Mr. Sandford returned from his journey, knowing that when he arrived at home he should find no one there. He had chosen that time to leave home because it was the easiest way of avoiding an explanation, which, he half recognised to himself, must take the form of an apology.

It was perfectly true that he thought his sister took an exaggerated view of what had passed, but that sense of right and wrong which does not desert a man for many years convicted him of blame. It was not possible for any high-spirited girl to submit to the footing he tried to put Grace upon, but he had grown to dislike her, and he did not at all mind having hurt her. The only question was about Margaret.

Yes! Margaret was different. He thought often of her expression, of the way in which she roused herself to indignation when Grace was in question; and he regretted his want of control on her account. Could things ever come quite right between them again?

There are some truths which make themselves felt without being thought out, far less spoken or put into words, and one truth was present to him then. The moment the faintest question of obligation creeps into close relationship between one and another person, and that the suspicion of gratitude becomes possible, that moment the character of the subsisting love changes in a subtle way. Between friend and friend it is different; there often one receives, the other gives; but in the case of near relations the expectation of a little gratitude makes the difference between them. Among sisters a sort of communism is one of the uniting ties; a common property, a right to share, and one of the disappointments of life is when from some outside influence or some change in position, this close tie drifts into a relative position of inequality.

Mr. Sandford knew that in befriending and adopting his wife's nieces, who were no kin to him, he was acting in a kind, if not a generous, way; he had helped to educate them and he had offered them a home. For these things he deserved that they should consider him and be grateful to him. But, on the other hand, if he made the home intolerable to them, he neutralized the gift and spoiled its flavour.

Besides that fondness for power, which was part of his very character, he conceived that he had obtained by his spontaneous actions a certain right over them, and he fully intended exercising that right. Then, with all the unreasonableness of a man who never could see both sides of a question, he was thoroughly disappointed that they did not show him more affection. He wanted to be called "Uncle," but he never said so, and the girls, to whom he had always been an a "unknown quantity," had never thought of so natural an appellation.

He liked to be feared; he also wished to be loved, especially by Margaret, towards whom he had the strongest leaning.

As he went up to his own house, he missed the calm, sweet gaze of his sister and the gay, girlish voices; the house struck him painfully, it was so cheerless and so dull. He was expected, but not so soon. In the drawing-room was silence and chilliness; there was no fire in the grate, the rug was rolled up, all looked as though almost there had been a death; and with a shiver and a great sinking and depression he went to his own room—that small room downstairs where his plans were made, and his successes, and his failures, faced and mastered.

Here a fire was slowly beginning to light, and the room was cold. Anne would have seen to this, he thought, forgetting that he had returned some hours before he had intended, finding that a person he wanted to see on business, had gone South.

The room was scrupulously tidy, but so cheerless; he tried to remember how it had all been long ago (he thought it was long ago), before he had been ill, before his sister Anne and the girls had come to him; and he remembered the dreary and desolate feeling of illness creeping over him, and how he had then suffered.

A pile of letters, neatly arranged, lay upon his writing-table, and he looked them over. There was one from his sister and he took it up.

It was not very long, but it filled him with a certain uneasiness. Mrs. Dorriman, always anxious to fulfil her trust and to show herself worthy of her responsibilities, sketched their life for his benefit, and, without laying undue stress upon the fact, let him know that another person was ready to show his appreciation for Margaret. And he so wanted Margaret to be at home with him, at any rate for some few years. She was so young, and, if her sister was only disposed of, he thought she would grow to like him.

Why was it always Margaret?

Mrs. Dorriman also mentioned the glimpse they had had of Mr. Drayton, the man he had hoped so much from, who seemed so frank and who was so reserved, and who had disappointed and baffled him in so many ways.

He also wanted Margaret. He had been there by accident. Of course he would go back again, and Mr. Sandford rose and paced the room, stopping to stir the fire violently, so violently that the newly-lit sticks collapsed, the coal smothered the flickering flame and the fire went out.

With an exclamation of annoyance, Mr. Sandford rang the bell. It was answered by Jean, nerved for the occasion, who had been matching for an opportunity to speak to him, much too greatly in awe of him to walk in upon him without an opening.

She looked at the fire and understood what had happened, went off for fresh sticks, laid and new-lit the fire in a few seconds, and then confronted him, and asked him if he wanted anything else.

"When am I to have dinner?" he asked, abruptly.

"You can have something to eat now if you please; dinner can be any time after seven," said Jean. "You look cold, sir?"

"The house is like an iceberg," he said in a grumbling and complaining tone, "quite enough to give one cold."

"It's cheerless and dull, and cold enough, sir, without any one, but just only a man," said Jean. "It's not much comfort to a man being alone."

"Have you heard from Mrs. Dorriman?" he asked.

"Oh, certainly, sir, she writes whiles to me."

"I have a letter, I suppose she is well?"

"She does not complain of ill health; not that Mrs. Dorriman's given to complaining," said Jean; "she'll put up with a great deal, will Mrs. Dorriman, sooner than speak a word."

Did she mean anything by this? Mr. Sandford glanced keenly at her, and thought it best to say nothing.

"What time do you wish to eat your dinner, sir?" inquired Jean.

"Oh! any time after seven," he answered, and there was a certain weariness in his tone that struck her.

She said no more, but looked at the fire, now blazing, and went back to her domain.

It was still early in the afternoon, though the want of clearness in the air all round the place made it soon dark.

On a table, tidily set out and looking comfortable, was Jean's tea, though the teapot, one of those delightful brown earthenware affairs, producing somehow such superexcellent tea, was on a hot plate in front of the fire.

Jean made some delicate toast, and arranged a little tray; she poured off the first cup, resolving to give him of the best, and was soon in his room again. Her great panacea for all ill was in her hands, and Mr. Sandford, who wanted comfort and warmth, and did not understand how much he wanted both, was sitting looking moodily at the fire, conscious that life was altogether wrong with him somehow.

He received Jean's attention without much apparent gratitude, but when she had gone he did turn to it for consolation, and eat up all the toast, as Jean noted afterwards with much satisfaction.

Then he read his letters, feeling better; and one letter he held in his hand for a long while.

Mr. Sandford while known to be a rich man was never talked of as a speculative man. He was one of those people considered "very safe all round." No one took greater pains than he did to inquire into securities, no one was keener to detect a possible risk, and his investments, his financial ability, all together gave him a position he thoroughly valued.

But, as in the most perfect characters there is a flaw, and as in armour there is a vulnerable place, in business relations there is sometimes a weak point.

He was not large-minded enough ever to own himself wrong. He could not bear to be suspected of having made a mistake; and he sometimes found himself on the horns of a dilemma, and found the horns were very pointed.

He was so fond of power, of dictating and directing, of leading with a hard and heavy hand, that he sometimes took a wrong view of a matter, and then sacrificed his own interests rather than be proved wrong.

At this moment he was confronted by a terrible mistake. He thought and thought till he was tired how to face it and get out of it. He could not disturb his other investments, except at a ruinous loss. He had been so certain, that he had locked up for a time the floating capital he could generally fall back upon, and he found himself for the very first time almost stranded.

It was not only the possibility of heavy loss, but the fact he knew so well, that, when all was known, as it must be known—unless he could manage to tide it all over—it would shake his position all round.

Cold drops stood out upon his forehead as he rapidly considered all these possibilities. He saw, as in a long vista, all he cared for, all he had toiled for, swept away, and himself standing there, without a friend, the laughing-stock of the very people who now flattered him, and tried to benefit by his superior understanding on financial questions.

He seized a train-book. There was just one chance—Mr. Drayton.

His sister had mentioned him, and he felt quite certain that, as he had seen his nieces at Lornbay, he would make his way there again.

He would go there and he would manage it. There was no ruin to Mr. Drayton, and no loss of position. Supposing he lost—all the world looked upon him as an amiable fool as regarded business matters. He had no position to lose; it would not be a fall such as his own would be; and there would be no loss. It was only a temporary embarrassment.

He rang once more, and Jean saw that he was now in quite his old peremptory, masterful mood.

"Let me have something to eat at once, and tell Robert to pack my things again. Why he does not answer my bell I cannot make out. What is the use of him?"

"Not knowing you would be home so soon, Robert went to do some messages; but I expect him in in a moment or two. Then I'll not sheet your bed?"

She spoke in an inquiring tone; her thrifty soul anxious not to crumple the linen now airing, if not required.

"I have to go at once. I am going to Lornbay. I suppose you have no message?"

"I'll no trouble you with messages. I aye use my pen when need be," she said, very calmly, and hurried off to get him that something to eat which is never a great difficulty in the hands of an experienced cook.

It may be said that she did write to her mistress, as she always called Mrs. Dorriman, that very night, and gave a graphic description of Mr. Sandford's arrival.

As frequently is the case, the pith of her letter lay in the postscript.

"You will be glad to hear, mem, that, though he was most fashious and pernickity, he was not just very rampageous, and he drank his tea and eat up all the toast," wrote Jean, who had never before known him condescend to such simple fare.

After all, Mr. Sandford did not start that night. He reflected, that, as he was anxious, he must not show his anxiety; and also that feeling of indisposition which he did not recognise made him put off his journey till the following day, a postponement which met with Jean's fullest approval. Why people should spend their nights, rumbling and tumbling along, when they might be in their beds, was one of the most surprising things in life to her, and she thought it "wise like" not to do it.

But this postponement made one difference, instead of bursting upon them all as a surprise, Mr. Sandford was expected. The trio were alone, and no one, so far as he could ascertain, was staying there interesting to him.

Mrs. Dorriman was glad he had come. She was always thankful to share any responsibility; and she thought him looking ill—which fact always softened her towards him.

Her feeling for him had, indeed, much changed, and she never thought bitterly of his old misdoings towards her. Time, which softens a grief, heals many a difference; and, though she always had the consciousness of having been hardly used, she constantly found herself making allowances for him, and compassion was beginning to tone down all her sources of irritation against him.

Jean's letter, posted over-night, arrived just after breakfast; the girls were dismayed; they had parted from him with angry feelings, and now, how were they to meet? Margaret, calling Grace in vain to accompany her, set off for a long expedition among the lower hills that crowned the heights behind Lornbay. From high up she obtained a larger view, and, with Tennyson in her hands, with whom she spent all her happiest moments, she prepared to wander far, not sorry to be alone, and feeling secure from the companionship of Mr. Paul Lyons or of any of those common-place, if friendly, women who had by degrees gathered round Mrs. Dorriman and who tried Margaret's patience sorely.

Would a day ever come to her, she often thought with girlish impatience, when the interests of life would be narrowed to a new pattern in cross-stitch or crewel-work, and to the want of taste in some person's way of setting a bow on the side of a cap. These trivial matters lay so far outside anything that contained possible interest to her, that she despised the people who evidently considered them of consequence.

Margaret also was beginning to make another discovery, and one that filled her with pain and even terror. She had too candid a mind not to own a truth to herself, however unwillingly, and the truth which frightened her and dismayed her was the wide difference existing between her sister and herself. She had all her life looked up to Grace, admired her and worshipped her. Every day now showed her that Grace had, in all ways, a lower standard than she had. She was contented to spend her time in perfect and complete idleness; she would no longer even talk upon matters of any importance with her sister. All those questions of religious thought which crowd upon a young girl when her mind begins to draw its own conclusions and she shakes off those boundaries and lines which have, up till then, been the accepted guides for all her belief, were too evidently distasteful to Grace to be persisted in. We feel it as irreverent to allow a careless hand to touch our holiest and highest thoughts as we do if a scoffer enters a church with us. Poor Margaret, often perplexed, asking herself questions that have always baffled the wisest men, blamed her own want of perception for not understanding. She had a high ideal, a desire for the best, and she was often miserable because of a supposed short-coming of a faith that was not unwavering. To turn to Grace, who was, she thought, so far her superior in point of cleverness, would have been such an endless comfort to her.

But it was not only in these deeper things that the sisters differed. Grace, full of vanity, was insatiable in her appetite for applause. She took endless trouble to obtain attention, conceiving attention invariably to mean admiration. Not all Margaret's love for her could conceal the fact from her widely-opening eyes, and to the higher character of the severe young sister this intense vanity was almost a worse fault than one perhaps of a stronger type. It seemed to her to be so absolutely beneath the dignity of a woman, and of such a woman as Grace.

In the room they shared together every candle was brought to bear upon the glass, and the time Grace took to curl and crimp and crisp her hair left Margaret none. Luckily, by chance, her long, thick hair was simply smoothed back and twisted in a coil that required but a few moments to arrange.

Those moments, during which Margaret's grave young eyes were fixed wonderingly upon her sister, were full of grief to her. Then Grace's habit of laughing off a question, her little transparent caprices and deceits, filled the younger sister with apprehension. Imaginative as she was, the truth exaggerated itself to her inexperienced eyes, and she saw her sister drifting from her and slipping each day down to a lower level, while she stood by helpless. These thoughts filled her mind, to the exclusion of other things; she tried to read, she tried to enjoy the great stretch of water, the faint, blue hills with the varying lights, but her heart was heavy, and she sat down at the foot of a sharp and rocky gorge and gave herself up to melancholy reflections.

Then something happened—what, she never rightly knew—but there was a sudden shout, a rushing and falling of the rock under which she was sitting, and a figure vainly endeavouring to protect itself came crashing down and lay helpless a few yards from where, with the instinct of self-preservation, Margaret had sprung. For one second she stood breathless, trembling all over with the sudden shock and fright, then she rallied and went quickly up to the prostrate form, lying so still that she was afraid death would confront her.

She took courage, and moved the checked deer-stalker's cap that had fallen over the face, and she saw a man, not very young, his eyes closed and his teeth clenched, a look of agony impressed upon his features.

With the necessity for help came strength; she flew down to the burn and dipped her handkerchief in water, bathed his mouth and eyes and forehead, and then, seeing how he lay, all of a heap, she gently moved him so that he might breathe more easily, then she knelt and prayed with all her heart. It seemed long before he showed any signs of life, and the poor child was getting very nervous and very anxious; she could not leave him alone there, she thought, till she knew how it would be; and she went on dabbing his face and hands, with a very faint hope of his responding to her efforts. But at last life, that had been so nearly shaken out from the great massive frame, began to tingle once more through his veins, and, after a long shuddering sigh and a smothered exclamation of pain, his eyes opened and stared back at hers in complete bewilderment. He had heard her praying.

"I saw you fall; there was no one else; are you very much hurt?" said Margaret, anxiously, all in one breath.

"I am afraid I am," he answered, and the deep tones of his voice were full of suppressed pain.

"Can you move at all? Should you be afraid of being left? Shall I go for help?"

He struggled for self-command; it was evident the pain was almost overmastering him, and Margaret's heart was so full of compassion she had no longer room for nervousness. She was touched beyond measure when she noticed that in the midst of all his suffering he thought of her, and that he was trying to suppress all signs of what he was enduring. He could not speak for a moment or two, then he said hurriedly,

"My men are looking out for me. If you can, tie a handkerchief to my stick. They were to pick me up here." In a moment or two he said, "If you do not mind staying—till—they come—" and to poor Margaret's dismay he went off again into insensibility.

She acted as he had told her and had the comfort of seeing a boat come off. She did not notice from which ship it came, but she hurried back to his side, and renewed her efforts with her dripping pocket-handkerchief.

Then, when the men were landing, she went down to the shore towards them and told them there had been an accident; and, in a moment or two, the unfortunate hero of the adventure was surrounded by strong arms, and evidently anxious helpers, and Margaret glided away. She felt very tired as she walked homewards. Anxiety is always a much greater fatigue than physical exertion, and she drooped as she reached the hotel. Then she dragged herself upstairs and was pleased to find herself alone with Mrs. Dorriman.

Mrs. Dorriman was placidly engaged in doing up her accounts, and was satisfied to find that her brother, if he wished to do so, might inspect them without being able to find fault. But Mr. Sandford was not at all either stingy or exacting, as far as money matters went; and Mrs. Dorriman, as she wrote out the conclusion, could not help giving a sigh when she thought how entirely the method and neatness of it all was thrown away, since no other eye would probably ever see this well-kept book save her own.

She looked up to see Margaret—pale to her lips—sink wearily into a chair; and she was up and alarmed directly.

"An accident," murmured poor Margaret. "Oh, no, not to me," she went on as Mrs. Dorriman's alarm increased; and then the fright and fatigue and all else broke her down, and she cried; and the poor bewildered woman was even more at her wit's end than usual.

Margaret could not go down to luncheon; as usual with her whenever unduly excited, her head throbbed violently, but she refused to go to bed. "I have had no accident, I am not hurt," she said, laughing a little hysterically, "but I thought he had been killed. It was so dreadful."

Mrs. Dorriman petted her, and made her have some soup, and left her on the sofa, while she went to find Grace and go downstairs.

Later on, there was a commotion downstairs, a bustle as of a new arrival. Margaret heard it without connecting it with her adventure. That apathetic feeling of languor which generally succeeds excitement had come over her, and she lay quiet, not sleeping, not even thinking, all her senses lulled into absolute repose. Into this came Grace, excited, bubbling over with news.

"Margaret!" she exclaimed, rushing up to her sister's side, and speaking in her high clear treble voice, "a poor man, the owner of that lovely yacht we saw come in last night, has been nearly smashed to pieces, and they have brought him here. His name is Sir Albert Gerald, and I saw him carried in. He is wonderfully handsome, and it was quite romantic to see him on his boat-cushions all carefully arranged, and carried shoulder-high by his boatmen."

"I know," said Margaret, putting her hand up to her aching head, "I saw him fall, Grace. He fell beside me, where I was sitting, and I thought he was killed."

"You saw him fall! Margaret, what an adventure, and did he speak to you? Did he see you? Who was there?"

"His boat's crew brought him home, you said?" and Margaret, who could not enter into all the particulars, just turned wearily over as though anxious to be left alone.

And Grace turned away. Margaret had seen him fall, but this was all, she thought.

That evening brought Mr. Sandford to Lornbay. Grace was the first to greet him, and any emotion that might have marked the meeting was entirely swept away by her coolness.

Margaret felt more, but she was struck by a look of worry and ill health visible in his face, and she was sorry for him, and her sorrow gave her manner a kindness he was not prepared for. He did not trouble them much with his society, but went off to discover when Mr. Drayton was likely to arrive; an unexpected smoothness had characterized his meeting with the girls, for which he felt duly thankful.

There were numbers of letters awaiting Mr. Drayton's arrival. Several in the well-known hand of his manager, the man who so steadily opposed all schemes, such as the very one Mr. Sandford was there to press upon him.

Not unnaturally, the landlord, and every one else connected with the place, was full of the terrible accident which had brought Sir Albert Gerald to the hotel, and it was also feared to his grave, for he was very ill. One arm was broken in two places, and he had sustained, it was feared, some internal injuries, which rendered his recovery problematical.

Mr. Sandford heard without more than a passing interest the story of the accident, told with that minute attention to unimportant details, that characterises a narration in the hands of those to whom all strange events appear in an exaggerated form. He did not know this man's name, though one day he was destined to know it well. He was sorry for him and that was all.

The person who felt Mr. Sandford's arrival to be of very real importance was Lady Lyons—next to her, her son. Lady Lyons, who always saw less or considerably more in every action which touched her in any way, and of course her son, came to a conclusion immediately.

"This I consider good," she said to the amazed young man, continuing a thought aloud as she sometimes did, and thereby somewhat bewildering him.

"Mother! What do you consider good?"

"Mr. Sandford's arrival; is it possible, my dear Paul, you do not understand the full importance of this. Have you not realized what this means?"

"Certainly not."

"Men are so dreadfully dense," said the mother, with a gesture of impatience.

"Will you enlighten me, since I am only a man and so dense." He spoke in a tone of good-humoured banter.

"My dear Paul," she began, looking at him with much affection, "you have been a dear good son, a dutiful son, and in this instance I am sure a wise one—you have kept away from Margaret Rivers till something was known. Do you not see now in the arrival of Mr. Sandford an anxiety to see—not his nieces, from whom he parted not so long ago—but you, Paul, you! He has probably heard something from Mrs. Dorriman (in that quarter, my boy, I have not left a stone unturned), and he may have heard that Margaret is inclined to respond. Eh! Paul? You see therefore he comes himself to know if you are worthy!"

"My poor, dear mother," said Paul, "if men are dense as you say, still the imagination of women is quite beyond belief."

"Imagination founded on fact, my dear Paul."

"Mother," he began, in a tone of which she could not comprehend the bitterness, "will it wound you to know that in this matter I was not so dutiful a son? Forgive me, but love was stronger than duty. I tried hard to win Margaret, I pleaded with her, she must have seen that I was in earnest, she must have known I loved her.... She refused me, mother, refused me as one beneath her, and she was right, she said I was a boy and a trifler. I have told you, as you were building false hopes, but I cannot speak of it again."

He turned away, and his mother sat upright in her great astonishment. All mortification at his not having after all taken her advice was forgotten in her supreme surprise at her son's having actually been refused.

Naturally her motherly view of the question made this strange to her; she was so astounded that she lost the power of speech for the moment and gave vent to little helpless exclamations which required no answer.

Then abruptly he left her, feeling too deeply to bear to hear her discuss it. At this moment Mr. Drayton was returning to Lornbay, trusting to find Margaret still there, and not anticipating the arrival of Mr. Sandford, or, in short, any change in their arrangements.

It was natural that Margaret should ask, from day to day, how the poor wounded man was getting on. In a life in which no great incidents had occurred, such an adventure, in itself, was full of intense and painful interest, but she always remembered the wonderful self-command and the thought of her; at such a moment, the pain must have been frightful, and yet how he had tried to suppress all outward signs of it. The expression in his dark eyes haunted her; such a glimpse of the man's real nature had been given her. Should they ever meet again? She thought not; already something was said about their going home, and perhaps they might go before he was well. She was utterly unconscious, upon her side, of having done anything worthy of thanks, and she was not quite sure whether, if they met, that short but agonized hour would constitute acquaintanceship.

After fluctuating between life and death, however, for many weary hours, Sir Albert Gerald rallied. He was thirty-two, in the very prime of his youth and strength; unfavourable symptoms disappeared one by one, and he began to rally. His first thought, as he was returning to full consciousness, and that all his pain and agony were gradually yielding to his strong powers of recovery, was of the girl, who, looking like a pitying angel, had bravely sat alone with him, and had, by her presence of mind, saved him; and he had seen her tears. Had she not been there.... There would have been a late search; his men might have thought it strange that his expected signal was not made and might have looked for him. Then he told himself it would have been too late. He lay wondering who she was, where she lived, and how he could ever thank her, not knowing her name, when one day his servant was arranging his books, and he asked him to put one or two beside him, he might feel inclined to read. He lay still, however; terribly weakened as he was, he dreaded moving. He was so bruised and so battered it seemed impossible he should ever stride across the hills and follow any of his old occupations again. His eye dwelt idly on the binding of the books before him, and he wondered if it would bring back suffering if he looked into one.

Thoughts become monotonous when they are full of a certain fear; then, with that quick recognition of small facts that often accompanies great prostration of strength, he saw a strange book lying amongst his own. With great caution and not without some pain he drew the book towards him, and, with all the difficulty of a man accustomed to use his right hand, now so useless, he opened it. "Tennyson!" he said softly to himself; then he looked at the fly-leaf and saw written, in an unformed girlish sprawl, Grace Rivers. "How did that book get among mine?" he thought, perplexed and puzzled. The attentive John came in again and his master asked him the question.

"It was lying by you when you fell, Sir Albert. I did not know it was not yours."

"Ah, I see," said his master, pleased by the conviction that he now knew the name of the girl who lived in his memory so distinctly. A little later he called his servant to him and complained of the dulness he felt lying there.

"Perhaps the landlord would come and talk to me; that would be better than nothing."

"Yes, Sir Albert."

"Unless he is busy. I have nothing particular to say to him. You will explain this to him."

"Yes, Sir Albert."

"Mind you make it clear," continued the sick man, but John was out of hearing.

Time seemed to pass more slowly now a certain expectancy weighted its wings, but Sir Albert ruled his spirit in patience. It was very pleasant to have a clue; never had he felt so much interested in a young lady before. This was natural; he had never required such assistance before. It was altogether exceptional. There was quite the foundation of a romance, supposing him to be younger than he was and not so sensible. A younger and more susceptible man might have fallen in love there and then. And then he laughed a little. That was indeed absurd!

END OF VOL. I.