Chapter IX: Part 9

Altogether fortune was smiling on Duke and his wife. And Evelyn’s busy little brain meant to extract more smiles from the capricious lady before she had done with her. It had not been only and entirely for selfish reasons that she had dragged her sister from home to “rough it” for a fortnight at Palden Grange, declaring that she could not possibly “manage” without Philippa’s advice and practical help about everything.

“Especially as Duke, you know, mamma, will be out all day. He is infatuated about his new work and says he has such a lot to learn, and he doesn’t care a bit what our house is to look like. No, I _must_ have Phil.”

And Phil she had, the girl herself neither urging nor objecting to the plan. Philippa was perplexed and unsettled in those days. She could not understand Bernard Gresham’s silence. For the weeks were passing, and the reasons for seeing and hearing nothing more of him, which for a time had satisfied her, were no longer in existence. Evelyn, too, was puzzled; half prepared to be angry with her hero, and at other times inclined to throw the blame on her sister’s “stand-off” manner.

“Though after all,” she reflected, with a return to her usual practical common-sense, “it is very awkward for men sometimes. And in our case it is not as if we had a big house and lots of people staying with us, so that he could easily hint to me that he would like an invitation. That would be so _very_ marked in our case. No, the only thing is for them to meet again ‘accidentally.’”

And she set her quick wits to work, and that successfully. She found out that the master of Merle made a practice of spending Easter there, usually coming down a week or so beforehand. And this year there was no doubt of his being there, as he had been so much away during the winter that various things were calling for his attention. Palden Grange was, as has been mentioned, only a few miles from Merle-in-the-Wold. It was necessary that Evelyn, as well as her husband, should be on the spot for some little time, to direct and superintend the alterations going on, so all turned out naturally, Evelyn arranging that their residence at Palden should include Easter-tide, _and_ her sister’s company.

Philippa felt as if she must resign herself to fate. She would have had an inexpressible horror of going out of her way or even seeming to do so, to meet Mr Gresham again, yet, on the other hand, any refusal to do what the Headforts so greatly urged would have been disobliging and unkind, unless she could have given the true reason for it. And that reason, above, all the putting it into words, seemed to her as indelicate to entertain as the converse. For after all, Mr Gresham had not literally committed himself, and everybody said, and she was always reading so in stories, that men were very changeable and capricious—even good, well-meaning men.

“Far more so than women,” thought the girl. “No, I must just go on my own way and not swerve to right or left through any thought of him. That is the only thing to do if I wish to retain my own self-respect.”

So Evelyn had her way, and here they were at Palden; here they had been for more than a week, as busy as bees, and nothing had been heard of Mr Gresham, no allusion even had been made to their vicinity to his home, except that one day when something had been said by Duke about taking Phil over to see the gardens at Merle before they left, and she had not replied, Evelyn had not seconded the proposal. She had indeed rather discouraged it, for which her sister had mentally thanked her.

“Imagine our going over there, and his possibly having come home and meeting me like the girl in _Pride and Prejudice_—could anything be more horrible?” thought Philippa.

And she was grateful for the sort of tacit understanding of her feelings which her sister seemed to show, though at the same time rather surprised at it.

Then suddenly the aspect of everything changed.

That very afternoon—the afternoon of the day on which the sisters had been discussing the probability of the work being sufficiently advanced to allow of their return to Greenleaves within a fortnight—as Philippa and Evelyn were unpacking some especially choice china which had just arrived, and which was to be carefully locked up in one of the innumerable cupboards of the old house till Mrs Marmaduke Headfort should return “for good,” the young servant, who was their temporary attendant, appeared in the doorway with a face of some consternation.

“May I show myself in?” said a voice in the doorway.

“If you please, ma’am,” she began, “there’s a gentleman called to see you. I told him you were very busy, but he _would_ come in, while I told you. Mr Gresham is his name.”

“Where is he?” said Evelyn, getting up as she spoke, for she had been kneeling in front of a packing-case—her face rosier than usual. “What room did you show him into? Not into the drawing-room, assuredly,” she went on, with a laugh, to Philippa, “for it is blockaded with ladders and scaffolding, and—”

“May I not show myself in?” said a voice in the doorway. “I have only just come down and heard of your being here,” and so saying the new-comer came forward.

He shook hands cordially with Evelyn; the circumstances made anything like formality impossible, yet Philippa thought she detected a touch of constraint in his manner as he turned to her. For the moment she had not leisure to ask herself if this pained or gratified her; her whole efforts being devoted to the maintaining in herself an entirely calm exterior, and this Evelyn’s ready tact greatly assisted. She chatted merrily to Mr Gresham about the house, and the furniture, and their future plans, till her two companions grew completely at ease, to all outward appearance at least. But it was not till shortly before Mr Gresham left, that Philippa allowed herself to yield to the happy consciousness which had gilded the last days of her stay at Cannes.

For it was not fancy—he did hold her hand, for a moment longer than conventionality permitted, and though he addressed Evelyn as he made plans for meeting again on the morrow, it was Philippa’s eyes that his sought.

“Yes, you must all come over to luncheon,” he said, “and leave the packing-cases to themselves. I only wish you would come to Merle altogether while you are in the neighbourhood.”

Chapter Twenty Two. On the Way to the Fish-Ponds.

During the next few days all outward circumstances seemed to combine in one direction. The weather was perfect; Evelyn the most tactful of chaperons; Merle itself surpassed in beauty all that the sisters had heard of it. Their host—for such he practically was, as nearly every day saw them Mr Gresham’s guests—quietly exerted all the powers he possessed to enhance the charms of his home. And Philippa lived in the sunshine of the present, in happy confidence as to the future.

“It _must_ be all right,” she told herself. Only—once or twice—an almost imperceptible hesitation in the young man’s manner struck her, or her imagination, with a faint shadow of misgiving, and occasionally an unspoken inquiry in Evelyn’s eyes startled her a little.

Why did he not speak definitely?

Though even as she thought this, she dismissed the question.

“I should have no misgiving,” she said; “I have no reason for it. It is only that miserable secret in the background! If he would but give me a chance of telling him about it; it would be so delightful to find, as I know I should, how fanciful and exaggerated I have been in fearing that a man like him would really be changed to me because of it.”

The opportunity was to come, as such things often do, when she was least expecting it. Two or three days before Easter, Michael Gresham made his appearance at Merle. His cousin welcomed him cordially, though, truth to tell, he had almost forgotten this arranged-for visit.

“So you’re all alone,” said Michael at breakfast the first morning—he had travelled down by a night train—“I am all the better pleased, though rather surprised. You are not generally so contented with your own society.”

Bernard Gresham did not at once reply. He stooped to pat Solomon, who, needless to say, was in attendance; an unusual piece of amiability which did not escape Michael’s attention, any more than the slightly heightened colour on his cousin’s face, as he turned to reply.

“Well,” he began, “I did mean to ask two or three people down, but it rather went out of my head. I’ve only been here for a week, and I’ve been pretty busy looking after the Headforts. They are at Palden Grange; did you know? It’s very rough, of course. They are getting it into order, so it was only common humanity to ask them to come over here as much as they liked.”

“Oh, indeed,” said Michael. “Duke Headfort and his wife, of course, you mean?”

“Ye-es,” Bernard resumed, “and—her sister. She is helping her.”

Michael said nothing. Bernard wished he would speak, but as he gave no signs of breaking the silence, Mr Gresham began again.

“You remember,” he said, with as near an approach to awkwardness as was possible for him, “our conversation that evening some weeks ago?”

“Yes,” Michael replied, “I remember it.”

“I have heard nothing more,” said Bernard. “I have not come across those people again; the Worthings, I mean. And—well, I think I’ve made up my mind to risk it; to go through with it. Fate seems leading up to it somehow. I was by no means sure that she was here when I came down, though it did occur to me as possible that she might be with her sister, and—I have seen a great deal of her these last few days. I cannot associate her with any unladylike escapade of the kind that was hinted at I cannot believe that there is really any risk to run. There must have been some absurd mistake.”

“And,” said Michael, “you have no misgivings as—as to her reciprocating your—” He hesitated.

Bernard smiled.

“In ordinary cases that would hardly be a fair question,” he said, “but as I have given you my full confidence so far, I think I may allow that that part of it appears to be all right.”

Michael got up from his seat, and strolled across to the fireplace. There, leaning against the mantelpiece, he calmly surveyed his cousin. “Then,” he said, “I may almost congratulate you at once? You will doubtless allow me to do so formally as soon as possible?”

“Certainly,” Bernard replied. “You shall be the very first to hear of it.”

“And you intend to leave that piece of gossip at rest then?” said Michael, after a moment’s silence.

A shadow crossed Mr Gresham’s face.

“What else can I do?” he inquired.

“Nothing,” Michael replied. “Most certainly nothing; but granting that she is all that I feel sure she must be, if there is any truth in the story, anything that a man could dislike his wife having been mixed up in, there is _her_ point of view to be considered. _She_ will not let it rest.”

“How do you mean?” said Bernard, raising his eyebrows.

“She will tell you about it herself, of course,” said Michael, curtly.

Bernard seemed considerably discomposed.

“You had better be prepared for the possibility,” Michael continued. “There is generally some root for gossip, however exaggerated. I advise you to face this for both your sakes.”

“You certainly are a Job’s comforter if ever there was one,” said his cousin, in a tone of annoyance. “Do you mean to say that I should make further inquiry, or give her an opportunity of explaining it before I commit myself? It would be so awkward, you see. I scarcely—”

“Good heavens! no,” said Michael, with angry contempt. “Would I suggest your insulting a woman? I am only forewarning you that if there is anything that requires explanation _she_ will volunteer it, and on this account you had better be sure of your own mind, or you may find yourself in a _very_ awkward position, to put it mildly.”

Mr Gresham’s perceptions were not of the order to detect the covert sarcasm of the last few words.

“I see,” he replied, consideringly. “Thank you for the suggestion. It can do no harm to be prepared. But I flatter myself if any one can steer their way through a tangle of the kind, _I_ can do so. Thanks, Michael, all the same,” and with his serenity quite restored, he got up from the breakfast-table.

The expression of Michael’s face when he found himself alone grew hard and dark.

“What evil genius,” he said to himself, “brought me down here at this crisis? I wish I were at the antipodes! I almost think I shall go back to town at once, but—it is just possible that, mixed up as I am in this affair, I may be of use to her. Heaven knows what is going to come of it all! That unlucky secret of hers, and Bernard’s smallness of character! Will she be disillusioned? or does he really care enough for her to rise above himself? And will she perhaps spend the rest of her life in worshipping an ideal and never find out her mistake? Such things have been with such a woman.” He sighed and turned away from the window where he had been standing.

“No,” he said, “I’ll stay and see it out.”

That same afternoon, when writing in the room which at Merle was always considered his own, Michael heard through the open window the sound of voices on the terrace below. One he recognised immediately as belonging to Mrs Marmaduke Headfort, then a man’s voice, which he supposed to be that of her husband; Michael had never met Captain Headfort. Himself of course unobserved, he approached the window. Yes, there was a third visitor. It was the first time he had seen Miss Raynsworth in her own character, and suddenly there flashed upon him the full strangeness of the position.

“I shall have to be introduced to her,” he thought. “Will little Mrs Headfort be equal to it? She knows at least that her sister and I were travelling companions, even if she has been told no more as to my part in it. And how will the girl herself stand it? I know how essentially candid she must be. I must do my best to make it as little awkward as possible. They have come over to tea, no doubt; I will keep out of the way till we meet in the drawing-room.”

A moment or two later his cousin put his head in at the door.

“The Headforts are here, Michael,” he said. “We are going through the woods to the old fish-ponds; do you care to come or not?”

Michael shook his head.

“I am not quite ready,” he said; “you’ll be back to tea, I suppose? You can introduce me to your friends then. To Miss Raynsworth and Headfort, I mean—Mrs Headfort of course I know.”

Bernard Gresham scarcely stayed to hear his reply.

“All right,” he said. “They’re waiting for me,” and he shut the door.

Half-way to the fish-ponds, Evelyn’s strength showed signs of giving out.

“Duke,” she said, plaintively, “if I go much farther you will have to carry me back. You forget that we walked here from Palden!”

Duke looked intensely penitent.

“Of course,” he said; “why didn’t you say so before, Evey, when Gresham proposed it?”

“I didn’t know how far it was,” she replied. “Is it _much_ farther, Mr Gresham?”

Bernard hesitated.

“I am extremely sorry, Mrs Headfort,” he said. “I’m afraid I must own we haven’t come half-way. But of course if it is too much for you we had better give it up.”

“Oh, dear, no,” said Evelyn, quickly. “That would vex me dreadfully. It is such a lovely day. You three go on, and I’ll easily find my way back to Merle, and wait on the terrace for you. I shall enjoy the quiet, and it would be a shame to stay indoors on such a perfect afternoon.”

“Nonsense,” said Duke. “Of course I’ll take you back, and then I’ll stroll this way again and meet you and Philippa on your return,” he added to Mr Gresham.

Philippa opened her lips as if about to remonstrate, but before she had time to speak Bernard broke in.

“Don’t say you are tired too, Miss Raynsworth. I had set my heart on showing you the fish-ponds. The woods there are in perfection at this time of year.”

“I am not tired,” said Philippa, quietly. “Perhaps it is the best thing to do. Be sure you rest well, Evey, for there’s the walk home to consider.”

“Oh, no, you must let me send you back, of course,” said Mr Gresham. “_Au revoir_, then,” and the quartet separated.

Philippa and her host walked on some little way in silence. Both, though neither fully realised it for the other, were making up their minds to a decided step. For the last few days had made the girl resolve that if circumstances combined to render her doing so possible, she would tell Mr Gresham the facts of the travesty she had since so bitterly regretted. And if anything had been wanting to confirm her in this decision, Michael Gresham’s arrival would have done so.

But the task before her was far from an easy one. Independently of her own not unnatural shrinking from the subject, there was the terror lest in volunteering this confidence she should appear prematurely to take for granted any special interest in her affairs on the part of her companion; any right, so to say, on his side, to know all details of her life. How could she broach the subject?

She glanced at him; he was not looking at her, but gazing before him with a preoccupied expression. And in some degree to her relief, just as she was nervously clearing her throat to begin to speak, he suddenly turned towards her.

“We have still fully a mile before we get to the fish ponds,” he said, “but I do not think we need walk quite as fast as we are doing.”

Philippa slackened her pace without speaking.

“I am so glad,” Mr Gresham continued, “of this lucky chance of speaking to you uninterruptedly.” Then for the first time he hesitated.

“I—you,” he went on, “you must know, Miss Raynsworth, how much interest I have come to feel in—you, and—in all that concerns you.”

Philippa glanced up quickly. What was coming? His words would normally have admitted of but one interpretation, but something in his tone, its calm, almost business-like deliberateness, made her doubtful. For the moment she was on the point of availing herself of this preamble as an opening for what she had made up her mind to say. Then she hesitated, and while she did so he went on.

“I—I am not impulsive, Miss Raynsworth. I am considerate by nature, and in anything involving not only my own happiness but that of another, I am deeply conscious that it behoves me to be doubly so. A mistake may be made in two minutes which a lifetime cannot undo. So you will not misunderstand me if I confess that it has taken me many weeks—nay, months—to decide upon—”

There was no doubt now, he was going to propose to her, and with the disappearance of all uncertainty on this head, her own resolution revived. In her nervousness she was for the moment unconscious of the curious egotism of his words, of the entire absence of any nobility of self-forgetfulness, any touch of impassioned feeling in his manner. Her own generosity of character failed to realise its absence in him; her one uppermost impulse was to prevent him in the slightest degree from acting in the dark.

“Stop, Mr Gresham,” she said, hurriedly; “before you say any more I have something to say to you.”

She gave a little gasp; she _felt_ herself growing pale. Something made her look up. Instead of the expression of surprise which she had unconsciously expected to meet in his face, her quick instincts perceived a slight stiffening, a sort of indescribable drawing-back instead of eager protest that nothing she could say would alter his longing for her to hear him out.

And could she have seen into her companion’s mind at that moment, she would scarcely have believed the reflections she would there have read.

“She _has_ something to tell,” he was thinking to himself. “I have not been too cautious.”

And aloud he said, quietly:

“As you wish, of course, Miss Raynsworth.”

She plunged into it.

“You may remember,” she began, “a little incident at Cannes which annoyed you at the time—naturally so—and annoyed you still more, I imagine, afterwards, when I refused to let you resent the impertinence I had been subjected to. I could not have done otherwise, as you will hear. I had promised my mother before leaving home to tell no one what I am now going to tell you, without her leave.”

As she spoke there was an imperceptible lightening of Mr Gresham’s expression.

“Your mother knew!” he ejaculated.

“Of course,” she exclaimed, too bent upon her recital to feel surprise at his words. “This was how it all happened.” And forcing herself to speak with perfect calmness, she began at the beginning of the story and told it all, simply and without comment, only omitting the names of any not immediately concerned in the little drama—such as those of Michael Gresham and Mrs Shepton—and carefully exonerating from all shadow of blame in the matter her sister and her parents.

When she had finished there fell a dead silence. With all her self-control Philippa could not bring herself to raise her eyes—the conflicting feelings in her mind made her almost physically giddy.

Then as the silence continued, a new element began to make itself felt. Her pride awoke and she reared her head half defiantly.

“Does he think I am going tamely to await his judgment upon me?” she thought to herself. “If so, he shall—”

But at that moment Mr Gresham’s voice at last made itself heard.

“I have to thank you, Miss Raynsworth,” he said, gently, “for giving me your confidence. You will find it has not been misplaced. You have done the best thing possible in telling me what you have done. Though—” he hesitated, “it is best to be perfectly candid,” he went on, “I cannot but own that it is—a terrible disappointment to me to have to associate anything of so extraordinary a kind with one whom—”

Philippa turned upon him abruptly, her face crimsoning. Something in his measured tone, more than in his actual words, began slowly to insinuate into her a strange, chill misgiving. And why at that moment did there recur to her memory, in advantageous contrast to Mr Gresham’s carefully considered and gently expressed disapproval, his cousin Michael’s stern, almost rough censure of what she had done?

Before she had time to open her lips, her companion began again.

“Excuse me,” he said, “for interrupting you—I think you were going to speak. I must ask you to listen to me first. I will be perfectly frank. I was not _wholly_ unprepared for this strange disclosure. The incident at Cannes never quite left my memory, and it was followed up by certain remarks or hints as to something peculiar in which you had been mixed up, which came to my ears more recently.”

“How? and where?” demanded Philippa. For one half instant the thought crossed her brain—could Michael Gresham have been faithless to his trust?—but it was as quickly dismissed. Rough and rugged he might be, but _true_, she felt certain he was.

“I scarcely know that I have any right to reply to your question,” said Mr Gresham, “and no purpose would be fulfilled by my doing so. All that was said to me was very vague, so vague that I have allowed myself to be buoyed up by hopes—now alas! shattered—that the warn—hints I should say, rested on no real foundation. But do not mistake me, Miss Raynsworth,” as Philippa again seemed on the point of speaking.

“Your confidence, I repeat, has not been misplaced. I do not think—no, deliberately speaking—I do not think any lasting annoyance or ill-results need be anticipated—especially when—” But here even _his_ self-assurance shrank from completing the sentence. “I want to say,” he went on, “that notwithstanding all the pain and regret which I cannot deny I am feeling, my attitude towards you is not radically shaken. In time, I trust and believe, the whole miserable episode will be forgotten—not only by the few outsiders who may have suspected any mystery, but by myself.”

He glanced at Philippa as he spoke, expecting to detect a flush of grateful relief on her face. What he did see there, was less easy to interpret. She was no longer red, though, on the other hand, but slightly paler than usual, and she turned her eyes fully upon him without uttering a word.

“I must express myself still more plainly,” he said, almost as if addressing a child, “as _my wife_, there will, I feel sure, be nothing, comparatively speaking, to dread in the future. Your candour has disarmed my scruples, for I know I can trust that never, under any conceivable circumstances, could you again be tempted so to set propriety and—and dignity at nought.”

Still she did not speak.

“Miss Raynsworth,” he said at last, “Miss Raynsworth—Philippa,” he exclaimed. “Do you not understand me?” and for the first time a very shadowy apprehension that possibly, just possibly he had appeared too sure of his ground suggested itself. “I—the circumstances have been so exceptional—I have had no opportunity so far of assuring you of the depth and sincerity of my feelings towards you—of my devotion. You must allow they have been well tested. And they have stood the test! I ask you now to be my wife—my happiness is in your hands.”

“And I, Mr Gresham,” Philippa said at last, her dark eyes turned full upon him, “decline, distinctly and definitely decline, the honour you have done me.” He grew scarlet.

“What do you mean?” he said, for once almost rudely. “What has all this conversation been about, if this was what you intended? What was your motive for telling me all you have done? Have I offended you, and how? Your pride has taken fire in some unreasonable way. How can I assure you that the thing will not weigh further with me—that—that—I shall do my best to forget it? Where would you be so protected as in the position of my wife?”

“I understand you perfectly, Mr Gresham,” Philippa replied in a calm even voice, “though at the same time I confess that previously to this conversation I had lamentably failed to do so. On my side, I thank you for your candour, and I repeat, as decidedly as words can convey my meaning, that I decline the proposal you have made me.”

He still seemed unable to believe her.

“Have you been playing with me all this time?” he said, harshly. “It is inconceivable. But what can be your reason for changing so suddenly? I have a right to ask, and a right to know.”

“Yes,” she said, “perhaps you have, though I do not know that my reason will much enlighten you. It is simply this. I am entirely convinced that we are utterly unsuited to each other, and that in marrying you I should be entering upon what would prove a tremendous mistake. You do not, and never would, understand me; surely that should suffice.”

He smiled, bitterly enough. Something in her manner carried conviction home to him, through all the thick folds of his self-esteem.

“And may I inquire further,” he said, “what has thus magically caused the scales to fall from your eyes as regards my poor desserts? For you allow, you could not indeed do otherwise, that the change, however complete, is a very sudden one?”

She turned and looked at him. There was a strange wistfulness in her expression.

“No,” she said, sadly; “I am sorry if I have caused you any pain, but I cannot explain anything more. You would not understand. I am very tired,” she continued, “I do not want to go farther. Would you mind walking back to meet my brother-in-law and tell him I have gone straight home to Palden? I can find my way from here.”

He bowed without speaking and turned away, too absorbed by his own intense mortification to give much heed to her last words, or to feel any compassion for the suffering too plainly betrayed by her white face and faltering voice.

The sound of his retreating footsteps on the crisp, dry path died rapidly away, and Philippa was alone.

Chapter Twenty Three. Ended.

For a few moments the withdrawal of the intense restraint she had put upon herself caused all other feelings to be merged in that of relief. Philippa glanced round her, and seeing a moss-covered tree stump a few paces off, she made her way to it and sat down.

Then slowly, but all too surely, crept up, one by one, the reflections she could not but face.

It seemed to her that years had passed since Evelyn and her husband had turned back, leaving her and her late companion by themselves.

Yes, indeed, to use his own words; “the scales had fallen from her eyes,” and yet how almost intangible it all seemed! How little some people would understand the terrible and complete revulsion of feeling which had overwhelmed her!

“Nothing,” she thought, “nothing can be quite so horrible as to find that one has been worshipping an idol of clay; a thing which did not exist except in my own imagination. I have no right to feel resentful. Taking him for what he is, he did not behave badly. He evidently _meant_ to be generous and chivalrous. But the pain of it to me is none the less. It is far, far worse, at least so it seems to me just now, than to have found out that he did not care for me as I did for him, and yet to have kept my ideal. ‘Disillusionment’ is horrible.”

The tears slowly welled up into her eyes. She brushed them away indignantly.

“What a weak fool I am!” she thought. “If I had any strength of character, I _should_ be, I suppose, glad to have found it out in time.”

For bitterly as she was suffering, she was spared the misery of any wavering as to the necessity of her decision. It was done, once for all, done! But other considerations could not be altogether stifled, and Philippa was still very young.

“It is so disappointing,” she said, half audibly, “in smaller ways, too. Poor Evey, I know how she has been wishing for it, and, I am afraid, mamma! I am only thankful not to have let myself go further, even in fancy. I shall soon be able to pull myself together,” and a sort of wave of courage and even relief seemed to sweep over her, to her own surprise.

How was it that she was not more crushed? After all, she asked herself in the clearer light of her present vision, _was_ the “disillusionment” so entirely unexpected? Had she, unconsciously, blinded herself, and refused to admit the possibility of the “something wanting” in Bernard Gresham’s character? If not, whence had arisen her constant self-questionings as to how her confession would be received? Why the doubts that _were_ there all the time? often as she had repeated to herself that after all she had done nothing wrong, nothing really calling for shame or self-abasement.

But her mind was growing too wearied and confused to think out this new suggestion. She shivered slightly.

“Oh, how I wish I were at home,” she thought, “and could tell mamma everything! She would understand better than I do myself. It is just as if a door had shut in front of me and all was blank!”

It was really growing cold, for the evenings were still chilly, with the chilliness of early spring, and the sun had gone down some time before. Philippa got up. How long she had sat there she could not tell, and confidently as she had spoken of knowing her way to Palden, she was really slightly at a loss, though familiar with the general direction she should keep to. She retraced her steps for some little distance till she came to a point whence another path should lead to the high-road. She came upon this side-path more quickly than she had expected, but turned into it without misgiving, and satisfied that she would come out at the right place, she walked on, allowing her thoughts to re-absorb her. In spite of herself her imagination persisted in re-enacting, mistily yet painfully, the events of the afternoon, till she almost felt that she could bear it no longer. But there came a diversion. Suddenly it struck her that the distance to the high-road was strangely long. She stopped short and looked about her. There was no sign of the wood coming to an end; on the contrary, the trees seemed thicker than before.

“I must have taken the wrong path,” she thought, drearily. “Indeed, this is scarcely like a path at all. I had better go back again, I suppose; I may come across the other.”

She turned and went on, looking about her attentively. Some twenty yards or so farther back, the footpath she was on joined another.

“I must have gone wrong here,” she said, and, though with some little hesitation, she turned again.

But it was no use; she only seemed to plunge deeper into the wood, though she tried more than one intercepting path. She was growing very tired, and a feeling of irritation at herself added to her discomfort.

“I really need not have brought this upon myself,” she thought, “If I don’t find my way home soon, there will be a hue and cry after me; nothing could be more odious.”

It was with a feeling of relief that at last she heard the sound of some one approaching. Scarcely of footsteps; it was more a rustle among the still thickly strewn dead leaves of the previous autumn, which by degrees grew into a patter of little feet.

“Solomon!” she exclaimed, as the dog rushed at her in effusive greeting.

But Solomon’s appearance meant that of his master as well.

“I must make the best of it,” thought Philippa, as she realised this. “He will at any rate be able to show me the way to Palden, and if he has not met his cousin he need not suspect anything. I will just tell him I have lost my way.”

A second or two later, Michael Gresham came within view. He started in astonishment as he caught sight of the girl.

“Miss Raynsworth!” he exclaimed, naturally quite forgetful of the fact that this was the first time he had met her in her own character. “How—why—are you alone?”

She looked up at him. It was evident, to her relief, that his first sensation at seeing her was that of pure surprise. But as his glance fell on her white, almost drawn face, and her unmistakable look of exhaustion, his expression warmed into one of deep concern.

“Something has happened,” he thought to himself. “That mean-spirited fellow. Can I have made mischief when I meant to shield her? His clumsy vanity has done it, no doubt.”

But it was with matter-of-fact kindliness only that he went on to speak to her.

“You are looking so dreadfully tired,” he said. “Where are the others? I thought you all started together. Have you lost your way?”

“Yes,” said Philippa, with a kind of gasp. “Evelyn, my sister, got tired, and they turned back. I—I thought I could find the road to Palden by myself.”

The very incoherence of her explanation enlightened him.

“Get off, Solomon,” he exclaimed, in a gruffer tone than the dachshund, still leaping and jumping about Philippa, was accustomed to. “He has not forgotten you, you see,” Michael went on, eager to say something or anything to hide his own suspicion of the situation. Then the colour rose quickly to his face as he realised the awkwardness of the allusion.

“I should say—” he began again, but Philippa, oblivious of any cause for embarrassment in his words, answered, quietly:

“No, the dear dog, and I have never forgotten him. But will you put me on my road home? I _am very_ tired,” she added, faintly, though trying to smile.

It seemed to Michael that her white face grew still whiter as she spoke. He half started forward fearing she was going to fall, but she pulled herself together again with a strong effort, and he, instinctively divining that she was just the sort of girl to detest anything approaching to a “scene,” drew back quickly and went on speaking as if he had not noticed the passing weakness which had come over her.

“You have not wandered so very far after all,” he said. “Every turn in these woods has been familiar to me since I was a child, so I can soon set you right. But,”—and here he was forced to allude to her exhausted condition—“do you think you can possibly walk back all the way to Palden?”

He did not in the least allude to her returning to Merle, there to join her friends, as would have seemed natural under the circumstances. At the moment Philippa scarcely realised the tact which prompted this omission, or rather in some unconscious way she took it for granted, as indeed, on looking back afterwards, she saw that she had accepted with tacit confidence the strong and kind support of his presence.

A few minutes dexterous steering among the trees brought them out on to the path she had originally meant to follow, which led directly to the high-road.

Arrived there, Michael stopped short and looked at her consideringly. A little colour, he was glad to see, had returned to her cheeks; there was no longer the ghastly pallor which had made her look as if on the point of fainting.

“She is a strong girl,” he thought to himself, “physically and morally, but she has been through a bad bit of experience. Disillusionment, if it has been that, goes hard with such as she.”

And disillusionment he had reason to suspect it had been.

“Bernard would never have left her alone in this way, selfish as he is, unless he had been made to feel himself very small. As things are, I must risk annoying her by my officiousness; she is not fit to walk farther alone.”

Philippa was unconscious of his scrutiny. She was gazing up and down the road half vaguely.

“Which way—” she was beginning, but Michael interrupted her.

“Miss Raynsworth,” he said, “you mustn’t mind my saying that I really can’t let you go all the way home alone. It is getting dusk, and you own to being very tired.”

“Very well,” said Philippa, simply. “I mean—I should say ‘thank you,’” and again she smiled, and to Michael there was something more pathetic in her smile than if there had been tears in her eyes. “How far is it to Palden? Somehow I am really not as tired as when you first met me.”

“If you don’t mind cross-cuts and skirting one or two ploughed fields,” he said, more lightly, “it need not be more than a mile and a half.”

“I should like to get back as soon as my sister, if possible,” said Philippa. “I don’t want them to be frightened about me.”

She made no attempt at any explanation of the complications she had risked. She felt now a curious but satisfactory indifference to what her companion thought of the whole affair, rather perhaps an unacknowledged reliance on the kindliness of his judgment. And when he left her within fifty yards or so of the entrance to the Grange, and she had said good-bye, with a word of thanks, she felt amazed at herself.

“What am I made of?” she thought. “An hour ago I felt as if everything worth living for had gone from me—as if I could never trust any one again, or dare to believe in happiness. Is this a phase I must pass through? Will that terrible mortification and disappointment come back again blacker than ever?” She shivered as she thought of it. “Or,” as she stood still for a moment and looked after the sturdy figure of Michael Gresham striding away with little Solomon at his heels, “or am I only extraordinarily superficial and impressionable, or”—yet another “or”—“is there something invigorating about that man? He does feel so _true_.”

From whatever source her new-found strength had been derived, it stood her in good stead that evening.

Five minutes later the Merle dog-cart drove up, and Duke and Evelyn got down with disturbed faces, which scarcely cleared when they caught sight of her at the hall door, where she had purposely stationed herself to meet them.

“I am so glad I got home first,” she said. “I was afraid you might be uneasy about me. I have only just come in.”

“Uneasy,” repeated Evelyn in a peculiar tone of voice, as she came into the house, Captain Headfort remaining behind to say something to the groom who had accompanied them from Merle, after a furtive and somewhat self-conscious glance in his sister-in-law’s direction. ”‘Uneasy!’ that’s scarcely the word to use, Philippa, under the circumstances. You must know better than that surely.”

“What do you mean?” said Philippa, quietly, already scenting war. “Come into the drawing-room, there’s a good fire there, and I daresay you are feeling cold.”

She had felt uncertain how to meet Evelyn; a word of tenderness or sympathy would have disarmed her, and she would probably have given her sister the fullness of confidence she had been longing to pour out to her mother. But Mrs Headfort’s tone braced her to composure and dignity. For the moment, perhaps, she did not allow herself to do justice to the latter’s natural and by no means altogether selfish disappointment and anxiety.

“It is better,” Philippa thought quickly, “as some explanation is inevitable, to have it out at once, and done with, as far as Evey is concerned. Poor Evey!” she went on to herself, with a sudden revulsion of sympathy towards her sister, as her glance fell on the lines of distress which never seemed natural on Evelyn’s soft, childlike face. But to this sort of feeling she felt she must not yield, “Why are you annoyed with me, Evelyn?” she said, directly, “for of course I know you are so. It is better to speak plainly.”

“It is not candid of you to try to turn the tables in that way,” said Evelyn, hotly. “You know perfectly why I am angry with you. You have behaved—you _must_ have behaved in the most extraordinary way to Mr Gresham, after—encouraging him as you have done.”

Philippa bit her lips to keep back an indignant reply, “What has he said to you?” she asked, composedly. “Very little,” said Evelyn. “Very few men would have behaved as well as he has done. He only told me that you had insisted on going home alone, and that he was completely at a loss to understand you. Of course I knew what he meant—that you had refused him.” Then, with a sudden change of tone, “Is it too late, Philippa?” she added, almost in entreaty, “Can I do nothing to put things right?”

Her eagerness touched Philippa.

“Listen, Evey,” she said, almost solemnly, “and then never let us allude to this matter again. I cannot go into all the details of what passed between Mr Gresham and me. It would be no use. I doubt if _any one_, except perhaps mamma, would quite enter into what I feel. But I must just tell you this. I am as convinced as if I had thought it over for years that he and I are entirely, radically unsuited to each other, and so there is an end of it. Do believe that I absolutely mean what I say, and know what I mean.” Evelyn’s eyes filled with tears. Something in her sister’s manner carried conviction with it.

“Oh, Phil,” she said, “you are a far stronger character than I, I know, and I must, I suppose, give in to you; you must know best. But it does seem such a pity—such an awful pity! And what can have changed your opinion of him so suddenly?”

“Was it suddenly?” said Philippa, dreamily. “Some things seem to have nothing to do with time, and, after all, was it not,”—but here she stopped abruptly—“was it not,” finishing the sentence in her own mind, “lurking there already, the doubt of him? the suspicion of there not being any real sympathy between us?”

“Don’t misunderstand me, Evey!” she went on aloud. “I am terribly sorry to have been the cause of anything,”—she hesitated—“mortifying or disappointing to him, though I daresay it will not last long,” with a little smile. “I do him full justice, and I hope he will marry some one who will make him far happier than I could have done,” she ended, earnestly, and the complete absence of bitterness in her tone was more convincing to her sister than anything else could have been that her castle in the air was doomed to no tangible existence.

Of all those concerned in the little drama which had that day been enacted at Merle-in-the-Wold, perhaps the one the least painfully affected, full of sympathy though he had been for the girl whom he seemed fated to meet under such curious circumstances, was Michael Gresham.

Chapter Twenty Four. Charley’s Friend.

Two years! A very short time to the old, but not so to the young, especially in anticipation. That autumn day when Philippa Raynsworth bade good-bye to her kind friends at Dorriford, she little expected that twice twelve months would pass before she returned there, and had this period been then alluded to, it would have seemed to her half a lifetime off.

What might not happen in two years? To her, standing at the very threshold of life, with every possibility before her, two years would have been almost like two score.

Yet when, in the autumn but one following the Easter of her first visit to Palden, she found herself again at Dorriford, she could hardly believe that two whole years had elapsed since the day when Mrs Lermont kissed her so affectionately, and made her promise to return to them as soon as she could do so.

She was again within a day or two of leaving them, after a quiet but pleasant fortnight with Maida—poor Maida, she was no stronger in health, possibly a shade more fragile than when she and Philippa had last met. But as ever, the fact of her invalidism was never obtruded on those about her, even, on the contrary, to a great extent ignored.

They—the two cousins—had been strolling for a little, a very little only was all Miss Lermont was able for now—up and down the already leaf-strewn drive. The day was mild and calm, a typical autumn day.

Suddenly Maida spoke.

“Do you remember, Philippa,” she said—“it has just come back to me—the last time you were here, our standing in the porch and watching the Bertrams drive away?”

Philippa smiled. There was no bitterness in her smile, though it was perhaps a little sad.

“Yes,” she said, with a little bending of her head as she spoke, “yes, I remember.”

Maida glanced at her.

“You are changed since then,” she went on.

“It is two years ago,” said Philippa. “Two years may alter one a good deal—even less time than that—for I recollect your saying at Cannes, within six months of the time I was here, that I had changed.”

“I remember it, too,” said her cousin. “But now I should express it differently. At Cannes you were _changing_; you seemed unsettled and uncertain, though in some ways matured, and—do not be hurt at the word—softened. But now you _are_ changed, the process is completed.”

“I hope for the better?” inquired Philippa. She spoke lightly, but there was an undercurrent of earnestness in her words, too.

“To my mind, if it is not impertinent of me to give my opinion,” said Maida, gently, “very certainly _yes_. You are just what I pictured you would be as a full-grown woman, though—”

“Don’t stop short. I like to know all you feel about me. It does me good.”

“I was going to say I scarcely saw how anything but the discipline of sorrow could make you _quite_ what I wanted you to be, my darling,” Miss Lermont replied. And the unwonted expression of affection touched Philippa. “And I trembled at the thought. I am cowardly about suffering for those I love. Yet how short-sighted we are! Here you are, with all the softening, and mellowing, and widening I hoped for, done—and yet—no special suffering has, so far as I know, fallen to your share. Don’t think me inquisitive,” she added, hastily. “I don’t want you to tell me anything you would rather not.”

Philippa hesitated.

“I have often thought of telling you the whole history of my life during the six or eight months after I was last here,” she said. “All my experiences—my personal experiences, I mean—seemed compressed into that time. Since then things have gone on very monotonously, though I have not been either dull or unhappy. You see it was so clear to me that it was my duty to stay at home and help papa again, after Charley so unexpectedly got that splendid piece of work in India. And with Evelyn settled at home so comfortably and no anxiety about her, things just settled down somehow. These last eighteen months have been most uneventful.”

“You might have varied them by a _little_ visit to us,” said Maida.

“Truly I could not,” Philippa replied, earnestly. “The one time I could have come, you remember Mrs Lermont was ill and you were fully engaged. I have only been to Palden once—that was last winter—for ten days.”

“Is not Evelyn vexed with you for not going more frequently?”

“No,” said Philippa. “She knows I could not help it. Now, of course—with Charley back—I shall be comparatively free. But—I don’t care to go much to Palden.”

“I think I know why,” said Maida. “Has it not to do with what you have often thought of telling me? And _are_ you going to tell it to me?”

“On the whole,” said Philippa, “if you will not think me capricious, I _think_ I would rather not. Some day, perhaps.”

“As you like, dear, exactly and entirely as you like. But—if I may ask you something?”

“Of course you may.”

“I would like to know—I cannot quite master my curiosity, you see, and indeed it is more interest in you than curiosity—I _would_ like to know why you refused Bernard Gresham. For I am sure you did refuse him.”

“Yes, I did,” said Philippa, simply. “And I do not at all mind telling you why. It was just because I became entirely convinced that he and I were thoroughly unsuited to each other.”

Maida made a little gesture of agreement.

“I should not express it quite as you do,” she said. “_I_ should say he was not worthy of you—not that I think ill of him in any way, but he is simply on a different level altogether. At first, I will own to you, I was disappointed when I saw it was not going to be. I was ‘worldly’ _for_ you, Philippa. But I saw more of him again at Cannes last winter, and—I lost all feeling of disappointment. Even when I thought that you had refused to marry out of exaggerated ideas as to your duties at home—even _then_ I did not regret it.”

Philippa shook her head.

“No,” she said, “home things had nothing to do with it. At the time I refused him there was no special need of me at home. And my parents are too unselfish to have allowed a sacrifice of that kind; something else would have been arranged. No; I have given you my full reason. But—how I came to find out what I did—that,” with a slight smile, “is my secret. And my great reason for not telling you the whole story is that I know mamma would _rather_ I did not tell it, even to you.”

“She knows everything?”

“Everything,” said Philippa, “and she does so ‘understand.’ And never for one moment have I regretted what I did. But Evey,” she went on, “poor Evey, is still a little sore about it. She does not know _quite_ the whole, as mamma does.”