"To town, dear."

Now Mr. Glynde loved London.

In the meantime Dora was standing at the gate of the gamekeeper's little cottage-garden which adjoined the orchard at Stagholme. There were certain women with whom Sister Cecilia did not "get on," and these were by tacit understanding relegated to Dora. This same inability to "get on"

was one of the crosses which Sister Cecilia carried in a magnified condition through life. The gamekeeper's wife was one of the failures--a hardy mother of several hardy little embryo gamekeepers, who held that she knew her own business of motherhood best, and intimated as much to Sister Cecilia.

Dora went there very frequently, and the pathos of her way with little children is one of the things which cannot be touched upon here. It is possible that she went there because the cottage was near the Holme, and the way took her past the great house. She had never laid aside her old girlish habit of pa.s.sing through the rooms, unannounced, to exchange a few words with Mrs. Agar. It was not that she held that lady in great veneration or respect; but in the country people learn to take their neighbours as they are, remembering that they are neighbours.

She went through the orchard and in at the side-door, which stood always open to the turn of the handle. She had fallen into a singular habit of always using this entrance, and of glancing as she pa.s.sed at the stick-rack, where a rough mountain-ash was wont to stand--a stick which Jem had cut, while she stood by, years before. There was, perhaps, something characteristically suggestive of Jem in this stick--something strong and simple. She was not the person to indulge in sentimental thoughts; she could not afford to do that, Indeed, she often looked into the stick-rack without thinking, but she never pa.s.sed it without looking.

In the library she found Mrs. Agar, talking to her maid, who withdrew with a pinched salutation. Mrs. Agar was one of those unfortunate women who level all ranks in their sore need of a listener. The expression of her face was decidedly lachrymose.

"Poor Arthur!" she exclaimed. "Dora, dear, something so dreadful has happened!"

"Yes," returned Dora, with the indifference of one who has tasted of the worst.

"Poor Arthur has received Jem's papers and diaries and things, and I can see from his letter that it has quite upset him. He is so sympathetic, you know."

Dora had turned quite away. She usually carried a stick in her country rambles, and it seemed suddenly to have suggested itself to her to lay this on a table near the door. The stick fell off again, and some moments elapsed while she picked it up from the floor. When she turned, her veil had slipped from the brim of her hat down over her face.

"But it could not have been a surprise to him," she said quietly. "He must have known that there would probably be something of the sort sent home."

"Yes, yes. But you know, dear, how keenly he feels everything. These highly-strung, artistic temperaments--but I need not tell you; you know Arthur almost as well as I do."

Dora answered nothing. It was not the first time that Mrs. Agar had charged some remark with that weight of significance which, in her vulgar-minded subtlety, she considered delicate and exceptionally clever.

And each time that Dora heard it she was conscious of a vague discomfort, as at the approach of some danger, of some interference in her life which would be too strong for her to resist. It was one of those mean feminine thrusts to parry which is to acknowledge, to ignore is to admit fear.

"Has he sent them on to you?" she asked after a little pause, resisting only by a great effort the temptation to look towards the writing-table.

"Yes," was the reply. "It appears that they have been in his possession for some time. He kept them back for some reason--I cannot think why."

Providence is sometimes unexpectedly kind. Had Mrs. Agar been a different woman, had she, perhaps, been a better woman, less aggravating, more discreet, more honourable, she would not have done at this moment precisely that which Dora was silently praying that she would do.

"Here," continued the mistress of Stagholme, going to the writing-table, "is his diary; perhaps you would care to look through it? Poor Jem! I am afraid it will not be very interesting."

Dora took the little dark-coloured book almost indifferently.

"Thanks," she said. "It was always an effort to him to write the very shortest letter, was it not? Papa would like to see it, I know, if I may show it to him."

Being rather taller than Mrs. Agar, she could see over that lady's shoulder as she stood turning over with some curiosity a score or so of bundles evidently containing letters.

"These," said Mrs. Agar, "seem to be letters; probably our letters to him. Shall we burn them?"

Dora reflected for a moment. She knew that many of the bundles must contain letters from herself to Jem--letters which could have been read from the housetops without conveying anything to the populace. But some of them--almost between the lines--had been intended to convey, and had conveyed, something to Jem. She reflected--without anger, as women do on such matters--that if curiosity moved her, Mrs. Agar would not scruple to open all these letters and read them. The packets had evidently not been opened, and a momentary feeling of grateful recognition of Arthur's gentlemanly honour pa.s.sed through her mind. There was about the faded papers that dim, mysterious odour which ever clings to packages that have been packed in India.

"Yes," she said, "let us burn them."

Mrs. Agar seemed to hesitate for a moment, but it was only for effect.

She dreaded the packages, for one of them might contain the will which haunted her.

And so these two women, so very different, from such very different motives, carried the letters to the fire, and there they burnt them. In the curling flames Dora saw her own handwriting. She could not understand the suppressed excitement of Mrs. Agar's manner; she only knew that the mistress of Stagholme seemed to be afraid of looking at the burning papers.

When all was consumed both women heaved a sigh of relief.

"There," said Mrs. Agar, "I am glad we have been able to save poor Arthur that. These things are so very painful."

Dora looked rather as if she could not understand why the painful things of life should be harder for Arthur to bear than for other people. But she said nothing.

"He will be glad," continued Mrs. Agar, "to hear that it was you who helped me. I know he would rather that it had been you than any one."

All this with the horrid meaning, the sly significance, of her kind; for there are women for whom there is absolutely nothing sacred in the whole gamut of human feelings. There are women who will talk of things upon which the lips of even the most depraved men are silent.

And with it there was nothing that Dora could take exception to--nothing that she could answer without running the risk of bringing upon herself questions to which she had no reply.

"Well," she said cheerfully, "it is done now, so we can dismiss it from our minds. Of course you know that mother is getting out of hand altogether. I cannot hold her in. Her plans are simply kittenish. She wants to take a flat in town for two months, to take Boulton and one maid, to hire a cook, and to go generally to the bad."

Mrs. Agar's eyes glistened. She liked to hear of other people seeking excitement because she felt more justified in doing so herself.

"Well, I think she is very sensible. I am sure you all want a change. I feel I do. It is so depressing here all alone with one's thoughts. Sister Cecilia was just saying the other day that I ought to go away to Brighton or somewhere--that I owed it to Arthur."

"I don't see why you should not pay it to yourself, whoever you owe it to," said Dora. "This is an age of going away for changes. Life is like old Martin's trousers--so patched up with changes that the original pattern has disappeared."

"Yes, dear," replied Mrs. Agar, with a vague laugh. In conversation with Dora she invariably felt clumsy and unable to protect herself, like a stout fencer conscious of many vulnerable outlying points. She did not understand this girl, and never knew which was carte and which tierce.

"So you are going away?"

"I expect so. Mother usually carries through her little schemes, and in his inward soul papa is rather a fast old gentleman. He loves the pavement, and--I don't object to the shops myself."

"Then you will like it?"

"Oh yes!" replied Dora, rising to go. "Like Mr. Martin, I am not sure that the old pattern is worth preserving."

"I wish I could go with you," said Mrs. Agar, holding up her cheek in an absent way for the farewell kiss; "I have not been to town for ages."

"Last week," amended Dora mentally.

"Why not come too?" she said aloud, gathering together stick, basket, and gloves.

"There is Arthur," replied the lady. "I am afraid he will not care to leave home just now, after so great a blow."

"All the more reason why he should go to town for a little and forget--himself."

Mrs. Agar smiled sadly and waited for further persuasion. She had fully made up her mind to go to Brighton, but was anxious first that the whole parish should press her to do so against her will.

"It will be very nice," continued Dora, "to have you to help me to keep my flighty progenitors in order. Now I _must_ go."

With a nod and a light laugh she closed the library door behind her, having apparently forgotten the sadder events of the visit. But in her basket she had the diary.