"THE GROUND-WHIRL OF THE PERISHED LEAVES OF HOPE."

M MRS. READE lost no time in obeying her mother's summons. In two days she was back in Melbourne, and having given ten minutes to the inspection of her domestic affairs, and refreshed herself with tea and bread and butter, she went on to Toorak in the carriage that had brought her from the station, without even waiting to change her travelling-dress.

At Toorak she found things in a most discouraging and deplorable condition—as they never would have been, she told herself, had she remained in town.

Mrs. Hardy, who met her in the hall, and took her to her own room for elaborate explanations, was herself a most puzzling and unsatisfactory feature in the case, for she made it evident to her daughter's keen perception that something more had happened than was accounted for in her rather disconnected narrative, and that she did not intend to disclose what it was.

There was a touch of nervous recklessness and defiance in the way she spoke of Rachel's illness—as if the poor child had crowned a systematic series of misdemeanours by falling ill on purpose—and of her hearty regret that she had ever had anything to do with such a perverse and ungrateful girl, which conveyed to Mrs. Reade the impression that her cousin had in some way been persecuted, or had at any rate, been subjected to more heroic treatment than her own judgment and advice had sanctioned.

Under such circumstances it was, perhaps, natural that her mother should be somewhat reserved, since to be fully confidential would be to confess that she had made mistakes; but this sudden reversal of old habits, occurring at this important crisis in the family fortunes, was a serious aggravation of the already sufficient difficulties that the little woman had to deal with.

What complicated her task still further was the discovery that Mr. Kingston was again a frequent visitor at the house, and a strong suspicion that he was cognisant of those unauthorised measures—whatever they were—which she was not to hear of. The only thing she could hope for was that Rachel would make a clean breast of all her secrets.

"And if she trusts me, I will stand her friend against them all," declared the baffled conspirator to herself, as she sat and listened to her mother's tangled story.

It appeared that Rachel's first signs of illness had become apparent very soon after the Reades had left town. She began to fade in colour and to fail in appetite, and grew nervous, flighty, and restless; and, upon investigation, it was discovered that she had lost the habit of sleeping as a healthy girl should sleep at night.

The family doctor was called in, who, amongst other remedies prescribed a return to horse exercise, which, since the breaking-off of her engagement, had been abandoned; and Mr. Kingston thereupon begged so earnestly that she would ride Black Agnes again, that she reluctantly consented to do so to please him.

Mr. Kingston behaved most delicately, it was explained, and did not force himself upon her in her rides. She always went out with William. "Always," however, turned out to be only twice, and on both occasions the carriage had accompanied her with Mr. Kingston in it.

Just before Christmas she refused to ride any more, and she behaved in the most rude and ill-bred manner to Mr. Kingston. On Christmas Day she was very aggravating—in what way did not appear—and Mrs. Hardy had to "speak" to her; and the result was that she flew into a violent passion, and then had a fit of hysterics, and then fainted dead away, and did not come round for nearly five minutes.

"I don't recognise Rachel in any of those performances," remarked Mrs. Reade. "Why did you not send for me then, mother?"

"Because I thought it was nothing but a temporary attack. The weather was sultry—she was full of whims and fancies. What could you have done if you had come? And she was better again next day."

"Well?"

"Well, then, when I was doing all I could to nurse and take care of her, she went out of a warm room one night, and rambled about the garden or somewhere in a heavy dew, and got her feet wet. Wasn't it too bad? I could have shaken her when I saw her come in, with a face as white as ashes, and chilled to her very bones!"

"She caught cold, I suppose?"

"Of course she did. And then she had a touch of fever—what else was to be expected? Her pulse was very high, and she was excited, and inclined to be delirious—indeed, we had as much as we could do to manage her. It did not last long, and it was really nothing but the consequences of her imprudence, the doctor said—and there was a little low kind of fever going about just now—and he did not think her constitution was very strong. He says she will soon be all right, with care; and indeed, the fever is quite allayed since I wrote to you, and any little danger that there might have been is over. But she keeps low. She doesn't seem to gain strength—and no wonder, considering we can't get her to eat anything. I am glad you have come back; perhaps you will have more influence with her than I have."

"I suppose I may go up?" Mrs. Reade inquired, after a pause. Her mother gave her permission readily; it was a great surprise and relief to her to find herself spared the searching cross-examination which she had rather uneasily looked forward to.

"You had better put on your bonnet and have a drive," the young lady proceeded, pausing with her hand on the door. "It will do you good, after being in the house so much. I don't want the horses taken out, and they will only scratch holes in the gravel if they stand here doing nothing. I am not going away till dinner time."

"Thank you, my dear, I think I will," said Mrs. Hardy. Mrs. Reade went upstairs to Rachel's room, and without knocking, opened the door softly.

It was a bright January afternoon, but the heat of the day was over, and a sea breeze was springing up. The window was open, and the chintz curtains softly rustling to and fro. There was a magnificent bouquet on a table at the foot of the bed; the air was full of the perfume of roses; a few flies were buzzing over a plate of strawberries set on a chair at Rachel's side.

The invalid was lying on a sofa, in a white dressing-gown, in an attitude of extreme languor, asleep. One hand holding a fan had dropped beside her; the other was under her head. Her dark gold hair was loose and tumbled, and curling in damp rings on her temples; her face was flushed and thin; there were hollows and shadows under the tired closed eyes. She looked as if she had been ill for months.

Mrs. Reade, examining her attentively as she knelt by the sofa, was deeply shocked and concerned. Never would she have gone away to Adelonga if she could have foreseen this! And never should the poor little thing be harried and worried, as she had evidently been, again, if she had any power to prevent it—no, not though twenty Mr. Kingstons and all their twenty fortunes were at stake.

A mosquito settled upon the girl's white arm, and the light brush of the finger that removed it wakened her. She drew a deep breath, and opened her eyes languidly; then seeing her visitor, she stared at her for a second in a dazed and startled way; and then to Mrs. Reade's great embarrassment and distress, she suddenly flung herself into her arms, and broke into the wildest weeping.

"Now, Rachel! Now, my dearest child——"

But it would have been as hopeless to try and stop the Falls of Niagara as this tide of passion at the flood; seeing which, Mrs. Reade waited for the ebb in silence. By the time it came the girl was completely exhausted; she seemed to have the merest fragment of strength.

"Now," said Beatrice, when she had sponged her face and hands and otherwise taken steps to revive and soothe her, "now tell me what all this is about. I know you are in some great trouble, and I have come home on purpose to help you."

"No one can help me!" Rachel cried, despairingly, tears rushing afresh into her hot eyes.

"Oh, nonsense. Just tell me what is the matter, and see if I can't. Are they trying to make you marry Mr. Kingston? Because I can soon send him about his business."

"No; Mr. Kingston is very kind now. He sends me flowers every day. He does not worry me. He is very considerate and thoughtful. For I think he—knows."

"Well, and now I want to know. Is it about—someone else? Is it about Mr. Dalrymple?"

"Who told you?" the girl demanded, with sharp entreaty. "Oh, Beatrice, what have you heard? Did Mrs. Digby tell you anything about him? Is he in Queensland? Is he alive? What is he doing?"

Mrs. Reade replied that she had heard nothing of Mr. Dalrymple beyond the fact that he was believed to be in Queensland, and doing well.

"If he had not been, they must have known," said Rachel. "Oh, my love, if I could see you for myself just once."

She began to cry again, more bitterly than before, and to wring her hands. There was a fierce excitement in her grief and despair that for a moment stunned the little woman who had never known what it was to be in love.

And then Rachel told all the story of her clandestine engagement, as the reader already knows it, without any reservations. The dÉnouement was exactly what Mrs. Reade expected—"And he never came!"

"Poor little thing!" she ejaculated pitifully.

"I was as certain that he would come as that Christmas would come," said Rachel, reckless in her confessions now that she had begun to open her heart. "And there was a strange gentleman here, and he was shut up a long time with Aunt Elizabeth, and I thought it was he—"

"Are you sure it was not he?"

"Quite sure. When he was going away I ran out into the garden and watched for him; he was an ugly little man. And if it had been Roden, and he had wanted to see me, he would not have allowed himself to be sent away."

"That would have depended on mamma; wouldn't it?"

"Oh, no. He would never have let her send him away; and Aunt Elizabeth says, solemnly, that he never came."

"You told her about him then?" asked Mrs. Reade.

"Beatrice, I was nearly mad—I don't know what I said. She was very angry—she always hated him. But I did not care—I was too miserable to care. And I made her swear that he had never come; and now—it is nearly February—now I know he didn't. I don't want anybody to tell me."

Mrs. Reade put all these revelations into her mental crucible, and in a few seconds she had the product ready. On presenting it to Rachel, wrapped up in the gentlest language, it came to this simply—that "it was always the way with men of that kind."

"He is not like other men," said Rachel. "I do not blame him. I have thought of it, over and over and over, every night and every day, and I know why it was. I ran after him, Beatrice—I took him before he offered himself to me—I had only seen him once or twice when I showed him I loved him, and made him think I wanted him—he did not ask me to be his wife until I had given myself to him already! I did not think of it then, but I see it clearly now. I dragged him into it—I gave him no choice. And now he is away, and he thinks about it, and he knows I am not enough for him. How should I be enough—I for such a man as that? Oh, that happy woman, who died in his arms! Oh, how I wish I had been she!"

"Well," said Mrs. Reade, after a pause, trying to speak cheerfully, but feeling profoundly disheartened; "you ought not to have had anything to do with lovers and marriages at your time of life, and you must just give up thinking of such things until you are older and wiser."

"I shall never give him up," said Rachel quietly; "never, if I live to be a hundred. I have told Aunt Elizabeth—I told her to tell Mr. Kingston—that I shall never love any other man. It would be impossible, after loving him. When I am well I shall ask her to let me go out and be a governess, and earn my own living. I don't want to be rich, I want to be poor, like him. And some day, perhaps, I may see him again, and be able to do something for him—if it isn't till he is an old, old man, I don't care. If only God lets him live and lets me live, so that we are both in the world together—I'll take my chance of the rest. But—but," and she turned her head from side to side, and began to tremble and cry in a weak, hysterical abandonment of all self-command, "if I have to wait for years and years, without a sight of his face or a sound of his voice, how shall I be able to live? The longing for him will kill me!"

Mrs. Reade went away when her carriage returned, more humble-minded than she had been in her life. She wanted very much to stay and nurse her cousin until she was better, but she could not do that, because she could not trust Ned to keep house and keep sober by himself; so she set off to see the doctor to get a confidential report of the "case," meaning to intimate her suspicions that there was a touch of fever on the brain, and to gain his sanction to a scheme for removing the invalid to her own cheerful abode at South Yarra as soon as she became moderately convalescent.