"I dare say it is," replied Dixon, slowly. "Hand it over; I'm going down to the village, and I'll leave it myself."

The groom hesitated. "I think I'll stick to it; she gave me sixpence to make sure he got it, and I wouldn't like to cheat her."

"Stick to the sixpence but give me the letter. Who's a better right to it than I, I should like to know? I'm as good as married already,"

said Dixon, stretching out his hand.

"You'll promise not to forget."

"I'm not one as forgets," said Dixon, with an odd laugh.

"And if there's any mistake you'll settle it?"

"Yes; I'll settle it."

The groom gave the note and went out whistling; he was not quite easy in his mind about the missive. Left to himself, Dixon turned the envelope round in his fingers, examining it back and front. The blotted writing gave evidence of hurry, the blistered paper testified to tears, and Dixon broke into an oath.

"The little jade!--that's the second time she's cried about him this week to my certain knowledge," he said aloud. "She would not dare to chuck me now, though, even if she does love the other one; but I've more than half a mind to put this in the fire. It may be to tell him that she's settled things with me; but it would not be a bad joke to let him hear it for himself in church, and her telling him nothing about it, good or bad, would let him know she did not care much for him."

In another moment there was a brief blaze in the fire, and Rose's note was reduced to ashes.

The next morning Tom Burney rose with the feeling that he trod on air, such a strange exhilaration of spirit possessed him.

He had heard nothing from Rose during the week, and her very silence filled him with hope. If she meant to refuse him, he was almost sure that she would have put him out of his misery before this. He was not generally a vain fellow, but to-day his toilet was a matter of moment; his tie was re-adjusted half a dozen times, and he asked his landlady to give him a chrysanthemum for his b.u.t.tonhole.

"Goin' courtin'?" she said, with a laugh as she pinned it in for him.

And Tom coloured rosy red, but said nothing.

He started early for church, hoping that he might catch a glimpse of Rose as she pa.s.sed in with the other servants from the Court; but either she had got there before him, or, for some unknown cause, she had been detained at home. Dixon presently appeared, smart and neat, giving Tom an affable nod as he pa.s.sed up the path to the church; but Tom's eyes were fixed straight in front of him, and he ignored the greeting.

"I'll not pretend to be friends when I ain't," he said to himself.

Presently the hurrying bell warned the outside group of stragglers to make their way into church; and Tom took his usual seat at the end of the nave. It is to be feared that his thoughts that morning were not occupied with devotion. Prayer and psalm pa.s.sed unheeded over his head; but when, at the end of the second lesson, there was a pause, and the rector turned over the leaves of a book in front of him, Tom lifted his head and waited for the banns that would follow. Before long he might be listening to the publishing of his own.

"I publish the banns of marriage between William Dixon, bachelor, and Rose Lancaster, spinster, both of this parish. . . ."

Was it some ghastly nightmare, Tom wondered, as he clutched at the seat in front of him? But the suppressed grin on the faces near him, the foolish smile with which the publishing of banns is so often received in a village church, convinced him that he had heard aright. The blood was rioting to his brain, and the beating in his throat made him put up his hand with the vain endeavour to loosen his collar lest he should choke there and then with the pa.s.sion that could find no outlet. For one instant he was possessed by a wild wish to stand up and forbid the banns; but what end would be gained by making himself a greater laughing-stock to the village than he was at present, for already he felt the derisive finger of scorn pointed at him as the man whom Rose had jilted. Even now he saw one or two of the lads nudge each other and look at him with curious eyes. To be watched at such a moment was torture, and, like an animal in pain, Tom longed for solitude. He groped blindly under the seat for his hat, made his way to the door and slipped out. He stumbled on like a man in delirium, looking neither to the right nor left, but following instinctively the path across the fields which led to the river. The turbulence of its grey waters, as it rushed on to the sea, seemed most in keeping with the wild, wicked thoughts that surged unchecked through his brain, and were bearing him he knew not whither. He threw himself upon the long, rank gra.s.s on the bank, still wet with the heavy mist of night, and, pillowing his chin in his hands, watched with dilating eyes the swirling river as it swept by. A giddiness dimmed his vision, a singing filled his ears.

"If I slipped over and was carried along with it, there'd be an end of it all," thought Tom. And the chill wind came sighing across the water, and shook the heavy rushes at the edge, which seemed whisperingly to echo his thought, "an end of it all."

Then Tom half-angrily roused himself, and pressed his hands to the eyes that burned like fire, and tried to collect his bewildered senses.

What!--slip out of life like a drowned rat and never see Rose again, nor tell her what he knew of the man she had chosen in preference to him. She would be glad to know he was dead, he told himself with fierce bitterness. She had played with him like a cat with a mouse for more than a year but in the long run the mouse died squeaking. Surely she could not be so false-hearted as to break faith with him to-night; she would meet him and say good-bye? She _should_ meet him, whether she liked it or not; and if Dixon were with her so much the better,--and Tom's fists clenched involuntarily.

For hours and hours he wandered, following the windings of the river, until, as the November sun paled and sank in a bank of grey cloud, he discovered that he was some six or eight miles from Rudham, and that his knees were knocking together with mingled emotion and fatigue. A wayside inn seemed a haven of refuge to him in his exhausted condition.

Through the red blind of the bar a light shone cheerily, and Tom entered the door without knocking, and, seating himself on the settle by the fire, ordered sixpennyworth of brandy.

"Hot water or cold? You'll have it hot, if you take my advice," said the landlady, with a glance at the bloodshot eyes that glared so strangely out of the deathly white face.

"Neither, thanks," said Tom, tossing off the raw spirit at a gulp.

It tasted to him like so much water; it did not muddle his brain, it cleared it, it nerved him for that interview with Rose.

"Another sixpennyworth, please," he said, laying down a shilling on the table.

The landlady paused, and coughed behind her hand; she had sons of her own.

"I wouldn't if I was you," she said, pushing him back sixpence.

"You've took as much as is good for you, and ne'er a drop of water.

"You can serve me or leave it alone," said Tom, angrily. "I'm ill; I need it. It tastes like so much water."

The landlady shook her head but gave him the brandy, and Tom, having swallowed it, bade her a civil good night and went on his way.

The landlady hurried to the door and looked after him; he was walking very fast but quite straight.

"It may have gone to his head, but it's not got into his legs," she said, a note of admiration in her voice.

Tom meanwhile hurried on to the station, which he knew to be not more than half a mile away. He was just in time to catch the one down-train that ran on Sunday evening, which would land him in Rudham in time for evening service--not that Tom meant to go to church that night. He would walk outside and wait for Dixon and for Rose. Many a time the two men had escorted Rose back to the Court, one on either side. This would be the last.

CHAPTER XI.

A FRIEND IN NEED.

Rose Lancaster had never looked prettier than that Sunday night, as she tripped into church, a soft ruffle of fur setting off the delicate fair face, a large velvet hat resting on the golden hair. Dixon, with a proud air of possession, walked in behind her, and, seating himself at her side, proved his proprietorship by producing her Prayer-book from his pocket, and finding all her places for her throughout the service.

When Rose dared to lift her head and look about her, she gave a sigh of relief to see that Tom was not present.

"I dare say he thought I should like it best if he stayed away," she thought. She was thankful that the question of her marriage was decided and well decided.

The moon had risen when the service ended. There was a group of people collected outside the church-gate discussing the village gossip before they dispersed to their several homes.

Dixon pulled Rose's arm through his own, and, not allowing her to linger for a moment, led her off. They did not either of them notice that a man with a hat well pulled over his eyes followed them at some little distance; and not until the village was left behind, and the pair had turned into the road, which, with many a wind, led up to the Court, did he attempt to lessen the s.p.a.ce which separated them. Then, as unconsciously Rose and Dixon walked more slowly, Tom quickened his steps, and was alongside of them before they realized his presence. He pushed back his hat; and Rose broke into a smothered cry of alarm as the moonlight fell upon the haggard face and wild eyes of her rejected lover, and she clung the tighter to Dixon's arm.

Tom's laugh was not pleasant to listen to. "You asked for my company, Rose, but you don't seem best pleased now I've come," he said; "but, pleased or not, I'll walk with you to-night, and say a thing or two it's right for you to hear before we part company for good."

"I wrote to you," stammered Rose. "I sent it by a special messenger on Sat.u.r.day night to tell you that, after thinking things over, I'd--I'd----"

"She made up her mind that I should be the best husband for her," said Dixon, putting a protecting arm round Rose's shoulder, and finishing off the sentence she found it so difficult to frame.

The words and the action alike maddened Tom. Was Rose to be protected from him when, to give her pleasure and shield her from pain, had been his one thought for the last eighteen months?

"It's only fair that, as she's chucked me for you, she should know the sort of man she's got hold of," he stuttered.

"I didn't lose my place for being so drunk that it took the parson the best part of the night to see me home, did I?" sneered Dixon.

"No, you didn't. But Rose shall hear now who plotted to make me drunk that night, and who informed against me next day. It was you, you sly, sneaking scamp!--deny it if you dare? If it comes to character who's got the better one, you or I? No man can throw a dirty, dishonest trick at me! And you! Who squares the corn-merchant? Who cooks every bill that goes into the Court? Don't I know it? Have I lived nearly a year under the same roof that covered you, without finding out pretty well how you've managed to feather your nest so as to make it fine enough for the pretty bird you've caught; and if I'd chosen to round on you when you got me turned out, where would you be now, I'd like to know? You would not be coachman at the Court."