Cynthia was now on her way home. Her plans for remaining in Jersey until Christmas fell through. In one letter she mentioned that she had got a nice room in Bree's Hotel, and felt quite settled for three months. In the next, a few days later, she announced her engagement to a man whom she had not before named, and of whom the Admiral and Mrs. Marlowe had never heard. She and her maid were returning at once to Lafer Hall, and Mr. Danby would travel to town with them, and see them off from thence by the North Express.

This was indeed carrying matters with a high hand. The Admiral was dumbfounded. He stormed down to Canon Tremenheere, forgetful, in his anxiety to know if he had had details from Mrs. Kerr, of the trouble he might be in. He vowed Cynthy was a 'matter-of-fact puss.' If he had ever thought she would take him literally, he would not have assured her choice was in her own hands. So there was no letter from Theodosia Kerr? Was she not responsible for Cynthy? Whatever were they all thinking of? Truly it was a mad world, time for him to be in his grave, he couldn't stand such whirligigs, Cynthy might be a teetotum and expect to set them all spinning with her.

'Look here, Anthony,' he said, buzzing round Tremenheere's library like a fly, while Anthony sat with his hands clasped behind his head, and an air of endurance, 'I always thought you'd be the man. I always thought she'd come round. She knows your worth, and you're such a fine fellow compared, for instance, to a little naval tub like myself. But I'll tell you what it is. The very devil gets into these women, good souls though they are, bless 'em, and they either don't know what they want, or won't take the trouble of making up their minds. And to think that after all these years her fancy should be caught like this, all in a jiffy. She's held herself too cheap; it's Cynthy all over, just what she does, thinks nothing of herself. If a beggar smiles upon her she gets a spasm of happiness, and thinks all the world's full of happiness.'

'But how do we know it's been a hasty thing?' said Tremenheere.

'Has Theodosia ever named the fellow?'

'Never. But she doesn't write voluminously.'

'Then of course it has. Just write to Theodosia now, will you? It was her bounden duty to have sent her off home the moment she suspected his pretensions. I'll confess it's a good name is Danby, but bless me! one sees Campbell over a shop door, and Spencer on a costermonger's cart! And an Anglo-Indian too! Don't know anything about them and care less. And then to think she might have had you, letting alone Ushire's son, who'd have made her a countess some day. Really, Anthony, it's fit to turn one's blood; it'll upset my liver, I know. He may be a scamp, a fortune-hunter, a merry-andrew, a married man,' said the Admiral, his imagination running rampant, and his voice taking a higher key as each new possibility occurred to him. He was woe-begone and desperate. 'I can't digest it, Anthony,' he said, settling in one of the windows, and looking limp and hopelessly perplexed; 'I can't digest it. It's not like Cynthy. It's a loss of dignity. And she, with all her charm and her choice, and you at her beck. It's inconceivable; I can't believe it.'

'She will be home before I can hear from Theo,' said Tremenheere. He was too conscious of his own lack of spirit to marvel at the Admiral's. 'I can't understand her not having written, though. There must have been some mistake over the mails. She ought to have written to you, or rather perhaps Kerr should. But he's such an easy-going fellow, is St. John. However, if I were you, Admiral, I would not distress myself. I don't think Cynthia's judgment will have failed her. We must hope for the best.'

'Hope for the best! That often means getting the worst. The best won't come for our sitting with folded hands, thinking about it. No, no, Anthony, and I'll have none of your confounded aphorisms—"Whatever is, is best," and all that fraternity of philosophy. They're a mental creeping paralysis, that's what they are. I mean to act, to act, Anthony!'

He stamped his foot as he spoke, and screwing his eye-glass into his eye, glared at Tremenheere as though wishing for contradiction for the sake of defying it.

'I would,' said Tremenheere, 'certainly I would, if I were you, Admiral. There will be many considerations in the case of your granddaughter. But wait until she gets home and then be calm, do be calm. Don't alarm her. I don't think it's occurred to her how you will have taken it, how you'll feel it. Letters would only complicate matters by crossing or miscarrying or not reaching. She will soon be home.'

The Admiral was walking up and down the room again. He was listening, but with no intention of heeding until the tone in which these last words were uttered struck on his ears. It was a tone utterly unlike the petulance of his own, that of a man baulked in his dearest desire who foresees nothing but pangs in a proximity where hope had long hovered, but whence it had for ever taken flight.

'Anthony,' said the Admiral, reaching him rapidly and putting his hand on his arm, 'I'm a confounded selfish old brute. Here am I screwing into your nerves to save my own. I'm going. Come down with me. The air in your garden'll do you good. But just write to Theodosia, will you?'

Tremenheere nodded as he got up.

He did not want to thwart the Admiral, but it was not for him to probe the matter. He scarcely knew whether he wished Theo had written or was thankful she had not. He was stunned by the news. The Admiral had discharged it at him like a ball from a cannon's mouth; and the more he thought of it, the more intolerable became the burning tension at his heart. He wanted to be alone. He felt unmanned. He had had hard work to reconcile himself to the idea of Cynthia travelling, even though he had faith in Theo's good offices and a vague impression that she meant to accomplish something in his favour. But when she was at Lafer he knew he had her near and safe, that she belonged to no one else and was out of range of new admirers. In his own mind he attributed Theodosia's flagrant carelessness to the loss their sister Julia had sustained. Julia Tremenheere, married at seventeen, became a widow fifteen months later, and two years subsequently she married again. Her second husband was also now dead. News of this loss would reach the Kerrs at Athens. He could imagine that Julia's sorrow would deeply affect Theodosia, and that she then overlooked what was happening in her own travelling party. But in the Admiral's present mood he had been careful to keep this in the background; to endure such rough-shod treatment of his sister's grief as well as his own was more than he could do.

Throughout the cruise Theodosia had written to him constantly, keeping him up in all their movements, and inferring her care of his interests. These letters he had answered regularly. Sometimes he enclosed a note for Cynthia. He had done this only the previous day. A verandah ran the length of his house, and was festooned with virginia-creeper whose crimson tints were now resplendent in the glowing autumn sunshine. It was a favourite plant of hers. The last time she called before going away he asked if she would be back in time to see its splendour. Unconscious of Mrs. Kerr's plans, she had said yes, and when he heard she was not coming until Christmas he wrote to upbraid her, hoping that his words might draw from her consent to his soon going out to Jersey, since Mrs. Kerr would now soon propose it.

'My dear Cynthia,' he wrote, 'my garden is in its glory. The verandah is in gala attire. I am convinced that the tendril that touched your cheek as the wind swayed it—do you remember—heard your promise, and thinks long of you as I do too, for the whole plant is early crimsoned this year. You know what an exquisite foreground it then forms for the fine mass of the Minster behind it. Are you not coming to be our last rose of summer? Better that, dear Cynthia, than a Christmas rose; that's too cold and pale for my fancy. Don't be our Christmas rose, if I am not to see you before that time—or I shall be chilled by presentiments. Come home and leave Kerr and Theo to coddle each other. Everybody wants you here, as you know.—Faithfully yours, Anthony Tremenheere.'

After the Admiral mounted his horse and rode off he sauntered round to the verandah. He knew the tendril that touched her cheek in spring. He stood and thought of her, picturing her as she then stood by his side. Would she ever visit him again as Cynthia Marlowe, and find occasion for one of their quiet talks?

He thought of his note, she would have started before it reached Theo; surely she would not forward it to her. He felt now with tingling blood that it was lover-like, and they were severed when he wrote it. For one fierce moment he rebelled against the cruelty of that ignorance enfolding our human actions at which it is easy to think that devils must laugh. Bitterness welled in his heart; what is emotion but a pitfall? Then he pulled himself together again. This thing, inconceivable but true, had hung over him for years. Now, the blow had fallen. What he had thought was hope was after all only suspense. Apparently he would not even have to readjust his life. He had prayed for her welfare. If she had chosen well, that prayer would be answered. Friendship should not be sacrificed; her husband, her children, should add to his interests. His life-work was on his library table, but it should not conform him into a Dryasdust. He made up his mind to love her still by casting out self.

The next day he heard from Mrs. Kerr. An examination of the post-marks told him that it had been intended he should hear at the same time as the Admiral.

'My dearest Tony,' she wrote, 'I have bad news for you, and I wish with all my heart I had never undertaken Cynthia. I knew she would be attractive, but I didn't think it would be to any purpose on her own score. I had a preconceived idea that our trip would prove to her there was no one like you in the world. And now, my dear old fellow, she has electrified us by announcing her engagement to a man whom we had not recognised as a suitor. We met him first at Ajaccio, then he turned up in Zante, and finally we found him at St. Helier's. Still I suspected nothing. St. John, who was with her when he ran up against them here, did. You know how the colour flies, positively flies into her cheeks; well, that's how it did, St. John says, when she saw him. He told me, but I pooh-poohed it. She's been so long proof, and there was you. However, everything and everybody but Mr. Danby are forgotten now; St. John says it's a downright case of evangelisation—all her idols are cast to the moles and bats. He teases her dreadfully; she's been wearing her hair with fillets and he says he knows now why, because Mr. Danby was so fond of fillets of kid at Ajaccio. This of course is all nonsense. But what will the Admiral say? I have expostulated with her; I told her she never ought to have been engaged here but have let him come to Lafer. You know what a laugh she has when she's happy; well, she just laughed—"Theo," she said, "your worldly wisdom guards the gardens of the Hesperides." "Gardens of the fiddle-sticks!" said I. But all is useless. She is packing now, and will be home almost before you get this. St. John says I ought to write to Mrs. Marlowe, but that means the Admiral, and I don't know what I can say, except that it really is no more my fault than that I asked her to come with us. Oh, Tony, my dearest boy, I wish I could see you! But don't make a trouble of it, and do let me know what you think of Mr. Danby.—Yours ever, Theodosia Kerr.'

Tremenheere sat for a long time with this before him. He knew Theo's style of writing, but had excused her when there really was nothing to say—he had not expected the letters of a Disraeli except for egotism. But when there was something to say he had expected she would be able to say it. And here was tragedy made into comedy, a drama slurred out of all proportion. He had wanted to know what she thought of Danby, what Kerr thought of him. And here was judgment thrown on to his shoulders.

'Good God!' he thought, 'how am I to get to know him? That is just what I cannot do until she has married him.'

He tormented himself over that demand for his opinion. What did it mean? Were they dissatisfied? Was Kerr mistrustful? had even Theo misgivings? If they had liked him with genuine hearty British liking, would they not have said so? Was this vagueness intentional—'We don't like him, do you?' He knew that flying of the colour into Cynthia's cheeks; he could hear that joyous laugh of hers. He sat on now, thinking of them. She must be happy. Would she be if she had a doubt of this man? She could not be wholly blinded, he must be sterling if she were so happy.

Then he was seized by a great longing to see her at once, as soon as she arrived, that he might judge for himself. His restlessness was intolerable. He must walk it off. He would go up to Lafer and hear if they had had a telegram. Had she reached London? When were they coming on? By what train were they to arrive?

He saw Mrs. Hennifer. The Admiral was out with one of the woodmen; Mrs. Marlowe was not down; she had been so unnerved by the news that she had not been beyond her dressing-room since. They had heard that Cynthia was to arrive that night. He walked to the window and stood a long while silent. Mrs. Hennifer remained in the middle of the room, also standing. An air of unusual indecision was on her face. She did not know how much she dared say of all that was in her mind.

Tremenheere turned at last and looked at her.

'I very much wish to see Cynthia,' he said.

'You must come up to-morrow, or we will drive down.'

'No, neither. I want to see her to-night. Tell the Admiral I'll meet her and put her into the carriage.'

'That will do very well. Mrs. Marlowe can't spare me, and the Admiral is too peremptory in the matter to talk coherently in the carriage.'

'Naturally. I hope he will be gentle with her—you will be at hand, won't you? Some one must meet her too, it would otherwise be so cheerless. Thanks.'

He took up his hat and stick, his eyes meanwhile slowly travelling round the room. It was the morning-room, and opening from the drawing-rooms had often been used in their place as being more cosy after dinner in winter. A little bamboo table with a low chair beside it was hers. How often they had played chess together there, or talked, Cynthia with bright silken work in her hands. It was pain to Mrs. Hennifer to see the sadness of his face. He came up and put his hand out. She took it within both her own and looked at him earnestly, her thin angular figure relaxing sufficiently to lean slightly towards him.

'Canon, it may never be a marriage,' she said.

'Never a marriage!' he repeated. 'Dear Mrs. Hennifer, that would, I fear, be a grief to her.'

'She must have been a little hasty.'

'But haste does not always entail mistake.'

'She may discover that she has not known sufficient about him. He is some years older than she. She may eventually see herself that it is not desirable.'

'True. It is possible.'

'But improbable, you think. It would entail unpleasantness. Still, the breaking off might be a mutual arrangement; it might.'

He was silent again, struggling with the desperate hope that sprang up anew at the suggestion. It took him unawares. He had determined that Cynthia's manner that night should decide the future irrevocably for him. He would fight free of suspense, and suffer no paralysis of indecision. At last he smiled slightly, that smile of a radiance so rarely, softly bright that it fell like a benediction wherever it was bestowed.

'You want to soften things for me,' he said. 'In your goodness of heart, and because you knew her and me as children, and the love that I have had for her since, you do not wish that I should have to bear what is hard. I do find it hard, but I would rather it were a thousand times harder than that sorrow stepped into her path. I love her yet, and shall eternally, but it is and will be with "self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control." Let us pray God that there is no mistake, and if she marry Danby it may be a happy marriage.'

Mrs. Hennifer could say no more. It was not expedient that any one but Mrs. Severn and herself should know that Lucius Danby was known to them until Cynthia herself knew. It was not likely that this knowledge was already hers. Mrs. Hennifer felt that if Mrs. Severn were trustworthy it was possible that this good wish of Tremenheere's would be fulfilled. She could scarcely yet reconcile herself to the idea of the match, since her conception of Cynthia's dignity was fastidious. She was convinced, too, that if the Admiral knew that his granddaughter's engagement was to a man who had been engaged to his agent's wife and jilted by her, Danby's proposal would be met with unceremonious and outraged denial.