ELEVEN P.M.

"

R RACHEL," said Mr. Dalrymple presently, speaking her name as if he had had it in familiar use for years, "I suppose you have broken off with him?"

Rachel did not reply for a few seconds; he felt her trembling in his arms.

"Oh, forgive me," she whispered, turning her face a hair's-breadth nearer to his as he stooped to listen.

And then she told him all the story of her engagement, as far as her new experiences enabled her to read it, and all the circumstances which had combined to keep her still in captivity so long after she should have been free.

The simple narrative gave even him, who was rather inclined to make molehills of mountains, a sense of the difficulties of the situation, that kept him silent for a few minutes in unwonted perplexity of mind.

"How old are you?" he asked abruptly, at last.

"I shall be nineteen in three weeks," she answered.

"You are sure you won't be twenty-one?"

"I'm sure I shan't. Why?"

"Because if you are only nineteen, I cannot carry you off and marry you, love, which would have been the simplest way out of it."

"I should not like that way," whispered Rachel. "It would be a wrong way."

"Yes, dear—except as a last resource. Of course we would try all the other ways first. But we must have our rights, you know. If they won't give them, we must take them—we must get them as we can."

"Cannot we be married until I am twenty-one?" she queried timidly.

"Not without your guardian's consent. Is there any chance of my getting that, or any kind of toleration even, if I call on him at his office to-morrow and use all the eloquence at my command?"

"No. Aunt Elizabeth won't let him have anything to do with it."

"If I call on her, then?"

"Oh, no—not the slightest. In the first place, she won't see you. And if she did—oh, no, you must not try—not yet! I think it would make everything worse than it is already."

"Then you see the alternative?—a separation for perhaps two whole years."

"If I know we are going to be so happy at the end of it——"

"Ah—at the end of it! It will be a fine test for you, Rachel."

"Why for me, any more than for you? Oh, don't talk of tests!" she pleaded; "I only want to feel sure I shall never lose you, and I don't mind waiting two years. If only——"

"If only what?"

"If only Mr. Kingston would go away!"

"Now listen to me," he said gently, but with his grave peremptoriness, "you must not let another day pass without breaking off with him. You must send him away, Rachel. I am sorry for him, poor devil, but you couldn't do him a worse wrong than let him go on deceiving himself about you."

"Oh, do you think I would do that? Of course I will not. I can do it now—now that you have come. For now I shall feel strong, and now I can tell them why. I shall write him a letter before I go to bed, and I shall tell Aunt Elizabeth as soon as I have sent it. But what will they say to me? It will be dreadful."

"Poor little woman! Can't I take the dreadful part of it for you? I shan't mind it."

"You can't. I know it will be better for us both if you will not have anything to do with it just yet."

"I think I must see your uncle, dear, before I go away again."

"Well—if you think it best. But it will do no good with Aunt Elizabeth. He leaves it all to her."

Mr. Dalrymple gazed thoughtfully at the distant horizon, where little points of yellow twinkled in the silvery obscurity of the moonshiny bay.

He was deeply troubled and perplexed about this tender little creature, and the idea of leaving her to bear the brunt of unknown trials for his sake, seemed too preposterous to be taken seriously. And yet what else could he do?

"Tell me," he said presently, stroking her silky head as it lay on his breast, "tell me what is the worst that can happen to you, Rachel?"

"The worst," sighed Rachel, "will be hearing Aunt Elizabeth tell me that I have repaid all her generosity and kindness to me with ingratitude and treachery."

"That will be very bad. But you will have to try and make her understand the real right and justice of it, love. She must see it, unless she is stone blind. She can't expect us to outrage all the laws of nature to suit her narrow schemes. You don't think there will be anything still worse?—that she will make your life wretched by making you feel your dependence—that kind of thing?"

"I am not sure," said Rachel. "She has been very, very good to me; but lately—since she has got suspicious about you—she has been hard. However, if the worst comes to the worst, I can go and be a governess or companion somewhere until you are ready for me."

"No, Rachel, no; you must promise to tell me if you are persecuted in any way—if you are miserable in your aunt's house—and my sister Lily will take care of you. You are not to let the worst come to the worst—do you hear? You must let me know of anything that happens, and I will come at once and see about it. Oh, my poor little one, I begin to realise what sacrifices you will have to make for me! Will you think the game was worth the candle, I wonder, when you are as old as I am?"

"Yes," said Rachel; "I know I shall—if you will be as contented with me then as you are now."

"Do you really think you have counted the cost?" he persisted anxiously. "Remember, you were going to marry Mr. Kingston, because you thought it would be nice to be rich and to live in a grand house and to wear diamonds."

"That was before I had seen you. I don't want to be rich now. Indeed, I would rather not."

"Has anybody told you how poor I am?"

"Yes," she whispered, stealing a timid hand to his shoulder. "I have been thinking of it. Beatrice says it is a mistake for poor men to marry—that they cripple their career. But I hope—I think—I shall not be any burden to you. Once I was poor, too, and I know all about it, and I can manage with a very little. I think I could help you in lots of ways, and not be a hindrance."

"A hindrance, indeed!" he interrupted. "My darling, if I had you for my companion, life would be sweet enough for me, under any circumstances. It was your comfort and happiness I was thinking of."

"I only want to be with you," she said, under her breath. "I don't care where—I don't care how."

"Really, Rachel?"

"Really, indeed."

"You are so young! Think what a number of years you have before you, in all probability. If you should lose the colour out of your life too soon, if you should have to drudge—but I won't let you drudge," he added, with a sudden touch of fierceness, "I will take care of you, and you shall have all you want. It won't be a sacrifice—not even all this"—looking round him—"if you give it up for a man you love, who has health and strength to work for you. It would make you miserable if you had it. You know it would?"

"I do know it," she responded, without a moment's hesitation.

She had finally made up her mind that after all material poverty was not the worst of life's misfortunes. Indeed, provided the element of debt were absent, she thought it might in Roden Dalrymple's company, "far from the madding crowd," in the lonely wilds of Queensland, be rather pleasant than otherwise; for it would mean the delight of working for and helping one another, and a blessed freedom from interruption and restraint in the enjoyment of that wonderful married life which would be theirs.

"But I should like to know what made you take to me," he went on, in the immemorial fashion, stroking her soft face. "I should like to know why you chose, for your first love—I am your first, am I not, Rachel?"

"You know you are. And it was no matter of choice with me—you know that, too."

"A man who made shipwreck of his fortunes for another woman almost before you were born——"

"Hush!" interrupted Rachel. "I have no rights in your past, and I don't want any. This present is mine, and that is enough for me."

"A battered old vagabond——"

"No," she persisted; "I won't allow you to call yourself a vagabond. It is bad enough to hear other people do it."

"After seeing him under what one would be inclined to consider, well, anything but favourable auspices—for how many days, Rachel?"

"Oh," she said, hiding a scarlet face, "don't remind me of that! It was too soon—but I could not help it."

"The sooner the better, my sweet—if it lasts," he responded, kissing her with solemn passion; "and I will make it last."

"Do not be afraid of that," she whispered eagerly. "I know I am young—I know one ought not to be too positive about the future—but I feel that it will be impossible to help loving you always, even if I try not to, which I certainly shan't. I am sure I began it when I saw you riding across the racecourse that day—I am sure I shall not stop any more as long as I live. I don't think there can be another man in the world like you."

And so they talked, until it occurred to one of them to wonder what the time was. Mr. Dalrymple struck a match and looked at his watch, Rachel shielding the small flame from the wind with her hand.

"Oh," she exclaimed in dismay, "what would Aunt Elizabeth say if she knew I was sitting out here at eleven o'clock at night!"

"Call it eleven p.m.," he suggested, looking at her with his slow smile; "that sounds so much better."

"Did you think it was so late? The time has flown."

"I felt it flying," he replied. "But I did not think it was so late. I'm afraid you must go home, little one. Oh, dear me, when shall we have such a time again! Will you come here to-morrow night, and tell me how you have got over your day's troubles?"

This was not a proposal that Rachel could accept comfortably, nor that he could bring himself to press upon her. But when they came to reconsider their position and necessities, it was hard to find an alternative.

"You see, I must go back to Queensland in a day or two," Mr. Dalrymple explained, when, having taken her out of her hole and dusted her skirts with his handkerchief, he led her through the labyrinth of walls into the open moonlight, and they paused, hand in hand, for a few last words. "We have an immense deal to do up there, and Gordon wants me. I must look after getting things together for you too. There is not even a roof for your head yet. But I can't bear to leave town without knowing first how matters are likely to go with you."

"If you should be obliged to do that—if I cannot see you again," said Rachel, "when will you come back?"

"I will come back in—let me see, this is October—in two months. I will be back at Christmas. I should have liked to see your uncle to-morrow, just that there should be no mistake about what I mean to do; but if you think it will make things harder for you, I won't, of course. You shall just tell Kingston what you like, and the rest of them I will enlighten when I come. By that time he will be out of the way and done with, and we shall have a straight road before us."

"Yes," said Rachel, sighing; "I think that will be best. And perhaps, by that time, Aunt Elizabeth will let you in."

"If she doesn't, I shall bombard the house."

"You will be sure to be back at Christmas?"

"If I am alive, dear, and a free agent—certainly. And I shall find you ready for me then?"

"Oh, yes!"

With this compact between them, and the giving to Rachel of her lover's town address, and very explicit directions as to where she might find him at any given hour when she might happen to want him until the day of his departure, they kissed one clinging, lingering kiss in motionless silence, and bade one another—though they did not know it—a long farewell.

"Which is your window, Rachel? Can I see it from here?"

She pointed to it in silence, it was very distinct just now in the moonshine, between two dark pine trees. She was crying a little, and she could not speak.

"I will be here to-morrow night," he said; "and if you can't come out to me, have a light in your room at twelve o'clock, darling, to let me know you are all right."

And then they separated; and Rachel felt rather than saw her way home, so dazzled with tears was she, while Roden Dalrymple at her desire remained behind and watched her.

She went straight into the house and upstairs to her room, to gather together, in a feverish hurry of renunciation, all her diamonds and jewels, which like Dead Sea apples, had suddenly become dust.

And he, long after she was gone,—long after Mrs. Hardy's carriage returned, and all the chimes in the city had rung the midnight hour—lingered where she had left him, leaning his arms on a convenient wall, watching a lighted window, and thinking. He was very happy. He had come unawares upon his happiness, when he was most in need of it, and it seemed to him that it was the best he could have had.

Anything sweeter than this fresh and simple heart, which was satisfied to invest all its wealth in him—anything brighter than the future she had spread before him—he did not want or wish for. It was the amplest compensation that he could imagine for the mistakes and disappointments of his wasted past.

And yet, though he was hardly conscious of it—though he would not have owned to it if he had been—he had a vague misgiving about her. He did not wish that she had been less easy to win; he had no fear that she was mistaking a sentimental girlish fancy for love; he did not for a moment apprehend that she would forsake or wrong him.

But there was a suggestion of untried and untested youth about all the circumstances of this sudden betrothal, as far as she had influenced them, and there was an intangible suspicion that somewhere she was weak.

He did not recognise, and therefore did not formulate, the sentiment that infused that touch of grave and sad anxiety into his happy meditations; but, nevertheless, it was there, and the time came when it was justified.