out glasses thereof, and set them before the others. Nobody tasted any, but this did not discourage Hawkesley, who continued to talk and to bring out wine as if he were actuated by some concealed machinery of a hospitable character, and had been set going for the good of society. But Mrs. Hawkesley made herself perfectly ridiculous. How many times she kissed Laura’s forehead, in a straightforward way, and how many times she took advantage of her sister’s position to come behind her, and hold her head, or touch her shoulders, or give some similar intimation of satisfaction, I cannot say. This might be forgiven, as also might her standing before Arthur and contemplating him kindly, and then walking right away to her husband, and kissing him in the very middle of a speech about Mr. Gladstone’s financial scheme, or the National Gallery, or something that neither he nor any of his audience just then cared one farthing about. But why she should have disappeared, after a time, without assigning a cause, and then should have made her re-appearance, at intervals, each time bringing down either her own baby, in its night-clothes, or Walter, in the garb of a débardeur, or Clara in some hastily assumed garment, and slippers, but no stockings, or Freddy, in extreme déshabillé (it was hard work to get him away, and he had to be bribed with wine), and then varying the performance by calmly bringing in her own baby again, as if nothing had happened, she has never been able to explain, and Charles Hawkesley teases her to this day upon her perseverance, that night, in rehearsing a sort of private Resurrection of the Nuns by instalments. But nobody seemed surprised, and Laura and Arthur, each holding a hand of any child presented to them, would have held it, I believe, until morning, if Hawkesley had not occasionally taken it away, to make room, as he said, for more novelties which were then getting up.
There had been another watcher that evening, another listener at doors, but one who had watched and listened for another purpose than that of reconciliation.
Irritable, impatient, impenitent Bertha had with difficulty endured the solitude of that day. There had been little thought for her, beyond the kindly orders which Mrs. Hawkesley had given for her comfort, and while the incidents that have been last recorded were passing, she had been left entirely alone. Speedily discovering that there was some unusual excitement in the house, Bertha had hastily dressed, and with half opened door had sought to discover the meaning of what was going on below. By dint of listening and of spying, and from hearing the joyous cries and conversation of the children, she soon found out something of the state of affairs, and learned that Laura had arrived, and was with her husband. Something Bertha contrived to hear of the interview between Beatrice and Lygon, and when she had watched the former leaving the drawing-room, Mrs. Urquhart stole down, and took the place at the door where Laura had stood trembling between a last hope and a last despair. Bertha made out that a reconciliation had been effected, and she ground her teeth in impotent anger. All was to be forgotten and forgiven between Arthur and his wife, but what would be Bertha’s place in the household circle? Would there be any place at all for her whose sin had brought wretchedness to the English home, death to the home in France? Or was she to be mercifully treated, to be placed away in obscurity, to be provided for by charity, and to be preached into the pretence of repentance? Her state of mind and of health forbad her enduring the idea with ordinary patience, and with a flushed cheek and clenched hands she hurried back to her apartment.
“They are all too good for me,” she repeated, as she made some hasty preparations for departure.
Mrs. Hawkesley’s bed-room door stood open. Bertha glided into the room, and took a purse that lay upon the toilette table. Then, she came softly down stairs, stealing from landing to landing, watching lest she should be intercepted. But at that moment a new-found happiness engrossed those who might have stayed her. She reached the hall, again listened, and heard Charles Hawkesley’s voice, and laugh of excitement. In another minute she had departed, to return to that house no more.
CHAPTER XCV.
Not that night, but the next day—not in that house, but away in the stillness of a lovely scene of green and shadow, Arthur Lygon and his wife sat for hours, and spoke of the events that had parted them. They had scarcely said, but had strongly felt that such a confidence should precede their return home, and they had almost instinctively chosen a retreat in which, in the earlier days of their wedded life merry hours had been passed, as also happier hours of quiet, of almost silent love. It was in a deep shade, and under the aged beeches where, as was long ago told, Beatrice Hawkesley had planned a joyous day, fated to be postponed until many sorrows should have been borne by her and by those dearest to her, that Laura and Arthur sat, too intensely happy to care much for the pleasant things around them, yet conscious that all was in accord with the music of their own hearts.
Long was the tale she had to tell him, as he lay at her feet—lay where his look was not directly upon her face, yet where the slightest turn of his head brought his eyes upon hers, and where, with a touch of his hand, he could tell her, needlessly now, that he accepted all her words with the faith of a child.
But that Laura began with the beginning, or ended with the end, or told her story as a stranger would have told it to strangers, is more than may be said. Nor might a stranger follow it with the eager affection of him who listened, and who found in a half-uttered word, or in a moment's pause, that which brought his hand to the hand of Laura. But this is something of what she had to tell him under the beeches.
When Laura and her sister, Bertha, were pupils at the school at Lipthwaite, Ernest Adair, or as he was then called, Ernest Hardwick, had recently been engaged as one of the masters. He had resided some time in the town, and had been strongly recommended to Mrs. Spagley, Laura knew not by whom; but the fact was that Marion
