The Andersons, Brother and Sister, by Agnes Giberne

"IT doesn't matter! That's to say, it can't be helped. I wouldn't have done the same in your place, Sissie. But perhaps you were right. I don't know exactly how we should have managed. I don't mean to be indebted to him or to anybody. I have my own way to make in the world; and I mean to make it. I'll get on—somehow."

The words were spoken resolutely, and the speaker, a lad of about seventeen or eighteen, gave a slight toss to his head, which shook back a loose lock of hair, given to dropping over the brow. It was a gesture characteristic of Felix Anderson. He was a good-looking young fellow, not tall but well-made, with a resolute square jaw.

"I mean to get on, and I will," he repeated. "Anybody can who chooses. I have to begin at the bottom of the ladder: but that's no reason why I shouldn't got to the top some day. Anyhow, I don't mean to be easily beaten. If I take this thing now, it is only as a stepping-stone to something better. I shall not be a bookseller's accountant all my days."

There was a touch of egoism in all this, but egoism is almost an essential part of youth, and the boy was thinking of others besides himself. "I wouldn't have written to Dr. Bryant in your place,—after the way he treated my father and your mother. But if you thought it best—"

"I could not see what else to do. It is hard enough to ask help of anybody. For myself I would not—only for you and Lettice."

"Not for me. I can do without him, thank goodness! I wouldn't touch a dirty penny of the old fellow's with a pair of tongs! Not for anything you could mention," declared Felix, with unnecessary vehemence. "It is different for you and Lettice. Not that I couldn't have kept you both."

"It will be a pound a week soon. Besides, I shall make more somehow. Something would have turned up," said Felix, with juvenile hopefulness. "And in time, you will be able to teach again,—not a great deal so as to knock yourself up, but enough to be a help. I mean to have a home for you both before long."

The faded woman, lying on a sofa near the fire—faded, though scarcely thirty-five in age—knew better. She was too well aware that the prospective home would not be for her.

It was a shabby little room: a most ordinary specimen of a second-rate lodging-house "parlour" in a dull back street of Brighton. Yet there was about it a certain refinement of air and tone. Cecilia Anderson was a lady, both by birth and by education: and her personality told upon her surroundings. Rows of well-bound books spoke of better days: and a graceful arrangement of moss and ferns gave evidence of somebody's love for beauty. Moreover, the three present, though to some extent shabby, were also scrupulously neat; and while work lay about, it was not flung about: and neither table-cloth nor carpet was bestrewn with the shreds of white cotton, too often seen in the wake of tasteless females.

Lettice had not spoken yet. She knew well that Felix's opinion, not hers, was the important question, even though her future might be more acutely affected than his by the correspondence between Miss Anderson and Dr. Bryant. Not being self-assertive, she was in no haste to thrust herself into the discussion, but sat quietly, work in hand, glancing between the stitches from one to the other.

"What did uncle Bryant do?" she at length asked, in the rather long silence following her brother's last words.

"Oh, well—but you can't make a thing to be, when it isn't," rejoined Felix. "He's no scrap of relation to Lettice or me, you know—really—and he must have behaved abominably to your mother."

"He objected to my mother's marriage. I suppose there were hot words spoken—as usual, in family quarrels. I am not sure about the 'behaving abominably.' He tried to prevent what he did not think would be for her happiness. My mother had her way,—and there was no further intercourse between them."

"That is it! So many years and years ago;—before I was born! My uncle must be quite an elderly man now. I don't think one ought to make too much of things spoken so very long since! He thought he was in the right,—and he did not really know our father. At least, he never learnt to love him. That is what I mean. It is all over now; and one has to forget sometimes. And he is my uncle. Better to be helped by him than by strangers."

"I wonder why Dr. Bryant didn't like your mother to marry papa," Lettice conjectured dreamily. "Did anybody mind our mother marrying him?"

"People sometimes take fancies—unreasonable fancies. Dr. Bryant was always strong in his dislikes, I have been told. Mind, Lettice, you know now all that there is any need for you to know. You are not to ask any more questions, and you are never to discuss the matter with my uncle."

"No." The word came slowly, and Lettice's eyes widened into a thoughtful gaze, her needle lying neglected. She had a somewhat childish look for her fifteen years; and her small-featured pale face scarcely told of the firm nerves or indomitable pluck of her brother and half-sister. Yet it was a happy face, contented and cheery: and the girl, if of more sensitive make than they, was capable of resolute effort, and of patient endurance, though as yet she had not been greatly called upon for the exercise of either.

Cecilia Anderson was a woman of remarkable force and courage. She had been practically a mother to Felix and Lettice, since the death of their own mother, when Lettice was only six months old: and from the death of their father—hers and theirs also—whereby they were at once reduced from ease to penury, she had borne up with unfailing determination.

Not only by her exertions had she made a home for the two children, and given them thus far a good education: but she had also paid all her father's debts—not large, perhaps, in actual amount, but very large in proportion to Cecilia's means. She knew no rest till they were liquidated: and she would have done twice as much in love to her father's memory. He had not been a gifted man, or an estimable man, or a man of high principle: but he had had the power to make all women believe in him.

Cecilia was cultivated in no common degree; thoroughly well taught, and well read: a good French and German scholar: a good musician: a passable artist: and with these powers she possessed also an unlimited capacity for work. No doubt her handsome face, her refined and dignified manner, helped her to make way. Until recently, her time had been for years more than full: and the incessant toil had been sufficiently repaid.

But of late, a change had come. She had begun slowly to drop out of the ranks of the always employed, and to find large gaps in her time, once entirely occupied. Competition in a place like Brighton is very keen: and perhaps she was wearing out physically under the long strain, not able to teach so well. She had often sat up for hours at night, correcting exercises, when her days were over-full. And even in her holidays, she had known no rest with incessant holiday-engagements. Nature will in time take its revenge.

One pupil after another dropped away; and fresh pupils no longer sprang to supply the vacant places. The worry of this told upon her severely. She could stand work, but she could not stand the absence of work. It was scarcely a year since the last of her father's debts had been paid; and she had hoped for a time of less pressure, when she might lay by a little for the future. Now, this new reverse was come!

Treading upon the heels of lessening work came soon the direful question how to get on? How to pay rent and bills, how to procure food and clothing, how to meet educational expenses?

Lettice went daily to a school near: one of the earlier modern High schools. Felix, who showed signs of considerable ability, had only left school this last Michaelmas. Cecilia idolised Felix. She loved Lettice, quietly: but her whole heart was bound up in the boy, this young half-brother, to whom she had been sister and mother and friend, all in one, and for whose success in life she would gladly have flung away her own happiness. Once upon a time she had indulged in a wild dream of College; but this dream had faded under the stringent necessity of finding work for him, without delay.

At first she sought the "something" with ideas far too lofty of what might be expected; since, surely, there were few boys in Brighton like her Felix. Employers did not view the matter with her sisterly eyes, however; and step by step she had to descend in her notions as hope after hope faded.

Had Felix and Lettice been a little more experienced, they might have read in Cecilia tokens of the impending break-down, during the autumn term: but they did not. To the last she never complained, never gave in, never failed in a single lesson. When the collapse came, it was sudden and entire. In the morning she went out as usual: before night she was dangerously ill.

The immediate danger lasted only a few days; but recovery was fitful and slow. Cecilia at length insisted on hearing the whole truth from her doctor: and it was a truth which she had long suspected. She was the victim of complicated and hopeless disease. She might to some extent rally, and even resume ordinary life; but she would never again be strong, or fit for teaching; and at any time, an acute attack might carry her off.

Miss Anderson said not a word of this to Felix or Lettice. She thought it over quietly: and when again able to sit up, she determined to write to the only near relative she possessed—her uncle, Dr. Bryant, alienated many many years earlier by his only sister's marriage to Francis Anderson.

This decision was hastened by an opening for Felix, as accountant in a stationer's shop. He would begin at once going daily, to learn his business: and after a fortnight, would receive the sum of 17s. 6d. weekly, with prospects of an early rise, if he gave satisfaction. Cecilia had looked for something widely different, but others told her how fortunate he was; and the commonsense of the boy acquiesced. Cecilia gave in, and wrote to Dr. Bryant, resolved that Felix should at least, if possible, be unhampered.

The reply was prompt. If Cecilia would travel down to the west with Lettice, as soon as she could bear the journey, Dr. Bryant would give them both a home. To meet immediate expenses, he enclosed a £10 note. The letter was not in style affectionate, but Maurice Bryant never had written affectionately. Some people, demonstrative in manner, are icy by post; and some, who never thaw in personal intercourse, are unexpectedly genial in correspondence. He might be none the less warm, because he expressed himself coldly.

On the whole, satisfaction predominated in Cecilia's mind. To be compelled to seek aid from any one was a source of distress; but she was not a person of puny make, always in arms against imaginary slights, neither was she herself demonstrative. Why should she expect a show of feeling from others?

"We will offer you a home!" Dr. Bryant wrote, and she wondered over the plural pronoun. She had always thought of her uncle as an old bachelor, possibly an eccentric one: but he might have married, without the fact reaching her ears. If so, the future happiness of herself and Lettice would depend greatly upon the manner of wife he had chosen.

Cecilia was not a woman of many friends, using the word in a sense which implies intimacy—partly in consequence of her innate reserve, partly because she held back from possible friendships. She was proud as well as reserved; and she would not endure to have it said that she went after anybody with an object. Neither would she permit towards herself kindness which might border on patronage. Even the families of long-standing pupils would drop away, when the engagement ended. People admired and respected Miss Anderson, but few loved her; and all her thought and care were concentrated in Felix and Lettice—more especially in Felix.

So when these troubles came, she had no one to turn to for help: none except the lodging-house keeper, Mrs. Crofton, who, like everybody, admired and respected her lodger, and who would have done anything in the world for Lettice. Mrs. Crofton did do much; nursing the invalid night and day through the worst of the illness, and afterward sparing every possible moment from work to the sick room.

The doctor, summoned at haphazard from a neighbouring street, was kindness itself: and the clergyman of the parish called often. But though Miss Anderson had been years in this house, she was a stranger to both of them. Despite all their efforts to break through her shield of reticence, she and they remained "strangers yet." Nor was she so grateful as she might have been for their exertions on behalf of Felix, since the result meant to herself deep disappointment.

"I have been talking with Mrs. Crofton about you, Felix; and we both wish you to stay on here, when Lettice and I are gone."

"If I can afford it." Felix did not seem enamoured with the plan. Freedom had its charms for him, and he might be more free elsewhere.

"She will let you have the top back bedroom for half-a-crown a week, and will do everything for you. It would be impossible to get a furnished room anywhere else for so little."

"Ten shillings a month. About six pounds a year. I could manage that, of course. But I say, Sis—" and the lad flushed up hotly; "will it repay her?"

"She says so. I did hesitate—and I told her it ought at least to be more in the season: but she would not listen. She declares that she owes us a great deal, and perhaps it is true. We have never been behindhand, all these years, in our rent; and of course I have done her many little kindnesses. By-and-by, it may be in your power to repay her more fully."

"Yes, I know!—" with full understanding. While Lettice glanced uncomprehendingly from one to the other. "But Mrs. Crofton is a good creature. I would rather be indebted to her than to most people. And the room is not bad—it is neatly furnished, and only one side of the ceiling slants. I told her the plan would be a comfort to me."

"Oh, it will do as well as anything. I just have to get along for the present. I don't mean to be in a shop all my days—or in a garret bedroom."

"I shall not. I'll get on, somehow. I mean to get on. The chance will come to me, and I shall use it. You'll see."

Would she see? Or would she soon be far-away, beyond reach of this idolised brother?

The question came acutely, bringing a shadow with it. For no brightness lay in the thought. Neither by bringing-up nor by after-conviction was Cecilia in any sense a religious woman. She had a philosophical way of viewing troubles, and a spirited fashion of making the best of things: and what was inevitable she would accept courageously. But death for her meant simply being cut off from her dearest ones—above and beyond all, from Felix! The land on the other side of the grave was, for her, not a Paradise of joy and reunion, but a blank existence of absence and forgetfulness. All her energies had been expended on this life: all her treasure was lodged in this world. She had only a faint confidence in a vague "Providence" to help her through the last straggle, when it should come.

It was not exactly fear that she felt, looking forward. On the whole, she counted that she had done her duty, and that things would not go hardly with her. She had kept up a respectable show of religion, going pretty often to church on Sunday morning, if wet weather did not offer an excuse for staying at home—though no rain kept her in on other days. She had a Bible in her room: not often opened. She had been scrupulously honourable as to her father's debts; strictly true in all her dealings: a hard-working, careful, and self-denying sister. Could more be required? She dreaded having to leave all whom she loved: otherwise she was prepared—or she thought so—to meet the last enemy bravely, as she had met many lesser enemies.

Lettice sprang up eagerly: rather too eagerly. A certain impulsiveness and rapidity of movement were natural to her; unlike the dignified ease which had always characterised Cecilia, and unlike the confident composure of Felix. The impulsiveness worried Cecilia, who had done her best to engraft her own manner upon the young girl, hitherto without success. They had never "suited one another," so completely as Cecilia and Felix "suited," but Lettice was scarcely aware of this fact. She was of a happy disposition, humble as to her own merits, passionately fond of Cecilia, and always sure that Cecilia was in the right.

It had become a received fact in the little circle, that Lettice, though well-meaning and affectionate, was hopelessly awkward and dull—a mere foil to her handsome and clever brother. Lettice acquiesced in this version of affairs as fully as any one. She never expected to be anything else than dull; and that her occasional gaucheries should arouse Cecilia's vexation was a matter of course. Lettice was always more annoyed with herself than Cecilia could be with her.

The hurried start to obey was a mistake. As she sprang up, she caught her foot in the rug, and stumbled against the couch—then, in her desperate effort to avoid coming down upon the invalid, she fell sideways towards the fireplace, striking her head sharply against the corner of the marble mantelpiece.

"Lettice!" Cecilia said reproachfully—aware only of the unpleasant jar she had herself received.

Lettice pulled herself up slowly, and laughed—keeping her face turned away. "I'm sorry," she said, in a lively voice. "I didn't mean—I'll get the shawl—"

"Did you ever see such a child?" asked Cecilia. "And she doesn't care in the least!"

Lettice fled to the top of the first flight, and there stood still, holding the balusters. Resolution failed for the moment to carry her further. The blow had been severe enough to half-stun her, though not to overcome her courage, and tears streamed from her eyes with the pain—an involuntary overflow: muscular, not mental. Lettice would have scorned to cry for such a cause: but she was stupefied, and five minutes passed unmeasured. Then the parlour door opened for a shout:

Lettice rushed to Cecilia's bedroom door, and called out, "Yes, yes, I'm coming."

When she entered, the other two were again in earnest conference, and they scarcely noticed her.

Cecilia only remarked carelessly, "I do wish you would learn to be a little more attentive, Lettice;" and went on with what she was saying.

Lettice attempted no defence. She sat down, not in her former place, but well in the shade behind the couch, and made believe to be at work again.

"He've been a lot of times, ma'am, when you was too ill: and he said maybe you'd be able now."

"Well, I suppose he must come in for once. It is to be hoped that he will not stay long."

Felix crossed over to where Lettice sat. "I'm off," he whispered. "I'll be back in an hour. I say—you didn't really hurt yourself? I saw you got an uncommonly hard bang."

"Sis didn't notice, so I said nothing. She'd only lie and bother. You'll be all the colours of the rainbow in a day or two."

Felix dashed across the room, intent on escape; and Cecilia's eyes followed him with hungry looks. She could hardly bear to have him out of sight, now that the parting was so near. Parting! For how long? Suppose the separation were to be final? Suppose she should never meet the boy again in this world? If not in this world—but beyond, all was blank. Such questions haunted her continually: and they came now with a sudden vehemence which, for the moment, caused forgetfulness of all beside. She forgot to look up and welcome the clergyman, advancing dubiously, after a collision with Felix in the doorway. She entirely forgot the presence of a silent girl in the shade behind her couch. All Cecilia's force was for the moment needed to grapple with the inrush of sad thoughts—the desolate realisation that she had soon to leave the one whom most in all the world she loved; and that the leaving might be final.

CHAPTER II.

THE Rev. Robert Kelly, Vicar of the parish in which the Andersons lived, had called under a strong sense of duty, not at all under the drawings of inclination, to visit a parishioner, who, somehow, always managed to give him a repelled sensation. He admired Cecilia, as almost everybody did: and he could have liked her. But he was too keenly aware that she neither admired nor liked him: that in fact she looked upon him as an unmitigated bore. Such a consciousness goes far to render a gentle and self-distrustful man that which he believes he is reckoned to be.

Before Cecilia's illness, Mr. Kelly had called occasionally, seldom finding her at home, and never meeting with a warm reception. A succession of rebuffs had imbued him with a positive dread of Mrs. Crofton's dignified lodger, and he could never be "at his best" in her presence. She was not at all anxious to be "done good to," however much he might wish to "do her good." And as for practical kindnesses, they were a matter rather for toleration than for gratitude, with one of her independent temper.

Once during her illness, he had seen her for a few minutes, and then she had resolutely kept clear of all subjects except that of Felix's future. Since then he had been repeatedly to the house, and he had been always conscious of a feeling of relief when sent away unsuccessful: a feeling for which he took himself to task. Now at length, he was again admitted; but the words which he overheard, standing outside the door, were not calculated to set him at his ease.

No; certainly he would not stay long, but he had to go in. The very obvious escape of Felix did not add to his confidence: and Cecilia was so lost in thought, that she omitted to notice his approach until he was on the rug. Mr. Kelly failed to observe Lettice, half hidden by the curtain, and Lettice did not stir, so he believed the elder sister to be alone.

She presented a less imposing appearance on the couch, under two shabby shawls, than when standing upright: yet even now there was about her a curious environment of dignity; and Mr. Kelly had his usual consciousness of being overshadowed in her presence. He was an easily abashed man, and she was not at all an easily abashed woman; and although he was her match mentally, she was his superior in vigour of will.

This day he received a more gracious greeting than usual, in consideration of his efforts on behalf of Felix. The result was not indeed what Cecilia had wished; and she was not in heart very grateful, but Mr. Kelly had to be thanked. So she roused herself from the fit of abstraction, held out her hand, and even smiled. If he had not overheard those few words, he would have felt quite cheered, but to get over them was not possible.

"I am glad to learn that you are a little better," he hazarded, by way of an opening speech.

"Thanks. Yes. I am better. As much better as—" She hesitated, looking sharply at the clergyman. Had Dr. Rotherbotham informed him as to her true state? Mr. Kelly's unconscious face seemed to supply a negative. "As much better as I can expect to be," she said.

"In so short a time, you mean. I fear it will be long before you are fit for hard work again."

"Yes." An odd impulse seized her to tell him all; odd, because she did not care for Mr. Kelly; but no doubt there was a natural desire for sympathy: she had nobody else to turn to; and she, like Mr. Kelly, believed that they were alone. The impulse seemed to her foolish, and she resisted it. What good would speaking do?

"Yes," she repeated, "I am going to make my home for a time with my uncle in the west of England. Lettice, too, of course. Felix is more or less provided for, thanks to you. I am not likely at present to be strong enough for work: and my uncle has offered to take us in."

"No; Bryant. He is my mother's only brother. A medical man; but I suppose he has not practised for twenty years."

"A trial!" She could have laughed, the word was so inadequate. Life, apart from Felix, would be mere existence, not life. "One has to bear what is inevitable."

"And God's will is always best for us in these matters: even when it means sorrow."

"Perhaps. I do not know anything about its being best. I only know that it has to be . . . If I could stay with him till the end! So short a time!" The words broke from her, under pressure of strong feeling. "If I could; but that is out of the question." She tried to rein herself in, to resume her usual manner, though her hands shook visibly.

"I do not know why I should say all this," she went on, after a pause. "Nobody can do anything. It is not my way to appeal to other people. If I had not been upset—shaken—The thought that all must soon be over! To leave Felix, not knowing if I shall ever—But such partings have to be borne, of course. They are a part of life . . . And I have great comfort in knowing that the boy will do well. No doubt of that. He is so hard-working: so bent on success."

Mr. Kelly had been startled by the unexpected outbreak of distress, and thus far had said nothing. Perhaps his wordless sympathy drew her on further than speech could have done: but this he did not see. He was already reproaching himself for a lost opportunity, grieving over his own want of readiness: and any number of possible utterances, exactly to the point, rushed into his mind, too late. He found himself saying mechanically: "I will do my best to look after your brother for you."

"Thanks; but I am not at all afraid for Felix. He has good principles." Then, as if suspecting Mr. Kelly's line of thought, she talked steadily about Felix's new work.

The clergyman listened and responded; but he was not to be entirely baffled. At the first opportunity, he said gently, "Pardon me! May I ask a question? Did you mean just now that unhappily there is fear that your health may not be in time re-established?"

"Yes, I meant that; but I did not mean to speak about it. This is in strict confidence, if you please. Dr. Rotherbotham tells me plainly that I cannot live long. However, I do not wish to discuss the matter."

"And, in looking forward to that great change—" Mr. Kelly spoke slowly, and he was not allowed to finish.

"I have done my duty in life, and I hope that I shall know how to meet my end when it comes," she said coldly.

"We may as well keep to other subjects," she said. "Some people love nothing so well as to talk about themselves; but—" scornfully—"I have always counted that a proof of shallowness. It is not my way. Nor is it Felix's way. You will find him by no means disposed to stand personal questions."

"Pardon me! You must not mistake my meaning. I have no wish to press for an answer—for myself. It is no matter of curiosity. I only suggest the question for your own consideration. As an 'ambassador for Christ,' I am bound to speak of Him; of all that you owe to Him, and of the comfort which may be yours in that hour, if you are willing."

"Thanks; I am much obliged, but a different topic is more to my mind. Besides, it has been an agitating day. I must not press for a long visit."

"Then I will not stay longer now; but perhaps you will let me come again. In any case—" for he felt sure he would not be admitted—"if at any time, in any way, I can help you, do not scruple to let me know."

"Thanks!" once more. "I shall be among friends, but I am very much obliged to you all the same. I am afraid I must ask you to open the door for yourself. If Lettice were here—"

She looked round with startled eyes. Lettice was there! Mr. Kelly, just about to make one last attempt, one parting appeal to her better nature, looked also, following the direction of her glance, and was checked.

All through this dialogue the girl had not stirred. At first she remained thus, only because she felt still stupefied with the blow she had had, because movement was still painful, and coming forward might draw Cecilia's attention to her look. Afterward she sat on, because she could not move. Literally, could not. Cecilia's words fell with paralysing power. Had clear thought been possible, Lettice would have remembered that she had no business to listen to a conversation which was not meant for her ears; but she could not think: she could only feel. Part that followed was lost; but she distinctly heard Mr. Kelly's later question, and the not-to-be-mistaken answer. Utterance could not be more plain. Beyond these she took in nothing; and she was incapable of speech.

Then a wonder crept through her mind; were those two talking still? She might have been any length of time seated there. At the same moment sounded these words: "If Lettice were here—"

The absence of response was a matter of positive incapacity to speak. Lettice heard, of course; but voices sounded far-away; and the floor seemed to mount with her; and heart and head were beating in thick throbs. She wondered dimly—could she get up, if she tried? A nightmare sensation of helplessness weighed her down; and she craved to be let alone, not to be dragged back into what had become all at once a changed world to her. And yet, she would have to shake off this stupefaction. She would have to wake up and smile and talk. Only another moment's delay, and then—

"How odd of the child to drop asleep so suddenly! I never knew her do it before."

Mr. Kelly stepped behind the couch, and laid a hand on Lettice's arm. She had not expected the touch, and it startled her into a sitting posture instantaneously. The start seemed, as indeed it was, perfectly natural.

Lettice obeyed quietly. With that start, power of movement had returned: though she was still dazed and bewildered in mind. She reached the sofa, and smiled as she stood there, while her lips were white, and the wide-open eyes were sombre, gazing fixedly into the air.

"How strange you look, child! Have you been dreaming? What makes you so pale? Did Mr. Kelly startle you?"

"Only too sleepy to move? You queer child. And you dropped off afterwards. Was that it?" Lettice's laugh might have meant anything. "Felix walked you too far perhaps this morning. Run and get some cold water. That will wake you up. And you can open the front door for Mr. Kelly, if—"

"Yes, certainly I must go," said the clergyman, replying to the half-uttered doubt. Lettice disappeared from the room, and he shook hands with Cecilia, remarking: "Your little sister does not seem quite well."

"Do you call her 'little?' She will soon be sixteen. I have tried lately to make her feel herself more of a woman; but she does not behave like one yet. She is so childish. Lettice always was rather easily startled in her sleep. I was glad to see that puzzled look, because it showed how very sound she must have been. I would not for worlds have had her overhear what I said."

Mr. Kelly was not so sure that Lettice had not heard, but he refrained from suggesting his doubt. He made his way into the passage, shutting the parlour door, and found Lettice leaning against the wall. The singular paleness and fixity of her face impressed him again; and his conviction grew stronger that she had not really been asleep. He stood looking at her with kind concern.

"Something is the matter, is it not?" he said, anxious to find out more, without suggesting possibilities. "Has any one been troubling you?"

"No." Lettice gazed straight before her, and forced a short laugh. "Why should any one?"

"Not intentionally; but people sometimes cause pain, not knowing it. Or, perhaps, you are not well. Is that it?"

"Tell me: will you not?" urged Mr. Kelly. "Something is wrong, I am sure. I should like to help you, but how can I, if you do not tell me your trouble? Perhaps I could do something. Try to think of me as a friend, and speak freely."

Lettice made an effort. "If—if—if you will promise—" she began, and then a tearless sob broke into the words, and she fled along the passage out of sight.

Mr. Kelly looked after her compassionately, but she did not return. The echo of that heartbroken sob haunted him for hours after.

"Mind, Lettice, I mean what I say. You can't help going with Sissie, of course. It has to be: and I suppose, as things are, that there is nothing else to be done. She will not be fit for work again for months; and she never ought to slave as she has done. But you are not to count that house your home. Just a 'temporary residence,' as people say—not a real home.

"After the way Dr. Bryant treated my father—It's all very well his showing kindness to us now, when my father is dead! Why couldn't he be kind in my father's lifetime, I should like to know? Anyhow, I don't mean you to belong to Dr. Bryant; though, of course, one has to be grateful for what he is doing."

Felix spoke in masterful accents, striding along the Parade, and Lettice kept pace with him. She had lain awake all night, gazing with troubled eyes into the happy childhood of her past, and into the uncertain future; and in one night, she seemed to herself to have grown years older. To-day the weight of foreboding was on her heavily, and exertion was a struggle; but the last thing she thought of was to make complaint.

"You understand. It's only for a time. At most, only till I can make a home for you both. Perhaps in a few months Sis will be up to teaching again. And meantime something better might offer itself for me. If a fellow is bent on getting along, he is sure to do it. There's nothing like determination; and I'm not one to be easily beaten.

"Now, mind—you've got to be brave, and not to give in; and, of course, you'll be happy and all that, wherever you are, and everybody will be kind to you. Only you're not to get too fond of those people. Not so as to be in a spoony state by-and-by, when you have to leave them. You belong to Sis and me; and Dr. Bryant is no relation."

Lettice might have suggested that she could spare abundance of affection in both quarters, without defrauding either; but she was not of an argumentative nature.

"I don't know what sort of man Dr. Bryant is, and I don't much care. He may be nice, or he may not. Anyhow, he means to be kind to you and Sissie; and that's right enough, for the time. Only, mind—you belong to me first. Promise not to forget."

She looked up wonderingly. "Why, Felix—how could I? You don't think I'm like that!"

"I don't know. You girls are so odd—ready to take to anybody. You may be as happy as you like: only you've got to remember that your real home is with me—I mean, with Sis and me!"

With Sis, for how long? A stab shot through the girl, and she turned her face away.

"Here, sit down. I can't see you properly, when you poke the top of your hat towards me like that. You understand?—I don't mean to leave you there long. As soon as I can possibly manage to support you both, I'll have you back in Brighton. Not in lodgings, but in a cosy little house of our own. Sis will be none the worse for two or three years of idleness first. I suppose it might be two or three years, unless she gets strong enough to teach again . . . I say, are you listening? Let me look at your face. I do believe you are going to sleep."

The brown hat had dropped against his shoulder, and Lettice drew it away with a hasty movement.

"Nonsense. People always know. I believe you are. There!—Put your head on my shoulder again, and go to sleep. You'll be all right presently."

He pulled her with rough kindness into the position suggested, pushing her hat back as he did so. The breeze, lifting her hair, made him exclaim: "I say, what a bump you got yesterday! Is that the mischief? Does it hurt?"

"Why didn't you tell me? Now shut your eyes, and be quiet. There's nobody near to look on."

Lettice made an attempt to obey, but in ten seconds the brown eyes were open again, gazing at some far-off vision, beyond the ken of Felix. He watched her with unwonted closeness. Perhaps the realisation of parting near at hand awoke a new warmth of affection. She had always been a good little sister: counted rather ordinary among themselves, a not unpleasing contrast to his clever and good-looking self. Now he was studying her purely for her own sake: and the patient sadness of the small pale face and wistful eyes woke in him an instinct of brotherly pity and protection. Had that look been there before, he wondered?

"Nothing in particular on the sea, I dare say, but something very particular in your mind. What are you dreaming about? . . . Now I mean to know . . . What was it? Dr. Bryant?"

Lettice half faltered a "No," and stopped. "Not exactly," she said faintly. She had been thinking rather of life without Sissie, at that moment.

"You were dreaming about Sis: something or other. What was it? Now I mean to know, so it's no earthly use your trying to hide it. Has Sis been making you and herself miserable about this Bristol plan?—Worrying because she can't teach? If she has, you must just not let her. Things can't be helped, and it's no use to fret."

"Then you are bothering your own brains about the journey. That's nothing. It will all go off as well as possible. Nothing to mind!"

"I'm only silly. If you wouldn't ask any more—please—" Lettice was debating with herself—should she tell him all? True, Cecilia had not meant her to know: and she had learnt the truth by accident. But now that she did know it, might she not speak freely to her brother? That was one side of the question. On the other side—why should he know so soon? Might he not keep his happy ignorance just a little longer?

Felix bent to look into her face, and she murmured: "I thought—I thought—if Sissie—"

Two great tears splashed upon his wrist, and Felix, after one quick movement, said not a word. He had had for the moment a quietus. It was Lettice, not he, who spoke next: and she had suddenly regained her usual voice.

"What can have put such an absurd notion into your head?" demanded Felix brusquely. "Has anybody been talking nonsense? Dr. Rotherbotham—?"

Lettice flushed painfully. "He didn't, indeed. Nobody has. It is only—only something I overheard Sissie say. Something I was not meant to hear. Ought I to repeat it to you? She seemed to think she—she—could not—ever be well again—"

"She meant she could not be quite as she used to be. Besides, Sissie is nervous. Sick people always are. That is nothing."

"Dr. Rotherbotham may be mistaken. It is all nonsense, Lettice. Just when she is getting on so well! Going to Bristol will make her stronger than she has been for a year past. Now mind, if you don't put this ridiculous idea out of your head, I'll give you such scolding that you'll never forget it. Sissie knows nothing whatever about the matter—or Dr. Rotherbotham either. It's absurd. Look up, and give me a smile."

Lettice obeyed. She smiled bravely-and Felix was satisfied; not noting how quickly her head was turned away again.

For himself, the instinct of his vigorous youth was to refuse to look in the face any such possibility. Why should not Cecilia recover? Why should death touch him or his? He would not believe in any such coming calamity.

CHAPTER III.

"I SHOULD like to help you, but how can I, if you do not tell me your trouble? Try to think of me as a friend," Mr. Kelly had said.

Lettice pondered over these words in the days following,—days full of preparation for the journey.

To other people it might seem that the whole bulk of the Andersons' possessions was not large enough to give trouble. Yet after six years' stay in one house, though only in lodgings, things could not have failed to accumulate. Where each item had to be considered, with reference to taking or leaving, much time might be consumed.

Cecilia was forbidden all needless exertion. She had to lie on her couch and direct others: and with the nervous excitement, not uncommon in ill health, she could know no rest. The near separation from Felix pressed upon her unceasingly; and relief from thought in bodily action was denied.

Lettice had enough to do, those days, carrying out her sister's wishes. She did it all uncomplainingly; toiled upstairs and downstairs; packed, unpacked, and repacked, to any extent. And had it not been for the weight of her new knowledge as to Cecilia's state, she would have done it all blithely, as well as uncomplainingly. That made all the difference. Courage did not fail now, but blitheness did. The strain of keeping up told upon her a good deal. She was cheerful enough, almost too cheerful, in Cecilia's presence; and Cecilia was jarred by this, even while noting a certain unnatural strain of manner.

"I should like to help you," Mr. Kelly had said; and Lettice wondered what kind of help he meant. Suppose she were to tell him all, as he had suggested; to open out the dread which had fallen upon her life.

Lettice was to some extent reserved, but it was by training, not by nature. The desire for sympathy and help from another grew upon her in those days. To break through Cecilia's barrier of silence she felt to be an utter impossibility; and Felix had refused to accept the truth—had almost refused to hear what she had to say.

But Mr. Kelly knew already; he knew from Cecilia's own lips how matters were; and he might even be able to assure Lettice that things were not so bad as she feared. She had not heard all, or nearly all, that had passed between him and Cecilia. Some word of hope might have fallen later, which she had missed, and which he could repeat.

Lettice dwelt upon this possibility, until it gained large proportions; and the formal call upon Mr. Kelly, which at first she had shrunk from, became a necessity. Questions of propriety had not yet begun to trouble Lettice; indeed, she counted herself still a child, and Mr. Kelly, albeit a bachelor, was on the highroad to forty. Her hesitation sprang from shyness, and shyness yielded to the stronger desire for comfort.

Mr. Kelly, returning one day from a round of visits among the poor, was told that somebody awaited him in his study; and, proceeding thither, he found himself face to face with Lettice.

"How do you do?" he said kindly. "Is this a good-bye call? I have just been to your lodgings, but your sister was not well enough to see me. They tell me that you leave in three days."

Did he mean what he said? When he knew that Cecilia could never recover! Or did he still think, like Felix, in spite of all, that she might get well? She did not remember, perhaps did not know, that patients even when marked for death have still their ups and downs, and often seem for a time to be improving.

"Yes? Would I mind telling you—what?" queried the clergyman. "Anything that is in my power. Would you not like to sit down?"

Lettice shook her head, and stood firm, grasping the back of a chair. She was doubtful as to the extent of her own self-control, and flight would be easier thus.

"What is it that you want me to tell you? Something to do with—Come, what is it?" encouragingly.

"I am afraid I do not." Mr. Kelly had had a busy day, and a mind full of other matters, including worries innumerable. Even the fruitless call upon Miss Anderson had failed to bring up with any vividness his last conversation with her, or his after-suspicion that Lettice might have heard something of it. He had the train of circumstances in possession: but at this moment, they lay in the background of his memory, not quite ready to hand. He looked dubiously with gentle eyes upon the child, repeating, "I am afraid that I do not. Cannot you explain a little further? Just a word or two more?"

"You do, really. Please, please remember. That day when you said—said you would help me—if—"

"Yes. I would help you—if—Go on, Lettice." He had once or twice considered whether he ought to begin calling her "Miss Lettice Anderson," after Cecilia's intimation of her years: but the notion vanished now. She was such a mere pale child, with troubled brow and brave lips. "Poor little girl!" he said compassionately. "Now see if you can make me understand what is the matter. I said I would help you—if—yes, of course I will. If—what? I—I wonder whether—perhaps—there may be a little difficulty—I mean, a difficulty as to all the expenses of the move, and the journey. You must not mind my asking this. I should be so very glad—"

Lettice spoke hurriedly, conscious how displeased Cecilia would have been at the bare suggestion of pecuniary help. "O no, indeed! It is only—only about her! She told you—and I want so very very much to know—if—if it is true?"

Recollections were dawning now: and the sound of the sob, which had haunted him for hours, came back. He hoped no tears might be impending. Nothing made him more unhappy than to see a child cry.

"If you would please just tell me! I know something—but I think—I don't think—I am not sure—and perhaps—" Lettice strained one hand in a fierce pull against the other, as words struggled for utterance. "If you only would please understand—and tell me—"

"Has Miss Anderson been talking to you about herself?" cautiously asked Mr. Kelly. "About her health?"

"Or anybody else?" Another negative. "But you are anxious. Is not that it? Lettice, were you asleep that day, when she and I had a little talk, and she did not know you to be present? Last time I called. Were you really asleep?"

"I am sorry. It was very wrong of you. Never listen to what you are not meant to hear. Surely you know that it is not quite—not at all honourable! Why did you not get up and come forward at once?"

"I couldn't!" She lifted her face sorrowfully. "I did not mean to do wrong, but I could not help it. I couldn't move. And then—Sissie—"

"O no: she would have been so unhappy. It would have made her ill. And indeed I did not mean to listen. I only heard just a few words; and then—then I felt so strange—and then Sissie found me out. Please, I can't talk—only I do want just to know if—"

"If any hope exists still? I think that, in a certain sense, while there is life, there is always room for hope. Sometimes a doctor may be mistaken. Sometimes illness is lengthened out indefinitely."

Mr. Kelly did not think so. Cecilia had spoken in no doubting accents; and he knew Dr. Rotherbotham to be a man of cautious speech. He stood in silence, uncertain what reply to make; and Lettice knew what the silence meant.

"I can only say that we must leave the future in wiser Hands," he at length uttered. "Impossible to look forward: and we are but children—not knowing what is best. Not able even to guess. Lettice, don't you think you want help for yourself—help for the carrying of this trouble? It comes heavily on you, poor child!"

"Your sister could not see me to-day; and she may not be equal to another interview before you go . . . But there is one thing that we can both do for her: we can pray . . . I wonder if you often pray! . . . She is in God's hands; and He is very near to us. Always near. We cannot speak without His hearing. He sees all your sorrow now, and He is grieved for you. Would it not be a comfort to ask His help? Shall we do so now?"

Then, as they stood, a few petitions were breathed forth reverently: the clergyman bending his head low, while Lettice never stirred. It was such prayer as seemed to take the absent one, and to lay her in Divine protecting Arms.

"Teach her the road to Thee; and so bring her safely to Thy Home of Peace; and comfort this poor child of Thine, for Christ's sake," were the closing words.

Lettice was conscious of a soothed sensation; even while the knowledge that he so fully accepted the hopeless condition of Cecilia's health brought sharper heart-ache. She was on the verge of a break-down, and might no longer trust her own voice; but this he could not guess, and her immobility perplexed him.

"I shall pray often for her and for you. That at least is in my power. And remember, if at any time you are in difficulties, and will write to me, I will do all that I can . . . Meanwhile, try not to look forward. Take each day as it comes, looking up for strength; and you will be carried through. Even now, if God wills, He is able to make your sister well again. And if—"

Lettice put out her hand. "Good-bye," she said. "Please let me go." The next word was more than she could endure.

The girl's hasty utterance drowned his "If not—," which was too far advanced to receive a check. He understood then, and paused compassionately.

"Well, good-bye. But you are going to be brave, I am sure, for your sister's sake. Some day you will write, and tell me all about yourselves. Will you not? And I shall often see Felix."

Lettice gave him one glance of gratitude, and rushed away. Mr. Kelly turned back into his study, with eyes not perfectly dry.

With the day fixed for the journey came a heavy snowstorm, but Cecilia would not hear of delay. Everything was settled: boxes were packed; Dr. Bryant would expect their arrival. A restless desire to have the parting over, and to be off, possessed her. Moreover, barely enough money remained, to pay part of the landlady's claims, to meet the expenses of the journey, and to supply the present needs of Felix.

Dr. Rotherbotham had given a conditional leave for his invalid to start, dependent on her state and on the weather. That she should go off in a snowstorm was the last thing he would have desired or imagined possible; but all opposition went down before Cecilia's will. Felix, who alone might have resisted it successfully, did not recognise the peril. He suggested an appeal to the doctor, and this Cecilia forbade. She silenced Lettice, would not listen to Mrs. Crofton, and declared that go she must and would.

Felix saw them off. To the last, he talked gaily of the little future home. While Cecilia spoke few words, but held his arm in a voiceless clutch, till the boy glanced round, ashamed, to see if any one were looking. Cecilia had never in her life, since babyhood, been seen to weep, and no tears came now.

Lettice listened to her brother's talk, and to his frequent directions, with a bewildered brain. London—cab—porters—tickets—luggage: it all had to be seen to, and she was courageously bent on doing her best. But she felt that they were going out into a wide world, unprotected; and the end of the journey seemed incalculably far-away.

"You'll have to keep your wits about you, Lettice; not let them go wool-gathering. I have asked the guard to have an eye on you both; but you must not depend on Sis, and the guard will only go as far as Victoria. Sis isn't fit for worry; and I shall not be there: so you must see to everything. Mind you count the packages, and don't lose any. You always do blunder, if you can; but to-day you must not. And, remember, you belong to me; not to those people. Don't get too fond of Dr. Bryant."

"I'll try." She longed to say how impossible it was that she should ever love anybody like Sissie or Felix; but she could not trust herself.

A few minutes more, and the train moved. Cecilia leant back, with shut eyes and wan look. In this parting, she tasted the bitterness of death; and not even Lettice, seated patiently by her side, knew half that it was to her, because not even Lettice knew the extent of her idolising love for Felix.

Outside the two closed windows went on a whirl of snowflakes, and many were driven in through crevices; for third-class carriages are not commonly built for inclement weather. The cold was piercing. Hot-water cans cooled fast; and Lettice soon found herself shivering. She had nothing wherewith to occupy her mind; and they had the compartment to themselves. Cecilia never lifted her eyelids, nor uttered a word.

Haywards Heath, at last! Only Haywards Heath! The journey seemed interminable to Lettice so far: and a blank realisation came of all that lay ahead. They had to reach London: to cross to Paddington: to travel down to Bristol: and even then a country drive of unknown length remained.

Lettice glanced at her sister's face, and found no cheer there. It had not only a sombre, but a sunken look. If already thus exhausted, how would she bear the fatigues of the whole day?

"Sissie is thinking of Felix. She will make herself ill! If I could but comfort her!" murmured Lettice.

She drew nearer, and laid a hand on Cecilia's, lovingly. Demonstrations of affection between the two were not common: but to Lettice they were natural, only Cecilia's reserve kept her in check: and it was something unusual for Lettice thus to take the initiative. She had always been in complete and even childish subservience to her half-sister. Now she felt herself in charge of the invalid, responsible for her well-doing: and the little tender action came involuntarily.

It did not seem to be a success. Cecilia opened her eyes, drew her brows slightly together, and with an impatient gesture pulled away the hand which Lettice touched.

The sharpness of tone sprang from bitter pain, and Lettice knew it: but none the less, she found that sharpness hard to bear. Was not the same pain of parting hers? She too wanted comfort, and she might have found comfort in comforting Cecilia, had not that been denied her? The check was just the one drop too much, and tears came thickly, obscuring her vision as they fell. She was too much absorbed to hear the slight bustle of somebody stepping in at the further end, and she did not at first notice that the train was again in motion. It was needful to master herself, before Cecilia's attention should be drawn and this proved not easy.

Presently the fact dawned upon her that she and Cecilia were no longer alone. Somebody sat opposite to herself—somebody at first indistinct through the haze of tears, but taking shape in time as a girl several years older than herself, dressed in a navy-blue serge costume of severe outlines, a long black cloak, and a black bonnet with white strings. The newcomer had dark eyes and pretty rosy cheeks: and she was bending a little forward, to study Lettice.

"Oh—it doesn't matter," said Lettice, endeavouring to sit upright and to assume a sprightly air.

Lettice tried to smile, but not successfully. The stranger came over to the seat by her side.

"Now tell me: I want to know what is wrong. Something must have distressed you just before I came in. You had not been crying long. What was it, I wonder? . . . Is that your mother or—your sister?—" in surprise. "I should not have guessed it. She has been ill, I see. Isn't this rather bad weather for her to travel?"

"My brother—in Brighton. Sissie can't teach any more, and so we can't stay in Brighton," explained Lettice, with childish frankness. "We are going to live near Bristol, with an uncle that I have never seen. And—Felix—"

"Tell me a little about yourselves. Keeping up bravely is all right: but just once in a way one has to give in. Don't you think so? Wouldn't a good cry make you feel better?"

"Would it distress her? But she doesn't seem to notice us. Perhaps she is resting. Now I am going to tell you who I am. My name is Nurse Valentine, and my business in life is to take care of sick people. So I have come to the right part of the train, haven't I? And my home is close to Reading. We can go through London together, if you like. Do you think you can trust me? I'm such a stranger."

Lettice responded to questioning, and various particulars oozed out about herself, about Cecilia's illness, about the sorrow of leaving Felix, about the unknown Dr. Bryant. She did not definitely tell what she knew of Cecilia's real state: but the weight of foreboding which underlay all else was easily detected by Nurse Valentine's observant eyes, and its cause was soon conjectured.

The relief of free speech was great. Lettice's brow lost some of its strain, her eyes some of their forlornness: and Nurse Valentine's hand coming between hers was held tightly.

"Is there? But Sissie is too ill. I must not trouble her. And she never likes people to cry. And Felix—" Lettice had to set her teeth rigidly again. "And—and—I'm so—stupid."

"Never mind that; you are not too stupid to feel sorrow, or to need comfort. Don't you know Whom I mean? ONE is always near. You can't get beyond reach of God's loving pity, Lettice. If you have no other friend, you have Him."

"Try, next time you feel lonely, try speaking to Him, and telling Him your need . . . Now you are to curl yourself up in the farther corner; and you are not to look at anything or anybody till we get to London. I'll see after your sister."

Lettice was sure Cecilia would brook no interference from a stranger, but she could not say so in words, and Nurse Valentine disregarded protesting looks. She watched in fear from her corner Nurse Valentine's first move to Cecilia's side, saw her stoop and murmur something, and saw that the advance was not repelled. Then in the relief of shifted responsibility, she fell asleep.

"Don't be in a flurry. We are close to Victoria. Lettice, must you go on to-day? You could not spend a night or two in London?"

"I don't think she is well enough for the full journey; but in that case, it must be risked."

Lettice became aware that Cecilia was not in the same state as when they had left home. Then she had stood about, and had even walked a short distance. Now she had to be lifted from the train to the carriage; and again at Paddington from the carriage to the train. She made no complaints, and scarcely spoke, but her face wore unmistakable signs of acute suffering. Nurse Valentine counted it very doubtful whether she would be able to reach Bristol that afternoon: and her busy brain revolved different schemes.

"I can't leave that child alone to sink or swim. It wouldn't be Christian. I don't know when I have seen a face that appeals to one more. Miss Anderson, I am afraid, is in a bad way. They seem given over into my charge. I shall have to go on to Bristol, or else take them home with me . . . Which is best, I wonder? . . . She isn't fit for the journey. Well, I shall see presently."

They drew near in time to Reading. Nurse Valentine knew this, from her acquaintance with the country; and Lettice seemed to guess it, intuitively.

Nurse Valentine moved away to bend over Cecilia. A few low words passed between them; and she returned to Lettice.

"No, my dear, I am not going to forsake you. Your sister cannot travel so far as Bristol to-day. I shall take you both to my home."

"Home with you?" Lettice's whole face changed, pallor vanished, and her eyes shone with delight! "Oh, how good, how good you are: I can never, never thank you."

"Hush, don't let Miss Anderson hear; it is the only plan; but I have not told her yet. I wish we did not live so far out of Reading—nearly two miles—but it cannot be helped. I shall leave word with our doctor in passing, and a telegram must be sent to your uncle."

"Cannot you?" The train was slackening speed; but Nurse Valentine lingered a moment. "I have a dear Master, Lettice, and I think He is giving me this to do. My work is only to obey. The trouble! Oh, that is nothing. People cannot do anything worth doing without trouble; and always to be trying to save oneself is so contemptible. Trouble was the last thing our Lord ever thought about, when He was on earth; and it ought to be our last thought also."

CHAPTER IV.

"IT'S snowing still, father. Almost as hard as ever. Will Bertha come, do you think?"

"She told me not to mind, if anything did make her put off. She might be wanted a day or two longer, just at last. But it isn't Bertha's way to mind weather."

"Anyhow, the room is ready—Bertha's own little room. She says she always loves so to think of that room, when she's nursing her hardest cases. It seems like a sort of rest. And she knows everything there is always the same."

Mrs. Valentine lifted her face from a half-made stocking as she spoke, a sweet elderly face, pale yet fresh, pure and contented, in full enjoyment still of life. The robust elderly man opposite was just as fine a specimen of manhood as she of womanhood, perhaps handsomer, but of far rougher outlines, hale and hearty, vigorous and sunburnt, with broad toil-worn hands.

William Valentine's forefathers had owned this farm, and indeed the whole little village, during generations past; and the property had been a valuable one: but with depreciation of land had come heavy losses, and the present owner was a far poorer man than his father or grandfather. It was all he could do to hold things together, and his children's expectations had dwindled to a fine thread. Notwithstanding pecuniary embarrassments, the man was thoroughly liked, thoroughly esteemed, in the country round; not so much for his position as for himself.

He was squire of the village as well as farmer: to the cottagers a very grand personage indeed; and the friend of each one among them. His wife called him always, with great particularity, "a gentleman-farmer," while Mr. Valentine was rarely at the pains to tack on that preliminary descriptive word. He prided himself on being "a plain farmer, one of the good old yeomanry!" And while in truth a gentleman at heart: in sincerity, in kindliness, in honourable feeling and right principle, he lacked polish of manner, and was bluntly straightforward, even to a fault.

All the same, William Valentine knew, and delighted in knowing, that his sweet old lady wife came from a far more refined stock than his own; and nothing pleased him better than to trace her refinement of look and bearing in some—not all!—of his children. With aught of affectation, he had no patience: but he could recognise real refinement where it existed, though he would congratulate himself with a chuckle that his only son, and still more his youngest girl, were "chips of the old block." By which term, he did not designate his wife.

"She knows nothing in that room is ever changed," repeated Mrs. Valentine, looking with tender eyes upon her broad-shouldered husband. "Prue dusts every inch of it herself, and won't let a servant go in when Bertha is away. Bertha does love that room."

"And when she comes back she is so happy. I hope she'll give us a few weeks at home now: before she goes out nursing again. But there is no knowing. Bertha always seems ready for work. If anything turns up, she'll want to do it."

"But I hope she won't put off. Such a storm! And it is four months since we had her here last. Prue, do you think Bertha will come?"

An upright and self-controlled young woman entered, the eldest daughter, not far from thirty in age. Prudence Valentine was counted by some people rather estimable than lovable: perhaps only by those who did not know her well. Few did know her thoroughly well, however.

This farm drawing room or chief sitting room was large, and square in shape, well-furnished too in a cumbrous and old-fashioned style. A huge round table occupied the centre; and ornaments were few. "Gimcrack rubbish! Made to be knocked down and broken. No earthly good!" was Mr. Valentine's verdict on such articles. "Give me a room fit for use, where one needn't be afraid to move:" and his womankind obeyed. He had always had the upper hand, in appearance. Secretly, his wife with her softer touch managed him entirely; and in his heart he knew it; but then she never frittered away strength in needless skirmishes.

"I don't think so. The girl was well days ago. They have only kept Bertha on, because they have grown fond of her."

Prue's impassive eyes gleamed a faint assent. "We will have tea ready, mother. She cannot be long now."

"Don't you be too sure. Snow hinders trains," said Mr. Valentine. "Where's Wallace?"

"Nan catch cold! Ha! Ha! That's good," laughed Mr. Valentine. "My dear, you'd better let your one wild colt have her way. She'll never turn into a Prue or a Bertha. Be content with two after your own mind."

He threw his newspaper aside, crossed over, and stooped to kiss her brow, reverently, as if touching a creature of some superior order. The sweet eyes smiled up at him in placid response; and he strolled off, humming a tuneless tune.

Deep under the surface of his rugged yeoman nature was a passion of love for this wife, who nearly forty years earlier had stepped down to his level for love of him, and had never since faltered in her wifely submission. Submission!—Yes, that was true. None the less, if she set her foot upon a thing, he had to do her will: while if he set his, she yielded, but not at all because she had to do so.

"Must love be blind? But you don't think so, mother. Bertha is right to work. We have little enough to depend on, in our future. If I could be spared, I would do something too. Perhaps, when Nan is older—"

"Perhaps not." Prue had had her longings, which she had smothered down for Bertha's sake.

She might have to crush them again, for Nan's sake. Not that she had not the first right of choice, but that she could not trust Nan to do her work at home. It was always an understood thing in the household that "Prue couldn't be spared." Other people might please themselves; but not Prue. Usually she acquiesced in this view of affairs, accepting the manner of life appointed to her. Now and then a restless wave would arise, and sometimes the top curled over,—not often in Mrs. Valentine's presence.

"If I did—" and a pause. The wave had spent itself. "People can't always do exactly what they wish. Bertha was wild for years to be a nurse. It is her vocation. I'm never wild after anything, you know; and I should not be happy away from home—unless I could be sure of your comfort. Nan is no good."

Prue glided away; and Mrs. Valentine sat meditating, mother fashion, over her children. Prue seemed usually so calm and content. Had she too caught the prevalent spirit of the age?

A cab at the door; not heard in its approach through the snow. Bertha, of course!

They crowded into the hall to welcome her; father and mother, eldest daughter and eager servants. Wallace came rushing through a back-door, just in time, a big loose-limbed youth of nineteen or twenty: and close behind was a girl, almost equally big, light-haired and uncouth. Bertha hurried into the midst of them, her dark eyes shining, her pretty cheeks brilliant, her long cloak tossed by the wind.

"No, don't shut the door. Not yet. Mother, I mustn't lose a moment. I've brought some one home to be nursed. It couldn't be helped—there was nothing else to be done. Will you forgive me? She's alone with her little girl—such a dear child—her little sister, I mean. Miss Anderson has been ill, and the long journey is too much for her. It would half kill her to go on to Bristol to-day. My room is ready, of course, and she can sleep there. Never mind about me. Any corner will do—besides, I shall sit up with her to-night. Say I was right! I did think of going on with them, and telegraphing to you from Bristol, but she isn't fit, and I knew you would all be disappointed. Was I wrong? I left word with Mr. Jasper to call. He is on his rounds now. Have I done rightly, father?"

"Shouldn't—wonder!" Mr. Valentine said slowly. "Seems to me you hadn't much choice. Eh?" and he looked in appeal to his wife, conscious that his approval without hers would not settle the matter.

Lettice was helped out first, and consigned to Nan—a worn-out child, bewildered with the sadden glare of light and the crowd of strange faces. Her quiet life hitherto had known no such transitions; and the morning strain had told upon her—all the more in appearance, because now she no longer had the pull of responsibility. Nan, obeying a whispered order, took her into the drawing room, and banged the door—which bang woke Lettice up.

"Please let me go. Sissie will want me." She did not know who Nan might be: but the rough grasp hurt her arm, and aroused a latent spirit of opposition. Lettice could be controlled with a rein of silk by those whom she loved: but side by side with her powers of endurance dwelt powers of resistance.

Nan, in answer, set her back against the door, and shook her unkempt hair in a manner somewhat exasperating. The prominent light eyes stared out of the robust face, with wondering interest, into the little pale visage opposite.

A cry from without sounded in Cecilia's voice—not loud, but distinctly an utterance of Lettice's name; and it startled Lettice into wild action. She pleaded no more, but flung herself on Nan, and for the moment she prevailed. Before Nan could guess what was coming, Lettice had dragged her aside, and was in the passage. Then Nan was there also, and had Lettice in a grip, against which the younger girl struggled in vain. Cecilia was by this time out of sight, round the first bend in the stairs, being carried by the strong farmer and his son, the others following. She did not call again, but the one appeal had been enough for Lettice.

"It's no good, you know. I'm best at that," said Nan coolly, as the whole weight and force of her young companion were launched into a desperate effort to escape. "I was told to keep you down here: and I'll do it. Why, the poor thing doesn't half know what she's doing. She's off her head with—I say! It's no good. You're best out-of-the-way. Bertha's there, and that's enough. Hallo!"

An abrupt relaxation of Lettice's efforts caused Nan to overbalance herself. The two came down in a heap together,—Lettice underneath. Nan alone sprang up.

"I say! What next?" She tugged at the arm of Lettice. "I say—get up. What's the matter?"

"What are you after now?" demanded another voice, as the half-stunned Lettice made a movement to obey. "Nan; you clumsy thing! Look here! You wretch. See those poor little wrists. What were you doing? Keeping her here! That's a pretty way to keep a guest. As if Bertha meant you to behave so. Get some water."

"O no; I'm all right," said Lettice, managing to find her feet. "Please don't hinder me. I must go to Sissie."

"You can't just now. Prue and Bertha are there, and too many nurses would be in the way. Don't you see? Nan has squeezed your poor little wrists, clumsy thing that she is!" He took one of them in his broad hand, and looked pityingly at the soft skin, reddened and swollen.

"Nan!" repeated Lettice vaguely. "Oh, it doesn't matter. I only want to go to Sissie—my sister, I mean. She called me."

"That's Bertha. Didn't you know. Nurse Valentine is our sister. She told your sister you were all right. And the doctor's coming directly: and you couldn't do anything. You're awfully tired, are you not?—You poor little thing!"

"It doesn't matter. If only I could go to Sissie!" pleaded Lettice in distress, as he led her back to the drawing room.

"Now, you listen. I'll promise. If Bertha comes, and says your sister wants you, I won't keep you back. You just lie down on the sofa in this corner, and get half-an-hour's rest. And if you go to sleep, I'll wake you up—I mean, when Bertha says you're wanted. See!—Won't that do? You look as if you hadn't slept for a month past."

"Well, you'll sleep now. Just pull off your hat: and here's a shawl to put over you. You're to have a cup of hot tea—it's waiting now—and then a sleep: and then you'll be fit for anything. And Nan shan't come near you."

"Well, then, bring a cup of tea, Nan: and after that, be off!" commanded Wallace.

Nan obeyed humbly: nearly turned the tea over Lettice in her agitation: and stooped to kiss the wrists she had squeezed. After which she fled.

"He found her struggling with Nan, to get to her sister. Some one seems to have told Nan to keep her away: and I suppose Nan was rough."

"Wallace can't take his eyes off her. She does look so sweet, lying there, I hardly wonder at him."

"And Wallace is always gentle to anything weak. That's the best of him. I wish Nan were the same."

"Mother," after a pause, "it is a question whether the poor thing upstairs will get through the night."

"The attack must have been coming on before she started. She might rally again; but it will be only for a time. She can never be well."

"I can't tell. I thought so, from some of her answers to the doctor's questions. But she hides her feelings so carefully—except when she begins to wander. It's a mercy I stopped their going on; she might never have reached Dr. Bryant's alive. And the poor child with her—"

"Prue will be in charge till half-past ten; and then I shall take her for the night. If Prue wants me, she will ring."

Bertha went softly into the drawing room; and found Lettice there, heavily asleep, lying flat in a position of profound weariness. The child-like sweetness of her face impressed Bertha as it had impressed Mrs. Valentine. One hand was thrown out unconsciously; and Wallace drew Bertha's attention to the discoloured wrist.

"Keep her quiet for the present. By-and-by she must go to bed. Our coming in and out doesn't wake her."

"A thunder-clap wouldn't, I believe. But I promised one thing. If Miss Anderson wants her—that's to say, if you tell me Miss Anderson wants her—I must rouse her up."

Bertha was silent; and Wallace did not look up, or ask questions. He had worded his promise carefully, and he now repeated it carefully, relieving his conscience, and shifting responsibility from himself to Bertha. She stood silent, conjecturing how far she might be bound by Wallace's promise. Cecilia did want Lettice, and asked for her incessantly: yet it was better for the two to be apart, at least for a while, and to awaken Lettice now would be absolute cruelty. Bertha could not do it, looking on the wan little face.

"Wallace had no authority to promise for me: and if I do not speak, he need not act," she decided, and moved away.

An hour later, finding Lettice still asleep, her resolution remained the same. She had the child carried upstairs and put to bed in Prue's room: and Lettice never opened her eyes. "It will not do. I must risk delay," Bertha said.

Six o'clock in the morning. The long night was over at last: a night long both to the invalid and to her nurse. Bertha would have no help. She knew what to do, and Prue was forbidden to come before a certain hour, unless summoned.

If Cecilia Anderson lived through the night, hope would revive; hope, at least, of a temporary rally. Again and again this "if" seemed to hang on the merest spider-line. Again and again Bertha actually held in her hand the bell-rope, one pull of which would summon Wallace, to be sent to Prue, with word that Lettice must come. He did not know how the sick woman cried out for Lettice, in her half-wandering state. He had heard an occasional call, as he passed near the room, but no words were to be distinguished. Bertha was resolved that Miss Anderson should not pass away without a sight of the child; but also she was resolved not to call Lettice sooner than might be essential.

"Would you like to see a clergyman?" she had asked on the previous evening: and an abrupt negative was returned. Bertha could not force the matter. All she could do through the long night-hours, was to watch for opportunities to whisper sometimes a short prayer, to murmur occasionally a few words from the Bible, or the verse of a hymn. Bertha was a good and earnest girl. It might be quite true, as Prue had said, that she was naturally eager and restless, naturally fond of work and fond of change; but also she was a girl of right principle and of deep religious feeling, a "servant of Jesus Christ" in heart.

Her efforts met with small response, however. If Cecilia heard, she did not seem to heed, with one exception. Bertha, standing by her side, said slowly—

"'Let the unrighteous man forsake his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him: and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.'"

At six o'clock, according to arrangement, Prue came, and Bertha left the room. Miss Anderson greeted Prue with a look of welcome; strange to say, warmer than any she had accorded to Bertha. Something in the quiet and self-contained bearing of the elder sister attracted her, while Bertha's eager pretty manner seemed to have a reverse effect. The last hour there had been some slight improvement; yet Prue noted a strangeness of the sick woman's eyes.

"Come here. I want to speak to you," Cecilia said impatiently. "Is that other girl gone? She means well, but she worries me. She will not let me alone, and I can't get to Lettice. I want my little Lettice back again. That girl will not let her come. Everything that I love is going from me. Call Lettice, if you please."

Prue knelt down on a stool by her side, wearing a face less impassive than often, because it was full of pity. "I am going to stay with you for a little while," she said. "Lettice shall come by-and-by."

CHAPTER V.

SATURDAY afternoon! Felix had been for a sharp walk, to get rid of certain lonely sensations, which were likely enough to assail a young fellow during his first few days away from home. Not that he had left his home, but that his home had left him: and this made matters worse. For he had not the interest of new surroundings. He was in the same place and under the same roof as before; only all that had made the house his home was withdrawn from it.

Like a good many others of his age and standing, Felix had sometimes chafed against certain restrictions, counted needful by the half-sister who had been to him as a parent. Freedom had a charm for him, as for not a few. Yet, now that the restrictions were gone, now that liberty was obtained, now that he might come and go and do as he chose, he found himself more conscious of loss than of gain.

Though not free from work till after dark, he had then started off immediately for a brisk walk along the Parade, doing two miles out and two back in something under an hour. The rapid motion was a relief after long-standing, and it overcame a slight tendency to low spirits, from which he had suffered all day.

Such snow as had fallen on Thursday was gone from Brighton: and he scarcely noticed the ice-cold wind, for his mind was intent on other matters.

He had a definite and absorbing aim before him. Felix meant—not only meant, but was resolutely determined—to get on in life. He had no idea of resting content with his present position. Getting on would mean hard work: and he was willing to work hard. He intended to succeed: to climb from step to step, to win confidence and approval, to leave the stationer's shop in his rear, to make money, to secure a home for his sisters. So far as all this went, it was right. The aim was a commendable aim in itself: only it lacked something. He did not look up for Divine Blessing on his purpose. He did not whisper, "If God will."

Except for this lack, the boy meant well. A certain amount of egoism might mingle with his dreams: yet a silver thread of unselfishness ran through them also. Cecilia's devotion to him in the past, he accepted, as boys do accept such devotion, merely as a matter of course and no more than his due. Nevertheless, he realised that his turn had come, and he longed to work for her: and when the thought came up of Lettice's pale face and sad eyes, his own eyes grew dim. Felix was glad of the darkness, that nobody might see.

"Lettice shall always be mine, never Dr. Bryant's," he declared to himself. Then he wondered, as he had wondered twenty times that day, how soon a letter would arrive. Surely Lettice might have written the day after their arrival.

Felix had hardly yet begun to dream of another kind of love, a closer tie than that of sister and brother. Many boys begin long before they reach his age: but he was young for his years, a thorough home-lad, and he had mixed little in society of any kind.

Cecilia's proud reticence had come in the way here of what might have been for his advantage. He had formed two or three friendships in his school-days, permitted though not encouraged by her: but the friends so made had recently left Brighton, for India and the Colonies. Felix was left stranded, without a single real friend in all Brighton, at the moment when he most needed friends, and with few acquaintances.

He was almost as slow as Cecilia herself in "taking to" strangers. There were two or three other young fellows at the stationer's, beside one rather older man named Andrews, and Mr. Thompson himself, Felix' employer. Felix was respectful to Mr. Thompson, submissive to Andrews, and on the alert to do his work well: but personally, he cared for none of them, perhaps because he would not care, would not take the trouble to know any of them sufficiently well for indifference to pass into liking. After Cecilia's style, he held aloof, and thereby made himself disliked. A man who would have friends must "show himself friendly."

"I shall not live this sort of life always. I am made for something better," he would say to himself, when he found that his own repellent bearing was inducing the same from others. He forgot that whether or no some other mode of life might be "better," according to his views, yet so long as he did live "this sort of life," he owed courtesy and kindness to those about him. Or perhaps it was not so much that he forgot, as that he did not know. Cecilia's training, moral and religious, of this dearly loved young brother had been defective.

"I am made for something better," Felix declared again, late that Saturday afternoon, as he left the Parade and strode through the dark streets towards his now lonely home. "Something will turn up, sooner or later. I will get on! I'll let them know that I'm up to work, and then, when an opening comes—"

"How do you do?" a voice said, and Felix found himself, under the lamplight, face to face with Mr. Kelly.

The clergyman looked younger, more frail, and more at his ease, than when visiting Cecilia Anderson. Felix paused less reluctantly than he would have paused a week earlier. In his present loneliness, a friendly word was not to be counted worthless.

"How do you do, Anderson? Quite well? So you have not yet heard of your sisters' safe arrival?"

"I called at your door just now, in passing, to ask. And Mrs. Crofton says that a letter is awaiting you. She hopes it may contain news of them."

"A strange handwriting, Mrs. Crofton said—though that was hardly her business or mine." Mr. Kelly turned, and walked beside Felix. "You will be impatient to have your letter."

"Dr. Rotherbotham told me I had no business to let them start. But—I don't know how I was to help it. Cecilia always has her own way. I suppose it's all right. Ill news would be sure to travel fast. Only I did think Lettice would drop me a line."

"I should like to hear about them before long. Will you come in to supper with me to-morrow evening, after Church?"

Mr. Kelly smiled, and the smile lent to his face a peculiar attractiveness. Somehow he had never felt disposed to smile in Cecilia's presence. "Only in the morning?" he asked. "But come to supper just the same. At half-past eight."

Felix agreed, with the private addition, "I needn't stay long, if he begins to preach."

Then Mr. Kelly crossed the road, to speak to somebody who seemed to be waiting for a word: while Felix dashed on to his own door, less than half-a-street distant.

On the step, Mrs. Crofton met him. "A letter at last, sir. But it isn't from Miss Anderson nor Miss Lettice. I know their handwritings."

Mrs. Crofton's lower jaw dropped, and she burst into a series of exclamations. Felix read his note again, deaf to her audible astonishment!

"QUARRINGTON COTTAGE

"Friday afternoon.

"DEAR ANDERSON,—My niece and Lettice did not arrive yesterday; and no letter has come to-day. The weather has been sufficient to account for delay; but I think a telegram might have been sent, to prevent my useless drive into Bristol. Pray let me know when I am to expect them.—

"Yours faithfully,

"MAURICE BRYANT."

It relieved Felix to give out this information fiercely, almost as if the landlady herself were to blame; and the colouring on her high cheek-bones perceptibly lessened.

A railway accident! A collision, and everybody killed! The train snowed up, and passengers frozen to death! These were only a few of the suggestions, poured out in a stream for the further distraction of Felix. Or Miss Anderson has been taken suddenly worse, and they had had to stop half-way. This came nearer the mark, and had also a greater air of probability; and the conjecture filled Felix with foreboding. No light cause would, he knew, have delayed Cecilia. She must have been ill indeed, before she would have resolved to sacrifice her ticket and that of Lettice, and to go to the heavy expense of lodgings or hotel. How such expense could be met, Felix had no idea. He was only convinced that Cecilia would not incur it, short of absolute necessity. Then came the question, why had not Lettice written? Surely her first impulse would have been to tell Felix all!

Mrs. Crofton enlarged upon possibilities, wiping her eyes. "I always did say things was sure to go wrong! Sending them two poor innocents off, all that way, and not a soul to take care of 'em. And Miss Anderson no more fit to travel—! And that there awful snowstorm! And as for Miss Lettice—poor little angel! O dear, dear! But, there, you'll go after them, wherever they be, Mr. Felix! Of course you'll go, this minute."

Felix was divided between a strong sense of dismay at the mystery, and a strong inclination to laugh at Cecilia being termed a "poor innocent." Dismay won the day. "How can I? There's no money; and I don't know where to go," he said.

Then, snatching up his cap, he hurried out of the house, with an idea of overtaking Mr. Kelly. He was too late, for the clergyman had disappeared. Felix hesitated some seconds, and sped to the nearest post-office, whence he despatched a brief telegram to Dr. Bryant, intimating how matters stood. After which, he found his way to the Vicarage, arriving barely in time. Mr. Kelly was on the doorstep, gloves in hand.

"Sorry I can't wait: I have an engagement," were words upon Mr. Kelly's very lips, but he did not utter them. "Yes," he said. "You are in trouble. Come in. I can spare five minutes. What is it?"

He turned back into the house, and Felix followed, out of breath with his run. Mrs. Crofton's various suggestions had haunted him by turns as he came; the least probable causing perhaps the most uneasiness. Worst of all was his own sense of helplessness. Yet, he said little, but placed before Mr. Kelly the short letter he received.

"This is strange. Miss Anderson must have stopped somewhere short of Bristol. It looks a little—I am afraid—as if she had been too unwell to continue the journey. I do not understand why neither you nor Dr. Bryant have heard."

"That is the puzzle. Cecilia would not stop without very strong reason. She isn't one to give in easily. And surely Lettice might have telegraphed."

"It seems so at first sight. Telegraphed or written. I hope that their not sending word is a good sign. No doubt they have delayed, with the wish to save you needless anxiety."

For a moment this thought brought relief. "To be sure, it might be that. It would be like them. They might guess, though, that not hearing anything would be as bad. And why did not Lettice telegraph to Dr. Bryant? It ought to have been done."

"People do not always exercise commonsense. Miss Anderson may have been—not well enough—and Lettice is so young for her age."

"You have telegraphed to Dr. Bryant already. He may possibly have received news since sending off his note; and if so, you will hear again. Very likely you will have a letter from Lettice in the course of the day. I think, however, that you would be wise to go to the station this evening, and to make a few inquiries. Perhaps the guard of the train may remember if they reached Victoria."

"Then he would tell you at least so much. If he saw them there, they must now be either in London, or somewhere on the way to Bristol. You are almost certain to hear something, at latest, by the morning's post."

"Then we must consider what step to take next. I cannot wait longer now, as I am overdue elsewhere. Only one word—pray look upon me as a friend in this matter, Anderson. If it becomes needful for you to run up to Town, do not be anxious as to ways and means. You must let me advance any sum that you may need." He held out his hand, and it was grasped in kind, with unusual warmth, half shame-faced by Felix. "Now good-bye, and I sincerely trust that all will come right in a few hours."

Those few hours were hard to live through. Do what Felix might, he could not lose sight of his suspense. To sit still was an impossibility; and to remain long within reach of Mrs. Crofton's doleful prognostications was an equal impossibility; but he kept incessant watch for tidings, and at length a telegram arrived from Dr. Bryant: "Not come; no news; most perplexing."

Felix slept little that night, and he was astir unwontedly early next morning. The postman's knock brought him downstairs with a rush, to receive a letter: handwriting unfamiliar; postmark Reading. He tore it open.

"From 'Prudence Valentine.' Who on earth is she? Something Farm—What's the name?" He skimmed the contents rapidly.

   "DEAR MR. ANDERSON,—I am very sorry no one wrote to you yesterday or to-day, but between us all, it has been somehow overlooked. I am writing now late at night, that the letter may go off early to-morrow—Saturday—morning.

   "My sister travelled on Thursday from Haywards Heath with your sisters; and as Miss Anderson was taken worse on the way, becoming really too ill to go on, she brought them both home with her. We had our doctor in at once, and all has been done that could be done. My sister Bertha is a trained nurse.

   "It would be wrong to hide from you that Miss Anderson has been in great danger, and that her state is still critical; but we hope that she has begun to improve.

   "My sister telegraphed to Dr. Bryant on Thursday from Reading station, and a letter ought to have been sent to you. But we were very much occupied. Lettice was so worn-out at first that she could do nothing but sleep; and she has been prostrate since with headache, really able to think of nothing. Otherwise she would have begged me to communicate with you. I am distressed that it did not occur to any of us to do so sooner.

   "You may depend upon us to take every care of them both. Lettice is not ill, only knocked down with over-strain, and I think with the parting also from yourself. We are ordered to keep her very quiet for a few days. If you would wish to come and see your sisters, pray do not hesitate—but Miss Anderson assures us that this is out of the question for the present.

"Believe me, yours truly—

"PRUDENCE VALENTINE."

"So she did send a telegram, after all!" exclaimed Felix. "Why didn't it arrive, I wonder?"

He was more conscious at the moment of relief than of anxiety. Nothing could be worse than the blank uncertainty he had been enduring; and he failed to realise how bad the account of Cecilia was. An impulse seized him to tell Mr. Kelly without delay; and early though the hour was, he seized his cap and hastened to the Vicarage.

"Come in; pray come in; I am delighted to see you," Mr. Kelly said, rising from his solitary breakfast. "Another cup—" to the maid who had ushered the young fellow in. "Well, good news, I hope. You look like it. Sit down and have breakfast with me."

"It's all right. Cecilia was taken worse on the way, and they are in a farmhouse near Reading. At least—I don't mean 'all right'—" rather confusedly—"but she is better now, and we know where they are. Yes—perfect strangers—nobody I ever heard of before. I can't think what made them do it. Would you like to see the letter?"

Mr. Kelly received the sheet, smiling. Then, as his eyes fell on the handwriting, a curious expression replaced the smile. He glanced on to find the signature, and a faint flush crept slowly over his spare pale face.

"True." The flush deepened, and Mr. Kelly put up one hand, as if to shield his slight embarrassment. "True," he repeated, and he read the letter twice, with an abstracted air.

Mr. Kelly looked up, with the start of one awakened from a dream. Then he read the letter a third time, and gave it back.

"I know the name," he said. "Many years ago I met a Miss Valentine—the same, undoubtedly, since her name was Prudence, and she, too, had a sister named Bertha. Besides, the home was the same. I met them elsewhere—not there—but I can recall the address. Your sisters are in good hands. This, at least, I can assure you."

"I hope so—to some extent. Yes, evidently better than when she first got there. And Lettice will be well looked after. The child needs it."

"Can't think what on earth they would have done, if they hadn't come across Miss Valentine."

"But I say!" broke out Felix. "We've no right! I hate to be indebted to strangers."

"We are all children of one Father; bound by close family ties. Is it so hard, viewed in that light?"

"But if she cannot? Perhaps she has that lesson to learn. Some day it may be in your power to repay the kindness. At present you can only accept it, and be grateful."

"Is Lettice never to come to me again?" Cecilia asked querulously of Prudence, at the very hour when Felix sat with Mr. Kelly at the Vicarage breakfast table. "It is so long since I have seen the child! Does she not care? Felix would not treat me so."

"She will come soon. She was better yesterday, but quiet is needed. Poor little Lettice cares far too much. If we allowed it, she would come this moment."

"The days are so long—and I am alone. None of my own people are with me. Only strangers."

"No. I did not mean to hurt your feelings. But I seem to be cut off from everybody."

"Somebody else said so. I forget who. So many voices have come to me, one time and another. I cannot always distinguish them. My mother's voice for one; and it brought back things I had forgotten. But I do not talk. It is not my way. I told Mr. Kelly so."

A red spot rose to either of Prue's cheeks, and there remained. She half said, "What Mr. Kelly?" but checked herself.

"He would not let me alone. People will not, I do not choose to be interfered with; and he interfered. Still, of course he was kind. He found employment for Felix; and he came to see me. He would have come oftener, if I had allowed it. But I cannot talk of myself to anybody and everybody."

"The less we talk of ourselves the better, perhaps," suggested Prue. "He is a clergyman, then?"

"Yes. We went to his Church. He thought himself bound to put questions to me about myself. Perhaps he was, but I was not bound to answer them. As if—" and a pause. "But sometimes—now—" another pause.

"Sometimes now, you would wish to see him again, perhaps. Is that it?" The red spots deepened as Prue spoke.

"No, not exactly. I did not mean that, exactly. One cannot always explain . . . I want Lettice, and they will not let her come. It is cruel—so ill as I am."

"Lettice loves you dearly." Prue could have clung to the other subject, but she would not.

"Well, yes—perhaps. She has always been with me,—always—in those old days. Past now! They can never come back!"

"The past does not come back. It is always going on to something fresh; until we reach Home."

"And mine is before—with Jesus." Prue spoke low and reverently. She seldom revealed so much of her true self; but Cecilia's need appealed strongly.

A flickering smile crossed the other's face. "You! A mere girl!" she said, not realising that Prue was scarcely seven years her junior. "What can you know of life?"

"More perhaps than you would suppose . . . I have a dear home here, but the real Home is there."

"The unknown. A black depth of nothingness. I do not know why I should say all this. It is not my way. I suppose life goes on there—of course. No unprejudiced or reasonable mind can believe that death means annihilation. There is too much in us for that . . . But the future is so vague. I never expected to be afraid when my time should come . . . Only sometimes—now I am so weak—looking over and seeing no foothold—" Her eyes wandered round the room strangely, even fearfully.

"But if, looking over, you saw the outstretched Arms of Christ, our Lord, waiting to receive you? If in the valley, you had His rod and His staff for your comfort—?"

"He is willing. He is waiting. It is we who hold back. It is not He," Prue went on softly. "He is always 'far more ready to hear than we are to ask.' When He has come from heaven to die for us, isn't it the least we can do to believe in His love and pity?"

CHAPTER VI.

She was a pretty woman still, though over thirty-five in age, tall and fair—but the fine eyes which carefully avoided meeting those of her husband were not happy, and her whole air expressed intense ennui.

Certainly, the outside world looked cheerless. Snow had fallen heavily throughout the preceding day, and threatening clouds hovered still over a white landscape. Theodosia Bryant hated country at the best of times, and country lanes, immediately after a snowfall, are scarcely at their best.

"The post! And to think of the beloved rat-tat of the London postman, ten times a day!" sighed Theodosia. "However, one may be thankful to be not utterly cut off from the rest of the world, I suppose. I wasn't sure whether we might not have come to that. Anything for me?" She shot an uneasy side-glance at Dr. Bryant. He had a handsome face, calm and firm, framed in abundant grey hair.

Dr. Bryant passed into his study, where indeed he spent the main portion of his days. He was not by nature a sociably inclined man, and since his marriage—only two years earlier—he had not become more sociable. The study grew dearer, the drawing room grew less attractive.

Not that he did not love this wife of his—the first he had ever had, though he was not her first husband. He had been thoroughly in love with the winning and graceful widow, who met him always with sweet smiles and engaging looks. And although, after the honeymoon, smiles and engaging looks became more and more rare, he was not a man to change quickly. He loved still, but he no longer enjoyed her society to the same extent as before.

Theodosia Wells had married Dr. Bryant, not because she really loved him, though his face and manner had both a certain power over her, but because she lacked the means of livelihood, and because she had a keen eye to the future of her boy, her only child. She would have endured a much worse husband than Dr. Bryant, if thereby she might secure an easy future for Keith. And "endurance" is hardly the word to employ with respect to Dr. Bryant. If endurance really were needed, it was because she failed to appreciate him, not because he failed towards her in either appreciation or duty.

How much money Dr. Bryant might possess, Theodosia had not known with any accuracy, in the days when he sought and won her, and perhaps she overestimated the amount. Still she had known him to be comfortably off, and to be free from family burdens. So much the better for Keith. Dr. Bryant had lived in Quarrington Cottage for nearly a quarter of a century, yet Theodosia, had not had the smallest doubt that, when she should become his wife, she would be able to dislodge him. She was not going to be buried in the country. The Cottage must be let or sold, and they would reside in London.

Disappointment awaited Theodosia. She found Dr. Bryant yielding and compliant on minor points. Elderly bachelor though he had been, he placed household arrangements in her hands, let her do and manage as she chose, and seldom interfered outside his proper masculine province. But when she began to press for a change of residence, the desire was at once met by resistance. Quarrington Cottage was his home, and in that home, he meant to live and die.

"My dear, I told you plainly what manner of home I had to offer, and in accepting me, you accepted it. Then was the time to protest; not now."

Theodosia did not quickly give up hope. She argued and coaxed, worried and pleaded, sulked and wept, by turns; but all efforts were met by a placid and inviolable determination. Gradually she became convinced that, do and say what she might, here was her home during the term of her husband's life.

Uninviting though the prospect might seem to one of Theodosia's tastes, she had no wish to quarrel with that husband. She liked and admired him personally, almost loved him; and she wished to have a strong hold upon him, for the sake of Keith. What money he possessed, he was not bound to leave to his little step-son. She was not much better informed now than before her marriage, as to its precise amount: for he seldom spoke of money matters, and she was too proud to ask. But she had learnt that he had or might have other relatives, near of kin though long estranged; also that he had grieved much over the long estrangement, and that he often craved to hear something of his sister's children, if they still lived.

"But he shall do nothing for them, while I have a voice in the matter," she resolved.

Fresh disappointment awaited her. A letter one day came from his niece, the only surviving child of his only sister, and he showed it at once to Theodosia, with his punctilious frankness. He might have, and of necessity, he did have interests apart from his wife, because she could not or would not enter into them, but he had not intentionally any secrets from her.

"Absurd!" Theodosia said, as she gave it back. "Miss Anderson has no right to appeal to you now, after all these years. It is perfectly ridiculous. And a step-brother and step-sister into the bargain. Does she coolly expect you to adopt them all? As if you had not enough to do with your money."

"Quarrington Cottage would hold them all, and not crowd us, my dear. But the boy can make his own way. Cecilia and Lettice must come, of course." He dwelt upon the word "Cecilia" affectionately, feeling that she belonged to him.

"So long as they need a home. I fear it may not be very long for poor Cecilia, judging from what she says—but you see she begs us on no account to let a word of this reach Felix or Lettice. You need not look anxious, Theodosia,—" a very gentle manner of characterising the expression on her face. "I have means enough. Your comforts will not be affected. At the most, it means only laying by less."

"And I am to have no voice in the matter. I am to have these strangers forced upon me—a vulgar disagreeable woman, for aught we know, and a great rough girl, to knock about my little delicate Keith. If I had guessed two years ago what I was going in for—"

Theodosia, in no mood for self-restraint, broke into angry remonstrances, and bitter accusations of his indifference to her happiness. She had a sharp tongue, and that hour she gave it fall swing. Doctor Bryant listened with a pained look, but by no means with the air of one willing to yield. He met her anger gravely, and spoke with his usual calm kindness; but his resolution did not falter. Theodosia's passion was like the sea breaking over a rock.

At the end of the interview, Dr. Bryant simply said, "Now I must write to catch the post. When you have had leisure for thought, you will view the matter differently. I shall answer for your welcome, as well as for my own."

For two days Theodosia had hardly a pleasant word or look for her husband: and Dr. Bryant, without remonstrance, retired more than usual to the solitude of his study.

When Cecilia's answer arrived, he as usual handed it to his wife, observing, "They will come, as soon as my niece is able to travel."

Theodosia noted the gleam of pleasure in his eyes; and she woke up suddenly to a fresh aspect of the question. To repel her husband by persistent ill-humour would simply mean to thrust him under the influence of Cecilia Anderson. This would not do. If Cecilia were a designing woman, what might she not effect? Theodosia thought again of Keith, and for Keith's sake she mastered herself, managed to smile, and inquired Cecilia's age.

Dr. Bryant seemed agreeably surprised. "That is right, my dear. I knew I could depend upon your kind feeling, when it should come to the point," he said. "I am not sure about the age. Some years over thirty, I imagine, and the child she speaks of as fifteen—young for that. Not too old to be something of a companion for Keith; and you and Cecilia will be friends."

"You will arrange everything comfortably for them—south aspect, and so on. Yes, it must be a room with south aspect."

"An attic bedroom! For my only niece!" Dr. Bryant looked at his wife in astonishment.

Theodosia swallowed something with difficulty. "I certainly did not mean to give Miss Anderson the best spare room!"

Dr. Bryant was silent, and by his silence won the day. Theodosia again came to the conclusion that her wisest course—for Keith's sake—was to conciliate him, even at the cost of her best spare room. "But as for being friends! Faugh!" she said scornfully. "I am very much obliged to Maurice."

With the Thursday, on which Cecilia and Lettice were expected, came heavy snow. "Of course they would not come in such weather," Theodosia declared.

"Of course they will send me word, if they give it up," Dr. Bryant answered. He was in a state of unwonted restlessness all day, and ordered the pony-trap to be in readiness, despite the storm, to take him to Bristol station. If they arrived, he could obtain there a closed fly.

Not long before he meant to start, Theodosia took a look, in passing, out of the hall-window, and saw a telegraph messenger approach. She opened the door herself, received the telegram, paid the extra fee, and passed on to the drawing room.

"Odd!" Theodosia said, as she stood gazing. "What should make them put my name? Perhaps they think my husband would be off by this time! And if he were—as if I should be in any suspense! Why didn't they send it earlier?" A wave of indignant disgust towards the Andersons swelled in her breast. "Why should I trouble myself to open it? What do I care for those people? . . . Maurice is infatuated . . . Let him go, and have his drive for nothing! . . . What harm? . . . It will make him think less of them, perhaps!" Such half-formed ideas flashed through Theodosia's mind; and before she knew whither they tended, or what was the actual form of the temptation, she had tossed the yellow envelope upon the blazing fire. One little flash of flame, and only a curling shred remained.

Then fear seized her. Suppose her husband should find out what she had done! Suppose, later, hearing that a telegram had been despatched, he should trace its receipt to her! Suppose—"But what nonsense! It was to me, not to him. I do not know who it was from, or what it said. I can say that I have heard nothing, and that there was no telegram for him."

She tried to put aside the uncomfortable recollection, watched Dr. Bryant off on his snowy drive, and spent the afternoon in a state of mingled remorse and irritation. Her dislike of the Andersons was enhanced by the fact that she had, in a sense, done something to injure them.

When Dr. Bryant returned, chilled, disappointed, and plainly hurt, she found not the slightest difficulty in showing exactly the same indignation which she might naturally have shown, if no telegram had been sent.

"And after all, I do not know that it was from them," she said again in self-excuse, when her husband had gone off, with a mild, "Tut, my dear! Things are not so bad as that. I shall hear to-morrow."

But the next morning arrived, and when the postbag was brought in, Dr. Bryant found no letter from Brighton. As related, he came at once to tell his wife. After which he retreated anew to his study, and wrote the short letter which reached Felix on the afternoon of Saturday.

Theodosia watched him disappear, then threw herself back with a profound sigh. "I only hope something may have happened to prevent their coming altogether. Too good to be true, I am afraid. But to be boxed up here, in this wretched place, with people that I know I shall detest—"

"Mamsie!" a small voice said, and a little boy in knickerbockers entered. He had Theodosia's pretty complexion, and his hair hung still in long curls, over a lace collar. Theodosia's face softened at the sight of him. All her tenderness went out towards this child; a lovable boy by nature, but systematically spoilt.

"Come here, my sweet! What has Keith been doing?" He was six years old, but she had not yet learnt to drop the baby style of speech; and there was still a babyish intonation in his little high-pitched voice.

"It's as snowy as can be. Such a lot of white. Mamsie, what does father mean. He says I'm to have a jolly new playfellow."

"You don't want a playfellow, do you? You are quite happy with Mamsie, and nurse, and all the pets."

"But this isn't a boy. It is only a girl—a big dull girl, twice as old as you."

"Clever boy! Well, she is fifteen—a great deal more than twice as old. No companion for you, and much too big to play games. She will only be in the way."

"Ah, it isn't a boy. Only a girl, and a tiresome grown-up lady, who is ill, and who will give no end of trouble, and not like the least noise. You will have to creep up and downstairs like a mouse now."

"I hate it, Keith." Theodosia hid her face. "I can't bear to have them here. It makes me miserable. But you mustn't tell father, because he would be so vexed."

"No, I won't. And I shall hate them too." Keith doubled his little fist. "I won't like them, and I won't play with the little girl; and I'll make lots of noise; and I won't care what nobody says. Mamsie, I wish you wouldn't cry! Why do you? Why mayn't I tell father you don't like them? Why must they come, Mamsie?"

Quarrington Cottage stood alone near the middle of a long lane, over two miles from the outskirts of Bristol. There was a village less than half-a-mile off—"the village" to the neighbourhood. It was not peculiarly pretty country, even in summer, being somewhat too flat, though distant hills might be seen: and now, under a sheet of snow, it was monotonous. But Dr. Bryant never found it monotonous, never wearied of the quiet. He was always happy in the country, always miserable in a town. Health and spirits failed him immediately, under the oppression of a crowd of human beings, while to his wife such a crowd was a very elixir of delight.

Still, Dr. Bryant had made no secret of these his tastes before marriage. Theodosia knew, or she might have known, all about the matter. He attempted to hide nothing; and if she failed to understand, the fault lay in her own dulness of perception. To some extent she had understood, for she had professed to agree with him, and had expatiated on the delights of getting away from town into country; only she had failed to emphasise the fact that it was getting away which she liked, and by no means remaining. Dr. Bryant loved his country home all the year round, in all seasons, and in all weathers. Theodosia liked a country-house—including plenty of guests—for a few weeks in summer or autumn. These diverse views had not been sufficiently weighed before marriage: or if Theodosia had recognised them, she had reckoned too much on her own influence, too little on the steadiness of Dr. Bryant's will.

A harder fiat could hardly have been uttered, than that which kept Lettice in her own room, and away from Cecilia. She did not see any need for the prohibition. In matters of health, many people are apt to count themselves worse than they are, a few to count themselves better than they are; and Lettice belonged to the minority. True she felt desperately tired: her head ached, and exertion was a struggle: but what of all that? What did it matter—what did anything matter—side by side with the fact that Cecilia wanted her? By nature patient and enduring, as regarded any bodily discomfort of her own, she was neither patient nor enduring when withheld from doing the will of one whom she loved.

Submission to the Divine Will was as yet an unknown element in the life of Lettice. Because she passionately loved her sister and brother, she would have done aught, borne aught for them. Because she did not love God, His Will was not dear to her: and she chafed against it. Not worry herself! They might tell her not to do so, but how could she obey when she thought of Cecilia, ill and among strangers, parted from Felix, and craving the younger sister who might not go to her?

"Keep that child quiet for two or three days," had been the doctor's order on the morning after their arrival. "A sensitive child—the strain has been too severe, and she is ripe for pretty nearly anything. No; I don't think she'll be ill, if we take her in hand at once: but she must rest. How old do you say? Nearly sixteen! She doesn't look more than fourteen. Well, the two are best apart for a few days. Unless what?—Yes, of course—if Miss Anderson were taken suddenly worse—but I must leave that to your discretion. At present she will have all she needs in your care and your sister's. The child could do nothing further. You are good Samaritans to take them both in, after this fashion. It is the sort of Christianity which a man respects."

After the first day or two, Lettice was allowed to dress, and to sit in a cosy arm-chair near the window, looking out upon a garden, which in summer was lovely, and which even in winter had some beauty of its own. Lettice could not enjoy that beauty. She could enjoy nothing if she might not go to Cecilia: and at present she was a prisoner in Prue's room. She sat there hour after hour, doing nothing, declining to be interested, going round and round in the same circle of thought. Always, how was Cecilia? what was Cecilia doing? did Cecilia miss her greatly? And might she soon be with Cecilia? She could not acquiesce in her deprivation. Her eyes were intent ever upon the door, her ears were intent for footsteps beyond the door. At this rate she was not likely to recover tone and strength quickly. Prue coming in on the fourth morning, with the usual remark, "Not yet," met a face of despair which went to her heart.

"Why, Lettice, poor child, you don't mind so very much," she said, sitting down by her side. "It is only for a day or two, I hope. You must try to be brave."

Lettice held her fast. "Oh, I don't know how. If only I needn't wait! I do want to see Sissie."

"Yes, I understand. I asked the doctor about that. If Miss Anderson should be taken worse, you should be called."

"I do promise, so far as is in my power. But this is only to comfort you. We think she is doing well. I told her the doctor forbad your coming. She seemed to think it was on her account, and I said no more. She would be unhappy to think that you were not well."

"But it's nothing. I'm only tired. People must be tired. If only I needn't keep away from her."

The question came unexpectedly, and struck home. She had been asked almost the same before—"Do you often pray?" But Prue asked, "Do you never pray?"

"I don't know," she said faintly, with a dim sense that the short form which she sometimes, not always, repeated at night, was scarcely what Prue meant.

"I think you ought to begin now. Sissie needs your prayers. If you were with her, you could do little—nothing more, perhaps, than Bertha and I can do. But God can do everything. He has all power in heaven and earth. Why do you not ask Him to take care of her for you, and to make her well again, if it is His will to do so?"

Lettice kept these words in mind. "She is in good hands," Mr. Kelly had said: and now Prue added, "God can do everything." Then the two questions came up, side by side: "Do you often pray?" "Do you never pray?" The two voices chiming in together, with another addition from Prue: "Why do you not ask Him to take care of her for you?" The rest of the sentence floated away unheeded: for what was the use if Cecilia could not get well?

Clasping her hands, she tried to carry out Prue's advice. "Please take care of Sissie; take care of Sissie; O please take care of her!" were the only words which would occur, but Lettice repeated them again and again, and a soft sense crept over her, that the petitions were surely heard. It was Lettice's first lesson in real prayer.

"Trying to do—what you said . . . Don't you know? . . . You asked if I ever—ever—"

"Yes. And—I have been trying—really! . . . Mr. Kelly asked me once—if I didn't often do it. I don't often—but—"

"But you will begin now. You will do it often from to-day. Mr. Kelly was right," murmured Prue. "He—was he a kind friend to you, Lettice?"

"He got the work for Felix, and he used to come and see Sissie. I don't think Sissie liked him much."

Prue blamed herself for letting the conversation drift in this direction; yet perhaps enough had been said in the other direction. "O yes—I liked sometimes," Lettice answered. "He told me to write and tell him how Sissie was. And he said if we were in trouble, I must let him know."

CHAPTER VII.

THE "two or three days" of Lettice's enforced absence from Cecilia's room grew into a fortnight. She was allowed to dress, and even to creep into an adjoining room; but this was the utmost that she could be counted fit for. Prue sometimes wondered whether the strain of being with Cecilia could prove more harmful than the strain of not being with her; but the doctor was firm, and Bertha took his view of the matter.

Then upon Cecilia's slight improvement followed a severe relapse; and Lettice's presence was not to be thought of. Lettice submitted; resisting less than earlier. Perhaps the present prohibition seemed natural, since she had been kept away by Mrs. Crofton in the worst phases of Cecilia's first attack; but she grieved over having been forbidden the room when Cecilia was better.

Nan would sit staring at her, with light reddened eyes of girlish sympathy; and Prue would say: "No one could know that this was coming on, Lettice, dear." Sometimes Lettice turned from both of them, in her distress, refusing comfort; but later the whispered apology was sure to come: "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to be vexed. You are all so kind."

During the early part of this fresh relapse, Cecilia was much disposed to wander. She ceased to ask after Lettice, evidently counting her out of reach. Generally she knew who came and went; but it was plain that she kept no count of time. Days might be weeks to her; weeks might be months. There was not a little rambling talk of the past, and her nurses learnt a good deal more of her history than she would willingly have divulged. It was a brokenly-told story, minus many links, containing much of sorrow and disappointment, with hard struggling to keep afloat, but lightened by a spirit of courage, endurance, and proud resolution, also of strong affection.

Sometimes she believed herself to be at Dr. Bryant's, and she would then speak distressfully of her obligations to the Valentines, by which she was tried precisely as Felix was tried. Sometimes she knew herself to be still at the Farm, and then she would complain of being hindered from going on to Bristol.

These were flitting surface fancies. Below the surface she seemed to live another life, bordering on that unseen world which at all times closely surrounds us. We know practically little of the experiences of sufferers, when they are too far removed by dire sickness to give expression to their thoughts. If they rally to health, they are apt to forget much that they have gone through, albeit they often come out from such an experience different from their former selves, transformed or to some extent remade. This comes about, not alone through bodily suffering, but, in some cases at least, doubtless through the silent touch of unseen influences, acting through the mind, and especially through awakened memories. It may be that "often" is too strong a word. The process is occasional rather than common; and perhaps it seldom if ever takes place, unless there has been an earnest desire to do rightly, and a sincere though blind feeling after Him Who is never far from any one of us.

From the first, Cecilia had turned from Bertha and had clung to Prue. No one could say why, except that she was possessed by the idea that Bertha alone was responsible for Lettice's long absence. She never blamed Prue. If Bertha spoke tenderly, Cecilia would show cold indifference; if Prue did the same, she would smile a response. It spoke well for Bertha that no tinge of jealousy troubled her. Prue could help where she could not; and Bertha was content.

So matters lasted, until another rally came. There were long hours of continuous sleep; and from this phase she emerged, altered. Not in face alone, but in herself. She had ceased to show dislike to Bertha, and her mind seemed far-away; while in manner she had become gentle and grateful. The old habit of reserve enveloped her still, but not to the same extent; and when alone with Prue it gave way.

For nearly two days it seemed to Prue, and perhaps also to Bertha, that recovery from this particular attack had fairly set in. The doctor spoke no word of hope, and his silence was afterwards remembered, though at the time not so much marked.

Prue was blaming herself much for an indiscretion. During Cecilia's long sleep, she had yielded to the younger sister's pleadings, and had on her own responsibility taken Lettice into the room for "one look." She had not realised what that brief glimpse would mean; because she did not realise how great an alteration had been wrought by this last relapse. It was not till she had to half carry Lettice away, shivering with the shock, that she knew how unwise she had been.

Prue confessed the deed frankly; and neither the doctor nor Bertha uttered reproaches. No need that they should. Now that for two days the sisters might have been together, Lettice was prostrated, a prisoner once more in her room. Strange to say, the unreasoning instinct of the child proved truer than the observation of Prue. From the moment of that one glimpse, Lettice never doubted that Cecilia was dying; though even Bertha had hopes of a respite; and Prue could honestly endeavour to cheer her up.

"Have I been here many weeks?" Cecilia asked, on the evening of the second day. "Or—is it months? I am so confused. I cannot remember." Then, as Prue made answer evasively, "Tell me, please. I should like to know. I came—when was it? Why did I not go on to Bristol?"

"I remember—yes. Somebody brought me. Nurse Valentine, she called herself. I cannot recall more. Only she went on with Lettice to Bristol; and you came in her place . . . That seemed so strange, when I was ill. Felix would not have left me."

"I think you a little misunderstand." Prim feared to excite her, by explaining that Lettice had been unwell; this fact having been hidden. "You shall see Lettice soon, and she will explain everything."

Cecilia moved her head slowly. "I shall never get to Bristol—now—" she said. "I should have imagined—that Lettice—But one never can know beforehand. It is all disappointment—in every one."

"You mean—Christ?" after a pause. "Yes; He has been more real to me lately. I do not know how. But it is as if—"

"It may be that . . . Would He? . . . When I have lived so little for Him! . . . And yet—lately—I have felt the need. Not that I have not always tried to do my duty . . . But still—"

"Somebody said so. Who was it? They told me that He would 'abundantly pardon.' Yes, that was it. If I would leave all evil thoughts. 'Abundantly!'"

"Must it not be so? Our best doings are worth nothing, when we step into the light that streams from Him . . . You know how the spots on a white dress show in sunlight, yet you may hardly have noticed them in a dark room. And He is willing to take all those spots away, 'abundantly!'"

"Perhaps—yes. All these months of pain!" Poor thing! The two or three weeks might well look like months to her consciousness. Much experience may be compressed into a short space of time. "All these months, and I have been so alone . . . It may have been the teaching I needed . . . If Mr. Kelly were here now, I would listen; I would indeed. Tell him so, some day . . . I have thought of his words; the comfort that might be mine; and I think they helped me to ask . . . If it is not presumption, I do believe I have been heard—have been forgiven . . . Only If I could see Lettice again before I die! My heart is breaking for the child. If God would grant me this! And then I should be willing to go."

She closed her eyes, and one or two heavy tears forced their way through. It was the first time for years that she had let herself weep. "Such pain to be forsaken!" she whispered.

Prue could not bear this, and an explanation was on her lips, when Bertha stood by her side.

"I heard. Mr. Jasper is here. I will ask him, and it must be risked," Bertha said softly, and vanished.

"Yes, you are kind, very kind—you and Bertha too. But no one can take the place of Lettice; my child from her babyhood. If only once I might see her again!"

Prue was silent, not daring to promise, till a stir was heard outside, and Bertha came in leading a pale girl.

And Cecilia gazed hungrily. "Lettice here! Not gone to Bristol! And I thought—"

"Now be quiet and good, both of you. No fuss or agitation," commanded the doctor.

He placed Lettice on the bed, close beside Cecilia, and the two were locked in a fast embrace, each struggling not to give way.

"And you have been ill too! Was that it? My poor little Lettice. And they never told me."

"Not ill, only out of sorts," interposed Bertha cheerfully; but Cecilia went on, unheeding—

"Never mind, it is all right now. If Felix too—but that cannot be. Come closer. I have something to say."

Mr. Jasper drew a pace off. "Five minutes only," he said to Bertha. "Bad for them both; but the other was getting to be worse."

"I did not this morning." The doctor then spoke in his ordinary voice. "Now, no crying, please. Don't let me have to regret the indulgence."

"Dear little Lettice! Poor little Lettice!" Cecilia spoke in hasty uncertain accents. "When you see uncle Bryant—tell him—"

"I forget! No, it's not that. I wanted to say—mind you go to him. Don't put off. That is your home. And you must be good to Felix—love him—do what he wants."

Cecilia was breathing with difficulty: and Mr. Jasper would have removed Lettice, but there was resistance. Cecilia put him off with both hands, and clasped Lettice in a wild embrace.

"One word! Only one word. Dear one, tell Felix from me—there is nothing—nothing—nothing worth living for, but to serve God! Tell him so! I would give anything—anything—to have lived a different life . . . Too late now . . . Too late for that . . . There is forgiveness . . . abundant pardon . . . and He will not cast away! . . . But oh, to have lived for Him! To have served Him! . . . The pitifulness of living to oneself, and coming to Him only at last! . . . O the difference now, if I had only lived for Him! . . . Lettice, don't forget—don't put off! Pray to be shown! I shall look for you there! And tell Felix—tell Felix—"

Cecilia broke off: and those around her knew from her face that she could bear no more.

Cecilia controlled herself to say so much. Then to the doctor: "Yes—take her, please."

Lettice was hurried away. The haste seemed to her cruel; and she could not see the mercifulness which would hide from her the sight of her sister's suffering. The whole interview with its abrupt termination half crushed her, and she lay for hours after, her face hidden, unable to look up or to bear being spoken to. But Cecilia Anderson was nearly at the end of her voyage. One more sharp tempest, and then her little vessel reached the harbour. Before midnight she had passed away.

The telegram announcing what had happened came heavily upon Felix. He had not allowed himself to think of danger, had not pictured to himself the possibility of any such ending. A letter written on the evening of Thursday, to tell of the fresh attack, did not arrive until after the brief message which said that all was over.

Felix had never known sorrow since his father's death, and then he had been a mere child. The cold touch of bereavement bewildered him. To hear of other people losing their friends was a matter of course, easily dismissed with a pitying word or two; but that he should lose Cecilia—Cecilia, with whom every inch of his life was associated, who had been parent, sister, protector, everything to him—that his Cecilia should have passed away beyond reach, into the world of the unseen, seemed incredible, even horrible. He felt a kind of indignant wrath that death should meddle with him and his, doing away with the pleasant future which he had pictured. Why should he suffer thus, when other people had their sisters spared to them?

Felix did not this time rush off to Mr. Kelly. He went to his work as usual, scarcely half-an-hour late, for the telegram had arrived early: and except that he looked pale and stern, no one would have supposed anything unusual to have occurred. It never so much as came into his mind to ask to remain away from work. Nothing could have been more distasteful than to sit still and think.

The shock did not affect his health; it only caused a species of mental dizziness. Life seemed to wear vague aspect, with all its ordinary curves altered, like the changed slant of a landscape, looked upon from the position of one lying prone on a hill-side. Such disorganised glimpses came to him from time to time, through unbending attention to work; and waves of angry sorrow rose, when by sheer force of habit his mind reverted to its accustomed aim—that little future home, which Cecilia now would never need. Yet none of his accounts were wrong.

A letter came from Prue next morning, containing many details. She spoke of the last meeting between the sisters, and she mentioned slightly Cecilia's agitation: but the direct message to Felix himself was through Lettice, and with that Prue would not meddle. The funeral was to be on Monday afternoon: and Dr. Bryant had telegraphed that he would be present.

"Mr. Anderson of course would go also. Could he not stay at the Farm from Saturday till Tuesday or Wednesday?"

"No: certainly not!" Felix decided this at once, with his unnecessary vehemence, crushing the sheet in his hand. Even for Lettice's sake, he would not be indebted to the Valentines further than was unavoidable. Things were bad enough already. If he had not feared to show disrespect to Cecilia's memory, he would have stayed away altogether. The thought of seeing Dr. Bryant would alone have been almost enough to deter him. But he knew what would be said: and a weak little pencil scrawl from Lettice implored him to go.

Felix was pre-disposed to dislike the Valentines. He objected much to certain things in this letter of Prue's. What business had she to speak of Cecilia's "hope" and "trust," in terms which distinctly implied that they were new, the outcome of a recent experience? If Cecilia had not before been so ready for the great change impending, this would at once leave him where she had stood, would place him apart from her in a kind of outside category, as requiring still what Sissie had somehow found. Felix would accept no such view of the question. He "pished" over it indignantly.

"A set of fanatics!" he declared, with the glib contempt of ignorance: and he flung the letter on the fire, careless that it contained a message to Mr. Kelly. He would not go in Mr. Kelly's way. Miss Valentine might write to Mr. Kelly herself, if she chose. Nor would he spend a long Sunday at the Farm, to be talked at and preached to. So he telegraphed that he would go on Monday; and he wrote a line to Lettice, making the excuse that he must wait for his mourning.

Then he went through a brief interview with Mr. Thompson, asking for Monday's absence, and uncomfortably begging an advance of salary to pay for the journey. Had it not been for the message to Mr. Kelly, which Felix would not give, he would have preferred to ask a loan in that direction.

"Why did you not tell me yesterday?" Mr. Thompson asked kindly. He offered another day or two beyond the Tuesday, which Felix declined, and he advanced the needful amount without hesitation.

Nan was the first to descry Felix's approach, before early dinner. She rushed out to meet him, blushing all over her plain face.

"Oh, we were so sorry you couldn't get here sooner," she cried. "It is such a dreadful disappointment to Lettice. And we are depending on you to put things right. Dr. Bryant can't come, after all—he has a cold or something—and Lettice is bent on going off to him this week: and we want to keep her here another month. Do, do please persuade her to stay."

"Nan!" a reproving voice said behind. And gentle Mrs. Valentine came forward; whereupon Nan subsided and vanished.

Felix had listened with an air of rigid reserve to Nan's outburst, attempting no response, and he met Mrs. Valentine's kind greeting in the same manner. Dinner would be ready in a few minutes, she said: and after that—But would Mr. Anderson like to see Lettice at once? Up in her room. She had not come down yet.

And strange though the delay might seem to Mrs. Valentine, she had learnt the rare art of letting people be unhappy in their own way. She could believe that he dreaded anything which might cause him to lose his self-control before the sad ceremony near at hand: though she had never seen any one less likely in appearance to break-down, than this good-looking young fellow, with his confident and reserved air.

Dinner was a constrained meal, well over in everybody's opinion. A note from Dr. Bryant was given to Felix, which he read and pocketed without remark. Then followed the last sad office for "Sissie," and Felix comported himself as chief mourner, with a composure which might easily have been mistaken for lack of feeling.

When they returned to the house, Prue asked, "Will you not see Lettice now?" and Felix acquiesced. He followed Prue upstairs, and found himself alone with a quiet pallid girl in deep mourning, who met and kissed him, then sat down, visibly trembling.

"Before lunch. I couldn't. There were all those people to see. And I—well, I felt I'd better not."

There was a sound of something like heartlessness in the tone: but Lettice would not hear it, would not believe it. She knew the reality of his affection, and the assumed manner did not take her in. Indeed her mind was so full of other thoughts, and so bent upon the present fight for self-command, that she noticed it less than might have been expected. Only, the absence of expressed sympathy brought a chill.

"You see, Lettice, it's no good to talk," he said. "Nothing can change—that! We have to keep up and go on. Things are as they are, and nobody can make them different. And you've got to be brave."

Her lips quivered. "Yes, I will," she said. "I do mean to be good, indeed, and not to give trouble. And I'll do—anything you tell me."

"I've got a note from Dr. Bryant. He couldn't come, and so much the better, perhaps. But he offers you a home still. And you must go the first possible day."

"Of course," as voice failed. "That's the right thing. The Valentines are strangers, and we are too much indebted to them already. You can get off in a day or two?"

"Change will do you good. I can't have you put off. Only mind—you belong to me, not to the Bryants."

"You'll like them well enough. Quite as much as signifies. It's only for a time. Be sure you write to me once a week, and tell me everything. I mean to get on, and to have a home for you by-and-by."

Lettice was nerving herself to deliver the dying message of Cecilia, which she knew Felix had not yet heard. Twice she began to speak of it, and Felix led away to other subjects. The third time she held to her point, refused to be diverted from it, and with resolute tearlessness repeated the impassioned words which had made a vivid impression on her own mind. Felix heard in silence.

"Of course it has all been very trying for you," he said at length, finding some remark expected.

"Felix, what did she mean? I have not liked to ask anybody, but I don't understand. I want to do what she said, and I don't know how. What did she mean?"

"O no—if we hadn't—and it made her so much happier—not afraid! I should be afraid." One sob, long pent-up, had at length its way, and Lettice pressed her forehead against his shoulder. "O Sissie! O Felix, I don't know how to bear it!"

"I do try. I do try. But I shall be so lonely," sobbed the girl, and Felix had no help to offer.

CHAPTER VIII.

SAY what Felix might, he could not send Lettice off that day, before his own departure by the night-train; and he could gain no promise from the Valentines, further than that Lettice should travel westwards "so soon as Mr. Jasper allowed it." Lettice was powerless against that fiat; and Felix knew it. Inwardly, he fumed; outwardly, he urged the advantages of change. Lettice was growing morbid, he declared.

"She has gone through enough to make her morbid," said Prue. Then, without warning, came the question: "Did you give my message to Mr. Kelly?"

"As you like," Felix replied coldly. To himself, he declared, "I shall not say anything!"

"Then I will write," she said under impulse. "The Rev. Robert Kelly—is it not?" And with the sound of the name, a swift warm flush leapt to her face.

"It is best not to trouble you. And the message was entrusted to me by—her. I must see that it reaches him."

Prue put the question aside until bedtime, till she sat in her room, by candle light, after the departure of Felix, practically alone, since Lettice was asleep. Then she weighed the question again.

Should she write or should she not? Should she ask Bertha to do it? Yet—why not herself? There had been a time, many years sooner, when during six happy weeks, Prue had seen much of Robert Kelly. She had liked him, and he had liked her—so much that some had counted it to be far more than mere liking. But nothing had come of it all. A cloud had crept between somehow, and Mr. Kelly had drawn back—gently, so as not to give needless offence, but unmistakably.

Prue suspected a misunderstanding, but she could do nothing. He might have taken steps to clear the mystery, if mystery existed. She could not stir. Then he went away, saying good-bye kindly and calmly, only looking rather pale: and Prue suffered in secret, but made no sign. Her life had been shadowed by the long pain of that girlish disappointment; yet she never spoke of it—even to her mother. Nor did she blame Robert Kelly. He might have been deceived about her: or she might have misread him. She was only sure of one thing, that he had not deliberately sought her, with any intent to deceive. She could far more easily believe, in the teeth of her own memory, that he had not sought her at all.

This was seven years ago, when Prue had been a girl of twenty-one: and still at twenty-eight, something of the shadow rested on her. For three or four years she had heard of Robert Kelly fitfully, casually; and since then she had lost sight of his whereabouts, but never of his vision in her mind. When Cecilia spoke of "Mr. Kelly," it had been a possible revelation—a possible certainty that at least he was alive still: and before many days she had satisfied herself, without seeming to ask questions with an object, that Cecilia's Mr. Kelly and her Robert Kelly were identical. Old longings, half-asleep, had been awakened.

To write to him herself—might not that step be misconstrued? Yet why? They were acquaintances: no more: and Prue had a message given her to deliver. Was it not her duty to give it direct? She could not trust Felix.

Prue drew her writing-case near, and indited a note slowly, spoiling three sheets in the process. It contained the simplest and barest statement of Cecilia's message. It began "Dear Mr. Kelly," and ended "Yours truly, Prudence Valentine." It made a slight allusion to past acquaintanceship and no more. The writing was firm and clear; only in the doing of the signature she had a vivid recollection of his face, and her hand shook. The tremulous curves of those two words held a message for Mr. Kelly.

He was very thankful for the contents of the letter: thankful, not only to have done no harm, but to have done positive good, which in his self-distrust, he had not expected. But this was, for the moment, not the leading thought. Robert Kelly was a man, and a lonely man. He had given his heart once to the young girl, Prue Valentine: and he would have asked hers in return, but for some foolish local gossip which had checked him. It had not occurred to him to doubt the truth of the gossip: to find out at least whether his informant were trustworthy. He had simply drawn back, and had fled from the place.

And now—he found her still unmarried. The thought came—what if it were not too late?

He spent an indefinite time looking at the signature: and the very words of that old piece of gossip, which had so marred his happiness, came up again. Not only that she was already engaged, or as good as engaged to another; but also, that she had spoken slightingly, laughingly, of him—Robert Kelly. That had cut deeply. And it might have been true: why not?

Mr. Kelly had a humble opinion of himself; and he was not in the least surprised that some people should laugh at him, or talk slightingly of him. Only that Prue Valentine should have done so—there was the sting!

After all, it might not have been true: since the other half of the tale was not. If the other half of the tale were not! Mr. Kelly doubted again here. Prue might have been engaged, as report had said, and the engagement might have been broken off. The little note told nothing. It was friendly, but calm and distant. Only—that quiver in the signature stirred him. Yet, why should it mean anything? Somebody might have touched her elbow as she wrote.

He thought of Prue by day, and he dreamt of Prue by night; and he worked harder, neglecting none of his clerical and parochial duties, but rather throwing a fresh fervour into them. He wrote a brief line of thanks to Prue, not too warmly expressed, hoping "some day to see them all again." Prue's heart leaped in silent response to the hope: and there the matter stood still. Mr. Kelly took no further steps—though she was nearly thirty, and he nearly forty. He was not sure what he wished.

As Felix had feared, Mr. Jasper stepped in, ordering delay for Lettice—naturally enough, as she had not left her room since Cecilia's death. Lettice could hardly have told whether she were most grieved or relieved. She dreaded leaving these kind friends, to go among fresh strangers: yet the one fixed desire of her mind was to carry out Cecilia's will, and to do what Felix wished. Each day spent at the Farm was in contravention of both these aims.

Another three weeks in the house, however, did good, bringing strength to body and mind. Her sorrow and fragility made them all set her apart as something to be cared for and tenderly guarded. Mrs. Valentine gave her motherliness: Prue and Bertha looked to health and spirits: Nan crouched at her feet in blundering devotion. But the one of them all who understood her best, the one to whom she could turn freely for comfort, was Wallace. Nobody understood why. He had been until now a mere overgrown clumsy boy, with his mother's affectionate disposition, but with an excess of his father's bluntness and angularity. During this month, he grew fast towards becoming a thoughtful man.

So soon as Lettice was released from her bedroom, she found Wallace waiting for her. No matter what had to be done, he was never busy if Lettice wanted him. Every change in the little pale face was noted by him, and not even the trained Bertha was so quick to read it. He would sit by her side, and read aloud or keep silence, by the hour together, sometimes giving only a dumb sympathy which comforted Lettice more than aught else, sometimes drawing her out to say what she thought and felt.

Mr. Jasper had at length granted leave for "early next week," and an escort had been found in the shape of a farmer's wife, going to Bristol. A letter was to be written next day to Dr. Bryant, telling him when to expect Lettice.

Wallace had gone about for hours, looking moody, and when he found Lettice alone in the twilight, resting on the rug, with her head against the arm of Mr. Valentine's arm-chair, he broke into a remonstrance.

"There's no 'must.' It is nonsense. Why can't you stay here, always? We want you, and Dr. Bryant doesn't. How can he, when he doesn't so much as know you? Don't you see what I mean? And we do want you here."

"Sissie told me I must;" in the patient undertone with which she would allude to Cecilia.

"He had no right. He doesn't know us all, and you do. Say—couldn't you be happy to stay here? Do you want to go to Dr. Bryant's?"

She lifted her eyes slowly again. "I'm tired," she said. "I should like to put off—if—but I can't, because of what Sissie said. I mustn't let myself want anything, except what Felix wants."

"Yes, you are. You are ours too. Say you are. Say you mind going, just a little. We shall always be thinking of you. Don't you know you are our little queen—Nan's and mine?"

Lettice smiled quietly, not blushing in her childish freedom from self-consciousness. "O yes, you are all so good, and you all try to spoil me, and, of course, I love you all—" hesitating,—"like you all, I mean."

"But I have to go, all the same. Please don't say any more, because nothing can change what Sissie told me. I want to ask something else. May I?"

One hand held the other fast. "All that for—for Sissie—the doctor, and everything?"

"Mr. Jasper will take nothing, and Dr. Bryant undertakes all that is necessary. Didn't your brother tell you?"

"He ought. Dr. Bryant wrote to him, and to us too. He says it is the last he can do for—her, you know! And it is a pleasure to him."

"You'll be sure to let us know if you are unhappy. If things don't go straight."

"No—to Prue. I have always slept in Prue's room, and Prue has been so good. Bertha says Sissie cared most of all for Prue."

The day of parting drew near, and hour after hour Lettice had a question in her mind, which she longed to ask. Day and night she was haunted by recollections of her last brief interview with Cecilia, and of Cecilia's eager words, more especially the message to Felix.

"Nothing—nothing—worth living for, but to serve God. Tell him from me! I would give anything now to have lived a different life! . . . Too late for that! . . . There is forgiveness, but oh, to have lived for Him! . . . The pitifulness of coming to Him only at last! . . . The difference now if I had lived for Him! Don't put off! Pray to be shown!"

These sentences Lettice would never forget. They were stamped upon her brain. She knew that Cecilia had spoken to Prue of no longer fearing to die. But then, why these burning regrets? What did Sissie wish to have done differently? And what did she mean that Lettice was to do? Lettice would lie and think herself into a maze of bewilderment; yet in her shyness, in her dread of seeming to blame Sissie, she could not endure to speak out. But the pressure became at length too severe, intensified as it was by the knowledge that very soon she would have no one whom she could ask. When Prue came to her room, on the last evening of all, she found Lettice waiting for her, wide awake.

"No. I want to speak. I must say it before I go. Please come and sit here. I want to know what she meant."

"You know. She—the last time I saw her—you were there. When she said I was to tell Felix."

"It is eleven o'clock, and you have a journey to-morrow. I wish you had not put off till now."

"I don't know what she meant. She said to you she wasn't afraid . . . And she told me about—there was pardon . . . and yet she said—said—it would have been so different—if only—if only—"

Lettice caught back a sob. "You know, don't you? Please tell me. I'm always thinking, and I can't understand."

Prue drew the child's head down on her shoulder. "It is not so very difficult," she said. "Would you be satisfied now, looking back, if you felt that you had always neglected and ignored Sissie, forgotten her wishes, disobeyed her, and only pleased yourself—even if at the last she had forgiven it all! I think that the more entirely she forgave you, the more you would long to have loved her, and to have shown your love."

"You did and do. No need to speak of the love as past. You love her, and she loves you; only for a while you are parted. But how different it would be now if you had not loved; if you had been cold, and hard, and neglectful. Now do you see what I mean? Sissie only learnt in those last few weeks how much she owed to our dear Lord, how cold and neglectful she had been to Him. She learnt too how ready He is to forgive; and she asked Him to forgive her. And I know that she was heard. Her fear of death was taken away.

"But the more she understood His love, the more she grieved that she had not served Him earlier. Not really served Him. She had worked hard, and had tried to do her duty, but she had not done it unto Him! She had not thought of Him, or loved Him."

"Yes. It is a difference. It must be. Instead of going to a Home, and a Divine Friend, known and loved for years, it was like going to a strange land, and a Saviour almost unknown. I do believe that she is there, in the fair Land of Paradise, with Him, learning to know Him better. But the going must have been very different from what it would have been, if she had given her life to Him here. And so she wanted you and Felix to do otherwise,—not to please only yourselves, and to forget God, until the end should be near. Very often there is no time, or no strength, then to think of Him. And even if there were, it is so much nobler to live for Him."

"Oh, I will, I will. I'll never forget. I will try;" and Lettice burst into a flood of tears.

It was long before Prue could soothe her; and neither of the two had much sleep that night. Yet in the morning Lettice seemed brighter, relieved from a certain mental pressure, and glad to be going because Sissie had wished it. After long expectation, the reality is sometimes not so bad as the expectation has been.

A letter had been sent to announce her coming, and a post-card in reply stated, "Shall be met," the handwriting not that of Dr. Bryant. On reaching Bristol station, however, no one from Quarrington Cottage could be found; and the farmer's wife put Lettice into a cab. It was only about a two miles' drive.

"All this yours! What a pile of rubbish! Where do you expect it to go, I wonder?" demanded Theodosia Bryant.

She had come out upon the doorstep, tall and good: looking, with lifted eyebrows of dissatisfaction. A pretty boy peeped inquisitively in her rear. Lettice descended from the cab, longing for a kind word of welcome which did not come. Two fingers were tended, and hastily withdrawn.

"Why on earth couldn't you leave some of it at Reading or Brighton? Four big boxes, I declare—and a portmanteau—and a carpet-bag. One would think she meant to take up her abode here for the rest of her life!" A very audible aside, this, and Lettice's pale cheeks burnt responsively. "Well, I suppose it can't be helped. Tell the man to take them all up to Miss Anderson's room," in disdainful accents to the maid. Then to Lettice, "You may as well come in."

Theodosia swept across the passage into the drawing room, and Lettice followed—once more a mere awkward child, acutely conscious of her unwelcome. No Dr. Bryant appeared. Theodosia descended into an easy-chair, motioning Lettice to another which was not easy; and Keith cast askance glances at the newcomer, standing by his mother's side.

"My husband is away for a few nights," Theodosia remarked carelessly. "He may come back to-morrow. It is uncertain. I could not send the pony-carriage, after all. Keith and I wanted it in another direction. But, of course, you could easily manage."

Theodosia's cold manner was in painful contrast with all the love and petting which she had had at the Farm: and the journey, though not long, had tried her considerably. She had eaten nothing since early morning, and she felt unnerved and shaken. Theodosia surveyed her critically.

"I thought they said you were well again. Why did they not keep you a little longer? Now, Keith, you are rumpling my collar. Hands off, my sweet. Let me see—how old are you?—" to Lettice.

"I had sandwiches with me." It was not necessary to state that she had been unable to eat them.

"Nearly half-past three now. We have tea at about five. You will like to go upstairs, and unpack some of your things. And there is the cabman to be paid. Keith, love, you'll show Miss Anderson the way, won't you?"

Theodosia frowned slightly. "Nonsense, darling. To the top spare bedroom. You don't call that a garret, I hope. Go, like a little dear. Mamsie is tired."

"Long! Rubbish, you dear little goosie. You should see the stairs in a Town house."

Keith marched out of the room, and Lettice followed, stumbling over a chair on her way, and eliciting thereby an impatient murmur from Mrs. Bryant. Lettice paused in the hall to pay the cabman, emptying her purse in the act, and then pulled herself wearily upstairs—mounting two short flights to the first floor, then a steep and narrow flight to the garret-floor. Not an "awful long way" as compared with London staircases, certainly, but long at that moment to Lettice's sensations.

The room, which Theodosia in her husband's absence had decided upon as "good enough for that child," was small and low, with slanting roof and window of limited capacity. A square of worn drugget covered the centre of the floor: the plain deal furniture was scanty; the window boasted no curtains; the four big boxes were piled together, two upon two: and lesser packages lay about.

"Mamsie don't like me to call it a garret, but it is," said Keith, with an air of superior knowledge.

"Don't you? Mamsie said you would. She said you'd grumble, and if you did, she'd teach you not . . . Are you ill?" pursued the child, gazing hard. "You haven't got a pretty red in your cheeks, like Mamsie. I'm glad that other ill lady didn't come, 'cause she wouldn't have let me make a noise. And Mamsie is glad too. She cried, and didn't want her. And she said this room would do for you!"

"Yes, of course." Lettice was keenly conscious of the imitative contempt in the shrill little voice, and yet more keenly conscious of the slight to Sissie.

"Will you play with me? I'll like you, if you will. I want somebody to run races. Susanna is too old, and Bella can't, and Mamsie gets a stitch. Have you got a stitch? Will you have a nice big race?"

CHAPTER IX.

KEITH stood with big blue eyes fixed upon Lettice's face, as she leant against the foot of the bed.

"Why not now?" he wanted to know. "'Cause you're tired? And you've got to unpack all that lot of boxes?"

"Perhaps—" was the utmost that Lettice could force herself to say. She had never felt more out of tune for boisterous fun. Keith pranced off, banging the door, and she remained where he left her, drooping in a dead blank of depression and loneliness, the like of which she had not before known. Always she had had her home, her sister and brother, her right to love and be loved by them: and now she was alone.

Nothing to live for: nobody to care for: no one to live and care for her: only Felix far-away out of reach, and the kind Valentines scarcely more accessible. A sense of dreariness weighed her down. It was not so much active pain as dull pressure—the harder to be resisted. Her head throbbed with dull responsiveness: and a wave of temptation to despair swept over her.

What hope, what interest in life remained? A cup of tea might have brought relief to body and mind, but the cup of tea was not forthcoming: and she of course did not realise, as at such times one does not, how far the depression was purely physical.

Dropping her hat, Lettice crept to the side of the bed and lay down upon it—lay flat and still, with closed eyes; for more than an hour, never stirring a finger.

Nobody came, and in later years, this hour always stood out as one of the worst and bitterest phases through which she had had to pass. Worse even than when she had first learned Cecilia's true state; worse than the morning of Cecilia's death. For then she had had the help of kind faces and voices around, though they could not touch her sorrow: and now she was utterly alone. Minutes had never dragged past with such slowness. If one afternoon were so interminable, what would the whole of life be? thought the poor girl in her distress.

Past, present, and future were blended into one murky cloud of darkness. Burning tears crept at intervals through her closed eyelids, and an occasional sob fought for utterance: but Lettice dared not let the struggling passion have way. Once to yield would have been to lose all mastery over herself.

Then through the parched Sahara of her woe came a murmur, breathed softly like the voice of an organ in the far distance, with familiar words, which yet she had not particularly remarked—

In response, a rain of tears fell; but this time they brought a measure of relief. As they lessened, she seemed to hear again—

Lettice sank back on the pillow; a strange new peace at her heart. Prue had talked, and Bertha had talked, and their words had dropped on her dulled spirit, like stones against a wall. But now it seemed as if the Divine Comforter Himself had come; and with one little shower of heavenly rain, the arid desert was changed.

An indescribable sense of rest, of being loved and watched over, crept through her. Consciously and clearly she was no longer alone. With tears still undried upon her cheeks, she fell asleep, and though the sleep could hardly have lasted half-an-hour, it seemed to bridge over a chasm in her existence, to land her in a new world, inwardly as well as outwardly.

She had never slumbered more profoundly, and when she awoke, the same calm peace enfolded her. Everything looked different. "Jesus cares for me! Jesus loves me!" she murmured, clasping her hands. "I'm so glad—oh, so glad."

"What are you lying down for? That's awfully lazy. Mamsie says, if you want any tea, you'd better make haste, because it's getting cold. It's been up ever so long."

Lettice rose slowly, feeling still battered and weak, but happy. Pain of body and pain of mind alike were stilled by that strangely deep slumber. She was able to smile on the child, as he stared at her with wondering eyes.

"Will you play with me after tea? Father said I was to be kind to you. Will you be my horse and let me beat you?"

"Oh, 'course not—you're a girl, you know. But I'll love you, if you'll be my horse."

He slid down the balusters, looking up with eyes of approval: and Lettice came after. A cup of tea was welcome, albeit not too warm.

And as she sat under Theodosia's critical gaze, the thought came again—"I'm not wanted here. But—'He cares for me.'"

"What are you dreaming about?" asked Theodosia abruptly, noting a transient smile.

"And she's going to play games with me, Mamsie. Lots of games, and run races. And I'm going to love her, ever so much, 'cause I think she's pretty."

Theodosia's face darkened. The last thing she desired was that Keith should care for Lettice. Her own love for the child was of a jealous and exacting nature.

"Your friends at the Farm seem to have been in great hurry to get rid of you," she remarked coldly.

"O no, indeed!" Lettice could not let this pass in justice to the Valentines. "They would have kept me any length of time. Only Felix thought—and thought—it would not be right."

"I'm sure I wish—" Theodosia's sentence could not have been clearer, if fully uttered. "Why not 'right,' pray?"

"Sissie—my sister—had told me—" Lettice could not finish the sentence: and Theodosia moved impatiently.

"Do stop crying, pray." Then, in a tone of surprise—"Maurice! To-day! You said you would not come before to-morrow."

Theodosia made no answer. Dr. Bryant kissed her, patted Keith on the head, then passed on to the chair from which Lettice had risen. She said nothing, only lifted two brown eyes, wide-open and filled to the brim with tears. The upward look was singularly sweet and pathetic; and the inscrutable calm of the doctor's face changed slightly under it. He took her two little chill hands into his, and bent to kiss her brow,—a welcome so unexpected, that one or two big tears splashed on his wrist, despite all her efforts. She was glad that he stood between her and Theodosia, from whom a slight sound, half laugh, half sneer, could be heard.

"Lettice Anderson is my little girl, and I am her old uncle, or father, if she will have me, Theodosia." To Lettice, he added softly—"For poor Cecilia's sake! Her mother was very dear to me."

Lettice clung fast to the kind brown hand. How could she hold back? The doctor put her into an easy-chair, and sat down by her, watching the working of the pale face.

Lettice said "Yes:" and then was sorry, as she caught the covert flash of Theodosia's eyes.

"I thought 'that child' was a grown-up young lady just now. Be consistent, my dear . . . Grown-up or no, she is a very tired little being of some sort. I shall order you off to bed soon, Lettice."

Keith was on the verge of a roar: but thinking better of his intention, he only whimpered. Theodosia withdrew from the tea-table with a thundery brow, to pity and caress the boy, while Dr. Bryant poured out the tea for Lettice.

"You have not told me yet, what has brought you home in such a hurry," said Theodosia.

"Was there need? I heard from you this morning that Lettice would arrive to-day."

Theodosia was uncomfortably silent. She had kept Lettice's letter to her husband two days before sending it on: the said letter being undated. But from Dr. Bryant's manner, she saw that he was not without suspicion of the fact. This was true: and a passing gleam of surprise on Lettice's face confirmed his suspicion. He asked no further questions, however. It was by no means the first time that he had had reason to fear a lack of straightforwardness in his wife.

For instance, he knew now that a telegram had been sent to tell of Cecilia's illness and detention at Reading: and he knew, with an almost certain knowledge, that the said telegram had been delivered into Theodosia's hands. Only, in face of her assertions, and notwithstanding the proved truthfulness of the messenger, he generously would not count it quite certain, and therefore, he said nothing. But his trust in her could no longer be absolute; and his eyes had become quick to note discrepancies. To put her to shame before Lettice would, however, have been the last thing he could desire.

"Lettice is to sleep, I suppose, in the spare room?" he said suddenly. Theodosia had expected no such question.

"That room, for a child! You say yourself she is a child. Of course not. If it had been for two of them—"

Dr. Bryant's recollections of "the other spare room" were hazy. He walked off without a word, unheeding an eager protest from Lettice. There was an unpleasant gleam in Theodosia's eyes.

"It is too supremely ridiculous. As if we never were to have a decent room to offer a visitor. I certainly shall not give in."

"Another has to be spared. I will not have Keith on the first floor, and Lettice on the second. If you like to send Keith upstairs—"

Dr. Bryant glanced from Keith's rosy cheeks to Lettice's white ones. "It will not do," he repeated. "I don't insist on the best spare room. We may need that occasionally, I suppose." This was a reluctant concession, for he hated visitors. "But one room on that floor it has to be. Either Keith's, or your little sitting room, or the room next to it."

"My boudoir! Thanks! I am very much obliged. Keith is not going upstairs! And I can't spare that other room. I want it in a hundred ways."

"One of the three it must be. Lettice will sleep in the spare room until you have made up your mind. Will you give orders to that effect—or shall I?"

Lettice again remonstrated, but in vain. Dr. Bryant rang the bell, ordered the best spare room to be at once prepared, asked which boxes would be required for immediate use, and withdrew. He seemed to be unconscious of Theodosia's white-heat of fury. She held it in till he was gone: then, regardless of the boy's presence, she turned upon Lettice with a fierce—"You little—toad!"

Lettice was startled to an upright position. She had a feeling of being stunned, as with a blow. "But what can I do? How can I help it?" she asked. "I did not mean to make trouble. I would not have complained."

"Complained! I should think not! What right have you to anything here, pray? Not even a relation! What are you to any of us? To want the best spare room! Oh, I understand you, for all your innocent looks. It's easy to come over my husband: but you won't come over me! I advise you to be careful, or you will have cause to repent."

"I don't know what you mean! Indeed, I only wish to do what you like," pleaded Lettice.

"I dare say! I know how much that is worth! But it won't pay! Sooner or later my husband will find you out. And mind—if you say one word to him of this I—Come along, my sweet! Come along with me."

Theodosia swept to the door, and there halted, looking back with darkened eyes, for the boy had not at once followed, as she expected. He stood in front of Lettice, scanning her earnestly.

Lettice thought Mrs. Bryant was gone. "Mamsie didn't really mean it, Keith," she said gently. "It was only—Mamsie was a little vexed."

Theodosia's wrath was filled to the brim. She strode back, said scornfully—"You are mistaken! I do mean it—" snatched the boy's hand, and pulled him, struggling, from the room.

Lettice sat confounded. She literally did not know what to do or what to think of this display: since she had never before had to do with an unrestrainedly bad temper. She dreaded greatly the moment of their next encounter; but when it came, Theodosia had reverted to her former cold and careless manner. Lettice found this to be a usual course of events.

Theodosia's outbreaks of ill-humour were frequent, and she seemed to consider that a return to her ordinary manner was sufficient apology; if, indeed, she ever counted an apology called for. All the world might be in the wrong sooner than Theodosia herself: and if she knew what it was to regret her own words, she would not acknowledge the fact.

Lettice suffered keenly from constant association with a temper of utter uncertainty. There could be no repose in her intercourse with Theodosia. However agreeable the mood of the latter might be at any given moment, nobody could predict that she might not flame into anger before five minutes were over; and the incessant dread of possible cyclones weighed upon Lettice like a millstone. She could never be at ease in Mrs. Bryant's presence.

The manner of her life at Quarrington Cottage was not long in declaring itself. On second thoughts, Theodosia gave in to her husband's wishes about the bedroom for Lettice, yielding for that purpose the extra "useful room," which under Dr. Bryant's superintendence was nicely prepared and furnished. But she could not forgive Lettice for having been the innocent cause of this defeat; and she showed a ceaseless jealousy of Dr. Bryant's kind interest in the girl. Not for her husband's sake, but for Keith's sake. Theodosia never lost sight of the fact that some of his money might be diverted from herself and the boy by this "interloper," as she privately called Lettice.

Lettice saw and felt the jealousy without fathoming the motive which lay below. Had it not been for that motive, Lettice might perhaps in time have overcome Theodosia's dislike. Only "perhaps:" for another hindrance soon arose, in the shape of Keith's growing affection for Lettice. That Lettice should play with Keith, amuse him, wait upon him, slave for him, was merely what Theodosia expected, as a matter of course. But that Keith should give Lettice his little heart in return, Theodosia did not expect. The one devotion of her heart was for this boy, and anybody who could win any portion of his love, or who would stand in the way of his interests, became abhorrent to her. She was a complete slave to impulse: and Lettice's gentleness failed to conquer.

Dr. Bryant of course knew his wife to be of an "uncertain temper." Had he discovered the fact before marriage, he would not have married her: but he did not find it out till afterwards. The friction naturally deadened his enjoyment of her companionship, and drove him back into the old recluse habits from which for a time he had emerged; but because of those habits, and because he could always be content in solitude, it did not seriously affect his happiness. Sooner or later she would "come round;" and meanwhile he had his study, and the study-door had lock and key. He failed to realise the difference between his position and that of Lettice: failed to see that, where he might lift his eyebrows and retire, Lettice could only remain where she was, and endure.

He was careful to secure for the girl all that she might need in the way of material comfort. At once he began to allow her twenty pounds yearly for clothes. He superintended to some extent her course of reading, that education might not cease: and his kindness was unvarying. A warm affection sprang up between the two. All this afforded Theodosia fresh food for jealous anger.

During a considerable part of each day, Dr. Bryant was shut up in his study, oblivious of the outer world: and then Lettice had much to bear. Far more than the doctor ever dreamed; for while with him she was safe, and, in consequence, happy. Lettice soon saw that complaints would only make matters worse, even if she had had any inclination to complain. But how could she tell Dr. Bryant, in return for all his goodness, that Mrs. Bryant was not good to her? She could only bear up and bear on with continuous patience, watching for opportunities to make herself useful, and avoiding self-defence.

Young as Keith was, the child soon learnt to control his affection for Lettice in his mother's presence. When alone with Lettice, he would show boisterous love, clinging and kissing to any extent; but before Mrs. Bryant, he seldom ventured on such demonstrations. Her jealous displeasure was only too patent.

Lettice felt this concealment of his real little self to be disingenuous, therefore harmful; yet she had no power to prevent it. "Mamsie doesn't like me to love you, but I do love you," the boy often said; and Lettice was grateful for the love, even while it made her fear. Despite Keith's care, which at six years old was not likely to be consistently maintained, Theodosia knew pretty well how things were—too well for Lettice's comfort.

Her daily life was indeed a course of difficult steering among rocks and breakers. It would have been yet more difficult, but for the new joy which had been breathed into it. The more cold and harsh Mrs. Bryant grew, the more Lettice was driven to prayer. Between Dr. Bryant and little Keith she had many gleams of sunshine: but her happiest hours of all were those spent in Church and alone in her own room, when things unseen became most real, and the passing nature of this life apparent.

In all that she had to bear, the Divine Master still lived and cared for her. Gradually the very passion of her heart grew to be an absorbing love for Him: an intense desire to do and to suffer His will. This did not mean that doing ceased to be difficult, or suffering to be pain. It meant only that she could say from her heart, thoroughly meaning it: "Thy will, not mine."

So passed three years: and through those years Lettice never left Quarrington Cottage. Invitations came from the Farm; and Lettice could not go. The journey meant expense, and she knew too well the opposition which would be aroused in Theodosia if she asked Dr. Bryant's leave. So for his sake, and not to disturb his quiet, she never spoke of these invitations, but smothered down her longings, and quietly declined them all. If her friends counted her neglectful, she could not help it.

Nor did she once see Felix. Twice during the three years, Dr. Bryant invited him to the Cottage, and each time Felix refused to come—not too gratefully. Thereafter, for a while, Dr. Bryant let the matter rest.

CHAPTER X.

She put the question to herself, since nobody was at hand to hear—naturally obtaining no answer. It was betimes in the morning of an early spring day—scarcely 8 A.M., and the air was sharp, through a wealth of sunshine. Beads of dew sent forth prismatic rays from grass-blades, and hung upon linked festoons of spider-silk. Lettice stood upon the wet grass, careless of damp.

Three years had drawn her out of a delicate childhood into a healthy and well-balanced girlhood. She was of medium height: the face still small beneath a pale brow; but cheeks and lips were nicely tinged, and the slim figure displayed a wholesome rounded plumpness. Nothing bony or sallow might be seen in her: only tokens of a well-proportioned body and mind in right conditions. Despite all the snubs and worries of her "Cottage" life, she had an eminently placid look, a look of habitual content, better than high spirits. She had managed to possess herself of the "little wayside flower," happiness, which so often fades from the grasp of those who have fullest opportunity for its cultivation.

"More than three years since I came here. Have they been long or short?" questioned Lettice, in the half articulate murmur sometimes indulged in by solitary people. After the fashion of a monotonous existence, while days and weeks had often dragged past slowly, years shrank and narrowed under a backward review. "Will the whole of life shrivel up into nothing, when we look on it by-and-by?" she queried. "Or will it open out—broader and fuller—because of the new meanings in everything? I wonder which! Why should one mind so much the little frets, with that lying ahead? And yet—one does mind—" as her memory went to Theodosia. For after all a thorn is a thorn, and while it pierces the flesh, one cannot reason the pain away.

"Never mind now! I'll have my birthday walk," declared the girl cheerfully, putting aside unwelcome recollections. "Nothing lasts always. Some day perhaps I shall have a home with Felix. But that would mean leaving uncle Bryant! Must everything in life hurt one somewhere? Well—no need to look forward. Things will come right one way or another: and isn't the sunshine good now?"

Lettice loved an early ramble in bright weather; and this was almost her first since wintry mornings. Now and again in summer Dr. Bryant would be her companion; a treat to them both, which might not often be ventured on, because of Theodosia's jealousy. Lettice had indeed half-hoped to see him appear on this particular day: but he did not. Why should he?

He was famed for forgetting birthdays, unless reminded of them: and Theodosia would not remind him. Lettice, perhaps, scarcely realised how warm a corner she occupied in the heart of the elderly man, labouring under the disappointment and loneliness of one who is mistaken in the wife of his choice.

Dr. Bryant knew now, with a knowledge which left no loophole for a mistake, not only that his wife loved his money better than himself, but—worse still—that her word was not to be depended on.

"He will not remember, of course. But I am sure Felix will write to me, quite sure," murmured Lettice, as she walked.

She dwelt earnestly on the thought of Felix, weighing his probable future. Lettice did not love Felix less because she loved Dr. Bryant. The more one loves, the more one has power to love. He was very near her heart, even though she received scant show of love from him. She belonged to him—that was his view of the matter—and he had a right to her best affection, her supremest interest. But he did not count it needful to repay her in kind.

He was getting on well, in the ordinary sense of the word; fulfilling thus far the aim which Cecilia Anderson had set before him in her life—not that which she had proposed to him in her dying message! He was giving satisfaction, receiving an increased salary, studying hard over-hours. Contented he was not, his whole heart being restlessly bent upon an early escape from the stationer's shop: but if not content with his position, he was well satisfied with himself. "I shall get on," was still the key-note of his tune.

There were changes passing over Felix: changes noted by the far-away watchful sister, whose only means of judging was through the post. She scrutinised his letters, re-reading them often, with an anxious endeavour to see "between the lines;" and often she was haunted by a sense of uneasiness. For these epistles were full to the brim with his own doings, his own affairs: and he wrote less affectionately than of old. Less and less room appeared to exist in his mind for aught but the one absorbing object.

If he might succeed fast enough to please himself, he asked no more. Earth and Heaven lay outside that desire, and Lettice was a mere adjunct to it. The passion of Felix Anderson's heart was, more and more exclusively—"self;" in marked contrast with the nobler passion of Lettice's heart. "To do Thy will:" "To have my way!" gives briefly the two aims. Felix lived for self, worked for self, mainly if not absolutely. Unselfish designs were not yet crushed out in him: but the crushing process was far advanced.

"And yet I am sure he loves me still—if he loves nobody else," thought Lettice, reflecting sadly on his not unfrequent assertion that he "made no friends." "Will he ever come here? If I could but see him again!"

At so early an hour, Lettice hardly expected to meet anybody. She kept mechanically to the main road, because too much absorbed to choose any other path: and presently she saw the postman coming. He greeted her with a "Good-morning, Miss," and held out a letter—only one, and that not from Felix. Had he really forgotten? The man passed on, and Lettice stood still to read.

   "DEAR LETTICE,—You must have a line to tell of coming changes, which I think you would be grieved to learn in any other way than from ourselves.

   "My father's long-standing embarrassments are not unknown to you. They have come to a point lately. Some months ago, he resolved to let or sell the dear old home, since farming had ceased to bring much profit, and difficulties were increasing. Sooner than we expected a purchaser has appeared: not offering the full value, or nearly that,—but still perhaps it is as good as we ought to hope.

   "Unless you should be able to pay us a visit very soon—and you know how welcome you would be—you may never see the dear Farm again.

   "Plans are very uncertain: but Wallace hopes to find some kind of work in London. We are not without interest there, and he has worked steadily at his books in the last three years. I think my father and mother will settle somewhere near London, to make a home for him: and either Nan or I—if not both of us—must be with them. Bertha will go on with her nursing.

   "It all seems very sad and strange, but perhaps when the changes are over, things will be less hard to bear. I must not write more to-day.

"Ever your affectionate,

"PRUE VALENTINE."

Lettice shed a few quiet tears; and she could not have analysed how much of the feeling which caused them was due to sympathy with the Valentines' troubles, how much to her own distress at the silence of Felix. The sympathy was real, but the other pain was the sharper. He had never before entirely missed over a birthday of hers. She retraced her steps slowly, and presently in her rear came the sound of a quick tread overtaking hers.

A young man paused by her side, to ask, "Pray, is this the way to Quarrington Cottage?"

"You don't say it's Lettice! Hallo! This time in the morning! You are an early bird! Well, how do you do?"

He evidently expected no particular demonstration of feeling, and his careless kiss administered a chill. Still there was brotherly interest in his survey of her.

"Yes. Many happy returns. I've meant to come for some time, and this was as good a day as any. Not to sleep—no, not I. I shall go back by an evening train. I've half a mind not to see the Bryants at all, if I—I mean, now I have seen you. What's the good?"

"Felix, you must. He is so kind to me. You must thank him. If he were my own father, he could not do more."

"I don't think Mrs. Bryant cares for me much. She is different—but of course she doesn't mean to be unkind."

"If I come, I shall not stay. Mind that. When have you got to be in? Nine o'clock? And how far-off? We can take it easily. You've grown any amount—and you're not such a bad-looking girl either. Quite tolerable."

"Felix, you'll be nice to uncle Bryant." She laid her hand pleadingly on his arm. "Please do."

"Why shouldn't I? Oh, you mean what I used to say. A boy's fancy. It is a good thing you are able to be here."

"Can't say, I'm sure. It's slow work. However, I have news to tell. I am going to London."

"Yes. It is Mr. Kelly's doing. He has a living there, and he is getting me into a first-rate house of business. No, not a stationer's. Tea-trade. Not a retail shop, but a wholesale house of business. If I do well, there's no reason why I shouldn't make my fortune some day. Everybody says I am capital in that line. I mean to stick to it, and lay by, and sooner or later I may become a partner. At least I hope so. I don't see why not. I'll be a successful man in time. Life would not be worth living without."

Lettice thought of the dying message of Cecilia. Had he no recollection of those burning words?

"I don't mean that one ought not to try to get on. But that alone doesn't seem worth living for."

"Oh, of course. I say, what sort of a person is Mrs. Bryant? Something of a termagant?"

"O no—I don't think—Oh, she is only a little quick-tempered. You must not mind if she does not seem particularly pleased to see you. Dr. Bryant will be delighted."

"Very often. Always when we are alone together, but Mrs. Bryant doesn't much like it."

"Well, of course you have to look neat—but in this out-of-the-way place—why, anything would do to wear. You used to talk of laying by part."

"Yes, for you," gravely. "But it is harder than I thought. Mrs. Bryant likes me to get some things—a good many things—besides clothes. And I never tell my uncle."

"You ought. It is his money, and she has no right to put upon you. How much have you now?"

"Well—I shouldn't mind! There's my journey here and back, and I have to get a lot of new things going to London. I don't mean to disturb a penny of what is laid by. I would rather go shabby. No end to that, if once one begins."

"I only wish I had more," sighed Lettice, trying not to look in the face what she really felt.

When they reached the cottage, Keith alone was downstairs, and he stared with round eyes at the newcomer. Lettice left them to make acquaintance, and ran upstairs for her purse. How to get on without her quarter's allowance, during the next three months, was a mystery, since Mrs. Bryant was in the habit of making frequent calls upon it; but she would not refuse Felix. She always had meant to send him the first sum she could spare. Only, that he could ask her for it, not even inquiring what her needs might be, was an unlooked-for blow. She dared not trust herself to think, and hastened back to put the little purse into his hands.

"It is all I have, Felix—just five pounds. I wish I had twenty pounds to give you!"

"Thanks," Felix said, not without a touch of shame; and Mrs. Bryant swept in, wearing a handsome morning-dress, and a by no means cordial face. Dr. Bryant followed; and Keith, now a fine boy of nine, pranced after, exclaiming, "That man says he's Lettice's brother."

"Anderson at last! I am glad to see you!" Dr. Bryant shook warmly the young man's hand, while Theodosia made no attempt to conceal her annoyance. The greeting she gave was of the coldest description.

For a while, no allusion was made to Lettice's birthday. But when breakfast was begun, Dr. Bryant said, "Hallo! I'm forgetting," apologised and vanished. He brought a small parcel, laid it before the girl, and wished her duly, "Many happy returns."

Theodosia's face darkened. He had not recollected her birthday, six weeks' earlier, till reminded. It darkened still more when Lettice, with sparkling eyes, uncovered a little old case, and found within a handsome bracelet of gold and emeralds.

"It belonged once to Cecilia's mother. I gave it to her, and when she died, her husband sent it back to me. A rather singular thing to do! If any one has a right to it now, you have."

"Worth—?" queried Felix, with an involuntary reference to £ s. d. after the habit of his mind.

"It is worth uncle's love and kindness," Lettice said softly, with an eloquent look.

Felix had brought no present. Instead of baying a birthday-gift, he had begged one, and with all her willingness, Lettice was keenly alive to the distinction.

Yet on the whole the day passed happily. No persuasions could induce Felix to stay over the night, and indeed, say what the Doctor and Lettice might, Theodosia's manner was not encouraging: but he remained till a late hour in the afternoon. Lettice took him about the place, talked to him of her interests, listened to all he had to say, and did to some extent thaw the crust of self-absorption fast forming over his being. Only, would it remain thawed, away from the softening influence?

They saw little of Theodosia, until afternoon tea. She gave her husband a bad quarter of an hour, on the score of the bracelet, and he endured the same with man-like philosophy. What was the use of minding? He had done what he considered to be right, and Theodosia was unreasonably angry. Sooner or later she would come round; and meanwhile he had his study. To that haven, he retired; and into it, for an hour, he invited the brother and sister after lunch, making a pleasant impression on the young man, despite early prejudices.

"Really, he is not half bad," declared Felix, on emerging from the elderly man's "den."

"Well, I find it must be eighteen. My London dressmaker's bill has come to more than I expected."

"I don't wish to be a scarecrow, if there is no one to see, in this horrible place." Theodosia was offended still about the bracelet, and when offended, she was always tart.

"Certainly not," assented Dr. Bryant. He opened his purse, took out a £20 Bank of England note, and placed it in her hand. "That will cover your necessities," he said.

The two extra pounds were perhaps meant as a peace-offering, and Theodosia was grateful for them; yet she could not recover her equilibrium. Each time that her thoughts recurred to the exquisite bracelet, "flung away on that stupid girl," as she phrased it, her anger flamed up afresh—partly against her husband, and much more against Lettice. Evidently Lettice had an increasing hold upon Dr. Bryant's affections, and who could say what this might lead to, in the matter of will-making?

Theodosia had given in to jealous and bitter moods, until they had complete mastery over her. Worse, she had given way to habits of not entire truth, not perfect straightforwardness, till there too her powers of resistance were weak. As she sat in the drawing room, discontentedly fingering the bank-note, and weighing her grievances, a sudden thought came, a suggestion of evil, sharp and clear as a flash of lightning—or rather a string of suggestions, in quick succession, flash after flash.

First, a distinct longing to do something to separate those two—her husband and Lettice. Then, a recollection of the words which she had overheard Lettice utter that morning, from outside the breakfast room, "It is all I have . . . just five pounds. I wish I had twenty pounds to give you!" Thirdly—the idea, was Felix in debt? And had he appealed to Lettice for help? Fourthly—suppose such a bank-note to be left carelessly in the way of Lettice, was it certain that the girl's principles could be strong enough to withstand sudden temptation? Might she not be led to possess herself of it, for the sake of Felix? She was very young, and perhaps she would not fully realise what the deed meant.

Theodosia recoiled from her own evil thoughts. To wish to lead that young creature into sin! It was too terrible. Deliberately to plan temptation, in the hope that it might prove irresistible! Theodosia shuddered at herself for the desire, yet she did not cast it away, and slay it. She let herself look at it steadily, and the sense of repulsion lessened. A thought of the bracelet came up anew. Then Theodosia grew harder, and when she viewed the suggestion once more, it seemed not quite so black, but only natural under the circumstances.

At the worst, she was merely proposing to use a slight test, the kind of test that comes to everybody sooner or later. She was not going to tempt or injure Lettice. If she chose to leave the bank-note lying outside her desk, instead of locking it up at once, whose business was that? All the world might see it there; Lettice and Felix included, of course. If it remained untouched, she would have proved the girl's inviolable honesty. So much the better for Lettice.

When the two came in, they found Theodosia in a mood to all appearance friendly. Lettice, being used to these sudden variations, thought little of the change. She knew how slight was the dependence to be placed on Theodosia's happiest frames.

They talked of where the brother and sister had been, discussing the neighbourhood. Theodosia presently called Lettice out of the room, on some slight pretext, leaving Felix alone, with the bank-note on her desk, half-covered by papers, yet distinctly visible. The figure, £20, might be seen from half across the room.

Then she brought Lettice back, begged her to wind a skein of silk, and led Felix into the conservatory, making talk about the plants for a good ten minutes. After which, at the sound of the incoming tea-tray, she sauntered to her desk, with carefully averted eyes, that she might not see if the note were or were not still there, and tossed all loose papers into her desk, turning the key upon them securely. It was a key which she always carried on her watch-chain.

Nor did she again shudder at herself for what she had done. As one grows used to the dim light of a darkened room, it seems to become a little less dark. Theodosia's eyesight was becoming accustomed to the blackness of that evil desire which had taken possession of her.

CHAPTER XI.

"WHERE can I have put it? Where is it gone?" exclaimed Theodosia, in an agitated voice.

She had grown pale, and her hands shook, as they turned over the contents of her desk. No one would have guessed her surprise to be simulated; and in truth the agitation was genuine enough, though not from the avowed cause.

"Where is what gone?" asked Dr. Bryant. He and Lettice had taken Felix to Bristol station in the pony-carriage; and dinner, deferred to a late hour on account of this expedition, was now over. Lettice sat near a lamp, reading: and Dr. Bryant, who had risen to leave the drawing room, was arrested by his wife's exclamation.

"My bank-note! It is not here." She did not look at him or Lettice, but seemed to search with eagerness, turning the papers rapidly over—too rapidly. The Doctor's keen eyes noted something odd in the manner of her seeking; not that he at the moment drew any conclusion therefrom.

"I was in a hurry, and I threw all the papers in here together, just before tea."

"I saw," remarked Lettice, always anxious to agree with Theodosia when possible. "It was before afternoon tea. I noticed that the note was for £20."

"I didn't notice what went into the desk; but it was lying on the desk, I know, with a pile of letters, and Mrs. Bryant pushed them all in together, in a hurry."

"You will find nothing at that rate, Theodosia. Take each sheet separately, and lay it on one side."

Theodosia paid no heed. She went on "pitchforking" the mixed contents of her desk, and Dr. Bryant took the matter into his own hands. Lettice sat watching, with a look of interest, hardly amounting to concern. Theodosia stepped back, still with averted eyes, and evident agitation.

"I locked the desk so carefully. Nobody can have been to it since," she said after a while.

"Not here," was at length his decision. "You must have put it elsewhere—unthinkingly. Are you sure it is not in your purse?"

"I looked there—I mean, I have only this purse—I had only that in the other pocket, and when I changed my dress, I moved it."

"I don't know what I'm saying. It has flustered me so." She sat down and put her hands over her face. "I don't know what to think."

Dr. Bryant was again conscious of something unsatisfactory about his wife's manner; something which to his consciousness had about it a ring of untruth. Yet he never could endure to suspect her without full proof; and he had no proof.

"And they were not in the room at all—I mean between my seeing the bank-note, and locking the desk. I don't know whom I trust or don't trust; but they had no opportunity! Nobody was here alone—except—Lettice—" she paused, not adding "and Felix."

The insinuation, pointed by her stress upon the word "they," might have glanced unfelt from the shield of Lettice's unconscious innocence, but for Dr. Bryant's indignant—"Theodosia!" It opened the girl's eyes. She dropped her book, and sat up, not frightened or angry, but amazed. That any one should suppose such a thing possible, seemed beyond credulity. Lettice could have laughed aloud.

"I'm not accusing anybody—why should I? But you can't deny that things look odd. I know the bank-note was there, and Lettice was left in the room alone—for some minutes alone—and nobody has seen the note since. And I heard her say this very morning, that she wanted twenty pounds. You know you did, Lettice!"

"Of course anybody can think what anybody likes," Theodosia observed at length, breaking into an uneasy laugh. "The thing may have spirited itself away. Or the cat may have got it. Or it may be in my desk all the time. Only I don't see how it can be—and the cat hasn't been here, all day—and if I were Lettice, I shouldn't like the look of things."

Silence again. Dr. Bryant had taken up a paper-knife, and was carefully examining its edge. Lettice sat like one dazed. She said not a word in self-defence. Another dread, a terrible fear had fallen upon her. Felix had been alone in the room, as well as she; only for a brief space, yet, alas, long enough. She had not after that observed the bank-note, so as to know if it still lay there. Could it be that Felix had possessed himself of the twenty pounds, under a sudden temptation? Was such a thing possible? Lettice did not know. He had wanted ready money? So much she did know; and he had accepted her little all, without hesitation or compunction. He might have gone further still.

Dr. Bryant stood in pained silence, waiting for her denial of Theodosia's implied accusation. He could not understand the long silence. All he wished for, was a denial from Lettice: for he trusted her word perfectly, and his wife's word he could not perfectly trust. Had Lettice met him with her clear gaze, and said firmly—"I did not do it!" Then he would have had no more doubts. He would have believed her implicitly, in the face of any odds.

She only sat motionless, with a changed face, growing whiter and whiter, till it was the hue of wax. While apparently listening, she heard in reality not a word that was said, beyond the one utterance which recalled to her mind the fact of Felix having been left in the room alone. Had Theodosia forgotten? If so, Lettice would not remind her. She would bear anything, rather than cast upon Felix doubt which might be undeserved. Even if it were otherwise, even if the doubt were deserved, she would shelter him at all hazards, for Cecilia's sake. So much was clear.

Silence still. The Doctor made no answer, and Theodosia stopped speaking. Lettice wondered vaguely what was to happen next. She forgot that she had made no attempt to clear herself: indeed, at this moment, she hardly so much as realised that she was under suspicion. The dread for Felix—not a mere fear of suspicion falling upon him, but an overpowering terror of what he might actually have done, crushed lesser uneasiness out of existence. She sat and thought of that, in growing anguish, her hands unconsciously strained together, pulling one against the other. That Felix, her only brother, should take money not his own! But could he, would he, have done such a thing? Might it not be that she was cruelly suspecting him of an impossibility? Lettice was unable to decide. She only knew that the bare idea was overwhelming. A vision arose of Felix standing at Theodosia's desk, handling the bank-note, thrusting it shamefacedly into his pocket; and the vision turned her sick.

"Theodosia cannot find the note, Lettice." Dr. Bryant spoke with restrained quietness, and not in his usual voice. He came near, and gazed at the girl's ashen face, striving to read what was there. Lettice actually cowered beneath his gaze; shrinking, not for herself, but for the possible shame of her brother.

To deny or explain—for Felix? That was what she understood. She had forgotten herself, in thought for her brother.

"Hush! Lettice, my child," and he spoke pleadingly, "you will not leave me to believe this. It is too dreadful. The thing cannot be. Stand up, and look at me, and say I am mistaken."

Why should the thing not be? What did he know of Felix, to make any such confident assertion? What did any of them know? If she could have been sure, she of all people living would have been sure! But what security had she! Lettice neither rose or lifted her eyes.

"It cannot be true!" Yet there was now in his voice a tone as of one yielding to conviction against his will, and Theodosia, was quick to note the change. "If you had wanted money, for yourself or Felix, surely you would have asked me. That you should be a thief! You! It is impossible."

His meaning dawned upon her slowly. She to take the note! A sense of positive absurdity in the notion almost made her laugh; and then, sharp as lightning, came the thought, "If I deny it, they will suspect Felix!" She had all but exclaimed, "I! No!" and this recollection sealed her lips.

She obeyed the stern order, though not easily, for her limbs shook. It was the first time that he had ever spoken sternly to Lettice; and the pain of having him so speak, of letting him think such a thing of her, turned her sick again, while the room seemed full of mist; but her clear eyes looked out from the wax-white face straight up into Dr. Bryant's, none the less straight because of intervening mist, and whatever the Doctor saw there he did not read guilt. The question following was not what she expected.

"Just a little. You had better go to bed at once. It is getting late. I will look into this to-morrow morning."

Lettice made no protest. The one thing she desired was to be alone, to have time for consideration. Dr. Bryant, always gentle to any one in suffering, gave her a helping hand to the door. Then, finding that she could walk sufficiently well, he left her to go upstairs alone, returned to his wife, and said: "This must go no farther, if you please."

"I cannot believe yet that she has done such a thing. I will not, without fuller evidence. It is too outrageous. There is some mystery in the affair that we have not fathomed. Lettice looks wretched, but, to my mind, she does not look guilty."

"Lettice! I would as soon have suspected myself. I have always found that girl the soul of honour."

"She might do for her brother's sake what she would not do for her own. Evidently he is in difficulties."

Theodosia repeated more fully what she had overheard; in fact, as is often the case, her repetition was more full than the original. "Only five pounds for you, Felix; it is all I have. I would do anything if only I could make it £20."

"A coincidence that she happened on the same day to have a chance of securing the £20."

"It would be very cool if she did, I think. There is no real tie: and these Andersons have no claim upon you."

"These Andersons!" The Doctor could have laughed, if he had been less unhappy. He loved Lettice as his own child.

"Are you absolutely sure that nobody except Lettice was in the room for a moment alone?"

Theodosia wished now that she had not left Felix alone there. She did not desire to divert suspicion from Lettice to Felix, though she had had that possibility in reserve. Moreover, she had managed thus far to avoid the more direct form of falsehood, though each step had been an acted lie; and there was a momentary hesitation before she answered in the negative.

"Lettice would not have been, but that I took her brother into the conservatory for a few minutes." To herself, Theodosia added, "If it is found out, I can say that I forgot." Like all who leave the firm path of truth, she was getting deeper and deeper into the quicksands of falsehood.

"It is the strangest thing!" and Dr. Bryant sighed heavily. "I would have trusted her with any amount of uncounted gold . . . I do not, in fact, believe it yet."

The separation between Lettice and her husband, for which she had craved, seemed now to lie within a measurable distance. Yet Theodosia could not feel happy. A dark shadow hung over her, the fruit of her own ill-doing. Conscience worked uneasily, and the dread of detection was a haunting companion.

Lettice's non-denial of the deed puzzled Theodosia, even more than it puzzled her husband, because she knew, as he did not, that it could not be due to guilt. Not until late that night did a clue to the mystery occur to her mind, in the shape of a suggestion. Did Lettice fear to direct suspicion towards Felix by diverting it from herself?

"If that is it, I am safe," thought Theodosia. "Lettice will never let out that he was left alone in the room."

Lettice was down early next morning, somewhat unexpectedly, since the Doctor had sent word that she might stay in bed to breakfast. The advice was not followed. She looked unusually pale, and her eyes were heavy with sleeplessness: but Dr. Bryant was strongly impressed at first sight with the peaceful calm of those brown eyes. It seemed to him that she must have come straight from Communion with the unseen world, with the Divine Lord, to Whom she was used to refer all her difficulties. Dr. Bryant, albeit a man of few words on religious subjects, knew what such communion meant . . . That the face of a thief! Impossible. For ten minutes he had not a shadow of doubt as to her innocence.

"Mamsie says Lettice is a wicked girl. Is she?" asked Keith, glancing from one to another. "Mamsie says she has taken a lot of money that belongs to somebody else." The spoilt home-boy was childish for his years, in voice and mode of expression. Theodosia did her best to keep him a permanent baby.

"Keith gives his own version of affairs," she answered carelessly. "Children are always outspoken."

"You had no business to say a word to him about the matter. I told you that it was to go no further."

"It is no concern of yours. Hold your tongue, and attend to your own concerns," commanded Dr. Bryant. Then, as he noticed the whitening circle round Lettice's lips, he added gently, "Go into the drawing room, Lettice. I will take a cup of tea to you there."

"Let it." The Doctor himself emptied Lettice's cup, held it out to be refilled, and took a slice of dry toast. "Mind!" he said to his wife as he went. "If you do not silence that boy's chatter, I will take means to do so."

Then, making his way to the drawing room, he placed the cup and toast on a small table beside Lettice, saying simply—"This first."

She obeyed silently, at whatever cost: and he took the empty cup away. On his return, he stood watching the girl's downcast face, unobserved, for two or three minutes. Had she forgotten his presence? It might seem so, from her start when he spoke.

"Tell me now, child. I cannot go on in uncertainty. I promise to accept your word without hesitation. Did you—or did you not—touch the bank-note?"

Lettice was seated in a drooping attitude on the sofa, leaning forward, as if lost in thought. At this question, she lifted her face straightway, aglow with the eager desire to speak, the certainty that he would believe her.

Once more her lips parted with the outbursting, "No, no! Oh, no!" And again the checking thought of Felix came. If she were cleared, would not suspicion fall upon him? Would not Sissie have desired her at every hazard to shelter Felix?

She pressed her lips to his hand, but did not speak, and Dr. Bryant drew the hand away.

"Am I to count you guilty—you, my little Lettice!" The Doctor could hardly speak. "Child, this is too terrible."

"Not ask! Rubbish!" The Doctor was growing angry. "I must ask. What on earth do you mean? Things look dark, and I offer to trust you absolutely, if you simply say 'No.' If you do not, what can I think, but that you did take the money?"

Lettice patiently dropped her head again. "For Felix's sake! For Sissie's sake!" she kept saying. And she forgot what was due to this kind uncle to whom she owed so much.

"Did you take it, Lettice?" The Doctor spoke severely now, and his brows were drawn together.

"Then—I have no choice. I must look upon the child I love, as a miserable thief."

She wrung her hands over her face, in the struggle not to answer. Dr. Bryant walked up and down the room twice with heavy steps.

"No choice seems left to me," he said at length, pausing by her. "Listen! Since you cannot deny the theft, nothing remains but free confession. Tell me how you came to do it—and what you have done with the money. If you are sorry, say so. I may at least forgive. The relations between us cannot be what they have been, if you are capable of such a deed—still, I can believe that there has been some peculiar temptation. Only you must tell me all."

The Doctor was surprised afresh. As he spoke, Lettice threw up her head, and the honest eyes, dimmed with tears, looked full into his with a glance of indignant reproach.

And though she stopped, the Doctor knew as distinctly as if she had finished, that she had all but said—"I did not do it."

"There is some mystery here. All I can understand of it is—that you wish me to count you guilty—"

"I cannot fathom your motives," Dr. Bryant went on, with judicially-assumed sternness: "nor can I suppose them to be right. But I confess, without stronger evidence, I am unable to believe this thing of you."

"Evidence enough for any reasonable person, I should think," said Theodosia, in his rear. "If you want more proof, why not search her boxes!"

"Nonsense! As if that would settle anything! No! I do not see my way to any further step at this moment. Sooner or later something will turn up to throw light on the subject . . . Remember, Lettice, though I do not actually believe you guilty, I am very much displeased. More, I am disappointed in you. There is a want of straightforwardness in your conduct, which I could not have expected. You are not treating me as I have a right to be treated. If a mystery exists, I ought to be told what it is: and if you did not take the bank-note, as I believe you did not—you ought to avow your innocence. Until you can resolve to show me your old frankness, I cannot feel my old confidence in you."

"To-day I will not press you further. You are not quite fit for it, physically. But, understand—while this mystery lasts, things cannot be between us as they have been."

Dr. Bryant passed out of the room with a heavy and grieved step, Theodosia following.

Lettice sat alone, wondering wearily whether the shadow would ever be lifted. She could see no way out of the trouble. Wondering, too, in what manner Dr. Bryant meant to make a change. She had always been used to go to his study at half-past ten, to see if he wanted any little thing done—a letter copied: a bookshelf or a cabinet arranged. Such small services had been the delight of her heart. But would he expect her this day? Might she venture to go as usual? She tried to weigh the question, to consider what ought to be done: and found it difficult to come to any conclusion. Just before the half-hour, after long hesitation, she rose mechanically, unable to resist; and then she saw Dr. Bryant pass the window, equipped for a walk. It was an hour when ordinarily he never went out . . . Lettice understood, and she burst into a flood of tears.

CHAPTER XII.

AS days went on, however, Theodosia was not satisfied. She had had her will: but results did not shape themselves according to her expectations. The money was still lost—so far as Dr. Bryant was concerned—and suspicion pointed its finger direct at Lettice. Moreover, Lettice still declined to refute that suspicion by denial. Yet the separation between her husband and Lettice, for which Theodosia craved, had not come about. Though the Doctor called himself "displeased" with Lettice, it was a calm and affectionate displeasure, devoid of heat; rather indeed an acknowledgment of what he ought to feel, than a showing of what he really felt. He did not believe that Lettice had helped herself to the money: he only thought she had not treated him with becoming openness: and he said so to his wife, plainly. No arguments shook his opinion.

Unpaid bills had to be paid, and the Doctor supplied his wife with a £20 cheque uncomplainingly. He would not even tell her how careless she had been—perhaps because it was useless, perhaps because he disliked to rouse her self-assertive annoyance. To suggest that Theodosia had done anything not entirely wise and right, meant always a wordy outburst on her part. In hopes of finding the lost bank-note, he instituted various inquiries, but with no result.

Vain, too, was his effort to shield Lettice from general suspicion. Theodosia took that matter into her own hands, and the Doctor had very limited power over his wife's tongue. If he had but known it, the one real power which he did possess was through Keith's interests, and the future disposition of his money. The one thing which would have restrained Theodosia, would have been the knowledge that aught she said or did might harm her boy's prospects. The crooked path upon which she had entered was for Keith's sake—at least so she counted it to be. Jealousy and ill-temper had also no small hand in the matter. Theodosia knew, and could not forgive, her boy's love for Lettice.

True, the two did not indulge before her in affectionate demonstrations. Keith had sense enough to see that such demonstrations would bring trouble: and as a rule, he abstained, reserving bear-like hugs for Theodosia's absence. But love is not easily hidden for any length of time. Keith might put on spoilt-child airs, and speak with a certain imperiousness to Lettice; yet the look in his eyes when he turned to her was unmistakable.

And even if Theodosia had doubted, the servants and villagers were not loath to supply her with the unwelcome information. "Master Keith do care for Miss Lettice and no wonder!" "He's that devoted to her!" "Well, I says he just worships the ground she treads on!"

These and other like remarks could not be ignored, and they were as gall and worm-wood to the heart of Theodosia. She never quoted them, and she persistently treated Lettice as a person of no account in the household; but deep down in her own mind she knew that Keith loved Lettice with a love which he did not give to herself. For the one was the affection of relationship only; the other was the love which grows and is sustained by what the loved one intrinsically is. Where both co-exist, the tie becomes very strong indeed; but the first without the second is apt to prove more of a trial than a joy in life, if not to snap altogether.

Theodosia knew, and smarted under the knowledge, that this higher love of her boy's heart was given to Lettice, not to herself; yet she made no effort to become different, that so she might win it. She only scorned and hated Lettice for having what she had not.

In fear of what her husband might do, Theodosia had effectually silenced Keith's prattle as to the lost bank-note. The boy had his own thoughts, doubtless; thoughts which caused no diminution of his love for Lettice. But before her and Dr. Bryant, he did not again allude to the subject during many weeks.

To lie under suspicion could not but mean sharp suffering to Lettice's sensitive nature; and the suffering did not lessen with time. True, Keith was silent; and the servants in the house scouted as utterly false Mrs. Bryant's accusation; so in this quarter Lettice had no needless pain to bear. But among acquaintances, and even in the village, she could not but be aware that the thing was known. Askance glances and unpleasant whispers were only too patent. Everybody had heard the tale.

Yet these things, disagreeable as they were, she could better endure than Theodosia's sneers. To have it perpetually thrown in her teeth, that she had done what her whole being loathed, and to be unable to deny the same, for fear of diverting suspicion upon Felix, was hard—especially hard, because the agony of shame was real for the possibility that he might be guilty. There lay the sting. Had she been sure of his innocence, she could have held up her head, and gone forward cheerily. That which made her droop and grow thin, through succeeding weeks, was not the pricking of Theodosia's gibes alone, though they did prick sharply. It was rather the dread, ever-present, that Felix might actually have done the deed of which she was accused.

Only she did not know. There was no certainty. Had there been, the question must have arisen, whether she were right to hide the truth from Dr. Bryant. So long as uncertainty existed, her main care was to avert from Felix a suspicion which might be totally undeserved.

Writing to Felix, she spoke of what had occurred, mentioning that the bank-note had been left loose on the desk that afternoon, and asking whether he had observed it. A reply was long in coming; and when it came it contained no allusion to what she had said. The silence might arise either from guilt, or from indifference. Felix seldom answered piece-meal her items of news; still, in this case it perhaps had a serious signification.

She could not at all times feel confident that Dr. Bryant believed in her innocence. There was a slight change in his manner—too slight to be apparent to Theodosia's superficial observation: decided enough to mean sorrow to Lettice,—a slight loss of the old confiding affection. It seemed to Lettice that he watched her soberly, and waited anxiously, holding the expression of his love in leash, till matters should become more clear. The rift was a small one: and as weeks went by it narrowed rather than widened; but it brought unhappiness to Lettice, even while to Theodosia it brought disappointment.

"I thought you meant to take Lettice for a day's excursion somewhere," said Theodosia.

"I wish you would fix the day. I shall be glad to have you both out-of-the-way for a few hours. For house-cleaning purposes."

Another shock of surprise! Theodosia had always declared on such occasions that Lettice could not be spared.

"Would you like to go, Lettice?" The girl's face glowed. "Well, I am willing enough. Where shall it be? To the top of West Hill? I don't mind if we name to-morrow. The sooner the better this fine weather."

"If I believed that you really had done it, child, I should demur. But—I do not. Breakfast at 8.30, sharp!"

"I shall have your room thoroughly turned out, Lettice. It is a good opportunity," said Theodosia, in an unwontedly agreeable manner.

Lettice was perplexed again: since she saw no need for such an opportunity. The room could have been "turned out" any day, without the slightest difficulty. She supposed, however, that in some manner Theodosia meant kindness.

A faultless morning dawned, and the Doctor was early astir, eager as a boy for his treat. He and Lettice were seldom permitted a whole day together, unchecked: and whether he were or were not still judicially "displeased" with the girl, her companionship gave him satisfying pleasure. By nine o'clock breakfast was over, and the Doctor stood upon the front doorstep, basket in hand, with the day's provisions. Lettice ran downstairs, and Theodosia emerged from the breakfast room.

"One moment, Lettice. I want to have all your boxes moved, and one or two are too heavy. Are your keys upstairs?—In case we should have to lift out a few things to lighten them?"

"Tuts, my dear!" remonstrated Dr. Bryant, and a flood of colour rushed into Lettice's face. The Doctor looked at her curiously.

"Much too heavy for the maids to drag about," said Theodosia decisively. "Quick—where are the keys?"

"Just inside my desk—and the desk is not locked," murmured Lettice. "But—" with an effort which brought another rush of colour—"please, please, don't move any of the things that belonged to Sissie."

Which of course it would be, seeing that it was the heaviest. Lettice followed Dr. Bryant slowly, her pleasure marred for at least an hour. The idea of Theodosia turning over and handling with cold critical fingers all those sacred relics of the loved past, was painfully repugnant to Lettice. She almost felt at first as if she must give up the excursion, and stay at home to protect her treasures. The thought of Theodosia's sneering laugh, and careless toss to one side of dresses worn by Sissie, knick-knacks valued by Sissie, books treasured by Sissie, sent a positive shudder through the girl. Many of these things she would naturally have had out in her room for use, but she had always been restrained by the dread of Theodosia's chilling remarks and questions. Theodosia now had stolen a march upon her.

Another recollection had helped to hinder her ready acquiescence. A half-written letter to Felix lay In her desk, speaking of Theodosia in terms which, however true and moderately expressed, and by no means unkind, were not intended for Theodosia's eyes. In searching for the keys Theodosia could hardly fail to come upon the letter. This would have been a matter of indifference, if Lettice could have felt sure that Theodosia was honourably incapable of reading another person's letter: but no such confidence was possible. She knew too well that Theodosia was not honourable. The small wrong of the letter, however, went down and sank into nothing before the real pain of having her cherished treasures at Theodosia's mercy.

Lettice looked up silently. She had not heard the question, till it was twice repeated.

"Oh, nothing—I mean nothing really of consequence," said Lettice cheerfully. "It was only—about my room."

"Mrs. Bryant wanted to be able to open my boxes. She said they would be too heavy to move. I don't know why—they never have been." Lettice usually made it her rule never to complain to the Doctor of his wife: but resentment was for once too strong to be mastered. "I shouldn't care with any of them—except one."

"Yes. I don't mind. Mrs. Bryant said there was not room anywhere else in the house. And I shouldn't like that one to go—the biggest."

"Theodosia will not hurt them, child." He could not enter into the girl's feelings.

"Not of anything? I don't understand." Dr. Bryant was regarding her attentively.

"It isn't being afraid. She will not hurt anything—of course. It is only—I don't think I can explain. I don't like the things I love so much—to be—to be handled—by—"

"And to-day you will be wise to banish all recollection of the box. It cannot be helped now,—and we cannot go back, to tell my wife that you do not wish her to touch those things. It would be—rather an invidious thing to do . . . After all, the feeling is mere sentiment, and not a very healthy kind of sentiment . . . Could you not make a better use of your sister's possessions, than to keep them locked up,—useless to yourself and to everybody?"

"Well, give a little thought to the question when you get home. Now you have to forget it, and to make the most of this perfect day. See what a blaze of sunshine!"

Lettice made a resolute effort to obey, smiled, chatted, and seemed to forget her trouble. But the Doctor did not forget. A transient wonder more than once crossed his mind—had Lettice told him all? Was it possible that some other cause existed for this odd reluctance to let Theodosia open her box? The reluctance seemed "odd" to the Doctor, since such a feeling would not have been natural to himself in her place. He could not now feel absolutely certain of her truth and transparency, as once he could; and if he continued to trust her in the main, it was resolute trusting in the face of doubts. Such doubts assailed him to-day, once and again. Lettice looked up wonderingly, at the sound of a sigh, in the midst of their cheerful talk. She would have liked to ask the reason, but did not: and the Doctor vouchsafed none.

"You are late!" declared Theodosia, as the two came in, close upon seven o'clock. "I expected you an hour ago. Dinner has had to be put off, and of course everything will be spoilt."

"I suppose we are both rather tired. It took us longer coming home than I reckoned."

"People always manage to knock themselves up in these ridiculous excursions." Theodosia forgot for the moment that she was herself the originator of the excursion in question; and nobody reminded her of the fact. She stood looking at them, a restless exultant gleam in her eyes.

"I told them to wait if you were not back. Of course they have seen you come in."

"Well, we have a little superfluous mud and dust to get rid of, before we can sit down. Get ready, child, as fast as you can."

Lettice went to her room, in sudden dread of what she might find there. She had managed pretty well, during the day, to banish recollections of Theodosia and the keys; but the pent-up wave of foreboding broke bounds now, and rushed through her mind, to the exclusion of all else.

Two boxes, the heavier ones, stood open; and that which contained her chief treasures was more than half emptied. Cecilia's dresses lay about on bed and chairs; Cecilia's little treasures were tossed together on the floor. What Theodosia's object could have been in leaving things thus, Lettice was unable to conjecture.

A torrent of recollections took possession of her, at the sight of an old brown merino, which Sissie had worn incessantly the last autumn, going to and from her lessons . . . Those dear old days! Gone for ever!

Sissie's face came back with an extraordinary vividness: and Lettice knelt by the bed, kissing passionately the old merino which Sissie's hand had touched. She forgot dinner: forgot the need for haste: forgot her own muddied condition. There was no room in her mind for such thoughts.

"But oh, dear, dear Sissie, I would not have you back, if I could," she murmured. "So much happier there! It would be selfish! And it isn't so very long to wait. I shall see you again—by-and-by. O dear Sissie!"

She kissed again the brown dress: then folded and repacked it reverently, putting in the other dresses and all the little knick-knacks, with loving tender fingers. "Dear Sissie!" she whispered again and again, and she strove to forget Theodosia.

Then the gong sounded: and Lettice knew herself to be inevitably late; blamed herself for it too, since Theodosia would be offended. Make haste as she might, muddy boots could not be in one moment unlaced, or disordered hair made straight, or evening dress put on.

"Have they begun?" she asked, meeting Susanna in the hall as she descended. Susanna was the parlour-maid, a middle-aged and most reliable person, of long-standing in the household. It was she who had from the first taken a resolute lead in declaring "Miss Lettice" innocent of Mrs. Bryant's charge; and she had always shown a marked affection for her master's adopted niece. This evening she looked strange and pale, and she scarcely answered when Lettice spoke, keeping her eyes averted. Lettice noted the unusual manner, and was perplexed; but no time could be spared for questions.

"You certainly are not remarkable for speed in dressing," Theodosia remarked. "The soup is gone. I suppose you do not wish for any."

"Oh, I would rather not, uncle. I ought to have been down,—only I waited to put away some of my things."

The restless gleam appeared again in Theodosia's eyes. Some absorbing thought seemed to hold her in possession: and she talked in an odd broken way, forgetting to finish her own sentences, and plunging into the remarks of others. Dr. Bryant scanned her steadily once or twice: and Lettice was conscious of an unusual atmosphere.

"I told him to go to bed, and not to come in to-night. I thought we might be late."

"Ten minutes past the usual time. I do not think Keith would have been the worse."

"It doesn't matter. I gave him some fruit—instead. And I wanted—I had something to say—"

Nobody asked her what it was. The other two simply waited. Susanna was gone; and Dr. Bryant peeled an orange for Lettice. Theodosia's colour deepened, and she played with a bunch of raisins, pulling it slowly to pieces.

"I have found the lost bank-note." Theodosia tossed a crumpled bit of paper across the length of the table, towards her husband.

With a visible sharp movement of surprise, Dr. Bryant leant forward to pick it up.

Theodosia sneered—a wordless but distinct sneer. Dr. Bryant glanced from the one to the other.

She took another bunch of raisins, and broke them from the stalk, with nervous haste, as if unable to keep still.

Lettice sat down, glowing with pure heartfelt delight; for this discovery entirely exonerated her brother. "Poor Felix! How could I ever have thought such a thing?" she asked herself; and then she came to a rapid resolve not to let any one know what she had imagined—not even Dr. Bryant. This, at least, was in her power, by way of reparation for the wrong she had done to him. "I must have been crazy! Of course he never did, never would, never could! Of course not! Nobody must ever even guess that I had such a fancy. It might make people think that he really could do that sort of thing, if they knew I had suspected it—I, his own sister! I ought to have understood him better! Poor Felix! What a shame it has been!" Then she woke up to hear Theodosia speaking, with a repetition of former words—

"What does that matter, so found?" cried Lettice joyously. "So long as the wrong person cannot be blamed."

"Not much fear of that—now!" declared Theodosia hardily, gazing past Lettice. "I should say that it mattered a good deal—to the person in whose box it was hidden."

CHAPTER XIII.

DR. BRYANT made a hasty movement. "What do you mean? Where did you find the note?"

"Guess! Nonsense. This is no matter for jesting. Where was it?" A vague alarm had seized him, and he was in danger of losing his usual equanimity.

"I advised you once to have Lettice's room searched, and you would not hear me. So I took the matter into my own hands, and on the whole I consider that I have managed it pretty cleverly. If she had had the least notion beforehand—well, naturally, the note might have found its way elsewhere." The keen and angry sting of conscience, following upon these words, found no expression in Theodosia's face. "I took care not to speak of the keys till the last moment. What her object was I cannot so much as guess—keeping it hidden away all this time. No good to herself or anybody."

Lettice's cheeks were bright still with happy relief, on behalf of her brother. "But that is nonsense!—I mean, that must be a mistake," she cried impulsively. "I never took the bank-note."

"I dare say not; but I do. I asked for the keys on purpose, because I had my suspicions, and I meant to institute a regular search. You saw how Lettice behaved, and how she begged me to leave the largest box alone. It didn't need much cleverness to suppose why. I took good care to have Susanna present: and it was she, not I, who unpacked that box, while I stood by. She didn't understand, of course; and she made a fuss, but I insisted. If there had been no other reason, I would have had all those musty old clothes turned out for an airing, and I told her so. Near the bottom—at least, about half-way down—Susanna picked out a crumpled paper; and she was, dropping it on the floor, when I said: 'What is that?' I shall not forget her face, when she opened it, and found the bank-note in her hand. I thought she would have fainted."

"But I can't imagine how it ever came into that box. I never put it there," urged Lettice.

"Uncle, won't you believe me? You know I would not do such a thing. Indeed, indeed, I never touched the bank-note. How could I, after all your kindness?" She grew crimson, then paled and trembled. "Somebody must have slipped it into my box on purpose."

"Yes: I do keep it locked; but I might have forgotten, or have left my keys about. I don't know in the least how the thing has happened; only I am not to blame—really and truly."

"If I had known where the note was, should I have given up the keys this morning?"

"You had no choice," Theodosia said promptly. "You did your very best to escape giving them up."

Dr. Bryant could not but recall Lettice's marked reluctance, as well as her after uneasiness, and the avowed cause which to him had seemed so inadequate. He had felt a measure of perplexity all day on the subject; and these recollections now told heavily against her.

"Of course," continued Theodosia, "you hoped that I should not come upon the note. A bit of paper crumpled up is easily overlooked. If I had not been on the look-out, we should not have noticed it."

Lettice glanced despairingly at Dr. Bryant. The ground seemed to be slipping from under her feet.

"Then this is why you have refused to speak!" he said slowly. "This—the reason! And I could trust you throughout—"

"Won't you trust me still?" besought Lettice. The temptation to tell him all was strong; but after her unfounded suspicions of Felix, it seemed too cruel to avow them to another, as a means of defending herself. Such a confession, tantamount almost to a declaration that he was not trustworthy, might never be forgotten. Lettice restrained the words which almost broke from her lips, and repeated passionately: "Won't you trust me? Won't you believe me? I had a reason for not speaking; but indeed this is the truth. I don't know how it got into my box. Indeed, I am innocent! Won't you believe me?"

Dr. Bryant made no answer whatever. He rose, quitted the room, and was heard to enter his study, shutting the door heavily. Lettice knew that at last, he condemned her as guilty.

The Valentines had been nearly a month in London. Only in the outskirts; but the veriest fringe of the great City's garment is apt to seem overpowering to country people. After the "dear old Farm," where every patch of grass was familiar, and every bush was a friend, where cottages could be counted on the fingers, and people might be numbered by tens, the ceaseless rivers of human beings, the never-ending roll of human noise, and the uncountable blocks of human dwellings, had a tendency to weigh upon the spirits.

Perhaps Mr. Valentine felt this weight most severely. He was a thorough old yeoman, absolutely at home among the clods of a ploughed field, utterly lost among bricks and mortar. Not only had he lived in the country all his life, but love of rural quiet was inherited by him through a long line of yeomen forefathers; and dislike of crowds was ingrain. His gentle old wife grieved over the change, and was tried by the narrow limits of her new sphere; but she had no strong inherited proclivities either way, and her girlhood had been mainly spent in town. The brick and paving-stones, the hum of sound, seemed natural enough, only wearying from want of use. She grew at times pale and tired, but her placid face had not the forlorn look which fixed itself permanently in the lines of her husband's features.

Nan fretted and fumed, hated town restrictions, and above all things kicked fiercely against the wearing of gloves every time she set foot outside the front door. It was "like being in a prison," she wrathfully declared. But she had no support in the grumbling line from Wallace, who fell into the new manner of life with unlooked-for readiness, seeming to like it as well as the old. "Takes to London like a duck to water," grunted his father discontentedly.

And Prudence! Everybody had expected Prue to suffer under the uprooting. Quiet Prue, retiring Prue, the good home-daughter Prue, how should it be otherwise with her? A good deal of pity was wasted upon Prue; and people found themselves a little out of their reckonings. Prue showed no sign of suffering, beyond a reasonable amount of sorrow in bidding farewell to the old home. When they reached London she was not depressed; nay, she showed herself the most alert of the whole party, the quickest to spy out pleasant points in their novel surroundings, the readiest to discover fresh interests, the most eager to settle down and change "house" into "home."

"London seems to suit you, my girl, anyway," the old father sometimes observed, not quite approvingly. Prue had not for years worn so young and cheery a look. When it was remarked upon, she smiled, and even blushed a little.

Mrs. Valentine understood, and she alone. Others of the family knew that, on finding this new home, they had dropped—oddly, because without intention—into the Parish of a former acquaintance; and some of them remarked on the "curiousness" of so doing.

"Rev. Robert Kelly—yes, I remember him. Not a bad fellow. Dare say we shall like his sermons," Mr. Valentine said carelessly.

But Bertha was far-away, nursing a long and severe "case," while Nan and Wallace barely recollected the name of "Kelly." It had not been a prominent factor in their lives. Only Mrs. Valentine divined what this resuscitation of an old friendship might mean to her eldest daughter.

She was sorry for it. Prue had seemed uniformly happy of late years. Would it mean the former trouble over again—Prue caring too much, hoping too much, only to be disappointed.

"Such a pity," mused the old lady. "And Prue remembers him still, I know. She has never really forgotten."

If it did not mean disappointment to Prue, it might mean to Mrs. Valentine the loss of her daughter. That she could bear, for her child's sake; so that only it might mean Prue's happiness. Yet what if, for Prue, the best thing which could happen should be the denial of earthly happiness? Or what if that which seemed to promise happiness should mean life-long sorrow?

"After all, we're but blind creatures," murmured Mrs. Valentine, mechanically knitting, while she glanced backwards upon certain passages in her own early life. "If I had been allowed to choose for myself, I should have had a very different story. Not a happy one, either. I couldn't guess then. And now I'm wanting to choose again for Prue . . . Perhaps not to choose altogether—only to wish we had not come to live just here . . . Yet if that is the very thing God meant for her? How do I know? We didn't come—knowing—and perhaps He has just guided us to this very spot."

They had not yet seen Mr. Kelly. On the day before their arrival, he had gone off for his annual holiday; and the exact date of his expected return was not known to them. Still, it would be soon; and Prue must see him. Mr. Valentine had left his card at the Vicarage, and Mr. Kelly would therefore know where they were. "And then—" sighed Mrs. Valentine almost audibly. "And then—"

She looked up, to find Prue near at hand; Prue, with a faint colour in her cheeks, a faint indefinable glow and brightness over her sometimes too impassive face. It was like a dim imprisoned light, shining outward from within. "If he were to see Prue now, he would think her as taking as ever," Mrs. Valentine thought. She, like Prue, always believed that Mr. Kelly had cared, and that some hindrance had come between.

Prue sat down, unoccupied; a rare state of things. Her thoughts were too busy to allow the hands to work.

"No letter yet from Lettice," she said, becoming aware of a solicitous glance. Lettice had not been the subject of her cogitations.

"One has to reckon. A good many weeks. Nothing since the little scrawl written the morning after her birthday. I fancied the tone of it unhappy, and I wrote again soon; but she has never answered."

"I wish it too. She refuses invitations so persistently—yet I always feel sure that she does wish to see us again. There is some obstacle in the way. Not money, of course; for Dr. Bryant is well off; but something. Is it Mrs. Bryant?"

"Mother, Mr. Kelly has come home. We shall hear him preach next Sunday." Prue had never spoken more composedly.

"No, not much. But perhaps I am! If he saw me—I don't know whether he looked, but if he did, he passed me by. Am I so altered?"

Mrs. Valentine could have said "No!" with all her heart, but she hesitated. Would it be true?

"I suppose there must always be a difference between twenty-one and thirty," she said. "Not in my eyes, but to outsiders."

Disappointment stole over Prue's face. "Yes, of course," she said in flat tones. "But still—"

"He has fresh interests now. I hardly expect the old intimacy to revive—do you? We must expect to be merely one family among hundreds."

Prue could have given vent to a rebellious protest. She said: "Only he has known us, and he has not known them."

Then the door opened to admit a caller, taking them both by surprise. For it was none other than Mr. Kelly.

Mrs. Valentine welcomed him, after her kind and placid manner, casting not a glance towards her daughter; and Prue held back somewhat coldly. Light and colour had fled from her countenance. How should it be otherwise, when she was utterly in the dark as to his sensations? She was conscious of a quick heart-beating, quick enough to shorten her breath; but all tokens of agitation were veiled; and her "How do you do?" was emotionless.

Beforehand she had not looked for this prosaic type of meeting. The prominent idea in her mind had been her own pleasure in seeing him. Not till the actual moment arrived did the reverse side of the picture present itself, the possibility that he might experience no particular pleasure; and not till then did she see the imperative need to hide aught which she might feel, lest he should not feel the same. Prue acted her part so well that Mr. Kelly had no part to act. Ere merely had to greet her as he had greeted hundreds in his new Parish; and if a slight touch of disappointment came to him also, it was mingled with something like relief. He had been so long a bachelor for Prue's sake, that he was not now at all certain whether, even for Prue's sake, he wished to be anything else; and yet he was glad to see that Prue remained distinctively herself. More gone off in looks, perhaps, than he had expected; but still unlike any other woman of his acquaintance. At least Prue would never be ordinary.

"Yes, indeed." He was glad to turn from Prue, and to put on one side awakening recollections. "When I found your husband's card, I felt sure that it must be yourselves. It was an agreeable surprise. Are you spending a summer in Town?"

Mr. Kelly asked a good many questions, and expressed due sympathy. His manner with the elderly lady was kind and gentle, all that it should have been; but Prue's still reticence baffled him, and aroused a growing desire to draw her into the conversation. He wanted to see if she were indeed the old Prue, or whether she were greatly altered: and Prue would not be drawn in, without more obvious efforts than Mr. Kelly cared to make. Not fully knowing his own mind, he had to be cautious. The girl, Prue, had been, in his estimation, everything that a girl of twenty-one ought to be; but the woman, Prue, at thirty years old, might be another individual. He had not gauged her yet. The fact that the Valentines would live in his Parish was an unexpected complication. "I shall be thrown a good deal with them," he thought: not sure whether to congratulate himself: and when the question arose, "Why not?" He made no attempt to answer it.

Lettice Anderson's name presently came up. "Yes, I have seen much of her brother off and on," Mr. Kelly said, responding to Mrs. Valentine. "He often came in to supper with me on Sunday evenings: and I have been able to get him into a good house of business in London. Did you not know that he was in this neighbourhood? He is likely to make his way."

"Capable, certainly. He has in him the making of a good man of business, and I should expect him to be a successful one. I am not—not thoroughly satisfied—however—" This was said slowly.

"Lettice wrote lately, just after they met, and I thought she seemed disappointed."

"He is very difficult to know. In fact, I do not know him, often as we meet. Any more than I knew his sister—Miss Anderson, I mean: not little Lettice. But there is a serious difference between the two. Miss Anderson lived a self-devoted life for others. Felix lives—I fear—a self-devoted life, for himself. I hardly know how else to express my meaning. It sounds like a contradiction in terms—but you understand? There is a growing absorption in his work, which seems to wall off all external claims. He cares for nothing but how he may advance towards success."

"Intrinsically, no. It is needful, to some extent. No man is likely to get on well in life, who has not set success before him as a goal. No doubt we are meant to make the best use possible of our gifts. The desire is perfectly lawful in its right place, as a main object, but not as the sole object of existence. Do you not see?"

Mr. Kelly looked appealingly towards Prue, who had been noting with pleasure his greater decision and readiness of speech. The old self-distrust and shyness had markedly lessened. "If the entire horizon of his life is filled with that one object, no room remains for a higher aim to come in. He is absorbed in his work for its own sake—and that is the sum of the matter. I wish one could bring some other element into his life—something outside and beyond mere personal success."

"True: but they rarely meet. Perhaps in London his circle may widen. He has been in a narrowing groove at Brighton. The young fellow works manfully: and he is self-controlled—almost extraordinarily so. The resoluteness of his life would be admirable, if only the expenditure of will were for some loftier object—including this, but not this exclusively. I would not do away with the good I find in him, but certainly I would add to it." Mr. Kelly did not often flow so easily in conversation. He was subject commonly to fits of silence, or of shy hesitation: but Prue's intent serious face drew him on: and unconsciously, he enjoyed having her for a listener. She was appreciative.

"Will you ask Mr. Anderson to come and see us, if he is within reach?" asked Mrs. Valentine.

"I have found him lodgings in this Parish—not wishing to lose sight of him. Thanks: nothing could be better. I shall hope much from Miss Valentine's influence . . . I have seen this self-absorption closing in upon an older man, but rarely in one so young. There is danger of its becoming a positive ossification."

"He has the power. It is part of his work. It would not be right not—" said Prue dreamily. "Mr. Kelly looks older."

"Yes, quite naturally. He will be very busy here. I do not suppose we shall see much of him."

She worked steadily at the knitting for some minutes, then gave it back, remarking, "Now I have put things right."

"I have been thinking so much to-day about my own past. About when I was a girl."

Prue was a little surprised. Mrs. Valentine seldom talked voluntarily of herself.

"One sees the meaning of things—looking back. There was a time when I would have given all I possessed for a different life from this that I have had."

"A good many. It was before I knew your father. Somebody else—somebody who seemed to care for me—for a time I thought he did care. And when I found my mistake—found he had deceived me—I thought my life was over. Nothing seemed left . . . And yet my life really was hardly begun: and that which I wanted would not have been happiness, but misery. Nothing short of misery. He could be winning enough when he chose, but there was no strength of principle. His wife has had a bitter story since, poor thing—and it might have been mine, if I could have had my choice . . . The real happiness came later: and I have often thanked God that He guided me away from those quicksands, and denied me my heart's wish. Though at the time it seemed almost more than I could bear. Nobody ever had a better or truer husband than I in your dear father."

Perhaps Mrs. Valentine was unreasonable to expect that her past experience should serve for Prue. There was a slight pause, and then—

"Yes: but one cannot be sure what other kind of unhappiness might be bound up in the thing one wants. God knows best."

"I never doubt that . . . One doesn't question His knowing best . . . The difficulty is not to wish for the thing He denies—even if it is bad for one. Or to believe that it can be bad."

"If we could see a little way on, I suppose we should be willing always, Prue. I mean if we could see beyond the border of this life. If we could know how much each single step here tells upon our future there . . . I suppose we should choose for ourselves the very things that God does choose for us now, because they would so clearly be the best . . . Perhaps that is clearer to me than to you, because I am nearer the border."

"Mother—you may not be. Who knows? . . . Do you think we should choose—not to have the things we want most—even if we could see—"

"If we could see the evil they would bring? Yes, surely we have sense enough for that."

"But if God gives the thing we long for, cannot He keep it from being an evil? He has all power. Is there ever a 'must be' of that kind?"

"In one sense—no. But He will not work needless miracles, dear. Why should He? If you drink a cup of poison, however unconsciously, you will die. God could save your life, of course, but in most cases the poison does its work."

Prue smiled faintly. The "thing" which she had in her mind seemed so far removed from any poisonous tendencies.

"Sometimes, not having what we want means only waiting for it—till God's time. And that time may not be in this world . . . I often love to think how wonderfully all our longings will be satisfied, and all our emptinesses will be filled, there—in the life to come."

Prue made no answer in words. She bent slowly forward, and was folded in her mother's a long close tender embrace. One or two tears might have dropped unseen: but when she sat up, she was smiling. "That always does me good," she said.

CHAPTER XIV.

LETTICE, away in her western home, had no such comfort as Prue; no loving mother-arms to enfold her; no gentle mother-lips to kiss away heart-ache. Those who have never known this sweetest of all earthly comforts cannot realise the emptiness of not having it; and the grief of conscious loss is not theirs. But Lettice did sorely feel the need of some such love and sympathy.

She had comfort: the highest comfort: a love deeper than even mother-love; a tenderness exceeding even mother-tenderness; because the love and the tenderness were Divine. But while Divine comfort is in a sense all-sufficing, it cannot do away with the human need for human sympathy.

The Son of God Himself, as Man of Sorrows, though He had angels to comfort Him, yet experienced this lonely human craving; and so much the more fully He can understand its strength in the "children of earth." True, we never need stand where He stood; because, while He was absolutely cut off from all human sympathy, while there was literally "none" among His brother-men to comfort Him. We may have always, in unlimited measure, the most Human sympathy of Christ,—our Lord and Master, yet truly our Brother-Man! But the full realisation of this fact is not to many so vouchsafed, as that it shall entirely take the place of need for other human sympathy.

And Lettice was very lonely. Dr. Bryant's confidence in her had broken down under the stress of Theodosia's discovery. He now looked upon Lettice as guilty of the theft.

It was to him a bitter grief: scarcely less, if indeed not more, than to Lettice. For she had the full consciousness of innocence to bear her through; while he had the pain of believing himself utterly disappointed in her.

Once only he spoke on the subject; and that was on the morning after their excursion. Gravely and sadly, he avowed his fixed belief, refusing to hear denial.

"No other view of the matter is possible," he said. "Assertions are useless, unsupported by the slightest evidence. What have you to bring forward in your defence? Absolutely nothing. All these weeks you have not even attempted to clear yourself, and I have endeavoured to trust you in the face of all appearances; but this is too much. The very fact that you will speak now, when you would not before, seems to me an additional argument against you. Your past silence I do not understand, coupled with your present denial; but whatever your motives may be, or may have been, I can feel no doubt whatever as to your guilt."

"Hush! No more useless denials. At least you can abstain from further untruth. For the present, the matter must be dropped. When you can resolve to confess freely what you have done, then I will hear. Then you shall have my forgiveness, though you can never again be to me what you have been, because the old trust is no longer possible. But until then, you are under my displeasure."

"Hush!" he said again. "No more of that. The proofs are unhappily too strong." He paused, looking into her agitated face. "It will be better and happier for us both, when you speak out . . . This is a great sorrow to me, greater than you imagine. At least, you can make it possible that I should forgive, that I should take you to my heart again! . . . Wait a moment; do not speak hastily. Think of the sin against God, and of your need that He should forgive. If you do not confess the truth to me, how can you look for His pardon? You will have a hard fight to get back to your old standing, after so grievous a fall. The first step must be full confession. That is absolutely essential. Why put it off? Why not speak out now—at once—looking on me as your father?"

"Then treat me as a child should treat her father. Tell me freely, openly, how you came to take such a step, and what led up to it."

Lettice mastered her distress with a great effort, and lifted to his, her straightforward glance. "But, uncle, I did not take the bank-note. I do not know in the least how it came to be in my box."

Dr. Bryant turned, and coldly left the room, without another word. From that day, a barrier of separation divided the two, robbing their intercourse of all its old sweetness.

Theodosia was at last satisfied. At last she had obtained her wish. And perhaps in all England no more unhappy woman could be found. Such gratification of the heart's desire carries its own vengeance with it.

As wilful injurer to injured, she naturally showed small kindness to Lettice; and but for Keith, the girl would indeed have been solitary. His affection never varied; yet now and then the boy seemed constrained, and not fully himself; while before his mother he was more careful than ever to hide his feeling for Lettice.

Once upon a time Susanna, the parlour-maid, an old and tried servant, of weighty influence in the household, would have been entirely on Lettice's side; but Susanna, like Dr. Bryant, could not stand against the discovery of the bank-note in Lettice's box. The collapse of her trust was severe in proportion to its previous sturdiness. "Anything short of that!" she avowed to her confidante the cook, "and I'd have held out still. But bank-notes can't walk, nor open locked boxes; and that box, I know for certain, wasn't never left unlocked. I don't say Miss Lettice wasn't drove to it by some as ought to know better. She's had a deal to bear; but there's no manner of excuse for dishonesty. I wouldn't have believed, short of seeing; and when I did see, why, you might have knocked me down with a straw. And I'm sure, to see master's face, it just goes to my heart. He did think a lot of Miss Lettice, and no mistake. But, anyway, Miss Lettice took the money; more's the pity; and I'll never be certain of nobody again in this world!" Susanna ruled the kitchen view of matters.

Lettice had not now the consolation, which had been hers earlier, of enduring for the sake of Felix. Her present suffering bore no fruit of advantage for another; at least, so far as she could see. It may be that all undeserved pain, borne meekly for Christ's sake, does bring advantage to others: but this we cannot yet perceive.

Still, the trouble was permitted,—was the Divine Will for her. So much she could know with unquestioning knowledge. She had to bear, because the burden was laid upon her; she had to bear bravely, because by so doing she would please God. If she had done the thing she was accused of, she would have been required as a simple duty to take the blame patiently, deserving no praise whatever for the same. But "this" quiet endurance of hers, because it was endurance of unmerited blame, did deserve praise, being "acceptable with God." Lettice found consolation in the thought.

Others might look coldly and sternly; but her Heavenly Father saw, understood, and was pleased. He would set all right in time. He would clear away the cloud. He would establish her as blameless. Whether sooner or later, whether in this life or the next, the truth would be made manifest. Till then she would not murmur, but would put her trust in Him.

She wrote no word to Felix of what had happened, beyond the early intimation, which he had never so much as answered. Doubtless to him, absorbed as he was in his own work and prospects, it had seemed an unimportant matter. To tell him now how matters stood would only be to arouse useless anger in him. He could not clear her; and she resolved to wait until they should meet, and she could explain all by word of mouth. He did not very often enquire by post if she were well or happy; but he sent full particulars of his move to London, and of his new surroundings. Lettice wrote cheerily in answer, showing no sign of depression.

A letter came from Prue one day. "Your brother has been to call," she said, "and we hope to see something of him. He is in lodgings near us. Will not this tempt you to pay us a visit? Our present home is small—very different from the Farm—but you will not mind, when Felix is at hand. For his sake come if you can. A sister may have power over a brother; and it seems to me that he has been too long alone, with no softening home influence. You will forgive me for saying this! I am not finding fault with your brother; only I cannot help seeing that there is a need. Will you not give us a month or six weeks? Would Dr. and Mrs. Bryant object? Your last letter was very sad—so sad that it gave me a heart-ache. Has anything been troubling you very much of late?"

"If I could go! Oh, if I could!" murmured Lettice, a wild desire taking possession of her for kind looks and loving voices, in place of the cold indifference which now fenced her in. She realised all at once how long it was since she had seen the Valentines, how complete the separation had been between herself and Felix for years. Was it right that she should stay away, if by any means she could get to her brother? What if the character of Felix should undergo permanent deterioration, for lack of the sisterly softening which she might have power to supply?

"And there is no real reason! I am of no use here. I may just as well be there!" she uttered half aloud. "Prue does love—does care; and I think Felix does too, down below—if I could only get at him. If I only might go!"

"Go where?" demanded Theodosia by her side. Lettice had not known any one to be present; and she turned a stirred face to Mrs. Bryant.

Lettice neither flushed nor whitened. She had reached a stage beyond such demonstrations. Her clear eyes looked into Mrs. Bryant's.

"Perhaps you think I put it there." Theodosia had so accustomed herself to the present state of things, and to continuous deceit, that she could say such words without a change of colour, almost without a twinge of conscience. Conscience, habitually unresponded to, becomes in time deadened, and loses its power to speak. Theodosia had set before herself a certain end, and that end she was in a fair way to attain. She had not indeed yet found out what were the terms of her husband's will, but she had brought about estrangement between him and Lettice; and for the continuance of their estrangement, nothing perhaps could be better than Lettice's absence. This dawned upon her in a flash; and it was at once subversive of her previous policy with regard to Lettice's friends.

There was a pause, Lettice looking earnestly at Theodosia; and the change of colour, which had not come with Theodosia's own utterance, began under the pressure of that quiet gaze. Lettice noticed, but attached little meaning to the flush.

"No," she said slowly, "I should not like to accuse you or anybody of such a thing, unless I were very very sure. It is too terrible, and I know too well how hard it is to bear being falsely accused. Sometimes I almost think you know a little more than you will allow,—I mean, that you could perhaps help to clear me, if you would . . . But I do not know how. It is only a feeling . . . Why do you dislike me so? I have tried hard to please you ever since I came here; and it seems of no use."

"You do not suspect him, really," Lettice answered, with the calmness borne of long endurance. "If you did, you would have spoken long ago. Felix was not once in my room after lunch that day; so how could he possibly have put the note into my box? But talking does no good. I cannot clear myself yet. The truth will come out some day. Do you wish me to go to the Valentines?"

"I shall speak to him all the same," Lettice answered resolutely. "If he wished me not to go—but I think he will be willing. To-day is Monday. I can ask if the Valentines would like to have me on Friday or Saturday."

She looked wistfully into his face, longing for a touch of the old kindness. "If I thought you wanted me, I would rather—rather stay here."

No softening came into the set features. "I could wish it on one condition," he said. "That condition you know. When you resolve to speak out, in plain confession—but until then intercourse is only pain to me. It is better that you should be away."

Then as usual, he broke the conversation off, and Lettice had to struggle with rebellious tears. The change in him was hardest of all to bear. Keith, now nearly ten years old, but small, pretty, and childish, not to say babyish, for his years, made no small outcry over the prospect of losing his playfellow. She never minded trouble, and was always unselfishly ready for an active game, when it suited him; and perhaps nobody had realised, Lettice least of all, what a difference her absence would make in the boy's life. Keith himself saw it instantly; and from that moment he flung aside his usual caution, lavishing kisses and caresses upon her, in a manner which brought chronic blackness to the brow of Theodosia.

For years, Theodosia had done her best to spoil the child. It never so much as occurred to her that, in later years, she would herself pay the penalty for this mode of training. She could not endure to part with him, even for his good; and she sent him daily to a small second-rate school, a mile off, instead of consenting to place him, as Dr. Bryant wished, at a first-class Bristol school. At home, she gave in to all his fancies, seldom enforcing obedience.

Theodosia counted that she and she alone had main possession of her boy's heart; but suddenly now she found that, despite all her efforts, his chief delight was in Lettice. In his indignant distress at the thought of losing his companion, he made no secret of the fact, but openly declared that "nobody" could be what Lettice was. Even while afraid of consequences, Lettice could not but find pleasure in the avowal.

She spent some serious thought over her answer to Prue. If the Valentines knew of the cloud under which she lay, would they wish to have her still? True, the accusation was undeserved, and she could scarcely be bound to tell of it: but she chose the safe side, and a touching little letter went off:—

   "I shall love to come, if you will have me," she wrote. "I could get away on Friday or Saturday, if that is not too soon for you. But I must explain first about what has happened lately. They believe here that I have done such a dreadful thing. I am accused of stealing a £20 bank-note. Mrs. Bryant left the note lying about, and it disappeared, and after some time it was found locked up in one of my boxes.

   "I did not do it, Prue dear: and I cannot imagine how the note came there. Only, there it was: and even my dear uncle now thinks that I took it. I have been very unhappy. Will you believe me? Or had I better stay away? I do long for your kind faces: only I could not bear to come among you all, and to have you doubt my word, or think that I could do such a thing. So please tell me what to do.

   "I have not mentioned this to Felix, because I knew how much it would worry him."

"Come, and you shall have a welcome," she wrote. "Come on Friday, by all means. I have told my mother of your trouble, and no one else. We believe you perfectly. Poor child how you must have been tried!"

Lettice had hardly finished reading the letter, when Keith rushed in. He had been kept at home for a slight toothache, which vanished so soon as school was given up: and he wanted Lettice in the playroom.

"Come! Come along," he cried, clinging round her waist, regardless of the fact that Theodosia was present. Lettice tried in vain to loosen his grasp. "It's no good; you can't make me," he cried. "I mean to have all I can of you—every day—and there's lots of things for you to do. You don't mean to be long away, do you? I wish you wouldn't! When is it to be?"

"Pray stop that noise!" ordered Theodosia. "You make yourself quite ridiculous. The sooner Lettice leaves, the better, if you behave in this absurd way.'

"It isn't absurd. I wouldn't care if everybody else went. I only want Lettice. She's never cross."

"But I don't mean to hush: because I hate to lose you. You are the dearest old thing: and I shall be all alone. Come along to the playroom, do! I want you to myself."

Lettice yielded, in fear of worse to follow: and she really did not dare to look towards Theodosia. The boy dragged her upstairs, clinging all the way to her waist and when the playroom was reached, he flung himself upon her afresh with boisterous affection.

"Yes, they do. I want you. I want you a great deal more than anybody else. I want you always, and always. Lettice! I say, you're not crying?"

"Why? What do you mean? Because Mamsie doesn't like you?" Theodosia encouraged him to keep up still the old baby-term, when strangers were not present.

"Because I am accused of doing a thing I did not do; and no one will believe me."

"No, I didn't, of course. Only I can't prove it. Do you believe me, really, truly?" She longed to feel that at least one in the house, even a child, put faith in her still: longed it the more, because she was going away.

"Why, I know! I know quite well. Mamsie won't let me say you didn't: but I do say it, all the same. She can't guess why I'm sure. But I know it, all the same. I know it perfectly."

"I shall tell her I'm quite sure, if she says anything again. I'll declare you didn't do it."

"No good, I am afraid. Keith, you'll be a little sorry to have me gone? Just a little! Nobody else minds."

"Father minds!" positively. "Mamsie doesn't. And of course I do. I should just think so. I shall count and count the days till you come back. How long will you be? More than a month! Oh, I say, that's too horrid! . . . Lettice, I've a great mind to tell you something! It's such a shame!—And I don't see why I shouldn't!—Only—you must promise you won't tell anybody else! Not a single person."

"Oh, because I couldn't tell you, without. And I have nobody else to say it to. I want to say it to somebody. Promise, won't you—like a dear old girl!"

She could not withstand the coaxing affectionate manner: and his complaint of "nobody else to say it to," appealed to her own loneliness. The pretty boyish face looked up into hers. "Let me tell you," he entreated. "Do, Lettice. It's so horrid not to have a fellow to speak to; and I shan't when you're gone. Only you've got to promise most faithfully that you'll never say it to anybody else—not to anybody! And more particularly, not to let Mamsie know."

"I'll do anything you like, so long as it isn't wrong—Yes, I promise not to repeat it to any one, without your leave, unless it is something that I ought to speak out about for somebody else's sake. And then you must give me leave."

His hand came over her mouth. "But it isn't! It isn't! It won't hurt anybody, except you."

"Oh, then that does not matter. I can't have much more to bear than I have had lately. What is it?"

CHAPTER XV.

LETTICE could not control her start. Every pulse in her body seemed to leap with the shock. For some seconds she uttered no sound. At first she dared not let herself speak. She could only sit motionless, holding back the burning words which crowded to her lips; while the boy stared at her with half-frightened eyes. Then she said in a muffled voice—

She felt the force of the remark. How could he indeed? The marvel was, not that he had not spoken earlier, but that he had spoken now. "Yet, have I not a right to be cleared?" Lettice asked of herself, in a tumult of agitation. "Am I to bear this always—because Keith must shield her?"

It seemed too hard—too much to expect. "I have promised; but I could make Keith give way. I could make him!" came next in the rush of thought.

She saw suddenly a scene in the study—herself confronting Theodosia, accusing Theodosia to Dr. Bryant, and calling upon Keith as a witness. It would be no more than Theodosia deserved. Lettice did not shrink from the pictured scene. Her gentle nature was for once aroused to a glowing energy of anger. What had she done to bring this on her? Nothing could be too bad—no punishment could be too severe—for Theodosia!

Yet she had to forgive! And her pledged word had to be kept. She might not betray the boy.

"But to go away from home, leaving them all to think this of me, when one word might set it right!" she cried passionately in her heart, while outwardly a dumb still figure, only trembling with the shock. "Must I? Must I? May I not do something?—Say something? Oh, it is hard to bear!"

"You don't mind so very much, do you, Lettice? What makes your hand shake? Are you cold?"

"Keith, I want you to tell me all about it—exactly what you saw . . . I am not vexed with you . . . Only I must hear the whole."

"It was the day Mr. Anderson came, you know. Father and you had gone off to the station with him; and I was hiding in your room for fun. I meant to jump out on you when you got back, and to give you a fright. It was dark, and I slipped under the sofa, and lay down there. And presently Mamsie came in . . . She had a candle, and she looked so queer and pale. And she had a scrap of paper, or something, in one hand—at least, I think she had. Lettice, what does make you shake so, all over?"

"Well, she tried to open your boxes, one after another; and they were locked. So she hunted about in your table drawer; and presently she found a bunch of keys somewhere. I couldn't see, but I heard them rattle. And she lifted off the topmost one of the two big boxes—she always says she can't lift things generally, you know, so I wondered she was able! And she found the right key for the bottom box, after a lot of trouble; and she unlocked it, and put her hand in. I saw her arm go in, more than half-way up to the elbow. And I was so afraid she would see me, I hardly breathed. Then she locked the box again, and lifted back the other one, and put the keys away, and went off. And I got out of the room as soon as ever I could; because I knew she would be so angry, if she found I had been there. And I never told anybody. Ought I?"

Lettice could not speak. A strong nervous tremor had possession of her still; and her teeth chattered as if with cold. She put her arms round the boy for support; and rested her cheek against his curly head.

"There's nothing more. That was all. I didn't think about it again—not even when the bank-note was lost. Because, of course, I didn't see a bank-note in her hand; only I'm sure there was something. And then when they said it had been found in your box, I couldn't help remembering."

"You've promised you won't tell. But I say, what could make her do such a thing? It wasn't like Mamsie! It has made me feel horrid since—I mean, since I guessed what she did . . . Only you must keep my secret, Lettice. I couldn't have her know that I knew. I shouldn't dare."

"Oh, but this sort of thing. I'd fight a boy any day, and not care; but I can't tell about this! Lettice, I couldn't! It would be so—Oh, you know! You'll keep my secret?"

"Yes, I do mind. Of course I mind—very much. I want to be cleared, more than you can imagine. It is dreadful to have people thinking that one is a thief. But I do not mean to break my word."

"If it were any one else; any one except Mamsie! I shouldn't mind then. I couldn't possibly tell now. I do wonder, though, what made her do such a thing. What could make her?"

"She doesn't like me, and she doesn't like you to love me. That is no real reason, of course; and I don't know any other . . . I think we had better not talk any more of this just now. I shall be saying something I ought not."

"And then you would be sorry, wouldn't you? Lettice, are you cold still? It's getting near teatime. Why don't you come downstairs?"

"No hurry. What did you want me to do for you?" She could not yet face Theodosia.

"Oh, only to paste in some of my scraps. I've got a nice lot of paste. Will you do it now?"

He rushed away for the scrap-book, his mind at once diverted from the subject under discussion. Lettice longed for a quiet half-hour; yet perhaps employment was better for her than solitary cogitation, and Keith's chatter left no loophole for steady thought. Trembling lessened under the need for careful work, but severe headache came on instead, and at length she was obliged to lay down the paste-brush.

"Keith, I don't think I can do any more till I have had some tea. I wonder if you could get me a cup?"

Keith ran willingly enough, but he returned with a crestfallen air. "She says it's nonsense, and I shall smash the china; and if you want any tea, you are to get it yourself."

Lettice made her way slowly, not to the drawing room direct, but to her own room first. She hardly knew how to meet Theodosia; to meet her injurer, and make no sign. Beneath an outer strained calm lay a seething turmoil of indignation. If that should break bounds, what might she not say or do, in this hour of bitter resentment? Lettice dropped on her knees by the bedside, with face hidden, crying out voicelessly for the help needed; and ten minutes of wrestling went by before she dared to venture downstairs.

Lettice made no answer in words. Their eyes met: Theodosia's handsome and repellent, albeit capable of pleasant regards when their owner chose; Lettice's constrained and inwardly dark with some new meaning, which Theodosia could not read. The same was inscribed also, though no more legibly, in the firm set of the white lips. Theodosia tossed her head; and Lettice went to a chair, again trembling, so that she had to put down her cup.

"And—talking." The recollection of what had passed swept over Lettice afresh. Theodosia to have deliberately done such a deed, and to go about for weeks after with no sign of guilty consciousness: it seemed incredible! She had a sense of shuddering repulsion; and she remained with downcast eyes, almost forgetting where she was, only conscious of Theodosia's vicinity.

"I do not mind what is for your good. I should like to know the cause of your state at this moment."

Lettice could not meet his gaze of grave solicitude. It went to her heart to know how dear she was to him still, even though he could believe her guilty of so despicable an act, and even though the old tenderness of manner was absent. To let him go on thinking this thing of her, when by a word she might clear her name, was hard indeed, yet that she might not do, because of her promise. The strain and distress were almost more than she knew how to bear. She hid her face in her hands.

Lettice heard no answer, and was not at first aware that Theodosia had left the room. After a while, she felt the firm touch of Dr. Bryant's hand.

Lettice obeyed silently. When she had finished he took from her the empty cup, and she leant back with closed eyes, anxious to escape questioning; but presently he said:

She obeyed again; and the steadfast gaze led to an inward remark on the part of Dr. Bryant, "I never saw guilt more like innocence." Aloud he said, "The tea has done your head good."

"About leaving home? . . . Is that it? . . . The prospect of going with this cloud upon you?"

She could truly answer, "Yes;" though after the "Yes," was a qualifying "Partly."

"One course lies open to you still—the course of frank confession. Nothing can undo what has been done; but next to the undoing of evil comes the confession of it . . . Have you no wish for my forgiveness, Lettice?"

There was a pause of some seconds before she answered, "If I had done what you think, uncle, I should wish to be forgiven."

"No. I would give anything to have back the old state of matters between us, and to some extent it is not impossible even now. But only one road lies open. Until you take that road—"

"Some day I shall be cleared," she whispered, with unsteady lips. "Some day it will be made plain. I can't say what is not true."

"Hush! We will not discuss the question any further. Let me know what time you go on Friday, and I will take care that you have enough money."

Dr. Bryant quitted her abruptly, and Lettice's tears fell fast. The next moment, two warm arms were flung round her.

"Lettice, you're crying. What are you crying about? Has Mamsie been scolding? My pictures are all arranged. Don't you mean to come and help me paste them in?"

"I want to get them done before you go. I do wish you wouldn't go. It'll be so horrid. Lettice, you mustn't cry."

"He does. And how can he help it—not knowing? But I am going to try to be patient. I will ask God to help me. And some day—some day the truth will come out."

"Then I'll ask Him to make you happy. Shall I? And I'll say my prayers every day, all the time you are away: and I really will try to be a good boy, Lettice."

"So Lettice comes to-day," said Mr. Valentine, over his breakfast on the following Friday. "She was a nice little girl, once upon a time, but girls do alter so . . . I wonder if Londoners call this a fresh egg? I don't! Got another? . . . Well, this is a dull house to come to: but young things like London bustle. That's the difference between them and me. I'm too old for uprooting, and getting used to a new soil."

"It takes time," his gentle wife said. "You've always been used to the country, you see."

"And to fresh eggs! And to country ways. One of which is not lying late in bed," grunted Mr. Valentine. "Where's Prue gone? And what is Nan after?"

"Shouldn't do it a second time, if I'd the management of her!—" with a reasonable appreciation of his own power in the household as compared with his wife's.

"What time does Lettice get here? I shall find her come, I suppose, when I get back," said Wallace. He had a distinct recollection of his old boyish worship of Lettice; merely a recollection. The feeling had died out through intervening years, as such boyish feelings do die out. Presumably it might be capable of revival; though Wallace was now a young man, and Lettice a young woman. The young woman is often an unexpected development from what the child has been: nothing remaining of the former individual except her identity.

Wallace felt it to be extremely uncertain whether the present Lettice would excite in him such sensations as had been awakened by the former Lettice, nor was he particularly desirous that she should. He could look upon those sensations with the composed and critical interest which a man feels, surveying his sensations in a past illness. The little episode of his early enthusiasm had sunk into a background corner of his canvas. Some interest was aroused by the thought of seeing her again; but it was not keen enough to affect his appetite.

"If Prue has not time, I'll go," Mr. Valentine said, unexpectedly. He was known to detest above all things a huge London terminus. "Hallo, Nan! Taken to fine lady lie-a-bed ways!—" as his youngest appeared in the rear of Prue, buttoning her cuffs.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, father, but I went off sound after I was called. No, never a fine lady!" cried Nan indignantly. "You ought to know me better."

"Well, well, well, sit down and eat your breakfast, my girl; though it doesn't boast country butter:" and the old farmer, mollified by her protest, rubbed his broad hands together. "Hark to the wind! It's getting up for a storm, and no mistake."

"Well, it may or may not mean the same here. I'm not used to a sky mixed up with chimney-pots. I should know well enough, down at the old home, what to expect. Blowing up for a gale of some sort—that's clear."

"I'll tell you what,—I had better go to the station and meet Lettice," said Wallace. "Just as well." In an undertone, he explained to Prue his father's proposal. "Luggage sure to be lost, or something go wrong. I can get away in good time this afternoon, I know, and it will save all bother."

So matters were arranged, somewhat to the relief of Prue, who had many little businesses in hand, and foresaw small leisure. But Nan failed to keep her share in the appointment; and she failed through no fault of her own.

Mr. Valentine proved to be a true weather-prophet, so far as that particular gale was concerned. Unknown to him, at the moment when he spoke, a cyclone had been announced in the papers, as on its road across the Atlantic, and the cyclone turned out to be no effete or worn-out specimen of its kind. As the morning passed, ever-increasing howls from warring elements could be heard, and the wind became after midday so violent, that at street-corners women were nearly swept off their feet, while flying tiles rendered walking a matter of danger.

"Do you think you ought to go?" Prue asked, when the younger girl appeared in hat and jacket. Prue was with her mother in the drawing room, the windows of which overlooked the street in front.

"You must take care. Father went out to the post-pillar, and a slate fell close to him."

"Like being under fire, isn't it? But everybody can't stay in, and why should I?" asked Nan. "Why! I've got two odd gloves."

"Of course you would, because you are Prue! As if I cared!" said Nan, flourishing the second right-hand covering. "Not worth another climb. I hate London staircases."

"Wallace won't see. I'll keep my left hand hidden, so. Good thing my sleeves are so long. I say!—What fun!—Look at that lady holding on for dear life to the railings. I don't mean to do anything so ignominious."

"I wonder what we are all going to do to amuse Lettice! I wonder what she has grown into, and what she is like. Well, I ought to be off. There's a book in Wallace's bedroom, which I promised to take back;—I must get it, and leave it now. What's that?"

The question was not so much as heard. A prolonged heavy crash sounded; not a crash only, but a reverberating mixture of sounds; both roar and rattle, with a continuous grinding downpour, as if some semi-solid Niagara had launched itself into the house from above; and the whole room shook with the concussion. Voices were not at first audible. Prue made one hasty movement to her mother's side, and Mrs. Valentine grew pale; while Nan stared at them both, aghast.

"Something must have fallen—or been blown down," said Prue, not losing her composure. "Father is not hurt. I hear him calling out."

"I will only look-out." She opened the door of the drawing room, which was on the first floor, over the dining room—the back of the house being given up to bedrooms,—and came face to face with her father, hurrying upstairs.

"All right? Nobody hurt?" he called. "Mother safe? That's a mercy! One of the biggest mercies I ever had to do with! Not a soul in the back of the house! Must have been killed if—just look here!"

A cry escaped from Prue, and Nan shrieked outright, as Mr. Valentine flung open the door of the bedroom, across the passage. On that side, the house was a wreck. Almost the whole stack of chimneys had crashed downward, breaking through floor after floor, till the basement was reached by a mighty mass of bricks and broken beams, flooring, ceiling, furniture, all jumbled together. Above, the sky was visible through the rent roof; below yawned a cavern.

"And nobody hurt?" asked the gentle voice of Mrs. Valentine, who had followed her daughters.

"But I should have been behind in another moment," Nan said, in awe-stricken tones. "I was just going into the downstairs back bedroom! I should have been underneath all—that!"

"Hush! Don't talk of it now!" whispered Prue, seeing her mother's cheeks whiten.

"Now, look here, you've all got to get out of this as soon as possible," ordered Mr. Valentine. "There's more to come down, yet, maybe; and any part of the house may give way, after such a shake. You get hats and shawls, sharp—eh, what? Everything in the back rooms! Well, pick up what wraps you can."

"Out of this, my girl! That's certain! Somewhere over the street we must get taken in, I suppose."

CHAPTER XVI.

AS the train came in, Wallace gazed about for the delicate shy child of his recollection; and failing to find her, he laughed at himself. Of course she was child no longer. He had to find a young lady; and what particular type of young lady, it was impossible so much as to guess. For a while, nobody presented herself who could in any degree answer to the mental picture which he failed to banish. And he began to think that she must either have failed to arrive or have betaken herself off, when a gloved hand touched his.

And Wallace's curious gaze met a pale girlish face, with brown eyes, wistful and sad as ever of old. Late trouble had brought back the look which he knew, which a few weeks earlier would have been lacking.

"How do you do?" she repeated, with a faint smile, into which some amusement stole.

"I'm very sorry. I ought to have seen—I mean, of course, I couldn't know you," apologised Wallace, trying to take her bag.

"Well, yes—no—I'm not sure yet. Will you have a cab?—I mean, of course you must have a cab. What luggage have you got?"

Lettice walked by his side, and then stood dreamily outside the throng into which he plunged. She had a semi-bewildered sensation, for crowds were new and somewhat overpowering after years of country life. All through the earlier part of the journey a load of distress had pressed her down. How to endure the secret let out by Keith; how to bear with patience the false accusation from which at any moment she might clear herself; how not to loathe Theodosia with a detestation which should darken all her spiritual life;—these problems had been of absorbing interest. For a while they had filled her whole horizon.

But as the train rushed on, each moment widening the distance between herself and Mrs. Bryant, each instant bringing her nearer to Felix and the Valentines, a sense of quiet crept into the turmoil. First, the old comfort—old, yet always new; God knew, God loved, and it was the will of God. In His love and in His knowledge, He permitted this; therefore it was well. Then followed pity for her injurer; pity that Theodosia could so act, could so debase herself; pity that Theodosia's child should know what must slay his esteem for her,—and a child's love is largely a love of esteem, because it is almost of necessity a looking up love.

Verily, Mrs. Bryant had prepared a sharp scourge for her own future. All this came to Lettice as she was borne swiftly eastward, and the wrath and loathing died out, till at length she only felt bodily weary and mentally bruised, like one who has gone through a heavy conflict.

"These two yours?" asked Wallace, coming up, with an indication towards the articles in question. "That all?"

She smiled at him in answer—the old child-like smile, and Wallace at once said to himself, "She's not spoilt, and hardly a day older."

"Regular gale. Haven't seen anything like it since we came here. Tiles are flying about like snowflakes."

"Of course that's a figure of speech. I didn't get knocked down, but I might have been; anybody might be. I was glad I had promised to come, so that Prue could stay indoors. Nan meant to meet me, but she hasn't ventured."

The drive was a long one, and much of it was performed in silence. Wallace had not a great deal to say, and Lettice had a great deal to see. Once only had she passed through London before, and visions of that day were strong, as the cab rattled noisily through street after street.

"You want a good rest." Wallace had been studying her fitfully, without seeming to do so.

"Well, just in a minute you will. Nan's sure to be on the look-out. Here we—Halloa! What's wrong?"

Lettice had a bewildered sense of something unusual; of a dense crowd; of a policeman stopping the cab; of Wallace's exclamations. She said nothing herself, waiting to learn what had happened. Then Wallace flung himself out of the open door, and Prue's face appeared.

"Lettice!" There was a kiss exchanged, despite the gaping crowd. "My dear, I am so glad to see you. But only think—such a thing has happened! Just within the last hour our stack of chimneys has been blown down, and the house is uninhabitable. Nobody is allowed to go near for fear the remaining chimneys should fall. The police have made a regular cordon."

"It is unfortunate—to-day of all days. We have gone into some lodgings over the way, the only ones we could find empty near at hand, and I have been keeping a look-out for you. Every one is so busy. Drive to No. 15, please!" Prue said to the cabman, stepping in.

"Nobody except those who are actually doing the work. Quite enough things are destroyed already. They will save as much as they can. I am so glad to see you at last, Lettice."

"We must think what to do. It is a little awkward, isn't it,—just at the moment when we are turned out of house and home? Awkward, I mean, because we had hoped to make you so comfortable, and now—But nobody is hurt, and that is such a comfort. The chimneys fell on the back top room and smashed through floor after floor, carrying everything with them. Anybody on that side of the house must have been killed. But my father was in the dining room, and mother and Nan and I were in the drawing room, and both servants were in front. Nan would have gone to the back in another minute. Think—if she had been underneath! All the rest is nothing in comparison."

"This is the house where we are lodging. Come and find my mother. It will do her good to see you. She is wonderfully composed—wonderfully little upset by it all."

Lettice thought Prue no less marvellous. She was ushered into a shabby little lodging-house parlour, there to be affectionately received by Mrs. Valentine.

"This is a most unpleasant welcome for you, my dear," the old lady said kindly, with her placid look.

She and Prue were actually less pale and shaken, though they had been on the spot at the moment of the catastrophe, than was Lettice, coming in afterwards to hear of it.

"No one can tell this sort of thing beforehand. It is all quite right," Mrs. Valentine said calmly. She looked at Prue, and added, "The cabman?"

The words startled Lettice. "The cabman—I forgot," she said hurriedly. "But what ought I to do? I might—could I not go back to-night? If there is a train early enough—"

"No, dear. That is quite out of the question," Prue said at once. "It would be wrong, for the sake of Felix. And we could not let you go after dark, alone. You are not used to manage for yourself. You poor child! How tired you are! Take off your hat."

"Only an idea, that we might use him for something! On second thoughts, I will make him bring in the boxes, and send him off,—" with an expressive glance at Mrs. Valentine. "Take off your hat, and lean back."

Lettice was glad to obey, merely delaying to hold out her purse. "But I don't know what I ought to do. If I knew—" she said, when Prue returned.

"Tea first," Prue answered cheerfully. She sat down by Lettice's side, and kissed her brow. "You dear child! How exactly the same you are! It is nice to see you again."

"But I can't stay. If I don't go back to-night, I must go to-morrow." What Theodosia would say Lettice dared not think. "I must," she repeated. "I could not stay to be a burden to you all; and you can't have much room in these lodgings."

"I wish I could get some tea—that poor little head of yours is so bad. All the world is distracted just now, and the water won't boil."

Lettice tried to laugh, and nearly burst into tears. "It doesn't matter! I'm only—it's only—thinking about—"

Lettice was fain to submit, and Nan burst in upon them with sensational details of what was going on across the street. The wrecked house could just be seen from their windows; and Nan had also been hovering about near at hand.

Nan received a "hushing" until after tea, and then she was banished from the room. "I suppose we must consider plans now," Prue remarked, taking a seat by Lettice. "You see we are rather cramped here. There is one bedroom for my father and mother, and another for Nan and me. Wallace will have to get a bed somewhere else."

"I don't know about the 'possibly.' If it were needful, we could. But another idea has come to us. We happen to know that a spare bedroom is to be had at your brother's lodgings. Nan went round to ask, and the woman said it could be ready in half-an-hour. Now I do not see why you should not stay there for at least three or four days, or perhaps a week; and by that time, I hope we shall have something arranged, so that you can come to us. My mother thinks the same."

"It would be so good for him, and surely he would be pleased. Don't at all events settle hastily against the plan. We are not attempting to send word to your brother. Far best to let him come home and find you there. A short telegram could not make clear what has happened."

"I think he would not. He has seemed to look forward so much to seeing you again. What if this were the right step for you to take, Lettice?—a means for getting back into your old place with him? You two have been apart so long. And really this afternoon you have almost no choice. We literally have not room for you here. Of course I could put you to sleep with Nan, and go somewhere else myself, only—"

"But—" in an undertone—"I don't quite like to be away from my mother to-night, after all this. And for you to go to your brother seems such a simple and natural plan. Don't you think so?"

"It will not be so here, Lettice." She put her arm round the girl, and held her affectionately.

"There is no hurry. I do not suppose your brother will get home for another hour or two. The only question is, whether you might like time just to unpack and settle in, and to have a little rest. I should like you to look rather more fresh when he comes in and finds you there."

"I know what he ought to say. My dear, you will be only two streets off—quite close to us. If he did not want you, you could but come back at once. But I am not afraid, and I don't think you would be either, if you were not so weary."

"Perhaps not. Prue, I'll be brave. And I think I had better go at once. I shall feel more cowardly if I wait; besides, you must have enough to see after."

A fact undeniable: nevertheless, Prue insisted on seeing Lettice, with her luggage, to the lodgings.

Felix had two rooms by this time—a small bedroom and a diminutive front sitting room. After saying good-bye to Prue, who had to hasten back, Lettice inspected her bedroom under the landlady's guidance, unpacked so much as was needful for the night, and then went downstairs.

The abrupt collapse of pleasant plans could not but be depressing. She had not the slightest doubt that three or four days at most would see her once more at her uncle Bryant's. Felix would not want her longer; and she could not be a burden on the Valentines in their trouble. She tried to believe that the seed of some unexpected good might be hidden in this withered flower of disappointment. Had she only felt sure that Felix would give a hearty welcome, the delight of even one night under his roof might have sufficed to outweigh all else; but severe doubts assailed her as to what he might say or do. It would mean additional expense; and Felix was wont to calculate his outlay to the penny.

Suppose he gave her no welcome? Suppose he were annoyed, even angry? Lettice scarcely knew how to face the possibility. To be repelled here, and then to go back, unwelcomed, to her lonely life in the cottage—she hardly knew which of the two was worst. A wave of distress rolled up anew and overpowered her. She was so thirsting for love and kindness.

Her thoughts went back to his old promise of a "little home" when he should be able to provide it—a promise, the repetition of which had flagged of late. Did he wish to provide for her still? The dullest home with Felix would be sweet, because it would be her own—not merely somebody else's home to which she was admitted on sufferance. "But only if he really wanted me," she murmured.

A recollection came up of the dear old Brighton days, and with it a craving for Cecilia. The years between faded to nothing, and she seemed again to see Sissie's face, to hear Sissie's voice, to feel Sissie's touch. Little jars or misunderstandings of that period had died into unimportance. Only the love remained.

Lettice dared not yield to this mood. She was shaken by it to the core, and was in danger of a complete break-down. With a desperate effort to put away thought, she strolled round the little sitting room, examined the titles of a row of books on the prim chiffonier, took another look-out at the window, then, deciding that Felix could not reach home for another hour, she resolved to follow Prue's advice and her own resolution, and to have a rest. It was, to say the least, undesirable that she should greet Felix with dull looks, or with the smallest tendency to feminine tears. So thought Lettice, weighing the matter soberly. Sleep might not be possible; but at least she would lie still, and would control the vagaries of her mind.

The latter intention might not have been easy of fulfilment in her unstrung condition; but the resolute quietness took happy effect. In ten minutes, Lettice was sound asleep.

Felix, wending his way homeward somewhat late, partly by omnibus, partly on foot, had not the remotest idea of what awaited him. He knew that Lettice would be at the Valentines' house, and he meant that evening to go in and see her. Some words of commendation, spoken to him by one of the heads of the business, had put him into good spirits. It would be pleasant to tell this to Lettice.

Though Felix never made an effort to win a friend, he did sometimes wish for a friend. It is not good for a man to be alone, and Felix was alone. Not merely sleeping alone in lodgings, as many have to do, but literally living alone, apart from other men, neither giving nor receiving sympathy. This is a terrible kind of solitude, and the worst that can happen to a man is to grow so used to it that he ceases to wish for aught else.

Felix had not reached so far, though he was on the high road to it. On this particular evening, rather curiously, a feeling of loneliness assailed him. Perhaps it was born of the consciousness that nobody in London cared for the praise he had received. Nobody would look the brighter for it—unless Mr. Kelly. It mattered to nobody except himself whether he succeeded or did not succeed—unless to Lettice. But the question arose involuntarily—Did he work now with any view to Lettice's future? Well, anyhow she would be glad—unselfishly glad. He wished he could see her alone, not surrounded by a crowd of people who were nothing to him. The unwonted sense of solitude and of desire for his sister deepened as he entered the narrow passage, politely called a "hall" by the landlady. He hung up his overcoat, and entered the back parlour, opening the door with no peculiar gentleness.

There he came to a standstill, petrified by the sight he beheld. Work lying on the table, a travelling-bag on a chair, and on the sofa Lettice asleep!

She did not wake with the jar of his entrance. It was as profound a sleep as Felix had ever seen. One hand supported a pale cheek, the other lay carelessly on a shawl which half-covered her. The eyes were closed, the brow peaceful.

Felix shut the door softly, and stood gazing. He did not know what had brought her there, and at the moment, he did not much care. There she was, and his sense of solitude was gone. It was enough for him to stand and look. Presently, he brought a chair to her side, moving with great caution, and sat down, to continue watching.

The extreme quiet of her face was entering into him, invading the cold crust which had been building itself around his heart. For that was a living quiet, not a frozen stillness. It had in it warmth and life underlying. The parted lips—not dropping open, but just parted—were full of sweetness. Sometimes the brow became dented, as if with some kind of pain or distress; and then another wave of calm would smooth it out. Felix wondered if she were dreaming.

Perhaps the steadfastness of his gaze disturbed her, for the troubled look recurred. She stirred restlessly, and her lips grew sorrowful. "I did not do it!" she said aloud. "It is so cruel! I did not take the money!"

Her eyes opened, and looked full at Felix. "Tell them I didn't! O please, please believe me!"

Then she slept again, but no longer profoundly. The restless movements continued, and she clenched her hand. "Please believe me! Please believe me! I did not take it! . . . Sissie would believe me! Sissie would know! O Felix! O Felix, take care of me!"

The last words were cried out sharply, in a voice of fear, and the open eyes again gazed blankly.

Felix had not for years been so stirred. The personal appeal went home, for it seemed that in trouble she had habitually turned to the thought of her brother. Somehow he had never pictured Lettice as needing help. He had been content to take it for granted that all was right in that quarter, since she did not complain.

"Wake up!" he said. "You're only dreaming. Nothing is wrong. See—I'm here! And there's nobody going to touch you."

She clang to him, confused still with the sudden awakening, and scarcely conscious of her whereabouts. He could feel the quick beating of her heart against him.

"But what is it all about?" he asked. "Why are you so frightened? Nobody's in the room except ourselves. Who did you think was going to take you?"

"Well, here you are, safe and sound! I don't know yet why you have come, only I know you are in no danger from anybody."

"I thought they were taking me to prison—because of the bank-note. And Mrs. Bryant looked so dreadful. I wanted to scream, and I could not. It was like a sort of nightmare."

"You will believe me, will you not? I couldn't bear to have you think it! Will you believe me, Felix? It has been so hard to bear. And I did not know what you would say, to find me here. If only you can believe me, I don't think I shall mind anything."

CHAPTER XVII.

LETTICE dropped her head on Felix's shoulder, and he slipped an arm round her, as he had done long before on the Brighton Parade. Looking down on her pale face, that day came back to him; and with the sudden recollection came also the old sense—almost forgotten of late—that he had to care for her. If she had reached him, happy and in gay spirits, it might not have been recalled; but the pale lips, the shortened breath, the clinging hands, all cried out to the manhood in him for protection.

"You won't mind having me, will you? Just for a day or two! I didn't know if you would like it, but Prue said I ought to come. May I stay only over Sunday? They can't have me at the Valentines'. And I'm not wanted at home. Except—Keith—but I do dread going back."

"The wind has blown down part of their stack of chimneys; and the floors are all broken through. It is such a smash! Nobody can stay in the house; and they are in lodgings. Only two bedrooms; and Wallace has to sleep somewhere else. Of course there is no room at all for me, unless Prue turned out, and I couldn't let her do that. She is wanted, and besides, they will have such expenses now? And we thought you would let me come here."

"Only this afternoon; not long before I arrived. Isn't it terrible for them? Mrs. Valentine and Prue were so good; but they couldn't keep me! At least, I couldn't let them! Felix, do you mind? May I stay, just a very little while? I couldn't go back to-night; it is too late. And to-morrow,—that would be such a tiny little peep . . . I do dread going back . . . Mrs. Bryant can't bear me; and even uncle thinks I did it."

"That—oh, you know." She forgot that she had not told him. "It has been so hard to bear. Sometimes I have felt as if I must come away to you, and never go back . . . Felix, do love me just a little. Won't you?"

Felix at first answered nothing. He was dumfounded by the revelation of what she had suffered, even though the cause of that suffering was still hidden. A wonder sprang up, how he could have been content to go carelessly on for so long a time, knowing no more. She clung to him as if for comfort; and Felix was glad that she could not see his face. In an unnecessarily gruff voice, he asked—

"You take a bank-note! I should think not. My sister a thief!
Who ever dared to hint at such a thing?"

"I didn't take it! Felix, I didn't, really." She lifted her head to look eagerly at him.

"You take a bank-note! I should think not. My sister a thief!! Who ever dared to hint at such a thing?"

"But it disappeared! Don't you remember? I told you, ever so long ago. And you never answered me."

"I remember something, not much. You said they couldn't find a bank-note; but I supposed it was all right, as you never said any more."

"Mrs. Bryant and Susanna. Mrs. Bryant wanted to have my room turned out, and she insisted on having the keys of my boxes. I was going off for the day with uncle, so I could not help myself. And when we came back in the evening, she had found the bank-note; she and Susanna together."

Lettice found it a wonderful relief to pour out all this; and Felix drew her on to tell a good deal more, by questions at intervals. If his tone were dry, it was not indifferent. A lurid gleam came into his eyes.

"That woman hates you like sin. I saw,—it was clear enough. She's afraid you may stand in the way of her interests. You're not half sharp, child! But I should have thought Dr. Bryant had more sense."

"He did hold out for a long time. He wouldn't believe I could do such a thing. But when the note was actually found there—"

"Can't prove it, if you like. I know well enough. Why else should she have arranged so cleverly to get to the box, and to have Susanna at hand just at the right moment?"

"Well!!" and Felix drew one long breath of resolution. "You don't go back to them again in a hurry! That's flat."

"You don't! It's settled! I'll have you to live with me. So you just send for the rest of your luggage."

"Oh, you dear, dear boy! You don't really mean it! Not—to live with you always!"

"It will be so happy! I can't believe that it's true . . . And I'll work . . . I can work, you know . . . I'll teach, or copy, or do anything . . . And I'll eat as little as ever I can . . . I won't be a burden on you."

"You keep quiet, and don't talk nonsense! I've had a rise lately." Felix gulped down a sudden recollection of his beloved savings. "If you don't eat, I'll make you. So you just be a sensible girl, and stop fretting. You have done with those people, once and for all."

"He wouldn't, if—I think she talks and persuades him! And till it was actually found in my box, he always trusted me—though I had been alone in the room with the note, when it was left out."

"Ah! That was the very thing. I knew you had, and I couldn't bear them to remember that, and so I did not dare at first to speak. Uncle almost begged me to deny taking the note, and I would not. I was so afraid of making them suspect you . . . Felix, I must tell you the truth. I didn't feel quite sure of you, and that made me wretched. And now I see how horrid it was of me to doubt. Will you forgive me?"

"I should think you might have felt sure," Felix said, in a constrained voice. "I'm not that sort of fellow."

"Now, look here! I won't have any more crying. You'll wash the house away next. It's been a mess, and you've been an arrant little goose: and that is the long and short of it . . . I suppose, if we hadn't been so many years apart, things would have seemed different . . . Anyhow, it won't happen again . . . You just have to banish the Bryants out of your mind, and make yourself happy here."

"Make myself happy! Felix, if you knew!" She wrung her hands together in an ecstasy.

"Well, I've got to see about supper now. There's a single mutton-chop in the house; and I'm as hungry as a bear."

"And I'm not hungry in the least. I couldn't eat to-night—I couldn't, really. I'm not shamming, Felix. I think I'm too happy to eat."

"Rubbish! I'm going out to pick up something. My landlady never has a notion what to do at a pinch!"

"No wonder; after lakes of tears. You just tuck yourself into the corner of the sofa, and go to sleep again till I come back."

Felix used gentle force to induce obedience, and departed. Lettice leant back with closed eyes, in a dream of delight. Dearly as she loved Dr. Bryant, the relations between him and her had been of late far too constrained to permit any enjoyment: and the very thought of escape from Theodosia was relief unutterable. Only—poor little Keith!—what would he say?

"But Felix must come first! I couldn't go back," sighed Lettice. "I'll write to Keith very often."

Then a tap came at the door, and in answer to her "Come in," Wallace's voice asked, "May I?"

Wallace entered, glancing round the small room, perhaps rather gratified to find Felix absent. Then his regards travelled back to Lettice's face, and remained there.

"I'm afraid—things haven't gone straight," he said gravely. "Prue wanted very much to know; so I offered to come round. Has Anderson been in?"

"O yes. He is only gone out to get something for supper. It is all right," said Lettice, a brighter smile flashing over her face than Wallace had ever seen there, though her reddened eyes and pallid cheeks had at the first moment sent a shock through him. He would not have expected to care so much; but, as of old, he never could endure to see anything slight or weak in suffering.

"Yes, I think I am—perhaps," assented Lettice, with another flash of a smile. She went back to the corner of the sofa, and dropped her head down on the arm. "I hardly know how to sit up. But that's nothing—it only means going to bed. Please tell Prue I'm happier than I have ever been in my life. I am to live with Felix altogether,—not to go back to Bristol at all."

"There isn't any 'if'—there isn't, indeed. Felix is so good! What makes you look at me like that? Are my eyes red?"

"I couldn't help crying. It wasn't Felix, only I have been so wretched, and now it is all changed. Don't worry Prue, because everything is right. Indeed it is."

"I'll be sure to tell her. She will see you, of course, to-morrow, while your brother is away. I was to ask if you would spend the morning with us,—at least with them. I shall be in the City, I'm afraid."

"Should I not be in their way? But I'll come round, and I shall soon see. Do tell me now about your house. Have any more chimneys fallen? Is nobody hurt?"

Nobody, Wallace assured her: and the furniture had nearly all been carried out by this time to a neighbouring warehouse. All, except what had been destroyed; and the amount thus lost was considerable. Whether any further collapse would take place remained to be seen; but since the wind had gone down, it was less likely.

"Things are bad enough without that," Wallace said. "The house can't be habitable for weeks, I suppose."

It was hardly to be expected that Felix should go through no after-regrets on the score of his new resolve. His was not, indeed, a nature to fluctuate feebly to and fro over a determination once arrived at. If Felix made up his mind on a point, no matter how rapidly, he would carry out at all costs the programme laid down; and having given his word he would stick to it. He had plenty of faults, but neither fickleness of purpose, nor lack of honourable feeling, had a place among them.

Still, the prevailing habit of thought through years could not be broken by an instant's resolution. The original desire for "success," generally expressed by himself as "getting on," had gradually resolved itself into a definite desire for wealth. To this end he had toiled with a persistency rare in one so young: for this end he had laid by with remarkable self-control. In pursuit of this absorbing aim, all gentler outlets of his nature had been in danger of getting permanently clogged up.

To take Lettice into his little menage meant hindrance, to say the least, in the carrying out of his aim. It would imply some reduction in the amount of his savings it might even mean an infringement upon those savings. Under the influence of aroused feeling, he had experienced no doubt as to what had to be done; but a measure of reaction was almost inevitable. No hesitation existed as to the carrying out of his resolution; for to that he was pledged: but none the less the battle had to be fought. Questionings assailed him with respect to the wisdom of what he had undertaken to do. He blamed his own impulsiveness, and regretted that he had not at least waited for fuller consideration.

All Friday night he lay awake—an unwonted experience in his healthy youth—debating with himself; looking on the question from all sides; finding fault with his precipitancy; and grieving over the thought of his now diminished saving powers.

In the morning, when he came down to breakfast, one glance at the sunshine of Lettice's face chased the regretful mood away as if by magic. She had slept peacefully all night through, and had awakened to a new life of freedom and happiness. Felix, contrasting her joyous smiles with the tears and pallor of the evening before, felt that he could have done no otherwise: and to her no signs of his inward conflict were allowed to appear. Yet the same regrets assailed him over his work that day; and though on his return they were dispelled afresh, a fierce renewal of them at night drove him nearly frantic.

Next day, Sunday, he came down in a restless and worried state, which was only in part soothed by her companionship. "I shall have you all to myself to-day," she said repeatedly, and her delight awoke a response in him, even while those gnawing doubts went on. One shadow alone rested on Lettice, and that was the thought of Dr. Bryant. She could put aside bitter recollections of Theodosia, but not loving and pained recollections of him. Still, her prevailing sensation at present was of freedom and relief.

The brother and sister went to Church in the morning, and for a long walk in the afternoon. Felix once more found his inward battle lessening as her sweetness won him back to the old love of their childish days: and a keen consciousness was dawning that better things might exist in life than a hasty acquisition of wealth. In the evening, Lettice wiled him to Church again. She had been always used to go twice, and in London she could not, unless he would act escort.

He had not listened with any particular attention to the morning sermon; but this evening Mr. Kelly's text took hold upon his mind, and refused to be forgotten.

Some part at least of the sermon following was more or less an outcome of a certain conversation once held between Mr. Kelly and Prue, with reference to Felix himself. Of this Felix knew nothing; but he could not help listening. He had undoubtedly lived to himself of late, so far as such living is possible, and he knew it—nay, he had rather prided himself upon the fact. He had not lived for other men. He had not lived unto God. His one aim had been wealth; not wealth to be used for the good of fellow-men, but wealth purely and exclusively for his own advantage.

Such thoughts floated in a back region of his mind, while Mr. Kelly drew sharp distinctions between the life that is lived to God, and the life that is lived to self.

   "In one sense," he explained, "no mean ever lives, or can live, utterly to himself. Our lives are so intertwined, one with another, that the lives of others must affect us, and our lives must affect them, at every point of contact. We must influence, and be influenced. We must help to make others more or less good, more or less happy. No choice here is left to us. From the very constitution of our nature and of human society, no man ever can live or die absolutely to himself alone. The manner of his living, and the manner of his dying, must tell upon the living and the dying of his fellow-men.

   "Yet within limits we have choice—not only a choice whether our influence shall be for good or for evil; but also a choice whether our lives shall be unto God—unto our fellow-men—or exclusively unto self. The wide margin of aims, of motives, of intentions, is left to our decision. You must live; you must act; your living and acting must affect your neighbours and friends; all this, whether you will or no. But the spring of action, the motive-power of life, shall be as you choose. And remember, whatever you do or leave undone, God looks straight to the motive.

   "In most men's lives we find one or two or more dominant motives, occasionally one only, so strong as to become a 'ruling passion.' Those who are so governed are commonly the men who get on, who do well, who succeed. That is to say, they succeed in their sins; they get on and do well in the thing which they have set before them to accomplish. The aim may be high or low: the thing may be good or bad; but at least they seldom fail in their object, because the full strength of body and mind is bent to the obtaining of it. When such men are won to the side of God, in the great battle against evil, they are men worth having. From them you will not see lazy or half-hearted service.

   "If the leading aim, the mastering passion, in a man's life be Self, then the object for which he toils is poor and low; he gives money for that which is not bread, and his hunger and thirst cannot be satisfied. If the ruling aim and passion of his heart be to live unto God and unto men, then his object is noble, and unlimited possibilities lie before him.

   "The love of self takes many different developments. It may desire money for self, success for self, comfort and ease for self, admiration for self. Or it may desire these things for the one being best loved on earth; and self may actually be worshipped and toiled for in that being, so that here we find another form of selfishness, though by no means so ignoble a form as the first.

   "Now I do not for a moment say that these desires are intrinsically wrong. It is natural that we should like a measure of ease and comfort, that we should wish for wealth and success—natural and not evil. The evil lies in overbalancing. That which is right in moderation becomes wrong in excess. That which is harmless, even laudable, as a well-controlled aim, subject to high principle, becomes contemptible as the one sole object of a man's existence—becomes perilous as his mastering passion.

   "Love God first; and other love will take its due place. Live for God first; and all your life will be in fair proportion. Work for God first; and you will work for fellow-men; Self sinking into a reasonable background. But put self first; live for self; toil for self; and the whole of your life will be ill-balanced, crooked, out of order and proportion.

   "You need not for a moment suppose that this high aim is incompatible with a useful and successful career on earth. Rather, it should help you towards success, because it should ensure a single-hearted devotion to labour. Surely a man ought to work better for God and for others than for himself alone. No more inspiring, no more grand and uplifting motive can be found than this—'To do the Will of God!'

   "Was ever any life loftier than the Life of Christ? He said, 'I come to do Thy Will, O God!' We too, in our little measure, may say and do the same. If that be the ruling passion of your heart, 'To do His Will,' then no success will injure you, and no adversities will shake your firm foundation. Whatever your line of life may be, it makes no difference. Christ is there; and you have to do His will. He may give you success; or He may not. But one thing is certain. You will not do your work less well because you do it 'unto Him.' You will not live a less beautiful life because you live it 'unto Him.'

   "Success is more commonly His Will for the diligent; and He bids us to be diligent. He would not have us feeble and indolent servants. He would have us strive our utmost. And suppose He gives to us success and wealth—what then? What of the money so gained? My friends, remember, 'No man liveth to himself!' And wait upon your God for orders. The silver and gold are His, not yours. Whether you have much or little, you hold it all in trust for Him; and you have to do His Will."

He said not a word to Lettice. Like Cecilia, he was reserved. They talked of other things at supper; discussed Lettice's troubles; and planned little changes in their mode of life together. Lettice was in gay spirits, joyous as a kitten; and Felix was thoughtful, but not sad.

That sentence clung to him still, "You hold it all in trust!" His savings were not strictly his own; they were only held in trust; and if he were called upon to spend more, to lay by less, why should he resist? Further than this he did not advance before bedtime; and then the old struggle recommenced. But in the last few hours he had learnt something, and he was stronger to fight. These persistent regrets were far from noble. They drove him at last, in the dead of the night, to prayer, and from his knees Felix arose, victor over himself.

CHAPTER XVIII.

"THREE months since I came! I seem to have been years in London,—years and years!" said Lettice aloud.

She had been busy all the morning over some mending for her brother: singing to herself as she darned and patched. To work for him was a pure delight, because she loved him, and because he was good to her. Lettice had fitted easily and completely into her new home, finding great happiness there. The dull little room, and uninteresting outlook, signified nothing. Perpetual cheer existed in perpetual freedom from Theodosia's rasping temper, in constant power to devote herself to Felix. She could often forget for hours together the unjust and cruel suspicion under which she still lay; and only the thought of Dr. Bryant weighed still.

He had written two or three times kindly, but with brevity; expressing no marked regret at losing Lettice, only trusting that she would be happy. What had passed between him and Felix, Lettice could merely conjecture. That a hot letter had gone off in her defence, she did know, though she had not been allowed to see it; and Dr. Bryant's temperate answer, while it made Felix "Pshaw" angrily, was quoted to her only in parts. Lettice knew thus much, that he still counted her guilty, and that his affection for her was not dead. Sometimes she feared that the cloud never would be lifted from her pathway in this life.

Once a boyish ill-spelt letter arrived from Keith, vehemently lamenting her defection. "It is horrid without you," he said. "There's nobody to talk to now, and not a scrap of fun." Lettice dared not answer the scrawl with any freedom, nor could she honestly say that she wished to be back.

After three months in lodgings, the Valentines were at length in their home once more. They and Lettice met frequently, spending many a spare hour in company. Prue was still the prime favourite of Lettice, but she heartily cared for them all; and Nan had dropped into something of her old awkward devotion to Lettice. Old Mr. Valentine once quaintly styled her his "outside daughter," and the name clung to her thenceforward. Wallace seemed to find particular pleasure in using it. Lettice was most willing to be his sister. Had he wished for a closer tie, he might have found the wish denied; since Lettice was too supremely happy in her new sphere, too entirely wrapped up in Felix, to give her heart easily elsewhere. But though Wallace liked to call, liked to chat with Lettice, and liked to show brotherly kindnesses, he failed to develop into a lover.

"I seem to have been years and years here," repeated Lettice, standing to look-out of the window upon the quiet street. It was a warm and bright day, with only the ordinary slight murkiness of atmosphere, which a true Londoner does not so much as perceive. Lettice, being not yet a true Londoner, did perceive it, with a transient recollection of the exquisitely clear air about her country home.

"But I would not go there again; oh, not if I could," she went on aloud. "I would do anything for uncle—anything; but until he believes in me again, I cannot make him happy. Being together is not real enjoyment. There is always a sort of shadow between us. And Mrs. Bryant—to live with her. Oh, no! And to leave Felix—so good as he is to me now—dear boy. And I am sure it is right for him—the best thing that could have been, even though it does mean not making money so fast. Prue says it will be the making of him, which is much more important. I want Felix to be a really nice man—a man that everybody may look up to. Who is coming now? I know that way of walking. Why, it is Bertha! Bertha herself."

Lettice ran out to open the front door, and Bertha presented a rosy cheek to be kissed. The two had never met since Cecilia's death: and those smiling eyes awakened a rush of memories. Not altogether sad memories. Lettice could not but feel how Cecilia would have rejoiced in the present arrangement.

"Bertha! How good of you! I knew you were to be at home for just one day, and I meant to leave you all to yourselves so carefully."

"And I meant not to be defrauded of a peep! Let me look at you. Yes, just as they say. The same, only more."

"Any agreeable adjectives that you like to string together. So you really are settled down with your brother—busy, and well, and happy! No need to ask if you are that."

"Sometimes I wonder if any girl is quite so well off as I am. Of course there are some things—I don't mean that I have every single thing in life I could choose. Only I do delight in being with Felix always, and having a little home so near all your dear people."

"Sit down, please; if you can spare just a few minutes. And you are fond of nursing as ever? Not tired of it?"

"Tired! Never! Yes, I know what you mean by the 'something' that you want. Prue told me, of course. She knew you would not mind."

"It is a horrid shame, Lettice. That is all I can say. And you are the dearest little angel to bear it as you do. There—now you know what I think."

"I can only toll how you haven't acted. I couldn't have borne it so in your place, that is certain. Never mind. Your brother understands, and so do we. So would anybody that really knows you, as mother and Prue and I do. Those people near Bristol don't signify. If I were you, I would just ignore their existence. A set of—"

"So much the more shame for them. To treat you in such a way; you, with that dear little transparent face of yours. How anybody, with a grain of commonsense in his brain, could look at you for half a second, and believe that you could do such a thing—! It's perfectly insane!"

"I don't think your nursing-work has tamed you down yet," Lettice said, smiling.

"It never will—if that means turning me into an automaton. I'm subdued enough in a sick room; but I hope I always shall have a little indignation to explode on injustice . . . Now I won't talk of that any more, or I shall be saying too much . . . Though I don't see that any blame could be too strong . . . To turn to something else. What do you think of Prue?"

"She is always so good to me," said Lettice slowly. "And I think—one doesn't seem to expect Prue to be anything but well."

"Because she never talks about herself. She never contrives to draw attention to the matter. You don't hear Prue informing other people, unasked, how she has slept, and how she has eaten, and what are her latest sensations."

"No; that is it. Prue always seems to go quietly on just the same, whatever she feels. She does look very pale sometimes—and she is thin—but all this worry about the home—and the shock of the chimney falling—"

"My theory is different. Prue does not look as she should look: but I don't believe the chimneys have had much to do with the matter. I believe it is wholly and entirely Mr. Kelly."

"He comes to see us sometimes, not often. He has always been kind to Felix; and now I do a little work in the Parish for him."

"Don't you understand me yet? I am treating you as one of ourselves—and trusting you. Of course this is in strict confidence. But for Prue's sake, I thought I would ask you if you had noticed anything. Did you ever hear of the past time, when Prue knew him? Years ago."

"More than a mere acquaintance. For weeks we were thrown together, and he seemed to be definitely seeking Prue. I should have said there could be no mistake about the matter. And Prue gave him her whole heart. Poor dear! How happy she was! Then suddenly he drew back, and went away without a word. We lost sight of him for years. Prue suffered terribly, but she would not talk of him—would not allow any one to blame him. And I was as sure as she was that there must be some mistake—only, what could one do?"

"If Prue gives her love once, she gives it for ever. Don't you know her well enough to know that?"

Bertha saw that a certain conjecture in her own mind had not so much as penetrated into Lettice's thoughts; the idea of Mr. Kelly in connection with herself was non-existent.

"No," she repeated; "certainly nobody that I have come across. I don't know most of Mr. Kelly's friends, of course. But now that I think of it, I have noticed how he talks of Prue. I thought it was because she is such a friend of mine, only—"

"Men are not so accommodating. They don't understand the force of female friendships."

"Ah, there it is! He may not be sure of his own mind—he may still less be sure of Prue's mind. That self-restrained manner of hers is not easy to read. At all events, you know now how things stand."

"Well, you and I, of course, can do nothing. He must just please himself. Perhaps I feel a little more hopeful, after speaking to you—and I know it is safe! You will never breathe a word to anybody—least of all to Prue? . . . Tell me now all about yourself. I must not stay many more minutes."

After Bertha's departure, Lettice stood again, gazing out of the window, busied in consideration. She did not quite see why Bertha had said so much. It seemed that the conversation could lead to no particular result. As Bertha had truly remarked, they could take absolutely no steps in the matter. If Mr. Kelly did not come forward of his own free will, no living person had power to induce him to do so.

"And, after all, it may be a mere fancy," decided Lettice. "Mr. Kelly may have forgotten his old liking; and Prue may not really care any longer. Prue always seems contented."

Then, to her surprise, she saw Mr. Kelly himself in the street, apparently steering a straight course for the front door—Mr. Kelly, with downward-bent head and intent visage, evidently much occupied with some subject mentally viewed. Lettice did not open the front door this time.

"How odd that he should come now, just after Bertha's call! I have a great mind to make him talk about Prue, just for the sake of watching how he does it . . . Did Bertha think that perhaps I was getting to like him a little too well?" This idea flashed up unbidden, and Lettice burst into a soft fit of laughter.

"O how absurd! Then she really came in Prue's interest. Dear Prue! Why, he is old enough to be my father!"

"All alone, Miss Anderson?" Mr. Kelly surprised the laugh, only half completed; and he was not sure whether to be disconcerted, since it might be that she was laughing at him. "You seem very cheerful," he hazarded.

"O yes: I am as cheerful as possible," Lettice answered, composing her face with all speed. "Please sit down. I have a good part of the day alone, of course. And sometimes my own thoughts amuse me."

Mr. Kelly sank into profound silence. This was not his usual mode; and Lettice became speedily aware that he had something on his mind. He had been very friendly and pleasant of late, and she enjoyed a call from him; but the abstraction to-day became somewhat heavy. Lettice tried to get up a conversation, and there was no response. She spoke of Prue, and he only said, "Yes."

Lettice gave up, and imitated his silence. For three minutes, at least, the noisy little clock had things his own way, undisturbed.

"Dear me, I'm afraid this is very unsociable," said Mr. Kelly at length. "I had no intention—I am sure—"

"Miss Anderson, you once came to me years ago, to ask a question—was it not to ask advice?" His memory was slightly at fault, but Lettice made no attempt to set it right. "I am come to-day, on something of the same errand—that is to say—to ask a question, for a particular reason."

"That may depend upon certain circumstances. If, for instance, you had better means of judging—"

Did he mean—Prue? The thought whirled through Lettice, producing an inward turmoil. Could it be? Yet, why should he come to her?

"It is, of course, in confidence. I may depend upon you—should there be no result."

"Then, could you tell me this? Is there the slightest hope, that—say, under any circumstances—Miss Valentine might marry?"

"If it were for her happiness, how could they not be glad?" asked Lettice. "And they all love Prue so much! Everybody does, who knows her."

"It was years ago, long before I first saw you. I knew her then, well. In fact—though I had not meant to reveal any personal interest in this question—I do not mind saying that she made a very strong impression on me then. But I was told that she was engaged; and I at once left the place."

"All these years since, she has never been engaged." It seemed very strange to Lettice that Bertha's visit should have been just in time to prepare her for this interview. She could not but speak out, however, having the requisite knowledge.

"I am sure: because I have heard particulars. Prue was not engaged at that time; and she has never been engaged since. I know so much, positively. There cannot be any mistake."

Mr. Kelly kept profound silence, and Lettice's heart beat fast. Would he ask any more? Had she said enough?

"Thanks!" came at length, and he stood up. "I must not pay a longer visit to-day."

"No, indeed. And I suppose I must not ask you one question in return. Would it be wrong? That impression—the impression Prue made upon you, all those years ago—I wonder if it has gone quite off? Do people change?"

The light that broke over his face was very singular. Lettice had never seen anything exactly like it.

Then he was gone; and Lettice saw him striding off, at "double-quick-march" in the direction of the Valentines' house, that house which they had only reentered two days before. He would find things in some confusion; but what did that matter.

"I'm so glad I could say a word. If only he will come to the point!" murmured Lettice.

"DEAR LETTICE,—You must be the first to hear. Mr. Kelly has asked me to be his wife, and I have consented. He says it is your doing. Thanks, dear little 'outside sister.'—

"Ever your loving,

"PRUE."

Felix had overtaken the telegraph boy at the door, on arrival at the close of his day's work. Lettice looked up with dreamy eyes.

"A what! O Felix, I have such news! Guess—good news! What do you think is going to happen?"

"Time they should, if they ever mean to do it. I thought they would have dangled on to the end of the chapter. When did he speak?"

"Only to-day. Prue wrote at once to tell me. I am so delighted. Nothing could be nicer. And she will have a home so near to them all. But what do you mean? Did you expect it? How came you to think of such a thing?"

"A telegram!" Lettice tore open the envelope and lifted scared eyes to her brother.

He looked over and read aloud. "Come at once; late train. Keith dying, wants to see you. Bring companion if needful. Will pay all expenses. No delay. Maurice Bryant."

"Now, Lettice, be sensible! Don't upset yourself. It's no manner of use, and you'll only lose time. I will look-out trains, while you run upstairs and put your things together. You may have to stay a few days. There's a train, I fancy, about nine or ten. The boy is waiting, and a reply has been pre-paid. I'll say we are both coming. Yes, I shall go too. You can't travel alone at midnight."

"I don't see much goodness in the question. There's nothing else to be done. That woman is having her deserts."

Lettice gave him a look, and rushed away. When she came back, he had settled everything, and was seated in the arm-chair.

"Supper will be up directly, but there is plenty of time. I declare it would serve the Bryants right if you did not go."

"You could not. You couldn't say anything unkind, when she is in trouble. And Felix, dear, you would not. I am sure of that. If you knew how she cares for that boy. It will almost kill her to lose him. O no; I am not afraid."

"I don't think you need be,—" in rather an odd voice. "But I do wonder what is the matter. I do wonder whether he may not, after all, get well!"

"Telegrams don't give very abundant information. You'll like to leave a message for the Valentines?"

"I had written to Prue, before you came in. I'll just add a word of postscript . . . What a day this has been. I am so glad for Prue! But oh, that poor little Keith! Felix, if you knew how loving he was to me before I came away: and how he said he would miss me. Oh, I hope we shall be in time!"

"Here comes supper. Now, mind, if you don't eat, you don't go!" Felix spoke with a determined air of authority.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE next few hours were to Lettice one prolonged whirl. She did what had to be done, with some measure of outward quietness; but her mind was in a dizzy tumult of feeling. After all that had passed, it seemed such a fearful reverse for Theodosia! Lettice forgot injuries to herself, and her whole heart went out in passionate pity to that unhappy woman, who in losing Keith might almost be said to lose her all.

Felix said little during the journey, but he saw to everything, looked well after Lettice, and made her lie down on the seat, while nobody except themselves occupied the compartment. She found herself involuntarily tracing and retracing the course of late events. Things had turned out utterly unlike all previous expectations. But for Theodosia's determined antagonism, she might not have come to London at this time, and she might never have lived again with Felix! This new phase of affairs had sprung from a chain of circumstances over which she had small control; not one of which, separately viewed, could have been deemed likely to produce any such result.

"I suppose things often are so," she meditated, reposing in the lamplight, with the rush of the train in her ears. "And after all, it has been worth going through the trouble, to bring about my home with Felix. Yes; worth the whole. I would not undo a single step, if it must mean undoing that too . . . I never fancied Felix could be what he is now to me. Three months ago, if I could have looked ahead, how little I should have cared about Mrs. Bryant's unkindness . . . At least it would have been a different feeling altogether—not desolate! I do care now: but I shall be cleared some day, quite cleared. I am sure of it. And meantime life is so happy! How can I help being contented? . . . That poor little Keith? Ought I to be glad about anything, when he is dying?"

So the hours passed, in alternations of feeling; and after midnight, the journey ended, in a dark drive to Quarrington Cottage.

He looked grave and tried; but at the first glimpse of Lettice, something of the old light came into his eyes. "My child, I have missed you!" he said.

"You are in time. Not much more than in time, I fear. Your brother was right to come too," as he held out a hand to Felix.

"A chill first. Bronchitis, with complications. He cannot last many hours now. At this moment he is not conscious."

"I hope so. He has asked for you incessantly, poor little lad. Theodosia would not consent, until yesterday afternoon, to have you sent for. I feared then that it might be too late. The boy was so distressed that she had to give way."

Lettice shivered at the thought of Theodosia; not with reference to herself. "It is terrible for Mrs. Bryant!" she murmured.

"Yes; and the boy has seemed to turn from her in this illness. It has been most painful. My dear, will you take off your wraps; and then you must have supper. After that you shall see him."

She had no choice as to submission, and obedience was the quicker mode. Fatigue could not be thought of; and she had no desire for sleep. Felix at least was glad to avail himself of the food provided; and Lettice did her best to satisfy Dr. Bryant.

"You are looking well in health. Not the worse for London!" he said, after an earnest scrutiny.

Then came a summons. "Master Keith was sensible, and he wanted Miss Lettice. He had asked if she were in the house."

"Come, both of you," the doctor said unexpectedly. He could hardly have explained why he extended his invitation to Felix. The words sprang from a momentary impulse; and Felix followed without hesitation.

Keith was sitting up in his little bed, supported by pillows. Beside him stood Theodosia; haggard, wretched beyond description. After one glance, as Lettice entered, her eyes were averted: while the boy extended eager hands, and gasped, "Dear old Lettice! Come!"

She bent over him, and he held her with his thin arms, until they dropped through weakness. The breathing was sorely oppressed. He seemed striving to say something, and unable to bring it out.

Theodosia drew nearer; but with one hand, he tried to push her away—a hasty childish motion.

"I can't! Lettice! Not Mamsie! It was she—did it!" The boy could with difficulty speak, and he looked towards Dr. Bryant, panting. "I want—want—to tell you! . . . Mamsie did it! . . . I saw her! . . . Lettice knows! . . . Ask Lettice!"

"Lettice knows!" repeated the boy brokenly. "Hold me, Lettice! Don't go! . . . She put the bank-note . . . her own self . . . into Lettice's box! . . . I saw her . . . Mamsie knows quite well . . . And Lettice knows!"

"Keith, darling, don't think of all that now. Try to forget about the money. You have not to do with it, you know. Think of the stories I used to tell you, up in the playroom on Sunday afternoon. About JESUS, dying on the Cross, and how He loved the children always."

"I am sure He will. He loves you so; and He died for you, Keith. Ask Him now to forgive you all that you have done wrong; and to take care of you."

There was an instant's shy reluctance, but at such a moment she could not think of self.

Others simply stood around, waiting. Lettice looked at none of them. She knew that Theodosia, Dr. Bryant, Felix, Susanna, were present; yet as she knelt, with bowed head, clasping the boy's hand, she had a sense of being alone with Keith before the Heavenly Throne.

In soft tones she uttered the words of her own old evening prayer, learnt long ago from Cecilia, and taught later to Keith, only changing the pronouns to suit the needs of the present occasion, and bringing in Keith's name. He joined brokenly in the familiar sentences: and then a fit of choking came on. Theodosia interfered to give help: her own face ghastly. When the attack passed off, it left the boy unconscious.

He had no immediate answer. Theodosia's gaze was riveted on her boy's face, over which a marked change was creeping. It had come without warning: and it deepened fast. Again he struggled for breath: and once more, with returning sense, his eyes sought Lettice's face. A smile glimmered: and one word passed his lips, that word of "hope for the dying." He said distinctly—"JESUS!"

Silence again fell upon them all; and Lettice trembled, holding the small lifeless hand. Theodosia stood up white and stern.

"Yes: it is true," she said, "I did it! I wanted to get rid of Lettice,—for Keith's sake! I could not have done such a thing for anybody else's sake,—only for Keith! . . . Only for Keith! . . . I know what I am saying! Don't stare at me—all of you! I tell you—Lettice stole my boy's heart from me! And she would have robbed him—robbed him of his rights! I saw it all—and so—for his sake—my boy's sake—"

"Why should I go? Nothing is left to me now. Oh, I know—it was wrong, of course—but this is an awful punishment!" And she sank over the child's body, uttering a wail of such misery, that Lettice burst into weeping at the sound. Who could comfort the unhappy woman? She had sacrificed her truth, her sense of right, deliberately wronging an innocent girl, as a gratification of her own jealousy, and for the supposed advantage of the single being whom she loved: and now, not only was he taken from her, but before he went, she had the additional anguish of knowing that she had forfeited his esteem, if not also his love.

There was a bitter irony in the fact that her own idolised boy should have been the one, of all others, to make known her wrong-doing. Either, his resolution not to speak of it had broken down under the weakness of suffering, or his childish conscience had refused to let him pass away without clearing Lettice from unjust accusation. Whichever way it might be, Theodosia's cup was thereby filled to the brim.

"Go away! Go and leave me!" she cried. "I want Keith! Nobody but Keith! Lettice may have all your money now. Now Keith is gone."

To Lettice the scene was heartrending: to Felix it was a revelation. If the love of money could lead to this—love of money, not for self even, but for another—who might count himself free from peril! He said nothing; but that which he saw sank deeply, and was not forgotten. Theodosia's jealousy of her boy's affection for Lettice was an additional motive which he could not so well see or appreciate. One side of the matter was clear enough: and it carried its own lesson.

"Take Lettice into another room," Dr. Bryant said quietly, and Felix obeyed. Half-an-hour later Dr. Bryant appeared alone, entering the study where the brother and sister had taken refuge. Lettice, not a little shaken by the past scene, was sobbing still: but at the sound of his step, she stood up.

Dr. Bryant was still ashen pale, with the look of a man who has received a severe blow. He came in front of Lettice, and said, "My child, forgive me!"

"You couldn't know! You couldn't tell. It was not your fault. I have nothing to forgive."

"You have much! I ought to have been sure! The marvel to me now is—how I could ever have thought it possible. My own credulity amazes me."

His grieved look wandered to the brother, and Felix said promptly, "The other would have seemed much more impossible."

"True!" Dr. Bryant sighed heavily. "The least of the pain is that our little lad is safe at Home!"

"Don't mind about me! Don't think of that again," entreated Lettice. "You have been so good, so dear and good to me always. And if I had spoken out at first—"

"That was always a mystery! I never could understand your silence. Why not have denied it from the beginning?"

Lettice was dumb, and Felix spoke for her. "She thought she might divert suspicion upon me. I was in the room, also, with the bank-note."

"I see!—" with a flash of understanding. "But, no! How could that affect you? You were not in the room alone?"

"It is all right now—I mean, you will never doubt me again—and I shall always be your child!" murmured Lettice, longing to comfort him.

"She has insisted on being alone for a time. After all—what can one do? What can any one say to comfort her? . . . Now you must both go to bed? And do not hurry up in the morning, either of you. Breakfast can be made ready at any time."

"I must have a little time to myself. Good-night, dear child. Try to sleep . . . There is need to sorrow more for the living than the dead; and that touches me more closely than you."

"Thanks, my comfort!" and with a stirred face he was gone, able to bear no more.

"I am glad I know him," Felix observed abruptly. "There's something noble about that man—something unlike other men!"

Four days later, Keith was laid to rest in the little village churchyard; and some who knew Theodosia well, said plainly that it was a merciful stroke which had taken the boy thus early away from her influence. Dr. Bryant, whatever he might have felt, passed no such judgment. He uttered no reproaches, and showed to his wife only a steadfast compassion.

She bore up sullenly till after the funeral, only keeping to her own room, and refusing to see Lettice. Then she broke down, and for many weeks she was laid low with brain fever. Out of this illness, she emerged a permanent invalid, shattered in body and mind, childishly sorry for her past conduct, so far as she was capable of recalling it, yet apt to be amused with the veriest trifles.

Lettice could be no help to Dr. Bryant, so far as Theodosia was concerned: since her presence proved always in a measure harmful, by exciting more vivid recollections. A good nurse was in constant attendance: and Dr. Bryant devoted himself, with patient and forgiving assiduity, to lightening, so far as was in his power, the burden of his wife's existence. Hers truly was a spoilt life. In less than a year, she was laid beside her boy.

Dr. Bryant had been thoroughly shaken out of his love for Quarrington Cottage by these painful events. Without consulting anybody, he put the place into the hands of agents, to be let or sold: and six weeks after his wife's death, he betook himself to a London hotel, within five minutes' walk of the Andersons' lodgings.

Nobody expected him. Lettice had been greatly exercised of late, wondering whether her first duty lay with Felix or with Dr. Bryant, now that the latter was left alone in the world.

"If only I could live with them both!" she said often to herself. But Felix was tied to the neighbourhood of London: and that Dr. Bryant should be willing to quit his old home was a notion which never so much as occurred to her imagination. Everybody looked upon him as a fixture there.

The day on which he arrived happened to be the day of Prue Valentine's wedding: a quiet affair, with only Bertha and Nan, Lettice and one other girl, for bride's-maids. The ceremony took place in Mr. Kelly's own Church.

Prue looked calmly happy, in her neat white dress: not only happier but younger than for years past. The bride's-maids wore mauve and white, in consideration of Lettice's mourning, which was of course slight in degree.

It was a morning of much excitement for Lettice, who had never been a bride's-maid before: and for about the first time during six weeks past, her mind did not dwell continuously on the thought of Dr. Bryant in his solitude.

Coming out of Church, after the happy pair, a vague sense took possession of Lettice that somebody familiar and unexpected was present. She could not at once give shape to the notion, and she did not exactly see the "somebody." It was rather a dim consciousness that such an one might be seen—and her eyes roved about anxiously. Had she caught a glimpse, or had she not—almost without knowing? An answer came in the porch, when a kind finely-outlined face, framed in grey hair, was suddenly close at hand; and then she was aware that she had before detected him in Church, though her brain had not fully translated what her eyes had seen.

"Presently!" he said, as his hand clasped hers. "Go and enjoy yourself, my child. I shall see you by-and-by."

The next two hours were passed in pleasurable suspense. When at length bride and bridegroom had taken their departure, Lettice was free to go home,—and there, according to hope, she found Dr. Bryant comfortably established.

"I thought somebody else did . . . Lettice, are you and Felix wedded to this neighbourhood?"

"But the expense of going in and out every day! Of course I should like it, and so would Felix: only it can't be thought of. You see, Felix ought to lay by, if only a little, every year, and I cost him a great deal. But I do try to be economical, and to save in every possible way. And Felix is so glad now to have me with him."

"If only Quarrington Cottage were not all that great distance—!" Lettice spoke distressfully.

"I am not going back to Quarrington Cottage. It holds too many sad memories. The place is to be sold. I think of finding a new home outside London,—perhaps in the direction of Reigate or Dorking. And I must have you to live with me."

"Felix too! I would not on any account separate you. I want you both to make my home your home. Why should you not? All that I have will belong to you by-and-by: and my will is already made, to that effect. No,—I shall leave something to Felix—" as she uttered her brother's name—"but the bulk will be yours. Felix can make his own way: and he will make it the faster, if by this plan, he is able to lay by present earnings. I should undertake all his current expenses, as with a son of my own. Will Felix object?—And would you mind?"

"Mind! If Felix consents, I shall be only too glad!! To be with you always:—and to have Felix:—and to live in the country! I didn't know life could be so lovely!" cried Lettice, enraptured.

No difficulties arose in the path of the plan. Felix was both touched and grateful.

"Nonsense!" he said to Lettice, when she expressed privately her regrets as to Dr. Bryant's intentions for the future, which he had plainly stated to the young man. "Of course he is free to leave his money where he likes. Neither of us has the smallest claim upon him, but you deserve it, if anybody does. He is uncommonly good to me, I can tell you: and this will be a capital lift. To have a home provided, and expenses paid, just when I am making my way! Don't you see what a lot I shall be able to save?"

"I hope we shall not both get to care too much for money," Lettice said seriously.

"Not much danger for you. That isn't your sort. And mind—if you think I'm getting into an avaricious groove—just speak and warn me, Lettice."

Quarrington Cottage was sold, and a pretty home was chosen within forty minutes of the City by rail. There the brother and sister lived with Dr. Bryant, finding in him a true father. Neither of the two had after cause to regret the arrangement, and Dr. Bryant's old age was the happiest period of his life.

Although the desire to "get on" was no longer the ruling passion of Felix Anderson's mind, to the exclusion of higher aims, he did get on, and gave promise in time of becoming a thoroughly prosperous man. But in after years, he never lost sight of one main fact, that what he possessed was literally not his own, but only "held in trust."

SUITABLE FOR PRIZES AND REWARDS.

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1. BUNYAN'S PILGRIM'S PROGRESS.
2. BUNYAN'S HOLY WAR.
3. FOXE'S BOOK OF MARTYRS.
4. BEN-HUR. By LEW WALLACE.
5. THE LAMPLIGHTER. By MARIA S. CUMMINS.
6. UNCLE TOM'S CABIN. By H. B. STOWE.
7. ROBINSON CRUSOE. By DANIEL DEFOE.
8. MY DESIRE. By SUSAN WARNER.
9. NOBODY. By SUSAN WARNER.
10. THE FAIRCHILD FAMILY. By Mrs. SHERWOOD.
11. THE SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON.
12. ROMANCE OF NATL. HISTORY. By P. H. GOSSE.
13. GREAT MEN. By the late Rev. F. MYERS.
14. LITTLE WOMEN AND GOOD WIVES. By L. M. ALCOTT.
15. DRAYTON HALL. By JULIA MATHEWS.
16. THE END OF A COIL. By SUSAN WARNER.
17. GLEN LUNA. By ANNA WARNER.
18. DIANA. By SUSAN WARNER.
19. STEPHEN, M.D. By SUSAN WARNER.
20. MELBOURNE HOUSE. By SUSAN WARNER.
21. BIBLE WARNINGS. By the Rev. Dr. NEWTON.
22. THE PHYSICIAN'S DAUGHTERS. By LUCY NELSON.
23. THE WIDE, WIDE WORLD. By E. WETHERELL.
24. DAISY. By SUSAN WARNER.
25. DAISY IN THE FIELD. By SUSAN WARNER.
26. NOR'ARD OF THE DOGGER. By E. J. MATHER.
27. SOLDIERS AND SERVANTS OF CHRIST. By ANNA LEHRER.
28. QUEECHY. By SUSAN WARNER.
29. DARE TO DO RIGHT. By JULIA MATHEWS.
30. NETTIE'S MISSION. By JULIA MATHEWS.
31. YOKED TOGETHER. By ELLEN DAVIS.
32. OPENING A CHESTNUT BURR. By E. P. ROE.
33. ST. ELMO. By A. J. E. WILSON.
34. NAOMI. By Mrs. J. B. WEBB.
35. BARRIERS BURNED AWAY. By E. P. ROE.
36. WYCH HAZEL. By S. and A. WARNER.
37. THE GOLD OF CHICKAREE. By S. WARNER.
38. THE OLD HELMET. By SUSAN WARNER.
39. A LETTER OF CREDIT. By SUSAN WARNER.
40. GENERAL GORDON. By Major SETON CHURCHILL.
41. A KNIGHT OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. By E. P. ROE.
42. IN THE DAYS OF BRUCE. By GRACE AGUILAR.
43. HOME INFLUENCE. By GRACE AGUILAR.
44. A MOTHER'S RECOMPENSE. By GRACE AGUILAR.
45. THE VALE OF CEDARS. By GRACE AGUILAR.
46. THE GOLDEN LADDER. By SUSAN and ANNA WARNER.
47. INFELICE. By A. J. E. WILSON.
48. AT THE MERCY OF TIBERIUS. By A. J. E. WILSON.
49. DORRINCOURT. By the Author of "Expelled."
50. WESTWARD HO! By CHARLES KINGSLEY.
51. HOLDEN WITH THE CORDS. By W. L. M. JAY.
52. A RED WALLFLOWER. By SUSAN WARNER.
53. JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN. By Mrs. CRAIK.
54. ARABIAN NIGHTS' ENTERTAINMENTS.
55. CRANFORD. By Mrs. GASKELL.
56. WAVERLEY. By Sir WALTER SCOTT.
57. HYPATIA. By CHARLES KINGSLEY.
58. IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO MEND. By CHARLES READE.
59. ADAM BEDE. By GEORGE ELIOT.
60. WAGES. By L. T. MEADE.
61. BETWIXT TWO FIRES. By J. JACKSON WRAY.

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The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Andersons

THE ANDERSONS

CHAPTER I.