Court Netherleigh. Mrs. Henry Wood

don't mind if I do," was the answer—for in good truth Robert Dalrymple was too wretched not to seize on anything that might serve to divert him from his own thoughts. But Mr. Grubb paused in sudden remembrance.

      "Mary is here today. Have you any objection to meet her?"

      "Objection! I shall like it," answered Robert, with a flush of emotion, for Mary Lynn was still inexpressibly dear to him. "I wish with my whole heart that she was my wife—that we had never parted! It was all my foolish doing."

      "I thought at the time you were rather chivalrous: I must say that," observed Mr. Grubb, regarding him attentively. "I suppose, in point of fact, you are both waiting for one another now."

      "Why do you say that?" asked the young man, in evident agitation.

      "Step in here, Robert," said Mr. Grubb, drawing him through the hall to his own room, the library. "Mary persistently refuses to accept good offers: she has had two during the past year; therefore, I conclude that she and you have some private understanding upon the point. I told her so one day, and all the answer I received consisted of a laugh and a blush."

      It could have been nothing to the blush that rose to Robert's face now; brow, ears, neck, all were dyed blood-red. The terrible consciousness of how untrue this was, how untrue it was obliged to be, was smiting him with reproachful sting. Mr. Grubb mistook the signs.

      "I think," he said, "that former parting was a mistake. It was perfectly right and just that Mrs. Dalrymple should have been well provided for, but——"

      "You think I should have taken Moat Grange myself, and procured another home for my mother," interrupted Robert. "Most people do think so. But, if you knew how I hated the sight of the Grange!—never a single room of it but my poor dead father's face seemed to rise up to confront me."

      "It might have been best that you should remain in your own home; we will not discuss it now. What I want to say is this—that if you and Mary have been really living upon hope, I don't see why you need live upon it any longer. A portion of your own revenues you may surely claim, a few hundreds yearly; and Mary shall bring as much grist to the mill on her side."

      "You are very kind, very thoughtful," murmured Robert.

      "But there must be a proviso to that," continued Mr. Grubb. "Reports have reached me that Robert Dalrymple is going headlong to the bad—pardon me if I speak out the whispers freely—that he is becoming reckless, a gamester, I know not what all. I do not believe this, Robert; I do not wish to believe it. I have seen nothing to confirm it, myself; you are in one set of London men, I am in another. In a young man situated as you are, alone, without home-ties, some latitude of conduct may be pardoned if he be a good man and true, he will soon pull himself straight again. If you can assure me on your honour it is nothing more than this, well and good. If it be more—if the worst of the whispers but indicate the truth, you cannot of course think of Mary. Robert, I say I leave this to your honour."

      "I should like to pull myself up beyond any earthly thing," spoke the young man, in a flash of what looked far more like despair than hope. "If I could do it—and if Mary were my wife—I—I should have no fear. Let us talk of this another day. Let me see her!"

      Mary was just then alone in what they called the grey drawing-room. A lovely room; as indeed all the rooms were in Mr. Grubb's house, made so by him in his love for his wife. He went in search of his wife, giving Robert the opportunity of seeing Mary alone.

      Let no woman go to the altar cherishing dislike or contempt of him who is to be her husband. Marriages of indifference are made in plenty, and in time they may become unions of affection. But the other!—it is the most fatal mistake that can be made. Lady Adela treated her husband with scorn, did so systematically; she did not attempt to conceal her dislike; she threw his love back upon him. On the very day of their marriage, when she, in what appeared to be a fit of petulance, drew down all the blinds of the chariot as they drove away from Lord Acorn's door, and he, taking advantage of the privacy, laid his hand on hers, and bent to whisper a word of love, perhaps to take a kiss from her cheek, she effectually repressed him. "Pray do not attempt these—endearments," she said in a scornful tone, "they are not agreeable." Francis Grubb drew back to his corner of the carriage, and a bitter blight fell upon his spirit.

      For some months past now, Lady Adela had been pale and thin, sick and ill. She resented the indisposition strongly, for it prevented her joining in the gaiety she loved, and went about wishing fretfully that her baby was born.

      "Oh, Robert! Robert!"

      Mary Lynn had started up with a cry, so surprised was she to see him enter. She stood blushing even to tears. And Robert? Conscious how unworthy he was of her, how impossible it was that he should dare to claim her, while the love within him was beating on his heart with lively pain, he sat down with a groan and covered his face with his hands. She thought he was ill. She went to him and knelt down, and looked up at him in appealing fear.

      "Robert, what is it—what is amiss?"

      And for answer, Robert Dalrymple, utterly overcome by the vivid sense of the remorseful past, of despair for the future, let his face fall upon her shoulder, and burst into a fit of heart-rending sobs so terrible for a man to yield himself to.

       VII.

      DESPERATION.

      Alone in the oak-parlour at Moat Grange, playing soft bits of melody in the summer twilight, sat Selina Dalrymple, her very pretty face slightly flushed, her bright hair pushed from her face. Ordinarily of a calm and equable temperament, Selina was yet rather given to work herself up to restlessness on occasion. She was expecting Oscar Dalrymple; and though the excitement did not arise for himself, it did for the news he might bring.

      "There he is!" she cried, as a step was heard on the gravel. "He has walked up from the station."

      Oscar Dalrymple came in, very quiet as usual, not a speck of dust or other sign of travel upon him, looking spick and span, as though he had but come out of the next room. Oscar Dalrymple's place, a small patrimony called Knutford, lay some three or four miles off; he would probably walk on there by-and-by, if he did not sleep at the Grange.

      "I thought you would come!" exclaimed Selina, gladly springing towards him.

      "I told Mrs. Dalrymple I should return before Saturday," was his answer, as he took her hand, and kept it in his. "Where is she?"

      "Gone with Alice to dine at Court Netherleigh," replied Selina. "I sent an excuse: I was impatient to see you."

      "Thank you, Selina!" he whispered in low, warm tones. "That is a great admission from you."

      "Not to see you; but for what you might have to tell," she hastened to say. "Oscar, how vain you are!"

      She sat down in the bow-window, in what remaining light there was, and he took a chair opposite to her. Then she asked him his news.

      "Do you know exactly why I went up?" he inquired with some hesitation, in doubt how far he ought to speak.

      "I know all," she answered pointedly. "I saw Reuben's letter to mamma; and her fears are my fears. We keep it from poor Alice."

      In a hushed voice, befitting the subject and the twilight hour, Oscar related to her what he had gathered in London. The very worst impression lay on his own mind: namely, that Robert was going rapidly to the dogs, money and honour and peace, and all; nay; had already gone; but he did not make the worst of it to Selina. He said that Robert seemed to be on a downward course, and would not listen to any sort of reason.

      Selina sat in dismay; her soft dark eyes fixed on the evening sky, her hands clasped on the dress of blue silk she wore. The evening star shone in the heavens.

      "What will be the end of it, Oscar?"

      Oscar did not immediately answer. The end of it, as he fully believed, would be ruin. Utter ruin for Robert; and that would involve ruin for his mother and sisters.