Fairthorn found himself on the very spot in which, more than five years ago, Lionel, stung by Fairthorn’s own incontinent prickles, had been discovered by Darrell. There he threw himself on the ground, as the boy had done; there, like the boy, he brooded moodily, bitterly—sore with the world and himself. To that letter, written on the day that Darrell had so shocked him, and on which letter he had counted as a last forlorn—hope, no answer had been given. In an hour or so, Lionel would arrive; those hateful nuptials, dooming Fawley as the nuptials of Paris and Helen had doomed Troy, would be finally arranged. In another week the work of demolition would commence. He never meant to leave Darrell to superintend that work. No; grumble and refuse as he might till the last moment, he knew well enough that, when it came to the point, he, Richard Fairthorn, must endure any torture that could save Guy Darrell from a pang. A voice comes singing low through the grove—the patter of feet on the crisp leaves. He looks up; Sir Isaac is scrutinising him gravely—behind Sir Isaac, Darrell’s own doe, led patiently by Sophy, yes, lending its faithless neck to that female criminal’s destroying hand. He could not bear that sight, which added insult to injury. He scrambled up—darted a kick at Sir Isaac—snatched the doe from the girl’s hand, and looked her in the face (her—not Sophy, but the doe) with a reproach that, if the brute had not been lost to all sense of shame, would have cut her to the heart; then, turning to Sophy, he said: “No, Miss! I reared this creature—fed it with my own hands, Miss. I gave it up to Guy Darrell, Miss; and you shan’t steal this from him, whatever else you may do, Miss.”

SOPHY.—“Indeed, Mr. Fairthorn, it was for Mr. Darrell’s sake that I wished to make friends with the doe—as you would with poor Sir Isaac, if you would but try and like me—a little, only a very little, Mr. Fairthorn.”

FAIRTHORN.—“Don’t!”

SOPHY.—“Don’t what? I am so sorry to see I have annoyed you somehow. You have not been the same person to me the last two or three days. Tell me what I have done wrong; scold me, but make it up.”

FAIRTHORN.—“Don’t holdout your hand to me! Don’t be smiling in my face! I don’t choose it! Get out of my sight! You are standing between me and the old house—robbing me even of my last looks at the home which you—”

SOPHY.—“Which I—what?”

FAIRTHORN.—“Don’t, I say, don’t—don’t tempt me. You had better not ask questions—that’s all. I shall tell you the truth; I know I shall; my tongue is itching to tell it. Please to walk on.”

Despite the grotesque manner and astounding rudeness of the flute-player, his distress of mind was so evident—there was something so genuine and earnest at the bottom of his ludicrous anger—that Sopby began to feel a vague presentiment of evil. That she was the mysterious cause of some great suffering to this strange enemy, whom she had unconsciously provoked, was clear; and she said, therefore, with more gravity than she had before evinced:

“Mr. Fairthorn, tell me how I have incurred your displeasure, I entreat you to do so; no matter how painful the truth may be, it is due to us both not to conceal it.”

A ray of hope darted through Fairthorn’s enraged and bewildered mind. He looked to the right—he looked to the left; no one near. Releasing his hold on the doe, he made a sidelong dart towards Sophy, and said: “Hush; do you really care what becomes of Mr. Darrell?”

“To be sure I do.”

“You would not wish him to die broken-hearted in a foreign land—that old house levelled to the ground and buried in the lake? Eh, Miss—eh?”

“How can you ask me such questions?” said Sophy, faintly. “Do speak plainly, and at once.”

“Well, I will, Miss. I believe you are a good young lady, after all—and don’t wish really to bring disgrace upon all who want to keep you in the dark, and—”

“Disgrace!” interrupted Sopby; and her pure spirit rose, and the soft blue eye flashed a ray like a shooting-star.

“No, I am sure you would not like it; and some time or other you could not help knowing, and you would be very sorry for it. And that boy Lionel, who was as proud as Guy Darrell himself when I saw him last (prouder indeed)—that he should be so ungrateful to his benefactor! And, indeed, the day may come when he may turn round on you, or on the lame old gentleman, and say he has been disgraced. Should not wonder at all! Young folks when they are sweet-hearting only talk about roses and angels, and such-like; but when husbands and wives fall out, as they always do sooner or later, they don’t mince their words then, and they just take the sharpest thing that they can find at their tongue’s end. So you may depend on it, my dear Miss, that some day or other that young Haughton will say, ‘that you lost him the old Manor-house and the old Darrell name,’ and have been his disgrace; that’s the very word, Miss; I have heard husbands and wives say it to each other over and over again.”

SOPHY.—“Oh, Mr. Fairthorn! Mr. Fairthorn! these horrid words cannot be meant for me. I will go to Mr. Darrell—I will ask him how I can be a dis—” Her lips could not force out the word.

FAIRTHORN.—“Ay; go to Mr. Darrell, if you please. He will deny it all; he will never speak to me again. I don’t care—I am reckless. But it is not the less true that you make him an exile because you may make me a beggar.”

SOPHY (wringing her hands).—“Have you no mercy, Mr. Fairthorn? Will you not explain?”

FAIRTHORN.—“Yes, if you will promise to keep it secret at least for the next six months—anything for breathing-time.”

SOPHY (impatiently).—“I promise, I promise; speak, speak.”

And then Fairthorn did speak! He did speak of Jasper Losely—his character—his debasement—even of his midnight visit to her host’s chamber. He did speak of the child fraudulently sought to be thrust on Darrell—of Darrell’s just indignation and loathing. The man was merciless; though he had not an idea of the anguish he was inflicting, he was venting his own anguish. All the mystery of her past life became clear at once to the unhappy girl—all that had been kept from her by protecting love. All her vague conjectures now became a dreadful certainty;—explained now why Lionel had fled her—why he had written that letter, over the contents of which she had pondered, with her finger on her lip, as if to hush her own sighs—all, all! She marry Lionel now! impossible! She bring disgrace upon him in return for such generous, magnanimous affection! She drive his benefactor, her grandsire’s vindicator, from his own hearth! She—she—that Sophy who, as a mere infant, had recoiled from the thought of playful subterfuge and tamperings with plain honest truth! She rose before Fairthorn had done; indeed, the tormentor, left to himself, would not have ceased till nightfall.

“Fear not, Mr. Fairthorn,” she said, resolutely; “Mr. Darrell will be no exile! his house will not be destroyed. Lionel Haughton shall not wed the child of disgrace! Fear not, sir; all is safe!”

She shed not a tear; nor was there writ on her countenance that CHANGE, speaking of blighted hope, which had passed over it at her young lover’s melancholy farewell. No, now she was supported—now there was a virtue by the side of a sorrow—now love was to shelter and save the beloved from disgrace—from disgrace! At that thought, disgrace fell harmless from herself, as the rain from the plumes of a bird. She passed on, her cheek glowing, her form erect.

By the porch-door she met Waife and the Morleys. With a kind of wild impetuosity she seized the old man’s arm, and drew it fondly, clingingly within her own. Henceforth they two were to be, as in years gone by, all in all to each other. George Morley eyed her countenance in thoughtful surprise. Mrs. Morley, bent as usual on saying something seasonably kind, burst into an eulogium on her brilliant colour. So they passed on towards the garden side of the house. Wheels—the tramp of hoofs, full gallop; and George Morley, looking up, exclaimed: “Ha! here comes Lionel! and see, Darrell is hastening out to welcome him!”