AS Tom Bendibow left London and approached Kensington, the afternoon was warm and still, and slight puffs of dust were beaten upward by each impact of his horse’s hoofs upon the dry road. The foliage of the trees, now past its first fresh greenness, had darkened considerably in hue, and was moreover dulled by the fine dust that had settled upon it during the preceding week of rainless weather. Pedestrians sought the grassy sides of the road, and fancied that the milestones were further apart from each other than they ought to be; and, in the fields to the right and left, the few laborers who were still at work moved with a lazy slowness, and frequently paused to straighten their backs and pass their brown forearms across their brows. Toward the north and west the pale blue of the sky was obscured by a semi-transparent film of a brownish tint, which ascended to meet the declining sun, and bade fair to overpower it ere its time. It was a day of vague, nervous discomfort, such as precedes a thunderstorm, though there were no indications that a storm was brewing. On such a day neither work nor indolence is altogether comfortable; but the mind involuntarily loiters and turns this way and that, unready to apply itself to anything, yet restless with a feeling that some undefined event is going to occur.

Mr. Bendibow’s mind did not lack subjects with which it might have occupied itself; nevertheless, no special mental activity was indicated by his features. He rode for the most part with his head bent down, and a general appearance of lassitude and dejection. Once in a while he would cast his glance forward to take note of the way, or would speak a word to his horse; but thought seemed to be at a standstill within him; he was in the state of partial torpor which, in some natures, follows vivid and unusual emotion. He paid no heed to the meteorological phenomena, and if he felt their effects at all, probably assigned them a purely subjective origin. The sunshine of his existence was obscured before its time, and the night was approaching. He looked forward to no storm, with its stress and peril and after-refreshment; but he was ill at ease and without hope; his path was arid and dusty, and the little journey of his life would soon be without object or direction.

For the moment, however, he had his mission and his message, and he must derive what enjoyment he might therefrom. He passed listlessly through Kensington, taking small note of the familiar buildings and other objects which met his sight. Had he not beheld them a thousand times before, and would he not see them as often again? A little while more and he began to draw near Hammersmith town, and now he sat more erect in his saddle and drew his hat down upon his brows, with the feeling that he would soon be at his destination. Passing the “Plough and Harrow”, the ostler, who was crossing the road with his clinking pail, touched his forelock and grinned deferentially.

“Good day, sir—yer servant, sir! Tiresome weather to-day; a man can’t ’ardly bear his flesh. Bound for Twick’nam, sir?”

Tom shook his head.

“Oh! beg parding, sir. Seein’ Sir Francis drive by with the pair just now, I says to myself”—

“What’s that?”

“The bar’net, sir—well, ’twas mebbe an hour since; and another party along with him. So, I says to myself”—

“Go to the dooce!” ejaculated Mr. Bendibow, putting his horse in motion.

“Thankee, sir; dry weather, this, sir; ’ope yer honor’ll keep yer ’ealth.... Thankee, sir!” he added, deftly catching the coin which Tom tossed to him and spitting upon it before thrusting it in his pocket; “and if ever yer honor wants to be put in the way of as pretty a piece of ’orseflesh....” But by this time Tom was out of earshot; so the ostler winked at the chambermaid, who was looking out of the inn window, and resumed his way across the street, whistling. Tom, meanwhile, after riding quarter of a mile further, turned off to the left, and presently drew rein in front of Mrs. Lockhart’s gate. Marion was fastening some ivy to the side of the door; she turned round on hearing the horse’s hoofs; and Mr. Bendibow, having lifted his hat, descended from the saddle and hitched his bridle to the gate-post. Marion remained standing where she was.

“Good evening, Miss Lockhart,” said Tom, advancing up the path; “don’t know if you remember me—Mr. Bendibow. Hope I see you in good health.”

“Thank you, sir. Have you ridden from London? You choose dusty weather.”

Tom was aware of a lack of cordiality in the young lady’s manner, and, being in a somewhat reckless mood, he answered bluntly, “As for that, I’m not out for my own pleasure, nor on my own business neither; and I ain’t going to keep you long waiting. I’ve a letter here for Mr. Grant—that’s the name the gentleman goes by, I believe; is he at home?”

“I think Mr. Grant is in the city; at all events, he is not here.”

“I’ve a letter for him from Perdita—the Marquise Desmoines, that’s to say,” said Tom, producing the letter and twisting it about in his fingers, as if it were a talisman to cause the appearance of the person to whom it was addressed.

“If you’ll give it to me Mr. Grant shall have it when he returns,” said Marion.

“That won’t do—much obleeged to you all the same; I’m to deliver it into his own hands. You don’t know where I might find him, do you?” inquired Tom, feeling disconsolate at this miscarriage of his only remaining opportunity of usefulness in the world.

“He’ll be back some time to-night; won’t you wait for him here?” said Marion, softening a little from her first frigidity; “mother will be glad to see you, and....”

“Mr. Grant won’t be back till toward midnight, but I can tell you where you’ll find him,” interposed a voice from the air above them—the voice of Mr. Philip Lancaster, who was leaning out of his window on the floor above. “How d’ye do, Mr. Bendibow? He’s dining with your father at his place in Twickenham.”

“Dining with my father! The dooce he is!” exclaimed Tom, now disguising the surprise which this information afforded him. “I take it you’re quite sure of what you say, Mr.—er—Lancaster,” he added, growing quite red as he stared up at that gentleman.

“Mr. Grant seemed quite sure of it when he left me to-day,” Philip replied, smiling; “but ‘the best-laid plans o’ mice and men gang aft agley,’ you know.”

“What’s that? Well, it’s beyond me, the whole of it, that’s all I know. Dining with Sir Francis, is he? Well, stifle me if I’m going up there!” And Tom struck his foot moodily with his whip and stared at the fluttering ribbon on Marion’s bosom.

“You won’t come in, then?” said Marion, who began to have a suspicion that Mr. Bendibow had been taking a little too much wine after his dinner; wherein she did him great injustice, inasmuch as he had drunk scarce a pint of spirits in the last three days. Her tone so plainly indicated a readiness to abbreviate the interview, that poor Tom felt it all the way through his perplexity and unhappiness.

“No, I’m going, Miss Lockhart,” he said, with a rueful bow. “I know I ain’t on my good manners this evening, but I can’t help it. If you only knew what a lot of things there is troubling me, you’d understand how ’tis with me. Beg your pardon for disturbing you, and wish you good evening.”

“Good evening,” said Marion, kindly; and unexpectedly she gave him her hand. He took it and pressed it hard, looking in her face. “Thank you,” he said. “And I like you—by George, I do! and I wish there were more women like you in the world to care something about me.” He dropped her hand and turned on his heel, for there were tears in his eyes, and he did not wish Marion to see them. He reached the gate and mounted his horse, and from that elevation saluted Marion once more; but he bestowed merely a stare upon Philip, and so rode away.

“I like that little fellow; I believe he has a good heart,” remarked Marion, addressing herself to her ivy, but speaking to Philip.

“I’m afraid he doesn’t like me,” Philip rejoined.

She paused a moment, and then said, “I don’t wonder at it.”

“Why?” he demanded.

“Oh, I can put two and two together,” answered she, nodding her head with a kind of ominous sagacity; and she would give no further explanation.

When Tom found himself upon the high road again, he stood for some time in doubt as to which way he should proceed. Obedience to Perdita required that he should ride on without delay to Twickenham; but so strongly had his feelings been revolted by the picture presented him of his father hob-nobbing amicably with the man who ought to have been, at best, his enemy, that he could not prevail upon himself to make a third at the party. The mystery surrounding Sir Francis’ relations with Grant had in fact entered, in Tom’s opinion, upon so acute a stage of impropriety, that his own official recognition of them would necessitate instant open war and rebellion, and this crisis he was naturally willing to postpone. On the other hand, no real harm could come from waiting till next morning before delivering Perdita’s letter, inasmuch as Mr. Grant could certainly not act upon it at that hour of the night. After a minute’s irresolution, therefore, Tom turned his horse toward London, in an exceedingly bad humor.

But when he came in sight of the “Plough and Harrow” his troubled spirit conceived a sort of compromise. He would spend the night here instead of returning to London. He could then discharge his commission the first thing in the morning, and report to Perdita by breakfast time. The difference was not great, but such as it was, it was for the better. So into the court-yard of the inn he rode, with a curvet and a prance, and a despotic shout for the ostler.

Now the ostler of the “Plough and Harrow” was an old acquaintance of Mr. Thomas Bendibow’s, and under his guidance and protection Tom had enjoyed the raptures of many a cock-fight and rat-catching, and had attended many an august exhibition of the manly art of self-defense, and had betted with varying fortune (according to the ostler’s convenience) on many a private trial between horses whose jockeys were not bigotedly set on winning upon their merits. Latterly, it is true, the son of the baronet had made some efforts to walk more circumspectly than in the first flush of his hot youth, and, as a first step in this reformed career, he had abated the frequency of his consultations with Jim the ostler; and beyond an occasional chance word or two, and the exhibition on Tom’s part of an eleemosynary half-crown, the friendship had outwardly fallen into disrepair.

But there are seasons when the cribbed and confined soul demands release and expansion, and yearns to immerse itself once again in the sweet old streams of habit and association that lead downward, and afford a man opportunity to convince himself that some shreds of unregenerate human nature still adhere to him. Such a season had now come for Tom Bendibow, and he was resolved to let nature and the ostler have their way. Accordingly when the latter, having seen to his patron’s horse, and skillfully tested the condition of his temper, began to refer in guarded terms to the existence of the “loveliest pair of bantam chickens as hever mortal heyes did see,” Tom responded at once to the familiar hint, and no long time elapsed ere he found himself in the midst of surroundings which were more agreeable than exclusive. Into the details of these proceedings it will not, however, be necessary for us to follow him. It is enough to note that several hours passed away, during which the heir of the Bendibows subjected himself to various forms of excitement, including that derived from a peculiarly seductive species of punch; and that finally, in obedience to a sudden impulse, which seemed whimsical enough, but which was no doubt directly communicated to him by the finger of fate, he sprang to his feet and loudly demanded that his horse be brought out and saddled forthwith, for he would ride to Twickenham.

“Never you go for to think of such a thing, Mr. Bendibow,” remonstrated Jim the ostler, with much earnestness. “Why, if the night be’nt as dark as Terribus, I’ll heat my nob; and footpads as thick betwixt ’ere and there as leaves in Wallumbrogia!”

“Have out my horse in two minutes, you rascal, or I’ll footpad you! Look alive, now, and don’t let me hear any more confounded gabble, d’ye hear?”

“It do go ag’in my conscience, Mr. Bendibow,” murmured the ostler sadly, “it do indeed! Howsumever, your word is law to me, sir, now as hevermore; so ’ere goes for it!” and he arose and departed stablewards. And on the whole, he had no reason to be dissatisfied with his night’s work, as the plumpness of his breeches’ pocket testified.

Mr. Bendibow’s horse had spent the time more profitably than his master; yet he scarcely showed more disposition to be off than did the latter. There was a vaulting into the saddle, a clatter of hoofs, and a solitary lantern swinging in the hand of Jim the ostler, as he turned and made his way slowly back to his quarters, wondering “what hever could ’ave got into that boy to be hoff so sudden.”

The boy himself would have found it difficult to answer that question. A moment before the resolve had come to him, he had anticipated it no more than his horse did. But, once he had said to himself that he would ride out and meet Mr. Grant on the way back from Twickenham, the minutes had seemed hours until he was on his way. There was no reason in the thing; but many momentous human actions have little to do with reason; and besides, Tom was not at this time in a condition of mind or body in which the dictates of reason are productive of much effect. He felt that he must go, and nothing should stand in his way.

When the ostler had affirmed that it was dark, he had said no more than the truth. The brown film which had begun to creep over the heavens before sunset, had increased and thickened, until it pervaded the heavens like a pall of smoke, shutting out the stars and blackening the landscape. It was neither cloud nor fog, but seemed rather a new quality in the air, depriving it of its transparency. Such mysterious darkenings have been not infrequent in the history of the English climate, and are called by various names and assigned to various causes, without being thereby greatly elucidated. Be the shadow what and why it might, Tom rode into the midst of it and put his horse to a gallop, though it was scarcely possible to see one side of the road from the other. He felt no anxiety about losing his way, any more than if he had been a planet with a foreordained and inevitable orbit. The silence through which he rode was as complete as the darkness; he seemed to be the only living and moving thing in the world. But the flurry of the dissipation he had been through, and the preoccupation of his purpose, made him feel so much alive that he felt no sense of loneliness.

It had been his intention to take the usual route through Kew and Richmond; but at Brentford Bridge he mistook his way, and crossing the river there, he was soon plunging through the obscurity that overhung the Isleworth side of the river. If he perceived his mistake, it did not disconcert him; all roads must lead to the Rome whither he was bound. Sometimes the leaves of low-lying branches brushed his face; sometimes his horse’s hoofs resounded over the hollowness of a little bridge; once a bird, startled from its sleep in a wayside thicket, uttered a penetrating note before replacing its head beneath its wing. By-and-by the horse stumbled at some inequality of the road and nearly lost its footing. Tom reined him in sharply, and in the momentary pause and stillness that ensued, he fancied he distinguished a faint, intermittent noise along the road before him. He put his horse to a walk, pressed his hand over his breast, to make sure that the letter was safe in its place, and peered through the darkness ahead for the first glimpse of the approaching horseman, whom he made sure was near. But he was almost within reach of him before he was aware, and had turf been under foot instead of stony road, the two might have passed each other without knowing it.

“Hullo!” cried Tom.

“Hullo, there!” responded a voice, sharp but firm; “who are you?”

“I’m Tom Bendibow. You’re Charles Grantley, ain’t you?”

“You have good eyes, sir,” answered the other, bringing his horse close alongside of Tom’s, and bending over to look him in the face.

“It’s ears and instinct with me to-night,” was Tom’s reply. “That’s all right, then. I came out to meet you. I have a letter for you from your daughter.”

“Do you ride on, Mr. Bendibow, or shall you return with me?” inquired the other, after a pause.

“I’ll go with you,” said Tom, and turning his horse, the two rode onward together side by side.