The Shadow of Ashlydyat. Henry Wood

he told you so much?” ironically asked Charlotte.

      “Nonsense! There was one in possession of the field before you, Charlotte—if my observation goes for anything. She will win the race; you will not even be in at the distance chair. I speak of Maria Hastings.”

      “You speak of what you know nothing,” carelessly answered Charlotte Pain, a self-satisfied smile upon her lips.

      “Very well. When it is all over, and you find your time has been wasted, do not say I never warned you. George Godolphin may be a prize worth entering the lists for; I do not say he is not: but there is no chance of your winning him.”

      Charlotte Pain tossed the dog upwards and caught him as he descended, a strange look of triumph on her brow.

      “And—Charlotte,” went on Mrs. Verrall in a lower tone, “there is a proverb, you know, about two stools. We may fall to the ground if we try to sit upon both at once. How would Dolf like this expedition to Scotland, handsome George making one in it?”

      Charlotte’s eyes flashed now. “I care no more for Dolf than I care for—not half so much as I care for this poor little brute. Don’t bring up Dolf to me, Kate!”

      “As you please. I would not mix myself up with your private affairs for the world. Only a looker-on sometimes sees more than those engaged in the play.”

      Crossing the apartment, Mrs. Verrall traversed the passage that led from it, and opened the door of another room. There sat her husband at the dessert-table, taking his wine alone, and smoking a cigar. He was a slight man, twice the age of his wife, his hair and whiskers yellow, and his eyes set deep in his head: rather a good-looking man on the whole, but a very silent one. “I want to go to London with you,” said Mrs. Verrall.

      “You can’t,” he answered.

      She advanced to the table, and sat down near him. “There’s Charlotte going one way, and you another–”

      “Don’t stop Charlotte,” he interrupted, with a meaning nod.

      “And I must be left alone in the house; to the ghosts and dreams and shadows they are inventing about that Dark Plain. I will go with you, Verrall.”

      “I should not take you with me to save the ghosts running off with you,” was Mr. Verrall’s answer, as he pressed the ashes from his cigar on a pretty shell, set in gold. “I go up incog. this time.”

      “Then I’ll fill the house with guests,” she petulantly said.

      “Fill it, and welcome, if you like, Kate,” he replied. “But, to go to London, you must wait for another opportunity.”

      “What a hateful thing business is! I wish it had never been invented!”

      “A great many more wish the same. And have more cause to wish it than you,” he drily answered. “Is tea ready?”

      Mrs. Verrall returned to the room she had left, to order it in. Charlotte Pain was then standing outside the large window, leaning against its frame, the King Charles lying quietly in her arms, and her own ears on the alert, for she thought she heard advancing footsteps; and they seemed to be stealthy ones. The thought—or, perhaps, the wish—that it might be George Godolphin, stealing up to surprise her, flashed into her mind. She bent her head, and stroked the dog, in the prettiest unconsciousness of the approaching footsteps.

      A hand was laid upon her shoulder. “Charlotte!”

      She cried out—a sharp, genuine cry of dismay—dropped the King Charles, and bounded into the room. The intruder followed her.

      “Why, Dolf!” uttered Mrs. Verrall in much astonishment. “Is it you?”

      “It is not my ghost,” replied the gentleman, holding out his hand. He was a little man, with fair hair, this Mr. Rodolf Pain, cousin to the two ladies. “Did I alarm you, Charlotte?”

      “Alarm me!” she angrily rejoined. “You must have sprung from the earth.”

      “I have sprung from the railway station. Where is Verrall?”

      “Why have you come down so unexpectedly?” exclaimed Mrs. Verrall.

      “To see Verrall. I return to-morrow.”

      “Verrall goes up to-morrow night.”

      “I know he does. And that is why I have come down.”

      “You might have waited to see him in London,” said Charlotte, her equanimity not yet restored.

      “It was necessary for me to see him before he reached London. Where shall I find him, Mrs. Verrall?”

      “In the dining-room,” Mrs. Verrall replied. “What can you want with him so hurriedly?”

      “Business,” laconically replied Rodolf Pain, as he left the room in search of Mr. Verrall.

      It was not the only interruption. Ere two minutes had elapsed, Lady Godolphin was shown in, causing Mrs. Verrall and her sister almost as much surprise as did the last intruder. She had walked over from the Folly, attended by a footman, and some agitation peeped out through her usual courtly suavity of manner, as she asked whether Charlotte Pain could be ready to start for Scotland on the morrow, instead of on Monday.

      “To-morrow will be Sunday!” returned Charlotte.

      “I do not countenance Sunday travelling, if other days can be made use of,” continued Lady Godolphin. “But there are cases where it is not only necessary, but justifiable; when we are glad to feel the value of those Divine words, ‘The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.’ Fever has broken out again, and I shall make use of to-morrow to escape from it. We start in the morning.”

      “I shall be ready and willing to go,” replied Charlotte.

      “It has appeared at Lady Sarah Grame’s,” added Lady Godolphin, “one of the most unlikely homes it might have been expected to visit. After this, none of us can feel safe. Were that fever to attack Sir George, his life, in his present reduced state, would not be worth an hour’s purchase.”

      The dread of fever had been strong upon Lady Godolphin from the first; but never had it been so keen as now. Some are given to this dread in an unwonted degree: whilst an epidemic lasts (of whatever nature it may be) they live in a constant state of fear and pain. It is death they fear: being sent violently to the unknown life to come. I know of only one remedy for this: to be at peace with God: death or life are alike then. Lady Godolphin had not found it.

      “Will Mr. Hastings permit his daughter to travel on a Sunday?” exclaimed Mrs. Verrall, the idea suddenly occurring to her, as Lady Godolphin was leaving.

      “That is my business,” was my lady’s frigid answer. It has been said that she brooked not interference in the slightest degree.

      It certainly could not be called the business of Mr. Hastings. For the travellers were far away from Prior’s Ash the next morning before he had received an inkling of the departure.

      CHAPTER VII.

      BROOMHEAD

      The contrast between them was great. You could see it most remarkably as they sat together. Both were beautiful, but of a different type of beauty. There are some people—and they bear a very large proportion to the whole– to whom the human countenance is as a sealed book. There are others for whom that book stands open to its every page. The capacity for reading character—what is it? where does it lie? Phrenologists call it, not inaptly, comparison.

      There stands a man before you, a stranger; seen now for the first time. As you glance at him you involuntarily shrink within yourself, and trench imaginary walls around you, and say: That man is a bad man. Your eyes fall upon another—equally a stranger until that moment—and your honest heart flows out to him. You could extend to him the hand of confidence there and then, for that man’s countenance is an index to his nature, and you know that you may trust him to the death. In what part of the face does this index seat itself? In the eyes? the mouth? the features separately? or in the whole?

      Certainly