“I can’t give you her precise words,” said Mr Gresham. “And I don’t think what she said was exactly premeditated. We were talking about Cannes and the people there—it was, in fact, the first time I had seen the Worthings since meeting them there, and I have not seen them again. Something was said about the Lermonts, and Mrs Worthing expressed her surprise at finding that the—the Raynsworths were cousins of theirs. She ‘had never heard of them before; who were they? it seemed odd somehow.’ I reminded her that Mrs Marmaduke Headfort was a Miss Raynsworth, and that the young lady of the same name was her sister. And to my amazement, what do you think the woman said next?”

Michael murmured something unintelligible. Bernard proceeded:

“She looked at me curiously, and said, ‘Ah, that is just it—is she her sister?’ I stared, naturally, and then said, carelessly, ‘Do you mean that they are only half-sisters? Possibly so, though I scarcely think it; they are not the least like each other, however.’ She agreed, and if no more had been said I daresay I should have thought no more about it. But I saw by Mrs Worthing’s manner that there was something more to come, and so, as at the bottom of my heart I was interested, I said nothing to turn the subject or to shut her up.”

“H-m,” said Michael.

“She hesitated, and then she began again. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I was not thinking of their being only half-sisters, but sisters at all. There is something odd about that family, Mr Gresham, mark my words. I know as a fact—as a fact—that that girl does not always assume the position of Mrs Marmaduke Headfort’s sister. She has been recognised as figuring in a very different capacity.’ ‘What?’ said I. ‘Mother, or grandmother, perhaps?’ ‘It is no laughing matter,’ Mrs Worthing replied; and to give her her due she was serious enough. She had been very anxious about it, for Aline’s sake, as it appeared that the child had taken a tremendous fancy to—to Miss Raynsworth. And then she went on to say that her maid—a treasure, of course, who had been with her twenty years, and all that sort of thing—had seen and known that same girl as a servant. Where and when she did not say, and I would not ask, but she vouched for it. I laughed at it as an absurd piece of nonsense, and I am glad to believe that I quite took her in. She does not think she made any impression upon me. I made some upon her. I asked her on the face of it how such a thing was possible. She had seen the Lermonts—Miss Lermont above all, who is far from a silly woman—making much of their guest. I did not say, ‘You have only to look at the girl to see how thorough-bred she is.’ I thought it wiser not. I inferred, politely, of course, my surprise at a woman like Mrs Worthing condescending to listen to servants’ gossip. On the whole, so far as she is concerned, I am by no means dissatisfied with my diplomacy.”

“And what are you dissatisfied about then?” inquired Michael, drily.

Mr Gresham got up and walked towards the window, where he stood for a moment or two staring out in silence. Then, without facing his cousin, he began again.

“I scarcely like to tell you; you will be down upon me for giving a moment’s thought to it, but half confidences are no good.” And he went on to relate the curious and annoying episode which had occurred at the picnic, an episode which he confessed had been emphasised to him by Philippa’s extreme reluctance to having any notice taken of the lady’s-maid’s impertinence. “So you see,” he added, in conclusion, “I could not help putting two and two together, when Mrs Worthing made her extraordinary statement to me, otherwise I should probably have sent it quite out of my mind, as utterly absurd and contemptible nonsense, or, possibly as one of those extraordinary cases of personal resemblance which one does come across or hear of now and then.”

“And why not explain it in that way still?”

“I don’t know,” said Mr Gresham, slowly; “I really cannot say. There was something indefinite, unsatisfactory, in her manner.”

“It is surely natural enough that a girl of any refinement would detest to be mixed up in a scene with Mrs Worthing’s maid, or Mrs Anybody’s maid,” said Michael, hotly. “A low-minded, suspicious servant! Of course, Miss Raynsworth treated the thing as beneath contempt. And after all,” he went on, cooling down again, “what can you be afraid of? What do you suppose it can be but some mistake? The girl is not a servant. Would a whole family, including the Lermonts, combine to pass her off as a lady if she were not one? It is inconceivable. Besides, Mrs Marmaduke Headfort spoke of her sister Philippa to you often at Wyverston. I remember hearing her say how unlike they were.”

“Yes,” Mr Gresham agreed. “I know she did, and I had seen her myself—you forget—the same girl that I met at Cannes—I had seen her at Dorriford.”

“Then what in heaven’s name are you worrying about?” exclaimed Michael. “You blow hot and cold with one breath.”

“I have no doubt that it is all right, practically,” said his cousin. “She must be herself. What I dread is the possibility of some wild practical joke—acting a part for a wager,” and here he shuddered. “Can you imagine anything more detestable for me? The sort of thing I could not stand coming up in the future about my wife. It would be insufferable.”

“Then why risk it? Why take any steps towards making her your wife?” said Michael. His tone was peculiar.

Bernard Gresham’s face fell.

“You really think there is risk of something of the kind? you seriously advise me to give it up?” he said. “I had hoped you might suggest something, that possibly you might have found out what it has all arisen from, and set my mind at rest.”

Michael shook his head and laughed, somewhat grimly. “Not if I know it,” he said. “I would do a great deal to oblige you, but not act detective, thank you, my good fellow. Do I advise you to give it up? Well, yes, if,” and here his voice softened and deepened till its tones were very grave and yet almost tender too, “if you cannot entirely and absolutely trust a woman to be incapable of any really unladylike or unfeminine action, or course of action—well, yes, without such trust I should strongly advise you, for her sake, even more than your own, to give up all idea of making her your wife.”

Mr Gresham’s face had brightened at first; as Michael came to a conclusion it fell again.

“Ah!” he exclaimed, “the way you speak seems to describe her. She gives one just that feeling. You might have seen her—”

“I have heard of her,” said his cousin, laconically.

“And yet,” the other went on, scarcely noticing the interpolation, “yet, I am not satisfied, and that’s the truth of it. You don’t think I could ask her about it—straight out, you know—do you, Mike?”

“Premising, of course, as the excuse for your im— for your interest in the matter, that if she explain things to your satisfaction, you have almost made up your mind to propose to her? Well, what do you think yourself? How does it strike you?”

“Don’t be so confoundedly sarcastic,” said Mr Gresham, in a tone of reproachful irritation. “I have come to you for advice; I have told you the whole thing as I would do to no one else, and—you might see I am very much upset. I suppose you cannot understand—a cold-blooded misogynist like you.”

“Come now, you needn’t call me ugly names,” said Michael, whose spirits seemed to rise as Bernard’s went down. “I suppose we look at things quite differently. I don’t think I do understand your excessive uneasiness and perplexity.”

“Put yourself in my place,” said Bernard, eagerly, “if you—” He hesitated.

“Go on; if I cared for any one as you do for her,” said Michael, “would I feel as you do? No, I would not. That’s just it. It is not in me to ‘care’ in that sort of way, without giving complete trust.”

“You don’t know anything about it,” grumbled his cousin. “You mean, then, that you think I should—”

“I don’t mean anything. You are you, and I am I. I am afraid I cannot advise you.”

Bernard got up slowly.

“Thank you for listening to me, all the same, old fellow,” he said, as he held out his hand. “You’ll come down to Merle at Easter for a day or two as usual? I shall count upon you.”

“Well, yes. I daresay I shall, thank you.”

They shook hands. Michael opened the door, followed his guest a few steps down the staircase, and stood looking after him till the hall door shut again. Then he returned to his sitting-room, and there came the sound of the hansom driving away.

“I wonder how it will end,” he said to himself, and for a few moments he stood there with a curious dreamy expression, very unusual to him. Suddenly he started. The dachshund, divining something out of the common, had crept up to him silently, and was licking his hand.

“All right, Solomon,” said Michael, “all right. Many thanks for reminding me that I’m wasting time. That would never do.”

He sat down at the table, resolutely drawing his books and papers towards him, and set to work to get as much done in the evening as the long interruption had made possible.

“Easter,” he said to himself, when at last he stopped working and proceeded to “tidy up,” as the children say, methodically and carefully, all the notes, plans, and books with which the table was spread. “Easter is very late this year—as late as it can be. By that time, nearly a month hence, surely Bernard will have made up his mind, as he calls it.” A gesture of something almost like disgust escaped him. “Has he got any mind, I sometimes wonder! What can she find to attract or interest her in him, except of course his good looks?”

Easter was so late that year, and the spring came on so rapidly, that it was quite confusing and unsettling to one’s ideas.

“Good-Friday on a positively summer day would be too much for my brain to take in,” said Evelyn Headfort.

“Yes,” her sister agreed. “But Easter and sunshine are not incongruous. Let us hope we shall not have winter back again; there is still a week to Easter Day, you know, Evey.”

“I don’t think it is likely to get cold again now; there are no weather prophecies of the kind,” said Mrs Headfort. “Still it is well to make hay while the sun shines. I think we shall be pretty straight by the end of next week. I mean to say, the rough of the work done, so that I shall not need to come back again till we come for good.”

“I think so,” Philippa agreed. “But you know tradespeople and workpeople are proverbially behind time in these cases.”

She glanced around her as she spoke. They were standing in what was in process of being converted into a drawing-room in the old house on Mr Headfort’s —shire property which was now to be Evelyn’s home.

It was a dear old place, and with great capabilities of better things; though hitherto it had been little more—of late years at least—than a large well-kept farm-house.

But it was not substantially out of repair, and it was very roomy. So no fresh building was called for, only the removal or alteration of partitions and doors and such, comparatively speaking, expeditious work, as well as painting, papering, and general embellishment to suit Mrs Marmaduke Headfort’s taste, and to be a fitting background to the well-chosen furniture of which a great part was the old squire’s gift. A “wedding present” he called it, though coming somewhat late in the day.

Altogether fortune was smiling on Duke and his wife. And Evelyn’s busy little brain meant to extract more smiles from the capricious lady before she had done with her. It had not been only and entirely for selfish reasons that she had dragged her sister from home to “rough it” for a fortnight at Palden Grange, declaring that she could not possibly “manage” without Philippa’s advice and practical help about everything.

“Especially as Duke, you know, mamma, will be out all day. He is infatuated about his new work and says he has such a lot to learn, and he doesn’t care a bit what our house is to look like. No, I must have Phil.”

And Phil she had, the girl herself neither urging nor objecting to the plan. Philippa was perplexed and unsettled in those days. She could not understand Bernard Gresham’s silence. For the weeks were passing, and the reasons for seeing and hearing nothing more of him, which for a time had satisfied her, were no longer in existence. Evelyn, too, was puzzled; half prepared to be angry with her hero, and at other times inclined to throw the blame on her sister’s “stand-off” manner.

“Though after all,” she reflected, with a return to her usual practical common-sense, “it is very awkward for men sometimes. And in our case it is not as if we had a big house and lots of people staying with us, so that he could easily hint to me that he would like an invitation. That would be so very marked in our case. No, the only thing is for them to meet again ‘accidentally.’”

And she set her quick wits to work, and that successfully. She found out that the master of Merle made a practice of spending Easter there, usually coming down a week or so beforehand. And this year there was no doubt of his being there, as he had been so much away during the winter that various things were calling for his attention. Palden Grange was, as has been mentioned, only a few miles from Merle-in-the-Wold. It was necessary that Evelyn, as well as her husband, should be on the spot for some little time, to direct and superintend the alterations going on, so all turned out naturally, Evelyn arranging that their residence at Palden should include Easter-tide, and her sister’s company.

Philippa felt as if she must resign herself to fate. She would have had an inexpressible horror of going out of her way or even seeming to do so, to meet Mr Gresham again, yet, on the other hand, any refusal to do what the Headforts so greatly urged would have been disobliging and unkind, unless she could have given the true reason for it. And that reason, above, all the putting it into words, seemed to her as indelicate to entertain as the converse. For after all, Mr Gresham had not literally committed himself, and everybody said, and she was always reading so in stories, that men were very changeable and capricious—even good, well-meaning men.

“Far more so than women,” thought the girl. “No, I must just go on my own way and not swerve to right or left through any thought of him. That is the only thing to do if I wish to retain my own self-respect.”

So Evelyn had her way, and here they were at Palden; here they had been for more than a week, as busy as bees, and nothing had been heard of Mr Gresham, no allusion even had been made to their vicinity to his home, except that one day when something had been said by Duke about taking Phil over to see the gardens at Merle before they left, and she had not replied, Evelyn had not seconded the proposal. She had indeed rather discouraged it, for which her sister had mentally thanked her.

“Imagine our going over there, and his possibly having come home and meeting me like the girl in Pride and Prejudice—could anything be more horrible?” thought Philippa.

And she was grateful for the sort of tacit understanding of her feelings which her sister seemed to show, though at the same time rather surprised at it.

Then suddenly the aspect of everything changed.

That very afternoon—the afternoon of the day on which the sisters had been discussing the probability of the work being sufficiently advanced to allow of their return to Greenleaves within a fortnight—as Philippa and Evelyn were unpacking some especially choice china which had just arrived, and which was to be carefully locked up in one of the innumerable cupboards of the old house till Mrs Marmaduke Headfort should return “for good,” the young servant, who was their temporary attendant, appeared in the doorway with a face of some consternation.

“If you please, ma’am,” she began, “there’s a gentleman called to see you. I told him you were very busy, but he would come in, while I told you. Mr Gresham is his name.”

“Where is he?” said Evelyn, getting up as she spoke, for she had been kneeling in front of a packing-case—her face rosier than usual. “What room did you show him into? Not into the drawing-room, assuredly,” she went on, with a laugh, to Philippa, “for it is blockaded with ladders and scaffolding, and—”

“May I not show myself in?” said a voice in the doorway. “I have only just come down and heard of your being here,” and so saying the new-comer came forward.

He shook hands cordially with Evelyn; the circumstances made anything like formality impossible, yet Philippa thought she detected a touch of constraint in his manner as he turned to her. For the moment she had not leisure to ask herself if this pained or gratified her; her whole efforts being devoted to the maintaining in herself an entirely calm exterior, and this Evelyn’s ready tact greatly assisted. She chatted merrily to Mr Gresham about the house, and the furniture, and their future plans, till her two companions grew completely at ease, to all outward appearance at least. But it was not till shortly before Mr Gresham left, that Philippa allowed herself to yield to the happy consciousness which had gilded the last days of her stay at Cannes.

For it was not fancy—he did hold her hand, for a moment longer than conventionality permitted, and though he addressed Evelyn as he made plans for meeting again on the morrow, it was Philippa’s eyes that his sought.

“Yes, you must all come over to luncheon,” he said, “and leave the packing-cases to themselves. I only wish you would come to Merle altogether while you are in the neighbourhood.”