John left the Cottage next morning with the full conduct of the affairs of the family placed in his hands. The ladies were both a little doubtful if his plan was the best—they were still frightened for what might happen, and kept up a watch, as John perceived, fearing every step that approached, trembling at every shadow. They remembered many stories, such as rush to the minds of persons in trouble, of similar cases, of the machinations of the bad father whose only object was to overcome and break down his wife, and who stole his child away to let it languish and die. There are some circumstances in which people forget all the shades of character, and take it for granted that a man who can go wrong in one matter will act like a very demon in all. This was doubly strong in Mrs. Dennistoun, a woman full of toleration and experience; but the issues were so momentous to her, and the possible results so terrible, that she lost her accustomed good sense. It was more natural, perhaps, that Elinor, who was weak in health and still full of the arbitrariness of youth, should entertain this fear—without considering that Phil was the very last man in the world to burden himself with an infant of the most helpless age—which seemed to John an almost quite unreasonable one. Almost—for, of course, he too was compelled to allow,{vol. ii_31} when driven into a corner, that there was nothing that an exasperated man might not do. Elinor had come down early to see her cousin before he left the house, bringing with her in her arms the little bundle of muslin and flannel upon the safety of which her very life seemed to depend. John looked at it, and at the small pink face and unconscious flickering hands that formed the small centre to all those wrappings, with a curious mixture of pity and repugnance. It was like any other blind new-born kitten or puppy, he thought, but not so amusing—no, it was not blind, to be sure. At one moment, without any warning, it suddenly opened a pair of eyes, which by a lively exercise of fancy might be supposed like Elinor’s, and seemed to look him in the face, which startled him very much, with a curious notification of the fact that the thing was not a kitten or a puppy. But then a little quiver came over the small countenance, and the attendant said it was “the wind.” Perhaps the opening of the eyes was the wind too, or some other automatic effect. He would not hold out his finger to be clasped tight by the little flickering fist, as Elinor would have had him. He would none of those follies; he turned away from it not to allow himself to be moved by the effect, quite a meretricious one, of the baby in the young mother’s arms. That was all poetry, sentiment, the trick of the painter, who had found the combination beautiful. Such ideas belonged, indeed, to the conventional-sacred, and he had never felt any profane resistance of mind against{vol. ii_32} the San Sisto picture or any of its kind. But Phil Compton’s brat was a very different thing. What did it matter what became of it? If it were not for Elinor’s perverse feeling on the subject, and that perfectly imbecile prostration of her mother, a sensible woman who ought to have known better, before the little creature, he would himself have been rather grateful to Phil Compton for taking it away. But when he saw the look of terror upon Elinor’s face when an unexpected step came to the door, when he saw her turn and fly, wrapping the child in her arms, on her very heart as it seemed, bending over it, covering it so that it disappeared altogether in her embrace, John’s heart was a little touched. It was only a hawking tramp with pins and needles, who came by mistake to the hall door, but her panic and anguish of alarm were a spectacle which he could not get out of his eyes.

“You see, she never feels safe for a moment. It will be hard to persuade her that that man, though I’ve seen him about the roads for years, is not an emissary—or a spy—to find out if she is here.”

“I am sure it is quite an unnecessary panic,” said John. “In the first place, Phil Compton’s the last man to burden himself with a child; in the second, he’s not a brute nor a monster.”

“You called him a brute last night, John.”

“I did not mean in that way. I don’t mean to stand by any rash word that may be forced from me in a moment of irritation. Aunt, get her to give over that.{vol. ii_33} She’ll torture herself to death for nothing. He’ll not try to take the child away—not just now, at all events, not while it is a mere—— Bring her to her senses on that point. You surely can do that?”

“If I was quite sure of being in my own,” Mrs. Dennistoun said, with a forlorn smile. “I am as much frightened as she is, John. And, remember, if there is anything to be done—anything——”

“There is nothing but a little common sense wanted,” said John. But as he drove away from the door, and saw the hawker with the needles still about, the ladies had so infected him that it was all he could do to restrain an inclination to take the vagrant by the collar and throw him down the combe.

“Who’s that fellow hanging about?” he said to Pearson, who was driving him; “and what does he want here?”

“Bless you, sir! that’s Joe,” Pearson said. “He’s after no harm. He’s honest enough as long as there ain’t nothing much in his way; and he’s waiting for the pieces as cook gives him once a week when he comes his rounds. There’s no harm in poor Joe.”

“I suppose not, since you say so,” said John; “but you know the ladies are rather nervous, Pearson. You must keep a look-out that no suspicious-looking person hangs about the house.”

“Bless us! Mr. John,” said Pearson, “what are they nervous about?—the baby? But nobody wants to steal a baby, bless your soul!{vol. ii_34}”

“I quite agree with you,” said John, much relieved (though he considered Pearson an old fool, in a general way) to have his own opinion confirmed. “But, all the same, I wish you would be doubly particular not to admit anybody you don’t know; and if any man should appear to bother them send for me on the moment. Do you hear?”

“What do you call any man, sir?” said Pearson, smartly. He had ideas of his own, though he might be a fool.

“I mean what I say,” said John, more sharply still. “Any one that molests or alarms them. Send me off a telegram at once—‘You’re wanted!’ That will be quite enough. But don’t go with it to the office yourself; send somebody—there’s always your boy about the place—and keep about like a dragon yourself.”

“I’ll do my best, sir,” said Pearson, “though I don’t know what a dragon is, except it’s the one in the Bible; and that’s not a thing anybody would want about the place.”

It was a comfort to John, after all his troubles, to be able to laugh, which he did with a heartiness which surprised Pearson, who was quite unaware that he had made any joke.

These fears, however, which were imposed upon him by the contagion of the terrors of the others, soon passed from John’s mind. He was convinced that Phil Compton would take no such step; and that, however much he might wish his wife to return, the pos{vol. ii_35}session of the baby was not a thing which he would struggle over. It cannot be denied, however, that he was anxious, and eagerly inspected his letters in the morning, and looked out for telegrams during the day. Fortunately, however, no evil tidings came. Mrs. Dennistoun reported unbroken peace in the Cottage and increasing strength on the part of Elinor; and, in a parenthesis with a sort of apology, of the baby. Nobody had come near them to trouble them. Elinor had received no letters. The tie between her and her husband seemed to be cut as with a knife. “We cannot of course,” she said, “expect this tranquillity to last.”

And it came to be a very curious thought with John, as week after week passed, whether it was to last—whether Phil Compton, who had never been supposed wanting in courage, intended to let his wife and child drop off from him as if they had never been. This seemed a thing impossible to conceive: but John said to himself with much internal contempt that he knew nothing of the workings of the mind of such a man, and that it might for aught he knew be a common incident in life with the Phil Comptons thus to shake off their belongings when they got tired of them. The fool! the booby! to get tired of Elinor! That rumour which flies about the world so strangely and communicates information about everybody to the vacant ear, to be retailed to those whom it may concern, provided him, as the days went by, with many particulars which he had not been able to obtain from Elinor.{vol. ii_36} Phil, it appeared, had gone to Glenorban—the great house to which he had been invited—alone, with an excuse for his wife, whose state of health was not appropriate to a large party, and had stayed there spending Christmas with a brilliant houseful of guests, among whom was the American lady who had captivated him. Phil had paid one visit to the lodge to see Elinor, by her mother’s summons, at the crisis of her illness, but had not hesitated to go away again when informed that the crisis was over. Mrs. Dennistoun never told what had passed between them on that occasion, but the gossips of the club were credibly informed that she had bullied and stormed at Phil, after the fashion of mothers-in-law, till she had driven him away. Upon which he had returned to his party and flirted with Mrs. Harris more than ever. John discovered also that the party having dispersed some time ago, Phil had gone abroad. Whether in ignorance of his wife’s flight or not he could not discover; but it was almost impossible to believe that he would have gone to Monte Carlo without finding out something about Elinor—how and where she was. But whether this was the cause of his utter silence, or whether it was the habit of men of his class to treat such tremendous incidents in domestic life with levity, John Tatham could not make out. He was congratulating himself, however, upon keeping perfectly quiet, and leaving the conduct of the matter to the other party, when the silence was disturbed in what seemed to him the most curious way.{vol. ii_37}

One afternoon when he returned from the court he was aware, when he entered the outer office in which his clerk abode, of what he described afterwards as a smell fit to knock you down. It would have been described more appropriately in a French novel as the special perfume, subtle and exquisite, by which a beautiful woman may be recognised wherever she goes. It was, indeed, neither more nor less than the particular scent used by Lady Mariamne, who came forward with a sweep and rustle of her draperies, and the most ingratiating of her smiles.

“It appears to be fated that I am to wait for you,” she said. “How do you do, Mr. Tatham? Take me out of this horrible dirty place. I am quite sure you have some nice rooms in there.” She pointed as she spoke to the inner door, and moved towards it with the air of a person who knew where she was going, and was fully purposed to be admitted. John said afterwards, that to think of this woman’s abominable scent being left in his room in which he lived (though he also received his clients in it) was almost more than he could bear. But, in the meantime, he could do nothing but open the door to her, and offer her his most comfortable chair.

She seated herself with all those little tricks of movement which are also part of the stock-in-trade of the pretty woman. Lady Mariamne’s prettiness was not of a kind which had the slightest effect upon John, but still it was a kind which received credit in society, being{vol. ii_38} the product of a great deal of pains and care and exquisite arrangement and combination. She threw her fur cloak back a little, arranged the strings of her bonnet under her chin, which threw up the daintiness and rosiness of a complexion about which there were many questions among her closest friends. She shook up, with what had often been commented upon as the prettiest gesture, the bracelets from her wrists. She arranged the veil, which just came over the tip of her delicate nose, she put out her foot as if searching for a footstool—which John made haste to supply, though he remained unaffected otherwise by all these pretty preliminaries.

“Sit down, Mr. Tatham,” then said Lady Mariamne. “It makes me wretchedly uncomfortable, as if you were some dreadful man waiting to be paid or something, to see you standing there.”

Though John’s first impulse was that of wrath to be thus requested to sit down in his own chambers, the position was amusing as well as disagreeable, and he laughed and drew a chair towards his writing-table, which was as crowded and untidy as the writing-table of a busy man usually is, and placed himself in an attitude of attention, though without asking any question.

“Well,” said Lady Mariamne, slowly drawing off her glove; “you know, of course, why I have come, Mr. Tatham—to talk over with you, as a man who knows the world, this deplorable business. You see it has{vol. ii_39} come about exactly as I said. I knew what would happen: and though I am not one of those people who always insist upon being proved right, you remember what I said——”

“I remember that you said something—to which, perhaps, had I thought I should have been called upon to give evidence as to its correctness—I should have paid more attention, Lady Mariamne.”

“How rude you are!” she said, with her whole interest concentrated upon the slow removal of her glove. Then she smoothed a little, softly, the pretty hand which was thus uncovered, and said, “How red one’s hands get in this weather,” and then laughed. “You don’t mean to tell me, Mr. Tatham,” she said, suddenly raising her eyes to his, “that, considering what a very particular person we were discussing, you can’t remember what I said?”

John was obliged to confess that he remembered more or less the gist of her discourse, and Lady Mariamne nodded her head many times in acceptance of his confession.

“Well,” she said, “you see what it has come to. An open scandal, a separation, and everything broken up. For one thing, I knew if she did not give him his head a little that’s what would happen. I don’t believe he cares a brass farthing for that other woman. She makes fun of everybody, and that amused him. And it amused him to put Nell in a state—that as much as anything. Why couldn’t she see that and learn to prendre son parti{vol. ii_40} like other people? She was free to say, ‘You go your way and I’ll go mine:’ the most of us do that sooner or later: but to make a vulgar open rupture, and go off—like this.”

“I fail to see the vulgarity in it,” said John.

“Oh, of course; everything she does is perfect to you. But just think, if it had been your own case—followed about and bullied by a jealous woman, in a state of health that of itself disgusts a man——”

“Lady Mariamne, you must pardon me if I refuse to listen to anything more of this kind,” said John, starting to his feet.

“Oh, I warn you, you’ll be compelled to listen to a great deal more if you’re her agent as I hear! Phil will find means of compelling you to hear if you don’t like to take your information from me.”

“I should like to know how Mr. Phil Compton will succeed in compelling me—to anything I don’t choose to do.”

“You think, perhaps, because there’s no duelling in this country he can’t do anything. But there is, all the same. He would shame you into it—he could say you were—sheltering yourself——”

“I am not a man to fight duels,” said John, very angry, but smiling, “in any circumstances, even were such a thing not utterly ridiculous; but even a fighting man might feel that to put himself on a level with the dis-Hon——”

He stopped himself as he said it. How mean it was{vol. ii_41}—to a woman!—descending to their own methods. But Lady Mariamne was too quick for him.

“Oh,” she said; “so you’ve heard of that, a nickname that no gentleman——” then she too paused and looked at him, with a momentary flush. He was going to apologize abjectly, when with a slight laugh she turned the subject aside.

“Pretty fools we are, both of us, to talk such nonsense. I didn’t come here carrying Phil on my shoulders, to spring at your throat if you expressed your opinion. Look here—tell me, don’t let us go beating about the bush, Mr. Tatham—I suppose you have seen Nell?”

“I know my cousin’s mind, at least,” he said.

“Well, then, just tell me as between friends—there’s no need we should quarrel because they have done so. Tell me this, is she going to get up a divorce case——”

“A divorce——!”

“Because,” said Lady Mariamne, “she’ll find it precious difficult to prove anything. I know she will. She may prove the flirting and so forth—but what’s that? You can tell her from me, it wants somebody far better up to things than she is to prove anything. I warn her as a friend she’ll not get much good by that move.”

“I am not aware,” said John, “whether Mrs. Compton has made up her mind about the further steps——”

“Then just you advise her not,” cried Lady Mariamne. “It doesn’t matter to me: I shall be none{vol. ii_42} the worse whatever she does: but if you are her true friend you will advise her not. She might tell what she thinks, but that’s no proof. Mr. Tatham, I know you have great influence with Nell.”

“Not in a matter like this,” said John, with great gravity. “Of course she alone can be the judge.”

“What nonsense you talk, you men! Of course she is not the least the judge, and of course she will be guided by you.”

“You may be sure she shall have the best advice that I can give,” John said with a bow.

“You want me to go, I see,” said Lady Mariamne; “you are dreadfully rude, standing up all the time to show me I had better go.” Hereupon she recommenced her little manÈge, drawing on her glove, letting her bracelets drop again, fastening the fur round her throat. “Well, Mr. Tatham,” she said, “I hope you mean to have the civility to see after my carriage. I can’t go roaming about hailing it as if it were a hansom cab—in this queer place.”