"Not the time to call, perhaps. I'm not Bayle here; but I've not had a wink of sleep all night, thinking of that outrageous letter, and so I came up at once to tell you, my dears, that it's all outrageous madness.

He--he must be out of his mind to propose it. I'll--I'll do anything!

I'll see the Secretary of State! I'll try for a remission--a pardon!

but you two girls--you children--you cannot, you shall not go out there!"

Mrs Hallam's eyes flashed at this renewed opposition; but she crossed to the old man, took his hand, and led him to a chair by the window, where she began talking to him earnestly, while Bayle turned to Julie.

"And so you are going?" he said tenderly.

She gave him one quick look and then said:

"Yes. It is my father's wish."

Bayle gazed down at her sweet face, then wildly about the room, as memories of hundreds of happy lessons and conversations flowed back.

Then his lips tightened, his brow smoothed, and he said in a cold, hard way: "The path of duty seems difficult at times, Julie, but we must tramp it without hesitating."

"And you, too, will help me?" Mrs Hallam said aloud. "Any way, in anything," said Sir Gordon sadly. "I would sail you both over in my yacht, but it would be madness to expose you to the risk. Yes; I'll do the best I can to get you a pa.s.sage in a good ship. Yes--yes--yes!

I'll do my best."

He looked at Bayle in a troubled way, but found no sympathy in the cold, stern face that seemed to be unchanged when they left together an hour later, each pledged to do his best to expatriate two tender women, and so send them to what was then a wilderness of misery--and worse.

"It must be, I suppose, Bayle, my dear boy?" said Sir Gordon.

"Yes; it must be," was the reply.

"I'm glad she says she will go down to Castor first, and stay a few days with the old people."

"Did she say that?"

"Yes. It made me wonder whether she could be persuaded to leave Julie with them."

"No," said Bayle firmly; "they would never part, because he has ordered her to bring their child."

"Yes; I saw that. Ah, Bayle, it's a bad business; but we must make the best of it. Confound it all! why am I worrying myself about other people's troubles? Here am I, an old man, with plenty of money and nothing to do but take care of myself and make myself happy, and live as long as I can. I say, why am I pestered with other people's troubles?"

Bayle smiled sadly, and laid one hand upon that which rested upon his arm.

"Simply because you are a true man, that is all." They parted soon afterwards, Sir Gordon to visit a friend in Whitehall, Bayle to speak to an auctioneer about the furniture and effects at the little house, giving orders to sell his own property to supply the funds for the voyage, and then to make a supposed further sale of Consols to realise the capital which Millicent Hallam honestly believed to be her own.

VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER SEVEN.

THE OLD HOME.

Millicent Hallam was closely veiled as she descended from the coach at the inn-door, while Julia's handsome young face was free for the knot of gossips of the little town to notice, as they cl.u.s.tered about as of old to see who came in the coach and who were going on.

A quiet, drab-looking man had just handed a basket to the guard and was turning away, when he caught sight of Julia's face and stopped suddenly.

"Bless my soul, Mrs Hallam! Oh! I beg your pardon," he stammered; "I thought--why, it must be Miss--and Mr Bayle, I--I really--I--"

He could not speak. The tears stood in his eyes, and he stood there shaking away at both of Christie Bayle's hands for some moments before he became aware of Millicent Hallam's presence.

"Only to think," he cried; "but come along."

"We are going up to the doctor's," said Bayle.

"Yes, yes, you shall; but pray come into my place--only for a minute.

My wife will be so--so very pleased to see--Ah, my dear, how you have grown!"

James Thickens had become aware that his eccentric behaviour was exciting attention, so he hurried the visitors up to his house.

"Your people are quite well, Mrs Hallam," he said, hardly noticing that there was a curious distance in her manner towards him. "They're not expecting you, for the doctor was in the bank this morning, and he would have been sure to tell me."

Mrs Hallam could not speak. She had felt so strengthened by tribulation, so hardened by trouble, that she had told herself that she could visit King's Castor and her old home without emotion; but as she alighted from the coach, the sight of the place and their house brought back so vividly the troubles of the past, and her misery as Robert Hallam's wife, that her knees trembled, and, but for Julia's arm, she could hardly have gone on.

"Be brave," whispered a voice at her ear as Thickens prattled on. "This is not like you."

She darted a grateful look through her veil at Christie Bayle, almost wondering at the same time that he should have noticed her emotion.

Once she glanced back towards their old house; and her heart gave a throb as she saw there was a painted board upon the front, which could only mean one thing--that it was to let.

All feeling of distance and coldness was chased away as Thickens opened the door and let them in to where a plump, pleasant-looking, little, elderly lady was sitting busily knitting, and so changed from the Miss Heathery they had all known that Bayle gazed at her wonderingly.

The plump little body started up excitedly and then dropped back in her chair, turning white and then red. She gasped and pressed her hands upon her sides, and then looked up helplessly.

"Why, don't you know who it is?" cried Thickens with boisterous hospitality in his tones.

"Know? Yes, James, I know; but what a turn it has given me! My dear-- my darling!--oh, I--I--I--I am so glad to see you again."

The little woman had recovered herself and had caught Mrs Hallam to her breast, rocking her to and fro and clinging to her so affectionately that Millicent's tears began to flow.

Bayle turned aside, moved by the warmth of the faithful little woman's affection, when he felt a dig in his side from an elbow.

"Come and have a look at my gold fish, Mr Bayle," said a husky voice; and with true delicacy Thickens hurried him out, and along his rose-path to where the gold and silver fish were basking in the spring afternoon sun. "Let them have their cry out together," he whispered. "My little woman quite worships Mrs Hallam. There isn't a day but she talks about her, and I'd promised to bring her up to town this summer to see her again."

Meantime little Mrs Thickens had left Mrs Hallam, to make wet spots all over Julia's cheeks as she kissed and fondled her.

"My beautiful darling," she sobbed; "and grown so like--oh, so like-- and--and--oh! if I had only known."

The reception was so strange, the little lady's ways so droll, that, in spite of the weariness of her journey and the trouble hanging over her young life, Julia had felt amused; but the next moment she was clinging to little Mrs Thickens, warmly returning her embrace and feeling a girlish delight in the affectionate caresses showered upon her by her mother's simple old friend.

The stay was but short, for Millicent Hallam was trembling to see her old home and those she loved once more.

How little changed all seemed! A dozen years had worked no alterations.

The old shops, the old houses, just the same.

Yes, there was one change; Mr Gemp sitting at his door, not standing, and with movement left apparently in one part only--his head, which turned towards them, with a fixed look, as they went down the street, and turned and followed them till they were out of sight.

"How I recollect it all!" whispered Julia, as she held her mother's arm.

"That old man who used to make Thisbe so cross. Walk more quickly, mamma, he is calling out our name to some one."

It was true; and, as the words seemed to pursue them, Julia uttered an angry e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, as she heard a sob escape from her mother's breast.