'Oh, dear, no! she takes the whole affair with a queenlike and supernatural indifference. She is either a fool or a very great philosopher, and there is something grand in the serene obscurity that envelopes her,' and Rachel laughed a very little.

'I must, I suppose, pay my respects; but to-morrow will be time enough.

What pretty little tea-cups, Radie--quite charming--old c.o.c.k china, isn't it? These were Aunt Jemima's, I think.'

'Yes; they used to stand on the little marble table between the windows.'

Old Tamar had glided in while they here talking, and placed the little tea equipage on the table unnoticed, and the captain was sipping his cup of tea, and inspecting the pattern, while his sister amused him.

'This place, I suppose, is confoundedly slow, is not it? Do they entertain the neighbours ever at Brandon?'

'Sometimes, when old Lady Chelford and her son are staying there.'

'But the neighbours can't entertain them, I fancy, or you. What a dreary thing a dinner party made up of such people must be--like "Aesop's Fables," where the cows and sheep converse.'

'And sometimes a wolf or a fox,' she said.

'Well, Radie, I know you mean me; but as you wish it, I'll carry my fangs elsewhere;--and what has become of Will Wylder?'

'Oh! he's in the Church!'

'Quite right--the only thing he was fit for;' and Captain Lake laughed like a man who enjoys a joke slily. 'And where is poor Billy quartered?'

'Not quite half a mile away; he has got the vicarage of Naunton Friars.'

'Oh, then, Will is not quite such a fool as we took him for.'

'It is worth just 180 a year! but he's very far from a fool.'

'Yes, of course, he knows Greek poets and Latin fathers, and all the rest of it. I don't mean he ever was plucked. I dare say he's the kind of fellow _you'd_ like very well, Radie.' And his sly eyes had a twinkle in them which seemed to say, 'Perhaps I've divined your secret.'

'And so I do, and I like his wife, too, _very_ much.'

'His wife! So William has married on 180 a year;' and the captain laughed quietly but very pleasantly again.

'On a very little more, at all events; and I think they are about the happiest, and I'm sure they are the best people in this part of the world.'

'Well, Radie, I'll see you to-morrow again. You preserve your good looks wonderfully. I wonder you haven't become an old woman here.'

And he kissed her, and went his way, with a slight wave of his hand, and his odd smile, as he closed the little garden gate after him.

He turned to his left, walking down towards the town, and the innocent green trees hid him quickly, and the gush and tinkle of the clear brook rose faint and pleasantly through the leaves, from the depths of the glen, and refreshed her ear after his unpleasant talk.

She was flushed, and felt oddly; a little stunned and strange, although she had talked lightly and easily enough.

'I forgot to ask him where he is staying: the Brandon Arms, I suppose. I don't at all like his coming down here after Mark Wylder; what _can_ he mean? He certainly never would have taken the trouble for _me_. What _can_ he want of Mark Wylder? I think _he_ knew old Mr. Beauchamp. He may be a trustee, but that's not likely; Mark Wylder was not the person for any such office. I hope Stanley does not intend trying to extract money from him; anything rather than that degradation--than that _villainy_.

Stanley was always impracticable, perverse, deceitful, and so foolish with all his cunning and suspicion--so _very_ foolish. Poor Stanley. He's so unscrupulous; I don't know what to think. He said he could force Mark Wylder to leave the country. It must be some bad secret. If he tries and fails, I suppose he will be ruined. I don't know what to think; I never was so uneasy. He will blast himself, and disgrace all connected with him; and it is quite useless speaking to him.'

Perhaps if Rachel Lake had been in Belgravia, leading a town life, the matter would have taken no such dark colouring and portentous proportions. But living in a small old house, in a dark glen, with no companion, and little to occupy her, it was different.

She looked down the silent way he had so lately taken, and repeated, rather bitterly, 'My only brother! my only brother! my only brother!'

That young lady was not quite a pauper, though she may have thought so.

Comparatively, indeed, she was; but not, I venture to think, absolutely.

She had just that symmetrical three hundred pounds a year, which the famous Dean of St. Patrick's tells us he so 'often wished that he had clear.' She had had some money in the Funds besides, still more insignificant but this her Brother Stanley had borrowed and begged piecemeal, and the Consols were no more. But though something of a nun in her way of life, there was no germ of the old maid in her, and money was not often in her thoughts. It was not a bad _dot_; and her Brother Stanley had about twice as much, and therefore was much better off than many a younger son of a duke. But these young people, after the manner of men were spited with fortune; and indeed they had some cause. Old General Lake had once had more than ten thousand pounds a year, and lived, until the crash came, in the style of a vicious old prince. It was a great break up, and a worse fall for Rachel than for her brother, when the plate, coaches, pictures, and all the valuable effects' of old Tiberius went to the hammer, and he himself vanished from his clubs and other haunts, and lived only--a thin intermittent rumour--surmised to be in gaol, or in Guernsey, and quite forgotten soon, and a little later actually dead and buried.

CHAPTER IX.

I SEE THE RING OF THE PERSIAN MAGICIAN.

'That's a devilish fine girl,' said Mark Wylder.

He was sitting at this moment on the billiard table, with his coat off and his cue in his hand, and had lighted a cigar. He and I had just had a game, and were tired of it.

'Who?' I asked. He was looking on me from the corners of his eyes, and smiling in a sly, rakish way, that no man likes in another.

'Radie Lake--she's a splendid girl, by Jove! Don't you think so? and she liked me once devilish well, I can tell you. She was thin then, but she has plumped out a bit, and improved every way.'

Whatever else he was, Mark was certainly no beauty;--a little short he was, and rather square--one shoulder a thought higher than the other--and a slight, energetic hitch in it when he walked. His features in profile had something of a Grecian character, but his face was too broad--very brown, rather a bloodless brown--and he had a pair of great, dense, vulgar, black whiskers. He was very vain of his teeth--his only really good point--for his eyes were a small cunning, gray pair; and this, perhaps, was the reason why he had contracted his habit of laughing and grinning a good deal more than the fun of the dialogue always warranted.

This sea-monster smoked here as unceremoniously as he would have done in 'Rees's Divan,' and I only wonder he did not call for brandy-and-water.

He had either grown coa.r.s.er a great deal, or I more decent, during our separation. He talked of his _fiancee_ as he might of an opera-girl almost, and was now discussing Miss Lake in the same style.

'Yes, she is--she's very well; but hang it, Wylder, you're a married man now, and must give up talking that way. People won't like it, you know; they'll take it to mean more than it does, and you oughtn't. Let us have another game.'

'By-and-by; what do you think of Larkin?' asked Wylder, with a sly glance from the corners of his eyes. 'I think he prays rather more than is good for his clients; mind I spell it with an 'a,' not with an 'e;' but hang it, for an attorney, you know, and such a sharp chap, it does seem to me rather a--a joke, eh?'

'He bears a good character among the townspeople, doesn't he? And I don't see that it can do him any harm, remembering that he has a soul to be saved.'

'Or the other thing, eh?' laughed Wylder. 'But I think he comes it a little too strong--two sermons last Sunday, and a prayer-meeting at nine o'clock?'

'Well, it won't do him any harm,' I repeated.

'Harm! O, let Jos. Larkin alone for that. It gets him all the religious business of the county; and there are nice pickings among the charities, and endowments, and purchases of building sites, and trust deeds; I dare say it brings him in two or three hundred a year, eh?' And Wylder laughed again. 'It has broken up his hard, proud heart,' he says; 'but it left him a devilish hard head, I told him, and I think it sharpens his wits.'

'I rather think you'll find him a useful man; and to be so in his line of business he must have his wits about him, I can tell you.'

'He amused me devilishly,' said Wylder, 'with a sort of exhortation he treated me to; he's a delightfully impudent chap, and gave me to understand I was a limb of the Devil, and he a saint. I told him I was better than he, in my humble opinion, and so I am, by chalks. I know very well I'm a miserable sinner, but there's mercy above, and I don't hide my faults. I don't set up for a light or a saint; I'm just what the Prayer-book says--neither more nor less--a miserable sinner. There's only one good thing I can safely say for myself--I am no Pharisee; that's all; I air no religious prig, puffing myself, and trusting to forms, making long prayers in the market-place' (Mark's quotations were paraphrastic), 'and thinking of nothing but the uppermost seats in the synagogue, and broad borders, and the praise of men--hang them, I hate those fellows.'

So Mark, like other men we meet with, was proud of being a Publican; and his prayer was--'I thank Thee that I am not as other men are, spiritually proud, formalists, hypocrites, or even as this Pharisee.'

'Do you wish another game?' I asked.

'Just now,' said Wylder, emitting first a thin stream of smoke, and watching its ascent. 'Dorcas is the belle of the county; and she likes me, though she's odd, and don't show it the way other girls would. But a fellow knows pretty well when a girl likes him, and you know the marriage is a sensible sort of thing, and I'm determined, of course, to carry it through; but, hang it, a fellow can't help thinking sometimes there are other things besides money, and Dorcas is not my style. Rachel's more that way; she's a _tremendious_ fine girl, by Jove! and a spirited minx, too; and I think,' he added, with an oath, having first taken two puffs at his cigar, 'if I had seen her first, I'd have thought twice before I'd have got myself into this business.'