Bath Tangle

15

Emily, when encountered a few days later, certainly bore all the appearance of a young lady lately risen from a sickbed. The delicate bloom had faded from her cheeks; she was thinner; and jumped at sudden noises. Mrs Floore ascribed her condition to the rigours of a London season, and told Serena that she could willingly box her daughter’s ears for having allowed poor little Emma to become so fagged. Serena thought the explanation reasonable, but Fanny declared that some other cause than late nights must be sought to account for the hunted look in Emily’s wide eyes. “And it is not far to seek!” she added significantly. “That wicked woman compelled her to accept Rotherham’s offer, and she is terrified of him!”

“How can you be so absurd?” said Serena impatiently. “Rotherham is not an ogre!”

But gentle Fanny for once refused to be overborne. “Yes, he is,” she asserted, “I don’t scruple to tell you, dearest, that he frightens me, and I am not seventeen!”

“I know you are never at ease with him, and a great piece of nonsense that is, Fanny! Pray, what cause has he given you to fear him?”

“Oh, none! It is just—You cannot understand, Serena, because you are not at all shy, and were never afraid of anything in your life, I suppose!”

“Certainly not of Rotherham! You should consider that if there is anything in his manner that makes you nervous he is not in love with you.”

Fanny shuddered. “Oh, that would be more terrifying than anything!” she exclaimed.

“You are being foolish beyond permission, I daresay the marriage was arranged by the Laleham woman, and that Emily is in love with Ivo I most strongly doubt; but, after all, such marriages are quite common, and often succeed to admiration. If he loves her, he will very soon teach her to return his sentiments.”

“Serena, I cannot believe that he loves her! No two persons could be less suited!”

Serena shrugged her shoulders, saying, in a hard voice: “Good God, Fanny, how many times has one seen a clever man wedded to a pretty simpleton, and wondered what could have made him choose her? Emily will not dispute with Rotherham; she will be docile; she will think him infallible—and that should suit him perfectly!”

“Him! Very likely, but what of her? If he frightens her now, what will it be when they are married?”

“Let me recommend you, Fanny, not to put yourself into high fidgets over what is nothing but conjecture! You do not know that he has frightened Emily. If she is a little nervous, depend upon it he has been making love to her. He is a man of strong passions, and she is such an innocent baby that I should not marvel at it if she had been scared. She will very soon overcome such prudery, I assure you!” She saw Fanny shake her head, and fold her lips, and said sharply: This will not do! If there was any truth in these freakish notions of yours, she need not have accepted his offer!”

Fanny looked up quickly. “Ah, you cannot know—you don’t understand, Serena!”

“Oh, you mean that she dare not disobey her mother! Well, my love, however strictly Lady Laleham may rule her, it is not in her power to force her into a disagreeable marriage. And if she is in such dread of her, she must welcome any chance to escape from her tyranny!”

Fanny gazed at her wonderingly, and then bent over her embroidery again. “I don’t think you would ever understand,” she said mournfully. “You see, dearest, you grew up under such different circumstances! You never held my lord in awe. Indeed, I was used to think you were his companion rather than his daughter, and I am persuaded neither of you had the least notion of filial obedience! It quite astonished me to hear how he would consult you, and how boldly you maintained your own opinions—and went your own way! I should never have dared to have talked so to my parents, you know. Habits of strict obedience, I think, are not readily overcome. It seems impossible to you that Lady Laleham could force Emily into a distasteful marriage, but it is not impossible. To some girls—to most girls, indeed—the thought of setting up one’s own will does not even occur.”

“You encourage me to think that Emily will be the very wife for Rotherham!” Serena replied. “And if you imagine, my dear, that he will give her any reason to be afraid of him, you are doing him an injustice. Though his manners are not conciliatory, he is, I must remind you, a gentleman!”

No more was said; nor did Emily, walking with Serena in the Sydney Gardens, appear to regret her engagement. In the intervals of exclaiming rapturously at the various amenities of this miniature Vauxhall, she chattered about the parties she had been to in London, and seemed to be full of such items of information as that the Queen had smiled at her upon her presentation, and that one of the Princesses had actually spoken to her.

“Did you enjoy yourself?” Serena asked.

“Oh, yes, indeed! And we went several times to Vauxhall Gardens, and to the theatre, and a Review in Hyde Park, and Almack’s—oh, I am sure we must have been to everything!” Emily declared.

“No wonder you became so worn out!”

“No, for I am not quite accustomed to so many parties. When one is tired, one doesn’t care for anything very much, and—and one gets into stupid humours—Mama says. And I had influenza. Have you ever had it, Lady Serena? It is the horridest thing, for it makes you excessively miserable, so that the least thing makes you cry. But Mama was very kind to me, and she let me come to stay with Grandmama, and, oh, it is so comfortable!”

“I hope you are making a long stay with her?”

At this, the frightened look returned. Emma stammered: “Oh, I wish—I don’t know—Mama said ...”

“Your Mama will be thinking of your bride-clothes soon, no doubt,” Serena said lightly.

“Yes. I mean—Oh, not yet!”

“When is the wedding date to be?”

“I—we—it is not decided! Lord Rotherham spoke of September, but—but I would like not to be married until I am eighteen! I shall be eighteen in November, you know, and I shall know how to go on better, don’t you think?”

“What, because you are eighteen?” Serena laughed. “Will it make such a difference to you?”

“I don’t know. It is only that I seem not to know the things I should, to be a Marchioness, and I think I should try to learn how to be a great lady, and—and if I am not married till November perhaps I may do so.”

“I cannot suppose that Lord Rotherham desires you to be in any way other than you are now, my dear Emily.”

There was no reply to this. Glancing at her, Serena saw that Emily was deeply flushed, her eyes downcast. She said, after a pause: “Do you expect to see Lord Rotherham in Bath?”

The eyes were quickly raised; the colour receded. “In Bath! Oh, no! The doctor said I must not be excited! Mama said she would explain to him. Besides—he must not meet Grandmama!”

“Indeed!” Serena said dryly. “May I ask if he is never to meet Mrs Floore?”

“No, no! I could not endure it!”

“I don’t wish to seem to criticize your mama, Emily, but you are making a mistake. You must not despise your grandmama.”

Emily burst into tears. Fortunately, one of the shady arbours with which the gardens were liberally provided was close at hand, and unoccupied. Having no desire to walk through a public place in company with a gustily sobbing girl, Serena guided Emily into the arbour, commanding her, in stringent accents, to compose herself. It was a little time before she could do this, and when her tears ceased to flow they left her face so much blotched that Serena kept her sitting in the arbour until these traces of emotion had faded. By way of diverting her mind, she asked her if she had enjoyed her visit to Delford. From the disjointed account Emily gave her of this, she gathered that it had not been wholly delightful. Emily seemed to waver between a glorious vision of herself ruling over the vast pile, and terror of its servants. She was sure that the housekeeper held her in contempt; she would never dare to give an order to the steward; and she had mistaken Lady Silchester’s dresser for a fellow guest, which had made Mama cross. Yes, Lady Silchester had been acting as hostess for her brother. She was very proud, wasn’t she? There had been a great many people staying at Delford: dreadfully alarming people, who all looked at her, and all knew one another. There had been a huge dinner-party, too: over forty persons invited, and so many courses that she had lost count of them. Lord Rotherham had said that when next such a dinner-party was held at Delford she would be the hostess.

This was said with so frightened a look up into Serena’s face, the pansy-brown eyes dilating a little, that Serena was satisfied that it was not her bridegroom but his circumstances which had thrown Emily into such alarm. She wondered that Rotherham should not have realized that to introduce this inexperienced child to Delford under such conditions must make her miserably aware of her shortcomings. What could have induced him to have filled his house with exalted guests? He might have guessed that he was subjecting her to a severe ordeal; while as for summoning, apparently, half the county to a state dinner-party, and then telling the poor girl that in future she would be expected to preside over just such gatherings, Serena could think of nothing so ill-judged. Plainly, he had wanted to show off his chosen bride, but he should have known better than to have done it in such a way.

She found that Mrs Floore shared this opinion. She was hugely gratified to know that his lordship was so proud of her little Emma, but thought him a zany not to have realized how shy and retiring she was. Mrs Floore was in a triumphant mood, having routed her daughter in one swift engagement. Unfortunately for Lady Laleham, who wished to remove Emily from her grandmother’s charge as soon as she herself was restored to health, Sir Walter had suffered severe reverses, and these, coupled with the accumulated bills for her own and Emily’s expensive gowns, had made it necessary for her to apply to her mother for relief. Mrs Floore was perfectly ready to send her as much money as she wanted, but she made it a condition that Emily should be left in her charge until her own doctor pronounced her to be perfectly well again. Lady Laleham was obliged to accede to these terms, and Emily’s spirits immediately improved. A suggestion, put forward by her ladyship, that she should join her daughter in Beaufort Square was so bluntly vetoed by Mrs Floore that she did not repeat it.

“Which I knew she wouldn’t,” Mrs Floore told Serena. “She’s welcome to play off her airs in her own house, but I won’t have her doing it in mine, and so she knows! Well, my dear, I don’t deny Sukey’s been a rare disappointment to me, to put it no higher, but there’s a bright side to everything, and at least I have the whip hand of her. Offend me, she daren’t, for fear I might stop paying her the allowance I do, let alone cut her out of my Will. So now we must think how to put Emma in spirits again! I’ll take her to the Dress Ball on Monday, at the New Assembly Rooms, and Ned Goring shall gallant us to it. There’ll be nothing for Sukey to take exception to in that, nor his lordship neither, even if they was to know of it, which there’s no reason they should, because there’s no waltzing, you know, and not even a cotillion on the Monday night balls.”

“But I thought Emily was to be very quiet!” said Serena, laughing. “Was she not knocked up by balls in London?”

“Ay, so she was, but it’s one thing to be going to them night after night, and never in bed till two or three in the morning, and quite another to be going to one of the Assemblies here now and then! Why, they never go on beyond eleven o’clock at the New Rooms, my dear, and only till midnight at the Lower Rooms, on Tuesdays! What’s more, it won’t do the poor little soul any good to be hipped, and to sit moping here with only me for company! I’ll take her to the next Gala night at the Sydney Gardens, too, which is a thing I’ve never done yet, because this is the first time she’s visited me during the summer. I’ll be bound she’ll enjoy watching the fireworks, and so I shall myself.”

Serena, looking at that fat, jolly countenance, did not doubt it. Mrs Floore was in a rollicking humour, determined to make the most of her beloved granddaughter’s visit. “For it’s not likely she’ll ever stay with me again,” she said, with a sigh. “However, she shall do what the doctor tells her she should, never fear! And one thing he says is that she mustn’t sit cooped up within doors this lovely weather, so if you would let her go walking with you sometimes, my lady, it would be a great kindness, and what she’d like a deal better than driving in the landaulet with me, I daresay, for that’s mighty dull work for a girl.”

“Certainly: I shall be glad of her company,” Serena replied. “Perhaps she would like to ride with me.”

This suggestion found instant favour with Mrs Floore, who at once made plans for the hire of a quiet hack. Emily herself was torn between gratification at being asked to ride with such a horsewoman as Lady Serena, and fear that she might be expected to leap all sorts of obstacles, or find herself mounted on a refractory horse. However, the animal provided for her proved to be of placid, not to say sluggish, disposition, and Serena, knowing her limitations, took her for just the sort of expeditions that would have suited Fanny. Whenever opportunity offered, she did her best to instruct Emily in the duties of the mistress of a noble household; but the questions shyly put to her by the girl, and the dismay which many of her answers provoked, did not augur very well for the future. She supposed that Rotherham, himself careless of appearances, disliking the formality that still obtained in many families of ton, was indifferent to Emily’s ignorance of so much that any girl of his own rank would have known from her birth.

August came, and still Emily remained in Bath. To any impartial observer, she seemed quite to have regained her bloom, but Mrs Floore, looking her physician firmly in the eye, said that she was still far from well. He was so obliging as to agree with her; and upon Emily’s happening to give a little cough, shook his head, spoke of the unwisdom of neglecting coughs, and prescribed magnesia and bread-pudding as a cure.

Major Kirkby, finding that he was frequently expected to squire Emily as well as Serena, told Fanny that he was in a puzzle to discover what there was in the girl to endear her to Serena. A pretty little creature, he acknowledged, but gooseish. Fanny explained that it was all kindness: Emily had always looked up to Serena, and that was why Serena took pity on her. But the Major was not satisfied. “That is all very well,” he objected, “but she seems to believe herself to be in some sort responsible for Miss Laleham! She is for ever telling her how she should conduct herself in this or that circumstance!”

“I wish she would not!” Fanny said impulsively. “I would like Emily to conduct herself so awkwardly as to give Lord Rotherham a disgust of her, for I am persuaded she will be miserable if she marries him! How Serena can fail to see that, I know not!”

“I don’t think Serena cares for that,” he said slowly. “She appears to me to be wholly bent on training Miss Laleham to make Rotherham a conformable wife. I can tell you this, Lady Spenborough: she does not mean this engagement of his to be broken off.”

“But what concern is it of hers?” cried Fanny. “Surely you must be mistaken!”

“I asked her very much that question myself. She replied that it had been no very pleasant thing for him when she jilted him, and she would not for the world have him subjected to another such slight.”

Fanny looked very much surprised, but when she had thought it over for a minute, she said: “She has known him all her life, of course, and no matter how bitterly they quarrel they always seem to contrive to remain on terms with each other. But it is very wrong of her to interfere in this! I don’t believe Emily wants to marry Rotherham. She would not dare to tell Serena so, I daresay, and Serena takes care not to leave her alone with me, because she knows what my feelings are on that head.”

He smiled. “So if Serena interferes in one direction, you would be happy to do so in the other?”

“Oh, no, no! Only if Emily confided in me—if she should ask my advice—I would counsel her most strongly not to marry a man for whom she feels no decided preference! A man, too, so much older than herself, and of such a harsh disposition! She cannot be aware—even if he were as kind, as considerate as—” Her voice failed; she turned away her head, colouring painfully.

Unconsciously, he placed his hand over hers, as it lay on the arm of her chair, and pressed it reassuringly. It seemed to flutter under his. After a moment, it was gently withdrawn, and Fanny said, a little breathlessly: “I should not have spoken so. I don’t wish you to think that I was not most sincerely attached to Lord Spenborough. My memories of him must always be grateful, and affectionate.”

“You need say no more,” he replied, in a low voice. “I understand you perfectly.” There was a brief pause; then he said, with a resumption of his usual manner: “I am afraid you must sometimes be lonely now that Serena is so often with her tiresome protégée. I have a very good mind to give her a scold for neglecting you!”

“Indeed, you must do no such thing! I assure you, she doesn’t neglect me, and I am not at all lonely.”

It was true. Since she had emerged from her strict seclusion she had never lacked for company, and had by this time many acquaintances in Bath. She received and returned morning visits, attended one or two concerts, dined out several times, and even consented to appear at a few select rout-parties. She felt herself adventurous indeed, for she had never before gone alone into society. Before her marriage, she had dwelt in her mother’s shadow; after it, in her husband’s, or her stepdaughter’s. She was too well-accustomed to every sort of social gathering to feel the want of support, and only one circumstance marred her quiet enjoyment of Bath’s mild social life. Protected as she had been, she had never learnt how to hold her many admirers at a distance. She was not naturally flirtatious, and an elderly and fond husband, who knew his world, had taken care not to expose her to the temptations of fashionable London. Would-be cicisbeos, throwing out lures, had made haste to seek easier game after encountering one look from my Lord Spenborough; and Fanny had continued in serene unconsciousness that she was either sought or guarded. But so young and so divinely fair a widow exercised a powerful fascination over the susceptible, and she soon found herself in small difficulties. A shocked look was enough to check the advances of her more elderly admirers, but several lovelorn youths seriously discomposed her by the assiduity of their attentions, and their apparent determination to make her and themselves conspicuous. Serena would have known just how to depress pretensions, but Fanny lacked her lightness of touch, and, moreover, could never bring herself to snub a young gentleman who bashfully presented her with an elegant posy, or ran all over town to procure for her some elusive commodity which she had been heard to express a wish to possess. She believed that her circumstances protected her from receiving unwanted proposals, and comforted herself with the thought that the more violent of her adorers were too young to nourish serious intentions. It came as a severe shock to her, therefore, when Mr Augustus Ryde, the son of an old acquaintance of her mother’s, so far forgot himself as to cast himself at her feet, and to utter an impassioned declaration.

He had gained admittance to her drawing-room by offering to be the bearer to Fanny of a note from his gratified parent. He found Fanny alone, looking so pretty and so fairy-like in her clinging black robe and veil, that he lost his head. Fanny, having read Mrs Ryde’s note, said: “Excuse me, if you please, while I write an answer to Mrs Ryde’s kind invitation! Perhaps you will be so obliging as to deliver it to her.” She made as if to rise from her chair, but was prevented by Mr Ryde’s throwing himself on to his knees before her, and imploring her to hear him.

Startled, Fanny stammered: “Mr Ryde! I beg you—get up! You forget yourself! Oh, pray—!”

It was to no avail. Her hands were seized, and covered with kisses, and upon her outraged ears fell a tumultous torrent of words. Desperate attempts to check this outpouring were unheeded, possibly unheard. Mr Ryde, not content with laying his heart at her feet, gave her an incoherent account of his present circumstances and future expectations, swore eternal devotion, and declared his intention of plunging into the Avon if denied hope. Perceiving that she shrank back in alarm, shocked tears in her eyes, he begged her not to be frightened, and contrived to get an arm round her slim waist.

Into this ridiculous scene walked Major Kirkby, unannounced. He checked on the threshold, considerably astonished. One glance sufficed to put him in tolerably accurate possession of the facts. He trod briskly across the floor, as the disconcerted lover turned a startled face towards him, and Fanny gave a thankful cry. A hand grasping his coat-collar assisted Mr Ryde to rise swiftly to his feet. “You had best beg Lady Spenborough’s pardon before you go,” said the Major cheerfully. “And another time don’t come to pay a morning visit when you’re foxed!”

Confused, and indignant, Mr Ryde hotly refuted this suggestion, and tried somewhat incoherently to assure both Fanny and the Major of the honourable nature of his proposal. But Fanny merely hid her scarlet face in her hands, and the Major propelled him to the door, saying: “When you are five years older you may make proposals, and by that time you will know better than to force your attentions upon a lady whose circumstances should be enough to protect her from annoyance. Take yourself off! If you oblige me to escort you downstairs, I shall do so in a way you won’t care for.”

With these damping words, he pushed Mr Ryde out of the room, and shut the door upon him. “Stupid young coxcomb!” he remarked, turning again into the room. Then he saw that Fanny was by no means inclined to laugh the matter off, but was, in fact, excessively distressed and agitated, and he went quickly towards her, exclaiming in concern: “You must not take it so to heart! The devil! I wish I had kicked him downstairs!”

She tried to overcome her emotion, but as fast as she wiped the tears from her cheeks her eyes filled again. The novelty of the experience had upset her as much as its impropriety. She was trembling pitiably, and as pale as she had before been red. “How could he? How could he insult me so?” she sobbed.

“It was very bad, but he didn’t mean to insult you!” the Major assured her. To be sure, he deserves to be flogged for impertinence, but it was nothing more than a silly boy’s infatuation!”

“Oh, what must my conduct have been to have allowed him to suppose that such dreadful advances could be welcome to me?” wept Fanny. “Not one year widowed, and this—! I never dreamed—it never occurred to me—”

“No, no, of course it did not!” said the Major soothingly, dropping on one knee in precisely the spot vacated by Mr Ryde, and taking the widow’s hand in a comforting clasp. “You are not to be blamed! Your conduct has been irreproachable! Don’t—! I can’t bear to see you so unhappy, my—Lady Spenborough!”

“I beg your pardon—it is very silly!” Fanny choked, making heroic efforts to compose herself, and succeeding only in uttering a stifled sob. “I didn’t know how to stop him, and he kept on kissing my hands, and saying such things, and frightening me so! Indeed, I am very sorry to be so foolish! I am s-so very in-much obliged to you for s-sending him away! I can’t think w-what I should have done if you had not c-come in, for he—oh. Major Kirkby, he actually put his arm round me! I am so much ashamed, but indeed I never gave him the least encouragement!”

At this point, the Major, going one better than Mr Ryde, put both his own arms round the drooping figure, cradling it protectively, and saying involuntarily: “Fanny, Fanny! There, my darling, there, then! Don’t cry! I’ll see to it the young cub doesn’t come near you again! There’s nothing now to be frightened of!”

Quite how it happened, neither knew. The outraged widow, finding an inviting shoulder so close, sank instinctively against it, and the next instant was locked in a far more alarming embrace than she had been subjected to by the unlucky Mr Ryde. The impropriety of it did not seem to strike her. Her heart leaped in her bosom; she clung tightly to the Major; and put up her face to receive his kiss.

For a long moment they stayed thus, then, as though realization dawned simultaneously on each of them, Fanny made a convulsive movement to free herself, and the Major’s arms dropped from about her, and he sprang up, exclaiming: “Fanny! Oh, my God, my God, what have I done?”

They stared at one another, pale as death, horror in their faces. “I—I beg your pardon!” the Major stammered. “I didn’t mean—Oh, my darling, what are we to do?”

The colour came rushing back to her cheeks; so tender a glow shone in her eyes that it was all he could do not to take her back into his arms. But she said in a constricted voice:

“You were only trying to comfort me. I know you did not mean—”

“Fanny, Fanny, don’t say it! We could not help ourselves!” he interrupted, striding over to the window, as though he dared not trust himself to look at her. “The fool that I have been!”

Such bitter anguish throbbed in his voice that she winced, and bowed her head to hide a fresh spring of tears. A long silence fell. Fanny surreptitiously wiped her eyes, and said faintly: “It was my fault. You must forget—how silly I was. I don’t regard it. I know you cannot have meant it.”

“I think I must have loved you from the moment I saw you.”

“Oh, no, no! Hector, think what you are saying! You love Serena! All these years you have loved her!”

“I have loved a dream. A sickly, sentimental dream which only a moonstruck fool could have created! The vision I cherished—it was not of Serena! She was never like it!”

“No, not like your dream, but better by far!” she said quickly,

“Yes, better by far! She is a grand creature! I admire her, I honour her, I think her the most beautiful woman I ever beheld—but I do not love her!”

She pressed a hand to her temple. “How can this be? Oh, no it is not possible! It could not be!”

“Do you believe me to be mad?” he asked, coming away from the window. “How can I make you understand?” He sat down opposite to her, and dropped his head into his hands. “It wasn’t madness, but folly! When I knew her first—oh, I was head over ears in love with her! as ridiculous an object, I suppose, as that wretched boy I found with you just now! Separated from her, joining my regiment, as I did in the Peninsula, seeing no women other than camp-followers and Spanish peasants for months, there was nothing to banish Serena’s image from my memory. It was not enough to remember her: insensibly I laid coat upon coat of new and more dazzling paint upon my image! Her face I could not alter; her self I did! Perhaps I never knew it!” He looked up, a painful smile twisting his lips. “Were you ever given laudanum for an aching tooth, Fanny? Enough to make you believe your dreams were real? That was what Serena’s image was to me. Then—I met her again.” He paused, and sank his head in his hands again, and groaned. “Her face, more lovely even than I remembered it! her smiling eyelids, the music in her voice, her witchery, the very grace of her every movement—all, all as I had remembered them! I was in love again, but still in that insane dream! The woman beneath what blinded my eyes was a stranger to me. My image I had endowed with my own thoughts, my own tastes: Serena and I have scarcely a thought in common, and our tastes—” He broke off, with a mirthless laugh. “Well, you must know how widely divergent they are!”

“I know that you have sometimes been surprised—even disappointed, but you have been happy! Surely you have been happy?” Fanny said imploringly.

“I have been happy because of you,” he replied. Today I know that. I did not before. I was like a man dazzled by strong sunlight, and when my eyes grew accustomed, and I saw a landscape less perfect than I had imagined it, I shut them. I didn’t think it possible that my feeling for Serena could change. That you were the woman I loved I never knew until I had you in my arms, and realized that to let you go would be to tear the heart out of my chest.”

She rose quickly, and knelt beside him, putting her arms round him. “And mine! Oh, Hector, Hector, and mine! Oh, how wicked I have been! For I knew how much I loved you!”

They clung together, her head on his shoulder, his hand holding it there. Her tears fell silently; when she spoke again her voice had a resolute calm. “It cannot be, my dearest.”

“No. I know it. Well for you to be saved from such a contemptible clodpole as I have proved myself to be!” he said bitterly.

She drew his hand from her cheek, and held it. “You must not talk so. Or speak to me of what might have been. We must neither of us think of that ever again. Hector, we could not—!”

“You need not tell me so. In me, it would be infamous!”

“You will learn to be happy with Serena—indeed, you will, dearest! Just now it seems as though—but we shall grow accustomed, both of us! Where there is no question of dislike, one does, you see. I—I know that. Serena must never so much as suspect this!”

“No,” he said hopelessly.

She could not forbear to put her hand up, lightly stroking his waving fair hair. “There is so much in Serena that is true, not a part of your image! Her courage, and her kindness, and her generosity—oh, a thousand things!” She tried to smile. “You will forget you were ever so foolish as to love me, even a little. Serena is cleverer than I am, and so much more beautiful!”

He took her face between his hands, and looked deep into her eyes. “Cleverer, and more beautiful, but so much less dear!” he said, in an aching voice. He let her go. “Don’t be afraid! I have been a fool, but I hope I am a man of honour.”

“I know, oh, I know! You have been a little shocked to find that Serena is not quite what you thought her, but you will recover, and you will wonder at yourself for not having perceived at once how much more worth loving she is than that stupid image you made! And she loves you, Hector!”

He was silent for a moment, staring at his clenched hands, but presently he raised his eyes to Fanny’s again, in a searching, questioning look. “Does she?” he asked.

She was amazed. “But, Hector—! Oh, how can you doubt it, when she has even said she will relinquish her fortune only to please you?”

He sighed. “Yes. I was forgetting. But it has sometimes seemed to me—Fanny, are you sure it is not Rotherham whom she really loves?”

“Rotherham?” The blankest incredulity sounded in Fanny’s voice. “Good God, what makes you think such a thing?”

“I didn’t think it. But when he came here—afterwards—the suspicion crossed my mind that it was so.”

“No, no, she could not! Oh, if you had ever heard what she says of her engagement to him you would not entertain such thoughts! They cannot meet without falling out! And he! Did you think he loved her still?”

“No,” he said heavily. “I saw no sign—it did not occur to me. He made no attempt to prevent our engagement. On the contrary! He behaved to me with a forbearance, indeed, a kindness, which I neither expected nor felt that I deserved! And his own engagement was announced before he knew of Serena’s.”

There was another long silence. Fanny rose to her feet. “She doesn’t care for him. Oh, I am sure she could not! It is the feeling for a man who was her father’s friend! If it were so—and you too—!”

He too rose. “She shall never, God helping me, know the truth! I must go. How I am to face her I know not! Fanny, I cannot do it immediately! There is some business at home which I should have attended to long since. I’ll go away. Inform her that I called to tell her I had a letter from my agent, that I mean to leave by the mail-coach this afternoon!” He glanced at the gilded clock on the mantelshelf. “It leaves Bath at five o’clock, docs it not? I have just time to pack my portmanteau, and to catch it.”

“It will not do!” she cried. “If you go away like this, what must she think?”

“I shall come back. Tell her that it is only for a few days! I must have time to collect myself! Just at this moment—” He broke off, caught her hands, and kissed them passionately, uttering: “My darling, my darling! Forgive me!” Then, without another word, or a backward look, he strode quickly out of the room.