Hathercourt

He sat still for a few moments longer, then suddenly rose from his seat.

“I’ll do it,” he said; “right or wrong, it seems the honestest thing. I’ll do it.”

He hunted about for writing materials, and, having found them, set to work at once on a letter. He did not hesitate in writing it; he seemed at no loss what to say, and in less than half an hour it was completed, signed, sealed and addressed to Mrs Western, Hathercourt Rectory.

Then the young man gave a deep sigh of relief, went to bed, and slept soundly till morning. But very early he was astir again; before many members of the Romary household even – for it was, compared with many, an early one – were about, Captain Beverley had crossed the park, and traversed on foot the two miles to the nearest post-office, that of Uxley, where he deposited his letter, and was at home again before Mr Cheviott made his appearance for the eight o’clock breakfast, necessitated by their intended journey.

A couple of hours later found the two young men in the train.

“Laurence,” began Captain Beverley, but his cousin interrupted him.

“Excuse me, Arthur. I want to say something to you before I forget. You must let me be the spokesman with Maudsley; if he proposes, as I expect, to carry your affairs to the Court of Chancery, I think it will be best for his mind to be perfectly unprejudiced, and to let his instructions, in the first place anyway, come from me. You, I am certain, would not tell the story impartially – you would tell it against your own interests.”

“I must tell it as it is, Laurence,” said Arthur, “and, no doubt facts will show that I am, at least, as much to blame as Alys for the non-fulfillment of my father’s wishes. For, Laurence, I was just going to tell you when you interrupted me – I’ve done it, out and out. I couldn’t stand leaving things as they were; it wasn’t fair to her, nor honest to any one, somehow. I have written and sent a formal proposal for Lilias to her parents. I sent it to her mother, because her father is ill.”

“And what did you say?”

“I told them that my prospects were most uncertain – I might be poor, I might be rich, and probably should not know which for two years, but that, at the worst, I could work for my livelihood, and was preparing myself for such a possibility.”

Mr Cheviott was silent.

“Are you awfully annoyed with me, Laurence?”

A half smile broke over Mr Cheviott’s face at the question.

“Upon my soul,” he said, “I don’t know. If a fellow will cut his own throat – ”

“Complimentary to Miss Western,” said Arthur.

“Well, well, you know what I mean. I allow that, in your case, there was strong temptation, and, of course, Arthur, I respect you for your straightforwardness and downrightness. Personally, I have certainly no reason to be annoyed. What the relief to me will be of having this horrible concealment at an end, you can hardly imagine – the misconception it has exposed me to – good God!” He stopped abruptly. Arthur stared at him in amazement.

“I had no idea you felt so strongly about it, Laurence,” he said. “It makes me all the more thankful I have done what I have. You refer to Alys, of course? I know she must have been puzzled, but nothing would shake her confidence in you, old fellow, and now she will understand everything.”

“Yes, it would, of course, be an absurdity to carry out the directions about not telling her, once you are openly engaged to Miss Western,” replied Mr Cheviott. “And, I suppose, you have not much misgiving as to what the answer will be to your letter?”

“I don’t know,” said Arthur. “It will all come right in the end, but I expect her people to hesitate, at first, on account of the uncertainty. But you don’t think there will be any question of stopping my allowance, in the mean time, if I marry before the stated period is out?”

“I think not. I can take that upon me – for Alys. But if we appeal to the court at once it will probably confirm your income till things are settled.”

That same evening the cousins returned home. Some light, but not much satisfaction, was the result of their journey. Mr Maudsley approved of the course proposed by Mr Cheviott, but was decidedly of opinion that no decision could be arrived at till the date fixed by Arthur’s father for his son’s coming of age. “And then?” eagerly inquired both men. He could not say – it was an unusual, in fact, an extraordinary case, but, on the whole, seeing that the non-fulfillment of the testator’s wishes was at least as much the lady’s doing as the gentleman’s – a contingency which never seemed to have dawned upon Mr Beverley – on the whole it seemed improbable that Captain Beverley should be declared the sufferer. “But it was a most extraordinary complication, no doubt,” repeated Mr Maudsley, and he was glad to feel that neither he nor any one connected with him had had anything to do with the drawing up of so short-sighted a document as the late Mr Beverley’s last will and testament.

“Who did draw it up?” said Arthur, turning to his cousin.

“A stranger,” was the reply. “You know he consulted no one about it. He knew my father would altogether have opposed it. But it is perfectly legal. Mr Maudsley and I have tried often enough to find some flaw in it,” he added, with a slight smile.

“And what about telling Alys?” said Arthur, with some little hesitation, as the dog-cart was entering the Romary gates.

“I think,” said Laurence, “I think, as she knows, or has guessed so much, it is best to tell her all. It is to some extent left to my discretion to explain the whole to her should it be evident that the conditions cannot be fulfilled, which I have always interpreted to mean in case of her or your marriage, or engagement to some one else. Of course there are people who would say that you are not yet married, hardly engaged, and that I should wait, to be sure. But honestly I confess, after what has happened, it would be repulsive to me, in fact, impossible to go on dreaming that your father’s wishes ever could be fulfilled. The worst of such a deed as your father’s will is that all I can do is to act up to the letter of his instructions – as for the spirit of it – !”

“You’ve done your best,” said Arthur, re-assuringly; “far better than any other fellow in the same position could have done. Just you see if Alys doesn’t say so. It’s been a horrid sell for you altogether, and – ”

“Not the not getting your patrimony. You don’t mean that?” interrupted Laurence. “Heaven only knows what the relief will be to me if, as I am beginning to hope, it is decidedly the right way.”

“No, I didn’t mean that exactly,” said Arthur. “I know you and Alys are less selfish and grasping than any two people I have ever come across —cela va sans dire– I meant the bother and worry and all the rest of it. I wish somehow something might go to Alys. I can’t help wishing that, you see, knowing it all and feeling just as if she were my own sister.”

“Don’t wish it,” said Laurence, shortly. “Alys will have enough. Married or single she need never be dependent on any one.”

“Ah, yes!” returned Arthur; “but still – She wouldn’t be the worse of a home of her own. Downham now – it’s a nice little place, and what on earth should I do with two —three, there’s the Edge,” he added, with a merry, boyish laugh – “if Downham, now, could be settled on Alys, for, you see, Laurence,” he added, seriously, and as hesitating to allude to anything so completely out of the range of probabilities, “after all, it’s just possible you may marry.”

“I suppose so,” said Laurence, with a touch of bitterness in his tone which Arthur, had he perceived, would have been at a loss to explain, “I suppose so, but so highly unlikely, it is no use taking it into consideration one way or another. Confess now, Arthur, you hardly could, could you, imagine such a thing as any girl’s caring for me?”

Arthur looked up at his cousin with some surprise. Was Laurence joking? He could not tell.

“I don’t know why one shouldn’t,” he said, meditatively. “A girl, I mean – I don’t see why you need fancy yourself so unattractive. You’re good-looking enough, and – come now, Laurence, that’s not fair; you’re leading me out to laugh at me,” for so only could he interpret the slight smile that flickered over his cousin’s face.

“I was in earnest, I assure you,” said Mr Cheviott. “However, never mind. We’ll postpone the discussion of my charms to a more convenient season. Here we are at home.”

“Shall you have your talk with Alys to-night?” said Arthur.

“Probably – unless, that is to say, you would rather I should wait till – till – how shall I put it? – till you get a reply to your letter to Hathercourt.”

“No,” said Arthur, decidedly, “don’t put it off on that account. Whatever disappointment in the shape of delay or hesitation may be in store for me, I’ve no misgiving as far as Lilias herself is concerned. She’s as true as steel. And in any case Alys deserves my confidence. No sister could have been stauncher to me through all than she has been.”

And so it was decided, though, glad as Laurence felt to put an end once and for always to the only misconception that had ever existed between his sister and himself, a strange indefinable reluctance to tell her all clung to him.

“She will hate so to hear the idea of a marriage with Arthur discussed or alluded to,” he said to himself. “Girls are such queer creatures. However, the more reason to get it over. Will she ever tell it to Mary Western, I wonder? I shall lay no embargo upon her, for sooner or later Arthur is sure to tell the elder sister the whole story. But even if it were all explained, what then? I said in my fury that day what I wish I could forget – I said to her that I could have made her care for me. Could I? Ah, no – such deep prejudice and aversion could never be overcome. As Arthur could not conceal in his honesty, I am very far from an attractive man – not one likely to ‘find favour in my lady’s eyes.’ I am certainly not ‘a pretty fellow.’ Ah, well, so be it!”

Chapter Thirty
“Amendes Honourables.”

 
”… But what avails it now
To speak more words? We’re parting,
Let it be in kindness, give me good-bye,
Tell me you understand, or else forgive.”
 
 
“I’ve nothing to forgive; you love me not,
And that you cannot help, I fancy.”
 

Hon. Mrs Willoughby. —Euphemia.

But, as not unfrequently happens, Mr Cheviott found the anticipation worse than the reality. Alys was upstairs in her own room when they got to the house, and she begged her brother not to ask her to come down that evening.

“I am not ill,” she said, “only tired and nervous, somehow. Come up to me after dinner, Laurence, and let us have a good talk – that will do me more good than anything.”

She looked up at him with a curious questioning in her eyes that struck him as strangely pathetic.

“Yes,” he said to himself, “she must be told all.”

So the way was paved for his revelations. And Alys was sufficiently prepared for them to manifest no very overwhelming surprise. She listened in silence till Laurence had told her all. Then she just said quietly:

“Laurence, it was a cruel will.”

“Yes,” said her brother, “however intended, so it has indeed proved.”

“Going near,” pursued Alys, softly, almost as if speaking to herself, “going near to spoil two, four, nay, I may say five lives,” she whispered. “Oh, thank God, Laurence, it is at an end!”

She clasped her thin little hands nervously. How changed she was – Alys, poor Alys, who used to ignore the very existence of nerves!

Her next remark struck Mr Cheviott unexpectedly.

“Laurence,” she said, “I wonder if Mary Western will ever know all this!”

He had it on his lips to answer, “The sooner so, the better,” but he could not. Instead thereof his reply sounded cool and unconcerned in the extreme.

“Possibly she may, some time or other. Arthur is sure to tell Lilias Western whom it does concern. But why should you care about her sister’s knowing it?”

“Because I do,” Alys replied, oracularly.

There was a large allowance of letters in the Romary post-bag the next morning. Several for Captain Beverley – all of which, but one, he put hastily aside. And his heightened colour and evident anxiety could not but have betrayed to his companions whence came that one, had not both Mr Cheviott and Miss Winstanley been absorbed by news of unusual interest in their respective letters.

“Laurence,” said Arthur, at last, when for the time letters were put down, and breakfast began to receive some attention, “is that yesterday’s Times? Have you looked at it? I wonder if there is a death in it of some one I know – you know who I mean – the last of those poor Brookes, Basil’s brother, I mean Anselm, a boy of eighteen. I hear he died at Hastings, two days ago.”

“I don’t know about its being in the Times,” replied Mr Cheviott, “but, curiously enough, I have just heard of it in a letter from an old friend of mine, Mrs Brabazon, an aunt of the poor fellow’s, and – ”

“And?” said Arthur, eagerly.

Mr Cheviott glanced at Miss Winstanley. “Afterwards,” he formed with his lips, rather than by pronouncing the word, in reply to his cousin. But Miss Winstanley had caught something of what they were saying.

“The Brookes,” she exclaimed, “are you talking of the Brookes of Marshover?” and when both her companions answered affirmatively, “How very odd!” she went on, growing quite excited. “My letter is all about them too. It is from my old friend, Miss Mashiter, who has been staying at the same hotel at Hastings as the Brookes are at, and she is quite upset about the poor young fellow’s death – it was so sudden at the last, and there is such a romantic story about. It appears that a cousin of the young man’s came to Hastings lately, a most exquisitely beautiful creature, with whom he had been in love since early boyhood, though somewhat older than himself, and she has been devoting herself to him, and now the report is that, just before he died, he got his poor father to promise to leave everything to her – he has no child left, and the Brookes are enormously rich. What a catch the young lady will be!”

“Aunt Winstanley, I am ashamed of you!” said Mr Cheviott. “I had no idea you were so worldly-minded. You don’t mean to say you ever heard of such a thing as a girl’s losing a lover and consoling herself with another – especially when the first had, as you say in this case, left her a fortune?”

“It is very sad,” agreed Miss Winstanley, quite deceived by Mr Cheviott’s tone – “very sad, but such is the way of the world, Laurence. Of course, I would not say such a thing before Alys.”

“Of course not,” said her nephew, approvingly.

Arthur looked up with relief; for the instant, Miss Winstanley’s story had startled him a little – for to whom could the episode of the beautiful cousin refer but to Lilias, still, as her mother’s letter informed him, at Hastings, “doing what she can for our poor friends there.” But there must be great nonsense mixed up with Miss Mashiter’s gossip, Arthur decided, seeing that Laurence, who had the correct version of the whole in his hands, could afford to tease Miss Winstanley about it. The poor boy – Anselm Brooke – was dead, but still – the idea of Lilias’s name being coupled with that of any man, or boy even, was not altogether palatable, and still less that of her being an heiress!

“What a mercy I yielded to my inspiration and wrote to Mrs Western yesterday!” he replied. “To-day, after hearing that report, nonsensical though it probably is, I should hardly have liked to write.”

He was thankful when Miss Winstanley at length got up from her seat – her breakfast seemed to have been an interminable affair that morning – and saying that she must go and ask what sort of a night Alys had had, left the cousins to themselves.

“What is your news? What does Mrs Brabazon write about?” exclaimed Arthur, eagerly, almost before the door had closed on Miss Winstanley.

“Rather,” said Laurence, “What is yours? Mine will keep, but you, I see, have a letter from Hathercourt which, I am sure, you are dying to tell me all about.”

“To show you, if you like,” said Arthur, holding it out to his cousin. “You have guessed, I see, that it is all I could wish.”

It was a thoroughly kind and sensible reply from Mrs Western. She made no pretence of astonishment at the nature of Captain Beverley’s letter to her; she said that she and her husband would be glad to see him again, and to talk over what he had wished to say to them.

Lilias was at Hastings, but expected home in a few days. Mr Western was continuing better. Any afternoon of the present week would find them both at home and disengaged, and she ended by thanking Arthur for his consideration in writing to her instead of Lilias’s father, as he was still far from able to meet any sudden agitation without risk of injury.

“Should I go over this afternoon, do you think?” said Arthur.

“Yes, I should say so,” replied Mr Cheviott. “And what will you tell them?”

“Everything. I have no choice,” said Arthur. “That is to say, I shall tell them all about my father’s will and the present state of the case, and what Maudsley thinks and what you think. Of course I need not go into particulars as to what passed between Alys and me the other day, but I will just tell them that anything of the kind, as regards both her and myself, never has been, never could have been possible – that we are, and always have been, and always shall be, I trust, brother and sister to each other.”

Mr Cheviott had been listening attentively.

“Yes,” he said, when his cousin left off speaking, and looked up for his approval, “I don’t think you can do better.”

“And now for your news – Mrs Brabazon’s, I mean,” said Arthur, eagerly. But Mr Cheviott showed no corresponding eagerness to reply.

“She says,” he answered, quietly, “that Miss Western is with them and quite well. Of course they are all sadly depressed by young Brooke’s death, though they knew it must come before long – she writes as if poor old Brooke had got his death-blow, but she says that ‘Lilias’ has been the greatest comfort to them.”

“And what more?” asked Arthur, “there is something more, I know. There is nothing in all that to have been a reason for Mrs Brabazon’s writing to you.”

“I didn’t say there was. Women constantly write letters without any reason,” observed Mr Cheviott.

Arthur got up from his seat and walked impatiently up and down the room.

“Laurence,” he said at length, “I think that sort of chaffing of yours is ill-timed.”

“I don’t mean to chaff you – upon my word, I don’t,” said Mr Cheviott, looking up innocently. “All I mean is that, whatever my news is, I am not going to tell you any more of it at present. It is much better not, and you will see so yourself afterwards.”

“You meant to tell me all when you first got the letter?” said Arthur.

“Well, yes, I don’t know but that I did. But I have changed my mind.”

“Is it – no, it cannot be – that there is any truth in that absurd nonsense that Miss Winstanley was telling us?”

“Why should you ask? It bore on the face of it that it was absurd nonsense,” replied Mr Cheviott. “Do, Arthur, trust me. You have done so in important things. Can’t you leave me to tell you about Mrs Brabazon’s letter after you have been at Hathercourt?”

“Very well. Needs must, I suppose,” said Arthur, lightly.

But he was not without misgivings during his long ride to the Rectory.

“I wish that idiotic old maid had kept her gossip to herself instead of writing it off to Miss Winstanley,” he said to himself more than once, and when he got close to Hathercourt he felt so nervously apprehensive of what he might be going to hear, that the relief of meeting, or rather overtaking Mary within a few yards of the house was very great.

Mary had no hat or bonnet on – she had just run out to gather some fresh green for the simple nosegays her father liked to see from his sofa. She was already in mourning for her young cousin, and as she looked up with a bright flush of pleasure to return Captain Beverley’s greeting, he could not help thinking that, though “not Lilias,” she was certainly very pretty.

“That black dress surely shows her off to advantage,” he said to himself, “or else she has grown prettier than she used to be. What a queer fellow Laurence is – fancy being shut up at the Edge for three weeks with a girl like that, and emerging as great a misogynist as before!”

Her mother was at home and disengaged, or would, no doubt, speedily be so, when she heard of his visit, Mary told him. Then he got off his horse, and she led him into the drawing-room.

“Mamma is in the study, I think,” she said, lingering a little. Then with some hesitation and rising colour, “I had a letter from Lilias this morning. She is coming home the day after to-morrow.”

“So soon?” exclaimed Captain Beverley, delightedly. “That is better than I hoped for. Mary,” he went on, impulsively, holding out both his hands and taking hers into their clasp, “Mary – you will forgive my calling you so? – you know what I have come about, don’t you? You will wish me joy – you have always been our friend, I fancy, somehow.”

“Our friend,” repeated Mary, inquiringly. “You are sure, then,” she went on, “that – that it will be all right with Lilias? Yes, mamma told me of your letter – you don’t mind? – it is quite safe with me.”

“Mind, of course not. But how do you mean about Lilias?” he asked, with a quick return of his misgiving. “Nothing has happened that I have not been told of?”

His bright face grew pale. Mary, with quick sympathy, hastened to re-assure him.

“Oh, no, no,” she said, “I don’t know what you have heard – but it isn’t that. Nothing of that kind could make Lilias change of course. I only mean – it is a long time since you have seen her, and – and – you went away so suddenly, you know. Lilias has never said anything to me, but I have been at a loss what to think about her.”

“As to what she has been thinking about me, do you mean?”

“Yes,” said Mary, bluntly.

Arthur’s face cleared.

“If that is all, I am not afraid,” he said, gently. “You are sure that is all, Mary?”

“Quite sure,” she replied. Then after a moment’s pause, “How is Miss Cheviott?”

“Pretty well – at least, so I am told,” he replied; “but to me she seems terribly changed. Laurence, her brother, I mean, won’t say much about her. He can’t bear to own it, I fancy. And it is so dull for her. I think that keeps her back – she should have some companionship.” Mary’s face grew very grave. She gave a little sigh. “I wish – ” she was beginning to say, when the door opened and her mother came in.

Alys was alone in her room that afternoon, when a tap and the request, “May I come in?” announced her cousin’s return. She knew where he had been, for Laurence had told her everything; but she had not been alone with Arthur since their strange interview two days ago, and the remembrance of it set her heart beating as she called out, “Come in by all means.”

To her surprise, Arthur came quickly up to her sofa, bent down and kissed her on the forehead before he spoke.

“Dear Alys,” he said, “I have come straight to you. It is all thanks to you, and I wanted to tell you, before any one, that everything’s going to be all right.”

For half a second there seemed a catch in Alys’s breath. Then she looked up with a smile, though there were tears in her eyes too.

“I am so glad, so very glad,” she said, softly. “Then has Lilias come back?” she asked.

“No, she is coming the day after to-morrow,” he replied, “and that reminds me – I have a great deal to tell you, Alys, and I am sure it will interest you – on Mary’s account as well as on Lilias’s.”

“I think I know – part of it anyway,” said Alys. “Laurence has been telling me of his letter from Mrs Brabazon – he would not tell you because he thought it would be so much pleasanter for you to know nothing about it till the Westerns told you themselves.”

“Yes,” said Arthur, “I see.”

“How strange it all seems!” said Alys. “How well I remember meeting Mrs Brabazon in Paris last year, and how she cross-questioned me about the Westerns, at the time, you know, that Laurence was so prejudiced against them.”

“And you spoke up for them?”

“A little,” said Alys, blushing slightly, “I mean, as much as I could.”

“Good girl!” said Arthur, approvingly.

“And since then, you know, Laurence has quite changed. How could he help it? You have no idea of Mary’s goodness to me that time at your farm, Arthur, and knowing her showed what they all were, so single-minded and refined, and so well brought up though they have been so poor. You mustn’t mind, Arthur, – it is no disparagement to Lilias when I say I cannot help counting Mary my special friend.”

“And now I hope you will see her often,” said Arthur. “She would do you good.”

Alys shook her head.

“I know she would,” she said, “but she won’t come here.”

“Now she will,” said Arthur. “She can have no more of that exaggerated terror of being patronised, if that has been her motive. The county will all find out the Westerns’ delightful qualities now, you’ll see, Alys. By-the-bye, I wonder what made Mrs Brabazon write to Laurence.”

“Just that some one in the neighbourhood might know the real facts of the case,” Alys replied. “There is sure to be so much gossip and exaggeration. I fancy, too, she wrote with a sort of wish to disabuse Laurence of his prejudice against her cousins – I am sure she noticed it that day in Paris – Did the Westerns tell you all about their affairs, Arthur?”

“A great deal, they are so frank and, as you say, single-minded, Alys. They have known something about it for some time, ever since Lilias met the Brookes at Hastings.”

“And has it been all owing to that?”

“Oh, no – a great part of the property must have come to Mrs Western; no, to the eldest son, Basil, I should say, at Mr Brooke’s death. But the Westerns might not have known this, and as the father said to me, in his invalid state, the release from anxiety is a priceless boon.”

“But it isn’t only Basil that is to benefit,” said Alys, eagerly. “Mrs Brabazon said – ”

“Of course not,” her cousin interrupted. “Everything is to go to him eventually – old Brooke not having any one to provide for, and not wishing to cut up the property – but Mrs Western will, for life, be very well off indeed, and so will the whole family. Each daughter and younger son will have what is really a comfortable little fortune. The Marshover Brookes are very rich, you know.”

“And to think how poor the Westerns have been!” said Alys, regretfully.

“Yes; but a few years ago nothing could have seemed more remote than their chance of succession. And, after all, even very rich people can’t look after all their poor relations.”

“No, I suppose not,” said Alys, with a sigh. “Will they leave Hathercourt?”

“Sure to, I should think. Mr Brooke wants them to go to Marshover, Mrs Western says, and keep it up for him, as he will be most of the year abroad. He is not obliged to do anything for them during his life, you see, but he has already settled an ample income on Mrs Western, and Basil is to go into the army, and George to college.”

“I shall never see Mary again, all the same.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know, but I am certain she will never come here. Arthur, I think she dislikes Laurence too much ever to come here.”

Arthur opened his eyes.

“Dislikes Laurence!” he repeated. “Why should she?”

“She does,” persisted Alys, “and Laurence knows it.”

“Well, we’ll see. Perhaps Lilias may help us to overcome Mary’s prejudice,” said Arthur, with a smile. “And failing Mary, Alys, you won’t be sorry to have Lilias for – for a sister– will you, Alys?”

Alys smiled, and her smile was enough.

All this happened in spring. Early in the autumn of that same year Lilias and Arthur were married. They were married at Hathercourt – in the old church which had seen the bride grow up from a child into a woman, and had been associated with all the joys and sorrows of her life – the old church beneath whose walls had lain for many long years the mortal remains of Arthur Beverley’s far-back ancestress, the “Mawde” who had once been a fair young bride herself.

“As fair perhaps, as happy and hopeful as Lilias,” thought Mary, as her eyes once more wandered to the well-known tablet on the wall, with a vague wonder as to what “Mawde” would think of it all could she see the group now standing before the altar. Then there came before her memory, like a dream, the thought of the Sunday morning, not, after all, so very long ago, when the little party of strangers had invaded the quiet church, and so disturbed her own and her sister’s devotions. And again she seemed to see herself looking up into Mr Cheviott’s face in the porch, while she asked him to come into the Rectory to rest.

“He smiled so kindly, I remember,” thought Mary, “and there was something in his face that made me feel as if I could trust him. And so I might have done – ah! how hasty and prejudiced I have been – thank Heaven, I have injured no one else by my folly, however!”

And then she repeated to herself a determination she had come to – there was one thing, be the cost to her pride what it might, that she would do, and to-day, she said to herself should, if possible, see it done.

It was a very quiet marriage – for every reason it had seemed best to have it so. There were the considerations of Mr Western’s still uncertain health, of the mourning in the Brooke family with which that of Lilias was now identified, of Alys Cheviott’s invalid condition, and even of Captain Beverley’s own anomalous position, as still, by his father’s will, a minor, and at present, therefore, far from a wealthy man, though every hope was now entertained that before long he would be in legal possession of his own. There were no strangers present – only the Grevilles and Mrs Brabazon, besides the large group of brothers and sisters, and Mr Cheviott as “best man,” and Lilias and her husband drove off in no coach and four, but in the quiet little brougham now added to the Rectory establishment, for Mr Western’s benefit principally, when he was at Hathercourt. For Hathercourt was not to be deserted, though only a part of the year was now spent there by the Rector’s family, and to the curate, whose services he now could well afford, was deputed the more active part of the work. They had all been at Marshover for some months past, and had only returned to Hathercourt a few weeks before the marriage.