When the first vexation was overcome, the most prominent thought that remained to Mrs. Arkell was, what a fool she had been, not to treat Betsey better—one never knew what would turn up. All that could be done was, to begin to treat her well now: but it required diplomacy.

Mrs. Arkell began by being gracious to Mildred, by being quite motherly in her behaviour to Lucy; this took her often to Miss Arkell's, and consequently into the society of Mrs. Dundyke. Sisterly affection must not be displayed all at once; it should come by degrees.

As a preliminary, Mrs. Arkell introduced to her sister and Mildred as many of her influential friends in Westerbury as she could prevail upon them to receive. This was not many. Gentle at heart as both were, neither of them felt inclined to be patronized by Mrs. Arkell now, after her lifetime of neglect. They therefore declined the introductions, allowing an exception only in the persons of the Miss Fauntleroys, who were so soon, through the marriage of Travice and Barbara, to be allied to the family. Mrs. Dundyke was glad to renew her acquaintance with Mr. Prattleton and his daughter.

Both the Miss Fauntleroys were making preparations for their marriage, for the younger one had accepted Mr. Benjamin Carr. The old squire, so fond of money, was in an ecstacy at the match his fortunate son was going to make, and Ben had just now taken a run up to Birmingham to look at some furniture he had seen advertised. Ben had a good deal of the rover in his nature still, and was glad of an excuse for taking a run anywhere.

The Miss Fauntleroys grew rather intimate at Mildred's. Their bouncing forms and broad good-natured faces, were often to be seen at the door. They began rather to be liked there; their vulgarity lessened with custom, their well-meaning good humour won its own way. They invited Miss Arkell, her niece, and guest, to spend a long afternoon with them and help them with some plain work they were doing for the poor sewing-club—for they were adepts in useful sewing, were the Miss Fauntleroys—and to remain to dinner afterwards. Lucy would have given the whole world to refuse: but she had no ready plea; and she had not the courage to make one. So she went with the rest.

She was sitting at one of the windows of the large drawing-room with Lizzie Fauntleroy, both of them at work at the same article, a child's frock, when Travice Arkell entered. Lucy's was the first face he saw: and so entirely unexpected was the sight of it to him, that, for once in his life, he nearly lost his self-possession. No wonder; with the consciousness upon him of the tardy errand that had taken him there—that of asking his future bride to appoint a time for their union. Once more Mr. Arkell had spoken to his son: "You must not continue to act in this way, Travice; it is not right; it is not manly. Marry Miss Fauntleroy, or give her up; do which you decide to do, but it must be one or the other." And he came straight from the conference, as he had on the former occasion, to ask her when the wedding day should be. He could not sully his honour by choosing the other alternative.

A hesitating pause, he looking like one who has been caught in some guilty act, and then he walked on and shook hands with Miss Fauntleroy. He shook hands with them all in succession; with Lucy last: that is, he touched the tips of her fingers, turning his conscious face the other way.

"Have you brought me any message from Mrs. Arkell?" asked Miss Fauntleroy, for it was so unusual a thing for Travice to call in the day that she concluded he had come for some specific purpose.

"No. I—I came to speak to you myself," he answered. And his words were so hesitating, his manner so uncertain, that they looked at him in surprise; he who was usually self-possessed to a fault. Miss Fauntleroy rose and left the room with him.

She came back in about a quarter of an hour, giggling, laughing, her face more flushed than ordinary, her manner inviting inquiry. Lizzie Fauntleroy, with one of those unladylike, broad allusions she was given to use, said to the company that by the looks of Bab, she should think Mr. Travice Arkell had been asking her to name the day. There ensued a loud laugh on Barbara's part, some skirmishing with her sister, and then a tacit acknowledgment that the surmise was correct, and that she had named it. Lucy sat perfectly still: her head apparently as intent upon her work as were her hands.

"Liz may as well name it for herself," retorted Barbara. "Ben Carr has wanted her to do it before now."

"There's no hurry," said Lizzie. "For me, at any rate. When one's going to marry a man so much older than oneself, one is apt not to be over ardent for it."

They continued to work, an industrious party. Accidentally, as it seemed, the conversation turned upon the strange events which had occurred at Geneva: it was through Mrs. Dundyke's mentioning some embroidery she had just given to Mary Prattleton. The Miss Fauntleroys, who had only, as they phrased it, heard the story at second-hand, besought her to tell it to them. And she complied with the request.

They suspended their work as they listened. It is probable that not a single incident was mentioned that the Miss Fauntleroys had not heard before; but the circumstances altogether were of that nature that bear hearing—ay, and telling—over and over again, as most mysteries do. Their chief curiosity turned—it was only natural it should—on Mr. Hardcastle, and they asked a great many questions.

"I would have scoured the whole country but what I'd have found him," cried Barbara. "Genoa! Rely upon it, he and his wife turned their faces in just the contrary direction as soon as they left Geneva. A nice pair."

"Do you think," asked Lucy, in her quiet manner, raising her eyes to Mrs. Dundyke, "that Mr. Hardcastle followed him for the purpose of attacking and robbing him?"

"Ah, my dear, I cannot tell. It is a question that I often ask myself. I feel inclined to think that he did not. One thing I seem nearly sure of—that he did not intend to injure him. I have not the least doubt that Mr. Hardcastle was at his wit's end for money to pay his hotel bill, and that the thirty pounds my poor husband mentioned as having received that morning, was an almost irresistible temptation. There's no doubt he followed him to the borders of the lake; that he induced him, by some argument, to walk away with him, across the country; but whether he did this with the intention of——"

"Did Mr. Dundyke not clear this up after his return?" interrupted Lizzie Fauntleroy.

"Never clearly; his recollections remained so confused. I have thought at times, that the crime only came with the opportunity," continued Mrs. Dundyke, reverting to what she was saying. "It is possible that the heat of the day and the long walk, though why Mr. Hardcastle should have caused him to take that long walk, unless he had ulterior designs, I cannot tell—may have overpowered my husband with a faintness, and Mr. Hardcastle seized the opportunity to rifle his pocket-book."

"You seem to be more lenient in your judgment of Mr. Hardcastle than I should be," observed Lizzie Fauntleroy.

"I have thought of it so long and so often, that I believe I have grown to judge of the past impartially," was Mrs. Dundyke's answer. "At first I was very much incensed against the man; I am not sure but I thought hanging too good for him; but I grew by degrees to look at it more reasonably."

"And the pencil?"

"He must have taken it from the pocket-book in his hurry, when he took the money. That he did it all in haste, the not finding the two half-notes for fifty pounds proves."

"Suppose Mr. Dundyke had returned to Geneva the next day and confronted him. What then?"

"Ah, I don't know. Mr. Hardcastle relied, perhaps, upon being able to make good his own story, and he knew that David had the most unbounded faith in him."

"Well, take it in its best light—that Mr. Dundyke fainted from the heat of the sun—the man must have been a brute to leave him alone," concluded Lizzie Fauntleroy.

"Yes," was the answer, as a faint colour rose to Mrs. Dundyke's cheek; "that I can never forgive."

The afternoon and the work progressed satisfactorily, and dinner time arrived. Miss Fauntleroy had invited Travice to come and partake of it, but he said he had an engagement—which she did not half believe. The nearly bed-ridden old aunt came down to it, and was propped up to the table in an invalid chair. Miss Fauntleroy took the head; Miss Lizzie the foot. It was a well-spread board: Lawyer Fauntleroy's daughters liked good dinners. Their manners were more free at home than abroad, rather scaring Mildred. "How could Travice have chosen here?" she mentally asked.

"There's no gentlemen present, so I don't see why I should not give you a toast," suddenly exclaimed Lizzie Fauntleroy, as the servant was pouring out the first glass of champagne. "The bridegroom and bride elect. Mr. Travice Ar——"

Lizzie stopped in surprise. Peeping in at the door, in a half-jocular, half-deprecatory manner, as if he would ask pardon for entering at the unseasonable hour, was Mr. Benjamin Carr. His somewhat dusty appearance, and his over-coat on his arm, showed that he had then come from the station after his Birmingham journey. Lizzie, too hearty to be troubled with superfluous reticence or ceremony of any kind, started up with a shout of welcome.

Of course everything was dis-arranged. The visitors looked up with surprise; Barbara turned round and gave him her hand. Ben began an apology for sitting down in the state he was, and had handed his coat to a servant, when he found a firm hand laid upon his arm. He wheeled round, wondering who it was, and saw a widow's cap, and a face he did not in the first moment recognise.

"Mr. Hardcastle!"

With the words, the voice, the recognition came to him, and the past scenes at Geneva rose before his startled memory as a vivid dream. He might have brazened it out had he been taken less utterly by surprise, but that unnerved him: his face turned ashy white, his whole manner faltered. He looked to the door as if he would have bolted out of it; but somebody had closed it again.

Mrs. Dundyke turned her face to the amazed listeners, who had risen from their seats. But that it had lost its colour also, there was no trace in it of agitation: it was firm, rigid, earnest; and her voice was calm even to solemnity.

"Before heaven, I assert that this is the man who in Geneva called himself Mr. Hardcastle, who did that injury—much or little, he best knows—to my husband! He——"

"But this is Benjamin Carr!" interrupted the wondering Miss Fauntleroy.

"Yes; just so; Benjamin Carr," assented Mrs. Dundyke, in a tone that seemed to say she expected the words. "I recognised you, Benjamin Carr, on the last day of your stay in Geneva, when you were giving me that false order on Leadenhall Street. From the moment I first saw you, the morning after we arrived at Geneva, your eyes puzzled me. I knew I had seen them somewhere before, and I told my poor husband so; but I could not recollect where. In the hour of your leaving, the recollection came to me; and I knew that the eyes were those of Benjamin Carr, or eyes precisely similar to his. I thought it must be the latter; I could not suppose that Squire Carr's son, a gentleman born and reared——"

But here a startling interruption intervened. It suddenly occurred to Miss Lizzie Fauntleroy, amidst the general confusion outward and inward, that the Mr. Hardcastle who had figured in the dark and disgraceful story, was said to have been accompanied by a wife. Considering that he was now designing to confer that honour upon her, the reflection was not agreeable. Miss Lizzie came to a hasty conclusion, that the real Mrs. Carr must be lying perdue somewhere, while he prosecuted his designs upon herself and her money, conveniently ignoring the result of what he might be running his head wholesale into—a prosecution for bigamy. She went butting at him, her voice raised to a shriek, her nails out, alarmingly near to his face.

"You false, desperate, designing villain! You dare to come courting me as a single man! You nearly drew me into a marriage! Where's your wife? Where's your wife, villain?"

This charge was a mistaken one, and Ben Carr somewhat rallied his scared senses. "It is false," he said. "I swear on my honour that I have no wife; I swear that I never have had one."

"You had your wife with you in Geneva," said Mrs. Dundyke.

"She was not my wife. Lizzie Fauntleroy, can't you believe me? I have never married yet. I never thought of marrying until I saw you."

"It's all the same now," said Lizzie, with equanimity. "I don't like tricks played me. Better that I should have discovered this before marriage than after."

"It is false, on my honour. You will not allow it to make any difference to our——"

"Not allow it to make any difference," interposed Lizzie, imperiously cutting short his words. "Do you take me for a fool, Ben Carr? You've seen the last of me, I can tell you that; and if pa were living still, he should prosecute you for getting my consent to a marriage under false pretences."

"If I do not prosecute you, Benjamin Carr," resumed Mrs. Dundyke, "you owe it partly to my consideration for your family, partly to the unhappy fact that it could not bring my poor husband back to life. It could not restore to him the mental power he lost, the faculties that were destroyed. It could not bring back to me my lost happiness. How far you may have been guilty, I know not. It must rest with your conscience, and so shall your punishment."

He stood something like a stag at bay—half doubting whether to slink away, whether to turn and beard his pursuers. Barbara Fauntleroy threw wide the door.

"You had better quit us, I think, Mr. Carr."

"I see what it is," said he, at length, to the Miss Fauntleroys. "You are just now too prejudiced to listen to reason. The tale that woman has been telling you of me is a mistaken one; and when you are calm, I will endeavour to convince you of it."

"Calm, man!" cried Barbara, with a laugh. "I'm calm enough. It isn't such an interlude, as this, that could take any calmness away from me. It has been as good to me as a scene at the play."

But the gentleman did not wait to hear the conclusion. He had escaped through the open door. Those left stared at one another.

"Come along," said Lizzie, with unruffled composure; "don't let the dinner get colder than it is. I dare say I'm well rid of him. Where's our glasses of champagne? A drop will do us all good. Oh dear, Mrs. Dundyke! Pray don't suffer it to trouble you!"

She had sat down in a far corner, poor woman, with her face hidden, drowned in a storm of silent tears.

The event, quickly though it had transpired—over, as it were, in a moment—exercised a powerful influence on the spirits of Mrs. Dundyke. It brought the old trouble so vividly before her, that she could not rally again as the days went on; and she told Mildred that she should go back to London, but would come to her again at a future time. The resolution was a sudden one. Mrs. Arkell happened to call the same day, and was told of it.

"Going back to London to-morrow!" repeated Mrs. Arkell in consternation; and she hastened to her sister's room.

Mrs. Dundyke had her drawers all out, and her travelling trunk open, beginning to put things together. Mrs. Arkell went in, and closed the door.

"Betsey, you are going back, I hear; therefore I must at once ask the question that I have been intending to ask before your departure. It may sound to you somewhat premature: I don't know. Will you forget and forgive?"

"Forget and forgive what?"

"My coldness during the past years."

"I am willing to forgive it, Charlotte, if that will do you any good. To forget it is an impossibility."

Mrs. Dundyke spoke with civil indifference. She was wrapping different toilet articles in paper, and she continued her occupation. Mrs. Arkell, in a state of bitter vexation at the turn things had taken, terribly self-repentant that she should have pursued a line of conduct so inimical to her own interests, sat down on a low chair, and fairly burst into tears.

"Why, what's the matter, Charlotte?"

"You are a rich woman now, and therefore you despise us. We are growing poor."

"How can you talk such nonsense!" exclaimed Mrs. Dundyke, screwing down the silver stopper of a scent-bottle. "If I became as rich and as grand as a duke, it could never cause me to make the slightest difference in my conduct to anybody, high or low."

"Our intercourse has been so cold, so estranged, during this visit!"

"And, but that you find I am a little better off than you thought for, would you have allowed it to be otherwise than cold and estranged?" returned Mrs. Dundyke, putting down the scent-bottle, and facing her sister.

There was no reply. What, indeed, could there be?

"Charlotte," said Mrs. Dundyke, dropping her voice to earnestness, as she went close to her sister, "the past wore me out. Ask yourself what your treatment of me was—for years, and years, and years. You know how I loved you—how I tried to conciliate you by every means in my power—to be to you a sister; and you would not. You threw my affection back upon myself; you prevented Mr. Arkell and your children coming to me; you heaped unnecessary scorn upon my husband. I bore it; I strove against it; but my patience and my love gave way at last, and I am sorry to say resentment grew in its place. Those feelings of affection, worn out by slow degrees, can never grow again."

"It is as much as to say that you hate me!"

"Not so. We can be civil when we meet; and that can be as often as circumstances bring us into the same locality. But I do not think there can ever be cordiality between us again."

"I had thought you were of a forgiving disposition, Betsey."

"So I am."

"I had thought——" Mrs. Arkell paused a moment, as if half ashamed of what she was about to say—"I had thought to enlist your sisterly feelings for me; that is, for my daughters. You are rich now; you have plenty of money to spare; and their patrimony has dwindled down to nothing—nothing compared to what it ought to have been. They——"

"Stay, Charlotte. We may as well come to an understanding on this point at once; it will serve for always. Your daughters have never condescended to recognise me in their lives; it was perhaps your fault, perhaps theirs: I don't know. But the effect upon me has not been a pleasant one. I shall decline to help them."

Mrs. Arkell's proud spirit was rising. What it had cost thus to bend herself to her life-despised sister, she alone knew. She beat her foot upon the hearth-rug.

"I don't know how they'll get along. But for Mr. Arkell's having kept on the business for Travice, we should be rich still. He has always been a fool in some things."

"Don't disparage your husband before me, Charlotte; I shall not listen calmly; you were never worthy of him. I love Mr. Arkell for his goodness, and I love your son. If you asked me for help for Travice, you should have it; never for your daughters."

"Very kind, I'm sure! when you know he does not want it," was the provoking and angry answer. "Travice is placed above requiring your help, by marriage with Miss Fauntleroy."

And Mrs. Arkell gave her head a scornful toss as she went out, and banged the chamber-door after her.