Each mortal's private feelings are the measure of the importance of events to him. And it often happens that while our neighbours are pitying or envying us, on account of some circumstance which, all the world agrees, must have a weighty bearing on our fate, we are mainly indifferent to it, and are occupied with some inner grief or joy, which would seem to them very trivial.

To have received and rejected an offer of marriage from a man worth fifty thousand a year would have been deemed by most of May Cheffington's acquaintance about as important an event as could have happened to her—short of death! But to her it was absolutely as nothing, compared with the facts that Owen was on the point of returning to England, and that he was to live in Mrs. Bransby's house.

Why did this second fact seem to embitter the sweetness of the first?

No, it was not the fact, she told herself, that was bitter; the bitterness lay in the manner of its coming to her knowledge. Why had not Owen written to her? There could be no reason to conceal it! Of course, none! Owen was doing all that was right, no doubt. But to allow her to hear of this step for the first time from Theodore Bransby at a dinner-table conversation—this it was which irked her. So, at least, she had declared to herself last night. Then the tone in which her uncle and all of them had spoken of Mrs. Bransby and Owen had jarred upon her painfully. Theodore had not joined in the tasteless banter; but then Theodore's way of receiving it—with a partly stiff, partly deprecatory air, as though there could possibly be anything serious in it—was almost worse!

The pathway of life which had stretched so clear and fair before her but a short while ago, seemed now to have contracted into a tangled maze, in which she lost herself. The events of the morning had made May resolve that all secrecy as to her engagement must come to an end. She must see Owen immediately on his arrival in London. But how to do so? She did not know whether he was or was not in England at that very moment! Well, at all events she knew Mrs. Bransby's address, and could write to him there.

This thought gave her a pang. And the pang was intensified by the sudden and vivid perception—as one sees a whole landscape by a lightning-flash out of a black sky—that it was caused by jealousy!

Jealousy! She, May Cheffington, jealous—and of Owen? Yes; it might be painful, humiliating, incredible, but it was true. The flash had been inexorably sharp and clear.

To young creatures, every revelation that they—even they—are subject to the common woes, pains, and passions of humanity about which they may have talked glibly enough, is an amazement and a shock. Still earlier in our earthly course we doubt that Death himself can touch us. What child ever realizes that it must die? It is only after many lessons that we begin to accept our share of mortal frailties and afflictions as a matter of course.

Poor May felt sick at heart. Oh, if she could but see Granny! She longed for the motherly affection which had never failed her since the day her father left her—a rather forlorn little waif, whom no one seemed ready to love or welcome—in the old house in Friar's Row. She thought that to sit quite still and silent by Granny's knee, while Granny's kind old hand softly stroked her hair, would charm away all her troubles, or at least lull them to sleep.

But for the present she could not rest. When she left her uncle, and felt secure from interruption in her own room, she sat down and wrote two letters. The first was to Owen, begging him to come and see her without delay, and at the same time telling him that circumstances had arisen which made it desirable to declare their engagement. The second letter was to Granny.

To Granny she poured out her gratitude. She thanked her and scolded her in a breath. Who had ever been so generous, and so careful to conceal their generosity? And yet Granny had done very wrong to make such a sacrifice as was involved in giving up the old home in Friar's Row.

"Had I known this a week ago," wrote May, "I do believe I should have tried to coax Mr. Bragg into breaking the lease, and making you go back to the old house which you loved. But I cannot ask any favour of Mr. Bragg now!" Then she told her grandmother all about her interview with Mr. Bragg, and her aunt's bitter disappointment, and her uncle's kind behaviour, although she could see that he was disappointed too. "I wonder," she added, "if you will be as astonished as I was? Perhaps not. I remember some things you said when I told you my grand scheme for marrying Miss Patty! Oh, dear me, I feel like some one who has been walking in his sleep—calmly and unconsciously tripping over the most insecure places. But now I have been suddenly awakened, and I feel chilly, and frightened, and all astray."

When she had written them, she resolved to post the letters herself. Since she had volunteered to take her little cousins out for a walk occasionally, the stringent rule which forbade her to leave the house unattended by a servant had been relaxed—it was so very convenient to get rid of the little boys for an hour or two at a time! It left CÉcile free to do a great deal of needlework, a large proportion of it expended on the alteration and re-trimming, and so forth, of May's own toilettes. Mrs. Dormer-Smith was strictly conscientious as to that; and since May never went beyond the limits of the neighbouring square, there could be no objection to the arrangement. One point, however, Aunt Pauline had insisted on—that these walks should always take place in the morning, or, at all events, during that portion of the day which did duty for the morning in her vocabulary. The proprieties greatly depend, as we know, on chronology; and many things which are permissible before luncheon become taboo immediately after it.

By the time May had finished her letters, however, it was well on in the afternoon. Carriages were rolling through the fashionable quarters of the town, and the footman's rat-tat-tat sounded monotonously like a gigantic tam-tam, sacred to the worship of society.

May went downstairs, and, opening the hall-door, found herself in the street alone, for the first time since she had lived under her aunt's roof. There was a pillar letter-box, she knew, not far distant. To this she proceeded, and dropped her letters into it. It had been a fine day for a London winter; but the last faint glimmer of daylight had almost disappeared as she turned to go back home.

There was an assemblage of vehicles waiting before a house which she had passed on her way to the post-box. Now, as she returned, there was a stir among them. Servants were calling up the coachmen, and opening and shutting carriage doors. A number of fashionably dressed persons, mostly women, came down the steps of the house and drove away. May paused a moment to let a couple of ladies sweep past her on their way to their carriage. As she did so, she heard her name called; and, looking round, she saw Clara Bertram's face at the window of a cab drawn up near the kerbstone.

"Is it really you?" exclaimed Clara, as they shook hands. "I could scarcely believe my eyes! What are you doing here alone?"

"I have been posting some letters." Then, reading an expression of surprise in the other girl's eyes, she added quickly, "You wonder why I should have done so myself. For a simple reason: I did not wish the address of one of them to be seen. But Granny knows all about it."

"I am quite sure, dear, you have some good reason for what you have done," answered Clara, in her quiet, sincere tones.

"And you?" asked May. "What are you doing here?"

"I have been singing at a matinÉe in that house. I was just about to drive off, when I caught a glimpse of you. I was not sure that it was not your ghost in the dusk!"

"I suppose you are constantly engaged now?"

"Yes; I have a great deal to do."

"Oh, I hear of you. Your praises are in every one's mouth. Lady Moppett declares you are rapidly becoming the first concert singer of the day. She is as proud of you as if she had invented you! Indeed, she does say you are her 'discovery': as if you were a Polynesian island! I could find it in my heart to envy you, Clara. It must be so glorious to be independent, and earn one's own living!"

Clara smiled a faint little smile. "I am thankful to be able to earn something," she said. "But I don't think I should care so much about it if it were only for myself."

"No, of course, dear! I know," rejoined May quickly. She had been told that the young singer entirely supported an invalid father and sister. Then she added, "Your voice is a great gift. There are so few things a woman can do to earn money."

"Why, one would suppose that you wanted to earn money!" said Clara, smiling.

"Perhaps."

Clara looked more closely at her friend. The street lamps were now lighted, and she could see May's face distinctly. "You are not looking well, dear," she exclaimed. "You seem fagged."

"I am sick of London. I want to go home to Granny and be at peace," answered May wearily. Then she went on quickly, to stave off any possible questionings as to her state of mind. "But I must return for the present to my aunt's house. Good-bye."

"Stay!" cried Clara. "Will you not get into the cab, and let me drive you home?"

"Drive! It is an affair of some two or three minutes at most."

"Well, then, if you have half an hour to spare, let me drive you round the square, and then drop you at home. I have been wanting for three or four days past to speak to you quietly. I can't bear to lose this rare opportunity. We do not meet very often." Then seeing that her friend hesitated, she asked, "Are you thinking about the cost of the cab for me?"

"Yes," answered May frankly.

"I thought so! That is just like you. But, indeed, you need have no scruples. The cab is engaged for the afternoon. When I sing at people's houses, unless they send a carriage for me, the cab-fare is 'considered in my wages.' Do come in!"

May complied, and the cab moved away slowly.

When they had proceeded a few yards, Clara said, "I wanted to tell you—I think it right to tell you—something I have learned on good authority. Your father—I hope it won't distress you—is really married."

May's first thought was that here again her Aunt Pauline had deceived her!

"Are you sure?" she asked.

"Yes, I think I may say so."

"And how did you learn it?"

"From Valli."

"Oh, from Signor Valli! But you told me he was not to be trusted."

"In some ways not. But I do not doubt what he says on this subject. He has no motive to invent the information. He cares nothing about the matter—except that I think he rather likes La—Mrs. Cheffington than not."

"Is she a foreigner?" asked May, with a little more interest than she had hitherto shown. Her listless way of receiving the news had surprised her friend.

"Yes, an Italian. At least, she is Italian by language, if not by law; for she comes from Trieste. But she is almost Cosmopolitan; for she has travelled about the world a great deal. She is—or was—an opera-singer. Her name in the theatre is Bianca Moretti. She was rather celebrated at one time." Clara paused a moment, and then added, "I hope this news does not grieve you, dear?"

"No," answered May dreamily, "it does not grieve me. If my father is content, why should I grieve? He and I have been parted—in spirit as well as body—for so many years, that his marriage can make but little difference to me."

"I was afraid you might feel——Of course, Captain Cheffington's family will look on it as a dreadful mÉsalliance."

May was silent for a few minutes. Then she said a very unexpected thing—

"Poor woman! I hope he is good to her!"

"I suppose," said Clara, rather hesitatingly, "that the reason why Captain Cheffington has not announced his marriage to his relations is that he thinks they would object to receive an opera-singer."

"Possibly," answered May. (In her heart she thought, "The reason is that he cares nothing for any of us.")

"It must be that," proceeded Clara. "For as far as I can make out there seems to be no concealment about it in Brussels."

Then they arrived at Mrs. Dormer-Smith's house, and May alighted and bade her friend farewell.

"Thank you, Clara," she said, "for telling me the truth. I loathe mysteries and concealments. When one thinks of it, they are despicable."

"Unless when one conceals something to shield others," suggested Clara gently.

She had told her friend what she believed to be the truth so far as the fact of her father's marriage was concerned. But she had not given her all the details and comments which Signor Valli had imparted to her on the subject. His view of the matter was not flattering to Captain Cheffington. Valli declared, with cynical plainness of speech, that Captain Cheffington had married La Bianca merely to have the right to confiscate her professional earnings. Latterly these had become very scanty. La Bianca did not grow younger, and her voice was rapidly failing her. A good deal of gambling had gone on in her house at one time. But it had been put a stop to—or, at least, shorn of its former proportions by the ugly incident of which Miss Polly Piper had brought back a version to Oldchester. Since that, things had not gone well with the Cheffington mÉnage. Captain Cheffington had become insupportable, irritable, impossible! He was, moreover, a malade imaginaire; a querulous, selfish, tyrannous fellow; always bewailing his hard fate, and the sacrifice he had made in so far derogating from his rank as to marry an opera-singer. La Bianca was a slave to his caprices. To be sure she was not precisely a lamb. There were occasions when she flamed up, and made quarrels and scenes.

"But," said Signor Valli, "he is an enormous egoist, and, with a woman, the bigger egoist you are, the surer to subjugate her. La Bianca would have stabbed a man who loved her devotedly, for half the ill-treatment she endures from that cold, stiff ramrod of an Englishman."

Such was Vincenzo Valli's version of the case; and Clara Bertram, in listening to him, believed that, in the main, it was a true one. Valli had recently been in Brussels, where he had seen the Cheffingtons; and one or two other foreign musicians whom she knew had come upon them from time to time, and had given substantially the same account of them. As to persons in the rank of life to which Captain Cheffington still claimed to belong, they were no more likely to come across him now than if he were living on the top of the Andes.

May went into the house wearily. In the hall she met her uncle Frederick, who had just come in, and had seen the cab drive away.

"Who was that with you, May?" he asked, in some surprise.

"It was Miss Bertram," she answered. Then she asked her uncle to step for a moment into the dining-room. When he had done so, and closed the door, she said quietly, "My father is married to a foreign opera-singer; they are living in Brussels. Did you and Aunt Pauline know this?"

"Know it? Certainly not!"

May was relieved to hear this, and drew a long breath. The sensation of living in an atmosphere of deception had oppressed her almost with a feeling of physical suffocation. She then told her uncle all that Clara Bertram had said.

Mr. Dormer-Smith puckered his brows, and looked more disturbed than she had expected. "This will be another blow for your aunt," he said gloomily.

"I don't see why Aunt Pauline should distress herself," she answered coldly; "my father is not likely to trouble her. Married or unmarried, my father seems determined to keep aloof from us all." Then she went to her own room.

Mr. Dormer-Smith shrank from communicating this news to his wife, and as he went upstairs he anticipated a disagreeable scene. He did not very greatly care about the matter himself, for he agreed with May that it was unlikely Augustus would trouble any of the family with his presence; and to keep away was all that he required of his brother-in-law. On entering his wife's room, he found her still in a morning wrapper, reclining on her long chair; but her hair had been dressed, and she announced her intention of coming down to dinner. Her countenance, too, wore an unexpected expression of placidity, almost cheerfulness. The country post had arrived, and there were several letters scattered on a little table by Mrs. Dormer-Smith's elbow.

Her husband went and placed himself with his back to the fire, which was burning with a pleasant glow in the grate. "Well," he said, in a sympathizing tone, to his wife, "how are you feeling now, Pauline?"

They had not met since his outburst about May, and he had been rather nervously uncertain of his reception. Pauline never sulked, never stormed, and rarely scolded. But when she felt herself to be injured, she would be overpoweringly plaintive. Her plaintiveness seemed to wrap you round, and damp you, and chill you to the bone, like a Scotch mist, and when used retributively was felt—by her husband, at all events—to be very terrible. But on this occasion, as has been said, there was a certain mild serenity in her face which was reassuring.

"Thanks, Frederick," she answered. "There seems to be a little less pressure on the brain. Smithson bathed my forehead for three-quarters of an hour after you were gone."

Mr. Dormer-Smith hastened to change the subject. "Post in, I see," he said. "Any news?"

"I have a very nice letter from Constance Hadlow," answered Pauline, with her eyes absently fixed on the fire. "How thoughtful that girl is! What tact! What proper feeling! Ah! the contrast between her and May is painful at times."

Mr. Dormer-Smith made a little inarticulate sound, which might mean anything. Despite her beauty, which he admired, Miss Hadlow was no great favourite of his. But he would not imperil the present calm in his domestic atmosphere by saying so.

"Misfortunes," pursued Pauline, still gazing at the fire, "never come singly, they say; and really I believe it."

"Does Miss Hadlow announce any misfortune?"

"Oh no!—at least, we are bound not to look on it as a misfortune. Who could wish him to linger, poor fellow? She is staying near Combe Park, and she says Lucius has been quite given up by the doctors. It is a question of days—perhaps of hours."

"No? By George! Poor old Lucius!" returned Mr. Dormer-Smith, with a touch of real feeling in his tone.

"Of course, this will make an immense difference in May's prospects. I don't mean to say that she will easily find another millionnaire, with such extraordinarily liberal ideas about settlements as Mr. Bragg hinted to me this morning; that is, humanly speaking, not possible," said Mrs. Dormer-Smith solemnly. "Still, the affair may not be such an irretrievable disaster as we feared."

"How do you mean?" asked Frederick, whose mind, as we know, moved rather slowly.

"It must make a difference to her," repeated his wife in a musing tone. "The only child and heiress of the future Viscount Castlecombe, of course——"

"By George! I didn't think of that at the moment. Yes, Gus is the next. I suppose that's quite certain?"

Mrs. Dormer-Smith did not even condescend to answer this query, but merely raised her eyebrows with a superior and melancholy smile.

Frederick pondered a minute or so; then he said, "You say 'heiress,' but I don't think your uncle would leave Gus a pound more than he couldn't help leaving him."

"I fear that is likely. Still, there is much of the land that must come to Augustus, and Uncle George has enormously improved the estate. Do you know I begin to hope that I may see my poor unfortunate brother come back and take his proper place in the world? When I remember what he was five-and-twenty years ago, it does seem cruel that he should have been absolutely eclipsed during all this time. I recollect so well the day he first appeared in his uniform. He was brilliant. Poor Augustus!"

Mr. Dormer-Smith felt that the difficulty of telling his wife what he had just heard assumed a new shape. He had feared to add to the load of what Pauline considered family misfortunes; now it seemed as if his news would dash her rising spirits, and darken roseate hopes. He passed his large hand over his mouth and chin, and said, with his eyes fixed uneasily on his wife, who was still contemplating the fire with an air of abstraction—

"Ah! Yes. But—there may be a Lady Castlecombe to find a place in the world for."

"Not improbable. I hope there may be. Augustus is little past the prime of life. It would compensate for much if——"

"I'm sorry to say, Pauline, that there's no chance of that—I mean of such a marriage as you are thinking of. I came upstairs on purpose to tell you. In one way it won't make any difference to us. And I'm sure your brother has never deserved much affection or consideration from you. But still, I know it will worry you."

Mrs. Dormer-Smith sat upright, with her hands grasping the two arms of her chair, and said, with a sort of despairing calm, "Be good enough to go on, Frederick. I entreat you to be explicit. I dare say you mean well, but I do not think I can endure much more suspense."

"Well, you know the rumours we've heard from time to time about that disreputable Italian woman in Brussels—opera-singer, or something of the kind? Well—I'm afraid there's no use deluding ourselves; I think it comes on good authority—your brother has married her."