"To suppose a caution in this case necessary for me!"

He had begun to whistle, and did not answer. It was a verse of "Robin Adair," the song Charlotte was so fond of. When the verse was whistled through, he spoke--

"How very bright the stars are to-night! I think it must be a frost."

Inexperienced as Mildred was practically, she yet felt that this was not the usual conversation of a lover on the day of declaration, unless he was a remarkably cool one. While she was wondering, he resumed his whistling--a verse of another song, this time.

Mildred looked up at him. His face was lifted towards the heavens, but she could see it perfectly in the light of the night. He was evidently thinking more of the stars than of her, for his eyes were roving from one constellation to another. She looked down again, and remained silent.

"So you like my choice, Mildred!" he presently resumed.

"Choice of what?" she asked.

"Choice of what! As if you did not know! Choice of a wife."

"How is it you play so with my feelings this evening?" she asked, the tears rushing to her eyes.

"I have not played with them that I know of. What do you mean, Mildred?

You are growing fanciful."

She could not trust her voice to reply. William again broke into one of his favourite airs.

"I proposed that we should be married in London, amidst her friends," he said, when the few bars were brought to a satisfactory conclusion. "I thought she might prefer it. But she says she'd rather not."

"Amidst whose friends?" inquired Mildred, in amazement.

"Charlotte's. But in that case I suppose you could not have been bridesmaid. And there'd have been all the trouble of a journey beforehand."

"_I_ bridesmaid!" exclaimed Mildred; and all the blood in her body seemed to rush to her brain as a faint suspicion of the terrible truth stole into it. "Bridesmaid to whom?"

William Arkell, unable to comprehend a word, stopped still and looked at her.

"You are dreaming, Mildred!" he exclaimed.

"What do you mean? Who is it you are going to marry?" she reiterated.

"Why, what have we been talking of all the evening? What did my mother say to you to-day? What has come to you, Mildred? You certainly are dreaming."

"We have been playing at cross purposes, I fear," gasped Mildred, in her agony. "Tell me who it is you are going to marry."

"Charlotte Travice. Whom else should it be?"

They were then turning round by what was called the boundary wall; the old elms in the dean's garden towered above them, and Mildred's home was close in sight. But before they reached it, William Arkell felt her hang heavily and more heavily on his arm.

Ah! how she was struggling! Not with the pain--that could not be struggled with for a long, long while to come--but with the endeavour to suppress its outward emotion. All, all in vain. William Arkell bent to catch a glimpse of her features under the bonnet--worn large in those days--and found that she was white as death, and appeared to be losing consciousness.

"Mildred, my dear, what ails you?" he asked, kindly. "Do you feel ill?"

She felt dying; but to speak was beyond her, then. William pa.s.sed his arm round her just in time to prevent her falling, and shouted out, excessively alarmed--

"Peter! Aunt! just come back, will you? Here's something the matter with Mildred."

They were at the door then, but they heard him, and hastened back.

Mildred had fainted.

"What can have caused it?" exclaimed Peter, in his consternation. "I never knew her faint in all her life before."

"It must have been that rich cream tart at supper," lamented Mrs. Dan, half in sympathy, half in reproof. "I have told Mildred twenty times that pastry, eaten at night, is next door to poison."

And so this was to be the ending of all her cherished dreams! Mildred lay awake in her solitary chamber the whole of that live-long night.

There was no sleep, no rest, no hope for her. Desolation the most complete had overtaken her--utter, bitter, miserable desolation.

CHAPTER VII.

A HEART SEARED.

Mildred Arkell, in the midst of her agony, had the good sense to see that some extraordinary misapprehension had occurred, either on her mother's part or on Mrs. Arkell's; that William had not announced his wish of marrying her, but Charlotte Travice. From that time forward, Mildred would have a difficult part to play in the way of _concealment_.

Her dearest feelings, her bitter mortification, her sighs of pain must be hidden from the world; and she prayed G.o.d to give her strength to go through her task, making no sign. The most embarra.s.sing part would be to undeceive her mother; but she must do it, and contrive to do it without suspicion that _she_ was anything but indifferent to the turn affairs had taken. Commonplace and insignificant as that little episode was--the partaking of a rich cream tart at Mrs. Arkell's supper-table--Mildred was thankful for it. Her mother, remarkably single-minded by nature, unsuspicious as the day, would never think of attributing the fainting fit to any other cause.

It may at once be mentioned that the singular misapprehension was on the part of Mrs. Arkell. She was so thoroughly imbued with the hope--it may be said with the notion--that her son would espouse Mildred, that when William broached the subject in a hasty and indistinct manner, she somehow fell into the mistake. The fault was probably William's. He did not say much, and his own fear of his mother's displeasure caused him to be anything but clear and distinct. Mrs. George Arkell caught at the communication with delight, believing it to refer to Mildred. She mentioned a word herself, in her hasty looking forward, about a bridesmaid. The names of Mildred and Charlotte, not either of them mentioned above once, got confused together, and altogether the mistake took place, William himself being unconscious of it.

William ran home that night, startling them with the news of the indisposition of Mildred. She had fainted in the street as they were going home. Mr. and Mrs. Arkell, loving Mildred as a daughter, were inexpressibly concerned; Charlotte Travice sat listening to the tale with wondering ears and eyes. "My aunt said it must be the effect of the cream tart at supper," he observed, "but I think that must be all rubbish. As if cream tart would make people faint! And Mildred has eaten it before."

"It was the agitation, my dear. It was nothing else," whispered Mrs.

Arkell to her guest, confidentially, as she bid her good night in the hall. "A communication like that must cause agitation to the mind, you know."

"What communication?" asked Charlotte, in surprise. For Mrs. Arkell spoke as if her words must necessarily be understood.

"Don't you know? I thought William had most likely told you. It's about her marriage. But there, we'll talk of it to-morrow, I won't keep you now, Miss Charlotte, and I have to speak to Mr. Arkell."

Charlotte continued her way upstairs, wondering excessively; not able, as she herself expressed it, to make head or tail of what Mrs. Arkell meant. Mrs. Arkell returned to the dining-room, asked her husband to sit down again for a few minutes, for he was standing with his bed-candle in his hand, and she made the communication.

Elucidation was, however, near at hand, as it of necessity must be. On the following morning nothing was said at the breakfast-table; but on their going into the manufactory, Mr. Arkell took his son into his private room. Mr. Arkell sat down before his desk, and opened a letter that waited on it before he spoke. William stood by the fire, rather nervous.

"So, young sir! you are wanting, I hear, to enc.u.mber yourself with a wife! Don't you think you had better have taken one in your leading-strings?"

"I am twenty-five, sir," returned William, drawing himself up in all the dignity of the age. "And you have often said you hoped to see me settled before----"

"Before I died. Very true, you graceless boy. But you don't want me to die yet, I suppose?"

"Heaven forbid it!" fervently answered William.

"Well," continued the good man--and William had known from the first, by the tone of the voice, the twinkle in the eye, that he was pleased instead of vexed--"I cannot but say you have chosen worthily. I suppose I must look over her being portionless."

"Our business is an excellent one, and you have saved money besides, sir," observed William. "To look out for money with my wife would be superfluous."