"Does he?" replied Maria mechanically, her thoughts buried elsewhere.

"Buying or hiring one. _I_ should hire; and then there's no bother if you want to make a flitting. But Verrall is one who takes n.o.body's counsel but his own. What a worry it will be!" added Charlotte, after a pause.

Maria raised her eyes. She did not understand the remark.

"Packing up the things at the Folly," exclaimed Charlotte. "We begin to-morrow morning. I must be at the head of it, for it's of no use trusting that sort of work entirely to servants. Bon jour, pet.i.te coquette! Et les poupees?"

The diversion was caused by the flying entrance of Miss Meta. The young lady was not yet particularly well up in the Gallic language, and only half understood. She went straight up to Mrs. Pain, threw her soft sweet eyes right into that lady's flashing black ones, rested her pretty arms upon the moire antique, and spoke out with her accustomed boldness.

"Where are the dogs now?"

"Chained down in the pit-hole," responded Mrs. Pain.

"Margery says there is no pit-hole, and the dogs were not chained down,"

a.s.serted Meta.

"Margery's nothing but an old woman. Don't you believe her. If she tells stories again, we'll chain her down with the dogs."

"Two of the dogs are outside," said Meta.

"Not the same dogs, child," returned Mrs. Pain with cool equanimity.

"They are street dogs, those are."

"They are with the carriage," persisted Meta. "They are barking round it."

"Are they barking? They can see Margery's face at the nursery window, and are frightened at it. Dogs always bark at ugly old women's faces.

You tell Margery so."

"Margery's not ugly."

"You innocent little simpleton! She's ugly enough to frighten the crows."

How long the colloquy might have continued it is hard to say: certainly Meta would not be the one to give in: but it was interrupted by Margery herself. A note had just been delivered at the house for Mrs. George G.o.dolphin, and Margery, who probably was glad of an excuse for entering, brought it in. She never looked at all towards Mrs. Pain; she came straight up to her mistress, apparently ignoring Charlotte's presence, but you should have seen the expression of her face. The coronet on the seal imparted a suspicion to Maria that it came from Lord Averil, and her heart sank within her. Could he be withdrawing his promise of clemency?

"Who brought this?" she asked in a subdued tone.

"A servant on horseback, ma'am."

Charlotte had started up, catching at her feathers, for Pierce was at the dining-room door now, saying that the horses were alarmingly restive. "Good afternoon, Mrs. George G.o.dolphin," she called out unceremoniously, as she hastened away. "I'll come and spend a quiet hour with you before I leave for town. Adieu, pet.i.te diablesse! I'd have you up to-morrow for a farewell visit, but that I'm afraid you might get nailed down with the furniture in some of the packing-cases."

Away she went. Meta was hastening after her, but was caught up by Margery with an angry sob--as if she had been saving her from some imminent danger. Maria opened the letter with trembling fingers.

"MY DEAR MRS. G.o.dOLPHIN,

"It has occurred to me since I parted from you, that you may wish to have the subject of our conversation confirmed in writing. I hereby a.s.sure you that I shall take no legal proceedings whatever against your husband on account of my lost bonds, and you may tell him from me that he need not, on that score, remain away from Prior's Ash.

"I hope you have reached home without too much fatigue.

"Believe me, ever sincerely yours, "AVERIL."

"How kind he is!" came involuntarily from Maria's lips.

The words were drowned in a noise outside. Charlotte had contrived to ascend to her seat in spite of the prancing horses. She stood up in the high carriage, as George G.o.dolphin had once done at the same door, and by dint of strength and skill, subdued them to control. Turning their fiery heads, scattering the a.s.sembled mult.i.tude right and left, nodding pleasantly to the applause vouchsafed her, Mrs. Charlotte Pain and the turn-out disappeared with a clatter, amidst the rolling of wheels, the barking of dogs, and the intense admiration of the gaping populace.

On this same evening, Miss G.o.dolphin sat at a window facing the west in their home at Ashlydyat. Soon to be their home no more. Her cheek rested pensively on her fingers, as she thought--oh, with what bitterness!--of the grievous past. She had been universally ridiculed for giving heed to the superst.i.tious traditions attaching to the house, and yet how strangely they appeared to be working themselves out. It had begun--Janet seemed to think the ruin had begun--with the departure of her father, Sir George, from Ashlydyat: and the tradition went that when the head of the G.o.dolphins should voluntarily abandon Ashlydyat, the ruin would follow.

_Had Sir George's departure brought on the ruin--been the first link in the chain that led to it?_ Janet was debating the question in her mind.

That she was p.r.o.ne to indulging superst.i.tious fancies to a degree many would p.r.o.nounce ridiculously absurd cannot be denied: but in striving to solve that particular problem she was relinquishing the by-paths of the supernatural for the broad road of common sense. From the facts that were being brought to light by the bankruptcy, turning up by degrees one after another, it was easy to see that George G.o.dolphin had been seduced into a hornet's nest, and so been eased of his money. Whether the process had been summary or slow--whether he had walked into it head foremost in blind simplicity--or whether he had only succ.u.mbed to it under the most refined Machiavellian craft, it was of no consequence to inquire. It is of no consequence to us. He had fallen into the hands of a company of swindlers, who ensnared their victims and transacted their business under the semblance of bill-discounting: and they had brought George to what he was.

Head and chief of this apparently reputable firm was Verrall: and Verrall, there was not a doubt, had been chief agent in George G.o.dolphin's undoing. But for Sir George G.o.dolphin's quitting Ashlydyat and putting it up in the market to let, Verrall might never have come near Prior's Ash; never have met Mr. George G.o.dolphin. In that case the chances are that Mr. George would have been a flourishing banker still.

Gay he would have been; needlessly extravagant; scattering his wild oats by the bushel--but not a man come to ruin and to beggary.

Janet G.o.dolphin was right: it _was_ the quitting Ashlydyat by her father, and the consequent tenancy of Mr. Verrall, which had been the first link in the chain, terminating in George's disgrace, in their ruin.

She sat there, losing herself in regret after regret. "If my father had not left it!--if he had never married Mrs. Campbell!--if my own dear mother had not died!"--she lost herself, I say, in these regrets, bitter as they were vain.

How many of these useless regrets might embitter the lives of us all!

How many do embitter them! If I had only done so-and-so!--if I had only taken the left turning when I took the right!--if I had only known what that man was from the first, and shunned his acquaintance!--if I had only chosen that path in life instead of this one!--if I had, in short, only done precisely the opposite to what I did do! Vain, vain repinings!--vain, useless, profitless repinings! The only plan is to keep them as far as possible from our hearts. If we could foresee the end of a thing from its beginning,--if we could buy a stock of experience at the outset of life,--if we could, in point of fact, become endowed with the light of Divine wisdom, what different men and women the world would contain!

But we cannot. We cannot undo the past. It is ours with all its folly, its short-sightedness, perhaps its guilt. Though we stretch out our yearning and pitiful hands to Heaven in their movement of agony--though we wail aloud our bitter cry, Lord, pardon me--heal me--help me!--though we beat on our remorseful bosom and lacerate its flesh in bitter repentance, we cannot undo the past. We cannot undo it. The past remains to us unaltered; and must remain so for ever.

Janet left the room. Thomas, who had been seated opposite to her, was buried in thought, when Bexley appeared, showing in Lord Averil.

He hastened forward to prevent Thomas G.o.dolphin's rising. Laying one hand upon his shoulder and the other on his hands, he pressed him down and would not let him rise.

"How am I to thank you?" were the first words spoken by Thomas--in reference to the clemency shown to his brother, as promised that day to Maria.

"Hush!" said Lord Averil. "My dear friend, you are allowing these things to affect you more than they ought. I see the greatest change in you, even in this short time."

The rays of the declining sun were falling on the face of Thomas G.o.dolphin, lighting up its fading vitality. The cheeks were thinner, the weak hair seemed scantier, the truthful grey eyes had acquired an habitual expression of pain. Lord Averil leaned over him and noted it all.

"Sit down," said Thomas, drawing a chair nearer to him.

Lord Averil accepted the invitation, but did not release the hand. "I understand you have been doubting me," he said. "You might have known me better. We have been friends a long time."

Thomas G.o.dolphin only answered by a pressure of the hand he held. Old and familiar friends though they were, understanding each other's hearts almost, as these close friends should do, it was yet a most painful point to Thomas G.o.dolphin. On the one side there was his brother's crime: on the other there was the loss of that large sum to Lord Averil.

Thomas had to do perpetual battle with pain now: but there were moments when the conflict was nearer and sharper than at others. This was one of them.

They subsided into conversation: its theme, as was natural, the bankruptcy and its attendant details. Lord Averil found that Thomas was blaming himself.

"Why should you?" he asked impulsively. "Is it not enough that the world should do so, without yourself indorsing it?"

A faint smile crossed Thomas G.o.dolphin's face at the thoughtless admission spoken so openly: but he knew, none better, how great a share of blame was dealt out to him. "It is due," he observed to Lord Averil.

"I ought not to have reposed trust so implicit in George. Things could not have come to this pa.s.s if I had not done so."

"If we cannot place implicit trust in a brother, in whom can we place it?"

"True. But in my position as trustee to others, I ought not to have _trusted_ that things were going on right. I ought to have _known_ that they were so."