"I--I did wish to go on improving myself and being useful. Surely it was not wrong, papa. Don't you see, I did not want to let myself be worried into letting myself go out, and spoiling all my happiness and improvement and work, and getting to care for somebody else?"

"But you have consented."

"Well, when I was frightened for him I found I did care, and he got hold of me, and made me allow that I did; and now I suppose n.o.body will give me any peace."

"Stay, Gillian--keep yourself from this impatient mood. I think I understand your unwillingness to overthrow old a.s.sociations and admit a new overmastering feeling."

"That's just it, papa," said Gillian, looking up. "I can't bear that overmastering feeling, nor the being told every one must come to it. It seems such folly."

"Folly that Eve was given to be a helpmeet, and as the bride, the Church to her Bridegroom? Look high enough, Gillian, and the popular chatter will not confuse your mind. You own that you really love him."

"Oh, papa, not half so much as mamma, or Mysie, or Jasper, but--but I think I might."

"Is that all, Gillian? No one would coerce you. Shall I send him away, and tell him not to think of it? Remember, it is a serious thing--nay, an unworthy thing to trifle with a right-minded man."

Gillian sat clasping the elbow of her chair, her dark eyes fixed. At last she said--

"Papa, I do feel a sort of trust in him, a sort of feeling as if my life and all goodness and all that would be safe with him; and I couldn't bear him to go quite away and hear no more of him, only I do wish it wouldn't happen now; and if there is a fuss about it, I shall get cross and savage, and be as nasty as possible, I know I shall."

"You can't exercise enough self-command to remember what is due--I would say kind and considerate--to a man who has loved you through all your petulance and discouragement, and now is going to a life not without peril for three years? Suppose a mishap, Gillian--how would you feel as to your treatment of him on this last evening?"

"Oh, papa! if you talk in that way I must, I must," and she burst into tears.

Sir Jasper bent over her and gave her a kiss--a kiss that from him was something to remember. It was late, and summonses to a hurried meal were ringing through Beechcroft Cottage, where the Clipstone party waited to see the illuminations.

Talk was eager between the sellers and the sailors as Valetta described the two parties, the fate of the Indian screen, and the misconduct of c.o.c.kneys in their launches were discussed by many a voice, but Gillian was unwontedly silent. Her mother had no time for more than a kiss before the shouts of Wilfred, Fergus, and Primrose warned them that the illuminations were beginning. She could only catch Mysie, and beg her to keep the younger ones away from Gillian and the Captain. Mysie opened her brown eyes wide and said--

"Oh!" Then, "Is it really?"

"Really, my dear, and remember that it is his last evening!"

"Oh!" said Mysie again. "I never thought it of Gill! May I tell Valetta?"

"Better not, my dear, if it can be helped."

A screaming for Gill was heard, and Mysie hastened to answer it. Lady Merrifield was too much tired to do anything but sit in the garden with Miss Mohun and look out at the ships, glittering with festoons of coloured lamps, reflected in the sea, but the young people went further afield, out on the cliff path to Rotherwood Park. The populace were mainly collected on the quay, and this formed a more select promenade, though by no means absolute solitude. Sir Jasper really did keep guard over the path along which Gillian allowed her Captain to conduct her, not exactly knowing which way they were going, and quite away from the bay and all its attractions.

She heard him out without any of the sharp, impatient answers in which her maiden coyness was wont to disguise itself, as he told her of his hopes and plans for the time when his three years of the Mediterranean should be over.

"And you see you can go on studying all the time, if you must be so clever."

"I think one ought to make the most of oneself, just as you want to rise in your profession! No, indeed, I could not bear you if you wanted me to sit down and idle, or to dawdle yourself."

"Don't grow too clever for me."

"Mother always says that a real man has stuff in him that is quite different from cleverness, and yet I could not bear to give that up. I am so glad you don't mind."

"Mind! I mind nothing but to know you are caring for me. And you will write to me?"

"I shan't know what to say. You will tell of volcanoes, and Athens, and Constantinople, and Egypt, and the Holy Land, and I shall have nothing to say but who lectures in college."

"Little you know what that will be to me."

It was a curious sensation all the time to Gillian, with a dawning sense that was hardly yet love--she was afraid of that--but of something good and brave and worthy that had become hers. She had felt something a.n.a.logous when the big deer-hound at Stokesley came and put his head upon her lap. But the hound showed himself grateful for caresses, and so did her present giant when the road grew rough, and she let him draw her arm into his and talk to her.

It was the parting, for he had to go to London and to his own family the next day early. Gillian spoke not a word all through the dark drive to Clipstone, but when the party emerged into the light her eyes were full of tears. Lady Merrifield followed her to her room, and her words half choked were--

"Mamma, I never knew what a great, solemn, holy thing _it_ is. Will you look me out a prayer to help me to get worthy?"

CHAPTER XXIII. -- ILLUMINATIONS

'Twas in the summer-time so sweet, When hearts and flowers are both in season, That who, of all the world should meet, In "twilight eve," but Love and Reason.

T. MOORE.

That moon and sparkling lights did not shine alone for Gerald and Dolores. There were mult.i.tudes on the cliffs and the beach, and Sir Ferdinand and Lady Travis Underwood with their party had come to an irregular sort of dinner-supper at St. Andrew's Rock. With them, or rather before them, came Mr. Bramshaw, the engineer, who sent in his card to Mr. Clement Underwood, and entered with a leathern bag, betraying the designs on Penbeacon.

Not that these were more than an introduction. Indeed, under the present circ.u.mstances, a definite answer was impossible; but there was another question, namely, that which regarded Sophia Vanderkist. She had indeed long been of age, but of course her suitor could not but look to her former guardian for consent and influence. He was a very bearded man, pleasant-spoken and gentlemanlike, and Lancelot had prepared his brother by saying that he knew all about the family, and they were highly respectable solicitors at Minsterham, one son a master in the school at Stoneborough. So Clement listened favourably, liked the young man, and though his fortunes at present depended on his work, and Lady Vanderkist was no friend to his suit, gave him fair encouragement, and invited him to join the meal, though the party was already likely to be too numerous for the dining-room.

That mattered the less when all the young and noisy ones could be placed, to their great delight, under the verandah outside, where they could talk and laugh to their utmost content, without incommoding Uncle Clement, or being awed by Cousin Fernan's black beard and Cacique-like gravity. How they discussed and made fun over the humours of the bazaar; nor was Gerald's wit the slackest, nor his mirth the most lagging. He was very far from depressed now that the first shock was over. He knew himself to be as much loved or better than ever by those whose affection he valued, and he was sure of Dolores' heart as he had never yet been.

The latent Bohemianism in his nature woke with the prospect of having his own way to make, and being free from the responsibilities of an estate, and his chivalry was excited by the pleasure of protecting his little half-sister, in pursuit of whom he intended to go.

So, light-hearted enough to amaze the elders who knew the secret, he jumped up to go with the rest of the party to the cliff walk, where the brilliant ships could best be seen. Lance, though his headache was, as Geraldine said, visible on his brow, declared that night air and sea-breeze were the best remedy, and went in charge of the two boys, lest his dainty Ariel should make an excursion over the rocks; and the four young ladies were escorted by Gerald and the engineer.

The elders were much too tired for further adventures, and Geraldine and Marilda were too intimate to feel bound to talk. Only a few words dropped now and then about Emilia and her hospital, where she was to be left for a year, while Fernan with Marilda visited his American establishments, and on their return would decide whether she would return, or whether they would take Franceska, or a younger one, in her stead. The desertion put Marilda out of heart, and she sighed what a pity it was that the girl would not listen to young Brown.

Meanwhile, Clement was making Ferdinand go over with him Edgar's words about his marriage. They had all been written down immediately after his death, and had been given to Felix with the certificates of the marriage and birth and of the divorce, and they were now no doubt with other doc.u.ments and deeds in the strong-box at Vale Leston Priory. Fernan could only repeat the words which had been burnt in on his memory, and promise to hunt up the evidence of the form and manner of the dissolution of the marriage at Chicago. Like Clement himself, he very much doubted whether the allegation would not break down in some important point, but he wished Gerald to be a.s.sured that if the worst came to the worst, he would never be left dest.i.tute, since that first meeting--the baptism, and the receiving him from the dying father--amounted to an adoption sacred in his eyes.

Then, seeing how worn-out Clement looked, he abetted Sibby and Geraldine, in shutting their patient safe up in his bedroom, not to be "mislested" any more that night, said Sibby. So he missed the rush of the return. First came the two sober sisters, Anna and Emilia, only sorry that Aunt Cherry had not seen the lovely sea, the exquisite twinkle of silvered waves as the moon rose, and then the outburst of coloured lights, taking many forms, and the brilliant fireworks darting to and fro, describing curves, bursting and scattering their sparks.

Emilia had, however, begun by the anxious question--

"Nan, what is it with Gerald?"

"I don't quite know. I suspect Dolores has somehow teased him, though it is not like her."

"Then there is something in it?"

"I can't help believing so, but I don't believe it has come to anything."

"And is she not a most disagreeable girl! Those black eyebrows do look so sullen and thunderous."

"Oh no, Emmie, I thought so at first, but she can't help her eyebrows; and when you come to know her there is a vast deal in her--thought, and originality, and purpose. I am sure it has been good for Gerald. He has seemed more definite and in earnest lately, less as if he were playing with everything, with all views all round."

"But his spirits are so odd!--so merry and then so grave."