it.
'I wonder,' she said, by way of enlivening him, 'whether you will fall in with the auburn-haired Charlecote.'
'Whereas Canada is a bigger place than England, the disaster may be averted, I hope. A colonial heir-at-law might be a monstrous bore. Moreover, it would cancel all that I can't but hope for that child.'
'You might hope better things for him than expectations.'
'He shall never have any! But it might come without. Why, Lucy, a few years in that country, and I shall be able to give him the best of educations and release you from drudgery; and when independent, we could go back to the Holt on terms to suit even your proud stomach, and might make the dear old thing happy in her old age.'
'If that Holt were but out of your head.'
'If I knew it willed to the County Hospital, shouldn't I wish as much to be with her as before? I mean to bring up my son as a gentleman, with no one's help! But you see, Lucy, it is impossible not to wish for one's child what one has failed in oneself-to wish him to be a better edition.'
'I suppose not.'
'For these first few years the old woman will do well enough for him, poor child. Robert has promised to look in on him.'
'And Mrs. Murrell is to write to me once a month. I shall make a point of seeing him at least twice a year.'
'Thank you; and by the time he is of any size I shall have a salary. I may come back, and we would keep house together, or you might bring him out to me.'
'That will be the hope of my life.'
'I'll not be deluded into reckoning on young ladies. You will be disposed of long before!'
'Don't, Owen! No, never.'
'Never?'
'Never.'
'I always wanted to know,' continued Owen, 'what became of Calthorp.'
'I left him behind at Spitzwasserfitzung, with a message that ends it for ever.'
'I am afraid that defection is to be laid to my door, like all the rest.'
'If so, I am heartily obliged to you for it! The shock was welcome that brought me home. A governess? Oh! I had rather be a scullery-maid, than go on as I was doing there!'
'Then you did not care for him?'
'Never! But he pestered me, Rashe pestered me; nobody cared for me-I-I-' and she sobbed a long, tearless sob.
'Ha!' said Owen, gravely and kindly, 'then there was something in the Fulmort affair after all. Lucy, I am going away; let me hear it for once. If I ever come back, I will not be so heedless of you as I have been. If he have been using you ill!'
'I used him ill,' said Lucy, in an inward voice.
'Nothing more likely!' muttered Owen, in soliloquy. 'But how is it, Cilla: can't you make him forgive?'
'He does, but as Honor forgives you. You know it was no engagement. I worked him up to desperation last year. Through Phoebe, I was warned that he would not stand my going to Ireland. I answered that it was no concern of his; I defied him to be able to break with me. They bothered me so that I was forced to go to spite them. He thought-I can't wonder at it-that I was irreclaimable; he was staying here, was worked on by the sight of this horrible district, and, between pique and goodness run mad, has devoted self and fortune. He gave me to understand that he has made away with every farthing. I don't know if he would wish it undone.'
She spoke into the knapsack, jerking out brief sentences.
'He didn't tell you he had taken a vow of celibacy?'
'I should not think it worth while.'
'Then it is all right!' exclaimed Owen, joyously. 'Do you think old Fulmort, wallowing in gold, could see a son of his living with his curates, as in the old Sussex rhyme?-
There were three ghostisses
Sitting on three postisses,
Eating of three crustisses.
No, depend on it, the first alarm of Robert becoming a ghost, there will be a famous good fat living bought for him; and then-'
'No, I shall have been a governess. They won't consent.'
'Pshaw! What are the Fulmorts? He would honour you the more! No, Lucy,' and he drew her up from the floor, and put his arm round her, 'girls who stick to one as you have done to me are worth something, and so is Robert Fulmort. You don't know what he has been to me ever since he came to fetch me. I didn't believe it was in his cloth or his nature to be so forbearing. No worrying with preachments; not a bit of 'What a good boy am I;' always doing the very thing that was comfortable and considerate, and making the best of it at Hiltonbury. I didn't know how he could be capable of it, but now I see, it was for your sake. Cheer up, Lucy, you will find it right yet.'
Lucilla had no conviction that he was right; but she was willing to believe for the time, and was glad to lay her head on his shoulder and feel, while she could, that she had something entirely her own. Too soon it would be over. Lengthen the evening as they would, morning must come at last.
It came; the hurried breakfast, pale looks, and trivial words. Robert arrived to watch them off; Mrs. Murrell brought the child. Owen took him in his arms, and called her to the study. Robert sat still, and said-
'I will do what I can. I think, in case I had to write about the child, you had better leave me your address.'
Lucilla wrote it on a card. The tone quashed all hope.
'We trust to you,' she said.
'Mr. Currie has promised to let me hear of Owen,' said Robert; but no more passed. Owen came back hasty and flushed, wanting to be gone and have it over. The cabs were called, and he was piling them with luggage; Robert was glad to be actively helpful. All were in the hall; Owen turned back for one more solitary gaze round the familiar room; Robert shook Lucilla's hand.
'O bid me good speed,' broke from her; 'or I cannot bear it.'
'God be with you. God bless you!' he said.
No more! He had not approved, he had not blamed. He would interfere no more in her fate. She seated herself, and drew down her black veil, a chill creeping over her.
'Thank you, Robert, for all,' was Owen's farewell. 'If you will say anything to Phoebe from me, tell her she is all that is left to comfort poor Honor.'
'Good-bye,' was the only answer.
Owen lingered still. 'You'll write? Tell me of her; Honor, I mean, and the child.'
'Yes, yes, certainly.'
Unable to find another pretext for delay, Owen again wrung Robert's hand, and placed himself by his sister, keeping his head out as long as he could see Robert standing with crossed arms on the doorstep.
When, the same afternoon, Mr. Parsons came home, he blamed himself for having yielded to his youngest curate the brunt of the summer work. Never had he seen a man not unwell look so much jaded and depressed.
Nearly at the same time, Lucilla and her boxes were on the platform of the Southminster station, Owen's eyes straining after her as the train rushed on, and she feeling positive pain and anger at the sympathy of Dr. Prendergast's kind voice, as though it would have been a relief to her tumultuous misery to have bitten him, like Uncle Kit long ago. She clenched her hand tight, when with old-world courtesy he made her take his arm, and with true consideration, conducted her down the hill, through the quieter streets, to the calm, shady precincts of the old cathedral. He had both a stall and a large town living; and his abode was the gray freestone prebendal house, whose two deep windows under their peaked gables gave it rather a cat-like physiognomy. Mrs. Prendergast and Sarah were waiting in the hall, each with a kiss of welcome, and the former took the pale girl at once up-stairs, to a room full of subdued sunshine, looking out on a green lawn sloping down to the river. At that sight and sound, Lucy's face lightened. 'Ah! I know I shall feel at home here. I hear the water's voice!'
But she had brought with her a heavy cold, kept in abeyance by a strong will during the days of activity, and ready to have its way at once, when she was beaten down by fatigue, fasting, and disappointment. She dressed and came down, but could neither eat nor talk, and in her pride was glad to attribute all to the cold, though protesting with over-eagerness that such indisposition was rare with her.
She would not have suffered such nursing from Honor Charlecote as was bestowed upon her. The last month
