Mrs. Blencarrow spent that evening with her children; she made no attempt to leave them after dinner. A lull had come into her heart after the storm. She was aware that it was only temporary, nothing real in it; but in the midst of a tempest even a few minutes of stillness and tranquillity are dear. She had found on the mantelpiece of the business-room the intimation, ‘Away on business till Monday,’ and though it perplexed, it also soothed her. And the brothers returning with the proof of Kitty’s statement, the extract which no doubt they would bring from those books to confound her, could now scarcely arrive to-night. A whole evening undisturbed among the children, who might so soon be torn from her, in her own familiar place, which might so soon be hers no longer; an evening like the past, perhaps the last before the coming of that awful future when she must go forth to frame her life anew, loveless and hopeless and ashamed. It was nothing but ‘the torrent’s smoothness ere it dash below,’ the moment of calm before the storm; and yet it was calm, and she was thankful for that one soft moment before the last blow fell.

The children were again lively and happy over their round game; the sober, kind governess—about whom Mrs. Blencarrow had already concluded in her own mind that she could secure at least the happiness of the little ones if their mother were forced to leave them—was seated with them, even enjoying the fun, as it is a blessed dispensation of Providence that such good souls often do. Emmy was the only one who was out of it; she was in her favourite corner with a book, and always a watchful glance at her mother. Emmy, with that instinct of the heart which stood her in place of knowledge, had a perception, she could not have told how, of the pause in her mother’s soul. She would do nothing to disturb that pause. She sat praying mutely that it might last, that it might be peace coming back. Naturally Emmy, even with all her instinct, did not know the terrible barrier that stood between her mother and peace.

And thus they all sat, apparently in full enjoyment of the sweet household quiet, which by moments was so noisy and full of commotion, the mother seated with the screen between her and the great blazing fire, the children round the table, Emmy with her book.

Mrs. Blencarrow’s eyes dwelt upon them with the tenderest, the most pathetic of smiles.

with a throb of tragic wonder rising in her heart how she could ever have thought that this was not enough for her—her children, and her home, and this perfect peace.

It was already late and near their bedtime when the fly from the station drove up to the door. Mrs. Blencarrow did not hear until some minutes after Emmy had raised her head to listen, and then for a moment longer she would not hear it, persuading herself that it was the wind rising among the trees. When at last it was unmistakable, and the great hall door was heard to open, and even—or so she thought in the sudden shiver of agitation that seized her—a breath of icy wind came in, sweeping through the house, she was for the moment paralyzed with dismay and fear. She said something to hurry the children to bed, to bid them go—go! But she was inaudible even to herself, and did not attempt, nor could indeed form any further thought on any subject, except horror of the catastrophe which she felt to be approaching in this moment of peace. If it had but waited till to-morrow! Till an hour later, when she should have been alone!

Motionless, holding by her chair, not even hearing the wondering question, ‘Who can be coming so late?’ Mrs. Blencarrow, with wide-open eyes fixed on the door, and her under-lip dropping in mortal anguish, awaited her fate.

It was the avengers returning from their search; her brothers hurrying in one after the other. The Colonel said, ‘How delightfully warm!’ rubbing his hands. Roger (Roger was always the kindest) came up to her and took her hand. She had risen up to meet them, and grasped with her other hand the only thing she could find to support her—the top of the screen which stood between her and the fire.

‘Joan!’ her brothers began, both speaking together.

She was hoarse, her lips were baked, it was all she could do to articulate.

‘Nothing before the children!’ she said, with a harsh and breathless voice.

‘Joan, this does not matter. We have come to beg your pardon, most humbly, most penitently.’

‘Fact is, it must all have been a mistake——’

‘Say an invention, Reginald.’

‘An invention—a cursed lie of that confounded girl! Hallo!’

There was a sudden crash and fall. The children all rushed to see, and Mrs. Blencarrow stood with the light streaming upon her, and the gilt bar of the screen in her hand. She had crushed it in her agitated grasp; the pretty framework of gilded wood and embroidery lay in a heap at her feet. The sound and shock had brought the blood rushing to her ghastly tragical countenance. She stood looking vaguely at the bar in her hand; but none of the children had any eyes for her—they were all on their knees in a group round the gilded ruin. Save Mr. d’Eyncourt and Emmy, no one noticed the terrible look in her face.

‘Come and sit down here while they pick up the pieces,’ said Roger. ‘Joan, I am afraid you are very angry, and you have reason; that we should have believed such a slander—of all the women in the world—of you! But, my dear, we are heartily ashamed of ourselves, if that is anything.’

‘Most penitent,’ said the Colonel, ‘thoroughly ashamed. I said to Roger, “If ever there were men who had reason to be proud of their sister——”’

‘And yet we gave a moment’s credence to such a barefaced lie!’

She heard them dimly as from a far distance, and saw them as through a fog; but the voices thus echoing and supplementing each other like a dull chorus gave her time to recover. She said sedately, not with any enthusiasm:

‘I am glad that you have found out—your mistake.’

Oh, heaven! Oh, miserable fate! But it was no mistake.

Mrs. Blencarrow found herself after a time taking Kitty’s defence.

‘She got her own pardon for it. Her mother is a great gossip, and loves a tale against her neighbour. Don’t blame the girl too much.’

‘If you excuse her, Joan, who should say a word? But why in all the world, thinking of an unlikely person to fasten such a slander upon, did she choose you?’

‘Am I so unlikely, when my brothers believed it?’ she said, with a strange smile.

An hour full of commotion followed. The boys never tired in showing each other and everybody else the flaw in the wood where the framework of the screen had broken.

‘But you must have leant on it very heavily, mamma.’

‘She wanted to break our heads with it,’ said the Colonel, who was in high spirits.

‘Fancy mamma breaking Uncle Rex’s head with the screen!’ the children cried with shrieks of laughter; and thus, in a tumult of amusement and gaiety, the evening closed.

Mrs. Blencarrow went to her room with something cold and hard at her heart like a stone. They had begged her pardon. They had not found that record. By some chance, by some miracle—how could she tell what?—she had escaped detection. But it was true; nothing could alter the fact. Nothing could spirit away him—the husband—the man to whom she had bound herself; the owner of her allegiance, of herself, if he chose to exercise his rights. It occurred to her, in the silence of her room, when she was alone there and dared to think, that her present escape was but an additional despair. Had they found it, as they ought to have found it, the worst would have been over. But now, to have the catastrophe indefinitely postponed—to have it before her every day—the sword hanging over her head, her mind rehearsing day and night what it would be! Would it not be better to go and tell them yet, to have it over? Her hand was on her door to obey this impulse, but her heart failed her. Who could tell? God might be so merciful as to let her die before it was known.

The two gentlemen spent a very merry morning on the ice with the children, and in the afternoon left Blencarrow the best of friends with their sister, grateful to her for her forgiveness. Mrs. Blencarrow did not think it necessary to go out to the pond that afternoon—she was tired, she said—and the skating, which often lasts so short a time that everybody feels it a duty to take advantage of it, had cleared the house. She spent the afternoon alone, sitting over the fire, cold with misery and anxiety and trouble. Everything seemed right again, and yet nothing was right—nothing. False impressions, false blame, can be resisted; but who can hold up their head against a scandal that is true?

It was one of the women servants, in the absence of everybody else, who showed Mr. Germaine into the drawing-room. He was himself very cold and fatigued, having travelled all the previous night, and half the day, returning home. He came to the fire and stood beside her, holding out his hands to the warmth.

‘You are alone, Mrs. Blencarrow?’

‘Quite alone. You look as if you had something to tell me. For God’s sake what is it? No news can come to me but bad news,’ she said, rising, standing by him, holding out her hands in piteous appeal.

‘I don’t know whether you will think it bad news or good. I have come straight from Liverpool, from the deck of a ship which sailed for Australia to-day.’

‘What do you mean? What do you mean? A ship—which sailed for Australia?’

‘I have come from—Everard Brown. He has thought it best to go away. I have brought you a statement of all the affairs, showing how he has carried with him a certain sum of money. Mrs. Blencarrow, it is too great a shock; let me call someone.’

‘No!’ She caught at his arm, evidently not knowing what it was upon which she leant. ‘No, tell me all—all!’

‘He has taken means—I know not what—to destroy all evidence. He has gone away, never meaning to return. It is all wrong—wrong from beginning to end, the money and everything; but he had a generous meaning. He wanted to set you free. He has gone—for ever, Mrs. Blencarrow!’

She had fallen at his feet without a word.

People said afterwards that they had thought for some time that Mrs. Blencarrow was not looking well, that she was in a state to take any illness. And there was a flaw in the drains which nobody had discovered till then. She had a long illness, and at one time was despaired of. Things were complicated very much by the fact that Brown, her trusted and confidential agent, had just emigrated to Australia, a thing he had long set his heart upon, before she fell ill. But her brother, Mr. Roger d’Eyncourt, was happily able to come to Blencarrow and look after everything, and she recovered finally, being a woman with a fine constitution and in the prime of life. The family went abroad as soon as she was well enough to travel, and have remained so, with intervals of London, ever since. When Reginald comes of age, Blencarrow will no doubt be opened once more; but the care of the estate had evidently become too much for his mother, and it is not thought that she will venture upon such a charge again. It is now in the hands of a regular man of business, which is perhaps better on the whole.

Kitty fell into great and well-deserved disgrace when it was found out that she had seen what nobody else could see. Walter even, with a man’s faculty for abandoning his partner in guilt, declared that he never saw it, that Kitty must have dreamt it, that she tried to make him believe it was Joan Blencarrow when it was only Jane Robinson, and many other people were of opinion that it was all Kitty’s cleverness to get herself forgiven and her own runaway match condoned.

That match turned out, like most others, neither perfect happiness nor misery. Perhaps neither husband nor wife could have explained ten years after how it was that they were so idiotic as to think that they could not live without each other; but they get on together very comfortably, all the same.

THE END.