Bessie was in the garden, the following afternoon, with scissors and an apron pinned up, trimming her flowers, yet with her mind away from the plants; she was unhappy on her own account, yet strove after resignation, and she felt the consciousness of having done right in sacrificing herself for her father. He must now behave more kindly towards her; be more ready to listen to her intercession for poor Anthony. Poor Anthony! she had heard that morning that he was gone, gone to extreme risk, and that Urith was in danger. She had resolved that now she must go to Willsworthy and see her sister-in-law, and be of what use to her she could. Her father could no longer forbid that. Even if he did, in that she would not obey him.

She was stooping over her plants, with tears in her eyes, snipping, picking off dead flowers and leaves, and tying up the carnations, when she heard behind her the voice of Fox.

"What!—busy?"

She winced, but rose, and with a little hesitation, held out her hand to him.

"Yes," she said, "I must do something with my hands to keep my thoughts from resting on troubles."

"Troubles! what troubles?"

Bessie gave him a look of reproach. "I must feel anxious about my brother, and also for Urith. How is it that you did not go as well as your father and my Anthony, to draw a sword for the good cause?"

"You ask that? Why, you are my attraction. I cannot leave you to venture my precious life in crack-brain undertakings. Before either of them returns, I suppose we shall be married."

"I am ready to fulfil my promise at any time," said Bessie.

"The sooner the better. Your father has already sent a messenger for a licence. I shall not rest till you are mine."

Bessie knew that what Fox desired was to have his foot in Hall, and be established there in the position of heir, and that his pretence of caring for her was hollow. A colour came into her cheeks like the carnations she was tying up. "Enough of that," she said; "you know the conditions on which I take you?"

"Conditions! On my soul I know of none."

"I told you that I did not love you, that I never had felt any love for you."

"You had the frankness to inform me of that, and to say that you had thrown your heart away on some one else, who declined the gift altogether."

Bessie bowed her head over her flowers.

"Yes, you told me that as we walked in the mud on the road; and then you refused me, but changed your mind before many hours had passed. I have no doubt that, when I am your husband, you will learn to love and admire me. However, this is no condition."

"No condition?" asked Bessie, rising, and looking him in the face. "Surely it is. I will take you, as you insist on it, and as my father desires it; but it must be on the understanding that you do not ask of me at once what is not in my power to give, I will try to love you, I promise you. I will strive with my whole heart to give you all I undertake; but I cannot do that at once."

"Oh! you call that a condition. It is well. I accept it." There was a veiled sneer in his tone.

"Then, again," continued Bessie, "I made my father promise, if I gave my consent, that he would try to forgive Anthony."

"What!—forgive and reinstate him?" asked Fox, sharply.

"There was nothing said about reinstating him. I suppose that my father and you have talked about Hall, and everything that concerns the property, and that you understand the circumstances fully."

"To be sure I do," said Fox.

"Then, of course, I said nothing to him about reinstating Anthony, except in his old place in my father's heart. I believe that he will, himself, be glad to forgive the past. He cannot have cast out all the old love for, and pride in Anthony."

"And he has promised that?"

"He has promised to try and forgive him. And now, Fox—I mean Tony Crymes—you are ready to take me, knowing that I do not love you, and can only try to render you that love which will be due from a wife to a husband?"

"Oh, yes! I take you as you are."

Of course he would. It was indifferent to him whether Elizabeth loved him or not, so long as his ambition and greed were satisfied.

"You see, Bess, I have a sharp tongue, and have made many enemies with it, who say in return sharp things of me, but with this difference—I say these things to their faces, they malign me behind my back. When we are married you will know me better, and not believe all you hear said of me."

Bessie slightly shook her head, and stooped again over her carnations.

"There is one thing further," she said; "you must help me to persuade my father to be completely reconciled to Anthony."

"To be sure I will," answered Fox. "You want to see how good a fellow I am, in spite of all that is said of me. Here, take my hand, in token that I will do all you ask of me."

He gave her a cold, moist hand.

"And you promise me," she said, taking it, "on your honour that you will stand by me and back me up when I try to bring Anthony and my father together once more on the old terms?"

His mistrust was roused, and he did not answer at once. Her frank grey eyes rested full on his face, and his eyes fell before her steady glance.

"I will do what you will," he said; "but I do not suppose that your father will prove as wax in our hands, to mould as we like. Anthony has too deeply offended him, and Urith he will never see."

They dropped hands, for at that moment Julian entered the garden.

"I will go, see your father at once, and make trial in this matter," said he.

"You will find him in his room; he is looking at some papers."

Fox walked away, giving Julian a nod and a sneer as he passed, and entered the house.

Julian came hastily up to Bess.

"My dear Bessie! Is it true? Are you really going to take my brother? It cannot—it must not be. It is intolerable to be in the house with him when one is master, and he there only on sufferance; but to have him lord superior, and to be his slave!" Julian shivered.

"It is settled. I have passed my word, and I will not withdraw it."

"Bess! And after the lesson you have had from Anthony!"

"How a lesson, Julian?"

"Why, dear child, a lesson that it does not answer to marry without love."

"Surely, Julian, there was love there, on both sides."

"Oh! love! A passing caprice. Do you not know that Anthony always loved me? Why has he gone off to join the Duke of Monmouth? Do you suppose it is because he cares so greatly for the Protestant cause? Nay, wench, it is that he may escape from me—and from the sight of Urith. I am dangerous, Urith is odious to him. Better be where balls are flying than where my eyes flash with temptation and Urith's dart with jealousy."

"Julian! how canst thou speak thus?" Bessie stepped back from her visitor, without offering to take her extended hands.

"Nay! do not be so offended. What I speak is the truth, and it all comes of marrying where there is no true affection. I am holding up thy brother as a warning to thee. Dost think that Fox cares a rush for thee? Not half a rush—all he looks to is Hall; he takes thee because he cannot have Hall without thee; and to have Hall is double pleasure to him, for he will have the place as his own, spiced with the satisfaction of having robbed his friend of it."

"I cannot help myself. I have passed my word, and stand to it."

"Look how things are now at Willsworthy. There is Urith dying, maybe; and Anthony far away. I hope she may die. It is best so, for she will have no happiness any more with Anthony. He is weary of her, he has found out that he cannot find his rest in her, his heart is with me. It has come back to me. It flew away a little while, and now it has returned. Anthony is mine. He does not belong any more to Urith."

"Shame on you!" said Bessie. "But I am glad you have spoken on this matter. You have acted sinfully, you have striven to turn Anthony from his duty."

"I have done so. Urith and I have wrestled a hitch together, and I have given her the turn, a fair back—three points. That is what she knows, and she is eating her heart out at the thought."

"Do you know what has happened? Urith has become a mother of a dead child."

"Is it so?" Julian was startled and changed colour. She had not heard this, she only knew that Urith was ill.

"She is in high fever and derangement of mind. If you have driven Anthony away, driven him to his death in the battle-field, and Urith also dies, then there will be the lives of all three you will be answerable for. It may be that Anthony was too hasty in marrying Urith, but once married, you should have left him alone. I do not believe, Julian, that he ever loved you. No, you may look at me in anger and doubt, but I am sure of it; I am his sister, I have seen and heard him, and if you fancy that he ever loved you, you are utterly in error. He never did. He never loved any girl till he saw Urith. She was his first love, not you. No, you never stirred his heart. He liked you. It flattered his vanity to see that you admired, almost worshipped him, but love you he did not. No, Julian, never—never! Urith was his first love, and, please God! will remain his only love."

Julian Crymes turned deadly white, and clenched her hands against her bosom.

"I saw what you were doing at that dance at the Cakes. Then you strove to draw him from his wife—then you threw the seeds of mistrust into her heart! You played a cruel and wicked game. But do not think, even although you may for a while have lured Anthony away from his wife, that you will separate them for ever. No! She was his first love, and to her he will return with redoubled love when this misunderstanding, this estrangement, is at an end—that is to say, if they live."

Bessie did not speak reproachfully, but sadly.

"Julian, you have been thoughtless, not malicious. I can tell you what the end will be, if Anthony do come back and find Urith dead. He will not go to you, and throw himself at your feet. No; he will hate you with a hatred that will be lasting as his life. He will look on you as—if not his wife's murderer—at all events, as one who engalled the last hours of her life—who drew briars and thorns between them, tearing their hearts when they last met. What passed between them I cannot say; but something must have—something terrible—to account for her present condition, and for his absence. You are answerable for that. Your thoughtlessness, and Anthony's love of flattery, have contrived to ruin a home. Anthony and Urith might have been happy parents of a sweet, innocent little one, who would have bowed the heart of his grandfather, and wiped off it all the rust that has gathered there. That little life, with all it might have been to itself, or to others, is destroyed—by you! You and Anthony broke the heart of Urith, and brought about what has taken place. You cannot give back the little life—you cannot mend the wreckage of happiness you have brought about. Pray to God to have pity on you, and forgive you your sins!"

"I have no cause to repent," answered Julian; but she did not speak with her old confidence, and she spoke with veiled eyes, resting on the gravel of the walk. "I am sorry Urith is ill. I am sorry that she and Anthony are disappointed in their hopes. I have always loved Anthony. There is no sin in that. If Urith succeeded in drawing him away from me to whom he was all but assured, must I not feel it? May I not resent it? She stole him from me, and the blessing at the altar does not hallow her theft."

"What are you saying!" exclaimed Bessie, fixing her eyes on Julian. "Is it not a sin to love a man who has sworn before heaven that he will be true to one, and one only, and that not yourself? Is it not a sin to endeavour to make him false to his oaths?"

"I cannot force him to be true to Urith, and to love her. You are going to marry Fox. You will swear to love and honour him, and you know you can do neither. You will swear and be false to your oath, for it is an impossibility to keep it. Anthony swore, but he could not keep his oath, he found out that he had make a mistake——"

"You tried to persuade him that he had. Be sure he will return to Urith with tenfold deeper, sincerer love, and will bitterly rue that he let himself be deluded by you."

Julian stood brooding, with her eyes on the ground. She recalled how Anthony had brushed out her initials linked with his, and interwoven in their place his own with those of Urith.

"There," said she, hastily, "I came here for something else than to be judged and condemned by you."

"I neither judge nor condemn you," answered Bessie, "but I tell you the truth. Anthony can never be yours, not even if Urith dies. He never did love you."

Julian stamped. "You do not know—he did, and I loved him."

"What token did he give that he cared for you?—answer me now."

"I loved him, I love him still. In love all is fair. If I thought he did not love me——"

"Well," said Bessie, "what?" She looked steadily into Julian's eyes.

"I would dash my head against the stones, and kill thought for ever."