UPON the morning after the interview between Rose and Lady Lisgard, the latter again sent down Mistress Forest for the post-bag, and was once more disappointed at receiving no news from Arthur Haldane; not only did the interval of twenty-four hours make this matter additionally serious, and increase her former apprehensions that he had not received her telegram, and might find some means of forwarding Derrick's letter to himself—since it had certainly not come back to the Lisgard Arms; but there was a still graver cause for anxiety in the fact that Mary Forest also received no reply from Ralph to that rejection so decidedly yet courteously composed by her mistress, with the view of taking away all hope, and at the same time of leaving as little sting of anger as was possible. Lady Lisgard would have almost preferred to have received from this man a declaration of open warfare—an expressed resolution of carrying away Mary as his wife, in spite of all obstacles—rather than this menacing No Answer. Contemptuous silence was not at all the natural line for one of his violent character to take, if he had decided to treat her waiting-woman's letter as final. He was more likely in that case to have penned a tornado of invective, and bidden both mistress and maid to have gone to the devil. It seemed only too probable, then, that he was determined—as he had threatened—to take no denial; and that he would return in person, sooner or later, to Mirk, to prosecute his suit.

My Lady made certain preparations for that extremity—nay, for the worst that could possibly arise—chief among which was the-composition of a very long and carefully-conned epistle to her eldest son, that she put by in her desk undated and unsealed, so that additions could be made to it at pleasure. Then she waited in agonies of suspense day after day; and yet no letter came for her maid from Ralph, or for herself from Arthur Haldane. Moreover, although, in her absorbing anxiety about the more serious subject, this affected my Lady far less than it did Rose, no communication came from Walter in answer to her long and justificatory letter, acquainting him with the disclosure of their marriage. Our readers are aware that this last circumstance was simply due to the fact, that it was reposing in the “address-box” of the Turf Hotel, until such time as it caught the eye of the overworked waiter, and was carried over with apologies to Walter's lodgings, whither he had given orders that anything addressed to him should be conveyed forthwith. But he had not particularly expected a letter from that quarter—or, at all events, felt very anxious to get it—for nobody but Rose would have written to him to the Turf Hotel, all others at Mirk and elsewhere believing him to be at Canterbury with his regiment, whence all communications were forwarded to him to his London lodgings. Thus, from the very deceit to which she had lent herself—to her peculiar information as to his movements—was this failure of Rose's letter to reach her husband owing. During this protracted interval, she suffered agonies of suspense, of mortification, and even of fear. It was wormwood to have to say to her mother-in-law every morning: “He has not written yet,” and thereby to confess that Walter treated with indifference the embarrassing position in which she was now placed at Mirk Abbey; moreover, she surmised that her husband was too much enraged with her disobedience in betraying their secret, to write at all.

His wife knew—although few others did—that Master Walter was capable of being “put out” to a very considerable! extent. His very marriage with herself—although she fortunately did not know that—had been mainly owing to his impatience of opposition, and pique against his elder brother. Doubtless propinquity and opportunities of flirtation with a beautiful and accomplished girl, not by any means lavish of her smiles, but whose devotion to himself had been almost that of a slave for her master, had carried the handsome captain towards the gulf of matrimony; but it was the desire to thwart Sir Richard—who, his jealous eye perceived, was falling seriously in love with Rose long before she saw it—which was the final cause of his rash act. He eagerly snatched at an occasion at once of self-gratification, and of humiliating his proud and arrogant brother. He was delighted to let him know that neither his wealth nor his title could weigh in the balance of a woman's favour against the gifts and graces which it was his habit to depreciate or ignore. We have said that he discovered Sir Richard's passion even before the object of it; but Rose's subtle brain was already preoccupied with himself. To give that scheming beauty her due, I think that even had she not been already Walter's wife, she would not have exchanged him for the baronet, at the period when he made her that dazzling offer in the Library. She felt that she had let slip a splendid prize, and was proportionally angry with Sir Richard, whose backwardness and hauteur had prevented her from recognising the possibility of its falling to her lot; but the feeling of disappointment was but transient; she was a bride of only a few weeks, and to get disenchanted of one like Walter Lisgard is a long process even for a wife. By this time, however, though she idolised him, still Rose had learned to fear him; and absolutely dared not pen another letter to inquire the reason of his silence.

Of those who waited, sick at heart, for the coming of the postman every morning, Lady Lisgard, therefore, was the first to lose patience. She wrote to Arthur Haldane a few urgent lines, requesting his immediate presence at Mirk “upon private and particular business and within an hour of their receipt he took the train, and appeared in person at the Abbey. My Lady had decided to consult him, in preference to his father, respecting the arrangements necessary to be made for the future maintenance of Walter and his wife, since it would be very unwise to make so much importance of the matter concerning Derrick, about which she was in reality vastly more concerned, and burned to know the truth.

“What is the matter, ma mÈre!” inquired he tenderly, when, not without the exercise of some address—for Sir Richard was always hospitable, and (especially in the absence of his brother) both gracious and attentive to all guests—Arthur and my Lady had managed to get an hour to themselves in the boudoir. “You look very pale and anxious.”

“Yes, Arthur, I have enough to make me so. Walter has secretly made Rose Aynton his wife. Ah! you pity me, I see, and perhaps him also. Do not condole with me, however. I have sent for you hither to help me to make the best——-Alas, alas, you would not have believed it of my Walter, would you?” And my Lady, touched by the sympathising look and manner of the honest young fellow, burst into the first “good cry” which she had permitted to herself since the calamity had been discovered; for when confiding the circumstance to Letty, it had been her duty to bear up, and when alone, a still more serious anxiety consumed her. Even now, her emotion, though violent, was soon over, and the indulgence in it seemed to have done her good. “Pardon me, Arthur,” said she, with one of her old smiles; “I won't be foolish any more.”

And then, after narrating matters with which we are acquainted, she laid before him, as concisely as she could, what funds at her own disposal could be made available to form an income for the young couple, in addition to the interest which Walter's fortune of five thousand pounds or so, into the possession of which he would come in some eighteen months, would yield. She little knew that on that very night—for it was the eve of the Derby Day—the unworthy boy, for whom she was making such sacrifices, was about to risk and lose more than a third of his patrimony, and that upon the next day the remainder was doomed to go, and much more with it.

“But this will pinch you, ma mere,” reasoned Arthur kindly, “and narrow your own already somewhat scanty revenue sadly. Sir Richard will come into a very fine rent-roll in June, beside thousands——”

“But can we ask him to help Walter and his wife? And could Walter take it, even if his brother were generous enough to offer it?”

“Sir Richard is quite capable of such magnanimity, ma mere, unless I am much mistaken in his character. He would not like to see his brother—even were he but a Lisgard, let alone his so near kith and kin—in a position that would be discreditable to the family; while if one has really loved a woman, one surely does not wish to see her poor and struggling, simply because she has preferred some one else. As for Walter's accepting the help which his brother can so well spare—it may be a little bitter—but, in my opinion, that would be far preferable to receiving what would impoverish his mother. The arrangements you propose would leave you but three hundred pounds a year.”

“Yes,” answered my Lady hastily, “I require that for a purpose, else half the sum would easily suffice my present needs.”

“It would do nothing of the sort, ma mÈre. Come, let us be reasonable. If you will leave this matter in my hands, I will endeavour to be the mediator between your sons. Sir Richard has an honest regard for me, I think, and Walter also, when he is himself.”

“Poor Walter!” murmured my Lady sighing.

“Yes, he is to be pitied,” answered the other drily; “but also, between ourselves—although I shall endeavour, after my lawyer instincts, to make it appear otherwise to his brother—to be somewhat blamed, ma mÈre. Since, then, I am prepared, under the cloak of arbitrator, to be the partisan of your darling——Yes, they are both your darlings, Lady Lisgard, I know, but with a difference.”

“Walter is in trouble,” urged my Lady pitifully.

“Yes, that is the reason, of course. However, will you put the case unreservedly in my own hands? for if so, although it is not an easy task, I will do my best to make your sons shake hands.”

“There is none like you, Arthur, none. Heaven bless you and reward you!”

“There may be none like me, ma mere, but there are also, I hope, many people a great deal better. And now that we have done with this matter for the present, may I ask, Why letters are directed to another person, under care to me, which I am at the same time directed by telegram to put behind the fire?”

“Oh, you got that telegram, did you?” said my Lady quietly. “Mary Forest entreated me so to send it. The fact was, she accepted that person by letter—-what was his name?—of whom we spoke together some time ago at the Watersmeet; but afterwards, persuaded by me (acting in accordance with your suggestion, you remember), she decided to refuse him. But the first letter was unfortunately posted before the second was written; and the postmistress at Dalwynch positively refused to give it up, although I drove over there myself to request it.”

“Well, upon my life, ma mÈre, but you're a bold woman,” exclaimed the young lawyer laughing. “Why, of course, she wouldn't give it up. She would be stealing the property of the Postmaster-general if she had done so, and you would be the receiver with the guiltiest knowledge.”

“Well, at all events, she did not,” pursued my Lady simply. “She would do nothing beyond directing the envelope afresh to your address.”

“Honest creature!” interrupted Arthur grimly.

“Under these circumstances, I telegraphed to you, knowing that you would be good enough to destroy the letter directly it reached you.”

“Yes, ma mere, and I did so,” returned Arthur gravely; “but I feared it was not right, and now that you have told me this, I know that it was wrong. You may have had your reasons, dear Lady Lisgard, and doubtless very urgent ones, to wish the destruction of those letters.”

“Those letters!” exclaimed my Lady.

“Yes, I am certain, of course, that you intended no harm to any one, and that what you did was in ignorance of the law; but so suspicious was I of your having transgressed it—and at the same time, perhaps, a little annoyed that you should have chosen me, Lady Lisgard, for your instrument in such a matter—that I purposely omitted to communicate with you, to put in writing any evidence whatsoever of that transaction.”

“Yes, yes,” said my Lady hastily, and taking no notice of the young man's evident annoyance. “But you speak of letters. There was only one letter directed to Pump Court.”

“There were two, Lady Lisgard, and both addressed in the same handwriting. The words, Turf Hotel, Piccadilly, were crossed out also, in each case, I remember, in red ink. It was the postmistress who did it, I have no doubt. If you led her to imagine that that was the wrong address in the one instance, she naturally imagined it to be so in the other, and probably made the alteration in all good faith.”

“Great Heaven, and so it must have been!” exclaimed my Lady, clasping her hands. “O Arthur, this mischance—if my misconduct does indeed deserve punishment, has brought, I fear, a very harsh and bitter one—that is on Mary. The second letter should have reached the person to whom it was addressed without fail. He will now have heard nothing—this Derrick; and he will take the woman's silence for consent. O Arthur, Arthur, you little know what bad news this is.”

“I can see, ma mÈre, that it vexes you,” answered the young man kindly; “and that is evil enough for me to know. Some sorrows are best kept to one's self, I think. Now, look you, this Mr Derrick will certainly, being a sporting-man, be in town to-morrow night. He will not have left his hotel before the Derby is over. Now, I will go and seek him out to-morrow with the letter in my hand that Mary shall re-write. We have only but a very little time, remember.”

“Dear Arthur, counsellor, and friend, and son in one, what comfort do you not give me in all straits!” She rose and offered him her pale but comely cheek, which the young man touched with reverent lips; then holding her hand in his, he said in a firm voice: “And now, ma mÈre, even that is not fee enough for such an avaricious lawyer as I am. I have promised myself a talk with Letty.”

“Do so, and Heaven bless you, my dear boy—ay, bless you both,” continued my Lady, when he had left the room, “for you would take her for your wife even though you knew what I know of her unhappy birth. I have almost a mind to tell him; but then, with his stern notions of what is right—although, Heaven knows, I wrong no one by this reticence—he might—— 'Some sorrows are best kept to one's self, I think,' said he. And whether he suspects something amiss, and meant the words for my particular ear or not, it is sound advice. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof. If I were always to be thinking of the morrow, I should soon go mad.”