Chapter VI: Part 6

"Pray break that off then at once at Brackley, and come to father and ask him to let us be married directly."

"No hurry."

"No hurry?--If you knew what I'm suffering."

"There, there; don't worry, little one. It's all right, I tell you. Do you think I'm such a brute as to throw you over? See how I chucked Madge for your sake."

"Yes, dear, yes; I do believe in you," came with a sob, "in spite of all; and I have tried, and will try so hard, Rob, to make myself a lady worthy of you. I'd do anything sooner than you should be ashamed of me. But, Rob, dear--father--"

"Hang father!"

"Don't trifle, dear. You can't imagine what I have suffered, and what he suffers. All those two long weary months since we left the lodge it has been dreadful. He keeps on advertising and trying, but no one will engage him. It is as if some one always whispered to gentlemen that he was once a poacher, and it makes him mad."

"Well, I couldn't help my mother turning him off."

"Couldn't help it, dear! Oh, Rob!"

"There you go again. Now, come, be sensible. I must get back soon."

"To her!" cried Judith, wildly.

"Nonsense. Don't be silly. She's like a cold fish to me. It will all come right."

"Yes, if you will come and speak to my father."

"Can't."

"Rob, dear," cried Judith in a sharp whisper; "you must, or it will be father's ruin. He has begun to utter threats."

"Threats? He'd better not."

"It's in his despair, dear. He says it's your fault if he, in spite of his trying to be honest, is driven back to poaching."

"He'd better take to it! Bah! Let him threaten. He knows better. Nice prospect for me to marry a poacher's daughter."

"Oh, Rob, how can you be so cruel. You don't know."

"Know what? Does he threaten anything else?"

"Yes," came with a suppressed sob.

"What?"

"I dare not tell you. Yes, I must. I came on purpose to-night. Just when I felt that I would stay by him and not break his heart by doing what he does not want."

"Talk sense, silly. People's hearts don't break. Only horses', if you ride them too hard."

Judith uttered a low sob.

"Well, what does he say?"

"That you are the cause of all his trouble, and that you shall make amends, or--"

"Or what?"

"I dare not tell you," sobbed the girl, passionately. "But, Rob, you will have pity on him--on me, dear, and make him happy again."

"Look here," said Rolph, roughly. "Ben Hayle had better mind what he is about. Men have been sent out of the country for less than that, or-- well, something of the kind. I'm not the man to be bullied by my mother's keeper, so let's have no more of that. Now, that's enough for one meeting. You wrote to Aldershot for me to meet you, and the letter was sent to me at Brackley, of course. So I came expecting to find you pretty and loving, instead of which your head's full of cock-and-bull nonsense, and you're either finding fault or telling me about your father's bullying. Let him bully. I shall keep my promise to you when I find it convenient. Nice tramp for me to come at this time of night."

"It's a long walk from Lindham here in the dark, Rob, dear," said the girl.

"Oh, yes, but you've nothing to do. There, I'll think about Ben Hayle and his getting a place, but I don't want you to be far away, Judy.-- Now, don't be absurd.--What are you struggling about?--Hang the girl, it's like trying to hold a deer. Judy! You're not gone. Come here. I can see you by that tree."

There was a distant rustling, and Captain Rolph uttered an oath.

"Why, she has gone!"

It was quite true. Judith was running fast in the direction of the cottages miles away in the wild common land of Lindham, and Rolph turned upon his heel and strode back toward Brackley.

"Time I had one of the old man's brandy-and-sodas," he growled. "Better have stopped and talked to my saint. Ben Hayle going back to poaching! Threaten me with mischief if I don't marry her! I wish he would take to it again."

Rolph walked on faster, getting excited by his thoughts, and, after hurrying along for a few hundred yards, he said aloud,--

"And get caught."

"Now for a run," he added, a minute later. "This has been a pleasant evening and no mistake. Ah, well, all comes right in the end."

Volume 2, Chapter III.

A SEARCH.

About a couple of hours earlier there was a ring at the gaunt-looking gate at the Firs, and that ring caused Mrs Alleyne's Eliza to start as if galvanised, and to draw her feet sharply over the sanded floor, and beneath her chair.

Otherwise Eliza did not move. She had been darning black stockings, and as her feet went under her chair, she sat there with the light--a yellow and dim tallow dip, set up in a great tin candlestick--staring before her, lips and eyes wide open, one hand and arm covered with a black worsted stocking, the fingers belonging to the other arm holding up a stocking needle, motionless, as if she were so much stone.

Anon, the bell, which hid in a little pent-house of its own high up on the ivied wall, jangled again, and a shock of terror ran through Eliza's body once more, but only for her to relapse into the former cataleptic state.

Then came a third brazen clanging; and this time the kitchen door opened, and Eliza uttered a squeal.

"Why, Eliza," cried Lucy, "were you asleep? The gate bell has rung three times. Go and see who it is."

"Oh, please, miss, I dursn't," said Eliza with a shiver.

"Oh, how can you be so foolish!" cried Lucy. "There, bring the light, and I'll come with you."

"There--there was a poor girl murdered once, miss," stammered Eliza, "at a gate. Please, miss, I dursn't go."

"Then I must go myself," cried Lucy. "Don't be so silly. Mamma will be dreadfully cross if you don't come."

Eliza seemed to think that it would be better to risk being murdered at the gate than encounter Mrs Alleyne's anger, so she started up, caught at the tin candlestick with trembling hand, and then unbolted the kitchen door loudly, just as the bell was about to be pulled for the fourth time.

"You speak, please, miss," whispered the girl. "I dursn't. Pray say something before you open the gate."

"Who's there," cried Lucy.

"Only me, Miss Alleyne," said a well-known voice. "I was coming across the common, and thought I'd call and see how your brother is."

Lucy eagerly began to unfasten the great gate, but for some reason, probably best known to herself, she stopped suddenly, coloured a little, and said--almost sharply,--

"Quick, Eliza, why don't you open the gate?"

Thus adjured, the maiden unfastened the ponderous lock, and admitted Philip Oldroyd, who shook hands warmly with Lucy, and then seemed as if he were about to change her hand over to his left, and feel her pulse with his right.

"We always have the gate locked at dusk," said Lucy, "the place stands so lonely, and--"

"You feel a little nervous," said Oldroyd, smiling, as they walked up to the house.

"Oh, no!" said Lucy, eagerly; "I never think there is anything to mind, but the maid is terribly alarmed lest we should be attacked by night. My brother is out," she hastened to say, to fill up a rather awkward pause. "He is taking one of your prescriptions," she added, archly.

"Wise man," cried Oldroyd, as they passed round to the front door and went in. "I suppose he will not be long?"

"Oh, no!" said Lucy, eagerly; "if you will come in and wait, he is sure to be back soon."

Then she hesitated, and hastened to speak again, feeling quite uncomfortable and guilty, as if she had been saying something unmaidenly--as if she had been displaying an eagerness for the young doctor to stop--when all the time she told herself, it was perfectly immaterial, and she did not care in the least.

"Of course I can't be sure," she added, growing a little quicker of speech; "but I think he will not be long. He has gone round by the pine wood."

"Then I should meet him if I went that way," said Oldroyd, who had also become rather awkward and hesitant.

"Oh, yes; I think you would be sure to meet him," cried Lucy eagerly.

"Thanks," said Oldroyd, who felt rather vexed that she should be eager to get rid of him; "then perhaps I had better go."

"But of course I can't tell which way he will come back," cried Lucy, hastily; "and you might miss him."

"To be sure, yes," said Oldroyd, taking heart again; "so I might, and then not see him at all." And he looked anxiously at Lucy's troubled face over the tin candlestick, ornamented with drops of tallow that had fallen upon its sides, while Eliza slowly closed the front door, and gazed with her lips apart from one to the other.

Lucy was all repentance again, for in a flash her conscience had told her that she had seemed eager, and pressed the doctor to stay.

An awkward pause ensued, one which neither the visitor nor Lucy seemed able to break. Each tried very hard to find something to say, but in vain.

"How stupid of me!" thought Lucy, angrily.

"What's come to me?" thought Oldroyd; the only idea beside being that he ought to ask Lucy about her health, only he could not, for it would seem so professional. So he looked helplessly at her, and she returned his look half indignantly, while the candle was held on one side, and Eliza gaped at them wonderingly.

Mrs Alleyne ended the awkward pause by opening the dining-room door, and standing there framed like a silhouette.

"Oh, is it you, Mr Oldroyd?" she said, quietly.

"Yes, good evening," exclaimed the young doctor, quickly, like one released from a spell; "as I told Miss Alleyne here, I was coming close by, and I thought I would call and see how Mr Alleyne is."

"We are very glad to see you," said Mrs Alleyne, with grave courtesy. "Pray come in, Mr Oldroyd," and Lucy uttered a low sigh of satisfaction.

"Of course this is not a professional visit, Mrs Alleyne," said Oldroyd; and then he wished he had not said it, for Mrs Alleyne's face showed the lines a little more deeply, and there was a slight twitching about her lips.

"I am sorry that Mr Alleyne has not yet returned," she said, and as soon as they were seated, she smiled, and tried to remove the restraint that had fallen upon them in the dreary room.

"I am very grateful to you, Mr Oldroyd," she said; "my son is wonderfully better."

"And would be in a position to laugh all doctors in the face, if he would carry out my prescriptions a little more fully," said Oldroyd. "But we must not be too hard upon him. I think it is a great thing to wean him from his studies as we have."

"You dreadfully conceited man," thought Lucy. "How dare you have the shamelessness to think you have done all this! I know better. No man could have done it--there."

"Did you speak, Miss Alleyne?" said Oldroyd, looking round suddenly, and finding Lucy's eyes intent upon him.

"I? No," cried Lucy, flushing; and then biting her lips with annoyance, because her cheeks burned, "I was listening to you and mamma."

"It is quite time Moray returned," said Mrs Alleyne, anxiously glancing towards the closed window.

"Yes, mamma; we shall hear his step directly," said Lucy.

"He does not generally stay so long," continued Mrs Alleyne, going to the window to draw aside the curtain and look out. "Did he say which way he would go, Lucy?"

"Yes, mamma. I asked him, and he said as far as the fir wood."

"Ah, yes," responded Mrs Alleyne; "he says he can think so much more easily among the great trees--that his mind seems able to plunge into the depths of the vast abysses of the heavens."

"I don't believe he does think about stars at all," thought Lucy. "I believe he goes there to stare across the park, and think about Glynne."

A feeling of elation made the girl's heart glow, and her eyes sparkle, as she more and more began to nurse this, one of the greatest ideas of her heart. It was an exceedingly immoral proceeding on her part, for she knew that Glynne was engaged to be married to Captain Rolph; but him she utterly detested, she told herself, and that it was an entire mistake; in fact, she assured herself that it would be an act of the greatest benevolence, and one for which she would receive the thanks of both parties all through her lifetime--if she could succeed in breaking off the engagement and marrying Glynne to her brother.

The conversation went on, but it was checked from time to time by Mrs Alleyne again rising to go to the window, and this movement on her part always had the effect of making Lucy's eyes drop immediately upon her work; and, though she had been the minute before frankly meeting Oldroyd's gaze in conversation, such remarks as he addressed to her now were answered with her look averted, as she busied herself over her sewing.

"Moray never stayed so late as this before," said Mrs Alleyne, suddenly, turning her pale face on those who were so wrapped in their own thoughts that they had almost forgotten the absentee.

"No, mamma," cried Lucy, reproaching herself for her want of interest; "he is an hour later."

"It is getting on towards two hours beyond his time," cried Mrs Alleyne, in despairing tones. "I am very uneasy."

"Oh, but he has only gone a little farther than usual, mamma, dear," cried Lucy; "pray don't be uneasy."

"I cannot help it, my child," cried Mrs Alleyne; "he who is so punctual in all his habits would never stay away like this. Is he likely to meet poachers?"

"Let me go and try if I can meet him," said Oldroyd, jumping up. "Poachers wouldn't touch him."

"Yes, do, Mr Oldroyd. I will go with you," cried Lucy, forgetting in her excitement that such a proposal was hardly etiquette. But neither mother nor daughter, in their anxiety, seemed to have the slightest idea of there being anything extraordinary at such a time.

"It won't do," Oldroyd had been saying to himself, "even if it should prove that I'm not a conceited ass to think such things, and she--bless her sweet, bright little face--ever willing to think anything of me, I should be a complete scoundrel to try and win her. Let me see, what did I make last year by my practice? Twenty-eight pounds fifteen, and nine pounds of it still owing, and likely to be owing, for I shall never get a _sou_. Then this year, what shall I take? Well, perhaps another five pounds on account of her brother's illness. I must be mad."

"Yes," he said, after a pause, "I must be mad, and must have been worse to come down here to this out-of-the-way place, where there is not the most remote chance of my getting together a practice. No, it won't do, I must play misogynist, and be as cold towards the bright little thing as if I were a monk."

As these thoughts ran through his mind, others came to crowd them out-- thoughts of a snug little home, made bright by a sweet face looking out from door or window to see him coming back after a long, tiring round. What was enough for one was enough for two--so people argued. That was right enough as regarded a house, but doubtful when it came to food, and absurd if you went as far as clothing.

"No, it would never do," he said to himself, "I could not take her from her home to my poor, shabby place."

But as he thought this he involuntarily looked round Mrs Alleyne's dining-room, that lady being at the window, and he could not help thinking that, after all, his cottage-like home was infinitely preferable to this great, gaunt, dingy place, where anything suggestive of any comfort was out of the question.

"Yes, she would be more comfortable," he muttered; "and--there, I'm going mad again. I will not think such things."

Just then Lucy came in ready for starting, and all Philip Oldroyd's good intentions might have been dressed for departure as well. Certainly, they all took flight, as he followed the eager little maiden into the hall.

"Pray--pray let me have news of him directly you find him, Mr Oldroyd," cried Mrs Alleyne, piteously. "Run back yourself. You cannot tell what I suffer. Something must have happened."

"You shall know about him directly, Mrs Alleyne," replied Oldroyd. "But pray make your mind easy, nothing can have happened to him here. The worst is that he may have gone to the Hall."

"No, he would not have gone there without first letting me know."

"Don't come to the gate, mamma," cried Lucy. "There, go in; Mr Oldroyd will take care of me, and we'll soon bring the truant back, only pray be satisfied. Come, Mr Oldroyd, let us run."

The next minute they were outside the gate, and hurrying down the slope to the common, over whose rugged surface Lucy walked so fast that Oldroyd had to step out boldly. Here the sandy road was reached, and they went on, saying but little, wanting to say but little, for, in spite of all, there was a strange new ecstatic feeling in Lucy's bosom; while, in spite of his honesty something kept whispering to Oldroyd that it would be very pleasant if they were unable to find Alleyne for hours to come.

He was not to be gratified in this, though, for at the end of a quarter of an hour's walking, when they came opposite to the big clump of pines, Lucy proposed that they should go up there.

"I know how fond he is of this place," she said, rather excitedly; "and as its clearer now, I should not be at all surprised to find him here watching the moon, or the rising of some of the stars."

"We'll go if you wish it," said Oldroyd, "but it seems a very unlikely place at a time like this."

"Ah, but my brother is very curious about such things," said Lucy, as she left the road, and together they climbed up till all at once she uttered a faint cry--

"Look! there--there he is!"

"Why, Alleyne! Is that you?" cried Oldroyd, as in the full moonlight they saw a dark figure rise from the foot of a pine, and then come slowly towards them silently, and in the same vacant fashion as one in a dream.

"Moray, why don't you speak?" cried Lucy, piteously. "Why, you've not been to sleep, have you?" and she caught his arm.

"Sleep?" he said, in a strangely absent manner.

"Yes, asleep? Poor mamma has been fretting herself to death about you, and thinking I don't know what. Make haste."

"Are you unwell, Alleyne?" said Oldroyd, quietly; and the other looked at him wistfully.

"No--no," he said at length; "quite well--quite well. I have been thinking--that is all. Let us make haste back."

Lucy and Oldroyd exchanged meaning glances, and then the former bit her lip, angry at having seemed to take the young doctor into her confidence; and after that but little was said till they reached The Firs, where Mrs Alleyne was pacing the hall, ready to fling her long, thin arms round her son's neck, and hold him in her embrace as she tenderly reproached him for the anxiety he had caused.

"She doesn't seem to trouble much about little Lucy," thought the doctor. "Well, so much the more easy for any one who wanted her for a wife."

"That couldn't be me," he said, at the end of a few minutes, and then--

"I wonder what all this means about Alleyne. He must have been having an interview with someone in that Grove. Miss Day, for a hundred. Humph! She must have said something he did not like, or he would not look like this."

Then, to the great satisfaction of all, the doctor took his leave, and walked home declaring he would not think of Lucy any more, with the result that the more he strove, the more her pleasant little face made itself plain before him, her eyes looking into his, and illustrating the book he tried to read on every page with a most remarkable sameness, but a repetition that did not tire him in the least.

Volume 2, Chapter IV.

A COLLISION.

Mrs Rolph did not see much of her son, who divided his time between Brackley and Aldershot, when he was not away to attend some athletic meeting. But she was quite content, and paid her calls upon Glynne in company with Marjorie, who sat and beamed upon Sir John's daughter, and lost not an opportunity for getting her arm about the waist of her cousin's betrothed, being so intensely affectionate that Glynne stared at her wonderingly at times, and then tried to reciprocate the love bestowed upon her, failed dismally, and often asked Lucy whether she liked Miss Emlin? to receive a short, sharp shake of the head in return.

"Sha'n't say," Lucy replied one day. "If I do, you'll think I'm jealous."

Rolph was not aware of the fact, for Marjorie generally avoided him, and behaved as if she were putting the past farther back; but all the same, she watched her cousin furtively on every possible occasion whenever he was at home or staying at Brackley; and to cover her proceedings, she developed an intense love for botany, and more than once encountered Major Day with Lucy and Glynne, and compared notes. But the major never displayed any great desire to impart information, or to induce the young lady to take up his particular branch.

"Pity Rolph didn't marry her," muttered the old man. "Foxy doesn't like Glynne at all."

Madge's botanical studies had a good deal to do with the _gynias_, and with watching Rolph, who was not aware that his pleasant vices were making of themselves the proverbial rods to scourge him, and unfortunately injure others as well. For Marjorie's brain was busy; and as she watched him, she made herself acquainted with every movement, noting when he rode over to Brackley or took a walk out into the woods-- walks which made her writhe, for she gave her cousin the credit of making his way toward Lindham, out by the solitary collection of houses on the road to nowhere, the spot where Ben Hayle had made his new home.

At these times Marjorie hung upon the tenterhooks of agony and suspense till he returned, when there was a warm glow of satisfaction in her breast if his looks showed that his visit had been unsuccessful.

Sometimes though, she was stung by her jealousy into believing that he obtained interviews with Judith, for he would come back looking more satisfied and content.

She watched him one day, and saw him take the path down through the wood, and she also watched his return.

In a few days he went again in the same direction, and on the next morning she started off before he had left the house, and turned down through the woods to an opening miles away, where, in happier days, she had been wont to gather blackberries; and here she knew she could easily hide in the sandy hollows, and see anyone going toward Lindham--herself unseen.

It was a lonely nook, where, in bygone days, a number of the firs had been cut down, and a sandpit, or rather sand-pits had been formed. These had become disused, the rabbits had taken possession, and, as sun and air penetrated freely, a new growth of furze, heather and broom grew up among the hollows and knolls.

What her plans were she kept hidden, but a looker-on would have said that she had carefully prepared a mine, and that some day, she would spring that mine upon her cousin with a result that would completely overturn his projects, but whether to her own advantage remained to be seen.

As Marjorie approached, the rabbits took flight, and their white tails could be seen disappearing into their burrows, a certain sign that no one had been by before her; and in a few minutes she was safely ensconced in a deep hollow surrounded by brambles, after she had taken the precaution to lay a few fern leaves in the bottom of a little basket, and rapidly pick a few weeds to give colour to her presence there.

The time glided on, and all was so still that a stone-chat came and sat upon a twig close at hand, watching her curiously. Then the rabbits stole out one by one from their burrows, and began to race here and there, indulging in playful bounds as if under the impression that it was evening; but though Marjorie strained her ears to listen, there was no sound of approaching steps, and at last she sat there with her brow full of lines, and her eyes staring angrily from beneath her contracted brows.

"He will not come to-day," she muttered. "What shall I do?"

"Oh!" she cried, in a harsh whisper, after a long pause, as she crushed together the nearest tuft of leaves, "I could kill her."

She winced slightly, and then glanced contemptuously at her glove, which was torn, and in three places her white palm was pierced, scratched and bleeding, for she had grasped a twig or two of bramble.

The blood on her hand seemed to have a peculiar fascination for her, and she sat there with her eyes half-shut, watching the long red lines made by snatching her hand away, and at the two tiny beads, which gradually increased till she touched them in turn with the tip of her glove, and then carelessly wiped them away.

"`He cometh not,'" she said to herself, with a curious laugh.

_Rap_! And then, from different parts of the hollow, came the same sharp, clear sound, as rabbit after rabbit struck the ground with its foot, giving the alarm and sending all within hearing scuttling into their holes.

Marjorie had been long enough in the country to know the meaning of that noise, and, with her eyes now wide and wild-looking, she listened for the step which had startled the little animals--one plain to them before it grew clear to her.

No step. Not a sound, and her face was a study, could it have been seen, in its intense eagerness for what seemed, in the silence, minutes, while she retained her breath.

"Hah!"

One long, weary exclamation, and a bitter look of disappointment crossed her eager face.

The next moment it was strained again, and her eyes flashed like those of some wild animal whose life depends upon the acuteness of its perceptions.

There was a faint rustle.

Then silence.

Then a faintly-heard scratching noise, as of a thorn passing over a garment.

"He's coming," thought Marjorie, "coming, and this way;" and she leaned forward in time to see a figure, bent down so low that it seemed to be going on all fours, dart silently from behind one clump of brambles away to her left, and glide into the shelter of another.

So silently was this act performed that for the moment the watcher asked herself if she had not been deceived.

The answer came directly in the re-appearance of the figure, gliding into sight and creeping on till it was in shelter, hiding not a dozen yards from where she crouched; and she shrank back with her heart beginning to beat heavily, while she knew that the blood was coming and going in her cheeks.

"No; I'm not afraid of Caleb Kent," she thought to herself; and her eyes flashed again, and in imagination she seemed to see once more the opening where the lodge stood. Her face grew pale, and a curious shrinking sensation attacked her as she recalled Rolph's face, his eyes searching hers with such a bitter look of contempt and scorn.

Then instantly she seemed to be gazing at herself in the library, clinging to her cousin, till he violently wrenched himself from her, leaving her hopeless and crushed; and she longed bitterly for the opportunity to make some one suffer for this.

"No," she said to herself, "I am not afraid of Caleb Kent;" and she crouched there, seeing every movement, and in a few moments realised that some one must be coming, for, with the activity of a cat, the young half-gipsy, half-poacher, began to move softly back, as if to keep the clump of brambles between him and whoever it was that was passing.

Marjorie knew directly after that this must be the case, for she could hear the dull sound of a step, and she strained forward a little to try and see, but shrank back again with her heart beginning to beat rapidly, as she realised that, all intent upon the person passing in front, Caleb Kent had no thought for what might be behind, and he had begun to back rapidly away from the clump which had hidden him, to hide in the safer refuge already occupied.

She knew that the step must be her cousin's, and that he was going over to Lindham to seek Judith.

"Suppose," she asked herself, "he should come nearer and see her hiding--apparently in company with Caleb Kent--what would he say?"

She quivered with rage and mortification, and for the moment felt disposed to spring up and walk away, but refrained, for she knew that it would then seem as if she had been keeping an appointment with this man, and had been frightened into showing herself by her cousin's coming.

The situation was horrible, and she knew that all she could do was to wait in the hope that, as soon as Rolph had gone by, Caleb would glide after him.

"What for?" she asked herself; and she turned cold at the answering thought.

He seemed to have no stout bludgeon, though. Perhaps he was only acting the spy; and as soon as Rolph had been to the cottage and returned, Caleb himself might have some intention of going there.

Marjorie's eyes glittered again as thought after thought came, boding ill to those she hated now with the bitterness of a jealous woman; and all at once, like a flash, a thought flooded her brain which sent the blood thrilling through every artery and vein.

"No," she thought, and she crouched there, compressing her nether lip between her white teeth. Then,--"Why not? What is she that she should rob me of my happiness, and of all I hold dear? But if--"

She drew in her breath with a faint hiss that was almost inaudible, but it was sufficient to make the poacher pause and look sharply to right and left, as he still crept backwards till he was beneath the shelter of the clump in the hollow which hid Marjorie, and within a few yards of where she was seated.

The sounds of passing steps were very near now. Then there was a faint cough, and Marjorie knew that her cousin was so close that, if he looked about him, he must see her in hiding with this vagabond of the village; and again the girl's veins tingled with the nervous sensation of anger and mortification.

She would have given ten years of her life to have been back at home; but she had brought all this upon herself, and she could only hope that Rolph would pass them without turning his head.

"Yes, go on," said a low, harsh voice, hardly above a whisper, and Marjorie started as she found herself an involuntary listener to the man's outspoken thoughts. "Only wait," he continued, and he, too, drew in his breath with a low, hissing sound.

The footsteps died completely away, and Marjorie sat there trembling. The thoughts which had seemed to electrify her, she felt now that she dare not foster; and she was longing for the man to go, when, as if he were influenced by her presence, he turned round suddenly to the right as in search of some one, then to the left, and, not satisfied, faced right about, his countenance full of wonderment and dread, which passed away directly, and he uttered a low, mocking laugh.

Marjorie shrank away for the moment, but, feeling that she must show no dread of this man who had surprised her in a situation which it would be vain to explain, she rose to go, but Caleb seized her tightly by the arm.

"He did not come to meet you," the man said, with a look of malicious enjoyment, as if it was a pleasure to inflict some of the pain from which he suffered.

"What do you mean?" she cried imperiously, as she sought to release her wrist.

"Call to him to come back and help you," whispered Caleb.--"Why don't you?"

He laughed again as he drew himself up into a kneeling position, still holding her tightly,

"How dare you!" cried the girl, indignantly. "Loose my arm, fellow!"

"Why? Not I. You will not call out for fear the captain there should think you were watching to see him go to Hayle's cottage and pretty Judith."

He began his speech in a light, bantering way, but as he finished his face was flushed and angry, and his breath came thick and fast, while, still clutching the arm he held, he wrenched his head round and knelt there, gazing in the direction taken by Rolph.

The thought which had held possession of Marjorie's breast twice, now came back with renewed power, and, casting all feeling of dread to the winds as she read her companion's face, she snatched at the opportunity.

That Caleb hated Rolph was plain enough; there was a scar upon his lip now that had been made by the hand of one whom he feared as well as hated; and above all, after his fashion, Marjorie knew that he loved Judith.

Here was the instrument to her hand. Why had she not thought of making use of it before?

It was as if she were for the moment possessed, as, without trying now to release herself, she leaned forward and whispered in the young man's ear,--

"You coward!"

He turned upon her in astonishment.

"I say you are a coward," she repeated. "Why do you let him go and take her from you?"

There was an animal-like snap of the teeth, as he snarled out,--

"Why do you let him go?"

"Because I am a woman. I am not a man, and strong like you."

"Curse him! I'll kill him," he snarled.

"What good would that do?"

"Eh?"

"If I were a man like you, do you know how I would act?"

"No," he said; "how could I?" and his lips parted, to show his white teeth in a peculiar laugh, before he gave a quick look to right and left, to satisfy himself that they were not seen.

"I'd have revenge."

"How? With a gun?"

"And be hung for murder. No!"

She leaned towards him, and she too gave a furtive look round, as, with her face flushed strangely, she whispered a few words to him--words that he listened to with his eyes half-closed, and then he turned upon her quickly.

"Why? To bring him back to you?" he said, with a mocking laugh. "You love him?"

"I hate him," she said slowly.

"Yes," he said; "and you hate Judy Hayle, too, like the gipsy women hate sometimes. Why don't you stop it?"

"Because I am helpless," she said bitterly. "Loose my arm. I knew it: you are a coward."

"Am I?" he said, with an ugly smile. "Is this a trap?"

"If you think so, let it be," she said contemptuously; and she tried again to shake her arm free, but the grasp upon it tightened.

"Perhaps I am a coward," he said; "but I will. He wouldn't marry her then, and it would be serving him out. Not for nothing, though," he added, with a laugh. "What will you give me?"

"Pah!" she said contemptuously; "how much do you want?"

He laughed and leaned forward, gazing full in her face.

"Perhaps I shall get into trouble again for it," he said, "and be shut up for a year--perhaps for more. It's to play your game as well as mine, and I must be paid well."

"Well, I will pay you," she said. "Tell me what you want."

"A kiss," he said; and before she could realise what he had said, his left arm was about her waist, and he held her tightly to him. "A kiss from a lady who is handsomer than Judy Hayle," he whispered.

"How dare you!" she cried, in a low voice.

"No," he said, laughing, "you won't call for help. Come, it isn't much to give me, and I swear I will."

Marjorie gazed at him wildly, as she realised her position; there, alone, in this man's power, and no one at hand to defend her. Then, utterly careless of herself, as she thought of the bitter revenge she had planned, she held back her face, and, with a faint laugh and her voice trembling, she said,--

"No, I will not call for help. There is no need. Keep your word and I will pay you--as you wish."

The blood crimsoned her cheeks as she spoke.

"No," he said, with a laugh; "you shall pay me now," and the next moment his arms were fast round her, and his lips pressed to hers.

Marjorie started away, angry and indignant, but her furious jealousy made her diplomatise, and she stood smiling at the good-looking, gipsy-like ne'er-do-weel, and said laughingly,--

"That was not fair; I promised you that as a reward, and now you have cheated me and will not keep your word."

"Yes, I will," he cried, as he seized her again eagerly; but she kept him back. "I'll do anything you ask me. Curse Judith Hayle! She isn't half so beautiful as you."

Madge's heart beat heavily, for admiration was pleasant, even from this low-class scoundrel. His words were genuine, as she could see from his eager gaze, the play of his features, and the earnestness in his voice.

"I've made a slave," she said to herself, forgetting for a moment the cost, "and he'll do everything I bid him."

"Don't talk nonsense," she said, playfully. "You do not suppose I believe what you say."

"What!" he cried, in a low, excited whisper, "not believe me. Here, tell me anything else to do. Why, I'd kill anyone if you'll look at me like that."

"I do not want you to kill anyone, and do not want you even to look or speak to me again if you are so rude as that. You forget that I am a lady."

"No, I don't," he cried, as he feasted on her with his eyes. "You're lovely. I never saw a girl so beautiful as you are before."

He tried to catch her in his embrace again, but she waved him off.

"There," she said coldly, "that will do. I see I must ask someone else to do what I want."

"No, no, don't," he whispered. "I didn't mean to make you cross. I didn't want to offend you, but when you looked at me like you did, with your shiny eyes, I couldn't help myself. I was obliged."

"Silence! How dare you," she cried indignantly, as, with her heart throbbing with delight, she felt how very strong a hold she was getting upon Caleb's will. "You forget yourself, sir."

"No, I don't; its only because--because--you're so handsome. There, be cross with me if you like. I couldn't help it."

"And now I suppose you will go and boast in the village taproom that you met the captain's cousin, and insulted her out in the wood."

"Do you think I'm a fool, miss?" he said sharply. "Do you think I'd ever go and tell on a girl? Why, I shouldn't tell on a common servant or a farmer's lass, let alone on a handsome lady like you."

"I don't believe you," she said, half turning away.

"Yes, do, miss, please do," he cried earnestly, "you may trust me. I'd sooner go and hang myself than tell anybody--there!"

She turned her eyes upon him, and her feeling of delight increased as she realised the truth of all that Caleb said. Then, as he looked up at her now, with the appealing, beseeching aspect of a dog in his countenance, she made a pretence of hesitating.

"No," she said. "I'm afraid I cannot trust you."

"Yes, do, miss, do."

"If I do you will insult me again."

"I didn't know it was insulting of you to love you," he said sullenly.

"Then I tell you it was, sir. If you had waited it would have been different."

He did not speak, but she could see that he was still feasting upon her with his eyes, and the worship in his looks was pleasant after Rolph's cold rebuffs.

"Well," she cried, "why are you looking at me like that?"

He started and smiled.

"I can't help it," he said, "You are so different to every other girl I know."

"Except Judith Hayle," she said contemptuously.

"You're not like her a bit," he said thoughtfully. "She's very nice looking, and I used to think a deal of her."

"Oh, yes, she's lovely," said Madge with a spiteful laugh.

"Yes," said Caleb, thoughtfully, "so she is," and he stood looking at the girl without comprehending the sarcasm in her words. "But she hasn't got eyes like you have, and she isn't so white, and," he whispered, approaching her more closely, "if you'll only be kind to me, and smile at me like you did, and speak soft to me, I'll be like your dawg."

He looked as if he would, and Marjorie saw it. She had been on the watch, expecting that he would seize her again, but nothing seemed further from his thoughts. It was exactly as he said--he was ready to be like her dog, and had she told him then, he would have cast himself at her feet, and let her plant her foot upon his neck in token of his subjugation.

"Well," she said, "I think I will trust you."

"You will?" he cried.

"Yes, if you are obedient, and promise me that you will never dare to be so rude again."

"I'll promise anything," he cried huskily, "but--"

"But what, sir?"

"You'll keep your word and pay me?" he said with a laugh.

"Wait and see," she said indifferently. "I am going back now."

"But how am I to tell you?" he said.

"I shall be sure to know."

"And how shall I see you again?"

"You will not want to see me again," she said archly.

"Not want to see you," he whispered. "Why, I'd go round the world, across the seas, anywhere, to hear you talk to me, and look at your eyes. Tell me when I shall see you again."

"Oh, I don't know," she said carelessly, "perhaps some fine day you'll see me walking in the wood."

"Yes--yes," he said eagerly. "I'll always be about watching for you as I would for a hare."

"One of my cousin's," she said, with a contemptuous laugh.

"They're not his," cried Caleb, quietly, "they're wild beasts, and as much mine as anybody's."

"We will not discuss that," she said coldly. "Good-bye, and I hope you will keep your word."

"I've sweared it to myself," he said, "and I shall do it. Don't go yet."

"Why not?"

"Because I could stand and look at you, like, all day, and it will not seem the same when you are gone."

"Why, I thought you were a poacher."

"Well, I suppose I am. What o' that?"

"You talk quite like a courtier?"

"Do I?" he said eagerly. "Well, you did it; you made me like you."

"I?"

"Yes. I don't know how it was, but you've made me feel as if I'd do anything for you."

"Ah, well, we shall see," said Marjorie, as she fixed her eyes on his, glorying in her triumph, and feeling that every word spoken was the honest truth. Then, giving him a careless nod, she was turning away.

"Don't go like that," said Caleb, huskily.

"What do you mean?"

"Say one kind word to me first."

"Well," said Madge, showing her white teeth in a contemptuous smile, as his eyes were fixed upon hers, just as her cousin's Gordon setter's had been a score of times. "Poor fellow, then," she said mockingly, and she held out her little hand, as she would have stretched it forth to pat one of the dogs.

He took it in his brown, sinewy fingers, bent over it, and held it against his cheek. Then, quick as lightning, he had grasped it with a grip like steel, snatched her from where she stood, and almost before she could notice it, he was holding her in a crouching position down behind the bushes, one arm tightly about her waist, and his right hand over her mouth.

She was too much taken by surprise for the moment to struggle or attempt to cry out. Then, as her eyes were fixed upon him fiercely, she felt his hot breath upon her cheek, and his lips pressed upon her ear.

"Don't move, don't speak," whispered the man, "he mustn't see you along o' me."

Madge strained her sense of hearing, but all was perfectly still, and, concluding that it was a trick, she gathered herself together for a strong effort to get free, when there was a sharp crack as of a broken twig. Then the low brushing sound of dead strands of grass against a man's leg; and, directly after Rolph came into view, plainly seen through the brambles, and as he came nearer Marjorie grew faint.

If he should see her--like that--clasped in this man's arms!

Rolph came nearer and nearer, his way leading him so close to where his cousin crouched that it seemed impossible that he could go by without seeing her, held there by a man whom he would look upon as the scum of the earth. The agony of shame and mortification she suffered was intense, the greater because her presence here was due to the fact that she had vowed that, in spite of all, she would yet be Rolph's wife, the mistress of The Warren.

As her cousin came on, and she felt Caleb's arm tightening about her, a strange giddiness made her brain swim, and the objects about her grew misty; but clearly seen in advance of this mist was her cousin's face, his eyes fixed upon the very spot where she was hiding, and plunging through the leaves to search her out, to drag her forth and upbraid her with being a disgrace to her sex, a woman utterly lost to all sense of shame. And all the time, throb, throb, throb, with heavy beat, she could feel Caleb Kent's heart, and a twitching sensation in the muscle of his arm, as, influenced by the man's thoughts of flight or violence, he loosened his grip, or held her more tightly still.

"He must see us," thought Marjorie. "Oh, if I could only die!"

Close up now, and as he came nearer Rolph struck sharply with his stick at a loose strand which projected half across his path.

He must see them; he could not help seeing them, thought Marjorie; and then her heart stood still, and the mist began to close her in, for, to her horror, the culmination of her shame seemed to have arrived. Rolph stopped short, leaned over, apparently to part the brambles and gaze through them at the hiding pair, and then muttered something half aloud as he reached over more and more till his face was not six feet from his cousin's, staring up at him with her eyes full of horror.

A guilty conscience needs no accuser; so runs the old proverbial saying.

Rolph had caught sight of an extra large blackberry and he had reached out and picked it, more from habit, fostered by a country life, than desire, and then passed on.

A long time appeared to elapse, during which Marjorie lay listening to steps which thundered upon her ear, before a voice, that sounded as if it came from far away, whispered,--

"It's all right, now. I don't think he saw."

Marjorie looked at the speaker strangely, and then turned away, plunging into the thickest part of the wood to try and grow calm before making her way home, and in perfect unconsciousness of the fact that, not twenty yards away, Caleb Kent was following her, gliding from tree to tree, and always keeping her in sight.

Sometimes she stopped to rest her hand upon one of the pine trunks, apparently wrapt in thought; and Caleb Kent drew a long breath and told himself that she was thinking about him. Then she walked swiftly on again till she was at the very edge of the wood, where she stepped down into the sandy lane where he could not follow; but, quickly, almost as a squirrel, he mounted a tall spruce by its short, dense, ladder-like branches, to where, high up, he could still keep the girl in sight, elated by his adventure, and little thinking that she was asking herself whether it would be very difficult to kill Caleb Kent next time she met him in the woods, and so silence for ever a tongue whose utterances might ruin her beyond recovery.

"Something to drink--something to drink," she kept on thinking. "To drink my health."

Her eyes brightened, and her strange look told of an excitement within her which made every pulse throb and bound.

"It would be so easy," she said to herself. But the feeling of elation passed away as she recalled the man's furtive, suspicious nature, and, in imagination, saw him fixing his keen eyes upon her, and asking her to drink first.

Volume 2, Chapter V.

THE SETTING OF A DOG'S STAR.

The gentlemen were seated over their claret at the Hall, and the party had become very quiet. Sir John had been preaching on the subject of the value of a cross of the big, coarse, wool-bearing Lincolnshire sheep with the Southdown, as being likely to prove advantageous, the Lincolnshire sheep giving increased wool-bearing qualities, while the lamb would inherit the fine properties of its mother's mutton.

At the words mutton and Southdown lamb, Rolph had pricked up his ears for a moment, since they had suggested under-done chops and cuts out of good haunches, with the gravy in grand supplies of stamina to an athlete; but the suggestion came at the wrong end of the dinner, and, with a yawn, the captain had wished Sir John and his pigs and sheep at Jericho, and begun thinking of his coming match with the Bayswater Stag for a hundred pounds a side, a race for which he told himself he was in training now, though his proceedings in the way of wines and foods would have horrified a trainer and frightened his backers into fits of despair.

When Sir John had had his innings, the major began to talk about the translation of a paper by Fries, on the persistency of certain forms of parasitic fungi in the lower plants. To make himself a little more comprehendible to his companions, he kept introducing the word mushroom into his discourse, with the effect of bringing back Rolph's wandering attention, and rousing Sir John from the doze into which he was falling.

Both gentlemen saw mushrooms directly, through a medium of claret, and while the major was thinking of spores, mycelium, and rapid generation, Sir John and the captain saw mushrooms growing, mushrooms cooked, mushrooms in rich sauces, but always of a deep purply claret colour, that was pleasant to the eye.

"Hang 'em, they'll drive me mad between 'em," thought Rolph. "I wonder how much of this sort of thing a man could stand. Offend the old buffers or no, I must go and have a cigar."

"Yes, what is it?" said Sir John, starting out of a doze.

"Morton would like to speak to you, Sir John."

"Morton; what does he want?" said Sir John. "Send him in."

A good deal of shoe wiping was heard outside, and a fine-looking, elderly man, whose velveteens proclaimed his profession, entered, to bow to all three gentlemen in turn.

"Sorry to trouble you, Sir John, but I've got information that a party from out Woodstay way, sir, are coming netting and snaring to-night."