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Part 2, Chapter IV
Throwing Down the Gauntlet

Shortly after this day at the Rabys, Mrs Joshua Palmer went up to Waynflete ostensibly because she thought that she could be of some use to Aunt Waynflete in getting comfortably settled in there, and in finally arranging her household if, as seemed likely, she remained there for the winter, but really moved by something in her daughter’s letters which excited her anxiety. It would not do at all to have “anything” between Godfrey and Jeanie, at their age. By-and-by, if anything really came of the fancy, things might be different.

Guy and his friend were therefore left alone at Ingleby, and two or three weeks passed without much outward event, but of much inward importance.

Guy, whether wisely or unwisely, plunged into the study of such experiences as his own, and their possible explanations. He had no difficulty in these days in finding material, and he brought to bear on the subject an amount of acute intelligence and reasoning power for which Staunton had hardly given him credit. He puzzled him a good deal by his ridicule of some recorded stories, and his keen interest in others. He mastered the point of the various theories, stating and criticising them with much force, and the discussions were certainly so far good for him that he lost some of his sense of unique and shameful experience. But Cuthbert saw that he tested everything by an incommunicable and inexplicable sense, and he never uttered any definite conviction as regarded himself. He had no “nervous attacks” as Cuthbert called them; but whether the terrible night at Waynflete had done him permanent harm, or whether the strain was more continuous than appeared, he was certainly far from strong, and suffered from any extra exertion, so that the need of care was evident enough.

“I believe I was a fool to set you upon all this reading,” said Cuthbert, one day. “You’ll wear yourself out with it when I have to leave you.”

“It would be very difficult to be alone,” said Guy, thoughtfully.

“It’s out of the question. You’re not fit for the mill or for the hard winter here. You ought to have a sea-voyage, or something of that sort. Or, at any rate, come and stay on the south coast somewhere where I could make my headquarters while I’m lecturing, and see you now and then.”

“There are a great many things I can’t quite tell you,” said Guy, after a pause, “and they don’t only concern myself. It’s all right about the reading, but I’ve got something to do to-day. It’s quite simple, only rather hard. And I know ‘he’ doesn’t want me to do it.”

Guy had said nothing so personal since his first confession, and, as he got up languidly, and prepared to return to the mill for his afternoon work, giving his friend an odd, half-smiling look, as he moved away, Cuthbert felt an uncomfortable thrill.

It startled him to feel that Guy’s conviction lay absolutely untouched by all his recent study. There was something inscrutable behind the pathetic eyes, and what was it? Was the boy “mad north-north west?” or would he at last compel belief in the incredible? Horatio, Cuthbert thought, had a great advantage in having actually seen the ghost that haunted Hamlet.

Then he remembered making some remark to Guy on the “objective” character of this famous apparition, and Guy had answered, “But they only saw it, as you see a house or a tree. I don’t suppose it made much difference to them.”

Guy betook himself to the mill, and called John Cooper into the room where the bottle of brandy was still locked up in the cupboard in the wall. He had often been as conscious of its presence there, as he could have been of that of the ghost; every morning he thought about it more and more persistently, and every evening when he went away he knew that the day’s victory had left him with less strength for the morrow’s conflict.

Now, when he went up to the cupboard, and turned the key in the lock, and, with his keen ears heard the old manager’s step crossing the court – it was to him as if another hand pushed the lock back – and another than himself suggested a different reason for the summons. But he stood still, leaning against the wall, till the old man came into the room.

Then he put up his hand, and let the door swing open.

“John Cooper,” he said, “take that out, and take it away with you. I’ll own you had right on your side. But you shouldn’t have cackled about it to Mrs Waynflete.”

“Well now,” said Cooper, in a rougher echo of the young man’s slow, musical voice, “I’ve thought of that myself. I’m glad you’ve come to a better mind about it, Mr Guy, for I’d not be willing to see the old missus disappointed in your future.”

“She don’t expect much,” said Guy. “Now then,” after Cooper had taken the brandy-bottle out of the cupboard, and set it beside a file of bills. “Now that you see I’m not going to send the business and myself to the dogs, shut the door, I’ve something to say.”

John Cooper obeyed, and Guy sat down by the table.

“Now then,” he repeated, “we are going to the dogs, and you know it. Let’s look it in the face.”

“Eh, Mr Guy, trade’s fluctuating. We’ll pull round without letting th’ owd lady know there’s aught wrong.”

“Look here,” said Guy, opening a paper, “d’ye think I’ve no brains in my head? Look at the number of orders for this year, and last year, and ten years back. Look at the receipts. What’s the use of spending money on setting all those out-of-date old looms in order? Where’s the sense of manufacturing the sort of goods people don’t want, instead of what they do? Is that the way these mills were run sixty years ago, when old Mr Thomas managed the business?”

“He got the new looms, sir.”

“Exactly so; and wouldn’t he have seen long ago that they were worn out. Look here, John, we’ll have to pull up, and put our shoulders to the wheel, or we’ll have Palmer Brothers down among the failures before many months are over.”

“Eh, Mr Guy, for the Lord’s sake don’t say so. Don’t mention such a thing. ’Tis those new mills over Rilston way – and the price of coals – and trade being bad ever since the Government – Eh, my lad, just think of your old auntie, seeing all her life work undone, and having to sell the property she’s so proud over.”

Here Guy started slightly, as the old man’s voice choked.

“But we’re not going to fail,” he said. “We’re going to fight it out and pull through; that is, if you back me up.”

John Cooper stared at him incredulously. Besides his natural surprise that this “laddie” was old enough to have a say in the matter, and besides his not unjustifiable suspicions of him, Guy’s delicate outlines and look of ill-health – in fact, his whole air – was so unlike that of the powerful old woman who had so long held the reins, that the identical form of the lines into which his lips set, was unperceived, and the sudden, keen glance that came through the silky black lashes, from the usually absent eyes, was startling.

“You know well enough, sir,” said Cooper shakily, “that there’s nought I wouldn’t do for the old lady and the business. She’s been a grand character all her days, and if there’s a curse on the Waynfletes, she set her teeth against it when she was but a slip of a lass, with rosy cheeks and eyes that could look the sun down.”

“Ay?” said Guy. “What d’ye mean by a curse on the Waynfletes?”

“Well, sir, of course it’s only a manner of speech; but there were plenty to say that Margaret Waynflete’d bring Palmers her own ill luck. Now, I say, Margaret never brought ill luck to any man; and Mr Thomas had the best of good fortune when he took her with her shawl over her head and without a penny. Bad luck’ll never overtake her now in her old age.”

“It will, unless we set our teeth against it pretty hard. I’m going to tight. Now, look here, it all depends on what money or credit can be produced now. In a few months it will be too late. I’m going to make my aunt attend to what I have to say; and, if I can, get her to trust me. For she’ll have to trust me with all she has, and make me the master, or down we shall go. And what you’ve got to do, is to tell her honestly, from the bottom of your soul, that you trust me, and know I’ve got her own grit in me. So now, I give you my solemn word of honour that I’ll never touch a drop of strong drink till ‘Palmer Brothers’ is itself again, and Waynflete safe; and, if I fail, may I become part of the curse myself. So here goes!”

He took up the brandy-bottle, and threw it out of the window, down into the shallow, dark-dyed stream below. They heard it crack against the stony bottom.

“Now then,” said Guy, “will you back me up?”

“Lord, Mr Guy! That was unnecessary behaviour,” said the bewildered Cooper; “and very strong language to use. But I’ll go along with you. You’ve brought me to look the Lord’s will in the face – which isn’t easy at seventy-eight – for there’s not a matter of four years between me and the missus. But I’ll serve you faithful, Mr Guy; and if the Almighty means us to fail – ”

“But He don’t,” said Guy. “It’s quite another sort of person that means it. Now sit down, and we’ll talk business.”

As Guy marshalled his figures and his facts, asked penetrating questions, and prepared the statement to which Mrs Waynflete must at all costs be made to hearken, Cooper, who had a hard enough head of his own, silently gave in and yielded his whole allegiance. Only when the interview was over, he said, pleadingly —

“You’ll be gentle, Mr Guy? For it don’t come easy to old folks to turn their minds upside down. It is easy for a young lad like you to act.”

“Think so?” said Guy, with a queer, sad look. “Well, I’ll do what I can.”

He was much more tired than was good for him, as he came in to the study, in the rapidly increasing darkness of the autumn afternoon. Cuthbert was not there, and all his sense of courage and energy failed him; for, the more resolutely a nervous strain is encountered, the less power of resistance is left. He grew drowsy in the dusk, then roused up suddenly to the agony of panic-fear, to the intolerable sense of his enemy within him. He might cover eyes and ears, but it entered by no such avenues – anything to drown – to bury it. There was whisky in the cupboard. He staggered to his feet, and the next moment Cuthbert’s hand was on his shoulder.

“Steady, my boy, steady. What is it? Lie down again. I am here; you’ll be better in a minute.”

Guy clung to the hand of flesh and blood as if he had been drowning. He hid his face, not hearing one word that Cuthbert said. He was not merely suffering terror, but struggling, fighting to free himself, to escape, to separate himself from the influence that seemed to be upon him, resisting and opposing it with all his strength. “Oh, help – help!” he gasped.

“Yes – yes, my dear boy. Lie still. It will pass off directly.”

And very soon, in two or three minutes, as Cuthbert counted time, the agony seemed to cease, and Guy dropped back, deadly faint, but with closed eyes and smooth brow.

Cuthbert brought him, as soon as he let go his desperate hold, some of the remedy provided by the doctor, and tended him with a care and kindness altogether new to him.

“It’s much better with you here,” said Guy, presently, as if half-surprised.

“Of course it is. You were so tired; no wonder a bad dream upset you.”

Guy lifted his heavy eyes for a moment, and looked at him.

“A very bad dream,” he said drily. “It’s over now.”

“Tell me what it was?”

“He came, that’s all. No, I can’t tell you. You don’t understand; but you help.”

Cuthbert did not think him fit for an argument, and sat by him in silence. He felt that the sight of Guy’s agony had tried his own nerves somewhat. It was an odd turn of fate, he thought, that brought a quiet, everyday person like himself, to whom no great heights or depths, either of character or of fortune, were likely to come, who held steady, unexciting opinions, and expected no revelations about anything, to be guide, philosopher, and friend, to this strange being, for whom the balance swung with such frightful oscillations.

Guy was very quiet all the evening, submitting with a little surprise to his friend’s precautions, but evidently finding it comfortable to have done with concealment.

Only, the last thing of all, he looked at Cuthbert with his mocking smile on his lip – “What a ‘softy’ I should be,” he said, “if this was what you think it!”

Part 2, Chapter V
The Mother’s Book

Some few days before the stay at Moorhead came to an end, Kitty Staunton received a letter, which surprised her greatly, as it came from a person of whose existence she had never previously heard. It was signed “Catherine Maxwell,” and began, “My dear young cousin,” and stated that the writer had heard from her old friend Mrs Raby that the Miss Stauntons were staying at Moorhead, and that, as she believed them to be her cousin George Maxwell’s grandchildren, it would give her great pleasure to make their acquaintance; would they come over and spend the day with her at her little cottage at Ousel well, bringing with them any of their young friends who cared for the drive?

Kitty and Violet being curious and interested, and Florella being inclined for the expedition, the three set off one fine brisk morning; over the moors on the opposite side to Kirk Hinton, and came to a little cold, fresh village, high up on the side of a narrow valley. Here in a cold, fresh little house, with latched doors painted with thin white paint, and deeply recessed windows looking into a little garden full of hardy plants, now turning brown and yellow with the autumn frosts, they found an apple-cheeked old lady dressed in a shot-silk gown of so old a style that it was just about to come again into fashion. She spoke with so strong a northern accent that the London girls caught what she said with difficulty; but she made them most heartily welcome, gave them some very thin and long-legged fowls for dinner, followed up by curds and red-currant jelly. Then she showed them sundry curiosities, which they knew how to admire. There was a filigree basket, like to the one which Rosamond of the Purple Vase made for her cousin’s birthday, and for which she was so unmercifully snubbed by the common sense of her unfeeling parents. There were engravings in oval frames, bits of Leeds china, an old spinning-wheel, and finally, a quaintly shaped card-table, which on being opened, displayed, instead of green cloth, an exquisitely worked pattern of faded roses in the very finest tent-stitch.

“And that, cousin love,” she said, “was in Waynflete Hall when it belonged to my great-grandfather Maxwell.”

“Really!” said Kitty, with much interest. “Our brother Cuthbert is staying with Mr Guy Waynflete at Ingleby now. It was through him that we came to Moorhead.”

Miss Maxwell looked quite awestruck.

“Well, well,” she said, “young people’s ways are different. I should never have made myself known to Mrs Waynflete, nor should I think of calling at Waynflete, even if I visited at that distance. Not that I keep up old grudges, my love, but there’s a delicacy in such matters.”

“Cuthbert knew Mr Waynflete a long time before they knew about any former connection. I don’t think it troubles them, they are great friends.”

“Ah!” said Miss Maxwell. “Guy, too, I hope – ”

“Cousin Catherine,” said Violet, boldly; “I am sure you can tell us delightful old stories of the two families. Do! Tell us about the ghost and the Guy Waynflete who never got back in time. Have we got a ghost as well as the Waynfletes?”

“Oh no, love,” said Miss Maxwell, “our family was never of that kind; and indeed, when there’s so much drinking and dissipation as there was among the Waynfletes, there’s no need of ghosts to bring ruin. And I’m sure your brother will always remember, that it was all in the way of business my great-grandfather obtained the place.”

“And how did he lose it again?” asked Violet.

“My dear, through business misfortunes,” said Miss Maxwell, with dignity. “And Ouseley, which is only a few miles up the valley, was sold in my father’s time. But I’ve been thinking, there are no Ouseley Maxwells left but me. And I have a few old letters which perhaps your brother ought to have.”

“I’m sure Cuthbert would be delighted to come and see them and you,” said Kitty.

“Oh no, Cousin Catherine,” interposed Violet; “do let us see them. We can tell Cuth, or give them to him; but old family letters, especially about Waynflete and the ghosts, would be quite too awfully jolly.”

Miss Maxwell looked at the blooming girl with her outspoken voice and her straight-looking eyes, her sailor hat, and her boyish jacket, as if she had never thought of any one like her before; she sighed and looked solemn, but pulled out the drawer of the card-table, and took therefrom, with great mystery, two or three yellow-looking letters, an old Prayer-book, and a very dirty pack of cards, and on one of these she pointed out a dark stain. “My loves,” she whispered; “this was stained on that fatal night with Squire Waynflete’s life blood.”

Violet became suddenly serious, and Florella could hardly help crying out in protest against touching these things which seemed to her full of a living trouble.

Miss Maxwell opened the Prayer-book which was bound in red morocco, most delicately tooled and gilt. On the title-page was written “Margaret Waynflete” and the dates of the births of her two sons. “Guy Waynflete, born June 19th, 1760,” and then “My Pretty Baby;” then “Godfrey Waynflete, 1764,” and then in the same pointed, careful hand —

“The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear Him.”

Florella could not speak a word, and when the book was handed to her to look at, she laid her hand on it with a soft, reverent touch.

Then Miss Maxwell with some ceremony opened the two papers, and begged Kitty to read them aloud.

The first was in the hand of this long dead Margaret Waynflete, and was evidently the brief commencement of a journal or diary.

February 10th, 1785. – My son Guy has gone to London.

February 12th. – We have killed another little Pig.

February 13th. – Attorney Maxwell is more Obliging than I like to See.

February 14th. – My Brother Godfrey did begin by Mistake the Funeral Service instead of the Marriage, for an honest couple. This Comes of Carousing. Alas!

March 25th. – My Chittyprat Hen has a Fine Brood. There be no letter from my son Guy, which angers his Father. My poor Boy. He is better even in Town than Here. Does God indeed permit the Spirit of His wicked Ancestor to Trouble Him? Alas! there is Wickedness Enough Alive.

April 15th. – The Pain at my Heart is great, I have nigh Swooned with it. N.B. – To distil lavender and drop Into it Cloves, for a Cordial. Death would be No evil, but for my two Sons, but this House would be no Home.

Here the brief record suddenly stopped, only lower down on the page were faintly and unsteadily written the words, “My dear son.”

“There was the ghost then, you see,” said Violet, in awestruck tones. “Oh, go on, Kitty. It is interesting.”

“There’s no more,” said Kitty. “The other paper is quite different.”

This was dated October 10th, 1785, and began —

“I, George Maxwell, Attorney-at-law, feel it incumbent upon me for the Establishment of my Character as an Honest Man, to state in writing what passed after the Shocking and Lamentable Suicide of Guy Waynflete, Esquire, of Waynflete Hall, which Property is legally mine by the Terms of the Bond between Us. Since there be not wanting envious Persons to say that! Took advantage of young Mr Waynflete’s Illness, which Prevented his Return at the Given Date. When he Arrived in the Early Morning, he was Undoubtedly in liquor, which was his Custom, therefore His Statement that the Spirit of his Ancestor, Guy Waynflete, Who Betrayed his Friend, and the Father of his Future wife, and so Disgraced his Family at the Time of the Lamentable Rebellion of the Duke of Monmouth, stood in his Path, and Prevented Him from Crossing the River Flete, hath no Credit with Reasonable Men. There be Some that say Highwaymen are Plentiful, but Lies, in the mouth of this Young Gentleman, are more Plentiful still. At the sight of His Father’s Corpse he fell into a swoon and Awoke Raving, in which Condition he Died This Morning. The Lad Godfrey is but a Loutish Youth, but I am Willing to Assist Parson Godfrey to put Him to some Honest Calling. I do not Hold with Country superstitions, and I shall Instruct my Wife and Daughters that the Gallopping of the Horse Round the House be nothing but the Wind in the Plantations.”

“Well!” said Violet, with calm emphasis, “whatever the Waynfletes were, our ancestor was a beast, and I hope the Stauntons were more respectable.”

Florella sat quite still. She knew the sound that was called the gallopping of a horse, and had once or twice been taken in by it, as a child at Waynflete, and she felt as sure as if she had herself experienced it, that whatever the evil was, inward or outward, which had defeated this unhappy Guy Waynflete a hundred years ago, it was alive and at work still. And she knew, too, that she had ranged herself on the other side, and entered into definite conflict with it.

The result of this visit was that a post-card from his sister summoned Cuthbert Staunton up to Moorhead on the day after Guy’s interview with John Cooper.

He was shown his old cousin’s treasures, which she had entrusted to Kitty for the purpose, as soon as he arrived, and studied them with a grave face, and with a far deeper interest than his sisters guessed.

“I think,” he said, “that these things ought to be given back to the Waynfletes. I shall go and see this old lady, and see what her view is.”

“Oh yes,” exclaimed Florella, suddenly, “Mr Staunton, I am sure they ought to have them.”

“In any case,” said Cuthbert, “I will take them and let Waynflete see them. And I say, I think you had better drop joking about the ghost. It was a great tragedy, and they might not like it.”

“Well, but it’s all nonsense, and dead and done for,” said Violet.

“It happened,” said Cuthbert.

He looked so serious, that Constancy’s keen eyes noticed him with inquiry, and Florella, oh, how much she wondered what he knew.

They all walked out together to see the departing purple of the autumn moor, now fading into russet, and as they went down the road, a boy trotted up on a pony, and put a telegram into Cuthbert’s hand.

“From Guy Waynflete, Ingleby Station. My aunt has sent for me. I must go, excuse me. Make yourself comfortable. Will telegraph when to expect me back, but not to-day.”

Cuthbert uttered a dismayed exclamation which frightened the girls, and obliged him to read the telegram aloud.

“Why, how very polite, and how very extravagant to telegraph up here! You would have heard when you got back. He must have paid five shillings for it!” said Kitty.

“He is rather punctilious,” answered Cuthbert. “But I hope nothing is wrong. He is not well, and I am sorry he has had to go off in this way. He meant to go to-morrow.”

The words expressed Cuthbert’s anxiety very inadequately; he fell silent, and Violet said —

“Well, he’ll have a more comfortable journey than the old Guy, and there won’t be quite so much depending on his getting there by a particular moment.”

“I told you to let all that subject drop, Vi,” said Cuthbert, sharply.

When the visitor was gone, Florella walked aside, and, in the late afternoon, she went away by herself over the withering heather to the rock where she had shown Guy the harebells.

There was no blue now, either in flowers or sky; the wind was driving a heavy, smoky mist before it, and the air was, as Dante calls it, “brown.”

Could it be possible that Guy had meant her to know what he was doing?

She knew, she saw, that the old story was not “dead and done for!” There came upon her an awful, formless dread that Guy would never reach Waynflete “safe.” She stood quite still, with her eyes wide open, and one hand holding by the jagged rock beside her. Her soul was alive within her, and wrestled with the angel – whether of light or of darkness, she did not know. She held Guy’s soul with hers as with her hand she might have held his, giving him all her strength, and her spirit stretched and strained as the muscles might have done in a struggle for dear life. There were at first no words within her. It was a shapeless foe; but gradually as she pitted all the force of her soul against it, there came into her the sense, not only of fear and peril, but of evil – images, thoughts, words, flashed into her innocent soul. Hitherto she had had no consciousness of prayer, only of struggle, but now she cried out to the Presence that was with him and her to reinforce her strength. And happily, blessedly, that Presence within her was not without form and void, she dropped on her knees, sobbing out over and over again the prayers of her earliest childhood. For the form that was within her was that of the Son of God.

When Florella came back to the outer world, and felt the wet mist on her face, and the wind blowing through her hair, and pulled at the damp heather with her hand, there was scarcely any daylight left. She could hardly recall at first what had passed within her, nothing remained clear, but a picture in her mind of the Flete beck, and of the woody hollow through which it ran, such a picture as she “saw” when she was going to make a sketch. She felt silly and confused, as if she did not quite know where she was, and as if she had worked herself up into an agony that had no cause or meaning.

Then she thought of Guy Waynflete, and she knew that the unconscious child-heart, with which she had entered that valley, had gone for ever, and that, whatever else she had given him in that mysterious hour, her love had gone out to him beyond recall. Interest, helpfulness, sympathy? These he had in a manner asked for, and in giving them, she had given how much more? She had flung herself out of herself to help him, and behold, she had come back to herself, with yearnings and longings and hopes and fears, that seemed full of selfish passion. The poor angel had fallen out of the sky!

The wet wind stung her hot cheeks with its cold blast. Suddenly she moved, and climbing up the rock, peered anxiously into the bunch of withered harebells, which had once stood up so brave and blue in the heavenly blue around them. There was – yes, there was one little living bud at the tip of a withering stem.

Florella did not pick it or take it to herself. She was going away to-morrow; she would never know if it came into flower. Perhaps she would never know how Guy had reached Waynflete.

She kissed the little bud, and then pulled her cloak straight and went home to supper, shutting up the new burden tight in her breast.

Constancy, meanwhile, was sitting comfortably by the fire, when there was a crack of wheels on the wet gravel, a deep voice outside, an opening door, and Godfrey Waynflete’s tall figure and flaxen head in the doorway.

“Why, this is a surprise!” exclaimed Cosy. “Then there is nothing amiss at Waynflete, though your brother was sent for.”

“Then Guy has been here? I knew it – ”

“Not at all. But Mr Staunton has, and your brother telegraphed to him to say that Mrs Waynflete wanted him, and he had to go over.”

“Guy had to go to Waynflete? My aunt sent for him?”

“So it appeared. Did you come here to look for him – so late?”

Godfrey stood still, confused and unable to put two and two together so as to see what had taken place. He had posted some letters for his aunt yesterday, in his careless preoccupation, half an hour too late, and to-day he had had a telegram from Guy.

“Constancy!” he cried, “I see, think, feel, no one but you. I was determined that Guy should not spoil my one chance of a last word with you.”

“But what made you suppose your brother was here?” interrupted Constancy.

“He sent a telegram about a trap – at Kirk Hinton. I tore it up. I wasn’t going to let him interfere with my last word with you. He might get a trap for himself.”

“And you didn’t send it? Then you had better go after him as quick as you can; Mrs Waynflete wanted him, and I wouldn’t have her disappointed for the world. Is she ill, dear old lady? Why did you come away? And oh, if I was your brother, wouldn’t I give it you when you got home again!”

Cosy stood up by the mantelpiece. Her eyes glittered mischievously. She enjoyed seeing Godfrey out of countenance.

But Godfrey, after the first moment of surprise, felt nothing but that he was with her and alone. He came close up to her, and stood towering over her.

“Constancy, I’d do a good deal more than that to buy this five minutes. Won’t you give me a little hope? You’ll never have another fellow give himself, heart and soul and body, to you as I do. I love you.”

“And I love fifty other things and other people. I haven’t got a bit of feeling for you!” cried Cosy, desperately. “Why, I’m making a story out of you as you stand there before me. Is that caring anything about you?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t care. I only know that I want you. Give me a chance. Without you I shall never come to good.”

“I don’t think you will,” said Constancy, suddenly and keenly. “I have said no, and there’s an end of it. You seem to have played a very mean sort of trick on your brother, and you can’t expect to get any good out of it. You certainly won’t from me.”

“Constancy – ”

“If you were a little older and wiser, you would know what an impossible sort of way you have behaved in. But I suppose you must be excused, because you are a boy, and know no better.”

He turned white with anger.

“I don’t know if I love you, or hate you,” he said. “But you shall never say that to me again.”

He was gone in a moment, leaving Constancy stirred, upset, and frightened, so strong was the contest between his boyish and foolish behaviour, and the impression of strength and passion made upon her by himself. She was quite sure that she hated him.

Godfrey sprang into his dog-cart, and drove down the rough, stony hillside, at a break-neck pace. He was mad with anger at Constancy and at himself, while stings of conscience and vague alarm pierced the tumult of wrath, and added to its heat. He thought neither of ghost nor ancestor, as he drove madly along the stony lanes that led through the valley of the Flete; but he pressed on, as though driven by furies, fear of what he might find gradually forcing itself upon him, till, as he reached the bridge, and looked towards the house, he saw that the windows of the octagon room were full of light. In sudden alarm, he dashed on up the old avenue to the stable door.