It was half-past four as Mr. M’Kinlay drove into the court-yard at Dalradern. Sir Within’s note had said four o’clock, an early dinner, and Sir Within himself could be seen, at an oriel window, watch in hand, as the carriage passed under the arched entrance. Now, though it was part of Mr. M’Kinlay’s usual tactics never to “cheapen himself,” he felt he might by possibility have erred on the opposite side on this occasion, and he prepared to make some excuses for his delay, the letters he had read, the replies he was forced to make, and such like.

The old Baronet heard these apologies with a most polished urbanity, he bowed a continual acquiescence, and then ordered dinner.

“I had hoped for a little daylight, Mr. M’Kinlay,” said he, “to have shown you some of my pictures, which are only worth seeing when they have got sun on them. Are you fond of the arts?”

“Passionately, Sir Within; devotedly, if a man so ignorant may dare to say so.”

“Then, I must only hope for better fortune on another occasion, and that you will give me an entire morning, if you will not graciously make me a visit of some days.”

“Oh, Sir.”

“I think,” continued he—“I think I could requite you. My Van Eyks are accounted the best of any private collection; and one at least of my Albert Durers will bear comparison with any in the Munich Gallery.”

M’Kinlay muttered something that sounded as if he were firmly persuaded of the fact.

“I know,” added Sir Within, “this sounds a little boastful; but when I shall have told you how I came by this picture—it is called the Queen’s Martyrdom, and represents the Queen Beatrice of Bohemia on a balcony while her lover is going to the scaffold: the king, her husband, has ordered her to throw to him the garland or wreath, which was the privilege of nobles to wear in their last moments—and, I say, when I tell you the history of the picture, you will, perhaps, acquit me of vainglory; and also, when you see it, you will render me a greater service by deciding whether the headsman has not been painted by Cranach. How I wish we had a little daylight, that I might show it to you!”

How grateful was M’Kinlay to the sun for his setting on that evening; never was darkness more welcome, even to him who prayed for night—or Blucher; and, secretly vowing to himself that no casualty should ever catch him there before candlelight, he listened with a bland attention, and pledged his word to any amount of connoisseurship required of him. Still he hoped that this might not be “the case”—the especial case—on which Sir Within had summoned him to give counsel; for, besides being absurd, it would be worse—it would be unprofitable. It was a pleasant interruption to this “art conversation” when dinner was announced. Now did Mr. M’Kinlay find himself more at home when appealed to for his judgment on brown sherry, and the appropriate period at which “Amontillado” could be introduced; but he soon discovered he was in the presence of a master. Dinner-giving was the science of his craft, and Sir Within belonged to that especial school who have always maintained that Brillat Savarin is more to be relied upon than Grotius, and M. Ude a far abler ally than Puffendorf. It was the old envoy’s pleasure on this occasion to put forth much of his strength; both the dinner and the wine were exquisite, and when the entertainment closed with some choice “Hermitage,” which had been an imperial present, the lawyer declared that it was not a dinner to which he had been invited, but a banquet.

“You must run down in your next vacation, my dear Mr. M’Kinlay, and give me a week. I don’t know if you are a sportsman?”

“Not in the least, Sir. I neither shoot, ride, nor fish.”

“Nor do I, and yet I like a country life, as a sort of interlude in existence.”

“With a house like this, Sir Within, what life can compare with it?”

“One can at least have tranquillity,” sighed Sir Within, with an air that made it difficult to say whether he considered it a blessing or the reverse.

“There ought to be a good neighbourhood, too, I should say. I passed some handsome places as I came along.”

“Yes, there are people on every hand, excellent people, I have not a doubt; but they neither suit me, nor I them. Their ways are not mine, nor are their ideas, their instincts, nor their prejudices. The world, my dear Mr. M’Kinlay, is, unfortunately, wider than a Welsh county, though they will not believe it here.”

“You mean, then, Sir Within, that they are local, and narrow-minded in their notions?”

“I don’t like to say that, any more than I like to hear myself called a libertine; but I suppose, after all, it is what we both come to.” The air of self-accusation made the old envoy perfectly triumphant, and, as he passed his hand across his brow and smiled blandly, he seemed to be recalling to mind innumerable successes of the past. “To say truth, diplomacy is not the school for dÉvots.”

“I should think not, indeed, Sir,” said M’Kinlay.

“And that is what these worthy folk cannot or will not see. Wounds and scars are the necessary incidents of a soldier’s life; but people will not admit that there are moral injuries which form the accidents of a minister’s life, and to which he must expose himself as fearlessly as any soldier that ever marched to battle. What do these excellent creatures here—who have never experienced a more exciting scene than a cattle-show, nor faced a more captivating incident than a Bishop’s visitation—know of the trials, the seductions—the irresistible seductions of the great world? Ah, Mr. M’Kinlay, I could lay bare a very strange chapter of humanity, were I to tell even one-fourth of my own experiences.”

“And an instructive one too, I should say, Sir.”

“In one sense, yes; certainly instructive. You see, Mr. M’Kinlay, with respect to life, it is thus: Men in your profession become conversant with all the material embarrassments and difficulties of families; they know of that crushing bond, or that ruinous mortgage, of the secret loan at fifty per cent., or the drain of hush-money to stop a disclosure, just as the doctor knows of the threatened paralysis or the spreading aneurism; but we men of the world—men of the world par excellence—read humanity in its moral aspect; we study its conflicts, its trials, its weakness, and its fall—I say fall, because such is the one and inevitable end of every struggle.”

“This is a sad view, a very sad view,” said M’Kinlay, who, probably to fortify himself against the depression he felt, drank freely of a strong Burgundy.

“Not so in one respect. It makes us more tolerant, more charitable. There is nothing ascetic in our judgment of people—we deplore, but we forgive.”

“Fine, Sir, very fine—a noble sentiment!” said the lawyer, whose utterance was not by any means so accurate as it had been an hour before.

“Of that relentless persecution of women, for instance, such as you practise it here in England, the great world knows positively nothing. In your blind vindictiveness you think of nothing but penalties, and you seem to walk over the battle-field of life with no other object or care than to search for the wounded and hold them up to shame and torture. Is it not so?”

“I am sure you are right. We are all fal—fal—la—hie, not a doubt of it,” muttered M’Kinlay to himself.

“And remember,” continued Sir Within, “it is precisely the higher organisations, the more finely-attuned temperaments, that are most exposed, and which, from the very excellence of their nature, demand our deepest care and solicitude. With what pains, for instance, would you put together the smashed fragments of a bit of rare SÈvres, concealing the junctures and hiding the flaws, while you would not waste a moment on a piece of vulgar crockery.”

“Pitch it out o’ window at once!” said M’Kinlay, with an almost savage energy.

“So it is. It is with this precious material, finely formed, beautiful in shape, and exquisite in colour, the world has to deal; and how natural that it should treat it with every solicitude and every tenderness. But the analogy holds further. Every connoisseur will tell you that the cracked or fissured porcelain is scarcely diminished in value by its fracture; that when skilfully repaired it actually is almost, if not altogether, worth what it was before.”

M’Kinlay nodded; he was not quite clear how the conversation had turned upon porcelain, but the wine was exquisite, and he was content. “These opinions of mine meet little mercy down here, Mr. M’Kinlay; my neighbours call them Frenchified immoralities, and fifty other hard names; and as for myself, they do not scruple to aver that I am an old rake, come back to live on the recollection of his vices. I except, of course, our friends the Vyners—they judge, and they treat me differently; they are a charming family.”

“Charming!” echoed the lawyer, and seeming by his action to drink their health to himself.

“You know the old line, ‘He jests at wounds that never felt a scar;’ and so have I ever found that it is only amongst those who have suffered one meets true sympathy. What is this curious story”—here he dropped into a low, confidential voice—“about Miss C.? It is a by-gone now-a-days; but how was it? She was to have married a man who had a wife living; or, she did marry him, and discovered it as they were leaving the church? I forget exactly how it went—I mean the story—for I know nothing as to the fact.”

M’Kinlay listened, and through the dull fog of his besotted faculties a faint nickering of light seemed struggling to pierce. The misanthrope at Arran—the once friend, now banished for ever—the name that never was to be uttered—the mystery to be kept from all—and then Georgina’s own sudden outburst of passion on the evening they parted, when he blundered out something about a reparation to Luttrell.

All this, at first confusedly, but by degrees more clearly, passed in review before him, and he thought he had dropped upon a very black page of family history. Though the wine of which he had drank freely had addled, it had not overcome him, and, with the old instincts of his calling, he remembered how all important it is, when extracting evidence, to appear in fall possession of all the facts.

“How, in the name of wonder, Sir Within,” said he, after a long pause—“how did it ever chance that this story reached you?”

“Mr. M’Kinlay, my profession, like your own, has its secret sources of information, and, like you, we hear a great deal, and we believe very little of it.”

“In the present case,” said M’Kinlay, growing clearer every minute, “I take it you believe nothing.”

“How old is Miss O’Hara!” asked Sir William, quietly.

“Oh, Sir Within, you surely don’t mean to——”

“To what, Mr. M’Kinlay—what is it that I cannot possibly intend?” said he, smiling.

“You would not imply that—that there was anything there?” said he, blundering into an ambiguity that might not commit him irretrievably.

“Haven’t I told you, my dear Mr. M’Kinlay,” said he, with an air of easy familiarity, “that if I am somewhat sceptical, I am very charitable? I can believe a great deal, but I can forgive everything.” “And you really do believe this?” asked M’Kinlay. “Something of it; about as much as Mr. M’Kinlay believes Kate O’Hara is—— Let me see,” muttered he, half aloud; “I was at Stuttgard; it was the winter Prince Paul died; we had a court-mourning, and there were no festivities. The Legations received a few intimates, and we exchanged all the contents of our letters—that was sixteen or seventeen years ago; the young lady, I take it, is not far from fifteen.” “Good Heavens, Sir Within, you want to establish a distinct link between this story and the age of the young girl!”

“That is too legal a view, Mr. M’Kinlay; we diplomatists deal in another fashion—we speculate, we never specify. We always act as if everything were possible, and nothing certain; and in our very uncertainty lies our greatest security.”

“At all events, you don’t believe one word of this story?” “When a gentleman so intimately connected with all the secret details of a family history as you are, instead of showing me where and how I am in error, limits himself to an appeal to my incredulity, my reply is, his case is a weak one. She is a most promising creature; she was here yesterday, and I declare I feel half ashamed of myself for thinking her more attractive than my dear old favourite, Ada. What are you going to do about her?”

The suddenness of this question startled M’Kinlay not much, if at all “Did the old Baronet know of the Vyners’ plans?—was he in reality more deeply in their confidence than himself?”—was the lawyer’s first thought. It was clear enough he knew something, whatever that something might mean. To fence with such a master of his weapon would be a lamentable blunder, and M’Kinlay determined on frankness.

“It is the very subject on which I want to consult you, Sir Within. The case is a nice one, and requires nice treatment. The Vyners have determined she is not to go out to Italy.”

“Do they give their reason?”

“No, not exactly a reason. They think—that is, Miss Courtenay thinks—all this is, of course, in strict confidence, Sir Within?”

The old minister bowed an acquiescence, with his hand on his heart.

“As I was observing, then,” resumed M’Kinlay, “Miss Courtenay thinks that the united education scheme has not been a success; that Miss O’Hara has contrived, somehow, to usurp more than her share; that from natural quickness, perhaps, in learning, a greater aptitude for acquirement, she has not merely outstripped but discouraged Miss Vyner——”

The incredulous surprise that sat on the old Baronet’s face stopped M’Kinlay in his explanation, and he said: “You don’t appear to believe in this, Sir Within?”

“Don’t you think, Sir,” said the old envoy, “that sitting here tÊte-À-tÊte as we do now, we could afford to be candid and frank with each other? Does it not strike you that you and I are very like men who could trust each other?”

There was a fine shade of flattery in the collocation that touched the lawyer. It was not every day that he saw himself “brigaded” in such company, and he reddened slightly as he accepted the compliment.

“Let us, then,” resumed the old minister—“let us leave to one side all mention of these young ladies’ peculiar talents and capacities; come to the practical fact that, for reasons into which we are not to inquire, they are to be separated. What do you mean to do by Miss O’Hara?”

Mr. M’Kinlay paused for a few seconds, and then, with the air of one who could not subdue himself to any caution, said: “Whatever you suggest, Sir Within—anything that you advise. You see, Sir,” said he, turning down the corner of Vyner’s letter, and handing it to him to read, “this is what he says: ‘Tell Sir Within from me, that I will accept any trouble he shall take with Miss O’H. as a direct personal favour.’”

Sir Within bowed. It was not the first time he had been shown a “strictly confidential despatch” that meant nothing.

“I think—that is, I suspect—I apprehend the situation,” said he. “The Vyners want to stand in the ‘statu quo ante;’ they have made a mistake, and they see it. Now, what does Mr. M’Kinlay suggest?”

“I’d send her back, Sir Within.”

“Back! Where? To whom?”

“To her friends.”

“To her friends! My dear Mr. M’Kinlay, I thought we had disposed of all that part of the case. Let us be frank—it does save so much time; for friends, read Mr. Luttrell. Now, what if he say, ‘No; you have taken her away, and by your teaching and training unfitted her for such a life as she must lead here; I cannot receive her?’”

“I did not mean Mr. Luttrell; I really spoke of the girl’s family——”

“You are a treasure of discretion, Sir,” said Sir Within; “but permit me to observe, that the excess of caution often delays a negotiation. You say that she cannot go to Italy, and I say she can as little return to Ireland—at least, without Mr. Luttrell’s acquiescence. Now for the third course?”

“This school Sir Gervais speaks of in Paris,” said M’Kinlay, fumbling for the passage in the letter, for he was now so confused and puzzled that he was very far from feeling calm. “Here is the address—Madame Gosselin, Rue Neuve, St. Augustin, Paris. Sir Gervais thought that—with of course your approval—this would be the best course we could take. She would be well treated, well educated, cared for, and eventually qualified to be a governess—if she should not chance to marry.”

“Yes, yes,” said Sir Within, slowly, as he pondered over the other’s words, “there is much in what you say, and the remarkable fact is, that they do, very often, make admirable wives.”

Who were the “they” he referred to, as a category, M’Kinlay did not dare to inquire, but assented by a smile and a bow.

“Curious it is,” said the old man, reflectively, “to mark how generations alternate, as if it were decreed that the world should not make any distinct progress, but oscillate between vice and virtue—virtue and vice. The respectable father and the scampish son being the counterpoise for the rakish mamma and the discreet daughter.”

To what such a reflection could be thought to apply, Mr. M’Kinlay had not the vaguest conception; but it is only fair to add, that his faculties were never throughout the interview at their clearest.

“My chief difficulty is this, Sir,” said the lawyer, rising to an effort that might show he had an opinion and a will of his own; “Sir Gervais requests me to convey his daughter as far as Marseilles; he names an early day to meet us there, so that really there is very little time—I may say no time, if we must start by Monday next.”

Sir Within made no reply, and the other went on.

“Suppose I take this girl over to Paris with us, and the school should be full, and no vacancy to be had? Suppose they might object—I have heard of such things—to receive as a pupil one who had not made any preliminary inquiries?”

“Your position might become one of great embarrassment, Mr. M’Kinlay, and to relieve you so far as in me lies, I would propose that until you have taken the necessary steps to ensure Miss O’Hara’s reception, she should remain under the charge of my housekeeper here, Mrs. Simcox. She is a most excellent person, and kindness itself. When you have satisfied yourself by seeing Madame Gosselin at Paris, as to all matters of detail, I shall very probably have had time to receive a reply to the letter I will write to my co-trustee, Mr. Luttrell, and everything can be thus arranged in all due form.”

“I like all of your plans, Sir, but the last step. I have confessed to you that Sir Gervais Vyner had strictly enjoined me not to mention Mr. Luttrell’s name.”

“You also mentioned to me, if I mistake not, that the young girl’s friends, whoever they might be supposed to be, were to be consulted as to any future arrangements regarding her. Now, do you seriously mean to tell me that you are going to address yourself to the old peasant, who assumed to be her grandfather, and who frankly owned he couldn’t read?”

“I do think, Sir Within, that old Malone—that is the man’s name—ought to be informed, and, indeed, consulted as to any step we take.”

“A model of discreet reserve you certainly are!” said Sir Within, smiling graciously. “You will write to him, therefore, and say that Miss Kate O’Hara is, for the time being, under the roof of one of her guardians, Sir Within Wardle, preparatory to her being sent to a school at Paris. You may, if you think it advisable, ask him for a formal acquiescence to our plan, and if he should desire it, add, he may come over here and see her. I suspect, Mr. M’Kinlay, we cannot possibly be called on to carry out the illusion of relationship beyond this.”

“But he is her grandfather; I assure you he is.”

“I believe whatever Mr. M’Kinlay asks me to believe. With the inner convictions which jar against my credulity, you shall have no cause of complaint, Sir; they are, and they shall be, inoperative. To prove this, I will beg of you to enclose ten pounds on my part to this old peasant, in case he should like to come over here.”

“I am sure Sir Gervais will be deeply obliged by all your kindness in this matter.”

“It is my pleasure and my duty both.”

“What a rare piece of fortune it was for her, that made you her guardian.”

“Only one of them, remember, and that I am now acting, per force, without my colleague. I own, Mr. M’Kinlay, I am red tapist enough not to like all this usurped authority, but you have tied me up to secresy.”

“Not I, Sir Within. It was Sir Gervais who insisted on this.”

“I respect his wishes, for perhaps I appreciate their necessity. You see some sort of objection to my plan, Mr. M’Kinlay?” said the old diplomatist, with a cunning twinkle of the eye. “What is it?”

“None, Sir, none whatever,” said the lawyer, rapidly.

“Yes, yes, you do; be candid, my dear Mr. M’Kinlay. What we say to each other here will never figure in a Blue-book.”

“I did not see a positive objection, Sir Within; I only saw what might be an embarrassment.”

“In what shape?”

“I am completely in your hands, Sir Within Wardle; but such is my confidence in you, I will not withhold anything. Here is the difficulty I speak of: Miss Courtenay, who never favoured the project about this girl, likes it now less than ever, and I do not feel quite certain that she will be satisfied with any arrangement short of sending her back to the obscurity she came from.”

“I can understand and appreciate that wish on her part, but then there is no need that I should suspect it, Mr. M’Kinlay. The habits of my profession have taught me to bear many things in mind without seeming to act upon the knowledge. Now, the shelter that I purpose to afford this young lady need not excite any mistrust. You will tell Sir Gervais that the arrangement met with your approval. That it was, in your opinion, the best of the alternatives that offered, and that Sir Within Wardle has, on the present occasion, a double happiness afforded him—he obliges friends whom he values highly, and he consults his own personal gratification.”

In the last few words the old envoy had resumed a tone familiar to him in the days when he dictated despatches to a secretary, and sent off formal documents to be read aloud to dignitaries great and potent as himself; and Mr. M’Kinlay was duly impressed thereat.

“In all that relates to Mr. Luttrell I am to rely upon you, Sir,” said Sir Within, and Mr. M’Kinlay bowed his acquiescence. “I am certain that you smile at my excess of formality,” continued the old minister. “These particularities are second nature to us;” and it was clear as he said “us,” that he meant an order whose ways and habits it would be a heresy to dispute. “If you will not take more wine, let us go into the drawing-room. A drawing-room without ladies, Mr. M’Kinlay,” said he, with a sigh; “but, perhaps, one of these days—who knows?—we may be fortunate enough to receive you here more gracefully.”

Mr. M’Kinlay, in any ordinary presence, would have responded by one of those little jocose pleasantries which are supposed to be fitting on such occasions; he had tact enough, however, to perceive that Sir Within would not have been the man for a familiarity of this sort, so he merely smiled, and bowed a polite concurrence with the speech.

“It will be as well, perhaps, if I wrote a few lines to Mademoiselle Heinzleman, and also to Miss O’Hara herself, and if you will excuse me for a few minutes, I will do so.”

The old minister despatched his two notes very speedily, and, with profuse assurances of his “highest consideration,” he took leave of the lawyer, and sat down to ruminate over their late conversation, and the step he had just taken.

Mr. M’Kinlay, too, meditated as he drove homewards, but not with all that clearness of intellect he could usually bestow upon a knotty point. Like most men in his predicament, to be puzzled was to be angered, and so did he inveigh to himself against “that crotchety old humbug, with his mare’s nest of a secret marriage.” Not but there was-a “something somewhere,” which he, M’Kinlay, would certainly investigate before he was many weeks older. “Miss Georgina’s manner to me used to undergo very strange vacillations—very strange ones indeed. Yes, there was something ‘in it’—surely something.”

While Kate O’Hara was still sleeping the next morning, Ada hurried into her room, and threw her arms around her, sobbing bitterly, as the hot tears ran down her cheeks. “Oh, Kate, my own dear, darling Kate, what is this dreadful thing I have just heard? Lisette has just told me that she is not to pack your clothes—that you are not coming with me abroad.”

Kate raised herself on one arm, and pushed back her hair from her brow, her large eyes wearing for an instant the meaningless look of one suddenly awakened from sleep.

“Do you hear me—do you know what I am saying, dearest?” asked Ada, as she kissed her, and drew her towards her.

“Tell it me again,” said she, in a low, distinct voice.

“Lisette says that Mademoiselle has orders—from whom I cannot say—that you are to remain in England, to go to a school, or to live with a governess, or to return to Ireland, or something; but whatever it is, that we are to be separated.” And again her grief burst forth and choked her words.

“I knew this would come one day,” said Kate, slowly, but without any touch of emotion. “It was a caprice that took me, and it is a caprice that deserts me.”

“Oh, don’t say that, Kate, of my own dear papa, who loves you almost as he loves me!”

“I can have nothing but words of gratitude for him, Ada, and for your mother.”

“You mean, then——”

“No matter what I mean, my sweet Ada. It may be, after all, a mercy. Who is to say whether, after another year of this sort of life, its delicious happiness should have so grown into my nature that it would tear my very heart-strings to free myself from its coils? Even now, there were days when I forgot I was a peasant girl, without home, or friends, or fortune.”

“Oh, Kate, you will break my heart if you speak this way!”

“Well, then, to talk more cheerfully. Will not that pretty hat yonder, with the long blue feather, look wondrous picturesque, as I follow the goats up the steep sides of Inchegora? and will not that gauzy scarf be a rare muffle as I gather the seaweed below the cliffs of Bengore?”

“Kate, Kate!” sobbed Ada, “how cruel you are! You know, too, that dear papa does not mean this. It is not to hardship and privation he would send you.”

“But there are reverses, Ada, a hundred times worse than any change of food or dress. There are changes of condition that seem to rend one’s very identity. Here, I had respect, attention, deference, and now, I go, Heaven knows where, to render these tributes to Heaven knows whom. Tell me of yourself, my sweet Ada. It is a far brighter theme to dwell on.”

“No, no; not if I must part with you,” said she, sobbing; “but you will write to me, my own darling Kate? We shall write to each other continually till we meet again?”

“If I may. If I be permitted,” said Kate, gravely.

“What do you—what can you mean?” cried Ada, wildly. “You speak as though some secret enemy were at work to injure you here, where you have found none but friends who love you.”

“Don’t you know, my dear Ada, that love, like money, has a graduated coinage, and that what would be a trifle to the rich man, would make the wealth of a poor one? The love your friends bear me is meted out by station; mind, dearest, I’m not complaining of this. Let us talk of Italy, rather; how happy you ought to be there!”

“If I but had you, my own dearest——”

“There, I hear Mademoiselle coming. Bathe your eyes, dear Ada; or, better still, run away before she sees you.”

Ada took this last counsel; but scarcely had she left by one door, than Mademoiselle entered by another.