The Scene of the Outrage.

The excitement and bustle which attended and followed on the attempted murder, the suicide, the inquest, the illnesses, and the true and false reports concerning each and all of these incidents, had hardly subsided before the Mayor of Market Denborough, with the perseverance that distinguished him, began once more to give his attention to the royal visit. For reasons which will be apparent to all who study the manner in which one man becomes a knight while another remains unhonored, the Mayor was particularly anxious that the Institute should not lose the Éclat which the Duke of Mercia had promised to bestow on its opening, and that its opening should take place during his mayoralty.

The finger of fame pointed at Mr. Maggs the horse-dealer as Mr. Hedger's successor, and the idea of the waters of the fountain of honor flowing on to the head of Maggs, instead of on to his own, spurred the Mayor to keen exertion. He had interviews with the Squire, he wrote to the Lord Lieutenant, he promoted a petition from the burgesses, and he carried a resolution in the Town Council. Mr. Delane was prevailed upon to use his influence with the Lord Lieutenant; the Lord Lieutenant could not, in view of Mr. Delane's urgent appeal, refuse to lay the question before his Royal Highness; and his Royal Highness was graciously pleased to say that he could not deny himself the pleasure of obliging Lord Cransford, knowing not that he was in fact and in truth, if it may be spoken without lÈse-majestÉ, merely an instrument in the clever fingers of a gentleman who, when the Prince was writing his reply, was rolling pills in the parlor behind his shop in the town of Market Denborough.

Now, Colonel Smith had never concealed his opinion that, however much evil that unhappy man James Roberts had to answer for, yet he deserved a scrap of grateful memory, inasmuch as he had by his action averted the calamity that was threatening the town, and, furthermore, robbed Dale Bannister of the chance of prostituting his genius. Accordingly, when it was announced in the Standard, three or four weeks after James Roberts had shot at Dale Bannister and wounded Nellie Fane, that the Duke had given a conditional promise to pay his deferred visit in June, the Colonel laid down the paper and said to the rest of the breakfast party at Mount Pleasant—and the Colonel must bear the responsibility for the terms he thought proper to employ:

"That old fool Cransford has nobbled the whippersnapper again! We're to have him after all! Good Lord!"

Tora at once appreciated his meaning.

"Papa means the Prince is coming, Nellie!" cried she. "How splendid!"

"Bannister will have a chance of blacking his boots now," pursued the Colonel, trying to impose a malignant sneer on his obstinately kindly countenance.

"You are not to say such things," said Nellie emphatically. "You know you don't mean them."

"Not mean them?" exclaimed the Colonel.

"No. You're not horrid, and it's no use trying to make yourself horrid. Is it, Tora?"

Tora's thoughts were far away.

"In June," she said meditatively. "I hope it won't be the first week, or we shall have to come back early."

The Colonel's face expressed concentrated scorn.

"You would cut short your honeymoon in order to come back?"

"Of course, dear. I wouldn't miss it. Oh, and, Nellie, I shall go in next after Lady Cransford!"

This was too much for the Colonel; he said nothing himself, but his joy was great when Sir Harry pointed out that Mrs. Hedger would have official precedence over the new Lady Fulmer. The Colonel chuckled, and Tora pretended that she had remembered about Mrs. Hedger all the time.

"Johnstone will probably take you in, Tora," said Sir Harry, who had lately found himself able to treat Tora with less fearful respect.

"I don't care. I shall talk to the Prince. Now, Nellie, you must come down for it."

Nellie would not give any promise, and Tora forbore to press her, for she confessed to herself and to Sir Harry that she did not quite understand the position of affairs. Janet Delane remained in strict seclusion; doctor's orders were alleged, but Tora was inclined to be skeptical, for she had seen Janet out driving, and reported that she looked strong and well. Dale was at Littlehill, and he was there alone, Philip having gone back to London with Arthur Angell. He often came over to Mount Pleasant, to see Nellie, no doubt; and when he came, he was most attentive and kind to her. Yet he resolutely refused to stay in the house, always returning in an hour or two to his solitary life at Littlehill. He seemed never to see Janet, and to know not much more about her than the rest of the world did. He never referred to her unquestioned, and when he spoke of Nellie's share in the scene in the garden, he appeared pointedly to avoid discussing Janet's. Tora concluded that there was some break in his relations with Janet, and, led on by her sympathies, had small difficulty in persuading herself that he was by degrees being induced by affection and gratitude to feel toward Nellie as everybody expected and wished him to feel. Only, if so, it was hard to see why Nellie's pleasure in his visits seemed mingled with a nervousness which the increased brightness of her prospects did not allay. Evidently she also was puzzled by Janet's conduct; and it was equally clear that she did not yet feel confident that Dale had renounced his fancy for Janet and given his heart to her.

In after-days Dale was wont to declare that the fortnight he passed alone at Littlehill was the most miserable in his life, and people given to improving the occasion would then tell him that he had no experience of what real misery was. Yet he was very miserable. He was sore to the heart at Janet's treatment of him; she would neither see him, nor, till he absolutely insisted, write to him, and then she sent three words: "It's no use." In face of this incredible delusion of hers he felt himself helpless; and the Squire, with all the good will in the world to him, could only shrug his shoulders and say that Jan was a strange girl; while Mrs. Delane, knowing nothing of the cause of her daughter's refusal to see Dale, had once again begun to revive her old hopes, and allowed herself to hint at them to her favorite Gerard Ripley. Of course this latter fact was not known to Dale, but he was aware that Captain Ripley had called two or three times at the Grange, and had seen Janet once. The "doctor's orders" applied, it seemed, to him alone; and his bitterness of heart increased, mingling with growing impatience and resentment. Nellie could never have acted like this: she was too kind and gentle; love was real in her, a mastering power, and not itself the plaything of fantastic scruples—unless a worse thing were true, unless the scruples themselves were the screen of some unlooked-for and sudden infidelity of heart. The thought was treason, but he could not stifle it. Yet, even while it possessed him, while he told himself that he had now full right to transfer his allegiance, that no one could blame him, that every motive urged him, all the while in his inmost mind he never lost the knowledge that it was Janet he wanted; and when he came to see Nellie, he was unable, even if he had been willing—and he told himself he was—to say anything but words of friendship and thanks, unable to frame a sentence distantly approaching the phrases of love he knew she longed to hear.

Matters were in this very unsatisfactory condition when Philip Hume returned to Littlehill, and straightway became the unwilling recipient of Dale's troubled confidences. A fortnight's solitude had been too much for Dale, and he poured out his perplexities, saying, with an apologetic laugh:

"I'm bound to tell someone. I believe, if you hadn't come, I should have made a clean breast of it to the Mayor."

"You might do worse. The Mayor is a man of sagacity. This young woman seems very unreasonable."

"What young woman?"

"Why, Miss Delane."

"Well, Phil, you must allow for the delicacy of her——"

"You called it infernal nonsense yourself just now."

"I wish, Phil, you'd call at the Grange and see her, and tell me what you think about her."

"I can't do any good, but I'll go, if you like."

Accordingly he went, and did, as he expected, no good at all. Janet had resumed her ordinary manner, with an additional touch or two of vivacity and loquaciousness, which betrayed the uneasiness they were meant to hide. The only subjects she discussed were the last new novel and Tora Smith's wedding, and Philip took his leave, entirely unenlightened. The Squire offered to walk part of the way with him and they set out together.

The Squire stopped at the scene of the disaster. Pointing with his toe to a spot by the side of the drive:

"That's where that mad wretch stood, holding my poor girl," he said.

Philip nodded.

"And where was Dale?" he asked, for it was his first visit to the spot.

The Squire was delighted to be cicerone.

"He was standing with his back to that tree yonder, about fifteen yards off, looking due north, toward the house, thinking of a poem or some nonsense, I suppose."

"I shouldn't wonder."

"Well, then," pursued the Squire, "you see he was almost in a straight line with Roberts—Roberts' barrel must have pointed straight toward Denborough church spire. After the first shot Bannister sprang forward—the gravel was soft, and we saw every footprint—to where Miss Fane fell, and——"

"Where did she fall?"

The Squire's toe indicated a spot about three yards from the tree.

"She was running up from behind Bannister, you know, and had just got across the line of fire when the bullet caught her. She fell forward on her face,—she was bound to, Spink said, from the way she was hit,—and Bannister just got his arm under her, to break her fall."

"She was running toward him, I suppose, to warn him?"

"To get between him and Roberts, like the noble girl she is, no doubt; but she seemed to have turned round on hearing the shot, because, to judge from the way she was lying, she was, at the moment she fell, heading almost south."

"What, toward the house?"

"Yes, in a slanting line, from the tree toward the house."

"That's away from Bannister?"

"Yes, and from Roberts too. You see, she must have turned. It was a fine thing. Well, I must get back; I'm busy with all the preparations for this affair. Good-day, Mr. Hume. Very kind of you to come and see us."

"I'm so glad to find Miss Delane better."

"Yes, she's better, thanks, but not herself yet, by any means. Good-day."

Philip went home, lit a pipe, and drew a neat little plan of the scene which had just been so carefully described to him. By the time the drawing was made the pipe was finished, and he was obliged to light another, which he consumed while he sat gazing at his handiwork. He was still pondering over it when Dale came in, and flung himself into an armchair with a restless sigh.

"What's up now?" asked Philip.

"Only that I'm the most miserable dog alive. I tell you what, Phil, I'm going to settle this affair one way or the other. I won't be played with any more. I shall go up to the Grange to-morrow."

"You can't—it's Fulmer's wedding."

"Hang his wedding! Well, then, next day—and get a definite answer from Janet. It's too bad of her. Did you have any talk with her to-day?"

"Only general conversation. She gave me no chance."

"I don't understand her, but I'll have it settled. I've been at Mount Pleasant, and—by God, Phil, I can't stand the sort of anxious, beseeching way Nellie looks. I know it sounds absurd to hear a man talk like that, but it's a fact."

"Then why do you go?"

"Well, considering what she's done, I don't see how I can very well stay away."

"Oh! No, I suppose not," said Philip, touching up his plan; "but if I were you, Dale, I should wait a bit before I bothered Miss Delane again. Give her time, man."

"No, I won't. She's not treating me fairly."

"What's that got to do with it? You want to marry her, don't you?"

"Of course I do."

"Then give her time. Give her a week at all events. You can sound her at the wedding to-morrow, but don't present your ultimatum."

And Dale agreed, on much persuasion, to give her a week.

"That's more sensible. And, Dale, may I ask Arthur Angell down for a day or two?"

"Of course, but I don't know whether he'll come."

"Oh, he'll come, fast enough."

"What do you want him for?"

"To consult him about a little work of mine," answered Philip, regarding his sketch critically.

"Going to publish something?"

"I don't know. That depends."

"On the publishers? Ça va sans dire. But how can Arthur help you?"

"He was there."

"Where?"

"Now, Dale, I can understand your impatience—but you must wait. If I publish it, you shall see it."

"Is it my sort? Shall I like it?"

"I think your feelings would be mixed," said Philip, delicately filling in Nellie Fane's figure on the ground.