“Look here, Lizzie,” said he, after a pause; “if I were you I wouldn't trust to his keeping his promise to you. But I'll tell you what I'll do. I have been talking to Cyril, and he knows what my opinion of his conduct is. He has told me that he would marry you to-morrow if he only had enough money to live on. I advised him to confess all to Miss Mowbray, and if he does so I have made up my mind to send him off to a colony with you, making a provision for your future until he gets his money.”
“Oh, sir—oh, Mr. Westwood!” cried the girl, catching up his hand and kissing it. “Oh, sir, you have saved me from ruin.”
“I hope that I have saved both of you,” said he. “Now, get back to Mrs. Morgan's without delay. I hope that it may not be discovered that you were wandering through the park at midnight. Why, even if Cyril discovered it he might turn away from you.”
After a course of sobs mingled with thanks, the girl went away, and Richard Westwood strolled back toward the house.
CHAPTER VI.
It was rather early on the next morning when Agnes Mowbray was visited by Sir Percival Hope. Cyril, who had returned home late on the previous night, and had not gone to bed for nearly an hour after entering the house, was not yet downstairs; but his sister was in her garden when her visitor arrived.
Sir Percival Hope was one of the latest comers to the county. He was the younger son of a good family—the baronetcy was one of the oldest in England—and had gone out to Australia very early in life. In one of the southern colonies he had not only made a fortune, but had won great distinction and had been twice premier before he had reached the age which in England is considered young enough for entering political life. On the death of his father—his elder brother had been killed when serving with his regiment in the Soudan campaign of 1883—he had come to England, not to inherit any estate, for the last acre of the family property had been sold before his birth, but to purchase the estate of Branksome Abbey in Brackenshire, which had once been in his mother's family. He was now close upon forty years of age, and it was said that he was engaged in the somewhat arduous work of nursing the constituency of South Brackenshire. There were few people in the neighbourhood who were disposed to think that when the chance came for him to declare himself he would be rejected. It was generally allowed that he might choose his constituency.
He was a tall and athletic man, with the bronzed face of a southern colonist, and with light-brown hair that had no suggestion of grey about it. As he stood on the lawn at The Knoll by the side of Agnes, and in the shade of one of the great elms, no one would have believed that he was over thirty.
“I got your letter,” said Agnes when she had greeted him with cordiality, for though they had known each other only a year they had become the warmest friends. “I got your letter an hour ago—just when you must have got mine, which I wrote last night. I hope you are able to give me as good news as I gave you.”
“You were able to tell me of the saving of the bank; I hope I can tell you of the saving of a soul,” said Sir Percival.
“I hoped as much,” she cried, her face lighting up as she turned her eyes upon his. “Your sister must be a good woman—as good a woman as you are a man.”
“If you had waited for half an hour when you came to see me yesterday, I could have told you what I come to tell you now,” said he. “But you were in too great a hurry.”
“I had need to make haste,” laughed Agnes. “Every moment was worth hundreds of pounds—perhaps thousands.”
“And the good people were perfectly satisfied with my cheque? Well, they are a good deal more confiding than the colonists to whom I was accustomed in my young days: they would have laughed at the notion of offering them a cheque when they looked for gold, although in the bush cheques are current. Oh no; when they make a run on a bank nothing but gold can satisfy them.”
“I knew what I could do with those people yesterday. They only needed some one to arrest their panic for a moment, and then like sheep they were ready to go off in the opposite direction.”
“And you saved the bank?”
“No, not I. You saved it: the cheque was yours. And now it is through you that that poor girl is to be saved. How good you are. What should we do without you in this neighbourhood?”
“The neighbourhood did without me for a good many years. Never mind. I have come to tell you that my sister will be glad to take your young protégée under her roof and to give her a chance of—well, may I say, redeeming the past? You are not one of the women who think that for one sin there is no redemption. Neither is my sister. She is, like you, a good woman—not given to preaching or moralising in the stereotyped way, but ever ready to lend a helping hand to a sister, not to push her back into the mire.”
“After all, that is the most elementary Christianity. Was there any precept so urged by the Founder as that? Christianity is assuredly the religion for women.”
“It is the only religion for women—and men. My sister will treat the girl as though she knew nothing of her lapse. There will be no lowering of the corners of her mouth when she receives her. She will never, by word or action, suggest that she has got that lapse forever in her mind. The poor girl will never receive a reproach. In short, she will be given a real chance; not a nominal one; not a fictitious one; not a parochial one.”
“That will mean the saving of her soul. Her father has behaved cruelly toward her. He turned her out of his house, as you know, because she refused to say what was the name of her betrayer.”
“You mentioned that to me. All the people in the neighbourhood seem to be most indignant with the poor girl because of her silence on this point. They seem to feel that their curiosity is outraged. They do not appear to be grateful to her for having stimulated their imagination. And yet I think it was hearing of this attitude of the girl that caused my sister to be attracted to her. That's all I have to say on this painful matter, my dear friend.”
Agnes Mowbray gave him her hand. Her eyes were misty as she turned them upon his face. Several moments had passed before she was able to speak, and then her voice was tremulous. A sob was in her throat.
“You are so good—so good—so good!” she said.
He held her hand for a minute. He seemed to be at the point of speaking as he looked earnestly into her face, but when he dropped her hand he turned away from her without saying a word.
There was a long silence before he said:
“We have been very good friends, you and I, since I came back to England.”
His words were almost startling in their divergence from the subject upon which they had been conversing. The expression on Agnes's face suggested that she was at least puzzled if not absolutely startled by his digression.
“Yes,” she said mechanically, “we have indeed been good friends. I knew in an instant yesterday that it was to you I should go when I was in great need. I knew that you would help me.”
He looked at her gravely and in silence for some moments. Then he suddenly put out his hand to her.
“Good-bye,” he said quickly—unnaturally; and before their hands had more than met for the second time he turned and walked rapidly away to the gate, leaving her standing under the shady elm in the centre of the lawn.
For a moment or two she was too much surprised to be able to make any move. He had never behaved so curiously before. She was trying to think what she had said or what she had suggested that had hurt his feelings, for it seemed to her that his sudden