For a few moments the old man and the young man gazed at one another, alike in this only that neither found words equal to his feelings. While Mary, covered with confusion, blushing for the situation in which she had been found, could not hold up her head. It was Sir Robert who at last broke the silence in a voice which trembled with passion.

"You viper!" he said. "You viper! You would sting me-here also."

Vaughan stared at him, aghast. The intrusion was outrageous, but astonishment rather than anger was the young man's first feeling. "Here also?" he repeated, as if he thought that he must have heard amiss. "I sting you? What do you mean? Why have you followed me?" And then more warmly, "How dare you, sir, spy on me?" And he threw back his head in wrath.

The old man, every nerve and vein in his lean, high forehead swollen and leaping, raised his cane and shook it at him. "Dare? Dare?" he cried, and then for very rage his voice failed him.

Vaughan closed his eyes and opened them again. "I am dreaming," he said. "I must be dreaming. Are you Sir Robert Vermuyden? Is this house Miss Sibson's school? Are we in Bristol? Or is it all-but first, sir," recalling abruptly and with indignation the situation in which he had been surprised, and raising his tone, "how come you here? I have a right to know that!"

"How come I here?"

"Yes! How come you here, sir?"

"You ask me! You ask me!" Sir Robert repeated, as if he could not believe his ears. "How I come here! You scoundrel! You scoundrel!"

Vaughan started under the lash of the word. The insult was gratuitous, intolerable! No relationship, no family tie could excuse it. No wonder that the astonishment and irritation which had been his first feelings, gave way to pure anger. Sir Robert might be this or that. He might have, or rather, he might have had certain rights. But now all that was over, the relationship was a thing of the past. And to suppose that he was still to suffer the old gentleman's interference, to put up with his insults, to permit him in the presence of a young girl, his promised wife, to use such language as he was using, was out of the question. Vaughan's face grew dark.

"Sir Robert," he said, "you are too old to be called to account. You may say, therefore, what you please. But not-not if you are a gentleman-until this young lady has left the room."

"This-young-lady!" Sir Robert gasped in an indescribable tone: and with the cane quivering in his grasp he looked from Vaughan to the girl.

"Yes," Vaughan answered sternly. "That young lady! And do not let me hear you call her anything else, sir, for she has promised to be my wife."

"You lie!" the baronet cried, the words leaping from his lips.

"Sir Robert!"

"My daughter-promised to be your wife! My-my-"

"Your daughter!"

"Hypocrite!" Sir Robert retorted, flinging the word at him. "You knew it! You knew it!"

"Your daughter?"

"Ay, that she was my daughter!"

"Your daughter!"

This time the words fell from Arthur Vaughan in a whisper. And he stood, turned to stone. His daughter? Sir Robert's daughter? The girl-he tried desperately to clear his mind-of whom Wetherell had told the story, the girl whom her mother had hidden away, while in Italy, the girl whose reappearance in life had ousted him or was to oust him from his inheritance? Mary Smith-was that girl! His daughter!

But no! The blood leapt back to his heart. It was impossible, it was incredible! The coincidence was too great, too amazing. His reason revolted against it. And "Impossible!" he cried in a louder, a bolder tone-though fear underlay its confidence. "You are playing with me! You must be jesting!" he repeated angrily.

But the elder man, though his hand still trembled on his cane and his face was sallow with rage, had regained some control of himself. Instead of retorting on Vaughan-except by a single glance of withering contempt-he turned to Mary. "You had better go to your room," he said, coldly but not ungently. For how could he blame her, bred amid such surroundings, for conduct that in other circumstances had irritated him indeed? For conduct that had been unseemly, unmaidenly, improper. "You had better go to your room," he repeated. "This is no fit place for you and no fit discussion for your ears. I am not-the fault is not with you, but it will be better if you leave us."

She was rising, too completely overwhelmed to dream of refusing, when Vaughan interposed. "No," he said with a gleam of defiance in his eyes. "By your leave, sir, no! This young lady is my affianced wife. If it be her own wish to retire, be it so. But if not, there is no one who has the right to bid her go or stay. You" – checking Sir Robert's wrathful rejoinder by a gesture-"you may be her father, but before you can exercise a father's rights you must make good your case."

"Make good my case!" Sir Robert ejaculated.

"And when you have made it good, it will still be for her to choose between us," Vaughan continued with determination. "You, who have never played a father's part, who have never guided or guarded, fostered or cherished her-do not think, sir, that you can in a moment arrogate to yourself a father's authority."

Sir Robert gasped. But the next moment he took up the glove so boldly flung down. He pointed to the door, and with less courtesy than the occasion demanded-but he was sore pressed by his anger, "Leave the room, girl," he said.

"Do as you please, Mary," Vaughan said.

"Go!" cried the baronet, stung by the use of her name. "Stay!" said Vaughan.

Infinitely distressed, infinitely distracted by this appeal from the one, from the other, from this side, from that, she turned her swimming eyes on her lover. "Oh, what," she cried, "what am I to do?"

He did not speak, but he looked at her, not doubting what she would do, nor conceiving it possible that she could prefer to him, her lover, whose sweet professions were still honey in her ears, whose arm was still warm from the pressure of her form-that she could prefer to him, a father who was no more than the shadow of a name.

But he did not know Mary yet, either in her strength or her weakness. Nor did he consider that her father was already more than a name to her. She hung a moment undecided and wretched, drooping as the white rose that hangs its head in the first shower. Then she turned to the elder man, and throwing her arms about his neck hung in tears on his breast. "You will be good to him, sir," she whispered passionately. "Oh, forgive him! Forgive him, sir!"

"My dear-"

"Oh, forgive him, sir!"

Sir Robert smoothed her hair with a caressing hand, and with pinched lips and bright eyes looked at his adversary over her head. "I would forgive him," he said, "I could forgive him-all but this! All but this, my dear! I could forgive him had he not tricked you and deceived you, cozened you and flattered you-into this! Into the belief that he loves you, while he loves only your inheritance! Or that part," he added bitterly, "of which he has not already robbed you!"

"Sir Robert," Vaughan said, "you have stooped very low. But it will not avail you."

"It has availed me so far," the baronet retorted. With confidence he was regaining also command of himself.

Vaughan winced. In proportion as the other recovered his temper, he lost his.

"It will avail me still farther," Sir Robert continued exultantly, "when my daughter understands, as she shall understand, sir, that when you came here to-day, when you stole a march on me, as you thought, and proposed marriage to her behind my back, you knew all that I knew! Knew, sir, that she was my daughter, knew that she was my heiress, knew that she ousted you, knew that by a marriage with her, and by that only, you could regain all that you had lost!"

"It is a lie!" Vaughan cried, stung beyond endurance. He was pale with anger.

"Then refute it!" Sir Robert said, clasping the girl, who had involuntarily winced at the word, more closely to him. "Refute it, sir! Refute it!"

"It is absurd! It-it needs no refutation!" Vaughan cried.

"Why?" Sir Robert retorted. "I state it. I am prepared to prove it! I have three witnesses to the fact!"

"To the fact that I-"

"That you knew," Sir Robert replied. "Knew this lady to be my daughter when you came here this morning-as well as I knew it myself."

Vaughan returned his look in speechless indignation. Did the man really believe in a charge, which at first had seemed to be mere vulgar abuse. It was not possible! "Sir Robert," he said, speaking slowly and with dignity, "I never did you harm by word or deed until a day or two ago. And then, God knows, perforce and reluctantly. How then can you lower yourself to-to such a charge as this?"

"Do you deny then," the baronet replied with contemptuous force, "do you dare to deny-to my face, that you knew?"

Vaughan stared. "You will say presently," he replied, "that I knew her to be your daughter when I made her acquaintance on the coach a week ago. At a time when you knew nothing yourself."

"As to that I cannot say one way or the other," Sir Robert rejoined. "I do not know how nor where you made her acquaintance. But I do know that an acquaintance so convenient, so coincident, could hardly be the work of chance!"

"Good G-d! Then you will say also that I knew who she was when I called on her the day after, and again two days after that-while you were still in ignorance?"

"I have said," the baronet answered with cold decision, "that I do not know how you made, nor why you followed up your acquaintance with her. But I have, I cannot but have my suspicions."

"Suspicions? Suspicions?" Vaughan cried bitterly. "And on suspicion, the base issue of prejudice and dislike-"

"No, sir, no!" Sir Robert struck in. "Though it may be that if I knew who introduced you to her, who opened this house to you, and the rest, I might find ground for more than suspicion! The schoolmistress might tell me somewhat, and-you wince, sir! Ay," he continued in a tone of triumph. "I see there is something to be learned! But it is not upon suspicion that I charge you to-day! It is upon the best of grounds. Did you not before my eyes and in the presence of two other witnesses, read, no farther back than the day before yesterday, in the drawing-room of my house, the whole story of my daughter's movements up to her departure from London for Bristol! With the name of the school to which she was consigned? Did you not, sir? Did you not?"

"Never! Never!"

"What?" The astonishment in Sir Robert's voice was so real, so unfeigned, that it must have carried conviction to any listener.

Vaughan passed his hand across his brow; and Mary, who had hitherto kept her face hidden, shivering under the stroke of each harsh word-for to a tender heart what could be more distressing than this strife between the two beings she most cherished? – raised her head imperceptibly. What would he answer? Only she knew how her heart beat; how sick she was with fear; how she shrank from that which the next minute might unfold!

And yet she listened.

"I-I remember now," Vaughan said-and the consternation he felt made itself heard in his voice. "I remember that I looked at a paper-"

"At a paper!" Sir Robert cried in a tone of withering contempt. "At a detailed account, sir, of my daughter's movements down to her arrival at Bristol! Do you deny that?" he continued grimly. "Do you deny that you perused that account?"

Vaughan stood for a moment with his hand pressed to his brow. He hesitated. "I remember taking a paper in my hands," he said slowly, his face flushing, as the probable inference from his words occurred to him. "But I was thinking so much of the disclosure you had made to me, and of the change it involved-to me, that-"

"That you took no interest in the written details!" Sir Robert cried in a tone of bitter irony.

"I did not."

"You did not read a word, I suppose?"

"I did not."

Before the baronet could utter the sneer which was on his lips, Mary interposed. "I-I would like to go," she murmured. "I feel rather faint!"

She detached herself from her father's arm as she spoke, and with her face averted from her lover, she moved uncertainly towards the door. She had no wish to look on him. She shrank from meeting his shamed eyes. But something, either the feeling that she would never see him again, and that this was the end of her maiden love, or the desperate hope that even at this last moment he might explain his admission-and those facts, "confirmation strong as hell" which she knew, but which Sir Robert did not know-one or other of these feelings made her falter on the threshold, made her turn. Their eyes met.

He stepped forward impulsively. He was white with pain, his face rigid. For what pain is stronger than the pang of innocence accused?

"One moment!" he said, in an unsteady voice. "If we part so, Mary, we part indeed! We part forever! I said awhile ago that you must choose between us. And you have chosen-it seems," he continued unsteadily. "Yet think! Give yourself, give me a chance. Will you not believe my word?" And he held out his arms to her. "Will you not believe that when I came to you this morning I thought you penniless? I thought you the unknown schoolmistress you thought yourself a week ago! Will you not trust me when I say that I never connected you with the missing daughter? Never dreamed of a connection? Why should I?" he added, in growing agitation as the words of his appeal wrought on himself. "Why should I? Or why do you in a moment think me guilty of the meanest, the most despicable, the most mercenary of acts?"

He was going to take her hand, but Sir Robert stepped between them, grim as fate and as vindictive. "No!" he said. "No! No more! You have given her pain enough, sir! Take your dismissal and go! She has chosen-you have said it yourself!"

He cast one look at Sir Robert, and then, "Mary," he asked, "am I to go?"

She was leaning, almost beside herself, against the door. And oh, how much of joy and sorrow she had known since she crossed the threshold. A man's embrace, and a man's treachery. The sweetness of love and the bitterness of-reality!

"Mary!" Vaughan repeated.

But the baronet could not endure this. "By G-d, no!" he cried, infuriated by the other's persistence, and perhaps a little by fear that the girl would give way. "You shall not soil her name with your lips, sir! You shall torture her no longer! You have your dismissal! Take it and go!"

"When she tells me with her own lips to go," Vaughan answered doggedly, "I will go. Not before!" For never had she seemed more desirable to him. Never, though contempt of her weakness wrestled with his love, had he wanted her more. Except that seat in the House which had cost him so dearly, she was all he had left. And it did not seem possible that she whom he had held so lately in his arms, she who had confessed her love for him, with whom he had vowed to share his life and his success, his lot good or bad-it did not seem possible that she could really believe this miserable, this incredible, this impossible thing of him! She could not! Or, if she could, he was indeed mistaken in her. "I shall go," he repeated coldly, "and I shall not return."

And Mary had not believed it of him, had she known him longer or better; had she known him as girls commonly know their lovers. But his wooing had been short, we know: and we know, too, the distrust of men in which she had been trained. He had taken her by storm, stooping to her from the height of his position, having on his side her poverty and loneliness, her inexperience and youth. Now all these things, and her ignorance of his world weighed against him. Was it to be supposed, could it be credited that he, who had come to her bearing her mother's commendation, knew nothing, though he was her kinsman? That he, who after plain hesitation and avowed doubt, laid all at her feet as soon as her father was prepared to acknowledge her-still sought her in ignorance? That he, who had read her story in black and white, still knew nothing?

No, she could not believe it. But it was a bitter thing to know that he did not love her, that he had not loved her! That he had come to her for gain! She must speak if it were only to escape, only to save herself from-from collapse. She yearned for nothing now so much as to be alone in her room.

"Good-bye," she muttered, with averted eyes and pallid lips. "I-I forgive you. Good-bye."

And she opened the door with groping fingers; and still, still looking away from him lest she should break down, she went out.

He drew a deep breath as she passed the threshold; and his eyes did not leave her. But he did not speak. Nor did Sir Robert Vermuyden until his daughter's step, light as thistledown that morning, and now uncertain and lagging, passed out of hearing, and-and at last a door closed on the floor above.

Then the elder man looked at the other. "Are you not going?" he said with stern meaning. "You have robbed me of my borough, sir-I give you joy of your cleverness. But you shall not rob me of my daughter!"

"I wonder which you love the better!" Vaughan snarled. And with the vicious gibe he took his hat and went.

XXI
A MEETING OF OLD FRIENDS

It was September. The House elected in those first days of May was four months old, and already it had fulfilled the hopes of the country. Without a division it had decreed the first reading, and by a majority of one hundred and thirty-six, the second reading of the People's Bill; that Bill by which the preceding House slaying, had been slain. New members were beginning to lose the first gloss of their enthusiasm; the youngest no longer ogled the M.P. on their letters, nor franked for the mere joy of franking. But the ministry still rode the flood tide of favour, Lord Grey was still his country's pride, and Brougham a hero. It only remained to frighten the House of Lords, and in particular those plaguy out-of-date fellows, the Bishops, into passing the Bill; and the battle would be won,

The streets be paved with mutton pies,
Potatoes eat like pine!

And, in fine, everyone would live happily ever afterwards.

To old Tories of the stamp of Sir Robert Vermuyden, the outlook was wholly dark. But it is not often that public care clouds private joy; and had Eldon been prime minister, with Wetherell for his Chancellor, the grounds of Stapylton could hardly have worn a more smiling aspect than they presented on the fine day in early September, which Sir Robert had chosen for his daughter's first party. The abrupt addition of a well-grown girl to a family of one is a delicate process. It is apt to open the door to scandal. And a little out of discretion, and more that she, who was now the apple of his eye, might not wear her wealth with a difference, nor lack anything of the mode, he had not hastened the occasion. A word had been dropped here and there-with care; the truth had been told to some, the prepossessions of others had been consulted. But at length the day was come on which she must stand by his side and receive the world of Wiltshire.

And she had so stood for more than an hour of this autumn afternoon; with such pride on his side as was fitting, and such blushes on hers as were fitting also. Now, the prime duty of reception over, and his company dispersed through the gardens, Sir Robert lingered with one or two of his intimates on the lawn before the house. In the hollow of the park hard by, stood the ample marquee in which his poorer neighbours were presently to feed; gossip had it that Sir Robert was already at work rebuilding his political influence. Near the tent, Hunt the Slipper and Kiss in the Ring were in progress, and Moneymusk was being danced to the strains of the Chippinge church band; the shrill voices of the rustic youth proving that their first shyness was wearing off. Within the gardens, a famous band from Bath played the new-fashioned quadrilles turn about with Moore's Irish Melodies; and a score of the fair, gorgeous as the dragon-flies which darted above the water, meandered delicately up and down the sward; or escorted by gentlemen in tightly strapped white trousers and blue coats-or in Wellington frocks, the latest mode-appeared and again disappeared among the elms beside the Garden Pool. In the background, the house, adorned and refurnished, winked with all its windows at the sunshine, gave forth from all its doors the sweet scent of flowers, throbbed to the very recesses of the haunted wing with small talk and light laughter, the tap of sandalled feet and the flirt of fans.

Sir Robert thanked his God as he looked upon it all. And five years younger in face and more like the Duke than ever, he listened, almost purring, to the praises of his new-found darling. The odds had been great that with such a breeding, she had been coarse or sly, common or skittish. And she was none of these things, but fair as a flower, slender as Psyche, sweet-eyed as a loving woman, dainty and virginal as the buds of May! And withal gentle and kind and obedient-above all, obedient. He could not thank God enough, as he read in the eyes of young men and old women, what they thought of her. And he was thanking Him, though in outward seeming he was attentive to an old friend's prattle, when his eyes fell on a carriage and four which, followed by two outriders, was sweeping past the marquee and breasting the gentle ascent to the house. All who were likely to arrive in such state, the Beauforts, Suffolks, Methuens, were come; the old Duke of Beaufort, indeed, and his daughter-in-law were gone again. So Sir Robert stared at the approaching carriage, wondering whom it might contain.

"They are the Bowood liveries," said his friend, who had longer sight. "I thought they had gone to town for the Coronation."

Sir Robert too had thought so. Indeed, though he had invited the Lansdownes upon the principle, which even the heats attending the Reform Bill did not wholly abrogate, that family friendships were above party-he had been glad to think that he would not see the spoliators. The trespass was too recent, the robbery too gross! Ay, and the times too serious.

Here they were, however; Lady Lansdowne, her daughter, and a small gentleman with a merry eye and curling locks. And Sir Robert repressed a sigh, and advanced four or five paces to meet them. But though he sighed, no one knew better what became a host; and his greeting was perfect. One of his bitterest flings at Bowood painted it as the common haunt of fiddlers and poets, actors and the like. But he received her ladyship's escort, who was no other than Mr. Moore of Sloperton, and of the Irish Melodies, with the courtesy which he would have extended to an equal; nor when Lady Lansdowne sent her girl to take tea under the poet's care did he let any sign of his reprobation appear. Those with whom he had been talking had withdrawn to leave him at liberty, and he found himself alone with Lady Lansdowne.

"We leave for Berkeley Square to-morrow, for the Coronation on the 8th," she said, playing with her fan in a way which would have betrayed to her intimates that she was not at ease. "I had many things to do this morning in view of our departure and I could not start early. You must accept our apologies, Sir Robert."

"It was gracious of your ladyship to come at all," he said.

"It was brave," she replied, with a gleam of laughter in her eyes. "In fact, though I bear my lord's warmest felicitations on this happy event, and wreathe them with mine, Sir Robert-"

"I thank your ladyship and Lord Lansdowne," he said formally.

"I do not think that I should have ventured," she continued with another glint of laughter, "did I not bear also an olive branch."

He bowed, but waited in silence for her explanation.

"One of a-a rather delicate nature," she said. "Am I permitted, Sir Robert, to-to speak in confidence?"

He did not understand and he sought refuge in compliments. "Permitted?" he said, with the gallant bow of an old beau. "All things are permitted to so much-"

"Hush!" she said. "But there! I will take you at your word. You know that the Bill-there is but one Bill now-a-days-is in Committee?"

He frowned, disliking the subject. "I don't think," he said, "that any good can come of discussing it, Lady Lansdowne."

"I think it may," she replied, with a confidence which she did not feel, "if you will hear me. It is whispered that there is a question in Committee of one of the doomed boroughs. One, I am told, Sir Robert, hangs between schedule A and schedule B; and that borough is Chippinge. Those who know whisper Lord Lansdowne that ultimately it will be plucked from the burning, and will be found in schedule B. Consequently it will retain one member."

Sir Robert's thin face turned a dull red. So the wicked Whigs, who had drawn the line of disfranchisement at such a point as to spare their pet preserves, their Calne and Bedford and the like, had not been able with all their craft to net every fish. One had evaded the mesh, and by Heavens, it was Chippinge! Chippinge, though shorn of its full glory, would still return one member. He had not hoped, he had not expected this. Now

Non omnis moriar, multaque pars mei
Vitabit Libitinam!

he thought with jubilation. And then another thought darted through his mind and changed his joy to chagrin. A seat had been left to Chippinge. But why? That Arthur Vaughan, that his renegade cousin, might continue to fill it, might continue to hold it, under his nose and to his daily, hourly, his constant mortification. By Heaven, it was too much! They had said well, who said that an enemy's gift was to be dreaded. But he would fight the seat, at the next election and at every election, rather than suffer that miserable person, miserable on so many accounts, to fill it at his will. And after all the seat was saved; and no one could tell the future. The lasting gain might outlive the temporary vexation.

So, after frowning a moment, he tried to smooth his brow. "And your mission, Lady Lansdowne," he said politely, "is to tell me this?"

"In part," she said, with hesitation, for the course, of his feelings had been visible in his countenance. "But also-"

"But also-and in the main," he answered with a smile, "to make a proposition, perhaps?"

"Yes."

He thought of the most obvious proposition, and he spoke in pursuance of his thought. "Then forgive me if I speak plainly," he said. "Whether the borough lose one member or both, whether it figure in schedule B, or in schedule A, cannot affect my opposition to the Bill! If you have it in commission, therefore, to make any proposal, based on a contrary notion, I cannot listen even to your ladyship."

"I have not," she answered with a smile. "Sir Robert Vermuyden's malignancy is too well known. Yet I am the bearer of a proposition. Suppose the Bill to become law, and I am told that it will surely become law, can we not avoid future conflict, and-I will not say future ill-will, for God knows there is none on our side, Sir Robert-but future friction, by an agreement? Of course it will not be possible to nominate members in the future as in the past. But for some time to come whoever is returned for Chippinge must be returned by your influence, or by my lord's."

He coughed drily. "Possibly," he said.

"In view of that," she continued, flirting her fan, as she watched his face-his manner was not encouraging, "and for the sake of peace between families, and a little, perhaps, because I do not wish Kerry to be beggared by contested elections, can we not now, while the future is on the lap of the gods-"

"In Committee," Sir Robert corrected with a grave bow.

She laughed pleasantly. "Well," she allowed, "perhaps it is not quite the same thing. But no matter! Whoever the Fates in charge, can we not," with her head on one side and a charming smile, "make a treaty of peace?"

"And what," Sir Robert asked with urbane sarcasm, "becomes of the rights of the people in that case, Lady Lansdowne? And of the purity of elections? And of the new and independent electors whom my lord has brought into being? Must we not think of these things?"

She looked for an instant rather foolish. Then she rallied, and with a slightly heightened colour, "In good time, we must," she replied. "But for the present it is plain that they will not be able to walk without assistance."

"What?" it was on the tip of his tongue to answer. "The new and independent electors? Not walk without assistance? Oh, what a change is here!" But he forbore. He said instead-but with the faintest shade of irony, "Without our assistance, I think you mean, Lady Lansdowne?"

"Yes. And that being so, why should we not agree, my lord and you-to save Kerry's pocket shall I say-to bring forward a candidate alternately?"

Sir Robert shook his head gravely. He would fight.

"Allowing to you, Sir Robert, as the owner of the influence hitherto dominant in the borough, the first return."

"The first return-after the Bill passes?"

"Yes."

That was a different thing. That was another thing altogether. A gleam of satisfaction shone for an instant under the baronet's bushy eyebrows. The object he had most at heart was to oust his treacherous cousin. And here was a method, sure and safe: more safe by far than any contest under the new Bill?

"Well I-I cannot say anything at this moment," he said, at last, trying to hide his satisfaction. "These heats once over I do not see-your ladyship will pardon me-why my influence should not still predominate."

It was Lady Lansdowne's turn. "And things be as before?" she answered. "No, Sir Robert, no. You forget those rights of the people which you were so kind as to support a moment ago. Things will not be as before. But-but perhaps I shall hear from you? Of course it is not a matter that can be settled, as in the old days, by our people."

"You shall certainly hear," he said, with something more than courtesy. "In the meantime-"

"I am dying to see your daughter," she answered. "I am told that she is very lovely. Where is she?"

"A few minutes ago she was in the Elm Walk," Sir Robert answered, a slight flush betraying his gratification. "I will send for her."