"Pardon, d.u.c.h.ess. We have fallen on a disagreeable subject. Let us change it. Are we to drive to Richmond to-day?"

"If Piers will accompany us. Ay! that is his knock." She turned a radiant face to meet her son, but received a sudden chill. Piers was pale and sombre-looking; he said he had not slept, and politely declined the Richmond excursion. Annabel was sure he would. "He will have an explanation at the Athelings instead," she thought; and she waited curiously for some remark which might open the way for her confession--or else close it. But Lord Exham did not allude to his loss, and the d.u.c.h.ess either attached no importance to the subject, or else thought it too important to bring forward. The tone of the room was not brightened by the young lord's advent, and Annabel quickly excused herself from further attendance.

"He will tell his mother when I am not there; and I shall get his opinions, with commentaries from her," she thought, as she hurried to her own rooms. Once there, she dismissed her maid, and sat down to realise herself. She doubled her little hands, and beat her knees softly with them. It was her way of summoning her mental forces, and of collecting vagrant and undecided thought.

"I am just here," she said to her own consciousness. "I have taken a ring from Lord Exham's finger. What for? Mischief or a joke? Which?

Probably mischief. I wanted to turn it into a joke, and my opportunity is gone. Not my fault. If the d.u.c.h.ess had been in a good humour, I should have told her all about it. If Exham's manner had not frozen everything but the commonplaces of propriety, I would have teased him a little, and then given up the ring. It is their own fault. If people are cross at breakfast, they deserve a disagreeable day. I am not sorry to give them their deserts."

Then she rose and went to her jewel-case, and took the ring out and put it on her finger. "It is a poor little thing after all," she said as she turned it round and round. "The stones are not very fine; I have sapphires of far finer colour. If I give Kate Atheling my diamond locket, she will have reason to be grateful,--the setting is, however, really beautiful; that is the point, I suppose. I would like to have a ring set in the same way; but it would be dangerous--" and she laughed as if she enjoyed the thought of the danger. She took off the ring at this point, and looked at it more critically. "What must I do with the troublesome thing?" she asked herself. "Justine is a curious, suspicious creature, and when she hears the talk in the servants' hall, if she got but a glimpse of it, she would put two and two together." A momentary resolve to throw it into the fire-place of the Duke's parlour came into her mind. "If it is found there,"

she argued, "the only supposition will be that Piers dropped it on the hearth. If it is not found, there will be no suppositions at all."

This resolve, however, received no real encouragement. There is a perverse disposition in human nature to keep with special care things that incriminate, or which might become sources of suspicion or trouble; and the ring exercised over the girl this fatal fascination. She closed her jewel-case deliberately, holding the lid a trifle open for a moment or two of last consideration; then she dropped it with decision, and took from her pocket a small purse, made of gold as flexible as leather or satin. There were a few sovereigns in one compartment, and a Hindoo charm in another. She put the ring with the charm, and closed the purse with a smile of satisfaction. For the time being, at any rate, it was out of her way; and there were yet possibilities of turning the whole matter into a pleasantry.

"I may even take it to Kate Atheling and tell her to claim my forfeit."

This very improbable solution satisfied Annabel's conscience; she was at peace after it, and able to consider more personal affairs.

In order to do this under the most favourable conditions, she placed herself comfortably on her lounge. Her fine, tall form lay at length, supine and indolent, the feet, in their crimson sandals, crossed at the ankles. Her dark, powerful head, with its ma.s.ses of strong, black hair, looked almost handsome on the pale amber cushions, with the hands and arms--jewelled though it was only morning--clasped above it. She was going to examine herself, and she was not one to shirk even the innermost chamber of her heart.

"First," she thought, "there is Lord Exham. Do I really want to marry him? Let me be sure of this, and then there is nothing for him to do, but make out the settlements. He cannot resist my influence when I choose to exert it. As yet I have not troubled him much; but I can trouble him--and I will, if I want to. Do I? Be honest, Annabel.

There is no use lying to yourself. Well, then, I want to be d.u.c.h.ess of Richmoor; but I do _not_ want to be Exham's wife. And if I marry him, the present Duke may live ten, twenty, even thirty years. I would not wait for the crown of England thirty years, with a husband I rather despised; only--only what? I do not want that Atheling girl to marry him. Jane Warwick, or Helen Percy, or Margaret Gower, I would not mind--but Kate Atheling! No! Why? I cannot tell." Nor could she. It was one of those apparently unreasonable dislikes we bring into the world with us, and which, probably, are the most reasonable dislikes of all. "Very well, then," she continued, "I will not marry Piers, nor shall Kate Atheling marry him. That is fair enough. If I manage to make her give him up, I give him up myself also. I am only doing to her as I do to myself.

"Now there is Wynn, and Sidmouth, and Russell--and others. Every one of them have appraised my value, and made inquiries about my wealth. No one has told me this, but I know it. I know it with that invincible certainty with which women know things they are never told. Cecil North?

Yes, I like Cecil North. He really fell in love with me,--with _me_, _myself_. A woman knows; she is never deceived about that unless she wants to be deceived. He is poor,--the Westovers are all poor,--I do not care if he is as poor as Job. I am tired to death of rich people.

If Cecil North would get a military commission in India, I could be his wife. I could follow the drum, or live in quarters with him, and I should be a better and a happier woman than I am here. This life is too small for me."

She was right in this estimation of herself. Her nature was one fitted to respond to great emergencies. She was a woman for frontiers and forts, for strife with men or elements, for days of danger in the shadow of suffering or death; and she was living in a society so artificial that any real cry of nature and needless familiarity, any sign of genuine pa.s.sion was startling and distasteful to it. The soldierly temper inherited from her father demanded an adventurous life, because people made for overcoming obstacles cannot be morally healthy without obstacles to overcome. And, therefore, it was a poor life for Annabel Vyner that offered her no difficulty to surmount but the claims of Kate Atheling. She was quite aware of this, and the ring in her purse was no real triumph. It was rather one of those irreparable facts, the very thought of which gives pain.

If she had been morally stronger, she would have dominated her environment, and defied the circ.u.mstances that so easily prevented her from doing the right thing. She would have been obedient to Duty; and that grand, immutable principle would have given her strength to resist temptation, or, having fallen into it, to make the obvious reparation; for

"So nigh is grandeur to our dust, So near is G.o.d to man, When Duty whispers low, '_Thou Must_,'

The Soul replies, '_I Can_.'"

This morning, though she was far from diagnosing her feelings correctly, Annabel soon began to suffer from that nervous and even that physical fatigue which is bred of moral indifference. For nothing is more certain than that moral strength is the very _Life_ of life. She yawned; she felt the hours too long to be endured, while she pictured to herself the scene in the Atheling parlour, when Piers would confess the loss of the ring, and Kate lovingly excuse it. Finally, she became nervously angry at the persistence of the vision. In every possible way she tried to banish it, but though she fetched memories from farthest India, the exasperating phantasm would not be driven away.

In reality the affair produced very little apparent effect. Piers made his confession to Mrs. and Miss Atheling with so much genuine emotion that they could not but make light of the loss while he was present. Yet it troubled both women very much. Mrs. Atheling cried over it when she was alone; and Kate took it as a sign of some untoward event in the course of love between Piers and herself. No one is able to put aside such inferences and presentiments; and, quite unconsciously, it worked towards the end Kate feared. Piers began to fancy--perhaps unjustly--that he never entered Kate's or Mrs. Atheling's presence without seeing in their first glance an unspoken inquiry after the lost ring. In some measure he was to blame, if this was so. He had employed detectives to watch such servants of the Richmoor household as could have had access to the Duke's parlour on that unhappy night; and as the ladies were aware of this movement, it was only natural they should desire to know if any result came from it.

Of course there was no result; and the real culprit remained absolutely unsuspected. As the days wore away, her conscience grew accustomed to the situation; it made no troublesome demands; and Annabel even began to feel a certain pleasurable excitement in holding in her hands what might prove to be a power for great good, or great evil,--for she was not yet ready to admit an entirely evil intention; she chose rather to regard it as a practical jest which she might undo, or explain, in some future, favourable hour.

She kept the jewel always in her purse; she went frequently to the Athelings; and once or twice she had a transitory impulse to tell Kate the whole circ.u.mstance, and be guided by her advice in the matter. But the Evil One, who had prompted her in the first instance to take it, always met these intents or impulses with some plausible excuse; and every good impulse which does not crystallise into a good action, only tends towards the strengthening of the evil one. Then outside events made delay more easy. On the fifteenth of November, there was a short, decided argument in the House of Commons on the Civil List; a division was promptly taken, and the Government was found to be in a minority of twenty-nine. The Squire and Lord Exham returned home together, both very much annoyed at this result.

"All this election business will be to go over again," the Squire said, wearily. "Wellington and Peel are sure to take this opportunity to resign."

"Why should they resign, John?" asked Mrs. Atheling.

"Well, Maude," he answered, "they are bound to resign sooner or later; and I should think, if they have any sense left, they will go out as champions of the royal prerogative, rather than be driven out by a Reform division, which is sure to come. They will go out, my word for it, Maude!"

"And what then, John?"

"Well, then, we shall have all the bother of another election; and Earl Grey will form a new Ministry, and Lord Brougham will bully the new Ministry, as he has done the old one, about this Reform Bill. He intended to have begun that business this very night; but there wasn't any Ministers, nor any Administration to arraign, and so he said, in his domineering way, that he would put the question of Reform off until the twenty-fifth of this month, and not a day longer, no matter what circ.u.mstances prevailed, nor who were His Majesty's Ministers. I can tell you the city was in a pretty commotion as we came home. We shall have a Reform Government now, with Earl Grey at the head, and the real fight will then begin."

"Earl Grey!" said Mrs. Atheling; "that is Edgar's friend."

"Well, I wouldn't brag about it, Mother, if I was thee. I shall have to go back to Yorkshire, and so will Exham; and there will be no end of bother, and a Reform Ministry at the end of it. It is too bad! What they will do with Mr. Brougham, I am sure I don't know. No Ministry can live without him; and it will be hard work for any Ministry to live with him; for if he drew up a bill himself, he would find faults in it, and never rest until he had torn it to pieces."

Piers was sitting in the embrasure of a window, holding Kate's hands, and talking to her in those low, sweet tones that women love; and at this remark he rose, and, coming towards the Squire, said with a grave smile, "For such dilemmas, Squire, there are remedies made and provided. If it is a clever clergyman who arraigns the church, or his superiors, he is made a bishop; and thereafter, he sees no faults. If it is a clever Commoner who arraigns the Government, the Government makes him a peer; and in the House of Lords, he finds the grace of silence. Earl Grey will have Mr. Brougham made Lord High Chancellor, and then _Lord_ Brougham will only have the power to put the question."

Exham's prophecy proved to be correct. Brougham had declared that under any circ.u.mstances he would bring up Reform on the twenty-fifth of November; but, on the twenty-second of November, he took his seat as Chancellor in the House of Lords. It was said the Great Seal had been forced upon him; but the Squire wondered what pressure, never before known, had been discovered to make Henry Brougham do anything, or take anything, he did not want to do or take.

However the feat was an accomplished one; and with Earl Gray, Lord Durham, Sir James Graham, Viscounts Melbourne and Palmerston, and other great leaders, Brougham kissed the King's hand on his appointment just three days before his threatened demonstration for Reform. Soon after Parliament adjourned for the re-election of Members in the Lower House; and the Duke, with Lord Exham and Squire Atheling, went down into Yorkshire.

Edgar and Cecil North also disappeared. "They have gone into the country on business, and I'll tell you what it is, Kitty," said Mrs.

Atheling, with a little happy importance. "A friend of Earl Grey has a close borough, and Edgar is to have it. I am sure I don't know what will happen, if he should clash with father in the House. Father cannot bear contradicting."

"Nothing wrong will happen, Mother."

"To be sure, the floor of the House of Commons is a bit different from his own hearthstone. When Edgar is a Parliament man, father will give him his place."

"And Edgar will never forget to give father his place, I am sure of that."

"I wouldn't stand a minute with him if he did. What a father and son say to each other in their homestead, is home talk; but Edgar must not threep his father before strangers. No, indeed!"

"I wouldn't wonder if father comes round a little to Edgar's views.

He listened very patiently to Cecil North, the last time they talked on politics."

"He _has_ to listen in Parliament, and so he is getting used to listening. He never listened patiently at home--not even to me. But we can hope for the best anyhow, Kitty."

"To be sure, Mother. Hoping for the best is far better than looking for the worst."

"I should think it was. Do you believe Piers will be in London at Christmas?"

"I fear not. Mother, he is going to send us each a ring at Christmas; then we will forget the other ring--shall we not?"

"I don't know, Kitty. I think a deal of that other ring. No new one can make up for it. Why, my dear, your father gave it to me the night I promised to marry him. We were standing under the big white hawthorn at Belward. I'll never forget that hour."

"It is so long ago, Mother--you cannot care very much now about it."

"Now, Kitty, if you think only young people can be in love, get that idea out of your mind at once. You don't know anything about love yet.

After twenty-five years bearing, and forbearing, and childbearing, you will smile at your gentle-shepherding of to-day. Your love is only a fancy now, it will be a fact then that has its foundations in your very life. You do not love Piers Exham, child, as I love your father. You can't. It isn't to be expected. And it is a good thing, love is so ordered; for if it did not grow stronger, instead of weaker, marrying would be a poor way of living."

"That weary ring! I am so sorry that I ever put it on."

"I did not ask you to put it on, Kitty. I did not want you to put it on."

"Mother, please don't be cross."

"Kitty, don't be unjust; it is not like you."

Then Kitty laid her cheek against her mother's cheek, and said sadly, "I fear, somehow, that ring will make trouble between Piers and me."