CHAPTER XVI.

HOW THE TRUTH CAME OUT.

One August evening, when it was too sultry to stay indoors, Nelly wandered out into the lanes alone. She had told Morgan that she was going to drive into the nearest town on a shopping expedition, and should not return till dusk. But one of her ponies had fallen lame, and she had given up the plan.

On she went, saying a kind word or two to the villagers as she passed their cottages. They all loved Nelly well. Her bright face came amongst them like a sunbeam; even the smallest children had a smile for her as she went by. She was so young and healthy and beautiful that many an admiring glance followed her tall figure. She belonged to Huntsdean, and Huntsdean was proud of her.

She made straight for the downs, tripping up the green slopes, and startling the browsing sheep. She gave a friendly nod to the little shepherd-boy who lay idly stretched upon the grass. And then, as she had done often enough before, she mounted the gravelled terrace, and sat down on a rustic bench behind the hedge of laurels.

From this spot she could not see Laurel House at all. The high wall of evergreens completely shut in the view of the residence and its garden. The gravelled terrace was divided from the grounds by this thick hedge, and was only approached from the house by one long straight path of turf. The path terminated in an arch, formed by the carefully-kept shrubs, and giving access to the platform; and any one walking on the downs must go up to the middle of the terrace and look through this archway before he could get a glimpse of the house.

Nelly knew that Miss Hazleburn liked to walk up and down the turfy path when the day’s duties were done. She meant to rest herself for a few minutes before entering the garden.

The bench was at the very end of the platform. She loved the seat because it commanded an extensive view of the surrounding country. Beyond the Huntsdean downs she could see other hills lying far away, softly outlined against the summer evening sky. And nearer lay the dearer old meadows and homesteads and the long tracts of woodland,—all familiar and beloved scenes to the girl who had been born and bred among them. The air was very still; even here it was but a faint breath of wind that fanned her flushed cheeks; but the coolness on these highlands was delightful after the closeness of the vale. She sat and enjoyed it in silence.

Quite suddenly the sound of voices broke the stillness. The speakers were hidden from Nelly’s gaze, for the tones came from the other side of the laurel hedge. Eve Hazleburn’s accents, clear and musical, could be recognised in a moment.

“I am going away next week,” she said, “going back to Warwickshire, Mr. Foster, I wrote to Mr. Lindley, the good Vicar of C——, and he has found a place for me. I am to be companion to an invalid lady whose house is close to the street where your father and mother live. They will be glad to have me near them again.”

She spoke rapidly, and a little louder than usual. Nelly, overwhelmed with astonishment, sat still, without giving a thought to her position as an eavesdropper.

“I have kept away from you—I have tried not to think of you!” cried Morgan Foster, in irrepressible anguish. “God does not help me in this matter. I have prayed, worked, struggled, yet I get no relief. What shall I do, Eve—what shall I do?”

“You must endure to the end,” she answered, with a little sob. “God will make it easier by-and-by. Oh, I was so sorry to come here, Mr. Foster; but I could not help it! We will never meet again, you and I. Yet I am glad that I know Miss Channell. I will go and tell the old people what a sweet bright girl she is; and they will soon learn to love her. It will all come right in the end.”

“Ah, if I could believe that!” said the curate. “But I can’t. It is madness to think that a wrong path can have a right ending. Sometimes I am persuaded it would be best to tell her everything.”

“If you did,” cried Eve, sternly, “you would break her heart. And don’t think—pray don’t think, Mr. Foster, that I would build my house on the ruins of another woman’s happiness! When I am gone,” and the proud voice trembled, “you will learn to submit to circumstances. We are not likely to cross each other’s paths again; you will be a rich man——”

“Oh, the money makes it all the harder to bear!” interrupted Morgan, bitterly. “That three thousand pounds that Mr. Myrtle promised to leave to you has been left to her. Did you know this?”

Nelly did not wait to hear Eve’s reply. Swiftly and noiselessly she sprang from the terrace on to the smooth sod beneath, her muslin dress making no rustle as she moved. Away she sped down the green slopes; the sheep parted to left and right before her flying footsteps; the shepherd-lad stared after her in amazement. She did not take the road that led through the village. In her misery and bewilderment she remembered that she could not bear the friendly good-nights of the cottagers. She struck wildly across the fields, regardless of the wet grass, and the brambles that tore her thin skirts as she dashed through the gaps in the hedges, until she came to the side of the brook, where she was alone in her grief. She was not thinking at all; she was only feeling—feeling passionately and bitterly—that she had been cruelly wronged and deceived.

“Oh those two!” she moaned aloud, as her home came in sight. “The man whom I loved—the girl whom I would have made my friend!”

Robert Channell and his wife were sitting together in the library. He had been reading aloud: Shakespeare still lay open on his knee, and Rhoda occupied a low chair by his side. They were talking, as happy married people love to talk, of the old days when God first brought them together.

While they chatted in low tones, the day was fast closing in. The French windows stood open, and the first breath of the night wind stole into the room. A dusky golden haze was settling down over the garden; the air was heavy with flower-scents and the faint odours of fallen leaves. Suddenly a great shower of petals from over-blown roses drifted through the casement, and Nelly swept in after them.

She sank down on her knees, shivering in her limp, wet dress, and hid her face in her stepmother’s lap. And then the story was told from beginning to end.

An hour later, Rhoda was sitting by Nelly’s pillow, talking to her in the sweet hush of the August twilight. Already the heat of anger had passed away. The girl’s thoughts had gone back, as Rhoda knew they would, to that winter afternoon when Morgan had asked her to become engaged to him.

“Mamma,” she said, piteously, “he has never loved me at all. He gave me all he could give; but it was only the silver, not the gold. It is very, very humiliating, but it is the truth, and it must be faced. To-night when I heard him speaking to Eve Hazleburn, I understood the difference between love and liking. He liked me, and perhaps he saw—more than I meant him to see! O mamma, I was very young and foolish!”

It touched Rhoda to hear Nelly speak of her old self in the past tense. Yet it was a fact; the youth and the folly had had their day. Nelly would never be so young again, for sorrow takes away girlhood when it teaches wisdom.

“I heard Eve say,” she went on, “that she would never build her house on the ruins of another woman’s happiness; and God forbid that I should build mine on ground that has never rightly belonged to me! But I wish he had told me the truth. He has done me a greater wrong in hiding it, than in speaking it out.”

“Nelly,” said her stepmother, tenderly, “we believe that Morgan has been a blunderer, but not a traitor. We have blundered terribly ourselves. We ought not to have let the engagement take place until we had tested the strength of his attachment. We wanted to guard you from unworthy suitors; and in taking you out of danger, we led you into sorrow.”

“I was very foolish,” repeated Nelly, with a sigh.

“Don’t forget,” Rhoda continued, “that God can bless those whom He puts asunder, as well as those whom He joins together. It is better to dwell apart than to live together with divided souls. He saw we were too weak and stupid to set our mistake right, and He has done it for us. While we were gazing helplessly at the knot, He cut the thread.”

It was on a Saturday evening that Nelly’s love affair came to an end. She was in her place in church on Sunday morning, and during the rest of the day she kept much by her father’s side. They had talked the matter over and over, and had arranged all their plans before the night closed in. And Nelly thanked God that the anger had gone away from her heart, although the sorrow remained.