Miss Wentworth's Idea

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VIII, Issue 39, 26 September 1891, Page 406

Miss Wentworth's Idea

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W. E. NORRIS,

Autlior of • Matrimony,' ‘ My Friend Jim,’ ‘The Rogue,’ ‘A Bachelor’s Blunder?

« CHAPTER XIX. T is a truism, and a somewhat melancholy one, * that our minds lie at the mercy of our bodies, and that any tritle which may happen to throw the complicated organism wherein we are imprisoned here below out of gear has power to i affect our hopes, our fears, our wishes and our anticipations to an extent against which there is little use in struggling. Sylvia Wentworth would doubtless have been a good deal moie vexed and angry, on being informed of the trick which had been played upon her, had she not been preoccupied by the circumstance that she was in for a very bad cold. She had been chilled through and through on the previous day ; symptoms with which everybody has good reasons to be acquainted were beginning to assert themselves ; she felt as sincerely sorry for herself as everybody feels when suffering from the lassitude and heaviness which precede catarrh, and she also felt as sure as everybody feels at such times that she would obtain no sympathy from those about her. Under these depressing circumstances she could not distress herself very greatly at the thought that Sir Harry Brewster would scour Andalusia for her in vain ; it was bad enough to have the prospect of a long night’s journey before her. Sufficient unto that night was the evil thereof; it would be time to recur to other sources of sorrow when she should be in bed at Biarritz, with her nose swollen to twice its natural size and a mustard plaster upon her chest. In the meantime, she conceived that she had every right to make herself disagreeable to her travelling companions, and she did so. She neither slept herself nor suffered her aunt to sleep. She knew, she said, that she was going to be very ill ; not improbably she might die, and if she did, Muriel would have the satisfaction of knowing what had killed her. The night was cold, the railway carriage was draughty ; it was mere mockery to offer her lumps of sugar saturated with camphor. Anybody who had taken the trouble to look at her might have seen that she was not in a fit state to travel; but it was too late now, and all she asked was that she might be left alone. As a matter of fact, she asked a good deal more. All her life she had been in the habit of exacting constant attention when she felt indisposed, and all her life that attention had been conceded to her as her due. Muriel bore patiently with her ill-temper now, feeling that it was excusable. A ■cold in the head is no such very grievous calamity, but a heartache is less easily cured, and, bad as Sylvia’s conduct had been, some allowance had to be made for the fact that her heait was in all probability aching. She might be pardoned and pitied for imagining herself at the point of death, even though such a stretch of imagination might be intrinsically ridiculous. The girl, however, was really ill, and when the return of daylight showed her flushed cheeks, her aunt became seriously uneasy about her. It was useless to say anything to Mr Wentworth, who slept placidly until the frontier was reached and then averred that he had not closed his eyes ; but it was now beyond a doubt that Sylvia was threatened with something worse than a mere cold, and the long delay and changes of carriage at Inin did her no good. On arriving at Biarritz she was in high fever ; insomuch that the first thing to be done was to get her to bed and send for the doctor. The servants, who had only a few hours before been warned by telegram of the return of the family, had omitted to light fires in the bedrooms; the house was miserably cold ; the sheets were not properly aired ; there was nothing except bread and butter to eat ; and Mr Wentworth, completely thrown off his balance by so comfortless a reception, swore that he could endure this sort of thing no longer. Come what might of it, he would start for England the very next day. The doctor, who was soon upon the spot, and to whom after he had examined his patient, the above determination was expressed in vigorous language, answered rather sharply that there could be no immediate question of a journey to England or anywhere else. ‘ Your daughter’s condition is not at all satisfactory, Mr Wentworth,’ said he. ‘ I cannot tell yet what this will turn to ; but both her pulse and her temperature are far higher than they ought to be, and you may depend upon it that, at the best, she will not be able to leave her bed for a week.’ On the following day things were very much worse. The doctor then unhesitatingly pronounced the case to be one of congestion of the lungs. He must await further developments before stating whether this was or was not complicated by some kind of low fever ; but there were indications that pointed that way. Meanwhile, he wished it to be understood that the young lady’s state was critical. ‘ And she has no stamina—no stamina at all,’ he added, in the accusing sort of tone which doctors so often assume when making such announcements. Muriel was in consternation ; and so, to do him justice, was Mr Wentworth. He would cheerfully have consented to forego his dinner for a month, if by such a sacrifice he could have restored his daughter to health ; and it would he impossible to describe the depth of his affection more forcibly than th it. Sylvia herself was not frightened. At times she was light headed, but when in possession of her

senses she did not fear for her life. Her one idea was that this illness might be turned to good account, and she never wearied of imploring Muriel to send for Sir Harry Brewster. • If I could only see him, I believe I should get well,’ she declared ; ‘ and if I am not to get well, what harm can my seeing him do ?’ These representations might very likely have proved effectual—for Muriel, in her distress and alarm, was ready to consent to almost anything—but for the circumstance that Sir Harry’s whereabouts could not possibly be ascertained. It seemed best, therefore, to reply with vague and soothing promises, of which the invalid did not fail to take note. She was backed up bv the doctor, to whom she managed to convey a hint, and who said meaningly that if his patient had any sort of mental worry or anxiety, nothing ought to stand in the way of its being removed. Now, it so happened that Sir Harry, in defiance of all the laws of chance, had not taken his ticket for Seville. He was a man who seldom left more than he could help to chance ; he had thought it extremely likely that a change of plans might be brought about by the events which have been narrated, and, as the result of certain inquiries, he had found out, not only that the Wentworths had quitted Madrid, but that they had departed by the night mail for Erance. That being so, what wiser course could he adopt than to follow their example? Personally he had no wish to visit the south of Spain ; his only wish was to see Sylvia once more, and he was not sure that loyalty to her did not command him to gratify it. Mr Wentworth, no doubt, would be justified in calling him by very ugly names if he should take up his quarters at Biarritz ; but on the other hand it had to be taken into consideration that he owed more to Sylvia than he did to Mr Wentworth, and that if he went straight back to England, she might suspect him of having faint-heartedly abandoned her to her fate. As a sort of compromise, he finally decided to break his northward journey at Bayonne, where in all probability he would be able to obtain some news of her, without letting her relations know that he was in their neighbourhood. It is unnecessary to add that within twenty-four hours of his arrival at his destination he was a passenger by the little steam-tramway which connects Bayonne with Biarritz. There is a thirteenth-century Gothic Cathedral at Bayonne, but there is not much else to look at, and Sir Harry Brewster had never pretended to be a judge of architecture, or to be interested in cathedrals. It was simply out of the question for him to spend the whole day in loafing about the streets of a French country-town ; moreover, it did not follow that by whiling away a few hours in the adjacent watering place he must needs encounter any member of the Wentworth family. He had not, however, progressed very far on his way from the railway station to the plage before he found himself face to face with one of them. Muriel emerged from the chemist’s shop, where she had been to leave a prescription, just as he passed the door, and he would have been greatly surprised had she confessed the truth, which was that the sight of him lifted a load of anxiety from her mind. She did not tell him that; but she paused, instead of passing on, as she might have been expected to do, and she interrupted without ceremony the halting apology upon which he embarked.

‘ I knew you would catch us up either here or elsewhere,’ she said impatiently; ‘you did not make any secret of your intentions and I made none of my opinions about them. But all that is of no consequence now. You can stay at Biarritz if you choose, and you can search the whole place for Sylvia. You will not meet her, because she is in bed and dangerously ill.’ Sir Harry started back. ‘Do you mean that,’ he asked, ‘or do you only say it to frighten me ? Is it really true that her life is in danger ?’ ‘ The doctor thinks so. She was not well when we went to Madrid, and she caught cold that day when she met yon at the gallery. I don’t know whether lam wise in saying what I am going to say ; but I dare not leave it unsaid. She is always asking for you ; she declares that if she could see you she would get well, and it is just possible that that may be so. At any rate, I shall tell her that you are in the place, and if she grows worse, I will take the responsibility of sending for you upon myself. At which of the hotels are you staying ?’ Sir Harry replied that he was staying at Bayonne, but that he would at once telegraph orders for his luggage to be sent on to the Hotel d’Angleterre. He added, with a touch of emotion which was evidently sincere : ‘ You are very kind to me, Miss Wentworth. I know that I don’t deserve your kindness ; but I hope I may be able to show you some day that I am not quite so unworthy of it as you suppose.' ‘ I have no wish to be kind to you,’ Muriel returned ; ‘setting everything else aside, the fact must always remain that your wife is still alive, and nothing would ever reconcile me to an engagement between you and Sylvia. I can’t allow a chance of saxing her life to slip through my fingers, that is all. Now I must go. If you don't hear from me, you will understand that she is better—in which case I could not be concerned in bringing you together.’ ‘I fully understand that,’ answered Sir Harry humbly ; ‘ but I trust you will see no objection to my making inquiries at your door. After all, you cannot doubt that I love your niece, and you must be aware of what toiture suspense will mean for me.’

Muiiel made the required concession, not over graciously, and, after answeiing some eager questions as to the nature of the disease and the condition of the sufferer, left him. As a matter of fact, she did not believe that this man loved Sylvia in any true or worthy sense ; but she thought it probable that he cared enough for the gitl to be made miserable by the absence of any tidings of her, and theie was nothing to be gained by making him miserable. Let him come to the door as often os be pleased, if only he could be prevented from crossing the threshold ! But it is needless to say that such a prohibition was virtually impracticable. The thin end of the wedge had been inserted, and what followed was what invariably dots follow, when once that initial difficulty has been overcome. Sylvia’s joy on learning that her lover was within reach of her was only equalled by the persistency with which she pleaded that he might be admitted into the sick room. ‘Do you want to kill me?’ she asked. ‘ Well, you will kill me if you refuse to let me see him. You don’t understand—you are too cold-hearted to understand how I long for him. All I ask is to be allowed to talk to him alone for a few minutes. Then, if I die, I will at least have told him some things which he will remember after I am gone, and if I recover—why, all will remain as it was. You can’t do any real good by inflicting this pain upon us both.’ Many excellent reasons might have been given for turning a deal ear to such entreaties ; but it was not easy to state these or to resist pleas which were interrupted by prolonged fits of coughing. Muriel, knowing full well that she was beaten, could only take counsel with her brother, who proved himself no very valuable counsellor. Mr Wentworth was distressed and unnerved ; he heartily wished Sir Harry Brewster at the devil, and he said so ; but he complained pettishly that he was being driven into a eul-desac. ‘ Yon are determined to throw the whole responsibility upon my shoulders,’ he remarked ; • but what am 1 to do, 1 should like to know ? You agree with me that the man is impossible and that Sylvia can never be allowed to marry him ; yet you ask me to let her do a thing which you know as well as I must compromise her. It is a case of life or death, you say ? Well, if you and the doctor will take upon yourselves to affirm that, I don’t see how I can hold out against you. But I give in under protest—mind that l—and nothing will induce me to sanction an engagement.’ The matter was debated a little further ; the doctor was summoned and to some extent confided in ; but the upshot, of it all was that Sir Harry Brewster was sent for oa the following day. It is true that by that time Sylvia was rather worse than better, and that excitement had had a prejudicial effect upon her ; still it was with a heavy heart and with many misgivings that Muriel received him on his arrival. She did not offer him her hand ; she merely went half-way down the stairs to meet him and then, turning round, beckoned him to follow her. With her hand on the lock of the invalid’s door she paused, saying ; ‘ I will leave you alone with Sylvia for five minutes ; she is too weak to talk any longer than that.’ ‘Thank you very, very much,’answered Sir Harry in a grateful whisper. ‘ I give you my word of honour that 1 won’t outstay my time.’ ‘ You will not be allowed to do so,’ returned Muriel coldly. But even while the words were upon her lips she was conscious that it was no longer in her power to decide what this man should or should not be allowed to do. He had won the battle, such as it had been ; and when he re appeared—which he did with punctilious exactitude—the light of victory was in his eyes. ‘ She will recover, Miss Wentworth,’ he said confidently, ‘I am certain of it, and so is she. She says she feels a different being now that ’ ‘ Now that she has seen you?’ asked Muriel, half angered, half softened—for indeed the man’s face had somehow become transfigured by that brief interview, so that he looked almost boyish, and it was difficult to believe him guilty of anything worse than that selfishness which is the commonest of all human failings and which, unhappily, is so often equivalent in its results to villany. ‘Well—l suppose so,’ he answered, with a half-laugh. And then : ‘ I’m afraid you will always hate and despise me, Miss Wentworth. What can I say ? I ought not to be here; and yet my being here may perhaps have saved Sylvia’s life.’ ‘ If that is so,’ returned Muriel gravely and sadly, ‘ we can only be thankful for your presence ; but we cannot be thankful that it is so. When Sylvia is out of danger we shall have to begin thinking about her future and her happiness again, and I suppose we shall feel that we have not done our best for either by allowing you to meet.’ Sir Harry had no rejoinder ready; nor in truth would it have been easy to dispute so patent a probability. Of course he came again on the ensuing day ; it was no more possible to forbid that than to help rejoicing at the marked improvement which his advent had brought about in Sylvia’s health. ‘ I feel as if I shouldn’t much mind dying now,’ the giil declared; ‘ but lam going to live, because I want to live.’ She was in a sort of ecstasy, the cause of which could not but appear pitifully and pathetically inadequate to Muriel, but which nevertheless had to be recognised and dealt with. How it was to be dealt with was a question which hardly admitted of more than one answer. ‘ We have yielded,’ she felt constrained at last to say to her brother. ‘ Rightly or wrongly, we have done what we swore that we would not do, and now we must face the consequences. It is impossible that things can go on like this.’. ‘ Why is it impossible ?’ the head of the family inquired blandly. ‘ Because everybody in Biarritz will know, and very soon all our friends in London will know that Sir Harry Brewster has been constantly with Sylvia since her illness. The only way in which we can excuse ourselves is to admit that they are engaged to be married.’ ‘ It does not surprise me to hear you say so,’ remarked Mr Wentworth, with a resigned air; ‘you are always in extremes. Personally, I prefer means, and Brewster, 1 suspect, has next to none. Not being disposed to support him out of my own—which, as yon know, are very modest —I cannot bestow my daughter upon him, even to stop the mouths of the gossips.’ ‘ You put your refusal upon the wrong ground,’ returned Muriel impatiently. ‘ When you say that you cannot bestow your daughter upon Sir Harry Brewster, you mean, I suppose, that you cannot bestow her upon a man who has been divorced from his wife.’

* Excuse me ; I mean nothing more than what I say. For choice, one might prefer a son-in-law whose history had been a little less eventful ; but fathers are seldom permitted to pick and choose. Under all the circumstances, I should be prepared to make the best of Brewster if he had a sufficient income. Since he has not, he will have to go, and we must put our trust in time and in Johnny Hill.’ ‘ Sylvia will never marry Johnny Hill,’ said Muriel, shaking her head. * I am not so sure of that ; still you may possibly be right. What then ? The world is full of Johnny Hills, and we shall have to devote our energies to the discovery of another one.’

Muriel sighed. It was useless to expect assistance from one who could not or would not believe that human life is anything but light comedy ; she said what she had known all along that she would be forced to say, although she had cherished some faint hope of a respite. ‘ I can’t let Sylvia die. In my heart and conscience I believe she will die if we separate her now from the man whom she loves ; so, as your only objection is on the score of income, I will supply the income. I will settle two-thirds of what I possess upon her, and then they will be able to marry and be happy. At least, I hope they will be happy. If it is wrong for people who have been divorced to marry again—and I am afraid it is—then I must bear the blame, I can’t let Sylvia die.’ Mr Wentworth clasped his hands behind his head and contemplated her, with a smile, through his half-closed eyelids. * The funny thing,’ he observed, ‘ is that you really mean it. You would make this insane sacrifice ; you know that it would be accepted ; and, unless I am greatly mistaken, you also know that it would no sooner be accomplished than you would begin to regret it. Now, do let me warn you, while it is still time, not to play these dangerous pranks with frail mortals. Sylvia and Brewster would take your money as soon as look at you ; they would make conventional protests of course ; but they would be very much disappointed if you listened to them. As for me, just consider for a moment what a temptation you are holding out to me. I don’t snare your scruples with regard to divorce ; I don’t believe Brewster to be very much worse than his neighbours ; l am naturally anxious that your money shall find its way into her pocket, instead of swelling the”resources of the Society of St. Francis or of some kindred association. But as lam not wholly devoid of principles, I must ask you to reflect upon what your position will be after you have despoiled yourself. A third of your present income will certainly not suffice to provide you with the comforts to which you have been accustomed, and you will be no richer at my death ; for I need scarcely tell you that I have bequeathed everything to my daughter. Look again before you leap.’ ‘ I have looked,’ answered Muriel, ‘ and I have come to the conclusion that the leap must be taken. It isn't the reasons which you mention that would have made me hesitate, and the true reasons, it seems to me, are overruled by sheer necessity. Mr Compton told me how it would be. I don’t know whether he will admit me into the Society of St. Francis now ; but if he won’t, I shall be able to find some other way of occupying my time, and although I shall not be rich, 1 shall not be poor. Neither you nor Sylvia must imagine that the loss of money is any real loss to me ; I have always wished to get rid of it, and always intended to do so in one way or another.’ Mr Wentworth shrugged his shoulders. ‘ Liberavi animain mean,’ he remarked ; ‘it is no fault of mine if you refuse to listen to reason. You are a singularly foolish and impetuous person, all the same.’ CHAPTER XX. Wordsworth—at any rate he says so—was often left mourning by the gratitude of men, aud had only * heard’ of * hearts unkind, kind deeds with coldness still returning.’ One would be sorry to accuse so admirable a person and so admired a poet of consciously writing claptrap ; but it will be admitted that his experience must have been somewhat exceptional. The truth doubtless is that we ought not to expect gratitude, that if we look for payment in that coin our kind deeds cannot be called unselfish, and that when we fail to obtain it we are no more deserving of pity than anybody else who has made a bad bargain. Still we may as well, all of us, confess at once that we like to be thanked, for this is a fallen world, and we are miserable sinneis, and there is no health in us. Mr Wentworth proved himself a true prophet with regard to his daughter and Sir Harry Brewster. When Muriel’s proposition was first broached to them they declared with one voice that they could not accept unhoped-for bliss at such a price ; they were quite sure that it would be wrong to do so, and they begged her to say no more about it. But she persisted in saying more, and she made use of arguments which certainly did sound plausible, and in a very short time they grew accustomed to the idea. After all, why should they not take what she did not want and what would otherwise be in all probability bestowed upon less-deserving members of the community 1 It must be assumed that she knew her own mind, and they could not but feel a sympathetic respect for the wishes of one who knew her own mind.

However, when it was all settled and the engagement was an established fact, they might have been a little more amiable and a little more thankful. If Muriel did not say this to herself the unformulated thought was present with her; and so it came to pass that another portion of her brother’s forecast was to some extent veiified. She did not regret her generosity, for she knew that, if it could have been recalled, she would have acted in the same way again ; but she did deeply regret the necessity for it, and she felt, too, that it had not won her the love of its recipients. She should, of course, have been aware that love is not to be bought, and also that her gift had hardly been conferred with that good grace which alone can render gifts palatable. If she could not look cheerful about it—and this was beyond her—her reward must be found in the consciousness of having averted a great calamity by the substitution of a minor one. But indeed it was not a matter of certainty that the great calamity had been averted. Sylvia, to be sure, had been tided over a crisis ; she was now able to leave her bed, and, the weather having suddenly become warm, she could lie upon a sofa by the open window for several hours every day and enjoy the sunshine ; yet h«*r strength did not seem to return, nor would the doctor say any more than that there was no longer any reason for immediate anxiety. She was perfectly happy, which was no doubt an important thing;

only Muriel saw what neither Mr Wentworth nor Sir Harry would see, that the high spirits which kept up her vitality during the day were always followed by a physical reaction towards evening, and that she was not getting the repose which is so essential to convalescence. Her nights, too, were disturbed and restless.

One afternoon when Sir Harry had at last been induced to take his leave, after having sat talking to Sylvia for two hours, Muriel followed him out of the room, and said : ‘Do you know what I should like you to do? I should like you to be summoned to England on business and to go away for a week or ten days. At this rate, Sylvia will never get well. I don’t think you realise how weak she is, or what harm it does her to over exert herself.’ Sir Harry pulled a long face. ‘ I am willing to do anything that may hasten Sylvia’s recovery,’ he replied, ‘but I daresay you will forgive me for doubting whether my departure would produce that effect. In any case, I can’t go back to England, because to tell you the honest truth, I am afraid I might have some disagreeable encounters with the written if I did. I might go to Paris, of course; still I really don’t think I ought, unless Sylvia gives her full consent. My own belief is that she is growing stronger every day ; but even if I am mistaken, you will agree with me that it can only do her harm to be distressed. And I have the vanity to feel convinced that my going away would distress her.’ Muriel did not attempt to argue the point. For a short time she had almost liked the man, and had tried to believe in him ; but now she had reverted to her original conviction of his worthlessness, and that incidental admission of his with regard to his debts did not shock her as it might have done a week earlier. She took for sheer impudence what was in truth a manifestation of the candour which w-as his redeeming virtue, and she let him go without further words. It remained to try what could be done by means of an appeal to Sylvia ; but she was not sanguine as to the results of such an appeal, nor was she surprised by its complete failure. • What do you mean, Muriel?’ asked the girl starting up from her reclining posture as soon as she saw the drift of the suggestion which was delicately conveyed to her. ‘ Why do you want to send Harry away ? Do you think you can part us now ? Oh, you can't be so cruel and so wicked !’ ‘ I am not so foolish, at all events,’ answered Muriel, smiling. ‘ There is no question of your being parted for more than a week or so ; but you yourself must know that you are not advancing as you ought to be, and that his being here for such along time eveiy day is keeping you back. For the matter of that, he won’t go unless you ask him to go ; he has just told me so.’ ‘ Then,’ said Sylvia, sinking back upon her pillows again, ‘he will stay. I couldn’t ask him to go even if my life depended on it. I shouldn’t dare ! So long as he is here he is mine, and I have no fears ; but if he were to leave me—oh, how can one tell what dreadful things may not happen ! Men are not like us ; generally it is out of sight out of mind with them, and—and —well, I don’t know whether the joy of seeing him and talking to him does me harm ; but I know that it would do me a thousand times more harm to be continually fretting during his absence.’ ‘ Do you trust him so little?’ asked Muriel, sadly. ‘ Oh, I don’t deny that it is shameful to distrust him ; but I am ill, and I can’t always drive away the horrid thoughts that come into my mind. Do you remember that day when Colonel Medhurst met Harry and made a scene ? I thought at the time that I didn't care a bit whether what he said was true or not ; everybody commits sins, and everybody is supposed to be forgiven if he repents of them. But now, when I am lying awake at night, the thought of that woman haunts me. I say to myself, “He must have been in love with her once ; but he tired of her, and why shouldn't he tire of you ?” 11 isn’t as if I had anything to give him except a rather pretty face and my face won’t be pretty for long ; it looks quite drawn and ugly even now in the mornings. I don’t know why lam speaking to you in this way. Does it disgust you?’ Muriel shook her head, but could make no articulate reply-. Her eyes were full of tears and her heart of pity. Alas ! the poor child’s apprehensions were only too well founded ; it was impossible to refute them, yet it would be worse than useless to express concurrence in them. There was nothing for it but to keep silence, and this was the moie easy since she could not trust herself to speak. But Sylvia, who read her thoughts, began to laugh and said: ‘ There ! you needn’t look so dismal about it ; it is all nonesense. When lamin my sober senses lam as sure of Harry as I am of myself ; I only let you into the secret of my nightmares so that you might understand why I can’t send him away from me. Besides,’ she added in a graver voice, ‘ I am not sure that I can afford to lose him even for a day. Yesterday I asked the doctor suddenly whether I should ever be well again, and I saw by his face what he thought, though he pretended to laugh at me. Last night I felt as if I was dying. Antoinette was dozing in her chair, and I was very nearly waking her and sending for you ; but the feeling passed off and I fell asleep. Well, if I do die, I daresay I shall have had as much happiness as most people ; and perhaps if I live—but we won’t talk any more about it. lam going to bed now ; and please, Muriel, don’t ask Harry to leave me again, because indeed I couldn’t bear it I’ Muriel could but give the required promise. Sir Harry would not go at her bidding, nor did she any longer think it desirable that he should do so. From that moment she lost ail hope of her niece's restoration to health. Many days passed without much apparent change ; but she saw that the girl was slowly sinking, and the doctor, while declining to commit himself to any positive opinion, saw it also. ‘ I told you from the first, my dear lady, that she had no stamina,’ be said. Only Sir Harry and Mr Wentworth remained blind ; because they were both of them men who possessed the power of ignoring painful possibilities. What Sylvia herself thought it was difficult to tell. After the conversation recorded above she did not again refer to her condition, and Muiiel had not the heart to say anything to her about it. A time must come, and would probably come soon, when all affectation of ignorance would have to be east aside.

But that dreaded day never came. One evening Muriel had, as usual, left the invalid, who had fallen asleep, ami was herself preparing to go to bed, when Antoinette, the French maid, rushed into the room without knocking.

* Venez, Mademoiselle, venez vite !' the woman gasped ; ‘ je crois qu’elle est morte !' Muriel was scarcely frightened at first : Sylvia had had more than one fainting fit of late, and that her inexperienced attendant should have mistaken unconsciousness for death was not surprising. Antoinette, however, was not mistaken, and when Muriel had hurried to the bedside, the evidence of her own senses soon convinced her that there was no room for doubt or hope. It was terrible, it was incredible ; but it was true. Without a word of farewell, without, so far as could be known, any presentiment that her end was so near, the girl had passed quietly away in her sleep; she, her joys and her troubles bad ceased to belong to this world, and never again would she be a source of anxiety to those who loved her. Well, it was more than probable that, as she herself had said, she had had her share of earthly happiness ; death is not the woist enemy of mankind, nor is life our best friend ; and since we all must die sooner or later, those who die paiulessly in their youth should perhaps be esteemed fortunate. But these consolatory reflections are of general rather than of particular application, and Muriel had to pass through a long period of sorrow and self reproach (though there was little enough occasion for the latter) before she was able to admit them. CHAPTER XXL Muriel, as has been said, had been in some measure prepared for Sylvia’s death ; she had, at any rate, known there was little or no prospect of ultimate recovery. But upon Sir Harry and upon Mr Wentworth the blow fell like a thunderbolt from a clear sky, and they were completelystunned by it. Of the two, the former, when he regained possession of his senses, suffered perhaps the most. His love may not have been and probably was not, worth much ; the chances are that it would have burnt itself out in due season and that he would have treated hissecond wifeno better than he had treated many other women before her. But naturally he did not take that view of his case, and his selfpity was, to say the least of it, excusable. He had made such excellent lesolutions; he had been so fully determined to turn over a new leaf and begin a different kind of life I Now everything was at an end ; his dream was one which would have to be put away and forgotten, like other dreams ; he had lost —at least he told himself so in his despair—all that rendered existence of any value to him. It would be doing him an injustice to say that he mourned over the loss of the fortune which his bride was to have brought with her as her marriage-portion ; yet that loss was a serious fact which stared him in the face when he tried to look forward into the future and to which he could not altogether close his eyes. His connection with the Wentworth family was perforce terminated. Mr Wentworth had only accepted him under protest and because there had seemed to be no help for it; Muriel had always detested him ; and, as a matter of fact, both of them begged to be excused from seeing him until after the funeral. He had of course a right to be present at that sad ceremony, and he was present; but as soon as it had been concluded and the earth shovelled on to the wreaths which covered poor Sylvia’s coffin, he felt that there was nothing to detain him any longer at Biarritz. ‘ I suppose we shall be strangers henceforth, Miss Wentworth,’ he said, at the end of the brief farewell interview which Muriel accorded to him ; ‘ eveiything connected with my name must be painful to you, and I don’t wonder at it. But, although 1 dare not thank you in my own name, I may be allowed to say that I shall never forget your goodness and generosity to Sylvia ; and I think, after a time, it will be a comfort to you to remember that you were the means of making her last days happy.’ Thus he made a fairly graceful exit, and since he will not appear again in these pages, it may be mentioned here that his subsequent career, so far as it has gone, has not been marked by any scandalous episodes. Apparently he has overcome his financial difficulties ; for he is to be seen in London and at Newmarket, and, as he has not ceased to be a first-rate shot, he is invited to many country houses during the winter months, although Morecambe Priory is not one of them. One may surmise that in a heart toughened by varied experiences a soft coiner remains sacred to the memory of Sylvia Wentworth, and one may also, by a stretch of charity, go so far as to believe that some of the good resolutions with which Sylvia w-as instrumental in inspiring its owner have been fulfilled ; but men of Sir Harry Brewster’s stamp do not brood over their sorrows ; otherwise their faces would not remain smooth while those of so many of their juniors are scored by indelible lines. As for Mr Wentworth, his grief, while it lasted, was deep and sincere. It was, of course, selfish like every other emotion that he experienced. His feeling, if he did not express it in so many words, was that he had been very cruelly treated. He had been a most indulgent parent; he had refused his daughter nothing ; he had consented to her marriage with a man of whom'he could not approve, upon the understanding that the pecuniary sacrifice which such a marriage must entail was to be borne by somebody else ; and this was his reward ! His child was taken from him ; his sister was sure either to marry or to devote herself and her means to some insane scheme for ameliorating the condition of the lower classes ; he saw before him the prospect of a lonely and objectless old age. It was very, very hard ; and Muriel, who should have been sympathising with him and trying to comfort him, would only hold her tongue and look heart-broken.

Muriel looked as she felt, and although she was sorry for her brother, she could not attempt to console him after any fashion which he would be likely to consider appropriate. She knew him well enough to know that in his case time would prove a ceitain and speedy anodyne, and perhaps this knowledge, combine.! with her own preoccupation and unhappiness, rendered her somewhat less attentive to his creature comforts than had been her wont. He was by way of being too bowed down by the weight of his affliction to care what food was set before him ; but he could not help caring, and when, after Muriel and he hud returned to their melancholy home in London, the cook took advantage of relaxed supervision to send up dinners which were far below the mark in point of refinement, he assumed the air of an uncomplaining martyr. It was indeed a melancholy home that these two bereaved persons were doomed to inhabit. They bad little to say to one another ; they only met at meal times ; visitors were not admitted, and at first Mr Wentworth doubted whether he ought to go to his club. At the expiration of a

week he granted himself that trifling concession, feeling that flesh and blood could no longer endure a system of solitary confinement; but Muriel sat all day long in the silent drawing-room, where a hundred trifles kept reminding her of her loss, and bad not the heart to go out of doors. She would not even seek out Mr Compton, much though she longed to confide all her sorrows to him. She knew instinctively that he would understand her, that he would not be hard upon her in this hour of her despair, that he would condone the weakness which he had predicted, and from which, after all, no evil consequences had resulted ; yet she could not summon up courage to take the risk of a rebuff. He must have heard the news of Sylvia’s death ; in all probability he had heard of her previous betrothal to Sir Harry Brewster ; if, then, he felt any pity for one whose intentions at least had been good, and upon whom a heavy visitation had fallen, he would surely find time to call at Upper Brook-street. In fact, she so fully expected him to call that she gave instructions for his admission in the event of his presenting himself. As, however, he failed to put in an appearance, she was forced to the conclusion that he felt no pity for her. Well, he had never shown himself very compassionate ; perhaps, clever though he was, he could not quite enter into a woman’s feelings. It had been clever of him to lay his finger upon the weak spot in her character ; yet he might have divined that there is a species of strength belonging to that particular species of weakness, and that just because she could not bear to see others unhappy, she was capable of devoting herself heart and soul to such a work as he had in hand. Being thus defrauded of sympathy from a quarter to which she had looked for it with more confidence than she had been aware of, her thoughts not unnaturally turned towards one who had once told her that she was essential to his happiness and had furthermore implored her to let him know if at any time he could be of service to her. Her occupations and her troubles had not caused her to forget Colonel Medhurst; she had often thought of him, she had often accused herself of having behaved badly to him, she had more than once longed for the sight of his honest face and the sound of his voice, and certainly it was in his power to render her a service now at no greater expense of time and convenience than might be implied in finding his way to her house. But such favours cannot be asked for ; they ought to suggest themselves to persons of ordinary intelligence. Moreover, it had to be borne in mind that Colonel Medhurst was not the man to look leniently upon such a surrender as that to which she had been driven. Sylvia was dead ; but Sylvia, if she had lived would have become the bride of the villain who had wrecked his sister’s life, and he might not unreasonably hold Muriel answerable for an abomination which had only been averted in that tragic way. Upon the whole, the chances seemed to be that his friendship, like that of Mr Compton, had been fruitlessly sacrificed. He cleared himself in some measure of that unmerited suspicion by a letter, written from Colchester, which was delivered to Miss Wentworth, one morning, and which was not much more infelicitously worded than letters of condolence usually are. What disappointed and vexed Muriel was that it was a letter of condolence, pure and simple. Anybody and everybody, writing to her at such a time, must have made use of commonplaces, which he appeared to consider adequate He would have set them down on paper earlier, he said, but he had shrunk from intruding upon her and had also been kept busy by troubles of his own which, although not to be compared with hers in magnitude, had left him little leisure for correspondence. He was sure, however, that she would not attribute his silence to indifference —and so forth. It was easy enough to read between the lines and to guess at the nature of the troubles alluded to. His sister, no doubt, had been horrified by the intelligence that the man who had once been her husband was about to contract a second matrimonial alliance ; she would have said some hard things about the Wentworth family, which Colonel Medhurst was in no position to contradict. Nay, he must have shared her indignation and disgust ; for how was he to know anything about the cruel dilemma in which the Wentworth family had been placed ? He might, to be sure, have been wise enough and charitable enough to understand that one member of that family would not have given way without reasons of overwhelming cogency for so doing ; but, when all is said and done, wisdom and charity are not sucli every-day qualities, and since Muriel did not intend to marry Colonel Medhurst, it was perhaps a matter for congratulation that he had been thus summarily and effectually cured of a vain attachment. That he had been cured was quite evident. She read his letter through again from beginning to end and was more than ever struck by its cold and constrained tone. No lover could possibly have written so formally, nor could he have felt any doubt as to the sense in which his composition would be interpreted. Indeed, he had evidently been at some pains to make his meaning unmistakable. ‘ You are not what I took you for,’ he seemed to say. • Of course, under the circumstances of your bereavement, I cannot openly upbraid you ; but I wish you to know that you have lost both my love and my esteem.’ Now there are very few women in the world, or men either, who can endure to have that kind of thing said to them. Most of us, knowing full well that we deserve all the love and esteem we are ever likely to get, would be made exceedingly angry by such a statement; but Muriel, who was in a deplorably low condition of mind, was only moved to tears by the thought that her best friend had turned his back upon her. She did not blame him ; his conduct was—at all events ostensibly—justified by hers, and perhaps, if no allowances were to be made, she might be said to have fairly forfeited the friendship which he had been so kind as to offer her. But she pitied herself very much, and she realised for the first time what a heavy penalty was implied in the payment of that forfeit. She had always been lonely. Now she was absolutely and utterly alone ; nothing remained to her, save the intermediate companionship with James, and the pleasing duty of ordering James’s dinner for him every day. But who can tell when the turning in the long lane of misfortune has been reached? Muriel had begun to devote her attention once more to cookery-books—since that appeared to be her sole mission in life—when one evening, not long after this, Mr Wentworth entered the drawingroom with a smile of suppressed amusement upon his lips which seemed designed to provoke inquiry. It produced

that effect after a minute or two and elicited a prompt reply. ‘You want to know what I am laughing at?’ said he. * Well, I will tell you ; because it is really funny, and I hope it will make you laugh too, though I notice that you have rather lost the trick of laughter lately.' * Neither you nor I have much reason to feel merry,’ observed Muriel, with a shade of reproach in her voice. * My dear girl, sorrows are sorrows, and jokes are jokes. We are so constituted that both appeal to our sensibilities, and why should we pretend that we can’t laugh through our tears, when the phenomenon is one of daily occurrence ? Permit me to indulge my humble little joke and don’t be so foolish as to accuse yourself of heartlessness if it tickles you. What should you think of me in the character of a blushing bridegroom, for instance?’ If this was a joke, it was not a very successful one. Muriel had never lost sight of the possibility that her brother might marry again ; but that he should contemplate such a step just now amazed her and, to tell the truth shocked her into the bargain. She said something more or less appropriate and gravely inquired the name of her future sister-in-law.

‘ Ah,’ answered Mr Wentworth, leaning back in his chair and nursing his leg, * this is where the comic part of the business comes in. I should like to make you guess ; but you look so forbidding that perhaps I had better hurry the point and secure my reward of cheers and laughter without more delay. The name of the lovely and accomplished being who has deigned to bestow herself upon me is—Mrs Hill.’

Muriel was so taken aback that she could only stare incredulously. Her first impression was, that her brother was amusing himself by talking nonsense ; but on scrutinising him more closely, she thought she could detecta certain shamefacedness beneath his assumption of jocularity. ‘ I don’t know what to say, James,’ was all the reply that she could make, after a prolonged pause. * You have always cited Mrs Hill as an example of everything that is vulgar aud ridiculous ; but I suppose that you must be serious and that you are telling the truth.’

‘ I am certainly telling you the truth,’ answered Mr Wentworth; ‘as for my being serious you will perceive that the subject is not one which lends itself very readily to serious treatment. Mrs Hill, is, of course, ridiculous and she may also be vulgar, although I do not remember calling her so ; but she is good-natured, she has plenty of money, and I am convinced that she will take the greatest care of me. Moreover she will provide me with constant diversion. Far be it from me to utter a word of complaint against you, my dear Muriel ; but you must acknowledge that home has not been made particularly diverting for me of late. And I really cannot live without diversion in some form or other.’ It was impossible to feel very angry with one who was so candidly selfish. ‘ You have a right to please yourself, James,’began Muriel hesitatingly, ‘and now there is no need for you to consider anyone except yourself. But—but Mrs Hill, of all people !’ ‘ Oh, she is rather old and rather fat, and she lies open to hostile criticism in a great many respects. She possesses, however, the solid merits which I have enumerated. I understand the significance of the reproof which you convey so delicately when you tell me that I am not now called upon to consider anyone except myself ; but in all sincerity don’t you think I have as much consideration for you as you have for me ? lam not asking you to live in the house with Mrs Hill ; I know yon wouldn’t do such a thing ; but then I also know you won’t live much longer in a house with me. Nothing seems to me more certain than that you will either marry or join some eccentric society before the year is out. Now isn’t it a fact that your eyes have already begun to turn longingly toward your friend Compton ?’ The retort was fair enough. There are more ways than one of displaying selfishness, and Muriel could not but acknowledge to herself that if Mr Compton had offered, at any time since her return home, to receive her into the Society of St. Francis, she would have been sorely tempted to abandon her brother to his fate. She did not answer his question, but somewhat hastily disclaimed any intention of reproving him ; and so, after a few more words, the conversation ended.

Later in the evening she was able to derive some comfort from the thought that she was at all events emancipated by this change in her prospects. Mr Compton might continue to disbelieve in her vocation ; but he could no longer represent to her that her duties began and ended at home. She was about to be deprived of her home ; she would have to provide herself with a fresh one ; she was not sufficiently advanced in age to live alone, and surely she was entitled, if ever any woman was, to claim the refuge afforded by the association of which he was the head. Since he did not choose to come to her, she would go to him ; she would lay her case before him, begging him to disregard all preconceived notions that he might have formed respecting her and to treat her as what she was—an individual without family ties and with a certain amount of money which she was anxious to expend in furthering the objects that he advocated. In common justice and consistency he could scarcely dismiss her. Being thus firmly resolved as to her course, she went to bed in comparatively good spirits and slept more soundly than she had done for a long time past. (TO BE CONTINUED.)