"Has a price been named, Lady Ongar?"

"No price need be named. There is to be no question of a price. Lord Ongar's mother is welcome to the place--or rather to such interest as I have in it."

"And to pay a rent?" suggested Mr. Turnbull.

"To pay no rent. Nothing would induce me to let the place, or to sell my right in it. I will have no bargain about it. But as nothing also will induce me to live there, I am not such a dog in the manger as to wish to keep it. If you will have the kindness to see Mr. Courton's lawyer, and to make arrangements about it."

"But, Lady Ongar, what you call your right in the estate is worth over twenty thousand pounds--it is, indeed. You could borrow twenty thousand pounds on the security of it to-morrow."

"But I don't want to borrow twenty thousand pounds."

"No, no, exactly--of course you don't. But I point out that fact to show the value. You would be making a present of that sum of money to people who do not want it--who have no claim upon you. I really don't see how they could take it."

"Mrs. Courton wishes to have the place very much."

"But, my lady, she has never thought of getting it without paying for it. Lady Ongar, I really can not advise you to take any such step as that--indeed, I can not. I should be wrong, as your lawyer, if I did not point out to you that such a proceeding would be quite romantic--quite so--what the world would call Quixotic. People don't expect such things as that--they don't, indeed."

"People don't often have such reasons as I have," said Lady Ongar. Mr.

Turnbull sat silent for a while, looking as though he were unhappy. The proposition made to him was one which, as a lawyer, he felt to be very distasteful to him. He knew that his client had no male friends in whom she confided, and he felt that the world would blame him if he allowed this lady to part with her property in the way she had suggested. "You will find that I am in earnest," she continued, smiling, "and you may as well give way to my vagaries with a good grace."

"They would not take it, Lady Ongar."

"At any rate, we can try them. If you will make them understand that I don't at all want the place, and that it will go to rack and ruin because there is no one to live there, I am sure they will take it."

Then Mr. Turnbull again sat silent and unhappy, thinking with what words he might best bring forward his last and strongest argument against this rash proceeding.

"Lady Ongar," he said, "in your peculiar position, there are double reasons why you should not act in this way."

"What do you mean, Mr. Turnbull? What is my peculiar position?"

"The world will say that you have restored Ongar Park because you were afraid to keep it. Indeed, Lady Ongar, you had better let it remain as it is."

"I care nothing for what the world says," she exclaimed, rising quickly from her chair--"nothing, nothing!"

"You should really hold by your rights--you should, indeed. Who can possibly say what other interests may be concerned? You may marry, and live for the next fifty years, and have a family. It is my duty, Lady Ongar, to point out these things to you."

"I am sure you are quite right, Mr. Turnbull." she said, struggling to maintain a quiet demeanor. "You, of course, are only doing your duty.

But whether I marry or whether I remain as I am, I shall give up this place. And as for what the world, as you call it, may say, I will not deny that I cared much for that on my immediate return. What people said then made me very unhappy. But I care nothing for it now. I have established my rights, and that has been sufficient. To me it seems that the world, as you call it, has been civil enough in its usage of me lately. It is only of those who should have been my friends that I have a right to complain. If you will please to do this thing for me, I will be obliged to you."

"If you are quite determined about it--"

"I am quite determined. What is the use of the place to me? I never shall go there. What is the use even of the money that comes to me? I have no purpose for it. I have nothing to do with it."

There was something in her tone as she said this which well filled him with pity.

"You should remember," he said, "how short a time it is since you became a widow. Things will be different with you soon."

"My clothes will be different, if you mean that," she answered, "but I do not know that there will be any other change in me. But I am wrong to trouble you with all this. If you will let Mr. Courton's lawyer know, with my compliments to Mrs. Courton, that I have heard that she would like to have the place, and that I do not want it, I will be obliged to you." Mr. Turnbull having by this time perceived that she was quite in earnest, took his leave, having promised to do her bidding.

In this interview she had told her lawyer only a part of the plan which was now running in her head. As for giving up Ongar Park, she took to herself no merit for that. The place had been odious to her ever since she had endeavored to establish herself there, and had found that the clergyman's wife would not speak to her--that even her own housekeeper would hardly condescend to hold converse with her. She felt that she would be a dog in the manger to keep the place in her possession. But she had thoughts beyond this--resolutions only as yet half formed as to a wider surrender. She had disgraced herself, ruined herself; robbed herself of all happiness by the marriage she had made. Her misery had not been simply the misery of that lord's lifetime. As might have been expected, that was soon over. But an enduring wretchedness had come after that from which she saw no prospect of escape. What was to be her future life, left as she was and would be, in desolation? If she were to give it all up--all the wealth that had been so ill-gotten--might there not then be some hope of comfort for her?

She had been willing enough to keep Lord Ongar's money, and use it for the purposes of her own comfort, while she had still hoped that comfort might come from it. The remembrance of all that she had to give had been very pleasant to her, as long as she had hoped that Harry Clavering would receive it at her hands. She had not at once felt that the fruit had all turned to ashes. But now--now that Harry was gone from her--now that she had no friend left to her whom she could hope to make happy by her munificence, the very knowledge of her wealth was a burden to her.

And as she thought of her riches in these first days of her desertion, as she had indeed been thinking since Cecilia Burton had been with her, she came to understand that she was degraded by their acquisition. She had done that which had been unpardonably bad, and she felt like Judas when he stood with the price of his treachery in his hand. He had given up his money, and would not she do as much? There had been a moment in which she had nearly declared all her purpose to the lawyer, but she was held back by the feeling that she ought to make her plans certain before she communicated them to him.

She must live. She could not go out and hang herself as Judas had done.

And then there was her t.i.tle and rank, of which she did not know whether it was within her power to divest herself. She sorely felt the want of some one from whom in her present need she might ask counsel; of some friend to whom she could trust to tell her in what way she might now best atone for the evil she had done. Plans ran through her head which were thrown aside almost as soon as made, because she saw that they were impracticable. She even longed in these days for her sister's aid, though of old she had thought but little of Hermy as a counsellor. She had no friend whom she might ask--unless she might still ask Harry Clavering.

If she did not keep it all, might she still keep something--enough for decent life--and yet comfort herself with the feeling that she had expiated her sin? And what would be said of her when she had made this great surrender? Would not the world laugh at her instead of praising her--that world as to which she had a.s.sured Mr. Turnbull that she did not care what its verdict about her might be? She had many doubts. Ah!

why had not Harry Clavering remained true to her? But her punishment had come upon her with all its severity, and she acknowledged to herself now that it was not to be avoided.

Chapter XLVIII

Lady Ongar's Revenge

At last came the night which Harry had fixed for his visit to Bolton Street. He had looked forward certainly with no pleasure to the interview, and, now that the time for it had come, was disposed to think that Lady Ongar had been unwise in asking for it. But he had promised that he would go, and there was no possible escape.

He dined that evening in Onslow Crescent, where he was now again established with all his old comfort. He had again gone up to the children's nursery with Cecilia, had kissed them all in their cots, and made himself quite at home in the establishment. It was with them there as though there had been no dreadful dream about Lady Ongar. It was so altogether with Cecilia and Florence, and even Mr. Burton was allowing himself to be brought round to a charitable view of Harry's character.

Harry on this day had gone to the chambers in the Adelphi for an hour, and, walking away with Theodore Burton, had declared his intention of working like a horse. "If you were to say like a man, it would perhaps be better," said Burton. "I must leave you to say that," answered Harry; "for the present I will content myself with the horse." Burton was willing to hope, and allowed himself once more to fill into his old pleasant way of talking about the business, as though there were no other subject under the sun so full of manifold interest. He was very keen at the present moment about Metropolitan railways, and was ridiculing the folly of those who feared that the railway projectors were going too fast. "But we shall never get any thanks," he said. "When the thing has been done, and thanks are over due, people will look upon all our work so much as a matter of course that it will never occur to them to think that they owe us anything. They will have forgotten all their cautions, and will take what they get as though it were simply their due. Nothing astonishes me so much as the fear people feel before a thing is done when I join it with their want of surprise or admiration afterward." In this way even Theodore Burton had resumed his terms of intimacy with Harry Clavering.

Harry had told both Cecilia and Florence of his intended visit to Bolton Street, and they had all become very confidential on the subject. In most such cases, we may suppose that a man does not say much to one woman of the love which another woman has acknowledged for himself. Nor was Harry Clavering at all disposed to make any such boast. But in this case, Lady Ongar herself had told everything to Mrs. Burton. She had declared her pa.s.sion, and had declared also her intention of making Harry her husband if he would take her. Everything was known, and there was no possibility of sparing Lady Ongar's name.

"If I had been her, I would not have asked for such a meeting," Cecilia said. The three were at this time sitting together, for Mr. Burton rarely joined them in their conversation.

"I don't know," said Florence. "I do not see why she and Harry should not remain as friends."

"They might be friends without meeting now," said Cecilia.

"Hardly. If the awkwardness were not got over at once, it would never be got over. I almost think she is right, though if I was her I should long to have it over." That was Florence's judgment in the matter. Harry sat between them, like a sheep as he was, very meekly--not without some enjoyment of his sheepdom, but still feeling that he was a sheep. At half-past eight he started up, having already been told that a cab was waiting for him at the door. He pressed Cecilia's hand as he went, indicating his feeling that he had before him an affair of some magnitude, and then, of course, had a word or two to say to Florence in private on the landing. Oh, those delicious private words, the need for which comes so often during those short halcyon days of one's lifetime!

They were so pleasant that Harry would fain have returned to repeat them after he was seated in his cab; but the inevitable wheels carried him onward with cruel velocity, and he was in Bolton Street before the minutes had sufficed for him to collect his thoughts.

Lady Ongar, when he entered the room, was sitting in her accustomed chair, near a little work-table which she always used, and did not rise to meet him. It was a pretty chair, soft and easy, made with a back for lounging, but with no arms to impede the circles of a lady's hoops.

Harry knew the chair well, and had spoken of sits graceful comfort in some of his visits to Bolton Street. She was seated there when he entered; and though he was not sufficiently experienced in the secrets of feminine attire to know at once that she had dressed herself with care, he did perceive that she was very charming, not only by force of her own beauty, but by the aid also of her dress. And yet she was in deep mourning--in the deepest mourning; nor was there anything about her of which complaint might fairly be made by those who do complain on such subjects. Her dress was high round her neck, and the cap on her head was indisputably a widow's cap; but enough of her brown hair was to be seen to tell of its rich loveliness; and the black dress was so made as to show the full perfection of her form; and with it all there was that graceful feminine brightness that care and money can always give, and which will not come without care and money. It might be well, she had thought, to surrender her income, and become poor and dowdy hereafter, but there could be no reason why Harry Clavering should not be made to know all that he had lost.

"Well, Harry," she said, as he stepped up to her and took her offered hand, "I am glad that you have come that I may congratulate you. Better late than never, eh, Harry?"

How was he to answer her when she spoke to him in this strain? "I hope it is not too late," he said, hardly knowing what the words were which were coming from his mouth.

"Nay, that is for you to say. I can do it heartily, Harry, if you mean that. And why not? Why should I not wish you happy? I have always liked you--have always wished for your happiness. You believe that I am sincere when I congratulate you, do you not?"

"Oh yes, you are always sincere."

"I have always been so to you. As to any sincerity beyond that, we need say nothing now. I have always been your good friend--to the best of my ability. Ah! Harry, you do not know how much I have thought of your welfare--how much I do think of it. But never mind that. Tell me something now of this Florence Burton of yours. Is she tall?" I believe that Lady Ongar, when she asked this question, knew well that Florence was short of stature.

"No, she is not tall," said Harry.