Yes! Darsie "took it hard." One look at her face proved as much, and among many contending feelings, disappointment was predominant--bitter, intense, most humiliating disappointment.

"Oh, Ralph! What for? I hoped, I thought--you _promised_ me to be careful!"

"And so I was, Darsie! Give you my word, I was. For the first half of the term I never got anything worse than three penny fines. It isn't a deadly thing to stay out after ten. And I was so jolly careful--never was so careful in my life. But just the night when it was most important I must needs be caught. You can't expect a fellow to get away from a big evening before twelve. But that's what it ended in--a big jaw, throwing up all my past misdeeds, and being sent down. Now you can slang away."

But Darsie made no attempt to "slang." With every word that had been uttered her feelings of helplessness had increased. Ralph had apparently made little difference in his ways; he had only been more careful not to be found out! At the very moment when she had been congratulating herself, and boasting of the good results of her friendship, this crowning disgrace had fallen upon him. No wonder Dan had been silent; no wonder that he had looked upon her with that long, questioning gaze! The thought of Dan was singularly comforting at this moment--strong, silent, loyal Dan, going forth valiantly to the battle of life. Darsie's little face took on a pinched look; she shivered, and drew the thin scarf more tightly round her. Her silence, the suffering written on her face, hit Ralph more hardly than any anger; for the first time something deeper than embarra.s.sment showed itself in face and voice.

"For pity's sake, Darsie, speak! Say something! Don't sit there and look at me like that."

"But, Ralph, what is there to say?" Darsie threw out her arms with a gesture of hopelessness. "I've talked so often, been so eloquent, believed so much! If this is the outcome, what more can be said?"

"I _have_ tried! I _did_ want to please you!"

"By not being found out! It's not much comfort, Ralph, to feel that I've encouraged you in deception. And all those nights when you stayed out late, were you betting as usual--getting into debt?"

Ralph frowned.

"I've been beastly unlucky, never knew such a persistent run. That's the d.i.c.kens of it, Darsie. I haven't dared to tell the Governor yet, but I positively must get hold of the money before the tenth. I'm bound to pay up by then. It's a debt of honour."

Darsie's red lip curled over that word. She sat stiff and straight in her seat, not deigning a reply. Ralph appeared to struggle with himself for several moments, before he said urgently--

"The mater is going to talk to you. She knows that you have more influence with me than any one else. It's true, Darsie, whatever you may think--I should have drifted a lot deeper but for you. When she does, do your best for a fellow! They'll be down on me for not having told about this debt. The Governor asked if there was anything else, but upon my word I hadn't the courage to own up at that moment."

Still Darsie did not reply. She was wondering drearily what she could find to say when the dreaded interview came about; shrinking from the thought of adding to the mother's pain, feeling a paralysing sense of defeat; yet, at this very moment of humiliation, a ray of light illumined the darkness and showed the reason of her failure.

Dan was right! no one could truly help a man without first implanting in his heart the wish to help himself! She had been content to bribe Ralph, as a spoiled child is bribed to be good; had felt a glow of gratified vanity in the knowledge that her own favour was the prize to be won. If the foundations of her buildings were unstable, what wonder that the edifice had fallen to the ground? The thought softened her heart towards the handsome culprit by her side, and when she spoke at last it was in blame of herself rather than of him.

"I'm sorry, too, Ralph. I might have helped you better. I rushed in where angels fear to tread. I gave you a wrong motive. It should have been more than a question of pleasing me--more even than pleasing your parents... Oh, Ralph, dear, you know--you know there is something higher than that!--Is religion nothing to you, Ralph? Don't you feel that in wasting your life you are offending against G.o.d--against Christ!

Can't you try again with _that_ motive to help you?--I can't make light of things to your people, but I can take part of the blame on myself.

If it is true that I have any influence over you, I have thrown it away..."

Ralph laid his hand over the gloved fingers clasped together on Darsie's knee.

"Don't say that! Don't think that, Darsie. I may be a rotter, but I'd have been a hundred times worse if it hadn't been for you. And don't exaggerate the position: it's a pity to do that. Every man isn't born a Dan Vernon. Most fellows only reach that stage of sobriety when they are middle-aged. It would be a pretty dull world if no one kicked over the traces now and then in their youth. What have I done, after all?

Slacked my work, helped myself to a bit more play and come down on the Governor for an extra cheque now and again. Lots of fellows come a worse cropper than that--"

Darsie wondered if a "worse cropper" might not possibly be a less serious ill than persistent slacking and irresponsibility; but now that the bad news was out, Ralph was fast regaining his composure.

"I'll turn out all right yet, Darsie, you'll see. The tenants like me.

I'll settle down and make a first-rate squire when my time comes. And I'll make up to you then for all this worry and bother." For a moment his voice was significantly tender, then the recollection of his present difficulty swept over him once more, and he added hastily: "You'll-- you'll break it to the mater, won't you? About that money, I mean.

She'll take it best from you--"

Darsie rose from her seat, and stood before him, tall and white in the moonlight.

"No!" she said clearly. "I will not. You must make your own confession. Things have been made easy for you all your life, Ralph.

Now you must fight for yourself."

Ralph bore no malice; even his momentary irritation at finding himself, as he considered, "left in the lurch," lasted but a few moments after his return to the hall. Darsie would rather have had it last a little longer. To see an unclouded face, to catch the echo of merry laughter within ten minutes of a humiliating confession, seemed but another instance of instability of character. It seemed literally impossible for Ralph to feel deeply on any subject for more than a few moments at a time; nevertheless, such was the charm of his personality that she felt both pleased and flattered when twelve o'clock approached and he came smilingly forward to lead her to her place in the great ring encircling the whole room. "I must have you and mother--one on either side," he said, and as they crossed the floor together Darsie was conscious that every eye in the room followed them with a smiling significance. The young Squire, and the pretty young lady who was his sister's friend--a nice pair they made, to be sure! Every brain was busy with dreams of the future, weaving romantic plans, seeing in imagination other scenes like the present, with Darsie in the place of hostess. She knew it, divined instinctively that Ralph knew it too, felt the recognition of it in the grip of Noreen's hand, in the tender pathos of Mrs Percival's smile. And once again Darsie wondered, and doubted, and feared and felt the weight of invisible chains. There are moments, however, when doubts and fears are apt to be swept away in a rush of overwhelming emotions, and one of those is surely the beginning of a new year. To be young and pretty; to be by general acceptance the queen of the evening--no normal girl could help being carried away by such circ.u.mstances as these! When the last chime of the twelve rang slowly out, and the audience with one accord burst into the strains of "Auld Lang Syne," Darsie's eyes shone with excitement, and she returned with unction the pressure of Ralph's fingers.

"Then here's a hand, my trusty friend, And gie's a hand o' thine!"

The volume of sound swelled and sank, here and there a voice took a husky tone; here and there an eye grew dim, but these belonged as a rule to the patriarchs among the guests, for whom the past was full of tender memories, for whom but a few more New Years could dawn. Perhaps this might be the last, the very last, they would live to see. The young folks shed no tears; they were not unconscious of the prevailing emotion, but with them it found vent in a tingling expectation. Life lay ahead. Life was to come. What would life bring?

When the song ceased, and the linked circle broke up into separate groups, Darsie, glancing up into Ralph's face, was surprised to see it white and tense. She smiled, half amused, half sad, bracing herself to hear some emotional protest or vow for the future; but Ralph spake no word. Instead, he led her to a seat, bowed formally before her, and, still with that white, fixed look, marched straight across the room to his father.

Darsie's pulse quickened, her little teeth clenched on her lower lip, she pressed her hands against her knee the while she watched the eloquent scene. Father and son faced each other; handsome man, handsome youth, strangely alike despite the quarter of a century between their respective ages; the Squire's face, at first all genial welcome and unconcern, showing rapidly a pained gravity. Ralph was speaking rapidly, with an occasional eloquent gesture of the arm, obviously recounting some facts of pressing importance to himself and his hearer, as obviously pleading a cause. With a thrill of excitement Darsie leaped to the true explanation of the situation. Fresh from the singing of the New Year song, Ralph had not paused to consider conventions, but then and there had hastened to make his confession in his father's ears.

"Governor! I'm sorry! I was a coward, and wouldn't own up. I've been playing the fool again, and have lost more money. I owe over fifty pounds, and it has to be paid up by the tenth of this month."

The Squire looked his son full in the face.

"Is that all the truth, Ralph, or only a part?" he asked quietly. "Let me hear the whole please, now that we are about it."

"That is the whole, sir. There's nothing more to be told."

"The money shall be paid, but you must do something for me in return.

We can't talk here. Come to my study when we get home!"

The Squire laid his hand on his son's shoulder with a momentary pressure as he turned aside to attend to his guests, but Ralph lopped crestfallen and discomfited. It was one thing to blurt out a disagreeable confession on the impulse of a moment, and another and very different one to discuss it in cold blood in the privacy of a study. In the middle of the night, too! Ralph shivered at the thought. Why on earth couldn't the Governor be sensible, and wait till next morning? The money would be paid--that was the main point--all the rest could wait.

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.

AT THE ORCHARD.

Ralph Percival spent a long hour alone with his father in the chill dawn of that New Year's morn, and during its pa.s.sing heard more stern home- truths than he had ever before listened to from those indulgent lips.

The Squire had not insisted on any arduous work on his son's part: in his heart he shared Ralph's theory that a man whose life is to be spent looking after his own land has no need of much scholarly lore. He must be straight and manly, intelligent enough to understand and move with the movements of the day, but not so intelligent as to grow discontented with a circle of admirable, but somewhat humdrum, neighbours. He must be possessed of courteous and agreeable manners, able on occasion to take the chair at a meeting, possibly even on a Bench, with credit to himself and his family.

A 'Varsity education was obviously the best means of developing such qualities, but who was going to bother his head as to the question of honours or no honours? There was no reason why the boy should slave as if he had his living to make by sheer brain effort. The Squire was prepared to show the utmost leniency towards Ralph's scholastic efforts, but that he should have persistently broken the rules, ignored warnings, incurred gambling debts, and, crowning indignity of all, that he should have been sent down, even for the last week of the term--that stabbed the honest old countryman to his heart.

He said very little on the subject of his own feelings; such men are not given to talk of themselves, but the tone of his voice was eloquent, and Ralph winced before it. It was a new experience for the spoilt son and heir to hear any accents but those of love and appreciation from a member of his own family, and the experience was unexpectedly bitter.

Who could have believed that the Governor would cut up so rough--could deliver himself of such sledge-hammer judgments? The card debts would be paid, there was no question of that--every debt should be paid--and Ralph should return to college with a clean sheet so far as money was concerned, and with his handsome allowance undiminished--_for the present_. He himself must decide what would happen in the future. The Squire asked for no promises; he had had experience of the uselessness of promises (the listener winced again at the significance of those words); but Ralph must understand that any debts would be subtracted from his own future allowance. He must also understand that he was expected to take his pa.s.s the following May. There had been too much shirking and running loose--now he must work for a change. For his parents' sake, his sisters' sake, he must make amends for the pain and shame of the last weeks.

It was a painful scene for both father and son, but the charm of manner which was the great secret of Ralph's popularity did not forsake him, even in this hour of humiliation. He made an ideal penitent--abashed, yet manly, subdued and silenced, yet when the right moment came ready with a few apt, quietly spoken words.

"Thank you, sir. You are always generous. I've made a beastly poor return. I hope this year may end better than it has begun."

Poor Ralph! How little he guessed at that moment all that the year held in store! How little the father dreamed of the altered conditions with which he would face another New Year's Day! But so long as they both lived it was good to remember that the interview had ended peacefully and with a renewed sense of harmony, with a firm hand-grip and an affectionate glance.

Ralph took his candle from a table in the hall and made his way quietly up the oak staircase, and his father stood below and watched him go, while his heart waxed tender within him.

His son--his only son! He would give his heart's blood for the lad.

Had he been just, wise, prudent, in the words which he had said? Had he been stern enough?--too stern? He was in a thousand minds about his own conduct, but in only one as regards Ralph's. The boy had taken his dressing like a man. How handsome he had looked as he stood to listen, not flinching or hanging his head as an ordinary culprit would have done, but drawn to his full height, with straight, fearless gaze. With what a frank air he had held out his hand for that farewell grasp!

Bless the boy! his heart was in the right place. He would settle down, and make a fine man yet. Patience! Patience!