The Heroine of the Incident.

After Dale's visit to the Grange a few days elapsed in a quiet that was far from peaceful. Dale had gone to the Grange the next day, and the day after that: the sight of Janet had been denied to him. He was told that his visit had left her very agitated and upset, and the doctor was peremptory in forbidding any repetition of it. He had sent her a note, and she had returned a verbal message by her mother that she did not feel equal to writing. Was it possible that she meant to abide by her insane resolve to break off their engagement?

At Littlehill things were hardly more happy. Nellie was recovering, but very slowly, and she also remained invisible. Arthur Angell manifested all the symptoms of resentment and disappointed love, and only Philip Hume's usual placid cheerfulness redeemed the house from an atmosphere of intolerable depression. Philip had discovered a fund of amusement in the study of Mrs. Hodge. As soon as that good lady's first apprehensions were soothed, she was seized with an immense and exuberant pride in her daughter, which found expression both in her words and her bearing. Though ignorant of the historical precedent, she assumed the demeanor of a mother of the Gracchi, and pointed out to all who would listen to her—and Philip never thought of refusing her this kindness—small incidents and traits of character which had marked out Nellie from her very cradle as one of heroic mold and dauntless courage.

"I should be astonished, if I did not know her mother," said Philip politely.

"Ah, you must be chaffing, of course. But it's not me she takes it from. My heart goes pit-a-pat at a mouse."

"Oh, then it's Mr. Hodge."

"You couldn't," said Mrs. Hodge with emphasis, "catch Hodge at a loss. He was ready for anything. He'd have been proud to see Nellie to-day. Look what the papers are saying of her!"

"I'm sure she deserves it all."

"Aye, that she does: she deserves all Dale Bannister can do for her."

Philip scented danger in this topic, and changed the subject.

"When are we to see her?" he asked.

"In a day or two, I expect. She's much better this morning. She's asked to see the papers, and I'm going to take her the Chronicle."

"How delightful to read of one's heroic actions! I have never enjoyed the sensation."

"Nor ever will, young man, if you spend all your time loafing," said Mrs. Hodge incisively.

"Well, there must be some ordinary people," protested Philip. "The rÔle is unappreciated, so it's the more creditable in me to stick to it."

"A parcel of nonsense! Where's that paper?"

She took it, went upstairs, and gave it to Nellie.

"There, read that. See what they say about you, my dearie. I'm going to see little Roberts, and I shall be back in an hour. You've got the bell by you, and the nurse'll hear you."

Nellie, left alone, began to read the Chronicle. She read the whole account from beginning to end, the article in praise of her, and, in the later edition, the editor's romantic forecast. Then she put the papers aside, exclaiming: "Oh, if it could be true!" and lay back with closed eyes.

A few days later she made her first appearance in the drawing room, where she held a little court. Her mother hung over all, anticipating far more wants than the patient was likely to feel, and by constant anxious questions almost producing the fatigue she wished to guard against. Tora Smith was there, in a state of gleeful adoration; and Arthur Angell, his sorrows temporarily laid aside, ready with a mock heroic ode; and Philip Hume, new come from Mrs. Roberts' with good news and a high eulogy on Dr. Spink's most marked and assiduous attention.

"I really believe," he said, with a laugh, "that Mrs. Roberts will have another chance of being a Denborough doctor's wife, if she likes."

"That would be an ideal ending," said Tora.

"Therefore it will not happen," Arthur remarked.

"Poets are allowed to be pessimistic," rejoined Tora. "But you're wrong, Mr. Angell. Ideal things do happen."

"To Sir Harry Fulmer, for instance," put in Philip.

"Nonsense, Mr. Hume! I wasn't thinking of that. Don't you agree with me, Nellie?"

"Nellie has made an ideal thing happen," said Philip, and Nellie blushed.

"Thanks, Phil," said Dale. "It's complimentary to describe the prolongation of my poor existence in that way."

"The deed is good, however unworthy the object, Dale."

Dale took Nellie's hand and patted it gently.

"Good child," he said, and Nellie flushed again with an almost strange intensity of embarrassment. Tora rose abruptly, and, in spite of opposition, insisted on departure. Dale escorted her to her carriage.

"I have asked Nellie to come and stay with me," said she, "as soon as she is well enough to move."

"She will like that. I hope she is going?"

"She said," Tora went on, speaking with emphasis, "that she would ask you."

Dale made a little gesture of protest, partly against Nellie's reported saying, more against the reporter's inquiring gaze. He began to be astonished at the interest he was so unfortunate as to inspire in his affairs.

"I shall advise her to go," he said. "I think a change will be good for her."

"I incline to think so too," said Tora with sudden coldness; "but I thought you might not like to part with her."

"Mount Pleasant is not inaccessible," responded Dale with equal coldness. Returning to the house, he found Nellie gone, the company dispersed, and Mrs. Hodge in his smoking room, apparently expecting him.

"Well, mother," he said,—he had used to call her "mother" when he was always running in and out of her house in London,—"Nellie looks quite blooming."

"She's mending nicely."

"I hear she's to go to the Smiths'."

"Well, I thought of taking her to Brighton."

"Oh, it will be more amusing at the Smiths'; unless, of course, she needs the sea."

"She thought, or I thought rather, that you might like to come with us for a while?" said Mrs. Hodge in a tentative tone.

"I can't get away," answered Dale decisively. Nothing would have taken him away from the Grange gates.

Mrs. Hodge took her courage in both hands.

"Look here, Dale," she said. "You know I'm not one of those women that lay hold of a man if he as much as looks at a girl, and asks him what he means by it. That's not my way. Hodge used to say girls could take care of themselves mostly—p'r'aps he wasn't far out. But Nellie's not that sort, and her father's gone, good man, and——" and the excellent lady came to a full stop.

Dale loved this honest old woman for long acquaintance' sake and much kindness. He laid his hand on her shoulder and said:

"It's a sad world, mother."

"The child's fond of you, Dale. She's shown that."

"I'm a crossed lover too, mother. We can only weep together."

"What, you mean that Grange girl?" asked Mrs. Hodge, her love for her own making her tone tart.

"Yes, that Grange girl," answered Dale, with a rueful smile. "And just at present that Grange girl won't have anything to say to me."

Mrs. Hodge pressed his hand and whispered:

"Don't you tell Nellie what I say, but let her go, dearie, and take my girl. She's sick for you, Dale, though she'd kill me if she heard me say it."

"Aye, but I'm sick for the Grange girl, mother."

"You don't take it ill of me, Dale? But there! a kind word from you is more than the doctors to her. She'd say nothing of what she's done, and I say nothing, but she's a good girl, and a pretty girl."

"That she is, and she deserves a better man than I am."

"Well, there it is! Talking mends no holes," said Mrs. Hodge, with a heavy sigh. Then she added, in an outburst of impatience:

"Why did you ever come to this miserable little place?"

Dale raised inquiring hands to heaven and shrugged his shoulders.

"What they call fate, mother," said he. "Come, cheer up. She'll get over this little idea. She'll be all right."

"Please God," said Mrs. Hodge. "It's time for her beef-tea."

The phrase Please God is as a rule expressive of the speaker's desire, but not of his expectation. So it was with Mrs. Hodge, but Dale could not bring himself to take so gloomy a view. A man's own passion assumes a most imposing appearance of permanence, but he finds it easy to look with incredulity on a like assumption in the feelings of others. He had keen sympathy for Nellie in the moment or the period of pain which seemed to lie before her, but experience told him that all probabilities were in favor of her escaping from it at no distant time. Love like his for Janet—and, till this unhappy day, he would have added, Janet's for him—was exceptional; change, recovery, oblivion—these were the rule, the happy rule whose operation smoothed love's rough ways.

Nevertheless, be this wide philosophical view as just as it might, the present position came nigh to being intolerable, and it was hard to blame him if he looked forward to Nellie's departure with relief. Her presence accused him of cruelty, for it seems cruel to refuse what would give happiness, and it increased every day it continued the misunderstanding which already existed as to their future relations. Even now, in spite of Janet's protest, Dale was convinced he had detected an undercurrent of jealousy, flowing in to re-enforce the stream of that higher, but stranger and wilder, feeling which had made her drive him away. If she heard that Nellie remained at his house, and what conclusion was universally drawn from the fact, he was afraid that, when restored health carried away the morbid idea which was now most prominent, the jealousy might remain, and, if it did, Janet's proud nature was ground on which it would bear fruit bitter for him to taste.

He could not and did not for a moment blame Mrs. Hodge for her action. It was the natural outcome of her love, and she had performed her difficult task, as it seemed to him, with a perfect observance of all the essential marks of good breeding, however homely her method had been. But she could not understand even his love for Janet, much less another feeling in him, which aided to make her intercession vain. For he did not deny now that, besides the joy he had in Janet as a woman merely, there was also the satisfaction he derived from the fact that she was Miss Delane of Dirkham Grange. Fools and would-be cynics might dismiss this as snobbery; but Dale told himself that he was right and wise in clinging to the place in this new world which his sojourn at Denborough had opened to him, and which a marriage with Janet would secure for him in perpetuity. Setting aside altogether questions of sentiment, he felt it useless not to recognize that, if he married Nellie Fane, he would drift back into his old world, the gates would close again, and the fresh realms of life and experience, which had delighted his taste and stimulated his genius, would be his to wander in no more. He had grown to love this world, this old world so new to him; and he loved Janet not least because all about her, her face, her speech, her motions, her every air, were redolent to him of its assured distinction and unboastful pride. Nay, even these fantastic scruples of hers were but a distortion of a noble instinct born in her blood, and witnessed to a nature and qualities that he could look for only in the shade of some such place as Dirkham Grange. He felt as if he too belonged to her race, and had been all his life an exile from his native land, whither at last a happy chance had led back his wandering feet. What would dear old Mother Hodge understand of all that? What even would Nellie herself, for all her ready sympathies? It was a feeling that, not vulgar in itself, seemed to become vulgar in the telling; and, after all, he had no need of other justification than his love and his pledged word.

He looked out of the window and saw Arthur Angell walking moodily up and down. Putting on his hat, he joined him, passing his arm through his. Arthur turned to him with a petulant look.

"A lot of miserables we are, old boy," said Dale, pressing the arm he held. "I am often tempted to regret, Arthur, that the state has not charged itself with the control of marriages. It would relieve us all of a large amount of trouble, and I really don't see that it would hurt anyone except novelists. I am feeling badly in need of a benevolent despotism."

"I'm going back to town," Arthur announced abruptly.

"I'm very sorry. But I don't know that it's any use asking you to stay. Nellie goes to the Smiths' in a day or two——"

"It makes no difference to me where she goes," interrupted the unhappy young man. "I—I mean——"

"I know what you mean."

Philip came up, and glanced keenly at Arthur. Then he smiled good-humoredly and said:

"Shall I prophesy unto you?"

"No," said Arthur. "I know you're going to say it'll be all the same six months hence."

"I was. I can't deny it, Arthur. You forget that I have seen you like this many times before. We may have a tragedy or we may not, Arthur, but I shall take leave to eliminate you from the cast."

"I'm going to pack," said Arthur angrily, and he went into the house.

"When there are real troubles about," said Philip, "it is well to clear the ground. There's not much the matter with him."

"I think he feels it rather, you know."

"Oh, yes; it's worth a set of verses."

"I'm glad to hear it's no worse; for, to tell you the truth, Phil, there's enough to worry about without Arthur. I'm glad our party is breaking up."

"Why?"

"We know too much about one another to live together comfortably."

"True. Shall I go?"

"No," said Dale, with a smile; "you may stay and keep watch over the razors."