Hanwitch is nowhere seen to greater advantage than from the summit of the little hill that flanks it on the west. Here, if you are an epicure in your enjoyment of what is picturesque in scenery, you will take your stand at sunset, while the splendour still flushes the heavens, and the country all around is tinted with a delicate crimson haze. In this fairy light, Hanwitch, from where you stand, will resemble some architectural dream; for the serene sky gives an ideality to the proportions which are magnified by the soft combining shadows, and peace broods in the streets. The noble church dedicated to St. James towers in the midst of the houses; its spire glows with the red fire, which a little while before had bathed the whole pile and kindled brilliant stars in its long and narrow windows; and all about the church rise and fall the roofs of closely-grouped houses, manifold in colour, with lines of thin blue smoke mounting straight into the sky. The town lies backed with wooded scenery, and the picturesque outlines of the houses take a new detail of beauty from the relief they give to the soft dark masses of trees and lightlier-coloured fields which make up the farther landscape. And as you watch, a human interest will be communicated to the town by the breaking out here and there of little yellow lights. Darkness soon falls when the crimson flush pales upon the sky; but where you stand daylight is still around, mellowed into deepest, richest, beauty of colour, and so lingering ere it fades into the gray and gloom of twilight.

The town has been enlarged since the days to which this story belongs; but elderly people are living whose love for the old High Street scarcely reconciles them to the “improvements” which have been made in its aspect. Surveyors and local boards press sorely upon gentle prejudices. These elderly people remember the row of antique houses where the big bank building now stands. They remember certain primitive shops, the windows of which were furnished with diamond-shaped panes of glass that discoloured to the eye the wares exposed for sale within. They remember the picturesque alley out of the High Street, with a cottage at the end of it that had a green porch; it looked from its cool retreat upon the narrow slice of the main thoroughfare with its passengers flitting like shadows past the brief opening. And I myself can recall the wonderful effect of light and shadow in that tranquil embrasure when the evenings lengthened, and as I beheld it once—a maid-servant, picturesquely attired in a red petticoat, lolling within the porch, her hand upon her hips, laughing at a dog that stood on its hind legs begging; the figures shadowed, the windows above burning with the light of the setting sun, the pavement a deep gray.

In Holdsworth’s time, the vehicles and passengers were in perfect keeping with the venerable and faded but dignified aspect of the old street. The townspeople still lingered behind the transition-epoch of that bygone day, and held for the most part tenaciously to the costumes and the indolence of their fathers.

The town was about an hour’s walk from Southbourne. After quitting the handful of houses which formed the village, Hanwitch came upon you as a metropolis. To describe it in homely guide-book fashion:—It had two good churches, and a public square full of evergreens, rock-work, and stone images; several snug inns, one wide street and a quantity of narrow ones; a town-hall, a market-place, a prison, and a town-crier; a large number of old ladies and fat poodles, invalids, sedan-chairs, and camp-stools. In olden times—and now I am talking of the eighteenth century—it had held some sort of position as a third-rate inland watering-place; but what had become of the springs which had brought the gout, the vapours, and the spleen from places as distant as London to drink, the oldest inhabitant never could remember. But one thing was certain: there was no lack of water in the place. A river ran close to it, and from this river meandered some crystal streamlets which ran right into the town. And where the river was, the scenery was exquisite in summer—cool, deep, and leafy, with a bridge at each end of the town, a little landing-stage, a punt or two, and midway between the bridges, a cluster of trees on either bank, with huge gnarled trunks and roots which ran naked for many feet along the ground, whilst, high above, their branches mingled and formed a tunnel for the water to flow under. Here the trout would leap; here the water-rat would sneak from its earthy chamber and break the tide into thin ripples as it noiselessly made for the opposite shore; here the sunshine would fall in threads through the leaves and gild the black long-legged insects on the surface of the water.

Ten o’clock was striking when Holdsworth was driven into Hanwitch by the landlord of the Southbourne inn, who was rich enough to own a horse and gig. The drive had been a very short one, and in the landlord’s opinion seven-and-sixpence had never been more easily earned. The gig was stopped at the door of the “Hanwitch Arms,” and Holdsworth got out. Then came a porter, who nodded pleasantly to the owner of the gig, and hoisted the portmanteau on his shoulder.

“My respecks to the governor, Joe. How is he?”

“Pretty middlin’! How’s yourself?”

“Why, I can’t say as I’m quite the thing. The weather’s been rayther agin my rheumatiz.—Wish you good mornin’, sir.”

And with this farewell to Holdsworth, the landlord drove himself away.

Holdsworth’s plans had been fully settled by him the night before; and one part of them was that he should put up at some inn at Hanwitch, while he made inquiries of deep interest to himself, and obtained a lodging. Having followed the porter into the bar and ordered a bed for the night, he re-entered the street.

His emotions, as he first began to walk, were conflicting and painful. He was now in the town where his wife lived; any moment might bring them face to face, and the wildest anxiety to see her was mixed up with a sensation of shrinking fear of the encounter. He stared eagerly at the people, and now and again, when a little child passed, his heart beat rapidly, and he felt his blood leave his face. But he mastered himself soon, repeatedly muttering, as a reassuring argument, that, were they to meet, Dolly would not know him.

He was in the main street, walking slowly, and helping his step with a stick, not more from habit than from necessity, for he was frequently seized with a weakness in the legs which would sometimes oblige him to stop, or seat himself if a seat were at hand. His object now was to find out where Dolly lived, a question he would not ask the landlady at Southbourne, lest, added to the inquiries he had already made, it should excite her suspicion and set her surmising.

He noticed a small chemist’s shop opposite, and, his mind establishing a friendly connection between drugs and dentistry, he crossed and entered. A bald-headed man in spectacles received him with a bow.

“Can you tell me where Mr. Conway, the dentist, lives?”

The chemist, who knew perfectly well, scratched his ear and seemed to reflect. He drew teeth himself, and was not disposed to furnish a rival with a patient if he could help it.

“I know the name, sir, and——might I ask if you want anything done to your teeth.”

“No, I merely wish to know where Mr. Conway lives.”

“It’s not for me to speak ill of a brother practitioner, and as I shan’t mention names, no harm can be done,” said the chemist, with his eye on Holdsworth’s mouth; “but I do say that it’s a pity people should start in a business, requiring as much skill as the highest branches of surgery, without knowing the difference between an eye and a wisdom tooth, and drinking to that degree that their hands tremble like the windows of a coach in full tear.”

“Does Mr. Conway drink?”

“I name no names,” replied the chemist, assuming an injured expression of face. “I should be sorry to take away any man’s character, not to speak of the bread out of his mouth, though there are some people not quite so particular as me in that matter, and will start lies which should make ’em afraid to go to bed. All that I say is, that if I had a toothache, and wanted to get my jaw broke and my gum tore out, I’d go to a certain person livin’ not a day’s walk from this shop, and ask him to look at my tooth.”

Saying which he nodded vigorously, and, taking up a bottle, began to mould a piece of blue paper over the cork.

“Where does this Mr. Conway live?” inquired Holdsworth, who judged that there might be a good deal more of professional animus than truth in the chemist’s observations.

“I believe,” replied the chemist, sulkily vouchsafing the information which he could scarcely longer evade, “that the party you refer to lives in the Ellesmere Road. He did yesterday; but some persons in this world are so dependent on their landlords that there’s no tellin’ what’s going to happen to ’em to-morrow.”

Thanking this very good-natured and remarkably ingenuous chemist for his direction, Holdsworth quitted the shop and walked up the street. He asked a butcher-boy the way to Ellesmere Road, and was told to keep straight on, until he came to a “Methody’s Chapel, ven he’d see a turnin’, vich ’ud be the road he ast for.”

The Methodist Chapel was a good distance off, and as Holdsworth’s pace was slow, he had plenty of leisure for reflection, which was bitter enough; for, strive as he might to waive the chemist’s gossip as mere trade scandal and jealousy, his mind persisted in fastening on it, and turning it about, and coining deep anxiety out of it.

If this Mr. Conway were the drunkard the chemist affirmed him to be, and the pauper too—for the sarcasm about “persons being dependent on their landlords” had not been lost—what kind of life was Dolly and his child leading? He frowned, and felt his hand tighten on the handle of his stick; but a milder persuasion grew in him, and he forced his mind away from the subject.

So bright a morning as it was would bring forth many people; and the High Street was tolerably well filled with pedestrians, and old people in bath-chairs, wheeled along the gutters for fear of the horses, and nurses dragging children by the hand, and waggons, and tradesmen’s traps. The early coach from Canterbury came thundering along the street, the guard blowing his horn and causing house-windows to fly open, and heads to protrude, and a handkerchief, or, maybe, a duster here and there, to be waved in coy recognition of the hand-kissing of certain spruce and finely-attired gentlemen on the top of the vehicle.

But, varied and cheerful as the scene was, Holdsworth had no eyes but for the women and children he met, at whom he darted quick eager glances, which must have sent some of the women tripping along with a sincere conviction that they had met with one admirer, at all events, that morning.

He passed the market-place with its stalls loaded with garden produce, and clean little shops submitting a tempting array of plump fowls, geese, sides of bacon, legs of pork, and strings of sausages; and in about twenty minutes’ time reached the Methodist Chapel, and turned into the Ellesmere Road.

A short broad road, with the sun-lighted country beyond; on either side, small newly-built villas, with now and again a house presenting a more venerable aspect. There was grass in the roadway, and one or two of the villas had placards in their windows. In the front garden of one of the nearer houses an old gentleman, with an inflamed face, and a white hankerchief over his head, was plying a rake. No other person was visible; but, when Holdsworth had advanced a few steps, a woman came out of a gate and approached him. His heart came into his throat, and he stood stock still. She drew near, but she was not Dolly. She glanced at him as she passed, struck, maybe, by his pale face, and the singular mixture of old age and youth which his appearance and figure suggested.

He breathed deeply and walked forward, glancing to right and left of him.

The last house but one on the left was the house he wanted. A brass plate inscribed with Conway’s name and calling was fixed to the iron railings, and over the door was a lamp furnished with blue and red glass.

Holdsworth dared scarcely glance at it. When his eye encountered the name he turned cold, and felt the damp perspiration suffusing his forehead.

He came back hurriedly, with the bare impression on his mind of a small house with the upper blinds drawn, and with an untended garden in the front.

He returned to the main entrance of the road, stopped, looked back, and then slowly retraced his steps.

There was a house of an older fashion than any of the others on the right-hand side, about midway; one that had evidently taken root there many years before the little villas had gathered themselves together to intercept its view and violate its pastoral solitude. Its doorway was sheltered by a roomy porch, with creepers clambering up its trellised supporters; its darkling windows had the burnished glitter upon them that is peculiar to old glass; its eaves were capacious enough to accommodate a whole colony of swallows, and it had a fair piece of ground stretching away at its back. The bright brass knocker on the green door, the white doorsteps, the purity of the window glass, and the spotlessness of the window drapery, afforded an excellent guarantee of the housewifely qualities of the inmates. In one of the windows hung a card. Holdsworth opened the gate and knocked.

“I should like to see your apartments,” he said to the cheerful-faced, middle-aged woman who had promptly replied to his summons.

“Certainly, sir; please to walk in.”

She threw open the door of a long sitting-room, smelling of lavender and mignonette, and furnished with worked chairs, old china, a tall wooden clock with a febrile tick, a hearth-rug decorated with blue and yellow roses in wool, and a sour squeezed-looking bookcase which seemed to hold sundry folios under protest, and to threaten the instant ejection of a number of small books on the top shelves, which leaned one against another, some of them gaping apparently in the last extremity of terror.

“For yourself, sir? Or might there be children?”

“For myself.”

“Why, then, sir,” exclaimed the woman, with great alacrity, “I think I can accommodate you. You can have this room, and a bed-room just over it, and the use of the pianner in the next room when you see company, for fourteen shillings a week.”

“That will do,” said Holdsworth.

The woman, smiling like clockwork, proceeded to inform him that she was a widow, and had nobody else in the house but her mother, who was very aged and silly-like, and only left her room, which was upstairs, once a week for a turn in the garden; that anything more peaceful than her house was never known, and that if the gentleman was studious, he would never be interrupted with noises.

She then led him upstairs to the bedroom, which was as comfortable as any man could wish.

On their return to the sitting-room, Holdsworth, who was tired, asked permission to rest himself, and sat down near the window which overlooked the road, where he could just obtain a glimpse of Mr. Conway’s house.

He broke away from the overpowering thoughts which the sense of the near presence of his wife and child forced upon him, and steadying his voice, turned to the woman who stood at the door, and asked her if she knew any of the people living around.

“Why, sir, I know most of my neighbours by name, though I can’t say as e’er a one of ’em are friends of mine.”

“I noticed a dentist’s house just now, over the way. What sort of business can he do in such a road as this?”

“Oh, you’re speaking of Mr. Conway!” she exclaimed, with a shake of the head. “It’s his own fault if he don’t do a good business, for I hear that he’s pretty clever at making teeth and drawing of them, and the likes of that; but he don’t seem to have no patients, and I know why; but it’s not for me to meddle in other folks’ concerns.”

“Why?”

“I suppose you’re no friend of his, sir?” she said.

“I never saw the gentleman in my life.”

“Well, then, to speak plainly, he drinks; and it’s pretty well known; and so there’s no wonder gentlefolks won’t go near him.”

Holdsworth forced a look of unconcern into his face as he asked:

“Is he married?”

“Oh yes, sir; and a sweet dear creature his wife is; Mrs. Holdsworth as was. Hers is a sad history. She lived at a place called Southbourne—maybe you know it—it’s an hour’s walk from here; and I was told her story by Mrs. Campion, as used to keep a greengrocer’s shop in that village, and served most of the gentry about. She—I’m speaking of Mrs. Conway—lost her husband at sea, and married the present gentleman two or three years afterwards. Mrs. Campion said she was driven to it by want o’ the bare necessaries of life,” added the woman in a subdued voice.

Holdsworth was silent.

“I don’t think,” continued the woman, “that she leads a very happy life. We sometimes has a chat together when we meet out o’ doors, and she’s the civilest, sweetest young thing I ever knew. But,” she exclaimed, catching herself up, “all this is no business of mine; and I hope, sir, you’ll think none the worse of me for gossiping about strangers’ affairs. I was strivin’ to answer your questions, sir.”

“Thank you,” said Holdsworth, rising, but keeping his back to the window. “Can you receive me to-morrow?”

“Oh yes, sir; at any time you’re pleased to come.”

“My name is Hampden. I shall sleep to-night at the ‘Hanwitch Arms.’ Here are a couple of sovereigns, which will serve you as a security for my taking your rooms. I leave myself in your hands, and have no doubt I shall be comfortable.”

The woman took the money with a courtesy, thinking to herself that she had never met with a more polite and considerate gentleman. Holdsworth left the house. He cast a swift glance at the villa with the plate upon the railing, and then hurried towards the town.