I Say No by Wilkie Collins (page 6)

Under these embarrassing circumstances, Mirabel rose to speak.

He secured silence, at the outset, by a humorous allusion to the prolix speaker who had preceded him. “Look at the clock, gentlemen,” he said; “and limit my speech to an interval of ten minutes.” The applause which followed was heard, through the broken window, in the street. The boys among the mob outside intercepted the flow of air by climbing on each other’s shoulders and looking in at the meeting, through the gaps left by the shattered glass. Having proposed his Resolution with discreet brevity of speech, Mirabel courted popularity on the plan adopted by the late Lord Palmerston in the House of Commons–he told stories, and made jokes, adapted to the intelligence of the dullest people who were listening to him. The charm of his voice and manner completed his success. Punctually at the tenth minute, he sat down amid cries of “Go on.” Francine was the first to take his hand, and to express admiration mutely by pressing it. He returned the pressure–but he looked at the wrong lady–the lady on the other side.

Although she made no complaint, he instantly saw that Emily was overcome by the heat. Her lips were white, and her eyes were closing. “Let me take you out,” he said, “or you will faint.”

Francine started to her feet to follow them. The lower order of the audience, eager for amusement, put their own humorous construction on the young lady’s action. They roared with laughter. “Let the parson and his sweetheart be,” they called out; “two’s company, miss, and three isn’t.” Mr. Wyvil interposed his authority and rebuked them. A lady seated behind Francine interfered to good purpose by giving her a chair, which placed her out of sight of the audience. Order was restored–and the proceedings were resumed.

On the conclusion of the meeting, Mirabel and Emily were found waiting for their friends at the door. Mr. Wyvil innocently added fuel to the fire that was burning in Francine. He insisted that Mirabel should return to Monksmoor, and offered him a seat in the carriage at Emily’s side.

Later in the evening, when they all met at dinner, there appeared a change in Miss de Sor which surprised everybody but Mirabel. She was gay and good-humored, and especially amiable and attentive to Emily–who sat opposite to her at the table. “What did you and Mr. Mirabel talk about while you were away from us?” she asked innocently. “Politics?”

Emily readily adopted Francine’s friendly tone. “Would you have talked politics, in my place?” she asked gayly.

“In your place, I should have had the most delightful of companions,” Francine rejoined; “I wish I had been overcome by the heat too!”

Mirabel–attentively observing her–acknowledged the compliment by a bow, and left Emily to continue the conversation. In perfect good faith she owned to having led Mirabel to talk of himself. She had heard from Cecilia that his early life had been devoted to various occupations, and she was interested in knowing how circumstances had led him into devoting himself to the Church. Francine listened with the outward appearance of implicit belief, and with the inward conviction that Emily was deliberately deceiving her. When the little narrative was at an end, she was more agreeable than ever. She admired Emily’s dress, and she rivaled Cecilia in enjoyment of the good things on the table; she entertained Mirabel with humorous anecdotes of the priests at St. Domingo, and was so interested in the manufacture of violins, ancient and modern, that Mr. Wyvil promised to show her his famous collection of instruments, after dinner. Her overflowing amiability included even poor Miss Darnaway and the absent brothers and sisters. She heard with flattering sympathy, how they had been ill and had got well again; what amusing tricks they played, what alarming accidents happened to them, a nd how remarkably clever they were–“including, I do assure you, dear Miss de Sor, the baby only ten months old.” When the ladies rose to retire, Francine was, socially speaking, the heroine of the evening.

While the violins were in course of exhibition, Mirabel found an opportunity of speaking to Emily, unobserved.

“Have you said, or done, anything to offend Miss de Sor?” he asked.

“Nothing whatever!” Emily declared, startled by the question. “What makes you think I have offended her?”

“I have been trying to find a reason for the change in her,” Mirabel answered–“especially the change toward yourself.”

“Well?”

“Well–she means mischief.”

“Mischief of what sort?”

“Of a sort which may expose her to discovery–unless she disarms suspicion at the outset. That is (as I believe) exactly what she has been doing this evening. I needn’t warn you to be on your guard.”

All the next day Emily was on the watch for events–and nothing happened. Not the slightest appearance of jealousy betrayed itself in Francine. She made no attempt to attract to herself the attentions of Mirabel; and she showed no hostility to Emily, either by word, look, or manner.

. . . . . . . .

The day after, an event occurred at Netherwoods. Alban Morris received an anonymous letter, addressed to him in these terms:

“A certain young lady, in whom you are supposed to be interested, is forgetting you in your absence. If you are not mean enough to allow yourself to be supplanted by another man, join the party at Monksmoor before it is too late.”

CHAPTER XLII.

COOKING.

The day after the political meeting was a day of departures, at the pleasant country house.

Miss Darnaway was recalled to the nursery at home. The old squire who did justice to Mr. Wyvil’s port-wine went away next, having guests to entertain at his own house. A far more serious loss followed. The three dancing men had engagements which drew them to new spheres of activity in other drawing-rooms. They said, with the same dreary grace of manner, “Very sorry to go”; they drove to the railway, arrayed in the same perfect traveling suits of neutral tint; and they had but one difference of opinion among them–each firmly believed that he was smoking the best cigar to be got in London.

The morning after these departures would have been a dull morning indeed, but for the presence of Mirabel.

When breakfast was over, the invalid Miss Julia established herself on the sofa with a novel. Her father retired to the other end of the house, and profaned the art of music on music’s most expressive instrument. Left with Emily, Cecilia, and Francine, Mirabel made one of his happy suggestions. “We are thrown on our own resources,” he said. “Let us distinguish ourselves by inventing some entirely new amusement for the day. You young ladies shall sit in council–and I will be secretary.” He turned to Cecilia. “The meeting waits to hear the mistress of the house.”

Modest Cecilia appealed to her school friends for help; addressing herself in the first instance (by the secretary’s advice) to Francine, as the eldest. They all noticed another change in this variable young person. She was silent and subdued; and she said wearily, “I don’t care what we do–shall we go out riding?”

The unanswerable objection to riding as a form of amusement, was that it had been more than once tried already. Something clever and surprising was anticipated from Emily when it came to her turn. She, too, disappointed expectation. “Let us sit under the trees,” was all that she could suggest, “and ask Mr. Mirabel to tell us a story.”

Mirabel laid down his pen and took it on himself to reject this proposal. “Remember,” he remonstrated, “that I have an interest in the diversions of the day. You can’t expect me to be amused by my own story. I appeal to Miss Wyvil to invent a pleasure which will include the secretary.”

Cecilia blushed and looked uneasy. “I think I have got an idea,” she announced, after some hesitation. “May I propose that we all go to the keeper’s lodge?” There her courage failed her, and she hesitated again.

Mirabel gravely registered the proposal, as far as it went. “What are we to do when we get to the keeper’s lodge?” he inquired.

“We are to ask the keeper’s wife,” Cecilia proceeded, “to lend us her kitchen.”

“To lend us her kitchen,” Mirabel repeated.

“And what are we to do in the kitchen?”

Cecilia looked down at her pretty hands crossed on her lap, and answered softly, “Cook our own luncheon.”

Here was an entirely new amusement, in the most attractive sense of the words! Here was charming Cecilia’s interest in the pleasures of the table so happily inspired, that the grateful meeting offered its tribute of applause–even including Francine. The members of the council were young; their daring digestions contemplated without fear the prospect of eating their own amateur cookery. The one question that troubled them now was what they were to cook.

“I can make an omelet,” Cecilia ventured to say.

“If there is any cold chicken to be had,” Emily added, “I undertake to follow the omelet with a mayonnaise.”

“There are clergymen in the Church of England who are even clever enough to fry potatoes,” Mirabel announced–“and I am one of them. What shall we have next? A pudding? Miss de Sor, can you make a pudding?”

Francine exhibited another new side to her character–a diffident and humble side. “I am ashamed to say I don’t know how to cook anything,” she confessed; “you had better leave me out of it.”

But Cecilia was now in her element. Her plan of operations was wide enough even to include Francine. “You shall wash the lettuce, my dear, and stone the olives for Emily’s mayonnaise. Don’t be discouraged! You shall have a companion; we will send to the rectory for Miss Plym–the very person to chop parsley and shallot for my omelet. Oh, Emily, what a morning we are going to have!” Her lovely blue eyes sparkled with joy; she gave Emily a kiss which Mirabel must have been more or less than man not to have coveted. “I declare,” cried Cecilia, completely losing her head, “I’m so excited, I don’t know what to do with myself!”

Emily’s intimate knowledge of her friend applied the right remedy. “You don’t know what to do with yourself?” she repeated. “Have you no sense of duty? Give the cook your orders.”

Cecilia instantly recovered her presence of mind. She sat down at the writing-table, and made out a list of eatable productions in the animal and vegetable world, in which every other word was underlined two or three times over. Her serious face was a sight to see, when she rang for the cook, and the two held a privy council in a corner.

On the way to the keeper’s lodge, the young mistress of the house headed a procession of servants carrying the raw materials. Francine followed, held in custody by Miss Plym–who took her responsibilities seriously, and clamored for instruction in the art of chopping parsley. Mirabel and Emily were together, far behind; they were the only two members of the company whose minds were not occupied in one way or another by the kitchen.

“This child’s play of ours doesn’t seem to interest you,” Mirabel remarked

“I am thinking,” Emily answered, “of what you said to me about Francine.”

“I can say something more,” he rejoined. “When I noticed the change in her at dinner, I told you she meant mischief. There is another change to-day, which suggests to my mind that the mischief is done.”

“And directed against me?” Emily asked.

Mirabel made no direct reply. It was impossible for _him_ to remind her that she had, no matter how innocently, exposed herself to the jealous hatred of Francine. “Time will tell us, what we don’t know now,” he replied evasively.

“You seem to have faith in time, Mr. Mirabel.”

“The greatest faith. Time is the inveterate enemy of deceit. Sooner or later, every hidden thing is a thing doomed to discovery.”

“Without exception?”

“Yes,” he answered positively, “without exception.”

At that moment Francine stopped and looked back at them. Did she think that Emily and Mirabel had been talking together long enough? Miss Plym–with the parsley still on her mind—advanced to consult Emil y’s experience. The two walked on together, leaving Mirabel to overtake Francine. He saw, in her first look at him, the effort that it cost her to suppress those emotions which the pride of women is most deeply interested in concealing. Before a word had passed, he regretted that Emily had left them together.

“I wish I had your cheerful disposition,” she began, abruptly. “I am out of spirits or out of temper–I don’t know which; and I don’t know why. Do you ever trouble yourself with thinking of the future?”

“As seldom as possible, Miss de Sor. In such a situation as mine, most people have prospects–I have none.”

He spoke gravely, conscious of not feeling at ease on his side. If he had been the most modest man that ever lived, he must have seen in Francine’s face that she loved him.

When they had first been presented to each other, she was still under the influence of the meanest instincts in her scheming and selfish nature. She had thought to herself, “With my money to help him, that man’s celebrity would do the rest; the best society in England would be glad to receive Mirabel’s wife. “As the days passed, strong feeling had taken the place of those contemptible aspirations: Mirabel had unconsciously inspired the one passion which was powerful enough to master Francine–sensual passion. Wild hopes rioted in her. Measureless desires which she had never felt before, united themselves with capacities for wickedness, which had been the horrid growth of a few nights–capacities which suggested even viler attempts to rid herself of a supposed rivalry than slandering Emily by means of an anonymous letter. Without waiting for it to be offered, she took Mirabel’s arm, and pressed it to her breast as they slowly walked on. The fear of discovery which had troubled her after she had sent her base letter to the post, vanished at that inspiriting moment. She bent her head near enough to him when he spoke to feel his breath on her face.

“There is a strange similarity,” she said softly, “between your position and mine. Is there anything cheering in _my_ prospects? I am far away from home–my father and mother wouldn’t care if they never saw me again. People talk about my money! What is the use of money to such a lonely wretch as I am? Suppose I write to London, and ask the lawyer if I may give it all away to some deserving person? Why not to you?”

“My dear Miss de Sor–!”

“Is there anything wrong, Mr. Mirabel, in wishing that I could make you a prosperous man?”

“You must not even talk of such a thing!”

“How proud you are!” she said submissively.

“Oh, I can’t bear to think of you in that miserable village–a position so unworthy of your talents and your claims! And you tell me I must not talk about it. Would you have said that to Emily, if she was as anxious as I am to see you in your right place in the world?”

“I should have answered her exactly as I have answered you.”

“She will never embarrass you, Mr. Mirabel, by being as sincere as I am. Emily can keep her own secrets.”

“Is she to blame for doing that?”

“It depends on your feeling for her.”

“What feeling do you mean?”

“Suppose you heard she was engaged to be married?” Francine suggested.

Mirabel’s manner–studiously cold and formal thus far–altered on a sudden. He looked with unconcealed anxiety at Francine. “Do you say that seriously?” he asked.

“I said ‘suppose.’ I don’t exactly know that she is engaged.”

“What _do_ you know?”

“Oh, how interested you are in Emily! She is admired by some people. Are you one of them?”

Mirabel’s experience of women warned him to try silence as a means of provoking her into speaking plainly. The experiment succeeded: Francine returned to the question that he had put to her, and abruptly answered it.

“You may believe me or not, as you like–I know of a man who is in love with her. He has had his opportunities; and he has made good use of them. Would you like to know who he is?”

“I should like to know anything which you may wish to tell me.” He did his best to make the reply in a tone of commonplace politeness–and he might have succeeded in deceiving a man. The woman’s quicker ear told her that he was angry. Francine took the full advantage of that change in her favor.

“I am afraid your good opinion of Emily will be shaken,” she quietly resumed, “when I tell you that she has encouraged a man who is only drawing-master at a school. At the same time, a person in her circumstances–I mean she has no money–ought not to be very hard to please. Of course she has never spoken to you of Mr. Alban Morris?”

“Not that I remember.”

Only four words–but they satisfied Francine.

The one thing wanting to complete the obstacle which she had now placed in Emily’s way, was that Alban Morris should enter on the scene. He might hesitate; but, if he was really fond of Emily, the anonymous letter would sooner or later bring him to Monksmoor. In the meantime, her object was gained. She dropped Mirabel’s arm.

“Here is the lodge,” she said gayly–“I declare Cecilia has got an apron on already! Come, and cook.”

CHAPTER XLIII.

SOUNDING.

Mirabel left Francine to enter the lodge by herself. His mind was disturbed: he felt the importance of gaining time for reflection before he and Emily met again.

The keeper’s garden was at the back of the lodge. Passing through the wicket-gate, he found a little summer-house at a turn in the path. Nobody was there: he went in and sat down.

At intervals, he had even yet encouraged himself to underrate the true importance of the feeling which Emily had awakened in him. There was an end to all self-deception now. After what Francine had said to him, this shallow and frivolous man no longer resisted the all-absorbing influence of love. He shrank under the one terrible question that forced itself on his mind:–Had that jealous girl spoken the truth?

In what process of investigation could he trust, to set this anxiety at rest? To apply openly to Emily would be to take a liberty, which Emily was the last person in the world to permit. In his recent intercourse with her he had felt more strongly than ever the importance of speaking with reserve. He had been scrupulously careful to take no unfair advantage of his opportunity, when he had removed her from the meeting, and when they had walked together, with hardly a creature to observe them, in the lonely outskirts of the town. Emily’s gaiety and good humor had not led him astray: he knew that these were bad signs, viewed in the interests of love. His one hope of touching her deeper sympathies was to wait for the help that might yet come from time and chance. With a bitter sigh, he resigned himself to the necessity of being as agreeable and amusing as ever: it was just possible that he might lure her into alluding to Alban Morris, if he began innocently by making her laugh.

As he rose to return to the lodge, the keeper’s little terrier, prowling about the garden, looked into the summer-house. Seeing a stranger, the dog showed his teeth and growled.

Mirabel shrank back against the wall behind him, trembling in every limb. His eyes stared in terror as the dog came nearer: barking in high triumph over the discovery of a frightened man whom he could bully. Mirabel called out for help. A laborer at work in the garden ran to the place–and stopped with a broad grin of amusement at seeing a grown man terrified by a barking dog. “Well,” he said to himself, after Mirabel had passed out under protection, “there goes a coward if ever there was one yet!”

Mirabel waited a minute behind the lodge to recover himself. He had been so completely unnerved that his hair was wet with perspiration. While he used his handkerchief, he shuddered at other recollections than the recollection of the dog. “After that night at the inn,” he thought, “the least thing frightens me!”

He was received by the young ladies with cries of derisive welcome. “Oh, for shame! for shame! here are the potatoes already cut, and nobody to fry them!”

Mirabel assumed the mask of cheerfulness–with the desperate resolution of an actor, amusing his audience at a time of domestic distress. He astonished the keeper’s wife by showin g that he really knew how to use her frying-pan. Cecilia’s omelet was tough–but the young ladies ate it. Emily’s mayonnaise sauce was almost as liquid as water–they swallowed it nevertheless by the help of spoons. The potatoes followed, crisp and dry and delicious–and Mirabel became more popular than ever. “He is the only one of us,” Cecilia sadly acknowledged, “who knows how to cook.”

When they all left the lodge for a stroll in the park, Francine attached herself to Cecilia and Miss Plym. She resigned Mirabel to Emily–in the happy belief that she had paved the way for a misunderstanding between them.

The merriment at the luncheon table had revived Emily’s good spirits. She had a light-hearted remembrance of the failure of her sauce. Mirabel saw her smiling to herself. “May I ask what amuses you?” he said.

“I was thinking of the debt of gratitude that we owe to Mr. Wyvil,” she replied. “If he had not persuaded you to return to Monksmoor, we should never have seen the famous Mr. Mirabel with a frying pan in his hand, and never have tasted the only good dish at our luncheon.”

Mirabel tried vainly to adopt his companion’s easy tone. Now that he was alone with her, the doubts that Francine had aroused shook the prudent resolution at which he had arrived in the garden. He ran the risk, and told Emily plainly why he had returned to Mr. Wyvil’s house.

“Although I am sensible of our host’s kindness,” he answered, “I should have gone back to my parsonage–but for You.”

She declined to understand him seriously. “Then the affairs of your parish are neglected–and I am to blame!” she said.

“Am I the first man who has neglected his duties for your sake?” he asked. “I wonder whether the masters at school had the heart to report you when you neglected your lessons?”

She thought of Alban–and betrayed herself by a heightened color. The moment after, she changed the subject. Mirabel could no longer resist the conclusion that Francine had told him the truth.

“When do you leave us,” she inquired.

“To-morrow is Saturday–I must go back as usual.”

“And how will your deserted parish receive you?”

He made a desperate effort to be as amusing as usual.

“I am sure of preserving my popularity,” he said, “while I have a cask in the cellar, and a few spare sixpences in my pocket. The public spirit of my parishioners asks for nothing but money and beer. Before I went to that wearisome meeting, I told my housekeeper that I was going to make a speech about reform. She didn’t know what I meant. I explained that reform might increase the number of British citizens who had the right of voting at elections for parliament. She brightened up directly. ‘Ah,’ she said, ‘I’ve heard my husband talk about elections. The more there are of them (_he_ says) the more money he’ll get for his vote. I’m all for reform.’ On my way out of the house, I tried the man who works in my garden on the same subject. He didn’t look at the matter from the housekeeper’s sanguine point of view. ‘I don’t deny that parliament once gave me a good dinner for nothing at the public-house,’ he admitted. ‘But that was years ago–and (you’ll excuse me, sir) I hear nothing of another dinner to come. It’s a matter of opinion, of course. I don’t myself believe in reform.’ There are specimens of the state of public spirit in our village!” He paused. Emily was listening–but he had not succeeded in choosing a subject that amused her. He tried a topic more nearly connected with his own interests; the topic of the future. “Our good friend has asked me to prolong my visit, after Sunday’s duties are over,” he said. “I hope I shall find you here, next week?”

“Will the affairs of your parish allow you to come back?” Emily asked mischievously.

“The affairs of my parish–if you force me to confess it–were only an excuse.”

“An excuse for what?”

“An excuse for keeping away from Monksmoor–in the interests of my own tranquillity. The experiment has failed. While you are here, I can’t keep away.”

She still declined to understand him seriously. “Must I tell you in plain words that flattery is thrown away on me?” she said.

“Flattery is not offered to you,” he answered gravely. “I beg your pardon for having led to the mistake by talking of myself.” Having appealed to her indulgence by that act of submission, he ventured on another distant allusion to the man whom he hated and feared. “Shall I meet any friends of yours,” he resumed, “when I return on Monday?”

“What do you mean?”

“I only meant to ask if Mr. Wyvil expects any new guests?”

As he put the question, Cecilia’s voice was heard behind them, calling to Emily. They both turned round. Mr. Wyvil had joined his daughter and her two friends. He advanced to meet Emily.

“I have some news for you that you little expect,” he said. “A telegram has just arrived from Netherwoods. Mr. Alban Morris has got leave of absence, and is coming here to-morrow.”

CHAPTER XLIV.

COMPETING.

Time at Monksmoor had advanced to the half hour before dinner, on Saturday evening.

Cecilia and Francine, Mr. Wyvil and Mirabel, were loitering in the conservatory. In the drawing-room, Emily had been considerately left alone with Alban. He had missed the early train from Netherwoods; but he had arrived in time to dress for dinner, and to offer the necessary explanations.

If it had been possible for Alban to allude to the anonymous letter, he might have owned that his first impulse had led him to destroy it, and to assert his confidence in Emily by refusing Mr. Wyvil’s invitation. But try as he might to forget them, the base words that he had read remained in his memory. Irritating him at the outset, they had ended in rousing his jealousy. Under that delusive influence, he persuaded himself that he had acted, in the first instance, without due consideration. It was surely his interest–it might even be his duty–to go to Mr. Wyvil’s house, and judge for himself. After some last wretched moments of hesitation, he had decided on effecting a compromise with his own better sense, by consulting Miss Ladd. That excellent lady did exactly what he had expected her to do. She made arrangements which granted him leave of absence, from the Saturday to the Tuesday following. The excuse which had served him, in telegraphing to Mr. Wyvil, must now be repeated, in accounting for his unexpected appearance to Emily. “I found a person to take charge of my class,” be said; “and I gladly availed myself of the opportunity of seeing you again.”

After observing him attentively, while he was speaking to her, Emily owned, with her customary frankness, that she had noticed something in his manner which left her not quite at her ease.

“I wonder,” she said, “if there is any foundation for a doubt that has troubled me?” To his unutterable relief, she at once explained what the doubt was. “I am afraid I offended you, in replying to your letter about Miss Jethro.”

In this case, Alban could enjoy the luxury of speaking unreservedly. He confessed that Emily’s letter had disappointed him.

“I expected you to answer me with less reserve,” he replied; “and I began to think I had acted rashly in writing to you at all. When there is a better opportunity, I may have a word to say–” He was apparently interrupted by something that he saw in the conservatory. Looking that way, Emily perceived that Mirabel was the object which had attracted Alban’s attention. The vile anonymous letter was in his mind again. Without a preliminary word to prepare Emily, he suddenly changed the subject. “How do you like the clergyman?” he asked.

“Very much indeed,” she replied, without the slightest embarrassment. “Mr. Mirabel is clever and agreeable–and not at all spoiled by his success. I am sure,” she said innocently, “you will like him too.”

Alban’s face answered her unmistakably in the negative sense–but Emily’s attention was drawn the other way by Francine. She joined them at the moment, on the lookout for any signs of an encouraging result which her treachery might already have produced. Alban had been inclined to suspect her when he had received the letter. He rose and bowed as she approached. Something–he was unable to r ealize what it was–told him, in the moment when they looked at each other, that his suspicion had hit the mark.

In the conservatory the ever-amiable Mirabel had left his friends for a while in search of flowers for Cecilia. She turned to her father when they were alone, and asked him which of the gentlemen was to take her in to dinner–Mr. Mirabel or Mr. Morris?

“Mr. Morris, of course,” he answered. “He is the new guest–and he turns out to be more than the equal, socially-speaking, of our other friend. When I showed him his room, I asked if he was related to a man who bore the same name–a fellow student of mine, years and years ago, at college. He is my friend’s younger son; one of a ruined family–but persons of high distinction in their day.”

Mirabel returned with the flowers, just as dinner was announced.

“You are to take Emily to-day,” Cecilia said to him, leading the way out of the conservatory. As they entered the drawing-room, Alban was just offering his arm to Emily. “Papa gives you to me, Mr. Morris,” Cecilia explained pleasantly. Alban hesitated, apparently not understanding the allusion. Mirabel interfered with his best grace: “Mr. Wyvil offers you the honor of taking his daughter to the dining-room.” Alban’s face darkened ominously, as the elegant little clergyman gave his arm to Emily, and followed Mr. Wyvil and Francine out of the room. Cecilia looked at her silent and surly companion, and almost envied her lazy sister, dining–under cover of a convenient headache–in her own room.

Having already made up his mind that Alban Morris required careful handling, Mirabel waited a little before he led the conversation as usual. Between the soup and the fish, he made an interesting confession, addressed to Emily in the strictest confidence.

“I have taken a fancy to your friend Mr. Morris,” he said. “First impressions, in my case, decide everything; I like people or dislike them on impulse. That man appeals to my sympathies. Is he a good talker?”

“I should say Yes,” Emily answered prettily, “if _you_ were not present.”

Mirabel was not to be beaten, even by a woman, in the art of paying compliments. He looked admiringly at Alban (sitting opposite to him), and said: “Let us listen.”

This flattering suggestion not only pleased Emily–it artfully served Mirabel’s purpose. That is to say, it secured him an opportunity for observation of what was going on at the other side of the table.

Alban’s instincts as a gentleman had led him to control his irritation and to regret that he had suffered it to appear. Anxious to please, he presented himself at his best. Gentle Cecilia forgave and forgot the angry look which had startled her. Mr. Wyvil was delighted with the son of his old friend. Emily felt secretly proud of the good opinions which her admirer was gathering; and Francine saw with pleasure that he was asserting his claim to Emily’s preference, in the way of all others which would be most likely to discourage his rival. These various impressions–produced while Alban’s enemy was ominously silent–began to suffer an imperceptible change, from the moment when Mirabel decided that his time had come to take the lead. A remark made by Alban offered him the chance for which he had been on the watch. He agreed with the remark; he enlarged on the remark; he was brilliant and familiar, and instructive and amusing–and still it was all due to the remark. Alban’s temper was once more severely tried. Mirabel’s mischievous object had not escaped his penetration. He did his best to put obstacles in the adversary’s way–and was baffled, time after time, with the readiest ingenuity. If he interrupted–the sweet-tempered clergyman submitted, and went on. If he differed–modest Mr. Mirabel said, in the most amiable manner, “I daresay I am wrong,” and handled the topic from his opponent’s point of view. Never had such a perfect Christian sat before at Mr. Wyvil’s table: not a hard word, not an impatient look, escaped him. The longer Alban resisted, the more surely he lost ground in the general estimation. Cecilia was disappointed; Emily was grieved; Mr. Wyvil’s favorable opinion began to waver; Francine was disgusted. When dinner was over, and the carriage was waiting to take the shepherd back to his flock by moonlight, Mirabel’s triumph was complete. He had made Alban the innocent means of publicly exhibiting his perfect temper and perfect politeness, under their best and brightest aspect.

So that day ended. Sunday promised to pass quietly, in the absence of Mirabel. The morning came–and it seemed doubtful whether the promise would be fulfilled.

Francine had passed an uneasy night. No such encouraging result as she had anticipated had hitherto followed the appearance of Alban Morris at Monksmoor. He had clumsily allowed Mirabel to improve his position–while he had himself lost ground–in Emily’s estimation. If this first disastrous consequence of the meeting between the two men was permitted to repeat itself on future occasions, Emily and Mirabel would be brought more closely together, and Alban himself would be the unhappy cause of it. Francine rose, on the Sunday morning, before the table was laid for breakfast–resolved to try the effect of a timely word of advice.

Her bedroom was situated in the front of the house. The man she was looking for presently passed within her range of view from the window, on his way to take a morning walk in the park. She followed him immediately.

“Good-morning, Mr. Morris.”

He raised his hat and bowed–without speaking, and without looking at her.

“We resemble each other in one particular,” she proceeded, graciously; “we both like to breathe the fresh air before breakfast.”

He said exactly what common politeness obliged him to say, and no more–he said, “Yes.”

Some girls might have been discouraged. Francine went on.

“It is no fault of mine, Mr. Morris, that we have not been better friends. For some reason, into which I don’t presume to inquire, you seem to distrust me. I really don’t know what I have done to deserve it.”

“Are you sure of that?” he asked–eying her suddenly and searchingly as he spoke.

Her hard face settled into a rigid look; her eyes met his eyes with a stony defiant stare. Now, for the first time, she knew that he suspected her of having written the anonymous letter. Every evil quality in her nature steadily defied him. A hardened old woman could not have sustained the shock of discovery with a more devilish composure than this girl displayed. “Perhaps you will explain yourself,” she said.

“I _have_ explained myself,” he answered.

“Then I must be content,” she rejoined, “to remain in the dark. I had intended, out of my regard for Emily, to suggest that you might–with advantage to yourself, and to interests that are very dear to you–be more careful in your behavior to Mr. Mirabel. Are you disposed to listen to me?”

“Do you wish me to answer that question plainly, Miss de Sor?”

“I insist on your answering it plainly.”

“Then I am _not_ disposed to listen to you.”

“May I know why? or am I to be left in the dark again?”

“You are to be left, if you please, to your own ingenuity.”

Francine looked at him, with a malignant smile. “One of these days, Mr. Morris–I will deserve your confidence in my ingenuity.” She said it, and went back to the house.

This was the only element of disturbance that troubled the perfect tranquillity of the day. What Francine had proposed to do, with the one idea of making Alban serve her purpose, was accomplished a few hours later by Emily’s influence for good over the man who loved her.

They passed the afternoon together uninterruptedly in the distant solitudes of the park. In the course of conversation Emily found an opportunity of discreetly alluding to Mirabel. “You mustn’t be jealous of our clever little friend,” she said; “I like him, and admire him; but–“

“But you don’t love him?”

She smiled at the eager way in which Alban put the question.

“There is no fear of that,” she answered brightly.

“Not even if you discovered that he loves you?”

“Not even then. Are you content at last? Promise me not to be rude to Mr. Mirabel again.”

“For his sake?”

“No–for my sake. I don’t like to see you place yourself at a disadvantage toward another man; I don’t like you to disappoint me.”

The happiness of hearing her say those words transfigured him–the manly beauty of his earlier and happier years seemed to have returned to Alban. He took her hand–he was too agitated to speak.

“You are forgetting Mr. Mirabel,” she reminded him gently.

“I will be all that is civil and kind to Mr. Mirabel; I will like him and admire him as you do. Oh, Emily, are you a little, only a very little, fond of me?”

“I don’t quite know.”

“May I try to find out?”

“How?” she asked.

Her fair cheek was very near to him. The softly-rising color on it said, Answer me here–and he answered.

CHAPTER XLV.

MISCHIEF–MAKING.

On Monday, Mirabel made his appearance–and the demon of discord returned with him.

Alban had employed the earlier part of the day in making a sketch in the park–intended as a little present for Emily. Presenting himself in the drawing-room, when his work was completed, he found Cecilia and Francine alone. He asked where Emily was.

The question had been addressed to Cecilia. Francine answered it.

“Emily mustn’t be disturbed,” she said.

“Why not?”

“She is with Mr. Mirabel in the rose garden. I saw them talking together–evidently feeling the deepest interest in what they were saying to each other. Don’t interrupt them–you will only be in the way.”

Cecilia at once protested against this last assertion. “She is trying to make mischief, Mr. Morris–don’t believe her. I am sure they will be glad to see you, if you join them in the garden.”

Francine rose, and left the room. She turned, and looked at Alban as she opened the door. “Try it,” she said–“and you will find I am right.”

“Francine sometimes talks in a very ill-natured way,” Cecilia gently remarked. “Do you think she means it, Mr. Morris?’

“I had better not offer an opinion,” Alban replied.

“Why?”

“I can’t speak impartially; I dislike Miss de Sor.”

There was a pause. Alban’s sense of self-respect forbade him to try the experiment which Francine had maliciously suggested. His thoughts–less easy to restrain–wandered in the direction of the garden. The attempt to make him jealous had failed; but he was conscious, at the same time, that Emily had disappointed him. After what they had said to each other in the park, she ought to have remembered that women are at the mercy of appearances. If Mirabel had something of importance to say to her, she might have avoided exposing herself to Francine’s spiteful misconstruction: it would have been easy to arrange with Cecilia that a third person should be present at the interview.

While he was absorbed in these reflections, Cecilia–embarrassed by the silence–was trying to find a topic of conversation. Alban roughly pushed his sketch-book away from him, on the table. Was he displeased with Emily? The same question had occurred to Cecilia at the time of the correspondence, on the subject of Miss Jethro. To recall those letters led her, by natural sequence, to another effort of memory. She was reminded of the person who had been the cause of the correspondence: her interest was revived in the mystery of Miss Jethro.

“Has Emily told you that I have seen your letter?” she asked.

He roused himself with a start. “I beg your pardon. What letter are you thinking of?”

“I was thinking of the letter which mentions Miss Jethro’s strange visit. Emily was so puzzled and so surprised that she showed it to me–and we both consulted my father. Have you spoken to Emily about Miss Jethro?”

“I have tried–but she seemed to be unwilling to pursue the subject.”

“Have you made any discoveries since you wrote to Emily?”

“No. The mystery is as impenetrable as ever.”

As he replied in those terms, Mirabel entered the conservatory from the garden, evidently on his way to the drawing-room.

To see the man, whose introduction to Emily it had been Miss Jethro’s mysterious object to prevent–at the very moment when he had been speaking of Miss Jethro herself–was, not only a temptation of curiosity, but a direct incentive (in Emily’s own interests) to make an effort at discovery. Alban pursued the conversation with Cecilia, in a tone which was loud enough to be heard in the conservatory.

“The one chance of getting any information that I can see,” he proceeded, “is to speak to Mr. Mirabel.”

“I shall be only too glad, if I can be of any service to Miss Wyvil and Mr. Morris.”

With those obliging words, Mirabel made a dramatic entry, and looked at Cecilia with his irresistible smile. Startled by his sudden appearance, she unconsciously assisted Alban’s design. Her silence gave him the opportunity of speaking in her place.

“We were talking,” he said quietly to Mirabel, “of a lady with whom you are acquainted.”

“Indeed! May I ask the lady’s name?”

“Miss Jethro.”

Mirabel sustained the shock with extraordinary self-possession–so far as any betrayal by sudden movement was concerned. But his color told the truth: it faded to paleness–it revealed, even to Cecilia’s eyes, a man overpowered by fright.

Alban offered him a chair. He refused to take it by a gesture. Alban tried an apology next. “I am afraid I have ignorantly revived some painful associations. Pray excuse me.”

The apology roused Mirabel: he felt the necessity of offering some explanation. In timid animals, the one defensive capacity which is always ready for action is cunning. Mirabel was too wily to dispute the inference–the inevitable inference–which any one must have drawn, after seeing the effect on him that the name of Miss Jethro had produced. He admitted that “painful associations” had been revived, and deplored the “nervous sensibility” which had permitted it to be seen.

“No blame can possibly attach to _you_, my dear sir,” he continued, in his most amiable manner. “Will it be indiscreet, on my part, if I ask how you first became acquainted with Miss Jethro?”

“I first became acquainted with her at Miss Ladd’s school,” Alban answered. “She was, for a short time only, one of the teachers; and she left her situation rather suddenly.” He paused–but Mirabel made no remark. “After an interval of a few months,” he resumed, “I saw Miss Jethro again. She called on me at my lodgings, near Netherwoods.”

“Merely to renew your former acquaintance?”

Mirabel made that inquiry with an eager anxiety for the reply which he was quite unable to conceal. Had he any reason to dread what Miss Jethro might have it in her power to say of him to another person? Alban was in no way pledged to secrecy, and he was determined to leave no means untried of throwing light on Miss Jethro’s mysterious warning. He repeated the plain narrative of the interview, which he had communicated by letter to Emily. Mirabel listened without making any remark.

“After what I have told you, can you give me no explanation?” Alban asked.

“I am quite unable, Mr. Morris, to help you.”

Was he lying? or speaking, the truth? The impression produced on Alban was that he had spoken the truth.

Women are never so ready as men to resign themselves to the disappointment of their hopes. Cecilia, silently listening up to this time, now ventured to speak–animated by her sisterly interest in Emily.

“Can you not tell us,” she said to Mirabel, “why Miss Jethro tried to prevent Emily Brown from meeting you here?”

“I know no more of her motive than you do,” Mirabel replied.

Alban interposed. “Miss Jethro left me,” he said, “with the intention–quite openly expressed–of trying to prevent you from accepting Mr. Wyvil’s invitation. Did she make the attempt?”

Mirabel admitted that she had made the attempt. “But,” he added, “without mentioning Miss Emily’s name. I was asked to postpone my visit, as a favor to herself, because she had her own reasons for wishing it. I had _my_ reasons” (he bowed with gallantry to Cecilia) “for being eager to have the honor of knowing Mr. Wyvil and his daughter; and I refused.”

Once more, the doubt arose: was he lying? or speaking the truth? And, once more, Alban could not resist the conclusion that he was speaking the truth.

“There is one thing I should like
to know,” Mirabel continued, after some hesitation. “Has Miss Emily been informed of this strange affair?”

“Certainly!”

Mirabel seemed to be disposed to continue his inquiries–and suddenly changed his mind. Was he beginning to doubt if Alban had spoken without concealment, in describing Miss Jethro’s visit? Was he still afraid of what Miss Jethro might have said of him? In any case, he changed the subject, and made an excuse for leaving the room.

“I am forgetting my errand,” he said to Alban. “Miss Emily was anxious to know if you had finished your sketch. I must tell her that you have returned.”

He bowed and withdrew.

Alban rose to follow him–and checked himself.

“No,” he thought, “I trust Emily!” He sat down again by Cecilia’s side.

Mirabel had indeed returned to the rose garden. He found Emily employed as he had left her, in making a crown of roses, to be worn by Cecilia in the evening. But, in one other respect, there was a change. Francine was present.

“Excuse me for sending you on a needless errand,” Emily said to Mirabel; “Miss de Sor tells me Mr. Morris has finished his sketch. She left him in the drawing-room–why didn’t you bring him here?”

“He was talking with Miss Wyvil.”

Mirabel answered absently–with his eyes on Francine. He gave her one of those significant looks, which says to a third person, “Why are you here?” Francine’s jealousy declined to understand him. He tried a broader hint, in words.

“Are you going to walk in the garden?” he said.

Francine was impenetrable. “No,” she answered, “I am going to stay here with Emily.”

Mirabel had no choice but to yield. Imperative anxieties forced him to say, in Francine’s presence, what he had hoped to say to Emily privately.

“When I joined Miss Wyvil and Mr. Morris,” he began, “what do you think they were doing? They were talking of–Miss Jethro.”

Emily dropped the rose-crown on her lap. It was easy to see that she had been disagreeably surprised.

“Mr. Morris has told me the curious story of Miss Jethro’s visit,” Mirabel continued; “but I am in some doubt whether he has spoken to me without reserve. Perhaps he expressed himself more freely when he spoke to _you_. Miss Jethro may have said something to him which tended to lower me in your estimation?”

“Certainly not, Mr. Mirabel–so far as I know. If I had heard anything of the kind, I should have thought it my duty to tell you. Will it relieve your anxiety, if I go at once to Mr. Morris, and ask him plainly whether he has concealed anything from you or from me?”

Mirabel gratefully kissed her hand. “Your kindness overpowers me,” he said–speaking, for once, with true emotion.

Emily immediately returned to the house. As soon as she was out of sight, Francine approached Mirabel, trembling with suppressed rage.

CHAPTER XLVI.

PRETENDING.

Miss de Sor began cautiously with an apology. “Excuse me, Mr. Mirabel, for reminding you of my presence.”

Mr. Mirabel made no reply.

“I beg to say,” Francine proceeded, “that I didn’t intentionally see you kiss Emily’s hand.”

Mirabel stood, looking at the roses which Emily had left on her chair, as completely absorbed in his own thoughts as if he had been alone in the garden.

“Am I not even worth notice?” Francine asked. “Ah, I know to whom I am indebted for your neglect!” She took him familiarly by the arm, and burst into a harsh laugh. “Tell me now, in confidence–do you think Emily is fond of you?”

The impression left by Emily’s kindness was still fresh in Mirabel’s memory: he was in no humor to submit to the jealous resentment of a woman whom he regarded with perfect indifference. Through the varnish of politeness which overlaid his manner, there rose to the surface the underlying insolence, hidden, on all ordinary occasions, from all human eyes. He answered Francine–mercilessly answered her–at last.

“It is the dearest hope of my life that she may be fond of me,” he said.

Francine dropped his arm “And fortune favors your hopes,” she added, with an ironical assumption of interest in Mirabel’s prospects. “When Mr. Morris leaves us to-morrow, he removes the only obstacle you have to fear. Am I right?”

“No; you are wrong.”

“In what way, if you please?”

“In this way. I don’t regard Mr. Morris as an obstacle. Emily is too delicate and too kind to hurt his feelings–she is not in love with him. There is no absorbing interest in her mind to divert her thoughts from me. She is idle and happy; she thoroughly enjoys her visit to this house, and I am associated with her enjoyment. There is my chance–!”

He suddenly stopped. Listening to him thus far, unnaturally calm and cold, Francine now showed that she felt the lash of his contempt. A hideous smile passed slowly over her white face. It threatened the vengeance which knows no fear, no pity, no remorse–the vengeance of a jealous woman. Hysterical anger, furious language, Mirabel was prepared for. The smile frightened him.

“Well?” she said scornfully, “why don’t you go on?”

A bolder man might still have maintained the audacious position which he had assumed. Mirabel’s faint heart shrank from it. He was eager to shelter himself under the first excuse that he could find. His ingenuity, paralyzed by his fears, was unable to invent anything new. He feebly availed himself of the commonplace trick of evasion which he had read of in novels, and seen in action on the stage.

“Is it possible,” he asked, with an overacted assumption of surprise, “that you think I am in earnest?”

In the case of any other person, Francine would have instantly seen through that flimsy pretense. But the love which accepts the meanest crumbs of comfort that can be thrown to it–which fawns and grovels and deliberately deceives itself, in its own intensely selfish interests–was the love that burned in Francine’s breast. The wretched girl believed Mirabel with such an ecstatic sense of belief that she trembled in every limb, and dropped into the nearest chair.

“_I_ was in earnest,” she said faintly. “Didn’t you see it?”

He was perfectly shameless; he denied that he had seen it, in the most positive manner. “Upon my honor, I thought you were mystifying me, and I humored the joke.”

She sighed, and looking at him with an expression of tender reproach. “I wonder whether I can believe you,” she said softly.

“Indeed you may believe me!” he assured her.

She hesitated–for the pleasure of hesitating. “I don’t know. Emily is very much admired by some men. Why not by you?”

“For the best of reasons,” he answered “She is poor, and I am poor. Those are facts which speak for themselves.”

“Yes–but Emily is bent on attracting you. She would marry you to-morrow, if you asked her. Don’t attempt to deny it! Besides, you kissed her hand.”

“Oh, Miss de Sor!”

“Don’t call me ‘Miss de Sor’! Call me Francine. I want to know why you kissed her hand.”

He humored her with inexhaustible servility. “Allow me to kiss _your_ hand, Francine!–and let me explain that kissing a lady’s hand is only a form of thanking her for her kindness. You must own that Emily–“

She interrupted him for the third time. “Emily?” she repeated. “Are you as familiar as that already? Does she call you ‘Miles,’ when you are by yourselves? Is there any effort at fascination which this charming creature has left untried? She told you no doubt what a lonely life she leads in her poor little home?”

Even Mirabel felt that he must not permit this to pass.

“She has said nothing to me about herself,” he answered. “What I know of her, I know from Mr. Wyvil.”

“Oh, indeed! You asked Mr. Wyvil about her family, of course? What did he say?”

“He said she lost her mother when she was a child–and he told me her father had died suddenly, a few years since, of heart complaint.”

“Well, and what else?–Never mind now! Here is somebody coming.”

The person was only one of the servants. Mirabel felt grateful to the man for interrupting them. Animated by sentiments of a precisely opposite nature, Francine spoke to him sharply.

“What do you want here?”

“A message, miss.”

“From whom?”

“From Miss Brown.”

“For me?”

“No, miss.” He turned to Mirabel. “Miss Brown wishes to speak to you, sir, if you are not e ngaged.”

Francine controlled herself until the man was out of hearing.

“Upon my word, this is too shameless!” she declared indignantly. “Emily can’t leave you with me for five minutes, without wanting to see you again. If you go to her after all that you have said to me,” she cried, threatening Mirabel with her outstretched hand, “you are the meanest of men!”

He _was_ the meanest of men–he carried out his cowardly submission to the last extremity.

“Only say what you wish me to do,” he replied.

Even Francine expected some little resistance from a creature bearing the outward appearance of a man. “Oh, do you really mean it?” she asked “I want you to disappoint Emily. Will you stay here, and let me make your excuses?”

“I will do anything to please you.”

Francine gave him a farewell look. Her admiration made a desperate effort to express itself appropriately in words. “You are not a man,” she said, “you are an angel!”

Left by himself, Mirabel sat down to rest. He reviewed his own conduct with perfect complacency. “Not one man in a hundred could have managed that she-devil as I have done,” he thought. “How shall I explain matters to Emily?”

Considering this question, he looked by chance at the unfinished crown of roses. “The very thing to help me!” he said–and took out his pocketbook, and wrote these lines on a blank page: “I have had a scene of jealousy with Miss de Sor, which is beyond all description. To spare _you_ a similar infliction, I have done violence to my own feelings. Instead of instantly obeying the message which you have so kindly sent to me, I remain here for a little while–entirely for your sake.”

Having torn out the page, and twisted it up among the roses, so that only a corner of the paper appeared in view, Mirabel called to a lad who was at work in the garden, and gave him his directions, accompanied by a shilling. “Take those flowers to the servants’ hall, and tell one of the maids to put them in Miss Brown’s room. Stop! Which is the way to the fruit garden?”

The lad gave the necessary directions. Mirabel walked away slowly, with his hands in his pockets. His nerves had been shaken; he thought a little fruit might refresh him.

CHAPTER XLVII.

DEBATING.

In the meanwhile Emily had been true to her promise to relieve Mirabel’s anxieties, on the subject of Miss Jethro. Entering the drawing-room in search of Alban, she found him talking with Cecilia, and heard her own name mentioned as she opened the door.

“Here she is at last!” Cecilia exclaimed. “What in the world has kept you all this time in the rose garden?”

“Has Mr. Mirabel been more interesting than usual?” Alban asked gayly. Whatever sense of annoyance he might have felt in Emily’s absence, was forgotten the moment she appeared; all traces of trouble in his face vanished when they looked at each other.

“You shall judge for yourself,” Emily replied with a smile. “Mr. Mirabel has been speaking to me of a relative who is very dear to him–his sister.”

Cecilia was surprised. “Why has he never spoken to _us_ of his sister?” she asked.

“It’s a sad subject to speak of, my dear. His sister lives a life of suffering–she has been for years a prisoner in her room. He writes to her constantly. His letters from Monksmoor have interested her, poor soul. It seems he said something about me–and she has sent a kind message, inviting me to visit her one of these days. Do you understand it now, Cecilia?”

“Of course I do! Tell me–is Mr. Mirabel’s sister older or younger than he is?”

“Older.”

“Is she married?”

“She is a widow.”

“Does she live with her brother?” Alban asked.

“Oh, no! She has her own house–far away in Northumberland.”

“Is she near Sir Jervis Redwood?”

“I fancy not. Her house is on the coast.”

“Any children?” Cecilia inquired.

“No; she is quite alone. Now, Cecilia, I have told you all I know–and I have something to say to Mr. Morris. No, you needn’t leave us; it’s a subject in which you are interested. A subject,” she repeated, turning to Alban, “which you may have noticed is not very agreeable to me.”

“Miss Jethro?” Alban guessed.

“Yes; Miss Jethro.”

Cecilia’s curiosity instantly asserted itself.

“_We_ have tried to get Mr. Mirabel to enlighten us, and tried in vain,” she said. “You are a favorite. Have you succeeded?”

“I have made no attempt to succeed,” Emily replied. “My only object is to relieve Mr. Mirabel’s anxiety, if I can–with your help, Mr. Morris.”

“In what way can I help you?”

“You mustn’t be angry.”

“Do I look angry?”

“You look serious. It is a very simple thing. Mr. Mirabel is afraid that Miss Jethro may have said something disagreeable about him, which you might hesitate to repeat. Is he making himself uneasy without any reason?”

“Without the slightest reason. I have concealed nothing from Mr. Mirabel.”

“Thank you for the explanation.” She turned to Cecilia. “May I send one of the servants with a message? I may as well put an end to Mr. Mirabel’s suspense.”

The man was summoned, and was dispatched with the message. Emily would have done well, after this, if she had abstained from speaking further of Miss Jethro. But Mirabel’s doubts had, unhappily, inspired a similar feeling of uncertainty in her own mind. She was now disposed to attribute the tone of mystery in Alban’s unlucky letter to some possible concealment suggested by regard for herself. “I wonder whether _I_ have any reason to feel uneasy?” she said–half in jest, half in earnest.

“Uneasy about what?” Alban inquired.

“About Miss Jethro, of course! Has she said anything of me which your kindness has concealed?”

Alban seemed to be a little hurt by the doubt which her question implied. “Was that your motive,” he asked, “for answering my letter as cautiously as if you had been writing to a stranger?”

“Indeed you are quite wrong!” Emily earnestly assured him. “I was perplexed and startled–and I took Mr. Wyvil’s advice, before I wrote to you. Shall we drop the subject?”

Alban would have willingly dropped the subject–but for that unfortunate allusion to Mr. Wyvil. Emily had unconsciously touched him on a sore place. He had already heard from Cecilia of the consultation over his letter, and had disapproved of it. “I think you were wrong to trouble Mr. Wyvil,” he said.

The altered tone of his voice suggested to Emily that he would have spoken more severely, if Cecilia had not been in the room. She thought him needlessly ready to complain of a harmless proceeding–and she too returned to the subject, after having proposed to drop it not a minute since!

“You didn’t tell me I was to keep your letter a secret,” she replied.

Cecilia made matters worse–with the best intentions. “I’m sure, Mr. Morris, my father was only too glad to give Emily his advice.”

Alban remained silent–ungraciously silent as Emily thought, after Mr. Wyvil’s kindness to him.

“The thing to regret,” she remarked, “is that Mr. Morris allowed Miss Jethro to leave him without explaining herself. In his place, I should have insisted on knowing why she wanted to prevent me from meeting Mr. Mirabel in this house.”

Cecilia made another unlucky attempt at judicious interference. This time, she tried a gentle remonstrance.

“Remember, Emily, how Mr. Morris was situated. He could hardly be rude to a lady. And I daresay Miss Jethro had good reasons for not wishing to explain herself.”

Francine opened the drawing-room door and heard Cecilia’s last words.

“Miss Jethro again!” she exclaimed.

“Where is Mr. Mirabel?” Emily asked. “I sent him a message.”

“He regrets to say he is otherwise engaged for the present,” Francine replied with spiteful politeness. “Don’t let me interrupt the conversation. Who is this Miss Jethro, whose name is on everybody’s lips?”

Alban could keep silent no longer. “We have done with the subject,” he said sharply.

“Because I am here?”

“Because we have said more than enough about Miss Jethro already.”

“Speak for yourself, Mr. Morris,” Emily answered, resenting the masterful tone which Alban’s interference had assumed. “I have not done with Miss Jethro yet, I can assure you.”

“My dear, you don’t know where she lives,” Cecilia reminded her.

“Leave me to discover i t!” Emily answered hotly. “Perhaps Mr. Mirabel knows. I shall ask Mr. Mirabel.”

“I thought you would find a reason for returning to Mr. Mirabel,” Francine remarked.

Before Emily could reply, one of the maids entered the room with a wreath of roses in her hand.

“Mr. Mirabel sends you these flowers, miss,” the woman said, addressing Emily. “The boy told me they were to be taken to your room. I thought it was a mistake, and I have brought them to you here.”

Francine, who happened to be nearest to the door, took the roses from the girl on pretense of handing them to Emily. Her jealous vigilance detected the one visible morsel of Mirabel’s letter, twisted up with the flowers. Had Emily entrapped him into a secret correspondence with her? “A scrap of waste paper among your roses,” she said, crumpling it up in her hand as if she meant to throw it away.

But Emily was too quick for her. She caught Francine by the wrist. “Waste paper or not,” she said; “it was among my flowers and it belongs to me.”

Francine gave up the letter, with a look which might have startled Emily if she had noticed it. She handed the roses to Cecilia. “I was making a wreath for you to wear this evening, my dear–and I left it in the garden. It’s not quite finished yet.”

Cecilia was delighted. “How lovely it is!” she exclaimed. “And how very kind of you! I’ll finish it myself.” She turned away to the conservatory.

“I had no idea I was interfering with a letter,” said Francine; watching Emily with fiercely-attentive eyes, while she smoothed out the crumpled paper.

Having read what Mirabel had written to her, Emily looked up, and saw that Alban was on the point of following Cecilia into the conservatory. He had noticed something in Francine’s face which he was at a loss to understand, but which made her presence in the room absolutely hateful to him. Emily followed and spoke to him.

“I am going back to the rose garden,” she said.

“For any particular purpose?” Alban inquired

“For a purpose which, I am afraid, you won’t approve of. I mean to ask Mr. Mirabel if he knows Miss Jethro’s address.”

“I hope he is as ignorant of it as I am,” Alban answered gravely.

“Are we going to quarrel over Miss Jethro, as we once quarreled over Mrs. Rook?” Emily asked–with the readiest recovery of her good humor. “Come! come! I am sure you are as anxious, in your own private mind, to have this matter cleared up as I am.”

“With one difference–that I think of consequences, and you don’t.” He said it, in his gentlest and kindest manner, and stepped into the conservatory.

“Never mind the consequences,” she called after him, “if we can only get at the truth. I hate being deceived!”

“There is no person living who has better reason than you have to say that.”

Emily looked round with a start. Alban was out of hearing. It was Francine who had answered her.

“What do you mean?” she said.

Francine hesitated. A ghastly paleness overspread her face.

“Are you ill?” Emily asked.

“No–I am thinking.”

After waiting for a moment in silence, Emily moved away toward the door of the drawing-room. Francine suddenly held up her hand.

“Stop!” she cried.

Emily stood still.

“My mind is made up,” Francine said.

“Made up–to what?”

“You asked what I meant, just now.”

“I did.”

“Well, my mind is made up to answer you. Miss Emily Brown, you are leading a sadly frivolous life in this house. I am going to give you something more serious to think about than your flirtation with Mr. Mirabel. Oh, don’t be impatient! I am coming to the point. Without knowing it yourself, you have been the victim of deception for years past–cruel deception–wicked deception that puts on the mask of mercy.”

“Are you alluding to Miss Jethro?” Emily asked, in astonishment. “I thought you were strangers to each other. Just now, you wanted to know who she was.”

“I know nothing about her. I care nothing about her. I am not thinking of Miss Jethro.”

“Who are you thinking of?”

“I am thinking,” Francine answered, “of your dead father.”

CHAPTER XLVIII.

INVESTIGATING.

Having revived his sinking energies in the fruit garden, Mirabel seated himself under the shade of a tree, and reflected on the critical position in which he was placed by Francine’s jealousy.

If Miss de Sor continued to be Mr. Wyvil’s guest, there seemed to be no other choice before Mirabel than to leave Monksmoor–and to trust to a favorable reply to his sister’s invitation for the free enjoyment of Emily’s society under another roof. Try as he might, he could arrive at no more satisfactory conclusion than this. In his preoccupied state, time passed quickly. Nearly an hour had elapsed before he rose to return to the house.

Entering the hall, he was startled by a cry of terror in a woman’s voice, coming from the upper regions. At the same time Mr. Wyvil, passing along the bedroom corridor after leaving the music-room, was confronted by his daughter, hurrying out of Emily’s bedchamber in such a state of alarm that she could hardly speak.

“Gone!” she cried, the moment she saw her father.

Mr. Wyvil took her in his arms and tried to compose her. “Who has gone?” he asked.

“Emily! Oh, papa, Emily has left us! She has heard dreadful news–she told me so herself.”

“What news? How did she hear it?”

“I don’t know how she heard it. I went back to the drawing-room to show her my roses–“

“Was she alone?”

“Yes! She frightened me–she seemed quite wild. She said, ‘Let me be by myself; I shall have to go home.’ She kissed me–and ran up to her room. Oh, I am such a fool! Anybody else would have taken care not to lose sight of her.”

“How long did you leave her by herself?”

“I can’t say. I thought I would go and tell you. And then I got anxious about her, and knocked at her door, and looked into the room. Gone! Gone!”

Mr. Wyvil rang the bell and confided Cecilia to the care of her maid. Mirabel had already joined him in the corridor. They went downstairs together and consulted with Alban. He volunteered to make immediate inquiries at the railway station. Mr. Wyvil followed him, as far as the lodge gate which opened on the highroad–while Mirabel went to a second gate, at the opposite extremity of the park.

Mr. Wyvil obtained the first news of Emily. The lodge keeper had seen her pass him, on her way out of the park, in the greatest haste. He had called after her, “Anything wrong, miss?” and had received no reply. Asked what time had elapsed since this had happened, he was too confused to be able to answer with any certainty. He knew that she had taken the road which led to the station–and he knew no more.

Mr. Wyvil and Mirabel met again at the house, and instituted an examination of the servants. No further discoveries were made.

The question which occurred to everybody was suggested by the words which Cecilia had repeated to her father. Emily had said she had “heard dreadful news”–how had that news reached her? The one postal delivery at Monksmoor was in the morning. Had any special messenger arrived, with a letter for Emily? The servants were absolutely certain that no such person had entered the house. The one remaining conclusion suggested that somebody must have communicated the evil tidings by word of mouth. But here again no evidence was to be obtained. No visitor had called during the day, and no new guests had arrived. Investigation was completely baffled.

Alban returned from the railway, with news of the fugitive.

He had reached the station, some time after the departure of the London train. The clerk at the office recognized his description of Emily, and stated that she had taken her ticket for London. The station-master had opened the carriage door for her, and had noticed that the young lady appeared to be very much agitated. This information obtained, Alban had dispatched a telegram to Emily–in Cecilia’s name: “Pray send us a few words to relieve our anxiety, and let us know if we can be of any service to you.”

This was plainly all that could be done–but Cecilia was not satisfied. If her father had permitted it, she would have followed Emily. Alban comforted her. He apologized to Mr. Wyvil for shortening his visit, and announced his inten tion of traveling to London by the next train. “We may renew our inquiries to some advantage,” he added, after hearing what had happened in his absence, “if we can find out who was the last person who saw her, and spoke to her, before your daughter found her alone in the drawing-room. When I went out of the room, I left her with Miss de Sor.”

The maid who waited on Miss de Sor was sent for. Francine had been out, by herself, walking in the park. She was then in her room, changing her dress. On hearing of Emily’s sudden departure, she had been (as the maid reported) “much shocked and quite at a loss to understand what it meant.”

Joining her friends a few minutes later, Francine presented, so far as personal appearance went, a strong contrast to the pale and anxious faces round her. She looked wonderfully well, after her walk. In other respects, she was in perfect harmony with the prevalent feeling. She expressed herself with the utmost propriety; her sympathy moved poor Cecilia to tears.

“I am sure, Miss de Sor, you will try to help us?” Mr. Wyvil began

“With the greatest pleasure,” Francine answered.

“How long were you and Miss Emily Brown together, after Mr. Morris left you?”

“Not more than a quarter of an hour, I should think.”

“Did anything remarkable occur in the course of conversation?”

“Nothing whatever.”

Alban interfered for the first time. “Did you say anything,” he asked, “which agitated or offended Miss Brown?”

“That’s rather an extraordinary question,” Francine remarked.

“Have you no other answer to give?” Alban inquired.

“I answer–No!” she said, with a sudden outburst of anger.

There, the matter dropped. While she spoke in reply to Mr. Wyvil, Francine had confronted him without embarrassment. When Alban interposed, she never looked at him–except when he provoked her to anger. Did she remember that the man who was questioning her, was also the man who had suspected her of writing the anonymous letter? Alban was on his guard against himself, knowing how he disliked her. But the conviction in his own mind was not to be resisted. In some unimaginable way, Francine was associated with Emily’s flight from the house.

The answer to the telegram sent from the railway station had not arrived, when Alban took his departure for London. Cecilia’s suspense began to grow unendurable: she looked to Mirabel for comfort, and found none. His office was to console, and his capacity for performing that office was notorious among his admirers; but he failed to present himself to advantage, when Mr. Wyvil’s lovely daughter had need of his services. He was, in truth, too sincerely anxious and distressed to be capable of commanding his customary resources of ready-made sentiment and fluently-pious philosophy. Emily’s influence had awakened the only earnest and true feeling which had ever ennobled the popular preacher’s life.

Toward evening, the long-expected telegram was received at last. What could be said, under the circumstances, it said in these words:

“Safe at home–don’t be uneasy about me–will write soon.”

With that promise they were, for the time, forced to be content.

BOOK THE FIFTH–THE COTTAGE.

CHAPTER XLIX.

EMILY SUFFERS.

Mrs. Ellmother–left in charge of Emily’s place of abode, and feeling sensible of her lonely position from time to time–had just thought of trying the cheering influence of a cup of tea, when she heard a cab draw up at the cottage gate. A violent ring at the bell followed. She opened the door–and found Emily on the steps. One look at that dear and familiar face was enough for the old servant.

“God help us,” she cried, “what’s wrong now?”

Without a word of reply, Emily led the way into the bedchamber which had been the scene of Miss Letitia’s death. Mrs. Ellmother hesitated on the threshold.

“Why do you bring me in here?” she asked.

“Why did you try to keep me out?” Emily answered.

“When did I try to keep you out, miss?”

“When I came home from school, to nurse my aunt. Ah, you remember now! Is it true–I ask you here, where your old mistress died–is it true that my aunt deceived me about my father’s death? And that you knew it?”

There was dead silence. Mrs. Ellmother trembled horribly–her lips dropped apart–her eyes wandered round the room with a stare of idiotic terror. “Is it her ghost tells you that?” she whispered. “Where is her ghost? The room whirls round and round, miss–and the air sings in my ears.”

Emily sprang forward to support her. She staggered to a chair, and lifted her great bony hands in wild entreaty. “Don’t frighten me,” she said. “Stand back.”

Emily obeyed her. She dashed the cold sweat off her forehead. “You were talking about your father’s death just now,” she burst out, in desperate defiant tones. “Well! we know it and we are sorry for it–your father died suddenly.”

“My father died murdered in the inn at Zeeland! All the long way to London, I have tried to doubt it. Oh, me, I know it now!”

Answering in those words, she looked toward the bed. Harrowing remembrances of her aunt’s delirious self-betrayal made the room unendurable to her. She ran out. The parlor door was open. Entering the room, she passed by a portrait of her father, which her aunt had hung on the wall over the fireplace. She threw herself on the sofa and burst into a passionate fit of crying. “Oh, my father–my dear, gentle, loving father; my first, best, truest friend–murdered! murdered! Oh, God, where was your justice, where was your mercy, when he died that dreadful death?”

A hand was laid on her shoulder; a voice said to her, “Hush, my child! God knows best.”

Emily looked up, and saw that Mrs. Ellmother had followed her. “You poor old soul,” she said, suddenly remembering; “I frightened you in the other room.”

“I have got over it, my dear. I am old; and I have lived a hard life. A hard life schools a person. I make no complaints.” She stopped, and began to shudder again. “Will you believe me if I tell you something?” she asked. “I warned my self-willed mistress. Standing by your father’s coffin, I warned her. Hide the truth as you may (I said), a time will come when our child will know what you are keeping from her now. One or both of us may live to see it. I am the one who has lived; no refuge in the grave for me. I want to hear about it–there’s no fear of frightening or hurting me now. I want to hear how you found it out. Was it by accident, my dear? or did a person tell you?”

Emily’s mind was far away from Mrs. Ellmother. She rose from the sofa, with her hands held fast over her aching heart.

“The one duty of my life,” she said–“I am thinking of the one duty of my life. Look! I am calm now; I am resigned to my hard lot. Never, never again, can the dear memory of my father be what it was! From this time, it is the horrid memory of a crime. The crime has gone unpunished; the man has escaped others. He shall not escape Me.” She paused, and looked at Mrs. Ellmother absently. “What did you say just now? You want to hear how I know what I know? Naturally! naturally! Sit down here–sit down, my old friend, on the sofa with me–and take your mind back to Netherwoods. Alban Morris–“

Mrs. Ellmother recoiled from Emily in dismay. “Don’t tell me _he_ had anything to do with it! The kindest of men; the best of men!”

“The man of all men living who least deserves your good opinion or mine,” Emily answered sternly.

“You!” Mrs. Ellmother exclaimed, “_you_ say that!”

“I say it. He–who won on me to like him–he was in the conspiracy to deceive me; and you know it! He heard me talk of the newspaper story of the murder of my father–I say, he heard me talk of it composedly, talk of it carelessly, in the innocent belief that it was the murder of a stranger–and he never opened his lips to prevent that horrid profanation! He never even said, speak of something else; I won’t hear you! No more of him! God forbid I should ever see him again. No! Do what I told you. Carry your mind back to Netherwoods. One night you let Francine de Sor frighten you. You ran away from her into the garden. Keep quiet! At your age, must I set you an example of self-control?

“I want to know, Miss Emily, where Francine de Sor is now?”

“She is at the house in the country, which I have left.”

“Where does she go next, if you please? Back to Miss Ladd?”

“I suppose so. What interest have you in knowing where she goes next?”

“I won’t interrupt you, miss. It’s true that I ran away into the garden. I can guess who followed me. How did she find her way to me and Mr. Morris, in the dark?”

“The smell of tobacco guided her–she knew who smoked–she had seen him talking to you, on that very day–she followed the scent–she heard what you two said to each other–and she has repeated it to me. Oh, my old friend, the malice of a revengeful girl has enlightened me, when you, my nurse–and he, my lover–left me in the dark: it has told me how my father died!”

“That’s said bitterly, miss!”

“Is it said truly?”

“No. It isn’t said truly of myself. God knows you would never have been kept in the dark, if your aunt had listened to me. I begged and prayed–I went down on my knees to her–I warned her, as I told you just now. Must I tell _you_ what a headstrong woman Miss Letitia was? She insisted. She put the choice before me of leaving her at once and forever–or giving in. I wouldn’t have given in to any other creature on the face of this earth. I am obstinate, as you have often told me. Well, your aunt’s obstinacy beat mine; I was too fond of her to say No. Besides, if you ask me who was to blame in the first place, I tell you it wasn’t your aunt; she was frightened into it.”

“Who frightened her?”

“Your godfather–the great London surgeon–he who was visiting in our house at the time.”

“Sir Richard?”

“Yes–Sir Richard. He said he wouldn’t answer for the consequences, in the delicate state of your health, if we told you the truth. Ah, he had it all his own way after that. He went with Miss Letitia to the inquest; he won over the coroner and the newspaper men to his will; he kept your aunt’s name out of the papers; he took charge of the coffin; he hired the undertaker and his men, strangers from London; he wrote the certificate–who but he! Everybody was cap in hand to the famous man!”

“Surely, the servants and the neighbors asked questions?”

“Hundreds of questions! What did that matter to Sir Richard? They were like so many children, in _his_ hands. And, mind you, the luck helped him. To begin with, there was the common name. Who was to pick out your poor father among the thousands of James Browns? Then, again, the house and lands went to the male heir, as they called him–the man your father quarreled with in the bygone time. He brought his own establishment with him. Long before you got back from the friends you were staying with–don’t you remember it?–we had cleared out of the house; we were miles and miles away; and the old servants were scattered abroad, finding new situations wherever they could. How could you suspect us? We had nothing to fear in that way; but my conscience pricked me. I made another attempt to prevail on Miss Letitia, when you had recovered your health. I said, ‘There’s no fear of a relapse now; break it to her gently, but tell her the truth.’ No! Your aunt was too fond of you. She daunted me with dreadful fits of crying, when I tried to persuade her. And that wasn’t the worst of it. She bade me remember what an excitable man your father was–she reminded me that the misery of your mother’s death laid him low with brain fever–she said, ‘Emily takes after her father; I have heard you say it yourself; she has his constitution, and his sensitive nerves. Don’t you know how she loved him–how she talks of him to this day? Who can tell (if we are not careful) what dreadful mischief we may do?’ That was how my mistress worked on me. I got infected with her fears; it was as if I had caught an infection of disease. Oh, my dear, blame me if it must be; but don’t forget how I have suffered for it since! I was driven away from my dying mistress, in terror of what she might say, while you were watching at her bedside. I have lived in fear of what you might ask me–and have longed to go back to you–and have not had the courage to do it. Look at me now!”

The poor woman tried to take out her handkerchief; her quivering hand helplessly entangled itself in her dress. “I can’t even dry my eyes,” she said faintly. “Try to forgive me, miss!”

Emily put her arms round the old nurse’s neck. “It is _you_,” she said sadly, “who must forgive me.”

For a while they were silent. Through the window that was open to the little garden, came the one sound that could be heard–the gentle trembling of leaves in the evening wind.

The silence was harshly broken by the bell at the cottage door. They both started.

Emily’s heart beat fast. “Who can it be?” she said.

Mrs. Ellmother rose. “Shall I say you can’t see anybody?” she asked, before leaving the room.

“Yes! yes!”

Emily heard the door opened–heard low voices in the passage. There was a momentary interval. Then, Mrs. Ellmother returned. She said nothing. Emily spoke to her.

“Is it a visitor?”

“Yes.”

“Have you said I can’t see anybody?”

“I couldn’t say it.”

“Why not?”

“Don’t be hard on him, my dear. It’s Mr. Alban Morris.”