"I do not nurse wrath, my love, but I cannot abide her."

"Are not six years long enough to remember a little thing of that sort?

Come along, Elizabeth; you will find that she has grown quite civil and pleasant-spoken since you used to know her."

So they went out into the garden, and the two ancient foes sniffed and bridled at each other as they approached through the transparent screen of tall yellow chrysanthemums which lined Mrs. Chigwin's side of the wall.

"Mrs. Harrington," said the peacemaker, "there is no need for me to introduce you to my old friend, Elizabeth Bundlecombe, who has come to pay me a nice long visit. We shall be her neighbors and close friends, I hope, and if you will do me the favor to come in this afternoon and drink a cup of tea with us, we shall be very glad to see you."

"Thank you kindly, Mrs. Chigwin. Good-morning to you, Mrs. Bundlecombe.

I hear you have been living in London, ma'am, quite grand, as the saying is!"

"No, Mrs. Harrington, not grand at all, ma'am. Don't say so. I have known what trouble is since my poor dear husband died, and I shall never feel like being grand again."

"Never again, ma'am? Well, I am sure that Mrs. Bundlecombe knows how to bear her fortune, whether good or bad. Did you say never again, ma'am?"

The old lady seemed to take this phrase as a kind of comprehensive and dignified apology for the past, which ought to be met in a conciliatory manner.

"Well, well, Mrs. Bundlecombe, bygones is bygones, and there's no more to be said about it. Not but what principle is principle, be it twopence or twenty pounds."

"Allowance must be made, Mrs. Harrington, for the feelings of the moment."

"On both sides, ma'am," said Mrs. Harrington.

"Like reasonable parties," said Mrs. Bundlecombe.

Then they nodded at each other with much vigor, and shook hands across the top of the wall through the branches of the chrysanthemums. Thus vaguely, but with a clear understanding on the part of both combatants, peace was made, and good relations were established. Mrs. Chigwin was delighted at the easy way in which the difficulty had been overcome, and in the afternoon she treated her friends in such a genuinely hospitable and considerate fashion that they were soon perfectly at their ease.

Indeed, the three old people became very intimate, and spent their Christmas together in peace and charity.

Alan came over one day early in February to see his aunt, and make sure that she was as comfortable as she professed to be. It was a characteristic proceeding on his part. Mrs. Bundlecombe, as the reader may have observed, was not very poetic in her taste, and not so refined in manners as most of the women with whom Alan now a.s.sociated. But he always thought of her as the sister of his mother, to whom he had been romantically attached; and he had good reason, moreover, to appreciate her devotion to himself during the last year or so. He found her fairly happy, and said nothing which might disturb her peace of mind. Lettice Campion, he told her, had recovered from a serious illness, and had gone on the Continent for a few weeks with Mrs. Hartley. He was bent on obtaining a divorce, and expected the case to come on shortly. This he treated as a matter for unmixed rejoicing; and he casually declared that he had not seen "the Frenchwoman" for eight or ten weeks; which was true enough, but only because he was carefully keeping out of her way. And it was a poor equivocation, as the reader will presently see.

So Mrs. Bundlecome flattered herself that things were going fairly well with her nephew, and she possessed her soul in patience.

Now as Alan sat talking to his aunt in Mrs. Chigwin's best room, looking out upon the garden on Mrs. Harrington's side, he suddenly started, and stopped short in what he was saying.

"Why, Aunt Bessy, who on earth is living next door to you?"

Mrs. Bundlecombe looked where he pointed, and was almost as much surprised as himself to see Lettice's former maid, Milly, walking in the garden with all the airs and graces of a grand lady. She had on a fur cloak, and a little cap to match, and she looked so handsome and well-dressed that it would not have been surprising if Alan had not recognized her. But Milly's pretty face, once seen, was not easily forgotten; and, as she was a.s.sociated with Lettice in Alan's mind, he had all the more reason for recalling her features.

"That is the first I have seen of her in these parts," said Mrs.

Bundlecombe. "You remember that Miss Campion had a Thorley girl at Maple Cottage, who left her five or six months ago?"

"I remember your telling me so--Milly, she used to be called?"

"Yes, Emily Harrington. That is the girl, without a doubt. Her grandmother lives over yonder; but I never knew that she was expecting a visit from this fine lady. Only last week she was telling me that she had not heard from Milly for several months. There was a letter from her before Christmas, to say that she was married and traveling abroad."

Mrs. Bundlecombe shook her head dubiously from side to side, and continued the motion for some time. She was thinking how much money it would have taken to buy that sealskin cloak; but, however far her doubts may have carried her, she did not give utterance to them in words.

"She is certainly very nice-looking," said Alan. "And she seems to be getting on in the world. Perhaps she has made a good marriage; I should not at all wonder."

"Well, it is charitable to hope so," said Aunt Bessy, with an expression in her face that was anything but hopeful. "I can't forgive her for leaving Miss Campion in such a hurry. I suppose she wanted to better herself, as those minxes always say. As if anyone could be better off than living with _her_!"

Alan turned round to the window again, and looked out. His aunt's words touched a chord in his heart, which vibrated strongly. To live with her, in any capacity whatever--a.s.suredly that would be the highest attainable good. To draw from her gentle presence that bliss of absolute rest and ease which he had never known until he came to know her--to talk and listen without a shadow of reserve, forgetting self, unashamed of any inferiority which his mind might show in comparison with hers, unafraid of giving offense to that sweet and well-poised nature--to look upon her face, almost infantile in its ingenuous expression, yet with indomitable strength in the clear grey eyes which revealed the soul within--to live with her would indeed be perfect happiness!

And the more he felt this, the less hopeful he was of realizing his aspiration. She had been ill, at the point of death, and he could not be near her. He had inquired of her progress at the Grahams' house, but always in fear lest he should bring sorrow to her, or annoyance to them.

The creature whom he had made his wife was never absent from his thoughts. In his most despondent moments he ceased to believe that he would ever be able to shake her off. She haunted him, asleep or awake, at his meals and at his books, in his quiet lodging or when he stole out for a solitary walk. He tried to persuade himself that he exaggerated his trouble, and that there were plenty of men under similar circ.u.mstances who would not allow their peace of mind to be disturbed.

But if he was weaker than others, that did not make his pain less bitter. He feared her, and dreaded the fulfilment of her threats; yet not so much on his own account as because they were directed against Lettice.

It was no consolation to him to think that the law would punish her--that the police would remove her as a drunken brawler--that the courts could give him his divorce, or perhaps shut her up as a madwoman.

What good would even a divorce be to him if she had slandered Lettice, blackened his character, alienated all whom he loved, and remained alive to be the curse and poison of his existence?

As he pondered these things in his heart, the trouble which he had fought off when he came down into the country that morning returned upon him with renewed force. He had fled from town to escape from the agony of shame and disgust which she had once more inflicted on him, and he groaned aloud as he thought of what had happened in the last few days.

"I think I must have a touch of the gout," he said, turning round to where his aunt was sitting, with a pleasant smile on his face. "It catches me sometimes with such a sudden twinge that I cannot help crying out like that."

Aunt Bessy looked hard at him, and shook her head; but she said nothing.

Soon after that, Alan went away; and he had not been gone half-an-hour, when there came a gentle rap at the cottage door.

Mrs. Bundlecombe opened it at once, and found, as she had expected, that the visitor was none other than our old friend Milly. Aunt Bessy had had a few minutes to prepare herself for this scene, and was therefore able to comport herself, as she imagined, with proper dignity. Affecting not to see the pretty hand which was held out to her, she started back, looked inquisitively into the other's face, and then cried out, as she turned her head round upon her shoulders, "Well, Martha! Martha Chigwin!

Here is an old acquaintance come to see us. Emily Harrington, love, Mrs.

Harrington's grand-daughter, who went to live with Miss Campion in London. Well, you did surprise me!" she said in a more quiet voice.

"Come in and sit down, Emily Harrington!"

"Granny told me you were here," said Milly, a little taken aback by this reception, "so I thought I must come in and see how you were."

"We are very well, thank you kindly, Milly. And how are you? But there is no need to ask you, for you look a picture of health, and spirits, and--and good luck, Milly Harrington!"

"Oh yes, I am very well. You don't know that I have been married since you saw me last. My name is Mrs. Beadon now."

She drew off her glove as she spoke, and let her long hand fall upon her lap, so that the old ladies might see her wedding-ring and keeper.

"Well, my dear," said Mrs. Bundlecombe, in a mollified voice, "if you are married to a good man, I am very glad, indeed. And I hope he is well to-do, and makes you happy. You are nicely dressed, Milly, but nice clothes are not everything, are they?"

"No, indeed, they are not. Oh, yes, Mr. Beadon is good to me in every way, so you need not trouble yourself on my account."

After that preliminary sparring, they became friendly enough. Milly was quite at her ease when her position as a wife was established, and she amused her hearers by a lively account of her recent fortunes and adventures--some of them, perhaps, slightly fict.i.tious in character, others exaggerated and glorified. Her husband, she told them, was a great traveler, and was sometimes out of England for six months or a year at a time. He had just gone abroad again, and she had taken the opportunity of coming to see her grandmother--and even of living with her for awhile, if she found Birchmead supportable. They were not rich, but Mr. Beadon allowed her quite enough to live comfortably upon.

So she played the grand lady in the hamlet, to her own infinite satisfaction. But now and again she had business to transact in London, and then she would send to Thorley for a cab, and take the afternoon train to Liverpool Street, and return in about twenty-four hours, generally with some little present in her bag for her grandmother, or grandmother's friends.

None the less did poor Milly find that time hung heavy on her hands. She had not yet clipped the wings of her ambition, and she still pined for a wider sphere in which to satisfy her vague and restless longings.

However she might brave it out to others, she was very far from being happy; and now and then she took herself to task, and admitted that all she had, and all she hoped for, would be but a small price to give if she could purchase once more the freedom of her girlhood.

CHAPTER XIX.

SIR JOHN'S GLOXINIAS.