Part 5, Chapter XXXVII
Faint-Hearted
“The grave of all things hath its violet.”
The Redhurst drawing-room was looking uncommonly cheerful on the Saturday week after Arthur’s return; and Jem, recently arrived, was enjoying an unwonted tête-à-tête with his mother. It would be, perhaps, untrue to say that a person with affections so even as Mrs Crichton’s had a favourite son; but there was much in Jem’s ways that suited her, and he had the charm of novelty. He was strolling about the room, criticising the alterations somewhat unfavourably.
“I say, mamma, what did you buy this thing for?” touching the chintz. “I could have chosen you a much better one. Why didn’t you write to me?”
“Really, my dear, I didn’t think of asking you to choose my drawing-room furniture. Why don’t you like it?”
“Why don’t I like it? Why, it’s altogether incorrect. Those autumn leaves are false art.”
“Dear me, don’t you like my leaves? They’re so natural you might sweep them up.”
“Exactly. You might as well be out in the garden. Now, there’s a thing up in one of the spare bed-rooms. It’s yellow, with a faint brown pattern.”
“That, Jem! Why, it belonged to your grandmother Spencer, and was moved here when she came and spent her last year with us. It’s hideous. I was going to have it taken down.”
“It’s about the best thing in the house,” said Jem, critically. “You should have it made up for this room.”
“Ah, my dear fellow, I hope your wife will have some taste of her own.”
“I hope she’ll leave it to me. I shall stipulate she does when I marry and settle.”
“I am afraid, my dear, life in London doesn’t lead young men to marry and settle.”
“Well, mamma, I’m sure I don’t know about that,” said Jem, sitting down on the obnoxious chintz and stroking his beard. “Girls look out for so much now-a-days.”
“I hope, my dear, you haven’t been falling in with any girl,” said Mrs Crichton, composedly – for she was not excitable – but a little struck by Jem’s manner. “You make so many acquaintances. When you were abroad I was quite anxious.”
“I assure you, mamma, I was a miracle of discretion when I was abroad – couldn’t have been better with you at my elbow,” said Jem, unable to resist a little emphasis.
“Well, I am sure, I wonder you did not make a heroine of that little Italian girl, Arthur’s acquaintance. Hugh said you met her.”
“Hugh said I met her!” ejaculated Jem, “Well, if that isn’t cool!”
“Why, something was said of seeing her act, and, of course, my dear boy, I didn’t suppose Hugh had been the one to discover her merits.”
“I assure you, mother, I was quite as discreet as Arthur or Hugh either. But what made Mademoiselle Mattei a subject of conversation?”
“Why, she is at Miss Venning’s at school.”
“Good heavens!” ejaculated Jem, utterly off his guard; then, catching himself up: “At school! Extraordinary!”
“Yes, but I believe there’s nothing extraordinary about her. So pray, my dear, don’t go and do anything foolish.”
“Why am I always to be the black sheep?” said Jem, in an injured tone, but with inward laughter. “Hugh and Arthur saw quite as much of her as I did.”
“Well, we may put poor Arthur out of the question, and as for Hugh, do you think I’ve any reason to be anxious in that way about him?”
“So you wouldn’t like an Italian daughter-in-law?”
“My dear, don’t be absurd,” said Mrs Crichton, contemplating her wool-work. “How can you talk of such a thing? I should like to see both you and Hugh married, but I dread your doing something foolish when I think of the number of times you have been on the verge of it – and as for Hugh – ”
“Well, as for Hugh?”
“I really despair of his ever turning his thoughts in that direction.”
“How are you all getting along together?” said Jem, rather glad to change the conversation.
“Oh, pretty well,” said Mrs Crichton, sighing. “Of course, Arthur, poor dear boy, has ups and downs; but he is very cheerful, in and out, and I make a point of going on as usual.”
“And he and Hugh get on comfortably?”
“Yes. I tell Hugh it is absurd to expect that he should not flag sometimes. Now, Sunday was a trial. He went to church in the morning, but he was more knocked up afterwards than I have seen him at all; but the next day he was quite ready to be interested in these pleasant Dysarts who have come to Ashenfold. Hugh was quite angry with me for making him come in to see them; but we can’t shut ourselves up, and I must ask them to dinner in a quiet way. It is much better for Arthur. Then, there was another thing. I wanted him to come to the Rectory with me – to get it over, you know – but Hugh interfered, and said no-one should urge him to make such an effort, in such a peremptory way I had to give it up.”
“I should avoid discussions,” said James.
“It’s hard work for them both. By the way, mamma,” he added, having conducted the conversation well away from its former matrimonial channel, “do you know that there is going to be a great choir festival at H – , in the cathedral in Easter week – shall you go?”
“Is there? Oh, no, I hadn’t thought of it.”
“I expect it will be rather fine. I shall run down, and if you did care about taking Freddie I daresay the Haywards would get you good places.”
“The Haywards?”
“The Archdeacon, you know. He is a Canon of H – . Young Hayward’s in the War Office. I know him. There are some daughters.”
“Oh, I know Mrs Hayward very well. She was at the only ball to which I ever took dear Mysie at H – , with her daughters; tall, fine girls, rather insipid.”
“They’re very superior,” said Jem, in an odd, meek voice; but, as he was not much in the habit of admiring superior young ladies, his mother only said:
“Are they? Their mother is a very ladylike woman. Well, I should not mind going over if Freddie wished it. I daresay Flossy Venning might like to go with us.”
“Oh, thank you,” began Jem. “I mean the organist is a friend of mine. Oh, there’s Hugh. How d’ye do?”
“I didn’t know you were here, Jem,” said Hugh, as he came into the room.
“I came by the early train. Where’s Arthur?”
“He preferred walking. How long shall you be here, Jem?”
“Till Tuesday.”
“Oh, then,” said Mrs Crichton, “Hugh, I think I shall ask the Dysarts to excuse a short notice and come here quite quietly on Monday night. As it is Lent, that is a reason for having no party.”
“There can be no reason wanted for that,” interrupted Hugh. “Mother, how can you think of such a thing? It is not suitable, and must be intolerable to Arthur.”
“Really, Hugh,” said his mother, for once offended, “I am the best judge of what is suitable. You talk as if I wished to give a ball; and Arthur does not dislike a little society.”
“If he does not,” said Hugh, and then broke off, “Perhaps he does not.”
“Why don’t you ask him?” suggested James.
“Because he has never shown any of this foolish reluctance,” said Mrs Crichton; “and, indeed, my dear, I can’t give into you about it.”
She rose and went away as she spoke, and James said:
“How’s this, Hugh? Things going all crooked?”
“Of course they are,” said Hugh, bitterly. “How could they go right? As for Arthur, I don’t profess to understand him. I daresay he does like amusement, but he can’t bear this place. How they can say he is less altered than they expected! I can feel the chance allusions stab him!”
“Then do you think he is putting a great force on himself?”
“No, no,” said Hugh, in an odd, restless tone. “It’s just as it comes, I believe. But they say he bears it beautifully, because his spirits come back in and out. He is boyish enough still. I daresay in a year’s time it will all be pretty well over.”
“It strikes me, Hugh, you are more out of sorts than Arthur.”
“I?” said Hugh. “If Arthur feels one half – No, he could not choose to be always with me.”
Hugh knitted his brows and walked over to the window. His was the perplexity of an erring, earnest nature watching another live over a difficult piece of life, by means of a more gracious temperament, succeeding, as he felt, without the struggles that went towards his own failures. Arthur behaved much better to him than he did to Arthur, but he did not take half so much pains about it. This is always an unsatisfactory consciousness, and in Hugh’s case it was intensified by the morbid interest that he was forced to take in his cousin.
“Mother’s been telling me all the news,” said James, to change the subject.
Hugh understood his marked tone at once.
“Remember, Jem, that is closed for ever,” he said. “If you breathe one word of the past, in joke or earnest, to my mother or Arthur, it will be past forgiveness.”
“I’m sure I don’t want to stir it up,” said Jem; “but it is a strange turn of fate.”
“It will make no difference,” said Hugh, in a tone that meant “it shall not.”
James was silent. Hugh’s resolve was exactly what he had always counselled him to make, yet he could not help thinking of Violante’s look of joy at seeing him, and wondering whether that light was quenched in her soft eyes for ever.
In the meantime, Arthur had not taken his solitary walk without a purpose. However far Hugh might be right in supposing that he allowed his feelings to drift as they would, he was becoming conscious that there was some cowardice in shrinking from anything that could excite them. He must stand by Mysie’s grave – and he must stand there alone; for on Sunday he had not dared to lift his eyes as he walked down the path. She was buried in a corner of the churchyard where it was especially green and still close by the wall of the Rectory garden, over which a bright pink almond-tree was visible. Snowdrops and violets were thrusting their heads through the short turf between the graves, and were blooming in sweet abundance round the white cross that marked where she lay, while several half-faded wreaths were placed above them. There was nothing here to make Arthur nervous, – he wondered why he had stayed away so long. He was full of grief, yet something of the peaceful spirit of the past came shining back into his heart as he knelt there in the spring sunshine, and kissed the letters of Mysie’s name. It was better, he thought, than being far away. He had risen to his feet, and was still dreamily gazing, when he heard a startled step at his side, and, turning, saw Florence Venning, bright, tall, and blooming, with a basket of flowers in her hand.
“Flossy!”
“Oh, I did not see you – I – I’ll go!” said Flossy, crimson with the sense of intrusion.
“No, don’t go. I am very glad to see you,” he said, as he took her hand and held it, while they looked down at the grave together.
“Did you put these?” he said, touching the wreaths.
“Only this cross. The school-girls bring them on Sunday,” faltered Flossy, as she bent down and showed how the frame of the cross was made to hold water, which she now replenished from a little jug she had brought with her. Arthur, with a look of entreaty, and with trembling inapt fingers took the flowers and began to place them in the cross. Poor fellow, he did it very badly; but she refrained from helping him, and let him put the last snowdrop in himself.
“Flossy,” he said, suddenly, “if I were lying there, and she were left, do you think she could have – have endured to live?”
“Yes, Arthur,” Flossy said, in her full tones, which vibrated with intense feeling, “I think she could. I think she would have found a good life somehow; like – like a robin in the snow,” as one fluttered down beside them. “She was so clear and real – I think she would.”
Arthur had sat down on a broad, flat stone near, still gazing at the flowers.
“She was not so weak,” he murmured.
“Oh, Arthur, you have not been weak. Everyone says – ”
“No one knows,” he answered. “All that should help me has no reality apart from her.”
“But it is not apart from her, Arthur,” said Flossy, earnestly. “I – ”
“Yes?” said Arthur, looking up.
“Even I,” said Flossy, humbly, “I think of her at church, and doing my work, or on beautiful days like this.”
“Yes, dear Flossy, I’m sure you do,” said Arthur, gratified; but not as if he took the words home.
“And I hope,” said Flossy, “that it will make me a better girl, and more like her.”
“You are right, Flossy,” said Arthur, after a pause, with more spirit. “I don’t want to give up, and everyone is so kind to me; they all think of what I like. But,” he added, in a passionate undertone, “she was my angel; and all prayers, Sundays, all the things that comfort a good girl like you, are filled with longing for her!”
“But they won’t be less dear for that?” whispered Flossy.
“No,” he said, “No, I’ll hold on!”
And he felt then that through such holy associations his lost love might still be a star in his path, and lead him, not back to his old self, but on to something better, and even brighter. But, then, how could he tune his life to such a solemn melody as this? He longed for the joy-bells, and even the jingling tunes of his old, easy boyhood. He was so weary of his heavy heart. He knew, as Flossy could not know, why men plunged into folly, and even sin, to drown grief. He would, not do that; but he thought how incredible it would have been to Flossy that there were times when he wanted to forget Mysie – times that came oftener as the months went by. He would have walked so contentedly on the easy, unheroic meadows of every-day life, and fate, or the hand of God, had forced him on to the rocky paths of sorrow. Just at that moment he caught a glimpse of the golden gate above them.
“How many birds there are here!” he said, after a silence.
“Do you know why?” said Flossy. “Mrs Harcourt comes and feeds them here every morning and evening, because she was so fond of birds.”
“And I have never been to see her. I’ll go now,” said Arthur, rising with sudden energy.
“I came from there,” said Flossy. “This is Mrs Harcourt’s jug.”
“Well, then, let us come,” he said, without giving himself time to hesitate, and Florence took up her basket and followed him into the garden.
Part 5, Chapter XXXVIII
Pin-Pricks
“The mind has a thousand eyes,
And the heart but one.
But the light of a whole life dies
When love is done.”
The Rectory drawing-room window was open to the sunshine, and Mrs Harcourt was standing by it, waiting for Flossy. But Arthur turned aside from it, and went round to the door in front.
“Who is that, my dear?” said the old lady, as Flossy ran up to her.
“It is Arthur,” she said. “I met him there. He said he ought to come and see you.”
“Ah, poor boy, I’m glad,” said Mrs Harcourt, as she went to let him in, while Flossy exclaimed nervously:
“Oh, Violante, I forgot you. Never mind, it will be just as well.”
“Is it Signor Arthur?” asked Violante, who sometimes accompanied Miss Florence on half-holiday walks, and had needed no teaching to consider Redhurst sacred ground.
“Yes,” said Flossy, as Arthur and Mrs Harcourt came in. He looked very pale, while Mrs Harcourt, half-tearful, half-hospitable, was eagerly welcoming him.
“Ah, my dear Arthur, we have been longing to see you; but I can’t get out much now; and I know – I know you could hardly come. It is very good of you.”
“I am almost all day in Oxley,” he said, “but I hope you are well, and the Rector?”
“Pretty well, my dear, for our time of life. We have had a lonely winter; but we push along together, you see.”
Arthur managed to smile, but his face went to Flossy’s heart, though neither she nor Mrs Harcourt knew exactly how the fifty years which the old husband and wife had “had wi’ ane anither” had once seemed to stretch before the young lovers, who never saw of them a single day.
“You have been getting some tea for us, Mrs Harcourt?” she said.
“Oh, yes, my dear. Now, do you pour it out, and Arthur will have some. But will your young Italian friend drink tea?”
“Oh, yes, signora, I like tea,” and, with a start of relief, Arthur turned at the sound of her voice.
“Mademoiselle Mattei!” he said; “I did not know you;” and, in truth, Violante was much altered at first sight by her dark winter dress and jacket, and little black hat with a red plume.
Arthur shook hands with her, and asked her how she liked England.
“I like it very much.”
“Why, we were very near an explanation. If you had told me where you were going to school I could have enlightened you much better as to what your life would be like there.”
“But I did not know myself,” said Violante, colouring as she thought of what a difference a few explanations might have made. “I did not know anything,” and her sweet voice faltered with its weight of meaning.
“But I was right, wasn’t I, when I gave you good advice? You have found – ”
“Miss Florence,” said Violante, with a grateful look.
She felt as if Signor Arthur was quite an old friend. He had seen Rosa and her father, and she began to tell him about them, while Flossy made a few words of explanation to Mrs Harcourt as to their previous meeting.
“I expect to find my cousin James at home,” he said. “You remember him?”
“Yes, Arthur,” said Flossy. “It’s the strangest thing that she should have met you without knowing that Mr Crichton and James were your cousins, and that then she should come here!”
“Mr Hugh never comes to see me,” said Mrs Harcourt.
“Doesn’t he?” said Arthur. “I will tell him that he should. There’s the Rector.”
Mr Harcourt, with more tact than his wife, only gave Arthur a warm handshake. Violante rose and curtsied to him in a pretty reverential fashion that pleased and touched him, and while he complimented her, in a little old-fashioned Italian, Flossy said aside:
“It makes Violante very shy to hear of anyone who saw her act; and, as Mary isn’t very fond of the subject, we say very little about it.”
“Ah, yes, poor child! It’s a mortifying recollection if she made a failure of it. She’s a lovely creature. What on earth does she do with herself?”
“Oh, many things. Surely, Arthur, you don’t think she need be useless because she’s pretty?” and, in the little laugh that followed Flossy’s return to her natural inclination for argument, Arthur took his leave.
It was a great relief to have got this afternoon’s work over, and comfortable to find Jem at home when he got there, cheerful and chatty, and taking no apparent notice of his words or looks, yet with a little undercurrent of sympathy that he felt all the time. James amused everybody, and put them into good-humour, taking the burden of cheerfulness off their shoulders; and yet he avoided every word that could have touched painfully on his cousin or brother – or would have done so, had not some mention of a new opera recalled Violante to Arthur after dinner, when both he and Freddie demanded a description of her performances, as he stood on the hearthrug, looking round at his audience. Hugh was sitting on one side of the fire, holding up a “Quarterly Review;” the ladies looked expectant over their work; and Arthur, leaning back in a low chair in front of him, was looking right up in his face.
“Well,” said Jem, apparently measuring his beard, hair by hair; “I only saw her once. She acted badly and sang well, but it was a failure – ”
“How so? She was enough applauded,” abruptly said Hugh; and then could have bitten his tongue out for speaking.
“She is pretty, you know,” said Jem.
“Lovely,” said Arthur. “There’s a sort of pathetic grace about her; but I suppose it didn’t tell at a distance.”
It would be difficult to say whether their admiration, or the careless, critical tone in which it was uttered, enraged Hugh the most.
“Since her public career has ceased,” he said, “it seems a pity to discuss it.”
“Yes. It’s hardly fair,” said Arthur; “but she interested me, poor child, and I was very glad to see her with Flossy. She is sure to be well taken care of, and, perhaps, she’ll forget her troubles.”
“What troubles?” said Hugh, sternly.
“Why, I told you the other day,” said Arthur, regardful of Frederica’s presence. “She looks twice as bright as she did in Italy.”
“Now it seems to me,” said Mrs Crichton, “that you are all making a very unnecessary talk about her. Miss Venning has decidedly stretched a point in having her here. I don’t altogether approve of it. Young ladies shouldn’t have histories, and they should keep her and hers in the background.”
“Aunt Lily, I think that would be mean,” said Frederica.
“Aunt Lily’s never seen her,” said Arthur.
“No, my dear, I don’t feel any curiosity about her,” said Mrs Crichton, didactically.
Jem – no other word will express it – giggled; Hugh sprang to his feet, and, happily for the preservation of his secret, knocked over the lamp beside him, and in the confusion that followed Violante was forgotten, and he contrived to apologise and make his escape.
Such discussions rendered him furious, far more so than any amount of opposition could have done while he had had the one purpose of marrying Violante clear and straight before him. Then he would have borne patiently with his mother’s natural opposition, and would have smiled at anyone else’s. But now that they should all dare to praise her, and judge her, and “take an interest” in her! It made him very angry, and yet he was ashamed of his own connection with it. He would not have had it discovered for the world; and then, when he knew this feeling to be despicable, it was justified by the knowledge of the pain and disturbance any discovery would cause, and increased by his jealousy of Violante’s reported confidences and conversations. Arthur had been eager about nothing else. Hugh had an unbounded belief in Violante’s irresistible charms, and none in the depth and permanency of Arthur’s sorrow, even while that sorrow made his own. He was never in the same mind for five minutes at a time, angry, miserable, jealous, and self-reproachful. He was sacrificing himself, of course, in giving up all his chances of winning her, and yet he could not quite rid himself of the suspicion that he was false and cruel, and that he had been his best self when he defied the world for her sake. If accident had thrown her in his way the whole current of events might have been changed; but he could not and would not seek her, though he thought about her enough to make chance allusions far more his dread than they ever were Arthur’s, who never thought of them till they came; and he bemoaned himself over the Dysart dinner-party, the announcement of which his cousin hardly heeded.
“Hugh has become exceedingly cross,” Freddie said to Jem, with the freedom of speech of the Redhurst household.
“Then, don’t make him more so,” was Jem’s advice, given with equal openness.
The party was merely to consist of Colonel and Mrs Dysart, their two elder daughters, and one of their sons, who was discovered to be at home and invited at the last minute. It was difficult to see why a few extra people should make any difference, but Jem dressed himself with a sense of preparing to walk on egg-shells, and Arthur felt suddenly reluctant, and as if the sense of even this small festivity was depressing.
“My dear Jem,” his mother had said, “I look to you to make it go off well.” But the second Miss Dysart was very pretty, and just in the style Jem admired, and he was speedily absorbed in discussing a new novel with her, and forgot to guide the rest of the party, who talked of the neighbourhood and the society in the manner of people entertaining new comers. The ladies of the Dysart party were very conscious of the recent history of their entertainers; and, perhaps, Miss Dysart was a little disappointed that Arthur’s manner and conversation were so much like other people’s. The gentlemen were less well-informed, or more forgetful; and about half-way through dinner – after the shops of Oxley, and the excellence of Miss Venning’s school for girls, and the doubtful advantages of the grammar-school for boys, had been well discussed – the inevitable subject of a country dinner-party made its appearance, and young Dysart, across the table, began to ask Arthur about the shooting. Hugh paused suddenly in what he was saying, as Arthur answered: “I am afraid you haven’t much at Ashenfold; but ours is pretty good.”
“You shoot, I suppose?” said young Dysart.
“Oh, yes,” said Arthur, but with a catch in his breath.
“We shall take a day together, now and then, I hope, Mr Crichton?” said Colonel Dysart to Hugh.
“No. I have given it up,” said Hugh, with sudden abrupt emphasis. “I shall let my shooting.” He spoke as if he were confessing his faith on the scaffold; and, in the midst of the dead silence that ensued, James was heard wildly asking his little country-bred neighbour if she had ever been to a pigeon-match at Hurlingham; while Arthur, at the sound of his voice, said, with an effort that he could not conceal:
“The Ribstones are the great sportsmen in these parts. Sir William always has plenty of pheasants;” and Mrs Dysart caught up the Hurlingham shuttlecock and conducted the conversation safely on to the Princess of Wales. Arthur joined in, but his eyes looked absent, and once or twice he missed the answers to what he had said; while Jem’s pretty neighbour looked at him with the tears in her eyes. No one could forget what, had passed; and, indeed, in such a household as Redhurst, this matter of the shooting was a practical difficulty, and a subject that could not be tabooed.
The guests had hardly departed when Hugh said suddenly:
“To set this matter at rest for ever – as long as I live I shall never touch a gun again. Rest assured of it.”
No one answered, till Arthur said, moving away:
“Good night, Aunt Lily, I’ll go to bed. I’m tired.”
Then James broke out:
“Really, Hugh, I am surprised at you!”
“Would you have me let anyone – would you have me let Arthur think that I could ever shoot again?”
“Who cares whether you do or not?” said Jem, angrily. “Neither you nor Arthur can live without hearing the subject mentioned, and the only way is to pass it off quietly. He would have got over it in a minute if you had been silent, and next time it would have been a matter of course to him. Now you have raised up a scarecrow for ever.”
“Yes,” said Mrs Crichton. “It would be all very well to let the shooting for a time – ”
“Of course, mother, I meant with your permission,” said Hugh, who was very punctilious as to invading his mother’s rights.
“Nonsense, my dear. As if I should interfere with you about it! But now you have made our friends uncomfortable, and Arthur will feel the impossibility of it, instead of slipping back to it naturally by degrees. And you have made a most painful scene.” Here Mrs Crichton herself ended in tears – half-nervous and half-sorrowful.
“It only shows,” said Hugh, passionately, “that life here is impossible for Arthur and me. It is a problem that cannot be worked out. What is there left that has not that awful mark on it: the fields, the river – and would you have it supposed that I do not feel it?”
“I thought,” said James, drily, “that it was Arthur’s feelings, not yours, that were in question.”
Hugh paused, manifestly checked by this observation, and James went on: “We all feel enough sorrow, but this is not a question, of feelings but of nerves, as it seems to me. Arthur’s are naturally strong, and these things may not affect him as they do you.”
“As to that,” said Hugh, “one thing is as bad as another. I have shirked no associations. They don’t affect me.”
“Then, if not,” said his mother, “why did you speak as you did to-night?”
“Because I was thinking of him,” said Hugh. “Must I not feel them through him? What would he think of me if I seemed not to care? Am I not bound to spare him?”
“You set to work about it in a very odd manner,” said James.
“My dear,” said Mrs Crichton, “it is what I always told you. You will insist on looking on this matter from a morbid point of view. Just drop that, and time will heal all things – even such grief as ours and poor Arthur’s. And I don’t think he will feel these things after the first. He never had any nerves, as a boy, you know.”
“You cannot drop facts,” said Hugh, wearily, “but I have been wrong, as it seems, somehow. There’s no use in arguing about it.”
“Yes, my dear, you were quite wrong,” said Mrs Crichton, cheerfully, as he left the room; “so there’s an end of it.”
Arthur, meanwhile, was reflecting on the practical aspect of the case. Although Redhurst was not a household where sport was made the business of life, it was one into the ordinary habits of which it entered considerably; and, perhaps, from his connection with the town, Hugh was a little tenacious of this privilege of the county. He liked sporting matters to be well managed, and Arthur was a very good shot and genuinely fond of the pursuit. He really could not conceive how the civilities of life could go on, or the ordinary intercourse with their neighbours be maintained, as the year went round, without it. Certainly, they must see and hear of it, if they declined to join in it themselves. Arthur had formed no resolutions about it; and, but for his experience in the Ashenfold woods, would have been ready to take it up by degrees, with a heavy heart enough and with little interest, but as part of the life he had got to struggle back to. And, surely, that would never happen to him again. Arthur was much more ready to resist these involuntary sensations than the listlessness and dejection that seemed to have become natural to him. Hugh’s speech had, of course, been intensely painful; but without it he would have gone gallantly through the discussion and felt the better for his victory. But he knew that Hugh had spoken for his sake. He would try not to be such a worry to them all. He had a bad night, however, and was, perhaps, not in the best tune the next morning for trying experiments on himself, but he would not falter; so, coming down early, he went into the little back-room, where they smoked, and kept and cleaned their guns, and began to look for his own. He found it in its usual cupboard and took it out; but the sight, the touch, the very thought of the sound of it, were more than he could bear. He just managed to put it back, and rushed out into the garden. No, he could never touch it again! But there was no use in telling anyone that he had such strange sensations; and James and his aunt, only seeing the outside, agreed that he was as well and cheerful as could be expected.