"She was well enough, ma'am, when you went out," the servant maintained, consoling her mistress, "and there was nothing you could have done. I was in the room, and she asked for those letters as always lies in that drawer, ma'am; and when I took them over to her, she tried to put up her hand, and then she sank back, and in a minute it was all over. What could you have done, ma'am? She couldn't ha' spoken a word to you."

But the girl was inconsolable, and it was past midnight when Will left her, having wholly failed in his efforts to soothe the bitterness of her grief and desolation.

CHAPTER x.x.x.

THE COUNT HESITATES.

When Will returned to the hotel, he found his father waiting up for him, alone. He was too much overcome by the terrible scene he had just witnessed to make any but the barest apology for his discourtesy, and even that his father interrupted as unnecessary.

"I left the theatre early," he said gloomily. "Dove was feverish and unwell. I think she must have caught cold when coming up with us in the morning. When I got her here, her cheeks were flushed and hot, and I saw that she was restless and languid by turns-in short, very feverish."

"Did you send for a doctor?"

"Oh, no; there was nothing one could speak to him about. To-morrow morning, if these symptoms are not gone, it might be advisable to consult some one."

They sate up very late that night discussing their future plans. There were but two alternatives before them. It was considered possible that with a few thousand pounds Mr. Anerley could meet present liabilities, and wait over for the time at which it was hoped the affairs of the bank would, through the realisation of certain securities, be in a fair way of recovery. If, on the other hand, this present money was not forthcoming, the only course for Mr. Anerley was to remove from St.

Mary-Kirby to London, and try to find some means of subsistence in the great city.

"There is only Hubbard, of all my old acquaintances, in a position to help me," said Mr. Anerley; "and he is the last whom I should like to ask for any such favour."

"I think you are inclined to misjudge the Count, sir," said Will; "and in this case you ought at least to see what he has to say before impeaching his good feeling. After all, you will find a good many men with as much money as the Count, and as little to spend it on, quite as unwilling to oblige an old friend as you half expect him to be."

After a good deal of argument, it was arranged that Mr. Anerley should see the Count on the following morning. Will forced him to this decision by a long description of what would fall upon the St.

Mary-Kirby household in the event of his refusal.

"What is your pride compared with their wretchedness?" he said.

"My boy," he replied, "I have no pride, except when I have a good gun in my hand and a good dog working bravely in front of me. Further, do you know so little of your own family as to think that poverty, the nightmare of novelists, would be so appalling to them?"

"Not to them, perhaps; but to you, looking at them."

And that was true of the Chesnut Bank household. Misfortune was as bitter to them as to any other family; only it was for one another that they grieved. They had been educated into a great unselfishness through the constant kindly and half-mocking counsel of the head of the house; but that unselfishness only embittered misfortune. They did not brood over their individual mishaps, but they exaggerated the possible effects of misfortune on each other, and shared this imaginary misery. Mr.

Anerley was not much put out by the knowledge that henceforth he would scarcely have the wherewithal to keep himself decently clothed; but it was only when he thought of Dove being deprived of her port-wine, and of Mrs. Anerley being cabined up in London lodgings (though these two were as careless of these matters as he about his matters), that he vowed he would go and see Count Schonstein, and beg him for this present a.s.sistance.

"As for Dove, poor girl!" he said to Will, "you know what riches she prizes. You know what she craves for. A look from one she loves is riches to her; you can make her as wealthy as an empress by being kind to her."

"I'm sure no one ever could be unkind to _her_," said Will.

But the visit to Count Schonstein was postponed next morning; for Dove was worse than on the previous night, and was fain to remain in bed. Of course a physician was called in. He had a long talk with Mr. Anerley, afterwards; and perhaps it was his manner, more than anything he actually said, that disquieted Dove's guardian. What he actually did say was that the young girl was evidently very delicate; that on her tender const.i.tution this slight febrile attack might lead to graver consequences; and that she must at once have careful, womanly nursing and country air. _Per se_, her ailment was not of a serious character.

Mrs. Anerley was at once telegraphed for. Under the circ.u.mstances, they did not care to remove Dove to St. Mary-Kirby, with the chance of her having to return a few days afterwards to London.

"And if I had any misgivings about asking the Count to lend me the money," said Mr. Anerley, "I have none now. If country air is necessary to Dove's health, country air she shall have, somehow or other."

"If we cannot manage _that_, sir," said Will, "we had better go and bury ourselves for a couple of imbeciles."

So it was on the next morning that Mr. Anerley went to Count Schonstein's house in Bayswater. He went early, and found that the Count had just breakfasted. He was shown up to the drawing-room.

It was a large and handsome apartment, showily and somewhat tawdrily furnished. A woman's hand was evidently wanted in the place. The pale lavender walls, with their stripes of delicately-painted panelling, were scratched and smudged here and there; the chintz coverings of the couches and chairs were ragged and uneven; and the gauzy drapery of the chandeliers and mirrors was about as thick with dust as the ornate books which lay uncovered on the tables. There were a hundred other little points which a woman's eye would have detected, but which, on the duller masculine perception, only produced a vague feeling of uncomfortable disorder and want of cleanliness.

The Count entered in a gorgeously embroidered dressing-gown, above the collar of which a black satin neckerchief was tied round his neck in a series of oily folds.

"Good morning, Anerley," he said, in his grandest manner-so grand, indeed, that his visitor was profoundly surprised. Indeed, the Count very rarely attempted seignorial airs with his Chesnut Bank neighbour.

It is unnecessary to repeat the details of a very unpleasant interview.

Mr. Anerley explained his position; the Count, while not actually refusing to lend him the money, took occasion to betray his resentment against Will. The upshot of it was that Mr. Anerley, with some dignity, refused the help which the Count had scarcely offered, and walked out of the house.

He was a little angry, doubtless, and there was a contemptuous curl on his lips as he strode down the street; but these feelings soon subsided into a gentler sadness, as he thought of Dove and the chances of her getting country air.

He looked up at the large houses on both sides of him, and thought how the owners of these houses had only to decide between one sheltered seaside village and another, between this gentle climate and that gentler one, for pleasure's sake; while he, with the health of his darling in the balance, was tied down to the thick and clammy atmosphere of the streets. And then he thought of how many a tramp, footsore and sickeningly hungry, must have looked up at Chesnut Bank, and wondered why G.o.d had given all His good things-sweet food, and grateful wine, and warm clothing, and pleasant society, and comfortable sleep-to the occupant of that pleasant-looking place. It was now his turn to be envious; but it was for Dove alone that he coveted a portion of their wealth.

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

THE DECISION.

Dark as was the night on which Will and Annie Brunel had wandered along the lonely pavements of Kensington, they had not escaped observation.

On whatever errand he was bent, Count Schonstein happened to be down in that neighbourhood on this night; and while these two were so much engaged in mutual confidences as scarcely to take notice of any pa.s.ser-by, the Count had perceived them, and determined to watch them.

This he did during the whole of the time they remained outside. What he gathered from his observations was not much. At another time he would have paid little attention to their walking together for an hour or two; but that at this very time, when she was supposed to be considering whether she would become the Count's wife, she should be strolling about at night with one who was evidently on very intimate terms with her-this awakened the Count's suspicions and wrath. But the more he watched, the more he was puzzled. They did not bear the demeanour of lovers; yet what they said was evidently of deep interest to them both. There was no self-satisfied joy in their faces-rather an anxious and tender sadness; and yet they seemed to find satisfaction in this converse, and were evidently in no hurry to return to the house.

Once Miss Brunel had returned to the house, the Count relinquished further watch. He therefore did not witness Will's recall. But he had seen enough greatly to disquiet him; and as he went homeward, he resolved to have a clear understanding with Miss Brunel on the following morning. He believed he had granted her sufficient time to make up her mind; and, undoubtedly, when he came to put the question point-blank, he found that her mind was made up.

Briefly, she gave him to understand that she never could, and that she never would, be his wife. Perhaps she announced her determination all the more curtly, in that her sorrow for the loss of Mrs. Christmas seemed to render the Count's demand at such a moment an insult.

The poor Count was in a dreadful way. In this crisis he quite forgot all about the reasons which had first induced him to cultivate Annie Brunel's society, and honestly felt that if her present decision were persevered in, life was of no further use or good to him.

"I am sorry," she said, "I have given you pain. But you asked me to speak plainly, and I have done so."

"You have so astonished me-your tone when we last saw each other at least gave me the right to antic.i.p.ate--"

"There I have to beg for your forgiveness. I was very wrong. I did not know my own mind-I could come to no decision."

"May I venture to ask what enabled you to come to a decision?"

"I would rather not answer the question," she replied, coldly.

"Will you tell me if your mind was made up yesterday morning?" he asked, insidiously.

"It was not. But pray, Count Schonstein, don't say anything more about this at present. Consider the position I am in just now--"

"I only wish to have a few words from you for my further guidance, Miss Brunel," he said. "You came to this decision last night. Last night you saw Mr. Anerley. Have I not a right to ask you if he had anything to do with it?"