'Yes, I will. When?'

'I'm going back for Christmas. Of course you'll have to stay here with your sisters. As soon after that as you can manage.'

'I could come to you on the 27th or 28th.'

'That's settled then. I will write and let you know about trains and things.'

As luck, good or ill, would have it, there was no other visitor at lunch; the party consisting of Lady Beresford, her two daughters, Mr.

Tom, and Captain Frank King. But Mr. Tom was in high spirits over this prospective visit to Kingscourt, and was most amiable to everybody and everything; he even said that he himself would go through to Lewes and fetch Nan home for Christmas.

Now this was odd: that, whenever Nan's name was mentioned, Frank King always glanced up with a quick look, as if he were surprised. Was he beginning to believe, then, as he had tried to make himself believe, that this was the real Nan Beresford now on the other side of the table? Was he surprised to be reminded of the other Nan far away--and now no doubt greatly altered from her former self? Madge Beresford was aware that her neighbour opposite regarded her very frequently--and she pretended not to be conscious of it; but once or twice when she looked up and her eyes met his, she thought there was an oddly wistful or even puzzled expression in those dark blue eyes that Edith was always talking about.

After luncheon Lady Beresford retired to her room, as was her wont; the two young ladies went upstairs to the drawing-room, and Captain King accompanied them, for Madge had asked him to advise her about the rigging of some boats she had been sketching. Mr. Tom remained below to practise the spot stroke.

In the drawing-room Miss Edith hoped that her playing a little would not interfere with their artistic pursuits; and Madge went and got her sketch-book and water-colours, and carried them to a small table at one of the windows, and sat down. Captain King remained standing.

The sketches, to tell the truth, were as bad as bad could be. They were all experimental things, done out of her own head, aiming at a land of the beautiful, unknown to anybody on earth but the chromo-lithographer. The actual sea was out there, staring her in the face, and there were boats on the beach and boats on the water; but instead of trying her hand at anything before her, she must needs imagine lovely pictures, mostly of blue and pink, with goats perched on brown crags, and an ill-drawn eagle soaring over an Alpine peak. There were, however, one or two sketches of mist or moonlight or thunderstorm that had certainly a weird and eerie effect; but it was not necessary to tell the spectator that these had been got in moments of impatience when, after laborious trials at brilliant-hued scenes, the angry artist had taken up a big brush and washed the whole thing into chaos--thereby, to her astonishment, reaching something, she did not know exactly what, that was at all events mysterious and harmonious in tone.

But it was the shipping about which she had sought his advice. The little white dots on blue lakes that were supposed to be feluccas or barchettas he pa.s.sed; but when it came to a big sailing-boat lying on a beach, and that beach presumably Cornish, from the colour of the rocks, he made a civil and even timid remonstrance.

'I don't think I would have the mast quite in the middle of the boat, if I were you,' said he, gently.

'I thought it always was,' she said--and yet if she had gone to the window she might have seen.

'If it is a lugger, you see,' he continued, giving her all sorts of chances of escape, 'the mast would be at the bow. And if it is a cutter, you would still have to put the mast farther forward, and give her a boom and a bowsprit. Or if it is a yawl, then you would have a little jigger-mast astern--about there----'

'Oh, I can't be expected to know things like that,' she said.

'Scientific accuracy isn't wanted. They're only sketches.'

'Yes; oh yes,' he said.

'Won't that boat do?' she demanded.

'Oh yes, it will do,' he said, fearful of offending her. 'It isn't exactly where they put masts, you know; but then few people know about boats or care about them.'

She was not very well pleased; but she continued to show him more sketches, until Mr. Tom came up to see when they were coming to billiards.

'I shouldn't have shown you these at all,' she said, 'I don't take interest in them myself. I would far rather draw and paint flowers; but we never have any flowers now except those waxen-looking heaths and that flaming pointsettia over there.'

'What did you call it, Madge?' said Mr. Tom.

'I called it pointsettia,' she said, with dignity.

'Gamekeeper's Greek, I should say,' he remarked, with his hands in his pockets. 'A cross between a pointer and a setter. You shouldn't use long words, Madge. Come along down.'

But this mention of flowers put a new idea into the head of Captain Frank King. That very morning he had pa.s.sed a window where he had seen all sorts of beautiful blossoms, many of them lying in cotton wool--pink and white camellias, white hyacinths, scarlet geraniums, lilies of the valley, and what not. Now might he not be permitted to send Miss Margaret a selection of these rare blossoms--not as a formal bouquet at all, but merely for the purposes of painting? They would simply be materials for an artist; and they would look well in a pretty basket, on a soft cushion of wool.

CHAPTER XV.

A MESSAGE.

Frank King could never exactly define what peculiarities of mind, or person, or manner it was that had so singularly attracted him in Nan Beresford, though he had spent many a meditative hour on board ship in thinking about her. In any case, that boyish fancy was one that a few years' absence might very well have been expected to cure. But the very opposite had happened. Perhaps it was the mere hopelessness of the thing that made him brood the more over it, until it took possession of his life altogether. He kept resolutely abroad, so that he had but few chances of falling in love with somebody else, which is the usual remedy in such cases. When at length he was summoned home, about the first news that reached him was of Nan's contemplated marriage. He was not surprised. And when he consented to go down to Brighton with her brother, it was that he might have just one more glimpse of one whom he always had known was lost to him. He had nothing to reproach her or himself with. It was all a misfortune, and nothing more. But his life had been changed for him by that mere boyish fancy.

Then came that wonderful new hope. Nan was away; Nan was impossible; but here was the very counterpart of Nan; and why should he not transfer all that lingering love and admiration from the one sister to the other who so closely resembled her? It was the prompting of despair as much as anything else. He argued with himself. He tried to make himself believe that this was really Nan--only grown a year or so older than the Nan whom he had last seen at Como. Of course there must be differences; people changed with the changing years. Sometimes he turned away, so that he might only hear her; and her voice was like Nan's.

Now, if Frank King was busy persuading himself that this transference of affection was not only natural and possible, but indeed the easiest and simplest thing in the world, it must be admitted that he obtained every help and encouragement from Madge Beresford herself. She was more than kind to him; she was attentive; she professed great respect for his opinions; and she did her best to conceal--or rather let us say subdue--her bad temper. And they were very much together during these two or three days. Frank King, being on such intimate terms of friendship with Mr. Tom, had almost become an inmate of the house. His being carried off to lunch, when they met him in the rooming, was a matter of course. Then he watched Madge paint, and listened to Edith's music; or they all went downstairs and played billiards, and by that time it was the hour for the afternoon promenade. It was no matter to them that December afternoons are short, and sometimes cold; one's health must be preserved despite the weather; and then again, Brighton looked very picturesque in the gathering dusk, with the long rows of her golden lamps. To observe this properly, however, you ought to go out on the pier; and although at that hour at that time of the year there is not a human being to be found there, that need not interfere with your appreciation of the golden-lit spectacle.

Moreover, Mr. Tom was a tyrant. When he had settled that Captain King might as well remain to dinner, instead of going away to dine by himself at his hotel, it was no use for Captain King to resist. And then Tom's invitation, for mere courtesy sake, had to be repeated by Lady Beresford, and prettily seconded by the two girls. No such favours, be it observed, were showered on the effervescent Roberts or on young Thynne; Mr. Tom had taken the sailor suitor under his protection; there was to be a distinction drawn.

One night, just after Frank King had left, Tom and his sister were by themselves in the billiard-room.

'I want to speak to you, Madge,' said he, in a tone that meant something serious.

'Very well, then.'

'Now, none of your airs and pretence,' he said. 'You needn't try to gammon me.'

'If you would talk English, one might understand you,' she said, spitefully.

'You understand me well enough. When you were on the pier, this morning your eyes were just as wide open as anybody's. And again this afternoon, when you were up on the Marine Parade.'

Madge flushed a little, but said nothing.

'You know as well as anybody that that fellow Hanbury is hanging about,' said Tom, regarding her with suspicion. 'He is always loitering round, dodging after you. And I won't have it. I'll write to the Chief Clerk if he doesn't mind.'

'I don't suppose the Chief Clerk and the Vice-Chancellor and the whole lot of them,' said Madge, pretending to be much interested in the tip of her cue, 'can expel a person from Brighton who is doing no harm.'

'Doing no harm? If you didn't encourage him, do you think he'd hang about like that? If he knew distinctly you wanted him to be off, do you think he'd spend his time slinking about the streets? I believe he has been writing to you again.'

This was quite a random shot, but it told.

'He sent me one letter--not in his own handwriting,' Madge confessed, diffidently.

'Show it to me!'

'I can't. I burned it. I was afraid. Tom, you wouldn't get the poor fellow into trouble!'

'I've no patience with you!' he said angrily. 'Why can't you be fair and aboveboard? Why don't you send the fellow about his business at once----'

'Well, I have.'

'Why don't you settle the thing straight? You know Frank King wants to marry you: anybody can see that. Why don't you have him, and be done with it?'

Madge turned away a little, and said with a very pretty smile,