"What's the matter, Phil?"

He starts, but returns her glance openly.

"To tell you the truth, I have come to confide in you--to ask you a favour."

"Good," replies Erminie, who has heard many a confidence in her day. "Go on."

"You know but little of my wife--she is young, quite a girl--very easily influenced."

His words come shortly. He breathes hard. "I would tell _you_ what I could not say to any other creature. It is early days, and we have begun to quarrel. She has made great friends with a frivolous widow--a woman next door--whom I warned her against from the first. I have done all in my power to stop the intimacy, but protestations only appear to strengthen it. This woman has got Eleanor entirely under her thumb, she is like soft clay in her hands. I thought I could mould my wife, who was utterly unformed, a little country farm girl. But Giddy Mounteagle has proved stronger, cleverer than I. Perhaps her method is easier to follow, perhaps I have misunderstood Eleanor from the first. Day by day she drifts farther from me, and yet, _if_ such a thing were possible, I love her more."

He rises and leans his head on his arms over the mantel-border.

"Help me, Erminie; you might do so much."

"How?"

"Come and stay with us--use _your_ influence with Eleanor."

Miss Henderson seems confused.

"I should be delighted. I would do anything for you, but----"

Philip looks up quickly, his eyebrows rise involuntarily.

He has never yet known a "but" from Erminie's lips, when asking her aid.

"The 'buts' of this world are its stumbling blocks."

"I am going to be married very shortly, I am in the midst of 'trousseauing'."

"Ah! I had forgotten," he replies, smothering his disappointment.

Erminie makes a resolve.

"I'll come, Phil," she says, holding out her hand.

"But it will be so inconvenient!"

"Never mind. I shall interest Eleanor in my things, and try to win her from the widow. Erminie Henderson _versus_ Giddy Mounteagle. What is the betting, Phil?"

He grasps her hands, and wrings them heartily.

"You are the best little woman that ever lived!" he says.

CHAPTER VII.

THE SHADOWS RISE AND FALL.

"I am so sorry, Giddy, darling," Eleanor writes, "but I can't possibly go to town with you this afternoon, as Philip's cousin, Miss Henderson, has just arrived to stay, and her _fiance_, Nelson, is coming too. She is quite jolly, and I thought she would be horrid. Many thanks for sending on that silly little note from Mr. Quinton. Why did he address it to your house? I suppose he forgot 'Lyndhurst' though I told him the name.

"Ever your devoted, "ELEANOR."

"Dense little idiot!" sighs Giddy. "She cannot understand poor Carol's pa.s.sion, and yet he kissed her in the hansom. It was like Eleanor to tell me. She always gives herself away. I pity those refreshingly young people who can never keep anything to themselves." Giddy waves up to the windows of Lyndhurst as she drives by.

"Who is that little Jezebel?" asks Erminie.

"My great friend, Mrs. Mounteagle," replies Eleanor.

"Tell her to knock off blanc de perle," responds Miss Henderson, "she would be twice as good-looking."

"I quite miss Erminie and Nelson," says Eleanor, glancing at her husband across the tea-table, with a bright smile. "They were most delightful people certainly."

It is several weeks later, and Erminie and Nelson are honeymooning in foreign climes.

"Yes, dear, and I really think we have been happier since their visit.

They were so peaceful, so loving together; perhaps it was the force of good example."

"I don't think there has been one cross word for a fortnight," says Eleanor, laughing. She piles up the silken pillows on the sofa beside her.

"Come and sit here close by me, and we will have a little flirtation, like in the old days. Only you must imagine these brocade flowers are real red field poppies, and this sofa is a hayc.o.c.k, just at the back of Copthorne Farm. I can almost hear the lazy hum of the bees, and smell the fresh mown gra.s.s. I am not in a silk tea jacket, but my old blue cotton frock with the tear in the elbow, you remember I caught it on a nail by the gate. Isn't it fun to make believe like children? We don't often play, do we Philip? You must take my hand very gently, under the hay," pulling the cushion over her wrist. "I draw it away, you see, rather shyly, looking deliciously coy, and say: 'Oh! you mustn't, Mr. Roche.'

"Then you are horribly audacious, and kiss me straight off, you know how you used to. We are silent for a few moments, just holding each others' hands in unspeakable content, the sort of ecstacy that comes before marriage.

"We listen to the birds singing--a thrush keeps repeating my name--they generally seem to say something. I remember one at home that used to sit outside my window and chirp: 'Think of it! think of it! think of it!' till I grow quite angry, always recalling an unpleasant incident.

'I _don't want_ to think of it!' I would declare, stamping my foot.

Oh! Philip, what a good actor you are! you look frightfully in love."

"I am," he murmurs tenderly, clasping her in his arms. Eleanor laughs incredulously, and lays her head on his shoulder.

"Listen," she says, disengaging herself from his embrace. "We must not shock Sarah!"

The door is flung open.

"Mr. Quinton."

Eleanor rises slowly, her eyes flash with strange brilliancy; she trembles slightly, flushes, pales!

Her husband sees it in a moment--the rush of colour to her cheeks, and the pallor as her hand meets Carol's.

Philip mutters something inaudible under his breath. The chilly air of winter creeps through the hayfield behind Copthorne Farm--the voices of birds are dead--it is cold, cruel January once more!

A horrible presentiment steals over him, numbing his senses--paralysing his brain. This man seems their evil genius, the red firelight playing on his tall slim figure, transforms him in Philip's eyes to a crimson Mephistopheles. Eleanor pours out a fresh cup of tea, and hands it to Mr. Quinton smilingly, as she did a moment ago to her husband.

She moves the poppy-patterned pillows for the new comer; he is beside her now on the sofa.