The next day is dark and lowering, to Lilian's great joy, who, now she is prevented by lameness from going for one of her loved rambles, finds infinite satisfaction in the thought that even were she quite well, it would be impossible for her to stir out of doors. According to her mode of arguing, this is one day not lost.

About two o'clock Archibald returns, in time for luncheon, and to resume his care of Lilian, who gives him a gentle scolding for his desertion of her in her need. He is full of information about town and their mutual friends there, and imparts it freely.

"Everything is as melancholy up there as it can be," he says, "and very few men to be seen: the clubs are deserted, all shooting or hunting, no doubt. The rain was falling in torrents all the day."

"Poor Archie, you have been having a bad time of it, I fear."

"In spite of the weather and her ruddy locks, Lady Belle Damascene has secured the prize of the season, out of season. She is engaged to Lord Wyntermere: it is not yet publicly announced, but I called to see her mother for five minutes, and so great was her exultation she could not refrain from whispering the delightful intelligence into my ear. Lady Belle is staying with his people now in Sussex."

"Certainly, 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder.' She is painfully ugly," says Miss Beauchamp. "Such feet, such hands, and such a shocking complexion!"

"She is very kind-hearted and amiable," says Cyril.

"That is what is always said of a plain woman," retorts Florence. "When you hear a girl is amiable, always conclude she is hideous. When one's trumpeter is in despair, he says that."

"I am sure Lord Wyntermere must be a young man of good sound sense," says Lilian, who never agrees with Florence. "If she has a kind heart he will never be disappointed in her. And, after all, there is no such great advantage to be derived from beauty. When people are married for four or five years, I dare say they quite forget whether the partner of their joys and sorrows was originally lovely or the reverse: custom deadens perception."

"It is better to be good than beautiful," says Lady Chetwoode, who abhors ugly women: "you know what Carew says:

"Well done, Madre," says Cyril. "You are coming out. I had no idea you were so gifted. Your delivery is perfect."

"And what are you all talking about?" continues Lady Chetwoode: "I think Belle Damascene very sweet to look at. In spite of her red hair, and a good many freckles, and—and—a rather short nose, her expression is very lovable: when she smiles I always feel inclined to kiss her. She is like her mother, who is one of the best women I know."

"If you encourage my mother she will end by telling you Lady Belle is a beauty and a reigning toast," says Guy, sotto voce.

Lady Chetwoode laughs, and Lilian says:

"What is every one wearing now, Archie?"

"There is nobody to wear anything. For the rest they had all on some soft, shiny stuff like the dress you wore the night before last."

"What an accurate memory you have!" says Florence, letting her eyes rest on Guy's for a moment, though addressing Chesney.

"Satin," translates Lilian, unmoved. "And their bonnets?"

"Oh, yes! they all wore bonnets or hats, I don't know which," vaguely.

"Naturally; mantillas are not yet in vogue. You are better than 'Le Follet,' Archie; your answers are so satisfactory. Did you meet any one we know?"

"Hardly any one. By the bye,"—turning curiously to Sir Guy,—"was Trant here to-day?"

"No," surprised: "why do you ask?"

"Because I met him at Truston this morning. He got out of the train by which I went on,—it seems he has been staying with the Bulstrodes,—and I fancied he was coming on here, but had not time to question him, as I barely caught the train; another minute's delay and I should have been late."

Archibald rambles on about his near escape of being late for the train, while his last words sink deep into the minds of Guy and Cyril. The former grows singularly silent; a depressed expression gains upon his face. Cyril, on the contrary, becomes feverishly gay, and with his mad observations makes merry Lilian laugh heartily.

But when luncheon is over and they all disperse, a gloom falls upon him: his features contract; doubt and a terrible suspicion, augmented by slanderous tales that forever seem to be poured into his ears, make havoc of the naturally kind expression that characterizes his face, and with a stifled sigh he turns and walks toward the billiard-room.

Guy follows him. As Cyril enters the doorway, he enters too, and, closing the door softly, lays his hand upon his shoulder.

"You heard, Cyril?" he says, with exceeding gentleness.

"Heard what?" turning somewhat savagely upon him.

"My dear fellow,"—affectionate entreaty in his tone,—"do not be offended with me. Will you not listen, Cyril? It is very painful to me to speak, but how can I see my brother so—so shamefully taken in without uttering a word of warning."

"If you were less tragic and a little more explicit it might help matters," replies Cyril, with a sneer and a short unpleasant laugh. "Do speak plainly."

"I will, then,"—desperately,—"since you desire it. There is more between Trant and Mrs. Arlington than we know of. I do not speak without knowledge. From several different sources I have heard the same story,—of his infatuation for some woman, and of his having taken a house for her in some remote spot. No names were mentioned, mind; but, from what I have unwillingly listened to it is impossible not to connect these evil whispers that are afloat with him and her. Why does he come so often to the neighborhood and yet never dare to present himself at Chetwoode?"

"And you believe Trant capable of so far abusing the rights of friendship as to ask you—you—to supply the house in the remote spot?"

"Unfortunately, I must."

"You are speaking of your friend,"—with a bitter sneer,—"and you can coldly accuse him of committing so blackguardly an action?"

"If all I have heard be true (and I have no reason to doubt it), he is no longer any friend of mine," says Guy, haughtily. "I shall settle with him later on when I have clearer evidence; in the meantime it almost drives me mad to think he should have dared to bring down here, so close to my mother, his——"

"What?" cries Cyril, fiercely, thrusting his brother from him with passionate violence. "What is it you would say? Take care, Guy; take care: you have gone too far already. From whom, pray, have you learned your infamous story?"

"I beg your pardon," Guy says, gently, extreme regret visible in his countenance. "I should not have spoken so, under the circumstances. It was not from one alone, but from several, I heard what I now tell you,—though I must again remind you that no names were mentioned; still, I could not help drawing my own conclusions."

"They lied!" returns Cyril, passionately, losing his head. "You may tell them so for me. And you,"—half choking,—"you lie too when you repeat such vile slanders."

"It is useless to argue with you," Guy says, coldly, the blood mounting hotly to his forehead at Cyril's insulting words, while his expression grows stern and impenetrable. "I waste time. Yet this last word I will say: Go down to The Cottage—now—this moment—and convince yourself of the truth of what I have said."

He turns angrily away: while Cyril, half mad with indignation and unacknowledged fear, follows this final piece of advice, and almost unconsciously leaving the house, takes the wonted direction, and hardly draws breath until the trim hedges and pretty rustic gates of The Cottage are in view.

The day is showery, threatening since dawn, and now the rain is falling thickly, though he heeds it not at all.

As with laggard steps he draws still nearer the abode of her he loves yet does not wholly trust, the sound of voices smites upon his ear. He is standing upon the very spot—somewhat elevated—that overlooks the arbor where so long ago Miss Beauchamp stood and learned his acquaintance with Mrs. Arlington. Here now he too stays his steps and gazes spell-bound upon what he sees before him.

In the arbor, with his back turned to Cyril, is a man, tall, elderly, with an iron-gray moustache. Though not strictly handsome, he has a fine and very military bearing, and a figure quite unmistakable to one who knows him: with a sickly chill at his heart, Cyril acknowledges him to be Colonel Trant.

Cecilia is beside him. She is weeping bitterly, but quietly, and with one hand conceals her face with her handkerchief. The other is fast imprisoned in both of Trant's.

A film settles upon Cyril's eyes, a dull faintness overpowers him, involuntarily he places one hand upon the trunk of a near elm to steady himself; yet through the semi-darkness, the strange, unreal feeling that possesses him, the voices still reach him cruelly distinct.

"Do not grieve so terribly: it breaks my heart to see you, darling, darling," says Trant, in a low, impassioned tone, and raising the hand he holds, presses his lips to it tenderly. The slender white fingers tremble perceptibly under the caress, and then Cecilia says, in a voice hardly audible through her tears:

"I am so unhappy! it is all my fault; knowing you loved me, I should have told you before of——"

But her voice breaks the spell: Cyril, as it meets his ears, rouses himself with a start. Not once again does he even glance in her direction, but with a muttered curse at his own folly, turns and goes swiftly homeward.

A very frenzy of despair and disappointment rages within him: to have so loved,—to be so foully betrayed! Her tears, her sorrow (connected no doubt with some early passages between her and Trant), because of their very poignancy, only render him the more furious.

On reaching Chetwoode he shuts himself into his own room, and, feigning an excuse, keeps himself apart from the rest of the household all the remainder of the evening and the night. "Knowing you loved me,"—the words ring in his ears. Ay, she knew it,—who should know it better?—but had carefully kept back all mention of the fact when pressed by him, Cyril, upon the subject. All the world knew what he, poor fool, had been the last to discover. And what was it her tender conscience was accusing her of not having told Trant before?—of her flirtation, as no doubt she mildly termed all the tender looks and speeches, and clinging kisses, and loving protestations so freely bestowed upon Cyril,—of her flirtation, no doubt.

The next morning, after a sleepless night, he starts for London, and there spends three reckless, miserable days that leave him wan and aged through reason of the conflict he is waging with himself. After which a mad desire to see again the cause of all his misery, to openly accuse her of her treachery, to declare to her all the irreparable mischief she has done, the utter ruin she has made of his life, seizes hold upon him, and, leaving the great city, and reaching Truston, he goes straight from the station to The Cottage once so dear.

In her garden Cecilia is standing all alone. The wind is sighing plaintively through the trees that arch above her head, the thousand dying leaves are fluttering to her feet. There is a sense of decay and melancholy in all around that harmonizes exquisitely with the dejection of her whole manner. Her attitude is sad and drooping, her air depressed; there are tears, and an anxious, expectant look in her gray eyes.

"Pining for her lover, no doubt," says Cyril, between his teeth (in which supposition he is right); and then he opens the gate, and goes quickly up to her.

As she hears the well-known click of the latch she turns, and, seeing him, lets fall unheeded to the ground the basket she is holding, and runs to him with eyes alight, and soft cheeks tinged with a lovely generous pink, and holds out her hands to him with a little low glad cry.

"At last, truant!" she exclaims, joyfully; "after three whole long, long days; and what has kept you from me? Why, Cyril, Cyril!"—recoiling, while a dull ashen shade replaces the gay tinting of her cheeks,—"what has happened? How oddly you look! You,—you are in trouble?"

"I am," in a changed, harsh tone she scarcely realizes to be his, moving back with a gesture of contempt from the extended hands that would so gladly have clasped his. "In so far you speak the truth: I have discovered all. One lover, it appears, was not sufficient for you; you should dupe another for your amusement. It is an old story, but none the less bitter. No, it is useless your speaking," staying her with a passionate movement: "I tell you I know all."

"All what?" she asks. She has not removed from his her lustrous eyes, though her lips have turned very white.

"Your perfidy."

"Cyril, explain yourself," she says, in a low, agonized tone, her pallor changing to a deep crimson. And to Cyril hateful certainty appears if possible more certain by reason of this luckless blush.

"Ay, you may well change countenance," he says, with suppressed fury in which keen agony is blended; "have you yet the grace to blush? As to explanation, I scarcely think you can require it; yet, as you demand it, you shall have it. For weeks I have been hearing of you tales in which your name and Trant's were always mingled; but I disregarded them; I madly shut my ears and was deaf to them; I would not believe, until it was too late, until I saw and learned beyond dispute the folly of my faith. I was here last Friday evening!"

"Yes?" calmly, though in her soft eyes a deep well of bitterness has sprung.

"Well, you were there, in that arbor"—pointing to it—"where we"—with a scornful laugh—"so often sat; but then you had a more congenial companion. Trant was with you. He held your hand, he caressed it; he called you his 'darling,' and you allowed it, though indeed why should you not? doubtless it is a customary word from him to you! And then you wept as though your heart, your heart"—contemptuously—"would break. Were you confessing to him your coquetry with me? and perhaps obtaining an easy forgiveness?"

"No, I was not," quietly, though there is immeasurable scorn in her tone.

"No?" slightingly. "For what, then, were you crying?"

"Sir,"—with a first outward sign of indignation,—"I refuse to tell you. By what right do you now ask the question? yesterday, nay, an hour since, I should have felt myself bound to answer any inquiry of yours, but not now. The tie between us, a frail one as it seems to me, is broken; our engagement is at an end: I shall not answer you!"

"Because you dare not," retorts he, fiercely, stung by her manner.

"I think you dare too much when you venture so to address me," in a low clear tone. "And yet, as it is in all human probability the last time we shall ever meet, and as I would have you remember all your life long the gross injustice you have done me, I shall satisfy your curiosity. But recollect, sir, these are indeed the final words that shall pass between us.

"A year ago Colonel Trant so far greatly honored me as to ask me to marry him: for many reasons I then refused. Twice since I came to Chetwoode he has been to see me,—once to bring me law papers of some importance, and last Friday to again ask me to be his wife. Again I refused. I wept then, because, unworthy as I am, I know I was giving pain to the truest, and, as I know now,"—with a faint trembling in her voice, quickly subdued—"the only friend I have! When declining his proposal, I gave my reason for doing so! I told him I loved another! That other was you!"

Casting this terrible revenge in his teeth, she turns, and, walking majestically into the house, closes the door with significant haste behind her.

This is the one solitary instance of inhospitality shown by Cecilia in all her life. Never until now was she known to shut her door in the face of trouble. And surely Cyril's trouble at this moment is sore and needy!

To disbelieve Cecilia when face to face with her is impossible. Her eyes are truth itself. Her whole manner, so replete with dignity and offended pride, declares her innocent. Cyril stands just where she had left him, in stunned silence, for at least a quarter of an hour, repeating to himself miserably all that she has said, and reminding himself with cold-blooded cruelty of all he has said to her.

At the end of this awful fifteen minutes, he bethinks himself his hair must now, if ever, be turned gray; and then, a happier and more resolute thought striking him, he takes his courage in his two hands, and walking boldly up to the hall door, knocks and demands admittance with really admirable composure. Abominable composure, thinks Cecilia, who in spite of her stern determination never to know him again, has been watching him covertly from behind a handkerchief and a bedroom curtain all this time, and is now stationed at the top of the staircase, with dim eyes, but very acute ears.

"Yes," Kate tells him, "her mistress is at home," and forthwith shows him into the bijou drawing-room. After which she departs to tell her mistress of his arrival.

Three minutes, that to Cyril's excited fancy lengthen themselves into twenty, pass away slowly, and then Kate returns.

"Her mistress's compliments, and she has a terrible headache, and will Mr. Chetwoode be so kind as to excuse her?"

Mr. Chetwoode on this occasion is not kind. "He is sorry," he stammers, "but if Mrs. Arlington could let him see her for five minutes, he would not detain her longer. He has something of the utmost importance to say to her."

His manner is so earnest, so pleading, that Kate, who scents at least a death in the air, retires full of compassion for the "pore gentleman." And then another three minutes, that now to the agitated listener appear like forty, drag themselves into the past.

Suspense is growing intolerable, when a well-known step in the hall outside makes his heart beat almost to suffocation. The door is opened slowly, and Mrs. Arlington comes in.

"You have something to say to me?" she asks, curtly, unkindly, standing just inside the door, and betraying an evident determination not to sit down for any consideration upon earth. Her manner is uncompromising and forbidding, but her eyes are very red. There is rich consolation in this discovery.

"I have," replies Cyril, openly confused now it has come to the point.

"Say it, then. I am here to listen to you. My servant tells me it is something of the deepest importance."

"So it is. In all the world there is nothing so important to me. Cecilia,"—coming a little nearer to her,—"it is that I want your forgiveness; I ask your pardon very humbly, and I throw myself upon your mercy. You must forgive me!"

"Forgiveness seems easy to you, who cannot feel," replies she, haughtily, turning as though to leave the room; but Cyril intercepts her, and places his back against the door.

"I cannot let you go until you are friends with me again," he says, in deep agitation.

"Friends!"

"Think what I have gone through. You have only suffered for a few minutes, I have suffered for three long days. Think of it. My heart was breaking all the time. I went to London hoping to escape thought, and never shall I forget what I endured in that detestable city. Like a man in a dream I lived, scarcely seeing, or, if seeing, only trying to elude, those I knew. At times——"

"You went to London?"

"Yes, that is how I have been absent for three days; I have hardly slept or eaten since last I saw you."

Here Cecilia is distinctly conscious of a feeling of satisfaction: next to a man's dying for you the sweetest thing is to hear of a man's starving for you!

"Sometimes," goes on Cyril, piling up the agony higher and higher, and speaking in his gloomiest tones, "I thought it would be better if I put an end to it once for all, by blowing out my brains."

"How dare you speak to me like this?" Cecilia says in a trembling voice: "it is horrible. You would commit suicide? Am I not unhappy enough, that you must seek to make me more so? Why should you blow your brains out?" with a shudder.

"Because I could not live without you. Even now,"—reproachfully,—"when I see you looking so coldly upon me, I almost wish I had put myself out of the way for good."

"Cyril, I forbid you to talk like this."

"Why? I don't suppose you care whether I am dead or alive." This artful speech, uttered in a heart-broken tone, does immense execution.

"If you were dead," begins she, forlornly, and then stops short, because her voice fails her, and two large tears steal silently down her cheeks.

"Would you care?" asks Cyril, going up to her and placing one arm gently round her; being unrepulsed, he gradually strengthens this arm with the other. "Would you?"

"I hardly know."

"Darling, don't be cruel. I was wrong, terribly, unpardonably wrong ever to doubt your sweet truth; but when one has stories perpetually dinned into one's ears, one naturally grows jealous of one's shadow, when one loves as I do."

"And pray, who told you all these stories?"

"Never mind."

"But I do mind," with an angry sob. "What! you are to hear lies of me, and to believe them, and I am not even to know who told you them! I do mind, and I insist on knowing."

"Surely it cannot signify now, when I tell you I don't believe them."

"It does signify, and I should be told. But indeed I need not ask," with exceeding bitterness; "I know. It was your brother, Sir Guy. He has always (why I know not) been a cruel enemy of mine."

"He only repeated what he heard. He is not to be blamed."

"It was he, then?" quickly. "But 'blamed'?—of course not; no one is in the wrong, I suppose, but poor me! I think, sir,"—tremulously,—"it would be better you should go home, and forget you ever knew any one so culpable as I am. I should be afraid to marry into a family that could so misjudge me as yours does. Go, and learn to forget me."

"I can go, of course, if you desire it," laying hold of his hat: "that is a simple matter; but I cannot promise to forget. To some people it may be easy, to me impossible."

"Nothing is impossible. The going is the first step. Oblivion"—with a sigh—"will quickly follow."

"I do not think so. But, since you wish my absence—"

He moves toward the door with lowered head and dejected manner.

"I did not say I wished it," in faltering tones; "I only requested you to leave me for your own sake, and because I would not make your people unhappy. Though"—piteously—"it should break my heart, I would still bid you go."

"Would it break your heart?" flinging his hat into a corner (for my own part, I don't believe he ever meant going): coming up to her, he folds her in his arms. "Forgive me, I entreat you," he says, "for what I shall never forgive myself."

The humbleness of this appeal touches Cecilia's tender heart. She makes no effort to escape from his encircling arms; she even returns one out of his many caresses.

"To think you could behave so badly to me!" she whispers, reproachfully.

"I am a brute! I know it."

"Oh, no! indeed you are not," says Mrs. Arlington. "Well, yes,"—drawing a long breath,—"I forgive you; but promise, promise you will never distrust me again."

Of course he gives the required promise, and peace is once more restored.

"I shall not be content with an engagement any longer," Cyril says, presently. "I consider it eminently unsatisfactory. Why not marry me at once? I have nine hundred a year, and a scrap of an estate a few miles from this,—by the bye, you have never yet been to see your property,—and, if you are not afraid to venture, I think we might be very happy, even on that small sum."

"I am not afraid of anything with you," she says, in her calm, tender fashion; "and money has nothing to do with it. If," with a troubled sigh, "I ever marry you, I shall not come to you empty-handed."

"'If: dost thou answer me with ifs?'" quotes he, gayly. "I tell you, sweet, there is no such word in my dictionary. I shall only wait a favorable opportunity to ask my mother's consent to our marriage."

"And if she refuses it?"

"Why, then I shall marry you without hers, or yours, or the consent of any one in the world."

"You jest," she says, tears gathering in her large appealing eyes. "I would not have you make your mother miserable."

"Above all things, do not let me see tears in your eyes again," he says, quickly. "I forbid it. For one thing, it makes me wretched, and"—softly—"it makes me feel sure you are wretched, which is far worse. Cecilia, if you don't instantly dry those tears I shall be under the painful necessity of kissing them away. I tell you I shall get my mother's consent very readily. When she sees you, she will be only too proud to welcome such a daughter."

Soon after this they part, more in love with each other than ever.