"Not I."

"Thou darest not. Thou knowest it would make thee turn round and vote with the Reformers."

"Roast the Reformers! I wish I could! I would not have believed thou couldst have said such a thing, Maude. How darest thou even think of thy husband as a turncoat? Why, in politics, it is the unpardonable sin."

"It is nothing of the kind. Not it! It is far worse to stick to a sin, than to turn from it. If I was the biggest of living Tories, and I found out I was wrong, I would stand up before all England and turn my coat in the sight of everybody. I would that. When I read thy name against Mr.

Brougham bringing up Reform, I'll swear I could have cried for it!"

"I wouldn't wonder. All the fools are not dead yet. But I hear Kitty and her lover coming. I wonder what they are talking and laughing about?"

"Thou hadst better not ask them. I'll warrant, Piers is telling her the same sort of nonsense, thou usedst to tell me; and they will both of them, believe it, no doubt."

At these words Piers and Kate entered the room together. They were going for a gallop in the Park; and they looked so handsome, and so happy, that neither the Squire nor Mrs. Atheling could say a word to dash their pleasure. The Squire, indeed, reminded Piers that the House met at two o'clock; and Piers asked blankly, like a man who neither knew, nor cared anything about the House, "Does it?" With the words on his lips, he turned to Kate, and smiling said, "Let us make haste, my dear. The morning is too fine to lose." And hand in hand, they said a hasty, joyful "good-bye" and disappeared. The father and mother watched them down the street until they were out of sight. As they turned away from the window, their eyes met, and Mrs. Atheling smiled.

The Squire looked abashed and disconcerted.

"Why didst not thou put a stop to such nonsense, John?" she asked.

Fortunately at this moment a servant entered to tell the Squire his horse was waiting, and this interruption, and a rather effusive parting, let him handsomely out of an embarra.s.sing answer.

Then Mrs. Atheling wrote a long letter to her son, and looked after the ways of her household, and knit a few rounds on her husband's hunting stocking, and as she did so thought of Kate's future, and got tired of trying to settle it, and so left it, as a scholar leaves a difficult problem, for the Master to solve. And when she had reached this point Kate came into the room. She had removed her habit, and the joyous look which had been so remarkable two hours before was all gone. The girl was dashed and weary, and her mother asked her anxiously, "If she was sick?"

"No," she answered; "but I have been annoyed, and my heart is heavy, and I am tired."

"Who or what annoyed you, child?"

"I will tell you. Piers and I had a glorious ride, and were coming slowly home, when suddenly the Richmoor liveries came in sight. I saw the instant change on Piers's face, and I saw Annabel slightly push the d.u.c.h.ess and say something. And the d.u.c.h.ess drew her brows together as we pa.s.sed each other, and though she bowed, I could see that she was angry and astonished. As for Annabel, she laughed a little, scornful laugh, and threw me a few words which I could not catch. It was a most unpleasant meeting; after it Piers was very silent. I felt as if I had done something wrong, and yet I was indignant at myself for the feeling."

"What did Piers say?"

"He said nothing that pleased me. He fastened his eyes on Annabel,--who was marvellously dressed in rose-coloured velvet and minever,--and she clapped her small hands together and nodded to him in a familiar way, and, bending slightly forward, pa.s.sed on. And after that he did not talk much. All his love-making was over, and I thought he was glad when we reached home. I think Annabel will certainly take my lover from me."

"You mean that she has made up her mind to be d.u.c.h.ess of Richmoor?"

"Yes."

"Well, my dear Kate, a beautiful woman is strong, and money is stronger; but _True Love conquers all_."

CHAPTER SEVENTH

THE LOST RING

"To-morrow some new light may come, and you will see things another way, Kitty." This was Mrs. Atheling's final opinion, and Kitty was inclined to take all the comfort there was in it. She was sitting then in her mother's room, watching her dress for dinner, and admiring, as good daughters will always do, everything she could find to admire about the yet handsome woman.

"You have such beautiful hair, Mother. I wouldn't wear a cap if I was you," she said.

"Your father likes a bit of lace on my head, Kitty. He says it makes me look more motherly."

She was laying the "bit of lace" on her brown hair as she spoke. Then she took from her open jewel case, two gold pins set with turquoise, and fastened the arrangement securely. Kitty watched her with loving smiles, and finally changed the whole fashion of the bit of lace, declaring that by so doing she had made her mother twenty years younger. And somehow in this little toilet ceremony, all Kitty's sorrow pa.s.sed away, and she said, "I wonder where my fears are gone to, Mother; for it does not now seem hard to hope that all is just as it was."

"To be sure, Kitty, I never worry much about fears. Fears are mostly made of nothing; and in the long run they are often a blessing. Without fears, we couldn't have hopes; now could we?"

"Oh, you dear, sweet, good Mother! I wish I was just like you!"

"Time enough, Kitty." Then a look of love flashed from face to face, and struck straight from heart to heart; and there was a little silence that needed no words. Kitty lifted a ring and slipped it on her finger.

It was a hoop of fine, dark blue sapphires, set in fretted gold, and clasped with a tiny padlock, shaped like a heart.

"What a lovely ring!" she cried. "Why do you not wear it, Mother?"

"Because it is a good bit too small now, Kitty."

"Miss Vyner's hands are always covered with rings, and she says every one of them has a romance."

"I've heard, or read, something like that. There was a woman in the story-book, was there not, who kept a tally of her lovers on a string of rings they had given her? I don't think it was anything to her credit.

I shouldn't wonder if that is a bit ill-natured. I ought not to say such a thing, so don't mind it, Kitty."

"Is this sapphire band yours, Mother?"

"To be sure it is."

[Ill.u.s.tration:]

"May I wear it?"

"Well, Kitty, I think a deal of that ring. You must take great care of it."

"So then, Mother, one of your rings has a story too, has it?" And there was a little laugh for answer, and Kitty slipped the coveted trinket on her finger, and held up her hand to admire the gleam of the jewels, as she said, musingly, "I wonder what Piers is doing?"

"I wouldn't 'wonder,' dearie. Little troubles are often worrited into big troubles. If things are let alone, they work themselves right. I'll warrant Piers is unhappy enough."

But Mrs. Atheling's warrant was hardly justified. Piers should have gone to the House; but he went instead to his room, threw himself among the cushions of a divan, and with a motion of his head indicated to his servant that he wanted his Turkish pipe. The strange inertia and indifference that had so suddenly a.s.sailed, still dominated him, and he had no desire to combat it. He was neither sick nor weary; yet he seemed to have lost all control over his feelings. Had the man within the man "gone off guard"? Have we not all--yes, we have all of us succ.u.mbed to just such intervals of supreme, inexpressible listlessness and insensibility? We are "not all there," but _where_ has our inner self gone to? And what is it doing? It gives us no account of such lapses.

Piers asked no questions of himself. He was like a man dreaming; for if his Will was not asleep, it was at least quiescent. He made no effort to control his thoughts, which drifted from Annabel to Kate, and from Kate to Annabel, in the vagrant, inconsequent manner which acknowledges neither the guidance of Reason or Will. And as the Levantine vapour lulled his brain, he felt a pleasure in this surrender of his n.o.blest attributes. He thought of Annabel as he had seen her the previous evening, dressed in a shaded satin of blue and green, trimmed with the tips of peac.o.c.k feathers. The same resplendent ornaments were in her strong, wavy, black hair, and round her throat was a necklace of emeralds and amethysts. "What a d.u.c.h.ess of Richmoor she would make!"

he thought. "How stately and proud! How well she would wear the coronet and the gold strawberry leaves, and the crimson robe and ermine of her state dress! Yes, Annabel would be a proper d.u.c.h.ess; but--but--" and then he was sitting with Kate among the tall brackens, where the Yorkshire hills threw miles of shadow. She was in her riding dress; but her little velvet cap was in her hand, and the fresh wind was blowing her brown hair into bewitching tendrils about her lovely face. How well he knew the sweet seriousness of her downcast eyes, the rich bloom of her cheeks and lips, the tender smile with which she always answered his "_Kate! Sweet Kate!_"

Even through all his listlessness, this vision moved him, and he heard his heart say, "Oh, Kate, wife of my soul! Oh, Beloved! Love of my life, who can part us? Thou and I, Kate! Thou and I--"

"And the Other One."

From _whom_ or from _where_ came the words? Piers heard them with his spiritual sense plainly, and their suggestion annoyed him. Now if we stir under a nightmare, it is gone; and this faint rebellion broke the chain of that mental inertia which had held him at least three hours under its spell. He moved irritably, and in so-doing threw down the lid of the tobacco jar, and then rose to his feet. In a moment, he was "all there."

"I ought to be in the House," he muttered, and he touched the bell for his valet, and dressed with less deliberation than was his wont.

And during the toilet he was aware of a certain mental anger that longed to expend itself: "If Mr. Brougham is as insufferably dictatorial as he was last night, if Mr. O'Connell only plays the buffoon again, we shall meet in a narrow path--and one of us will fare ill," he muttered.

The hour generally comes when we are ready for it; and Piers found both gentlemen in the tempers he detested. He gladly accepted his own challenge, and the Squire was so interested in the wordy fight that he did not return home to dinner. Mrs. Atheling neither worried nor waited.

She knew that the Squire's vote might be wanted at any inconvenient hour; and, besides, the night had set stormily in, and she said cheerfully to Kate, "It wouldn't do for father to get a wetting and then be hours in damp clothes. He is far better sitting to-day's business out while he is there."