him, and said, 'Do tell me, dear Frank. You used to tell me long ago.'
He shook his head. 'That's all over. You are very good, Rosamond, but you should not have forced her to come to me.'
'Not!'
'My life was not worth saving.'
'She has not gone back from you again?-the horrible girl!' (this last aside).
'It is not that she has gone back. She has never changed. It is I who have forfeited her.'
'You!-You!-She has not cast you off?'
'You know how it was, and the resolution by which she had bound herself, and how I was maddened.'
'That! I thought it was all forgiven and forgotten!' cried Rosamond.
'It is not a matter of forgiveness. She put it to me whether it was possible to begin on a broken word.'
'Worse and worse! Why, when you've spoken a foolish word, it is the foolishest thing in the world to hold to it.'
'If it were a foolish word!' said poor Frank. 'I think I could have atoned for that day, if she could have tried me; but when she left me to judge, and those eyes of sweet, sorrowful-'
'Sweet! Sorrowful, indeed! About as sweet and sorrowful as the butcher to the lamb. Left you to judge! A refinement of cruelty! She had better have stayed away when I told her it was the only chance to save your life.'
'Would that she had!' sighed Frank. 'But that was your doing, Rosamond, and what she did in mere humanity can't be cast back again to bind her against her conscience.'
'Plague on her conscience!' was my Lady's imprecation. 'I wonder if it is all coquetry!'
'She deserves no blame,' said Frank, understanding the manner, though the words were under Rosamond's breath. 'Her very troubles in her own family have been the cause of her erecting a standard of what alone she could trust. Once in better days she fancied I came up to it, and when I know how far I have fallen short of it-'
'Nonsense. She had no business to make the condition without warning you.'
'She knows more of me than only that,' muttered poor Frank. 'I was an ass in town last summer. It was the hope of seeing her that drew me; but if I had kept out of that set, all this would never have been.'
'It was all for her sake.' (A substratum of 'Ungrateful, ungenerous girl.')
'For her sake, I thought-not her true sake.' Then there was a silence, broken by his exclaiming, 'Rose, I must get away from here!'
'You can't,' she called back. 'Here's your mother coming. She would be perfectly miserable to find you gone.'
'It is impossible I should stay here.'
'Don't be so chicken-hearted, Frank. If she has a heart worth speaking of, she'll come round, if you only press hard enough. If not, you are well quit of her.'
He cried out at this, and Rosamond saw that what she called faintness of heart was really reverence and sense of his own failings; but none the less did she scorn such misplaced adoration, as it seemed to her, and scold him in her own fashion, for not rushing on to conquer irresistibly; or else being cool and easy as to his rejection. He would accept neither alternative, was depressed beyond the power of comfort, bodily weariness adding to his other ills, and went off at last to bed, without retracting his intention of going away.
'Well, Terry, it is a new phase, and a most perplexing one!' said Rosamond, when her brother came back with arch curiosity in his brown eyes. 'The girl has gone and turned him over, and there he lies on his back prostrate, just like Ponto, when he knows he deserves it!'
'Turned him over-you don't mean that she is off? I thought she was a perfect angel of loveliness and goodness.'
'Goodness! It is enough to make one hate goodness, unless this is all mere pretence on her part. But what I am afraid of is his setting off, no one knows where, before any one is up, and leaving us to confront his mother, while he falls ill in some dog-hole of a place. He is not fit to go about by himself, and I trust to you to watch him, Terry.'
'Shall I lie on the mat outside his door?' said Terry, half meaning it, and somewhat elated by the romantic situation.
'No, we are not come to quite such extremities. You need not even turn his key by mistake; only keep your ears open. He is next to you, is he not?-and go in on pretext of inquiry-if you hear him up to mischief.'
Nothing was heard but the ordinary summons of Boots; and it turned out in the morning that the chill had exasperated his throat, and reduced him to a condition which took away all inclination to move, besides deafening him completely.
Rosamond had to rush about all day, providing plenishing for the lodging. Once she saw Sir Harry and his daughter in the distance, and dashed into a shop to avoid them, muttering, 'I don't believe she cared for him one bit. I dare say she has taken up with Lorimer Strangeways after all! Rather worse than her sister, I declare, for she never pretended to be too
Frank was no better as to cold and deafness, though somewhat less uncomfortable the next day in the lodging, and Rosamond went up without him to the station to meet the rest of the party, and arrange for Mrs. Poynsett's conveyance. They had accomplished the journey much better than had been, hoped, but it was late and dark enough to make it expedient that Mrs. Poynsett should be carried to bed at once, after her most unwonted fatigue, and only have one glimpse and embrace of Frank, so as to stave off the knowledge of his troubles till after her night's rest. He seconded this desire, and indeed Miles and Anne only saw that he had a bad cold; but Rosamond no sooner had her husband to herself, than she raved over his wrongs to her heart's content, and implored Julius to redress them, though how, she did not well know, since she by turns declared that Frank was well quit of Lenore, and that he would never get over the loss.
Julius demurred a good deal to her wish of sending him on a mission to Eleonora. All Charnocks naturally swung back to distrust of the Vivians, and he did not like to plead with a girl who seemed only to be making an excuse to reject his brother; while, on the other hand, he knew that Raymond had not been satisfied with Frank's London habits, nor had he himself been at ease as to his religious practices, which certainly had been the minimum required to suit his mother's notions. He had been a communicant on Christmas Day, but he was so entirely out of reach that there was no knowing what difference his illness might have made in him; Eleonora might know more than his own family did, and have good and conscientious reasons for breaking with him; and, aware that his own authority had weight with her, Julius felt it almost too much responsibility to interfere till the next day, when his mother, with tears in her eyes, entreated him to go to Miss Vivian, to find out what was this dreadful misunderstanding, which perhaps might only be from his want of hearing, and implore her, in the name of an old woman, not to break her boy's heart and darken his life, as it had been with his brother.
Mrs. Poynsett was tremulous and agitated, and grief had evidently told on her high spirit, so that Julius could make no objection, but promised to do his best.
By the time it was possible to Julius to call, Sir Harry and Miss Vivian were out riding, and he had no further chance till at the gaslit Friday evening lecture, to which he had hurried after dinner. A lady became faint in the heated atmosphere, two rows of chairs before him, and as she turned to make her way out, he saw that it was Eleonora, and was appalled by seeing not only the whiteness of the present faintness, but that thinness and general alteration which had changed the beautiful face so much that he asked himself for a moment whether she could have escaped the fever. In that moment he had moved forward to her support; and she, seeming to have no one belonging to her, clung to the friendly arm, and was presently in the porch, where the cool night air revived her at once, and she begged him to return, saying nothing ailed her but gas.
'No, I shall see you home, Lena.'
'Indeed, there is no need,' said the trembling voice, in which he detected a sob very near at hand.
'I shall use my own judgment as to that,' said Julius, kindly.
She made no more resistance, but rose from the seat in the porch, and accepted his arm. He soon felt that her steps were growing firmer, and he ventured to say, 'I had been looking for you to-day.'
'Yes, I saw your card.'
'I had a message to you from my mother.' Lenore trembled again, but did not dare to relax her hold on him. 'I
