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LIBRARY OF THE

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN

A WILY WIDOW.

VOL. II.

A WILY WIDOW

BY

HENRY CRESSWELL

ACTHOR OF
A MODERN GREEK HEROINE," "THE SINS OF THE FATHERS,'
" INCOGNITA," " THE SURVIVORS," ETC.

Beware of the wrath of the dove.
IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. n.

LONDON :

HURST AND BLACKETT, LIMITED.

13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.

1888.

All Risrhts Resa-jcd.

823

A WILY WIDOW.

CHAPTER I.

Of course that AVarrington had wanted
some money and had been unable to get it
became known. Such things always do
become known, especially in places like
Lynham, though by what agency it is so
impossible to say that the ancient myth,
' A bird of the air shall carry the voice,
and that which hath wings shall tell the
matter,' appears almost credible, for sheer
lack of any possible explanation of the
phenomenon.

VOL. II. B

Z A WILY WIDOW.

Amongst other people, Maud Gains-
borough heard about that money, and
was sorry for Warrington ; sorry that
he should be in want of money ; and
sorry to hear the gossips making ill-
natured tattle for themselves out of his
embarrassments.

Warrington's want of cash touched the
widow, as the contemptibleness of his
opinions of women touched Lily Hardwick.
Lily would have given years out of her life,
or blood from her veins, not to have her
hero mean in his thoughts. The widow
recked nothing at all of his thoughts.
According to Maud's lights, opinions were
just opinions, that is intangible nothings.
But the want of ready-money that was
real. And so while the young girl ques-
tioned her heart, what self-sacrifice on her
part could make the man she loved more

A WILY WIDOW. 6

noble of disposition, the widow wished that
it had been in her power to put into
his hands the ready-money he wanted.
With what pride she would have given it
him !

It made her think of that fifteen
thousand a-year, which should be hers
and was not. If she had had that in her
hands !

She was still pursuing the same policy
with Warrington : scrupulously, conscien-
tiously avoiding him in every way she
could, and letting things between him and
her cousin take their course — a very slow
course it seemed. In small ways she even
abetted their meeting, and left them little
tete-a-teies when they met. But one after-
noon at this date, being at home alone, she
indulo;ed herself in buildino; a bis: castle in
the air, founded upon the imagination of

b2

4 A WILY WIDOW.

what she would do if she had that magical
fifteen thousand.

Lily should not have Mr. Warrington
then. Why should she ? Maud would
then be a better match for him than she.
And Maud loved him as this child never
would. Given the fifteen thousand, Maud
would step in between their halting, hesi-
tating loves with her great, burning
passion. In a month the man should love
her ; in less than another month Lily
should be forgotten ; and the golden
future

What was the use of dreaming of it ?
She had not the money. Yet she went on
with her dreams.

And meanwhile, perhaps, this will be a
convenient place to offer some explanation
of this phantom fortune ever floating
before the imagination of the widow,

A WILY WIDOW. O

and of how she became aware of its
existence.

It is necessary to go back between two
and three years, to Maud Gainsborough's
gambling days, and to a date when she
was hideously in want of money. Mr.
Gainsborough had paid off her debts about
three months before, and she had then
made several solemn promises to keep
from temptation in the future. The pro-
mises had gone the way of the proverbial
pie-crust ; and now, so far as she could see,
there was nothing for it but to confess the
fact and again to ask her husband for
money. Only, when it came to confessing,
Maud's courage failed her.

It was under these circumstances that,
one day, her eyes fell upon an advertise-
ment of a certain publication. Somehow,
it is always women's eyes that do fall upon

b A WILY WIDOW.

advertisements of this kind. The publica-
tion was ' The ABC guide to hundreds
of thousands of pounds, or a complete
alphabetical register of all persons, in all
parts of the world, at present entitled to
inherit unclaimed fortunes, with complete
instructions how to establish successful
claims to inheritances, in many cases, of
hundreds of thousands of pounds. Price
one shilling.'

Mrs. Gainsborough was in the humour
to catch at straws, and she caught at this
one. Who could tell that there was not
an unclaimed fortune awaiting her. Heaven
only grant there might be one ! So she
wrote for the 'ABC guide.'

The post soon brought her the great
work. It was a volume in appearance
something between a tradesman's catalogue
and a cheap watering-place guide-book.

A WILY WIDOW. 7

With trembling fingers Mrs. Gainsborough
turned hurriedly to seek her own name,
which she had at first been simple enough
to suppose might appear in the bock with
the sum awaiting her set against it. But
she found no Maud Gainsborough. Nor
did she find Maud Spencer, her maiden
name. Nor were the fortunes which were
to be obtained in any case indicated in
connection with the names to which they
belonged. In fact, the promises of the
' A. B. C. Guide to hundreds of thousands
of pounds ' turned out to be somewhat
illusory. Certainly the arrangement was
alphabetical. But the fortunate heirs-at-
law appeared only as ' The heirs-at-law of
A. Jones '—' of B. Brown '— ' of C. Robin-
son ' — and so forth. The whole question,
which no one had as yet been able to solve,
being, who were the heirs-at-law of A.

8 A WILY WIDOW.

Brown, B. Jones, and C. Robinson. Still
it was interesting to know that A. Brown,
B. Jones, C. Robinson, and the rest of
them, very much wanted heirs. But it
appeared that the fortunes in very few
cases amounted to the ' hundreds of thou-
sands of pounds.' Also, the prodigious
number of Browns, Joneses, and Robin-
sons who wanted heirs was really bewil-
dering to anyone who wished to choose
from which of them he would like to
inherit. Further information, however,
respecting any name was to be had from
the enterprising publisher of this great
work upon the payment of a guinea. To
put the matter plainly : human ingenuity
could hardly have devised a publication
of which the real object (to obtain guineas
from the unwary) was more plainly evi-
dent; or the ostensible object (to inform

A WILY WIDOW. y

people whether they were heirs to un-
claimed fortunes) more ingeniously tra-
versed. After which no more need be
said about the * A B C guide to,' etc.^ etc.

But Maud Gainsborough was desperate.
And, clinging with the resolution of de-
spair to her idea of the unclaimed fortune,
she was not soon to be baffled. She looked
up the names of all her uncles, and aunts,
and cousins, and of her great-uncles and
aunts so far as she knew them, and then
of her grandparents, and of her great-
grandparents, and still, meeting with no
success, she set resolutely to work to
read the whole formidable index of names
throughout from A to Z, if haply she
might have the good fortune to discover
herself heir-at-law to some one.

And thus reading name after name, with
a patience and attention that certainly

10 A WILY WIDOW.

showed character, Mrs. Gainsborough pre-
sently came upon one that arrested her
attention — Josiah Klop.

That was an uncommon name. It was
not probable that there were two Josiah
Klops. And about one Maud Gainsborough
knew a long story.

Again it is necessary to go back — back
to Maud Gainsborough's school-days ; to
a date when both Lily's parents were
living, and also a great-uncle of hers, who
one evening invited the school-girls to his
house.

The old man was an antiquary, a gene-
alogist, and a student of everything dry
as dust, bygone, and generally unin-
teresting.

He was very kind, however, to the two
girls, and showed them a number of curi-
ous things, and finally in the evening, by

A WILY WIDOW. 11

way of amusing them, undertook to show
them that they were as well as iirst cousins
on their mothers' side, distant cousins also
on their fathers' side — fifth, or fifteenth, or
fiftieth cousins — the girls did not trouble
their heads which.

To prove that, he brought them out an
ancient family Bible, and a large, neatly-
written manuscript volume compiled by
himself, and lettered * Monument a Hard-
wickiana ' : also some very ancient faded
letters.

And first he called their attention to
one of the earliest entries in the family
Bible, and made them read under the name
of John Hardwick : ' He went away from
home June 3, 1696, and was never heard
of afterwards.' And then, having shown
them how they were both descended from
this John Hardwick, he told the girls with

12 A WILY WIDOW.

great pride how he had discovered what had
become of this lost John Hard wick.

John Hardwick was a sad scapegrace,
and when he left home he left a wife
behind him, and a little son James,
from whom all the Hardwicks were de-
scended. Nobody ever knew what became
of him, until about 1850, when the old
antiquary himself purchased in Brussels a
bundle of old English letters that turned
out to have been written by this very John
Hardwick. From these letters it was
evident that John Hardwick lived for
many years in Ghent, and followed the
calling of an usurer; and the name he
gave himself in Ghent was Josiah Klop.
His letters, addressed to some familiar
acquaintance, were very unreserved, and
in one of the earlier ones he referred to the

A WILY WIDOW. 13

fact of his having changed his name from
that of John Hardwick to Josiah Klop.
In the last letter of the collection he spoke
of his approaching return to England.
But whether he ever did return was un-
known. Xone of his family ever saw him.
The attention that Miss Maud Spencer
paid to this history was very slight indeed ;
and all that she remembered of it barely
amounted to the leading facts above re-
corded. Five years afterwards, with the
name of Josiah Klop staring at her from
the ^ A B C guide to fortune,' she regret-
ted sincerely that she had not paid closer
attention to the relationships of the
Hardmcks and the Spencers and to all the
details of the story of John Hardwick,
which had been related to her with sa
much care.

14 A WILY WIDOW.

But, anyhow, she resolved to invest a
guinea in further information. The
information she got for the guinea was
this.

In the year 1736 there lived in Bristol
an old man named Josiah Klop. He
occupied a dilapidated house, and led a
parsimonious and secluded life, with an
ill-looking coloured servant who cooked for
him and waited on him. He was a reticent
old man, and unsociable ; little was known
about him, but it was said that he came
from the Low Countries, and that he was
wealthy; and he passed for a miser. Sud-
denly both the old man and his servant
disappeared. The suspicions of the neigh-
bours were aroused, and after a few days
the house was broken open. The old man
was found murdered in his bed, and the
house ransacked. Whether there had been

A WILY WIDOW. 15

anything in it to steal or not was never
known, but the coloured servant had vanish-
ed, and it was generally believed that he had
murdered his master, and made oif with
what money there was in the house, and
perhaps with some valuables. However,
the old man's securities, and other proper-
ties of his which were in the hands of his
bankers, remained, of course, intact. He
left his property to a son, but no heir
appeared, and the whole passed into the cus-
tody of the Court of Chancery. The pre-
sent worth of his property, at the end of a
hundred and fifty years, was believed to
exceed half-a-million.

The paper trembled in Maud Gains-
borough's hands, and the room reeled
round her. Half-a-million !

Compelling herself to be calm, she read
the whole again carefully and then set

16 A WILY WIDOW.

herself to consider wliat should be her
next step.

She wrote to the old antiquary, saying
in her letter that some one had asked her
about the family, and that she had been
able to tell only a very little. But she re-
membered how kindly he had once told her
all about Josiah Klop, and the cousinship of
the Spencers and Hard wicks, and the for-
tune the old man had made by money lend-
ing, and what ought to have become of it.
And would he mind sending her the facts
in writing.

Mrs. Gainsborouojh was a 2:ood deal

O CD

pleased with her letter, and with the in-
genious manner which she had put out as
a feeler respecting Josiah Klop's fortune.

A reply came almost at once, in a letter
of five sheets. The old antiquary wrote
that he was very pleased to have received

A AVILY TVIDOW. 17

Mrs. Gainsborough's letter. Everyone
ought to know their own family history.
And then followed the facts. First, all the
history of John Hardwick, alias Josiah
Klop ; and then that of his descendants,
the Hardwicks ; and then the history of
John Hard wick's sister's descendants, the
Spencers. All the other branches of the
Hardwicks were extinct, and William
Hardwick, and after him his daughter
Lily, were the sole representatives. Also,
all the other branches of the Spencers were
extinct, and Maud Gainsborough herself
was the last of her family. And the letter
ended thus, ' You make a mistake about
Josiah Klop's having made a fortune by
money-lending. There is no allusion in
his letters to his having amassed any
property. Had he left a fortune, his
present heir-at-law would be Mr. Hard-

YOL. II. C

18 A WILY WIDOW.

wick, failing him his daughter Lily your
cousin, then failing her, yourself.'

Mrs. Gainsborough, for one minute,
stared straight before her, a blank stare of
disillusion, and then she tore the letter into
twenty fragments.

She had discovered a fortune of half-a-
million — for her cousin.

Presently, however, she got the better of
her first phrenzy of disappointment, and
picked up the pieces of her letter — a valu-
able one beyond a doubt — and carefully
patched them together, with paste and
some tracing paper.

Several courses were now evidently open
for her. She might inform Mr. Hard wick of
the discovery she had made. ' Make my
cousin a present of the fortune 1 have
discovered ?' quoth Maud Gainsborough to
herself * Never !'

A WILY WIDOW. 19

And, being very bitter indeed about her
very bitter disappointment, Maud Gains-
borough then and there resolved, and
vowed that, if she could not have the money,
at any rate Lily should not.

Then there was a middle course : to
make terms, big terms for the disclosure of
the secret. The plan appeared to Maud
Gainsborough difficult to work, dangerous,
and uncertain to produce satisfactory
results, and she renounced it almost at
once. Probably in that she was wise.

Then there remained the third course —
to wait. ' Something might happen,' quoth
Maud Gainsborough. Of course she knew
that meant that Mr. Hardwick and his
dau2:hter mio-ht die. She did not wish her
cousin to die, but, if she should die, half-
a-million was worth waiting for. Maud
resolved, after all, for the present to put

c2

20 A WILY WIDOW.

away carefally. tlie letter she had at first
ferociously torn up, and the other docu-
ments bearing on the subject, and to
wait.

That left her, of course, where she was
before with the gaming debts, and her in-
capacity for paying them. She did indeed,
read through all the rest of the 'ABC
Guide,' but she came upon no more Josiah
Klops. And, in the end, she had to tell her
husband, and the collapse ensued which
ended in his ruin.

But there remained indelibly branded
on Maud Gainsborough's memory that
fortune of half-a-million ; which ought by
every right under heaven to be hers, for
she had found it ; and respecting which
she had vowed that, if it could not be hers,
it should not be anyone's else.

A year afterwards ' something ' did

A WILY WIDOW. 21

happen. Mr. Hardwick and his wife lost
their lives on the Matterhorn ; and Lily
Hardwick became the last representative
of the Hardwicks.

Bat Maud Gainsborough remained still
of the same mind. Even when she met
the orphan girl, with her pretty eyes dis-
figured with tears, and her 3^0 ung cheeks
pale with mourning, still she said to her-
self, ' I have vowed that the money shall
be mine or no one's. And I will not flinch
from it.'

She showed the girl every kindness, but
she held to her resolution. And when
Lily came to live with her — by that date
the old antiquary was dead too — still she
held to her resolution. And this afternoon
she held to it still.

' I found the fortune, and it ought to be
mine. If anything were to happen to Lily,

22 A WILY WIDOW.

it would be mine. If not, it shall be no one's.
I may die before Lily, and then the secret
shall die with me : but I will not surrender
what should be mine. I have vowed that
I will not, and I will not.'

And with that power of self-deception
which belongs to all strongly imaginative
natures, she was firmly convinced that in
holding to her resolution she was bent
upon nothing but doing justice to herself

But, if what was by right her own had
only been her own in reality, what a future
would have been before her — what a golden
future!

23

CHAPTER II.

Lily, mean^yhile, was showing herself
about as perfect an epitome of all the
charming caprices of a pretty little witch of
twenty horribly in love, as anyone could
wish to see.

First and foremost, she was very much
in earnest, and liable, if teazed (and Maud
could not always refuse herself the pleasure
of teazing her) to become very cross and
shrewish, and sulky, for about a quarter-
of-an-hour. After that, her resentment
mostly vanished with a laugh, and a toss

24 A WILY WIDOW.

of her pretty head, as abruptly as it
appeared.

Then next the little wretch was grown
as gentle as an angel, tenderer than tender-
ness itself with every living thing that
crossed her passion-charmed path ; the
great, over-brimming love of her heart
flowing out, as it were, in a flood of gentle-
ness to all the world.

Then, of course, she had taken to losing
herself in long reveries, and was at times
as absent as the dead. And, by way of
being consistent, she was, for the remainder
of her waking hours, in one perpetual fever
of recollection of her last meeting with
Warrington, and of anticipation of the next.
Though, if accused of thinking of such
things, she became exceedingly indignant.
She had also grown a little shy, and not
a little reserved about talking; of Warring-

A WILY WIDOW. 25

ton, and more coy about speakin^^ of her
love than might have been anticipated, con-
sidering the irresistible penchant she had
to open her heart on most topics. At the
same time, his name was on her lips, in
some trivial connection or another, twenty
times a day. And she had certainly
improved ; she had grown a distinct shade
prettier, and more dainty in her carriage,
and more graceful.

In conclusion, to pass over the rest, she
had evinced also, all of a sudden, a talent
for coquetry of the most astonishing kind.
So that Maud Gainsborough, who looked
on, might well say to herself, as she began
to, on the one hand, ' I am afraid that
she is most tremendously " gone on him," '
and on the other hand, ' She would be
more difficult to compete with than I at
first anticipated.*

26 A WILY WIDOW.

In some humours, to watch her amused
Maud Gainsborough very much indeed.
In others, it made her jealous with a
terrible jealousy, a monstrous jealousy ; the
not unnatural consequence of the way in
which she was repressing and suffocating
her own passion.

But as February advanced, and with
the lengthening days came milder weather,
another change was apparent in Lily.
She was growing uneasy.

Her heart had begun to trouble her with
misf2fivin2;s. At the outset love is all sun-
shine, and it seems impossible that it
should prove ill-starred. It is content,
too, with itself, satisfied to be love, and to
ask nothing. But love cannot rest there :
nothing can rest in this world. And Lily
began to be aware that merely to love Frank
Warrington was after all not quite enough.

A WILY WIDOW. 27

As Maud had predicted, she very much
missed the restoration of the wall, which
had been finished long ago. It would
have been a blessed sight indeed, if she
could, some morning, have awakened to
lind another fifty yards of Mr. Warrington's
wall conveniently tumbled into the garden.

For she and Warrington now saw very
little of each other. Perhaps Warrington
had unconsciously taken a warning from
what his brother had said, and perhaps
Maud Gainsborough, also unconsciously,
afforded the lovers less assistance than she
had done. Certainly days passed, whole
weeks sometimes, and Lily saw nothing of
her hero.

She even began now and then to have a
horrible suspicion that she was playing the
miserable role of a girl who has given her
heart to a man who could not care for

28 A WILY WIDOW.

her. After what he had told her of his
opmion of her sex, it seemed more than
possible.

When they did meet, occasionally War-
rington was cold. So cold, once, that the
girl went home and cried. Yet Warring-
ton had only been a little bit on his
guard that afternoon, because he could see
that one of the first scandal-mongers of
Lynham was watching them from inside
a shop.

But all their rencontres were not chilly.
There were "times when they met pleasant-
ly enough, when Warrington was agreeable
and even attentive, and Lily gratified and
responsive. And now and then they both
came uncommonly near downright flir-
tation.

One morning they met at the Lynham
Road railway station.

A TVILY T\'IDOW. 29

* Ah, Miss Hardwick, how do you do ?'
said Warrino:ton. ' You are sroino: some-
where?'

'No. I have only come to enquire
about a parcel for my cousin. I wish I
were going somewhere !' confessed Lily,
with a little sigh.

• Where would you like to go ? This is
February. A little trip to the South of
Europe. Shall we say Naples?'

' Ah, should not I just like that,'
answered the girl, opening his eyes.

' Suppose we go together ?' suggested
Warrington, playfully.

' Ah, shall we ? That would be great
fun, wouldn't it?' replied Lily, coquettishly,
on the spot.

' Well, let's start then,' said Warrington.
' Let us see. There is a train to London
in ten minutes. Will you go and book?'

30 A WILY WIDOW.

' Oh, no, you must go and book, you
know,' laughed Lily.

' I think,' said Warrington, pulling some
gold out of his pocket, and regarding it,
that the fare from London is something
like twelve pounds. You don't happen
to have twenty pounds about you?'

' No. I don't,' said Lily.

' I'm afraid we can't go this morning
then.'

'How unfortunate! And just when I
haven't any luggage. You'll never get
such a chance with a lady again, Mr. War-
rington,' laughed Lily.

He helped her to get her parcel and saw
her off in her pony carriage, she saying
playfully, as they parted,

' And, next time you are going to offer a
lady a tour abroad, consult your exchequer
first. It looks very bad, I assure you, not

A WILY WIDOW. 31

to be able to produce even the railway
fare.'

That morning she came back to luncheon
in ojreat spirits. But it was not very often
that Warrington and she managed such
merry little episodes as this.

Probably, however, the contretemps did
the little puss good : she learned from ex-
perience something about what love really
is — and there is more to be learned in that
direction than is always supposed — and she
certainly became, as time passed on, a little
more mistress of her passion, more wary,
less easy to trifle with, less disposed to
wear her heart on her sleeve, and more
reticent and dignified. She became, also,
a trifle more diflicult to approach, a fact
that AYarrington observed and found rather
an incentive to cultivate her.

But an act of girlish good nature on her

82 A WILY WIDOW.

part, about the same date, made an impres-
sion upon him much more profound than
she suspected.

The hunting season was drawing to a
close when they one morning met at a meet
a little distance from Lynham. Lily was
in high spirits ; a Mr. Barlow, one of the
best riders in the hunt, had promised her
a lead, and she was looking forward, as she
told Warrington with glee, to the best run
with the hounds she had ever had.

A quarter-of-an-hour afterwards, whilst
Warrington was exchanging a few words
with Maud Gainsborough, she came up to
them on foot.

' I am going home, Maud,' she said,
simply, ' Mrs. Forsythe will drive me back
with her.'

And then followed the explanation of
this sudden turn in aifairs.

A WILY WIDOW. 33

Mr. Forsythe had a niece staying with
him for a few days only, who was after-
wards going abroad. This niece had been
nursing a sick relation, and had not been
out with the hounds all the season. When
they got to the meet this morning they
found that Mr. Forsythe's groom had railed
over only one of the horses ; and it was
difficult to say who was more vexed, Mr.
Forsythe or his niece.

' So, as I have had ever so many good
runs this season, Miss Forsythe is going to
take my horse,' concluded Lily, ' and Mr.
Barlow has been so kind as to promise to
look after her instead of me.'

' Oh, but this is not at all fair upon you,
Miss Hard wick,' said Warrington, at once.
' Do let me see if we cannot manage some-
how.'

^ Mr. Forsythe has tried everything,' said

VOL. XL 3)

34 A WILY WIDOW.

Lily, good-temperedly ; ' and, after all, I
have had ever so many jolly runs this
season already.'

And so, in the end, she drove home with
Mrs. Forsythe.

But Warrington, relating the incident in
the evening to his brother, said, ' That is
what I call real unselfishness. I feel a
respect for that girl.'

The impression the incident made on
Frank Warrington did not escape the keen
observation of Maud Gainsborough either
at the time or afterwards.

There was a public path through one
part of the Lynhurst woods, and at the end
of the same week, Maud and Lily return-
ing home that way came upon Warrington
giving some instructions to one of his
men.

A WILY WIDOW. 35

Briefly concluding his orders, War-
rington turned to walk a little way with
them, and at once entered into a conversa-
tion with Lily. In his tone Maud believed
she could plainly detect a note of defer-
ence and admiration for something more
than the girl's pretty face and charming
figure. Warrington was talking to her
as to a girl whose conduct had won his
respect.

Maud left them to talk, dropping behind
under the pretence of picking some of the
wild periwinkles. Following a little dis-
tance behind them, she could see them
walking close together, the man's face
often turned to the girl's, and hers
often to his, as they conversed rapidly,
earnestly, apparently engrossed in the sub-
ject they were discussing. From time to

d2

36 A WILY WIDOW.

time, Lily bent her head as she listenedy
and from time to time, as she spoke,
moved it with a charmingly coquettish
grace.

As Maud watched them, a horrible
jealousy of the young girl awoke in her,
and made itself master of every other
sentiment. This girl ! This baby ! Be-
cause she had a little money, was she to
have everything?

Warrington and Lily, still talking in the
same animated way, had stopped to wait
for her. As Maud came up to them, she
made a resolution. This time, Warrington,
for once, should talk to her, and Lily should
walk behind.

She began from an ordinary question
about the men to whom they had found
him speaking, to ask about his labourers,
and then about the improvements on the

A WILY WIDOW. 37

estate. In a very few minutes she and
"Warrington were talking of the wisdom
and practicability of different schemes
of capital, and labour, and interest, and
money sunk, and returns, and all sorts of
things that were Hebrew to Lily Hard wick,
but about which Maud seemed to know a
great deal, or, at any rate, could talk very
sensibly. And, indeed, anyone who had
listened first to AYarrington's conversation
with the young girl, and afterwards to that
with the widow, would have said on the
spot that there was no doubt which of
these two young women was gifted with
the most sense. Warrington, himself, was
aware of the difference, and the tone of his
conversation with Maud was of a more real
kind than that with the girl, more like the
conversation of a man with a man. He
even thought of what he had said to his

38 A WILY WIDOW.

brother, how unfortunate it was that Mrs.
Gainsborough had no money, for the woman
certainly possessed a head for business,
and might have given any man a deal of
help. But, in the middle of it all, he broke
off, quite naturally to speak again to Lily
Hardwick, simply as if he felt it was not
polite to leave her out of the conver-
sation.

If he had looked, he might have seen
Maud biting her lips for vexation.

After Warrington had left them, the
ladies walked a good part of the way
home in silence. Maud was out of
humour.

At last she remarked, abruptly,

' You don't seem to get on very fast with
Mr. Warrington, dear.'

' What do you mean ?' asked Lily.

^ Nine men out of ten would have pro-

A WILY WIDOW. 39

posed before now — if they were going to
do so at all.'

* Do you think so?' asked Lily, a little
alarmed.

* Certainly. You don't manage him a
bit, Lily/

'Thank you. But I don't want to
manage him,' answered the girl, -snth some
spirit.

As Maud said nothing, she continued,

' I was so interested to hear all he had
to sa}^ about his estates. I wish I could
talk to him as you do, Maud. But I
am not half clever enough for that. I
felt so sorry, too, when he spoke of how
many things there are to be done that
would cost more than he could at once
afford. He seemed so vexed about it, poor
fellow.'

The widow was silent. Unwittingly,

40 A WILY WIDOW.

Lily with her allusion to Warrington's want
of money had put the knife straight into
Maud Gainsborough's heart.

Presently a rumour began to circulate in
Lynham that Mr. Warrington's pecuniary
embarrassments, which had so recently been
affording the gossips something to talk
about, were likely to be only of a very
temporary nature.

Dr. Gregg first brought that news
down from town, whither he had been to
pay his annual visit to a brother of his.
And Lily Hardwick, taking luncheon mth
Dr. Gregg, was amongst the first to hear
the tidings.

What was said was this. That Mr. War-
rington's grandfather, General Chesterfield,
was so angry with his grand-daughters for
having run away from his house, that he
would disinherit them, and leave all his

A WILY WIDOW. 41

money to Warrington. And the general
was reputed to be very ricli and also very
ill.

'Serve those girls right,' said Lily to
herself.

Of course, when she got home she told
Maud Gainsborough what she had heard.

Maud listened with eager attention.

' Dr. Gregg told you that ? Did he seem
to think it true ?' she asked.

' Quite true.'

' And the general is rich ?'

'Very rich, they say. And Mr. Warring-
ton is his favourite grandson.'

Wrapped in a rose-coloured dressing-
gown, Maud Gainsborough sat up late that
night, thinking, thinking, thinking.

If what Lily had heard was true, that
altered everything. Mr. Warrington would
have no particular occasion to marry

42 A WILY WIDOW.

money. He might marry anyone he chose.

His grandfather must surely be a very
old man.

So strongly was Maud Gainsborough
impressed with the change that had
appeared in the situation, that she said to
herself,

' If I could do without Lily's money, I
would get rid of her. She should go and
live somewhere else. He would soon for-
get her. But I cannot do without Lily.
I should cut a miserable figure on my
wretched three hundred and fifty.'

No. It was necessary to keep Lily, and
to risk the consequences.

43

CHAPTER III.

Maud Gainsborough had been in love
before this — more than once.

Falling in love, after a few times, be-
comes a rather odd experience. The
third and fourth passion has none of the
freshness of the first, but it is also free
from some of its delusions. A great part
of the phrenzy of first love belongs to the
erroneous opinion of the enormous impor-
tance of the adored object to the adorer,
and of the essential immutability of the
passion. That the beginner should feel

44 A WILY WIDOW.

this is quite reasonable. As yet lie or
she has had no opportunity to see any
farther. But when once a person has
passed through all the phases, those at the
end as well as those at the beginning, when,
after the loss of one or two beloved objects
(supposed to be indispensable to existence,
to say nothing of happiness), the passionate
pilgrim of life himself, or herself, much the
same person as before, only a little wiser,
and capable still of being smitten with the
gentle passion, the delusions give place to
experience. After that, with recollection
to assist, there is something very queer in
gliding once more into an amour, in ex-
periencing over again the first smite, the
soft attraction, the little tendernesses, the
anticipations, the unrest, the pleasures of
the unexpected rencontres, the disappoint-
ments, the melting moments, and the final

A WILY WIDOW. 45

exchange of existence by whicli lovers
come at last to live not in themselves, but
in each other. And not the least odd part
of all is being able to say, ' Xext I shall
have such and such feelings ; and, if they
continue, afterwards such and such
others.'

Just at present Maud Gainsborough was
able to say to herself that she was begin-
ning to lose her head, and that very soon
it would be all up with her.

Whilst a human being can say this,
there is still hope for escape. So Maud
was not yet altogether lost.

But two months had elapsed since the
young widow had received that telegram
from Anthony Gainsborough, asking what
could be her motive for wishing to leave
Lynham, which had made her exclaim^
' Things must go their own way.'

46 A WILY WIDOW.

And the widow at the end of those two
months was not feeling safer than at the
beginning of them : far from it.

The greater part of the time she had
fought hard with herself, and with some
success. But recently there had been a
whole afternoon devoted to thinking what
she would have done if she had had that
fifteen thousand a-year : and one, two,
three occasions when she made Warrington
talk to her instead of to her cousin. And
once she had been far more successful than
in the wood. Also three hours of the
quiet night given to thinking how the
death of General Chesterfield, and War-
rington's inheritance of a fortune, would
make it easy enough for him to marry
whom he chose.

And worst of all, for this had been
positive madness, she had gone for a

A WILY WIDOW. 47

country walk, knowing that she would
meet Warrington, and had met him,
and walked three miles with him, and
— heaven help her ! — how happy she had
b een !

And, since that, she had been thinking
of him, thinking of him, thinking of nothing
else.

At this rate, the date was not far off
when she would be deliberately making
the man love her. For she could do it.
She had no doubt about that.

And then he would marry her, and love
her, and worship her.

And she would have brought him no-
thing : only a wife who was

No : never ! Bad as she was, she had
still grace enough to care a little for the
peace of the man she loved.

But the case was becoming desperate.

48 A WILY WIDOW.

And desperate cases must have desperate
remedies.

Maud Gainsborough found one desper-
ate enough.

Mr. Warrington should know every-
thing. She would herself tell him the
truth.

After that, he would be out of danger
of|^falling in love with her : alas !

When once she had resolved on the ex-
pedient, the idea became a fixed one with
her, and she began to strain every nerve
to carry her purpose into eifect. That
absorption in one aim, when it had once
obtained possession of her fancy, was a
part of her nature ; and had more than
once carried her through with her projects
— sometimes, indeed, to her own destruction
— where other women would have failed.
It did so this time.

A T7ILY WIDOW. 49

To find an opportunity of saying to the
man sucli things as she wished to say, to
be fairly sure of seizing the opportunity
when it presented itself, to manage that
the circumstance should be such as should
make a confession possible, and that the
occasion should leave her some way of
parting from Warrington not too humilia-
ting, after her avowal was made ; all that
was not easy. But her resolution and per-
severance managed it.

Once more she contrived to acquaint
herself with Warrington's movements, and
to meet him, this time late in the afternoon,
as he was returning home alone. The
place was a country road, very little fre-
quented, and their ways lay in the same
direction only for a short distance.

On the occasion of one of their last meet-
ings, Warrington had been talking about

VOL. u. E

50 A WILT WIDOW.

the restoration of a ruined barn, and the
construction of a bridge where one was
very much needed to cross a wide stream,
and Maud had pointed out to him that
by building the bridge of the stone of the
ruined barn, and constructing a new barn
in another place, he would save time,
materials, and labour. He had since put
her plans into execution, and had found
them turn out as she had predicted : and
he now began by saying how much he was
obliged to her.

It was very pleasant to Maud to have
him speak to her in that strain, but it was
not to have her ears gratified that she had
met him. She said, modestly,

' I am glad that my suggestions should
have been of any service to you.' And
she enquired after his brother.

Thus they reached the place where

A WILY WIDOWc 51

their roads parted. Stopping there, she
said,

' Do you know, Mr. Warrington, there is
something I want very much to say to
you. Would you mind walking round
this way with me T

He assented, and they proceeded on
together.

Maud was conscious of a great weight
settling down on her heart ; and her eyes
wandered restlessly around the scene
before her. The road at this point passed
through the corner of a wood, with only a
low, slight railing on either side, separating
it from the trees that rose, tall and leafless,
spreading their wide boughs over it, often
interlacing them in an arch. From the
west the low sun, setting in a cloudless sky,
poured into the tunnel the arching branches
made, its level glowing light. The light

E 2

52 A WILY WIDOW.

pierced in amongst the boles of the trees,
and threw on the ground before Maud and
Warrington long, sharply-marked shadows.
Farther on the road dipped, and then took
a turn. It was shady and dusk there, and
nothing was visible but the trees. Half-
unconsciously the young widow took-in the
whole scene, the quiet deserted road that
had been scoured by recent rains, the
long shadows, and the dimness of the
wood.

This was to be the spot that she would
always remember as the scene in which
she confessed her crime, her secret that
she had supposed she would never surren-
der. Already, as she approached telling
it, her courage began to fail her, and the
weight at her heart seemed intolerable.

How cruel to have to tell her guilt to
this man ! To this man whom she loved ;

A WILY WIDOW. 53

into whose arms she was fain to throw her-
self with a prayer to him to save her :
instead of which, she was ^oing to make
him fling her from him. He would do
that at once when he had heard the truth.
AVas the fatality that had brought her to
this pass the first punishment of her crime ?
God wields arms so terrible. It is so easy
for Him to make the guilty do such
miserable penances for their sins ! And
yet, if she chose, she could l)e silent.
She could easily say some trivial thing,
and still go free. But if she once spoke
there would be no taking the words back.
One word, and she would have tossed
away all hope, all possibilities. But, if she
was silent, who could tell what might
happen ?

No. She was resolved to speak for AeV
sake.

54 A -WILY WIDOW.

Yet some minutes elapsed before she
found the courage necessary for beginning.
At last she said, with downcast eyelids,

'Mr. Warrington, I have something
difficult to say. Please do not interrupt
me. You will only confuse me. You
must not think me sentimental. I am a
woman of the world, and have seen more
of it, unhappily, than you would think,
but I am going to say things to you that
I certainly would not say to anyone whom
I did not implicitly trust. And I say them
to you, because I do not want you to take
me for a woman different from what I
really am.'

Warrington made no answer, and she
looked down the road before them. There
was a little descent here, down it the
long black shadows stretched out before
them so loner. But she had made a

A WILY WIDOW. 55

commencement, and it was now more easy
to continue.

* I wonder,' she asked, without raising
her eyes, ' whether it has ever occurred
to you to wonder why I live here at
Lynham ?'

' I cannot say that it has. That is
rather your business than mine, Mrs.
Gainsborough.'

His tone was not very sympathetic.
Reallv, he was askino; himself, what on
earth the woman could be aiming at.

' You see, your nature is unsuspicious,'
said Maud, with a smile. ' But there are
reasons ; I mean, serious reasons.'

Her voice had dropped, and she
stopped, and it was a minute before she
resumed.

' I think when you hear what they
are you will see that you rather overrate

56 A WILY WIDOW.

me. And I — 1 should not wish you to be
deceived.'

That was not how she intended to con-
clude the sentence when she began it.
But her brain was becoming troubled. To
confess what no human being had sus-
pected was so difficult. And the man
listening with respect, with an evident
admixture of surprise at her apparently
uncalled-for frankness, was not assisting
her.

However, she struggled on.

' In any case, Mr. Warrington, I am go-
ing to tell you the truth. I am living
here, not of my own choice, but in accord-
ance with a promise which Mr. Anthony
Gainsborough exacted from me, after Mr.
Gainsborough's death : a promise that I
would live in any place he chose, quietly,
and '

A WILY WIDOW. 57

She broke off, and in herself continued,
' Oh, my God ! how am I ever going to tell
him?'

To tell him ! She was young, handsome,
strong, fond of her pleasure, full of healthy,
rosy life ; in lack of nothing but money ;
just because she had not that, to wilfully
Tvake the dead past out of its grave, and
to turn all her future with one word into
one long haunted misery ! Was it not
madness ?

But her better self prevailed, and she
came back to her story.

'That promise my brother-in-law ex-
acted,' she went on, dropping her eyes, ' as
the condition of — of '

' 1 cannot tell him. I cannot,' she
protested in herself. ' It is too hor-
rible. I must have been mad when I
began this.'

58 A WILY WIDOW.

And then again, with a sudden deter-
mination, she resolved, ' I will tell him !'
And she resumed.

'The fact was, I was guilty of a great
crime. I '

Her breast heaved heavily, and her lips
were quivering with agitation.

' Mr. Gainsborough was not wealthy,'
she said, hurriedly, at last. ' And — 1 — I
gambled and ruined him ; and — ' (' 1 can-
not tell him,' she said in herself ' It is of
no use to try,') ' and I am afraid his ruin
occasioned his death. In fact, I behaved
very badly to him. And I am here really
in disgrace, living upon an allowance made
me by my brother-in-law, on the con-
dition that I behave well, and that I keep
out of temptation.'

She finished quickly in a low voice, but
without embarrassment. When she had

A WILY WIDOW. 59

done, she once more repeated to herself,
but now, in the form of an excuse, * I could
not have told hhn. The thing was im-
possible.' And aloud she added, by way of
conclusion,

* And now, Mr. Warrington, you must
think what you please of me.'

It was not at once that Warrington
spoke. To himself he was thinking, ' What
the deuce should this woman have told me
all this for ?'

At last he observed,

' I suppose you lived in town, Mrs.
Gainsborough. There are great tempta-
tions in town. But I imagine that
these are questions rather for your own
conscience.'

And that he said only because he saw
that he must say something, and did not
know what to say.

60 A WILY WIDOW.

Maud Gainsborough hardly heard him.
What did it matter to her what remark he
made? She had broken down, utterly.
She had far better have said nothing
at all, than what she had said. For
once in her life she had blundered idioti-
cally.

Happily it was not far to Cliff Cottage.
A great part of the way they walked in
silence, each of them wondering which was
feeling the more embarrassed.

At the gate, Maud, saying good-evening,
added,

' I shall be at home next Wednesday,
as usual, and very pleased to see you
and Mr. Eustace Warrington, if you like
to come.'

That, of course, was equivalent to, ^ If
after having heard of my conduct you
prefer to know a little less of me, don't

A WILY WIDOW. 61

bring your brother on my next " at home "
day;

And so they parted.

' Of course the woman has her faults/
mused Warrington to himself, going on
his way. ' Gambles if she can get the
chance, does she? I daresay. But I don't
see what business it is of mine. And
what she can have told me for, I can't
imagine. There is no accounting for
women.'

In her own room Maud was cry-
ing, with her head buried in the sofa
cushions.

' I wish I were dead !' she sobbed, in a
passion of misery, 'I wish that I were
dead! I hate it ! I hate it, and I cannot
help myself The miserable coward
that I am, I might have told him, and
have saved him : and instead I have

Q2 A WILY WIDOW.

made it impossible for myself to tell
him tlie truth ever. I wish that I were
dead !'

Would he call on the next Wednes-
day ?

63

CHAPTER IV.

That was the question which was perplex-
insr Warrino;ton. He did not want to call

CD O

with his brother at Cliff Cotta^re on the
follow^ing Wednesday. But he could
see how his non-appearance must be
interpreted.

But, as it happened, before Wednesday
both Warrington and his brother were in
town.

General Chesterfield was seriously ill.

The old gentleman had made many jokes
with his friends about the trick his grand-

64 A WILY WIDOW.

daughters had played his grandson, but, for
allthatjhehad been incredibly put out about
the way in which the girls had run away
from his house, and, since, had gradually
subsided into a state of uninterrupted bad-
temper. Any reasonable being might have
supposed that, seeing the girls were gone,
the wisest course was to submit to the
irremediable, and to permit time quietly to
efface the remembrance of the momentary
extreme annoyance. But not so the
general. He preferred to make himself
ill ; and, by putting himself day and night
into passions about his granddaughters,
brought himself into a state of cerebral
irritation that ended by completely under-
mining his constitution.

So serious did his condition become that
his valet ventured more than once to ask
whether he would not like to see his

A WILY WIDOW. 65

grandsons. But the old man had, on
each occasion, answered in his passionate
way,

' Confound you, sir ! can't you mind
your own business ? Don't I write every
week to my grandson myself, sir? And
can't I tell him when I want to s6e him?'

But for some weeks past his letters had
led Warrington to suspect that the old
man was not making the progress he wish-
ed to represent, and a day or two after his
meeting with Maud a letter arrived from
the general, an almost incomprehensible
scrawl, that caused him the gravest mis-
givings.

' I am afraid that grandfather is far
from getting on as he says, Eustace,' he
remarked, as they sat at breakfast, reading
the letter that had come by the morning
post.

VOL. ir. F

66 A WILY WIDOW.

' What does lie write?' asked Eustace.

' The same old story, so far as it is
possible to make anything of it. Beau-
champ does not understand his complaint,
and won't let him have anything he likes
to eat. And he is evidently in a very bad
temper. But he is again confined to his
room, and apparently with very little
prospect of leaving it. I think I ought
to run up to town and see the old
man.'

'You'll not be able to do him any good.
You'll not make him listen to Beauchamp,'
observed Eustace, in his quiet, discouraging
tone.

That was true. Nevertheless, Warring-
ton telegraphed to the general's valet,
asking him to let him know at once how
the old man was.

The reply was exactly what he feared.

A WILY WIDOW. 67

The general was in a very dangerous con-
dition, and entirely unmanageable.

The brothers held a short consultation,
and went up to town the same morning.

The news of their departure was not
long in reaching Cliff Cottage. Some
gossip brought the information to Mrs.
Gainsborough in the afternoon.

* General Chesterfield must be ill,' said
the widow to Lily.

On reaching their hotel, Warrington and
his brother found the general's valet already
there, waiting for them.

The general was about as bad as he
could be with the jaundice ; in all pro-
bability dying.

' The jaundice, Saunders I' exclaimed
Warrington, with amazement.

' Yes, the jaundice, sir,' replied the man.
' The general would not admit that it was

f2

68 A WILY WIDOW.

the jaundice. The merest hint of such a
thing put him at once into a furious
passion, which was very bad for him.
He insisted that it was nothing but a
little touch of rheumatism in his right
shoulder.'

' Yes ; that is what he has been writing
to me all along,' interrupted Warrington.
'A touch of rheumatism in the right shoul-
der, and his heart a little weak.'

' That's it, sir. That's what he says to
everyone, sir. Colonel Xysson and some
of the others sided with him at first ; and
that made him the more obstinate. But
of course, afterwards, anyone could see
what it was. But it is no good to say
anything to him about it, sir ; he only
gets into one of his passions — you know,
sir — and makes himself ever so much
worse.'

A WILY WIDOW. 69

"Warrington took a turn across the room
and back again.

' Tell us all about it, Saunders,' he said ;
' when and how this began, and — tell us
all you can.'

The valet commenced. The beginning
of it all was the young ladies going away.
After they had gone, the general seemed
not to be able to get over the way in
which they had left him. He kept on
talking about it, fretting, and grumbling,
and scolding, until he had fretted himself
ill. His temper became worse than ever,
and his appetite grew uncertain. He could
not enjoy his breakfast in the morning ;
and then sometimes he would be looking
forward to his dinner all day, and, when it
was on the table, could not touch it. And
he was always complaining about the rheu-
matism in his ridit shoulder. It was a

70 A WILY WIDOW.

long time before lie would see the doctor ;
and then, when the doctor told him he had
the jaundice, he went into a great passion,
and swore that the doctor knew nothing
about what was the matter with him, and
that he would not see him again. Colonel
Nysson came in the same evening, and set
him still more against the doctor. And so,
the next time the doctor called, the general
would not have him come upstairs.

However, after some days, the pain
continuing, the general became frightened
about himself, and began to fancy that
his heart was out of order. Then he was
troubled with pain in his legs, and could
not sleep at night, and so he had the
doctor again, after all. But still he would
not give in about the jaundice. And
his temper was something awful. About
the end of January he seemed to pick up

A WILY WIDOW. 71

a little, though he was still very cross,
and querulous about himself. He had
become, too, as yellow as a guinea. He
did not seem to be able to see that him-
self, and, if anyone said anything about
the jaundice, it made him perfectly mad.
He had by that time taken to always
having his breakfast in bed ; and, when
he was up, he only got about a very
little, because his legs were swollen, and
pained him. At the end of February he
took altogether to his bed. He wanted
nothing but game and fancy dishes, and
all that the doctor would give him was
thin beef-tea, and rice-puddings, and
milk. So there were rows all day long
about his meals, and sometimes, when he
had an appetite, he would have what he
liked in spite of the doctor. If he could
not get it anyhow else, he would have it

72 A WILY WIDOW.

sent in from an hotel, and then he would
eat enough for three, and after that he was
worse again. Sometimes he would take
a little more stimulant than usual, and,
as he had never been a heavy drinker,
that would pick him up for a time, and he
would believe that he was getting well,
and would tell the doctor so. But, on the
whole, he grew slowly worse and worse.
The doctor made him have a nurse in
February, and she had been with him ever
since. The only wonder seemed to be how
he had held out so long. Now, in these
last few days, there had certainly been a
change. He slept more, and, though he
was still irritable and excitable, his
strength seemed to fail him, and his fits
of passion were neither so violent nor
lasted so long. In fact, the old man
appeared to be sinking.

A WILY WIDOW. 73

' And all this time, why has no one
written ?' demanded Warrington.

Because the general would not have it.
No proposition made him more angry.
He always asserted that he had himself
told his grandson all that the doctor said,
'lies and all.' And so everyone supposed
that Warrington knew.

The valet left.

' And so we have come up to town,
Frank, just in time to see the end,'
observed Eustace.

It seemed so.

The next mornino^ Warrinsfton called
at Welmore Street. He was shocked at
the condition in which he found the
general. The old man did not indeed
present the canary colour he had an-
ticipated; he was rather of a greenish
pallor. But his cheeks were hollow, and

74 A WILY WIDOW.

his appearance that of an utter wreck.

' And pray, sir, what the devil have you
come for ?' he at once demanded, angrily.
' Come to see whether Fve got the jaun-
dice, haven't you ? Don't beheve what I
write in my letters? Eh? Or what the
devil does it all mean, sir?'

Warrington answered very quietly,

' What it means, grandfather, is simply
that Eustace and I are in town for a few
days. But I am sorry to see you so far
from well.'

' Yes, I'm out of sorts, my boy,' answered
the general, somewhat conciliated. ' My
heart is all wrong, and I'm queer all over.
But these confounded doctors don't seem
to know what is the matter. To cover his
own ignorance, Beauchamp wants to make
out that I've got the jaundice. The idiots
have brouo-ht me to death 's-door between

A WILY WIDOW. 75

them. First they destroy my appetite with
their filthy drugs, and now they won't let
me have anything to eat. And I can't
get a wink of sleep either. If I only doze
oiF for ten minutes, this woman they have
put here to look after me wakes me up to
take some of their beastly medicine. And
they won't let me see anyone. Nysson came
last night, and she knew that I wanted to
see him, and still she sent him away. Laid
up like this, of course I can't make any of
them do what I wish. But I'd have been
up long ago, and quite well before now, if
it had not been for their blundering and
bad nursing.' The old man had been work-
ing up his impatience during these last
few sentences to a very considerable pitch,
and here followed some very ugly words,
after which he concluded savagely : 'And
I don't want anyone coming here to look

76 A WILY WIDOW.

after me ; to see how I am, and how I am
not. You understand me, don't you?
When I want you, I'll send for you.'

The nurse came in with some beef-tea on
a tray.

' Now, what's that you've got there ?'
demanded the general.

' It's what Dr. Beauchamp ordered,
sir.'

' I didn't ask you what Beauchamp
ordered, I asked you what it was,' said the
general, savagely.

' It's beef-tea, sir.'

' Then I shan't take it,' said the old
man. ^Take it away. I shan't take it.
Take it away. Now. Will you do as I
tell you ?'

He had got up on his elbow, trembling
with anger.

'Take it away,' he repeated, passion-

A WILY WIDOW. 77

ately. ' I said I'd liave a little game-
pie. Do you hear ? Game-pie. I'll not
have that.'

Bending forward, he made a grab at the
tray as if he would throw it on the floor,
and then, exhausted with the eifort, fell
back on his pillow, mumbling, in a faltering
voice, something scarcely audible.

The nurse simply put the food down on
the table, and moved towards the fire.

Warrington leaned back in his chair by
the bedside, and silently bit his lips.

The poor old general ! How pitiful an
end to the brave old fellow's long, honour-
able life and many years of distinguished
service. It all flashed throuo;h Warring^-
ton's brain ; all the story that he knew so
well ; of which they were all so proud.
And he thought, too, of the poor old man's
sorrows ; of disappointments of long ago,

78 A WILY WIDOW.

of whicli he had only heard ; of how he
himself a boy — too young to understand —
had looked with awe at the erect, military
figure standing by the grave of his mother,
the general's youngest daughter, and had
seen the tears well up in the old soldier's
eyes ; and of how the old man used to
feel the dropping off of all his old friends
one by one. For the general had a
great heart. His temper was really awful,
and had apparently always been the same ;
but that had nothing to do with his great,
warm heart. How kind he had been to
Warrington and to his brother ! How good
to them both when they were left orphans,
a second father, and a wiser one than their
own.

How kind he had meant to be to the
Chesterfield girls — the thankless hussies!
There was no end of tender-heartedness in

A WILY WIDOW. 79

the rough old fellow; anyone who knew
him could witness to it, his fellow-officers,
his friends, the men Avho had been under
him, his men-servants, his beasts, his ene-
mies : only no Avomen, not even his daugh-
ters. Of all the animals upon the earth,
the one that the general had never been
able to understand, nor to make under-
stand him, was a woman. A phenomenon
in which Warrington, at any rate, saw
nolhinsf stran2:e. And now this was the
end of the fine old officer, the tender-
hearted, rough old soldier, the brave old
man, who had fought his way through five
campaigns, and through life's long battle
of seven-and-seventy years — to die without
dignity, a peevish dotard, in the charge of
a woman.

The poor old general !

It was with reluctance that Warrington

80 A WILY WIDOW.

left him, and went downstairs. He would
have liked, if it were possible, not to have
gone away at all, but himself to have
nursed the old man ; gently to have cur-
tained from vulgar eyes the old soldier's
last defeat, and to have felt that, doing
so, he was giving back a little of the love
the old man had lavished on his orphan-
hood.

In the library he sent for the nurse.

' General Chesterfield passed a very bad
night?' he asked.

' Oh, no, sir,' answered the nurse. ' He
slept from about nine o'clock till nearly
eight this morning. He does not know
when he has been sleeping, and when he
has not, sir, you know,' she added, in ex-
planation, with a little smile, seeing that
Warrington looked surprised.

^ Is that so ? Then I presume that is

A WILY WIDOW. 81

why you sent Colonel Nysson away?'

' Colonel Nysson did not call yesterday,
sir, and I should not presume to send
anyone away except by the doctor's
orders.'

* The general told me '

' Oh, he makes mistakes, sir. You
must not pay any attention to what he
says.'

'Indeed?' said Warrington, rather in-
credulously.

But in the evening, when he called
again with his brother, he found that the
nurse was right. The doctor was there,
and the general was telling him that in
the morning he had wished for some beef-
tea, and the nurse had refused to get it
for him.

On the whole, however, he was in a
better temper. He was short and cross

VOL. II. G

82 A WILY WIDOW.

with the doctor, but he received Eustace
with a good deal of affection, and thanked
him for coming. For one thing, he could
not suspect that Eustace Warrington had
come with any intention of seeing whether
he had the jaundice or not. Still, he told
both the brothers rather gruffly that he
did not wish for a repetition of their visit
on the morrow. To the medical man
Warrington expressed some surprise re-
specting the beef-tea.

* My grandfather was the last man to be
guilty of falsehood,' he remarked, with an
accent of sorrow.

' And he is not guilty of it,' answered
the doctor, quickly. ' He has the jaun-
dice, and it is the jaundice, not he.' He
continued, ' Come and see him as much as
you can, both of you. He will tell you he
does not wish it, but he will be hurt if you

A WILY WIDOW. 83

neglect him/ And, in a lower tone, he
concluded, ' He will not live long.'

But the general sank very slowly. Even
now his wonderful constitution continued
to bear him up ; and from day to day little
difference was perceptible. The brothers
were assiduous in their visits. The old man
continued to tell them that he did not
want to see them, and, two times out of
three, either scolded them for disturb-
ing him, or accused them of coming to
see whether he had the jaundice. How-
ever, after a few days, when they happened
both to be with him, he said,

' Why don't you two boys come and stay
with me, instead of wasting your money at
an hotel. I can't do anything to make
you comfortable ; they have mismanaged
me so, and made me so ill; but you can
do what you can for yourselves ; and I'm

a2

84 A WILY WIDOW.

sure you are both welcome : only don't
come bothering me in my room/

So the brothers brought their things over
from their hotel.

After that they were with him, one or
other, almost incessantly, all the day, and
often a part of the night. ' I told you
when you came to stay with me, not to be
bothering me, by coming in here,' was the
welcome they generally received ; but, on
the other hand, if they left him for
^NQ minutes, the old man said to the
nurse,

^ Where are those boys gone ? They
never come to sit with me now.'

Now and then the old man had a few
minutes during which his reason got the
better of his malady. During one of these
he said to Warrington,

' I am a bad-tempered old fool, Frank.

A WILY WIDOW. 85

I've been a x^assionate man all my life ;
and being laid up bere a prisoner day
after day, and full of pain, isn't tbe sort
of tbing to mend a man's temper. But
you must not mind me, my boy, I can't
belp it.'

Afterwards he began to sink more rapid-
ly. Every day he was visibly weaker, and
each succeeding twenty-four hours took
from him a little of his small remaining
strength. Only his irritability continued
undiminished. But he was no longer able
to rave and storm at his nurse, and the
doctor and everyone else that came near
him. He had sunk into a mere feeble
querulousness, a ceaseless whining com-
plaint that was interrupted only by his doz-
ing off to sleep, or by his actual physical
incapacity to maunder on. Then, all of a
sudden, one day he was much better. He

86 A WILY WIDOW.

complained, indeed, a great deal of cold,
and of the ' rheumatism ' in his knees and
in his right shoulder, but he sat up,
propped by pillows, and seemed brighter
than he had been for a long time.

In the afternoon the colonel came in to
see him. The general was a little tired,
but he kept his old friend talking for a
long time ; speaking of one reminiscence
after another of times gone by : not recol-
lections of his active middle life, nor of his
young manhood, but of the first years the
colonel and he had spent together at
Winchester, and of the still remote days of
his earliest childhood.

It was nearly seven o'clock when Colonel
Nysson left.

But the next day the general was very
much worse, feebler than ever before, and
all the day long drowsy and lethargic,

A WILY WIDOW. 87

only waking from time to time to fret
and to complain in a faint voice, and then
to doze oiF again.

And he did not afterwards rally. As
the days passed the heavy lethargy grew
upon him, and his conscious moments
became rarer and rarer. And still it
seemed to take a long time to bring the
end.

The brothers had been in town a fort-
night. Four days had passed since the
afternoon that the old man had talked
for three hours of his childhood. To-day,
he had lain all day like a log, motionless
almost, and unconscious. When the night
came, Warrington announced his intention
of remaining with him. The watch was a
gentle service now that the bitterness of
the struggle was passed, and death could
not be far off. But the general lived

88 A WILY WIDOW.

through the night. Only in the morning
the angel of the dawn gathered up the
old soldier's soul as he passed, and when
the sun rose the general had entered into
his rest.

"Warrington himself called on the doctor
and the solicitor.

' We shall not open the will,' he said,
* until after the funeral. The Misses Ches-
terfield ought to be informed, but I don't
know where they are.'

' I believe that they are still with Mr,
Anthony Gainsborough,' replied the solici-
tor. ' We can easily find them. And I
may as well tell you at once that General
Chesterfield has disinherited his grand-
daughters.'

89

CHAPTER y.

The same day, at sunset, an English
steam-yacht lay off in the Bay of Naples.

On the deck two girls "walked up and
down, enjoying the cool of the evening.

The yacht was Anthony Gainsborough's
and the girls were Violet and Essie
Chesterfield. Now and again the sisters
stopped, and, standing side by side, spent
a few minutes in admiration of the beauty
of the scene, and then resumed their walk
and their conversation.

Anyone who had known the sisters in

90 A WILY WIDOW.

London would have found a considerable
alteration in their appearance. They
looked stronger and healthier. Four
months' cruising in the Mediterranean had
put brighter roses into their cheeks,
kindled a clearer light in their eyes, and
given fresh elasticity to their step. But a
change more material than that had
passed in the expression of the two fair
young faces. The shade of disingenuous-
ness they had both had in London had
vanished, and, free and happy instead of
miserable, the girls had got back the
frankness and gentleness natural to their
years.

They were talking of their uncle; the
same Anthony Gainsborough of whom
Maud was wont to give so unsatisfactory
an account.

' Uncle Tony is perfection,' Essie was

A WILY WIDOW. 91

saying. ' I loved him always, but it is
only since we have lived Avith him that I
have understood how good and kind he

IS.

' I don't believe there is a man in the
world like him,' chimed in Violet ; ^ he is
all goodness. I really believe Uncle Tony
has never done an ill-natured thing nor
said an unkind word in the whole of his
life.'

' He makes me feel awfully ashamed of
myself,' continued Essie. ' Many times I
have positively hated myself when I have
been listening to him or watching him,
and have thought of what I should have
done in his place.'

* I know,' assented her sister. ' I am
sure, among other things, now, that we
behaved very badly to grandpapa. Uncle
Tony took our part and was very kind ; I

^2 A WILY WIDOW.

believe lie would take anyone's part who
lie thought was ill-used. But hasn't he
made us feel, Essie, that we behaved badly
to grandpapa ?'

' He has,' admitted Essie. She con-
tinued: ^And I know, Violet, that he
thinks you behaved badly to Frank.'

^ That is another thing,' observed Violet,
coldly.

^Ah, but he will make you think that
too, before he has done, Violet. There is
something in Uncle Tony that is too strong
for all one's pride and obstinacy. But to
return to grandpapa: I wish we could
somehoAv beg his pardon, Violet.'

' Yes, I wish we could.'

' Uncle Tony has a great admiration for
grandpapa,' observed Essie, thoughtfully.
' Somehow he seems to see all his merits,
and to be indulgent to all his faults.'

A WILY WIDOW. 93

* That is just like Uncle Tony, is it
not?'

One of the yacht's boats that had been
to the shore for letters came out in a
straight line towards the steamer. As it
drew nearer the girls stopped at the gang-
way to watch it come up, and as the mate
stepped on board they asked.

' Anything for us, Wallace ?'

* Xothing, miss,' answered the mate, and
passed on to take the letters he had brought
into the cabin.

The girls resumed their promenade and
some minutes passed, time enough for
them to Avalk the len2:th of the deck and
back.

Then Anthony Gainsborough came up'
on deck. The sisters had passed aft, and
he followed them. In his hand he held a
thin piece of coloured paper.

94 A WILY WIDOW.

Essie looked round, and the two stopped
for him to come up to them.

' I don't know whether I ought to
prepare you for the news,' said Anthony-
Gainsborough. * General Chesterfield died
this morning. Wallace found a telegram
for me at the hotel.'

And he gave them the telegram to
read.

Both the sisters read the telegram, and
then Essie gave it back. Neither of them
said a word, but they were both a little
pale.

' I came to tell you that you might
know at once,' said Anthony Gains-
borough ; ' but I must go now to get ready
to go ashore. I must try to be in London
for the funeral.'

And he left them.

The sisters moved to where two deck

A WILY WIDOW. 95

chairs stood side by side, and sat down.
The first to speak was Violet. Looking
up, she said,

* What are you thinking of, Essie ?'

* I was thinking that I wish we had
begged grandpapa's pardon.'

' Do you know, I was thinking the same
thing.'

' It is too late now,' said Essie.

Rising she went to the bulwark and
looked at the blue water.

Presently her sister joined her.

'We shall be able to go back to England,'
said Essie.

' Yes. And I am glad of that. Uncle
Tony mshed to spend this summer at
Twickenham.'

The gig was being got ready to go
ashore again, and presently Anthony
Gainsborough came on deck with a

96 A WILY WIDOW.

small valise. The sisters went up to
him.

' Uncle Tony/ said Violet. ^ Essie and I
are very sorry for the way we behaved to
grandpapa; we wish that we could have
begged his pardon.'

' Yes, uncle. I wish we had,' added
Essie, with the tears coming up into her
eyes. ' But now — it is too late.'

' Not for the wish, Essie,' said Anthony
Gainsborough, laying his hand on the girl's
shoulder.

Violet took some gold from her purse.

' If you have time, uncle, when you get
to London, buy for us some wreaths for
grandpapa's funeral — the best that you
can get.'

The boat put off, and the girls stood by
the bulwark watching it make its way
towards shore. Only when it had faded

A WILY WIDOW. 97

from sight in the coming darkness they
went below.

Anthony Gainsborough arrived in time
to be present at the general's funeral, and
to send the flowers the girls had com-
missioned him to buy ; and the old soldier
was carried to his grave shrouded in the
white blossoms that betokened his grand-
daughters' repentance.

The general's will was a curiosity. After
a few small legacies, it divided his fortune,
which was considerable, into four equal
portions, and bequeathed one to each of
his grandchildren, Violet Chesterfield,
Essie Chesterfield, Frank Warrington,
Eustace Warrington. But then came a
codicil, dated early in the previous
December, and by this codicil, the general,
after reciting his granddaughters' mis-

VOL. II. H

98 A WILY WIDOW.

conduct in running away from Hs house,
revoked his legacy to Violet Chesterfield,
and gave the whole of it to Frank War-
rington, and revoked his legacy to Essie
Chesterfield, and gave the whole of that
to Frank Warrington, too.

As the solicitor remarked, it would have
been a simpler thing to make a new will,
but the old gentleman was resolved, not
only to make his displeasure felt, but
to put it upon record, and had insisted
upon the codicil, worded as he chose ;
and a very ill-natured and vindictive
document it proved to be, but — unlucki-
ly for the Miss Chesterfields — very good
in law.

In the evening Eustace went to bed
early. The dreary day had fatigued him,
and given him a headache. Warrington
and Anthony Gainsborough sat up late

A WILT WIDOW. 99

smoking almost in silence by the library
fire.

But when Anthony rose to say. ' Good-
night,' "Warrington said to him,

' I have one thing to say to vou before
vou 2*0. Mr. Gainsborouofh. Mv 2Tand-
father added that codicil to his -^vill when
his displeasure at my cousins' leaving his
home was fresh, and at its height, whilst
he was smarting under a great provocation,
and at the same time falling into failing
health. But I know that grandfather
always meant to be kind to the girls, and,
had he lived, he might have though: \ '"ir
of what he had done. Anyhow, out of
respect to his memory, as soon as :h-} ■ r o-
perty is in my possession. I shall send my
cousins their fortunes. I shall leave it to
you to tell them that, as soon as you see
them, or to let them learn it when the

h2

100 A WILY WIDOW.

money arrives, as you may tliink best/
And, as Anthony Gainsborough was

about to say something respecting the

generosity of this conduct, he concluded,
'I beg your pardon, but I had rather

that you said nothing about that.'

101

CHAPTER VI.

Warrington and his brother returned to
the country as soon as they conveniently
could. Many things required Warrington's
attention at Lynhurst, and he was loth to
be absent longer than was necessary.

Lily and he met in the High Street, not
many days after his return, and their
meetinoc was a brio;ht one. It was with a
pleasure quite unexpected that Warrington
found himself once more shaking hands
with pretty Lily Hard^vick, whilst looking
into her bright blue eyes. Really, he con-

102 A WILY WIDOW.

fessed to himself at tlie moment, he had a
liking for the girl. And, as for Lily, all
her uncomfortable fears, that she was
wasting her love on a man who did
not want it, were charmed away in an
instant by the smile on Warrington's
face, and the cordial manner in which he
shook hands with her and inquired how
she had been. They walked home to-
o-ether as far as their roads continued in
the same direction, and before they parted
stood a full quarter-of-an-hour, talking ;
and Lily returned to CliiF Cottage as
happy as a queen, saying to herself,

' He likes me. I am sure he does. I
am sure he does.'

It was May now, and every landscape
was robing itself in tender green. The
tall elms and the beeches were in leaf
already, and it was shady in the woods.

A WILY WIDOW. 103

The thrift was in flower on the cliffs,
painting them with broad dashes of pink,
and the wild orchids in the marsh
meadows, and the tiny bright-eyed forget-
me-nots, the blue-bells and the dog-violets
in the hedges, and the yellow broom, with
here and there crab apples opening their
pale pink blossoms, and the sweet may
filling the air with its perfume.

Cliff Cottage was a picture. About the
porch the pirus japonica, with its wide-
opened scarlet blossoms, and its quaint
gnarled black stems, was in full flower,
and the verandah all around was gay with
the hanging blossoms of the pale purple
westaria. The ivys were grown very dark,
but the young leaves began to peep boldly
among the old ones, and the other creepers
were in their freshest spring hues. Against
the supporting pillars the roses were in

104 A WILY WIDOW.

flower. Down the winding garden there
were everywhere gay beds of tulips, and
great gaudy peonies, and guelder roses,
and bright anemones and narcissi, and
the chestnuts that bordered one part of
the lawn had decked their beautiful domes
of foliage with crowded spikes of white
and pink blossoms, pointing upwards like
tapers to the sky. There were garden-
seats under the chestnuts in a pleasant,
sheltered spot, and already on the warm
afternoons Lily had begun to take her
book there to read after luncheon. Now,
when she got home, she strolled across
the lawn to the trees, and sat there for
quite half-an-hour, and afterwards strolled
down to the bottom of the garden before
going in. Her heart was too full to be
able at once to speak to anyone.

Even when she came in at last, she

A WILY WIDOW. 105

said nothing to Maud about liavino-
met AYarrington. But Maud made a
pretty shrewd guess at what had hap-
pened.

The terms of General Chesterfield's will
had already become known in Lynham,
and there had been a good deal of
speculation respecting how rich ]\Ir.
Warrington would be. Maud had been
listenin<]^ to it all in silence, looking;
about her meanwhile, for some plan by
which she might, for a time at least, get
her dangerous rival Lily out of her way.
It would be no jest if Warrington, now in
a position to marry easily, were on the
spot to use his liberty to propose to
Lily.

His return at a date earlier than the
young widow had anticipated found her
with her plans immatured ; and Lily's tell-

106 A WILY WIDOW.

tale eyes that evening distinctly discon-
certed her.

Maud had given up resisting her passion.
What was the use of it? The love was
stronger than she, and she could not wish
it otherwise. And, perhaps, she had done
all that she could.

But presently another rumour became
current in the little country town. There
would be no very great difference at Lyn-
hurst. After all, Mr. Warrington would not
be so much more wealthy. He intended
to share his fortune with his disinherited
cousins.

' The man must be mad !' said Maud to
herself when she heard it.

One afternoon she and Lily met Eus-
tace Warrington about half-a-mile from
the gates of Lynhurst on the road to the
town. He was alone.

A WILY WIDOW. 107

'• You see, I am getting on,' he said, with
some pride. ' I know my way all about
Frank's place, now, and I am learning the
road to the town. One of these days you
will meet me in Lynham alone, doing my
own shopping.'

He insisted that the ladies should come
back with him, to see his roses.

'You will be quite surprised to see
what a show I have already,' he said.

He walked back with them, just flick-
ing the hedge from time to time with his
cane, so carelessly that it seemed barely
credible that he was assuring himself of
his way. When he reached the gate, he
opened it and held it for them to pass
through.

* You see we have already done some-
thing for the place,' he remarked, pointing
with his stick to the even, newly-laid gravel

108 A WILY WIDOW.

path on wliicli they were walking : 'and
now we turn this way.'

The rosary proved to be a rather formal
rectangular enclosure laid out somewhat
in the fashion of a Dutch garden. Eus-
tace took them from plat to plat, calling
their attention to his various flowers.
The thing of which he was proudest of all
was his knowledge of their colours. Once
only he made a mistake. Lily and the
widow were too polite to say anything, but
he detected it, nevertheless,

' I made a mistake then, about those
white roses, did I not?' he asked. 'They
are not exactly white.'

' No : cream colour,' said Lily.

' Cream colour : thank you,' he answered ;
but added : ' But you should have told
me at once. These colours, you see,
are things I cannot get at at all unless

A WILY WIDOW. 109

some one will tell me. And I was sure
from your silence that I had made a
mistake.'

Then he began to cut them some of the
flowers, insisting that they m.ust accept
them.

Whilst he was so occupied, Lily standing
near him, and Maud a little way oif, he
asked, with a smile,

* And, Miss Hardwick, what is it you are
wishing to ask me ?'

' Dear me, Mr. Warrington, how do you
know that I am wishing to ask you some-
thing?'

' Why, I can hear in your voice. That
is very simple, is it not ? Come now. Miss
Hardwick, what is it?' he added, good-
naturedly, at the same time neatly cutting
off a rose with his pocket-knife and putting
it into her hand.

110 A WILY WIDOW.

Encouraged by his tone, Lily asked,
straightforwardly,

' Mr. Warrington, is it true that your
brother has divided the fortune General
Chesterfield left him with his cousins ?'

' Quite true,' answered Eustace, prompt-
ly. ' The thing is not done yet, but it will be
done in a few days now. My brother has
given his cousins two -thirds of his inherit-
ance. He would like his generosity in the
matter to be a secret, but I have taken good
care that it should be known. There are
too many people who underrate Frank, and
have no suspicion of the splendid fellow
he is. So what I have told you. Miss
Hard wick, you will do me a kindness by
repeating. If people were aware how the
Misses Chesterfield behaved to Frank, they
would know that Frank has done a thing
of which not many men would be capable.'

A WILY WIDOW. Ill

' I have heard about the Miss Chester-
fields/ said Lily, quietly. 'And I think/
she added, with enthusiasm, Svhat Mr.
Warrington has done is most noble.'

That was not what Maud Gainsborouofh

o

thought when Lily told her on the way
home what she had learned from Eustace.

In the first crushing moment of con-
viction that the miserable rumour was true,
Maud exclaimed in herself,

* The fool ! The miserable fool ! What
has he done?'

Then, less passionately, but with a
sickly despair, the young widow revolved
with herself all that this last act of War-
rington entailed. Again he was poor, or
only somewhat richer than before. All
that was possible if he were wealthy, was
lost again; had slipped from her eager
hands ready to grasp it, and left her where

112 A WILY WIDOW.

she was before, with her poverty, and her
miseries, and her forlorn, hopeless love.

And she had just lighted on a plan for
disembarrassing herself, at least for a time,
of the dangerous presence of her cousin ; at
any rate, for long enough, in her opinion,
to allow her sensibly to supplant what
influence the girl had over the man she
loved.

And now ?

Now she might spare herself the trouble
of carrying out her plans, of doing any-
thing.

It was all over.

Certainly the turn in affairs was cruel
for her. Warrington's generous conduct
towards his cousins cost her — everything
she loved or cared for. She felt so sure of
the man, if she once used her arts to
bewitch him. And hers was no common

A WILY WIDOW. 113

love. Maud Gainsl3orougli was not com-
monplace. She as often behaved ill as
well ; as often — more often — did wrong
than right ; but whether she did right or
wrong, Avhether she behaved ill or well,
she did not do things in common ways.
And she was not cheaply, vulgarly in love
with "Warrington. She was in love with
him with all the energy of her intense,
nervous nature, with all the fervour of her
vivid, passionate imagination.

The revulsion from the flattery of hope
to a new despair made her very bitter.
She had ceased to res^ard a marriao;e
between Warrington and Lily as the legiti-
mate end of their acquaintance ; and she
was not now disposed to go back to that
view of their future. Rather, if she, Maud,
was not to have the man she loved, because
he was poor; at least it was fair that

VOL. IL I

114 A WILY WIDOW.

neither should Lily have him either. He
was not for sale, for Lily to buy him with
her fortune ! If the flirtation grew more
serious, Lily should go away after all.

But the flirtation did not become serious.
The days and weeks passed, and Lily Hard-
wick and Frank Warrington got no nearer
to each other at all. They met often in a
casual way, and Warrington was always
pleased to see Lily, and sometimes kind.
But his liking for her appeared to be of a
very platonic sort.

Lily felt it herself, and asked her heart,
with misgiving,

' If he does not love me, why is he always
so pleased to see me, so nice, so kind?
He is not so to anyone else. But, if he
does love me, why does he remain so dis-
passionate, so cold ?'

One by one, all the sweet hopes that, on

A WILY WIDOW. 115

Warrington's return, had come back to her
in a flock, like the swallo\Ys in the spring,
began to take their flight, and to leave
the poor little heart once more dreary,
pensive, and sad. Soon Warrington's cold
kindness began to seem more cruel even
than neglect. It resembled trifling with
her : and how could she sufi'er that ?

AVomen deceive themselves less about
their love afl'airs than men; happily for
them, seeing how much less the event is
in their own control. Lily was soon saying
to herself,

' He likes to talk to me, and to be nice
to me, because I am pretty. But he does
not care for me really, and I am only being
a little fool.'

But then what days of heart-ache
followed : what a dull, vacant pain ! It
made her indifferent to everything. The

i2

116 A WILY WIDOW.

splendid days of a glorious summer passed
in their golden beauty, the royal sunshine
filled the laughing air, the flowers bloomed;
and the great earth put on all her pomp
and majesty. But Lily heeded nothing.
She was trying to learn to live through a
great disappointment, and that was enough.
It was all over between her and Mr. War-
rington. She kept at home and tried to
avoid seeing him.

What an opportunity for Maud, if War-
rington had not chosen to be poor ! The
widow saw it, and, in secret, wrung her
hands over her wretchedness.

Lily got no help from her now, and no
compassion. Certainly she asked for none.
Mrs. Gainsborough's view of the situation
was that her cousin was behaving like a
little fool, and getting her deserts.

Once she said to the girl,

A WILY WIDOW. 117

* You and Mr. Warrino^ton are not get-
ting on very brightly, it seems.'

* He does not care for me, Maud,' replied
the girl, sadly.

Maud knew better than that, but she
only said,

' ^Vhy don't you make him? You mis-
manage him.'

' Thank you : you have told me that
before.'

' If I have, is it not true ? You may
have him, if you like. You don't like.
Then don't have him.'

' Look here, Maud,' suddenly exclaimed
the girl, catching her cousin's arm with a
passion that was rare in her. ' Do you
know what you can be, sometimes ? You
can be heartlessly cruel !'

And she flung the widow's arm away
from her, angrily.

118 A WILY WIDOW.

And that time she did not come after-
wards, as usual, to beg for pardon.

At last Maud Gainsborough got tired of
the girl's pale cheeks and low spirits.

' Lily,' she said one morning. ' What do
you say to a month with your guardian
Mr. Tanner in London. You will come in
for the end of the season. And you seem
so miserable here.'

Lily thought. This was going away
from him. And, heart-sick as she was, she
disliked that.

' I know why you want me to go, Maud,'
she said : ' and you mean it kindly. You
think I shall be amused and forget him.
Well, then, Maud, I shant. I love him too
much. And — Z dont ivant to go.'

^ Besides,' she ran on, for her cousin, a
little nonplussed by the directness of her
answer, remained silent : ' I don't know

A WILY WIDOW. 1 1 9

that Mr. and Mrs. Tanner want to have me.
And I shan't enjoy myself, and I shall only
be a nuisance to them.'

'Well, dear, if you will not be advised,'
said Maud, yieldin^^ly.

'No, Maud, it is not that. I am miser-
able enough, goodness knows. And it
seems to me that I always shall be now.
But I don't want to be sent away because
of Mr. Warrington.'

'My dear girl,' replied Maud, quietly;
' you will come back again. And Mr.
Warrington will still be here.'

Simple and obvious as the remark was,
it was a masterpiece of an answer, because
it replied not to the girl's words but to
her thoughts. And its effect was im-
mediate.

The widow saw that, and continued,

' Please understand, dear, that Mr. War-

120 A WILY WIDOW.

rington has no weight at all with me one
way or the other. The thing I am thinking
of is your health. I promised your guard-
ian that I would take every care of you.
At present I am convinced that you ought
to have change of air. And, if I don't try
to make you take it, I don't think I am
keeping my promise to Mr. Tanner. If
you come back to me no better, I have
made a mistake. Of course that is pos-
sible. But, if you ask me what I ivish^ I
believe you do want change of air, and I
do wish, dear, that you would take it.'

' ril go, Maud,' said the girl.

' There is a dear, good, sensible girl,'
said Maud, kissing her. ' I wish that I
could go with you, dear. We would have
a charming little trip to town together.
But as it would take me six months' corre-
spondence with my precious brother-in-law

A WILY WIDOW. 121

to get leave, and then he would very like-
ly revoke it at the last minute, that is not
possible.'

It was arranged that Maud should write
and make all the necessary arrangements.
Accordino^ly, the same evening; the widow
wrote a letter to Mrs. Tanner.

It will be sufficient to quote only a part
of it.

'A Mr. Warrington, who has recently
come into an estate in the neighbourhood,
came to live here, some few months since.
He is a good-looking sort of man, agreeable
and exceedingly gentlemanly. I began,
shortly after his arrival, to suspect that
Lily had conceived a little tenderness for
him, and it appears that I was right. How-
ever, recently, he and Lily have quarrelled.
The affair has made poor Lily rather
unhappy, and she has been moping a good

122 A WILY WIDOW.

deal, and is pale and low-spirited. There
is nothing serious amiss ; and I think that
a little change of scene and some amuse-
ment would set our young friend right.
Under these circumstances, I have thought
it best to write to you, if you could have
Lily to stay with you for a few weeks in
town,' etc.

Only, a little further on, Maud remarked
casually,

' As you may be curious to know some-
thing about the gentleman, I may tell you
that Mr. Warrington is a man with whom
any girl might naturally fall in love. His
place near here, Lynhurst, is a very pretty
place, but not large. It is reputed to be
heavily mortgaged and is in a great state
of dilapidation, and I believe that Mr.
Warrington is far from being able to spend
upon it as much as is required. So pos-

A WILY WIDOW. 128

sibly the little quarrel that has occurred is
not to be regretted.'

Sealing the letter, Maud said to her-
self,

* There, they cannot refuse, I think.
And I am really growing tired of Lily's
dumps.'

Two answers came almost by return of
post. One for Maud from Mrs. Tanner,
one for Lily from her guardian Mr. Tanner.
Mrs. Tanner thanked Maud for her sensible,
straightforward letter, and Mr. Tanner
sent Lily a very pretty invitation to come
and spend some weeks with them in
town.

Of course the invitation was accepted,
and the date of Lily's departure was fixed
for the next week.

Now that it was all arranged, Lily herself
was rather pleased with the prospect of her

124 A WILY WIDOW.

visit. After all, she had her measure of
pride, and was disposed to show a little
spirit about the way in which Warrington
was slighting her.

It chanced that a day or two later she
met Warrington on the esplanade. He had
been walking, and she had been to morning
service at the church.

Warrington was, as always, agreeable,
almost deferential ; but cool, dispassionate
entirely.

Lily cut their conversation short ; for his
manner hurt her. She had, she said, to
hurry home.

' And,' she added, ^ I may as well say
good-bye. I am going to London next
week, for the end of the season. And we
may very probably not meet again before
then.'

Warrington looked surprised.

A WILY WIDOW. 125

* I hope you will enjoy yourself, Miss
Hardwick,' he said, ' but I am sorry to hear
that you are going away.'

A hundred possibilities had flashed in a
moment through his mind ; the London
season, with its fascinations, its oppor-
tunities, its flirtations; and this pretty girl,
charming, ingenuous ; a dozen men might
be ready to make love to her, to marry
her.

*Why should you be sorry that I am
going away ? It will make no difference to
you,' remarked Lily.

Well, really, why was he sorry? He
knew he was sorry, but hardly why. And,
as he hesitated for a reply, Lily went on,
looking down,

*Mr. Warrington, I wish you would tell
me what I have done that you should be
unkind to me.'

126 A WILY WIDOW.

' Unkind ! Miss Hardwick !'

' I call it unkind to let a girl know that
you feel no respect for her. And I am sure
you can feel no resj^ect for a girl to whom
you say things that you know are not true
— as that my going away matters to you.
I don't know what you can have seen in
me that makes you think I should like
to be spoken to in that way.' And holding
out her hand she concluded, briefly, ' good-
bye.'

127

CHAPTER YII.

The return of the Chesterfield girls to
England was a very simple aifair. One
fine morning Anthony Gainsborough's
yacht steamed into the mouth of the
Thames and up to Gravesend. There a
little screw-launch was waiting to meet
her. The transference of some necessary
luggage occupied 'a very few minutes, and
then the launch took the two sisters with
their lady's-maid and their uncle on the
flood-tide straight up to T^\ickenham, and
landed them in easy time for dinner. The

128 A WILY WIDOW.

old housekeeper, with new black silk
ribbons in her cap, received them with a
curtsey in the hall, and so they were at
home, and at once, without any further
ado, went to dress for dinner, much as if
they had returned only from a walk, or
had come in from an afternoon spent in
town.

Their new home was a large, ugly old-
fashioned house, beautifully furnished, and
standing in pretty and rather extensive
grounds. The girls were not quite
strangers to the place. Once they had
visited it when their grandmother was
alive, and then it had seemed to them a
sort of palace in the midst of a fairy-land
in which grandmamma lived in a kind of
royal state. Now, on renewing their
acquaintance with it, they found both the
fairyland and the palace a good deal

A WILY WIDOW. 129

smaller than they seemed to recollect
them. But they found also many
things, which they had not, when little
lassies, noticed at all, valuable furniture,
and rare books, and priceless pictures.

Anthony Gainsborough was at home
and away from home irregularly. Amongst
other things he was attending to the re-
pairs of his yacht at present laid up in
dock. When at home he wandered about
the house and srrounds smokino: his bio-

O • CD CD

pipe, sat in the sun, looked at the flowers,
and occasionally talked to the girls. He
had the screw-launch on the river, and
often took them out with him in it, and
he indulged them frequently in the amuse-
ments of town.

Left to do very much as they liked, the
sisters amused themselves in their own
way, and contracted a liking for the house-

VOL. II. K

130 A WILY WIDOW.

keeper, Mrs. Simpson, a personable old
woman, who had been in service in the
family for a great number of years, and
knew all the family histories, and on her
side took a fancy to the two girls.

One day when they were talking to the
old dame, hearing what she had to say
about the childhood of their mother and of
their uncle, Violet observed that she did not
believe her Uncle Tony could be angry if
he tried.

' You take care never to make him angry,
miss. If you do, you'll not forget it,' re-
marked the old woman.

' Why ?' asked Essie, ^ has he ever been
angry with you, Mrs. Simpson ?'

' No, miss. I never gave him reason :
and I hope I never shall.'

' But you have seen him angry with
some one T

A WILY WIDOW. 131

' I have, miss,' replied Mrs. Simpson.

'AYho was it, Mrs. Simpson?' asked Essie,
whose curiosity was aroused.

^ Not anyone you know, miss,' answered
the old woman, in a tone that meant she
was not going to say any more.

' Then it seems that Uncle Tony can be
angry,' observed Essie to her sister after-
wards, when they were alone.

' And there is some history connected
with that,' added Violet. 'You could
see that from the way Mrs. Simpson
spoke.'

' I should vastly like to know what it is,'
observed Essie.

But though Anthony Gainsborough was
indulgent, he was not a person easy to
question ; and Essie's curiosity had to re-
main ungratified.

One afternoon, when thev had been in

K ^

132 A WILY WIDOW.

England about a fortnight, they had taken
their needlework out on the lawn and sat
sewing and talking under the trees.
Whilst they were so occupied, their
uncle came across the lawn to them
thrusting a letter into his breast-pocket
as he approached.

' Well, young ladies,' he asked, Svhat is
it that I find you discussing so earnestly ?
If it is permitted to inquire ?'

' We were talking, Uncle Tony, of how
much happier we have been with you than
we were with grandpapa,' said Violet, put-
ting down her work. 'How kindly you
have treated us, and how ill he did.'

'And you might add how ill you be-
haved to grandpapa, eh ?' suggested
Anthony Gainsborough.

' Well, yes. We did not behave very
well to him,' admitted Essie.

A WILY WIDOW. 133

'But,' put in Violet, 'orrandpapa has
had his revenge, and disinherited us.'

Anthony Gainsborough put his arm
within hers, and led her for a stroll around
the lawn, Essie coming with them.

'Which is what you might have expected,
as you knew what sort of man your grand-
father was,' said Anthony Gainsborough,
continuing the conversation. ' Still you
Avould have preferred to have been for-
given ?'

' Certainly,' said Essie.

Anthony Gainsborough took out his big
pipe and slowly filled it. Then, having
lighted it, he remarked,

' There was some one else rather
badly used beside the general, was there
not?'

' Mr. Warrington,' said Violet. ' H'm,
yes. He luas rather badly treated.'

134 A WILY WIDOW.

' Mr. Warrington is — ' began Essie, and
broke off.

'Mr. Warrington is wbat?' asked her
uncle.

' I won't say what I was going to say,
Uncle Tony. Perhaps it is not true.'

' Good. But now, respecting your
cousin. You would prefer to be forgiven
by him too?'

The girls were silent.

' You find that a little humiliating, eh ?'

They came to a garden seat, and he sat
down, the girls standing before him,
Essie with her arm about her sister's
waist.

' Come now, girls,' he went on. ' Let us
look at the matter reasonably. You
behaved ill to your grandfather ; yet you
think he might have forgiven you. Your
Cousin Frank's behaviour was unimpeach-

A WILY WIDOW. 135

able, and you overreached him. If he
condones the way you behaved to him, his
behaviour is so much the better, and yours
so much the worst. If he cherishes
resentment, you are defenceless. Anyhow,
when you and he meet you have before you
an inevitable mauvais quart-cV-heure^ unless
you have sufficient spirit and courage
to '

' To do what?' asked Violet.

' To beg his pardon.'

' What — for not marrying him ?' ex-
claimed Violet.

' Not for not marrying him, but for — I
don't want to use hard words, my dear.
You did me no wrong, and I have nothing
to say to it. I am willing enough to
believe that you fell into a mistake. If
you have the spirit and courage to beg
your cousin's pardon at the first oppor-

136 A WILY WIDOW.

tunity, you will liave proved that a single
mistake does not derogate from a fine
character.'

'- Uncle Tony, I have not a fine character/
said Violet, promptly.

'And, Uncle Tony, is Mr. Warrington's
conduct unimpeachable ? Mr. Warrington
has coolly enough accepted our fortunes,'
offered Essie.

' And you would permit a man, whom
you have treated as you and your sister
have treated your cousin, to share his for-
tune with you?' asked Anthony Gains-
borough. 'For remember, after the will
the general left, it is his fortune.'

The girls were silent.

Anthony Gainsborough drew out the
letter he had in his pocket.

' Well, to cut it short, girls,' he said,
offering them two cheques, ' here are your

A WILY WIDOW. 137

fortunes. Frank Warrington has sent them
to you.'

' But, uncle/ said Violet, regarding the
big cheque in her hand with misgiving,
' can we accept them, from Mr. War-
rington ?'

' If you don't, you can't stay with me,'
said Anthony Gainsborough, with a
quiet emphasis that made both the sisters
open their eyes. Rising, he concluded,
' Try to write and thank your cousin, as
he deserves to be thanked, and bring your
letters to me.'

And with that he left them.

When an hour later the girls came
into the library with their notes, Violet
said,

' We have written, Uncle Tony, but we
should like it if Cousin Frank would see us,
and make it all up. We would beg his

13S A WILY WIDOW.

pardon. Would you go and see him for
us : and ask him to meet us ?'

Anthony Gainsborough went down to
Lynham. But Warrington was inexorable.
He would not see his cousins.

' Now it is the girls who are behaving
well, and you who are behaving badly,
you know,' said Tony Gainsborough.

Warrington admitted that might be so.
But he would not see his cousins.

p eing at Lynham, Anthony Gainsborough
went to call at Cliff Cottage. Lily was
out. Maud Gainsborough was at home,
and received him, asking herself, in an
agony of fear, what on earth could have
brought him down.

It did not appear that anything parti-
cular had brought him. He was down on
business, and had simply come to pay a
call.

A WILY WIDOW. 139

But he alluded to the telegram Maud
had sent him.

' You wanted to go abroad ?' he asked.

'- Why — yes,' stammered Maud.

' You still wish it ?'

' No. I would rather stay here now.'

Anthony Gainsborough enquired no
further.

He only stayed a quarter-of-an-hour,
asking no questions except whether the
house was in satisfactory repair, and then
left, to Maud's ineffable relief.

When Lily, who passed him in the road,
came in, Maud said nothing to her about
the visit she had received. Which was a
mistake on Maud's part.

140

CHAPTER VIII.

The announcement of Lily Hardwick's
early departure for town, and tlie sudden
disquietude the words had occasioned him,
opened Frank Warrington's eyes, at last,
to the truth which he had been so long
singularly unable to see. As his brother
had foretold, he had fallen in love with
Miss Hardwick. The little chance meet-
ings with her, and the sound of her voice,
the sight of her bright eyes, and the touch
of her small hand had become somehow
necessary to him, and he shrank from the

A WILY WIDOW. 141

prospect of foregoing them. Or, plainly, he
was falling in love. And, the more War-
rington questioned himself on the subject,
the more sure he was of it.

It was his opinion, too, that Lily was
not indifferent about him. If she had
been indifferent, she would not have cared
what he said.

The wisest thing he could have done
would have been to have talked over these
discoveries with his brother. But such.
tender little affairs are not the things men
discuss with one another : and Frank
Warrington took counsel only with him-
self.

He had not the faintest idea of marry-
ing Miss Hardmck. If he married at all,
he meant to marry a woman a good deal
older, and with money. In consequence,
as a man of honourable feelings, he found

142 A WILY WIDOW.

that his conduct with Miss Hardwick had
been not altogether free from blame.
' Girls,' he argued, ' are naturally and in-
stinctively on the look-out for husbands.
A very little attention paid them, or any-
thing that can be construed into attention,
is at once interpreted by them to signify a
great deal.' Miss Hardwick might, from
her point of view, possibly feel that, if his
intentions were not serious, his conduct
was hardly gentlemanly. He certainly
did not intend to marry her : and it would
be his duty to be more circumspect for the
future.

But he was sorry, too, for the girl. If
there was a girl in the world whom he
would have gone a little out of his way to
humour, that girl was Lily Hardwick.
He admired her character, he respected it.
He was sorry to be the occasion of giving

A WILY WIDOW. 143

her any pain. Still, there was no help
for it. The notion of seriously wooing
her was not to be entertained for an
instant. If she had taken a fancy to him,
perhaps partly by his fault, she must get
over it.

As for his own foolishness and suscepti-
bility, that proved only that he was a
weaker man than he supposed, and he
would have simply to cure himself of his
folly.

The best thing that could happen for
both Miss Hardwick and himself would be
that their good-bye on the esplanade
should prove a real farewell, that they
should not meet again before Miss Hard-
wick went to town, and that, in town, she
should become enorag^ed before she re-
turned to Lynham.

But his thoughts returned very often

144: A WILY WIDOW.

to Lily and to what possibly her feelings
would be if she had really been unlucky
enough to form an attachment to him.
And so it came about that he formed a
resolution, if an opportunity should offer,
to let her see plainly the state of the case,
and to spare her at least the pain of
deceiving herself any further. To do that
much appeared to him nothing more than
an act of common humanity.

Circumstances favoured his plan. After
all, Lilj^'s visit to town was unavoidably
postponed, and, some days after their
meeting on the esplanade, they met again
just outside the big, iron gates of the
rectory, where Lily had been to pay the
rectors wife a visit.

She would have bowed and let Warring-
ton pass, but he stopped. And for the
first time he noticed that Lily was paler,

A WILY WIDOW. 145

and, he thought, a little thinner than she
used to be. It was an additional induce-
ment to him to carry out his intention of
acquainting her with the truth.

' I am glad we have met again. Miss
Hardwick,' he said. 'There was some-
thing I wished to say to you.'

'Yes?'

She was looking into his face wistfully ;
thinking in herself how happy she could
have been if he could have cared for her
as she cared for him.

' You know. Miss Hardwick,' he went
on, ' that last time we met I said some-
thing that displeased you.'

Lily nodded. What on earth was he
going to say ?

' Well, I know I ought not to have said
it ; that it was a foolish, rather sentimental
speech. And I hope you have forgiven

VOL. II. L

146 A WILY WIDOW.

it. I forgot I fear, at the moment, what
I really am. I mean, you know,' he con-
tinued, in a frank, straightforward way
that appealed at once to the girl's heart,
* that I am a much poorer man than I
pass for. I am not badly off, perhaps,
but I have taken on my shoulders the
redemption of a big estate, which means
heavy expenses, you see, and debts, and
long responsibilities ; and — well, I ought
not to be saying pretty things and paying
compliments to young ladies.'

Lily stood leaning against the big, iron
gate that stood half-open, with her hand
lightly closed around one of its bars.
The sun, piercing through the leafage of
the tall trees planted on either side of the
gate, fell in broken light upon her shoul-
ders, and her pretty hair, and her young
cheeks, and made her a charming picture.

A WILY WIDOW. 147

'No one would object to your paying
compliments that you meant,' she let fall,
in a rather embarrassed way, looking down
coyly.

For the moment a suspicion was begin-
ning to present itself that he was going to
propose.

But he answered, quietly,

' That is not it, Miss Hard wick. A man
in my position has no right to mean these
things, and I am much obliged to you for
having reminded me of it. That is what
I had to say to you. The fact is, Miss
Hardwick, that I fear we have both been
deceiving ourselves ; and so, just at present,
it is a good thing, perhaps, that we are
going to see less of each other.'

The girl looked up, and a sudden light
flashed in the depths of her large blue
eyes. Then her eyelids fell, as a hot blush

l2

148 A WILY WIDOW.

covered her face, and slie clenched her
hand tightly, in an effort to conceal her
agitation. This man was telling her, in
other words, that he could see that she was
in love with him, but that he had no
intention of proposing to her.

But, as he had stopped, stifling as she
was, she had to speak.

' That is what you wished to say to me ?*
she asked.

'And that I hope you have forgiven my
silly speech.'

For answer, she only asked, ' Which way
are you going T

' Homewards. And you T

' I am going the other way. So I will
wish you good-morning.'

She just touched his hand with hers,
barely that ; and so they parted.

'I am afraid she didn't quite like it,'

. A WILY WIDOW 149

mused Warrington, walking on towards
Lynhurst. ' Still it was only fair to her.'

Lily walked a little way towards the
town, and then, when she was sure she
would not overtake Warrington, turned
back.

'I have had a lesson that people who
cannot take slight hints get broad ones,'
she said to herself.

She was quite mistress of herself, singu-
larly little hurt, considering how passion-
ately she loved the man ; but indignant,
furiously indignant, and already asking
herself what she was going to do after an
affront of such a nature as this.

Dinner and the evening passed as usual,
and she had the skill to manage that Maud
should suspect nothing. But, in her own
room, she sat up late, brooding over the
scene that had passed at the rectory gates,

150 A WILY WIDOW.

and, when she retired to rest at last, found
it difficult to sleep.

The birds and the summer morning sun
woke her early, and, finding that slumber
would not be courted whilst her brain was
in its present fever of indignation, she got
up.

For a little while she sat in her peignoir
at her open window, wistfully regarding
the beauty of the summer morning. Then,
a sudden idea occurring to her, she made
a hasty toilet, and slipped downstairs.

Leaving the house, she went down the
garden ; and, reaching the cliif, descended
the steps to the beach, and there sat down
on the sand facing the sea.

A little breeze blew on shore, just
enough to make the sea crisp with ripples.
The breeze was fresh, but not cold, laden
with the sweetness of the morning and the

A WILY WIDOW. 151

sharp saltness of the sea. It seemed to
nerve her spirits, and to cool the fever of
her brain ; and by-and-by she ceased to
watch the curling of the ripples, and to
amuse herself with tossing pebbles into
the water, and set herself to reflect
seriously.

' I almost vowed to be his good angel,'
she reflected ; ' to bring him to believe
that we are not all bad. And I love
him. I do love him. But that was in-
suflferable.*

She stayed a long time on the beach,
but, when she returned at length to Cliff
Cottage, her mind was made up.

It was a Sunday morning, and, on fine
Sunday mornings, the small fashionable
world of Lynham promenaded the little
esplanade after morning service. The
esplanade lay right before them as they

152 A WILY WIDOW.

came out of churcli, and a turn by the sea
naturally suggested itself as an agreeable
way of spending the half-hour or so be-
tween service and the hour of midday
dinners.

This Sunday morning promenade was
one of the things that Eustace Warrington,
with his naturally sociable turn of mind,
particularly enjoyed. This morning, he
and his brother proceeded as usual after
church to the esplanade.

They walked as far as one end of it and
then turned back, walking slowly and
stopping from time to time to speak to
different acquaintances. Presently War-
rington said to his brother,

' Here is Miss Hardwick coming.'

'Is her cousin with her?' asked Eustace.

'No : she is alone.'

Lily had seen them. Her moment was

A WILY WIDOW. 153

come. She was nearer now ; quite close ;
only a few steps from them.

Warrington was already about to raise
his hat, and to give his brother the little
pressure of his arm, which was the sign
to him to do the same, when something in
the expression of Lily's features arrested
his attention.

Her face was rigidly set, and she
seemed to have no intention of bowing.
Instead, she looked for a moment at
Warrington and his brother, a hard look
from the corners of her eyes, a regard
like a stranger's regard of momentary
curiosity.

And then she had passed.

Before she had gone a step further, she
heard Eustace ask,

' Was that Miss Hardwick who passed
us?'

154 A WILY WIDOW.

What Warrington replied Lily did not
hear.

Warrington's answer was a rather con-
fused, ' Yes.' He had been taken a good
deal by surprise.

. ^ But you should not have let me pass
her without bowing,' said Eustace, annoyed.

' Why,' answered Warrington, ' the fact
is she cut us dead.'

' Cut us !'

An acquaintance of Warrington's, one
of the hunt, came up. He had seen what
had passed.

^You and Miss Hardwick are cuts, then,'
he remarked to Warrington.

' Yes,' said Warrington, easily, 'you saw
just now.'

A good many people had seen : and
went home with something to talk about.

Lily left the parade, and went home.

A WILY WIDOW. 155

It was all over ! for ever, and ever, and
ever. The young love-dream and the dear
hopes : the proud mission of winning him
back to believe in womanhood's nobility :
all over, vanished, lost ! for ever, and
ever, and ever.

She said nothing to her cousin. Maud,
in the course of the afternoon, remarked
that she was pale, and inquired the cause,
but she answered, with truth, that she
had a headache.

But on Monday afternoon Mrs. Gains-
borough heard all about the affair in Lyn-
ham, and at once returned home.

Lily was in the dining-room making up
some bouquets. She had the advantage
of the widow, for she had foreseen that
Maud must hear the news in the town,
and had guessed that she would at once
come back to ask what it meant.

156 A WILY WIDOW.

The widow came into the room quickly,
without shutting the door behind her, and
putting her sunshade on the table, with
her hands resting upon it, said hurriedly,

' You cut the Warringtons yesterday on
the parade after church.'

^Yes,' answered Lily, slowly putting a
flower into the middle of a bouquet.

' But — what on earth did you do that
for?'

' For reasons of my own.'

' But it seems to me that you put me in
a very awkward position. You might, at
least, have told me what you were going
to do. Am I expected to second you ?
Do you want me to cut them too ?'

' You can do as you like.'

' But ' began the widow.

^ Oh, my goodness, Maud, don't bother
me about it !' exclaimed the girl.

A WILY WIDOW. 157

And, putting down her flowers, she
rested her arms on the table. Then, sud-
denly bowing her head upon them, she
burst into tears.

The widow came to her.

' Let me alone, Maud, let me alone !' she
supplicated between her sobs. ' I am so
miserable ; I wish that I were dead ! I
wish that I were dead !'

' Ah ! if you were 1' thought the widow
in herself. But, as nothing else was to

o

be irot from the drl, she left her with a

s

shrug of her shoulders, and went into the
garden, and sat down under the shade of
the trees to think.

158

CHAPTER IX.

Maud's reflections were somewhat tlius :

Plainly something had passed between
Lily and Mr. Warrington. It might be
very much her interest to know what it
was. But it seemed unlikely that she
would be able to learn.

The thing that disquieted her was that
Lily should thus unexpectedly have played
so bold and daring a stroke. Not that
Lily herself perceived that it was a bold,
daring stroke. But she, Maud, saw it.
In this game of cross-purposes, in which
everyone had hitherto been waiting for

A WILY WIDOW. 159

some one else, the girl had, after all, been
the first to venture on a decisive move.
To Mrs. Gainsborough it appeared a very
clever move. And she felt anything but
easy about the consequences. Lily, in all
probability, would herself be made very
unhappy. And there is no calculating
what young, headstrong people will do
when they are unhappy. The man was
not indifferent to her, and he would not
like being cut. It might even open his
eyes to his real feelings for the girl. That
would be serious indeed. For Maud's own
quiet, waiting policy, this sort of thing was
fatal.

Still, so far as she could see, her policy
for the present must still be to wait. It
would not do for her to cut Mr. Warrins:-
ton. Certainly not. She had nothing to
gain by that.

160 A WILY WIDOW.

' I love the man ; how much more than
that chit does or could !' she soliloquised.
' And yet he will feel her having cut him.
And if I had cut him — he would have
laughed at it. My God ! Why do we
love these men? I suppose because we
cannot help it.*

Her thoughts returned to Lily.

The girl had a sensitive, nervous nature.
She had of course no idea, yet, of what she
had done : of what cutting the man she
loved would cost her. Warrington might
possibly take the matter very coolly. In
that case Lily would feel his indifference a
good deal. It was not at all unlikely that
in the end she would be really ill.

Maud was right. In sternly cutting the
man she loved, Lily had shown courage
and spirit. But she had torn away a piece
of her own heart, and the rude operation

A WILY WIDOW. 161

left behind it a cruel wound, one whose
horrible pain made her soul faint. Her
spirit had triumphed. She had not bent
her head to a humiliation a girl should be
ashamed to remember : but her heart bled
cruelly. And she was sunk in her own
estimation. She had undertaken so proud,
so fascinating a role : to reclaim a man
hostile to her sex, and to make him return
her love. And she had broken down.
The part she had wished to play had
turned out to be beyond her strength,
and her faith in herself was shaken to the
ground.

Twenty-four hours sufficed to show that
she was simply miserable.

She loved this man she had cast from
her, tenderly, nobly, devotedly. Only so
short a time since she had sunned herself
in the belief that that love of hers was not

VOL. II. M

162 A WILY WIDOW.

altogether unreciprocated; that he had
begun to care for her ; and, ravished with
the thought, she had spread the wings of
her hopes into a very heaven of joy. And
now she had thrust him clean away with
the living love still warm in her heart. If
that is living love which is mortified by
the conviction that the person to whom
it is oiFered regards it with indifference,
ennui, disdain.

Her pride held her up for a little while.
But afterwards heart and spirit seemed to
give way together. The smile faded from
her lips, the elasticity from her step, the
light from her eyes : and a fixed melan-
choly possessed itself of her.

For a day or two she struggled against
the depression, though with small success.
Then the struggle ceased. The melancholy
that had invaded her was more powerful

A WILY WIDOW. 163

than herself, and she had no weapons to
combat it. Everything had lost interest
for her. A dull lethargy crept over her
whole life. The music of her laugh had
died out of the house long ago, and it
seemed that the very sound of her voice
was to follow it.

* She was awfully fond of him,' said
Maud Gainsborough. 'Why on earth did
she cut him ?'

She was sorry for the girl. It was a
pitiful thing to see her so wretched, poor
child, and the widow was not without a
heart. In her fashion she was even kind.
She was very gentle with the girl, with
that superlative gentleness which women
can show one another when they choose.

Lily made no pretence of concealing
how miserable she was. Rather, the thing
that seemed to afford her some relief was

M 2

164 A WILY WIDOW.

to confess her wretchedness, to come to
her cousin and to throw herself into her
arms with a broken cry of,

' Oh, Maud ! I loved him so ! I loved
him so !'

And on these occasions the widow was
very patient with her, put her arms
around her and let her cry her fill, and
chided her never.

Then, as fortune would have it, on two
successive occasions when Lily went out
she met Warrington. She bore herself
admirably, with the most perfect ease and
external indifference, but each of these
rencontres cost her a stab of pain in her
heart, and after them she refused to go
any more outside the grounds.

' I wish, with all my heart, the day was
here when she will leave for town,' said
Maud to herself.

A WILY WIDOW. 165

She, too, had seen Warrington. That
was one afternoon when she was riding.
He was on foot. She bowed demonstra-
tively, and then drew up to speak to
him.

' I hear, Mr. Warrington,' she said, a
little seriously, ' that my cousin has cut
you. I hope you will do me the honour
to believe me that I had nothing to do
with it.'

' Certainly, Mrs. Gainsborough.'

' I am very sorry that this should have
occurred, Mr. Warrington,' continued the
widow. 'I think I may tell you that.
Of course my cousin lives with me, but I
have no authority over her. So she must
do as she pleases. But I hope this Avill
not make any difference between you and
Mr. Eustace Warrington and myself.'

' Certainly not,' said Warrington.

166 A WILY WIDOW.

And so they parted.

*I don't think I committed myself to
anything outside the strictest politeness/
said the widow to herself, as she rode on.
' No, I am sure I did not. 1 wonder what
it was passed between those two. He
took all I said very coolly.'

Yes, he did take it very coolly. At
dinner he said to Eustace,

' I met Mrs. Gainsborough this after-
noon and she bowed most cordially. She
also gave herself the trouble to explain
that she had nothing to do with Miss
Hard wick's having cut us.'

He took the cut very coolly too.
At least he never made any allusion to
it.

Lily's distress soon told on her health.
With her nervous nature nothing else Avas
to be expected. By the end of the week

A WILY WIDOW. 167

her cheeks had lost every morsel of
colour, her appetite had become caprici-
ous, and she was complaining of being
always tired.

Maud Gainsborough became alarmed,
and called in Dr. Gregg. She confided to
him that there had been a little affaire de
coour which had terminated not very
happily, and that her cousin had been
fretting. The doctor looked very wise
and began to ask questions in his usual
fashion.

' A little low-spirited, young lady, they
tell me. But now, let me see, your appe-
tite keeps good?'

' No, Dr. Gregg, I have no appetite at
all.'

' No ? Well, sometimes in these cases
the appetite does fail, sometimes it does
not. Well. So you are rather low-spirited.

168 A WILY WIDOW.

And you have, I can see, a good deal of
headache.'

' No, Dr. Gregg. No headache.'

' No headache ? No, perhaps not. But
loss of appetite. I can see it all. A little
tonic. We shall soon set you up.'

' What was the good of sending for him,
Maud ?' asked Lily, when he was gone.
' You know what is the matter.'

' How do you really feel, dear ?'

^ Tired.'

'Not ill? You look ill.'

'Do I?'

She got up and walked away. How
languidly ! Was this really the same girl
who a month ago had the step of a
gazelle ?

169

CHAPTER X.

People began to talk of liow ill Miss
Hardwick looked.

Maud was taking every care she could
of her. She made her attend to what the
doctor said, and, so far as she could, kept
her from moping under the trees, strolling
about in the twilight, sitting at open win-
dows at night, and all the other foolish
things she wished to do. Lily was not
altogether tractable or manageable, and
would sometimes say, pettishly, ' I am
miserable : for heaven's sake let me

170 A WILY WIDOW.

be ;' and then take her own way after
all.

One day, rising from the dinner-table,
she suddenly stopped, and, catching at the
table with one hand, laid the other on her
heart with a little cry of pain.

'My dear!' exclaimed Maud.

' Oh, such a horrid pain in my heart,
Maud,' said the girl, presently, with an
expression of dismay.

But in a minute the pain had passed,
and she went with her cousin into the
drawing-room, and they had coffee as
usual.

' Are you all right now, darling ? Your
heart does not hurt you any more ?' asked
Maud, presently.

' No, thanks.'

But suddenly she slipped off the sofa on
which she was sitting, and, dropping on

A WILY WIDOW. 171

her knees on the floor by Maud, buried
her head in her lap.

* Oh, Maud ! I shall die,' she sobbed^
passionately. ' I am so miserable. I am
so miserable. I thought I could bear it,,
but I cannot, Maud, I cannot! I love
him so. I love him so. He might have
loved me a little.' After a moment she
continued, ^ It is a shame to trouble you,
Maud, with my fooHsh tears. You have
always been so kind to me : so good to me.
But I don't know how to bear it, Maud.
Indeed I don't. If I had a father, or a
mother, a brother, or a sister, or anyone —
anyone to go to. But I have no one. I
am all — all alone. I have no one but you,
Maud, and my heart is breaking. It is
indeed, Maud. I love him so. I love
him so. You don't know, Maud, what he
was to me. It will kill me, I know it will.

172 A WILY WIDOW.

I wish I were dead. He would be sorry,
perhaps, a little bit. I wish I were not
going away from you next week to town.'

Suddenly she drew herself up with a
sharp cry of pain.

Mrs. Gainsborough caught her in her
arms.

' My darling !'

' It is that pain at my heart again,'
gasped the girl, as soon as she could speak.
' Oh, Maud, I shall die.'

Maud did her best to calm her, and
then sent her to bed. Happily there were
only five more days now before her de-
parture to town.

Left alone the widow sat herself down
to think.

That afternoon, returning home from a
walk in the woods, she had met Warring-
ton. He was strolling slowly, smoking a

A WILY WIDOW. 173

pipe, with his hands in his pockets, when
she overtook him.

* Please go on smoking, Mr. Warrington,'
she said, pleasantly, as they walked on
together. ' I am sure the society of a
woman would be too dearly purchased by
the loss of a pipe. Oh, you are too
gallant to admit it, of course. Still,
smoke, please.'

How handsome he was looking in a
rough brown suit, with knickerbockers !
How furiously she admired him ! What
she would have given to throw her arms
round his neck, and to kiss him !

Warrington had complied with her re-
quest, and continued to smoke. And he
politely inquired after Miss Hardwick.

' Just the same. She makes me anxious,'
said the widow.

How she wished she could ask him

174 A WILY WIDOW.

ivhat he and Lily had quarrelled about ?

* I am very glad to have met you, Mrs.
Gainsborough,' said Warrington. ' My
brother and I are the victims of a domestic
tragedy. And we were both thinking of
calling upon you to solicit your aid.'

' I should have been most pleased to see
you.'

'Well, I'll tell you all about it,' said
Warrington, as he stuffed down the
tobacco in the bowl of his pipe.

He was quite at his ease. He always
was with Maud Gainsborough. Maud
was a widow. Widows did not pursue
men without money. Maud knew how
safe he felt, and reckoned a good deal on
that imprudent security of his to assist
her some day.

The domestic tragedy was only a re-
bellion on the part of the cook. The

A WILY WIDOW. 175

brothers, in consequence, wanted a new
cook, and Mrs. Gainsborough was fortunate
enough to be able to recommend them
one.

Meanwhile, they had come in their walk
to a point of the wood where the path
passed through an open spot on high
ground, and offered a view of a corner of
the woods and of a part of the property.

Warrington stopped, and called the
widow's attention to the view.

' Did you ever see anything more miser-
able, Mrs. Gainsborough,' he said; 'more
ragged, more ^vretched ? Look at those
dead trees. Look at those hedges. Look
at that wall. Look at the weediness of
the whole place. Look at that copse.
Enough to make one's eyes sore, is it not ?
And it is the same all over the estate.
Everywhere nothing but raggedness and

176 A WILY WIDOW.

dilapidations ; the fruit of years of shame-
ful neglect.'

The widow stood by his side, following
with her eyes the direction of his hand as
he pointed out one feature after another
of the dilapidated estates. How astonished
he would have been, if he could have
known how happy he was making her.

' It will cost fortunes to set the place in
order,' he continued, gloomily, as he
turned to walk on.

' Well, Mr. Warrington, spend the for-
tunes,' said the widow, quietly.

' To spend one must have,' observed
Warrington, phlegmatically ; ^ and unfor-
tunately I don't possess fortunes. I
suppose that I shall get the place straight
little by little, but I really do not know
that I should not have done better to
sell it, as I first intended. Still, then I

A WILY WIDOW. 177

should have got nothing for it, and it is a
pretty place/

' Well, Mr. Warrington, you must marry
some charming heiress, you know,' sug-
gested the widow, laughing.

*H'm. And what do you think, Mrs.
Gainsborough, of a man who marries
a woman with more money than him-
self?'

' Oh, I think, of course, that it is all a
question of love; that the money is no-
thing,' replied Maud, sarcastically.

And she and Warrington laughed.

* Still, you are too much a man of the
world, Mr. Warrington, not to concede the
sensibleness of a manage de convenance^
observed the widow.

* I entirely agree with you,' answered
Warrington, readily. ' A real manage de
convenance is a very good thing. There

VOL. II. N

178 A WILY WIDOW.

is no bosh about love in it. The man and
the woman each bring something to the
contract, the position of both is better
by what each has received from the
other ; and their common interests form
a solid bond of union. I think if I could
meet with the combination of a suffi-
cient fortune and a moderately insupport-
able old maid, anxious to be married — so
that I could feel that the obligation was
reciprocal — I should think it almost my
duty to venture.'

The widow laughed and suggested,

* Or what do you say to the daughter
of a wealthy butcher ?'

* No : I must have a lady.'

' Ah, then, I don't think you are quite
fair. You ask for two things, you see,
birth and money ; and you offer only one,

marriage.

A WILY WIDOW. 179

* Your remark, Mrs. Gainsborough, shall
have my serious consideration,' rejoined
Warrington, playfully.

By-and-by their roads parted, and they
said, ' Good-bye,' and Warrington went on
his way with his hands again in his
pockets, saying to himself,

' Sensible woman, that widow.'
When Mrs. Gainsborough reached home
she found Dr. Gregg in the hall. He
was just leaving. He had called to see
Miss Hardwick.

* How is Lily to-day ?' asked the widow.

Well — to be plain — the doctor evi-
dently did not know. He talked a good
deal, but he said nothing. Miss Hard-
wick had been suffering again from a pain
in her heart. She was weak, a little low.
Perhaps there was a little weakness in the
action of the heart : there sometimes was

n2

180 A WILY WIDOW.

in those cases. But sometimes there
was not. He would make a little change
in his prescriptions. Probably the change
of air and scene in town would set her up
again.

181

CHAPTER XL

It was the evening of the same day.

Lily had retired, and Maud sat alone in
the drawing-room thinking. Something
recalled to her mind Dr. Gregg's visit
of the afternoon, and then she began
to estimate what, in her judgment, was
the real worth of that great luminary of
medical science, when presently an odd
idea flitted through her brain.

' What an opportunity a man such as
Dr. Gregg presented for the commission of
a great crime.'

182 A WILY WIDOW.

Presently Maud had forgotten all about
Lily. Leaning back in her chair, she was
lost in imaginations, pursuing the strange
suggestion that had presented itself to her
fancy.

This stupid little quiet place, Lynham,
dull, gossiping, full of scandal, but simple
withal, and unsuspecting of anything out
of the common. The very place for the
execution of a deed of darkness. And
this idiot. Dr. Gregg : a man really in-
capable of dealing with anything more
serious than a loose tooth, or a mild attack
of the measles ; with his consequential airs,
and his blabbing tongue, and his belief in
his own powers of intuition, and his vanity,
and his gross ignorance, the very accom-
plice the doer of the deed of darkness
should have ! What a place and what an
assistant — say for an empoisoimeuse.

A WILY WIDOW. 183

Maud Gainsborough began to elaborate.
Of course the empoisonneuse would come
down from London and bring the victim
with her ; the husband, stepson, aunt, aged
guardian, or whosoever it might be. And
then she would take a house. Where ?
Not on the Marine Parade, nor in Church
Street. It is only in London that people,
who want to be hidden, live in the most
crowded places. Some little house j ust out-
side Lynham. That lone house near the
ruined mill. Or, better still. Cliff Cottage.
Cliff Cottage was more secluded than the
house by the old mill. And then the victim
could walk unseen in the long garden, and
the empoisonneuse could descend the steps
to the little lonely beach, and cool her
fevered brain with the fresh breeze from
the sea.

Then the victim would be ill, and Dr.

184 A WILY WIDOW.

Gregg would be sent for at once. * Ah !
a little indigestion, I see. Ah, you need
not tell me. I know. You have a pain
in the pit of the stomach.' — ' No, not at
ali; — ' Not at all. No ? No pain in the
pit of the stomach. Ah, well, sometimes
in these cases there is not any pain in the
pit of the stomach. At other times there
is a good deal. Well, I see, a little in-
digestion, but no pain.' — ' Oh, yes, doctor,
I have a great deal of pain.' — ' Oh, a great
deal of pain. Ah, I understand. Indiges-
tion, and a great deal of pain, but not in
the pit of the stomach. You see, my dear
sir,' (or ' madam,' according to the sex of
the victim), 'I know all about it. And
now, tell me, I am right, am I not, nausea
after meals ?' — ' No, doctor. No nausea.'
— 'No, no nausea? Well, sometimes in
these cases there is a great deal of nausea;

A WILY WIDOW. 185

at other times, as in your case, you see,
none.' And so on. Meanwhile, the
patient somehow grows worse, slowly,
very slowly. ' Well, doctor, what do you
really think ?' — ' A rather protracted case.
But nothing out of the common, I assure
you. A derangement of the digestive
system. You must take care of him — or
her. I shall make a slight alteration in
the prescription. Possibly, in a day or
two, we may see an alteration for the
better.' By-and-by it is ' Tabes. Heart
slightly affected.' A little indisposition
to believe the doctor, and he becomes
obdurate on that last point. Would stake
his professional reputation on it. So now
it is ' severe affection of the heart ' and
* tabes.' Patient grows worse. Patient
dies — and Dr. Gregg signs the certificate
without an instant's hesitation. That is

186 A WILY WIDOW.

the man for your empoisonneuse — the man
who signs the certificate without hesi-
tation.

Maud Gainsborough runs the story
through her head again. If the gods had
only given her the hterary faculty ? She
fills in little points of detail, and makes
improvements and modifications. The
empoisonneuse is very clever. She has the
sagacity not to commence operations at
once, but to wait until her ' victim '
happens quite accidentally to be a little
out of health. There is nothing really
serious the matter when Dr. Gregg is
first called in ; no occasion for secrecy.
Everyone knows all about it, and so no
suspicion is ever aroused. Also she has
a previous acquaintance with Dr. Gregg
and his j)eculiar characteristics. It was
the knowledge of them that made her

A WILY WIDOW. 187

select Lynham for the scene of her crime.
She is a clever woman, too, a little chic^
and knows how to flatter the doctor and to
turn him round with her little finger. Also
she cultivates the simple folk of Lynham.
She goes regularly to church, and is
respectful to the aristocracy, and sends
the rector flowers for his altar. And so
all the story over again up to the
denoument ' the doctor signs the certifi-
cate.'

And it might all be true ! Every word
of it. What an opportunity !

Suddenly Maud started from her idle
posture of repose and sat upright in her
chair.

Something had struck her that made
her turn pale. She bent forward, and,
with her elbow on her knees, rested her
cheek upon her hand.

188 A WILY WIDOW.

' My God ! But— if I had wanted to
do it !'

A light had broken upon her of an
unexpected sort. The empoisonneuse who
had remarked Dr. Gregg's weaknesses ;
who could turn him round with her little
finger ; the tenant of Cliff Cottage, a little
fashionable, well-established in the opinion
of the rector, and a subscriber to his
favourite charities ; it was — herself And
the victim, already in uncertain health,
suffering from some affection of the heart :
that was Lily. And if she, Maud Gains-
borough, chose — if she chose — hers the
horrible opportunity.

The doctor would sign the certificate.
And no one would ever suspect any-
thing.

' If I chose,' said Maud to herself, ^ I
could do it ; as easily as I can walk across

A WILY WIDOW. 189*

this room ; more easily than I shall
succeed in getting Lily cured of fretting
about Mr. Warrington, poor child !'

Again she ran over the whole story in
her mind. Only the dramatis personce
were real now, the earlier incidents
facts, and the whole sharply defined with
exact details of place, and circumstance,,
and date.

' How horribly simple !' said the mdow
to herself

And if it were really to happen ?

She had no intention of taking in hand
any such thing. But the irnagination of
it fascinated her with a hideous fascination.

Fifteen thousand a-year !

Fifteen thousand a-year, and liberty !

Mrs. Gainsborough's thoughts became
again more connected. Mr. Warrington
was a man of the world. And a widow

190 A WILY WIDOW.

with fifteen thousand a-year; a good-
looking woman, phlegmatic, a little cynical,
agreeable, provided with some common
sense, ready for a marriage of convenience,
that widow might have Mr. Warrington in
a month. If she, Maud, had that fortune,
with the art that she would know how to
use, to make him believe her motives as
mercenary as his own, Frank Warrington
would marry her without twice thinking
of the matter.

And Maud said to herself, ' In some ten
months, seven perhaps, — wealthy — free —
and Frank Warrington's wife. Instead of
having to wait slow years and years to
draw him to me : and then both of us poor.
In some seven months his wife ! And so
easily.

She began to calculate. Could it really
be done in seven months ?

A WILY WIDOW. 191

First — H'ln — : for that say two months.

Then to claim the property. There
were the documents to get somehow. The}'-
were in Mr. Tanner's hands. Those once
obtained, the application to the Court of
Chancery and the substantiation of the
claim should be matters of but little time.
But there might be some delay necessary
to get the documents from Mr. Tanner
without awakening suspicions.

How to get them ? How to get them
quickly? How to get them without
causing dangerous surmises ?

If Lily only had them, how simple it
would all be ! Lily ought to have them.

Lily might get them.

Maud rose, and began pacing the
room.

Thus now. Lily is going to London.
And she, Maud, asks her before she leaves

192 A WILY WIDOW.

to get Mr. Tanner to show her the family
papers : and to ask that Maud may have a
copy of any of them that referred to her
family. That was reasonable enough.

Lily returns with the papers. She is
not much better for her change of air.
And after her return to Lynham she has
a relapse. And — ' and so on and so on.'
(That is how the young widow expresses
it to herself) Lily grows worse. And
Dr. Gregg says tabes and heart complaint.
And — well — Lily dies. And Dr. Gregg —
signs the certificate.

Afterwards she, Maud, looking over her
cousin's things, finds amongst them those
papers which her cousin had brought from
town. And reading those papers Maud
suddenly discovers to her unspeakable
surprise that she is entitled to fifteen thou-
sand a-year !

A WILY WIDOW. 193

And the Court of Chancery gives it her.

The people at Lynham talk, and wonder
what she will do. But she only stays
where she is. Somehow she and Frank
Warrington manage to understand each
other : and she becomes his wife.

All quite possible : easy even ; hideously
easy.

* If I did ?' says Maud to herself.

And she answers herself, 'The girl is
miserable, poor child ! She says she wishes
she were dead.'

' Shall I ?'

A shudder ran through her whole body,
and a sudden sensation of cold struck her
heart. Of what is she thinking ? With a
quick movement of her head she looked
around her in dismay, as if some one
was watching her who could read her
thoughts.

VOL. II. 0

194 A WILY WIDOW.

Unexpectedly a reflection in one of the
mirrors caught her attention. Her eyes
fixed themselves on it. Slowly she walked
towards it as if drawn by some super-
natural force.

A woman dressed like herself: handsome
yes — no — yes — a handsome fiend, and with
eyes of fire ! How pale and haggard !
What lips, livid as death !

Maud Gainsborough turned away with
a shudder. It was too horrible. Throw-
ing herself on the sofa, she buried her face
in the cushions, as if afraid of seeing some
other hideous reflection of herself.

She could not lie like that : she was
sufi'ocating, she must have air !

The suff'ocation passed. She was better.
And she sat up on the sofa, wiping her
lips.

She had been making herself delirious

A WILY WIDOW. 195

with her own imaginations. Bah ! it was
very stupid.

She began to fan herself. And then she
rose and rang the bell. She would not
risk letting the servant see her face, but
opened the window, and looked out at the
summer night. The cool air was refresh-
ing. And how quiet the place was ! When
the maid came, she said, without turning
round,

' Jenny, bring me some cold water, and
the brandy.'

The girl came back with the things, and
Maud poured herself out a weak glass of
brandy and water, and sitting down in a
low easy-chair by the table, drank it at
her leisure.

When calmer, she ventured to think
again.

' Now, what is all this that I have

o2

196 A WILY WIDOW.

been frightening myself about ? — Why^
nothing !'

' Possibly Lily will die. Poor girl !
And, if so, I shall come into fifteen-
thousand a-year.'

' And if Lily does not die : that is, in
the course of nature ?' That was the real
point.

' Then I must choose between my duty
and my love. For it just depends on a
turn of my hand. Nothing else !'

' I wonder how most women would
choose?'

* At any rate, I have not to choose to-
night.'

And with that she seemed satisfied.

But presently she rose.

It would be curious to try an experi-
ment. Not an experiment on Lily, but on
the doctor.

A WILY WIDOW. 197

The widow proceeded to do a very
strange thing.

First she locked the door. At one end
of the drawing-room was a handsome,
rather old-fashioned escritoire, with a re-
volving lid. It was a rather heavy piece
of furniture for a drawing-room, but she
had found it in the room when she came
to the cottage, and had let it remain there.
Its numerous drawers were very convenient
for storing a number of little things. She
went now to this escritoire, and opened it.
Out of a drawer which she unlocked she
took a key, and with that key unlocked
another drawer.

The drawer contained things not usually
to be found in a writing-desk.

A pair of apothecary's scales in a little
box : some measuring glasses : some phials
apparently empty : and a bottle of some

198 A WILY WIDOW.

stuff like minute white scales, mucli re-
sembling powdered talc, and of tlie same
unbleached hue.

Maud Gainsborough looked at those
things, and said to herself, ' When I
brought all these things here, I meant to
destroy them. I wonder why I never did
so ?' And she thought of the evening
at Dr. Gregg's, when the Cambridge man
told the story of the stolen poison. That
man little thought that the thief was sit-
ting at the table.

Bringing the drawer with all its con-
tents to the table, she sat down. In one
of the bottles there was a little liquid.
She looked at it, and, seeming to mistrust
it, put it back again.

Taking one of the empty phials, she
carefully washed it, using some of the
water the maid had brought her. Next

A WILY WIDOW. 199

with the scales she weighed, taking great
care, one grain of the scaly-looking stuff.
And next she measured an ounce of water.
She had no distilled water, but again used
that the rnaid had brought her. She did
it all very neatly ; like a surgeon's daugh-
ter who had often watched, and sometimes
assisted, in such processes. And finally
she dissolved the white stuff in the ounce
of water and put it into the clean bottle.

That done, she quickly corked the
bottle, and then put everything away;
relocked the drawer, and locked up the
key, too. Then, with the mixture she
had prepared in her hand, she came back
to the other end of the room.

She did not at once put it down,
but stood with the phial in her hand
thinking.

Her face was pale, but no longer hag-

200 A WILY WIDOW.

gard. Its expression of horrible wicked-
ness had entirely passed away. For the
moment she was looking singularly hand-
some. A dim light burned still in her
dark eyes, but her face was tender and
sad.

By-and-by, taking the phial with her,
she went upstairs.

201

CHAPTER XII.

Lily was worse, much worse. All the
previous day she had been unusually
lethargic, and, on rising, she had turned
suddenly giddy, and with difficulty saved
herself from a fall. All the day she had
been languid to a degree, disinclined even
to move, and quite unable to eat any-
thing.

Dr. Gregg called in the afternoon. He
looked very wise, and asked a number
of questions. Whether anything had hap-

202 A WILY WIDOW.

pened on the previous day that had upset
Miss Hardwick ; whether she had fatigued
herself with over-exertion ; whether she
had possibly eaten anything that had dis-
agreed with her.

To all Lily replied in the negative. She
had on the previous day done nothing
different from what she did every day.
She had not been out of the house. She
had taken the medicine he prescribed and
attended strictly to his injunctions.

Still here was certainly a most serious
change for the worse in her condition.

There had been, during the last two
days, a change in the weather also which
had become very sultry. In the end
Dr. Gregg attributed his patient's ex-
treme prostration to the heat.

' In these cases,' he asserted, ' any
sudden sultriness in the weather some-

A WILY WIDOW. 203

times has this effect : though not al-
ways.'

Lily denied that she had felt the
heat oppressive, but that only made Dr.
Gregg more decided in his opinion.

Mrs. Gainsborough followed the doc-
tor out of the drawing-room, in which
the consultation had taken place, and
invited him into the dining-room.

' I am very anxious about my cousin,
Dr. Gregg,' she said, in a tone of well-
acted alarm. ' I trust that you will tell
me the truth about her. This sudden
collapse seems to me very ominous.
1 quite understand your not wishing to
say anything before my cousin that
might alarm her. But this giddiness on
first arising ; that is a bad symptom, is it
not?'

The doctor did not think so.

204 A WILY WIDOAV.

'At least, you see/ lie explained,
* Miss Hardwick lias been for some
weeks in a rather low condition, and
there is a slight affection of the heart ;
and then, this sudden change in the
weather. These cases are sometimes
accompanied by a dizziness at first
awaking, though not always. The
heat has affected her more than she
supposes.'

' You think that is all ? You think
the change in the weather could have this
effect ?'

'But, you see, my dear Mrs. Gains-
borough, that it has had this effect. Miss
Hardwick is in a delicate condition. You
must take care of her.'

' I don't know what to think, I am
sure, Dr. Gregg,' said Maud, walking up
and down the room. 'You, of course.

A WILY WIDOW. 205

know best, but I can hardly believe
that this sudden collapse is due merely
to the sultriness of the weather. If
so, my cousin must be in a much more
delicate state than I have supposed.'
The doctor offered no remark, and
she went on. ' You don't think it pos-
sible— that — perhaps — something in your
prescription may have disagreed with
her. You altered it four days ago.'

' Impossible, quite.'

' And you really believe this due merely
to the heat ?'

' I am sure of it.'

Maud had been all the time walking
up and down the room in an anxious,,
agitated way.

Suddenly she stopped.

' There would be no danger in her
travelling ?'

206 A WILY WIDOW.

' Oh, let her go, by all means. The
change is the very thing she wants. If
the day after to-morrow she is no worse,
certainly send her.'

Maud accompanied the doctor to the
door.

' As I expected,' she said to herself,
looking after his departing brougham.
' Only I never thought of his putting it
down to the weather. Well, I have
tried my experiment, and with the re-
sult I expected. And — why, there is
the end of it. Lily will be all right
the day after, to-morrow ; it soon passes
off.'

And the day after the morrow Lily was
a good deal better, and quite able to go
up to town.

The afternoon before she left, Mrs.
Gainsborough had, as yet, said nothing to

A WILY WIDOW. 207

her about the family documents. But in
the evening she took counsel with her-
self about what she was going to do.
Perhaps it would be more correct to say
what she was doing.

The meditations of that evening, when
she had been so much overcome by her
own imaginations, had not been forgotten.
On the contrary, they had been ever since
more or less present in her memory :
especially the discovery that it depended
on little else than an act of her own
volition whether her cousin should recover,
or she herself become the fortunate and
happy wife of the man she loved.

Which it was to be she had not yet
decided. There was no occasion at present
to decide.

But it was necessary to decide whether
she would now take any steps to obtain

208 A WILY WIDOW.

copies of the family documents in the
possession of Mr. Tanner. Should she ask
Lily to procure copies of the documents she
required ?

And why on earth not ?

If she did not ; if she was so singularly
senseless as to let slip the opportunity that
now offered itself for obtaining documents
that might be some day of priceless im-
portance to her : what would that benefit
anyone ?

And yet some plaguey little voice did
murmur faintly,

' But you are taking, one by one, every
preliminary step necessary for the accom-
plishment of a horrible crime. You have
tested the effect of your drugs upon your
cousin. You have made proof of the
stupidity of the medical man. And now
you are about to possess yourself of the

A WILY WIDOW. 209

documents you will want after the girl's
death.'

To which small timid voice, Maud replied
not timidly, but boldly,

' What I have done, and am doing, may
happen to coincide with what I should do,
if I wished to proceed to a crime. But I
have at present no such intention. These
coincidences are merely coincidences. The
documents contain interesting records of
my family, of which I am the last repre-
sentative. That I should wish for copies
of them is only natural. That they might,
under other circumstances, be of service to
me is beside the question. As for the two
drops I gave Lily — that was a silly grati-
fication of a silly curiosity. It did no
harm, and now, at any rate, I am sending
Lily to town, which is the most hopeful
way of getting her really cured.'

VOL. II. p

210 A WILY WIDOW.

And, having thus satisfied herself,
she said to Lily, on the morning of her
departure,

' By the way, Lily, Mr. Tanner has in
his care all the memoranda of the family
history that your uncle made. Do you
remember his showing them to us girls,
and pointing out the connection of my
fathers family with yours? Whilst you
are in town, I wish you would do me a
favour. If your guardian would permit it,
I should very much like to have copies of
those of the memoranda which refer to my
family as well as to yours. Will you speak
to him about it ?'

' With pleasure, Maud.'

Lily went up to town by the afternoon
express and arrived at Waterloo in time to
reach her guardian's house an hour before
dinner.

211

CHAPTER XIII.

There are people whose lives are an
absolute monotony. Nothing has happened
to disturb their tenor since a date almost
forgotten ; and it appears inconceivable
that anything should happen to disturb it
until death puts a period to both monotony
and life. Of this number were Mr. and
Mrs. Tanner. They had been married
more than thirty years, and nothing that
could be called an event, or that had made
the smallest difference in their condition,
had happened to them since the date of

p2

212 A WILY WIDOW.

their marriage. They had never had any
children. They had lived all the time in
the same house, which they had no inten-
tion of ever leaving ; a house of colourless
bricks, with round arches over the square
windows, in a terrace in Paddington.
Here every morning Mr. Tanner came
down at precisely the same minute to
breakfast : after breakfast departed at the
same minute for his bank : and was seen
no more until he returned home half-an-
hour before dinner. He dined, and after
dinner smoked two cigars, doing meanwhile
absolutely nothing ; and at half-past ten
went to bed. Every morning Mrs. Tanner
came down to breakfast five minutes earlier
than her husband, and after breakfast
returned to her room. At half-past eleven
she went out of the house somewhither,
and at half-an-hour before dinner returned

A WILY WIDOW. 213

to it. After dinner she knitted, and at a
quarter-past ten went to lier room. Every
day Mr. Tanner went to the same places,
to Lis bank, and to his club, and nowhere
else. And every day Mrs. Tanner went to
different places ; shopping first, always at
different shops, and afterwards sight-seeing.
There was not a sight to be seen in London,
provided it was to be seen in the day-
time, that she missed. A week afterwards
she had no more recollection of it than
Mr. Tanner, who had not seen it at all ;
and could no more have told what shows
she had seen, nor at what shops she had
purchased than he could. And that was
the whole of their existence. The only
difference was on Sundays and Bank-
holidays, and when they went to the sea-
side, in the autumn. On Sundays Mr.
Tanner went to church and to his club.

214 A WILY WIDOW.

instead of to his club and the bank. And
Mrs. Tanner went to different churches
instead of to different sights. On Bank-
holidays Mr. Tanner spent all the day at
his club, but Mrs. Tanner still went to see
whatever there was to be seen. And when
they went to the sea-side in the autumn
they went always to the same lodgings at
Hastings in which they had spent their
honeymoon. One day only in the month
Mrs. Tanner was ' at home,' and sacrificed
her inclinations to her visitors. In the
course of years the profound mono-
tony of their lives impressed itself upon
everything about them, their house, their
manner of thinking and speaking, and their
plain, perfectly meaningless features, so
that nothing could be conceived more dull,
more stolid, more insipid than themselves
and the atmosphere of everything that sur-

A WILY WIDOW. 215

rounded them. And yet these were excel-
lent people, kindly, charitable, sterling
souls, the husband the personification of
uprightness, and the wife of motherly
goodness.

Such were the people to whose charge
Lily Hardwick was committed for the next
few weeks.

Some time had passed since Mr. Tanner
and his wife had last seen her, and they
found her much altered and not a little
improved, grown from a lanky, rather
troublesome hoyden into a tall, ladylike,
and charmingly pretty girl. But they
were shocked and startled to see how
delicate and ailing the girl looked ; so pale
and thin and fragile, with a faint blue
shade under her large eyes, whose lids
seemed to confess secret tears. When,
after the fatigues of her journey might

216 A WILY WIDOW.

well be supposed to be worn off, sbe was
no less pale and weary than on the even-
ing of her arrival, they began to be
alarmed, and Mrs. Tanner inquired, with
a good deal of circumstance, whether
Lynham and the sea-air agreed with Lily ?
whether she was happy at Cliff Cottage ?
and whether Mrs. Gainsborough was
kind? To all of which Lily replied in
the affirmative. Finally Mrs. Tanner
asked whether she had been for any time
past in declining health.

* I thought Cousin Maud had written
and told you all about it,' answered Lily,
to this last question, rather reservedly and
with a little effort.

'Well, my dear, yes,' answered Mrs.
Tanner. 'But I don't like, dear, to see
you so pale and delicate.'

To which Lily said nothing.

A WILY WIDOW. 217

* Are you very unhappy, dear ?' said
the good-hearted woman, coming close to
her and coaxing her with her arms.

' Oh, yes ! Mrs. Tanner.' And, laying
down her head on the good dame's fat
shoulder, she fairly burst into tears.

Mrs. Tanner comforted her as well as
she could, and Lily apologised for being a
baby. But as the days passed and she
grew no brighter, though Mrs. Tanner
took her about and did her best to amuse
her, the good woman and her husband
held a consultation.

'The poor girl is more unhappy than she
has any right to be, Tom,' said Mrs.
Tanner. ' It seems to me that she is
breaking her heart about this young man,
and fretting herself into a regular decline.
I think I should like to take her to see
a physician.'

218 A WILY WIDOW.

So Lily was taken to see a certain
celebrated physician.

It was necessary first to give tlie phy-
sician a few hints. That Mrs. Tanner did
in her plain, motherly way, and then Lily
herself was introduced. The physician
asked a good many questions, and seemed
to regard the case more seriously than
Dr. Gregg had done. Especially he was
unable to understand the sudden loss
of strength and dizziness at first awaking
produced by the change in the weather.
He questioned Lily about that at con-
siderable length. Also he examined her
heart, and assured her that that organ
was perfectly sound. Finally he gave her
a little simple advice, and wrote her a
prescription. After she was gone he said
to Mrs. Tanner,

* There is nothing the matter at present,

A WILY WIDOW. 219

but she is nervous and overwrought. Let
her have as much variety and amusement
as you can without fatiguinoj her. If she
should again complain of dizziness in the
morning I should advise you at once to
take advice about it. But I don't think
that you have any reason to be anxious.
A little time and change of scene should
set her up.'

' I'm sure I am very glad I took her,
Tom,' said Mrs. Tanner to her husband.
' It's a Aveight oiF my mind well worth the
money. I'd never have forgiven myself if
anything had happened to John Hard-
wick's girl through our neglect.'

As for the change of scene and amuse-
ment the physician had recommended, that
was no doubt excellent advice, but, with
the best will in the world to follow it, Mrs.
Tanner, dear soul, had only elementary

220 A WILY WIDOW.

ideas of how to entertain a young girl,
and to keep her from brooding over her
heart troubles. All day she honestly
dragged Lily about from one sight to
another, and then, in the evening, in the
silence of the dull drawing-room, Lily,
tired to death with what she had seen,
was at liberty to be as miserable and dis-
consolate as she chose.

She wrote to her cousin, telling her at
some length of the visit to the physician.
And Maud Gainsborough said to herself,
' Ah, if we had the physician here at Lyn-
ham, that would be very dangerous. How-
ever, I am glad that Lily has been to
see him. What he has said confirms Dr.
Gregg's opinion. I shall take care to make
that known.'

And she did so. The next time she saw
the rector's wife, she said,

A WILY WIDOW. 221

*My cousin is still in town with lier
guardian. He has taken her to see a
celebrated physician; and he says just
the same as Dr. Gregg ; that there is no-
thing actually wrong with Lily at present,
but that she is in a delicate, rather critical
state of health. I am very glad to have
Dr. Gregg's opinion confirmed. I think
Dr. Gregg is a very clever man.'

Maud Gainsborough was spending a
good deal of her time alone. And lately
she had taken to often going down the
steps to the little secluded beach to have
a solitary stroll on the sands. She had
forgotten that she had pictured her em-
'poisonneuse doing that. She did it herself
because her brain grew so heated, and the
sea-breeze cooled it.

Meanwhile, Lily proffered the request
with which her cousin had entrusted her

222 A WILY WIDOW.

for a copy of the family papers. Mr.
Tanner assented at once, as to a natural
and reasonable wish of Mrs. Gainsborough's.
He himself showed Lily the old Bible and
all the manuscripts, and was at some
trouble to assist her to understand them ;
and he promised her that, before she left,
he would have copies of all made for her
by a competent person, that she might
take them back with her as a present to
her cousin.

Mrs. Gainsborough had come to stand
very high both in his estimation and in
that of Mrs. Tanner ; j^artly on account
of the sincere aiFection with which Lily
always spoke of her; and more still for
the sensible way in which she had behaved
about this unlucky little love-affair of
Miss Lily's.

One day at dinner it happened that

A WILY WIDOW. 223

Lily, speaking of her cousin, let drop
something about Anthony Gainsborough.

* Maud's hateful brother-in-law/ she
called him, and added, ' That horrid
man !'

' Do you mean Mr. Anthony Gains-
borough?' said Mr. Tanner, rather sur-
prised. ' Do you know him ?'

Not Lily : nor had she any wish to know
him, 'the wretch.*

Quoth Mrs. Tanner, ' I don't think that
you would speak of him in that tone, my
dear, if you knew him.'

' Did Mr. Tanner know him?' asked Lily.

Both Mr. and Mrs. Tanner had known
him for many years, and they respected
him very much. He was a good man,
with a kind, good heart.

*He was very cruel to Maud,' re-
marked Lily.

224 A WILY WIDOW.

Mr. and Mrs. Tanner did not think that
possible.

* I think, my dear, you must be making
some mistake,' said Mrs. Tanner, a little
in the tone of a rebuke.

Lily felt sure that she was making no
mistake. However, she had better man-
ners than to dispute with her hostess.
But what had been said acted as a
stimulant to her curiosity. She would
have liked very much to have asked to be
introduced to Mr. Anthony Gainsborough,
and to have an opportunity given her to
judge for herself of a man about whom
she had heard opinions so strongly and so
diametrically opposed.

After all, what she was wishing for
came about of itself.

Mrs. Tanner's 'at home' day arrived,
and, for once, instead of going sight-

A WILY WIDOW. 225

seeing, Lily and her hostess remained
at home to receive visitors. Several
came and went, and then Lily was sud-
denly surprised to hear the servant an-
nounce,

^ Miss Chesterfield and Miss Essie
Chesterfield.'

And Violet and Essie came into the
room.

For one minute Lily hardly knew
whether she was to credit her senses.
The next a host of questions crowded her
brain. Were these really the Misses
Chesterfield? Was that taller girl who
entered first the cousin with whom Mr.
Warrington had fallen so much in love ?
who had treated him so shamefully ?
And how on earth came they to be
here ?

The two had shaken hands with Mrs.

VOL. II. Q

226 A WILY WIDOW.

Tanner, and Lily was introduced. Violet
sat down to talk to Mrs. Tanner, Essie
attached herself to Lily, and began to chat
about the weather.

Conversation with Mrs. Tanner was
fairly hard work. Lily had already
observed that in the case of other visitors.
After a very few minutes there came a
pause. Violet used it to say,

'And, Mrs. Tanner, Uncle Tony told
us that we were to apologise to you for
his not having come to-day to see you
himself. He was very sorry not to be
able to come, because he has not seen you
for so long. But he was detained by
business.'

Lily, talking to Essie, overheard the
speech. Then these really were the Misses
Chesterfield.

Well, she would not have thought it.

A WILY WIDOW. 227

Surreptitiously she stole searching glances
at the sisters' faces, trying to read
something more of their characters than
at first appeared. She did not succeed in
deciphering much. Violet was the hand-
somer, a quiet, rather reserved girl : Essie
the prettier.

* And have you been yachting with
your uncle lately ?' asked Mrs. Tanner.

' Not since we returned from the
Mediterranean,' replied Violet. ' Uncle
Tony's yacht is laid up at present. But
we hope to go for another cruise early in
the autumn. Uncle Tony has his steam-
launch, and we make the most delightful
little voyages on the river.'

And Essie proposed,

' And Uncle Tony would be so pleased
if you and Mr. Tanner would some day
come with us, Mrs. Tanner. Perhaps

q2

228 A WILY WIDOW.

you could come some evening. It is so
beautiful on the river in the evenings.
And ' — turning to Lily — ' perhaps Miss
Hardwick would come too.'

Mrs. Tanner declined for Mr. Tanner
and herself They never went on the
water. But she added, that she made
no doubt that a cruise on the river would
be a treat to Lily, who assented on the
spot.

So before the girls left it was ar-
ranged that she should some day go with
them.

After they were gone Mrs. Tanner
said,

' And you will be able to judge for your-
self about Mr. Gainsborough.'

That was just what Lily was thinking.

The promised invitation soon came.
Mrs. Tanner drove Lily to Twickenham

A WILY WIDOW. 229

after luncheon, and left her in charge of
the girls and of a friend who was going
with them, who promised to see Lily safely
home in the evening, and then they all
walked together to the river, and Lily was
introduced to Anthony Gainsborough.

She was a good deal surprised by his
personal appearance, his frank, open, kind-
hearted face, and his good-natured manner.
And she certainly could not say that his
behaviour to herself was anything but
most kind. His nieces evidently wor-
shipped him, and appeared to have every
reason for doing so. Indeed, Lily could
not conceal from herself that there was
something about the man, particularl}' in
his speech, and his good-natured way of
regarding things, that would make it
natural for people to be attracted to him.
And certainly he did not appear to be the

230 A WILY WIDOW.

sort of man who could be cruel to anyone.
Still, Lily knew. And she was not disposed
to let a mere first impression, and words,
and manners wei^h with her more than
solid facts. Incredible as it might seem,
this was the man who had treated her
cousin Maud shamefully, and who did all
in his power to make her life miserable ;
and Lily listened to every word he spoke,
and studied every movement of his face,
with a strange curiosity to understand
this apparently kind and really heartless
man.

However, she spent a delightful evening.
Anthony Gainsborough took the greatest
care of her, and gave himself a good deal
of trouble to amuse her and to point out
to her every object of interest by the river-
side. He seemed to her to know every-
thing, to have been everywhere, and to

A WILY WIDOW. 231

have the knack of making everything
that he said entertaining. Also, to her
great surprise, he inquired after Mrs. Gains-
borough.

' I left her very well, thank you,' replied
Lily, feeling very indignant, and Avishing
that she could add, ' Why are you so unjust
and tyrannical with my cousin ?'

' I was down at Lynham about a fort-
night ago ; but you were not at home.
Of course your cousin told you I had
called.'

' No,' said Lily, a little surprised, and
wondering in herself what he had called
for, and why Maud had said nothing about
it.

Was he, she speculated, going to bully
Maud in some new way?

But when she at last bade him * good-bye,'
and thanked him for the delightful evening

232 A WILY WIDOW.

slie had spent, there was a spell in his voice
and a cordial kindness in the shake of his
big, strong hand that Lily found irresis-
tible in spite of her prejudices ; so that she
was very pleased when he said,

' I am glad that you have been amused.
You must come with us again, Miss Hard-
wick.'

' Oh, yes, do,' said Essie.

• I shall be most happy to come ; if you
will be so kind as to have me,' replied
Lily.

When Lily reached home, she was look-
ing brighter than she had done any day
since she reached town. It was strange,
for Anthony Gainsborough and his nieces
were about the last persons in whose
society Lily Hardwick would have sup-
posed that she could find any pleasure.
But we are no more masters of our im-

A WILY WIDOW. 233

pressions than of our affections, and some-
how, whilst she had been with these
people, she had felt that there is, after all,
sunshine in the world : that things which
are amiss may come right in the end ; and
that altogether to despair is weakness.
And she looked forward with pleasure to
meetino; her new friends ao:ain.

That, and Mrs. Tanner's gratification at
the bright humour in which she had come
home, and an inclination on Essie Chester-
field's part to cultivate a little friendship
with Miss Hardwick, resulted soon in
another invitation sent and accepted : and
after this second followed several more.
And, as it appeared that something at last
had been discovered that was really a
diversion for Lily, Mrs. Tanner schemed
for her to see as much as possible of the
Chesterfield girls, and of their uncle.

234 A WILY WIDOW.

About the latter Lily changed her
opinion.

But only by degrees. As long as she
could, she clung to her prejudices. But
her natural honesty would not permit her
to hold out against facts ; and at last
she adnnitted frankly that her bias against
the man had been unjust. After that
she began to believe that her cousin
must have fallen into some mistake.
For certainly there was a misunderstand-
ing somewhere. It was impossible that
Anthony Gainsborough should have be-
haved as Maud represented.

She had written nothing to Maud about
her new friends. She had purposely
abstained from so doing when she first
made their acquaintance, because she wish-
ed to take time to form her own opinions.
Afterwards, when she was about to say

A WILY WIDOW. 235

something, she found some awkwardness
in not having named them before. Finally,
she put oiF mentioning them until her
return to Lynham.

236

CHAPTER XIV.

That was about the end of July. She
was certainly stronger than when she came
up to town. The mere change of scene
had not been without effect. Possibly
even her somewhat fatiguing daily sight-
seeing expeditions with Mrs. Tanner had
done something towards distracting her
thoughts ; and the kindness of her guard-
ian and his wife had undoubtedly cheered
her : whilst the hours spent on the river

A WILY WIDOW. 237

and with the Chesterfield girls had been
productive of a great deal of good. But
for all that she had gained more morally
than physically. Her face was brighter and
happier, but she was still pale and thin and
her appetite was poor. And there were
still hours when she was unhappy enough.
She told Maud that she should not forget
Frank Warrington, and she had not for-
gotten him. On the morning of her
departure from London, she was far from
looking her brightest. She could not
without a little regret part from the kind
hearts she was leaving.

However Maud, who met her at the
railway-station, was at once struck with
the marked improvement in her appear-
ance, and said to herself, ' I had no idea
she would come back looking so much
better/

238 A WILY WIDOW.

A feeling of uneasiness came over her ; a
misgiving that the ' opportunity ' might
have passed. All this time that her cousin
had been in London, Maud Gainsborough
had not been thinking of nothing ; and the
^ opportunity ' had become a far more
definite idea to her than when Lily
left.

As for Lily, she thought the welcome
the widow gave her a little awkward and
strange.

She had brought down with her the
copies of the family papers which Maud
desired to possess. Little suspecting that
she was presenting her own death-war-
rant, she, after dinner, brought them
into the drawing-room, and gave them
to Maud with a little speech, saying
how kind Mr. Tanner had been in having
them copied properly by some compe-

A WILY WIDOW. 239

tent person, for which he had insisted on
paying.

' So you ought to thank him for them,
not me, Maud,' she concluded, putting the
papers into her cousin's hands : ' I only
asked for them.'

Maud had already opened the packet,
and the first thing that caught her eyes
was a formally attested certificate of the
agreement of the copies with the original.
But that was more even than she had
hoped for !

She had here evidence in her hands
hardly second to the documents them-
selves. Her pulse quickened with excite-
ment, and a sudden orlow of eagerness
brightened her features.

Putting down the papers, she caught
Lily in her arms.

* Oh, but you darling ! This is more

240 A WILY WIDOW.

than I asked for,' she exclaimed, kissing
the girl effusively. ' And it is to you that
I owe them, dear. If you had not asked
for them I should not have had them.
But I will write to Mr. Tanner too.'

There was nothing constrained or
artificial about her thanks, as there had
been in her welcome. Her pleasure at
receiving these documents was most
sincere.

Maud sat down at the table on which
the lamp stood, and, putting her coffee by
her side, began to peruse the papers.
Here and there she recognised names and
particulars, pointed out to her by Lily's
uncle on that dimly-remembered evening
of her school-girl days. How many things
had happened since then ! The family
tree, with the dates of births, marriages,
and deaths, accompanied by many refer-

A WILY WIDOW. 241

ences to old registers and deeds, and wills
and monuments, was made out much more
fully and clearly than she, resting upon
her own recollections, had supposed.
Absorbed in her papers, an accurate study
of which she was nevertheless postponing
for another time, she hardly noticed Lily.
Only now and then she said, 'Dear me,
these are very interesting;' or, 'My dear,
I don't know how I am to thank you
enough.'

To which Lily would reply, ' I am very
glad that you are so pleased with them,
dear.'

And once she asked, ' Did Mr. Tanner
show you the papers ?'

' Some of them. I am afraid that I did
not altogether understand them.'

So the evening passed almost in silence,
very quietly.

VOL. II. R

242 A WILY WIDOW.

Lily rose at last and said,

' I think I am tired, Maud. ' I'll ^o to
bed.'

' I am afraid that I have been awfully
unsociable, dear, to be absorbed like this
in these papers, and on the first evening
of your return, too,' said the widow,
frankly looking up with a smile at the
girl standing over her chair. ' But you
will forgive me, won't you? What you
have brought is what I have been wish-
ing for for years.'

' There is nothing to forgive, Maud. It
is pleasant to be at home again; to spend
an evening again as we have spent so
many.'

Maud had risen, and stood with her
hands on the girl's shoulders, looking
straight into her eyes.

' You look tired, dear,' she said. * To-

A WILY WIDOW. 243

morrow we will have a long talk about
everything. You must have so much to
tell me, I am sure. Good-night, darling.'
She put her arms round the girl and
kissed her tenderly. ' I hope you are
not sorry to come back to me, after all
your gaiety.'

' I was sorry to leave town. But now
that 1 have got home again I am glad,'
said the girl, frankly.

Yes. After all, she was glad to be once
more at home, to be with Maud in the
little cottage, and to have returned to
her own quiet life. And when she got
upstairs into her own room, and sat down
on her favourite window-seat, at the little
window looking out over the long garden
and the trees, and the distant sea, grey
in the dim moonlight, a gentle spell fell
upon her senses, the weird of the old

r2

244 A WILY WIDOW.

life, half restful, half melancholy, but
very, very dear. There had been an
unreality in her life in town, an artificial
restlessness that had made her all the
time not quite herself. But now again
everything was real, the little cottage,
and the shadowed garden, and the
moaning sea, and the quiet stillness of
the country night ; and she was herself
again.

Downstairs, Maud had abruptly thrust
the papers away from her, all in a
heap : and, after that, had risen from
the lamp-lit table, and gone to the
window, and sat down with her back
to the light in the chair Lily had
left.

* And now ?' she said to herself.

It was time to come to a decision.

Yes : to-night : at once.

A WILY WIDOW. 245

Lily had come back from town dis-
tinctly better. The change had done her
good. In a day or two Dr. Gregg would
call. Indeed, she had asked him to do
so. If he found Lily so much better,
and then, a fortnight hence, all the
old symptoms made their re-appearance,
would that not arouse the suspicions
even of the most unsuspicious ? It ought
to do so. Whereas, if the doctor found
Lily very much the same as before she
left, — a little brighter, perhaps, but not
really any better ; then he would, without
doubt, say,

' Well, Mrs. Gainsborough, you see,
sometimes in these cases change of air is
beneficial, and at other times not.'

' It seems, then, that it must begin
now or never,' soliloquised Mrs. Gains-
borough.

246 A WILY WIDOW.

Happily there had been hardly anyone
at the station. It might be said that no
one had yet seen Lily.

That was opportune, too. In fact, not
to begin now was to let slip the last
opportunity.

' Only I don't want to begin now,'
meditated Mrs. Gainsborough. ' Not the
very moment that the poor child has come
home.'

And she thou2:ht of the orirl with real
pity.

After which she fell back into long medi-
tations about herself

She was not a woman of action. That
was the fact. Reveries, imaginations,
retrospections, and speculations, those
were her element, not action. When it
came to action, she always wanted a little
more time to think. That was a part of

A WILY WIDOW. 247

her character. There was only one way
in which she could act, and that was by
acting at once.

Who was it said, 'What you are loth
to do, do at once ' ? The man who
coined that maxim must have been a
dreamer like herself.

It was an excellent maxim for a
dreamer, ' What you are loth to do, do
at once.'

At last she arrived at a decision.

' I'll give Lily one drop to-morrow and
on the next day. There will be nothing
in that. The doctor will find her much
as he expected to find her, and that will
please him. Afterwards, if this must be
done, I shall have taken precautions
against arousing suspicions, and, if not,
things will take their course just as if I
had done nothing.'

248 A WILY WIDOW.

Morning seldom brings us back the
impressions with which we fell asleep,
and, when Lily awoke early, it was with
a consciousness of depression. Somehow
the charm of the return home was gone,
and the keen regret for the kind hearts
left in London had come back. So Lily
was out of spirits.

Maud came in about eight, bringing
her a morning cup of tea. She found
her looking less bright than on the pre-
vious day.

And Lily drank the tea.

All the day Maud watched her closely.
The drug she was using was of a hor-
rible virulence, and she knew that she
must observe the exact effect of every
dose.

Lily's appetite was very poor. She
apologized for it, saying that it had been

A WILY WIDOW. 249

often so in town. Towards evening she
appeared a little languid. And so ended
the first day.

250

CHAPTER XV.

The next day Lily's languor was more
distinctly marked. She had no appe-
tite at all, and a disinclination to do
anything. She had talked of a ride, but
the ride was put off, and she only strolled
for a little while in the garden. In the
evening she complained of a slight head-
ache.

The doctor called in the afternoon, and
remarked on the fact that the change of

A WILY WIDOW. 251

air aj^peared to have done Miss Hard-
wick little real good, much in the terms
Maud Gainsborough had anticipated. He
agreed entirely with the opinions ex-
pressed by the London physician, except-
ing only about Miss Hardwick's heart.
He was convinced that the heart was
slightly affected — very slightly. There
was no occasion for any alarm. A
little care necessary, that was all. So
the doctor's visit was over. However,
Lily nevertheless had yet another drop
out of the widow's phial the next
morning.

And the next day, and the next.

On one of these evenings Lily, begin-
ning with ' By the way, Maud, I have a
surprise for you. I have not yet told
you of all the people I met in town,'
related her acquaintance with the Chester-

252 A WILY WIDOW.

field girls and with Anthony Gainsborough.

Maud said easily,

' Oh, yes, I know that the Tanners
know them.'

She evinced a good deal of curiosity
reofardins: Violet Chesterfield, and asked
Lily several questions about her. Respect-
ing Anthony Gainsborough she said very
little.

' You liked him ? Very likely, my
dear,' she remarked. ' Permit me only
to observe that you don't know him as
well as I do. But, dear, by all means
have your own opinion about your own
friends.'

She was showing herself exceedingly
kind ; devoting herself to Lily with un-
remitting attention, remaining with her all
day long, and doing her utmost to cheer
and to amuse her ; seemingly having just

A WILY WIDOW. 253

at present no thought of anything besides
the girl and her recovery.

' If no one else can cheer you up, and
endeavour to make you well, you must
see whether I cannot, darling,' she said,
affectionately.

' You are awfully kind, Maud,' answered
Lily.

Lily had been home about a week when
Mrs. Gainsborough one morning had to go
into Lynham to do some shopping. She
invited Lily to go with her, but the latter
declined.

Maud went alone, dispatched her busi-
ness as fast as she could, and returned
home at once.

On entering the drawing-room, she found
Lily on the floor, with her face buried on
the seat of a chair, cr}dng.

' My dear child !' she exclaimed,

254 A WILY WIDOW.

ilyin^ to her. ' What has happened ?'
* Nothing, Maud. I am a baby. I don't
know why I am crying. Only after you
went out I felt so miserable. I wanted to
cry so, I could not help it. And so I
sat down here, and cried. That is all.'
But presently she went on : 'I was so
glad to come home, to come back to you,
Maud. And now, I don't seem to be glad
about anything. I don't know why it is,
but I am miserable, utterly miserable. It
seems awfully ungrateful, I know, dear,
when you are so kind. But I am not un-
grateful, dear,' — Maud had knelt down
beside her, and, putting her arms round
the young widow's neck, Lily laid her
pretty head on her bosom and reiterated —
' I am not ungrateful, dear. I love you,
Maud, 1 love you. I love you with all
my heart !'

A WILY WIDOW. 255

Maud Gainsborough was as pale as
marble.

As quickly as she could she persuaded
the girl to get up, and to rest a little on
the sofa : and then, saying that she would
take her things off and be back in a
minute, she ran to her room, and locked
the door.

' I cannot go on with it. I cannot ! It
is too horrible,' she cried to herself, wring-
ing her hands. ' It seemed all so simple.
But I cannot do it. I haven't the
courage. I can't do it. I must give it
up.'

The next day she brought Lily her
morning cup of tea, as usual. But this
morning there was no drop in it out of the
phial.

' I am throwing away fifteen thousand
a-year, 1 know,' said Maud to herself as she

256 A WILY WIDOW.

left the room. ' But I haven't the nerve
to go through with it.'

The drug she was using was one
whose effect is very transient. In two
or three days Lily though still pale
had begun to recover her appetite,
and to emerge from her languor and
despondency.

But Mrs. Gainsborouo;h thouorht with a
good deal of chagrin of her lost fortune.
She had given up fifteen thousand a-year
very precipitately.

All this time Lily had seen nothing of
Warrington. She had been out but seldom,
and their paths had not happened to cross.
But a day or two afterwards she met him
on the parade.

She had been sitting on the sands with
Maud, and had left her to take a turn
with the rector's wife and her daugh-

A WILY WIDOW. 257

ters. Just as they drew near the end of
the parade, \Yarrington came out of the
London Hotel through the gardens, and
then, turning sharply, came right upon
them.

If he had seen them, he might, very
possibly, have avoided the encounter.

Had the weeks which had elapsed since
Lily had last seen him done anything at
all towards effacing his image from her
heart ? Lily could not herself have said.
But certain it is, that, now that she sudden-
ly found herself, in an unexpected moment,
face to face with this man, all the love she
had for him welled up in her heart in an
instant.

She was aware that she had changed
colour, and was probably deadly pale.
However, she had enough self-possession
to turn a little aside, and to leave the

VOL. II. S

258 A WILY WIDOW.

rector's wife and daughters to speak to
him, and herself took a few steps that
brought her to the edge of the parade
overlooking the sands, and there waited
standing with her back turned to Warring-
ton and her friends. She did not listen,
but she could hear every word of their
conversation ; a commonplace conversation
about thino;s of no interest. How the
man's voice thrilled her ! How vividly
she could, in imagination, see every ex-
]3ression of his handsome, manly face !
And how her heart, disobedient to her
judgment, yearned, and yearned, and
yearned towards him !

Warrington, talking to the rector's wife,
stole a glance at her where she stood alone
by the edge of the parade. The light
breeze toyed with her ribbons and laces,
and her sunshade made a delicate shade

A WILY WIDOW. 259

about her head and shoulders. He could
only see her quarter face, but he noticed
how thin she had grown and how pale.
There was a little droop in the corner of
her lips too and the lids fell over her eyes,
as if they were weary. ' The girl looks ill
and unhappy. Little better for her
change,' thought Warrington, listening to
what the rector's Avife was saying about
the Sunday-school children having a treat
in one of the fields at Lynhurst. Present-
ly he stole a second glance at the troubled
lips and heavy eyelids, and thought to him-
self, ' Yes, ill and unhappy : there is no
doubt about it'

The rector's wife said, ' good-bye,' and
he went on his way and Lily rejoined
her friends. Then they, too, left the
parade and she returned to Maud on the
sands.

s2

260 A WILY WIDOW.

' Well ?' asked Maud, looking up from
her book.

'We met Mr. Warrington,' said Lily,
half absently.

Resting her cheek on her hand, she sat
silent, wistfully regarding the sea. But
presently a nervous movement of hers
made Maud look round quickly.

' Are you crying, dear ?' she asked.

' Crying? No. What is the use of
crying. Besides, I have made up
my mind to cry no more about what
can't be helped. But I wish that I was
dead.'

' Yes,' she ran on, in a cold, dogged
way, ' I wish that I was dead. What
is the good of living on and on,
without a bit of happiness, or a bit of
hope ? He will never love me, and I shall
never cease to love him. I love him to-

A WILY WIDOW. 261

day just tlie same as I loved him when
you sent me to town, just the same as (if I
live so long) I shall love him fifty years
hence — dearly, passionately. And, to be
so miserable as I am for long years and
years, is it worth living for ? I don't
think it is. If anyone were any the
better, I would not so much mind. But
to be just merely wretched, to have the
heartache, and to know it is to go on for
ever and ever and ever, and that all the
pain is mere useless pain — that is wretched-
ness not worth enduring. It is wrong to
kill one'self, or I would do it. I don't
believe that you, Maud, have ever loved
as I love that man. So of course you
can't understand.'

After which, she would say no more on
the subject.

But all the rest of the day she was

262 A WILY WIDOW.

taciturn and low-spirited, and the same on
the morrow.

* My dear, I think you might have
some spirit,' remarked Maud. ' The man
does not care for you. It is rather
weak, is it not, to be so abjectly at-
tached to him. If a man did not care for
me, I should soon cure myself of liking
him.'

A pretty audacious statement, seeing
that the widow knew that AVarrington
did not care a pin for her, and was
herself over head and ears in love with
him.

' I don't want to cure myself of loving
him,' retorted Lily, rather sharply. ' I am
proud of loving him. I would rather love
him, and be miserable all the days of my
life, than love any other man and be
happy.'

A WILY WIDOW. 263

' Very well, dear,' said the widow.

But she began to lose patience. To
herself she said, ' What a fool that girl
is making of herself. It is really wonder-
ful, only it is also very stupid. The man
is in love with her. Only she has neither
the sense to see it, nor the ingenuity to
make him declare himself. And so she
goes about the place sighing. Such an
existence is quite a misfortune.'

Really her hasty determination not to
accelerate the demise of her unfortunate
cousin began to seem to deserve serious re-
consideration. At a pinch her courage had
failed her, and she had at once thrown up
her enterprise ; without much reflection
about what she was doing. But on second
thoughts, she believed she had been too
precipitate. The case had so many
different aspects. And they ought all to

264 A WILY WIDOW.

be taken carefully into consideration one
by one.

Of course, there was that fifteen thou-
sand a year, between which and herself
stood nothing but this girl's frail life.
Fifteen thousand a-year by right of dis-
covery Maud's own. But about that she
would not think. She was not a miserable
wretch that would poison a helpless girl for
her money. But there were other and
graver points to be considered. The girl
was miserable. So miserable that she openly
asserted that she wished herself dead. So
miserable that it might be an act of mercy
to let her have her wish. She was ill, too.
The disappointment with which she had
met was so enormously beyond her power
to support it, that there seemed to be
every probability of her health entirely
breaking down, of her slowly wasting, and

A WILY WIDOW. 265

sinking into an early grave. And what
a horrible, slow torture it would be !
To shorten such suffering would be a
charity.

It was a mere question of euthanasia.
And seriously, Mrs. Gainsborough approved
of the theory of an euthanasia. If she
were herself dying miserably, of some
horrible, protracted torment, she would be
exceedingly grateful to anyone who would
mercifully give her her quietus, and put
her out of her pain. And so too, if she
could foresee all, very probably, would
Lily.

There were also other considerations of
an entirely different stamp. And these
Maud had certainly rather forgotten when
she faltered in her purpose. Poor, hand-
some Frank Warrington, and his en-
cumbered estates ; and the use the money

266 A WILY WIDOW.

would be to him. And that passionate
love which Maud bore him. That love
which was not fain to wait for long, long
years.

Lily had said, ' I don't believe that you
have ever loved as I do.' Ah, much she
knew ! A poor, feeble passion, hers, put
side by side with Maud's. And if Maud
chose to make her know it? It was a sort
of challenge that Lily had thrown her.
Suppose she accepted the challenge ?
Lily might sigh for the man, fret for him,
pine for him. Suppose she, Maud, were
to commit a great crime for him.

Yes, for him: not for herself. She would
not have done it for herself But for him
she would do it.

For him she would do anything. For
him — and because the girl had challenged
her.

A WILY WIDOW. 267

And if the deed was a great sin — did
not love atone for, hallow everything ?

And yet Maud Gainsborough hesitated
still. She was always unready when the
moment for action came. All that day,
and all the next, and all the next after
that she wavered in uncertainty of pur-
pose, undecided whether or not to put her
hand to the crime lying, so easy of accom-
plishment, within her reach. Not that
those thoughts were restraining her which
might naturally be supposed, at such a
juncture, to have forced themselves upon
her consideration — the vulgar one of the
risk she would run, or the serious ones of
the gravity, in the sight of Heaven, of
the sin she meditated, and the monstrous
inhumanity of its merciless cruelty.

Such thoughts had little weight with
her. A certain pitifulness for the help-

268 A WILY WIDOW.

lessness of lier victim she did feel ; and a
distaste for the lying, and the duplicity,
and the hypocrisy without which her
cousin's destruction could not be accom-
plished ; and she did wish that the life
she had to take could have been one
which had not been so closely, so gently
united ^viili her own. But the thins:
that really held her back was the dis-
inclination to do, to act. If she could
have dreamed Lily's life away, if she
could have managed that, by some mys-
terious spell, her own reveries could be
translated into reality, so that, as she
mused on, the girl should droop and
sink, softly lulled into the eternal sleep;
then Maud would not have hesitated at
all.

But, insufficiently nerved for action as
she was, Maud, all through those three

A WILY WIDOW. 26^

days, was drifting towards it. For power
to corrupt the soul, nothing is to be
compared to the dalliance of the hungry
will pleasing itself with the imagination
of an act it, as yet, lacks courage
enough to take in hand. And in
this woman there was not so very
much corruption of heart to be accom-
plished. That which she had not been
able to tell Warrington, if it had been
spoken would have made him shudder.
And the remembrance of it was with her
often in these days. Only this that she
meditated now would be worse — the de-
struction of this poor child.

But, ever dwelling upon it, ever desir-
ing it, ever wishing that it was only more
easy still, the woman was moving towards
it, rapidly growing willingly blinded to
every horror, to every consideration of

270 A WILY WIDOW.

right and mercy and trust, and giving
herself over entirely to the guidance of a
passion that deepened suddenly with an
awful intensity as it found its imperious
demands, that not even crime should
stand in its way, met with a hearing,
whilst her heart (at least as far as con-
cerned her cousin) turned to stone, and
her conscience staggered, drowsy and
drunk with dreams and sophistries.

One of those evenings after dinner she
and Lily had their coffee beneath the
verandah. Lily had brought her book
and laid it open upon her knees, but the
work had not enough of charm to enchain
her thoughts, and, with her cheek rested
on her hand, she fell into a reverie ; one
so deep that she did not notice her
cousin's rising and leaving her.

Alone, Maud strolled down the garden.

A WILY WIDOW. 271

When out of sio;lit of the cottao^e she sat
down on a garden-seat. A rose-tree grew
above it, and, putting up her hand, she
plucked one of the roses, and then, lean-
ing back in the corner of the seat, fell to
smelling the flower and mechanically
brushing her lips with its soft petals,
whilst she once more resumed her now
ever-recurring train of thought.

The evening was calm and still, de-
licious with the gentle coolness that con-
cludes a summer day. Already the
light was fading, and the outlines of the
black-green trees stood out boldly against
the softly deepening sky. Scarcely a
breath stirred their leaves. Down on the
beach the sea slumbered, hushed and
motionless. Not a sound even of rippling
wavelets rose to the ears. From inland
came only now and then broken whispers

272 A WILY WIDOW.

of sound of the sort that seem to accen-
tuate the stillness. The peace and silence
of the moment was intense.

The spell of it entered into Maud's soul.
Listening motionlessly she pressed the
soft, fragrant rose to her lips. VYhat
should her future be ? Such as this
moment — calm and rest unspeakable ?
After one bitter moment of a dark
struggle, calm and rest unspeakable? — or
for ever and ever disappointment, dis-
quiet, want, weariness, war with the
pitiless world?

But who that was not mad would
doubt ?

END OF THE SECOND VOLUME.

LONDON! PRINTED BY DUNCAN MAODONALD, BLENHEIM HOUSE

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