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son, Richard Arden was opposed to his suit, and had already begun to work upon Miss Arden’s mind to his prejudice. His best chance, then, he still thought, was to anticipate that danger by a declaration. If that declaration could only be forgiven, and the little scene at old Mortlake garden door sponged out, might not his chances stand better far than before? Would not the past, though never spoken of, give meaning, fire, and melancholy to things else insignificant, and keep him always before her, and her alone, be his demeanour and language ever so reserved and cold, as an impassioned lover? Did not his knowledge of human nature assure him that these relations of mystery would, more than any other, favour his fortunes?

“That she should consign what has passed, in a few impetuous moments, to oblivion and silence, is no unreasonable prayer, and one as easy to grant as to will it. She will think it over, and, for my part, I will meet her as if nothing had ever happened to change our trifling but friendly relations. I wish I knew what Richard Arden was about. I soon shall. Yes, I shall – I soon shall.”

An opportunity seemed to offer sooner even than he had hoped; for as he drove towards St. James’s Street, passing one of Richard Arden’s clubs, he saw that young gentleman ascending the steps with Lord Wynderbroke.

Longcluse stopped his brougham, jumped out, and overtook Richard Arden in the hall, where he stood, taking his letters from the hall-porter.

“How d’ye do, again? I sha’n’t detain you a minute. I have had a long talk with your father about business,” said Longcluse, seizing the topic most likely to secure a few minutes, and speaking very low. “You can bring me into a room here, and I’ll tell you all that is necessary in two minutes.”

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“Certainly,” said Richard, yielding to his curiosity. “I have only two or three minutes. I dine here with a friend, who is at this moment ordering dinner; so, you see, I am rather hurried.”

He opened a door, and looking in said – “Yes, we shall be quite to ourselves here.”

Longcluse shut the door. There was no one to overhear them. Richard Arden sat down on a sofa, and Mr. Longcluse threw

himself into a chair.

“And what did he say?” asked Richard.

“They want to raise his interest on the Yorkshire estate; and he says you won’t help him; but that of course is your affair, and I declined, point-blank, to intervene in it. And before I go further, it strikes me, as it did to-day at Mortlake, that your manner to me has undergone a slight change.”

“Has it? I did not mean it, I assure you,” said Richard Arden, with a little laugh.

“Oh! yes, Arden, it has, and you must know it, and – pardon me – you must intend it also; and now I want to know what I have done, or how I have hurt you, or who has been telling lies of me?”

“Nothing of all these, that I know of,” said Richard, with a cold little laugh.

“Well, of course, if you prefer it, you may decline an explanation. I must however, remind you, because it concerns my happiness, and possibly other interests dearer to me than my life, too nearly to be trifled with, that you heard all I said respecting your sister with the friendliest approbation and encouragement. You knew as much and as little about me then as you do now. I am not conscious of having said or done anything to warrant the slightest change in your feelings or opinion; and in your manner there is a change, and a very decided change, and I tell you frankly I can’t understand it.”

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Thus directly challenged, Richard Arden looked at him hard for a moment. He was balancing in his mind whether he should evade or accept the crisis. He preferred the latter.

“Well, I can only say I did not intend to convey anything by my manner; but, as you know, when there is anything in one’s mind it is not always easy to prevent its affecting, as you say, one’s manner. I am not sorry you have asked me, because I spoke without reflection the other day. No one should answer, I really think, for any one else, in ever so small a matter, in this world.”

“But you didn’t – you spoke only for yourself. You simply promised me your friendship, your kind offices – you said, in fact, all I could have hoped for.”

“Yes, perhaps – yes, I may, I suppose I did. But don’t you see, dear Longcluse, things may come to mind, on thinking over.”

“What things?” demanded Longcluse quickly, with a sudden energy that called a flush to his temples; and fire gleamed for a moment from his deep-set, gloomy eyes.

“What things? Why, young ladies are not always the most intelligible problems on earth. I think you ought to know that; and really I do think, in such matters, it is far better that they should be left to themselves as much as possible; and I think, besides, that there are some difficulties that did not strike us. I mean, that I now see that there really are great difficulties – insuperable difficulties.”

“Can you define them?” said Longcluse coldly.

“I don’t want to vex you, Longcluse, and I don’t want to quarrel.” “That’s extremely kind of you.”

“I don’t know whether you are serious, but it is quite true. I don’t wish any unpleasantness between us. I don’t think I need say more than that; having thought it over, I don’t see how it could ever be.”

“Will you give me your reasons?”

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“I really don’t see that I can add anything in particular to what I have said.”

“I think, Mr. Arden, considering all that has passed between us on this subject, that you are bound to let me know your reasons for so marked a change of opinion.”

“I can’t agree with you, Mr. Longcluse. I don’t see in the least why I need tell you my particular reasons for the opinion I have expressed. My sister can act for herself, and I certainly shall not account to you for my reasons or opinions in the matter.”

Mr. Longcluse’s pale face grew whiter, and his brows knit, as he fixed a momentary stare on the young man; but he mastered his anger, and said in a cold tone –

“We disagree totally upon that point, and I rather think the time will come when you must explain.”

“I have no more to say upon the subject, Sir, except this,” said Arden, very tartly, “that it is certain your hopes can never lead to anything, and that I object to your continuing your visits at Mortlake.” “Why, the house does not belong to you – it belongs to Sir Reginald Arden, who objects to your visits and receives mine. Your ideas

seem a little confused,” and he laughed gently and coldly.

“Very much the reverse, Sir. I object to my sister being exposed to the least chance of annoyance from your visits. I protest against it, and you will be so good as to understand that I distinctly forbid them.”

“The young lady’s father, I presume, will hardly ask your advice in the matter, and I certainly shall not ask your leave. I shall call when I please, so long as I am received at Mortlake, and shall direct my own conduct, without troubling you for counsel in my affairs.” Mr. Longcluse laughed again icily.

“And so shall I, mine,” said Arden sharply.

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CHAPTER XXVIII

STORIES ABOUT

MR. LONGCLUSE

The irritation of this unpleasant interview soon subsided, but Mr. Longcluse’s anxiety rather increased.

Next day early in the afternoon he drove to Lady May’s and she received him just as usual. He learned from her, without appearing to seek the information, that Alice Arden was still at Mortlake. His visit was one of but two or three minutes. He jumped into a hansom and drove out to Mortlake. He knocked. Man of the world as he was, his heart beat faster.

“Is Miss Arden at home?” “No, Sir.”

“Not at home?”

“Miss Arden is gone out, Sir.” “Oh! perhaps in the garden?”

“No, Sir; she has gone out, and won’t be back for some time.” The man spoke with the promptitude and decision of a servant

instructed to deny his mistress to the visitor. He had not a card; he would call again another day.

He heard the piano faintly, and, he thought, Alice’s voice also; and certainly he saw Vivian Darnley in the drawing-room window, as his cab turned away from the door. With a swelling heart he drove into town. The portcullis, then, had fallen; access was denied him; and he should see her no more!

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Good Heaven! what had he done? He walked distractedly, for a while, up and down his study. Should he employ Lady May’s intervention, and tell her the whole story? Good-natured Lady May! Perhaps she would undertake his cause, and plead for his re-ad- mission. But was even that so certain? How could he tell what view she might take of the matter? And were she to intercede for him ever so vehemently, how could he tell that she had any chance of prevailing?

No; on the whole it was better to be his own advocate. He would sit down then and there, and write to the offended or alarmed lady, and lay his piteous case before her in his own words and rely on her compassion, without an intervenient.

How many letters he began, how many he even finished, and rejected, I need not tire you by telling. Some were composed in the first, others in the third person. Not one satisfied him. Here was the man of a million and more, who would dash off a note to his stock-broker, to buy or sell a hundred thousand pounds’ worth of stock – who would draft a resolution of the bank of which he was the chairman, directing an operation which would make men open their eyes, without the tremor of a nerve or the hesitation of a moment – unmanned, helpless, distracted in the endeavour to write a note to a young and inexperienced girl!

O beautiful sex! what a triumph is here! O Love! what fools will you not make of us poor masculine wiseacres! The letter he dispatched was in these terms. I daresay he had torn better ones to pieces: –

“Dear Miss Arden, – I had hoped that my profound contrition might have atoned for a momentary indiscretion – the declaration, though in terms the most respectful, of feelings which I had not selfcommand sufficient to suppress, and which had for nearly a year remained concealed in my own breast. I am sure, Miss Arden, that

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you are incapable of a gratuitous cruelty. Have I not sworn that one word to recall the remembrance of that, to me, all but fatal madness shall never escape my lips, in your presence? May I not entreat that you will forget it, that you will forbear to pass upon me the agonising sentence of exclusion? You shall never again have to complain of my uttering one word that the merest acquaintance, who is permitted the happiness of conversing with you, might not employ. You shall never regret your forbearance. I shall never cease to bless you for it; and whatever decision you arrive at, it shall be respected by me as sacred law. I shall never cease to reverence and bless the hand that spares or – afflicts me. May I be permitted this one melancholy hope, may I be allowed to interpret your omitting to answer this miserable letter as a concession of its prayer? Unless forbidden, I will endeavour to construe your silence as oblivion.

“I have the honour to remain, dear Miss Arden, with deep compunction and respect, but not altogether without hope in your mercy,

“Yours the most unhappy and distracted man in England, “Walter Longcluse.”

Mr. Longcluse sealed this letter in its envelope, and addressed it. He would have liked to send it that moment, by his servant, but an odd shyness prevented. He did not wish his servants to conjure and put their heads together over it; he could not endure the idea; so with his own hand he dropped it in the post. Somewhat in the style of the old novel was this composition of Mr. Longcluse’s – a little theatrical, and, one would have fancied, even affected; yet never was man more desperately sincere.

Night came, and brought no reply. Was no news good news, or would the morning bring, perhaps from Richard Arden, a withering answer? Morning came, and no answer: what was he to conjecture?

That day, in Grosvenor Square, he passed Richard Arden, who looked steadily and sternly a little to his right, and cut him.

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It was a marked and decided cut. His ears tingled as if he had received a slap in the face. So things had assumed a very decided attitude indeed! Longcluse felt very oddly enraged, at first; then anxious. It was insulting that Richard Arden should have taken the initiative in dissolving relations. But had he not been himself studiously impertinent to Arden, in that brief colloquy of yesterday? He ought to have been prepared for this. Without explanation, and the shaking of hands, it was impossible that relations of amity should have been resumed between them. But Longcluse had been entirely absorbed by a threatened alienation that affected him much more nearly. There was a thesis for conjecture in the situation, which made him still more anxious. A very little time would probably clear all up.

He was walking homeward, saying to himself as he went, “No, I shall find no answer; I should be a fool to fancy anything else;” and yet walking all the more quickly, as he approached his house, in the hope of the very letter which he affected, to himself, to have quite rejected as an impossibility. Some letters had come, but none from Mortlake. His letter to Alice was still unanswered. He was now in the agony of suspense and distraction.

The same evening Richard Arden was talking about him, as he leaned with his elbow on the mantelpiece at Mortlake. He and Alice were alone in the drawing-room, awaiting the arrival of the little dinner-party. This, as you know, was to include Lord Wynderbroke, before whose advances, in Richard Arden’s vision, Mr. Longcluse had waned, and even become an embarrassment and a nuisance.

“It is easier to cut him than to explain,” thought Richard Arden. “It bores one so inexpressibly, giving reasons for what one does, and I’m so glad he has saved me the trouble by his vulgar impertinence.” They had talked for some time, Alice chiefly a listener. How was she affected toward Mr. Longcluse? He was agreeable; he flattered her; he was passionately in love with her. All but this latter

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condition she liked very well; but this was embarrassing, and quite impracticable. Who knows what that tiny spark we term a fancy, a whim, a penchant might have grown to, had it not been blown away by this untimely gust? But, for my part, I don’t think it ever would have grown to a matter of the heart. There was something in the way. A fancy is one thing, and passion quite another. Pique is a common state of mind, and comes and goes, and comes again, in many a courtship. But a liking that has once entered the heart cannot be torn out in a hasty moment, and takes a long time, and many a struggle, to kill.

She was a little sorry, just then, to lose him so inevitably. Perhaps his letter, to which he had trusted to move her, had rendered the return of old relations impossible. In this letter she felt herself the owner of a secret – a secret which she could not keep without a sort of understanding growing up between them – which therefore she had no idea of keeping.

She was resolved to tell it. The letter she had locked, in marked isolation, as if no property of hers, but simply a document that was in her keeping, in the pretty ormolu casket that stood on the draw- ing-room chimney-piece. She had intended showing it, and telling the story of the scene in the garden, to Richard. But he was speaking with a mysterious asperity of Mr. Longcluse, which made her hesitate. A very little thing, it seemed to her, might suffice to make a very violent quarrel out of a coldness. Instinctively, therefore, she refrained, and listened to Richard while, with his arm touching the casket on the chimney-piece, he descanted on the writer of the unknown letter.

She experienced an odd feeling of insecurity as, in the course of his talk, his fingers began to trifle with the pretty fingers that stood out in relief upon the casket; for she knew that the ordeal of the pistol, discountenanced in England, was still in force on the Conti-

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