“Very lately, I think. I do not know.”
They neither moved nor spoke for some moments: she earnestly regretting that she had lingered so far behind her companions in the terrible darkness. He walked on at last faster than before. No more words passed between them until they came out into the moonlight close to the veranda. Then he stopped again, and took off his hat.
“Permit me to leave you now,” he said, with an artificial politeness worthy of Douglas himself. “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight,” faltered Marian.
He walked gravely away. Marian hurried into the veranda, where she found
Jasper and Elinor. The other couple had gone into the drawingroom.
“Hallo!” said Jasper, “where is Conolly? I want to say a word to him before he goes.”
“He has just gone,” said Marian, pointing across the lawn. Jasper immediately ran out in the direction indicated, and left the two cousins alone together.
“Well, Marian,” said Elinor, “do you know that you have taken more than quarter of an hour longer to come from the plantation than we did, and that you look quite scared? Our sweet Constance, as the parson calls her, has been making some kind remarks about it.”
“Do I look disturbed? I hope Auntie wont notice it. I wish I could go straight to bed without seeing anybody.”
“Why? What is the matter?”
“I will tell you tonight when you come in to me. I am disgusted with myself; and I think Conolly is mad.”
“Mad!”
“On my word, I think Conolly has gone mad,” said Lord Jasper, returning at this moment out of breath and laughing.
Elinor, startled, glanced at Marian.
“He was walking quite soberly toward the fence of the yellow field when I caught sight of him. Just as I was about to hail him, he started off and cleared the fence at a running jump. He walked away at a furious rate, swinging his arms about, and laughing as if he was enjoying some uncommonly good joke. I am not sure that I did not see him dance a hornpipe; but as it is so dark I wont swear to that.”
“You had better not,” said Elinor, sceptically. “Let us go in; and pray do not encourage George to talk. I have a headache, and want to go to bed.”
“You have been in very good spirits, considering your headache,” he replied, in the same incredulous tone. “It has come on rather suddenly, has it not?”
When they went into the drawingroom they found that Constance had awakened her mother, and had already given her an account of their walk. Jasper added a description of what he had just witnessed. “I have not laughed so much for a long time,” he said, in conclusion. “He is usually such a steady sort of fellow.”
“I see nothing very amusing in the antics of a drunken workman,” said the Countess. “How you could have left Marian in his care even for a moment I am at a loss to conceive.”
“He was not drunk, indeed,” said Marian.
“Certainly not,” said Jasper, rather indignantly. “I was walking with him for some time before we met the girls. You are very pale, Marian. Have you also a headache?”
“I have been playing tennis all day; and I am quite tired out.”
Soon afterward, when Marian was in bed, and Miss McQuinch, according to a nightly custom of theirs, was seated on the coverlet with her knees doubled up to her chin inside her bedgown, they discussed the adventure very earnestly.
“Dont understand him at all, I confess,” said Elinor, when Marian had related what had passed in the plantation. “Wasnt it rather rash to make a confidant of him in such a delicate matter?”
“That is what makes me feel so utterly ashamed. He might have known that I only wanted to do good. I thought he was so entirely above false delicacy.”
“I dont mean that. How do you know that the story is true? You only have it from Mrs. Leith Fairfax’s letter; and she is perhaps the greatest liar in the world.”
“Oh, Nelly, you ought not to talk so strongly about people. She would never venture to tell me a made-up tale about Marmaduke.”
“In my opinion, she would tell anybody anything for the sake of using her tongue or pen.”
“It is so hard to know what to do. There was nobody whom I could trust, was there? Jasper has always been against Marmaduke; and Constance, of course, was out of the question. There was Auntie, but I did not like to tell her.”
“Because she is an evil-minded old Jezebel, whom no nice woman would talk to on such a subject,” said Elinor, giving the bed a kick with her heel.
“Hush, Nelly. I am always in terror lest you should say something like that before other people, out of sheer habit.”
“Never fear. Well, you have done the best you could. No use regretting what cannot be recalled. You cannot have the security of conventionality along with the selfrespect of sincerity. By the bye, do you remember that Jasper and his fond mamma and George had a family council after dinner? You may be sure that George has told them everything.”
“What! Then my wretched attempt to have Marmaduke warned was useless. Oh, Nelly, this is too bad. Do you really think so? When I told him before dinner what Mrs. Leith Fairfax wrote, he only said he feared it was true, and refused to give me the address.”
“And so threw you back on Conolly. I am glad the responsibility rests with George. He knew very well that it was true; for he had only just been telling Jasper. Jasper told me as much in the plantation. Master Georgy has no right to be your brother. He is worse than a dissenter. Dissenters try to be gentlemen; but George has no misgivings about himself on that score; so he gives his undivided energy to his efforts to be parsonic. He is an arrant hypocrite.”
“I dont think he is a hypocrite. I think he sincerely believes that his duty to the Church requires him to behave as he does.”
“Then he is a donkey, which is worse.”
“I wish he were more natural in his manner.”
“He is natural enough. It is always the same with parsons: ‘it is their nature to.’ Goodnight. Men are all the same, my dear, all the same.”
“How do you mean?”
“Never mind. Goodnight.”
CHAPTER V
A little removed from a pretty road in West Kensington, and communicating with it by a shrubbery and an iron gate, there stood at this time a detached villa called Laurel Grove. On the opposite side were pairs of recently built houses, many of them still unlet. These, without depriving the neighbourhood of its suburban quietude, forbade any feeling of rustic seclusion, and so made it agreeable to Susanna Conolly, who lived at Laurel Grove with Marmaduke Lind.
One morning in September they were at breakfast together. Beside each was a pile of letters. Marmaduke deferred opening his until his hunger was satisfied; but Susanna, after pouring out tea for him, seized the uppermost envelope, thrust her little finger under the flap, and burst it open.
“Hm,” she said. “First rehearsal next Monday. Here he is at me again to make the engagement renewable after Christmas. What an old fool he must be not to guess why I dont want to be engaged next spring! Just look at the Times, Bob, and see if the piece is advertized yet.”
“I should think so, by Jupiter,” said Marmaduke, patiently interrupting his meal to open the newspaper.
“Here is a separate advertisement for