CHAPTER XLI

GATHERING CLOUDS

Mrs Gibson came back full of rose-coloured accounts of
 London.  Lady Cumnor had been gracious and affectionate, 'so
 touched by my going up to see her, so soon after her return
 to England;' Lady Harriet charming and devoted to her old
 governess; Lord Cumnor 'just like his dear usual hearty self;'
 and as for the Kirkpatricks, no Lord Chancellor's house was
 ever grander than theirs, and the silk gown of the Q.C. had
 floated over housemaids and footmen.  Cynthia, too, was so
 much admired; and as for her dress, Mrs Kirkpatrick had
 showered down ball-dresses and wreaths, and pretty bonnets
 and mantles, like a fairy godmother.  Mr Gibson's poor
 present of ten pounds shrank into very small dimensions
 compared with all this munificence.
 
  'And they're so fond of her, I don't know when we shall
 have her back,' was Mrs Gibson's winding-up sentence.  'And
 now, Molly, what have you and papa been doing?  Very gay,
 you sounded in your letter.  I had not time to read it in
 London; so I put it in my pocket, and read it in the coach
 coming home.  But, my dear child, you do look so old-fashioned with your gown made all tight, and your hair all
 tumbling about in curls.  Curls are quite gone out.' We must
 do your hair differently,' she continued, trying to smooth
 Molly's black waves into straightness.
 
  'I sent Cynthia an African letter,' said Molly, timidly.  'Did
 you hear anything of what was in it?'
 
  'Oh, yes, poor child!  It made her very uneasy, I think; she
 said she did not feel inclined to go to Mr Rawson's ball, which
 was on that night, and for which Mrs Kirkpatrick had given
 her the ball-dress.  But there really was nothing for her to
 fidget herself about.  Roger only said he had had another touch
 of fever, but was better when he wrote.  He says every
 European has to be acclimatized by fever in that part of
 Abyssinia where he is.'
   'And did she go?' asked Molly.
 
  'Yes, to be sure.  It is not an engagement; and if it were, it
 is not acknowledged.  Fancy her going and saying, "A young
 man that I know has been ill for a few days in Africa, two
 months ago, therefore I don't want to go to the ball to-night."
 It would have seemed like affectation of sentiment; and if
 there's one thing I hate it is that.'
 
  'She would hardly enjoy herself,' said Molly.
 
  'Oh, yes, but she did.  Her dress was white gauze, trimmed
 with lilacs, and she really did look - a mother may be allowed
 a little natural partiality - most lovely.  And she danced every
 dance, although she was quite a stranger.  I am sure she
 enjoyed herself, from her manner of talking about it next
 morning.'
 
  'I wonder if the squire knows.'
 
  'Knows what?  Oh, yes, to be sure!  You mean about Roger.
 I dare say he doesn't, and there's no need to tell him, for I've
 no doubt it is all right now.' And she went out of the room
 to Finish her unpacking.
 
  Molly let her work fall, and sighed.  'It will be a year the day
 after to-morrow since he came here to propose our going to
 Hurst Wood, and mamma was so vexed at his calling before
 lunch.  I wonder if Cynthia remembers it as well as I do.  And
 now, perhaps -- Oh!  Roger, Roger!  I wish - I pray that you
 were safe home again!  How could we all bear it, if -- '
 
  She covered her face with her hands, and tried to stop
 thinking.  Suddenly she got up, as if stung by a venomous
 fancy,
  
 'I don't believe she loves him as she ought, or she could
 not - could not have gone and danced.  What shall I do if she
 does not?  What shall I do?  I can bear anything but that.'
  
 But she found the long suspense as to his health hard
 enough to endure.  They were not likely to hear from him for
 a month at least, and before that time had elapsed Cynthia
 would be at home again.  Molly learnt to long for her return
 before a fortnight of her absence was over.  She had had no
 idea that perpetual tête-à-têtes with Mrs Gibson could, by any
 possibility, be so tiresome as she found them.  Perhaps Molly's
 state of delicate health, consequent upon her rapid growth
during the last few months, made her irritable; but really often
 she had to get up and leave the room to calm herself down
 after listening to a long series of words, more frequently
 plaintive or discontented in tone than cheerful, and which at
 the end conveyed no distinct impression of either the
 speaker's thought or feeling.  Whenever anything had gone
 wrong, whenever Mr Gibson had coolly persevered in
 anything to which she had objected; whenever the cook had
 made a mistake about the dinner, or the housemaid broken
 any little frangible article; whenever Molly's hair was not
 done to her liking, or her dress did not become her, or the
 smell of dinner pervaded the house, or the wrong callers came,
 or the right callers did not come - in fact, whenever anything
 went wrong, poor Mr Kirkpatrick was regretted and mourned
 over, nay, almost blamed, as if, had he only given himself the
 trouble of living, he could have helped it.
 
  'When I look back to those happy days, it seems to me as
 if I had never valued them as I ought.  To be sure - youth,
 love, - what did we care for poverty!  I remember dear Mr
 Kirkpatrick walking five miles into Stratford to buy me a
 muffin because I had such a fancy for one after Cynthia was
 born.  I don't mean to complain of dear papa - but I don't
 think - but, perhaps I ought not to say it to you.  If Mr
 Kirkpatrick had but taken care of that cough of his; but he was
 so obstinate!  Men always are, I think.  And it really was selfish
 of him.  Only I dare say he did not consider the forlorn state
 in which I should be left.  It came harder upon me than upon
 most people, because I always was of such an affectionate
 sensitive nature.  I remember a little poem of Mr Kirkpatrick's
 in which he compared my heart to a harp-string, vibrating to
 the slightest breeze.'
 
  'I thought harp-strings required a pretty strong finger to
 make them sound,' said Molly.
 
  'My dear child, you've no more poetry in you than your
 father.  And as for your hair! it's worse than ever.  Can't you
 drench it in water to take those untidy twists and twirls out
 of it?'
 
  'It only makes it curl more and more when it gets dry,' said
 Molly, sudden tears coming into her eyes as a recollection
 came before her like a picture seen long ago and forgotten for
 years - a young mother washing and dressing her little girl;
 placing the half-naked darling on her knee, and twining the
 wet rings of dark hair fondly round her fingers, and then, in
 an ecstasy of fondness, kissing the little curly head.
 
  The receipt of Cynthia's letters made very agreeable events.
 She did not write often, but her letters were tolerably long
 when they did come, and very sprightly in tone.  There was
 constant mention made of many new names, which conveyed
 no idea to Molly, though Mrs Gibson would try and enlighten
 her by running commentaries like the following, - 
 
  'Mrs Green! ah, that's Mr Jones's pretty cousin, who lives
 in Russell Square with the fat husband.  They keep their
 carriage; but I'm not sure if it is not Mr Green who is Mrs
 Jones's cousin. We can ask Cynthia when she comes home.
 Mr Henderson! to be sure - a young man with black whiskers,
 a pupil of Mr Kirkpatrick's formerly, - or was he a pupil of
 Mr Murray's?  I know they said he had read law with
 somebody.  Ah, yes! they are the people who called the day
 after Mr Rawson's ball, and who admired Cynthia so much,
 without knowing I was her mother.  She was very handsomely
 dressed indeed, in black satin; and the son had a glass eye, but
 he was a young man of good property.  Coleman! yes, that was
 the name.'
 
  No more news of Roger until some time after Cynthia had
 returned from her London visit.  She came back looking
 fresher and prettier than ever, beautifully dressed, thanks to
 her own good taste, and her cousins' generosity, full of
 amusing details of the gay life she had been enjoying, yet not
 at all out of spirits at having left it behind her.  She brought
 home all sorts of pretty and dainty devices for Molly; a neck
 ribbon made up in the newest fashion, a pattern for a tippet,
 a delicate pair of light gloves embroidered as Molly had never
 seen gloves embroidered before, and many another little sign
 of remembrance during her absence.  Yet somehow or other,
 Molly felt that Cynthia was changed in her relation to her.
 Molly was aware that she had never had Cynthia's full
 confidence, for with all her apparent frankness and naïveté of
 manner, Cynthia was extremely reserved and reticent.  She
 knew this much of herself, and had often laughed about it to
 Molly, and the latter had found out the truth of her friend's
 assertion for herself.  But Molly did not trouble herself much
 about this, She too knew that there were many thoughts and
 feelings that flitted through her mind that she should never
 think of telling to any one, except perhaps - if they were ever
 very much thrown together - to her father.  She knew that
 Cynthia withheld from her more than thoughts and feelings - 
 that she withheld facts.  But then, as Molly reflected, these
 facts might involve details of struggle and suffering, might
 relate to her mother's neglect, and altogether be of so painful
 a character, that it would be well if Cynthia could forget her
 childhood altogether, instead of fixing it in her mind by the
 relation of her grievances and troubles.  So it was not now by
 any want of confidence that Molly felt distanced as it were.  It
 was because Cynthia rather avoided than sought her
 companionship; because her eyes shunned the straight,
 serious, loving look of Molly's; because there were certain
 subjects on which she evidently disliked speaking, not
 particularly interesting things as far as Molly could perceive,
 but it almost seemed as if they lay on the road to points to be
 avoided.  Molly felt a sort of sighing pleasure in noticing
 Cynthia's changed manner of talking about Roger.  She spoke
 of him tenderly now; 'poor Roger,' as she called him; and
 Molly thought that she must be referring to the illness which
 he had mentioned in his last letter.  One morning in the first
 week after Cynthia's return home, just as he was going out,
 Mr Gibson ran up into the drawing-room, hat on, booted and
 spurred, and hastily laid an open pamphlet down before her;
 pointing out a particular passage with his finger, but not
 speaking a word before he rapidly quitted the room.  His eyes
 were sparkling, and had an amused as well as pleased
 expression.  All this Molly noticed, as well as Cynthia's flush
 of colour as she read what was thus pointed out to her.  Then
 she pushed it a little on one side, not closing the book
 however, and went on with her work.
 
  'What is it? may I see it?' asked Molly, stretching out her
 hand for the pamphlet, which lay within her reach.  But she
 did not take it until Cynthia had said, - 
     'Certainly, I don't suppose there are any great secrets in a
     scientific journal, full of reports of meetings.' And she gave
     the book a little push towards Molly. .
    
 'Oh, Cynthia!' said Molly, catching her breath as she read,
     Care you not proud?' For it was an account of an annual
     gathering of the Geographical Society, and Lord Hollingford
     had read a letter he had received from Roger Hamley, dated
     from Arracuoba, a district in Africa, hitherto unvisited by any
     intelligent European traveller; and about which, Mr Hamley
     sent many curious particulars.  The reading of this letter had
     been received with the greatest interest, and several subsequent
     speakers had paid the writer very high compliments.
    
 But Molly might have known Cynthia better than to expect
     an answer responsive to the feelings that prompted her
     question.  Let Cynthia be ever so proud, ever so glad, or so
     grateful, or even indignant, remorseful, grieved or sorry, the
     very fact that she was expected by another to entertain any of
     these emotions, would have been enough to prevent her
     expressing them.
'I'm afraid I'm not as much struck by the wonder of the
     thing as you are, Molly.  Besides, it is not news to me; at least,
     not entirely.  I heard about the meeting before I left London;
     it was a good deal talked about in my uncle's set; to be sure
     I did not hear all the fine things they say of him there - but
     then, you know, that's a mere fashion of speaking, which
     means nothing; somebody is bound to pay compliments when
     a lord takes the trouble to read one of his letters aloud.'
     
'Nonsense,' said Molly.  'You know you don't believe what
     you are saying, Cynthia.'
     
Cynthia gave that pretty little jerk of her shoulders, which
     was her equivalent for a French shrug, but did not lift up her
     head from her sewing.  Molly began to read the report over
     again.
     
'Why, Cynthia!' she said, 'you might have been there; ladies
     were there.  It says "many ladies were present." Oh, could not
     you have managed to go?  If your uncle's set cared about these
     things, would not some of them have taken you?'
     
'Perhaps, if I had asked them.  But I think they would have
     
    'You might have told your uncle how matters really stood,
 he would not have talked about it if you had wished him not,
 I am sure, and he could have helped you.'
    
'Once for all, Molly,' said Cynthia, now laying down her
 work, and speaking with quick authority, 'do learn to
 understand that it is, and always has been my wish, not to
 have the relation which Roger and I bear to each other,
 mentioned or talked about.  When the right time comes, I will
 make it known to my uncle, and to everybody whom it may
 concern; but I am not going to make mischief, and get myself
 into trouble - even for the sake of hearing compliments paid
 to him - by letting it out before the time.  If I'm pushed to it,
 I'd sooner break it off altogether at once, and have done with
 it. I can't be worse off than I am now.' Her angry tone had        
 changed into a kind of desponding complaint before she had
 ended her sentence.  Molly looked at her with dismay.
  
  'I can't understand you, Cynthia,' she said at length.
   
 'No; I dare say you can't,' said Cynthia, looking at her with
 tears in her eyes, and very tenderly, as if in atonement for her
 late vehemence.  'I am afraid - I hope you never will.'
   
 In a moment, Molly's arms were round her.  'Oh, Cynthia,'
 she murmured, 'have I been plaguing you?  Have I vexed you?
 Don't say you're afraid of my knowing you.  Of course you've
 your faults, everybody has, but I think I love you the better
 for them.'
   
 'I don't know that I'm so very bad,' said Cynthia, smiling
 a little through the tears that Molly's words and caresses had
 forced to overflow from her eyes.  'But I have got into scrapes.
 I am in a scrape now, I do sometimes believe I shall always
 be in scrapes, and if they ever come to light, I shall seem to
 be worse than I really am; and I know your father will throw
 me off, and I - no, I won't be afraid that you will, Molly.'
 
   'I'm sure I won't.  Are they - do you think - how would
 Roger take it?' asked Molly, very timidly.
 
   'I don't know.  I hope he will never hear of it.  I don't see
 why he should, for in a little while I shall be quite clear again.
 It all came about without my ever thinking I was doing wrong.
 I've a great mind to tell you all about it, Molly.'
 
   Molly did not like to urge it, though she longed to know,
and to see if she could not offer help; but while Cynthia was
 hesitating, and perhaps, to say the truth, rather regretting that
 she had even made this slight advance towards bestowing her
 confidence, Mrs Gibson came in, full of some manner of
 altering a gown of hers, so as to make it into the fashion of
 the day, as she had seen it during her visit to London.  Cynthia
 seemed to forget her tears and her troubles, and to throw her
 whole soul into millinery.
  
 Cynthia's correspondence went on pretty briskly with her
 London cousins, according to the usual rate of correspondence
 in those days.  Indeed Mrs Gibson was occasionally inclined to
 complain of the frequency of Helen Kirkpatrick's letters; for
 before the penny post came in, the recipient had to pay the
 postage of letters; and elevenpence-halfpenny three times a
 week came, according to Mrs Gibson's mode of reckoning
 when annoyed, to a sum 'between three and four shillings.'
 But these complaints were only for the family; they saw the
 wrong side of the tapestry.  Hollingford in general, the Miss
 Brownings in particular, heard of 'dear Helen's enthusiastic
 friendship for Cynthia' and of 'the real pleasure it was to
 receive such constant news - relays of news indeed - from
 London.  It was almost as good as living there!'
   
'A great deal better I should think,' said Miss Browning with
 some severity.  For she had got many of her notions of the
 metropolis from the British Essayists, where town is so often
 represented as the centre of dissipation, corrupting country wives
 and squires' daughters, and unfitting them for all their duties by the constant whirl of its not always innocent pleasures.  London was a sort of moral pitch, which few could touch and not be
 defiled.  Miss Browning had been on the watch for the signs of
 deterioration in Cynthia's character ever since her return home.
 But, excepting in a greater number of pretty and becoming articles
 of dress, there was no great change for the worse to be perceived.
 Cynthia had been 'in the world,' had 'beheld the glare and glitter
 and dazzling display of London,' yet had come back to
 Hollingford as ready as ever to place a chair for Miss Browning,
 or to gather flowers for a nosegay for Miss Phoebe, or to mend her
 own clothes.  But all this was set down to the merits of Cynthia,
 not to the credit of London-town.
  'As far as I can judge of London,' said Miss Browning,
  sententiously continuing her tirade against the place, 'it's no
  better than a pickpocket and a robber dressed up in the spoils
  of honest folk.  I should like to know where my Lord
  Hollingford was bred, and Mr Roger Hamley.  Your good
  husband lent me that report of the meeting, Mrs Gibson,
  where so much was said about them both, and he was as proud
  of their praises as if he had been akin to them, and Phoebe read
  it aloud to me, for the print was too small for my eyes; she was
  a good deal perplexed with all the new names of places, but
  I said she had better skip them all, for we had never heard of
  them before and probably should never hear of them again,
  but she read out the fine things they said of my lord, and Mr
  Roger, and I put it to you, where were they born and bred?
  Why, within eight miles of Hollingford; it might have been
  Molly there or me; it's all a chance; and then they go and talk
  about the pleasures of intellectual society in London, and the
  distinguished people up there that it is such an advantage to
  know, and all the time I know it's only shops and the play
  that's the real attraction.  But that's neither here nor there.  We
  all put our best foot foremost, and if we have a reason to give
  that looks sensible we speak it out like men, and never say
  anything about the silliness we are hugging to our hearts.  But
  I ask you again, where does this fine society come from, and
  these wise men, and these distinguished travellers?  Why, out
  of country parishes like this!  London picks 'em all up, and
  decks herself with them, and then calls out loud to the folks
  she's robbed, and says, "Come and see how fine I am." Fine,
  indeed!  I've no patience with London: Cynthia is much better
  out of it; and I'm not sure, if I were you, Mrs Gibson, if I
  would not stop up those London letters: they'll only be
  unsettling her.'
 
  'But perhaps she may live in London some of these days,
  Miss Browning,' simpered Mrs Gibson.
 
  'Time enough then to be thinking of London.  I wish her an
  honest country husband with enough to live upon, and a little
  to lay by, and a good character to boot.  Mind that, Molly,'
  said she, firing round upon the startled Molly, 'I wish Cynthia
  a husband with a good character; but she's got a mother to
 look after her; you've none and when your mother was alive
 she was a dear friend of mine: so I'm not going to let you
 throw yourself away upon any one whose life is not clear and
 above-board, you may depend upon it.'
  
 This last speech fell like a bomb into the quiet little drawing-room, it was delivered with such vehemence.  Miss Browning,
 in her secret heart, meant it as a warning against the intimacy
 she believed that Molly had formed with Mr Preston; but as it
 happened that Molly had never dreamed of any such intimacy,
 the girl could not imagine why such severity of speech should be
 addressed to her.  Mrs Gibson, who always took up the points
 of every word or action where they touched her own self (and
 called it sensitiveness), broke the silence that followed Miss
 Browning's speech by saying, plaintively, - 
  
 'I'm sure, Miss Browning, you are very much mistaken if
 you think that any mother could take more care of Molly than
 I do.  I don't - I can't think there is any need for any one to
 interfere to protect her, and I have not an idea why you have
 been talking in this way, just as if we were all wrong, and you
 were all right.  It hurts my feelings, indeed it does; for Molly
 can tell you there is not a thing or a favour that Cynthia has,
 that she has not.  And as for not taking care of her, why, if she
 were to go up to London to-morrow, I should make a point
 of going with her to see after her; and I never did it for
 Cynthia when she was at school in France; and her bedroom
 is furnished just like Cynthia's; and I let her wear my red
 shawl whenever she likes, she might have it oftener if she
 would.  I can't think what you mean, Miss Browning.'
 
  'I did not mean to offend you, but I meant just to give Molly
 a hint.  She understands what I mean.'
 
  'I'm sure I do not,' said Molly, boldly.  'I have not a notion
 what you meant, if you were alluding to anything more than
 you said straight out; that you do not wish me to marry any
 one who has not a good character, and that, as you were a
 friend of mamma's, you would prevent my marrying a man
 with a bad character, by every means in your power.  I'm not
 thinking of marrying; I don't want to marry anybody at all;
 but if I did, and he were not a good man, I should thank you
 for coming and warning me of it.'
   'I shall not stand on warning you, Molly.  I shall forbid the
 banns in church, if need be,' said Miss Browning, half
 convinced of the clear transparent truth of what Molly had
 said; blushing all over, it is true, but with her steady eyes fixed
 on Miss Browning's face while she spoke.
   'Do!' said Molly.
   'Well, well, I won't say any more.  Perhaps I was mistaken,
 We won't say any more about it.  But remember what I have
 said, Molly, there's no harm in that, at any rate.  I'm sorry I
 hurt your feelings, Mrs Gibson.  As stepmothers go, I think
 you try and do your duty.  Good morning.  Good-by to you
 both, and God bless you.'
   If Miss Browning thought that her final blessing would
 secure peace in the room she was leaving, she was very much
 mistaken; Mrs Gibson burst out with, - 
   
'Try and do my duty, indeed!  I should be much obliged to
 you, Molly, if you would take care not to behave in such a
 manner as to bring down upon me such impertinence as I have
 just been receiving from Miss Browning.'
   'But I don't know what made her talk as she did, mamma,'
 said Molly.
 
  'I'm sure I don't know, and I don't care either.  But I know
 that I never was spoken to as if I was trying to do my duty
 before, - "trying" indeed! everybody always knew that I did it,
 without talking about it before my face in that rude manner.
 I've that deep feeling about duty that I think it ought only to
 be talked about in church, and in such sacred places as that;
 not to have a common caller startling one with it, even though
 she was an early friend of your mother's.  And as if I did not
 look after you quite as much as I look after Cynthia!  Why, it
 was only yesterday I went up into Cynthia's room and found
 her reading a letter that she put away in a hurry as soon as I
 came in, and I did not even ask her who it was from, and I
 am sure I should have made you tell me.'
   
Very likely.  Mrs Gibson shrank from any conflicts with
 Cynthia, pretty sure that she would be worsted in the end;
 while Molly generally submitted, sooner than have any
 struggle for her own will.
   
Just then Cynthia came in.
'What's the matter?' said she quickly, seeing that something
 was wrong.
  
 'Why, Molly has been doing something which has set that
 impertinent Miss Browning off into lecturing me on trying to
 do my duty!  If your poor father had but lived, Cynthia, I
 should never have been spoken to as I have been.  "A
 stepmother trying to do her duty", indeed.  That was Miss
 Browning's expression.'
 
  Any allusion to her father took from Cynthia all desire of
 irony.  She came forwards, and again asked Molly what was
 the matter.
  
 Molly, herself ruffled, made answer, - 
  
 'Miss Browning seemed to think I was likely to marry some
 one whose character was objectionable -- '
  
 'You, Molly?' said Cynthia.
  
 'Yes - she once before spoke to me, - I suspect she has got
 some notion about Mr Preston in her head -- '
  
 Cynthia sate down quite suddenly.  Molly went on, - 'and
 she spoke as if mamma did not look enough after me, - I think
 she was rather provoking -- '
  
 'Not rather, but very - very impertinent,' said Mrs Gibson,
 a little soothed by Molly's recognition of her grievance.
  
 'What could have put it into her head?' said Cynthia, very
 quietly, taking up her sewing as she spoke.
  
 'I don't know,' said her mother, replying to the question
 after her own fashion.  'I'm sure I don't always approve of Mr
 Preston; but even if it was him she was thinking about, he's
 far more agreeable than she is; and I had much rather have
 him coming to call than an old maid like her any day.'
  
 'I don't know that it was Mr Preston she was thinking
 about,' said Molly.  'It was only a guess.  When you were both
 in London she spoke about him, - I thought she had heard
 something about you and him, Cynthia.' Unseen by her
 mother Cynthia looked up at Molly, her eyes full of
 prohibition, her cheeks full of angry colour.  Molly stopped
 short suddenly.  After that look she was surprised at the
 quietness with which Cynthia said, almost immediately, - 
   
'Well, after all it is only your fancy that she was alluding to
 Mr Preston, so perhaps we had better not say any more
 about him; and as for her advice to mamma to look after you
 better, Miss Molly, I'll stand bail for your good behaviour; for
 both mamma and I know you're the last person to do any
 foolish things in that way.  And now don't let us talk any more
 about it.  I was coming to tell you that Hannah Brand's little
 boy has been badly burnt, and his sister is downstairs asking
 for old linen.'
  
 Mrs Gibson was always kind to poor people, and she
 immediately got up and went to her stores to search for the
 article wanted.
  
 Cynthia turned quietly round to Molly.
  
 'Molly, pray don't ever allude to anything between me and
 Mr Preston, - not to mamma, nor to any one.  Never do!  I've
 a reason for it, - don't say anything more about it, ever.'
   
Mrs Gibson came back at this moment, and Molly had to
 stop short again on the brink of Cynthia's confidence;
 uncertain indeed this time, if she would have been told
 anything more, and only sure that she had annoyed Cynthia
 a good deal.
   
But the time was approaching when she would know all



CHAPTER XLII

THE STORM BURSTS

The autumn drifted away through all its seasons; the golden
 corn-harvest, the walks through the stubble fields, and
 rambles into hazel-copses in search of nuts; the stripping of
 the apple-orchards of their ruddy fruit, amid the joyous cries
 and shouts of watching children; and the gorgeous tulip-like
 colouring of the later time had now come on with the
 shortening days.  There was comparative silence in the land,
 excepting for the distant shots and the whirr of the partridges
 as they rose up from the field.
   Ever since Miss Browning's unlucky conversation things
 had been ajar in the Gibsons' house.  Cynthia seemed to keep
 every one out at (mental) arm's-length; and particularly
 avoided any private talks with Molly.  Mrs Gibson, still
 cherishing a grudge against Miss Browning for her implied
 accusation of not looking enough after Molly, chose to
 exercise a most wearying supervision over the poor girl.  It
 was, 'Where have you been, child?' 'Who did you see?' 'Who
 was that letter from?' 'Why were you so long out when you
 had only to go to so-and-so?' just as if Molly had really been
 detected in carrying on some underhand intercourse.  She
 answered every question asked of her with the simple
 truthfulness of perfect innocence; but the inquiries (although
 she read their motive, and knew that they arose from no
 especial suspicion of her conduct, but only that Mrs Gibson
 might be able to say that she looked well after her
 stepdaughter), chafed her inexpressibly.  Very often she did
 not go out at all, sooner than have to give a plan of her
 intended proceedings, when perhaps she had no plan at all,
 only thought of wandering out at her own sweet will, and of
 taking pleasure in the bright solemn fading of the year.  It was
 a very heavy time for Molly, - zest and life had fled; and left
 so many of the old delights mere shells of seeming.  She
 thought it was that her youth had fled; at nineteen!  Cynthia
 was no longer the same, somehow; and perhaps Cynthia's
 change would injure her in the distant Roger's opinion.  Her
 stepmother seemed almost kind in comparison with Cynthia's
 withdrawal of her heart; Mrs Gibson worried her to be sure,
 with all these forms of watching over her; but in all her other
 ways, she, at any rate, was the same.  Yet Cynthia herself,
 seemed anxious and care-worn, though she would not speak
 of her anxieties to Molly.  And then the poor girl in her
 goodness would blame herself for feeling Cynthia's change of
 manner; for as Molly said to herself, 'If it is hard work for me
 to help always fretting after Roger, and wondering where he
 is, and how he is; what must it be for her?'
   One day Mr Gibson came in, bright and swift.
   'Molly,' said he, 'where's Cynthia?'
  
 'Gone out to do some errands -- '
  
 'Well, it's a pity - but never mind.  Put on your bonnet and
 cloak as fast as you can.  I've had to borrow old Simpson's dogcart, - there would have been room both for you and
 Cynthia; but as it is, you must walk back alone.  I'll drive you
 as far on the Barford Road as I can, and then you must jump
 down.  I can't take you on to Broadhurst's, I may be kept there
 for hours.'
   
Mrs Gibson was out of the room; out of the house it might
 be, for all Molly cared, now she had her father's leave and
 command.  Her bonnet and cloak were on in two minutes, and
 she was sitting by her father's side, the back scat shut up, and
 the light weight going swiftly and merrily bumping over the
 stone-paved lanes.
  
 'Oh, this is charming,' said Molly, after a toss-up on her seat
 from a tremendous bump.
  
 'For youth, but not for crabbed age,' said Mr Gibson.  'My
 bones are getting rheumatic, and would rather go smoothly
 over macadamized streets.'
   
'That's treason to this lovely view and this fine pure air,
 papa.  Only I don't believe you.'
   
'Thank you.  As you are so complimentary, I think I shall
 put you down at the foot of this hill; we have passed the
 second milestone from Hollingford.'
   'Oh, let me just go up to the top!  I know we can see the blue
 range of the Malverns from it, and Dorrimer Hall among the
 woods; the horse will want a minute's rest, and then I will get
 down without a word.'
 
  So she went up to the top of the hill; and there they sate still
 a minute or two, enjoying the view, without much speaking.
 The woods were golden, the old house of purple-red brick,
 with its twisted chimneys, rose up from among them facing
 on to green lawns, and a placid lake; beyond again were the
 Malvern Hills!
  
 'Now jump down, lassie, and make the best of your way
 home before it gets dark.  You'll find the cut over Croston
 Heath shorter than the road we've come by.'
  
 To get to Croston Heath, Molly had to go down a narrow
 lane overshadowed by trees, with picturesque old cottages
 dotted here and there on the steep sandy banks; and then there
 came a small wood, and then there was a brook to be crossed
 on a plank-bridge, and up the steeper fields on the opposite
 side were cut steps in the turfy path, which ended, she was
 on Croston Heath, a wide-stretching common skirted by
 labourers' dwellings, past which a near road to Hollingford
 lay.
   The loneliest part of the road was the first - the lane, the
 wood, the little bridge, and the clambering through the
 upland fields.  But Molly cared little for loneliness.  She went
 along the lane under the over-arching elm-branches, from
 which, here and there, a yellow leaf came floating down upon
 her very dress; past the last cottage where a little child had
 tumbled down the sloping bank, and was publishing the
 accident with frightened cries.  Molly stooped to pick it up,
 and taking it in her arms in a manner which caused intense
 surprise to take the place of alarm in its little breast, she
 carried it up the rough flag steps towards the cottage which
 she supposed to be its home.  The mother came running in
 from the garden behind the house, still holding the late
 damsons she had been gathering in her apron; but, on seeing
 her, the little creature held out its arms to go to her, and she
 dropped her damsons all about as she took it, and began to
 soothe it as it cried afresh, interspersing her lulling with
 thanks to Molly.  She called her by her name; and on Molly
 asking the woman how she came to know it, she replied that
 she had been a servant of Mrs Goodenough before her
 marriage, and so was 'bound to know Dr Gibson's daughter
 by sight.' After the exchange of two or three more words,
 Molly ran down into the lane, and pursued her way, stopping
 here and there to gather a nosegay of such leaves as struck her
 for their brilliant colouring.  She entered the wood.  As she
 turned a corner in the lonely path, she heard a passionate
 voice of distress; and in an instant she recognized Cynthia's
 tones.  She stood still and looked around.  There were some
 holly bushes shining out dark green in the midst of the amber
 and scarlet foliage.  If any one was there, it must be behind
 these thick bushes.  So Molly left the path, and went straight,
 plunging through the brown tangled growth of ferns and
 underwood, and turned the holly bushes.  There stood Mr
 Preston and Cynthia; he holding her hands tight, each looking
 as if just silenced in some vehement talk by the rustle of
 Molly's footsteps.
   
For an instant no one spoke.  Then Cynthia said - ,
'Oh, Molly, Molly, come and judge between us!'
  
 Mr Preston let go Cynthia's hands slowly, with a look that
 was more of a sneer than a, smile; and yet he, too, had been
 strongly agitated, whatever was the subject in dispute.  Molly
 came forwards and took Cynthia's arm, her eyes steadily fixed
 on Mr Preston's face.  It was fine to see the fearlessness of her
 perfect innocence.  He could not bear her look, and said to
 Cynthia, - 
  
 'The subject of our conversation does not well admit of a
 third person's presence.  As Miss Gibson seems to wish for
 your company now, I must beg you to fix some other time and
 place where we can finish our discussion.'
 
  'I will go if Cynthia wishes me,' said Molly.
 
  'No, no; stay - I want you to stay - I want you to hear it
 all - I wish I had told you sooner.'
 
  'You mean that you regret that she has not been made aware
 of our engagement - that you promised long ago to be my
 wife.  Pray remember that it was you who made me promise
 secrecy, not I you?'
 
  'I don't believe him, Cynthia.  Don't, don't cry if you can
 help it; I don't believe him.'
 
  'Cynthia,' said he, suddenly changing his tone to fervid
 tenderness, 'pray, pray do not go on so; you can't think how
 it distresses me.' He stepped forwards to try and take her hand
 and soothe her; but she shrank away from him, and sobbed the
 more irrepressibly.  She felt Molly's presence so much to be
 a protection that now she dared to let herself go, and to
 weaken herself by giving way to her emotion.
  
 'Go away!' said Molly.  'Don't you see you make her worse?'
 But he did not stir; he was looking at Cynthia so intently
 that he did not seem even to hear her.  'Go,' said Molly,
 vehemently, 'if it really distresses you to see her cry.  Don't
 you see, it's you who are the cause of it?'
  
 'I will go if Cynthia tells me,' said he at length.
  
 'Oh, Molly, I do not know what to do,' said Cynthia, taking
 down her hands from her tear-stained face, and appealing to
 Molly, and sobbing worse than ever; in fact, she became
 hysterical, and though she tried to speak coherently, no
 intelligible words would come.
 'Run to that cottage in the trees, and fetch her a cup of
 water,' said Molly.  He hesitated a little.
  
 'Why don't you go?' said Molly, impatiently.
  
 'I have not done speaking to her; you will not leave before
 I come back?'
  
 'No.  Don't you see she can't move in this state?'
  
 He went quickly, if reluctantly.
  
 Cynthia was some time before she could check her sobs
 enough to speak.  At length, she said, - 
 
  'Molly, I do hate him!'
 
  'But what did he mean by saying you were engaged to him?
 Don't cry, dear, but tell me; if I can help you I will, but I can't
 imagine what it all really is.'
 
  'It is too long a story to tell now, and I'm not strong enough.
 Look! he is coming back.  As soon as I can, let us get home.'
 
  'With all my heart,' said Molly.
 
  He brought the water, and Cynthia drank, and was restored
 to calmness.
 
  'Now,' said Molly, 'we had better go home as fast as you can
 manage it; it is getting dark quickly.'
 
  If she hoped to carry Cynthia off so easily, she was
 mistaken.  Mr Preston was resolute on this point.  He said, - 
 
  'I think since Miss Gibson has made herself acquainted with
 this much, we had better let her know the whole truth - that
 you are engaged to marry me as soon as you are twenty;
 otherwise your being here with me, and by appointment too,
 may appear strange, even equivocal to her.'
 
  'As I know that Cynthia is engaged to - another man, you
 can hardly expect me to believe what you say, Mr Preston.'
  
 'Oh, Molly,' said Cynthia, trembling all over, but trying to
 be calm, 'I am not engaged, neither to the person you mean,
 nor to Mr Preston.'
  
 Mr Preston forced a. smile.  'I think I have some letters that
 would convince Miss Gibson of the truth of what I have said;
 and which will convince Mr Osborne Hamley, if necessary - I
 conclude it is to him she is alluding.'
  
 'I am quite puzzled by you both,' said Molly. .'The only
 thing I do know is, that we ought not to be standing here at
 this time of evening, and that Cynthia and I shall go home
 directly.  If you want to talk to Miss Kirkpatrick, Mr Preston,
 why don't you come to my father's house, and ask to see her
 openly, and like a gentleman.'
 
   'I am perfectly willing,' said he; 'I shall only be too glad to
 explain to Mr Gibson on what terms I stand in relation to her.
 If I have not done it sooner, it is because I have yielded to her
 wishes.'
 
   'Pray, pray don't.  Molly - you don't know all - you don't
 know anything about it; you mean well and kindly, I know,
 but you are only making mischief.  I am quite well enough to
 walk, do let us go; I will tell you all about it when we are at
 home.' She took Molly's arm and tried to hasten her away; but
 Mr Preston followed, talking as he walked by their side.
   
 'I do not know what you will say at home; but can you deny that
 you are my promised wife?  Can you deny that it has only been at
 your earnest request that I have kept the engagement secret so
 long?' He was unwise - Cynthia stopped, and turned at bay.
   
 'Since you will have it out, since I must speak here, I own
 that what you say is literally true; that when I was a neglected
 girl of sixteen, you - whom I believed to be a friend, lent me
 money at my need, and made me give you a promise of
 marriage.'
   
 'Made you!' said he, laying an emphasis on the first word.
    
Cynthia turned scarlet.  '"Made" is not the right word, I
 confess.  I liked you then - you were almost my only friend - 
 and, if it had been a question of immediate marriage, I dare
 say I should never have objected.  But I know you better now;
 and you have persecuted me so of late, that I tell you once for
 all (as I have told you before, till I am sick of the very words),
 that nothing shall ever make me marry you.  Nothing.  I see
 there's no chance of escaping exposure and, I dare say, losing
 my character, and I know losing all the few friends I have.'
   
 'Never me,' said Molly, touched by the wailing tone of
 despair that Cynthia was falling into.
   
 'It is hard,' said Mr Preston.  'You may believe all the bad
 things you like about me, Cynthia, but I don't think you can
 doubt my real, passionate disinterested love for you.'
   
 'I do doubt it,' said Cynthia, breaking out with fresh energy.
 'Ah! when I think of the self-denying affection I have seen - I
 have known - affection that thought of others before itself -- '
  
 Mr Preston broke in at the pause she made.  She was afraid
 of revealing too much to him.
  
 'You do not call it love which has been willing to wait for
 years - to be silent while silence was desired - to suffer
 jealousy and to bear neglect, relying on the solemn promise of
 a girl of sixteen - for "solemn" say "flimsy," when that girl
 grows older.  Cynthia, I have loved you, and I do love you, and
 I won't give you up.  If you will but keep your word, and
 marry me, I'll swear I'll make you love me in return.'
  
 'Oh, I wish - I wish I'd never borrowed that unlucky
 money, it was the beginning of it all.  Oh, Molly, I have saved
 and scrimped to repay it, and he won't take it now; I thought
 if I could but repay it, it would set me free.'
   'You seem to imply you sold yourself for twenty pounds,'
 he said.  They were nearly on the common now, close to the
 protection of the cottages, in very hearing of their inmates; if
 neither of the other two thought of this Molly did, and
 resolved in her mind to call in at one of them, and ask for the
 labourer's protection home; at any rate his presence must put
 a stop to this miserable altercation.
   'I did not sell myself; I liked you then.  But oh, how I do hate
 you now!' cried Cynthia, unable to contain her words.
 
  He bowed and turned back, vanishing rapidly down the
 field staircase.' At any rate that was a relief.  Yet the two girls
 hastened on, as if he was still pursuing them.  Once, when
 Molly said something to Cynthia, the latter replied, - 
   'Molly, if you pity me - if you love me - don't say anything
 more just now.  We shall have to look as if nothing had
 happened when we get home.  Come to my room when we go
 upstairs to bed, and I will tell you all.  I know you will blame
 me terribly, but I will tell you all.'
 
  So Molly did not say another word till they reached home;
 and then, comparatively at ease, inasmuch as no one perceived
 how late was their return to the house, each of the girls went
 up into their separate rooms, to rest and calm themselves
 before dressing for the necessary family gathering at dinner.
 Molly felt as if she were 'so miserably shaken that she could
 not have gone down at all, if her own interests only were at
 stake.  She sate by her dressing-table, holding her head in her
 hands, her candles unlighted, and the room in soft darkness,
 trying to still her beating heart, and to recall all she had heard,
 and what would be its bearing on the lives of those whom she
 loved.  Roger.  Oh, Roger! - far away in mysterious darkness of
 distance - loving as he did (ah, that was love!  That was the
 love to which Cynthia had referred, as worthy of the name!)
 and the object of his love claimed by another - false to one she
 must be!  How could it be?  What would he think and feel if
 ever he came to know it?  It was of no use trying to imagine
 his pain - that could do no good.  What lay before Molly was,
 to try and extricate Cynthia, if she could help her by thought,
 or advice, or action; not to weaken herself by letting her fancy
 run into pictures of possible, probable suffering.
   When she went into the drawing-room before dinner, she
 found Cynthia and her mother tête-à-tête.  There were candles
 in the room, but they were not lighted, for the wood-fire
 blazed merrily if fitfully, and they were awaiting Mr Gibson's
 return, which might be expected at any minute.  Cynthia sate
 in the shade, so it was only by her sensitive ear that Molly
 could judge of her state of composure.  Mrs Gibson was telling
 some of her day's adventures - whom she had found at home
 in the calls she had been making; who had been out; and the
 small pieces of news she had heard.  To Molly's quick
 sympathy Cynthia's voice sounded languid and weary, but she
 made all the proper replies, and expressed the proper interest
 at the right places, and Molly came to the rescue, chiming in,
 with an effort, it is true; but Mrs Gibson was not one to notice
 slight shades or differences in manner.  When Mr Gibson
 returned, the relative positions of the parties were altered.  It
 was Cynthia now who raised herself into liveliness, partly
 from a consciousness that he would have noticed any
 depression, and partly because, from her cradle to her grave,
 Cynthia was one of those natural coquettes, who instinctively
 bring out all their prettiest airs and graces in order to stand
 well with any man, young or old, who may happen to be
 present.  She listened to his remarks and stories with all the
 sweet intentness of happier days, till Molly, silent and
 wondering, could hardly believe that the Cynthia before her
 was the same girl as she who was sobbing and crying as if her
 heart would break not two hours before.  It is true she looked
 pale and heavy-eyed, but that was the only sign she gave of
 her past trouble, which yet must be a present care, thought
 Molly.  After dinner, Mr Gibson went out to his town
 patients; Mrs Gibson subsided into her arm-chair, holding a
 sheet of The Times before her, behind which she took a quiet
 and lady-like doze.  Cynthia had a book in one hand, with the
 other she shaded her eyes from the light.  Molly alone could
 neither read, nor sleep, nor work.  She sate in the seat in the
 bow-window; the blind was not drawn down, for there was no
 danger of their being overlooked.  She gazed into the soft outer
 darkness, and found herself striving to discern the outlines of
 objects - the cottage at the end of the garden - the great beech-tree with the seat round it - the wire arches, up which the
 summer roses had clambered; each came out faint and dim
 against the dusky velvet of the atmosphere.  Presently tea
 came, and there was the usual nightly bustle.  The table was
 cleared, Mrs Gibson roused herself, and made the same
 remark about dear papa that she had done at the same hour
 for weeks past.  Cynthia too did not look different to usual.
 And yet what a hidden mystery did her calmness hide,
 thought Molly.  At length came bed-time, and the accustomary
 little speeches.  Both Molly and Cynthia went to their own
 rooms without exchanging a word.  When Molly was in hers
 she had forgotten if she was to go to Cynthia, or Cynthia to
 come to her.  She took off her gown and put on her dressing-gown, and stood and waited, and even sate down for a minute
 or two; but Cynthia did not come, so Molly went and knocked
 at the opposite door, which, to her surprise, she found shut.
 When she entered the room Cynthia sate by her dressing-table, just as she came up from the drawing-room.  She had
 been leaning her head on her arms, and seemed almost to have
 forgotten the tryst she had made with Molly, for she looked
 up as if startled, and her face did seem full of worry and
 distress; in her solitude she made no more exertion, but gave
 way to thoughts of care.



CHAPTER XLIII

CYNTHIA'S CONFESSION

'You said I might come,' said Molly, 'and that you would
  tell me all.'
   
 'You know all, I think,' said Cynthia heavily.  'Perhaps you
  don't know what excuses I have, but at any rate you know
  what a scrape I am in.'
 
   'I've been thinking a great deal,' said Molly timidly and
  doubtfully.  'And I can't help fancying if you told papa -- '
 
   Before she could go on, Cynthia had stood up.
 
   'No!' said she.  'That I won't.  Unless I'm to leave here at
  once.  And you know I have not another place to go to - 
  without warning I mean.  I dare say my uncle would take me
  in, he's a relation, and would be bound to stand by me in
  whatever disgrace I might be; or perhaps I might get a
  governess's situation; a pretty governess I should be!'
 
   'Fray, please, Cynthia, don't go off into such wild talking.
  I don't believe you've done so very wrong.  You say you have
  not, and I believe you.  That horrid man has managed to get
  you involved in some way; but I'm sure papa could set it to
  rights, if you would only make a friend of him and tell him
  all -- '
 
   'No, Molly,' said Cynthia, 'I can't, and there's an end of it.
  You may if you like, only let me leave the house first; give me
  that much time.'
 
   'You know I would never tell anything you wished me not
  to tell, Cynthia,' said Molly, deeply hurt.
 
   'Would you not, darling?' said Cynthia, taking her hand.
  'Will you promise me that? quite a sacred promise? - for it
  would be such a comfort to me to tell you all, now you know
  so much.'
 
   'Yes!  I'll promise not to tell.  You should not have doubted
  me,' said Molly, still a little sorrowfully.
  
  'Very well.  I trust to you.  I know I may.'
  
  'But do think of telling papa, and getting him to help you,'
  persevered Molly.
  'Never,' said Cynthia resolutely, but more quietly than
 before.  'Do you think I forget what he said at the time of that
 wretched Mr Coxe; how severe he was, and how long I was
 in disgrace, if indeed I'm out of it now?  I am one of those
 people, as mamma says sometimes - I cannot live with persons
 who don't think well of me.  It may be a weakness, or a sin,
 I am sure I don't know and I don't care; but I really cannot
 be happy in the same house with any one who knows my
 faults, and thinks that they are greater than my merits.  Now
 you know your father would do that.  I have often told you that
 he (and you too, Molly,) had a higher standard than I had ever
 known.  Oh, I could not bear it - if he were to know he would
 be so angry with me - he would never get over it, and I have
 so liked him!  I do so like him.'
 
  'Well, never mind, dear; he shall not know,' said Molly, for
 Cynthia was again becoming hysterical, - 'at least we'll say no
 more about it now.'
 
  'And you'll never say any more - never - promise me,' said
 Cynthia, taking her hand eagerly.
  
'Never till you give me leave.  Now do let me see if I cannot
 help you.  Lie down on the bed, and I will sit by you, and let
 us talk it over.'
  
 But Cypthia sate down again in the chair by the
 dressing-table.
  
 'When did it all begin?' said Molly, after a long pause of
 silence.
  
 'Long ago - four or five years.  I was such a child to be left
 all to myself.  It was the holidays, and mamma was away
 visiting, and the Donaldsons asked me to go with them to the
 Worcester Festival. You can't fancy how pleasant it all
 sounded, especially to me.  I had been shut up in that great
 dreary house at Ashcombe, where mamma had her school; it
 belonged to Lord Cumnor, and Mr Preston as his agent had
 to see it all painted and papered; but besides that he was very
 intimate with us: I believe mamma thought - no, I'm not sure
 about that, and I have enough blame to lay at her door, to
 prevent my telling you anything that may be only fancy -- '
   
Then she paused, and sate still for a minute or two, recalling
 the past.  Molly was struck by the aged and careworn
 expression which had taken temporary hold of the brilliant
 and beautiful face; she could see from that how much Cynthia
 must have suffered from this hidden trouble of hers.
 
  'Well! at any, rate we were intimate with him, and he came
 a great deal about the house, and knew as much as any one
 of mamma's affairs, and all the ins and outs of her life.  I'm
 telling you that in order that you may understand how natural
 it was for me to answer his questions when he came one day
 and found me, not crying, for you know I'm not much given
 to that, in spite of to-day's exposure of myself; but fretting and
 fuming because, though mamma had written word I might go
 with the Donaldsons, she had never said how I was to get any
 money for the journey, much less for anything of dress, and
 I had outgrown all my last year's frocks, and as for gloves and
 boots - in short, I really had hardly clothes decent enough for
 church -- '
 
  'Why did not you write to her and tell her all this?' said
 Molly, half afraid of appearing to cast blame by her very
 natural question.
 
  'I wish I had her letter to show you; you must have seen
 some of mamma's letters, though; don't you know how she
 always seems to leave out just the important point of every
 fact?  In this case she descanted largely on the enjoyment she
 was having, and the kindness she was receiving, and her wish
 that I could have been with her, and her gladness that I too
 was going to have some pleasure, but the only thing that
 would have been of real use to me she left out, and that was
 where she was going to next.  She mentioned that she was
 leaving the house she was stopping at the day after she wrote,
 and that she should be at home by a certain date; but I got the
 letter on a Saturday, and the festival began on the next
 Tuesday -- '
 
  'Poor Cynthia!' said Molly.  'Still, if you had written, your
 letter might have been forwarded.  I don't mean to be hard,
 only I do so dislike the thought of your ever having made a
 friend of that man.'
   
'Ah!' said Cynthia, sighing.  'How easy it is to judge rightly
 after one sees what evil comes from judging wrongly: I was
 only a young girl, hardly more than a child, and he was a
 friend to us then; excepting mamma, the only friend I knew;
 the Donaldsons were only kind and good-natured acquaintances.'
  
 'I am sorry,' said Molly humbly, 'I have been so happy with
 papa.  I hardly can understand how different it must have been
 with you.'
  
 'Different!  I should think so.  The worry about money made
 me sick of my life.  We might not say we were poor, it would
 have injured the school, but I would have stinted and starved
 if mamma and I had got on as happily together as we might
 have done - as you and Mr Gibson do.  It was not the poverty;
 it was that she never seemed to care to have me with her.  As
 soon as the holidays came round, she was off to some great
 house or another, and I dare say I was at a very awkward age
 to have me lounging about in her drawing-room when callers
 came.  Girls at the age I was then are so terribly keen at
 scenting out motives, and putting in their awkward questions
 as to the little twistings and twirlings and vanishings of
 conversation; they've no distinct notion of what are the truths
 and falsehoods of polite life.  At any rate I was very much in
 mamma's way, and I felt it.  Mr Preston seemed to feel it too
 for me; and I was very grateful to him for kind words and
 sympathetic looks - crumbs of kindness which would have
 dropped under your table unnoticed. So this day, when he
 came to see how the workmen were getting on, he found me
 in the deserted schoolroom, looking at my faded summer
 bonnet and some old ribbons I had been sponging out, and
 half-worn-out gloves - a sort of rag-fair spread out on the deal
 table.  I was in a regular passion with only looking at that
 shabbiness.  He said he was so glad to hear I was going to this
 festival with the Donaldsons; old Betty, our servant, had told
 him the news, I believe.  But I was so perplexed about money,
 and my vanity was so put out about my shabby dress, that I
 was in a pet, and said I should not go.  He sate down on the
 table, and little by little he made me tell him all my troubles.
 I do sometimes think he was very nice in those days.  Somehow
 I never felt as if it was wrong or foolish or anything to accept
 his offer of money at the time.  He had twenty pounds in his
 pocket, he said, and really did not know what. to do with it,
 should not want it for months; I could repay it, or rather
 mamma could, when it suited her.  She must have known I
 should want money, and most likely thought I should apply
 to him.  Twenty pounds would not be too much, I must take
 it all, and so on.  I knew, at least I thought I knew, that I
 should never spend twenty pounds; but I thought I could give
 him back what I did not want, and so - well, that was the
 beginning!  It does not sound so very wrong, does it, Molly?'
  
 'No,' said Molly, hesitatingly.  She did not wish to make
 herself into a hard judge, and yet she did so dislike Mr
 Preston.  Cynthia went on, - 
  
 'Well, what with boots and gloves, and a bonnet and a
 mantle, and a white muslin gown, which was made for me
 before I left on the Tuesday, and a silk gown that followed to
 the Donaldsons', and my journeys, and all, there was very
 little left of the twenty pounds, especially when I found I must
 get a ball-dress in Worcester, for we were all to go to the Ball.
 Mrs Donaldson gave me my ticket, but she rather looked
 grave at my idea of going to the Ball in my white muslin,
 which I had already worn two evenings at their house.  Oh
 dear! how pleasant it must be to be rich!  You know,'
 continued Cynthia, smiling a very little, 'I can't help being
 aware that I am pretty, and that people admire me very much.
 I found it out first at the Donaldsons'.  I began to think I did
 look pretty in my fine new clothes, and I saw that other people
 thought so too.  I was certainly the belle of the house, and it
 was very pleasant to feel my power.  The last day or two of that
 gay week Mr Preston joined our party.  The last time he had
 seen me was when I was dressed in shabby clothes too small
 for me, half-crying in my solitude, neglected and penniless.  At
 the Donaldsons' I was a little queen; and as I said, fine
 feathers make fine birds, all the people were making much of
 me; and at that ball, which was the first night he came, I had
 more partners than I knew what to do with.  I suppose he
 really did fall in love with me then.  I don't think he had done
 so before.  And then I began to feel how awkward it was to be
 in his debt.  I could not give myself airs to him as I did to
 others.  Oh! it was so awkward and uncomfortable!  But I liked
 him, and felt him as a friend all the time.  The last day I was
 walking in the garden along with the others, and I thought I
 would tell him how much I had enjoyed myself, and how
 happy I had been, all thanks to his twenty pounds (I was
 beginning to feel like Cinderella when the clock was striking
 twelve), and to tell him it should be repaid to him as soon as
 possible, though I turned sick at the thought of telling
 mamma, and knew enough of our affairs to understand how
 very difficult it would be to muster up the money.  The end
 of our talk came very soon, for almost to my terror he began
 to talk violent love to me, and to beg me to promise to marry
 him.  I was so frightened, that I ran away to the others.  But
 that night I got a letter from him, apologizing for startling me,
 renewing his offer, his entreaties for a promise of marriage, to
 be fulfilled at any date I would please to name - in fact a most
 urgent love-letter, and in it a reference to my unlucky debt,
 which was to be a debt no longer, only an advance of the
 money to be hereafter mine if only -- You can fancy it all,
 Molly, better than I can remember it to tell it you.'
  
 'And what did you say?' asked Molly, breathless.
  
 'I did not answer it at all until another letter came,
 entreating for a reply.  By that time mamma had come home,
 and the old daily pressure and plaint of poverty had come on.
 Mary Donaldson wrote to me often, singing the praises of Mr
 Preston as enthusiastically as if she had been bribed to do it.
 I had seen him a very popular man in their set, and I liked him
 well enough, and felt grateful to him.  So I wrote and gave him
 my promise to marry him when I was twenty, but it was to
 be a secret till then.  And I tried to forget I had ever borrowed
 money of him, but somehow as soon as I felt pledged to him
 I began to hate him.  I could not endure his eagerness of
 greeting if ever he found me alone; and mamma began to
 suspect, I think.  I cannot tell you all the ins and outs, in fact
 I did not understand them at the time, and I don't remember
 clearly how it all happened now.  But I know that Lady
 Cuxhaven sent mamma some money to be applied to my
 education as she called it, and mamma seemed very much put
 out and in very low spirits, and she and I did not get on at
 all together.  So of course I never ventured to name the hateful
 twenty pounds to her, but went on trying to think that if I was
 to marry Mr Preston, it need never be paid - very mean and
 wicked I dare say, but oh, Molly, I've been punished for it,
 for how I abhor that man.'
   'But why?  When did you begin to dislike him?  You seem to
 have taken it very passively all this time.'
   'I don't know.  It was growing upon me before I went to that
 school at Boulogne.  He made me feel as if I was in his power;
 and by too often reminding me of my engagement to him, he
 made me critical of his words and ways.  There was an
 insolence in his manner to mamma, too.  Ah! you're thinking
 that I'm not too respectful a daughter - and perhaps not; but
 I could not bear his covert sneers at her faults, and I hated his
 way of showing what he called his "love" for me.  Then, after
 I had been a semestre at Madame Lefevre's, a new English girl
 came - a cousin of his, who knew but little of me.  Now, Molly,
 you must forget as soon as I have told you what I am going
 to say - and she used to talk much and perpetually about her
 cousin Robert - he was the great man of the family,
 evidently - and how he was so handsome, and every lady of the
 land in love with him, - a lady of title into the bargain.'
 
  'Lady Harriet!  I dare say,' said Molly, indignantly.
  
 'I don't know,' said Cynthia, wearily.  'I didn't care at the
 time, and I don't care now; for she went on to say there was
 a very pretty widow too, who made desperate love to him.  He
 had often laughed with them at all her little advances, which
 she thought he did not see through, - and - oh, - and this was
 the man I had promised to marry, and gone into debt to, and
 written love-letters to.  So now you understand it all, Molly.'
 
  'No, I don't yet.  What did you do on hearing how he had
 spoken about your mother?'
 
  'There was but one thing to do.  I wrote and told him I hated
 him, and would never, never marry him, and would pay him
 back his money and the interest of it as soon as ever I could.'
 
  'Well?'
 
  'And Madame Lefevre brought me back my letter, - 
 unopened, I will say; and told me that she did not allow letters
 to gentlemen to be sent by the pupils of her establishment
 unless she had previously seen their contents.  I told her he
 was a family friend, the agent who managed mamma's
 affairs - I really could not stick at the truth; but she would not
 let it go; and I bad to see her burn it, and to give her my
 promise I would not write again before she would consent not
 to tell mamma.  So I had to calm down, and wait till I came
 home.'
  
 'But you did not see him then; at least, not for some time.'
  
 'No, but I could write; and I began to try and save up my
 money to pay him.'
  
 'What did he say to your letter?'
  
 'Oh, at first he pretended not to believe I could be in
 earnest; he thought it was only pique, or a temporary offence
 to be apologized for and covered over with passionate
 protestations.'
  
 'And afterwards?'
  
 'He condescended to threats; and, what is worse, then I
 turned coward.  I could not bear to have it all known and
 talked about, and my silly letters shown - oh, such letters - I
 cannot bear to think of them, beginning, "My dearest
 Robert," to that man -- '
  
 'But, oh, Cynthia, how could you go and engage yourself to
 Roger?' asked Molly.
  
 'Why not?' said Cynthia, sharply turning round upon her.
 'I was free - I am free; it seemed a way of assuring myself that
 I was quite free; and I did like Roger - it was such a comfort
 to be brought into contact with people who could be relied
 upon; and I was not a stock or a stone that I could fail to be
 touched with his tender, unselfish love, so different to Mr
 Preston's.  I know you don't think me good enough for him;
 and, of course, if all this comes out, he won't think me good
 enough either' (falling into a plaintive tone very touching to
 hear); 'and sometimes I think I will give him up, and go off
 to some fresh life amongst strangers; and once or twice I have
 thought I would marry Mr Preston out of pure revenge, and
 have him for ever in my power - only I think I should have
 the worst of it. for he is cruel in his very soul - tigerish, with
 his beautiful striped skin and relentless heart.  I have so begged
 and begged him to let me go without exposure.'
  
 'Never mind the exposure,' said Molly.  'It will recoil far
 more on him than harm you.'
    Cynthia went a little paler.  'But I said things in those letters
  about mamma.  I was quick-eyed enough to all her faults, and
  hardly understood the force of her temptations; and he says he
  will show those letters to your father, unless I consent to
  acknowledge our engagement.'
    
'He shall not!' said Molly, rising up in her indignation, and
  standing before Cynthia almost as resolutely fierce as if she
  were in the very presence of Mr Preston himself.  'I am not
  afraid of him.  He dare not insult me, or if he does, I do not
  care.  I will ask him for those letters, and see if he will dare
  to refuse me.'
  
  'You don't know him,' said Cynthia, shaking her head.  'He
  has made many an appointment with me, just as if he would
  take back the money - which has been sealed up ready for him
  this four months; or as if he would give me back my letters.
  Poor, poor Roger!  How little he thinks of all this.  When I
  want to write words of love to him I pull myself up, for I have
  written words as affectionate to that other man.  And if Mr
  Preston ever guessed that Roger and I were engaged he would
  manage to be revenged on both him and me by giving us as
  much pain as he could with those unlucky letters - written
  when I was not sixteen, Molly, - only seven of them!  They are
  like a mine under my feet, which may blow up any day; and
  down will come father and mother and all.' She ended
  bitterly enough, though her words were so light.
  
  'How can I get them?' said Molly, thinking, - 'for get them
  I will.  With papa to back me, he dare not refuse.'
  
  'Ah!  But that's just the thing.  He knows I'm afraid of your
  father's hearing of it all, more than of any one else.'
   
 'And yet he thinks he loves you!'
  
  'It is his way of loving.  He says often enough he does not
  care what he does so that he gets me to be his wife; and that
  after that he is sure he can make me love him.' Cynthia began
  to cry, out of weariness of body and despair of mind.  Molly's
  arms were round her in a minute, and she pressed the
  beautiful head to her bosom, and laid her own cheek upon it,
  and hushed her up with lulling words, just as if Cynthia were
  a little child.
  
  'Oh, it is such a comfort to have told you all!' murmured
 she.  And Molly made reply, - 'I am sure we have right on our
 side; and that makes me certain he must and shall give up the
 letters.'
  
 'And take the money?' added Cynthia, lifting her head, and
 looking eagerly into Molly's face.  'He must take the money.
 Oh, Molly, you can never manage it all without its coming out
 to your father!  And I would far rather go out to Russia as a
 governess.  I almost think I would rather - no, not that,' said
 she, shuddering away from what she was going to say.  'But he
 must not know - please, Molly, he must not know.  I could not
 bear it.  I don't know what I might not do.  You'll promise me
 never to tell him, or mamma?'
   'I never will.  You do not think I would for anything short
 of saving -- ' She was going to have said, 'saving you and
 Roger from pain.' But Cynthia broke in, - 
 
  'For nothing.  No reason whatever must make you tell your
 father.  If you fail, you fail, and I will love you for ever for
 trying; but I shall be no worse than before.  Better, indeed; for
 I shall have the comfort of your sympathy.  But promise me
 not to tell Mr Gibson.'
 
 'I have promised once,' said Molly, 'but I promise again; so
 now do go to bed, and try and rest.  You are looking as white
 as a sheet; you'll be ill if you don't get some rest; and it's past
 two o'clock, and you're shivering with cold.'
  
 So they wished each other good-night.  But when Molly got
 into her room all her spirit left her; and she threw herself
 down on her bed, dressed as she was, for she had no heart left
 for anything.  If Roger ever heard of it all by any chance, she
 felt how it would disturb his love for Cynthia.  And yet was
 it right to conceal it from him?  She must try and persuade
 Cynthia to tell it all straight out to him as soon as he returned
 to England.  A full confession on her part would wonderfully
 lessen any pain he might have on first hearing of it.  She lost
 herself in thoughts of Roger - how he would feel, what he would
 say, how that meeting would come to pass, where he was at
 that very time, and so on, till she suddenly plucked herself up,
 and recollected what she herself had offered and promised
 to do.  Now that the first fervour was over, she saw the
 difficulties clearly; and the foremost of all was how she was
 to manage to have a tête-à-tête with Mr Preston?  How had
 Cynthia managed? and the letters that had passed between
 them too?  Unwillingly, Molly was compelled to perceive that
 there must have been a great deal of underhand work going
 on beneath Cynthia's apparent  I openness of behaviour; and
 still more unwillingly she began to be afraid that she herself
 would be led into the practice.  But she would try and walk in
 a straight path; and if she did wander out of it, it should only
 be to save pain to those whom she loved.



CHAPTER XLIV

MOLLY GIBSON TO THE RESCUE

It seemed curious enough, after the storms of the night, to
 meet in smooth tranquillity at breakfast.  Cynthia was pale; but
 she talked as quietly as usual about all manner of indifferent
 things, while Molly sate silent, watching and wondering, and
 becoming convinced that Cynthia must have gone through a
 long experience of concealing her real thoughts and secret
 troubles before she could have been able to put on such a
 semblance of composure.  Among the letters that came in that
 morning was one from the London Kirkpatricks; but not from
 Helen, Cynthia's own particular correspondent.  Her sister
 wrote to apologize for Helen, who was not well, she said: had
 had the influenza, which had left her very weak and poorly.
   
'Let her come down here for change of air,' said Mr Gibson.
 'The country at this time of the year is better than London,
 excepting when the place is surrounded by trees.  Now our
 house is well drained, high up, gravel soil, and I'll undertake
 to doctor her for nothing.'
   
'It would be charming,' said Mrs Gibson, rapidly revolving
 in her mind the changes necessary in her household economy
 before receiving a young lady accustomed to such a household
 as Mr Kirkpatrick's, and calculating the consequent
 inconveniences in her own mind, weighing them against the
 probable advantages even while she spoke.
 
  'Should not you like it, Cynthia? and Molly too.  You too,
 dear, would become acquainted with one of the girls, and I
 have no doubt you would be asked back again, which would
 be so very nice!'
  
 'And I should not let her go,' said Mr Gibson, who had
 acquired an unfortunate facility of reading his wife's thoughts.
  
 'Dear Helen!' went on Mrs Gibson, 'I should so like to
 nurse her, we would make your consulting-room into her own
 private sitting-room, my dear.' - (It is hardly necessary to say
 that the scales had been weighed down by the inconveniences
 of having a person behind the scenes for several weeks).  'For
 with an invalid so much depends on tranquillity.  In the
 drawing-room, for instance, she might constantly be disturbed
 by callers; and the dining-room is so - so what shall I call it?
 so dinnery, - the smell of meals never seems to leave it; it
 would have been different if dear papa had allowed me to
 throw out that window -- '
  
 'Why can't she have the dressing-room for her bed-room,
 and the little room opening out of the drawing-room for her
 sitting-room?' asked Mr Gibson.
   
'The library,' for by this name Mrs Gibson chose to dignify
 what had formerly been called the book-closet, - 'why, it would
 hardly hold a sofa, besides the books and the writing-table, and
 there are draughts everywhere.  No, my dear, we had better not
 ask her at all, her own home is comfortable at any rate!'
   
'Well, well!' said Mr Gibson, seeing that he was to be
 worsted, and not caring enough about the matter to show
 fight.  'Perhaps you are right.  It's a case of luxury versus fresh
 air.  Some people suffer more from the want of one than from
 want of the other.  You know I shall be glad to see her if she
 likes to come, and take us as we are, but I can't give up the
 consulting-room.  It's a necessity; our daily bread!'
   
'I'll write and tell them how kind Mr Gibson is,' said his
 wife in high contentment, as her husband left the room.
 'They'll be just as much obliged to him as if she had come!'
   
Whether it was Helen's illness, or from some other cause,
 after breakfast Cynthia became very flat and absent, and this
 lasted all day long; Molly understood now why her moods had
 been so changeable for many months, and was tender and
 forbearing with her accordingly.  Towards evening when the
 two girls were left alone, Cynthia came and stood over Molly,
 so that her face could not be seen.
  
 'Molly,' said she, 'will you do it?  Will you do what you said
 last night?  I have been thinking of it all day, and sometimes
 I believe he would give you back the letters if you asked him;
 he might fancy - at any rate it's worth trying, if you don't very
 much dislike it.'
  
 Now it so happened that with every thought she had given
 to it, Molly disliked the idea of the proposed interview with
 Mr !Preston more and more; but it was after all her own offer,
 and she neither could nor would draw back from it; it might
 do good; she did not see how it could possibly do harm.  So
 she gave her consent, and tried to conceal her distaste, which
 grew upon her more and more as Cynthia hastily arranged the
 details.
  
 'You shall meet him in the avenue leading from the park
 lodge up to the Towers.  He can come in one way, from the
 Towers, where he has often business - he has pass-keys
 everywhere - you can go in as we have often done by the
 lodge - you need not go far.'
  
 It did strike Molly that Cynthia must have had some
 experience in making all these arrangements; and she did
 venture to ask how he was to be informed of all this?  Cynthia
 only reddened, and replied, 'Oh! never mind!  He will only be
 too glad to come; you heard him say he wished to discuss the
 affair more; it is the first time the appointment has come from
 my side.  If I can but once be free - oh, Molly, I will love you,
 and be grateful to you all my life!'
  
 Molly thought of Roger, and that thought prompted her
 next speech.
  
 'It must be horrible - I think I'm very brave - but I don't
 think I could have - could have accepted even Roger, with a
 half-cancelled engagement hanging over me.' She blushed as
 she spoke.
  
 'You forget how I detest Mr Preston!' said Cynthia.  'It was
 that, more than any excess of love for Roger, that made me
 thankful to be at least as securely pledged to some one else.
 He did not want to call it an engagement, but I did; because
 it gave me the feeling of assurance that I was free from Mr
  Preston.  And so I am! all but these letters.  Oh! if you can but
  make him take back his abominable money, and get me my
  letters.  Then we would bury it all in oblivion, and he could
  marry somebody else, and I would marry Roger, and no one
  would be the wiser.  After all it was only what people call
  "youthful folly." And you may tell Mr Preston that as soon
  as he makes my letters public, shows them to your father or
  anything, I'll go away from Hollingford, and never come
  back -- '
  
  Loaded with many such messages, which she felt that she
  should never deliver, not really knowing what she should say,
  hating the errand, not satisfied with Cynthia's manner of
  speaking about her relations to Roger, oppressed with shame
  and complicity in conduct which appeared to her deceitful, yet
  willing to bear all and brave all, if she could once set Cynthia
  in a straight path - in a clear space, and almost more pitiful to
  her friend's great distress and possible disgrace, than able to
  give her that love which involves perfect sympathy, Molly set
  out on her walk towards the appointed place.  It was a cloudy
  blustering day, and the noise of the blowing wind among the
  nearly leafless branches of the great trees filled her ears, as she
  passed through the park-gates and entered the avenue.  She
  walked quickly, instinctively wishing to get her blood up, and
  have no time for thought.  But there was a bend in the avenue
  about a quarter of a mile from the lodge; after that bend it was
  a straight line up to the great house, now emptied of its
  inhabitants.  Molly did not like going quite out of sight of the
  lodge, and she stood facing it, close by the trunk of one of the
  trees.  Presently she heard a step coming over the grass.  It was
  Mr Preston.  He saw a woman's figure, half-behind the trunk
  of a tree, and made no doubt that it was Cynthia.  But when
  he came nearer, almost close, the figure turned round, and,
  instead of the brilliantly coloured face of Cynthia, he met the
  pale resolved look of Molly.  She did not speak to greet him,
  but though he felt sure from the general aspect of pallor and
  timidity that she was afraid of him, her steady grey eyes met
  his with courageous innocence.
   
'Is Cynthia unable to come?' asked he, perceiving that she
  expected him.
'I did not know you thought that you should meet her,' said
 Molly, a little surprised.  In her simplicity she had believed
 that Cynthia had named that it was she, Molly Gibson, who
 would meet Mr Preston at a given time and place; but Cynthia
 had been too worldly-wise for that, and had decoyed him
 thither by a vaguely worded note, which, while avoiding
 actual falsehood, had led him to believe that she herself would
 give him the meeting.
   
'She said she should be here,' said Mr Preston, extremely
 annoyed at being entrapped as he now felt that he had been,
 into an interview with Miss Gibson.  Molly hesitated a little
 before she spoke.  He was determined not to break the silence;
 as she had intruded herself into the affair, she should find her
 situation as awkward as possible.
   
'At any rate she sent me here to meet you,' said Molly.  'She
 has told me exactly how matters stand between you and her.'
   
'Has she?' sneered he.  'She is not always the most open or
 reliable person in the world!'
  
 Molly reddened.  She perceived the impertinence of the
 tone; and her temper was none of the coolest.  But she
 mastered herself and gained courage by so doing.
  
 'You should not speak so of the person you profess to wish
 to have for your wife.  But putting all that aside, you have
 some letters of hers that she wishes to have back again.'
   
'I dare say.'
   
'And that you have no right to keep.'
   
'No legal, or no moral right? which do you mean?'
   
'I do not know; simply you have no right at all, as a
 gentleman, to keep a girl's letters when she asks for them back
 again, much less to hold them over her as a threat.'
   
'I see you do know all, Miss Gibson,' said he, changing his
 manner to one of more respect.  'At least she has told you her
 story from her point of view, her side; now you must hear
 mine.  She promised me as solemnly as ever woman -- '
   
'She was not a woman, she was only a girl, barely sixteen.'
   
'Old enough to know what she was doing; but I'll call her
 a girl if you like.  She promised me solemnly to be my wife,
 making the one stipulation of secrecy, and a certain period of
 waiting; she wrote me letters repeating this promise, and
  confidential enough to prove that she considered herself
  bound to me by such an implied relation.  I don't give in to
  humbug - I don't set myself up as a saint - and in most ways
  I can look after my own interests pretty keenly; you know
  enough of her position as a penniless girl, and at that time,
  with no influential connections to take the place of wealth,
  and help me on in the world, it was as sincere and unworldly
  a passion as ever man felt; she must say so herself.  I might
  have married two or three girls with plenty of money; one of
  them was handsome enough, and not at all reluctant.'
   
Molly interrupted him; she was chafed at the conceit of his
  manner.  'I beg your pardon, but I do not want to hear
  accounts of young ladies whom you might have married; I
  come here simply on behalf of Cynthia, who does not like you,
  and who does not wish to marry you.'
 
  'Well, then I must make her "like" me, as you call it.  She
  did "like" me once, and made promises which she will find
  it requires the consent of two people to break.  I don't despair
  of making her love me as much as ever she did, according to
  her letters, at least, when we are married.'
 
  'She will never marry you,' said Molly, firmly.
 
  'Then if she ever honours any one else with her preference,
  he shall be allowed the perusal of her letters to me.'
 
  Molly almost could have laughed; she was so secure and
  certain that Roger would never read letters offered to him under
  these circumstances; but then she thought that he would feel
  such pain at the whole affair, and at the contact with Mr
  Preston, especially if he had not heard of it from Cynthia first,
  and if she, Molly, could save him pain she would.  Before she
  could settle what to say, Mr Preston spoke again.
 
  'You said the other day that Cynthia was engaged.  May I
  ask whom to?'
   'No,' said Molly, 'you may not.  You heard her say it was
  not an engagement.  It is not exactly; and if it were a full
  engagement, do you think, after what you last said, I should
  tell you to whom?  But you may be sure of this, he would never
  read a line of your letters.  He is too - No!  I won't speak of
  him before you.  You could never understand him.'
  
 'It seems to me that this mysterious "he" is a very fortunate
   person to have such a warm defender in Miss Gibson, to
 whom he is not at all engaged,' said Mr Preston, with so
 disagreeable a look on his face that Molly suddenly found
 herself on the point of bursting into tears.  But she rallied
 herself, and worked on - for Cynthia first, and for Roger as
 well.
  
 'No honourable man or woman will read your letters, and
 if any people do read them, they will be so much ashamed of
 it that they won't dare to speak of them.  What use can they
 be of to you?'
  
 'They contain Cynthia's reiterated promises of marriage,'
 replied he.
  
 'She says she would rather leave Hollingford for ever, and
 go out to earn her bread, than marry you.'
  
 His face fell a little.  He looked so bitterly mortified that
 Molly was almost sorry for him.
   
'Does she say that to you in cold blood?  Do you know you
 are telling me very hard truths, Miss Gibson? - if they are
 truths, that is to say,' he continued, recovering himself a little.
 'Young ladies are very fond of the words "hate" and "detest."
 I have known many who have applied them to men whom
 they were all the time hoping to marry.'
 
  'I cannot tell about other people,' said Molly, 'I only know
 that Cynthia does - ' Here she hesitated for a moment; she fell
 for his pain, and so she hesitated; but then she brought it
 out, - 'does as nearly hate you as anybody like her ever does
 hate.'
 
  'Like her?' said he, repeating the words almost
 unconsciously, seizing on anything to try and hide his
 mortification.
 
  'I mean, I should hate worse,' said Molly in a low voice.
 
  But he did not attend much to her answer.  He was working
 the point of his stick into the turf, and his eyes were bent on it.
 
  'So now would you mind sending her back the letters by
 me? I do assure you that you cannot make her marry you.'
 
  'You are very simple, Miss Gibson,' said he, suddenly
 lifting up his head.  'I suppose that you don't know that there
 is any other feeling that can be gratified, excepting love.  Have
 you never heard of revenge?  Cynthia had cajoled me with
promises, and little as you or she may believe me - well, it's
 of no use speaking of that.  I don't mean to let her go
 unpunished.  You may tell her that.  I shall keep the letters, and
 make use of them as I see fit when the occasion arises.'
   
Molly was miserably angry with herself for her mismanagement of the affair.  She had hoped to succeed: she had
 only made matters worse.  What new argument could she use?
 Meanwhile he went on, lashing himself up as he thought how
 the two girls must have talked him over, bringing in wounded
 vanity to add to the rage of disappointed love.
 
  'Mr Osborne Hamley may hear of their contents, though he
 may be too honourable to read them.  Nay, even your father may
 hear whispers; and if I remember them rightly, Miss Cynthia
 Kirkpatrick does not always speak in the most respectful terms
 of the lady who is now Mrs Gibson.  There are -- '
 
  'Stop,' said Molly.  'I won't hear anything out of these letters,
 written, when she was almost without friends, to you whom she
 looked upon as a friend!  But I have thought of what I will do
 next.  I give you fair warning.  If I had not been foolish I should
 have told my father, but Cynthia made me promise that I would
 not.  So I will tell it all, from beginning to end, to Lady Harriet,
 and ask her to speak to her father.  I feel sure that she will do it;
 and I don't think you will dare to refuse Lord Cumnor.'
 
  He felt at once that he should not dare; that, clever land-agent as he was, and high up in the earl's favour on that
 account, yet that the conduct of which he had been guilty
 about these letters, and the threats which he had held out
 about them, were just what no gentleman, no honourable
 man, no manly man, could put up with in any one about him.
 He knew that much, and he wondered how she, the girl
 standing before him, had been clever enough to find it out.  He
 forgot himself for an instant in admiration of her.  There she
 stood, frightened, yet brave, not letting go her hold on what
 she meant to do, even when things seemed most against her;
 and besides, there was something that struck him most of all
 perhaps, and which shows the kind of man he was - he
 perceived that Molly was as unconscious that he was a young
 man, and she a young woman, as if she had been a pure angel
 of heaven.  Though he felt that he would have to yield, and
 give up the letters, he was not going to do it at once; and while
 he was thinking what to say so as still to evade making any
 concession till he had had time to think over it, he, with his
 quick senses all about him, heard the trotting of a horse
 cranching quickly along over the gravel of the drive.  A
 moment afterwards, Molly's perception overtook his.  He
 could see the startled look overspread her face; and in an
 instant she would have run away, but before the first rush was
 made, Mr Preston laid his hand firmly on her arm.
  
 'Keep quiet.  You must be seen.  You, at any rate, have done
 nothing to be ashamed of.'
  
 As he spoke Mr Sheepshanks came round the bend of the
 road and was close upon them.  Mr Preston saw, if Molly did
 not, the sudden look of intelligence that dawned upon the
 shrewd ruddy face of the old gentleman - saw, but did not
 much heed.  He went forwards and spoke to Mr Sheepshanks,
 who made a halt right before them.
 
  'Miss Gibson! your servant!  Rather a blustering day for a
 young lady to be out, and cold, I should say, for standing still
 too long; eh, Preston?' poking his whip at the latter in a
 knowing manner.
 
  'Yes,' said Mr Preston; 'and I'm afraid I have kept Miss
 Gibson too long standing.'
 
  Molly did not know what to say or do; so she only bowed
 a silent farewell, and turned away to go home, feeling very
 heavy at heart at the non-success of her undertaking.  For she
 did not know how she had conquered, in fact, although Mr
 Preston might not as yet acknowledge it even to himself.
 Before she was out of hearing, she heard Mr Sheepshanks
 say, - 
  
 'Sorry to have disturbed your tête-à-tête, Preston,' but
 though she heard the words, their implied sense did not sink
 into her mind; she was only feeling how she had gone out
 glorious and confident, and was coming back to Cynthia
 defeated.
  
 Cynthia was on the watch for her return, and, rushing
 downstairs, dragged Molly into the dining-room.
  
 'Well, Molly?  Oh!  I see you have not got them.  After all, I
 never expected it.' She sate down, as if she could get over her
  disappointment better in that position, and Molly stood like
  a guilty person before her.
  
 'I am so sorry; I did all I could; we were interrupted at
  last - Mr Sheepshanks rode up.'
  
 'Provoking old man!  Do you think you should have
  persuaded him to give up the letters if you had had more
  time?'
  
 'I don't know.  I wish Mr Sheepshanks had not come just
  then.  I did not like his finding me standing talking to Mr
  Preston.'
  
 'Oh!  I daresay he would never think anything about it.  What
  did he - Mr Preston - say?'
  
 'He seemed to think you were fully engaged to him, and that
  these letters were the only proof he had.  I think he loves you
  in his way.'
 
  'His way, indeed!' said Cynthia, scornfully.
 
  'The more I think of it, the more I see it would be better
  for papa to speak to him. I did say I would tell it all to Lady
  Harriet, and get Lord Cumnor to make him give up the
  letters.  But it would be very awkward.'
  
'Very!' said Cynthia, gloomily.  'But he would see it was
  only a threat.'
   
'But I will do it in a moment, if you like.  I meant what I
  said; only I feel that papa would manage it best of all, and
  more privately.'
  
 'I'll tell you what, Molly; you're bound by a promise, you
  know, and cannot tell Mr Gibson without breaking your
  solemn word; but it's just this.  I'll leave Hollingford and
  never come back again, if ever your father hears of this affair;
  there!' Cynthia stood up now, and began to fold up Molly's
  shawl, in her nervous excitement.
  
 'Oh, Cynthia - Roger!' was all that Molly said.
  
 'Yes, I know! you need not remind me of him.  But I'm not
  going to live in the house with any one who may be always
  casting up in his mind the things he had heard against me - 
  things - faults, perhaps - which sound so much worse than
  they really are.  I was so happy when I first came here: you all
  liked me, and admired me, and thought well of me, and
  now --  Why, Molly, I can see the difference in you already.
 You carry your thoughts in your face - I have read them there
 these two days - you've been thinking, "How Cynthia must
 have deceived me; keeping up a correspondence all this
 time - having half-engagements to two men." You've been
 more full of that than of pity for me as a girl who has always
 been obliged to manage for herself, without any friend to help
 her and  protect her.'
   
Molly was silent.  There was a great deal of truth in what
 Cynthia was saying; and yet a great deal of falsehood.  For,
 through all this long forty-eight hours, Molly had loved
 Cynthia  dearly; and had been more weighed down by the
 position the latter was in than Cynthia herself. She also
 knew - but this was a second thought following on the other - 
 that she had suffered much pain in trying to do her best in this
 interview with Mr Preston.  She had been tried beyond her
 strength; and the great tears welled up into her eyes, and fell
 slowly down her cheeks.
   
'Oh! what a brute I am,' said Cynthia, kissing them away.
 'I see - I know it is the truth, and I deserve it - but I need not
 reproach you.'
  
 'You did not reproach me!' said Molly, trying to smile.  'I
 have thought some of what you said - but I do love you
 dearly - dearly, Cynthia - I should have done just the same as
 you did.'
  
 'No, you would not.  Your grain is different, somehow.'



 CHAPTER XLV

CONFIDENCES

All the rest of that day Molly was depressed and not well.
Having anything to conceal was so unusual - almost so
unprecedented a circumstance with her that it preyed upon
her in every way.
 
 It was a nightmare that she could not shake off; she did so
wish to forget it all, and yet every little occurrence seemed to
remind her of it.  The next morning's post brought several
letters; one from Roger for Cynthia, and Molly, letterless
  herself, looked at Cynthia as she read it, with wistful sadness;
  it appeared to Molly as though Cynthia should have no
  satisfaction in these letters, until she had told him what was
  her exact position with Mr Preston; yet Cynthia was colouring
  and dimpling up as she always did at any pretty words of
  praise, or admiration, or love.  But Molly's thoughts and
  Cynthia's reading were both interrupted by a little triumphant
  sound from Mrs Gibson, as she pushed a letter she had just
  received to her husband, with a, - 
   
 'There!  I must say I expected that!' Then, turning to
  Cynthia, she explained, - 'It is a letter from uncle Kirkpatrick,
  love.  So kind, wishing you to go and stay with them, and help
  them to cheer up Helen; poor Helen!  I am afraid she is very
  far from well.  But we could not have had her here, without
  disturbing dear papa in his consulting-room; and, though I
  could have relinquished my dressing-room - he - well! so I
  said in my letter how you were grieved - you above all of us,
  because you are such a friend of Helen's, you know - and how
  you longed to be of use, - as I am sure you do - and so now
  they want you to go up directly, for Helen has quite set her
  heart upon it.'
 
   Cynthia's eyes sparkled.  'I shall like going,' said she, - 'all
  but leaving you, Molly,' she added, in a lower tone, as if
  suddenly smitten with some compunction.
 
   'Can you be ready to go up by the "Bang-up" to-night?' said
  Mr Gibson, 'for, curiously enough, after more than twenty
  years of quiet practice at Hollingford, I am summoned up to-day for the first time to a consultation in London, to-morrow.
  I am afraid Lady Cumnor is worse, my dear.'
 
   'You don't say so?  Poor dear lady!  What a shock it is to me.
  I'm so glad I've had some breakfast.  I could not have eaten
  anything.'
 
   'Nay, I only say she is worse.  With her complaint, being
  worse may be only a preliminary to being better.  Don't take
  my words for more than their literal meaning.'
    'Thank you.  How kind and reassuring dear papa always is.
  About your gowns, Cynthia?'
    'Oh, they are all right, mamma, thank you.  I shall be quite
  ready by four o'clock.  Molly, will you come with me and help
me to pack?  I wanted to speak to you, dear,' said she, as soon
 as they had gone upstairs.  'It is such a relief to get away from
 a place haunted by that man; but I'm afraid you thought I was
 glad to leave you; and indeed I am not.' There was a little
 flavour of 'protesting too much' about this; but Molly did
 not perceive it.  She only said, 'Indeed I did not.  I know from
 my own feelings how you must dislike meeting a man in
 public in a different manner from what you have done in
 private.  I shall try not to see Mr Preston again for a long, long
 time, I'm sure.  And Helen Kirkpatrick - But Cynthia, you
 have not told me one word out of Roger's letter.  Please how
 is he?  Has he quite got over his attack of fever?'
   'Yes, quite.  He writes in very good spirits.  A great deal
 about birds and beasts, as usual, and habits of natives, and
 things of that kind.  You may read from there' - indicating a
 place in the letter - 'to there, if you can; and I'll tell you what,
 I'll trust you with it, Molly, while I pack (and that shows my
 sense of your honour, not but what you might read it all, only
 you'd find the love-making dull); but make a little account of
 where he is, and what he is doing, date, and that sort of thing,
 and send it to his father.'
   Molly took the letter down without a word, and began to copy
 it at the writing-table; often reading over what she was allowed
 to read; often pausing, her cheek on her hand, her eyes on the
 letter, and letting her imagination rove to the writer, and all
 the scenes in which she had either seen him herself, or in which
 her fancy had painted him.  She was startled from her
 meditations by Cynthia's sudden entrance into the drawing-room, looking the picture of glowing delight.  'No one here!
 What a blessing!  Ah, Miss Molly, you are more eloquent than
 you believe yourself.  Look here!' holding up a large full
 envelope, and then quickly replacing it in her pocket, as if she
 was afraid of being seen.  'What's the matter, sweet one?' coming
 up and caressing Molly.  'Is it worrying itself over that letter?
 Why, don't you see these are my very own horrible letters, that
 I am going to burn directly, that Mr Preston has had the grace
 to send me, thanks to you, little Molly - cuishla ma chree, pulse
 of my heart, - the letters that have been hanging over my head
 like somebody's sword for these two years?'
 'Oh, I am so glad!' said Molly, rousing up a little.  'I never
 thought he would have sent them.  He is better than I believed
 him.  And now it is all over.  I am so glad.  You quite think he
 means to give up all claim over you by this, don't you,
 Cynthia?'
  
 'He may claim, but I won't be claimed; and he has no proofs
 now.  It is the most charming relief; and I owe it all to you,
 you precious little lady!  Now there is only one thing more to
 be done; and if you would but do it for me -- ?' (coaxing and
 caressing while she asked the question).
  
 'Oh, Cynthia, don't ask me; I cannot do any more.  You
 don't know how sick I go when I think of yesterday, and Mr
 Sheepshanks' look.'
   
'It is only a very little thing.  I won't burden your conscience
 with telling you how I get my letters, but it is not through a
 person I can trust with money; and I must force him to take
 back his twenty-three pounds odd shillings.  I have put it
 together at the rate of five per cent., and it's sealed up.  Oh,
 Molly, I should go off with such a light heart if you would
 only try to get it safely to him.  It's the last thing; there would
 be no immediate hurry, you know.  You might meet him by
 chance in a shop, in the street, even at a party - and if you only
 had it with you in your pocket, there would be nothing so
 easy.'
  
 Molly was silent.  'Papa would give it to him.  There would
 be no harm in that.  I would tell him he must ask no questions
 as to what it was.'
   
'Very well,' said Cynthia, 'have it your own way.  I think my
 way is the best; for if any of this affair comes out -- But
 you've done a great deal for me already, and I won't blame you
 now for declining to do any more!'
   
'I do so dislike having these underhand dealings with him,'
 pleaded Molly.
 
  'Underhand! just simply giving him a letter from me!  If I
 left a note for Miss Browning, should you dislike giving it to
 her?'
 
  'You know that's very different.  I could do it openly.'
 
  'And yet there might be writing in that; and there would not
 be a line with the money.  It would only be the winding-up - 
 the honourable, honest winding-up of an affair which has
 worried me for years!  But do as you like!'
  
 'Give it me!' said Molly.  'I will try.'
  
 'There's a darling!  You can but try; and if you can't give it
 to him in private, without getting yourself into a scrape, why,
 keep it till I come back again.  He shall have it then, whether
 he will or no!'
  
 Molly looked forward to her tête-à-tête two days with Mrs
 Gibson with very different anticipations to those with which
 she had welcomed the similar intercourse with her father.  In
 the first place, there was no accompanying the travellers to the
 inn from which the coach started; leave-taking in the market-place was quite out of the bounds of Mrs Gibson's sense of
 propriety.  Besides this, it was a gloomy, rainy evening, and
 candles had to be brought in at an unusually early hour.  There
 would be no break for six hours - no music, no reading; but
 the two ladies would sit at their worsted work, pattering away
 at small-talk, with not even the usual break of dinner; for, to
 suit the requirements of those who were leaving, they had
 already dined early.  But Mrs Gibson really meant to make
 Molly happy, and tried to be an agreeable companion, only
 Molly was not well, and uneasy about many apprehended
 cares and troubles - and at such hours of indisposition as she
 was then passing through, apprehensions take the shape of
 certainties, lying await in our paths.  Molly would have given
 a good deal to have shaken off all these feelings, unusual
 enough to her; but the very house and furniture, and rain-blurred outer landscape, seemed steeped with unpleasant
 associations, most of them dating from the last few days.
 
  'You and I must go on the next journey, I think, my dear,'
 said Mrs Gibson, almost chiming in with Molly's wish that she
 could get away from Hollingford into some new air and life,
 for a week or two.  'We have been stay-at-homes for a long time,
 and variety of scene is so desirable for the young!  But I think
 the travellers will be wishing themselves at home by this nice
 bright fireside.  "There's no place like home," as the poet says.'
 "Mid pleasures and palaces although I may roam," it begins,
 and it's both very pretty and very true.  It's a great blessing to
 have such a dear little home as this, is not it, Molly?'
   'Yes,' said Molly, rather drearily, having something of the
 'Toujours perdrix' feeling at the moment.  If she could but
 have gone away with her father, just for two days, how
 pleasant it would have been.
  
 'To be sure, love, it would be very nice for you and me to
 go a little journey all by ourselves.  You and I. No one else.
 If it were not such miserable weather we would have gone off
 on a little impromptu tour.  I've been longing for something
 of the kind for some weeks; but we live such a restricted kind
 of life here!  I declare sometimes I get quite sick of the very
 sight of the chairs and tables that I know so well.  And one
 misses the others too!  It seems so flat and deserted without
 them!'
  
 'Yes!  We are very forlorn to-night; but I think it's partly
 owing to the weather!'
  
 'Nonsense, dear.  I can't have you giving in to the silly fancy
 of being affected by weather.  Poor dear Mr Kirkpatrick used
 to say, "a cheerful heart makes its own sunshine." He would
 say it to me, in his pretty way, whenever I was a little low - for
 I am a complete barometer - you may really judge of the state
 of the weather by my spirits, I have always been such a
 sensitive creature!  It is well for Cynthia that she does not
 inherit it; I don't think her easily affected in any way, do you?'
 
  Molly thought for a minute or two, and then replied, - 'No,
 she is certainly not easily affected - not deeply affected
 perhaps I should say.'
 
 'Many girls, for instance, would have been touched by the
 admiration she excited - I may say the attentions she received
 when she was at her uncle's last summer.'
  
 'At Mr Kirkpatrick's?'
  
 'Yes.  There was Mr Henderson, that young lawyer; that's
 to say he is studying law, but he has a good private fortune
 and is likely to have more, so he can' only be what I call
 playing at law.  Mr Henderson was over head and ears in love
 with her.  It is not my fancy, although I grant mothers are
 partial; both Mr and Mrs Kirkpatrick noticed it; and in one
 of Mrs Kirkpatrick's letters, she said that poor Mr Henderson
 was going into Switzerland for the long vacation,' doubtless
 to try and forget Cynthia; but she really believed he would
     find it only dragging at each remove a lengthening chain. I
     thought it such a refined quotation, and altogether worded so
     prettily.  You must know aunt Kirkpatrick some day, Molly,
     my love: she is what I call a woman of a truly elegant mind.'
     'I can't help thinking it was a pity that Cynthia did not tell
     them of her engagement.'
     'It is not an engagement, my dear!  How often must I tell you
     that?'
     'But what am I to call it?'
     'I don't see why you need to call it anything.  Indeed I don't
     understand what you mean by "it." You should always try to
     express yourself intelligibly.  It really is one of the first
     principles of the English language.  In fact, philosophers
     might ask what is language given us for at all, if it is not that
     we may make our meaning understood?'
  
   'But there is something between Cynthia and Roger; they
     are more to each other than I am to Osborne, for instance.
     What am I to call it?'
  
   'You should not couple your name with that of any
     unmarried young man; it is so difficult to teach you delicacy,
     child.  Perhaps one may say there is a peculiar relation between
     dear Cynthia and Roger, but it is very difficult to characterize
     it; I have no doubt that is the reason she shrinks from speaking
     about it. For, between ourselves, Molly, I really sometimes
     think it will come to nothing.  He is so long away, and,
     privately speaking, Cynthia is not very very constant.  I once
     knew her very much taken before - that little affair is quite
     gone by; and she was very civil to Mr Henderson, in her way;
     I fancy she inherits it, for when I was a girl I was beset by
     lovers, and could never find in my heart to shake them off.
     You have not heard dear papa say anything of the old squire,
     or dear Osborne, have you?  It seems so long since we have
     heard or seen anything of Osborne.  But he must be quite well,
     I think, or we should have heard of it.'
    
 'I believe he is quite well.  Some one said the other day that
     they had met him riding - it was Mrs Goodenough, now I
     remember - and that he was looking stronger than he had done
     for years.'
    
 'Indeed!  I am truly glad to hear it.  I always was fond of
  Osborne; and, do you know, I never really took to Roger; I
  respected him and all that, of course.  But to compare him with
  Mr Henderson!  Mr Henderson is so handsome and well-bred,
  and gets all his gloves from Houbigant!'
   
It was true that they had not seen anything of Osborne
  Hamley for a long time; but, as it often happens, just after
  they had been speaking about him he appeared.  It was on the
  day following on Mr Gibson's departure that Mrs Gibson had
  received one of the notes, not so common now as formerly,
  from the family in town asking her to go over to the Towers,
  and find a book, or a manuscript, or something or other that
  Lady Cumnor wanted with all an invalid's impatience.  It was
  just the kind of employment she required for an amusement
  on a gloomy day, and it put her into a good. humour
  immediately.  There was a certain confidential importance
  about it, and it was a variety, and it gave her the pleasant drive
  in a fly up the noble avenue, and the sense of being the
  temporary mistress of all the grand rooms once so familiar to
  her.  She asked Molly to accompany her, out of an access of
  kindness, but was not at all sorry when Molly excused herself
  and preferred stopping at home.  At eleven o'clock Mrs Gibson
  was off, all in her Sunday best (to use the servant's expression,
  which she herself would so have contemned), well-dressed in
  order to impose on the servants at the Towers, for there was
  no one else to be seen or to be seen by.
  
  'I shall not be at home until the afternoon, my dear!  But I
  hope you will not find it dull.  I don't think you will, for you
  are something like me, my love - never less alone than when
  alone, as one of the great authors has justly expressed it.'
  
  Molly enjoyed her house to herself to the full as much as
  Mrs Gibson would enjoy having the Towers to herself.  She
  ventured on having her lunch brought upon a tray into the
  drawing-room, so that she might eat her sandwiches while she
  went on with her book.  In the middle, Mr Osborne Hamley
  was announced.  He came in, looking wretchedly ill in spite of
  purblind Mrs Goodenough's report of his healthy appearance.
  
  'This call is not on you, Molly,' said he, after the first
  greetings were over.  'I was in hopes I might have found your
  father at home; I thought lunch-time was the best hour.' He
 had sate down, as if thoroughly glad of the rest, and fallen into
 a languid stooping position, as if it had become so natural to
 him that no sense of what were considered good manners
 sufficed to restrain him now.
   'I hope you did not want to see him professionally?' said
 Molly, wondering if she was wise in alluding to his health, yet
 urged to it by her real anxiety.
 
  'Yes, I did.  I suppose I may help myself to a biscuit and a
 glass of wine?  No, don't ring for more.  I could not eat it if it
 was here.  But I just want a mouthful; this is quite enough,
 thank you.  When will your father be back?'
 
  'He was summoned up to London.  Lady Cumnor is worse.
 I fancy there is some operation going on; but I don't know.
 He will be back to-morrow night.'
 
  'Very well.  Then I must wait.  Perhaps I shall be better by
 that time.  I think it's half fancy; but I should like your father
 to tell me so.  He will laugh at me, I daresay; but I don't think
 I shall mind that.  He always is severe on fanciful patients, is
 not he, Molly?'
 
  Molly thought that if he saw Osborne's looks just now he
 would hardly think him fanciful, or be inclined to be severe.
 But she only said, - 'Papa enjoys a joke at everything, you
 know.  It is a relief after all the sorrow he sees.'
   'Very true.  There is a great deal of sorrow in the world.  I
 don't think it's a very happy place after all.  So Cynthia is gone
 to London,' he added, after a pause, 'I think I should like to
 have seen her again.  Poor old Roger!  He loves her very dearly,
 Molly,' he said.  Molly hardly knew how to answer him in all
 this; she was so struck by the change in both voice and
 manner.
   
'Mamma has gone to the Towers,' she began, at length.  'Lady
 Cumnor wanted several things that mamma only can find.  She
 will be sorry to miss you.  We were speaking of you only
 yesterday, and she said how long it was since we had seen you.'
   
'I think I've grown careless; I have often felt so weary and
 ill that it was all I could do to keep up a brave face before my
 father.'
   
'Why did you not come and see papa?' said Molly; 'or write
 to him?'
'I cannot tell.  I drifted on sometimes better, and sometimes
 worse, till to-day I mustered up pluck, and came to hear what
 your father has got to tell me: and all for no use it seems.'
  
 'I am very sorry.  But it is only for two days.  He shall go and
 see you as soon as ever he returns.'
  
 'He must not alarm my father, remember, Molly,' said
 Osborne, lifting himself by the arms of his chair into an
 upright position and speaking eagerly for the moment.  'I wish
 to God Roger was at home,' said he, falling back into the old
 posture.
  
 'I can't help understanding you,' said Molly.  'You think
 yourself very ill; but is not it that you are tired just now?' She
 was not sure if she ought to have understood what was passing
 in his mind; but as she did, she could not help speaking a true
 reply.
 
  'Well, sometimes I do think I'm very ill; and then, again, I
 think it's only the moping life sets me fancying and exaggerating.'
 He was silent for some time.  Then, as if he had taken a sudden
 resolution, he spoke again.  'You see there are others
 depending upon me - upon my health.  You have not forgotten
 what you heard that day in the library at home?  No, I know
 you have not.  I have seen the thought of it in your eyes often
 since then.  I did not know you at that time.  I think I do now.'
 
  'Don't go on talking so fast,' said Molly.  'Rest.  No one will
 interrupt us; I will go on with my sewing; when you want to
 say anything more I shall be listening.' For she had been
 alarmed at the strange pallor that had come over his face.
 
  'Thank you.' After a time he roused himself, and began to
 speak very quietly, as if on an indifferent matter of fact.
   'The name of my wife is Aimée.  Aimée Hamley of course.
 She lives at Bishopsfield, a village near Winchester.  Write it
 down, but keep it to yourself.  She is a Frenchwoman, a
 Roman Catholic, and was a servant.  She is a thoroughly good
 woman.  I must not say how dear she is to me.  I dare not.  I
 meant once to have told Cynthia, but she did not seem quite
 to consider me as a brother.  Perhaps she was shy of a new
 relation, but you'll give my love to her, all the same.  It is a
 relief to think that some one else has my secret; and you are
 like one of us, Molly.  I can trust you almost as I can trust
 Roger.  I feel better already now I feel that some one else
 knows the whereabouts of my wife and child.'
  'Child!' said Molly, surprised.  But before he could reply,
 Maria had announced, - 
 
 'Miss Phoebe Browning.'
 
 'Fold up that paper,' said he, quickly, putting something
 into her hands.  'It is only for yourself.'



CHAPTER XLVI

HOLLINGFORD GOSSIPS

'MY dear Molly, why didn't you come and dine with us?  I
 said to sister I would come and scold you well.  Oh, Mr
 Osborne Hamley, is that you?' and a look of mistaken
 intelligence at the tête-à-tête she had disturbed came so
 perceptibly over Miss Phoebe's face that Molly caught
 Osborne's sympathetic eye, and both smiled at the notion.
 
  'I'm sure I - well! one must sometimes -  I see our dinner
 would have been - ' Then she recovered herself into a
 connected sentence.  'We only just heard of Mrs Gibson's
 having a fly from the "George," because sister sent our Nancy
 to pay for a couple of rabbits Tom Ostler had snared (I hope
 we shan't be taken up for poachers, Mr Osborne - snaring
 doesn't require a licence, I believe?), and she heard he was
 gone off with the fly to the Towers with your dear mamma;
 for Coxe who drives the fly in general has sprained his ankle.
 We had just finished dinner, but when Nancy said Tom Ostler
 would not be back till night I said, "Why, there's that poor
 dear girl left all alone by herself, and her mother such a friend
 of ours," - when she was alive, I mean, But I'm sure I'm glad
 I'm mistaken.'
 
  Osborne said, - 'I came to speak to Mr Gibson, not knowing
 he had gone to London, and Miss Gibson kindly gave me
 some of her lunch.  I must go now.'
 
  'Oh dear!  I am so sorry,' fluttered out Miss Phoebe, 'I
 disturbed you; but it was with the best intentions.  I always
 was mal-àpropos from a child.' But Osborne was gone before
 she had finished her apologies.  Before he left, his eyes met
 Molly's with a strange look of yearning farewell that struck
 her at the time, and that she remembered strongly afterwards.
 'Such a nice suitable thing, and I came in the midst, and spoilt
 it all.  I am sure you're very kind, my dear, considering - '
  
 'Considering what, my dear Miss Phoebe?  If you are
 conjecturing a love affair between Mr Osborne Hamley and
 me, you never were more mistaken in your life.  I think I told
 you so once before.  Please do believe me.'
 
  'Oh, yes!  I remember.  And somehow sister got it into her
 head it was Mr Preston, I recollect.'
 
  'One guess is just as wrong as the other,' said Molly,
 smiling, and trying to look perfectly indifferent, but going
 extremely red from annoyance at the mention of Mr Preston's
 name.  It was very difficult for her to keep up any
 conversation, for her heart was full of Osborne - his changed
 appearance, his melancholy words of foreboding, and his
 confidences about his wife - French, Catholic, servant.  Molly
 could not help trying to piece these strange facts together by
 imaginations of her own, and found it very hard work to
 attend to kind Miss Phoebe's unceasing patter.  She came up
 to the point, however, when the voice ceased; and could recall,
 in a mechanical manner, the echo of the last words, which
 from both Miss Phoebe's look, and the dying accent that
 lingered in Molly's ear, she perceived to be a question.  Miss
 Phoebe was asking her if she would go out with her?  She was
 going to Grinstead's, the bookseller of Hollingford; who, in
 addition to his regular business, was the agent for the
 Hollingford Book Society, received their subscriptions, kept
 their accounts, ordered their books from London, and, on
 payment of a small salary, allowed the Society to keep their
 volumes on shelves in his shop.  It was the centre of news and
 gossip, the club, as it were, of the little town.  Everybody who
 pretended to gentility in the place belonged to it, It was a test
 of gentility, indeed, rather than of education or a love of
 literature.  No shopkeeper would have thought of offering
 himself as a member, however great his general intelligence
 and love of reading; while it boasted upon the list of
 subscribers most of the county families in the neighbourhood,
 some of whom subscribed to the Hollingford Book Society as
 a sort of duty belonging to their station, without often using
 their privilege of reading the books: while there were residents
 in the little town, such as Mrs Goodenough, who privately
 thought reading a great waste of time, that might be much
 better employed in sewing, and knitting, and pastry-making,
 but who nevertheless belonged to it as a mark of station, just
 as these good, motherly women would have thought it a
 terrible come-down in the world if they had not had a pretty
 young servant-maid to fetch them home from the tea-parties
 at night.  At any rate, Grinstead's was a very convenient place
 for a lounge.  In that view of the Book Society every one
 agreed.  Molly went upstairs to get ready to accompany Miss
 Phoebe; and on opening one of her drawers she saw Cynthia's
 envelope, containing the notes she owed to Mr Preston,
 carefully sealed up like a letter.  This was what Molly had so
 unwillingly promised to deliver - the last final stroke to the
 affair.  Molly took it up, hating it.  For a time she had forgotten
 it; and now it was here, facing her, and she must try and get
 rid of it.  She put it into her pocket for the chances of the walk
 and the day, and fortune for once seemed to befriend her; for,
 on their entering Grinstead's shop, in which two or three
 people were now, as always, congregated, making play of
 examining the books, or business of writing down the titles of
 new works in the order-book, there was Mr Preston.  He
 bowed as they came in.  He could not help that; but, at the
 sight of Molly, he looked as ill-tempered and out of humour
 as a man well could do.  She was connected in his mind with
 defeat and mortification; and besides, the sight of her called
 up what he desired now above all things to forget; namely, the
 deep conviction received through Molly's simple earnestness,
 of Cynthia's dislike to him, If Miss Phoebe had seen the scowl
 upon his handsome face, she might have undeceived her sister
 in her suppositions about him and Molly.  But Miss Phoebe,
 who did not consider it quite maidenly to go and stand close
 to Mr Preston, and survey the shelves of books in such close
 proximity to a gentleman, found herself an errand at the other
 end of the shop, and occupied herself in buying writing-paper.
 Molly fingered her valuable letter, as it lay in her pocket; did
 she dare to cross over to Mr Preston, and give it to him, or
 not?  While she was still undecided, shrinking always just at
 the moment when she thought she had got her courage up for
 action, Miss Phoebe, having finished her purchase, turned
 round, and after looking a little pathetically at Mr Preston's
 back, said to Molly in a whisper, - 'I think we'll go to
 Johnson's now, and come back for the books in a little while.'
 So across the street to Johnson's they went; but no sooner had
 they entered the draper's shop, than Molly's conscience smote
 her for her cowardice, and loss of a good opportunity.  'I'll be
 back directly,' said she, as soon as Miss Phoebe was engaged
 with her purchases; and Molly ran across to Grinstead's,
 without looking either to the right or the left; she had been
 watching the door, and she knew that no Mr Preston had
 issued forth.  She ran in; he was at the counter now, talking
 to Grinstead himself, Molly put the letter into his hand, to his
 surprise, and almost against his will, and turned round to go
 back to Miss Phoebe.  At the door of the shop stood Mrs
 Goodenough, arrested in the act of entering, staring, with her
 round eyes, made still rounder and more owl-like by
 spectacles, to see Molly Gibson giving Mr Preston a letter,
 which he, conscious of being watched, and favouring
 underhand practices habitually, put quickly into his pocket,
 unopened.  Perhaps, if he had had time for reflection he would
 not have scrupled to put Molly to open shame, by rejecting
 what she so eagerly forced upon him.
 
  There was another long evening to be got through with Mrs
 Gibson; but on this occasion there was the pleasant
 occupation of dinner, which took up at least an hour; for it
 was one of Mrs Gibson's fancies - one which Molly chafed
 against - to have every ceremonial gone through in the same
 stately manner for two as for twenty.  So, although Molly
 knew full well, and her stepmother knew full well, and Maria
 knew full well, that neither Mrs Gibson nor Molly touched
 dessert, it was set on the table with as much form as if Cynthia
 had been at home, who delighted in almonds and raisins; or
 Mr Gibson been there, who never could resist dates, although
 he always protested against 'persons in their station of life
 having a formal dessert set out before them every day.'
And Mrs Gibson herself apologized as it were to Molly to-day, in the same words she had often used to Mr Gibson, - 
 'It's no extravagance, for we need not eat it - I never do.  But
 it looks well, and makes Maria understand what is required in
 the daily life of every family of position.'
 
  All through the evening Molly's thoughts wandered far and
 wide, though she managed to keep up a show of attention to
 what Mrs Gibson was saying.  She was thinking of Osborne,
 and his abrupt, half-finished confidence, his ill-looks; she was
 wondering when Roger would come home, and longing for his
 return, as much (she said to herself) for Osborne's sake as for
 her own.  And then she checked herself.  What had she to do
 with Roger?  Why should she long for his return?  It was
 Cynthia who was doing this; only somehow he was such a true
 friend to Molly, that she could not help thinking of him as a
 staff and a stay in the troublous times which appeared to lie
 not far ahead this evening.  Then Mr Preston and her little
 adventure with him came uppermost.  How angry he looked!
 How could Cynthia have liked him even enough to get into
 this abominable scrape, which was, however, all over now!
 And so she ran on in her fancies and imaginations, little
 dreaming that that very night much talk was going on not half-a-mile from where she sate sewing, that would prove that the
 'scrape' (as she called it, in her girlish phraseology) was not
 all over.
  
 Scandal sleeps in the summer, comparatively speaking.  Its
 nature is the reverse of that of the dormouse.  Warm ambient
 air, loiterings abroad, gardenings, flowers to talk about, and
 preserves to make, soothed the wicked imp to slumber in the
 parish of Hollingford in summer-time.  But when evenings
 grew short, and people gathered round the fires, and put their
 feet in a circle - not on the fenders, that was not allowed - then
 was the time for confidential conversation!  Or in the pauses
 allowed for the tea-trays to circulate among the card-tables - 
 when those who were peaceably inclined tried to stop the
 warm discussions about 'the odd trick,' and the rather
 wearisome feminine way of 'shouldering the crutch, and
 showing how fields were won' - small crumbs and scraps of
 daily news came up to the surface, such as 'Martindale has
 raised the price of his best joints a halfpenny in the pound;'
 or 'it's a shame of Sir Harry to order in another book on
 farriery into the Book Society; Phoebe and I tried to read it,
 but really there is no general interest in it;' or, 'I wonder what
 Mr Ashton will do, now Nancy is going to be married!  Why, she
 has been with him these seventeen years!  It's a very foolish thing
 for a woman of her age to be thinking of matrimony; and so I told
 her, when I met her in the market-place this morning!'
  
  So said Miss Browning on the night in question; her hand
 of cards lying by her on the green baize-covered table, while
 she munched the rich pound-cake of a certain Mrs Dawes,
 lately come to inhabit Hollingford.
 
   'Matrimony's not so bad as you think for, Miss Browning,'
 said Mrs Goodenough, standing up for the holy estate into
 which she had twice entered.  'If I had ha' seen Nancy, I
 should ha' given her my mind very different.  It's a great thing
 to be able to settle what you'll have for dinner, without never
 a one interfering with you.'
  
  'If that's all!' said Miss Browning, drawing herself up, 'I can
 do that; and, perhaps, better than a woman who has a husband
 to please.'
  
  'No one can say as I didn't please my husbands - both on
 'em, though Jeremy was tickler' in his tastes than poor Harry
 Beaver.  But as I used to say to 'em, "Leave the victual to me;
 it's better for you than knowing what's to come beforehand.
 The stomach likes to be taken by surprise." And neither of
  'em ever repented 'em of their confidence.  You may take my
 word for it, beans and bacon will taste better (and Mr Ashton's
 Nancy in her own house) than all the sweetbreads and spring
 chickens she's been a-doing for him this seventeen years.  But
 if I chose I could tell you of something as would interest you
 all a deal more than old Nancy's marriage to a widower with
 nine children - only as the young folks themselves is meeting
 in private, clandestine-like, it's perhaps not for me to tell their
 secrets.'
  
  'I'm sure I don't want to hear of clandestine meetings
 between young men and young women,' said Miss Browning,
 throwing up her head.  'It's disgrace enough to the people
 themselves, I consider, if they enter on a love affair without
 the proper sanction of parents.  I know 'public opinion has
 changed on the subject; but when poor Gratia was married to
 Mr Byerley, he wrote to my father without ever having so
 much as paid her a compliment, or said more than the most
 trivial and commonplace things to her; and my father and
 mother sent for her into my father's study, and she said she
 never was so much frightened in her life, - and they said it was
 a very good offer, and Mr Byerley was a very worthy man, and
 they hoped she would behave properly to him when he came
 to supper that night.  And after that he was allowed to come
 twice a week till they were married.  My mother and I sate at
 our work in the bow-window of the Rectory drawing-room,
 and Gratia and Mr Byerley at the other end; and my mother
 always called my attention to some flower or plant in the
 garden when it struck nine, for that was his time for going.
 Without offence to the present company, I am rather inclined
 to look upon matrimony as a weakness to which some very
 worthy people are prone; but if they must be married, let them
 make the best of it, and go through the affair with dignity and
 propriety; or if there are misdoings and clandestine meetings,
 and such things, at any rate, never let me hear about them!  I
 think it's you to play, Mrs Dawes.  You'll excuse my frankness
 on the subject of matrimony!  Mrs Goodenough there can tell
 you I'm a very out-spoken person.'
   'It's not the out-speaking, it's what you say that goes against
 me, Miss Browning,' said Mrs Goodenough, affronted, yet
 ready to play her card as soon as needed, And as for Mrs
 Dawes, she was too anxious to get into the genteelest of all
 (Hollingford) society to object to whatever Miss Browning
 (who, in right of being a deceased rector's daughter, rather
 represented the selectest circle of the little town) advocated,
 celibacy, marriage, bigamy, or polygamy.
  
 So the remainder of the evening passed over without any
 farther reference to the secret Mrs Goodenough was burning
 to disclose, unless a remark made àpropos de rien by Miss
 Browning, during the silence of a deal, could be supposed to
 have connexion with the previous conversation.  She said
 suddenly and abruptly, - 
  
 'I don't know what I have done that any man should make
  me his slave.' If she was referring to any prospect of
  matrimonial danger she saw opening before her fancy, she
  might have been comforted.  But it was a remark of which no
  one took any notice, all being far too much engaged in the
  rubber.  Only when Miss Browning took her early leave (for
  Miss Phoebe had a cold, and was an invalid at home), Mrs
  Goodenough burst out with, - 
  
  'Well! now I may speak out my mind, and say as how if
  there was a slave between us two, when Goodenough was
  alive, it wasn't me; and I don't think as it was pretty in Miss
  Browning to give herself such airs on her virginity when there
  was four widows in the room, - who've had six honest men
  among 'em for husbands.  No offence, Miss Airy!' addressing
  an unfortunate little spinster, who found herself the sole
  representative of celibacy now that Miss Browning was gone.
  'I could tell her of a girl as she's very fond on, who's on the
  high road to matrimony; and in as cunning a way as ever I
  heerd on. going out at dusk to meet her sweetheart, just as if
  she was my Sally, or your Jenny.  And her name is Molly
  too, - which, as I have often thought, shows a low taste in
  them as first called her so;' she might as well be a scullery-maid at oncest.  Not that she's picked up anybody common;
  she's looked about her for a handsome fellow, and a smart
  young man enough!'
 
   Every one around the table looked curious and intent on the
  disclosures being made, except the hostess, Mrs Dawes, who
  smiled intelligence with her eyes, and knowingly pursed up
  her mouth until Mrs Goodenough had finished her tale.  Then
  she said demurely, - 
 
   'I suppose you mean Mr Preston and Miss Gibson?'
 
   'Why, who told you?' said Mrs Goodenough, turning round
  upon her in surprise.  'You can't say as I did.  There's many
  a Molly in Hollingford, besides her, - though none, perhaps,
  in such a genteel station in life.  I never named her, I'm sure.'
   
 'No!  But I know.  I could tell my tale too,' continued Mrs
  Dawes.
  
  'No! could you, really?' said Mrs Goodenough, very curious
  and a little jealous.
   
 'Yes.  My uncle Sheepshanks came upon them in the Park
  Avenue, - he startled 'em a good deal, he said; and when he
  taxed Mr Preston with being with his sweetheart, he didn't
  deny it.'
   
 'Well!  Now so much has come out, I'll tell you what I know.
  Only, ladies, I wouldn't wish to do the girl an unkind turn, - 
  so you must keep what I've got to tell you a secret.' Of course
  they promised; that was easy.
   
 'My Hannah, as married Tom Oakes, and lives in Pearson's
  Lane, was a-gathering of damsons only about a week ago, and
  Molly Gibson was a-walking fast down the lane, - quite in a
  hurry like to meet some one, - and Hannah's little Anna-Maria fell down, and Molly (who's a kind-hearted lass enough)
  picked her up; so if Hannah had had her doubts before, she
  had none then.'
   
 'But there was no one with her, was there?' asked one of the
  ladies anxiously, as Mrs Goodenough stopped to finish her
  piece of cake, just at this crisis.
  
  'No: I said she looked as if she was going to meet some
  one, - and by-and-by comes Mr Preston running out of the
  wood just beyond Hannah's, and says he, "A cup of water,
  please, good woman, for a lady has fainted, or is 'sterical or
  something." Now though he didn't know Hannah, Hannah
  knew him.  "More folks know Tom Fool, than Tom Fool
  knows," asking Mr Preston's pardon; for he's no fool
  whatever he be.  And I could tell you more, - and what I've
  seed with my own eyes.  I seed her give him a letter in
  Grinstead's shop, only yesterday, and he looked as black as
  thunder at her, for he seed me if she didn't.'
 
   'It's a very suitable kind of thing,' said Miss Airy; 'why do
  they make such a mystery of it?'
 
   'Some folks like it,' said Mrs Dawes; 'it adds zest to it all,
  to do their courting underhand.'
 
   'Ay, it's like salt to their victual,' put in Mrs Goodenough.
  But I didn't think Molly Gibson was one of that sort, I didn't.'
 
   'The Gibsons hold themselves very high?' cried Mrs Dawes,
  more as an inquiry than an assertion.  'Mrs Gibson has called
  upon me.'
 
   'Ay, you're like to be a patient of the doctor's,' put in Mrs
  Goodenough.
  'She seemed to me very affable, though she is so intimate
 with the Countess and the family at the Towers; and is quite
 the lady herself; dines late, I've heard, and everything in
 style.'
 
  'Style! very different style to what Bob Gibson, her
 husband, was used to when first he came here, - glad of a
 mutton-chop in his surgery, for I doubt if he'd a fire anywhere
 else; we called him Bob Gibson then, but none on us dare Bob
 him now; I'd as soon think o' calling him sweep!'
 
  'I think it looks very bad for Miss Gibson!' said one lady,
 rather anxious to bring back the conversation to the more
 interesting present time.  But as soon as Mrs Goodenough
 heard this natural comment on the disclosures she had made,
 she fired round on the speaker.
 
  'Not at all bad, and I'll trouble you not to use such a word
 as that about Molly Gibson, as I've known all her life.  It's
 odd, if you will.  I was odd myself as a girl; I never could abide
 a plate of gathered gooseberries, but I must needs go and skulk
 behind a bush and gather 'em for myself.  It's some folk's taste,
 though it mayn't be Miss Browning's, who'd have all the
 courting done under the nose of the family.  All as ever I said
 was that I was surprised at it in Molly Gibson; and that I'd ha'
 thought it was liker that pretty minx of a Cynthia as they call
 her; indeed at one time I was ready to swear as it was her Mr
 Preston was after.  And now, ladies, I'll wish you a very good
 night.  I cannot abide waste; and I'll venture for it Sally's
 letting the candle in the lantern run all to grease, instead of
 putting it out, as I've told her to do, if ever she's got to wait
 for me.'
 
  So with formal dipping curtseys the ladies separated, but
 not without thanking Mrs Dawes for the pleasant evening
 they had had; a piece of old-fashioned courtesy always gone
 through in those days.



CHAPTER XLVII

SCANDAL AND ITS VICTIMS

When Mr Gibson returned to Hollingford, he found an
 accumulation of business waiting for him, and he was much
 inclined to complain of the consequences of the two days'
 comparative holiday, which had resulted in over-work for the
 week to come.  He had hardly time to speak to his family, he
 had so immediately to rush off to pressing cases of illness.  But
 Molly managed to arrest him in the hall, standing there with
 his great coat held out ready for him to put on, but whispering
 as she did so, - 
   
'Papa!  Mr Osborne Hamley was here to see you yesterday.
 He looks very ill, and he's evidently frightened about himself.'
   
Mr Gibson faced about, and looked at her for a moment; but
 all he said was, - 
   
'I'll go and see him; don't tell your mother where I'm gone:
 you've not mentioned this to her, I hope?'
   
'No,' said Molly, for she had only told Mrs Gibson of
 Osborne's call, not of the occasion for it.
  
 'Don't say anything about it: there's no need.  Now I think
 of it, I can't possibly go to-day, - but I will go.'
  
 Something in her father's manner disheartened Molly, who
 had persuaded herself that Osborne's evident illness was
 partly 'nervous,' by which she meant imaginary.  She had
 dwelt upon his looks of enjoyment at Miss Phoebe's
 perplexity, and thought that no one really believing himself to
 be in danger could have given the merry glances which he had
 done; but after seeing the seriousness of her father's face, she
 recurred to the shock she had experienced on first seeing
 Osborne's changed appearance.  All this time Mrs Gibson was
 busy reading a letter from Cynthia which Mr Gibson had
 brought from London; for every opportunity of private
 conveyance was seized upon when postage was so high; and
 Cynthia had forgotten so many things in her hurried packing,
 that she now sent a list of the clothes which she required.
 Molly almost wondered that it had not come to her; but she
 did not understand the sort of reserve that was springing up
 in Cynthia's mind towards her.  Cynthia herself struggled with
 the feeling, and tried to fight against it by calling herself
 'ungrateful,' but the truth was she believed that she no longer
 held her former high place in Molly's estimation and she
 could not help turning away from one who knew things to her
 discredit.  She was fully aware of Molly's prompt decision and
 willing action, where action was especially disagreeable, on
 her behalf; she knew that Molly would never bring up the past
 errors and difficulties; but still the consciousness that the
 good, straightforward girl had learnt that Cynthia had been
 guilty of so much underhand work cooled her regard, and
 restrained her willingness of intercourse.  Reproach herself
 with ingratitude as she would, she could not help feeling glad
 to be away from Molly; it was awkward to speak to her as if
 nothing had happened; it was awkward to write to her about
 forgotten ribbons and laces, when their last conversation had
 been on such different subjects, and had called out such
 vehement expressions of feeling.  So Mrs Gibson held the list
 in her hand, and read out the small fragments of news that
 were intermixed with notices of Cynthia's requirements.
 
  'Helen cannot be so very ill,' said Molly at length, 'or
 Cynthia would not want her pink muslin and daisy wreath.'
  
 'I don't see that that follows, I'm sure,' replied Mrs Gibson
 rather sharply.  'Helen would never be so selfish as to tie
 Cynthia to her side, however ill she was.  Indeed, I should not
 have felt that it was my duty to let Cynthia go to London at
 all, if I had thought she was to be perpetually exposed to the
 depressing atmosphere of a sick-room.  Besides, it must be so
 good for Helen to have Cynthia coming in with bright
 pleasant accounts of the parties she has been to - even if
 Cynthia disliked gaiety I should desire her to sacrifice herself
 and go out as much as she could, for Helen's sake.  My idea
 of nursing is that one should not be always thinking of one's
 own feelings and wishes, but doing those things which will
 most serve to beguile the weary hours of an invalid.  But then
 so few people have had to consider the subject so deeply as I
 have done!' Mrs Gibson here thought fit to sigh before going
 on with Cynthia's letter.  As far as Molly could make any sense
 out of this rather incoherent epistle, very incoherently read
 aloud to her, Cynthia was really pleased and glad to be of use
 and comfort to Helen, but at the same time very ready to be
 easily persuaded into the perpetual small gaieties which
 abounded in her uncle's house in London, even at this dead
 season of the year. Mrs Gibson came upon Mr Henderson's
 name once, and then went on with a running um-um-um to
 herself, which sounded very mysterious, but which might as
 well have been omitted, as all that Cynthia really said about
 him was, 'Mr Henderson's mother has advised my aunt to
 consult a certain Dr Donaldson, who is said to be very clever
 in such cases as Helen's, but my uncle is not sufficiently sure
 of the professional etiquette, &c.' Then there came a very
 affectionate, carefully worded message to Molly, - implying a
 good deal more than was said of loving gratitude for the
 trouble she had taken on Cynthia's behalf.  And that was all;
 and Molly went away a little depressed; she knew not why.
 
  The operation on Lady Cumnor had been successfully
 performed, and in a few days they hoped to bring her down
 to the Towers to recruit her strength in the fresh country air;
 the case was one which interested Mr Gibson extremely, and
 in which his opinion had been proved to be right, in
 opposition to that of one or two great names in London.  The
 consequence was that he was frequently consulted and
 referred to during the progress of her recovery; and, as he had
 much to do in the immediate circle of his Hollingford
 practice, as well as to write thoughtful letters to his medical
 brethren in London, he found it difficult to spare the three or
 four hours necessary to go over to Hamley to see Osborne.  He
 wrote to him, however, begging him to reply immediately and
 detail his symptoms; and from the answer he received he did
 not imagine that the case was immediately pressing.  Osborne,
 too, deprecated his coming over to Hamley for the express
 purpose of seeing him.  So the visit was deferred to that more
 convenient season which is so often too late.
   
All these days the buzzing gossip about Molly's meetings
 with Mr Preston, her clandestine correspondence, the tête-à-tête interviews in lonely places, had been gathering strength,
 and assuming the positive form of scandal.  The simple
 innocent girl, who walked through the quiet streets without
 a thought of being the object of mysterious implications,
 became for a time the unconscious black sheep of the town.
 Servants heard part of what was said in their mistresses'
 drawing-rooms, and exaggerated the sayings amongst
 themselves with the coarse strengthening of expression
 common amongst uneducated people.  Mr Preston himself
 became aware that her name was being coupled with his,
 though hardly to the extent to which the love of excitement
 and gossip had carried people's speeches; he chuckled over the
 mistake, but took no pains to correct it.  'It serves her right,'
 said he to himself, 'for meddling with other folk's business,'
 and he felt himself avenged for the discomfiture which her
 menace of appealing to Lady Harriet had caused him, and the
 mortification he had experienced in learning from her plain-speaking lips, how he had been talked over by Cynthia and
 herself, with personal dislike on the one side, and evident
 contempt on the other.  Besides, if any denial of Mr Preston's
 stirred up an examination as to the real truth, more might
 come out of his baffled endeavours to compel Cynthia to keep
 to her engagement to him than he cared to have known.  He
 was angry with himself for still loving Cynthia; loving her in
 his own fashion, be it understood.  He told himself that many
 a woman of more position and wealth would be glad enough
 to have him; some of them pretty women too.  And he asked
 himself why he was such a confounded fool as to go on
 hankering after a penniless girl, who was as fickle as the wind?
 The answer was silly enough, logically; but forcible in fact.
 Cynthia was Cynthia, and not Venus herself could have been
 her substitute.  In this one thing Mr Preston was more really
 true than many worthy men; who, seeking to be married, turn
 with careless facility from the unattainable to the attainable,
 and keep their feelings and fancy tolerably loose till they find
 a woman who consents to be their wife.  But no one would ever
 be to Mr Preston what Cynthia had been, and was; and yet
 he could have stabbed her in certain of his moods.  So, Molly,
 who had come between him and the object of his desire, was
 not likely to find favour in his sight, or to obtain friendly
 actions from him.
There came a time - not very distant from the evening at
 Mrs Dawes' - when Molly felt that people looked askance at
 her.  Mrs Goodenough openly pulled her grand-daughter
 away, when the young girl stopped to speak to Molly in the
 street, and an engagement which the two had made for a long
 walk together was cut very short by a very trumpery excuse.
 Mrs Goodenough explained her conduct in the following
 manner to some of her friends, - 
 
  'You see, I don't think the worse of a girl for meeting her
 sweetheart here and there and everywhere, till she gets talked
 about; but then when she does - and Molly Gibson's name is
 in everybody's mouth - I think it's only fair to Bessy, who has
 trusted me with Annabella, not to let her daughter be seen
 with a lass who has managed her matters so badly, as to set
 folk talking about her.  My maxim is this, - and it's a very
 good working one, you may depend on't - women should
 mind what they're about, and never be talked of; and if a
 woman's talked of, the less her friends have to do with her
 till the talk has died away, the better.  So Annabella is not
 to have anything to do with Molly Gibson, this visit at any
 rate.'
 
  For a good while the Miss Brownings were kept in ignorance
 of the evil tongues that whispered hard words about Molly.
 Miss Browning was known to 'have a temper,' and by instinct
 every one who came in contact with her shrank from irritating
 that temper by uttering the slightest syllable against the
 smallest of those creatures over whom she spread the ægis of
 her love.  She would and did reproach them herself; she used
 to boast that she never spared them: but no one else might
 touch them with the slightest slur of a passing word.  But Miss
 Phoebe inspired no such terror; the great reason why she did
 not hear of the gossip against Molly as early as any one, was
 that, although she was not the rose, she lived near the rose.
 Besides, she was of so tender a nature that even thick-skinned
 Mrs Goodenough was unwilling to say what would give Miss
 Phoebe pain; and it was the new-comer Mrs Dawes, who in all
 ignorance alluded to the town's talk, as to something of which
 Miss Phoebe must be aware.  Then Miss Phoebe poured down
 her questions, although she protested, even with tears, her
 total disbelief in all the answers she received.  It was a small
 act of heroism on her part to keep all that she there learnt a
 secret from her sister Sally, as she did for four or five days;
 till Miss Browning attacked her one evening with the
 following speech, - 
 
  'Phoebe! either you've some reason for puffing yourself out
 with sighs, or you've not.  If you have a reason, it's your duty
 to tell it me directly; and if you've no reason, you must break
 yourself of a bad habit that is growing upon you.'
 
  'Oh, sister! do you think it is really my duty to tell you? it
 would be such a comfort; but then I thought I ought not; it
 will distress you so.'
 
  'Nonsense.  I am so well prepared for misfortune by the
 frequent contemplation of its possibility that I believe I can
 receive any ill news with apparent equanimity and real
 resignation. Besides, when you said yesterday at breakfast-time  that you meant to give up the day to making your
 drawers tidy, I was aware that some misfortune was
 impending, though of course I could not judge of its
 magnitude.  Is the Highchester Bank broken?'
 
  'Oh no, sister!' said Miss Phoebe, moving to a seat close to
 her sister's on the sofa.  'Have you really been thinking that!
 I wish I had told you what I heard at the very first, if you've
 been fancying that!'
 
  'Take warning, Phoebe, and learn to have no concealments
 from me.  I did think we must be ruined, from your ways of
 going on; eating no meat at dinner, and sighing continually.
 And now what is it?'
 
  'I hardly know how to tell you, Sally.  I really don't.'
 
  Miss Phoebe began to cry; Miss Browning took hold of her
 arm, and gave her a little sharp shake.
 
  'Cry as much as you like when you've told me; but don't cry
 now, child, when you're keeping me on the tenterhooks.'
 
  'Molly Gibson has lost her character, sister.  That's it.'
 
  'Molly Gibson has done no such thing!' said Miss Browning
 indignantly.  'How dare you repeat such stories about poor
 Mary's child!  Never let me hear you say such things again!'
  
 'I can't help it.  Mrs Dawes told me; and she says it's all over
 the town.  I told her I did not believe a word of it.  And I kept
 it from you; and I think I should have been really ill if I'd kept
  it to myself any longer.  Oh, sister! what are you going to do?'
 
   For Miss Browning had risen without speaking a word, and
  was leaving the room in a stately and determined fashion.
 
   'I am going to put on my bonnet and things, and then I shall
  call upon Mrs Dawes, and confront her with her lies.'
 
   'Oh, don't call them "lies," sister; it's such a strong, ugly
  word.  Please call them "tallydiddles," for I don't believe she
  meant any harm.  Besides - besides - if they should turn out to
  be truth!  Really, sister, that's the weight on my mind; so many
  things sounded as if they might be true.'
   
 'What things?' said Miss Browning, still standing with
  judicial erectness of position in the middle of the floor.
   
 'Why - one story was that Molly had given him a letter.'
 
   'Who's him?  How am I to understand a story told in that
  silly way?' Miss Browning sate down on the nearest chair, and
  made up her mind to be patient if she could.
 
   'Him is Mr Preston.  And that must be true; because I
  missed her from my side when I wanted to ask her if she
  thought blue would look green by candlelight, as the young
  man said it would, and she had run across the street, and Mrs
  Goodenough was just going into the shop, just as she said she
  was.'
 
   Miss Browning's distress was overcoming her anger; so she
  only said, 'Phoebe, I think you'll drive me mad.  Do tell me
  what you heard from Mrs Dawes in a sensible and coherent
  manner, for once in your life.'
 
   'I'm sure I'm trying with all my might to tell you everything
  just as it happened.'
 
   'What did you hear from Mrs Dawes?'
 
   'Why, that Molly and Mr Preston were keeping company
  just as if she was a maid-servant and he was a gardener;
  meeting at all sorts of improper times and places, and fainting
  away in his arms, and out at night together, and writing to
  each other, and slipping their letters into each other's hands;
  and that was what I was talking about, sister, for I next door
  to saw that done once.  I saw her with my own eyes run across
  the street to Grinstead's, where he was, for we had just left
  him there; with a letter in her hand, too, which was not there
when she came back all fluttered and blushing.  But I never
 thought anything of it at the time; but now all the town is
 talking about it, and crying shame, and saying they ought to
 be married.' Miss Phoebe sank, into sobbing again; but was
 suddenly roused by a good box on her car.  Miss Browning was
 standing over her almost trembling with passion.
    'Phoebe, if ever I hear you say such things again, I'll turn
 you out of the house that minute.'
    'I only said what Mrs Dawes said, and you asked me what
 it was,' replied Miss Phoebe, humbly and meekly.  'Sally, you
 should not have done that.'
    'Never mind whether I should or I shouldn't.  That's not the
 matter in hand.  What I've got to decide is how to put a stop
 to all these lies.'
    'But, Sally, they are not all lies - if you will call them so; I'm
 afraid some things are true; though I stuck to their being false
 when Mrs Dawes told me of them.'
    'If I go to Mrs Dawes, and she repeats them to me, I shall
 slap her face or box her ears I'm afraid, for I couldn't stand
 tales being told of poor Mary's daughter, as if they were just
 a, stirring piece of news like James Horrocks' pig with two
 heads,' said Miss Browning, meditating aloud.  'That would
 do harm instead of good.  Phoebe, I'm really sorry I boxed your
 ears, only I should do it again if you said the same things.'
 Phoebe sate down by her sister, and took hold of one of her
 withered hands, and began caressing it, which was her way of
 accepting her sister's expression of regret.  'If I speak to Molly,
 the child will deny it, if she's half as good-for-nothing as they
 say; and if she's not, she'll only worry herself to death.  No,
 that won't do.  Mrs Goodenough - but she's a donkey; and if
 I convinced her, she could never convince any one else.  No;
 Mrs Dawes, who told you, shall tell me, and I'll tie my hands
 together inside my muff, and bind myself over to keep the
 peace.  And when I've heard what is to be heard, I'll put the
 matter into Mr Gibson's hands.  That's what I'll do.  So it's no
 use your saying anything against it, Phoebe, for I shan't attend
 to you.'
   
 Miss Browning went to Mrs Dawes', and began civilly
 enough to make inquiries about the reports current in
 Hollingford about Molly and Mr Preston; and Mrs Dawes fell
 into the snare, and told all the real and fictitious circumstances
 of the story in circulation, quite unaware of the storm that was
 gathering and ready to fall upon her as soon as she stopped
 speaking.  But she had not the long habit of reverence for Miss
 Browning which would have kept so many Hollingford ladies
 from justifying themselves if she found fault.  Mrs Dawes
 stood up for herself and her own veracity, bringing out fresh
 scandal, which she said she did not believe, but that many did;
 and adducing so much evidence as to the truth of what she had
 said and did believe, that Miss Browning was almost quelled,
 and sate silent and miserable at the end of Mrs Dawes'
 justification of herself.
  
 'Well!' she said at length, rising up from her chair as she
 spoke, 'I'm very sorry I've lived till this day; it's a blow to me
 just as if I had heard of such goings-on in my own flesh and
 blood.  I suppose I ought to apologize to you, Mrs Dawes, for
 what I said; but I've no heart to do it to-day.  I ought not to
 have spoken as I did; but that's nothing to this affair, you see.'
  
 'I hope you do me the justice to perceive that I only repeated
 what I had heard on good authority, Miss Browning,' said
 Mrs Dawes in reply.
  
 'My dear, don't repeat evil on any authority unless you can
 do some good by speaking about it,' said Miss Browning,
 laying her hand on Mrs Dawes' shoulder.  'I'm not a good
 woman, but I know what is good, and that advice is.  And now
 I think I can tell you that I beg your pardon for flying out
 upon you so; but God knows what pain you were putting me
 to. You'll forgive me, won't you, my dear?' Mrs Dawes felt
 the hand trembling on her shoulder, and saw the real distress
 of Miss Browning's mind, so it was not difficult to her to grant
 the requested forgiveness.  Then Miss Browning went home,
 and said but few words to Phoebe, who indeed saw well
 enough that her sister had heard the reports confirmed, and
 needed no further explanation of the cause of scarcely-tasted
 dinner, and short replies, and saddened looks.  Presently Miss
 Browning sate down and wrote a short note.  Then she rang
 the bell, and told the little maiden who answered it to take it
 to Mr Gibson, and if he was out to see that it was given to
 him as soon as ever he came home.  And then she went and
 put on her Sunday cap; and Miss Phoebe knew that her sister
 had written to ask Mr Gibson to come and be told of the
 rumours affecting his daughter.  Miss Browning was sadly
 disturbed at the information she had received, and the task
 that lay before her; she was miserably uncomfortable to herself
 and irritable to Miss Phoebe, and the netting-cotton she was
 using kept continually snapping and breaking from the jerks
 of her nervous hands.  When the knock at the door was heard,
  - the well-known doctor's knock, - Miss Browning took off her
 spectacles, and dropped them on the carpet, breaking them as
 she did so; and then she bade Miss Phoebe leave the room, as if
 her presence had cast the evil-eye, and caused the misfortune.
 She wanted to look natural, and was distressed at forgetting
 whether she usually received him sitting or standing.
   'Well!' said he, coming in cheerfully, and rubbing his cold
 hands as he went straight to the fire, 'and what is the matter
 with us?  It's Phoebe, I suppose.  I hope none of those old
 spasms?  But, after all, a dose or two will set that to rights.'
 
  'Oh!  Mr Gibson, I wish it was Phoebe, or me either!' said
 Miss Browning, trembling more and more.
 
  He sate down by her patiently, when he saw her agitation,
 and took her hand in a kind, friendly manner.
 
  'Don't hurry yourself, - take your time.  I daresay it's not so
 bad as you fancy; but we'll see about it.  There's a great deal
 of help in the world, much as we abuse it.'
 
  'Mr Gibson,' said she, 'it's your Molly I'm so grieved about.
 It's out now, and God help us both, and the poor child too,
 for I'm sure she's been led astray, and not gone wrong by her
 own free will!'
 
  'Molly!' said he, fighting against her words.  'What's my
 little Molly been doing or saying?'
 
  'Oh!  Mr Gibson, I don't know how to tell you.  I never
 would have named it, if I had not been convinced, sorely,
 sorely against my will.'
 
  'At any rate, you can let me hear what you have heard,' said
 he, putting his elbow on the table, and screening his eyes with
 his hand.  'Not that I am a bit afraid of anything you can hear
 about my girl,' continued he.  'Only in this little nest of gossip
 it's as well to know what people are talking about.'
 
  'They say - oh! how shall I tell you?'
 
  'Go on, can't you?' said he, removing his hand from his
 blazing eyes.  'I'm not going to believe it, so don't be afraid!'
 
  'But I fear you must believe it.  I would not if I could help
 it. She's been carrying on a clandestine correspondence with
 Mr Preston! -- '
 
  'Mr Preston!' exclaimed he.
 
  'And meeting him at all sorts of unseemly places and hours
 out of doors, - in the dark, - fainting away in his - his arms, if
 I must speak out.  All the town is talking of it.' Mr Gibson's
 hand was over his eyes again, and he made no sign; so Miss
 Browning went on, adding touch to touch.  'Mr Sheepshanks
 saw them together.  They have exchanged notes in Grinstead's
 shop; she ran after him there.'
   'Be quiet, can't you?' said Mr Gibson, taking his hand away,
 and showing his grim set face.  'I have heard enough.  Don't
 go on.  I said I shouldn't believe it, and I don't.  I suppose I
 must thank you for telling me; but I can't yet.'
 
  'I don't want your thanks,' said Miss Browning, almost
 crying.  'I thought you ought to know; for though you're
 married again, I can't forget you were dear Mary's husband
 once upon a time; and Molly's her child.'
  
 'I'd rather not speak any more about it just at present,' said
 he, not at all replying to Miss Browning's last speech.  'I may
 not control myself as I ought.  I only wish I could meet
 Preston, and horsewhip him within an inch of his life.  I wish
 I'd the doctoring of these slanderous gossips.  I'd make their
 tongues lie still for a while.  My little girl!  What harm has she
 done them all, that they should go and foul her fair name.'
  
 'Indeed, Mr Gibson, I'm afraid it's all true.  I would not
 have sent for you if I hadn't examined into it.  Do ascertain the
 truth before you do anything violent, such as horsewhipping
 or poisoning.'
  
 With all the inconséquence of a man in a passion, Mr Gibson
 laughed out, 'What have I said about horsewhipping or
 poisoning?  Do you think I'd have Molly's name dragged about the
 streets in connection with any act of violence on my part.  Let the
 report die away as it arose.  Time will prove its falsehood.'
 'But I don't think it will, and that's the pity of it,' said Miss
 Browning.  'You must do something, but I don't know what.'
  
 'I shall go home and ask Molly herself what's the meaning
 of it all; that's all I shall do.  It's too ridiculous - knowing
 Molly as I do, it's perfectly ridiculous.' He got up and walked
 about the room with hasty steps, laughing short unnatural
 laughs from time to time.  'Really what will they say next?
 "Satan finds some mischief still for idle tongues to do."'
  
 'Don't talk of Satan, please, in this house.  No one knows
 what may happen, if he's lightly spoken about,' pleaded Miss
 Browning.
 
  He went on, without noticing her, talking to himself, - 'I've
 a great mind to leave the place; - and what food for scandal
 that piece of folly would give rise to!' Then he was silent for
 a time; his hands in his pockets, his eyes on the ground, as he
 continued his quarter-deck march. Suddenly he stopped
 close to Miss Browning's chair.  'I'm thoroughly ungrateful to
 you, for as true a mark of friendship as you've ever shown to
 me. True or false, it was right I should know the wretched
 scandal that was being circulated; and it could not have been
 pleasant for you to tell it me.  Thank you from the bottom of
 my heart.'
 
  'Indeed, Mr Gibson, if it was false I would never have
 named it, but let it die away.'
 
  'It's not true though!' said he, doggedly, letting drop the
 hand he had taken in his effusion of gratitude.
   She shook her head.  'I shall always love Molly for her
 mother's sake,' she said.  And it was a great concession from
 the correct Miss Browning.  But her father did not understand
 it as such.
  
 'You ought to love her for her own.  She has done nothing
 to disgrace herself.  I shall go straight home, and probe into the
 truth.'
  
 'As if the poor girl who has been led away into deceit already
 would scruple much at going on in falsehood,' was Miss
 Browning's remark on this last speech of Mr Gibson's; but she
 had discretion enough not to make it until he was well out of
 hearing.



CHAPTER XLVIII

AN INNOCENT CULPRIT

With his head bent down - as if he were facing some keen-blowing wind - and yet there was not a breath of air stirring - 
  Mr Gibson went swiftly to his own home.  He rang at the door-bell; an unusual proceeding on his part.  Maria opened the
  door.  'Go and tell Miss Molly she is wanted in the dining-room.  Don't say who it is that wants her.' There was
  something in Mr Gibson's manner that made Maria obey him
  to the letter, in spite of Molly's surprised question, - 
  
  'Wants me?  Who is it, Maria?'
  
  Mr Gibson went into the dining-room, and shut the door,
  for an instant's solitude.  He went up to the chimney-piece,
  took hold of it, and laid his head on his hands, and tried to
  still the beating of his heart.
  
  The door opened.  He knew that Molly stood there before
  he heard her tone of astonishment.
  
  'Papa!'
  
  'Hush!' said he, turning round sharply.  'Shut the door.
  Come here.'
  
  She came to him, wondering what was amiss.  Her thoughts
  went to the Hamleys immediately.  'Is it Osborne?' she asked,
  breathless.  If Mr Gibson had not been too much agitated to
  judge calmly, he might have deduced comfort from these three
  words.
  
  But instead of allowing himself to seek for comfort from
  collateral evidence, he said, - 'Molly, what is this I hear?  That
  you have been keeping up a clandestine intercourse with Mr
  Preston - meeting him in out-of-the-way places; exchanging
  letters with him in a stealthy way.'
  
  Though he had professed to disbelieve all this, and did
  disbelieve it at the bottom of his soul, his voice was hard and
  stern, his face was white and grim, and his eyes fixed Molly's
  with the terrible keenness of their research.  Molly trembled
  all over; but she did not attempt to evade his penetration.  If
  she was silent for a moment, it was because she was rapidly
 reviewing her relation with regard to Cynthia in this matter.
 It was but a moment's pause of silence; but it seemed long
 minutes to one who was craving for a burst of indignant
 denial.  He had taken hold of her two arms just above her
 wrists, as she had first advanced towards him; he was
 unconscious of this action; but, as his impatience for her
 words grew upon him, he grasped her more and more tightly
 in his vice-like hands, till she made a little involuntary sound
 of pain.  And then he let go; and she looked at her soft bruised
 flesh, with tears gathering fast to her eyes to think that he, her
 father, should have hurt her so.  At the instant it appeared to
 her stranger that he should inflict bodily pain upon his child,
 than that he should have heard the truth - even in an
 exaggerated form.  With a childish gesture she held out her
 arm to him; but if she expected pity, she received none.
  
 'Pooh!' said he, as he just glanced at the mark, 'that is
 nothing - nothing.  Answer my question.  Have you - have you
 met that man in private?'
   
'Yes, papa, I have; but I don't think it was wrong.'
  
 He sate down now.  'Wrong!' he echoed, bitterly.  'Not
 'wrong?  Well!  I must bear it somehow.  Your mother is dead.
 That's one comfort.  It is true, then, is it?  Why, I did not
 believe it - not I. I laughed in my sleeve at their credulity; and
 I was the dupe all the time!'
  
 'Papa, I cannot tell you all.  It is not my secret, or you should
 know it directly.  Indeed, you will be sorry some time -  I have
 never deceived you yet, have I?' trying to take one of his
 hands; but he kept them tightly in his pockets, his eyes fixed
 on the pattern of the carpet before him.  'Papa!' said she,
 pleading again, 'have I ever deceived you?'
  
 'How can I tell?  I hear of this from the town's talk.  I don't
 know what next may come out!'
  
 'The town's talk,' said Molly in dismay.  'What business is
 it of theirs?'
  
 'Every one makes it their business to cast dirt on a girl's
 name who has disregarded the commonest rules of modesty
 and propriety.'
  
 'Papa, you are very hard.  "Disregarded modesty." I will tell
 you exactly what I have done.  I met Mr Preston once, - that
     evening when you put me down to walk over Croston
     Heath, - and there was another person with him.  I met him a
     second time - and that time by appointment - nobody but our
     two selves, - in the Towers' Park.  That is all.  Papa, you must
     trust me.  I cannot explain more.  You must trust me indeed.'
   
  He could not help relenting at her words; there was such
     truth in the tone in which they were spoken.  But he neither
     spoke nor stirred for a minute or two.  Then he raised his eyes
     to hers for the first time since she had acknowledged the
     external truth of what he charged her with.  Her face was very
     white, but it bore the impress of the final sincerity of death,
     when the true expression prevails without the poor disguises
     of time.
   
  'The letters?' he said, - but almost as if he ere ashamed to
     question that countenance any further.
   
  'I gave him one letter, - of which I did not write a word, - 
     which, in fact, I believe to have been merely an envelope,
     without any writing whatever inside.  The giving that letter, - 
     the two interviews I have named, - make all the private
     intercourse I have had with Mr Preston.  Oh! papa, what have
     they been saying that has grieved - shocked you so much?'
    
 'Never mind.  As the world goes, what you say you have
     done, Molly, is ground enough.  You must tell me all.  I must
     be able to refute these rumours point by point.'
    
 'How are they to be refuted; when you say that the truth
     which I have acknowledged is ground enough for what people
     are saying?'
    
 'You say you were not acting for yourself, but for another.
     If you tell me who the other was, - if you tell me everything
     out fully, I will do my utmost to screen her - for of course I
     guess it was Cynthia - while I am exonerating you.'
    
 'No, papa!' said Molly, after some little consideration; 'I
     have told you all I can tell; all that concerns myself; and I have
     promised not to say one word more.'
    
 'Then your character will be impugned.  It must be, unless
     the fullest explanation of these secret meetings is given.  I have
     a great mind to force the whole truth out of Preston himself!'
     
'Papa! once again I beg you to trust me.  If you ask Mr
     Preston you will very likely hear the whole truth; but that is
 just what I have been trying so hard to conceal, for it will only
 make several people very unhappy if it is known, and the
 whole affair is over and done with now.'
 
  'Not your share in it.  Miss Browning sent for me this
 evening to tell me how people were talking about you.  She
 implied that it was a complete loss of your good name.  You
 do not know, Molly, how slight a thing may blacken a girl's
 reputation for life.  I had hard work to stand all she said, even
 though I did not believe a word of it at the time.  And now you
 have told me that much of it is true.'
 
  'But I think you are a brave man, papa.  And you believe me,
 don't you?  We shall outlive these rumours, never fear.'
 
  'You don't know the power of ill-natured tongues, child,'
 said he.
 
  'Oh, now you've called me "child" again I don't care for
 anything. Dear, dear papa, I'm sure it is best and wisest to
 take no notice of these speeches.  After all they may not mean
 them ill-naturedly.  I am sure Miss Browning would not.  By-and-by they'll quite forget how much they made out of so
 little, - and even if they don't, you would not have me break
 my solemn word, would you?'
 
  'Perhaps not.  But I cannot easily forgive the person who, by
 practising on your generosity, led you into this scrape.  You
 are very young, and look upon these things as merely
 temporary evils.  I have more experience.'
 
  'Still, I don't see what I can do now, papa.  Perhaps I've
 been foolish; but what I did, I did of my ownself.  It was not
 suggested to me.  And I'm sure it was not wrong in morals,
 whatever it might be in judgment.  As I said, it is all over now;
 what I did ended the affair, I am thankful to say; and it was
 with that object I did it.  If people choose to talk about me, I
 must submit; and so must you, dear papa.'
  
 'Does your mother - does Mrs Gibson - know anything
 about it?' asked he with sudden anxiety.
  
 'No; not a bit; not a word.  Pray don't name it to her.  That
 might lead to more mischief than anything else.  I have really
 told you everything I am at liberty to tell.'
  
 It was a great relief to Mr Gibson to find that his sudden fear
 that his wife might have been privy to it all was ill-founded;
 he had been seized by a sudden dread that she, whom he had
 chosen to marry in order to have a protectress and guide for
 his daughter, had been cognizant of this ill-advised adventure
 with Mr Preston; nay, more, that she might even have
 instigated it to save her own child; for that Cynthia was
 somehow or other at the bottom of it all he had no doubt
 whatever.  But now, at any rate, Mrs Gibson had not been
 playing a treacherous part; that was all the comfort he could
 extract out of Molly's mysterious admission, that much
 mischief might result from Mrs Gibson's knowing anything
 about these meetings with Mr Preston.
  
 'Then, what is to be done?' said he.  'These reports are
 abroad, - am I to do nothing to contradict them?  Am I to go
 about smiling and content with all this talk about you, passing
 from one idle gossip to another?'
   'I'm afraid so.  I'm very sorry, for I never meant you to have
 known anything about it, and I can see now how it must
 distress you.  But surely when nothing more happens, and
 nothing comes of what has happened, the wonder and the
 gossip must die away?  I know you believe every word I have
 said, and that you trust me, papa.  Please, for my sake, be
 patient with all this gossip and cackle.'
 
  'It will try me hard, Molly,' said he.
 
  'For my sake, papa!'
 
  'I don't see what else I can do,' replied he moodily, 'unless
 I get hold of Preston.'
   'That would be the worst of all.  That would make a talk.
 And, after all, perhaps he was not so very much to blame.  Yes!
 he was.  But he behaved well to me as far as that goes,' said
 she, suddenly recollecting his speech when Mr Sheepshanks
 came up in the Towers' Park, - 'Don't stir, you have done
 nothing to be ashamed of.'
 
  'That is true.  A quarrel between men which drags a
 woman's name into notice is to be avoided at any cost.  But
 sooner or later I must have it out with Preston.  He shall find
 it not so pleasant to have placed my daughter in equivocal
 circumstances.'
  
 'He did not place me.  He did not know I was coming, did
 not expect to meet me either time; and would far rather not
 have taken the letter I gave him if he could have helped
 himself.'
   
'It is all a mystery.  I hate to have you mixed up in mysteries.'
  
 'I hate to be mixed up.  But what can I do?  I know of another
 mystery which I am pledged not to speak about.  I cannot help
 myself.'
  
 'Well, all I can say is, never be the heroine of a mystery.
 That you can avoid, if you can't help being an accessory.
 Then, I suppose, I must yield to your wishes and let this
 scandal wear itself out without any notice from me?'
  
 'What else can you do under the circumstances?'
  
 'Ay; what else indeed?  How shall you bear it?'
  
 For an instant the quick hot tears sprang into her eyes; to
 have everybody - all her world thinking evil of her, did seem
 hard to the girl who had never thought or said an unkind thing
 of them.  But she smiled as she made answer, - 
  
 'It's like tooth-drawing, it will be over some time.  It would
 be much worse if I had really been doing wrong.'
   
'Cynthia shall beware - ' he began; but Molly put her hand
 before his mouth.
 
'Papa, Cynthia must not be accused, or suspected; you will
 drive her out of your house if you do, she is so proud, and so
 unprotected, except by you.  And Roger, - for Roger's sake,
 you will never do or say anything to send Cynthia away, when
 he has trusted us all to take care of her, and love her in his
 absence.  Oh!  I think if she were really wicked, and I did not
 love her at all, I should feel bound to watch over her, he loves
 her so dearly.  And she is really good at heart, and I do love
 her dearly.  You must not vex or hurt Cynthia, papa, - 
 remember she is dependent upon you!'
 
  'I think the world would get on tolerably well, if there were
 no women in it.  They plague the life out of one.  You've made
 me forget, amongst you - poor old Job Haughton that I ought
 to have gone to see an hour ago.'
   
Molly put up her mouth to be kissed.  'You're not angry
 with me now, papa, are you?'
   
'Get out of my way' (kissing her all the same).  'If I'm not
 angry with you, I ought to be; for you've caused a great deal
 of worry, which won't be over yet awhile, I can tell you.'
  For all Molly's bravery at the time of this conversation, it
   was she that suffered more than her father.  He kept out of the
   way of hearing gossip; but she was perpetually thrown into
   the small society of the place.  Mrs Gibson herself had caught
   cold, and moreover was not tempted by the quiet old-fashioned visiting which was going on just about this time,
   provoked by the visit of two of Mrs Dawes' pretty unrefined
   nieces, who laughed, and chattered, and ate, and would fain
   have flirted with Mr Ashton, the vicar, could he have been
   brought by any possibility to understand his share in the
   business.  Mr Preston did not accept the invitations to
   Hollingford tea-drinkings with the same eager gratitude as he
   had done a year before: or else the shadow which hung over
   Molly would have extended to him, her co-partner in the
   clandestine meetings which gave such umbrage to the
   feminine virtue of the town.  Molly herself was invited,
   because it would not do to pass any apparent slight on either
   Mr or Mrs Gibson; but there was a tacit, and under-hand
   protest against her being received on the old terms.  Every one
   was civil to her, but no one was cordial; there was a very
   perceptible film of difference in their behaviour to her from
   what it was formerly; nothing that had outlines and could be
   defined.  But Molly, for all her clear conscience and her brave
   heart, felt acutely that she was only tolerated, not welcomed.
   She caught the buzzing whispers of the two Miss Oakeses',
   who, when they first met the heroine of the prevailing
   scandal, looked at her askance, and criticized her pretensions
   to good looks, with hardly an attempt at under-tones.  Molly
   tried to be thankful that her father was not in the mood for
   visiting.  She was even glad that her stepmother was too much
   of an invalid to come out, when she felt thus slighted, and
   as it were, degraded from her place.  Miss Browning herself,
   that true old friend, spoke to her with chilling dignity, and
   much reserve, for she had never heard a word from Mr
   Gibson since the evening when she had put herself to so much
   pain to tell him of the disagreeable rumours affecting his
   daughter.
   
Only Miss Phoebe would seek out Molly with even more
   than her former tenderness; and this tried Molly's calmness
 more than all the slights put together.  The soft hand, pressing
 hers under the table, - the continual appeals to her, so as to
 bring her back into the conversation, touched Molly almost to
 shedding tears.  Sometimes the poor girl wondered to herself
 whether this change in the behaviour of her acquaintances was
 not a mere fancy of hers; whether, if she had never had that
 conversation with her father, in which she had borne herself
 so bravely at the time, she should have discovered the
 difference in their treatment of her.  She never told her father
 how she felt these perpetual small slights; she had chosen to
 bear the burden of her own free will; nay, more, she had
 insisted on being allowed to do so; and it was not for her to
 grieve him now by showing that she shrank from the
 consequences of her own act.  So she never even made an
 excuse for not going into the small gaieties, or mingling with
 the society of Hollingford.  Only she suddenly let go the
 stretch of restraint she was living in, when one evening her
 father told her that he was really anxious about Mrs Gibson's
 cough, and should like Molly to give up a party at Mrs
 Goodenough's, to which they were all three invited, but to
 Which Molly alone was going.  Molly's heart leaped up at the
 thoughts of stopping at home, even though the next moment
 she had to blame herself for rejoicing at a reprieve that was
 purchased by another's suffering.  However, the remedies
 prescribed by her husband did Mrs Gibson good; and she was
 particularly grateful and caressing to Molly.
  
 'Really, dear!' said she, stroking Molly's head, 'I think your
 hair is getting softer, and losing that disagreeable crisp curly
 feeling.'
 
  Then Molly knew that her stepmother was in high good-humour; the smoothness or curliness of her hair was a sure
 test of the favour in which Mrs Gibson held her at the
 moment.
 
  'I am so sorry to be the cause of detaining you from this
 little party, but dear papa is so over-anxious about me.  I have
 always been a kind of pet with gentlemen, and poor Mr
 Kirkpatrick never knew how to make enough of me.  But I
 think Mr Gibson is even more foolishly fond; his last words
 were, "Take care of yourself, Hyacinth;" and then he came
    back again to say, "If you don't attend to my directions I
     won't answer for the consequences." I shook my forefinger at
     him, and said, "Don't be so anxious, you silly man."'
  
   'I hope we have done everything he told us to do,' said
     Molly.
  
   'Oh yes!  I feel so much better.  Do you know, late as it is,
     I think you might go to Mrs Goodenough's yet?  Maria could
     take you, and I should like to see you dressed; when one has
     been wearing dull warm gowns for a week or two one gets
     quite a craving for bright colours, and evening dress.  So go
     and get ready, dear, and then perhaps you'll bring me back
     some news, for really shut up as I have been with only papa
     and you for the last fortnight, I've got quite moped and
     dismal, and I can't bear to keep young people from the gaieties
     suitable to their age.'
  
   'Oh, pray, mamma!  I had so much rather not go.'
  
   'Very well! very well!  Only I think it is rather selfish of you,
     when you see I am so willing to make the sacrifice for your
     sake.'
 
    'But you say it is a sacrifice to you, and I don't want to
     go.'
 
    'Very well; did I not say you might stop at home; only pray
     don't chop logic; nothing is so fatiguing to a sick person.'
 
    Then they were silent for some time.  Mrs Gibson broke the
     silence by saying, in a languid voice, - 
 
    'Can't you think of anything amusing to say, Molly?'
 
    Molly pumped up from the depths of her mind a few little
     trivialities which she had nearly forgotten, but she felt that
     they were anything but amusing, and so Mrs Gibson seemed
     to feel them; for presently she said, - 
 
    'I wish Cynthia was at home.' And Molly felt it as a
     reproach to her own dulness.
    
 'Shall I write to her and ask her to come back?'
 
    'Well, I'm not sure; I wish I knew a great many things.
     You've not heard anything of poor dear Osborne Hamley
     lately, have you?'
 
    Remembering her father's charge not speak of Osborne's
     health, Molly made no reply, nor was any needed, for Mrs
     Gibson went on thinking aloud, - 
  'You see, if Mr Henderson has been as attentive as he was
 in the spring - and the chances about Roger - I shall be really
 grieved if anything happens to that young man, uncouth as he
 is, but it must be owned that Africa is not merely an
 unhealthy - it is a savage - and even in some parts a cannibal
 country.  I often think of all I've read of it in geography books,
 as I lie awake at night, and if Mr Henderson is really
 becoming attached!  The future is hidden from us by infinite
 wisdom, Molly, or else I should like to know it; one would
 calculate one's behaviour at the present time so much better
 if one only knew what events were to come.  But I think, on
 the whole, we had better not alarm Cynthia.  If we had only
 known in time we might have planned for her to have come
 down with Lord Cumnor and my lady.'
  
 'Are they coming?  Is Lady Cumnor well enough to travel?'
  
 'Yes, to be sure.  Or else I should not have considered
 whether or no Cynthia could have come down with them; it
 would have sounded very well - more than respectable, and
 would have given her a position among that lawyer set in
 London.'
  
 'Then Lady Cumnor is better?'
 
  'To be sure.  I should have thought papa would have
 mentioned it to you; but, to be sure, he is always so
 scrupulously careful not to speak about his patients.  Quite
 right too - quite right and delicate.  Why, he hardly ever tells
 me how they are going on.  Yes!  The Earl and the Countess,
 and Lady Harriet, and Lord and Lady Cuxhaven, and Lady
 Agnes; and I've ordered a new winter bonnet and a black satin
 cloak.'



CHAPTER XLIX

MOLLY GIBSON FINDS A CHAMPION

Lady Cumnor had so far recovered from the violence of
 her attack, and from the consequent operation, as to be able
 to be removed to the Towers for change of air; and
 accordingly she was brought thither by her whole family with
 all the pomp and state becoming an invalid peeress.  There was
 every probability that 'the family' would make a longer
 residence at the Towers than they had done for several years,
 during which time they had been wanderers hither and thither
 in search of health.  Somehow, after all, it was very pleasant
 and restful to come to the old ancestral home, and every
 member of the family enjoyed it in his or her own way; Lord
 Cumnor most especially.  His talent for gossip and his love of
 small details had scarcely fair play in the hurry of a London
 life, and were much nipped in the bud during his Continental
 sojournings, as he neither spoke French fluently, nor
 understood it easily when spoken.  Besides, he was a great
 proprietor, and liked to know how his land was going on; how
 his tenants were faring in the world.  He liked to hear of their
 births, marriages, and deaths, and had something of a royal
 memory for faces.  In short, if ever a peer was an old woman,
 Lord Cumnor was that peer; but he was a very good-natured
 old woman, and rode about on his stout old cob with his
 pockets full of halfpence for the children, and little packets of
 snuff for the old people.  Like an old woman, too, he enjoyed
 an afternoon cup of tea in his wife's sitting-room, and over his
 gossip's beverage he would repeat all that he had learnt in the
 day.  Lady Cumnor was exactly in that state of convalescence
 when such talk as her lord's was extremely agreeable to her,
 but she had contemned the habit of listening to gossip so
 severely all her life, that she thought it due to consistency to
 listen first, and enter a supercilious protest afterwards.  It had,
 however, come to be a family habit for all of them to gather
 together in Lady Cumnor's room on their return from their
 daily walks or drives or rides, and over the fire, sipping their
 tea at her early meal, to recount the morsels of local
 intelligence they had heard during the morning.  When they
 had said all that they had to say (and not before), they had
 always to listen to a short homily from her ladyship on the
 well-worn texts, - the poorness of conversation about
 persons, - the probable falsehood of all they had heard, and
 the degradation of character implied by its repetition.  On one
 of these November evenings they were all assembled in Lady
 Cumnor's room.  She was lying, - all draped in white, and
 covered up with an Indian shawl, - on a sofa near the fire.
 Lady Harriet sate on the rug, close before the wood-fire,
 picking up fallen embers with a pair of dwarf tongs, and piling
 them on the red and odorous heap in the centre of the hearth.
 Lady Cuxhaven, notable' from girlhood, was using the blind man's holiday to net fruit-nets for the walls at Cuxhaven
 Park.  Lady Cumnor's woman was trying to see to pour out tea
 by the light of one small wax-candle in the background (for
 Lady Cumnor could not bear much light to her weakened
 eyes); I and the great leafless branches of the trees outside the
 house kept sweeping against the windows, moved by the wind
 that was gathering.
 
  It was always Lady Cumnor's habit to snub those she loved
 best. Her husband was perpetually snubbed by her, yet she
 missed him now that he was later than usual, and professed
 not to want her tea; but they all knew that it was only because
 he was not there to hand it to her, and be found fault with for
 his invariable stupidity in forgetting that she liked to put
 sugar in before she took any cream.  At length he burst in.
  
 'I beg your pardon, my lady, - I'm later than I should have
 been, I know.  Why, haven't you had your tea yet?' he
 exclaimed, bustling about to get the cup for his wife.
  
 'You know I never take cream before I've sweetened it,' said
 she, with even more emphasis on the 'never' than usual.
  
 'To be sure!  What a simpleton I am!  I think I might have
 remembered it by this time.  You see I met old Sheepshanks,
 and that's the reason of it.'
 
  'Of your handing me the cream before the sugar?' asked his
 wife.  It was one of her grim jokes.
   
'No, no! ha, ha!  You're better this evening, I think, my dear.
   But, as I was saying, Sheepshanks is such an eternal talker, there's
 no getting away from him, and I had no idea it was so late!'
   
 'Well, I think the least you can do is to tell us something
 of Mr Sheepshanks' conversation now you have torn yourself
 away from him.'
   
 'Conversation! did I call it conversation?  I don't think I said
 much.  I listened.  He really has always a great deal to say.
 More than Preston, for instance.  And, by the way, he was
 telling me something about Preston; - old Sheepshanks thinks
 he'll be married before long, - he says there's a great deal of
 gossip going on about him and Gibson's daughter.  They've
 been caught meeting in the park, and corresponding, and all
 that kind of thing that is likely to end in a marriage.'
   
 'I shall be very sorry,' said Lady Harriet.  'I always liked that
 girl; and I can't bear papa's model land-agent.'
   
 'I daresay it's not true,' said Lady Cumnor, in a very audible
 aside to Lady Harriet.  'Papa picks up stories one day to
 contradict them the next.'
   
 'Ah, but this did sound like truth.  Sheepshanks said all the
 old ladies in the town had got hold of it, and were making a
 great scandal out of it.'
  
  'I don't think it does sound quite a nice story.  I wonder what
 Clare could be doing to allow such goings on,' said Lady
 Cuxhaven.
  
  'I think it is much more likely that Clare's own daughter - 
 that pretty pawky Miss Kirkpatrick - is the real heroine of this
 story,' said Lady Harriet.  'She always looks like a heroine of
 genteel comedy, and those young ladies were capable of a good
 deal of innocent intriguing, if I remember rightly.  Now little
 Molly Gibson has a certain gaucherie about her which would
 disqualify her at once from any clandestine proceedings.
 Besides, "clandestine!" why, the child is truth itself.  Papa, are
 you sure Mr Sheepshanks said it was Miss Gibson that was
 exciting Hollingford scandal?  Wasn't it Miss Kirkpatrick?
 The notion of her and Mr Preston making a match of it does
 not sound so incongruous; but, if it's my little friend Molly,
 I'll go to church and forbid the banns.'
  
  'Really, Harriet, I can't think what always makes you take
 such an interest in all these petty Hollingford affairs.'
   'Mamma, it's only tit for tat.  They take the most lively
 interest in all our sayings and doings.  If I were going to be
 married, they would want to know every possible
 particular, - where we first met, what we first said to each
 other, what I wore, and whether he offered by letter or in
 person.  I'm sure those good Miss Brownings were
 wonderfully well-informed as to Mary's methods of managing
 her nursery, and educating her girls; so it's only a proper
 return of the compliment to want to know on our side how
 they are going on.  I am quite of papa's faction.  I like to hear
 all the local gossip.'
   
'Especially when it is flavoured with a spice of scandal and
 impropriety, as in this case,' said Lady Cumnor, with the
 momentary bitterness of a convalescent invalid.  Lady Harriet
 coloured with annoyance.  But then she rallied her courage,
 and said with more gravity than before, - 
   
'I am really interested in this story about Molly Gibson, I
 own.  I both like and respect her; and I do not like to hear her
 name coupled with that of Mr Preston.  I can't help fancying
 papa has made some mistake.'
  
'No, my dear.  I'm sure I'm repeating what I heard.  I'm
 sorry I said anything about it, if it annoys you or my lady
 there.  Sheepshanks did say Miss Gibson, though, and he went
 on to say it was a pity the girl had got herself so talked about;
 for it was the way they had carried on that gave rise to all the
 chatter.  Preston himself was a very fair match for her, and
 nobody could have objected to it.  But I'll try and find a more
 agreeable piece of news.  Old Margery at the lodge is dead; and
 they don't know where to find some one to teach clear-starching at your school; and Robert Hall made forty pounds
 last year by his apples.' So they drifted away from Molly and
 her affairs; only Lady Harriet kept turning what she had heard
 over in her own mind with interest and wonder.
  
 'I warned her against him the day of her father's wedding.
 And what a straightforward, out-spoken lassie it was then!  I
 don't believe it; it's only one of old Sheepshanks' stories, half
 invention and half deafness.'
  
 The next day Lady Harriet rode over to Hollingford, and
 for the settling of her curiosity she called on the Miss
 Brownings, and introduced the subject.  She would not have
 spoken about the rumour she had heard to any who were not
 warm friends of Molly's.  If Mr Sheepshanks had chosen to
 allude to it when she had been riding with her father, she
 would very soon have silenced him by one of the haughty
 looks she knew full well how to assume.  But she felt as if she
 must know the truth, and accordingly she began thus abruptly
 to Miss Browning, - 
   
'What is all this I hear about my little friend Molly Gibson
 and Mr Preston?'
 
  'Oh, Lady Harriet! have you heard of it?  We are so sorry!'
 
  'Sorry for what?'
 
  'I think, begging your ladyship's pardon, we had better not
 say any more till we know how much you know,' said Miss
 Browning.
 
  'Nay,' replied Lady Harriet, laughing a little, 'I shan't tell
 what I know till I am sure you know more.  Then we'll make
 an exchange if you like.'
 
  'I'm afraid it's no laughing Matter for poor Molly,' said
 Miss Browning, shaking her head.  'People do say such
 things!'
 
  'But I don't believe them; indeed I don't,' burst in Miss
 Phoebe, half crying.
 
  'No more will I, then,' said Lady Harriet, taking the good
 lady's hand.
 
  'It's all very fine, Phoebe, saying you don't believe them, but
 I should like to know who it was that convinced me, sadly
 against my will, I am sure.'
 
  'I only told you the facts as Mrs Goodenough told them me,
 sister; but I'm sure if you had seen poor patient Molly as I
 have done, sitting up in a corner of a room, looking at the
 Beauties of England and Wales till she must have been sick
 of them, and no one speaking to her; and she as gentle and
 sweet as ever at the end of the evening, though maybe a bit
 pale - facts or no facts, I won't believe anything against her.'
  
 So there sate Miss Phoebe, in tearful defiance of facts.
  
 'And, as I said before, I'm quite of your opinion,' said Lady
 Harriet.
  
 'But how does your ladyship explain away her meetings
 with Mr Preston in all sorts of unlikely and open-air places?'
 asked Miss Browning, who, to do her justice, would have been
 only too glad to join Molly's partisans, if she could have
 preserved her character for logical deduction at the same time.
 'I went so far as to send for her father and tell him all about
 it. I thought at least he would have horsewhipped Mr Preston;
 but he seems to have taken no notice of it.'
 
  'Then we may be quite sure he knows some way of
 explaining matters that we don't,' said Lady Harriet,
 decisively.  'After all, there may be a hundred and fifty
 perfectly natural and justifiable explanations.'
   'Mr Gibson knew of none when I thought it my duty to
 speak to him,' said Miss Browning.
   
'Why, suppose that Mr Preston is engaged to Miss
 Kirkpatrick, and Molly is confidante and messenger.'
   'I don't see that your ladyship's supposition much alters the
 blame.  Why, if he is honourably engaged to Cynthia
 Kirkpatrick, does he not visit her openly at her home in Mr
 Gibson's house?  Why does Molly lend herself to clandestine
 proceedings?'
 
  'One can't account for everything,' said Lady Harriet, a
 little impatiently, for reason was going hard against her.  'But
 I choose to have faith in Molly Gibson.  I'm sure she's not
 done anything very wrong.  I've a great mind to go and call on
 her - Mrs Gibson is confined to her room with this horrid
 influenza - and take her with me on a round of calls through
 this little gossipping town, - on Mrs Goodenough, or
 Badenough, who seems to have been propagating all these
 stories.  But I've not time to-day.  I've to meet papa at three,
 and it's three now.  Only remember, Miss Phoebe, it's you and
 I against the world, in defence of a distressed damsel.'
 
  'Don Quixote and Sancho Panza!' said she to herself as she
 ran lightly down Miss Browning's old-fashioned staircase.
  
 'Now, I don't think that's pretty of you, Phoebe,' said Miss
 Browning in some displeasure, as soon as she was alone with
 her sister.  'First, you convince me against my will, and make
 me very unhappy; and I have to do unpleasant things, all
 because you've made me believe that certain statements are
 true; and then you turn round and cry, and say you don't
 believe a word of it all, making me out a regular ogre and
 backbiter.  No! it's of no use.  I shan't listen to you.' So she left
 Miss Phoebe in tears, and locked herself up in her own room.
  
 Lady Harriet, meanwhile, was riding homewards by her
 father's side, apparently listening to all he chose to say, but
 in reality turning over the probabilities and possibilities that
 might account for these strange interviews between Molly and
 Mr Preston.  It was a case of parler de l'âne et l'on en voit les oreilles.  At a turn in the road they saw Mr Preston a little way
 before them, coming towards them on his good horse, point
 device, in his riding attire.
   The earl, in his thread-bare coat, and on his old brown cob,
 called out cheerfully, - 
 
  'Aha! here's Preston.  Good-day to you.  I was just wanting
 to ask you about that slip of pasture-land on the Home Farm.
 John Brickkill wants to plough it up and crop it.  It's not two
 acres at the best.'
   While they were talking over this bit of land, Lady Harriet came
 to her resolution.  As soon as her father had finished, she said, - 
   'Mr Preston, perhaps you will allow me to ask you one or
 two questions to relieve my mind, for I am in some little
 perplexity at present.'
   'Certainly; I shall only be too happy to give you any
 information in my power.' But the moment after he had made
 this polite speech, he recollected Molly's speech - that she
 would refer her case to Lady Harriet.  But the letters had been
 returned, and the affair was now wound up.  She had come off
 conqueror, he the vanquished.  Surely she would never have
 been so ungenerous as to appeal after that?
   'There are reports about Miss Gibson and you current
 among the gossips of Hollingford.  Are we to congratulate you
 on your engagement to that young lady?'
   'Ah! by the way, Preston, we ought to have done it before,'
 interrupted Lord Cumnor, in hasty goodwill.  But his
 daughter said quietly, 'Mr Preston has not yet told us if the
 reports are well founded, papa.'
   She looked at him with the air of a person expecting an
 answer, and expecting a truthful answer.
 
  'I am not so fortunate,' replied he, trying to make his horse
 appear fidgety, without incurring observation.
 'Then I may contradict that report?' asked Lady Harriet
 quietly.  'Or is there any reason for believing that in time it
 may come true?  I ask because such reports, if unfounded, do
 harm to young ladies.'
  
 'Keep other sweethearts off,' put in Lord Cumnor, looking
 a good deal pleased at his own discernment.  Lady Harriet
 went on, - 
  
 'And I take a great interest in Miss Gibson.'
 
  Mr Preston saw from her manner that he was 'in for it,' as
 he expressed it to himself.  The question was, how much or
 how little did she know?
 
  'I have no expectation or hope of ever having a nearer
 interest in Miss Gibson than I have at present.  I shall be glad
 if this straightforward answer relieves your ladyship from
 your perplexity.'
  
 He could not help the touch of insolence that accompanied
 these last words.  It was not in the words themselves, nor in
 the tone in which they were spoken, nor in the look which
 accompanied them, it was in all; it implied a doubt of Lady
 Harriet's right to question him as she did; and there was
 something of defiance in it as well.  But this touch of insolence
 put Lady Harriet's mettle up; and she was not one to check
 herself, in any course, for the opinion of an inferior.
  
 'Then, sir! are you aware of the injury you may do to a
 young lady's reputation if you meet her, and detain her in long
 conversations, when she is walking by herself, unaccompanied
 by any one?  You give rise - you have given rise to reports.'
  
 'My dear Harriet, are not you going too far?  You don't
 know - Mr Preston may have intentions - unacknowledged
 intentions.'
  
 'No, my lord.  I have no intentions with regard to Miss
 Gibson.  She may be a very worthy young lady - I have no
 doubt she is.  Lady Harriet seems determined to push me into
 such a position that I cannot but acknowledge myself to be - it
 is not enviable - not pleasant to own - but I am, in fact, a jilted
 man; jilted by Miss Kirkpatrick, after a tolerably long
 engagement.  My interviews with Miss Gibson were not of the
 most agreeable kind - as you may conclude when I tell you she
 was, I believe, the instigator - certainly, she was the agent in
 this last step of Miss Kirkpatrick's.  Is your ladyship's
 curiosity' (with an emphasis on this last word) 'satisfied with
 this rather mortifying confession of mine?'
   'Harriet, my dear, you've gone too far - we had no right to
 pry into Mr Preston's private affairs.'
  
 'No more I had,' said Lady Harriet, with a smile of winning
 frankness: the first smile she had accorded to Mr Preston for
 many a long day; ever since the time, years ago, when,
 presuming on his handsomeness, he had assumed a tone of
 gallant familiarity with Lady Harriet, and paid her personal
 compliments as he would have done to an equal.
  
 'But he will excuse me, I hope,' continued she, still in that
 gracious manner which made him feel that he now held a
 much higher place in her esteem than he had had at the
 beginning of their interview, 'when he learns that the busy
 tongues of the Hollingford ladies have been speaking of my
 friend, Miss Gibson, in the most unwarrantable manner;
 drawing unjustifiable inferences from the facts of that
 intercourse with Mr Preston, the nature of which he has just
 conferred such a real obligation on me by explaining.'
 
  'I think I need hardly request Lady Harriet to consider this
 explanation of mine as confidential,' said Mr Preston.
 
  'Of course, of course!' said the earl; 'every one will understand
 that.' And he rode home, and told his wife and Lady Cuxhaven
 the whole conversation between Lady Harriet and Mr Preston;
 in the strictest confidence, of course.  Lady Harriet had to stand
 a good many strictures on manners, and proper dignity for a few
 days after this.  However, she consoled herself by calling on the
 Gibsons; and, finding that Mrs Gibson (who was still an invalid)
 was asleep at the time, she experienced no difficulty in carrying
 off the unconscious Molly for a walk, which Lady Harriet so
 contrived that they twice passed through all the length of the
 principal street of the town, loitered at Grinstead's for half an
 hour, and wound up by Lady Harriet's calling on the Miss
 Brownings, who, to her regret, were not at home.
 
  'Perhaps, it is as well,' said she, after a minute's
 consideration.  'I'll leave my card, and put your name down
 underneath it, Molly.'
 
  Molly was a little puzzled by the manner in which she had
 been taken possession of, like an inanimate chattel, for all the
 afternoon, and exclaimed, - 
  
 'Please, Lady Harriet - I never leave cards; I have not got
 any, and on the Miss Brownings, of all people; why, I run in
 and out whenever I like.'
   'Never mind, little one.  To-day you shall do everything
 properly, and according to full etiquette.
 
  'And now tell Mrs Gibson to come out to the Towers for
 a long day; we will send the carriage for her whenever she will
 let us know that she is strong enough to come.  Indeed, she had
 better come for a few days; at this time of the year it does not
 do for an invalid to be out in the evenings, even in a carriage.'
 So spoke Lady Harriet, standing on the white door-steps at
 Miss Brownings', and holding Molly's hand while she wished
 her good-by.  'You'll tell her, dear, that I came partly to see
 her - but that finding her asleep, I ran off with you, and don't
 forget about her coming to stay with us for change of air - 
 mamma will like it, I'm sure - and the carriage, and all that.
 And now good-by, we've done a good day's work!  And better
 than you're aware of,' continued she, still addressing Molly,
 though the latter was quite out of hearing.  'Hollingford is not
 the place I take it to be, if it doesn't veer round in Miss
 Gibson's favour after my to-day's trotting of that child about.'



CHAPTER L

CYNTHIA AT BAY

Mrs Gibson was slow in recovering her strength after the
 influenza, and before she was well enough to accept Lady
 Harriet's invitation to the Towers, Cynthia came home from
 London.  If Molly had thought her manner of departure was
 scarcely as affectionate and considerate as it might have
 been, - if such a thought had crossed Molly's fancy for an
 instant, she was repentant for it as soon as ever Cynthia
 returned, and the girls met together face to face, with all the
 old familiar affection, going upstairs to the drawing-room,
 with their arms round each other's waists, and sitting there
 together hand in hand.  Cynthia's whole manner was more
 quiet than it had been, when the weight of her unpleasant
 secret rested on her mind, and made her alternately
 despondent or flighty.
   'After all,' said Cynthia, 'there's a look of home about these
 rooms which is very pleasant.  But I wish I could see you
 looking stronger, mammal that's the only unpleasant thing.
 Molly, why didn't you send for me?'
   'I wanted to do,' began Molly.
   'But I wouldn't let her,' said Mrs Gibson.  'You were much
 better in London than here, for you could have done me no
 good; and your letters were very agreeable to read; and now
 Helen is better, and I'm nearly well, and you've come home
 just at the right time, for everybody is full of the Charity Ball.'
   'But we are not going this year, mamma,' said Cynthia
 decidedly.  'It is on the 25th, isn't it? and I'm sure you'll never
 be well enough to take us.'
   'You really seem determined to make me out worse than I
 am, child,' said Mrs Gibson, rather querulously, she being
 one of those who, when their malady is only trifling,
 exaggerate it, but when it is really of some consequence, are
 unwilling to sacrifice any pleasures by acknowledging it.  It
 was well for her in this instance that her husband had wisdom
 and authority enough to forbid her going to this ball, on which
 she had set her heart; but the consequence of his prohibition
 was an increase of domestic plaintiveness and low spirits,
 which seemed to tell on Cynthia - the bright gay Cynthia
 herself - and it was often hard work for Molly to keep up the
 spirits of two other people as well as her own. Ill-health might
 account for Mrs Gibson's despondency, but why was Cynthia
 so silent, not to say so sighing?  Molly was puzzled to account
 for it; and all the more perplexed because from time to time
 Cynthia kept calling upon her for praise for some unknown
 and mysterious virtue that she had practised; and Molly was
 young enough to believe that, after any exercise of virtue, the
 spirits rose, cheered up by an approving conscience.  Such was
 not the case with Cynthia, however.  She sometimes said such
 things as these, when she had been particularly inert and
 desponding, - 
 'Ah, Molly, you must let my goodness lie fallow for a while!
 It has borne such a wonderful crop this year.  I have been so
 pretty-behaved - if you knew all!' Or, 'Really, Molly, my
 virtue must come down from the clouds!  It was strained to the
 utmost in London - and I find it is like a kite - after soaring
 aloft for some time, it suddenly comes down, and gets tangled
 in all sorts of briars and brambles; which things are an
 allegory, unless you can bring yourself to believe in my
 extraordinary goodness while I was away - giving me a sort of
 right to fall foul of all mamma's briars and brambles now.'
   
But Molly had had some experience of Cynthia's whim of
 perpetually hinting at a mystery which she did not mean to
 reveal in the Mr Preston days, and, although she was
 occasionally piqued into curiosity, Cynthia's allusions at
 something more in the background fell in general on rather
 deaf ears.  One day the mystery burst its shell, and came out
 in the shape of an offer made to Cynthia by Mr Henderson - 
 and refused.  Under all the circumstances, Molly could not
 appreciate the heroic goodness so often alluded to.  The
 revelation of the secret at last took place in this way.  Mrs
 Gibson breakfasted in bed: she had done so ever since she had
 had the influenza; and, consequently, her own private letters
 always went up on her breakfast-tray.  One morning she came
 into the drawing-room earlier than usual, with an open letter
 in her hand.
  
 'I've had a letter from aunt Kirkpatrick, Cynthia.  She sends
 me my dividends, - your uncle is so busy.  But what does she
 mean by this, Cynthia' (holding out the letter to her, with a
 certain paragraph indicated by her finger).  Cynthia put her
 netting on one side, and looked at the writing.  Suddenly her
 face turned scarlet, and then became of a deadly white.  She
 looked at Molly, as if to gain courage from the strong serene
 countenance.
  
 'It means - mamma, I may as well tell you at once - Mr
 Henderson offered to me while I was in London, and I refused
 him.'
  
 'Refused him - and you never told me, but let me hear it
 by chance!  Really, Cynthia, I think you're very unkind.  And
 pray what made you refuse Mr Henderson?  Such a fine
 young man, - and such a gentleman!  Your uncle told me he
 had a very good private fortune besides.'
 
  'Mamma, do you forget that I have promised to marry
 Roger Hamley?' said Cynthia quietly.
 
  'No! of course I don't - how can I, with Molly always
 dinning the word "engagement" into my ears?  But really,
 when one considers all the uncertainties, - and after all it was
 not a distinct promise, - he seemed almost as if he might have
 looked forward to something of this sort.'
 
  'Of what sort, mamma?' said Cynthia sharply.
 
  'Why, of a more eligible offer.  He must have known you
 might change your mind, and meet with some one you liked
 better: so little as you had seen of the world.' Cynthia made
 an impatient movement, as if to stop her mother.
 
  'I never said I liked him better, - how can you talk so, mamma?
 I'm going to marry Roger, and there's an end of it.  I will not be
 spoken to about it again.' She got up and left the room.
 
  'Going to marry Roger!  That's all very fine.  But who is to
 guarantee his coming back alive!  And if he does, what have
 they to marry upon, I should like to know?  I don't wish her
 to have accepted Mr Henderson, though I am sure she liked
 him; and true love ought to have its course, and not be
 thwarted; but she need not have quite finally refused him
 until - well, until we had seen how matters turn out.  Such an
 invalid as I am too!  It has given me quite a palpitation at the
 heart.  I do call it quite unfeeling of Cynthia.'
 
  'Certainly,' began Molly; but then she remembered that her
 stepmother was far from strong, and unable to bear a protest
 in favour of the right course without irritation.  So she changed
 her speech into a suggestion of remedies for palpitation; and
 curbed her impatience to speak out her indignation at the
 contemplated falsehood to Roger.  But when they were alone,
 and Cynthia began upon the subject, Molly was less merciful.
 Cynthia said, - 
  
 'Well, Molly, and now you know all!  I've been longing to
 tell you - and yet somehow I could not.'
  
 'I suppose it was a repetition of Mr Coxe,' said Molly
 gravely.  'You were agreeable, - and he took it for something
 more.'
  'I don't know,' sighed Cynthia.  'I mean I don't know if I
 was agreeable or not.  He was very kind - very pleasant - but
 I did not expect it all to end as it did.  However, it is of no use
 thinking of it.'
 
  'No!' said Molly, simply; for to her mind the pleasantest and
 kindest person in the world put in comparison with Roger was
 as nothing; he stood by himself.  Cynthia's next words, - and
 they did not come very soon, - were on quite a different
 subject, and spoken in rather a pettish tone.  Nor did she
 allude again in jesting sadness to her late efforts at virtue.
 
  In a little while Mrs Gibson was able to accept the often-repeated invitation from the Towers to go and stay there for
 a day or two.  Lady Harriet told her that it would be a kindness
 to Lady Cumnor to come and bear her company in the life of
 seclusion the latter was still compelled to lead; and Mrs
 Gibson was flattered and gratified with a dim unconscious
 sense of being really wanted, not merely deluding herself
 into a pleasing fiction.  Lady Cumnor was in that state of
 convalescence common to many invalids.  The spring of life
 had begun again to flow, and with the flow returned the old
 desires and projects and plans, which had all become mere
 matters of indifference during the worst part of her illness.
 But as yet her bodily strength was not sufficient to be an agent
 to her energetic mind, and the difficulty of driving the ill-matched pair of body and will - one weak and languid, the
 other strong and stern, - made her ladyship often very
 irritable.  Mrs Gibson herself was not quite strong enough for
 a 'souffre-douleur;" and the visit to the Towers was not, on the
 whole, quite so happy a one as she had anticipated.  Lady
 Cuxhaven and Lady Harriet, each aware of their mother's
 state of health and temper, but only alluding to it as slightly
 as was absolutely necessary in their conversations with each
 other, took care not to leave 'Clare' too long with Lady
 Cumnor; but several times when one or the other went to
 relieve guard they found Clare in tears, and Lady Cumnor
 holding forth on some point on which she had been
 meditating during the silent hours of her illness, and on which
 she seemed to consider herself born to set the world to rights.
 Mrs Gibson was always apt to consider these remarks as
 addressed with a personal direction at some error of her own,
 and defended the fault in question with a sense of property in
 it, whatever it might happen to be.  The second and the last
 day of her stay at the Towers, Lady Harriet came in, and
 found her mother haranguing in an excited tone of voice, and
 Clare looking submissive and miserable and oppressed.
  
 'What's the matter, dear mamma?  Are not you tiring
 yourself with talking?'
  
 'No, not at all!  I was only speaking of the folly of people
 dressing above their station.  I began by telling Clare of the
 fashions of my grandmother's days, when every class had a
 sort of costume of its own, - and servants did not ape
 tradespeople, nor tradespeople professional men, and so on, - 
 and what must the foolish woman do but begin to justify her
 own dress, as if I had been accusing her, or even thinking
 about her at all.  Such nonsense!  Really, Clare, your husband
 has spoilt you sadly, if you can't listen to any one without
 thinking they are alluding to you!  People may flatter
 themselves just as much by thinking that their faults are
 always present to other people's minds, as if they believe that
 the world is always contemplating their individual charms and
 virtues.'
   
'I was told, Lady Cumnor, that this silk was reduced in
 price.  I bought it at Waterloo House' after the season was
 over,' said Mrs Gibson, touching the very handsome gown she
 wore in deprecation of Lady Cumnor's angry voice, and
 blundering on to the very source of irritation.
   'Again, Clare!  How often must I tell you I had no thought
 of you or your gowns, or whether they cost much or little;
 your husband has to pay for them, and it is his concern if you
 spend more on your dress than you ought to do.'
   'It was only five guineas for the whole dress,' pleaded Mrs
 Gibson.
   'And very pretty it is,' said Lady Harriet, stooping to
 examine it, and so hoping to soothe the poor aggrieved
 woman.  But Lady Cumnor went on, - 
 
  'No! you ought to have known me better by this time.  When
 I think a thing I say it out.  I don't beat about the bush.  I use
 straightforward language.  I will tell you where I think you
have been in fault, Clare, if you like to know.' Like it or not, the
 plain-speaking was coming now.  'You have spoilt that girl of
 yours till she does not know her own mind.  She has behaved
 abominably to Mr Preston; and it is all in consequence of the
 faults in her education.  You have much to answer for.'
   
 'Mamma, mamma!' said Lady Harriet, 'Mr Preston did not
 wish it spoken about.' And at the same moment Mrs Gibson
 exclaimed, 'Cynthia - Mr Preston!' in such a tone of surprise,
 that if Lady Cumnor had been in the habit of observing the
 revelations made by other people's tones and voices, she
 would have found out that Mrs Gibson was ignorant of the
 affair to which she was alluding.
    
'As for Mr Preston's wishes, I do not suppose I am bound
 to regard them when I feel it my duty to reprove error,' said
 Lady Cumnor loftily to Lady Harriet.  'And, Clare, do you
 mean to say that you are not aware that your daughter has
 been . engaged to Mr Preston for some time - years, I
 believe, - and has at last chosen to break it off, - and has used
 the Gibson girl - I forget her name, - as a cat's-paw, and made
 both her and herself the town's talk - the butt for all the gossip
 of Hollingford?  I remember when I was young there was a girl
 called Jilting Jessy.  You'll have to watch over your young
 lady, or she will get some such name.  I speak to you like a
 friend, Clare, when I tell you it's my opinion that girl of yours
 will get herself into some more mischief yet before she's safely
 married.  Not that I care one straw for Mr Preston's feelings.
 I don't even know if he's got feelings or not; but I know what
 is becoming in a young woman, and jilting is not.  And now
 you may both go away, and send Bradley to me, for I'm tired,
 and want to have a little sleep.'
  
  'Indeed, Lady Cumnor - will you believe me? - I do not
 think Cynthia was ever engaged to Mr Preston.  There was an
 old flirtation.  I was afraid -- '
 
   'Ring the bell for Bradley,' said Lady Cumnor, wearily: her
 eyes closed.  Lady Harriet had too much experience of her
 mother's moods not to lead Mrs Gibson away almost by main
 force, she protesting all the while that she did not think there
 was any truth in the statement, though it was dear Lady
 Cumnor that said it.
  Once in her own room, Lady Harriet said, 'Now, Clare, I'll
 tell you all about it; and I think you'll have to believe it, for
 it was Mr Preston himself who told me.  I heard of a great
 commotion in Hollingford about Mr Preston; and I met him
 riding out, and asked him what it was all about; he did not
 want to speak about it, evidently.  No man does, I suppose,
 when he's been jilted; and he made both papa and me promise
 not to tell; but papa did - and that's what mamma has for a
 foundation; you see, a really good one.'
 
  'But Cynthia is engaged to another man - she really is.  And
 another - a very good match indeed - has just been offering to
 her in London.  Mr Preston is always at the root of mischief.'
 
  'Nay!  I do think in this case it must be that pretty Miss
 Cynthia of yours who has drawn on one man to be engaged
 to her, - not to say two, - and another to make her an offer.  I
 can't endure Mr Preston, but I think it's rather hard to accuse
 him of having called up the rivals, who are, I suppose, the
 occasion of his being jilted.'
 
  'I don't know; I always feel as if he owed me a grudge, and
 men have so many ways of being spiteful.  You must
 acknowledge that if he had not met you I should not have had
 dear Lady Cumnor so angry with me.'
 
  'She only wanted to warn you about Cynthia.  Mamma has
 always been very particular about her own daughters.  She has been very severe on the least approach to flirting, and Mary will be like her!'
  
 'But Cynthia will flirt, and I can't help it.  She is not noisy,
 or giggling; she is always a lady - that everybody must own.
 But she has a way of attracting men, she must have inherited
 from me, I think.' And here she smiled faintly, and would not
 have rejected a confirmatory compliment, but none came.
 'However, I will speak to her; I will get to the bottom of the
 whole affair.  Pray tell Lady Cumnor that it has so fluttered me
 the way she spoke, about my dress and all.  And it only cost
 five guineas after all, reduced from eight!'
 
  'Well, never mind now.  You are looking very much flushed;
 quite feverish!  I left you too long in mamma's hot room.  But
 do you know she is so much pleased to have you here?' And
 so Lady Cumnor really was, in spite of the continual lectures
 which she gave 'Clare,' and which poor Mrs Gibson turned
 under as helplessly as the typical worm. Still it was
 something to have a countess to scold her; and that pleasure
 would endure when the worry was past.  And then Lady
 Harriet petted her more than usual to make up for what she
 had to go through in the convalescent's room; and Lady
 Cuxhaven talked sense to her, with dashes of science and deep
 thought intermixed, which was very flattering, although
 generally unintelligible; and Lord Cumnor, good-natured,
 good-tempered, kind, and liberal, was full of gratitude to her
 for her kindness in coming to see Lady Cumnor, and his
 gratitude took the tangible shape of a haunch of venison, to
 say nothing of lesser game.  When she looked back upon her
 visit as she drove home in the solitary grandeur of the Towers'
 carriage, there had been but one great enduring rub - Lady
 Cumnor's crossness - and she chose to consider Cynthia as the
 cause of that, instead of seeing the truth, which had been so
 often set before her by the members of her ladyship's family,
 that it took its origin in her state of health.  Mrs Gibson did
 not exactly mean to visit this one discomfort upon Cynthia,
 nor did she quite mean to upbraid her daughter for conduct
 as yet unexplained, and which might have some justification;
 but, finding her quietly sitting in the drawing-room, she sate
 down despondingly in her own little easy chair, and in reply
 to Cynthia's quick, pleasant greeting of, - 
   
'Well, mamma, how are you?  We did not expect you so
 early!  Let me take off your bonnet and shawl!' she replied
 dolefully, - 
   
'It has not been such a happy visit that I should wish to
 prolong it.' Her eyes were fixed on the carpet, and her face
 was as irresponsive to the welcome offered as she could make
 it.
   
'What has been the matter?' asked Cynthia, in all good faith.
 
  'You!  Cynthia - you!  I little thought when you were born
 how I should have to bear to hear you spoken about.'
 
  Cynthia threw back her head, and angry light came into her
 eyes.
 
  'What business have they with me?  How came they to talk
 about me in any way?'
  'Everybody is talking about you; it is no wonder they are.
 Lord Cumnor is sure to hear about everything always.  You
 should take more care about what you do, Cynthia, if you
 don't like being talked about.'
   'It rather depends upon what people say,' said Cynthia,
 affecting a lightness which she did not feel; for she had a
 provision of what was coming.
   'Well!  I don't like it, at any rate.  It is not pleasant to me to
 hear first of my daughter's misdoings from Lady Cumnor, and
 then to be lectured about her, and her flirting, and her jilting,
 as if I had had anything to do with it.  I can assure you it has
 quite spoilt my visit.  No! don't touch my shawl.  When I go
 to my room I can take it myself.'
   
Cynthia was brought to bay, and sate down; remaining with
 her mother, who kept sighing ostentatiously from time to
 time.
 
  'Would you mind telling me what they said?  If there are
 accusations abroad against me, it is as well I should know what
 they are.  Here's Molly' (as the girl entered the room, fresh
 from a morning's walk).  'Molly, mamma has come back from
 the Towers, and my lord and my lady have been doing me the
 honour to talk over my crimes and misdemeanors, and I am
 asking mamma what they have said.  I don't set up for more
 virtue than other people, but I can't make out what an earl and
 a countess have to do with poor little me.'
 
 'It was not for your sake!' said Mrs Gibson.  'It was for mine.
 They felt for me, for it is not pleasant to have one's child's
 name in everybody's mouth.'
 
  'As I said before, that depends upon how it is in everybody's
 mouth.  If I were going to marry Lord Hollingford, I make no
 doubt every one would be talking about me, and neither you
 nor I should mind it in the least.'
 
  'But this is no marriage with Lord Hollingford, so it is
 nonsense to talk as if it was.  They say you've gone and
 engaged yourself to Mr Preston, and now refuse to marry him;
 and they call that jilting.'
  
 'Do you wish me to marry him, mamma?' asked Cynthia,
 her face in a flame, her eyes cast down.  Molly stood by, very
 hot, not fully understanding it; and only kept where she was
  by the hope of coming in as sweetener or peacemaker, or
  helper of some kind.
 
   'No,' said Mrs Gibson, evidently discomfited by the
  question.  'Of course I don't; you have gone and entangled
  yourself with Roger Hamley, a very worthy young man; but
  nobody knows where he is, and if he's dead or alive; and he
  has not a penny if he is alive.'
  
  'I beg your pardon.  I know that he has some fortune from
  his mother; it may not be much, but he is not penniless; and
  he is sure to earn fame and great reputation, and with it money
  will come,' said Cynthia.
  
  'You've entangled yourself with him, and you've done
  something of the sort with Mr Preston, and got yourself into
  such an imbroglio' (Mrs Gibson could not have said 'mess' for
  the world, although the word was present to her mind), 'that
  when a really eligible person comes forward - handsome,
  agreeable, and quite the gentleman - and a good private
  fortune into the bargain, you have to refuse him.  You'll end
  as an old maid, Cynthia, and it will break my heart.'
  
  'I daresay I shall,' said Cynthia, quietly.  'I sometimes think
  I am the kind of person of which old maids are made!' She
  spoke seriously, and a little sadly.
   
 Mrs Gibson began again.  'I don't want to know your secrets
  as long as they are secrets; but when all the town is talking
  about you, I think I ought to be told.'
   
 'But, mamma, I did not know I was such a subject of
  conversation; and even now I can't make out how it has come
  about.'
  
  'No more can I. I only know that they say you've been
  engaged to Mr Preston, and ought to have married him, and
  that I can't help it, if you did not choose, any more than I
  could have helped your refusing Mr Henderson; and yet I am
  constantly blamed for your misconduct.  I think it's very hard.'
  Mrs Gibson began to cry.  Just then her husband came in.
  
  'You here, my dear!  Welcome back,' said he, coming up to
  her courteously, and kissing her cheek.  'Why, what's the
  matter?  Tears?' and he heartily wished himself away again.
  
  'Yes!' said she, raising herself up, and clutching after
  sympathy of any kind, at any price.  'I'm come home again,
 and I'm telling Cynthia how Lady Cumnor has been so cross
 to me, and all through her.  Did you know she had gone and
 engaged herself to Mr Preston, and then broken it off?
 Everybody is talking about it, and they know it up at the
 Towers.'
  
 For one moment his eyes met Molly's, and he
 comprehended it all.  He made his lips up into a whistle, but
 no sound came.  Cynthia had quite lost her defiant manner
 since her mother had spoken to Mr Gibson.  Molly sate down
 by her.
  
 'Cynthia,' said he, very seriously.
  
 'Yes!' she answered, softly.
  
 'Is this true?  I had heard something of it before - not much;
 but there is scandal enough about to make it desirable that you
 should have some protector - some friend who knows the
 whole truth.'
  
 No answer.  At last she said, 'Molly knows it all.'
  
 Mrs Gibson, too, had been awed into silence by her
 husband's grave manner, and she did not like to give vent to
 the jealous thought in her mind that Molly had known the
 secret of which she was ignorant.  Mr Gibson replied to
 Cynthia with some sternness, - 
 
  'Yes!  I know that Molly knows it all, and that she has had
 to bear slander and ill words for your sake, Cynthia.  But she
 refused to tell me more.'
 
  'She told you that much, did she?' said Cynthia, aggrieved.
 
  'I could not help it,' said Molly.
 
  'She did not name your name,' said Mr Gibson.  'At the time
 I believe she thought she had concealed it - but there was no
 mistaking who it was.'
 
  'Why did she speak about it at all?' said Cynthia, with some
 bitterness.  Her tone - her question stirred up Mr Gibson's
 passion.
 
  'It was necessary for her to justify herself to me - I heard my
 daughter's reputation attacked for the private meetings she
 had given to Mr Preston - I came to her for an explanation.
 There is no need to be ungenerous, Cynthia, because you have
 been a flirt and a jilt even to the degree of dragging Molly's
 name down into the same mire.'
   Cynthia lifted her bowed-down head, and looked at him.
 
   'You say that of me, Mr Gibson.  Not knowing what the
 circumstances are, you say that!'
 
   He had spoken too strongly: he knew it.  But he could not
 bring himself to own it just at that moment.  The thought of
 his sweet innocent Molly, who had borne so much patiently,
 prevented any retractation of his words at the time.
 
   'Yes!' he said, 'I do say it.  You cannot tell what evil constructions are put upon actions ever so slightly beyond the
 bounds of maidenly propriety.  I do say that Molly has had a
 great deal to bear, in consequence of this clandestine
 engagement of yours, Cynthia - there may be extenuating
 circumstances, I acknowledge - but you will need to
 remember them all to excuse your conduct to Roger Hamley,
 when he comes home.  I asked you to tell me the full truth, in
 order that until he comes, and has a legal right to protect you,
 I may do so.' No answer. 'It certainly requires explanation,'
 continued he.  'Here are you, - engaged to two men at once to
 all appearances!' Still no answer.  'To be sure, the gossips of
 the town have not yet picked out the fact of Roger Hamley's
 being your accepted lover; but scandal has been resting on
 Molly, and ought to have rested on you, Cynthia - for a
 concealed engagement to Mr Preston - necessitating meetings
 in all sorts of places unknown to your friends.'
  
  'Papa,' said Molly, 'if you knew all you would not speak so to
 Cynthia.  I wish she would tell you herself all that she has told me.'
  
  'I am ready to hear whatever she has to say,' said he.  But
 Cynthia said, - 
  
  'No! you have prejudged me; you have spoken to me as you
 had no right to speak.  I refuse to give you my confidence, or
 accept your help.  People are very cruel to me' - her voice
 trembled for a moment, - 'I did not think you would have
 been.  But I can bear it.'
  
  And then, in spite of Molly, who would have detained her
 by force, she tore herself away, and hastily left the room.
 
   'Oh, papa!' said Molly, crying, and clinging to him, 'do let
 me tell you all.' And then she suddenly recollected the
 awkwardness of telling some of the details of the story before
 Mrs Gibson, and stopped short.
   'I think, Mr Gibson, you have been very very unkind to my
 poor fatherless child,' said Mrs Gibson, emerging from
 behind her pocket-handkerchief.  'I only wish her poor father
 had been alive, and all this would never have happened.'
   
'Very probably.  Still I cannot see of what either she or you
 have to complain.  Inasmuch as we could, I and mine have
 sheltered her; I have loved her; I do love her almost as if she
 were my own child - as well as Molly, I do not pretend to do.'
 
  'That's it, Mr Gibson! you do not treat her like your own
 child.' But in the midst of this wrangle Molly stole out, and
 went in search of Cynthia.  She thought she bore an olive-branch of healing in the sound of her father's just spoken
 words: 'I do love her almost as if she were my own child.' But
 Cynthia was locked into her room, and refused to open the'
 door.
   'Open to me, please,' pleaded Molly.  'I have something to
 say to you - I want to see you - do open!'
   'No!' said Cynthia.  'Not now.  I am busy.  Leave me alone.
 I don't want to hear what you have got to say.  I do not want
 to see you.  By-and-by we shall meet, and then -- ' Molly stood
 quite quietly, wondering what new words of more persuasion
 she could use.  In a minute or two Cynthia called out, 'Are you
 there still, Molly?' and when Molly answered 'Yes,' and
 hoped for a relenting, the same hard metallic voice, telling of
 resolution and repression, spoke out, 'Go away.  I cannot bear
 the feeling of your being there - waiting and listening.  Go
 downstairs - out of the house - anywhere away.  It is the most
 you can do for me, now.'



PART SIX (Chapters LI - LX)




 Top of Page  Mitsuharu Matsuoka's Home Page