Next morning came a bit of human nature--a letter from Zoe to f.a.n.n.y, almost entirely occupied with praises of Lord Uxmoor. She told the bull story better than I have--if possible--and, in short, made Uxmoor a hero of romance.

f.a.n.n.y carried this in triumph to the other ladies, and read it out.

"There!" said she. "Didn't I tell you?"

Rhoda read the letter, and owned herself puzzled. "I am not, then," said f.a.n.n.y: "they are engaged--over the bull; like Europa and I forgot who--and so he is not afraid to go abroad now. That is just like the men.

They cool directly the chase is over."

Now the truth was that Zoe was trying to soothe her conscience with elegant praises of the man she had dismissed, and felt guilty.

Ina Klosking said little. She was puzzled too at first. She asked to see Zoe's handwriting. The letter was handed to her. She studied the characters. "It is a good hand," she said; "nothing mean there." And she gave it back.

But, with a glance, she had read the address, and learned that the post town was Bagley.

All that day, at intervals, she brought her powerful understanding to bear on the paradox; and though she had not the facts and the clew I have given the reader, she came near the truth in an essential matter. She satisfied herself that Lord Uxmoor was not engaged to Zoe Vizard.

Clearly, if so, he would not leave England for months. She resolved to know more; and just before dinner she wrote a line to Ashmead, and requested him to call on her immediately.

That day she dined with Vizard and the ladies. She sat at Vizard's right hand, and he told her how proud, and happy he was to see her there.

She blushed faintly, but made no reply.

She retired soon after dinner.

All next day she expected Ashmead.

He did not come.

She dined with Vizard next day, and retired to the drawing-room. The piano was opened, and she played one or two exquisite things, and afterward tried her voice, but only in scales, and somewhat timidly, for Miss Gale warned her she might lose it or spoil it if she strained the vocal chord while her whole system was weak.

Next day Ashmead came with apologies.

He had spent a day in the cathedral town on business. He did not tell her how he had spent that day, going about puffing her as the greatest singer of sacred music in the world, and paving the way to her engagement at the next festival. Yet the single-hearted Joseph had really raised that commercial superstructure upon the sentiments she had uttered on his first visit to Vizard Court.

Ina now held a private conference with him. "I think," said she, "I have heard you say you were once an actor."

"I was, madam, and a very good one, too."

_"Cela va sans dire._ I never knew one that was not. At all events, you can disguise yourself."

"Anything, madam, from Grandfather Whitehead to a boy in a pinafore.

Famous for my make-ups."

"I wish you to watch a certain house, and not be recognized by a person who knows you."

"Well, madam, nothing is _infra dig,_ if done for you; nothing is distasteful if done for you."

"Thank you, my friend. I have thought it well to put my instructions on paper."

"Ay, that is the best way."

She handed him the instructions. He read them, and his eyes sparkled.

"Ah, this is a commission I undertake with pleasure, and I'll execute it with zeal."

He left her, soon after, to carry out these instructions, and that very evening he was in the wardrobe of the little theater, rummaging out a suitable costume, and also in close conference with the wigmaker.

Next day Vizard had his mother's sables taken out and aired, and drove Mademoiselle Klosking into Taddington in an open carriage. f.a.n.n.y told her they were his mother's sables, and none to compare with them in the country.

On returning, she tried her voice to the harmonium in her own antechamber, and found it was gaining strength--like herself.

Meantime Zoe Vizard met Severne in the garden, and told him she had written to Lord Uxmoor, and he would never visit her again. But she did not make light of the sacrifice this time. She had sacrificed her own self-respect as well as Uxmoor's, and she was sullen and tearful.

He had to be very wary and patient, or she would have parted with him too, and fled from both of them to her brother.

Uxmoor's wounded pride would have been soothed could he have been present at the first interview of this pair. He would have seen Severne treated with a hauteur and a sort of savageness he himself was safe from, safe in her unshaken esteem.

But the world is made for those who can keep their temper, especially the female part of the world.

Sad, kind, and loving, but never irritable, Severne smoothed down and soothed and comforted the wounded girl; and, seeing her two or three times a day--for she was completely mistress of her time--got her completely into his power again.

Uxmoor did not reply.

She had made her selection. Love beckoned forward. It was useless to look back.

Love was omnipotent. They both began to recover their good looks as if by magic; and as Severne's pa.s.sion, though wicked, was earnest, no poor bird was ever more completely entangled by bird-lime than Zoe was caught by Edward Severne.

Their usual place of meeting was the shrubbery attached to Somerville Villa. The trees, being young, made all the closer shade, and the gravel-walk meandered, and shut them out from view.

Severne used to enter this shrubbery by a little gate leading from the meadow, and wait under the trees till Zoe came to him. Vizard's advertis.e.m.e.nts alarmed him, and he used to see the coast clear before he entered the shrubbery, and also before he left it. He was so particular in this that, observing one day an old man doddering about with a basket, he would not go in till he had taken a look at him. He found it was an ancient white-haired villager gathering mushrooms. The old fellow was so stiff, and his hand so trembling, that it took him about a minute to gather a single fungus.

To give a reason for coming up to him, Severne said, "How old are you, old man?"

"I be ninety, measter, next Martinmas-day."

"Only ninety?" said our Adonis, contemptuously; "you look a hundred and ninety."

He would have been less contemptuous had he known that the mushrooms were all toad-stools, and the village centenaire was Mr. Joseph Ashmead, resuming his original arts, and playing Grandfather Whitehead on the green gra.s.s.

CHAPTER XXV.

MADEMOISELLE KLOSKING told Vizard the time drew near when she must leave his hospitable house.

"Say a month hence," said he.

She shook her head.

"Of course you will not stay to gratify me," said he, half sadly, half bitterly. "But you will have to stay a week or two longer _par ordonnance du me'decin."_