'The fresh air will do me good,' he said; 'don't be afraid; I'll take care, if you wish it;' then he nodded, and got into the boat, where the sculls were lying, and he began to shove off with a rattle of the keel upon the sh.o.r.e. 'I will leave the boat at Teddington,' he said, 'and walk home. Good-night! good-by!' he said. A boatman hearing the voices, came out of the boat-house close by, and while Dolly was explaining, the boat started off with a dull plash of oars falling upon dark waters.

George was rowing very slowly, his head was turned towards the garden of the inn. There were lights in the windows, and figures coming and going; the water swirled against the wall of the terrace; the scent of the autumnal flowers seemed to fill the air and to stifle him as he pa.s.sed; a bird chirped from the darkness of some overhanging bushes. He could hear his mother's voice: 'Robert! it is getting late; why don't they come in to tea? I must say it is nasty stuff, and not to compare to that delicious Rangoon flavour.' He paused for a moment; her voice died away, and then all was silent. The evening was growing chill; some mists were rising. George felt the cool damp wind against his hot brow as he rowed doggedly on--past the lights of the windows of the inn, past the town, under the darkness of the bridge.

He left them all behind, and his life and his love, he thought, and his mad pa.s.sion; and himself, and Dolly, and Rhoda, and all the hopeless love he longed for and that was never to be his. There were other things in life. So he rowed away into the darkness with mixed anger and peace in his heart. What would Rhoda say when she heard he was gone? Nothing much! He knew her well enough to know that Dolly would understand, but her new ties would part them more entirely than absence or silence.

There is a song of Schubert's I once heard a great singer sing. As she sang, the dull grey river flowed through the room, the bright lamp-lit walls opened out, the mists of a closing darkness surrounded us, the monotonous beat of the rowlocks kept time to the music, and the man rowed away, and silence fell upon the waters.

So Dolly stood watching the boat as it disappeared along the dark wall; for a time she thought she heard the plash of the oars out upon the water, and a dark shade gliding away past the wharves, and the houses that crowd down to the sh.o.r.e.

She was saying her prayers for her poor boy as she walked back slowly to join the others. Robert met her with a little remonstrance for having hidden away so long. She took his arm and clung to it for a minute, trembling, with her heart beating. 'Oh! Robert; you won't let things come between us?' said the girl greatly moved; 'my poor George is so unhappy. He is to blame, but Rhoda has been hard upon him. Have you guessed it all?' 'My dear Dolly,' said Robert, gravely, 'Rhoda has told us everything. She is most justly annoyed. She is quite overcome. She has just gone home with her uncle, and I must say....'

'Don't, don't say anything,' said Dolly, pa.s.sionately bursting into tears, and her heart went out after her poor George rowing away along the dark river.

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

TRUST ME.

How tired we feel, my heart and I!

--E. B. Browning.

The much-talked-of tea was standing, black as the waters of oblivion, in the teapot when they rejoined Mrs. Palmer. Philippa was sitting tete-a-tete with Raban, and seemed chiefly perturbed at having been kept waiting, and because John Morgan had carried off Rhoda.

'I can't think why he did it,' said Mrs. Palmer, crossly; 'it is much pleasanter all keeping together, and it is too silly of that little Rhoda to make such a disturbance. As if George would have said anything to annoy her with all of us present. Tell me, what did really happen, Robert? Why was I not sent for?'

'I am afraid George was a good deal to blame,' said Robert, in a confidential voice. 'I only came up after the fracas, but, from what I hear, I am afraid he had been drinking at the bar. Dolly can tell you more than I can, for she was present from the beginning.'

Dolly was silent: she could not speak. Frank looked at her and saw her blush painfully. He was glad that Miss Vanborough should be spared any farther explication, and that Mrs. Palmer beckoned him into a window to tell him that the Admiral had the greatest horror of intemperance, and that she remembered a fearful scene with a kitmutghar who had drained off a bottle of her eau-de-Cologne. 'Dear George, unfortunately, was of an excitable disposition. As for the poor Admiral, he is perfectly ungovernable when he is roused,' said Mrs. Palmer, in her heroic manner.

'I have seen strong men like yourself, Mr. Raban, turn pale before him.

I remember a sub-lieutenant trembling like an aspen leaf: he had neglected to call my carriage. Is it not time to be off? Dolly, what have I done with my little blue shawl? You say George is _not_ coming?'

'Here is your little blue shawl, mamma,' said Dolly, wearily. She was utterly dispirited: she could not understand her mother's indifference, nor Robert's even flow of conversation: she forgot that they did not either of them realise how serious matters had been.

'It is really too naughty of George,' was all that Mrs. Palmer said; 'and, now that I think of it, he certainly told me he might have to go back to Cambridge to-night, so we may not see him again. Mr. Raban, if you see him, tell him----But, I forgot,' with a gracious smile, 'we meet you to-morrow at the Middletons'. Robert tells me my brother and his family are come to town this week. It will be but a painful meeting I fear. Dolly, remind me to call there in the morning. They have taken a house in Dean's Yard, of all places. And there is Madame Frisette at nine. How tiresome those dressmakers are.'

'Is Madame Frisette at work for Dorothea?' asked Robert, with some interest.

Dolly did not reply, nor did she seem to care whether Madame Frisette was at work or not. She sat leaning back in her corner, with two hands lying listless in her lap, pale through the twilight. Frank Raban, as he looked at her, seemed to know, almost as if she had told him in words, what was pa.s.sing in her mind. His jealous intuition made him understand it all, he knew too, as well as if Robert had spoken, something of what he was _not_ feeling. They went rolling on through the dusk, between villas and dim hedges and nursery-gardens, beyond which the evening shadows were pa.s.sing; and all along the way it seemed to Dolly that she could hear George's despairing voice ringing beyond the mist, and, haunted by this echo, she could scarcely listen with any patience to her companion's ripple of small talk, to Mrs. Palmer's anecdotes of Captains and Colonels and antic.i.p.ation of coming gaiety and emotions. What a season was before her! The Admiral's return, Dolly's marriage, Lady Henley's wearing insinuations--she dreaded to think of it all.

'You must call for us to-morrow at half-past seven, Robert, and take us to the Middletons'. I couldn't walk into the room alone with Dolly. I suppose Joanna, too, will be giving some at-homes. I shall have to go, however little inclined I may feel.'

'It is always well to do what other people do,' said Robert; 'it answers much best in the long run.'

He did not see Dolly's wondering look. Was this the life Dolly had dreamt of? a sort of wheel of common-place to which poor unquiet souls were to be bound, confined by plat.i.tudes, and innumerable threads, and restrictions, and silences. She had sometimes dreamt of something more meaningful and truer, something responding to her own nature, a life coming straighter from the heart. She had not counted much on happiness.

Perhaps she had been too happy to wish for happiness; but to-night it occurred to her again what life might be--a life with a truth in it and a genuine response and a n.o.bler scheme than any she had hitherto realised.

Frank heard a sigh coming from her corner. They were approaching the street where he wanted to be set down, and he, too, had something in his mind, which he felt he must say before they parted. As he wished Dorothea good-night he found a moment to say, in a low voice, 'I hope you may be able to tell Lady Sarah everything that has happened, without reserve. Do trust me. It will be best for all your sakes;' and then he was gone before Dolly could answer.

'What did he say?' said Robert Henley. 'Are you warm enough, Dolly? Will you have a shawl?'

He spoke so affectionately that she began to wonder whether it was because they were not alone that he had been cold and disappointing.

They reached the house, and old Sam came to the door and Robert helped to unpack the wrecks of the day's pleasures--the hampers, and umbrellas, and armfuls of crumpled muslins. Then the opportunity came for Robert to be impulsive if he chose, for Mrs. Palmer floated upstairs with her candle to say good-night to Lady Sarah. She was kissing her hand over the banisters, and dropping all the wax as she went along.

Robert came up to Dolly, who was standing in the hall. 'Good-night,' he said. 'It might have been a pleasant day upon the whole if it had not been for George. You must get him to apologise to Rhoda, Dora. I mean to speak very plainly to him when I see him next.'

His calmness exasperated her as he stood there with his handsome face looking down a little reproachfully at her flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes.

'Speaking won't do a bit of good, Robert,' she said, hastily. 'Pray don't say much to him----'

'I wonder when you will learn to trust me, Dora,' said her cousin taking her hand. 'How shall we ever get on unless you do?'

'I am sure I don't know,' Dolly answered, wearily; 'we don't seem to want the same things, Robert, or to be going together a bit.'

'What do you mean?' said Henley. 'You are tired and out of spirits to-night.'

With a sudden reaction Dolly caught hold of his arm, with both hands.

'Robert! Robert! Robert!' she said, holding him fast and looking as if she could transform him with her eyes to be what she wanted.

'Silly child,' he answered, 'I don't think you yourself know what you want. Good-night. Don't forget to be ready in time to-morrow.'

Then he was gone, having first looked for his umbrella, and the door banged upon Robert and the misty stars, and Dolly remained standing at the foot of the stairs. Frank Raban's words had borne fruit as sensible words should do. 'Trust me,' he had said; and Henley had used the same phrase, only with Robert 'Trust me' meant believe that I cannot be mistaken; with Frank 'Trust me' meant trust in truth in yourself and in others. Dolly, with one of those quick impulses which come to impressionable people, suddenly felt that he was right. All along she had been mistaken. It would have been better, far better, from the beginning, to have told Lady Sarah everything. She had been blinded, over-persuaded. Marker came up to shut bolts and put out the lights.

Dolly looked up, and she went and laid her tired head on the old nurse's shoulder, and clung to her for an instant.

'Is anything the matter, my dearie?' said Marker.

'Nothing new,' Dolly said. 'Marker, George is not come home. I have so much to say to him! Don't bolt the door, and please leave a light.'

But George did not come home that night, although the door was left unbolted and the light kept burning on purpose. When the morning came his bed was folded smooth, and everything looked straight and silent in his room, which was orderly as places are when the people are away who inhabit them.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII.

CIRc.u.mSTANCE.

The largest minds, still earthward bent, are small, Who, knowing much, are ignorant of all.

--Hamilton Aide.

For some days before the picnic Mrs. Palmer and Julie had been absorbed in the preparation of two beautiful garments that were to be worn at Mrs. Middleton's dinner, and at a ball at Bucklersbury House, for which Mrs. Palmer was expecting an invitation. Lady Sarah had written at her request to ask for one. Meanwhile the dresses had been growing under Julie's art; throwing out fresh flounces and tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, and ribbons, hour by hour, until they had finally come to perfection, and were now lying side by side on the bed in the spare room, ready to be tried on for the last time.

'Must it be _now_, mamma?' said Dolly. 'Breakfast is just ready, and Aunt Sarah will be waiting.'