"Yet he is going to marry Miss Vyner."

"He is not. I am sure he is not. He will marry Kate Atheling."

"The Duke told me this afternoon that Lord Exham would marry Miss Vyner as soon as this Reform question is settled. He said the marriage would take place at the Castle."

"The Duke has been talking false to you for some purpose of his own."

"Not he. Richmoor has faults--more than enough of them; but he treads his shoes straight. A truthful man, no one can say different."

"I wouldn't notice a thing he said for all that. Pa.s.s it by. Leave Kitty to manage her own affairs."

"No, I will not! Thou must tell Kitty to give the man up. He is going to marry another woman."

"I don't believe a word of it."

"His father said so. What would you have?"

"Fathers don't know everything."

"Now, Maude Atheling, my girl shall not marry where she is not wanted.

I would rather see her in her death shroud than in her wedding gown, if things were in that way."

"John, I have always been open as the day with you, and I will not change now. The d.u.c.h.ess said something like it to Kitty this morning, so you see there has been a plan between the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess to make trouble about Piers. Kitty came home very troubled."

"And you let her go out with the man! I am astonished at you!"

"She asked me what she ought to do, and I told the dear girl to be happy until _you_ told her to be miserable. If you think it is right to do so, tell her when she comes home never to see Piers again."

"You had better tell her. I cannot."

"I cannot, and I will not, for the life of me." "Don't you believe what I say?"

"Yes--with a grain of salt. Piers is to hear from yet."

"Well, you must speak to her, Mother. My heart is too soft. It is _your_ place to do it."

"My heart is as soft as yours, John. I say, let things alone. We are going to Atheling soon--we cannot go too soon now. If it must be told her, Kate will hear it, and bear it best in her own home; and, besides, he will not be within calling distance. John, this thing cannot be done in a hurry. G.o.d help the dear girl--to find Piers false--to give him up--it will break her heart, Father!"

"Kitty's heart is made of better stuff. When she finds out that Piers has been false to her, she will despise him."

"She will make excuses for him."

"No good woman will care about an unworthy man."

"Then, G.o.d help the men, John! If that were so, there would be lots of them without any good woman to care for them."

"Show Kitty that Piers is unworthy of her love, and I tell you she will put him out of her heart very quickly. I think I know Kitty."

"Women do not love according to deserts, John. If a woman has a bad son or daughter, does she take it for comfort when they go away from her? No, indeed! She never once says, 'They were nothing but a sorrow and an expense, and I am glad to be rid of them.' She weeps, and she prays all the more for them, just because they were bad. And one kind of love is like another; so I will not speak ill of Piers to Kate; besides, I do not think ill of him. If she has to give him up, it will not be his fault; and I could not tell her 'he is no loss, Kate,'--and such nonsense as that,--for it would be nonsense."

"What will you say then?"

"I shall help her to remember everything pleasant about him, and to make excuses for him. Even if you put comfort on the lowest ground possible, no woman likes to think she has been fooled and deceived, and given her heart for worse than nothing. Nine hundred and ninety-nine women out of a thousand would rather blame Fate or father or Fortune, or some other man or woman, than their own lover."

"Women are queer. A man in such a case whistles or sings his heartache away with the thought,--

"'If she be not fair for me, What care I how fair she be?'"

"You are slandering good men, John. Plenty of men would not give heart-room to such selfish love. They can live for the woman they love, and yet live apart from her. My advice is that we go back to Atheling at once. My heart is there already. Kitty and I were talking yesterday of the garden. The trees will soon be in blossom, and the birds busy building in them. Oh, John,--

"'The Spring's delight, In the cowslip bright, As she laughs to the warbling linnet!

And a whistling thrush, On a white May bush, And his mate on the nest within it!'"

And both caught the joy of the spring in the words, and the Squire, smiling, stooped and kissed his wife; and she knew then that she had permission to carry her daughter out of the way of immediate sorrow. As for the future, Mrs. Atheling never went into an enemy's country in search of trouble. She thought it time enough to meet misfortune when it came to her.

Kate was not averse to the change. Her conversation with the d.u.c.h.ess naturally affected her feeling towards Annabel. She could not imagine her quite ignorant of it; and it was, therefore, a trial to have the girl intruding daily into her life. Yet self-respect forbade her to make any change in their relationship to each other. Annabel, indeed, appeared wishful to nullify all the d.u.c.h.ess had said by her behaviour to Cecil North. Never had she been so familiar and so affectionate towards him, and she evidently desired Mrs. Atheling and Kate to understand that she was sincerely in love, and had every intention of marrying for love.

But yet she was unable to disguise her pleasure when she was suddenly told of their proposed return to the country. A vivid wave of crimson rushed over her face and throat; and though she said she "was sorry,"

there was an uncontrollable note of satisfaction in her voice. She was really sorry in one respect; but she had become afraid of the Squire. He asked such point-blank questions. His suspicions were wide awake and veering to the truth. He was another danger in her situation, and she felt Justine to be all she could manage. Mrs. Atheling and Kate being gone, her visits to the Vyner house could naturally cease; and, as the winter was nearly over, she could arrange some other place for her meetings with Cecil North. Indeed, he had already joined her in a few early morning gallops; and, besides which, she reflected, "Love always finds out a way." Cecil was a quite manageable factor.

[Ill.u.s.tration:]

About the middle of March, one fine spring evening, Mrs. Atheling and Kate came once more near to their own home. The road was a beautiful one, bordered with plantations of feathery firs on each side; and the pure resinous odour was to these two northern women sweeter than a rose garden. And, oh, what a home-like air the long, rambling old Manor House had, and how bright and comfortable were its low-ceiled rooms!

When Kate went to her own chamber, a robin on a spray of sweet-briar was singing at her window. She took it for her welcome back to the happy place. To be sure, the polished oak floor with its strips of bright carpet, the little tent-bed with its white dimity curtains, and the low, latticed windows, full of rosemary pots and monthly roses, were but simple surroundings; yet Kate threw herself with joyful abandon into her white chair before the blazing logs, and thought, without regret, of the splendid rooms of the Vyner mansion, and the tumult of men and horses in the thousand-streeted city outside it.

Certainly Piers was in the city, and she had no hope of his speedy return to the country. But, equally, she had no doubts of his true affection; and the pa.s.sing days and weeks brought her no reasons for doubting. She had frequent letters from him, and many rich tokens of his constant remembrance. And, as the spring advanced, the joy of her heart kept pace with it. Never before had she taken such delight in the sylvan life around her. The cool sweetness of the dairy; the satiny sides of the milking-pails; the trig beauty of the dairymaids, waiting for the cows, coming slowly out of the stable,--the beautiful cows, with their indolent gait and majestic tramp, their n.o.ble, solemn faces, and their peaceful breathing,--why had she never noticed these things before? Was it because we must lose good things--though but for a time--in order to find them? And very soon the bare, brown garden was aflame with gold and purple crocus buds, and the delicious woody perfume of wallflowers, and the springtide scent of the sweet-briar filled all its box-lined paths. The trees became misty with buds and plumes and tufts and ta.s.sels; and in the deep, green meadow-gra.s.s the primroses were nestling, and the anemones met her with their wistful looks.

And far and wide the ear was as satisfied as the eye with the tones of waterfalls, the inland sounds of caves and woods, the birds twittering secrets in the tree-tops, and the running waters that were the tongue of life in many a silent place. Oh, how beautiful, and peaceful, and happy were these things! Often the mother and daughter wondered to each other how they could ever have been pleased to exchange them for the gilt and gewgaws and the social s.m.u.t of the great city. Thus they fell naturally into the habit of pitying the Squire, and Edgar, and Piers, and wishing they were all back at Atheling to share the joy of the spring-time with them.

One night towards the close of April, Kate was very restless. "I cannot tell what is the matter, Mother," she said. "My feet go of their own will to the garden gates. It is as if my soul knew there was somebody coming. Can it be father?"

"I think not, Kitty. Father's last letter gave no promise of any let-up in the Reform quarrel. You know the Bill was read for the second time as we left London; and Earl Grey's Ministry had then only a majority of one. Your father said the Duke was triumphant about it. He was sure that a Bill which pa.s.sed its second reading by only a majority of one, could be easily mutilated in Committee until it would be harmless. The Lords mean to kill it, bit by bit,--that will take time."

"But what then, Mother?"

"G.o.d knows, child! I do not believe the country will ever settle to work again until it gets what it wants."

"Then will the House sit all summer?"

"I think it will."

At these words a long, cheerful "_hallo!_"--the Squire's own call in the hunting-field--was heard; and Kate, crying, "I told you so!" ran rapidly into the garden. The Squire was just entering the gates at a gallop. He drew rein, threw himself off his horse, and took his daughter in his arms.

"I am so glad, Father!" she cried. "So happy, Father! I knew you were coming! I knew you were coming! I did that!"

"Nay, not thou! I told n.o.body."

"Your heart told my heart. Ask mother. Here she comes."