the

wish to enjoy yet a little more, so out came the letter again, and in spite of misgivings as to prodigality the

What was this? Also a newspaper for Elfride, which she had overlooked in her hurry to open the letter. It was

the old number of the PRESENT, containing the article upon her book, forwarded as had been requested.

Elfride had hastily read it through, shrunk perceptibly smaller, and had then gone with the paper in her hand

to Mrs. Swancourt's dressingroom, to lighten or at least modify her vexation by a discriminating estimate

'Never mind, my child,' said Mrs. Swancourt after a careful perusal of the matter indicated. 'I don't see that

the review is such a terrible one, after all. Besides, everybody has forgotten about it by this time. I'm sure the

opening is good enough for any book ever written. Just listenit sounds better read aloud than when you

pore over it silently: "THE COURT OF KELLYON CASTLE. A ROMANCE OF THE MIDDLE AGES. BY

ERNEST FIELD. In the belief that we were for a while escaping the monotonous repetition of wearisome

details in modern social scenery, analyses of uninteresting character, or the unnatural unfoldings of a

sensation plot, we took this volume into our hands with a feeling of pleasure. We were disposed to beguile

ourselves with the fancy that some new change might possibly be rung upon donjon keeps, chain and plate

armour, deeply scarred cheeks, tender maidens disguised as pages, to which we had not listened long ago."

Now, that's a very good beginning, in my opinion, and one to be proud of having brought out of a man who

'Well the next bit is rather unkind, I must own,' said Mrs. Swancourt, and read on. '"Instead of this we found

ourselves in the hands of some young lady, hardly arrived at years of discretion, to judge by the silly device it

has been thought worth while to adopt on the titlepage, with the idea of disguising her sex."'

'I am not "silly"!' said Elfride indignantly. 'He might have called me anything but that.'

'You are not, indeed. Well:"Hands of a young lady...whose chapters are simply devoted to impossible

tournaments, towers, and escapades, which read like flat copies of like scenes in the stories of Mr. G. P. R.

James, and the most unreal portions of IVANHOE. The bait is so palpably artificial that the most credulous

gudgeon turns away." Now, my dear, I don't see overmuch to complain of in that. It proves that you were

'Oh yes; though I cannot romance myself, I am able to remind him of those who can!' Elfride intended to hurl

these words sarcastically at her invisible enemy, but as she had no more satirical power than a woodpigeon,

'Certainly: and that's something. Your book is good enough to be bad in an ordinary literary manner, and

doesn't stand by itself in a melancholy position altogether worse than assailable."That interest in an

historical romance may nowadays have any chance of being sustained, it is indispensable that the reader find

himself under the guidance of some nearly extinct species of legendary, who, in addition to an impulse

towards antiquarian research and an unweakened faith in the mediaeval halo, shall possess an inventive

faculty in which delicacy of sentiment is far overtopped by a power of welding to stirring incident a spirited

variety of the elementary human passions." Well, that longwinded effusion doesn't refer to you at all,

Elfride, merely something put in to fill up. Let me see, when does he come to you again;...not till the very

'"But to return to the little work we have used as the text of this article. We are far from altogether

disparaging the author's powers. She has a certain versatility that enables her to use with effect a style of

narration peculiar to herself, which may be called a murmuring of delicate emotional trifles, the particular gift

of those to whom the social sympathies of a peaceful time are as daily food. Hence, where matters of

domestic experience, and the natural touches which make people real, can be introduced without

anachronisms too striking, she is occasionally felicitous; and upon the whole we feel justified in saying that

the book will bear looking into for the sake of those portions which have nothing whatever to do with the

'Well, I suppose it is intended for satire; but don't think anything more of it now, my dear. It is seven o'clock.'

Attack is more piquant than concord. Stephen's letter was concerning nothing but oneness with her: the

review was the very reverse. And a stranger with neither name nor shape, age nor appearance, but a mighty

voice, is naturally rather an interesting novelty to a lady he chooses to address. When Elfride fell asleep that

night she was loving the writer of the letter, but thinking of the writer of that article.

On a day about three weeks later, the Swancourt trio were sitting quietly in the drawingroom of The Crags,

Mrs. Swancourt's house at Endelstow, chatting, and taking easeful survey of their previous month or two of

towna tangible weariness even to people whose acquaintances there might be counted on the fingers.

A mere season in London with her practised stepmother had so advanced Elfride's perceptions, that her

courtship by Stephen seemed emotionally meagre, and to have drifted back several years into a childish past.

In regarding our mental experiences, as in visual observation, our own progress reads like a dwindling of that

She was seated on a low chair, looking over her romance with melancholy interest for the first time since she

'Not of him personally; but I am thinking of his opinion. Really, on looking into the volume after this long

'No, no; I wouldn't show the white feather now! Fancy that of all people in the world the writer herself should

'I don't do that. But I think he is right in some of his arguments, though wrong in others. And because he has

some claim to my respect I regret all the more that he should think so mistakenly of my motives in one or two

instances. It is more vexing to be misunderstood than to be misrepresented; and he misunderstands me. I

cannot be easy whilst a person goes to rest night after night attributing to me intentions I never had.'

'He doesn't know your name, or anything about you. And he has doubtless forgotten there is such a book in

'I myself should certainly like him to be put right upon one or two matters,' said the vicar, who had hitherto

been silent. 'You see, critics go on writing, and are never corrected or argued with, and therefore are never

'I would as soon write to him as look at him, for the matter of that,' said Mr. Swancourt.

'Do! And say, the young person who wrote the book did not adopt a masculine pseudonym in vanity or

conceit, but because she was afraid it would be thought presumptuous to publish her name, and that she did

not mean the story for such as he, but as a sweetener of history for young people, who might thereby acquire

a taste for what went on in their own country hundreds of years ago, and be tempted to dive deeper into the

'Now, Elfie, I'll tell you what we will do,' answered Mr. Swancourt, tickled with a sort of bucolic humour at

the idea of criticizing the critic. 'You shall write a clear account of what he is wrong in, and I will copy it and

'Oh, in a day or two, I suppose,' he returned. Then the vicar paused and slightly yawned, and in the manner of

elderly people began to cool from his ardour for the undertaking now that it came to the point. 'But, really, it

'O papa!' said Elfride, with much disappointment. 'You said you would, and now you won't. That is not fair!'

'If you really want to send such a thing it can easily be done,' said Mrs. Swancourt, coming to her

stepdaughter's rescue. 'An envelope addressed, "To the Critic of THE COURT OF KELLYON CASTLE,

'I might,' she said hesitatingly; 'and send it anonymously: that would be treating him as he has treated me.'

'But I don't like to let him know my exact name. Suppose I put my initials only? The less you are known the

Elfride set to work there and then. Her one desire for the last fortnight seemed likely to be realized. As

happens with sensitive and secluded minds, a continual dwelling upon the subject had magnified to colossal

proportions the space she assumed herself to occupy or to have occupied in the occult critic's mind. At noon

and at night she had been pestering herself with endeavours to perceive more distinctly his conception of her

as a woman apart from an author: whether he really despised her; whether he thought more or less of her than

of ordinary young women who never ventured into the fire of criticism at all. Now she would have the

satisfaction of feeling that at any rate he knew her true intent in crossing his path, and annoying him so by her

Four days later an envelope, directed to Miss Swancourt in a strange hand, made its appearance from the

'0h,' said Elfride, her heart sinking within her. 'Can it be from that mana lecture for impertinence? And

actually one for Mrs. Swancourt in the same handwriting!' She feared to open hers. 'Yet how can he know

'Nonsense!' said her father grimly. 'You sent your initials, and the Directory was available. Though he

wouldn't have taken the trouble to look there unless he had been thoroughly savage with you. I thought you

wrote with rather more asperity than simple literary discussion required.' This timely clause was introduced to

'To be sure, of course,' exclaimed Mrs. Swancourt; and looking up from her own letter. 'Christopher, I quite

forgot to tell you, when I mentioned that I had seen my distant relative, Harry Knight, that I invited him here

for whatever length of time he could spare. And now he says he can come any day in August.'

She read om 'Goodness meand that isn't all. He is actually the reviewer of Elfride's book. How absurd, to

be sure! I had no idea he reviewed novels or had anything to do with the PRESENT. He is a barristerand I

thought he only wrote in the Quarterlies. Why, Elfride, you have brought about an odd entanglement! What

Elfride had put down her letter with a dissatisfied flush on her face. 'I don't know. The idea of his knowing

'"MY DEAR MADAM,Though I am sorry that my remarks should have seemed harsh to you, it is a

pleasure to find that they have been the means of bringing forth such an ingeniously argued reply.

Unfortunately, it is so long since I wrote my review, that my memory does not serve me sufficiently to say a

single word in my defence, even supposing there remains one to be said, which is doubtful. You, will find

from a letter I have written to Mrs. Swancourt, that we are not such strangers to each other as we have been

imagining. Possibly, I may have the pleasure of seeing you soon, when any argument you choose to advance

'He thinks you are in a frightful temper,' said Mr. Swancourt, chuckling in undertones.

'And he will come and see me, and find the authoress as contemptible in speech as she has been impertinent

'Never mind,' said Mrs. Swancourt, also laughing in low quiet jerks; 'it will make the meeting such a comical

affair, and afford splendid byplay for your father and myself. The idea of our running our heads against

The vicar had immediately remembered the name to be that of Stephen Smith's preceptor and friend; but

having ceased to concern himself in the matter he made no remark to that effect, consistently forbearing to

allude to anything which could restore recollection of the (to him) disagreeable mistake with regard to poor

Stephen's lineage and position. Elfride had of course perceived the same thing, which added to the

The identification scarcely heightened Knight's attractions now, though a twelvemonth ago she would only

have cared to see him for the interest he possessed as Stephen's friend. Fortunately for Knight's advent, such a

reason for welcome had only begun to be awkward to her at a time when the interest he had acquired on his

These coincidences, in common with all relating to him, tended to keep Elfride's mind upon the stretch

concerning Knight. As was her custom when upon the horns of a dilemma, she walked off by herself among

the laurel bushes, and there, standing still and splitting up a leaf without removing it from its stalk, fetched

back recollections of Stephen's frequent words in praise of his friend, and wished she had listened more

attentively. Then, still pulling the leaf, she would blush at some fancied mortification that would accrue to her

from his words when they met, in consequence of her intrusiveness, as she now considered it, in writing to

The next development of her meditations was the subject of what this man's personal appearance might

bewas he tall or short, dark or fair, gay or grim? She would have asked Mrs. Swancourt but for the risk she

might thereby incur of some teasing remark being returned. Ultimately Elfride would say, 'Oh, what a plague

that reviewer is to me!' and turn her face to where she imagined India lay, and murmur to herself, 'Ah, my

little husband, what are you doing now? Let me see, where are yousouth, east, where? Behind that hill,

They were gazing from the jutting angle of a wild enclosure not far from The Crags, which almost overhung

the valley already described as leading up from the sea and little port of Castle Boterel. The stony escarpment

upon which they stood had the contour of a man's face, and it was covered with furze as with a beard. People

in the field above were preserved from an accidental roll down these prominences and hollows by a hedge on

the very crest, which was doing that kindly service for Elfride and her mother now.

Scrambling higher into the hedge and stretching her neck further over the furze, Elfride beheld the individual

signified. He was walking leisurely along the little green path at the bottom, beside the stream, a satchel slung

upon his left hip, a stout walkingstick in his hand, and a brownholland sunhat upon his head. The satchel

was worn and old, and the outer polished surface of the leather was cracked and peeling off.

Knight having arrived over the hills to Castle Boterel upon the top of a crazy omnibus, preferred to walk the

Behind him wandered, helterskelter, a boy of whom Knight had briefly inquired the way to Endelstow; and

by that natural law of physics which causes lesser bodies to gravitate towards the greater, this boy had kept

near to Knight, and trotted like a little dog close at his heels, whistling as he went, with his eyes fixed upon

When they had reached a point precisely opposite that in which Mrs. and Miss Swancourt lay in ambush,

'Here's sixpence for you, on condition that you don't again come within twenty yards of my heels, all the way

The boy, who apparently had not known he had been looking at Knight's heels at all, took the sixpence

'Now we must get indoors before he ascends the slope,' said Mrs. Swancourt softly. And they went across by

a short cut over a stile, entering the lawn by a side door, and so on to the house.

Mr. Swancourt had gone into the village with the curate, and Elfride felt too nervous to await their visitor's

arrival in the drawingroom with Mrs. Swancourt. So that when the elder lady entered, Elfride made some

pretence of perceiving a new variety of crimson geranium, and lingered behind among the flower beds.

There was nothing gained by this, after all, she thought; and a few minutes after boldly came into the house

by the glass side door. She walked along the corridor, and entered the drawing room. Nobody was there.

A window at the angle of the room opened directly into an octagonal conservatory, enclosing the corner of

the building. From the conservatory came voices in conversationMrs. Swancourt's and the stranger's.

She had expected him to talk brilliantly. To her surprise he was asking questions in quite a learner's manner,

on subjects connected with the flowers and shrubs that she had known for years. When after the lapse of a

few minutes he spoke at some length, she considered there was a hard square decisiveness in the shape of his

sentences, as if, unlike her own and Stephen's, they were not there and then newly constructed, but were

drawn forth from a large store readymade. They were now approaching the window to come in again.

'That is a fleshcoloured variety,' said Mrs. Swancourt. 'But oleanders, though they are such bulky shrubs, are

so very easily wounded as to be unprunablegiants with the sensitiveness of young ladies. Oh, here is

Elfride looked as guilty and crestfallen as Lady Teazle at the dropping of the screen. Mrs. Swancourt

presented him half comically, and Knight in a minute or two placed himself beside the young lady.

A complexity of instincts checked Elfride's conventional smiles of complaisance and hospitality; and, to

make her still less comfortable, Mrs. Swancourt immediately afterwards left them together to seek her

husband. Mr. Knight, however, did not seem at all incommoded by his feelings, and he said with light

'So, Miss Swancourt, I have met you at last. You escaped me by a few minutes only when we were in

'Yes: though the fact of your being a relation of Mrs. Swancourt's takes off the edge of it. It was strange that

you should be one of her family all the time.' Elfride began to recover herself now, and to look into Knight's

face. 'I was merely anxious to let you know my REAL meaning in writing the bookextremely anxious.'

'I can quite understand the wish; and I was gratified that my remarks should have reached home. They very

Elfride drew herself in. Here he was, sticking to his opinions as firmly as if friendship and politeness did not

'You made me very uneasy and sorry by writing such things!' she murmured, suddenly dropping the mere

cacueterie of a fashionable first introduction, and speaking with some of the dudgeon of a child towards a

'That is rather the object of honest critics in such a case. Not to cause unnecessary sorrow, but: "To make you

sorry after a proper manner, that ye may receive damage by us in nothing," as a powerful pen once wrote to

'Write another?' she said. 'That somebody may pen a condemnation and "nail't wi' Scripture" again, as you do

'You may do better next time,' he said placidly: 'I think you will. But I would advise you to confine yourself

'Well, you may be right. That a young woman has taken to writing is not by any means the best thing to hear

'Well'(Knight was evidently changing his meaning)'I suppose to hear that she has married.'

Elfride hesitated. 'And what when she has been married?' she said at last, partly in order to withdraw her own

'Then to hear no more about her. It is as Smeaton said of his lighthouse: her greatest real praise, when the

novelty of her inauguration has worn off, is that nothing happens to keep the talk of her alive.'

'Yes, I see,' said Elfride softly and thoughtfully. 'But of course it is different quite with men. Why don't you

'For several reasons. It requires a judicious omission of your real thoughts to make a novel popular, for one

'Is that really necessary? Well, I am sure you could learn to do that with practice,' said Elfride with an

excathedra air, as became a person who spoke from experience in the art. 'You would make a great name for

'So many people make a name nowadays, that it is more distinguished to remain in obscurity.'

'Tell me seriouslyapart from the subjectwhy don't you write a volume instead of loose articles?' she

'Since you are pleased to make me talk of myself, I will tell you seriously,' said Knight, not less amused at

this catechism by his young friend than he was interested in her appearance. 'As I have implied, I have not the

wish. And if I had the wish, I could not now concentrate sufficiently. We all have only our one cruse of

energy given us to make the best of. And where that energy has been leaked away week by week, quarter by

quarter, as mine has for the last nine or ten years, there is not enough dammed back behind the mill at any

given period to supply the force a complete book on any subject requires. Then there is the selfconfidence

and waiting power. Where quick results have grown customary, they are fatal to a lively faith in the future.'

'No, I don't choose to do it in the sense you mean; choosing from a whole world of professions, all possible. It

'Why don't you objectI mean, why do you feel so quiet about things?' Elfride was half afraid to question

him so, but her intense curiosity to see what the inside of literary Mr. Knight was like, kept her going on.

Knight certainly did not mind being frank with her. Instances of this trait in men who are not without feeling,

but are reticent from habit, may be recalled by all of us. When they find a listener who can by no possibility

make use of them, rival them, or condemn them, reserved and even suspicious men of the world become

'Why I don't mind the accidental constraint,' he replied, 'is because, in making beginnings, a chance limitation

'I seethat is, I should if I quite understood what all those generalities mean.'

'Why, this: That an arbitrary foundation for one's work, which no length of thought can alter, leaves the

'Lateral compression forcing altitude, as would be said in that tongue,' she said mischievously. 'And I suppose

where no limit exists, as in the case of a rich man with a wide taste who wants to do something, it will be

'Well,' resumed Elfride, 'I think it better for a man's nature if he does nothing in particular.'

'Yes, yes; I was speaking of when you are not obliged for any other reason than delight in the prospect of

fame. I have thought many times lately that a thin widespread happiness, commencing now, and of a piece

with the days of your life, is preferable to an anticipated heap far away in the future, and none now.'

'Why, that's the very thing I said just now as being the principle of all ephemeral doers like myself.'

'Oh, I am sorry to have parodied you,' she said with some confusion. 'Yes, of course. That is what you meant

about not trying to be famous.' And she added, with the quickness of conviction characteristic of her mind:

'There is much littleness in trying to be great. A man must think a good deal of himself, and be conceited

'But it is soon enough to say there is harm in a man's thinking a good deal of himself when it is proved he has

been thinking wrong, and too soon then sometimes. Besides, we should not conclude that a man who strives

earnestly for success does so with a strong sense of his own merit. He may see how little success has to do

This manner of treating her rather provoked Elfride. No sooner did she agree with him than he ceased to seem

to wish it, and took the other side. 'Ah,' she thought inwardly, 'I shall have nothing to do with a man of this

'I think you will find,' resumed Knight, pursuing the conversation more for the sake of finishing off his

thoughts on the subject than for engaging her attention, 'that in actual life it is merely a matter of instinct with

menthis trying to push on. They awake to a recognition that they have, without premeditation, begun to try

a little, and they say to themselves, "Since I have tried thus much, I will try a little more." They go on

Elfride, in her turn, was not particularly attending to his words at this moment. She had, unconsciously to

herself, a way of seizing any point in the remarks of an interlocutor which interested her, and dwelling upon

it, and thinking thoughts of her own thereupon, totally oblivious of all that he might say in continuation. On

such occasions she artlessly surveyed the person speaking; and then there was a time for a painter. Her eyes

seemed to look at you, and past you, as you were then, into your future; and past your future into your

eternitynot reading it, but gazing in an unused, unconscious wayher mind still clinging to its original

Suddenly Elfride became conscious of what she was doing, and was painfully confused.

'As far as I was thinking of you at all, I was thinking how clever you are,' she said, with a want of

Feeling restless now that she had so unwittingly spoken, she arose and stepped to the window, having heard

the voices of her father and Mrs. Swancourt coming up below the terrace. 'Here they are,' she said, going out.

Knight walked out upon the lawn behind her. She stood upon the edge of the terrace, close to the stone

balustrade, and looked towards the sun, hanging over a glade just now fair as Tempe's vale, up which her

Knight could not help looking at her. The sun was within ten degrees of the horizon, and its warm light

flooded her face and heightened the bright rose colour of her cheeks to a vermilion red, their moderate pink

hue being only seen in its natural tone where the cheek curved round into shadow. The ends of her hanging

hair softly dragged themselves backwards and forwards upon her shoulder as each faint breeze thrust against

or relinquished it. Fringes and ribbons of her dress, moved by the same breeze, licked like tongues upon the

parts around them, and fluttering forward from shady folds caught likewise their share of the lustrous orange

Mr. Swancourt shouted out a welcome to Knight from a distance of about thirty yards, and after a few

preliminary words proceeded to a conversation of deep earnestness on Knight's fine old family name, and

theories as to lineage and intermarriage connected therewith. Knight's portmanteau having in the meantime

arrived, they soon retired to prepare for dinner, which had been postponed two hours later than the usual time

An arrival was an event in the life of Elfride, now that they were again in the country, and that of Knight

necessarily an engrossing one. And that evening she went to bed for the first time without thinking of

The old tower of West Endelstow Church had reached the last weeks of its existence. It was to be replaced by

a new one from the designs of Mr. Hewby, the architect who had sent down Stephen. Planks and poles had

arrived in the churchyard, iron bars had been thrust into the venerable crack extending down the belfry wall

to the foundation, the bells had been taken down, the owls had forsaken this home of their forefathers, and six

iconoclasts in white fustian, to whom a cracked edifice was a species of Mumbo Jumbo, had taken lodgings

This was the day after Knight's arrival. To enjoy for the last time the prospect seaward from the summit, the

vicar, Mrs. Swancourt, Knight, and Elfride, all ascended the winding turret Mr. Swancourt stepping

forward with many loud breaths, his wife struggling along silently, but suffering none the less. They had

hardly reached the top when a large lurid cloud, palpably a reservoir of rain, thunder, and lightning, was seen

The two cautious elders suggested an immediate return, and proceeded to put it in practice as regarded

'We shall be slower than you two in going down,' the vicar said over his shoulder, 'and so, don't you start till

we are nearly at the bottom, or you will run over us and break our necks somewhere in the darkness of the

Accordingly Elfride and Knight waited on the leads till the staircase should be clear. Knight was not in a

talkative mood that morning. Elfride was rather wilful, by reason of his inattention, which she privately set

down to his thinking her not worth talking to. Whilst Knight stood watching the rise of the cloud, she

sauntered to the other side of the tower, and there remembered a giddy feat she had performed the year

before. It was to walk round upon the parapet of the towerwhich was quite without battlement or pinnacle,

and presented a smooth flat surface about two feet wide, forming a pathway on all the four sides. Without

reflecting in the least upon what she was doing she now stepped upon the parapet in the old way, and began

'We are down, cousin Henry,' cried Mrs. Swancourt up the turret. 'Follow us when you like.'

Knight turned and saw Elfride beginning her elevated promenade. His face flushed with mingled concern and

At that moment, by reason of a slight perturbation his words had caused in her, Elfride's foot caught itself in a

little tuft of grass growing in a joint of the stonework, and she almost lost her balance. Knight sprang

forward with a face of horror. By what seemed the special interposition of a considerate Providence she

tottered to the inner edge of the parapet instead of to the outer, and reeled over upon the lead roof two or three

Knight seized her as in a vice, and he said, panting, 'That ever I should have met a woman fool enough to do

The close proximity of the Shadow of Death had made her sick and pale as a corpse before he spoke. Already

lowered to that state, his words completely overpowered her, and she swooned away as he held her.

Elfride's eyes were not closed for more than forty seconds. She opened them, and remembered the position

instantly. His face had altered its expression from stern anger to pity. But his severe remarks had rather

'If you can stand, of course you may,' he said, and loosened his arms. 'I hardly know whether most to laugh at

She immediately sank upon the leadwork. Knight lifted her again. 'Are you hurt?' he said.

She murmured an incoherent expression, and tried to smile; saying, with a fitful aversion of her face, 'I am

'You don't know that; how can you? I am only frightened, I tell you,' she answered petulantly, and raised her

hand to her forehead. Knight then saw that she was bleeding from a severe cut in her wrist, apparently where

it had descended upon a salient corner of the leadwork. Elfride, too, seemed to perceive and feel this now

for the first time, and for a minute nearly lost consciousness again. Knight rapidly bound his handkerchief

round the place, and to add to the complication, the thundercloud he had been watching began to shed some

heavy drops of rain. Knight looked up and saw the vicar striding towards the house, and Mrs. Swancourt

'As you are so faint, it will be much better to let me carry you down,' said Knight; 'or at any rate inside out of

the rain.' But her objection to be lifted made it impossible for him to support her for more than five steps.

'Indeed!' she murmured, with tears in her eyes. 'I say I will not be carried, and you say this is folly!'

'Indeed you are. You are worth the enmity of princes, as was said of such another. Now, then, will you clasp

'I don't care. I don't care,' she murmured in languid tones and with closed eyes.

He took her into his arms, entered the turret, and with slow and cautious steps descended round and round.

Then, with the gentleness of a nursing mother, he attended to the cut on her arm. During his progress through

the operations of wiping it and binding it up anew, her face changed its aspect from pained indifference to

something like bashful interest, interspersed with small tremors and shudders of a trifling kind.

In the centre of each pale cheek a small red spot the size of a wafer had now made its appearance, and

continued to grow larger. Elfride momentarily expected a recurrence to the lecture on her foolishness, but

'It will be pulled down soon: so I do.' In a few minutes she continued in a lower tone, and seriously, 'You are

familiar of course, as everybody is, with those strange sensations we sometimes have, that our life for the

'Or shall again. Well, I felt on the tower that something similar to that scene is again to be common to us

'God forbid!' said Knight. 'Promise me that you will never again walk on any such place on any

'That such a thing has not been before, we know. That it shall not be again, you vow. Therefore think no more

There had fallen a great deal of rain, but unaccompanied by lightning. A few minutes longer, and the storm

'Oh no, it is not necessary.' This relapse into wilfulness was because he had again connected the epithet

'Nonsense: it is quite necessary; it will rain again directly, and you are not half recovered.' And without more

ado Knight took her hand, drew it under his arm, and held it there so firmly that she could not have removed

it without a struggle. Feeling like a colt in a halter for the first time, at thus being led along, yet afraid to be

angry, it was to her great relief that she saw the carriage coming round the corner to fetch them.

Her fall upon the roof was necessarily explained to some extent upon their entering the house; but both

forbore to mention a word of what she had been doing to cause such an accident. During the remainder of the

afternoon Elfride was invisible; but at dinner time she appeared as bright as ever.

In the drawingroom, after having been exclusively engaged with Mr. and Mrs. Swancourt through the

intervening hour, Knight again found himself thrown with Elfride. She had been looking over a chess

'Yes. It is my favourite scientific game; indeed, excludes every other. Do you play?'

'Challenge him, Elfride,' said the vicar heartily. 'She plays very well for a lady, Mr. Knight.'

The game began. Mr. Swancourt had forgotten a similar performance with Stephen Smith the year before.

Elfride had not; but she had begun to take for her maxim the undoubted truth that the necessity of continuing

faithful to Stephen, without suspicion, dictated a fickle behaviour almost as imperatively as fickleness itself;

a fact, however, which would give a startling advantage to the latter quality should it ever appear.

Knight, by one of those inexcusable oversights which will sometimes afflict the best of players, placed his

rook in the arms of one of her pawns. It was her first advantage. She looked triumphanteven ruthless.

'By George! what was I thinking of?' said Knight quietly; and then dismissed all concern at his accident.

'Oh yes, certainly,' said Mr. Knight, a thought, however, just occurring to his mind, that he had two or three

times allowed her to replace a man on her religiously assuring him that such a move was an absolute blunder.

She immediately took up the unfortunate rook and the contest proceeded, Elfride having now rather the better

of the game. Then he won the exchange, regained his position, and began to press her hard. Elfride grew

'Therehow stupid! Upon my word, I did not see your rook. Of course nobody but a fool would have put a

'Nobody, of course,' said Knight serenely, and stretched out his hand towards his royal victim.

'It is not very pleasant to have it taken advantage of, then,' she said with some vexation.

'Club laws, I think you said?' returned Knight blandly, and mercilessly appropriating the queen.

She was on the brink of pouting, but was ashamed to show it; tears almost stood in her eyes. She had been

trying so hardso very hardthinking and thinking till her brain was in a whirl; and it seemed so heartless

'I lost my rook by even a purer mistake,' said the enemy in an inexorable tone, without lifting his eyes.

'Yes, but' However, as his logic was absolutely unanswerable, she merely registered a protest. 'I cannot

endure those cold blooded ways of clubs and professional players, like Staunton and Morphy. Just as if it

'No, thank you,' Elfride replied in a tone intended for courteous indifference; but, as a fact, very cavalier

Oh, the difference between Elfride's condition of mind now, and when she purposely made blunders that

It was bedtime. Her mind as distracted as if it would throb itself out of her head, she went off to her chamber,

full of mortification at being beaten time after time when she herself was the aggressor. Having for two or

three years enjoyed the reputation throughout the globe of her father's brainwhich almost constituted her

entire worldof being an excellent player, this fiasco was intolerable; for unfortunately the person most

dogged in the belief in a false reputation is always that one, the possessor, who has the best means of

In bed no sleep came to soothe her; that gentle thing being the very middleofsummer friend in this respect

of flying away at the merest troublous cloud. After lying awake till two o'clock an idea seemed to strike her.

She softly arose, got a light, and fetched a Chess Praxis from the library. Returning and sitting up in bed, she

diligently studied the volume till the clock struck five, and her eyelids felt thick and heavy. She then

'You look pale, Elfride,' said Mrs. Swancourt the next morning at breakfast. 'Isn't she, cousin Harry?'

A young girl who is scarcely ill at all can hardly help becoming so when regarded as such by all eyes turning

upon her at the table in obedience to some remark. Everybody looked at Elfride. She certainly was pale.

'Am I pale?' she said with a faint smile. 'I did not sleep much. I could not get rid of armies of bishops and

'Chess is a bad thing just before bedtime; especially for excitable people like yourself, dear. Don't ever play

'I'll play early instead. Cousin Knight,' she said in imitation of Mrs. Swancourt, 'will you oblige me in

'Nonsense, Elfride,' said her father. 'Making yourself a slave to the game like that.'

'But I want to, papa! Honestly, I am restless at having been so ignominiously overcome. And Mr. Knight

So, when breakfast was over, the combatants withdrew to the quiet of the library, and the door was closed.

Elfride seemed to have an idea that her conduct was rather illregulated and startlingly free from

conventional restraint. And worse, she fancied upon Knight's face a slightly amused look at her proceedings.

'You think me foolish, I suppose,' she said recklessly; 'but I want to do my very best just once, and see

'Certainly: nothing more natural. Though I am afraid it is not the plan adopted by women of the world after a

'Because they know that as good as overcoming is skill in effacing recollection of being overcome, and turn

'I don't quite know whether you mean that, or whether you are laughing at me,' she said, looking doubtingly

at him, yet inclining to accept the more flattering interpretation. 'I am almost sure you think it vanity in me to

think I am a match for you. Well, if you do, I say that vanity is no crime in such a case.'

And down they sat, and the contest began, Elfride having the first move. The game progressed. Elfride's heart

beat so violently that she could not sit still. Her dread was lest he should hear it. And he did discover it at

'I think we had better give over,' said Knight, looking at her gently. 'It is too much for you, I know. Let us

'No, please not,' she implored. 'I should not rest if I did not know the result at once. It is your move.'

She started up suddenly. 'I know what you are doing?' she cried, an angry colour upon her cheeks, and her

'I don't mind owning that I was,' Knight responded phlegmatically, and appearing all the more so by contrast

'No, that will not do; I insist that you promise not to do any such absurd thing. It is insulting me!'

Nothing is now heard but the ticking of a quaint old timepiece on the summit of a bookcase. Ten minutes

pass; he captures her knight; she takes his knight, and looks a very Rhadamanthus.

More minutes tick away; she takes his pawn and has the advantage, showing her sense of it rather

Five minutes more: he takes her bishop: she brings things even by taking his knight.

Three minutes: she looks bold, and takes his queen: he looks placid, and takes hers.

Eight or ten minutes pass: he takes a pawn; she utters a little pooh! but not the ghost of a pawn can she take in

Ten minutes pass: he takes another pawn and says, 'Check!' She flushes, extricates herself by capturing his

bishop, and looks triumphant. He immediately takes her bishop: she looks surprised.

Five minutes longer: she makes a dash and takes his only remaining bishop; he replies by taking her only

Two minutes: he gives check; her mind is now in a painful state of tension, and she shades her face with her

Yet a few minutes more: he takes her rook and checks again. She literally trembles now lest an artful surprise

she has in store for him shall be anticipated by the artful surprise he evidently has in store for her.

Elfride arose and turned away without letting him see her face. Once in the hall she ran upstairs and into her

Knight listened anxiously for the answer. He had been hoping to see her again before this time.

At the door was Unity, who occupied in the new establishment a position between young lady's maid and

Mrs. Swancourt opened the door. Elfride was lying fulldressed on the bed, her face hot and red, her arms

thrown abroad. At intervals of a minute she tossed restlessly from side to side, and indistinctly moaned words

Mrs. Swancourt had a turn for doctoring, and felt her pulse. It was twanging like a harpstring, at the rate of

nearly a hundred and fifty a minute. Softly moving the sleeping girl to a little less cramped position, she went

'She is asleep now,' said Mrs. Swancourt. 'She does not seem very well. Cousin Knight, what were you

thinking of? her tender brain won't bear cudgelling like your great head. You should have strictly forbidden

In truth, the essayist's experience of the nature of young women was far less extensive than his abstract

knowledge of them led himself and others to believe. He could pack them into sentences like a workman, but

'I am indeed sorry,' said Knight, feeling even more than he expressed. 'But surely, the young lady knows best

'Bless you, that's just what she doesn't know. She never thinks of such things, does she, Christopher? Her

father and I have to command her and keep her in order, as you would a child. She will say things worthy of a

French epigrammatist, and act like a robin in a greenhouse. But I think we will send for Dr. Gransonthere

A man was straightway despatched on horseback to Castle Boterel, and the gentleman known as Dr. Granson

came in the course of the afternoon. He pronounced her nervous system to be in a decided state of disorder;

forwarded some soothing draught, and gave orders that on no account whatever was she to play chess again.

The next morning Knight, much vexed with himself, waited with a curiously compounded feeling for her

entry to breakfast. The women servants came in to prayers at irregular intervals, and as each entered, he could

not, to save his life, avoid turning his head with the hope that she might be Elfride. Mr. Swancourt began

reading without waiting for her. Then somebody glided in noiselessly; Knight softly glanced up: it was only

He went out alone, and for almost the first time failed to recognize that holding converse with Nature's

charms was not solitude. On nearing the house again he perceived his young friend crossing a slope by a path

which ran into the one he was following in the angle of the field. Here they met. Elfride was at once exultant

and abashed: coming into his presence had upon her the effect of entering a cathedral.

Knight had his notebook in his hand, and had, in fact, been in the very act of writing therein when they

came in view of each other. He left off in the midst of a sentence, and proceeded to inquire warmly

concerning her state of health. She said she was perfectly well, and indeed had never looked better. Her

health was as inconsequent as her actions. Her lips were red, WITHOUT the polish that cherries have, and

their redness margined with the white skin in a clearly defined line, which had nothing of jagged confusion in

it. Altogether she stood as the last person in the world to be knocked over by a game of chess, because too

'Are you taking notes?' she inquired with an alacrity plainly arising less from interest in the subject than from

'Yes; I was making an entry. And with your permission I will complete it.' Knight then stood still and wrote.

'I should like to see all the secrets that are in that book,' she gaily flung back to him over her shoulder.

'But I would ask this question first. Is it a book of mere facts concerning journeys and expenditure, and so on,

'Well, to tell the truth, it is not exactly either. It consists for the most part of jottings for articles and essays,

'If they are interesting when enlarged to the size of an article, what must they be in their concentrated form?

Pure rectified spirit, above proof; before it is lowered to be fit for human consumption: "words that burn"

'Rather like a balloon before it is inflated: flabby, shapeless, dead. You could hardly read them.'

'May I try?' she said coaxingly. 'I wrote my poor romance in that wayI mean in bits, out of doorsand I

'Really, that's rather an awkward request. I suppose I can hardly refuse now you have asked so directly;

'You think me illmannered in asking. But does not this justify meyour writing in my presence, Mr.

Knight? If I had lighted upon your book by chance, it would have been different; but you stand before me,

and say, "Excuse me," without caring whether I do or not, and write on, and then tell me they are not private

'Very well, Miss Swancourt. If you really must see, the consequences be upon your own head. Remember,

She hesitated a moment, looked at his hand containing the book, then laughed, and saying, 'I must see it,'

Knight rambled on towards the house, leaving her standing in the path turning over the leaves. By the time he

had reached the wicketgate he saw that she had moved, and waited till she came up.

Elfride had closed the notebook, and was carrying it disdainfully by the corner between her finger and

thumb; her face wore a nettled look. She silently extended the volume towards him, raising her eyes no

'Except myself. For what is this?' she exclaimed, taking it from him and opening a page. 'August 7. That's the

day before yesterday. But I won't read it,' Elfride said, closing the book again with pretty hauteur. 'Why

Knight hardly recollected what he had written, and turned over the book to see. He came to this:

'Aug. 7. Girl gets into her teens, and her selfconsciousness is born. After a certain interval passed in

infantine helplessness it begins to act. Simple, young, and inexperienced at first. Persons of observation can

tell to a nicety how old this consciousness is by the skill it has acquired in the art necessary to its

successthe art of hiding itself. Generally begins career by actions which are popularly termed showingoff.

Method adopted depends in each case upon the disposition, rank, residence, of the young lady attempting it.

Townbred girl will utter some moral paradox on fast men, or love. Country miss adopts the more material

media of taking a ghastly fence, whistling, or making your blood run cold by appearing to risk her neck.

'An innocent vanity is of course the origin of these displays. "Look at me," say these youthful beginners in

womanly artifice, without reflecting whether or not it be to their advantage to show so very much of

'Yes, I remember now,' said Knight. 'The notes were certainly suggested by your manoeuvre on the church

tower. But you must not think too much of such random observations,' he continued encouragingly, as he

noticed her injured looks. 'A mere fancy passing through my head assumes a factitious importance to you,

because it has been made permanent by being written down. All mankind think thoughts as bad as those of

people they most love on earth, but such thoughts never getting embodied on paper, it becomes assumed that

they never existed. I daresay that you yourself have thought some disagreeable thing or other of me, which

'Hehheh! Two ineradicable defects,' said Knight, there being a faint ghastliness discernible in his laugh.

'They are much worse in a lady's eye than being thought selfconscious, I suppose.'

'Ah, that's very fine,' she said, too inexperienced to perceive her hit, and hence not quite disposed to forgive

his notes. 'You alluded to me in that entry as if I were such a child, too. Everybody does that. I cannot

'You are wrong. I am nearly nineteen. Which class of women do you like best, those who seem younger, or

'But it is well known,' she said eagerly, and there was something touching in the artless anxiety to be thought

much of which she revealed by her words, 'that the slower a nature is to develop, the richer the nature. Youths

and girls who are men and women before they come of age are nobodies by the time that backward people

'Yes,' said Knight thoughtfully. 'There is really something in that remark. But at the risk of offence I must

remind you that you there take it for granted that the woman behind her time at a given age has not reached

the end of her tether. Her backwardness may be not because she is slow to develop, but because she soon

Elfride looked disappointed. By this time they were indoors. Mrs. Swancourt, to whom matchmaking by

any honest means was meat and drink, had now a little scheme of that nature concerning this pair. The

morningroom, in which they both expected to find her, was empty; the old lady having, for the above

Knight went to the chimneypiece, and carelessly surveyed two portraits on ivory.

'Though these pink ladies had very rudimentary features, judging by what I see here,' he observed, 'they had

'Yes; and that is everything,' said Elfride, possibly conscious of her own, possibly not.

'I mean for women,' she said, with the minutest fall of countenance, and a hope that she had been

It was impossible for any man not to know the colour of Elfride's hair. In women who wear it plainly such a

feature may be overlooked by men not given to ocular intentness. But hers was always in the way. You saw

her hair as far as you could see her sex, and knew that it was the palest brown. She knew instantly that

Knight, being perfectly aware of this, had an independent standard of admiration in the matter.

Elfride was thoroughly vexed. She could not but be struck with the honesty of his opinions, and the worst of

it was, that the more they went against her, the more she respected them. And now, like a reckless gambler,

And yet Elfride knew otherwise: that a compliment or word of approval from that man then would have been

Knight had none of those light familiarities of speech which, by judicious touches of epigrammatic flattery,

obliterate a woman's recollection of the speaker's abstract opinions. So no more was said by either on the

subject of hair, eyes, or development. Elfride's mind had been impregnated with sentiments of her own

smallness to an uncomfortable degree of distinctness, and her discomfort was visible in her face. The whole

tendency of the conversation latterly had been to quietly but surely disparage her; and she was fain to take

Stephen into favour in selfdefence. He would not have been so unloving, she said, as to admire an

idiosyncrasy and features different from her own. True, Stephen had declared he loved her: Mr. Knight had

never done anything of the sort. Somehow this did not mend matters, and the sensation of her smallness in

Knight's eyes still remained. Had the position been reversedhad Stephen loved her in spite of a differing

taste, and had Knight been indifferent in spite of her resemblance to his ideal, it would have engendered far

happier thoughts. As matters stood, Stephen's admiration might have its root in a blindness the result of

During the remainder of Saturday they were more or less thrown with their seniors, and no conversation arose

which was exclusively their own. When Elfride was in bed that night her thoughts recurred to the same

subject. At one moment she insisted that it was illnatured of him to speak so decisively as he had done; the

'Ah, what a poor nobody I am!' she said, sighing. 'People like him, who go about the great world, don't care in

Perhaps a man who has got thoroughly into a woman's mind in this manner, is half way to her heart; the

'And are you really going away this week?' said Mrs. Swancourt to Knight on the following evening, which

They were all leisurely climbing the hill to the church, where a last service was now to be held at the rather

exceptional time of evening instead of in the afternoon, previous to the demolition of the ruinous portions.

'I am intending to cross to Cork from Bristol,' returned Knight; 'and then I go on to Dublin.'

'Return this way, and stay a little longer with us,' said the vicar. 'A week is nothing. We have hardly been able

The vicar suddenly stopped. He had forgotten it was Sunday, and would probably have gone on in his

weekday mode of thought had not a turn in the breeze blown the skirt of his college gown within the range

of his vision, and so reminded him. He at once diverted the current of his narrative with the dexterity the

'The story of the Levite who journeyed to Bethlehemjudah, from which I took my text the Sunday before

last, is quite to the point,' he continued, with the pronunciation of a man who, far from having intended to tell

a weekday story a moment earlier, had thought of nothing but Sabbath matters for several weeks. 'What did

he gain after all by his restlessness? Had he remained in the city of the Jebusites, and not been so anxious for

'But he had wasted five days already,' said Knight, closing his eyes to the vicar's commendable diversion. 'His

'So you are to come just the same,' urged Mrs. Swancourt, for she had seen an almost imperceptible fall of

Knight half promised to call on his return journey; but the uncertainty with which he spoke was quite enough

to fill Elfride with a regretful interest in all he did during the few remaining hours. The curate having already

officiated twice that day in the two churches, Mr. Swancourt had undertaken the whole of the evening

service, and Knight read the lessons for him. The sun streamed across from the dilapidated west window, and

lighted all the assembled worshippers with a golden glow, Knight as he read being illuminated by the same

mellow lustre. Elfride at the organ regarded him with a throbbing sadness of mood which was fed by a sense

of being far removed from his sphere. As he went deliberately through the chapter appointeda portion of

the history of Elijahand ascended that magnificent climax of the wind, the earthquake, the fire, and the still

small voice, his deep tones echoed past with such apparent disregard of her existence, that his presence

inspired her with a forlorn sense of unapproachableness, which his absence would hardly have been able to

At the same time, turning her face for a moment to catch the glory of the dying sun as it fell on his form, her

eyes were arrested by the shape and aspect of a woman in the west gallery. It was the bleak barren

countenance of the widow Jethway, whom Elfride had not seen much of since the morning of her return with

Stephen Smith. Possessing the smallest of competencies, this unhappy woman appeared to spend her life in

journeyings between Endelstow Churchyard and that of a village near Southampton, where her father and

She had not attended the service here for a considerable time, and she now seemed to have a reason for her

choice of seat. From the gallery window the tomb of her son was plainly visiblestanding as the nearest

object in a prospect which was closed outwardly by the changeless horizon of the sea.

The streaming rays, too, flooded her face, now bent towards Elfride with a hard and bitter expression that the

solemnity of the place raised to a tragic dignity it did not intrinsically possess. The girl resumed her normal

Elfride's emotion was cumulative, and after a while would assert itself on a sudden. A slight touch was

enough to set it freea poem, a sunset, a cunningly contrived chord of music, a vague imagining, being the

usual accidents of its exhibition. The longing for Knight's respect, which was leading up to an incipient

yearning for his love, made the present conjuncture a sufficient one. Whilst kneeling down previous to

leaving, when the sunny streaks had gone upward to the roof, and the lower part of the church was in soft

shadow, she could not help thinking of Coleridge's morbid poem 'The Three Graves,' and shuddering as she

wondered if Mrs. Jethway were cursing her, she wept as if her heart would break.

They came out of church just as the sun went down, leaving the landscape like a platform from which an

eloquent speaker has retired, and nothing remains for the audience to do but to rise and go home. Mr. and

Mrs. Swancourt went off in the carriage, Knight and Elfride preferring to walk, as the skilful old matchmaker

'I liked your reading, Mr. Knight,' Elfride presently found herself saying. 'You read better than papa.'

'I will praise anybody that will praise me. You played excellently, Miss Swancourt, and very correctly.'

'I want to be able to play with more feeling. But I have not a good selection of music, sacred or secular. I

wish I had a nice little musiclibrarywell chosen, and that the only new pieces sent me were those of

'I am glad to hear such a wish from you. It is extraordinary how many women have no honest love of music

as an end and not as a means, even leaving out those who have nothing in them. They mostly like it for its

accessories. I have never met a woman who loves music as do ten or a dozen men I know.'

'How would you draw the line between women with something and women with nothing in them?'

'Well,' said Knight, reflecting a moment, 'I mean by nothing in them those who don't care about anything

solid. This is an instance: I knew a man who had a young friend in whom he was much interested; in fact,

they were going to be married. She was seemingly poetical, and he offered her a choice of two editions of the

British poets, which she pretended to want badly. He said, "Which of them would you like best for me to

send?" She said, "A pair of the prettiest earrings in Bond Street, if you don't mind, would be nicer than

either." Now I call her a girl with not much in her but vanity; and so do you, I daresay.'

Happening to catch a glimpse of her face as she was speaking, and noticing that her attempt at heartiness was

'You, Miss Swancourt, would not, under such circumstances, have preferred the nicknacks?'

'I'll put it to you,' said the inflexible Knight. 'Which will you have of these two things of about equal

valuethe wellchosen little library of the best music you spoke ofbound in morocco, walnut case, lock

Knight, somewhat blamably, keenly enjoyed sparring with the palpitating mobile creature, whose excitable

'Forgive me,' she said, laughing a little, a little frightened, and blushing very deeply.

'Ah, Miss Elfie, why didn't you say at first, as any firm woman would have said, I am as bad as she, and shall

'No, no, no, no!' she cried petulantly; 'I didn't mean what you think. I like the music best, only I like'

'Earrings betterown it!' he said in a teasing tone. 'Well, I think I should have had the moral courage to own

Like the French soldiery, Elfride was not brave when on the defensive. So it was almost with tears in her eyes

'My meaning is, that I like earrings best just now, because I lost one of my prettiest pair last year, and papa

said he would not buy any more, or allow me to myself, because I was careless; and now I wish I had some

'I am afraid I have been very harsh and rude,' said Knight, with a look of regret at seeing how disturbed she

was. 'But seriously, if women only knew how they ruin their good looks by such appurtenances, I am sure

'Not if they were like the ordinary hideous things women stuff their ears with nowadayslike the governor

of a steamengine, or a pair of scales, or gold gibbets and chains, and artists' palettes, and compensation

'No; they were not one of those things. So prettylike this,' she said with eager animation. And she drew

with the point of her parasol an enlarged view of one of the lamented darlings, to a scale that would have

'Yes, very prettyvery,' said Knight dryly. 'How did you come to lose such a precious pair of articles?'

She made this remark with embarrassment, and a nervous movement of the fingers. Seeing that the loss

occurred whilst Stephen Smith was attempting to kiss her for the first time on the cliff, her confusion was

hardly to be wondered at. The question had been awkward, and received no direct answer.

'Oh, nobody ever loses bothI see. And certainly the fact that it was a case of loss takes away all odour of

'As I never know whether you are in earnest, I don't now,' she said, looking up inquiringly at the hairy face of

the oracle. And coming gallantly to her own rescue, 'If I really seem vain, it is that I am only vain in my

waysnot in my heart. The worst women are those vain in their hearts, and not in their ways.'

'An adroit distinction. Well, they are certainly the more objectionable of the two,' said Knight.

'I am very far from knowing what life is. A just conception of life is too large a thing to grasp during the short

'Will the fact of a woman being fond of jewellery be likely to make her life, in its higher sense, a failure?'

'Well, you know what I mean, even though my words are badly selected and commonplace,' she said

impatiently. 'Because I utter commonplace words, you must not suppose I think only commonplace thoughts.

My poor stock of words are like a limited number of rough moulds I have to cast all my materials in, good

and bad; and the novelty or delicacy of the substance is often lost in the coarse triteness of the form.'

'Very well; I'll believe that ingenious representation. As to the subject in handlives which are

failuresyou need not trouble yourself. Anybody's life may be just as romantic and strange and interesting if

he or she fails as if he or she succeed. All the difference is, that the last chapter is wanting in the story. If a

man of power tries to do a great deed, and just falls short of it by an accident not his fault, up to that time his

history had as much in it as that of a great man who has done his great deed. It is whimsical of the world to

hold that particulars of how a lad went to school and so on should be as an interesting romance or as nothing

They were walking between the sunset and the moonrise. With the dropping of the sun a nearly full moon had

begun to raise itself. Their shadows, as cast by the western glare, showed signs of becoming obliterated in the

interest of a rival pair in the opposite direction which the moon was bringing to distinctness.

'I consider my life to some extent a failure,' said Knight again after a pause, during which he had noticed the

'Really? To have done it is not much to be sad about, but to feel that you have done it must be a cause of

'Partly, though not quite. For a sensation of being profoundly experienced serves as a sort of consolation to

people who are conscious of having taken wrong turnings. Contradictory as it seems, there is nothing truer

than that people who have always gone right don't know half as much about the nature and ways of going

right as those do who have gone wrong. However, it is not desirable for me to chill your summertime by

'If I say Yes, I shall offend you; if I say No, you'll think I don't mean it,' he replied, looking curiously into her

'Ah, well,' she replied, with a little breath of distress, '"That which is exceeding deep, who will find it out?" I

suppose I must take you as I do the Biblefind out and understand all I can; and on the strength of that,

swallow the rest in a lump, by simple faith. Think me vain, if you will. Worldly greatness requires so much

littleness to grow up in, that an infirmity more or less is not a matter for regret.'

'As regards women, I can't say,' answered Knight carelessly; 'but it is without doubt a misfortune for a man

who has a living to get, to be born of a truly noble nature. A high soul will bring a man to the workhouse; so

Mr. Knight, when you are gone, will you send me something you have written? I think I should like to see

whether you write as you have lately spoken, or in your better mood. Which is your true selfthe cynic you

Their conversation detained them on the lawn and in the portico till the stars blinked out. Elfride flung back

'He watches the North Pole, and has no less than the whole equator for his horizon. And that idle one low

down upon the ground, that we have almost rolled away from, is in Indiaover the head of a young friend of

mine, who very possibly looks at the star in our zenith, as it hangs low upon his horizon, and thinks of it as

Elfride glanced at Knight with misgiving. Did he mean her? She could not see his features; but his attitude

'His parents, I believe, are natives of this county. I don't know them, though I have been in correspondence

with him for many years till lately. Fortunately or unfortunately for him he fell in love, and then went to

Knight went no further in his volunteered statement, and though Elfride at one moment was inclined to profit

by the lessons in honesty he had just been giving her, the flesh was weak, and the intention dispersed into

silence. There seemed a reproach in Knight's blind words, and yet she was not able to clearly define any

One day of absence superimposed itself on another, and proportionately weighted his heart. He pushed on to

the Lakes of Killarney, rambled amid their luxuriant woods, surveyed the infinite variety of island, hill, and

dale there to be found, listened to the marvellous echoes of that romantic spot; but altogether missed the glory

Whilst in the company of Elfride, her girlish presence had not perceptibly affected him to any depth. He had

not been conscious that her entry into his sphere had added anything to himself; but now that she was taken

away he was very conscious of a great deal being abstracted. The superfluity had become a necessity, and

Stephen fell in love with Elfride by looking at her: Knight by ceasing to do so. When or how the spirit

entered into him he knew not: certain he was that when on the point of leaving Endelstow he had felt none of

that exquisite nicety of poignant sadness natural to such severances, seeing how delightful a subject of

contemplation Elfride had been ever since. Had he begun to love her when she met his eye after her mishap

on the tower? He had simply thought her weak. Had he grown to love her whilst standing on the lawn

brightened all over by the evening sun? He had thought her complexion good: no more. Was it her

conversation that had sown the seed? He had thought her words ingenious, and very creditable to a young

woman, but not noteworthy. Had the chess playing anything to do with it? Certainly not: he had thought her

Knight's experience was a complete disproof of the assumption that love always comes by glances of the eye

and sympathetic touches of the fingers: that, like flame, it makes itself palpable at the moment of generation.

Not till they were parted, and she had become sublimated in his memory, could he be said to have even

Thus, having passively gathered up images of her which his mind did not act upon till the cause of them was

no longer before him, he appeared to himself to have fallen in love with her soul, which had temporarily

She began to rule him so imperiously now that, accustomed to analysis, he almost trembled at the possible

result of the introduction of this new force among the nicely adjusted ones of his ordinary life. He became

restless: then he forgot all collateral subjects in the pleasure of thinking about her.

He thought of her manner towards him. Simplicity verges on coquetry. Was she flirting? he said to himself.

No forcible translation of favour into suspicion was able to uphold such a theory. The performance had been

too well done to be anything but real. It had the defects without which nothing is genuine. No actress of

twenty years' standing, no baldnecked lady whose earliest season 'out' was lost in the discreet mist of

evasive talk, could have played before him the part of ingenuous girl as Elfride lived it. She had the little

There are bachelors by nature and bachelors by circumstance: spinsters there doubtless are also of both kinds,

though some think only those of the latter. However, Knight had been looked upon as a bachelor by nature.

What was he coming to? It was very odd to himself to look at his theories on the subject of love, and reading

them now by the full light of a new experience, to see how much more his sentences meant than he had felt

them to mean when they were written. People often discover the real force of a trite old maxim only when it

is thrust upon them by a chance adventure; but Knight had never before known the case of a man who learnt

He was intensely satisfied with one aspect of the affair. Inbred in him was an invincible objection to be any

but the first comer in a woman's heart. He had discovered within himself the condition that if ever he did

make up his mind to marry, it must be on the certainty that no cropping out of inconvenient old letters, no

bow and blush to a mysterious stranger casually met, should be a possible source of discomposure. Knight's

sentiments were only the ordinary ones of a man of his age who loves genuinely, perhaps exaggerated a little

by his pursuits. When men first love as lads, it is with the very centre of their hearts, nothing else being

concerned in the operation. With added years, more of the faculties attempt a partnership in the passion, till at

Knight's age the understanding is fain to have a hand in it. It may as well be left out. A man in love setting up

his brains as a gauge of his position is as one determining a ship's longitude from a light at the masthead.

Knight argued from Elfride's unwontedness of manner, which was matter of fact, to an unwontedness in love,

which was matter of inference only. Incredules les plus credules. 'Elfride,' he said, 'had hardly looked upon a

He had never forgotten his severity to her because she preferred ornament to edification, and had since

excused her a hundred times by thinking how natural to womankind was a love of adornment, and how

necessary became a mild infusion of personal vanity to complete the delicate and fascinating dye of the

feminine mind. So at the end of the week's absence, which had brought him as far as Dublin, he resolved to

curtail his tour, return to Endelstow, and commit himself by making a reality of the hypothetical offer of that

Notwithstanding that he had concocted a great deal of paper theory on social amenities and modern manners

generally, the special ounce of practice was wanting, and now for his life Knight could not recollect whether

it was considered correct to give a young lady personal ornaments before a regular engagement to marry had

been initiated. But the day before leaving Dublin he looked around anxiously for a highclass jewellery

It was with a most awkward and unwonted feeling that after entering and closing the door of his room he sat

down, opened the morocco case, and held up each of the fragile bits of goldwork before his eyes. Many

things had become old to the solitary man of letters, but these were new, and he handled like a child an

outcome of civilization which had never before been touched by his fingers. A sudden fastidious decision that

the pattern chosen would not suit her after all caused him to rise in a flurry and tear down the street to change

them for others. After a great deal of trouble in reselecting, during which his mind became so bewildered that

the critical faculty on objects of art seemed to have vacated his person altogether, Knight carried off another

pair of earrings. These remained in his possession till the afternoon, when, after contemplating them fifty

times with a growing misgiving that the last choice was worse than the first, he felt that no sleep would visit

his pillow till he had improved upon his previous purchases yet again. In a perfect heat of vexation with

himself for such tergiversation, he went anew to the shopdoor, was absolutely ashamed to enter and give

further trouble, went to another shop, bought a pair at an enormously increased price, because they seemed

the very thing, asked the goldsmiths if they would take the other pair in exchange, was told that they could

not exchange articles bought of another maker, paid down the money, and went off with the two pairs in his

possession, wondering what on earth to do with the superfluous pair. He almost wished he could lose them,

or that somebody would steal them, and was burdened with an interposing sense that, as a capable man, with

true ideas of economy, he must necessarily sell them somewhere, which he did at last for a mere song.

Mingled with a blank feeling of a whole day being lost to him in running about the city on this new and

extraordinary class of errand, and of several pounds being lost through his bungling, was a slight sense of

satisfaction that he had emerged for ever from his antediluvian ignorance on the subject of ladies' jewellery,

as well as secured a truly artistic production at last. During the remainder of that day he scanned the

ornaments of every lady he met with the profoundly experienced eye of an appraiser.

Next morning Knight was again crossing St. George's Channelnot returning to London by the Holyhead

route as he had originally intended, but towards Bristolavailing himself of Mr. and Mrs. Swancourt's

Woman's ruling passionto fascinate and influence those more powerful than shethough operant in

Elfride, was decidedly purposeless. She had wanted her friend Knight's good opinion from the first: how

much more than that elementary ingredient of friendship she now desired, her fears would hardly allow her to

think. In originally wishing to please the highest class of man she had ever intimately known, there was no

disloyalty to Stephen Smith. She could notand few women canrealize the possible vastness of an issue

Her letters from Stephen were necessarily few, and her sense of fidelity clung to the last she had received as a

wrecked mariner clings to flotsam. The young girl persuaded herself that she was glad Stephen had such a

right to her hand as he had acquired (in her eyes) by the elopement. She beguiled herself by saying, 'Perhaps

All this made the week of Knight's absence very gloomy and distasteful to her. She retained Stephen in her

prayers, and his old letters were rereadas a medicine in reality, though she deceived herself into the belief

These letters had grown more and more hopeful. He told her that he finished his work every day with a

pleasant consciousness of having removed one more stone from the barrier which divided them. Then he

drew images of what a fine figure they two would cut some day. People would turn their heads and say,

'What a prize he has won!' She was not to be sad about that wild runaway attempt of theirs (Elfride had

repeatedly said that it grieved her). Whatever any other person who knew of it might think, he knew well

enough the modesty of her nature. The only reproach was a gentle one for not having written quite so

devotedly during her visit to London. Her letter had seemed to have a liveliness derived from other thoughts

Knight's intention of an early return to Endelstow having originally been faint, his promise to do so had been

fainter. He was a man who kept his words well to the rear of his possible actions. The vicar was rather

surprised to see him again so soon: Mrs. Swancourt was not. Knight found, on meeting them all, after his

arrival had been announced, that they had formed an intention to go to St. Leonards for a few days at the end

No satisfactory conjuncture offered itself on this first evening of his return for presenting Elfride with what

he had been at such pains to procure. He was fastidious in his reading of opportunities for such an intended

act. The next morning chancing to break fine after a week of cloudy weather, it was proposed and decided

that they should all drive to Barwith Strand, a local lion which neither Mrs. Swancourt nor Knight had seen.

Knight scented romantic occasions from afar, and foresaw that such a one might be expected before the

The journey was along a road by neutral green hills, upon which hedgerows lay trailing like ropes on a quay.

Gaps in these uplands revealed the blue sea, flecked with a few dashes of white and a solitary white sail, the

whole brimming up to a keen horizon which lay like a line ruled from hillside to hillside. Then they rolled

down a pass, the chocolatetoned rocks forming a wall on both sides, from one of which fell a heavy jagged

shade over half the roadway. A spout of fresh water burst from an occasional crevice, and pattering down

upon broad green leaves, ran along as a rivulet at the bottom. Unkempt locks of heather overhung the brow of

each steep, whence at divers points a bramble swung forth into midair, snatching at their headdresses like a

They mounted the last crest, and the bay which was to be the end of their pilgrimage burst upon them. The

ocean blueness deepened its colour as it stretched to the foot of the crags, where it terminated in a fringe of

whitesilent at this distance, though moving and heaving like a counterpane upon a restless sleeper. The

shadowed hollows of the purple and brown rocks would have been called blue had not that tint been so

The carriage was put up at a little cottage with a shed attached, and an ostler and the coachman carried the

Knight found his opportunity. 'I did not forget your wish,' he began, when they were apart from their friends.

'And I have brought you these,' he continued, awkwardly pulling out the case, and opening it while holding it

'O Mr. Knight!' said Elfride confusedly, and turning to a lively red; 'I didn't know you had any intention or

A thought which had flashed into her mind gave the reply a greater decisiveness than it might otherwise have

'But will you not accept them?' Knight returned, feeling less her master than heretofore.

'I would rather not. They are beautifulmore beautiful than any I have ever seen,' she answered earnestly,

looking halfwishfully at the temptation, as Eve may have looked at the apple. 'But I don't want to have

'No kindness at all,' said Mr. Knight, brought to a full stop at this unexpected turn of events.

A silence followed. Knight held the open case, looking rather wofully at the glittering forms he had forsaken

his orbit to procure; turning it about and holding it up as if, feeling his gift to be slighted by her, he were

'Shut them up, and don't let me see them any longerdo!' she said laughingly, and with a quaint mixture of

'Not Elfie to you, Mr. Knight. Oh, because I shall want them. There, I am silly, I know, to say that! But I have

a reason for not taking themnow.' She kept in the last word for a moment, intending to imply that her

'I have read a fact of distressing significance in that,' said Knight. 'Since you like them, your dislike to having

Elfride deepened in tint, and looked into the distance with features shaped to an expression of the nicest

'You are so sharp with me, and say hard things, and so how can I?' she replied evasively.

'No, I don'tI mean I doI don't know what I think you, I mean. Let us go to papa,' responded Elfride, with

'Well, I'll tell you my object in getting the present,' said Knight, with a composure intended to remove from

her mind any possible impression of his being what he washer lover. 'You see it was the very least I could

Knight continued, putting away the case: 'I felt as anybody naturally would have, you know, that my words

on your choice the other day were invidious and unfair, and thought an apology should take a practical shape.'

Elfride was sorryshe could not tell whythat he gave such a legitimate reason. It was a disappointment

that he had all the time a cool motive, which might be stated to anybody without raising a smile. Had she

known they were offered in that spirit, she would certainly have accepted the seductive gift. And the

tantalizing feature was that perhaps he suspected her to imagine them offered as a lover's token, which was

Mrs. Swancourt came now to where they were sitting, to select a flat boulder for spreading their tablecloth

upon, and, amid the discussion on that subject, the matter pending between Knight and Elfride was shelved

for a while. He read her refusal so certainly as the bashfulness of a girl in a novel position, that, upon the

whole, he could tolerate such a beginning. Could Knight have been told that it was a sense of fidelity

struggling against new love, whilst no less assuring as to his ultimate victory, it might have entirely

At the same time a slight constraint of manner was visible between them for the remainder of the afternoon.

The tide turned, and they were obliged to ascend to higher ground. The day glided on to its end with the usual

quiet dreamy passivity of such occasionswhen every deed done and thing thought is in endeavouring to

avoid doing and thinking more. Looking idly over the verge of a crag, they beheld their stone diningtable

gradually being splashed upon and their crumbs and fragments all washed away by the incoming sea. The

vicar drew a moral lesson from the scene; Knight replied in the same satisfied strain. And then the waves

rolled in furiouslythe neutral greenandblue tongues of water slid up the slopes, and were

metamorphosed into foam by a careless blow, falling back white and faint, and leaving trailing followers

The passing of a heavy shower was the next scenedriving them to shelter in a shallow caveafter which

the horses were put in, and they started to return homeward. By the time they reached the higher levels the

sky had again cleared, and the sunset rays glanced directly upon the wet uphill road they had climbed. The

ruts formed by their carriagewheels on the ascenta pair of Liliputian canalswere as shining bars of

gold, tapering to nothing in the distance. Upon this also they turned their backs, and night spread over the sea.

The evening was chilly, and there was no moon. Knight sat close to Elfride, and, when the darkness rendered

the position of a person a matter of uncertainty, particularly close. Elfride edged away.

'Oh yes; 'tis the least I can do in common civility,' she said, accenting the words so that he might recognize

Both of them felt delicately balanced between two possibilities. Thus they reached home.

To Knight this mild experience was delightful. It was to him a gentle innocent timea time which, though

there may not be much in it, seldom repeats itself in a man's life, and has a peculiar dearness when glanced at

retrospectively. He is not inconveniently deep in love, and is lulled by a peaceful sense of being able to enjoy

the most trivial thing with a childlike enjoyment. The movement of a wave, the colour of a stone, anything,

was enough for Knight's drowsy thoughts of that day to precipitate themselves upon. Even the sermonizing

platitudes the vicar had delivered himself ofchiefly because something seemed to be professionally

required of him in the presence of a man of Knight's proclivitieswere swallowed whole. The presence of

Elfride led him not merely to tolerate that kind of talk from the necessities of ordinary courtesy; but he

listened to ittook in the ideas with an enjoyable makebelieve that they were proper and necessary, and

Entering her room that evening Elfride found a packet for herself on the dressingtable. How it came there

she did not know. She tremblingly undid the folds of white paper that covered it. Yes; it was the treasure of a

morocco case, containing those treasures of ornament she had refused in the daytime.

Elfride dressed herself in them for a moment, looked at herself in the glass, blushed red, and put them away.

They filled her dreams all that night. Never had she seen anything so lovely, and never was it more clear that

as an honest woman she was in duty bound to refuse them. Why it was not equally clear to her that duty

required more vigorous coordinate conduct as well, let those who dissect her say.

The next morning glared in like a spectre upon her. It was Stephen's letterday, and she was bound to meet

the postmanto stealthily do a deed she had never liked, to secure an end she now had ceased to desire.

One was from the bank at St. Launce's, in which she had a small private depositprobably something about

interest. She put that in her pocket for a moment, and going indoors and upstairs to be safer from observation,

She was to go to the St. Launce's Bank and take a sum of money which they had received private advices to

There was no check, order, or anything of the nature of guarantee. In fact the information amounted to this:

She instantly opened the other letter. It contained a deposit note from the bank for the sum of two hundred

pounds which had that day been added to her account. Stephen's information, then, was correct, and the

'I have saved this in one year,' Stephen's letter went on to say, 'and what so proper as well as pleasant for me

to do as to hand it over to you to keep for your use? I have plenty for myself, independently of this. Should

you not be disposed to let it lie idle in the bank, get your father to invest it in your name on good security. It

is a little present to you from your more than betrothed. He will, I think, Elfride, feel now that my pretensions

to your hand are anything but the dream of a silly boy not worth rational consideration.'

With a natural delicacy, Elfride, in mentioning her father's marriage, had refrained from all allusion to the

Leaving this matteroffact subject, he went on, somewhat after his boyish manner:

'Do you remember, darling, that first morning of my arrival at your house, when your father read at prayers

the miracle of healing the sick of the palsywhere he is told to take up his bed and walk? I do, and I can

now so well realize the force of that passage. The smallest piece of mat is the bed of the Oriental, and

yesterday I saw a native perform the very action, which reminded me to mention it. But you are better read

than I, and perhaps you knew all this long ago....One day I bought some small native idols to send home to

you as curiosities, but afterwards finding they had been cast in England, made to look old, and shipped over, I

'Speaking of this reminds me that we are obliged to import all our housebuilding ironwork from England.

Never was such foresight required to be exercised in building houses as here. Before we begin, we have to

order every column, lock, hinge, and screw that will be required. We cannot go into the next street, as in

London, and get them cast at a minute's notice. Mr. L. says somebody will have to go to England very soon

and superintend the selection of a large order of this kind. I only wish I may be the man.'

There before her lay the depositreceipt for the two hundred pounds, and beside it the elegant present of

Knight. Elfride grew coldthen her cheeks felt heated by beating blood. If by destroying the piece of paper

the whole transaction could have been withdrawn from her experience, she would willingly have sacrificed

the money it represented. She did not know what to do in either case. She almost feared to let the two articles

lie in juxtaposition: so antagonistic were the interests they represented that a miraculous repulsion of one by

That day she was seen little of. By the evening she had come to a resolution, and acted upon it. The packet

was sealed upwith a tear of regret as she closed the case upon the pretty forms it containeddirected, and

placed upon the writingtable in Knight's room. And a letter was written to Stephen, stating that as yet she

hardly understood her position with regard to the money sent; but declaring that she was ready to fulfil her

promise to marry him. After this letter had been written she delayed posting it although never ceasing to

Several days passed. There was another Indian letter for Elfride. Coming unexpectedly, her father saw it, but

made no remarkwhy, she could not tell. The news this time was absolutely overwhelming. Stephen, as he

had wished, had been actually chosen as the most fitting to execute the ironwork commission he had alluded

to as impending. This duty completed he would have three months' leave. His letter continued that he should

follow it in a week, and should take the opportunity to plainly ask her father to permit the engagement. Then

came a page expressive of his delight and hers at the reunion; and finally, the information that he would write

to the shipping agents, asking them to telegraph and tell her when the ship bringing him home should be in

Elfride lived and moved now as in a dream. Knight had at first become almost angry at her persistent refusal

of his offeringand no less with the manner than the fact of it. But he saw that she began to look worn and

He ceased now to remain in the house for long hours together as before, but made it a mere centre for

antiquarian and geological excursions in the neighbourhood. Throw up his cards and go away he fain would

have done, but could not. And, thus, availing himself of the privileges of a relative, he went in and out the

'I don't wish to stay here another day if my presence is distasteful,' he said one afternoon. 'At first you used to

The origin of their acquaintanceship had been such as to render their manner towards each other peculiar and

uncommon. It was of a kind to cause them to speak out their minds on any feelings of objection and

She said nothing, but the eloquent expression of her eyes and wan face was enough to reproach him for

'Yes,' she said. Fidelity to the old love and truth to the new were ranged on opposite sides, and truth

'Don't be vexed if I keep by myself a good deal, will you? Perhaps something may happen, and I may tell you

'Mere coyness,' said Knight to himself; and went away with a lighter heart. The trick of reading truly the

enigmatical forces at work in women at given times, which with some men is an unerring instinct, is peculiar

The next evening, about five o'clock, before Knight had returned from a pilgrimage along the shore, a man

walked up to the house. He was a messenger from Camelton, a town a few miles off, to which place the

'A telegram for Miss Swancourt, and three and sixpence to pay for the special messenger.' Miss Swancourt

sent out the money, signed the paper, and opened her letter with a trembling hand. She read:

'Amaryllis telegraphed off Holyhead, four o'clock. Expect will dock and land passengers at Canning's Basin

'If you will not press me now, I give my word to tell you the meaning of all this before the week is past.'

'Very well. I have had a certain suspicion, you know; and I shall be glad to find it false. I don't like your

She began to look out for the postman again. Three mornings later he brought an inland letter from Stephen.

It contained very little matter, having been written in haste; but the meaning was bulky enough. Stephen said

that, having executed a commission in Liverpool, he should arrive at his father's house, East Endelstow, at

five or six o'clock that same evening; that he would after dusk walk on to the next village, and meet her, if

she would, in the church porch, as in the old time. He proposed this plan because he thought it unadvisable to

call formally at her house so late in the evening; yet he could not sleep without having seen her. The minutes

Elfride was still steadfast in her opinion that honour compelled her to meet him. Probably the very longing to

avoid him lent additional weight to the conviction; for she was markedly one of those who sigh for the

unattainableto whom, superlatively, a hope is pleasing because not a possession. And she knew it so well

So during the day she looked her duty steadfastly in the face; read Wordsworth's astringent yet depressing

ode to that Deity; committed herself to her guidance; and still felt the weight of chance desires.

But she began to take a melancholy pleasure in contemplating the sacrifice of herself to the man whom a

maidenly sense of propriety compelled her to regard as her only possible husband. She would meet him, and

do all that lay in her power to marry him. To guard against a relapse, a note was at once despatched to his

Stephen had said that he should come by way of Bristol, and thence by a steamer to Castle Boterel, in order to

avoid the long journey over the hills from St. Launce's. He did not know of the extension of the railway to

During the afternoon a thought occurred to Elfride, that from any cliff along the shore it would be possible to

She had accumulated religious force enough to do an act of supererogation. The act was thisto go to some

It was a cloudy afternoon. Elfride was often diverted from a purpose by a dull sky; and though she used to

persuade herself that the weather was as fine as possible on the other side of the clouds, she could not bring

about any practical result from this fancy. Now, her mood was such that the humid sky harmonized with it.

Having ascended and passed over a hill behind the house, Elfride came to a small stream. She used it as a

guide to the coast. It was smaller than that in her own valley, and flowed altogether at a higher level. Bushes

lined the slopes of its shallow trough; but at the bottom, where the water ran, was a soft green carpet, in a

In winter, the water flowed over the grass; in summer, as now, it trickled along a channel in the midst.

Elfride had a sensation of eyes regarding her from somewhere. She turned, and there was Mr. Knight. He had

dropped into the valley from the side of the hill. She felt a thrill of pleasure, and rebelliously allowed it to

'I am going to the shore by tracking the stream. I believe it empties itself not far off, in a silver thread of

'I'll carry it for you to your journey's end.' And he took the glass from her unresisting hands. 'It cannot be half

a mile further. See, there is the water.' He pointed to a short fragment of level muddygray colour, cutting

Elfride had already scanned the small surface of ocean visible, and had seen no ship.

They walked along in company, sometimes with the brook between themfor it was no wider than a man's

stridesometimes close together. The green carpet grew swampy, and they kept higher up.

One of the two ridges between which they walked dwindled lower and became insignificant. That on the right

hand rose with their advance, and terminated in a clearly defined edge against the light, as if it were abruptly

sawn off. A little further, and the bed of the rivulet ended in the same fashion.

They had come to a bank breasthigh, and over it the valley was no longer to be seen. It was withdrawn

cleanly and completely. In its place was sky and boundless atmosphere; and perpendicularly down beneath

The small stream here found its death. Running over the precipice it was dispersed in spray before it was

halfway down, and falling like rain upon projecting ledges, made minute grassy meadows of them. At the

bottom the waterdrops soaked away amid the debris of the cliff. This was the inglorious end of the river.

She was gazing hard at a black objectnearer to the shore than to the horizonfrom the summit of which

'The Puffin, a little summer steamboatfrom Bristol to Castle Boterel,' she said. 'I think that is itlook.

Knight pulled open the oldfashioned but powerful telescope, and handed it to Elfride, who had looked on

Knight raised the glass to his eye, and swept the sea till the Puffin entered its field.

'Yes, it is the Puffina tiny craft. I can see her figurehead distinctlya bird with a beak as big as its head.'

"Wait a minute; yes, pretty clearly. And I can see the black forms of the passengers against its white surface.

One of them has taken something from anothera glass, I thinkyes, it is and he is levelling it in this

direction. Depend upon it we are conspicuous objects against the sky to them. Now, it seems to rain upon

them, and they put on overcoats and open umbrellas. They vanish and go belowall but that one who has

'I think we had better return,' he said. 'That cloud which is raining on them may soon reach us. Why, you look

'Those fair cheeks are very fastidious, I fear,' returned Knight tenderly. 'This air would make those rosy that

She turned her back upon the boat and Stephen Smith, and saw, towering still higher than themselves, the

vertical face of the hill on the right, which did not project seaward so far as the bed of the valley, but formed

the back of a small cove, and so was visible like a concave wall, bending round from their position towards

The composition of the huge hill was revealed to its backbone and marrow here at its rent extremity. It

consisted of a vast stratification of blackishgray slate, unvaried in its whole height by a single change of

It is with cliffs and mountains as with persons; they have what is called a presence, which is not necessarily

proportionate to their actual bulk. A little cliff will impress you powerfully; a great one not at all. It depends,

'I cannot bear to look at that cliff,' said Elfride. 'It has a horrid personality, and makes me shudder. We will

'Can you climb?' said Knight. 'If so, we will ascend by that path over the grim old fellow's brow.'

'Try me,' said Elfride disdainfully. 'I have ascended steeper slopes than that.'

From where they had been loitering, a grassy path wound along inside a bank, placed as a safeguard for

unwary pedestrians, to the top of the precipice, and over it along the hill in an inland direction.

When they were one quarter of the way up, Elfride stopped to take breath. Knight stretched out his hand.

She took it, and they ascended the remaining slope together. Reaching the very top, they sat down to rest by

'Heavens, what an altitude!' said Knight between his pants, and looking far over the sea. The cascade at the

Elfride was looking to the left. The steamboat was in full view again, and by reason of the vast surface of sea

'Over that edge,' said Knight, 'where nothing but vacancy appears, is a moving compact mass. The wind

strikes the face of the rock, runs up it, rises like a fountain to a height far above our heads, curls over us in an

arch, and disperses behind us. In fact, an inverted cascade is thereas perfect as the Niagara Fallsbut

Knight threw a stone over the bank, aiming it as if to go onward over the cliff. Reaching the verge, it towered

into the air like a bird, turned back, and alighted on the ground behind them. They themselves were in a dead

'A boat crosses Niagara immediately at the foot of the falls, where the water is quite still, the fallen mass

curving under it. We are in precisely the same position with regard to our atmospheric cataract here. If you

run back from the cliff fifty yards, you will be in a brisk wind. Now I daresay over the bank is a little

Knight rose and leant over the bank. No sooner was his head above it than his hat appeared to be sucked from

'That's the backward eddy, as I told you,' he cried, and vanished over the little bank after his hat.

Elfride waited one minute; he did not return. She waited another, and there was no sign of him.

She arose, and looked over the bank. On the other side were two or three yards of level groundthen a short

On the slope was Knight, his hat on his head. He was on his hands and knees, trying to climb back to the

level ground. The rain had wetted the shaly surface of the incline. A slight superficial wetting of the soil

hereabout made it far more slippery to stand on than the same soil thoroughly drenched. The inner substance

Knight strove with all his might for two or three minutes, and the drops of perspiration began to bead his

Elfride, by a wrench of thought, forced away from her mind the sensation that Knight was in bodily danger.

But attempt to help him she must. She ventured upon the treacherous incline, propped herself with the closed

'O Elfride! why did you?' said he. 'I am afraid you have only endangered yourself.'

And as if to prove his statement, in making an endeavour by her assistance they both slipped lower, and then

he was again stayed. His foot was propped by a bracket of quartz rock, balanced on the verge of the precipice.

Fixed by this, he steadied her, her head being about a foot below the beginning of the slope. Elfride had

dropped the glass; it rolled to the edge and vanished over it into a nether sky.

She flung her arms round his neck with such a firm grasp that whilst he remained it was impossible for her to

'Don't be flurried,' Knight continued. 'So long as we stay above this block we are perfectly safe. Wait a

He turned his eyes to the dizzy depths beneath them, and surveyed the position of affairs.

Two glances told him a tale with ghastly distinctness. It was that, unless they performed their feat of getting

up the slope with the precision of machines, they were over the edge and whirling in midair.

For this purpose it was necessary that he should recover the breath and strength which his previous efforts

The crest of this terrible natural facade passed among the neighbouring inhabitants as being seven hundred

feet above the water it overhung. It had been proved by actual measurement to be not a foot less than six

That is to say, it is nearly three times the height of Flamborough, half as high again as the South Foreland, a

hundred feet higher than Beachy Headthe loftiest promontory on the east or south side of this

islandtwice the height of St. Aldhelm's, thrice as high as the Lizard, and just double the height of St. Bee's.

One seabord point on the western coast is known to surpass it in altitude, but only by a few feet. This is

And it must be remembered that the cliff exhibits an intensifying feature which some of those are

Yet this remarkable rampart forms no headland: it rather walls in an inletthe promontory on each side

being much lower. Thus, far from being salient, its horizontal section is concave. The sea, rolling direct from

the shores of North America, has in fact eaten a chasm into the middle of a hill, and the giant, embayed and

unobtrusive, stands in the rear of pigmy supporters. Not least singularly, neither hill, chasm, nor precipice has

What gave an added terror to its height was its blackness. And upon this dark face the beating of ten thousand

west winds had formed a kind of bloom, which had a visual effect not unlike that of a Hambro' grape.

Moreover it seemed to float off into the atmosphere, and inspire terror through the lungs.

'This piece of quartz, supporting my feet, is on the very nose of the cliff,' said Knight, breaking the silence

after his rigid stoical meditation. 'Now what you are to do is this. Clamber up my body till your feet are on

my shoulders: when you are there you will, I think, be able to climb on to level ground.'

'I was in the act of slipping, and should have reached no stand point without your weight, in all probability.

She prepared to ascend, saying, 'This is the moment I anticipated when on the tower. I thought it would

'Now put your foot into my hand: next the other. That's good well done. Hold to my shoulder.'

She placed her feet upon the stirrup he made of his hand, and was high enough to get a view of the natural

'Now try to get higher in this way. You see that tuft of seapink above you. Get that well into your hand, but

don't trust to it entirely. Then step upon my shoulder, and I think you will reach the top.'

With trembling limbs she did exactly as he told her. The preternatural quiet and solemnity of his manner

overspread upon herself, and gave her a courage not her own. She made a spring from the top of his shoulder,

By an ill fate, the force downwards of her bound, added to his own weight, had been too much for the block

of quartz upon which his feet depended. It was, indeed, originally an igneous protrusion into the enormous

masses of black strata, which had since been worn away from the sides of the alien fragment by centuries of

The quartz rock which had been his salvation was worse than useless now. It rolled over, out of sight, and

One of the tufts by which he held came out at the root, and Knight began to follow the quartz. It was a terrible

moment. Elfride uttered a low wild wail of agony, bowed her head, and covered her face with her hands.

Between the turfcovered slope and the gigantic perpendicular rock intervened a weatherworn series of

jagged edges, forming a face yet steeper than the former slope. As he slowly slid inch by inch upon these,

Knight made a last desperate dash at the lowest tuft of vegetationthe last outlying knot of starved herbage

ere the rock appeared in all its bareness. It arrested his further descent. Knight was now literally suspended by

his arms; but the incline of the brow being what engineers would call about a quarter in one, it was sufficient

to relieve his arms of a portion of his weight, but was very far from offering an adequately flat face to support

In spite of this dreadful tension of body and mind, Knight found time for a moment of thankfulness. Elfride

She lay on her side above himher fingers clasped. Seeing him again steady, she jumped upon her feet.

'Now, if I can only save you by running for help!' she cried. 'Oh, I would have died instead! Why did you try

'That won't do; my hands will not hold out ten minutes. And is there nobody nearer?'

'He would have nothing with him that could save me. Is there a pole or stick of any kind on the common?'

A minuteperhaps more timewas passed in mute thought by both. On a sudden the blank and helpless

Haggard cliffs, of every ugly altitude, are as common as seafowl along the line of coast between Exmoor

and Land's End; but this outflanked and encompassed specimen was the ugliest of them all. Their summits

are not safe places for scientific experiment on the principles of aircurrents, as Knight had now found, to his

He still clutched the face of the escarpmentnot with the frenzied hold of despair, but with a dogged

determination to make the most of his every jot of endurance, and so give the longest possible scope to

He reclined hand in hand with the world in its infancy. Not a blade, not an insect, which spoke of the present,

was between him and the past. The inveterate antagonism of these black precipices to all strugglers for life is

in no way more forcibly suggested than by the paucity of tufts of grass, lichens, or confervae on their

Knight pondered on the meaning of Elfride's hasty disappearance, but could not avoid an instinctive

conclusion that there existed but a doubtful hope for him. As far as he could judge, his sole chance of

deliverance lay in the possibility of a rope or pole being brought; and this possibility was remote indeed. The

soil upon these high downs was left so untended that they were unenclosed for miles, except by a casual bank

or dry wall, and were rarely visited but for the purpose of collecting or counting the flock which found a

At first, when death appeared improbable, because it had never visited him before, Knight could think of no

future, nor of anything connected with his past. He could only look sternly at Nature's treacherous attempt to

From the fact that the cliff formed the inner face of the segment of a huge cylinder, having the sky for a top

and the sea for a bottom, which enclosed the cove to the extent of more than a semicircle, he could see the

vertical face curving round on each side of him. He looked far down the facade, and realized more thoroughly

how it threatened him. Grimness was in every feature, and to its very bowels the inimical shape was

By one of those familiar conjunctions of things wherewith the inanimate world baits the mind of man when

he pauses in moments of suspense, opposite Knight's eyes was an imbedded fossil, standing forth in low

relief from the rock. It was a creature with eyes. The eyes, dead and turned to stone, were even now regarding

him. It was one of the early crustaceans called Trilobites. Separated by millions of years in their lives, Knight

and this underling seemed to have met in their death. It was the single instance within reach of his vision of

anything that had ever been alive and had had a body to save, as he himself had now.

The creature represented but a low type of animal existence, for never in their vernal years had the plains

indicated by those numberless slaty layers been traversed by an intelligence worthy of the name. Zoophytes,

mollusca, shellfish, were the highest developments of those ancient dates. The immense lapses of time each

formation represented had known nothing of the dignity of man. They were grand times, but they were mean

times too, and mean were their relics. He was to be with the small in his death.

Knight was a geologist; and such is the supremacy of habit over occasion, as a pioneer of the thoughts of

men, that at this dreadful juncture his mind found time to take in, by a momentary sweep, the varied scenes

that had had their day between this creature's epoch and his own. There is no place like a cleft landscape for

Time closed up like a fan before him. He saw himself at one extremity of the years, face to face with the

beginning and all the intermediate centuries simultaneously. Fierce men, clothed in the hides of beasts, and

carrying, for defence and attack, huge clubs and pointed spears, rose from the rock, like the phantoms before

the doomed Macbeth. They lived in hollows, woods, and mud hutsperhaps in caves of the neighbouring

rocks. Behind them stood an earlier band. No man was there. Huge elephantine forms, the mastodon, the

hippopotamus, the tapir, antelopes of monstrous size, the megatherium, and the myledonall, for the

moment, in juxtaposition. Further back, and overlapped by these, were perched hugebilled birds and swinish

creatures as large as horses. Still more shadowy were the sinister crocodilian outlinesalligators and other

uncouth shapes, culminating in the colossal lizard, the iguanodon. Folded behind were dragon forms and

clouds of flying reptiles: still underneath were fishy beings of lower development; and so on, till the lifetime

scenes of the fossil confronting him were a present and modern condition of things. These images passed

before Knight's inner eye in less than half a minute, and he was again considering the actual present. Was he

to die? The mental picture of Elfride in the world, without himself to cherish her, smote his heart like a whip.

He had hoped for deliverance, but what could a girl do? He dared not move an inch. Was Death really

stretching out his hand? The previous sensation, that it was improbable he would die, was fainter now.

To those musing weatherbeaten Westcountry folk who pass the greater part of their days and nights out of

doors, Nature seems to have moods in other than a poetical sense: predilections for certain deeds at certain

times, without any apparent law to govern or season to account for them. She is read as a person with a

curious temper; as one who does not scatter kindnesses and cruelties alternately, impartially, and in order, but

heartless severities or overwhelming generosities in lawless caprice. Man's case is always that of the

prodigal's favourite or the miser's pensioner. In her unfriendly moments there seems a feline fun in her tricks,

Such a way of thinking had been absurd to Knight, but he began to adopt it now. He was first spitted on to a

rock. New tortures followed. The rain increased, and persecuted him with an exceptional persistency which

he was moved to believe owed its cause to the fact that he was in such a wretched state already. An entirely

new order of things could be observed in this introduction of rain upon the scene. It rained upwards instead of

down. The strong ascending air carried the raindrops with it in its race up the escarpment, coming to him

with such velocity that they stuck into his flesh like cold needles. Each drop was virtually a shaft, and it

pierced him to his skin. The water shafts seemed to lift him on their points: no downward rain ever had such

a torturing effect. In a brief space he was drenched, except in two places. These were on the top of his

The wind, though not intense in other situations was strong here. It tugged at his coat and lifted it. We are

mostly accustomed to look upon all opposition which is not animate, as that of the stolid, inexorable hand of

indifference, which wears out the patience more than the strength. Here, at any rate, hostility did not assume

that slow and sickening form. It was a cosmic agency, active, lashing, eager for conquest: determination; not

Knight had overestimated the strength of his hands. They were getting weak already. 'She will never come

This mistake arose from the unusual compression of his experiences just now: she had really been gone but

Next came another instance of the incapacity of the mind to make comparisons at such times.

'This is a summer afternoon,' he said, 'and there can never have been such a heavy and cold rain on a summer

He was again mistaken. The rain was quite ordinary in quantity; the air in temperature. It was, as is usual, the

He again looked straight downwards, the wind and the waterdashes lifting his moustache, scudding up his

cheeks, under his eyelids, and into his eyes. This is what he saw down there: the surface of the seavisually

just past his toes, and under his feet; actually oneeighth of a mile, or more than two hundred yards, below

them. We colour according to our moods the objects we survey. The sea would have been a deep neutral blue,

had happier auspices attended the gazer it was now no otherwise than distinctly black to his vision. That

narrow white border was foam, he knew well; but its boisterous tosses were so distant as to appear a pulsation

only, and its plashing was barely audible. A white border to a black seahis funeral pall and its edging.

The world was to some extent turned upside down for him. Rain descended from below. Beneath his feet was

aerial space and the unknown; above him was the firm, familiar ground, and upon it all that he loved best.

Pitiless nature had then two voices, and two only. The nearer was the voice of the wind in his ears rising and

falling as it mauled and thrust him hard or softly. The second and distant one was the moan of that

unplummetted ocean below and afarrubbing its restless flank against the Cliff without a Name.

Knight perseveringly held fast. Had he any faith in Elfride? Perhaps. Love is faith, and faith, like a gathered

Nobody would have expected the sun to shine on such an evening as this. Yet it appeared, low down upon the

sea. Not with its natural golden fringe, sweeping the furthest ends of the landscape, not with the strange glare

of whiteness which it sometimes puts on as an alternative to colour, but as a splotch of vermilion red upon a

Most men who have brains know it, and few are so foolish as to disguise this fact from themselves or others,

even though an ostentatious display may be called selfconceit. Knight, without showing it much, knew that

his intellect was above the average. And he thoughthe could not help thinkingthat his death would be a

deliberate loss to earth of good material; that such an experiment in killing might have been practised upon

A fancy some people hold, when in a bitter mood, is that inexorable circumstance only tries to prevent what

intelligence attempts. Renounce a desire for a longcontested position, and go on another tack, and after a

while the prize is thrown at you, seemingly in disappointment that no more tantalizing is possible.

Knight gave up thoughts of life utterly and entirely, and turned to contemplate the Dark Valley and the

unknown future beyond. Into the shadowy depths of these speculations we will not follow him. Let it suffice

At that moment of taking no more thought for this life, something disturbed the outline of the bank above

The expression of a face consigned to utter loneliness, when a friend first looks in upon it, is moving in the

extreme. In rowing seaward to a lightship or seagirt lighthouse, where, without any immediate terror of

death, the inmates experience the gloom of monotonous seclusion, the grateful eloquence of their

countenances at the greeting, expressive of thankfulness for the visit, is enough to stir the emotions of the

Knight's upward look at Elfride was of a nature with, but far transcending, such an instance as this. The lines

of his face had deepened to furrows, and every one of them thanked her visibly. His lips moved to the word

'Elfride,' though the emotion evolved no sound. His eyes passed all description in their combination of the

whole diapason of eloquence, from lover's deep love to fellow man's gratitude for a token of remembrance

Elfride had come back. What she had come to do he did not know. She could only look on at his death,

perhaps. Still, she had come back, and not deserted him utterly, and it was much.

It was a novelty in the extreme to see Henry Knight, to whom Elfride was but a child, who had swayed her as

a tree sways a bird's nest, who mastered her and made her weep most bitterly at her own insignificance, thus

thankful for a sight of her face. She looked down upon him, her face glistening with rain and tears. He smiled

'How calm he is!' she thought. 'How great and noble he is to be so calm!' She would have died ten times for

'How much longer can you wait?' came from her pale lips and along the wind to his position.

He now noticed that in her arms she bore a bundle of white linen, and that her form was singularly attenuated.

So preternaturally thin and flexible was Elfride at this moment, that she appeared to bend under the light

blows of the rainshafts, as they struck into her sides and bosom, and splintered into spray on her face. There

is nothing like a thorough drenching for reducing the protuberances of clothes, but Elfride's seemed to cling

Without heeding the attack of the clouds further than by raising her hand and wiping away the spirts of rain

when they went more particularly into her eyes, she sat down and hurriedly began rending the linen into

strips. These she knotted end to end, and afterwards twisted them like the strands of a cord. In a short space

'Can you wait while I bind it?' she said, anxiously extending her gaze down to him.

Elfride dropped her eyes again, tore the remaining material into narrow tapelike ligaments, knotted each to

each as before, but on a smaller scale, and wound the lengthy string she had thus formed round and round the

'Now,' said Knight, who, watching the proceedings intently, had by this time not only grasped her scheme,

but reasoned further on, 'I can hold three minutes longer yet. And do you use the time in testing the strength

She at once obeyed, tested each singly by putting her foot on the rope between each knot, and pulling with

'Oh, think! It would have broken but for your forethought,' Elfride exclaimed apprehensively.

'When you have let it down,' said Knight, already resuming his position of ruling power, 'go back from the

edge of the slope, and over the bank as far as the rope will allow you. Then lean down, and hold the end with

He had first thought of a safer plan for his own deliverance, but it involved the disadvantage of possibly

'I have tied it round my waist,' she cried, 'and I will lean directly upon the bank, holding with my hands as

'I will raise and drop it three times when I am behind the bank,' she continued, 'to signify that I am ready.

She dropped the rope over him, to learn how much of its length it would be necessary to expend on that side

The rope was trailing by Knight's shoulders. In a few moments it twitched three times.

The incline of this upper portion of the precipice, to the length only of a few feet, useless to a climber

emptyhanded, was invaluable now. Not more than half his weight depended entirely on the linen rope. Half

a dozen extensions of the arms, alternating with half a dozen seizures of the rope with his feet, brought him

He extended his cramped limbs like an awakened sleeper, and sprang over the bank.

At sight of him she leapt to her feet with almost a shriek of joy. Knight's eyes met hers, and with supreme

eloquence the glance of each told a longconcealed tale of emotion in that short half moment. Moved by an

At the moment of embracing, Elfride's eyes involuntarily flashed towards the Puffin steamboat. It had

An overwhelming rush of exultation at having delivered the man she revered from one of the most terrible

forms of death, shook the gentle girl to the centre of her soul. It merged in a defiance of duty to Stephen, and

a total recklessness as to plighted faith. Every nerve of her will was now in entire subjection to her

feelingvolition as a guiding power had forsaken her. To remain passive, as she remained now, encircled by

his arms, was a sufficiently complete resulta glorious crown to all the years of her life. Perhaps he was

only grateful, and did not love her. No matter: it was infinitely more to be even the slave of the greater than

the queen of the less. Some such sensation as this, though it was not recognized as a finished thought, raced

Regarding their attitude, it was impossible for two persons to go nearer to a kiss than went Knight and Elfride

during those minutes of impulsive embrace in the pelting rain. Yet they did not kiss. Knight's peculiarity of

nature was such that it would not allow him to take advantage of the unguarded and passionate avowal she

He reluctantly relinquished her, and then surveyed her from crown to toe. She seemed as small as an infant.

'I must leave you now,' she said, her face doubling its red, with an expression between gladness and shame

'The rain and wind pierce you through; the chill will kill you. God bless you for such devotion! Take my coat

Elfride had absolutely nothing between her and the weather but her exterior robe or 'costume.' The door had

been made upon a woman's wit, and it had found its way out. Behind the bank, whilst Knight reclined upon

the dizzy slope waiting for death, she had taken off her whole clothing, and replaced only her outer bodice

and skirt. Every thread of the remainder lay upon the ground in the form of a woollen and cotton rope.

'I am used to being wet through,' she added. 'I have been drenched on Pansy dozens of times. Goodbye till

She then ran off from him through the pelting rain like a hare; or more like a pheasant when, scampering

away with a lowered tail, it has a mind to fly, but does not. Elfride was soon out of sight.

Knight felt uncomfortably wet and chilled, but glowing with fervour nevertheless. He fully appreciated

Elfride's girlish delicacy in refusing his escort in the meagre habiliments she wore, yet felt that necessary

He gathered up her knotted and twisted plumage of linen, lace, and embroidery work, and laid it across his

arm. He noticed on the ground an envelope, limp and wet. In endeavouring to restore this to its proper shape,

he loosened from the envelope a piece of paper it had contained, which was seized by the wind in falling

from Knight's hand. It was blown to the right, blown to the left it floated to the edge of the cliff and over

the sea, where it was hurled aloft. It twirled in the air, and then flew back over his head.

Knight followed the paper, and secured it. Having done so, he looked to discover if it had been worth

The troublesome sheet was a banker's receipt for two hundred pounds, placed to the credit of Miss

Swancourt, which the impractical girl had totally forgotten she carried with her.

Knight folded it as carefully as its moist condition would allow, put it in his pocket, and followed Elfride.

By this time Stephen Smith had stepped out upon the quay at Castle Boterel, and breathed his native air.

A darker skin, a more pronounced moustache, and an incipient beard, were the chief additions and changes

In spite of the falling rain, which had somewhat lessened, he took a small valise in his hand, and, leaving the

remainder of his luggage at the inn, ascended the hills towards East Endelstow. This place lay in a vale of its

own, further inland than the west village, and though so near it, had little of physical feature in common with

the latter. East Endelstow was more wooded and fertile: it boasted of Lord Luxellian's mansion and park, and

was free from those bleak open uplands which lent such an air of desolation to the vicinage of the

coastalways excepting the small valley in which stood the vicarage and Mrs. Swancourt's old house, The

Stephen had arrived nearly at the summit of the ridge when the rain again increased its volume, and, looking

about for temporary shelter, he ascended a steep path which penetrated dense hazel bushes in the lower part

of its course. Further up it emerged upon a ledge immediately over the turnpikeroad, and sheltered by an

overhanging face of rubble rock, with bushes above. For a reason of his own he made this spot his refuge

from the storm, and turning his face to the left, conned the landscape as a book.

From this point of observation the prospect exhibited the peculiarity of being either brilliant foreground or the

subdued tone of distance, a sudden dip in the surface of the country lowering out of sight all the intermediate

prospect. In apparent contact with the trees and bushes growing close beside him appeared the distant tract,

terminated suddenly by the brink of the series of cliffs which culminated in the tall giant without a

namesmall and unimportant as here beheld. A leaf on a bough at Stephen's elbow blotted out a whole hill

in the contrasting district far away; a green bunch of nuts covered a complete upland there, and the great cliff

itself was outvied by a pigmy crag in the bank hard by him. Stephen had looked upon these things hundreds

of times before today, but he had never viewed them with such tenderness as now.

Stepping forward in this direction yet a little further, he could see the tower of West Endelstow Church,

beneath which he was to meet his Elfride that night. And at the same time he noticed, coming over the hill

from the cliffs, a white speck in motion. It seemed first to be a seagull flying low, but ultimately proved to

be a human figure, running with great rapidity. The form flitted on, heedless of the rain which had caused

Stephen's halt in this place, dropped down the heathery hill, entered the vale, and was out of sight.

Whilst he meditated upon the meaning of this phenomenon, he was surprised to see swim into his ken from

the same point of departure another moving speck, as different from the first as well could be, insomuch that

it was perceptible only by its blackness. Slowly and regularly it took the same course, and there was not much

doubt that this was the form of a man. He, too, gradually descended from the upper levels, and was lost in the

The rain had by this time again abated, and Stephen returned to the road. Looking ahead, he saw two men and

a cart. They were soon obscured by the intervention of a high hedge. Just before they emerged again he heard

''A must soon be in the naibourhood, too, if so be he's acoming,' said a tenor tongue, which Stephen

Stephen stepped forward, and came before them face to face. His father and Martin were walking, dressed in

their second best suits, and beside them rambled along a grizzel horse and brightly painted springcart.

'All right, Mr. Cannister; here's the lost man!' exclaimed young Smith, entering at once upon the old style of

'All right, my sonny; and glad I be for't!' returned John Smith, overjoyed to see the young man. 'How be ye?

Well, come along home, and don't let's bide out here in the damp. Such weather must be terrible bad for a

'Trew, trew. And about getting home his traps? Boxes, monstrous bales, and noble packages of foreign

'We brought the cart, maning to go right on to Castle Boterel afore ye landed,' said his father. '"Put in the

horse," says Martin. "Ay," says I, "so we will;" and did it straightway. Now, maybe, Martin had better go on

'And I shall be back a'most as soon as you. Peggy is a pretty step still, though time d' begin to tell upon her as

Stephen told Martin where to find his baggage, and then continued his journey homeward in the company of

'Owing to your coming a day sooner than we first expected,' said John, 'you'll find us in a turk of a mess,

sir"sir," says I to my own son! but ye've gone up so, Stephen. We've killed the pig this morning for ye,

thinking ye'd be hungry, and glad of a morsel of fresh mate. And 'a won't be cut up till tonight. However, we

can make ye a good supper of fry, which will chaw up well wi' a dab o' mustard and a few nice new taters,

and a drop of shilling ale to wash it down. Your mother have scrubbed the house through because ye were

coming, and dusted all the chimmer furniture, and bought a new basin and jug of a travelling

crockerywoman that came to our door, and scoured the cannelsticks, and claned the winders! Ay, I don't

Conversation of this kind and inquiries of Stephen for his mother's wellbeing occupied them for the

remainder of the journey. When they drew near the river, and the cottage behind it, they could hear the

mastermason's clock striking off the bygone hours of the day at intervals of a quarter of a minute, during

which intervals Stephen's imagination readily pictured his mother's forefinger wandering round the dial in

'The clock stopped this morning, and your mother in putting en right seemingly,' said his father in an

When they had entered, and Stephen had dutifully and warmly greeted his motherwho appeared in a cotton

dress of a darkblue ground, covered broadcast with a multitude of new and full moons, stars, and planets,

with an occasional dash of a cometlike aspect to diversify the scenethe crackle of cartwheels was heard

outside, and Martin Cannister stamped in at the doorway, in the form of a pair of legs beneath a great box, his

body being nowhere visible. When the luggage had been all taken down, and Stephen had gone upstairs to

'Really our clock is not worth a penny,' she said, turning to it and attempting to start the pendulum.

'Yes, sure,' replied Mrs. Smith; and continued after the manner of certain matrons, to whose tongues the

harmony of a subject with a casual mood is a greater recommendation than its pertinence to the occasion,

'John would spend pounds a year upon the jimcrack old thing, if he might, in having it claned, when at the

same time you may doctor it yourself as well. "The clock's stopped again, John," I say to him. "Better have en

claned," says he. There's five shillings. "That clock grinds again," I say to en. "Better have en claned," 'a says

again. "That clock strikes wrong, John," says I. "Better have en claned," he goes on. The wheels would have

been polished to skeletons by this time if I had listened to en, and I assure you we could have bought a

chaineyfaced beauty wi' the good money we've flung away these last ten years upon this old greenfaced

mortal. And, Martin, you must be wet. My son is gone up to change. John is damper than I should like to be,

but 'a calls it nothing. Some of Mrs. Swancourt's servants have been herethey ran in out of the rain when

'How's the folks? We've been over to Castle Boterel, and what wi' running and stopping out of the storms, my

poor head is beyond everything! fizz, fizz fizz; 'tis frying o' fish from morning to night,' said a cracked voice

'Lord so's, who's that?' said Mrs. Smith, in a private exclamation, and turning round saw William Worm,

endeavouring to make himself look passing civil and friendly by overspreading his face with a large smile

that seemed to have no connection with the humour he was in. Behind him stood a woman about twice his

'Come in, William,' said John Smith. 'We don't kill a pig every day. And you, likewise, Mrs. Worm. I make

'No, for to tell the truth, since I took to the turnpikegate line, I've been out but little, coming to church o'

Sundays not being my duty now, as 'twas in a parson's family, you see. However, our boy is able to mind the

'Ay, I assure you that frying o' fish is going on for nights and days. And, you know, sometimes 'tisn't only

fish, but rashers o' bacon and inions. Ay, I can hear the fat pop and fizz as nateral as life; can't I, Barbara?'

Mrs. Worm, who had been all this time engaged in closing her umbrella, corroborated this statement, and

now, coming indoors, showed herself to be a widefaced, comfortablelooking woman, with a wart upon her

'Have ye ever tried anything to cure yer noise, Maister Worm?' inquired Martin Cannister.

'Oh ay; bless ye, I've tried everything. Ay, Providence is a merciful man, and I have hoped He'd have found it

out by this time, living so many years in a parson's family, too, as I have, but 'a don't seem to relieve me. Ay,

'True, mournful true, William Worm. 'Tis so. The world wants looking to, or 'tis all sixes and sevens wi' us.'

'Take your things off, Mrs. Worm,' said Mrs. Smith. 'We be rather in a muddle, to tell the truth, for my son is

just dropped in from Indy a day sooner than we expected, and the pigkiller is coming presently to cut up.'

Mrs. Barbara Worm, not wishing to take any mean advantage of persons in a muddle by observing them,

removed her bonnet and mantle with eyes fixed upon the flowers in the plot outside the door.

'Yes, they be very well, but such a trouble to me on account of the children that come here. They will go

eating the berries on the stem, and call 'em currants. Taste wi' junivals is quite fancy, really.'

'Well, really,' answered Mrs. Smith, entering didactically into the subject, 'they are more like Christians than

flowers. But they make up well enough wi' the rest, and don't require much tending. And the same can be said

o' these miller's wheels. 'Tis a flower I like very much, though so simple. John says he never cares about the

flowers o' 'em, but men have no eye for anything neat. He says his favourite flower is a cauliflower. And I

'John digs round the roots, you know. In goes his blundering spade, through roots, bulbs, everything that

hasn't got a good show above ground, turning 'em up cut all to slices. Only the very last fall I went to move

some tulips, when I found every bulb upside down, and the stems crooked round. He had turned 'em over in

the spring, and the cunning creatures had soon found that heaven was not where it used to be.'

'They? O Lord, they are the horrid Jacob's ladders! Instead of praising 'em, I be mad wi' 'em for being so

ready to bide where they are not wanted. They be very well in their way, but I do not care for things that

neglect won't kill. Do what I will, dig, drag, scrap, pull, I get too many of 'em. I chop the roots: up they'll

come, treble strong. Throw 'em over hedge; there they'll grow, staring me in the face like a hungry dog driven

away, and creep back again in a week or two the same as before. 'Tis Jacob's ladder here, Jacob's ladder there,

and plant 'em where nothing in the world will grow, you get crowds of 'em in a month or two. John made a

new manure mixen last summer, and he said, "Maria, now if you've got any flowers or such like, that you

don't want, you may plant 'em round my mixen so as to hide it a bit, though 'tis not likely anything of much

value will grow there." I thought, "There's them Jacob's ladders; I'll put them there, since they can't do harm

in such a place; "and I planted the Jacob's ladders sure enough. They growed, and they growed, in the mixen

and out of the mixen, all over the litter, covering it quite up. When John wanted to use it about the garden, 'a

said, "Nation seize them Jacob's ladders of yours, Maria! They've eat the goodness out of every morsel of my

manure, so that 'tis no better than sand itself!" Sure enough the hungry mortals had. 'Tis my belief that in the

secret souls o' 'em, Jacob's ladders be weeds, and not flowers at all, if the truth was known.'

Robert Lickpan, pigkiller and carrier, arrived at this moment. The fatted animal hanging in the back kitchen

was cleft down the middle of its backbone, Mrs. Smith being meanwhile engaged in cooking supper.

Between the cutting and chopping, ale was handed round, and Worm and the pigkiller listened to John

Smith's description of the meeting with Stephen, with eyes blankly fixed upon the table cloth, in order that

nothing in the external world should interrupt their efforts to conjure up the scene correctly.

Stephen came downstairs in the middle of the story, and after the little interruption occasioned by his

entrance and welcome, the narrative was again continued, precisely as if he had not been there at all, and was

'"Ay," I said, as I catched sight o' en through the brimbles, "that's the lad, for I d' know en by his

grandfather's walk; "for 'a stapped out like poor father for all the world. Still there was a touch o' the frisky

that set me wondering. 'A got closer, and I said, "That's the lad, for I d' know en by his carrying a black case

like a travelling man." Still, a road is common to all the world, and there be more travelling men than one.

But I kept my eye cocked, and I said to Martin, "'Tis the boy, now, for I d' know en by the wold twirl o' the

stick and the family step." Then 'a come closer, and a' said, "All right." I could swear to en then.'

'He d' look a deal thinner in face, surely, than when I seed en at the parson's, and never knowed en, if ye'll

'Ay, there,' said another, without removing his eyes from Stephen's face, 'I should ha' knowed en anywhere.

'And he's certainly taller,' said Martin, letting his glance run over Stephen's form from bottom to top.

'Bless thy soul, that's because he's bigger round likewise.' And the united eyes all moved to Stephen's waist.

'I be a poor wambling man, but I can make allowances,' said William Worm. 'Ah, sure, and how he came as a

stranger and pilgrim to Parson Swancourt's that time, not a soul knowing en after so many years! Ay, life's a

'Oh, it is not necessary at present,' Stephen replied, though mentally resolving to avoid the vicinity of that

'Ah, well,' said Worm musingly, 'some would have looked for no less than a Sir. There's a sight of difference

'And in pigs likewise,' observed John Smith, looking at the halved carcass of his own.

Robert Lickpan, the pigkiller, here seemed called upon to enter the lists of conversation.

'Yes, they've got their particular naters goodnow,' he remarked initially. 'Many's the rumtempered pig I've

'I don't doubt it, Master Lickpan,' answered Martin, in a tone expressing that his convictions, no less than

'Yes,' continued the pigkiller, as one accustomed to be heard. 'One that I knowed was deaf and dumb, and

we couldn't make out what was the matter wi' the pig. 'A would eat well enough when 'a seed the trough, but

when his back was turned, you might arattled the bucket all day, the poor soul never heard ye. Ye could

play tricks upon en behind his back, and a' wouldn't find it out no quicker than poor deaf Grammer Cates. But

a' fatted well, and I never seed a pig open better when a' was killed, and 'a was very tender eating, very; as

'And another I knowed,' resumed the killer, after quietly letting a pint of ale run down his throat of its own

accord, and setting down the cup with mathematical exactness upon the spot from which he had raised

'Ay, poor thing, 'a did! As clean out of his mind as the cleverest Christian could go. In early life 'a was very

melancholy, and never seemed a hopeful pig by no means. 'Twas Andrew Stainer's pigthat's whose pig

'And a pretty little porker 'a was. And you all know Farmer Buckle's sort? Every jack o' em suffer from the

rheumatism to this day, owing to a damp sty they lived in when they were striplings, as 'twere.'

'If so be he were not so fine, we'd weigh en whole: but as he is, we'll take a side at a time. John, you can mind

'Yes,' said Lickpan, 'that there old familiar joke have been in our family for generations, I may say. My father

used that joke regular at pigkillings for more than five and forty yearsthe time he followed the calling.

And 'a told me that 'a had it from his father when he was quite a chiel, who made use o' en just the same at

'Nor I,' chimed in Mrs. Worm, who, being the only other lady in the room, felt bound by the laws of courtesy

'Surely, surely you have,' said the killer, looking sceptically at the benighted females. 'However, 'tisn't

muchI don't wish to say it is. It commences like this: "Bob will tell the weight of your pig, 'a b'lieve," says

I. The congregation of neighbours think I mane my son Bob, naturally; but the secret is that I mane the bob o'

'Haw, haw, haw!' laughed Martin Cannister, who had heard the explanation of this striking story for the

'Hee, hee, hee!' laughed William Worm, who had never heard it at all, but was afraid to say so.

'Thy grandfather, Robert, must have been a wideawake chap to make that story,' said Martin Cannister,

'He had a head, by all account. And, you see, as the firstborn of the Lickpans have all been Roberts, they've

'Poor Joseph, your second boy, will never be able to bring it out in company, which is rather unfortunate,'

''A won't. Yes, grandfer was a clever chap, as ye say; but I knowed a cleverer. 'Twas my uncle Levi. Uncle

Levi made a snuff box that should be a puzzle to his friends to open. He used to hand en round at wedding

parties, christenings, funerals, and in other jolly company, and let 'em try their skill. This extraordinary

snuffbox had a spring behind that would push in and outa hinge where seemed to be the cover; a slide at

the end, a screw in front, and knobs and queer notches everywhere. One man would try the spring, another

would try the screw, another would try the slide; but try as they would, the box wouldn't open. And they

couldn't open en, and they didn't open en. Now what might you think was the secret of that box?'

All put on an expression that their united thoughts were inadequate to the occasion.

'Why the box wouldn't open at all. 'A were made not to open, and ye might have tried till the end of

''A was so. He never slept upon a bedstead after he growed up a hard boychapnever could get one long

enough. When 'a lived in that little small house by the pond, he used to have to leave open his chamber door

'He's dead and gone now, nevertheless, poor man, as we all shall,' observed Worm, to fill the pause which

The weighing and cutting up was pursued amid an animated discourse on Stephen's travels; and at the finish,

the firstfruits of the day's slaughter, fried in onions, were then turned from the pan into a dish on the table,

It must be owned that the gentlemanly son of the house looked rather out of place in the course of this

operation. Nor was his mind quite philosophic enough to allow him to be comfortable with these

oldestablished persons, his father's friends. He had never lived long at homescarcely at all since his

childhood. The presence of William Worm was the most awkward feature of the case, for, though Worm had

left the house of Mr. Swancourt, the being handinglove with a cidevant servitor reminded Stephen too

forcibly of the vicar's classification of himself before he went from England. Mrs. Smith was conscious of the

defect in her arrangements which had brought about the undesired conjunction. She spoke to Stephen

'I am above having such people here, Stephen; but what could I do? And your father is so rough in his nature

'When we leave my lord's service, and get further up the country as I hope we shall soonit will be

different. We shall be among fresh people, and in a larger house, and shall keep ourselves up a bit, I hope.'

'Scarcely ever. Mr. Glim, the curate, calls occasionally, but the Swancourts don't come into the village now

any more than to drive through it. They dine at my lord's oftener than they used. Ah, here's a note was

Stephen eagerly took the note and opened it, his mother watching him. He read what Elfride had written and

'I don't know, Stephen,' his mother said meaningly, 'whe'r you still think about Miss Elfride, but if I were you

I wouldn't concern about her. They say that none of old Mrs. Swancourt's money will come to her

'I see the evening has turned out fine; I am going out for a little while to look round the place,' he said,

evading the direct query. 'Probably by the time I return our visitors will be gone, and we'll have a more

The rain had ceased since the sunset, but it was a cloudy night; and the light of the moon, softened and

A dark figure stepped from the doorway of John Smith's riverside cottage, and strode rapidly towards West

Endelstow with a light footstep. Soon ascending from the lower levels he turned a corner, followed a

carttrack, and saw the tower of the church he was in quest of distinctly shaped forth against the sky. In less

than half an hour from the time of starting he swung himself over the churchyard stile.

The wild irregular enclosure was as much as ever an integral part of the old hill. The grass was still long, the

graves were shaped precisely as passing years chose to alter them from their orthodox form as laid down by

A sound sped into the air from the direction in which Castle Boterel lay. It was the striking of the church

clock, distinct in the still atmosphere as if it had come from the tower hard by, which, wrapt in its solitary

'One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.' Stephen carefully counted the strokes, though he well

knew their number beforehand. Nine o'clock. It was the hour Elfride had herself named as the most

Stephen stood at the door of the porch and listened. He could have heard the softest breathing of any person

within the porch; nobody was there. He went inside the doorway, sat down upon the stone bench, and waited

The faint sounds heard only accentuated the silence. The rising and falling of the sea, far away along the

coast, was the most important. A minor sound was the scurr of a distant nighthawk. Among the minutest

where all were minute were the light settlement of gossamer fragments floating in the air, a toad humbly

labouring along through the grass near the entrance, the crackle of a dead leaf which a worm was

endeavouring to pull into the earth, a waft of air, getting nearer and nearer, and expiring at his feet under the

Among all these soft sounds came not the only soft sound he cared to hearthe footfall of Elfride.

For a whole quarter of an hour Stephen sat thus intent, without moving a muscle. At the end of that time he

walked to the west front of the church. Turning the corner of the tower, a white form stared him in the face.

He started back, and recovered himself. It was the tomb of young farmer Jethway, looking still as fresh and as

new as when it was first erected, the white stone in which it was hewn having a singular weirdness amid the

dark blue slabs from local quarries, of which the whole remaining gravestones were formed.

He thought of the night when he had sat thereon with Elfride as his companion, and well remembered his

regret that she had received, even unwillingly, earlier homage than his own. But his present tangible anxiety

reduced such a feeling to sentimental nonsense in comparison; and he strolled on over the graves to the

border of the churchyard, whence in the daytime could be clearly seen the vicarage and the present residence

of the Swancourts. No footstep was discernible upon the path up the hill, but a light was shining from a

Stephen knew there could be no mistake about the time or place, and no difficulty about keeping the

engagement. He waited yet longer, passing from impatience into a mood which failed to take any account of

One little fall of the hammer in addition to the number it had been sharp pleasure to hear, and what a

He left the churchyard on the side opposite to his point of entrance, and went down the hill. Slowly he drew

near the gate of her house. This he softly opened, and walked up the gravel drive to the door. Here he paused

At the expiration of that time the murmured speech of a manly voice came out to his ears through an open

window behind the corner of the house. This was responded to by a clear soft laugh. It was the laugh of

Stephen was conscious of a gnawing pain at his heart. He retreated as he had come. There are

disappointments which wring us, and there are those which inflict a wound whose mark we bear to our

graves. Such are so keen that no future gratification of the same desire can ever obliterate them: they become

registered as a permanent loss of happiness. Such a one was Stephen's now: the crowning aureola of the

dream had been the meeting here by stealth; and if Elfride had come to him only ten minutes after he had

When the young man reached home he found there a letter which had arrived in his absence. Believing it to

contain some reason for her nonappearance, yet unable to imagine one that could justify her, he hastily tore

The paper contained not a word from Elfride. It was the deposit note for his two hundred pounds. On the

back was the form of a cheque, and this she had filled up with the same sum, payable to the bearer.

Stephen was confounded. He attempted to divine her motive. Considering how limited was his knowledge of

her later actions, he guessed rather shrewdly that, between the time of her sending the note in the morning

and the evening's silent refusal of his gift, something had occurred which had caused a total change in her

He knew not what to do. It seemed absurd now to go to her father next morning, as he had purposed, and ask

for an engagement with her, a possibility impending all the while that Elfride herself would not be on his

side. Only one course recommended itself as wise. To wait and see what the days would bring forth; to go

and execute his commissions in Birmingham; then to return, learn if anything had happened, and try what a

meeting might do; perhaps her surprise at his backwardness would bring her forward to show latent warmth

This act of patience was in keeping only with the nature of a man precisely of Stephen's constitution. Nine

men out of ten would perhaps have rushed off, got into her presence, by fair means or foul, and provoked a

He started for Birmingham the next morning. A day's delay would have made no difference; but he could not

rest until he had begun and ended the programme proposed to himself. Bodily activity will sometimes take

During these days of absence Stephen lived under alternate conditions. Whenever his emotions were active,

he was in agony. Whenever he was not in agony, the business in hand had driven out of his mind by sheer

By the time he took his return journey at the week's end, Stephen had very nearly worked himself up to an

intention to call and see her face to face. On this occasion also he adopted his favourite routeby the little

summer steamer from Bristol to Castle Boterel; the time saved by speed on the railway being wasted at

It was a bright silent evening at the beginning of September when Smith again set foot in the little town. He

felt inclined to linger awhile upon the quay before ascending the hills, having formed a romantic intention to

go home by way of her house, yet not wishing to wander in its neighbourhood till the evening shades should

And thus waiting for night's nearer approach, he watched the placid scene, over which the pale luminosity of

the west cast a sorrowful monochrome, that became slowly embrowned by the dusk. A star appeared, and

another, and another. They sparkled amid the yards and rigging of the two coal brigs lying alangside, as if

they had been tiny lamps suspended in the ropes. The masts rocked sleepily to the infinitesimal flux of the

tide, which clucked and gurgled with idle regularity in nooks and holes of the harbour wall.

The twilight was now quite pronounced enough for his purpose; and as, rather sad at heart, he was about to

move on, a little boat containing two persons glided up the middle of the harbour with the lightness of a

shadow. The boat came opposite him, passed on, and touched the landingsteps at the further end. One of its

occupants was a man, as Stephen had known by the easy stroke of the oars. When the pair ascended the steps,

and came into greater prominence, he was enabled to discern that the second personage was a woman; also

that she wore a white decorationapparently a featherin her hat or bonnet, which spot of white was the

Stephen remained a moment in their rear, and they passed on, when he pursued his way also, and soon forgot

the circumstance. Having crossed a bridge, forsaken the high road, and entered the footpath which led up the

vale to West Endelstow, he heard a little wicket click softly together some yards ahead. By the time that

Stephen had reached the wicket and passed it, he heard another click of precisely the same nature from

another gate yet further on. Clearly some person or persons were preceding him along the path, their footsteps

being rendered noiseless by the soft carpet of turf. Stephen now walked a little quicker, and perceived two

forms. One of them bore aloft the white feather he had noticed in the woman's hat on the quay: they were the

From the bottom of the valley, along which the path had hitherto lain, beside the margin of the trickling

streamlet, another path now diverged, and ascended the slope of the lefthand hill. This footway led only to

the residence of Mrs. Swancourt and a cottage or two in its vicinity. No grass covered this diverging path in

portions of its length, and Stephen was reminded that the pair in front of him had taken this route by the

occasional rattle of loose stones under their feet. Stephen climbed in the same direction, but for some

undefined reason he trod more softly than did those preceding him. His mind was unconsciously in exercise

upon whom the woman might bewhether a visitor to The Crags, a servant, or Elfride. He put it to himself

yet more forcibly; could the lady be Elfride? A possible reason for her unaccountable failure to keep the

They entered the grounds of the house by the side wicket, whence the path, now wide and well trimmed,

wound fantastically through the shrubbery to an octagonal pavilion called the Belvedere, by reason of the

comprehensive view over the adjacent district that its green seats afforded. The path passed this erection and

went on to the house as well as to the gardener's cottage on the other side, straggling thence to East

Endelstow; so that Stephen felt no hesitation in entering a promenade which could scarcely be called private.

He fancied that he heard the gate open and swing together again behind him. Turning, he saw nobody.

Stephen instantly recognised the familiar voice, richer and fuller now than it used to be. 'Elfride!' he

whispered to himself, and held fast by a sapling, to steady himself under the agitation her presence caused

him. His heart swerved from its beat; he shunned receiving the meaning he sought.

'A breeze is rising again; how the ash tree rustles!' said Elfride. 'Don't you hear it? I wonder what the time is.'

I will get a light and tell you. Step into the summerhouse; the air is quiet there.'

The cadence of that voiceits peculiarity seemed to come home to him like that of some notes of the

northern birds on his return to his native clime, as an old natural thing renewed, yet not particularly noticed as

They entered the Belvedere. In the lower part it was formed of close woodwork nailed crosswise, and had

The scratch of a striking light was heard, and a bright glow radiated from the interior of the building. The

light gave birth to dancing leafshadows, stemshadows, lustrous streaks, dots, sparkles, and threads of silver

sheen of all imaginable variety and transience. It awakened gnats, which flew towards it, revealed shiny

gossamer threads, disturbed earthworms. Stephen gave but little attention to these phenomena, and less time.

First, the face of his friend and preceptor Henry Knight, between whom and himself an estrangement had

arisen, not from any definite causes beyond those of absence, increasing age, and diverging sympathies.

Next, his bright particular star, Elfride. The face of Elfride was more womanly than when she had called

herself his, but as clear and healthy as ever. Her plenteous twines of beautiful hair were looking much as

usual, with the exception of a slight modification in their arrangement in deference to the changes of fashion.

Their two foreheads were close together, almost touching, and both were looking down. Elfride was holding

her watch, Knight was holding the light with one hand, his left arm being round her waist. Part of the scene

reached Stephen's eyes through the horizontal bars of woodwork, which crossed their forms like the ribs of a

'It is halfpast eight,' she said in a low voice, which had a peculiar music in it, seemingly born of a thrill of

The flame dwindled down, died away, and all was wrapped in a darkness to which the gloom before the

illumination bore no comparison in apparent density. Stephen, shattered in spirit and sick to his heart's centre,

turned away. In turning, he saw a shadowy outline behind the summerhouse on the other side. His eyes

grew accustomed to the darkness. Was the form a human form, or was it an opaque bush of juniper?

The lovers arose, brushed against the laurestines, and pursued their way to the house. The indistinct figure

had moved, and now passed across Smith's front. So completely enveloped was the person, that it was

impossible to discern him or her any more than as a shape. The shape glided noiselessly on.

Stephen stepped forward, fearing any mischief was intended to the other two. 'Who are you?' he said.

'Never mind who I am,' answered a weak whisper from the enveloping folds. 'WHAT I am, may she be!

Perhaps I knew wellah, so well! a youth whose place you took, as he there now takes yours. Will you let

her break your heart, and bring you to an untimely grave, as she did the one before you?'

'You are Mrs. Jethway, I think. What do you do here? And why do you talk so wildly?'

'Because my heart is desolate, and nobody cares about it. May hers be so that brought trouble upon me!'

'Silence!' said Stephen, staunch to Elfride in spite of himself 'She would harm nobody wilfully, never would

'I saw the two coming up the path, and wanted to learn if she were not one of them. Can I help disliking her if

I think of the past? Can I help watching her if I remember my boy? Can I help ill wishing her if I wellwish

The bowed form went on, passed through the wicket, and was enveloped by the shadows of the field.

Stephen had heard that Mrs. Jethway, since the death of her son, had become a crazed, forlorn woman; and

bestowing a pitying thought upon her, he dismissed her fancied wrongs from his mind, but not her

condemnation of Elfride's faithlessness. That entered into and mingled with the sensations his new experience

had begotten. The tale told by the little scene he had witnessed ran parallel with the unhappy woman's

opinion, which, however baseless it might have been antecedently, had become true enough as regarded

A slow weight of despair, as distinct from a violent paroxysm as starvation from a mortal shot, filled him and

wrung him body and soul. The discovery had not been altogether unexpected, for throughout his anxiety of

the last few days since the night in the churchyard, he had been inclined to construe the uncertainty

unfavourably for himself. His hopes for the best had been but periodic interruptions to a chronic fear of the

A strange concomitant of his misery was the singularity of its form. That his rival should be Knight, whom

once upon a time he had adored as a man is very rarely adored by another in modern times, and whom he

loved now, added deprecation to sorrow, and cynicism to both. Henry Knight, whose praises he had so

frequently trumpeted in her ears, of whom she had actually been jealous, lest she herself should be lessened

in Stephen's love on account of him, had probably won her the more easily by reason of those very praises

which he had only ceased to utter by her command. She had ruled him like a queen in that matter, as in all

others. Stephen could tell by her manner, brief as had been his observation of it, and by her words, few as

they were, that her position was far different with Knight. That she looked up at and adored her new lover

from below his pedestal, was even more perceptible than that she had smiled down upon Stephen from a

The suddenness of Elfride's renunciation of himself was food for more torture. To an unimpassioned outsider,

it admitted of at least two interpretationsit might either have proceeded from an endeavour to be faithful to

her first choice, till the lover seen absolutely overpowered the lover remembered, or from a wish not to lose

his love till sure of the love of another. But to Stephen Smith the motive involved in the latter alternative

He mused on her letters to him, in which she had never mentioned a syllable concerning Knight. It is

desirable, however, to observe that only in two letters could she possibly have done so. One was written

about a week before Knight's arrival, when, though she did not mention his promised coming to Stephen, she

had hardly a definite reason in her mind for neglecting to do it. In the next she did casually allude to Knight.

Stephen looked at the black form of the adjacent house, where it cut a dark polygonal notch out of the sky,

and felt that he hated the spot. He did not know many facts of the case, but could not help instinctively

associating Elfride's fickleness with the marriage of her father, and their introduction to London society. He

closed the iron gate bounding the shrubbery as noiselessly as he had opened it, and went into the grassy field.

Here he could see the old vicarage, the house alone that was associated with the sweet pleasant time of his

incipient love for Elfride. Turning sadly from the place that was no longer a nook in which his thoughts might

nestle when he was far away, he wandered in the direction of the east village, to reach his father's house

The nearest way to the cottage was by crossing the park. He did not hurry. Happiness frequently has reason

for haste, but it is seldom that desolation need scramble or strain. Sometimes he paused under the

Stephen was standing thus, scarcely less crippled in thought than he was blank in vision, when a clear sound

permeated the quiet air about him, and spread on far beyond. The sound was the stroke of a bell from the

tower of East Endelstow Church, which stood in a dell not forty yards from Lord Luxellian's mansion, and

within the park enclosure. Another stroke greeted his ear, and gave character to both: then came a slow

An unusual feature in the tolling was that it had not been begun according to the custom in Endelstow and

other parishes in the neighbourhood. At every death the sex and age of the deceased were announced by a

system of changes. Three times three strokes signified that the departed one was a man; three times two, a

woman; twice three, a boy; twice two, a girl. The regular continuity of the tolling suggested that it was the

resumption rather than the beginning of a knellthe opening portion of which Stephen had not been near

The momentary anxiety he had felt with regard to his parents passed away. He had left them in perfect health,

and had any serious illness seized either, a communication would have reached him ere this. At the same

time, since his way homeward lay under the churchyard yews, he resolved to look into the belfry in passing

Stephen reached the brow of the hill, and felt inclined to renounce his idea. His mood was such that talking to

any person to whom he could not unburden himself would be wearisome. However, before he could put any

inclination into effect, the young man saw from amid the trees a bright light shining, the rays from which

radiated like needles through the sad plumy foliage of the yews. Its direction was from the centre of the

Stephen mechanically went forward. Never could there be a greater contrast between two places of like

purpose than between this graveyard and that of the further village. Here the grass was carefully tended, and

formed virtually a part of the manorhouse lawn; flowers and shrubs being planted indiscriminately over

both, whilst the few graves visible were mathematically exact in shape and smoothness, appearing in the

daytime like chins newly shaven. There was no wall, the division between God's Acre and Lord Luxellian's

being marked only by a few square stones set at equidistant points. Among those persons who have romantic

sentiments on the subject of their last dwellingplace, probably the greater number would have chosen such a

spot as this in preference to any other: a few would have fancied a constraint in its trim neatness, and would

have preferred the wild hilltop of the neighbouring site, with Nature in her most negligent attire.

The light in the churchyard he next discovered to have its source in a point very near the ground, and Stephen

imagined it might come from a lantern in the interior of a partlydug grave. But a nearer approach showed

him that its position was immediately under the wall of the aisle, and within the mouth of an archway. He

could now hear voices, and the truth of the whole matter began to dawn upon him. Walking on towards the

opening, Smith discerned on his left hand a heap of earth, and before him a flight of stone steps which the

removed earth had uncovered, leading down under the edifice. It was the entrance to a large family vault,

Stephen had never before seen it open, and descending one or two steps stooped to look under the arch. The

vault appeared to be crowded with coffins, with the exception of an open central space, which had been

necessarily kept free for ingress and access to the sides, round three of which the coffins were stacked in

The place was well lighted with candles stuck in slips of wood that were fastened to the wall. On making the

descent of another step the living inhabitants of the vault were recognizable. They were his father the

mastermason, an undermason, Martin Cannister, and two or three young and old labouringmen.

Crowbars and workmen's hammers were scattered about. The whole company, sitting round on coffins which

had been removed from their places, apparently for some alteration or enlargement of the vault, were eating

bread and cheese, and drinking ale from a cup with two handles, passed round from each to each.

All eyes were turned to the entrance as Stephen spoke, and the ancientmannered conclave scrutinized him

'Why, 'tis our Stephen!' said his father, rising from his seat; and, still retaining the frothy mug in his left hand,

he swung forward his right for a grasp. 'Your mother is expecting ye thought you would have come afore

dark. But you'll wait and go home with me? I have all but done for the day, and was going directly.'

'Yes, 'tis Master Stephy, sure enough. Glad to see you so soon again, Master Smith,' said Martin Cannister,

chastening the gladness expressed in his words by a strict neutrality of countenance, in order to harmonize the

'The same to you, Martin; and you, William,' said Stephen, nodding around to the rest, who, having their

mouths full of bread and cheese, were of necessity compelled to reply merely by compressing their eyes to

'Lady Luxellian, poor gentlewoman, as we all shall, said the undermason. 'Ay, and we be going to enlarge

'Early this morning,' his father replied, with an appearance of recurring to a chronic thought. 'Yes, this

morning. Martin hev been tolling ever since, almost. There, 'twas expected. She was very limber.'

'Ay, poor soul, this morning,' resumed the undermason, a marvellously old man, whose skin seemed so

much too large for his body that it would not stay in position. 'She must know by this time whether she's to go

'Not more than seven or eight and twenty by candlelight. But, Lord! by day 'a was forty if 'a were an hour.'

'Ay, nighttime or daytime makes a difference of twenty years to rich feymels,' observed Martin.

'She was one and thirty really,' said John Smith. 'I had it from them that know.'

''A looked very bad, poor lady. In faith, ye might say she was dead for years afore 'a would own it.'

'I seed her, poor soul,' said a labourer from behind some removed coffins, 'only but last Valentine'sday of all

the world. 'A was arm in crook wi' my lord. I says to myself, "You be ticketed Churchyard, my noble lady,

'I suppose my lord will write to all the other lords anointed in the nation, to let 'em know that she that was is

''Tis done and past. I see a bundle of letters go off an hour after the death. Sich wonderful black rims as they

'Too much,' observed Martin. 'In short, 'tis out of the question that a human being can be so mournful as black

edges halfaninch wide. I'm sure people don't feel more than a very narrow border when they feels most of

'They used to come to Parson Swancourt's to play with Miss Elfride when I were there,' said William Worm.

'Ah, they did so's!' The latter sentence was introduced to add the necessary melancholy to a remark which,

intrinsically, could hardly be made to possess enough for the occasion. 'Yes,' continued Worm, 'they'd run

upstairs, they'd run down; flitting about with her everywhere. Very fond of her, they were. Ah, well!'

'Fonder than ever they were of their mother, so 'tis said here and there,' added a labourer.

'Well, you see, 'tis natural. Lady Luxellian stood aloof from 'em sowas so drowsylike, that they couldn't

love her in the jolly companion way children want to like folks. Only last winter I seed Miss Elfride talking

to my lady and the two children, and Miss Elfride wiped their noses for em' SO carefulmy lady never once

seeing that it wanted doing; and, naturally, children take to people that's their best friend.'

'Be as 'twill, the woman is dead and gone, and we must make a place for her,' said John. 'Come, lads, drink up

your ale, and we'll just rid this corner, so as to have all clear for beginning at the wall, as soon as 'tis light

'Here,' said his father. 'We are going to set back this wall and make a recess; and 'tis enough for us to do

before the funeral. When my lord's mother died, she said, "John, the place must be enlarged before another

can be put in." But 'a never expected 'twould be wanted so soon. Better move Lord George first, I suppose,

He pointed with his foot to a heavy coffin, covered with what had originally been red velvet, the colour of

'Just as ye think best, Master John,' replied the shrivelled mason. 'Ah, poor Lord George!' he continued,

looking contemplatively at the huge coffin; 'he and I were as bitter enemies once as any could be when one is

a lord and t'other only a mortal man. Poor fellow! He'd clap his hand upon my shoulder and cuss me as

familial and neighbourly as if he'd been a common chap. Ay, 'a cussed me up hill and 'a cussed me down; and

then 'a would rave out again, and the goold clamps of his fine new teeth would glisten in the sun like fetters

of brass, while I, being a small man and poor, was fain to say nothing at all. Such a strappen fine gentleman

as he was too! Yes, I rather liked en sometimes. But once now and then, when I looked at his towering height,

I'd think in my inside, "What a weight you'll be, my lord, for our arms to lower under the aisle of Endelstow

'He was. He was five hundredweight if 'a were a pound. What with his lead, and his oak, and his handles, and

his one thing and t'other'here the ancient man slapped his hand upon the cover with a force that caused a

rattle among the bones inside'he half broke my back when I took his feet to lower en down the steps there.

"Ah," saith I to John theredidn't I, John?"that ever one man's glory should be such a weight upon

''Tis a strange thought,' said another, 'that while they be all here under one roof, a snug united family o'

Luxellians, they be really scattered miles away from one another in the form of good sheep and wicked goats,

'And that one, if he's gone upward, don't know what his wife is doing no more than the man in the moon if

she's gone downward. And that some unfortunate one in the hot place is ahollering across to a lucky one up

in the clouds, and quite forgetting their bodies be boxed close together all the time.'

'Ay, 'tis a thought to look at, too, that I can say "Hullo!" close to fiery Lord George, and 'a can't hear me.'

'And that I be eating my onion close to dainty Lady Jane's nose, and she can't smell me.'

'Because 'tis churchyard law, you simple. The law of the living is, that a man shall be upright and

downright, and the law of the dead is, that a man shall be east and west. Every state of society have its laws.'

'We must break the law wi' a few of the poor souls, however. Come, buckle to,' said the mastermason.

The order of interment could be distinctly traced by observing the appearance of the coffins as they lay piled

around. On those which had been standing there but a generation or two the trappings still remained. Those of

an earlier period showed bare wood, with a few tattered rags dangling therefrom. Earlier still, the wood lay in

fragments on the floor of the niche, and the coffin consisted of naked lead alone; whilst in the case of the very

oldest, even the lead was bulging and cracking in pieces, revealing to the curious eye a heap of dust within.

The shields upon many were quite loose, and removable by the hand, their lustreless surfaces still indistinctly

Overhead the groins and concavities of the arches curved in all directions, dropping low towards the walls,

where the height was no more than sufficient to enable a person to stand upright.

The body of George the fourteenth baron, together with two or three others, all of more recent date than the

great bulk of coffins piled there, had, for want of room, been placed at the end of the vault on tressels, and not

in niches like the others. These it was necessary to remove, to form behind them the chamber in which they

were ultimately to be deposited. Stephen, finding the place and proceedings in keeping with the sombre

'Simeon, I suppose you can mind poor Lady Elfride, and how she ran away with the actor?' said John Smith,

after awhile. 'I think it fell upon the time my father was sexton here. Let us seewhere is she?'

'Why, I've got my arms round the very gentlewoman at this moment.' He lowered the end of the coffin he was

holding, wiped his face, and throwing a morsel of rotten wood upon another as an indicator, continued:

'That's her husband there. They was as fair a couple as you should see anywhere round about; and a

goodhearted pair likewise. Ay, I can mind it, though I was but a chiel at the time. She fell in love with this

young man of hers, and their banns were asked in some church in London; and the old lord her father actually

heard 'em asked the three times, and didn't notice her name, being gabbled on wi' a host of others. When she

had married she told her father, and 'a fleed into a monstrous rage, and said she shouldn' hae a farthing. Lady

Elfride said she didn't think of wishing it; if he'd forgie her 'twas all she asked, and as for a living, she was

content to play plays with her husband. This frightened the old lord, and 'a gie'd 'em a house to live in, and a

great garden, and a little field or two, and a carriage, and a good few guineas. Well, the poor thing died at her

first gossiping, and her husbandwho was as tenderhearted a man as ever eat meat, and would have died

for herwent wild in his mind, and broke his heart (so 'twas said). Anyhow, they were buried the same

dayfather and motherbut the baby lived. Ay, my lord's family made much of that man then, and put him

here with his wife, and there in the corner the man is now. The Sunday after there was a funeral sermon: the

text was, "Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken;" and when 'twas preaching the

men drew their hands across their eyes several times, and every woman cried out loud.'

'And what became of the baby?' said Stephen, who had frequently heard portions of the story.

'She was brought up by her grandmother, and a pretty maid she were. And she must needs run away with the

curateParson Swancourt that is now. Then her grandmother died, and the title and everything went away to

another branch of the family altogether. Parson Swancourt wasted a good deal of his wife's money, and she

left him Miss Elfride. That trick of running away seems to be handed down in families, like craziness or gout.

'Lady Elfride and young Miss that's alive now. The same hair and eyes: but Miss Elfride's mother was darker

'Life's a strangle bubble, ye see,' said William Worm musingly. 'For if the Lord's anointment had descended

upon women instead of men, Miss Elfride would be Lord LuxellianLady, I mane. But as it is, the blood is

run out, and she's nothing to the Luxellian family by law, whatever she may be by gospel.'

'I used to fancy,' said Simeon, 'when I seed Miss Elfride hugging the little ladyships, that there was a likeness;

but I suppose 'twas only my dream, for years must have altered the old family shape.'

'And now we'll move these two, and homealong,' interposed John Smith, reviving, as became a master, the

spirit of labour, which had showed unmistakable signs of being nearly vanquished by the spirit of chat, 'The

flagon of ale we don't want we'll let bide here till tomorrow; none of the poor souls will touch it 'a b'lieve.'

So the evening's work was concluded, and the party drew from the abode of the quiet dead, closing the old

iron door, and shooting the lock loudly into the huge copper staplean incongruous act of imprisonment

Love frequently dies of time alonemuch more frequently of displacement. With Elfride Swancourt, a

powerful reason why the displacement should be successful was that the newcomer was a greater man than

the first. By the side of the instructive and piquant snubbings she received from Knight, Stephen's general

agreeableness seemed watery; by the side of Knight's spare love making, Stephen's continual outflow

seemed lackadaisical. She had begun to sigh for somebody further on in manhood. Stephen was hardly

Perhaps there was a proneness to inconstancy in her naturea nature, to those who contemplate it from a

standpoint beyond the influence of that inconstancy, the most exquisite of all in its plasticity and ready

sympathies. Partly, too, Stephen's failure to make his hold on her heart a permanent one was his too timid

habit of dispraising himself beside hera peculiarity which, exercised towards sensible men, stirs a kindly

chord of attachment that a marked assertiveness would leave untouched, but inevitably leads the most

sensible woman in the world to undervalue him who practises it. Directly domineering ceases in the man,

snubbing begins in the woman; the trite but no less unfortunate fact being that the gentler creature rarely has

the capacity to appreciate fair treatment from her natural complement. The abiding perception of the position

of Stephen's parents had, of course, a little to do with Elfride's renunciation. To such girls poverty may not

be, as to the more worldly masses of humanity, a sin in itself; but it is a sin, because graceful and dainty

manners seldom exist in such an atmosphere. Few women of old family can be thoroughly taught that a fine

soul may wear a smockfrock, and an admittedly common man in one is but a worm in their eyes. John

Smith's rough hands and clothes, his wife's dialect, the necessary narrowness of their ways, being constantly

On reaching home after the perilous adventure by the seashore, Knight had felt unwell, and retired almost

immediately. The young lady who had so materially assisted him had done the same, but she reappeared,

properly clothed, about five o'clock. She wandered restlessly about the house, but not on account of their joint

narrow escape from death. The storm which had torn the tree had merely bowed the reed, and with the

deliverance of Knight all deep thought of the accident had left her. The mutual avowal which it had been the

Elfride's disquiet now was on account of that miserable promise to meet Stephen, which returned like a

spectre again and again. The perception of his littleness beside Knight grew upon her alarmingly. She now

thought how sound had been her father's advice to her to give him up, and was as passionately desirous of

following it as she had hitherto been averse. Perhaps there is nothing more hardening to the tone of young

minds than thus to discover how their dearest and strongest wishes become gradually attuned by Time the

Cynic to the very note of some selfish policy which in earlier days they despised.

The hour of appointment came, and with it a crisis; and with the crisis a collapse.

'God forgive meI can't meet Stephen!' she exclaimed to herself. 'I don't love him less, but I love Mr. Knight

Yes: she would save herself from a man not fit for herin spite of vows. She would obey her father, and

have no more to do with Stephen Smith. Thus the fickle resolve showed signs of assuming the complexion of

The following days were passed without any definite avowal from Knight's lips. Such solitary walks and

scenes as that witnessed by Smith in the summerhouse were frequent, but he courted her so intangibly that

to any but such a delicate perception as Elfride's it would have appeared no courtship at all. The time now

really began to be sweet with her. She dismissed the sense of sin in her past actions, and was automatic in the

intoxication of the moment. The fact that Knight made no actual declaration was no drawback. Knowing

since the betrayal of his sentiments that love for her really existed, she preferred it for the present in its form

of essence, and was willing to avoid for awhile the grosser medium of words. Their feelings having been

But no sooner had she got rid of her troubled conscience on the matter of faithlessness than a new anxiety

confronted her. It was lest Knight should accidentally meet Stephen in the parish, and that herself should be

Elfride, learning Knight more thoroughly, perceived that, far from having a notion of Stephen's precedence,

he had no idea that she had ever been wooed before by anybody. On ordinary occasions she had a tongue so

frank as to show her whole mind, and a mind so straightforward as to reveal her heart to its innermost shrine.

But the time for a change had come. She never alluded to even a knowledge of Knight's friend. When women

are secret they are secret indeed; and more often than not they only begin to be secret with the advent of a

The elopement was now a spectre worse than the first, and, like the Spirit in Glenfinlas, it waxed taller with

every attempt to lay it. Her natural honesty invited her to confide in Knight, and trust to his generosity for

forgiveness: she knew also that as mere policy it would be better to tell him early if he was to be told at all.

The longer her concealment the more difficult would be the revelation. But she put it off. The intense fear

which accompanies intense love in young women was too strong to allow the exercise of a moral quality

The match was looked upon as made by her father and mother. The vicar remembered her promise to reveal

the meaning of the telegram she had received, and two days after the scene in the summer house, asked her

'I had been corresponding with Stephen Smith ever since he left England, till lately,' she calmly said.

'I don't see that that is a pertinent question, papa; the telegram was from the shipping agent, and was not sent

'I have not. I can assure you that at the present moment there is no more of an understanding between me and

the young man you so much disliked than between him and you. You told me to forget him; and I have

'Oh, well; though you did not obey me in the beginning, you are a good girl, Elfride, in obeying me at last.'

'Don't call me "good," papa,' she said bitterly; 'you don't know and the less said about some things the

better. Remember, Mr. Knight knows nothing about the other. Oh, how wrong it all is! I don't know what I

'As matters stand, I should be inclined to tell him; or, at any rate, I should not alarm myself about his

knowing. He found out the other day that this was the parish young Smith's father lives inwhat puts you in

'Pooh, child. Knight is a good fellow and a clever man; but at the same time it does not escape my

perceptions that he is no great catch for you. Men of his turn of mind are nothing so wonderful in the way of

husbands. If you had chosen to wait, you might have mated with a much wealthier man. But remember, I

have not a word to say against your having him, if you like him. Charlotte is delighted, as you know.'

'Well, papa,' she said, smiling hopefully through a sigh, 'it is nice to feel that in giving way toto caring for

him, I have pleased my family. But I am not good; oh no, I am very far from that!'

'None of us are good, I am sorry to say,' said her father blandly; 'but girls have a chartered right to change

their minds, you know. It has been recognized by poets from time immemorial. Catullus says, "Mulier cupido

quod dicit amanti, in vento' What a memory mine is! However, the passage is, that a woman's words to a

lover are as a matter of course written only on wind and water. Now don't be troubled about that, Elfride.'

They had been standing on the lawn, and Knight was now seen lingering some way down a winding walk.

When Elfride met him, it was with a much greater lightness of heart; things were more straightforward now.

The responsibility of her fickleness seemed partly shifted from her own shoulders to her father's. Still, there

'Ah, could he have known how far I went with Stephen, and yet have said the same, how much happier I

In the afternoon the lovers went out together on horseback for an hour or two; and though not wishing to be

observed, by reason of the late death of Lady Luxellian, whose funeral had taken place very privately on the

The steps to the vault, as has been stated, were on the outside of the building, immediately under the aisle

wall. Being on horseback, both Knight and Elfride could overlook the shrubs which screened the

'Ah, and can it be? I should like to inquire how his son, my truant protege', is going on. And from your

father's description of the vault, the interior must be interesting. Suppose we go in.'

Elfride then assented, since she could do nothing else. Her heart, which at first had quailed in consternation,

recovered itself when she considered the character of John Smith. A quiet unassuming man, he would be sure

to act towards her as before those love passages with his son, which might have given a more pretentious

mechanic airs. So without much alarm she took Knight's arm after dismounting, and went with him between

and over the graves. The mastermason recognized her as she approached, and, as usual, lifted his hat

'I know you to be Mr. Smith, my former friend Stephen's father,' said Knight, directly he had scanned the

'How is your son now? I have only once heard from him since he went to India. I daresay you have heard him

speak of meMr. Knight, who became acquainted with him some years ago in Exonbury.'

'Ay, that I have. Stephen is very well, thank you, sir, and he's in England; in fact, he's at home. In short, sir,

Knight looked amazed. 'Well, that is extraordinary.' he murmured. 'Did he know I was in the parish?'

'I really can't say, sir,' said John, wishing himself out of the entanglement he rather suspected than thoroughly

'Oh, bless ye, no, sir; scores of folk have been stepping down. 'Tis left open apurpose.'

'Oh no, ma'am,' said John. 'We whitelimed the walls and arches the day 'twas opened, as we always do, and

'Then I should like you to accompany me, Elfie; having originally sprung from the family too.'

'I don't like going where death is so emphatically present. I'll stay by the horses whilst you go in; they may

'What nonsense! I had no idea your sentiments were so flimsily formed as to be perturbed by a few remnants

She held miserably to his arm, thinking that, perhaps, the revelation might as well come at once as ten

At first, the gloom of the vault, which was lighted only by a couple of candles, was too great to admit of their

seeing anything distinctly; but with a further advance Knight discerned, in front of the black masses lining the

Stephen Smith, not being in such absolute ignorance of Knight's whereabouts as Knight had been of Smith's

instantly recognized his friend, and knew by rote the outlines of the fair woman standing behind him.

'Why have you not written, my boy?' said Knight, without in any way signifying Elfride's presence to

Stephen. To the essayist, Smith was still the country lad whom he had patronized and tended; one to whom

the formal presentation of a lady betrothed to himself would have seemed incongruous and absurd.

'Ah, yes. Why haven't I? why haven't we? That's always the query which we cannot clearly answer without an

unsatisfactory sense of our inadequacies. However, I have not forgotten you, Smith. And now we have met;

and we must meet again, and have a longer chat than this can conveniently be. I must know all you have been

Elfride stood in the background. Stephen had read the position at a glance, and immediately guessed that she

had never mentioned his name to Knight. His tact in avoiding catastrophes was the chief quality which made

him intellectually respectable, in which quality he far transcended Knight; and he decided that a tranquil issue

out of the encounter, without any harrowing of the feelings of either Knight or Elfride, was to be attempted if

possible. His old sense of indebtedness to Knight had never wholly forsaken him; his love for Elfride was

As far as he dared look at her movements he saw that her bearing towards him would be dictated by his own

towards her; and if he acted as a stranger she would do likewise as a means of deliverance. Circumstances

favouring this course, it was desirable also to be rather reserved towards Knight, to shorten the meeting as

'I am afraid that my time is almost too short to allow even of such a pleasure,' he said. 'I leave here

tomorrow. And until I start for the Continent and India, which will be in a fortnight, I shall have hardly a

Knight's disappointment and dissatisfied looks at this reply sent a pang through Stephen as great as any he

had felt at the sight of Elfride. The words about shortness of time were literally true, but their tone was far

from being so. He would have been gratified to talk with Knight as in past times, and saw as a dead loss to

himself that, to save the woman who cared nothing for him, he was deliberately throwing away his friend.

'Oh, I am sorry to hear that,' said Knight, in a changed tone. 'But of course, if you have weighty concerns to

attend to, they must not be neglected. And if this is to be our first and last meeting, let me say that I wish you

success with all my heart!' Knight's warmth revived towards the end; the solemn impressions he was

beginning to receive from the scene around them abstracting from his heart as a puerility any momentary

vexation at words. 'It is a strange place for us to meet in,' he continued, looking round the vault.

Stephen briefly assented, and there was a silence. The blackened coffins were now revealed more clearly than

at first, the whitened walls and arches throwing them forward in strong relief. It was a scene which was

remembered by all three as an indelible mark in their history. Knight, with an abstracted face, was standing

between his companions, though a little in advance of them, Elfride being on his right hand, and Stephen

Smith on his left. The white daylight on his right side gleamed faintly in, and was toned to a blueness by

contrast with the yellow rays from the candle against the wall. Elfride, timidly shrinking back, and nearest the

entrance, received most of the light therefrom, whilst Stephen was entirely in candlelight, and to him the spot

of outer sky visible above the steps was as a steely blue patch, and nothing more.

'I have been here two or three times since it was opened,' said Stephen. 'My father was engaged in the work,

'Yes. What are you doing?' Knight inquired, looking at the note book and pencil Stephen held in his hand.

'I have been sketching a few details in the church, and since then I have been copying the names from some

of the coffins here. Before I left England I used to do a good deal of this sort of thing.'

'Yes; of course. Ah, that's poor Lady Luxellian, I suppose.' Knight pointed to a coffin of light satinwood,

which stood on the stone sleepers in the new niche. 'And the remainder of the family are on this side. Who

Stephen's voice altered slightly as he replied 'That's Lady Elfride Kingsmoreborn Luxellian, and that is

Arthur, her husband. I have heard my father say that theyheran away with her, and married her against

'Then I imagine this to be where you got your Christian name, Miss Swancourt?' said Knight, turning to her.

'I think you told me it was three or four generations ago that your family branched off from the Luxellians?'

'She was my grandmother,' said Elfride, vainly endeavouring to moisten her dry lips before she spoke. Elfride

had then the consciencestricken look of Guido's Magdalen, rendered upon a more childlike form. She kept

her face partially away from Knight and Stephen, and set her eyes upon the sky visible outside, as if her

salvation depended upon quickly reaching it. Her left hand rested lightly within Knight's arm, half withdrawn,

from a sense of shame at claiming him before her old lover, yet unwilling to renounce him; so that her glove

merely touched his sleeve. '"Can one be pardoned, and retain the offence?"' quoted Elfride's heart then.

Conversation seemed to have no selfsustaining power, and went on in the shape of disjointed remarks.

'One's mind gets thronged with thoughts while standing so solemnly here,' Knight said, in a measured quiet

voice. 'How much has been said on death from time to time! how much we ourselves can think upon it! We

'Yes, I know it,' she murmured, and went on in a still lower voice, seemingly afraid for any words from the

'Well,' said Knight musingly, 'let us leave them. Such occasions as these seem to compel us to roam outside

ourselves, far away from the fragile frame we live in, and to expand till our perception grows so vast that our

physical reality bears no sort of proportion to it. We look back upon the weak and minute stem on which this

luxuriant growth depends, and ask, Can it be possible that such a capacity has a foundation so small? Must I

again return to my daily walk in that narrow cell, a human body, where worldly thoughts can torture me? Do

'One has a sense of wrong, too, that such an appreciative breadth as a sentient being possesses should be

committed to the frail casket of a body. What weakens one's intentions regarding the future like the thought

of this?...However, let us tune ourselves to a more cheerful chord, for there's a great deal to be done yet by us

As Knight meditatively addressed his juniors thus, unconscious of the deception practised, for different

reasons, by the severed hearts at his side, and of the scenes that had in earlier days united them, each one felt

that he and she did not gain by contrast with their musing mentor. Physically not so handsome as either the

youthful architect or the vicar's daughter, the thoroughness and integrity of Knight illuminated his features

with a dignity not even incipient in the other two. It is difficult to frame rules which shall apply to both sexes,

and Elfride, an undeveloped girl, must, perhaps, hardly be laden with the moral responsibilities which attach

to a man in like circumstances. The charm of woman, too, lies partly in her subtleness in matters of love. But

if honesty is a virtue in itself, Elfride, having none of it now, seemed, being for being, scarcely good enough

for Knight. Stephen, though deceptive for no unworthy purpose, was deceptive after all; and whatever good

results grace such strategy if it succeed, it seldom draws admiration, especially when it fails.

On an ordinary occasion, had Knight been even quite alone with Stephen, he would hardly have alluded to his

possible relationship to Elfride. But moved by attendant circumstances Knight was impelled to be confiding.

'Stephen,' he said, 'this lady is Miss Swancourt. I am staying at her father's house, as you probably know.' He

stepped a few paces nearer to Smith, and said in a lower tone: 'I may as well tell you that we are engaged to

Low as the words had been spoken, Elfride had heard them, and awaited Stephen's reply in breathless silence,

if that could be called silence where Elfride's dress, at each throb of her heart, shook and indicated it like a

pulseglass, rustling also against the wall in reply to the same throbbing. The ray of daylight which reached

'I congratulate you,' Stephen whispered; and said aloud, 'I know Miss Swancourta little. You must

'I thought you might possibly not have lived at home since they have been here.'

'Well, there is no excuse for me. As strangers to each other I ought, I suppose, to have introduced you: as

acquaintances, I should not have stood so persistently between you. But the fact is, Smith, you seem a boy to

Stephen appeared to have a more than previous consciousness of the intense cruelty of his fate at the present

'You should have said that I seemed still the rural mechanic's son I am, and hence an unfit subject for the

'Oh, no, no! I won't have that.' Knight endeavoured to give his reply a laughing tone in Elfride's ears, and an

earnestness in Stephen's: in both which efforts he signally failed, and produced a forced speech pleasant to

neither. 'Well, let us go into the open air again; Miss Swancourt, you are particularly silent. You mustn't mind

'To think she has never mentioned her knowledge of me!' Smith murmured, and thought with some remorse

how much her conduct resembled his own on his first arrival at her house as a stranger to the place.

They ascended to the daylight, Knight taking no further notice of Elfride's manner, which, as usual, he

attributed to the natural shyness of a young woman at being discovered walking with him on terms which left

not much doubt of their meaning. Elfride stepped a little in advance, and passed through the churchyard.

'You are changed very considerably, Smith,' said Knight, 'and I suppose it is no more than was to be

expected. However, don't imagine that I shall feel any the less interest in you and your fortunes whenever you

care to confide them to me. I have not forgotten the attachment you spoke of as your reason for going away to

It being always difficult to know whether to express sorrow or gladness under such circumstancesall

depending upon the character of the matchKnight took shelter in the safe words: 'I trust it was for the best.'

'I hope it was. But I beg that you will not press me further: no, you have not pressed meI don't mean

Knight said no more, and they followed in the footsteps of Elfride, who still kept some paces in advance, and

had not heard Knight's unconscious allusion to her. Stephen bade him adieu at the churchyardgate without

'Good heavens, Elfride,' Knight exclaimed, 'how pale you are! I suppose I ought not to have taken you into

'Nothing,' said Elfride faintly. 'I shall be myself in a moment. All was so strange and unexpected down there,

'Now thenup she goes!' whispered Knight, and lifted her tenderly into the saddle.

Her old lover still looked on at the performance as he leant over the gate a dozen yards off. Once in the

saddle, and having a firm grip of the reins, she turned her head as if by a resistless fascination, and for the

first time since that memorable parting on the moor outside St. Launce's after the passionate attempt at

marriage with him, Elfride looked in the face of the young man she first had loved. He was the youth who

had called her his inseparable wife many a time, and whom she had even addressed as her husband. Their

eyes met. Measurement of life should be proportioned rather to the intensity of the experience than to its

actual length. Their glance, but a moment chronologically, was a season in their history. To Elfride the

intense agony of reproach in Stephen's eye was a nail piercing her heart with a deadliness no words can

describe. With a spasmodic effort she withdrew her eyes, urged on the horse, and in the chaos of perturbed

memories was oblivious of any presence beside her. The deed of deception was complete.

Gaining a knoll on which the park transformed itself into wood and copse, Knight came still closer to her

'Oh yes.' She pressed a hand to her eyes, as if to blot out the image of Stephen. A vivid scarlet spot now shone

with preternatural brightness in the centre of each cheek, leaving the remainder of her face lilywhite as

'Elfride,' said Knight, rather in his old tone of mentor, 'you know I don't for a moment chide you, but is there

not a great deal of unwomanly weakness in your allowing yourself to be so overwhelmed by the sight of

what, after all, is no novelty? Every woman worthy of the name should, I think, be able to look upon death

His obtuseness to the cause of her indisposition, by evidencing his entire freedom from the suspicion of

anything behind the scenes, showed how incapable Knight was of deception himself, rather than any inherent

dulness in him regarding human nature. This, clearly perceived by Elfride, added poignancy to her self

reproach, and she idolized him the more because of their difference. Even the recent sight of Stephen's face

and the sound of his voice, which for a moment had stirred a chord or two of ancient kindness, were unable to

She had replied to Knight's question hastily, and immediately went on to speak of indifferent subjects. After

they had reached home she was apart from him till dinnertime. When dinner was over, and they were

watching the dusk in the drawingroom, Knight stepped out upon the terrace. Elfride went after him very

'And what is it about?' gaily returned her lover. 'Happiness, I hope. Do not let anything keep you so sad as

'I cannot mention the matter until I tell you the whole substance of it,' she said. 'And that I will do

tomorrow. I have been reminded of it today. It is about something I once did, and don't think I ought to

This, it must be said, was rather a mild way of referring to a frantic passion and flight, which, much or little

'No, not now. I did not mean tonight,' Elfride responded, with a slight decline in the firmness of her voice. 'It

is not light as you think itit troubles me a great deal.' Fearing now the effect of her own earnestness, she

'Tomorrow morning. Name a time, will you, and bind me to it? I want you to fix an hour, because I am

weak, and may otherwise try to get out of it.' She added a little artificial laugh, which showed how timorous

She was looking out of her dressingroom window on the first floor, and Knight was regarding her from the

terrace balustrade, upon which he had been idly sitting for some timedividing the glances of his eye

between the pages of a book in his hand, the brilliant hues of the geraniums and calceolarias, and the open

'How are you this morning, Elfride? You look no better for your long night's rest.'

She appeared at the door shortly after, took his offered arm, and together they walked slowly down the gravel

Her resolution, sustained during the last fifteen hours, had been to tell the whole truth, and now the moment

Step by step they advanced, and still she did not speak. They were nearly at the end of the walk, when Knight

'I told you one dayor rather I gave you to understandwhat was not true. I fancy you thought me to mean

The moment had been too much for her. Now that the crisis had come, no qualms of conscience, no love of

honesty, no yearning to make a confidence and obtain forgiveness with a kiss, could string Elfride up to the

venture. Her dread lest he should be unforgiving was heightened by the thought of yesterday's artifice, which

might possibly add disgust to his disappointment. The certainty of one more day's affection, which she gained

The trepidation caused by these thoughts on what she had intended to say shook so naturally the words she

did say, that Knight never for a moment suspected them to be a last moment's substitution. He smiled and

'My dear Elfieyes, you are nowno protestationwhat a winning little woman you are, to be so absurdly

scrupulous about a mere iota! Really, I never once have thought whether your nineteenth year was the last or

the present. And, by George, well I may not; for it would never do for a staid fogey a dozen years older to

'Don't praise medon't praise me! Though I prize it from your lips, I don't deserve it now.'

But Knight, being in an exceptionally genial mood, merely saw this distressful exclamation as modesty.

'Well,' he added, after a minute, 'I like you all the better, you know, for such moral precision, although I

called it absurd.' He went on with tender earnestness: 'For, Elfride, there is one thing I do love to see in a

womanthat is, a soul truthful and clear as heaven's light. I could put up with anything if I had

thatforgive nothing if I had it not. Elfride, you have such a soul, if ever woman had; and having it, retain it,

and don't ever listen to the fashionable theories of the day about a woman's privileges and natural right to

practise wiles. Depend upon it, my dear girl, that a noble woman must be as honest as a noble man. I

specially mean by honesty, fairness not only in matters of business and social detail, but in all the delicate

'I will get it for you,' said Knight, very willing to purchase her companionship at so cheap a price. 'You sit

down there a minute.' And he turned and walked rapidly back to the house for the article in question.

Elfride sat down upon one of the rustic benches which adorned this portion of the grounds, and remained with

her eyes upon the grass. She was induced to lift them by hearing the brush of light and irregular footsteps

hard by. Passing along the path which intersected the one she was in and traversed the outer shrubberies,

Elfride beheld the farmer's widow, Mrs. Jethway. Before she noticed Elfride, she paused to look at the house,

portions of which were visible through the bushes. Elfride, shrinking back, hoped the unpleasant woman

might go on without seeing her. But Mrs. Jethway, silently apostrophizing the house, with actions which

seemed dictated by a halfoverturned reason, had discerned the girl, and immediately came up and stood in

'You disturb my mind, and my mind is my whole life; for my boy is there still, and he is gone from my body.'

'Oh no, no!' said the widow. 'That word "consumption" covers a good deal. He died because you were his

own wellagreed sweetheart, and then proved falseand it killed him. Yes, Miss Swancourt,' she said in an

'How can you be so wicked and foolish!' replied Elfride, rising indignantly. But indignation was not natural to

her, and having been so worn and harrowed by late events, she lost any powers of defence that mood might

'That's just what you could have helped. You know how it began, Miss Elfride. Yes: you said you liked the

name of Felix better than any other name in the parish, and you knew it was his name, and that those you said

'I knew it was his nameof course I did; but I am sure, Mrs. Jethway, I did not intend anybody to tell him.'

'And then, after that, when you were riding on Revelsday by our house, and the lads were gathered there,

and you wanted to dismount, when Jim Drake and George Upway and three or four more ran forward to hold

your pony, and Felix stood back timid, why did you beckon to him, and say you would rather he held it? '

'O Mrs. Jethway, you do think so mistakenly! I liked him best that's why I wanted him to do it. He was

'It is a falsehood; oh, it is, it is!' said Elfride, weeping with desperation. 'He came behind me, and attempted to

'But you did not tell your father or anybody, as you would have if you had looked upon it then as the insult

'He begged me not to tell, and foolishly enough I did not. And I wish I had now. I little expected to be

scourged with my own kindness. Pray leave me, Mrs. Jethway.' The girl only expostulated now.

'Well, you harshly dismissed him, and he died. And before his body was cold, you took another to your heart.

Then as carelessly sent him about his business, and took a third. And if you consider that nothing, Miss

Swancourt,' she continued, drawing closer; 'it led on to what was very serious indeed. Have you forgotten the

wouldbe runaway marriage? The journey to London, and the return the next day without being married, and

that there's enough disgrace in that to ruin a woman's good name far less light than yours? You may have: I

have not. Fickleness towards a lover is bad, but fickleness after playing the wife is wantonness.'

'Does your new man know of it? I think not, or he would be no man of yours! As much of the story as was

known is creeping about the neighbourhood even now; but I know more than any of them, and why should I

'I defy you!' cried Elfride tempestuously. 'Do and say all you can to ruin me; try; put your tongue at work; I

invite it! I defy you as a slanderous woman! Look, there he comes.' And her voice trembled greatly as she

saw through the leaves the beloved form of Knight coming from the door with her hat in his hand. 'Tell him

The excitement of her latter words had restored colour to Elfride's cheeks; and hastily wiping her eyes, she

walked farther on, so that by the time her lover had overtaken her the traces of emotion had nearly

disappeared from her face. Knight put the hat upon her head, took her hand, and drew it within his arm.

It was the last day but one previous to their departure for St. Leonards; and Knight seemed to have a purpose

in being much in her company that day. They rambled along the valley. The season was that period in the

autumn when the foliage alone of an ordinary plantation is rich enough in hues to exhaust the chromatic

combinations of an artist's palette. Most lustrous of all are the beeches, graduating from bright rusty red at the

extremity of the boughs to a bright yellow at their inner parts; young oaks are still of a neutral green; Scotch

firs and hollies are nearly blue; whilst occasional dottings of other varieties give maroons and purples of

The riversuch as it washere pursued its course amid flagstones as level as a pavement, but divided by

crevices of irregular width. With the summer drought the torrent had narrowed till it was now but a thread of

crystal clearness, meandering along a central channel in the rocky bed of the winter current. Knight

scrambled through the bushes which at this point nearly covered the brook from sight, and leapt down upon

'Elfride, I never saw such a sight!' he exclaimed. 'The hazels overhang the river's course in a perfect arch, and

the floor is beautifully paved. The place reminds one of the passages of a cloister. Let me help you down.'

He assisted her through the marginal underwood and down to the stones. They walked on together to a tiny

cascade about a foot wide and high, and sat down beside it on the flags that for nine months in the year were

submerged beneath a gushing bourne. From their feet trickled the attenuated thread of water which alone

remained to tell the intent and reason of this leafcovered aisle, and journeyed on in a zigzag line till lost in

Knight, leaning on his elbow, after contemplating all this, looked critically at Elfride.

'Does not such a luxuriant head of hair exhaust itself and get thin as the years go on from eighteen to

'Oh no!' she said quickly, with a visible disinclination to harbour such a thought, which came upon her with

an unpleasantness whose force it would be difficult for men to understand. She added afterwards, with

smouldering uneasiness, 'Do you really think that a great abundance of hair is more likely to get thin than a

'Yes, I really do. I believeam almost sure, in factthat if statistics could be obtained on the subject, you

would find the persons with thin hair were those who had a superabundance originally, and that those who

Elfride's troubles sat upon her face as well as in her heart. Perhaps to a woman it is almost as dreadful to

think of losing her beauty as of losing her reputation. At any rate, she looked quite as gloomy as she had

'You shouldn't be so troubled about a mere personal adornment,' said Knight, with some of the severity of

'I think it is a woman's duty to be as beautiful as she can. If I were a scholar, I would give you chapter and

verse for it from one of your own Latin authors. I know there is such a passage, for papa has alluded to it.'

"'Munditiae, et ornatus, et cultus," that it? A passage in Livy which is no defence at all.'

'Never mind, then; for I have a reason for not taking up my old cudgels against you, Elfie. Can you guess

'No; but I am glad to hear it,' she said thankfully. 'For it is dreadful when you talk so. For whatever dreadful

name the weakness may deserve, I must candidly own that I am terrified to think my hair may ever get thin.'

'I don't care if you do say satire and judge me cruelly. I know my hair is beautiful; everybody says so.'

'Why, my dear Miss Swancourt,' he tenderly replied, 'I have not said anything against it. But you know what

'Poor Miss Handsomedoes cuts but a sorry figure beside Miss Handsomeis in every man's eyes, your own

not excepted, Mr. Knight, though it pleases you to throw off so,' said Elfride saucily. And lowering her voice:

'You ought not to have taken so much trouble to save me from falling over the cliff, for you don't think mine

Her hand was plashing in the little waterfall, and her eyes were bent the same way.

'After my taking trouble to get jewellery to please you, you wouldn't accept it.'

And the packet was withdrawn from his pocket and presented the third time. Elfride took it with delight. The

'I'll take out these ugly ones at once,' she exclaimed, 'and I'll wear yoursshall I?'

Now, though it may seem unlikely, considering how far the two had gone in converse, Knight had never yet

ventured to kiss Elfride. Far slower was he than Stephen Smith in matters like that. The utmost advance he

had made in such demonstrations had been to the degree witnessed by Stephen in the summerhouse. So

'Elfie, I should like to touch that seductive ear of yours. Those are my gifts; so let me dress you in them.'

'I don't think it would be quite the usual or proper course,' she said, suddenly turning and resuming her

The stillness of things was disturbed by a bird coming to the streamlet to drink. After watching him dip his

bill, sprinkle himself, and fly into a tree, Knight replied, with the courteous brusqueness she so much liked to

'Elfride, now you may as well be fair. You would mind my doing it but little, I think; so give me leave, do.'

'I will be fair, then,' she said confidingly, and looking him full in the face. It was a particular pleasure to her

to be able to do a little honesty without fear. 'I should not mind your doing so I should like such an

'Then I will!' he rejoined, with that singular earnestness about a small matterin the eyes of a ladies' man but

a momentary peg for flirtation or jestwhich is only found in deep natures who have been wholly unused to

toying with womankind, and which, from its unwontedness, is in itself a tribute the most precious that can be

'And you shall,' she whispered, without reserve, and no longer mistress of the ceremonies. And then Elfride

inclined herself towards him, thrust back her hair, and poised her head sideways. In doing this her arm and

At the touch, the sensation of both seemed to be concentrated at the point of contact. All the time he was

performing the delicate manoeuvre Knight trembled like a young surgeon in his first operation.

'Don't say that, Elfride. What is it, after all? A mere nothing. Now turn round, dearest.'

She was powerless to disobey, and turned forthwith; and then, without any defined intention in either's mind,

his face and hers drew closer together; and he supported her there, and kissed her.

Knight was at once the most ardent and the coolest man alive. When his emotions slumbered he appeared

almost phlegmatic; when they were moved he was no less than passionate. And now, without having quite

intended an early marriage, he put the question plainly. It came with all the ardour which was the

The words were sweet to her; but there was a bitter in the sweet. These newlyovert acts of his, which had

culminated in this plain question, coming on the very day of Mrs. Jethway's blasting reproaches, painted

distinctly her fickleness as an enormity. Loving him in secret had not seemed such thoroughgoing

inconstancy as the same love recognized and acted upon in the face of threats. Her distraction was interpreted

'I don't press you for an answer now, darling,' he said, seeing she was not likely to give a lucid reply. 'Take

Knight was as honourable a man as was ever loved and deluded by woman. It may be said that his blindness

in love proved the point, for shrewdness in love usually goes with meanness in general. Once the passion had

mastered him, the intellect had gone for naught. Knight, as a lover, was more singleminded and far simpler

Without saying more on the subject of their marriage, Knight held her at arm's length, as if she had been a

'Does your pretty gift become me?' she inquired, with tears of excitement on the fringes of her eyes.

'Undoubtedly, perfectly!' said her lover, adopting a lighter tone to put her at her ease. 'Ah, you should see

Below their seat the thread of water paused to spread out into a smooth small pool. Knight supported her

'I can see myself. Really, try as religiously as I will, I cannot help admiring my appearance in them.'

'Doubtless. How can you be so fond of finery? I believe you are corrupting me into a taste for it. I used to

'I like ornaments, because I want people to admire what you possess, and envy you, and say, "I wish I was

'I suppose I ought not to object after that. And how much longer are you going to look in there at yourself?'

'Until you are tired of holding me? Oh, I want to ask you something.' And she turned round. 'Now tell truly,

'Say light, do!' she whispered coaxingly. 'Don't say dark, as you did that time.'

'Very well, blue eyes.' And Knight laughed, and drew her close and kissed her the second time, which

operations he performed with the carefulness of a fruiterer touching a bunch of grapes so as not to disturb

Elfride objected to a second, and flung away her face, the movement causing a slight disarrangement of hat

and hair. Hardly thinking what she said in the trepidation of the moment, she exclaimed, clapping her hand to

No sooner did she realise the significant words than a troubled look passed across her face, and she shut her

It is an evening at the beginning of October, and the mellowest of autumn sunsets irradiates London, even to

its uttermost eastern end. Between the eye and the flaming West, columns of smoke stand up in the still air

Mr. and Mrs. Swancourt and Elfride are looking at these lustrous and lurid contrasts from the window of a

large hotel near London Bridge. The visit to their friends at St. Leonards is over, and they are staying a day or

Knight spent the same interval of time in crossing over to Brittany by way of Jersey and St. Malo. He then

passed through Normandy, and returned to London also, his arrival there having been two days later than that

So the evening of this October day saw them all meeting at the abovementioned hotel, where they had

previously engaged apartments. During the afternoon Knight had been to his lodgings at Richmond to make a

little change in the nature of his baggage; and on coming up again there was never ushered by a bland waiter

into a comfortable room a happier man than Knight when shown to where Elfride and her stepmother were

Elfride looked none the better for her change: Knight was as brown as a nut. They were soon engaged by

themselves in a corner of the room. Now that the precious words of promise had been spoken, the young girl

had no idea of keeping up her price by the system of reserve which other more accomplished maidens use.

Her lover was with her again, and it was enough: she made her heart over to him entirely.

Dinner was soon despatched. And when a preliminary round of conversation concerning their doings since

the last parting had been concluded, they reverted to the subject of tomorrow's journey home.

'That enervating ride through the myrtle climate of South Devon how I dread it tomorrow!' Mrs.

Swancourt was saying. 'I had hoped the weather would have been cooler by this time.'

'Then if you can afford an additional day, I propose that we do it,' said Knight. 'The Channel is like a lake just

now. We should reach Plymouth in about forty hours, I think, and the boats start from just below the bridge

'Of course these coasters are rather tubby,' said Knight. 'But you wouldn't mind that?'

'And the saloon is a place like the fishmarket of a ninthrate country town, but that wouldn't matter?'

'Oh dear, no. If we had only thought of it soon enough, we might have had the use of Lord Luxellian's yacht.

But never mind, we'll go. We shall escape the worrying rattle through the whole length of London tomorrow

morningnot to mention the risk of being killed by excursion trains, which is not a little one at this time of

Elfride, too, thought the arrangement delightful; and accordingly, ten o'clock the following morning saw two

cabs crawling round by the Mint, and between the preternaturally high walls of Nightingale Lane towards the

The first vehicle was occupied by the travellers in person, and the second brought up the luggage, under the

supervision of Mrs. Snewson, Mrs. Swancourt's maidand for the last fortnight Elfride's also; for although

the younger lady had never been accustomed to any such attendant at robing times, her stepmother forced her

Presently waggons, bales, and smells of all descriptions increased to such an extent that the advance of the

cabs was at the slowest possible rate. At intervals it was necessary to halt entirely, that the heavy vehicles

unloading in front might be moved aside, a feat which was not accomplished without a deal of swearing and

'Surely there must be some mistake in the way,' he said with great concern, drawing in his head again.

'There's not a respectable conveyance to be seen here except ours. I've heard that there are strange dens in this

part of London, into which people have been entrapped and murderedsurely there is no conspiracy on the

'Oh no, no. It is all right,' said Mr. Knight, who was as placid as dewy eve by the side of Elfride.

'But what I argue from,' said the vicar, with a greater emphasis of uneasiness, 'are plain appearances. This

can't be the highway from London to Plymouth by water, because it is no way at all to any place. We shall

No sooner had they alighted than they perceived a tussle going on between the hindmost cabman and a crowd

of light porters who had charged him in column, to obtain possession of the bags and boxes, Mrs. Snewson's

hands being seen stretched towards heaven in the midst of the melee. Knight advanced gallantly, and after a

hard struggle reduced the crowd to two, upon whose shoulders and trucks the goods vanished away in the

Then more of the same tribe, who had run on ahead, were heard shouting to boatmen, three of whom pulled

alongside, and two being vanquished, the luggage went tumbling into the remaining one.

'Never saw such a dreadful scene in my lifenever!' said Mr. Swancourt, floundering into the boat. 'Worse

than Famine and Sword upon one. I thought such customs were confined to continental ports. Aren't you

'Oh no,' said Elfride, appearing amid the dingy scene like a rainbow in a murky sky. 'It is a pleasant novelty, I

'Where in the wide ocean is our steamer?' the vicar inquired. 'I can see nothing but old hulks, for the life of

The object of their search was soon after disclosed to viewa great lumbering form of inky blackness, which

looked as if it had never known the touch of a paintbrush for fifty years. It was lying beside just such

another, and the way on board was down a narrow lane of water between the two, about a yard and a half

wide at one end, and gradually converging to a point. At the moment of their entry into this narrow passage, a

brilliantly painted rival paddled down the river like a trotting steed, creating such a series of waves and

splashes that their frail wherry was tossed like a teacup, and the vicar and his wife slanted this way and that,

inclining their heads into contact with a PunchandJudy air and countenance, the wavelets striking the sides

'Dreadful! horrible!' Mr. Swancourt murmured privately; and said aloud, I thought we walked on board. I

don't think really I should have come, if I had known this trouble was attached to it.'

'If they must splash, I wish they would splash us with clean water,' said the old lady, wiping her dress with

'Bravery is only obtuseness to the perception of contingencies,' Mr. Swancourt severely answered.

Mrs. Swancourt laughed, and Elfride laughed, and Knight laughed, in the midst of which pleasantness a man

shouted to them from some position between their heads and the sky, and they found they were close to the

It having been found that the lowness of the tide would prevent their getting off for an hour, the Swancourts,

having nothing else to do, allowed their eyes to idle upon men in blue jerseys performing mysterious

mending operations with tartwine; they turned to look at the dashes of lurid sunlight, like burnished copper

stars afloat on the ripples, which danced into and tantalized their vision; or listened to the loud music of a

steam crane at work close by; or to sighing sounds from the funnels of passing steamers, getting dead as

they grew more distant; or to shouts from the decks of different craft in their vicinity, all of them assuming

Halfpast ten: not yet off. Mr. Swancourt breathed a breath of weariness, and looked at his fellowtravellers

in general. Their faces were certainly not worth looking at. The expression 'Waiting' was written upon them

so absolutely that nothing more could be discerned there. All animation was suspended till Providence should

'I have been thinking,' said Knight, 'that we have come amongst the rarest class of people in the kingdom. Of

all human characteristics, a low opinion of the value of his own time by an individual must be among the

strangest to find. Here we see numbers of that patient and happy species. Rovers, as distinct from travellers.'

'Oh no. The pleasureseekers we meet on the grand routes are more anxious than commercial travellers to

rush on. And added to the loss of time in getting to their journey's end, these exceptional people take their

'Can it be?' inquired the vicar with apprehension. 'Surely not, Mr. Knight, just here in our English

'Entrance passages are very draughty places, and the Channel is like the rest. It ruins the temper of sailors. It

has been calculated by philosophers that more damns go up to heaven from the Channel, in the course of a

They really start now, and the dead looks of all the throng come to life immediately. The man who has been

frantically hauling in a rope that bade fair to have no end ceases his labours, and they glide down the

'It is well enough now,' said Mrs. Swancourt, after they had passed the Nore, 'but I can't say I have cared for

my voyage hitherto.' For being now in the open sea a slight breeze had sprung up, which cheered her as well

as her two younger companions. But unfortunately it had a reverse effect upon the vicar, who, after turning a

sort of apricot jam colour, interspersed with dashes of raspberry, pleaded indisposition, and vanished from

The afternoon wore on. Mrs. Swancourt kindly sat apart by herself reading, and the betrothed pair were left to

themselves. Elfride clung trustingly to Knight's arm, and proud was she to walk with him up and down the

deck, or to go forward, and leaning with him against the forecastle rails, watch the setting sun gradually

withdrawing itself over their stern into a huge bank of livid cloud with golden edges that rose to meet it.

She was childishly full of life and spirits, though in walking up and down with him before the other

passengers, and getting noticed by them, she was at starting rather confused, it being the first time she had

shown herself so openly under that kind of protection. 'I expect they are envious and saying things about us,

'Oh no,' he would answer unconcernedly. 'Why should they envy us, and what can they say?'

'Not any harm, of course,' Elfride replied, 'except such as this: "How happy those two are! she is proud

enough now." What makes it worse,' she continued in the extremity of confidence, 'I heard those two

cricketing men say just now, "She's the nobbiest girl on the boat." But I don't mind it, you know, Harry.'

'I should hardly have supposed you did, even if you had not told me,' said Knight with great blandness.

She was never tired of asking her lover questions and admiring his answers, good, bad, or indifferent as they

might be. The evening grew dark and night came on, and lights shone upon them from the horizon and from

'Now look there ahead of us, at that halo in the air, of silvery brightness. Watch it, and you will see what it

She watched for a few minutes, when two white lights emerged from the side of a hill, and showed

All this time, and later, soft sheet lightning expanded from a cloud in their path, enkindling their faces as they

paced up and down, shining over the water, and, for a moment, showing the horizon as a keen line.

Elfride slept soundly that night. Her first thought the next morning was the thrilling one that Knight was as

close at hand as when they were at home at Endelstow, and her first sight, on looking out of the cabin

window, was the perpendicular face of Beachy Head, gleaming white in a brilliant sixo'clockinthe

morning sun. This fair daybreak, however, soon changed its aspect. A cold wind and a pale mist descended

When they were nearing Southampton, Mrs. Swancourt came to say that her husband was so ill that he

wished to be put on shore here, and left to do the remainder of the journey by land. 'He will be perfectly well

directly he treads firm ground again. Which shall we dogo with him, or finish our voyage as we intended?'

Elfride was comfortably housed under an umbrella which Knight was holding over her to keep off the wind.

'Oh, don't let us go on shore!' she said with dismay. 'It would be such a pity!'

'That's very fine,' said Mrs. Swancourt archly, as to a child. 'See, the wind has increased her colour, the sea

her appetite and spirits, and somebody her happiness. Yes, it would be a pity, certainly.'

'I myself would rather remain on board,' interrupted the elder lady. 'And Mr. Swancourt particularly wishes to

The vicar, now a drab colour, was put ashore, and became as well as ever forthwith.

Elfride, sitting alone in a retired part of the vessel, saw a veiled woman walk aboard among the very latest

arrivals at this port. She was clothed in black silk, and carried a dark shawl upon her arm. The woman,

without looking around her, turned to the quarter allotted to the secondcabin passengers. All the carnation

Mrs. Swancourt had complimented her stepdaughter upon possessing left Elfride's cheeks, and she trembled

'Let us go home by railway with papa, after all,' she pleaded earnestly. 'I would rather go with himshall

Mrs. Swancourt looked around for a moment, as if unable to decide. 'Ah,' she exclaimed, 'it is too late now.

The Juliet had at that minute let go, the engines had started, and they were gliding slowly away from the

quay. There was no help for it but to remain, unless the Juliet could be made to put back, and that would

create a great disturbance. Elfride gave up the idea and submitted quietly. Her happiness was sadly mutilated

The woman whose presence had so disturbed her was exactly like Mrs. Jethway. She seemed to haunt Elfride

like a shadow. After several minutes' vain endeavour to account for any design Mrs. Jethway could have in

watching her, Elfride decided to think that, if it were the widow, the encounter was accidental. She

remembered that the widow in her restlessness was often visiting the village near Southampton, which was

her original home, and it was possible that she chose watertransit with the idea of saving expense.

'I don't much wonder at it; that wharf was depressing. We seemed underneath and inferior to everything

around us. But we shall be in the sea breeze again soon, and that will freshen you, dear.'

The evening closed in and dusk increased as they made way down Southampton Water and through the

Solent. Elfride's disturbance of mind was such that her light spirits of the foregoing four and twenty hours

had entirely deserted her. The weather too had grown more gloomy, for though the showers of the morning

had ceased, the sky was covered more closely than ever with dense leaden clouds. How beautiful was the

sunset when they rounded the North Foreland the previous evening! now it was impossible to tell within half

an hour the time of the luminary's going down. Knight led her about, and being by this time accustomed to

her sudden changes of mood, overlooked the necessity of a cause in regarding the conditions

Elfride looked stealthily to the other end of the vessel. Mrs. Jethway, or her double, was sitting at the

'Let us go to the forepart,' she said quickly to Knight. 'See therethe man is fixing the lights for the night.'

Knight assented, and after watching the operation of fixing the red and the green lights on the port and

starboard bows, and the hoisting of the white light to the masthead, he walked up and down with her till the

increase of wind rendered promenading difficult. Elfride's eyes were occasionally to be found furtively

'No,' she said. 'If you will kindly get me a rug from Mrs. Swancourt, I should like, if you don't mind, to stay

here.' She had recently fancied the assumed Mrs. Jethway might be a first class passenger, and dreaded

Knight appeared with the rug, and they sat down behind a weather cloth on the windward side, just as the

two red eyes of the Needles glared upon them from the gloom, their pointed summits rising like shadowy

phantom figures against the sky. It became necessary to go below to an eighto'clock meal of nondescript

kind, and Elfride was immensely relieved at finding no sign of Mrs. Jethway there. They again ascended, and

remained above till Mrs. Snewson staggered up to them with the message that Mrs. Swancourt thought it was

time for Elfride to come below. Knight accompanied her down, and returned again to pass a little more time

Elfride partly undressed herself and lay down, and soon became unconscious, though her sleep was light How

long she had lain, she knew not, when by slow degrees she became cognizant of a whispering in her ear.

'You are well on with him, I can see. Well, provoke me now, but my day will come, you will find.' That

Elfride became broad awake and terrified. She knew the words, if real, could be only those of one person, and

The lamp had gone out and the place was in darkness. In the next berth she could hear her stepmother

breathing heavily, further on Snewson breathing more heavily still. These were the only other legitimate

occupants of the cabin, and Mrs. Jethway must have stealthily come in by some means and retreated again, or

else she had entered an empty berth next Snewson's. The fear that this was the case increased Elfride's

perturbation, till it assumed the dimensions of a certainty, for how could a stranger from the other end of the

Elfride raised herself higher and looked out of the window. There was the sea, floundering and rushing

against the ship's side just by her head, and thence stretching away, dim and moaning, into an expanse of

indistinctness; and far beyond all this two placid lights like rayless stars. Now almost fearing to turn her face

inwards again, lest Mrs. Jethway should appear at her elbow, Elfride meditated upon whether to call Snewson

to keep her company. 'Four bells ' sounded, and she heard voices, which gave her a little courage. It was not

At any rate Elfride could not stay there panting longer, at the risk of being again disturbed by that dreadful

whispering. So wrapping herself up hurriedly she emerged into the passage, and by the aid of a faint light

burning at the entrance to the saloon found the foot of the stairs, and ascended to the deck. Dreary the place

was in the extreme. It seemed a new spot altogether in contrast with its daytime self. She could see the

glowworm light from the binnacle, and the dim outline of the man at the wheel; also a form at the bows. Not

Yes, there were two moreby the bulwarks. One proved to be her Harry, the other the mate. She was glad

indeed, and on drawing closer found they were holding a low slow chat about nautical affairs. She ran up and

'No: I cannot sleep. May I stay here? It is so dismal down there, andand I was afraid. Where are we now?'

'Due south of Portland Bill. Those are the lights abeam of us: look. A terrible spot, that, on a stormy night.

And do you see a very small light that dips and rises to the right? That's a light ship on the dangerous shoal

called the Shambles, where many a good vessel has gone to pieces. Between it and ourselves is the Race a

place where antagonistic currents meet and form whirlpoolsa spot which is rough in the smoothest

weather, and terrific in a wind. That dark, dreary horizon we just discern to the left is the West Bay,

She fancied he might be displeased with her for coming to him at this unearthly hour. 'I should like to stay

'Allow you, Elfie!' said Knight, putting his arm round her and drawing her closer. 'I am twice as happy with

So they again sought out the sheltered nook, and sitting down wrapped themselves in the rug as before.

'Oh, it was not muchperhaps a thing I ought not to ask,' she said hesitatingly. Her sudden wish had really

been to discover at once whether he had ever before been engaged to be married. If he had, she would make

that a ground for telling him a little of her conduct with Stephen. Mrs. Jethway's seeming words had so

depressed the girl that she herself now painted her flight in the darkest colours, and longed to ease her

burdened mind by an instant confession. If Knight had ever been imprudent himself, he might, she hoped,

'I wanted to ask you,' she went on, 'ifyou had ever been engaged before.' She added tremulously, 'I hope

'No, I never was,' Knight instantly and heartily replied. 'Elfride'and there was a certain happy pride in his

tone'I am twelve years older than you, and I have been about the world, and, in a way, into society, and

you have not. And yet I am not so unfit for you as strictthinking people might imagine, who would assume

the difference in age to signify most surely an equal addition to my practice in lovemaking.'

'No,' she said gloomily. The belief which had been her sheet anchor in hoping for forgiveness had proved

false. This account of the exceptional nature of his experience, a matter which would have set her rejoicing

'And have you never kissed many ladies?' she whispered, hoping he would say a hundred at the least.

The time, the circumstances, and the scene were such as to draw confidences from the most reserved.

'Elfride,' whispered Knight in reply, 'it is strange you should have asked that question. But I'll answer it,

though I have never told such a thing before. I have been rather absurd in my avoidance of women. I have

never given a woman a kiss in my life, except yourself and my mother.' The man of two and thirty with the

experienced mind warmed all over with a boy's ingenuous shame as he made the confession.

'Yes, the reverse experience may be commoner. And yet, to those who have observed their own sex, as I

have, my case is not remarkable. Men about town are women's favouritesthat's the postulateand

superficial people don't think far enough to see that there may be reserved, lonely exceptions.'

'No, indeed. Of late years I have wished I had gone my ways and trod out my measure like lighterhearted

men. I have thought of how many happy experiences I may have lost through never going to woo.'

'I cannot say. I don't think it was my nature to: circumstance hindered me, perhaps. I have regretted it for

another reason. This great remissness of mine has had its effect upon me. The older I have grown, the more

distinctly have I perceived that it was absolutely preventing me from liking any woman who was not as

unpractised as I; and I gave up the expectation of finding a nineteenthcentury young lady in my own raw

state. Then I found you, Elfride, and l felt for the first time that my fastidiousness was a blessing. And it

helped to make me worthy of you. I felt at once that, differing as we did in other experiences, in this matter I

'Yes, I am,' she answered in a forced voice. 'But I always had thought that men made lots of engagements

'So all women think, I supposeand rightly, indeed, of the majority of bachelors, as I said before. But an

appreciable minority of slowcoach men do notand it makes them very awkward when they do come to

'Because you know even less of lovemaking and matrimonial prearrangement than I, and so you can't draw

'Thank you, dear. But,' continued Knight laughingly, 'your opinion is not that of an expert, which alone is of

Had she answered, 'Yes, it is,' half as strongly as she felt it, Knight might have been a little astonished.

'If you had ever been engaged to be married before,' he went on, 'I expect your opinion of my addresses

'Oh, I was merely going to say that in that case I should never have given myself the pleasure of proposing to

'No, I think not. I had a right to please my taste, and that was for untried lips. Other men than those of my sort

'Only the screwdon't find an Elfride as I did. To think that I should have discovered such an unseen flower

down there in the Westto whom a man is as much as a multitude to some women, and a trip down the

'And would you,' she said, and her voice was tremulous, 'have given up a ladyif you had become engaged

to herand then found she had had ONE kiss before yoursand would you havegone away and left her?'

'WellI could hardly say inventorially like that. Too much of that sort of thing certainly would make me

dislike a woman. But let us confine our attention to ourselves, not go thinking of might have beens.'

So Elfride had allowed her thoughts to 'dally with false surmise,' and every one of Knight's words fell upon

her like a weight. After this they were silent for a long time, gazing upon the black mysterious sea, and

hearing the strange voice of the restless wind. A rocking to and fro on the waves, when the breeze is not too

violent and cold, produces a soothing effect even upon the most highlywrought mind. Elfride slowly sank

against Knight, and looking down, he found by her soft regular breathing that she had fallen asleep. Not

wishing to disturb her, he continued still, and took an intense pleasure in supporting her warm young form as

Knight fell to dreaming too, though he continued wide awake. It was pleasant to realize the implicit trust she

placed in him, and to think of the charming innocence of one who could sink to sleep in so simple and

unceremonious a manner. More than all, the musing unpractical student felt the immense responsibility he

was taking upon himself by becoming the protector and guide of such a trusting creature. The quiet slumber

of her soul lent a quietness to his own. Then she moaned, and turned herself restlessly. Presently her

'Don't tell himhe will not love me....I did not mean any disgraceindeed I did not, so don't tell Harry. We

were going to be marriedthat was why I ran away....And he says he will not have a kissed woman....And if

The previous moment a musical dingdong had spread into the air from their right hand, and awakened her.

'Only "eight bells,"' said Knight soothingly. 'Don't be frightened, little bird, you are safe. What have you been

'I can't tell, I can't tell!' she said with a shudder. 'Oh, I don't know what to do!'

'Stay quietly with me. We shall soon see the dawn now. Look, the morning star is lovely over there. The

clouds have completely cleared off whilst you have been sleeping. What have you been dreaming of?'

Knight said no more on the words of her dream. They watched the sky till Elfride grew calm, and the dawn

appeared. It was mere wan lightness first. Then the wind blew in a changed spirit, and died away to a zephyr.

'That's how I should like to die,' said Elfride, rising from her seat and leaning over the bulwark to watch the

'Oh, other people have thought the same thing, have they? That's always the case with my originalitiesthey

'Not only the case with yours. When I was a young hand at reviewing I used to find that a frightful

pitfalldilating upon subjects I met with, which were novelties to me, and finding afterwards they had been

'That is delightful. Whenever I find you have done a foolish thing I am glad, because it seems to bring you a

little nearer to me, who have done many.' And Elfride thought again of her enemy asleep under the deck they

All up the coast, prominences singled themselves out from recesses. Then a rosy sky spread over the eastern

sea and behind the low line of land, flinging its livery in dashes upon the thin airy clouds in that direction.

Every projection on the land seemed now so many fingers anxious to catch a little of the liquid light thrown

so prodigally over the sky, and after a fantastic time of lustrous yellows in the east, the higher elevations

along the shore were flooded with the same hues. The bluff and bare contours of Start Point caught the

brightest, earliest glow of all, and so also did the sides of its white lighthouse, perched upon a shelf in its

precipitous front like a mediaeval saint in a niche. Their lofty neighbour Bolt Head on the left remained as yet

Then up came the sun, as it were in jerks, just to seaward of the easternmost point of land, flinging out a

Jacob'sladder path of light from itself to Elfride and Knight, and coating them with rays in a few minutes.

The inferior dignitaries of the shore Froward Point, Berry Head, and Prawleall had acquired their share

of the illumination ere this, and at length the very smallest protuberance of wave, cliff, or inlet, even to the

innermost recesses of the lovely valley of the Dart, had its portion; and sunlight, now the common possession

of all, ceased to be the wonderful and coveted thing it had been a short half hour before.

After breakfast, Plymouth arose into view, and grew distincter to their nearing vision, the Breakwater

appearing like a streak of phosphoric light upon the surface of the sea. Elfride looked furtively around for

Mrs. Jethway, but could discern no shape like hers. Afterwards, in the bustle of landing, she looked again

with the same result, by which time the woman had probably glided upon the quay unobserved. Expanding

with a sense of relief, Elfride waited whilst Knight looked to their luggage, and then saw her father

approaching through the crowd, twirling his walkingstick to catch their attention. Elbowing their way to him

they all entered the town, which smiled as sunny a smile upon Elfride as it had done between one and two

years earlier, when she had entered it at precisely the same hour as the brideelect of Stephen Smith.

Elfride clung closer to Knight as day succeeded day. Whatever else might admit of question, there could be

no dispute that the allegiance she bore him absorbed her whole soul and existence. A greater than Stephen

The unreserved girl was never chary of letting her lover discover how much she admired him. She never once

held an idea in opposition to any one of his, or insisted on any point with him, or showed any independence,

or held her own on any subject. His lightest whim she respected and obeyed as law, and if, expressing her

opinion on a matter, he took up the subject and differed from her, she instantly threw down her own opinion

as wrong and untenable. Even her ambiguities and espieglerie were but media of the same manifestation;

acted charades, embodying the words of her prototype, the tender and susceptible daughterinlaw of Naomi:

'Let me find favour in thy sight, my lord; for that thou hast comforted me, and for that thou hast spoken

She was syringing the plants one wet day in the greenhouse. Knight was sitting under a great passionflower

observing the scene. Sometimes he looked out at the rain from the sky, and then at Elfride's inner rain of

larger drops, which fell from trees and shrubs, after having previously hung from the twigs like small silver

'I must give you something to make you think of me during this autumn at your chambers,' she was saying.

'What shall it be? Portraits do more harm than good, by selecting the worst expression of which your face is

'Something which shall bring back to my mind the many scenes we have enacted in this conservatory. I see

what I should prize very much. That dwarf myrtle tree in the pot, which you have been so carefully tending.'

'I can carry it comfortably in my hat box,' said Knight. 'And I will put it in my window, and so, it being

It so happened that the myrtle which Knight had singled out had a peculiar beginning and history. It had

originally been a twig worn in Stephen Smith's buttonhole, and he had taken it thence, stuck it into the pot,

and told her that if it grew, she was to take care of it, and keep it in remembrance of him when he was far

She looked wistfully at the plant, and a sense of fairness to Smith's memory caused her a pang of regret that

Knight should have asked for that very one. It seemed exceeding a common heartlessness to let it go.

'Is there not anything you like better?' she said sadly. 'That is only an ordinary myrtle.'

'No: I am fond of myrtle.' Seeing that she did not take kindly to the idea, he said again, 'Why do you object to

'Oh noI don't object preciselyit was a feeling.Ah, here's another cutting lately struck, and just as

'That will do nicely. Let it be put in my room, that I may not forget it. What romance attaches to the other?'

The subject then dropped. Knight thought no more of the matter till, on entering his bedroom in the evening,

he found the second myrtle placed upon his dressingtable as he had directed. He stood for a moment

admiring the fresh appearance of the leaves by candlelight, and then he thought of the transaction of the day.

Male lovers as well as female can be spoilt by too much kindness, and Elfride's uniform submissiveness had

given Knight a rather exacting manner at crises, attached to her as he was. 'Why should she have refused the

one I first chose?' he now asked himself. Even such slight opposition as she had shown then was exceptional

enough to make itself noticeable. He was not vexed with her in the least: the mere variation of her way

today from her usual ways kept him musing on the subject, because it perplexed him. 'It was a gift'those

were her words. Admitting it to be a gift, he thought she could hardly value a mere friend more than she

valued him as a lover, and giving the plant into his charge would have made no difference. 'Except, indeed, it

'I wonder if Elfride has ever had a lover before?' he said aloud, as a new idea, quite. This and companion

thoughts were enough to occupy him completely till he fell asleeprather later than usual.

'You told me so many things,' she returned, lifting her eyes to his and smiling.

'I mean the confession you coaxed out of methat I had never been in the position of lover before.'

'It is a satisfaction, I suppose, to be the first in your heart,' she said to him, with an attempt to continue her

'I am going to ask you a question now,' said Knight, somewhat awkwardly. 'I only ask it in a whimsical way,

Elfride tried desperately to keep the colour in her face. She could not, though distressed to think that getting

'Oh noI shall not think that,' she said, because obliged to say something to fill the pause which followed

'It is this: have you ever had a lover? I am almost sure you have not; but, have you?'

Knight, overstrained in sentiment as he knew the feeling to be, felt some sickness of heart.

Knight said nothing to this for a minute or more, and kept silent time with his finger to the tick of the old

'You don't mind, Harry, do you?' she said anxiously, nestling close to him, and watching his face.

'Of course, I don't seriously mind. In reason, a man cannot object to such a trifle. I only thought you

However, one ray was abstracted from the glory about her head. But afterwards, when Knight was wandering

by himself over the bare and breezy hills, and meditating on the subject, that ray suddenly returned. For she

might have had a lover, and never have cared in the least for him. She might have used the word improperly,

and meant 'admirer' all the time. Of course she had been admired; and one man might have made his

They were sitting on one of the garden seats when he found occasion to put the supposition to the test. 'Did

'You misapprehend; and you have let go my hand!' she cried, her eyes filling with tears. 'Harry, don't be

severe with me, and don't question me. I did not love him as I do you. And could it be deeply if I did not

think him cleverer than myself? For I did not. You grieve me so muchyou can't think.'

'And you will not think about it, either, will you? I know you think of weaknesses in me after I am out of

your sight; and not knowing what they are, I cannot combat them. I almost wish you were of a grosser nature,

Harry; in truth I do! Or rather, I wish I could have the advantages such a nature in you would afford me, and

'Less anxiety, and more security. Ordinary men are not so delicate in their tastes as you; and where the lover

or husband is not fastidious, and refined, and of a deep nature, things seem to go on better, I fancyas far as

'Yes; I suppose it is right. Shallowness has this advantage, that you can't be drowned there.'

'But I think I'll have you as you are; yes, I will!' she said winsomely. 'The practical husbands and wives who

take things philosophically are very humdrum, are they not? Yes, it would kill me quite. You please me best

So she hoped, but her heart was troubled. If he felt so deeply on this point, what would he say did he know

all, and see it as Mrs. Jethway saw it? He would never make her the happiest girl in the world by taking her to

be his own for aye. The thought enclosed her as a tomb whenever it presented itself to her perturbed brain.

She tried to believe that Mrs. Jethway would never do her such a cruel wrong as to increase the bad

appearance of her folly by innuendoes; and concluded that concealment, having been begun, must be

persisted in, if possible. For what he might consider as bad as the fact, was her previous concealment of it by

But Elfride knew Mrs. Jethway to be her enemy, and to hate her. It was possible she would do her worst. And

Would the woman listen to reason, and be persuaded not to ruin one who had never intentionally harmed her?

It was night in the valley between Endelstow Crags and the shore. The brook which trickled that way to the

sea was distinct in its murmurs now, and over the line of its course there began to hang a white riband of fog.

Against the sky, on the left hand of the vale, the black form of the church could be seen. On the other rose

hazelbushes, a few trees, and where these were absent, furze tuftsas tall as menon stems nearly as stout

as timber. The shriek of some bird was occasionally heard, as it flew terror stricken from its first roost, to

In the evening shade, some way down the valley, and under a row of scrubby oaks, a cottage could still be

discerned. It stood absolutely alone. The house was rather large, and the windows of some of the rooms were

nailed up with boards on the outside, which gave a particularly deserted appearance to the whole erection.

From the front door an irregular series of rough and misshapen steps, cut in the solid rock, led down to the

edge of the streamlet, which, at their extremity, was hollowed into a basin through which the water trickled.

This was evidently the means of water supply to the dweller or dwellers in the cottage.

A light footstep was heard descending from the higher slopes of the hillside. Indistinct in the pathway

appeared a moving female shape, who advanced and knocked timidly at the door. No answer being returned

the knock was repeated, with the same result, and it was then repeated a third time. This also was

From one of the only two windows on the ground floor which were not boarded up came rays of light, no

shutter or curtain obscuring the room from the eyes of a passer on the outside. So few walked that way after

nightfall that any such means to secure secrecy were probably deemed unnecessary.

The inequality of the rays falling upon the trees outside told that the light had its origin in a flickering fire

only. The visitor, after the third knocking, stepped a little to the left in order to gain a view of the interior, and

threw back the hood from her face. The dancing yellow sheen revealed the fair and anxious countenance of

Inside the house this firelight was enough to illumine the room distinctly, and to show that the furniture of the

cottage was superior to what might have been expected from so unpromising an exterior. It also showed to

Elfride that the room was empty. Beyond the light quiver and flap of the flames nothing moved or was

She turned the handle and entered, throwing off the cloak which enveloped her, under which she appeared

without hat or bonnet, and in the sort of halftoilette country people ordinarily dine in. Then advancing to the

foot of the staircase she called distinctly, but somewhat fearfully, 'Mrs. Jethway!'

With a look of relief and regret combined, denoting that ease came to the heart and disappointment to the

brain, Elfride paused for several minutes, as if undecided how to act. Determining to wait, she sat down on a

chair. The minutes drew on, and after sitting on the thorns of impatience for half an hour, she searched her

pocket, took therefrom a letter, and tore off the blank leaf. Then taking out a pencil she wrote upon the paper:

'DEAR MRS. JETHWAY,I have been to visit you. I wanted much to see you, but I cannot wait any longer.

I came to beg you not to execute the threats you have repeated to me. Do not, I beseech you, Mrs. Jethway,

let any one know I ran away from home! It would ruin me with him, and break my heart. I will do anything

for you, if you will be kind to me. In the name of our common womanhood, do not, I implore you, make a

She folded the note cornerwise, directed it, and placed it on the table. Then again drawing the hood over her

Whilst this episode had been in action at Mrs. Jethway's cottage, Knight had gone from the diningroom into

'And I have been reading an article in an old number of the PRESENT that I lighted on by chance a short time

ago; it is an article you once told us was yours. Well, Harry, with due deference to your literary powers, allow

'There: don't get red about it. Own that experience has taught you to be more charitable. I have never read

such unchivalrous sentiments in my lifefrom a man, I mean. There, I forgive you; it was before you knew

'Oh yes,' said Knight, looking up. 'I remember now. The text of that sermon was not my own at all, but was

suggested to me by a young man named Smiththe same whom I have mentioned to you as coming from

this parish. I thought the idea rather ingenious at the time, and enlarged it to the weight of a few guineas,

'Well, this,' said Knight, somewhat unwillingly. 'That experience teaches, and your sweetheart, no less than

your tailor, is necessarily very imperfect in her duties, if you are her first patron: and conversely, the

sweetheart who is graceful under the initial kiss must be supposed to have had some practice in the trade.'

'And do you mean to say that you wrote that upon the strength of another man's remark, without having tested

'Then I think it was uncalled for and unfair. And how do you know it is true? I expect you regret it now.'

'Since you bring me into a serious mood, I will speak candidly. I do believe that remark to be perfectly true,

and, having written it, I would defend it anywhere. But I do often regret having ever written it, as well as

others of the sort. I have grown older since, and I find such a tone of writing is calculated to do harm in the

world. Every literary Jack becomes a gentleman if he can only pen a few indifferent satires upon womankind:

women themselves, too, have taken to the trick; and so, upon the whole, I begin to be rather ashamed of my

'Ah, Henry, you have fallen in love since and it makes a difference,' said Mrs. Swancourt with a faint tone of

'Having found that, in a case of your own experience, a socalled goose was a swan, it seems absurd to deny

'You can hit palpably, cousin Charlotte,' said Knight. 'You are like the boy who puts a stone inside his

snowball, and I shall play with you no longer. Excuse meI am going for my evening stroll.'

Though Knight had spoken jestingly, this incident and conversation had caused him a sudden depression.

Coming, rather singularly, just after his discovery that Elfride had known what it was to love warmly before

she had known him, his mind dwelt upon the subject, and the familiar pipe he smoked, whilst pacing up and

down the shrubberypath, failed to be a solace. He thought again of those idle wordshitherto quite

forgottenabout the first kiss of a girl, and the theory seemed more than reasonable. Of course their sting

Elfride, under Knight's kiss, had certainly been a very different woman from herself under Stephen's.

Whether for good or for ill, she had marvellously well learnt a betrothed lady's part; and the fascinating finish

of her deportment in this second campaign did probably arise from her unreserved encouragement of

Stephen. Knight, with all the rapidity of jealous sensitiveness, pounced upon some words she had

inadvertently let fall about an earring, which he had only partially understood at the time. It was during that

A flush which had in it as much of wounded pride as of sorrow, passed over Knight as he thought of what he

had so frequently said to her in his simplicity. 'I always meant to be the first comer in a woman's heart, fresh

lips or none for me.' How childishly blind he must have seemed to this mere girl! How she must have laughed

at him inwardly! He absolutely writhed as he thought of the confession she had wrung from him on the boat

in the darkness of night. The one conception which had sustained his dignity when drawn out of his shell on

that occasionthat of her charming ignorance of all such mattershow absurd it was!

This man, whose imagination had been fed up to preternatural size by lonely study and silent observations of

his kindwhose emotions had been drawn out long and delicate by his seclusion, like plants in a

cellarwas now absolutely in pain. Moreover, several years of poetic study, and, if the truth must be told,

poetic efforts, had tended to develop the affective side of his constitution still further, in proportion to his

active faculties. It was his belief in the absolute newness of blandishment to Elfride which had constituted her

primary charm. He began to think it was as hard to be earliest in a woman's heart as it was to be first in the

That Knight should have been thus constituted: that Elfride's second lover should not have been one of the

great mass of bustling mankind, little given to introspection, whose goodnature might have compensated for

any lack of appreciativeness, was the chance of things. That her throbbing, selfconfounding, indiscreet heart

should have to defend itself unaided against the keen scrutiny and logical power which Knight, now that his

suspicions were awakened, would sooner or later be sure to exercise against her, was her misfortune. A

miserable incongruity was apparent in the circumstance of a strong mind practising its unerring archery upon

Elfride's docile devotion to Knight was now its own enemy. Clinging to him so dependently, she taught him

in time to presume upon that devotiona lesson men are not slow to learn. A slight rebelliousness

occasionally would have done him no harm, and would have been a world of advantage to her. But she

One day the reviewer said, 'Let us go to the cliffs again, Elfride;' and, without consulting her wishes, he

'The cliff of our dreadful adventure?' she inquired, with a shudder. 'Death stares me in the face in the person

Nevertheless, so entirely had she sunk her individuality in his that the remark was not uttered as an

'No, not that place,' said Knight. 'It is ghastly to me, too. That other, I mean; what is its name?Windy

Windy Beak was the second cliff in height along that coast, and, as is frequently the case with the natural

features of the globe no less than with the intellectual features of men, it enjoyed the reputation of being the

first. Moreover, it was the cliff to which Elfride had ridden with Stephen Smith, on a wellremembered

So, though thought of the former cliff had caused her to shudder at the perils to which her lover and herself

had there been exposed, by being associated with Knight only it was not so objectionable as Windy Beak.

A duplicate of her original arrangement with Stephen. Some fatality must be hanging over her head. But she

A quarter of an hour later she was in the saddle. But how different the mood from that of the former time. She

had, indeed, given up her position as queen of the less to be vassal of the greater. Here was no showing off

now; no scampering out of sight with Pansy, to perplex and tire her companion; no saucy remarks on LA

BELLE DAME SANS MERCI. Elfride was burdened with the very intensity of her love.

Knight did most of the talking along the journey. Elfride silently listened, and entirely resigned herself to the

motions of the ambling horse upon which she sat, alternately rising and sinking gently, like a sea bird upon a

When they had reached the limit of a quadruped's possibilities in walking, Knight tenderly lifted her from the

saddle, tied the horse, and rambled on with her to the seat in the rock. Knight sat down, and drew Elfride

Two or three degrees above that melancholy and eternally level line, the ocean horizon, hung a sun of brass,

with no visible rays, in a sky of ashen hue. It was a sky the sun did not illuminate or enkindle, as is usual at

sunsets. This sheet of sky was met by the salt mass of gray water, flecked here and there with white. A waft

of dampness occasionally rose to their faces, which was probably rarefied spray from the blows of the sea

Elfride wished it could be a longer time ago that she had sat there with Stephen as her lover, and agreed to be

his wife. The significant closeness of that time to the present was another item to add to the list of passionate

Yet Knight was very tender this evening, and sustained her close to him as they sat.

Not a word had been uttered by either since sitting down, when Knight said musingly, looking still afar

'I wonder if any lovers in past years ever sat here with arms locked, as we do now. Probably they have, for

Her recollection of a wellknown pair who had, and the much talkedof loss which had ensued therefrom,

and how the young man had been sent back to look for the missing article, led Elfride to glance down to her

side, and behind her back. Many people who lose a trinket involuntarily give a momentary look for it in

passing the spot ever so long afterwards. They do not often find it. Elfride, in turning her head, saw

something shine weakly from a crevice in the rocky sedile. Only for a few minutes during the day did the sun

light the alcove to its innermost rifts and slits, but these were the minutes now, and its level rays did Elfride

Elfride's thoughts instantly reverted to the words she had unintentionally uttered upon what had been going

on when the earring was lost. And she was immediately seized with a misgiving that Knight, on seeing the

object, would be reminded of her words. Her instinctive act therefore was to secure it privately.

It was so deep in the crack that Elfride could not pull it out with her hand, though she made several

'What are you doing, Elfie?' said Knight, noticing her attempts, and looking behind him likewise.

Knight peered into the joint from which her hand had been withdrawn, and saw what she had seen. He

instantly took a penknife from his pocket, and by dint of probing and scraping brought the earring out upon

'Well, that is a most extraordinary thing, that we should find it like this!' Knight then remembered more

The unfortunate remark of hers at the kiss came into his mind, if eyes were ever an index to be trusted. Trying

to repress the words he yet spoke on the subject, more to obtain assurance that what it had seemed to imply

'Were you really engaged to be married to that lover?' he said, looking straight forward at the sea again.

'It would have been called asecret engagement, I suppose. But don't look so disappointed; don't blame me.'

Knight made no direct reply to this. 'Elfride, I told you once,' he said, following out his thoughts, 'that I never

kissed a woman as a sweetheart until I kissed you. A kiss is not much, I suppose, and it happens to few young

people to be able to avoid all blandishments and attentions except from the one they afterwards marry. But I

have peculiar weaknesses, Elfride; and because I have led a peculiar life, I must suffer for it, I suppose. I had

hopedwell, what I had no right to hope in connection with you. You naturally granted your former lover

'And perhaps you allowed him a more free manner in his lovemaking than I have shown in mine.'

'How much I have made of you, Elfride, and how I have kept aloof!' said Knight in deep and shaken tones.

'So many days and hours as I have hoped in youI have feared to kiss you more than those two times. And

She crept closer to him and trembled as if with cold. Her dread that the whole story, with random additions,

would become known to him, caused her manner to be so agitated that Knight was alarmed and perplexed

into stillness. The actual innocence which made her think so fearfully of what, as the world goes, was not a

great matter, magnified her apparent guilt. It may have said to Knight that a woman who was so flurried in

'I know,' continued Knight, with an indescribable drag of manner and intonation,'I know I am absurdly

scrupulous about youthat I want you too exclusively mine. In your past before you knew me from your

very cradleI wanted to think you had been mine. I would make you mine by main force. Elfride,' he went

on vehemently, 'I can't help this jealousy over you! It is my nature, and must be so, and I HATE the fact that

She drew a long deep breath, which was half a sob. Knight's face was hard, and he never looked at her at all,

still fixing his gaze far out to sea, which the sun had now resigned to the shade. In high places it is not long

from sunset to night, dusk being in a measure banished, and though only evening where they sat, it had been

twilight in the valleys for half an hour. Upon the dull expanse of sea there gradually intensified itself into

'You don't tell me anything but what I wring out of you. Why is that? Why have you suppressed all mention

of this when casual confidences of mine should have suggested confidence in return? On board the Juliet,

why were you so secret? It seems like being made a fool of, Elfride, to think that, when I was teaching you

how desirable it was that we should have no secrets from each other, you were assenting in words, but in act

contradicting me. Confidence would have been so much more promising for our happiness. If you had had

confidence in me, and told me willingly, I shouldbe different. But you suppress everything, and I shall

'And that accounts for everythingthe exclamation which you explained deceitfully, and all! Forgive the

harsh word, Elfride forgive it.' He smiled a surface smile as he continued: 'What a poor mortal I am to play

'Sitting ona tomb in thechurchyardand other places,' she answered with slow recklessness.

'Never mind, never mind,' he exclaimed, on seeing her tears and perturbation. 'I don't want to grieve you. I

'Yes; it is late in the year to sit long out of doors: we ought to be off this ledge before it gets too dark to let us

Knight spoke the merest commonplace to her now. He had hoped to the last moment that she would have

volunteered the whole story of her first attachment. It grew more and more distasteful to him that she should

have a secret of this nature. Such entire confidence as he had pictured as about to exist between himself and

the innocent young wife who had known no lover's tones save hiswas this its beginning? He lifted her

upon the horse, and they went along constrainedly. The poison of suspicion was doing its work well.

An incident occurred on this homeward journey which was long remembered by both, as adding shade to

shadow. Knight could not keep from his mind the words of Adam's reproach to Eve in PARADISE LOST,

They had now dropped into a hollow, and the church tower made its appearance against the pale evening sky,

its lower part being hidden by some intervening trees. Elfride, being denied an answer, was looking at the

tower and trying to think of some contrasting quotation she might use to regain his tenderness. After a little

They passed on. A few minutes later three or four birds were seen to fly out of the tower.

A corner of the square mass swayed forward, sank, and vanished. A loud rumble followed, and a cloud of

At this minute Mr. Swancourt was seen approaching them. He came up with a bustling demeanour,

'We have got the tower down!' he exclaimed. 'It came rather quicker than we intended it should. The first idea

was to take it down stone by stone, you know. In doing this the crack widened considerably, and it was not

believed safe for the men to stand upon the walls any longer. Then we decided to undermine it, and three men

set to work at the weakest corner this afternoon. They had left off for the evening, intending to give the final

blow to morrow morning, and had been home about half an hour, when down it came. A very successful

joba very fine job indeed. But he was a tough old fellow in spite of the crack.' Here Mr. Swancourt wiped

'Yes, I am sorry for it,' said Knight. 'It was an interesting piece of antiquitya local record of local art.'

'Ah, but my dear sir, we shall have a new one, expostulated Mr. Swancourt; 'a splendid towerdesigned by a

firstrate London man in the newest style of Gothic art, and full of Christian feeling.'

'Oh yes. Not in the barbarous clumsy architecture of this neighbourhood; you see nothing so rough and pagan

anywhere else in England. When the men are gone, I would advise you to go and see the church before

anything further is done to it. You can now sit in the chancel, and look down the nave through the west arch,

and through that far out to sea. In fact,' said Mr. Swancourt significantly, 'if a wedding were performed at the

altar tomorrow morning, it might be witnessed from the deck of a ship on a voyage to the South Seas, with a

good glass. However, after dinner, when the moon has risen, go up and see for yourselves.'

Knight assented with feverish readiness. He had decided within the last few minutes that he could not rest

another night without further talk with Elfride upon the subject which now divided them: he was determined

to know all, and relieve his disquiet in some way. Elfride would gladly have escaped further converse alone

Just after moonrise they left the house. How little any expectation of the moonlight prospectwhich was the

ostensible reason of their pilgrimagehad to do with Knight's real motive in getting the gentle girl again

It was now October, and the night air was chill. After looking to see that she was well wrapped up, Knight

took her along the hillside path they had ascended so many times in each other's company, when doubt was a

thing unknown. On reaching the church they found that one side of the tower was, as the vicar had stated,

entirely removed, and lying in the shape of rubbish at their feet. The tower on its eastern side still was firm,

and might have withstood the shock of storms and the siege of battering years for many a generation even

now. They entered by the sidedoor, went eastward, and sat down by the altarsteps.

The heavy arch spanning the junction of tower and nave formed to night a black frame to a distant misty

view, stretching far westward. Just outside the arch came the heap of fallen stones, then a portion of moonlit

churchyard, then the wide and convex sea behind. It was a coupd'oeil which had never been possible since

the mediaeval masons first attached the old tower to the older church it dignified, and hence must be

supposed to have had an interest apart from that of simple moonlight on ancient wall and sea and shoreany

mention of which has by this time, it is to be feared, become one of the cuckoocries which are heard but not

regarded. Rays of crimson, blue, and purple shone upon the twain from the east window behind them,

wherein saints and angels vied with each other in primitive surroundings of landscape and sky, and threw

upon the pavement at the sitters' feet a softer reproduction of the same translucent hues, amid which the

shadows of the two living heads of Knight and Elfride were opaque and prominent blots. Presently the moon

'There, it is gone!' said Knight. 'I've been thinking, Elfride, that this place we sit on is where we may hope to

Before she replied the moonlight returned again, irradiating that portion of churchyard within their view. It

brightened the near part first, and against the background which the cloudshadow had not yet uncovered

Knight, still alive on the subject of Elfride's secret, thought of her words concerning the kiss that it once had

'Elfride,' he said, with a superficial archness which did not half cover an undercurrent of reproach, 'do you

know, I think you might have told me voluntarily about that pastof kisses and betrothingwithout giving

me so much uneasiness and trouble. Was that the tomb you alluded to as having sat on with him?'

The correctness of his random shot startled Knight; though, considering that almost all the other memorials in

the churchyard were upright headstones upon which nobody could possibly sit, it was not so wonderful.

Elfride did not even now go on with the explanation her exacting lover wished to have, and her reticence

'Why don't you tell me all?' he said somewhat indignantly. 'Elfride, there is not a single subject upon which I

feel more strongly than upon thisthat everything ought to be cleared up between two persons before they

become husband and wife. See how desirable and wise such a course is, in order to avoid disagreeable

contingencies in the form of discoveries afterwards. For, Elfride, a secret of no importance at all may be

made the basis of some fatal misunderstanding only because it is discovered, and not confessed. They say

there never was a couple of whom one had not some secret the other never knew or was intended to know.

This may or may not be true; but if it be true, some have been happy in spite rather than in consequence of it.

If a man were to see another man looking significantly at his wife, and she were blushing crimson and

appearing startled, do you think he would be so well satisfied with, for instance, her truthful explanation that

once, to her great annoyance, she accidentally fainted into his arms, as if she had said it voluntarily long ago,

before the circumstance occurred which forced it from her? Suppose that admirer you spoke of in connection

with the tomb yonder should turn up, and bother me. It would embitter our lives, if I were then half in the

Elfride was distressed to find him in so stern a mood, and she trembled. In a confusion of ideas, probably not

'Is he dead? Oh, that's different altogether!' said Knight, immensely relieved. 'But, let me seewhat did you

'What! was he who lies buried there the man who was your lover?' Knight asked in a distinct voice.

'Why,' said Knight, recollecting circumstances by degrees, 'you surely said you were in some degree engaged

to himand of course you were if he kissed you. And now you say you never encouraged him. And I have

been fancying you saidI am almost sure you did that you were sitting with him ON that tomb. Good

God!' he cried, suddenly starting up in anger, 'are you telling me untruths? Why should you play with me like

this? I'll have the right of it. Elfride, we shall never be happy! There's a blight upon us, or me, or you, and it

must be cleared off before we marry.' Knight moved away impetuously as if to leave her.

'Tell me, then,' said Knight sternly. 'And remember this, no more fibs, or, upon my soul, I shall hate you.

'Don't, don't treat me so cruelly! O Harry, Harry, have pity, and withdraw those dreadful words! I am truthful

by natureI amand I don't know how I came to make you misunderstand! But I was frightened!' She

quivered so in her perturbation that she shook him with her {Note: sentence incomplete in text.}

'Now, don't be a silly woman with your supposingI hate all that,' said Knight contemptuously almost.

'Well, we learn strange things. I don't know what I might have doneno man can say into what shape

circumstances may warp himbut I hardly think I should have had the conscience to accept the favours of a

new lover whilst sitting over the poor remains of the old one; upon my soul, I don't.' Knight, in moody

meditation, continued looking towards the tomb, which stood staring them in the face like an avenging ghost.

'But you wrong meOh, so grievously!" she cried. 'I did not meditate any such thing: believe me, Harry, I

'Well, I suppose you didn't INTEND such a thing,' he said. 'Nobody ever does,' he sadly continued.

'I suppose the second lover and you, as you sat there, vowed to be faithful to each other for ever?'

Elfride only replied by quick heavy breaths, showing she was on the brink of a sob.

'Elfride, it is a nothing which, though it may make a careless man laugh, cannot but make a genuine one

'Never. O Harry! how can you expect it when so little of it makes you so harsh with me?'

'Now, Elfride, listen to this. You know that what you have told only jars the subtler fancies in one, after all.

The feeling I have about it would be called, and is, mere sentimentality; and I don't want you to suppose that

an ordinary previous engagement of a straightforward kind would make any practical difference in my love,

or my wish to make you my wife. But you seem to have more to tell, and that's where the wrong is. Is there

Knight preserved a grave silence for a minute. '"Not much more,"' he said at last. 'I should think not, indeed!'

His voice assumed a low and steady pitch. 'Elfride, you must not mind my saying a strangesounding thing,

for say it I shall. It is this: that if there WERE much more to add to an account which already includes all the

particulars that a broken marriage engagement could possibly include with propriety, it must be some

exceptional thing which might make it impossible for me or any one else to love you and marry you.'

Knight's disturbed mood led him much further than he would have gone in a quieter moment. And, even as it

was, had she been assertive to any degree he would not have been so peremptory; and had she been a stronger

charactermore practical and less imaginativeshe would have made more use of her position in his heart

to influence him. But the confiding tenderness which had won him is ever accompanied by a sort of

selfcommittal to the stream of events, leading every such woman to trust more to the kindness of fate for

'Well, well,' he murmured cynically; 'I won't say it is your fault: it is my illluck, I suppose. I had no real

right to question youeverybody would say it was presuming. But when we have misunderstood, we feel

injured by the subject of our misunderstanding. You never said you had had nobody else here making love to

'No, no! I would rather have your anger than that cool aggrieved politeness. Do drop that, Harry! Why should

'Yes; but I didn't ask you a single question with regard to your past: I didn't wish to know about it. All I cared

for was that, wherever you came from, whatever you had done, whoever you had loved, you were mine at

last. Harry, if originally you had known I had loved, would you never have cared for me?'

'I won't quite say that. Though I own that the idea of your inexperienced state had a great charm for me. But I

think this: that if I had known there was any phase of your past love you would refuse to reveal if I asked to

Elfride sobbed bitterly. 'Am I such amere characterless toyas to have no attraction in me, apart

fromfreshness? Haven't I brains? You saidI was clever and ingenious in my thoughts, and isn't that

anything? Have I not some beauty? I think I have a littleand I know I haveyes, I do! You have praised

my voice, and my manner, and my accomplishments. Yet all these together are so much rubbish because

'Oh, come, Elfride. "Accidentally saw a man" is very cool. You loved him, remember.'

'And refuse now to answer the simple question how it ended. Do you refuse still, Elfride?'

'You have no right to question me soyou said so. It is unfair. Trust me as I trust you.'

'I shall not love you if you are so cruel. It is cruel to me to argue like this.'

'Perhaps it is. Yes, it is. I was carried away by my feeling for you. Heaven knows that I didn't mean to; but I

'I don't mind it, Harry!' she instantly answered, creeping up and nestling against him; 'and I will not think at

all that you used me harshly if you will forgive me, and not be vexed with me any more? I do wish I had been

exactly as you thought I was, but I could not help it, you know. If I had only known you had been coming,

'Well, never mind,' said Knight; and he turned to go. He endeavoured to speak sportively as they went on.

'Diogenes Laertius says that philosophers used voluntarily to deprive themselves of sight to be uninterrupted

'Why?but never mindI don't want to know. Don't speak laconically to me,' she said with deprecation.

'Why? Because they would never then be distracted by discovering their idol was secondhand.'

She looked down and sighed; and they passed out of the crumbling old place, and slowly crossed to the

churchyard entrance. Knight was not himself, and he could not pretend to be. She had not told all.

He supported her lightly over the stile, and was practically as attentive as a lover could be. But there had

passed away a glory, and the dream was not as it had been of yore. Perhaps Knight was not shaped by Nature

for a marrying man. Perhaps his lifelong constraint towards women, which he had attributed to accident, was

not chance after all, but the natural result of instinctive acts so minute as to be undiscernible even by himself.

Or whether the rough dispelling of any bright illusion, however imaginative, depreciates the real and

unexaggerated brightness which appertains to its basis, one cannot say. Certain it was that Knight's

disappointment at finding himself second or third in the field, at Elfride's momentary equivoque, and at her

A habit of Knight's, when not immediately occupied with Elfride to walk by himself for half an hour or so

between dinner and bedtimehad become familiar to his friends at Endelstow, Elfride herself among them.

When he had helped her over the stile, she said gently, 'If you wish to take your usual turn on the hill, Harry,

Her form diminished to blackness in the moonlight, and Knight, after remaining upon the churchyard stile a

few minutes longer, turned back again towards the building. His usual course was now to light a cigar or

pipe, and indulge in a quiet meditation. But tonight his mind was too tense to bethink itself of such a solace.

He merely walked round to the site of the fallen tower, and sat himself down upon some of the large stones

which had composed it until this day, when the chain of circumstance originated by Stephen Smith, while in

the employ of Mr. Hewby, the London man of art, had brought about its overthrow.

Pondering on the possible episodes of Elfride's past life, and on how he had supposed her to have had no past

justifying the name, he sat and regarded the white tomb of young Jethway, now close in front of him. The

sea, though comparatively placid, could as usual be heard from this point along the whole distance between

promontories to the right and left, floundering and entangling itself among the insulated stacks of rock which

dotted the water's edgethe miserable skeletons of tortured old cliffs that would not even yet succumb to the

As a change from thoughts not of a very cheerful kind, Knight attempted exertion. He stood up, and prepared

to ascend to the summit of the ruinous heap of stones, from which a more extended outlook was obtainable

than from the ground. He stretched out his arm to seize the projecting arris of a larger block than ordinary,

and so help himself up, when his hand lighted plump upon a substance differing in the greatest possible

degree from what he had expected to seizehard stone. It was stringy and entangled, and trailed upon the

stone. The deep shadow from the aisle wall prevented his seeing anything here distinctly, and he began

guessing as a necessity. 'It is a tressy species of moss or lichen,' he said to himself.

Such brushes, he remembered, were more bristly; and however much used in repairing a structure, would not

To find the coldness of inanimate matter where you expect warmth is startling enough; but a colder

temperature than that of the body being rather the rule than the exception in common substances, it hardly

conveys such a shock to the system as finding warmth where utter frigidity is anticipated.

He felt further, and in the course of a minute put his hand upon a human head. The head was warm, but

motionless. The thready mass was the hair of the headlong and straggling, showing that the head was a

Knight in his perplexity stood still for a moment, and collected his thoughts. The vicar's account of the fall of

the tower was that the workmen had been undermining it all the day, and had left in the evening intending to

give the finishing stroke the next morning. Half an hour after they had gone the undermined angle came

down. The woman who was half buried, as it seemed, must have been beneath it at the moment of the fall.

Knight leapt up and began endeavouring to remove the rubbish with his hands. The heap overlying the body

was for the most part fine and dusty, but in immense quantity. It would be a saving of time to run for

A little way down an intersecting road passed over a small ridge, which now showed up darkly against the

moon, and this road here formed a kind of notch in the skyline. At the moment that Knight arrived at the

crossing he beheld a man on this eminence, coming towards him. Knight turned aside and met the stranger.

'There has been an accident at the church,' said Knight, without preface. 'The tower has fallen on somebody,

'It is a woman,' said Knight, as they hurried back, 'and I think we two are enough to extricate her. Do you

They searched about, and in an angle of the porch found three carefully stowed away. Going round to the

'We ought to have brought a lantern,' he exclaimed. 'But we may be able to do without.' He set to work

The other man, who looked on somewhat helplessly at first, now followed the example of Knight's activity,

and removed the larger stones which were mingled with the rubbish. But with all their efforts it was quite ten

minutes before the body of the unfortunate creature could be extricated. They lifted her as carefully as they

could, breathlessly carried her to Felix Jethway's tomb, which was only a few steps westward, and laid her

'She appears to be,' said Knight. 'Which is the nearest house? The vicarage, I suppose.'

'Yes; but since we shall have to call a surgeon from Castle Boterel, I think it would be better to carry her in

'And is it not much further to the first house we come to going that way, than to the vicarage or to The

'Suppose we take her there, then. And I think the best way to do it would be thus, if you don't mind joining

Making a kind of cradle, by clasping their hands crosswise under the inanimate woman, they lifted her, and

walked on side by side down a path indicated by the stranger, who appeared to know the locality well.

'I had been sitting in the church for nearly an hour,' Knight resumed, when they were out of the churchyard.

'Afterwards I walked round to the site of the fallen tower, and so found her. It is painful to think I

unconsciously wasted so much time in the very presence of a perishing, flying soul.'

'Yes. She must have been there alone. What could have been her object in visiting the churchyard then?

'It is difficult to say.' The stranger looked inquiringly into the reclining face of the motionless form they bore.

'Would you turn her round for a moment, so that the light shines on her face?' he said.

They turned her face to the moon, and the man looked closer into her features. 'Why, I know her!' he

'Mrs. Jethway. And the cottage we are taking her to is her own. She is a widow; and I was speaking to her

only this afternoon. I was at Castle Boterel postoffice, and she came there to post a letter. Poor soul! Let us

'Hold my wrist a little tighter. Was not that tomb we laid her on the tomb of her only son?'

'Yes, it was. Yes, I see it now. She was there to visit the tomb. Since the death of that son she has been a

desolate, desponding woman, always bewailing him. She was a farmer's wife, very well educateda

Knight's heart was moved to sympathy. His own fortunes seemed in some strange way to be interwoven with

those of this Jethway family, through the influence of Elfride over himself and the unfortunate son of that

'Yes, she does,' said Knight; and after another pause added, 'I think I have met you before, though where I

The door was locked. Knight, reflecting a moment, searched the pocket of the lifeless woman, and found

therein a large key which, on being applied to the door, opened it easily. The fire was out, but the moonlight

entered the quarried window, and made patterns upon the floor. The rays enabled them to see that the room

into which they had entered was pretty well furnished, it being the same room that Elfride had visited alone

two or three evenings earlier. They deposited their still burden on an oldfashioned couch which stood

against the wall, and Knight searched about for a lamp or candle. He found a candle on a shelf, lighted it, and

Both Knight and Lord Luxellian examined the pale countenance attentively, and both were nearly convinced

that there was no hope. No marks of violence were visible in the casual examination they made.

'I think that as I know where Doctor Granson lives,' said Lord Luxellian, 'I had better run for him whilst you

Knight agreed to this. Lord Luxellian then went off, and his hurrying footsteps died away. Knight continued

bending over the body, and a few minutes longer of careful scrutiny perfectly satisfied him that the woman

was far beyond the reach of the lancet and the drug. Her extremities were already beginning to get stiff and

The minutes went by. The essayist remained musing on all the occurrences of the night. His eyes were

directed upon the table, and he had seen for some time that writingmaterials were spread upon it. He now

noticed these more particularly: there were an inkstand, pen, blottingbook, and notepaper. Several sheets

of paper were thrust aside from the rest, upon which letters had been begun and relinquished, as if their form

had not been satisfactory to the writer. A stick of black sealingwax and seal were there too, as if the

ordinary fastening had not been considered sufficiently secure. The abandoned sheets of paper lying as they

did open upon the table, made it possible, as he sat, to read the few words written on each. One ran thus:

'SIR,As a woman who was once blest with a dear son of her own, I implore you to accept a warning'

'SIR,If you will deign to receive warning from a stranger before it is too late to alter your course, listen

'SIR,With this letter I enclose to you another which, unaided by any explanation from me, tells a startling

tale. I wish, however, to add a few words to make your delusion yet more clear to you '

It was plain that, after these renounced beginnings, a fourth letter had been written and despatched, which had

been deemed a proper one. Upon the table were two drops of sealingwax, the stick from which they were

taken having been laid down overhanging the edge of the table; the end of it drooped, showing that the wax

was placed there whilst warm. There was the chair in which the writer had sat, the impression of the letter's

address upon the blottingpaper, and the poor widow who had caused these results lying dead hard by.

Knight had seen enough to lead him to the conclusion that Mrs. Jethway, having matter of great importance

to communicate to some friend or acquaintance, had written him a very careful letter, and gone herself to post

it; that she had not returned to the house from that time of leaving it till Lord Luxellian and himself had

The unutterable melancholy of the whole scene, as he waited on, silent and alone, did not altogether clash

with the mood of Knight, even though he was the affianced of a fair and winning girl, and though so lately he

had been in her company. Whilst sitting on the remains of the demolished tower he had defined a new

sensation; that the lengthened course of inaction he had lately been indulging in on Elfride's account might

probably not be good for him as a man who had work to do. It could quickly be put an end to by hastening on

Knight, in his own opinion, was one who had missed his mark by excessive aiming. Having now, to a great

extent, given up ideal ambitions, he wished earnestly to direct his powers into a more practical channel, and

thus correct the introspective tendencies which had never brought himself much happiness, or done his

fellowcreatures any great good. To make a start in this new direction by marriage, which, since knowing

Elfride, had been so entrancing an idea, was less exquisite tonight. That the curtailment of his illusion

regarding her had something to do with the reaction, and with the return of his old sentiments on wasting

time, is more than probable. Though Knight's heart had so greatly mastered him, the mastery was not so

complete as to be easily maintained in the face of a moderate intellectual revival.

His reverie was broken by the sound of wheels, and a horse's tramp. The door opened to admit the surgeon,

Lord Luxellian, and a Mr. Coole, coroner for the division (who had been attending at Castle Boterel that very

day, and was having an afterdinner chat with the doctor when Lord Luxellian arrived); next came two

Mr. Granson, after a cursory examination, pronounced the woman dead from suffocation, induced by intense

pressure on the respiratory organs; and arrangements were made that the inquiry should take place on the

Shortly afterwards the house of the widow was deserted by all its living occupants, and she abode in death, as

Sixteen hours had passed. Knight was entering the ladies' boudoir at The Crags, upon his return from

attending the inquest touching the death of Mrs. Jethway. Elfride was not in the apartment.

Mrs. Swancourt made a few inquiries concerning the verdict and collateral circumstances. Then she said

'The postman came this morning the minute after you left the house. There was only one letter for you, and I

She took a letter from the lid of her workbox, and handed it to him. Knight took the missive abstractedly, but

The letter was fastened with a black seal, and the handwriting in which it was addressed had lain under his

Knight was greatly agitated, and looked about for a spot where he might be secure from interruption. It was

the season of heavy dews, which lay on the herbage in shady places all the day long; nevertheless, he entered

a small patch of neglected grassplat enclosed by the shrubbery, and there perused the letter, which he had

The handwriting, the seal, the paper, the introductory words, all had told on the instant that the letter had

come to him from the hands of the widow Jethway, now dead and cold. He had instantly understood that the

unfinished notes which caught his eye yesternight were intended for nobody but himself. He had remembered

some of the words of Elfride in her sleep on the steamer, that somebody was not to tell him of something, or

it would be her ruina circumstance hitherto deemed so trivial and meaningless that he had wellnigh

forgotten it. All these things infused into him an emotion intense in power and supremely distressing in

The letter enclosed was the note in pencil that Elfride had written in Mrs. Jethway's cottage:

Knight turned his head wearily towards the house. The ground rose rapidly on nearing the shrubbery in which

he stood, raising it almost to a level with the first floor of The Crags. Elfride's dressingroom lay in the

salient angle in this direction, and it was lighted by two windows in such a position that, from Knight's

standingplace, his sight passed through both windows, and raked the room. Elfride was there; she was

pausing between the two windows, looking at her figure in the chevalglass. She regarded herself long and

attentively in front; turned, flung back her head, and observed the reflection over her shoulder.

Nobody can predicate as to her object or fancy; she may have done the deed in the very abstraction of deep

sadness. She may have been moaning from the bottom of her heart, 'How unhappy am I!' But the impression

produced on Knight was not a good one. He dropped his eyes moodily. The dead woman's letter had a virtue

in the accident of its juncture far beyond any it intrinsically exhibited. Circumstance lent to evil words a ring

of pitiless justice echoing from the grave. Knight could not endure their possession. He tore the letter into

He heard a brushing among the bushes behind, and turning his head he saw Elfride following him. The fair

girl looked in his face with a wistful smile of hope, too forcedly hopeful to displace the firmly established

dread beneath it. His severe words of the previous night still sat heavy upon her.

'Oh, nothing. Shall I resume the serious conversation I had with you last night? No, perhaps not; perhaps I

'Oh, I cannot tell! How wretched it all is! Ah, I wish you were your own dear self again, and had kissed me

'It was that hateful conversation last night,' she went on. 'Oh, those words! Last night was a black night for

'Kiss!I hate that word! Don't talk of kissing, for God's sake! I should think you might with advantage have

shown tact enough to keep back that word "kiss," considering those you have accepted.'

She became very pale, and a rigid and desolate charactery took possession of her face. That face was so

delicate and tender in appearance now, that one could fancy the pressure of a finger upon it would cause a

Knight walked on, and Elfride with him, silent and unopposing. He opened a gate, and they entered a path

'Perhaps I intrude upon you?' she said as he closed the gate. 'Shall I go away?'

'No. Listen to me, Elfride.' Knight's voice was low and unequal. 'I have been honest with you: will you be so

with me? If any strangeconnection has existed between yourself and a predecessor of mine, tell it now.

It is better that I know it now, even though the knowledge should part us, than that I should discover it in time

to come. And suspicions have been awakened in me. I think I will not say how, because I despise the means.

Knight waited with a slow manner of calmness. His eyes were sad and imperative. They went farther along

'Are you not going to love me?' she burst out. 'Harry, Harry, love me, and speak as usual! Do; I beseech you,

'Are you going to act fairly by me?' said Knight, with rising anger; 'or are you not? What have I done to you

that I should be put off like this? Be caught like a bird in a springe; everything intended to be hidden from

In their agitation they had left the path, and were wandering among the wet and obstructive stubble, without

'What? How can you ask what, when you know so well? You KNOW that I have designedly been kept in

ignorance of something attaching to you, which, had I known of it, might have altered all my conduct; and

'Not that I believe in malicious letterwriters and whisperers; not I. I don't know whether I do or don't: upon

my soul, I can't tell. I know this: a religion was building itself upon you in my heart. I looked into your eyes,

and thought I saw there truth and innocence as pure and perfect as ever embodied by God in the flesh of

woman. Perfect truth is too much to expect, but ordinary truth I WILL HAVE or nothing at all. Just say, then;

'I don't understand all your meaning. If I have hidden anything from you, it has been because I loved you so,

'Since you are not given to confidence, I want to ask you some plain questions. Have I your permission?'

'Yes,' she said, and there came over her face a weary resignation. 'Say the harshest words you can; I will bear

'There is a scandal in the air concerning you, Elfride; and I cannot even combat it without knowing definitely

what it is. It may not refer to you entirely, or even at all.' Knight trifled in the very bitterness of his feeling. 'In

the time of the French Revolution, Pariseau, a balletmaster, was beheaded by mistake for Parisot, a captain

of the King's Guard. I wish there was another "E. Swancourt" in the neighbourhood. Look at this.'

He handed her the letter she had written and left on the table at Mrs. Jethway's. She looked over it vacantly.

'It is not so much as it seems!' she pleaded. 'It seems wickedly deceptive to look at now, but it had a much

more natural origin than you think. My sole wish was not to endanger our love. O Harry! that was all my

'Yes, yes; but independently of the poor miserable creature's remarks, it seems to implysomething wrong.'

'Those she wrote menow torn to pieces. Elfride, DID you run away with a man you loved?that was the

'Answer my questions; say nothing else, Elfride Did you ever deliberately try to marry him in secret?'

'And after thatdid youwrite to him as your husband; and did he address you as his wife?'

'Then, yes, we did.' Her lips shook; but it was with some little dignity that she continued: 'I would gladly have

told you; for I knew and know I had done wrong. But I dared not; I loved you too well. Oh, so well! You

have been everything in the world to me and you are now. Will you not forgive me?'

It is a melancholy thought, that men who at first will not allow the verdict of perfection they pronounce upon

their sweethearts or wives to be disturbed by God's own testimony to the contrary, will, once suspecting their

purity, morally hang them upon evidence they would be ashamed to admit in judging a dog.

The reluctance to tell, which arose from Elfride's simplicity in thinking herself so much more culpable than

she really was, had been doing fatal work in Knight's mind. The man of many ideas, now that his first dream

of impossible things was over, vibrated too far in the contrary direction; and her every movement of

featureevery tremorevery confused wordwas taken as so much proof of her unworthiness.

'Elfride, we must bid goodbye to compliment,' said Knight: 'we must do without politeness now. Look in my

face, and as you believe in God above, tell me truly one thing more. Were you away alone with him?'

The word fell like a bolt, and the very land and sky seemed to suffer. Knight turned aside. Meantime Elfride's

countenance wore a look indicating utter despair of being able to explain matters so that they would seem no

more than they really were,a despair which not only relinquishes the hope of direct explanation, but

The scene was engraved for years on the retina of Knight's eye: the dead and brown stubble, the weeds

among it, the distant belt of beeches shutting out the view of the house, the leaves of which were now red and

How much anguish passed into her soul at those words from him was told by the look of supreme torture she

She looked doubtingly up at him, and tried to laugh, as if the unreality of his words must be unquestionable.

'You are not in earnest, I knowI hope you are not? Surely I belong to you, and you are going to keep me

'Elfride, I have been speaking too roughly to you; I have said what I ought only to have thought. I like you;

and let me give you a word of advice. Marry your man as soon as you can. However weary of each other you

may feel, you belong to each other, and I am not going to step between you. Do you think I woulddo you

think I could for a moment? If you cannot marry him now, and another makes you his wife, do not reveal this

secret to him after marriage, if you do not before. Honesty would be damnation then.'

'But you don't MEANthatthatyou will go away and leave me, and not be anything more to meoh,

Convulsive sobs took all nerve out of her utterance. She checked them, and continued to look in his face for

'I am going indoors,' said Knight. 'You will not follow me, Elfride; I wish you not to.'

He spoke the farewell as if it were but for the daylightly, as he had spoken such temporary farewells many

times beforeand she seemed to understand it as such. Knight had not the power to tell her plainly that he

was going for ever; he hardly knew for certain that he was: whether he should rush back again upon the

current of an irresistible emotion, or whether he could sufficiently conquer himself, and her in him, to

establish that parting as a supreme farewell, and present himself to the world again as no woman's.

Ten minutes later he had left the house, leaving directions that if he did not return in the evening his luggage

was to be sent to his chambers in London, whence he intended to write to Mr. Swancourt as to the reasons of

his sudden departure. He descended the valley, and could not forbear turning his head. He saw the

stubblefield, and a slight girlish figure in the midst of itup against the sky. Elfride, docile as ever, had

hardly moved a step, for he had said, Remain. He looked and saw her againhe saw her for weeks and

months. He withdrew his eyes from the scene, swept his hand across them, as if to brush away the sight,

The scene shifts to Knight's chambers in Bede's Inn. It was late in the evening of the day following his

departure from Endelstow. A drizzling rain descended upon London, forming a humid and dreary halo over

every welllighted street. The rain had not yet been prevalent long enough to give to rapid vehicles that clear

and distinct rattle which follows the thorough washing of the stones by a drenching rain, but was just

sufficient to make footway and roadway slippery, adhesive, and clogging to both feet and wheels.

Knight was standing by the fire, looking into its expiring embers, previously to emerging from his door for a

dreary journey home to Richmond. His hat was on, and the gas turned off. The blind of the window

overlooking the alley was not drawn down; and with the light from beneath, which shone over the ceiling of

the room, came, in place of the usual babble, only the reduced clatter and quick speech which were the result

Whilst he thus stood, waiting for the expiration of the few minutes that were wanting to the time for his

catching the train, a light tapping upon the door mingled with the other sounds that reached his ears. It was so

faint at first that the outer noises were almost sufficient to drown it. Finding it repeated Knight crossed the

A woman, closely muffled up, but visibly of fragile build, was standing on the landing under the gaslight. She

'O Harry, Harry, you are killing me! I could not help coming. Don't send me awaydon't! Forgive your

'Do not hurt me and punish meOh, do not! I couldn't help coming; it was killing me. Last night, when you

did not come back, I could not bear itI could not! Only let me be with you, and see your face, Harry; I

Her eyelids were hot, heavy, and thick with excessive weeping, and the delicate rosered of her cheeks was

disfigured and inflamed by the constant chafing of the handkerchief in wiping her many tears.

'Yes. When you did not come last night, I sat up hoping you would comeand the night was all agonyand

I waited on and on, and you did not come! Then when it was morning, and your letter said you were gone, I

could not endure it; and I ran away from them to St. Launce's, and came by the train. And I have been all day

travelling to you, and you won't make me go away again, will you, Harry, because I shall always love you till

'Yet it is wrong for you to stay. O Elfride! what have you committed yourself to? It is ruin to your good name

to run to me like this! Has not your first experience been sufficient to keep you from these things?'

'My name! Harry, I shall soon die, and what good will my name be to me then? Oh, could I but be the man

and you the woman, I would not leave you for such a little fault as mine! Do not think it was so vile a thing in

me to run away with him. Ah, how I wish you could have run away with twenty women before you knew me,

that I might show you I would think it no fault, but be glad to get you after them all, so that I had you! If you

only knew me through and through, how true I am, Harry. Cannot I be yours? Say you love me just the same,

and don't let me be separated from you again, will you? I cannot bear itall the long hours and days and

'Not hate you, Elfride,' he said gently, and supported her with his arm. 'But you cannot stay here nowjust at

'I suppose I must notI wish I might. I am afraid that ifyou lose sight of mesomething dark will

happen, and we shall not meet again. Harry, if I am not good enough to be your wife, I wish I could be your

servant and live with you, and not be sent away never to see you again. I don't mind what it is except that!'

'No, I cannot send you away: I cannot. God knows what dark future may arise out of this evening's work; but

I cannot send you away! You must sit down, and I will endeavour to collect my thoughts and see what had

At that moment a loud knocking at the house door was heard by both, accompanied by a hurried ringing of

the bell that echoed from attic to basement. The door was quickly opened, and after a few hasty words of

The face of Mr. Swancourt, flushed, grieved, and stern, appeared round the landing of the staircase. He came

higher up, and stood beside them. Glancing over and past Knight with silent indignation, he turned to the

'O Elfride! and have I found you at last? Are these your tricks, madam? When will you get rid of your

idiocies, and conduct yourself like a decent woman? Is my family name and house to be disgraced by acts

'She is so weary!' said Knight, in a voice of intensest anguish. 'Mr. Swancourt, don't be harsh with herlet

'To you, sir,' said Mr. Swancourt, turning to him as if by the sheer pressure of circumstances, 'I have little to

say. I can only remark, that the sooner I can retire from your presence the better I shall be pleased. Why you

could not conduct your courtship of my daughter like an honest man, I do not know. Why shea foolish

inexperienced girlshould have been tempted to this piece of folly, I do not know. Even if she had not

'If you wished the marriage broken off, why didn't you say so plainly? If you never intended to marry, why

could you not leave her alone? Upon my soul, it grates me to the heart to be obliged to think so ill of a man I

Knight, soulsick and weary of his life, did not arouse himself to utter a word in reply. How should he defend

himself when his defence was the accusation of Elfride? On that account he felt a miserable satisfaction in

letting her father go on thinking and speaking wrongfully. It was a faint ray of pleasure straying into the great

gloominess of his brain to think that the vicar might never know but that he, as her lover, tempted her away,

'Now, are you coming?' said Mr. Swancourt to her again. He took her unresisting hand, drew it within his

arm, and led her down the stairs. Knight's eyes followed her, the last moment begetting in him a frantic hope

He heard the door openclose again. The wheels of a cab grazed the kerbstone, a murmured direction

followed. The door was slammed together, the wheels moved, and they rolled away.

From that hour of her reappearance a dreadful conflict raged within the breast of Henry Knight. His instinct,

emotion, affectivenessor whatever it may be calledurged him to stand forward, seize upon Elfride, and

be her cherisher and protector through life. Then came the devastating thought that Elfride's childlike,

unreasoning, and indiscreet act in flying to him only proved that the proprieties must be a dead letter with

her; that the unreserve, which was really artlessness without ballast, meant indifference to decorum; and what

so likely as that such a woman had been deceived in the past? He said to himself, in a mood of the bitterest

cynicism: 'The suspicious discreet woman who imagines dark and evil things of all her fellowcreatures is far

too shrewd to be deluded by man: trusting beings like Elfride are the women who fall.'

Hours and days went by, and Knight remained inactive. Lengthening time, which made fainter the

heartawakening power of her presence, strengthened the mental ability to reason her down. Elfride loved

him, he knew, and he could not leave off loving her but marry her he would not. If she could but be again his

own Elfridethe woman she had seemed to bebut that woman was dead and buried, and he knew her no

more! And how could he marry this Elfride, one who, if he had originally seen her as she was, would have

It cankered his heart to think he was confronted by the closest instance of a worse state of things than any he

The moral rightness of this man's life was worthy of all praise; but in spite of some intellectual acumen,

Knight had in him a modicum of that wrongheadedness which is mostly found in scrupulously honest people.

With him, truth seemed too clean and pure an abstraction to be so hopelessly churned in with error as

practical persons find it. Having now seen himself mistaken in supposing Elfride to be peerless, nothing on

He lingered in town a fortnight, doing little else than vibrate between passion and opinions. One idea

When he surveyed the volumes on his shelvesfew of which had been opened since Elfride first took

possession of his hearttheir untouched and orderly arrangement reproached him as an apostate from the old

faith of his youth and early manhood. He had deserted those neverfailing friends, so they seemed to say, for

an unstable delight in a ductile woman, which had ended all in bitterness. The spirit of selfdenial, verging

on asceticism, which had ever animated Knight in old times, announced itself as having departed with the

birth of love, with it having gone the selfrespect which had compensated for the lack of self gratification.

Poor little Elfride, instead of holding, as formerly, a place in his religion, began to assume the hue of a

temptation. Perhaps it was human and correctly natural that Knight never once thought whether he did not

With a consciousness of having thus, like Antony, kissed away kingdoms and provinces, he next considered

how he had revealed his higher secrets and intentions to her, an unreserve he would never have allowed

himself with any man living. How was it that he had not been able to refrain from telling her of adumbrations

Knight's was a robust intellect, which could escape outside the atmosphere of heart, and perceive that his own

love, as well as other people's, could be reduced by change of scene and circumstances. At the same time the

But being convinced that the death of this regret was the best thing for him, he did not long shrink from

attempting it. He closed his chambers, suspended his connection with editors, and left London for the

Continent. Here we will leave him to wander without purpose, beyond the nominal one of encouraging

'Ay, with their "Howd'yedo's," and shaking of hands, asking me in, and tender inquiries for you, John.'

These words formed part of a conversation between John Smith and his wife on a Saturday evening in the

spring which followed Knight's departure from England. Stephen had long since returned to India; and the

persevering couple themselves had migrated from Lord Luxellian's park at Endelstow to a comfortable

roadside dwelling about a mile out of St. Launce's, where John had opened a small stone and slate yard in his

'When we came here six months ago,' continued Mrs. Smith, 'though I had paid ready money so many years

in the town, my friskier shopkeepers would only speak over the counter. Meet 'em in the street halfanhour

'Yes, the brazen ones would. The quiet and cool ones would glance over the top of my head, past my side,

over my shoulder, but never meet my eye. The gentlemodest would turn their faces south if I were coming

east, flit down a passage if I were about to halve the pavement with them. There was the spruce young

bookseller would play the same tricks; the butcher's daughters; the upholsterer's young men. Hand in glove

when doing business out of sight with you; but caring nothing for a' old woman when playing the genteel

'Well, today 'tis all different. I'd no sooner got to market than Mrs. Joakes rushed up to me in the eyes of the

town and said, "My dear Mrs. Smith, now you must be tired with your walk! Come in and have some lunch! I

insist upon it; knowing you so many years as I have! Don't you remember when we used to go looking for

owls' feathers together in the Castle ruins?" There's no knowing what you may need, so I answered the

woman civilly. I hadn't got to the corner before that thriving young lawyer, Sweet, who's quite the dandy, ran

after me out of breath. "Mrs. Smith," he says, "excuse my rudeness, but there's a bramble on the tail of your

dress, which you've dragged in from the country; allow me to pull it off for you." If you'll believe me, this

was in the very front of the Town Hall. What's the meaning of such sudden love for a' old woman?'

'Repentance! was there ever such a fool as you. John? Did anybody ever repent with money in's pocket and

'Now, I've been thinking too,' said John, passing over the query as hardly pertinent, 'that I've had more

lovingkindness from folks today than I ever have before since we moved here. Why, old Alderman Tope

walked out to the middle of the street where I was, to shake hands with meso 'a did. Having on my

'Why, the man in Hill Street, who plays and sells flutes, trumpets, and fiddles, and grand pehanners. He was

talking to Egloskerry, that very small bachelorman with money in the funds. I was going by, I'm sure,

without thinking or expecting a nod from men of that glib kidney when in my working clothes'

'You always will go poking into town in your working clothes. Beg you to change how I will, 'tis no use.'

'Well, however, I was in my working clothes. Werrington saw me. "Ah, Mr. Smith! a fine morning; excellent

weather for building," says he, out as loud and friendly as if I'd met him in some deep hollow, where he could

get nobody else to speak to at all. 'Twas odd: for Werrington is one of the very ringleaders of the fast class.'

At that moment a tap came to the door. The door was immediately opened by Mrs. Smith in person.

'You'll excuse us, I'm sure, Mrs. Smith, but this beautiful spring weather was too much for us. Yes, and we

could stay in no longer; and I took Mrs. Trewen upon my arm directly we'd had a cup of tea, and out we

came. And seeing your beautiful crocuses in such a bloom, we've taken the liberty to enter. We'll step round

'Not at all,' said Mrs. Smith; and they walked round the garden. She lifted her hands in amazement directly

John Smith, staggered in mind, went out of doors and looked over the garden gate, to collect his ideas. He

had not been there two minutes when wheels were heard, and a carriage and pair rolled along the road. A

distinguishedlooking lady, with the demeanour of a duchess, reclined within. When opposite Smith's gate

'Ah, Mr. Smith, I am glad to see you looking so well. I could not help stopping a moment to congratulate you

'Just going to touch my hat to her,' said John; 'just for all the world as I would have to poor Lady Luxellian

'Publichouse woman. The clumsiness of the Smith family! You MIGHT say the landlady of the Falcon

Hotel, since we are in for politeness. The people are ridiculous enough, but give them their due.'

The possibility is that Mrs. Smith was getting mollified, in spite of herself, by these remarkably friendly

phenomena among the people of St. Launce's. And in justice to them it was quite desirable that she should do

so. The interest which the unpractised ones of this town expressed so grotesquely was genuine of its kind, and

'I'll ask 'em flat,' whispered John to his wife. 'I'll say, "We be in a fogyou'll excuse my asking a question,

Mr. and Mrs. Trewen. How is it you all be so friendly today?" Hey? 'Twould sound right and sensible,

'It must be a proud moment for you, I am sure, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, to have a son so celebrated,' said the

'Why, 'tis all over town. Our worthy Mayor alluded to it in a speech at the dinner last night of the

'Why, your son has been feted by deputygovernors and Parsee princes and nobodyknowswho in India; is

hand in glove with nabobs, and is to design a large palace, and cathedral, and hospitals, colleges, halls, and

fortifications, by the general consent of the ruling powers, Christian and Pagan alike.'

''Tis in yesterday's St. Launce's Chronicle; and our worthy Mayor in the chair introduced the subject into his

''Twas very good of the worthy Mayor in the chair I'm sure,' said Stephen's mother. 'I hope the boy will have

the sense to keep what he's got; but as for men, they are a simple sex. Some woman will hook him.'

'Well, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, the evening closes in, and we must be going; and remember this, that every

Saturday when you come in to market, you are to make our house as your own. There will be always a

teacup and saucer for you, as you know there has been for months, though you may have forgotten it. I'm a

When the visitors were gone, and the sun had set, and the moon's rays were just beginning to assert

themselves upon the walls of the dwelling, John Smith and his wife sat dawn to the newspaper they had

hastily procured from the town. And when the reading was done, they considered how best to meet the new

social requirements settling upon them, which Mrs. Smith considered could be done by new furniture and

'And, John, mind one thing,' she said in conclusion. 'In writing to Stephen, never by any means mention the

name of Elfride Swancourt again. We've left the place, and know no more about her except by hearsay. He

seems to be getting free of her, and glad am I for it. It was a cloudy hour for him when he first set eyes upon

the girl. That family's been no good to him, first or last; so let them keep their blood to themselves if they

want to. He thinks of her, I know, but not so hopelessly. So don't try to know anything about her, and we can't

He paced the lofty aisles of Amiens, loitered by Ardennes Abbey, climbed into the strange towers of Laon,

analyzed Noyon and Rheims. Then he went to Chartres, and examined its scaly spires and quaint carving then

he idled about Coutances. He rowed beneath the base of Mont St. Michel, and caught the varied skyline of

the crumbling edifices encrusting it. St. Ouen's, Rouen, knew him for days; so did Vezelay, Sens, and many a

hallowed monument besides. Abandoning the inspection of early French art with the same purposeless haste

as he had shown in undertaking it, he went further, and lingered about Ferrara, Padua, and Pisa. Satiated with

mediaevalism, he tried the Roman Forum. Next he observed moonlight and starlight effects by the bay of

Naples. He turned to Austria, became enervated and depressed on Hungarian and Bohemian plains, and was

Then he found himself in Greece. He visited the plain of Marathon, and strove to imagine the Persian defeat;

to Mars Hill, to picture St. Paul addressing the ancient Athenians; to Thermopylae and Salamis, to run

through the facts and traditions of the Second Invasionthe result of his endeavours being more or less

chaotic. Knight grew as weary of these places as of all others. Then he felt the shock of an earthquake in the

Ionian Islands, and went to Venice. Here he shot in gondolas up and down the winding thoroughfare of the

Grand Canal, and loitered on calle and piazza at night, when the lagunes were undisturbed by a ripple, and no

sound was to be heard but the stroke of the midnight clock. Afterwards he remained for weeks in the

museums, galleries, and libraries of Vienna, Berlin, and Paris; and thence came home.

Time thus rolls us on to a February afternoon, divided by fifteen months from the parting of Elfride and her

Two men obviously not Londoners, and with a touch of foreignness in their look, met by accident on one of

the gravel walks leading across Hyde Park. The younger, more given to looking about him than his fellow,

saw and noticed the approach of his senior some time before the latter had raised his eyes from the ground,

Simultaneous operations might now have been observed progressing in both, the result being that an

expression less frank and impulsive than the first took possession of their features. It was manifest that the

'They were making a fuss about you at St. Launce's last year. I fancy I saw something of the sort in the

'Thanks, but they are nothing very extraordinary. A natural professional progress where there was no

There followed that want of words which will always assert itself between nominal friends who find they

have ceased to be real ones, and have not yet sunk to the level of mere acquaintance. Each looked up and

down the Park. Knight may possibly have borne in mind during the intervening months Stephen's manner

towards him the last time they had met, and may have encouraged his former interest in Stephen's welfare to

die out of him as misplaced. Stephen certainly was full of the feelings begotten by the belief that Knight had

Stephen Smith then asked a question, adopting a certain recklessness of manner and tone to hide, if possible,

the fact that the subject was a much greater one to him than his friend had ever supposed.

'No,' said Stephen, sadly and quietly, like a man in a sickroom. Totally ignorant whether or not Knight knew

of his own previous claims upon Elfride, he yet resolved to hazard a few more words upon the topic which

'Then your engagement to Miss Swancourt came to nothing,' he said. 'You remember I met you with her

Stephen's voice gave way a little here, in defiance of his firmest will to the contrary. Indian affairs had not yet

'It was broken off,' came quickly from Knight. 'Engagements to marry often end like thatfor better or for

'I can hardly tell you. In the main, going about Europe; and it may perhaps interest you to know that I have

been attempting the serious study of Continental art of the Middle Ages. My notes on each example I visited

'Not far,' said Knight, with moody carelessness. 'You know, I daresay, that sheep occasionally become

giddyhydatids in the head, 'tis called, in which their brains become eaten up, and the animal exhibits the

strange peculiarity of walking round and round in a circle continually. I have travelled just in the same

The reckless, bitter, and rambling style in which Knight talked, as if rather to vent his images than to convey

any ideas to Stephen, struck the young man painfully. His former friend's days had become cankered in some

way: Knight was a changed man. He himself had changed much, but not as Knight had changed.

'Yesterday I came home,' continued Knight, 'without having, to the best of my belief, imbibed halfadozen

'You outHamlet Hamlet in morbidness of mood,' said Stephen, with regretful frankness.

'Do you know,' Stephen continued, 'I could almost have sworn that you would be married before this time,

'Smith, now one word to you,' Knight returned steadily. 'Don't you ever question me on that subject. I have a

reason for making this request, mind. And if you do question me, you will not get an answer.'

'Oh, I don't for a moment wish to ask what is unpleasant to you not I. I had a momentary feeling that I

should like to explain something on my side, and hear a similar explanation on yours. But let it go, let it go,

'I lost the woman I was going to marry: you have not married as you intended. We might have compared

'The truth is, Stephen, I have doggedly resolved never to allude to the matterfor which I have a very good

'Did she not love you enough?' He drew his breath in a slow and attenuated stream, as he waited in timorous

'Stephen, you rather strain ordinary courtesy in pressing questions of that kind after what I have said. I cannot

'Why, good God!' exclaimed Stephen passionately, 'you talk as if you hadn't at all taken her away from

'What do you mean by that?' said Knight, with a puzzled air. 'What have you heard?'

'If you will go,' said Knight, reluctantly now, 'you must, I suppose. I am sure I cannot understand why you

'Nor I why you do. I have always been grateful to you, and as far as I am concerned we need never have

'And have I ever been anything but welldisposed towards you, Stephen? Surely you know that I have not!

'No, no! You altogether mistake our position. You were always from the first reserved to me, though I was

confidential to you. That was, I suppose, the natural issue of our differing positions in life. And when I, the

pupil, became reserved like you, the master, you did not like it. However, I was going to ask you to come

'That's convenient, not to say odd. Well, I am detained in London for a day or two; then I am going down to

see my father and mother, who live at St. Launce's now. Will you see me this evening?'

'I may; but I will not promise. I was wishing to be alone for an hour or two; but I shall know where to find

Stephen pondered not a little on this meeting with his old friend and oncebeloved exemplar. He was

grieved, for amid all the distractions of his latter years a still small voice of fidelity to Knight had lingered on

in him. Perhaps this staunchness was because Knight ever treated him as a mere discipleeven to snubbing

him sometimes; and had at last, though unwittingly, inflicted upon him the greatest snub of all, that of taking

away his sweetheart. The emotional side of his constitution was built rather after a feminine than a male

model; and that tremendous wound from Knight's hand may have tended to keep alive a warmth which

Knight, on his part, was vexed, after they had parted, that he had not taken Stephen in hand a little after the

old manner. Those words which Smith had let fall concerning somebody having a prior claim to Elfride,

would, if uttered when the man was younger, have provoked such a query as, 'Come, tell me all about it, my

lad,' from Knight, and Stephen would straightway have delivered himself of all he knew on the subject.

Stephen the ingenuous boy, though now obliterated externally by Stephen the contriving man, returned to

Knight's memory vividly that afternoon. He was at present but a sojourner in London; and after attending to

the two or three matters of business which remained to be done that day, he walked abstractedly into the

gloomy corridors of the British Museum for the halfhour previous to their closing. That meeting with Smith

had reunited the present with the past, closing up the chasm of his absence from England as if it had never

existed, until the final circumstances of his previous time of residence in London formed but a yesterday to

the circumstances now. The conflict that then had raged in him concerning Elfride Swancourt revived,

strengthened by its sleep. Indeed, in those many months of absence, though quelling the intention to make her

his wife, he had never forgotten that she was the type of woman adapted to his nature; and instead of trying to

obliterate thoughts of her altogether, he had grown to regard them as an infirmity it was necessary to tolerate.

Knight returned to his hotel much earlier in the evening than he would have done in the ordinary course of

things. He did not care to think whether this arose from a friendly wish to close the gap that had slowly been

widening between himself and his earliest acquaintance, or from a hankering desire to hear the meaning of

the dark oracles Stephen had hastily pronounced, betokening that he knew something more of Elfride than

He made a hasty dinner, inquired for Smith, and soon was ushered into the young man's presence, whom he

found sitting in front of a comfortable fire, beside a table spread with a few scientific periodicals and art

'I have come to you, after all,' said Knight. 'My manner was odd this morning, and it seemed desirable to call;

but that you had too much sense to notice, Stephen, I know. Put it down to my wanderings in France and

Stephen would hardly have cared to tell Knight just then that the minute before Knight was announced he had

been reading over some old letters of Elfride's. They were not many; and until tonight had been sealed up,

and stowed away in a corner of his leather trunk, with a few other mementoes and relics which had

accompanied him in his travels. The familiar sights and sounds of London, the meeting with his friend, had

with him also revived that sense of abiding continuity with regard to Elfride and love which his absence at the

other side of the world had to some extent suspended, though never ruptured. He at first intended only to look

over these letters on the outside; then he read one; then another; until the whole was thus reused as a

stimulus to sad memories. He folded them away again, placed them in his pocket, and instead of going on

with an examination into the state of the artistic world, had remained musing on the strange circumstance that

The possibility of any given gratification begets a cumulative sense of its necessity. Stephen gave the rein to

his imagination, and felt more intensely than he had felt for many months that, without Elfride, his life would

They sat by the fire, chatting on external and random subjects, neither caring to be the first to approach the

matter each most longed to discuss. On the table with the periodicals lay two or three pocketbooks, one of

them being open. Knight seeing from the exposed page that the contents were sketches only, began turning

the leaves over carelessly with his finger. When, some time later, Stephen was out of the room, Knight

The first crude ideas, pertaining to dwellings of all kinds, were roughly outlined on the different pages.

Antiquities had been copied; fragments of Indian columns, colossal statues, and outlandish ornament from the

temples of Elephanta and Kenneri, were carelessly intruded upon by outlines of modern doors, windows,

roofs, cookingstoves, and household furniture; everything, in short, which comes within the range of a

practising architect's experience, who travels with his eyes open. Among these occasionally appeared rough

delineations of mediaeval subjects for carving or illuminationheads of Virgins, Saints, and Prophets.

Stephen was not professedly a freehand draughtsman, but he drew the human figure with correctness and

skill. In its numerous repetitions on the sides and edges of the leaves, Knight began to notice a peculiarity.

All the feminine saints had one type of feature. There were large nimbi and small nimbi about their drooping

heads, but the face was always the same. That profile how well Knight knew that profile!

Had there been but one specimen of the familiar countenance, he might have passed over the resemblance as

accidental; but a repetition meant more. Knight thought anew of Smith's hasty words earlier in the day, and

Stephen looked over the book with utter unconcern, 'Saints and angels, done in my leisure moments. They

'But whom do you idealize by that type of woman you always adopt for the Virgin?'

The truth is, Stephen's introduction of Elfride's lineaments had been so unconscious that he had not at first

understood his companion's drift. The hand, like the tongue, easily acquires the trick of repetition by rote,

without calling in the mind to assist at all; and this had been the case here. Young men who cannot write

verses about their Loves generally take to portraying them, and in the early days of his attachment Smith had

never been weary of outlining Elfride. The layfigure of Stephen's sketches now initiated an adjustment of

many things. Knight had recognized her. The opportunity of comparing notes had come unsought.

'Yes; and you are thinking why did I conceal the fact from you that time at Endelstow, are you not?'

'I did it for the best; blame me if you will; I did it for the best. And now say how could I be with you

'I had a suspicion this afternoon that there might be some such meaning in your words about my taking her

away. But I dismissed it. How came you to know her?' he presently asked, in almost a peremptory tone.

'When you were with Hewby, of course, of course. Well, I can't understand it.' His tones rose. 'I don't know

Knight arose from his seat, and began pacing up and down the room. His face was markedly pale, and his

'You did not act as I should have acted towards you under those circumstances. I feel it deeply; and I tell you

'Your behaviour at that meeting in the family vault, when I told you we were going to be married. Deception,

Stephen did not much like this misconstruction of his motives, even though it was but the hasty conclusion of

'Indeed!' said Knight, in the bitterest tone of reproach. 'Nor could you with due regard to her have married

her, I suppose! I have hopedlongedthat HE, who turns out to be YOU, would ultimately have done that.'

'I am much obliged to you for that hope. But you talk very mysteriously. I think I had about the best reason

'You ought to have made an opportunity; you ought to do so now, in bare justice to her, Stephen!' cried

Knight, carried beyond himself. 'That you know very well, and it hurts and wounds me more than you dream

to find you never have tried to make any reparation to a woman of that kindso trusting, so apt to be run

'Picking up what another throws down can scarcely be called "taking away." However, we shall not agree too

'But I am quite certain you misapprehend something most grievously,' said Stephen, shaken to the bottom of

his heart. 'What have I done; tell me? I have lost Elfride, but is that such a sin?'

Stephen until today had unhesitatingly held that she grew tired of him and turned to Knight; but he did not

like to advance the statement now, or even to think the thought. To fancy otherwise accorded better with the

hope to which Knight's estrangement had given birth: that love for his friend was not the direct cause, but a

'Such a matter must not be allowed to breed discord between us,' Knight returned, relapsing into a manner

which concealed all his true feeling, as if confidence now was intolerable. 'I do see that your reticence

towards me in the vault may have been dictated by prudential considerations.' He concluded artificially, 'It

was a strange thing altogether; but not of much importance, I suppose, at this distance of time; and it does not

These words from Knight, uttered with such an air of renunciation and apparent indifference, prompted Smith

to speak onperhaps with a little complacencyof his old secret engagement to Elfride. He told the details

of its origin, and the peremptory words and actions of her father to extinguish their love.

Knight persevered in the tone and manner of a disinterested outsider. It had become more than ever

imperative to screen his emotions from Stephen's eye; the young man would otherwise be less frank, and their

Stephen had now arrived at the point in his ingenuous narrative where he left the vicarage because of her

father's manner. Knight's interest increased. Their love seemed so innocent and childlike thus far.

'It is a nice point in casuistry,' he observed, 'to decide whether you were culpable or not in not telling

Swancourt that your friends were parishioners of his. It was only human nature to hold your tongue under the

'That we agreed to be secretly faithful. And to insure this we thought we would marry.'

Knight's suspense and agitation rose higher when Stephen entered upon this phase of the subject.

Then Stephen gave in full the particulars of the meeting with Elfride at the railway station; the necessity they

were under of going to London, unless the ceremony were to be postponed. The long journey of the afternoon

and evening; her timidity and revulsion of feeling; its culmination on reaching London; the crossing over to

the downplatform and their immediate departure again, solely in obedience to her wish; the journey all

night; their anxious watching for the dawn; their arrival at St. Launce's at lastwere detailed. And he told

how a village woman named Jethway was the only person who recognized them, either going or coming; and

how dreadfully this terrified Elfride. He told how he waited in the fields whilst this then reproachful

sweetheart went for her pony, and how the last kiss he ever gave her was given a mile out of the town, on the

These things Stephen related with a will. He believed that in doing so he established word by word the

'Say? Did I say anything? Oh, I was merely thinking about your story, and the oddness of my having a fancy

for the same woman afterwards. And that now II have forgotten her almost; and neither of us care about

'Exactly,' said Stephen, inwardly exultant, for he was really deceived by Knight's offhand manner.

Yet he was deceived less by the completeness of Knight's disguise than by the persuasive power which lay in

the fact that Knight had never before deceived him in anything. So this supposition that his companion had

ceased to love Elfride was an enormous lightening of the weight which had turned the scale against him.

'Admitting that Elfride COULD love another man after you,' said the elder, under the same varnish of

'Indeed, I never did,' said Stephen. 'I persuaded her. She saw no harm in it until she decided to return, nor did

'Such a childish escapade might have been misrepresented by any evildisposed person, might it not?'

'It might; but I never heard that it was. Nobody who really knew all the circumstances would have done

otherwise than smile. If all the world had known it, Elfride would still have remained the only one who

thought her action a sin. Poor child, she always persisted in thinking so, and was frightened more than

'Well, I like her; I always shall, you know,' he said evasively, and with all the strategy love suggested. 'But I

have not seen her for so long that I can hardly be expected to love her. Do you love her still?'

'How shall I answer without being ashamed? What fickle beings we men are, Stephen! Men may love

strongest for a while, but women love longest. I used to love herin my way, you know.'

'Yes, I understand. Ah, and I used to love her in my way. In fact, I loved her a good deal at one time; but

Perhaps the most extraordinary feature in this conversation was the circumstance that, though each

interlocutor had at first his suspicions of the other's abiding passion awakened by several little acts, neither

would allow himself to see that his friend might now be speaking deceitfully as well as he.

'Stephen.' resumed Knight, 'now that matters are smooth between us, I think I must leave you. You won't

'I'll come,' said Knight, with as much readiness as it was possible to graft upon a huge stock of reluctance.

And Knight left him. To wear a mask, to dissemble his feelings as he had in their late miserable conversation,

was such torture that he could support it no longer. It was the first time in Knight's life that he had ever been

so entirely the player of a part. And the man he had thus deceived was Stephen, who had docilely looked up

He went to bed, and allowed the fever of his excitement to rage uncontrolled. Stephenit was only he who

was the rivalonly Stephen! There was an anticlimax of absurdity which Knight, wretched and

consciencestricken as he was, could not help recognizing. Stephen was but a boy to him. Where the great

grief lay was in perceiving that the very innocence of Elfride in reading her little fault as one so grave was

what had fatally misled him. Had Elfride, with any degree of coolness, asserted that she had done no harm,

the poisonous breath of the dead Mrs. Jethway would have been inoperative. Why did he not make his little

docile girl tell more? If on that subject he had only exercised the imperativeness customary with him on

others, all might have been revealed. It smote his heart like a switch when he remembered how gently she had

borne his scourging speeches, never answering him with a single reproach, only assuring him of her

Knight blessed Elfride for her sweetness, and forgot her fault. He pictured with a vivid fancy those fair

summer scenes with her. He again saw her as at their first meeting, timid at speaking, yet in her eagerness to

be explanatory borne forward almost against her will. How she would wait for him in green places, without

showing any of the ordinary womanly affectations of indifference! How proud she was to be seen walking

with him, bearing legibly in her eyes the thought that he was the greatest genius in the world!

He formed a resolution; and after that could make pretence of slumber no longer. Rising and dressing

That night Stephen was restless too. Not because of the unwontedness of a return to English scenery; not

because he was about to meet his parents, and settle down for awhile to English cottage life. He was

indulging in dreams, and for the nonce the warehouses of Bombay and the plains and forts of Poonah were

but a shadow's shadow. His dream was based on this one atom of fact: Elfride and Knight had become

separated, and their engagement was as if it had never been. Their rupture must have occurred soon after

Stephen's discovery of the fact of their union; and, Stephen went on to think, what so probable as that a return

Stephen's opinions in this matter were those of a lover, and not the balanced judgment of an unbiassed

spectator. His naturally sanguine spirit built hope upon hope, till scarcely a doubt remained in his mind that

her lingering tenderness for him had in some way been perceived by Knight, and had provoked their parting.

To go and see Elfride was the suggestion of impulses it was impossible to withstand. At any rate, to run down

from St. Launce's to Castle Poterel, a distance of less than twenty miles, and glide like a ghost about their old

haunts, making stealthy inquiries about her, would be a fascinating way of passing the first spare hours after

He was now a richer man than heretofore, standing on his own bottom; and the definite position in which he

had rooted himself nullified old local distinctions. He had become illustrious, even sanguine clarus, judging

The friends and rivals breakfasted together the next morning. Not a word was said on either side upon the

matter discussed the previous evening so glibly and so hollowly. Stephen was absorbed the greater part of the

'I don't intend to leave for St. Launce's till tomorrow, as you know,' he said to Knight at the end of the meal.

'I have an engagement just before ten,' said Knight deliberately; 'and after that time I must call upon two or

'Yes, do. You may as well come and dine with me; that is, if we can meet. I may not sleep in London

tonight; in fact, I am absolutely unsettled as to my movements yet. However, the first thing I am going to do

is to get my baggage shifted from this place to Bede's Inn. Goodbye for the present. I'll write, you know, if I

It now wanted a quarter to nine o'clock. When Knight was gone, Stephen felt yet more impatient of the

circumstance that another day would have to drag itself away wearily before he could set out for that spot of

earth whereon a soft thought of him might perhaps be nourished still. On a sudden he admitted to his mind

the possibility that the engagement he was waiting in town to keep might be postponed without much harm.

It was no sooner perceived than attempted. Looking at his watch, he found it wanted forty minutes to the

departure of the ten o'clock train from Paddington, which left him a surplus quarter of an hour before it would

Scribbling a hasty note or twoone putting off the business meeting, another to Knight apologizing for not

being able to see him in the eveningpaying his bill, and leaving his heavier luggage to follow him by

The guard paused on his whistle, to let into the next compartment to Smith's a man of whom Stephen had

Smith sank back into the carriage, stilled by perplexity. The man was like Knightastonishingly like him.

Was it possible it could be he? To have got there he must have driven like the wind to Bede's Inn, and hardly

have alighted before starting again. No, it could not be he; that was not his way of doing things.

During the early part of the journey Stephen Smith's thoughts busied themselves till his brain seemed

swollen. One subject was concerning his own approaching actions. He was a day earlier than his letter to his

parents had stated, and his arrangement with them had been that they should meet him at Plymouth; a plan

which pleased the worthy couple beyond expression. Once before the same engagement had been made,

which he had then quashed by antedating his arrival. This time he would go right on to Castle Boterel;

ramble in that wellknown neighbourhood during the evening and next morning, making inquiries; and

return to Plymouth to meet them as arrangeda contrivance which would leave their cherished project

At Chippenham there was a little waiting, and some loosening and attaching of carriages.

Stephen looked out. At the same moment another man's head emerged from the adjoining window. Each

The selfishness of love and the cruelty of jealousy were fairly exemplified at this moment. Each of the two

men looked at his friend as he had never looked at him before. Each was TROUBLED at the other's presence.

'I did. It was an afterthought to come today. This journey was your engagement, then?'

'No, it was not. This is an afterthought of mine too. I left a note to explain it, and account for my not being

'I, too, have been suffering from headache. We have to wait here a few minutes, I think.'

They walked up and down the platform, each one more and more embarrassingly concerned with the

awkwardness of his friend's presence. They reached the end of the footway, and paused in sheer

absentmindedness. Stephen's vacant eyes rested upon the operations of some porters, who were shifting a

dark and curious looking van from the rear of the train, to shunt another which was between it and the fore

part of the train. This operation having been concluded, the two friends returned to the side of their carriage.

'I have my rug and portmanteau and umbrella with me: it is rather bothering to move now,' said Stephen

'I have my traps too. It is hardly worth while to shift them, for I shall see you again, you know.'

And each got into his own place. Just at starting, a man on the platform held up his hands and stopped the

One of the officials was exclaiming to another, 'That carriage should have been attached again. Can't you see

'What a confounded nuisance these stoppages are!' exclaimed Knight impatiently, looking out from his

'That singular carriage we saw has been unfastened from our train by mistake, it seems,' said Stephen.

He was watching the process of attaching it. The van or carriage, which he now recognized as having seen at

Paddington before they started, was rich and solemn rather than gloomy in aspect. It seemed to be quite new,

and of modern design, and its impressive personality attracted the notice of others beside himself. He beheld

it gradually wheeled forward by two men on each side: slower and more sadly it seemed to approach: then a

Stephen sat all the afternoon pondering upon the reason of Knight's unexpected reappearance. Was he going

as far as Castle Boterel? If so, he could only have one object in viewa visit to Elfride. And what an idea it

At Plymouth Smith partook of a little refreshment, and then went round to the side from which the train

Stephen walked up and stood beside him without speaking. Two men at this moment crept out from among

'The carriage is light enough,' said one in a grim tone. 'Light as vanity; full of nothing.'

'Nothing in size, but a good deal in signification,' said the other, a man of brighter mind and manners.

Smith then perceived that to their train was attached that same carriage of grand and dark aspect which had

'You are going on, I suppose?' said Knight, turning to Stephen, after idly looking at the same object.

Evening drew on apace. It chanced to be the eve of St. Valentine'sthat bishop of blessed memory to

youthful loversand the sun shone low under the rim of a thick hard cloud, decorating the eminences of the

landscape with crowns of orange fire. As the train changed its direction on a curve, the same rays stretched in

'Since you ask, I can do no less than say I am, Stephen,' continued Knight slowly, and with more resolution of

manner than he had shown all the day. 'I am going to Endelstow to see if Elfride Swancourt is still free; and if

'Naturally you do.' There was a strong accent of bitterness in Stephen's voice. 'You might have said HOPE

'I might have done no such thing. I gave you my opinion. Elfride Swancourt may have loved you once, no

'Thank you,' said Stephen laconically. 'She knew her mind as well as I did. We are the same age. If you hadn't

'Don't say thatdon't say it, Stephen! How can you make out that I interfered? Be just, please!'

'Well,' said his friend, 'she was mine before she was yoursyou know that! And it seemed a hard thing to

find you had got her, and that if it had not been for you, all might have turned out well for me.' Stephen spoke

with a swelling heart, and looked out of the window to hide the emotion that would make itself visible upon

'It is absurd,' said Knight in a kinder tone, 'for you to look at the matter in that light. What I tell you is for

your good. You naturally do not like to realize the truththat her liking for you was only a girl's first fancy,

'It is not true!' said Stephen passionately. 'It was you put me out. And now you'll be pushing in again between

us, and depriving me of my chance again! My right, that's what it is! How ungenerous of you to come anew

and try to take her away from me! When you had won her, I did not interfere; and you might, I think, Mr.

'I had her first love. And it was through me that you and she parted. I can guess that well enough.'

'It was. And if I were to explain to you in what way that operated in parting us, I should convince you that

you do quite wrong in intruding upon herthat, as I said at first, your labour will be lost. I don't choose to

explain, because the particulars are painful. But if you won't listen to me, go on, for Heaven's sake. I don't

'You have no right to domineer over me as you do. Just because, when I was a lad, I was accustomed to look

up to you as a master, and you helped me a little, for which I was grateful to you and have loved you, you

assume too much now, and step in before me. It is cruelit is unjustof you to injure me so!'

Knight showed himself keenly hurt at this. 'Stephen, those words are untrue and unworthy of any man, and

they are unworthy of you. You know you wrong me. If you have ever profited by any instruction of mine, I

am only too glad to know it. You know it was given ungrudgingly, and that I have never once looked upon it

Stephen's naturally gentle nature was touched, and it was in a troubled voice that he said, 'Yes, yes. I am

Knight's manner of returning to the matter in hand drew Stephen again into himself. 'No; I told you I was

Knight's features became impassive, and he said no more. The train continued rattling on, and Stephen leant

back in his corner and closed his eyes. The yellows of evening had turned to browns, the dusky shades

thickened, and a flying cloud of dust occasionally stroked the windowborne upon a chilling breeze which

blew from the northeast. The previously gilded but now dreary hills began to lose their daylight aspects of

rotundity, and to become black discs vandyked against the sky, all nature wearing the cloak that six o'clock

Stephen started up in bewilderment after a long stillness, and it was some time before he recollected himself.

'That dream. I fell asleep for a few minutes, and have had a dreamthe most vivid I ever remember.'

He wearily looked out into the gloom. They were now drawing near to Camelton. The lighting of the lamps

was perceptible through the veil of eveningeach flame starting into existence at intervals, and blinking

'Oh, nothing to be told. 'Twas a sort of incubus. There is never anything in dreams.'

'I know that. However, what I so vividly dreamt was this, since you would like to hear. It was the brightest of

bright mornings at East Endelstow Church, and you and I stood by the font. Far away in the chancel Lord

Luxellian was standing alone, cold and impassive, and utterly unlike his usual self: but I knew it was he.

Inside the altar rail stood a strange clergyman with his book open. He looked up and said to Lord Luxellian,

"Where's the bride?" Lord Luxellian said, "There's no bride." At that moment somebody came in at the door,

and I knew her to be Lady Luxellian who died. He turned and said to her, "I thought you were in the vault

below us; but that could have only been a dream of mine. Come on." Then she came on. And in brushing

between us she chilled me so with cold that I exclaimed, "The life is gone out of me!" and, in the way of

'What are you going to do?' said Knight. 'Do you really intend to call on the Swancourts?'

'By no means. I am going to make inquiries first. I shall stay at the Luxellian Arms tonight. You will go

'I can hardly do that at this time of the day. Perhaps you are not aware that the familyher father, at any

'And that I cannot rush into the house as an old friend any more than you can. Certainly I have the privileges

Knight let down the window, and looked ahead. 'There are a great many people at the station,' he said. 'They

When the train stopped, the halfestranged friends could perceive by the lamplight that the assemblage of

idlers enclosed as a kernel a group of men in black cloaks. A side gate in the platform railing was open, and

outside this stood a dark vehicle, which they could not at first characterize. Then Knight saw on its upper part

forms against the sky like cedars by night, and knew the vehicle to be a hearse. Few people were at the

carriage doors to meet the passengersthe majority had congregated at this upper end. Knight and Stephen

The sombre van, which had accompanied them all day from London, now began to reveal that their

destination was also its own. It had been drawn up exactly opposite the open gate. The bystanders all fell

back, forming a clear lane from the gateway to the van, and the men in cloaks entered the latter conveyance.

'They are labourers, I fancy,' said Stephen. 'Ah, it is strange; but I recognize three of them as Endelstow men.

Presently they began to come out, two and two; and under the rays of the lamp they were seen to bear

between them a lightcoloured coffin of satinwood, brightly polished, and without a nail. The eight men

took the burden upon their shoulders, and slowly crossed with it over to the gate.

Knight and Stephen went outside, and came close to the procession as it moved off. A carriage belonging to

the cortege turned round close to a lamp. The rays shone in upon the face of the vicar of Endelstow, Mr.

Swancourtlooking many years older than when they had last seen him. Knight and Stephen involuntarily

'What lady's father?' said Knight, in a voice so hollow that the man stared at him.

'The father of the lady in the coffin. She died in London, you know, and has been brought here by this train.

Knight stood staring blindly at where the hearse had been; as if he saw it, or some one, there. Then he turned,

and beheld the lithe form of Stephen bowed down like that of an old man. He took his young friend's arm,

Half an hour has passed. Two miserable men are wandering in the darkness up the miles of road from

'Has she broken her heart?' said Henry Knight. 'Can it be that I have killed her? I was bitter with her, Stephen,

'Why, I went away from herstole away almostand didn't tell her I should not come again; and at that last

meeting I did not kiss her once, but let her miserably go. I have been a foola fool! I wish the most abject

confession of it before crowds of my countrymen could in any way make amends to my darling for the

'YOUR darling!' said Stephen, with a sort of laugh. 'Any man can say that, I suppose; any man can. I know

this, she was MY darling before she was yours; and after too. If anybody has a right to call her his own, it is

'You talk like a man in the dark; which is what you are. Did she ever do anything for you? Risk her name, for

'Not entirely. Did she ever live for youprove she could not live without youlaugh and weep for you?'

'To save mine on the cliff yonder. The poor child was with me looking at the approach of the Puffin

steamboat, and I slipped down. We both had a narrow escape. I wish we had died there!'

'Ah, but wait,' Stephen pleaded with wet eyes. 'She went on that cliff to see me arrive home: she had

promised it. She told me she would months before. And would she have gone there if she had not cared for

'You have an idea that Elfride died for you, no doubt,' said Knight, with a mournful sarcasm too nerveless to

The dark clouds into which the sun had sunk had begun to drop rain in an increasing volume.

'Can we wait somewhere here till this shower is over?' said Stephen desultorily.

'As you will. But it is not worth while. We'll hear the particulars, and return. Don't let people know who we

They had reached a point at which the road branched into twojust outside the west village, one fork of the

diverging routes passing into the latter place, the other stretching on to East Endelstow. Having come some of

the distance by the footpath, they now found that the hearse was only a little in advance of them.

Knight and Stephen entered the village. A bar of fiery light lay across the road, proceeding from the

halfopen door of a smithy, in which bellows were heard blowing and a hammer ringing. The rain had

increased, and they mechanically turned for shelter towards the warm and cosy scene.

Close at their heels came another man, without overcoat or umbrella, and with a parcel under his arm.

'A wet evening,' he said to the two friends, and passed by them. They stood in the outer penthouse, but the

'I have walked all the way from Camelton,' said the latter. 'Was obliged to come tonight, you know.'

He held the parcel, which was a flat one, towards the firelight, to learn if the rain had penetrated it. Resting it

edgewise on the forge, he supported it perpendicularly with one hand, wiping his face with the handkerchief

He laid the thin and broad package, which had acute angles in different directions, flat upon the anvil, and the

smith blew up the fire to give him more light. First, after untying the package, a sheet of brown paper was

removed: this was laid flat. Then he unfolded a piece of baize: this also he spread flat on the paper. The third

covering was a wrapper of tissue paper, which was spread out in its turn. The enclosure was revealed, and he

'OhI see!' said the smith, kindling with a chastened interest, and drawing close. 'Poor young ladyah,

'It came from the same people as the coffin, you know, but was not ready soon enough to be sent round to the

Knight and Stephen came forward. The undertaker's man, on seeing them look for the inscription, civilly

turned it round towards them, and each read, almost at one moment, by the ruddy light of the coals:

E L F R I D E, Wife of Spenser Hugo Luxellian, Fifteenth Baron Luxellian: Died February 10, 18.

They read it, and read it, and read it againStephen and Knight as if animated by one soul. Then Stephen

put his hand upon Knight's arm, and they retired from the yellow glow, further, further, till the chill darkness

enclosed them round, and the quiet sky asserted its presence overhead as a dim grey sheet of blank monotony.

A long silence ensued....'Elfride married!' said Stephen then in a thin whisper, as if he feared to let the

Nothing was heard by them now save the slow measurement of time by their beating pulses, the soft touch of

the dribbling rain upon their clothes, and the low purr of the blacksmith's bellows hard by.

'No: let us leave her alone. She is beyond our love, and let her be beyond our reproach. Since we don't know

half the reasons that made her do as she did, Stephen, how can we say, even now, that she was not pure and

true in heart?' Knight's voice had now become mild and gentle as a child's. He went on: 'Can we call her

ambitious? No. Circumstance has, as usual, overpowered her purposesfragile and delicate as sheliable

to be overthrown in a moment by the coarse elements of accident. I know that's it, don't you?'

They began to bend their steps towards Castle Boterel, whither they had sent their bags from Camelton. They

wandered on in silence for many minutes. Stephen then paused, and lightly put his hand within Knight's arm.

'I wonder how she came to die,' he said in a broken whisper. 'Shall we return and learn a little more?'

They turned back again, and entering Endelstow a second time, came to a door which was standing open. It

was that of an inn called the Welcome Home, and the house appeared to have been recently repaired and

entirely modernized. The name too was not that of the same landlord as formerly, but Martin Cannister's.

Knight and Smith entered. The inn was quite silent, and they followed the passage till they reached the

kitchen, where a huge fire was burning, which roared up the chimney, and sent over the floor, ceiling, and

newlywhitened walls a glare so intense as to make the candle quite a secondary light. A woman in a white

apron and black gown was standing there alone behind a cleanlyscrubbed deal table. Stephen first, and

Knight afterwards, recognized her as Unity, who had been parlourmaid at the vicarage and young

'Mr. Smithay, that it is!' she said. 'And that's Mr. Knight. I beg you to sit down. Perhaps you know that

'About five months. We were married the same day that my dear Miss Elfie became Lady Luxellian.' Tears

appeared in Unity's eyes, and filled them, and fell down her cheek, in spite of efforts to the contrary.

The pain of the two men in resolutely controlling themselves when thus exampled to admit relief of the same

'Let us stay here with her,' Knight whispered, and turning said, 'No; we will sit here. We want to rest and dry

That evening the sorrowing friends sat with their hostess beside the large fire, Knight in the recess formed by

the chimney breast, where he was in shade. And by showing a little confidence they won hers, and she told

'One dayafter you, Mr. Knight, left us for the last timeshe was missed from the Crags, and her father

went after her, and brought her home ill. Where she went to, I never knewbut she was very unwell for

weeks afterwards. And she said to me that she didn't care what became of her, and she wished she could die.

When she was better, I said she would live to be married yet, and she said then, "Yes; I'll do anything for the

benefit of my family, so as to turn my useless life to some practical account." Well, it began like this about

Lord Luxellian courting her. The first Lady Luxellian had died, and he was in great trouble because the little

girls were left motherless. After a while they used to come and see her in their little black frocks, for they

liked her as well or better than their own motherthat's true. They used to call her "little mamma." These

children made her a shade livelier, but she was not the girl she had beenI could see that and she grew

thinner a good deal. Well, my lord got to ask the Swancourts oftener and oftener to dinnernobody else of

his acquaintanceand at last the vicar's family were backwards and forwards at all hours of the day. Well,

people say that the little girls asked their father to let Miss Elfride come and live with them, and that he said

perhaps he would if they were good children. However, the time went on, and one day I said, "Miss Elfride,

you don't look so well as you used to; and though nobody else seems to notice it I do." She laughed a little,

'"Oh!" she cried, and turned off so white, and afore I could get to her she had sunk down like a heap of

clothes, and fainted away. Well, then, she came to herself after a time, and said, "Unity, now we'll go on with

"'Ah! you don't know," she said, and told me 'twas going to be in October. After that she freshened up a

bitwhether 'twas with the thought of getting away from home or not, I don't know. For, perhaps, I may as

well speak plainly, and tell you that her home was no home to her now. Her father was bitter to her and harsh

upon her; and though Mrs. Swancourt was well enough in her way, 'twas a sort of cold politeness that was not

worth much, and the little thing had a worrying time of it altogether. About a month before the wedding, she

and my lord and the two children used to ride about together upon horseback, and a very pretty sight they

were; and if you'll believe me, I never saw him once with her unless the children were with her toowhich

made the courting so strangelooking. Ay, and my lord is so handsome, you know, so that at last I think she

rather liked him; and I have seen her smile and blush a bit at things he said. He wanted her the more because

the children did, for everybody could see that she would be a most tender mother to them, and friend and

playmate too. And my lord is not only handsome, but a splendid courter, and up to all the ways o't. So he

made her the beautifullest presents; ah, one I can minda lovely bracelet, with diamonds and emeralds. Oh,

how red her face came when she saw it! The old roses came back to her cheeks for a minute or two then. I

helped dress her the day we both were marriedit was the last service I did her, poor child! When she was

ready, I ran upstairs and slipped on my own wedding gown, and away they went, and away went Martin and

I; and no sooner had my lord and my lady been married than the parson married us. It was a very quiet pair of

weddingshardly anybody knew it. Well, hope will hold its own in a young heart, if so be it can; and my

'Don't you see, sir, she fell off again afore they'd been married long, and my lord took her abroad for change

of scene. They were coming home, and had got as far as London, when she was taken very ill and couldn't be

'VERY, beyond everything. Not suddenly, but by slow degrees. 'Twas her nature to win people more when

they knew her well. He'd have died for her, I believe. Poor my lord, he's heartbroken now!'

'Yes; my husband is now at the vault with the masons, opening the steps and cleaning down the walls.'

The next day two men walked up the familiar valley from Castle Boterel to East Endelstow Church. And

when the funeral was over, and every one had left the lawnlike churchyard, the pair went softly down the

steps of the Luxellian vault, and under the low groined arches they had beheld once before, lit up then as

now. In the new niche of the crypt lay a rather new coffin, which had lost some of its lustre, and a newer

Beside the latter was the dark form of a man, kneeling on the damp floor, his body flung across the coffin, his

hands clasped, and his whole frame seemingly given up in utter abandonment to grief. He was still

youngyounger, perhaps, than Knightand even now showed how graceful was his figure and symmetrical

his build. He murmured a prayer half aloud, and was quite unconscious that two others were standing within

Knight and Stephen had advanced to where they once stood beside Elfride on the day all three had met there,

before she had herself gone down into silence like her ancestors, and shut her bright blue eyes for ever. Not

until then did they see the kneeling figure in the dim light. Knight instantly recognized the mourner as Lord

They felt themselves to be intruders. Knight pressed Stephen back, and they silently withdrew as they had

'Come away,' he said, in a broken voice. 'We have no right to be there. Another stands before usnearer to

And side by side they both retraced their steps down the grey still valley to Castle Boterel.