"On consideration, I recur to my first conclusion, that this situation is out of the question. To say nothing of the injury to my health and nerves from agitation and suspense, rendering me totally unfit for drudgery and annoyance, I cannot feel it right to place myself in a situation equivalent to the abandonment of all hope. It is absurd to act as if we were reduced to abject poverty, and I will never place myself in the condition of a dependent. This season has so entirely knocked me up that I must at once have sea air, and by the time you receive this I shall be on my way to Ryde for a cruise in the Petrel."

"_His_ health!" cried Bobus, his tone implying three notes, scarcely of admiration.

"Well, poor old Turk, he is rather seedy," said Jock. "Can't sleep, and has headaches! But 'tis a regular case of having put him to flight!"

"Well, I've done with him," said Bobus, "since there's a popular prejudice against flogging, especially one's elder brother. This is a delicate form of intimation that he intends doing the dolce at mother's expense."

"The poor old chap has been an ornamental appendage so long that he can't make up his mind to anything else," said Jock.

"He is no worse off than the rest of us," said Bobus.

"In age, if in nothing else."

"The more reason against throwing away a chance. The yacht, too! I thought there was a Quixotic notion of not dipping into that Elf's money. I'm sure poor mother is pinching herself enough."

"I don't think Ali knows when he spends money more than when he spends air," returned Jock. "The Petrel can hardly cost as much in a month as I have seen him get through in a week, protesting all the while that he was living on absolutely nothing."

"I know. You may be proud to get him down Oxford Street under thirty shillings, and he never goes out in the evening much under half that."

"Yes, he told me selling my horses was shocking bad economy."

"Well, it was your own doing, having him up here," said Bobus.

"I wonder how he will go on when the money is really not there."

"Precisely the same," said Bobus; "there's no cure for that sort of complaint. The only satisfaction is that we shall be out of sight of it."

"And a very poor one," sighed Jock, "when mother is left to bear the brunt."

"Mother can manage him much better than we can," said Bobus; "besides, she is still a youngish woman, neither helpless nor dest.i.tute; and as I always tell you, the greatest kindness we can do her is to look out for ourselves."

Bobus himself had done so effectually, for he was secure of a handsome salary, and his travelling expenses were to be paid, when, early in the next year, he was to go out with his Princ.i.p.al to confer on the j.a.panese the highest possible culture in science and literature without any bias in favour of Christianity, Buddhism, or any other sublime religion.

Meantime he was going home to make his preparations, and pack such portions of his museum as he thought would be unexampled in j.a.pan.

He had fulfilled his intention of only informing his mother after his application had been accepted; and as it had been done by letter, he had avoided the sight of the pain it gave her and the hearing of her remonstrances, all of which he had referred to her maternal dislike of his absence, rather than to his a.s.sociation with the Princ.i.p.al, a writer whose articles she kept out of reach of Armine and Barbara.

The matter had become irrevocable and beyond discussion, as he intended, before his return to Belforest, which he only notified by the post of the morning before he walked into luncheon. By that time it was a fait accompli, and there was nothing to be done but to enter on a lively discussion on the polite manners and customs of the two-sworded nation and the wonderful volcanoes he hoped to explore.

Perhaps one reason that his notice was so short was that there might be the less time for Kencroft to be put on its guard. Thus, when, by accident of course, he strolled towards the lodge, he found his cousin Esther in the wood, with no guardians but the three youngest children, who had coaxed her, in spite of the heat, to bring them to the slopes of wood strawberries on their weekly half-holiday.

He had seen nothing, but had only been guided by the sound of voices to the top of the sloping wooded bank, where, under the shade of the oak-trees, looking over the tall spreading brackens, he beheld Essie in her pretty gipsy hat and holland dress, with all her bird-like daintiness, kneeling on the moss far below him, threading the scarlet beads on bents of gra.s.s, with the little ones round her.

"I heard a chattering," he said, as, descending through the fern, he met her dark eyes looking up like those of a startled fawn; "so I came to see whether the rabbits had found tongues. How many more are there? No, thank you," as Edmund and Lina answered his greeting with an offer of very moist-looking fruit, and an ungrammatical "Only us."

"Then _us_ run away. They grow thick up that bank, and I've got a prize here for whoever keeps away longest. No, you shan't see what it is. Any one who comes asking questions will lose it. Run away, Lina, you'll miss your chance. No, no, Essie, you are not a compet.i.tor."

"I must, Robert; indeed I must."

"Can't you spare me a moment when I am come down for my last farewell visit?"

"But you are not going for a good while yet."

"So you call it, but it will seem short enough. Did you ever hear of minutes seeming like diamond drops meted out, Essie?"

"But, you know, it is your own doing," said Essie.

"Yes, and why, Essie? Because misfortune has made such an exile as this the readiest mode of ceasing to be a burden to my mother."

"Papa said he was glad of it," said Esther, "and that you were quite right. But it is a terrible way off!"

"True! but there is one consideration that will make up to me for everything."

"That it is for Aunt Caroline!"

"Partly, but do you not know the hope which makes all work sweet to me?"

And the look of his eyes, and his hand seeking hers, made her say,

"Oh don't, Robert, I mustn't."

"Nay, my queen, you were too duteous to hearken to me when I was rich and prosperous. I would not torment you then, I meant to be patient; but now I am poor and going into banishment, you will be generous and compa.s.sionate, and let me hear the one word that will make my exile sweet."

"I don't think I ought," said the poor child under her breath. "O, Robert, don't you know I ought not."

"Would you if that ugly cypher of an ought did not stand in the way?"

"Oh don't ask me, Robert; I don't know."

"But I do know, my queen," said he. "I know my little Essie better than she knows herself. I know her true heart is mine, only she dares not avow it to herself; and when hearts have so met, Esther, they owe one another a higher duty than the filial tie can impose."

"I never heard that before," she said, puzzled, but not angered.

"No, it is not a doctrine taught in schoolrooms, but it is true and universal for all that, and our fathers and mothers acted on it in their day, and will give way to it now."

Esther had never been told all her father's objections to her cousin.

Simple prohibition had seemed to her parents sufficient for the gentle, dutiful child. Bobus had always been very kind to her, and her heart went out enough to him in his trouble to make coldness impossible to her. Tears welled into her eyes with perplexity at the new theory, and she could only falter out--

"That doesn't seem right for me."

"Say one word and trust to me, and it shall be right. Yes, Esther, say the word, and in it I shall be strong to overcome everything, and win the consent you desire. Say only that, with it, you would love me."

"If?" said Esther.

It was an interrogative _if,_ and she did not mean it for "the one word," but Bobus caught at it as all he wanted. He meant it for the fulcrum on which to rest the strong lever of his will, and before Esther could add any qualification, he was overwhelming her with thanks and a.s.surances so fervent that she could interpose no more doubts, and yielded to the sweetness of being able to make any one so happy, above all the cousin whom most people thought so formidably clever.

Edmund interrupted them by rushing up, thus losing the prize, which was won by the last comer, and proved to be a splendid bonbon; but there was consolation for the others, since Bobus had laid in a supply as a means of securing peace.