And last, among her friends, although one of the greatest, was Mr. Austin B. Price. Evadne owed this kind, large-hearted, chivalrous gentleman much gratitude, and repaid him with much affection. He was really the first to discover that there was anything remarkable about her; and it was to him she also owed a considerable further development of her originally feeble sense of humour.

Mr. Price's first impression that she was an uncommon character had been confirmed by one of those rapid phrases of hers which contained in a few words the embodiment of feelings familiar to a multitude of people who have no power to express them. She delivered it the third time they met, which happened to be at another of those afternoon dances, held on board the flag ship on that occasion. Colonel Colquhoun liked her to show herself although she did not dance in the afternoon, so she was there, sitting out, and Mr. Price was courteously endeavouring to entertain her.

"It surprises me," he said, "as an American, to find so little inclination in your free and enlightened country to do away with your—politically speaking—useless and extremely expensive Royal House."

"Well, you see," said Evadne, "we are deeply attached to our Royal House, and we can well afford to keep it up."

It was this glimpse of the heart of the proud and patriotic little aristocrat, true daughter of a nation great enough to disdain small economies, and not accustomed to do without any luxury to which it is attached, that appealed to Mr. Price, pleasing the pride of race with which we contemplate any evidence of strength in our fellow-creatures, whether it be strength of purpose or strength of passion, more than it shocked his utilitarian prejudices.

When it was evident that Evadne had brought a good deal that was disagreeable upon herself by her action in the matter of the Clarences, old Mrs. Beale came to her one day in all kindliness to tell her the private opinion of the friends who had stood by her loyally in public.

"I am sure you did it with the best motive, my dear, and it was bravely done," the old lady said, patting her hand; "but be advised by those who know the world, and have had more experience than you have had. Don't interfere again. Interference does no good; and people will say such things if you do! They will make you pay for your disinterestedness."

"But it seems to me that the question is not Shall I have to pay? but Am I not bound to pay?" Evadne rejoined. "Neglecting to do what is, to me, obviously the right thing, and making no endeavour but such as is sure to be applauded—working in the hope of a reward, in fact, seems to me to be a terribly old-fashioned idea, miserable remnant of the bribery and corruption of the Dark Ages, when the people were kept in such dense ignorance that they could be treated like children, and told if they were good they should have this for a prize, but if they were bad they should be punished."

"You are quite right, I am sure, my dear," rejoined Mrs. Beale; "but all the same, I don't think I should interfere again, if I were you."

"It seems that I have not done the Clarences any good," Evadne murmured one day to Mr. Price.

"Well, that was hardly to be expected," he answered—at which she raised her eyebrows interrogatively. "Calumnies which attach themselves to a name in a moment take a lifetime to remove, because such a large majority of people prefer to think the worst of each other. The Clarences will have to live down their own little difficulty. And what you have to consider now is, not how little benefit they have derived from your brave defense of them, but how many other people you may have saved from similar attacks. I fancy it will be some time before people will venture to spread scandals of the kind here in Malta again. You have taught them a lesson; you may be sure of that; so don't be disheartened and lose sight of the final result in consideration of immediate consequences. The hard part of teaching is that the teacher himself seldom sees anything of the good he has done."

It was very evident at this time that Evadne's view of life was becoming much too serious for her own good; and, perceiving this, Mr. Price let fall some words one day in the course of conversation which she afterward treasured in her heart to great advantage. "It is our duty to be happy," he said. "Every human being is entitled to a certain amount of pleasure in life. But, in order to be happy, you must think of the world as a mischievous big child; let your attitude be one of amused contempt so long as you detect no vice in the mischief; once you do, however, if you have the gift of language, use it, lash out unmercifully! And don't desist because the creature howls at you. The louder it howls the more you may congratulate yourself that you have touched it on the right spot, which is sure to be tender."

But he did not limit his kindly attentions to the giving of good advice; in fact, he very seldom gave advice at all; what he chiefly did was to devise distractions for her which should take her out of herself; and one of these was a children's party which he induced her to give at Christmas.

The party was to take place on Christmas Eve, and the whole of the day before and far into the night the Colquhoun house was thronged with actors rehearsing charades and tableaux, and officers painting and preparing decorations, and putting them up. All were in the highest spirits; the talk and laughter were incessant; the work was being done with a will, and none of them looked as if they had ever had a sorrowful thought in their lives—least of all Evadne, whose gaiety seemed the most spontaneous of all.

Late at night she had come to the hall with nails for the decorators, and was handing them up as they were wanted by those on the ladders. The men were in their shirt sleeves, the most becoming dress that a gentleman ever appears in; and during a pause she happened to notice Colonel Colquhoun, who had stepped back to judge the effect of some drapery he was putting up. Mr. Price was a little behind him, and two of the younger men, the three making an excellent foil to Colonel Colquhoun. Evadne was struck by the contrast. The outside aspect of the man still pleased her. There was no doubt that he was a fine specimen of his species, a splendid animal to look at; what a pity he should have had a regrettable past, the kind of past, too, which can never be over and done with! A returned convict is always a returned convict, and a vicious man reformed is not repaired by the process. The stigma is in his blood.

Evadne sighed. She was too highly tempered, well-balanced a creature to be the victim of any one passion, and least of all of that transient state of feeling miscalled "Love." Physical attraction, moral repulsion: that was what she was suffering from; and now involuntarily she sighed—a sigh of rage for what might have been; and just at that moment, Colonel Colquhoun, happening to look at her, found her eyes fixed on him with a strange expression. Was there going to be a chance for him after all?

He did not understand Evadne. He had no conception of the human possibility of anything so perfect as her self-control; and when she showed no feeling, he took it for granted that it was because she had none. But during the games next day he obtained a glimpse of her heart which surprised him. She had paid a forfeit, and, in order to redeem it, she was requested to state her favourite names, gentlemen's and ladies'.

"Barbara, Evelyn, Julia, Elizabeth, Pauline, Mary, Bertram, and Evrard," she answered instantly. "I do not know if I think them the most beautiful names, but they are the ones that I love the best, and have always in my mind."

Colonel Colquhoun's countenance set upon this. They were the names of her brothers and sisters, whom she never mentioned to him by any chance, and whom he had not imagined that she ever thought of; yet it seemed that they were always in her mind! He had so little conception of the depth and tenderness of her nature, or of her fidelity, that had he been required to put his feelings on the subject into words before this revelation, he would, without a moment's hesitation, have declared her to be cold, and wanting in natural affection, a girl with "views," and no heart. But after this, a few questions and a very little observation served to convince him that she not only cared for her friends, especially her brothers and sisters, but fretted for their companionship continually in secret, and felt the separation all the more because her father's harsh prohibition was still in force, and none of them were allowed to write to her, her mother excepted, whose letters, however, came but rarely now, and were always unsatisfactory. The truth was that the poor lady had relapsed into slavery, and been nagged into an outward show of acquiescence in her husband's original mandate which forbade her to correspond with her recalcitrant daughter; and, in her attempts to conceal her relapse from the latter, and at the same time to keep Mr. Frayling quiet under the conviction that her submission was genuine, the style of her letters suffered considerably, and their numbers tended always to diminish. But the thing that touched Colonel Colquhoun was the care which Evadne had taken to conceal her trouble from him, the fact that she had not allowed a single complaint to escape her, or made a sign that might have worried him by implying a reproach. He had his moments of good feeling, however, and his kindly impulses too, being, as already asserted, anything but a monster; and under the influence of one of them, he sat down and wrote a sharp remonstrance to Mr. Frayling, which, however, only drew from that gentleman an expression of his sincere admiration for his son-in-law's generous disposition, and of his regret that a daughter of his should behave so badly to one who could show himself so nobly forgiving, with a reiteration of his determination, however, not to countenance her until she should "come to her senses"—so that no actual good was done, although doubtless Colonel Colquhoun himself was the better for acting on the impulse.

It was about this time that he became aware of the fact that Evadne had gradually formed a party of her own, and was making his house a centre of attraction to all the best people in the place. He knew that such support was an evidence of her strength, and would only confirm her in her "views," especially when even those who had opposed her most bitterly at first were caught intriguing to get into the Colquhoun house clique; but naturally he was gratified by a position which reflected credit upon himself; his respect for Evadne increased, and consequently they became, if possible, better friends than ever.



CHAPTER XIII.

On the day following her children's party, Evadne went to see Edith. She always went there when she felt brain-fagged and world-weary, and came away refreshed. Edith's ignorance of life amazed and perplexed her. She thought it foolish, and she thought it unsafe for a mature young woman to know no more of the world than a child does, but still she shrank from sharing the pain of her own knowledge with her, and had never had the heart to say a word that might disturb her beautiful serenity. She showed some selfishness in that. She could be a child in mind again with Edith, and only with Edith, and it was really for her own pleasure that she avoided all serious discussion with the latter, although she firmly persuaded herself that it was entirely out of deference to Mrs. Beale's wishes and prejudices.

She owed a great deal, as has already been said, to Mrs. Beale. When her attitude began to attract attention and provoked criticism, the old lady declined emphatically to hear a word against her from anybody, and so supported her in public; while in private the influence of her sweet old-fashioned womanliness was restraining in the way that Mrs. Orton Beg had foreseen; it was a check upon Evadne, and prevented her from going too far and fast at a time. Argument would not have hindered her; but when Mrs. Beale was present, she often suppressed a fire-brand of a phrase, because it would have wounded her.

As she went out that afternoon she met old Lord Groome on the doorstep, just coming to call on her, and hesitated a moment between asking him in or allowing him to accompany her as far as Mrs. Beale's, but decided on the latter because she would get rid of him so much the sooner. Her attitude toward him, however, was kindly and tolerant as a rule, and she was even amused by his curious conceit. He was always ready to express what he called an opinion on any subject, but more especially when it bore reference to legislation and the government of peoples generally, for he was comfortably confident that he had inherited the brain power necessary for a legislator as well as a seat in the House of Lords and the position of one—a pardonable error, surely, since it is so very common. Socially he lived in a comfortable conception of the fitness of things that were agreeable to him, morally he did not exist at all, religiously he supported the Established Church, and politically he believed in every antiquated error still extant, in which respect most of his friends resembled him.

"Ah, and so you are going to see Miss Beale? That's right," he observed patronisingly. "I like to see one young lady with her work in her hand tripping in to sit and chat with another, and while away the long hours till the gentlemen return. One can imagine all their little jests and confidences. Young ladyhood is charming to contemplate."

The implication that a young lady has no great interest in life but in "the return of the gentlemen," and that, while awaiting them, her pursuits must of necessity be petty and trivial, both amused and provoked Evadne, and she answered with a dry enigmatical, "Yes-s-s."

A few steps further on, they overtook that soft-voiced person of "singular views," Mrs. Malcomson, from whom Lord Groome would have fled had he seen her in time, for they detested each other cordially, and she never spared him. She was strolling along alone with her eyes cast down, humming a little tune to herself, and thinking. There was a tinge of colour in her cheeks, for the air was fresh for Malta; her eyes were bright, her hair as usual had broken from bondage into little brown curls, all crisp and shining, on her forehead and neck, and her lips were parted as if they only waited for an excuse to break into a smile. A healthier, pleasanter, happier, handsomer young woman Lord Groome could not have wished to encounter, and consequently his disapproval of those "absurd new-fangled notions of hers" which were "an effectual bar, sir," as he said himself, "the kind of thing that destroys a woman's charm, and makes it impossible to get on with her," mounted to his forehead in a frown of perplexity.

"What are you so busy about?" Evadne asked her.

"My profession," she answered laconically.

"And what is that?" Lord Groome inquired, with that ponderous affectation of playfulness which he believed to be acceptable to women.

"The Higher Education of Man," she rejoined, then darted down a side street, laughing.

"I am afraid you are too intimate with that lady," Lord Groome observed severely, "You must not allow yourself to be bitten by her revolutionary ideas. She is a dangerous person."

"Not 'revo'—but evolutionary," Evadne answered, smiling. "Yes. Mrs. Malcomson has taught me a great deal. She is a very remarkable person. The world will hear more of her, I am sure, and be all the better for her passage through it. But here we are. Thank you for accompanying me. What a hot afternoon! Good-bye!"

She shook hands with him, then opened the door and walked in, leaving him outside.

He felt the dismissal somewhat summary, but shrugged his shoulders philosophically and walked on, reflecting, a propos of Mrs. Malcomson: "That's just the way with women! When they begin to have ideas they spread them everywhere, and all the other women in the neighbourhood catch them, and are spoiled by them."

Evadne's spirits had risen in the open air, but the moment she found herself alone a reaction set in.

The hall was dark and cool, and she stopped there, thinking—Oh, the dissatisfaction of it all!

There were no servants about, and the house seemed curiously still. She heard the ripple of running water from an unseen fountain somewhere, and the intermittent murmur of voices in a room close by, but there is a silence that broods above such sounds, and this it was that Evadne felt.

Close to where she stood was a divan with some tall foliage plants behind it, and she sat down there, and, leaning forward with her arms resting on her knees, began listlessly to trace out the pattern of the pavement with the point of her parasol. She had no notion why she was lingering there alone, when she had come out for the sole purpose of not being alone; but the will to do anything else had suddenly forsaken her. Her mind, however, had become curiously active all at once, in a jerky, disconnected sort of way.

"Lord Groome—thank Heaven for having got rid of him so easily! I was afraid it would be more difficult. Poor foolish old man! Yes. It is ridiculous that the destinies of nations should hang on the size of one man's liver. Where did I hear that now? It seems as old—old—as the iniquity itself. Subjects get into the air—I heard someone say that too, by-the-way—here—soon after I came out. Who was it? Oh—the dance on the Abomination. Mrs. Malcomson and Mr. Price. He said subjects were diseases which got into the air; she said they were more like perfumes. Now, I should not have compared them with either—"

The door of the room where the voices had been murmuring intermittently opened at that moment, and Edith came out, followed by Menteith.

It was a vision which Evadne never forgot.

Edith was dressed in ivory white, and wore a brooch of turquoise and diamonds at her throat, a buckle of the same at her waist, and a very handsome ring, also of turquoise and diamonds, on the third finger of her left hand. Evadne took the ornaments in at a glance. She had seen all that Edith had hitherto possessed, and these were new; but she did not for a moment attach any significance to the fact. It was Edith's radiant face that riveted her attention. A bright flush flickered on her delicate cheek, deepening or fading at every breath; her large eyes floated in light; even the bright strands of her yellow hair shone with unusual lustre; her step was so buoyant she scarcely seemed to touch the ground at all; she was all shy smiles; and as she came, with her slender white right hand she played with the new ring she wore on her left, fingering it nervously. But anyone more ecstatically happy than she seemed it is impossible to imagine. Menteith could not take his eyes off her. He seemed to gloat over every item of her appearance.

"Oh, here is Evadne!" she exclaimed in a voice of welcome, running up to the latter and kissing her with peculiar tenderness. Then she turned and looked up at Menteith, then back again at Evadne, wanting to say something, but not liking to.

With a start of surprise, Evadne awoke to the significance of all this, and she knew, too, what was expected of her; but she could not say, "I congratulate you!" try as she would. "I will wait for you in the drawing room," was all she was able to gasp, and she hastened off in that direction as she spoke.

"How can you care so much for that cold, unsympathetic woman?" Menteith exclaimed.

"She is not cold and unsympathetic," Edith rejoined emphatically. "I am afraid there is something wrong. I must go and see what it is. O Mosley! I feel all chilled! It is a bad omen!"

"This is a bad damp hall," he answered, laughing at her, "you are too sensitive to changes of temperature."

It seemed so really, for her colour had faded, and she had not recovered it when she appeared in the drawing room.

Evadne was standing in the middle of the room alone, waiting for her.

"Edith! You are not going to marry that dreadful man?" she exclaimed.

Edith stopped short, astonished.

"Dreadful man!" she gasped. "Yon must be mad, Evadne!"

Mrs. Beale came into the room just as Edith uttered these words, and overheard them. She had been on the point of happy smiles and tears, expecting kind congratulations, but at the tone of Edith's voice almost more than at what she had said, and at the sight of the two girls standing a little apart looking into each other's faces in alarm and horror, her own countenance changed, and an expression of blank inquiry succeeded the smiles, and dried the tears.

"Oh, Mrs. Beale!" Evadne entreated; "you are not going to let Edith marry that dreadful man!"

"Mother! she will keep saying that!" Edith exclaimed.

"My dear child, what do you mean?" Mrs. Beale said gently to Evadne, taking her hand.

"I mean that he is bad—thoroughly bad," said Evadne.

"Why! Now tell me, what do you know about him?" the old lady asked, leading Evadne to a sofa, and making her sit down beside her upon it. Her manner was always excessively soothing, and the first heat of Evadne's indignation began to subside as she came under the influence of it.

"I don't know anything about him," she answered confusedly; "but I don't like the way he looks at me!"

"Oh, come, now! that is childish!" Mrs. Beale said, smiling.

"No, it is not! I am sure it is not!" Evadne rejoined, knitting her brows in a fruitless endeavour to grasp some idea that evaded her, some item of information that had slipped from her mind. "I feel—I have a consciousness which informs me of things my intellect cannot grasp. And I do know!" she exclaimed, her mental vision clearing as she proceeded. "I have heard Colonel Colquhoun drop hints."

"And you would condemn him upon hints?" Edith interjected contemptuously.

"I know that if Colonel Colquhoun hints that there is something objectionable about a man it must be something very objectionable indeed," Evadne answered, cooling suddenly.

Edith turned crimson.

"Evadne—dear," Mrs. Beale remonstrated, patting her hand emphatically to restrain her. "Edith has accepted him because she loves him, and that is enough."

"If it were love it would be," Evadne answered. "But it is not love she feels. Prove to her that this man is not a fit companion for her, and she will droop for a while, and then recover. The same thing would happen if you separated them for years without breaking off the engagement. Love which lasts is a condition of the mature mind; it is a fine compound of inclination and knowledge, controlled by reason, which makes the object of it, not a thing of haphazard, but a matter of choice. Mrs. Beale," she reiterated, "you will not let Edith marry that dreadful man!"

"My dear child," Mrs. Beale replied, speaking with angelic mildness, "your mind is quite perverted on this subject, and how it comes to be so I cannot imagine, for your mother is one of the sweetest, truest, most long suffering womanly women I ever knew. And so is Lady Adeline Hamilton-Wells—and Mrs. Orton Beg. You have been brought up among womanly women, none of whom ever even thought such things as you do not hesitate to utter, I am sure."

"I once heard a discussion between Lady Adeline and Aunt Olive," Evadne rejoined. "It was about a lady who had a very bad husband, and had patiently endured a great deal. 'It is beautiful—pathetic—pitiful to see a woman making the best of a bad bargain in that way,' Aunt Olive said. 'It may be all that,' Lady Adeline answered; 'but is it right? If this generation would object to bad bargains, the next would have fewer to make the best of.'"

"Ah, that is so like dear Adeline!" Mrs. Beale observed. "But what a memory you have, my dear, to be able to give the exact words!"

Evadne's countenance fell. She was disheartened, but still she persisted.

"It is you good women," she said, clasping Mrs. Beale's hand in both of hers, and holding it to her breast: "It is you good women who make marriage a lottery for us. You, for instance. Because you drew a prize yourself, you see no reason why every other woman should not be equally fortunate."

"I think, when people make quite sure beforehand that they love each other, they are safe—even when the man has not been all that he ought to have been. Love is a great purifier, and love for a good woman has saved many a man," Mrs. Beale declared with the fervour of full conviction.

"That is presuming that a man 'who has not been all that he ought to have been' is still able to love," said Evadne, "which is not the case. We are all endowed with the power to begin with; but love is a delicate essence, as volatile as it is delicious; and when a man's moral fibre is loosened, his share of love escapes. But this is not the point," she broke off, dropping Mrs. Beale's hand, and gathering herself together. "The trouble now is that you are going to let Edith throw herself away on a man you know nothing about—"

"Ah, my dear, there you are mistaken," Mrs. Beale interrupted, comfortably triumphant. "They have known each other all their lives. They used to play together as children; and when I wrote to ask her father's consent to the engagement, he replied that the one thing which could reconcile him to parting with Edith was her choice of a man who had grown up under our own eyes. I can assure you that we know his faults quite as well as his good qualities."

"I thought you would like to have me in the regiment, Evadne," Edith ventured with timid reproach.

"I would not like to have you anywhere as that man's wife," Evadne answered.

"Well, if he is," said Edith, with a flash of enthusiasm, "if he is bad, I will make him good; if he is lost, I will save him!"

"Spoken like a true woman, dearest!" her mother said, rising to kiss her, and then standing back to look up at her with yearning love and admiration.

Evadne rose also with a heavy sigh. "I know how you feel," she said to Edith drearily. "You glow and are glad from morning till night. You have a great yearning here," she clasped her hands to her breast. "You find a new delight in music, a new beauty in flowers; unaccountable joy in the warmth and brightness of the sun, and rapture not to be contained in the quiet moonlight. You despise yourself, and think your lover worthy of adoration. The consciousness of him never leaves you even in your sleep. He is your last thought at night, your first in the morning. Even when he is away from you, you do not feel separated from him as you do from other people, for a sense of his presence remains with you, and you flatter yourself that your spirits mingle when your bodies are apart. You think, too, that the source of all this ecstasy is holy because it is pleasurable; you imagine it will last forever!"

Edith stared at her. That Evadne should know the entrancement of love herself so exactly, and not reverence it as holy, amazed her.

"And you call it love," Evadne added, as if she had read her thought; "but it is not love. The threshold of love and hate adjoin, and it—this feeling—stands midway between them, an introduction to either. It is always a question, as marriages are now made, whether, when passion has had time to cool, husband and wife will love or detest each other. But what is the use of talking?" she exclaimed. "You will not heed me. It is too late now." She turned and walked toward the door; but Edith caught her by the arm and stopped her.

"Evadne! Do not go like this!" she entreated, with a sob in her voice. "Wish me well at least!"

"I do wish you well," said Evadne. "With what other motive could I have said so much? But I ask again, what is the use? Your parents are content to let you marry a man of whose private life they have no knowledge whatever—"

Mrs. Beale interrupted her: "This is not quite the case," she confessed. "We do know that there have been errors; but all that is over now, and it would be wicked of us not to believe the best, and hope for the best. A young man in his position has great temptations—"

"And if he succumbs, he is pardoned because of his position!"

"Oh, come, now, Evadne!" Mrs. Beale remonstrated, "You cannot think that such a consideration affects our decision. His position and property are very nice in themselves, and indeed all that we care about in that way for Edith, but we were not thinking about either when we gave our consent. It is the dear fellow himself that we want—"

"I can make him all that he ought to be! I know I can!" Edith exclaimed fervently, clasping her hands, and looking up, with bright eyes full of confidence and passion.

Evadne said not another word, but kissed them both, and left the house.

"Mother! how strange Evadne is!" Edith ejaculated.

Mrs. Beale shook her head several times. "I heard that she had some trouble at the outset of her own married life," she said. "I don't know what it was; but doubtless it accounts for her manner to-day. Don't think about it, however. She will recover her right-mindedness as she grows older. A little shock upsets a girl's judgment very often; but she is so clever and conscientious, she will certainly get over it. But you are quite agitated yourself, dear. Come! think no more about what she said! Her own marriage quite disproves all her arguments, for Colonel Colquhoun was notoriously just the kind of man she would have us believe Mosley is, and see what she has done for him, and how well they get on together! Think no more about it, dear child, but come out with me. The air will tranquillize us both."

On her way home, Evadne overtook Mr. St. John. He was walking slowly with his chin on his chest, looking down, and his whole demeanour was expressive of deep dejection.

He looked up with a start when Evadne overtook him, and their eyes met.

"You have heard?" she said.

He made an affirmative gesture.

"I never—never dreamt of such a thing," she went on. "I thought—I hoped— pardon me, but I hoped it would be you. She liked you so much. I know she did."

"But not enough, for she refused me," he answered gently. "But doubtless it is all for the best. His ways are not our ways, you know, and we suffer because we are too proud to resign ourselves to manifestations of His wisdom, which are beyond our comprehension. When you came up, I was feeling as if I could never say 'Thy will be done' with my whole heart, fervently, in this matter, but since you spoke to me, I think I can."

Evadne took his arm, and the gentle pressure of her hand upon it expressed her heartfelt sympathy eloquently.

"If it had been anyone else, I thought at first—but, doubtless, doubtless, it is all for the best!" he added; and then he raised his head, and changed the subject bravely.

But Evadne did not hear what he was saying, for suddenly she found herself on the cliffs at home, and it was a scented summer morning; the air was balmy, the sun was shining, the little waves rippled up over the sand, the birds were singing, and the dew-drops hung on the yellow gorse; but that joy in her own being which lent a charm to these was wanting, and the songs seemed tuneless, the scent oppressive, the sea all sameness, the land a waste, and the sun itself a glaring garish baldness of light, that accentuated her own disconsolation, the length of a life that is not worth living, and the size of a world which contains no corner of comfort in all its pitiless expanse. And it was the same story too. She was witnessing the same mystery of love rejected—the same worthiness for the same unworthiness; the same fine discipline of resignation, which made the pain of it endurable; listening to the same old pulpit platitudes even, which have such force of soothing when reverently expressed. She and Edith were very different types of girlhood, and it seemed a strange coincidence that their opportunities should have been identical nevertheless; but not singular that their action should have been the same, because the force of nature which controlled them is a matter of constitution more than of character, and subject only to a training which neither of them had received, and without which, instead of ruling, they are ruled erratically.

Evadne had quite forgotten by this time all her first fine feelings on the subject of a celibate priesthood. She now held that the laws of nature are the laws of God, and marriage is a law of nature which there is no evidence that God has ever rescinded.

Evadne had not heard what Mr. St. John was saying, and she did not care to hear; she knew that it was not relevant to anything which either of them had in their minds; but still held his arm, and looked up at him sympathetically when he paused for a reply, and at that moment Colonel Colquhoun, accompanied by Sir Mosley Menteith, turned out of a side street just behind them, and followed on in the same direction. When Menteith saw the two walking so familiarly arm in arm, he glanced at Colonel Colquhoun out of the comers of his eyes to see how he took it. But Colonel Colquhoun's face remained serenely impassive.

"Easy!" he said. "We won't overtake them till we arrive at the house. I expect he is seeing her home, and as Mrs. Colquhoun is only at her best tete-a-tete, it would be a shame to deprive him of the small recompense he will get for his trouble." He twisted his moustache and continued to look at the pair thoughtfully when he had spoken, and Menteith glanced at him again to see if he might not perchance be concealing some secret annoyance under an affectation of easy indifference, but there was not a trace of anything of the kind apparent.

"There is no doubt that women do cling to the clergy," was the outcome of Colonel Colquhoun's reflections—"I mean metaphorically speaking, of course," he hastened to add with a laugh, perceiving the double construction that might be put on the remark in view of the situation. "Now, there is only one fellow on the island that Evadne cares for as much as she does for her friend there, I think she likes the other better though."

"You mean yourself, of course," said Menteith.

"No, I don't mean myself, of course," Colonel Colquhoun answered, "Putting myself out of the question. It is Price, I mean."

"That dried-up old chap?" Menteith exclaimed. "Well, he's pretty safe, I should say! And I should never be jealous of a parson myself. Women always treat them de haut en bas."

"I believe, sir, that Mrs. Colquhoun is perfectly 'safe' with anyone whom she may choose for a friend," Colonel Colquhoun said with an emphasis which made Menteith apologize immediately.

Colonel Colquhoun asked Evadne that evening what she thought of the projected marriage.

"I think it detestable," she answered.

"Well, I think it a pity myself," he said. "She's such a nice looking girl too."

Evadne turned to him with a flash of hope. "Can't you do something?" she exclaimed. "Can't you prevent it?"

"Absolutely impossible," he answered. "And I beg as a favour to myself that you won't try."

"I have done my best already," she said.

"Then you have made your friends enemies for life," he declared. "A girl like that won't give up a man she loves even for such considerations as have made you indifferent to my happiness—and welfare."

Evadne perceived the contradiction involved in commending Edith for doing what he considered it a pity that she should do; but she recognized her own impotence also, and was silent. It was the system, the horrid system that was to blame, and neither he, nor she, nor any of them.

Colonel Colquhoun ruminated for a little.

"It is rather curious," he finally observed, "that you should both have shied at the parsons, seeing how very particular you are."

"Who told you we had both—refused a clergyman?" Evadne asked.

"Everybody in Malta knows that St. John proposed to Miss Beale," he answered, "and your father told me about the offer you had. He remarked at the time that girls will only have manly men, and that therefore we soldiers get the pick of them."

Evadne was silent. She was thinking of something her father had once remarked in her presence on the same subject: "I have observed," he had said, in his pompous way, "that the clergy carry off all the nicest girls. You will see some of the finest, who have money of their own too, marry quite commonplace parsons. But the reason is obvious. It is their faith in the superior moral probity of Churchmen which weighs with them."

The Scales went home the following week to prepare for the wedding, which was to take place immediately. They both wrote to Evadne kindly before they left, and she replied in the same tone, but she could not persuade herself to see them again, nor did they wish it.

END OF BOOK II.



BOOK III.

DEVELOPMENT AND ARREST OF DEVELOPMENT.

Fury: Blood thou canst see, and fire; and canst hear groans;— Worse things, unheard, unseen, remain behind.

Prometheus: Worse?

Fury: In each human heart terror survives The ravin it has gorged. The loftiest fear All that they would disdain to think were true: Hypocrisy and Custom make their minds The fanes of many a worship now outworn. They dare not devise good for man's estate, And yet they know not that they do not dare. The good want power but to weep barren tears: The powerful goodness want,—worse need for them: The wise want love: and those who love want wisdom: And all best things are thus confused to ill. Many are strong and rich and would be just, But live among their suffering fellow-men As if none felt: they know not what they do.

—Prometheus Unbound



CHAPTER I.

Edith was married in the cathedral at Morningquest, and of course the twins were present at the wedding. From what social gathering were they ever excluded if they chose to be present? Mrs. Beale had not thought of asking them at all, but Angelica intimated, in her royal way, that she wished to be a bridesmaid, and Diavolo must be a page, and Lady Adeline begged Mrs. Beale for Heaven's sake to arrange it so, lest worse should come of it.

But the twins did not enjoy the occasion at all, for the truth was that they were not as they had been. Angelica was rapidly outstripping Diavolo, as was inevitable at that age. He was still a boy, but she was verging on womanhood, and already had thoughts which did not appeal to him, and moods which he could not comprehend, the consequence being continual quarrels between them,—those quarrels in which people are hottest and bitterest, not because of their hate, but because of their love for each other. There is such agony in misunderstanding and blame when all has hitherto been comprehension, approval, and sympathy. The shadow of approaching maturity, which would separate them inevitably for the next few years, already touched Angelica perceptibly; and, although to the onlookers they seemed to treat each other as usual, both children felt that there was something wrong, and their discomfort was all the greater because neither of them could account for the change. Angelica had been for some time in her most hoydenish, least human stage, during which she had given up hugging Diavolo, and taken to butting him in the stomach instead. But she was growing beyond that now, and was in fact just on the borderland, hovering between two states: in the one of which she was a child, all nonsense and mischievous tricks; and in the other a girl with tender impulses and yearning senses seeking some satisfaction.

She and Diavolo had promised themselves some fun at Edith's wedding, but when the morning came Angelica was moody and irritable, and Diavolo watched her and waited in vain for a suggestion. When they were in the cathedral, during the ceremony, she had a strange feeling that there was something in it ail that specially concerned her, and she looked at Edith and listened to the service intently, in an involuntary effort to obtain some clue to her own sensations.

Diavolo, who was all sympathy when there was anything really wrong with her, became alarmed.

"Does your stomach ache?" he whispered. (They were kneeling side by side.)

"No!" she answered shortly.

"Oh, then, I suppose there is something morally wrong," he observed, in a satisfied tone, as if he knew from experience that that was a small thing compared with the other complaint.

They sat together at the wedding breakfast, but Angelica continued silently observant.

Diavolo had brought a big boiled shrimp in his pocket.

It was black and of great age, and he managed to fasten it adroitly on the shoulder of the lady who sat next him, so that its long antenna tickled her neck, and provoked her attention to it.

Glancing down sideways, and catching a glimpse of black eyes and many legs, she thought it was some horrid creature with a sting, and jumped up, shrieking wildly, to everybody's consternation.

Angelica declared it was a stupid trick.

"Well, you put me up to it yourself," Diavolo grumbled.

"Did I?" she snapped. "Then I was wrong."

Somebody began to make a speech, which was all in praise of the lovely bride; and Diavolo, listening to it, and remembering that he had wished to marry her himself, became intensely sentimental. He recovered his shrimp, and laying it out on the cloth before him gazed at it in a melancholy way.

"All the nice girls marry," he complained, thinking of Evadne.

"Well, what's that to you?" Angelica demanded, with a jealous flash.

"Only that I suppose you also will marry and leave me some day," he readily responded. Diavolo was nothing if not courtly.

But Angelica knew him, and resented this attempt to impose upon her.

"I despise you!" she exclaimed; and then she turned to Mr. Kilroy of Ilverthorpe, who was her neighbour on the right, and made great friends with him to spite Diavolo; but the latter was engrossed in his breakfast by that time, and took no notice.

When they got back to Hamilton House, Mr. Ellis asked her how she had enjoyed the wedding.

"It made me feel sick," she said; and then she got a book, and flinging herself down on a window seat, with her long legs straggling out behind her and her face to the light, made a pretence of reading.

Diavolo hovered about her with a dismal face, trying to devise some method of taking her out of herself.

"My ear does bother me," he said at last, sitting down beside her with his back to the window, and his legs stretched straight out before him close together. "I feel as if I could tear it off."

"No, don't; you might want it again!" Angelica retorted, and then, the observation striking her as ludicrous, she looked up at him and grinned, and so broke the ice.

Mr. Ellis was the first to notice signs of the impending change in Angelica. Although she was over fifteen, she had no coquettish or womanly ways, insisted on wearing her dresses up to her knees, expressed the strongest objection to being grown-up and considered a young lady, and had never been known to look at herself in the glass; but she began to be less teasing and more sympathetic, and sometimes now, if the tutor were tired or worried, she noticed it, and pulled Diavolo up for being a nuisance.

The day after the wedding, in the afternoon, Dr. Galbraith walked over from Fountain Towers to Hamilton House, through the fields, and encountered Lord Dawne in the porch. It was lovely summer weather.

"I am looking for the children," Lord Dawne said. "I have come over from Morne with a message for them from their grandfather. Do you happen to have seen them anywhere?"

"Yes, I have," Dr. Galbraith answered drily, but with a twinkle in his eyes. "I discovered them just now in a field of mine—a hayfield—not that they were making any pretence of hiding themselves, however," he hastened to add, "for they were each sitting on the top of a separate haycock, carrying on an animated discussion in tones as elevated as their position, so that I heard them long before I saw them. They will end the discussion by demolishing my haycocks, I suppose," he concluded resignedly.

"What was it all about?" Lord Dawne asked.

"Well, I believe they started with the vexed question of primogeniture," Dr. Galbraith replied; "but when I came up with them they were quarrelling because they could not agree as to whether they were more their father's or their mother's children. Angelica maintained the latter, for reasons which she gave at the top of her voice with admirable accuracy. When I appeared they both appealed to me to confirm their opinions, but I fled. I am not so advanced as the Heavenly Twins."

Lord Dawne looked grave: "What will become of the child, Angelica?" he said.

"Oh, you needn't be anxious about her," Dr. Galbraith replied, looking full at him with sympathy and affection in his kind gray eyes. "She has no vice in her whatever, and not a trace of hysteria. Her talk is mere exuberance of intellect."

"I don't know," her uncle answered. "Qui peut tout dire arrive a tout faire, you know."

"I find that falsified continually in my profession," Dr. Galbraith rejoined. "It depends entirely as a rule upon how the thing is said, and why. If it be a matter of inclination only, controlled by fear of the law or public opinion which is expressed, the aphorism would hold, probably; but language which is the outcome of moods or phases that are transient makes no permanent mark upon the character."

Lord Dawne took Dr. Galbraith to the drawing room, where they found Lady Adeline with Mr. Hamilton-Wells and the tutor. Mr. Ellis had been a great comfort to Lady Adeline ever since he came to the house. She felt, she said, that she should always owe him a deep debt of gratitude for his patient care of her terrible children.

"You are just in time for tea, George," she said to Dr. Galbraith. "Dawne, you had better wait here for the children. They won't be late this afternoon, I am sure, because Mr. Kilroy of Ilverthorpe is here, and Angelica likes him to talk to."

"Ah, now you do surprise me," said Dr. Galbraith, "for I should have thought that Mr. Kilroy was the last person in the world to interest Angelica."

"And so he is," Mr. Hamilton-Wells observed in his precisest way, "and she does not profess to find him interesting. But what she says is that she must talk, and he does for a target to talk at."

Lady Adeline looked anxiously at the door while her husband was speaking. She was in terror lest Mr. Kilroy should come in and hear him, for Mr. Hamilton-Wells had a habit of threshing his subject out, even when it was obviously unfortunate, and would not allow himself to be interrupted by anybody.

He made his favourite gesture with his hands when he had spoken, which consisted in spreading his long white fingers out as if he wore lace ruffles which were in the way, and was shaking them back a little. He had a long cadaverous face, clean shaven; straight hair of suspicious brownness, parted in the middle and plastered down on either side of his head; and a general air of being one of his own Puritan ancestors who should have appeared in black velvet and lace; and his punctilious manners strengthened this impression. The one trinket he displayed was a ring, which he wore on the forefinger of his right hand, a handsome intaglio carved out of crimson coral. It seemed to be the only part of his natural costume which had survived, and came into play continually.

Mr. Kilroy entered the room in time to hear the concluding remark, but naturally did not take it to himself, and Lord Dawne, seeing his sister's trepidation, came to the rescue by diverting the subject into another channel.

They were all sitting round an open window, and just at that moment the twins themselves appeared in sight, straggling up the drive in a deep discourse, with their arms round each other's necks, and Angelica's dark head resting against Diavolo's fair one.

"Harmony reigns among the heavenly bodies, apparently," said Dr. Galbraith.

"The powers of darkness plotting evil, more likely," said their uncle Dawne.

"Naughty children! What have they done with their hats?" Lady Adeline exclaimed.

"Discovered some ingenious method of doing damage to my hay with them, most probably," Dr. Galbraith observed.

They all leant forward, watching the children.

"Angelica is growing up," said Lord Dawne.

"She has always been the taller, stronger, and wickeder of the two, and will remain so, I expect," said Dr. Galbraith.

"But how old is she now exactly?" Mr. Kilroy wished to know.

"Nearly sixteen," Lady Adeline answered. "But a very young sixteen in some ways, I am thankful to say. And I believe we have you to thank, Mr. Ellis, for keeping her so."

The tutor's strong but careworn face flushed sensitively; but he only answered with a deprecating gesture.

"Then how old is Diavolo?" Mr. Kilroy pursued absently.

"About the same age," Mr. Hamilton-Wells replied, without moving a muscle of his face.

Lady Adeline looked puzzled: "Of course they are the same age," she said, as if the point could be disputed.

Mr. Kilroy woke up: "Oh, of course, of course!" he exclaimed with some embarrassment.

The twins had gone round the house by this time, and presently Diavolo appeared in the drawing room alone. His thick fair hair stood out round his head like a rumpled mop: his face and hands were not immaculate, and his clothes were creased; but he entered the room with the same courtly yet diffident air and high-bred ease which distinguished his uncle Dawne, whom he imitated as well as resembled in most things.

He took his seat beside him now, and remarked that it was a nice day, and—

But before he could finish the affable phrase, the door burst open from without, and Angelica entered.

"Hollo! Are you all here?" she said. "How are you, Uncle Dawne?"

"I wish you would not be so impetuous," Diavolo remonstrated gently. "You quite startle one."

"You are a coon!" said Angelica.

"My dear child—" Lady Angeline began.

"Well, mamma, no matter what I do, Diavolo grumps at me," Angelica snapped.

"What expressions you use!" sighed Lady Adeline.

Angelica plumped down on the arm of her uncle's chair, and hugged him round the head with one hand. She smelt overpoweringly strong of hay and hot weather, but he patiently endured the caress, which was over in a moment as it happened, for Angelica caught sight of her cat lurking under a sofa opposite, and bending down double, whistled to it. Then she turned her attention to a huge slice of bread, butter, and jam she held in her hand. Diavolo's soul appeared in his face and shone out of his eyes when she bit it.

"Have some?" said Angelica, going over to him, and edging him half off his chair so as to make room for herself beside him. She held the bread and butter to his mouth as she spoke, and they finished it together, bite and bite about.

"Now I am ready for tea," said Angelica when they had done.

"So am I," said Diavolo, with a sigh of satisfaction.

"Let us have afternoon tea with you here to-day, Mr. Ellis," Angelica coaxed. "It's so much more sociable. And I want to talk to Mr. Kilroy."

She jumped up in her impetuous way, plumped down again on a low stool in front of that gentleman, clasped her hands round her knees, and looked up in his face as she spoke.

"That's a nice place you've got at—" she was beginning, but Mr. Ellis interrupted her by throwing up his head and ejaculating "Grammar!"

"Bother!" Angelica exclaimed testily. "Now you've put me all out. Oh!—I was going to say you have a nice place at Ilverthorpe. We were over there the other day and inspected it."

"Very happy—glad, I am sure, you did not stand upon ceremony," Mr. Kilroy answered.

But this politeness seemed altogether superfluous to Angelica, and she did not therefore acknowledge it in any way.

"I suppose you will go into Parliament now," she pursued.

Mr. Kilroy looked surprised. The idea had occurred to him lately, but he was not aware of having mentioned it to anyone.

"I hope you will at all events," she continued, "and let me write your speeches for you. That is what Diavolo is going to do. You see I shall want a mouthpiece until I get in myself, and I don't mind having two if you are clever at learning by heart. You've a pleasant voice and good address to begin with, and that is all in your favour. Oh, you needn't exchange glances with papa," she broke off. "He doesn't know how I mean to order my life in the least."

"But you will allow him some voice in the ordering of it—at least until you marry, I suppose," Mr. Kilroy observed.

"That depends," Angelica answered decidedly. "You see, a child comes into the world for purposes of its own, and not in order to carry out any preconceived ideas its father may have of what it is good for. And as to marrying—well, that requires consideration."

"Now, I call that a very proper spirit in which to approach the subject," Mr. Kilroy declared. "You have every right to expect to make the best match possible, and the choice for a young lady in your position will be restricted."

"Not at all," said Angelica bluntly. "Is thy servant a slave of a princess that she should marry a rickety king? I have quite other views for myself. In fact, I think the wisest plan for me would be to buy a nice clean little boy, and bring him up to suit my own ideas. I needn't marry him, you know, if he doesn't turn out well." She slipped from the footstool on to the floor as she spoke, and began to make friendly overtures to the cat.

"I always thought you had designs on Dr. Galbraith!" said Diavolo, meaning to provoke her.

"Did you?" she answered. "Then you must have thought me of a suicidal tendency. Why, he would pound me up in a mortar if I disagreed with him. You have heard him slam a door?"

"He is irascible," Diavolo answered, quite as if Dr. Galbraith were not present listening to him. "He called me a little brute on one occasion."

"Which reminds me," said Dr. Galbraith. "What have you done to my decoy? The birds have forsaken it."

"We never did anything to your decoy," rejoined Angelica in a positive tone. "You just went down there yourself one day and exploded some long words at the ducks, and, naturally, they scooted."

"Well, I warn you," said Dr. Galbraith, frowning with decision—"I warn you that I am going to have keys made for everything about the place that will lock up; and, all the same, I shall only allow you to come under escort of the chief constable, and I shall keep a posse of detectives concealed about the grounds to watch for you carefully."

The twins exploded with delight.

"Didn't I promise you I'd draw him this afternoon?" Diavolo exclaimed.

"You did," Angelica responded, with tears in her eyes.

Lord Dawne got up.

"Won't you stay for tea?" Lady Adeline exclaimed. "It is just coming."

"I don't care for any, thank you," he answered. "And I really ought not to have stayed so long. I only came to ask if you would let the children come. Both my father and Fulda have set their hearts upon having them."

"Are we to go to Morne?" cried Angelica.

"For a visit—to stay?" said Diavolo.

"If you behave yourselves," their mother answered.

"Oh, in that case!" said Diavolo, shrugging his shoulders as at an impossibility.

"It would never do for us to be good there," said Angelica. "Grandpapa would be so dreadfully disappointed if we were."

"Quite so," said Diavolo.

And then they scampered out together into the hall, and kicked each other in the exuberance of their spirits, but without ill-will.



CHAPTER II.

As soon as the Heavenly Twins were safely settled at Morne, Mr. Hamilton-Wells played them a huge trick. He made Lady Adeline pack up and set off with him for a voyage round the world without them. When their parents were well on the way, and the news was broken to the children, the people at Morne expected storm and trouble; but the Heavenly Twins saw the joke at once, and chuckled immoderately.

"I wonder how long it took him to think it out?" said Diavolo.

"It must have been a brilliant impromptu," Angelica supposed—"because, you know, our coming here was all arranged in a moment. If you remember, we came because they looked so sure that we shouldn't. I expect as soon as we had gone, it was such a relief, that papa said: 'Adeline, my dear, we must prolong this period of peace.' And he's just about hit on the only way to do so."

"I should like to have seen him, though, popping in and out of the train whenever it stopped. He must have been in a perfect fever until they were safe on board and out at sea, fearing we might have heard that they were off, and found some means of following them."

"We might do so still," said Angelica thoughtfully.

"No. Too much bother," said Diavolo. "And, besides, there is good deal going on here, you know," he added significantly. "But, I say," he demanded, becoming parent-sick suddenly, "do you understand how they could go off like that without saying good-bye to us? I call it beastly unnatural."

"Oh, give them their due!" said Angelica. "They did say good-bye to us. Don't you remember how particularly affectionate they were the last time they came? And all the good advice they gave us? 'Do attend to Mr. Ellis'; 'Don't worry your grandfather,' and that sort of thing. They must have relieved their own feelings thoroughly."

"Well, then, they didn't consider ours much," Diavolo grumbled; "and they might have allowed us, poor grass-orphans, the comfort of bidding them farewell,"

"We'll write them a letter," said Angelica.

Diavolo grinned.

And this was how it happened that the Heavenly Twins, who had only gone to Morne for a month, remained a year there, and one of the most important years of their lives, as was afterward evident. It was during this time that they managed to identify themselves completely with their grandfather in the estimation of the people of Morningquest. Charming manners were a family trait, and the Heavenly Twins had always been popular in the city on their own account; their spontaneity and extreme affability having usually been held to balance their monkey tricks. Hamilton House, however, was ten miles distant from Morningquest, and they had hitherto been thought of as Hamilton-Wells; but after that year at the Castle, they became identified with the old stock, the alien Hamilton-Wells being dropped out of sight altogether.

The duke himself had always been popular. He had, like his ancestors, lived much in his castle on the hill overlooking the city, and had dominated the latter by his personality as well as by his place, so that the people, predisposed by the pressure of hereditary habit to recognize the pre-eminence of one of his family, and being no longer subject to the authority of their duke as in the old days when he was a ruler who must be obeyed, looked up to him involuntarily as an example to be followed.

Which was how it came to pass that, for the last half century, there had been two influences at work in Morningquest: that of the chime, full fraught with spiritual suggestion; and that of the duke, which was just the opposite. They were the influences of good and evil, and, needless to say, the effect of the latter was much the more certain of the two.

A great change, however, came over the duke toward the end of his life. In his youth he had filled the place with riot and debauchery; in middle age he had concealed his doings under respectable cloaks of excuse, such as the County Club and business; but now he was old and superstitious, and sought to sway the people in another direction altogether. For when his youngest daughter, the beautiful Lady Fulda, became a Roman Catholic, she wrought upon him by her earnestness so as to make him fear the flames, and drove him in that way to seek solace and salvation in the Church as well; and when he had done so himself, he rather expected, and quite intended, that everybody else should do likewise. But the people of Morningquest who had adopted his vices did not fear the flames themselves, and would have nothing to do with his piety. They were like the children in "Punch," who, when threatened with the policeman at the corner, exclaimed in derision: "Why, that's father!" And, besides, the times were changing rapidly, and the influence which remained to the aristocracy was already only dominant so long as it went the way of popular feeling and was human; directly it retrograded to past privileges, ideas, superstitions, and tastes, the people laughed at it. They knew that the threatened rule of the priest was a far-fetched anachronism which they need not fear for themselves in the aggregate, and they therefore gave themselves up with interest to the observation of such evidences of its effect on the individual as the duke should betray to them from time to time. Their theory was that, having grown too old for worldly dissipation, he had entered the Church in search of new forms of excitement, and to vary the monotony generally, as so many elderly coquettes do when they can no longer attract attention in any other way. This, the people maintained, was the nature of such religious consolation as he enjoyed; and upon that supposition certain lapses of his were accounted for uncharitably.

But, in truth, the duke was perfectly sincere. He had turned so late in life, however, that he was apt, by force of habit, to get muddled. His difficulty was to disconnect the past from the present, the two having a tendency to mix themselves up in his mind. The great interest of his old age was the building of a Roman Catholic Cathedral in Morningquest, but occasionally—and always at the most inconvenient times—he would forget it was a cathedral, and imagine it was an opera house he was supporting; and when he went to distribute the prizes in the schools, he would compliment the pretty girls on their good looks, instead of lecturing them on the sin of vanity; and promise that they should sing in the chorus, or dance in the ballet if their legs were good, when he should have been discoursing about the dangers of the vain world, and pointing the moral of happy humble obscurity. On these occasions, Lady Fulda, who was always beside him, suffered a good deal. She would pull him up in a whisper which he sometimes made her repeat, until everyone in the place had heard it but himself, and then, at last, when he did understand, he would hasten to correct himself. But, of course, it was the mistake and not the correction which made the most lasting impression.

Lady Fulda was not at all clever. In the schoolroom she was always far behind her sisters, Lady Adeline and Lady Claudia, and before his conversion, her father used to say that she had the appearance of a Juno, and the cow-like capacity one would naturally expect from the portraits of that matron now extant. But this was not fair to her intelligence, for she had a certain range which included sympathetic insight, and the knack of saying the right thing both for her own purpose and for the occasion.

She had a full exterior of uncrumpled, lineless, delicately tinted flesh; a voice that made "Good-morning" impressive when she said it; a sincerity which paused upon every expression of opinion to weigh its worth. She would hardly say; "It is a fine day," without first glancing at the weather, just to be sure that it had not changed since she decided to make the remark. And she had a great loving heart. If she did not sigh for husband and children, it was because she was never In the presence of any creature for many minutes without feeling a flood of tenderness for them suffuse her whole being, so that her affections were always satisfied. Because of her grand presence people expected great things of her, and none of them ever went disappointed away. She filled their hearts, and nobody ever complains of the head when the heart is full. Love was the secret both of her beauty and her power.

The twins arrived late one day at Morne, and immediately afterward the whole castle was pervaded by their presence, and signs of them appeared in the most unlikely places. A mysterious packet, rolled up in a sheet of the Times, considerably soiled, and known as "Angelica's work," which nobody had ever seen opened, was found in the oriel room on the seat of the chair sacred to the duke himself; and a cricket cap of Diavolo's was discovered on one of the tall candles which stood on the altar in the private chapel of the castle, as if it had been used as an extinguisher, A peculiar intentness was also observed in the expression of the children's countenances which was thought to betoken mischief, because always hitherto it had been noticed that when the gravity of their demeanour was most exemplary, the wickedness of the design upon which they were engaged was sure to be extreme. But all the old symptoms were misleading at this time, for the twins settled down at once, with lively intelligent interest, to the innocent occupation of studying the ways of the household, their own conduct being distinguished for the most part by a masterly inactivity. For the truth was they were thinking. They had lately taken to reading the books and papers and magazines of the day, which they found in the library at Hamilton House; and at Morne they followed the same occupation, and thus had an opportunity of seeing the questions which interested them treated from different points of view. At home all had been Liberal, Protestant, and progressive; but at Morne the tendency of everything was Roman Catholic, Conservative, and retrograde; and they were doing their best, as their conversations with different people at this time showed, to discover the why and wherefore, and right and wrong of the difference. Angelica was naturally the first to draw definite conclusions for herself, and having made up her own mind she began to instruct Diavolo. She was teaching him to respect women, for one thing; when he didn't respect them she beat him; and this made him thoughtful.

"You wouldn't strike me if you didn't know that I can't strike you back, because you're a girl," he remonstrated.

"And you wouldn't say that if you didn't know that the cruellest thing you can do to a woman is to hurt her feelings," she retorted.

"Oh, feelings!" exclaimed Diavolo. "You've got castanets that clack where you should have feelings."

Angelica raised her hand, and then dropped it by her side again, and looked at him.

"What do you mean by this nonsense?" she demanded. "We always have fought everything out ever since we were born."

"Yes," he said regretfully, "and you used to be as hard as nails. When I got a good hit at you it made my knuckles tingle. But now you're getting all boggy everywhere. Just look at your arms!"

Angelica ripped her tight sleeve open to the shoulder with one of her sudden jerks, and looked at her arm. "Now, see mine," said Diavolo, taking off his coat, and turning his shirt sleeve up in his more deliberate way.

Angelica held out her arm beside his to compare them. Hers was round and white and firm, with every little blue vein visible beneath the fine transparent skin; his was all hard muscle and bone, burnt brown with the sun, and coarse of texture compared with hers.

"You see, now!" he said.

Angelica slowly drew down the tattered remains of her sleeve, and then she looked at Diavolo thoughtfully, and from him to a full-length reflection of herself in a long mirror on the wall.

"We're growing up!" she said, in a surprised sort of tone.

"You are," he said, "I seem to be just about as young as ever I was."

"All the more reason that I should teach you, then," said Angelica. "Education matures the mind, and the principal instrument of education for your sex has always been a stick. Women are open to reason from their cradles, but men have to be whopped. They are thrashed at school, that being, as they have always maintained themselves, the best way to deal with them. 'He that spareth the rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.' And 'Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die.' It is only the boys, you see, that have their minds enlarged in that way, because, if you tell a girl a thing, she understands it at once. And when men grow up and things go wrong, they still think they ought to thrash each other. That is also their primitive way of settling the disputes of nations; they just hack each other down in hundreds, sacrificing the lives which are precious to the women they should be loving, for the sake of ideas that are always changing. You certainly are the stupid part of humanity!" she concluded. "And how you ever discovered the way to manage each other, I can't imagine. But it was the right one. 'A whip for the horse, a bridle for the ass, and a rod for the fool's back.'"—and so saying, she flounced out of the room, without, however, administering the parting slap of another kind which he expected.

But the episode made a lasting impression on Diavolo, as was apparent in much that he said, and particularly in some remarks which he made during a conversation he had with his grandfather toward the end of the year.

A capital understanding had always existed, between Diavolo and his grandfather, a fact which caused Lady Adeline's heart to sink every time she observed it, but had an opposite effect on the duke himself—a quite exhilarating effect, indeed, which was the cause of certain of those lapses which Lady Fulda had so often to deplore—as when, for instance, he aided and abetted Diavolo in some of his worst tricks, and then had to sit sheepishly by, saying nothing, when the boy was found out and corrected. Lady Fulda was puzzled by the intelligent glances that passed between the two at such times, but Diavolo was perfectly loyal, and never once got his grandfather into trouble.

One of the dreams of the old duke's life was to make a good Catholic of Diavolo, and to that end his conversation was often directed— intermittently it is true, because Diavolo was skilled in the art of beguiling him into other subjects when it suited himself.

The duke was turning his attention at this time, under Lady Fulda's direction, to the spiritual welfare of that class of women which in former times he had been accustomed to countenance in quite another way. Lady Fulda had established a refuge for these in Morningquest, and her father was deeply interested in the success of the undertaking. The Heavenly Twins were also much interested. At first they could not make out why their Aunt Fulda so often breakfasted in her outdoor dress, and whether she had just come in or was just going out.

If there were no visitors staying at the castle, the party at breakfast was small, there being only the old duke, Father Ricardo, Mr. Ellis, and the Heavenly Twins, as a rule. When Lady Fulda did appear the meal was usually half over.

The duke sat at the end of the long table, with the twins on either side of him, but he was generally limp and querulous in the morning, and more kindly disposed toward Father Ricardo than to his own flesh and blood, as Angelica pointed out on one occasion.

When Lady Fulda came in she always went up to her father and kissed him. He did not rise to receive the salute, but he invariably held her hand some seconds, and asked: "Any news?" anxiously; to which she always answered "Yes" or "No"; and then he would say: "You must tell me afterward. Go to your seat now. Take plenty of rest and refreshment Both are necessary; both are necessary!"

The Heavenly Twins were inclined to regard this scene with the scorn and contempt of ignorance at first; but when Lord Dawne came to the castle for a few days, with their widowed aunt Lady Claudia and Ideala, and all these paid the same reverent attention to Lady Fulda's report as the duke and Father Ricardo did, they reserved judgment until they should know more about the matter.

They asked Mr. Ellis for an explanation, but he told them bluntly to mind their own business, and further puzzled them by a remark which they chanced to hear him make about Lady Fulda to Dr. Galbraith. They did not overhear what Dr. Galbraith had said to lead up to it, but Mr. Ellis answered: "Grasp her character? She is not a character at all! She's a beautiful abstraction. Now Ideala is human."

Although the twins were Protestants by education—and also by nature, one may say—it had pleased them to go regularly to certain services in the chapel from the day of their arrival at the castle.

"We enjoy them very much," Angelica said, to the great delight of her aunt and grandfather.

"I am sure the atmosphere of devotion in which we live will have its effect upon the children," the latter said several times.

And so it had. It was never the low mass, however, at which they appeared, but the more sensuous, sumptuous functions, when there was music, of which they both were exceedingly fond, both of them being excellent musicians.

Soon after her arrival at the castle Angelica bought a big drum. She said she couldn't express her feelings on any other instrument on Sunday, her spiritual fervour was so excessive. Her behaviour in chapel, however, was for the most part exemplary. Her aunt noticed that she often knelt all through the service with a book before her, thoroughly absorbed. Lady Fulda was anxious to know what the book was, and on one occasion, when Angelica remained on her knees after the congregation had dispersed, with her handkerchief pressed to her face, apparently deeply moved, her aunt stole up behind her softly, and peeped over her shoulder, expecting to see a holy "Imitation," or something of that kind; but, to her horror, she found that the book was Burnand's "Happy Thoughts," and that Angelica's gurglings were not tears of repentance, but suppressed explosions of hearty laughter.

This happened during what proved to be rather a trying time for Lady Fulda, It was while Lord Dawne, Lady Claudia, and Ideala were at the castle, and the old duke was, as Lady Fulda delicately phrased it to her sister Claudia in private, "inclined to be tiresome." It was at this time that he had several relapses. One of these happened in chapel during benediction.

The choir had been singing O Salutaris, Hostia! at the conclusion of which everybody was startled by a senile cheer from the stalls. The duke had dosed off into a dream of the opera, and had awakened suddenly, under the impression that a wooden image of the Blessed Virgin opposite had just completed a lovely solo, and was unexpectedly following it up by an audacious pas seul.

"Aren't our ancestors like us?" Diavolo whispered to Angelica enthusiastically. But Angelica dampened his ardent admiration of the coup by refusing to believe that the diminutive duke had "done it on purpose."



CHAPTER III.

The next day Diavolo happened to stroll into the oriel room about tea-time, and finding his grandfather sitting there alone, looking down upon Morningquest from his accustomed seat in the great deep window, which was open, he carefully chose a soft cushion, placing it on the low sill so that he could rest his back against it, and stretching himself out on the floor, looked up at the old gentleman sociably.

"You're growing a big fellow, sir," the latter observed.

"But not growing so fast as Angelica is," said Diavolo.

"Ah, women mature earlier," said the duke. "But their minds never get far beyond the first point at which they arrive."

"I suppose you mean when they marry at seventeen, or their education is otherwise stopped short for them, just when a man is beginning his properly?" Diavolo languidly suggested.

The duke frowned down at him. "Where is your sister?" he asked.

"That I can't tell you," Diavolo answered.

"Don't you know?" the duke said sharply.

"Yes," was the cool rejoinder; "but I don't happen to have my sister's permission to say."

The old man's face relaxed into a smile: "That's right my boy, that's right," he said, "Loyalty is a grand virtue. Be loyal to the ladies"—he shook his head in search of an improving aphorism, but only succeeded in extracting a familiar saw. "Kiss, but never tell," he said, "it's vulgarly put, my boy, but there's a whole code in it, and a damned chivalrous code, too. I tell you, men were gentlemen when they stuck to it."

There was a sound of stealthy footsteps in the room at this moment, and the old duke glanced over his shoulder apprehensively, while Diavolo bent to one side to peer round the chair his grandfather was sitting in, which was between him and the door.

"It's one of the dogs," he said carelessly. "Father Ricardo is out, I think."

The duke looked relieved.

"Well," Diavolo resumed, reflectively, "I should have thought myself that it was playing it pretty low down to sneak on a woman. But, I say, sir," he asked innocently, "how would you define a lady-killer?"

"Lady-killer," said the little old gentleman, taking hold of his collar to perk himself up out of his clothes, as it were, on the strength of his past reputation: "A lady-killer is a—eh—a fellow whom ladies—eh—admire."

"Do you mean real ladies, or only pretty women?" said Diavolo.

"Both, my boy, both," the duke answered complacently. He was beginning to enjoy himself.

"You were one once, were you not, sir?" said Diavolo. "I suppose you had a deuced good time?"

"Ah!" the duke ejaculated, with a sigh of retrospective satisfaction. Then, suddenly remembering his new role, he pulled himself up, and added severely. "But keep clear of women, my boy, keep clear of women. Women are the very devil, sir."

"But supposing they run after you?" said Diavolo. "Nowadays, you know, a fellow gets so hunted down—they say."

"Oh—ah—then. In that case, you see," said the duke, relapsing, "the principle has always been to take the goods the gods may send you, and be thankful."

There was a pause after this, during which the duke again recollected himself.

"We were talking about women," he sternly recommenced, "and I was warning you that their wiles are snares of the evil one, who finds them ever ready to carry out his worst behests. Women are bad."

"Are they, now?" said Diavolo. "Well, I should have thought, taking them all round, you know, that they're a precious sight better than we are."

"It was a woman, my boy," the duke said solemnly, "who compassed the fall of man."

"Well," Diavolo rejoined, with a calmly judicial air, "I've thought a good deal about that story myself, and it doesn't seem to me to prove that women are weak, but rather the contrary. For you see, the woman could tempt the man easily enough; but it took the very old devil himself to tempt the woman."

"Humph!" said the duke, looking hard at his grandson.

"And, at any rate," Diavolo pursued, "it happened a good while ago, that business, and it's just as likely as not that it was Adam whom the devil first put up to a thing or two, and Eve got it out of him—for I grant you that women are curious—and then they both came a cropper together, and it was a case of six of one and half a dozen of the other. It mostly is, I should think, in a business of that kind."

"Well, yes," said the duke. "In my own experience, I always found that we were just about one as bad as the other"—and he chuckled.

"Then, we may conclude that there is a doubt about that Garden of Eden story whichever way you look at it, and it's too old for an argument at any rate," said Diavolo. "But there is no doubt about the redemption. It was a woman who managed that little affair. And, altogether, it seems to me, in spite of the disadvantage of being classed by law with children, lunatics, beggars, and irresponsible people generally, that, in the matter of who have done most good in the world, women come out a long chalk ahead of us."

"Why the devil don't you speak English, sir!" the duke burst out testily.

Diavolo started. "Good gracious, grandpapa!" he began with his customary deliberation, "how sudden you are! You quite made me jump. Is it the slang you don't like?"

"Yes sir, it is the slang I don't like."

"Then you've only got to say so," said Diavolo in a tone of mild remonstrance. "You really quite upset me when you're so sudden. Angelica will tell you I never could stand being startled. She's tried all kinds of things to cure me. You can't frighten me, you know. It's just the jump I object to."

"Oh, you object, do you?" said the duke, bending his brows upon him. "Then I apologise."

"Oh, no! pray don't mention it, sir," said Diavolo. "I didn't mean you to go so far as that, you know. And it's over in a minute."

Angelica burst into the room at this point, followed by two or three dogs, and immediately took up her favourite position on the arm of her grandfather's chair.

"I want some tea," she said.

"It's coming," said Diavolo.

"You say that because you don't want the trouble of getting up to ring," Angelica retorted.

Diavolo looked at her provokingly, and she was about to say something tart, when a footman opened the door wide, and two others entered carrying the tea-things, and at the same time the rest of the party began to assemble.

Lady Fulda was the first to arrive with her widowed sister, Lady Claudia. They presented a great contrast, the one being so perfectly lovely, the other so decidedly plain. Lady Claudia was a tall gaunt woman, hard in manner, with no pretension to any accomplishments; but wise, and of a faithful, affectionate disposition, which deeply endeared her to her friends.

Lord Dawne came in next, with Dr. Galbraith and Mr. Kilroy of Ilverthorpe, and these were followed by Father Ricardo and Mr. Ellis, after whom came Ideala herself, alone.

This was before she made her name, but already people spoke of her; and theoretically men were supposed not to like her "because of her ideas, don't you know," which were strongly opposed in some circles, especially by those who either did not know or could not understand them. There is no doubt that mankind have a rooted objection to be judged when the judge is a woman. If they cannot in common honesty deny the wisdom of her decisions they attack her for venturing to decide at all.