A Laodicean by Thomas HardyOr, The Castle of the De Stancys. A Story of To-Day. (page 7)

‘Very well; we won’t part as enemies,’ replied Dare, with the flawless politeness of a man whose speech has no longer any kinship with his feelings. ‘Shall we share a bottle of wine? You will not? Well, I hope your luck with your lady will be more magnificent than mine has been here; but–mind Captain De Stancy! he’s a fearful wildfowl for you.’

‘He’s a harmless inoffensive soldier, as far as I know. If he is not–let him be what he may for me.’

‘And do his worst to cut you out, I suppose?’

‘Ay–if you will.’ Somerset, much against his judgment, was being stimulated by these pricks into words of irritation. ‘Captain De Stancy might, I think, be better employed than in dangling at the heels of a lady who can well dispense with his company. And you might be better employed than in wasting your wages here.’

‘Wages–a fit word for my money. May I ask you at what stage in the appearance of a man whose way of existence is unknown, his money ceases to be called wages and begins to be called means?’

Somerset turned and left him without replying, Dare following his receding figure with a look of ripe resentment, not less likely to vent itself in mischief from the want of moral ballast in him who emitted it. He then fixed a nettled and unsatisfied gaze upon the gaming-rooms, and in another minute or two left the Casino also.

Dare and Somerset met no more that day. The latter returned to Nice by the evening train and went straight to the hotel. He now thanked his fortune that he had not precipitately given up his room there, for a telegram from Paula awaited him. His hand almost trembled as he opened it, to read the following few short words, dated from the Grand Hotel, Genoa:–

‘Letter received. Am glad to hear of your journey. We are not returning to Nice, but stay here a week. I direct this at a venture.’

This tantalizing message–the first breaking of her recent silence–was saucy, almost cruel, in its dry frigidity. It led him to give up his idea of following at once to Genoa. That was what she obviously expected him to do, and it was possible that his non-arrival might draw a letter or message from her of a sweeter composition than this. That would at least be the effect of his tardiness if she cared in the least for him; if she did not he could bear the worst. The argument was good enough as far as it went, but, like many more, failed from the narrowness of its premises, the contingent intervention of Dare being entirely undreamt of. It was altogether a fatal miscalculation, which cost him dear.

Passing by the telegraph-office in the Rue Pont-Neuf at an early hour the next morning he saw Dare coming out from the door. It was Somerset’s momentary impulse to thank Dare for the information given as to Paula’s whereabouts, information which had now proved true. But Dare did not seem to appreciate his friendliness, and after a few words of studied civility the young man moved on.

And well he might. Five minutes before that time he had thrown open a gulf of treachery between himself and the architect which nothing in life could ever close. Before leaving the telegraph-office Dare had despatched the following message to Paula direct, as a set-off against what he called Somerset’s ingratitude for valuable information, though it was really the fruit of many passions, motives, and desires:–

‘G. Somerset, Nice, to Miss Power, Grand Hotel, Genoa.

‘Have lost all at Monte Carlo. Have learnt that Captain D. S. returns here to-morrow. Please send me one hundred pounds by him, and save me from disgrace. Will await him at eleven o’clock and four, on the Pont-Neuf.’

V.

Five hours after the despatch of that telegram Captain De Stancy was rattling along the coast railway of the Riviera from Genoa to Nice. He was returning to England by way of Marseilles; but before turning northwards he had engaged to perform on Miss Power’s account a peculiar and somewhat disagreeable duty. This was to place in Somerset’s hands a hundred and twenty-five napoleons which had been demanded from her by a message in Somerset’s name. The money was in his pocket–all in gold, in a canvas bag, tied up by Paula’s own hands, which he had observed to tremble as she tied it.

As he leaned in the corner of the carriage he was thinking over the events of the morning which had culminated in that liberal response. At ten o’clock, before he had gone out from the hotel where he had taken up his quarters, which was not the same as the one patronized by Paula and her friends, he had been summoned to her presence in a manner so unexpected as to imply that something serious was in question. On entering her room he had been struck by the absence of that saucy independence usually apparent in her bearing towards him, notwithstanding the persistency with which he had hovered near her for the previous month, and gradually, by the position of his sister, and the favour of Paula’s uncle in intercepting one of Somerset’s letters and several of his telegrams, established himself as an intimate member of the travelling party. His entry, however, this time as always, had had the effect of a tonic, and it was quite with her customary self- possession that she had told him of the object of her message.

‘You think of returning to Nice this afternoon?’ she inquired.

De Stancy informed her that such was his intention, and asked if he could do anything for her there.

Then, he remembered, she had hesitated. ‘I have received a telegram,’ she said at length; and so she allowed to escape her bit by bit the information that her architect, whose name she seemed reluctant to utter, had travelled from England to Nice that week, partly to consult her, partly for a holiday trip; that he had gone on to Monte Carlo, had there lost his money and got into difficulties, and had appealed to her to help him out of them by the immediate advance of some ready cash. It was a sad case, an unexpected case, she murmured, with her eyes fixed on the window. Indeed she could not comprehend it.

To De Stancy there appeared nothing so very extraordinary in Somerset’s apparent fiasco, except in so far as that he should have applied to Paula for relief from his distresses instead of elsewhere. It was a self-humiliation which a lover would have avoided at all costs, he thought. Yet after a momentary reflection on his theory of Somerset’s character, it seemed sufficiently natural that he should lean persistently on Paula, if only with a view of keeping himself linked to her memory, without thinking too profoundly of his own dignity. That the esteem in which she had held Somerset up to that hour suffered a tremendous blow by his apparent scrape was clearly visible in her, reticent as she was; and De Stancy, while pitying Somerset, thanked him in his mind for having gratuitously given a rival an advantage which that rival’s attentions had never been able to gain of themselves.

After a little further conversation she had said: ‘Since you are to be my messenger, I must tell you that I have decided to send the hundred pounds asked for, and you will please to deliver them into no hands but his own.’ A curious little blush crept over her sobered face–perhaps it was a blush of shame at the conduct of the young man in whom she had of late been suspiciously interested–as she added, ‘He will be on the Pont-Neuf at four this afternoon and again at eleven tomorrow. Can you meet him there?’

‘Certainly,’ De Stancy replied.

She then asked him, rather anxiously, how he could account for Mr. Somerset knowing that he, Captain De Stancy, was about to return to Nice?

De Stancy informed her that he left word at the hotel of his intention to return, which was quite true; moreover, there did not lurk in his mind at the moment of speaking the faintest suspicion that Somerset had seen Dare.

She then tied the bag and handed it to him, leaving him with a serene and impenetrable bearing, which he hoped for his own sake meant an acquired indifference to Somerset and his fortunes. Her sending the architect a sum of money which she could easily spare might be set down to natural generosity towards a man with whom she was artistically co-operating for the improvement of her home.

She came back to him again for a moment. ‘Could you possibly get there before four this afternoon?’ she asked, and he informed her that he could just do so by leaving almost at once, which he was very willing to do, though by so forestalling his time he would lose the projected morning with her and the rest at the Palazzo Doria.

‘I may tell you that I shall not go to the Palazzo Doria either, if it is any consolation to you to know it,’ was her reply. ‘I shall sit indoors and think of you on your journey.’

The answer admitted of two translations, and conjectures thereon filled the gallant soldier’s mind during the greater part of the journey. He arrived at the hotel they had all stayed at in succession about six hours after Somerset had left it for a little excursion to San Remo and its neighbourhood, as a means of passing a few days till Paula should write again to inquire why he had not come on. De Stancy saw no one he knew, and in obedience to Paula’s commands he promptly set off on foot for the Pont-Neuf.

Though opposed to the architect as a lover, De Stancy felt for him as a poor devil in need of money, having had experiences of that sort himself, and he was really anxious that the needful supply entrusted to him should reach Somerset’s hands. He was on the bridge five minutes before the hour, and when the clock struck a hand was laid on his shoulder: turning he beheld Dare.

Knowing that the youth was loitering somewhere along the coast, for they had frequently met together on De Stancy’s previous visit, the latter merely said, ‘Don’t bother me for the present, Willy, I have an engagement. You can see me at the hotel this evening.’

‘When you have given me the hundred pounds I will fly like a rocket, captain,’ said the young gentleman. ‘I keep the appointment instead of the other man.’

De Stancy looked hard at him. ‘How–do you know about this?’ he asked breathlessly.

‘I have seen him.’

De Stancy took the young man by the two shoulders and gazed into his eyes. The scrutiny seemed not altogether to remove the suspicion which had suddenly started up in his mind. ‘My soul,’ he said, dropping his arms, ‘can this be true?’

‘What?’

‘You know.’

Dare shrugged his shoulders; ‘Are you going to hand over the money or no?’ he said.

‘I am going to make inquiries,’ said De Stancy, walking away with a vehement tread.

‘Captain, you are without natural affection,’ said Dare, walking by his side, in a tone which showed his fear that he had over-estimated that emotion. ‘See what I have done for you. You have been my constant care and anxiety for I can’t tell how long. I have stayed awake at night thinking how I might best give you a good start in the world by arranging this judicious marriage, when you have been sleeping as sound as a top with no cares upon your mind at all, and now I have got into a scrape–as the most thoughtful of us may sometimes- -you go to make inquiries.’

‘I have promised the lady to whom this money belongs–whose generosity has been shamefully abused in some way–that I will deliver it into no hands but those of one man, and he has not yet appeared. I therefore go to find him.’

Dare laid his hand upon De Stancy’s arm. ‘Captain, we are both warm, and punctilious on points of honour; this will come to a split between us if we don’t mind. So, not to bring matters to a crisis, lend me ten pounds here to enable me to get home, and I’ll disappear.’

In a state bordering on distraction, eager to get the young man out of his sight before worse revelations should rise up between them, De Stancy without pausing in his walk gave him the sum demanded. He soon reached the post-office, where he inquired if a Mr. Somerset had left any directions for forwarding letters.

It was just what Somerset had done. De Stancy was told that Mr. Somerset had commanded that any letters should be sent on to him at the Hotel Victoria, San Remo.

It was now evident that the scheme of getting money from Paula was either of Dare’s invention, or that Somerset, ashamed of his first impulse, had abandoned it as speedily as it had been formed. De Stancy turned and went out. Dare, in keeping with his promise, had vanished. Captain De Stancy resolved to do nothing in the case till further events should enlighten him, beyond sending a line to Miss Power to inform her that Somerset had not appeared, and that he therefore retained the money for further instructions.

BOOK THE FIFTH. DE STANCY AND PAULA.

I.

Miss Power was reclining on a red velvet couch in the bedroom of an old-fashioned red hotel at Strassburg, and her friend Miss De Stancy was sitting by a window of the same apartment. They were both rather wearied by a long journey of the previous day. The hotel overlooked the large open Kleber Platz, erect in the midst of which the bronze statue of General Kleber received the rays of a warm sun that was powerless to brighten him. The whole square, with its people and vehicles going to and fro as if they had plenty of time, was visible to Charlotte in her chair; but Paula from her horizontal position could see nothing below the level of the many dormered house-tops on the opposite side of the Platz. After watching this upper storey of the city for some time in silence, she asked Charlotte to hand her a binocular lying on the table, through which instrument she quietly regarded the distant roofs.

‘What strange and philosophical creatures storks are,’ she said. ‘They give a taciturn, ghostly character to the whole town.’

The birds were crossing and recrossing the field of the glass in their flight hither and thither between the Strassburg chimneys, their sad grey forms sharply outlined against the sky, and their skinny legs showing beneath like the limbs of dead martyrs in Crivelli’s emaciated imaginings. The indifference of these birds to all that was going on beneath them impressed her: to harmonize with their solemn and silent movements the houses beneath should have been deserted, and grass growing in the streets.

Behind the long roofs thus visible to Paula over the window- sill, with their tiers of dormer-windows, rose the cathedral spire in airy openwork, forming the highest object in the scene; it suggested something which for a long time she appeared unwilling to utter; but natural instinct had its way.

‘A place like this,’ she said, ‘where he can study Gothic architecture, would, I should have thought, be a spot more congenial to him than Monaco.’

The person referred to was the misrepresented Somerset, whom the two had been gingerly discussing from time to time, allowing any casual subject, such as that of the storks, to interrupt the personal one at every two or three sentences.

‘It would be more like him to be here,’ replied Miss De Stancy, trusting her tongue with only the barest generalities on this matter.

Somerset was again dismissed for the stork topic, but Paula could not let him alone; and she presently resumed, as if an irresistible fascination compelled what judgment had forbidden: ‘The strongest-minded persons are sometimes caught unawares at that place, if they once think they will retrieve their first losses; and I am not aware that he is particularly strong-minded.’

For a moment Charlotte looked at her with a mixed expression, in which there was deprecation that a woman with any feeling should criticize Somerset so frigidly, and relief that it was Paula who did so. For, notwithstanding her assumption that Somerset could never be anything more to her than he was already, Charlotte’s heart would occasionally step down and trouble her views so expressed.

Whether looking through a glass at distant objects enabled Paula to bottle up her affection for the absent one, or whether her friend Charlotte had so little personality in Paula’s regard that she could commune with her as with a lay figure, it was certain that she evinced remarkable ease in speaking of Somerset, resuming her words about him in the tone of one to whom he was at most an ordinary professional adviser. ‘It would be very awkward for the works at the castle if he has got into a scrape. I suppose the builders were well posted with instructions before he left: but he ought certainly to return soon. Why did he leave England at all just now?’

‘Perhaps it was to see you.’

‘He should have waited; it would not have been so dreadfully long to May or June. Charlotte, how can a man who does such a hare-brained thing as this be deemed trustworthy in an important work like that of rebuilding Stancy Castle?’

There was such stress in the inquiry that, whatever factitiousness had gone before, Charlotte perceived Paula to be at last speaking her mind; and it seemed as if Somerset must have considerably lost ground in her opinion, or she would not have criticized him thus.

‘My brother will tell us full particulars when he comes: perhaps it is not at all as we suppose,’ said Charlotte. She strained her eyes across the Platz and added, ‘He ought to have been here before this time.’

While they waited and talked, Paula still observing the storks, the hotel omnibus came round the corner from the station. ‘I believe he has arrived,’ resumed Miss De Stancy; ‘I see something that looks like his portmanteau on the top of the omnibus. . . . Yes; it is his baggage. I’ll run down to him.’

De Stancy had obtained six weeks’ additional leave on account of his health, which had somewhat suffered in India. The first use he made of his extra time was in hastening back to meet the travelling ladies here at Strassburg. Mr. Power and Mrs. Goodman were also at the hotel, and when Charlotte got downstairs, the former was welcoming De Stancy at the door.

Paula had not seen him since he set out from Genoa for Nice, commissioned by her to deliver the hundred pounds to Somerset. His note, stating that he had failed to meet Somerset, contained no details, and she guessed that he would soon appear before her now to answer any question about that peculiar errand.

Her anticipations were justified by the event; she had no sooner gone into the next sitting-room than Charlotte De Stancy appeared and asked if her brother might come up. The closest observer would have been in doubt whether Paula’s ready reply in the affirmative was prompted by personal consideration for De Stancy, or by a hope to hear more of his mission to Nice. As soon as she had welcomed him she reverted at once to the subject.

‘Yes, as I told you, he was not at the place of meeting,’ De Stancy replied. And taking from his pocket the bag of ready money he placed it intact upon the table.

De Stancy did this with a hand that shook somewhat more than a long railway journey was adequate to account for; and in truth it was the vision of Dare’s position which agitated the unhappy captain: for had that young man, as De Stancy feared, been tampering with Somerset’s name, his fate now trembled in the balance; Paula would unquestionably and naturally invoke the aid of the law against him if she discovered such an imposition.

‘Were you punctual to the time mentioned?’ she asked curiously.

De Stancy replied in the affirmative.

‘Did you wait long?’ she continued.

‘Not very long,’ he answered, his instinct to screen the possibly guilty one confining him to guarded statements, while still adhering to the literal truth.

‘Why was that?’

‘Somebody came and told me that he would not appear.’

‘Who?’

‘A young man who has been acting as his clerk. His name is Dare. He informed me that Mr. Somerset could not keep the appointment.’

‘Why?’

‘He had gone on to San Remo.’

‘Has he been travelling with Mr. Somerset?’

‘He had been with him. They know each other very well. But as you commissioned me to deliver the money into no hands but Mr. Somerset’s, I adhered strictly to your instructions.’

‘But perhaps my instructions were not wise. Should it in your opinion have been sent by this young man? Was he commissioned to ask you for it?’

De Stancy murmured that Dare was not commissioned to ask for it; that upon the whole he deemed her instructions wise; and was still of opinion that the best thing had been done.

Although De Stancy was distracted between his desire to preserve Dare from the consequences of folly, and a gentlemanly wish to keep as close to the truth as was compatible with that condition, his answers had not appeared to Paula to be particularly evasive, the conjuncture being one in which a handsome heiress’s shrewdness was prone to overleap itself by setting down embarrassment on the part of the man she questioned to a mere lover’s difficulty in steering between honour and rivalry.

She put but one other question. ‘Did it appear as if he, Mr. Somerset, after telegraphing, had–had–regretted doing so, and evaded the result by not keeping the appointment?’

‘That’s just how it appears.’ The words, which saved Dare from ignominy, cost De Stancy a good deal. He was sorry for Somerset, sorry for himself, and very sorry for Paula. But Dare was to De Stancy what Somerset could never be: and ‘for his kin that is near unto him shall a man be defiled.’

After that interview Charlotte saw with warring impulses that Somerset slowly diminished in Paula’s estimate; slowly as the moon wanes, but as certainly. Charlotte’s own love was of a clinging, uncritical sort, and though the shadowy intelligence of Somerset’s doings weighed down her soul with regret, it seemed to make not the least difference in her affection for him.

In the afternoon the whole party, including De Stancy, drove about the streets. Here they looked at the house in which Goethe had lived, and afterwards entered the cathedral. Observing in the south transept a crowd of people waiting patiently, they were reminded that they unwittingly stood in the presence of the popular clock-work of Schwilgue.

Mr. Power and Mrs. Goodman decided that they would wait with the rest of the idlers and see the puppets perform at the striking. Charlotte also waited with them; but as it wanted eight minutes to the hour, and as Paula had seen the show before, she moved on into the nave.

Presently she found that De Stancy had followed. He did not come close till she, seeing him stand silent, said, ‘If it were not for this cathedral, I should not like the city at all; and I have even seen cathedrals I like better. Luckily we are going on to Baden to-morrow.’

‘Your uncle has just told me. He has asked me to keep you company.’

‘Are you intending to?’ said Paula, probing the base-moulding of a pier with her parasol.

‘I have nothing better to do, nor indeed half so good,’ said De Stancy. ‘I am abroad for my health, you know, and what’s like the Rhine and its neighbourhood in early summer, before the crowd comes? It is delightful to wander about there, or anywhere, like a child, influenced by no fixed motive more than that of keeping near some friend, or friends, including the one we most admire in the world.’

‘That sounds perilously like love-making.’

”Tis love indeed.’

‘Well, love is natural to men, I suppose,’ rejoined the young lady. ‘But you must love within bounds; or you will be enervated, and cease to be useful as a heavy arm of the service.’

‘My dear Miss Power, your didactic and respectable rules won’t do for me. If you expect straws to stop currents, you are sadly mistaken! But no–let matters be: I am a happy contented mortal at present, say what you will. . . . You don’t ask why? Perhaps you know. It is because all I care for in the world is near me, and that I shall never be more than a hundred yards from her as long as the present arrangement continues.’

‘We are in a cathedral, remember, Captain De Stancy, and should not keep up a secular conversation.’

‘If I had never said worse in a cathedral than what I have said here, I should be content to meet my eternal judge without absolution. Your uncle asked me this morning how I liked you.’

‘Well, there was no harm in that.’

‘How I like you! Harm, no; but you should have seen how silly I looked. Fancy the inadequacy of the expression when my whole sense is absorbed by you.’

‘Men allow themselves to be made ridiculous by their own feelings in an inconceivable way.’

‘True, I am a fool; but forgive me,’ he rejoined, observing her gaze, which wandered critically from roof to clerestory, and then to the pillars, without once lighting on him. ‘Don’t mind saying Yes.–You look at this thing and that thing, but you never look at me, though I stand here and see nothing but you.’

‘There, the clock is striking–and the cock crows. Please go across to the transept and tell them to come out this way.’

De Stancy went. When he had gone a few steps he turned his head. She had at last ceased to study the architecture, and was looking at him. Perhaps his words had struck her, for it seemed at that moment as if he read in her bright eyes a genuine interest in him and his fortunes.

II.

Next day they went on to Baden. De Stancy was beginning to cultivate the passion of love even more as an escape from the gloomy relations of his life than as matrimonial strategy. Paula’s juxtaposition had the attribute of making him forget everything in his own history. She was a magic alterative; and the most foolish boyish shape into which he could throw his feelings for her was in this respect to be aimed at as the act of highest wisdom.

He supplemented the natural warmth of feeling that she had wrought in him by every artificial means in his power, to make the distraction the more complete. He had not known anything like this self-obscuration for a dozen years, and when he conjectured that she might really learn to love him he felt exalted in his own eyes and purified from the dross of his former life. Such uneasiness of conscience as arose when he suddenly remembered Dare, and the possibility that Somerset was getting ousted unfairly, had its weight in depressing him; but he was inclined to accept his fortune without much question.

The journey to Baden, though short, was not without incidents on which he could work out this curious hobby of cultivating to superlative power an already positive passion. Handing her in and out of the carriage, accidentally getting brushed by her clothes, of all such as this he made available fuel. Paula, though she might have guessed the general nature of what was going on, seemed unconscious of the refinements he was trying to throw into it, and sometimes, when in stepping into or from a railway carriage she unavoidably put her hand upon his arm, the obvious insignificance she attached to the action struck him with misgiving.

One of the first things they did at Baden was to stroll into the Trink-halle, where Paula sipped the water. She was about to put down the glass, when De Stancy quickly took it from her hands as though to make use of it himself.

‘O, if that is what you mean,’ she said mischievously, ‘you should have noticed the exact spot. It was there.’ She put her finger on a particular portion of its edge.

‘You ought not to act like that, unless you mean something, Miss Power,’ he replied gravely.

‘Tell me more plainly.’

‘I mean, you should not do things which excite in me the hope that you care something for me, unless you really do.’

‘I put my finger on the edge and said it was there.’

‘Meaning, “It was there my lips touched; let yours do the same.”‘

‘The latter part I wholly deny,’ she answered, with disregard, after which she went away, and kept between Charlotte and her aunt for the rest of the afternoon.

Since the receipt of the telegram Paula had been frequently silent; she frequently stayed in alone, and sometimes she became quite gloomy–an altogether unprecedented phase for her. This was the case on the morning after the incident in the Trink-halle. Not to intrude on her, Charlotte walked about the landings of the sunny white hotel in which they had taken up their quarters, went down into the court, and petted the tortoises that were creeping about there among the flowers and plants; till at last, on going to her friend, she caught her reading some old letters of Somerset’s.

Paula made no secret of them, and Miss De Stancy could see that more than half were written on blue paper, with diagrams amid the writing: they were, in fact, simply those sheets of his letters which related to the rebuilding. Nevertheless, Charlotte fancied she had caught Paula in a sentimental mood; and doubtless could Somerset have walked in at this moment instead of Charlotte it might have fared well with him, so insidiously do tender memories reassert themselves in the face of outward mishaps.

They took a drive down the Lichtenthal road and then into the forest, De Stancy and Abner Power riding on horseback alongside. The sun streamed yellow behind their backs as they wound up the long inclines, lighting the red trunks, and even the blue-black foliage itself. The summer had already made impression upon that mass of uniform colour by tipping every twig with a tiny sprout of virescent yellow; while the minute sounds which issued from the forest revealed that the apparently still place was becoming a perfect reservoir of insect life.

Abner Power was quite sentimental that day. ‘In such places as these,’ he said, as he rode alongside Mrs. Goodman, ‘nature’s powers in the multiplication of one type strike me as much as the grandeur of the mass.’

Mrs. Goodman agreed with him, and Paula said, ‘The foliage forms the roof of an interminable green crypt, the pillars being the trunks, and the vault the interlacing boughs.’

‘It is a fine place in a thunderstorm,’ said De Stancy. ‘I am not an enthusiast, but to see the lightning spring hither and thither, like lazy-tongs, bristling, and striking, and vanishing, is rather impressive.’

‘It must be indeed,’ said Paula.

‘And in the winter winds these pines sigh like ten thousand spirits in trouble.’

‘Indeed they must,’ said Paula.

‘At the same time I know a little fir-plantation about a mile square not far from Markton,’ said De Stancy, ‘which is precisely like this in miniature,–stems, colours, slopes, winds, and all. If we were to go there any time with a highly magnifying pair of spectacles it would look as fine as this– and save a deal of travelling.’

‘I know the place, and I agree with you,’ said Paula.

‘You agree with me on all subjects but one,’ he presently observed, in a voice not intended to reach the others.

Paula looked at him, but was silent.

Onward and upward they went, the same pattern and colour of tree repeating themselves endlessly, till in a couple of hours they reached the castle hill which was to be the end of their journey, and beheld stretched beneath them the valley of the Murg. They alighted and entered the fortress.

‘What did you mean by that look of kindness you bestowed upon me just now, when I said you agreed with me on all subjects but one?’ asked De Stancy half humorously, as he held open a little door for her, the others having gone ahead.

‘I meant, I suppose, that I was much obliged to you for not requiring agreement on that one subject,’ she said, passing on.

‘Not more than that?’ said De Stancy, as he followed her. ‘But whenever I involuntarily express towards you sentiments that there can be no mistaking, you seem truly compassionate.’

‘If I seem so, I feel so.’

‘If you mean no more than mere compassion, I wish you would show nothing at all, for your mistaken kindness is only preparing more misery for me than I should have if let alone to suffer without mercy.’

‘I implore you to be quiet, Captain De Stancy! Leave me, and look out of the window at the view here, or at the pictures, or at the armour, or whatever it is we are come to see.’

‘Very well. But pray don’t extract amusement from my harmless remarks. Such as they are I mean them.’

She stopped him by changing the subject, for they had entered an octagonal chamber on the first floor, presumably full of pictures and curiosities; but the shutters were closed, and only stray beams of light gleamed in to suggest what was there.

‘Can’t somebody open the windows?’ said Paula.

‘The attendant is about to do it,’ said her uncle; and as he spoke the shutters to the east were flung back, and one of the loveliest views in the forest disclosed itself outside.

Some of them stepped out upon the balcony. The river lay along the bottom of the valley, irradiated with a silver shine. Little rafts of pinewood floated on its surface like tiny splinters, the men who steered them not appearing larger than ants.

Paula stood on the balcony, looking for a few minutes upon the sight, and then came into the shadowy room, where De Stancy had remained. While the rest were still outside she resumed: ‘You must not suppose that I shrink from the subject you so persistently bring before me. I respect deep affection–you know I do; but for me to say that I have any such for you, of the particular sort you only will be satisfied with, would be absurd. I don’t feel it, and therefore there can be nothing between us. One would think it would be better to feel kindly towards you than to feel nothing at all. But if you object to that I’ll try to feel nothing.’

‘I don’t really object to your sympathy,’ said De Stancy, rather struck by her seriousness. ‘But it is very saddening to think you can feel nothing more.’

‘It must be so, since I CAN feel no more,’ she decisively replied, adding, as she stopped her seriousness: ‘You must pray for strength to get over it.’

‘One thing I shall never pray for; to see you give yourself to another man. But I suppose I shall witness that some day.’

‘You may,’ she gravely returned.

‘You have no doubt chosen him already,’ cried the captain bitterly.

‘No, Captain De Stancy,’ she said shortly, a faint involuntary blush coming into her face as she guessed his allusion.

This, and a few glances round at the pictures and curiosities, completed their survey of the castle. De Stancy knew better than to trouble her further that day with special remarks. During the return journey he rode ahead with Mr. Power and she saw no more of him.

She would have been astonished had she heard the conversation of the two gentlemen as they wound gently downwards through the trees.

‘As far as I am concerned,’ Captain De Stancy’s companion was saying, ‘nothing would give me more unfeigned delight than that you should persevere and win her. But you must understand that I have no authority over her–nothing more than the natural influence that arises from my being her father’s brother.’

‘And for exercising that much, whatever it may be, in my favour I thank you heartily,’ said De Stancy. ‘But I am coming to the conclusion that it is useless to press her further. She is right! I am not the man for her. I am too old, and too poor; and I must put up as well as I can with her loss–drown her image in old Falernian till I embark in Charon’s boat for good!–Really, if I had the industry I could write some good Horatian verses on my inauspicious situation!. . . Ah, well;–in this way I affect levity over my troubles; but in plain truth my life will not be the brightest without her.’

‘Don’t be down-hearted! you are too–too gentlemanly, De Stancy, in this matter–you are too soon put off–you should have a touch of the canvasser about you in approaching her; and not stick at things. You have my hearty invitation to travel with us all the way till we cross to England, and there will be heaps of opportunities as we wander on. I’ll keep a slow pace to give you time.’

‘You are very good, my friend! Well, I will try again. I am full of doubt and indecision, mind, but at present I feel that I will try again. There is, I suppose, a slight possibility of something or other turning up in my favour, if it is true that the unexpected always happens–for I foresee no chance whatever. . . . Which way do we go when we leave here to- morrow?’

‘To Carlsruhe, she says, if the rest of us have no objection.’

‘Carlsruhe, then, let it be, with all my heart; or anywhere.’

To Carlsruhe they went next day, after a night of soft rain which brought up a warm steam from the Schwarzwald valleys, and caused the young tufts and grasses to swell visibly in a few hours. After the Baden slopes the flat thoroughfares of ‘Charles’s Rest’ seemed somewhat uninteresting, though a busy fair which was proceeding in the streets created a quaint and unexpected liveliness. On reaching the old-fashioned inn in the Lange-Strasse that they had fixed on, the women of the party betook themselves to their rooms and showed little inclination to see more of the world that day than could be gleaned from the hotel windows.

III.

While the malignant tongues had been playing havoc with Somerset’s fame in the ears of Paula and her companion, the young man himself was proceeding partly by rail, partly on foot, below and amid the olive-clad hills, vineyards, carob groves, and lemon gardens of the Mediterranean shores. Arrived at San Remo he wrote to Nice to inquire for letters, and such as had come were duly forwarded; but not one of them was from Paula. This broke down his resolution to hold off, and he hastened directly to Genoa, regretting that he had not taken this step when he first heard that she was there.

Something in the very aspect of the marble halls of that city, which at any other time he would have liked to linger over, whispered to him that the bird had flown; and inquiry confirmed the fancy. Nevertheless, the architectural beauties of the palace-bordered street, looking as if mountains of marble must have been levelled to supply the materials for constructing it, detained him there two days: or rather a feat of resolution, by which he set himself to withstand the drag-chain of Paula’s influence, was operative for that space of time.

At the end of it he moved onward. There was no difficulty in discovering their track northwards; and feeling that he might as well return to England by the Rhine route as by any other, he followed in the course they had chosen, getting scent of them in Strassburg, missing them at Baden by a day, and finally overtaking them at Carlsruhe, which town he reached on the morning after the Power and De Stancy party had taken up their quarters at the ancient inn above mentioned. When Somerset was about to get out of the train at this place, little dreaming what a meaning the word Carlsruhe would have for him in subsequent years, he was disagreeably surprised to see no other than Dare stepping out of the adjoining carriage. A new brown leather valise in one of his hands, a new umbrella in the other, and a new suit of fashionable clothes on his back, seemed to denote considerable improvement in the young man’s fortunes. Somerset was so struck by the circumstance of his being on this spot that he almost missed his opportunity for alighting.

Dare meanwhile had moved on without seeing his former employer, and Somerset resolved to take the chance that offered, and let him go. There was something so mysterious in their common presence simultaneously at one place, five hundred miles from where they had last met, that he exhausted conjecture on whether Dare’s errand this way could have anything to do with his own, or whether their juxtaposition a second time was the result of pure accident. Greatly as he would have liked to get this answered by a direct question to Dare himself, he did not counteract his first instinct, and remained unseen.

They went out in different directions, when Somerset for the first time remembered that, in learning at Baden that the party had flitted towards Carlsruhe, he had taken no care to ascertain the name of the hotel they were bound for. Carlsruhe was not a large place and the point was immaterial, but the omission would necessitate a little inquiry. To follow Dare on the chance of his having fixed upon the same quarters was a course which did not commend itself. He resolved to get some lunch before proceeding with his business–or fatuity–of discovering the elusive lady, and drove off to a neighbouring tavern, which did not happen to be, as he hoped it might, the one chosen by those who had preceded him.

Meanwhile Dare, previously master of their plans, went straight to the house which sheltered them, and on entering under the archway from the Lange-Strasse was saved the trouble of inquiring for Captain De Stancy by seeing him drinking bitters at a little table in the court. Had Somerset chosen this inn for his quarters instead of the one in the Market- Place which he actually did choose, the three must inevitably have met here at this moment, with some possibly striking dramatic results; though what they would have been remains for ever hidden in the darkness of the unfulfilled.

De Stancy jumped up from his chair, and went forward to the new-comer. ‘You are not long behind us, then,’ he said, with laconic disquietude. ‘I thought you were going straight home?’

‘I was,’ said Dare, ‘but I have been blessed with what I may call a small competency since I saw you last. Of the two hundred francs you gave me I risked fifty at the tables, and I have multiplied them, how many times do you think? More than four hundred times.’

De Stancy immediately looked grave. ‘I wish you had lost them,’ he said, with as much feeling as could be shown in a place where strangers were hovering near.

‘Nonsense, captain! I have proceeded purely on a calculation of chances; and my calculations proved as true as I expected, notwithstanding a little in-and-out luck at first. Witness this as the result.’ He smacked his bag with his umbrella, and the chink of money resounded from within. ‘Just feel the weight of it!’

‘It is not necessary. I take your word.’

‘Shall I lend you five pounds?’

‘God forbid! As if that would repay me for what you have cost me! But come, let’s get out of this place to where we can talk more freely.’ He put his hand through the young man’s arm, and led him round the corner of the hotel towards the Schloss-Platz.

‘These runs of luck will be your ruin, as I have told you before,’ continued Captain De Stancy. ‘You will be for repeating and repeating your experiments, and will end by blowing your brains out, as wiser heads than yours have done. I am glad you have come away, at any rate. Why did you travel this way?’

‘Simply because I could afford it, of course.–But come, captain, something has ruffled you to-day. I thought you did not look in the best temper the moment I saw you. Every sip you took of your pick-up as you sat there showed me something was wrong. Tell your worry!’

‘Pooh–I can tell you in two words,’ said the captain satirically. ‘Your arrangement for my wealth and happiness– for I suppose you still claim it to be yours–has fallen through. The lady has announced to-day that she means to send for Somerset instantly. She is coming to a personal explanation with him. So woe to me–and in another sense, woe to you, as I have reason to fear.’

‘Send for him!’ said Dare, with the stillness of complete abstraction. ‘Then he’ll come.’

‘Well,’ said De Stancy, looking him in the face. ‘And does it make you feel you had better be off? How about that telegram? Did he ask you to send it, or did he not?’

‘One minute, or I shall be up such a tree as nobody ever saw the like of.’

‘Then what did you come here for?’ burst out De Stancy. ”Tis my belief you are no more than a–But I won’t call you names; I’ll tell you quite plainly that if there is anything wrong in that message to her–which I believe there is–no, I can’t believe, though I fear it–you have the chance of appearing in drab clothes at the expense of the Government before the year is out, and I of being eternally disgraced!’

‘No, captain, you won’t be disgraced. I am bad to beat, I can tell you. And come the worst luck, I don’t say a word.’

‘But those letters pricked in your skin would say a good deal, it strikes me.’

‘What! would they strip me?–but it is not coming to that. Look here, now, I’ll tell you the truth for once; though you don’t believe me capable of it. I DID concoct that telegram– and sent it; just as a practical joke; and many a worse one has been only laughed at by honest men and officers. I could show you a bigger joke still–a joke of jokes–on the same individual.’

Dare as he spoke put his hand into his breast-pocket, as if the said joke lay there; but after a moment he withdrew his hand empty, as he continued:

‘Having invented it I have done enough; I was going to explain it to you, that you might carry it out. But you are so serious, that I will leave it alone. My second joke shall die with me.’

‘So much the better,’ said De Stancy. ‘I don’t like your jokes, even though they are not directed against myself. They express a kind of humour which does not suit me.’

‘You may have reason to alter your mind,’ said Dare carelessly. ‘Your success with your lady may depend on it. The truth is, captain, we aristocrats must not take too high a tone. Our days as an independent division of society, which holds aloof from other sections, are past. This has been my argument (in spite of my strong Norman feelings) ever since I broached the subject of your marrying this girl, who represents both intellect and wealth–all, in fact, except the historical prestige that you represent. And we mustn’t flinch at things. The case is even more pressing than ordinary cases–owing to the odd fact that the representative of the new blood who has come in our way actually lives in your own old house, and owns your own old lands. The ordinary reason for such alliances is quintupled in our case. Do then just think and be reasonable, before you talk tall about not liking my jokes, and all that. Beggars mustn’t be choosers.’

‘There’s really much reason in your argument,’ said De Stancy, with a bitter laugh: ‘and my own heart argues much the same way. But, leaving me to take care of my aristocratic self, I advise your aristocratic self to slip off at once to England like any hang-gallows dog; and if Somerset is here, and you have been doing wrong in his name, and it all comes out, I’ll try to save you, as far as an honest man can. If you have done no wrong, of course there is no fear; though I should be obliged by your going homeward as quickly as possible, as being better both for you and for me. . . . Hullo– Damnation!’

They had reached one side of the Schloss-Platz, nobody apparently being near them save a sentinel who was on duty before the Palace; but turning as he spoke, De Stancy beheld a group consisting of his sister, Paula, and Mr. Power, strolling across the square towards them.

It was impossible to escape their observation, and putting a bold front upon it, De Stancy advanced with Dare at his side, till in a few moments the two parties met, Paula and Charlotte recognizing Dare at once as the young man who assisted at the castle.

‘I have met my young photographer,’ said De Stancy cheerily. ‘What a small world it is, as everybody truly observes! I am wishing he could take some views for us as we go on; but you have no apparatus with you, I suppose, Mr. Dare?’

‘I have not, sir, I am sorry to say,’ replied Dare respectfully.

‘You could get some, I suppose?’ asked Paula of the interesting young photographer.

Dare declared that it would be not impossible: whereupon De Stancy said that it was only a passing thought of his; and in a few minutes the two parties again separated, going their several ways.

‘That was awkward,’ said De Stancy, trembling with excitement. ‘I would advise you to keep further off in future.’

Dare said thoughtfully that he would be careful, adding, ‘She is a prize for any man, indeed, leaving alone the substantial possessions behind her! Now was I too enthusiastic? Was I a fool for urging you on?’

‘Wait till success justifies the undertaking. In case of failure it will have been anything but wise. It is no light matter to have a carefully preserved repose broken in upon for nothing–a repose that could never be restored!’

They walked down the Carl-Friedrichs-Strasse to the Margrave’s Pyramid, and back to the hotel, where Dare also decided to take up his stay. De Stancy left him with the book-keeper at the desk, and went upstairs to see if the ladies had returned.

IV.

He found them in their sitting-room with their bonnets on, as if they had just come in. Mr. Power was also present, reading a newspaper, but Mrs. Goodman had gone out to a neighbouring shop, in the windows of which she had seen something which attracted her fancy.

When De Stancy entered, Paula’s thoughts seemed to revert to Dare, for almost at once she asked him in what direction the youth was travelling. With some hesitation De Stancy replied that he believed Mr. Dare was returning to England after a spring trip for the improvement of his mind.

‘A very praiseworthy thing to do,’ said Paula. ‘What places has he visited?’

‘Those which afford opportunities for the study of the old masters, I believe,’ said De Stancy blandly. ‘He has also been to Turin, Genoa, Marseilles, and so on.’ The captain spoke the more readily to her questioning in that he divined her words to be dictated, not by any suspicions of his relations with Dare, but by her knowledge of Dare as the draughtsman employed by Somerset.

‘Has he been to Nice?’ she next demanded. ‘Did he go there in company with my architect?’

‘I think not.’

‘Has he seen anything of him? My architect Somerset once employed him. They know each other.’

‘I think he saw Somerset for a short time.’

Paula was silent. ‘Do you know where this young man Dare is at the present moment?’ she asked quickly.

De Stancy said that Dare was staying at the same hotel with themselves, and that he believed he was downstairs.

‘I think I can do no better than send for him,’ said she. ‘He may be able to throw some light upon the matter of that telegram.’

She rang and despatched the waiter for the young man in question, De Stancy almost visibly trembling for the result. But he opened the town directory which was lying on a table, and affected to be engrossed in the names.

Before Dare was shown in she said to her uncle, ‘Perhaps you will speak to him for me?’

Mr. Power, looking up from the paper he was reading, assented to her proposition. Dare appeared in the doorway, and the waiter retired. Dare seemed a trifle startled out of his usual coolness, the message having evidently been unexpected, and he came forward somewhat uneasily.

‘Mr. Dare, we are anxious to know something of Miss Power’s architect; and Captain De Stancy tells us you have seen him lately,’ said Mr. Power sonorously over the edge of his newspaper.

Not knowing whether danger menaced or no, or, if it menaced, from what quarter it was to be expected, Dare felt that honesty was as good as anything else for him, and replied boldly that he had seen Mr. Somerset, De Stancy continuing to cream and mantle almost visibly, in anxiety at the situation of the speaker.

‘And where did you see him?’ continued Mr. Power.

‘In the Casino at Monte Carlo.’

‘How long did you see him?’

‘Only for half an hour. I left him there.’

Paula’s interest got the better of her reserve, and she cut in upon her uncle: ‘Did he seem in any unusual state, or in trouble?’

‘He was rather excited,’ said Dare.

‘And can you remember when that was?’

Dare considered, looked at his pocket-book, and said that it was on the evening of April the twenty-second.

The answer had a significance for Paula, De Stancy, and Charlotte, to which Abner Power was a stranger. The telegraphic request for money, which had been kept a secret from him by his niece, because of his already unfriendly tone towards Somerset, arrived on the morning of the twenty-third– a date which neighboured with painfully suggestive nicety upon that now given by Dare.

She seemed to be silenced, and asked no more questions. Dare having furbished himself up to a gentlemanly appearance with some of his recent winnings, was invited to stay on awhile by Paula’s uncle, who, as became a travelled man, was not fastidious as to company. Being a youth of the world, Dare made himself agreeable to that gentleman, and afterwards tried to do the same with Miss De Stancy. At this the captain, to whom the situation for some time had been amazingly uncomfortable, pleaded some excuse for going out, and left the room.

Dare continued his endeavours to say a few polite nothings to Charlotte De Stancy, in the course of which he drew from his pocket his new silk handkerchief. By some chance a card came out with the handkerchief, and fluttered downwards. His momentary instinct was to make a grasp at the card and conceal it: but it had already tumbled to the floor, where it lay face upward beside Charlotte De Stancy’s chair.

It was neither a visiting nor a playing card, but one bearing a photographic portrait of a peculiar nature. It was what Dare had characterized as his best joke in speaking on the subject to Captain De Stancy: he had in the morning put it ready in his pocket to give to the captain, and had in fact held it in waiting between his finger and thumb while talking to him in the Platz, meaning that he should make use of it against his rival whenever convenient. But his sharp conversation with that soldier had dulled his zest for this final joke at Somerset’s expense, had at least shown him that De Stancy would not adopt the joke by accepting the photograph and using it himself, and determined him to lay it aside till a more convenient time. So fully had he made up his mind on this course, that when the photograph slipped out he did not at first perceive the appositeness of the circumstance, in putting into his own hands the role he had intended for De Stancy; though it was asserted afterwards that the whole scene was deliberately planned. However, once having seen the accident, he resolved to take the current as it served.

The card having fallen beside her, Miss De Stancy glanced over it, which indeed she could not help doing. The smile that had previously hung upon her lips was arrested as if by frost and she involuntarily uttered a little distressed cry of ‘O!’ like one in bodily pain.

Paula, who had been talking to her uncle during this interlude, started round, and wondering what had happened, inquiringly crossed the room to poor Charlotte’s side, asking her what was the matter. Charlotte had regained self- possession, though not enough to enable her to reply, and Paula asked her a second time what had made her exclaim like that. Miss De Stancy still seemed confused, whereupon Paula noticed that her eyes were continually drawn as if by fascination towards the photograph on the floor, which, contrary to his first impulse, Dare, as has been said, now seemed in no hurry to regain. Surmising at last that the card, whatever it was, had something to do with the exclamation, Paula picked it up.

It was a portrait of Somerset; but by a device known in photography the operator, though contriving to produce what seemed to be a perfect likeness, had given it the distorted features and wild attitude of a man advanced in intoxication. No woman, unless specially cognizant of such possibilities, could have looked upon it and doubted that the photograph was a genuine illustration of a customary phase in the young man’s private life.

Paula observed it, thoroughly took it in; but the effect upon her was by no means clear. Charlotte’s eyes at once forsook the portrait to dwell on Paula’s face. It paled a little, and this was followed by a hot blush–perceptibly a blush of shame. That was all. She flung the picture down on the table, and moved away.

It was now Mr. Power’s turn. Anticipating Dare, who was advancing with a deprecatory look to seize the photograph, he also grasped it. When he saw whom it represented he seemed both amused and startled, and after scanning it a while handed it to the young man with a queer smile.

‘I am very sorry,’ began Dare in a low voice to Mr. Power. ‘I fear I was to blame for thoughtlessness in not destroying it. But I thought it was rather funny that a man should permit such a thing to be done, and that the humour would redeem the offence.’

‘In you, for purchasing it,’ said Paula with haughty quickness from the other side of the room. ‘Though probably his friends, if he has any, would say not in him.’

There was silence in the room after this, and Dare, finding himself rather in the way, took his leave as unostentatiously as a cat that has upset the family china, though he continued to say among his apologies that he was not aware Mr. Somerset was a personal friend of the ladies.

Of all the thoughts which filled the minds of Paula and Charlotte De Stancy, the thought that the photograph might have been a fabrication was probably the last. To them that picture of Somerset had all the cogency of direct vision. Paula’s experience, much less Charlotte’s, had never lain in the fields of heliographic science, and they would as soon have thought that the sun could again stand still upon Gibeon, as that it could be made to falsify men’s characters in delineating their features. What Abner Power thought he himself best knew. He might have seen such pictures before; or he might never have heard of them.

While pretending to resume his reading he closely observed Paula, as did also Charlotte De Stancy; but thanks to the self-management which was Miss Power’s as much by nature as by art, she dissembled whatever emotion was in her.

‘It is a pity a professional man should make himself so ludicrous,’ she said with such careless intonation that it was almost impossible, even for Charlotte, who knew her so well, to believe her indifference feigned.

‘Yes,’ said Mr. Power, since Charlotte did not speak: ‘it is what I scarcely should have expected.’

‘O, I am not surprised!’ said Paula quickly. ‘You don’t know all.’ The inference was, indeed, inevitable that if her uncle were made aware of the telegram he would see nothing unlikely in the picture. ‘Well, you are very silent!’ continued Paula petulantly, when she found that nobody went on talking. ‘What made you cry out “O,” Charlotte, when Mr. Dare dropped that horrid photograph?’

‘I don’t know; I suppose it frightened me,’ stammered the girl.

‘It was a stupid fuss to make before such a person. One would think you were in love with Mr. Somerset.’

‘What did you say, Paula?’ inquired her uncle, looking up from the newspaper which he had again resumed.

‘Nothing, Uncle Abner.’ She walked to the window, and, as if to tide over what was plainly passing in their minds about her, she began to make remarks on objects in the street. ‘What a quaint being–look, Charlotte!’ It was an old woman sitting by a stall on the opposite side of the way, which seemed suddenly to hit Paula’s sense of the humorous, though beyond the fact that the dame was old and poor, and wore a white handkerchief over her head, there was really nothing noteworthy about her.

Paula seemed to be more hurt by what the silence of her companions implied–a suspicion that the discovery of Somerset’s depravity was wounding her heart–than by the wound itself. The ostensible ease with which she drew them into a bye conversation had perhaps the defect of proving too much: though her tacit contention that no love was in question was not incredible on the supposition that affronted pride alone caused her embarrassment. The chief symptom of her heart being really tender towards Somerset consisted in her apparent blindness to Charlotte’s secret, so obviously suggested by her momentary agitation.

V.

And where was the subject of their condemnatory opinions all this while? Having secured a room at his inn, he came forth to complete the discovery of his dear mistress’s halting-place without delay. After one or two inquiries he ascertained where such a party of English were staying; and arriving at the hotel, knew at once that he had tracked them to earth by seeing the heavier portion of the Power luggage confronting him in the hall. He sent up intelligence of his presence, and awaited her reply with a beating heart.

In the meanwhile Dare, descending from his pernicious interview with Paula and the rest, had descried Captain De Stancy in the public drawing-room, and entered to him forthwith. It was while they were here together that Somerset passed the door and sent up his name to Paula.

The incident at the railway station was now reversed, Somerset being the observed of Dare, as Dare had then been the observed of Somerset. Immediately on sight of him Dare showed real alarm. He had imagined that Somerset would eventually impinge on Paula’s route, but he had scarcely expected it yet; and the architect’s sudden appearance led Dare to ask himself the ominous question whether Somerset had discovered his telegraphic trick, and was in the mood for prompt measures.

‘There is no more for me to do here,’ said the boy hastily to De Stancy. ‘Miss Power does not wish to ask me any more questions. I may as well proceed on my way, as you advised.’

De Stancy, who had also gazed with dismay at Somerset’s passing figure, though with dismay of another sort, was recalled from his vexation by Dare’s remarks, and turning upon him he said sharply, ‘Well may you be in such a hurry all of a sudden!’

‘True, I am superfluous now.’

‘You have been doing a foolish thing, and you must suffer its inconveniences.–Will, I am sorry for one thing; I am sorry I ever owned you; for you are not a lad to my heart. You have disappointed me–disappointed me almost beyond endurance.’

‘I have acted according to my illumination. What can you expect of a man born to dishonour?’

‘That’s mere speciousness. Before you knew anything of me, and while you thought you were the child of poverty on both sides, you were well enough; but ever since you thought you were more than that, you have led a life which is intolerable. What has become of your plan of alliance between the De Stancys and the Powers now? The man is gone upstairs who can overthrow it all.’

‘If the man had not gone upstairs, you wouldn’t have complained of my nature or my plans,’ said Dare drily. ‘If I mistake not, he will come down again with the flea in his ear. However, I have done; my play is played out. All the rest remains with you. But, captain, grant me this! If when I am gone this difficulty should vanish, and things should go well with you, and your suit should prosper, will you think of him, bad as he is, who first put you on the track of such happiness, and let him know it was not done in vain?’

‘I will,’ said De Stancy. ‘Promise me that you will be a better boy?’

‘Very well–as soon as ever I can afford it. Now I am up and away, when I have explained to them that I shall not require my room.’

Dare fetched his bag, touched his hat with his umbrella to the captain and went out of the hotel archway. De Stancy sat down in the stuffy drawing-room, and wondered what other ironies time had in store for him.

A waiter in the interim had announced Somerset to the group upstairs. Paula started as much as Charlotte at hearing the name, and Abner Power stared at them both.

‘If Mr. Somerset wishes to see me ON BUSINESS, show him in,’ said Paula.

In a few seconds the door was thrown open for Somerset. On receipt of the pointed message he guessed that a change had come. Time, absence, ambition, her uncle’s influence, and a new wooer, seemed to account sufficiently well for that change, and he accepted his fate. But a stoical instinct to show her that he could regard vicissitudes with the equanimity that became a man; a desire to ease her mind of any fear she might entertain that his connection with her past would render him troublesome in future, induced him to accept her permission, and see the act to the end.

‘How do you do, Mr. Somerset?’ said Abner Power, with sardonic geniality: he had been far enough about the world not to be greatly concerned at Somerset’s apparent failing, particularly when it helped to reduce him from the rank of lover to his niece to that of professional adviser.

Miss De Stancy faltered a welcome as weak as that of the Maid of Neidpath, and Paula said coldly, ‘We are rather surprised to see you. Perhaps there is something urgent at the castle which makes it necessary for you to call?’

‘There is something a little urgent,’ said Somerset slowly, as he approached her; ‘and you have judged rightly that it is the cause of my call.’ He sat down near her chair as he spoke, put down his hat, and drew a note-book from his pocket with a despairing sang froid that was far more perfect than had been Paula’s demeanour just before.

‘Perhaps you would like to talk over the business with Mr. Somerset alone?’ murmured Charlotte to Miss Power, hardly knowing what she said.

‘O no,’ said Paula, ‘I think not. Is it necessary?’ she said, turning to him.

‘Not in the least,’ replied he, bestowing a penetrating glance upon his questioner’s face, which seemed however to produce no effect; and turning towards Charlotte, he added, ‘You will have the goodness, I am sure, Miss De Stancy, to excuse the jargon of professional details.’

He spread some tracings on the table, and pointed out certain modified features to Paula, commenting as he went on, and exchanging occasionally a few words on the subject with Mr. Abner Power by the distant window.

In this architectural dialogue over his sketches, Somerset’s head and Paula’s became unavoidably very close. The temptation was too much for the young man. Under cover of the rustle of the tracings, he murmured, ‘Paula, I could not get here before!’ in a low voice inaudible to the other two.

She did not reply, only busying herself the more with the notes and sketches; and he said again, ‘I stayed a couple of days at Genoa, and some days at San Remo, and Mentone.’

‘But it is not the least concern of mine where you stayed, is it?’ she said, with a cold yet disquieted look.

‘Do you speak seriously?’ Somerset brokenly whispered.

Paula concluded her examination of the drawings and turned from him with sorrowful disregard. He tried no further, but, when she had signified her pleasure on the points submitted, packed up his papers, and rose with the bearing of a man altogether superior to such a class of misfortune as this. Before going he turned to speak a few words of a general kind to Mr. Power and Charlotte.

‘You will stay and dine with us?’ said the former, rather with the air of being unhappily able to do no less than ask the question. ‘My charges here won’t go down to the table-d’hote, I fear, but De Stancy and myself will be there.’

Somerset excused himself, and in a few minutes withdrew. At the door he looked round for an instant, and his eyes met Paula’s. There was the same miles-off expression in hers that they had worn when he entered; but there was also a look of distressful inquiry, as if she were earnestly expecting him to say something more. This of course Somerset did not comprehend. Possibly she was clinging to a hope of some excuse for the message he was supposed to have sent, or for the other and more degrading matter. Anyhow, Somerset only bowed and went away.

A moment after he had gone, Paula, impelled by something or other, crossed the room to the window. In a short time she saw his form in the broad street below, which he traversed obliquely to an opposite corner, his head somewhat bent, and his eyes on the ground. Before vanishing into the Ritterstrasse he turned his head and glanced at the hotel windows, as if he knew that she was watching him. Then he disappeared; and the only real sign of emotion betrayed by Paula during the whole episode escaped her at this moment. It was a slight trembling of the lip and a sigh so slowly breathed that scarce anybody could hear–scarcely even Charlotte, who was reclining on a couch her face on her hand and her eyes downcast.

Not more than two minutes had elapsed when Mrs. Goodman came in with a manner of haste.

‘You have returned,’ said Mr. Power. ‘Have you made your purchases?’

Without answering, she asked, ‘Whom, of all people on earth, do you think I have met? Mr. Somerset! Has he been here?–he passed me almost without speaking!’

‘Yes, he has been here,’ said Paula. ‘He is on the way from Genoa home, and called on business.’

‘You will have him here to dinner, of course?’

‘I asked him,’ said Mr. Power, ‘but he declined.’

‘O, that’s unfortunate! Surely we could get him to come. You would like to have him here, would you not, Paula?’

‘No, indeed. I don’t want him here,’ said she.

‘You don’t?’

‘No!’ she said sharply.

‘You used to like him well enough, anyhow,’ bluntly rejoined Mrs. Goodman.

Paula sedately: ‘It is a mistake to suppose that I ever particularly liked the gentleman mentioned.’

‘Then you are wrong, Mrs. Goodman, it seems,’ said Mr. Power.

Mrs. Goodman, who had been growing quietly indignant, notwithstanding a vigorous use of her fan, at this said. ‘Fie, fie, Paula! you did like him. You said to me only a week or two ago that you should not at all object to marry him.’

‘It is a mistake,’ repeated Paula calmly. ‘I meant the other one of the two we were talking about.’

‘What, Captain De Stancy?’

‘Yes.’

Knowing this to be a fiction, Mrs. Goodman made no remark, and hearing a slight noise behind, turned her head. Seeing her aunt’s action, Paula also looked round. The door had been left ajar, and De Stancy was standing in the room. The last words of Mrs. Goodman, and Paula’s reply, must have been quite audible to him.

They looked at each other much as if they had unexpectedly met at the altar; but after a momentary start Paula did not flinch from the position into which hurt pride had betrayed her. De Stancy bowed gracefully, and she merely walked to the furthest window, whither he followed her.

‘I am eternally grateful to you for avowing that I have won favour in your sight at last,’ he whispered.

She acknowledged the remark with a somewhat reserved bearing. ‘Really I don’t deserve your gratitude,’ she said. ‘I did not know you were there.’

‘I know you did not–that’s why the avowal is so sweet to me. Can I take you at your word?’

‘Yes, I suppose.’

‘Then your preference is the greatest honour that has ever fallen to my lot. It is enough: you accept me?’

‘As a lover on probation–no more.’

The conversation being carried on in low tones, Paula’s uncle and aunt took it as a hint that their presence could be spared, and severally left the room–the former gladly, the latter with some vexation. Charlotte De Stancy followed.

‘And to what am I indebted for this happy change?’ inquired De Stancy, as soon as they were alone.

‘You shouldn’t look a gift-horse in the mouth,’ she replied brusquely, and with tears in her eyes for one gone.

‘You mistake my motive. I am like a reprieved criminal, and can scarcely believe the news.’

‘You shouldn’t say that to me, or I shall begin to think I have been too kind,’ she answered, some of the archness of her manner returning. ‘Now, I know what you mean to say in answer; but I don’t want to hear more at present; and whatever you do, don’t fall into the mistake of supposing I have accepted you in any other sense than the way I say. If you don’t like such a limitation you can go away. I dare say I shall get over it.’

‘Go away! Could I go away?–But you are beginning to tease, and will soon punish me severely; so I will make my escape while all is well. It would be presumptuous to expect more in one day.’

‘It would indeed,’ said Paula, with her eyes on a bunch of flowers.

VI.

On leaving the hotel, Somerset’s first impulse was to get out of sight of its windows, and his glance upward had perhaps not the tender significance that Paula imagined, the last look impelled by any such whiff of emotion having been the lingering one he bestowed upon her in passing out of the room. Unluckily for the prospects of this attachment, Paula’s conduct towards him now, as a result of misrepresentation, had enough in common with her previous silence at Nice to make it not unreasonable as a further development of that silence. Moreover, her social position as a woman of wealth, always felt by Somerset as a perceptible bar to that full and free eagerness with which he would fain have approached her, rendered it impossible for him to return to the charge, ascertain the reason of her coldness, and dispel it by an explanation, without being suspected of mercenary objects. Continually does it happen that a genial willingness to bottle up affronts is set down to interested motives by those who do not know what generous conduct means. Had she occupied the financial position of Miss De Stancy he would readily have persisted further and, not improbably, have cleared up the cloud.

Having no further interest in Carlsruhe, Somerset decided to leave by an evening train. The intervening hour he spent in wandering into the thick of the fair, where steam roundabouts, the proprietors of wax-work shows, and fancy-stall keepers maintained a deafening din. The animated environment was better than silence, for it fostered in him an artificial indifference to the events that had just happened–an indifference which, though he too well knew it was only destined to be temporary, afforded a passive period wherein to store up strength that should enable him to withstand the wear and tear of regrets which would surely set in soon. It was the case with Somerset as with others of his temperament, that he did not feel a blow of this sort immediately; and what often seemed like stoicism after misfortune was only the neutral numbness of transition from palpitating hope to assured wretchedness.

He walked round and round the fair till all the exhibitors knew him by sight, and when the sun got low he turned into the Erbprinzen-Strasse, now raked from end to end by ensaffroned rays of level light. Seeking his hotel he dined there, and left by the evening train for Heidelberg.

Heidelberg with its romantic surroundings was not precisely the place calculated to heal Somerset’s wounded heart. He had known the town of yore, and his recollections of that period, when, unfettered in fancy, he had transferred to his sketch- book the fine Renaissance details of the Otto-Heinrichs-Bau came back with unpleasant force. He knew of some carved cask- heads and other curious wood-work in the castle cellars, copies of which, being unobtainable by photographs, he had intended to make if all went well between Paula and himself. The zest for this was now well-nigh over. But on awaking in the morning and looking up the valley towards the castle, and at the dark green height of the Konigsstuhl alongside, he felt that to become vanquished by a passion, driven to suffer, fast, and pray in the dull pains and vapours of despised love, was a contingency not to be welcomed too readily. Thereupon he set himself to learn the sad science of renunciation, which everybody has to learn in his degree–either rebelling throughout the lesson, or, like Somerset, taking to it kindly by force of judgment. A more obstinate pupil might have altogether escaped the lesson in the present case by discovering its illegality.

Resolving to persevere in the heretofore satisfactory paths of art while life and faculties were left, though every instinct must proclaim that there would be no longer any collateral attraction in that pursuit, he went along under the trees of the Anlage and reached the castle vaults, in whose cool shades he spent the afternoon, working out his intentions with fair result. When he had strolled back to his hotel in the evening the time was approaching for the table-d’hote. Having seated himself rather early, he spent the few minutes of waiting in looking over his pocket-book, and putting a few finishing touches to the afternoon performance whilst the objects were fresh in his memory. Thus occupied he was but dimly conscious of the customary rustle of dresses and pulling up of chairs by the crowd of other diners as they gathered around him. Serving began, and he put away his book and prepared for the meal. He had hardly done this when he became conscious that the person on his left hand was not the typical cosmopolite with boundless hotel knowledge and irrelevant experiences that he was accustomed to find next him, but a face he recognized as that of a young man whom he had met and talked to at Stancy Castle garden-party, whose name he had now forgotten. This young fellow was conversing with somebody on his left hand–no other personage than Paula herself. Next to Paula he beheld De Stancy, and De Stancy’s sister beyond him. It was one of those gratuitous encounters which only happen to discarded lovers who have shown commendable stoicism under disappointment, as if on purpose to reopen and aggravate their wounds.

It seemed as if the intervening traveller had met the other party by accident there and then. In a minute he turned and recognized Somerset, and by degrees the young men’s cursory remarks to each other developed into a pretty regular conversation, interrupted only when he turned to speak to Paula on his left hand.

‘Your architectural adviser travels in your party: how very convenient,’ said the young tourist to her. ‘Far pleasanter than having a medical attendant in one’s train!’

Somerset, who had no distractions on the other side of him, could hear every word of this. He glanced at Paula. She had not known of his presence in the room till now. Their eyes met for a second, and she bowed sedately. Somerset returned her bow, and her eyes were quickly withdrawn with scarcely visible confusion.

‘Mr. Somerset is not travelling with us,’ she said. ‘We have met by accident. Mr. Somerset came to me on business a little while ago.’

‘I must congratulate you on having put the castle into good hands,’ continued the enthusiastic young man.

‘I believe Mr. Somerset is quite competent,’ said Paula stiffly.

To include Somerset in the conversation the young man turned to him and added: ‘You carry on your work at the castle con amore, no doubt?’

‘There is work I should like better,’ said Somerset.

‘Indeed?’

The frigidity of his manner seemed to set her at ease by dispersing all fear of a scene; and alternate dialogues of this sort with the gentleman in their midst were more or less continued by both Paula and Somerset till they rose from table.

In the bustle of moving out the two latter for one moment stood side by side.

‘Miss Power,’ said Somerset, in a low voice that was obscured by the rustle, ‘you have nothing more to say to me?’

‘I think there is nothing more?’ said Paula, lifting her eyes with longing reticence.

‘Then I take leave of you; and tender my best wishes that you may have a pleasant time before you! . . . . I set out for England to-night.’

‘With a special photographer, no doubt?’

It was the first time that she had addressed Somerset with a meaning distinctly bitter; and her remark, which had reference to the forged photograph, fell of course without its intended effect.

‘No, Miss Power,’ said Somerset gravely. ‘But with a deeper sense of woman’s thoughtless trifling than time will ever eradicate.’

‘Is not that a mistake?’ she asked in a voice that distinctly trembled.

‘A mistake? How?’

‘I mean, do you not forget many things?’ (throwing on him a troubled glance). ‘A woman may feel herself justified in her conduct, although it admits of no explanation.’

‘I don’t contest the point for a moment. . . . Goodbye.’

‘Good-bye.’

They parted amid the flowering shrubs and caged birds in the hall, and he saw her no more. De Stancy came up, and spoke a few commonplace words, his sister having gone out, either without perceiving Somerset, or with intention to avoid him.

That night, as he had said, he was on his way to England.

VII.

The De Stancys and Powers remained in Heidelberg for some days. All remarked that after Somerset’s departure Paula was frequently irritable, though at other times as serene as ever. Yet even when in a blithe and saucy mood there was at bottom a tinge of melancholy. Something did not lie easy in her undemonstrative heart, and all her friends excused the inequalities of a humour whose source, though not positively known, could be fairly well guessed.

De Stancy had long since discovered that his chance lay chiefly in her recently acquired and fanciful predilection d’artiste for hoary mediaeval families with ancestors in alabaster and primogenitive renown. Seeing this he dwelt on those topics which brought out that aspect of himself more clearly, talking feudalism and chivalry with a zest that he had never hitherto shown. Yet it was not altogether factitious. For, discovering how much this quondam Puritan was interested in the attributes of long-chronicled houses, a reflected interest in himself arose in his own soul, and he began to wonder why he had not prized these things before. Till now disgusted by the failure of his family to hold its own in the turmoil between ancient and modern, he had grown to undervalue its past prestige; and it was with corrective ardour that he adopted while he ministered to her views.

Henceforward the wooing of De Stancy took the form of an intermittent address, the incidents of their travel furnishing pegs whereon to hang his subject; sometimes hindering it, but seldom failing to produce in her a greater tolerance of his presence. His next opportunity was the day after Somerset’s departure from Heidelberg. They stood on the great terrace of the Schloss-Garten, looking across the intervening ravine to the north-east front of the castle which rose before them in all its customary warm tints and battered magnificence.

‘This is a spot, if any, which should bring matters to a crisis between you and me,’ he asserted good-humouredly. ‘But you have been so silent to-day that I lose the spirit to take advantage of my privilege.’

She inquired what privilege he spoke of, as if quite another subject had been in her mind than De Stancy.

‘The privilege of winning your heart if I can, which you gave me at Carlsruhe.’

‘O,’ she said. ‘Well, I’ve been thinking of that. But I do not feel myself absolutely bound by the statement I made in that room; and I shall expect, if I withdraw it, not to be called to account by you.’

De Stancy looked rather blank.

‘If you recede from your promise you will doubtless have good reason. But I must solemnly beg you, after raising my hopes, to keep as near as you can to your word, so as not to throw me into utter despair.’

Paula dropped her glance into the Thier-Garten below them, where gay promenaders were clambering up between the bushes and flowers. At length she said, with evident embarrassment, but with much distinctness: ‘I deserve much more blame for what I have done than you can express to me. I will confess to you the whole truth. All that I told you in the hotel at Carlsruhe was said in a moment of pique at what had happened just before you came in. It was supposed I was much involved with another man, and circumstances made the supposition particularly objectionable. To escape it I jumped at the alternative of yourself.’

‘That’s bad for me!’ he murmured.

‘If after this avowal you bind me to my words I shall say no more: I do not wish to recede from them without your full permission.’

‘What a caprice! But I release you unconditionally,’ he said. ‘And I beg your pardon if I seemed to show too much assurance. Please put it down to my gratified excitement. I entirely acquiesce in your wish. I will go away to whatever place you please, and not come near you but by your own permission, and till you are quite satisfied that my presence and what it may lead to is not undesirable. I entirely give way before you, and will endeavour to make my future devotedness, if ever we meet again, a new ground for expecting your favour.’

Paula seemed struck by the generous and cheerful fairness of his remarks, and said gently, ‘Perhaps your departure is not absolutely necessary for my happiness; and I do not wish from what you call caprice–‘

‘I retract that word.’

‘Well, whatever it is, I don’t wish you to do anything which should cause you real pain, or trouble, or humiliation.’

‘That’s very good of you.’

‘But I reserve to myself the right to accept or refuse your addresses–just as if those rash words of mine had never been spoken.’

‘I must bear it all as best I can, I suppose,’ said De Stancy, with melancholy humorousness.

‘And I shall treat you as your behaviour shall seem to deserve,’ she said playfully.

‘Then I may stay?’

‘Yes; I am willing to give you that pleasure, if it is one, in return for the attentions you have shown, and the trouble you have taken to make my journey pleasant.’

She walked on and discovered Mrs. Goodman near, and presently the whole party met together. De Stancy did not find himself again at her side till later in the afternoon, when they had left the immediate precincts of the castle and decided on a drive to the Konigsstuhl.

The carriage, containing only Mrs. Goodman, was driven a short way up the winding incline, Paula, her uncle, and Miss De Stancy walking behind under the shadow of the trees. Then Mrs. Goodman called to them and asked when they were going to join her.

‘We are going to walk up,’ said Mr. Power.

Paula seemed seized with a spirit of boisterousness quite unlike her usual behaviour. ‘My aunt may drive up, and you may walk up; but I shall run up,’ she said. ‘See, here’s a way.’ She tripped towards a path through the bushes which, instead of winding like the regular track, made straight for the summit.

Paula had not the remotest conception of the actual distance to the top, imagining it to be but a couple of hundred yards at the outside, whereas it was really nearer a mile, the ascent being uniformly steep all the way. When her uncle and De Stancy had seen her vanish they stood still, the former evidently reluctant to forsake the easy ascent for a difficult one, though he said, ‘We can’t let her go alone that way, I suppose.’

‘No, of course not,’ said De Stancy.

They then followed in the direction taken by Paula, Charlotte entering the carriage. When Power and De Stancy had ascended about fifty yards the former looked back, and dropped off from the pursuit, to return to the easy route, giving his companion