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BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME 
 FROM THE 
 
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 ^■A.^,y /2.7.., ■ va| / i|^y' 
 
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Cornell University Library 
 PR 4699.E842B8 
 
 A bride elect, 
 
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Cornell University 
 Library 
 
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 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013456946 
 
BY 
 
 THEO, DOUGLAS 
 
 Etintion 
 
 M-ACMILLAN AND CO, Ltdi 
 
 / NEW YORK : MACMILLAN & CO. 
 1896 
 
 Price One Shilling 
 
"As like as Eggs— women say so." — Winter's Tale. 
 
 Every Meal Made 
 Attractive and Tempting 
 
 BY THE USE OF 
 
 BIRD'S 
 
 CUSTARD 
 
 POWDER 
 
 A delicious accompaniment to every 
 
 Sweet Dish, Pudding, or Stewed Fruit — 
 
 all tiie year round. 
 
 NO EGGS! NO TROUBLE! NO RISK! 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 
 
«s- 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 ; i: I. \ I 1 
 
 BY 
 
 THEO. DOUGLAS c-j>*«^J*«^ 
 
 JLontron 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd, 
 
 NEW YORK: MACMILLAN & CO. 
 1896 
 
C. H. DOUGLAS 
 
 August 10, zSgo 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 "Dear Godmamma Dorcas, — You promised Dad 
 when I was a child, — before I could run alone, I believe 
 — that you would come to my wedding, and we are 
 going now to claim fulfilment, so you must pack up your 
 boxes forthwith. I am to be married in a fortnight, very 
 quietly, in the church at home. It has all been fixed in 
 a great hurry ; Dick wanted to wait till the spring, but 
 I said no, I was not going to stand another winter in 
 Ditchborough if I could help it. I told him he could 
 take me or leave me, so he is going to take me, — of 
 course. It is to be as quiet as possible, — indeed nobody 
 has been told in the neighbourhood ; but the village 
 people are so inquisitive and the servants will talk, so I 
 am afraid it is not as secret as I should wish. Not a 
 soul is to be asked but Dick's father and mother, and 
 one of his married sisters and yourself Janie will be my 
 only bridesmaid ; and there will be nobody to pair with 
 her, as Dick is not having a best man. It is all nonsense 
 about best men ; they are no good for anything. Mother 
 says I must have a white dress and a veil, and she is 
 getting her way ; but for my own part I would like 
 better to wear a garden hat and an ulster, and go off 
 from the church-door. Dick would not care. Besides 
 if a girl is ever to have her own way, it should be when 
 she is married ; for that only happens once as a rule, — 
 
2 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 like being born, or dying at the end of everything when 
 one is old. Mother sends her love to you, and hopes you 
 wrill come on Wednesday w^eek. She is going to write 
 to you to-morrow to give the invitation properly, — not 
 necessary I tell her, as you will take it from me. Besides 
 you know you promised, — twenty years ago. There is 
 nothing to stand in the way, as you are giving up your 
 old women and dirty children and close courts. — What 
 a place the East End must be, with nothing but docks 
 and warehouses and people out of work ! How you have 
 stood it for five years I can't imagine, — and never a 
 holiday to come and see us, or go anywhere else ! 
 
 "Your affectionate god-daughter, and cousin 
 once removed, 
 
 "Barbara Alleyne." 
 
 I took ofF my spectacles, and laid down the letter. I 
 had not needed them indeed, for the writing was big 
 and black, and took up so much space it ought to have 
 been plain, even to more failing eyes than mine. There 
 was not a great deal in the letter, and yet it had managed 
 to sprawl over three sheets of note-paper, and the dashing 
 signature did not come till quite at the bottom of the last 
 page. I was conscious of a certain sense of discomfort 
 with the writer, — of disappointment even — which did 
 not sit upon me easily. I had to take myself to task 
 with a reminder that I was behind my age, and had little 
 in common with the new generation so fast growing up ; 
 but it seemed strange that a girl should write so flippantly 
 of the most solemn event in her life, — strange she should 
 be the one to press for immediate marriage when the 
 bridegroom proposed delay, — strange she should have no 
 regrets to express over quitting the safe shelter of home, 
 the father and mother who idolised her if ever a child yet 
 had been idolised by doting parents. It was not like the 
 Barbara Alleyne I remembered, — the long-legged, fresh- 
 hearted hoyden with whom I had been much in sympathyj 
 a Barbara of many scrapes and quick affections, hardly 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 3 
 
 at all sobered but much encumbered by the womanly 
 length of skirt with which she had lately been endued, 
 more to her embarrassment than pride. But five years 
 work changes in all of us, — even from forty-three to 
 forty-eight, and much more so from fifteen to twenty, 
 the age Barbara had now attained. I must be prepared 
 for that blossoming into young maturity which does not 
 always unfold the colour of the bud. 
 
 My name is not Dorcas at all, but Susan Varney ; and 
 I am first cousin to Barbara's parents, standing in equal 
 relation to them both, for the Varneys intermarried on 
 either side, both with the Alleynes and the Frosts. 
 Gregory AUeyne, Eleanor Frost, and I were much 
 together as children, being nearly of an age, and with a 
 degree of brotherly and sisterly intimacy all round which 
 is generally thought to prevent the sequence of nearer 
 ties. But when Gregory went into the Church and was 
 able to look about him early for a wife, being in moder- 
 ately affluent circumstances, unlike the ordinary run of 
 young clergymen, it was Eleanor Frost whom he asked 
 to share his parsonage and his prospects, and stop the war 
 of pulling caps for him which was being waged by the 
 maiden ladies of the parish. A town parish in those 
 days, not Ditchborough ; for Ditchborough has been the 
 retirement of his middle life. 
 
 When I say there was always a certain rivalry between 
 Eleanor Frost and me (not incompatible with cousinly 
 friendship), I must be distinctly understood that the 
 rivalry vras never in Gregory's affections. I might have 
 thought, and did think, that my cousin could have chosen 
 more wisely when he threw his clerical handkerchief to 
 Eleanor ; but I had never entertained the least wish or 
 expectation that it should fell in my direction. That I 
 am a single woman is by no means because Gregory 
 AUeyne passed me by. I do not say there has been no 
 hidden reason, but the history of it is quite apart from 
 anything I have now to tell. 
 
 I never came near Eleanor in appearance. She was a 
 
4 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 handsome, stately girl, a sort of ideal Juno, full and 
 rounded in figure and looking older than her years. I 
 was thin and brown like all the Varneys, and with crisp 
 hair which could not be brushed into the satin smoothness 
 fashionable in our early youth. I think Eleanor was 
 secretly annoyed that her one daughter resembled the 
 Varneys rather than herself; though it was natural 
 enough, seeing that Barbara inherited Varney blood on 
 both sides of her descent, which doubtless accounted for 
 her opening a pair of dark eyes on the world, while her 
 thick brown hair curled closely over her pretty head, and 
 could not be induced to grow long. 
 
 I am, as I have said, a single woman; and having in 
 these later days no ties or duties to anchor me domestically, 
 I sought them for myself by joining a lay sisterhood 
 working in the parish of St. Cyprian's in the East. I 
 pledged myself for five years, — the five years Barbara 
 wrote about, — and that is why she took it into her head 
 to dub me Dorcas. For four out of the five years my 
 work prospered, and I found it almost as engrossing as I 
 hoped ; but in the fifth my health broke down, and after 
 weeks of hospital (as a patient this time and not a helper) 
 I resolved to take back my liberty now that my term 
 of service was fulfilled. Barbara's invitation happened 
 opportunely, and it was endorsed the day following by a 
 letter from Mrs. AUeyne, begging me to remain with 
 them for a time after the wedding, and take a real rest 
 under their roof. 
 
 I had never been to Ditchborough. Gregory Alleyne 
 had proved a rolling-stone, and this country parish was 
 his fourth remove from the town-parsonage of which 
 Eleanor had consented to be mistress. Very dull it had 
 been described to me, and absolutely rural ; but it had 
 the advantage of good emolument and a large commodious 
 house, as well as diminished work, which would give 
 Gregory more leisure for his literary labours. I did not 
 think much of these, but his wife did, as was natural. 
 As for the rural dulness of Ditchborough, I confess this 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 5 
 
 appeared to me its chiefest attraction. After years of 
 bricks and mortar and crowded courts, I longed inex- 
 pressibly for woods and furzy wastes, green fields and 
 lanes with thick embowering hedges, the country stillness 
 and sweet air, the homely fermyards and the breath of 
 kine. I used to dream of them in my narrow hospital 
 bed between the heats of fever, and wake with a sick 
 longing which in the depression of that time would fill 
 my eyes with tears. All this would now be mine to 
 enjoy; and though chill December was upon us, and the 
 long winter had still to be worn through, I should be in 
 the midst of the gradual quickening and unfolding of 
 spring, and perhaps see the full glory of summer and the 
 gold of autumn, if I stayed out the year of which my 
 cousins had spoken. 
 
 It was a bitter cold day in the week before Christmas 
 when at last I turned my back on London, and with 
 good store of luggage and books, as befitted a visit of the 
 length proposed to me, set out northwards for Blankshire. 
 Everything was locked in a black frost which promised 
 well for the skaters, and the clear pale sky did not as yet 
 threaten any downfall of snow. Christmas fell on a 
 Thursday in this year, and Barbara's wedding was fixed 
 for the Saturday before, the third day after my arrival. 
 I knew the parents were both approving her choice ; 
 Eleanor had mentioned it as a matter of congratulation 
 when she wrote at the end of October to announce the 
 engagement. Sir Richard and Lady Sudeleigh were old 
 friends, and Dick, their second son, had inherited a good 
 fortune from a distant relative, and could afford the life 
 of a country gentleman, though he had been educated 
 for a profession. I knew later that his tastes were chiefly 
 nautical ; he had a large and well-found yacht, and his 
 honeymoon was to be spent mainly in the Mediterranean. 
 The young people had been thrown together in the 
 autumn at the seaside ; and the whole family seemed, by 
 Eleanor's account, to have fallen in love with Barbara, 
 so her reception was a cordial one. " It was no surprise 
 
6 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 to me," Eleanor wrote ; " I had foreseen it from the 
 beginning, and felt certain of all but my child's feelings ; 
 Barbara is so very reserved. But to Gregory it was 
 quite unexpected, for he had taken the odd notion into 
 his head that Dick was attracted by Janie. As if any 
 one would look at Janie when Barbara was by ! " 
 
 Perhaps I had better explain that Janie was also a 
 cousin, on the Frost side of the femily. She was the 
 daughter of Alice Frost, who had married Colonel Moor- 
 house and lived only a year to bear the altered name. 
 Colonel Moorhouse did not long remain a widower, and 
 there came to be a large second family. Janie was 
 supposed not to be very happy with her stepmother ; so 
 when Eleanor was arranging for her daughter's education 
 at home, and wished it to be shared by a girl about her 
 own age, Janie was installed at the Alleynes' as Barbara's 
 companion, and as such had now lived with them for ten 
 years. I was glad to hear the marriage would not 
 deprive her of her home, for I believe the Moorhouses 
 had made it very plain they did not want her, and 
 considered her quite a graft into the Alleyne stock. She 
 called Mr. and Mrs. Alleyne uncle and aunt, though the 
 real relation was only cousinship. I had been sorry for 
 the girl formerly, but had never noticed her much ; 
 Eleanor did not like it, and evidently entertained the 
 idea that it was wholesome for Janie to be kept in the 
 background. Nothing irritated her so much as praise of 
 the alien nestling, as by some curious process of mind 
 she always interpreted it as censure on Barbara, or at 
 least as a slight to her idol. Barbara, though kind in the 
 main, was not too considerate, and the careless superiority 
 she assumed might at times be galling. I wondered, as 
 I watched from the window of the railway-carriage the 
 wintry landscape flying past me, how Janie would appear 
 under these altered conditions, and what amount of 
 modest shining she would contribute now the eclipse of 
 the greater luminary was to be withdrawn. 
 
 I had left London early, but it was close on four 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 7 
 
 o'clock when after sundry changes I was put down at the 
 small wayside station nearest to Ditchborough. The 
 station-master seemed quite stirred up to interest by any 
 arrival out of the usual run of market traffic, and touched 
 his hat very civilly as he helped to collect my parcels and 
 boxes, which the guard was banging out upon the platform 
 with every appearance of desperate haste. Mr. Alleyne 
 was waiting outside for me, he told me confidentially, for 
 the horse was a young and fidgety one, and he did not 
 like to leave it. I might be easy about my belongings, 
 as he would see them put into the cart which would be 
 along by and by. I left with him a tangible expression 
 of my gratitude, and betook myself outside, where I 
 found Mr. Alleyne and the dog-cart, with the young 
 horse apparently reluctant to stand on all four legs at 
 once, somewhat to the embarrassment of his charioteer. 
 
 " How-do, Susan ! He'll be all right directly — quiet, 
 will you ! No vice about- him, but I am breaking him 
 in to trains ; as gentle as a lamb to drive ; — you could 
 manage him yourself; and you are not afraid of anything, 
 or used not to be. Hi, Joe ! just stand at his head for a 
 moment while the lady gets in." 
 
 I managed to scramble up in a brief interval of quies- 
 cence ; and when the fidgety young creature was released 
 and speeding away with us along a level stretch of road, 
 I found leisure to look at my companion. He was not 
 much changed in the five years; the closely trimmed 
 whiskers had grown a little greyer perhaps, but the same 
 sweetness of expression and weakness of outline character- 
 ised the clean-shaven mouth and chin. He was keeping 
 a close hand and watchful eye on his pupil, but found 
 time for a spasmodic remark or two, — questions about 
 my health, and whether I was afraid of an open carriage ; 
 there was some reason why the brougham could not be 
 sent for me. Presently, as Red Saxon sobered to his 
 work, conversation became easier, and of course the 
 approaching wedding at once suggested itself. 
 
 "I am glad you and Eleanor like Mr. Sudeleigh so 
 
8 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 much ; and knowing all his people as you do, you must 
 feel happy about Barbara's prospects. And is she very 
 much in love ? " 
 
 " Dick is a good fellow. Yes ; I am satisfied, and 
 Eleanor is delighted. She has wished for it a long time, 
 she tells me, before Barbara came to a marriageable age 
 even ; and his mother has always been her greatest friend. 
 I believe this was one reason why she objected so much 
 to the other affair. As for Barbara being very much in 
 love, — well, I don't profess to understand girls. She is 
 altered in many ways, — not half so lively as she used to 
 be ; but I suppose it is only natural. Dick is very 
 devoted ; he follows her about like her shadow, and she 
 won't stir without him. She has quite given up her old 
 active habits out-of-doors. I think she has felt all this 
 being hurried on so, and I am sorry for it myself They 
 are both young, and could very well have waited ; and I 
 was in no haste to lose my daughter." 
 
 I thought of Barbara's letter, and the avowal that the 
 haste had been her own; but one thing Gregory said 
 had aroused my curiosity, — the other affair ! Our corre- 
 spondence had, it is true, been irregular; but no hint had 
 reached me of another suitor for Barbara, though Eleanor 
 was not a person likely to be reticent about her daughter's 
 conquests. We had been climbing a hill, and at the 
 summit found ourselves on a wide heathy waste, crisped 
 white with the hoar-frost, and with the sun going down 
 behind it, a broad shield of crimson in the west. Just 
 beyond the cross-roads a horseman rode rapidly past us, and 
 I saw that he and Mr. Alleyne exchanged salutations. 
 I did not notice him particularly in the dusk, except that 
 he seemed to sit his horse well, but looked elderly. 
 
 " That is one of my parishioners, but not one of my 
 flock," said Gregory, as the sound of hoof-beats died 
 away in the distance. 
 
 " An alien in religion ? " I asked. 
 
 " Well, yes. I believe Redworth belongs to the 
 Greek Church; he was brought up in Armenia, and 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 9 
 
 hinted as much to me on one occasion. But he has been 
 my very good friend ever since he came to Ditchborough, 
 which w^as not long after I was presented to the Hving." 
 
 " It is not a large parish, Eleanor tells me. I am glad 
 you have a neighbour of your own class." 
 
 " Yes, Redworth is the sole representative of the resi- 
 dent gentry ; the farms are all small holdings. But he 
 is only the tenant of Coldhope, and may not continue 
 there much longer. You see his house among the trees, 
 and the ehurch and rectory are at the foot of the hill." 
 
 We were now on the brow of another descent, which 
 led down into a wide valley. I could see a large red- 
 brick mansion half hidden among the sere woods, while 
 the grey squat tower of the church rose below. 
 
 "Rather a handsome house," went on Gregory; "of the 
 Queen Anne period, I believe, or else the early Georgian. 
 It belongs to the Beryngtons, a Roman Catholic family; 
 but they cannot afford to keep it up, and are obliged 
 to let." 
 
 " And what brought Mr. Redworth to Ditchborough?" 
 
 " Ah, that is a question which has been asked before. 
 I believe the true answer is our absolute rural stagnation; 
 the very reason why most people would stay away ! 
 Redworth is a scholar and an experimental chemist to 
 boot, a man of very advanced views on most subjects. 
 He is pursuing some researches for which absolute retire- 
 ment and quiet are essential; and I imagine the low rent 
 and the big rooms attracted him. He leads a solitary 
 kind of life there ; his servants are all foreigners and all 
 men, — there is not a woman in the house." 
 
 " There is no Mrs. Redworth, then ? " 
 
 " No. You did not hear that he wished to marry 
 Barbara?" 
 
 This then was the other afFair, to which allusion had 
 been made. I replied in the negative, and Gregory went 
 on, while Red Saxon was picking his way down the first 
 steep pitch of hill. 
 
 " I was sorry about it — very; but I am glad to say 
 
lo A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 Redworth took it very sensibly, and it has not made any 
 breach between us. It is more than a year ago now. 
 Barbara was barely nineteen; and with fifty years' dis- 
 parity between them, and he not a Churchman, it was of 
 course out of the question. Eleanor was right ; I felt 
 that all through; it was only when with him that I was 
 inclined to waver. He is a curious man ; most per- 
 suasive and fascinating, and young for his age, — in every 
 way but the mere count of years a younger man than I 
 am. He made me feel that I might be wrong in sacri- 
 ficing my child's happiness to the world's opinion; for 
 when pressed home it was that which was against him 
 rather than my own, — the icnowlcdge that such a union 
 was unusual and might be condemned. And he thought 
 the stupid prejudice of the village people had affected 
 Eleanor." 
 
 " But Barbara ! You say her happiness ; surely she 
 did not care for him ? " 
 
 " No ; she did not, as it turned out. But she was 
 much attracted by him, — fascinated I think, and flattered 
 by having a man of the world as her lover, and the 
 romance of the thing altogether. Not much romance 
 you will say, when the lover was hard upon seventy; but 
 wait till you see him, wait till you know him, as you 
 will do, before you flout the idea. I am sure she was 
 favourable to him at the beginning ; but they had a 
 quarrel of some kind. I don't know what it was about ; 
 I don't know who was to blame, and I don't think 
 Eleanor does. The child came to me in one of her 
 passions, — she is very high-spirited, — with her cheeks 
 white and her eyes shining, and said it must be all 
 over; she would never marry him if she lived to be 
 a hundred, and I was to tell him so. Then she broke 
 down and cried her heart out, like the child she was ; 
 but she told us no more. I gathered afterwards, when 
 I spoke to him, that she had given him some en- 
 couragement and a promise, conditional on my approval 
 of course ; but he never said a syllable of blame. All 
 
A BRIDE ELECT ii 
 
 this happened a year ago ; and he has continued to visit 
 us, though not so frequently as before. I go now and 
 then to spend the evening with him at Coldhope ; he is a 
 delightful companion, — has been all over the world, and 
 has a wonderful store of out-of-the-way knowledge. He 
 sent Barbara a wedding-present, though we had naturally 
 avoided mention of her prospects. But I wish Eleanor 
 would be more cordial." 
 
 I knew of old how immovable Eleanor was in her 
 opinions, and smiled a little to myself. " You said the 
 prejudice of the village people had affected her. What is 
 that?" 
 
 "Oh, some ridiculous gossip about the supernatural. 
 You would hardly think in this nineteenth century that 
 people could be so credulous. Eleanor would never 
 seriously believe in it, though the fact that such things 
 had been said might aiFect her in a way, — you under- 
 stand. Some nonsense about Redworth being a sort of 
 male witch and having the evil eye; altogether too 
 trivial to repeat. And he is exceedingly liberal to those 
 about him, which makes it all the stranger ; he sub- 
 scribes to all our charities and church repairs, and quite 
 lately sent me a substantial cheque for distribution among 
 the poor. We are nearly home now, Susan : there is the 
 Rectory; and I wanted to say a word to prepare you. 
 Eleanor has beconie quite an invalid latterly; she suffers 
 very much at times. I had a first-rate opinion some 
 time since, and it was very unfavourable ; there is serious 
 internal mischief. She was not told fully, but I believe 
 she divined all I would have kept from her ; and now her 
 great anxiety is to conceal her state from Barbara; she 
 does not want the child saddened now that she is leaving 
 home. Say nothing before Barbara if you think her 
 changed. Janie knows, and I expect she will tell you 
 herself, though she would not mention it by letter. — 
 Here we are ! " 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 The Rectory was a big rambling house that ought to 
 have been kept alive by the usual overflowing clerical 
 family; it seemed to me over-large for this one middle- 
 aged couple whose only child was leaving them. It had 
 been enlarged by a former rector who took pupils, and so 
 was somewhat incongruous in design. But the general 
 effect was one of abounding comfort on the evening of 
 my arrival ; with the lighted windows shining out into 
 the winter dusk, and the cheerful fires in the hall and in 
 the drawing-room, where I was presently taken to see 
 Eleanor. This was a double room with two doors and 
 two fireplaces, each burning brightly; but the only light 
 in it other than the glowing hearths came from a shaded 
 lamp on the table at Eleanor's elbow. She was changed 
 undoubtedly; there was a drawn look about her hand- 
 some face, and she rose from her chair to greet me with 
 an infirmity quite other than the old indolence. 
 
 She gave me a kind welcome, and I was put near 
 the fire to thaw after my cold drive, and assured tea 
 would be in directly to assist the process. The young 
 people were out ; they had hardly expected me so soon. 
 Barbara and Dick were skating, and Janie had some 
 parochial visiting to do for her uncle. The lovers were 
 making the most of their time together, Eleanor said, for 
 Dick had to go to Lynnchester that evening to stay the 
 night, and would not be back till late on the morrow. 
 It was some business errand as I understood, and he 
 had also to make arrangement for his relatives' accom- 
 
 12 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 13 
 
 modation at the hotel on Friday night ; they were 
 driving over on the morning of the w^edding, and would 
 stay Sunday at the Rectory. She was glad Barbara had 
 gone out, she said. No one could get her out but Dick, 
 and she thought in the five weeks they had been at home 
 she had hardly crossed the threshold except to church 
 unless he was with her. Of course there had been a 
 great deal to do, and though almost everything was 
 ordered from town, it had been quite a difficulty to get 
 the trousseau ready in so short a time. I must see 
 Barbara's things, for they were very nice ; and the 
 wedding-dress was spread out on the bed in the little 
 room at the head of the stairs, which was to be Sir 
 Richard's dressing-room during his stay. "Janie will 
 show it you," she said ; " for I go up and down as little 
 as I can help." 
 
 It was not long before the young couple came in ; 
 quick steps outside, and gay young voices and laughter 
 heralding their return. Barbara came first into the quiet 
 room and the firelight, all flushed with exercise and the 
 keen air. Such a handsome Barbara ! The child I had 
 left had grown into a beautiful young woman, tall and 
 slender and upright as a dart, but with enough of the full 
 development inherited from her mother to soften all her 
 angles and round her into beauty; as tall as I when we 
 stood up face to face, and I kissed the damask of her 
 cheek in return for her hearty embrace of welcome. 
 
 The fether and mother both beamed at her with over- 
 flowing pride and tenderness, and the lines of pain 
 smoothed out of Eleanor's face in her delight over her 
 daughter. " Take ofF your hat, child," said Gregory, " and 
 show your cousin Susan what you are like." Laughing 
 and blushing she removed it and stood bareheaded, the 
 crisp dusk hair pushed away from her white forehead, and 
 curling thickly behind her ears in defiance of fashion. 
 But no one would have thought of calling her un- 
 fashionable ; she had a style of her own, and was per> 
 fection in it in her own way. 
 
14 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 " I always said it. She is like what you used to be, 
 Susan. You two might be mother and daughter," broke 
 out Gregory in his blundering way. Of course I made 
 haste to disclaim ; with truth and not with truth, for 
 there was a likeness ; but the girl stood before me, the 
 substance of which I had been a shadow, original in all 
 the beauty and brightness and the rose of complexion 
 which I had lacked. If there was a moment of embar- 
 rassment it passed quickly, as she turned to present 
 Mr. Sudeleigh. He shook hands and fell back into 
 the shadow beside the chair she had taken, so I had 
 only a brief impression of a pleasant smile which revealed a 
 good set of teeth, and the general outline of a well- 
 dressed figure. The servant came in with the tea-tray, 
 and Barbara signed to have it set beside her, and began to 
 busy herself over the cups. 
 
 " Don't trouble yourself with that, my darling," said her 
 mother rather fretfully. " Janie ought to be here to do it. 
 I wonder where she is ; she knew I wished to be punctual." 
 ■ " And Janie wished to be punctual," said Barbara, 
 dropping in her lumps of sugar with her lover at her 
 elbow. " She did not by any means desire the detention, 
 — did she, Dick ? We found her on our way back 
 sitting in the hedge, and looking just about to faint ; you 
 know how faint she turns when anything is the matter. 
 Those plagues of school-children have been making slides 
 all along the road, and Janie, mooning along, set her foot 
 on one and came down with a twisted ankle. Dick 
 wanted to carry her home, but she would not hear of it ; 
 I believe she thought it would break his back, when she 
 weighs about as much as a kitten. She was quite furious 
 when I urged her, — a little turkey-cock of passion. She 
 did not even want to have his arm, but there I insisted. 
 She went in the back way, and I expect Fidgets is 
 looking to her foot." 
 
 Mr. Sudeleigh bent over the tea-maker and whispered 
 something in a tone too low for me to catch ; but his. 
 suggestion did not meet with favour. 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 15 
 
 " How ridiculous you are, Dick. You know she hates 
 being fussed after, and what could I do when Fidgets is 
 there ? Fidgets has bound up all our wounds and bruises, 
 and mended our frocks and scolded us, since we were that 
 high. You remember our maid, godmamma ? Mother 
 calls her Evans, but- she has always been Fidgets to me 
 and Janie, and Fidgets she will remain till — ^what is the 
 correct expression, Dick, the end of all things, or the 
 crack of doom ? You can have which you prefer." 
 
 Dick had the last cup of tea, and drank it scalding hot 
 I think, for it was so near the time of his departure, and 
 his horse and cart — stabled in these days at the Rectory — 
 were already at the door, as sundry sounds made evident. 
 " You had better go," said his betrothed at last, " before 
 that animal of yours digs up the whole of the gravel. 
 Hollins will not swear at her because he thinks it is not 
 proper for a parson's servant ; but I expect the unspoken 
 anathemas are getting deep, as he will have to be up early 
 with the roller ! " The adieux were not particularly 
 tender or affecting ; but there was a very real reluctance 
 about the lover, and after he went a soberer mood seemed 
 to close in upon Barbara. She held her pretty slim hands 
 meditatively' to the fire, and had not much to say to us 
 till Eleanor called upon her — that tiresome Janie being 
 still absent — to show rne to my room. 
 
 I found it full of comfort, with a window looking 
 eastwards to the morning, which is what I like, not 
 being afraid of any nip of cold. That was a pleasant 
 peaceful evening, full of chat over old times which would 
 not interest any one but me. While we were at dinner 
 the servant brought a note to the master of the house, 
 saying, " From Coldhope, sir." 
 
 "Is the messenger waiting?" said Gregory, turning 
 over and scrutinismg the envelope as people will do, 
 when the broken seal would resolve any perplexity in an 
 instant. 
 
 " No, sir. The man did say Mr. Redworth had left 
 home." 
 
i6 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 My cousin ran his eye rapidly over the contents, — a 
 very few lines there appeared to be — and looked down 
 the table to Eleanor. "Redworth has gone away," he 
 said, "so our difficulty about the invitation is solved. He 
 says he is called to York, that his absence is uncertain, 
 and that the matter of business on which he wanted to 
 see me must stand over till next week. Susan and I met 
 him as we drove from the station ; he was riding that 
 way, and no doubt meant to catch the 4. 1 8 train to Hale 
 Junction." 
 
 I could not help glancing at Barbara. Her face was 
 not very mobile, and perhaps it was only my fancy that 
 she looked relieved ; but the feeling with which I had 
 been inclined to credit her was openly expressed by 
 Eleanor. I had a good opportunity for observation, as I 
 was placed on Gregory's right hand and opposite the two 
 girls ; for Janie had made her appearance by dinner-time, 
 still rather white and sick with the pain in her foot, and 
 unable to walk without a limp. 
 
 A pretty girl was Janie in a different style to Barbara, 
 but likely enough to be admired when seen apart from 
 her more brilliant beauty. Rather short and small alto- 
 gether, with grey eyes and soft brown hair many shades 
 darker than Eleanor's ; but there was the same shining 
 of gold through it when you caught it in the light. 
 The chief characteristic of the face was its extreme 
 sensitiveness, the expression changing and the wild-rose 
 complexion altering with every impulse of feeling. A 
 very transparent little person I thought her that first 
 evening ; and with something beneath the transparency 
 which I dimly guessed at and did not wholly relish. 
 That was her evident emotion at any mention of Dick 
 Sudeleigh. She blushed crimson when Mr. AUeyne 
 joked about her ankle and the proposed transport home, 
 but I should have thought nothing of that. What I 
 noticed was that the least casual allusion to him on the 
 part of the others brought an instant change of cheek 
 and eye, and conscious discomfort on her part at the 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 17 
 
 heightened colour. None of the others seemed to 
 observe it ; and had I made the comment, which was 
 an impossibility, I should only have received some such 
 careless assurance as that Janie was always blushing at 
 nothing ; it would be the same whoever you mentioned, 
 — Mr. Redworth's Hindu servant, or old Betty at the 
 lodge. Any sudden speech was enough to make that 
 foolish little person turn from white to pink, and from 
 pink again to white. 
 
 The limp had not quite disappeared next day, though 
 she was able to run up and down on many errands for 
 her aunt and Barbara, and seemed to strive hard for a 
 difficult cheerfulness. Barbara said once, — I suppose in 
 allusion to the low spirits — " I don't want any tears at 
 my wedding. Mother won't cry, and I am not likely 
 to, nor you, godmamma ; but I expect Janie will shed 
 tears enough for all of us. She is such a little stupid. I 
 tell her I shall shake her if she begins, even if it is in the 
 middle of the service. I dare say she will miss me, but 
 not enough to cry over. You see I am not her real sister." 
 
 It never seemed to occur to the bride elect that there 
 might be another source for Janie's tears ; and I hoped I 
 was mistaken in fancying a thing to which every one else 
 was blind. 
 
 The two girls together showed me the wedding-outfit, 
 not an extravagant one, but very ample and sufficient ; 
 and Fidgets was already filling the boxes — flat trunks for 
 the yachting tour — with summer garments suited to the 
 South. The bridal gown was laid out, as Eleanor had 
 said, in that little room at the head of the stairs which 
 was made to serve as a dressing-closet ; and Barbara 
 herself lifted ofF the sheet and displayed the rich folds of 
 creamy silk, severely plain, with no attempt at ornament 
 but the fichu of Flanders point which had belonged to 
 Eleanor. The lace veil to be worn with it had also been 
 her mother's. "The day after to-morrow," she said as 
 she replaced the covering ; " it seems no time at all now ; 
 and then you will see me in all my splendour." 
 
 c 
 
i8 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 Some diamond pins for fixing the veil had been given 
 by the Sudeleighs ; and these I saw w^ith the other 
 wredding-gifts locked away in a cupboard in the morning- 
 room, which was really a Chubb safe let into the wall. 
 The display came about through the presentation of my 
 little offering to my godchild, — only a ring, but the 
 stone, a fine emerald, had belonged to a common 
 ancestress, and I had had it mounted in the modern style 
 for her. She was very pleased with it and with the 
 surrounding circle of small brilliants, and slipped it on 
 her wedding-finger above the flashing hoop which was 
 her lover's pledge. Eleanor was in the grip of pain 
 which her medicines could only deaden, not remove ; but 
 she seemed to find pleasure in uncovering and setting out 
 the pretty things bestowed on Barbara by the few friends 
 admitted to her confidence ; not numerous on account of 
 the hasty wedding being kept a secret except from the 
 immediate families. Finally she took up an exquisite 
 dagger, a slight thing double-edged, of dull blue steel as 
 keen as any razor, but with a cross hilt of gold encrusted 
 wtth rough gems. 
 
 "This came from Coldhope," she said, "and I wish 
 there had been a sheath to it ; it looks so formidable with 
 this sharp blade. When Barbara undid the parcel she 
 turned quite pale. It was an odd present to send her, 
 but Mr. Redworth is an odd man. I do not care about 
 him myself, but he is a great friend of Gregory's ; 
 Gregory likes odd people. We were not aware that Mr. 
 Redworth knew the wedding had been fixed till this was 
 sent. Barbara did not want any one told ; but of course 
 the servants knew, and it was talked of in the village. I 
 must say I am glad he will be away for Saturday; we 
 could hardly have avoided asking him as such a near 
 neighbour and intimate friend, but there were — reasons 
 which made it undesirable." 
 
 Gregory shut himself in his study through the morning, 
 which was his invariable habit ; but after luncheon he 
 took me over the house, and then to see the church, 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 19 
 
 which was seldom opened except for Sundays and for the 
 saints'-day services. Part of the Rectory was very old, 
 with low-pitched rooms and stone-flagged passages ; but 
 this had been made the servants' quarter, though the stair 
 to the large attic lumber-room which surmounted these 
 premises, the only room in the roof, went up from the 
 more modern portion. Gregory said I must see every- 
 thing now I had come to them at last, and begin by 
 going to the top ; so I climbed the steep narrow stair, 
 and exclaimed at the pleasantness of the big place when 
 reached. It would have made an ideal playroom for the 
 house full of children one associates with a parsonage. 
 The walls sloped of course with the roof and were 
 destitute of plaster ; but the long room was well lighted 
 with a window at either end in the gables, while the 
 block of chimneys running up through it was at the side. 
 Most of the space was heaped with stored boxes and 
 superannuated fiirniture ; but it seemed to be in some 
 sort of occupation, for a table was set near one of the 
 windows, — a dilapidated affair propped up to be level, but 
 books and drawing-materials were spread out over it 
 which appeared to have been in recent use, whije beside 
 it stood an old straw chair and footstool, with a thick 
 shawl hanging over the back of the former as if just cast 
 aside. 
 
 " This is Janie's den," said my cousin. " I wonder 
 she is not frozen up here in this weather. She is a good 
 little girl, Susan, and you will like her, though of course 
 she cannot be compared to Barbara. She used to have 
 a room to herself down-stairs ; but when we came back 
 from Filey after the engagement, Barbara was nervous 
 and could not bear her old bedroom nor sleep by herself; 
 so Eleanor put the two girls together in the spare room. 
 The one you have now was Barbara's. I never knew 
 Janie out of temper but that once. She loves Barbara 
 dearly, and why on earth she should have objected to 
 sleep with her I cannot imagine. Eleanor said it was all 
 nonsense and must not be encouraged, and she wanted 
 
20 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 Janie's bedroom as a sewing-room for the maids. So 
 Janie moved her belongings up here ; she must have 
 some place, she said, where she could go to be alone. 
 For my part " — with a laugh — " I would rather be warm 
 in company than freeze in private, but every one to his 
 taste." 
 
 I looked at the window-corner with a feeling of 
 compassion. If I was right, if the girl had indeed given 
 a first affection where there could be no return, it was 
 natural she should crave for some solitude where she 
 could hide her pain and do battle with a rebellious heart. 
 I could picture the little lonely figure wrapped in the 
 thick grey shawl against the cold, and could imagine the 
 dusty lumber-room had witnessed bitter struggles and the 
 falling of many salt tears. I too had known what it was 
 to suffer, and as I followed Gregory down to the brighter 
 and warmer regions below, I felt sorrier for Janie than I 
 had done yet. 
 
 As we opened door after door of the lower rooms for 
 a cursory glance, Gregory told me (in the under-tone he 
 kept for that subject) how he hoped after the wedding to 
 persuade Eleanor to establish herself altogether on the 
 ground-floor, and convert the double drawing-room into 
 bed-room and sitting-room for herself. "The stairs try 
 her so much," he said, " but she will not make any 
 change so long as Barbara is here to be distressed by the 
 need for it. We are not likely now to do any entertaining, 
 and there will be the morning-room if Janie has a 
 friend." 
 
 The morning-room was a pleasant small apartment to 
 the front, with a wide window and sunny aspect. The 
 double drawing-room had been formed, they told me, by 
 throwing into one the original drawing and dining-rooms 
 when the house was enlarged. The present dining-room 
 was a large one. The former rector had used it as a 
 class-room for his pupils ; and I believe he had also built 
 on the room which was Gregory's study, an excrescence 
 at the side of the house reached by a long flagged passage 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 21 
 
 leading out of the hall, and with a door of its own into 
 the garden. " Quite snug," he said, rubbing his hands 
 and glancing round with an air of pride, " and delight- 
 fully secure from interruption. You see this part of the 
 garden is completely private, away both from the road 
 and the yard. My predecessor used it as a parish-room, 
 and at first the people were always coming through the 
 side gate to this door ; but I put a stop to all that." 
 
 The same hard frost prevailed everywhere when I 
 went out to see the church. Gregory wanted Barbara 
 to go with us, and at first she seemed well inclined, but 
 finally said she would rather remain indoors, — she had 
 letters to write. Janie was winding wools for Eleanor, 
 so we went alone. The pleasure-grounds about the 
 Rectory were not large, but there was a sheltered rose- 
 garden open to the south, and a thick belt of shrubbery 
 which screened the road ; and on the other side was a 
 flat space of lawn with accommodation for a couple of 
 sets of tennis, and an orchard and two fields beyond. 
 The shrubbery served also as a screen from the church- 
 yard. The little grey church was very ancient, Gregory 
 said, and the high worm-eaten pews had doubtless served 
 many generations of worshippers. They were barely a 
 quarter filled by the inhabitants of the scattered cottages; 
 many of the people were lax church-goers, and a certain 
 proportion of them were Catholics settled on the 
 Beryngtons' estate. 
 
 " I hope to bring about a reform in many ways," said 
 the new rector, looking about him, " but it will take time. 
 Rome was not built in a day, you know, even in Italy ; 
 and certainly it would not have been at Ditchborough. 
 We have begun, of course, with the chancel, and that is 
 more to my mind than it was. You should have seen it 
 when we came here ! The main difficulty of course is 
 funds. There is hardly any one in the parish who could 
 or would give anything, and I cannot be expected to 
 bear all the expense single-handed. Redworth helped me 
 with this, and it was the more generous of him because 
 
22 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 unsolicited ; I could not have asked from one of a 
 different communion. Now you have your bonnet on, 
 Susan, you may as well walk up through the woods and 
 look at Coldhope. Only the outside of the house, of 
 course, as Redworth is away; but he begged us from the 
 first to use the park and grounds as if they were our 
 own. Barbara and Janie used constantly to go there 
 sketching before, — before the difficulty I told you of." 
 
 The Coldhope woods bordered the opposite side of the 
 road, and appeared to stretch for a considerable distance,- — 
 indeed Gregory told me the entrance-lodge was a quarter 
 of a mile further on ; but there was a door in the paling 
 opposite the church, and a path wound up the hill through 
 an evergreen undergrowth, the dark green foliage of 
 which was pointed everywhere with the delicate lace- 
 work of the frost. The bare trees stood in close rank, 
 and their branches arched above us till " the skies were 
 in a net." I made some remark on what would be the 
 summer depth of shade,- and Gregory said I must see it 
 when the rhododendrons were in flower in early June, 
 and before the leafage overhead had wholly outgrown the 
 tender greens of spring. " Then you will indeed call it 
 lovely, and Redworth will make you as free here as the 
 rest of us ; I am sure of that." 
 
 About ten minutes' brisk walking brought us to the 
 point of view Gregory wished for, from which we could 
 see the house. I did not think much of it, though I 
 believe it is considered fine. I do not care for that stiff 
 red-brick style with stone facings and heavy pediments ; 
 and it was hardly so large as I had fancied in the glimpse 
 caught of it from the road above. A massive centre 
 with one wing at right angles had rather an awkward 
 effect J but the garden lying round it looked attractive, 
 and some pea-fowl were spreading themselves to the 
 winter sunshine on the stone balustrades of the terrace. 
 Mr. Redworth had his study and laboratory in the wing, 
 Gregory told me. He was preparing a treatise on the 
 ancient uses and symbolic metaphors of alchemy, and he 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 23 
 
 was also an Egyptologist and a student of the methods 
 of embalming practised in the land of the Pharaohs. 
 
 I listened to all this with half an ear as it were, for I 
 was not greatly interested in the eccentric neighbour 
 who seemed so important a figure on the scene of 
 Ditchborough. What I really cared about was all the 
 lovely background against which the prosaic red-brick 
 house stood revealed ; the wide stretches of park, the 
 faint blue of the distance, the brown woods rising to the 
 sky-line, even the dead autumn leaves that crisped under 
 my feet. I do not think Coldhope ever looked so fair 
 to me again as on that first wintry afternoon, though I 
 saw it later in all its changes to golden autumn from the 
 first budding of spring. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 Dick Sudeleigh did not return till just before the 
 dinner-hour ; and he ran up to his room to dress, begging 
 us not to wait for him, so we all filed into the dining- 
 room. Eleanor said Barbara must take the head of the 
 table for her ; she had done so last night in my honour, 
 but now she would revert to the arm-chair at the corner, 
 which was her usual place. So Barbara sat opposite her 
 father, and a very fair young hostess she made. She 
 was dressed that night in some shimmering grey stuff 
 which had lace about it and a crimson breast-knot, and 
 which opened low enough at the neck to show a slender 
 chain of silver filigree that clasped her white throat. 
 Janie sat opposite me, and the vacant place for Mr. 
 Sudeleigh was between her and Barbara. She wore a 
 white wool lavage very simply fashioned ; I notice it 
 because of a change later. 
 
 -^She was looking almost as pale as her gown when Mr. 
 Sudeleigh came in with a laughing apology for his tardi- 
 ness; but as he passed to his seat, he bent over her with 
 an inquiry about the ankle. He put a hand on her 
 shoulder in brotherly fashion, and both the gesture and 
 the speech were kind ; — too kind, for the quick colour 
 rose hotly all over her face, and her eyes filled with tears. 
 She managed some kind of stumbling answer ; and as he 
 was appealed to instantly by Eleanor on another matter, 
 her discomposure passed without notice except by me. 
 
 It seemed not unusual for her to be silent, and we 
 others chatted and laughed on without her, seldom 
 
 24 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 25 
 
 making any attempt to draw her into the conversation. 
 But towards the end of the meal her mantle appeared to 
 fall upon Barbara, who sat idly tracing an imaginary 
 pattern on the cloth with a dessert-fork, so deep in 
 thought that she looked up bewildered when addressed. 
 " What is the matter with you, child ? " said her father ; 
 and instead of giving back as usual some jesting reply, 
 she covered her face and shuddered. " I had bad dreams 
 last night," she said, " and I was thinking of them again. 
 I am glad you spoke, for I do not want to go back to 
 them any more." 
 
 The shadow which had touched her seemed to spread 
 with a certain chill to us all, and I think it was to cover 
 it that Gregory began to talk in a joking way to Janie 
 about it being her turn next, asking how she would feel 
 if she were in Barbara's place, so near to being a bride. 
 I could have given the world to stop him, divining all 
 the pain he was inflicting ; but he went blundering on 
 like a man ; and directly we rose to leave the dining- 
 room Janie made her escape. I saw her running up the 
 staircase at the end of the hall, regardless of the hurt 
 foot ; and then I turned to Eleanor, who was slowly 
 moving across on Barbara's arm. 
 
 The gentlemen followed us almost immediately, not 
 caring to sit over their wine, and presently there was the 
 usual outcry for Janie. Gregory had been talking about 
 the disputed architecture of a church in the east of Corn- 
 wall which was half a ruin, and wanted to illustrate his 
 argument by showing us certain photographs, which it 
 seemed were in the inner drawer of a locked escritoire in 
 his study. There were private papers in the drawers, 
 and he did not care to send a servant with the key, nor 
 to disturb himself from the comfortable fireside-nook in 
 which he was settled. Janie ran all the errands and 
 knew where everything was, and Janie must fetch the 
 pictures. Then Eleanor was waiting also for the game 
 of chess which was her nightly recreation, and Janie was 
 always her antagonist. I could not offer myself as a 
 
26 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 substitute, for I barely knew the moves ; and for neither 
 of these needs did the parents seem to think of turning to 
 Barbara. She was sitting with that same abstracted look 
 on her face which I had noticed in the dining-room ; but 
 on Eleanor fretfully remarking for the third time on 
 Janie's continued absence, Dick Sudeleigh asked if she 
 would accept his challenge. It was long since he had 
 played, he said, but he would make the attempt, pro- 
 vided Barbara would look on and give him the benefit of 
 her advice. Barbara said carelessly that her advice was 
 not worth having, and evidently took little interest in the 
 match ; for as the game was drawing to a crisis, and 
 Dick's king came for the first time under check, she rose 
 and began to wander about the room ; then turning to 
 her father said, as if by a sudden impulse, " Give me the 
 keys. Dad, and I will fetch your photographs. Janie will 
 be ages yet." 
 
 Gregory was still fuming and tapping the small bunch 
 impatiently on the arm of his chair ; he now surrendered 
 it at her offer, impressing on her the particular right-hand 
 drawer which she must open, and that she must be care- 
 ful about closing and relocking the bureau. I can see 
 her as she paused to listen to the instructions, with the 
 key-ring threaded on one slender finger, her pretty face 
 and figure, — so young, so brilliant, so well-beloved. And 
 then she went swiftly out, closing the drawing-room door 
 upon us four. 
 
 The time must then have been about nine o'clock, 
 perhaps a little later ; we could not afterwards fix it with 
 any certainty ; we had dined at half-past seven, but had 
 lingered rather over the meal. The first game of chess 
 resulted in a victory for Eleanor, but she was defeated in 
 the second ; so a third was undertaken and hard fought 
 to a lingering conclusion ; but still Barbara had not 
 returned, and Janie did not appear. Gregory had dropped 
 into a doze in his corner oblivious of the Cornish church, 
 when Eleanor looked up with one of her few remaining 
 pieces poised in cogitation of a critical move, and said 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 27 
 
 sharply — "Where are the girls? Susan, I should be so 
 much obliged if you would call Barbara. What can she 
 be doing all this time in the study ? " 
 
 I went, nothing loth, being weary of the monotonous 
 click of my knitting needles and the warm sleepy silence 
 about me, only broken by a word now and then from the 
 chess-players, who were for the most part silently intent 
 upon their game. I found the passage in darkness, but 
 the study-door was ajar and showed a light within. A 
 hand-lamp burned on the table, the flame blowing wildly 
 in the draught from the outer door into the garden which 
 stood partly open to the night, and half the window- 
 shutter was folded back. Barbara was not there, but 
 Gregory's bureau was still open with his keys hanging 
 in the lock, and a small drawer had been dropped in the 
 middle of the floor with a heap of scattered papers. 
 
 " There was nothing specially portentous about her 
 absence where first sought, but the earliest chill of mis- 
 giving struck on me then and there with the blank of 
 the empty room and that current of icy air. My first 
 impulse was to close and fasten the door, but then I 
 remembered I might be barring her out into the wintry 
 dark, so I left it as it was, and hastened back to the 
 drawing-room. 
 
 Janie was entering it before me, and I remarked m 
 the same instant with Eleanor's exclamation that she had 
 changed her dress. She sat opposite to me at dinner in 
 white as I have said ; and she was now wearing a black 
 stuff frock and looking deadly pale. She held up her 
 right hand, round which a handkerchief was fastened, but 
 she seemed to speak with difficulty. " I cut it with the 
 window," she said. 
 
 ' " Dear me, how stupid of you, child ! What window ?' 
 And has this been keeping Barbara away too ? Where 
 is she ? " 
 
 " Barbara ! " the girl repeated as if astonished. " I 
 have not seen her ; I know nothing about her. Why do 
 you ask ? " 
 
28 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 The cut was evidently a deep one, and the bandage 
 seemed loose and ineffectual, for the blood was beginning 
 to ooze through it in a crimson stain. We might have 
 heard more particulars of the accident then and there, but 
 I broke in about the open door into the garden, and 
 asked if it were likely Barbara had gone out. No more 
 was thought of Janie's hand after that, or of her changed 
 frock ; but the first impression with them all seemed to be 
 astonishment rather than alarm. Dick Sudeleigh looked 
 at his watch. "Five minutes to ten ! " he said, jumping 
 up. " By Jove, I had no idea it was so late ! In the 
 garden ? Why, she will catch her death of cold ! I will 
 go and fetch her in." 
 
 " She can't be in the garden," said Eleanor, and she 
 was on her feet too for all her infirmity. " You know 
 how nervous she has been lately ; nothing would induce 
 her to gO' out by herself at this hour. She must be 
 somewhere in the house." Eleanor had reached the bell 
 by this time and rang it sharply. " Tell Evans to call 
 Miss Barbara," I heard her saying to the servant. " She 
 is up-stairs, and I want her, — here, immediately." 
 
 I heard the order given as I followed Gregory out ; 
 Dick Sudeleigh had already got his hat. The study was 
 just as I left it ; Barbara had not returned. There was 
 alarm as well as irritation in her fether's voice as he said — 
 " What can the child have been doing ? I told her to be 
 careful with the keys. This is the drawer she was sent 
 to, and here are the photographs," and indeed he picked 
 them up lying beneath it on the floor. "Good God, 
 Susan ! Where is she ? Why has she left them here ? " 
 
 Dick had dashed out into the garden, and I heard his 
 voice calling her name. Gregory and I stood on the 
 threshold and peered after him. The darkness was not 
 absolute, as the moon was up ; but a thick white mist 
 shrouded the lawn and shrubberies, and we could see 
 nothing plainly but the outline of the tree-tops against 
 the sky. The cold was piercing, but I never felt it, and 
 I think he did not either. Presently we heard Eleanor 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 29 
 
 behind us. " Oh, Gregory ! " she said, and her voice was 
 almost a cry. " She is not in the house ; the servants 
 have looked everywhere, and Janie knows nothing. 
 What can have taken her out, and without a word to 
 us ? " 
 
 There was terror in her face now, and she caught at 
 her husband with a grasp as if his arm alone kept her 
 from falling. He did not answer, for there were footsteps 
 outside on the frozen path, Dick's footsteps returning 
 alone. He was pale too, and his teeth chattered as he 
 spoke. " I have been all round ; I can see nothing of 
 her nor make her hear. If she is not indoors we must 
 get lanterns. She may have feinted with the cold." 
 
 That was what came next, the search of the garden 
 with lanterns, of the orchard and the churchyard, and of 
 the road for some distance either way ; but not a trace 
 could be discovered. Barbara, in her pretty evening- 
 dress and her thin slippers, going from one room to 
 another in her fether's house, had disappeared as utterly 
 and completely as if the ground had opened and swallowed 
 her up. At first Eleanor would not be persuaded to 
 leave the study, but finally I got a warm shawl round 
 her and helped her back into the drawing-room, and 
 induced her to swallow some wine. Janie was there too, 
 crouched in a corner of the sofa with her fece hidden. 
 I thought she seemed more terrified than any of us in 
 those first hours. Eleanor was greatly distressed, but 
 part of her trouble was the scandal that might arise ; she 
 considered we had been incautious in giving the alarm at 
 once, and enlisting the servants in the search. She was 
 afraid it would be difficult to explain the matter to them 
 when Barbara came back, not admitting to herself, poor 
 soul, that Barbara might never return. 
 
 No one at the Rectory went to bed through all that 
 dreadful night. When the search was at last abandoned, 
 Dick and Gregory joined us in the drawing-room round 
 the fire which I had kept burning, while the house was 
 lighted in every window, with open doors to the wanderer. 
 
30 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 We took counsel together, — if that word be not a mis- 
 nomer in such a maze of bewilderment and conjecture, 
 while our hearts were aching with the anguish of suspense. 
 Gregory looked years older for the passage of those hours 
 when he came in to break their failure to his wife ; and 
 on Dick Sudeleigh's young face there was a haggard 
 greyness of despair. Janie saw it, for her eyes went 
 instantly to his ; and then instead of the sort of trance of 
 horror which had kept her dumb, she fell to crying and 
 weeping as if her heart would break. She was the only 
 one who had nothing to suggest among our wild guesses ; 
 but when Dick said with a groan, — " She has not left us 
 voluntarily ; that I will never believe," — Janie's voice 
 responded with an emphatic, " Oh no, no ! " 
 
 So the time wore on till the winter dawn might soon 
 be expected to clear away the darkness which added to 
 our difficulty. Our candles were burning in the sockets, 
 and Janie had returned anew from the errand on which 
 Eleanor had sent her again and again through the night, 
 — to see if the fire was alight in Barbara's room, and 
 everything ready for her. The servants were sitting up 
 in the kitchen, beguiling their watch with what gossip 
 and wonderment may be supposed. They had come in 
 from time to time to see if we wanted anything ; but 
 Eleanor was impatient of any stir which interfered with 
 her strained listening for sounds from without, for the 
 light footstep which never came. It was not till nearly 
 seven that Gregory prevailed on her to go and lie down 
 in her room, and he and Janie accompanied her up-stairs. 
 
 I was left alone with Dick Sudeleigh sitting opposite 
 me, still in the evening-dress which has so strange a look 
 when worn on into the breaking of another day. We 
 were both silent for awhile, listening as Eleanor listened, 
 but, alas ! with little of the hope she clung to. He looked 
 up at me at last with those changed eyes full of pain. 
 " Miss Varney," he said, " tell me what you really think. 
 They are not here to be distressed by it." 
 
 " I have no thoughts that could be of use ; I feel 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 31 
 
 Stunned with the calamity like the rest. Our conjec- 
 tures seem to beat against a blank wall in which there 
 is no outlet ; but I believe she has not gone voluntarily. 
 That increases the horror of it, while it is our one comfort 
 to keep feith in her." 
 
 " To lose that would be to lose all, — to me. She went 
 to the study ; that is proved by Mr. Alleyne's keys." 
 
 " Do you think in going into the room she could have 
 surprised some one who was there with the intention of 
 robbery, as my cousin said just now ? " 
 
 " No } for she had time to unlock the bureau and take 
 out the drawer, the errand on which she had been sent. 
 I have been thinking it over since he spoke. My theory 
 would be that some sound at the window alarmed her 
 and made her drop the drawer where we found it ; that 
 she opened first the shutter and then the door." 
 
 " But don't you think the impulse of alarm would have 
 been to rush back to us, not to investigate for herself? 
 You know how timid they say she was ; though to be 
 timid was unlike the Barbara I used to know." 
 
 " I never thought her timid, and I have seen her tried 
 by more than one emergency. We had a boating-accident 
 at Filey, and she showed courage and presence of mind 
 quite unusual in such a girl. Janie was always the timid 
 one." 
 
 " They seem to have noticed it since her return here ; 
 she did not like going out alone. It is a safe neighbour- 
 hood, I suppose ? " 
 
 I did not like to speak out the thought which had 
 crossed me ; could there have been anybody here of whom 
 she was afraid ? But his rejoinder showed it had no place 
 in his mind, and was the baseless conjecture of my ignor- 
 ance. " It is as safe a neighbourhood as could be. There 
 are no suspicious characters about that I ever heard of; 
 Ditchborough is too much off the beaten track to attract 
 tramps. Barbara knows everybody in her father's parish, 
 and they know her ; and though Mr. Alleyne has not 
 been here very long, — three years, is it not ? — he has been 
 
32 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 so generous to the people that he could not fail to have 
 won their good-will." 
 
 " Gregory would never make an enemy. If he erred 
 at all it would be on the side of over-kindness." 
 
 " I see two alternatives. That she has been forced 
 away by some villain ; or that she has wandered off in a 
 sudden insane aberration such as one sometimes hears of 
 In either case it must be possible to trace her. As soon 
 as it is light I am going to get help. Anything is better 
 than this inaction ; and Mrs. Alleyne's scruples about 
 exposure cannot be regarded now. We know one thing, 
 — she has left the house ; every cranny of it has been 
 searched for her in vain. There are dogs trained to track 
 by the scent ; we could put them on from the study, and 
 they would follow wherever she has passed on foot." 
 
 " If she has been forcibly removed, surely it must have 
 been in a carriage ; I did not hear one, but that is 
 nothing ; we were so secure and at ease we should not 
 have noticed, though wheels on the frozen road and in 
 this country stillness must have sounded plainly. But 
 about the tracking; would scent lie in such a frost ? Ah, 
 look at the window; there is a fresh difficulty." 
 
 The grey glimmer without was sufficient to show a 
 change of weather ; snow had begun to fall, and was 
 already drifting against the pane in heavy flakes. At 
 this moment Gregory came in to summon me up-stairs. 
 " Eleanor is very ill," he said. " It is the attack she is 
 subject to, but an aggravated form of it ; only Janie is 
 with her, — she will not have the servants. I am sending 
 for the doctor, but I fear little can be done to relieve 
 her." 
 
 I went up at once, to find her in such agony as I have 
 seldom (thank God !) had to witness. We did what we 
 could, — ^Janie and I, for the girl was self-possessed and 
 helpful in this crisis, her grief and panic put aside. 
 Nothing seemed to alleviate the paroxysm, but after a 
 while it quieted down of itself, and she was better when 
 the doctor arrived. He had been told of our trouble, and 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 33 
 
 I think the heavy opiate he ordered was aimed as much 
 at the mental as the physical suffering. He mixed it at 
 the bedside, and when Janie took the glass to administer, 
 he said to her, " You have hurt your hand ! " 
 
 It was tied up with a bandage of rag, and seemed to 
 have broken out bleeding afresh in the recent strain. 
 Eleanor said feebly, "Let Dr. Carpenter see it," before 
 she lay back on her pillow with closed eyes. 
 
 Janie did not resist the direction, but there was an air 
 of unwillingness about her which the doctor noticed, for 
 he said with a smile, " I will not hurt you." I don't 
 think it was pain she feared, for she did not flinch over 
 the dressing of the wound, though, it proved a trying 
 business. The cut was a deep one, torn down through 
 the ball of the thumb into the wrist with jagged gaping 
 edges. Dr. Carpenter gave a low whistle as the bandage 
 was unwound to expose it. " How on earth did you 
 do it ? " he exclaimed, — his manners were rather blunt. 
 " You will carry the mark of this to your dying day." 
 
 " I cut it with the window," she repeated in a low, 
 faint voice, and the unreadiness of manner was still evident. 
 
 " This was surely not cut with glass ? " 
 
 " No, the edge of the casement. I knew it was broken ; 
 • I ought to have taken care, but I was in a hurry." 
 
 " What window ? " I asked, for I confess to being 
 curious. 
 
 There was a pause, and then she said, reluctantly, as 
 she had spoken all through, " The window of the attic." 
 
 I asked no more then, but, as it happened, I was to 
 hear again of the trivial accident later on. 
 
 Eleanor dozed and slept the greater part of the day, 
 which seemed to stretch itself out to preternatural length 
 as I sat by her bedside in turn with Janie. People were 
 coming and going below, but not the one so ardently 
 longed for ; and all the time the snow fell thickly, a white 
 whirl conftising all the outer prospect, and driven into 
 drifts by the wind. The search was going forward, — we 
 knew that, and knew, alas ! that it was fruitless. 'As 
 
 D 
 
34 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 soon as it was light inquiry had been made at all the 
 houses in the scattered village, including Coldhope, and 
 Dick Sudeleigh had gone for a detective, as well as to 
 send telegrams to his relatives to stop their journey, which 
 was to have been taken on that day for the wedding on 
 the morrow. 
 
 The detective when he came had evidently a prepos- 
 session of his own about the case, which was diametric- 
 ally opposed to ours. He thought we should find the 
 young lady had gone off of her own free will, and not 
 alone j that she was probably safe and well, and would 
 before long communicate with her friends. He had 
 known similar instances, where the relatives were quite 
 as much taken by surprise. He would ask us to observe 
 there had been no evidence of struggle, no outcry ; and 
 it appeared that Miss Alleyne herself had unfastened the 
 door, as the servants had secured it as usual for the night. 
 It was also in his opinion evidence of the existence of a 
 confederate, as self-destruction was very improbable, that 
 she had gone without preparation of any kind, without 
 even a wrap from the hall, or any provision of money, as 
 her purse had been found in the pocket of her morning- 
 dress. It was true she was wearing two rings of value, — 
 and here the expert glanced at his notes, which had been 
 made with great exactness of every detail in dress and 
 appearance — but she would find them difficult to dispose 
 of except in a large town. 
 
 It was horrible to hear all these considerations weighed 
 in this dry matter-of-fact way, when we felt assured that 
 such an action, and the motives which would prompt it, 
 would be impossible to Barbara. But our conviction made 
 no difference to this man of experience in crime. He 
 would do all in his power ; and if there had been foul 
 play it must certainly be brought to light. 
 
 janie was invaluable that day ; but for her there would 
 have been no semblance of order or comfort about the 
 distracted house. It was she who saw to the ordering of 
 everything, and who coaxed Gregory to take the meals 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 35 
 
 prepared for him. He was fast breaking down, now that 
 the immediate need for action was at an end. " How 
 shall I face my congregation on Sunday ? " he said. " It 
 is worse, infinitely worse than if the child were lying dead. 
 We could have borne God's will, hard as it would have 
 been upon us ; but this — this is the wrong-doing of 
 man ! " 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 The short afternoon of that dreadfuf day had begun to 
 darken. I was standing in the hall with Gregory, who, 
 I think, had given up all hope by that time. He had 
 found a little scarf which was Barbara's, and he was 
 folding it together on the table with a lingering touch for 
 the insensate thing still warm as it were from her use ; 
 it made my heart ache with sympathy to watch him. 
 At that moment the outer door opened quickly, and I 
 turned to see, — not Dick whom we expected, but a 
 stranger coming in without knocking or announcement, 
 like one who was familiar. He came up to Gregory 
 and put a hand on his shoulder. " My dear fellow," he 
 said, " I am grieved beyond measure to hear of this." 
 
 He was a tall, slight man wearing a riding-coat and 
 high boots, and with some of the falling snow still un- 
 melted on his shoulders. He had removed his hat on 
 entering, and as he stood bareheaded I thought his face 
 one of the most attractive I had ever seen. His hair was 
 grey, it is true, but no greyer than that of many men 
 not past their prime, while his eyebrows were still black 
 and delicately pencilled. I noticed the hair was worn 
 rather longer than is the modern fashion, and swept away 
 in a thick wave from the high forehead. His features 
 generally would have been called fine, but the charm of 
 the face lay in the eyes, — brown and soft, what the 
 French call yeux velout^s, and now that they were fixed 
 on Gregory, dark and moist with what in a woman would 
 have been tears. Was this Redworth of Coldhope, the 
 
 36 
 
A BRIDE ELECT' 37 
 
 man against whom Eleanor was prejudiced ? I seldom 
 shared Eleanor's prejudices, and did not feel moved to do 
 so here. 
 
 " I wish I had been on the spot to help you," he went 
 on. " I hear you sent to my house this morning. I am 
 but just returned, and have had hard work to get through 
 the drifts. I am at your service, — I and all that I have ; 
 you have only to command me. Tell me what you are 
 doing, what explanation is thought probable ? " 
 
 Gregory took the hand and wrung it, — a slender olive 
 hand which his large grasp seemed wholly to enclose, but 
 he could not for the moment answer in words. " Come 
 in and sit down," he said after the first choked pause; 
 and then, turning to me, " My cousin. Miss Varney, — 
 Mr. Redworth." 
 
 I was standing in the shadow, and I do not think Mr. 
 Redworth had noticed me ; but as I came forward on the 
 introduction he positively started. " Great Heavens," he 
 exclaimed, " what a likeness ! " 
 
 I suppose the twilight disguised all the vast difference 
 that must exist between an old woman and a young one, 
 and thus showed to advantage the similarity in height and 
 general outline. "Yes, — ^yes," said Gregory, "I always 
 saw it. Barbara was another Susan. This is a terrible 
 business, Redworth, a terrible business. It has half killed 
 my poor Eleanor, and I feel the blow has gone home to 
 me also." 
 
 I led the way into the morning-room, where the maid 
 had set out a neglected tea-tray and lighted the lamp. 
 The two men stood on the hearth, Mr. Redworth's 
 soft dark eyes dwelling on Gregory with an affectionate 
 concern which warmed my heart to him. The rays of 
 the hanging lamp fell full upon him, and I could see he 
 was an older man than I had at first imagined. Clear as 
 his skin was in tint and showing colour on the cheek, it 
 was lined with innumerable fine wrinkles round the 
 corners of the eyes and mouth ; and there were deep 
 upright furrows between the eyebrows, hinting that the 
 
38 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 expression of the handsome face was occasionally marred 
 by a frown. 
 
 " I must apologize to Miss Varney for my costume," 
 he said, glancing down at it ; "but I hurried here at once 
 without waiting to change." Then he turned to Gregory, 
 and was absorbed in his account of our calamity, and of 
 the hitherto unsuccessful search. I will not repeat this, 
 for it embraced only what I have written here. Mr. 
 Redworth put a shrewd question or two, one of which had 
 the effect of opening my mind to a new and unwelcome 
 idea. " You say it was about an hour from the time you 
 sent your daughter on the errand, till she was found to 
 be missing ? " 
 
 " An hour, as nearly as we can calculate." 
 
 " A great deal can happen in an hour, and of course 
 the study is fer away from the occupied rooms. Were all 
 the other members of the household accounted for during 
 that time ? Did the officer hint at suspicion of any one 
 under your roof?" 
 
 Gregory spoke of our occupations in the drawing- 
 room ; that Janie had been up-stairs and the servants in 
 the kitchen, saying rather indignantly that no suspicion 
 could attach to any of them, as there was complete absence 
 of motive. Mr. Redworth heard him out without re- 
 joinder, but stood thoughtfully stroking his shaven upper 
 lip with his forefinger, an action which seemed habitual. 
 I wonder if he had the power of silently impressing others 
 with his own thought, for it came to me as clearly as 
 outward speech — ^Janie was absent ! Janie had a motive 
 for wishing Barbara out of the way ! I was horror- 
 stricken at myself for admitting the voice, and strove to 
 shut the ears of my soul to it j but despite my horror the 
 idea had taken shape. 
 
 In the inward agitation of this passage I lost the thread 
 of what they were saying, and looked up to find Mr. 
 Redworth's eyes considering me attentively, just as if he 
 were cognisant of what had passed in my mind. He put 
 his hand on Gregory's shoulder. " Once for all, Alleyne, 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 39 
 
 I don't believe in the expert's theory. Barbara could 
 have had no lover unknown to you. The one thing of 
 which I could be certain in this dark perplexity," — and 
 here his voice broke with a sudden tremor — " is her com- 
 plete innocence of intention and act. God bless her, — 
 the God we both believe in though we worship Him 
 variously — God bless her wherever she is !" 
 
 This was spoken vvith strong feeling, and the father 
 turned away covering his face. If this man had not won 
 my heart before, it would have gone out wholly to him 
 now. Nothing touches us in our times of sorrow like a 
 word of tender appreciation of those we mourn. The 
 silver-crowned head shone before me in the blur of quick- 
 rising tears, as if with the halo of a saint. But I wiped 
 them away in time to see clearly a change of expression, 
 another wordless interlude, in which the idea was once 
 more quick, stirring blindly within hie. 
 
 The door opened, and Dick Sudeleigh and Janie entered 
 together; I saw Mr. Redworth's brown eyes, which had 
 been the instant before so mournfully tender, flash out 
 now with a sudden gleam of vindictive dislike, though 
 the expression changed instantly, and he greeted them 
 with calm courtesy. It was not only this which struck 
 me, but Janie's fece when she saw him. She looked 
 frightened and disturbed, barely touching the hand he 
 offered her, and taking an early opportunity to escape 
 from the room. 
 
 He did not stay long after this, remaining only briefly 
 to detail the plan he had formed for searching the woods 
 and park so soon as the snow had cleared away. He 
 seemed friendly with Dick, and Dick with him ; if a 
 thought of rivalry had ever existed between them it 
 might well be extinguished now in a common sorrow. It 
 was easy of belief that to a man of his power of mind and 
 fertility of resource, the desire for our dear girl's young 
 companionship had been only a passing weakness, dead 
 and vanished as the leaves of that autumn which had seen 
 it arise. 
 
40 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 I come now to so strange a part of my narrative, — to 
 a circumstance so inexplicable, except by theories and 
 assumptions for which I have entertained a lifelong aver- 
 sion, that I pause, pen in hand, hesitating to write it here. 
 But the history of the time would be incomplete without 
 it, and I must be faithful in giving the entire detail to 
 judgment other than my own. 
 
 Eleanor was well enough by the evening to sit up ; 
 and on the Saturday, though still suffering, she descended 
 at her usual hour to the morning-room, whither any 
 tidings would at once be brought. She felt too restless 
 and wretched, she said, to remain up-stairs through the 
 bitter passage of this day which had been so differently 
 anticipated. This was the wedding-day ; the day of 
 which our Barbara had said to me, as we stood together 
 in the dressing-closet and she put back the cover over her 
 bridal gown, " You will see me then in all my splendour." 
 
 Poor Dick was with us for a while after breakfast ; but 
 he could hardly bear to speak to any one, and went ofF 
 again to join in the search which was still on foot far and 
 wide through the snow-covered country. We others 
 were all together with Eleanor, — Gregory, Janie and I, — 
 and the hour was about noon, when the door burst open 
 and Mary the parlour-maid rushed in, excited beyond all 
 regard for her usually decorous manners. " Oh, sir — oh, 
 ma'am," she gasped, " Miss Barbara has come back ! She 
 is in the drawing-room, all ready in her wedding-dress, 
 and Mr. Sudeleigh away ! " 
 
 Gregory was on his feet in an instant, and I was rush- 
 ing after him when a second thought made me look back 
 for Eleanor. She had attempted to rise with the help of 
 Janie's arm, but sank back again, waving me away. 
 " Go," she said, " and bring my child to me." 
 
 The drawing-room was on the opposite side of the hall, 
 and was entered by two doors, having originally been 
 divided. I followed Gregory in at the nearest, and was 
 behind him only by those arrested seconds. What was it 
 that we saw ? To all appearance it was Barbara, in her 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 41 
 
 trailing white gown and with the lace veil covering her 
 head, but moving away from us at the lower end of the 
 room without notice, and passing out at the fiirther door. 
 Her father stood arrested. " Barbara ! " he cried to her 
 hoarsely, " Barbara ! " but the figure did not pause. 
 
 As it disappeared through the doorway I darted back 
 into the hall, and there it was already half-way up the 
 stairs, though moving with no appearance of haste. I 
 have been asked since whether it floated or walked ; I can 
 only say I saw nothing diiFerent from natural movement, 
 except the rapidity with which that space had been tra- 
 versed while out of view. I would have called to her 
 also, but my voice seemed frozen in my throat. I gained 
 the foot of the stairs in time to see the figure make a slight 
 deliberate pause on the first landing, and then pass into 
 the dressing-closet which opened fi-om it on the left and 
 had no other exit. Gregory was with me by that time, 
 and we both followed close on the disappearance of the 
 last folds of the white train. The door when we came 
 to it was shut, though I remembered after that I had 
 neither heard it close nor open. We opened it on the 
 instant, and, as will have been foreseen, the room was 
 empty. 
 
 It held no furniture which could have served the pur- 
 pose of concealment had she been hiding fi-om us. The 
 room looked as I had seen it last, with one notable diiFer- 
 ence ; the wedding-dress and veil had been dragged from 
 the bed where it was spread out, and lay dropped in a 
 heap at our feet j ust within the door. 
 
 No words of mine can adequately describe the shock 
 of this strange scene, nor the revulsion of feeling from 
 that moment of joyful certainty. Gregory, the servant, 
 and I were the three who witnessed what I must call the 
 apparition ; Janie had stumbled and fallen forward on the 
 floor in a dead faint in attempting to follow us, and was 
 brought round after a long time and with much difficulty. 
 Mary, the maid, was terribly frightened when she heard 
 the sequel ; she cried bitterly and begged to be sent home 
 
42 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 to her mother ; she dared not stay in the house, she said, 
 another hour. Her story was that she had gone into the 
 drawing-room as usual to mend the fires, and noticed 
 nothing till she turned away from the second grate, — 
 "When there was Miss Barbara in her wedding-dress, 
 standing looking out of the front window "; she " fairly 
 screeched out " on seeing this, being so astonished, though 
 she did not feel alarm, when the young lady turned and 
 looked at her, making " a sort of beckon with her hand 
 at the door," as if signing to her to go and fetch the 
 others. She understood and acted on it at once, "not 
 thinking till afterwards it wasn't natural for a lady to sign 
 in that way with her hand and not to speak." She had 
 seen Barbara's face plainly through the veil, and " would 
 have known her anywhere"; she looked quite natural, 
 only rather grave and sad. 
 
 Neither Gregory nor I had seen the face, except as the 
 figure turned sideways in passing into the dressing-closet, 
 and then the folds of lace hung too closely over it for 
 any real recognition. When he entered the room, — 
 before me, be it remembered — the figure was turned 
 away from him just as I saw it, moving slowly in the 
 direction of the further door and taking no notice of his 
 appeal. I was surprised by the impression the appear- 
 ance made on him; he would not admit that we could 
 have been hallucinated by expectation arising from the 
 girl's outcry. Clergyman though he was, man of sense 
 and education as I had always thought him, to him that 
 vision of ours was Barbara herself ; a sign as sure as the 
 writing on the wall that she was no longer to be num- 
 bered in this living world. Even in after times he never 
 spoke of it without reverence and awe. That it should 
 fire the young lover's imagination was more natural ; Dick 
 broke down altogether when he heard what we had seen. 
 " Why not to me, — why not to me ? " was his cry. " If 
 I had been there I would have held her back; living or 
 dead, she should not have left us without a word. My 
 sweet girl, who kept tryst in her wedding-dress at her 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 43 
 
 wedding-hour ; why was it that an ignorant servant saw 
 her, and not I ? " 
 
 Another person deeply interested and eager for detail 
 was Mr. Redworth. I do not know whether Gregory 
 would have chosen to mention the occurrence outside our 
 own family ; but Mary had not been reticent about her 
 fright, and the story of Barbara's appearance spread like 
 wildfire through the village till it reached Coldhope. Mr. 
 Redworth came down on Sunday morning to the hushed 
 house, which had heard the church-bells without notice 
 perhaps for the first time since it rose under the shadow 
 of the grey tower. A stranger filled Gregory's pulpit, 
 and he was shut in his study S3,ying he would not be 
 disturbed. I think it was on learning this that Mr. 
 Redworth asked for me. He was very courteous in 
 apologising for the intrusion, and apparently sincere in 
 the concern he expressed. He had heard that Barbara 
 had been seen at the Rectory ; if there was any founda- 
 tion for the report, would I tell him what really had 
 taken place ? He understood I had been a witness of 
 the appearance, whatever it was. " Forgive me," he said, 
 " for pressing a question that may be painful. You think 
 of me as a stranger, without right to ask. I will make 
 a confession, Miss Varney; I loved her, and I love her 
 still." 
 
 I do not think it was in woman's nature, certainly not 
 in mine, to refuse such a plea, even if the face and voice 
 had been many degrees less persuasive. As it was, I told 
 him all in exact detail as I have written it here, ending 
 with Gregory's fixed impression that the appearance was 
 a token of death. He listened to me very attentively 
 with no evidence of incredulity, questioning closely on 
 certain points ; it may have been only my fancy that his 
 cheek grew paler during the recital. I ventured in the 
 pause which followed to ask his opinion ; to find he 
 shared mine that it had been some hallucination of our 
 senses would, I confess, have comforted and reassured me. 
 
 "If Mr. Alleyne had studied the subject," he said, 
 
44 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 "even as superficially as I have done, he would not 
 necessarily assume such an appearance, to be a sign of 
 death. It is one of the mysteries of this ill-understood 
 branch of natural science, that ghosts of the living are 
 as wrell authenticated as ghosts of the dead, and I believe 
 a great deal more frequently seen. Some people have 
 greater power than others to project a thought-body, — a 
 more marked individuality it may be. Let us suppose, 
 for the sake of argument, that Barbara has been torn 
 from her home, and is detained somewhere an unwilling 
 prisoner. What would be more likely than for her mind 
 to dwell on the scenes she has left, picturing herself 
 among them at the hour fixed for her marriage, even in 
 association with the dress she would have worn ? Some 
 philosophers hold that our thoughts are in a degree 
 creative and have substance. You see the explanation ? 
 First the maid-servant becomes clairvoyant ; then you 
 and Mr. Alleyne follow her, not to Barbara's departed 
 spirit, but simply to her embodied thought. You shake 
 your head, and think me far-fetched ? So be it. There 
 can.be no absolute proof that I am right and you are 
 wrong. We may both be wrong, and the truth wide of 
 any mark our intellects can touch, — as yet. Your mind 
 and mine are only in the first stages of their growth. 
 I believe in a ripening process continued into a more 
 emancipated state ; do not you ? " 
 
 One of the strange things about this strange man was 
 that his wild talk had a way of seeming reasonable as it 
 fell from his lips. It was only afterwards, when I began 
 to measure it against ordinary standards of opinion, that 
 I realised the full divergence from what passes current as 
 common-sense. He had risen to stand on the hearth, 
 and I felt my critical faculties freer when removed from 
 his near presence and his compelling eyes. He was 
 looking up and down the long room as if fain to re- 
 create there the thought-presence of which he had 
 spoken. 
 
 " This life," he went on, " shuts us in on every side 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 45 
 
 from true apprehension, narrows our vision, cheats us 
 with vain promises, gives us bitter for sweet. Love and 
 hate are convertible terms, and man is pre-eminent above 
 the creature only in his woe. Blind, blind, even the 
 wisest of us ! Man makes himself lord, and defeat 
 mocks him in the moment of victory; the essence is too 
 fine for our coarse handling ; the diamond resolves into 
 the elements and leaves only clay in the crucible. I read 
 this sentence not long ago in the mystical literature it is 
 sometimes my business to examine : ' A spirit must be 
 where its thoughts and aiFections are.' To go back to 
 the contention that Barbara is a prisoner, whether we 
 admit or not the hypothesis that she has died ; whoever 
 detains her body has power over that only. He who 
 touches the house of life has no spell to bind the 
 immortal spirit. She is here in veritable similitude, with 
 power to assume even her habit as she lived. What is 
 the body but the shell of the flown bird ? " 
 
 He seemed to speak to himself rather than to me ; he 
 walked to the end of the room and back, and sat down 
 again beside me. 
 
 " Do not think, Miss Varney, that I undervalue the 
 body J I am using wide terms. I think our boasted 
 civilisation and progress — save the mark — has in this 
 particular fallen far behind the science and reverence of 
 the ancient world. The wisdom that trained the body 
 to be the servant of the spirit and not its master ; that 
 developed to the utmost those inherent faculties which 
 are the birthright of man, — the birthright he sells in 
 every age for the pottage of materialism ; that cultivated 
 the extension of life and its uses to a tenure far beyond 
 our present shortened span, — is a wisdom which seems to 
 me ideal. And another form of reverence in ancient 
 practice I would fain revive in modern custom. I mean 
 the manner of disposing of our dead. Terrible indeed 
 are our closed coffins of wood and metal, shutting in 
 rottenness, so that what we have loved, what has been 
 
46 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 the desire of our eyes, becomes unutterably loathsome 
 and poisonous, and we bury it gladly out of our sight. 
 Look at Egypt for instance, — her religious care in pre- 
 serving the beloved form, and in such a sanitary state 
 that the living were in no way wronged, even by the 
 rude embalming commonly practised. And the mystical 
 writings indicate a higher practice and more excellent 
 way, in which the beauty of life, the very hues of life 
 and its texture, could be preserved, if not for ever, for an 
 indefinite term. I have been a student of this vanished 
 art so far as possible to my limited opportunity." 
 
 " But if our dead are buried away from us, surely 
 the advantage is only in idea, except on sanitary 
 grounds ? " 
 
 " That is what I want to obviate, the need of burying 
 our dead away from us. Should I not be a benefactor to 
 my race if I spared that last pang to tender hearts ; if in 
 some consecrated temple the mother could always gaze 
 on the face of her little one, the lineaments of the 
 beloved parent be unforgotten by the child, the dead 
 mistress by her lover ? Have I in my solitary student 
 life so far missed the pulsing of the great heart of 
 humanity, that I mistake in thinking this a boon ? Are 
 we all so anxious to forget our dead ? Tell me, Miss 
 Varney, did you for one never yearn to fold back the 
 coffin-lid, and find the loved face beneath it pure and 
 calm in an unchanged sleep ; never feel it a sorrow upon 
 sorrow to realise the ghastly change which depth of earth 
 and sheeted lead must shut away, lest in the witness we 
 go mad indeed ? " 
 
 He bent towards me with the question almost as if he 
 meant to take my hand, and his whole face was alight 
 with enthusiasm. Evidently the subject was more to 
 him than abstract speculation ; it was one which stirred 
 deep feeling. As he put the case it touched me also, and 
 revived some bitter memories of unforgotten grief. I 
 felt the tears well up into my eyes, and they were 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 47 
 
 dropping down my cheek before I was aware. " Ah," 
 he said, "you have answered me better than by any 
 words." 
 
 I confess I wiped them away with a feeling of annoy- 
 ance. I did not agree with him in the entirety he took 
 for granted, but I could not then contest the point ; the 
 inopportune tears had to bear what construction he chose. 
 Besides, it is only young eyes which look the brighter for 
 these natural dews. Elderly women like myself should 
 weep in private if weep they must, as reddened features 
 are the inevitable result. 
 
 " Sympathy is very sweet," he went on. " It is strange 
 how our nature craves for it, how the desire for it 
 penetrates the heart even of such an old hermit as 
 myself A year ago I dreamed a dream, brief and 
 baseless, but while I dreamed Paradise came again. I 
 found, as I thought, in Barbara the fulfilled ideal ; I 
 dreamed we were mated both for Time and for Eternity. 
 She was well inclined to me, but — some one came 
 between. Not her lover, this young fellow, who is 
 turning himself into an amateur detective with such 
 excellent result. That came later, and grew out of the 
 mother's ambition, not her own heart. I know when 
 certain natures are in antagonism to mine, when they 
 radiate an adverse magnetism. Two in this house were 
 in opposition. You will divine their names ; walls have 
 ears perhaps. But the younger lady became her own 
 enemy in proving mine ; had she not opposed me, 
 Barbara would not have stolen her lover. Don't look 
 so surprised ; you know all this ; I know you know it. 
 And I believe you divine also in whose hand is the clue 
 to the dark riddle which perplexes us. Mr. and Mrs. 
 AUeyne are blind, but your eyes are too clear to be 
 hoodwinked." 
 
 He rose to his feet as he spoke, and I rose also in 
 some agitation, not knowing how to answer so strange 
 a speech. 
 
 " Unless," he continued, " unless you hoodwink your- 
 
48 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 self, frightened at your own clear-seeing. But the facts 
 will be too strong for you very shortly, and then you will 
 remember my words. Now, farewell." He took my 
 hand and pressed it closely. " If I can divine an enemy, 
 I can divine a friend also. I have one more under this 
 roof besides Alleyne. Thank you for all you have told 
 me, voluntarily and involuntarily, and adieu." 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 " Can I speak to you for a moment, ma'am ? " 
 
 The words were spoken at my bedroom door about 
 a fortnight after Barbara's disappearance, a fortnight of 
 baffled search and weary conjecture, which still left it 
 as deep a mystery as ever. I had called an impatient 
 " Come in," as I knelt before my largest trunk diving 
 into its recesses for a book I wanted, and turned to see 
 the maid Evans, the woman Barbara had nicknamed 
 Fidgets, hesitating on the threshold. 
 
 She was a person of fifty or upwards, naturally 
 cadaverous and dismal of visage, who had lived for many 
 years with the Alleynes, and identified herself with the 
 family as such old retainers are apt ' to do. She was 
 attached to Eleanor, and had been her maid before she 
 changed her name ; but Barbara, who was born into her 
 charge as it were, had, with all her wilfulness, been dear 
 to Fidgets as the apple of her eye. I saw at once that 
 there was something the matter beyond the cloud of 
 sorrow on the house, for the woman was trembling with 
 a nervous quiver of excitement, and her lantern-jawed 
 visage was longer than ever. She came in, shut the door 
 behind her, and stood plucking unconsciously at the 
 empty pockets of her apron. 
 
 " I would not trouble you, ma'am, nor say a word if 
 you were a stranger here ; but being a relation, and my 
 mistress so ill and in such grief, and I do not know 
 where else to turn. You will know what should be 
 done, and whether it ought to be given up to the police." 
 
 49 E 
 
so A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 This exordium brought me to my feet. I wondered 
 what was coming, but was not destined at once to find 
 out ; having secured her listener, Evans preferred a 
 circuitous and crab-like progress. 
 
 " I have never been against Miss Janie in the way of 
 not liking her. She was never one to give trouble, but 
 always to put her hand to anything ; as was only right, 
 as Mrs. AUeyne said, being as she was in the house. 
 But them as are so meek, and butter not melting in their 
 mouths, — there is always a something with them, I say, 
 that doesn't come away harmless like firing into little 
 tempers and that. I always thought there would be 
 trouble with Miss Janie some day, but it's not from any 
 ill-feeling against her that I am speaking now." 
 
 Janie, — always Janie ! the burden of those dark hints 
 of Mr. Redworth's ; and now Evans also was among the 
 prophets. 
 
 " I believe she was fond of Miss Barbara all through, 
 as well she might be," and here Fidgets' voice trembled 
 into a sob. " But I saw, if nobody else did, that there 
 came to be a feeling about Mr. Sudeleigh." 
 
 I could not help shivering a little, but it may have 
 been as much the cold of the fireless room as any dread 
 of hearing my own vague fears take shape on the lips of 
 another. 
 
 " It wasn't my place to say anything, but even a 
 servant may take notice ; and before ever we came here, 
 when they were together, it was always Miss Janie he 
 was after, and who seemed a sort of sweetheart to him 
 when they were hardly any more than boy and girl. 
 For he's young yet, you know, Mr. Sudeleigh is ; not 
 much more than four and twenty all told. But when 
 we were at Filey last autumn he seemed struck all at 
 once with Miss Barbara ; she had grown a rare beauty 
 since he had seen her, and he had no eyes for any one 
 else. And the mistress, as was natural, wishing the 
 match, kept putting forward our young lady and holding 
 Miss Janie in the background, It was all as it should 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 51 
 
 be ; for Mr. Sudeleigh had to please his people, and Miss 
 Janie had no call to be considered, being what she was. 
 But I think she had a sore heart over it, though she kept 
 it to herself, as was her way." 
 
 " Was it about this, Evans, that you wanted to consult 
 me now ? " 
 
 " Not rightly this, ma'am ; but it's all in a piece with 
 it, there having been a feeling. And when we came 
 back and the marriage was pressed on so, I was sorry for 
 Miss Janie, for she was in the midst of it all and heard 
 of nothing else from morning to night. She was fond 
 of Miss Barbara, and yet, — and yet, ma'am, no one else 
 had such a reason for wishing her out of the way." 
 
 " Surely you are not thinking, — Evans, I cannot hear 
 it if you mean to cast suspicion on Miss Moorhouse. It 
 is too terrible." 
 
 " Not from anything in my mind, ma'am, I wouldn't 
 be so unchristian. It's something I have found and don't 
 know what to do with, and that looks black against the 
 young lady if anything ever did." 
 
 " What ? " I asked, and I sat down on the foot of the 
 bed feeling as if my limbs would sustain me no longer. 
 
 " Some ladies don't notice little things like dresses and 
 that, but it's natural for me to do, as I've a charge to see 
 what the young ladies wear. That last evening as ever 
 was, the evening Miss Barbara was lost, Miss Janie went 
 down to dinner in her best frock ; she mostly wore it 
 when Mr. Sudeleigh was expected, and not by her own 
 will only, for I've heard .Miss Barbara telling her io put 
 it on. It was a white nun's cloth, and she made it up 
 herself, with me to cut it out and fit it on her. Well, 
 when we were called to search, and were looking all over 
 the house and in the garden for my blessed young lady 
 who was gone, it struck me all at once that Miss Janie 
 had changed her gown. She had on the old black stuff 
 one she has worn ever since ; and no call to be gayer 
 with no company, — begging your pardon, ma'am — and 
 worse than a death in the house; though death it is, and 
 
52 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 none of us have doubted it since Mary saw Miss Barbara 
 on her wedding-day. I didn't sleep a wink last night, 
 sitting up in the dark and thinking how this would kill 
 my mistress outright, and what I had better do. Miss 
 Barbara and Miss Janie had the Blue Bedroom together, 
 as you know, and Miss Janie is still there by herself, as 
 the mistress has said nothing about moving her. When 
 the young ladies were put there on account of Miss 
 Barbara being so nervous after she came back from Filey, 
 I laid away their summer things myself in the big drawer 
 of the wardrobe, and thought as I did so how Miss 
 Barbara would never want hers any more, on account of 
 the trousseau, poor dear ; and not of things being as they 
 are. I laid away with them a remnant of material that 
 was over from a morning jacket I'd been making for the 
 mistress while we were away, — the grey cashmere with 
 silk flowers on it ; and now she has taken to wear it in 
 her illness, there is something amiss with the sleeve, and 
 I have got to make the cuffs wider. I wanted the rem- 
 nant out, and was looking in the drawer for it ; when 
 what should I come upon, stuffed in under the rough- 
 dried prints that I had laid away neat and tidy with my 
 own hands, but Miss Janie's white gown. White you 
 can't call it any longer, and if you'll come with me, 
 ma'am, I'd like you to see the state of it, just as it was 
 found." 
 
 I followed across the landing and into the Blue Room, 
 and Evans opened the wardrobe and the bottom drawer 
 in solemn silence. The dress had been rolled together 
 and stuffed away out of sight, and as she unfolded it 
 before me the appearance was certainly startling. All 
 the front of the skirt was soiled with dust and grime, and 
 stained and smeared with blood, while the right sleeve of 
 the body, a full one nearly to the wrist, was stiffened with 
 the same dark dye. I could hardly blame her for think- 
 ing it suggestive of some horrible butchery, and the con- 
 cealment was, to say the least of it, unfortunate. I 
 looked at it in dismay, not knowing what to say in the 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 53 
 
 first shock of discovery, which was not lightened to me 
 by the hints that had gone before. 
 
 "No doubt it is a duty to show this to the police, 
 but I'm thinking of my mistress and the state she's 
 in ; the trouble of it would kill her right out, and 
 the scandal in the family. I don't wish harm to Miss 
 Janie, but she hadn't ought to stay here, hanging round 
 the mistress in the way she does. And perhaps if she 
 had a fright about it she would confess, and we should 
 find " 
 
 My voice came back to me with a gasp, and common 
 sense as well, to repudiate the horrors this woman was 
 so coolly taking for granted. " Don't say another word, 
 Evans. It is a cruel injustice;, I am sure of it. I am 
 not blaming you ; the idea was natural, but I am thank- 
 ful you have not mentioned it to any one but me. You 
 did not know about Miss Janie's accident ; she told us of 
 it at once, and the blood must have spoiled her dress. 
 Don't you remember the doctor dressing her hand next 
 day ? He says there will always be a scar." 
 
 I tried to speak with authority and confidence, but for 
 the life of me I could not keep free from a tone of special 
 pleading, a quiver of agitation. The woman looked at 
 me with those cold blue expressionless eyes of hers, and 
 began mechanically to fold the stained gown out of 
 sight. 
 
 " Mr. AUeyne shall know about it of course ; and he 
 will direct you what to do, or Miss Janie herself. The 
 dress is quite spoiled, she could not have worn it again, 
 and no doubt thrust it into the unused drawer to be out 
 of the way." 
 
 Evans was not ready with an answer ; but as I plainly 
 paused for one, she said after a long minute's silence, 
 " Very well, ma'am. If you and Mr. Alleyne are satisfied 
 I have no more to say. I did know Miss Janie's hand 
 was hurt; but my mistress told me she was puzzled 
 about how she could have done it, and could not get her 
 to say." 
 
54 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 Unconvinced ! I felt that as I went back to my 
 room, and shut myself in with every pulse tingling, cold 
 as it was, to think over what had passed and to assure 
 myself anew that, despite of Mr. Redworth's vague hints 
 and the servant's more coarsely spoken suspicions, I was 
 confident of Janie's innocence. It seemed to fall on me 
 to be her advocate, — on me, who had never loved her 
 warmly, and to whom the Frost-cousinship was not an 
 endeared tie. But, as I remembered with a throb of pity 
 which may have aroused some latent Quixotism, if I failed 
 her and the Alleynes were led to doubt her, where had 
 she to turn ? Her father had for years treated her with 
 absolute indifference, willing that she should be a burden 
 on other shoulders ; and I knew from Gregory that he 
 had lately accepted an appointment in Bermuda, and was 
 now on his way out there with Mrs. Moorhouse and the 
 younger children. 
 
 It was my duty to tell Gregory what had happened, 
 and to place matters in such a light that he would see the 
 imperative need of guarding Janie from possible annoy- 
 ance, if not actual danger. He had left the house after 
 luncheon, announcing his intention of visiting a sick 
 woman who lived at the extreme boundary of the parish, 
 and the walk would be a long one. I looked at my 
 watch ; there was no prospect of his return for an hour 
 at least, and I confess my courage sank more and more 
 as I thought over the communication I had to make. 
 Poor Gregory ! He was fighting his way back to a 
 hardly sustained composure, and all I had to tell would 
 tear open the wound he strove to staunch, and cause it to 
 bleed anew. I stood at the window looking out over the 
 wintry garden, where the deep snow of that December 
 night still lingered in drifted patches, frozen too hard to 
 disappear quickly, though the new year had come in 
 with milder weather, and the grey, windy sky seemed to 
 threaten a further change. Eleanor would be resting at 
 this hour I knew; indeed she had not left her room since 
 the Christmas week; but Janie was probably below, and 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 55 
 
 I might take the opportunity to draw something further 
 from her about her accident. 
 
 I, too, had noticed that she was reluctant to speak of 
 it J but, poor child, I doubt if she had ever been en- 
 couraged to obtrude her woes and mischances on others. 
 After the first terror and misery of that dreadful night, 
 she had been in her quiet way a stay to us all, soothing 
 Eleanor, thoughtful for Gregory, doing her utmost to 
 stand between us and all that could intensify our aching 
 sense of loss. The new and horrible character in which 
 I was required to view her seemed utterly incongruous, 
 was utterly incongruous, I told myself a dozen times as 
 I stood irresolute at the window, with the gentle modest 
 personality I was learning to know. Yet what was it 
 Evans had said to me just now about these meek, self- 
 contained natures shutting in something dangerous, which 
 rare occasion or rare provocation might bring to light ? 
 The wind swept down from the wooded hill which was 
 Coldhope, and drove against the glass the first drops of 
 rain from that gloomy sky. It almost seemed as if I 
 could hear Mr. Redworth's voice beside, me in the 
 whispered reminder, — the suggestion of my own mind 
 that I could know nothing of the mysteries and incon- 
 sistencies of the criminal intellect — that it is, as a great 
 writer of our time has said, not to be paralleled with that 
 of ordinary mankind, but regarded as a horrible wonder 
 apart. 
 
 Poor Janie ! I found the book for which I had been 
 searching, and descended with it to the parlour. There 
 she was busy with her work, — some plain stitchery for 
 charitable uses over which I had frequently seen her em- 
 ployed. She looked up at my entrance, quick-handed to 
 wheel forward a comfortable chair and brighten the rather 
 neglected fire; and then respected my occupation by 
 sitting opposite in companionable silence. 
 
 It was true I held the book open before me, and from 
 time to time turned over the pages; but my eye gathered 
 no meaning from them, and I was indeed watching her 
 
56 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 from behind that screen, wondering what I should say. 
 She was quite unaware of my observation and seemed 
 herself to be deep in thought, for now and again the 
 flying needle would pause, the sewing drop on her knee, 
 and the small grave face, which had grown thinner since 
 I came to Ditchborough, look away into the distance with 
 a perplexed furrow knitting her young brow. It was 
 after one of these pauses that I said, — dashing abruptly 
 into my subject, as I despaired of any natural prelude : 
 " I saw Evans when I was up-stairs, and she was much 
 distressed over one of your dresses." 
 
 " Yes ! " she said, as if unconscious of any special 
 meaning. " Poor old Fidgets ! It is torn again I know, 
 but as I shall mend it myself she need not take it to 
 heart." 
 
 " It was not about mending anything. She had found 
 a white dress put away in a drawer, very much stained, — 
 with blood." 
 
 Her face changed at my words, but the expression 
 which crossed it was one of intense pain, not fear or dis- 
 composure. " That is spoiled," she said briefly; " I put 
 it away." 
 
 "Evans found it," I went on, stumbling over my 
 difficulty, " and she remembered when you wore it last. 
 She showed it to me. My dear, it is dreadfully stained, 
 and soiled with dirt as well. Would you mind telling 
 me exactly how your accident happened ? I have never 
 heard." 
 
 Janie gave a moaning cry and covered her face ; I saw 
 between her slender fingers that she had flushed up to her 
 hair. " I hate to think of it," she said at last. " I can- 
 not bear to recall that night." 
 
 " My dear," I said again, " I do not like to press you. 
 But I think it would be better if you told me or your 
 uncle, — safer, I mean. It might be thought strange that 
 the dress was hidden away in that manner, — the servants, 
 might talk, — and you know at these sad times people take 
 up the wildest ideas " 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 57 
 
 Vague as was the hint my bungling speech had given, 
 the arrow went home. The shielding hands dropped as 
 she looked up at me, first in incredulous bewilderment, 
 and then with dawning comprehension. The wave of 
 colour ebbed away and left her white, and she rose 
 to her feet as if drawn up by the magnitude of the 
 horror. 
 
 " Cousin Susan, is it possible ? " She put her hands to 
 her throat as if suffocating. " Are you meaning to tell 
 me that people might think I had harmed her, — that 
 the (blood was Barbara's ? " 
 
 '^One cannot tell what people may think when con- 
 fronted with such a mystery. Don't be distressed ; I 
 wanted to do all for your protection." 
 
 She looked at me almost sternly, with her young white 
 face so changed and set. " Have you such a thought of 
 me, Cousin Susan ? " she demanded; and as I looked back 
 at her in that first moment I had no doubt of her 
 innocence, and could answer truthfully, " No." 
 
 Her hands dropped from her neck, and she crouched 
 back into the chair she had left. " I have deserved it," 
 she said. "Whatever they say of me, I have deserved 
 it all." 
 
 It was dreadful to see her rocking herself to and fro 
 and moaning, a low, wailing moan like one in ex- 
 tremity of pain. Just then I think she hardly remem- 
 bered my presence, and did not heed it at all. Presently 
 she said : " What was it you asked me, — about my 
 accident ? " 
 
 " I thought it would be a safeguard if your uncle or I 
 knew what had happened, and could answer if ques- 
 tioned." 
 
 " I will try to tell you. I had been — unhappy for some 
 time. It was no one's fault, only my own folly; but it was 
 hard to bear. I felt worse as the wedding came so near ; 
 it was in my heart to pray that anything might postpone 
 it, — anything, anything, — not dreaming how terribly the 
 prayer would be answered. At my worst times I almost 
 
S8 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 hated Barbara : she had so much and valued it so lightly; 
 and you know what it says in the Bible, ' He that hateth 
 his brother ' " 
 
 She shuddered violently and covered her face ; and the 
 voice I thought to have silenced whispered within me, — 
 can it be only for this — such an agony of repentance and 
 remorse ? 
 
 " That day, that evening, was the hardest of all, the 
 ache of hopeless pain, the struggle for concealment. I 
 longed for the dinner to be over like some wretch on the 
 rack to be out of active torment. I felt as if I should 
 die, should faint, should betray myself with another word. 
 When you all left the table I went away up-stairs. I sit 
 sometimes in the attic to be quiet, but I was afraid of in- 
 trusion even there. I have kept one end tidy for myself, 
 but I went to the other, where I could hide myself behind 
 the boxes and lumber, not thinking of the dust upon the 
 floor. I am subject to fainting-fits, and I tried to get 
 the window open ; I thought the cold air would stop 
 the deadly sickness at my heart. It has a broken edge, 
 that casement — a sort of spike in the leaded work, and 
 as I tugged at it I felt it pierce my wrist, and then I 
 remember no more. When I came to myself I was 
 lying under the window in a pool of blood ; I had torn 
 my hand free in falling. That is all. As soon as I could, 
 I dragged myself down-stairs, horror-stricken to find how 
 late it was, and to think of the questions I should have to 
 answer. I bound up the wound as well as I could, and 
 changed my dress ; and I hid that one where Evans found 
 it. I got down just as the alarm was given that Barbara 
 was missing. That night was terrible to all of us ; but 
 think how terrible to me, when such an awful answer had 
 come close upon my prayer ! " 
 
 " I will tell Gregory how the accident happened. I 
 can do so without going into motives. But I wish you 
 had not hidden the dress." 
 
 " It was only to get it out of the way ; I did not want 
 to be questioned. And since, I have felt I could not 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 59 
 
 bear to see it ; it would bring to mind all the evil that 
 was in my heart." 
 
 " You must not dwell on that now, Janie ; it would 
 be morbid. I can understand the feeling you have about 
 it ; but if we were judged by our thoughts, who would 
 be guiltless ? And you know you would never have 
 harmed her in deed." I paused for the assurance, but as 
 she did not answer I went on : " Gregory shall speak to 
 Evans, and the dress shall be put away where it will 
 never trouble any of us again. But tell me this., I 
 have wondered sometimes if you have any guess, any 
 conjecture of your own about the mystery. All the rest 
 of us have had our own theories, but I have never heard 
 you advance one. If Barbara ever made any confidence 
 to you which would throw light on it, you would be 
 doing wrong to respect it now." 
 
 She looked up at me fully as I spoke, and then away 
 at the fire ; there was an interval of silence, while she 
 seemed to be considering. When she spoke again it was 
 with greater self-possession, and a return to the ordinary 
 manner which her extreme agitation had broken through. 
 
 " Barbara never told me anything. It is true I have 
 fancied things, but not frorn any foundation of know- 
 ledge ; and knowing what I should feel myself under 
 suspicion, I could not cast it on another by what is a 
 mere guess. We were good friends always, but she was 
 never one to make confidences, and I don't think she 
 quite forgave me something which happened the autumn 
 before last. It was not my fault : I could not help it ; 
 but it was through me Aunt Eleanor found out she was 
 meeting Mr. Redworth. No, I have nothing to tell. 
 Barbara was nervous latterly, and seemed anxious to get 
 away from Ditchborough, but she never told me why." 
 
 The hall-door opened and shut, with its usual heavy 
 bang and a rush of wind into the house. Gregory had 
 returned, tired with his walk, but doubtless the exertion 
 had been salutary both for mind and body. It seemed 
 strange to see Janie meet him with her usual cheerful 
 
6o A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 composure, helping him off with his wet coat and fetching 
 the slippers she had warmed, when I thought of the 
 tragical subject that had just been under discussion. 
 Would any ordinary girl have been able so completely 
 to put aside the passion of remorse I had witnessed, the 
 agitation of finding she had laid herself open to so dreadful 
 a suspicion ? The servant's words came back anew when 
 I asked myself whether such a faculty of self-suppression 
 might not shut in something dangerous. 
 
 Gregory had always liked Janie, and accepted willingly 
 at her hands the small daughter-like attentions she gladly 
 paid him. I noticed long ago she was more at home 
 with him than with Eleanor, and he had been used to 
 receive them from her rather than from Barbara, so there 
 was not the pang of seeing another take the place of his 
 lost child. 
 
 Yes, he was fond of Janie, and honestly indignant for 
 her sake later on when I told him of Evans's discovery 
 and hinted at a possible danger. "You did quite right, 
 Susan, and I will speak to the woman myself. No 
 mystery must be made of the affair ; she must see we 
 know all about it and have no such thought. By 
 George ! [Gregory was not always strictly clerical in 
 moments of excitement] I feel inclined to send her 
 packing for the suggestion ; but of course she is Eleanor's 
 maid and a privileged person, and has been considerate 
 for her. Poor little girl ! She was broken-hearted at 
 the loss of her companion when Barbara was only going 
 to be married ; the woman must be mad to think she 
 would be suspected of this. And even on physical 
 grounds look at the absurdity; what could a little thing 
 like Janie have done against a splendid creature like 
 Barbara ? Ah, Susan, when I sent her on that errand 
 I sent her to her death, but it was not by Janie's hand." 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 Gregory's walk had not been entirely solitary ; Mr. 
 Redworth had overtaken him on the way home, and they 
 had gone in company as far as the gates of Coldhope. 
 He had asked with interest touching the inquiry, and 
 repeated some former strictures about the action of the 
 police ; he thought they were carrying it too far afield. 
 " They ought to narrow the circle, Alleyne," he said : 
 " and if I were you I would begin with a house to house 
 search within a radius of five miles. I will set the 
 example by throwing open Coldhope." 
 
 But of course Gregory told him it was out of the 
 question. Inquiries had been made, but he could not 
 subject his parishioners and neighbours to the insult of a 
 search, unless on the track of some positive clue. I 
 could not help thinking the advocacy of looking nearer 
 home was of a piece with his former hints against Janie. 
 Gregory had told him the police were of opinion Barbara 
 had been at once removed to a distance, and probably 
 taken out of England in the first hours of the alarm. 
 
 That was a night of wild weather. The wind, which 
 had been high through the afternoon, rose at sundown to 
 a positive gale, wailing and shrieking round the Rectory 
 gables and chimney-stacks all through the passage of the 
 dark hours, while rain streamed down in every lull of the 
 tempest. I seldom sleep well in a high wind : it seems 
 to excite something electrical in my nature and renders 
 me restless ; and there had been enough in the events 
 and conflicting emotions of the day to drive sleep from 
 
 6i 
 
62 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 my pillow, even had the elements been calm with the 
 stillness of frost or the warm breath of summer. I lay- 
 staring into the darkness, calling up Evans's face as she 
 unfolded the soiled gown ; then Janie's in the first out- 
 break of indignation and wounded innocence, followed by 
 that crouching figure moaning and self-accused in ex- 
 tremity of remorse. I recalled Barbara as she came in 
 from her winter walk glowing with life and beauty, gay 
 and proud with her lover beside her; and then with a 
 shiver of dread the mute figure moving away from us in 
 its trailing silks and shrouding laces. The wind moaned 
 outside like a voice in pain, sobbing and wailing round 
 the house as might some homeless spirit shut out for ever- 
 more fi-om the circle of love and fellowship. I fancied I 
 heard as well a voice that wept within, and restless steps 
 that wandered up and down; but doubtless my imagin- 
 ation figured these out of the natural noises of the storm. 
 
 The wind dropped towards morning, and I slept at 
 last, wearied out, and woke to find the dawn breaking on a 
 peaceful grey world, and rain pouring down monotonously 
 from a canopy of leaden cloud. 
 
 As I rose and dressed, I noticed that the lawn was 
 strewn with broken twigs and branches from the trees, 
 and the last traces of the frozen snow were washed away. 
 Gregory was just issuing from his room as I came out of 
 mine ; we met and greeted on the stairs with the usual 
 comments on the wet morning and stormy night ; he, 
 like me, had been disturbed by it. " I could have 
 declared," he said, " that some one was knocking at the 
 front door and throwing up gravel at my window; but it 
 was nothing but the force of the wind." 
 
 We went down together, and in the hall found the 
 door set open, and three of the servants standing there, 
 looking at a brown paper parcel which lay across the 
 threshold. Mary, who had come back to us urged by 
 maternal scoldings, was the first to speak : it had fallen 
 in, she said, when the door was opened as if set up against 
 it on the outside ; and they thought it must have been 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 63 
 
 there all night, as it was soaked with wet. She looked 
 at it, ready to scent a mystery, as if in her opinion it was 
 something uncanny. 
 
 The parcel, which was more bulky than heavy, was 
 wrapped in brown paper and tied with stout string. 
 Gregory lifted it and turned it over, but no address was 
 visible, nor any trace of writing that the rain had blurred. 
 " I shall assume," he said, " that it is meant for me; " and 
 carrying it to a side-table in the breakfast-room he cut 
 the fastenmg strings with his knife and pulled apart the 
 outer wrappings. 
 
 The package had been done up carefully in several 
 sheets of thick paper, and an inner string tied together in 
 a tight roll the skirt of a woman's dress. I saw Gregory's 
 face change, and I think he and I recognised it in the 
 same instant; it was the very skirt of shot silken grey 
 that Barbara had worn the night of her disappearance. 
 His hands trembled as he spread it out, and we looked in 
 each other's faces in dumb amazement. Folded closely 
 within, so as to occupy the least possible compass, was 
 all the other clothing, while still recognisable, pinned to 
 the bodice close above the crimson breast-knot, was a 
 bunch of withered violets which had been her lover's gift, 
 brought from Lynnchester on the fatal day. Janie had 
 come quietly behind us and I heard her exclaim ; she 
 seemed both frightened and excited, and hers was the 
 suggestion that there might be a letter. " Surely," she 
 said, "she would not send the things back without a 
 word." 
 
 Gregory shook his head at this, but we made the 
 search ; unfolding everything, turning out the pocket of 
 the dress and examining the protecting papers ; but there 
 was not a scrap of handwriting of any sort. The only 
 fresh discovery was a parcel in one of the shoes ; a hand- 
 kerchief with her initials folded round the two rings, 
 Dick Sudeleigh's diamond hoop and the emerald cluster 
 which had been my gift, tied together upon the slender 
 filigree chain she had worn about her throat. The father 
 
64 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 held them up to me and then dropped them back upon 
 the heap. "That disposes of one of the theories," he 
 said. " Robbery was not the motive. And Barbara 
 never did this. No change, other than a miracle, w^ould 
 have made her send these rags and relics back to mock 
 us in our grief; " and he turned abruptly away from us to 
 hide his tears. 
 
 Alas, the ill-omened parcel laid at our door in the 
 night elucidated nothing ; the mystery of Barbara's dis- 
 appearance gathered all the darker for that will-o'-the- 
 wisp of mocking light which gleamed a momentary hope. 
 It was of course examined by the detective, but no clue 
 could be obtained as to whence it had come. There 
 was, as I have said, no address ; the sheets of wrapping 
 paper were of the ordinary kind which might be found 
 in any house ; the strong twine with which it had been 
 tied was in no way peculiar. Doubtless it was deposited 
 in the porch by some person in the secret ; but at what 
 time of the evening, or night, or early morning, remained 
 unknown. Gregory had fancied he heard knocking at 
 the door and pebbles thrown at his window, but that 
 could only have been the noise of the storm ; no one 
 coming secretly on such an errand would desire to call 
 attention to his presence. The clothing was quite un- 
 injured, and might have been laid aside in the safety of 
 her own home ; but there were two points to which the 
 detective drew attention. The thin slippers were scratched 
 and cut as if by walking some distance over a rough road, 
 and the lace edge of the petticoat was soiled and frayed ; 
 this, Evans declared, was not the case with either before 
 that night's use. It was thought to point to Barbara 
 having gone away on foot, rather than being forced away 
 from us in a carriage, which our minds had dwelt upon 
 as probable. 
 
 As I have said, the mystery was deeper than ever. 
 Eleanor was very greatly distressed and upset, and would 
 have the clothes brought up to her bedside, and then 
 could scarcely see them for the fast-flowing tears. Evans 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 65 
 
 looked grimly on, and when asked for an opinion said : 
 "Indeed, ma'am, I should say that something had 
 happened to frighten the persons who had them in 
 charge, within the last day or two, and they were afraid 
 to keep them any longer hid away." 
 
 It was not difficult for me to divine at what her words 
 pointed ; and in the conviction that Barbara was dead she 
 was as strong as Gregory himself. 
 
 Towards the end of February our mournful quietude 
 was disturbed by a visit from Lady Sudeleigh. There 
 had been frequent interchange of letters between her and 
 Eleanor, and deep had been the sympathy and concern 
 expressed by all Dick's relatives for the Alleynes in their 
 grief. The later correspondence, however, had related 
 chiefly to the Sudeleighs' wish that Dick should go 
 abroad. - While the search for Barbara was still active 
 nothing would have induced him to leave England, but, 
 now that it had been practically abandoned, except for 
 an occasional advertisement in a daily paper, there was no 
 reason for delay; and the yachting-cruise, in company 
 with one or two congenial companions, would help to 
 break through the gloom and despondency which had 
 settled down over him since the fatal night. Lady 
 Sudeleigh was anxious the Alleynes should join in per- 
 suading him to go ; but though Eleanor would not lift 
 a finger to detain him, I could see she was reluctant. 
 So long as he was coming and going, keeping the police 
 vigilant and fanning the failing hope of the inquiry into 
 a semblance of life, she would not wholly despair; it 
 seemed to her that with Dick's departure Barbara would 
 be lost indeed. 
 
 She was greatly altered since I came to Ditchborough, 
 and not alone by the sorrow which weighed equally on 
 her husband ; she had given up the struggle to maintain 
 her usual habits, and fallen altogether into an invalid life. 
 The only change between day and night was her removal 
 to a sofa in her room and back again to bed; and though 
 
 r 
 
66 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 her pains did not appear to increase in violence, they 
 were of frequent occurrence, and the dread and expect- 
 ation of them was continual. Gregory hoped her friend's 
 visit would rouse her. Lady Sudeleigh was an energetic, 
 active-minded person who looked habitually on the bright 
 side of things ; and she would urge Eleanor to consent 
 to the consultation and surgical treatment which Dr. 
 Carpenter advised. 
 
 There was, however, another alteration in Eleanor 
 which I had begun to notice, perhaps before it was 
 perceptible to any one else, and that was her growing 
 reluctance to have Janie about her. At first it seemed 
 natural that Janie's should on all occasions be the hand 
 to minister ; but now, for those little offices in which 
 she did not care to depend on Evans, she began to turn 
 exclusively to me. I was very willing to write for her 
 and read to her, or to sit by her couch and talk when she 
 felt able for the effort ; and as we had been companions 
 in youth and had many recollections in common, her 
 wish for my society was not extraordinary ; still I felt 
 uneasy for the girl's sake as the difference became more 
 marked. She took it all with her usual gentleness, but 
 I saw a shade of pain cross her face when Eleanor would 
 tell her to " go and send Evans ; " or to " see if her 
 uncle wanted her in the parish, as Susan would read 
 aloud." I wondered at first if Evans had given voice 
 to her suspicions despite the ground Gregory had taken 
 up about that matter, but I do not believe it was so. 
 I do not think Evans ever said a word to her mistress ; 
 but is it quite impossible that some emanation of what 
 was in her mind should pass without voice into the moral 
 atmosphere and be vaguely absorbed by another ? Certain 
 it is that the maid disliked and suspected the girl, and the 
 mistress's affection cooled. 
 
 Eleanor would now and then drop a word, as if in 
 explanation of having been more than usually impatient 
 or ungracious. "You don't know what it is to me, 
 Susan, for that girl to be here alive and well when our 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 67 
 
 darling has been taken from us. You remember where 
 it says, 'one shall be taken and the other left'? But 
 oh, why was it not Janie whom nobody wants, instead 
 of Barbara who was the very light of our eyes ? " 
 
 Janie whom nobody wants ! Sad that her nineteen 
 summers and her gentle ways should have won no more 
 than this in the house which had been her home. 
 
 Gregory wanted her, however ; she had always been 
 a useful help to him in parish ministrations, and she 
 continued the work till certain hindrances arose which I 
 shall recount in their own place later on. 
 
 As all this will show, I spent much of my time with 
 Eleanor ; but Gregory would now and then descend on 
 us and command me to go out. I had no business, he 
 said, to imprison myself in a sick-room when I had so 
 lately left one of my own. I had come into the country 
 for change and rest, and I must remember fresh air was, 
 an essential in the prescription. So he would take me 
 drives behind Red Saxon, and long rambles on foot which 
 I liked even better, — over hill and dale, among the 
 Coldhope woods, and over the breezy expanses of the 
 moor. It was a mild February, and before the last days 
 had gone by there became perceptible, thrilling in the 
 air and pulsing through animate nature, the mysterious 
 exaltation of the Spring. And another errand sometimes 
 took me abroad, though only to the little grey church. 
 The schoolmaster, who was also the organist, met with 
 a mischance, laming his shoulder by a rather serious dis- 
 location, and I offered to fill his place in the church- 
 services while he was disabled. It was years since I had 
 touched the instrument, but a proficiency once acquired 
 is seldom wholly lost, and by dint of weekday practices 
 I was soon able to undertake the Sunday hymns and 
 voluntaries to Gregory's satisfaction, if not altogether to 
 my own. By a stroke of good fortune the organ was 
 a finer instrument than could have been expected in 
 such a locality as Ditchborough, and a first step in the 
 restoration of the church had been to put it in thorough 
 
68 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 repair. I cannot say it was a very blissful occupation, 
 accompanying the nasal voices of that drawling choir ; 
 but in those solitary practices I did have some happy hours 
 over the yellow keyboard, recalling well-loved harmonies 
 to which my fingers had for long been strangers. 
 
 But I have wandered from Lady Sudeleigh's visit, which 
 was fixed for the end of February, and Dick had promised 
 to come over, while she was with us, for a single night, 
 to bid farewell both to the AUeynes and to his mother 
 before setting sail. The Rector's brougham went all the 
 way to Lynnchester to bring her over with her maid and 
 luggage, as the expresses from the south did not at all 
 regard our nearer wayside station ; and she arrived, as I 
 had done, on the edge of dusk, though later in the evening 
 by, all the advance of the year. 
 
 I had vaguely expected a large imposing person, some- 
 thing after the mould of Eleanor, a feminine prototype of 
 the tall wide-shouldered stature of her son ; but the figure 
 that emerged from the brougham, and was disembarrassed 
 in the hall of a heavy travelling-cloak enriched with sable, 
 was altogether small in its proportions, imposing only by 
 virtue of an erect and stately carriage which made the 
 most of every inch of her diminutive height. She was 
 taken straight to Eleanor, who was anxiously awaiting 
 her, and what the two mothers found to say to each other 
 in that meeting so full of sadness to the one, I know not ; 
 but they were shut in alone together for the best part of 
 an hour. After that Lady Sudeleigh rested in her room 
 till dinner-time, and I felt it was really my first sight of 
 her when she and Janie came together into the lighted 
 drawing-room where Gregory and I were awaiting 
 them. 
 
 She was a beautiful little old lady, quite past all pre- 
 tensions to youth ; who might indeed have been taken 
 for Dick's grandmother rather than his mother, and have 
 walked in the character of a white witch godmother out 
 of the pages of a fairy-book. She used an ebony stick for 
 some slight lameness which hardly disfigured her gait, 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 69 
 
 and her hair, which was silver-white, was turned baclc 
 over a cushion from her small face with its aquiline 
 features and still delicate complexion of ivory and pink. 
 There was a brilliance and vivacity about her that one 
 does not usually associate with the decline of life, and I 
 should think those black eyes of hers could hardly have 
 been more piercing in her girlhood than now when she 
 had counted five and sixty years. She made no secret of 
 her age, rather taking pride in it, perhaps with the feeling 
 that she bore it to the full as gracefully as younger 
 women did their youth. Her gown of grey brocade 
 became her, and so did the black laces which crowned 
 her silver hair and draped her throat, with the flash of a 
 diamond among them here and there. As we stood 
 together at the fire waiting for dinner I noticed how 
 every movement of her silken draperies shook out a 
 subtle odour of sandal-wood, a perfume which ever since 
 in my mind has been associated with the vivacious per- 
 sonality of that imperious little dame. Dick's mother 
 was completely different from my expectations; but as 
 Janie and I followed into the dining-room the grey train 
 which Gregory escorted, I admired her with all, — not my 
 heart perhaps, but whatever stands for it in the unloving 
 appreciation we give to a stranger. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 " I HAD such a delightful travelling companion this 
 afternoon," said Lady Sudeleigh to the table collectively, 
 after Gregory had said grace and I had begun to ladle out 
 the soup. " He got out at Lynnchester, and I understand 
 he is a neighbour of yours, a Mr. Redw^orth." 
 
 "Our nearest neighbour," exclaimed Gregory. "Just 
 across the vvay, in fact, at Coldhope." 
 
 " Well, I am deeply indebted to him, I can assure you ; 
 and perhaps I shall have the opportunity of thanking him 
 again while I am here. Mathilde made some stupid 
 mistake about the luggage at the junction, and we 
 thought it had gone on in the wrong train. She is 
 absolutely no use in travelling ; as much charge, I tell 
 her, as a child would be ; and these north-country porters 
 don't understand her broken English. I do not know 
 what would have become of us if Mr. Redworth had not 
 come to the rescue, really like a knight-errant succouring 
 the distressed. After that he went on in my carriage to 
 Lynnchester, and told me all sorts of odd things ; I was 
 greatly entertained." 
 
 " He is a very out-of-the-way person, and can make 
 himself uncommonly interesting when he chooses. There 
 could be no doubt he would choose with you ; and I am 
 glad he was at hand to be of use." 
 
 " He did choose ; but I took it for nature and not 
 compliment. My only misgiving was whether he could 
 be perfectly sane. It is, to say the least, unusual for a 
 man in this nineteenth century of ours, — a man who 
 
 70 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 71 
 
 bears the stamp of good society — to declare himself an 
 alchemist ! And he would not allow he was in jest ; he 
 insisted it was a serious science, and only the Arabian term 
 for something of real practical import to all of us." 
 
 " I believe he is a clever experimental chemist, and, 
 according to his own account, he has discovered some 
 remarkable secrets in the ancient mystical literature, the 
 writings of Paracelsus, and others even earlier. He told 
 me on one occasion here that he was on the eve of giving 
 them to the world." 
 
 " The philosopher's stone, I suppose, and the fountain 
 of eternal youth. I should not mind having a dip in that 
 fountain if he can produce it. The world has been a 
 pleasant one to me in past years, and I am in no hurry to 
 leave it, even now. Seriously, however, it does seem odd 
 for a man like Mr. Redworth to give himself up to such 
 researches. The craze must come in somewhere. Yes, he 
 talked about Paracelsus, and the impossibility of fathom- 
 ing the true significance of those ancient writings without 
 the fundamental key ; otherwise they appeared the wildest 
 nonsense, all about green dragons and salt of vipers and 
 such like. As I told him, I could well believe it." 
 
 "For my own part," said, Gregory, "I think it not 
 impossible that the manuscripts were so phrased as to be 
 intelligible only to a certain sect. There was a great 
 idea in those days of keeping the laity in ignorance ; and 
 though our modern practice has got past all that, there 
 was an element of wisdom in it, to my thinking. Nothing 
 is so dangerous as a little knowledge in the power of the 
 ignorant." 
 
 " Ah, when a clergyman begins to talk about the laity 
 as a class by themselves, we can say nothing, we women. 
 Can we. Miss Varney ? But I thought my charming 
 friend a little peculiar on other points. What do you 
 think he told me he had got with him, in a particular 
 long wooden box of which he was very careful ? " 
 
 " I have not the least idea." 
 
 " I hope I shall not spoil any one's dinner if I tell you j 
 
72 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 it was a human arm. It seems he attaches a great value 
 to such trifles on account of experiments he is pursuing ; 
 and having heard from the hospital authorities in York 
 that an amputation was to take place, he attended to 
 possess himself of the — memento mori is not a right 
 expression, I suppose, as they did not kill the man." 
 
 I said I understood from Mr. Redworth that he was 
 studying the Egyptian methods of embalming. 
 
 "It was not the Egyptian way he was explaining to 
 me, — at least not what we have always understood by it, 
 we ignorant folk who are not alchemists. The Egyptians 
 used to rub you with spices, did they not, and wind 
 you in waxed cloths, and paint a picture of you on the 
 mummy-case ? I saw some queer specimens when I was 
 at Cairo with Sir Richard. But Mr. Redworth's way, 
 the alchemist's way, is something very superior. It is the 
 injection of a fluid into the veins which arrests the change 
 of death ; and if he is able to perfect the invention the 
 body can be rendered absolutely indestructible except by 
 fire. Curious idea, is it not ? " 
 
 "I have heard Redworth talk about it," returned 
 Gregory ; " but he said he had not mastered the secret 
 of complete diffusion. It needed the pulse of a living 
 heart to circulate the fluid equally throughout the system. 
 All he has accomplished yet has been temporary and 
 partial." 
 
 " Yes ; he was abusing the Government because they 
 would not give him a criminal ! Horrid idea, is it not ? 
 And we are making Miss Varney and your niece look 
 quite pale over it. I shall ask him when I see him 
 how his arm is getting on. He told me he attended the 
 operation, and injected this stufF the instant it was severed. 
 But enough of Mr. Redworth ; tell me something about 
 your church. Have you obtained the grant of funds you 
 hoped for ? " 
 
 Lady Sudeleigh had talked on about our neighbour as 
 if really interested, but I believe it was in part to cover 
 the sad contrast between our present gathering round that 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 73 
 
 table and what had been hoped for. She was one of 
 those people who think the best way to treat a sorrow is 
 to ignore it, and her ideal of consolation was oblivion. 
 I have no doubt Barbara's disappearance was often a topic 
 of conversation between her and Eleanor, but I am quite 
 sure it was always on Eleanor's introduction. She was less 
 reticent with me, but I never heard her approach the 
 subject with Gregory, except on one occasion which I 
 shall note hereafter. That first evening when he said 
 something about " our lost child " I saw her put out her 
 thin hand sparkling with rings, and lay it on his with a 
 momentary pressure while she turned away her face ; so 
 though silent, she could be sympathetic. I liked her ; I 
 confess that she fascinated me. 
 
 There was another whom she attracted, but the spell 
 was of other weaving than her own. Janie never put 
 herself foward into notice, but was ready with numberless 
 little mute attentions, quick to anticipate every wish of 
 Dick's mother. The great lady did not heed her much ; 
 she had been accustomed to take her at Eleanor's valuation 
 as " only Janie Moorhouse," and I am sure she was quite 
 unsuspicious of any warmer feeling towards her son. 
 Dick came the day following her arrival, — or Richard, as 
 his mother called him, for she never descended to diminu- 
 tives ; and I did not wonder the Sudeleighs were anxious 
 about him. He looked haggard and gloomy ; irritable as 
 much as the instinct of good manners suffered to be 
 apparent; restless under his grief, and yet reluctant to be 
 out of touch with the associations that revived it. I was 
 present when he knelt beside Eleanor's sofa for her fare- 
 well words. 
 
 " I will not go unless you send me," he said. " If 
 there is anything we have left undone, anything I can 
 still do, tell me and I will stay." 
 
 But the other mother was looking on, and Eleanor 
 said "Go" amidst her tears. He remained a night at 
 the Rectory, and I was witness to one other little scene 
 at which Lady Sudeleigh did not assist. I was sitting in 
 
74 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 the dusk over the fire, and he and Janie were withdrawn 
 into the window recess, the two young heads near to- 
 gether in the dim light ; he had a paper he was unfolding 
 to show her. " Here it is ; this is the list of the ports 
 at which we shall touch, and the dates for letters ; you 
 will not let me look in vain for them, I know. Janie, 
 you have been as good as an angel to me in my trouble ; 
 it will be heavier on me than ever when I cannot bring 
 it for you to share. Promise to write to me, to write by 
 every mail, and tell me any least thing. The faintest 
 hope or trace will bring me back." 
 
 " I will write, — I will indeed." Her reply was so faint 
 it hardly reached my ear, but he caught her hand and 
 wrung it. I thought for a moment he intended a warmer 
 caress. " God bless you," he said huskily, " my dear 
 little sister." 
 
 I wondered as I listened whether it would always be 
 a sister's love he would ask from her ; and then, with 
 the old haunting suggestion which my better reason 
 refused, but which I could not wholly quell, — whether 
 if another affection were demanded she would be guiltless 
 in according it, — whether the hand that lay in his were 
 indeed free from stain ! 
 
 He left early the next day ; and, as it happened. Lady 
 Sudeleigh and I were alone over our tea that afternoon, 
 and the hour, or the function, or the fact that she had 
 that morning parted with her youngest and favourite 
 child for an indefinite absence, may have predisposed her 
 to confidence. Eleanor was sleeping ofF her agitation, and 
 the effect of a suffering night ; Gregory had been called 
 to his sick parishioner, and had sent Janie abroad on 
 another errand. 
 
 " I am more relieved than I can say that Richard is 
 gone ! You won't misunderstand me. Miss Varney, for 
 I feel I can speak freely to you ; but it is a great weight 
 off my mind." 
 
 I said something sympathetic about his altered looks, 
 and the benefit of change. 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 75 
 
 " Yes, the change will be everything ; and youth, you 
 know, youth forgets so soon. And in such a case as this 
 it is much to be desired. I am afraid my dear friends 
 here would feel it, but nothing would please me better 
 than for him to find some nice girl, — desirable from every 
 point of view, of course — who would console him for all 
 he has gone through." 
 
 The scene of the day before involuntarily rose before 
 me, and the two young heads outlined against the twi- 
 light ; but it was not of Janie Moorhouse that the mother 
 was thinking. 
 
 " I was very fond of Barbara. Sir Richard and I were 
 quite satisfied with our son's choice, and pleased to receive 
 her as a daughter. But, sorry as I am for the Alleynes, 
 I cannot think of this affair quite as they do. Her father 
 seems so confident she is dead, — Eleanor that she has 
 been trapped away from them and is held in some kind 
 of impossible durance ; and even if I could, I would not 
 argue against their convictions. But, Miss Varney, surely 
 you do not agree with them in either view ? " 
 
 " I do not know what to think. I am quite at a 
 loss." 
 
 "Mr. Alleyne is annoyed at the opinion the police 
 have formed about it ; but only consider probability. Is 
 it likely any one would have any motive for detaining 
 her against her will ? That is what I feel so strongly, — 
 the absence of conceivable motive in either case. No, 
 you may depend upon it she went away voluntarily. It 
 is quite true there may have been no settled intention 
 beforehand to throw over my son, and inflict such a blow 
 upon her parents ; but my conviction is she met some 
 one that night, — possibly by connivance of one of the 
 household, I cannot say — and was persuaded to take the 
 fatal step of quitting her home." 
 
 "We have felt that to be unlikely, knowing her; for 
 my part, on the testimony of those who knew her well. 
 Besides, there was no lover." 
 
 The little woman of the world shook her head as she 
 
76 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 warmed her dainty feet on the fender. She found Ditch- 
 borough cold, and had muffled herself in a soft fleecy- 
 wrap which breathed the same odour of sandal-wood as 
 all her other possessions. " My dear Miss Varney, there 
 is always a lover when a girl is as attractive as Barbara. 
 And has it not occurred to you that the cousin may be 
 in the secret ? The two were brought up together, and 
 would naturally be intimate. Do not you think Janet 
 Moorhouse might throw some light on the mystery if she 
 would ? " 
 
 Janie again, and from a different quarter this time ! I 
 replied that I could not think so; I had heard her 
 questioned, and her distress and perplexity seemed to equal 
 ours. 
 
 Lady Sudeleigh shook her head again, but did not press 
 the point. " And as for Mr. Alleyne's conviction she is 
 dead, I see no evidence for it whatever. The very send- 
 ing back of the clothes is to me a proof she is alive, and 
 there had been no violence. There is an old saying 
 ' murder will out '; surely such a search as has been 
 made would by now have discovered the body or traces 
 of it. I feel confident she is alive. And what would be 
 more terrible than all for my poor friends, — and for 
 Richard — would be her return with the blemished repu- 
 tation of such an escapade. It is dreadful to say it, but 
 that is my chief fear." I looked at her as she sat erect, 
 cup in hand, slowly stirring in an added lump of sugar, a 
 little Rhadamanthus of virtue ; the easiest chair never 
 offered any temptation to her to lounge. " Eleanor tells 
 me," she went on presently, " that Mr. Alleyne's belief 
 is mainly founded on having seen an apparition. Of 
 course we can allow a great deal for excited feeling 
 at such a time, but I had thought him a different 
 man." 
 
 " That was very much my own view : it was a surprise 
 to me to find Gregory so impressed; but there certainly 
 was the apparition. I witnessed it myself, and so did 
 one of the servants; but I should be glad to think it 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 77 
 
 all hallucination. I am not used to put feith in such 
 matters." 
 
 "Excited feeling in all three cases, no doubt; the 
 result of the shock you had experienced, and the strained 
 expectancy of those first days. I have always set my 
 face against this depraved craze for dreaming dreams and 
 seeingvisions, — Psychical Research unearthing what should 
 be relegated to a moral dustheap, as was the wiser 
 practice of my youth. We know there are no such 
 things as ghosts, so how is it possible to see them ? " 
 
 I remembered Mr. Redworth and his theory of the 
 thought-body; but I was not going to argue with the 
 little dame, who glanced at me with an air of triumphant 
 Sadduceeism, as if her fiat had routed into Nirvina a 
 whole army of phantoms. She was on my own side of the 
 argument, but somehow it did not sound so convincing 
 from her extreme point of view as when it floated un- 
 formulated in my own mind. As I turned to the tea- 
 tray I could not help a glance down the room, empty 
 now, but for ever associated with my memory of that 
 deceptive simulacrum, — that shadow of Barbara in bridal 
 white, which had moved away from our appeal. But I 
 was spared the necessity of replying, as the hall-door 
 opened and shut, and I heard another footstep and voice 
 accompanying Gregory's. There was the pause of throw- 
 ing off over-coats and such-like winter trappings, and 
 then my cousin entered ushering in Mr. Redworth. 
 
 "I have brought Redworth for a cup of your tea, 
 Susan; and he has consented to stay and dine with us; 
 Redworth, you and Lady Sudeleigh are already ac- 
 quainted." 
 
 "On my own introduction only," said the mellow 
 voice with which I had become familiar. " I shall get 
 you, AUeyne, to present me formally." 
 
 Lady Sudeleigh had brightened up at once with the 
 appearance of the gentlemen — a survival of youth there 
 also ! — ^and shaken off all the severity with which she was 
 contemplating Psychical Research. No indeed, she said, 
 
78 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 no presentation of Mr. Redworth was necessary ; she had 
 a most grateful recollection of all he had done for her, 
 and was charmed to have the opportunity of again ex- 
 pressing her thanks. 
 
 So he drew in to the circle at the fire ; and some lively 
 conversation followed in which I was chiefly a listener, 
 and so had leisure for observation. I thought Mr. Red- 
 worth had altered in the fortnight or so since I had seen 
 him; there was a shade of depression about him when 
 silent, and the melancholy softness of his dark eyes was 
 sadder and gentler than ever, perhaps in contrast with the 
 black vivacity of Lady Sudeleigh's. She had plenty to 
 say on all kinds of subjects, and he was readier to meet 
 her on her own ground than we were, being more used 
 to the world in which she had moved. He amused her, 
 in short, and was evidently a welcome addition to our 
 rather melancholy circle. I liked him also, and I am 
 sure to Gregory it was a boon that he should contribute 
 to the entertainment of the guest. There was however 
 one person who, if I mistake not, would have preferred 
 his absence, and that was Janie. She did not make her 
 appearance till the announcement of dinner, and then her 
 greeting of Mr. Redworth was silent and formal, and she 
 only once addressed him in the course of the evening. I 
 noticed too that she ate hardly anything, as if, ridiculous 
 as it may seem, the discomfort of his neighbourhood 
 deprived her of appetite. I caught him once or twice 
 regarding her curiously, and with something of the look 
 I had once before surprised from him. It surely could 
 not have hurt his vanity that out of his small audience of 
 four, one listener should be unsympathetic ; the rest of us 
 were readily interested or amused, and the conversational 
 shuttle-cock was tossed gaily to and fro between him and 
 Lady Sudeleigh. He was not, it seemed, content to be 
 only alchemist and mystic; to-night it was the frequenter 
 of London clubs and drawing-rooms, the cynical observer 
 and wit who was posing before us; but always in the 
 rare silences the shadow settled back upon his face. 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 79 
 
 Lady Sudeleigh, as I said, was well amused ; and it was 
 not till after the gentlemen joined us in the drawing- 
 room that she remembered to challenge him about the 
 arm. She did so with a graceful affectation of horror, 
 and tapped his sleeve with her fan assuring him that he 
 was " quite uncanny." 
 
 "It is unchanged at present: the journey did not 
 disturb the process; but whether I have succeeded time 
 alone will show. There lies the test. I may flatter 
 myself for weeks, months perhaps, that I have triumphed 
 over the Destroyer; but in my results hitherto he has 
 been victor and not I." 
 
 "But I thought you had made some successes," put in 
 Gregory. 
 
 " Perfect successes with animals ; and I doubt not I 
 could succeed as entirely with humanity provided I could 
 induce death in my own way. It is in the post-mortem 
 application I am inexpert. If you have any pet animals 
 that you wish to preserve. Lady Sudeleigh, let me have 
 them when the time comes and I will give them their 
 quietus." 
 
 " I am not a lover of pets like some people ; but, if I 
 were, I should hesitate to send them to suffer strange 
 things in their old age." 
 
 " They would not suffer. I am no vivisector, I assure 
 you. I dislike pain myself, and would hesitate to inflict 
 it on another, — physical pain, that is — even by way of 
 reprisal." The last words he added thoughtfully, and 
 with that odd trick of stroking the upper lip which some- 
 what disguised his expression. " My victims, as you may 
 call them, — and I have a whole Bluebeard's closet of 
 them in fur and feathers — have not suffered a single pang. 
 I overcome alarm with an anaesthetic, and use the inject- 
 ing-needle as with morphia ; in some cases administering 
 an internal dose in addition. They never recover con- 
 sciousness, but sleep themselves away in twelve hours. I 
 have never witnessed suffering. I wish you would come 
 and see them, and the arm. My human specimens are 
 
8o A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 not numerous, being difficult to come by. I had a 
 terrible disappointment when I was in France ; did I ever 
 tell you, Alleyne ? I obtained a head from the guillotine ; 
 the head of a young man who had been convicted of 
 something quite abnormal in the way of crime, and who 
 showed a revolting cowardice at the last, so I was told; 
 I was not an eye-witness. Well, I had the head within 
 an hour or less, and to all appearance the injection was 
 absolutely successful. You should have seen that face, — 
 the beatified expression on it after I had operated; no 
 saint or martyr could have excelled it; it lacked only the 
 aureole. It remained beatified for seventeen weeks, and 
 then my failure was apparent. Limbs have remained 
 unchanged for longer periods. All this is very horrid, is 
 it not. Miss Moorhouse ? " I do not know why he 
 addressed Janie, for she was not looking at him even, but 
 had her eyes resolutely bent on her work. She did not 
 reply; perhaps he did not expect an answer, for he hardly 
 paused for one, and said, turning to Gregory: "Even if 
 Lady Sudeleigh does not care to see my specimens [she 
 had protested in dumb show when it ,was proposed], I 
 have many things at Coldhope which would be of interest 
 to her and to Miss Varney, and the house itself is con- 
 sidered worth a visit. Do me a favour, Alleyne. Lunch 
 with me to-morrow at any hour you like to name, and 
 persuade the ladies to accompany you. I would include 
 Miss Moorhouse, but perhaps you would not all care to 
 leave Mrs. Alleyne ? " 
 
 He was looking directly at her, with again that pe- 
 culiarity of regard. This time she raised her head and 
 met it full. " Thank you," she said, " you are right : I 
 will not leave Mrs. Alleyne." 
 
 No one took any notice of this brief passage. Lady 
 Sudeleigh would be enchanted, she said, to see Coldhope, 
 if Mr. Redworth would promise — really promise — not to 
 introduce her to any of his horrors ; and as for myself, I 
 was willing enough to accompany her, provided the pro- 
 posal pleased Gregory. It had been impossible hitherto 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 8i 
 
 to persuade him to go anywhere since our loss; but 
 doubtless he did not wish to refuse so near a friend and 
 neighbour, and he consented easily, rather to my surprise. 
 Mr. Redworth professed himself highly honoured, and 
 bowing low to Lady Sudeleigh pledged his word that all 
 his horrors should be under lock and key. 
 
 " And this great invention," she went on, " when are 
 you going to startle the world with it ? When will it be 
 ripe for disclosure ? " 
 
 " I cannot call it an invention ; it is the revival of an 
 old method, and has been practised, by injection of the 
 carotid artery, in modern times, but not with the results 
 I hope to attain. You ask when it will be ready for dis- 
 closure," — he looked down meditatively as if considering ; 
 " possibly in about forty years." 
 
 She gave a laughing exclamation. " I need not excite 
 myself about it then. At sixty-five I take little interest 
 in what is in store for the world forty years ahead. The 
 others may perhaps hope to see you set the Thames on 
 fire, but not I." 
 
 He smiled, drawing up his fine head and squaring his 
 chest. "Then the expectation is stranger still in my 
 case, as I am your senior. I have counted the threescore 
 years and ten that is supposed to be the allotted span of 
 life." 
 
 She looked up at him with genuine astonishment, no 
 counterfeit of it in compliment ; and it was true he looked 
 as young as many men of fifty. " I was joking the other 
 day about the fountain of youth, but you must have found 
 it in good earnest. My dear Mr. Redworth, you are 
 more wonderful than ever ! " 
 
 His smile deepened and then faded, and the shadow 
 succeeded it as he answered, " Not that ; I profess nothing 
 of the kind. Had I made such a discovery I should hardly 
 withhold it from my friends. But there are certain ascetic 
 rules given by the old mystics, certain methods of revital- 
 isation, which do tend to prolong life. I feel myself a 
 younger man than I did ten years ago, and my expecta- 
 
 G 
 
82 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 tion of life indefinitely increased, apart from disease or 
 accident. But I am beginning to wonder if the game is 
 worth the candle after all." 
 
 From this the conversation turned to other matters ; 
 but later on, when Lady Sudeleigh was engaged in a lively 
 argument with Gregory, and Janie had left the room, he 
 came to sit by me, saying in a low voice : " Has there 
 been any further appearance here that you could recog- 
 nise ? " I replied in the negative, speaking in the same 
 subdued key, and he went on : "I am interested, more 
 deeply than you can know, and with greater faith than 
 you accord, you, the eye-witness. I begin to think that 
 after all is the crux, — the perception beyond ; that I have 
 been mistaken in all my groping on this plane. To those 
 who study as I do, there comes a point of advance where 
 the two ways diverge. I have attained it, and I hesitate 
 which to follow. . That would decide me [he breathed 
 the last words almost in a whisper] if I could know for 
 certain the via celestica, the upward way, would lead me 
 to her ! " 
 
 Next day dawned cold with keen March wind and 
 crisp with March frost, but bright and fair. Eleanor was 
 interested in our proposed visit and quite willing for us to 
 leave her ; her prejudice against Mr. Redworth appeared 
 to be dying out ; perhaps, indeed, she had only disliked 
 him as a suitor for Barbara. She was sitting up on her 
 sofa when we went in for a word of adieu, and seemed in 
 more equable spirits than the day before ; possibly it was 
 really a relief to her that the dreaded farewell to Dick 
 was no longer in anticipation. Lady Sudeleigh whispered 
 a word to her, and I gathered it was about my appearance. 
 "Yes," returned Eleanor, "other people have noticed 
 the likeness. There is a certain family resemblance, no 
 doubt ; Gregory sees it more plainly than I do." 
 
 As we went away down-stairs our guest said : " For- 
 give the personal remark, but I confess I was surprised by 
 your likeness to poor Barbara. I thought you resembled 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 83 
 
 her the first evening I came, — in figure and air perhaps 
 more than face ; but just now it was really remarkable. 
 It may be the way you are dressed ; but it struck me 
 irresistibly." 
 
 There was nothing particular about the dress ; a close- 
 fitting jacket of winter cloth, and a hat and veil, such as 
 might equally have been worn by my years or Barbara's 
 without peculiarity on her side or an aping of youth on 
 mine. No doubt the lace veil concealed my lack of com- 
 plexion, and may have helped the illusion ; but I only 
 note the incident because of something which happened 
 later. 
 
 The brougham had been ordered to take us up to Cold- 
 hope early, as we were to see the gardens . and hot-houses 
 before lunch ; Gregory following on foot after getting 
 through his morning hours of literary work. The coach- 
 man proved unpunctual as usual ; and as Lady Sudeleigh 
 was afraid of waiting indoors in her heavy furs, I suggested 
 we should walk to the churchyard, as she had expressed a 
 wish to see a certain tombstone, curious on account of its 
 grotesque carving and epitaph, which had been spoken of 
 the night before. We went in through the private wicket 
 from the garden j and while my companion inspected 
 the tomb with interest through her long-handled eye- 
 glass, my attention was caught by a disturbance in the 
 road, — angry voices in altercation, then blows and a child's 
 scream. The churchyard sloped upward, so by moving 
 further alpng the path I saw what was happening, — a big 
 boy belabouring a smaller one, who cried out dismally 
 under the chastisement. I called to him to desist, but 
 other intervention proved nearer at hand than mine. 
 Janie was passing in the road, and I saw her seize the 
 big hulking lad by the collar, and catch at the descending 
 stick, at some risk to herself preventing a further blow. 
 
 " For shame, Phil Dempster ! To strike a boy who is 
 a cripple, and not half your size ! Let him go at once." 
 
 It was surprise at the unexpected attack, and no in- 
 stinct of obedience, which made the aggressor slacken his 
 
84 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 grasp, so that the victim — a pale hunchbacked child who 
 was one of our singers — was able to twist from under it 
 and effect his escape. The big lad turned furiously upon 
 Janie, and I hastened towards them afraid he was going 
 to attack her ; but the weapon employed was not physical. 
 
 " Yo leave me alone," he said ; " yo've no call to go 
 meddlin' for all yo be t' passon's niece. Folks say it's 
 in prison yo'd be this minute ef the law had its way. 
 Where's t' passon's daughter ? " 
 
 She recoiled as if from an actual blow, and the rough 
 fellow went swaggering down the road with his hands in 
 his pockets. Lady Sudeleigh had followed in time to hear 
 the last words ; but the north-country dialect, which I 
 have attempted feebly to indicate, was fortunately not 
 intelligible. " What did the fellow say ? He wants a 
 good thrashing himself to teach him manners. I shall 
 speak to your uncle, or to Mr. Redworth." 
 
 Janie was white as death ; she gave me an imploring 
 look, but seemed beyond speech for the moment. I put 
 in a word to give her time to recover. " I don't think 
 Mr. Redworth could interfere ; you see, he is only the 
 tenant. Does Mr. Alleyne know the boy, Janie ? Is he 
 a parishioner ? " 
 
 " He lives in the parish," she managed to answer ; " but 
 he does not belong to uncle's church. His family are 
 Roman Catholics ; they are generally friendly and civil. 
 I do not want the boy complained of for any rudeness to 
 me. 
 
 The carriage came up behind us and made a diversion. 
 As Lady Sudeleigh got in, Janie held me back for a 
 moment. " Don't let anything be said," she whispered ; 
 " I could not bear it." And the last thing I saw was her 
 pale face looking entreatingly at me as we drove away. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Lady Sudeleigh did not again allude to Dempster's 
 insolence ; the chief remaining impression seemed to be 
 what I had said of Mr. Redworth. She had believed him 
 the proprietor of Coldhope, and as we drove in at the 
 lodge-gates and more slowly up the long rise of the park, 
 I explained who were the real owners of the place, and 
 why they had gone into exile. 
 
 " It is a sad thing, a sad thing," she said, " when the 
 extravagances of a former generation pull down an old 
 family from the position it ought to occupy. It must 
 have been heart-breaking to go away and leave all this to 
 strangers. I know how. I should feel if we had to give 
 up Leigh Hall, or if Maxwell could not aiFord to keep it 
 up after us when we are gone. Thank heaven there 
 is no fear of that ; my only trouble is that he will not 
 marry." 
 
 Maxwell was the Sudeleighs' heir, now abroad with his 
 regiment ; a brother so much Dick's senior as to have 
 obtained his commission when the younger son had hardly 
 emerged from his cradle. Lady Sudeleigh's grievance that 
 she had no daughter-in-law was one frequently ventilated ; 
 and I think it was on this account that Dick's early mar- 
 riage had been so warmly approved. She did not bemoan 
 herself further on this occasion, as the carriage soon 
 entered the inner gate and drew up at the door of Cold- 
 hope, which was hospitably set open, with Mr. Redworth 
 bareheaded on the steps to receive us. 
 
 We employed the interval before luncheon in going 
 
 8S 
 
86 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 over the gardens. They were not beautiful in their 
 winter aspect, but curious with close-cropped holly hedges 
 and privet monsters, stone borders and sundials, and the 
 basin of a fountain in front of the terrace centred by a 
 melancholy-looking Triton blowing a conch. Mr. Red- 
 worth told us the house had originally been balanced with 
 another wing, and that the terraced walk was built upon 
 the ruins. It was destroyed by fire some sixty years since, 
 and the Beryngtons had been too poor to rebuild it, pos- 
 sibly finding the reduced size of the mansion better suited 
 to their means. " And it is of course far larger than I 
 can use," he said ; " but I needed the retirement and 
 space for my experiments, — including the Bluebeard's 
 closet I am not to show to Lady Sudeleigh. Coldhope 
 has suited me well, and I have no present intention of 
 leaving it." 
 
 The ornamental garden was not large j it only sur- 
 rounded the raised terrace, and filled the centre of the 
 original three-sided front. The other side of the existing 
 wing looked on to the wilder park and woods. Mr. Red- 
 worth told us that the high windows facing this way were 
 in the library which we should presently see from within ; 
 and the wing had, I noticed, a private entrance from the 
 park ; we passed it on our way to the walled gardens 
 which lay behind the house under the shelter of the hill, 
 with range upon range of glass forcing-houses. " I have 
 nothing to do with this," he said, " except to purchase my 
 supplies. The Beryngtons lease it to a man who farms 
 the place for the market ; and very well he does it, I 
 understand, though I have sometimes to grumble at his 
 charges." 
 
 It was pleasant to make the tour of that bit of the 
 tropics planted down so oddly in chilly Ditchborough ; 
 warm-breathing, flower-scented places, some of them filled 
 with rare beauty delighting the eye, for flowers and ferns 
 were cultivated as well as the early fruits. The March 
 wind felt doubly bitter as we emerged at the end of our 
 pilgrimage ; and I think the danger of it struck Mr. Red- 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 87 
 
 worth, for he said hastily : " I must not keep you out in 
 this keen air. Come back into the house the shortest 
 way." 
 
 The shortest way was back to the postern that adjoined 
 the library, and led through a small ante-chamber into the 
 spacious room, warm with a glowing wood-fire burning 
 on the open hearth. Lady Sudeleigh gave a sigh of satis- 
 faction as she sat rigidly upright in an easy chair, and 
 undid her furs from her throat, while we both looked 
 round with interest. And indeed there was much to 
 interest ; pictures set on easels, portfolios of photographs 
 and sketches, tables strewn with curios and antiques, 
 precious manuscripts under glass cases. The walls round 
 the room and on one side between the windows were 
 lined with books, both in closed cases and open shelves, 
 while a light inner gallery and staircase communicated 
 with the floor above. Mr. Redworth explained that the 
 majority of the books belonged to the house, and were of 
 little interest to him, though doubtless valuable. " Mine 
 are in these cases," he said, indicating those to right and 
 left of the fire. " I have ousted the lawful denizens in 
 their favour, and banished them to boxes up-stairs. Pro- 
 bably the hair of the worthy Beryngtons would stand 
 erect did they know what heterodox literature they were 
 harbouring ; though naturally that would follow as a 
 matter of course when they accepted your humble servant 
 as a tenant. This is where I sit chiefly, where I read 
 and study ; my laboratory is overhead ; I will take you 
 through it after luncheon, and you shall see the suite of 
 reception-rooms. I ordered fires there to-day in your 
 honour, but I never use them, as you may suppose. This 
 room and another for meals are all I need when here." 
 
 We were intent on a portfolio of sketches, the record 
 of an Italian tour, when Gregory arrived ; and directly 
 afterwards the luncheon w^as announced by Mr. Red- 
 worth's Hindu servant, who wore his native turban, and 
 was altogether a singular figure to meet with in an 
 English country house. He waited upon us very deftly 
 
88 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 at table, and in complete silence ; and I must say that all 
 the appointments were as well ordered as if our friend 
 had commanded an entire staff of butler and sub- 
 ordinates. One thing at least he must have possessed, 
 and that was a genius for a cook. Whatever may have 
 been the ascetic rules he was accustomed to practise, he 
 did not enforce them on his guests, nor observe them 
 himself on this occasion, except by abstaining from the 
 wines which were offered us, and contenting himself 
 with water. 
 
 Afterwards we made the tour of the house, and 
 commented on the ugliness of the Beryngton family- 
 portraits. I understand that the collection of pictures 
 had once been a fine one ; but pressure of circumstances 
 had weeded out all those of value, and there remained, to 
 my mind, nothing that would compare with the three or 
 four modern landscapes in the library which were Mr. 
 Redworth's property. There was some good oak carving, 
 a mantel-piece by Gibbons in the dining-room ; and 
 hanging in the centre of the faded drawing-room, which 
 breathed an unmistakable air of disuse, was a very hand- 
 some Venetian chandelier. When we returned to the 
 library, our host asked if we would care to go up to the 
 laboratory while Nursoo got coffee ready ; so we ascended 
 the inner stair. Lady Sudeleigh protesting all the way 
 that she felt sure the Bluebeard's closet was in store for 
 her after all. 
 
 The laboratory was a long bare room lighted with 
 several windows which closed with barred shutters. It 
 contained an electric battery, a lathe, a forge, a number 
 of retorts and queerly shaped vessels, bottles on shelves 
 against the wall, and two or three oak presses ; while at 
 one end a lamp was burning although broad daylight. A 
 chair or two and some uncovered tables, one of them 
 topped with grey marble, completed the furniture. Mr. 
 Redworth picked up one or two of the appliances and 
 gave us a little lecture on their use ; then he took from 
 a shelf a piece of carving on which he was engaged. 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 89 
 
 " I amuse myself," he said, " in this way, or with 
 painting, in the intervals of my work. I am a handi- 
 craftsman for recreation, an experimenter for labour." 
 We admired, as was natural, and the free design in bold 
 relief was really well executed ; but he disclaimed any 
 praise. " This is only a rough affair ; I have succeeded 
 better in a different style, as you will see if you come 
 into the studio." He opened a door at the further end of 
 the room, and showed us into another smaller apartment 
 which was richly carpeted with Indian work and had 
 windows to the east and north. A painter's easel was 
 set up in the north window, and a number of canvases 
 stood in the corner beyond it, turned against the wall. 
 The window to the east was occupied by a -kind of 
 shrine, which blocked out all the lower light, and was 
 elaborately carved in dark wood looking more like ebony 
 than oak. The large lower panel, which we had been 
 brought to see, filled the whole width of the window 
 recess and was fully a yard high, a complicated figure- 
 subject with foliated border. Above this rose the altar, 
 and set in the centre upon it was a very striking and 
 beautiful picture, the head of a dead Christ. I heard 
 Mr. Redworth tell Gregory it was a copy only of an old 
 master, but an especially fine one. The frame was of 
 wrought metal surmounted by a representation of the 
 crown of thorns ; and above it stood a large crucifix in 
 bronze, the arms of the cross in relief against the upper 
 part of the unscreened window and grey sky. Two 
 large candelabra were placed on either side ; and below 
 the picture in a chafing-dish burned a peculiar kind of 
 aromatic incense, which rose before it in thin spirals of 
 bluish smoke. 
 
 " This is my oratory," Mr. Redworth had said as we 
 entered 5 and in front of the altar there was indeed the 
 kind of chair which is called a prie-dieu, the only one in 
 the room. I confess to have been so surprised by the 
 whole thing that I had not a word to say, while the 
 others were examining the elaborate carving, and Gregory 
 
90 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 was so much attracted by the picture that he went back 
 to look at it again and again. It was truly fine, the head 
 noble, the expression ideal ; but for my own part, I have 
 no great fancy for pictures of death. Seeing that I 
 stood silent, Mr. Redworth turned to me and asked my 
 opinion. I had to rouse myself to answer him. " It is 
 very beautiful, — and very unexpected. I admire it all, 
 both the carving and the picture ; but somehow I feel 
 oppressed by it. I don't know why, — and hardly what I 
 am saying." 
 
 " You are looking pale, and perhaps it is the vapour. 
 Many people are affected by strong scents. We will go 
 back to the library." 
 
 Before leaving the room he took a small canvas from 
 the pile against the wall and carried it with him, not 
 showing us what he held till we had descended to the 
 lower room. Then he spoke to Gregory. " I have 
 heard you say Mrs. Alleyne lamented having no portrait 
 of your daughter Barbara. This is only a sketch, an 
 impression ; but if you think she would care for it, pray 
 take it. I believe there is a certain likeness." 
 
 He set up the canvas in the light. It was, as he said, 
 a sketch only, not a finished painting ; but for pictorial 
 effect it would have struck even a casual observer as 
 clever and remarkable. And there was a likeness, it is 
 true, but it was at once Barbara and not Barbara, — 
 Barbara as I had never seen her ; the familiar features 
 faithfully delineated, but the expression curiously exalted, 
 ecstatic, unnatural, idealised into a higher type of beauty 
 at the sacrifice of her peculiar charm. This was not the 
 girl who had been wayward and imperious at home, self- 
 centred, as is so often the way with marked personalities, 
 but at the same time the light and cheer of that home 
 and the delight of our eyes. I could not say all this, or 
 that a simpler presentation of her would have pleased 
 me more. The beautiful head was relieved against a 
 suggestion of rose-flushed sky, — sunrise or sunset — and 
 these tints were repeated in a diadem of opals which 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 91 
 
 crowned the waves of her dark hair. A white gauze 
 scarf, or veil, was twisted round the head and indicated 
 as draping the outhne of shoulder and bust. The face 
 and the gems were highly finished, but all else was vague. 
 
 " Eleanor will be very grateful to you for this," said 
 Gregory, and he seemed much affected. " It is true we 
 have no picture of our child ; photographs never expressed 
 her, and had not been attempted latterly. I always 
 meant to have her portrait painted, but postponed it as 
 one does such undertakings. Still I feel we ought not to 
 rob you — " He stopped, finding it difficult to express a 
 suggestion that the picture might have a special value to 
 the giver. 
 
 " If you like to take it I am well repaid," Mr. 
 Redworth answered. " I have other studies, or I confess 
 to you I should have been too selfish to part with it. I 
 will have it placed in the carriage." 
 
 And laying it aside he began to talk to Lady Sudeleigh 
 about portrait- painting, a subject on which she was 
 fluent ; while Gregory lifted the little canvas and took 
 it over to the window for fuller examination. I sat still, 
 endeavouring to combat an odd sensation of giddiness 
 which came over me first in the oratory, induced doubt- 
 less by the burning scent, and affecting to occupy myself 
 by examining the objects on a low table at my elbow. 
 One of them did excite my curiosity; it was a large 
 irregular-shaped crystal with polished surface, convex 
 though not spherical, fastened by means of a silver rim 
 upright on a stand of black wood. I was looking at this 
 thing and trying to divine its use, when, in a way I can 
 neither describe nor comprehend, the giddy swimming in 
 my head seemed to be transferred to the interior of the 
 crystal, and I saw it full of cloud and movement like the 
 thin eddies of blue smoke and heated air which had risen 
 up between me and the picture of the dead Christ. I 
 do not think I could have looked away if I had tried ; 
 I was fascinated, — my eyes riveted, — I could not move. 
 How long this stage lasted I cannot say ; one cannot 
 
92 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 time the duration of such experiences by the seconds of 
 the clock. I only know that as I gazed the whirling 
 cloud became whiter and denser j and then all at once it 
 
 parted and I saw The face was Barbara's; but 
 
 not a duplicate of Mr. Redworth's travesty of her so 
 lately shown to us, — a mere impression on the retina 
 which was thus externalised. It was Barbara's living 
 face as I had seen it in her home, vivid and mundane, 
 with an expression quite other than the rapt serenity of 
 her portrait. The lips moved ; she seemed to be eagerly 
 speaking, while the eyes looked full at me, anxious, 
 excited, appealing. For how many heart-beats was it 
 before the giddy whirling in the crystal eddied round 
 it, — in front of it, — covering it ? I gave a cry or gasp, 
 something that attracted attention ; and without losing 
 consciousness,— that I never have done in my life — I felt 
 as I imagine people must do who are on the verge of a 
 fainting-fit. But I was conscious all the time ; I knew 
 Mr. Redworth came across to me with quick steps, and 
 was aware that his first act was to move the crystal away. 
 " You are faint," he said. " I was afraid of it up-stairs. 
 The incense affected you ; will you lie down ? " No, I 
 said ; I should be all right directly ; it was nothing ; but 
 might I have a glass of water ? The Indian servant 
 came in at the moment with a tray of coffee, and our 
 host despatched him for sundry restoratives. Wine was 
 brought me as well as water, but I could only take the 
 latter, and presently some coffee. And indeed the un- 
 comfortable sensations passed quickly, leaving me without 
 the previous giddiness, though my head and eyes ached 
 for an hour or more, and I felt dull and inert. 
 
 Of course Gregory and Lady Sudeleigh were much 
 concerned, but I did my best to reassure them ; and the 
 cause Mr. Redworth had assigned for my indisposition 
 was accepted without demur. Lady Sudeleigh said she 
 knew what it was to be readily affected by powerful 
 odours ; she could not bear hyacinths in a room, and so 
 on. The carriage came round shortly after, and our host 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 93 
 
 put us into it, Gregory having already set out on foot ; 
 but before our departure Mr. Redworth contrived the 
 opportunity for a question breathed low at my ear. " I 
 am not mistaken. I watched you. It was the crystal ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " And you saw — her ? " very eagerly. 
 
 I had but time to sign an assent, when interruption 
 came between us, and he could ask no more. 
 
 Whether it was the chill of the March wind after our 
 pilgrimage through Coldhope hothouses, or only a piece 
 of the general contrariety of things I know not ; but on 
 the morning after Mr. Redworth's luncheon I woke with 
 a severe cold. It was not bad enough to confine me 
 to bed, or so I thought ; but I felt ill and wretched as 
 one does under such conditions ; unfit to go out, or for 
 anything but an easy chair by the fireside. It was the 
 more unlucky, as this was Lady Sudeleigh's last day with 
 us ; her departure had been arranged for the Saturday 
 morning. I did not see much of her through the fore- 
 noon as she was sitting with Eleanor ; and about three 
 o'clock Gregory came in to ask her if she would go over 
 the church with him, as he wanted to explain to her the 
 lines of the proposed restoration. It was a good deal 
 later when they set out, for Mathilde had to be sum- 
 moned, and Lady Sudeleigh's toilette was always an 
 elaborate affair. They went alone ; Janie was up-stairs 
 writing letters for Eleanor. I was glad of the quiet ; 
 my head ached too much for occupation with book or 
 work, and I sat quite idly looking away through the 
 window at the pale winter sky and thinking of many 
 things J of my life at St. Cyprian's, the coming of that 
 illness which closed its usefulness, and of older scenes 
 still, with which this narrative has nothing to do. 
 
 Lady Sudeleigh was away longer than I expected ; 
 the light began to fade in the room and my corner to 
 become shadowy, though the afternoon had not yet 
 merged in twilight out of doors. At last I heard a 
 
94 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 footstep, — an impetuous entrance — first into the hall, and 
 then to the room where I was. I hardly knew it for 
 Lady Sudeleigh's ; she had a stately way of moving 
 which did not lend itself to the idea of haste ; but Lady 
 Sudeleigh it was, looking at me from the door in blank 
 astonishment. " Miss Varney, was it you in the road ? 
 I saw you but this moment outside; I followed you in ! " 
 
 " Certainly it was not L I have not moved from this 
 chair since you left me." 
 
 I suppose my appearance carried conviction as well as 
 my words ; she glanced back into the hall and then shut 
 the door, coming to a seat beside me and putting her 
 hand on mine. " Miss Varney," she said, " I was right. 
 Barbara is alive and here. What the explanation is I 
 cannot say, but I have seen her and I know." 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 " I WALKED to the church with Mr. Alleyne," went 
 on Lady Sudeleigh ; " you know all that. We looked 
 over it, both outside and in, and I saw the arch that is 
 blocked up. Then he said he had an errand in the 
 village, and I proposed to accompany him part of the 
 way and return alone. I like exercise and am accustomed 
 to take it, and I was enjoying the keen air. I went 
 down the road with him, some distance, and then turned 
 back ; and when I came in sight of the churchyard I 
 saw a figure moving about among the graves. I did not 
 notice it particularly; but presently it came out at the 
 gate into the road in front of me, and then I saw it was 
 either you or Barbara. You know what I noticed 
 yesterday morning, that sometimes you have a look of 
 her ? " 
 
 « Yes." 
 
 " Well, it was natural to think of you the first moment 
 rather than of her; and she was dressed very much as you 
 were yesterday, in a close-fitting jacket and serge skirt. 
 She did not look towards me in shutting the gate, but 
 turned and walked on in front, quite naturally, not as if 
 she were hurrying for any reason or afraid of being seen. 
 I called your name, — Miss Varney ! — but she walked on 
 and took no notice ; and as I followed I could see that 
 the hat was different from any I had seen you wear." 
 
 "What was it like?" 
 
 " It was a black sailor-hat with a blue and white ribbon; 
 Barbara used to wear it at Filey last year ; I have seen it 
 
 9S 
 
96 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 dozens of times. Of course you may have one like it ; 
 they are quite common, and I could not tell." 
 
 " Did not you see the face ? " 
 
 " No. And I did not notice the hair at the time ; but 
 I could declare it was her curly crop, not in plaits like 
 yours. She turned in at the Rectory gate which was 
 set open, and I lost sight of her round the turn of the 
 drive going straight to the house." 
 
 " Were you far behind ? " 
 
 " No, for I was hurrying after her ; but the instant she 
 was out of sight I began to think it must have been you. 
 But I see it could not have been; I am satisfied of that." 
 
 " No," I said again, " it was not I." 
 
 " I am thankful Richard has sailed ! It was my first 
 thought. I don't believe she is in the house, or surely 
 there would have been some disturbance ; there is not a 
 sound in Eleanor's room overhead. What can it all 
 mean, — why is she hanging about here, — and what is to 
 be done ? " 
 
 "We must tell Gregory. But do you know, Lady 
 Sudeleigh, I am afraid it may prove to be, — the same kind 
 of appearance we witnessed in the drawing-room." 
 
 " My dear Miss Varney, do you really mean to suggest 
 that what I have just seen was a ghost ? " 
 
 " I do not call it by that name. I don't know what it 
 was; but I think whatever we saw then, you have seen 
 now." 
 
 " I cannot think it possible that I, with all my wits 
 about me, — not excited or alarmed or expectant as you 
 were — saw anything at all but what was there in sober 
 fact. You may take my word for it that it was Barbara 
 in the flesh, every bit as living and substantial as you are 
 before me at this moment." 
 
 " Then if it was Barbara in the flesh she must be 
 sought for and brought home. We must not keep this 
 to ourselves a moment longer." I drew my shawl about 
 me and rang the bell, only to encounter a fresh difficulty. 
 Mary answered it, the servant who witnessed the former 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 97 
 
 apparition and had been so greatly terrified. To say 
 anything to her would be most unwise ; she would lose 
 control of herself and alarm Eleanor. Asking if Mr. 
 Alleyne had come in, I was answered, as I expected, in 
 the negative, so I sent a message summoning Evans to 
 come to us. 
 
 Evans came shortly and stood within the door with her 
 usual dull composure ; but as I proceeded to tell her Lady 
 Sudeleigh had seen a person in the ro^d, and turning in at 
 the drive, whom she took for Miss Alleyne, and that I 
 thought it desirable there should be a search, without 
 alarming the rest of the household if this could be avoided, 
 the unprepossessing elderly face began to work with strong 
 emotion, and the hands which fingered her apron to 
 tremble. "Yes, ma'am, I'll look; but we sha'n't find 
 anything. It's our young lady sure enough, and she can't 
 rest in her grave because we don't know. She came before 
 and she's come again ; and she will come and come, God 
 rest her, till it's all made clear ! " 
 
 "But, my good woman, it was no ghost I saw," put in 
 Lady Sudeleigh with some impatience. " It may not 
 have been Miss Alleyne: it may only have been some 
 one like her; but whoever it was I can be sure of one 
 thing, — it was as real as I am myself There will be no 
 end to it if you all pick up this infection about seeing 
 ghosts. Indigestion and imagination ; that is what it all 
 comes to ! " 
 
 " I have never seen a ghost in my life, my lady, and 
 don't look to; but it doesn't hinder them being there. 
 No, I've never seen anything ; but when I'm awake at 
 nights I can hear my young lady's footsteps wandering 
 up and down. I ought to know them after all these 
 years, — me as was the first to set her on her feet to run 
 alone. And it's wander they will till we are at rest about 
 her, and them as are guilty have got their deserts." 
 
 Lady Sudeleigh shrugged her shoulders with an in- 
 credulous smile, but Evans's conviction was proof against 
 both the argument and the ridicule. 
 
 H 
 
98 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 " Go," I said, " and look in the yard and garden ; and 
 ask if any one was seen there about the time Lady Sude- 
 leigh returned." She was departing, unconvinced but 
 obedient, when the door opened and Gregory came in. 
 To him also I had to detail the story; and he went out 
 instantly to search the garden, telling Evans to go over 
 the house. He came back to us before long, looking 
 grave and sad, and shook his head in answer to my inquiry. 
 Nobody was there : no one had seen anything ; and this 
 last mystery remained as destitute of explanation as the 
 other. What he thought of it was plain, though he said 
 little, and Lady Sudeleigh did not vex him with sceptical 
 argument ; indeed it struck me she had become a shade 
 uncomfortable herself, and was glad for personal reasons 
 that the subject should be avoided. Gregory thought it 
 better not to tell Eleanor anything, so we observed com- 
 plete silence, and I doubt if even Janie knew. 
 
 Lady Sudeleigh left us next morning, and I was in bed 
 when she departed ; my cold, instead of mending, had 
 become heavier and more disabling, and I was perforce 
 obliged to keep my room for a couple of feverish days and 
 nights. Now was the time for imagination to run riot, 
 and in the lonely hours and long vigils before the dawn 
 to play me tricks at will ; but although memory was busy 
 with what had been, Barbara came not ; and my strained 
 ears were dull to the footsteps which Evans could hear. 
 
 When I was able to be up again I learned that Mr. 
 Redworth had called twice to see me, and had expressed 
 concern on hearing I was confined to my room. I 
 thought Janie had grown to look very ill in the two days ; 
 she was white and heavy-eyed, but she would not admit 
 that anything ailed her. Eleanor, on the contrary, seemed 
 to have drawn from Lady Sudeleigh's society a revival of 
 energy; and when I went in to see her after Dr. Car- 
 penter's visit, she was sitting up with a new look on her 
 face. " I have decided, Susan," she said to me. " The 
 specialist is to come over, and if an operation is advised I 
 will submit. If they can render it possible for me to live 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 99 
 
 a little longer, I must make the effort for Gregory's sake. 
 You never thought he did the best for himself in marrying 
 me ; no, I don't blame you ; but we have been a great 
 deal to each other for all that, and he w^ould miss me if I 
 left him alone. After Barbara wrent, it seemed as if all 
 was over for me; but I was wrong to think it, wrong 
 not to remember what I had left ; I have told him and 
 he is glad. It is a comfort to me that you will be with 
 him ; and you will help me to have courage." 
 
 So it came about that the next few weeks brought a 
 crisis of anxiety to the grey Rectory. A white-capped 
 nurse came to assist Evans, and there were certain hours 
 during which the life of the wife and mistress hung upon 
 a thread ; and days to follow when we dared only to hope 
 with trembling. But I am going on too far. I must 
 return to the earlier part of March, after Lady Sudeleigh's 
 departure and before the specialist came down; for I 
 want to speak of Janie. She was always silent and 
 uncomplaining, but she had become manifestly ill; her 
 eyes grew to have dark circles round them, and I could 
 see she made little more than a pretence of eating at our 
 meals. Gregory said to me more than once that he 
 thought she was ailing ; she had become less active in the 
 parish, and he missed his little curate. 
 
 The first time I went out after my cold she accom- 
 panied me, and as she was the bearer of a basket of little 
 delicacies for an invalid, and a message to one of the 
 cottages, we walked in that direction. There was little 
 nucleus of village : the houses were mostly scattered ; but 
 this particular one stood in a row of three or four, with 
 the general shop at the corner, and the inevitable alehouse 
 over the way. At the door Janie delivered her message, 
 which was received in sulky silence, the woman seeming 
 at first as if she would hardly take the basket from her 
 hand. I was struck by the strangeness of her manner; 
 but on asking a question myself about the sick mother, 
 the woman's face relaxed at once into a smile, and she 
 asked me civilly enough if I would step within. I did so. 
 
100 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 taking it for granted Janie was following me ; but finding 
 myself alone, I said only a brief word or two to the sick 
 woman, and then as soon as possible rejoined her outside. 
 
 " Why did you not come in ? " I said to her. " Mrs. 
 Pearson is not nearly so surly as she looks." 
 
 " The people don't like me in their houses," she 
 answered in a low voice ; " and as I know that, — it has 
 been made very plain to me of late — I cannot intrude." 
 
 We were walking on down the road, when out of an 
 open door just in front of us ran a flaxen-headed toddling 
 child, only to fall face downward on the path, and set up 
 a piteous wail. Janie was readier than I, and had picked 
 it up and was consoling it, holding it to her and soothing 
 the frightened sobs, when the mother appeared on the 
 scene, tore it out of her arms without a word, as if indeed 
 she had injured instead of succouring it, and retreated 
 again within the house. I shall not soon forget Janie's 
 face as she looked dumbly at me, and I looked back at 
 her with growing understanding and dismay. We turned 
 away from the village as if by a common impulse, and 
 took the path leading to the moor. Neither of us spoke 
 as we breasted the steepness of the hill ; but when at the 
 top, and we had paused for breath and to look out over 
 that rolling expanse of purple and brown, now beginning 
 to quicken with the new spring and just then dappled 
 with sun and shadow as the clouds floated before the light 
 breeze, Janie turned to me at last. " Cousin Susan," she 
 said, " you see how things are. You warned me ; but I 
 did not dream it could be like this with the people I came 
 amongst almost as a child. They all think of me as that 
 boy did not scruple to speak. Whether it is that I have 
 murdered Barbara, or betrayed her, or hidden her, I know 
 not; but they consider me guilty in some way, and I 
 cannot bear it any longer. I can be of no more use 
 among them or to uncle. I must go away." 
 
 " Let Gregory speak to the people. He has no idea of 
 this. He will be distressed and indignant beyond measure 
 that you should be treated in this way." 
 
A BRIDE ELECT loi 
 
 "No, a thousand times no. I could not bear it. 
 There must be no discussion. And what have I to com- 
 plain of, — an averted face, — a changed manner ? No ; 
 it is the thought in their hearts. Nothing will alter that 
 till Barbara comes back to clear me." 
 
 " You must be brave, Janie. Live it down. If you 
 let it hunt you away, will it not seem like something you 
 dare not face ? " 
 
 " I have faced it for weeks. At first I could not 
 believe it, but it grewj the suspicious looks, the changed 
 faces, — and now even the children ! " 
 • " But it must have grown from some beginning. Let 
 Gregory sift the rumour, and find out who set it on foot, 
 — whether the servants have said anything, or Evans, 
 though she was cautioned." 
 
 " You mean about the dress ? No, I don't think it is 
 Evans. She condemns me as they all do ; but she is very 
 loyal to the family credit, and I in a way am of the 
 femily." 
 
 " Then have you an idea who it is ? You are as 
 unlikely to have an enemy as poor Barbara was." 
 
 " You asked me before whom I suspected. You will 
 think me insane if I tell you; and it seems wicked 
 besides, when I have no proof." Her eyes wandered 
 from mine to the woods below us, and I saw them change 
 and darken. 
 
 " Janie ! you cannot mean Mr. Redworth ? " 
 
 She looked at me full, saying neither ay nor no, but 
 her face was an admission. It turned me cold from head 
 to foot. My first impulse was an indignant disclaimer, 
 and then I remembered the thought which had grown 
 in my own mind, and how it seemed to have been com- 
 municated silently from his. 
 
 " These same people who are unfriendly to me now 
 were unfriendly to him once ; they may be still for all I 
 know. They used to say he had the evil eye. I feel as 
 if his dislike to me, — his knowledge of my mind, which 
 when he chooses to read it I cannot hide. — had been used 
 
I02 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 to poison something about me, some atmosphere, which, 
 wherever I go, breeds the suspicion with which he would 
 brand me, as his own safeguard." 
 
 " Janie, Janie, it is too terrible ! Think what you are 
 saying." 
 
 But she was roused now and would not be stayed. 
 " It is terrible, — for me. Aunt Eleanor is changed ; it 
 would be a relief to her if I were gone. Even you have 
 had misgivings; I have seen them in your face. The 
 only two against whom he has been powerless as yet are 
 Uncle Gregory and — Dick Sudeleigh." 
 
 " My dear, you are frightfully morbid ; perhaps it is 
 not wonderful when you have been so tried. Yet surely 
 you would not be superstitious like these villagers; if 
 wrong in your case, why should they be right in his ? It 
 is a fantastic dream. And even granted he had the 
 power, why should Mr. Redworth attempt to injure 
 you ? " 
 
 " Because he knows I suspect him about Barbara as 
 every one else suspects me." 
 
 The avowal had come at last, and was almost a relief 
 to me. What had gone before had impressed me more 
 than I was willing to acknowledge, but now I was able 
 to be indignant and the reaction was complete. " That 
 is an awful thought to have," I said severely. "Mr. 
 Redworth is a good and honourable man, and your uncle's 
 friend. He loved Barbara, and would never have harmed 
 her." 
 
 " If I am wrong, it is only in saying what I cannot 
 prove. I did not mean to tell you, but you drew it from 
 me. Take it as unsaid if you will, but not in the sense 
 that I retract it. He loved her, — yes; and love should 
 be a safeguard, I admit it, if he were all you think. And 
 once she loved him, but not for long. But I tell you 
 this. Cousin Susan, she was afraid of him ; afraid when 
 he sent her the dagger, — afraid when she dared not sleep 
 alone or walk out alone after we came back from Filey, 
 — afraid when the marriage was hurried on so that she 
 
{' 
 
 A BRIDE ELECT 103 
 
 might get away and be safe. I say it only this once, to 
 the winds and to you ; he was her enemy and he is mine." 
 The small childish face was fixed and stern. I said what 
 I could, for my heart was hot within me; but I might as 
 well have beaten at a rock. " Let us leave it," she said 
 at last. " One of us must be wrong. If I have judged 
 harshly, I have also suffered. Cousin Susan, you are a 
 good woman, better than I by far, and so it is harder to 
 ou to credit evil. Goodness means strength, does it not .? 
 
 want some one strong to help me, and I turn to you. 
 Make Uncle Gregory understand what he must; spare 
 him all you can, but help me to get away." 
 
 We were walking on now along the ridge to a further 
 and more gradual descent than the steep path by which 
 we had come. " Have you any plans ? " I said. 
 
 " I thought of St. Cyprian's. You were not very 
 happy when you went there. Did you find the work 
 engross you so that there was less room for haunting 
 thoughts ? That is what I want. My life is too empty 
 here, and it is growing emptier." 
 
 " There is plenty to do, and to do it well one must 
 put one's heart into it. But it is not easy, Janie ; there 
 is much that is trying, disappointing, arduous. You are 
 very young, and far less strong than I was ; and you see, 
 I broke down." 
 
 " I am stronger than you think, and surely I could 
 help with the children. They might trust me with the 
 children, for I love them so. I have nursed them for the 
 village women here, and sat up with them when they 
 were sick. You were telling us about the creche the 
 other day, and that the sisters were in need of help. 
 Will you write and ask them if they will take me as a 
 probationer ? " 
 
 Well, the end of it was I promised to make the 
 inquiry provided Gregory approved ; and as we walked I 
 gave her certain details about the duties she would have 
 to undertake and the conditions of her service. I re- 
 minded her it would be unpaid ; in my case that presented 
 
I04 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 no difficulty as I have an independent income, — small it 
 is true, though sufficient for all moderate needs; but I 
 did not know how she might be placed. 
 
 " I think I can manage," was her answer. " When 
 Uncle and Aunt Alleyne adopted me, my father made 
 over my mother's little fortune, — it was only a few 
 hundreds — for my use. I have the interest of it, and as 
 uncle has been very generous to me it has accumulated. 
 I can contrive to live, and what I am craving for is not 
 gain but work." 
 
 There was a light about her eyes as she talked as if 
 she longed to be up and doing, and I felt I must make it 
 my part to widen this chink of hope. I never could see 
 that man's doom of labour was a curse : " In the sweat of 
 thy brow shalt thou eat bread " is more like a blessing in 
 disguise. What is it Shakespeare says about sleep being 
 the balm for hurt minds? I would counsel a dose of hard 
 work in its place. Toil, and the energy to meet it, and 
 a measure of success to crown it ; that would be my notion 
 of Heaven. A material one, by the way, which might 
 shock some finer fancies. 
 
 We were nearly home, when just as the by-lane reached 
 the high road, whom should we encounter but Mr. Red- 
 worth. I confess to an impulse of dismay; we had not 
 met since my vision in the crystal, and I fully believe 
 that when he sought me at the Rectory it was to ask for 
 particulars. I had an idea the history might now be 
 demanded, and I felt out of tune with him and the 
 subject, and unwilling to enter upon it. Little as I 
 credited Janie's strange fancies concerning him, they had 
 not been wholly without effect on me, for the time. I 
 wondered if the man were really a magician. He looked 
 keenly at me as he approached, both at me and my 
 companion, lifted his hat with a smile, and passed us by 
 without a word. The smile was a sweet one, with a 
 peculiar comprehension about it which gave my conscience 
 a pang. I was at once relieved and disappointed, and 
 there was a lurking feeling of irritation with Janie at the 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 105 
 
 bottom of my mind. Our talk was silenced ; but indeed 
 a few more steps brought us to the Rectory gate, — the 
 gate through which Lady Sudeleigh had followed the 
 figure of Barbara not many days before. Janie said with 
 a gasp as she opened it: "I believe that man knows 
 every word I have spoken this afternoon, for all he was 
 miles away and you and I were alone on the moor ! " 
 
 I need only say further about Janie's plans that I took 
 Gregory into confidence in the course of the day follow- 
 ing. He was, as I anticipated, both indignant and dis- 
 tressed at the annoyance to which she had been subjected, 
 and unwilling to let her go. I pleaded her cause as well 
 as I could ; and in the end he gave a conditional sanction 
 about St. Cyprian's. She was to try it for a time only, 
 and there were to be no vows; but nothing was to be 
 done or said at this juncture which could disturb Eleanor. 
 Janie must wait till her aunt was convalescent ; and then, 
 if her mind was still unchanged, I could speak to him 
 again. 
 
 Several days went by before I saw Mr. Redworth : he 
 neither came to the Rectory nor met us in our walks; 
 and I think Gregory missed his visits as he commented 
 on their intermission. One afternoon, — I remember it 
 as the day before the specialist came down — I had gone 
 for an hour's practice at the church, thinking I niight 
 not have another opportunity for some time if our anxieties 
 about Eleanor increased. I was at first wholly absorbed 
 in trying some new music, the execution of which was 
 difficult to my unpractised feet and fingers, and I had to 
 repeat more than one passage before I could be satisfied 
 with the rendering. I passed on to a symphony of 
 Mozart's which was familiar and presented less mechanical 
 difficulty, so that my heart could go out on the flood of 
 delicate harmonies. I was full of enjoyment when the 
 melody abruptly terminated in a groan from the instru- 
 ment, and the keys became soundless under my touch. 
 I turned to reprove the indolence of my coadjutor, a 
 small boy, Tim Sykes by name (who was usually very 
 
lo6 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 willing to earn sixpence by acting as blower whenever I 
 needed his assistance), and found his head bent down on 
 the wooden lever, while he was snivelling and sobbing in 
 a dismal fashion. Now I could hardly attribute this 
 phenomenon to the effect of my music on the unsophisti- 
 cated mind of youth, so I concluded Tim was suffering 
 from some physical malady. "What is the matter, my 
 boy ? " I said. " Are you not well to-day ? " 
 
 The sobs went on and the voice, when it came at last, 
 was choked with them. " I'm afeared ; I can't stay here 
 no longer ; I'm afeared." 
 
 This was not in the least what I expected. " What 
 are you afraid about ? " I questioned — rather sharply, it 
 must be owned, for I was vexed by the interruption. 
 
 The answer came amid more sobs, " I'm afeared of the 
 woman," and left me as perplexed as before. 
 
 " Sit up and stop crying, and tell me plainly what it is, 
 for I can't understand you. You want to earn your six- 
 pence as you have done before ? " 
 
 I spoke energetically, and the small boy did make an 
 effort to pull himself together in obedience; but the 
 matter was only fathomed after much questioning. Yes, 
 he wanted to earn sixpence, and his mother was expecting 
 it ; evidently there would be a serious business if it were 
 hot forthcoming. He did not mind blowing, but he was 
 " afeared of the woman," and sobs again followed the 
 confession. 
 
 " Tell me at once, Tim, who the woman is and why 
 she frightens you. Tell me the truth about it, and you 
 shall have your sixpence and go home." 
 
 The witness thus bribed did his best. The woman 
 was like a shadow, and came when I was playing. He 
 saw her first by the altar-rails, and she was kneeling 
 down ; this was the time before, and then he didn't mind 
 it as she was so far off", and looked like a real person who 
 might have come in. But this time she had come quite 
 near, close behind me as I sat at the organ, and he seemed 
 to have noticed that the appearance was in some way 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 107 
 
 unnatural. " What was it like ? " I kept asking him, and 
 the answer came at last. It was grey ; he couldn't say 
 what it was dressed in, he couldn't see the face plainly; 
 but it was like " Miss Barbara who went away." 
 
 " Do you see it now ? " I said ; and I confess to a 
 thrill on my own part as I looked down the apparently 
 empty church. Not now, the boy said ; it only came as 
 I was playing, — " peeping like, and going back "; and the 
 last time it came so close he thought it was going to 
 touch him, and then his courage gave way. 
 
 It was no use to keep him longer ; that at least was 
 clear. I produced the promised coin, and while his dole- 
 ful countenance brightened at the sight, I told him he 
 must have been dreaming. I was not angry with him, I 
 said, but he had better not speak of such foolish fancies 
 any more. 
 
 I gathered up my music with a sigh, and proceeded to 
 let him and myself out at the small private door through 
 the vestry of which I had the key. The boy took to his 
 heels at once; but when I turned from securing the lock, 
 I started almost as much as if I had seen the grey figure 
 he described to me. Sitting on the flat slab of a square 
 tomb, and smoking a cigar, was Mr. Redworth of 
 Coldhope. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 He threw away the cigar as he raised his hat and came 
 forward to greet me. " Forgive me," he said, " if I have 
 waited here listening to your music. I have been anxious 
 to speak to you for a long time now, and I could not 
 forego the chance of finding you alone. This path behind 
 the church is a private one ; will it tax your patience too 
 much to grant me a few moments here and now ? If we 
 walk up and down we shall not be observed, and you 
 must let me unburden you of that." 
 
 He took the roll of music from me as he spoke, and I 
 turned mechanically to walk beside him. I might doubt 
 him from a distance, and regard him through the distort- 
 ing mists of Janie's hinted accusation ; but nothing of 
 this could endure against the charm of his presence. 
 Perhaps he divined the feeling, for as I surrendered the 
 parcel and our eyes met, his regard, which had been 
 penetrating, anxious, insistent, softened into a smile. " I 
 told you once before I had the instinct of knowing a 
 friend ; it is on the faith of this that I dare speak to you 
 of what lies next my heart, of matters on which to all 
 else my lips are sealed. I could not approach you when 
 my enemy was at your elbow; but now, — now. Miss 
 Varney, tell me. You saw her in the crystal, — Barbara, 
 my angel, my beloved ? How did she come before you, 
 and with what surroundings? Every detail is important; 
 tell me all." 
 
 It was fresh in my memory, — the parting cloud, the 
 anxious eager face, the lips which seemed to speak. I 
 
 jo8 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 109 
 
 described it, replying as well as I could to his questions. 
 He had drawn my hand within his arm as we paced 
 slowly to and fro, and he pressed it against his side with a 
 groan. " It is given," he said, " to the pure in heart. I 
 have gazed into that crystal since I moved it from before 
 'you, but to me no vision was vouchsafed. She is obdurate, 
 dead as alive. But I will cross the line of division ; I 
 will find her. You have sought here; I seek beyond. 
 She cannot elude me for ever, for she is mine." 
 
 I caught at the one point which seemed comprehensible 
 in this wild speech. " You agree then with Mr. Alleyne 
 at last ? You think she is dead ? " 
 
 " She is dead," he answered. " The chill has touched 
 my heart. I am seeking her beyond." He kept silence 
 till we turned under the sheltering wall, and when he 
 spoke again it was in a more ordinary tone. "You 
 wonder, doubtless, that I speak of her as mine, and 
 question the right of an unanswered love. Yet mine she 
 was inalienably, both in this world and in that world to 
 come, about which we have a way of talking so glibly 
 and taking so little practical thought ; no father's denial, 
 no marriage vows if she had lived to assume them, would 
 have altered what I mean. She is the other half of my 
 soul. Divided we might have been : divided you will 
 say we are ; but it is only for a season. Our union in 
 the end is sure, — for Hell or Heaven. And whether in 
 Hell or Heaven it matters little, for where she is will be 
 Heaven to me." 
 
 A madman's utterance you will say who read it, and 
 wonder that I did not leave him forthwith to seek the 
 safety of sane companionship. But if you had heard it 
 from those grave lips, spoken with that air of authoritative 
 conviction, you might have thought differently, for the 
 time. 
 
 " You will ask me," he went on, " why if I have this 
 conviction I am not content to wait. The time was 
 when I thought it easy, were it for half an eternity ; 
 knowing the end to be sure however long she might 
 
no A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 elude me, might play with me and keep me at bay as 
 she did when I was her earthly lover. But I cannot, I 
 cannot. There is an end to endurance. All my being 
 craves for her ; without her my strength is as water. 
 Ambition is dead, the world is empty, and beyond it is 
 only, — Barbara. I have eyes for nothing else, ears for 
 nothing but her voice. From her station of vantage she 
 draws me while she repulses me ; and it comes to this, — 
 I must compel her or follow her." He had turned to 
 face me in the passion of this declaration. That he was 
 in deadly earnest none could doubt, or that the power of 
 this extraordinary fancy upon him was real and actual. 
 " I have been at fault in all my labours," he said almost 
 with violence. "The body is nothing, — an image of 
 clay, — no more. It is the spirit, the living Ego in what- 
 ever form it manifests, that is the centre of desire." I 
 suppose something of my bewilderment was evident ; his 
 manner altered, and a chill ghost of a smile curved his lips. 
 " You are Barbara's near kinswoman ; you are like her in 
 mind as well as outwardly. You will be my friend, you 
 will respect my confidence, but your belief is slow of 
 ignition. Everything must be tried at the bar of reason, 
 a reason trained to be narrow; you cannot trust your 
 intuitions. There is just the same hardness about you as 
 about her, though you listen so compassionately." 
 
 I made a grasp after my vanishing common sense, — 
 with both hands as it were, and a prick of indignation to 
 help me. " Surely," I said, " you did not talk like this to 
 Barbara ! " 
 
 " You must give me credit for a certain discretion ; I 
 would not alarm the girl I hoped to win. Nor do I 
 mean to alarm you, but if you are to help me I must have 
 you understand both my position and my claim." 
 
 " To help you ! " I echoed. " How is it possible for 
 me to help you ? " 
 
 " You have shown the faculty of perceiving her under 
 the new conditions. If you are associated with me in the 
 quest, it may prove transferable, as second sight is said to 
 
A BRIDE ELECT m 
 
 be. Let her come as she will, — reveal what she will, — 
 so that she comes." 
 
 I shook my head. " If I could give you any comfort 
 of heart I would gladly," I answered j " but I have never 
 been accustomed to attach to these things the importance 
 you do. They are outside the circle of common ex- 
 perience and of my conceptions of life, and have brought 
 me nothing but trouble and perplexity. I wish indeed it 
 were possible to transfer to you what you call my faculty. 
 But you must remember I am not the only one who has 
 exercised it ; if it were so I could easily believe myself the 
 victim of hallucination." 
 
 ■ " I know, — AUeyne and the servant : but it may all 
 radiate through you in a way you do not understand." 
 
 " If it means anything at all, if it is truly Barbara, I am 
 inclined to believe with old Evans that she is distressed at 
 our ignorance of her fate, and is longing to come back 
 and enlighten us." «■ 
 
 " Then, don't you think it worth while to follow up 
 the clue by any means our limited knowledge indicates, 
 so that she may enlighten us ? Be that as it will, so long 
 as she comes back to me." 
 
 " Evans has heard footsteps ; Lady Sudeleigh followed 
 a figure in the road, though Gregory does not wish it 
 mentioned, and it may have been a chance resemblance. 
 And here in the church, not an hour ago, the child who 
 blows the organ for me was frightened by an appearance 
 he professed to recognise." I told the story as little 
 Sykes had told it to me : the figure kneeling at the altar 
 rails the first day, of which he had not felt afraid ; and 
 then the appearance that came behind me as I sat play- 
 ing, which struck him with such consternation and awe, 
 and yet was recognisable as "Miss Barbara who went 
 away." I was almost afraid of the eagerness of my 
 listener, such a fire of hope, elation, yearning, seemed to 
 blaze up in him as he listened. He took my hand again 
 in a close clasp, and I felt the compulsion of his will 
 closing round me and paralysing resistance. 
 
112 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 " You have indicated the path," he said. " You asked 
 how you might help me, and yourself have shown the 
 way. You are not expected at the house yet ; the child's 
 terror cut short your hour. Come back into the church 
 with me ; repeat the conditions which attracted her, and 
 see if she will return." 
 
 It was a sign of his influence over me that I had no 
 thought of refusal. We turned back to the door, and 
 when I bungled with inapt fingers at the lock, he opened 
 it for me and followed me in. The place had never 
 seemed so deserted or struck so chill ; the shadows had 
 deepened and the light had faded since I left it, though 
 there remained suflicient for our purpose. I took my 
 seat, and opened the symphony in the midst of which 
 Sykes had failed me, and he took the child's place at the 
 lever facing the length of the dim church ; the organ 
 was at the west end under the tower. As soon as the 
 indicator had risen I began to play, trying to lose myself 
 in my office and forget the strange situation into which 
 I had been drawn. And strange indeed it was ; the 
 darkening church, the watch for the manifestation of 
 a disembodied spirit in which in some mysterious fashion 
 I was to aid, the companionship of one whose sanity was 
 at least questionable. I glanced round at him from time 
 to time, but his eyes were always intent on vacancy, 
 glowing bright under the shadow of contracted brows out 
 of a face deathly pale. His forehead was damp and the 
 veins stood out upon it, while his lips moved soundlessly. 
 Still for all this he was sufficiently master of himself to 
 keep the lever at work ; and I played on to the end of 
 my symphony, and then turned back to the opening bars 
 and repeated it, long as it was. As the last chords died 
 away and my hands dropped, I paused out of sheer fatigue, 
 wondering whether I had done my part and what had 
 resulted. I heard a long quivering sigh at my elbow ; 
 Mr. Redworth was leaning on the arrested lever, and 
 when I turned to him he spoke more naturally, though in 
 a voice low and exhausted. " You have been very good, 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 113 
 
 Miss Varney. I have felt her presence : it seems to 
 thrill all the air about me; but she withholds herself 
 from sight and touch. There is a barrier I must break 
 down." 
 
 I thought better of the question which rose to my lips, 
 but he answered it presently as if it had been spoken, 
 though not till we had left the church. He gathered up 
 the music for me and closed the organ; and when at the 
 outer door he gave me back the keys, he said : " I will 
 tell you what I mean to do. It will be a secret between 
 you and me only, a secret you will keep." He turned 
 again into the path where we had walked before, and I 
 with him, drawn by his will in the matter, though I 
 would fain have escaped to the house. 
 
 " The true alchemist," he went on, " has open to him 
 two spheres, the physical and the celestial j but if he 
 would tread the higher way he must utterly put from 
 him all advantage of the inferior, not serving God and 
 Mammon. I must nullify my work of forty years, my 
 dreams of worldly eminence, of advantage and renown ; 
 but that is a small matter. Alverius Vericus, an older 
 writer than Paracelsus, describes the successive steps of 
 initiation, and the chemical compound whereby, in con- 
 junction with certain abstinences, the necessary condition 
 of body is attained. The first is termed the Threshold, 
 and the initiate enters with the figure of a drawn sword 
 against the Elemental shapes; but here the danger is 
 only to the resolution of the inner man ; the union with 
 mortality is not threatened. The second step is the 
 Vestibule; here the emblem is changed to a smoking 
 torch, and he sees, but as in a glass darkly. In this the 
 danger is but slightly increased; but the initiate is warned 
 to test his powers of body and soul before advancing to 
 the Presence Chamber where we see fece to fece. The 
 behest is that he should set his affairs in order and depart 
 as one that cometh not again. Yet many of the masters 
 have dwelt in the Presence Chamber, and gone in and 
 out from the ways of the world, beholding when they 
 
114 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 would their soul's desire. It is possible she may come to 
 me on the threshold; that the dimness of the vestibule 
 may not divide us; but if needful I shall advance to full 
 initiation w^here success is certain. If that is so, I may 
 have to ask a favour at your hands; it will only be a 
 slight one, entailing a less troublesome task than I have 
 imposed on you to-day. I need not ask if you will guard 
 my confidence; I see it in your face." 
 
 He had bared his head as he spoke, pushing back the 
 waves of silvered hair; and he remained uncovered as we 
 said farewell. I did not see him after that for many days. 
 
 These were the days of Eleanor's danger and the crisis 
 of her illness. I will not follow all the hopes and fears 
 of that anxious time, which seemed to draw Gregory and 
 his wife nearer together than perhaps they had ever been 
 in their lives before. That was well, and it was well 
 she was given back to him; for the shock of what came 
 after would have been too great had either stood alone. 
 Mr. Redworth was not neglectful of his friends : he 
 came or sent frequently to inquire, but he did not ask to 
 see me ; and as it happened through all that time when 
 I was stirring abroad but little, we did not chance to 
 meet. I confess I often thought of him and of our last 
 interview under the shadow of the church; dissatisfied 
 with myself that I had entered no protest of any sort 
 against the wild words I had been forced to hear. And 
 yet I knew that were it to come over again I could not 
 do otherwise ; the spell upon me would be so great that 
 I could only fill the part of a passive listener, of almost a 
 believing one. It was necessary for me to be removed 
 from his strong personal influence, before common sense 
 was able to assert itself and I could be even critical. I 
 kept his confidence: I had no disposition to break it; 
 but I did think sometimes with a touch of anxiety of the 
 fantastic experiment he proposed to try on himself, and 
 felt curious as to the result. Little Sykes earned no 
 more sixpences, for I did not touch the organ except on 
 Sundays; other occupations forbade it, and besides I felt 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 115 
 
 a shuddering distaste for the conditions of solitude which 
 had been productive of a result so unforeseen. 
 
 Time went on, an-d Eleanor struggled slowly back to 
 convalescence. Janie was beginning to feel anxious about 
 her plans, and to press for a decision ; when the news of 
 an unexpected calamity fell upon us at the Rectory. It 
 was not personal to any of us, but we all sorrowed for 
 our friends ; and there were unspoken thoughts, if I 
 mistake not, of the difference it might have made to 
 Barbara's future had all been well with her, and had that 
 terrible Christmas fulfilled its promise in making her 
 Dick Sudeleigh's wife. News arrived from India, first 
 by telegram and the sad details following by letter, of 
 Maxwell Sudeleigh's death. This was the elder son, 
 himself a middle-aged man, Dick's only brother and 
 Sir Richard Sudeleigh's heir. The blow was too much 
 for the old father, hitherto so hale and active j he was 
 struck down by it into a living death, and at first the 
 end was hourly anticipated. Lady Sudeleigh wrote to 
 Eleanor in her bitter distress, and telegrams were sent 
 abroad to intercept Dick at the most likely ports. By 
 good fortune these reached him speedily, and he came 
 home overland by the quickest routes j finding all at 
 Leigh Hall in depths of mourning for the heir, but old 
 Sir Richard, contrary to all expectation, beginning to 
 rally physically from the stroke, though with powers of 
 mind so withered and blighted that partial recovery 
 became more deplorable than the death which had been 
 feared. 
 
 We heard of Dick's return to Leigh the morning 
 Janie left Ditchborough, — a late May morning which 
 wept like April in alternate showers and gleams. She 
 had wept also more tears than we knew of She had 
 grown paler and thinner and older in those sad months ; 
 but over the farewells she was very steady. Gregory and 
 I kept counsel about the true reason for departure. He 
 thought the knowledge would needlessly distress Eleanor, 
 who vibrated between a certain irrepressible relief, and a 
 
ii6 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 fretful wonderment that Janie should think less of her 
 duty to those who had brought her up, than of a volun- 
 tarily assumed duty towards an indefinite neighbour. 
 Janie thanked her at the last for the home she had found 
 with them, and the two women kissed each other as 
 women will whatever lies beneath; while Evans looked 
 on with tightly-compressed lips, an embodiment of the 
 spirit which had driven her forth. 
 
 But when it came to Gregory it was a different matter, 
 and she put her arms round his neck in a real caress. 
 " God bless you, child," he said. " You have been a 
 daughter to me all these years, and I shall miss you 
 sorely." Then for the first time her voice broke. 
 " Uncle," she said, " if you want me, — if ever you want 
 me, send for me and I will come. I will come back 
 wherever I am." I think it was on his lips to say he 
 wanted her and she must not go ; but he kissed her 
 instead, and put her in the carriage which was to take us 
 to the station. 
 
 I drove there with her, and saw her off from the same 
 country platform which had witnessed my arrival ; a 
 small waif of humanity pushing out her frail skiff into 
 the wider sea of the great world, with a sad heart as I 
 knew, and yet with some steady shining of hope and 
 courage in her fixed purpose. I had repented my sins 
 towards her many times over, my sins of suspicion and 
 suggestion which had never been translated into speech. 
 Over and over again I had assured myself of her inno- 
 cence; and over and over again, I know not how, the 
 assurance had to be made anew. But the need for it 
 was nearly over; I was soon to doubt no more. She 
 thanked me for my kindness to her, poor child, as we 
 stood together in the narrow shelter and watched the red 
 front of the engine rounding the curve, burning nearer 
 and nearer through the slanting lines of rain. Then 
 came the brief halt, the bustle of a few moments, and 
 then the small pale face nodding farewell to me from the 
 window moving away. 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 117 
 
 It was over, and I felt myself solitary with that curious 
 reaction which sometimes comes unexpectedly in parting 
 with one whom we have not greatly valued in daily 
 companionship ; a token, I suppose, that the link has really 
 been a closer one than we divined. 
 
 Early in the week following Dick Sudeleigh came to 
 Ditchborough. Eleanor was touchingly glad to see him, 
 almost as much so as if the relations between them had 
 been those of real mother and son. Just then, I think, 
 all her capacity of affection was quickened, with the 
 feeling, as it were, of respite from nearly contemplated 
 death ; as Hezekiah may have felt when the shadow went 
 back on the sun-dial of Ahaz. He asked for Janie soon 
 after his arrival, and when told that she was gone to 
 London, as if on an ordinary visit, I thought he betrayed 
 unequivocal disappointment. Nothing was then said 
 about St. Cyprian's, nor later when he and I and Gregory 
 dined together ; Eleanor, though so much stronger, was 
 still restricted to invalid hours. But when the two 
 gentlemen were left together over their wine the whole, 
 story came out ; the story, that is, so far as Gregory 
 knew how to tell it. Feeling the house oppressive with 
 the summer heat which had come upon us suddenly, I 
 had caught up a shawl and strolled out into the garden, 
 where all was light as yet in the June evening, though 
 with a tender browning of the shadows, and the crescent 
 of the new moon beginning to show in silver above the 
 trees. It was there Dick came to me, greatly agitated as 
 I could see, and he broke out at once in wonderment 
 and even anger. What could we all have been thinking 
 of, — that was what it came to, though less bluntly put — 
 to let Janie suffer under such a shameful error, and at last 
 be driven away like a guilty creature from the safe shelter 
 of home ? " I should like to twist the necks of all the 
 fools in the parish," he said. "Janie harm Barbara ! 
 Janie, who would not hurt any living creature, who has 
 the tenderest heart in the world ! And not the shadow 
 of a motive; what motive could there be, Miss Varney ? 
 
ii8 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 Answer me that ! " I shook my head dumbly. I had 
 nothing to say. For Janie's sake, as much as any other, 
 it was impossible to answer. " And Mr. Alleyne says 
 nothing has been done. It was all I could do to keep 
 my patience, to remember the respect I owe him. Was 
 there ever such a ghastly blunder ? She was always 
 working for the people, her fingers to the bone I used 
 to say ; and that they should have turned against her, 
 the whole place, Mr. Alleyne says, with open insult and 
 taunts ! And he wanted her to brave it out, though no 
 one took her part. If I had only been here ! What 
 she must have suffered, poor child, poor little darling; 
 and her letters were always cheerful,- — never a word of it 
 to me." 
 
 I tried to set him right on one or two points. Janie 
 herself had begged us to be silent; she could not bear 
 the charge against her made a matter of discussion. " If 
 you had known," I said to him; " if you had been here 
 all through, what in Heaven's name could you have done ? " 
 
 " I would have done this. I would have shown them 
 all there was one who believed in her, the one who had 
 best reason to know. I would have gone to her and 
 begged her to take me, — to give me a right to protect 
 
 her, — to honour my name by bearing it " He was 
 
 forced to stop abruptly to steady his voice. Was this 
 Barbara's lover ? I wondered what Eleanor would say, 
 and Lady Sudeleigh. And, — poor Janie ! — it would be 
 no vindication ; people would say she had schemed for 
 it from the beginning. " It is not too late," he went on. 
 " I will go to her now, — to this convent sisterhood, this 
 humbugging St. Cyprian's. I will force them to let 
 her see me. Mr. Alleyne says there have been no 
 vows." 
 
 " Forgive me, Mr. Sudeleigh, if I say I hope you will 
 think it over before you do anything of the kind. Such 
 a step ought not to be taken on any rash impulse, how- 
 ever generous. It might give pain to others, to Janie 
 even ; and your family would hardly approve." 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 119 
 
 " Generous ! the generosity will be hers if she will 
 take me. I suppose you think" (biting his moustache 
 savagely, and looking moodily before him), " it is natural 
 you should think, I have forgotten Barbara." It was 
 more an assertion than a question, and I did not interrupt 
 him by reply. "I have not forgotten her; I never shall 
 forget her ; it will never be the same for me again. I 
 have been wretched for months, not knowing whether 
 she was dead or alive j but I begin to think it is as my 
 mother says. If she is dead I must take up my life 
 without her ; if she is alive she must have left me to form 
 other ties, and so we are equally divided. I could be 
 happy with Janie if she would have me. I always loved 
 her, in a way, and was sorry she had such a hard time of 
 it, from the first. I cannot have you speak of generosity. 
 It is best for me; and surely not worse for her, poor 
 child, than being alone ? " 
 
 What could I say, how could I tell him .? It must be 
 Janie herself if any one, though the confession would be 
 terribly hard. Would she ever have courage to acknow- 
 ledge the reason why suspicion had fallen upon her, and 
 the motives with which she was credited ? Would she 
 see clearly as I did, that even if guiltless she could not 
 join hands with Dick without injuring herself and him ? 
 We had threaded the shrubbery walk, and emerged on to 
 the lawn when he went on. 
 
 " You spoke of disapproval on the part of my family; 
 I do not anticipate it in the least. My poor father is not 
 likely to understand anything about it ; it is my mother's 
 great wish that I should marry. They approved of the 
 former affair; and Janie is Barbara's cousin, of equal 
 birth. And though she is without fortune, I do not 
 want it ; I should not have wanted it when I only had 
 Pengarth, and now I am my father's heir." 
 
 I ventured to hint that was just the reason why Lady 
 Sudeleigh would expect a more advantageous connec- 
 tion ; but, like a man, he would listen to no suggestion 
 which opposed his will. Mr. and Mrs. Alleyne, he was 
 
I20 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 confident, would be pleased; and he thought Barbara 
 herself would have wished it, would rather Janie than 
 any other filled her vacant place. That is an argument 
 one often hears in favour of man's inconstancy. I could 
 do no more than beg him to consider well before com- 
 mitting himself to any action which would be beyond 
 recall; and when he left Ditchborough next day I did 
 not know whether he proposed returning to Leigh, or 
 going at once to London. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 The afternoon of Dick's departure I went out for a 
 solitary walk, Eleanor not happening to want me, and 
 the abounding summer beauty drawing me irresistibly to 
 its enjoyment. I revelled in the fresh green of the young 
 foliage, the beauty of flowering trees and the tints of 
 earth and sky, and drank in the balmy air which seemed 
 to revive all the springs of life. I loved the loneliness 
 of the moor; I am not by nature a gregarious animal, 
 and the solitudes of this remote district to me were never 
 cheerless. I mounted the hill down which Gregory had 
 driven me to my first sight of Ditchborough, and walked 
 some distance beyond, watching the waste as it purpled 
 under the passing clouds, and listening to the larks as 
 they carolled their songs in thrills of transport, until 
 invisible in the blue. A iew sheep cropping here and 
 there at the sparse grass raised their heads to look at me ; 
 a rabbit darted away to hide his tell-tale white ensign in 
 some sheltering burrow. 
 
 I had regained the road on turning homeward, and 
 was on the brow which looks over Coldhope when the 
 quick trot of a horse came up behind me. The rider 
 was Mr. Redworth, who drew rein at once and dis- 
 mounted. " Miss Varney, I am fortunate in overtaking 
 you. I was only now thinking how I could contrive to 
 see you alone." 
 
 We had met several times since I played for him in 
 the church, but it was always in company. I knew 
 nothing more of his wild experiments and singular 
 mental state. 
 
122 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 " I am going to remind you of your promise to do me 
 a favour; and I want a few, — last words, as they may 
 be. If I lead my horse at your side I shall not detain 
 you nor excite remark; and as you helped me before, 
 you will not refuse to help me now. My little enemy 
 has left Ditchborough, and a certain faithless lover has 
 followed in her footsteps, — 'like a doting mallard, claps 
 wing, flies after ! ' — and you are in perplexity about 
 them both. Is it not so ? Ah, my friend, do not look 
 so astonished ! And if I know thus much, perhaps I 
 have no need to ask whether you have given a thought 
 to me. It may be I even know the nature of the 
 thought ; pity for the madman whose raving alarmed 
 you, and whose confidences might have been communi- 
 cated in Bedlam. And perhaps, by treason of yourself 
 against yourself, a single heart-beat of sympathy for one 
 who for love's sake would dare the realms of night and 
 all the powers of the unseen, following his Eurydice." 
 
 " I have thought of you, wondering over all you told 
 me and the experiment you contemplated." 
 
 " I have traversed the second degree ; the next step 
 will be full initiation. You will think I have postponed 
 it over long, that I have turned coward on the verge ; 
 but it is not so. The behest is first to set your house 
 in order, and depart as one that cometh not again. That 
 has been my care in these last weeks, and it has occupied 
 some time and thought, and sent me on several journeys. 
 I have only now to conclude my arrangement with you, 
 — the trifling favour I spoke of — and then I shall be 
 free." His eyes shone as if with a glad anticipation ; he 
 drew up his spare sinewy figure and lifted his head. 
 Whatever the ordeal might be, it was evident he did not 
 fear it. " Before I pass to that I want to ask you, — you 
 have no doubt, have you, that I love Barbara; that I 
 loved her first and last, as the woman I would have won, 
 and now as the soul I seek ? " 
 
 " No doubt at all." 
 
 " Never let that conviction be shaken. I would have 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 123 
 
 given my life for hers, my body to torture, to spare her 
 a single pang. Sudeleigh was a boy who cared for 
 nothing but the gratification of a fancy; like a child 
 denied a toy he raves for a while, and then turns lightly 
 to another. She was and is my all ; the soul of my soul, 
 my star and fate. I have seen her since I spoke with 
 you last." 
 
 " That was what you desired." 
 
 " Not yet the full measure for which I long ; I shall 
 find that in the Presence Chamber. But her shadow 
 rested on the threshold; I beheld her in the Hall of 
 Vision, though veiled and separated so that I failed to 
 touch even the hem of her .garment. You have heard, 
 Miss Varney, of a man dying for joy ? " 
 
 " I have read of such cases." 
 
 " It is not a common fete, yet I feel as if it would be 
 mine. When I think of the rapture before me my heart 
 fails to beat; it thrills through all my breast with a great 
 trembling of ecstasy. To meet her eyes with a smile 
 in them, to feel her soul drawn to mine, compelled to 
 mine by a law beyond resistance, the will to resist sub- 
 merged in the attraction. The Heaven you righteous 
 people believe in could give no more." The tremor he 
 spoke of was real, it shook him visibly; he drew deep 
 breaths in silence for some minutes, leaning one arm 
 upon the saddle. " I have no dread of the ordeal. The 
 first stages have not tried me, as I was led to expect. 
 I found no failure in myself; the desire was only to 
 penetrate deeper, to see more fully, not to be dragged 
 back by reviving nature. The first trance was very 
 brief; the second lasted some hours; the duration of 
 that which is before me I cannot calculate; but, if 
 vitality survives the shock, it will be mine to terminate 
 or renew at will, passing in and out from the Presence 
 Chamber to this common world, carrying the light of 
 it into the life I have yet to endure. Oh, Barbara, 
 Barbara ! " It was a strange medley, — the joy he spoke 
 of and the rapture of anticipation ; and then the groan of 
 
124 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 irrepressible anguish with which he called upon her name. 
 My own heart beat fast with agitation as I listened, but 
 his power over me seemed to conquer fear. " I have set 
 my house in order as I am enjoined. Some affairs, writh 
 which I need not weary you in detail, proved difficult 
 of arrangement, but now the way is clear ; I have only 
 to give Nursoo his final instructions. Possibly this 
 evening, perhaps to-morrow, I shall send to your custody 
 a sealed packet. The favour I ask is that you will keep 
 it for me in safe charge till this crisis is over. If all is 
 well I will claim it from you direct, doubtless within 
 forty-eight hours ; but if certain intelligence should reach 
 you of my death, — no rumour, but the information direct 
 — break the seals and act on the instructions within. 
 You promise ? " 
 
 "Yes," I said, "I promise." 
 
 " If comment is excited, say I asked you to take care 
 of a packet of valuables for me during a chemical experi- 
 ment I thought hazardous. There will be nothing 
 extraordinary in that, or likely to involve you in difficulty. 
 If I do not survive, the experiment will pass as an 
 ordinary one in the course of my known researches. 
 And now, farewell." He took my hand and pressed it, 
 looking earnestly in my face. " I care little for the 
 opinion of my fellows; but if ever you are tempted to 
 judge me harshly, remember what I questioned and what 
 you replied." 
 
 He wrung my hand again ; then leading his horse 
 further out from the path, mounted and rode away 
 towards Coldhope. 
 
 I felt troubled and uneasy as I entered the Rectory, 
 as if with the shadow of some near calamity. I could 
 not at once shake off the impression of what I had heard. 
 Eleanor was down-stairs waiting for me to dispense tea 
 and cheerful conversation; I did my best to make the 
 effort, but I am afraid she found me a duller companion 
 than usual. We were alone, for Gregory had gone to 
 attend a clerical gathering at Lynnchestcr, and was not 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 125 
 
 expected back till late ; supper was to be served at half- 
 past nine, instead of the usual dinner. We sat and 
 chatted over fancy stitches and household matters; over 
 Dick's improved looks, bronzed as he wras by sea air and 
 southern suns, and the last sad letters from Leigh, till it 
 was Eleanor's hour for retiring. Evans came with the 
 shawl she still wore in the passages, and to gather up the 
 small paraphernalia which accompanied her to her room ; 
 and I was left alone in the ghostly drawing-room and the 
 fading light. 
 
 I opened the window which had been closed on 
 Eleanor's account, and refused the lamp lest it should 
 draw in errant moths to the attraction of the light ; and 
 so sitting in the dusk, and the warm air wafting in the 
 sweet breath of the garden, I passed from conscious to 
 unconscious thought, and slept and dreamed. 
 
 I am accustomed to the vague absurdities which are 
 wont to visit us in sleep, but this dream had a character 
 of its own which marked it separate from any former 
 experience. To begin with, it revived a memory. I 
 was sitting in that very chair and place, but all about 
 me had come the chill of winter, and I shivered in my 
 sleep. I had gone back to the night when we watched 
 for Barbara, and ears and heart were again strained with 
 the agony of expectation. The trees were bare again, 
 the flowers were dead, and snow was falling through the 
 greyness of a winter dawn. A sharp tapping made me 
 start and turn to the window, impatient fingers drumming 
 on the glass, and there was Barbara looking in through 
 the transparent division. There was the same excited 
 look on her face which I had seen in the crystal; she 
 held up to me in her left hand some papers folded length- 
 wise, and knocked hurriedly with the other. " Let me 
 in," she said, " let me in." I started up with the impulse 
 to obey her, and lo, in a moment the dream was broken. 
 The snow and the cold were gone, the grey dawn had 
 changed into the surtimer dusk, the window was open at 
 my elbow, and there was no Barbara ! 
 
126 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 Gregory was late back that evening, and I thought 
 he appeared out of spirits as I faced him at the delayed 
 supper. He told me of his business and the events of 
 the day, but it seemed an effort to him to talk, and he 
 soon relapsed into silence. Presently he said, pushing 
 away from him an almost untasted plate : " I cannot 
 think how it is, but my poor girl is very much on my 
 mind to-night. I have been thinking about it all day, 
 — the disappearance I mean — the same weary round of 
 conjecture we used to go over so often six months ago. 
 If I were a superstitious man, I should believe the know- 
 ledge we have sought vainly for so long was coming to 
 us at last." 
 
 I thought of my dream, but was spared the necessity 
 of answering as the servant entered with a parcel. For 
 Miss Varney, she said ; Nursoo had brought it, and was 
 instructed to wait for an answer. The packet was not 
 large, but thick and rather heavy; sealed in two places 
 with the impression of interlaced triangles, but no crest. 
 There was a separate note which read as follows : 
 
 " I send the parcel, as I am trying to-night the experi- 
 ment of which I told you. In case of the worst, keep it 
 unopened till the doctor gives an order for my burial, 
 which is not to take place until there is unmistakable 
 evidence of death. I hope to reclaim it to-morrow or 
 the day after, and myself acquaint you that all is well; 
 you must not surrender it to any messenger. Let me 
 have a line by the bearer to tell me it has reached your 
 hands. — Victor Redworth." 
 
 The arrival of the letter had the effect of diverting 
 Gregory's mind from his sad thoughts, and he was almost 
 jocular on the subject of my correspondence as I scribbled 
 in pencil a message of acknowledgment and sent it out to 
 the Hindu servant. It amused him very much that Susan 
 should be getting up a flirtation with the master of Cold- 
 hope; the relations that had seemed impossible for Bar- 
 bara's youth did not appear to strike him as out of place 
 for my maturer years. 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 127 
 
 Well, I need not dwell on that. I took the packet 
 away with me to my room and locked it for safe custody 
 in a trunk ; and during the peaceful hours which followed 
 I was disturbed but little by anxiety for my friend. I 
 thought of him when I woke, and of the dread ordeal of 
 which he had spoken ; but sleep visited my pillow as 
 usual both that night and the next, and I descended to 
 breakfast on the second morning without misgiving. It 
 was fair weather with high white clouds crossing the blue 
 sky, and a heavy dew sparkling over the lawn in the early 
 sun. 
 
 Gregory and I were again alone, as Eleanor break- 
 fasted in her room. The meal was over, and the table in 
 process of clearing, though my cousin had not yet be- 
 taken himself to his study, when Mary came in with a 
 message. " If you please, sir, it is Nursoo, and I am 
 afraid something is wrong. The dog-cart is at the gate, 
 and he wants to see you and Miss Varney." 
 
 " Miss Varney also ? Then tell him to come in here. 
 You do not mind ? " he added to me as the handmaiden 
 departed. No, I did not mind; but no doubt I had 
 turned pale, for a sudden terror had begun to grip my 
 heart. 
 
 The Hindu looked ashen under his dark skin, and was 
 trembling visibly. I had never heard him speak before : 
 he had always seemed a sort of automaton ; but his story, 
 though confused and broken, was sufficiently intelligible. 
 Mr. Redworth had been trying an experiment, he was 
 always trying experiments, and when he gave orders not 
 to be disturbed none of the household dared go near him. 
 On Thursday evening he had food put ready in the 
 library, and wine in case he needed it ; and Nursoo was 
 directed not to enter the room again for thirty-six hours 
 unless summoned. The bell did not ring, and though 
 this was nothing unusual the man had felt alarmed; he 
 could not tell why. He vvent into the ground-floor bed- 
 room which opened from the library punctually on the 
 stroke of nine on the second morning, but found no trace 
 
128 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 of occupation. Mr. Redworth was in the library, sitting 
 in the chair as he had left him, but to all appearance dead. 
 There was a written paper under his hand with directions 
 to fetch the doctor, and inform Mr. AUeyne and me. 
 The groom had taken the dog-cart on at once, and Nursoo 
 was returning on foot ; indeed he showed throughout an 
 evident haste and nervous anxiety to be gone. 
 
 Gregory looked very grave over this intelligence. He 
 said he would return to Coldhope with the Hindu, and 
 await Dr. Carpenter's arrival ; and I followed him into the 
 hall while he got his hat, and changed his coat. " It 
 may be only a trance," I contrived to say to him. " Do 
 not let the doctor take anything for granted." 
 
 They were a strange pair as they went ofF together; 
 the portly clerical Englishman and the slender turbaned 
 foreigner ; and they turned, I noticed, towards the gate 
 into the woods, the shortest way to the house. 
 
 The afternoon was well on its way before my cousin 
 returned. The anxious hours had passed slowly without 
 tidings, though the rumour that Mr. Redworth was dead 
 seemed to flash electrically over the village, and was 
 brought to the house by sundry chance comers. I felt 
 uneasy under my burden of knowledge, and the possession 
 of the packet also weighed on me. I got out my keys to 
 see if it was still secure, and looked again at the note 
 folded away with it, instructing me not to open it till the 
 doctor signed the order for burial. 
 
 Gregory came straight to us in the morning-room, and 
 dropped wearily into the nearest chair. " I shall have to 
 look up an old sermon for to-morrow," he said somewhat 
 irrelevantly. " I can settle to nothing after such a morn- 
 ing. I feel completely unhinged." 
 
 Eleanor was readier with her inquiry than I was. " Is 
 it really death ? " she said. " Did you see him ? " 
 
 "Yes, I saw him; and I waited there till Carpenter 
 came, which was not till one o'clock or even later. The 
 man had driven from place to place after him, as he had 
 left on his round. He says there is little doubt Redworth 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 129 
 
 had been dead for hours when he was found, but he had 
 him moved to the bed and did what he could to restore 
 life. There is just this question of catalepsy, as it is 
 impossible to say what the experiment was, so no steps 
 can be taken till decomposition appears. Then there will 
 have to be an examination, and an inquest, and what not! 
 It is a sad business. Nursoo's story hardly prepared me 
 for what I was to see. He took me into the library, 
 where one window had been hastily uncurtained; and 
 there, with the light streaming in on him, was Redworth 
 sitting, his head resting against the back of the chair, and 
 a smile on his face as if he were in a dream." 
 
 " Ah," I thought, " he had passed into the Presence 
 Chamber." 
 
 "There could have been no suffering nor the least 
 struggle. Close to him on the table were an empty glass 
 and the burned-out lamp, and one hand was lying on a 
 written paper, as if to point it out to whoever found him." 
 
 "Why, do you think he meant to kill himself ?" broke 
 in Eleanor. 
 
 " Certainly not, in my opinion. But he knew he was 
 running a serious risk in the interests of science, and had 
 provided for the worst. The paper stated as much, and 
 directed that if found unconscious on the second morning 
 the doctor was to be summoned, and word sent to Susan 
 and me." 
 
 Eleanor caught at my, name. " Why to Susan ? " she 
 said, and I saw the astonishment in her face. 
 
 " Because he gave Siisan a packet to keep for him till 
 the experiment was over; I suppose he did not like to 
 trust it in the house. I do not feel quite satisfied about 
 that Nursoo ; he seemed so alarmed when an inquest was 
 talked about ; but perhaps he had only a vague notion of 
 what it is. Poor fellow ! poor Redworth ! I wonder if 
 he has any relatives who should be summoned ? I asked 
 that Hindu, but he at once became more foreign than 
 ever, and did not seem to know." 
 
 There was of course much curiosity about the packet, 
 
 K 
 
130 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 and I had over and over again to repeat the instructions 
 I had writh it. It was not till the Tuesday following that 
 Dr. Carpenter came to the Rectory. " There is no doubt 
 whatever now that death has taken place," he said to us. 
 " For my own part I never believed in the possible cata- 
 lepsy, and the condition of the corpse was such yesterday 
 that I should have had no hesitation in examining; but I 
 have waited the security of another twenty-four hours. 
 Now the remains will be coffined immediately after the 
 post-mortem; and if there are, as I understand, certain 
 sealed instructions, I would suggest they should be con- 
 sulted without delay." 
 
 I was appealed to at once to deliver up my charge. 
 My own wish would have been to open it first in private ; 
 but I yielded to the evident expectation, and brought it 
 down to where Gregory, Eleanor, and Dr. Carpenter sat 
 in conclave. I remember it all so well, — the three ex- 
 pectant faces and the eager curiosity on Eleanor's — even 
 the touch of the strong parchment wrapper and the bold 
 handwriting of the address, and my own reluctance to face 
 the necessity of breaking those seals, for I was grieved for 
 my friend, as they called him. Let me here write him 
 down my friend for the last time. The contents were 
 simple enough ; the outer cover bore my name only, and 
 the inner one was thus inscribed : 
 
 " If you have had need to open this, I shall be a dead 
 man. Give these papers to Mr. Alleyne with the request 
 that he will act as my executor ; it will not be a trouble- 
 some office, for little remains to be done. I wish my 
 funeral to be as plain as possible, and it is of no concern to 
 me where I am laid." 
 
 The signature followed this. Enclosed was a will of 
 recent date, drawn out by a lawyer at Lynnchester, 
 providing that all pictures and effects which were his 
 property at Coldhope, with the exception of such as he 
 had already disposed of by deed of gift, should be sold, and 
 the residue, after paying funeral expenses and all proven 
 claims, handed over to the Lynnchester Infirmary. There 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 131 
 
 was no mention of any relative, or of property existing 
 elsewhere. The other enclosure was the deed of gift 
 referred to, which transferred to the Reverend Gregory 
 AUeyne the entire furniture of the studio, including the 
 carved shrine, the picture of the dead Christ, and all other 
 pictures in the room, together with carpets and easel, " and 
 whatever else it may contain at the time of my death as 
 if enumerated." Two keys fastened together were folded 
 in this paper, one being labelled key of studio, and the 
 other key of shrine. A strip of paper fastened to the deed 
 bore the following message : 
 
 "It is my request that the Reverend Gregory Alleyne 
 shall keep these keys in his own possession, and as soon as 
 possible after receiving them shall himself in person go to 
 the studio for the purpose of disconnecting from the stored 
 batteries the electric wires which illuminate the shrine, as 
 if ignorantly handled they may be dangerous. N.B. — To 
 open the shrine, press and slip to the right the central 
 carved rose in upper border of panel, which will expose 
 key-hole. The front of shrine opens outwards. To dis- 
 connect wires, unscrew and take out the metal knobs 
 to right and left of hinge. The shrine may then be 
 moved without damage. — Victor Redworth." 
 
 Gregory was much affected by this bequest. " Poor 
 fellow ! poor Redworth !" he said again. " It was good 
 of him to think of me. If ever I coveted anything that 
 was my neighbour's, it was this very picture ; and I would 
 rather have it in remembrance of him than any other 
 legacy. Of course I will act ; and I shall write to these 
 people at Lynnchester and tell them that Redworth sent 
 me the will." 
 
 I went away with Eleanor, and left him and Dr. Car- 
 penter together ; but later in the morning he came to me, 
 and I saw he had the keys in his hand with the paper of 
 directions. " I am going up to Coldhope, Susan, and I 
 want you to come with me. You are not likely to have 
 any foolish fear of a house with death in it, and this affair 
 of the wires should be seen to without delay." 
 
132 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 I hope I have no foolish fear of death. In the course 
 of my former work I had seen it in many forms; but I 
 confess to a certain shrinking from the idea of entering 
 Coldhope, knowing what I knew, I alone, of the myste- 
 rious nature of Mr. Redworth's end. But I said nothing 
 of this to Gregory, and got ready quickly to accompany 
 him; walking up through the deep shade of the wood- 
 path, that green coolness of which Gregory had spoken 
 the first day I entered it, and which was a pleasant refuge 
 from the June sun. We crossed the park, saying little to 
 each other : both of us, I fancy, were occupied with our 
 own thoughts ; but as we came in sight of the house with 
 its drawn blinds a carriage was waiting at the door, and 
 another drove up as we approached. Gregory uttered an 
 exclamation. " I did not mean to fall in with that ; but 
 it can't be helped now, we had better go on. That is 
 Somers from Hillingford, who has come to help Carpenter 
 with the examination." 
 
 A strange servant opened the door to us. 
 
 " Is Nursoo with the doctors ?" asked my cousin. " Let 
 him know I have Mr. Redworth's instructions to go up 
 to the studio." 
 
 The man looked troubled; he had, we found after, 
 been only a short time in the Coldhope household. 
 " Nursoo is not here, sir," he said. " He told us last 
 evening he was directed to fetch another doctor, and he 
 went off just before nightfall, and has not returned." 
 
 Gregory said he knew the way and that we would go 
 Hp alone, showing Mr. Redworth's signature to the strip 
 of paper, but the servant made no demur. They had 
 spoken under their breaths, and there was a ghastly hush 
 about the darkened house; while on the close atmosphere 
 there seemed — or was it my fancy ? — to be already a 
 taint of death. 
 
 My cousin opened the door into the library, and I 
 followed him in. There was a low murmur of voices 
 from the adjoining room, and I shuddered when I thought 
 of what lay there under the dissecting knife. The library 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 133 
 
 itself was deserted: there was the great chair in which 
 the dead man had sat smiUng all through the passage of 
 those hours; the lamp was still upon the table, and the 
 empty glass which his hand had set down; but we did 
 not linger over the suggestive scene. The laboratory was 
 deserted also, littered in confusion and with the grate full 
 of the ashes of burned paper. I noticed this as we passed 
 to the door beyond, which Gregory unlocked, and then 
 we entered the studio. 
 
 It was much as I had seen it last; but an unfinished 
 picture stood upon the easel, and a palette with daubs of 
 dried paint lay beside it. The picture appeared to be a 
 study for a mythological subject, Orpheus and Eury- 
 dice ; the greater part of it was only roughly sketched in 
 charcoal, but the principal heads were painted in. In the 
 Orpheus there was a shadow of the artist himself, while 
 Barbara's eyes looked out at us from the face of the 
 Eurydice. I recognised the train of thought which had 
 inspired the sketch, and lingered before it till Gregory 
 called me to assist him in opening the shrine. 
 
 The picture and the crucifix stood upon it as before, 
 but no thin blue cloud of incense now floated up before 
 the closed eyes of the dead Christ. Without the clue it 
 would have been difficult to discover any means of open- 
 ing the carved panel ; but following the written instruc- 
 tions Gregory turned the key and the whole panel moved 
 outward and downward. As it opened, so bright a light 
 shone out upon us that my eyes were for the moment too 
 dazzled to look within ; but Gregory staggered back with 
 a cry, — a call on God as in extremity, — and then I saw ! 
 
 Lying under the light, with one arm beneath her head 
 as if asleep, and a feint smile on her parted lips was — 
 Barbara ! 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 It is difficult to write connectedly of what followed. 
 I thought Gregory would have fallen, and when he sank 
 into a chair, I ran back to the laboratory for water. It 
 was many minutes before he recovered sufficient mastery 
 of himself to look again upon the sight, at once so beauti- 
 ful and so awful, which the unclosing panel had revealed. 
 Was it Barbara, or some perfection of effigy ? We could 
 not tell ; and presently when he was calm enough to be 
 left, I went down-stairs for Dr. Carpenter. 
 
 He came at once on my summons, and indeed his 
 ministrations were needed for Gregory. He was able to 
 pronounce that what the shrine enclosed was in truth all 
 that was mortal of Barbara, though the remains were in 
 so wonderful a state of preservation that it was impossible 
 to judge when death had taken place. In this case at 
 least the secret process had been completely successful, 
 and that Barbara had been a victim to it there could be 
 no doubt. What it was no documents remained to show; 
 with one notable exception all Mr. Redworth's papers had 
 perished. When Dr. Carpenter and his colleague made 
 full investigation later, they were of opinion that the large 
 arteries had been gradually emptied of blood before life 
 was extinct, and filled with a preservative fluid of some 
 unknown nature. The entire surface of the skin had 
 been anointed with an unguent, and where visible the 
 complexion had been artificially tinted and the lips red- 
 dened J elsewhere the body was of the hue of wax. The 
 semblance of life was further aided by a rose-coloured 
 medium through which the dazzling light fell upon it. 
 
 134 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 135 
 
 Of course the fuller examination was not made until 
 the body was removed and transferred to a coffin; and 
 before I write of this and of the sad return home, I must 
 record my memory of that first sight of her as laid at rest 
 by the hands of her murderer. The attitude was natural, 
 as if she slept, smiling in her sleep, her head pillowed on 
 her arm, her face turned a little from us to the right 
 shoulder, the eyes closed, though when the lids were 
 lifted (greatest wonder of all!) they were still unglazed. 
 Her left hand clasped some folded papers which were partly 
 hidden by her dress. The dress itself was magnificent, 
 as if this madman who loved her had thought nothing too 
 costly to lavish on the dead image of his love. It was 
 fastened and brooched with jewels, a robe of white velvet 
 which opened over embroideries of pearl and gold, while 
 priceless folds of lace veiled her breast and were clasped 
 with diamonds on either shoulder. Her dark hair was 
 confined by a slender band of diamonds, above which were 
 five points, each a great opal, — the same which had 
 figured in the picture Mr. Redworth sent to Eleanor. Alas, 
 now we knew the secret of the changed expression, and 
 how it must have been painted, not from pretended recol- 
 lection, but at the side of the dead girl; we knew also 
 what a mockery the gift was to those who mourned her ! 
 
 My heart faints within me as I go back to that sum- 
 mer day, the bewildering shock of discovery and the con- 
 fusion that followed. Dr. Carpenter was afraid of the 
 consequences to Gregory; he was utterly broken down, 
 and it was long before we could tear him away from his 
 dead daughter. He vowed he would not leave her 
 remains under a roof which had been Redworth's; but 
 at last he was made to see the impossibility of immediate 
 removal, and consented to return to the Rectory and aid 
 me in breaking the news to his wife. 
 
 It was an acute revival of the former sorrow. In this 
 dread recovery Barbara was newly lost to them, and bitter 
 indeed were their feelings towards the murderer who had 
 passed beyond the reach of earthly justice. To their view 
 
136 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 it was all a studied revenge for his rejection, a revenge 
 directed against daughter and parents alike; it was im- 
 possible for them to recognise that the deed might have 
 been prompted by a very madness of love. 
 
 Much of the mystery of that crime is beyond unravel- 
 ment; the depth of Victor Redworth's guilt and the 
 possibility of shaken intellect which might condone it, 
 are known only to Him who is the judge of quick and 
 dead. It was an agony to Gregory to think what Barbara 
 might have suffered, and how her last hours might have 
 been tortured and troubled ; but when those folded papers 
 were taken from her dead hand, the written particulars 
 they contained were reassurance in that respect, at least 
 to me. I do not think that the Alleynes ever believed 
 the truth of the narrative ; and it was perhaps only natural 
 that they sh6uld fear and think the worst. 
 
 We restrained Eleanor from going to Coldhope, feeling 
 it was better for her not to see the dead girl till she was 
 placed in more natural surroundings, and brought to her 
 home.. Evans and I went there as soon as all was ready 
 and the doctor's examination at an end; and between us 
 we dressed her for the grave, till she looked once more 
 her girlish self in the white nightdress closed to the 
 throat, all her jewels and barbaric splendours put away. 
 There was no stiiFness or rigour about her limbs, and we 
 folded her hands together on her breast as easily as with 
 one newly dead. The double inquest was then over, and 
 a warrant out for the arrest of the Hindu, who had dis- 
 appeared the night before the discovery. 
 
 In Mr. Redworth's case the doctors could find no direct 
 cause of death. There was no trace of poison, and all the 
 organs appeared to be healthy; the heart's action must 
 have failed suddenly, but there was nothing to show why. 
 Of course the general idea remained that he had killed 
 himself fearing discovery; but his secret was not threatened, 
 and had been disclosed by his own act. No clue was 
 ever obtained to his former life; the lawyers at Lynn- 
 chester knew nothing of him further than the instructions 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 137 
 
 given for his will, in which there was no mention of any 
 property beyond his possessions at Coldhope. The serv- 
 ants were equally ignorant; it seemed that Nursoo was 
 the only one in whbm he had placed confidence, and 
 Nursoo had taken himself away. No relative came 
 forward either at the time or later, and grave doubt 
 remains whether the name of Redworth was not an 
 assumption to conceal some other and notorious cogno- 
 men. His remains were removed in a plain hearse to 
 Lynnchester under cover of night, and were interred in 
 the town cemetery without religious service. The 
 secrecy of the removal became necessary on account of 
 the rage of popular opinion against the dead man, threats 
 being uttered openly in Ditchborough of insult to be 
 offered to the corpse, and of forcibly tearing it from the 
 hearse. The tide had turned with all the country side, 
 and their judgment on the real culprit became Janie's 
 vindication. 
 
 Evans said, with a tear in her eye not wholly for her 
 nursling, while that sad toilet was performing : " I am 
 right down sorry, miss, for all I've said against Miss Janie 
 and the hard thoughts I've had of her. It was true 
 enough about my darling young lady being deadj but 
 this was none of her doings, and I'd ask her pardon myself 
 if she was here." The same sentiment found expression 
 from other quarters. A few days later at the Rectory I 
 was called down to speak to a Mrs. Murgatroyd, and 
 found at the back-door the woman who had snatched the 
 child out of Janie's arms during that memorable walk. 
 She was curtseying and wiping her eyes : few people were 
 dry-eyed about us just then ; and I saw she held in the 
 fold of her apron a small picture-frame of rough carving. 
 Her boy, she said, had cut it out with a knife, and she 
 begged me to send it to Miss Janie with their duty; 
 " Maybe she'd like to have it where she is." I promised 
 to send the message and the parcel; and then with more 
 tears came out the history of what Janie had done for 
 
138 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 them in former days, and how they and all the village 
 were hoping she would forgive them and come back. 
 
 There were crowds about the gates and along the road 
 when Barbara's coffin was brought to the Rectory, and 
 not one among the people but had put on some scrap of 
 black as a token of mourning. The coffin had been 
 closed for removal, but when laid in the drawing-room 
 the lid was taken off again, and once more in her own 
 home we could look on her sweet face before it was 
 hidden away from us for ever. Everything of familiar 
 use had been put away, and the room converted into a 
 chapelle ardente, solemn with shaded windows and sweet 
 with flowers which were sent in abundance from all 
 quarters. It was here that Eleanor wept out her frantic 
 grief, and Gregory despaired of remembering those lessons 
 of forgiveness which it had been the profession of his life 
 to teach. Truly this man had wronged them to the full 
 measure of the seventy times seven. 
 
 On the night of the removal Gregory put into my 
 hands the papers which had been taken from the shrine, 
 and I sat up in my own room deciphering them in the 
 stillness of the hushed house, with the dead girl lying 
 below. They were leaves torn from a journal, the rest 
 of which had evidently been destroyed; the irrelevant 
 matter here and there had been scored through with a 
 heavy hand, and in a different coloured ink. The first 
 page was dateless and began abruptly, following an entry 
 on another subject. 
 
 "I have seen G. A. to-day and taxed him with the 
 rumour. I had hoped up to the last that it was false, 
 that my warning had not passed unheeded; but his face 
 acknowledged it before the words. I kept control of 
 myself, even when he made a clumsy allusion to former 
 hopes. I forced myself to smile in his obtuse counten- 
 ance, and utter the customary felicitations and good 
 wishes to the bride elect. 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 139 
 
 " I went back through the wood. I could have dashed 
 my head against the trees, for I was mad with pain and 
 horror. Barbara, my love, my darling! That it should 
 have come to this! That you should have brought 
 such a fate upon yourself and upon me who love youj 
 that you must die, and speedily, and by my hand! 
 
 " You know I did not spare to tell you. It is destiny; 
 from the foundations of all the worlds you were fore- 
 doomed to me and I to you. I cannot forego this even 
 if I would. Even could I find the will to surrender you 
 to your boy-lover, the tie between you two would bring 
 nothing but misery and sin and shame. And misery and 
 sin and shame shall never touch you, my love, my dearest, 
 while I can stand in the way. 
 
 "If it were not for my knowledge of this inevitable 
 end, I would give my life a willing ransom for yours. 
 Anything, so that this cup might pass from me; but it is 
 not to be. For your sake, beloved, I must not know 
 relenting; I must save you from yourself. 
 
 " You knew it. I have not forgotten how I told you, 
 nor that brief moment when I sealed our vow upon your 
 lips. ' God may pardon those who have come between us, 
 — God may spare them, but I cannot. They shall pay 
 me pang for pang in sweat of anguish and despair of 
 heart; they shall plunge deep into the hell wherein I am 
 dwelling now. 
 
 " I told you plainly when I told you of my love, and 
 I held your sweet eyes with mine, half frightened and half 
 fascinated by what seemed to you so strange. I told you 
 of the mysterious link which neither of us could ignore 
 without sinning against our own natures ; a crime which 
 would bring its Nemesis of utter woe. I set before you 
 that it lay with you to elect whether that link should 
 bind us together on earth, as well as in that mysterious 
 future you could but dimly apprehend. I wished you to 
 choose: whether you would for all your life keep your 
 maiden distance and wrap yourself about with your shy 
 
I40 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 pride and hold me aloof; or whether you would own me 
 for what I am, — lover, master, and husband, — now as 
 well as for eternity. It was nothing that I had counted, 
 more than thrice your years : I knew I must survive you, 
 for so it was written; and in your youth I should be 
 young. The choice was between a perpetual virginity 
 and me for your mate: there could be no other; and in 
 the terrible event of infidelity I was bound to take your 
 life. I might warn you twice if you were deviating from 
 the right path ; but the third time would be death, at 
 whatever cost of agony to me. 
 
 " God grant that you may heed the warnings, and that 
 all may yet be well. I phrase this as a prayer; it is a 
 human instinct to resort to such expression in our bitterest 
 needs. If truly I believed that prayer might aid, I could 
 wear out the stones with my knees, and weary the in- 
 exorable patience of Heaven. But Heaven is dumb and 
 deaf, and my own arm must achieve salvation, if salvation 
 yet may be." 
 
 The first fragment ended with these words ; the second 
 was dated on the 8th of November. 
 
 " Until to-day I have not seen Barbara, though I have 
 twice been to the Rectory. But to meet her in her own 
 home would not serve my purpose ; when others surround 
 her the power I attempt to exercise is weakened and 
 absorbed into a multiplicity of channels. It was neces- 
 sary that I should draw her so that we could speak 
 together, — I alone with her alone; to plead for the last 
 time, not for any lover's grace, but that she would have 
 pity on herself and me. I went to the tree under which 
 we used to meet, and where now the leaves of another 
 autumn are lying brown and sere on the sodden turf. 
 There, where once I had awaited her in a paradise of love 
 and hope, I willed her to come to me. I have power yet 
 over the physical, though her fancy has turned from me, 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 141 
 
 and I knew she would be drawn. I must wait till the 
 influence found her alone, but the instant she was alone 
 it would be sure. 
 
 "I waited there for nearly two hours, and then the 
 throbbing of my heart told me I had succeeded. She 
 was on her way; I felt her footsteps with some rarer 
 sense than hearing. I knew the exact instant when her 
 dark-robed figure would emerge from under the trees, 
 approaching quickly, upright as a young Diana, her 
 sketch-b(3bk in her hand just as she used to carry it. 
 With the old summons I had recalled also that association 
 of the past. I could see, as she drew near, that she 
 walked like one in a dream. I went to meet her, but I 
 was barely near enough to speak when another figure 
 broke from the wood ; the officious little companion who 
 is full of perverse individuality for all her meek ways, and 
 who has foiled me oftener than this once. ' Barbara,' 
 she said, in the midst of quick pants for breath, for she 
 had been running, ' Barbara, Aunt Eleanor wants you at 
 once; you must come back. Have you forgotten that 
 Madame Aldegonde is sending to-day about the fitting- 
 on, and there is barely time as it is between the 
 trains ? ' 
 
 " If she had spoken only, Barbara would not have 
 heeded her, but she slipped her hand within the arm of 
 the other, and I could see "the start of awakening, — the 
 wave of altered expression, the anger which flashed into 
 her face, though she did not betray herself. The anger 
 was not for Janie Moorhouse ; she clasped the hand that 
 was on her arm and clung to it. By now I was at her 
 side, and the usual courtesies were bound to pass between 
 us ; but I saw wrath in her darkened eye and curled lip ; 
 she knew what I had done. ' I will come home,' she 
 said ; ' I had forgotten. No, I don't know what I 
 meant to sketch; it was just an impulse; I had no real 
 wish.' 
 
 " ' I wanted to speak to you,' I said, turning to walk 
 beside them. ' I am loth to lose the opportunity of this 
 
142 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 chance meeting.' I emphasised the last words, and met 
 the indignation of her look unmoved. ' Do you remember,' 
 I went on, ' something I once told you almost in this very 
 spot ? I want to know you recollect it. Give me that 
 assurance.' 
 
 " There was no room for pleading ; no pleading would 
 move her now, and her spirit seemed too high even for 
 fear. Not even the evidence just given of my power 
 over her could make her afraid. 'You told me many 
 strange things,' she said haughtily. ' I neither regarded 
 them at the time, nor can I remember them now.' 
 
 " ' I think you must be able to recall this, for it related 
 to yourself, and to a contingency that has now arisen 
 which renders it needful for me to remind you. If you 
 are really in ignorance I will repeat it. Miss Moorhouse 
 will oblige me by passing onj I shall detain you only 
 a moment.' 
 
 " I doubt if the companion would have obeyed the dis- 
 missal,_ but as it was Barbara made it impossible ; I saw 
 her grip tighten on the girl's hand. ' The repetition is 
 unnecessary,' she said. ' It could make no difference, and 
 I will not hear.' 
 
 " ' That is your last word ? ' 
 
 " She made a gesture of assent ; there was no softening 
 about her, no pity for me or misgiving for herself. All I 
 could do was to attempt to warn her of her fate. We 
 were walking down through the wood-path which was 
 too narrow for three, and I was close at her side ; so close 
 that her dress touched me, but still she clung to Janie, 
 and my power was baffled. The gate had come in view. 
 ' I will send you a reminder,' I said very low, breathing 
 the words into her reluctant ear. ' You may take it as a 
 wedding-gift.' 
 
 "She did not answer. I do not think Janie heard, 
 though I had seen her look curiously and apprehensively 
 from one to the other of us ; I suppose the few words we 
 had exchanged aloud had sounded strange. I held the 
 gate open for both the girls, and they passed through. 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 143 
 
 " I had felled ; and I knew to my cost how surely the 
 closing of that gate behind them shut out hope. That 
 was some hours ago. I have been sitting here over the 
 fire. I have warmed myself with food and, contrary 
 to my habit, with wine; I have filled this page with 
 writing; and now a new feeling is astir. The impossible 
 is fast merging into the possible; is the transmutation due 
 to the glow of anger in her eyes, the haughty defiance of 
 her air ? So long as she lives this pain will consume me, 
 this anguish of a baffled passion. When I have fulfilled 
 the dire necessity which lies before me, will not a chill 
 hand be laid upon my fever and leave me healed and 
 strong, able once again to strive as I have striven hereto- 
 fore for the good of my fellow-men ? Will not the goal 
 of ambition shine before me with its former lustre when 
 once her distracting influence is withdrawn ? 
 
 " Yes, she must die. I will ' kill her and my agony 
 together. Life shall be as it was before I found her, and 
 for the dim future I will hold only the dim hope. 
 
 Tfr "(p TP ^ 9|r 
 
 "November nth. I stand aghast at the change in 
 myself. I revolted in desperation before from the pressure 
 of inevitable fete. Now I not only feel that I am forced 
 to kill her, but that I am willing. Her death alone can 
 release me from this torture, and I am driven, in despite 
 of myself, to long for it. 
 
 ***** 
 
 " NovemLer 12th. I am supposed to be studying. I 
 sit for hours with a book open on my knees, and Nursoo 
 creeps in on tip-toe with his tray ; but I have not read a 
 line. The study before me is a rehearsal of my task; 
 how I am to do it, where I am to do it, when I am to 
 do it, are the real problems for solution. She must not 
 suffer, not a pang that I can spare her, not even terror; 
 that I could not bear. And it is just that I wait till the 
 very last to strike the blow, so that there may be room 
 for repentance should her heart fail her, or should it 
 return to me. Yet another consideration ; if I am to be 
 
144 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 free henceforth to compass that which I projected in the 
 future, I must lay myself open to no clumsy suspicions. 
 For myself I care little; but for the sake of my work 
 there must be no blunder which would set me in the 
 dock. 
 
 ***** 
 " November 1 8iA. It flashed upon me to-day like a 
 revelation. Have I been stone blind that I did not see 
 the direction of it earlier ? I know now how she must 
 needs die, by a death which instead of destroying her 
 beauty will preserve it for ever in my sight. No coffin- 
 lid shall hide her from me; the fece I have loved will 
 henceforth be mine to look on when I will. Strange that 
 the crisis of my life should be two-fold ; strange that 
 through this anguish I should attain my triumph ! 
 
 " Novemler ^oth. I have schooled myself to go again 
 to the Rectory ; it is needful I should appear on friendly 
 terms with all the inmates. Also it is needful I should 
 thoroughly acquaint myself with all that is passing under 
 that roof, for such knowledge may be of service when the 
 end comes. Of my own unaided observation this would 
 be impossible, but by the help of a simple instrument I 
 can maintain an espionage far completer than through 
 the eye of a confederate. I have by nature a measure of 
 crystal seership, though its use has for long been in abey- 
 ance; and whenever it suits me I can set up the mystic 
 oval, and call into it whom I will. It is not the first time I 
 have used it for vision at a distance, but for me the stone 
 is a Sadducee ; it shows me neither angel nor spirit. But 
 neither angel nor spirit would serve my present purpose; 
 enough that it will show me Barbara and those who sur- 
 round her, and the scenes among which she moves. And 
 it is useful not only as a reflector of events, but as a study 
 of character. Each actor brings with him an indicative 
 sphere of his own ; I know most of them as well and as 
 much as if I were one with their hearts and counted 
 every pulse. I know that worldly old woman Eleanor 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 145 
 
 AUeyne ; the motives that sway her, the whole budget of 
 her fondnesses and prejudices. I know all her pride in 
 her child and the ambitions she entertains for her. I 
 know the severity with which my blow will fall. I have 
 taken the measure of this boy-lover, and of Barbara's 
 liking for him; it is liking only, — lonne camaraderie, no 
 love, no passion, not even the girlish romance which I 
 was able to awake. But though not by her he is beloved 
 by another; by my little marplot, my puny adversary, 
 whom I have but to put out my hand to crush, as I 
 shall crush her. It shall not be for her advantage that 
 Barbara is swept from her path. 
 
 " The stone has shown me one thing which brought 
 back a pale after-glow of the hope which set in darkness : 
 Barbara is afraid; afraid of the power I can exercise; 
 though, full of young life as she is, death seems an im- 
 possible chance, death at my hand a hypothesis yet more 
 remote. She will never be alone if she can help it ; she 
 will not cross the threshold unless the others are with 
 her. She shares Janie's bed ; the crystal mirrors two faces 
 on its pillows; the one girl sleeping tranquilly secure in 
 companionship, while the other wakes and weeps. After 
 all, will she heed the warning ? Will she draw back 
 while yet there is time ? Alas, no ! Because I do not 
 strike she begins to think I cannot; that the defences of 
 her home are strong against me, that her lover's arms will 
 be an abiding shelter. That flitting ghost of a hope will 
 vanish like its fairer kindred; the blow must fall. 
 ***** 
 
 '■'■Decemler ^ih. I have sent my wedding-gift, an un- 
 " sheathed dagger. She cannot be so ignorant of the lan- 
 guage of symbol as to misunderstand. I saw her pale in 
 the crystal as she held it in her hand, and then the cloud 
 covered her, and the stone would show no more. 
 ***** 
 
 " December C)tk. I am arranging for an absence shortly 
 before the wedding. I shall depart from the local station 
 with all publicity, leaving my horse at the inn as I have 
 
146 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 done before; and it will be easy to return to Coldhope 
 under cover of night, and re-enter my private rooms with- 
 out the knowledge of the household. They are never 
 entered in my absence except by Nursoo; it may be 
 needful to admit him to a measure of confidence, but I 
 run a minimum of risk in so doing, as he is in my power 
 and dares not be other than faithful. All is in readiness. 
 Am I wrong in feeling so sure of myself as I do, and of 
 the steady nerve which alone can insure success ? I think 
 not ; I see no room for feilure in the measures I shall use, 
 provided only I can trust that nerve at the crisis. But 
 suppose failure; suppose the day comes and finds me 
 baffled ; what then ? Why, direct violent means which 
 are always available if the finer strategy breaks down. 
 Whether or not I am an invited guest, I can await the 
 bride at the church-door; their 'friend' would surely 
 have a right to see the show, when all the village will be 
 there to gape on her satins and her beauty. Then a sure 
 shot for her and another for myself from the revolver I 
 have handy, and all would be over for us both. Vulgar 
 and theatrical possibly, — a paragraph of horrors for the 
 paper; but perhaps a better ending than the other, and 
 an easier one for me. 
 
 * * ii Hi # 
 
 " December i Jih. I am fiill of power and confidence. 
 I have never felt this so strong within me as now, when 
 it is the agent of destruction. I set out on my supposed 
 journey to-day and return after midnight. 
 
 "December i8th. The day has come and the hour. , 
 I am barred ofF from the rest of the house, and the lights 
 here and in the laboratory (where that ghastly table is 
 ready set) are closely screened from without by oak shut- 
 ters and drawn curtains. The wing looks as dark to 
 outside view as if I were really away as is supposed. But 
 the side door on to the park is on the latch ; the crystal 
 is before me and the effort has begun. 
 
 "I desire to note here all the stages through which 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 147 
 
 that effort must pass, that I may possess a written record 
 for reference hereafter. I am sitting under the lamp, in 
 sight of the door by which I have willed that she shall 
 enter. In the middle of the room on a table is the glass 
 from which she will drink, and beside it the cushioned 
 chair in which she will sink for her last sleep. Not a 
 finger of mine will touch her till the end is sure. 
 
 " Eight o'clock, and I turn to the crystal. She is sit- 
 ting at dinner. The lover is there, and Janie Moorhouse 
 full of her trouble, the parents, and a stranger guest who 
 does not concern me ; I see her only as a shadow, for my 
 attention is riveted elsewhere. The spell begins to work 
 upon Barbara. She is surrounded by a dreamy influence, 
 nothing more as yet; she begins to yield to it insensibly. 
 I wait for the moment When she will be alone. I want 
 to draw her out through the study entrance; that side of 
 the house is dark and unwatched. The danger is that 
 she may be immediately missed and followed. 
 
 " Nine o'clock. She is in the study ; the drawing 
 thither has been stronger than I supposed, for it is operat- 
 ing earlier. She has some keys in her hand and is un- 
 locking a bureau. That was not in my programme. I 
 have arrested her attention; she feels at last the impulse 
 of the direct summons, the call from without. I see her 
 unbarring the window, — now the door, — now, — oh, my 
 heart, my heart ! — she has stepped out into the night. 
 The night is dark, but in my knowledge of the path she 
 walks secure as if in full day. She has passed into the 
 wood. Every fibre of my being feels her approach and 
 yearns towards her — commanding, drawing her. Success 
 is certain: the stone shows an undisturbed house; the 
 circle in the drawing-room still ignorant, — that little fool 
 breaking her heart in her attic, — the servants gathered at 
 supper ; there is no alarm as yet. She is near. The park 
 is in solitude; no eye has marked her coming. Her step 
 is at the door. 
 
 ^'■Nine thirty-five. She enters, slowly, like one un- 
 willing; but with mechanical precision secures the heavy 
 
148 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 bolts behind her, and comes forward through the dimness 
 of the ante-room into the light. Will the shock of 
 strange surroundings break her trance ? Must there 
 after all be violence to ruffle the plumage of my trapped 
 bird ? The cold and fog of which she has been uncon- 
 scious have laid a frosting finger on her hair; her brow 
 knits with a puzzled expression for a moment, and then 
 the dreamy peace returns. She moves forward to the 
 table,— she pauses there, — and then her hand steals out 
 for the glass. If her eyes meet mine in this supreme 
 moment I am undone. At any risk, — at any cost, — I 
 shall dash it from her lips. Will she drink or not ? She 
 waits, she holds it poised. I have no will now; I am 
 powerless; it is all horror. Heavens eternal, it is at her 
 lips, she drinks ! It is a deep draught ; the glass falls 
 from her relaxing fingers and crashes empty on the floor. 
 She has left no drop for me ! The numbing effect seems 
 immediate; she glances at the chair I have set, — moves 
 feebly towards it, — sinks inert upon the cushions. Her 
 eyes are closed, — it is irrevocable, — what have I done ? 
 ***** 
 
 " I let the pen fall here. I thought my eyes were 
 sealed from tears, but I have been weeping over her- — my 
 love, my darling ! I would not touch her in her death- 
 trance except with reverence, and her lips are sacred; but 
 I have kissed her hands and the border of her dress. 
 
 " There is much yet to be done before her heart ceases 
 to beat, and my nerve must not fail. No corruption 
 must pass upon her : I can spare her at least that dis- 
 honour; and there will be no suffering, barely the 
 appearance of it. I must put this aside and carry her up 
 to the laboratory. 
 
 ***** 
 
 " Five hours later. All is over, and she lay and smiled 
 as if she were dreaming till her breath fluttered fainter 
 and fainter, her heart beat slower and slower. I look at 
 my own face grey in the glass, and I say to myself with 
 vague reiteration, the words beating upon a frozen brain, 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 149 
 
 ' She is dead, — she is dead, — she is dead ! ' But I cannot 
 believe it yet. I have hidden my treasure vi^here discovery 
 is next to impossible. I have yet to efface every vestige 
 of the operation, for I must be aw^ay before the dawn, 
 and " 
 
 *^ ^ ^ ^ 
 
 ™ Tfs ^ Tf^ 
 
 Here the manuscript ended abruptly with the foot of 
 the last page, and this was all we ever knew of the tragedy 
 at Coldhope, 
 
 For nine days Barbara lay in her open coffin unchanged 
 as some piece of exquisite sculpture : and so she lies now, 
 I doubt not, below the turf of Ditchborough church- 
 yard, where the shadow of her white cross falls aslant with 
 every western sun. Dick Sudeleigh came for a last look, 
 and was among the train of mourners at the sad funeral 
 which followed, utterly unnerved for all his young man- 
 hood. I thought of the last conversation we had had at 
 the Rectory and his avowal about Janie ; and I confess I 
 was curious to know if he had seen her in London and 
 how matters stood between them. It may not be out of 
 place if, before turning the final page of this true history, 
 I narrate how my curiosity was satisfied. 
 
 Janie was not with us through that sad time. She 
 wrote begging us to expect her for the funeral, but before 
 the day fixed a letter came from the Sister Superior to say 
 she had fallen ill, — it was thought from the shock, — and 
 the doctor forbade her to travel. It was addressed to me, 
 and enclosed a pencil-scrawl written from her bed, full of 
 grief and anxious questions about Gregory and Eleanor. 
 There was no mention in it of Dick or inquiry if he were 
 with us ; and the thought flashed into my mind as I read 
 that perhaps she knew. 
 
 It was the evening of the funeral; the blinds were 
 drawn up at the Rectory for the first time for many days, 
 and an exhausted hush had fallen on the house, a hush of 
 relief from the long strain of painful excitement. Gregory 
 was sitting by his wife's couch, — she had fallen asleep 
 
ISO A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 with her hand in his; and I took the opportunity to steal 
 out to the churchyard with a white wreath to add to the 
 mass of flowers covering the fresh-heaped earth of the 
 grave: it was one from a distance, which had come too 
 late to lay on the cofEn. 
 
 Dick was loitering under the trees in disconsolate 
 fashion with a cigar ; when he saw my errand he followed 
 me, and we both stood looking down in silence on the 
 spot where Barbara lay. The heavy scent of tuberose 
 and lily breathed about it in the still air, the June sky 
 canopied above it in absolute peace. At last, at last she 
 had come home, and we could think of her as soothed 
 into that blessedness of rest which is the guerdon of the 
 happy dead. There would be no wandering footsteps at 
 the Rectory any more, I thought, as I laid the fair white 
 coronal over those coffined feet which were set towards 
 the dawn. 
 
 Dick said huskily as we turned away — " You have not 
 forgotten, Miss Varney, what I told you when I was last 
 here ? " 
 
 " About Janie? No." 
 
 "It would be her wish, — I am sure of it, — that I 
 should take care of Janie, and make up to her, if she will 
 let me, for all she has suffered. This has been a terrible 
 blow for all concerned, but it has come harder on her, in 
 a way, than on the rest of us." 
 
 " Poor Janie ! " I said. " I am sorry she was not with 
 us to-day." 
 
 " Perhaps it is as well. I could hardly have seen her 
 without speaking, and I know she will not hear me yet. 
 You know I went to her in London ; did she tell you .■' " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " I begged her to take me. I was almost beside myself, 
 but she was as firm as a little flint. I could not move 
 her. Then I asked for a reason : I suppose I was cox- 
 comb enough to think there must be one other than 
 indifference ; and then it all came out. She would not 
 be my wife, or any man's, while there was a breath of 
 
A BRIDE ELECT 151 
 
 suspicion against herj she must be cleared first, as she is 
 cleared now." 
 
 " Yes," I said, " she is cleared now." 
 
 "I asked what could it matter about anything so 
 irrational J why should the senseless chatter of a pack of 
 village fools come between her and me ? And then she 
 told me. She was suspected because she loved me, 
 because she was known to have been jealous of Barbara. 
 ' And therefore I never will,' she said to me, ' as long as 
 there is a shadow of mystery remaining. I could not 
 bear it, either for myself or you.' There was no turning 
 her from that point." 
 
 " I think she was right. I am glad of it." 
 
 " I told her if I left her then, it would be only to hunt 
 up the true facts of the case, and then I should come back 
 for my reward. I little thought how strangely the dis- 
 covery would come about, and through no act of mine." 
 
 We were in the garden again, pacing the walk as we 
 did the former time. " Did she promise you condition- 
 ally ? " I asked. 
 
 " No. She told me to go away and forget her ; that it 
 was all impossible. She had chosen her work, she said, 
 and I must remember mine, and marry to please my 
 mother, — and stuff of that sort. But now I am going 
 back." 
 
 « At once ? " 
 
 " Perhaps not straight from here. I would show every 
 respect to that new-made grave, though it was dug in 
 reality months ago, as you know. I shall write to her, 
 and then as soon as she will consent to receive me I shall 
 go. She will take me, I think, and forgive me that I 
 loved another first, and that I cannot wholly forget 
 Barbara, — even for her." 
 
 She did take him. The sorrow of which I have tried to 
 write lies deep in the hearts of the AUeynes, never to be 
 forgotten. It might be thought that the solemnity of 
 such a woe would hold one's soul indifferent to the smaller 
 
152 A BRIDE ELECT 
 
 pricks of fate ; but I am not sure whether sometimes the 
 lesser pang is not uppermost in Eleanor's bosom, when 
 chance brings a reminder that after all it is Janie who is 
 installed as mistress at Leigh Hall, and who is the happy 
 mother of young Sir Richard Sudeleigh's heir. 
 
 THE END 
 
 Richard Clay dr* Sons^ Limited, London &* Bungay. 
 
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