Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.

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"Is this the young lady who puts my work to rights?"

Miss Primrose

[and]

[A Strange Will]

BY

AGNES GIBERNE

AUTHOR OF

"OLD COMRADES," "WON AT LAST," "LIFE-TANGLES,"
"FLOSS SILVERTHORN," ETC.

NEW EDITION.

John F. Shaw & Co., Ltd.

Publishers

3, Pilgrim Street, London, E.C.

CONTENTS.

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Miss Primrose.

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CHAPTER.

I. THEIR POSITION

II. HOW THE LETTER WAS NOT WRITTEN

III. MR. RUDGE

IV. "SOMETHING TO DO"

V. RAIN! RAIN!

VI. TO-DAY OR TO-MORROW

VII. THE LETTER

VIII. THE RESOLVE

IX. TO TOWN

X. A QUESTION OF AGES

XI. MR. OGILVIE'S OLD FRIEND

XII. THE REAL MISS PRIMROSE

XIII. DULL LETTERS.

XIV. STILL AMONG PERPLEXITIES

XV. "MR. AND MRS. RUDGE"

A Strange Will.

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CHAPTER.

I. MAKING A WILL

II. A STRANGE DIFFICULTY

III. "MISS HARVEY"

IV. "A COUNTER-PROPOSAL"

V. THE PROGRESS OF EVENTS

VI. NATHANAEL PLUNKETT

VII. BROKEN ICE

VIII. A RESCUE

IX. WASTE PAPER

MISS PRIMROSE.

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CHAPTER I.

THEIR POSITION.

"IN our position, Pauline,—"

It was a phrase often in Mr. Ogilvie's mouth. He said the words slowly, as he stood in the window, a tall thin man, narrow-shouldered, with a reedy inclination to stoop, looking this way and that way, manifestly wishing to escape.

"Yes, father," she answered sharply.

Mr. Ogilvie did not finish the sentence. He only hung his head, with its limited brow, its pinched aquiline nose, its weak though kind eyes. The worst feature in the face was his mouth, a loose orifice, the upper lip long, the lower jaw disposed to drop.

Pauline was a contrast to her father. No manner of weakness could be detected in the outlines of her neat trim figure. She made the most of her little height by carrying herself resolutely erect like a dart; and nobody ever saw Pauline lounge. Her nose was as much too short as his was too long, and she bore it through the world in an assertive fashion, sometimes mistaken for conceit, but Pauline was not conceited. She was only keen-eyed, quick-witted, energetic, and somewhat intolerant.

"In our position, my dear,—"

Mr. Ogilvie came to another helpless break. He seemed to be vainly trying to frame an apology for something or somebody.

"Yes. In our position—?" she said, by way of helping him. "Go on, please."

"My dear, you interrupt me. You confuse my ideas. You are too hasty, Pauline, my dear."

Pauline had a neat small button of a mouth; the prettiest feature in a face not otherwise good-looking. She pressed her compact lips together, as if to shut in something which might be said.

They were looking out upon a deserted parade, with a grey sea beyond. The sky above was grey to match; indeed, the match was so perfect that one would have found it difficult to say where the clouds ended and the water began. The whole made one indefinite grey shield, cutting off the horizon. A thick driving rain had fallen continuously for hours, and as yet showed no sign of abatement.

"You were going to say something about 'our position,'" Pauline remarked presently, as no further utterance came from her father. "What was it? Something about 'our position.'"

"My dear, you interrupted me, and drove what I had to say out of my head," Mr. Ogilvie murmured plaintively.

"It is not a very pleasant position, father,—ours."

Mr. Ogilvie cast a longing glance at the parade.

"You promised me to settle something, weeks and weeks ago. Nothing is settled yet. And I have waited patiently enough, I am sure—nobody can say I have not. But patience will not keep us going much longer. Patience will not pay our bills."

"We have to come to a decision, of course. But matters cannot be settled hastily—in our position."

"The most remarkable thing about our position is that we never settle anything."

"You do not understand, Pauline,—of course you do not. Women never do. But pray, don't get excited. It makes me quite nervous when you speak in that tone. There is no hurry."

"Father, shall I show you a list of the bills that are owing?"

"There is no need, I assure you. I am quite content to leave all housekeeping questions in your hands. I have entire trust in your capabilities."

Pauline moved impatiently. "My capabilities don't go to the extent of paying bills out of an empty purse!" she said.

"My dear, I am aware of that. I do not form unreasonable expectations. It is not needful to speak so loud," said Mr. Ogilvie, with a victimised expression.

Pauline dropped her voice several notes. "I have exactly eight shillings in hand."

"Not more? But of course you have managed rightly. Money will be coming in soon."

"About half enough to meet over-due local bills, not to speak of current expenses to come. It is not my fault," she said, looking him straight in the face. "How can I manage differently, when—"

"Well, well; there is no use in talking, Pauline. Manage any way you like, only I really cannot stand this sort of discussion. We must consider what must be done. Of course, it is impossible to go on so. But I cannot decide anything in a hurry. And Nessie will be at home now; we shall not have the pull of Nessie's schooling. That will make a very considerable difference."

He would have moved away, but Pauline held him fast, against his will, with her steady gaze.

"You have not written yet to your friend—what is her name?—The old lady whom you used to know. I have not heard her name."

"I will write—yes—certainly—some day soon."

"Why not to-day—now? I have pen and paper here. Why put off?"

Her impulsive manner grated on Mr. Ogilvie's fastidious languor. He rubbed his narrow forehead slowly, with a purposeless hand.

"My dear, I cannot possibly write at this moment. I must consider what to say—and I have something to do out-of-doors first."

"Always something to do except what needs to be done!"

Pauline emphasized the words by a slight shake of her shoulders.

"Yes, my dear, yes. I'll write, Pauline, I'll write, but pray, don't get so excited. It makes me quite nervous and agitated, dear, when you speak like that—it does indeed."

"You always say you will write, father, and you never do it. Three weeks ago you promised to get the letter off 'to-morrow,' and it was never done. We are just as vague now in our plan as before we came to Singleton; and the little extra money we have had is vanishing fast. We can't go on so. There has been too much delay already. I don't know in the least what claim you have on this particular old lady, nor how she is to help us, but if nothing can be arranged without a letter to her, the letter ought to be written at once."

Mr. Ogilvie began to pull on his gloves.

"You do not really think of going out in such weather?" she protested.

"I must, my dear. There is a—a paper which I must procure—a magazine. The rain is not likely to stop. Probably it will not hurt me. I am not made of salt."

He laughed faintly, not cheerfully, for he was by no means a cheerful man. Since the death of his wife, he had been like ivy bereft of its sustaining oak. Pauline inherited much of her mother's vigour, but she lacked self-control, and her energetic ways worried him, not being softened by sympathy.

"Cannot you put off your walk till to-morrow, and stay in now to write to your old lady? You will come back tired and wet, and another day will be lost. Nessie comes home to-morrow, and I want it done before she arrives."

Mr. Ogilvie's lips moved deprecatingly.

"My dear, I cannot do things in such a hurry. It is not my way. I must have time. Nessie coming home to-morrow! Yes—I forgot—I thought it was the day after."

"But all that you need say will be written in ten minutes. See how the rain is pelting. You can't start yet. Here is your writing-case."

Pauline had a certain power over her father. He sat down at length with a resigned air, pen in hand. Pauline stood near, unconscious how her gaze paralysed his thoughts.

"Can't you begin? 'My dear'— What is her name?"

No answer.

"Is it a secret?"

Mr. Ogilvie traced slowly two words—"My Dear Miss—," and there he stopped.

"Dear Miss what?" Pauline's curiosity was getting the better of her tact. Hitherto she had refrained from direct questions on the subject.

Mr. Ogilvie pushed the paper away. "I cannot do it—I really cannot. I have not made up my mind what to say!"

"Is that so difficult?" Pauline planted her trim little figure exactly opposite to him, with the table between. "It depends on what sort of person she is, I suppose, partly, but after all you have not much choice. We are in money-troubles, and we want help. That is the gist of the matter. You only have to smooth down and round off. If you are so anxious that I should not see you write her name, I will stand in the window with my back turned—though why you should make such a mystery of it all—"

CHAPTER II.

HOW THE LETTER WAS NOT WRITTEN.

"HER name is Primrose," faltered Mr. Ogilvie, like a schoolboy brought to book.

"Primrose! Is that it? Nothing very distinguished, after all. Well, now you can write 'Dear Miss Primrose.' Then you can refer to our troubles—to my mother's death, if she does not know it, and to the loss of our money. Tell her we have been living on in the old house, till we could sell it. I suppose it would be better not to say that we have been recklessly using what was left of our capital, and that it is nearly all gone. You might explain that we have been for six weeks in this poky place, without a notion what brought us here, and that we are at our wits' end what to do next. Then you can ask her whether she could not possibly help you or me to some sort of work just to bring in something extra, if it were only fifty pounds a year. Only do begin, father, one way or another. Tell her frankly how we stand, and ask her advice."

Pauline confused Mr. Ogilvie with her eager and rapid utterances. He listened in a troubled manner, as if vainly trying to fix his thoughts.

"I cannot do it, I really cannot," he said again. "Not at this moment, I mean. My head feels bewildered. You shall tell me by-and-by what to say—only not quite so fast, my dear—and then I shall be able to take it in."

"Mr. Rudge has promised to spend the evening with us."

"Has he? Ah, yes, I remember. But I shall be in long before then. There is plenty of time."

"And you promise to write to Miss Primrose when you come back?"

"I will see about it."

"Father, if you find the letter such a trouble, why should I not write instead? Why not?"

"My dear, it would not do. It would not do at all," Mr. Ogilvie looked fretted. "Pray do not think of such a thing."

"Thinking isn't much use, for I have not her address," Pauline responded. "But I don't see why I should not write. Something ought to be done."

Mr. Ogilvie made his escape at last, Pauline going with him to the front door. When she turned back she was confronted by a young man, a gentleman, who had just come downstairs. He was, perhaps, about thirty, with a fair reddish complexion, and light hair. A certain wishy-washyness which sometimes goes with such colouring was in his case obviated by a broad-chested figure, over medium height, and by darker eyebrows and moustache. The effect was curious, not unpleasant, and he had a particularly genial smile.

"Wet day, Miss Ogilvie."

"Very." Pauline retreated before him into the sitting-room, as if it were a matter of course that he should follow, and follow he did. "I have been trying to persuade my father to stay in, but he won't hear reason."

"Men never do, I believe!"

"Not often," laughed Pauline. She stood by the fireplace in her usual erect attitude, the short nose so lifted as to point slightly upwards. It was an attitude which always gave the impression of a struggle after increased height. Pauline certainly was short, quite under medium height for women. And she looked shorter than usual beside her present companion, who gained extra "bigness" from his large enveloping cloak.

He stood looking down on Pauline with a good-humoured, interested expression. And Pauline gazed up at him with her usual self-assertiveness, into which, however, a tinge of softness had crept.

"Especially when the reason flows from feminine lips!"

"You are making out a bad case for yourselves. A man ought to be willing to hear reason from any and every quarter, if he is such a reasonable animal as he is supposed to be."

"That's rather cutting! You won't exercise your logic to keep me in, I hope, for duty calls me out. I never go against the calls of duty. And you are not my father."

He laughed outright. "No, not quite. Not quite that."

Pauline coloured vividly. "I mean—you are younger. You have not his health. Besides—" after a pause—"I suppose I ought to confess that I was not thinking so much of his health. I wanted him to write a business letter."

"Ah! Horrible things, business letters! By-the-by, did you not say that your sister was coming home this afternoon? I have to go to the station presently. Could I be any help as to meeting her? The weather is so bad—for you, I mean. I would gladly put her into a fly—or—"

"Thanks. We can't afford the luxury of a fly, and Nessie does not arrive till to-morrow."

Pauline spoke the words rather stiffly. She was not anxious to throw Mr. Rudge and Nessie together more than need be. Of course they would and must meet—but still—Well, Nessie was undeniably pretty, and Pauline was not pretty at all. Pauline knew this, and did not mince matters with herself. In a general way she was not jealous. She loved and was proud of Nessie. But still—!

CHAPTER III.

MR. RUDGE.

THE truth was, a new factor had come into Pauline's life,—a new element altogether, in the shape of Leonard Rudge.

Pauline had reached the age of twenty-seven without a love affair. She had always declared stoutly that she did not want to marry, that she did not care for men, that she preferred a single life. This was all very well, so far as it went. Most sensible women do prefer a single life, until they meet with the one individual who alone can make married life preferable. Pauline was so long before she met the said individual, that she had made up her mind he did not exist. Then, suddenly, he appeared.

During six weeks past, she and her father had been in Singleton. Pauline would have found it hard to state why they had first come. After leaving the home of her childhood, she had not greatly cared where they went next, all the world looking equally forlorn. And Singleton had seemed to offer economical advantages—a prime consideration. Mr. Ogilvie suggested the name first, in his hesitating way. He had known the little watering-place in his youth, and he had a wish to see it again. Pauline acquiesced somewhat indifferently. It was not a fashionable watering-place, and what season it possessed was not in May or June. The spot might do as well as any other for a while, till they had formed some more definite plans for their future. Once installed, they stayed on, week after week, and plans remained as indefinite as ever.

Nobody knew exactly how acquaintance began between the Ogilvies and their fellow-lodger. A lifted hat, a kind word, some little help when needed—these were the first stages. And then the acquaintanceship ripened fast. Pauline did not like strangers generally, and she was apt to give them a cold shoulder. She liked Mr. Rudge, however, and she made no objection whatever when her father asked him in to "high tea" and a game of chess. Mr. Ogilvie was a good chess-player, and he found his match in Rudge. Yet chess-playing did not take up all the time. Rudge found leisure for divers little chats with Pauline.

He was a pleasant young man, no doubt, well-informed, frank, and agreeable. Nobody knew anything about his antecedents or his intended future. Nobody knew why he was down here, who were his relatives, or what were his circumstances. When Pauline and her father arrived, Rudge, who arrived a day earlier, had spoken to his landlady about "a fortnight's holiday," but six weeks had flown, and still he remained. He was always meeting the Ogilvies, always making opportunities for intercourse. He seemed to be growing quite fond of the dreamy and incapable elder man. As for Pauline—

That was the question! As for Pauline? He could not be said to definitely seek her; yet he and she had perpetual encounters. His manner might not be that of a lover, but it was that of a cordial friend. There could not be the slightest doubt that he liked Pauline more or less; only the doubt was, how much more, or how much less? There could not be any doubt that he was interested in Pauline; nevertheless, the kind and degree of his interest might be difficult to define.

She was not in the least good-looking, and never had been. Beyond the possession of a trim figure and a neat button-mouth, she could lay no pretensions to personal charms. Men often do fall in love with much plainer women than Pauline, but such women have, also often, the redeeming qualities of lovableness, sweetness, or, at the least, of soft and winning manners.

Pauline's manner was neither soft nor winning. It was downright and dogmatic. Such amount of softness as she could display did come to the surface in Leonard Rudge's presence, but at its best it was not much. Nor could she be called, by any stretch of politeness, a lovable person. She was true and reliable, and practically unselfish, but by no means sweet or lovable. She had many angles, and they were apt to knock against people in her near neighbourhood.

With some women twenty-seven is a very charming age. The freshness of girlhood has lessened, but the more finished and mellowed charms of womanhood have developed. But Pauline had lost her early freshness without gaining any new charms. She was as curt and blunt at twenty-seven as at seventeen.

Despite all this, she exercised to some extent an attractive power over Mr. Rudge. He laughed at her often, yet she interested him, and touched him.

She was so little, and she had so much on her hands. That big limp helpless father, who was good at nothing in the world except chess, leant upon her absolutely. Nothing could be done, nothing could be arranged, without reference to Pauline. And Pauline accepted the burden so uncomplainingly, did everything for him so willingly, acted so careful and motherly a part to the younger sister at school! These things took a certain hold upon Rudge. In his strong manhood, he thought pityingly of one so small, with so much to do.

On the part of Pauline there was no hesitancy, no slowness. Before she had been a fortnight in Singleton, she knew Leonard Rudge to be the one man living who could make life radiant to her. And she imagined—was it surprising?—that she might be the one woman who could perform the same office for him. Why else should he stay on in this dull place, week after week? Why else should he be always trying to see her, always doing little kindnesses? Of course, reasons unknown to her, and apart from herself, might keep him. Of course, many of their meetings were accidental. Many were distinctly initiated by Mr. Ogilvie. And of course little kindnesses are natural to any polite and kindhearted man. Still, the condition of things was not quite ordinary.

An outsider would have found it as difficult to judge from Pauline's manner as from that of Mr. Rudge, exactly how the land lay. She was not demonstrative. Her usual air was self-constrained, not to say prosy. Her eyes were not given to betraying what she felt. An unwonted tinge of softness in her manner might have meant much to one who knew her well, but Rudge, perhaps, did not know her very well. When he was present, the softness came, extending itself to others as well as to himself. And when he was not present—but, of course, Rudge never saw her then, so he could not possibly mark the difference. She had also an odd dry way of veiling her thoughts by talking of Singleton as "a poky place," and wondering how anybody could choose to stay there; all of which meant nothing, though it might well take people in.

CHAPTER IV.

"SOMETHING TO DO."

THE Ogilvies occupied the ground-floor dining-room, and two bedrooms at the top of the house. Rudge had the upstairs drawing-room, and the best bedroom behind it, which looked like a sufficiency of means—as also did the cut of his coat, and the gentlemanly finish of his Gladstone bag, visible on the landing. But Pauline knew nothing about his circumstances, further than she might conjecture from such signs.

When Nessie's name was mentioned, she took a seat, and plunged into the intricacies of a grey stocking, which grew fast under her capable fingers. Rudge stood at the table, big and broad and good-humoured, watching the fingers, as they moved with lightning rapidity. He did not know that this was her excitement vent, but, doubtless, he noticed that the motions of the said fingers were not graceful. They partook of Pauline's general angularity.

"I thought you told me that your little sister would arrive to-day. My mistake, no doubt."

"No, not till to-morrow. One can hardly call her 'little.' She is much taller than I am—only, such a child still."

"How long do the holidays last?"

"They are to be interminable. She will not go back to school."

"Ah—home education."

"I suppose she will read a little. She ought, but girls don't always do what they ought. Seventeen is too young to leave off lessons."

"She is seventeen?"

"Just that—ten days ago."

"Anything I can do for you out-of-doors?"

"Unless you meet my father—"

"And if I do?"

"Send or bring him back to write a business letter."

"I'll remember. Business letters are of importance."

"This one is. If Miss Primrose—"

An odd change passed over her companion's face.

"Yes! If Miss Primrose—?"

"I forgot. He did not seem to like me to know her name, so I ought not to have repeated it. But, after all, I don't see that the thing signifies. A prosaic name enough."

"Flowery, rather. What were you going to say about Miss Primrose?"

"I don't know. My father has talked for weeks of writing to an old friend—"

"An 'old' friend! Yes?"

"Do you know her?" asked Pauline, struck with his stress on the adjective.

"I've seen a lady of that name. I shouldn't have called her old. However—no need to say anything to your father."

"He never told me her name till to-day, and then it came out. He knew her years and years ago, I believe, when he was young, so she can't be very juvenile. It is just a matter of business. I don't know why I should not explain. My father or I must get something to do, to keep us going."

She tilted her nose a little higher than usual, and looked up at him with the grey eyes which rather veiled than expressed her feelings, while the grey stocking grew fast. Meaning enough was expressed in the motions of her fingers could Rudge have read it.

"Something to do!"

"Something or anything. I don't care what. My father would care, I suppose: gentlemen are so particular! I can't break stones on the road, and I couldn't well undertake washing or ironing, but anything within my powers—We lost money lately," she went on. "Most of what we had. That is why we have left our old home. Don't you know so much?"

Rudge had gathered "so much," but he had not gathered that they were in actual difficulties still.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't suppose—"

"My father seems to have known Miss Primrose long ago, but he certainly has not seen her for ages. I don't know why he has never mentioned her name. I don't know why he expects her to help us. But he will come to no decision without writing to her, and he will not write. By 'helping us,' I mean finding us something to do in the way of work. One need never be ashamed to work."

"No, indeed. I should have thought you had enough on your hands already."

"It's always the case of the willing horse, you know."

"I'm afraid that's just it. If I meet your father, I shall be sure to remind him that he is wanted."

Rudge vanished, but apparently he did not meet Mr. Ogilvie.

The latter's return was long delayed. And when at length he appeared, he was far too dripping and miserable for letters.

Pauline urged the necessity in vain.

Mr. Ogilvie changed his wet clothes, made himself comfortable in an easy chair, and declined to exert brain or fingers.

"Quite impossible," he said. "To-morrow would do as well."

Then Rudge came in, according to agreement: and tea and chess had sway. No allusion was made to Miss Primrose. The evening hours passed swiftly to Pauline, in a maze of quiet happiness. Not much conversation took place, but what did it matter? Enough for her to sit at the table, plying her needles, watching the game, stealing glances at the strong broad shoulders and the good-humoured reddish face, which had taken so strong a hold upon her being. An occasional glance in her direction was all she needed.

If only things might go on so, always! But Nessie would come home on the morrow: and that might mean differences.

CHAPTER V.

RAIN! RAIN!

PAULINE stood on the station platform looking out for Nessie's train. Her waterproof cloak was as limp and nearly soaked as a waterproof can be, and her closed umbrella formed a puddle near her feet. A second pelting day had followed the first; and she had walked to the station for economy's sake. Nessie would arrive directly, so no need to remove the draggle-tailed cloak. She gave it a shake, flapped the umbrella, and set herself to renewed waiting.

"Thanks for an artificial shower," a voice said at her side.

Pauline twisted sharply round, chilly and wet no longer in imagination, whatever her outer woman might be. "You here, Mr. Rudge!"

"Seems like it."

"Did I sprinkle you? I thought nobody was near."

"Merely a small shower-bath!"

"I'm sorry, but,—You had business at the station yesterday!" with meaning stress on the last word.

"Undeniably true."

"And to-day too?"

"To-day too!" He looked impenetrable. "Are you anxious to know what the business is?"

"Of course it is not my concern—but—"

"I have a big parcel to get home."

"You had not that yesterday?"

"I beg your pardon, I had. But the day was so wet."

"And to-day is so fine!"

"That's just it! We may have this lovely weather for a month, and I want my parcel. So I chartered a cab."

"Wouldn't the railway people send it for you?"

"I didn't ask them. The cab is there, secured and waiting. Room inside for you and your sister."

"Oh, there's no need, thanks. We can easily walk."

"I haven't a doubt of that. The question is, whether you couldn't more easily be driven."

Pauline looked dubious, not as to her own liking, but as to the requirements of the case.

Rudge did not weaken his point by disputation. "Don't stand still," he said. "The air is wringing wet. And, pardon me, you must take off that cloak. We'll give it to the driver. So—and your umbrella." He had them both by this time. "I meant to save you the wet walk, as I had to come, but when I'd got the cab, you were gone."

"I had some shopping to do by the way. When one can't keep dry, one may as well be any amount wet," said Pauline. "I don't know why you should bother yourself in this way," she added, to hide an inward glow of pleasure.

"I don't know either, if it is a bother."

He stopped at the bookstall and purchased a "Punch."

"There's a cartoon that I want your father to see. Well, did he arrive in time for the business letter yesterday? Somehow I failed to find him."

"It was not written. Inclination was wanting, not time."

"I wonder whether inclination is ever otherwise than wanting in the case of a business letter. Miss Ogilvie, is this letter one of great importance—to you?"

"Yes. I don't know why, but it is. We can't go on as we are doing now. That is the reason," she said frankly, though not usually disposed to frankness about family affairs. "Our plans ought to be settled; and my father seems able to settle nothing without reference to Miss Primrose. I don't know why."

"The said settlement of affairs might involve a move from Singleton?" inquiringly.

"I suppose so. We have no idea of living here. What I want is to find some work—something to add a little to our income. And, of course, a home in some place where we can economise."

"Miss Primrose is an old friend of your father's, you say?"

"They must have been friends before I was born."

"Ah!"

"More than a quarter of a century ago."

"Yes!" in a rather odd voice. "There comes the train. What is your sister like?"

"Nessie! Oh, tall and pretty—a school-girl. Light hair and eyes."

The train drew up. Pauline grew flushed, and began to run, but Rudge checked her.

"No hurry," he said, with amused eyes. He took the matter coolly himself, glanced to right and left, then approached a third-class compartment, in the doorway of which stood a slight creature, girlish but not school-girlish, with fluffy fair hair and sky-blue eyes. Rudge singled her out as if he had known her all his life.

"Miss Nessie Ogilvie?" he asked. "Here is your sister. How many trunks?"

Nessie stooped from her superior height to kiss Pauline, and then drew up, repelled by the indignant "Nessie! In public!"

Rudge saw, heard, and laughed inwardly. He had the luggage together in a trice, ordered a man to convey it to the cab, and ushered the sisters in the same direction, impervious to Pauline's conscientious efforts after resistance.

Pauline felt herself managed, and gave in.

When he disappeared in search of a parcel, Nessie seized the opportunity to ask, "Who's that?"

"Mr. Rudge. He has lodgings in the same house. Father likes him."

"He's ugly—but not disagreeable, I should think."

"Ugly!" Pauline could have protested, yet she did not wish Nessie to admire Mr. Rudge.

Once off through the persistent downpour, Pauline began to realise the pleasantness of being so conveyed.

"Easier than walking, isn't it?" Rudge said, smiling.

"Yes. You must let me share the fly with you."

"I thought we were sharing it already."

Pauline was conscious of being worsted, and she let the matter drop.

Rudge was studying Nessie at intervals, with evident interest. Pauline had expected this, for Nessie was decidedly pretty. She had a taking little face, small-featured, with soft blue eyes, and short hair of pale straw-colour in a fashionable confusion of waves and half-curls. Nessie was only seventeen, just ten years younger than Pauline. There had been three sisters between the two, none of whom had lived beyond infancy. Pauline loved Nessie dearly, counting herself well able to play a mother's part. Perhaps her rôle had been a little too maternal as to authority, since a mother's tenderness had been lacking. Nessie could scarcely be said to return, measure for measure, the elder sister's affection.

But then, the said affection was not commonly visible in manner. This makes all the difference. Pauline had a sharp manner of speaking to Nessie, as to others, and sharpness does not win love. All the practical kindness in the world, shown by one friend to another, or by one sister to another, will not undo the effects of a sharp and argumentative tone.

Pauline knew herself to have failed somehow in that quarter, but she did not exactly understand how. She was not great in self-knowledge.

Reaching the house, Rudge handed both sisters out. He marked, with his dry little smile, the difference between Pauline's impetuous descent on the pavement and Nessie's soft slow movements. Two sisters could hardly have been more unlike. Nessie had not her father's features, the long thin nose, the long weak upper lip, or the long limp chin, but her languid gentle manner was distinctly inherited from him. She had none of Pauline's air of being moved by springs, of acting in jerks.

"Well, Pauline! So you were prudent and took a cab, after all! Well, Nessie!"

It was easy to see which daughter lay nearest to the father's heart. Not that Nessie was more estimable or more useful than Pauline. She was only more soft and winning. Practical worth and usefulness by themselves are not lovable.

Nessie dropped quietly into Mr. Ogilvie's arms, and held him fast, secure of no rebuff here, and heedless of Pauline's propriety notions. "Nessie!" the latter muttered, but in vain.

Mr. Ogilvie and his youngest went into the dining-room, clinging still each to the other.

Rudge stood, with his big parcel, looking at Pauline.

"How much is my share, please?" she asked.

"Your share?"

"Of the cab."

"Two seats," said Rudge, with a bow. "All right!" he called, and the cab drove off.

"But—you have not paid him."

The remark was passed over. Rudge looked again at Pauline over his parcel, and said, "Hardly a child! Charmingly pretty."

"Nessie! Yes, she always was pretty." Pauline forgot the cab question.

"The prettiest creature I have seen for a long while."

"Everybody thinks so, of course." Pauline went upstairs without more ado to change her draggled skirt. "Like the rest of the world," she murmured to herself. "Nothing but a pretty face is worth thinking of. I should have thought 'he' could be above that. But I see how it will be."

CHAPTER VI.

TO-DAY OR TO-MORROW.

"FATHER, you have not written to Miss Primrose yet."

"No, my dear."

"Who is Miss Primrose?" demanded Nessie.

"An old lady! A friend of father's. I don't know much about her. Father has to write and get advice."

"Not this evening! I'm only just come home."

"Yes, this evening. Nessie, you must not hinder father. The letter has to be written. We cannot go on like this."

"Go on like what?"—and Nessie opened her sleepy blue eyes wider than usual. She was lounging on the sofa, in an attitude which would have been ungraceful in anyone less young and fair; and her short hair was ruffled by contact with the cushions. She sat up slowly, gazing at Pauline. "What has happened?"

"Nothing new. Nothing that you don't know. Only that we have not money to spend as we are spending, and nobody will believe the fact."

"Father is the best judge," said Nessie, as if she at once scented blame in that direction. She went across the rug, and twined an arm in Mr. Ogilvie's. "But we are used to being kept in order by Pauline, aren't we daddy?"

Mr. Ogilvie patted the soft little hand, greatly comforted. Pauline had a way of making him feel himself in the wrong, and it was comfortable to have somebody near who would help him for once to feel that Pauline was in the wrong.

Nessie sat down on the arm of his chair, and laid her cheek against his.

"Who is Miss Primrose, and where does she live? Why have we never seen her, or heard about her?"

"My dear, it has not happened—" Mr. Ogilvie coughed away the rest of his sentence. He always had a cough ready for emergencies.

"But why hasn't it happened? Are you such old friends?"

"I knew her—yes—very well—"

"When, daddy?"

"My dear, years ago."

"When you were young?"

"Well, yes—" with a faint laugh.

"What makes Pauline so bent on getting up the acquaintance again?"

"It is not on my own account, Nessie. I am bent on knowing what we are to do."

"I don't see what that has to do with this. Does Miss Primrose live alone, father?"

"She may—probably."

"Is she handsome?"

"I have not seen her for—for more than twenty-five years. Not since Pauline was a baby. She was—rather pleasant-looking."

"Rather pleasant-looking, twenty-seven years ago. Oh, she must be a regular old fogie."

"When you are a quarter of a century older, I wonder how you will like to be spoken of so!" said Pauline.

"I can't imagine myself a quarter of a century older."

"But you must come to it if—"

"Oh, well, we all know that lots of things must happen. I shouldn't think I need have a moral lecture, the very moment I get home. Was Miss Primrose pretty, father, all those years ago?"

"She was—nice-looking, I believe."

"Only 'nice-looking,' you believe!' Is that all? At any rate you weren't in love with her, daddy."

Mr. Ogilvie reddened slightly, yes, actually reddened, and made an uneasy movement.

"'I' shouldn't like to be only 'nice-looking.' I'd rather be ugly outright—as ugly as Mr. Rudge. I do admire a fair woman, but fair men I detest. Father, did Miss Primrose—Where are you going?"

"I have something to attend to, my dear."

"That is always the way," declared Pauline, as her father vanished. "He never will go into business, or tell us about Miss Primrose. He runs away if one tries to make him."

"You worry him so about her. Why can't you leave him in peace?" asked Nessie, as if forgetting that her own questions this time had driven him off the field.

"Because—Nessie, you are a baby, or you would understand. We can't afford to 'live in peace,' as you call it. We haven't the requisite funds. That is why. It would be a mere fool's paradise for us—ending by-and-by in a crash. There is not money enough in our possession for us to live as we are living now, yet I can't get my father to see it. If you help him and fight against me, you will just make things worse."

"I can't see why. I'm sure the way we live is simple enough. And even, if we have to make changes, there is no such desperate hurry. A week or two more or less can't make such a lot of difference."

"You are my father over again. It is always 'no hurry' with him, and so we go on, frittering away all we have. The money will soon be at an end."

"Not his annuity."

"We shall get down to that, and that only, before long. One hundred and ten pounds a year."

"Well, it can't be helped." Nessie laid her fluffy head against the cushion. "I don't see any use in worrying."

"So you and he always say. If we had done all in our power, then I would agree with you, but not till then. It's very easy to shirk worry by putting off all responsibility on another person, but somebody has to 'worry,' as you call it, somebody has to think and plan, or nothing would ever get done. I wonder what sort of state you two would fall into, if you had not me to look after you both."

"A delicious state. I should lie in bed till noon, and nobody would ever talk about money."

"That's charming, of course, when there is enough money not to need talking about. Unfortunately, the less there is, the more one has to discuss its uses. People who have to earn a livelihood can't lie in bed till noon; and we are coming fast to that stage. However, if I go out as a companion to some old lady, you will be able to try your plan. Experience isn't a bad teacher."

Pauline spoke sharply, as if wounded. She toiled much for her father and sister. And it was, to say the least, dispiriting to find no particular gratitude felt in return.

Nessie's perceptions were by no means keen, but she was conscious of something wrong. "Go out as a companion!" she said wonderingly.

"I don't see what else is to be done. Father will never find any work to his taste, and somebody must do something. I should be off his hands then—provided with house-room and food; and I should make at least enough for my own clothes."

"But we couldn't manage without you! And I don't know anything about ordering dinner."

"You would have to learn," said Pauline, not greatly flattered by the estimate of her uses. "Everybody can learn."

"I am sure I couldn't. I hate that sort of bother. Oh, you mustn't go, of course. I didn't mean what I said just now. We could never get on without you."

CHAPTER VII.

THE LETTER.

"IT'S done."

"What is done?"

"Father has written to Miss Primrose!"

"What has he said?"

"I don't know exactly. He did not let me see."

"I hope you are satisfied now. You have given him no peace since I came home."

"Nessie, if you will not understand how things are, I can't make you."

"I do understand, but there are different ways of doing things."

Pauline might have retorted, with equal truth, that there are also different ways of not doing things. She was hardly in spirits for a retort, however, unless it was an ill-tempered one; and she was doing her best not to give way to ill-temper.

"Where have you been?" asked Nessie, gaping.

"Only to the corner—to see father post his letter."

"I shouldn't have thought two people were needed for that task. Couldn't you trust him to go alone? Or couldn't you do it for him?"

"I couldn't trust him not to change his mind before he reached the pillar, and he would not give the letter to me. I might have seen the address."

"Well—if you had! Why should he mind?"

"I don't know. He does mind."

"It's some antique love affair, Pauline."

"Nonsense!"

Yet Pauline wondered whether Nessie's guess might have hit the mark.

"And the letter is gone—after all this fuss! It seems queer to be begging help of a stranger."

"Not a stranger to father, and not begging help. Only asking if she can advise me where to get work. That's what I want. No use to think of work for him. He has always taken life easily, and when one is getting old, one can't change."

"I mean to take life easily. Suppose no answer comes from Miss Primrose?"

"Then I hope my father will see that we have to decide for ourselves."

Nessie sank into a brown study, lounging among the cushions. She was a very indolent young lady, fond of limp postures, not easy to dislodge from a comfortable corner, and not addicted to needless exertion. Mr. Ogilvie called her "delicate," and sympathised, being himself of the same lymphatic temperament. Pauline called her "lazy," and tried the routing plan, without much success. Possibly both were true statements, but the one had not much to do with the other. Nessie might have been delicate without laziness, or lazy without delicacy. Many most delicate people are full of energy, free from ease-loving indolence; and many people in good health are overburdened with it. Delicacy and indolence may co-exist in one person, but they are quite as often separated. Mr. Ogilvie's plea for Nessie is, however, the common plea put forth by laziness.

Four days passed, and no answer arrived. Mr. Ogilvie grew restless, and fell into a nervous tremor whenever the postman became visible. He was plainly disappointed.

After a spell of rain, fine weather had come, and Rudge was often out-of-doors. Pauline had not seen nearly so much of him since Nessie's return. And the last few days, she had scarcely seen him at all. She tried for a while to cheat herself out of an acknowledgment of the fact, but this could not continue. Nobody guessed how that prosaic little being watched for his coming and going, how she listened for his footsteps overhead.

Mr. Ogilvie and Nessie only found her rather more tart than usual.

"What are we to do next, if Miss Primrose doesn't write?" she asked, after lunch, on the fourth day of waiting.

"Miss Primrose is sure to write."

"Yes, so one may say. But if she does not?" A pause. "She may not be alive even. How can you tell, if you have not heard from her lately?"

Mr. Ogilvie stood up to escape, as usual.

"If anything had happened, I should have heard," he said. "Is no one going for a walk this fine day?"

"I can't. I have all this mending to do." Pauline pointed to a pile.

"I'll go," volunteered Nessie. "Pauline is glued to her patches and darns."

Pauline made no defence. She did not wish to move, brightly though the sun shone. She knew that Rudge was indoors, and he might chance to come to the downstairs sitting-room for a word. He had often done so, just at this hour, to ask if he could do any little thing for her out-of-doors. She could not afford to risk absence. All this was not definitely acknowledged to herself, but the motive underlay her resolute clinging to the pile of work.

Mr. Ogilvie and Nessie vanished, and Pauline sat alone, busy with fingers and mind. The door had been left rather more than ajar, and she did not rise to shut it.

A quick step crossed the room overhead, almost immediately after the shutting of the front door, and an odd question came up—Had he seen Mr. Ogilvie and Nessie start? Pauline quashed the suggestion at once, but it obtruded itself again. For Rudge was hurrying downstairs. Would he put his head in, and—?

No; he did nothing of the kind. Pauline could not see him pass where she sat, but he did not so much as turn his head towards the dining-room door. Had he done so, he must have caught a glimpse of Pauline. He went along the passage swiftly, straight to the front door, and was gone, walking briskly in the same direction as that taken by her father and sister.

Pauline's needle lay idle for awhile, as she sat questioning with herself. What could it mean? That had not been his wont lately. Till Nessie came home, he had made or accepted constant little opportunities for intercourse with Pauline: such opportunities as this which he had now flung away. Had anything come between him and her? Had Pauline herself been too frank about the family circumstances? Had Nessie said or done aught to turn him from her? Pauline answered the last question at once in the negative. Nessie was very vain, and not very brilliant, perhaps even a little dull mentally, but nobody could accuse her of malice.

Then—was it that Rudge had been fascinated at first sight by Nessie's prettiness?

This at least was not impossible. Pauline had not lived twenty-seven years without gaining some notion of masculine susceptibility to looks.

If Rudge were changed, a cause, of course, existed; and Pauline felt sure he was changed. She looked at the matter resolutely, accepting this as a fact, forgetting how easily one may be deceived.

One or two hot tears were distilled, and then she braced herself up, determined that nobody should guess her trouble—Mr. Ogilvie and Nessie least of all.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE RESOLVE.

WHEN they returned from their stroll, she was sewing diligently, as if no thought save of household repairs had crossed her mind during the interim.

"Oh, dear, I'm so tired," Nessie as usual declared, dropping on the sofa. "I do want my tea. No letter from that old lady, I suppose? We've had a walk on the Parade with Mr. Rudge, all this time!"

"Really!" said Pauline.

"He overtook us before we got there. I suspect he saw us start, and came on purpose," laughed Nessie.

"Where is he now?"

"Oh, he didn't come back—had something to do, but he stayed on the Parade as long as we stayed. He's nice, I think—rather. I like him better than I did at first: if only he were better-looking. Perhaps he isn't quite so ugly when you get to know him, but nobody in the world can call him handsome."

Pauline could have done so, but of course she would not. Her heart sank low. If she had but left her mending, and gone out! To have missed such a pleasure! Yet would it have been a pleasure, if in truth his aim had been—Nessie?

"Well, I suppose you both want some tea?" she said, getting up.

"Awfully," yawned Nessie.

Then, after a break—

"Mr. Rudge has been telling us lots about himself. He lives at a place called Wokingholme. It's in the country, not a great many stations off from here. He must be the squire there, I fancy. That's why he never seems to have anything particular to do. And I dare say he is rich. He and father got upon land improvements, and there was a lot of talk about turnips and mangold-wurzel. I hate farm talk, and I almost ran away. Didn't Mr. Rudge ever tell you before where he lived?"

"I never asked him."

"I don't see why you shouldn't. There's no harm in asking, if one wants to know. I found out something else too. He's an orphan, and he was brought up by an aunt. Father wanted him to come in to tea, but he said he couldn't; he had a heap of letters to write."

"Then squires have something to do, I suppose, after all?"

"Oh, letters—yes, but not regular hard work."

"Some people seem to think letters the hardest work of all," murmured Pauline.

Then the postman's knock sounded. Singleton was not one of those watering-places where the knocker has given place to the bell. Nessie looked lazily at Pauline, and Pauline went out.

"A postcard for father," she said, returning.

Mr. Ogilvie was embarrassed between a full cup and crumbling cake. "Postcard! Is that all?" he asked, "Some advertisement. Read it aloud, my dear."

Pauline obeyed promptly.

"Letter received. Quite right. Glad to hear again. Send your eldest daughter here day after to-morrow. Companion wanted for a month or so, while in town. May lead to something more permanent. Please say which train, and she shall be met.—V. Primrose!"

After the first two words, Mr. Ogilvie held out a feeble hand to check Pauline, but she went resolutely on to the end.

"Miss Primrose must be an oddity," she commented. "What does V. stand for? 'Violet'! Was that your friend's name? Do you suppose she lives in Kensington now? This is from Kensington."

"Let me see the address," said Mr. Ogilvie. He gazed at the card with troubled eyes. "No; she has a country home. Number twenty-seven—I can't make out the name of the street. It is not a name I know."

"I'll look it out with the directory."

"Pauline can't go off for a month, like that," observed Nessie. "What nonsense! We can't spare her."

"If it is right, you will have to spare me," said Pauline.

She spoke with the more decision, because she found herself utterly adverse to the plan. At any other time she would have cared less, though her objection to strangers was proverbial, and she had a dislike to London. It would have come as a simple duty, and would have been accepted as such. But to leave Singleton at this moment, to cut herself adrift from Rudge, just when he had begun to fall under the sway of Nessie's attractions—this did seem hard. A month away at so critical a juncture would probably settle matters. If the slightest hope remained that Rudge could care for her, that hope would be slain by her going. And even if she should return at the month's end—even if he and Nessie should not become engaged meantime—she could not expect to find him still at Singleton. She might never see him again.

All these thoughts came before Pauline's mental vision, and a voice within her cried wildly—"I cannot go! I will not go!"

But another voice spoke no less clearly. Pauline, with all her faults, was no helpless victim to self-pleasing. She had too often put self aside to be easily vanquished now. If it were right, go she would; and Pauline felt that it was right. In the face of her reluctant dread, she asked quietly—

"Which train shall I name?"

"My dear, we must consider: it might be best to enquire further," hesitated Mr. Ogilvie.

"Why? What is there to enquire? You know Miss Primrose; and I am old enough to take care of myself. We can't afford to throw aside such a chance."

Mr. Ogilvie stroked his chin, and murmured, "You can hardly be ready by to-morrow."

"I shall pack to-night. I will take one trunk—a small one—and leave a second ready to be sent, if I should need it. I must go, of course," she said, smothering down the revolt within.

"Pauline always does what she likes, and never thinks about other people," complained Nessie.

"Of course!" Pauline would not betray the sting of this injustice, for how could she, without betraying the injustice itself? "I must look out trains, now, and then I must pack. The thing has to be done, Nessie, so fretting will do no good. You will find it much easier to manage than you expect."

"I daresay! While you are taking your pleasure away in London!" pouted Nessie.

CHAPTER IX.

TO TOWN.

IT was a wet day, so nobody went with Pauline to the station. Why should anybody? Pauline always took care of herself and of everybody else—the said "everybody" being personified chiefly by Mr. Ogilvie and Nessie. Those two liked comfort, ease, and reposeful chairs; and they were not fond of wind or rain unless in pursuit of their own pleasures.

"Pauline never minded," they said complacently. And Pauline, as usual, acquiesced.

Nevertheless, when she trudged off alone on her pilgrimage, with a porter and truck to carry her moderate amount of luggage, she did feel that it would have been pleasant to have had somebody on the platform who belonged to her—somebody just to smile a farewell, and to wish her "God-speed."

For, brave as Pauline was accounted, she did not always feel so brave below. Fearless as she might seem, she had sometimes a sense of shrinking, hidden by the uplifted nose and confident air. Nobody looking on Pauline could have counted her nervous, yet she knew what certain nervous sensations were—as who does not?—only she was not mastered by them.

She was going into an unknown land, with unknown possibilities ahead. Some slight heart-sinking was surely permissible.

And—there was Mr. Rudge! She was leaving him and Nessie behind—Nessie to look pretty and languishing; Rudge to be caught, as men are caught, by a pair of soft eyes and a pair of rosy lips.

"They are all alike," sighed Pauline, as she stood waiting, a bedraggled and wet little figure, on the platform. "It isn't a question of what one is, or what one is worth; it is just a question of shape and colouring. A painted doll has the best chance any day, so long as it is nicely painted . . . I'm not a doll, that is certain, and I'm not pretty. But I think I can do more than Nessie to make other people happy."

A touch of bitterness came into the words. She had not even seen Rudge for a word of farewell. She knew that he knew of her going, but he had made no effort after a parting handshake.

"Give me that bundle, Miss Ogilvie. The train isn't due for ten minutes."

Pauline turned, inwardly glowing, outwardly cool.

"Good morning," she said. "I am off to London."

"So I heard. Wasn't it a work of supererogation to start so early? I strolled down stairs for a final interview, and found you had vanished."

"It's best to be in good time."

"Much the best. How long do you expect to stay away?"

"A month. Miss Primrose has sent for me."

"Ah! Your father's friend?"

"Yes. She is in London, and wants a companion; and she says this may lead to something permanent. I suppose that means, if she likes me. I don't see what I could do except go," said Pauline, in appeal. "Nessie does not like it, but—It isn't that I want to leave them, but—"

"I am sure you are right—quite right. Greatest possible mistake to have refused."

Pauline's doubts and hesitations fell away like dead leaves; and even her own distaste faded. If Mr. Rudge approved, she was content. He had taken possession by this time of her umbrella, her cloak, and her inevitable "roll" or bundle of wraps. Now he stood looking down on the little figure with a twinkle in his eyes; and Pauline had the "protected" sensation which is so specially delightful to those who are always taking care of others.

"I am so glad you think so," she said earnestly. "It seemed almost cruel to go away—but if it has to be—"

"People may just as well learn independence before twenty as after thirty."

"Yes. I am not afraid that they will not manage. One always 'can,' I suppose, if one must. That was how I learnt. I wish I might ask you a question."

"So you may."

"But—if you do not wish to answer—"

"Then I'll tell you so."

"About Miss Primrose. Did you once say that you knew her?"

"I think I confessed to knowing a Miss Primrose. Whether she is identical with your father's friend is another question."

"I'm very much in ignorance about my father's friend. I fancy she is elderly—and plain."

"Ah!" with slow emphasis. "But 'my' Miss Primrose is young and beautiful."

"Really beautiful?"

"That is a term used in various senses. Perhaps you would call her 'lovely.'"

Pauline had a sense of dismay, a sense also that she did not greatly care to make the acquaintance of Mr. Rudge's Miss Primrose. The train came in before she had decided what to say next. The possessive sound of that "'My' Miss Primrose" sent an unpleasant shock through her.

"Which class?" asked Rudge.

Pauline was in a dream, actually forgetting to take her seat.

"Oh—third, please," she said.

Rudge found an empty compartment, and placed her therein, stowing away her belongings.

"Box in luggage-van ahead," he remarked. "You will be off directly. No long waiting here."

"She cannot be the same," murmured Pauline.

"I beg your pardon?"

"I mean—'your' Miss Primrose. She can't be my father's old friend."

"Hard to reconcile the two descriptions, certainly. But different people see with different eyes."

"I hope Nessie will not forget to order dinner to-morrow."

"That is a catastrophe not likely to occur often. The consequences are too disastrous."

The whistle sounded, and Pauline put out her hand, not with her usual confidence.

"T wish it were over! I wish I were back!" she said.

A guard came along, slamming open doors.

"Stand back, sir," he said, and passed on.

Rudge did not stand back. He bent towards Pauline, keeping her hand for one moment. "Don't be afraid," he said. "You are doing what is right. It will all turn out well. Keep up a brave heart, and—God bless you! God 'will' bless you."

Then the train was off, leaving him behind. But the warmth of those parting words remained with Pauline, and she was strongly stirred. The two little closing sentences had for her all the force of a prayer, followed by a promise.

"It will turn out well," she repeated. "I shall be helped. It is right to go. I am sure it is right."

Then she settled down, and knitted herself into her usual staid condition of mind.

CHAPTER X.

A QUESTION OF AGES.

PADDINGTON STATION at last, after changes and waitings diverse. Pauline secured a porter, and went with him after her trunk—in a hurry, of course, though no special cause for hurry existed. Everybody is in a hurry on arrival at a station, and Pauline proved no exception to the rule. When her trunk had been extracted from the piles of luggage, she saw a young footman stroll up and take a negligent glance at the name upon it. Then he followed it and the porter to where Pauline stood.

"For Miss Primrose?" he asked.

"Yes," Pauline answered.

"This way, if you please. The brougham is waiting."

Pauline's previous imaginings had somehow failed to include brougham or footman. She had looked upon the rattling London cab as inevitable.

"But this is much more comfortable," she told herself when off.

Within a reasonable time the brougham stopped at a good-sized solid house, tall in proportion to its breadth, after the wont of town buildings. A balcony well filled with flowers caught Pauline's glance. That did not look like lodgings. Had Miss Primrose a town house, as well as a country house?

"Miss Primrose was out—unavoidably," the footman said, as Pauline entered. "She would be in presently. Would Miss Ogilvie like to go to her own room?"

Miss Ogilvie did like, and a maid was summoned to escort her thither. Plainly this was the best guest-chamber, handsomely furnished, with a bow-window.

"I don't feel yet as if I was acting 'humble companion,'" Pauline said aloud. "But that has to come. I'm only on inspection now."

She had time to unpack and put away her belongings, in the midst of which operation a maid appeared to offer assistance. Pauline, being of an independent temperament, declined, and the maid vanished. Nobody else came. A clock struck five, and Pauline's inner woman was proclaiming the need for afternoon tea.

"I think I'll go downstairs," she said.

She met no living creature by the way, and the drawing-room was deserted still. Tea stood upon a basket-table, ready for use.

"I wish somebody would appear," murmured Pauline, who was addicted to audible soliloquies when alone. "I'm desperately hungry . . . I wonder if I might venture to steal a biscuit! Is it allowable? No, I'm afraid not. Miss Primrose is a stranger to me."

Pauline roved round the room, looking at photographs and ornaments.

"That's a nice likeness of an old lady. Miss Primrose herself, most likely. She looks tolerably agreeable. Well, I suppose the next stage of affairs will be that I shall pick up stitches in her knitting. If that is the hardest part of my duties, I shall not need to complain . . . Dear me, I should be glad of a cup of tea. I wish I might help myself."

"Why don't you?" asked a soft voice, and a girl came forward from the further door, which Pauline had scarcely noticed.

She was quite a girl, younger than Pauline, with laughing eyes, and little curls and waves of brown hair above a small oval face, whose bright bloom contrasted with unusual fairness. A very, very pretty creature, Pauline saw at a glance—of medium height, beautifully proportioned, and full of grace. Could this possibly be Miss Primrose? Pauline stood more upright than usual, unconsciously tilting her nose.

"Is Miss Primrose at home yet? I have come—she sent for me to see if I should do as a companion." Pauline was determined to begin on no false pretences. "I think the servants have made a mistake, and put me into the wrong room."

"O no, it is all right. That is our spare room," said the girl. "My aunt is not able to come down, I am sorry to say."

"Your aunt, Miss Primrose?" Then this was a niece, a guest.

"May I give you some tea? I am afraid you are hungry?" with a slight flash of fun.

"Did you hear me? It is so stupid. I always talk aloud when I am alone. Were you there long?"

"At the door? Only a few seconds. It was so charming, I couldn't resolve to come forward directly. Pray sit down."

Pauline obeyed, and the pretty creature proceeded to pull off a handsome cosy.

"Some cream? Some sugar?" she asked. "Do help yourself to bread-and-butter. You must be half starved. Such a shame that you have had to wait!"

"Are you Miss Primrose's niece?" asked Pauline presently.

"No, my aunt is Mrs. Palmer. I live with her, but my own name is Primrose."

"You are not Miss Primrose?" uttered Pauline.

"Strangers generally call me so. My home-name is Viola."

Pauline gave a startled look over her tea-cup, her worst fears realised. "My Miss Primrose is young and beautiful," Mr. Rudge had said. Then this "was" Mr. Rudge's Miss Primrose—this charming girl, who might be called either beautiful or lovely according to taste. Talk of Nessie's prettiness! The limp and listless attractions of Nessie faded into nothingness beside the glow and sparkle of—Miss Primrose.

"Did you expect me to be different?" asked the girl.

Pauline murmured some incoherent words, then rallied her scattered forces.

"But there is some mistake. There must be some mistake. You cannot be the real Miss Primrose—my father's old friend?"

"Are you sure?"—as soberly as a judge. "Did he ever tell you the age of his friend?"

Pauline could not say that he had exactly. She only knew—yes, certainly she knew—that her father had been acquainted with Miss Primrose more than twenty-five years before—in her own babyhood, in fact. And she stated as much, confusedly.

"Ah, yes. It will all fit in soon," said Miss Primrose gently. "It's wonderful how things fit in, when one knows all about them, however puzzling they seemed before. But sometimes the ins and outs take a little time to master—like the details of a new science, you know. We'll go into the question more closely some day soon, when we know one another. That is the first thing. You are going to be my companion, and I'm going to learn all I can about you."

"Then—am I to be your companion? Not your aunt's?"

"Why, yes! My aunt has her nurse; and I've nobody to go about with, in London. People say I ought not to go about alone. When I'm married, it won't matter, of course," with a smile.

So she was engaged to be married!

"Then was it you, or was it your aunt, who wrote the card to my father?"

"Auntie dictated, and I wrote."

"But—his letter was not to you?"

"You want to grasp everything at once. And I would rather you should not," declared Miss Primrose, sweetly. "Isn't it good for us sometimes not to understand? We're a little apt to get conceited, you know, and to think too much of our own powers." This was in a tone of soft moralising. "Will you have some more tea? No! Then would you like to rest?"

"I must write home," said Pauline.

"You will find paper and stamps at the side table here. Perhaps it would be as well not to puzzle your father with the question of ages till you understand them better. But do just as you like. I want you to feel at home. Tell him, at all events, that I will do my best to give you a pleasant month in town."

"That is all very well. But what are to be my duties?" asked Pauline.

CHAPTER XI.

MR. OGILVIE'S OLD FRIEND.

PAULINE'S question was left unanswered for the moment, and she decided not to push it that day. Better to wait and see what was expected of her.

Seemingly she was expected to be agreeable, and to have an unfailing fund of conversation at command. Miss Primrose talked all dinner-time, and nearly all the evening, never oppressively, always charmingly. Pauline was not gifted in the conversational line, but she felt that the best part of her was being drawn out by this sparkling creature. It was impossible not to be at ease, impossible not to converse.

If she were indeed Mr. Rudge's Miss Primrose—but that was the question. Pauline tried to find out, and failed. Three times she led the talk to Mr. Rudge; and three times Miss Primrose led it away before her end was attained. What could Pauline do but submit?

Certain particulars slipped out in the course of conversation. It became evident that Miss Primrose was an orphan, and had lived, at least for some little time, with her aunt. Conditions not unlike those of Mr. Fudge, Pauline remembered. It was also apparent that either she or her aunt was extremely well off, that they spent part of the year in this town house, and a larger part in their country house.

"We ought to be there now," Miss Primrose said, "but auntie's illness has made the journey impossible just yet."

Though Miss Primrose revealed little to Pauline, Pauline revealed much to Miss Primrose. She had not often so sympathetic a listener. She told about her own home occupations, about her father's losses, about Nessie's return from school, and about the need to find "something to do" for herself, as a means of keeping the other two afloat.

"And now you have found it," said Miss Primrose.

"I don't see what I have to do yet."

Miss Primrose left the room and returned with a confused tangle of grey knitting. "I wonder if you could possibly manage to put this right," she said. "It is past my powers. For the 'old lady,' you know."

"I don't think you will forget my talking aloud," said Pauline, half vexed.

"Do you mind? Then I will not speak of it again!"

And Pauline was ashamed of her own vexation. "Could I not help you with your aunt?" she asked. "I mean—help to amuse her, or read aloud?"

"She has not seen anyone yet since her attack, and a stranger's face too soon might flurry her, but she talks of a visit from you soon."

Pauline was fain to accept the state of things, and to go on, not understanding. Despite some confusion of ideas, she passed a pleasant evening. And it would have been more than pleasant, really delightful, but for a haunting dread about "Mr. Rudge's Miss Primrose." For if this were she, then indeed Pauline's hopes sank far below zero. How could any man be expected to turn from such a Miss Primrose to look at her ordinary little self.

She lay long awake at night, and came down in the morning resolved to find out more. But the resolve was baffled, Pauline could not tell how. And when another night came, she was still perplexed.

A week passed thus, agreeably enough, but mysteriously. Pauline had determined to submit, and to await Miss Primrose's pleasure. Meantime she was very comfortable, treated not as a "humble companion," but as an honoured guest, taken hither and thither to London sights, pictures, music, and aught else that she liked. Pauline wondered at herself sometimes for not being more "spoilt" by all this ease and enjoyment, but she took the whole soberly. Her heart was at Singleton, and the craving to return was sometimes unendurable.

"I don't know what to say to my father," she broke out at length one day, a full week after she had come.

The morning had been spent in work and reading; the afternoon in a gallery of pictures and Park crowds. Now she was endeavouring, before dinner, to answer home letters, and she found herself in difficulties.

"Can I help you?" asked Miss Primrose.

"I suppose you could, but I don't mean to bother you with questions, if it is too soon."

"Ask any questions you like. You really have been a model of patience."

"It is about Miss Primrose—not you, but my father's friend. He and Nessie say I tell them nothing, and they want to know more about her. Am I to say that I have not even seen her, and don't know whether she exists—that it is all a mistake, in fact?"

"I don't think you need be quite so sweeping. What do you mean by—'it all'?"

"I mean that you, of course, are not the Miss Primrose he knew twenty-seven years ago."

"I'm afraid—hardly—since I'm only twenty-five years old."

"You don't look so much."

"No? But my name really is Viola Primrose."

"Some relation, of course. The question is, What has become of my father's Miss Primrose? I believe you know."

"And if I do?"

"Hasn't the time come for me to understand?"

"Perhaps it has. The other Miss Primrose is upstairs—my old aunt. So you are right about the relationship."

"But you said her name—"

"Is Mrs. Palmer. She married Captain Palmer two years ago, and lost her husband in three months. It was just a little interlude in a life of old-maidhood."

"And my father never heard it?"

"I suppose not. I don't know why he should. There has not been much intercourse; and one may so easily pass over the newspaper notice."

"Did Miss Primrose—I mean Mrs. Palmer—ever talk to you of having known my father?"

CHAPTER XII.

THE REAL MISS PRIMROSE.

PAULINE'S question, "Did Miss Primrose—I mean Mrs. Palmer—ever talk to you of having known my father?" brought the rejoinder—

"I have heard his name—and a little about him—lately."

Pauline sat thinking, and then with some abruptness put another query: "Do you know Mr. Rudge?"

"I have known him all my life,"—her colour deepening suspiciously.

"When he spoke of you as 'his Miss Primrose,'—I mean when he spoke of somebody—he meant you, of course."

"Very cool of him!" murmured Miss Primrose, her cheeks like two roses. "Did he say that—to you?"

"Yes. I told him that my father's Miss Primrose must be elderly and plain. And he said, '"My" Miss Primrose is young and beautiful!'"

"I'm very much obliged to him! Now we have settled all that—haven't we?—and you have asked no end of questions. Our next move is to go upstairs. I'll show you the real Miss Primrose of your father's youthful days. Come."

"Is she well enough?"

"Yes—I meant to take you in to-morrow at the latest."

Pauline followed the light steps of Viola Primrose into a bedroom, where sat an invalid lady, well bolstered up with pillows. She was in appearance older than Mr. Ogilvie, and markedly plain, with large features, including a big crooked nose and prominent teeth. Undoubtedly, Miss Primrose Senior could never have been beautiful. The grey knitting in her hands was familiar to Pauline's eyes, since every day she had disentangled the chaos of dropped stitches, pulling out all that Mrs. Palmer did, and replacing the same with fresh work.

Viola went forward, and kissed the invalid's faded cheek. "Auntie, here we are," she said. "This is my new friend, Pauline Ogilvie. Daughter of your old friend, Mr. Ogilvie."

Mrs. Palmer smiled somewhat vaguely, and held out a hand. "How do you do?" she said. "I am glad to see you. Is this the young lady who puts my work to rights? She is cleverer than you, Viola, and much cleverer than nurse. Nurse is very stupid about my knitting. Has she gone downstairs, by-the-by?—ah, that is right! Miss Pauline Ogilvie, you say? Dear me, yes, I remember her father—years and years and years ago."

"You and he were great friends, were you not?" said Viola, motioning Pauline to a seat.

"Why, yes—we were engaged." So Nessie's surmise had been right. "A foolish affair, no doubt,—very foolish! I was older than he; eight years older. That doesn't do at all, and I ought to have known better. He was caught by a pretty face before we married, and broke it off. I don't think he could help himself."

"He ought to have helped himself," Pauline said, with severity.

"Ah, but I doubt if he could, my dear. He was always rather a weak sort of nature, you know. I'm sure he was very sorry, and he would have married me still if I had been willing. Let me see, the girl's name was—oh, Pauline, of course. But you are not like her—not in the least. She was fair and nice-looking. Poor Pauline! Oh, I didn't bear her any grudge, my dear. It was so natural. I never was handsome, and men think everything of that."

"Now, auntie!" protested Viola.

"It's true, my dear, as you'll find. You will never be at a loss for husbands," said Mrs. Palmer, with a fond glance.

Viola echoed the plural noun under her breath.

"But it was quite natural that he should get tired of me. I told him so, and I made him promise, if he should be in any trouble, to let me know, and I would help him if I could—just to show I didn't bear any grudge, you know. When he wrote the other day, he reminded me of that promise. I'm afraid I had pretty nearly forgotten it, but I was glad enough to be reminded."

Evidently the romance of the old love-story had long since died out. Mrs. Palmer was more interested in her grey stocking than in the fortunes of her quondam fiancé, though kindly pleased to help him if she could. She paused at intervals to count her rows, and she drew her brows together more seriously over a dropped stitch than over her long past disappointment. A thousand interests lay between those days and these. Pauline wondered whether, a quarter of a century later, she would be able to look back with equal composure to the Mr. Rudge of her youth.

"When you write to your father, you must be sure to give him my very kind recollections. Or—yes, Viola will tell you what to say. I get a little confused, and Viola manages everything. My dear, how many rows ought I to make here?"

"May I show you?" asked Pauline, moving nearer.

Upon which Viola smiled, and went away.

"It was very good of you to send for me," she said, when the work was proceeding.

"Viola settled it, my dear; Viola does everything. I don't know, I am sure, how I shall manage when she is married."

"Is that likely to be soon?"

"As soon as things can be arranged. She would not leave me before, but that cannot go on, of course. I will not have her sacrificed for me—it would not be fair. A useless old woman!"

"Miss Primrose would not agree with you, I am sure."

"Viola is the sweetest girl that ever lived. But of course she must think of Mr. Rudge."

No one could have told from Pauline's face the utter sinking of her heart. Then—it was true!

"Yes," was all she said.

"It wouldn't be fair to him to go on putting off. If I could persuade him to live with me, then it would be all right. But he's an odd sort of man, and he doesn't seem to fancy it. Mind you don't say a word of this to Viola. I wouldn't have her worried."

"You will have to find a companion to take her place," said Pauline, with a kind of dead calm.

"Yes, that's what Leonard Rudge says. But I don't see it at all. I never got on with strangers in any comfort."

"Now, I think your knitting will go beautifully," said Pauline, standing up. "I mustn't stay too long, or you will be tired, but I can help you again—any time."

She went quietly away to her own room, locked the door, and stood looking out upon the street: not a beautiful and interesting heroine in distress, but a matter-of-fact little being, resolute and brave in heart.

"So now I know," she said aloud. "Now I understand. Now there can be no mistake. Leonard Rudge! The full name. And he is engaged to Miss Primrose! Well, it isn't surprising. She is sweet enough for anything, and I will not let myself love her less because she is to be so happy. I don't quite see why—why he was so kind—so good to me!" A lump rose in Pauline's throat, and two or three big tears struggled out. "But after all, it was only kindness, only politeness. I never had any real reason to think more—only my own foolish fancies. I understand now. He liked my father, and he thought I might do as a companion for Mrs. Palmer when—when he should marry Viola. So natural! I look like the 'humble companion'—that exactly. I've got to the bottom of things now. And he just stayed on at Singleton to study me as his old aunt's future companion. Odd, that 'she' should be my father's old friend all the time. I don't mean to ask any more questions now of any kind. I've been a goose, and nobody shall find it out."

CHAPTER XIII.

DULL LETTERS.

   "YOU certainly do manage to send most dreadfully dull letters," complained Nessie, by post a fortnight later. "Anybody else spending a month in London would have no end of things to tell, but you give us nothing except a dry list of the places you go to—park, picture-gallery, museum; museum, picture-gallery, park—that's about all. And I believe it is pretty much the same to you whether you go out or stay in, and whether you look at pictures or pull out the old lady's knitting.

   "Mrs. Palmer must be a most prosy individual. And as for Miss Viola Primrose, I don't suppose I should think her so desperately pretty. You are always admiring some hideous person. I believe you thought Mr. Rudge handsome, and he is as ugly a man as one can come across.

   "So he is engaged to Viola Primrose. I wish them joy, each of the other. He may be getting a pretty wife, but she won't be getting a handsome husband. Daddy and I did laugh over your prosaic way of stating the fact, just as if you had been expecting it all along. You needn't have made such a fuss, begging and imploring us not to repeat it. Who is there to repeat it to? I'm not likely to go to Mr. Rudge and say:

   "'Pauline says you're engaged to Miss Primrose.'

   "Besides, I couldn't if I wished, for he has vanished. Gone home, I believe. He is coming back, I suppose, some time, for he has the rooms overhead still, and he has left a lot of things littered about, so the landlady says. But she doesn't know when he will come, and I am sure it doesn't matter. I can't think, for my part, why he stays at Singleton at all. He ought to be where Viola Primrose is; 'I' shouldn't like it if I were she.

   "When are you coming back? Father says he can't settle any plans till you do, and it is over three weeks since you went. Is Mrs. Palmer paying you anything? It seems to me that you are just amusing yourself. Do pray, write and say something. Singleton in horribly dull, and my father's clothes are all going into holes, and the weekly bills are higher than when you were with us. I can't help it. I don't know how to manage differently. So make haste and come; there's a dear.

"Your affectionate sister,

"NESSIE."

Pauline pondered long over her answer to this letter. She had felt herself impelled to mention Rudge's engagement to Viola, fearing lest Nessie's fancy might be captivated. And she had done so in the briefest and driest mode, requesting that the news might not be repeated. Nessie's answer was satisfactory as regarded that particular item of information, though not satisfactory in other respects. It spoke too plainly of the younger girl's indolent and self-gratifying habit of mind. After much consideration, Pauline wrote as follows:—

   "DEAR NESSIE,

   "I am sorry my letters are so uninteresting, but you know I never was good at description. Yes, I have been more than three weeks away now, and I began to wonder what I was expected to do, as nobody said anything. But yesterday evening—before your letter came—Mrs. Palmer gave me a ten-pound note, which she said I was to do what I liked with. I suppose she meant it as a sort of payment. So now we can pay off a few bills.

   "Mrs. Palmer is so much better that she talks of going into the country next week. Have I told you that her country house is at Wokingholme? That explains about Mr. Rudge and Miss Primrose—I mean, it would explain, if I didn't know now all about things. Mrs. Palmer and Miss Primrose live only about two miles off from Mr. Rudge, which isn't much. And years ago, when Miss Primrose wasn't an orphan, Mrs. Palmer lived with Mr. Rudge—only 'she' was 'Miss Primrose' then.

   "I am afraid you will say that all this is confused. However, Wokingholme is only a few stations from Singleton, so on Monday we are all going to Singleton for two or three nights. I shall come home, but, I am afraid, not to stay. Mrs. Palmer is very anxious to take me home with her. I suppose the idea is that I am to be her permanent companion when Viola Primrose marries. She says I suit her so well. It isn't what I should choose, for many reasons, but one cannot always do exactly what one would choose."

Little dreamt Nessie, when reading these simple words, of the pain that lay behind them, of how Pauline's whole being cried out against the prospect of a home so near that of Leonard Rudge, when he should be married to another. Yet, if it were her duty—!

   "One cannot always do exactly what one would choose," wrote Pauline bravely: "though I do assure you, Nessie, I would much rather be at home with you and my father. It is quite as hard for me as it is for you. But I am sure these things are arranged for us, and if it is right—I don't mean to preach, but you know what I mean. One has to be willing to do what is right, even against one's own will, if one is to be worth anything in life. Sometimes I suppose one is glad, later on. Dear Nessie, I do want you to try to be courageous, and to take care of my father, and to make things comfortable for him. It does need trying, but I am sure you can learn. Anybody can; it only needs willingness. The beginning is always a little hard. You see, we can't possibly live all together on our present income; and I don't think you would like to go out; so I must.

   "Mrs. Palmer and Miss Primrose want to talk things over, I believe, with my father, but they don't say much. I asked if you should find lodgings, but they say a friend will be there on Monday to look out for them. I fancy they mean Mr. Rudge.

   "Now you must forgive me for writing so plainly; and believe me,

"Your affectionate sister,

"PAULINE OGILVIE."

CHAPTER XIV.

STILL AMONG PERPLEXITIES.

HOME once more! Pauline felt as if she had been away from Singleton for months. If only she could banish "him" from her thoughts, she might reconcile herself to the life of a companion. But how could this be? Mr. Rudge seemed to meet her at every turn. Of course it must be Viola that attracted him. Why else should he come down and find lodgings for Mrs. Palmer? But how could she bear to live near him? The thought stuck in her throat, and try as she would, even money matters scarcely interested her.

"I am so thankful that we can meet some of our liabilities," said Pauline, with an effort, as she sat with her sister on the evening of her return home. "Father thinks everything will turn out right in the end, and it is so difficult to make him take definite action. Even now he hesitates which bills should be paid, and ten pounds is so little."

"Oh, leave money matters to-night, Pauline. The Primroses and Mr. Rudge are only here for a few days; let's have some enjoyment. The monotony of this place fairly killed me while you were away."

"If only we could get free and live within our means, there would be no need—" Pauline stopped. "I mean we must think and plan to be economical. There's the money we have in hand. It might be good enough to balance some difficulties." Then she thought again of Mr. Rudge. "We shall see," she said slowly. "Wait till to-morrow."

"So that girl who looked out of the carriage window was Miss Primrose?"

"Yes."

"She's pretty, I suppose. But I don't care for dark women. I like dark men and fair women."

"She is lovely—much more than merely pretty."

"Well, Mr. Rudge seemed to think so, by the way he went off with her. He has been careering over the whole place to-day looking for rooms. I suppose he has found them. Singleton is empty enough. We shall see nothing of him now Miss Primrose is here, of course."

"Yes, we are to have an excursion to-morrow—all of us together—to a cove two miles off. Cowe's Cove, I think it is called. Father and you and I, and Miss Primrose and Mr. Rudge. If Mrs. Palmer is well enough, she will have a fly, and drive anybody there who doesn't care for the walk."

"I don't mind that. We haven't had anything in the shape of a picnic for ages. Are we to have tea on the shore?"

"No; lunch. A boy and donkey will take the provisions. I told them you and I could manage the walk, but not father, perhaps."

*******

The proposed excursion came off, as it was likely to do if set going by Viola Primrose, weather proving propitious.

After much cogitation it was decided that Mr. Ogilvie, Mr. Rudge, and the three young ladies, should all walk to the Cove. And that Mrs. Palmer should drive to the spot after lunch, ready to give a homeward lift to any who were unequal to further exertion. Mr. Ogilvie showed an unlooked-for readiness to exert himself, and Nessie did not mind fatigue when it became a question of amusement.

For awhile they walked all five abreast, holding general conversation. When the nature of the path rendered this impossible, Pauline did her best to slip behind with her father and Nessie, but she was not allowed. Viola seemed to her most unselfish, Rudge most polite, and somehow—she hardly knew how—she herself was soberly walking with Rudge, while Viola followed with Mr. Ogilvie and Nessie. Pauline felt the state of things to be wrong, and the pleasure was a painful one. She grew absent and sad under the struggle, asking herself again and again whether it would not be needful and right to sever utterly all connection with him, till she should have mastered her heart.

"I'm afraid it has been rather too far for you," Rudge said in a concerned tone, when they had scrambled down a rough path into the pretty cove, where the sandstone cliffs hung over, and the waves played soft music. "You must sit on the shingle, and keep quiet for awhile. The rest of us will see to lunch. What! Miss Nessie fatigued too!"—as Nessie, with an injured air, dropped to the ground. "Then Viola and I will undertake it."

Pauline protested, and was ordered to keep still. While Nessie, finding it dull to be left with a silent sister, thought better of her condition, and joined the others.

It would have been hard for Pauline to say whether she was actually tired, bodily tired, or not. She only knew that she had to submit for the moment, and that everything was very perplexing. The fascination of Leonard Rudge's presence was so complete that it was joy to be cared for by him. And yet she felt that, if she had been Viola, she could not have approved such a manner to another. She could not understand Viola's perfect ease and gaiety. Something was wrong somewhere: but Pauline could not endure to say, even to herself, that Rudge was wrong.

The bitter sweetness of the day was getting to be too much for her; and the bitterness was fast overmastering the sweet. Seated there alone, under the overhanging cliff, she came to one clear conviction. Whatever else might be involved, she could not go to live with Mrs. Palmer. It would not be right. She had to conquer this unbidden love; and to place herself within easy reach of Rudge was not the way to conquer.

"Any place rather than Wokingholme for me," she told herself firmly.

A spot was fixed upon, not far from the cliffs, and lunch was spread. Pauline presently joined the merry group, protesting that she was quite well and not tired, though Viola accused her of being pale still. She did her best to laugh and talk like the rest.

The "bill of fare" included sandwiches and meat-patties, rolls and butter, tartlets, cakes and lemonade,—enough to satisfy even appetites sharpened by a long walk in sea-air.

Pauline alone dallied with her food, and disposed of little.

"Try something else. That doesn't suit, evidently," Rudge said, smiling, and offering a meat-patty.

"Oh, it is as nice as possible. I only forgot," Pauline answered, with a blush. "I'm eating—any amount."

"Pauline always has such a good appetite," said Nessie complacently.

Lunch over, plates and knives were packed in baskets, to be once more consigned to the donkey-boy.

The last basket was the heaviest, and Rudge helped the boy to carry it up the steep path. Mr. Ogilvie and Nessie had strolled to the water's edge at some little distance, perhaps to escape the trouble of packing. Viola and Pauline stood where the lunch-cloth had lain, near but not close together, watching the ascent of the basket. Having deposited it on the top, Rudge turned, and came down swiftly.

"What an active man he is!" Viola remarked, smiling.

Pauline only said, "Yes."

"I've known him all my life, you know—not merely as a cousin, but more as a brother, and he has always been the same. Always ready to do any kindness for anybody. Everybody likes Leonard."

"You do, of course," thought Pauline.

"I wonder if you will think his brother at all like him."

Pauline was by this time aware that a younger brother did exist. She could not but be aware of the fact, since she had seen at least a dozen photographs of him, and since Viola was always talking of "Percy." Viola spoke of "Percy" much oftener than of "Leonard," and this seemed to Pauline quite natural. It was not Pauline's way to talk most of the things or people she most cared for.

"Are they alike?" she asked. Hitherto she had rigidly adhered to her resolution to ask no needless questions about Rudge or his belongings.

"Some say yes: some say no. I see a likeness. Pauline, when I am married—"

Pauline unconsciously drew a pace or two farther away.

"Are you in a hurry to go? I wanted particularly to say something to you, about—"

A shout from Rudge interrupted them, a sharp loud cry, as of warning. He was descending the path, when he stopped to utter this shout, throwing up his arms with a wild gesticulation.

"What can he mean?" exclaimed Viola, turning to look in his direction.

Pauline saw all. A large block of stone was in the act of detaching itself—in the act of falling towards them. So far as could be judged in one instantaneous glance, Viola, standing between Pauline and the distant Leonard Rudge, standing with her back to Pauline and her face to Mr. Rudge, was exactly in the line of its descent. While Pauline's last move, a little to the left, had placed her nearly, if not quite, out of that line. A further retreat in the same direction would ensure safety to Pauline. But Viola!

It might seem that there was no time for Pauline to think, yet in a time of emergency thought is wonderfully rapid. Pauline was quite collected, and in that fraction of a second she knew that if she fled away from Viola to the left, she would escape. But if she crossed the path of the coming danger, she and Viola might both escape. True, in the latter case, both might be struck down, yet it was only a might be. In the former case her own safety was not more assured than Viola's injury. For Viola did not understand the peril. She stood with her back to Pauline, gazing with innocent surprise at Rudge. If Pauline fled the opposite way, there was no possibility of making her understand.

All this came to Pauline in one flash. Words were not formed in her mind, but resolution was co-incident with action. She saw, felt, and did, in the same moment—the same part of a moment. Succession of ideas no doubt there was, but a mental microscope would have been needed to make the succession apparent even to her own mental vision.

"Run! Run!" she shrieked, as she sprang towards Viola, and Viola fled in advance of her, terrified at she knew not what.

The block fell, and was shattered into fragments, which bounded seaward. Viola escaped unhurt, but a large lump flung Pauline to the ground.

CHAPTER XV.

"MR. AND MRS. RUDGE."

"PAULINE—my dearest!"

It was like a dream to Pauline. She came to herself quickly, conscious of pain somewhere, but not yet able to localise it. Distant cries in Nessie's voice reached her first; then a sob close at hand; then a deep masculine utterance of wonderful words—"My dearest!" And she opened her eyes to see the ruddy face she so well knew bending over her, almost colourless.

"You are not hurt! Tell me," he implored hoarsely.

"It's nothing. I'll get up," said Pauline, and she actually pulled herself to a sitting posture. There she had to pause and lean against Viola, very white. "I'm a little—stunned, I think." she murmured. "Is nobody else hurt?"

"Nobody else,—you dear, brave girl," said Viola. "Nessie is only frightened. She won't come near, or let your father come."

"And Viola is safe!" Pauline looked at Rudge, smiling her congratulation. "I've saved her—for you!" she said. Then remembrance came of those words, "Pauline—my dearest!" And a sharp pain darted somewhere,—she had to pause and think where. "My—arm, I believe," she said.

"Only the arm,—nothing worse?"

Viola was feeling the arm gently. "Not broken, I hope," she said. "But what are we to do? The carriage will come directly. We must get her up the cliff, and take her home. She cannot walk, Leonard."

"O yes, I can!" and "Certainly not!" came together.

"Why, Pauline, my dear,—how is this?" demanded the uncertain tones of Mr. Ogilvie, coming near. "Not really hurt, I hope? Poor dear! Nessie is so alarmed. Don't you think we ought to get out of the way? A further fall might take place. How did it all happen?"

"It happened that she saved me at risk to herself," Viola said, with full eyes.

"Really!" uttered Mr. Ogilvie incredulously. He was so used to think of Pauline as only a useful mender of stockings, that any touch of the heroic in her life came as a surprise,—hardly even a pleasant surprise, for people do not like to find themselves mistaken in their estimates of others.

"Nothing else could have saved Viola," said Mr. Rudge, hoarse still with strong emotion.

Pauline believed it to be an emotion of thankfulness for Viola's escape, and yet—had she heard those words aright?—And if so, what did they mean?

"Yes, we should get out of the cove as fast as possible," Rudge continued. "I had no idea it was such an unsafe spot. Will you see to your younger daughter, Mr. Ogilvie? I shall carry Pauline—Miss Ogilvie, I mean—up the cliff. She cannot walk: no, certainly not."

Pauline protested, and found her feet slowly, every movement meaning pain to the injured arm. "I would much rather walk," she said. "I am only a little shaken—and bruised, I think."

She might as well have argued with a stone wall. "There is no time to be lost," he said authoritatively. "Another fall of stone may take place at any moment. Viola, get away as fast as possible. Look out and see if the carriage is coming." Then without further ado, he lifted Pauline, as if she had been a feather, and bore her swiftly over the crunching shingle.

Nessie had already reached the foot of the path, which she ascended with Viola; and Mr. Ogilvie followed alone some little way in the rear of Leonard Rudge. Burdened as the latter was, he could not overtake the girls, if indeed he meant to do so. Half-way up he paused, and Pauline said,—"I wish you would let me walk. I would 'much,' rather."

"If it will make you happy. We are out of danger now, and need not hurry."

"Thanks." Pauline was glad to find herself in a normal position. She stood still to smooth her ruffled plumage, and winced.

"Ah, the pain is bad, I'm afraid."

"Yes. I suppose the stone came against that arm."

"No; the stone must have spent most of its force. It merely knocked you down; and you fell upon your arm. You are not fit to walk, Miss Ogilvie—or—" a pause—"will you give me the right to call you 'Pauline?'"

He had a startled look in answer. Pauline's was not usually a very expressive face, but there was no mistaking its expression at that moment.

"Is it too much to ask?" he asked, his face falling. "I have hoped—"

"But—but—Viola!" she said.

"Viola!" He stood still, looking down at Pauline's upturned face. "Is it possible that you—was that what you meant just now? Surely you know that Viola is engaged to my brother Percy!"

A flood of light was poured over Pauline, illuminating her past, her present, her future. Of course! How stupid she had been. Anybody else must have seen and understood. Perplexities fell to the ground.

"No—I had not heard," she said. "At least—I didn't understand. I—I thought—"

"Thought Viola was engaged to me!" in astonished accents.

It was not Pauline's way to cry easily, but between disturbed nerves, pain, and mental agitation, she was on the verge of tears. To escape such a catastrophe, she hurried bluntly into speech, saying the first words which came to mind,—"Oh, but you know—you did call her—'your' Miss Primrose."

"In contradistinction to your father's Miss Primrose. To be sure,—ha! ha!" laughed Mr. Rudge, but the laugh had a forced sound. "Well; and she is mine—my cousin now, my sister to be. What matters that? She could never be anything nearer—even if—"

"Even if—?" repeated Pauline enquiringly.

"Even if I had never met Pauline Ogilvie!"

After that, little more needed to be said, yet the saying of it occupied some time. Never was a cliff more slowly ascended than by those two. Mr. Ogilvie overtook them and passed by unnoticed. Wisely, he made no remarks. Before Leonard Rudge landed Pauline at the summit, he and she were promised, each to the other.

"You dear little goose, not to understand!" Viola exclaimed, when the state of affairs was revealed. "Aunt Viola said she had told you, so of course I didn't explain, and you asked no questions. But I'm sure I must have talked of Percy a hundred times."

"Yes—and hardly ever of—Mr. Rudge," said Pauline. "I thought you were shy."

"Shy! Ah, you don't know me, do you? Pauline, have you really, truly, honestly believed all along that you were destined for my aunt's companion?"

"Honestly," Pauline could aver.

"And you never saw through my little dodges? You never dreamt that I guessed what Leonard was after down here, and that I wanted to see what manner of choice he was making? Dear innocent old boy—he didn't understand, of course? Don't be angry, Pauline, for he is wonderfully innocent—and yet, I must confess, one never is quite sure how far he does see, with those good-humoured eyes. Anyway, he lent himself to my little schemes, and betrayed 'nothing to nobody!' A man can be circumspect when he chooses, there's no doubt—and I don't believe he half knew his own mind, till you were out of reach."

"I don't think I understand yet what made you and Mrs. Palmer send for me."

"I'm not sure that I understand it fully myself," Viola answered merrily. "One does a lot of things from sheer impulse. But anyhow, I'm not sorry."

Nor could Pauline regret it. She was very happy. Things had indeed "turned out well" for her, as foretold by Leonard Rudge a month earlier—"well," not alone actually, but also apparently.

Had she shirked her plain duty, and remained at the seaside to be near Rudge, results might have been different. At that time Leonard Rudge had been, to say the least, uncertain as to his own feelings and desires. Pauline's departure, the manner of their goodbye interview, his sensations of loneliness in a dull watering-place without her, and a succession of enthusiastic letters from warm-hearted Viola, all had had a marked share in bringing him to the point.

Lastly, that point was attained through the accident on the beach, which called out the heroic side of Pauline's nature, and finally revealed to Rudge that he could not be happy without her. True, the same accident entailed on Pauline some weeks of suffering in the twisted arm, but it may well be believed that she would not have given up the joy to escape ten times as much pain.

Before many months had passed, there was a double wedding: Pauline becoming Mrs. Rudge of Wokingholme, Viola becoming Mrs. Percival Rudge. Since a Miss Primrose no longer existed, my story naturally ends here. It may, however, be added that Mr. Ogilvie and Nessie found a home near Mrs. Palmer; that Nessie, under the pressure of necessity, developed certain new and useful qualities, and that she grew in time to be a prime favourite with the old lady, her father's friend, the quondam "Miss Primrose."

image005

A Strange Will.

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A STRANGE WILL.

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CHAPTER I.

MAKING A WILL.

"THE blind lower, Sparks!"

"Yes, sir."

"Bring my watch to this table. Mind you don't take it away again. Extraordinary that you never can remember! I can't see the clock, lying here. My writing-case has gone too. Put it beside me. Mr. Harvey promised to come, you say?"

"Yes, sir."

"Was that a ring at the front door? Go down and see. Let me know who it is—sharp! and don't dawdle."

Sparks vanished with his air of wooden composure, which might or might not have meant patience; and Mr. Detroit lay under luxurious wraps on a wide couch at the foot of the bed, breathing sonorously.

He looked very ill, oppressed, sunken, and pallid. Once upon a time, Mr. Detroit had been a fine and well-built man, but old age had bowed and shrunken his frame, and the iron grip of sickness had laid him low.

Neither old age nor suffering had been softening in their effects. There were lines of weakness, but none of tenderness, around the cold lips; and no gleams of changeful light were visible in the stern eyes.

Mr. Detroit stood singularly alone in the world. He was without kith or kin, unless of the most distant description. He had made, in his lifetime, few needless acquaintances, and fewer friends. His relations with those who worked under and for him were purely business relations. They did so much for him, and he paid them so much for the doing. That was all. He took no interest in them personally; neither did he expect them to take any personal interest in him.

Except from a business point of view, it mattered little to any human being that he was ill. Nobody loved him; nobody had any cause to think of his name with affection or gratitude. The "joy of doing kindnesses" was a joy unknown to Gilbert Detroit. Not a man, woman, or child was consciously the better for his seventy years' residence on this earth. He had lived for himself, pleased himself and enriched himself exclusively. Now life seemed to be drawing to a close, and a new anxiety came upon him.

It was an anxiety which had not troubled him hitherto. Like most old men in good health, while knowing himself old, he had reckoned on an indefinite term of life. He had gone on carefully amassing wealth, adding pound to pound, never worried by the question, What was the use? For he had no child, no brother or sister, no nephew or niece, to inherit the whole. That had not mattered while he was well. The mere delight of money-getting had been sufficient in itself. To some natures there is a keen delight in it, hardly to be understood by natures of a different mould; and the higher cravings which exist originally in every man may be so withered by long neglect, that at last they actually die out, the lower and meaner satisfaction becoming all sufficient—just for the time! Things were so with Gilbert Detroit.

But health failed, and death threatened; and then the question arose, Whose should all this money be, which he had laboriously gathered together?

The thought troubled him a good deal. It kept him awake at night, and haunted him by day. No man likes to feel that his life's toil has been thrown away. The object of Mr. Detroit's toil, through a goodly part of seventy years, had been wealth, more and more wealth. Now he had the wealth, and he might not stay to enjoy it. Then, whose should it be? Who should enjoy the fruits of his labour? Relatives—he had none! Friends—he had none! Servants and employés—well, he had, but he did not care for them. The poor, the sick, the needy—Bah! Gilbert Detroit had never given of his riches "in charity" during life; why should he so give after death? He did not approve of people, poor or sick or needy. It was their own fault, commonly: or if not, it ought to have been; and in any case he had nothing to do with the matter.

At length he decided to send for his solicitor, Edmund Harvey, an honourable and high-principled man, not wealthy and still young, but doing well in his profession. Mr. Harvey was "sensible," the old man told himself; and Mr. Harvey might see a road out of the perplexity.

This step taken, neither Sparks nor any other member of the household knew five minutes' peace until Harvey arrived.

The room in which Mr. Detroit lay was large, airy, and replete with comforts. Nothing which money could purchase had been spared, except the touch of womanly fingers. Mr. Detroit trusted to Sparks, and scorned the idea of a nurse. Sparks had not done badly for the sick man, on the whole: but his arrangements were apt to be, like himself, somewhat stiff and angular.

"Mr. Harvey, sir."

Sparks ushered in the expected visitor, and stolidly awaited orders.

"Mr. Harvey! How do you do?" the old man said, with no relaxation of the rigid lines round his mouth. It might be that from long disuse of the exercise, he had forgotten how to smile. "Excuse my getting up. I am ill. Pray sit down. A chair, Sparks—no, not there. This side. How stupid you are! Yes; now you may go; and mind you shut the door."

The new-comer, a slightly-made and not tall man, perhaps between thirty-five and forty in age, in colouring pale, in manner frank and gentleman-like, took the offered seat.

"Sparks told me of your indisposition," he said. "I am sorry to hear it. A chill, I believe."

"A chill originally, perhaps. One theory is as good as another to account for an illness."

"Are you feeling somewhat better?"

"Not better at all. Not likely to be so," was the tart response.

After a pause, Mr. Detroit continued—"I have seen a doctor, to please my man. Quite useless, for I knew that nothing could be done. My father died in the same manner, and I have no faith in physicking at my age. But Sparks was urgent, and I consented to call in Sir William Mann, just for an opinion. I told him plainly I didn't require any medicine—didn't believe in medicine—and he told me quite as plainly that in that case he could do nothing for me, and his coming again would be useless. I like outspokenness, and I liked the man. We shook hands over it, and I shall try something that he recommended, but it will make no difference. I don't mean to say that there is immediate danger, only it is the beginning of the end."

He spoke with a hard and chilly indifference still, as he might have alluded to a necessary business journey.

"Life may be lengthened, even where full recovery is perhaps impossible; and painful symptoms may be lessened," suggested Harvey. "You are wise at least to try what can be done."

Mr. Detroit shook his head impatiently.

"Enough on that subject," he said. "I am too old to be argued out of my way, and I require your help in another quarter. I wish to make my will."

He fixed his leaden eyes upon the younger man. Harvey signified assent.

"You shall have the needful papers. Most of them are in yonder bureau. If it is not troubling you too much, perhaps you would unlock the upper half with this key. Thanks. There is a roll of papers in the right-hand drawer—yes—those—if you will be so good as to bring them. You will find all the information needed, as to investments, and so forth. The entire amount at my disposal amounts to close upon £50,000. Not bad for one who began life without sixpence in his pocket—eh?"

Mr. Detroit spoke complacently, and Harvey answered, "No, indeed!" with a touch of surprise. He knew Mr. Detroit to be a man successful in business, and successful too, of late, in certain speculations, but he had not quite expected this.

"And you propose to leave the bulk of it to—"

"That is the question!" said Mr. Detroit. "I have nobody belonging to me. I am at a loss what to do with the money."

CHAPTER II.

A STRANGE DIFFICULTY.

HARVEY'S wonder grew as Mr. Detroit explained his difficulty. The state of things seemed unusual.

"Your nearest relatives?" he suggested.

"I have no relatives—none at least that I care to acknowledge as such. There are, perhaps, a few who might wish to put in a claim to distant cousinship. Ridiculously distant. We are all cousins, I suppose, in Adam. I am nothing to them, and they are nothing to me. Practically I stand alone. Surely you were aware of this."

Harvey might have heard the fact before, but he had not grasped it. He intimated as much.

"Well, it is true. I have never had brother or sister, uncle or aunt, cousin or nephew or niece. My wife, who died three months after our wedding, was in much the same position, and I have never married again—why should I?"

"It is a remarkable case," the solicitor said.

"No doubt. The question now is—what to do with the money? Somebody must have it."

"If you have no relatives to claim a share, what of your friends?"

"I have none," the old man curtly replied.

"None?"

"No."

"But you have had friends in the course of your life. Are there no young people left in whom you are interested—the sons or daughters of old friends? No young married couples, for instance, to whom a legacy of a thousand pounds would be invaluable."

"Young people have no business to marry. I did not marry till I was past thirty; and you are not married yet. That is sensible; but rushing into married life without proper provision is not sensible. Besides, I object to leave my money in mere driblets—a thousand here or a thousand there. I will leave the whole in a lump, where I do leave it. As for friends, I have never troubled myself to make intimacies. What is the use? I do not believe in that sort of thing. Immense amount of humbug is so-called 'friendship,' as you know well enough."

"There are exceptions, I hope. Was not Mr. Plunkett an exception?"

"Nathaniel Plunkett? Well—perhaps—yes. Good fellow—true as steel. Yes, we liked one another; and he didn't try to get anything out of me. One of your clients, was he not? You are aware that I was present when he met his end."

"By drowning—"

"Ay; drowned within sight of land. Most unfortunate event. I was one of the spectators. No help could reach him soon enough. That was—how long ago? Dear me, time flies; why, it is over six years ago. But Plunkett was a good fellow—well meaning, and so on."

"It must have been a great shock to you."

"It was a warning. A man past sixty has no business to get out of his depth when bathing. Absurd! Yes, he went after a girl, I believe, and lost his own life without saving hers. He should have left that sort of thing to younger men."

"Mr. Plunkett left no children, I suppose?"

"Plunkett never married, and I have nothing to say to his brothers."

Difficulties seemed to thicken.

Harvey sat patiently, pencil in hand, waiting for something to note down.

"Your servants," he suggested. "I believe most of them have been long in your house. Probably you would wish to leave them legacies."

"Well—yes—I have no particular objection. Not much sense among them, but they do tolerably well. Ten pounds apiece."

Harvey had expected to hear of one hundred pounds apiece, perhaps more for Sparks.

"Your manager?" he proposed next, referring to Mr. Detroit's house of business in the City. "He has served you faithfully, and work has told upon his health. I have seldom come across a more worthy man than Mr. Marson. You will, of course, wish to leave him some substantial token of your regard."

"Well—yes," said Mr. Detroit.

"And the clerks. They have worked well for you. I know two or three promising young fellows among them whose families are in straitened circumstances."

"Well—well—yes," said Mr. Detroit peevishly.

"Would you like me to get a list of their names, and call again?"

"If you choose. Just as you choose," said Mr. Detroit. "You may put them all down at ten pounds apiece."

"But Mr. Marson?"

"Put him down for one hundred pounds," with evident reluctance.

Then a pause came. The two or three hundred pounds thus bestowed would make small inroads into the fifty thousand.

"I really don't see that you can do better than to leave the bulk of your money to some charitable institution," Harvey said at length, a further attempt in favour of Mr. Marson having failed. "The building and endowing of a hospital, for instance—or of an asylum. Or, what should you say to a church in some needy part of the East End?"

Mr. Detroit was not fascinated by the proposal. Plainly it was distasteful. Through about seventy years of life he had existed purely for self, had thought only of self, had ignored the claims of the poor and suffering; and through the latter half of those seventy years, he had not cared to darken the church doors on his own behalf. To such a man, the bestowal of fifty thousand pounds—the fruits of his life-work—upon hospitals, asylums, or church-building would naturally seem only one degree removed from tossing the same into a gutter.

"I'll tell you what!" he said suddenly, with an air of relief. "I shall leave it all to 'you,' and you may do what you think best with the money. That will be my wisest plan. Why didn't I think of it before, and save myself all this bother? Yes, yes—you shall have the whole."

Harvey stood up.

"I beg your pardon," he said gravely. "You are very good to form such a plan, and I am far from ungrateful. But I could not accept so serious an offer at a moment's notice. I must have time for consideration. Will you let me say goodbye now, and call again to-morrow?"

"Certainly! Certainly! Good-bye. But my mind is made up," said Mr. Detroit.

Edmund Harvey lingered one moment, looking down with pity upon the old man in his wealth and dire poverty.

"Would you not like to see a clergyman?" he asked.

"A clergyman? What for?"

"It might be a comfort. You are ill, you know, and perhaps—"

"I shall be better now that weight is off my mind. Yes, I'll leave the money to you, Harvey. It couldn't be put to a better use. Good-bye; be sure you come again to-morrow. A clergyman!—no, thanks."

CHAPTER III.

"MISS HARVEY."

EDMUND HARVEY left the house of Mr. Detroit in a state of considerable preoccupation. It is not often that fortunes of £50,000 go begging in this style; or that a young solicitor has such an offer made him by a client.

That Harvey should neither have hastily accepted nor hastily refused the offer spoke well for him. He would not undertake such a trust without weighing the matter well beforehand: yet a refusal might be wrong. Somebody would have and use the money. Why should it not be in his hands a power for good?

"Hallo!" a voice said, breaking into his reverie as he went along the busy street, threading his way in the neat mechanical style of an experienced Londoner.

Harvey came to a standstill, with nod and smile of greeting.

"Fine day!" he said.

"I was under the delusion that it had begun to drizzle, but of course you know best," the other responded, with a comical glance at the murky surroundings. He was five or six years Harvey's junior, tall and blithe, with confident bearing and line outline of face—a man to be liked and trusted at first sight.

A laugh answered him.

"I had not noticed the drizzle."

"Wits gone wool-gathering?"

"I had a knotty point to unravel. I say, Campion, come home with me to dinner. My sister arrived yesterday."

"Thanks. I think I will. No engagement this evening, happily, and it is an age since I saw your sister. Let me see—she lives at Portminster. Yes, of course."

Harvey nodded.

He seemed still to be in a state of semi-abstraction, at which Campion would have wondered less had he known the cause.

"I wish I could persuade my mother to make her home in London, but nothing will induce her to leave the old neighbourhood."

Mr. Detroit was a tea-merchant. His gains had been not only through the tea-business, however. He had also been a successful speculator, in a small way, on the Stock Exchange; and much of his success in that direction was due to the keen foresight and the prudence of his "broker."

Arthur Campion was his broker. Rather singularly a personal friendship existed, and had for some time existed, between Mr. Detroit's solicitor and Mr. Detroit's broker.

Mr. Detroit's West End house being at a goodly distance from Harvey's, the latter hailed a hansom, and the two friends were speedily set down before a lofty and narrow dwelling, chocolate-tinted, in a highly respectable quarter, having about it a generally well-to-do air.

Harvey opened the front door with his latchkey, and led the way upstairs into a three-windowed drawing-room.

Campion had seen Harvey's sister before. He remembered her well: a busy active woman, somewhere in those hazy middle-aged regions which are supposed to follow directly after thirty, but which often wait a good deal longer; the very embodiment of common-sense, with a round-about little figure, plump face, and no particular features; also with powers of talk to any extent on every imaginable subject. Campion never counted Miss Harvey equal to her brother; still on the whole, he liked her, when she did not quite overpower him with her excellent theories. One may weary even of excellence, when it takes too obtrusive a form; and no man over thoroughly admires a woman who is not at least as good a listener as talker. But nobody expected Miss Harvey to condescend to the position of a listener. Life was not long enough for all she had to say.

So Campion entered the drawing-room, picturing to himself a homely figure seated primly on the sofa, knitting perpetual stockings, and ready to welcome with enthusiasm a new listener. He had actually shaped his lips into the "How do you do, Miss Harvey? Any more reclaimed vagabonds to the fore?"

But Campion never uttered those words. For the slender girl-figure, tall and reed-like, springing from a lowly position on the rug, was by no means that of the Miss Harvey whom he had known; neither were the soft grey eyes and cherry lips those of thirty or forty years.

"Harvey's sister! Why, she can't be over twenty! A quarter of a century between them," thought Campion, with perhaps excusable exaggeration, for he was much surprised.

"I have brought a friend home to dinner, Gabrielle," Harvey was saying. "Mr. Campion—my sister Gabrielle."

Gabrielle had evidently been playing with the kitten on the hearthrug, for a small fluffy creature clung still to one shoulder, with its claws in her fair hair.

Edmund Harvey, unlike many men, was a patroniser of cats. She put up one little hand to disentangle the creature, laughing, blushing, and bowing in response to the introduction.

"Had a very lonely day?" asked Harvey, depositing himself in an armchair.

"O no, not at all. Mrs. Wiseman took me in the morning for a shopping expedition, as you know, and this afternoon Mrs. Taylor drove me through the Park. I enjoyed that, of course. If only the good people there did not look so terribly bored, one might think they liked it too."

"They are taking their pleasure in their own way—English fashion," said Campion.

"It seemed to me a sad fashion. I could almost have counted the smiling faces on my fingers."

"This is Gabrielle's first visit to town," explained Harvey.

"Indeed! Then you have still to be initiated into the fashionable boredom of London life."

"But I never was bored, and I mean never to be," she retorted merrily. "Yes, I am only a country cousin; this is my first sight of London. They all said I ought to come, and Ted—Edmund, I mean—would not let me off. I like it all immensely, of course; everything is so new to me. And the Park was perfectly delightful—for a variety. I think I should soon get tired of the monotony, if it came every day."

"Monotony is commonly supposed to be the exclusive privilege of country folks."

"But I am sure I had a glimpse of it to-day, for the first time in my life."

Gabrielle presently vanished to dress for dinner, and Campion exclaimed—"This is another sister, not the one I have seen."

"She is my half-sister, a good deal younger than Mary and myself. Did you not know there was a second marriage?"

"I didn't take in the fact of a daughter, somehow, or at least that she was like—"

Campion came to a pause.

"Like this? She is a pretty creature, certainly. I have hardly begun to realise that she is leaving childhood behind. My stepmother is never content to have Gabrielle out of her sight. Otherwise, she would often have been here. My dear fellow, you must have heard her name a hundred and one times!"

Campion was not sure.

"Well, yes—her name, certainly, now I think of it," he said. "I had a sort of idea of a little school-girl—"

"Which she was until six months ago."

"A niece, or adopted child, or something of that sort?"

"Is a step-sister 'something of that sort?' Anyhow, she is a particularly nice girl. Perhaps one ought not to mention school in connection with Gabrielle. Mary has been responsible for her education."

Campion could have groaned aloud in pity for the pupil. Yet he only knew one side of the matter; and Gabrielle had been better off than he in his ignorance supposed. Mary Harvey, letting off a volley of theories for the enlightenment of a masculine hearer, and Mary Harvey in the quiet round of daily home duties, were two very different people.

CHAPTER IV.

"A COUNTER-PROPOSAL."

HARVEY had not so much to say as usual during dinner, which, by-the-by, was well served, with all the particularity of a bachelor household. His thoughts were much occupied still with Mr. Detroit.

But Gabrielle and Campion allowed few conversational gaps, and his occasional abstraction was hardly noticed.

Gabrielle was a well-read and well-informed girl, quite able to hold her own in touch with another's mind; and the graceful union of girlish freshness with womanly thought fascinated Campion. He had never come across anybody like her before.

Somewhat later in the evening Harvey's absence of mind became more marked. They had returned to the drawing-room, and Campion jested him on a prolonged fit of silence, demanding the cause.

"I was speculating at that moment," Harvey answered, "as to what you or I would do if fifty thousand pounds came suddenly into our hands."

"Shouldn't have the slightest objection," Campion said lightly.

Gabrielle's face took a serious set.

"Would you be puzzled what to do with the money, Ted?"

"I might be. The case I am supposing is of money left to one in trust, to be used wisely for others."

"H'm, that alters the case materially."

"I know what 'I' would do," Gabrielle said, with her pretty girlish decisiveness. "I would build a hospital for Portminster. It is needed so terribly. I do think that ought to come first in our charities. Able-bodied men may know what it is to be poor and have trouble, but they can work; they are not helpless. It is when illness comes that want is most dreadful; and I don't see how one can expect to do good to them—to their minds and hearts—unless one does good to their bodies first. Isn't that the Christ-like way? I would build and endow a hospital, and would give free admission to anybody or everybody in real need—not, of course, to stingy well-to-do people, who just want to save their shillings for their own pleasures."

"Why, Gabrielle, you are eloquent," her brother remarked, smiling.

"I think I could supplement Miss Harvey's hospital with something not less needed," Campion said, falling into Gabrielle's line of thought. "I should like to start a country or seaside home, to lessen the number of the hospital patients. No, not a convalescent home, but a place where one might send the worn-out city poor at little or no cost—the deserving poor, I mean. Hardworking fathers and toiling mothers, for instance, just to give them the change they need before they break down."

"I like that idea," murmured Gabrielle.

"Hospitals and convalescent homes are well enough, but they come after the breakdown," pursued Campion, warmed by her sympathy. "I would try in some cases to forestall the need for either. There are poor fellows whom I know at this moment, going on hard and fast for a crash. They can't get away, can't afford journeys or lodgings. A fortnight in the country might set them up for months, and they can't have it. Just the old story, you know—the bread-winner failing, everything depending on him, and nothing to be done."

Harvey sat in thought as the others talked. A new idea had dawned upon him.

Next day, he found his way once more to the bedroom of Mr. Detroit, and was greeted with the abrupt observation—

"My mind is still made up. I hope you have no objection to offer."

Harvey shook hands, asked after the old man's health, sat down, and presently said:—

"I am going to make a counter-proposal. Will you leave the money to Campion and me jointly, to be used in such a manner as may seem best to us both? I should prefer this to the sole responsibility."

"Campion! Campion! Why Campion particularly? But I don't know that I have anything to urge against the plan, if you wish it. Campion will do well enough, jointly with yourself. Yes—if you like."

The matter was arranged thus. The will was in due time drawn up—not, of course, by Harvey himself—signed, and witnessed. With the exception of a few small legacies, the whole sum which lay at Mr. Detroit's disposal was left between Edmund Harvey and Arthur Campion, to be employed by them as their united wisdom should dictate. "For charitable purposes" was rather implied than stated, and rather by Harvey's wish than by Mr. Detroit's.

But after all these preliminaries, Mr. Detroit did not die.

Whether from the removal of a weight from his mind, whether from the medicine he had consented to "try," or whether from his native force of constitution, instead of getting worse, he began to improve.

At first he refused to believe in the possibility of a change for the better. Having doggedly made up his mind that death was inevitable, he hardly cared to be disturbed in the belief. It upset his plans, so to speak. Nevertheless, as days went on, there could be no denial of the fact. He was stronger, he suffered less, he had a better appetite. By-and-by he could leave his room; then he was able to drive out. And at length, he might once more be seen in his counting-house, or hovering about the regions of the Stock Exchange.

He was not, of course, sorry to come back to life. Few men are, even when they have treasure in another world; and Mr. Detroit had no treasure there. Had he gone, he would have left behind him all that he cared for. Perhaps this fact dawned upon him faintly; at all events, as he became stronger, his love of life returned.

Mr. Marson, his head-manager, a thin, worn, gentle-mannered man, was glad to see his employer back, though Mr. Detroit bestowed upon him no kind words or looks. Long experience had taught him to expect none. Yet his face showed pleasure when he congratulated the old man on recovery. The clerks ventured upon no such congratulations. In Mr. Detroit's eyes, they were merely a set of human scribbling machines. He would have been very much astonished at any show of feeling on their part.

CHAPTER V.

THE PROGRESS OF EVENTS.

IT became evident that Mr. Detroit was a good deal changed by his illness. His hair was whiter, and the furrows on his face had deepened. Moreover, he walked with a somewhat trembling gait, and seemed altogether unstrung—not so entirely master of himself as he wished always to appear.

In another respect also there was a marked alteration. He grew more chatty, more garrulous, more disposed to let slip whatever happened to be in his mind.

Mr. Marson was the first to remark upon the new phase of affairs. A quiet man, given to few needless words, scrupulously exact and honourable in all his dealings, Marson was just one of those toiling and worn-out fathers who might be benefited by such a scheme as the one Campion had suggested to Gabrielle. He had an invalid wife, one daughter, and numerous boys.

During many years he had not been out of the City, except for a day. How should he? Prolonged and hopeless ill-health in his wife was a ceaseless drag upon his resources, and the needs of his young growing family seemed never to be satisfied. Although Marson's position under Mr. Detroit was a responsible one, involving heavy work, the salary he received was by no means large. Mr. Detroit habitually ground down his subordinates to the lowest possible terms.

"What did they want with more?" he sometimes asked.

And though of late, when seemingly about to quit this world, Mr. Detroit had found a difficulty in settling what to do with his wealth, yet now that he had come back to a measure of strength, he showed himself as keen as ever in business, as eager to amass more money, as resolutely bent upon saving. "The ruling passion" would be strong even in death with him.

"I had a curious talk with Mr. Detroit this afternoon," Mr. Marson observed one evening to his daughter. They were together in the shabby small drawing-room of a small house.

The younger boys were in bed; the elder boys were learning their lessons elsewhere. Mrs. Marson could seldom come downstairs. All the cares of housekeeping and of nursing devolved upon the shoulders of this slim pale girl with large wistful eyes—grey eyes, not unlike those of Gabrielle in colour and size, but how different in expression! Ella was only seventeen, a whole year younger than the fair and light-hearted Gabrielle. She might have been ten years older, if one judged by her prematurely burdened and serious look.

"With Mr. Detroit?" she repeated, looking up from the child's sock over which her fingers were busy.

"He kept me quite a long while, chatting about his own affairs. Mr. Detroit never used to be so communicative."

"What was it all about?" Ella asked, and then she flushed up for a moment, the bright colour fading quickly. "If he thought rather more about your affairs, father, it wouldn't be so very surprising, after all these years."

She could be resentful for others under the long pressure of daily life, and she had not attained to her father's enduring patience.

"My dear, Mr. Detroit counts me amply repaid for all my services. He has said as much to me. But it was curious," Mr. Marson continued, unheeding a slight exclamation from Ella, "very curious. He spoke of his illness, and of the extreme perplexity he had felt as to the disposal of his money. The matter seems really to have weighed upon him. After a good deal of hesitation, he decided to leave the whole to Mr. Harvey and Mr. Campion, with the exception of a few small legacies. You see he has no near relatives—no relatives at all, some say—and has made his own fortune. He is, of course, perfectly free. But the decision struck me as—well, rather singular."

"I know who has made a great deal of his fortune for him!"

"I have tried to do my duty, Ella; that is all."

"And he has not done his; so that ought not to be all!"

"It is well that we are alone," Matson observed. "But you would not say this to another. Mr. Detroit has kept strictly to the original agreement. I have no just cause for complaint. Some in his place, prospering as he has prospered, might perhaps—but I see no use in suppositions. If I were a younger man, I should press for an increase of salary. As things are now, I hardly dare to venture. Many an unencumbered man would gladly step into my place on my present terms; and if I lost the work, it might be hard to find another opening equally good. I am not the man that I was."

"If not, it is work for Mr. Detroit that has worn you out, father."

"Come—I shall be sorry that I have told you so much. I did not mean to excite you. My dear, this must not go any further. Mr. Detroit made no mention of secrecy: still it ought not to become known through us."

Ella promised silence, and kept her word. The thing did become known, however—not through the Marsons, but through Mr. Detroit's own new-born talkativeness. He went about telling everybody of his will-making, his difficulty and its solution, his lack of relatives and his chosen heirs, till the story became a leading topic of conversation among his acquaintances. Certain needy individuals of the "sharper" class, whose tie of consanguinity with Mr. Detroit existed probably in Japhet, began thereupon to prick up their ears.

Many months had slipped by since Mr. Detroit's illness, and it happened that for about a quarter of a year Harvey had held no intercourse with the old gentleman. He had been very busy; time had gone fast; and he had no especial call in that direction.

One murky February afternoon, as he passed rapidly along the crowded pavement of Cornhill, and turned down a side street, blocked with huge vans and patient dray-horses, Harvey narrowly escaped "colliding" with his friend Campion. Each exclaimed "Hallo!" and each recoiled.

"The very person I wanted to see!" burst simultaneously from two mouths.

"You first," Harvey said, smiling. "Mine is not business—merely about—But go on."

Campion wore a disturbed look.

"Merely about—? Yes. Pray tell me. I hope—I hope your sister is well."

"Mary? Oh, perfectly well. I'll tell her you kindly made enquiries. What had you to say?"

Campion seemed for a moment to have forgotten. "Do you know that Matson is ill?" he asked, after a pause.

"No; poor fellow."

"I don't know what is the matter. Over-work and under-feeding, I suspect. And how on earth they are to get on, I don't know either. Mrs. Marson has been worse lately—suffers terribly. And that poor girl—it's enough to kill her."

"I'll look in and see them. Something ought to be done. I have a great respect for Marson."

"There's something else. Mr. Detroit has broken down again."

"Seriously?"

"Hopelessly, I am told. Not many weeks to live."

Harvey was pursuing his way along the quieter side street, Campion having turned to accompany him.

"When did you hear?" asked the former.

"Two days since. Met the old housekeeper. The breakdown seems to have been unexpected, but from her account, he evidently hasn't been himself for a month or so. Sparks is turned off, and a new man installed. The old woman is very indignant, of course."

"H'm!" said Harvey.

Campion lowered his voice.

"If I were you, I would look up the poor old fellow. I hear from another source that a set of harpies are after his money, getting him to make a new will. Nephews and cousins innumerable have suddenly turned up, and he believes it all. A regular organised attack. He won't see a doctor, so there's nobody to interfere—except you."

"He has no nephews, and no cousins within four or five degrees."

"There may be cousins of the fiftieth degree. They are laying claim to some sort of connection—so I am told. You had better test the truth of the report, and see that the poor old chap isn't swindled out of everything he has. They would find him a tough enough customer in health, but things are different now. I have no more to tell you. What had you to say?"

"Nothing much. My sister is coming again."

"Your sister—ah!—the eldest, of course?"

"No; Gabrielle."

"O indeed!" and Campion endeavoured not to seem too delighted.

"Mary is your favourite, no doubt—that stands to reason. She is such a good deserving creature. I like her to be appreciated; and Gabrielle is a mere chicken. My dear fellow, don't look so furious. You are coming out of your way, I'm afraid. Don't take another step. I'll tell you all about Gabrielle another day. You must come to meet her—though she isn't Mary!—and meantime Mary shall be sure to hear of your kind inquiries. I'll write to fix an evening. Good-bye."

Harvey walked laughingly off in one direction, and Campion strolled dreamily in the other. Business, noise, crowds, murky sky—all were forgotten. He walked through light and trod upon air the rest of the day.

CHAPTER VI.

NATHANAEL PLUNKETT.

"MR. DETROIT! Yes, sir—certainly, sir. He is seeing friends, though not able to leave his room. Pray step in, sir."

Harvey stood at the front door of Mr. Detroit's house. The servant who opened the door to him was young and sharp-eyed, manifestly a new importation. Was this Sparks' successor? Sparks had not been wont commonly to answer the door-bell.

"Will you please, sir, to wait your turn in the dining-room?"

The man moved in that direction.

"Wait my turn! What for? Stop!" Harvey said. "I don't understand."

For a moment he wondered whether he could have come absently to the wrong house-to a dentist's, for example—but the surroundings were too familiar.

The man gave him a keen glance.

"Then you're not another of Mr. Detroit's relations, sir?"

Harvey saw through the tangle at once.

"No relation at all, but an old friend. You were not here when I called last?"

"No, sir; there's been a lot of changes, and there's like to be a lot more. Everybody's new except the housekeeper, and she's only staying on because she can't be got to go. I've been three weeks, and I'm going at the month's end. And the butler's new too, and 'he's' going. I'm just answering of the door for him now while he's out."

Harvey stood considering. He could not quite read the man's expression.

"Mr. Detroit has had callers lately, you say—relatives."

"Cousins and nevvys by the dozen, sir. Never knew an old gentleman who'd got such a lot of kind relations, all a-wanting to ask about his health. And he won't have one refused. He sees 'em all in turn, up in his room. The housekeeper says it's killing of him, but he won't stop. I thought at first you was maybe another nevvy, sir."

The man's tone, though not rude, was free.

"You were mistaken," Harvey answered gravely, and he subsided.

"Anyways, I've got to obey orders," he said, with more meekness. "Would you please to wait here?" and he opened the dining-room door.

Harvey had not made up his mind what to do. He stepped forward, and took a good look round.

Several individuals were present; some belonging apparently to the "shabby-genteel" class, the shabbiness predominating over the gentility; some more flashy in appearance. One gentleman in checked trousers sat upon the table, taking pains to display a diamond ring upon the little finger of his left hand. Others lounged about in easy chairs or on couches. Wine and spirits stood on a side table, and half-emptied cups of tea were about. A certain amount of talking and laughing went on. Harvey knew instantly that a good many of these gentry were not strangers to one another. His first thought was, "Is this an organised conspiracy?" his second, "Have I misjudged that man's look?"

Then his resolution was taken.

"Ah! I am afraid I cannot wait so long to-day," he said aloud quietly, and drawing back, he shut the door.

"Now," he said, in a low voice, "I am a busy man, with no time to waste, and I wish for a few words with Mr. Detroit. Is he alone?"

"Bless you! No, air. There's a pack of 'em with him now—always is."

"That can't be helped. If you will manage to take me upstairs at once, I will make it worth your while."

The man rubbed his cheek dubiously. "Well, sir, it's against orders, and strict orders too, for Mr. Detroit is a very particular sort of a gentleman, and no mistake. But I don't know as it matters to me if he is put out. I'm leaving in a week."

"He will not be 'put out.' I am an old friend of Mr. Detroit's."

"I shouldn't wonder if he'd ought to see you," the man said. "There's something that isn't as it should be; and the old gentleman's in a state to be easy imposed on. That's what I say. If he's got any friends, they 'd ought to see him—if 't isn't too late, that's to say. For he's been and gone and done it now—signed the new will this very morning. And I suppose his cousins and nevvys is all come to thank him, and to make sure as nobody meddles."

"No doubt they will be the gainers by this new will."

"No doubt, sir. And if they 'was' his near relations—if so, be that's all true—why there's nothink to be said agin it."

"Certainly not. Thanks for your information."

Harvey had an impression that the man was straightforward, though by no means averse to making capital out of the said information.

"You're welcome, sir. Fact is, I don't like to see a poor old gentleman put upon, and nobody to help him through. No, I don't like it, and that's a fact. They do say as his last will was a queer 'un, but I shouldn't wonder if this was a queerer."

"Will you tell someone to answer the door in your absence. I should rather wish you to be present as a witness during the interview. What is your name?—ah, Blake. I think I may trust you, Blake. You mean well by my old friend."

His penetrating glance was met frankly. "I hope as I do, sir," Blake answered. "Yes, I'll give orders, and I'll stay. One moment, please." He was speedily back, adding, "This way."

Harvey followed him up the broad staircase to the first floor. "A set of harpies!" he muttered. "Nephews and cousins, indeed."

Mr. Detroit lay once more on the couch, in the guise of a complete invalid. He was much changed, his features having a sunken and dark look; and his voice was weak and piping, as if all strength were gone.

The housekeeper stood in the background, with a face of grim disapproval; while three individuals—gentlemen in dress and by courtesy—were grouped around the couch. One stood upright; one leant on the footboard of the big bedstead; one sat in a dégagé attitude astride a chair, facing its back, as he joked his invalid "uncle."

Harvey bowed slightly. He knew these people by sight, and was acquainted with their character. Covert glances exchanged among the three showed that they also know him.

The alteration in the old man really grieved Harvey. The hand of coming Death had already drawn legible strokes on that poor withered face. But Mr. Detroit did not seem to be depressed. He was laughing when Harvey approached—a weak continuous laugh.

"How do you do?" Harvey said kindly. "Not so well lately, I am afraid."

Mr. Detroit showed no surprise at his unexpected visitor. He glanced vaguely once or twice in his direction, then beckoned him nearer.

"I say,—" he beckoned again, till Harvey bent over the couch; "I say," and the old face assumed a childish cunning, while he spoke in a mysterious undertone; "I say, I've seen Nathanael Plunkett."

"Indeed!" Harvey answered.

"Yes, I've seen Nathanael Plunkett. Came yesterday."

A silence had fallen on the others. Harvey held the old man's attention.

"You saw him—how?"

"I say," beckoning again and laughing feebly, "I saw Nathanael Plunkett yesterday. You know! Plunkett himself. He came in and stood just there—where you are. I've seen him!" Mr. Detroit nodded two or three times in confirmation of his own words.

Harvey stood up and glanced round significantly.

"Gentlemen, you will please to note this. You may not be aware that Mr. Plunkett died nearly seven years ago, and that our friend Mr. Detroit witnessed his death by drowning. Mr. Detroit now declares positively that he saw yesterday, in this room, a man whom he knows to have been seven years dead."

The faces grew longer, and there was no response.

Mr. Detroit, after muttering again, "Nathanael Plunkett—yes, I saw him—came in here," turned aside and seemed disinclined for further talk.

Harvey took his leave, not forgetting to reward Blake as he went.

CHAPTER VII.

BROKEN ICE.

ONCE more Gabrielle Harvey had come to her brother's house.

Somebody besides Harvey was more than glad to see again that fair young face. Campion had lived upon recollections of it month after month. Time had deepened rather than lessened the impression made on him. He could have no manner of doubt now about the state of his own feelings towards her, and indeed nobody else could have any doubt about them either. But Gabrielle's state of mind towards him remained still an unknown quantity in calculations as to future events.

She had come earlier this year than last, and a late frost held London in its grip. Two days after her arrival, the brother and sister sallied forth to watch the crowds of skaters in the park. A low grey sky contrasted with the white ground, but despite the greyness, people were full of merriment—much more gay, Gabrielle thought, than when performing the stately carriage circuit on balmier afternoons.

Her own face, sparkling with enjoyment, won a good deal of attention. She was rather shy of skating in so large a concourse, though quite capable of it. Looking on was perhaps the more amusing to her unaccustomed eyes.

As she clung to her brother's arm, chatting, she presently noted three little boys in well-patched knickerbockers sliding in a retired corner, while a tall girl stood watching them—a girl of any age, Gabrielle thought, she had so young and yet so old a face. It was a pretty outline of feature, seen sideways from Gabrielle's position, with long lashes drooping over sorrowful grey eyes, and a patient curve of the full lips. The girl's dress was very plain, yet neatly and gracefully worn. She had no furs like Gabrielle; only an old cloth jacket, and a knotted silk scarf, and a small brown bonnet of unknown age.

"But what a sweet look!" Gabrielle burst out softly, as the finale of her cogitations.

"That young lady? Yes, I know her—the daughter of Mr. Detroit's manager." Gabrielle noticed an unusual interest in Harvey's tone. "Marson is an excellent fellow—I have the greatest esteem for him."

"She is too young to look so very serious. I should like to see her smile."

"Poor girl! I am afraid there is cause enough. Small means and large family. The mother incurably ill, and the father just broken down."

"Ted! And you can tell me so quietly! Why isn't something done? Why don't you help them?"

"How?"

"I don't know. Give them what they need."

"My dear child, it is not so easy. One gentleman can't walk in upon another, and present him with a cheque for two or three hundred pounds—even if he had it to spare. Marson is a thorough gentleman by birth and breeding—well connected, I believe."

"She is very lady-like—one can see that at a glance. And such pretty eyes—if only they were not so sad. Why don't you speak to her?"

"We are mere acquaintances. I have spoken to Miss Marson twice or three times. If she would glance this way—"

"She won't. I believe she doesn't choose. Or perhaps she has forgotten who you are. You must get me to know the Marsons—do, Ted."

As she spoke, Campion stood before her. He and she had met the day before, but for a few minutes only.

Campion had dragged since through interminable hours of alternate hope and despair. Hope struggled uppermost, as he met her sunny glance.

For the moment she lost sight of the Marsons and their troubles.

"Don't you skate, Miss Harvey?"

"Yes, in the country—but not here. I'm not used to such a crowd; and it is such fun seeing all the people. Don't let us keep you off the ice."

Campion had not the least desire to skate that day, and he said so. Gabrielle was kind enough to seem unconscious of the skates dangling from his left hand.

"By-the-by, have you heard the news?" he inquired suddenly of Harvey.

"No. What news?"

"Mr. Detroit's death."

"No!"

"Quite sudden, this morning. Nobody expected it so soon. I heard by accident."

The sad-faced girl, watching her little brothers, happened at this moment to be within earshot. She turned sharply, with a blank and startled look, as if to listen.

"I had no idea—I wish I had called again," Harvey said in a troubled manner. "Poor old man!"

"You have been so busy," Gabrielle observed.

She drew his attention to Ella Marson's scared face, and his hat was immediately lifted. But Ella Marson did not seem to notice the gesture, or to recognise him. Her wide-open grey eyes were gazing into vacancy, as if in piteous appeal against some threatened ill. Gabrielle's own eyes grew moist.

"How unhappy she looks!—So terribly distressed. What can it mean?" whispered Gabrielle.

And Campion asked, "Who is that?"

"Marson's daughter. I am afraid Mr. Detroit's death may be a serious matter to the Marsons. If the business passes into fresh hands, a younger man is likely to be preferred in Marson's place."

Harvey spoke low.

"He is very dependable. It is not impossible that he may be kept on," said Campion.

A shriek arose—shrill, sudden, and echoed by many voices.

While Ella Matson had been absorbed in attention to what was said, and then had been lost in her own thoughts, one of her little brothers, Jemmie, had taken the opportunity to slide past a certain warning-post, which told of danger beyond.

For three seconds he enjoyed the forbidden delight. Then the ice yielded beneath him, and with a piercing cry, he went down out of sight.

CHAPTER VIII.

A RESCUE.

NO sound escaped Ella's lips as she rushed over the slippery surface towards that perilous neighbourhood. But another was quicker. As she sped along, Campion dashed ahead, and Harvey's hand came upon her arm with a firm grasp.

"No use for two to go. Wait—" as she struggled wildly to escape—"wait, Miss Marson—"

"No! No!—I must," panted Ella. "I ought to have been looking! O, how could I forget? O Jemmie, Jemmie—"

"They are bringing ropes and planks," Harvey said, encouragingly. "See, Campion is getting near, and you could not do more. The weight of a second would only break through, and make matters worse."

She gave him one mute glance of agony, which stirred him as Harvey was not often stirred, and then allowed herself to be led to his sister's side.

"Keep Miss Marson here, Gabrielle," he said briefly. "I must see if I can help."

The girls stood side by side, not speaking, only Gabrielle's little hand stole into Ella Marson's, and the two hands remained locked together. Until that moment utter strangers, they seemed suddenly to have become one in fear and hope. But they did not even exchange glances. Both pairs of grey eyes were strained towards the black water.

Campion, lying flat, worked his way over the bending ice till close to the hole. A little dark head could be seen there, floating on the surface, and Campion's outstretched hand grasped it. There was a shout from the on-lookers, suddenly stilled. For the ice upon which Campion lay shivered beneath him into fragments. Instantaneously both he and the child went down.

One long scream rang out in a woman's voice—not Ella's voice, for Ella made no sound. Those around knew that the cry came from the lips of Gabrielle Harvey. She did not hear it herself. She looked like a frozen statue, rigid and white.

Help was close at hand: if it might be in time. Neither Campion nor Jemmie could be seen.

Planks were pushed over the ice, and men were at work with ropes and axes, above all with willing hands. The ice had to be broken away, cautiously, yet fast. Harvey had gone to offer his services. He came back presently to the two girls, standing still side by side with locked hands where he had left them. Gabrielle's clutch was like that of a vice.

Ella could not free herself, could not get away. She looked very white, but was not shedding tears. And even in that moment of suspense, she could notice pityingly the wordless horror of her companion. Long training in early life had taught her self-command and self-neglect.

Harvey would not soon forget this which he saw in Ella Marson. Self-absorption would have been more likely at such a time in any other girl of his acquaintance.

When he came up, she said steadily, "I think you ought to see to your sister. She is—" and then huskily, "O, tell me! Are they saved?"

"They were under the ice. They are taken out," Harvey said hurriedly. "You must come away, both of you. Come with me. Take my arm, Miss Marson—and you, Gabrielle: can you walk? Yes; this way—make haste. I hope all will be right."

He hardly knew yet what to say, what to expect, only he was bent upon not letting them see the two unconscious death-like forms.

"Everything will be done at once that ought to be done. A doctor is there. This direction, Miss Marson."

"Why may I not stay with Jemmie? O, let me stay!" implored Ella.

But he urged her on. "No, not yet—presently. They are being brou—they are coming to. Quick, if you please."

Gabrielle obeyed like one in a dream, not speaking. It was as if some wild creature were clutching at her throat, preventing utterance. The overwhelming distress which she felt, startled herself.

"No one must see—no one must guess," a voice in her heart kept, saying. "I must be calm—I must keep calm," and she thought herself successful. But if so, it was only because Harvey was, for once, too much absorbed in another to give her needful attention.

A house was reached, Gabrielle had no idea where. She only knew that somebody took her in, somebody held water to her lips, somebody bade her wait there quietly, somebody tried to keep Ella also, and failed. Ella had the right to go, and Gabrielle had no right. What cause had she to grieve if Campion died, more than over the loss of a casual acquaintance? But he was more to her than a casual acquaintance, and she knew it now.

She had to wait, as bidden, for she might not go to ask how matters stood. Rather it was needful that she should school herself to merely the expression of a kind and gentle anxiety. Campion's sudden death would be indeed a grievous thing in the eyes of anybody, and Gabrielle had to take it outwardly just as "anybody" might.

Standing up, she walked to the fireplace, and there her glance met the reflection of a wax-like face, absolutely devoid of colour, the blue eyes fixed in wretchedness.

Then the door opened, and somebody again came in. Gabrielle dared not glance up—dared not let her eyes be seen. She only turned slowly, listening, expecting the worst.

"My dear Gabrielle!" Harvey exclaimed, appalled by the change in her look.

Gabrielle's lips moved with a voiceless question.

"I ought to have seen—I did not understand that you were feeling so acutely. Miss Marson said something, but—cheer up, Gabrielle. It will all be well now, I trust, thank God. We were very much afraid for a time that all was up with the child, but he has come to himself. Miss Marson has behaved nobly—she might be a woman of thirty, so composed and ready. My dear girl, you really are too sensitive!" This was for the benefit of another auditor just entering. "Come, try to give me a smile, and be natural again."

Gabrielle could not hear, could not understand what he said. She listened in vain for Campion's name. Would Edmund never go on—never say another word? What could this dreadful pause mean—except—the worst? The pause lasted two seconds only, but to Gabrielle it seemed endless. She was strung up to the highest pitch of endurance.

"Miss Harvey! Gabrielle! You are ill!" another voice exclaimed, in a tone of deep concern.

Gabrielle could not help herself. She turned towards Campion, held out both hands with one low cry of relief, and then burst into a passion of weeping.

"Come—come—come!" Harvey said, shaking one arm gently as if to rouse her. "My dear child, you are quite hysterical. What does it all mean? The shock, I suppose. Yes, I ought not to have left you so long alone. Did you fancy Campion was drowned? Come now, I must get you home as fast as possible."

But Campion had the two little hands in his grasp, and seemed by no means anxious to give them up. "Would you have cared very much if I 'had' been drowned?" he asked softly.

CHAPTER IX.

WASTE PAPER.

HARVEY saw his sister safely home, having rather hurried her away from Campion. It was very easy to see whither things were tending, but he did not particularly wish a dénouement to take place just then, during a time of general excitement. The drive was silent and not long. Gabrielle began already to feel ashamed of the feelings she had betrayed: only, side by side with the shame was a dawning of new happiness.

Harvey said nothing till they reached his house. He went indoors with Gabrielle, spoke a few kind bracing words, advised two hours' rest in her own room, and re-entered the hansom. Ten minutes brought him to the porch of a goodly West End mansion, inhabited by a friend of Harvey's—more strictly speaking, a friend of his father's—who was also an eminent judge.

Harvey alighted, dismissed his chariot, and made his way to the front door.

The eminent judge was at home, and very much engaged. Harvey's card, however, proved potent, and the dignified butler led him across the hall to a shut door, within which he speedily found admission.

There a huge fire blazed merrily, and piles of books and papers upon the writing-table almost hid from view the undersized slight man beyond. Harvey could see only the expansive forehead, overshadowing a pair of deep-set and critical eyes.

"Ha, my friend Harvey! How do you do? Quite well?" asked the judge, with his inviolable air of composure. "Yes, very busy, but I can spare you a few minutes."

"I will not take up much of your time," Harvey said apologetically. "There is a certain point on which I should be glad of your opinion."

"By all means," and he was motioned to a chair, the judge resuming his own seat.

Harvey thought for three seconds—not longer—how to open what he had to say. He had already decided to present the case in supposititious terms. When he began, it was without preamble.

"An old man, worth some fifty thousand pounds, falls into ill-health, and makes his will. He has no living relatives, and he leaves the whole between two of his friends,—two at least in whom he feels a kind interest. Nearly a year later, he again falls ill. He then makes a new will—no matter under whose influence—entirely subversive of the last. This will receives his signature; and on the same day a singular thing occurs. The old man has once known intimately a certain individual—John Smith, let us say—and several years earlier has with his own eyes witnessed the death of John Smith by drowning. Upon the day that the new will is signed, a friend calls to see him, and, in the presence of three other gentlemen and two servants, he seriously assures his friend that, the day before, this same John Smith has paid him a visit in that very room. The assertion is repeated, and insisted on."

Harvey paused, then asked, "Would the new will stand?"

The eminent judge put a few brief questions, receiving brief replies. When his opinion came, there was about it no tinge of hesitation. "Such a will would be worth no more than waste paper."

"If you were a legatee by the first will, you would contest the second?"

"Undoubtedly I should."

Harvey thanked his friend, apologised again for the interruption, and withdrew.

"As I expected!" he said to himself, passing down the stone steps. "But it has been touch and go. If I had not called exactly when I did, the machinations of that miserable crew would have succeeded. It was mere chance, as one talks of chance, that I met Campion there and then. I do not believe in chance, however. May it not be 'meant' that the money should go to some better purpose?"

Even then Harvey did not return home. He stepped into an omnibus, and went some distance before alighting, thereafter finding his way on foot to the Marsons' home.

It was only natural, he told himself, that he should call to see how they were getting on, and whether the parents were the worse for hearing of their little boy's peril. But it appeared that Ella, with a thoughtfulness beyond her age, had guarded them from any needless shock. They were only much moved and very thankful. Ella was suffering, he could see, she looked so pale and hollow-eyed, but she had no leisure to think of her own feelings, or to rest. When he spoke a word of sympathy, she nearly broke down, and begged him not to go on—yet somehow, he fancied that she liked it from him. She asked him to see her father, and Harvey came away from the interview, touched with the man's quiet endurance of trouble.

If this money should come to him and Campion, the first consideration would be the question of Mr. Marson's due. Harvey made up his mind on that point. As he had told Gabrielle, he could not walk in to present the Marsons with a cheque for their necessities, but it would be quite another matter if, in making use of Mr. Detroit's accumulated hoards, they were to weigh the just claims of those who had long worked under the old man for an inadequate return.

Harvey could not get Ella's young sad face out of his mind. It haunted him incessantly.

Campion came next day to dinner; not, however, to hear of the interview with the eminent judge. Harvey said nothing about it, and no recollections seemed to trouble Campion of the merchant dying in his wealthy old age, alone and friendless. Campion's mind was full of other matters.

He found Gabrielle quite restored to her usual girlish beauty, and to more than her usual girlish dignity. For, in dismay at her own lack of self-control the day before, she had sternly resolved to keep Mr. Campion now "quite at a distance." Nobody should ever say that Gabrielle was too easily won.

So a very uncomfortable evening was passed by the three; Gabrielle being cold and distant, Campion shy and miserable, Harvey perplexed what to make of them both.

The dénouement might have been postponed indefinitely. But at the very last moment, Gabrielle relaxed. "Good-bye," she said gently; "I hope—I hope you are not any the worse for your adventure." And the pretty lips, proudly set hitherto, trembled like those of a child.

Harvey was considerate enough to walk out of the room on some flimsy pretext, and Campion was prompt to use his opportunity.

Thus before nightfall Gabrielle and Arthur were engaged.

Days passed, and each will was put in claim. After many days, the opinion of the eminent judge proved to be correct.

The last will was found to be literally "worth no more than waste paper." That one feeble utterance of the old man about his quondam friend, Nathanael Plunkett, defeated all the false claims of his would-be legatees.

The large sum of fifty thousand pounds falling thus within the absolute power of Harvey and Campion might well have proved no small temptation to them. Had they spent at least part upon themselves, some observers would scarcely have been astonished. For they were not strictly bound to devote the whole to charitable purposes, although in a measure this was implied by the terms of the will.

But they rose superior to the temptation; and it speaks well for human nature—not human nature unaided—that they did.

The much-needed hospital for Portminster was built by Harvey; and some such scheme as Campion had devised for city toilers was carried out by Campion.

Before these greater matters received attention, however, the needs of the Marson family came up. Through the strenuous exertions of Harvey, Mr. Marson kept his situation, and not only kept it, but had his salary raised, under the new heads of the business. Moreover, he was persuaded to accept from "The Detroit Fund" a cheque in additional payment for his past services—not, indeed, very large, but yet enough to go far towards ending the bitter poverty from which he and his had suffered so severely in time past.

It was remarkable how often Harvey found it needful to call at the Marsons' house, and to discuss plans with Ella Matson. Gabrielle wondered first, and then was delighted. She did all she could to help the matter on, sure in her heart that Ella would be the very girl to "make Ted happy."

That consummation came about in the end, though not quickly. After due waiting, two weddings took place, not far apart. It would be hard to say which of the two young wives, Gabrielle Campion or Ella Harvey, found greater interest thereafter in helping forward the benevolent uses of the fund, which had so strangely fallen to the keeping of their husbands.

If any are disposed to think that Harvey and Campion acted with an extreme and unlikely disinterestedness, I can only answer that the main particulars in this story of an old man's will are not fancy, but fact.