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Title: Two on a Tower

Author: Thomas Hardy

Release date: March 1, 2002 [eBook #3146]
Most recently updated: June 6, 2011

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3146

Credits: This etext was prepared from the 1923 Macmillan edition by
Les Bowler

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWO ON A
TOWER ***

This etext was prepared from the 1923 Macmillan edition by Les Bowler.

TWO ON A TOWER

by
THOMAS HARDY.

‘Ah, my heart! her eyes and she
Have taught thee new astrology.
Howe’er Love’s native hours were set,
Whatever starry synod met,
’Tis in the mercy of her eye,
If poor Love shall live or die.’
Crashaw: Love’s Horoscope.

WITH A MAP OF WESSEX.
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON
1923
COPYRIGHT
First published by Macmillan and Co., Crown 8vo, 1902
Reprinted 1907, 1911, 1916, 1923
Pocket Edition 1906. Reprinted 1909, 1912, 1915, 1918 1919, 1920, 1922,
1923
Wessex Edition (8vo) 1912
Reprinted 1920
printed in great britain

PREFACE.

This slightly-built romance was the outcome of a wish to set the emotional
history of two infinitesimal lives against the stupendous background of the
stellar universe, and to impart to readers the sentiment that of these
contrasting magnitudes the smaller might be the greater to them as men.
But, on the publication of the book people seemed to be less struck with
these high aims of the author than with their own opinion, first, that the
novel was an ‘improper’ one in its morals, and, secondly, that it was
intended to be a satire on the Established Church of this country. I was
made to suffer in consequence from several eminent pens.
That, however, was thirteen years ago, and, in respect of the first opinion, I
venture to think that those who care to read the story now will be quite
astonished at the scrupulous propriety observed therein on the relations of
the sexes; for though there may be frivolous, and even grotesque touches on
occasion, there is hardly a single caress in the book outside legal
matrimony, or what was intended so to be.
As for the second opinion, it is sufficient to draw attention, as I did at the
time, to the fact that the Bishop is every inch a gentleman, and that the
parish priest who figures in the narrative is one of its most estimable
characters.
However, the pages must speak for themselves. Some few readers, I trust—
to take a serious view—will be reminded by this imperfect story, in a
manner not unprofitable to the growth of the social sympathies, of the
pathos, misery, long-suffering, and divine tenderness which in real life
frequently accompany the passion of such a woman as Viviette for a lover
several years her junior.

The scene of the action was suggested by two real spots in the part of the
country specified, each of which has a column standing upon it. Certain
surrounding peculiarities have been imported into the narrative from both
sites.
T. H.
July 1895.

TWO ON A TOWER.

I

On an early winter afternoon, clear but not cold, when the vegetable world
was a weird multitude of skeletons through whose ribs the sun shone freely,
a gleaming landau came to a pause on the crest of a hill in Wessex. The
spot was where the old Melchester Road, which the carriage had hitherto
followed, was joined by a drive that led round into a park at no great
distance off.
The footman alighted, and went to the occupant of the carriage, a lady about
eight- or nine-and-twenty. She was looking through the opening afforded
by a field-gate at the undulating stretch of country beyond. In pursuance of
some remark from her the servant looked in the same direction.
The central feature of the middle distance, as they beheld it, was a circular
isolated hill, of no great elevation, which placed itself in strong chromatic
contrast with a wide acreage of surrounding arable by being covered with
fir-trees. The trees were all of one size and age, so that their tips assumed
the precise curve of the hill they grew upon. This pine-clad protuberance
was yet further marked out from the general landscape by having on its
summit a tower in the form of a classical column, which, though partly
immersed in the plantation, rose above the tree-tops to a considerable
height. Upon this object the eyes of lady and servant were bent.
‘Then there is no road leading near it?’ she asked.
‘Nothing nearer than where we are now, my lady.’
‘Then drive home,’ she said after a moment. And the carriage rolled on its
way.

A few days later, the same lady, in the same carriage, passed that spot
again. Her eyes, as before, turned to the distant tower.
‘Nobbs,’ she said to the coachman, ‘could you find your way home through
that field, so as to get near the outskirts of the plantation where the column
is?’
The coachman regarded the field. ‘Well, my lady,’ he observed, ‘in dry
weather we might drive in there by inching and pinching, and so get across
by Five-and-Twenty Acres, all being well. But the ground is so heavy after
these rains that perhaps it would hardly be safe to try it now.’
‘Perhaps not,’ she assented indifferently. ‘Remember it, will you, at a drier
time?’
And again the carriage sped along the road, the lady’s eyes resting on the
segmental hill, the blue trees that muffled it, and the column that formed its
apex, till they were out of sight.
A long time elapsed before that lady drove over the hill again. It was
February; the soil was now unquestionably dry, the weather and scene being
in other respects much as they had been before. The familiar shape of the
column seemed to remind her that at last an opportunity for a close
inspection had arrived. Giving her directions she saw the gate opened, and
after a little manoeuvring the carriage swayed slowly into the uneven field.
Although the pillar stood upon the hereditary estate of her husband the lady
had never visited it, owing to its insulation by this well-nigh impracticable
ground. The drive to the base of the hill was tedious and jerky, and on
reaching it she alighted, directing that the carriage should be driven back
empty over the clods, to wait for her on the nearest edge of the field. She
then ascended beneath the trees on foot.
The column now showed itself as a much more important erection than it
had appeared from the road, or the park, or the windows of Welland House,
her residence hard by, whence she had surveyed it hundreds of times
without ever feeling a sufficient interest in its details to investigate them.
The column had been erected in the last century, as a substantial memorial
of her husband’s great-grandfather, a respectable officer who had fallen in
the American war, and the reason of her lack of interest was partly owing to

her relations with this husband, of which more anon. It was little beyond
the sheer desire for something to do—the chronic desire of her curiously
lonely life—that had brought her here now. She was in a mood to welcome
anything that would in some measure disperse an almost killing ennui. She
would have welcomed even a misfortune. She had heard that from the
summit of the pillar four counties could be seen. Whatever pleasurable
effect was to be derived from looking into four counties she resolved to
enjoy to-day.
The fir-shrouded hill-top was (according to some antiquaries) an old Roman
camp,—if it were not (as others insisted) an old British castle, or (as the rest
swore) an old Saxon field of Witenagemote,—with remains of an outer and
an inner vallum, a winding path leading up between their overlapping ends
by an easy ascent. The spikelets from the trees formed a soft carpet over
the route, and occasionally a brake of brambles barred the interspaces of the
trunks. Soon she stood immediately at the foot of the column.
It had been built in the Tuscan order of classic architecture, and was really a
tower, being hollow with steps inside. The gloom and solitude which
prevailed round the base were remarkable. The sob of the environing trees
was here expressively manifest; and moved by the light breeze their thin
straight stems rocked in seconds, like inverted pendulums; while some
boughs and twigs rubbed the pillar’s sides, or occasionally clicked in
catching each other. Below the level of their summits the masonry was
lichen-stained and mildewed, for the sun never pierced that moaning cloud
of blue-black vegetation. Pads of moss grew in the joints of the stone-work,
and here and there shade-loving insects had engraved on the mortar patterns
of no human style or meaning; but curious and suggestive. Above the trees
the case was different: the pillar rose into the sky a bright and cheerful
thing, unimpeded, clean, and flushed with the sunlight.
The spot was seldom visited by a pedestrian, except perhaps in the shooting
season. The rarity of human intrusion was evidenced by the mazes of
rabbit-runs, the feathers of shy birds, the exuviæ of reptiles; as also by the
well-worn paths of squirrels down the sides of trunks, and thence
horizontally away. The fact of the plantation being an island in the midst of
an arable plain sufficiently accounted for this lack of visitors. Few
unaccustomed to such places can be aware of the insulating effect of

ploughed ground, when no necessity compels people to traverse it. This
rotund hill of trees and brambles, standing in the centre of a ploughed field
of some ninety or a hundred acres, was probably visited less frequently than
a rock would have been visited in a lake of equal extent.
She walked round the column to the other side, where she found the door
through which the interior was reached. The paint, if it had ever had any,
was all washed from the wood, and down the decaying surface of the
boards liquid rust from the nails and hinges had run in red stains. Over the
door was a stone tablet, bearing, apparently, letters or words; but the
inscription, whatever it was, had been smoothed over with a plaster of
lichen.
Here stood this aspiring piece of masonry, erected as the most conspicuous
and ineffaceable reminder of a man that could be thought of; and yet the
whole aspect of the memorial betokened forgetfulness. Probably not a
dozen people within the district knew the name of the person
commemorated, while perhaps not a soul remembered whether the column
were hollow or solid, whether with or without a tablet explaining its date
and purpose. She herself had lived within a mile of it for the last five years,
and had never come near it till now.
She hesitated to ascend alone, but finding that the door was not fastened she
pushed it open with her foot, and entered. A scrap of writing-paper lay
within, and arrested her attention by its freshness. Some human being,
then, knew the spot, despite her surmises. But as the paper had nothing on
it no clue was afforded; yet feeling herself the proprietor of the column and
of all around it her self-assertiveness was sufficient to lead her on. The
staircase was lighted by slits in the wall, and there was no difficulty in
reaching the top, the steps being quite unworn. The trap-door leading on to
the roof was open, and on looking through it an interesting spectacle met
her eye.
A youth was sitting on a stool in the centre of the lead flat which formed the
summit of the column, his eye being applied to the end of a large telescope
that stood before him on a tripod. This sort of presence was unexpected,
and the lady started back into the shade of the opening. The only effect
produced upon him by her footfall was an impatient wave of the hand,

which he did without removing his eye from the instrument, as if to forbid
her to interrupt him.
Pausing where she stood the lady examined the aspect of the individual who
thus made himself so completely at home on a building which she deemed
her unquestioned property. He was a youth who might properly have been
characterized by a word the judicious chronicler would not readily use in
such a connexion, preferring to reserve it for raising images of the opposite
sex. Whether because no deep felicity is likely to arise from the condition,
or from any other reason, to say in these days that a youth is beautiful is not
to award him that amount of credit which the expression would have carried
with it if he had lived in the times of the Classical Dictionary. So much,
indeed, is the reverse the case that the assertion creates an awkwardness in
saying anything more about him. The beautiful youth usually verges so
perilously on the incipient coxcomb, who is about to become the Lothario
or Juan among the neighbouring maidens, that, for the due understanding of
our present young man, his sublime innocence of any thought concerning
his own material aspect, or that of others, is most fervently asserted, and
must be as fervently believed.
Such as he was, there the lad sat. The sun shone full in his face, and on his
head he wore a black velvet skull-cap, leaving to view below it a curly
margin of very light shining hair, which accorded well with the flush upon
his cheek.
He had such a complexion as that with which Raffaelle enriches the
countenance of the youthful son of Zacharias,—a complexion which,
though clear, is far enough removed from virgin delicacy, and suggests
plenty of sun and wind as its accompaniment. His features were
sufficiently straight in the contours to correct the beholder’s first impression
that the head was the head of a girl. Beside him stood a little oak table, and
in front was the telescope.
His visitor had ample time to make these observations; and she may have
done so all the more keenly through being herself of a totally opposite type.
Her hair was black as midnight, her eyes had no less deep a shade, and her
complexion showed the richness demanded as a support to these decided
features. As she continued to look at the pretty fellow before her,

apparently so far abstracted into some speculative world as scarcely to
know a real one, a warmer wave of her warm temperament glowed visibly
through her, and a qualified observer might from this have hazarded a guess
that there was Romance blood in her veins.
But even the interest attaching to the youth could not arrest her attention for
ever, and as he made no further signs of moving his eye from the instrument
she broke the silence with—
‘What do you see?—something happening somewhere?’
‘Yes, quite a catastrophe!’ he automatically murmured, without moving
round.
‘What?’
‘A cyclone in the sun.’
The lady paused, as if to consider the weight of that event in the scale of
terrene life.
‘Will it make any difference to us here?’ she asked.
The young man by this time seemed to be awakened to the consciousness
that somebody unusual was talking to him; he turned, and started.
‘I beg your pardon,’ he said. ‘I thought it was my relative come to look
after me! She often comes about this time.’
He continued to look at her and forget the sun, just such a reciprocity of
influence as might have been expected between a dark lady and a flaxen-
haired youth making itself apparent in the faces of each.
‘Don’t let me interrupt your observations,’ said she.
‘Ah, no,’ said he, again applying his eye; whereupon his face lost the
animation which her presence had lent it, and became immutable as that of
a bust, though superadding to the serenity of repose the sensitiveness of
life. The expression that settled on him was one of awe. Not unaptly might
it have been said that he was worshipping the sun. Among the various
intensities of that worship which have prevailed since the first intelligent

being saw the luminary decline westward, as the young man now beheld it
doing, his was not the weakest. He was engaged in what may be called a
very chastened or schooled form of that first and most natural of adorations.
‘But would you like to see it?’ he recommenced. ‘It is an event that is
witnessed only about once in two or three years, though it may occur often
enough.’
She assented, and looked through the shaded eyepiece, and saw a whirling
mass, in the centre of which the blazing globe seemed to be laid bare to its
core. It was a peep into a maelstrom of fire, taking place where nobody had
ever been or ever would be.
‘It is the strangest thing I ever beheld,’ she said. Then he looked again; till
wondering who her companion could be she asked, ‘Are you often here?’
‘Every night when it is not cloudy, and often in the day.’
‘Ah, night, of course. The heavens must be beautiful from this point.’
‘They are rather more than that.’
‘Indeed! Have you entirely taken possession of this column?’
‘Entirely.’
‘But it is my column,’ she said, with smiling asperity.
‘Then are you Lady Constantine, wife of the absent Sir Blount
Constantine?’
‘I am Lady Constantine.’
‘Ah, then I agree that it is your ladyship’s. But will you allow me to rent it
of you for a time, Lady Constantine?’
‘You have taken it, whether I allow it or not. However, in the interests of
science it is advisable that you continue your tenancy. Nobody knows you
are here, I suppose?’
‘Hardly anybody.’

He then took her down a few steps into the interior, and showed her some
ingenious contrivances for stowing articles away.
‘Nobody ever comes near the column,—or, as it’s called here, Rings-Hill
Speer,’ he continued; ‘and when I first came up it nobody had been here for
thirty or forty years. The staircase was choked with daws’ nests and
feathers, but I cleared them out.’
‘I understood the column was always kept locked?’
‘Yes, it has been so. When it was built, in 1782, the key was given to my
great-grandfather, to keep by him in case visitors should happen to want it.
He lived just down there where I live now.’
He denoted by a nod a little dell lying immediately beyond the ploughed
land which environed them.
‘He kept it in his bureau, and as the bureau descended to my grandfather,
my mother, and myself, the key descended with it. After the first thirty or
forty years, nobody ever asked for it. One day I saw it, lying rusty in its
niche, and, finding that it belonged to this column, I took it and came up. I
stayed here till it was dark, and the stars came out, and that night I resolved
to be an astronomer. I came back here from school several months ago, and
I mean to be an astronomer still.’
He lowered his voice, and added:
‘I aim at nothing less than the dignity and office of Astronomer Royal, if I
live. Perhaps I shall not live.’
‘I don’t see why you should suppose that,’ said she. ‘How long are you
going to make this your observatory?’
‘About a year longer—till I have obtained a practical familiarity with the
heavens. Ah, if I only had a good equatorial!’
‘What is that?’
‘A proper instrument for my pursuit. But time is short, and science is
infinite,—how infinite only those who study astronomy fully realize,—and
perhaps I shall be worn out before I make my mark.’

She seemed to be greatly struck by the odd mixture in him of scientific
earnestness and melancholy mistrust of all things human. Perhaps it was
owing to the nature of his studies.
‘You are often on this tower alone at night?’ she said.
‘Yes; at this time of the year particularly, and while there is no moon. I
observe from seven or eight till about two in the morning, with a view to
my great work on variable stars. But with such a telescope as this—well, I
must put up with it!’
‘Can you see Saturn’s ring and Jupiter’s moons?’
He said drily that he could manage to do that, not without some contempt
for the state of her knowledge.
‘I have never seen any planet or star through a telescope.’
‘If you will come the first clear night, Lady Constantine, I will show you
any number. I mean, at your express wish; not otherwise.’
‘I should like to come, and possibly may at some time. These stars that
vary so much—sometimes evening stars, sometimes morning stars,
sometimes in the east, and sometimes in the west—have always interested
me.’
‘Ah—now there is a reason for your not coming. Your ignorance of the
realities of astronomy is so satisfactory that I will not disturb it except at
your serious request.’
‘But I wish to be enlightened.’
‘Let me caution you against it.’
‘Is enlightenment on the subject, then, so terrible?’
‘Yes, indeed.’
She laughingly declared that nothing could have so piqued her curiosity as
his statement, and turned to descend. He helped her down the stairs and
through the briers. He would have gone further and crossed the open corn-
land with her, but she preferred to go alone. He then retraced his way to the

top of the column, but, instead of looking longer at the sun, watched her
diminishing towards the distant fence, behind which waited the carriage.
When in the midst of the field, a dark spot on an area of brown, there
crossed her path a moving figure, whom it was as difficult to distinguish
from the earth he trod as the caterpillar from its leaf, by reason of the
excellent match between his clothes and the clods. He was one of a dying-
out generation who retained the principle, nearly unlearnt now, that a man’s
habiliments should be in harmony with his environment. Lady Constantine
and this figure halted beside each other for some minutes; then they went on
their several ways.
The brown person was a labouring man known to the world of Welland as
Haymoss (the encrusted form of the word Amos, to adopt the phrase of
philologists). The reason of the halt had been some inquiries addressed to
him by Lady Constantine.
‘Who is that—Amos Fry, I think?’ she had asked.
‘Yes my lady,’ said Haymoss; ‘a homely barley driller, born under the eaves
of your ladyship’s outbuildings, in a manner of speaking,—though your
ladyship was neither born nor ‘tempted at that time.’
‘Who lives in the old house behind the plantation?’
‘Old Gammer Martin, my lady, and her grandson.’
‘He has neither father nor mother, then?’
‘Not a single one, my lady.’
‘Where was he educated?’
‘At Warborne,—a place where they draw up young gam’sters’ brains like
rhubarb under a ninepenny pan, my lady, excusing my common way. They
hit so much larning into en that ’a could talk like the day of Pentecost;
which is a wonderful thing for a simple boy, and his mother only the
plainest ciphering woman in the world. Warborne Grammar School—that’s
where ’twas ’a went to. His father, the reverent Pa’son St. Cleeve, made a
terrible bruckle hit in ’s marrying, in the sight of the high. He were the
curate here, my lady, for a length o’ time.’

‘Oh, curate,’ said Lady Constantine. ‘It was before I knew the village.’
‘Ay, long and merry ago! And he married Farmer Martin’s daughter—Giles
Martin, a limberish man, who used to go rather bad upon his lags, if you
can mind. I knowed the man well enough; who should know en better! The
maid was a poor windling thing, and, though a playward piece o’ flesh
when he married her, ’a socked and sighed, and went out like a snoff! Yes,
my lady. Well, when Pa’son St. Cleeve married this homespun woman the
toppermost folk wouldn’t speak to his wife. Then he dropped a cuss or two,
and said he’d no longer get his living by curing their twopenny souls o’
such d--- nonsense as that (excusing my common way), and he took to
farming straightway, and then ’a dropped down dead in a nor’-west
thunderstorm; it being said—hee-hee!—that Master God was in tantrums
wi’en for leaving his service,—hee-hee! I give the story as I heard it, my
lady, but be dazed if I believe in such trumpery about folks in the sky, nor
anything else that’s said on ’em, good or bad. Well, Swithin, the boy, was
sent to the grammar school, as I say for; but what with having two stations
of life in his blood he’s good for nothing, my lady. He mopes about—
sometimes here, and sometimes there; nobody troubles about en.’
Lady Constantine thanked her informant, and proceeded onward. To her, as
a woman, the most curious feature in the afternoon’s incident was that this
lad, of striking beauty, scientific attainments, and cultivated bearing, should
be linked, on the maternal side, with a local agricultural family through his
father’s matrimonial eccentricity. A more attractive feature in the case was
that the same youth, so capable of being ruined by flattery, blandishment,
pleasure, even gross prosperity, should be at present living on in a primitive
Eden of unconsciousness, with aims towards whose accomplishment a
Caliban shape would have been as effective as his own.

II

Swithin St. Cleeve lingered on at his post, until the more sanguine birds of
the plantation, already recovering from their midwinter anxieties, piped a
short evening hymn to the vanishing sun.
The landscape was gently concave; with the exception of tower and hill
there were no points on which late rays might linger; and hence the dish-

shaped ninety acres of tilled land assumed a uniform hue of shade quite
suddenly. The one or two stars that appeared were quickly clouded over,
and it was soon obvious that there would be no sweeping the heavens that
night. After tying a piece of tarpaulin, which had once seen service on his
maternal grandfather’s farm, over all the apparatus around him, he went
down the stairs in the dark, and locked the door.
With the key in his pocket he descended through the underwood on the side
of the slope opposite to that trodden by Lady Constantine, and crossed the
field in a line mathematically straight, and in a manner that left no traces,
by keeping in the same furrow all the way on tiptoe. In a few minutes he
reached a little dell, which occurred quite unexpectedly on the other side of
the field-fence, and descended to a venerable thatched house, whose
enormous roof, broken up by dormers as big as haycocks, could be seen
even in the twilight. Over the white walls, built of chalk in the lump,
outlines of creepers formed dark patterns, as if drawn in charcoal.
Inside the house his maternal grandmother was sitting by a wood fire.
Before it stood a pipkin, in which something was evidently kept warm. An
eight-legged oak table in the middle of the room was laid for a meal. This
woman of eighty, in a large mob cap, under which she wore a little cap to
keep the other clean, retained faculties but little blunted. She was gazing
into the flames, with her hands upon her knees, quietly re-enacting in her
brain certain of the long chain of episodes, pathetic, tragical, and humorous,
which had constituted the parish history for the last sixty years. On
Swithin’s entry she looked up at him in a sideway direction.
‘You should not have waited for me, granny,’ he said.
‘’Tis of no account, my child. I’ve had a nap while sitting here. Yes, I’ve
had a nap, and went straight up into my old country again, as usual. The
place was as natural as when I left it,—e’en just threescore years ago! All
the folks and my old aunt were there, as when I was a child,—yet I suppose
if I were really to set out and go there, hardly a soul would be left alive to
say to me, dog how art! But tell Hannah to stir her stumps and serve supper
—though I’d fain do it myself, the poor old soul is getting so unhandy!’
Hannah revealed herself to be much nimbler and several years younger than
granny, though of this the latter seemed to be oblivious. When the meal

was nearly over Mrs. Martin produced the contents of the mysterious vessel
by the fire, saying that she had caused it to be brought in from the back
kitchen, because Hannah was hardly to be trusted with such things, she was
becoming so childish.
‘What is it, then?’ said Swithin. ‘Oh, one of your special puddings.’ At
sight of it, however, he added reproachfully, ‘Now, granny!’
Instead of being round, it was in shape an irregular boulder that had been
exposed to the weather for centuries—a little scrap pared off here, and a
little piece broken away there; the general aim being, nevertheless, to avoid
destroying the symmetry of the pudding while taking as much as possible of
its substance.
‘The fact is,’ added Swithin, ‘the pudding is half gone!’
‘I’ve only sliced off the merest paring once or twice, to taste if it was well
done!’ pleaded granny Martin, with wounded feelings. ‘I said to Hannah
when she took it up, “Put it here to keep it warm, as there’s a better fire than
in the back kitchen.”’
‘Well, I am not going to eat any of it!’ said Swithin decisively, as he rose
from the table, pushed away his chair, and went up-stairs; the ‘other station
of life that was in his blood,’ and which had been brought out by the
grammar school, probably stimulating him.
‘Ah, the world is an ungrateful place! ’Twas a pity I didn’t take my poor
name off this earthly calendar and creep under ground sixty long years ago,
instead of leaving my own county to come here!’ mourned old Mrs. Martin.
‘But I told his mother how ’twould be—marrying so many notches above
her. The child was sure to chaw high, like his father!’
When Swithin had been up-stairs a minute or two however, he altered his
mind, and coming down again ate all the pudding, with the aspect of a
person undertaking a deed of great magnanimity. The relish with which he
did so restored the unison that knew no more serious interruptions than such
as this.
‘Mr. Torkingham has been here this afternoon,’ said his grandmother; ‘and
he wants me to let him meet some of the choir here to-night for practice.

They who live at this end of the parish won’t go to his house to try over the
tunes, because ’tis so far, they say, and so ’tis, poor men. So he’s going to
see what coming to them will do. He asks if you would like to join.’
‘I would if I had not so much to do.’
‘But it is cloudy to-night.’
‘Yes; but I have calculations without end, granny. Now, don’t you tell him
I’m in the house, will you? and then he’ll not ask for me.’
‘But if he should, must I then tell a lie, Lord forgive me?’
‘No, you can say I’m up-stairs; he must think what he likes. Not a word
about the astronomy to any of them, whatever you do. I should be called a
visionary, and all sorts.’
‘So thou beest, child. Why can’t ye do something that’s of use?’
At the sound of footsteps Swithin beat a hasty retreat up-stairs, where he
struck a light, and revealed a table covered with books and papers, while
round the walls hung star-maps, and other diagrams illustrative of celestial
phenomena. In a corner stood a huge pasteboard tube, which a close
inspection would have shown to be intended for a telescope. Swithin hung
a thick cloth over the window, in addition to the curtains, and sat down to
his papers. On the ceiling was a black stain of smoke, and under this he
placed his lamp, evidencing that the midnight oil was consumed on that
precise spot very often.
Meanwhile there had entered to the room below a personage who, to judge
from her voice and the quick pit-pat of her feet, was a maiden young and
blithe. Mrs. Martin welcomed her by the title of Miss Tabitha Lark, and
inquired what wind had brought her that way; to which the visitor replied
that she had come for the singing.
‘Sit ye down, then,’ said granny. ‘And do you still go to the House to read
to my lady?’
‘Yes, I go and read, Mrs. Martin; but as to getting my lady to hearken, that’s
more than a team of six horses could force her to do.’

The girl had a remarkably smart and fluent utterance, which was probably a
cause, or a consequence, of her vocation.
‘’Tis the same story, then?’ said grandmother Martin.
‘Yes. Eaten out with listlessness. She’s neither sick nor sorry, but how dull
and dreary she is, only herself can tell. When I get there in the morning,
there she is sitting up in bed, for my lady don’t care to get up; and then she
makes me bring this book and that book, till the bed is heaped up with
immense volumes that half bury her, making her look, as she leans upon her
elbow, like the stoning of Stephen. She yawns; then she looks towards the
tall glass; then she looks out at the weather, mooning her great black eyes,
and fixing them on the sky as if they stuck there, while my tongue goes
flick-flack along, a hundred and fifty words a minute; then she looks at the
clock; then she asks me what I’ve been reading.’
‘Ah, poor soul!’ said granny. ‘No doubt she says in the morning, “Would
God it were evening,” and in the evening, “Would God it were morning,”
like the disobedient woman in Deuteronomy.’
Swithin, in the room overhead, had suspended his calculations, for the
duologue interested him. There now crunched heavier steps outside the
door, and his grandmother could be heard greeting sundry local
representatives of the bass and tenor voice, who lent a cheerful and well-
known personality to the names Sammy Blore, Nat Chapman, Hezekiah
Biles, and Haymoss Fry (the latter being one with whom the reader has
already a distant acquaintance); besides these came small producers of
treble, who had not yet developed into such distinctive units of society as to
require particularizing.
‘Is the good man come?’ asked Nat Chapman. ‘No,—I see we be here afore
him. And how is it with aged women to-night, Mrs. Martin?’
‘Tedious traipsing enough with this one, Nat. Sit ye down. Well, little
Freddy, you don’t wish in the morning that ’twere evening, and at evening
that ’twere morning again, do you, Freddy, trust ye for it?’
‘Now, who might wish such a thing as that, Mrs Martin?—nobody in this
parish?’ asked Sammy Blore curiously.

‘My lady is always wishing it,’ spoke up Miss Tabitha Lark.
‘Oh, she! Nobody can be answerable for the wishes of that onnatural tribe
of mankind. Not but that the woman’s heart-strings is tried in many
aggravating ways.’
‘Ah, poor woman!’ said granny. ‘The state she finds herself in—neither
maid, wife, nor widow, as you may say—is not the primest form of life for
keeping in good spirits. How long is it since she has heard from Sir Blount,
Tabitha?’
‘Two years and more,’ said the young woman. ‘He went into one side of
Africa, as it might be, three St. Martin’s days back. I can mind it, because
’twas my birthday. And he meant to come out the other side. But he
didn’t. He has never come out at all.’
‘For all the world like losing a rat in a barley-mow,’ said Hezekiah. ‘He’s
lost, though you know where he is.’
His comrades nodded.
‘Ay, my lady is a walking weariness. I seed her yawn just at the very
moment when the fox was halloaed away by Lornton Copse, and the
hounds runned en all but past her carriage wheels. If I were she I’d see a
little life; though there’s no fair, club-walking, nor feast to speak of, till
Easter week,—that’s true.’
‘She dares not. She’s under solemn oath to do no such thing.’
‘Be cust if I would keep any such oath! But here’s the pa’son, if my ears
don’t deceive me.’
There was a noise of horse’s hoofs without, a stumbling against the door-
scraper, a tethering to the window-shutter, a creaking of the door on its
hinges, and a voice which Swithin recognized as Mr. Torkingham’s. He
greeted each of the previous arrivals by name, and stated that he was glad to
see them all so punctually assembled.
‘Ay, sir,’ said Haymoss Fry. ‘’Tis only my jints that have kept me from
assembling myself long ago. I’d assemble upon the top of Welland Steeple,
if ’tweren’t for my jints. I assure ye, Pa’son Tarkenham, that in the clitch o’

my knees, where the rain used to come through when I was cutting clots for
the new lawn, in old my lady’s time, ’tis as if rats wez gnawing, every now
and then. When a feller’s young he’s too small in the brain to see how soon
a constitution can be squandered, worse luck!’
‘True,’ said Biles, to fill the time while the parson was engaged in finding
the Psalms. ‘A man’s a fool till he’s forty. Often have I thought, when hay-
pitching, and the small of my back seeming no stouter than a harnet’s, “The
devil send that I had but the making of labouring men for a twelvemonth!”
I’d gie every man jack two good backbones, even if the alteration was as
wrong as forgery.’
‘Four,—four backbones,’ said Haymoss, decisively.
‘Yes, four,’ threw in Sammy Blore, with additional weight of experience.
‘For you want one in front for breast-ploughing and such like, one at the
right side for ground-dressing, and one at the left side for turning mixens.’
‘Well; then next I’d move every man’s wyndpipe a good span away from
his glutchpipe, so that at harvest time he could fetch breath in ’s drinking,
without being choked and strangled as he is now. Thinks I, when I feel the
victuals going—’
‘Now, we’ll begin,’ interrupted Mr. Torkingham, his mind returning to this
world again on concluding his search for a hymn.
Thereupon the racket of chair-legs on the floor signified that they were
settling into their seats,—a disturbance which Swithin took advantage of by
going on tiptoe across the floor above, and putting sheets of paper over
knot-holes in the boarding at points where carpet was lacking, that his
lamp-light might not shine down. The absence of a ceiling beneath
rendered his position virtually that of one suspended in the same apartment.
The parson announced the tune, and his voice burst forth with ‘Onward,
Christian soldiers!’ in notes of rigid cheerfulness.
In this start, however, he was joined only by the girls and boys, the men
furnishing but an accompaniment of ahas and hems. Mr. Torkingham
stopped, and Sammy Blore spoke,—

‘Beg your pardon, sir,—if you’ll deal mild with us a moment. What with
the wind and walking, my throat’s as rough as a grater; and not knowing
you were going to hit up that minute, I hadn’t hawked, and I don’t think
Hezzy and Nat had, either,—had ye, souls?’
‘I hadn’t got thorough ready, that’s true,’ said Hezekiah.
‘Quite right of you, then, to speak,’ said Mr. Torkingham. ‘Don’t mind
explaining; we are here for practice. Now clear your throats, then, and at it
again.’
There was a noise as of atmospheric hoes and scrapers, and the bass
contingent at last got under way with a time of its own:
‘Honwerd, Christen sojers!’
‘Ah, that’s where we are so defective—the pronunciation,’ interrupted the
parson. ‘Now repeat after me: “On-ward, Christ-ian, sol-diers.”’
The choir repeated like an exaggerative echo: ‘On-wed, Chris-ting, sol-
jaws!’
‘Better!’ said the parson, in the strenuously sanguine tones of a man who
got his living by discovering a bright side in things where it was not very
perceptible to other people. ‘But it should not be given with quite so
extreme an accent; or we may be called affected by other parishes. And,
Nathaniel Chapman, there’s a jauntiness in your manner of singing which is
not quite becoming. Why don’t you sing more earnestly?’
‘My conscience won’t let me, sir. They say every man for himself: but,
thank God, I’m not so mean as to lessen old fokes’ chances by being earnest
at my time o’ life, and they so much nearer the need o’t.’
‘It’s bad reasoning, Nat, I fear. Now, perhaps we had better sol-fa the tune.
Eyes on your books, please. Sol-sol! fa-fa! mi—’
‘I can’t sing like that, not I!’ said Sammy Blore, with condemnatory
astonishment. ‘I can sing genuine music, like F and G; but not anything so
much out of the order of nater as that.’

‘Perhaps you’ve brought the wrong book, sir?’ chimed in Haymoss, kindly.
‘I’ve knowed music early in life and late,—in short, ever since Luke Sneap
broke his new fiddle-bow in the wedding psalm, when Pa’son Wilton
brought home his bride (you can mind the time, Sammy?—when we sung
“His wife, like a fair fertile vine, her lovely fruit shall bring,” when the
young woman turned as red as a rose, not knowing ’twas coming). I’ve
knowed music ever since then, I say, sir, and never heard the like o’ that.
Every martel note had his name of A, B, C, at that time.’
‘Yes, yes, men; but this is a more recent system!’
‘Still, you can’t alter a old-established note that’s A or B by nater,’ rejoined
Haymoss, with yet deeper conviction that Mr. Torkingham was getting off
his head. ‘Now sound A, neighbour Sammy, and let’s have a slap at
Christen sojers again, and show the Pa’son the true way!’
Sammy produced a private tuning-fork, black and grimy, which, being
about seventy years of age, and wrought before pianoforte builders had sent
up the pitch to make their instruments brilliant, was nearly a note flatter
than the parson’s. While an argument as to the true pitch was in progress,
there came a knocking without.
‘Somebody’s at the door!’ said a little treble girl.
‘Thought I heard a knock before!’ said the relieved choir.
The latch was lifted, and a man asked from the darkness, ‘Is Mr.
Torkingham here?’
‘Yes, Mills. What do you want?’
It was the parson’s man.
‘Oh, if you please,’ said Mills, showing an advanced margin of himself
round the door, ‘Lady Constantine wants to see you very particular, sir, and
could you call on her after dinner, if you ben’t engaged with poor fokes?
She’s just had a letter,—so they say,—and it’s about that, I believe.’
Finding, on looking at his watch, that it was necessary to start at once if he
meant to see her that night, the parson cut short the practising, and, naming

another night for meeting, he withdrew. All the singers assisted him on to
his cob, and watched him till he disappeared over the edge of the Bottom.

III

Mr. Torkingham trotted briskly onward to his house, a distance of about a
mile, each cottage, as it revealed its half-buried position by its single light,
appearing like a one-eyed night creature watching him from an ambush.
Leaving his horse at the parsonage he performed the remainder of the
journey on foot, crossing the park towards Welland House by a stile and
path, till he struck into the drive near the north door of the mansion.
This drive, it may be remarked, was also the common highway to the lower
village, and hence Lady Constantine’s residence and park, as is occasionally
the case with old-fashioned manors, possessed none of the exclusiveness
found in some aristocratic settlements. The parishioners looked upon the
park avenue as their natural thoroughfare, particularly for christenings,
weddings, and funerals, which passed the squire’s mansion with due
considerations as to the scenic effect of the same from the manor windows.
Hence the house of Constantine, when going out from its breakfast, had
been continually crossed on the doorstep for the last two hundred years by
the houses of Hodge and Giles in full cry to dinner. At present these
collisions were but too infrequent, for though the villagers passed the north
front door as regularly as ever, they seldom met a Constantine. Only one
was there to be met, and she had no zest for outings before noon.
The long, low front of the Great House, as it was called by the parish,
stretching from end to end of the terrace, was in darkness as the vicar
slackened his pace before it, and only the distant fall of water disturbed the
stillness of the manorial precincts.
On gaining admittance he found Lady Constantine waiting to receive him.
She wore a heavy dress of velvet and lace, and being the only person in the
spacious apartment she looked small and isolated. In her left hand she held
a letter and a couple of at-home cards. The soft dark eyes which she raised
to him as he entered—large, and melancholy by circumstance far more than
by quality—were the natural indices of a warm and affectionate, perhaps

slightly voluptuous temperament, languishing for want of something to do,
cherish, or suffer for.
Mr. Torkingham seated himself. His boots, which had seemed elegant in
the farm-house, appeared rather clumsy here, and his coat, that was a model
of tailoring when he stood amid the choir, now exhibited decidedly strained
relations with his limbs. Three years had passed since his induction to the
living of Welland, but he had never as yet found means to establish that
reciprocity with Lady Constantine which usually grows up, in the course of
time, between parsonage and manor-house,—unless, indeed, either side
should surprise the other by showing respectively a weakness for awkward
modern ideas on landownership, or on church formulas, which had not been
the case here. The present meeting, however, seemed likely to initiate such
a reciprocity.
There was an appearance of confidence on Lady Constantine’s face; she
said she was so very glad that he had come, and looking down at the letter
in her hand was on the point of pulling it from its envelope; but she did not.
After a moment she went on more quickly: ‘I wanted your advice, or rather
your opinion, on a serious matter,—on a point of conscience.’ Saying
which she laid down the letter and looked at the cards.
It might have been apparent to a more penetrating eye than the vicar’s that
Lady Constantine, either from timidity, misgiving, or reconviction, had
swerved from her intended communication, or perhaps decided to begin at
the other end.
The parson, who had been expecting a question on some local business or
intelligence, at the tenor of her words altered his face to the higher branch
of his profession.
‘I hope I may find myself of service, on that or any other question,’ he said
gently.
‘I hope so. You may possibly be aware, Mr. Torkingham, that my husband,
Sir Blount Constantine, was, not to mince matters, a mistaken—somewhat
jealous man. Yet you may hardly have discerned it in the short time you
knew him.’
‘I had some little knowledge of Sir Blount’s character in that respect.’

‘Well, on this account my married life with him was not of the most
comfortable kind.’ (Lady Constantine’s voice dropped to a more pathetic
note.) ‘I am sure I gave him no cause for suspicion; though had I known his
disposition sooner I should hardly have dared to marry him. But his
jealousy and doubt of me were not so strong as to divert him from a purpose
of his,—a mania for African lion-hunting, which he dignified by calling it a
scheme of geographical discovery; for he was inordinately anxious to make
a name for himself in that field. It was the one passion that was stronger
than his mistrust of me. Before going away he sat down with me in this
room, and read me a lecture, which resulted in a very rash offer on my part.
When I tell it to you, you will find that it provides a key to all that is
unusual in my life here. He bade me consider what my position would be
when he was gone; hoped that I should remember what was due to him,—
that I would not so behave towards other men as to bring the name of
Constantine into suspicion; and charged me to avoid levity of conduct in
attending any ball, rout, or dinner to which I might be invited. I, in some
contempt for his low opinion of me, volunteered, there and then, to live like
a cloistered nun during his absence; to go into no society whatever,—scarce
even to a neighbour’s dinner-party; and demanded bitterly if that would
satisfy him. He said yes, held me to my word, and gave me no loophole for
retracting it. The inevitable fruits of precipitancy have resulted to me: my
life has become a burden. I get such invitations as these’ (holding up the
cards), ‘but I so invariably refuse them that they are getting very rare. . . . I
ask you, can I honestly break that promise to my husband?’
Mr. Torkingham seemed embarrassed. ‘If you promised Sir Blount
Constantine to live in solitude till he comes back, you are, it seems to me,
bound by that promise. I fear that the wish to be released from your
engagement is to some extent a reason why it should be kept. But your own
conscience would surely be the best guide, Lady Constantine?’
‘My conscience is quite bewildered with its responsibilities,’ she continued,
with a sigh. ‘Yet it certainly does sometimes say to me that—that I ought to
keep my word. Very well; I must go on as I am going, I suppose.’
‘If you respect a vow, I think you must respect your own,’ said the parson,
acquiring some further firmness. ‘Had it been wrung from you by
compulsion, moral or physical, it would have been open to you to break it.

But as you proposed a vow when your husband only required a good
intention, I think you ought to adhere to it; or what is the pride worth that
led you to offer it?’
‘Very well,’ she said, with resignation. ‘But it was quite a work of
supererogation on my part.’
‘That you proposed it in a supererogatory spirit does not lessen your
obligation, having once put yourself under that obligation. St. Paul, in his
Epistle to the Hebrews, says, “An oath for confirmation is an end of all
strife.” And you will readily recall the words of Ecclesiastes, “Pay that
which thou hast vowed. Better is it that thou shouldest not vow than that
thou shouldest vow and not pay.” Why not write to Sir Blount, tell him the
inconvenience of such a bond, and ask him to release you?’
‘No; never will I. The expression of such a desire would, in his mind, be a
sufficient reason for disallowing it. I’ll keep my word.’
Mr. Torkingham rose to leave. After she had held out her hand to him,
when he had crossed the room, and was within two steps of the door, she
said, ‘Mr. Torkingham.’ He stopped. ‘What I have told you is only the
least part of what I sent for you to tell you.’
Mr. Torkingham walked back to her side. ‘What is the rest of it, then?’ he
asked, with grave surprise.
‘It is a true revelation, as far as it goes; but there is something more. I have
received this letter, and I wanted to say—something.’
‘Then say it now, my dear lady.’
‘No,’ she answered, with a look of utter inability. ‘I cannot speak of it
now! Some other time. Don’t stay. Please consider this conversation as
private. Good-night.’

IV

It was a bright starlight night, a week or ten days later. There had been
several such nights since the occasion of Lady Constantine’s promise to
Swithin St. Cleeve to come and study astronomical phenomena on the

Rings-Hill column; but she had not gone there. This evening she sat at a
window, the blind of which had not been drawn down. Her elbow rested on
a little table, and her cheek on her hand. Her eyes were attracted by the
brightness of the planet Jupiter, as he rode in the ecliptic opposite, beaming
down upon her as if desirous of notice.
Beneath the planet could be still discerned the dark edges of the park
landscape against the sky. As one of its features, though nearly screened by
the trees which had been planted to shut out the fallow tracts of the estate,
rose the upper part of the column. It was hardly visible now, even if visible
at all; yet Lady Constantine knew from daytime experience its exact bearing
from the window at which she leaned. The knowledge that there it still was,
despite its rapid envelopment by the shades, led her lonely mind to her late
meeting on its summit with the young astronomer, and to her promise to
honour him with a visit for learning some secrets about the scintillating
bodies overhead. The curious juxtaposition of youthful ardour and old
despair that she had found in the lad would have made him interesting to a
woman of perception, apart from his fair hair and early-Christian face. But
such is the heightening touch of memory that his beauty was probably
richer in her imagination than in the real. It was a moot point to consider
whether the temptations that would be brought to bear upon him in his
course would exceed the staying power of his nature. Had he been a
wealthy youth he would have seemed one to tremble for. In spite of his
attractive ambitions and gentlemanly bearing, she thought it would possibly
be better for him if he never became known outside his lonely tower,—
forgetting that he had received such intellectual enlargement as would
probably make his continuance in Welland seem, in his own eye, a slight
upon his father’s branch of his family, whose social standing had been, only
a few years earlier, but little removed from her own.
Suddenly she flung a cloak about her and went out on the terrace. She
passed down the steps to the lower lawn, through the door to the open park,
and there stood still. The tower was now discernible. As the words in
which a thought is expressed develop a further thought, so did the fact of
her having got so far influence her to go further. A person who had casually
observed her gait would have thought it irregular; and the lessenings and
increasings of speed with which she proceeded in the direction of the pillar
could be accounted for only by a motive much more disturbing than an

intention to look through a telescope. Thus she went on, till, leaving the
park, she crossed the turnpike-road, and entered the large field, in the
middle of which the fir-clad hill stood like Mont St. Michel in its bay.
The stars were so bright as distinctly to show her the place, and now she
could see a faint light at the top of the column, which rose like a shadowy
finger pointing to the upper constellations. There was no wind, in a human
sense; but a steady stertorous breathing from the fir-trees showed that, now
as always, there was movement in apparent stagnation. Nothing but an
absolute vacuum could paralyze their utterance.
The door of the tower was shut. It was something more than the
freakishness which is engendered by a sickening monotony that had led
Lady Constantine thus far, and hence she made no ado about admitting
herself. Three years ago, when her every action was a thing of propriety,
she had known of no possible purpose which could have led her abroad in a
manner such as this.
She ascended the tower noiselessly. On raising her head above the
hatchway she beheld Swithin bending over a scroll of paper which lay on
the little table beside him. The small lantern that illuminated it showed also
that he was warmly wrapped up in a coat and thick cap, behind him
standing the telescope on its frame.
What was he doing? She looked over his shoulder upon the paper, and saw
figures and signs. When he had jotted down something he went to the
telescope again.
‘What are you doing to-night?’ she said in a low voice.
Swithin started, and turned. The faint lamp-light was sufficient to reveal
her face to him.
‘Tedious work, Lady Constantine,’ he answered, without betraying much
surprise. ‘Doing my best to watch phenomenal stars, as I may call them.’
‘You said you would show me the heavens if I could come on a starlight
night. I have come.’

Swithin, as a preliminary, swept round the telescope to Jupiter, and
exhibited to her the glory of that orb. Then he directed the instrument to the
less bright shape of Saturn.
‘Here,’ he said, warming up to the subject, ‘we see a world which is to my
mind by far the most wonderful in the solar system. Think of streams of
satellites or meteors racing round and round the planet like a fly-wheel, so
close together as to seem solid matter!’ He entered further and further into
the subject, his ideas gathering momentum as he went on, like his pet
heavenly bodies.
When he paused for breath she said, in tones very different from his own, ‘I
ought now to tell you that, though I am interested in the stars, they were not
what I came to see you about. . . . I first thought of disclosing the matter to
Mr. Torkingham; but I altered my mind, and decided on you.’
She spoke in so low a voice that he might not have heard her. At all events,
abstracted by his grand theme, he did not heed her. He continued,—
‘Well, we will get outside the solar system altogether,—leave the whole
group of sun, primary and secondary planets quite behind us in our flight, as
a bird might leave its bush and sweep into the whole forest. Now what do
you see, Lady Constantine?’ He levelled the achromatic at Sirius.
She said that she saw a bright star, though it only seemed a point of light
now as before.
‘That’s because it is so distant that no magnifying will bring its size up to
zero. Though called a fixed star, it is, like all fixed stars, moving with
inconceivable velocity; but no magnifying will show that velocity as
anything but rest.’
And thus they talked on about Sirius, and then about other stars

. . . in the scrowl
Of all those beasts, and fish, and fowl,
With which, like Indian plantations,
The learned stock the constellations,

till he asked her how many stars she thought were visible to them at that
moment.
She looked around over the magnificent stretch of sky that their high
position unfolded. ‘Oh, thousands, hundreds of thousands,’ she said
absently.
‘No. There are only about three thousand. Now, how many do you think
are brought within sight by the help of a powerful telescope?’
‘I won’t guess.’
‘Twenty millions. So that, whatever the stars were made for, they were not
made to please our eyes. It is just the same in everything; nothing is made
for man.’
‘Is it that notion which makes you so sad for your age?’ she asked, with
almost maternal solicitude. ‘I think astronomy is a bad study for you. It
makes you feel human insignificance too plainly.’
‘Perhaps it does. However,’ he added more cheerfully, ‘though I feel the
study to be one almost tragic in its quality, I hope to be the new
Copernicus. What he was to the solar system I aim to be to the systems
beyond.’
Then, by means of the instrument at hand, they travelled together from the
earth to Uranus and the mysterious outskirts of the solar system; from the
solar system to a star in the Swan, the nearest fixed star in the northern sky;
from the star in the Swan to remoter stars; thence to the remotest visible; till
the ghastly chasm which they had bridged by a fragile line of sight was
realized by Lady Constantine.
‘We are now traversing distances beside which the immense line stretching
from the earth to the sun is but an invisible point,’ said the youth. ‘When,
just now, we had reached a planet whose remoteness is a hundred times the
remoteness of the sun from the earth, we were only a two thousandth part of
the journey to the spot at which we have optically arrived now.’
‘Oh, pray don’t; it overpowers me!’ she replied, not without seriousness. ‘It
makes me feel that it is not worth while to live; it quite annihilates me.’

‘If it annihilates your ladyship to roam over these yawning spaces just once,
think how it must annihilate me to be, as it were, in constant suspension
amid them night after night.’
‘Yes. . . . It was not really this subject that I came to see you upon, Mr. St.
Cleeve,’ she began a second time. ‘It was a personal matter.’
‘I am listening, Lady Constantine.’
‘I will tell it you. Yet no,—not this moment. Let us finish this grand
subject first; it dwarfs mine.’
It would have been difficult to judge from her accents whether she were
afraid to broach her own matter, or really interested in his. Or a certain
youthful pride that he evidenced at being the elucidator of such a large
theme, and at having drawn her there to hear and observe it, may have
inclined her to indulge him for kindness’ sake.
Thereupon he took exception to her use of the word ‘grand’ as descriptive
of the actual universe:
‘The imaginary picture of the sky as the concavity of a dome whose base
extends from horizon to horizon of our earth is grand, simply grand, and I
wish I had never got beyond looking at it in that way. But the actual sky is
a horror.’
‘A new view of our old friends, the stars,’ she said, smiling up at them.
‘But such an obviously true one!’ said the young man. ‘You would hardly
think, at first, that horrid monsters lie up there waiting to be discovered by
any moderately penetrating mind—monsters to which those of the oceans
bear no sort of comparison.’
‘What monsters may they be?’
‘Impersonal monsters, namely, Immensities. Until a person has thought out
the stars and their inter-spaces, he has hardly learnt that there are things
much more terrible than monsters of shape, namely, monsters of magnitude
without known shape. Such monsters are the voids and waste places of the
sky. Look, for instance, at those pieces of darkness in the Milky Way,’ he
went on, pointing with his finger to where the galaxy stretched across over

their heads with the luminousness of a frosted web. ‘You see that dark
opening in it near the Swan? There is a still more remarkable one south of
the equator, called the Coal Sack, as a sort of nickname that has a farcical
force from its very inadequacy. In these our sight plunges quite beyond any
twinkler we have yet visited. Those are deep wells for the human mind to
let itself down into, leave alone the human body! and think of the side
caverns and secondary abysses to right and left as you pass on!’
Lady Constantine was heedful and silent.
He tried to give her yet another idea of the size of the universe; never was
there a more ardent endeavour to bring down the immeasurable to human
comprehension! By figures of speech and apt comparisons he took her
mind into leading-strings, compelling her to follow him into wildernesses of
which she had never in her life even realized the existence.
‘There is a size at which dignity begins,’ he exclaimed; ‘further on there is a
size at which grandeur begins; further on there is a size at which solemnity
begins; further on, a size at which awfulness begins; further on, a size at
which ghastliness begins. That size faintly approaches the size of the stellar
universe. So am I not right in saying that those minds who exert their
imaginative powers to bury themselves in the depths of that universe merely
strain their faculties to gain a new horror?’
Standing, as she stood, in the presence of the stellar universe, under the
very eyes of the constellations, Lady Constantine apprehended something
of the earnest youth’s argument.
‘And to add a new weirdness to what the sky possesses in its size and
formlessness, there is involved the quality of decay. For all the wonder of
these everlasting stars, eternal spheres, and what not, they are not
everlasting, they are not eternal; they burn out like candles. You see that
dying one in the body of the Greater Bear? Two centuries ago it was as
bright as the others. The senses may become terrified by plunging among
them as they are, but there is a pitifulness even in their glory. Imagine them
all extinguished, and your mind feeling its way through a heaven of total
darkness, occasionally striking against the black, invisible cinders of those
stars. . . . If you are cheerful, and wish to remain so, leave the study of

astronomy alone. Of all the sciences, it alone deserves the character of the
terrible.’
‘I am not altogether cheerful.’
‘Then if, on the other hand, you are restless and anxious about the future,
study astronomy at once. Your troubles will be reduced amazingly. But
your study will reduce them in a singular way, by reducing the importance
of everything. So that the science is still terrible, even as a panacea. It is
quite impossible to think at all adequately of the sky—of what the sky
substantially is, without feeling it as a juxtaposed nightmare. It is better—
far better—for men to forget the universe than to bear it clearly in mind! . .
. But you say the universe was not really what you came to see me about.
What was it, may I ask, Lady Constantine?’
She mused, and sighed, and turned to him with something pathetic in her.
‘The immensity of the subject you have engaged me on has completely
crushed my subject out of me! Yours is celestial; mine lamentably human!
And the less must give way to the greater.’
‘But is it, in a human sense, and apart from macrocosmic magnitudes,
important?’ he inquired, at last attracted by her manner; for he began to
perceive, in spite of his prepossession, that she had really something on her
mind.
‘It is as important as personal troubles usually are.’
Notwithstanding her preconceived notion of coming to Swithin as employer
to dependant, as châtelaine to page, she was falling into confidential
intercourse with him. His vast and romantic endeavours lent him a personal
force and charm which she could not but apprehend. In the presence of the
immensities that his young mind had, as it were, brought down from above
to hers, they became unconsciously equal. There was, moreover, an inborn
liking in Lady Constantine to dwell less on her permanent position as a
county lady than on her passing emotions as a woman.
‘I will postpone the matter I came to charge you with,’ she resumed,
smiling. ‘I must reconsider it. Now I will return.’

‘Allow me to show you out through the trees and across the fields?’
She said neither a distinct yes nor no; and, descending the tower, they
threaded the firs and crossed the ploughed field. By an odd coincidence he
remarked, when they drew near the Great House—
‘You may possibly be interested in knowing, Lady Constantine, that that
medium-sized star you see over there, low down in the south, is precisely
over Sir Blount Constantine’s head in the middle of Africa.’
‘How very strange that you should have said so!’ she answered. ‘You have
broached for me the very subject I had come to speak of.’
‘On a domestic matter?’ he said, with surprise.
‘Yes. What a small matter it seems now, after our astronomical
stupendousness! and yet on my way to you it so far transcended the
ordinary matters of my life as the subject you have led me up to transcends
this. But,’ with a little laugh, ‘I will endeavour to sink down to such
ephemeral trivialities as human tragedy, and explain, since I have come.
The point is, I want a helper: no woman ever wanted one more. For days I
have wanted a trusty friend who could go on a secret errand for me. It is
necessary that my messenger should be educated, should be intelligent,
should be silent as the grave. Do you give me your solemn promise as to
the last point, if I confide in you?’
‘Most emphatically, Lady Constantine.’
‘Your right hand upon the compact.’
He gave his hand, and raised hers to his lips. In addition to his respect for
her as the lady of the manor, there was the admiration of twenty years for
twenty-eight or nine in such relations.
‘I trust you,’ she said. ‘Now, beyond the above conditions, it was specially
necessary that my agent should have known Sir Blount Constantine well by
sight when he was at home. For the errand is concerning my husband; I am
much disturbed at what I have heard about him.’
‘I am indeed sorry to know it.’

‘There are only two people in the parish who fulfil all the conditions,—Mr.
Torkingham, and yourself. I sent for Mr. Torkingham, and he came. I could
not tell him. I felt at the last moment that he wouldn’t do. I have come to
you because I think you will do. This is it: my husband has led me and all
the world to believe that he is in Africa, hunting lions. I have had a
mysterious letter informing me that he has been seen in London, in very
peculiar circumstances. The truth of this I want ascertained. Will you go
on the journey?’
‘Personally, I would go to the end of the world for you, Lady Constantine;
but—’
‘No buts!’
‘How can I leave?’
‘Why not?’
‘I am preparing a work on variable stars. There is one of these which I have
exceptionally observed for several months, and on this my great theory is
mainly based. It has been hitherto called irregular; but I have detected a
periodicity in its so-called irregularities which, if proved, would add some
very valuable facts to those known on this subject, one of the most
interesting, perplexing, and suggestive in the whole field of astronomy.
Now, to clinch my theory, there should be a sudden variation this week,—or
at latest next week,—and I have to watch every night not to let it pass. You
see my reason for declining, Lady Constantine.’
‘Young men are always so selfish!’ she said.
‘It might ruin the whole of my year’s labour if I leave now!’ returned the
youth, greatly hurt. ‘Could you not wait a fortnight longer?’
‘No,—no. Don’t think that I have asked you, pray. I have no wish to
inconvenience you.’
‘Lady Constantine, don’t be angry with me! Will you do this,—watch the
star for me while I am gone? If you are prepared to do it effectually, I will
go.’
‘Will it be much trouble?’

‘It will be some trouble. You would have to come here every clear evening
about nine. If the sky were not clear, then you would have to come at four
in the morning, should the clouds have dispersed.’
‘Could not the telescope be brought to my house?’
Swithin shook his head.
‘Perhaps you did not observe its real size,—that it was fixed to a frame-
work? I could not afford to buy an equatorial, and I have been obliged to
rig up an apparatus of my own devising, so as to make it in some measure
answer the purpose of an equatorial. It could be moved, but I would rather
not touch it.’
‘Well, I’ll go to the telescope,’ she went on, with an emphasis that was not
wholly playful. ‘You are the most ungallant youth I ever met with; but I
suppose I must set that down to science. Yes, I’ll go to the tower at nine
every night.’
‘And alone? I should prefer to keep my pursuits there unknown.’
‘And alone,’ she answered, quite overborne by his inflexibility.
‘You will not miss the morning observation, if it should be necessary?’
‘I have given my word.’
‘And I give mine. I suppose I ought not to have been so exacting!’ He
spoke with that sudden emotional sense of his own insignificance which
made these alternations of mood possible. ‘I will go anywhere—do
anything for you—this moment—to-morrow or at any time. But you must
return with me to the tower, and let me show you the observing process.’
They retraced their steps, the tender hoar-frost taking the imprint of their
feet, while two stars in the Twins looked down upon their two persons
through the trees, as if those two persons could bear some sort of
comparison with them. On the tower the instructions were given. When all
was over, and he was again conducting her to the Great House she said—
‘When can you start?’

‘Now,’ said Swithin.
‘So much the better. You shall go up by the night mail.’

V

On the third morning after the young man’s departure Lady Constantine
opened the post-bag anxiously. Though she had risen before four o’clock,
and crossed to the tower through the gray half-light when every blade and
twig were furred with rime, she felt no languor. Expectation could banish at
cock-crow the eye-heaviness which apathy had been unable to disperse all
the day long.
There was, as she had hoped, a letter from Swithin St. Cleeve.

‘Dear Lady Constantine,—I have quite succeeded in my mission, and
shall return to-morrow at 10 p.m. I hope you have not failed in the
observations. Watching the star through an opera-glass Sunday night, I
fancied some change had taken place, but I could not make myself
sure. Your memoranda for that night I await with impatience. Please
don’t neglect to write down at the moment, all remarkable appearances
both as to colour and intensity; and be very exact as to time, which
correct in the way I showed you.—I am, dear Lady Constantine, yours
most faithfully,
Swithin St. Cleeve.’

Not another word in the letter about his errand; his mind ran on nothing but
this astronomical subject. He had succeeded in his mission, and yet he did
not even say yes or no to the great question,—whether or not her husband
was masquerading in London at the address she had given.
‘Was ever anything so provoking!’ she cried.
However, the time was not long to wait. His way homeward would lie
within a stone’s-throw of the manor-house, and though for certain reasons
she had forbidden him to call at the late hour of his arrival, she could easily
intercept him in the avenue. At twenty minutes past ten she went out into
the drive, and stood in the dark. Seven minutes later she heard his footstep,

and saw his outline in the slit of light between the avenue-trees. He had a
valise in one hand, a great-coat on his arm, and under his arm a parcel
which seemed to be very precious, from the manner in which he held it.
‘Lady Constantine?’ he asked softly.
‘Yes,’ she said, in her excitement holding out both her hands, though he had
plainly not expected her to offer one.
‘Did you watch the star?’
‘I’ll tell you everything in detail; but, pray, your errand first!’
‘Yes, it’s all right. Did you watch every night, not missing one?’
‘I forgot to go—twice,’ she murmured contritely.
‘Oh, Lady Constantine!’ he cried in dismay. ‘How could you serve me so!
what shall I do?’
‘Please forgive me! Indeed, I could not help it. I had watched and watched,
and nothing happened; and somehow my vigilance relaxed when I found
nothing was likely to take place in the star.’
‘But the very circumstance of it not having happened, made it all the more
likely every day.’
‘Have you—seen—’ she began imploringly.
Swithin sighed, lowered his thoughts to sublunary things, and told briefly
the story of his journey. Sir Blount Constantine was not in London at the
address which had been anonymously sent her. It was a mistake of
identity. The person who had been seen there Swithin had sought out. He
resembled Sir Blount strongly; but he was a stranger.
‘How can I reward you!’ she exclaimed, when he had done.
‘In no way but by giving me your good wishes in what I am going to tell
you on my own account.’ He spoke in tones of mysterious exultation.
‘This parcel is going to make my fame!’
‘What is it?’

‘A huge object-glass for the great telescope I am so busy about! Such a
magnificent aid to science has never entered this county before, you may
depend.’
He produced from under his arm the carefully cuddled-up package, which
was in shape a round flat disk, like a dinner-plate, tied in paper.
Proceeding to explain his plans to her more fully, he walked with her
towards the door by which she had emerged. It was a little side wicket
through a wall dividing the open park from the garden terraces. Here for a
moment he placed his valise and parcel on the coping of the stone
balustrade, till he had bidden her farewell. Then he turned, and in laying
hold of his bag by the dim light pushed the parcel over the parapet. It fell
smash upon the paved walk ten or a dozen feet beneath.
‘Oh, good heavens!’ he cried in anguish.
‘What?’
‘My object-glass broken!’
‘Is it of much value?’
‘It cost all I possess!’
He ran round by the steps to the lower lawn, Lady Constantine following, as
he continued, ‘It is a magnificent eight-inch first quality object lens! I took
advantage of my journey to London to get it! I have been six weeks making
the tube of milled board; and as I had not enough money by twelve pounds
for the lens, I borrowed it of my grandmother out of her last annuity
payment. What can be, can be done!’
‘Perhaps it is not broken.’
He felt on the ground, found the parcel, and shook it. A clicking noise
issued from inside. Swithin smote his forehead with his hand, and walked
up and down like a mad fellow.
‘My telescope! I have waited nine months for this lens. Now the
possibility of setting up a really powerful instrument is over! It is too cruel
—how could it happen! . . . Lady Constantine, I am ashamed of myself,—

before you. Oh, but, Lady Constantine, if you only knew what it is to a
person engaged in science to have the means of clinching a theory snatched
away at the last moment! It is I against the world; and when the world has
accidents on its side in addition to its natural strength, what chance for me!’
The young astronomer leant against the wall, and was silent. His misery
was of an intensity and kind with that of Palissy, in these struggles with an
adverse fate.
‘Don’t mind it,—pray don’t!’ said Lady Constantine. ‘It is dreadfully
unfortunate! You have my whole sympathy. Can it be mended?’
‘Mended,—no, no!’
‘Cannot you do with your present one a little longer?’
‘It is altogether inferior, cheap, and bad!’
‘I’ll get you another,—yes, indeed, I will! Allow me to get you another as
soon as possible. I’ll do anything to assist you out of your trouble; for I am
most anxious to see you famous. I know you will be a great astronomer, in
spite of this mishap! Come, say I may get a new one.’
Swithin took her hand. He could not trust himself to speak.
*****
Some days later a little box of peculiar kind came to the Great House. It
was addressed to Lady Constantine, ‘with great care.’ She had it partly
opened and taken to her own little writing-room; and after lunch, when she
had dressed for walking, she took from the box a paper parcel like the one
which had met with the accident. This she hid under her mantle, as if she
had stolen it; and, going out slowly across the lawn, passed through the
little door before spoken of, and was soon hastening in the direction of the
Rings-Hill column.
There was a bright sun overhead on that afternoon of early spring, and its
rays shed an unusual warmth on south-west aspects, though shady places
still retained the look and feel of winter. Rooks were already beginning to
build new nests or to mend up old ones, and clamorously called in
neighbours to give opinions on difficulties in their architecture. Lady

Constantine swerved once from her path, as if she had decided to go to the
homestead where Swithin lived; but on second thoughts she bent her steps
to the column.
Drawing near it she looked up; but by reason of the height of the parapet
nobody could be seen thereon who did not stand on tiptoe. She thought,
however, that her young friend might possibly see her, if he were there, and
come down; and that he was there she soon ascertained by finding the door
unlocked, and the key inside. No movement, however, reached her ears
from above, and she began to ascend.
Meanwhile affairs at the top of the column had progressed as follows. The
afternoon being exceptionally fine, Swithin had ascended about two
o’clock, and, seating himself at the little table which he had constructed on
the spot, he began reading over his notes and examining some astronomical
journals that had reached him in the morning. The sun blazed into the
hollow roof-space as into a tub, and the sides kept out every breeze.
Though the month was February below it was May in the abacus of the
column. This state of the atmosphere, and the fact that on the previous
night he had pursued his observations till past two o’clock, produced in him
at the end of half an hour an overpowering inclination to sleep. Spreading
on the lead-work a thick rug which he kept up there, he flung himself down
against the parapet, and was soon in a state of unconsciousness.
It was about ten minutes afterwards that a soft rustle of silken clothes came
up the spiral staircase, and, hesitating onwards, reached the orifice, where
appeared the form of Lady Constantine. She did not at first perceive that he
was present, and stood still to reconnoitre. Her eye glanced over his
telescope, now wrapped up, his table and papers, his observing-chair, and
his contrivances for making the best of a deficiency of instruments. All was
warm, sunny, and silent, except that a solitary bee, which had somehow got
within the hollow of the abacus, was singing round inquiringly, unable to
discern that ascent was the only mode of escape. In another moment she
beheld the astronomer, lying in the sun like a sailor in the main-top.
Lady Constantine coughed slightly; he did not awake. She then entered,
and, drawing the parcel from beneath her cloak, placed it on the table. After
this she waited, looking for a long time at his sleeping face, which had a

very interesting appearance. She seemed reluctant to leave, yet wanted
resolution to wake him; and, pencilling his name on the parcel, she
withdrew to the staircase, where the brushing of her dress decreased to
silence as she receded round and round on her way to the base.
Swithin still slept on, and presently the rustle began again in the far-down
interior of the column. The door could be heard closing, and the rustle
came nearer, showing that she had shut herself in,—no doubt to lessen the
risk of an accidental surprise by any roaming villager. When Lady
Constantine reappeared at the top, and saw the parcel still untouched and
Swithin asleep as before, she exhibited some disappointment; but she did
not retreat.
Looking again at him, her eyes became so sentimentally fixed on his face
that it seemed as if she could not withdraw them. There lay, in the shape of
an Antinous, no amoroso, no gallant, but a guileless philosopher. His parted
lips were lips which spoke, not of love, but of millions of miles; those were
eyes which habitually gazed, not into the depths of other eyes, but into other
worlds. Within his temples dwelt thoughts, not of woman’s looks, but of
stellar aspects and the configuration of constellations.
Thus, to his physical attractiveness was added the attractiveness of mental
inaccessibility. The ennobling influence of scientific pursuits was
demonstrated by the speculative purity which expressed itself in his eyes
whenever he looked at her in speaking, and in the childlike faults of manner
which arose from his obtuseness to their difference of sex. He had never,
since becoming a man, looked even so low as to the level of a Lady
Constantine. His heaven at present was truly in the skies, and not in that
only other place where they say it can be found, in the eyes of some
daughter of Eve. Would any Circe or Calypso—and if so, what one?—ever
check this pale-haired scientist’s nocturnal sailings into the interminable
spaces overhead, and hurl all his mighty calculations on cosmic force and
stellar fire into Limbo? Oh, the pity of it, if such should be the case!
She became much absorbed in these very womanly reflections; and at last
Lady Constantine sighed, perhaps she herself did not exactly know why.
Then a very soft expression lighted on her lips and eyes, and she looked at
one jump ten years more youthful than before—quite a girl in aspect,

younger than he. On the table lay his implements; among them a pair of
scissors, which, to judge from the shreds around, had been used in cutting
curves in thick paper for some calculating process.
What whim, agitation, or attraction prompted the impulse, nobody knows;
but she took the scissors, and, bending over the sleeping youth, cut off one
of the curls, or rather crooks,—for they hardly reached a curl,—into which
each lock of his hair chose to twist itself in the last inch of its length. The
hair fell upon the rug. She picked it up quickly, returned the scissors to the
table, and, as if her dignity had suddenly become ashamed of her fantasies,
hastened through the door, and descended the staircase.

VI

When his nap had naturally exhausted itself Swithin awoke. He awoke
without any surprise, for he not unfrequently gave to sleep in the day-time
what he had stolen from it in the night watches. The first object that met his
eyes was the parcel on the table, and, seeing his name inscribed thereon, he
made no scruple to open it.
The sun flashed upon a lens of surprising magnitude, polished to such a
smoothness that the eye could scarcely meet its reflections. Here was a
crystal in whose depths were to be seen more wonders than had been
revealed by the crystals of all the Cagliostros.
Swithin, hot with joyousness, took this treasure to his telescope
manufactory at the homestead; then he started off for the Great House.
On gaining its precincts he felt shy of calling, never having received any
hint or permission to do so; while Lady Constantine’s mysterious manner of
leaving the parcel seemed to demand a like mysteriousness in his
approaches to her. All the afternoon he lingered about uncertainly, in the
hope of intercepting her on her return from a drive, occasionally walking
with an indifferent lounge across glades commanded by the windows, that if
she were in-doors she might know he was near. But she did not show
herself during the daylight. Still impressed by her playful secrecy he
carried on the same idea after dark, by returning to the house and passing

through the garden door on to the lawn front, where he sat on the parapet
that breasted the terrace.
Now she frequently came out here for a melancholy saunter after dinner,
and to-night was such an occasion. Swithin went forward, and met her at
nearly the spot where he had dropped the lens some nights earlier.
‘I have come to see you, Lady Constantine. How did the glass get on my
table?’
She laughed as lightly as a girl; that he had come to her in this way was
plainly no offence thus far.
‘Perhaps it was dropped from the clouds by a bird,’ she said.
‘Why should you be so good to me?’ he cried.
‘One good turn deserves another,’ answered she.
‘Dear Lady Constantine! Whatever discoveries result from this shall be
ascribed to you as much as to me. Where should I have been without your
gift?’
‘You would possibly have accomplished your purpose just the same, and
have been so much the nobler for your struggle against ill-luck. I hope that
now you will be able to proceed with your large telescope as if nothing had
happened.’
‘O yes, I will, certainly. I am afraid I showed too much feeling, the reverse
of stoical, when the accident occurred. That was not very noble of me.’
‘There is nothing unnatural in such feeling at your age. When you are older
you will smile at such moods, and at the mishaps that gave rise to them.’
‘Ah, I perceive you think me weak in the extreme,’ he said, with just a
shade of pique. ‘But you will never realize that an incident which filled but
a degree in the circle of your thoughts covered the whole circumference of
mine. No person can see exactly what and where another’s horizon is.’
They soon parted, and she re-entered the house, where she sat reflecting for
some time, till she seemed to fear that she had wounded his feelings. She

awoke in the night, and thought and thought on the same thing, till she had
worked herself into a feverish fret about it. When it was morning she
looked across at the tower, and sitting down, impulsively wrote the
following note:—

‘Dear Mr. St. Cleeve,—I cannot allow you to remain under the
impression that I despised your scientific endeavours in speaking as I
did last night. I think you were too sensitive to my remark. But
perhaps you were agitated with the labours of the day, and I fear that
watching so late at night must make you very weary. If I can help you
again, please let me know. I never realized the grandeur of astronomy
till you showed me how to do so. Also let me know about the new
telescope. Come and see me at any time. After your great kindness in
being my messenger I can never do enough for you. I wish you had a
mother or sister, and pity your loneliness! I am lonely too.—Yours
truly,
Viviette Constantine.’

She was so anxious that he should get this letter the same day that she ran
across to the column with it during the morning, preferring to be her own
emissary in so curious a case. The door, as she had expected, was locked;
and, slipping the letter under it, she went home again. During lunch her
ardour in the cause of Swithin’s hurt feelings cooled down, till she
exclaimed to herself, as she sat at her lonely table, ‘What could have
possessed me to write in that way!’
After lunch she went faster to the tower than she had gone in the early
morning, and peeped eagerly into the chink under the door. She could
discern no letter, and, on trying the latch, found that the door would open.
The letter was gone, Swithin having obviously arrived in the interval.
She blushed a blush which seemed to say, ‘I am getting foolishly interested
in this young man.’ She had, in short, in her own opinion, somewhat
overstepped the bounds of dignity. Her instincts did not square well with
the formalities of her existence, and she walked home despondently.
Had a concert, bazaar, lecture, or Dorcas meeting required the patronage
and support of Lady Constantine at this juncture, the circumstance would

probably have been sufficient to divert her mind from Swithin St. Cleeve
and astronomy for some little time. But as none of these incidents were
within the range of expectation—Welland House and parish lying far from
large towns and watering-places—the void in her outer life continued, and
with it the void in her life within.
The youth had not answered her letter; neither had he called upon her in
response to the invitation she had regretted, with the rest of the epistle, as
being somewhat too warmly informal for black and white. To speak
tenderly to him was one thing, to write another—that was her feeling
immediately after the event; but his counter-move of silence and avoidance,
though probably the result of pure unconsciousness on his part, completely
dispersed such self-considerations now. Her eyes never fell upon the
Rings-Hill column without a solicitous wonder arising as to what he was
doing. A true woman, she would assume the remotest possibility to be the
most likely contingency, if the possibility had the recommendation of being
tragical; and she now feared that something was wrong with Swithin St.
Cleeve. Yet there was not the least doubt that he had become so immersed
in the business of the new telescope as to forget everything else.
On Sunday, between the services, she walked to Little Welland, chiefly for
the sake of giving a run to a house-dog, a large St. Bernard, of whom she
was fond. The distance was but short; and she returned along a narrow
lane, divided from the river by a hedge, through whose leafless twigs the
ripples flashed silver lights into her eyes. Here she discovered Swithin,
leaning over a gate, his eyes bent upon the stream.
The dog first attracted his attention; then he heard her, and turned round.
She had never seen him looking so despondent.
‘You have never called, though I invited you,’ said Lady Constantine.
‘My great telescope won’t work!’ he replied lugubriously.
‘I am sorry for that. So it has made you quite forget me?’
‘Ah, yes; you wrote me a very kind letter, which I ought to have answered.
Well, I did forget, Lady Constantine. My new telescope won’t work, and I
don’t know what to do about it at all!’

‘Can I assist you any further?’
‘No, I fear not. Besides, you have assisted me already.’
‘What would really help you out of all your difficulties? Something would,
surely?’
He shook his head.
‘There must be some solution to them?’
‘O yes,’ he replied, with a hypothetical gaze into the stream; ‘some solution
of course—an equatorial, for instance.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Briefly, an impossibility. It is a splendid instrument, with an object lens of,
say, eight or nine inches aperture, mounted with its axis parallel to the
earth’s axis, and fitted up with graduated circles for denoting right
ascensions and declinations; besides having special eye-pieces, a finder, and
all sorts of appliances—clock-work to make the telescope follow the
motion in right ascension—I cannot tell you half the conveniences. Ah, an
equatorial is a thing indeed!’
‘An equatorial is the one instrument required to make you quite happy?’
‘Well, yes.’
‘I’ll see what I can do.’
‘But, Lady Constantine,’ cried the amazed astronomer, ‘an equatorial such
as I describe costs as much as two grand pianos!’
She was rather staggered at this news; but she rallied gallantly, and said,
‘Never mind. I’ll make inquiries.’
‘But it could not be put on the tower without people seeing it! It would
have to be fixed to the masonry. And there must be a dome of some kind to
keep off the rain. A tarpaulin might do.’
Lady Constantine reflected. ‘It would be a great business, I see,’ she said.
‘Though as far as the fixing and roofing go, I would of course consent to

your doing what you liked with the old column. My workmen could fix it,
could they not?’
‘O yes. But what would Sir Blount say, if he came home and saw the
goings on?’
Lady Constantine turned aside to hide a sudden displacement of blood from
her cheek. ‘Ah—my husband!’ she whispered. . . . ‘I am just now going to
church,’ she added in a repressed and hurried tone. ‘I will think of this
matter.’
In church it was with Lady Constantine as with the Lord Angelo of Vienna
in a similar situation—Heaven had her empty words only, and her invention
heard not her tongue. She soon recovered from the momentary
consternation into which she had fallen at Swithin’s abrupt query. The
possibility of that young astronomer becoming a renowned scientist by her
aid was a thought which gave her secret pleasure. The course of rendering
him instant material help began to have a great fascination for her; it was a
new and unexpected channel for her cribbed and confined emotions. With
experiences so much wider than his, Lady Constantine saw that the chances
were perhaps a million to one against Swithin St. Cleeve ever being
Astronomer Royal, or Astronomer Extraordinary of any sort; yet the
remaining chance in his favour was one of those possibilities which, to a
woman of bounding intellect and venturesome fancy, are pleasanter to dwell
on than likely issues that have no savour of high speculation in them. The
equatorial question was a great one; and she had caught such a large spark
from his enthusiasm that she could think of nothing so piquant as how to
obtain the important instrument.
When Tabitha Lark arrived at the Great House next day, instead of finding
Lady Constantine in bed, as formerly, she discovered her in the library,
poring over what astronomical works she had been able to unearth from the
worm-eaten shelves. As these publications were, for a science of such rapid
development, somewhat venerable, there was not much help of a practical
kind to be gained from them. Nevertheless, the equatorial retained a hold
upon her fancy, till she became as eager to see one on the Rings-Hill
column as Swithin himself.

The upshot of it was that Lady Constantine sent a messenger that evening to
Welland Bottom, where the homestead of Swithin’s grandmother was
situated, requesting the young man’s presence at the house at twelve
o’clock next day.
He hurriedly returned an obedient reply, and the promise was enough to
lend great freshness to her manner next morning, instead of the leaden air
which was too frequent with her before the sun reached the meridian, and
sometimes after. Swithin had, in fact, arisen as an attractive little
intervention between herself and despair.

VII

A fog defaced all the trees of the park that morning, the white atmosphere
adhered to the ground like a fungoid growth from it, and made the turfed
undulations look slimy and raw. But Lady Constantine settled down in her
chair to await the coming of the late curate’s son with a serenity which the
vast blanks outside could neither baffle nor destroy.
At two minutes to twelve the door-bell rang, and a look overspread the
lady’s face that was neither maternal, sisterly, nor amorous; but partook in
an indescribable manner of all three kinds. The door was flung open and
the young man was ushered in, the fog still clinging to his hair, in which she
could discern a little notch where she had nipped off the curl.
A speechlessness that socially was a defect in him was to her view a piquant
attribute just now. He looked somewhat alarmed.
‘Lady Constantine, have I done anything, that you have sent—?’ he began
breathlessly, as he gazed in her face, with parted lips.
‘O no, of course not! I have decided to do something,—nothing more,’ she
smilingly said, holding out her hand, which he rather gingerly touched.
‘Don’t look so concerned. Who makes equatorials?’
This remark was like the drawing of a weir-hatch and she was speedily
inundated with all she wished to know concerning astronomical opticians.
When he had imparted the particulars he waited, manifestly burning to
know whither these inquiries tended.

‘I am not going to buy you one,’ she said gently.
He looked as if he would faint.
‘Certainly not. I do not wish it. I—could not have accepted it,’ faltered the
young man.
‘But I am going to buy one for myself. I lack a hobby, and I shall choose
astronomy. I shall fix my equatorial on the column.’
Swithin brightened up.
‘And I shall let you have the use of it whenever you choose. In brief,
Swithin St. Cleeve shall be Lady Constantine’s Astronomer Royal; and she
—and she—’
‘Shall be his Queen.’ The words came not much the worse for being
uttered only in the tone of one anxious to complete a tardy sentence.
‘Well, that’s what I have decided to do,’ resumed Lady Constantine. ‘I will
write to these opticians at once.’
There seemed to be no more for him to do than to thank her for the
privilege, whenever it should be available, which he promptly did, and then
made as if to go. But Lady Constantine detained him with, ‘Have you ever
seen my library?’
‘No; never.’
‘You don’t say you would like to see it.’
‘But I should.’
‘It is the third door on the right. You can find your way in, and you can stay
there as long as you like.’
Swithin then left the morning-room for the apartment designated, and
amused himself in that ‘soul of the house,’ as Cicero defined it, till he heard
the lunch bell sounding from the turret, when he came down from the
library steps, and thought it time to go home. But at that moment a servant
entered to inquire whether he would or would not prefer to have his lunch
brought in to him there; upon his replying in the affirmative a large tray

arrived on the stomach of a footman, and Swithin was greatly surprised to
see a whole pheasant placed at his disposal.
Having breakfasted at eight that morning, and having been much in the
open air afterwards, the Adonis-astronomer’s appetite assumed grand
proportions. How much of that pheasant he might consistently eat without
hurting his dear patroness Lady Constantine’s feelings, when he could
readily eat it all, was a problem in which the reasonableness of a larger and
larger quantity argued itself inversely as a smaller and smaller quantity
remained. When, at length, he had finally decided on a terminal point in the
body of the bird, the door was gently opened.
‘Oh, you have not finished?’ came to him over his shoulder, in a considerate
voice.
‘O yes, thank you, Lady Constantine,’ he said, jumping up.
‘Why did you prefer to lunch in this awkward, dusty place?’
‘I thought—it would be better,’ said Swithin simply.
‘There is fruit in the other room, if you like to come. But perhaps you
would rather not?’
‘O yes, I should much like to,’ said Swithin, walking over his napkin, and
following her as she led the way to the adjoining apartment.
Here, while she asked him what he had been reading, he modestly ventured
on an apple, in whose flavour he recognized the familiar taste of old friends
robbed from her husband’s orchards in his childhood, long before Lady
Constantine’s advent on the scene. She supposed he had confined his
search to his own sublime subject, astronomy?
Swithin suddenly became older to the eye, as his thoughts reverted to the
topic thus reintroduced. ‘Yes,’ he informed her. ‘I seldom read any other
subject. In these days the secret of productive study is to avoid well.’
‘Did you find any good treatises?’
‘None. The theories in your books are almost as obsolete as the Ptolemaic
System. Only fancy, that magnificent Cyclopædia, leather-bound, and

stamped, and gilt, and wide margined, and bearing the blazon of your house
in magnificent colours, says that the twinkling of the stars is probably
caused by heavenly bodies passing in front of them in their revolutions.’
‘And is it not so? That was what I learned when I was a girl.’
The modern Eudoxus now rose above the embarrassing horizon of Lady
Constantine’s great house, magnificent furniture, and awe-inspiring
footman. He became quite natural, all his self-consciousness fled, and his
eye spoke into hers no less than his lips to her ears, as he said, ‘How such a
theory can have lingered on to this day beats conjecture! Francois Arago,
as long as forty or fifty years ago, conclusively established the fact that
scintillation is the simplest thing in the world,—merely a matter of
atmosphere. But I won’t speak of this to you now. The comparative
absence of scintillation in warm countries was noticed by Humboldt. Then,
again, the scintillations vary. No star flaps his wings like Sirius when he
lies low! He flashes out emeralds and rubies, amethystine flames and
sapphirine colours, in a manner quite marvellous to behold, and this is only
one star! So, too, do Arcturus, and Capella, and lesser luminaries. . . . But I
tire you with this subject?’
‘On the contrary, you speak so beautifully that I could listen all day.’
The astronomer threw a searching glance upon her for a moment; but there
was no satire in the warm soft eyes which met his own with a luxurious
contemplative interest. ‘Say some more of it to me,’ she continued, in a
voice not far removed from coaxing.
After some hesitation the subject returned again to his lips, and he said
some more—indeed, much more; Lady Constantine often throwing in an
appreciative remark or question, often meditatively regarding him, in
pursuance of ideas not exactly based on his words, and letting him go on as
he would.
Before he left the house the new astronomical project was set in train. The
top of the column was to be roofed in, to form a proper observatory; and on
the ground that he knew better than any one else how this was to be carried
out, she requested him to give precise directions on the point, and to
superintend the whole. A wooden cabin was to be erected at the foot of the

tower, to provide better accommodation for casual visitors to the
observatory than the spiral staircase and lead-flat afforded. As this cabin
would be completely buried in the dense fir foliage which enveloped the
lower part of the column and its pedestal, it would be no disfigurement to
the general appearance. Finally, a path was to be made across the
surrounding fallow, by which she might easily approach the scene of her
new study.
When he was gone she wrote to the firm of opticians concerning the
equatorial for whose reception all this was designed.
The undertaking was soon in full progress; and by degrees it became the
talk of the hamlets round that Lady Constantine had given up melancholy
for astronomy, to the great advantage of all who came in contact with her.
One morning, when Tabitha Lark had come as usual to read, Lady
Constantine chanced to be in a quarter of the house to which she seldom
wandered; and while here she heard her maid talking confidentially to
Tabitha in the adjoining room on the curious and sudden interest which
Lady Constantine had acquired in the moon and stars.
‘They do say all sorts of trumpery,’ observed the handmaid. ‘They say—
though ’tis little better than mischief, to be sure—that it isn’t the moon, and
it isn’t the stars, and it isn’t the plannards, that my lady cares for, but for the
pretty lad who draws ’em down from the sky to please her; and being a
married example, and what with sin and shame knocking at every poor
maid’s door afore you can say, “Hands off, my dear,” to the civilest young
man, she ought to set a better pattern.’
Lady Constantine’s face flamed up vividly.
‘If Sir Blount were to come back all of a sudden—oh, my!’
Lady Constantine grew cold as ice.
‘There’s nothing in it,’ said Tabitha scornfully. ‘I could prove it any day.’
‘Well, I wish I had half her chance!’ sighed the lady’s maid. And no more
was said on the subject then.

Tabitha’s remark showed that the suspicion was quite in embryo as yet.
Nevertheless, saying nothing to reveal what she had overheard, immediately
after the reading Lady Constantine flew like a bird to where she knew that
Swithin might be found.
He was in the plantation, setting up little sticks to mark where the wooden
cabin was to stand. She called him to a remote place under the funereal
trees.
‘I have altered my mind,’ she said. ‘I can have nothing to do with this
matter.’
‘Indeed?’ said Swithin, surprised.
‘Astronomy is not my hobby any longer. And you are not my Astronomer
Royal.’
‘O Lady Constantine!’ cried the youth, aghast. ‘Why, the work is begun! I
thought the equatorial was ordered.’
She dropped her voice, though a Jericho shout would not have been
overheard: ‘Of course astronomy is my hobby privately, and you are to be
my Astronomer Royal, and I still furnish the observatory; but not to the
outer world. There is a reason against my indulgence in such scientific
fancies openly; and the project must be arranged in this wise. The whole
enterprise is yours: you rent the tower of me: you build the cabin: you get
the equatorial. I simply give permission, since you desire it. The path that
was to be made from the hill to the park is not to be thought of. There is to
be no communication between the house and the column. The equatorial
will arrive addressed to you, and its cost I will pay through you. My name
must not appear, and I vanish entirely from the undertaking. . . . This blind
is necessary,’ she added, sighing. ‘Good-bye!’
‘But you do take as much interest as before, and it will be yours just the
same?’ he said, walking after her. He scarcely comprehended the
subterfuge, and was absolutely blind as to its reason.
‘Can you doubt it? But I dare not do it openly.’

With this she went away; and in due time there circulated through the parish
an assertion that it was a mistake to suppose Lady Constantine had anything
to do with Swithin St. Cleeve or his star-gazing schemes. She had merely
allowed him to rent the tower of her for use as his observatory, and to put
some temporary fixtures on it for that purpose.
After this Lady Constantine lapsed into her former life of loneliness; and by
these prompt measures the ghost of a rumour which had barely started into
existence was speedily laid to rest. It had probably originated in her own
dwelling, and had gone but little further. Yet, despite her self-control, a
certain north window of the Great House, that commanded an uninterrupted
view of the upper ten feet of the column, revealed her to be somewhat
frequently gazing from it at a rotundity which had begun to appear on the
summit. To those with whom she came in contact she sometimes addressed
such remarks as, ‘Is young Mr. St. Cleeve getting on with his observatory?
I hope he will fix his instruments without damaging the column, which is so
interesting to us as being in memory of my dear husband’s great-
grandfather—a truly brave man.’
On one occasion her building-steward ventured to suggest to her that, Sir
Blount having deputed to her the power to grant short leases in his absence,
she should have a distinctive agreement with Swithin, as between landlord
and tenant, with a stringent clause against his driving nails into the
stonework of such an historical memorial. She replied that she did not wish
to be severe on the last representative of such old and respected
parishioners as St. Cleeve’s mother’s family had been, and of such a well-
descended family as his father’s; so that it would only be necessary for the
steward to keep an eye on Mr. St. Cleeve’s doings.
Further, when a letter arrived at the Great House from Hilton and Pimm’s,
the opticians, with information that the equatorial was ready and packed,
and that a man would be sent with it to fix it, she replied to that firm to the
effect that their letter should have been addressed to Mr. St. Cleeve, the
local astronomer, on whose behalf she had made the inquiries; that she had
nothing more to do with the matter; that he would receive the instrument
and pay the bill,—her guarantee being given for the latter performance.

VIII

Lady Constantine then had the pleasure of beholding a waggon, laden with
packing-cases, moving across the field towards the pillar; and not many
days later Swithin, who had never come to the Great House since the
luncheon, met her in a path which he knew to be one of her promenades.
‘The equatorial is fixed, and the man gone,’ he said, half in doubt as to his
speech, for her commands to him not to recognize her agency or patronage
still puzzled him. ‘I respectfully wish—you could come and see it, Lady
Constantine.’
‘I would rather not; I cannot.’
‘Saturn is lovely; Jupiter is simply sublime; I can see double stars in the
Lion and in the Virgin, where I had seen only a single one before. It is all I
required to set me going!’
‘I’ll come. But—you need say nothing about my visit. I cannot come to-
night, but I will some time this week. Yet only this once, to try the
instrument. Afterwards you must be content to pursue your studies alone.’
Swithin seemed but little affected at this announcement. ‘Hilton and
Pimm’s man handed me the bill,’ he continued.
‘How much is it?’
He told her. ‘And the man who has built the hut and dome, and done the
other fixing, has sent in his.’ He named this amount also.
‘Very well. They shall be settled with. My debts must be paid with my
money, which you shall have at once,—in cash, since a cheque would
hardly do. Come to the house for it this evening. But no, no—you must not
come openly; such is the world. Come to the window—the window that is
exactly in a line with the long snowdrop bed, in the south front—at eight to-
night, and I will give you what is necessary.’
‘Certainly, Lady Constantine,’ said the young man.
At eight that evening accordingly, Swithin entered like a spectre upon the
terrace to seek out the spot she had designated. The equatorial had so
entirely absorbed his thoughts that he did not trouble himself seriously to
conjecture the why and wherefore of her secrecy. If he casually thought of

it, he set it down in a general way to an intensely generous wish on her part
not to lessen his influence among the poorer inhabitants by making him
appear the object of patronage.
While he stood by the long snowdrop bed, which looked up at him like a
nether Milky Way, the French casement of the window opposite softly
opened, and a hand bordered by a glimmer of lace was stretched forth, from
which he received a crisp little parcel,—bank-notes, apparently. He knew
the hand, and held it long enough to press it to his lips, the only form which
had ever occurred to him of expressing his gratitude to her without the
incumbrance of clumsy words, a vehicle at the best of times but rudely
suited to such delicate merchandise. The hand was hastily withdrawn, as if
the treatment had been unexpected. Then seemingly moved by second
thoughts she bent forward and said, ‘Is the night good for observations?’
‘Perfect.’
She paused. ‘Then I’ll come to-night,’ she at last said. ‘It makes no
difference to me, after all. Wait just one moment.’
He waited, and she presently emerged, muffled up like a nun; whereupon
they left the terrace and struck across the park together.
Very little was said by either till they were crossing the fallow, when he
asked if his arm would help her. She did not take the offered support just
then; but when they were ascending the prehistoric earthwork, under the
heavy gloom of the fir-trees, she seized it, as if rather influenced by the
oppressive solitude than by fatigue.
Thus they reached the foot of the column, ten thousand spirits in prison
seeming to gasp their griefs from the funereal boughs overhead, and a few
twigs scratching the pillar with the drag of impish claws as tenacious as
those figuring in St. Anthony’s temptation.
‘How intensely dark it is just here!’ she whispered. ‘I wonder you can keep
in the path. Many ancient Britons lie buried there doubtless.’
He led her round to the other side, where, feeling his way with his hands, he
suddenly left her, appearing a moment after with a light.

‘What place is this?’ she exclaimed.
‘This is the new wood cabin,’ said he.
She could just discern the outline of a little house, not unlike a bathing-
machine without wheels.
‘I have kept lights ready here,’ he went on, ‘as I thought you might come
any evening, and possibly bring company.’
‘Don’t criticize me for coming alone,’ she exclaimed with sensitive
promptness. ‘There are social reasons for what I do of which you know
nothing.’
‘Perhaps it is much to my discredit that I don’t know.’
‘Not at all. You are all the better for it. Heaven forbid that I should
enlighten you. Well, I see this is the hut. But I am more curious to go to
the top of the tower, and make discoveries.’
He brought a little lantern from the cabin, and lighted her up the winding
staircase to the temple of that sublime mystery on whose threshold he stood
as priest.
The top of the column was quite changed. The tub-shaped space within the
parapet, formerly open to the air and sun, was now arched over by a light
dome of lath-work covered with felt. But this dome was not fixed. At the
line where its base descended to the parapet there were half a dozen iron
balls, precisely like cannon-shot, standing loosely in a groove, and on these
the dome rested its whole weight. In the side of the dome was a slit,
through which the wind blew and the North Star beamed, and towards it the
end of the great telescope was directed. This latter magnificent object, with
its circles, axes, and handles complete, was securely fixed in the middle of
the floor.
‘But you can only see one part of the sky through that slit,’ said she.
The astronomer stretched out his arm, and the whole dome turned
horizontally round, running on the balls with a rumble like thunder. Instead
of the star Polaris, which had first been peeping in through the slit, there

now appeared the countenances of Castor and Pollux. Swithin then
manipulated the equatorial, and put it through its capabilities in like manner.
She was enchanted; being rather excitable she even clapped her hands just
once. She turned to him: ‘Now are you happy?’
‘But it is all yours, Lady Constantine.’
‘At this moment. But that’s a defect which can soon be remedied. When is
your birthday?’
‘Next month,—the seventh.’
‘Then it shall all be yours,—a birthday present.’
The young man protested; it was too much.
‘No, you must accept it all,—equatorial, dome stand, hut, and everything
that has been put here for this astronomical purpose. The possession of
these apparatus would only compromise me. Already they are reputed to be
yours, and they must be made yours. There is no help for it. If ever’ (here
her voice lost some firmness),—‘if ever you go away from me,—from this
place, I mean,—and marry, and settle in a new home elsewhere for good,
and forget me, you must take these things, equatorial and all, and never tell
your wife or anybody how they came to be yours.’
‘I wish I could do something more for you!’ exclaimed the much-moved
astronomer. ‘If you could but share my fame,—supposing I get any, which
I may die before doing,—it would be a little compensation. As to my going
away and marrying, I certainly shall not. I may go away, but I shall never
marry.’
‘Why not?’
‘A beloved science is enough wife for me,—combined, perhaps, with a little
warm friendship with one of kindred pursuits.’
‘Who is the friend of kindred pursuits?’
‘Yourself I should like it to be.’

‘You would have to become a woman before I could be that, publicly; or I a
man,’ she replied, with dry melancholy.
‘Why I a woman, or you a man, dear Lady Constantine?’
‘I cannot explain. No; you must keep your fame and your science all to
yourself, and I must keep my—troubles.’
Swithin, to divert her from melancholy—not knowing that in the expression
of her melancholy thus and now she found much pleasure,—changed the
subject by asking if they should take some observations.
‘Yes; the scenery is well hung to-night,’ she said looking out upon the
heavens.
Then they proceeded to scan the sky, roving from planet to star, from single
stars to double stars, from double to coloured stars, in the cursory manner of
the merely curious. They plunged down to that at other times invisible
multitude in the back rows of the celestial theatre: remote layers of
constellations whose shapes were new and singular; pretty twinklers which
for infinite ages had spent their beams without calling forth from a single
earthly poet a single line, or being able to bestow a ray of comfort on a
single benighted traveller.
‘And to think,’ said Lady Constantine, ‘that the whole race of shepherds,
since the beginning of the world,—even those immortal shepherds who
watched near Bethlehem,—should have gone into their graves without
knowing that for one star that lighted them in their labours, there were a
hundred as good behind trying to do so! . . . I have a feeling for this
instrument not unlike the awe I should feel in the presence of a great
magician in whom I really believed. Its powers are so enormous, and
weird, and fantastical, that I should have a personal fear in being with it
alone. Music drew an angel down, said the poet: but what is that to drawing
down worlds!’
‘I often experience a kind of fear of the sky after sitting in the observing-
chair a long time,’ he answered. ‘And when I walk home afterwards I also
fear it, for what I know is there, but cannot see, as one naturally fears the
presence of a vast formless something that only reveals a very little of

itself. That’s partly what I meant by saying that magnitude, which up to a
certain point has grandeur, has beyond it ghastliness.’
Thus the interest of their sidereal observations led them on, till the
knowledge that scarce any other human vision was travelling within a
hundred million miles of their own gave them such a sense of the isolation
of that faculty as almost to be a sense of isolation in respect of their whole
personality, causing a shudder at its absoluteness. At night, when human
discords and harmonies are hushed, in a general sense, for the greater part
of twelve hours, there is nothing to moderate the blow with which the
infinitely great, the stellar universe, strikes down upon the infinitely little,
the mind of the beholder; and this was the case now. Having got closer to
immensity than their fellow-creatures, they saw at once its beauty and its
frightfulness. They more and more felt the contrast between their own tiny
magnitudes and those among which they had recklessly plunged, till they
were oppressed with the presence of a vastness they could not cope with
even as an idea, and which hung about them like a nightmare.
He stood by her while she observed; she by him when they changed places.
Once that Swithin’s emancipation from a trammelling body had been
effected by the telescope, and he was well away in space, she felt her
influence over him diminishing to nothing. He was quite unconscious of
his terrestrial neighbourings, and of herself as one of them. It still further
reduced her towards unvarnished simplicity in her manner to him.
The silence was broken only by the ticking of the clock-work which gave
diurnal motion to the instrument. The stars moved on, the end of the
telescope followed, but their tongues stood still. To expect that he was ever
voluntarily going to end the pause by speech was apparently futile. She laid
her hand upon his arm.
He started, withdrew his eye from the telescope, and brought himself back
to the earth by a visible—almost painful—effort.
‘Do come out of it,’ she coaxed, with a softness in her voice which any man
but unpractised Swithin would have felt to be exquisite. ‘I feel that I have
been so foolish as to put in your hands an instrument to effect my own
annihilation. Not a word have you spoken for the last ten minutes.’

‘I have been mentally getting on with my great theory. I hope soon to be
able to publish it to the world. What, are you going? I will walk with you,
Lady Constantine. When will you come again?’
‘When your great theory is published to the world.’

IX

Lady Constantine, if narrowly observed at this time, would have seemed to
be deeply troubled in conscience, and particularly after the interview above
described. Ash Wednesday occurred in the calendar a few days later, and
she went to morning service with a look of genuine contrition on her
emotional and yearning countenance.
Besides herself the congregation consisted only of the parson, clerk, school-
children, and three old people living on alms, who sat under the reading-
desk; and thus, when Mr. Torkingham blazed forth the denunciatory
sentences of the Commination, nearly the whole force of them seemed to
descend upon her own shoulders. Looking across the empty pews she saw
through the one or two clear panes of the window opposite a youthful figure
in the churchyard, and the very feeling against which she had tried to pray
returned again irresistibly.
When she came out and had crossed into the private walk, Swithin came
forward to speak to her. This was a most unusual circumstance, and argued
a matter of importance.
‘I have made an amazing discovery in connexion with the variable stars,’ he
exclaimed. ‘It will excite the whole astronomical world, and the world
outside but little less. I had long suspected the true secret of their
variability; but it was by the merest chance on earth that I hit upon a proof
of my guess. Your equatorial has done it, my good, kind Lady Constantine,
and our fame is established for ever!’
He sprang into the air, and waved his hat in his triumph.
‘Oh, I am so glad—so rejoiced!’ she cried. ‘What is it? But don’t stop to
tell me. Publish it at once in some paper; nail your name to it, or somebody

will seize the idea and appropriate it,—forestall you in some way. It will be
Adams and Leverrier over again.’
‘If I may walk with you I will explain the nature of the discovery. It
accounts for the occasional green tint of Castor, and every difficulty. I said
I would be the Copernicus of the stellar system, and I have begun to be. Yet
who knows?’
‘Now don’t be so up and down! I shall not understand your explanation,
and I would rather not know it. I shall reveal it if it is very grand. Women,
you know, are not safe depositaries of such valuable secrets. You may walk
with me a little way, with great pleasure. Then go and write your account,
so as to insure your ownership of the discovery. . . . But how you have
watched!’ she cried, in a sudden accession of anxiety, as she turned to look
more closely at him. ‘The orbits of your eyes are leaden, and your eyelids
are red and heavy. Don’t do it—pray don’t. You will be ill, and break
down.’
‘I have, it is true, been up a little late this last week,’ he said cheerfully. ‘In
fact, I couldn’t tear myself away from the equatorial; it is such a wonderful
possession that it keeps me there till daylight. But what does that matter,
now I have made the discovery?’
‘Ah, it does matter! Now, promise me—I insist—that you will not commit
such imprudences again; for what should I do if my Astronomer Royal were
to die?’
She laughed, but far too apprehensively to be effective as a display of
levity.
They parted, and he went home to write out his paper. He promised to call
as soon as his discovery was in print. Then they waited for the result.
It is impossible to describe the tremulous state of Lady Constantine during
the interval. The warm interest she took in Swithin St. Cleeve—many
would have said dangerously warm interest—made his hopes her hopes;
and though she sometimes admitted to herself that great allowance was
requisite for the overweening confidence of youth in the future, she
permitted herself to be blinded to probabilities for the pleasure of sharing
his dreams. It seemed not unreasonable to suppose the present hour to be

the beginning of realization to her darling wish that this young man should
become famous. He had worked hard, and why should he not be famous
early? His very simplicity in mundane affairs afforded a strong
presumption that in things celestial he might be wise. To obtain support for
this hypothesis she had only to think over the lives of many eminent
astronomers.
She waited feverishly for the flourish of trumpets from afar, by which she
expected the announcement of his discovery to be greeted. Knowing that
immediate intelligence of the outburst would be brought to her by himself,
she watched from the windows of the Great House each morning for a sight
of his figure hastening down the glade.
But he did not come.
A long array of wet days passed their dreary shapes before her, and made
the waiting still more tedious. On one of these occasions she ran across to
the tower, at the risk of a severe cold. The door was locked.
Two days after she went again. The door was locked still. But this was
only to be expected in such weather. Yet she would have gone on to his
house, had there not been one reason too many against such precipitancy.
As astronomer and astronomer there was no harm in their meetings; but as
woman and man she feared them.
Ten days passed without a sight of him; ten blurred and dreary days, during
which the whole landscape dripped like a mop; the park trees swabbed the
gravel from the drive, while the sky was a zinc-coloured archi-vault of
immovable cloud. It seemed as if the whole science of astronomy had
never been real, and that the heavenly bodies, with their motions, were as
theoretical as the lines and circles of a bygone mathematical problem.
She could content herself no longer with fruitless visits to the column, and
when the rain had a little abated she walked to the nearest hamlet, and in a
conversation with the first old woman she met contrived to lead up to the
subject of Swithin St. Cleeve by talking about his grandmother.
‘Ah, poor old heart; ’tis a bad time for her, my lady!’ exclaimed the dame.
‘What?’

‘Her grandson is dying; and such a gentleman through and through!’
‘What! . . . Oh, it has something to do with that dreadful discovery!’
‘Discovery, my lady?’
She left the old woman with an evasive answer, and with a breaking heart
crept along the road. Tears brimmed into her eyes as she walked, and by
the time that she was out of sight sobs burst forth tumultuously.
‘I am too fond of him!’ she moaned; ‘but I can’t help it; and I don’t care if
it’s wrong,—I don’t care!’
Without further considerations as to who beheld her doings she instinctively
went straight towards Mrs. Martin’s. Seeing a man coming she calmed
herself sufficiently to ask him through her dropped veil how poor Mr. St.
Cleeve was that day. But she only got the same reply: ‘They say he is
dying, my lady.’
When Swithin had parted from Lady Constantine, on the previous Ash-
Wednesday, he had gone straight to the homestead and prepared his account
of ‘A New Astronomical Discovery.’ It was written perhaps in too glowing
a rhetoric for the true scientific tone of mind; but there was no doubt that
his assertion met with a most startling aptness all the difficulties which had
accompanied the received theories on the phenomena attending those
changeable suns of marvellous systems so far away. It accounted for the
nebulous mist that surrounds some of them at their weakest time; in short,
took up a position of probability which has never yet been successfully
assailed.
The papers were written in triplicate, and carefully sealed up with blue
wax. One copy was directed to Greenwich, another to the Royal Society,
another to a prominent astronomer. A brief statement of the essence of the
discovery was also prepared for the leading daily paper.
He considered these documents, embodying as they did two years of his
constant thought, reading, and observation, too important to be entrusted for
posting to the hands of a messenger; too important to be sent to the sub-
post-office at hand. Though the day was wet, dripping wet, he went on foot
with them to a chief office, five miles off, and registered them. Quite

exhausted by the walk, after his long night-work, wet through, yet sustained
by the sense of a great achievement, he called at a bookseller’s for the
astronomical periodicals to which he subscribed; then, resting for a short
time at an inn, he plodded his way homewards, reading his papers as he
went, and planning how to enjoy a repose on his laurels of a week or more.
On he strolled through the rain, holding the umbrella vertically over the
exposed page to keep it dry while he read. Suddenly his eye was struck by
an article. It was the review of a pamphlet by an American astronomer, in
which the author announced a conclusive discovery with regard to variable
stars.
The discovery was precisely the discovery of Swithin St. Cleeve. Another
man had forestalled his fame by a period of about six weeks.
Then the youth found that the goddess Philosophy, to whom he had vowed
to dedicate his whole life, would not in return support him through a single
hour of despair. In truth, the impishness of circumstance was newer to him
than it would have been to a philosopher of threescore-and-ten. In a wild
wish for annihilation he flung himself down on a patch of heather that lay a
little removed from the road, and in this humid bed remained motionless,
while time passed by unheeded.
At last, from sheer misery and weariness, he fell asleep.
The March rain pelted him mercilessly, the beaded moisture from the
heavily charged locks of heath penetrated him through back and sides, and
clotted his hair to unsightly tags and tufts. When he awoke it was dark. He
thought of his grandmother, and of her possible alarm at missing him. On
attempting to rise, he found that he could hardly bend his joints, and that his
clothes were as heavy as lead from saturation. His teeth chattering and his
knees trembling he pursued his way home, where his appearance excited
great concern. He was obliged at once to retire to bed, and the next day he
was delirious from the chill.
It was about ten days after this unhappy occurrence that Lady Constantine
learnt the news, as above described, and hastened along to the homestead in
that state of anguish in which the heart is no longer under the control of the
judgment, and self-abandonment even to error, verges on heroism.

On reaching the house in Welland Bottom the door was opened to her by
old Hannah, who wore an assiduously sorrowful look; and Lady
Constantine was shown into the large room,—so wide that the beams bent
in the middle,—where she took her seat in one of a methodic range of
chairs, beneath a portrait of the Reverend Mr. St. Cleeve, her astronomer’s
erratic father.
The eight unwatered dying plants, in the row of eight flower-pots, denoted
that there was something wrong in the house. Mrs. Martin came downstairs
fretting, her wonder at beholding Lady Constantine not altogether
displacing the previous mood of grief.
‘Here’s a pretty kettle of fish, my lady!’ she exclaimed.
Lady Constantine said, ‘Hush!’ and pointed inquiringly upward.
‘He is not overhead, my lady,’ replied Swithin’s grandmother. ‘His
bedroom is at the back of the house.’
‘How is he now?’
‘He is better, just at this moment; and we are more hopeful. But he changes
so.’
‘May I go up? I know he would like to see me.’
Her presence having been made known to the sufferer, she was conducted
upstairs to Swithin’s room. The way thither was through the large chamber
he had used as a study and for the manufacture of optical instruments.
There lay the large pasteboard telescope, that had been just such a failure as
Crusoe’s large boat; there were his diagrams, maps, globes, and celestial
apparatus of various sorts. The absence of the worker, through illness or
death is sufficient to touch the prosiest workshop and tools with the hues of
pathos, and it was with a swelling bosom that Lady Constantine passed
through this arena of his youthful activities to the little chamber where he
lay.
Old Mrs. Martin sat down by the window, and Lady Constantine bent over
Swithin.

‘Don’t speak to me!’ she whispered. ‘It will weaken you; it will excite
you. If you do speak, it must be very softly.’
She took his hand, and one irrepressible tear fell upon it.
‘Nothing will excite me now, Lady Constantine,’ he said; ‘not even your
goodness in coming. My last excitement was when I lost the battle. . . . Do
you know that my discovery has been forestalled? It is that that’s killing
me.’
‘But you are going to recover; you are better, they say. Is it so?’
‘I think I am, to-day. But who can be sure?’
‘The poor boy was so upset at finding that his labour had been thrown
away,’ said his grandmother, ‘that he lay down in the rain, and chilled his
life out.’
‘How could you do it?’ Lady Constantine whispered. ‘O, how could you
think so much of renown, and so little of me? Why, for every discovery
made there are ten behind that await making. To commit suicide like this,
as if there were nobody in the world to care for you!’
‘It was done in my haste, and I am very, very sorry for it! I beg both you
and all my few friends never, never to forgive me! It would kill me with
self-reproach if you were to pardon my rashness!’
At this moment the doctor was announced, and Mrs. Martin went
downstairs to receive him. Lady Constantine thought she would remain to
hear his report, and for this purpose withdrew, and sat down in a nook of the
adjoining work-room of Swithin, the doctor meeting her as he passed
through it into the sick chamber.
He was there a torturingly long time; but at length he came out to the room
she waited in, and crossed it on his way downstairs. She rose and followed
him to the stairhead.
‘How is he?’ she anxiously asked. ‘Will he get over it?’
The doctor, not knowing the depth of her interest in the patient, spoke with
the blunt candour natural towards a comparatively indifferent inquirer.

‘No, Lady Constantine,’ he replied; ‘there’s a change for the worse.’
And he retired down the stairs.
Scarcely knowing what she did Lady Constantine ran back to Swithin’s
side, flung herself upon the bed and in a paroxysm of sorrow kissed him.

X

The placid inhabitants of the parish of Welland, including warbling
waggoners, lone shepherds, ploughmen, the blacksmith, the carpenter, the
gardener at the Great House, the steward and agent, the parson, clerk, and
so on, were hourly expecting the announcement of St. Cleeve’s death. The
sexton had been going to see his brother-in-law, nine miles distant, but
promptly postponed the visit for a few days, that there might be the regular
professional hand present to toll the bell in a note of due fulness and
solemnity; an attempt by a deputy, on a previous occasion of his absence,
having degenerated into a miserable stammering clang that was a disgrace
to the parish.
But Swithin St. Cleeve did not decease, a fact of which, indeed, the
habituated reader will have been well aware ever since the rain came down
upon the young man in the ninth chapter, and led to his alarming illness.
Though, for that matter, so many maimed histories are hourly enacting
themselves in this dun-coloured world as to lend almost a priority of
interest to narratives concerning those

‘Who lay great bases for eternity
Which prove more short than waste or ruining.’

How it arose that he did not die was in this wise; and his example affords
another instance of that reflex rule of the vassal soul over the sovereign
body, which, operating so wonderfully in elastic natures, and more or less in
all, originally gave rise to the legend that supremacy lay on the other side.
The evening of the day after the tender, despairing, farewell kiss of Lady
Constantine, when he was a little less weak than during her visit, he lay
with his face to the window. He lay alone, quiet and resigned. He had been
thinking, sometimes of her and other friends, but chiefly of his lost

discovery. Although nearly unconscious at the time, he had yet been aware
of that kiss, as the delicate flush which followed it upon his cheek would
have told; but he had attached little importance to it as between woman and
man. Had he been dying of love instead of wet weather, perhaps the
impulsive act of that handsome lady would have been seized on as a proof
that his love was returned. As it was her kiss seemed but the evidence of a
naturally demonstrative kindliness, felt towards him chiefly because he was
believed to be leaving her for ever.
The reds of sunset passed, and dusk drew on. Old Hannah came upstairs to
pull down the blinds and as she advanced to the window he said to her, in a
faint voice, ‘Well, Hannah, what news to-day?’
‘Oh, nothing, sir,’ Hannah replied, looking out of the window with sad
apathy, ‘only that there’s a comet, they say.’
‘A what?’ said the dying astronomer, starting up on his elbow.
‘A comet—that’s all, Master Swithin,’ repeated Hannah, in a lower voice,
fearing she had done harm in some way.
‘Well, tell me, tell me!’ cried Swithin. ‘Is it Gambart’s? Is it Charles the
Fifth’s, or Halley’s, or Faye’s, or whose?’
‘Hush!’ said she, thinking St. Cleeve slightly delirious again. ‘’Tis God
A’mighty’s, of course. I haven’t seed en myself, but they say he’s getting
bigger every night, and that he’ll be the biggest one known for fifty years
when he’s full growed. There, you must not talk any more now, or I’ll go
away.’
Here was an amazing event, little noise as it had made in the happening. Of
all phenomena that he had longed to witness during his short astronomical
career, those appertaining to comets had excited him most. That the
magnificent comet of 1811 would not return again for thirty centuries had
been quite a permanent regret with him. And now, when the bottomless
abyss of death seemed yawning beneath his feet, one of these much-desired
apparitions, as large, apparently, as any of its tribe, had chosen to show
itself.
‘O, if I could but live to see that comet through my equatorial!’ he cried.

Compared with comets, variable stars, which he had hitherto made his
study, were, from their remoteness, uninteresting. They were to the former
as the celebrities of Ujiji or Unyamwesi to the celebrities of his own
country. Members of the solar system, these dazzling and perplexing
rangers, the fascination of all astronomers, rendered themselves still more
fascinating by the sinister suspicion attaching to them of being possibly the
ultimate destroyers of the human race. In his physical prostration St.
Cleeve wept bitterly at not being hale and strong enough to welcome with
proper honour the present specimen of these desirable visitors.
The strenuous wish to live and behold the new phenomenon, supplanting
the utter weariness of existence that he had heretofore experienced, gave
him a new vitality. The crisis passed; there was a turn for the better; and
after that he rapidly mended. The comet had in all probability saved his
life. The limitless and complex wonders of the sky resumed their old power
over his imagination; the possibilities of that unfathomable blue ocean were
endless. Finer feats than ever he would perform were to be achieved in its
investigation. What Lady Constantine had said, that for one discovery
made ten awaited making, was strikingly verified by the sudden appearance
of this splendid marvel.
The windows of St. Cleeve’s bedroom faced the west, and nothing would
satisfy him but that his bed should be so pulled round as to give him a view
of the low sky, in which the as yet minute tadpole of fire was recognizable.
The mere sight of it seemed to lend him sufficient resolution to complete
his own cure forthwith. His only fear now was lest, from some unexpected
cause or other, the comet would vanish before he could get to the
observatory on Rings-Hill Speer.
In his fervour to begin observing he directed that an old telescope, which he
had used in his first celestial attempts, should be tied at one end to the bed-
post, and at the other fixed near his eye as he reclined. Equipped only with
this rough improvisation he began to take notes. Lady Constantine was
forgotten, till one day, suddenly, wondering if she knew of the important
phenomenon, he revolved in his mind whether as a fellow-student and
sincere friend of his she ought not to be sent for, and instructed in the use of
the equatorial.

But though the image of Lady Constantine, in spite of her kindness and
unmistakably warm heart, had been obscured in his mind by the heavenly
body, she had not so readily forgotten him. Too shy to repeat her visit after
so nearly betraying her secret, she yet, every day, by the most ingenious and
subtle means that could be devised by a woman who feared for herself, but
could not refrain from tampering with danger, ascertained the state of her
young friend’s health. On hearing of the turn in his condition she rejoiced
on his account, and became yet more despondent on her own. If he had
died she might have mused on him as her dear departed saint without much
sin: but his return to life was a delight that bewildered and dismayed.
One evening a little later on he was sitting at his bedroom window as usual,
waiting for a sufficient decline of light to reveal the comet’s form, when he
beheld, crossing the field contiguous to the house, a figure which he knew
to be hers. He thought she must be coming to see him on the great comet
question, to discuss which with so delightful and kind a comrade was an
expectation full of pleasure. Hence he keenly observed her approach, till
something happened that surprised him.
When, at the descent of the hill, she had reached the stile that admitted to
Mrs. Martin’s garden, Lady Constantine stood quite still for a minute or
more, her gaze bent on the ground. Instead of coming on to the house she
went heavily and slowly back, almost as if in pain; and then at length,
quickening her pace, she was soon out of sight. She appeared in the path no
more that day.

XI

Why had Lady Constantine stopped and turned?
A misgiving had taken sudden possession of her. Her true sentiment
towards St. Cleeve was too recognizable by herself to be tolerated.
That she had a legitimate interest in him as a young astronomer was true;
that her sympathy on account of his severe illness had been natural and
commendable was also true. But the superfluous feeling was what filled
her with trepidation.

Superfluities have been defined as things you cannot do without, and this
particular emotion, that came not within her rightful measure, was in danger
of becoming just such a superfluity with her. In short, she felt there and
then that to see St. Cleeve again would be an impropriety; and by a violent
effort she retreated from his precincts, as he had observed.
She resolved to ennoble her conduct from that moment of her life onwards.
She would exercise kind patronage towards Swithin without once indulging
herself with his company. Inexpressibly dear to her deserted heart he was
becoming, but for the future he should at least be hidden from her eyes. To
speak plainly, it was growing a serious question whether, if he were not
hidden from her eyes, she would not soon be plunging across the ragged
boundary which divides the permissible from the forbidden.
By the time that she had drawn near home the sun was going down. The
heavy, many-chevroned church, now subdued by violet shadow except
where its upper courses caught the western stroke of flame-colour, stood
close to her grounds, as in many other parishes, though the village of which
it formerly was the nucleus had become quite depopulated: its cottages had
been demolished to enlarge the park, leaving the old building to stand there
alone, like a standard without an army.
It was Friday night, and she heard the organist practising voluntaries
within. The hour, the notes, the even-song of the birds, and her own
previous emotions, combined to influence her devotionally. She entered,
turning to the right and passing under the chancel arch, where she sat down
and viewed the whole empty length, east and west. The semi-Norman
arches of the nave, with their multitudinous notchings, were still visible by
the light from the tower window, but the lower portion of the building was
in obscurity, except where the feeble glimmer from the candle of the
organist spread a glow-worm radiance around. The player, who was Miss
Tabitha Lark, continued without intermission to produce her wandering
sounds, unconscious of any one’s presence except that of the youthful
blower at her side.
The rays from the organist’s candle illuminated but one small fragment of
the chancel outside the precincts of the instrument, and that was the portion
of the eastern wall whereon the ten commandments were inscribed. The

gilt letters shone sternly into Lady Constantine’s eyes; and she, being as
impressionable as a turtle-dove, watched a certain one of those
commandments on the second table, till its thunder broke her spirit with
blank contrition.
She knelt down, and did her utmost to eradicate those impulses towards St.
Cleeve which were inconsistent with her position as the wife of an absent
man, though not unnatural in her as his victim.
She knelt till she seemed scarcely to belong to the time she lived in, which
lost the magnitude that the nearness of its perspective lent it on ordinary
occasions, and took its actual rank in the long line of other centuries.
Having once got out of herself, seen herself from afar off, she was calmer,
and went on to register a magnanimous vow. She would look about for
some maiden fit and likely to make St. Cleeve happy; and this girl she
would endow with what money she could afford, that the natural result of
their apposition should do him no worldly harm. The interest of her, Lady
Constantine’s, life should be in watching the development of love between
Swithin and the ideal maiden. The very painfulness of the scheme to her
susceptible heart made it pleasing to her conscience; and she wondered that
she had not before this time thought of a stratagem which united the
possibility of benefiting the astronomer with the advantage of guarding
against peril to both Swithin and herself. By providing for him a suitable
helpmate she would preclude the dangerous awakening in him of
sentiments reciprocating her own.
Arrived at a point of exquisite misery through this heroic intention, Lady
Constantine’s tears moistened the books upon which her forehead was
bowed. And as she heard her feverish heart throb against the desk, she
firmly believed the wearing impulses of that heart would put an end to her
sad life, and momentarily recalled the banished image of St. Cleeve to
apostrophise him in thoughts that paraphrased the quaint lines of Heine’s
Lieb’ Liebchen:—

‘Dear my love, press thy hand to my breast, and tell
If thou tracest the knocks in that narrow cell;
A carpenter dwells there; cunning is he,
And slyly he’s shaping a coffin for me!’

Lady Constantine was disturbed by a break in the organist’s meandering
practice, and raising her head she saw a person standing by the player. It
was Mr. Torkingham, and what he said was distinctly audible. He was
inquiring for herself.
‘I thought I saw Lady Constantine walk this way,’ he rejoined to Tabitha’s
negative. ‘I am very anxious indeed to meet with her.’
She went forward. ‘I am here,’ she said. ‘Don’t stop playing, Miss Lark.
What is it, Mr. Torkingham?’
Tabitha thereupon resumed her playing, and Mr. Torkingham joined Lady
Constantine.
‘I have some very serious intelligence to break to your ladyship,’ he said.
‘But—I will not interrupt you here.’ (He had seen her rise from her knees
to come to him.) ‘I will call at the House the first moment you can receive
me after reaching home.’
‘No, tell me here,’ she said, seating herself.
He came close, and placed his hand on the poppy-head of the seat.
‘I have received a communication,’ he resumed haltingly, ‘in which I am
requested to prepare you for the contents of a letter that you will receive to-
morrow morning.’
‘I am quite ready.’
‘The subject is briefly this, Lady Constantine: that you have been a widow
for more than eighteen months.’
‘Dead!’
‘Yes. Sir Blount was attacked by dysentery and malarious fever, on the
banks of the Zouga in South Africa, so long ago as last October
twelvemonths, and it carried him off. Of the three men who were with him,
two succumbed to the same illness, a hundred miles further on; while the
third, retracing his steps into a healthier district, remained there with a
native tribe, and took no pains to make the circumstances known. It seems

to be only by the mere accident of his having told some third party that we
know of the matter now. This is all I can tell you at present.’
She was greatly agitated for a few moments; and the Table of the Law
opposite, which now seemed to appertain to another dispensation, glistened
indistinctly upon a vision still obscured by the old tears.
‘Shall I conduct you home?’ asked the parson.
‘No thank you,’ said Lady Constantine. ‘I would rather go alone.’

XII

On the afternoon of the next day Mr. Torkingham, who occasionally
dropped in to see St. Cleeve, called again as usual; after duly remarking on
the state of the weather, congratulating him on his sure though slow
improvement, and answering his inquiries about the comet, he said, ‘You
have heard, I suppose, of what has happened to Lady Constantine?’
‘No! Nothing serious?’
‘Yes, it is serious.’ The parson informed him of the death of Sir Blount, and
of the accidents which had hindered all knowledge of the same,—accidents
favoured by the estrangement of the pair and the cessation of
correspondence between them for some time.
His listener received the news with the concern of a friend, Lady
Constantine’s aspect in his eyes depending but little on her condition
matrimonially.
‘There was no attempt to bring him home when he died?’
‘O no. The climate necessitates instant burial. We shall have more
particulars in a day or two, doubtless.’
‘Poor Lady Constantine,—so good and so sensitive as she is! I suppose she
is quite prostrated by the bad news.’
‘Well, she is rather serious,—not prostrated. The household is going into
mourning.’

‘Ah, no, she would not be quite prostrated,’ murmured Swithin, recollecting
himself. ‘He was unkind to her in many ways. Do you think she will go
away from Welland?’
That the vicar could not tell. But he feared that Sir Blount’s affairs had
been in a seriously involved condition, which might necessitate many and
unexpected changes.
Time showed that Mr. Torkingham’s surmises were correct.
During the long weeks of early summer, through which the young man still
lay imprisoned, if not within his own chamber, within the limits of the
house and garden, news reached him that Sir Blount’s mismanagement and
eccentric behaviour were resulting in serious consequences to Lady
Constantine; nothing less, indeed, than her almost complete
impoverishment. His personalty was swallowed up in paying his debts, and
the Welland estate was so heavily charged with annuities to his distant
relatives that only a mere pittance was left for her. She was reducing the
establishment to the narrowest compass compatible with decent gentility.
The horses were sold one by one; the carriages also; the greater part of the
house was shut up, and she resided in the smallest rooms. All that was
allowed to remain of her former contingent of male servants were an odd
man and a boy. Instead of using a carriage she now drove about in a
donkey-chair, the said boy walking in front to clear the way and keep the
animal in motion; while she wore, so his informants reported, not an
ordinary widow’s cap or bonnet, but something even plainer, the black
material being drawn tightly round her face, giving her features a small,
demure, devout cast, very pleasing to the eye.
‘Now, what’s the most curious thing in this, Mr. San Cleeve,’ said Sammy
Blore, who, in calling to inquire after Swithin’s health, had imparted some
of the above particulars, ‘is that my lady seems not to mind being a pore
woman half so much as we do at seeing her so. ’Tis a wonderful gift, Mr.
San Cleeve, wonderful, to be able to guide yerself, and not let loose yer soul
in blasting at such a misfortune. I should go and drink neat regular, as soon
as I had swallered my breakfast, till my innerds was burnt out like a’ old
copper, if it had happened to me; but my lady’s plan is best. Though I only

guess how one feels in such losses, to be sure, for I never had nothing to
lose.’
Meanwhile the observatory was not forgotten; nor that visitant of singular
shape and habits which had appeared in the sky from no one knew whence,
trailing its luminous streamer, and proceeding on its way in the face of a
wondering world, till it should choose to vanish as suddenly as it had come.
When, about a month after the above dialogue took place, Swithin was
allowed to go about as usual, his first pilgrimage was to the Rings-Hill
Speer. Here he studied at leisure what he had come to see.
On his return to the homestead, just after sunset, he found his grandmother
and Hannah in a state of great concern. The former was looking out for him
against the evening light, her face showing itself worn and rutted, like an
old highway, by the passing of many days. Her information was that in his
absence Lady Constantine had called in her driving-chair, to inquire for
him. Her ladyship had wished to observe the comet through the great
telescope, but had found the door locked when she applied at the tower.
Would he kindly leave the door unfastened to-morrow, she had asked, that
she might be able to go to the column on the following evening for the same
purpose? She did not require him to attend.
During the next day he sent Hannah with the key to Welland House, not
caring to leave the tower open. As evening advanced and the comet grew
distinct, he doubted if Lady Constantine could handle the telescope alone
with any pleasure or profit to herself. Unable, as a devotee to science, to
rest under this misgiving, he crossed the field in the furrow that he had used
ever since the corn was sown, and entered the plantation. His unpractised
mind never once guessed that her stipulations against his coming might
have existed along with a perverse hope that he would come.
On ascending he found her already there. She sat in the observing-chair:
the warm light from the west, which flowed in through the opening of the
dome, brightened her face, and her face only, her robes of sable lawn
rendering the remainder of her figure almost invisible.
‘You have come!’ she said with shy pleasure. ‘I did not require you. But
never mind.’ She extended her hand cordially to him.

Before speaking he looked at her with a great new interest in his eye. It was
the first time that he had seen her thus, and she was altered in more than
dress. A soberly-sweet expression sat on her face. It was of a rare and
peculiar shade—something that he had never seen before in woman.
‘Have you nothing to say?’ she continued. ‘Your footsteps were audible to
me from the very bottom, and I knew they were yours. You look almost
restored.’
‘I am almost restored,’ he replied, respectfully pressing her hand. ‘A reason
for living arose, and I lived.’
‘What reason?’ she inquired, with a rapid blush.
He pointed to the rocket-like object in the western sky.
‘Oh, you mean the comet. Well, you will never make a courtier! You
know, of course, what has happened to me; that I have no longer a husband
—have had none for a year and a half. Have you also heard that I am now
quite a poor woman? Tell me what you think of it.’
‘I have thought very little of it since I heard that you seemed to mind
poverty but little. There is even this good in it, that I may now be able to
show you some little kindness for all those you have done me, my dear
lady.’
‘Unless for economy’s sake, I go and live abroad, at Dinan, Versailles, or
Boulogne.’
Swithin, who had never thought of such a contingency, was earnest in his
regrets; without, however, showing more than a sincere friend’s
disappointment.
‘I did not say it was absolutely necessary,’ she continued. ‘I have, in fact,
grown so homely and home-loving, I am so interested in the place and the
people here, that, in spite of advice, I have almost determined not to let the
house; but to continue the less business-like but pleasanter alternative of
living humbly in a part of it, and shutting up the rest.’
‘Your love of astronomy is getting as strong as mine!’ he said ardently.
‘You could not tear yourself away from the observatory!’

‘You might have supposed me capable of a little human feeling as well as
scientific, in connection with the observatory.’
‘Dear Lady Constantine, by admitting that your astronomer has also a part
of your interest—’
‘Ah, you did not find it out without my telling!’ she said, with a playfulness
which was scarcely playful, a new accession of pinkness being visible in
her face. ‘I diminish myself in your esteem by reminding you.’
‘You might do anything in this world without diminishing yourself in my
esteem, after the goodness you have shown. And more than that, no
misrepresentation, no rumour, no damning appearance whatever would ever
shake my loyalty to you.’
‘But you put a very matter-of-fact construction on my motives sometimes.
You see me in such a hard light that I have to drop hints in quite a
manoeuvring manner to let you know I am as sympathetic as other people.
I sometimes think you would rather have me die than have your equatorial
stolen. Confess that your admiration for me was based on my house and
position in the county! Now I am shorn of all that glory, such as it was, and
am a widow, and am poorer than my tenants, and can no longer buy
telescopes, and am unable, from the narrowness of my circumstances, to
mix in circles that people formerly said I adorned, I fear I have lost the little
hold I once had over you.’
‘You are as unjust now as you have been generous hitherto,’ said St. Cleeve,
with tears in his eyes at the gentle banter of the lady, which he, poor
innocent, read as her real opinions. Seizing her hand he continued, in tones
between reproach and anger, ‘I swear to you that I have but two devotions,
two thoughts, two hopes, and two blessings in this world, and that one of
them is yourself!’
‘And the other?’
‘The pursuit of astronomy.’
‘And astronomy stands first.’

‘I have never ordinated two such dissimilar ideas. And why should you
deplore your altered circumstances, my dear lady? Your widowhood, if I
may take the liberty to speak on such a subject, is, though I suppose a
sadness, not perhaps an unmixed evil. For though your pecuniary troubles
have been discovered to the world and yourself by it, your happiness in
marriage was, as you have confided to me, not great; and you are now left
free as a bird to follow your own hobbies.’
‘I wonder you recognize that.’
‘But perhaps,’ he added, with a sigh of regret, ‘you will again fall a prey to
some man, some uninteresting country squire or other, and be lost to the
scientific world after all.’
‘If I fall a prey to any man, it will not be to a country squire. But don’t go
on with this, for heaven’s sake! You may think what you like in silence.’
‘We are forgetting the comet,’ said St. Cleeve. He turned, and set the
instrument in order for observation, and wheeled round the dome.
While she was looking at the nucleus of the fiery plume, that now filled so
large a space of the sky as completely to dominate it, Swithin dropped his
gaze upon the field, and beheld in the dying light a number of labourers
crossing directly towards the column.
‘What do you see?’ Lady Constantine asked, without ceasing to observe the
comet.
‘Some of the work-folk are coming this way. I know what they are coming
for,—I promised to let them look at the comet through the glass.’
‘They must not come up here,’ she said decisively.
‘They shall await your time.’
‘I have a special reason for wishing them not to see me here. If you ask
why, I can tell you. They mistakenly suspect my interest to be less in
astronomy than in the astronomer, and they must have no showing for such
a wild notion. What can you do to keep them out?’

‘I’ll lock the door,’ said Swithin. ‘They will then think I am away.’ He ran
down the staircase, and she could hear him hastily turning the key. Lady
Constantine sighed.
‘What weakness, what weakness!’ she said to herself. ‘That envied power
of self-control, where is it? That power of concealment which a woman
should have—where? To run such risks, to come here alone,—oh, if it were
known! But I was always so,—always!’
She jumped up, and followed him downstairs.

XIII

He was standing immediately inside the door at the bottom, though it was
so dark she could hardly see him. The villagers were audibly talking just
without.
‘He’s sure to come, rathe or late,’ resounded up the spiral in the vocal note
of Hezzy Biles. ‘He wouldn’t let such a fine show as the comet makes to-
night go by without peeping at it,—not Master Cleeve! Did ye bring along
the flagon, Haymoss? Then we’ll sit down inside his little board-house
here, and wait. He’ll come afore bed-time. Why, his spy-glass will stretch
out that there comet as long as Welland Lane!’
‘I’d as soon miss the great peep-show that comes every year to Greenhill
Fair as a sight of such a immortal spectacle as this!’ said Amos Fry.
‘“Immortal spectacle,”—where did ye get that choice mossel, Haymoss?’
inquired Sammy Blore. ‘Well, well, the Lord save good scholars—and take
just a bit o’ care of them that bain’t! As ’tis so dark in the hut, suppose we
draw out the bench into the front here, souls?’
The bench was accordingly brought forth, and in order to have a back to
lean against, they placed it exactly across the door into the spiral staircase.
‘Now, have ye got any backy? If ye haven’t, I have,’ continued Sammy
Blore. A striking of matches followed, and the speaker concluded
comfortably, ‘Now we shall do very well.’

‘And what do this comet mean?’ asked Haymoss. ‘That some great tumult
is going to happen, or that we shall die of a famine?’
‘Famine—no!’ said Nat Chapman. ‘That only touches such as we, and the
Lord only consarns himself with born gentlemen. It isn’t to be supposed
that a strange fiery lantern like that would be lighted up for folks with ten or
a dozen shillings a week and their gristing, and a load o’ thorn faggots when
we can get ’em. If ’tis a token that he’s getting hot about the ways of
anybody in this parish, ’tis about my Lady Constantine’s, since she is the
only one of a figure worth such a hint.’
‘As for her income,—that she’s now lost.’
‘Ah, well; I don’t take in all I hear.’
Lady Constantine drew close to St. Cleeve’s side, and whispered, trembling,
‘Do you think they will wait long? Or can we get out?’
Swithin felt the awkwardness of the situation. The men had placed the
bench close to the door, which, owing to the stairs within, opened outwards;
so that at the first push by the pair inside to release themselves the bench
must have gone over, and sent the smokers sprawling on their faces. He
whispered to her to ascend the column and wait till he came.
‘And have the dead man left her nothing? Hey? And have he carried his
inheritance into’s grave? And will his skeleton lie warm on account o’t?
Hee-hee!’ said Haymoss.
‘’Tis all swallered up,’ observed Hezzy Biles. ‘His goings-on made her
miserable till ’a died, and if I were the woman I’d have my randys now. He
ought to have bequeathed to her our young gent, Mr. St. Cleeve, as some
sort of amends. I’d up and marry en, if I were she; since her downfall has
brought ’em quite near together, and made him as good as she in rank, as he
was afore in bone and breeding.’
‘D’ye think she will?’ asked Sammy Blore. ‘Or is she meaning to enter
upon a virgin life for the rest of her days?’
‘I don’t want to be unreverent to her ladyship; but I really don’t think she is
meaning any such waste of a Christian carcase. I say she’s rather meaning

to commit flat matrimony wi’ somebody or other, and one young gentleman
in particular.’
‘But the young man himself?’
‘Planned, cut out, and finished for the delight of ’ooman!’
‘Yet he must be willing.’
‘That would soon come. If they get up this tower ruling plannards together
much longer, their plannards will soon rule them together, in my way o’
thinking. If she’ve a disposition towards the knot, she can soon teach him.’
‘True, true, and lawfully. What before mid ha’ been a wrong desire is now a
holy wish!’
The scales fell from Swithin St. Cleeve’s eyes as he heard the words of his
neighbours. How suddenly the truth dawned upon him; how it bewildered
him, till he scarcely knew where he was; how he recalled the full force of
what he had only half apprehended at earlier times, particularly of that
sweet kiss she had impressed on his lips when she supposed him dying,—
these vivid realizations are difficult to tell in slow verbiage. He could
remain there no longer, and with an electrified heart he retreated up the
spiral.
He found Lady Constantine half way to the top, standing by a loop-hole;
and when she spoke he discovered that she was almost in tears. ‘Are they
gone?’ she asked.
‘I fear they will not go yet,’ he replied, with a nervous fluctuation of manner
that had never before appeared in his bearing towards her.
‘What shall I do?’ she asked. ‘I ought not to be here; nobody knows that I
am out of the house. Oh, this is a mistake! I must go home somehow.’
‘Did you hear what they were saying?’
‘No,’ said she. ‘What is the matter? Surely you are disturbed? What did
they say?’
‘It would be the exaggeration of frankness in me to tell you.’

‘Is it what a woman ought not to be made acquainted with?’
‘It is, in this case. It is so new and so indescribable an idea to me—that’—
he leant against the concave wall, quite tremulous with strange incipient
sentiments.
‘What sort of an idea?’ she asked gently.
‘It is—an awakening. In thinking of the heaven above, I did not perceive—
the—’
‘Earth beneath?’
‘The better heaven beneath. Pray, dear Lady Constantine, give me your
hand for a moment.’
She seemed startled, and the hand was not given.
‘I am so anxious to get home,’ she repeated. ‘I did not mean to stay here
more than five minutes!’
‘I fear I am much to blame for this accident,’ he said. ‘I ought not to have
intruded here. But don’t grieve! I will arrange for your escape, somehow.
Be good enough to follow me down.’
They redescended, and, whispering to Lady Constantine to remain a few
stairs behind, he began to rattle and unlock the door.
The men precipitately removed their bench, and Swithin stepped out, the
light of the summer night being still enough to enable them to distinguish
him.
‘Well, Hezekiah, and Samuel, and Nat, how are you?’ he said boldly.
‘Well, sir, ’tis much as before wi’ me,’ replied Nat. ‘One hour a week wi’
God A’mighty and the rest with the devil, as a chap may say. And really,
now yer poor father’s gone, I’d as lief that that Sunday hour should pass
like the rest; for Pa’son Tarkenham do tease a feller’s conscience that much,
that church is no hollerday at all to the limbs, as it was in yer reverent
father’s time! But we’ve been waiting here, Mr. San Cleeve, supposing ye
had not come.’

‘I have been staying at the top, and fastened the door not to be disturbed.
Now I am sorry to disappoint you, but I have another engagement this
evening, so that it would be inconvenient to admit you. To-morrow
evening, or any evening but this, I will show you the comet and any stars
you like.’
They readily agreed to come the next night, and prepared to depart. But
what with the flagon, and the pipes, and the final observations, getting away
was a matter of time. Meanwhile a cloud, which nobody had noticed, arose
from the north overhead, and large drops of rain began to fall so rapidly that
the conclave entered the hut till it should be over. St. Cleeve strolled off
under the firs.
The next moment there was a rustling through the trees at another point,
and a man and woman appeared. The woman took shelter under a tree, and
the man, bearing wraps and umbrellas, came forward.
‘My lady’s man and maid,’ said Sammy.
‘Is her ladyship here?’ asked the man.
‘No. I reckon her ladyship keeps more kissable company,’ replied Nat
Chapman.
‘Pack o’ stuff!’ said Blore.
‘Not here? Well, to be sure! We can’t find her anywhere in the wide
house! I’ve been sent to look for her with these overclothes and umbrella.
I’ve suffered horse-flesh traipsing up and down, and can’t find her
nowhere. Lord, Lord, where can she be, and two months’ wages owing to
me!’
‘Why so anxious, Anthony Green, as I think yer name is shaped? You be
not a married man?’ said Hezzy.
‘’Tis what they call me, neighbours, whether or no.’
‘But surely you was a bachelor chap by late, afore her ladyship got rid of
the regular servants and took ye?’
‘I were; but that’s past!’

‘And how came ye to bow yer head to ’t, Anthony? ’Tis what you never
was inclined to. You was by no means a doting man in my time.’
‘Well, had I been left to my own free choice, ’tis as like as not I should ha’
shunned forming such kindred, being at that time a poor day man, or
weekly, at my highest luck in hiring. But ’tis wearing work to hold out
against the custom of the country, and the woman wanting ye to stand by
her and save her from unborn shame; so, since common usage would have
it, I let myself be carried away by opinion, and took her. Though she’s
never once thanked me for covering her confusion, that’s true! But, ’tis the
way of the lost when safe, and I don’t complain. Here she is, just behind,
under the tree, if you’d like to see her?—a very nice homespun woman to
look at, too, for all her few weather-stains. . . . Well, well, where can my
lady be? And I the trusty jineral man—’tis more than my place is worth to
lose her! Come forward, Christiana, and talk nicely to the work-folk.’
While the woman was talking the rain increased so much that they all
retreated further into the hut. St. Cleeve, who had impatiently stood a little
way off, now saw his opportunity, and, putting in his head, said, ‘The rain
beats in; you had better shut the door. I must ascend and close up the
dome.’
Slamming the door upon them without ceremony he quickly went to Lady
Constantine in the column, and telling her they could now pass the villagers
unseen he gave her his arm. Thus he conducted her across the front of the
hut into the shadows of the firs.
‘I will run to the house and harness your little carriage myself,’ he said
tenderly. ‘I will then take you home in it.’
‘No; please don’t leave me alone under these dismal trees!’ Neither would
she hear of his getting her any wraps; and, opening her little sunshade to
keep the rain out of her face, she walked with him across the insulating
field, after which the trees of the park afforded her a sufficient shelter to
reach home without much damage.
Swithin was too greatly affected by what he had overheard to speak much
to her on the way, and protected her as if she had been a shorn lamb. After
a farewell which had more meaning than sound in it, he hastened back to

Rings-Hill Speer. The work-folk were still in the hut, and, by dint of
friendly converse and a sip at the flagon, had so cheered Mr. and Mrs.
Anthony Green that they neither thought nor cared what had become of
Lady Constantine.
St. Cleeve’s sudden sense of new relations with that sweet patroness had
taken away in one half-hour his natural ingenuousness. Henceforth he
could act a part.
‘I have made all secure at the top,’ he said, putting his head into the hut. ‘I
am now going home. When the rain stops, lock this door and bring the key
to my house.’

XIV

The laboured resistance which Lady Constantine’s judgment had offered to
her rebellious affection ere she learnt that she was a widow, now passed into
a bashfulness that rendered her almost as unstable of mood as before. But
she was one of that mettle—fervid, cordial, and spontaneous—who had not
the heart to spoil a passion; and her affairs having gone to rack and ruin by
no fault of her own she was left to a painfully narrowed existence which
lent even something of rationality to her attachment. Thus it was that her
tender and unambitious soul found comfort in her reverses.
As for St. Cleeve, the tardiness of his awakening was the natural result of
inexperience combined with devotion to a hobby. But, like a spring bud
hard in bursting, the delay was compensated by after speed. At once
breathlessly recognizing in this fellow-watcher of the skies a woman who
loved him, in addition to the patroness and friend, he truly translated the
nearly forgotten kiss she had given him in her moment of despair.
Lady Constantine, in being eight or nine years his senior, was an object
even better calculated to nourish a youth’s first passion than a girl of his
own age, superiority of experience and ripeness of emotion exercising the
same peculiar fascination over him as over other young men in their first
ventures in this kind.
The alchemy which thus transmuted an abstracted astronomer into an eager
lover—and, must it be said, spoilt a promising young physicist to produce a

common-place inamorato—may be almost described as working its change
in one short night. Next morning he was so fascinated with the novel
sensation that he wanted to rush off at once to Lady Constantine, and say, ‘I
love you true!’ in the intensest tones of his mental condition, to register his
assertion in her heart before any of those accidents which ’creep in ’twixt
vows, and change decrees of kings,’ should occur to hinder him. But his
embarrassment at standing in a new position towards her would not allow
him to present himself at her door in any such hurry. He waited on, as
helplessly as a girl, for a chance of encountering her.
But though she had tacitly agreed to see him on any reasonable occasion,
Lady Constantine did not put herself in his way. She even kept herself out
of his way. Now that for the first time he had learnt to feel a strong
impatience for their meeting, her shyness for the first time led her to delay
it. But given two people living in one parish, who long from the depths of
their hearts to be in each other’s company, what resolves of modesty, policy,
pride, or apprehension will keep them for any length of time apart?
One afternoon he was watching the sun from his tower, half echoing the
Greek astronomer’s wish that he might be set close to that luminary for the
wonder of beholding it in all its glory, under the slight penalty of being
consumed the next instant. He glanced over the high-road between the field
and the park (which sublunary features now too often distracted his
attention from his telescope), and saw her passing along that way.
She was seated in the donkey-carriage that had now taken the place of her
landau, the white animal looking no larger than a cat at that distance. The
buttoned boy, who represented both coachman and footman, walked
alongside the animal’s head at a solemn pace; the dog stalked at the distance
of a yard behind the vehicle, without indulging in a single gambol; and the
whole turn-out resembled in dignity a dwarfed state procession.
Here was an opportunity but for two obstructions: the boy, who might be
curious; and the dog, who might bark and attract the attention of any
labourers or servants near. Yet the risk was to be run, and, knowing that she
would soon turn up a certain shady lane at right angles to the road she had
followed, he ran hastily down the staircase, crossed the barley (which now
covered the field) by the path not more than a foot wide that he had trodden

for himself, and got into the lane at the other end. By slowly walking along
in the direction of the turnpike-road he soon had the satisfaction of seeing
her coming. To his surprise he also had the satisfaction of perceiving that
neither boy nor dog was in her company.
They both blushed as they approached, she from sex, he from inexperience.
One thing she seemed to see in a moment, that in the interval of her absence
St. Cleeve had become a man; and as he greeted her with this new and
maturer light in his eyes she could not hide her embarrassment, or meet
their fire.
‘I have just sent my page across to the column with your book on Cometary
Nuclei,’ she said softly; ‘that you might not have to come to the house for
it. I did not know I should meet you here.’
‘Didn’t you wish me to come to the house for it?’
‘I did not, frankly. You know why, do you not?’
‘Yes, I know. Well, my longing is at rest. I have met you again. But are
you unwell, that you drive out in this chair?’
‘No; I walked out this morning, and am a little tired.’
‘I have been looking for you night and day. Why do you turn your face
aside? You used not to be so.’ Her hand rested on the side of the chair, and
he took it. ‘Do you know that since we last met, I have been thinking of
you—daring to think of you—as I never thought of you before?’
‘Yes, I know it.’
‘How did you know?’
‘I saw it in your face when you came up.’
‘Well, I suppose I ought not to think of you so. And yet, had I not learned
to, I should never fully have felt how gentle and sweet you are. Only think
of my loss if I had lived and died without seeing more in you than in
astronomy! But I shall never leave off doing so now. When you talk I shall
love your understanding; when you are silent I shall love your face. But
how shall I know that you care to be so much to me?’

Her manner was disturbed as she recognized the impending self-surrender,
which she knew not how to resist, and was not altogether at ease in
welcoming.
‘O, Lady Constantine,’ he continued, bending over her, ‘give me some
proof more than mere seeming and inference, which are all I have at
present, that you don’t think this I tell you of presumption in me! I have
been unable to do anything since I last saw you for pondering uncertainly
on this. Some proof, or little sign, that we are one in heart!’
A blush settled again on her face; and half in effort, half in spontaneity, she
put her finger on her cheek. He almost devotionally kissed the spot.
‘Does that suffice?’ she asked, scarcely giving her words voice.
‘Yes; I am convinced.’
‘Then that must be the end. Let me drive on; the boy will be back again
soon.’ She spoke hastily, and looked askance to hide the heat of her cheek.
‘No; the tower door is open, and he will go to the top, and waste his time in
looking through the telescope.’
‘Then you should rush back, for he will do some damage.’
‘No; he may do what he likes, tinker and spoil the instrument, destroy my
papers,—anything, so that he will stay there and leave us alone.’
She glanced up with a species of pained pleasure.
‘You never used to feel like that!’ she said, and there was keen self-reproach
in her voice. ‘You were once so devoted to your science that the thought of
an intruder into your temple would have driven you wild. Now you don’t
care; and who is to blame? Ah, not you, not you!’
The animal ambled on with her, and he, leaning on the side of the little
vehicle, kept her company.
‘Well, don’t let us think of that,’ he said. ‘I offer myself and all my
energies, frankly and entirely, to you, my dear, dear lady, whose I shall be
always! But my words in telling you this will only injure my meaning

instead of emphasize it. In expressing, even to myself, my thoughts of you,
I find that I fall into phrases which, as a critic, I should hitherto have
heartily despised for their commonness. What’s the use of saying, for
instance, as I have just said, that I give myself entirely to you, and shall be
yours always,—that you have my devotion, my highest homage? Those
words have been used so frequently in a flippant manner that honest use of
them is not distinguishable from the unreal.’ He turned to her, and added,
smiling, ‘Your eyes are to be my stars for the future.’
‘Yes, I know it,—I know it, and all you would say! I dreaded even while I
hoped for this, my dear young friend,’ she replied, her eyes being full of
tears. ‘I am injuring you; who knows that I am not ruining your future,—I
who ought to know better? Nothing can come of this, nothing must,—and I
am only wasting your time. Why have I drawn you off from a grand
celestial study to study poor lonely me? Say you will never despise me,
when you get older, for this episode in our lives. But you will,—I know
you will! All men do, when they have been attracted in their unsuspecting
youth, as I have attracted you. I ought to have kept my resolve.’
‘What was that?’
‘To bear anything rather than draw you from your high purpose; to be like
the noble citizen of old Greece, who, attending a sacrifice, let himself be
burnt to the bone by a coal that jumped into his sleeve rather than disturb
the sacred ceremony.’
‘But can I not study and love both?’
‘I hope so,—I earnestly hope so. But you’ll be the first if you do, and I am
the responsible one if you do not.’
‘You speak as if I were quite a child, and you immensely older. Why, how
old do you think I am? I am twenty.’
‘You seem younger. Well, that’s so much the better. Twenty sounds strong
and firm. How old do you think I am?’
‘I have never thought of considering.’ He innocently turned to scrutinize
her face. She winced a little. But the instinct was premature. Time had

taken no liberties with her features as yet; nor had trouble very roughly
handled her.
‘I will tell you,’ she replied, speaking almost with physical pain, yet as if
determination should carry her through. ‘I am eight-and-twenty—nearly—I
mean a little more, a few months more. Am I not a fearful deal older than
you?’
‘At first it seems a great deal,’ he answered, musing. ‘But it doesn’t seem
much when one gets used to it.’
‘Nonsense!’ she exclaimed. ‘It is a good deal.’
‘Very well, then, sweetest Lady Constantine, let it be,’ he said gently.
‘You should not let it be! A polite man would have flatly contradicted me. .
. . O I am ashamed of this!’ she added a moment after, with a subdued, sad
look upon the ground. ‘I am speaking by the card of the outer world, which
I have left behind utterly; no such lip service is known in your sphere. I
care nothing for those things, really; but that which is called the Eve in us
will out sometimes. Well, we will forget that now, as we must, at no very
distant date, forget all the rest of this.’
He walked beside her thoughtfully awhile, with his eyes also bent on the
road. ‘Why must we forget it all?’ he inquired.
‘It is only an interlude.’
‘An interlude! It is no interlude to me. O how can you talk so lightly of
this, Lady Constantine? And yet, if I were to go away from here, I might,
perhaps, soon reduce it to an interlude! Yes,’ he resumed impulsively, ‘I
will go away. Love dies, and it is just as well to strangle it in its birth; it can
only die once! I’ll go.’
‘No, no!’ she said, looking up apprehensively. ‘I misled you. It is no
interlude to me,—it is tragical. I only meant that from a worldly point of
view it is an interlude, which we should try to forget. But the world is not
all. You will not go away?’
But he continued drearily, ‘Yes, yes, I see it all; you have enlightened me.
It will be hurting your prospects even more than mine, if I stay. Now Sir

Blount is dead, you are free again,—may marry where you will, but for this
fancy of ours. I’ll leave Welland before harm comes of my staying.’
‘Don’t decide to do a thing so rash!’ she begged, seizing his hand, and
looking miserable at the effect of her words. ‘I shall have nobody left in the
world to care for! And now I have given you the great telescope, and lent
you the column, it would be ungrateful to go away! I was wrong; believe
me that I did not mean that it was a mere interlude to me. O if you only
knew how very, very far it is from that! It is my doubt of the result to you
that makes me speak so slightingly.’
They were now approaching cross-roads, and casually looking up they
beheld, thirty or forty yards beyond the crossing, Mr. Torkingham, who was
leaning over a gate, his back being towards them. As yet he had not
recognized their approach.
The master-passion had already supplanted St. Cleeve’s natural
ingenuousness by subtlety.
‘Would it be well for us to meet Mr. Torkingham just now?’ he began.
‘Certainly not,’ she said hastily, and pulling the rein she instantly drove
down the right-hand road. ‘I cannot meet anybody!’ she murmured.
‘Would it not be better that you leave me now?—not for my pleasure, but
that there may arise no distressing tales about us before we know—how to
act in this—this’—(she smiled faintly at him) ‘heartaching extremity!’
They were passing under a huge oak-tree, whose limbs, irregular with
shoulders, knuckles, and elbows, stretched horizontally over the lane in a
manner recalling Absalom’s death. A slight rustling was perceptible amid
the leafage as they drew out from beneath it, and turning up his eyes
Swithin saw that very buttoned page whose advent they had dreaded,
looking down with interest at them from a perch not much higher than a
yard above their heads. He had a bunch of oak-apples in one hand, plainly
the object of his climb, and was furtively watching Lady Constantine with
the hope that she might not see him. But that she had already done, though
she did not reveal it, and, fearing that the latter words of their conversation
had been overheard, they spoke not till they had passed the next turning.

She stretched out her hand to his. ‘This must not go on,’ she said
imploringly. ‘My anxiety as to what may be said of such methods of
meeting makes me too unhappy. See what has happened!’ She could not
help smiling. ‘Out of the frying-pan into the fire! After meanly turning to
avoid the parson we have rushed into a worse publicity. It is too
humiliating to have to avoid people, and lowers both you and me. The only
remedy is not to meet.’
‘Very well,’ said Swithin, with a sigh. ‘So it shall be.’
And with smiles that might more truly have been tears they parted there and
then.

XV

The summer passed away, and autumn, with its infinite suite of tints, came
creeping on. Darker grew the evenings, tearfuller the moonlights, and
heavier the dews. Meanwhile the comet had waxed to its largest
dimensions,—so large that not only the nucleus but a portion of the tail had
been visible in broad day. It was now on the wane, though every night the
equatorial still afforded an opportunity of observing the singular object
which would soon disappear altogether from the heavens for perhaps
thousands of years.
But the astronomer of the Rings-Hill Speer was no longer a match for his
celestial materials. Scientifically he had become but a dim vapour of
himself; the lover had come into him like an armed man, and cast out the
student, and his intellectual situation was growing a life-and-death matter.
The resolve of the pair had been so far kept: they had not seen each other in
private for three months. But on one day in October he ventured to write a
note to her:—

‘I can do nothing! I have ceased to study, ceased to observe. The
equatorial is useless to me. This affection I have for you absorbs my
life, and outweighs my intentions. The power to labour in this
grandest of fields has left me. I struggle against the weakness till I
think of the cause, and then I bless her. But the very desperation of my

circumstances has suggested a remedy; and this I would inform you of
at once.
‘Can you come to me, since I must not come to you? I will wait to-
morrow night at the edge of the plantation by which you would enter
to the column. I will not detain you; my plan can be told in ten
words.’

The night after posting this missive to her he waited at the spot mentioned.
It was a melancholy evening for coming abroad. A blusterous wind had
risen during the day, and still continued to increase. Yet he stood watchful
in the darkness, and was ultimately rewarded by discerning a shady muffled
shape that embodied itself from the field, accompanied by the scratching of
silk over stubble. There was no longer any disguise as to the nature of their
meeting. It was a lover’s assignation, pure and simple; and boldly realizing
it as such he clasped her in his arms.
‘I cannot bear this any longer!’ he exclaimed. ‘Three months since I saw
you alone! Only a glimpse of you in church, or a bow from the distance, in
all that time! What a fearful struggle this keeping apart has been!’
‘Yet I would have had strength to persist, since it seemed best,’ she
murmured when she could speak, ‘had not your words on your condition so
alarmed and saddened me. This inability of yours to work, or study, or
observe,—it is terrible! So terrible a sting is it to my conscience that your
hint about a remedy has brought me instantly.’
‘Yet I don’t altogether mind it, since it is you, my dear, who have displaced
the work; and yet the loss of time nearly distracts me, when I have neither
the power to work nor the delight of your company.’
‘But your remedy! O, I cannot help guessing it! Yes; you are going away!’
‘Let us ascend the column; we can speak more at ease there. Then I will
explain all. I would not ask you to climb so high but the hut is not yet
furnished.’
He entered the cabin at the foot, and having lighted a small lantern,
conducted her up the hollow staircase to the top, where he closed the slides

of the dome to keep out the wind, and placed the observing-chair for her.
‘I can stay only five minutes,’ she said, without sitting down. ‘You said it
was important that you should see me, and I have come. I assure you it is at
a great risk. If I am seen here at this time I am ruined for ever. But what
would I not do for you? O Swithin, your remedy—is it to go away? There
is no other; and yet I dread that like death!’
‘I can tell you in a moment, but I must begin at the beginning. All this
ruinous idleness and distraction is caused by the misery of our not being
able to meet with freedom. The fear that something may snatch you from
me keeps me in a state of perpetual apprehension.’
‘It is too true also of me! I dread that some accident may happen, and waste
my days in meeting the trouble half-way.’
‘So our lives go on, and our labours stand still. Now for the remedy. Dear
Lady Constantine, allow me to marry you.’
She started, and the wind without shook the building, sending up a yet
intenser moan from the firs.
‘I mean, marry you quite privately. Let it make no difference whatever to
our outward lives for years, for I know that in my present position you
could not possibly acknowledge me as husband publicly. But by marrying
at once we secure the certainty that we cannot be divided by accident,
coaxing, or artifice; and, at ease on that point, I shall embrace my studies
with the old vigour, and you yours.’
Lady Constantine was so agitated at the unexpected boldness of such a
proposal from one hitherto so boyish and deferential that she sank into the
observing-chair, her intention to remain for only a few minutes being quite
forgotten.
She covered her face with her hands. ‘No, no, I dare not!’ she whispered.
‘But is there a single thing else left to do?’ he pleaded, kneeling down
beside her, less in supplication than in abandonment. ‘What else can we
do?’
‘Wait till you are famous.’

‘But I cannot be famous unless I strive, and this distracting condition
prevents all striving!’
‘Could you not strive on if I—gave you a promise, a solemn promise, to be
yours when your name is fairly well known?’
St. Cleeve breathed heavily. ‘It will be a long, weary time,’ he said. ‘And
even with your promise I shall work but half-heartedly. Every hour of
study will be interrupted with “Suppose this or this happens;” “Suppose
somebody persuades her to break her promise;” worse still, “Suppose some
rival maligns me, and so seduces her away.” No, Lady Constantine,
dearest, best as you are, that element of distraction would still remain, and
where that is, no sustained energy is possible. Many erroneous things have
been written and said by the sages, but never did they float a greater fallacy
than that love serves as a stimulus to win the loved one by patient toil.’
‘I cannot argue with you,’ she said weakly.
‘My only possible other chance would lie in going away,’ he resumed after
a moment’s reflection, with his eyes on the lantern flame, which waved and
smoked in the currents of air that leaked into the dome from the fierce
wind-stream without. ‘If I might take away the equatorial, supposing it
possible that I could find some suitable place for observing in the southern
hemisphere,—say, at the Cape,—I might be able to apply myself to serious
work again, after the lapse of a little time. The southern constellations offer
a less exhausted field for investigation. I wonder if I might!’
‘You mean,’ she answered uneasily, ‘that you might apply yourself to work
when your recollection of me began to fade, and my life to become a matter
of indifference to you? . . Yes, go! No,—I cannot bear it! The remedy is
worse than the disease. I cannot let you go away!’
‘Then how can you refuse the only condition on which I can stay, without
ruin to my purpose and scandal to your name? Dearest, agree to my
proposal, as you love both me and yourself!’
He waited, while the fir-trees rubbed and prodded the base of the tower, and
the wind roared around and shook it; but she could not find words to reply.

‘Would to God,’ he burst out, ‘that I might perish here, like Winstanley in
his lighthouse! Then the difficulty would be solved for you.’
‘You are so wrong, so very wrong, in saying so!’ she exclaimed
passionately. ‘You may doubt my wisdom, pity my short-sightedness; but
there is one thing you do know,—that I love you dearly!’
‘You do,—I know it!’ he said, softened in a moment. ‘But it seems such a
simple remedy for the difficulty that I cannot see how you can mind
adopting it, if you care so much for me as I do for you.’
‘Should we live . . . just as we are, exactly, . . . supposing I agreed?’ she
faintly inquired.
‘Yes, that is my idea.’
‘Quite privately, you say. How could—the marriage be quite private?’
‘I would go away to London and get a license. Then you could come to me,
and return again immediately after the ceremony. I could return at leisure
and not a soul in the world would know what had taken place. Think,
dearest, with what a free conscience you could then assist me in my efforts
to plumb these deeps above us! Any feeling that you may now have against
clandestine meetings as such would then be removed, and our hearts would
be at rest.’
There was a certain scientific practicability even in his love-making, and it
here came out excellently. But she sat on with suspended breath, her heart
wildly beating, while he waited in open-mouthed expectation. Each was
swayed by the emotion within them, much as the candle-flame was swayed
by the tempest without. It was the most critical evening of their lives.
The pale rays of the little lantern fell upon her beautiful face, snugly and
neatly bound in by her black bonnet; but not a beam of the lantern leaked
out into the night to suggest to any watchful eye that human life at its
highest excitement was beating within the dark and isolated tower; for the
dome had no windows, and every shutter that afforded an opening for the
telescope was hermetically closed. Predilections and misgivings so equally
strove within her still youthful breast that she could not utter a word; her
intention wheeled this way and that like the balance of a watch. His

unexpected proposition had brought about the smartest encounter of
inclination with prudence, of impulse with reserve, that she had ever
known.
Of all the reasons that she had expected him to give for his urgent request to
see her this evening, an offer of marriage was probably the last. Whether or
not she had ever amused herself with hypothetical fancies on such a subject,
—and it was only natural that she should vaguely have done so,—the
courage in her protégé coolly to advance it, without a hint from herself that
such a proposal would be tolerated, showed her that there was more in his
character than she had reckoned on: and the discovery almost frightened
her. The humour, attitude, and tenor of her attachment had been of quite an
unpremeditated quality, unsuggestive of any such audacious solution to
their distresses as this.
‘I repeat my question, dearest,’ he said, after her long pause. ‘Shall it be
done? Or shall I exile myself, and study as best I can, in some distant
country, out of sight and sound?’
‘Are those the only alternatives? Yes, yes; I suppose they are!’ She waited
yet another moment, bent over his kneeling figure, and kissed his forehead.
‘Yes; it shall be done,’ she whispered. ‘I will marry you.’
‘My angel, I am content!’
He drew her yielding form to his heart, and her head sank upon his
shoulder, as he pressed his two lips continuously upon hers. To such had
the study of celestial physics brought them in the space of eight months,
one week, and a few odd days.
‘I am weaker than you,—far the weaker,’ she went on, her tears falling.
‘Rather than lose you out of my sight I will marry without stipulation or
condition. But—I put it to your kindness—grant me one little request.’
He instantly assented.
‘It is that, in consideration of my peculiar position in this county,—O, you
can’t understand it!—you will not put an end to the absolute secrecy of our
relationship without my full assent. Also, that you will never come to
Welland House without first discussing with me the advisability of the visit,

accepting my opinion on the point. There, see how a timid woman tries to
fence herself in!’
‘My dear lady-love, neither of those two high-handed courses should I have
taken, even had you not stipulated against them. The very essence of our
marriage plan is that those two conditions are kept. I see as well as you do,
even more than you do, how important it is that for the present,—ay, for a
long time hence—I should still be but the curate’s lonely son, unattached to
anybody or anything, with no object of interest but his science; and you the
recluse lady of the manor, to whom he is only an acquaintance.’
‘See what deceits love sows in honest minds!’
‘It would be a humiliation to you at present that I could not bear if a
marriage between us were made public; an inconvenience without any
compensating advantage.’
‘I am so glad you assume it without my setting it before you! Now I know
you are not only good and true, but politic and trustworthy.’
‘Well, then, here is our covenant. My lady swears to marry me; I, in return
for such great courtesy, swear never to compromise her by intruding at
Welland House, and to keep the marriage concealed till I have won a
position worthy of her.’
‘Or till I request it to be made known,’ she added, possibly foreseeing a
contingency which had not occurred to him.
‘Or till you request it,’ he repeated.
‘It is agreed,’ murmured Lady Constantine,

XVI

After this there only remained to be settled between them the practical
details of the project.
These were that he should leave home in a couple of days, and take
lodgings either in the distant city of Bath or in a convenient suburb of
London, till a sufficient time should have elapsed to satisfy legal
requirements; that on a fine morning at the end of this time she should hie
away to the same place, and be met at the station by St. Cleeve, armed with
the marriage license; whence they should at once proceed to the church
fixed upon for the ceremony; returning home independently in the course of
the next two or three days.
While these tactics were under discussion the two-and-thirty winds of
heaven continued, as before, to beat about the tower, though their onsets
appeared to be somewhat lessening in force. Himself now calmed and
satisfied, Swithin, as is the wont of humanity, took serener views of
Nature’s crushing mechanics without, and said, ‘The wind doesn’t seem
disposed to put the tragic period to our hopes and fears that I spoke of in my
momentary despair.’
‘The disposition of the wind is as vicious as ever,’ she answered, looking
into his face with pausing thoughts on, perhaps, other subjects than that
discussed. ‘It is your mood of viewing it that has changed. “There is
nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”’
And, as if flatly to stultify Swithin’s assumption, a circular hurricane,
exceeding in violence any that had preceded it, seized hold upon Rings-Hill
Speer at that moment with the determination of a conscious agent. The first
sensation of a resulting catastrophe was conveyed to their intelligence by
the flapping of the candle-flame against the lantern-glass; then the wind,
which hitherto they had heard rather than felt, rubbed past them like a
fugitive. Swithin beheld around and above him, in place of the concavity of
the dome, the open heaven, with its racing clouds, remote horizon, and
intermittent gleam of stars. The dome that had covered the tower had been
whirled off bodily; and they heard it descend crashing upon the trees.

Finding himself untouched Swithin stretched out his arms towards Lady
Constantine, whose apparel had been seized by the spinning air, nearly
lifting her off her legs. She, too, was as yet unharmed. Each held the other
for a moment, when, fearing that something further would happen, they
took shelter in the staircase.
‘Dearest, what an escape!’ he said, still holding her.
‘What is the accident?’ she asked. ‘Has the whole top really gone?’
‘The dome has been blown off the roof.’
As soon as it was practicable he relit the extinguished lantern, and they
emerged again upon the leads, where the extent of the disaster became at
once apparent. Saving the absence of the enclosing hemisphere all
remained the same. The dome, being constructed of wood, was light by
comparison with the rest of the structure, and the wheels which allowed it
horizontal, or, as Swithin expressed it, azimuth motion, denied it a firm hold
upon the walls; so that it had been lifted off them like a cover from a pot.
The equatorial stood in the midst as it had stood before.
Having executed its grotesque purpose the wind sank to comparative
mildness. Swithin took advantage of this lull by covering up the
instruments with cloths, after which the betrothed couple prepared to go
downstairs.
But the events of the night had not yet fully disclosed themselves. At this
moment there was a sound of footsteps and a knocking at the door below.
‘It can’t be for me!’ said Lady Constantine. ‘I retired to my room before
leaving the house, and told them on no account to disturb me.’
She remained at the top while Swithin went down the spiral. In the gloom
he beheld Hannah.
‘O Master Swithin, can ye come home! The wind have blowed down the
chimley that don’t smoke, and the pinning-end with it; and the old ancient
house, that have been in your family so long as the memory of man, is
naked to the world! It is a mercy that your grammer were not killed, sitting
by the hearth, poor old soul, and soon to walk wi’ God,—for ’a ’s getting

wambling on her pins, Mr. Swithin, as aged folks do. As I say, ’a was all
but murdered by the elements, and doing no more harm than the babes in
the wood, nor speaking one harmful word. And the fire and smoke were
blowed all across house like a chapter in Revelation; and your poor reverent
father’s features scorched to flakes, looking like the vilest ruffian, and the
gilt frame spoiled! Every flitch, every eye-piece, and every chine is buried
under the walling; and I fed them pigs with my own hands, Master Swithin,
little thinking they would come to this end. Do ye collect yourself, Mr.
Swithin, and come at once!’
‘I will,—I will. I’ll follow you in a moment. Do you hasten back again and
assist.’
When Hannah had departed the young man ran up to Lady Constantine, to
whom he explained the accident. After sympathizing with old Mrs. Martin
Lady Constantine added, ‘I thought something would occur to mar our
scheme!’
‘I am not quite sure of that yet.’
On a short consideration with him, she agreed to wait at the top of the tower
till he could come back and inform her if the accident were really so serious
as to interfere with his plan for departure. He then left her, and there she sat
in the dark, alone, looking over the parapet, and straining her eyes in the
direction of the homestead.
At first all was obscurity; but when he had been gone about ten minutes
lights began to move to and fro in the hollow where the house stood, and
shouts occasionally mingled with the wind, which retained some violence
yet, playing over the trees beneath her as on the strings of a lyre. But not a
bough of them was visible, a cloak of blackness covering everything
netherward; while overhead the windy sky looked down with a strange and
disguised face, the three or four stars that alone were visible being so
dissociated by clouds that she knew not which they were. Under any other
circumstances Lady Constantine might have felt a nameless fear in thus
sitting aloft on a lonely column, with a forest groaning under her feet, and
palæolithic dead men feeding its roots; but the recent passionate decision
stirred her pulses to an intensity beside which the ordinary tremors of
feminine existence asserted themselves in vain. The apocalyptic effect of

the scene surrounding her was, indeed, not inharmonious, and afforded an
appropriate background to her intentions.
After what seemed to her an interminable space of time, quick steps in the
staircase became audible above the roar of the firs, and in a few instants St.
Cleeve again stood beside her.
The case of the homestead was serious. Hannah’s account had not been
exaggerated in substance: the gable end of the house was open to the
garden; the joists, left without support, had dropped, and with them the
upper floor. By the help of some labourers, who lived near, and Lady
Constantine’s man Anthony, who was passing at the time, the homestead
had been propped up, and protected for the night by some rickcloths; but
Swithin felt that it would be selfish in the highest degree to leave two lonely
old women to themselves at this juncture. ‘In short,’ he concluded
despondently, ‘I cannot go to stay in Bath or London just now; perhaps not
for another fortnight!’
‘Never mind,’ she said. ‘A fortnight hence will do as well.’
‘And I have these for you,’ he continued. ‘Your man Green was passing my
grandmother’s on his way back from Warborne, where he had been, he says,
for any letters that had come for you by the evening post. As he stayed to
assist the other men I told him I would go on to your house with the letters
he had brought. Of course I did not tell him I should see you here.’
‘Thank you. Of course not. Now I’ll return at once.’
In descending the column her eye fell upon the superscription of one of the
letters, and she opened and glanced over it by the lantern light. She seemed
startled, and, musing, said, ‘The postponement of our—intention must be, I
fear, for a long time. I find that after the end of this month I cannot leave
home safely, even for a day.’ Perceiving that he was about to ask why, she
added, ‘I will not trouble you with the reason now; it would only harass
you. It is only a family business, and cannot be helped.’
‘Then we cannot be married till—God knows when!’ said Swithin blankly.
‘I cannot leave home till after the next week or two; you cannot leave home
unless within that time. So what are we to do?’

‘I do not know.’
‘My dear, dear one, don’t let us be beaten like this! Don’t let a well-
considered plan be overthrown by a mere accident! Here’s a remedy. Do
you go and stay the requisite time in the parish we are to be married in,
instead of me. When my grandmother is again well housed I can come to
you, instead of you to me, as we first said. Then it can be done within the
time.’
Reluctantly, shyly, and yet with a certain gladness of heart, she gave way to
his proposal that they should change places in the programme. There was
much that she did not like in it, she said. It seemed to her as if she were
taking the initiative by going and attending to the preliminaries. It was the
man’s part to do that, in her opinion, and was usually undertaken by him.
‘But,’ argued Swithin, ‘there are cases in which the woman does give the
notices, and so on; that is to say, when the man is absolutely hindered from
doing so; and ours is such a case. The seeming is nothing; I know the truth,
and what does it matter? You do not refuse—retract your word to be my
wife, because, to avoid a sickening delay, the formalities require you to
attend to them in place of me?’
She did not refuse, she said. In short she agreed to his entreaty. They had,
in truth, gone so far in their dream of union that there was no drawing back
now. Whichever of them was forced by circumstances to be the protagonist
in the enterprise, the thing must be done. Their intention to become
husband and wife, at first halting and timorous, had accumulated
momentum with the lapse of hours, till it now bore down every obstacle in
its course.
‘Since you beg me to,—since there is no alternative between my going and
a long postponement,’ she said, as they stood in the dark porch of Welland
House before parting,—‘since I am to go first, and seem to be the pioneer in
this adventure, promise me, Swithin, promise your Viviette, that in years to
come, when perhaps you may not love me so warmly as you do now—’
‘That will never be.’
‘Well, hoping it will not, but supposing it should, promise me that you will
never reproach me as the one who took the initiative when it should have

been yourself, forgetting that it was at your request; promise that you will
never say I showed immodest readiness to do so, or anything which may
imply your obliviousness of the fact that I act in obedience to necessity and
your earnest prayer.’
Need it be said that he promised never to reproach her with that or any other
thing as long as they should live? The few details of the reversed
arrangement were soon settled, Bath being the place finally decided on.
Then, with a warm audacity which events had encouraged, he pressed her to
his breast, and she silently entered the house. He returned to the
homestead, there to attend to the unexpected duties of repairing the havoc
wrought by the gale.
*****
That night, in the solitude of her chamber, Lady Constantine reopened and
read the subjoined letter—one of those handed to her by St. Cleeve:—

“--- Street, Piccadilly,
October 15, 18--.
‘Dear Viviette,—You will be surprised to learn that I am in England,
and that I am again out of harness—unless you should have seen the
latter in the papers. Rio Janeiro may do for monkeys, but it won’t do
for me. Having resigned the appointment I have returned here, as a
preliminary step to finding another vent for my energies; in other
words, another milch cow for my sustenance. I knew nothing
whatever of your husband’s death till two days ago; so that any letter
from you on the subject, at the time it became known, must have
miscarried. Hypocrisy at such a moment is worse than useless, and I
therefore do not condole with you, particularly as the event, though
new to a banished man like me, occurred so long since. You are better
without him, Viviette, and are now just the limb for doing something
for yourself, notwithstanding the threadbare state in which you seem to
have been cast upon the world. You are still young, and, as I imagine
(unless you have vastly altered since I beheld you), good-looking:
therefore make up your mind to retrieve your position by a match with
one of the local celebrities; and you would do well to begin drawing
neighbouring covers at once. A genial squire, with more weight than

wit, more realty than weight, and more personalty than realty
(considering the circumstances), would be best for you. You might
make a position for us both by some such alliance; for, to tell the truth,
I have had but in-and-out luck so far. I shall be with you in little more
than a fortnight, when we will talk over the matter seriously, if you
don’t object.—Your affectionate brother,
Louis.’

It was this allusion to her brother’s coming visit which had caught her eye
in the tower staircase, and led to a modification in the wedding
arrangement.
Having read the letter through once Lady Constantine flung it aside with an
impatient little stamp that shook the decaying old floor and casement. Its
contents produced perturbation, misgiving, but not retreat. The deep glow
of enchantment shed by the idea of a private union with her beautiful young
lover killed the pale light of cold reasoning from an indifferently good
relative.
‘Oh, no,’ she murmured, as she sat, covering her face with her hand. ‘Not
for wealth untold could I give him up now!’
No argument, short of Apollo in person from the clouds, would have
influenced her. She made her preparations for departure as if nothing had
intervened.

XVII

In her days of prosperity Lady Constantine had often gone to the city of
Bath, either frivolously, for shopping purposes, or musico-religiously, to
attend choir festivals in the abbey; so there was nothing surprising in her
reverting to an old practice. That the journey might appear to be of a
somewhat similar nature she took with her the servant who had been
accustomed to accompany her on former occasions, though the woman,
having now left her service, and settled in the village as the wife of Anthony
Green, with a young child on her hands, could with some difficulty leave
home. Lady Constantine overcame the anxious mother’s scruples by

providing that young Green should be well cared for; and knowing that she
could count upon this woman’s fidelity, if upon anybody’s, in case of an
accident (for it was chiefly Lady Constantine’s exertions that had made an
honest wife of Mrs. Green), she departed for a fortnight’s absence.
The next day found mistress and maid settled in lodgings in an old plum-
coloured brick street, which a hundred years ago could boast of rank and
fashion among its residents, though now the broad fan-light over each broad
door admitted the sun to the halls of a lodging-house keeper only. The
lamp-posts were still those that had done duty with oil lights; and rheumatic
old coachmen and postilions, that once had driven and ridden gloriously
from London to Land’s End, ornamented with their bent persons and bow
legs the pavement in front of the chief inn, in the sorry hope of earning
sixpence to keep body and soul together.
‘We are kept well informed on the time o’ day, my lady,’ said Mrs. Green,
as she pulled down the blinds in Lady Constantine’s room on the evening of
their arrival. ‘There’s a church exactly at the back of us, and I hear every
hour strike.’
Lady Constantine said she had noticed that there was a church quite near.
‘Well, it is better to have that at the back than other folks’ winders. And if
your ladyship wants to go there it won’t be far to walk.’
‘That’s what occurred to me,’ said Lady Constantine, ‘if I should want to
go.’
During the ensuing days she felt to the utmost the tediousness of waiting
merely that time might pass. Not a soul knew her there, and she knew not a
soul, a circumstance which, while it added to her sense of secrecy,
intensified her solitude. Occasionally she went to a shop, with Green as her
companion. Though there were purchases to be made, they were by no
means of a pressing nature, and but poorly filled up the vacancies of those
strange, speculative days,—days surrounded by a shade of fear, yet poetized
by sweet expectation.
On the thirteenth day she told Green that she was going to take a walk, and
leaving the house she passed by the obscurest streets to the Abbey. After
wandering about beneath the aisles till her courage was screwed to its

highest, she went out at the other side, and, looking timidly round to see if
anybody followed, walked on till she came to a certain door, which she
reached just at the moment when her heart began to sink to its very lowest,
rendering all the screwing up in vain.
Whether it was because the month was October, or from any other reason,
the deserted aspect of the quarter in general sat especially on this building.
Moreover the pavement was up, and heaps of stone and gravel obstructed
the footway. Nobody was coming, nobody was going, in that thoroughfare;
she appeared to be the single one of the human race bent upon marriage
business, which seemed to have been unanimously abandoned by all the
rest of the world as proven folly. But she thought of Swithin, his blonde
hair, ardent eyes, and eloquent lips, and was carried onward by the very
reflection.
Entering the surrogate’s room Lady Constantine managed, at the last
juncture, to state her errand in tones so collected as to startle even herself to
which her listener replied also as if the whole thing were the most natural in
the world. When it came to the affirmation that she had lived fifteen days
in the parish, she said with dismay—
‘O no! I thought the fifteen days meant the interval of residence before the
marriage takes place. I have lived here only thirteen days and a half. Now
I must come again!’
‘Ah—well—I think you need not be so particular,’ said the surrogate. ‘As a
matter of fact, though the letter of the law requires fifteen days’ residence,
many people make five sufficient. The provision is inserted, as you
doubtless are aware, to hinder runaway marriages as much as possible, and
secret unions, and other such objectionable practices. You need not come
again.’
That evening Lady Constantine wrote to Swithin St. Cleeve the last letter of
the fortnight:—

‘My Dearest,—Do come to me as soon as you can. By a sort of
favouring blunder I have been able to shorten the time of waiting by a
day. Come at once, for I am almost broken down with apprehension.
It seems rather rash at moments, all this, and I wish you were here to

reassure me. I did not know I should feel so alarmed. I am frightened
at every footstep, and dread lest anybody who knows me should accost
me, and find out why I am here. I sometimes wonder how I could
have agreed to come and enact your part, but I did not realize how
trying it would be. You ought not to have asked me, Swithin; upon my
word, it was too cruel of you, and I will punish you for it when you
come! But I won’t upbraid. I hope the homestead is repaired that has
cost me all this sacrifice of modesty. If it were anybody in the world
but you in question I would rush home, without waiting here for the
end of it,—I really think I would! But, dearest, no. I must show my
strength now, or let it be for ever hid. The barriers of ceremony are
broken down between us, and it is for the best that I am here.’

And yet, at no point of this trying prelude need Lady Constantine have
feared for her strength. Deeds in this connexion demand the particular kind
of courage that such perfervid women are endowed with, the courage of
their emotions, in which young men are often lamentably deficient. Her
fear was, in truth, the fear of being discovered in an unwonted position; not
of the act itself. And though her letter was in its way a true exposition of
her feeling, had it been necessary to go through the whole legal process
over again she would have been found equal to the emergency.
It had been for some days a point of anxiety with her what to do with Green
during the morning of the wedding. Chance unexpectedly helped her in this
difficulty. The day before the purchase of the license Green came to Lady
Constantine with a letter in her hand from her husband Anthony, her face as
long as a fiddle.
‘I hope there’s nothing the matter?’ said Lady Constantine.
‘The child’s took bad, my lady!’ said Mrs. Green, with suspended floods of
water in her eyes. ‘I love the child better than I shall love all them that’s
coming put together; for he’s been a good boy to his mother ever since
twelve weeks afore he was born! ’Twas he, a tender deary, that made
Anthony marry me, and thereby turned hisself from a little calamity to a
little blessing! For, as you know, the man were a backward man in the
church part o’ matrimony, my lady; though he’ll do anything when he’s

forced a bit by his manly feelings. And now to lose the child—hoo-hoo-
hoo! What shall I doo!’
‘Well, you want to go home at once, I suppose?’
Mrs. Green explained, between her sobs, that such was her desire; and
though this was a day or two sooner than her mistress had wished to be left
alone she consented to Green’s departure. So during the afternoon her
woman went off, with directions to prepare for Lady Constantine’s return in
two or three days. But as the exact day of her return was uncertain no
carriage was to be sent to the station to meet her, her intention being to hire
one from the hotel.
Lady Constantine was now left in utter solitude to await her lover’s arrival.

XVIII

A more beautiful October morning than that of the next day never beamed
into the Welland valleys. The yearly dissolution of leafage was setting in
apace. The foliage of the park trees rapidly resolved itself into the
multitude of complexions which mark the subtle grades of decay, reflecting
wet lights of such innumerable hues that it was a wonder to think their
beauties only a repetition of scenes that had been exhibited there on scores
of previous Octobers, and had been allowed to pass away without a single
dirge from the imperturbable beings who walked among them. Far in the
shadows semi-opaque screens of blue haze made mysteries of the
commonest gravel-pit, dingle, or recess.
The wooden cabin at the foot of Rings-Hill Speer had been furnished by
Swithin as a sitting and sleeping apartment, some little while before this
time; for he had found it highly convenient, during night observations at the
top of the column, to remain on the spot all night, not to disturb his
grandmother by passing in and out of the house, and to save himself the
labour of incessantly crossing the field.
He would much have liked to tell her the secret, and, had it been his own to
tell, would probably have done so; but sharing it with an objector who knew
not his grandmother’s affection so well as he did himself, there was no
alternative to holding his tongue. The more effectually to guard it he

decided to sleep at the cabin during the two or three nights previous to his
departure, leaving word at the homestead that in a day or two he was going
on an excursion.
It was very necessary to start early. Long before the great eye of the sun
was lifted high enough to glance into the Welland valley, St. Cleeve arose
from his bed in the cabin and prepared to depart, cooking his breakfast upon
a little stove in the corner. The young rabbits, littered during the foregoing
summer, watched his preparations through the open door from the grey
dawn without, as he bustled, half dressed, in and out under the boughs, and
among the blackberries and brambles that grew around.
It was a strange place for a bridegroom to perform his toilet in, but,
considering the unconventional nature of the marriage, a not inappropriate
one. What events had been enacted in that earthen camp since it was first
thrown up, nobody could say; but the primitive simplicity of the young
man’s preparations accorded well with the prehistoric spot on which they
were made. Embedded under his feet were possibly even now rude trinkets
that had been worn at bridal ceremonies of the early inhabitants. Little
signified those ceremonies to-day, or the happiness or otherwise of the
contracting parties. That his own rite, nevertheless, signified much, was the
inconsequent reasoning of Swithin, as it is of many another bridegroom
besides; and he, like the rest, went on with his preparations in that mood
which sees in his stale repetition the wondrous possibilities of an untried
move.
Then through the wet cobwebs, that hung like movable diaphragms on each
blade and bough, he pushed his way down to the furrow which led from the
secluded fir-tree island to the wide world beyond the field.
He was not a stranger to enterprise, and still less to the contemplation of
enterprise; but an enterprise such as this he had never even outlined. That
his dear lady was troubled at the situation he had placed her in by not going
himself on that errand, he could see from her letter; but, believing an
immediate marriage with her to be the true way of restoring to both that
equanimity necessary to serene philosophy, he held it of little account how
the marriage was brought about, and happily began his journey towards her
place of sojourn.

He passed through a little copse before leaving the parish, the smoke from
newly lit fires rising like the stems of blue trees out of the few cottage
chimneys. Here he heard a quick, familiar footstep in the path ahead of
him, and, turning the corner of the bushes, confronted the foot-post on his
way to Welland. In answer to St. Cleeve’s inquiry if there was anything for
himself the postman handed out one letter, and proceeded on his route.
Swithin opened and read the letter as he walked, till it brought him to a
standstill by the importance of its contents.
They were enough to agitate a more phlegmatic youth than he. He leant
over the wicket which came in his path, and endeavoured to comprehend
the sense of the whole.
The large long envelope contained, first, a letter from a solicitor in a
northern town, informing him that his paternal great-uncle, who had
recently returned from the Cape (whither he had gone in an attempt to
repair a broken constitution), was now dead and buried. This great-uncle’s
name was like a new creation to Swithin. He had held no communication
with the young man’s branch of the family for innumerable years,—never,
in fact, since the marriage of Swithin’s father with the simple daughter of
Welland Farm. He had been a bachelor to the end of his life, and had
amassed a fairly good professional fortune by a long and extensive medical
practice in the smoky, dreary, manufacturing town in which he had lived
and died. Swithin had always been taught to think of him as the
embodiment of all that was unpleasant in man. He was narrow, sarcastic,
and shrewd to unseemliness. That very shrewdness had enabled him,
without much professional profundity, to establish his large and lucrative
connexion, which lay almost entirely among a class who neither looked nor
cared for drawing-room courtesies.
However, what Dr. St. Cleeve had been as a practitioner matters little. He
was now dead, and the bulk of his property had been left to persons with
whom this story has nothing to do. But Swithin was informed that out of it
there was a bequest of 600 pounds a year to himself,—payment of which
was to begin with his twenty-first year, and continue for his life, unless he
should marry before reaching the age of twenty-five. In the latter

precocious and objectionable event his annuity would be forfeited. The
accompanying letter, said the solicitor, would explain all.
This, the second letter, was from his uncle to himself, written about a month
before the former’s death, and deposited with his will, to be forwarded to
his nephew when that event should have taken place. Swithin read, with the
solemnity that such posthumous epistles inspire, the following words from
one who, during life, had never once addressed him:—

‘Dear Nephew,—You will doubtless experience some astonishment at
receiving a communication from one whom you have never personally
known, and who, when this comes into your hands, will be beyond the
reach of your knowledge. Perhaps I am the loser by this life-long
mutual ignorance. Perhaps I am much to blame for it; perhaps not.
But such reflections are profitless at this date: I have written with quite
other views than to work up a sentimental regret on such an amazingly
remote hypothesis as that the fact of a particular pair of people not
meeting, among the millions of other pairs of people who have never
met, is a great calamity either to the world in general or to themselves.
‘The occasion of my addressing you is briefly this: Nine months ago a
report casually reached me that your scientific studies were pursued by
you with great ability, and that you were a young man of some promise
as an astronomer. My own scientific proclivities rendered the report
more interesting than it might otherwise have been to me; and it came
upon me quite as a surprise that any issue of your father’s marriage
should have so much in him, or you might have seen more of me in
former years than you are ever likely to do now. My health had then
begun to fail, and I was starting for the Cape, or I should have come
myself to inquire into your condition and prospects. I did not return
till six months later, and as my health had not improved I sent a trusty
friend to examine into your life, pursuits, and circumstances, without
your own knowledge, and to report his observations to me. This he
did. Through him I learnt, of favourable news:—
‘(1) That you worked assiduously at the science of astronomy.
‘(2) That everything was auspicious in the career you had chosen.

‘Of unfavourable news:—
‘(1) That the small income at your command, even when eked out by
the sum to which you would be entitled on your grandmother’s death
and the freehold of the homestead, would be inadequate to support you
becomingly as a scientific man, whose lines of work were of a nature
not calculated to produce emoluments for many years, if ever.
‘(2) That there was something in your path worse than narrow means,
and that that something was a woman.
‘To save you, if possible, from ruin on these heads, I take the
preventive measures detailed below.
‘The chief step is, as my solicitor will have informed you, that, at the
age of twenty-five, the sum of 600 pounds a year be settled on you for
life, provided you have not married before reaching that age;—a yearly
gift of an equal sum to be also provisionally made to you in the interim
—and, vice versa, that if you do marry before reaching the age of
twenty-five you will receive nothing from the date of the marriage.
‘One object of my bequest is that you may have resources sufficient to
enable you to travel and study the Southern constellations. When at
the Cape, after hearing of your pursuits, I was much struck with the
importance of those constellations to an astronomer just pushing into
notice. There is more to be made of the Southern hemisphere than
ever has been made of it yet; the mine is not so thoroughly worked as
the Northern, and thither your studies should tend.
‘The only other preventive step in my power is that of exhortation, at
which I am not an adept. Nevertheless, I say to you, Swithin St.
Cleeve, don’t make a fool of yourself, as your father did. If your
studies are to be worth anything, believe me, they must be carried on
without the help of a woman. Avoid her, and every one of the sex, if
you mean to achieve any worthy thing. Eschew all of that sort for
many a year yet. Moreover, I say, the lady of your acquaintance avoid
in particular. I have heard nothing against her moral character
hitherto; I have no doubt it has been excellent. She may have many
good qualities, both of heart and of mind. But she has, in addition to

her original disqualification as a companion for you (that is, that of
sex), these two serious drawbacks: she is much older than yourself—’
‘Much older!’ said Swithin resentfully.
‘—and she is so impoverished that the title she derives from her late
husband is a positive objection. Beyond this, frankly, I don’t think
well of her. I don’t think well of any woman who dotes upon a man
younger than herself. To care to be the first fancy of a young fellow
like you shows no great common sense in her. If she were worth her
salt she would have too much pride to be intimate with a youth in your
unassured position, to say no worse. She is old enough to know that a
liaison with her may, and almost certainly would, be your ruin; and, on
the other hand, that a marriage would be preposterous,—unless she is a
complete goose, and in that case there is even more reason for
avoiding her than if she were in her few senses.
‘A woman of honourable feeling, nephew, would be careful to do
nothing to hinder you in your career, as this putting of herself in your
way most certainly will. Yet I hear that she professes a great anxiety
on this same future of yours as a physicist. The best way in which she
can show the reality of her anxiety is by leaving you to yourself.
Perhaps she persuades herself that she is doing you no harm. Well, let
her have the benefit of the possible belief; but depend upon it that in
truth she gives the lie to her conscience by maintaining such a
transparent fallacy. Women’s brains are not formed for assisting at any
profound science: they lack the power to see things except in the
concrete. She’ll blab your most secret plans and theories to every one
of her acquaintance—’
‘She’s got none!’ said Swithin, beginning to get warm.
‘—and make them appear ridiculous by announcing them before they
are matured. If you attempt to study with a woman, you’ll be ruled by
her to entertain fancies instead of theories, air-castles instead of
intentions, qualms instead of opinions, sickly prepossessions instead of
reasoned conclusions. Your wide heaven of study, young man, will
soon reduce itself to the miserable narrow expanse of her face, and
your myriad of stars to her two trumpery eyes.

‘A woman waking a young man’s passions just at a moment when he is
endeavouring to shine intellectually, is doing little less than
committing a crime.
‘Like a certain philosopher I would, upon my soul, have all young men
from eighteen to twenty-five kept under barrels; seeing how often, in
the lack of some such sequestering process, the woman sits down
before each as his destiny, and too frequently enervates his purpose, till
he abandons the most promising course ever conceived!
‘But no more. I now leave your fate in your own hands. Your well-
wishing relative,
‘Jocelyn St. Cleeve,
Doctor in Medicine.’

As coming from a bachelor and hardened misogynist of seventy-two, the
opinions herein contained were nothing remarkable: but their practical
result in restricting the sudden endowment of Swithin’s researches by
conditions which turned the favour into a harassment was, at this unique
moment, discomfiting and distracting in the highest degree.
Sensational, however, as the letter was, the passionate intention of the day
was not hazarded for more than a few minutes thereby. The truth was, the
caution and bribe came too late, too unexpectedly, to be of influence. They
were the sort of thing which required fermentation to render them effective.
Had St. Cleeve received the exhortation a month earlier; had he been able to
run over in his mind, at every wakeful hour of thirty consecutive nights, a
private catechism on the possibilities opened up by this annuity, there is no
telling what might have been the stress of such a web of perplexity upon
him, a young man whose love for celestial physics was second to none. But
to have held before him, at the last moment, the picture of a future
advantage that he had never once thought of, or discounted for present
staying power, it affected him about as much as the view of horizons shown
by sheet-lightning. He saw an immense prospect; it went, and the world
was as before.
He caught the train at Warborne, and moved rapidly towards Bath; not
precisely in the same key as when he had dressed in the hut at dawn, but, as

regarded the mechanical part of the journey, as unhesitatingly as before.
And with the change of scene even his gloom left him; his bosom’s lord sat
lightly in his throne. St. Cleeve was not sufficiently in mind of poetical
literature to remember that wise poets are accustomed to read that lightness
of bosom inversely. Swithin thought it an omen of good fortune; and as
thinking is causing in not a few such cases, he was perhaps, in spite of
poets, right.

XIX

At the station Lady Constantine appeared, standing expectant; he saw her
face from the window of the carriage long before she saw him. He no
sooner saw her than he was satisfied to his heart’s content with his prize. If
his great-uncle had offered him from the grave a kingdom instead of her, he
would not have accepted it.
Swithin jumped out, and nature never painted in a woman’s face more
devotion than appeared in my lady’s at that moment. To both the situation
seemed like a beautiful allegory, not to be examined too closely, lest its
defects of correspondence with real life should be apparent.
They almost feared to shake hands in public, so much depended upon their
passing that morning without molestation. A fly was called and they drove
away.
‘Take this,’ she said, handing him a folded paper. ‘It belongs to you rather
than to me.’
At crossings, and other occasional pauses, pedestrians turned their faces and
looked at the pair (for no reason but that, among so many, there were
naturally a few of the sort who have eyes to note what incidents come in
their way as they plod on); but the two in the vehicle could not but fear that
these innocent beholders had special detective designs on them.
‘You look so dreadfully young!’ she said with humorous fretfulness, as they
drove along (Swithin’s cheeks being amazingly fresh from the morning
air). ‘Do try to appear a little haggard, that the parson mayn’t ask us
awkward questions!’

Nothing further happened, and they were set down opposite a shop about
fifty yards from the church door, at five minutes to eleven.
‘We will dismiss the fly,’ she said. ‘It will only attract idlers.’
On turning the corner and reaching the church they found the door ajar; but
the building contained only two persons, a man and a woman,—the clerk
and his wife, as they learnt. Swithin asked when the clergyman would
arrive.
The clerk looked at his watch, and said, ‘At just on eleven o’clock.’
‘He ought to be here,’ said Swithin.
‘Yes,’ replied the clerk, as the hour struck. ‘The fact is, sir, he is a deppity,
and apt to be rather wandering in his wits as regards time and such like,
which hev stood in the way of the man’s getting a benefit. But no doubt
he’ll come.’
‘The regular incumbent is away, then?’
‘He’s gone for his bare pa’son’s fortnight,—that’s all; and we was forced to
put up with a weak-talented man or none. The best men goes into the
brewing, or into the shipping now-a-days, you see, sir; doctrines being
rather shaddery at present, and your money’s worth not sure in our line. So
we church officers be left poorly provided with men for odd jobs. I’ll tell
ye what, sir; I think I’d better run round to the gentleman’s lodgings, and try
to find him?’
‘Pray do,’ said Lady Constantine.
The clerk left the church; his wife busied herself with dusting at the further
end, and Swithin and Viviette were left to themselves. The imagination
travels so rapidly, and a woman’s forethought is so assumptive, that the
clerk’s departure had no sooner doomed them to inaction than it was borne
in upon Lady Constantine’s mind that she would not become the wife of
Swithin St. Cleeve, either to-day or on any other day. Her divinations were
continually misleading her, she knew: but a hitch at the moment of marriage
surely had a meaning in it.
‘Ah,—the marriage is not to be!’ she said to herself. ‘This is a fatality.’

It was twenty minutes past, and no parson had arrived. Swithin took her
hand.
‘If it cannot be to-day, it can be to-morrow,’ he whispered.
‘I cannot say,’ she answered. ‘Something tells me no.’
It was almost impossible that she could know anything of the deterrent
force exercised on Swithin by his dead uncle that morning. Yet her manner
tallied so curiously well with such knowledge that he was struck by it, and
remained silent.
‘You have a black tie,’ she continued, looking at him.
‘Yes,’ replied Swithin. ‘I bought it on my way here.’
‘Why could it not have been less sombre in colour?’
‘My great-uncle is dead.’
‘You had a great-uncle? You never told me.’
‘I never saw him in my life. I have only heard about him since his death.’
He spoke in as quiet and measured a way as he could, but his heart was
sinking. She would go on questioning; he could not tell her an untruth. She
would discover particulars of that great-uncle’s provision for him, which he,
Swithin, was throwing away for her sake, and she would refuse to be his for
his own sake. His conclusion at this moment was precisely what hers had
been five minutes sooner: they were never to be husband and wife.
But she did not continue her questions, for the simplest of all reasons: hasty
footsteps were audible in the entrance, and the parson was seen coming up
the aisle, the clerk behind him wiping the beads of perspiration from his
face. The somewhat sorry clerical specimen shook hands with them, and
entered the vestry; and the clerk came up and opened the book.
‘The poor gentleman’s memory is a bit topsy-turvy,’ whispered the latter.
‘He had got it in his mind that ’twere a funeral, and I found him wandering
about the cemetery a-looking for us. However, all’s well as ends well.’
And the clerk wiped his forehead again.

‘How ill-omened!’ murmured Viviette.
But the parson came out robed at this moment, and the clerk put on his
ecclesiastical countenance and looked in his book. Lady Constantine’s
momentary languor passed; her blood resumed its courses with a new
spring. The grave utterances of the church then rolled out upon the
palpitating pair, and no couple ever joined their whispers thereto with more
fervency than they.
Lady Constantine (as she continued to be called by the outside world,
though she liked to think herself the Mrs. St. Cleeve that she legally was)
had told Green that she might be expected at Welland in a day, or two, or
three, as circumstances should dictate. Though the time of return was thus
left open it was deemed advisable, by both Swithin and herself, that her
journey back should not be deferred after the next day, in case any
suspicions might be aroused. As for St. Cleeve, his comings and goings
were of no consequence. It was seldom known whether he was at home or
abroad, by reason of his frequent seclusion at the column.
Late in the afternoon of the next day he accompanied her to the Bath
station, intending himself to remain in that city till the following morning.
But when a man or youth has such a tender article on his hands as a thirty-
hour bride it is hardly in the power of his strongest reason to set her down at
a railway, and send her off like a superfluous portmanteau. Hence the
experiment of parting so soon after their union proved excruciatingly severe
to these. The evening was dull; the breeze of autumn crept fitfully through
every slit and aperture in the town; not a soul in the world seemed to notice
or care about anything they did. Lady Constantine sighed; and there was no
resisting it,—he could not leave her thus. He decided to get into the train
with her, and keep her company for at least a few stations on her way.
It drew on to be a dark night, and, seeing that there was no serious risk after
all, he prolonged his journey with her so far as to the junction at which the
branch line to Warborne forked off. Here it was necessary to wait a few
minutes, before either he could go back or she could go on. They wandered
outside the station doorway into the gloom of the road, and there agreed to
part.

While she yet stood holding his arm a phaeton sped towards the station-
entrance, where, in ascending the slope to the door, the horse suddenly
jibbed. The gentleman who was driving, being either impatient, or
possessed with a theory that all jibbers may be started by severe whipping,
applied the lash; as a result of it, the horse thrust round the carriage to
where they stood, and the end of the driver’s sweeping whip cut across
Lady Constantine’s face with such severity as to cause her an involuntary
cry. Swithin turned her round to the lamplight, and discerned a streak of
blood on her cheek.
By this time the gentleman who had done the mischief, with many words of
regret, had given the reins to his man and dismounted.
‘I will go to the waiting-room for a moment,’ whispered Viviette hurriedly;
and, loosing her hand from his arm, she pulled down her veil and vanished
inside the building.
The stranger came forward and raised his hat. He was a slightly built and
apparently town-bred man of twenty-eight or thirty; his manner of address
was at once careless and conciliatory.
‘I am greatly concerned at what I have done,’ he said. ‘I sincerely trust that
your wife’—but observing the youthfulness of Swithin, he withdrew the
word suggested by the manner of Swithin towards Lady Constantine—‘I
trust the young lady was not seriously cut?’
‘I trust not,’ said Swithin, with some vexation.
‘Where did the lash touch her?’
‘Straight down her cheek.’
‘Do let me go to her, and learn how she is, and humbly apologize.’
‘I’ll inquire.’
He went to the ladies’ room, in which Viviette had taken refuge. She met
him at the door, her handkerchief to her cheek, and Swithin explained that
the driver of the phaeton had sent to make inquiries.

‘I cannot see him!’ she whispered. ‘He is my brother Louis! He is, no
doubt, going on by the train to my house. Don’t let him recognize me! We
must wait till he is gone.’
Swithin thereupon went out again, and told the young man that the cut on
her face was not serious, but that she could not see him; after which they
parted. St. Cleeve then heard him ask for a ticket for Warborne, which
confirmed Lady Constantine’s view that he was going on to her house.
When the branch train had moved off Swithin returned to his bride, who
waited in a trembling state within.
On being informed that he had departed she showed herself much relieved.
‘Where does your brother come from?’ said Swithin.
‘From London, immediately. Rio before that. He has a friend or two in this
neighbourhood, and visits here occasionally. I have seldom or never spoken
to you of him, because of his long absence.’
‘Is he going to settle near you?’
‘No, nor anywhere, I fear. He is, or rather was, in the diplomatic service.
He was first a clerk in the Foreign Office, and was afterwards appointed
attaché at Rio Janeiro. But he has resigned the appointment. I wish he had
not.’
Swithin asked why he resigned.
‘He complained of the banishment, and the climate, and everything that
people complain of who are determined to be dissatisfied,—though, poor
fellow, there is some ground for his complaints. Perhaps some people
would say that he is idle. But he is scarcely that; he is rather restless than
idle, so that he never persists in anything. Yet if a subject takes his fancy he
will follow it up with exemplary patience till something diverts him.’
‘He is not kind to you, is he, dearest?’
‘Why do you think that?’
‘Your manner seems to say so.’

‘Well, he may not always be kind. But look at my face; does the mark
show?’
A streak, straight as a meridian, was visible down her cheek. The blood had
been brought almost to the surface, but was not quite through, that which
had originally appeared thereon having possibly come from the horse. It
signified that to-morrow the red line would be a black one.
Swithin informed her that her brother had taken a ticket for Warborne, and
she at once perceived that he was going on to visit her at Welland, though
from his letter she had not expected him so soon by a few days.
‘Meanwhile,’ continued Swithin, ‘you can now get home only by the late
train, having missed that one.’
‘But, Swithin, don’t you see my new trouble? If I go to Welland House to-
night, and find my brother just arrived there, and he sees this cut on my
face, which I suppose you described to him—’
‘I did.’
‘He will know I was the lady with you!’
‘Whom he called my wife. I wonder why we look husband and wife
already!’
‘Then what am I to do? For the ensuing three or four days I bear in my face
a clue to his discovery of our secret.’
‘Then you must not be seen. We must stay at an inn here.’
‘O no!’ she said timidly. ‘It is too near home to be quite safe. We might not
be known; but if we were!’
‘We can’t go back to Bath now. I’ll tell you, dear Viviette, what we must
do. We’ll go on to Warborne in separate carriages; we’ll meet outside the
station; thence we’ll walk to the column in the dark, and I’ll keep you a
captive in the cabin till the scar has disappeared.’
As there was nothing which better recommended itself this course was
decided on; and after taking from her trunk the articles that might be
required for an incarceration of two or three days they left the said trunk at

the cloak-room, and went on by the last train, which reached Warborne
about ten o’clock.
It was only necessary for Lady Constantine to cover her face with the thick
veil that she had provided for this escapade, to walk out of the station
without fear of recognition. St. Cleeve came forth from another
compartment, and they did not rejoin each other till they had reached a
shadowy bend in the old turnpike road, beyond the irradiation of the
Warborne lamplight.
The walk to Welland was long. It was the walk which Swithin had taken in
the rain when he had learnt the fatal forestalment of his stellar discovery;
but now he was moved by a less desperate mood, and blamed neither God
nor man. They were not pressed for time, and passed along the silent,
lonely way with that sense rather of predestination than of choice in their
proceedings which the presence of night sometimes imparts. Reaching the
park gate, they found it open, and from this they inferred that her brother
Louis had arrived.
Leaving the house and park on their right they traced the highway yet a
little further, and, plunging through the stubble of the opposite field, drew
near the isolated earthwork bearing the plantation and tower, which together
rose like a flattened dome and lantern from the lighter-hued plain of
stubble. It was far too dark to distinguish firs from other trees by the eye
alone, but the peculiar dialect of sylvan language which the piny multitude
used would have been enough to proclaim their class at any time. In the
lovers’ stealthy progress up the slopes a dry stick here and there snapped
beneath their feet, seeming like a shot of alarm.
On being unlocked the hut was found precisely as Swithin had left it two
days before. Lady Constantine was thoroughly wearied, and sat down,
while he gathered a handful of twigs and spikelets from the masses strewn
without and lit a small fire, first taking the precaution to blind the little
window and relock the door.
Lady Constantine looked curiously around by the light of the blaze. The
hut was small as the prophet’s chamber provided by the Shunammite: in
one corner stood the stove, with a little table and chair, a small cupboard
hard by, a pitcher of water, a rack overhead, with various articles, including

a kettle and a gridiron; while the remaining three or four feet at the other
end of the room was fitted out as a dormitory, for Swithin’s use during late
observations in the tower overhead.
‘It is not much of a palace to offer you,’ he remarked, smiling. ‘But at any
rate, it is a refuge.’
The cheerful firelight dispersed in some measure Lady Constantine’s
anxieties. ‘If we only had something to eat!’ she said.
‘Dear me,’ cried St. Cleeve, blankly. ‘That’s a thing I never thought of.’
‘Nor I, till now,’ she replied.
He reflected with misgiving.
‘Beyond a small loaf of bread in the cupboard I have nothing. However,
just outside the door there are lots of those little rabbits, about the size of
rats, that the keepers call runners. And they are as tame as possible. But I
fear I could not catch one now. Yet, dear Viviette, wait a minute; I’ll try.
You must not be starved.’
He softly let himself out, and was gone some time. When he reappeared, he
produced, not a rabbit, but four sparrows and a thrush.
‘I could do nothing in the way of a rabbit without setting a wire,’ he said.
‘But I have managed to get these by knowing where they roost.’
He showed her how to prepare the birds, and, having set her to roast them
by the fire, departed with the pitcher, to replenish it at the brook which
flowed near the homestead in the neighbouring Bottom.
‘They are all asleep at my grandmother’s,’ he informed her when he re-
entered, panting, with the dripping pitcher. ‘They imagine me to be a
hundred miles off.’
The birds were now ready, and the table was spread. With this fare, eked
out by dry toast from the loaf, and moistened with cups of water from the
pitcher, to which Swithin added a little wine from the flask he had carried
on his journey, they were forced to be content for their supper.

XX

When Lady Constantine awoke the next morning Swithin was nowhere to
be seen. Before she was quite ready for breakfast she heard the key turn in
the door, and felt startled, till she remembered that the comer could hardly
be anybody but he. He brought a basket with provisions, an extra cup-and-
saucer, and so on. In a short space of time the kettle began singing on the
stove, and the morning meal was ready.
The sweet resinous air from the firs blew in upon them as they sat at
breakfast; the birds hopped round the door (which, somewhat riskily, they
ventured to keep open); and at their elbow rose the lank column into an
upper realm of sunlight, which only reached the cabin in fitful darts and
flashes through the trees.
‘I could be happy here for ever,’ said she, clasping his hand. ‘I wish I could
never see my great gloomy house again, since I am not rich enough to
throw it open, and live there as I ought to do. Poverty of this sort is not
unpleasant at any rate. What are you thinking of?’
‘I am thinking about my outing this morning. On reaching my
grandmother’s she was only a little surprised to see me. I was obliged to
breakfast there, or appear to do so, to divert suspicion; and this food is
supposed to be wanted for my dinner and supper. There will of course be
no difficulty in my obtaining an ample supply for any length of time, as I
can take what I like from the buttery without observation. But as I looked
in my grandmother’s face this morning, and saw her looking affectionately
in mine, and thought how she had never concealed anything from me, and
had always had my welfare at heart, I felt—that I should like to tell her
what we have done.’
‘O no,—please not, Swithin!’ she exclaimed piteously.
‘Very well,’ he answered. ‘On no consideration will I do so without your
consent.’ And no more was said on the matter.
The morning was passed in applying wet rag and other remedies to the
purple line on Viviette’s cheek; and in the afternoon they set up the

equatorial under the replaced dome, to have it in order for night
observations.
The evening was clear, dry, and remarkably cold by comparison with the
daytime weather. After a frugal supper they replenished the stove with
charcoal from the homestead, which they also burnt during the day,—an
idea of Viviette’s, that the smoke from a wood fire might not be seen more
frequently than was consistent with the occasional occupation of the cabin
by Swithin, as heretofore.
At eight o’clock she insisted upon his ascending the tower for observations,
in strict pursuance of the idea on which their marriage had been based,
namely, that of restoring regularity to his studies.
The sky had a new and startling beauty that night. A broad, fluctuating,
semicircular arch of vivid white light spanned the northern quarter of the
heavens, reaching from the horizon to the star Eta in the Greater Bear. It
was the Aurora Borealis, just risen up for the winter season out of the
freezing seas of the north, where every autumn vapour was now undergoing
rapid congelation.
‘O, let us sit and look at it!’ she said; and they turned their backs upon the
equatorial and the southern glories of the heavens to this new beauty in a
quarter which they seldom contemplated.
The lustre of the fixed stars was diminished to a sort of blueness. Little by
little the arch grew higher against the dark void, like the form of the Spirit-
maiden in the shades of Glenfinlas, till its crown drew near the zenith, and
threw a tissue over the whole waggon and horses of the great northern
constellation. Brilliant shafts radiated from the convexity of the arch,
coming and going silently. The temperature fell, and Lady Constantine
drew her wrap more closely around her.
‘We’ll go down,’ said Swithin. ‘The cabin is beautifully warm. Why
should we try to observe to-night? Indeed, we cannot; the Aurora light
overpowers everything.’
‘Very well. To-morrow night there will be no interruption. I shall be gone.’
‘You leave me to-morrow, Viviette?’

‘Yes; to-morrow morning.’
The truth was that, with the progress of the hours and days, the conviction
had been borne in upon Viviette more and more forcibly that not for
kingdoms and principalities could she afford to risk the discovery of her
presence here by any living soul.
‘But let me see your face, dearest,’ he said. ‘I don’t think it will be safe for
you to meet your brother yet.’
As it was too dark to see her face on the summit where they sat they
descended the winding staircase, and in the cabin Swithin examined the
damaged cheek. The line, though so far attenuated as not to be observable
by any one but a close observer, had not quite disappeared. But in
consequence of her reiterated and almost tearful anxiety to go, and as there
was a strong probability that her brother had left the house, Swithin decided
to call at Welland next morning, and reconnoitre with a view to her return.
Locking her in he crossed the dewy stubble into the park. The house was
silent and deserted; and only one tall stalk of smoke ascended from the
chimneys. Notwithstanding that the hour was nearly nine he knocked at the
door.
‘Is Lady Constantine at home?’ asked Swithin, with a disingenuousness
now habitual, yet unknown to him six months before.
‘No, Mr. St. Cleeve; my lady has not returned from Bath. We expect her
every day.’
‘Nobody staying in the house?’
‘My lady’s brother has been here; but he is gone on to Budmouth. He will
come again in two or three weeks, I understand.’
This was enough. Swithin said he would call again, and returned to the
cabin, where, waking Viviette, who was not by nature an early riser, he
waited on the column till she was ready to breakfast. When this had been
shared they prepared to start.
A long walk was before them. Warborne station lay five miles distant, and
the next station above that nine miles. They were bound for the latter; their

plan being that she should there take the train to the junction where the
whip accident had occurred, claim her luggage, and return with it to
Warborne, as if from Bath.
The morning was cool and the walk not wearisome. When once they had
left behind the stubble-field of their environment and the parish of Welland,
they sauntered on comfortably, Lady Constantine’s spirits rising as she
withdrew further from danger.
They parted by a little brook, about half a mile from the station; Swithin to
return to Welland by the way he had come.
Lady Constantine telegraphed from the junction to Warborne for a carriage
to be in readiness to meet her on her arrival; and then, waiting for the down
train, she travelled smoothly home, reaching Welland House about five
minutes sooner than Swithin reached the column hard by, after footing it all
the way from where they had parted.

XXI

From that day forward their life resumed its old channel in general outward
aspect.
Perhaps the most remarkable feature in their exploit was its comparative
effectiveness as an expedient for the end designed,—that of restoring calm
assiduity to the study of astronomy. Swithin took up his old position as the
lonely philosopher at the column, and Lady Constantine lapsed back to
immured existence at the house, with apparently not a friend in the parish.
The enforced narrowness of life which her limited resources necessitated
was now an additional safeguard against the discovery of her relations with
St. Cleeve. Her neighbours seldom troubled her; as much, it must be
owned, from a tacit understanding that she was not in a position to return
invitations as from any selfish coldness engendered by her want of wealth.
At the first meeting of the secretly united pair after their short honeymoon
they were compelled to behave as strangers to each other. It occurred in the
only part of Welland which deserved the name of a village street, and all the
labourers were returning to their midday meal, with those of their wives
who assisted at outdoor work. Before the eyes of this innocent though quite

untrustworthy group, Swithin and his Viviette could only shake hands in
passing, though she contrived to say to him in an undertone, ‘My brother
does not return yet for some time. He has gone to Paris. I will be on the
lawn this evening, if you can come.’ It was a fluttered smile that she
bestowed on him, and there was no doubt that every fibre of her heart
vibrated afresh at meeting, with such reserve, one who stood in his close
relation to her.
The shades of night fell early now, and Swithin was at the spot of
appointment about the time that he knew her dinner would be over. It was
just where they had met at the beginning of the year, but many changes had
resulted since then. The flower-beds that had used to be so neatly edged
were now jagged and leafy; black stars appeared on the pale surface of the
gravel walks, denoting tufts of grass that grew unmolested there. Lady
Constantine’s external affairs wore just that aspect which suggests that new
blood may be advantageously introduced into the line; and new blood had
been introduced, in good sooth,—with what social result remained to be
seen.
She silently entered on the scene from the same window which had given
her passage in months gone by. They met with a concerted embrace, and
St. Cleeve spoke his greeting in whispers.
‘We are quite safe, dearest,’ said she.
‘But the servants?’
‘My meagre staff consists of only two women and the boy; and they are
away in the other wing. I thought you would like to see the inside of my
house, after showing me the inside of yours. So we will walk through it
instead of staying out here.’
She let him in through the casement, and they strolled forward softly,
Swithin with some curiosity, never before having gone beyond the library
and adjoining room. The whole western side of the house was at this time
shut up, her life being confined to two or three small rooms in the south-
east corner. The great apartments through which they now whisperingly
walked wore already that funereal aspect that comes from disuse and
inattention. Triangular cobwebs already formed little hammocks for the

dust in corners of the wainscot, and a close smell of wood and leather,
seasoned with mouse-droppings, pervaded the atmosphere. So seldom was
the solitude of these chambers intruded on by human feet that more than
once a mouse stood and looked the twain in the face from the arm of a sofa,
or the top of a cabinet, without any great fear.
Swithin had no residential ambition whatever, but he was interested in the
place. ‘Will the house ever be thrown open to gaiety, as it was in old
times?’ said he.
‘Not unless you make a fortune,’ she replied laughingly. ‘It is mine for my
life, as you know; but the estate is so terribly saddled with annuities to Sir
Blount’s distant relatives, one of whom will succeed me here, that I have
practically no more than my own little private income to exist on.’
‘And are you bound to occupy the house?’
‘Not bound to. But I must not let it on lease.’
‘And was there any stipulation in the event of your re-marriage?’
‘It was not mentioned.’
‘It is satisfactory to find that you lose nothing by marrying me, at all events,
dear Viviette.’
‘I hope you lose nothing either—at least, of consequence.’
‘What have I to lose?’
‘I meant your liberty. Suppose you become a popular physicist (popularity
seems cooling towards art and coquetting with science now-a-days), and a
better chance offers, and one who would make you a newer and brighter
wife than I am comes in your way. Will you never regret this? Will you
never despise me?’
Swithin answered by a kiss, and they again went on; proceeding like a
couple of burglars, lest they should draw the attention of the cook or Green.
In one of the upper rooms his eyes were attracted by an old chamber organ,
which had once been lent for use in the church. He mentioned his

recollection of the same, which led her to say, ‘That reminds me of
something. There is to be a confirmation in our parish in the spring, and
you once told me that you had never been confirmed. What shocking
neglect! Why was it?’
‘I hardly know. The confusion resulting from my father’s death caused it to
be forgotten, I suppose.’
‘Now, dear Swithin, you will do this to please me,—be confirmed on the
present occasion?’
‘Since I have done without the virtue of it so long, might I not do without it
altogether?’
‘No, no!’ she said earnestly. ‘I do wish it, indeed. I am made unhappy
when I think you don’t care about such serious matters. Without the Church
to cling to, what have we?’
‘Each other. But seriously, I should be inverting the established order of
spiritual things; people ought to be confirmed before they are married.’
‘That’s really of minor consequence. Now, don’t think slightingly of what
so many good men have laid down as necessary to be done. And, dear
Swithin, I somehow feel that a certain levity which has perhaps shown itself
in our treatment of the sacrament of marriage—by making a clandestine
adventure of what is, after all, a solemn rite—would be well atoned for by a
due seriousness in other points of religious observance. This opportunity
should therefore not be passed over. I thought of it all last night; and you
are a parson’s son, remember, and he would have insisted on it if he had
been alive. In short, Swithin, do be a good boy, and observe the Church’s
ordinances.’
Lady Constantine, by virtue of her temperament, was necessarily either
lover or dévote, and she vibrated so gracefully between these two
conditions that nobody who had known the circumstances could have
condemned her inconsistencies. To be led into difficulties by those
mastering emotions of hers, to aim at escape by turning round and seizing
the apparatus of religion—which could only rightly be worked by the very
emotions already bestowed elsewhere—it was, after all, but Nature’s well-
meaning attempt to preserve the honour of her daughter’s conscience in the

trying quandary to which the conditions of sex had given rise. As Viviette
could not be confirmed herself, and as Communion Sunday was a long way
off, she urged Swithin thus.
‘And the new bishop is such a good man,’ she continued. ‘I used to have a
slight acquaintance with him when he was a parish priest.’
‘Very well, dearest. To please you I’ll be confirmed. My grandmother, too,
will be delighted, no doubt.’
They continued their ramble: Lady Constantine first advancing into rooms
with the candle, to assure herself that all was empty, and then calling him
forward in a whisper. The stillness was broken only by these whispers, or
by the occasional crack of a floor-board beneath their tread. At last they sat
down, and, shading the candle with a screen, she showed him the faded
contents of this and that drawer or cabinet, or the wardrobe of some
member of the family who had died young early in the century, when
muslin reigned supreme, when waists were close to arm-pits, and muffs as
large as smugglers’ tubs. These researches among habilimental hulls and
husks, whose human kernels had long ago perished, went on for about half
an hour; when the companions were startled by a loud ringing at the front-
door bell.

XXII

Lady Constantine flung down the old-fashioned lacework, whose beauties
she had been pointing out to Swithin, and exclaimed, ‘Who can it be? Not
Louis, surely?’
They listened. An arrival was such a phenomenon at this unfrequented
mansion, and particularly a late arrival, that no servant was on the alert to
respond to the call; and the visitor rang again, more loudly than before.
Sounds of the tardy opening and shutting of a passage-door from the
kitchen quarter then reached their ears, and Viviette went into the corridor
to hearken more attentively. In a few minutes she returned to the wardrobe-
room in which she had left Swithin.
‘Yes; it is my brother!’ she said with difficult composure. ‘I just caught his
voice. He has no doubt come back from Paris to stay. This is a rather

vexatious, indolent way he has, never to write to prepare me!’
‘I can easily go away,’ said Swithin.
By this time, however, her brother had been shown into the house, and the
footsteps of the page were audible, coming in search of Lady Constantine.
‘If you will wait there a moment,’ she said, directing St. Cleeve into a
bedchamber which adjoined; ‘you will be quite safe from interruption, and I
will quickly come back.’ Taking the light she left him.
Swithin waited in darkness. Not more than ten minutes had passed when a
whisper in her voice came through the keyhole. He opened the door.
‘Yes; he is come to stay!’ she said. ‘He is at supper now.’
‘Very well; don’t be flurried, dearest. Shall I stay too, as we planned?’
‘O, Swithin, I fear not!’ she replied anxiously. ‘You see how it is. To-night
we have broken the arrangement that you should never come here; and this
is the result. Will it offend you if—I ask you to leave?’
‘Not in the least. Upon the whole, I prefer the comfort of my little cabin
and homestead to the gauntness and alarms of this place.’
‘There, now, I fear you are offended!’ she said, a tear collecting in her eye.
‘I wish I was going back with you to the cabin! How happy we were, those
three days of our stay there! But it is better, perhaps, just now, that you
should leave me. Yes, these rooms are oppressive. They require a large
household to make them cheerful. . . . Yet, Swithin,’ she added, after
reflection, ‘I will not request you to go. Do as you think best. I will light a
night-light, and leave you here to consider. For myself, I must go
downstairs to my brother at once, or he’ll wonder what I am doing.’
She kindled the little light, and again retreated, closing the door upon him.
Swithin stood and waited some time; till he considered that upon the whole
it would be preferable to leave. With this intention he emerged and went
softly along the dark passage towards the extreme end, where there was a
little crooked staircase that would conduct him down to a disused side
door. Descending this stair he duly arrived at the other side of the house,

facing the quarter whence the wind blew, and here he was surprised to catch
the noise of rain beating against the windows. It was a state of weather
which fully accounted for the visitor’s impatient ringing.
St. Cleeve was in a minor kind of dilemma. The rain reminded him that his
hat and great-coat had been left downstairs, in the front part of the house;
and though he might have gone home without either in ordinary weather it
was not a pleasant feat in the pelting winter rain. Retracing his steps to
Viviette’s room he took the light, and opened a closet-door that he had seen
ajar on his way down. Within the closet hung various articles of apparel,
upholstery lumber of all kinds filling the back part. Swithin thought he
might find here a cloak of hers to throw round him, but finally took down
from a peg a more suitable garment, the only one of the sort that was there.
It was an old moth-eaten great-coat, heavily trimmed with fur; and in
removing it a companion cap of sealskin was disclosed.
‘Whose can they be?’ he thought, and a gloomy answer suggested itself.
‘Pooh,’ he then said (summoning the scientific side of his nature), ‘matter is
matter, and mental association only a delusion.’ Putting on the garments he
returned the light to Lady Constantine’s bedroom, and again prepared to
depart as before.
Scarcely, however, had he regained the corridor a second time, when he
heard a light footstep—seemingly Viviette’s—again on the front landing.
Wondering what she wanted with him further he waited, taking the
precaution to step into the closet till sure it was she.
The figure came onward, bent to the keyhole of the bedroom door, and
whispered (supposing him still inside), ‘Swithin, on second thoughts I think
you may stay with safety.’
Having no further doubt of her personality he came out with thoughtless
abruptness from the closet behind her, and looking round suddenly she
beheld his shadowy fur-clad outline. At once she raised her hands in horror,
as if to protect herself from him; she uttered a shriek, and turned
shudderingly to the wall, covering her face.
Swithin would have picked her up in a moment, but by this time he could
hear footsteps rushing upstairs, in response to her cry. In consternation, and

with a view of not compromising her, he effected his retreat as fast as
possible, reaching the bend of the corridor just as her brother Louis
appeared with a light at the other extremity.
‘What’s the matter, for heaven’s sake, Viviette?’ said Louis.
‘My husband!’ she involuntarily exclaimed.
‘What nonsense!’
‘O yes, it is nonsense,’ she added, with an effort. ‘It was nothing.’
‘But what was the cause of your cry?’
She had by this time recovered her reason and judgment. ‘O, it was a trick
of the imagination,’ she said, with a faint laugh. ‘I live so much alone that I
get superstitious—and—I thought for the moment I saw an apparition.’
‘Of your late husband?’
‘Yes. But it was nothing; it was the outline of the—tall clock and the chair
behind. Would you mind going down, and leaving me to go into my room
for a moment?’
She entered the bedroom, and her brother went downstairs. Swithin thought
it best to leave well alone, and going noiselessly out of the house plodded
through the rain homeward. It was plain that agitations of one sort and
another had so weakened Viviette’s nerves as to lay her open to every
impression. That the clothes he had borrowed were some cast-off garments
of the late Sir Blount had occurred to St. Cleeve in taking them; but in the
moment of returning to her side he had forgotten this, and the shape they
gave to his figure had obviously been a reminder of too sudden a sort for
her. Musing thus he walked along as if he were still, as before, the lonely
student, dissociated from all mankind, and with no shadow of right or
interest in Welland House or its mistress.
The great-coat and cap were unpleasant companions; but Swithin having
been reared, or having reared himself, in the scientific school of thought,
would not give way to his sense of their weirdness. To do so would have
been treason to his own beliefs and aims.

When nearly home, at a point where his track converged on another path,
there approached him from the latter a group of indistinct forms. The tones
of their speech revealed them to be Hezzy Biles, Nat Chapman, Fry, and
other labourers. Swithin was about to say a word to them, till recollecting
his disguise he deemed it advisable to hold his tongue, lest his attire should
tell a too dangerous tale as to where he had come from. By degrees they
drew closer, their walk being in the same direction.
‘Good-night, strainger,’ said Nat.
The stranger did not reply.
All of them paced on abreast of him, and he could perceive in the gloom
that their faces were turned inquiringly upon his form. Then a whisper
passed from one to another of them; then Chapman, who was the boldest,
dropped immediately behind his heels, and followed there for some
distance, taking close observations of his outline, after which the men
grouped again and whispered. Thinking it best to let them pass on Swithin
slackened his pace, and they went ahead of him, apparently without much
reluctance.
There was no doubt that they had been impressed by the clothes he wore;
and having no wish to provoke similar comments from his grandmother and
Hannah, Swithin took the precaution, on arriving at Welland Bottom, to
enter the homestead by the outhouse. Here he deposited the cap and coat in
secure hiding, afterwards going round to the front and opening the door in
the usual way.
In the entry he met Hannah, who said—
‘Only to hear what have been seed to-night, Mr. Swithin! The work-folk
have dropped in to tell us!’
In the kitchen were the men who had outstripped him on the road. Their
countenances, instead of wearing the usual knotty irregularities, had a
smoothed-out expression of blank concern. Swithin’s entrance was
unobtrusive and quiet, as if he had merely come down from his study
upstairs, and they only noticed him by enlarging their gaze, so as to include
him in the audience.

‘We was in a deep talk at the moment,’ continued Blore, ‘and Natty had just
brought up that story about old Jeremiah Paddock’s crossing the park one
night at one o’clock in the morning, and seeing Sir Blount a-shutting my
lady out-o’-doors; and we was saying that it seemed a true return that he
should perish in a foreign land; when we happened to look up, and there
was Sir Blount a-walking along.’
‘Did it overtake you, or did you overtake it?’ whispered Hannah
sepulchrally.
‘I don’t say ’twas it,’ returned Sammy. ‘God forbid that I should drag in a
resurrection word about what perhaps was still solid manhood, and has to
die! But he, or it, closed in upon us, as ’twere.’
‘Yes, closed in upon us!’ said Haymoss.
‘And I said “Good-night, strainger,”’ added Chapman.
‘Yes, “Good-night, strainger,”—that wez yer words, Natty. I support ye in
it.’
‘And then he closed in upon us still more.’
‘We closed in upon he, rather,’ said Chapman.
‘Well, well; ’tis the same thing in such matters! And the form was Sir
Blount’s. My nostrils told me, for—there, ’a smelled. Yes, I could smell’n,
being to leeward.’
‘Lord, lord, what unwholesome scandal’s this about the ghost of a
respectable gentleman?’ said Mrs. Martin, who had entered from the sitting-
room.
‘Now, wait, ma’am. I don’t say ’twere a low smell, mind ye. ’Twere a high
smell, a sort of gamey flaviour, calling to mind venison and hare, just as
you’d expect of a great squire,—not like a poor man’s ’natomy, at all; and
that was what strengthened my faith that ’twas Sir Blount.’
(‘The skins that old coat was made of,’ ruminated Swithin.)

‘Well, well; I’ve not held out against the figure o’ starvation these five-and-
twenty year, on nine shillings a week, to be afeard of a walking vapour,
sweet or savoury,’ said Hezzy. ‘So here’s home-along.’
‘Bide a bit longer, and I’m going too,’ continued Fry. ‘Well, when I found
’twas Sir Blount my spet dried up within my mouth; for neither hedge nor
bush were there for refuge against any foul spring ’a might have made at
us.’
‘’Twas very curious; but we had likewise a-mentioned his name just afore,
in talking of the confirmation that’s shortly coming on,’ said Hezzy.
‘Is there soon to be a confirmation?’
‘Yes. In this parish—the first time in Welland church for twenty years. As
I say, I had told ’em that he was confirmed the same year that I went up to
have it done, as I have very good cause to mind. When we went to be
examined, the pa’son said to me, “Rehearse the articles of thy belief.” Mr.
Blount (as he was then) was nighest me, and he whispered, “Women and
wine.” “Women and wine,” says I to the pa’son: and for that I was sent
back till next confirmation, Sir Blount never owning that he was the rascal.’
‘Confirmation was a sight different at that time,’ mused Biles. ‘The
Bishops didn’t lay it on so strong then as they do now. Now-a-days, yer
Bishop gies both hands to every Jack-rag and Tom-straw that drops the knee
afore him; but ’twas six chaps to one blessing when we was boys. The
Bishop o’ that time would stretch out his palms and run his fingers over our
row of crowns as off-hand as a bank gentleman telling money. The great
lords of the Church in them days wasn’t particular to a soul or two more or
less; and, for my part, I think living was easier for ’t.’
‘The new Bishop, I hear, is a bachelor-man; or a widow gentleman is it?’
asked Mrs. Martin.
‘Bachelor, I believe, ma’am. Mr. San Cleeve, making so bold, you’ve never
faced him yet, I think?’
Mrs. Martin shook her head.
‘No; it was a piece of neglect. I hardly know how it happened,’ she said.

‘I am going to, this time,’ said Swithin, and turned the chat to other matters.

XXIII

Swithin could not sleep that night for thinking of his Viviette. Nothing told
so significantly of the conduct of her first husband towards the poor lady as
the abiding dread of him which was revealed in her by any sudden revival
of his image or memory. But for that consideration her almost childlike
terror at Swithin’s inadvertent disguise would have been ludicrous.
He waited anxiously through several following days for an opportunity of
seeing her, but none was afforded. Her brother’s presence in the house
sufficiently accounted for this. At length he ventured to write a note,
requesting her to signal to him in a way she had done once or twice before,
—by pulling down a blind in a particular window of the house, one of the
few visible from the top of the Rings-Hill column; this to be done on any
evening when she could see him after dinner on the terrace.
When he had levelled the glass at that window for five successive nights he
beheld the blind in the position suggested. Three hours later, quite in the
dusk, he repaired to the place of appointment.
‘My brother is away this evening,’ she explained, ‘and that’s why I can
come out. He is only gone for a few hours, nor is he likely to go for longer
just yet. He keeps himself a good deal in my company, which has made it
unsafe for me to venture near you.’
‘Has he any suspicion?’
‘None, apparently. But he rather depresses me.’
‘How, Viviette?’ Swithin feared, from her manner, that this was something
serious.
‘I would rather not tell.’
‘But—Well, never mind.’
‘Yes, Swithin, I will tell you. There should be no secrets between us. He
urges upon me the necessity of marrying, day after day.’

‘For money and position, of course.’
‘Yes. But I take no notice. I let him go on.’
‘Really, this is sad!’ said the young man. ‘I must work harder than ever, or
you will never be able to own me.’
‘O yes, in good time!’ she cheeringly replied.
‘I shall be very glad to have you always near me. I felt the gloom of our
position keenly when I was obliged to disappear that night, without assuring
you it was only I who stood there. Why were you so frightened at those old
clothes I borrowed?’
‘Don’t ask,—don’t ask!’ she said, burying her face on his shoulder. ‘I don’t
want to speak of that. There was something so ghastly and so uncanny in
your putting on such garments that I wish you had been more thoughtful,
and had left them alone.’
He assured her that he did not stop to consider whose they were. ‘By the
way, they must be sent back,’ he said.
‘No; I never wish to see them again! I cannot help feeling that your putting
them on was ominous.’
‘Nothing is ominous in serene philosophy,’ he said, kissing her. ‘Things are
either causes, or they are not causes. When can you see me again?’
In such wise the hour passed away. The evening was typical of others
which followed it at irregular intervals through the winter. And during the
intenser months of the season frequent falls of snow lengthened, even more
than other difficulties had done, the periods of isolation between the pair.
Swithin adhered with all the more strictness to the letter of his promise not
to intrude into the house, from his sense of her powerlessness to compel
him to keep out should he choose to rebel. A student of the greatest forces
in nature, he had, like many others of his sort, no personal force to speak of
in a social point of view, mainly because he took no interest in human ranks
and formulas; and hence he was as docile as a child in her hands wherever
matters of that kind were concerned.

Her brother wintered at Welland; but whether because his experience of
tropic climes had unfitted him for the brumal rigours of Britain, or for some
other reason, he seldom showed himself out of doors, and Swithin caught
but passing glimpses of him. Now and then Viviette’s impulsive affection
would overcome her sense of risk, and she would press Swithin to call on
her at all costs. This he would by no means do. It was obvious to his more
logical mind that the secrecy to which they had bound themselves must be
kept in its fulness, or might as well be abandoned altogether.
He was now sadly exercised on the subject of his uncle’s will. There had as
yet been no pressing reasons for a full and candid reply to the solicitor who
had communicated with him, owing to the fact that the payments were not
to begin till Swithin was one-and-twenty; but time was going on, and
something definite would have to be done soon. To own to his marriage
and consequent disqualification for the bequest was easy in itself; but it
involved telling at least one man what both Viviette and himself had great
reluctance in telling anybody. Moreover he wished Viviette to know
nothing of his loss in making her his wife. All he could think of doing for
the present was to write a postponing letter to his uncle’s lawyer, and wait
events.
The one comfort of this dreary winter-time was his perception of a returning
ability to work with the regularity and much of the spirit of earlier days.
*****
One bright night in April there was an eclipse of the moon, and Mr.
Torkingham, by arrangement, brought to the observatory several labouring
men and boys, to whom he had promised a sight of the phenomenon
through the telescope. The coming confirmation, fixed for May, was again
talked of; and St. Cleeve learnt from the parson that the Bishop had
arranged to stay the night at the vicarage, and was to be invited to a grand
luncheon at Welland House immediately after the ordinance.
This seemed like a going back into life again as regarded the mistress of
that house; and St. Cleeve was a little surprised that, in his communications
with Viviette, she had mentioned no such probability. The next day he
walked round the mansion, wondering how in its present state any
entertainment could be given therein.

He found that the shutters had been opened, which had restored an
unexpected liveliness to the aspect of the windows. Two men were putting
a chimney-pot on one of the chimney-stacks, and two more were scraping
green mould from the front wall. He made no inquiries on that occasion.
Three days later he strolled thitherward again. Now a great cleaning of
window-panes was going on, Hezzy Biles and Sammy Blore being the
operators, for which purpose their services must have been borrowed from
the neighbouring farmer. Hezzy dashed water at the glass with a force that
threatened to break it in, the broad face of Sammy being discernible inside,
smiling at the onset. In addition to these, Anthony Green and another were
weeding the gravel walks, and putting fresh plants into the flower-beds.
Neither of these reasonable operations was a great undertaking, singly
looked at; but the life Viviette had latterly led and the mood in which she
had hitherto regarded the premises, rendered it somewhat significant.
Swithin, however, was rather curious than concerned at the proceedings,
and returned to his tower with feelings of interest not entirely confined to
the worlds overhead.
Lady Constantine may or may not have seen him from the house; but the
same evening, which was fine and dry, while he was occupying himself in
the observatory with cleaning the eye-pieces of the equatorial, skull-cap on
head, observing-jacket on, and in other ways primed for sweeping, the
customary stealthy step on the winding staircase brought her form in due
course into the rays of the bull’s-eye lantern. The meeting was all the more
pleasant to him from being unexpected, and he at once lit up a larger lamp
in honour of the occasion.
‘It is but a hasty visit,’ she said when, after putting up her mouth to be
kissed, she had seated herself in the low chair used for observations,
panting a little with the labour of ascent. ‘But I hope to be able to come
more freely soon. My brother is still living on with me. Yes, he is going to
stay until the confirmation is over. After the confirmation he will certainly
leave. So good it is of you, dear, to please me by agreeing to the ceremony.
The Bishop, you know, is going to lunch with us. It is a wonder he has
promised to come, for he is a man averse to society, and mostly keeps
entirely with the clergy on these confirmation tours, or circuits, or whatever
they call them. But Mr. Torkingham’s house is so very small, and mine is
so close at hand, that this arrangement to relieve him of the fuss of one

meal, at least, naturally suggested itself; and the Bishop has fallen in with it
very readily. How are you getting on with your observations? Have you
not wanted me dreadfully, to write down notes?’
‘Well, I have been obliged to do without you, whether or no. See here,—
how much I have done.’ And he showed her a book ruled in columns,
headed ‘Object,’ ‘Right Ascension,’ ‘Declination,’ ‘Features,’ ‘Remarks,’
and so on.
She looked over this and other things, but her mind speedily winged its way
back to the confirmation. ‘It is so new to me,’ she said, ‘to have persons
coming to the house, that I feel rather anxious. I hope the luncheon will be
a success.’
‘You know the Bishop?’ said Swithin.
‘I have not seen him for many years. I knew him when I was quite a girl,
and he held the little living of Puddle-sub-Mixen, near us; but after that
time, and ever since I have lived here, I have seen nothing of him. There
has been no confirmation in this village, they say, for twenty years. The
other bishop used to make the young men and women go to Warborne; he
wouldn’t take the trouble to come to such an out-of-the-way parish as ours.’
‘This cleaning and preparation that I observe going on must be rather a tax
upon you?’
‘My brother Louis sees to it, and, what is more, bears the expense.’
‘Your brother?’ said Swithin, with surprise.
‘Well, he insisted on doing so,’ she replied, in a hesitating, despondent
tone. ‘He has been active in the whole matter, and was the first to suggest
the invitation. I should not have thought of it.’
‘Well, I will hold aloof till it is all over.’
‘Thanks, dearest, for your considerateness. I wish it was not still
advisable! But I shall see you on the day, and watch my own philosopher
all through the service from the corner of my pew! . . . I hope you are well
prepared for the rite, Swithin?’ she added, turning tenderly to him. ‘It
would perhaps be advisable for you to give up this astronomy till the

confirmation is over, in order to devote your attention exclusively to that
more serious matter.’
‘More serious! Well, I will do the best I can. I am sorry to see that you are
less interested in astronomy than you used to be, Viviette.’
‘No; it is only that these preparations for the Bishop unsettle my mind from
study. Now put on your other coat and hat, and come with me a little way.’

XXIV

The morning of the confirmation was come. It was mid-May time, bringing
with it weather not, perhaps, quite so blooming as that assumed to be
natural to the month by the joyous poets of three hundred years ago; but a
very tolerable, well-wearing May, that the average rustic would willingly
have compounded for in lieu of Mays occasionally fairer, but usually more
foul.
Among the larger shrubs and flowers which composed the outworks of the
Welland gardens, the lilac, the laburnum, and the guelder-rose hung out
their respective colours of purple, yellow, and white; whilst within these,
belted round from every disturbing gale, rose the columbine, the peony, the
larkspur, and the Solomon’s seal. The animate things that moved amid this
scene of colour were plodding bees, gadding butterflies, and numerous
sauntering young feminine candidates for the impending confirmation, who,
having gaily bedecked themselves for the ceremony, were enjoying their
own appearance by walking about in twos and threes till it was time to start.
Swithin St. Cleeve, whose preparations were somewhat simpler than those
of the village belles, waited till his grandmother and Hannah had set out,
and then, locking the door, followed towards the distant church. On
reaching the churchyard gate he met Mr. Torkingham, who shook hands
with him in the manner of a man with several irons in the fire, and telling
Swithin where to sit, disappeared to hunt up some candidates who had not
yet made themselves visible.
Casting his eyes round for Viviette, and seeing nothing of her, Swithin went
on to the church porch, and looked in. From the north side of the nave
smiled a host of girls, gaily uniform in dress, age, and a temporary

repression of their natural tendency to ‘skip like a hare over the meshes of
good counsel.’ Their white muslin dresses, their round white caps, from
beneath whose borders hair-knots and curls of various shades of brown
escaped upon their low shoulders, as if against their will, lighted up the dark
pews and grey stone-work to an unwonted warmth and life. On the south
side were the young men and boys,—heavy, angular, and massive, as indeed
was rather necessary, considering what they would have to bear at the hands
of wind and weather before they returned to that mouldy nave for the last
time.
Over the heads of all these he could see into the chancel to the square pew
on the north side, which was attached to Welland House. There he
discerned Lady Constantine already arrived, her brother Louis sitting by her
side.
Swithin entered and seated himself at the end of a bench, and she, who had
been on the watch, at once showed by subtle signs her consciousness of the
presence of the young man who had reversed the ordained sequence of the
Church services on her account. She appeared in black attire, though not
strictly in mourning, a touch of red in her bonnet setting off the richness of
her complexion without making her gay. Handsomest woman in the church
she decidedly was; and yet a disinterested spectator who had known all the
circumstances would probably have felt that, the future considered,
Swithin’s more natural mate would have been one of the muslin-clad
maidens who were to be presented to the Bishop with him that day.
When the Bishop had arrived and gone into the chancel, and blown his
nose, the congregation were sufficiently impressed by his presence to leave
off looking at one another.
The Right Reverend Cuthbert Helmsdale, D.D., ninety-fourth occupant of
the episcopal throne of the diocese, revealed himself to be a personage of
dark complexion, whose darkness was thrown still further into prominence
by the lawn protuberances that now rose upon his two shoulders like the
Eastern and Western hemispheres. In stature he seemed to be tall and
imposing, but something of this aspect may have been derived from his
robes.

The service was, as usual, of a length which severely tried the tarrying
powers of the young people assembled; and it was not till the youth of all
the other parishes had gone up that the turn came for the Welland bevy.
Swithin and some older ones were nearly the last. When, at the heels of Mr.
Torkingham, he passed Lady Constantine’s pew, he lifted his eyes from the
red lining of that gentleman’s hood sufficiently high to catch hers. She was
abstracted, tearful, regarding him with all the rapt mingling of religion,
love, fervour, and hope which such women can feel at such times, and
which men know nothing of. How fervidly she watched the Bishop place
his hand on her beloved youth’s head; how she saw the great episcopal ring
glistening in the sun among Swithin’s brown curls; how she waited to hear
if Dr. Helmsdale uttered the form ‘this thy child’ which he used for the
younger ones, or ‘this thy servant’ which he used for those older; and how,
when he said, ‘this thy child,’ she felt a prick of conscience, like a person
who had entrapped an innocent youth into marriage for her own
gratification, till she remembered that she had raised his social position
thereby,—all this could only have been told in its entirety by herself.
As for Swithin, he felt ashamed of his own utter lack of the high enthusiasm
which beamed so eloquently from her eyes. When he passed her again, on
the return journey from the Bishop to his seat, her face was warm with a
blush which her brother might have observed had he regarded her.
Whether he had observed it or not, as soon as St. Cleeve had sat himself
down again Louis Glanville turned and looked hard at the young
astronomer. This was the first time that St. Cleeve and Viviette’s brother
had been face to face in a distinct light, their first meeting having occurred
in the dusk of a railway-station. Swithin was not in the habit of noticing
people’s features; he scarcely ever observed any detail of physiognomy in
his friends, a generalization from their whole aspect forming his idea of
them; and he now only noted a young man of perhaps thirty, who lolled a
good deal, and in whose small dark eyes seemed to be concentrated the
activity that the rest of his frame decidedly lacked. This gentleman’s eyes
were henceforward, to the end of the service, continually fixed upon
Swithin; but as this was their natural direction, from the position of his seat,
there was no great strangeness in the circumstance.

Swithin wanted to say to Viviette, ‘Now I hope you are pleased; I have
conformed to your ideas of my duty, leaving my fitness out of
consideration;’ but as he could only see her bonnet and forehead it was not
possible even to look the intelligence. He turned to his left hand, where the
organ stood, with Miss Tabitha Lark seated behind it.
It being now sermon-time the youthful blower had fallen asleep over the
handle of his bellows, and Tabitha pulled out her handkerchief intending to
flap him awake with it. With the handkerchief tumbled out a whole family
of unexpected articles: a silver thimble; a photograph; a little purse; a scent-
bottle; some loose halfpence; nine green gooseberries; a key. They rolled to
Swithin’s feet, and, passively obeying his first instinct, he picked up as
many of the articles as he could find, and handed them to her amid the
smiles of the neighbours.
Tabitha was half-dead with humiliation at such an event, happening under
the very eyes of the Bishop on this glorious occasion; she turned pale as a
sheet, and could hardly keep her seat. Fearing she might faint, Swithin,
who had genuinely sympathized, bent over and whispered encouragingly,
‘Don’t mind it, Tabitha. Shall I take you out into the air?’ She declined his
offer, and presently the sermon came to an end.
Swithin lingered behind the rest of the congregation sufficiently long to see
Lady Constantine, accompanied by her brother, the Bishop, the Bishop’s
chaplain, Mr. Torkingham, and several other clergy and ladies, enter to the
grand luncheon by the door which admitted from the churchyard to the
lawn of Welland House; the whole group talking with a vivacity all the
more intense, as it seemed, from the recent two hours’ enforced repression
of their social qualities within the adjoining building.
The young man stood till he was left quite alone in the churchyard, and then
went slowly homeward over the hill, perhaps a trifle depressed at the
impossibility of being near Viviette in this her one day of gaiety, and joining
in the conversation of those who surrounded her.
Not that he felt much jealousy of her situation, as his wife, in comparison
with his own. He had so clearly understood from the beginning that, in the
event of marriage, their outward lives were to run on as before, that to rebel
now would have been unmanly in himself and cruel to her, by adding to

embarrassments that were great enough already. His momentary doubt was
of his own strength to achieve sufficiently high things to render him, in
relation to her, other than a patronized young favourite, whom she had
married at an immense sacrifice of position. Now, at twenty, he was
doomed to isolation even from a wife; could it be that at, say thirty, he
would be welcomed everywhere?
But with motion through the sun and air his mood assumed a lighter
complexion, and on reaching home he remembered with interest that Venus
was in a favourable aspect for observation that afternoon.

XXV

Meanwhile the interior of Welland House was rattling with the progress of
the ecclesiastical luncheon.
The Bishop, who sat at Lady Constantine’s side, seemed enchanted with her
company, and from the beginning she engrossed his attention almost
entirely. The truth was that the circumstance of her not having her whole
soul centred on the success of the repast and the pleasure of Bishop
Helmsdale, imparted to her, in a great measure, the mood to ensure both.
Her brother Louis it was who had laid out the plan of entertaining the
Bishop, to which she had assented but indifferently. She was secretly
bound to another, on whose career she had staked all her happiness. Having
thus other interests she evinced to-day the ease of one who hazards nothing,
and there was no sign of that preoccupation with housewifely contingencies
which so often makes the hostess hardly recognizable as the charming
woman who graced a friend’s home the day before. In marrying Swithin
Lady Constantine had played her card,—recklessly, impulsively, ruinously,
perhaps; but she had played it; it could not be withdrawn; and she took this
morning’s luncheon as an episode that could result in nothing to her beyond
the day’s entertainment.
Hence, by that power of indirectness to accomplish in an hour what
strenuous aiming will not effect in a life-time, she fascinated the Bishop to
an unprecedented degree. A bachelor, he rejoiced in the commanding
period of life that stretches between the time of waning impulse and the
time of incipient dotage, when a woman can reach the male heart neither by

awakening a young man’s passion nor an old man’s infatuation. He must be
made to admire, or he can be made to do nothing. Unintentionally that is
how Viviette operated on her guest.
Lady Constantine, to external view, was in a position to desire many things,
and of a sort to desire them. She was obviously, by nature, impulsive to
indiscretion. But instead of exhibiting activities to correspond, recently
gratified affection lent to her manner just now a sweet serenity, a truly
Christian contentment, which it puzzled the learned Bishop exceedingly to
find in a warm young widow, and increased his interest in her every
moment. Thus matters stood when the conversation veered round to the
morning’s confirmation.
‘That was a singularly engaging young man who came up among Mr.
Torkingham’s candidates,’ said the Bishop to her somewhat abruptly.
But abruptness does not catch a woman without her wit. ‘Which one?’ she
said innocently.
‘That youth with the “corn-coloured” hair, as a poet of the new school
would call it, who sat just at the side of the organ. Do you know who he
is?’
In answering Viviette showed a little nervousness, for the first time that day.
‘O yes. He is the son of an unfortunate gentleman who was formerly curate
here,—a Mr. St. Cleeve.’
‘I never saw a handsomer young man in my life,’ said the Bishop. Lady
Constantine blushed. ‘There was a lack of self-consciousness, too, in his
manner of presenting himself, which very much won me. A Mr. St. Cleeve,
do you say? A curate’s son? His father must have been St. Cleeve of All
Angels, whom I knew. How comes he to be staying on here? What is he
doing?’
Mr. Torkingham, who kept one ear on the Bishop all the lunch-time, finding
that Lady Constantine was not ready with an answer, hastened to reply:
‘Your lordship is right. His father was an All Angels’ man. The youth is
rather to be pitied.’

‘He was a man of talent,’ affirmed the Bishop. ‘But I quite lost sight of
him.’
‘He was curate to the late vicar,’ resumed the parson, ‘and was much liked
by the parish: but, being erratic in his tastes and tendencies, he rashly
contracted a marriage with the daughter of a farmer, and then quarrelled
with the local gentry for not taking up his wife. This lad was an only child.
There was enough money to educate him, and he is sufficiently well
provided for to be independent of the world so long as he is content to live
here with great economy. But of course this gives him few opportunities of
bettering himself.’
‘Yes, naturally,’ replied the Bishop of Melchester. ‘Better have been left
entirely dependent on himself. These half-incomes do men little good,
unless they happen to be either weaklings or geniuses.’
Lady Constantine would have given the world to say, ‘He is a genius, and
the hope of my life;’ but it would have been decidedly risky, and in another
moment was unnecessary, for Mr. Torkingham said, ‘There is a certain
genius in this young man, I sometimes think.’
‘Well, he really looks quite out of the common,’ said the Bishop.
‘Youthful genius is sometimes disappointing,’ observed Viviette, not
believing it in the least.
‘Yes,’ said the Bishop. ‘Though it depends, Lady Constantine, on what you
understand by disappointing. It may produce nothing visible to the world’s
eye, and yet may complete its development within to a very perfect degree.
Objective achievements, though the only ones which are counted, are not
the only ones that exist and have value; and I for one should be sorry to
assert that, because a man of genius dies as unknown to the world as when
he was born, he therefore was an instance of wasted material.’
Objective achievements were, however, those that Lady Constantine had a
weakness for in the present case, and she asked her more experienced guest
if he thought early development of a special talent a good sign in youth.
The Bishop thought it well that a particular bent should not show itself too
early, lest disgust should result.

‘Still,’ argued Lady Constantine rather firmly (for she felt this opinion of
the Bishop’s to be one throwing doubt on Swithin), ‘sustained fruition is
compatible with early bias. Tycho Brahe showed quite a passion for the
solar system when he was but a youth, and so did Kepler; and James
Ferguson had a surprising knowledge of the stars by the time he was eleven
or twelve.’
‘Yes; sustained fruition,’ conceded the Bishop (rather liking the words), ‘is
certainly compatible with early bias. Fenelon preached at fourteen.’
‘He—Mr. St. Cleeve—is not in the church,’ said Lady Constantine.
‘He is a scientific young man, my lord,’ explained Mr. Torkingham.
‘An astronomer,’ she added, with suppressed pride.
‘An astronomer! Really, that makes him still more interesting than being
handsome and the son of a man I knew. How and where does he study
astronomy?’
‘He has a beautiful observatory. He has made use of an old column that
was erected on this manor to the memory of one of the Constantines. It has
been very ingeniously adapted for his purpose, and he does very good work
there. I believe he occasionally sends up a paper to the Royal Society, or
Greenwich, or somewhere, and to astronomical periodicals.’
‘I should have had no idea, from his boyish look, that he had advanced so
far,’ the Bishop answered. ‘And yet I saw on his face that within there was
a book worth studying. His is a career I should very much like to watch.’
A thrill of pleasure chased through Lady Constantine’s heart at this praise of
her chosen one. It was an unwitting compliment to her taste and
discernment in singling him out for her own, despite its temporary
inexpediency.
Her brother Louis now spoke. ‘I fancy he is as interested in one of his
fellow-creatures as in the science of astronomy,’ observed the cynic dryly.
‘In whom?’ said Lady Constantine quickly.

‘In the fair maiden who sat at the organ,—a pretty girl, rather. I noticed a
sort of by-play going on between them occasionally, during the sermon,
which meant mating, if I am not mistaken.’
‘She!’ said Lady Constantine. ‘She is only a village girl, a dairyman’s
daughter,—Tabitha Lark, who used to come to read to me.’
‘She may be a savage, for all that I know: but there is something between
those two young people, nevertheless.’
The Bishop looked as if he had allowed his interest in a stranger to carry
him too far, and Mr. Torkingham was horrified at the irreverent and easy
familiarity of Louis Glanville’s talk in the presence of a consecrated
bishop. As for Viviette, her tongue lost all its volubility. She felt quite faint
at heart, and hardly knew how to control herself.
‘I have never noticed anything of the sort,’ said Mr. Torkingham.
‘It would be a matter for regret,’ said the Bishop, ‘if he should follow his
father in forming an attachment that would be a hindrance to him in any
honourable career; though perhaps an early marriage, intrinsically
considered, would not be bad for him. A youth who looks as if he had come
straight from old Greece may be exposed to many temptations, should he go
out into the world without a friend or counsellor to guide him.’
Despite her sudden jealousy Viviette’s eyes grew moist at the picture of her
innocent Swithin going into the world without a friend or counsellor. But
she was sick in soul and disquieted still by Louis’s dreadful remarks, who,
unbeliever as he was in human virtue, could have no reason whatever for
representing Swithin as engaged in a private love affair if such were not his
honest impression.
She was so absorbed during the remainder of the luncheon that she did not
even observe the kindly light that her presence was shedding on the right
reverend ecclesiastic by her side. He reflected it back in tones duly
mellowed by his position; the minor clergy caught up the rays thereof, and
so the gentle influence played down the table.
The company soon departed when luncheon was over, and the remainder of
the day passed in quietness, the Bishop being occupied in his room at the

vicarage with writing letters or a sermon. Having a long journey before
him the next day he had expressed a wish to be housed for the night without
ceremony, and would have dined alone with Mr. Torkingham but that, by a
happy thought, Lady Constantine and her brother were asked to join them.
However, when Louis crossed the churchyard and entered the vicarage
drawing-room at seven o’clock, his sister was not in his company. She was,
he said, suffering from a slight headache, and much regretted that she was
on that account unable to come. At this intelligence the social sparkle
disappeared from the Bishop’s eye, and he sat down to table, endeavouring
to mould into the form of episcopal serenity an expression which was really
one of common human disappointment.
In his simple statement Louis Glanville had by no means expressed all the
circumstances which accompanied his sister’s refusal, at the last moment, to
dine at her neighbour’s house. Louis had strongly urged her to bear up
against her slight indisposition—if it were that, and not disinclination—and
come along with him on just this one occasion, perhaps a more important
episode in her life than she was aware of. Viviette thereupon knew quite
well that he alluded to the favourable impression she was producing on the
Bishop, notwithstanding that neither of them mentioned the Bishop’s name.
But she did not give way, though the argument waxed strong between them;
and Louis left her in no very amiable mood, saying, ‘I don’t believe you
have any more headache than I have, Viviette. It is some provoking whim
of yours—nothing more.’
In this there was a substratum of truth. When her brother had left her, and
she had seen him from the window entering the vicarage gate, Viviette
seemed to be much relieved, and sat down in her bedroom till the evening
grew dark, and only the lights shining through the trees from the parsonage
dining-room revealed to the eye where that dwelling stood. Then she arose,
and putting on the cloak she had used so many times before for the same
purpose, she locked her bedroom door (to be supposed within, in case of the
accidental approach of a servant), and let herself privately out of the house.
Lady Constantine paused for a moment under the vicarage windows, till she
could sufficiently well hear the voices of the diners to be sure that they were
actually within, and then went on her way, which was towards the Rings-

Hill column. She appeared a mere spot, hardly distinguishable from the
grass, as she crossed the open ground, and soon became absorbed in the
black mass of the fir plantation.
Meanwhile the conversation at Mr. Torkingham’s dinner-table was not of a
highly exhilarating quality. The parson, in long self-communing during the
afternoon, had decided that the Diocesan Synod, whose annual session at
Melchester had occurred in the month previous, would afford a solid and
unimpeachable subject to launch during the meal, whenever conversation
flagged; and that it would be one likely to win the respect of his spiritual
chieftain for himself as the introducer. Accordingly, in the further belief
that you could not have too much of a good thing, Mr. Torkingham not only
acted upon his idea, but at every pause rallied to the synod point with
unbroken firmness. Everything which had been discussed at that last
session—such as the introduction of the lay element into the councils of the
church, the reconstitution of the ecclesiastical courts, church patronage, the
tithe question—was revived by Mr. Torkingham, and the excellent remarks
which the Bishop had made in his addresses on those subjects were quoted
back to him.
As for Bishop Helmsdale himself, his instincts seemed to be to allude in a
debonair spirit to the incidents of the past day—to the flowers in Lady
Constantine’s beds, the date of her house—perhaps with a view of hearing a
little more about their owner from Louis, who would very readily have
followed the Bishop’s lead had the parson allowed him room. But this Mr.
Torkingham seldom did, and about half-past nine they prepared to separate.
Louis Glanville had risen from the table, and was standing by the window,
looking out upon the sky, and privately yawning, the topics discussed
having been hardly in his line.
‘A fine night,’ he said at last.
‘I suppose our young astronomer is hard at work now,’ said the Bishop,
following the direction of Louis’s glance towards the clear sky.
‘Yes,’ said the parson; ‘he is very assiduous whenever the nights are good
for observation. I have occasionally joined him in his tower, and looked

through his telescope with great benefit to my ideas of celestial
phenomena. I have not seen what he has been doing lately.’
‘Suppose we stroll that way?’ said Louis. ‘Would you be interested in
seeing the observatory, Bishop?’
‘I am quite willing to go,’ said the Bishop, ‘if the distance is not too great. I
should not be at all averse to making the acquaintance of so exceptional a
young man as this Mr. St. Cleeve seems to be; and I have never seen the
inside of an observatory in my life.’
The intention was no sooner formed than it was carried out, Mr.
Torkingham leading the way.

XXVI

Half an hour before this time Swithin St. Cleeve had been sitting in his
cabin at the base of the column, working out some figures from
observations taken on preceding nights, with a view to a theory that he had
in his head on the motions of certain so-called fixed stars.
The evening being a little chilly a small fire was burning in the stove, and
this and the shaded lamp before him lent a remarkably cosy air to the
chamber. He was awakened from his reveries by a scratching at the
window-pane like that of the point of an ivy leaf, which he knew to be
really caused by the tip of his sweetheart-wife’s forefinger. He rose and
opened the door to admit her, not without astonishment as to how she had
been able to get away from her friends.
‘Dearest Viv, why, what’s the matter?’ he said, perceiving that her face, as
the lamplight fell on it, was sad, and even stormy.
‘I thought I would run across to see you. I have heard something so—so—
to your discredit, and I know it can’t be true! I know you are constancy
itself; but your constancy produces strange effects in people’s eyes!’
‘Good heavens! Nobody has found us out—’
‘No, no—it is not that. You know, Swithin, that I am always sincere, and
willing to own if I am to blame in anything. Now will you prove to me that

you are the same by owning some fault to me?’
‘Yes, dear, indeed; directly I can think of one worth owning.’
‘I wonder one does not rush upon your tongue in a moment!’
‘I confess that I am sufficiently a Pharisee not to experience that
spontaneity.’
‘Swithin, don’t speak so affectedly, when you know so well what I mean!
Is it nothing to you that, after all our vows for life, you have thought it right
to—flirt with a village girl?’
‘O Viviette!’ interrupted Swithin, taking her hand, which was hot and
trembling. ‘You who are full of noble and generous feelings, and regard me
with devoted tenderness that has never been surpassed by woman,—how
can you be so greatly at fault? I flirt, Viviette? By thinking that you injure
yourself in my eyes. Why, I am so far from doing so that I continually pull
myself up for watching you too jealously, as to-day, when I have been
dreading the effect upon you of other company in my absence, and thinking
that you rather shut the gates against me when you have big-wigs to
entertain.’
‘Do you, Swithin?’ she cried. It was evident that the honest tone of his
words was having a great effect in clearing away the clouds. She added
with an uncertain smile, ‘But how can I believe that, after what was seen to-
day? My brother, not knowing in the least that I had an iota of interest in
you, told me that he witnessed the signs of an attachment between you and
Tabitha Lark in church, this morning.’
‘Ah!’ cried Swithin, with a burst of laughter. ‘Now I know what you mean,
and what has caused this misunderstanding! How good of you, Viviette, to
come at once and have it out with me, instead of brooding over it with dark
imaginings, and thinking bitter things of me, as many women would have
done!’ He succinctly told the whole story of his little adventure with
Tabitha that morning; and the sky was clear on both sides. ‘When shall I be
able to claim you,’ he added, ‘and put an end to all such painful accidents as
these?’

She partially sighed. Her perception of what the outside world was made
of, latterly somewhat obscured by solitude and her lover’s company, had
been revived to-day by her entertainment of the Bishop, clergymen, and,
more particularly, clergymen’s wives; and it did not diminish her sense of
the difficulties in Swithin’s path to see anew how little was thought of the
greatest gifts, mental and spiritual, if they were not backed up by substantial
temporalities. However, the pair made the best of their future that
circumstances permitted, and the interview was at length drawing to a close
when there came, without the slightest forewarning, a smart rat-tat-tat upon
the little door.
‘O I am lost!’ said Viviette, seizing his arm. ‘Why was I so incautious?’
‘It is nobody of consequence,’ whispered Swithin assuringly. ‘Somebody
from my grandmother, probably, to know when I am coming home.’
They were unperceived so far, for the only window which gave light to the
hut was screened by a curtain. At that moment they heard the sound of their
visitors’ voices, and, with a consternation as great as her own, Swithin
discerned the tones of Mr. Torkingham and the Bishop of Melchester.
‘Where shall I get? What shall I do?’ said the poor lady, clasping her hands.
Swithin looked around the cabin, and a very little look was required to take
in all its resources. At one end, as previously explained, were a table, stove,
chair, cupboard, and so on; while the other was completely occupied by a
diminutive Arabian bedstead, hung with curtains of pink-and-white chintz.
On the inside of the bed there was a narrow channel, about a foot wide,
between it and the wall of the hut. Into this cramped retreat Viviette slid
herself, and stood trembling behind the curtains.
By this time the knock had been repeated more loudly, the light through the
window-blind unhappily revealing the presence of some inmate. Swithin
threw open the door, and Mr. Torkingham introduced his visitors.
The Bishop shook hands with the young man, told him he had known his
father, and at Swithin’s invitation, weak as it was, entered the cabin, the
vicar and Louis Glanville remaining on the threshold, not to inconveniently
crowd the limited space within.

Bishop Helmsdale looked benignantly around the apartment, and said,
‘Quite a settlement in the backwoods—quite: far enough from the world to
afford the votary of science the seclusion he needs, and not so far as to limit
his resources. A hermit might apparently live here in as much solitude as in
a primeval forest.’
‘His lordship has been good enough to express an interest in your studies,’
said Mr. Torkingham to St. Cleeve. ‘And we have come to ask you to let us
see the observatory.’
‘With great pleasure,’ stammered Swithin.
‘Where is the observatory?’ inquired the Bishop, peering round again.
‘The staircase is just outside this door,’ Swithin answered. ‘I am at your
lordship’s service, and will show you up at once.’
‘And this is your little bed, for use when you work late,’ said the Bishop.
‘Yes; I am afraid it is rather untidy,’ Swithin apologized.
‘And here are your books,’ the Bishop continued, turning to the table and
the shaded lamp. ‘You take an observation at the top, I presume, and come
down here to record your observations.’
The young man explained his precise processes as well as his state of mind
would let him, and while he was doing so Mr. Torkingham and Louis
waited patiently without, looking sometimes into the night, and sometimes
through the door at the interlocutors, and listening to their scientific
converse. When all had been exhibited here below, Swithin lit his lantern,
and, inviting his visitors to follow, led the way up the column, experiencing
no small sense of relief as soon as he heard the footsteps of all three
tramping on the stairs behind him. He knew very well that, once they were
inside the spiral, Viviette was out of danger, her knowledge of the locality
enabling her to find her way with perfect safety through the plantation, and
into the park home.
At the top he uncovered his equatorial, and, for the first time at ease,
explained to them its beauties, and revealed by its help the glories of those
stars that were eligible for inspection. The Bishop spoke as intelligently as

could be expected on a topic not peculiarly his own; but, somehow, he
seemed rather more abstracted in manner now than when he had arrived.
Swithin thought that perhaps the long clamber up the stairs, coming after a
hard day’s work, had taken his spontaneity out of him, and Mr. Torkingham
was afraid that his lordship was getting bored. But this did not appear to be
the case; for though he said little he stayed on some time longer, examining
the construction of the dome after relinquishing the telescope; while
occasionally Swithin caught the eyes of the Bishop fixed hard on him.
‘Perhaps he sees some likeness of my father in me,’ the young man thought;
and the party making ready to leave at this time he conducted them to the
bottom of the tower.
Swithin was not prepared for what followed their descent. All were
standing at the foot of the staircase. The astronomer, lantern in hand,
offered to show them the way out of the plantation, to which Mr.
Torkingham replied that he knew the way very well, and would not trouble
his young friend. He strode forward with the words, and Louis followed
him, after waiting a moment and finding that the Bishop would not take the
precedence. The latter and Swithin were thus left together for one moment,
whereupon the Bishop turned.
‘Mr. St. Cleeve,’ he said in a strange voice, ‘I should like to speak to you
privately, before I leave, to-morrow morning. Can you meet me—let me
see—in the churchyard, at half-past ten o’clock?’
‘O yes, my lord, certainly,’ said Swithin. And before he had recovered from
his surprise the Bishop had joined the others in the shades of the plantation.
Swithin immediately opened the door of the hut, and scanned the nook
behind the bed. As he had expected his bird had flown.

XXVII

All night the astronomer’s mind was on the stretch with curiosity as to what
the Bishop could wish to say to him. A dozen conjectures entered his brain,
to be abandoned in turn as unlikely. That which finally seemed the most
plausible was that the Bishop, having become interested in his pursuits, and
entertaining friendly recollections of his father, was going to ask if he could

do anything to help him on in the profession he had chosen. Should this be
the case, thought the suddenly sanguine youth, it would seem like an
encouragement to that spirit of firmness which had led him to reject his late
uncle’s offer because it involved the renunciation of Lady Constantine.
At last he fell asleep; and when he awoke it was so late that the hour was
ready to solve what conjecture could not. After a hurried breakfast he
paced across the fields, entering the churchyard by the south gate precisely
at the appointed minute.
The inclosure was well adapted for a private interview, being bounded by
bushes of laurel and alder nearly on all sides. He looked round; the Bishop
was not there, nor any living creature save himself. Swithin sat down upon
a tombstone to await Bishop Helmsdale’s arrival.
While he sat he fancied he could hear voices in conversation not far off, and
further attention convinced him that they came from Lady Constantine’s
lawn, which was divided from the churchyard by a high wall and shrubbery
only. As the Bishop still delayed his coming, though the time was nearly
eleven, and as the lady whose sweet voice mingled with those heard from
the lawn was his personal property, Swithin became exceedingly curious to
learn what was going on within that screened promenade. A way of doing
so occurred to him. The key was in the church door; he opened it, entered,
and ascended to the ringers’ loft in the west tower. At the back of this was a
window commanding a full view of Viviette’s garden front.
The flowers were all in gayest bloom, and the creepers on the walls of the
house were bursting into tufts of young green. A broad gravel-walk ran
from end to end of the facade, terminating in a large conservatory. In the
walk were three people pacing up and down. Lady Constantine’s was the
central figure, her brother being on one side of her, and on the other a
stately form in a corded shovel-hat of glossy beaver and black breeches.
This was the Bishop. Viviette carried over her shoulder a sunshade lined
with red, which she twirled idly. They were laughing and chatting gaily,
and when the group approached the churchyard many of their remarks
entered the silence of the church tower through the ventilator of the
window.

The conversation was general, yet interesting enough to Swithin. At length
Louis stepped upon the grass and picked up something that had lain there,
which turned out to be a bowl: throwing it forward he took a second, and
bowled it towards the first, or jack. The Bishop, who seemed to be in a
sprightly mood, followed suit, and bowled one in a curve towards the jack,
turning and speaking to Lady Constantine as he concluded the feat. As she
had not left the gravelled terrace he raised his voice, so that the words
reached Swithin distinctly.
‘Do you follow us?’ he asked gaily.
‘I am not skilful,’ she said. ‘I always bowl narrow.’
The Bishop meditatively paused.
‘This moment reminds one of the scene in Richard the Second,’ he said. ‘I
mean the Duke of York’s garden, where the queen and her two ladies play,
and the queen says—

“What sport shall we devise here in this garden,
To drive away the heavy thought of care?”

To which her lady answers, “Madam, we’ll play at bowls.”’
‘That’s an unfortunate quotation for you,’ said Lady Constantine; ‘for if I
don’t forget, the queen declines, saying, “Twill make me think the world is
full of rubs, and that my fortune runs against the bias.”’
‘Then I cite mal à propos. But it is an interesting old game, and might have
been played at that very date on this very green.’
The Bishop lazily bowled another, and while he was doing it Viviette’s
glance rose by accident to the church tower window, where she recognized
Swithin’s face. Her surprise was only momentary; and waiting till both her
companions’ backs were turned she smiled and blew him a kiss. In another
minute she had another opportunity, and blew him another; afterwards
blowing him one a third time.
Her blowings were put a stop to by the Bishop and Louis throwing down
the bowls and rejoining her in the path, the house clock at the moment

striking half-past eleven.
‘This is a fine way of keeping an engagement,’ said Swithin to himself. ‘I
have waited an hour while you indulge in those trifles!’
He fumed, turned, and behold somebody was at his elbow: Tabitha Lark.
Swithin started, and said, ‘How did you come here, Tabitha?’
‘In the course of my calling, Mr. St. Cleeve,’ said the smiling girl. ‘I come
to practise on the organ. When I entered I saw you up here through the
tower arch, and I crept up to see what you were looking at. The Bishop is a
striking man, is he not?’
‘Yes, rather,’ said Swithin.
‘I think he is much devoted to Lady Constantine, and I am glad of it. Aren’t
you?’
‘O yes—very,’ said Swithin, wondering if Tabitha had seen the tender little
salutes between Lady Constantine and himself.
‘I don’t think she cares much for him,’ added Tabitha judicially. ‘Or, even
if she does, she could be got away from him in no time by a younger man.’
‘Pooh, that’s nothing,’ said Swithin impatiently.
Tabitha then remarked that her blower had not come to time, and that she
must go to look for him; upon which she descended the stairs, and left
Swithin again alone.
A few minutes later the Bishop suddenly looked at his watch, Lady
Constantine having withdrawn towards the house. Apparently apologizing
to Louis the Bishop came down the terrace, and through the door into the
churchyard. Swithin hastened downstairs and joined him in the path under
the sunny wall of the aisle.
Their glances met, and it was with some consternation that Swithin beheld
the change that a few short minutes had wrought in that episcopal
countenance. On the lawn with Lady Constantine the rays of an almost
perpetual smile had brightened his dark aspect like flowers in a shady place:
now the smile was gone as completely as yesterday; the lines of his face

were firm; his dark eyes and whiskers were overspread with gravity; and, as
he gazed upon Swithin from the repose of his stable figure it was like an
evangelized King of Spades come to have it out with the Knave of Hearts.
*****
To return for a moment to Louis Glanville. He had been somewhat struck
with the abruptness of the Bishop’s departure, and more particularly by the
circumstance that he had gone away by the private door into the churchyard
instead of by the regular exit on the other side. True, great men were
known to suffer from absence of mind, and Bishop Helmsdale, having a
dim sense that he had entered by that door yesterday, might have
unconsciously turned thitherward now. Louis, upon the whole, thought
little of the matter, and being now left quite alone on the lawn, he seated
himself in an arbour and began smoking.
The arbour was situated against the churchyard wall. The atmosphere was
as still as the air of a hot-house; only fourteen inches of brickwork divided
Louis from the scene of the Bishop’s interview with St. Cleeve, and as
voices on the lawn had been audible to Swithin in the churchyard, voices in
the churchyard could be heard without difficulty from that close corner of
the lawn. No sooner had Louis lit a cigar than the dialogue began.
‘Ah, you are here, St. Cleeve,’ said the Bishop, hardly replying to Swithin’s
good morning. ‘I fear I am a little late. Well, my request to you to meet me
may have seemed somewhat unusual, seeing that we were strangers till a
few hours ago.’
‘I don’t mind that, if your lordship wishes to see me.’
‘I thought it best to see you regarding your confirmation yesterday; and my
reason for taking a more active step with you than I should otherwise have
done is that I have some interest in you through having known your father
when we were undergraduates. His rooms were on the same staircase with
mine at All Angels, and we were friendly till time and affairs separated us
even more completely than usually happens. However, about your
presenting yourself for confirmation.’ (The Bishop’s voice grew stern.) ‘If
I had known yesterday morning what I knew twelve hours later, I wouldn’t
have confirmed you at all.’

‘Indeed, my lord!’
‘Yes, I say it, and I mean it. I visited your observatory last night.’
‘You did, my lord.’
‘In inspecting it I noticed something which I may truly describe as
extraordinary. I have had young men present themselves to me who turned
out to be notoriously unfit, either from giddiness, from being profane or
intemperate, or from some bad quality or other. But I never remember a
case which equalled the cool culpability of this. While infringing the first
principles of social decorum you might at least have respected the
ordinance sufficiently to have stayed away from it altogether. Now I have
sent for you here to see if a last entreaty and a direct appeal to your sense of
manly uprightness will have any effect in inducing you to change your
course of life.’
The voice of Swithin in his next remark showed how tremendously this
attack of the Bishop had told upon his feelings. Louis, of course, did not
know the reason why the words should have affected him precisely as they
did; to any one in the secret the double embarrassment arising from
misapprehended ethics and inability to set matters right, because his word
of secrecy to another was inviolable, would have accounted for the young
man’s emotion sufficiently well.
‘I am very sorry your lordship should have seen anything objectionable,’
said Swithin. ‘May I ask what it was?’
‘You know what it was. Something in your chamber, which forced me to
the above conclusions. I disguised my feelings of sorrow at the time for
obvious reasons, but I never in my whole life was so shocked!’
‘At what, my lord?’
‘At what I saw.’
‘Pardon me, Bishop Helmsdale, but you said just now that we are strangers;
so what you saw in my cabin concerns me only.’
‘There I contradict you. Twenty-four hours ago that remark would have
been plausible enough; but by presenting yourself for confirmation at my

hands you have invited my investigation into your principles.’
Swithin sighed. ‘I admit it,’ he said.
‘And what do I find them?’
‘You say reprehensible. But you might at least let me hear the proof!’
‘I can do more, sir. I can let you see it!’
There was a pause. Louis Glanville was so highly interested that he stood
upon the seat of the arbour, and looked through the leafage over the wall.
The Bishop had produced an article from his pocket.
‘What is it?’ said Swithin, laboriously scrutinizing the thing.
‘Why, don’t you see?’ said the Bishop, holding it out between his finger and
thumb in Swithin’s face. ‘A bracelet,—a coral bracelet. I found the wanton
object on the bed in your cabin! And of the sex of the owner there can be
no doubt. More than that, she was concealed behind the curtains, for I saw
them move.’ In the decision of his opinion the Bishop threw the coral
bracelet down on a tombstone.
‘Nobody was in my room, my lord, who had not a perfect right to be there,’
said the younger man.
‘Well, well, that’s a matter of assertion. Now don’t get into a passion, and
say to me in your haste what you’ll repent of saying afterwards.’
‘I am not in a passion, I assure your lordship. I am too sad for passion.’
‘Very well; that’s a hopeful sign. Now I would ask you, as one man of
another, do you think that to come to me, the Bishop of this large and
important diocese, as you came yesterday, and pretend to be something that
you are not, is quite upright conduct, leave alone religious? Think it over.
We may never meet again. But bear in mind what your Bishop and spiritual
head says to you, and see if you cannot mend before it is too late.’
Swithin was meek as Moses, but he tried to appear sturdy. ‘My lord, I am
in a difficult position,’ he said mournfully; ‘how difficult, nobody but
myself can tell. I cannot explain; there are insuperable reasons against it.

But will you take my word of assurance that I am not so bad as I seem?
Some day I will prove it. Till then I only ask you to suspend your judgment
on me.’
The Bishop shook his head incredulously and went towards the vicarage, as
if he had lost his hearing. Swithin followed him with his eyes, and Louis
followed the direction of Swithin’s. Before the Bishop had reached the
vicarage entrance Lady Constantine crossed in front of him. She had a
basket on her arm, and was, in fact, going to visit some of the poorer
cottages. Who could believe the Bishop now to be the same man that he
had been a moment before? The darkness left his face as if he had come out
of a cave; his look was all sweetness, and shine, and gaiety, as he again
greeted Viviette.

XXVIII

The conversation which arose between the Bishop and Lady Constantine
was of that lively and reproductive kind which cannot be ended during any
reasonable halt of two people going in opposite directions. He turned, and
walked with her along the laurel-screened lane that bordered the
churchyard, till their voices died away in the distance. Swithin then
aroused himself from his thoughtful regard of them, and went out of the
churchyard by another gate.
Seeing himself now to be left alone on the scene, Louis Glanville descended
from his post of observation in the arbour. He came through the private
doorway, and on to that spot among the graves where the Bishop and St.
Cleeve had conversed. On the tombstone still lay the coral bracelet which
Dr. Helmsdale had flung down there in his indignation; for the agitated,
introspective mood into which Swithin had been thrown had banished from
his mind all thought of securing the trinket and putting it in his pocket.
Louis picked up the little red scandal-breeding thing, and while walking on
with it in his hand he observed Tabitha Lark approaching the church, in
company with the young blower whom she had gone in search of to inspire
her organ-practising within. Louis immediately put together, with that rare
diplomatic keenness of which he was proud, the little scene he had
witnessed between Tabitha and Swithin during the confirmation, and the

Bishop’s stern statement as to where he had found the bracelet. He had no
longer any doubt that it belonged to her.
‘Poor girl!’ he said to himself, and sang in an undertone—

‘Tra deri, dera,
L’histoire n’est pas nouvelle!’

When she drew nearer Louis called her by name. She sent the boy into the
church, and came forward, blushing at having been called by so fine a
gentleman. Louis held out the bracelet.
‘Here is something I have found, or somebody else has found,’ he said to
her. ‘I won’t state where. Put it away, and say no more about it. I will not
mention it either. Now go on into the church where you are going, and may
Heaven have mercy on your soul, my dear.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ said Tabitha, with some perplexity, yet inclined to be
pleased, and only recognizing in the situation the fact that Lady
Constantine’s humorous brother was making her a present.
‘You are much obliged to me?’
‘O yes!’
‘Well, Miss Lark, I’ve discovered a secret, you see.’
‘What may that be, Mr. Glanville?’
‘That you are in love.’
‘I don’t admit it, sir. Who told you so?’
‘Nobody. Only I put two and two together. Now take my advice. Beware
of lovers! They are a bad lot, and bring young women to tears.’
‘Some do, I dare say. But some don’t.’
‘And you think that in your particular case the latter alternative will hold
good? We generally think we shall be lucky ourselves, though all the world
before us, in the same situation, have been otherwise.’

‘O yes, or we should die outright of despair.’
‘Well, I don’t think you will be lucky in your case.’
‘Please how do you know so much, since my case has not yet arrived?’
asked Tabitha, tossing her head a little disdainfully, but less than she might
have done if he had not obtained a charter for his discourse by giving her
the bracelet.
‘Fie, Tabitha!’
‘I tell you it has not arrived!’ she said, with some anger. ‘I have not got a
lover, and everybody knows I haven’t, and it’s an insinuating thing for you
to say so!’
Louis laughed, thinking how natural it was that a girl should so
emphatically deny circumstances that would not bear curious inquiry.
‘Why, of course I meant myself,’ he said soothingly. ‘So, then, you will not
accept me?’
‘I didn’t know you meant yourself,’ she replied. ‘But I won’t accept you.
And I think you ought not to jest on such subjects.’
‘Well, perhaps not. However, don’t let the Bishop see your bracelet, and all
will be well. But mind, lovers are deceivers.’
Tabitha laughed, and they parted, the girl entering the church. She had been
feeling almost certain that, having accidentally found the bracelet
somewhere, he had presented it in a whim to her as the first girl he met. Yet
now she began to have momentary doubts whether he had not been
labouring under a mistake, and had imagined her to be the owner. The
bracelet was not valuable; it was, in fact, a mere toy,—the pair of which this
was one being a little present made to Lady Constantine by Swithin on the
day of their marriage; and she had not worn them with sufficient frequency
out of doors for Tabitha to recognize either as positively her ladyship’s. But
when, out of sight of the blower, the girl momentarily tried it on, in a corner
by the organ, it seemed to her that the ornament was possibly Lady
Constantine’s. Now that the pink beads shone before her eyes on her own
arm she remembered having seen a bracelet with just such an effect gracing

the wrist of Lady Constantine upon one occasion. A temporary self-
surrender to the sophism that if Mr. Louis Glanville chose to give away
anything belonging to his sister, she, Tabitha, had a right to take it without
question, was soon checked by a resolve to carry the tempting strings of
coral to her ladyship that evening, and inquire the truth about them. This
decided on she slipped the bracelet into her pocket, and played her
voluntaries with a light heart.
*****
Bishop Helmsdale did not tear himself away from Welland till about two
o’clock that afternoon, which was three hours later than he had intended to
leave. It was with a feeling of relief that Swithin, looking from the top of
the tower, saw the carriage drive out from the vicarage into the turnpike
road, and whirl the right reverend gentleman again towards Warborne. The
coast being now clear of him Swithin meditated how to see Viviette, and
explain what had happened. With this in view he waited where he was till
evening came on.
Meanwhile Lady Constantine and her brother dined by themselves at
Welland House. They had not met since the morning, and as soon as they
were left alone Louis said, ‘You have done very well so far; but you might
have been a little warmer.’
‘Done well?’ she asked, with surprise.
‘Yes, with the Bishop. The difficult question is how to follow up our
advantage. How are you to keep yourself in sight of him?’
‘Heavens, Louis! You don’t seriously mean that the Bishop of Melchester
has any feelings for me other than friendly?’
‘Viviette, this is affectation. You know he has as well as I do.’
She sighed. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I own I had a suspicion of the same thing.
What a misfortune!’
‘A misfortune? Surely the world is turned upside down! You will drive me
to despair about our future if you see things so awry. Exert yourself to do
something, so as to make of this accident a stepping-stone to higher things.

The gentleman will give us the slip if we don’t pursue the friendship at
once.’
‘I cannot have you talk like this,’ she cried impatiently. ‘I have no more
thought of the Bishop than I have of the Pope. I would much rather not
have had him here to lunch at all. You said it would be necessary to do it,
and an opportunity, and I thought it my duty to show some hospitality when
he was coming so near, Mr. Torkingham’s house being so small. But of
course I understood that the opportunity would be one for you in getting to
know him, your prospects being so indefinite at present; not one for me.’
‘If you don’t follow up this chance of being spiritual queen of Melchester,
you will never have another of being anything. Mind this, Viviette: you are
not so young as you were. You are getting on to be a middle-aged woman,
and your black hair is precisely of the sort which time quickly turns grey.
You must make up your mind to grizzled bachelors or widowers. Young
marriageable men won’t look at you; or if they do just now, in a year or two
more they’ll despise you as an antiquated party.’
Lady Constantine perceptibly paled. ‘Young men what?’ she asked. ‘Say
that again.’
‘I said it was no use to think of young men; they won’t look at you much
longer; or if they do, it will be to look away again very quickly.’
‘You imply that if I were to marry a man younger than myself he would
speedily acquire a contempt for me? How much younger must a man be
than his wife—to get that feeling for her?’ She was resting her elbow on
the chair as she faintly spoke the words, and covered her eyes with her
hand.
‘An exceedingly small number of years,’ said Louis drily. ‘Now the Bishop
is at least fifteen years older than you, and on that account, no less than on
others, is an excellent match. You would be head of the church in this
diocese: what more can you require after these years of miserable
obscurity? In addition, you would escape that minor thorn in the flesh of
bishops’ wives, of being only “Mrs.” while their husbands are peers.’
She was not listening; his previous observation still detained her thoughts.

‘Louis,’ she said, ‘in the case of a woman marrying a man much younger
than herself, does he get to dislike her, even if there has been a social
advantage to him in the union?’
‘Yes,—not a whit less. Ask any person of experience. But what of that?
Let’s talk of our own affairs. You say you have no thought of the Bishop.
And yet if he had stayed here another day or two he would have proposed to
you straight off.’
‘Seriously, Louis, I could not accept him.’
‘Why not?’
‘I don’t love him.’
‘Oh, oh, I like those words!’ cried Louis, throwing himself back in his chair
and looking at the ceiling in satirical enjoyment. ‘A woman who at two-
and-twenty married for convenience, at thirty talks of not marrying without
love; the rule of inverse, that is, in which more requires less, and less
requires more. As your only brother, older than yourself, and more
experienced, I insist that you encourage the Bishop.’
‘Don’t quarrel with me, Louis!’ she said piteously. ‘We don’t know that he
thinks anything of me,—we only guess.’
‘I know it,—and you shall hear how I know. I am of a curious and
conjectural nature, as you are aware. Last night, when everybody had gone
to bed, I stepped out for a five minutes’ smoke on the lawn, and walked
down to where you get near the vicarage windows. While I was there in the
dark one of them opened, and Bishop Helmsdale leant out. The illuminated
oblong of your window shone him full in the face between the trees, and
presently your shadow crossed it. He waved his hand, and murmured some
tender words, though what they were exactly I could not hear.’
‘What a vague, imaginary story,—as if he could know my shadow!
Besides, a man of the Bishop’s dignity wouldn’t have done such a thing.
When I knew him as a younger man he was not at all romantic, and he’s not
likely to have grown so now.’

‘That’s just what he is likely to have done. No lover is so extreme a
specimen of the species as an old lover. Come, Viviette, no more of this
fencing. I have entered into the project heart and soul—so much that I have
postponed my departure till the matter is well under way.’
‘Louis—my dear Louis—you will bring me into some disagreeable
position!’ said she, clasping her hands. ‘I do entreat you not to interfere or
do anything rash about me. The step is impossible. I have something to tell
you some day. I must live on, and endure—’
‘Everything except this penury,’ replied Louis, unmoved. ‘Come, I have
begun the campaign by inviting Bishop Helmsdale, and I’ll take the
responsibility of carrying it on. All I ask of you is not to make a ninny of
yourself. Come, give me your promise!’
‘No, I cannot,—I don’t know how to! I only know one thing,—that I am in
no hurry—’
‘“No hurry” be hanged! Agree, like a good sister, to charm the Bishop.’
‘I must consider!’ she replied, with perturbed evasiveness.
It being a fine evening Louis went out of the house to enjoy his cigar in the
shrubbery. On reaching his favourite seat he found he had left his cigar-
case behind him; he immediately returned for it. When he approached the
window by which he had emerged he saw Swithin St. Cleeve standing there
in the dusk, talking to Viviette inside.
St. Cleeve’s back was towards Louis, but, whether at a signal from her or by
accident, he quickly turned and recognized Glanville; whereupon raising his
hat to Lady Constantine the young man passed along the terrace-walk and
out by the churchyard door.
Louis rejoined his sister. ‘I didn’t know you allowed your lawn to be a
public thoroughfare for the parish,’ he said.
‘I am not exclusive, especially since I have been so poor,’ replied she.
‘Then do you let everybody pass this way, or only that illustrious youth
because he is so good-looking?’

‘I have no strict rule in the case. Mr. St. Cleeve is an acquaintance of mine,
and he can certainly come here if he chooses.’ Her colour rose somewhat,
and she spoke warmly.
Louis was too cautious a bird to reveal to her what had suddenly dawned
upon his mind—that his sister, in common with the (to his thinking)
unhappy Tabitha Lark, had been foolish enough to get interested in this
phenomenon of the parish, this scientific Adonis. But he resolved to cure at
once her tender feeling, if it existed, by letting out a secret which would
inflame her dignity against the weakness.
‘A good-looking young man,’ he said, with his eyes where Swithin had
vanished. ‘But not so good as he looks. In fact a regular young sinner.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Oh, only a little feature I discovered in St. Cleeve’s history. But I suppose
he has a right to sow his wild oats as well as other young men.’
‘Tell me what you allude to,—do, Louis.’
‘It is hardly fit that I should. However, the case is amusing enough. I was
sitting in the arbour to-day, and was an unwilling listener to the oddest
interview I ever heard of. Our friend the Bishop discovered, when we
visited the observatory last night, that our astronomer was not alone in his
seclusion. A lady shared his romantic cabin with him; and finding this, the
Bishop naturally enough felt that the ordinance of confirmation had been
profaned. So his lordship sent for Master Swithin this morning, and
meeting him in the churchyard read him such an excommunicating lecture
as I warrant he won’t forget in his lifetime. Ha-ha-ha! ’Twas very good,—
very.’
He watched her face narrowly while he spoke with such seeming
carelessness. Instead of the agitation of jealousy that he had expected to be
aroused by this hint of another woman in the case, there was a curious
expression, more like embarrassment than anything else which might have
been fairly attributed to the subject. ‘Can it be that I am mistaken?’ he
asked himself.

The possibility that he might be mistaken restored Louis to good-humour,
and lights having been brought he sat with his sister for some time, talking
with purpose of Swithin’s low rank on one side, and the sordid struggles
that might be in store for him. St. Cleeve being in the unhappy case of
deriving his existence through two channels of society, it resulted that he
seemed to belong to either this or that according to the altitude of the
beholder. Louis threw the light entirely on Swithin’s agricultural side,
bringing out old Mrs. Martin and her connexions and her ways of life with
luminous distinctness, till Lady Constantine became greatly depressed.
She, in her hopefulness, had almost forgotten, latterly, that the bucolic
element, so incisively represented by Messrs. Hezzy Biles, Haymoss Fry,
Sammy Blore, and the rest entered into his condition at all; to her he had
been the son of his academic father alone.
But she would not reveal the depression to which she had been subjected by
this resuscitation of the homely half of poor Swithin, presently putting an
end to the subject by walking hither and thither about the room.
‘What have you lost?’ said Louis, observing her movements.
‘Nothing of consequence,—a bracelet.’
‘Coral?’ he inquired calmly.
‘Yes. How did you know it was coral? You have never seen it, have you?’
He was about to make answer; but the amazed enlightenment which her
announcement had produced in him through knowing where the Bishop had
found such an article, led him to reconsider himself. Then, like an astute
man, by no means sure of the dimensions of the intrigue he might be
uncovering, he said carelessly, ‘I found such a one in the churchyard to-
day. But I thought it appeared to be of no great rarity, and I gave it to one
of the village girls who was passing by.’
‘Did she take it? Who was she?’ said the unsuspecting Viviette.
‘Really, I don’t remember. I suppose it is of no consequence?’
‘O no; its value is nothing, comparatively. It was only one of a pair such as
young girls wear.’ Lady Constantine could not add that, in spite of this, she

herself valued it as being Swithin’s present, and the best he could afford.
Panic-struck by his ruminations, although revealing nothing by his manner,
Louis soon after went up to his room, professedly to write letters. He gave
vent to a low whistle when he was out of hearing. He of course
remembered perfectly well to whom he had given the corals, and resolved
to seek out Tabitha the next morning to ascertain whether she could
possibly have owned such a trinket as well as his sister,—which at present
he very greatly doubted, though fervently hoping that she might.

XXIX

The effect upon Swithin of the interview with the Bishop had been a very
marked one. He felt that he had good ground for resenting that dignitary’s
tone in haughtily assuming that all must be sinful which at the first blush
appeared to be so, and in narrowly refusing a young man the benefit of a
single doubt. Swithin’s assurance that he would be able to explain all some
day had been taken in contemptuous incredulity.
‘He may be as virtuous as his prototype Timothy; but he’s an opinionated
old fogey all the same,’ said St. Cleeve petulantly.
Yet, on the other hand, Swithin’s nature was so fresh and ingenuous,
notwithstanding that recent affairs had somewhat denaturalized him, that for
a man in the Bishop’s position to think him immoral was almost as
overwhelming as if he had actually been so, and at moments he could
scarcely bear existence under so gross a suspicion. What was his union
with Lady Constantine worth to him when, by reason of it, he was thought a
reprobate by almost the only man who had professed to take an interest in
him?
Certainly, by contrast with his air-built image of himself as a worthy
astronomer, received by all the world, and the envied husband of Viviette,
the present imputation was humiliating. The glorious light of this tender
and refined passion seemed to have become debased to burlesque hues by
pure accident, and his æsthetic no less than his ethic taste was offended by
such an anti-climax. He who had soared amid the remotest grandeurs of
nature had been taken to task on a rudimentary question of morals, which

had never been a question with him at all. This was what the exigencies of
an awkward attachment had brought him to; but he blamed the
circumstances, and not for one moment Lady Constantine.
Having now set his heart against a longer concealment he was disposed to
think that an excellent way of beginning a revelation of their marriage
would be by writing a confidential letter to the Bishop, detailing the whole
case. But it was impossible to do this on his own responsibility. He still
recognized the understanding entered into with Viviette, before the
marriage, to be as binding as ever,—that the initiative in disclosing their
union should come from her. Yet he hardly doubted that she would take
that initiative when he told her of his extraordinary reprimand in the
churchyard.
This was what he had come to do when Louis saw him standing at the
window. But before he had said half-a-dozen words to Viviette she
motioned him to go on, which he mechanically did, ere he could sufficiently
collect his thoughts on its advisability or otherwise. He did not, however,
go far. While Louis and his sister were discussing him in the drawing-room
he lingered musing in the churchyard, hoping that she might be able to
escape and join him in the consultation he so earnestly desired.
She at last found opportunity to do this. As soon as Louis had left the room
and shut himself in upstairs she ran out by the window in the direction
Swithin had taken. When her footsteps began crunching on the gravel he
came forward from the churchyard door.
They embraced each other in haste, and then, in a few short panting words,
she explained to him that her brother had heard and witnessed the interview
on that spot between himself and the Bishop, and had told her the substance
of the Bishop’s accusation, not knowing she was the woman in the cabin.
‘And what I cannot understand is this,’ she added; ‘how did the Bishop
discover that the person behind the bed-curtains was a woman and not a
man?’
Swithin explained that the Bishop had found the bracelet on the bed, and
had brought it to him in the churchyard.

‘O Swithin, what do you say? Found the coral bracelet? What did you do
with it?’
Swithin clapped his hand to his pocket.
‘Dear me! I recollect—I left it where it lay on Reuben Heath’s tombstone.’
‘Oh, my dear, dear Swithin!’ she cried miserably. ‘You have compromised
me by your forgetfulness. I have claimed the article as mine. My brother
did not tell me that the Bishop brought it from the cabin. What can I, can I
do, that neither the Bishop nor my brother may conclude I was the woman
there?’
‘But if we announce our marriage—’
‘Even as your wife, the position was too undignified—too I don’t know
what—for me ever to admit that I was there! Right or wrong, I must
declare the bracelet was not mine. Such an escapade—why, it would make
me ridiculous in the county; and anything rather than that!’
‘I was in hope that you would agree to let our marriage be known,’ said
Swithin, with some disappointment. ‘I thought that these circumstances
would make the reason for doing so doubly strong.’
‘Yes. But there are, alas, reasons against it still stronger! Let me have my
way.’
‘Certainly, dearest. I promised that before you agreed to be mine. My
reputation—what is it! Perhaps I shall be dead and forgotten before the
next transit of Venus!’
She soothed him tenderly, but could not tell him why she felt the reasons
against any announcement as yet to be stronger than those in favour of it.
How could she, when her feeling had been cautiously fed and developed by
her brother Louis’s unvarnished exhibition of Swithin’s material position in
the eyes of the world?—that of a young man, the scion of a family of
farmers recently her tenants, living at the homestead with his grandmother,
Mrs. Martin.
To soften her refusal she said in declaring it, ‘One concession, Swithin, I
certainly will make. I will see you oftener. I will come to the cabin and

tower frequently; and will contrive, too, that you come to the house
occasionally. During the last winter we passed whole weeks without
meeting; don’t let us allow that to happen again.’
‘Very well, dearest,’ said Swithin good-humouredly. ‘I don’t care so
terribly much for the old man’s opinion of me, after all. For the present,
then, let things be as they are.’
Nevertheless, the youth felt her refusal more than he owned; but the
unequal temperament of Swithin’s age, so soon depressed on his own
account, was also soon to recover on hers, and it was with almost a child’s
forgetfulness of the past that he took her view of the case.
When he was gone she hastily re-entered the house. Her brother had not
reappeared from upstairs; but she was informed that Tabitha Lark was
waiting to see her, if her ladyship would pardon the said Tabitha for coming
so late. Lady Constantine made no objection, and saw the young girl at
once.
When Lady Constantine entered the waiting-room behold, in Tabitha’s
outstretched hand lay the coral ornament which had been causing Viviette
so much anxiety.
‘I guessed, on second thoughts, that it was yours, my lady,’ said Tabitha,
with rather a frightened face; ‘and so I have brought it back.’
‘But how did you come by it, Tabitha?’
‘Mr. Glanville gave it to me; he must have thought it was mine. I took it,
fancying at the moment that he handed it to me because I happened to come
by first after he had found it.’
Lady Constantine saw how the situation might be improved so as to effect
her deliverance from this troublesome little web of evidence.
‘Oh, you can keep it,’ she said brightly. ‘It was very good of you to bring it
back. But keep it for your very own. Take Mr. Glanville at his word, and
don’t explain. And, Tabitha, divide the strands into two bracelets; there are
enough of them to make a pair.’

The next morning, in pursuance of his resolution, Louis wandered round the
grounds till he saw the girl for whom he was waiting enter the church. He
accosted her over the wall. But, puzzling to view, a coral bracelet blushed
on each of her young arms, for she had promptly carried out the suggestion
of Lady Constantine.
‘You are wearing it, I see, Tabitha, with the other,’ he murmured. ‘Then
you mean to keep it?’
‘Yes, I mean to keep it.’
‘You are sure it is not Lady Constantine’s? I find she has one like it.’
‘Quite sure. But you had better take it to her, sir, and ask her,’ said the
saucy girl.
‘Oh, no; that’s not necessary,’ replied Louis, considerably shaken in his
convictions.
When Louis met his sister, a short time after, he did not catch her, as he had
intended to do, by saying suddenly, ‘I have found your bracelet. I know
who has got it.’
‘You cannot have found it,’ she replied quietly, ‘for I have discovered that it
was never lost,’ and stretching out both her hands she revealed one on each,
Viviette having performed the same operation with her remaining bracelet
that she had advised Tabitha to do with the other.
Louis was mystified, but by no means convinced. In spite of this attempt to
hoodwink him his mind returned to the subject every hour of the day. There
was no doubt that either Tabitha or Viviette had been with Swithin in the
cabin. He recapitulated every case that had occurred during his visit to
Welland in which his sister’s manner had been of a colour to justify the
suspicion that it was she. There was that strange incident in the corridor,
when she had screamed at what she described to be a shadowy resemblance
to her late husband; how very improbable that this fancy should have been
the only cause of her agitation! Then he had noticed, during Swithin’s
confirmation, a blush upon her cheek when he passed her on his way to the
Bishop, and the fervour in her glance during the few moments of the
imposition of hands. Then he suddenly recalled the night at the railway

station, when the accident with the whip took place, and how, when he
reached Welland House an hour later, he had found no Viviette there.
Running thus from incident to incident he increased his suspicions without
being able to cull from the circumstances anything amounting to evidence;
but evidence he now determined to acquire without saying a word to any
one.
His plan was of a cruel kind: to set a trap into which the pair would blindly
walk if any secret understanding existed between them of the nature he
suspected.

XXX

Louis began his stratagem by calling at the tower one afternoon, as if on the
impulse of the moment.
After a friendly chat with Swithin, whom he found there (having watched
him enter), Louis invited the young man to dine the same evening at the
House, that he might have an opportunity of showing him some interesting
old scientific works in folio, which, according to Louis’s account, he had
stumbled on in the library. Louis set no great bait for St. Cleeve in this
statement, for old science was not old art which, having perfected itself, has
died and left its secret hidden in its remains. But Swithin was a responsive
fellow, and readily agreed to come; being, moreover, always glad of a
chance of meeting Viviette en famille. He hoped to tell her of a scheme that
had lately suggested itself to him as likely to benefit them both: that he
should go away for a while, and endeavour to raise sufficient funds to visit
the great observatories of Europe, with an eye to a post in one of them.
Hitherto the only bar to the plan had been the exceeding narrowness of his
income, which, though sufficient for his present life, was absolutely
inadequate to the requirements of a travelling astronomer.
Meanwhile Louis Glanville had returned to the House and told his sister in
the most innocent manner that he had been in the company of St. Cleeve
that afternoon, getting a few wrinkles on astronomy; that they had grown so
friendly over the fascinating subject as to leave him no alternative but to
invite St. Cleeve to dine at Welland the same evening, with a view to certain
researches in the library afterwards.

‘I could quite make allowances for any youthful errors into which he may
have been betrayed,’ Louis continued sententiously, ‘since, for a scientist,
he is really admirable. No doubt the Bishop’s caution will not be lost upon
him; and as for his birth and connexions,—those he can’t help.’
Lady Constantine showed such alacrity in adopting the idea of having
Swithin to dinner, and she ignored his ‘youthful errors’ so completely, as
almost to betray herself. In fulfilment of her promise to see him oftener she
had been intending to run across to Swithin on that identical evening. Now
the trouble would be saved in a very delightful way, by the exercise of a
little hospitality which Viviette herself would not have dared to suggest.
Dinner-time came and with it Swithin, exhibiting rather a blushing and
nervous manner that was, unfortunately, more likely to betray their cause
than was Viviette’s own more practised bearing. Throughout the meal
Louis sat like a spider in the corner of his web, observing them narrowly,
and at moments flinging out an artful thread here and there, with a view to
their entanglement. But they underwent the ordeal marvellously well.
Perhaps the actual tie between them, through being so much closer and of
so much more practical a nature than even their critic supposed it, was in
itself a protection against their exhibiting that ultra-reciprocity of manner
which, if they had been merely lovers, might have betrayed them.
After dinner the trio duly adjourned to the library as had been planned, and
the volumes were brought forth by Louis with the zest of a bibliophilist.
Swithin had seen most of them before, and thought but little of them; but
the pleasure of staying in the house made him welcome any reason for
doing so, and he willingly looked at whatever was put before him, from
Bertius’s Ptolemy to Rees’s Cyclopædia.
The evening thus passed away, and it began to grow late. Swithin who,
among other things, had planned to go to Greenwich next day to view the
Royal Observatory, would every now and then start up and prepare to leave
for home, when Glanville would unearth some other volume and so detain
him yet another half-hour.
‘By George!’ he said, looking at the clock when Swithin was at last really
about to depart. ‘I didn’t know it was so late. Why not stay here to-night,

St. Cleeve? It is very dark, and the way to your place is an awkward cross-
cut over the fields.’
‘It would not inconvenience us at all, Mr. St. Cleeve, if you would care to
stay,’ said Lady Constantine.
‘I am afraid—the fact is, I wanted to take an observation at twenty minutes
past two,’ began Swithin.
‘Oh, now, never mind your observation,’ said Louis. ‘That’s only an
excuse. Do that to-morrow night. Now you will stay. It is settled.
Viviette, say he must stay, and we’ll have another hour of these charming
intellectual researches.’
Viviette obeyed with delightful ease. ‘Do stay, Mr St. Cleeve!’ she said
sweetly.
‘Well, in truth I can do without the observation,’ replied the young man, as
he gave way. ‘It is not of the greatest consequence.’
Thus it was arranged; but the researches among the tomes were not
prolonged to the extent that Louis had suggested. In three-quarters of an
hour from that time they had all retired to their respective rooms; Lady
Constantine’s being on one side of the west corridor, Swithin’s opposite,
and Louis’s at the further end.
Had a person followed Louis when he withdrew, that watcher would have
discovered, on peeping through the key-hole of his door, that he was
engaged in one of the oddest of occupations for such a man,—sweeping
down from the ceiling, by means of a walking-cane, a long cobweb which
lingered on high in the corner. Keeping it stretched upon the cane he gently
opened the door, and set the candle in such a position on the mat that the
light shone down the corridor. Thus guided by its rays he passed out
slipperless, till he reached the door of St. Cleeve’s room, where he applied
the dangling spider’s thread in such a manner that it stretched across like a
tight-rope from jamb to jamb, barring, in its fragile way, entrance and
egress. The operation completed he retired again, and, extinguishing his
light, went through his bedroom window out upon the flat roof of the
portico to which it gave access.

Here Louis made himself comfortable in his chair and smoking-cap,
enjoying the fragrance of a cigar for something like half-an-hour. His
position commanded a view of the two windows of Lady Constantine’s
room, and from these a dim light shone continuously. Having the window
partly open at his back, and the door of his room also scarcely closed, his
ear retained a fair command of any noises that might be made.
In due time faint movements became audible; whereupon, returning to his
room, he re-entered the corridor and listened intently. All was silent again,
and darkness reigned from end to end. Glanville, however, groped his way
along the passage till he again reached Swithin’s door, where he examined,
by the light of a wax-match he had brought, the condition of the spider’s
thread. It was gone; somebody had carried it off bodily, as Samson carried
off the pin and the web. In other words, a person had passed through the
door.
Still holding the faint wax-light in his hand Louis turned to the door of
Lady Constantine’s chamber, where he observed first that, though it was
pushed together so as to appear fastened to cursory view, the door was not
really closed by about a quarter of an inch. He dropped his light and
extinguished it with his foot. Listening, he heard a voice within,—
Viviette’s voice, in a subdued murmur, though speaking earnestly.
Without any hesitation Louis then returned to Swithin’s door, opened it, and
walked in. The starlight from without was sufficient, now that his eyes had
become accustomed to the darkness, to reveal that the room was
unoccupied, and that nothing therein had been disturbed.
With a heavy tread Louis came forth, walked loudly across the corridor,
knocked at Lady Constantine’s door, and called ‘Viviette!’
She heard him instantly, replying ‘Yes’ in startled tones. Immediately
afterwards she opened her door, and confronted him in her dressing-gown,
with a light in her hand. ‘What is the matter, Louis?’ she said.
‘I am greatly alarmed. Our visitor is missing.’
‘Missing? What, Mr. St. Cleeve?’

‘Yes. I was sitting up to finish a cigar, when I thought I heard a noise in this
direction. On coming to his room I find he is not there.’
‘Good Heaven! I wonder what has happened!’ she exclaimed, in apparently
intense alarm.
‘I wonder,’ said Glanville grimly.
‘Suppose he is a somnambulist! If so, he may have gone out and broken his
neck. I have never heard that he is one, but they say that sleeping in strange
places disturbs the minds of people who are given to that sort of thing, and
provokes them to it.’
‘Unfortunately for your theory his bed has not been touched.’
‘Oh, what then can it be?’
Her brother looked her full in the face. ‘Viviette!’ he said sternly.
She seemed puzzled. ‘Well?’ she replied, in simple tones.
‘I heard voices in your room,’ he continued.
‘Voices?’
‘A voice,—yours.’
‘Yes, you may have done so. It was mine.’
‘A listener is required for a speaker.’
‘True, Louis.’
‘Well, to whom were you speaking?’
‘God.’
‘Viviette! I am ashamed of you.’
‘I was saying my prayers.’
‘Prayers—to God! To St. Swithin, rather!’

‘What do you mean, Louis?’ she asked, flushing up warm, and drawing
back from him. ‘It was a form of prayer I use, particularly when I am in
trouble. It was recommended to me by the Bishop, and Mr. Torkingham
commends it very highly.’
‘On your honour, if you have any,’ he said bitterly, ‘whom have you there in
your room?’
‘No human being.’
‘Flatly, I don’t believe you.’
She gave a dignified little bow, and, waving her hand into the apartment,
said, ‘Very well; then search and see.’
Louis entered, and glanced round the room, behind the curtains, under the
bed, out of the window—a view from which showed that escape thence
would have been impossible,—everywhere, in short, capable or incapable
of affording a retreat to humanity; but discovered nobody. All he observed
was that a light stood on the low table by her bedside; that on the bed lay an
open Prayer-Book, the counterpane being unpressed, except into a little pit
beside the Prayer Book, apparently where her head had rested in kneeling.
‘But where is St. Cleeve?’ he said, turning in bewilderment from these
evidences of innocent devotion.
‘Where can he be?’ she chimed in, with real distress. ‘I should so much like
to know. Look about for him. I am quite uneasy!’
‘I will, on one condition: that you own that you love him.’
‘Why should you force me to that?’ she murmured. ‘It would be no such
wonder if I did.’
‘Come, you do.’
‘Well, I do.’
‘Now I’ll look for him.’
Louis took a light, and turned away, astonished that she had not indignantly
resented his intrusion and the nature of his questioning.

At this moment a slight noise was heard on the staircase, and they could see
a figure rising step by step, and coming forward against the long lights of
the staircase window. It was Swithin, in his ordinary dress, and carrying his
boots in his hand. When he beheld them standing there so motionless, he
looked rather disconcerted, but came on towards his room.
Lady Constantine was too agitated to speak, but Louis said, ‘I am glad to
see you again. Hearing a noise, a few minutes ago, I came out to learn what
it could be. I found you absent, and we have been very much alarmed.’
‘I am very sorry,’ said Swithin, with contrition. ‘I owe you a hundred
apologies: but the truth is that on entering my bedroom I found the sky
remarkably clear, and though I told you that the observation I was to make
was of no great consequence, on thinking it over alone I felt it ought not to
be allowed to pass; so I was tempted to run across to the observatory, and
make it, as I had hoped, without disturbing anybody. If I had known that I
should alarm you I would not have done it for the world.’
Swithin spoke very earnestly to Louis, and did not observe the tender
reproach in Viviette’s eyes when he showed by his tale his decided notion
that the prime use of dark nights lay in their furtherance of practical
astronomy.
Everything being now satisfactorily explained the three retired to their
several chambers, and Louis heard no more noises that night, or rather
morning; his attempts to solve the mystery of Viviette’s life here and her
relations with St. Cleeve having thus far resulted chiefly in perplexity.
True, an admission had been wrung from her; and even without such an
admission it was clear that she had a tender feeling for Swithin. How to
extinguish that romantic folly it now became his object to consider.

XXXI

Swithin’s midnight excursion to the tower in the cause of science led him to
oversleep himself, and when the brother and sister met at breakfast in the
morning he did not appear.
‘Don’t disturb him,—don’t disturb him,’ said Louis laconically. ‘Hullo,
Viviette, what are you reading there that makes you flame up so?’

She was glancing over a letter that she had just opened, and at his words
looked up with misgiving.
The incident of the previous night left her in great doubt as to what her
bearing towards him ought to be. She had made no show of resenting his
conduct at the time, from a momentary supposition that he must know all
her secret; and afterwards, finding that he did not know it, it seemed too late
to affect indignation at his suspicions. So she preserved a quiet neutrality.
Even had she resolved on an artificial part she might have forgotten to play
it at this instant, the letter being of a kind to banish previous considerations.
‘It is a letter from Bishop Helmsdale,’ she faltered.
‘Well done! I hope for your sake it is an offer.’
‘That’s just what it is.’
‘No,—surely?’ said Louis, beginning a laugh of surprise.
‘Yes,’ she returned indifferently. ‘You can read it, if you like.’
‘I don’t wish to pry into a communication of that sort.’
‘Oh, you may read it,’ she said, tossing the letter across to him.
Louis thereupon read as under:—

‘The Palace, Melchester,
June 28, 18--.
‘My dear Lady Constantine,—During the two or three weeks that
have elapsed since I experienced the great pleasure of renewing my
acquaintance with you, the varied agitation of my feelings has clearly
proved that my only course is to address you by letter, and at once.
Whether the subject of my communication be acceptable to you or not,
I can at least assure you that to suppress it would be far less natural,
and upon the whole less advisable, than to speak out frankly, even if
afterwards I hold my peace for ever.
‘The great change in my experience during the past year or two—the
change, that is, which has resulted from my advancement to a

bishopric—has frequently suggested to me, of late, that a
discontinuance in my domestic life of the solitude of past years was a
question which ought to be seriously contemplated. But whether I
should ever have contemplated it without the great good fortune of my
meeting with you is doubtful. However, the thing has been considered
at last, and without more ado I candidly ask if you would be willing to
give up your life at Welland, and relieve my household loneliness here
by becoming my wife.
‘I am far from desiring to force a hurried decision on your part, and
will wait your good pleasure patiently, should you feel any uncertainty
at the moment as to the step. I am quite disqualified, by habits and
experience, for the delightful procedure of urging my suit in the ardent
terms which would be so appropriate towards such a lady, and so
expressive of my inmost feeling. In truth, a prosy cleric of five-and-
forty wants encouragement to make him eloquent. Of this, however, I
can assure you: that if admiration, esteem, and devotion can
compensate in any way for the lack of those qualities which might be
found to burn with more outward brightness in a younger man, those it
is in my power to bestow for the term of my earthly life. Your steady
adherence to church principles and your interest in ecclesiastical polity
(as was shown by your bright questioning on those subjects during our
morning walk round your grounds) have indicated strongly to me the
grace and appropriateness with which you would fill the position of a
bishop’s wife, and how greatly you would add to his reputation, should
you be disposed to honour him with your hand. Formerly there have
been times when I was of opinion—and you will rightly appreciate my
candour in owning it—that a wife was an impediment to a bishop’s
due activities; but constant observation has convinced me that, far
from this being the truth, a meet consort infuses life into episcopal
influence and teaching.
‘Should you reply in the affirmative I will at once come to see you,
and with your permission will, among other things, show you a few
plain, practical rules which I have interested myself in drawing up for
our future guidance. Should you refuse to change your condition on
my account, your decision will, as I need hardly say, be a great blow to
me. In any event, I could not do less than I have done, after giving the

subject my full consideration. Even if there be a slight deficiency of
warmth on your part, my earnest hope is that a mind comprehensive as
yours will perceive the immense power for good that you might
exercise in the position in which a union with me would place you, and
allow that perception to weigh in determining your answer.
‘I remain, my dear Lady Constantine, with the highest respect and
affection,—Yours always,
‘C. Melchester.’

‘Well, you will not have the foolhardiness to decline, now that the question
has actually been popped, I should hope,’ said Louis, when he had done
reading.
‘Certainly I shall,’ she replied.
‘You will really be such a flat, Viviette?’
‘You speak without much compliment. I have not the least idea of
accepting him.’
‘Surely you will not let your infatuation for that young fellow carry you so
far, after my acquainting you with the shady side of his character? You call
yourself a religious woman, say your prayers out loud, follow up the
revived methods in church practice, and what not; and yet you can think
with partiality of a person who, far from having any religion in him, breaks
the most elementary commandments in the decalogue.’
‘I cannot agree with you,’ she said, turning her face askance, for she knew
not how much of her brother’s language was sincere, and how much
assumed, the extent of his discoveries with regard to her secret ties being a
mystery. At moments she was disposed to declare the whole truth, and have
done with it. But she hesitated, and left the words unsaid; and Louis
continued his breakfast in silence.
When he had finished, and she had eaten little or nothing, he asked once
more, ‘How do you intend to answer that letter? Here you are, the poorest
woman in the county, abandoned by people who used to be glad to know
you, and leading a life as dismal and dreary as a nun’s, when an opportunity

is offered you of leaping at once into a leading position in this part of
England. Bishops are given to hospitality; you would be welcomed
everywhere. In short, your answer must be yes.’
‘And yet it will be no,’ she said, in a low voice. She had at length learnt,
from the tone of her brother’s latter remarks, that at any rate he had no
knowledge of her actual marriage, whatever indirect ties he might suspect
her guilty of.
Louis could restrain himself no longer at her answer. ‘Then conduct your
affairs your own way. I know you to be leading a life that won’t bear
investigation, and I’m hanged if I’ll stay here any longer!’
Saying which, Glanville jerked back his chair, and strode out of the room.
In less than a quarter of an hour, and before she had moved a step from the
table, she heard him leaving the house.

XXXII

What to do she could not tell. The step which Swithin had entreated her to
take, objectionable and premature as it had seemed in a county aspect,
would at all events have saved her from this dilemma. Had she allowed
him to tell the Bishop his simple story in its fulness, who could say but that
that divine might have generously bridled his own impulses, entered into
the case with sympathy, and forwarded with zest their designs for the
future, owing to his interest of old in Swithin’s father, and in the naturally
attractive features of the young man’s career.
A puff of wind from the open window, wafting the Bishop’s letter to the
floor, aroused her from her reverie. With a sigh she stooped and picked it
up, glanced at it again; then arose, and with the deliberateness of inevitable
action wrote her reply:—

‘Welland House, June 29, 18--.
‘My dear Bishop of Melchester,—I confess to you that your letter, so
gracious and flattering as it is, has taken your friend somewhat
unawares. The least I can do in return for its contents is to reply as
quickly as possible.

‘There is no one in the world who esteems your high qualities more
than myself, or who has greater faith in your ability to adorn the
episcopal seat that you have been called on to fill. But to your
question I can give only one reply, and that is an unqualified negative.
To state this unavoidable decision distresses me, without affectation;
and I trust you will believe that, though I decline the distinction of
becoming your wife, I shall never cease to interest myself in all that
pertains to you and your office; and shall feel the keenest regret if this
refusal should operate to prevent a lifelong friendship between us.—I
am, my dear Bishop of Melchester, ever sincerely yours,
‘Viviette Constantine.’

A sudden revulsion from the subterfuge of writing as if she were still a
widow, wrought in her mind a feeling of dissatisfaction with the whole
scheme of concealment; and pushing aside the letter she allowed it to
remain unfolded and unaddressed. In a few minutes she heard Swithin
approaching, when she put the letter out of the way and turned to receive
him.
Swithin entered quietly, and looked round the room. Seeing with
unexpected pleasure that she was there alone, he came over and kissed her.
Her discomposure at some foregone event was soon obvious.
‘Has my staying caused you any trouble?’ he asked in a whisper. ‘Where is
your brother this morning?’
She smiled through her perplexity as she took his hand. ‘The oddest things
happen to me, dear Swithin,’ she said. ‘Do you wish particularly to know
what has happened now?’
‘Yes, if you don’t mind telling me.’
‘I do mind telling you. But I must. Among other things I am resolving to
give way to your representations,—in part, at least. It will be best to tell the
Bishop everything, and my brother, if not other people.’
‘I am truly glad to hear it, Viviette,’ said he cheerfully. ‘I have felt for a
long time that honesty is the best policy.’

‘I at any rate feel it now. But it is a policy that requires a great deal of
courage!’
‘It certainly requires some courage,—I should not say a great deal; and
indeed, as far as I am concerned, it demands less courage to speak out than
to hold my tongue.’
‘But, you silly boy, you don’t know what has happened. The Bishop has
made me an offer of marriage.’
‘Good gracious, what an impertinent old man! What have you done about
it, dearest?’
‘Well, I have hardly accepted him,’ she replied, laughing. ‘It is this event
which has suggested to me that I should make my refusal a reason for
confiding our situation to him.’
‘What would you have done if you had not been already appropriated?’
‘That’s an inscrutable mystery. He is a worthy man; but he has very
pronounced views about his own position, and some other undesirable
qualities. Still, who knows? You must bless your stars that you have
secured me. Now let us consider how to draw up our confession to him. I
wish I had listened to you at first, and allowed you to take him into our
confidence before his declaration arrived. He may possibly resent the
concealment now. However, this cannot be helped.’
‘I tell you what, Viviette,’ said Swithin, after a thoughtful pause, ‘if the
Bishop is such an earthly sort of man as this, a man who goes falling in
love, and wanting to marry you, and so on, I am not disposed to confess
anything to him at all. I fancied him altogether different from that.’
‘But he’s none the worse for it, dear.’
‘I think he is—to lecture me and love you, all in one breath!’
‘Still, that’s only a passing phase; and you first proposed making a
confidant of him.’
‘I did. . . . Very well. Then we are to tell nobody but the Bishop?’

‘And my brother Louis. I must tell him; it is unavoidable. He suspects me
in a way I could never have credited of him!’
Swithin, as was before stated, had arranged to start for Greenwich that
morning, permission having been accorded him by the Astronomer-Royal to
view the Observatory; and their final decision was that, as he could not
afford time to sit down with her, and write to the Bishop in collaboration,
each should, during the day, compose a well-considered letter, disclosing
their position from his and her own point of view; Lady Constantine leading
up to her confession by her refusal of the Bishop’s hand. It was necessary
that she should know what Swithin contemplated saying, that her statements
might precisely harmonize. He ultimately agreed to send her his letter by
the next morning’s post, when, having read it, she would in due course
despatch it with her own.
As soon as he had breakfasted Swithin went his way, promising to return
from Greenwich by the end of the week.
Viviette passed the remainder of that long summer day, during which her
young husband was receding towards the capital, in an almost motionless
state. At some instants she felt exultant at the idea of announcing her
marriage and defying general opinion. At another her heart misgave her,
and she was tormented by a fear lest Swithin should some day accuse her of
having hampered his deliberately-shaped plan of life by her intrusive
romanticism. That was often the trick of men who had sealed by marriage,
in their inexperienced youth, a love for those whom their maturer judgment
would have rejected as too obviously disproportionate in years.
However, it was now too late for these lugubrious thoughts; and, bracing
herself, she began to frame the new reply to Bishop Helmsdale—the plain,
unvarnished tale that was to supplant the undivulging answer first written.
She was engaged on this difficult problem till daylight faded in the west,
and the broad-faced moon edged upwards, like a plate of old gold, over the
elms towards the village. By that time Swithin had reached Greenwich; her
brother had gone she knew not whither; and she and loneliness dwelt solely,
as before, within the walls of Welland House.
At this hour of sunset and moonrise the new parlourmaid entered, to inform
her that Mr. Cecil’s head clerk, from Warborne, particularly wished to see

her.
Mr. Cecil was her solicitor, and she knew of nothing whatever that required
his intervention just at present. But he would not have sent at this time of
day without excellent reasons, and she directed that the young man might
be shown in where she was. On his entry the first thing she noticed was
that in his hand he carried a newspaper.
‘In case you should not have seen this evening’s paper, Lady Constantine,
Mr. Cecil has directed me to bring it to you at once, on account of what
appears there in relation to your ladyship. He has only just seen it himself.’
‘What is it? How does it concern me?’
‘I will point it out.’
‘Read it yourself to me. Though I am afraid there’s not enough light.’
‘I can see very well here,’ said the lawyer’s clerk stepping to the window.
Folding back the paper he read:—

‘“NEWS FROM SOUTH AFRICA.
‘“Cape Town, May 17 (viâ Plymouth).—A correspondent of the Cape
Chronicle states that he has interviewed an Englishman just arrived
from the interior, and learns from him that a considerable
misapprehension exists in England concerning the death of the
traveller and hunter, Sir Blount Constantine—”’

‘O, he’s living! My husband is alive,’ she cried, sinking down in nearly a
fainting condition.
‘No, my lady. Sir Blount is dead enough, I am sorry to say.’
‘Dead, did you say?’
‘Certainly, Lady Constantine; there is no doubt of it.’
She sat up, and her intense relief almost made itself perceptible like a fresh
atmosphere in the room. ‘Yes. Then what did you come for?’ she asked
calmly.

‘That Sir Blount has died is unquestionable,’ replied the lawyer’s clerk
gently. ‘But there has been some mistake about the date of his death.’
‘He died of malarious fever on the banks of the Zouga, October 24, 18--.’
‘No; he only lay ill there a long time it seems. It was a companion who
died at that date. But I’ll read the account to your ladyship, with your
permission:—

‘“The decease of this somewhat eccentric wanderer did not occur at
the time hitherto supposed, but only in last December. The following
is the account of the Englishman alluded to, given as nearly as possible
in his own words: During the illness of Sir Blount and his friend by the
Zouga, three of the servants went away, taking with them a portion of
his clothing and effects; and it must be they who spread the report of
his death at this time. After his companion’s death he mended, and
when he was strong enough he and I travelled on to a healthier
district. I urged him not to delay his return to England; but he was
much against going back there again, and became so rough in his
manner towards me that we parted company at the first opportunity I
could find. I joined a party of white traders returning to the West
Coast. I stayed here among the Portuguese for many months. I then
found that an English travelling party were going to explore a district
adjoining that which I had formerly traversed with Sir Blount. They
said they would be glad of my services, and I joined them. When we
had crossed the territory to the South of Ulunda, and drew near to
Marzambo, I heard tidings of a man living there whom I suspected to
be Sir Blount, although he was not known by that name. Being so near
I was induced to seek him out, and found that he was indeed the same.
He had dropped his old name altogether, and had married a native
princess—”’

‘Married a native princess!’ said Lady Constantine.
‘That’s what it says, my lady,—“married a native princess according to the
rites of the tribe, and was living very happily with her. He told me he
should never return to England again. He also told me that having seen this
princess just after I had left him, he had been attracted by her, and had

thereupon decided to reside with her in that country, as being a land which
afforded him greater happiness than he could hope to attain elsewhere. He
asked me to stay with him, instead of going on with my party, and not
reveal his real title to any of them. After some hesitation I did stay, and was
not uncomfortable at first. But I soon found that Sir Blount drank much
harder now than when I had known him, and that he was at times very
greatly depressed in mind at his position. One morning in the middle of
December last I heard a shot from his dwelling. His wife rushed frantically
past me as I hastened to the spot, and when I entered I found that he had put
an end to himself with his revolver. His princess was broken-hearted all
that day. When we had buried him I discovered in his house a little box
directed to his solicitors at Warborne, in England, and a note for myself,
saying that I had better get the first chance of returning that offered, and
requesting me to take the box with me. It is supposed to contain papers and
articles for friends in England who have deemed him dead for some time.”’
The clerk stopped his reading, and there was a silence. ‘The middle of last
December,’ she at length said, in a whisper. ‘Has the box arrived yet?’
‘Not yet, my lady. We have no further proof of anything. As soon as the
package comes to hand you shall know of it immediately.’
Such was the clerk’s mission; and, leaving the paper with her, he withdrew.
The intelligence amounted to thus much: that, Sir Blount having been alive
till at least six weeks after her marriage with Swithin St. Cleeve, Swithin St.
Cleeve was not her husband in the eye of the law; that she would have to
consider how her marriage with the latter might be instantly repeated, to
establish herself legally as that young man’s wife.

XXXIII

Next morning Viviette received a visit from Mr. Cecil himself. He
informed her that the box spoken of by the servant had arrived quite
unexpectedly just after the departure of his clerk on the previous evening.
There had not been sufficient time for him to thoroughly examine it as yet,
but he had seen enough to enable him to state that it contained letters, dated
memoranda in Sir Blount’s handwriting, notes referring to events which had
happened later than his supposed death, and other irrefragable proofs that
the account in the newspapers was correct as to the main fact—the
comparatively recent date of Sir Blount’s decease.
She looked up, and spoke with the irresponsible helplessness of a child.
‘On reviewing the circumstances, I cannot think how I could have allowed
myself to believe the first tidings!’ she said.
‘Everybody else believed them, and why should you not have done so?’
said the lawyer.
‘How came the will to be permitted to be proved, as there could, after all,
have been no complete evidence?’ she asked. ‘If I had been the executrix I
would not have attempted it! As I was not, I know very little about how the
business was pushed through. In a very unseemly way, I think.’
‘Well, no,’ said Mr. Cecil, feeling himself morally called upon to defend
legal procedure from such imputations. ‘It was done in the usual way in all
cases where the proof of death is only presumptive. The evidence, such as
it was, was laid before the court by the applicants, your husband’s cousins;
and the servants who had been with him deposed to his death with a
particularity that was deemed sufficient. Their error was, not that
somebody died—for somebody did die at the time affirmed—but that they
mistook one person for another; the person who died being not Sir Blount
Constantine. The court was of opinion that the evidence led up to a
reasonable inference that the deceased was actually Sir Blount, and probate
was granted on the strength of it. As there was a doubt about the exact day
of the month, the applicants were allowed to swear that he died on or after

the date last given of his existence—which, in spite of their error then, has
really come true, now, of course.’
‘They little think what they have done to me by being so ready to swear!’
she murmured.
Mr. Cecil, supposing her to allude only to the pecuniary straits in which she
had been prematurely placed by the will taking effect a year before its due
time, said, ‘True. It has been to your ladyship’s loss, and to their gain. But
they will make ample restitution, no doubt: and all will be wound up
satisfactorily.’
Lady Constantine was far from explaining that this was not her meaning;
and, after some further conversation of a purely technical nature, Mr. Cecil
left her presence.
When she was again unencumbered with the necessity of exhibiting a
proper bearing, the sense that she had greatly suffered in pocket by the
undue haste of the executors weighed upon her mind with a pressure quite
inappreciable beside the greater gravity of her personal position. What was
her position as legatee to her situation as a woman? Her face crimsoned
with a flush which she was almost ashamed to show to the daylight, as she
hastily penned the following note to Swithin at Greenwich—certainly one
of the most informal documents she had ever written.

‘Welland, Thursday.
‘O Swithin, my dear Swithin, what I have to tell you is so sad and so
humiliating that I can hardly write it—and yet I must. Though we are
dearer to each other than all the world besides, and as firmly united as
if we were one, I am not legally your wife! Sir Blount did not die till
some time after we in England supposed. The service must be
repeated instantly. I have not been able to sleep all night. I feel so
frightened and ashamed that I can scarcely arrange my thoughts. The
newspapers sent with this will explain, if you have not seen
particulars. Do come to me as soon as you can, that we may consult
on what to do. Burn this at once.
‘Your Viviette.’

When the note was despatched she remembered that there was another
hardly less important question to be answered—the proposal of the Bishop
for her hand. His communication had sunk into nothingness beside the
momentous news that had so greatly distressed her. The two replies lay
before her—the one she had first written, simply declining to become Dr.
Helmsdale’s wife, without giving reasons; the second, which she had
elaborated with so much care on the previous day, relating in confidential
detail the history of her love for Swithin, their secret marriage, and their
hopes for the future; asking his advice on what their procedure should be to
escape the strictures of a censorious world. It was the letter she had barely
finished writing when Mr. Cecil’s clerk announced news tantamount to a
declaration that she was no wife at all.
This epistle she now destroyed—and with the less reluctance in knowing
that Swithin had been somewhat averse to the confession as soon as he
found that Bishop Helmsdale was also a victim to tender sentiment
concerning her. The first, in which, at the time of writing, the suppressio
veri was too strong for her conscience, had now become an honest letter,
and sadly folding it she sent the missive on its way.
The sense of her undefinable position kept her from much repose on the
second night also; but the following morning brought an unexpected letter
from Swithin, written about the same hour as hers to him, and it comforted
her much.
He had seen the account in the papers almost as soon as it had come to her
knowledge, and sent this line to reassure her in the perturbation she must
naturally feel. She was not to be alarmed at all. They two were husband
and wife in moral intent and antecedent belief, and the legal flaw which
accident had so curiously uncovered could be mended in half-an-hour. He
would return on Saturday night at latest, but as the hour would probably be
far advanced, he would ask her to meet him by slipping out of the house to
the tower any time during service on Sunday morning, when there would be
few persons about likely to observe them. Meanwhile he might
provisionally state that their best course in the emergency would be, instead
of confessing to anybody that there had already been a solemnization of
marriage between them, to arrange their re-marriage in as open a manner as
possible—as if it were the just-reached climax of a sudden affection, instead

of a harking back to an old departure—prefacing it by a public
announcement in the usual way.
This plan of approaching their second union with all the show and
circumstance of a new thing, recommended itself to her strongly, but for
one objection—that by such a course the wedding could not, without
appearing like an act of unseemly haste, take place so quickly as she desired
for her own moral satisfaction. It might take place somewhat early, say in
the course of a month or two, without bringing down upon her the charge of
levity; for Sir Blount, a notoriously unkind husband, had been out of her
sight four years, and in his grave nearly one. But what she naturally desired
was that there should be no more delay than was positively necessary for
obtaining a new license—two or three days at longest; and in view of this
celerity it was next to impossible to make due preparation for a wedding of
ordinary publicity, performed in her own church, from her own house, with
a feast and amusements for the villagers, a tea for the school children, a
bonfire, and other of those proclamatory accessories which, by meeting
wonder half-way, deprive it of much of its intensity. It must be admitted,
too, that she even now shrank from the shock of surprise that would
inevitably be caused by her openly taking for husband such a mere youth of
no position as Swithin still appeared, notwithstanding that in years he was
by this time within a trifle of one-and-twenty.
The straightforward course had, nevertheless, so much to recommend it, so
well avoided the disadvantage of future revelation which a private
repetition of the ceremony would entail, that assuming she could depend
upon Swithin, as she knew she could do, good sense counselled its serious
consideration.
She became more composed at her queer situation: hour after hour passed,
and the first spasmodic impulse of womanly decorum—not to let the sun go
down upon her present improper state—was quite controllable. She could
regard the strange contingency that had arisen with something like
philosophy. The day slipped by: she thought of the awkwardness of the
accident rather than of its humiliation; and, loving Swithin now in a far
calmer spirit than at that past date when they had rushed into each other’s
arms and vowed to be one for the first time, she ever and anon caught
herself reflecting, ‘Were it not that for my honour’s sake I must re-marry

him, I should perhaps be a nobler woman in not allowing him to encumber
his bright future by a union with me at all.’
This thought, at first artificially raised, as little more than a mental exercise,
became by stages a genuine conviction; and while her heart enforced, her
reason regretted the necessity of abstaining from self-sacrifice—the being
obliged, despite his curious escape from the first attempt, to lime Swithin’s
young wings again solely for her credit’s sake.
However, the deed had to be done; Swithin was to be made legally hers.
Selfishness in a conjuncture of this sort was excusable, and even
obligatory. Taking brighter views, she hoped that upon the whole this
yoking of the young fellow with her, a portionless woman and his senior,
would not greatly endanger his career. In such a mood night overtook her,
and she went to bed conjecturing that Swithin had by this time arrived in
the parish, was perhaps even at that moment passing homeward beneath her
walls, and that in less than twelve hours she would have met him, have
ventilated the secret which oppressed her, and have satisfactorily arranged
with him the details of their reunion.

XXXIV

Sunday morning came, and complicated her previous emotions by bringing
a new and unexpected shock to mingle with them. The postman had
delivered among other things an illustrated newspaper, sent by a hand she
did not recognize; and on opening the cover the sheet that met her eyes
filled her with a horror which she could not express. The print was one
which drew largely on its imagination for its engravings, and it already
contained an illustration of the death of Sir Blount Constantine. In this
work of art he was represented as standing with his pistol to his mouth, his
brains being in process of flying up to the roof of his chamber, and his
native princess rushing terror-stricken away to a remote position in the
thicket of palms which neighboured the dwelling.
The crude realism of the picture, possibly harmless enough in its effect
upon others, overpowered and sickened her. By a curious fascination she
would look at it again and again, till every line of the engraver’s
performance seemed really a transcript from what had happened before his

eyes. With such details fresh in her thoughts she was going out of the door
to make arrangements for confirming, by repetition, her marriage with
another. No interval was available for serious reflection on the tragedy, or
for allowing the softening effects of time to operate in her mind. It was as
though her first husband had died that moment, and she was keeping an
appointment with another in the presence of his corpse.
So revived was the actuality of Sir Blount’s recent life and death by this
incident, that the distress of her personal relations with Swithin was the
single force in the world which could have coerced her into abandoning to
him the interval she would fain have set apart for getting over these new
and painful impressions. Self-pity for ill-usage afforded her good reasons
for ceasing to love Sir Blount; but he was yet too closely intertwined with
her past life to be destructible on the instant as a memory.
But there was no choice of occasions for her now, and she steadily waited
for the church bells to cease chiming. At last all was silent; the surrounding
cottagers had gathered themselves within the walls of the adjacent
building. Tabitha Lark’s first voluntary then droned from the tower
window, and Lady Constantine left the garden in which she had been
loitering, and went towards Rings-Hill Speer.
The sense of her situation obscured the morning prospect. The country was
unusually silent under the intensifying sun, the songless season of birds
having just set in. Choosing her path amid the efts that were basking upon
the outer slopes of the plantation she wound her way up the tree-shrouded
camp to the wooden cabin in the centre.
The door was ajar, but on entering she found the place empty. The tower
door was also partly open; and listening at the foot of the stairs she heard
Swithin above, shifting the telescope and wheeling round the rumbling
dome, apparently in preparation for the next nocturnal reconnoitre. There
was no doubt that he would descend in a minute or two to look for her, and
not wishing to interrupt him till he was ready she re-entered the cabin,
where she patiently seated herself among the books and papers that lay
scattered about.
She did as she had often done before when waiting there for him; that is,
she occupied her moments in turning over the papers and examining the

progress of his labours. The notes were mostly astronomical, of course, and
she had managed to keep sufficiently abreast of him to catch the meaning of
a good many of these. The litter on the table, however, was somewhat more
marked this morning than usual, as if it had been hurriedly overhauled.
Among the rest of the sheets lay an open note, and, in the entire confidence
that existed between them, she glanced over and read it as a matter of
course.
It was a most business-like communication, and beyond the address and
date contained only the following words:—

‘Dear Sir,—We beg leave to draw your attention to a letter we
addressed to you on the 26th ult., to which we have not yet been
favoured with a reply. As the time for payment of the first moiety of
the six hundred pounds per annum settled on you by your late uncle is
now at hand, we should be obliged by your giving directions as to
where and in what manner the money is to be handed over to you, and
shall also be glad to receive any other definite instructions from you
with regard to the future.—We are, dear Sir, yours faithfully,
Hanner And Rawles.’
‘Swithin St. Cleeve, Esq.’

An income of six hundred a year for Swithin, whom she had hitherto
understood to be possessed of an annuity of eighty pounds at the outside,
with no prospect of increasing the sum but by hard work! What could this
communication mean? He whose custom and delight it was to tell her all
his heart, had breathed not a syllable of this matter to her, though it met the
very difficulty towards which their discussions invariably tended—how to
secure for him a competency that should enable him to establish his pursuits
on a wider basis, and throw himself into more direct communion with the
scientific world. Quite bewildered by the lack of any explanation she rose
from her seat, and with the note in her hand ascended the winding tower-
steps.
Reaching the upper aperture she perceived him under the dome, moving
musingly about as if he had never been absent an hour, his light hair frilling
out from under the edge of his velvet skull-cap as it was always wont to do.

No question of marriage seemed to be disturbing the mind of this juvenile
husband of hers. The primum mobile of his gravitation was apparently the
equatorial telescope which she had given him, and which he was carefully
adjusting by means of screws and clamps. Hearing her movements he
turned his head.
‘O here you are, my dear Viviette! I was just beginning to expect you,’ he
exclaimed, coming forward. ‘I ought to have been looking out for you, but
I have found a little defect here in the instrument, and I wanted to set it right
before evening comes on. As a rule it is not a good thing to tinker your
glasses; but I have found that the diffraction-rings are not perfect circles. I
learnt at Greenwich how to correct them—so kind they have been to me
there!—and so I have been loosening the screws and gently shifting the
glass, till I think that I have at last made the illumination equal all round. I
have so much to tell you about my visit; one thing is, that the astronomical
world is getting quite excited about the coming Transit of Venus. There is
to be a regular expedition fitted out. How I should like to join it!’
He spoke enthusiastically, and with eyes sparkling at the mental image of
the said expedition; and as it was rather gloomy in the dome he rolled it
round on its axis, till the shuttered slit for the telescope directly faced the
morning sun, which thereupon flooded the concave interior, touching the
bright metal-work of the equatorial, and lighting up her pale, troubled face.
‘But Swithin!’ she faltered; ‘my letter to you—our marriage!’
‘O yes, this marriage question,’ he added. ‘I had not forgotten it, dear
Viviette—or at least only for a few minutes.’
‘Can you forget it, Swithin, for a moment? O how can you!’ she said
reproachfully. ‘It is such a distressing thing. It drives away all my rest!’
‘Forgotten is not the word I should have used,’ he apologized. ‘Temporarily
dismissed it from my mind, is all I meant. The simple fact is, that the
vastness of the field of astronomy reduces every terrestrial thing to atomic
dimensions. Do not trouble, dearest. The remedy is quite easy, as I stated
in my letter. We can now be married in a prosy public way. Yes, early or
late—next week, next month, six months hence—just as you choose. Say
the word when, and I will obey.’

The absence of all anxiety or consternation from his face contrasted
strangely with hers, which at last he saw, and, looking at the writing she
held, inquired—
‘But what paper have you in your hand?’
‘A letter which to me is actually inexplicable,’ said she, her curiosity
returning to the letter, and overriding for the instant her immediate
concerns. ‘What does this income of six hundred a year mean? Why have
you never told me about it, dear Swithin? or does it not refer to you?’
He looked at the note, flushed slightly, and was absolutely unable to begin
his reply at once.
‘I did not mean you to see that, Viviette,’ he murmured.
‘Why not?’
‘I thought you had better not, as it does not concern me further now. The
solicitors are labouring under a mistake in supposing that it does. I have to
write at once and inform them that the annuity is not mine to receive.’
‘What a strange mystery in your life!’ she said, forcing a perplexed smile.
‘Something to balance the tragedy in mine. I am absolutely in the dark as
to your past history, it seems. And yet I had thought you told me
everything.’
‘I could not tell you that, Viviette, because it would have endangered our
relations—though not in the way you may suppose. You would have
reproved me. You, who are so generous and noble, would have forbidden
me to do what I did; and I was determined not to be forbidden.’
‘To do what?’
‘To marry you.’
‘Why should I have forbidden?’
‘Must I tell—what I would not?’ he said, placing his hands upon her arms,
and looking somewhat sadly at her. ‘Well, perhaps as it has come to this
you ought to know all, since it can make no possible difference to my

intentions now. We are one for ever—legal blunders notwithstanding; for
happily they are quickly reparable—and this question of a devise from my
uncle Jocelyn only concerned me when I was a single man.’
Thereupon, with obviously no consideration of the possibilities that were
reopened of the nullity of their marriage contract, he related in detail, and
not without misgiving for having concealed them so long, the events that
had occurred on the morning of their wedding-day; how he had met the
postman on his way to Warborne after dressing in the cabin, and how he had
received from him the letter his dead uncle had confided to his family
lawyers, informing him of the annuity, and of the important request attached
—that he should remain unmarried until his five-and-twentieth year; how in
comparison with the possession of her dear self he had reckoned the income
as nought, abandoned all idea of it there and then, and had come on to the
wedding as if nothing had happened to interrupt for a moment the working
out of their plan; how he had scarcely thought with any closeness of the
circumstances of the case since, until reminded of them by this note she had
seen, and a previous one of a like sort received from the same solicitors.
‘O Swithin! Swithin!’ she cried, bursting into tears as she realized it all, and
sinking on the observing-chair; ‘I have ruined you! yes, I have ruined you!’
The young man was dismayed by her unexpected grief, and endeavoured to
soothe her; but she seemed touched by a poignant remorse which would not
be comforted.
‘And now,’ she continued, as soon as she could speak, ‘when you are once
more free, and in a position—actually in a position to claim the annuity that
would be the making of you, I am compelled to come to you, and beseech
you to undo yourself again, merely to save me!’
‘Not to save you, Viviette, but to bless me. You do not ask me to re-marry;
it is not a question of alternatives at all; it is my straight course. I do not
dream of doing otherwise. I should be wretched if you thought for one
moment I could entertain the idea of doing otherwise.’
But the more he said the worse he made the matter. It was a state of affairs
that would not bear discussion at all, and the unsophisticated view he took
of his course seemed to increase her responsibility.

‘Why did your uncle attach such a cruel condition to his bounty?’ she cried
bitterly. ‘O, he little thinks how hard he hits me from the grave—me, who
have never done him wrong; and you, too! Swithin, are you sure that he
makes that condition indispensable? Perhaps he meant that you should not
marry beneath you; perhaps he did not mean to object in such a case as your
marrying (forgive me for saying it) a little above you.’
‘There is no doubt that he did not contemplate a case which has led to such
happiness as this has done,’ the youth murmured with hesitation; for though
he scarcely remembered a word of his uncle’s letter of advice, he had a dim
apprehension that it was couched in terms alluding specifically to Lady
Constantine.
‘Are you sure you cannot retain the money, and be my lawful husband too?’
she asked piteously. ‘O, what a wrong I am doing you! I did not dream that
it could be as bad as this. I knew I was wasting your time by letting you
love me, and hampering your projects; but I thought there were
compensating advantages. This wrecking of your future at my hands I did
not contemplate. You are sure there is no escape? Have you his letter with
the conditions, or the will? Let me see the letter in which he expresses his
wishes.’
‘I assure you it is all as I say,’ he pensively returned. ‘Even if I were not
legally bound by the conditions I should be morally.’
‘But how does he put it? How does he justify himself in making such a
harsh restriction? Do let me see the letter, Swithin. I shall think it a want
of confidence if you do not. I may discover some way out of the difficulty
if you let me look at the papers. Eccentric wills can be evaded in all sorts
of ways.’
Still he hesitated. ‘I would rather you did not see the papers,’ he said.
But she persisted as only a fond woman can. Her conviction was that she
who, as a woman many years his senior, should have shown her love for
him by guiding him straight into the paths he aimed at, had blocked his
attempted career for her own happiness. This made her more intent than
ever to find out a device by which, while she still retained him, he might
also retain the life-interest under his uncle’s will.

Her entreaties were at length too potent for his resistance. Accompanying
her downstairs to the cabin, he opened the desk from which the other papers
had been taken, and against his better judgment handed her the ominous
communication of Jocelyn St. Cleeve which lay in the envelope just as it
had been received three-quarters of a year earlier.
‘Don’t read it now,’ he said. ‘Don’t spoil our meeting by entering into a
subject which is virtually past and done with. Take it with you, and look it
over at your leisure—merely as an old curiosity, remember, and not as a still
operative document. I have almost forgotten what the contents are, beyond
the general advice and stipulation that I was to remain a bachelor.’
‘At any rate,’ she rejoined, ‘do not reply to the note I have seen from the
solicitors till I have read this also.’
He promised. ‘But now about our public wedding,’ he said. ‘Like certain
royal personages, we shall have had the religious rite and the civil contract
performed on independent occasions. Will you fix the day? When is it to
be? and shall it take place at a registrar’s office, since there is no necessity
for having the sacred part over again?’
‘I’ll think,’ replied she. ‘I’ll think it over.’
‘And let me know as soon as you can how you decide to proceed.’
‘I will write to-morrow, or come. I do not know what to say now. I cannot
forget how I am wronging you. This is almost more than I can bear!’
To divert her mind he began talking about Greenwich Observatory, and the
great instruments therein, and how he had been received by the
astronomers, and the details of the expedition to observe the Transit of
Venus, together with many other subjects of the sort, to which she had not
power to lend her attention.
‘I must reach home before the people are out of church,’ she at length said
wearily. ‘I wish nobody to know I have been out this morning.’ And
forbidding Swithin to cross into the open in her company she left him on
the edge of the isolated plantation, which had latterly known her tread so
well.

XXXV

Lady Constantine crossed the field and the park beyond, and found on
passing the church that the congregation was still within. There was no
hurry for getting indoors, the open windows enabling her to hear that Mr.
Torkingham had only just given out his text. So instead of entering the
house she went through the garden-door to the old bowling-green, and sat
down in the arbour that Louis had occupied when he overheard the
interview between Swithin and the Bishop. Not until then did she find
courage to draw out the letter and papers relating to the bequest, which
Swithin in a critical moment had handed to her.
Had he been ever so little older he would not have placed that unconsidered
confidence in Viviette which had led him to give way to her curiosity. But
the influence over him which eight or nine outnumbering years lent her was
immensely increased by her higher position and wider experiences, and he
had yielded the point, as he yielded all social points; while the same
conditions exempted him from any deep consciousness that it was his duty
to protect her even from herself.
The preamble of Dr. St. Cleeve’s letter, in which he referred to his pleasure
at hearing of the young man’s promise as an astronomer, disturbed her not
at all—indeed, somewhat prepossessed her in favour of the old gentleman
who had written it. The first item of what he called ‘unfavourable news,’
namely, the allusion to the inadequacy of Swithin’s income to the wants of a
scientific man, whose lines of work were not calculated to produce
pecuniary emolument for many years, deepened the cast of her face to
concern. She reached the second item of the so-called unfavourable news;
and her face flushed as she read how the doctor had learnt ‘that there was
something in your path worse than narrow means, and that something is a
woman.’
‘To save you, if possible, from ruin on these heads,’ she read on, ‘I take the
preventive measures entailed below.’
And then followed the announcement of the 600 pounds a year settled on
the youth for life, on the single condition that he remained unmarried till the
age of twenty-five—just as Swithin had explained to her. She next learnt

that the bequest was for a definite object—that he might have resources
sufficient to enable him to travel in an inexpensive way, and begin a study
of the southern constellations, which, according to the shrewd old man’s
judgment, were a mine not so thoroughly worked as the northern, and
therefore to be recommended. This was followed by some sentences which
hit her in the face like a switch:—
‘The only other preventive step in my power is that of exhortation. . . .
Swithin St. Cleeve, don’t make a fool of yourself, as your father did. If
your studies are to be worth anything, believe me they must be carried on
without the help of a woman. Avoid her, and every one of the sex, if you
mean to achieve any worthy thing. Eschew all of that sort for many a year
yet. Moreover, I say, the lady of your acquaintance avoid in particular. . . .
She has, in addition to her original disqualification as a companion for you
(that is, that of sex), these two special drawbacks: she is much older than
yourself—’
Lady Constantine’s indignant flush forsook her, and pale despair succeeded
in its stead. Alas, it was true. Handsome, and in her prime, she might be;
but she was too old for Swithin!
‘And she is so impoverished. . . . Beyond this, frankly, I don’t think well of
her. I don’t think well of any woman who dotes upon a man younger than
herself. . . . To care to be the first fancy of a young fellow like you shows
no great common sense in her. If she were worth her salt she would have
too much pride to be intimate with a youth in your unassured position, to
say no more.’ (Viviette’s face by this time tingled hot again.) ‘She is old
enough to know that a liaison with her may, and almost certainly would, be
your ruin; and, on the other hand, that a marriage would be preposterous—
unless she is a complete fool; and in that case there is even more reason for
avoiding her than if she were in her few senses.
‘A woman of honourable feeling, nephew, would be careful to do nothing to
hinder you in your career, as this putting of herself in your way most
certainly will. Yet I hear that she professes a great anxiety on this same
future of yours as a physicist. The best way in which she can show the
reality of her anxiety is by leaving you to yourself.’

Leaving him to himself! She paled again, as if chilled by a conviction that
in this the old man was right.
‘She’ll blab your most secret plans and theories to every one of her
acquaintance, and make you appear ridiculous by announcing them before
they are matured. If you attempt to study with a woman, you’ll be ruled by
her to entertain fancies instead of theories, air-castles instead of intentions,
qualms instead of opinions, sickly prepossessions instead of reasoned
conclusions. . . .
‘An experienced woman waking a young man’s passions just at a moment
when he is endeavouring to shine intellectually, is doing little less than
committing a crime.’
*****
Thus much the letter; and it was enough for her, indeed. The flushes of
indignation which had passed over her, as she gathered this man’s opinion
of herself, combined with flushes of grief and shame when she considered
that Swithin—her dear Swithin—was perfectly acquainted with this cynical
view of her nature; that, reject it as he might, and as he unquestionably did,
such thoughts of her had been implanted in him, and lay in him. Stifled as
they were, they lay in him like seeds too deep for germination, which
accident might some day bring near the surface and aërate into life.
The humiliation of such a possibility was almost too much to endure; the
mortification—she had known nothing like it till now. But this was not all.
There succeeded a feeling in comparison with which resentment and
mortification were happy moods—a miserable conviction that this old man
who spoke from the grave was not altogether wrong in his speaking; that he
was only half wrong; that he was, perhaps, virtually right. Only those
persons who are by nature affected with that ready esteem for others’
positions which induces an undervaluing of their own, fully experience the
deep smart of such convictions against self—the wish for annihilation that
is engendered in the moment of despair, at feeling that at length we, our
best and firmest friend, cease to believe in our cause.
Viviette could hear the people coming out of church on the other side of the
garden wall. Their footsteps and their cheerful voices died away; the bell

rang for lunch; and she went in. But her life during that morning and
afternoon was wholly introspective. Knowing the full circumstances of his
situation as she knew them now—as she had never before known them—
ought she to make herself the legal wife of Swithin St. Cleeve, and so
secure her own honour at any price to him? such was the formidable
question which Lady Constantine propounded to her startled
understanding. As a subjectively honest woman alone, beginning her
charity at home, there was no doubt that she ought. Save Thyself was
sound Old Testament doctrine, and not altogether discountenanced in the
New. But was there a line of conduct which transcended mere self-
preservation? and would it not be an excellent thing to put it in practice
now?
That she had wronged St. Cleeve by marrying him—that she would wrong
him infinitely more by completing the marriage—there was, in her opinion,
no doubt. She in her experience had sought out him in his inexperience,
and had led him like a child. She remembered—as if it had been her fault,
though it was in fact only her misfortune—that she had been the one to go
for the license and take up residence in the parish in which they were
wedded. He was now just one-and-twenty. Without her, he had all the
world before him, six hundred a year, and leave to cut as straight a road to
fame as he should choose: with her, this story was negatived.
No money from his uncle; no power of advancement; but a bondage with a
woman whose disparity of years, though immaterial just now, would
operate in the future as a wet blanket upon his social ambitions; and that
content with life as it was which she had noticed more than once in him
latterly, a content imperilling his scientific spirit by abstracting his zeal for
progress.
It was impossible, in short, to blind herself to the inference that marriage
with her had not benefited him. Matters might improve in the future; but to
take upon herself the whole liability of Swithin’s life, as she would do by
depriving him of the help his uncle had offered, was a fearful
responsibility. How could she, an unendowed woman, replace such
assistance? His recent visit to Greenwich, which had momentarily revived
that zest for his pursuit that was now less constant than heretofore, should
by rights be supplemented by other such expeditions. It would be true

benevolence not to deprive him of means to continue them, so as to keep his
ardour alive, regardless of the cost to herself.
It could be done. By the extraordinary favour of a unique accident she had
now an opportunity of redeeming Swithin’s seriously compromised future,
and restoring him to a state no worse than his first. His annuity could be
enjoyed by him, his travels undertaken, his studies pursued, his high
vocation initiated, by one little sacrifice—that of herself. She only had to
refuse to legalize their marriage, to part from him for ever, and all would be
well with him thenceforward. The pain to him would after all be but slight,
whatever it might be to his wretched Viviette.
The ineptness of retaining him at her side lay not only in the fact itself of
injury to him, but in the likelihood of his living to see it as such, and
reproaching her for selfishness in not letting him go in this unprecedented
opportunity for correcting a move proved to be false. He wished to
examine the southern heavens—perhaps his uncle’s letter was the father of
the wish—and there was no telling what good might not result to mankind
at large from his exploits there. Why should she, to save her narrow
honour, waste the wide promise of his ability?
That in immolating herself by refusing him, and leaving him free to work
wonders for the good of his fellow-creatures, she would in all probability
add to the sum of human felicity, consoled her by its breadth as an idea
even while it tortured her by making herself the scapegoat or single unit on
whom the evil would fall. Ought a possibly large number, Swithin
included, to remain unbenefited because the one individual to whom his
release would be an injury chanced to be herself? Love between man and
woman, which in Homer, Moses, and other early exhibitors of life, is mere
desire, had for centuries past so far broadened as to include sympathy and
friendship; surely it should in this advanced stage of the world include
benevolence also. If so, it was her duty to set her young man free.
Thus she laboured, with a generosity more worthy even than its object, to
sink her love for her own decorum in devotion to the world in general, and
to Swithin in particular. To counsel her activities by her understanding,
rather than by her emotions as usual, was hard work for a tender woman;
but she strove hard, and made advance. The self-centred attitude natural to

one in her situation was becoming displaced by the sympathetic attitude,
which, though it had to be artificially fostered at first, gave her, by degrees,
a certain sweet sense that she was rising above self-love. That maternal
element which had from time to time evinced itself in her affection for the
youth, and was imparted by her superior ripeness in experience and years,
appeared now again, as she drew nearer the resolve not to secure propriety
in her own social condition at the expense of this youth’s earthly utility.
Unexpectedly grand fruits are sometimes forced forth by harsh pruning.
The illiberal letter of Swithin’s uncle was suggesting to Lady Constantine
an altruism whose thoroughness would probably have amazed that queer
old gentleman into a withdrawal of the conditions that had induced it. To
love St. Cleeve so far better than herself as this was to surpass the love of
women as conventionally understood, and as mostly existing.
Before, however, clinching her decision by any definite step she worried her
little brain by devising every kind of ingenious scheme, in the hope of
lighting on one that might show her how that decision could be avoided
with the same good result. But to secure for him the advantages offered,
and to retain him likewise; reflection only showed it to be impossible.
Yet to let him go for ever was more than she could endure, and at length she
jumped at an idea which promised some sort of improvement on that
design. She would propose that reunion should not be entirely abandoned,
but simply postponed—namely, till after his twenty-fifth birthday—when
he might be her husband without, at any rate, the loss to him of the income.
By this time he would approximate to a man’s full judgment, and that
painful aspect of her as one who had deluded his raw immaturity would
have passed for ever.
The plan somewhat appeased her disquieted honour. To let a marriage sink
into abeyance for four or five years was not to nullify it; and though she
would leave it to him to move its substantiation at the end of that time,
without present stipulations, she had not much doubt upon the issue.
The clock struck five. This silent mental debate had occupied her whole
afternoon. Perhaps it would not have ended now but for an unexpected
incident—the entry of her brother Louis. He came into the room where she
was sitting, or rather writhing, and after a few words to explain how he had

got there and about the mistake in the date of Sir Blount’s death, he walked
up close to her. His next remarks were apologetic in form, but in essence
they were bitterness itself.
‘Viviette,’ he said, ‘I am sorry for my hasty words to you when I last left
this house. I readily withdraw them. My suspicions took a wrong
direction. I think now that I know the truth. You have been even madder
than I supposed!’
‘In what way?’ she asked distantly.
‘I lately thought that unhappy young man was only your too-favoured
lover.’
‘You thought wrong: he is not.’
‘He is not—I believe you—for he is more. I now am persuaded that he is
your lawful husband. Can you deny it!’
‘I can.’
‘On your sacred word!’
‘On my sacred word he is not that either.’
‘Thank heaven for that assurance!’ said Louis, exhaling a breath of relief. ‘I
was not so positive as I pretended to be—but I wanted to know the truth of
this mystery. Since you are not fettered to him in that way I care nothing.’
Louis turned away; and that afforded her an opportunity for leaving the
room. Those few words were the last grains that had turned the balance,
and settled her doom.
She would let Swithin go. All the voices in her world seemed to clamour
for that consummation. The morning’s mortification, the afternoon’s
benevolence, and the evening’s instincts of evasion had joined to carry the
point.
Accordingly she sat down, and wrote to Swithin a summary of the thoughts
above detailed.

‘We shall separate,’ she concluded. ‘You to obey your uncle’s orders and
explore the southern skies; I to wait as one who can implicitly trust you.
Do not see me again till the years have expired. You will find me still the
same. I am your wife through all time; the letter of the law is not needed to
reassert it at present; while the absence of the letter secures your fortune.’
Nothing can express what it cost Lady Constantine to marshal her
arguments; but she did it, and vanquished self-comfort by a sense of the
general expediency. It may unhesitatingly be affirmed that the only ignoble
reason which might have dictated such a step was non-existent; that is to
say, a serious decline in her affection. Tenderly she had loved the youth at
first, and tenderly she loved him now, as time and her after-conduct proved.
Women the most delicate get used to strange moral situations. Eve
probably regained her normal sweet composure about a week after the Fall.
On first learning of her anomalous position Lady Constantine had blushed
hot, and her pure instincts had prompted her to legalize her marriage
without a moment’s delay. Heaven and earth were to be moved at once to
effect it. Day after day had passed; her union had remained unsecured, and
the idea of its nullity had gradually ceased to be strange to her; till it
became of little account beside her bold resolve for the young man’s sake.

XXXVI

The immediate effect upon St. Cleeve of the receipt of her well-reasoned
argument for retrocession was, naturally, a bitter attack upon himself for
having been guilty of such cruel carelessness as to leave in her way the
lawyer’s letter that had first made her aware of his uncle’s provision for
him. Immature as he was, he could realize Viviette’s position sufficiently
well to perceive what the poor lady must suffer at having suddenly thrust
upon her the responsibility of repairing her own situation as a wife by
ruining his as a legatee. True, it was by the purest inadvertence that his
pending sacrifice of means had been discovered; but he should have taken
special pains to render such a mishap impossible. If on the first occasion,
when a revelation might have been made with impunity, he would not put it
in the power of her good nature to relieve his position by refusing him, he
should have shown double care not to do so now, when she could not
exercise that benevolence without the loss of honour.

With a young man’s inattention to issues he had not considered how sharp
her feelings as a woman must be in this contingency. It had seemed the
easiest thing in the world to remedy the defect in their marriage, and
therefore nothing to be anxious about. And in his innocence of any thought
of appropriating the bequest by taking advantage of the loophole in his
matrimonial bond, he undervalued the importance of concealing the
existence of that bequest.
The looming fear of unhappiness between them revived in Swithin the
warm emotions of their earlier acquaintance. Almost before the sun had set
he hastened to Welland House in search of her. The air was disturbed by
stiff summer blasts, productive of windfalls and premature descents of
leafage. It was an hour when unripe apples shower down in orchards, and
unbrowned chestnuts descend in their husks upon the park glades. There
was no help for it this afternoon but to call upon her in a direct manner,
regardless of suspicions. He was thunderstruck when, while waiting in the
full expectation of being admitted to her presence, the answer brought back
to him was that she was unable to see him.
This had never happened before in the whole course of their acquaintance.
But he knew what it meant, and turned away with a vague disquietude. He
did not know that Lady Constantine was just above his head, listening to his
movements with the liveliest emotions, and, while praying for him to go,
longing for him to insist on seeing her and spoil all. But the faintest
symptom being always sufficient to convince him of having blundered, he
unwittingly took her at her word, and went rapidly away.
However, he called again the next day, and she, having gained strength by
one victory over herself, was enabled to repeat her refusal with greater
ease. Knowing this to be the only course by which her point could be
maintained, she clung to it with strenuous and religious pertinacity.
Thus immured and self-controlling she passed a week. Her brother, though
he did not live in the house (preferring the nearest watering-place at this
time of the year), was continually coming there; and one day he happened
to be present when she denied herself to Swithin for the third time. Louis,
who did not observe the tears in her eyes, was astonished and delighted: she
was coming to her senses at last. Believing now that there had been nothing

more between them than a too-plainly shown partiality on her part, he
expressed his commendation of her conduct to her face. At this, instead of
owning to its advantage also, her tears burst forth outright.
Not knowing what to make of this, Louis said—
‘Well, I am simply upholding you in your course.’
‘Yes, yes; I know it!’ she cried. ‘And it is my deliberately chosen course. I
wish he—Swithin St. Cleeve—would go on his travels at once, and leave
the place! Six hundred a year has been left him for travel and study of the
southern constellations; and I wish he would use it. You might represent the
advantage to him of the course if you cared to.’
Louis thought he could do no better than let Swithin know this as soon as
possible. Accordingly when St. Cleeve was writing in the hut the next day
he heard the crackle of footsteps over the fir-needles outside, and jumped
up, supposing them to be hers; but, to his disappointment, it was her brother
who appeared at the door.
‘Excuse my invading the hermitage, St. Cleeve,’ he said in his careless way,
‘but I have heard from my sister of your good fortune.’
‘My good fortune?’
‘Yes, in having an opportunity for roving; and with a traveller’s conceit I
couldn’t help coming to give you the benefit of my experience. When do
you start?’
‘I have not formed any plan as yet. Indeed, I had not quite been thinking of
going.’
Louis stared.
‘Not going? Then I may have been misinformed. What I have heard is that
a good uncle has kindly bequeathed you a sufficient income to make a
second Isaac Newton of you, if you only use it as he directs.’
Swithin breathed quickly, but said nothing.

‘If you have not decided so to make use of it, let me implore you, as your
friend, and one nearly old enough to be your father, to decide at once. Such
a chance does not happen to a scientific youth once in a century.’
‘Thank you for your good advice—for it is good in itself, I know,’ said
Swithin, in a low voice. ‘But has Lady Constantine spoken of it at all?’
‘She thinks as I do.’
‘She has spoken to you on the subject?’
‘Certainly. More than that; it is at her request—though I did not intend to
say so—that I come to speak to you about it now.’
‘Frankly and plainly,’ said Swithin, his voice trembling with a compound of
scientific and amatory emotion that defies definition, ‘does she say
seriously that she wishes me to go?’
‘She does.’
‘Then go I will,’ replied Swithin firmly. ‘I have been fortunate enough to
interest some leading astronomers, including the Astronomer Royal; and in
a letter received this morning I learn that the use of the Cape Observatory
has been offered me for any southern observations I may wish to make.
This offer I will accept. Will you kindly let Lady Constantine know this,
since she is interested in my welfare?’
Louis promised, and when he was gone Swithin looked blankly at his own
situation, as if he could scarcely believe in its reality. Her letter to him,
then, had been deliberately written; she meant him to go.
But he was determined that none of those misunderstandings which ruin the
happiness of lovers should be allowed to operate in the present case. He
would see her, if he slept under her walls all night to do it, and would hear
the order to depart from her own lips. This unexpected stand she was
making for his interests was winning his admiration to such a degree as to
be in danger of defeating the very cause it was meant to subserve. A
woman like this was not to be forsaken in a hurry. He wrote two lines, and
left the note at the house with his own hand.

‘The Cabin, Rings-Hill,
July 7th.
‘Dearest Viviette,—If you insist, I will go. But letter-writing will not
do. I must have the command from your own two lips, otherwise I
shall not stir. I am here every evening at seven. Can you come?—S.’

This note, as fate would have it, reached her hands in the single hour of that
week when she was in a mood to comply with his request, just when moved
by a reactionary emotion after dismissing Swithin. She went upstairs to the
window that had so long served purposes of this kind, and signalled ‘Yes.’
St. Cleeve soon saw the answer she had given and watched her approach
from the tower as the sunset drew on. The vivid circumstances of his life at
this date led him ever to remember the external scenes in which they were
set. It was an evening of exceptional irradiations, and the west heaven
gleamed like a foundry of all metals common and rare. The clouds were
broken into a thousand fragments, and the margin of every fragment shone.
Foreseeing the disadvantage and pain to her of maintaining a resolve under
the pressure of a meeting, he vowed not to urge her by word or sign; to put
the question plainly and calmly, and to discuss it on a reasonable basis only,
like the philosophers they assumed themselves to be.
But this intention was scarcely adhered to in all its integrity. She duly
appeared on the edge of the field, flooded with the metallic radiance that
marked the close of this day; whereupon he quickly descended the steps,
and met her at the cabin door. They entered it together.
As the evening grew darker and darker he listened to her reasoning, which
was precisely a repetition of that already sent him by letter, and by degrees
accepted her decision, since she would not revoke it. Time came for them
to say good-bye, and then—

‘He turn’d and saw the terror in her eyes,
That yearn’d upon him, shining in such wise
As a star midway in the midnight fix’d.’

It was the misery of her own condition that showed forth, hitherto obscured
by her ardour for ameliorating his. They closed together, and kissed each

other as though the emotion of their whole year-and-half’s acquaintance had
settled down upon that moment.
‘I won’t go away from you!’ said Swithin huskily. ‘Why did you propose it
for an instant?’
Thus the nearly ended interview was again prolonged, and Viviette yielded
to all the passion of her first union with him. Time, however, was
merciless, and the hour approached midnight, and she was compelled to
depart. Swithin walked with her towards the house, as he had walked many
times before, believing that all was now smooth again between them, and
caring, it must be owned, very little for his fame as an expositor of the
southern constellations just then.
When they reached the silent house he said what he had not ventured to say
before, ‘Fix the day—you have decided that it is to be soon, and that I am
not to go?’
But youthful Swithin was far, very far, from being up to the fond subtlety of
Viviette this evening. ‘I cannot decide here,’ she said gently, releasing
herself from his arm; ‘I will speak to you from the window. Wait for me.’
She vanished; and he waited. It was a long time before the window opened,
and he was not aware that, with her customary complication of feeling, she
had knelt for some time inside the room before looking out.
‘Well?’ said he.
‘It cannot be,’ she answered. ‘I cannot ruin you. But the day after you are
five-and-twenty our marriage shall be confirmed, if you choose.’
‘O, my Viviette, how is this!’ he cried.
‘Swithin, I have not altered. But I feared for my powers, and could not tell
you whilst I stood by your side. I ought not to have given way as I did to-
night. Take the bequest, and go. You are too young—to be fettered—I
should have thought of it! Do not communicate with me for at least a year:
it is imperative. Do not tell me your plans. If we part, we do part. I have
vowed a vow not to further obstruct the course you had decided on before

you knew me and my puling ways; and by Heaven’s help I’ll keep that vow.
. . . Now go. These are the parting words of your own Viviette!’
Swithin, who was stable as a giant in all that appertained to nature and life
outside humanity, was a mere pupil in domestic matters. He was quite
awed by her firmness, and looked vacantly at her for a time, till she closed
the window. Then he mechanically turned, and went, as she had
commanded.

XXXVII

A week had passed away. It had been a time of cloudy mental weather to
Swithin and Viviette, but the only noteworthy fact about it was that what
had been planned to happen therein had actually taken place. Swithin had
gone from Welland, and would shortly go from England.
She became aware of it by a note that he posted to her on his way through
Warborne. There was much evidence of haste in the note, and something of
reserve. The latter she could not understand, but it might have been
obvious enough if she had considered.
On the morning of his departure he had sat on the edge of his bed, the
sunlight streaming through the early mist, the house-martens scratching the
back of the ceiling over his head as they scrambled out from the roof for
their day’s gnat-chasing, the thrushes cracking snails on the garden stones
outside with the noisiness of little smiths at work on little anvils. The sun,
in sending its rods of yellow fire into his room, sent, as he suddenly
thought, mental illumination with it. For the first time, as he sat there, it
had crossed his mind that Viviette might have reasons for this separation
which he knew not of. There might be family reasons—mysterious blood
necessities which are said to rule members of old musty-mansioned
families, and are unknown to other classes of society—and they may have
been just now brought before her by her brother Louis on the condition that
they were religiously concealed.
The idea that some family skeleton, like those he had read of in memoirs,
had been unearthed by Louis, and held before her terrified understanding as
a matter which rendered Swithin’s departure, and the neutralization of the

marriage, no less indispensable to them than it was an advantage to himself,
seemed a very plausible one to Swithin just now. Viviette might have taken
Louis into her confidence at last, for the sake of his brotherly advice.
Swithin knew that of her own heart she would never wish to get rid of him;
but coerced by Louis, might she not have grown to entertain views of its
expediency? Events made such a supposition on St. Cleeve’s part as natural
as it was inaccurate, and, conjoined with his own excitement at the thought
of seeing a new heaven overhead, influenced him to write but the briefest
and most hurried final note to her, in which he fully obeyed her sensitive
request that he would omit all reference to his plans. These at the last
moment had been modified to fall in with the winter expedition formerly
mentioned, to observe the Transit of Venus at a remote southern station.
The business being done, and himself fairly plunged into the preliminaries
of an important scientific pilgrimage, Swithin acquired that lightness of
heart which most young men feel in forsaking old love for new adventure,
no matter how charming may be the girl they leave behind them. Moreover,
in the present case, the man was endowed with that schoolboy temperament
which does not see, or at least consider with much curiosity, the effect of a
given scheme upon others than himself. The bearing upon Lady
Constantine of what was an undoubted predicament for any woman, was
forgotten in his feeling that she had done a very handsome and noble thing
for him, and that he was therefore bound in honour to make the most of it.
His going had resulted in anything but lightness of heart for her. Her sad
fancy could, indeed, indulge in dreams of her yellow-haired laddie without
that formerly besetting fear that those dreams would prompt her to actions
likely to distract and weight him. She was wretched on her own account,
relieved on his. She no longer stood in the way of his advancement, and
that was enough. For herself she could live in retirement, visit the wood,
the old camp, the column, and, like Œnone, think of the life they had led
there—

‘Mournful Œnone, wandering forlorn
Of Paris, once her playmate on the hills,’

leaving it entirely to his goodness whether he would come and claim her in
the future, or desert her for ever.

She was diverted for a time from these sad performances by a letter which
reached her from Bishop Helmsdale. To see his handwriting again on an
envelope, after thinking so anxiously of making a father-confessor of him,
started her out of her equanimity. She speedily regained it, however, when
she read his note.

‘The Palace, Melchester,
July 30, 18--.
‘My dear Lady Constantine,—I am shocked and grieved that, in the
strange dispensation of things here below, my offer of marriage should
have reached you almost simultaneously with the intelligence that your
widowhood had been of several months less duration than you and I,
and the world, had supposed. I can quite understand that, viewed from
any side, the news must have shaken and disturbed you; and your
unequivocal refusal to entertain any thought of a new alliance at such a
moment was, of course, intelligible, natural, and praiseworthy. At
present I will say no more beyond expressing a hope that you will
accept my assurances that I was quite ignorant of the news at the hour
of writing, and a sincere desire that in due time, and as soon as you
have recovered your equanimity, I may be allowed to renew my
proposal.—I am, my dear Lady Constantine, yours ever sincerely,
C. Melchester.’

She laid the letter aside, and thought no more about it, beyond a momentary
meditation on the errors into which people fall in reasoning from actions to
motives. Louis, who was now again with her, became in due course
acquainted with the contents of the letter, and was satisfied with the
promising position in which matters seemingly stood all round.
Lady Constantine went her mournful ways as she had planned to do, her
chief resort being the familiar column, where she experienced the
unutterable melancholy of seeing two carpenters dismantle the dome of its
felt covering, detach its ribs, and clear away the enclosure at the top till
everything stood as it had stood before Swithin had been known to the
place. The equatorial had already been packed in a box, to be in readiness
if he should send for it from abroad. The cabin, too, was in course of

demolition, such having been his directions, acquiesced in by her, before he
started. Yet she could not bear the idea that these structures, so germane to
the events of their romance, should be removed as if removed for ever.
Going to the men she bade them store up the materials intact, that they
might be re-erected if desired. She had the junctions of the timbers marked
with figures, the boards numbered, and the different sets of screws tied up
in independent papers for identification. She did not hear the remarks of
the workmen when she had gone, to the effect that the young man would as
soon think of buying a halter for himself as come back and spy at the moon
from Rings-Hill Speer, after seeing the glories of other nations and the gold
and jewels that were found there, or she might have been more unhappy
than she was.
On returning from one of these walks to the column a curious circumstance
occurred. It was evening, and she was coming as usual down through the
sighing plantation, choosing her way between the ramparts of the camp
towards the outlet giving upon the field, when suddenly in a dusky vista
among the fir-trunks she saw, or thought she saw, a golden-haired, toddling
child. The child moved a step or two, and vanished behind a tree. Lady
Constantine, fearing it had lost its way, went quickly to the spot, searched,
and called aloud. But no child could she perceive or hear anywhere
around. She returned to where she had stood when first beholding it, and
looked in the same direction, but nothing reappeared. The only object at all
resembling a little boy or girl was the upper tuft of a bunch of fern, which
had prematurely yellowed to about the colour of a fair child’s hair, and
waved occasionally in the breeze. This, however, did not sufficiently
explain the phenomenon, and she returned to make inquiries of the man
whom she had left at work, removing the last traces of Swithin’s cabin. But
he had gone with her departure and the approach of night. Feeling an
indescribable dread she retraced her steps, and hastened homeward
doubting, yet half believing, what she had seemed to see, and wondering if
her imagination had played her some trick.
The tranquil mournfulness of her night of solitude terminated in a most
unexpected manner.
The morning after the above-mentioned incident Lady Constantine, after
meditating a while, arose with a strange personal conviction that bore

curiously on the aforesaid hallucination. She realized a condition of things
that she had never anticipated, and for a moment the discovery of her state
so overwhelmed her that she thought she must die outright. In her terror
she said she had sown the wind to reap the whirlwind. Then the instinct of
self-preservation flamed up in her like a fire. Her altruism in subjecting her
self-love to benevolence, and letting Swithin go away from her, was
demolished by the new necessity, as if it had been a gossamer web.
There was no resisting or evading the spontaneous plan of action which
matured in her mind in five minutes. Where was Swithin? how could he be
got at instantly?—that was her ruling thought. She searched about the room
for his last short note, hoping, yet doubting, that its contents were more
explicit on his intended movements than the few meagre syllables which
alone she could call to mind. She could not find the letter in her room, and
came downstairs to Louis as pale as a ghost.
He looked up at her, and with some concern said, ‘What’s the matter?’
‘I am searching everywhere for a letter—a note from Mr. St. Cleeve—just a
few words telling me when the Occidental sails, that I think he goes in.’
‘Why do you want that unimportant document?’
‘It is of the utmost importance that I should know whether he has actually
sailed or not!’ said she in agonized tones. ‘Where can that letter be?’
Louis knew where that letter was, for having seen it on her desk he had,
without reading it, torn it up and thrown it into the waste-paper basket,
thinking the less that remained to remind her of the young philosopher the
better.
‘I destroyed it,’ he said.
‘O Louis! why did you?’ she cried. ‘I am going to follow him; I think it
best to do so; and I want to know if he is gone—and now the date is lost!’
‘Going to run after St. Cleeve? Absurd!’
‘Yes, I am!’ she said with vehement firmness. ‘I must see him; I want to
speak to him as soon as possible.’

‘Good Lord, Viviette! Are you mad?’
‘O what was the date of that ship! But it cannot be helped. I start at once
for Southampton. I have made up my mind to do it. He was going to his
uncle’s solicitors in the North first; then he was coming back to
Southampton. He cannot have sailed yet.’
‘I believe he has sailed,’ muttered Louis sullenly.
She did not wait to argue with him, but returned upstairs, where she rang to
tell Green to be ready with the pony to drive her to Warborne station in a
quarter of an hour.

XXXVIII

Viviette’s determination to hamper Swithin no longer had led her, as has
been shown, to balk any weak impulse to entreat his return, by forbidding
him to furnish her with his foreign address. His ready disposition, his fear
that there might be other reasons behind, made him obey her only too
literally. Thus, to her terror and dismay, she had placed a gratuitous
difficulty in the way of her present endeavour.
She was ready before Green, and urged on that factotum so wildly as to
leave him no time to change his corduroys and ‘skitty-boots’ in which he
had been gardening; he therefore turned himself into a coachman as far
down as his waist merely—clapping on his proper coat, hat, and waistcoat,
and wrapping a rug over his horticultural half below. In this compromise he
appeared at the door, mounted, and reins in hand.
Seeing how sad and determined Viviette was, Louis pitied her so far as to
put nothing in the way of her starting, though he forbore to help her. He
thought her conduct sentimental foolery, the outcome of mistaken pity and
‘such a kind of gain-giving as would trouble a woman;’ and he decided that
it would be better to let this mood burn itself out than to keep it
smouldering by obstruction.
‘Do you remember the date of his sailing?’ she said finally, as the pony-
carriage turned to drive off.

‘He sails on the 25th, that is, to-day. But it may not be till late in the
evening.’
With this she started, and reached Warborne in time for the up-train. How
much longer than it really is a long journey can seem to be, was fully learnt
by the unhappy Viviette that day. The changeful procession of country seats
past which she was dragged, the names and memories of their owners, had
no points of interest for her now. She reached Southampton about midday,
and drove straight to the docks.
On approaching the gates she was met by a crowd of people and vehicles
coming out—men, women, children, porters, police, cabs, and carts. The
Occidental had just sailed.
The adverse intelligence came upon her with such odds after her morning’s
tension that she could scarcely crawl back to the cab which had brought
her. But this was not a time to succumb. As she had no luggage she
dismissed the man, and, without any real consciousness of what she was
doing, crept away and sat down on a pile of merchandise.
After long thinking her case assumed a more hopeful complexion. Much
might probably be done towards communicating with him in the time at her
command. The obvious step to this end, which she should have thought of
sooner, would be to go to his grandmother in Welland Bottom, and there
obtain his itinerary in detail—no doubt well known to Mrs. Martin. There
was no leisure for her to consider longer if she would be home again that
night; and returning to the railway she waited on a seat without eating or
drinking till a train was ready to take her back.
By the time she again stood in Warborne the sun rested his chin upon the
meadows, and enveloped the distant outline of the Rings-Hill column in his
humid rays. Hiring an empty fly that chanced to be at the station she was
driven through the little town onward to Welland, which she approached
about eight o’clock. At her request the man set her down at the entrance to
the park, and when he was out of sight, instead of pursuing her way to the
House, she went along the high road in the direction of Mrs. Martin’s.
Dusk was drawing on, and the bats were wheeling over the green basin
called Welland Bottom by the time she arrived; and had any other errand

instigated her call she would have postponed it till the morrow. Nobody
responded to her knock, but she could hear footsteps going hither and
thither upstairs, and dull noises as of articles moved from their places. She
knocked again and again, and ultimately the door was opened by Hannah as
usual.
‘I could make nobody hear,’ said Lady Constantine, who was so weary she
could scarcely stand.
‘I am very sorry, my lady,’ said Hannah, slightly awed on beholding her
visitor. ‘But we was a putting poor Mr. Swithin’s room to rights, now that
he is, as a woman may say, dead and buried to us; so we didn’t hear your
ladyship. I’ll call Mrs. Martin at once. She is up in the room that used to
be his work-room.’
Here Hannah’s voice implied moist eyes, and Lady Constantine’s instantly
overflowed.
‘No, I’ll go up to her,’ said Viviette; and almost in advance of Hannah she
passed up the shrunken ash stairs.
The ebbing light was not enough to reveal to Mrs. Martin’s aged gaze the
personality of her visitor, till Hannah explained.
‘I’ll get a light, my lady,’ said she.
‘No, I would rather not. What are you doing, Mrs. Martin?’
‘Well, the poor misguided boy is gone—and he’s gone for good to me! I
am a woman of over four-score years, my Lady Constantine; my junketting
days are over, and whether ’tis feasting or whether ’tis sorrowing in the land
will soon be nothing to me. But his life may be long and active, and for the
sake of him I care for what I shall never see, and wish to make pleasant
what I shall never enjoy. I am setting his room in order, as the place will be
his own freehold when I am gone, so that when he comes back he may find
all his poor jim-cracks and trangleys as he left ’em, and not feel that I have
betrayed his trust.’
Mrs. Martin’s voice revealed that she had burst into such few tears as were
left her, and then Hannah began crying likewise; whereupon Lady

Constantine, whose heart had been bursting all day (and who, indeed,
considering her coming trouble, had reason enough for tears), broke into
bitterer sobs than either—sobs of absolute pain, that could no longer be
concealed.
Hannah was the first to discover that Lady Constantine was weeping with
them; and her feelings being probably the least intense among the three she
instantly controlled herself.
‘Refrain yourself, my dear woman, refrain!’ she said hastily to Mrs. Martin;
‘don’t ye see how it do raft my lady?’ And turning to Viviette she
whispered, ‘Her years be so great, your ladyship, that perhaps ye’ll excuse
her for busting out afore ye? We know when the mind is dim, my lady,
there’s not the manners there should be; but decayed people can’t help it,
poor old soul!’
‘Hannah, that will do now. Perhaps Lady Constantine would like to speak
to me alone,’ said Mrs. Martin. And when Hannah had retreated Mrs.
Martin continued: ‘Such a charge as she is, my lady, on account of her great
age! You’ll pardon her biding here as if she were one of the family. I put
up with such things because of her long service, and we know that years
lead to childishness.’
‘What are you doing? Can I help you?’ Viviette asked, as Mrs. Martin, after
speaking, turned to lift some large article.
‘Oh, ’tis only the skeleton of a telescope that’s got no works in his inside,’
said Swithin’s grandmother, seizing the huge pasteboard tube that Swithin
had made, and abandoned because he could get no lenses to suit it. ‘I am
going to hang it up to these hooks, and there it will bide till he comes
again.’
Lady Constantine took one end, and the tube was hung up against the
whitewashed wall by strings that the old woman had tied round it.
‘Here’s all his equinoctial lines, and his topics of Capricorn, and I don’t
know what besides,’ Mrs. Martin continued, pointing to some charcoal
scratches on the wall. ‘I shall never rub ’em out; no, though ’tis such
untidiness as I was never brought up to, I shall never rub ’em out.’

‘Where has Swithin gone to first?’ asked Viviette anxiously. ‘Where does
he say you are to write to him?’
‘Nowhere yet, my lady. He’s gone traipsing all over Europe and America,
and then to the South Pacific Ocean about this Transit of Venus that’s going
to be done there. He is to write to us first—God knows when!—for he said
that if we didn’t hear from him for six months we were not to be gallied at
all.’
At this intelligence, so much worse than she had expected, Lady
Constantine stood mute, sank down, and would have fallen to the floor if
there had not been a chair behind her. Controlling herself by a strenuous
effort, she disguised her despair and asked vacantly: ‘From America to the
South Pacific—Transit of Venus?’ (Swithin’s arrangement to accompany
the expedition had been made at the last moment, and therefore she had not
as yet been informed.)
‘Yes, to a lone island, I believe.’
‘Yes, a lone islant, my lady!’ echoed Hannah, who had crept in and made
herself one of the family again, in spite of Mrs. Martin.
‘He is going to meet the English and American astronomers there at the end
of the year. After that he will most likely go on to the Cape.’
‘But before the end of the year—what places did he tell you of visiting?’
‘Let me collect myself; he is going to the observatory of Cambridge, United
States, to meet some gentlemen there, and spy through the great refractor.
Then there’s the observatory of Chicago; and I think he has a letter to make
him beknown to a gentleman in the observatory at Marseilles—and he
wants to go to Vienna—and Poulkowa, too, he means to take in his way—
there being great instruments and a lot of astronomers at each place.’
‘Does he take Europe or America first?’ she asked faintly, for the account
seemed hopeless.
Mrs. Martin could not tell till she had heard from Swithin. It depended
upon what he had decided to do on the day of his leaving England.

Lady Constantine bade the old people good-bye, and dragged her weary
limbs homeward. The fatuousness of forethought had seldom been evinced
more ironically. Had she done nothing to hinder him, he would have kept
up an unreserved communication with her, and all might have been well.
For that night she could undertake nothing further, and she waited for the
next day. Then at once she wrote two letters to Swithin, directing one to
Marseilles observatory, one to the observatory of Cambridge, U.S., as being
the only two spots on the face of the globe at which they were likely to
intercept him. Each letter stated to him the urgent reasons which existed for
his return, and contained a passionately regretful intimation that the annuity
on which his hopes depended must of necessity be sacrificed by the
completion of their original contract without delay.
But letter conveyance was too slow a process to satisfy her. To send an
epitome of her epistles by telegraph was, after all, indispensable. Such an
imploring sentence as she desired to address to him it would be hazardous
to despatch from Warborne, and she took a dreary journey to a strange town
on purpose to send it from an office at which she was unknown.
There she handed in her message, addressing it to the port of arrival of the
Occidental, and again returned home.
She waited; and there being no return telegram, the inference was that he
had somehow missed hers. For an answer to either of her letters she would
have to wait long enough to allow him time to reach one of the
observatories—a tedious while.
Then she considered the weakness, the stultifying nature of her attempt at
recall.
Events mocked her on all sides. By the favour of an accident, and by her
own immense exertions against her instincts, Swithin had been restored to
the rightful heritage that he had nearly forfeited on her account. He had just
started off to utilize it; when she, without a moment’s warning, was asking
him again to cast it away. She had set a certain machinery in motion—to
stop it before it had revolved once.
A horrid apprehension possessed her. It had been easy for Swithin to give
up what he had never known the advantages of keeping; but having once

begun to enjoy his possession would he give it up now? Could he be
depended on for such self-sacrifice? Before leaving, he would have done
anything at her request; but the mollia tempora fandi had now passed.
Suppose there arrived no reply from him for the next three months; and that
when his answer came he were to inform her that, having now fully
acquiesced in her original decision, he found the life he was leading so
profitable as to be unable to abandon it, even to please her; that he was very
sorry, but having embarked on this course by her advice he meant to adhere
to it by his own.
There was, indeed, every probability that, moving about as he was doing,
and cautioned as he had been by her very self against listening to her too
readily, she would receive no reply of any sort from him for three or
perhaps four months. This would be on the eve of the Transit; and what
likelihood was there that a young man, full of ardour for that spectacle,
would forego it at the last moment to return to a humdrum domesticity with
a woman who was no longer a novelty?
If she could only leave him to his career, and save her own situation also!
But at that moment the proposition seemed as impossible as to construct a
triangle of two straight lines.
In her walk home, pervaded by these hopeless views, she passed near the
dark and deserted tower. Night in that solitary place, which would have
caused her some uneasiness in her years of blitheness, had no terrors for her
now. She went up the winding path, and, the door being unlocked, felt her
way to the top. The open sky greeted her as in times previous to the dome-
and-equatorial period; but there was not a star to suggest to her in which
direction Swithin had gone. The absence of the dome suggested a way out
of her difficulties. A leap in the dark, and all would be over. But she had
not reached that stage of action as yet, and the thought was dismissed as
quickly as it had come.
The new consideration which at present occupied her mind was whether she
could have the courage to leave Swithin to himself, as in the original plan,
and singly meet her impending trial, despising the shame, till he should
return at five-and-twenty and claim her? Yet was this assumption of his
return so very safe? How altered things would be at that time! At twenty-