her, sir, she is as innocent as a miserable sinner can be in a fallen world. It was the young gentleman as sought her out. I always misdoubted the ladies noticing her, and making her take part with men-singers and women-singers, and such vanities as is pleasing to the unregenerate heart. Ah! sir, without grace, where are we? Not that he was ever other than most honourable with her, or she would never have listened to him not for a moment, but she was over-persuaded, sir, and folks said what they hadn't no right to say, and the minister, he was 'ard on her, and so, you see, sir, she took fright and married him out of 'and, trusting to a harm of flesh, and went to Hireland with him. She just writ me a note, which filled my 'art with fear and trembling, a 'nonymous note, with only Hedna signed to it; and I waited, with failing eyes and sorrow of heart, till one day in autumn he brings her back to me, and here she has been ever since, dwining away in a nervous fever, as the doctors call it, as it's a misery to see her, and he never coming nigh her.'
'Once,' murmured Edna, who had several times tried to interrupt.
'Once, ay, for one hour at Christmas.'
'He is known here; he can't venture often,' interposed the wife; and there was a further whisper, 'he couldn't stay, he couldn't bear it.'
But the dejected accents were lost in the old woman's voice,-'Now, sir, if you know him or his family, I wouldn't be wishing to do him no hinjury, nor to ruinate his prospects, being, as he says, that the rich lady will make him her hare; but, sir, if you have any power with him as a godly minister or the friend of his youth maybe-'
'He is only waiting till he has a curacy-a house of his own-mother!'
'No, Edna, hold your peace. It is not fit that I should see my only child cut down as the grass of the field, and left a burthen upon me, a lone woman, while he is eating of the fat of the land. I say it is scandalous that he should leave her here, and take no notice; not coming near her since one hour at Christmas, and only just sending her a few pounds now and then; not once coming to see his own child!'
'He could not; he is abroad!' pleaded Edna.
'He tells you he is abroad!' exclaimed Robert.
'He went to Paris at Easter. He promised to come when he comes home.'
'You poor thing!' burst out Robert. 'He is deceiving you! He came back at the end of three weeks. I heard from my sister that she saw him on Sunday.'
Robert heartily rued his abruptness, as the poor young wife sank back in a deadly swoon. The grandmother hurried to apply remedies, insisting that the gentleman should not go, and continuing all the time her version of her daughter's wrongs. Her last remnant of patience had vanished on learning this deception, and she only wanted to publish her daughter's claims, proceeding to establish them by hastening in search of the marriage certificate as soon as Edna had begun to revive, but sooner than Robert was satisfied to be left alone with the inanimate, helpless form on the couch.
He was startled when Edna raised her hand, and strove to speak,-'Sir, do not tell-do not tell my mother where he is. She must not fret him-she must not tell his friends-he would be angry.'
She ceased as her mother returned with the certificate of the marriage, contracted last July before the registrar of the huge suburban Union to which Wrapworth belonged, the centre of which was so remote, that the pseudo- banns of Owen Charteris Sandbrook and Edna Murrell had attracted no attention.
'It was very wrong,' feebly said Edna; 'I drew him into it! I loved him so much; and they all talked so after I went in the boat with him, that I thought my character was gone, and I begged him to save me from them. It was my fault, sir; and I've the punishment. You'll not betray him, sir; only don't let that young lady, your sister, trust to him. Not yet. My baby and I shall soon be out of her way.'
The calm languor of her tone was almost fearful, and even as she spoke a shuddering seized her, making her tremble convulsively, her teeth knocking together, and the couch shaking under her.
'You must have instant advice,' cried Robert. 'I will fetch some one.'
'You won't betray him,' almost shrieked Edna. 'A little while-stay a little while-he will be free of me.'
There was delirium in look and voice, and he was compelled to pause and assure her that he was only going for the doctor, and would come again before taking any other step.
It was not till the medical man had been summoned that his mind recurred to the words about his sister. He might have dismissed them as merely the jealous suspicion of the deserted wife, but that he remembered Lucilla's hint as to an attachment between Owen and Phoebe, and he knew that such would have been most welcome to Miss Charlecote.
'My Phoebe, my one bright spot!' was his inward cry, 'must your guileless happiness be quenched! O, I would rather have it all over again myself than that one pang should come near you, in your sweetness and innocence, the blessing of us all! And I not near to guard nor warn! What may not be passing even now? Unprincipled, hard- hearted deceiver, walking at large among those gentle, unsuspicious women-trading on their innocent trust! Would that I had disclosed the villainy I knew of!'
His hand clenched, his brow lowered, and his mouth was set so savagely, that the passing policeman looked in wonder from the dangerous face to the clerical dress.
Early next morning he was at No. 8, and learnt that Mrs. Brook, as the maid called her, had been very ill all night, and that the doctor was still with her. Begging to see the doctor, Robert found that high fever had set in, an aggravation of the low nervous fever that had been consuming her strength all the spring, and her condition was already such that there was little hope of her surviving the present attack. She had been raving all night about the young lady with whom Mr. Sandbrook had been walking by moonlight, and when the door of the little adjoining bedroom was open, her moans and broken words were plainly audible.
Robert asked whether he should fetch her husband, and Mrs. Murrell caught at the offer. Owen's presence was the single hope of restoring her, and at least he ought to behold the wreck that he had wrought. Mrs. Murrell gave a terrible thrust by saying, 'that the young lady at least ought to be let know, that she might not be trusting to him.'
'Do not fear, Mrs. Murrell,' he said, almost under his breath. 'My only doubt is, whether I can meet Owen Sandbrook as a Christian should.'
Cutting off her counsels on the unconverted nature, he strode off to find his colleague, whom he perplexed by a few rapid words on the necessity of going into the country for the day. His impatient condition required vehement action; and with a sense of hurrying to rescue Phoebe, he could scarcely brook the slightest delay till he was on his way to Hiltonbury, nor till the train spared him all action could he pause to collect his strength, guard his resentment, or adjust his measures for warning, but not betraying. He could think of no honourable mode of dealing, save carrying off Owen to London with him at once, sacrificing the sight of his sister for the present, and either writing or going to her afterwards, when the mode of dealing the blow should be more evident. It cost him keen suffering to believe that this was the sole right course, but he had bound himself to it by his promise to the poor suffering wife, blaming himself for continually putting his sister before her in his plans.
At Elverslope, on his demand for a fly for Hiltonbury, he was answered that all were engaged for the Horticultural Show in the Forest; but the people at the station, knowing him well, made willing exertions to procure a vehicle for him, and a taxed cart soon making its appearance, he desired to be taken, not to the Holt, but to the Forest, where he had no doubt that he should find the object of his search.
This Horticultural Show was the great gaiety of the year. The society had originated with Humfrey Charlecote, for the benefit of the poor as well as the rich; and the summer exhibition always took place under the trees of a fragment of the old Forest, which still survived at about five miles from Hiltonbury. The day was a county holiday. The delicate orchid and the crowned pine were there, with the hairy gooseberry, the cabbage and potato, and the homely cottage-garden nosegay from many a woodland hamlet. The young ladies competed in collections of dried flowers for a prize botany book; and the subscriptions were so arranged that on this festival each poorer member might, with two companions, be provided with a hearty meal; while grandees and farmers had a luncheon-tent of their own, and regarded the day as a county picnic.
It was a favourite affair with all, intensely enjoyed, and full of good neighbourhood. Humfrey Charlecote's spirit never seemed to have deserted it; it was a gathering of distant friends, a delight of children as of the full grown; and while the young were frantic for its gipsying fun, their elders seldom failed to attend, if only in remembrance of poor Mr. Charlecote, 'who had begged one and all not to let it drop.'
Above all, Honora felt it due to Humfrey to have prize-roots and fruits from the Holt, and would have thought herself fallen, indeed, had the hardest rain kept her from the rendezvous, with one wagon carrying the cottagers' articles, and another a troop of school-children. No doubt the Forest would be the place to find Owen Sandbrook,
