"So I intended. And as you do understand me, and know how far I am from approving your philosophy, you can hardly wish to remain with us longer." Then they walked on together in absolute silence for above a mile. They had come out of the wood, and were descending, by a steep and narrow path, to the village in which stood the hotel at which the party was staying. Another ten minutes would take them down to the high road. The path here ran by the side of a rivulet, the course of which was so steep that the waters made their way down in a succession of little cataracts. From the other side of the path was a fence, so close to it, that on this particular spot there was room only for one to walk. Here Frank Houston stepped in front of his companion, so as to stop her. "Imogene," he said, "if it is intended that I am to start by the diligence for Innspruck this evening, you had better bid me farewell at once."

"I have bidden you farewell," she said.

"Then you have done it in so bitter a mood that you had better try your hand at it again. Heaven only knows in what manner you or I may meet again."

"What does it matter?" she asked.

"I have always felt that the hearts of men are softer than the hearts of women. A woman's hand is soft, but she can steel her heart when she thinks it necessary, as no man can do. Does it occur to you at this moment that there has been some true affection between you and me in former days?"

"I wish it did not."

"It may be so that I wish it also; but there is the fact. No wishing will enable me to get rid of it. No wishing will save me from the memory of early dreams and sweet longings and vain triumphs. There is the remembrance of bright glory made very sad to me by the meanness of the existing truth. I do not say but that I would obliterate it if I could; but it is not to be obliterated; the past will not be made more pleasant to me by any pretence of present indignation. I should have thought that it would have been the same with you."

"There has been no glory," she said, "though I quite acknowledge the meanness."

"There has been at any rate some love."

"Misplaced. You had better let me pa.s.s on. I have, as you say, steeled myself. I will not condescend to any tenderness. In my brother's presence and my sister's I will wish you good-bye and express a hope that you may be successful in your enterprises. Here, by the brook-side, out upon the mountain-path, where there is no one to hear us but our two selves, I will bid you no farewell softer than that already spoken. Go and do as you propose. You have my leave.

When it shall have been done there shall never be a word spoken by me against it. But, when you ask me whether you are right, I will only say that I think you to be wrong. It may be that you owe nothing to me; but you owe something to her, and something also to yourself.

Now, Mr. Houston, I shall be glad to pa.s.s on."

He shrugged his shoulders and then stepped out of the path, thinking as he did so how ignorant he had been, after all that had pa.s.sed, of much of the character of Imogene Docimer. It could not be, he had thought, but that she would melt into softness at last. "I will not condescend to any tenderness," she had said, and it seemed that she would be as good as her word. He then walked down before her in silence, and in silence they reached the inn.

"Mr. Houston," said Mrs. Docimer, before they sat down to dinner together, "I thought it was understood that you and Imogene should not go out alone together again."

"I have taken my place to Innspruck by the diligence this evening,"

he answered.

"Perhaps it will be better so, though both Mudbury and I will be sorry to lose your company."

"Yes, Mrs. Docimer, I have taken my place. Your sister seemed to think that there would be great danger if I waited till to-morrow morning when I could have got a pleasant lift in a return carriage. I hate travelling at night and I hate diligences. I was quite prepared to post all the way, though it would have ruined me,--only for this accursed diligence."

"I am sorry you should be inconvenienced."

"It does not signify. What a man without a wife may suffer in that way never does signify. It's just fourteen hours. You wouldn't like Docimer to come with me."

"That's nonsense. You needn't go the whole way unless you like. You could sleep at Brunecken."

"Brunecken is only twelve miles, and it might be dangerous."

"Of course you choose to turn everything into ridicule."

"Better that than tears, Mrs. Docimer. What's the good of crying? I can't make myself an elder son. I can't endow Imogene with a hundred thousand pounds. She told me just now that I might earn my bread, but she knows that I can't. It's very sad. But what can be got by being melancholy?"

"At any rate you had better be away from her."

"I am going,--this evening. Shall I walk on, half a stage, at once, without any dinner? I wish you had heard the kind of things she said to me. You would not have thought that I had gone to walk with her for my own pleasure."

"Have you not deserved them?"

"I think not;--but nevertheless I bore them. A woman, of course, can say what she pleases. There's Docimer,--I hope he won't call me a coward."

Mr. Docimer came out on the terrace, on which the two were standing, looking as sour as death. "He is going by the diligence to Innspruck this afternoon," said Mrs. Docimer.

"Why did he come? A man with a grain of feeling would have remained away."

"Now, Docimer," said Frank, "pray do not make yourself unpleasant.

Your sister has been abusing me all the morning like a pickpocket, and your wife looks at me as though she would say just as much if she dared. After all, what is it I have done that you think so wicked?"

"What will everybody think at home," said Mrs. Docimer, "when they know that you're with us again? What chance is she to have if you follow her about in this way?"

"I shall not follow her very long," said Frank. "My wings will soon be cut, and then I shall never fly again." They were at this time walking up and down the terrace together, and it seemed for awhile that neither of them had another word to say in the matter of the dispute between them. Then Houston went on again in his own defence.

"Of course it is all bad," he said. "Of course we have all been fools. You knew it, and allowed it; and have no right to say a word to me."

"We thought that when your uncle died there would have been money,"

said Docimer, with a subdued growl.

"Exactly; and so did I. You do not mean to say that I deceived either you or her?"

"There should have been an end of it when that hope was over."

"Of course there should. There should never have been a dream that she or I could marry on six hundred a year. Had not all of us been fools, we should have taken our hats off and bade each other farewell for ever when the state of the old man's affairs was known. We were fools; but we were fools together; and none of us have a right to abuse the others. When I became acquainted with this young lady at Rome, it had been settled among us that Imogene and I must seek our fortunes apart."

"Then why did you come after her?" again asked Mr. Docimer.

At this moment Imogene herself joined them on the terrace. "Mary,"

she said to her sister-in-law, "I hope you are not carrying on this battle with Mr. Houston. I have said what there was to be said."

"You should have held your tongue and said nothing," growled her brother.

"Be that as it may I have said it, and he quite understands what I think about it. Let us eat our dinner in peace and quietness, and then let him go on his travels. He has the world free before him, which he no doubt will open like an oyster, though he does not carry a sword." Soon after this they did dine, and contented themselves with abusing the meat and the wine, and finding fault with Tyrolese cookery, just as though they had no deeper cares near their hearts.

Precisely at six the heavy diligence stopped before the hotel door, and Houston, who was then smoking with Docimer on the terrace, got up to bid them adieu. Mrs. Docimer was kind and almost affectionate, with a tear in her eye. "Well, old fellow," said Docimer, "take care of yourself. Perhaps everything will turn up right some of these days." "Good-bye, Mr. Houston," said Imogene, just giving him her hand to touch in the lightest manner possible. "G.o.d bless you, Imogene," said he. And there was a tear also in his eye. But there was none in hers, as she stood looking at him while he prepared himself for his departure; nor did she say another word to him as he went. "And now," said she, when the three of them were left upon the terrace, "I will ask a great favour of you both. I will beg you not to let there be another word about Mr. Houston among us." After that she rambled out by herself, and was not seen again by either of them that evening.

When she was alone she too shed her tears, though she felt impatient and vexed with herself as they came into her eyes. It was not perhaps only for her lost love that she wept. Had no one known that her love had been given and then lost she might have borne it without weeping.

But now, in carrying on this vain affair of hers, in devoting herself to a lover who had, with her own consent, pa.s.sed away from her, she had spent the sweet fresh years of her youth, and all those who knew her would know that it had been so. He had told her that it would be her fate to purchase for herself a husband with her beauty. It might be so. At any rate she did not doubt her own beauty. But, if it were to be so, then the romance and the charm of her life were gone. She had quite agreed that six hundred a year, and lodgings in Marylebone, would be quite unendurable; but what was there left for her that would be endurable? He could be happy with the prospect of Gertrude Tringle's money. She could not be happy, looking forward to that unloved husband who was to be purchased by her beauty.

CHAPTER XXIX.

AT MERLE PARK. NO. 1.

Sir Thomas took the real holiday of the year at Glenbogie,--where he was too far removed from Lombard Street to be drawn daily into the vortex of his millions. He would stay usually six weeks at Glenbogie,--which were by no means the happiest weeks of the year. Of all the grand things of the world which his energy and industry had produced for him, he loved his millions the best. It was not because they were his,--as indeed they were not. A considerable filing off them,--what he regarded as his percentage,--annually became his own; but it was not this that he loved. In describing a man's character it is the author's duty to give the man his due. Sir Thomas liked his own wealth well enough. Where is the rich man who does not?--or where is the poor man who does not wish that he had it to like? But what he loved were the millions with which Travers and Treason dealt. He was Travers and Treason, though his name did not even appear in the firm, and he dealt with the millions. He could affect the rate of money throughout Europe, and emissaries from national treasuries would listen to his words. He had been Governor and Deputy-Governor of the Bank of England. All the City respected him, not so much because he was rich, as that he was one who thoroughly understood millions. If Russia required to borrow some infinite number of roubles, he knew how to arrange it, and could tell to a rouble at what rate money could be made by it, and at what rate money would certainly be lost.

He liked his millions, and was therefore never quite comfortable at Glenbogie. But at Merle Park he was within easy reach of London. At Merle Park he was not obliged to live, from week's end to week's end, without a sight of Lombard Street. The family might be at Merle Park, while he might come down on a Friday and remain till Tuesday morning.

That was the plan proposed for Merle Park. As a fact he would spend four days in town, and only two down in the country. Therefore, though he spent his so-named holiday at Glenbogie, Merle Park was the residence which he loved.