"What a very flattering speech! Was that why you came? Sit here, Arthur: you will find it much more comfortable."

He pushes towards him the cosily-cushioned chair in which Horace had been sitting a minute ago.

"Do I look tired enough to require this?" says Sartoris, sinking, however, very willingly into the chair's embrace. As he does so, something lying on the ground (that has escaped Dorian's notice) attracts him.

"What is this?" he asks, stooping to pick it up.

It is a lace handkerchief, of delicate and exquisite workmanship, with some letters embroidered in one corner.

"You have been receiving gentle visitors very early," says Lord Sartoris, turning the pretty thing round and round curiously.

"Not unless you can count Horace as one," says Dorian, with a light laugh. "How on earth did that come here?" Stooping, he, too, examines minutely the fragile piece of lace and cambric his uncle is still holding. Sartoris turning it again, the initials in the corner make themselves known, and stand out, legibly and carefully worked, as "R.

A."

Dorian's face changes. He knows the handkerchief only too well now. He himself had given it to Ruth at Christmas; but how had it come here?

No one had entered the room to-day except himself and--Horace!

Notwithstanding the scene with Ruth the night before, when she had so unmistakably betrayed her love for Horace, Dorian had never for one moment suspected that things had gone farther than a mere foolish girlish liking for a man rather handsomer than the ordinary run of men. His brother's honor he had not doubted, nor did he deem him capable of any act calculated to bring misery upon one who had trusted him.

Now, in spite of himself, a terrible doubt arises, that will not be suppressed; like a blow conviction falls; and many past actions and past words crowd to his mind that, at the time of their occurrence, seemed as mere nothings, but now are "confirmations strong" of the truth that has just flashed upon him.

Had he lied to him when he told him a few minutes since he had been to Biddulph's farm and not anywhere in the direction of the Old Mill?

Doubt, having once a.s.serted itself, makes him now distrustful of his brother's every look and every tone. And the handkerchief! He must have had it from Ruth herself, and dropped it here inadvertently before leaving the room. To him the idea that Horace should have chosen a timid, fragile, gentle girl, like Ruth Annersley, upon whom to play off the fascinations and wiles taught him by a fashionable world, is nothing less than despicable. A deep sense of contempt for the man who, to pa.s.s away pleasantly a few dull hours in the country, would make a target of a woman's heart, fills his mind. He is frowning heavily, and his face has grown very white Looking up, he becomes aware that his uncle is watching him narrowly.

To the old man, the altered countenance of his nephew, his pallor and hesitation, all betoken guilt. Dorian's eyes are still clear and calm, as usual, but his expression has strangely altered.

"'R. A.,'" remarks Lord Sartoris, slowly. "Why, that might mean Ruth Annersley."

"It might," returns Dorian, absently. He dares not speak his inmost thoughts. After all, Horace may not be in the wrong: the girl's own vanity, or folly, may have led her to believe a few words spoken in jest to mean more than was ever intended. And, at all events, no matter what comes of it, he cannot betray his brother.

"How could it have come here?" asks Lord Sartoris, without raising his eyes from the luckless handkerchief. "Do you know anything of it?"

"Nothing; except that it belongs to Ruth. I gave it to her last Christmas."

"You! A curious gift to a girl in her rank in life?"

"She wished for it," returns Brans...o...b.., curtly.

"Then she is no doubt heart-broken, imagining she has lost it. Return it to her, I advise you, without delay," says his uncle, contemptuously, throwing it from him to a table near. "I need not detain you any longer, now,"--rising, and moving towards the door.

"Going so soon?" says the younger man, roused from his galling reflections, by his uncle's abrupt departure, to some sense of cordiality. "Why, you have hardly stayed a moment."

"I have stayed long enough,--too long," says Lord Sartoris, gloomily, fixing his dark eyes (that age have failed to dim) upon the man who has been to him as his own soul.

"Too long?" repeats Brans...o...b.., coloring darkly.

"Yes. Have you forgotten altogether the motto of our race?--'Leal friend, leal foe.' Let me bring it to your memory."

"Pray do not trouble yourself. I remember it perfectly," says Dorian, haughtily, drawing up his figure to its fullest height. "I am sorry, my lord, you should think it necessary to remind me of it."

He bows and opens the door as he finishes his speech. Lord Sartoris, though sorely troubled, makes no sign; and, without so much as a pressure of the hand, they part.

CHAPTER XIX.

"Lock you, how she cometh, trilling Out her gay heart's bird-like bliss!

Merry as a May-morn thrilling With the dew and sunshine's kiss.

Ruddy gossips of her beauty Are her twin cheeks; and her mouth, In its ripe warmth, smileth fruity As a garden of the south."--GERALD Ma.s.sEY.

To Georgie the life at the vicarage is quite supportable,--is, indeed, balm to her wounded spirit. Mrs. Redmond may, of course, chop and change as readily as the east wind, and, in fact, may sit in any quarter, being somewhat erratic in her humors; but they are short-lived; and, if faintly trying, she is at least kindly and tender at heart.

As for the vicar, he is--as Miss Georgie tells him, even without a blush--"simply adorable;" and the children are sweet good-natured little souls, true-hearted and earnest, to whom the loss of an empire would be as dross in comparison with the gain of a friend.

They are young!

To Dorian Brans...o...b.., Miss Broughton is "a thing of beauty, and a joy forever; her loveliness increases" each moment, rendering her more dear. Perhaps he himself hardly knows how dear she is to his heart, though day after day he haunts the vicarage, persecuting the vicar with parochial business of an outside sort. It ought, indeed, to be "had in remembrance," the amount of charity this young man expended upon the poor during all this early part of the year.

Then there is always Sunday, when he sits opposite to her in the old church, watching her pretty mischievous little face meditatively throughout the service, and listening to her perfect voice as it rises, clear and full of pathos, in anthem and in hymn.

The spring has come at last, though tardy and slow in its approach.

Now--

"Buds are bursting on the brier, And all the kindled greenery glows And life hath richest overflows, And morning fields are fringed with fire."

Winter is almost forgotten. The snow and frost and ice are as a dream that was told. No one heeds them now, or thinks of them, or feels aught about them, save a sudden chill that such things might have been.

To-day is beautiful beyond compare. The sun is high in the heavens; the birds are twittering and preening their soft feathers in the yellow light that Phoebus flings broadcast upon the loving earth. The flowers are waking slowly into life, and stud the mossy woods with colorings distinct though faint:

"Nooks of greening gloom Are rich with violets that bloom In the cool dark of dewy leaves."

Primroses, too, are all alive, and sit staring at the heavens with their soft eyes, as though in their hearts they feel they are earth's stars. Each subtle green is widening, growing. All nature has arisen from its long slumber, and "beauty walks in bravest dress."

Coming up the road, Dorian meets Georgie Broughton, walking with quick steps, and in evident haste, towards the vicarage. She is lilting some merry little song of her own fancy, and has her hat pushed well back from her forehead, so that all her sunny hair can be seen. It is a lovely hat,--inexpensive, perhaps, but lovely, nevertheless, in that it is becoming to the last degree. It is a great big hat, like a coal-scuttle,--as scuttles used to be,--and gives her all the appearance of being the original of one of Kate Greenaway's charming impersonations.

"Good-morning," says Dorian, though, in truth, he hardly takes to heart the full beauty of the fair morning that has been sent, so rapt he is in joy at the very sight of her. "Going back to the vicarage now?"

"Yes." She is smiling sweetly at him,--the little, kind, indifferent smile that comes so readily to her red lips.

"Well, so am I," says Dorian, turning to accompany her.

Miss Broughton glances at him demurely.

"You can't want to go to the vicarage again?" she says, lifting her brows.