Chapter V: Part IV (2)

"I thank you," I replied. "I should be glad to be free from the responsibility of the charge, but I dare not let these out of my own hands till the agreement is formally signed."

The younger man's face darkened. He assumed a bullying tone.

"I don't know how it strikes _you_, Mr. Bluestone," he said, "but it seems to me that this young gentleman is going rather too far. Do you think your employers will be pleased to hear of your insulting us, sir?"

But the elder man smiled condescendingly, though with a touch of superciliousness. It was very well done. He waved his hand.

"Stay, my dear Mr. Fagg; we can well afford to make allowance. You will telegraph at once, no doubt, Herr Schmidt, and--let me see--yes, we shall receive the duplicates of Nos. 7 and 13 by first post on Thursday morning."

I bowed.

"Exactly," I replied, as I lifted the now locked bag. "And you may expect me at the same hour on Thursday morning."

Then I took my departure, accompanied to the door by the urbane individual who had received me.

The telegram which I at once despatched was not couched precisely as he would have dictated, I allow. And he would have been considerably surprised at my sending off another, later in the day, to Bluestone & Fagg's telegraphic address, in these words:---

"Unavoidably detained till Thursday morning.--SCHMIDT."

This was _after_ the arrival of a wire from home in answer to mine.

By Thursday morning I had had time to receive a letter from Herr Wilhelm, and to secure the services of a certain noted detective, accompanied by whom I presented myself at the appointed hour at 909. But my companion's services were not required. The birds had flown, warned by the same traitor in our camp through whom the first hints of the new patent had leaked out. With him it was easy to deal, poor wretch! but the clever rogues who had employed him and personated the members of the honourable firm of Bluestone & Fagg were never traced.

The negotiation was successfully carried out. The experience I had gone through left me a wiser man. It is to be hoped, too, that the owners of 909 Blackfriars Street were more cautious in the future as to whom they let their premises to when temporarily vacant. The re-painting of the doorway, etc., at the tenant's own expense had already roused some slight suspicion.

It is needless to add that Nos. 7 and 13 had been duly received on the second-floor.

I have never known the true history of that extraordinary night. Was it all a dream, or a prophetic vision of warning? Or was it in any sense true? _Had_ I, in some inexplicable way, left my own town earlier than I intended, and really travelled in a slow train?

Or had the man with a cough, for his own nefarious purposes, mesmerised or hypnotised me, and to some extent succeeded?

I cannot say. Sometimes, even, I ask myself if I am quite sure that there ever was such a person as "the man with the cough"!

"HALF-WAY BETWEEN THE STILES."

(A RIGHT-OF-WAY INCIDENT.)

By the road, Scarby village is good three miles from Colletwood, the nearest town and railway station. But there is a short cut over the hills for foot passengers. _Over_ the hills they call it, but _between_ the hills would be more correct, for there is a sort of tableland once you have climbed a short, steep bit up from the town, which extends nearly to Scarby, sloping gradually down to the village.

And on each side of this tableland the hills rise again, north and south, much higher to the north than to the south. So this flat stretch, though at some considerable height, is neither bleak nor exposed, being sheltered on the colder side, and fairly open to the sunshine south and west.

It is a pleasant place, and so it must have been considered in the old days; for a large monastery stood there once, of which the ruins are still to be seen, and of which the memory is still preserved in the name--"Monksholdings".

Pleasant, but a trifle inconvenient, as the only carriage-road makes a great round from Colletwood, winding along the base of the hill on the north side till it reaches the village, then up again by the gradual slope, half a mile or so--a drive in all of three to four miles, whereas, as the bird flies or the pedestrian walks, the distance from the town is barely a quarter of that.

In the old days there was probably no road at all, the hill-path doubtless serving all requirements. Naturally enough, therefore, it came to be looked upon as entirely public property, and people forgot--if, indeed, any one had ever thought of it--that though the monastery was a ruin, the once carefully kept land round about the old dwelling-place of Monksholdings was still private property.

And the sensation was great when suddenly the news reached the neighbourhood that this "unique estate," as the agents called it, was sold--sold by the old Duke of Scarshire, who scarcely remembered that he owned it, to a man who meant to live on it, to build a house which should be a home for several months of the year for himself and his family.

There was considerable growling and grumbling; and this rose to its height when a rumour got about that the hill-path--such part of it, that is to say, as lay within the actual demesne--was to be closed--_must_ be closed, if the site already chosen for the new house was to be retained; for the house would actually stand upon the old foot-track, and there could be no two opinions that this position had been well and wisely selected.

Things grew warlike, boding no agreeable reception for the newcomers--a Mr. Raynald and his family, newcomers to England, it was said, as well as to Scarshire. Every one plunged into questions of right-of-way; the local legalities raised and discussed knotty points; Colletwood and Scarby were aflame. But it all ended, flatly enough, in a compromise!

Mr. Raynald turned out to be one of the most reasonable and courteous of men. He came, saw, and--conquered. The goodwill of his future neighbours was won e'er he knew he had risked its loss. Henceforward congratulations, reciprocated and repeated, on the charming additions to Scarby society were the order of the day, and the _detour_, skirting the south boundary of the Monksholdings grounds, which the footpath was now inveigled into making, was voted "a great improvement".

And in due time the mansion rose.

"A great improvement" also, to the aspect of the surrounding landscape. It was in perfectly good taste--unpretentious and quietly picturesque. It might have been there always for any jarring protest to the contrary.

And just half-way along the old foot-track, that is to say, between the two stiles which let the traveller to or from Scarby in or out of the Monksholdings demesne, stood Sybil Raynald's grand piano!

The stiles remained as an interesting survival; but they were made use of by no one not bound for the house itself. And beside each was a gate--a good oaken gate, that suited the place, as did everything about it; and beside each gate a quaint miniature dwelling, one of which came to be known as the east, and the other as the west, Monksholdings lodge.

The first time the Raynalds came down to their new home they made but a short stay there. It was already late in the season, and though the preceding summer had been a magnificent one for drying fresh walls and plaster, it would scarcely have done to risk damp or chilly weather in so recently-built a house.

They stayed long enough to confirm the favourable impression the head of the family had already made, and to lead themselves to look forward with pleasure to a less curtailed stay in Scarshire.

The last morning of their visit, Sybil, the eldest daughter, up and about betimes, turned to her father, when she had taken her place beside him at the breakfast-table, with a suspicion of annoyance on her usually cheerful face.

"Papa," she said, "I have seen that old man _again_, leaning on the stile by the Scarby lodge and looking in--along the drive--_so_ queerly. I don't quite like it. It gave me rather a ghosty feeling; or else he is out of his mind."

Her brother, Mark by name, began to laugh, after the manner of brothers.

"How very oddly you express yourself!" he said. "I should like to experience 'a ghosty feeling'. A ghost is just what this place wants to make it perfect. But it should be the spirit of one of the original monks."

Mr. Raynald turned to his son rather sharply.

"I don't want any nonsense of that kind set about, Mark," he said. "It would frighten the younger children when they come down here. I will ask about the old man. It is quite possible he is half-witted, or something of that sort. I forgot about it when Sybil mentioned it before. But no doubt he is perfectly harmless. Has no one seen him but you, Sybil?"

The girl shook her head.

"None of _us_," she replied. "And I wasn't exactly frightened. There was something very pathetic about him. He looked at me closely, murmuring some words, and then shook his head. That was all."

But just then her father was called away to give some last directions, and in the bustle of hurry to catch their train the matter passed from the minds of the younger as well as the elder members of the family.

It returned to Sybil's memory, however, when she found herself in their London house again, and called upon by her younger sisters to relate every detail of Monksholdings and its neighbourhood. But mindful of her father's warning, she said nothing to Esther or Annis of the figure at the gate. It was only to Miss March--Ellinor March--the dearly-loved governess, who was more friend than teacher to her three pupils, that she spoke of it, late in the evening, when the younger ones had gone to bed, and her father and mother were busy with Indian letters in Mr. Raynald's study.

The two girls, we may say--for Ellinor was still some years under thirty--were alone in the drawing-room. Ellinor had been playing something tender and faintly weird--it died away under her fingers, and she sat on at the piano in silence.

Sybil spoke suddenly.

"That is _so_ melancholy," she said, "something so long ago about it, like the ghost of a sorrow rather than a sorrow itself. I know--I know what it makes me think of. Listen, Ellinor."

For out of school hours the two threw formality aside. And Sybil told of the sad, wistful old face looking over the stile.

"Now it has come back to me," she said, "I can't forget it."

Ellinor, too, was impressed.

"Yes," she said, "it sounds very pitiful. Who knows what tragedy is bound up in it?" and she sighed.

Sybil understood her. Miss March's own history was a strange one.

"We must find out about it when we go down to Monksholdings next year," she said.

"And perhaps," added Ellinor, "even if he is half-witted, we might do something to comfort the poor man."

Sybil hesitated.

"Then you don't think he can be a ghost?" she said, looking half ashamed of the suggestion.

Miss March smiled--her smile was sad.

"In one sense, no, I should think it highly improbable; in another, yes, there must be the ghost of some great sorrow about the face you describe," she said.

So there was.

This is the story.

At the farther end of Scarby village--the farther end, that is to say, from Monksholdings and the path between the hills--the road drops again somewhat suddenly. Only for a short distance, however; Mayling Farm--"Giles's" as it is colloquially called--which is the first house you come to when you reach level ground again, being by no means low lying.

On the contrary, the west windows command a grand view of the great Scarshire plain beneath, bordered by the faint hazy blue, scarcely to be distinguished from clouds, of the long range of hills concealing the far-off glimmer of the ocean, which otherwise might sometimes be perceptible.

Mayling is a very old place, and the Giles's had been there "always," so to speak--steady-going, unambitious, save as regards their farming and its success; they had been just the make of men to settle on to their ground as if it and they could have no existence apart. A fine race physically as well as morally, though some twenty-five years or so before the Raynalds bought Monksholdings, a run of ill luck, a whole chapter of casualties, had brought them down to but one representative, and he scarcely the typical Farmer Giles of Mayling.

This was Barnett, the youngest of four stalwart sons; the youngest and the only survivor. He was already forty when his father died, earnestly commending to him the "old place," which even at eighty the aged farmer felt himself better fitted to manage than the somewhat delicate, sensitive man whom his brothers had made good-natured fun of in his youth as a "book-worm".

But Barnett was intelligent and sensible, and he rose to the occasion. Circumstances helped him. The year after old Giles's death Barnett for the first time fell in love, wisely and well. His affection was bestowed on a worthy object--Marion Grover, the daughter of a yeoman in the next county--and was fully returned.

Marion was years younger than her lover, fifteen at least, eminently practical, healthy, and pretty. She brought her husband just exactly what he was most in need of--brightness, energy, and youth. It was an ideal marriage, and everything prospered at Mayling. Four years after the advent of the new Mrs. Giles you would scarcely have recognised the farmer, he seemed another man.

He adored his wife, and could hardly find it in his heart to regret that their child was not a son, even though, failing an heir, the old name must die out; for if there was one creature the husband and wife loved more than each other it was their baby girl.

A month or two after this child's second birthday the singular catastrophe occurred which changed the world to poor Barnett Giles, leaving him but a wreck of his former self, physically and mentally.

Young Mrs. Giles was strong in every way, and from the first she took the line of saving her husband all extra fatigue or annoyance which she could possibly hoist on to her own brave shoulders. There was something quaint and even pathetic in the relations of the couple. For, notwithstanding Marion's being so much Barnett's junior, her attitude towards him had a decided suggestion of the maternal about it, though at times of real emergency his sound judgment and advice never failed her. It was within a week or two of Christmas; the weather was bitingly, raspingly cold. And though as yet no snow had fallen, the weather-wise were predicting it daily.

"I _must_ go over to Colletwood this week," said Mrs. Giles, "and I must take Nelly. Her new coat is waiting to be tried at the dressmaker's, and I must get her some boots and several other things before Christmas. And there is a whole list of other shopping too--all our Christmas presents to see to."

Her husband was looking out of the window, it was still very early in the day.

"I doubt if the snow will hold off much longer," he said.

"And once it begins it may be heavy," his wife replied, "and then I might not be able to go for ever so long, even by the road,"--for a deep fall of snow at Scarby was practically a stoppage to all traffic. "I'll tell you what, Barnett, we'll go to-day and make sure of it. I will put other things aside and start before noon. A couple of hours, or three at the most, will do everything, and then Nelly and I will be back long before dark. You'll come to meet us, won't you?"

"Of course I will--if you go. But," and again he glanced at the sky. The morning was, so far, clear and bright, though very cold, but over towards the north there was a suspicious look about the blue-grey clouds. "I don't know," he said, "but that you'd better wait till to-morrow and see if it blows off again."

But Marion shook her head.

"I've a feeling," she said, "that if I don't go to-day, I won't go at all. And I really must. I'll take Betsy to carry the child till we're just above the town, and then send her home, so as not to be tired for coming back. Not that I'm _ever_ tired, as you know," with a smile.

He gave in, only stipulating that at all costs they should start to return by a certain hour, unless the snow should have already begun, in which case Marion was to run no risks, but either to hire a fly to bring her home by the road, or to stay in the town with some of her friends till the weather cleared again.

"And I'll meet you," he added. "Let us set our watches together--I'll start from here so as to be at--let me see----"

"Half-way between the stiles," said Marion. "We can each see the other from one stile to the opposite one, you know, even though it's a good bit of a way. Yes, dear, I'll time it as near as I can to meet half-way between the stiles."

And with these words the last on her lips, she set off, a picture of health and happiness--little Nelly crowing back to "Dada" from over stout Betsy's shoulder.

Betsy was home again within the hour.

But the mother and child--alas and alas! It was the immortal story of "Lucy Gray" in an almost more pathetic shape.

Farmer Giles, as I have said, was a studious, often absent-minded man. There was not much to do at that season and in such weather, and what there was, some amount of supervision on his part was enough for. After his early dinner he got out his books for an hour or two's quiet reading till it should be time to set off to meet his darlings. No fear of his forgetting _that_ time, but till the clock struck, and he saw it was approaching nearly, he never looked out--he was unconscious of the rapid growth of the lurid, steely clouds; he had no idea that the snowflakes were already falling, falling, more and more closely and thickly with each instant that passed.

Then rose the storm spirit and issued his orders--all too quickly obeyed. Before Barnett Giles had left the village street he found himself in what now-a-days would be called a "blizzard". And his pale face grew paler, and his heart beat as if to choke him, when at last he reached the first stile and stood there panting, to regain his breath. It was all he could do to battle on through the fury of the wind, the blinding, whirling snow, which seemed to envelop him as if in sheets. Not for many and many a day will that awful snowstorm be forgotten in Scarshire.

* * * * *

It was at the appointed trysting place they found him--"half-way between the stiles". But not till late that evening, when Betsy, more alarmed by his absence than by her mistress's not returning, at last struggled out through the deep-lying snow to alarm the nearest neighbours.

"The missis and Miss Nell will have stayed the night in the town," she said. "But I misdoubt me if the master will ever have got so far, though he may have been tempted on when he did not meet them."

By this time the fury of the storm had spent itself, and they found poor Giles after a not very protracted search, and brought him home--dead, they thought at first.

No, he was not dead, but it was less than half _life_ that he returned to. For his first inquiry late the next day, when glimmering consciousness had begun to revive--"Marion, the baby?"--seemed by some subtle instinct to answer itself truthfully, in spite of the kindly endeavour to deceive him for the time.

"Dead!" he murmured. "I knew it. Half-way between the stiles," and he turned his face to the wall.

They almost wished he had died too--the rough but kind-hearted country-folk who were his neighbours. But he lived. He never asked and never knew the details of the tragedy, which, indeed, was never fully known by any one.

All that came to light was that the dead body of Marion Giles was brought by some semi-gipsy wanderers to the workhouse of a town several miles south of Colletwood, early on the morning after the blizzard. They had found it, they said, at some little distance from the road along which they were journeying, so that she must have lost her way long before approaching the Monksholdings confines, not improbably, indeed, in attempting to retrace her steps to the town which she had so imprudently quitted. But of the child the tramps said nothing, and after making the above deposition, they were allowed to go on their way, which they expressed themselves as anxious to do; for reasons of their own, no doubt; possibly the same reasons which had prevented their returning to Colletwood with the young woman's corpse, as would have seemed more natural.

And afterwards no very special inquiry was made about the baby. The father was incapable of it, and in those days people accepted things more carelessly, perhaps. It was taken for granted that "Little Nell" had fallen down some cliff, no doubt, and lay buried there, with the snow for her shroud, like a strayed lambkin. Her tiny bones might yet be found, years hence, maybe, by a shepherd in search of some bleating wanderer, or--no more might ever be known of the infant's fate!

Barnett Giles rose from his bed, after many weeks, with all the look of a very old man. At first it was thought that his mind was quite gone; but it did not prove to be so. After a time, with the help of an excellent foreman, or bailiff, he showed himself able to manage his farm with a strange, mechanical kind of intelligence. It seemed as if the sense of duty outlived the loss of other perceptions, though these, too, cleared by degrees to a considerable extent, and material things, curious as it may appear, prospered with him.

But he rarely spoke unless obliged to do so; and whenever he felt himself at leisure, and knew that his work was not calling for him, he seemed to relapse into the half-dreamy state which was his more real life. Then he would pass through the village and slowly climb the slope to the stile, where he would stand for hours together, patiently gazing before him, while he murmured the old refrain: "'Half-way between the stiles,' she said. I shall meet them there, 'half-way between the stiles'."

Fortunately, perhaps, it was not often he attempted to climb over; he contented himself with standing and gazing. Fortunately so, for otherwise the changes at Monksholdings would have probably terribly shocked his abnormally sensitive brain. But he did not seem to notice them, nor the new route of the old right-of-way agreed to by the compromise. He was content with his post--standing, leaning on the stile, and gazing before him.

His, of course, was the worn, wistful face which had half frightened, half appealed to Sybil Raynald.

But she forgot about it again, or other things put it temporarily aside, so that when the Raynalds came down to Monksholdings again the following Easter it did not at once occur to her to remind her father of the inquiry he had promised to make.

Miss March was not with her pupils and their parents at first. She had gone to spend a holiday week with the friends who had brought her up and seen to her education--good, benevolent people, if not specially sympathetic, but to whom she felt herself bound by ties of sincerest gratitude, though her five years with the Raynald family had given her more of the feeling of a "home" than she had ever had before.

And her arrival at Monksholdings was the occasion of much rejoicing. There was everything to show her, and every one, from Mark down to little Robin, wanted to be her guide. It was not till the morning of the next day that Sybil managed to get her to herself for a _tete-a-tete_ stroll.

Ellinor had some things to tell her quondam pupil. Mrs. Bellairs, her self-appointed guardian, was growing old and somewhat feeble.

"I fear she is not likely to live many years," said Miss March, "and she thinks so herself. She has a curious longing, which I never saw in her before, to find out my history--to know if there is no one really belonging to me to whom she can give me back, as it were, before she dies. She gave me the little parcel containing the clothes I had on when she rescued me from being sent to a workhouse. They are carefully washed and mended, and though I was a poor, dirty little object when I was found, they do not look really as if I had been a beggar child," with a little smile.

"You a beggar child!" exclaimed Sybil indignantly. "Of course not. Perhaps, on the contrary, you were somebody very grand."

"No, no," said Ellinor sensibly. "In that case I should have been advertised for and inquired after. No, I have never thought that, and I should not wish it. I should be more than thankful to know I came of good, honest people, however simple; to have some one of my very own."

"I forget the actual details," said Sybil, "though you have often told me about it. You were found--no, not literally in the workhouse, was it?"

"They were going to take me there," said Miss March. "It was at a village near Bath where Mr. and Mrs. Bellairs were then living, and one day, after a party of gipsies had been encamping on the common, a cottager's wife heard something crying in the night, and found me in her little garden. She was too poor to keep me herself, and felt certain I was a child the gipsies had stolen and then wanted to get rid of. I was fair-haired and blue-eyed, not like them. She was a friend or relation of some of Mrs. Bellairs's servants, and so the story got round to my kind old friend. And you know the rest--how they first thought of bringing me up in quite a humble way, and then finding me--well, intelligent and naturally rather refined, I suppose, I got a really good education, and my good luck did not desert me, dear, when I came to be your governess."

Sybil smiled.

"And can you remember _nothing_?"

Ellinor hesitated.

"Queer, dreamy fragments come back to me sometimes," she said. "I have a feeling of having seen hills long, long ago. It is strange," she went on, for by this time they had left the private grounds and were strolling along the hill-path in the direction of the town, "it is strange that since I came here I seem to have got hold of a tiny bit of these old memories, if they are such. It must be the hills," and she stood still and gazed round her with a deep breath of satisfaction, "I could only have been between two and three when I was found," she went on. "The only words I said were 'Dada' and 'Nennie'--it sounded like 'Nelly'. That was why Mrs. Bellairs called me 'Ellinor,' and 'March,' because it was in that month she took me to her house."

Sybil walked on in silence for a moment or two.

"It _is_ such a romantic story," she said at last. "I am never tired of thinking about it."

They entered Monksholdings again from the east entrance, Ellinor glanced at the stile.

"By-the-bye," she said, "this is one of the two old stiles, I suppose. Have you ever seen your ghost again, Sybil? Have you found out anything about him?"

Sybil looked round her half nervously.

"It is the other stile he haunts," she said. "I rather avoid it, at least, I mean to do so now. It is curious you speak of it, for till yesterday I had not seen him again, and had almost forgotten about it. But yesterday afternoon, just before you came, there he was--exactly the same, staring in. I meant to speak to papa about it, but with the pleasure and bustle of your arrival, I forgot it. Remind me about it. I am afraid he is out of his mind."

"Poor old man!" said Ellinor. "I wish we could do something to comfort him. I feel as if everybody _must_ be happy here. It is such a charming, exhilarating place. Dear me, how windy it is! The path is all strewn with the white petals of the cherry blossom."

"They have degenerated into wild cherry trees," said Sybil. "Long ago papa says these must have been good fruit trees of many kinds, and this is a great cherry country, you know."

The wind dropped that afternoon, but only temporarily. It rose again so much during the night that by the next morning the grounds looked, to use little Annis's expression, "quite untidy".

"And down in the village, or just beyond it," said Mark, who had been for an early stroll, "at one place it really looks as if it had been snowing. The road skirts that old farmhouse; you know it, father? I forget the name--there's a grand cherry orchard there."

"'Mayling Farm,' you must mean," said Mr. Raynald. "Farmer Giles's. Oh, by the way, that reminds me, Sybil," but a glance round the table made him stop short. They were at breakfast. He scarcely felt inclined to relate the tragic story before the younger children, "they might look frightened or run away if they came across the poor fellow," he reflected. "I will tell Sybil about it afterwards."

Easter holidays were not yet over, though the governess had returned, so regular routine was set aside, and the whole of the young party, Ellinor included, spent that morning in a scramble among the hills.

The children seemed untirable, and set off again somewhere or other in the afternoon. Sybil was busy with her mother, writing letters and orders to be despatched to London, so that towards four o'clock or so, when Miss March, having finished her own correspondence, entered the drawing-room, she found it deserted.

Sybil had promised to practise some duets with her, and while waiting on the chance of her coming, Ellinor seated herself at the piano and began to play--nothing very important--just snatches of old airs which she wove into a kind of half-dreamy harmony, one melting into another as they occurred to her.

All at once a shadow fell on the keys, and then she remembered having heard the door softly open a moment or two before--so softly, that she had not looked round, imagining it to be the wind, which, though fallen now, still lingered about.

Now her ideas took another shape.

"It is Sybil, no doubt," she thought with a smile. "She is going to make me jump," and she waited, half expecting to feel Sybil's hands suddenly clasped over her eyes from behind.

But this was not to be the mode of attack, apparently, though she heard what sounded like stealthy footsteps.

"You need not try to startle me, Sybbie," she exclaimed laughingly, without turning or ceasing to play, "I hear you."

It was no laughing voice which replied.

On the contrary, a sigh, almost a groan, close to her made her look up sharply--a trifle indignant perhaps at the joke being carried so far--and she saw, a pace or two from her only, the figure of an old man--a white-haired, somewhat bent form, a worn face with wistful blue eyes--gazing at her.

She had scarcely time to feel frightened, for almost instantaneously Sybil's "ghost" recurred to her memory.

"He has found his way in, then," she thought, not without a slight and natural tremor, which, however, disappeared as she gazed, so pathetically gentle was the whole aspect of the intruder.

But--his face changed curiously--the sight of hers, now fully in his view, seemed strangely to affect him. With a gesture of utter bewilderment he raised his hand to his forehead as if to brush something away--the cloud still resting on his brain--then a smile broke over the old face, a wonderful smile.

"Marion," he said, "at last? I--I thought I was dreaming. I heard you playing in my dream. It is the right place though, 'Half-way between the stiles,' you said. I have waited so long and come so often, and now it is snowing again. Just a little, dear, nothing to hurt. Marion, my darling, why don't you speak? Is it all a dream--this fine room, the music and all? Are _you_ a dream?"

He closed his eyes as if he were fainting. Inexpressibly touched, all Ellinor's womanly nature went out to him. She started forward, half leading, half lifting him to a seat close at hand.

"I--I am not Marion," she said, and afterwards she wondered what had inspired the words, "but I am"--not "Ellinor," something made her change the name as he spoke--"I am Nelly."

He opened his eyes again.

"Little Nell," he said, "has she sent you down to me from heaven? My little Nell!"

And then he fell back unconscious--this time he had fainted.

She thought he was dead, but it was not so--her cries for help soon brought her friends, Mr. Raynald first of all. He did not seem startled, he soothed Ellinor at once.

"It is poor old Giles," he said. "I know all about him, he has found his way in at last."

"But--but----," stammered the girl, "there is something else, Mr. Raynald. I--I seem to remember something."

She looked nearly as white as their poor visitor, and as Mr. Raynald glanced at her, a curious expression flitted across his own face.

Could it be so? He knew all her story.

"Wait a little, my dear," he said. "We must attend to poor Giles first."

They were very kind and tender to the old man, but he seemed to be barely conscious, even after restoratives had brought him out of the actual fainting fit. Then Mrs. Raynald proposed that his servants--his housekeeper if he had one--should be sent for.

And when faithful Betsy, stout as of old, though less nimble, made her appearance, her irrepressible emotion at the sight of Ellinor, pale and trembling though the young governess was, gave form and substance to Mr. Raynald's suspicions.

Yes, they had met at last--father and daughter--"half-way between the stiles". He was "Dada," she was little "Nell". Might it not be that Marion's prayers had brought them together?

Every reasonable proof was forthcoming--the little parcel of clothes, the correspondence in the dates, the strong resemblance to her mother.

And--joy does not often kill. Barnett was able to understand it all better than might have been expected. He was never _quite_ himself, but infinitely better both in mind and body than poor old Betsy had ever dreamt of seeing him. And he was perfectly content--content to live as long as it should please God to spare him to his little Nell; ready to go to his Marion when the time should come.

And Ellinor had her wish--a home, though not a "grand" one; some one of her "very own" to care for; a father's devoted love, and, to complete her happiness, the friends who had grown so dear to her close at hand.

More may yet be hers in the future, for she is still young. Her father may live to see his grandchildren playing about the farmstead at Mayling, so that, though the name be changed, the old stock will still nourish where so many generations of its ancestors have sown and reaped.

AT THE DIP OF THE ROAD.

Have I ever seen a ghost?

I do not know.

That is the only reply I can truthfully make to the question now-a-days so often asked. And sometimes, if inquirers care to hear more, I go on to tell them the one experience which makes it impossible for me to reply positively either in the affirmative or negative, and restricts me to "I do not know".

This was the story.

I was staying with relations in the country. Not a very isolated or out-of-the-way part of the world, and yet rather inconvenient of access by the railway. For the nearest station was six miles off. Though the family I was visiting were nearly connected with me I did not know much of their home or its neighbourhood, as the head of the house, an uncle of mine by marriage, had only come into the property a year or two previously to the date of which I am writing, through the death of an elder brother.

It was a nice place. A good comfortable old house, a prosperous, satisfactory estate. Everything about it was in good order, from the farmers, who always paid their rents, to the shooting, which was always good; from the vineries, which were noted, to the woods, where the earliest primroses in all the country side were yearly to be found.

And my uncle and aunt and their family deserved these pleasant things and made a good use of them.

But there was a touch of the commonplace about it all. There was nothing picturesque or romantic. The country was flat though fertile, the house, though old, was conveniently modern in its arrangements, airy, cheery, and bright.

"Not even a ghost, or the shadow of one," I remember saying one day with a faint grumble.

"Ah, well--as to that," said my uncle, "perhaps we----" but just then something interrupted him, and I forgot his unfinished speech.

Into the happy party of which for the time being I was one, there fell one morning a sudden thunderbolt of calamity. The post brought news of the alarming illness of the eldest daughter--Frances, married a year or two ago and living, as the crow flies, at no very great distance. But as the crow flies is not always as the railroad runs, and to reach the Aldoyns' home from Fawne Court, my uncle's place, was a complicated business--it was scarcely possible to go and return in a day.

"Can one of you come over?" wrote the young husband. "She is already out of danger, but longing to see her mother or one of you. She is worrying about the baby"--a child of a few months old--"and wishing for nurse."

We looked at each other.

"Nurse must go at once," said my uncle to me, as the eldest of the party. Perhaps I should here say that I am a widow, though not old, and with no close ties or responsibilities. "But for your aunt it is impossible."

"Quite so," I agreed. For she was at the moment painfully lamed by rheumatism.

"And the other girls are almost too young at such a crisis," my uncle continued. "Would you, Charlotte----" and he hesitated. "It would be such a comfort to have personal news of her."

"Of course I will go," I said. "Nurse and I can start at once. I will leave her there, and return alone, to give you, I have no doubt, better news of poor Francie."

He was full of gratitude. So were they all.

"Don't hurry back to-night," said my uncle. "Stay till--till Monday if you like." But I could not promise. I knew they would be glad of news at once, and in a small house like my cousin's, at such a time, an inmate the more might be inconvenient.

"I will try to return to-night," I said. And as I sprang into the carriage I added: "Send to Moore to meet the last train, unless I telegraph to the contrary."

My uncle nodded; the boys called after me, "All right;" the old butler bowed assent, and I was satisfied.

Nurse and I reached our journey's end promptly, considering the four or five junctions at which we had to change carriages. But on the whole "going," the trains fitted astonishingly.

We found Frances better, delighted to see us, eager for news of her mother, and, finally, disposed to sleep peacefully now that she knew that there was an experienced person in charge. And both she and her husband thanked me so much that I felt ashamed of the little I had done. Mr. Aldoyn begged me to stay till Monday; but the house was upset, and I was eager to carry back my good tidings.

"They are meeting me at Moore by the last train," I said. "No, thank you, I think it is best to go."

"You will have an uncomfortable journey," he replied. "It is Saturday, and the trains will be late, and the stations crowded with the market people. It will be horrid for you, Charlotte."

But I persisted.

It _was_ rather horrid. And it was queer. There was a sort of uncanny eeriness about that Saturday evening's journey that I have never forgotten. The season was very early spring. It was not very cold, but chilly and ungenial. And there were such odd sorts of people about. I travelled second-class; for I am not rich, and I am very independent. I did not want my uncle to pay my fare, for I liked the feeling of rendering him some small service in return for his steady kindness to me. The first stage of my journey was performed in the company of two old naturalists travelling to Scotland to look for some small plant which was to be found only in one spot in the Highlands. This I gathered from their talk to each other. You never saw two such extraordinary creatures as they were. They both wore black kid gloves much too large for them, and the ends of the fingers waved about like feathers.

Then followed two or three short transits, interspersed with weary waitings at stations. The last of these was the worst, and tantalising, too, for by this time I was within a few miles of Moore. The station was crowded with rough folk, all, it seemed to me, more or less tipsy. So I took refuge in a dark waiting-room on the small side line by which I was to proceed, where I felt I might have been robbed and murdered and no one the wiser.

But at last came my slow little train, and in I jumped, to jump out again still more joyfully some fifteen minutes later when we drew up at Moore.

I peered about for the carriage. It was not to be seen; only two or three tax-carts or dog-carts, farmers' vehicles, standing about, while their owners, it was easy to hear, were drinking far more than was good for them in the taproom of the Unicorn. Thence, nevertheless--not to the taproom, but to the front of the inn--I made my way, though not undismayed by the shouts and roars breaking the stillness of the quiet night. "Was the Fawne Court carriage not here?" I asked.

The landlady was a good-natured woman, especially civil to any member of the "Court" family. But she shook her head.

"No, no carriage had been down to-day. There must have been some mistake."

There was nothing for it but to wait till she could somehow or other disinter a fly and a horse, and, worst of all a driver. For the "men" she had to call were all rather--"well, ma'am, you see it's Saturday night. We weren't expecting any one."

And when, after waiting half an hour, the fly at last emerged, my heart almost failed me. Even before he drove out of the yard, it was very plain that if ever we reached Fawne Court alive, it would certainly be more thanks to good luck than to the driver's management.

But the horse was old and the man had a sort of instinct about him. We got on all right till we were more than half way to our journey's end. The road was straight and the moonlight bright, especially after we had passed a certain corner, and got well out of the shade of the trees which skirted the first part of the way.

Just past this turn there came a dip in the road. It went down, down gradually, for a quarter of a mile or more, and I looked up anxiously, fearful of the horse taking advantage of the slope. But no, he jogged on, if possible more slowly than before, though new terrors assailed me when I saw that the driver was now fast asleep, his head swaying from side to side with extraordinary regularity. After a bit I grew easier again; he seemed to keep his equilibrium, and I looked out at the side window on the moon-flooded landscape, with some interest. I had never seen brighter moonlight.

Suddenly from out of the intense stillness and loneliness a figure, a human figure, became visible. It was that of a man, a young and active man, running along the footpath a few feet to our left, apparently from some whim, keeping pace with the fly. My first feeling was of satisfaction that I was no longer alone, at the tender mercies of my stupefied charioteer. But, as I gazed, a slight misgiving came over me. Who could it be running along this lonely road so late, and what was his motive in keeping up with us so steadily. It almost seemed as if he had been waiting for us, yet that, of course, was impossible. He was not very highwayman-like certainly; he was well-dressed--neatly-dressed that is to say, like a superior gamekeeper--his figure was remarkably good, tall and slight, and he ran gracefully. But there was something queer about him, and suddenly the curiosity that had mingled in my observation of him was entirely submerged in alarm, when I saw that, as he ran, he was slowly but steadily drawing nearer and nearer to the fly.

"In another moment he will be opening the door and jumping in," I thought, and I glanced before me only to see that the driver was more hopelessly asleep than before; there was no chance of his hearing if I called out. And get out I could not without attracting the strange runner's attention, for as ill-luck would have it, the window was drawn up on the right side, and I could not open the door without rattling the glass. While, worse and worse, the left hand window was down! Even that slight protection wanting!

I looked out once more. By this time the figure was close, close to the fly. Then an arm was stretched out and laid along the edge of the door, as if preparatory to opening it, and then, for the first time I saw his face. It was a young face, but terribly, horribly pale and ghastly, and the eyes--all was so visible in the moonlight--had an expression such as I had never seen before or since. It terrified me, though afterwards on recalling it, it seemed to me that it might have been more a look of agonised appeal than of menace of any kind.

I cowered back into my corner and shut my eyes, feigning sleep. It was the only idea that occurred to me. My heart was beating like a sledge hammer. All sorts of thoughts rushed through me; among them I remember saying to myself: "He must be an escaped lunatic--his eyes are so awfully wild".

How long I sat thus I don't know--whenever I dared to glance out furtively he was still there. But all at once a strange feeling of relief came over me. I sat up--yes, he was gone! And though, as I took courage, I leant out and looked round in every direction, not a trace of him was to be seen, though the road and the fields were bare and clear for a long distance round.

When I got to Fawne Court I had to wake the lodge-keeper--every one was asleep. But my uncle was still up, though not expecting me, and very distressed he was at the mistake about the carriage.

"However," he concluded, "all's well that ends well. It's delightful to have your good news. But you look sadly pale and tired, Charlotte."

Then I told him of my fright--it seemed now so foolish of me, I said. But my uncle did not smile--on the contrary.

"My dear," he said. "It sounds very like our ghost, though, of course, it may have been only one of the keepers."

He told me the story. Many years ago in his grandfather's time, a young and favourite gamekeeper had been found dead in a field skirting the road down there. There was no sign of violence upon the body; it was never explained what had killed him. But he had had in his charge a watch--a very valuable one--which his master for some reason or other had handed to him to take home to the house, not wishing to keep it on him. And when the body was found late that night, the watch was not on it. Since then, so the story goes, on a moonlight night the spirit of the poor fellow haunts the spot. It is supposed that he wants to tell what had become of his master's watch, which was never found. But no one has ever had courage to address him.

"He never comes farther than the dip in the road," said my uncle. "If you had spoken to him, Charlotte, I wonder if he would have told you his secret?"

He spoke half laughingly, but I have never quite forgiven myself for my cowardice. It was the look in those eyes!

"---- WILL NOT TAKE PLACE."

"'Lingard,' 'Trevannion,'" murmured Captain Murray, as he ran his eye down the column of the morning paper specially devoted to so-called fashionable intelligence, "Lingard, Arthur Lingard; yes, I've met him; a very good fellow. And Trevannion; don't you know a Miss Trevannion, Bessie?"

Mrs. Murray glanced up from her teacups.

"What do you say, Walter? Trevannion; yes, I have met a girl of the name at my aunt's. A pretty girl, and I think I heard she was going to be married. Is that what you are talking about?"

"No," her husband replied. "It's the other way--broken off, I wonder why."

"What an old gossip you are," said Mrs. Murray. "No good reason at all, I daresay. People are so capricious now-a-days."

"Still, they don't often announce a marriage till it's pretty certain to come off. This sort of thing," tapping the paper as he spoke, "isn't exactly pleasant."

"Very much the reverse," agreed Mrs. Murray, and then they thought no more about it.

"I wonder why," said a good many people that morning, when they caught sight of the announcement. For the two principals it concerned--Arthur Lingard, especially--had a large circle of friends and acquaintances, and their engagement had been the subject of much and hearty congratulation. It seemed so natural and fitting that these two should marry. Both young, amiable, good-looking, and sufficiently well off. Even the most cynical could discern no cloud in the bright sky of their future, no crook in the lot before them.

And now--

No marvel that Captain Murray's soliloquy was repeated by many.

But who would have guessed that in one heart it was ever ringing with maddening anguish?

"I wonder why, oh, I wonder why he has done it. Oh, if he would but tell me, it could not surely seem quite so unendurable."

And Daisy Trevannion pressed her aching head, and her poor swollen eyes on to her mother's loving bosom in a sort of wild despair.

"Mamma, mamma," she cried, "help me. I cannot be angry with him. I wish I could. He was so gentle, so sweet--and he is so heartbroken, I can see by his letter. Oh, mamma, what can it be?"

But to this, even the devoted mother, who would gladly have given her own life to save her child this misery, could find no answer.

This was what had happened.

They had been engaged about three months, the wedding day was approximately fixed, when one morning the blow fell.

A letter to Daisy's father, enclosing one to herself--a letter which made Mr. Trevannion draw his brows together in instinctive indignation, and then as the first impulse cooled a little, caused him to turn to his daughter with a movement of irritation, underneath which, hope had, nevertheless, found time to reassert itself.

"Daisy," he exclaimed sharply, "what is the meaning of all this nonsense? Have you been quarrelling with Lingard? You're a bit of a spoilt child I know, my dear, but I don't like playing with edged tools--a man like Arthur won't stand being trifled with. Do you hear, Daisy--eh, what?"