Dinner was over. Emma Paul had gone out to stroll in the shady garden and wait for the evening breeze that would soon come on, and was so delightful after the heat of the day. Her father remained at the table. He was slowly sipping at his one glass of port wine, which he took in a large claret glass, when the door opened and Thomas Chandler entered.

“Oh,” said Mr. Paul. “So you are back, are you, young man!”

“I went on to Worcester, sir,” explained Tom; who though he was now made Mr. Paul’s partner, could not get rid all at once of the old mode of addressing him. Managing clerks in these days, who are qualified solicitors, do not condescend to say “Sir” to their chief, no matter though he be their elder by half a life-time; but they did in the days gone by.

“When I got to Crabb Cot this morning, sir, Mr. Todhetley was on the point of starting for Worcester in the phaeton with his son and Johnny Ludlow,” went on Tom. “After listening to the news I took him, he naturally wished me to go also, and I did so. He was in a fine way about it.”

“But you need not have stayed at Worcester all day.”

“Well, being there, I thought—after I had conferred with Corles at his office upon this other matter—I should do well to go on to Oddingley and see William Smith about that troublesome business of his; so I hired a gig and went there; and I’ve just got back by train, walking from Crabb,” answered Tom Chandler.

“Had any dinner?”

“Oh, yes, thank you; and some tea also at Shrub Hill station, while waiting for the train: this weather makes one thirsty. No, thank you, sir,” as Mr. Paul pushed the decanter towards him; “wine would only make me still more thirsty than I am.”

“I never saw you looking so hot,” remarked the old lawyer.

Tom laughed, and rubbed his face. The walk from Crabb was no light one: and, of course, with Miss Emma at the end of it, he had come at a steaming pace.

“Well, and what did you and Todhetley make of the matter?”

It was the day, as may readily be understood, when we had gone to Worcester to have it out at the silversmith’s. Tom Chandler recounted all that passed, and repeated the description given to himself by Stephenson of the fellow who had changed the bank-note. Mr. Paul received it with an impatient and not at all orthodox word, meant for Richard MacEveril.

“But I cannot feel sure, no, nor half sure, that it was MacEveril,” said Tom Chandler.

“What have your feelings got to do with it?” asked old Paul, in his crusty way. “It seems to me, the description you give would be his very picture.”

“Stephenson says he had blue eyes. Now Dick’s are brown.”

“Eyes be sugared,” retorted the lawyer. “As if any man could swear to a chance customer’s eyes after seeing them for just a minute or two! It was Dick MacEveril; he caught up the letter as it lay on Hanborough’s desk in the office and decamped with it; and went off the next day to Worcester to get the note changed, as bold as though he had been Dick Turpin!”

Still Tom was not convinced. He took out the pencil he had bought and showed it to Mr. Paul.

“Ay,” said the old gentleman, “it’s a pretty thing, and perhaps he may get traced by it. Do you forget, Mr. Thomas, that the young rascal absented himself all that day from the office on pretext of going to the picnic at Mrs. Cramp’s, and that, as you told me, he never made his appearance at the picnic until late in the afternoon?”

“I know,” assented Tom. “He said he had been to the pigeon match.”

“If he said he had been to the moon, I suppose you’d believe it. Don’t tell me! It was Dick MacEveril who stole the note; every attendant circumstance helps to prove it. There: we’ll say no more about the matter, and you can be off to the garden if you want to; I know you are on thorns for it.”

From that day the matter dropped into oblivion, and nothing was allowed to transpire connecting MacEveril with the theft. Mr. Paul enjoined silence, out of regard for his old friend the captain, on Tom Chandler and Mr. Hanborough, the only two, besides himself, who suspected Dick. Some letters arrived at Islip about this time from Paris, written by Dick: one to Captain MacEveril, another to Mr. Paul, a third to his cousin Mary. He coolly said he was gone to Paris for a few weeks with Jim Stockleigh, and they were both enjoying themselves amazingly.

So, the ball of gossip not being kept up, the mysterious loss of the letter containing the bank-note was soon forgotten. Mr. Paul was too vexed to speak of it; it seemed a slur on his office; and he shielded Dick’s good name for his uncle’s sake; whilst Preen was silent because he did not wish the debt talked about.

We left Crabb Cot for Dyke Manor, carrying our wonder with us. The next singular point to us was, how the changer of the note could have been so well acquainted with the circumstances attending the buying of the brooch. Mrs. Todhetley would talk of it by the hour together, suggesting now this person and now that; but never seeming to hit upon a likely one.

July passed away, August also, and September came in. On the Thursday in the first week of the latter month, Emma Paul was to become Emma Chandler.

All that while, through all those months and weeks, poor Oliver Preen had been having a bad time of it. No longer able to buoy himself up with the delusive belief that Emma’s engagement to Chandler was nothing but a myth, he had to accept it, and all the torment it brought him. He had grown pale and thin; nervous also; his lips would turn white if anyone spoke to him abruptly, his hot hand trembled when in another’s grasp. Jane thought he must be suffering from some inward fever; she did not know much about her brother’s love for Emma, or dream that it could be so serious.

“I’m sure I wish their wedding was over and done with; Oliver might come to his proper senses then,” Jane told herself. “He is very silly. I don’t see much in Emma Paul.”

September, I say, came in. It was somewhat singular that we should again be for just that one first week of it at Crabb Cot. Sir Robert Tenby had invited the Squire to take a few days’ shooting with him, and included Tod in the invitation—to his wild delight. So Mr. and Mrs. Todhetley went from Dyke Manor to Crabb Cot for the week, and we accompanied them.

On the Monday morning of this eventful week—and terribly eventful it was destined to be—Mr. Paul’s office had a surprise. Richard MacEveril walked into it. He was looking fresh and blooming, as if he had never heard of such a thing as running away. Mr. Hanborough gazed up at him from his desk as if he saw an apparition; Tite Batley’s red face seemed illumined by sudden sunshine.

“Well, and is nobody going to welcome me back?” cried Dick, as he put out his hand, in the silence, to Mr. Hanborough.

“The truth is, we never expected to see you back; we thought you had gone for good,” answered Hanborough.

Dick laughed. “The two masters in there?” he asked, nodding his head at the inner door.

Hearing that they were, he went in. Old Paul, in his astonishment, dropped a penful of ink upon a letter he was writing.

“Why, where do you spring from?” he cried.

“From my uncle’s now, sir; got home last night. Been having a rare time of it in Paris. I suppose I may take my place at the desk again?” added Dick.

The impudence of this supposition drove all Mr. Paul’s wisdom out of him. Motioning to Tom Chandler to close the doors, he avowed to Dick what he was suspected of, and accused him of taking the letter and the bank-note.

“Well, I never!” exclaimed Dick, meeting the news with equanimity. “Go off with a letter of yours, sir, and a bank-note! Steal it, do you mean? Why, you cannot think I’d be capable of such a dirty trick, Mr. Paul. Indeed, sir, it wasn’t me.”

And there was something in the genuine astonishment of the young fellow, a certain honesty in his look and tone, that told Mr. Paul his suspicion might be a mistaken one. He recounted a brief outline of the facts, Tom Chandler helping him.

“I never saw the letter or the note, sir,” persisted Dick. “I remember the Wednesday afternoon quite well. When I went out to get my tea I met Fred Scott, and he persuaded me into the Bull for a game at billiards. It was half-past five before I got back here, and Mr. Hanborough blew me up. He had not been able to get out to his own tea. Batley was away that afternoon. No, no, sir, I wouldn’t do such a thing as that.”

“Where did you get the money to go away to London with, young man?” questioned old Paul, severely.

Dick laughed. “I won it,” he said; “upon my word of honour, sir, I did. It was the day of the picnic, and I persisted in going straight to it the first thing—which put the office here in a rage, as it was busy. Well, in turning out of here I again met Scott. He was hastening off to the pigeon-shooting match. I went with him, intending to stay only half an hour. But, once there, I couldn’t tear myself away. They were betting; I betted too, though I had only half a crown in my pocket, and I won thirty shillings; and I never got to Mrs. Cramp’s till the afternoon, when it was close upon tea-time. Tom Chandler knows I didn’t.”

Tom Chandler nodded.

“But for winning that thirty shillings I could not have got up to London, unless somebody had lent me some,” ran on Dick, who, once set going, was a rare talker. “You can ask anyone at that pigeon match, sir, whether I was not there the whole time: so it is impossible I could have been at Worcester, changing a bank-note.”

The words brought to Mr. Paul a regret that he had not thought to ask that question of some one of the sportsmen: it would have set the matter at rest, so far as MacEveril was concerned. And the suspicion had been so apparently well grounded, as to prevent suspicion in other quarters.

Tom Chandler, standing beside Dick at Mr. Paul’s table, quietly laid a pencil upon it, as if intending to write something down. Dick took it up and looked at it.

“What a pretty pencil!” he exclaimed. “Is it gold?”

It should be understood that in those past days, these ornamental pencils were rare. They may be bought by the bushel now. And Tom Chandler would have been convinced by the tone, had he still needed conviction, that Dick had not seen any pencil like it before.

“Well,” struck in old Paul, a little repentant for having so surely assumed Dick’s guilt, and thankful on the captain’s account that it was a mistake: “if you promise to be steady at your work, young man, I suppose you may take your place at the desk again. This gentleman here is going a-roving this week,” pointing the feather-end of his pen at Tom Chandler, “for no one knows how long; so you’ll have to stick to it.”

“I know; I’ve heard,” laughed Dick. “I mean to get a few minutes to dash into the church and see the wedding. Hope you’ll not dismiss me for it, sir!”

“There, there; you go to your desk now, young man, and ask Mr. Hanborough what you must do first,” concluded the lawyer.

It was not the only time on that same day that Thomas Chandler displayed his pencil. Finding his theory, that Dick MacEveril possessed the fellow one, to be mistaken, he at once began to take every opportunity of showing it to the world—which he had not done hitherto. Something might possibly come of it, he thought. And something did.

Calling in at Colonel Letsom’s in the evening, I found Jane Preen there, and one or two more girls. The Squire and Tod had not appeared at home yet, neither had Colonel Letsom, who made one at the shooting-party; we decided that Sir Robert must be keeping them to an unceremonious dinner. Presently Tom Chandler came in, to bring a note to the Colonel from Mr. Paul.

Bob Letsom proposed a round game at cards—Speculation. His sister, Fanny, objected; speculation was nothing but screaming, she said, and we couldn’t sit down to cards by daylight. She proposed music; she thought great things of her singing: Bob retorted that music might be shot, and they talked at one another a bit. Finally we settled to play at “Consequences.” This involves, as everyone knows, sitting round a table with pencils and pieces of writing-paper.

I sat next to Tom Chandler, Jane Preen next to me. Fanny was on the other side of Tom—but it is not necessary to relate how we all sat. Before we had well begun, Chandler put his pencil on the table, carelessly, and it rolled past me.

“Why, that is Oliver’s pencil!” exclaimed Jane, picking it up.

“Which is?” quietly said Tom. “That? No; it is mine.”

Jane looked at it on all sides. “It is exactly like one that Oliver has,” she said. “It fell out of a drawer in his room the other day, when I was counting up his collars and handkerchiefs. He told me he brought it from Tours.”

“No doubt,” said Tom. “I bought mine at Worcester.”

In taking the pencil from Jane, Tom’s eye caught mine. I did feel queer; he saw I did; but I think he was feeling the same. Little doubt now who had changed the note!

“You will not talk of it, will you?” I whispered to Tom, as we were dispersing about the room when the game was over.

“No,” said he, “it shall not come out through me. I’m afraid, though, there’s no mistake this time, Johnny. A half doubt of it has crossed my mind at odd moments.”

Neither would I talk of it, even to Tod. After all, it was not proof positive. I had never, never thought of Oliver.

The Letsoms had a fine old garden, as all the gardens at Crabb were, and we strolled out in the twilight. The sun had set, but the sky was bright in the west. Valentine Chandler, for he had come in, kept of course by Jane Preen’s side. Anyone might see that it was, as Tod called it, a gone case with them. It was no end of a pity, Val being just as unsteady and uncertain as the wind.

People do bolder things in the gloaming than in the garish daylight; and we fell to singing in the grotto—a semi-circular, half-open space with seats in it, surrounded at the back by the artificial rocks. Fanny began: she brought out an old guitar and twanged at it and sang for us, “The Baron of Mowbray;” where the false knight rides away laughing from the Baron’s door and the Baron’s daughter: that far-famed song of sixty years ago, which was said to have made a fortune for its composer.

The next to take up the singing was Valentine Chandler: and in listening to him you forgot all his short-comings. Never man had sweeter voice than he; and in his singing there was a singular charm impossible to be described. In his voice also—I mean when he spoke—there was always melody, and in his speech, when he chose to put it forth, a persuasive eloquence. This might have been instrumental in winning Jane Preen’s heart; we are told that a man’s heart is lost through his eye, a woman’s through her ear. Poor Valentine! he might have been so nice a fellow—and he was going to the bad as fast as he could go.

The song he chose was a ridiculous old ditty all about love; it went to the tune of “Di tanti palpiti.” Val chose it for Miss Jane and sung it to her; to her alone, mind you; the rest of us went for nothing.

Now, as you perceive, it is a most ridiculous song, foolish as love-songs in general are. But had you been sitting there with us in all the subtle romance imparted by the witching hour of twilight, the soft air floating around, the clear sky above, one large silver star trembling in its blue depths, you would have felt entranced. The wonderful melody of the singer’s voice, his distinct enunciation, the tender passion breathing through his soft utterance, and the slight yet unmistakable emphasis given to the avowal of his love, thrilled us all. It was as decided a declaration of what he felt for Jane Preen as he could well make in this world. Once he glanced at her, and only once throughout; it was where I have placed the pause, as he placed it himself, “like thee—and me.” As if his glance drew hers by some irresistible fascination, Jane, who had been sitting beneath the rock just opposite to him, her eyes cast down—as he made that pause and glanced at her, I say, she lifted them for a moment, and caught the glance. I may live to be an old man, but I shall never forget Val’s song that night, or the charm it held for us. What, then, must it have held for Jane? And it is because that song and its charm lie still fresh on my memory, though many a year has since worn itself out, that I inscribe it here.

As the singing came to an end, dying softly away, no one for a moment or two broke the hushed silence that ensued. Valentine was the first to do it. He got up from his seat; went round to a ledge of rock and stood upon it, looking out in the distance. Had the sea been near, one might have thought he saw a ship, homeward bound.

II

Had the clerk of the weather been bribed with a purse of gold, he could not have sent a finer day than Thursday turned out to be. The sun shone, the air sparkled, and the bells of Islip church rang out from the old steeple. Islip was much behind other churches in many respects; so primitive, indeed, in some of its ways, that had an edifice of advanced views come sailing through the air to pay it a visit, it would have turned tail again and sailed away; but Islip could boast of one thing few churches can boast of—a delightful peal of bells.

The wedding took place at eleven o’clock, and was a quiet one. Its attendants were chiefly confined to the parties themselves and their immediate relatives, but that did not prevent other people from flocking in to see it.

I and Dick MacEveril went in together, and got a good place close up; which was lucky, for the old church is full of pillars and angles that obstruct the view. Emma was in white silk; her bridesmaid, Mary MacEveril, the same; it was the custom in those days. Tom looked uncommonly well; but he and she were both nervous. Old Paul gave her away; and a thin aunt, with a twisted nose, who had come on a visit to superintend the wedding, in place of Emma’s dead mother, did nothing but weep. She wore an odd gown, pink one way, blue another; you might have thought she had borrowed its colours from their copper teakettle. Mrs. Chandler, Tom’s mother, in grey silk, was smarter than she had ever been in her life; and his aunt, Mrs. Cramp, was resplendent in a dress bordering upon orange.

The ceremony came to an end very quickly, I thought—you do think so at most simple weddings; and Tom and his wife went away together in the first carriage. Next came the breakfast at Mr. Paul’s; the aunt presiding in a gentle stream of tears. Early in the afternoon the bride and bridegroom left for London, on their way to the Continent.

Everyone does not care to dash to a church to see a marriage: some would as soon think of running to look on at a funeral. Mr. Preen was one of these insensible people, and he, of course, did not care to go near it. He made game of Jane for doing so; but Jane wanted to see the dresses and the ceremony. Oliver had not the opportunity of going; and would not have gone though he had had it. Just about eleven o’clock, when the gay doings were in full swing, Mr. Preen took Oliver off to Worcester in the gig.

About a fortnight before, Mr. Preen had appointed a saddler in Worcester to be his agent for the new patent agricultural implements, for which he was himself agent-in-chief. Until this under agency should be well in hand, Mr. Preen considered it necessary to see the saddler often: for which purpose he drove into Worcester at least three times a week. Once, instead of going himself, he had sent Oliver, but this day was the first time the two had gone together. It might have been—one cannot tell—but it might have been that Mr. Preen discerned what this wedding of Emma Paul’s must be to his son, and so took him out to divert his mind a bit.

Now, upon entering Worcester, to get to the saddler’s it was necessary to drive through High Street and turn into Broad Street. At least, that was the straightforward route. But Oliver had not taken it the day he drove in alone; he had preferred the more roundabout way of the back streets. After driving through Sidbury, he—instead of going forward up College Street and so into High Street—went careering along Friar Street, along the whole length of New Street, turned up St. Swithin Street, or Goose Lane, or one of those dingy thoroughfares, made a dash across the top of High Street, and so into his destination, Broad Street. In returning he took the same way. What his objection to the better streets could be, he alone knew. To-day, however, Mr. Preen held the reins.

Mr. Preen was driving quietly up College Street, when Oliver spoke.

“I wish you’d put me down here, father.”

“Put you down here!” repeated Mr. Preen, turning to look at him. “What for?”

“I want to get a little book for Jane,” answered Oliver, glancing towards Mr. Eaton’s house. “I shall be up in Broad Street nearly as soon as you are, if you want me there.”

“I don’t particularly want you,” said Mr. Preen, crustily, “but you needn’t be long before you come.” And, drawing up to the side, he let Oliver get out.

Driving on to the saddler’s, Mr. Preen transacted his business with him. When it was over, he went to the door, where his gig waited, and looked up and down the street, but saw nothing of Oliver.

“Hasn’t given himself the trouble to come up! Would rather put his lazy legs astride one of those posts opposite the college, and watch for my passing back again!”

Which was of course rather a far-fetched idea of Mr. Preen’s; but he spoke in a temper. Though, indeed, of late Oliver had appeared singularly inert; as if all spirit to move had gone out of him.

Mr. Preen got into his gig at the saddler’s door and set off again. Turning into High Street, he drove gently down it, looking out on all sides, if truth must be told, for Oliver. This caused him to see Stephenson standing at the silversmith’s door, the silversmith himself, back now for good at his business, being behind the counter. Now and then, since the bank-note was traced, Mr. Preen had made inquiries of Stephenson as to whether any news had been heard of its changer, but he had not done so lately. Not being in a hurry, he pulled up against the curb-stone. Stephenson crossed the flags to speak.

“Nothing turned up yet, I suppose?” said Mr. Preen.

“Well, I can hardly say it has,” replied Stephenson; “but I’ve seen the gentleman who paid it in to us.”

“And who is it? and where was he?” cried Preen, eagerly.

Stephenson had stepped back a pace, and appeared to be looking critically at the horse and gig.

“It was last Saturday,” he said, coming close again. “I had to take a parcel into Friar Street for one of our country customers, a farmer’s wife who was spending the day with some people living down there, and I saw a gig bowling along. The young fellow in it was the one who changed the note.”

“Are you sure of it?” returned Mr. Preen.

“Quite sure, sir. I had no opportunity of speaking to him or stopping him. He was driving at a good pace, and the moment he caught sight of me, for I saw him do that, he touched the horse and went on like a whirlwind.”

Mr. Preen’s little dark face took a darker frown. “I should have stopped him,” he said, sternly. “You ought to have rushed after him, Stephenson, and called upon the street to help in the pursuit. You might, at least, have traced where he went to. A gig, you say he was in?”

“Yes,” said Stephenson. “And, unless I am greatly mistaken, it was this very gig you are in now.”

“What do you mean by that?” retorted Preen, haughtily.

“I took particular notice of the horse and gig, so as to recognise them again if ever I got the chance; and I say that it was this gig and this horse, sir. There’s no mistake about it.”

They stared into one another’s eyes, one face looking up, and the other looking down. All in a moment, Stephenson saw the other face turn ghastly white. It had come into Mr. Preen’s recollection amidst his bewilderment, that Oliver had gone into Worcester last Saturday afternoon, driving the horse and gig.

“I can’t understand this! Who should be in my gig?” he cried, calling some presence of mind to his aid. “Last Saturday, you say? In the afternoon?”

“Last Saturday afternoon, close upon four o’clock. As I turned down Lich Street, I saw the lay-clerks coming out of College. Afternoon service is generally over a little before four,” added Stephenson. “He was driving straight into Friar Street from Sidbury.”

Another recollection flashed across Mr. Preen: Oliver’s asking just now to be put down in College Street. Was it to prevent his passing through High Street? Was he afraid to pass through it?

“He is a nice-looking young fellow,” said Stephenson; “has a fair, mild face; but he was the one who changed the note.”

“That may be; but as to his being in my gig, it is not—— Why, I was not in town at all on Saturday,” broke off Mr. Preen, with a show of indignant remonstrance.

“No, Mr. Preen; the young man was in it alone,” said Stephenson, who probably had his own thoughts upon the problem.

“Well, I can’t stay longer now; I’m late already,” said Mr. Preen. “Good morning, Stephenson.” And away he drove with a dash.

Oliver was waiting in College Street, standing near the Hare and Hounds Inn. Mr. Preen pulled up.

“So you did not chose to come on!” he said.

“Well, I—I thought there’d be hardly time, and I might miss you; I went to get my hair cut,” replied Oliver, as he settled himself in his place beside his father.

Mr. Preen drove on in silence until they were opposite the Commandery gates in the lower part of Sidbury. Then he spoke again.

“What made you drive through Friar Street on Saturday last, instead of going the direct way?”

“Through—Friar Street?” stammered Oliver.

“Through Friar Street, instead of High Street,” repeated Mr. Preen, in a sharp, passionate accent.

“Oh, I remember. High Street is so crowded on a market day; the back streets are quiet,” said Oliver, as if he had a lump in his throat, and could not make his voice heard.

“And in taking the back streets you avoid the silversmith’s, and the risk you run of being recognised; is that it?” savagely retorted Mr. Preen.

Not another word did he speak, only drove on home at a furious pace. Oliver knew all then: the disgrace for which he had been so long waiting had come upon him.

But when they got indoors, Mr. Preen let loose the vials of his wrath upon Oliver. Before his mother, before Jane, he published his iniquity. It was he, Oliver, who had stolen the ten-pound note; it was he who had so craftily got it changed at Worcester. Oliver spoke not a word of denial, made no attempt at excuse or defence; he stood with bent head and pale, meek face, his blue eyes filled with utter misery. The same look of misery lay in Mrs. Preen’s eyes as she faintly reproached him amid tears and sobs. Jane was simply stunned.

“You must go away now and hide yourself; I can’t keep you here to be found and pounced upon,” roared Mr. Preen. “By the end of the week you must be gone somewhere. Perhaps you can pick up a living in London.”

“Yes, I will go,” said Oliver, meekly. And at the first lull in the storm he crept up to his room.

He did not come down to dinner; did not come to tea. Jane carried up a cup of tea upon a waiter and some bread-and-butter, and put it down outside the chamber door, which he had bolted.

Later, in passing his room, she saw the door open and went in. Cup and plate were both empty, so he had taken the refreshment. He was not in the house, was not in the garden. Putting on her sun-bonnet and a light shawl, she ran to the Inlets.

Oliver was there. He sat, gazing moodily at the brook and the melancholy osier-twigs that grew beside it. Jane sat down and bent his poor distressed face upon her shoulder.

“Dear Oliver! Don’t take it so to heart. I know you must have been sorely tempted.”

Bending there upon her, her arms clasping him, yielding to the loving sympathy, so grateful after those harsh reproaches, he told her all, under cover of the gathering shades of evening. Yes, he had been tempted—and had yielded to the temptation.

He wanted money badly for necessary things, and things that he had learned to deem necessaries, and he had it not. A pair of new gloves now and again, a necktie to replace his shabby ones, a trifle of loose silver in his pocket. He owed a small sum to MacEveril, and wanted to repay him. Once or twice he had asked a little money of his father, and was refused. His mother would give him a few shillings, when pressed, but grumbled over it. So Oliver wrote to a friend at Tours, whom he had known well, asking if he would lend him some. That was the first week in June. His friend wrote back in answer that he could lend him some after quarter day, the 24th, but not before; he would send him over ten pounds then, if that would do.

Never a thought had presented itself to Oliver of touching the ten pounds in his father’s letter to Mr. Paul, which he had sealed and saw posted. But on the following afternoon, Wednesday, he saw the letter lying on Mr. Hanborough’s desk; the temptation assailed him, and he took it.

It may be remembered that Mr. Preen had gone out that hot day, leaving Oliver a lot of work to do. He got through it soon after four o’clock, and went dashing over the cross route to Islip and into Mr. Paul’s office, for he wanted to see Dick MacEveril. The office was empty; not a soul was in it; and as Oliver stood, rather wondering at that unusual fact, he saw a small pile of letters, evidently just left by the postman, lying on the desk close to him. The uppermost of the letters he recognised at once; it was the one sent by his father. “If I might borrow the ten pounds inside that now, I should be at ease; I would replace it with the ten pounds coming to me from Tours, and it might never get known,” whispered Satan in his ear, with plausible cunning.

Never a moment did he allow himself for thought, never an instant’s hesitation served to stop him. Catching up the letter, he thrust it into his breast pocket, and set off across country again at a tearing pace, not waiting to see MacEveril.

He seemed to have flown over hedges and ditches and to be home in no time. Little wonder that when he was seen sitting under the walnut tree in the garden and was called in to tea, his mother and sister exclaimed at his heated face. They never suspected he had been out.

All that night Oliver lay awake: partly wondering how he should dispose of his prize to make it available; partly telling himself, in shame-faced reproach, that he would not use it, but send it back to old Paul. It came into his mind that if he did use it he might change it at the silversmith’s as if for the Todhetleys, the Squire’s name on the back suggesting the idea to him. It would not do, he thought, to go into a shop, any shop, purchase some trifling article and tender a ten-pound note in payment. That might give rise to suspicion. Some months before, when at Crabb Cot, he had heard Mrs. Todhetley relate the history of her brooch, where she bought it, what she paid for it, and all about it, to Colonel Letsom’s wife and other people, for it happened that several callers had come in together. The brooch had been passed round the company and admired. Oliver remembered this, and resolved to make use of it to disarm suspicion at the silversmith’s. He knew the principal shops in Worcester very well indeed, and Worcester itself. He had stayed for some time, when sixteen, with an uncle who was living there; but he had not visited the city since coming to Duck Brook.

Thursday, the day following that on which he took the money, was the day of the picnic. Oliver started with Jane for it in the morning, as may be remembered, the ten-pound note hidden safely about him. Much to Oliver’s surprise his mother put seven shillings into his hand. “You’ll not want to use it, and must give it me back to-morrow,” she said, “but it does not look well to go to a thing of this sort with quite empty pockets.” Oliver thanked her, kissed her, and they drove off. Before reaching Mrs. Jacob Chandler’s, after passing Islip Grange—the property of Lady Fontaine, as may be remembered, who was first cousin to John Paul—they overtook Sam, walking on to take back the gig. “We may as well get out here,” said Oliver, and he pulled up. Getting out, and helping out Jane, he sent Sam and the gig back at once. He bade his sister walk on alone to Mrs. Chandler’s, saying he wanted to do a little errand first. But he charged her not to mention that; only to say, if questioned, that he would join them by-and-by. He ran all the way to the station, regardless of the heat, and caught a train for Worcester.

The rest is known. Oliver changed the note at the silversmith’s, bought himself a pair of dandy gloves, with one or two other small matters, and made the best of his way back again. But it was past the middle of the afternoon when he got to the picnic: trains do not choose our time for running, but their own. Jane wondered where he had been. Hearing of the pigeon-match, she thought it was there. She asked him, in a whisper, where he had found those delicate gloves; Oliver laughed and said something about a last relic from Tours.

And there it was. He had taken the note; he, Oliver Preen; and got the gold for it. That day of the picnic was in truth the worst he had ever experienced, the one hard day of all his life, as he had remarked to Jane. Not only had he committed a deed in it which might never be redeemed, but he also learnt that Emma Paul’s love was given not to him, but to another. It was for her sake he had coveted new gloves and money in his pockets, that he might not look despicable in her sight.

The dearest and surest of expectations are those that fail. While Oliver, as the days went on, was feverishly looking out, morning after morning, for the remittance from Tours, he received a letter to say it was not coming. His friend, with many expressions of regret, wrote to the effect that he was unable to send it at present; later, he hoped to do so. Of course, it never came. And Oliver had not been able to replace the money, and—this was the end of it.

In a whispering, sobbing tone, he told these particulars by degrees to Jane as they sat there. She tried to comfort him; said it might never be known beyond themselves at home; rather advocated his going away for a short time, as proposed, while things righted themselves, and their father’s anger cooled down. But Oliver could not be comforted. Then, leaving the unsatisfactory theme, she tried another, and began telling him of the wedding at Islip that morning, and of how Tom and Emma looked——

“Don’t, Jane,” he interrupted; and his wailing, shrinking tone seemed to betray the keenest pain of all.

They walked home together in silence, Jane clinging to his arm. The night shades lay upon the earth, the stars were shining in the sky. Oliver laid his hand upon the garden gate and paused.

“Do you remember, Jane, when I was coming in here for the first time, how a strange shiver took me, and you thought I must have caught a chill. It was a warning, my dear; a warning of the evil that lay in store for me.”

He would not go into the parlour to supper, but went softly up to his room and shut himself in for the night. Poor Oliver! Poor, poor Oliver!

The following day, Friday, Mr. Preen, allowing himself the unwonted luxury of a holiday for a day’s shooting, was away betimes. For the afternoon and evening, Mrs. Jacob Chandler’s daughters, Clementina, Georgiana, and Julietta, had organised a party to celebrate their cousin Tom’s wedding; Miss Julietta called it a “flare-up.”

Jane Preen had promised, for herself and for Oliver, to be there by three o’clock. For Oliver! She made herself ready after dinner; and then, looking everywhere for her brother, found him standing in the road just outside the garden gate. He said he was not going. Jane reproached him, and he quite laughed at her. He go into company now! she might know better. But Jane had great influence over him, and as he walked with her along the road—for she was going to walk in and walk back again at night—she nearly persuaded him to fetch her. Only nearly; not quite. Oliver finally refused, and they had almost a quarrel.

Then the tears ran down Jane’s cheeks. Her heart was aching to pain for him; and her object in pressing him to come was to take him out of his loneliness.

“Just this one evening, Oliver!” she whispered, clinging to him and kissing him. “I don’t ask you a favour often.”

And Oliver yielded. “I’ll come for you, Janey,” he said, kissing her in return. “That is, I will come on and meet you; I cannot go to the house.”

With that, they parted. But in another minute, Jane was running back again.

“You will be sure to come, Oliver? You won’t disappoint me? You won’t go from your word?”

Oliver felt a little annoyed; the sore heart grows fretful. “I swear I’ll come, then,” he said; “I’ll meet you, alive or dead.”

I was at the party. Not Tod; he had gone shooting. We spent the afternoon in the garden. It was not a large party, after all; only the Letsoms, Jane Preen, and the Chandler girls; but others were expected later. Jane had a disconsolate look. Knowing nothing of the trouble at Duck Brook, I thought she was sad because Valentine had not come early, according to promise. We knew later that he had been kept by what he called a long-winded client.

At five o’clock we went indoors to tea. Those were the days of real, old-fashioned teas, not sham ones, as now. Hardly had we seated ourselves round the table, and Mrs. Jacob Chandler was inquiring who took sugar and who didn’t, when one of the maids came in.

“If you please, Miss Preen, the gig is come for you,” she said.

“The gig!” exclaimed Jane. “Come for me! You must be mistaken, Susan.”

“It is at the gate, Miss Jane, and Sam’s in it. He says that his master and missus have sent him to take you home immediate.”

Jane, all astonishment, followed by some of us, went out to see what Sam could mean. Sam only repeated in a stolid kind of way the message he had given to Susan. His master and mistress had despatched him for Miss Jane and she must go home at once.

“Is anything the matter?—anyone ill?” asked Jane, turning pale.

Sam, looking more stolid than before, professed not to know anything; he either did not or would not. Miss Jane had to go, and as quick as she could, was all he would say.

Jane put on her things, said good-bye in haste, and went out again to the gig. Sam drove off at a tangent before she had well seated herself.

“Now, Sam, what’s the matter?” she began.

Sam, in about three stolid words, protested, as before, he couldn’t say what was the matter; except that he had been sent off for Miss Jane.

Jane noticed, and thought it odd, that he did not look at her as he spoke, though he was frank and open by habit; he had never looked in any of their faces since coming to the door.

“Where’s Mr. Oliver?” she asked. But Sam only muttered that he “couldn’t say,” and drove swiftly.

They went on in silence after that, Jane seeing it would be useless to inquire further, and were soon at Duck Brook. She felt very uneasy. What she feared was, that her father and Oliver might have quarrelled, and that the latter was about to be turned summarily out of doors.

“Why, there’s Mr. Oliver!” she exclaimed. “Pull up, Sam.”

They were passing the first Inlet. Oliver stood at the top of it, facing the road, evidently looking out for her, as Jane thought. His gaze was fixed, his face white as death.

“I told you to pull up, Sam; how dare you disobey me and drive on in that way?” cried Jane; for Sam had whipped up the horse instead of stopping. Jane, looking at his face saw it had gone white too.

“There he is! there he is again! There’s Mr. Oliver!”

They had approached the other Inlet as Jane spoke. Oliver stood at the top of it, exactly as he had stood at the other, his gaze fixed on her, his face ghastly. Not a muscle of his face moved; a dead man could not be more still. Sam, full of terror, was driving on like lightning, as if some evil thing were pursuing him.

And now Jane turned pale. What did it mean? these two appearances? It was totally impossible for Oliver to be at the last Inlet, if it was he who stood at the other. A bird of the air might have picked him up, carried him swiftly over the trees and dropped him at the second Inlet; nothing else could have done it in the time. What did it mean?

Mr. Preen was waiting at the door to receive Jane. He came a little way with slow steps down the path to meet her as the gig stopped. She ran in at the gate.

“What has happened, papa?” she cried. “Where’s Oliver?”

Oliver was upstairs, lying upon his bed—dead. Mr. Preen disclosed it to her as gently as he knew how.

It was all too true. Oliver had died about two hours before. He had shot himself at the Inlets, close by the melancholy osiers that grew over the brook.

Oliver had accompanied Jane to the end of Brook Lane. There, at the Islip Road, they parted; she going on to Crabb, Oliver walking back again. Upon reaching the Inlets, that favourite spot of his, he sat down on the bench that faced the highway; the self-same bench Jane had sat on when she was watching for his arrival from Tours, in the early days of spring. He had not sat there above a minute when he saw his father, with one or two more gentlemen, get over the gate from the field opposite. They were returning from shooting, and had their guns in their hands. Mr. Preen walked quickly over the road to Oliver.

“Take my gun indoors,” he said; “I am not going in just yet. It is loaded.”

He walked away down the road with his friends, after speaking. Oliver took the gun, walked slowly down one of the Inlets, and placed himself on the nearest bench there, lodging the gun against the end. In a few minutes there arose a loud report.

Sam was in the upper part of the field on the other side the brook with the waggon and waggoner. He turned to look where the noise came from, and thought he saw some one lying on the ground by the bench. They both came round in haste, he and the waggoner, and found Oliver Preen lying dead with the gun beside him. Running for assistance, Sam helped to carry him home, and then went for the nearest doctor; but it was all of no avail. Oliver was dead.

Was it an accident, or was it intentional? People asked the question. At the coroner’s inquest, Mr. Preen, who was so affected he could hardly give evidence, said that, so far as he believed, Oliver was one of the last people likely to lay violent hands on himself; he was of too calm and gentle a temperament for that. The rustic jury, pitying the father and believing him, gave Oliver the benefit of the doubt. Loaded guns were dangerous, they observed, apt to go off of themselves almost; and they brought it in Accidental Death.

But Jane knew better. I thought I knew better. I’m afraid Mr. Preen knew better.

And what of that appearance of Oliver which Jane saw? It could not have been Oliver in the flesh, but I think it must have been Oliver in the spirit. Many a time and oft in the days that followed did Jane recount it over to me; it seemed a relief to her distress to talk of it. “He said he would come, alive or dead, to meet me; and he came.”

And I, Johnny Ludlow, break off here to state that the account of this apparition is strictly true. Every minute particular attending it, even to the gig coming with Sam in it to fetch Jane from the tea-table, is a faithful record of that which occurred.

I took an opportunity of questioning Sam, asking whether he had seen the appearance. It was as we were coming away from the grave after the funeral. Oliver was buried in Duck Brook churchyard, close under the clock which had told him the time when he stood with his father posting the letters that past afternoon at Dame Sym’s window. “We are too late, father,” he had said. But for being too late the tragedy might never have happened, for the letter, which caused all the trouble and commotion, would have reached Mr. Paul’s hands safely the next morning.

“No, sir,” Sam answered me, “I can’t say that I saw anything. But just as Miss Jane spoke, calling out that Mr. Oliver was there, a kind of shivering wind seemed to take me, and I turned icy cold. It was not her words that could have done it, sir, for I was getting so before she spoke. And at the last Inlet, when she called it out again, I went almost out of my mind with cold and terror. The horse was affrighted too; his coat turned wet.”

That was the tragedy: no one can say I did wrong to call it one. For years and years it has been in my mind to write it. But I had hoped to end the paper less sadly; only the story has lengthened itself out, and there’s no space left. I meant to have told of Jane’s brighter fate in the after days with Valentine, the one lover of her life. For Val pulled himself up from his reckless ways, though not at Islip; and in a distant land they are now sailing down the stream of life together, passing through, as we all have to do, its storms and its sunshine. All this must be left for another paper.